•LEGACY - A Reylo Story•

EPISODE XIX - I LOVE YOU.

The ship coasts onto the sands of Jakku. Rey's stomach tightens. She's ravenous, and the gruel they'd kept from that morning won't do much to sate her. It's fitting, then, that they're on Jakku. Hunger and Jakku always go together.

"What are you thinking?" Ben asks her.

"That the last time I was here, Finn and BB-8 and I were running from the First Order's bombs. I was so mad at him for getting me involved." Where are you, Finn? she wonders. Are you okay?

"I remember when a lieutenant told me a girl helped the droid escape," Ben says. "I... wasn't happy."

Rey turns to him and decides not to ask what "wasn't happy" might have mean. She smirks. "Did you know it was me?"

"Yes, though it doesn't make sense. I just knew."

She presses her forehead against his face. "Ben, when you told me I needed a teacher-why did you offer? It doesn't make sense."

Ben glances away from her. "I was lonely. I wanted-I wanted someone to journey with, I suppose."

"Isn't the Dark Side all about severing those attachments?"

His eyebrows rise. "Maybe."

Even in your darkest moments, the Light was there. Rey glances out the windshield, at the ocean of sand she'd floated adrift in for so many years and yet called home. Night shrouds the dunes, making them look like swooping, towering mountains. "We should head out in the morning."

"Okay."

"We should eat."

"Okay." He's still looking at her, like she's something special to him, someone who matters.

Rey wraps her arms around him, lips sinking into his. Food can wait. Last night was a new experience for her, the most vulnerable she's ever been-with anyone-and she knows it was the same for him. Both of them survived by refusing to be vulnerable. And now, Rey fully trusts him, and she doesn't even feel afraid. The nagging voice telling her to always rely on herself, only herself, vanishes.

She lifts his shirt off, feels that he's still nervous even after last night, and asks if he's okay.

"Yes," he breathes, one hand against her face, one hand moving down her robes.

Rey leans over and kisses the scar she knows comes from Chewie's bowcaster. I love you, Ben.

/////

"If we have no more information to give the Supreme Leader," Hux snarls. "He won't be very happy with us!"

The understatement rattles Hux. He's never felt this disheveled, this inept in his entire life. And of course it would all be because of Kylo Ren. Damn him. What was the Supreme Leader thinking to send such a reckless man on such an important mission by himself? Hux could have kept him in line.

Ren clearly does not believe in the same principles Hux does. Hux sneers as he wonders whether Ren believes in any principles at all, save that mask he worships in his room. He's always been after his own interests rather than the interests of the First Order.

And what even was the point of this mission? Getting back that stupid girl? What was the Supreme Leader thinking?

Hux clenches his fists. The Supreme Leader always seems to indulge Ren his fantasies of greatness and his personal side interests. Something about the Force. Hux has seen Ren's powers, of course. He can't doubt them. But how powerful can Ren even be if Hux had to pry him off the frozen ground, bleeding and gasping for breath?

"Sir! Sir! We've made contact with King Prana's men and they said two scavengers fled their planet today after freeing-"

"Two scavengers?" Hux has no time for this. "Who is the second one?"

"Nehel says it was a girl-that girl. And from the way the locals have described him, the man is Kylo Ren."

"So they should be coming back."

Lieutenant Mitaka glances at his shoes, breathing hard. Hux's pride swells. See? I don't need to throw temper tantrums to command respect!

"Well-all of our contacts have been monitoring the system, and we haven't seen any evidence of that."

Rage and something else-pleasure-erupt. "What are you saying?"

"Nothing, sir," stammers Mitaka. "They could be-"

Hux waves his arm and storms out of the command room. He will speak to Snoke himself. If his suspicions are correct... A smile twists his lips. Ren will be finished.

And finally, maybe, without Ren in the way, Snoke will begin to appreciate just how valuable Hux is.