Confronting Fear

Chalcedon

Hold you in my arms
I just wanted to hold
You in my arms

My life
You electrify my life
Let's conspire to ignite
All the souls that would die just to feel alive

Starlight - Muse

Now, you will give me Skywalker, then I will kill you with the cruelest stroke.

No.

Yes.... Give me everything.

NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Ben jolted awake as Rey's agonized screams filled his ears. It was a familiar nightmare, one he had many times since that fateful day.

"Mmm...Ben?" Rey asked sleepily, having been jostled by his sudden movement.

"Shh. I just need some water." he cooed.

"Mmmmkayy."

Rey was back asleep in seconds.

Tucking a stray lock of hair back from her face, Ben gazed down at his sleeping love, folded so perfectly against him. Her peaceful face was illuminated only by the white light of the stars streaking past in hyperspace that came in through the domed skylight above them, hinting the ship was in its night cycle.

Something about her didn't look quite right, though he couldn't place what it was as he traced the familiar pattern of her freckles over her...pale...face. Rey's skin was beginning to lose its sun-kissed glow and take on the pallor of one who had spent a great deal of time aboard a spaceship.

Ben silently counted out the days as he wracked his brain trying to think of the last time she had been out in the sun, any sun. Ambria's dead star notwithstanding.

Forty-five days. He realized numbly. It had been over forty-five days since he'd captured her on Kijimi. No, it had been even longer for her when her time in the vergence was taken into account.

According to Rey much of her training had been outside but Latveria had been cold and damp with little sun. Even then, she'd only spent a handful of the last forty-five days in any sort of place that would have had an enjoyable amount of sun and it was beginning to show.

While Rey was comfortable in space he knew her true place would always be somewhere that she could feel the sun on her face and the wind in her hair.

Which gave him an idea.

Pulling on his trousers - because even alone it felt strange to be wandering around nude- he headed for the cockpit to change their coordinates to somewhere not too terribly far away. Somewhere he'd meant to take her for a while now. It'd only be for a few hours but he knew she could use even a short reprieve and maybe so could he.

Satisfied, he slipped back into Rey's bed, holding his sleeping princess close as he drifted back into sleep, hoping he would not hear her terrified screams again.

It was the silence that woke Rey, the ceasing of the whir of the hyperdrive as the Star dropped out of lightspeed as loud in her ears as a ship's alarm. Groggy from the sudden awakening she took stock of her situation. Ben was wrapped around her from behind, their legs entwined. The flight was almost two full standard days, there was no way she'd slept that long.

"Ben, wake up." she shook Ben's shoulder waking him so quickly he sat straight up looking for the danger.

"What's wrong?" his voice a strange mix of groggy and alert.

"We dropped out of lightspeed, something must be wrong with the hyperdrive!"

Ben looked at her with bleary eyes before laying back down, his voice sleepy. "No, I rerouted us to Chalcedon. I want to show you something there."