The Art of Broken Pieces

1753 Porgs on Yavin IV

They came in the early hours of the morning to take him, a smartly uniformed cohort of senate guards. Though the Senate would not gather for several hours yet, it was explained that he was to be held near the Senate floor until such time arrived. They were strangely polite in their formality, and gave him time to prepare.

At Rey's request new clothes had been sent for him the day before, neatly tailored in dark blue and grey with tall grey boots that emphasized the length of his legs. They were quiet as Rey helped him dress, arranging the sash carefully, hands brushing wrinkles away as though each extra moment spent together could be stretched infinitely. Finally Ben caught her restless hands, tucking them against his chest and stilling her, forcing her to look at him.

"Rey..." He held her gaze, dark eyes intense. "I have to go. It's okay." He pushed his presence into their connection, trying to reassure her that he was still within her reach.

Rey felt out of body. She felt like every breath, every movement, and every word was happening underwater. Only Ben's presence, pushing through their bond, made its way into clarity. Her throat constricted. His hands were hot over hers, his chest solid beneath her fingers.

She tipped onto her toes and kissed his jaw instead of his mouth, uncertain she was quite willing to display their relationship so fully to the guards. Her lips were sore anyway. Many parts of her were sore, but she welcomed the feeling. They had gone to bed early and utterly wrecked the bedclothes. This morning, she'd found a pillowcase by her foot. The unspoken possibility that it might be their last night together had quickened their blood, put a desperate roughness into the rhythm of it.

"Good luck," she whispered into his ear. "Reach out if you need me."

Ben nodded, a sense of cold resolve slowly spreading through his body, muting his emotions. For so long brittle anger had been his only way to process, to regain control of his mind and his actions. This was something new, something stronger.

"I'll see you there." His fingers drifted away from hers, reluctant to lose the last bit of warmth from her skin. He held tightly to the memory of her hands, her body, her desperate kisses in the dark of the night.

With a curt nod to the tense guards that closed around him, he allowed them to lead him away from her, towards whatever judgement awaited.

When he left, the apartment went still around her. Rey spent a moment listening to the calls of local avians, the sound of wind through jungle trees and Massassi ruins, and her own thudding heart.

Four hours. She had four hours to prepare for the trial. She'd spent parts of the night lying awake, sprawled over Ben's slowly-breathing chest and fighting to frame her statements to the council. There wasn't much else to do, except possibly go through the shower. The thought of choking down food made her throat seize up.

She could at least make certain she had a clean tunic.

Halfway back to her room, Rey stopped, suddenly uncertain. Poe and Finn had special uniforms for the senate. Was she supposed to dress up?

Panic, pure and stark, spiked through her chest. It was utterly out of proportion, but she suddenly felt herself reaching for her comm.

***

Poe had been up before the planet's dawn, alternately pacing restlessly and standing at the tall plate windows that looked out over lake, x-wing, and towards the memorial gardens. He still had not settled on the words he planned to say, writing speeches ahead of time was not his strength. Oh, he always went into meetings with a general sense of his topic, but words flowed more easily un-memorized, un-structured than read from carefully scripted paper. It had always seemed to work in his favor.

Well, except for once, but he forbade them mentioning that embarrassing incident.

But today... he had nothing. No words in his mind, no ground to stand on. Conflict and worry scattered his thoughts, which frantically raced between Rey and his darker memories from the war. The pain of a dark mind in his own.