Loving the Enemy: A Reylo WWII Story

The Nurse

Authors Notes: Sorry it took so long since my last update. I've been as busy as a bee! I hope you enjoy this more sensitive side of Ren. I apologize for the violence of the last few chapters, but I wanted the story to not be too fluffy and I felt as though I wouldn't be able to truly dive into this story and fully explore it if I brushed over some of the character developing moments; the near rape was a relationship defining moment for Rey and Ren as you will see later in this chapter. Thanks for reading. All questions and comments welcome!!!

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Rey awoke to sunshine filling her room. Birds were chirping just outside her window and the smell of jasmine floated in from the garden. As her vision came into focus, she noticed Ren sitting in a chair across the room slumped over and asleep. Rey tried to pull herself up, but the extreme tenderness in her bruised muscles made her grimace and moan in pain. 

Ren hadn't let her out of his sight since she got out of her bath. Once all the blood and grime was washed off of her, the injuries didn't seem as bad. Her face was busted, head concussed, ribs bruised, and body torn up a little bit from the barbed wire, but she was not fatally injured as Ren had previously feared. The adrenaline from the experience had left Ren exhausted; he drifted off to sleep sometime after 3am, listening to Rey moan quietly in her sleep. It was a moan from Rey that stirred him to consciousness again. His eyes fluttered open to see her clouded brow eyes starting back at him. Rey. His Rey. He lifted himself out of the chair and flocked to her bedside, knelling on the ground with his lips upon her swollen hand.

"Ma chere! How are you feeling? We were planning on calling for the doctor once you woke up... Are you hungry? You should eat something" Ren scrambled to his feet, desperate to do something to help her. 

"Ren, I'm not hungry...." Rey squeaked, not able to meet Ren's eyes. The memories of the previous day were starting to float back to her. She was embarrassed by what he saw; devastated by the position of weakness he saw her in. Mortified the she needed a german soldier to come and rescue her. Frustrated that the germans with their fancy traps outsmarted her. 

Ren noticed her tone and her reluctance to look at him. "Rey, look at me... I haven't told anyone what those men were going to you, not even your mother in law. All I said was that you were caught wandering in the woods and you fought back when they tried to punish you.... Rey, ma chere, there is nothing for you to be upset about, you didn't ask for it. You didn't ask for what they tried to do to you." Tears rolled down Rey's face and Ren's gentle hand reached out to stop their descent. 

"Rey, if anybody tried to do anything to you, ever, I would kill them." Ren said, looking Rey directly in the eyes. Suddenly, Rey knew he was serious. This man would kill for her.

"But, Ren, why? I mean, like, why do care so much about me; I should mean nothing to you" 

"Don't make me answer that Rey, because I just don't know." Ren snapped in response. He saw Rey flinch, at his tone. "I'm sorry, that didn't come out as intended, I'm trying to work on that, I promise... I just don't know..." Ren pondered her question for a moment longer. Why did he feel such a protectiveness over a girl he was supposed to hate, be willing to exploit, and was supposed to be his enemy. "Maybe it's a chemical attraction. Maybe it has to do with how you are practically untouched by the horrors in the world, unlike me.  How you are pure and innocent; like a baby?" 

"But I'm not a baby, Ren. I'm an adult." smirked Rey.

"Rey, you are 19. You are hardly an adult. Even if you legally are, no one has fully aged until they see the things I have seen and done the things I have had to do". 

After a second of thought, Rey quietly said "What kind of things have you done, Ren?".

"We are not talking about this now or ever." Ren snapped again. He didn't care that he broke his promise about trying to keep a more pleasant tone with her; this subject was off subject. The horrors he committed flashed through his mind. Before he saw Rey in that square, he wouldn't have been the man to rescue a woman from the clutches of his soldiers, instead would have remained indifferent, being too focused on battle plans to care about what his men were doing outside of killing the frenchmen. Or worse, he might have been one of those men instigating the rape in the first place. Rey could never know this side to him, if she did, she would see him as the monster he had been created to be, the monster she had already previously believed him to be.

"If you can't tell me about yourself in the war, then tell me about yourself before the war. Who you were back in Germany. I really want to know Ren, the real Ren" pleaded Rey. Ren was more than happy for the change in subject. So, Ren and Rey talked; for hours. Ren talked about his childhood; growing up with a single mother and a strong military family background, how his grandfather was one of the founding leaders of Nazi Germany so Ren was exposed to the life of influence and upper class, his being sent off to a military boarding school, returning home feeling like an outsider; feeling inhuman and sharp rather than soft and full of life like his childhood friends. Rey talked about her childhood, being raised by an adoptive family, her family having disappeared right after WWI in the night, leaving her behind, growing up in the lower middle class only to be married in a whirlwind to Finn who was of high class, her doubts and insecurities about her marriage to a man who she didn't believe loved her, and her fear of abandonment. They talked from the sunrise to the sunset, only stopping to munch on cheese and sip on wine; courtesy of Ren's position in the army. And in the end, as the sun was long gone and candles melted to a nub, Ren tucked Rey into her bed and turned to the door to his room. As he turned the knob, he heard a little voice behind him. 

"Ren, you don't have to go. You could stay with me tonight" quietly said Rey underneath layers of blankets.

"Are you sure, Rey?"

"Yes. You would never hurt me. I trust you Ren" Rey's voice shook as she said it. It shook because it was the truth. It shook because she was scared in trusting someone who she knew could potentially hurt her in the end.

Without any hesitation, Ren went back to Rey's bed and laid on top of the covers, careful to make sure that there was no skin on skin contact in case Rey's mother in law walked in in the morning. As they drifted into sleep, Rey and Ren subconsciously shifted into a spooning position, both sleeping more peacefully than they had since the beginning of the war.