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I.
Agitated, Rey paces back and forth along the length of the long stone corridor, moonlight streams through the open windows — an uncharacteristically cloudless night in Caladan. For weeks rain had fallen from the heavy, low hanging clouds continuously, drowning the verdure and filling the river until it had become a roaring beast outside the castle gates. The sound of rushing water and the cool air are normally a comfort for her, but tonight nothing can placate the hot flush of pique that surrounds her in a diaphanous cloud.
She wrings her hands as she walks, the weightless organza and silk of her gown trailing behind her, the soft leather of her slippers muffling her harried footsteps. Rejection and confused anger jolt like bolts of electricity through her mind. It had been months since Ben had welcomed her into his bed and she could not identify the reason. His sudden disinterest in coupling with her was infuriating.
His behavior towards her has not changed — he still brings her a new trinket or a treat every few days; accompanies her on her daily walks out on the ramparts, her hand tucked securely in the crook of his elbow as they talk, their heads close together, paying little attention to their surroundings; takes breakfast with her each morning in the east-facing sitting room, the dawn light illuminating his eyes every time he smiles at her.
He has continued to dote on her and is as attuned with her feelings as always, but each time she attempts to initiate anything more than a chaste kiss, he gently rebuffs her.
After their dinner this evening they had retired to a drawing room where she had sat on a mohair puff, back turned to the smoldering fire, as he had strummed the strings of a baliset, gravelly voice humming low at intervals. He had played for her until the fire had snuffed itself out, plunging the cozy room into a dim glow produced by the three pillar candles slowly melting on a low table.
Once he’d set the instrument on the cushion beside him, Rey had gotten up, ignoring the pins and needles of returned sensation that staticked through her legs, and had sat in his lap, her fingers tangling in his thick hair as she kissed him on his forehead, his cheekbone, the tantalizing dip of his cupid’s bow. His eyes had fluttered close and she thought that perhaps he would take her to bed if she asked, but as soon as she ground her hips down, arousal heavy in her stomach, he had pulled away and stood up, some indecipherable sentiment passing quickly over his face as he retreated from the room and left her cold and alone.
Now, hours later, unable to sleep, she allows the emotions she’s suppressed rise to the surface. The Bene Gesserit had provided concubines to the noble houses of the Corrino Imperium for hundreds of years. Ben understood what he was agreeing to when he had accepted her placement in his household — his continued unwillingness to be intimate with her is alarming. She was sent here for one purpose and she cannot meet her goal if he continues to spurn her.
At the corner she turns sharply, retracing her steps, teeth absently nipping at the sore cuticle of one finger as she thinks. She has been as patient as she can be, but he has given her no signs that his firm resolve is wavering, he has remained maddeningly resolute.
Unconsciously, her feet bring her to the door of his bedchamber and she stares at it, deciding what to do. The hour is late and the castle is almost eerily silent without the near constant drone of servants and attendants rushing through the labyrinthine halls, their voices and scuffling footsteps echoing off of the walls and ringing throughout. Ben surely sleeps peacefully in the safety of his chambers, swathed in the soft sheets of his bed.
Seemingly without reason he has denied her for longer than she finds acceptable, but while he has perhaps forgotten the rigors of her Bene Gesserit training, Rey has not. What she has learned on Chapterhouse is imprinted into the very dips and ridges of her bones; it is a fundamental, undeniable, part of her. The brass of the door handle is cool against the palm of her hand as she slowly levers it down, pushing forward.
If he will not give her what she wants, she will simply take it.
·⚈.
-VII.
The moment their heighliner enters the oxygen rich atmosphere of Caladan, Rey is glued to a round porthole, staring out at this planet that is meant to be her new home. Mesmerized, she watches as they speed past lush forests and the dark depths of surging oceans. This planet is so alive. Chapterhouse is nothing but arid desert and sand and oppressive heat, but Caladan is its direct opposite.
The Reverend Mother allows Rey her awed indulgence for a few minutes before pulling her away from the glass of the window, her gnarled hands deceptively strong despite their agedness.
“Remember your training, Rey. You know what you must do. We are all counting on you.” Her small rheumy eyes reflect the white light of the craft and Rey straightens her spine under her probing gaze. Yes, she knows what she must do; she mustn't allow the excitement of a new planet derail her, the moment they land, her mission will begin.
“Yes, your Reverence,” she replies dutifully, bowing her head down deferentially. Nervous anticipation churns in her stomach like the waves of the tumultuous sea below, but she suppresses her anxieties. She will not fail; she cannot for this is the purpose for which she was born. It is inevitable that she will succeed, there is no other option.
The Reverend Mother pats Rey’s hand, the closest she has ever come to displaying any sort of affection, and Rey stills briefly, unsure how to react. The small knotted hand is soft over hers, but she is distinctly relieved when it is removed and once again placed in its owner's lap and tamps down a brief shudder.
She turns her gaze back towards the window as they begin their descent towards an imposing stone castle cradled in the banks of a winding pellucid river, scores of trees, red trunked, branches sprouting unusually shaped dark green leaves soar high above the castle turrets, providing shade. In the distance, she can just make out the shape of a figure dressed entirely in black standing on the ramparts, a cloak faintly billowing in the breeze.
The heighliner is still too far for Rey to make out his features, but instinctively she knows that it is him, her mission, her purpose; Ben Solo I, Duke of Caladan.
·⚈.
II.
He does not stir when she creeps into his chamber, the soles of her feet quiet against the cool stone flooring, her shoes left forgotten at the entrance. His alabaster skin glows in the moonlight and she watches the shallow rise and fall of his chest, counting his slow, even breathing from the foot of his bed.
For such a large man she is always surprised that he sleeps so softly. He lies on his side, the mountain he makes of the sheets and covers barely stir with his shallow breaths.
After she had lay with him the first time, sore but satisfied, her elation had quickly turned to horror when she had returned from the adjoined washroom and had found him unmoving in his bed. Then, when she had not been able to see or hear his breathing, she had been instantly beset with worries that somehow in the few moments she had spent away from him, he had been grievously harmed and had already slipped into the world of the dead. But now, after spending innumerable sleepless nights watching over his slumbering form, she feels nothing but a deep calm.
Gently she rolls him onto his back, holding her breath when his chest stutters to a stop, and only exhales when he inhales, lips parted slightly, a soft whistle through his nose — a sweet, almost child-like sound and her belly clenches.
Frustration and something dangerously close to affection whirls in her body like the unbound stars birl unheeded overhead. Viciously she tamps the fondness she holds secretly in her heart to some forgotten and unreachable place within her — she was never meant to develop feelings for Ben Solo; she has one goal, she cannot fail.
Slowly she draws the covers from his body and his bare skin, now exposed to the cool air, prickles with goose flesh. Despite the abrupt temperature change he remains impassive, perfectly still save for the sporadic twitch of a finger on his left hand.
She cannot help but stroke down his neck and chest; skin against skin — clothed in nothing but loose pants worn low across his hips, so much of him is bared to her. In one graceful move she climbs into bed and straddles him, the floaty gossamer of her dress bunching around her waist.
For a time she touches his chest, traces whorls and striations over the defined muscles of his abdomen, bends down to kiss a hardened nipple, builds up her courage to reach into his pants and find the hard length of him and fit him into her soft center, where he belongs.
She can feel him stiffening inside his pants, brushing against the curve of her backside and she reaches for him, one hand gathering the length of her dress up and out of the way, the other fumbling beneath the waistband of his pants and into his underclothes, anxiety trembling at her fingertips.
But, before she can firmly grasp his cock in her hands, before she can swipe a thumb across the sweeping head and slot his cock into place, Ben wakes with a start, his body jerking beneath hers. It is so sudden she has no time to startle before he has drawn her up and into the cage of his arms, his face sleepy, heavy lids open just a crack, expression bewildered.
Air gets stuck in her throat and she does not breathe as he appraises her, her heart pounding in her chest so loudly surely he can feel the nervous tattoo of it — Will he be angry? Determining that she is not a threat, Ben pulls her closer to him until his face is buried into her tumbling hair, his body heat instantly warming her.
“Go to sleep, Rey.” His voice is rough and his words are slow, as though he needs to think before each one. “Won’t work anyway.” As abruptly as he had woken, he falls back into sleep, as easily as a satiated infant with a belly full of warm milk, his body completely curled around her.
Rey tries to wriggle out of his arms, but reflexively he clutches her to him so tightly she is unable to get free. Thwarted, she fumes until she finally gives up and falls limp, her mind spooling before her.
Won’t work anyway. What had he meant by that? She glances at his upturned face and traces over his features. Despair eats away at her. If he refuses to lie with her what is she to do?
·⚈.
-V.
The Bene Gesserit had taught her well — she knew what she needed to do. She had known her place in the world since she was a child. The Reverend Mother had imposed in her this — she would be a great Duke’s concubine, his to do with as he wished, his to pleasure or to hurt as he saw fit. Whatever he decided, she would take it all and bear it without complaint. She would allow her body to be used however he wanted, would do everything in her power to ensure his continued interest in her, to make sure that every drop of his spend found a home in her fertile womb.
Rey had her orders, she knew what to expect, but still, he takes her by surprise. The way he strips her of her flowing gown, the way he looks at her with his solemn eyes, the way he touches her, carefully, gently, as if she is something to be cared for and cherished is unexpected and unmooring.
Under his stare she feels unsettled and self-conscious enough that she looks away though she has long gotten used to her own nakedness. His hands are huge over her soft skin, calloused palms gentle as he traces the contours of her body.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmurs seconds before he kisses her so deeply she loses feeling in her legs and sways precariously on her toes, the rug plush underfoot, reaching up as he leans down, all her naked skin against the cotton of his clothing. “And you’re mine, aren’t you? You were given to me.”
Rey moans in response, but internally her mind races, because she isn’t really his, is she? His ownership of her is only temporary — someday he will tire of her or he will choose to take a wife and Rey will be sent back to Chapterhouse where she will live out the remainder of her life bringing up the newest generation of Bene Gesserit initiates.
If she is lucky, if she does what is asked of her, she may be permitted to see the daughter she will have with Ben on occasion. She will never be able to speak to her, will never hold her after she is weaned, but she will know her face, she will know where she is sent after she has grown to adulthood, and perhaps that will be enough.
It is a sad fate, but it is what she has accepted. This preordained life has been clearly defined to her since before she was born, it is all she has ever known. Discomfited by the distracting clatter in her head, painstakingly Rey dissolves each errant thought into fine mist, until there is nothing cluttering her mind but Ben and what he will do to her.
She may be bound by his will, but she knows precisely how to carefully engineer their coupling to be exactly what she will need to nurture the seed he will spill inside her and make it blossom into something new.
Control, she knows, is key. But how is she meant to be in control when Ben has laid her down so reverently in the middle of his bed, when his lips are trailing their way from her mouth to the dip above her collarbones, the swell of her breasts, down the expanse of her stomach to that place between her legs?
How can she think clearly when he has put his mouth against the heart of her, is taking that small nub between his teeth, is sucking and kissing and making her see nothing but a sea of whirling, dancing miniature suns?
She is nothing but the pleasure he pries out of her — hips moving in time, fingers tangled at the back of his head, pressing herself as close as she can to him — nothing but wanton need and desire and craving.
The sounds he pulls from her are raw and uninhibited and completely new to her. Through all her lessons, through all the practice she has had, she has never reacted this way, has never been so responsive, has never vocalized her delight at being touched so well.
One finger joins another, twisting until they find a previously untouched spot deep inside of her and something precious and devouring grows all at once and shatters in a frieze of blinding white and she wails unable to contain herself.
Tears spring forth as she trembles and he works to tease more and more devastating pleasure out of her body. Her head is fuzzy and messy and untethered from reality, and she is aware only of the soft sheets at her back, and Ben’s fingers and tongue at her cunt.
Time holds still and for some minutes there is perfect harmony in the universe; she has lost herself, she is lost, adrift high above in the undulating wind, but eventually she feels the weight of his heavy body over hers, can just barely hear the cadence of his gentle words through the ringing in her ears and slowly it coaxes her back into her body. When she opens her eyes, his meets hers, satisfied amusement swimming in the dark depths.
She wants more, insatiable need bursts from her lugs and she tugs him to her, presses her lithe body against his and opens her legs wider to better accommodate him.
“Are you ready?” he asks against her ear, a gentle hand curled against her cheek, cradling her in the palm of his hand. She only nods, feels incapable of speaking past the lump in her throat.
The next time they couple she will sit astride him, will have better control over herself and the situation, but for now she will allow herself to lose herself in the moment. Prior to meeting him, she had been riddled with anxiety, worried that she would find only pain and misery at his hands; but perhaps she is owed this haven she has found with him after all the unhappy, lonely years of her youth.
Despite preparing her, he’s bigger than anyone she’s taken before and she winces at the stretch as he pushes in, gripping his shoulders tightly, eyes squeezed shut until the pinch subsides and she wriggles beneath him. “Move, move,” she whines, gratified only when he complies.
“There you go. No more crying, cyar-ika, I have you.” Loses herself in the rhythm their bodies create, meeting each of his thrusts, wanting more, more, more, urging him on until he hitches one leg up and presses it into the bed until her hamstrings protest and she is blissful, transcendent, otherworldly.
Reality fades around her, blurring around the edges. Only Ben is clear, the rest reduced to gray-scale anemia, devoid of life. Effortlessly, she ascends a great peak and at his encouragement, his cock pressing that same spot that had been her previous undoing, fingers circling the button of pleasure she had never paid attention to previously, she shatters, muffling her keening into his sternum.
She hadn’t known it could feel like this; there is so much she hadn’t known until Ben and she floats in a sea of warm, satisfied pleasure, body relaxed and limp and unbound from anything but him. Eventually her mind returns to her slowly and abruptly she remembers. He has to finish inside of me.
His thrusts have become irregular as he approaches his own release, and she wraps her arms and legs around him, restricting his movements slightly, but unwilling to be parted from him. Every time his hips grind against hers, she feels herself beginning to lose herself again and she wonders, in some far-away part of her brain, if she will ever get used to it.
“Come, Ben,” she babbles, and as her cunt begins to flutter again, he does. He groans against her, clutching her to him as tightly as he can, as though he never wants to be parted from her either.
He is incapable of movement, chest still heaving with gasped breaths, but Rey is content to lay beneath him, his heavy weight comforting. In this moment, as she nuzzles her face into his neck, his softening cock still held inside her, she feels the closest she has ever felt to true happiness.
·⚈.
III.
When she wakes, she is alone. The clouds have rolled back, obscuring the sun, leaving the world outside the double panes of the window misty and gray and bleak. The timepiece above the mantle tells her that it is well into late morning. She has never been one to sleep late, but she is unsurprised by the hour — it had taken her a long time to drift off in Ben’s arms. Her tangled thoughts had kept her awake until she finally began to float into welcome unconsciousness just as the eastern sky began to lighten with the coming daybreak.
The sheets beside her are cold as she leaves them — clearly Ben had left the bed before she woke, attending to his duties. At the door she finds her kicked off shoes and collects them as she breezes through and out into the hall, she barely feels the cold seeping into her bare feet as she walks the short distance to her rooms.
Quickly she bathes and brushes out her hair and redresses in a new gown, this one made of thick muslin and less breathable — good for keeping her warm on a cold day. She had been braving the chilly temperatures with her light, gauzy dresses in hopes of enticing Ben with all the smooth skin they revealed, but now she sees little point in freezing. She is convinced she could prance before him completely nude and he would simply press a chaste kiss to her forehead and excuse himself.
In the mirror she pins up her hair and takes a moment to examine her face. Despite her turbulent sleep, she appears well rested — a healthy flush across her cheeks, skin clear and soft, eyes bright and shining. Perhaps she is not the most alluring woman in the galaxy, but she knows very well that she is charming enough. Her appearance is not what has been holding Ben back these past months — he has told her countless times before that he finds her beautiful, and she has detected no hint of falsehood in his words. To him she is lovely, but his sudden ambivalence towards her stings and insecurity wells in her no matter how much she tries to convince herself of his continued attraction.
Vexation returns to her anew as she sweeps out of her bedchamber, dress dragging along the floor, a wool shawl pulled snug over her arms. She has grown weary of this game they are playing, she will ferret the truth out of him this day, one way or another.
As she had expected he is in the training room on the ground floor of the castle. The room is kept dark, the only light comes from a series of small square windows arranged in a row across the far wall and a few recessed lights set into the textured cement of the low ceiling.
Today he trains with blades — two serrated daggers are held in each tightly clenched fist, their sharp blades reflecting the light. She watches as he and his opponent circle each other on the mat in the center of the room, shields emanating from the small generators strapped to their backs, preventing them from seriously injuring the other.
Calmly she watches as they lunge and parry, trading blows with one another until Ben uses his height advantage to swing at his adversary, knocking him to the floor, one blade pressed to his jugular, the other to his temple. For a moment his opponent is still, and then he smiles and smacks his hand against the floor in defeat, knives falling from his hands.
Rey rapidly grows disinterested as Ben selects a new opponent from the men who circle the periphery of the mat. She knows he enjoys his training regimen, but he is afforded no real challenge; he has been beating his knights since he was an adolescent. If he wanted a real challenge he would allow Rey to train with him — she is small, but she has been a master of the weirding way for years, he would not best her so easily.
Patience fraying as effortlessly as hand through delicate cobwebs — she knows he has seen her and she has never taken well to being ignored — she approaches the mat and pushes past a burly man. Automatically he reaches for her, but she sends him a glare so viscous he scuttles back in surprise and does not attempt to halt her further.
Without fear she steps in the middle of the two men just as Ben lunges, arm outstretched, aiming for the other man’s upper abdomen. He stops as soon as he registers Rey’s presence, but momentum is not so easily stopped once it has begun and he continues forward, face stricken with horror. Bored, she steps neatly to the side and watches as he crashes to the ground with a resounding crash.
Cat-like reflexes propel him back to his feet, a furious scowl marring his features — “You could have been injured, Rey. What were you thinking?” He practically spits.
She raises an unimpressed brow in response, “I would not let you harm me, Ben Solo.” She watches as he switches off the shield generator and sheaths his knives, nodding to the man behind her as he returns to the other knights. “I would like to speak with you.” He glowers at her and she glares right back, tension vibrating beneath the surface of her skin.
“Now,” she demands through gritted teeth. “Send them away.”
“Leave us.” His voice is quiet but it carries and his men quickly depart, their booted feet loud in the otherwise silent room. He watches her carefully as he unfastens his arm braces, nimble fingers loosening and unbuckling and tugging them off, leaving them to fall to the floor.
“What do you wish to speak of, Rey?” She approaches him sedately, arms demurely clasped together behind her back, face composed into something guileless — an attempt to disarm him into letting down his defenses.
“I have been thinking of what you said last night,” she begins, looking up at him. “You said ‘Won’t work anyway’ — what did you mean by that?” She cocks her head to the side and takes him in, observes as his face slightly pales and she tuts softly, it would appear he had not meant to say that to her.
He turns away for a moment to place the sheathed knives on a rack with an assortment of other weapons and then looks back at her, something akin to resignation shining in the umber abyss of his eyes. “I meant that lying with you would not yield the results you have been hoping for.”
Slowly she rolls each word around in her racing mind, attempting to identify what he means. A trickle of dread pools down her spine when she comes to a damning conclusion.
“You have been drugging me,” Rey whispers, abruptly feeling sick. It is the only reason she can think of for her inability to conceive those first weeks when he had taken her to bed willingly and often. She had been so consumed by her new found lust that she had not worried when she had not conceived. Stupid, stupid, she berates herself angrily; she should have known something was not what it seemed.
How had he done it? Through her breakfast, assuredly. It was the only meal they were certain to share. Surely she would have noticed earlier if they had continued to lie together — he had kept her wrapped in ignorance for as long as he could and then, when he feared her suspicion, he had stopped sleeping with her altogether.
“And you have been dishonest.” She stares up at him, blinking rapidly, feeling disoriented.
“I have never lied to you.” She has always answered his questions honestly, and on the rare occasion he asked her something she did not want to answer she deflected, turned the attention back to him.
“Perhaps not in words, no, you are too clever for that, but omitting is still lying.” A dark brow raises, almost as though to chastise her, and Rey chafes.
“And what have I omitted that has warranted all this,” she hisses, wrath rippling through the anesthesia of astonished shock.
He looks away from her, his hand tensing and relaxing at his side. “Four months ago I asked you what you would do if you became pregnant. Do you remember what you said?” Mute, Rey shakes her head, though she recollects that conversation in precise detail.
“You said ‘Our child would be a gift that we would cherish forevermore’ and then you changed the subject. What you said was not a lie, but you left out something important.” Nausea cramps her stomach and she looks away, unable to look at him anymore.
“Because although it is true that we would love her, we wouldn’t raise her, would we?” The lump in her throat grows and she shakes her head, unable to feed him another half-truth.
“How do you know that?” Her voice is strained, garbled almost and she swallows hard, forcing herself to relax the tense muscles of her larynx.
He moves closer to her until she has to tilt her chin up in order to maintain eye contact. She feels small under his shadow.
“You forget that my grandmother was Bene Gesserit.”
Confused, she tilts her head. His maternal grandmother was Padmé, she knows of her, as she is familiar with most of his ancestors. “I did not forget. I have had your bloodline from the last five-hundred years memorized since I was a child.”
“No, you did not forget,” he allows. “But clearly you have never thought of the implications of her place in your sisterhood.”
When she only blinks at him in bewilderment, he continues. “Though my mother was not Bene Gesserit herself, my grandmother taught my mother everything about the order and my mother passed that knowledge down to me. Before she died my grandmother told me this: if I were granted a concubine, whatever child born of that union would be one step closer to your Kwisatz Haderach. She warned me that they would be taken to be raised and molded on Chapterhouse. The Bene Gesserit had allowed her to keep my mother, but they would not be so lenient again.”
He knows, he knows, rings as thunderous as alarm bells in her head. Her hands tremble and she clasps them together in front of her, squeezing as tightly as she can. “You know nothing.” She attempts to harden her voice, to imbue her words with a steel strength, but she sounds weak, uncertain, disbelieving.
Ben gives her a pitying look, sadness apparent in his eyes, his broad shoulders sloping slightly. “I know everything, Rey,” he says almost gently, as though he does not wish to hurt her. “You have been raised to be nothing more than a broodmare. To the Bene Gesserit you are nothing without your ability to conceive, and I’ve taken that from you. I will not allow any child you bear to be taken from us.”
Defeated tears prick at her eyes and she clenches her fists so tightly her nails bite crescent moons ino her palms. “Why are you being so cruel? What have I done to provoke your displeasure? Have I not been what you wanted? I was only ever raised for you. If you do not want me then there is no use for me.”
He reaches out to her, but she evades him, feeling as fragile as fallen glass shattering against a hard floor. Slowly he lowers his hand, his face drawn and earnest. “I have never said I do not want you.”
“Then what do you want?” she chokes out.
“Marry me, Rey. Rule Caladan here by my side.”
She stares at him incredulously. “You are joking. You jest,” she says, woundedly. She had never thought he could be so unsparing and heartless. “You know very well that I cannot do that. You are to marry someone who is politically advantageous. I was never meant to be anything other than your concubine.”
“I do not wish for an advantageous marriage,” he says stubbornly. “I have never cared for politics.”
She continues as though she has not heard him, because plainly he has not thought this though. “And if I did marry you, what then? I cannot provide you with an heir. Any child born to me would be taken to be raised by the sisterhood, you know this.”
“If you had a son they would be permitted to be raised here on Caladan.”
“I cannot have a son,” she scoffs, dismissively, beginning to pace back and forth in front of him, her movements sharp and jerky in agitation.
“We both know you can —” Rey opens her mouth to argue, but he narrows his eyes at her until she closes it again “— don’t lie. I know very well that you can choose what sex the child you bear is. That is common knowledge in the empire, no one has ever thought it a coincidence that every child born to a Bene Gesserit Sister has been female.”
He cannot be serious. “You would have me betray my order? You would have the only family I have ever known shun me?”
“They are not your family, Rey. I would be your family. Our son would be your family. To them you are nothing, but to me you would be everything. ” He is almost pleading with her and his words are said with such sincerity she has to look away, something in her chest aching. Maybe it is longing.
“Our fate is our own. You are capable of thinking for yourself, I have seen that. What do you want? What do you picture for your life? What would you want for your children? Would you condemn them to the same difficult childhood? Would you allow them to be moved like chess pieces on a board, with little agency over their own lives?”
A crystalline tear trickles down her cheek as he steps forward and when he reaches for her again she does not pull away.
His sable eyes soften slightly and he brings an arm over her shoulder, pulling her into his chest, comforting her. Against her temple he murmurs, “I’ll be here when you have decided.” A brush of lips against her forehead and he is gone.
·⚈.
-XX.
As the illegitimate daughter of a great lord, Rey is given to the Bene Gesserit as an infant. Her father is unknown to her and she has no recollection of her mother, though she must have held her in her infancy.
All of her childhood memories are of Chapterhouse, the sand, and the biting wind, and the oppressive heat. The planet that had raised her, and the sisterhood within it, residing in a behemoth fortress among the sand dunes. Her earliest memories are of the Reverend Mother — her ancient face not yet filled with the crags and valleys of age, her back straight, her hands still dexterous, telling Rey that she is different, she is special — more so than the other girls her age.
Unlike the others she is told from infancy who she is meant for — “Years from now, when you are older, you will be given to the heir of House Organa, Ben Solo I of Caladan. From your union you will produce a daughter who will one day birth the Kwisatz Hadarach. The one we have been waiting for for thousands of years will be of your blood-line, Rey. It is an honor.” All the hopes the sisterhood had carefully nurtured and held for centuries are hinged precariously on Rey’s slim shoulders.
To keep her focused, and perhaps, to keep her compliant and dependent only on the Reverend Mother, she is kept separately from the other initiates. She is told repeatedly that she is special, but she does not feel special and sequestered from all the other girls her age, loneliness is her only companion.
To compensate for her lack of social interaction she takes to her lessons with single minded concentration. The Reverend Mother personally tutors her in the principles of prana and bindu and over the years Rey hones the abilities that come with their mastery.
The weirding way becomes her physical outlet. The Reverend Mother, who is well past her prime, oversees her training sessions with the older initiates and by the time she has reached puberty she is able to trounce even the most talented sister in hand to hand combat and excels in fighting with a quarterstaff.
Truth sense comes to her just as easily and is the one skill she does not need to spend hours honing. It comes to her as naturally as breathing — she knows instantly, upon hearing someone speak, what is true and what is not. It is a useful skill to have in the tangled web of the Bene Gesserit, particularly as a younger initiate. She is never fooled by the lies that are woven around her by her sisters on the rare occasion she is permitted to socialize with them and trusts only the Reverend Mother who, while not kind, has never lied to her.
The voice — the art of compulsion, is the one skill she masters that she finds unnerving. Forcing her will onto someone else and demanding their compliance is unsettling, and after experiencing the alien sensation of being obliged to perform some odd task or another firsthand as she is taught to resist the voice, she makes a vow to herself that she will never use these newfound abilities outside of training. The idea of controlling someone, of diminishing their free will, of reducing them to no more than a puppet, is abhorrent to her.
To her eternal frustration, she is never able to master the ability to detect and neutralize poisons. No matter how many she ingests, under the Reverend Mother’s careful attention, she is never able to isolate and create an antidote for a toxin in time. She is force fed theriacics more times than she can count through her childhood.
It is uniquely distressing to be brought back from the edge of death over and over again. Though the Reverend Mother is displeased by Rey’s inability to master this vital skill, she relents after a kriminon gas nearly kills Rey and leaves her heavily sedated for several days as she recovers. Initiates have died during the training in the past — it is not hidden, but talked of openly in the winding halls and common rooms; those who die are seen as weak, and do not deserve the exalted title of Bene Gesserit — but Rey is meant for greater things, she is not allowed to die. It remains as one of her biggest weakness.
When she is old enough to understand, she begins to learn everything about Ben Solo. She learns his hobbies, his temperament, the history of his family and their rule on Caladan. Everything there is to know of him is handed to her over the course of years from their spies. She is given photos of him, and though she has never seen projections of him, does not know the tenor of his voice, and has only seen his solemn face from adolescence into adulthood, she forms an attachment to him. He never smiles in any of the pictures she receives, but she thinks, sometimes, that his eyes are kind.
She finds it odd that she has known since she was very young that their union was fated, decreed and planned for years prior to their births, but he rests oblivious. He does not yet know that he will be given a concubine, does not know that Rey exists on a distant planet, preparing to meet him. Sometimes, in the dead of night when sleep evades her, she thinks he is lucky for his ignorance. The burden of knowledge is heavy.
Through the years she thinks often of her mother — if she loved Rey, if she thinks of her now, if she worries for her future. When she was young she would carefully analyze the faces of every adult sister who was in her presence for more than a few moments, looking for similarities between their features and hers. As she grew she stopped searching for her mother and accepted that she was unlikely to meet her again. The Bene Gesserit had hundreds of strongholds all over the planet, her mother likely resided in a different one if she were on Chapterhouse at all.
Thoughts of her mother sadden her, but she believes with the force of her entire being that there is no other way to live but by the teachings of the Bene Gesserit.. Her blind faith in the Reverend Mother and the sisterhood is what propels her forward.
A few years into her adolescence, but still shy from her majority and when she will be sent to Caladan, she is taught seduction and manipulation. She learns how to control her fertility, she is taught Ben Solo’s preferences, as discovered by their agents, who have no qualms of observing him sight unseen in his carnal endeavors. Rey finds the endless lectures of his predilections to be invasive and uncomfortable, but she has always been a good student so she does not complain and commits herself to learning what she must.
As the culminating lesson of her tutelage, a few months prior to her ascension from initiate to concubine, she is given to an outworlder man. The instant she meets him, she knows he is under the Reverend Mother’s command. His eyes are glassy and unfocused, perspiration beads at his brow, and he is oddly blank faced where he stands in the middle of the room.
For the first time, when the Reverend Mother explains what she is to do, Rey resists. At first she tells her, voice trembling, fingers clenched so tightly she loses feeling in them, that she does not wish to lie with this strange man, that she would prefer to wait but when the Reverend Mother is unyielding, she cries, she begs, she attempts to leave the room, but her path is barred by two sisters and she is trapped.
Left with no choice, she complies. She lies on her back in the center of the bed and lays as still and docile as a doll. The room is silent but for the strained panting of the man as he works above her. Rey closes her eyes, casts her mind elsewhere, and endures.
Reminds herself that she is doing what she must in order to best serve the Bene Gesserit and continue their great work. For thousands of years the Bene Gesserit had been tasked with preserving humanity, to ensure their survival and continued evolution despite the hardships found on each diverse planet in their galaxy.
It is a noble cause, a worthy cause, and she will do as she is told because that is what she was raised for. The Reverend Mother and elder sisters know what is best, she will follow them for the rest of her life because she has no other alternative or option.
Her last months on Chapterhouse are particularly miserable and test her determination. After each session in the room she has come to hate, with a vacant-eyed man she has come to pity — because she knows they are equal in their violation, he has as little choice as she does — and a demanding Reverend Mother, she thinks very much that she would like to escape to some far off planet and shirk her duties and never be seen or heard from again. But she was never taught to rebel, she was taught to obey, to be dutiful, and to be good so she does what she is told and does not protest.
The day she leaves the desert planet of Chapterhouse is her happiest memory. She thinks only of Ben Solo and the mission she has recommitted herself to. As the heighliner heaves itself over the sandy dunes of the only home she has ever known, she keeps her gaze forward and does not look back.
She is meant for something greater.
·⚈.
IV.
Rey avoids him for days.
Cocooned in the safety of her bed, covers tucked in over her head, her world reduced to the humid air of her own breath, and the tight weave of the blanket, she is barraged with a wave of memory — her childhood on Chapterhouse among the sisterhood and every interaction she has had with Ben since she landed on Caladan all those month ago.
The hours speed past as swiftly as any heighliner cutting through deep space as she mulls over his proposal.
She does not know what she should do — he wants to marry her, he wants his heirs to come from her body, he wants her to rule Caladan with him as his Duchess. What he wants of her feels impossible, is impossible, but she is more conflicted by this sudden choice than she should be.
As soon as he had made his proposal she should have immediately rejected it — if she was a good and proper Bene Gesserit as she had been taught to be, she would have. Would have immediately left and sent a missive to the Reverend Mother and taken her council or, maybe, she would have mustered her courage and used the voice and compelled him to do her bidding.
There is so much she could have done in that moment, but — she closes her eyes and pictures Ben — his dimpled smile, his large hands, so capable of harm, but only ever gentle and reverent over her body, all of the happy memories she has made with him — she does not regret her inaction.
Back twinging from her curled position, she flips onto her back allowing the sheets to cover her face — a facsimile of a funeral shroud; fitting for her current feelings of despondent melancholy.
Everything he has told her is the truth — he sees who she is at her foundation. He has been her lover, but he has come to mean much more than that to her and Rey is confident that he is the only person who appreciates her for herself, who cares not for what she can do for him, but craves only her company.
Ben has never said the words aloud, but she knows that he loves her; can see it as distinctly as if it has been written in flourishing script across his forehead. But even if she lacked truth sense, she would know. No one has ever looked at her the way that he does — as though he sees straight to the heart of her and loves her despite it, or maybe, because of it.
Overheating in her cozy tomb, Rey throws off her blankets and sits up in bed, gaze trained out her window. She is so deep in thought she does not see the verdant green of the over-watered trees or hear the cheerful chirping of bright yellow canaries as they flit and glide through the foliage.
The more she thinks of Ben and his feelings for her, the more her heart ratchets up in her chest, and her breath catches in her throat. For the first time in a long time she acknowledges how terrified she is.
His feelings only scare her because they are reciprocated — she had never allowed herself to process her own emotions, but now that she has time and space to think, she knows that she does. She has adored living on Caladan, has loved getting to know the person he hides under a harsh, imposing outer layer. The person who so unabashedly delights in her company and holds her hand on their walks and tells her stories of his happy childhood and all his misadventures in his youth.
Rey loves the Ben who has never forced her to do anything she did not want to do and has listened to her every word, carefully and earnestly because he wants to know what she thinks, because somehow she matters to him. And ultimately, the one who has given her this great choice and has granted her control over her life — something she hadn’t realized she was missing until it was given back to her.
Terror spreads like a poison in her veins, paralyzing her until she is shaking where she sits, every muscle tensed and ready to flee, fine hair on the backs of her arms and neck standing on end. Her breath bursts out in raspy fits and spurts and she buries her head in her hands repeating, "I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain." until her panic begins to subside.
Slowly her heart returns to its normal tempo and she is able to breathe deeply, to center herself. Her legs cramp when she crawls out of bed, protesting sudden movement after days of inactivity. Tentatively she walks the length of the room, bare feet sinking into the plush rugs, her nightgown swishing against her calves as she walks.
Behind the clouds the sun begins to make its descent, casting the world in a strange muted glow. Fear still lingers in her bloodstream, but she allows it to make its way through her. She will not allow herself to be bound by it.
At her vanity she sinks down onto a soft leather upholstered chaise and examines her face in the mirror. Long dark hair, bright eyes that are a dark bronze in the dim light of fading daylight, a pink mouth with a propensity to smile, now bloodless and pursed into a straight line from stress.
When she had moments to herself as a child she would spend hours after her lessons in front of a mirror, as she does now, and would wonder where she came from. If she inherited her laugh and and the shape of her jaw from her mother and her dark hair and the slope of her nose from her father. If she would ever know the two people who had borne her, or, if she would never know.
She gave up foolish notions of a joyful reunion with her parents long ago — her father would not have cared for an illegitimate daughter and though her mother may have cared for her, may have even loved her, she had still given her up. She casts her mind to her childhood, of long days learning the way of the Bene Gesserit, of how alone she always was, of her willingness to do anything, not caring how much she hated it, as long as it yielded her the Reverend Mother’s rare praise.
Can she condemn a child to that same fate? Can she give them up with knowledge that upon their adulthood they will be given to some nobleman on a distant planet and be subjected to his every whim no matter how unpleasant? The Kwisatz Hadarach is but a legend, a story passed down through the ages. What guarantee is there that this mythical person will make an appearance anytime soon? There is no proof save for the Reverend Mother’s words.
How long can the Bene Gesserit operate in this soul-crushing manner? Rey grows weary thinking of the thousands of years this pattern has continued uninterrupted. She clunks her head onto her vanity and closes her eyes. Perhaps, for once in her life, she should what she wants and not as she has been told.
She thinks of holding an infant, small and vulnerable and so easily moldable and then she thinks of relinquishing them to be raised by the people who had raised her. She thinks of their long, lonely life, of their own realization that they will never know her or Ben, will think they have been abandoned as she had been. A hidden part of her balks at the mere idea.
From infancy she had been told what her purpose was, but perhaps it is time to forge a new path because she desperately wants the life Ben has promised her. She wants to stay with him on Caladan and wants to give him a child they will both love above all else and wants to grow old with him and not be afraid of what the future will hold. Selfishly, she wants to hold him close to her always, wants to live a full life with him and forge the family she has never had. She will always be Bene Gesserit, but maybe that is not all that is in store for her, maybe she can be something else too.
Peace washes over her as the sky darkens to full night and the wall sconces turn on, illuminating her bedchamber. Two paths wind before her, a choice awaits her. For the first time she has a hand in making her own future, she will make it one that she will not look back on with regret.
·⚈.
-VI.
Caladan’s air is thick and humid but cool and Rey shivers in the damp air as they descend the heighliner. Her eyes rove the surroundings, storing everything she sees in the back of her head for future dissection and analysis.
From the air she had thought the castle was made of stone, but now that she is closer she can see the beams of wood supporting the ancient structure. Turrets rise so far above she cannot see the top even when she cranes her neck. Butterflies and brightly plumed birds dart through the trees, the air is filled with the chirping of insects, the rush of a fast moving river, rumbling in the distance. There is so much green here, even the castle has long tendrils of ivy climbing up the stone facade. Though Rey had spent years learning of Caladan and knew what to expect, she is still dismayed by what she sees. No description in a book could have adequately prepared her.
A heavy wooden door begins to open, creaking slightly on its hinges and Rey is jerked back to attention. A step behind the Reverend Mother, she watches as the man she had glimpsed from above approaches them. He’s bigger than she had expected — broad shouldered and wide. Throughout her youth she had been given pictures of him and had long ago determined that he was handsome, but he is more alluring than she thought he would be in person.
Brown eyes that glint in the cloud-covered gray light, a face dotted in moles and freckles, beguiling in its asymmetry, lush lips she feels the urge to kiss. This impulse surprises her — she never thought she would look forward to lying with him, but anticipation swirls in her belly, ready, waiting.
Sparks of eagerness tingle down her spine when his ungloved hand envelopes hers. “An honor to meet you, Lady Rey.” His voice is soft and a small smile tugs at his mouth when she looks up at him, dipping into a practiced curtsy, just as she had been taught.
“The honor is mine, my Lord.” Rey hardly hears the Reverend Mother as she makes their introductions, her eyes fixed on the man she had been born for. It is a peculiar feeling — knowing that all her years of schooling have culminated to this moment; that in a few short weeks or months, her life’s purpose will be completed.
Soon after the Reverend Mother leaves, she says nothing to Rey, only gives her one long look before slowly ascending the ramp of the heighliner and she is left alone with the Duke. They watch, unspeaking, as the craft lifts from the ground and quickly flies up into the sky, becoming no more than a speck among the clouds faster than she can blink.
Rey had expected to feel sorrow at this moment of parting — the Reverend Mother had raised her afterall, she should feel sadness at this sudden loss of familiarity — but she feels only relief. For the first time she will be able to live independently, it is freeing.
She glances up at the Duke and finds him already looking down at her, an indecipherable expression written over his face. In time she will learn to read him, but for now, when he extends an arm to her she takes it and allows him to lead her into the fortified castle walls.
That evening after dining together alone in the great hall they retire to a small sitting room. Still unfamiliar with the layout of the sprawling castle, Rey is unsure where they are, but she thinks they are close to his bed chambers. Good.
Dinner had been a wonderful array of local delicacies — freshly caught fish still sizzling from the kitchen, covered in herbs and slathered in lemon butter, an array of different vegetables Rey had never seen before, but who’s rich flavors had delighted every one of her senses, paradan melon’s for dessert, the juicy red interior sticky and sweet, spice wine on the side, delicious, but she allows herself only a few sips — she must stay sharp for the evening to come.
The Duke is not what she had expected. His dour countenance is but an act for in reality he is quick to smile, and seems eager to know her. He asks of her childhood, her interests, her opinions on the political intrigue of Corrino. She answers each of his questions carefully, glosses over her childhood, tells him of the books she had been reading — she had been learning about the spice trade out of Harkonnen before she left Chapterhouse — and has little opinion of politics.
His seemingly genuine interest in her is surprising. The Reverend Mother had reiterated over the years that it was possible that he would want nothing to do with her, in which case she was to be as enticing as she could and use the arsenal of tricks she had been taught to guide him to her bed. But from the single minded focus in which he looks at her, it is unlikely that she will have to do much coaxing, and that too, is a relief.
Now in the sitting room she is drawn to him, a moth to a flame, sitting as closely as she can to him, draped almost over his lap. In the shadowy light of the room, lamps dimmed, some unidentified music, rhythmic and melodious wafting through the room, the air crackles with electricity.
Slowly, he lifts up a hand, as though he does not wish to startle her, and holds her face in his palm, leaning down. In response, she pushes forward and meets him halfway, his plush lips beneath her own, kissing him with a feverish fervor. It is not long before she has crawled into his lap, legs on either side of his, engulfed in arousal and excitement and an intensity so fierce it threatens to consume her.
“Shall we retire, my Lord?” she pants in his mouth, grinding down slightly unable to suppress a moan when he kisses down the column of her throat. With ease, as though she weighs nothing, he rises from the settee, his arms solid beneath her.
“Ben,” he says, voice slightly hoarse and she preens happily that he is as affected as she is. “To you I am Ben.”
·⚈.
V.
The dinner bell has long since rung and the castle is beginning to quiet as the courtiers find their rest after a long day, but she finds him in his study. A wall of glass usually affords a gorgeous view of the serpentine river below, but in the newfound darkness of dusk it is only a fast-moving gray smudge among the muddy banks.
Ben sits at his desk pouring over documents, a hand absentmindedly twisting in his hair, a deep furrow between his brows as he ponders some new problem. As always she moves silently, but he senses her presence and immediately looks up, rising from his seat as she enters the room, patting his hair back into place.
Hesitantly she steps forward, observing him. He looks tired — slight smudges beneath his eyes that denote consecutive nights of fitful sleep. He has worried for me, she thinks, fondness warming her belly. He cares. He has always cared.
They say nothing to each other, but when she sits in the chair opposite him, he mirrors her movements, his gaze focused completely on her. They take each other in, so in tune with one another they blink almost in time, until Rey looks away, nervousness and anticipation curling through her body, as pointed and sharp as the cactus thorns that litter the surface of Chapterhouse.
“I have thought of what you said.” She sits up in her chair, back spear-straight, hands neatly folded in her lap, trying to project a confidence she does not feel.
“And what have you decided?” Ben’s voice is even, but in it Rey can detect a thread of apprehension.
“I will marry you,” she stumbles over the words, unconsciously pressing her fingers together until the knuckles go bone white and she loses sensation.
His response is immediate — he smiles so hard a dimple pops and his dark eyes squint and sparkle and relief floods Rey, instantly calming her. She can’t help but smile back, his happiness is infectious. Before she can blink he is standing in front of her, hauling her up into his arms and holding her close, one big hand cradling her head, the other wrapped securely around her waist.
“I am so happy, Rey. You cannot imagine how I worried that you would dismiss me as quixotic and return to Chapterhouse.” He holds her so tightly it is as if he is afraid she may still be torn from his clutches. Attempting to soothe his anxiety she rubs a hand over his back, the worsted wool of his formal suit slightly abrasive on the delicate skin of her fingertips.
For a time she lets him embrace her and is equally soothed by his touch, but eventually she leans back enough to see his face, her own becoming serious again. “I will marry you, Ben, but you must promise me two things.” Renewed consternation burgeons in her chest, but she pushes forward — if they are to do this, she wants no more secrets between them.
“Anything, Rey. Everything.” She smiles at his solemn tone and love unfurls in her heart, as vibrant and lovely as any springtime bloom and she takes a deep breath before speaking again, regaining her focus.
“I am still Bene Gesserit; you will allow me to teach our children my ways. Not everything, but some things. It is important to me that I pass my abilities on.” She examines his face closely but his expression does not change.
For a moment he thinks, and then he nods, acceptance shining through him. “Of course. Being Bene Gesserit is a fundamental part of who you are, I would never wish for you to cast that aside.”
She squeezes him tightly around his waist in thanks and buries her face into his coat, a wooden button cool against her cheek, gathering her courage for the last thing she will ask of him.
“Promise me that you will not regret this. There are hundreds of people who would be more suitable to marry — promise me that you will not wish that you had made one of them your wife.” Tears fall from her eyes until the front of his coat is soaked in it and she’s hiccuping. “If we do this you have to promise that you will be content in this choice. I couldn’t bear it, if you became unhappy, Ben. The sisterhood will disown me, if you grow to hate me too, I will have no one.”
She doesn't know how long she cries, but eventually her tears slow, and Ben holds her face in his big hands, his countenance grave through her blurry vision. “I will love you long after the last star has been extinguished and our galaxy has been consumed by a black hole, Rey. The moment I saw you that first night, I knew it would only ever be you. I will never regret choosing you, it was never a choice. Between you and some nebulous stranger, it will always be you.”
Fresh tears flow unbidden, but she can’t tear her eyes from him; he is all she has ever wanted, but never hoped to even dream of. “Please stop crying,” he pleads, his mouth twitching up into a small smile as he wipes her tears away with his thumb. “I love you. I will always love you.”
Rey lunges for him, pressing up on her tip-toes so she can reach his lips and then kisses him with everything she is worth, her arms wrapped around his shoulders, bringing him down to meet her. “I love you,” she whispers into his mouth. “Forever, okay? I want to love you forever.”
That night in his bed, he takes his time with her. He undresses her slowly, kissing newly revealed skin as it is exposed, pressing words of adoration and devotion onto each freckle, each scar, each mole: It was always you and I’ll keep you until you don’t want me anymore and I will love you until my bones turn to dust, and maybe, even then, and You are the most radiant person in the galaxy Rey. I will always be grateful that it was you.
When he presses into her, arms bracketing her, creating a hallowed space for just the two of them, she is undone. I love you, she thinks, so overwhelmed with emotion she is briefly speechless, all of her returned words of affection trapped in the cavern of her chest, unable to break free. She rocks against him, a direct counterpoint to his slow, languorous thrusts, burying her moans into the soft flesh of his neck, fingers scrabbling over his shoulders, keeping him close.
They have not been together in this way in months and yet coming together again is as easy as breathing and when she reaches a precipice and hurtles over the edge, dragging Ben with her, through the jumbled pleasure soaked mess of her head she thinks, There you are. I’m so glad I was always meant for you.
Content, they remain wrapped in each other's arms, intertwined so tightly Rey cannot fathom ever separating. A sense of deep tranquility pervades the bedchamber; far below the rushing of the river fills the delicate silence with a soothing grumble, a rare glimpse of the moon, a sliver of a crescent, smiling down on their new found happiness.
An abrupt tug brings her from between that liminal space of drowsiness and sleep and she squeezes a hand between her body and Ben’s, gently prodding at the slight swell of her lower abdomen, concentrating inward.
“Oh,” she gasps, sharp and quick, amazement a thunderbolt through her consciousness. Something is different.
Ben doesn’t budge when she moves under him, only presses his face into the side of her head, unwilling to leave his comfortable position. “What,” he mumbles, a finger absentmindedly tracing the ladder of her ribs.
“I’m not on a contraceptive anymore?” She twists away as much as she can to better see him and, languidly, Ben readjusts his position so he can see her with one somnolent eye. “No. After I told you, I had it removed from your meals. Can you tell the difference?”
Warmth floods her and she draws closer to him until she’s flush against his chest again, right where she belongs. “It is like I can feel a million pinpricks of potential life. Like all I need to do is pluck one and guide it where it needs to go. So many possibilities.”
His arms tighten around her and he sounds moments from sleep when he murmurs, “Whatever you choose, they will be perfect and we will love them.”
“A son first,” she whispers back softly, his quiet breath warm against her temple. “And one day when I’m sure they won’t take her from us, I’ll give you a daughter, too.” Feels the shape of his smile against her forehead and snuggles closer to him. Unyielding hope, boundless affection, and insurmountable joy drown her in a tidal wave of feeling and for the first time she sleeps peacefully, with no fear of what is to come.
·⚈.
IX.
Newborn blues, an impossibly small hand wrapped around her finger, a bundle in her arms, Ben beside her, his large hand supporting their son beneath hers.
She looks at this small person she has somehow created, and sees a glimpse of his future, still indistinct and ill defined, but as clear to her as her reflection in the polished silver surface of her mirror.
“He is the one we’ve been waiting for, Ben,” she says, unable to look away from the sweet visage of her child, his eyes fluttering shut, lashes sweeping over plump cheeks, a rosebud mouth opening and closing, looking to be fed. “It is him. Our Kwisatz Haderach,”
“How can you know for certain?” Rey looks up at him, his eyes steady on their son, already so full of love for this new being. She sees the distant edges of their son’s future; his happiness, and sadness, his successes and his losses. He will lead a good life, this precious baby of hers, a meaningful life, one full of purpose and accomplishment. The knowledge that he will mean a great deal to many, will be supported, and cared for all of his life is a comfort to her. She needn’t worry for him.
She nuzzles against Ben’s face, presses a kiss to his cheekbone. In her son’s future she had seen Ben, had seen him grow stopped and gray with age, her small form always tucked in beside him. Untroubled, she closes her eyes. “I just do.”