Rey loses track of time entirely, forgets about everything that isn’t how they fit into each other’s arms. She has never been held like this, not once in her entire life, but she knows that nothing could ever come close.

Lost as she is in this embrace, she doesn’t hear the porg until Ben draws her attention to it. She breathes in deeply against his chest before turning her head and looking down at the creature. It lets out a warbling sound up at her, and she smiles.

“Why? It can’t be because of their soulless black eyes,” she says sarcastically, before using the Force to nudge the animal gently away from them. It waddles off and Rey pulls back only enough to look up at him, feeling calm and refreshed.

His mouth is lifted in the barest hint of a smile, and she lifts one hand to touch her fingers to his chin, letting them glide upward to briefly rest at the corner of his mouth.

“Somehow I just knew,” she says quietly, sounding almost shy as she pulls her hand away from his face, “that you’d have a nice smile.”