Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

An all too familiar mechanic beeping rouses Ben from his sleep, and as he prepares to open his eyes he knows somewhere in the back of his mind he’ll be greeted by the equally familiar sterile white ceiling of the hospital. Most likely Coruscant General, and from the low sounds of a nearby television playing the evening news he can piece together that it’s nighttime.

The real question then is why is he in the hospital, he wonders, and the unfamiliarity of for once not knowing the answer to something is barely more irritating than the slow ache in his side that’s making itself known. Ben imagines the ache would hurt a lot more if not for the weightless sensation of his body and the fog around his head ameliorating any severe pain. He gently wiggles his toes to check for feeling, but groans with regret when they dislodge the blanket and allow a cold breeze through. There’s quite possibly nothing worse than cold toes and he flexes his feet in attempt to coax the blanket back over them, but to no avail; if anything, the blanket migrates further up his legs.

Before Ben can pry his dry eyes apart to suss out the state of his chilly toes, the door to the room quietly opens and closes as someone shuffles in, bringing with them a bloom of caffeine that wets his parched mouth just ever so. Nevertheless, he wills himself to relax to avoid being caught by whoever it is bothering him, especially if it’s the hospital staff. Better they putter through their rounds than pester Ben with inane questions.

The person approaches the foot of the bed and places the drink down on the overbed table. Ben inwardly groans and readies himself for prodding, but instead of hands on his front they busy themselves with securely tucking the blanket back around his feet. Once the grateful deed is done and his toes are beginning their reheating process, an uncharacteristic ‘thank you’ almost ruins his charade but is stopped when a hand runs a firm thumb up and down the arch of his foot. The feeling is comforting, almost pleasurable, and that even strikes foggy-headed Ben as more familiar than professional, but before he can think much more about the warmth seeping through the blanket said hand is gone.

And instead of continuing to reheat his cold toes, it must wrongly grab the television remote because it changes the channel to what Ben can only surmise to be a singing competition, if the offkey attempt to croon the latest pop ballad is anything to go by.

If there’s one thing Ben hates even more than cold toes, it’s a kriffing singing competition.

Twenty-seven seconds into the tone-deaf cawing and Ben’s had enough that he accepts the certainty of dreaded interaction if only to end a less bearable torture. He blinks open his eyes and greets the afore-predicted hospital ceiling, slowly regaining his visual bearings. Although the ceiling is white, shapes that look alarmingly like naked familial figures dance across the surface to the beat of the song and Ben almost weeps. Kriff, he thinks, they must have put him on the good stuff. Thankfully a curmudgeonly sounding judge hears Ben’s mental plea and cuts off the audition. He brings a weightless hand to rub at the flaky crust that’s gathered around the corners of his eyes before gradually redirecting his attention onto the other presence in the room. With a decidedly womanly figure’s back to him, Ben can only take in the person’s odd, three-bunned hair and rumpled jumpsuit.

“Turn off.” His usual baritone growl sounds more like a rasp as he slurs, tongue feeling misplaced and surrounded by cotton. It must be his floating head’s fault.

The person whips around and is by Ben’s side in a literal blink of his eyes, arresting his entire slight line with bronzed skin, hazel doe-eyes, and a relieved expression. She leans into his space, a gentle, warm pressure against his side, careful not to jostle him. She’s absolutely stunning, he catches himself thinking and at once clenches his eyes to rid himself of the rest of his sleep and whatever asinine fog is over his head for having such a wild thought. He still can’t help but to somehow feel like he knows her.

“Ben, you’re awake,” her lovely accent curls pleasantly around his ears, “How are you feeling?”

“Yes, awake. Fine.” Once again, what would usually sound terse and biting is sluggish and silly due to the slipperiness of his uncooperative tongue. He’s minutely aware of the television turning off and blessed silence that follows. “What happen, nurse?”

That gets a delicately raised eyebrow from her, mouth quirking up to mirror the movement. “Nurse. Really now?” She crosses her arms and coyly tilts her head, a lock of hair escaping a bun. “Do I look like a nurse to you?” They lock eyes and Ben’s mouth suddenly feels much drier than before; his ears heat up under her heady tone and teasing gaze.

The close distance is almost too much for Ben to handle and he averts his eyes downward. Now he takes a better look at her jumpsuit, which is definitely not nurses scrubs. Not a nurse then. His incorrect claim causes the heat from his ears to travel down to his face. She must think he’s an idiot. A stupid, muddled idiot with big ears who wants nothing more than let his body float away.

“What happen’d to me?” he mumbles, staring resolutely down at where his feet are encased under the blanket, just like he likes it. How did this person know how he liked it? He remembers the comforting stroke of the hand — her hand. He waggles his feet back and forth in another uncharacteristic bout of nervousness, watching as the blanket undulates with the movement.

“You’ve just woken up from surgery.” The once heady tone takes a sharp turn at this reveal and he dares to look back at her. It’s like staring into the sun, he thinks, unwavering and riveting. “You do realize you’re supposed to say when you’re not feeling okay, right? Not let someone find you collapsed in the loo.” Even though he knows she’s berating him, and somehow feels a niggling of contrition, Ben can only bring himself to care about how her accent is sharp and sultry. “Your appendix burst at work, you utter moof.” Her brow furrows and mouth downturns; he doesn’t like that one bit. But on the other hand—

“My ‘pendix burst? Izit okay?”

That shocks a bright laugh out of her. “No, Ben, I dare say your appendix is not okay. But the doctor took it out, so no need to fret too much.”

“They took it?” His voice whines and sounds undeniably foreign to him, but he feels bereft and justifies the reedy pitch of his inquiry. He pushes the blanket down and paws at his hospital gown, trying to see where they cut into him to steal his appendix. However, before he can manage to figure out how to even get around his gown to see his stomach, a hand that’s becoming quickly familiar reaches out and smacks his hands away, pushing him to lay back. Ben gawps at the audacity of such a slim hand, while an unassuming band around her ring finger glints at him.

“Stop that. Leave your stomach alone.” He can tell she’s reigning in the remainder of her mirth, eyes dancing across his face. “The doctor’s off doing other doctor things, but I’m sure she’ll be happy to help you find your appendix when she’s back. And if you ask nicely.” An impish grin appears.

Before he can protest her rude treatment — definitely not a nurse; terrible bedside manners — the same hand reaches up to brush his fringe out of his eyes, and for some unknown reason that he isn’t going to try to understand right now, he can’t help but let them flutter close at her touch. Gentle fingers comb tenderly through his nest of hair, tucking some behind his ear, before following the curve of his jaw and coming to cradle his cheek. The meat of her thumb catches on his stubble as it glides back and forth under the hollow of his eye, quieting the fog in his head but increasing the weightlessness of his body. He doesn’t know how long her ministrations go on for, but he secretly hopes she never stops. There’s nothing else in the world right now but the branding heat of her palm on his face. Ben relaxes into her hand and lets out a small content sigh, feeling himself being pulled back under.

A vibration near his thigh jolts him from his lull and he pathetically moans when the wonderful hand slips away. Maybe if he keeps his eyes closed like before she’ll start her caresses again.

“That was Poe. He said he’ll be back with some ice chips soon enough.” Her voice whispers near his ear, her petting resumes and he feels himself begin to drift again.

Wait.

Poe?

Poe, he knows.

This woman, he still doesn’t know.

His eyes fly back open and he’s staring back into warm hazel depths, his head back in that irkingly stubborn fog. “Who’re you?” He squints up at this distractingly beautiful woman, trying so hard to place her face.

The woman huffs in response and tugs on his ear. “Ben, I’m your wife.”

Kriff.

What?

“What?” Ben drops back down into the hospital room and is vaguely aware that his mouth is gaping open and he’s buzzing from every pore at this declaration.

She’s his wife? He has a wife?

His eyes rove over her face with renewed fervor. Up close he can take in the faint smattering of freckles dotted across her face, ones he’d like very much to trace; there’s a delicate lash stuck to the side of her nose that he can’t formulate words to tell her that she should pinch it and make a wish on; a smear of something black on the curve of her ear; her nose is lovely. She’s beautiful.

“You’re m’wife?” he blubbers. The entire length of his body burns like a livewire at their every point of contact with his wife’s body. His wife. He has a wife. “You can’t be m’wife. You’re… too pretty,” he lamely trails off. Way to go, Ben, he thinks, way to go now she’ll probably want to divorce you for your stupidity and big ears.

She throws her head back and lets out a throaty laughs and Ben flushes again at how the sound makes his body tingle.

Then she reaches down and brings his attention to his own hand, where a corresponding ring sits on his own finger. It winks at him in the overhead fluorescent lights and suddenly it’s like the floodgates burst open and even though he subconsciously knows he should block it back up, Ben can’t stop himself.

“You marri’d me? I got to marry you?” He doesn’t even care anymore how pathetic he must sound. He’s hit the jackpot.

“Yes, hard to believe the honor is indeed all yours.” She smirks and a dimple appears.

“How long?”

“Long enough.”

“Have we kissed yet?”

“Many times.”

“... Sex?”

“What do you think?”

“Let me see your face again — your teeth are perfect.”

She huffs for the second time, but this time flushing under the compliment. “I can’t believe this is happening,” she mutters.

“You can’t believe? I can’t believe.” Ben runs a hand through his hair, a ghost of Rey’s action. “I’m marri’d you.” He suddenly feels too big for his skin, which is still touching her skin. The heat from her body radiating to every point of his.

He lets the weight of this reality he gets to live in settle in his bones, pulling his attention back to where his sausage fingers are currently intertwined with his wife’s delicate ones, which are stroking a soothing pattern over his pulse. They fall into a lull, beeping filling the room. Ben feels like a nervous schoolboy all over again.

Before Ben can regret anything else that comes out of his mouth, the door bursts open and in walks Poe, with a cup of ice chips and a sleeve of saltines in hand.

“You’re awake!” Poe’s face breaks into a giant grin. “How’re you feeling?”

“Poe! This is my wife!” Ben shifts towards his friend as he rounds the bed.

Poe deposits the cup and sleeve onto the table and tilts his head. “Yes... Rey is your wife.”

Rey.

Her name is Rey.

Ben feels a giddy highness bubble in his chest.

“I am marri’d to her!” he stage whispers, eyes going wide. He still can’t believe his luck.

Poe snickers and looks at Rey, who is looking fondly at Ben.

“He’s been like this since he woke up. Should we get the doctor?” Rey motions to get up, but Ben tightens his grip on her hand.

Poe maneuvers around the bed to unearth his phone from where it was nestled on the side table, face gleeful. “No... no need, he’s fine.” He walks back to the foot of the bed and pushes the cup of ice chips over to Rey, “He’s just thirsty, Rey.” His eyebrows waggle salaciously with innuendo, “Feed him some ice.”

Rey eyes the phone in Poe’s hand and shakes her head, but obligingly picks up the cup and scoops out a glistening ice chip. She raises the dripping piece of ice to Ben’s open, waiting mouth and slides it in.

Ben’s eyes darken and Rey flushes, wiping the trail of water off his lip with a gentle thumb.

The ice rattles in Ben’s mouth as he slowly closes it. He clenches his jaw and the ice crushes between his molars. Something in his belly aches and he knows it’s not from his incision.

He looks over to Poe, who looks gleeful from his angle, phone level to Ben’s face.

“I’m married to Rey.”

———-

“—and then he chokes!” Poe guffaws, not for the first time, shaking so hard the red laserpoint in his hand zips across the projector screen in his elation.

The whole entertainment room reverberates with laughter as the video zooms in on-screen Ben’s face, dopey and all smiles, looking reverently at on-screen Rey.

A weeping Leia is holding onto a hunched over Han, whose back is shaking with the force of his own laughing. Finn is halfway off his couch, gripping his side. Rose isn’t much better off, cackling. Chewy’s head is thrown back, shoulders bouncing. Luke is almost choking on his snorts.

In the video, Ben reaches for another ice chip — or is he going for Rey’s hand? — only to knock the cup into his lap, causing another roar of laughter to break.

Off-screen Ben growls and prepares to lunge over the two rows of couches in front of him to get at Poe, who at least has the awareness to crouch down, but Rey manages to hold him back. She pulls his broad frame back to the safety of their shared back row of couches, where Ben wanted to skulk away from the rest of the audience of family and friends, wrapping her arms around him.

Ben glares at Poe, who’s resumed his running commentary, slouching against Rey. “I can’t believe his phone battery lasted for so long,” he grumbles, crossing his arms.

Rey snorts into his hair, laying a chaste kiss.

“Well, if you’d like,” her accent curls low and familiar around his ear as she whispers, “We can claim your incision hurts and go back home,” a hand sneaks downwards, much farther past where Ben’s scar is, “Where I can be your nurse for real.”