WHO: Ren & Fen WHEN: Saturday, January 25, following the events of this. WHERE: Their room, Physical Kid's Cottage. SUMMARY: Ren tells Fen about his updated memories. WARNINGS: Discussing character death.
Ren had decided that he probably ought to take one of the potions maybe even before he took coffee that morning, and he'd sent Eliot after one of them, while he returned to tell Fen about what had happened. Over their time together, he'd told her pieces, but he also at times knew there were holes in what she knew. It didn't matter, typically, not in the day to day here. And Fen had never pushed him for those stories. He suspected part of this had to do with being Fillorian, and the ways that Fillory treated things, maybe, but at this moment, he was trying to figure out exactly how to tell her what had happened at home, or maybe equally importantly, which pieces of that she should know as his wife.
And maybe there were other things, additional things that had happened in that year that he remembered now, that he could tell both her and Eliot together. There was a half picture of him sandwiched between them in the bed and he could tell them both at once, some of the events of the war and as him as the Supreme Leader of the First Order, and Palpatine…
His mind was finally beginning to wrap around some of the things that had happened more fully and he couldn't help but wonder if Rey was feeling as off as he did. That was a question he could probably ask her easily, but he kept his questions to himself, instead pushing the door open to the bedroom.
"Are you awake, Fen?"
She was, and didn’t want to be. It was the lack of loud snoring that gave her away, really. Fen missed sleeping on her stomach. The baby woke her periodically throughout the night, large and strong enough to occasionally kick her awake.
The rest of the bed was now empty. Ren and Eliot had already gotten up to start their day. Fen groaned, snatching the pillow next to her to cover her face. It was in that liminal space between wake and sleep that Fen wasn’t her characteristically optimistic, bright self.
The response was enough to pull Ren a little out of his own self-pity and grief, which was in the end maybe exactly what he needed to do. Not that it wasn't still there, and not that it wasn't still very overwhelming, but knowing that his wife needed him to maybe not just be focused on himself - well, it was bewilderingly comforting.
Or maybe not so bewildering. Everything that had happened in Tumbleweed with Eliot first, and then Fen, had been a symbiotic series of them reaching out to Ren and him reaching out to them in turn. And that, more than anything else in that burst of memories from home, felt achingly familiar. Rey had reached out, his mother had reached out, and he'd had to respond in turn, and it had shifted everything.
He sat down, on the edge of the bed and reached over to slide a hand over her abdomen. He could feel the Force strong in the child that she was carrying and Fen strong and bright and grumpy in the Force. He tilted up the edge of the pillow so that he could lean into have a kiss on her forehead.
"I got memories from home," he told her softly, and then after a moment's hesitation, he pulled the covers back and slid underneath them, careful so as to not jostle her too much.
Memories. Fen pulled the pillow from her face, hair mused and eyes puffy (though at this point everything felt puffy). Her voice was still groggy from the late morning. “Everything okay?”
Fen blinked the sleep from her eyes and reached with her hand to hold his from his new space under the covers. It was then she noticed his face, her free hand tracing the spot where there had once been a scar. She smiled. That seemed like a good sign?
There was something almost startling about the touch, but she was smiling, so he smiled back at her, and took the smile as an invitation to wrap himself around her gently. "I'm here, and with you and Eliot, so yes," he ventured. "At home… not so much, but here, it's fine." He'd be fine. He was going to take the potion, and he'd figure it out - he'd be fine - and they'd have their baby and what was home in a galaxy far far away wouldn' reach them here. He pressed lips again to her forehead, and wrapped a hand around her abdomen: He was going to be a father after all.
He sighed, and closed his eyes trying to figure out how to say things. "I went to help Rey defeat the Emperor," he told Fen. "She healed me," he opened his eyes, and his hand went to his scar, "and then I went to help her. The last thing I remember is that I was weak, but that I was going to try to heal her. Rey said I succeeded."
There was so much more, but sometimes he realized there were still things he hadn't really told Fen because they hadn't come up here in Tumbleweed, because the life he'd built here with her and Eliot - they didn't matter. "Eliot's going to look for a potion for me," he whispered. "But I'm alright. Tired, but alright."
Fen watched her husband’s face closely, trying to interpret his meaning. “But that’s good, right?” Ren said things weren’t good at home. But he was healed and he apparently helped someone else and Rey seemed like a nice enough person.
So what was she missing?
Her eyes closed when she felt his lips on her forehead. “Not being tired, I just meant everything else. You said that wasn’t good at home, but… I’m confused.”
Ren quirked an eyebrow in her direction, and for a moment he was silent. He didn't want to say the words out loud, but Fen deserved to know, just as Eliot had. He might not talk to anyone else about it, but Fen and Eliot needed to know, and Rey would know, and that would be enough for a bit. He pulled in a breath, and explained a bit, about healing in the Force, and how it drained energy, explained how the Emperor had drained some of his, and some of Rey's, and how he chose to try to save her. "That's the last thing I remember, but Rey remembers more," Ren said quietly. "I do save her, but I- don't make it," he breathed out. "The Emperor is defeated though, mother's Resistance defeats the First Order, so in that sense - it's good."
Fen’s eyes opened, her expression softened. Her fingers combed through his long hair as she considered his words.
“I’m so proud of you,” she whispered. She smiled sweetly, holding his gaze. “But if you do anything like that here and leave me, I will find a way into the Underworld and stab you.”
Fen leaned in and kissed her husband’s lips.
The moisture at the edges of his eyes at her words was somewhat unexpected, as was the lump in his throat as she said it. Maybe he'd needed to hear that from Fen, or maybe, just from someone. And the potential for any real tears was immediately pushed away from her follow-up sentence and he laughed, he couldn't help it.
"I'll keep it in mind," he murmured. "I wouldn't want to risk your knives being turned against me." Sure he had the Force, but Fen was a fighter even if she didn't have magic, or the Force on her side, and really, if he and Eliot and Fen needed to defend something, he'd assume they'd be pretty well situated to do so. He met her kiss, and pulled his hands up to slide against her neck, under her hair.He had a life here, and he wasn't alone.