Will You Love Me? (A Medieval Reylo AU)

ƇӇƛƤƬЄƦ 16

Ƭhe next day, Ben found Rey standing in the hall, admiring some of his family tapestries. He went over to her and stood in next to her.

"Is this you?" She brushed her fingers over a series of stitches that depicted a young boy with fluffy black hair. He stood next to King Han and Queen Leia.

Ben blushed, a little embarrassed. "Yes."

"You were so tiny," she commented, smiling slightly at how cute he had been.

"I was pretty small growing up. I didn't grow very much until my late teens," he said.

Rey nodded and smiled slightly. "Your mother told me stories about when you were little."

He nodded. "She told me. She thought that you would be disappointed if I refused to marry you because you liked listening to stories about my childhood. I thought that you wanted to marry me. I didn't want to disappoint you," he confessed. "I wouldn't have agreed if I knew how you felt. Especially if I knew why you felt that way."

She looked at him surprised. She didn't know what to say. "Ben, you didn't know. It was very sweet of you to be willing to marry me because you wanted to make me happy."

"Instead I only made you miserable." The pain in his eyes was obvious.

She looked at him before timidly hugging him. "That's not true." She quickly broke the hug. She didn't hate him, but she couldn't explain why she felt so uncomfortable hugging him. She never felt like this when she hugged her friends.

He looked at her with a mixture of emotions. Partly disappointed that she'd ended the hug so quickly. But any disappointment was overridden by the surprise and joy that she had hugged him, even briefly.

"She didn't tell you anything too embarrassing did she?" he asked, trying not to let an awkward silence settle between them. Especially just after she'd hugged him. He didn't want her to think that he didn't like it. And he certainly didn't want her to know how nervous he felt when he was close to her.

She smiled. "She told me about the time you tried to steal food from the kitchen. But you were too short to reach the counter, so you fell and skinned your knee."

He blushed a little embarrassed. "I remember that," he whispered.

"Perhaps I could teach you how to snatch a snack properly," she teased. "Being a starving child on the streets, I must confess that I did steal food from merchants on occasions."

"I'm sorry that you went through that," he said, feeling guilty. He had wanted to take her with him, but he had been afraid that Snoke would hurt her if he did.

"It's not all your fault, Ben. I just want to help children growing up alone on the streets as I did," she played with a strand of her hair. "That's one reason I agreed to marry you. I was hoping that it would give me the opportunity to help, perhaps to build a few orphanages across the kingdom, so that they would have a place to live. I know it sounds selfish..."

"No, no. Rey, it sounds like a wonderful idea." He grabbed her hand. "You don't have to be afraid to ask me for anything, especially not this. You're not selfish, you married a man you didn't love to help others. That is selfless, you have a beautiful heart."

She looked at him surprised. She had been afraid that it would hurt his feelings that part of the reason she had married him was so that she would have enough money to help the orphans of the kingdom. She should have known better. He had a good heart. Still, she didn't want him to think that she had married him for money. She didn't care about his wealth, she had only cared that marrying him would enable her to make the world a better place.