Hey Fran. I’m feeling rather maudlin and Father’s Day is around the corner. I was wondering if you have any head canons on Ben Solo as a Dad.
When he first senses the baby’s Force signature - a tiny little thing but already so incredibly bright - his heart stops, almost like it did the day he gave Rey every bit of himself. Also like that day, it restarts after a couple of beats. For the third time in Ben’s life, his world shifts and rearranges itself. His heart now belongs to another person, when before it belonged solely to Rey.
He’s scared out of his mind.
Scared he won’t be a good father, scared he’ll fail this little person he is now responsible for, scared he’ll fail Rey. He never voices his thoughts becauses he doesn’t want his fears to find an echo in Rey, but he doesn’t have to. She knows, just by looking at him. That’s when Rey frowns, takes his hand and holds his against her stomach so he can feel their baby kicking up a storm inside her belly. The baby they made. The baby he already loves so very, very much. A wave of calm, soothing comfort washes over him. They’ll be okay.
He talks to the baby late at night, when Rey is fast asleep. He tells her (because somehow he just knows it’s a girl) about the stars and the planets and all the places he’ll take her when she’s older. He tells her about her grandparents. He tells her about Rey, and how lucky she is to have her as a mom.
Unbeknown to Ben, Rey is awake and listening to every word. When he finally falls asleep, Rey turns on her side and lays the most gentle of gentle kisses on his forehead. Her love for him could light up the entire galaxy at that moment.
When the baby is born, Ben cries. She fits in the palm of his hand. He didn’t think it was possible for hands that have been used for such violence to also be able to hold this tiny, precious thing, but they do. He doesn’t put her down for hours.
He stays up with her when she cries, when she’s poorly, when she’s teething, when she’s just too awake to sleep. He talks to her, reads to her, sometimes even sings to her. He lets her pull on his hair, because it seems to delight her.
Ben Solo is, for all intents and purposes, wrapped around her tiny little finger.
(Rey lovingly mocks him for it every now and then.)
(He doesn’t mind it one bit.)
He loves to watch Rey play with her - be it messy finger painting in the living room or chasing each other in the garden. He loves to watch Rey be a mom, because she’s just so inherently good at it without even trying. He knew she would be, because Rey cares and loves with the kind of fierce determination she does everything else.
He loves to teach his daughter new things and he loves to watch her learn and grow. She’s smart as a whip and incredibly stubborn - something she inherited from her mother, Ben’s sure - and as such, lessons are always interesting and challenging. At six years old, she already knows five different languages, including Shyriiwook, to the delight of uncle Chewie.
She’s strong in the Force, just like Ben always knew she would be, and he worries, because Ben knows first hand how dangerous and alienating that kind of power can be. But because he knows, he does his best to teach her about the Force - all aspects of it - so she understands that she’s not alone. She never will be.
When their daughter is twelve years old and feeling self-conscious about all the freckles that dust her face and shoulder and arms, the freckles she inherited from both their parents, Ben holds her chin between his fingers, angles her face up and tells her, “Every one of your freckles is a fallen star. One for every time your mother and I looked at the sky and wished for you. An entire constellation.”
She doesn’t mind her freckles at all after that. She wears them proudly.
He gets angry sometimes. He runs out of patience. He feels like he’s not doing a good enough job. Every parent does. But when it happens, Rey is there to hold his hand through it. To tell him it’s okay. And he does it right back when it’s her that’s having a bad day.
They’re a team. Like always.
Ben as a dad is the best version of himself. Because he has to be. Because he chooses to be. Because he loves his wife and his child and his life, and for the first time, there’s purpose and meaning and love and laughter. There’s happiness.
