The Art of Broken Pieces

55 Porgs (204 On the Moon)

Rey's senses went white hot.

Ben tightened his fingers around hers as he felt Rey's energy spike in panic, holding her still as he offered an empty laugh in return for the creature's lackluster joke.

"I'm afraid the jest goes over her head," he apologized with a distant smile. "My wife isn't a terribly political woman." He pointed with his chin towards the other slightly paunchy Kylo Ren in the room. "And his costume outstrips mine for accuracy, I'm afraid."

The moment she understood the joke, Rey gave a nervous laugh and ceased casing the immediate area for something with which to improvise a weapon. She'd found a number of likely choices, including her own porg-spiker of a shoe.

"I'm just here for the food," she said. Then, leaning a bit toward Ben, she added. "My husband is the one with the taste for history. I wouldn't know art from artifact without him. I still can't tell which of the three throne room pieces is fake." She leaned forward, putting her hand on the man's arm in the same way she remembered the Twilek doing to Ben. "Maybe you can help me? He said he'd buy me a dress by a designer I can't pronounce if I got it right!"

The man laughed and patted her knee with a condescending familiarity, as he leaned in and began to explain to her the various auction pieces. Ben watched in surprise. Rey's artful manipulation of the gentleman--if indeed it was a man--had caught him completely off guard. It was a Rey he had never seen before, and it was both amusing and disconcerting.

As the auction began, Ben politely excused them and pulled Rey back against his side with an affectionate arm over her shoulders. He felt spikes of discomfort radiating off of her, aware that she probably felt mutual disturbance from him. There was still too much charging the air between them, and every touch was filled with tension and mistrust.

Ben's arm weighed down her shoulders, but despite their slightly-abrasive moods, she was grateful for the annexation of her personal space. It at least reminded their overly-amicable neighbor that her leg fell squarely across the border into no-man's land.

Rey glanced around at the other couples, noting the behaviors and trying to decide what she would do. Sana Tahn was taking shape inside her head—a girl swept away by love and amazed by grandeur, who saw money as a magic trick and her husband as the magician. A little proud to have been singled out, a little silly, and extremely naive.

She found a girl a few rows ahead who seemed to be overdoing the simpering adoration. Rey studied her. A moment later, she snuck her arm around Ben's waist and crossed her legs toward him. A softening of her spine and she leaned her head against his shoulder. Pins jabbed her scalp, but that was inevitable.

"He seems to think the same pieces are real as you do," she whispered, smoothing his lapel even as the girl three rows up did the same. "Good eye or potential target?"

Ben rested his cheek in her hair, regretfully prickly with decorations. Their proximity was making it harder to retain the cool veneer that protected him from her, but he focused his mind on the mission at hand.

"Let's wait and see. If he continues to be a fixture at events as we follow the trail, it might be worth an approach." He took a steadying breath, clenching one fist to trigger the pain which had become his best defense against Rey's presence and the hurt of his most immediate memories of her. His other hand fell to the small of her back protectively, making it clear to those around them that she was his, not to be taken advantage of.

As the auction proceeded with great ceremony, Ben became accustomed to the weight and warmth of her against his side. With his mind otherwise engaged, he could almost forget what had passed between them, drifting back to a time when this might have been comfortable and welcome.