Author's note:

Happy May the 4th! Did ya think I'd miss it this year? Not a chance!

A bit of a fluff chapter because next one's rather heavy, but I hope you all like it anyhow :D

"It feels so strange to be back here again. Outside, I mean. Fresh air. Blasting sunlight."

Kylo's hand rolled in pleasant circles against her belly as they rode, and he hummed in agreement.

"Not trapped in a little stone box with a disapproving doctor and an uncle who would rather I died than live."

Rey sighed, shrugging off his lips from her shoulder.

"Drama queen," she huffed. "I was right there with you."

The trail ahead was faint and largely dusted over. Rey pulled at Dala's reigns to slow her while she pondered their route.

"Ah, of course." Kylo took the map from her as she started to open it, and Rey glared half-hearted over her shoulder. "My wife in name only. Your presence had been a rather stimulating break from the monotony of my recovery, I'll give you that much."

Kylo scooted further back in the saddle, the swaying movement causing both Dala and Rey to scowl at him. He pressed the map flat against her back, using her as his personal table.

"You're lucky you're still injured," she muttered, giving him a few squirms of resistance just to be difficult.

His hand fell to her hip, both steadying her and giving her flesh a little squeeze. His other hand traced a finger along the map and made Rey break out into goosebumps under her clothes wherever he touched.

"Fit as a fiddle, darling. Or didn't you hear the Doctor before she dismissed us?"

Rey scoffed. Oh she had heard Oheniea. She'd been standing right there as the tiny, black shrouded Fel woman had tried to insistently guide Kylo back into bed when she'd caught him packing up his scant few belongings.

"I believe her words were don't and too soon, Kylo."

The map and offending finger left and Rey straightened up along with it.

"Well perhaps I'm only patient when it comes to you, darling. Go right."

He dangled the map in front of her, gesturing to the right with two flicks of his wrist. Rey moved to snatch it from him but he yanked it back first, clicking his tongue in disapproval.

"Navigation is the man's job, my darling. It is my duty to lead you while you follow me in wide-eyed and grateful obe- oof!"

Rey may have accidentally sent a well placed elbow to the good side of his stomach as she directed Dala to the right-bound path. Their horse must be as exasperated with Kylo as she was because she breaks out into a low trot that nearly sends him falling right off from his half perch at the back of her saddle.

"Violence," he mutters, his arms wrapping tight around Rey's waist. "Your attempted regicide will not be forgotten."

"For fuck's sake, Kylo," knock that shit down. We're going to be in civilization soon and someone might actually believe you."

According to Master Luke's explanation, they were only a half day's ride from the coastal town of Lharrin. They had been sneaked out of the caves under the cover of darkness, and Luke had gone to great pains to both ensure they had little idea of where exactly they exited the caves from and also that they were truly alone. Several of the Fel had been enlisted to scout ahead and, once they had reached the surface, Dala had been saddled and waiting for them. Along with a few supplies, a map, and a highly uncomfortable goodbye exchange. Kylo had barely spoken a word to Luke, though Rey liked to think there was some hint of sadness on the doctor's face. The portion of her face that they could see, that was.

"I wish she had taken some money from us," Rey muttered. "It doesn't feel right us just leaving her there with nothing but our gratitude."

Behind her she felt Kylo shrug. He had kept his thoughts on his time in the Fel's underground sickbed largely to himself beyond a few wisecracks here or there.

"Likely money has no value to them," he answered. "It's not like they can go to a market on the surface and spend it."

She sighed. "I suppose so. Still, though, perhaps there is something we can do for them? The Fel?"

She looked over her shoulder with a raised eyebrow. Kylo had been staring off to the rolling, thickly grassed sand dunes in the approaching horizon. He frowned when he caught her eye.

"Such as?"

She shrugged and turned away.

"If you were King- Emperor- there's surely much you could do for them. Their lives must be very hard down there."

He didn't immediately answer and a silence fell like a curtain between them. That was something they didn't talk about. Not at all. Very soon the Empresses' ship would arrive. Kylo would get… well, Rey supposed that her husband would get his closure or whatever he had been seeking from that.

Then he would have to make a decision. A very crucial one. One that Rey had thought she clearly knew the best answer to, but now was beginning to feel increasingly selfish and unforgivable.

"The Prince is dead," he finally muttered.

His hands began to unwrap themselves from around Rey's waist until she caught his wrist and threaded their fingers together.

"He doesn't have to be."

She heard the soft sound of Kylo's lips parting to speak, but then he dropped off into into silence again. Rey dropped it, choosing instead to reach forward with her free hand and stroke Dala's mane. The horse made an annoyed whuffle and shook her head from side to side.

Ahead of them their little dirt track joined with a larger road. In the further distance she thought she saw movement. Likely another traveler. Master Luke had assured them that, this far outside o Alderaan, no one would recognize Kylo for who he is. As long as he doesn't cause any more trouble they should ave nothing to fear from passersby. Somehow it felt like a lifetime ago since they'd had that luxury last.

Rey sighed deeply, filling her lungs with the briny scent of the coastal air.

"I want to see the ocean tonight. Even if we come into town after dark. There should be a little bit of a moon out, and I want to see it tonight and then again in the morning."

And the afternoon and the evening as well. And go swimming. Or try to swim. And collect shells. And-

Kylo leaned forward and kissed the top of her head in answer.

"If I thought being out of the caves was stranger this is even worse."

Rey whispered it softly under her breath, not wanting any of the- the- the throngs of strangers to risk hearing her. Kylo squeezed her hand firmly as they walked through the crowded street with Dala.

After being alone with her husband or various shades of it for so long, the experience of the midst of a busy city was downright oppressive. Oh, and they were looking at her, at them both, no doubt about that.

"We're not dressed like locals," Kylo explained, his voice a low hum in her ear. "We're not dressed like from overseas either. I reckon they don't get too many visitors from across the desert instead of the water. Also, you're making a scene."

Rey snapped her attention to him, her nose curling up in genuine outrage.

"I am-"

"You're flinching every time someone walks within arms reach. And you scowl or damned near growl at every seller we pass like you expect them to draw a knife."

"Maybe they will!"

Ostensibly, Rey largely knew she was overreacting. But she didn't like crowds, never did, and her husband was heir apparent to an empire. Since he apparently wasn't keen to give two shrugs to that fact Rey ad to be paranoid enough for the both of them.

"Darling?" he tipped his face closer until half of her vision was obscured by the top of his hair. "They're likely thinking the same things about you, so try and be nice?"

Rey was. These people- there were just so many of them. An especially bold hawker steps out of his villainous lair with a strand of dark pearls in his hands.

"A gift for your beautiful lady, good sir?" he called out. "Come to my shop. I have many fine baubles for an affluent gentleman like yourself to choose from!"

Kylo pauses, his other hand shaking Dala's reigns to tell her to stop. When he takes a step forward Rey grabs his wrist with both hands and bares her teeth.

The hawker's eyes widen before he hurriedly scrambles back away. Back into his own damned personal space.

"Feral much?"

He lets Rey drag him forward abruptly. She needs to get off this main street.

"Did you hear what eh said? That he knows you have money?" she hissed.

Kylo shrugged, prompting Dala to make an equally noncommittal noise.

"He also said you were beautiful, so clearly he's a man with a discerning eye. Now where would you say is the most expensive inn in town? I'd like to flash around my affluence a bit. Perhaps even find a poker game or three."

Rey freezes. Nails go in, pushing hard into the fleshy part of her husband's forearm. She begins to hack and cough out a- a something, then Kylo's damnable smirk stops her mid-outrage sputter.

He kisses her nose. A large carriage full of sacks of unknown produce passes by. Rey glares and glares.

"You're far too easy, my darling. It's a true mystery how I haven't confounded you into my bed yet. The night's still young perhaps?"

Rey wrenches her hand free and spins, swapping places with Kylo with a bump of her hips to his. She takes Dala's lead herself this time, choosing their destination on her own accord.

"Husband's shouldn't' be allowed control of the money," she announces as she sets a fast, clipped paced. "Nothing good can come from that. You'll let me decide where we go and what we buy, Kylo, and at the end of each day that you don't find yourself with a blade in your side I shall expect a gratitude for it."

The crowd parts to the furious woman and her uneasy horse. Kylo receives more than a few pitying looks that serve to only get Rey's hackles up further. Apparently sexism is just as alive and well along the western coast as it was withing the center of the continent.

She leads them along a busy side street. In the distance she can hear what must be the crashing of waves, and immediately the knot of tension in her chest flips right into her stomach. It was the first washes of evening now, just a slight hint to the sky, and her first look at true freedom must only be a few blocks away now.

"Darling, you're smiling."

She was. She was grinning, practically, and her grip on both husband and horse had gotten a little tighter the closer to the first glimpse that they got.

"I'm still angry at you, Kylo."

She wasn't. Not really. Her husband was an insufferable torment. She'd married him like that and would marry him again despite it. Accept it. Move on.

And there it was. Rey made a little sound in her throat when she saw it. Water crashing against the rocky shore, sending sprays of rainbow colored mist up into the evening air. Rolling waves stretching further than the eye could see. So far they stopped being themselves and simply became one endless expanse of emerald and blue.

Kylo's arms wrapped around her. His lips found her temple and they both ignored the disapproving tut coming from one of the milling strangers.

"Happy, dear wife?"

Rey swallowed. She hadn't thought she'd see this sight during her whole lifetime.

"I- I think I would like to find the closest inn room we can," she whispered.

Her husband's laugh of reply was almost musical.

Rey felt a change in Kylo as the evening drew into night.

He had begun to get slightly more reserved. By his standards, at least. After they had checked themselves in to The Golden Sands Rey had been too distracted by her own excitement to notice at first the slight tightness around her husband's eyes. How he kept his answers to her questions warm but more brief than his usual.

Tomorrow.

They had asked the innkeeper when The Falcon was set to arrive at port. They had truly come here just in time then. Rey had hoped for at least a full day here before-

Well, she didn't know what was about to happen. Kylo had assured her that Captain Calrissian was a staunchly loyal ally to his family and that he could be trusted implicitly. The continent did not yet know of the Empress's passing, and they had no reason to be afraid for their own safety. Yet.

Still, her husband's unusual temperament had been preying at the edges of Rey's mind.

"It's so beautiful here," she murmured, drawing herself closer into his slackening arms.

"It is."

Rey waited. He didn't elaborate.

"Dinner was fun. I've never had anything like that."

A hum was her only response. After checking in and seeing that Dala would be taken care of, Rey had immediately dragged Kylo off to the seashore. Perhaps she should have been more considerate. After everything Kylo had gone through physically and now mentally, and she hadn't even asked him if he'd wanted a quiet night of sleep and companionship.

Dinner had been some sort of fried dough mixed with spices affair. They had bought it from a vendor on the main docks, and for a moment Rey had felt normal again. Just a young couple on honeymoon. Two nobodies. No one who mattered enough to be bothered with.

"Are you cold?" he asked, finally breaking the silence.

Rey shook her head but snuggled deeper under the blanket. Rey had taken it from their inn room when they'd left, earning a glare from the innkeeper until she'd passed him another part of coin. She didn't want to be too flash with it, but she was paying their stay well enough to avoid both questions and objections.

Now it was well past midnight, with the crescent moon making itself only a slim glimmer on the horizon. Still it danced on the waves, and Rey took a moment to breathe deep and burn it into her memory.

Behind them came a giggle, followed by a retreating pad of footsteps. She looked over her shoulder, craning her neck behind Kylo's body as she watched the two other lovers who'd been sharing this remote corner of beach disappear into the night.

"Guess we're all alone here now," she murmured.

Her hands found Kylo's underneath the scratchy woolen blanket. He squeezed her back and Rey heard him swallow. Should she… ask him about it? About why he wanted to come here? About what tomorrow will mean to him?

Or not?

"We are strangers still."

Rey spoke in very quietly, and she truly didn't mean it to hurt him. The weight of his chin left her shoulder but she didn't look to him. Focused instead on that gossamer white glow disappearing into the night.

"You're all I have now."

His voice was more a rumble than a sound, and the breath of it made her spine itch and her back arch against him.

She wanted so terribly to tell him that that wasn't true, but he was all she had as well.

Then his lips pressed against the juncture of her neck and shoulder and her next breath died into a shudder.

"Sex would almost be a formality between us now, wouldn't you agree?"

One hand fell upon her stomach, ticking spidering its way up her chest. Rey blushed, biting her lip to keep from making a single sound at all. His thumb found her nipple through her thin shirt, the lenitive bud immediately firming under his increasingly familiar care. She glanced furtively about, but there were only a few distant voices from a good ways away down the beach.

"Kylo."

She wanted to protest. Maybe. But he started to unbutton her shirt and all she could manage was sagging into her and staring listlessly into the inky waters ahead.

"Shall we make your first night of ocean truly memorable, darling?" he teased.

Now with access to her bare skin he wasted no time laying play to her breasts. His other hand left her tight grip to begin stroking along the waistband of her simple linen trousers.

"Kylo, I- I can't-"

Or could she? Losing her virginity against warm sand and to the sound of crashing waves held all manners of appeal at this moment.

Kylo responded with pinching her left nipple rather sharply and making her jolt. He held it until she whimpered then immediately let go.

"Haven't we been over this before, Rey?" He rubbed her now throbbing tip in soothing circles. "There's so much fun to be had while still keeping your precious innocence intact."

Continuing where they left off last time? Oh how greatly that thought appealed. Rey's head fell to the side, bringing her lips close to Kylo's and her husband wasted no time claiming them in a bruising kiss. His hand left her breast to cup her chin and his other made short work of the drawstring to her pants.

"Spread your legs fro me," he ordered, breaking their kiss for just long enough for the world to stop spinning.

Rey flushed even deeper, but she squirmed in the sand obligingly. What had he done to her during this short time of their marriage? What had he made her into?

He swallowed her heady moan as his fingers found her center. Rey felt how they slipped against her, her body proving its enthusiasm despite the debauchery they were conducting in public.

When his mouth pulled away again Rey had to stifle the urge to beg.

"Eager much?"

Kark, even her husband's voice was doing something to her. When Rey had heard women talk of lust and longing, it had always felt so foreign. So muddled. Nothing like this at all.

His thumb finds her clit and Rey has to wrap a hand around her mouth to keep from keening. Frantically she nods, her hips rocking in circles.

Immediately the pleasure surges through her, fueled by her bashful acceptance. His palm flattens, gliding against her in a broad stroke. Somewhere in the distance the sound of voices grows nearer, but that only sharpens the edge of her need all the more.

"You take to pleasure so well, Rey," Kylo croons. "But can you take more than this already?"

Rey can feel the hard ridge of him pressing against her lower back. Subconsciously she grinds against that too, a phantom sensation of how he would feel inside her- of how full she would feel- setting every nerve in her body alight.

One of his fingers finds her entrance and presses inside. Oh she's close. So very much so. Then a second finger joins it and her head flops to the side, the strength of her own hand failing to support it. The pain of it is not exactly a pain but more of an ache, and a very strange one at that.

"Kriff you're tight," he murmurs. "I should be lucky if I don't get stuck."

Oh fuck he feels so big against her back. His fingers pump with a leisurely determination, working against the forces of her body that are both resisting and compelling him for more and more.

It takes Kylo less than a minute to bring her to the edge of climax. Rey's whole body holds a rolling tremble, and a knowing part of her tells her just how much better this could be if...

Then he pinches her rudely between thumb and forefinger and she crashes over, her sharp cry cutting through the dark air and surely letting all within earshot know that she's fallen over the precipice.

"Good girl."

His fingers keep working her, coaxing her through every heartbeat of pleasure that her body can find. But ti was right. This was good. More than good. But it could have been godly. Her husband's body was surely the missing piece.

It takes a few minutes for Rey to come down fully. When Kylo's fingers withdraw she winces, but less from the sting they leave behind as to the reminder of just how far she's drifted from the young woman she once was.

But his kiss is soothing. And compelling. They stay like that for a good long while, simply holding and kissing and existing together. Long enough for Rey's desire to return, and along with it a sense of wickedness.

"Is there anyone around?" she asks, breathless between kisses.

Kylo's low hum does everything for her.

"No, darling. I'm quite sure you scared them away before."

Her wickedness spikes, drawing with it an even more intense desire.

"Let's see how well you can stay silent then."

It was a statement, not a question. As her hands push at his shoulders, Kylo hesitates only briefly. His hands fall readily into her hair though as she begins to kiss a path down his chest towards her destination.

This time, Rey tastes him fully. Swallowing wasn't without its challenges, but the noises her husband makes throughout make the struggle more than worthwhile.

It's well into the earliest hours of after midnight when they shuffle back to the inn, hand in hand.

When Kylo lays next to her, he lets Ry pull herself tight to him. Again that tenseness has fallen through him. That dread for tomorrow.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asks, her voice a sleepy whisper.

She'd stay up for him as long as he wanted. If he didn't want to sleep at all, she'd find a book downstairs and read it to him. Her husband shakes his head, though, his fingers scrolling promises against her bared shoulder along his side.

"I truly don't," he answers.

Rey nods and closes her eyes. Sleep takes a long time to come, but when it does it's a driftless one.