Chapter Text
Rey looked up from her plate as Finn pulled out a chair across from her and set down his tray.
“How’s the Order coming along?” he said in way of a greeting.
She frowned at the peas that had somehow made their way into her mash, flicking them across her plate before considering her answer. “That depends. Are you planning on rejoining?”
He sighed and rolled his eyes at the ever-constant question. “You know I have things I have to do here.”
“More important things, you mean,” Rey grumbled and stabbed one of the peas with a fork.
He ignored her and continued on. “I learned what I needed to in order to help the Resistance. Thank you for teaching me the saber forms and the telepathy and the mind tricks. But I’m a colonel, Rey. I don’t have time to meditate and recite mantras while we’re busy fighting a war.”
“A war we’re only going to win with a greater understanding of the Force! Which requires meditation and mantras and all the boring stuff that I don’t particularly enjoy doing either. But the Jedi texts say that—”
“What about Temiri?” Finn interrupted before she could start lecturing. “Are you still working with him?”
She had started to teach Temiri Blagg. She had done so after they had heard rumors on nearby planets that the boy had strange abilities. She had even gone to Canto Bight, where she struggled to explain a concept she still had trouble grasping to a boy who could barely understand Basic… or any of the other five languages that Rey spoke.
What she could clearly comprehend from their conversations was that the boy wanted to be with his family, and after a harrowing escape from the casino track, Rey was able to give him what she had always longed for herself: a way back into the arms of those he loved.
But his aunt and uncle were not as welcoming to the Jedi. She sensed their distrust from the start, whether it was their frowns as she worked with him on telepathy or the concerned murmurs after they shut the door on her each night.
It was clear to her that Temiri would soon be asked to make an impossible choice between the Force and his family. Knowing the anguish that she would feel in that position, she made the decision for him.
The Force will always be there, but your loved ones won’t. You’re young. Enjoy your time with them and we can continue with your training later. You’ll be able to find me. Just reach out.
She shivered at the memory—at how she had sounded like Luke at the times when she had wanted to punch him the most—and shook her head at Finn. “He was just reunited with his family. He needs to be with them at the moment.”
“Ah, so that’s what’s got you in a mood,” Finn declared with a full mouth and a wave of his spoon. “You’re a master with no one to master.”
“Technically, the Jedi texts say that in order to be a master—”
“The important thing is not to give up hope,” Finn broke in again. “That’s what you said about the Light, right? It’s about hope? There are all sorts of creatures out there that need your guidance. You just need to keep searching and I know you’ll find it. The Force is telling me so.”
“Thank you for the insightful lesson on the Force, Master.” Rey flicked a pea at him and rolled her eyes.
“It’s colonel, actually.”
But Rey was already up from the table with her tray in hand. A far-off look in her eyes made it clear that she was no longer part of this conversation. She had come to a realization, a solution to her problem that was so painstakingly simple.
It was just a matter of taking the situation into her own hands. And after months of feeling like she was failing the Resistance and their hopes of her new Order, she was desperate enough to do it.
“General Organa?”
It was rare to find Leia where she was expected to be. She had a hand in every operation that took place on this sprawling base, which made her almost impossible to track down without an appointment.
But with a little luck—or the will of the Force, something within her whispered—Leia was at her desk with C-3PO rattling on beside her when Rey knocked on the office door.
“Do you have a moment to speak?” Rey asked and closed the door. On second thought, she opened it again, hoping they’d take the hint. “Alone?”
Leia clicked off her datapad and slid it in a drawer. “Of course. Threepio, could you give us a moment? Go look into whatever they’re complaining about in Block 3 and report back.”
The droid agreed with his usual enthusiasm and hurried to leave, but not without a thorough and proper farewell to Rey first.
“It’s always best to give him something to do.” Leia smirked once Rey closed the door behind him. “Makes him feel important. Now, what can I do for you?”
Rey sat in the offered chair and fidgeted with its arms for a moment, looking for the words for what she wanted to say. But there was no good way to phrase this, so she started anyway. “There’s something I’ve been wondering about, and I can’t find the answers in the Jedi texts.”
Leia laughed and sat back. “Then I doubt I’ll be of much help, but I can try. Go on.”
“When it comes to children, are they more likely to be Force-sensitive when a parent is? Obviously, it can be passed down. Your family is proof of that. But what if you and Luke hadn’t been twins? If you had had other siblings? What is the likelihood that they would have had the Force? What if you had had other children besides—”
Rey caught herself, but not in time. There was a moment that felt like an airlock had opened and all the air had been sucked from the room. But ever the diplomat, Leia recovered quickly with a tilt of the head and an easy shrug.
“I don’t know. From what I’ve read, most Force-sensitives have parents who don’t have the Force, but that is probably just a matter of numbers. There are more people who can’t use the Force than those who can, after all. But after that first generation, I’m not sure.
“Both my biological mother and Han were not Force-sensitive, but it was passed down anyway. Though my biological father was conceived from the Force, so I wouldn’t make any generalizations based on my family. There are instances, after all, where a Force user has a child without the Force.”
Leia reached for her drink. “Did some part of that long winded-explanation answer your question, dear?”
“I think so. It’s most likely a game of chance, but not for your family. Have two Force-sensitive parents given birth to a non-Force user?”
“Probably, but it’d probably also be less likely. With the Jedi forbidding romantic relationships, it’s unlikely there was much opportunity for any of this.” There was a pause, and Leia studied her. “Are you thinking of going after Finn? I hear he has quite a few admirers, and you may be in for a fight.”
“What? No! No,” Rey stuttered. “I don’t see Finn like that. It was just something that occurred to me during my readings of how to train children.” She slumped back in the chair and sighed. “Not that I’ll ever have the chance at this rate.”
“Still no luck with recruitment?” Leia asked, and Rey only shook her head. “Be patient, and they will come to you. I know it.”
It was the second time someone had said something like that to her within as many hours, and Rey decided to take it as a sign. She slapped the arms of the chair and smiled; her mind was made up. “You know what?” she said. “I think you’re right. I think they will.”
But while Leia seemed to think that she should sit back and wait, their talk had only strengthened Rey’s determination to take action. With a thank you, she exited the office, not wanting to think about why she was suddenly having trouble looking the general in the eye.
It took Rey three days to reach out through the bond. She decided to wait until nightfall on her end, though she had no idea if his day cycle was currently the same as hers.
Nevertheless, she sat cross-legged on her bed with eyes closed and brow furrowed, trying to tap into that connection she was still uncertain they had any control over. There seemed to be no pattern to when the bond activated. It seemed to have a will of its own. But, then again, it wasn’t like she tried to reach out to him very often. Or at all.
But there it was: that little string hidden in the midst of all of the things that made up the living Force. She gave a weak tug, and when there was no answer, a stronger one.
After the third sharp pull, she felt him respond. Her pestering had finally gotten his attention. With a shiver, she breathed out his name—his real name—and waited for the sound to spill out of her ears as the bond kicked in.
But the feeling never came. She opened her eyes to an empty room.
“Ben, I want to talk to you,” she said out loud.
Rey could sense his hesitation in the back of her consciousness. He was surprised, confused, and the tiniest bit hopeful.
But then he was gone. The bond shut like a door in her face.
Oh, she suddenly realized, he was angry too.
Despite being connected in the Force, her long conversations with his mother, the difficult revelations from his uncle, and being inside of his mind twice, Rey admitted there was a lot she did not know about Ben Solo. But one thing was pretty clear.
He was the type of person who sought answers to whatever caught his interest. This made him an excellent pupil of the Force but, unfortunately for those aboard the First Order Star Destroyers, it also made him a demanding and impatient leader. It was both his weakness and his strength.
So she continued plucking the string of their connection each night, knowing that one day his curiosity over why she was reaching out would get the better of him.
Rey guessed he’d cave after one standard week. In reality, he only lasted three days.
“What do you want?” he demanded after she opened her eyes, but his words lost their bite thanks to the Force setting him on her bed like he had dropped by for a friendly chat. “I didn’t think you’d have anything more to say after you left me for dead and shut the door in my face.”
She could sense the anger in him. It was anger directed at her, and it caused her to hesitate. Her moment had come, only for her to realize that she had no idea what to do. Her thoughts raced as he took her in with an increasingly confused look. But when he opened his mouth like he was about to say something, Rey knew she had to act fast.
Think Twi'lek, the something inside her suggested. Human men love Twi'leks.
“So I’ve been thinking a lot,” she started, twisting her body in a way that she hoped looked appealing. His expression as her hand fell on his thigh looked like something between terror and a stroke, but she continued on. “And I want to fornicate with you.”
Her hand fell to the bed as he brought his knees up to his chest, trying to articulate a few different thoughts before finally settling on “What?”
She crawled closer until her knees met his boots. She put her hands on his knees and repeated slowly as she looked him dead in the eye, “I want to fornicate with you.”
“Rey,” he said like she had just punched him in the gut. “Do you even know what you’re saying? You didn’t want to take my hand. You rejected me, but you want to have sex with me. To fuck me? You’re not making sense.”
She sat back with a frown, and all thoughts of seduction were suddenly gone. “I never said I didn’t want to take your hand. But I don’t want to take the hand of the Supreme Leader of the First Order. I wanted to take your hand. Ben’s hand.”
“Ben is gone,” he insisted, but he couldn’t meet her eyes. “I am the Supreme Leader now. That would be the person you’re fornicating with.”
She considered this for a moment, and she considered him: the big, bad terror of the galaxy curled into himself on her bed. And that was when she realized that while they were usually perfectly matched in strength and battle, she was the one who held all the power now.
Rey got back to her knees. “I don’t believe you,” she taunted inches from his face.
And then she pulled off her shirt.
“Fuck!” Kylo hissed like he was in pain, but his jaw grew slack and his eyes soft as he gawked at her naked chest. It was clear he was interested, but he still drew his knees closer to his chest as a last-ditch effort at denial. “What has gotten into you?”
“Please,” she urged as she came even closer. Her hands once again went to his knees, but this time she applied pressure in hopes of pushing them apart. He pushed back once, twice, three times, and then his legs fell open.
She tried not to smile, but she knew then that she had won.
“Are you sure about this?” he asked while she ran a hand across the thick fabric of his shirt. “Don’t do this if you’re going to change your mind. Don’t toy with me or I won’t—” He didn’t finish the thought, and she didn’t ask. It was better not to know the rest.
“I’m sure,” she breathed. Her hand traced down the middle of his chest until it came to rest on the front of his pants. He was hard and, while she had nothing to compare it to, he felt big. She started to rub back and forth over his bulge, and the sound he made was one she’d never heard before—almost whiny and choked. His eyes clinched shut.
“I want you, Ben,” Rey said, and even she was surprised with how true it rang in the Force. Theoretically, she had known that she wanted this. She wouldn’t have gone through with it—never mind come up with this plan in the first place—if she didn’t find the idea appealing. This was never going to be some grand sacrifice, no matter how much she wished that were the case.
But she hadn’t anticipated how it would actually feel: the slightly sharp sensation that was growing between her legs as she palmed his cock, the way his flushed cheeks and harsh breaths made her thoughts grow hazy and soft. Now that it was happening, she wanted him—wanted this—more than she could have ever imagined.
She used her free hand to pull at his shirt, and he quickly caught on, nearly ripping a seam as he yanked it over his head. With the lightest touch she could manage, she ran a finger across the scar she had given him, starting at his forehead and following it down to where it ended with a slight curve above his nipple.
“Rey.” The lids of his eyes were heavy as his hips bucked up into the hand covering his erection. “Please.”
He made another strangled noise as she pulled away. “Be patient,” she ordered. And he was all too willing to comply as she started to undo her trousers. They slid off, and her underwear soon followed.
She was now bare in front of him, and it felt oddly freeing. She felt no need to cover her nakedness as he studied every inch of her, though that was probably because of how utterly dumbstruck he looked.
He arched back against the wall and raised his face towards the ceiling. “Fuck. Fuck,” he breathed, fumbling with the ties on his pants until his cock was free. Some of the tension appeared to leave his body once his erection was exposed.
She stared at it, leaning a bit closer, and he couldn’t help but wrap his hand around himself and start to pump while she watched.
“Does it hurt?” she asked, fascinated with seeing one up close for the first time.
“Have you never done this before?” At the shake of her head, his lips curled the tiniest bit upwards. “That makes two of us then. And no, it doesn’t hurt. I just need you. Now.”
Rey fell to her hands and knees without any hesitation, her ass facing him. “I’m ready,” she declared over her shoulder. “Do it, Ben. Please.”
He swore again and reached out to grab at her ass. Then his hands were on her hips and she squealed as he flipped her over to her back. “Let’s do it like this the first time. I want to see your face.”
She gasped as he licked her right nipple, her hands running through his hair when he moved to taste the other. Each drag of his tongue sent a jolt of pleasure between her chest and her cunt, and he started to suck at her chest like she had seen babies do—like their baby would do. The thought was so intoxicating that she felt like she was going to spin out of control and bring everything crashing down with the Force.
She groaned as his fingers covered her cunt and started to rub. “I want you in me.”
He pulled back as realization hit him. “I don’t have a sheath.”
She bit back a smile as her plan fell perfectly into place. Bringing a hand up to his face, she rubbed at the worry lines between his brows. “It’s OK. I have an implant.”
It was a lie. It was obvious by how hollow it felt in the Force, but she did her best to distract him, continuing to trace the features on his face while her other hand found his cock.
He winced before he pushed her hands away. They laid there—with her below and him hovering only inches above—panting, watching each other, waiting for the other to lash out like one of them always inevitably did. They had hurt each other in so many different ways and had the scars to prove it, but they both felt that no saber wound would hurt as bad as being rejected in a moment like this.
“It’s OK,” Rey repeated slowly. “I have an implant.”
Kylo started to say something, then stopped, and then started and stopped again. Throughout it all, her gaze held firm, and when their eyes met again, she could feel the resistance leave him. She could sense the acceptance, uncertainty, and the excitement stirring in him. But the overwhelming feeling was the one that reassured her the most. It was arousal.
“You want this?” he asked. When she nodded, he shoved his hips down to grind against her cunt and hissed, “You want me to take you bare? Put my come in you?”
She grasped at his ass, pulling him closer as she answered, “Yes!”
“Fine,” he relented while looking down at how he slid against her. “If you think you can take it. If you’re sure you’re safe.”
“I am,” she reassured, and he pushed in.
“Kriff!” she cried as she curled into herself, almost headbutting Kylo in the chin in the process. Pain cut up and deep into her stomach from where he had entered her.
“Do we need to stop?” he asked as he brushed hair from her face, hoping she didn’t realize he was reciting the Jedi Code to himself to keep from coming. His free hand gripped the sheet as he struggled not to fuck into her.
She shook her head. “No. The pain’s almost gone now.” Another lie. “Just move.”
They both hissed when he pulled out and pushed back in again. He jerked in and out in a stuttered tempo before finally finding a rhythm that worked.
“Fuck yeah,” Kylo breathed, rising on his hand so he could grope at her breast while he rocked into her. “You feel so good.”
“Want you to come,” she moaned. His hand traveled down to where they were connected, and she whimpered at the feeling of her clit being rubbed while she was full of his cock. “Need you to come.”
“You need it so badly, don’t you?” he sneered as he picked up the pace. The slap, slap, slap of their skin pushing her even closer to the edge. “Begging for my come.”
“Please,” she whined, and he rewarded her by rubbing faster. “Oh, fuck. Ben, I’m—” Her voice broke and came back to her as a wail. She clinched around him as the orgasm shook through her body.
He cursed as he felt her fall apart under him. His thrusting was frantic as he fucked her through the orgasm. He was mesmerized at how her breasts bounced with each movement. “I’m so close. I’m gonna come. I’m going to fucking come.”
She brought a hand to cover the breast he had been playing with earlier and squeezed. The visual was enough to send him over the edge. With his jaw slack and brow furrowed, he came inside of her, and she couldn’t stop the grin from spreading across her face as he collapsed on top of her. She had done it. It had worked.
“Sorry,” he mumbled when he realized she was trapped underneath him. He pulled out and rolled over, already half asleep.
Rey felt nearly drunk in the aftermath, and it took her a moment to register the wetness between her thighs. She sat up and watched as his semen leaked onto the sheets. “Ben!” She shoved at his shoulder hard enough for him to grunt. “Ben, the come’s coming out of me.”
“Yeah, Rey. It does that. Nothing to blow your bolts over,” he muttered and covered his head with a pillow pulled from thin air. “I’m tired. Go to sleep.”
“Oh, OK,” she said, trying her best to sound unconcerned. After making sure he wasn’t watching, she tried to push it back in anyway.
It was easy enough to find an old meddroid in a storage unit on the base; it was much harder to get it back into working condition.
“Specimen error. Please submit the correct sample when prompted. Please insert… FECES.”
“That’s because you’re supposed to be looking at urine, you useless sack of bolts!” Rey chided and added a smack for good measure, which ultimately hurt no one but herself.
Three hours and a rebuild later, she was finally able to select the test she wanted.
“For pregnancy test, please insert… BLOOD or… URINE… URINE detected… running test… thank you for your patience… test is… NEGATIVE.”
After another test with the same disappointing answer, she went back to her room and stripped down to nothing. Clearing her thoughts of any sadness or worry, she searched for that hidden thread and pulled.
The bond connected immediately this time.
She got on her hands and knees and looked back at Kylo. “I want you to fuck me like this now.”
“For pregnancy test, please insert… BLOOD or… URINE… URINE detected… running test… thank you for your patience… test is… NEGATIVE.”
“For pregnancy test, please insert… BLOOD or… URINE… BLOOD detected… running test… thank you for your patience… test is… NEGATIVE.”
“For pregnancy test, please insert… BLOOD or… URINE… URINE detected… running test… thank you for your patience… test is… POSITIVE.”
After running a second test to make sure, she sliced the meddroid open, destroyed its hard drive, and then proceeded to pump her fists and stomp her feet to an imaginary beat. Her new Order would be a reality. She would have her family. There was rarely an occasion that called for a Jakkuian victory dance, but receiving this news would definitely be considered one of them.
After four months of seeing Rey nearly every day, Kylo was frustrated to wake up one morning and find the bond closed tight. He plucked and plucked at the little string, but she never answered.
At first, he worried that something had happened. He still felt her in the Force, so she was alive, but perhaps she was somehow incapacitated. Hurt. Unconscious. Then, after two months of denying that he was worrying himself sick, he randomly saw her while reviewing battle footage. She was as vibrant as ever on the screen, cutting down two troopers at a time with the newly restored legacy saber.
So she was just giving him the cold shoulder then—ignoring him after all the effort he took to please her and rejecting him after the countless nights he’d spent loving her. Kylo called his lightsaber over before the rage completely took over
He whipped the saber down through the monitor, cleanly slicing it in two. Then he destroyed the datapads, and the HoloNet receiver, and the section of empty wall next to the door.
He had spent months relieving his stress through sex, but it was clear that that time had passed and it was time to get back to the old ways. That was what she appeared to be doing, at least.
Hitting the button on the comm unit, he barely let the operator finish before he snapped, “Where are my knights?”
He was suddenly in the mood for fighting, brawling, and bloodshed, and that was something the Knights of Ren could always deliver.
He traveled with them for a week, taking his anger out on any creature that made the mistake of getting in his way. It felt good—freeing, like a weight was lifted off his shoulders. But it didn’t sate him like it once had. It didn’t give him the same high now that he knew what he was missing: the noises she’d make for him, how tight she felt, and how wet she got for him. He hated to admit it, but there was nothing that could compare to the rush he got with Rey under him.
But if that wasn’t possible anymore, he would have to learn to take what he could get.
When the bond reconnected a year later without any prodding, Rey seemed just as surprised as Kylo, if not more.
“Hello,” she acknowledged him awkwardly.
“Hello,” he said back, wondering if she was planning to address the bantha in the room or leave it to him. He was angry enough at her (and perhaps looking for a fight) that he decided to beat her to the punch. “What’s with the baby?”
“Oh.” Rey looked down as if she just realized she was holding a small child in her arms. “This is the daughter of two of the pilots here. I’m just watching her for a bit.”
“Is that so?” he asked nonchalantly. He could only see the baby from behind, but there was no hiding the black hair on top of her head. “Interesting.”
Rey started fidgeting under his scrutiny. First, she adjusted the socks on the baby’s feet, then the baby’s hair, and then her own hair. She bounced her in her arms and took a couple steps before setting her down.
She laid her down in what must have been a crib or bed but, from his point of view, the baby seemed to be floating in the air three feet off the ground. After what looked like a bit of fussing around with invisible blankets, Rey took a step back. And then another. And then she walked halfway across the room.
And even though Rey was no longer touching her, the child never faded from his sight.
“Very interesting,” he said, but he turned back to Rey as if they were the only two in the room. He had a feeling that him seeing the baby would upset her, so he bit his tongue. If she wanted to play pretend, then he’d do just that. “Some would say that having a child in a warzone isn’t exactly a good idea.”
“She gives people hope.” Rey couldn’t talk about the baby without looking at said baby. She was kriffing beaming at her. “Everyone loves her.”
You’re being obvious and not fooling anyone, he thought, and he half hoped that she could hear it. “I’m sure everyone’s expecting this new Hope of the Resistance to grow up and save them all,” he snarked. “Although she probably is already one of your more competent members, even as an infant.”
“They are,” she replied with dead seriousness. “They are expecting just that.”
He glanced back to his right and found the child looking directly at him. She had his eyes, which were his mother’s eyes.
And he knew then that he was utterly and thoroughly screwed.
“I’ll look forward to it then,” he managed to say, trying his hardest to break the connection. If it didn’t end soon so he could comprehend and melt down over this in the privacy of his own quarters, he might as well cut his hand off for a more preferable way to pass the time. And Force help him, he’d do it too.
For once in his miserable life, the Force took mercy on him and he was once again alone.
Two nights later, Kylo felt Rey tugging in the back of his mind. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes. She was in front of him again, wearing nothing but a tunic.
“I need you,” she said, and spread her legs for him.
He stared at her cunt and seriously contemplated if he was insane enough to continue this. He looked to her face and asked with as much composure as he could manage, “Is your implant still good?”
“Yes,” she reassured a bit too quickly. “It’s still good.”
He wanted to laugh at the absurdity of the situation—at the absurdity of the lie and of his life. It was clear to him that Rey wanted a sperm donor and thought that—Maker knows why—he was the ideal candidate. The ideal candidate to be everything but an involved father, that is, but he couldn’t exactly blame her for her doubts there.
He already knew he was desperate enough for her that he was going to play this game of pretend for as long as she wanted. He knew he’d do nearly anything for her as long as she kept coming around.
“OK,” he agreed. “As long as you’re safe.” He reached for her tunic, but she slapped his hands away.
“It stays on. I’m cold.”
This was a new development, and an interesting one. But not as interesting as the baby that could see him through the bond or the sibling that he and Rey were now apparently trying to conceive, even though he would never be either’s father.
He had thought about it for days, and he still had no idea why Rey wanted this. She was so young, and this would set her future in stone for the rest of her natural life. And to top it off, she seemed determined to handle it all without any help from him.
He didn’t know why she wanted this, but as he slipped his fingers through the wetness of her cunt, he only knew that he wanted it too.