#finnben

Rey is on a mission to infiltrate a First Order research facility with Ben at her side. He claims the pilot’s chair of their borrowed ship (he never rides in the Falcon if he can help it), and she thumps him on the back of the head.

“You’re in my seat,” she says.

It’s an old argument, one they’ve been having for two years, ever since he abandoned Snoke and turned to the Resistance.

“You piloted last time,” Ben says.

Rey shrugs. “So? I should pilot every time. I’m better than you.”

“You think you’re better than me,” he corrects. “That doesn’t make it true.”

She takes the co-pilot’s seat, because he’s a stubborn bastard when he he wants to be, and it isn’t worth delaying their mission to keep quarreling over this. Besides, as much as Rey hates to admit it, she knows Ben is a skilled pilot in his own right—if not quite as good as her.

This facility is one that he never had occasion to visit when he was Kylo Ren. Weapons development was purely under General Hux’s authority, Ben tells her, and this particular place was built after the destruction of Starkiller, less than a year before he betrayed his Supreme Leader.

Sometimes Rey would like to ask him why he turned traitor and changed his name, but she suspects she already knows the answer. That he left Snoke’s side for the same reason he avoids the Millennium Falcon.

Thessis 3 is one of five verdant moons that circle Ophidia, a purple gas giant banded with ribbons of blue clouds. They land at night, dressed in shadow-colored clothes, and Rey quietly sneaks them in through a backdoor by reconfiguring the admissions panel to unlock without scanning a security card.

“Not bad,” Ben says, and he follows her inside.

Rey snorts. “I just broke us into a top-secret First Order facility in less than five minutes, and all you have to say is ‘Not bad.’ Typical.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you required validation for your accomplishments,” Ben whispers silkily. “Next time I’ll give you a pat on the head.”

She feels herself blush, thankful for the darkness.

It’s a quick, bloodless mission. The building is remarkably similar to the abandoned imperial research facility on Jakku, a complex that she and others had scavenged beyond recognition by the time she was twelve. It makes getting around almost obscenely simple. The first thing they do is locate the security station to disable the video feeds and knock the guards there unconscious. Only a handful of scientists are working at this hour, and they’re easy to skirt around. Ben remembers enough about these sorts of places to know where the First Order would keep its most valuable plans. He finds the room they’re looking for, then Rey breaks into the system without detection and copies the weapons schematics. They leave Thessis 3 less than an hour after their arrival with the secrets of the First Order’s newest projects in hand.

Rey takes the pilot’s seat before Ben can poach it again.

“I still think this should have doubled as an assassination mission,” he says. “Some of those scientists worked on the construction of Starkiller.”

“You supported the system that made Starkiller possible,” Rey reminds him. “Should we kill you for it?”

“I’m sure you’d like to,” he says, and she isn’t sure whether he’s being flippant or sincere.

“I—I don’t want you dead,” Rey mumbles. “Not anymore.”

Ben stills, and the look he gives her is heavy with something she can’t determine. Normally he’s easy to read, because his face—beautiful, odd, and scarred though it is—is so expressive. But in this moment she has no idea what he’s thinking.

“Let’s get out of here,” Rey says, and she hates the fragility of her own voice, the weakness he can bring out in her. “I want to get back home to my husband.”

Ben watches them from his corner table in the mess hall. Rey and Finn eat with Poe, while that infernal BB unit that he once chased across the galaxy blips and beeps happily at their side. Rey reaches over and straightens the droid’s antenna, a sweet smile gracing her pretty face. Finn wraps his arm around her shoulder and whispers something in her ear. Whatever it is must not be seemly to say in public, because Rey blushes and they excuse themselves from their table a few minutes later, disappearing in the direction of their quarters.

Ben has the sudden urge to flip his table, but he keeps the violent impulse in check. It’s none of his business if Rey and her husband want to fuck in the middle of the day.

Poe takes the seat across from him, and Ben frowns, suspicious. Most of the Resistance base still mistrusts him, despite two years of loyal service, and Poe is chief among those who don’t bother to hide their hatred—not that Ben can blame him, considering the interrogation he put him through on the Finalizer.

“I’m only going to tell you this once,” Poe says, and although he’s smiling, Ben can see that he finds nothing funny. “Leave Rey alone.”

Ben takes a bite of bread to keep from having to answer right away. It must be obvious, the jealousy he feels whenever he sees Finn and Rey touch with the possessive confidence that husbands and wives use when they put hands on each other. That’s embarrassing, but still funny, because Poe’s accusation is as wrong as it is right.

“What makes you think it’s Rey I’m interested in?” Ben asks. “Could be Finn.”

Could be both. Not that he’s about to admit that.

“That isn’t funny,” Poe says sharply.

Too late, Kylo realizes that Poe probably took that as a personal insult. Half the base has gossiped about Poe carrying on with Joph Seastriker, that thrill-seeking blonde pilot who looks like a Tatooine angel. Most of the rebels don’t care, but there are a few, from the more backwards planets where queer marriage is still frowned on, who disapprove.

“Is that all?” Ben asks. He tries to keep his voice dull and disinterested, but he doubts Poe is buying his act.

Poe shakes his head. “Not quite. Rey’s a good woman, and she deserves a good man. If you care about her at all, you’ll keep out of her marriage.”

After Poe leaves, Ben goes to the green forest outside and takes his lightsaber to a fallen log, working out his frustration on something that can’t be hurt. He’d like to strangle Poe Dameron, mostly because he knows the man is right. Finn brings out the best in Rey, her kindness and compassion, and he makes her happy. And Rey, she seems to soothe Finn, to make him laugh, where Kylo only ever manages to anger or frighten him. If he was a less selfish creature he could find some solace in the good they bring each other, but Ben has always been too consumed with his own wants to achieve any measure of peace.

Finn seems to hate him without reservation, but he wonders whether he could turn Rey’s passion against her. She has a violent, aggressive side that she only exercises against him or her enemies, which he hopes he isn’t still counted among. And sometimes Ben thinks he sees something more there, a hint of desire that extends beyond bloodlust.

Finn hears the shouting, just like everyone else within fifty feet of the corridor where his wife and Kylo Ren are screaming at each other. He misses the gist of the argument over the bustling crowd that surrounds them, but when he gets close enough, he hears Rey calling Kylo a liar. Then she pushes him in the chest, hard enough that he stumbles. Kylo’s scarred face twists with fury, and he pushes her back—

“Get your hands off her!”

Finn swings without thinking. Kylo is a half-foot taller than him and in possession of a lightsaber, while he’s unarmed, but Finn doesn’t care.

When Kylo touches his busted lip, his fingers come away bloody. “You’re not very smart, are you, FN-2187?”

“That’s not my name,” Finn says.

He turns to Rey, to make sure she’s all right, but his wife only scowls at him fiercely and jerks her hand away from his when he tries to touch her.

“I don’t need you to rescue me,” Rey says. “I can take care of myself.”

Then she rounds on Kylo and hisses, “If you ever lie to me again, I’ll hit you harder than that.”

Kylo looks her up and down, a smirk playing around the edges of his bloody mouth. “Whatever you say, pet.”

Pet? That makes him want to hit the bastard all over again.

Rey hurries away, and Finn follows. She doesn’t stop until she’s reached their quarters. Then she paces the small suite, complains that Ben Solo is a kriffing liar, and promises to beat him bloody the next time they spar.

“What did he lie about?” Finn asks.

He expects it to be something important, something that affects the Resistance, but Rey grows quiet and a little sheepish when she admits, “He skipped our training and told me it was because he was ill. But I talked to Leia this morning and she told me he was—he was out with some woman last night.”

Rey shifts where she stands, and then Finn sees it, what she’s trying to keep from him: she isn’t angry because Kylo lied to her; she’s angry because he chose another woman’s company over hers.

“You’re jealous,” Finn says. The accusation catches in his throat, a tight, choking truth that steals his breath.

Rey shakes her head, eyes wide. “That’s ridiculous! I couldn’t care less if he—if he wants to—” She stumbles over her words, then grows quiet.

“You can’t even say it.” Finn sits down and puts his head in his hands.

Rey gets on her knees before him. “Please listen to me. I love you. Only you.”

“But you want him,” Finn says. “Don’t you?”

She’s silent for such a long time that she doesn’t need to answer, not really. “I’m sorry,” Rey whispers, and he’s never heard his wife sound so subdued, so ashamed. “I’m so sorry, Finn.”

She avoids Ben for two weeks and lets him think it’s because he lied to her. Rey wants to make things right with her husband, but she’s hurt Finn and doesn’t know how to fix it. He’s barely speaking to her, and he hasn’t turned to her in the night since she made a fool of herself with her jealousy over Ben.

She goes to the technos’ bay to find something to fix. It takes her mind off of her problems, sometimes, to salvage speeders and droids that others consider irreparable. To create something of worth out of broken things. This she knows how to do, if not much else.

Rey nearly trips over a pair of long legs, stretched out on the duracrete floor, and then he slides out from underneath the speeder he was working on, saying, “Watch where you’re going—”

Ben freezes when he sees who he’s reprimanding, and Rey’s stomach does an uncomfortable flip at the sight of him shirtless, sweaty, fair skin streaked with oil and grime. He stands, towering over her, and wipes his dirty hands on his pants.

“What are you doing here?” she asks.

“Fixing a speeder,” he says.

Rey glances behind him, and then she recognizes the cobbled-together vehicle. “Is that your mother’s?”

“Yes,” Ben says. “It’s a piece of garbage, though. She’d be better off scrapping it and having me build her something new.”

“Don’t discount the value of garbage,” Rey says, and she can’t hold back a smile when she thinks of her first impression of the Falcon.

“Spoken like a true scavenger,” Ben says.

Rey allows herself a moment to really look at him, at his powerful arms, broad shoulders, muscled stomach. He’s every bit as well built as Finn, but taller, bigger. She wonders, not for the first time, what it might feel like to be caught beneath him, pinned against a bed by that strong body.

She never thinks of Ben when she’s with her husband. Rey wouldn’t disrespect Finn that way, and when they make love she’s usually too lost in the pleasure he brings to want anyone besides him. But there are times, when she’s alone, that Rey touches herself and imagines it’s Ben’s hands on her body. Afterward, she always feels guilty, sick with herself for indulging these fantasies—but not guilty enough to stop.

Now Ben smiles at her, that subtle smirk that would be almost easy to miss. The look he gives her is so knowing that Rey is certain he’s caught her admiring his body.

“I didn’t know you were a mechanic,” she says.

“I used to work on speeders, ships, droids, you name it. I did that all the time as a child. And sometimes…” Ben’s smile goes out like a light. “Sometimes I’d help with repairs on the Falcon.”

“I didn’t know Han long,” Rey says softly, “but I think it would make him happy to see you here.”

Ben wipes his hands on his pants more vigorously, as if he’s trying to clean them of something more dirtying than oil. “I don’t want to talk about my father,” he says.

“All right,” Rey says, even though she thinks he needs to talk to someone about it. “Want help with that speeder?”

He shrugs. “Sure. You’ll do a better job than me anyway.”

They spend a companionable afternoon repairing the hunk of junk that Leia calls transportation. It’s one of the most hopeless projects Rey has ever undertaken, but by dinner the speeder is in working order.

“So are you going to stop avoiding me?” Ben asks, as they wash up at the sinks.

Rey scrubs her hands and arms with industrial soap. “I wasn’t—”

“You were,” he says, and now there’s a fierce note in his deep voice.

She turns off the water and dries her hands, thinking of Veri Apolis, the woman Ben was drinking with two weeks ago, a voluptuous friend of Joph’s. Rey finds herself annoyed all over again, jealous of a woman she’s barely spoken to. “If you’d rather be fucking some two-bit pilot than training, that’s your business,” she says.

Ben looks at her with such open need that she takes a step back. He crowds her against the wall, cages her in with his strong arms.

“What are you doing?” Rey asks. “People are looking.”

“Let them look.” He cups her cheek, and Rey hates how she trembles under his touch, how her breath catches and her legs go weak.

“I don’t want her,” Ben whispers. “I want you.”

He leans down, his broad back bending sharply, until his lips are just a breath away from hers. She almost expects him to kiss her, and when he doesn’t, Rey feels disappointment that’s eclipsed only by relief.

“I’m married,” she says, as steadily as she can manage.

“You think I don’t know that?” Ben asks sharply. He hits the wall beside her head, and Rey nearly jumps at the ringing sound. “That I don’t watch you with him, every day, and wish—”