I DIDN'T MEAN TO WRITE THIS I'M SUPPOSED TO BE FINISHING A FIC FOR THE FLASH FANDOM, BUT, UH-

Here, my fellow Reylos. Apparently, I'm still not done with the Charity Anthology and fic exchange hype, so...enjoy ;)

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars

Ben had never thought of himself as a hero.

He was a monster, a villain through and through, and he really, truly believed it until the combined efforts of his father, his mother, and Rey showed him otherwise- that Kylo Ren was his pitiful attempt at becoming a villain in his fear of never being good enough, succumbing to the voices inside his head. Nevermind that it was literally the voice of the most evil and powerful being in the known galaxy, but the point was, Kylo Ren had a lot to answer to, and Ben Solo very quickly found that fixing the galaxy was a lot harder than wrecking it.

Even months after Exegol and his and Rey's miraculous escape from that godforsaken planet after the Final Order and Palpatine had been defeated, there was more work to be done. He, better than anyone, knew the reach and extent of the First Order, and the remaining pockets of Imperial loyalists that gave the Resistance hell were fully funded, dangerous, and had strength in numbers. In his parents'—his mother's—absence, he was their advisor, knowledgeable about the First Order and their processes, an insanely skilled pilot who could give (and have given) Poe a run for his money ("that was one race, c'mon man, that's not fair!") and would spend hours tuning up each ship in the Resistance's hangar.

Of course, it had taken Ben a lot of time to gain their trust, but Rey's influence over the Resistance members had a lot to do with it. This incredible woman had given him everything, how could he not look at her with hearts in his eyes every time he saw her? How could he not tell her he loved her with every fiber of his being?

It wasn't that he didn't try.

i.

She found him sitting on the grated floor of the Falcon, his knees drawn up to his chest. The sight of him made her heart ache, looking every bit the lost child he had been the past few years. In fact, he hadn't done this in a long time—hide away from the world in a dusty corner of the old ship, curled into himself until his father inevitably found him and sat down next to him until he was ready to talk, until he stopped wanting to talk about it.

"Are you all right?" Rey asked gently, afraid to get too close and giving him space to acclimate to her presence. Ben's big eyes looked up at her, his feelings and thoughts laid bare in their Force bond. With a slight tilt of his head, she kneeled in front of him, putting her hands on his knees and pushing gentle waves of comfort toward him.

"I know they're tough," she said, running her thumbs back and forth on his knees. "But they'll come around. They'll see that you're different."

"It doesn't change what I've done," Ben replied almost immediately. They've had this conversation before, but between himself and everyone currently at the base sans Rey, there was plenty of negativity and animosity toward him to go around.

Her eyes narrowed, and her hands shot forward until she cupped his face, her eyes boring into his.

Rey was giving some sort of motivational pep talk that Ben was sure he'd heard about twenty times before, but all he could think about was how lovely she was up close where he could count all the freckles smattered across her nose and cheekbones, how different she looked now compared to when she stole into his room into the dead of night (because he did retain some sort of chivalry, okay, and would never sneak into her room) and stayed with him curled into his side, and how alive she was as she passionately went on and on in a speech he was sure was going in his ears but fell to the abyss in a deep chasm somewhere between his ears and his brain.

She was looking expectantly at him now, and Ben realized that she had probably asked him a question. He opened his mouth-

I love you, he wanted to say.

Instead, he signed and gripped her hand, a small smile on his face at last. She seemed to always be able to do that.

ii.

Ben hurried along the hallway, his head bent low and not looking at anyone who was passing by him. It didn't matter; they were muttering about him in distrust and disgust anyway, whispering and jeering and alienating him in general. He was fairly certain that some of them weren't sure how to interact with him, but most of them just downright hated him. The Force confirmed that conjecture quite easily, but Ben had a job to do by Rey's side, and he'd be damned if he let them get to him.

So he put up with the sidelong glances, the unforgiving hisses and the curious and gossipy whispers wherever he went, put up with being alone on those days where Rey was dragged off on another diplomatic meeting (he happened to know she hated them too, and nothing was funnier than when their bond manifested and made him appear in front of her during those meetings) and Rose was busy with an emergency somewhere else on base. He needed to prove himself, as Ben Solo, as Leia's son and the Resistance's expectations, but damn if it wasn't difficult as hell.

He was used to being alienated, used to being alone. Kylo Ren was partially born from his loneliness, after all, but that didn't make things any easier for him. And, evidently, Rey had had enough of it too. She gathered the Resistance forces in the large hangar just after lunch one day, and when she stepped onto the X-wing's wing, Ben's gut immediately clenched and a sinking feeling pooled in his stomach as he felt her subtle waves of anger in the Force.

Rey was anything but subtle; subtlety was not a strong suit of hers, and it didn't take long for that calm façade to completely shatter.

"I want to thank you all for taking the time out today to assemble here," she started when she had their attention. "I promise that this will be quick."

Clearing her throat, her eyes swept over the crowd with a cool gaze. "I would like to remind everyone that though the First Order and the Final Orders were defeated on Exegol, we only achieved victory by being there for one other and supporting each other. We came together to defeat our enemy."

Cheers were heard around the hangar, but Rey held her palm up for silence. Her dark eyes suddenly turned to steel, and Ben, standing in the crowd next to Rose, flinched a little at the sudden chill that was present in their bond and directed outward toward everyone else. "Therefore, I'd like to take this chance to remind you that though the Resistance has done a large part in keeping the galaxy free from the clutches of the Order and Empire, our enemy still exists and is still looking for ways to come back. We have a wonderful friend and resource who has helped us fight the tyranny of the Empire, a man who is deserving of your respect—Ben Solo."

Completely unsurprisingly, murmurs started to sound in the crowd. Rose put a comforting hand on Ben's arm.

Rey paid all of this no mind.

"Might I remind you that none of us are irredeemable or unforgiven. We have all sacrificed in this war, we have all lost in this war. Let it be something that brings us together instead."

This time, there were hesitant cheers, and more clapping. Ben wanted to clap too, but his hands stayed listlessly by his side as he gazed up at the strong-willed, fearsome woman who then directed her attention to him, and then he realized that screaming out, "I LOVE YOU" at that moment probably wasn't the best idea.

iii.

It was just another day of routine tune-ups in the Resistance hangar. Ben had always felt at home with ships, whether being inside them or fixing them, and the Resistance pilots and mechanics picked up on his expertise nearly immediately. He was a welcome addition to their numbers after their initial distrust of them and Rey's reprimanding speech, working quietly on ships when they needed repairs, or when it was just time to take a look at them. Those were good days, where he could lose himself in what the ship needed, moving almost on autopilot as he fixed the things that needed to be fixed or wracking his brain for ways to fix the damages that had been caused.

And the days that Rey had off and joined him in the hangar were the best. They didn't need to communicate out loud half the time after everything they had been through, but her presence was always welcoming and soothing, and just being with her made his day brighter.

It was a chatty day for them though, as they worked together. This particular ship's navcomputer was wonky at best and completely inaccurate at worst, its pilot exasperated and having no further ideas on what he could do to fix it.

Rey huffed, wrench in hand. "There was this one chip I found when scavenging on Jakku," she said to Ben, who was looking at the surrounding wires and adaptors in the cockpit. "It was a high grade navcomputer chip, and I swear-"

But Ben wasn't paying attention to what she was swearing and pouting about, because she had just wiped the sweat off her forehead with the back of her arm, leaving a long streak of grease behind. Her hair was a mess and her cheeks were flushed with the heat of the day, and all Ben could think was I love you so much. He shot a hand out and gripped the hand that was holding the wrench, stopping her mid-rant.

She was so close, her eyes glittering in amusement as he pulled her infinitesimally closer. Opening his mouth, he strengthened his resolve to tell her-

"Rey…I-"

"Lunch!" Rose's cheerful voice interrupted, the mechanic stopping in her tracks when she looked at the pair of them, Poe trailing behind her. He was reluctant to give Ben a chance at first, but for Rey and Leia, he was willing to try. "Did I just walk into the middle of something?"

Ben's embarrassment was so strong, Rey probably felt waves of it in their bond. Her peals of laughter rang in the air as she gave him a gentle squeeze. "No," she replied. "Thanks for bringing us food!"

iv.

As a Jedi apprentice and as Kylo Ren, Ben's fighting and saber skills, even with that ridiculous cross guard that twenty-seven-year-old him thought was a great idea, were nothing to scoff at. He knew most forms, had practiced them until they were ingrained into his body as muscle memory, and as he fought, he danced. It was fluid and graceful, but compared to Rey…well, he could watch her all day.

Sure, Luke and Leia had taught her saber forms, but she already had her own stances and forms after fighting with a staff for so long. Some of her movements were choppy and undisciplined, completely deviating from traditional and powerful saber strokes, and her footwork was abysmal, but Ben couldn't tear his eyes away. The blaster bolt that narrowly missed him was what brought him back to the present, away from his muse and back to the First Order squad that had launched a surprise attack on them in some sort of effort to decimate their numbers, but all that was happening were stormtroopers falling over left and right. It wasn't much of a fight, so Ben's gaze slid back over to Rey, who was whirling out of the bolts' trajectories and cutting down her enemy.

I love you, he thought dreamily, then raised his saber just in time to deflect a bolt from hitting him square in the chest.

v.

Of all the things that could have happened to them, it had to be-

"Space pirates?!" Poe nearly shouted. "Really?!"

He and Finn were tied back to back, while Ben and Rey were lashed together by layers and layers of coarse rope. "Seriously, how did we let this happen?!"

Finn nearly rolled his eyes. "It could have happened to anyone, and we really should be grateful that we sent Rose and Jannah ahead with those supplies-"

Poe was not done. "We have a Jedi apprentice and two Jedi Masters, TWO, and we still-"

Ben felt Rey lean her head back against his back; their height difference was evident in the way she only reached the base of his neck—he was a full head taller than her. He suppressed a chuckle, allowing only a grin to slip through. Unfortunately for him, Poe definitely saw it.

"What are you smiling about?" he grumbled, but there was no heat directed toward Ben himself. The two had reached a sort of understanding in their months together, a relationship that amused all of them but Poe to no end.

The moment was brutally shattered by the entrance of the pig-faced pirate, its heavy footfalls causing the ground to shake. It was flanked by two others at its side, its disgusting grin looking more like a grimace as it pointed its blaster at Rey.

"The girl goes first," it growled in a dialect that sounded like a series of clicks. Ben narrowed his eyes at it when its ugly laugh ripped through the air, and the two of them were hauled out of the holding cell, Poe and Finn's protests falling on deaf ears.

"Rey," Ben huffed as they were pushed and dragged through the tiny corridors of the grimy ship.

"Yeah?"

Of all the opportunities he had to tell her, all the times he failed to tell her—this would rank as possibly the absolute worst, but, he figured, if not now, when? He had already proven that he couldn't force the words out, but at this moment, they came to him, bursting to be free, demanding to be heard. Despite their situation, Ben had to laugh.

"I love-"

Rey's eyes narrowed, her exasperation ringing through their bond. "Really?! Now?!" she hissed as they came to a stop in front of the ship's ejector chute.

Ben shrugged. "I've done a lot of bad in my life, and you're one of the only good things about it—I figured I should tell you before our hypothetical deaths."

She rolled her eyes at him.

+ 1

Unsurprisingly, they made it out okay when Rose brought a platoon of pilots to their rescue. Back on board the Falcon, which made it out with yet another battle scar, Poe waved them off as he and Finn and Rose made their way to the cockpit, pushing Ben and Rey toward the captain's quarters—now officially their quarters—to get some rest.

It would take them some time to get back to base, so Rey hurriedly threw on a set of clean clothes, throwing the dirty outfit onto the floor, and flopped down onto the bed, stretching out as Ben sat on the edge, looking fondly down at her.

"I meant it, you know," he said without preamble. She sighed and propped herself up, sitting cross-legged in front of him when he turned to fully face her. "What I was trying to say back there when we were captured."

Rey quirked an eyebrow, teasing him. "What were you trying to say?"

This time, Ben rolled his eyes at her, nudging her shoulder, and she conceded, biting down on her bottom lip to keep her grin from spreading too wide. "Ben, we're bonded," she gently reminded him, "I can hear you."

"But-" A blush was starting to form on his face, and Rey relished it for as long as possible. Ben did not blush often. "But I wanted to actually say it," he protested.

She scooted forward, leaning forward until they were essentially sharing the space, feeling their bond settle between them. Their foreheads rested against each other as they stilled their breathing, taking in the moment of just being together.

"I love you, Rey," Ben whispered softly, brushing the tip of his nose against hers. Rey grinned.

"I know."