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— I.When Rey finally sees him again, it’s different. He sits across from her, head in his hands. He’s trembling.
The quiet sounds of his weeping lights a fire inside of her.
She tries her best to diminish the flame. She fails. “...Ben?”He looks up surprised, and the light of her cot shines off the tears on his cheeks.
His bloodshot eyes flicker closed, open.
He straightens his back, grips his knees white-knuckled, and takes a deep breath. “No.” The connection is severed, and Rey finally exhales, not realizing she was holding her breath as their eyes locked.  That’s the first time Rey sees Kylo Ren since Crait.
It is not the last. — II.The second time they connect, Rey lays in her bunk, trying her best to rest her mind. She closes her eyes and listens to the low hum of the ship. She imagines the energy of the machine, gliding through wires and power boxes. She puts her hands flat on the bed, and focuses on the ever so soft vibration. She remembers the same feeling, sitting on a boulder at the edge of a cliff over the ocean. She focuses on this memory, visualizing the sky before her, the waves crashing up on the shore below. The pattern of the waves, gently moving across the water until it finally breaks against the rocky surface. She imagines black waves, gently falling over his face as he grits his teeth, running his saber through the heart of Snoke’s guard- No. No no no-She opens her eyes and there he is, sitting by her feet at the edge of her bunk. He’s fidgeting through a data pad when his breath hitches and he looks up, out across the room, and then finally to his right, where his cloak rests carefully by her foot. Their eyes lock.
She pulls her blanket closer to her chest, her breath irregular and her heart pounding, she feels it in her fingertips, her muscles, her teeth. He sucks the air between his lips and turns back to look at the data pad. “It wasn’t Snoke then, connecting us.” He whispers. His face is illuminated by the blue screen in his lap, and the skin around his eyes looks more shallow then ever before. She doesn’t know what to say. Any words that come to mind get stuck in her throat. She looks over at her lightsaber on her nightstand, and while still staring at him she slowly rests her hand on top of it.
His eyes turn to focus on her fingers, tightening around her weapon.“Will you kill me, Rey? When the time comes?” His face looks pale, and so empty.She feels the tears rush to her eyes, quicker then she can control, and she turns away from him, stopping her cry mid track. Staring at her own hand on the lightsaber, she slowly loosens her grip. She exhales sharply through her nose, puts her hands to her sides and sits up away from him. “What is this?” She whispers, her voice breaking. Her hope for him, broken. He turns to her.“If I knew how to stop it, I would.” A long silence looms above them as they both stare into each others eyes.(Hazel, with flecks of gold, ridges of green. They haven’t changed.)She hears the thought in his voice, casted in her mind, as solid as the man who sits in front of her. It makes her stomach drop, and she feels herself melt into her bunk, into the floor, through the ship and out into the stars. It ruins her. Can he feel that? Her mouth opens to speak, but no words leave it. He looks back down to his data pad, and back out in front of him, sighing softly. (I want those eyes to be the last thing I see before I leave this life.) Rey crumples into herself, pulling her knees to her chest. Does he know she can hear him, so loudly, so bold and honest? “Are you trying to sleep?” He asks casually.So, no. He doesn’t know she can hear these impossible truths. “I- I was.” It comes out in a croak and he turns to look at her. She quickly wipes the tears from her cheeks and tries to ground herself as well as she can. “But you’re crying.” “Then, we’re even now.” He huffs slightly, and stands up, looking down at her. A silent moment passes between them, and then he turns away. The connection is severed and a wave of relief hits Rey as she lets herself break down, her tears falling freely, her muscles tremble around her. She does this until she feels restless, and before closing her eyes, she pleads with the Force to keep him from her dreams tonight. Finally, she lets sleep overcome her, and the Force allows her this. One dreamless night. — III.The third time she sees him, she sits on the floor of the refresher shower, letting the hot water cover her skin, burning, burning like the sand under her toes in the Jakku dessert. Burning like the heat of scorched First Order tapestries, ashes of his past landing gently on her skin, and burning. Everything went up in the flames that day. He had rid of his master but he couldn’t leave the legacy behind. She thought she could save him, and she couldn’t. That fact burns the hottest, stings the most, and the water of the refresher can’t overpower it, no matter how far to hot she turns the knob.So, she soaks in it. In little moments like these, when alone, she lets herself become overwhelmed with memory, finally giving into the Force. Letting it run free with what could be or what should have been. She hopes if she embraces her mistakes that the Force will relax on her. Sometimes it works, and other times, well-“Rey.” She sighs at the sound of him. Her head spinning with regrets, and grief, after truly mourning for the future that could have been, she’s exhausted. When she looks up at him, naked and spent, she rests her head against the tiled wall behind her. Her heavy lidded eyes lock with his for a moment and then off into a corner of space. Her voice comes out in a weak grunt.“I’m so tired.”She crosses her legs tighter and her knees toward her chest, to cover herself. For a brief moment she realizes this is the first, and perhaps only time Kylo will see her naked. But she doesn’t care to look alluring or to even look modest. She covers herself as best she can and then relaxes against the wall. She watches the steam rise from the skin of her knees. Her wet, matted hair falls to the front of her face as she rests it against her legs and sighs. “I’ll leave you be.” He whispers. “Thank you.” She breathes with relief falling over her, and then, a sudden pinch on their bond causes her to look over towards him. Oh.She can’t help but feel taken aback by the look on his face, the mark of her lightsaber along his cheek, the moles dotting his skin, the utter loneliness that flows out across his signature. He comes to stand in front of her, a foot away, his hands clenching, unclenching, and clenching again.
“I-“
He snaps his jaw shut quickly before he falls to his knees.
He looks down at his open, leathered gloved palms, resting on his thighs. He’s shaking. “I’m tired too.” He chokes.The connection severs despite themselves and she reaches out faintly with her fingertips, for the spot where he knelt in front of her.Her heart pounds against the inside of her ribcage. “Enough of this!” She yells out, to the air around her, to the Force flowing throughout her mind.This was the final time he would see her with the eyes of a person whose future was stolen from her, she decides. It wasn’t taken and even so, nothings really gone, anyways. She can fix this. She will.And that decision, that final realization, was the beginning of her new found hope. The beginning of the end.—The news that Kylo Ren was missing came in waves, small whispers, and terrified planning. Rey first heard it from Rose, who found her and pulled her to the side one afternoon in the mess hall of the base.
“Did you hear?” She whispers.
“Hear what?”
“Kylo Ren, he’s disappeared. The First Order can’t trace him.”Rey’s mouth agape, she stumbles to collect her thoughts, let alone speak. “I- No one told me... I-“ Rose fidgets with the zipper of her jacket, looking up at Rey with worry.
“I’ve been hearing rumors- some say Hux had him killed-“
Rey almost snorts at that, knowing fully well he’s alive, with just a clench of her fist, his signature burns in the back of her brain. He’s alive. She keeps her face neutral as she listens on to Rose. “Others say he’s coming for us, alone this time. And some people think that he finally had enough and just shipped himself away. At least that’s what Finn thinks.” She waves her hand in front of her face, and then grabs ahold of Rey’s shoulders. “Listen. If he comes here-“
Rey holds her hand up in protest. She already knows what’s she’s going to say. “I’ll be ready for him.” Rey reassures. “You don’t need to worry.” Rose exhales, and gives her a small nod. Rey gives Rose’s arm a gentle squeeze.
“Excuse me. I have to- I’m going to lay down.”
“O-okay.”
As Rey turns away, Rose grabs a hold of her hand quickly. “Rey?”
Rey looks back over her shoulder at her. “Mm?”
“Poe relied it to Leia about 10 minutes ago. I’m sure she’ll want to speak with you soon.”
Rey nods and then she’s gone, off to her bunk.
She doesn’t stop to look back at Rose or to talk to any colleagues as she hurries down the halls, her fist still clenched, his signature still burning bright in the background.
As she reaches her door, she hovers her hand over the entrance pad, and breathes deeply. When it opens for her, she looks in and he’s sitting on her bunk again. He looks up at her quickly, and she slips inside, and the door wheezes shut fast behind her. Her back rests against the door, and she doesn’t move, or speak first in fear the connection will snap. He looks relatively healthy, apart from his clothing in a slight tatter, his cloak ripped and looking longer along the floor of her cot. After what feels like a lifetime of deep breathes, she finally moves off the door, and walks towards him, until she’s standing a foot from him. His eyes never leaves hers, and when she stands above him, he looks broken, but relieved. She watches as he raises his gloved hand and reaches out, to her arm, which he hesitantly touches and glides his hand down. Every nerve in her shivers but she doesn’t recoil. He shifts down until her hand is in his. He holds it gently for a moment, looking at her with a sense of longing that makes her almost wince. He loosens his grip until her hand slips back to her side and he rests his own on his knees and looks down towards his feet. “Ben... where are you?” She asks in the kindest voice she can muster. “This has to end.” He whispers.
He looks back up at her, his face looking gold in the soft light of her cot, and he looks almost content. It’s a strange emotion to feel radiate off him. Then, for the first time, Rey see’s Kylo Ren smile. A genuine, heart warming smile that practically knocks the wind from her chest. It makes her eyes water, because for some reason, it feels very, very wrong.“Rey-“She knows his plan before it even spills from his lips.“I’m coming to you, so you can kill me. Please.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

When the connection breaks, Rey falls to her knees. “Why?” The question rings out in the cold air of her bunk, and rests heavy in her chest. He broke the connection before she could ask it, and left her with trembling hands and a need to grab ahold of him for dear life. Before she could even reach out, he was gone. How could he think she wants to see him die by her hand? And then again, how could he not? The knowledge that one would be the end of the other has always been there, since they first laid eyes on each other. Dark rises and light to meet it. That’s the way it’s always been. “WHY?” She screams out this time, falling back against the bottom of her bed, cradling her knees to her chest. She was supposed to help him. He could’ve turned, he could’ve been brought back to the light, side by side with her. She tried. When she saw him fall to his knees in front of her, so tired and empty, she saw him again. She saw Ben Solo. And she decided she wasn’t done with him, wasn’t going to let him see her hopeless. She would be strong for him. And now, in such a short time, it’s too late.He’s given up entirely.Rey breathes in and out, trying to control the panic that rises in her chest. She looks up to the ceiling, and then closes her eyes trying to visualize the stars outside the ship, the vast nothingness around it. She feels lighter for a moment. She thinks of Luke, and of Han, then of Leia. Leia.How is she going to face her? She knows soon Leia will ask her if she’s made contact with her son, and Rey will have to explain to her why he’s coming to them. That he’s surrendering for all the wrong reasons. That he’s making her-He’s not making her do anything. When Rey snaps back to her body, trembling, alone on the floor of this bunk, that’s when the anger sets in. “Selfish.” She grits through her teeth.
‘You don’t care what will happen to me if I do this. You don’t care where I’ll end up.’ She stands up and paces.
‘The First Order will be controlled by Hux, and you will be out of the equation, not having to deal with any of it! Is that what you want? To leave me alone?’
She thinks of her parents, and again, thinks of Luke.
“Like EVERYONE ELSE!” Her eyes close and her mind goes blank, the back of her eyelids a raging orange; burning her thoughts. Her nostrils flare and as she inhales and exhales, she feels it pulling her in.She smashes the lamp by her bedside table with a jerk of her hand to the opposite wall, and heaves. Her eyes rip open and she looks down at the shattered glass and back at her hand. “No.” She whispers to herself. The Dark Side feeds on you when you are most vulnerable. It clouds your thoughts and eats you alive. It takes every horrible thought and amplifies it until it sits at the forefront. “No.” She tells it again. She steadies her breathing and curls into her bunk. She imagines being Ben, thinking of his parents, thinking of Luke, just as she did a moment ago. She understands the rage. And she imagines Kylo Ren, letting that feeling wash over him, just as she had, but never letting it leave. She rests her head back on her pillow and stares across at the broken parts of her bedside lamp. She contemplates calling to him again, having him sit in front of her, alive, even if it’s just in silence. Neither of them would have to be alone. But, the air in the room reeks of anger, of sadness, and she knows he would feed off of it like a leech. So, she decides against it.Instead, she decides to make a plan.-“You’re taking him... to Ach-too?” “Just- at least for one day. A trip.” Rey walks closer to Leia, and sits down on the side of her bed. “And you think one day with you will stop him from...driving you to do this?”Rey swallows the question down, and looks up at Leia with a sparkle that mimics her own. “It has too.” She whispers.“Rey, I hope you know what you’re doing here. If he’s finally feeling the weight, the guilt- I don’t know if he-“ “That’s why I have to do this.” She tenses her fists to her knees and breathes in. “He should feel the guilt. It’s important. But, he can’t give up.” Leia sighs. “This isn’t your responsibility, Rey.”For some reason Rey can’t identify, this makes her face turn hot. Her anger rises in her throat and trying to hold it down she seethes. “Isn’t it? Who else could help him? Who else hasn’t given up on him?” She looks Leia in the eyes as the last part of her statement hovers over both of them like a dark cloud, and Rey wishes she had just shut her mouth before that ugly truth escaped it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.” She whispers. “No, no. You’re right. I lost all hope for him. Every time I felt him pulled to the light, he...disappointed me.”“He has no guidance. His only master for so long was Snoke, the only voice left in his head was Snoke. How could he have done anything but disappoint you in the end?” “The only voice... until he found you?” Leia asks almost sarcastically, but the words make Rey straighten her back and nod in agreement. “Exactly. Leia, when I first went to him, I thought he would turn to the light, and I was wrong. Instead, he destroyed the one voice who had turned him in the first place. His reasoning for it was... not the best.”
The memory of his proposal flashes in her mind, she can remember the pain in his eyes as he reached for her hand, hoping she would take it. Rey grabs ahold of Leia’s hands with determination.
“But it was the first step in a path to the light I don’t think he even realizes he’s creating. I want to show him.” Leia gently releases from Rey’s hold and brings her hand to her cheek. Rey’s shoulders drop when Leia looks into her eyes, and she can tell from her look that she knows. She knows Rey has felt a pull to the dark side in the past few weeks, and this silent realization passes between them both. “Don’t let him change who you are in the process.” Leia whispers. “I’m afraid... that if I don’t help him now, I’ll never forgive myself.” Her voice shakes as she talks. “If I lose him, I may lose myself. I have to do this.” Leia takes Rey in for a moment. “Okay.”“Okay?” Leia nods. “I trust you can do this.” “I can.” Rey says out loud to reassure Leia and herself. “I need to make a plan... and, I need your help.” “You have it.” A smile springs on Rey’s lips and she nods, hopeful. “Thank you.” She whispers. “I do...have a question, Rey.” “Okay.” “What exactly is... your hope for him? The connection you two have- are you... do you have other plans than just...helping him turn?”Rey suddenly flusters, her stomach clenches as she turns the question over in her mind and Leia must notice the sudden rush of blood to her cheeks, because a small smirk reaches the corner of her lips. “I- I just want...to help him- I-“Leia pats her hand on top of Rey’s and shushes her. “I’ll leave that be.” She raises her hand in defense. “Sorry. Nosy mother.” —-She sleeps on all the words and plans exchanged between her and Leia that evening, grasping with a thread of hope that this works. That it shifts something. She expects after their last exchange, Kylo would be waiting for her in her cot when she got back. When she walked into a empty room, she almost shuddered. And When Rey woke in the middle of the night, she swears she felt a phantom hand brush her forehead, but when she opened her eyes, there was no one, and she fell back into her sleepy daze. The next day, after mess hall, Rey finds Finn waiting for her by her cot door. She knows he’s felt her disconnect for the past week, and when she sees him leaned against the wall outside, her heart drops. He stands, arms crossed, like a petulant teenager, his brows furrowed and his pout making her even more nervous to face him, though she can’t blame him. “What?” She asks as she hovers her hand over her pad, staring towards the door.
Finn leans toward her. “What do mean ‘what?’ Rey? You gotta talk to me.” “I’m fine.” He scoffs.
When the door opens for her and she peaks in, Kylo is nowhere in sight. She exhales with relief. She nods her head at Finn to walk in with her. He slumps off the wall and strides in behind. The door shuts and she scoots into her bunk, and Finn finds a spot across from her and sits. “What’s wrong Rey? You’ve barely spoken two words to me all week. Have I... done...something?” She fiddles with the fabric of her blanket. “No- no. I just...”He leans toward her, and rests his elbow to his knees. “What’s up?” He whispers. “You can talk to me.” “I know.” The blanket falls back and forth through her fingers and her eyes stay transfixed on it. A hand lands on her knee. “Rey. C’mon.”She looks up at Finn, and sighs.
“It’s his disappearance isn’t it? I’ll be right here beside you if he comes. I promise.” “No.” She snaps back, a little more aggressive than she means to, and recoils into herself on the bunk. “I have to face him alone.” Finn leans back into the chair and stares at her for what seems like forever. His breathing coming out in short huffs and the hum of the ship is all she hears in the small space of the cot. She doesn’t know how to explain this to him. So, she retraces her steps to the forest, where Kylo gave Finn his scar. She speaks in a soft whisper, trying to find the right words to begin.“That night... in the forest. It was the first time I truly felt the Force. When our lightsabers clashed together, for some reason everything in me froze. And I felt it...” Finn leans forward and listens intently and she exhales in relief that he gives her his undivided attention. “...but, I felt something else too. A connection was being formed before us. I- I didn’t know what it was but- now... we speak to each other, Finn. He finds me and I find him and it’s mostly out of our control.” “A connection...” He contemplates this. “He...appears to you?” She nods slowly and leans forward, resting her legs over the edge of the bed. “We were told Snoke had bridged our minds but- Snoke’s gone and it still happens. Often.” “He hasn’t hurt you has he?”“No. No, he hasn’t. Just talking.” “Okay, well...I see why you’ve been so on edge lately.” He leans back, but then suddenly his face straightens and he looks out around the room with his brows furrowed. “No, Finn. He’s not here.” Rey waves her hand. Finn lets go of his held breath and nods. “So... what does it mean?”Rey’s body tenses slightly at the question, and she holds onto her knees to stable herself to answer. She looks up at Finn, and they stay frozen looking at one another. She’s contemplated what it means for weeks now, running it over and over in her brain, meditating on it until she’s restless. Dreams about it almost every night, about him. Her voice comes out weak, and slow.“I think... we’re destined to each other.” Finn blinks once, twice. “What?”His head drops and he scratches at the back, tensing up, scratching away at the thought of it. “That can’t be it. Why would the Force put you through that?” It comes out angry, not at her, she knows, but at the situation unraveling in front of her. “There’s still light in him, Finn. I thought, after Crait, that he was too far gone. I was wrong.” The sudden pain in her chest swells, and before she can stop, she’s crying. “I have to help him.” Her tears fall into her hands as she looks down at them, imagining them dropping down as blood, the blood of Benjamin Solo, and thinks of how she will never let that nightmare become reality.
‘He will not bleed because of these hands ever again.’ She thinks.And the last thing Finn says to her, crawling to face her on his knees, grabbing ahold of her and holding her tight, is exactly what she didn’t want to hear. “I trust you know what’s right.” She hopes she does. She doesn’t press on and he leaves her with that, and lets her pull back into her bed, and when the door quickly shuts behind him, she closes her eyes, and calls out to the Force. Show me Ben.—-He appears across from her, just as Finn was moments ago. His feet rest up against the side of the wall, and he lounges backward in the chair, his cloak trailing along the floor and his hair falling behind him. Rey almost smiles at how casual he looks, tossing what looks like an old control, up and down above him.
She clears her throat, and with one final toss he smacks himself in the face with the metal piece, startled by Rey’s presence. He seethes through his teeth as he rests his hand over the landing spot of his face. Rey throws her hand over her mouth to stop herself from bursting into laughter. “Ah.” He turns quickly to a normal position towards Rey, his cheeks a bright red.
“Are- are you ok?” It comes out in the lightest chuckle, and she swears she sees Kylo’s mouth twitch, but he keeps his face neutral and waves the embarrassment away with his hand. She sits up and crosses her arms in front of her. “Well...aren’t you coming here?” She asks in the coolest tone she can muster. “I’m waiting.” He sits back and crosses his arms, in the same fashion as her. “For what?” “For you. To tell me your location, to tell me you’re ready...” Rey snorts. “If you think I’m just going to tell you the location of the Resistance base, you’re mad.” Kylo leans forward, and narrows his eyes. He contemplates her for a moment and then smirks ever so slightly. “I already know it.”“How?” “Just now. I saw it.” He waves his hand and leans back calmly. She leans forward and narrows her eyes, just as he did. “Well, I just saw that you’re full of it.”
He huffs and she lays her head back down on her pillow, and they sit in an uncomfortable silence for a few minutes. She turns over in her bunk so that she lays to face him, and when he looks at her from a few feet away, she feels her stomach fill with a warmth. The same warmth she felt as he told her she wasn’t alone, as their fingertips brushed. The same warmth she felt in the elevator ride to Snoke’s throne room, low in her belly. The same warmth that snaked up her spine and coursed through her legs as she locked eyes with him and he caught her lightsaber like it was nothing, igniting a hole through the guard behind him. The same warmth she felt, alone, at night when she- No. Focus, she tells herself. This was not what she wanted to think about right now. So instead, again, she starts being tactical.“I’ll tell you my location on one condition.”His head perks up and he shifts in his seat. “Which is?” She sits back up, and faces him.
“As soon as you arrive, we leave for a trip. One full sun cycle with me, no questions, and you cannot fight me.” His mood shifts quickly, his eyes grow dark and agitated. “No. I’ll fight you until you end me.” “Then I’ll run. I’ll run from you for as long as it takes for you to just give me that.” She crosses her arms again in defiance, and waits as he gives her an answer. “Why prolong it, Rey? It’s what we both want.” He whispers weakly. What they both want? Why does he get to decide what she wants? Why does he think she wants to so badly to see him die?
But, if he’s finally feeling the weight of everything he’s done, she knows how he could. Who in his mind would want him to die by their hand more than the woman whose his opposite? Maybe the dark side led him to this conclusion, and instead of fighting it, he embraced it, like so many times before. His opposite, his equal. His light. There, in the back corners of his mind she sees it. The small feeling of freedom. That’s something. So, she tries to bring it to the forefront. “You say you’re coming for me, but you escaped the First Order to do so, didn’t you?” He scoffs, and she can feel the connection start to weaken. He doesn’t want her sympathy or her kindness now. But, she pushes through. “Ben. I want to spend one day with you as you are now. As a free man. Please.” The statement causes him to rise from his spot. “Stay out of my mind.”
She tenses, but keeps her look soft, her sentiment true. She doesn’t falter. “Just give me that.” She stares up at him through fluttered eyelashes, pleading with him one last time. He turns his head away from her with another scoff.
Well, then, she’ll tell him what he wants to hear. “If you do, that night I’ll... give you what you deserve.” It felt bitter coming off her lips. Their eyes lock, and he grunts, sitting back down. He rubs his hands up and down his face, scrubbing away at the uncertainty, and nods. “A trip. It’s foolish, Hux is tracking me down at every corner-“ “Ach-Too.” She quickly responds, and keeps her look determined.
His body tenses, but as he contemplates the options, he nods in agreement. Only he and Snoke knew the whereabouts of Luke Skywalker’s hiding grounds, and with Snoke gone before any plan was implemented, its their best chance. “Good.” Her chest burns with excitement at this, but she stays relaxed, and reaches out her hand. “I’ll show you then.” And when their hands touch, he brings his palm to hers, more contact than the first time, and his fingertips brush gently against the inside of her wrist. Her breath hitches. With a focus of her mind she pushes the warmth she feels into the very back of it. Focus. The map of her surroundings unfold in his mind. It was not so long ago, when they first connected their thoughts like this, she thinks. The result this time, will be different. She pours an image through the bond of a vast sand covered spot alongside a large body of water, two large ancient looking pillars, and a cascade of jungle trees behind it. ‘Meet me here. No one will come near you or your ship. I promise.’ She whispers into his thoughts. He nods and releases away from her when he’s sure he knows her whereabouts. He turns in his spot in the chair, and looks as though he enters something in a space above his head. Without looking at her he says “I’ll arrive in five hours.” He pulls a switch in front of him, and with that, the connection splits.She repeats. “Five hours.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Leia kept good on her word. As Rey fumbled with her sash to make it look neat against her torso, she watched as Kylo Ren’s escape transport slowly dropped down, no Resistance solider in sight. It landed with a heavy mechanical thud, and the heat of the steam and combined wind flicked sand into Rey’s hair and face, and dammit, her sashes. For some unknown reason, after their conversation, she found herself washing up more than usual, fixing her buns neatly and tight against her head, pressing her sash with the iron. She even patted a rosy pigment that Rose had left in her refresher, to her lips. Now in one foul swoop, she was covered in sand, dusty and sweat covered. It’s as if her natural state of desert scavenger always had to cling to her, no matter how much she tried. Annoyed, she patted down her sash and pushed her newly formed flyaways away from her face. When the door to the ship opened, and Kylo stepped down into the sand, her breath caught. He was a massive figure, in height and in mere presence. She always seemed to forget, he towered above her. His black clothing was an intense contrast from the white sand and bright yellow sky above them, and his ripped cloak trailed into the sand as he moved. She crossed her arms as he stalked over towards her. He stopped a foot and a half in front of her.
“Hi.” She said cooly. His face barely glanced at her.
He looked up and around their surroundings, covering his eyes from the suns. “Interesting choice for a base planet.” He said flatly.
She just stared up at him as he looked out to one end of the beach to the other, his body casting a shadow over her as he blocked out the suns. She stared at his jaw, the way it work around the word ‘interesting’ and his chest looking long and wide as he stretched his arm to cover the suns. She stared at the scar she gave him under the shadow of his gloved hand. His eyes finally locked down on hers and she had been caught staring, her face flushed and she turned to look off down the beach, crossing her arms even closer to her chest. “At least it’s warm.” “Mm.” “Well.” She looked at her ship behind her. “Shall we?” Kylo nodded. Rey turned on her heel and started walking to the ship quickly, a little too quickly, trying not to walk side by side with this tree of a man. Her fists clenched and unclenched sweat. What was wrong with her? Why was she so nervous? Is it because not only yesterday he was smiling up at her, telling her to kill him? That’s it, probably. It’s not because she’s finally close enough to touch him, or to smell his fresh after shave, or count the moles on his face in great detail. No, it definitely wasn’t that. Definitely not. Focus, Rey. Rey looked at Leia’s small crews handiwork. The ship was rid of any signs of the Resistance, no rebel symbols, no pin stripes. Just a large hunk of metal, one that could easily be mistaken as a passing by trader ship. When she reached the ship she hopped up to the platform, and leaned against the doorway, with him still about 5 feet behind in the sand. As he made his way up, she tried to give him a small smile, maybe hoping some minuscule part of him was excited. He didn’t return it. He just looked down at her for a moment, and then crouched through the doorway. She sighed and looked out one last time at the beach in front of her, his sleek black transport resting there, and then the door hissed as it closed in front of her.—The transport was uncomfortably quiet as she made her way to the front control panels. When she turned the corner to see him already in the pilot seat, she let out a small snort. “Oi.”
He turned to look at her. She pointed at him and then at the co pilot seat. “I’m flying the ship.” She said with a tone of obviousness.He looked her up and down, and huffed.
“I can pilot a ship.”
The memory of her flying the Falcon floods through her mind, and she can’t tell if it’s his thoughts or hers. She retorts with an annoyed glare and finally after a minute, he stands up slowly and slumps into the co pilot seat. She takes a seat next to him, and looks at the holo grid in front of her. Leia had already had the coordinates to Ach-too set in the navigational system. All Rey had to do was pull the lever back and they would rise up to leave. Rey placed her hand over the control and looked over at Kylo. He rested his chin on his fist and stared out the shield in front of him.“Ready?” She asked. He turned to look at her as his eyes narrowed, and quickly looked away back in his resting position. “Mm.” Rey let out a long exhale, and pushed the lever back, as the ship beneath them starting rising. It’s going to be a long 8 hour travel, she thinks to herself as she glances over at Kylo again, watching nonchalantly as the ship rose far above the tree tops. —-For the first 30 minutes of space travel, silence loomed over them like a thick fog, a small pressure rested at the front of their minds as they tried to keep each other out of each others thoughts.
Rey gripped the control in her hand white-knuckled and looked out at the space in front of them, the stars brightly slipping by them as they flew slowly into the vast openness.
Kylo had gotten slightly more comfortable as the minutes passed, laying his head in his hand as his other hand rested lazily on the arm rest between them. Finally, after sometime, Rey speaks up softly.“Why me, Ben?” He looks over at her as she still keeps her face turned towards the stars. “You’re my opposite in the Light. I don’t want to be here anymore, and no one else will suffice in destroying me.” “You’re destroying yourself.” She snaps back a little more harsh than she means to. “Good.” He says flatly. Rey grips the handle a little more tight. Heavy silence creeps over them for a long while again. Rey tries to ease her mind by listening to the ships soft sounds, the feeling of her heart beat, the phantom thumping of what she somehow knows is his heart racing beneath her fingertips. She stretches her fingers opened and close in front of her on the handle. The bond shifts over her and he closes off again, and the feeling is gone in seconds. She glances over to him and sees his hand resting over his heart for a moment as he looks out away from her in the corner window of the ship. Rey purses her lips and looks ahead. Another quiet few moments before Kylo looks to her, “What is this trip?” “I already told you. One full sun cycle with you as a free man.”Kylo visibly wilts at the use of those words again, ‘Free man.’ He was free of nothing, not the First Order, not of all the darkness that lingered over him, or the Light in him that whispers all the terrible things he’s done in great detail over and over. He was not a free man. He was trapped. “Mm.” He grunts back, annoyed. She mimics his noise, and he shoots a look at her, and a corner of her lip twerks up as she reads coordinates on a holo pad beside her. —-A few hours pass in a more comfortable silence, one of them sometimes moving to grab a sip of drink from the ration crates behind them, or using the small compact refresher. Rey starts to feel sore as she realizes how long she had been gripping tightly at the controls in front of her, and when she relaxes her muscles, the sharp pain of a headache shoots in the back of her mind from tensely shutting him out. She puts her hands down on her lap for a moment, and then turns to Kylo. “Can you pilot for a bit?” She asks. He sits up and nods, carefully rising and awkwardly starts switching places. The front of his hips bump against her side for a moment, his gloved hand sweeps against her back, and he quickly pulls it back. She feels them both tense suddenly through the bond, though both try to quickly ignore it and sit in their new spots. Rey’s eyes start to feel heavy soon after they switch, and she curls up her knees to her chest in the seat. She rests her head against it and drifts in and out of sleep for the next hour. Kylo can’t help but glance at her a few times, when she makes a soft noise in her sleep. — When her eyes open finally, she shifts softly in her seat, and looks over at Kylo, who rests his left hand on top of the control, his right elbow rests on the arm rest, his hand is held up to his lips as he plays gently with the skin there, ever so often resting his head back on his fist. He must have taken off his gloves while she slept, she thinks to herself. He looks deep in thought, staring out at the stars in front of him. “Ben.” She finds herself whispering, though she doesn’t have anything to say. He quickly sits up and clears his throat, rests his arm down on the rest casually, and looks over at her.“You’re awake.” She nods and sits up, readjusting and stretching her legs to rest comfortably in front of her. She makes a small yawn, and rubs up and down her arm bands, squeezing at the tight muscles that ache under her skin. She settles back into the seat. She reaches her arm out forward and grabs at the small water canteen she filled, pulling it back to her mouth as her other hand falls directly down next to Kylo’s on the rest. Still sipping distractedly, the back of her knuckles grazes against his, and she slowly takes the canteen from her lips, and places it in her lap. She instantly notices how she didn’t feel a bright buzzing, or the pushing of thoughts between them, as she did when they first touched hands. Absent mindlessly she reaches up and rests her hand on top of his, and brushes her finger tips over his knuckles, looking for some kind of spark in their signature. Nothing. Kylo stares down at his hand and looks to Rey, who watches with soft eyes at her own fingers fluttering on top of his. He doesn’t move from her touch, but his other hand grips the control tighter. He looks away from her and back off to the stars. “Amusing.” He rumbles.
Rey snaps out of her trance and glances up at his profile. His jaw sets. “You think I want you. Is that what this trip is, Rey?” His voice drips with an arrogance that twists Rey’s stomach and she recoils from his skin. She shoots a glare at him, and he smirks ever so slightly. “FN-2187 not satisfying you, then?”
Rey gawks at him and snaps her flushed face back towards the shield, fuming in anger. “Wow.” She exasperatedly chuckles. Then her laugh falls into a thin line and she blurts, “You absolute ship trash!” The end of her comment rises in pitch slightly, and she moves from her seat, walks to the bench by the ration crates and slumps against it in anger. She crosses her arms and looks towards his back. She hears a low chuckle come from him, and when she sees the rise and fall of his shoulders, she breaks. “You were the one begging for me before Snoke’s throne. That. That was amusing.” She grits through her teeth. She sees him straighten up and tense, and she smiles to herself that she got under his skin. ‘Asshole.’ She thinks to herself. She looks down at her hands as she hears the pilot seat turn, and suddenly when the shadow of Kylo’s form stops the light from resting on her skin, she looks up, and he stands in front of her. He clenches his hands as he looks down at her, somberly. “Stop being such a complete ass.” She croaks, the size of him above her slightly intimidating her. “You begged me.”
He kneels down in front of her and scans her face with blank expression. His voice comes out low. “You begged me not to take it in that direction, and your begging failed. What a shame, I’m sure.” The end of his statement rolled off him sarcastically. “You failed. Say it.” He whispers, leaning in slightly closer. The air around them fills with tension, and a heavy pressure hits the edge of her mind as she feels him try to pry open her thoughts. She stares back at him and scrunches her nose, and suddenly with a loud smack, her hand hits Kylo’s cheek, and his head whips off to the side. His mouth falls open with a short growl, and he snaps his face back to Rey’s, his skin reddened where her hand met it, right along his scarred cheek. He grips his hands on her thighs in anger. When she feels the rush of anticipation flow through herself, and hit right between her legs, she feels his blood rush through the bond, and it overwhelms her. She pushes him back hard with the Force, and he falls down to the floor. She stands up over him and crosses her arms once again, and they stare at each-other for a moment. As she turns away, she whispers “No.” and can’t tell if’s directed towards him, or the Force around her. She sits down in the pilot seat and turns towards the shield and to the stars in front of her.
“Don’t speak to me until we get there.” She rumbles.
He sits up and slides backwards up against the wall, as he looks at her shoulders tensing.
Rey’s earlier words cut through his mind. ‘You’re destroying yourself.’
He leans up towards the ceiling, and exhales.He doesn’t move from that spot, and the rest of the journey to Ach-too is silent. ——He awakes with a small shove of his leg fron Rey’s boot. “We’re here.” She says flatly. He adjusts his eyes, sits up and nods, not realizing he fell asleep. He slowly stands up and watches her walk to the ration crates and scoops one up in her arms. She turns towards the door and faces him. There’s a short beat between them before she says “Well, make yourself useful.” He narrows his eyes and brushes past her, scooping up a crate in a similar fashion. When they step off the ship, the air immediately rushes to Rey’s lungs, and a feeling of nostalgia rushes over her. Also regret, guilt. She shifts the crate in her arms to keep her balance. She sees the small circle of huts in front of her, and remembers following Luke, in and out of them, like it was yesterday. The distance squawk of a Porg shakes her out of her trance, and she pushes forward off towards the structures. She doesn’t look back, but can hear the crunching of grass and rock beneath Kylo’s feet behind her, and feels a small relief wash over her that he’s actually here. She pushes the feeling aside and stomps a little too loudly up to one of the huts in particular. Kylo stops beside her. “Is this where you stayed?”
She doesn’t respond, and focuses her eyes on the door handle, and pushes it up and open with the Force. She walks in and breathes in the smell of wet stone, a familiar scent (It must of just rained, she thinks), and exhales. She notices Kylo do the same thing, as he places the crate to the floor. He looks around and then locks eyes with her. “This is where you were when we touched. I sense it.” She huffs and drops her box next to his. “I thought he destroyed it.” Kylo continues as he touches the stone wall. Rey makes her way to the slab where she would sleep, and sits. “The care takers fixed it, I imagine.” She runs her hands over the stone beneath her.
“There are others here?” He asks tensely.
“They’ve kept the Jedi structures here sound for centuries.” She repeats Luke’s words out loud. “They’re harmless.” She adds. She notices the tension in his jaw, but ignores it. She stands up and walks to the crates, bending down and starts rifling through then. Kylo sits down in the spot she just rose from and rests his hands on the stone just as she did. “This is where you slept.” He says as a statement, not a question. She nods, still looking through the crates in front of her. She makes a small gasp as she finds what she was looking for. “Another change of clothes.” She reassures herself, not realizing she said it out loud. She hears a breath of air release from Kylo’s nose and she rolls her eyes at the wall in front of her. “Not just for me, Ben.” She pulls out a gray thin long sleeve, and holds it up towards Kylo, squinting as if to imagine it on his form. “It’ll probably fit.” She shrugs. He audibly chuckles in annoyance. “You’re not changing my clothes.” He leans back against the wall and pulls his cloak out from slightly under him, letting it dramatically cascade down the side of the slab he sits on. She swears her eyes practically fall out of her head as she rolls them, and throws the shirt next to him. “You’ll have to if you get dirty or wet-“
Another huff from Kylo.
“I wanted to go swimming.” She snaps back, and crosses her arms. His shoulders fall slightly.
“Oh.” He responds softly. He looks up at the small window of the hut, and hears the angry waves crash to the shore. “In these waters? We’ll be eaten alive.” “There’s hand made swimming holes at the bottom of the hill.” She says. “I thought it would be relaxing.” He shifts slightly as he pulls the shirt into his hands and touches the fabric. He exhales and places it down on his lap.
“We don’t have to right now, maybe later.” She assures him, and she walks over to the door, swinging it open slightly. Light hits the inside of the hut from its opening, and when she turns back she sees Kylo in shadow, leaning his head to the ceiling with his eyes shut. She watches his dark figure rise and fall with his breathing. She pushes the door fully open, and light falls onto Kylo’s skin, his scar catching her eye. And then, the flutter of his lashes as he feels the light hit his close eyelids. And the broad span of his chest, and his fingers that fiddle with the gray fabric between them. Her breath catches at the sight of him for the second time that day. She ignores the swirl in her chest. She turns back to look outside. It’s very early in the morning, she can feel it. The suns must have not risen but an hour before landing. She reaches out her hand for any feeling of rain chance in the air, and she smiles when she does. She liked the rain here. It was angry and loud in the sky but when it hit your skin it was like a calming, cool kiss. She looked back over at Kylo as she thought of the rain.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

After some more rummaging in the crates, she finds her retracted staff, her own change of clothes, a bottle of alcohol, a portion of food. Her eyes look further into the crate. She feels back over the bottle of wine. How did this- she stops her thought mid track and thinks of Leia, thinks of her giving her a small smile and a wave off ‘Enjoy yourselves.’ She pushes the thought back in her head and chuckles softly to herself, knowing well that’s not what Leia would say, but the thought of what she would makes her laugh even more.
“Something funny.” Kylo states again, not a question, behind his shoulder as he looks out the window to the large sea creatures swimming in the ocean outside.
“Nothing.” Rey responds dryly. She stands up and turns around, and with a loud snap, her staff forms to the long weapon she knows it as. This makes Kylo turn around and look at her blankly, she stares back, staff in hand. His look lingers on the staff for a moment too long before she realizes he thinks she’s drawn her weapon. She quickly places the end of it on the ground and leans against it casually. Kylo’s shoulders relax and he looks back out towards the window. “Well, we have all day. What do you want to do?” she asks.Her casualness outwardly annoys him, and he looks back at her and back at the window. She rests her hands on her hips.
“What are those creatures?” He asks, squinting.“Hm?” Rey walks up behind him, and squishes slightly against the side of him to see out the window. “Oh. Those. I don’t know what their called, but I know you can milk them. It’s strange to watch-“ she feels Kylo’s eyes on her as she talks and turns to him, quickly noticing how close to each other they are. Her breath comes out in a shudder. They both stay still for a moment. Her eyes can’t help but look down to his full lips, his scattered moles, his (her) scar. She suddenly feels the gentle pressure of a gloved hand rest to the small of her back and looks into his blown pupils. She puts her hands up to rest on his chest for a moment, and he shivers. But, when she can’t feel a single thought from him flow through her mind, she pushes him softly away. “No.” She says as if she’s reminding herself of something. He hangs his head down with an exhale as she walks away from him, and towards the door, grabbing her staff in hand as she exits.—-When he finds her about 10 minutes later, at the top of clearing overlooking the ocean, he sees her swinging her staff in fluid movements. She focuses on a rock in front of her, short and cut smooth across the top. Her swings are graceful and smart, and every so often she rests the staff in front of her, seeming to breath in the ocean air. He watches in a trance, remembering how skilled she wielded the lightsaber through the guards in Snoke’s throne room. ‘-bested by a girl who never held a lightsaber. YOU FAILED!’ The memory of Snoke’s voice washes over him, and then his own voice replaces it. ‘You failed. Say it.’ The words repeat over and over like a mantra in his mind and he feels as if it rides on the wind that flows around the island.He breathes in as he clenches his fists opened, closed and then exhales as he starts his way towards her. As he walks, he notices her begin to tense. Her swinging erratic. Notices how she starts to yell with every spin or lunge. She furiously twirls the staff around in her arms and plants it out in the air in front of her as she pants. “This doesn’t seem like spending time with a free man.” He says with a hint of sarcasm, but not much. She whips her staff around, and points it at him, showing her teeth bare, and then looks down at her own hands gripping the wood, and down the end of it, to Kylo’s face, slightly leaned back but still to his spot. The wood almost touches his nose. Her breathing slows as she realizes it’s him, as if broken from a trance. He brings his gloved hand up to push it down away from his face, slowly. She quickly finds her normal footing and pokes the the end of the stick in the ground. “Sorry- I was just-“ “Relieving tension.” He states, ending her sentence for her. She looks up at him, her breathing still at a slight pant and her face glistening with sweat, she feels a cool bead of it run down her back. A silent understanding passes through with a small pressure on her mind and suddenly she knows that they both do this, both find practicing or training an act of relief. She sees him look off to the ocean while a creature’s long body weaves through the water, and through the open bond she silently sees a visual of him training after his third day back from that night together in the woods. His face wound still so fresh, she feels it sting. She feels him move with his lightsaber. lunge and cut through a mechanical droid with a scream. She feels his muscles ache from hours of training but more than anything she feels the relief rush through him as he stabs through the fallen service droid, through the mat, through the floor. He heaved as he kneeled down over the destroyed droid and smiles as he imagines it to be Rey. Rey’s focus snaps back to the boots of the Kylo in front of her, panting on her knees down towards the ground, just as a more distant Kylo was moments ago, but there’s no droid beneath her. Her arms and legs suddenly feel twice as tired, and a quick phantom sting flicks up her cheek. She searches for meaning in the memory but fails to find an answer she likes. She suddenly feels the final pull of a memory from her own brain, and when she realizes the bond was opened from both sides, she looks up. He looks down at her with half lidded eyes and moves slowly in front of her. He kneels down to her level and looks over her sweat covered face. His mouth falls slightly open as if he was to speak, but instead closes his eyes for a moment, and a shudder passes through Rey. He opens his eyes softly, and reaches up to gently move a hair from her damp forehead. She instantly stands up above him, and he stays down, looking up at her. “What did you see?” She seethes. He stares back with blown pupils and smirks slightly. “What was it?” She asks again.Suddenly, she notices his pupils tighten and he does a short exhale, dropping his head and chuckling towards the ground. He pushes himself up and stands face to face with her. Rey tenses up as he stares at her.
“I had no idea.” He whispers like he just found out the greatest of little secrets.
Rey stares, annoyed and rooted in her spot. “What?” She croaks rather weakly.
He moves closer to her and grabs her arms, pulling her close to his chest, forcing her to stare up at his somber face. His voice is dropped to a whisper.
“When you’re all alone, at night, you find a sense of relief with my name falling from your lips.” Rey’s entire body shudders from his words and she feels intrenched in his voice, his stare intense, almost hungry. Her face flushes as she realizes what joint sensations he must of felt through the memory. She feels a sudden warmth between her thighs and her heart races in time with his. Her focus snaps back and she quickly looks away and pulls out of his grip. “You saw what you wanted to see.” She whispers sarcastically. “You wanted to believe that was real.”
“No.” He breathes. Her eyes glare back at him.
He walks towards her again and she stays still as he gets toe to toe with her once more. “Yes.” She seethes upwards.
They stare into each other’s eyes, equally prodding and closing off their thoughts as they do so. “You-“ She starts in an angry whisper. “You-“ She pokes her finger to his chest and grits her teeth. “-get off while thinking of plunging a saber through my stomach!”
His shoulders tense suddenly and the color flushes from his face.
“So... I’m going to pretend-“ she digs the finger further into his chest. “-that we saw...only what we thought was real.” Her voice drops off at the end of her statement with her finger, and she looks at him with a sense of sadness that makes him wince. She turns away from him and picks up her staff, brushes past him and makes her way back up the stairs to the hut circle. ‘You’re destroying yourself. You failed. Say it.’ He hears in Rey’s voice, his own words combining with hers in the back of his mind like a whisper. He stares at her back as he watches her walk up the hill, and exhales. ——Rey sits in the hut, embarrassed and drained. She’s trying to spend at least another fifteen galactic hours with this man who nearly makes her flesh crawl. Because why? She thinks to herself. Because he deserves to be saved? She thinks back to the hungry look in his eyes as he recounted her memory to her. She exhales. Or is it just because of your foolish yearning? A voice whispers so softly in the back of her brain, she can’t even tell if it hers. She pushes it aside with an outward, “No.” She was so convinced he felt the weight of all the wrongs he’s done, all the pain, and yet he’s here acting like a twisted bastard, and she still has a tiny thread of hope that keeps her here. What is it about him that makes him so...save-able? Probably his long fingers, she lets herself think. She feels her chest swirl as she thinks of his grip on her arms, how low his voice dropped as he spit her ugly truth at her. ‘Embarrassing’, she fights with herself, and crosses her legs.
A small sigh rests at the corner of her lip for a moment before it’s ripped away by the sound of someone at the door. Kylo pushes the stone open slowly and ducks in, walking straight to the crates, picking up Rey’s canteen, and looks towards her. Her stare remains towards her feet. “May I?” He asks, and she glances up at the canteen and back down, nodding. He drinks from it for a few moments and then sets it back down. He walks towards her and she outwardly shifts, tensing as he gets closer. He reaches down and grabs at the end of the shirt, the other half rests beneath Rey, and he tugs gently. “You’re sitting on my shirt.” He whispers. She glances up and rolls her eyes, standing up to look out towards the window. She hears him rustle fabric behind her and she straightens her back, making sure to stare out towards the ocean. She hears the toss of gloves, the thud of his cloak on the floor. After a few long moments of shifting, he clears his throat, and Rey peaks behind her shoulder. She slaps her hand to her mouth to stifle a laugh as she turns fully around, his body looking comically wide in the gray shirt, and the bottom of it rising almost to his belly button. “That...does not fit.” She chuckles at the scene of him with his arms tensely to his sides as the cloth clings tightly to him.
“Really? I think it suits me.” He looks down and back at her, his face completely emotionless, and Rey furrows her brow with a returning blank stare.
“Was that... a joke?” She holds her hand back up to stifle her chuckle, not at his joke but how terribly he executed it. “You need practice.” He shrugs and sits down on the slab of stone.
“I thought I wasn’t changing your clothes.” She said sarcastically and leaned up against the wall as she crossed her arms in front her. He crosses his arms in mimic of her. His voice came out low. “I felt dirty.” Her smirk drops from her face as she understands what he means and she pushes off the wall. “You...are rude.” She grits through her teeth, and he exhales. “That was a joke.” He retorts. She returns a glare that burns through his skin. “What is wrong with you?” He shrugs defeated in response and she sighs loudly. She sits down on the floor by the wall, and leans up against it. There’s a thick silence in the air for a short while, until Kylo shifts, and raises the shirt from his body, tossing it to the ground in front of him. She finds herself glancing and then staring at his chest, and the muscles of his arms. The way his hair falls to the front of his face as it drops forward, arms resting on his knees. She thinks back to his half lidded eyes, to his gaped mouth opening in front of her as the wave of her sensation memories ran through him. Focus, she tells herself. Though, her mind can’t stop her from thinking what noises may have rose from his throat if he kept feeling her. Focus. Focus. Focus. Her thighs squeeze together in protest, as she feels that warmth in her belly. The fabric of her legs lump against her swelling nub as she shifts and she can’t help but audibly sigh. ‘Stop. Focus.’ She whispers inward to her body. She quickly brings her knees to her chest, as Kylo looks over to her at the wall.
He glances down, and back at her eyes, and then leans back against the wall with a thud. He shuts his eyes and smirks. His thoughts whisper in her mind, ‘Look at what a mess you are.’ The words pull the blood right to the front of Rey’s cheeks and she slaps her legs down with a loud, embarrassing thud. She feels the cool feeling over her wetness on the stone floor beneath her.
“Fuck. You.”
His eyelids squeeze tightly, breathing loudly through his nostrils.
‘Just as a monster would.’ That small voice in her mind says, and though she’s recoils with anger she pushes it back. It’s revers forward and repeats itself, and panic and anger floods in her bloodstream.
“Fuck! You!”
She screams out to not only him, but the Force, and the small voice in her mind. She doesn’t even realize as she uses the Force to slam her canteen at him, and it causes him to stand. His voice drops low.
“Whose really begging for who now?” He says slyly as he looks down at her lap and back to her face.
She works her jaw in anger. He bends down and kneels above her, resting his weight on a hand behind her head. She looks away from him, but doesn’t move out of embarrassment. He scans over her face, her lips, her nose, her collarbones. She can’t help but feel like his gaze is burning right into her. She swallows hard. When their eyes meet, his look is soft, and it causes her to hold her breath. There he was, with those half lidded eyes, breathing deeply as his eyes roamed over her. She felt another pull, a snap of a memory resting back in her mind. Another failed attempt to close him off from the bond. He swallowed down the feeling of the memory and chuckled.
This causes Rey, for a second time, to scrunch her nose at him, and swing her hand up to slap his face. The loud crack noise is sharp against the stone around them, and heavy against his cheek as his face whips back for the second time that day. Her thumbnail scrapes across his lip, and draws blood from the corner of his mouth. He heaves heavily as he turns his head back and uses his free hand to wipe away the blood from his lip, and looks down at it. When he locks eyes with her, she sees the hunger she’d seen on the cliff.
“Again.” He growls.
Angry, and elated with another opportunity, she smacks him, hard. He shudders.
She glances down and back to his face, and leans in slightly, and seethes a chuckle between her teeth.
“Look at what a mess you are, Ben Solo.”
He shifts slightly at the words, knowing his now throbbing member pushes against his pants, but keeps his narrowed eyes locked with hers.
He leans in closely and a small smile rests on his lips, like someone had just rested a beautiful secret into his ear, and it infuriates Rey.
“But that’s not the name you whisper when your alone, is it?” His voice drops low, with an edge of persistence. “Is it, Rey?” Tears spring back behind her eyes as she tries to keep herself strong against his stare. He snakes his hand up her arm, and the sudden touch covers her in goosebumps. He painstakingly takes his time running his fingertips over her skin, up to her collarbones, until his long fingers reach around her throat, not hard, just with the lightest pressure, and he leans in so close she can feel his breath on her lips.
“Who do you reach out for, Rey? Say it.”
His hot breath against her lips and pressure of his hand on her neck, causes her to slip, slip into sensation, into want. Although she works her jaw angrily around the name, it comes out easily, in a soft whisper. “Kylo... please.” ‘You’re destroying yourself.’ Rey’s distant voice carries on the breeze through the window and wraps around his mind. He ignores it. And when their lips touch for the first time, a soft smile spreads across his.At first, it’s a gentle sweep of each other’s soft skin, and he pulls back to see her reaction. She curses herself for weakly leaning in to try to fill the space between their lips. He keeps her in her spot gently and looks over her. Her cheeks are a soft pink and her pupils wide. A bead of sweat drips down her neck and she can feel it’s trail end at Kylo’s hand. “Please.” She whispers again, and it’s as if a switched flipped in him, and he grabs the back of her neck, colliding his lips into hers. She wraps her hands around his shoulders, deepening the kiss, causing him to keep his balance by shoving both hands against the wall by her head. She dips her tongue into his mouth, and he returns it with a bite to her lower lip. A throaty moan shivers against her mouth as he falls further down onto her lap, until he rests on top of her, arms to each side of her head, and their lips break away. She rests her hands on his forearms and they both stare at each other, gasping for air, taking in the others image, reddened lips and flushed. His head hangs down and he whispers so softly, she almost doesn’t hear him. “I don’t... do that anymore.” She gently grabs his chin and pulls his eyes back to hers. “Hm?” She questions. He clears his throat. “I don’t- I don’t... get off on the idea of killing you.” “Oh.” She doesn’t know what to say. She settles for, “Good.” She drops her hand from his face and back to his arm. “I haven’t... called you Kylo since you started showing yourself to me again.” She says, pursing her lips, slightly embarrassed that he got that small secret out of her.He narrows his eyes to her and squints. “You’re lying.” She tucks her bottom lip behind her teeth, closes her eyes and exhales. “Fine.” She snaps as her eyes look back at his. His back straightens and he drops his arms down, and moves himself off her lap and onto the floor next to her. She winces when his warmth is pulled away from her, and she sits up against the wall behind her. She exhales and looks to him. “This would be a lot easier if you weren’t being an absolute ass.”He runs his hand through his hair, and turns to her. “Were you expecting any different?” “I thought you would at least be kind to me.” She whispers. He drops his head and huffs. “Rey- I...” She looks up at him, patient, waiting for him to continue. Suddenly it’s as if a mood switch hits the air between them, and he turns to face her. “I came here... for one reason. And I won’t be kind, I won’t change my mind. It’s harder to kill the ones your close too. It’s easier for you to see the monster.” Her high pitched chuckle catches him off guard, and he looks to her visibly annoyed face. “You don’t think we’re close, Ben?” Another nervous laugh. “I know you better than anyone!” She stands up and clenches her fists down at him, and he looks up at her disheveled form, her hazel green eyes. “So no. You can’t fool me. That’s why I expected maybe you would be kind, just this one time.” “The last time.” He corrects.“Apparently.” She crosses her arms. She turns around, picks up his cloak from the floor, and flows it out in a loud puff. Kylo watches her as she lays it out on the stone bed, pats it down, and sits on top of it. “Well?” She blurts after what feels like a forever span of silence. He shoots a look at her. “Are we done?” “I don’t understand.” He says genuinely, and she closes her eyes in annoyance.She slips her hands under her waistband, and slowly removes the leggings that clings to her body, and her expose flesh goosebumps as the breeze hits her wetness. ‘Come here.’ Her silent whisper hits the edge of his mind.He hesitantly looks at her, and his body seems to move a pace ahead of him, rising up and walking towards her. He stops right in front of her, and she looks up at his towering form. The intimidation and hunger of him fills in her lungs and she curses it. She exhales it from her body as she points to the ground. “Get back on your knees.”
His eyes darken above her, and she thinks he’s about to protest, but he obeys and keeps his look on her as he bends down in front of her. He kneels in front of her in silence, and moves his eyes to look at her slick folds between her thighs, as she opens up slightly for him to come closer towards her. His hands slowly graze up her calves, gently kissing the side of her knee and she shudders. He rests his palms on top of her thighs, and tightens around them. He pulls her further apart to see her fully, and she looks down at him with anticipation. She tangles her hand in his hair softly. “Be kind for me, Kylo.” His grip tightens around her thighs when his chosen name falls off her lips, and he pulls her roughly further towards him, tucking his hands beneath her knees, and goes to raise them to his shoulders. “No.” She whispers. Suddenly, his arms drop, and pull behind his back. He glares up at her as he wriggles against her hold of his arms with the Force. Her wide pupils look back at him and she smirks. She grabs the back of his hair tightly and pulls his face closer to her folds, and then pulls it from the back of his neck to force him to look up at her. “Beg. Beg me to let you be kind.” He snarls back at her with his bare teeth, wriggling against her hand in his hair. She feels the power she holds over him rush up her legs and flood to her core. She knows he could break the Force hold on him easily, and when he doesn’t, she smirks and persists. She brings her lips close to his ear. “Beg.” “No.” He rumbles.
She pulls his hair harder and exposes his neck, and gently places wet kisses down the length of his scar. She hears a small gasp escape his lips and she smirks against his skin. She pulls her eyes back to his. “Say it.” She seethes. He protests again with a hushed, “Never.” She moves her hand to his chest, and grazes his scar up with soft fingertips, until her hand reaches his throat. She lightly presses into it; just as he had done to her, and brings her lips closely to his. Her warm air tickles his skin as she whispers, “Coward.”His focus returns, and his arms release from their hold. She feels the air knock from her lungs as he grabs ahold of her shoulders and pushes her back against the wall. She tenses and shakes beneath his fingers but he keeps his strength against her, and stares at her with heavy, half lidded eyes, looking like a monster, ready to destroy its prey. She feels his hard member radiate heat against her thigh, and shudders under him. “You’ve been letting the dark feed off you. I feel it.”The words hit her square in the chest, and she feels her eyes brim with tears. She shakes again beneath him, but he persists. “It’s devouring you.” He whispers.Her glassy eyes look back at him, and her mouth falls slightly, as if his very words equal parts burn and tickle her skin. He bends down towards her neck, and kisses and laps at the sweat glistened skin there, and she weakly reaches for his chest, barely reaching his abdomen, and lightly scratches her fingernails down it. “Do you want to be devoured, Rey?” His voice a low whisper against her neck, and she whimpers with it. He moves his hand from her shoulder, but she stays still. Placing draggingly slow wet kisses still on her skin, he reaches in between her thighs, and places his hand over her mound, feels for the wetness there, and drags it back up and down over her folds. A low moan escapes her throat. “You do, don’t you?” He places his free hand to her cheek, and brings his lips to hers. “Kylo...” She bucks her hips against his palm and whimpers against his lips. “Ah...you do.”Finally Rey’s lips fall open against his and she pleads, “Please, please.” He covers his lips in hers, and places one digit inside of her, feeling upwards, dragging in and out and feeling her swollen nub with his thumb. She writhes against it, and pushes up against his chest, deepening their kiss. He pulls his hand away for a moment, and then quickly plunges in a second finger with a low grunt and she feels her vision blur. He pulls in and out with her breathing and kisses the side of her lips, her cheek, her hair. “Yes, fuck please, please, Kylo, I want all of it.”He curls his fingers up slowly, in and out, slower each time and then releases all together. He looks off as if someone whispers to his ear, and his eyes widen as he looks down to Rey. Suddenly, his body language changes drastically, as he straightens his back. “I won’t give it to you.” His mouth hangs open in heavy, lustful breathes but the look he gives her is determined and somewhat distant. Her brow furrows as he stands up, and she grabs for his hand, but he pulls away, wiping her wetness off his fingers onto his pant leg.
“I’ve decided to be kind.”She opens her mouth to speak, but decides to shut it, feeling a strange emotion radiate from this sudden shift, and when he turns away, picks up his tunic, and walks out, she feels the tears spill over onto her cheeks. ‘You went straight to the Dark. It offered you something you needed and you didn’t even stop yourself.’ Luke’s words flow through the back of her mind, and rest heavy there.She pulls the length of Kylo’s cloak up and over her cold, exposed legs, and sobs.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

‘You went straight to the Dark. It offered you something you needed and you didn’t even stop yourself.’ Ben Solo knew what it was like to let the darkness seduce you, control you, devour you. She was so close, so ready to let it consume.And so, he stopped it for her.-Rey has let tears spill, many, many times before.
Never like this.
Hunched over, she screamed. She screamed out to nothing.
Not to the Force, not to Ben.
She screamed at the nothingness that rested inside her and dug a hole so deep in her chest, she almost couldn’t breath.
Her body ached, her eyes felt heavy. And when she finally couldn’t let another drop leave her eyes, she stopped. She sat back, inhaled, and curled herself into the black fabric of his cloak. —Kylo Ren heard a whisper, so faint, in the corner of his mind. And this time, he didn’t ignore it. ‘She’s your last shred of Light, and even she’s gone, kid.’He’s heard his fathers voice ring out around him, many, many times. But, this, this was the first time he’s felt truly disgusted with what he’s become. Darkness devours, but so does the Light. It’s made him realize every detail of the deeds he’s done, every death he’s caused, every person he’s destroyed. But now, on this small island, every breeze, every crashing wave, every exhale that comes from her lips at the hands of him, screams it-‘Disgusting.’ When he sat on the grass, overlooking the sea, he heard her scream. And the pain he heard was so familiar, so like his own, when he was first being ripped apart by these two opposing sides. The pain was not Dark, or Light, just an empty void that left you with nothing. Forcing you to choose. He didn’t go to her. He didn’t move. She needed to release it, to vanquish it from her chest. So he sat, and listened, and let his own tears spill down his cheeks. —The crack of thunder pulled Rey from her haze. How long has she been laying here, hollow? An hour? A lifetime? She wasn’t sure. But, she did feel better. Her muscles ached, her throat was sore, her eyes swollen. But, when the rain came crashing down on the roof of the hut, and the smell of ocean spray hit her noise, she felt suddenly content.She brought herself to stand, to stretch, to breath. She pulled her hair from it’s three-tied hold, and let it fall to her shoulders. She pulled on her leggings, sipped from her canteen, and wrapped his black cloak around her shoulders. It smelled like him. It smelled like her too. She pulled up the hood, opened the door of the hut, and stepped outside. The rain kissed her skin. Across the way, on a small clearing of grass, she saw Ben. His back turned to the the huts, he stared out at the angry sea. As she walked closer, she saw his drenched hair, his cold breath puff out in front of him. He didn’t shift as she came up beside him to stare out at the crashing waves, the sea creatures coming up to feel the rain, the Porgs huddling into their nests below. She pulled off his cloak, and rested it gently onto his shoulders. He looked to her as she sat down beside him, and pulled the cloak closer to his face. It smelled like her.Rey laid back into the grass, and let the rain fall over her, a small smile resting on her lips as it fell to her cheeks and settled on her lashes. He watched her. She watched the rain. And for a while, in comfortable silence, they stayed like this.For one stolen moment, there was no Light, no Dark, just nothing. Just them.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

When her eyes opened, she felt weightless. She blinks once, twice. She hears a steady heart beat at her ear. Feels muscles tensing beneath her form. She lazily looks up.
Kylo carries her in his arms, wrapped in his cloak. ‘It stopped raining,’ she thinks to herself. In her peripheral, she sees they are going back towards the huts.
She knows he’ll put her down when they get there. She frowns to herself. Just a few more feet, unfortunately.
She closes her eyes to take in the sensation of being carried. She listens to his heart beat. It’s quick, and then slow, quick, slow. ‘Is it skipping? Heartbeats skip sometimes, don’t they?’ Her eyelids slip shut ever so often of their own accord. They’re so close to the door. She doesn’t want to be put down. ‘Why can’t I be carried everywhere?’ She thinks sleepily. She hears a puff of air escape Ben’s noise. Did she let that whisper spill from her mind to his? She didn’t care.
Her eyes shut as she curled in closer to his chest. —-She feels her body gently placed onto the stone. It jabs slightly at her shoulder blades, and she shifts to her side, eyes closed. His cloak falls over her, and she sighs, pulling it closer to her cheek. She listens to him exhale, his body thud to the floor next to her. Questions fill her mind as she rests here-Why did he stop? What shifted in him so abruptly?Why did she feel so much power in making him kneel before her? The answer to that question makes her wince, makes her shudder against the cold stone beneath her. She opened her eyes and shifted to see him. He rested his head back against the wall, staring up at the ceiling.He looks so tired.She clears her throat with a twinge of pain, and groans as she finally sits up. Everything on her was damp. She looked down at her hands, her pruned fingertips, her slightly purpled nails, regaining color as their body heat filled the hut.
But still, she was freezing. She exhaled to see the cold stream of her breath in front of her. He looks over at her as she does, and then looks down at his own hands, examining the evidence of letting the rain crash down on them.“We should start a fire.” He rumbles. She nods in agreement, and points to a wooden box that sits on the far wall. “Dry wood.” She croaks, her throat even more difficult to use than she imagined. “Mm.” He makes his way to the box, and bundles up the wood into his arms. She watches him as he places them down onto fire pit in the middle of the room. He looks down at it with furrowed brows and then up at the door. When he starts to leave, she shifts quickly. “Where are you going?”He doesn’t look to her as he opens the door. “My lightsaber.” Is all he says as he crouches out and closes it behind him. She fiddles with the fabric of his cloak. Of course he brought his lightsaber on the ship. Why would she think he didn’t? She told him not to fight her, but that doesn’t mean he should be without it. Still, it makes her stomach churn. The vision of him plunging it into the service droid creeps up the back of her neck, and wraps itself angrily around her mind. She pushes it aside with his voice ‘I don’t do that anymore.’ His words replace the vision, and cause her to calm. Just remember that, she thinks to herself. When he makes his way back inside, lightsaber in hand, it doesn’t stir her. But when he pointed it down towards the wood, and ignited it, the crackling of it loud in her ears, her stomach twisted again. She was alone, on an island, with the Supreme Leader of the First Order, Kylo Ren. His face lit up a bright red hue when it burned the tips of the bark. The sight made her uneasy, and it should. It was only natural.
The fire started to rise from the pit. She watched as he sheathed his lightsaber back into his holster, and hovered his hand above the flames. He pulled on the Force to make them rise even higher, engulfing the wood, and she swallowed hard. As she stared into the flame, her mind flickered with doubts. Filled with questions of why she was doing this, or why she was even here, in this galaxy, with two sides of the Force pulling her back and forth. She wanted them answered. She straightens her back, steadies her hands to her knees, opens her lips-“I didn’t know you could use it to control flame.” Was all that slipped out.He looked to her. “There’s a lot of things we can do.” She nods, and she knows that, and curses herself for sounding stupid. ——She slides down from her spot, and scoots closer to the fire, shifting the cloak up more evenly on her shoulders, until she decides to pull the hood up over her damp hair. The warmth of the flames traps itself into the fabric around her ears, her cheeks. It’s only after a few moments she remembers it’s Kylo’s.“Sorry- this belongs with you.” Before she even can touch the hem, he waves away the statement.“It suits you.”Rey’s face falls grim towards the flames. Kylo looks up to the window. The sky is starting to pink slightly, and the brightness of the falling suns starts to shine through hut. “Sunset.” He whispers. “I won’t be needing it much longer.” He directs his whisper to Rey as he uses the Force to shift a log within the fire. Rey’s throat catches. Panic falls over her like a cold wave. She looks to the window and back to him. “How long was I asleep?” “We both slept. A few hours I assume.” He shifts a second log.She swallows down her anxiety. “This day is nowhere near done, Ben.” It’s a determined whisper as she focuses on him.His sigh is audibly exhausted, annoyed. His eyes look darker, even with the reflection of the flames flickering against them. “Didn’t you feel it?” Their eyes meet as he asks. Rey shifts in her spot. His stare is heavy on her heart. Her palms sweat, her neck tenses. She knows what feeling he speaks of, but still she presses him on.“Feel what?”His eyes narrow. “The pain. The emptiness?”This is good, Rey thinks. Maybe she’ll pull the answers she seeks from him by having him confess to their mutual fear. Fear of the Dark. Fear of the Light, as well. Of course she felt the emptiness. It felt like it was burning through her insides, curling over the edges of her mind and scorching it. Is this what truly turned him? Filling the void? “Yes.” She croaks.“The pain, I caused. You’re being tempted and for a moment I relished in it. I wanted you to feel it as badly as I do.” His stare on her doesn’t falter. She feels a bead of sweat trail down her jaw, travel and settle down into her collarbone. He works his jaw as he speaks. “You didn’t even resist me.” “You are not the Dark, Ben.” She moves closer to him. She drops her hood to view him more clearly. She rests her hand on his forearm.“Yes. I am.” He retorts, his voice dripping with finality. It makes her recoil. She drops her hands in her lap and stares back at the pit in front of her. “When you end me, there will just be you. No more Dark to tempt you or-“ He swallows. “-touch you. You’ll be free.” “I’ll be alone.” She snaps back.A short snort escapes him. “You have your Resistance. My own mother loves you more than she ever-“ His tense voice drops off. He exhales his anger and closes his eyes.Despite everything, Rey wants nothing more to grab him, embrace him, soothe him. As she watches his tense form, she decides against it. They sit in silence for a few moments. “Why did you stop?” She whispers.
He knows what she means. He straightens his back, raises his hand to make the flame rise slightly higher. “It doesn’t matter.” Her voice comes out strong. “It does, Ben.
It matters more than anything.”He turns to her, and the look in his eyes makes her stomach drop. His words come out soft. “Letting the Darkness consume you, it terrifies me.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

It’s been five months since the events of Crait. Even after Snoke claimed he had bridged their minds, their connection remained strong. They feel each others signatures like a sharp pin stuck in the back of their minds. Twice now the pin has dropped, and they’ve appeared in front of each other. Twice, their control on the bond has slipped, whether by chance or purpose, neither are truly sure. It’s scared them both. But now, more than anything, it terrifies Kylo Ren. —-One night, in his chambers of the Finalizer, in lieu of days without sleep, Kylo dreamt:The lights inside the elevator felt dim.
When the lift reached it’s floor, and the door opened, he saw the Supreme Leader’s throne. No. His throne. And yet, something within tells him he doesn’t grace the title any longer. He knows that.He clears his throat.
He blinks once, twice to readjust his sight. Down the long room, a figure sits in the seat he once held. He knows who it is. “Come here.” The voice that reverberates off the walls is familiar. Of course it is.As he makes his way across the floor, the figure’s features unfold before him. Long brown hair spills out from under a dark maroon hooded cloak. Her body language is distracted, irritated. Her nails clack against the metal of her armrest. Her legs crossed, one over the other, exposing a black stocking covered calf, a sharp toed dark boot stops at her ankle. Why should her clothing make him nervous? The same she always wears, he reminded himself as he comes closer on command. As he arrives at the foot of her stairs, he kneels before her and swallows. “Supreme Leader.”“Head up. Look at me.” Her hazel green eyes look dark against the shadow of her cloak. When she shifts, the light hits her face, and her look is piercing. Stunning. She’s beautiful. His breath hitches. She views him over, like she’s studying an ancient sculpture and isn’t impressed with the craftsmanship. “Rise.” She uses the Force to bring him to his feet, and pulls him closer to her throne. He doesn’t struggle. He keeps his eyes locked on hers, as she always prefers his full attention rather than a lowered head. He’s learned better by now. As he’s finally toe to toe with her, she looks up at him. He may tower above her, but he feels minuscule in her presence. She reaches out for his gloved hand, and faces it palm up, feeling the leather with gentle fingertips. A shudder passes through him. He’s upset her. He knows that’s why she’s called for him. He can’t remember why. Purple streaks of lightning flow from her wrist to her hand, and scorches him through his glove. The sting rises up his chest, down his spine. He seethes. Rey keeps him rooted to his spot with the Force.As the pain flows through him, he’s aware of everything. He was the one who brought her here. They rose together just as he wanted, and as she grew stronger, he became obsolete. She was powerful. More powerful than him, more powerful than Snoke. The Dark side seduced her, and when it got what it wanted, it decided she was terrifyingly perfect. She rose to the top of galaxy. She moves forward, reaches up and grabs the back of his neck. She pulls him close to her face, a wicked smile gracing it. His neck tenses, his palms sweat. The light burn of her still coursing down his body. He can’t move. Her grip tightens on his neck.Suddenly, she’s shaking. Her smile drops. Her eyes widen. Something inside her shifts.“Ben?” She releases the hold from his neck, pulls his face in her hands and searches the contents of his eyes.“Ben. Help me. Please, please.” Her voice is weak, and tears flow to her cheeks.The sound of her plead hits him square in the chest. Suddenly, Kylo Ren remembered exactly who he’s talking to.“Rey.”——The vision wakes him into a cold sweat. The phantom feeling of her hands on his cheeks causes him to shake. He feels up his arms and squeezes at the muscles, heaving. They feel weak, tensing from the surge of pain she ran through him. Kylo looks up at the darkness of his room, grips his sheets, and screams. -
As he sits in the throne room, he feels uneasy. Every individual that comes to him, and kneels before him, causes him to wince. The vision from that night burns bright in his mind. He sees the look of her face, the moment when she realized what she had became, in every tense visitor. It’s devouring him. Exhausting him. When General Hux finally enters to relay layout plans of the newest ship, he finds himself thoroughly distant from it all. Every word of Hux’s information leaves a sour taste in Kylo’s mouth. After Hux bows before him, and turns away out of the throne room, he stands. He exhales out- Show me her.Before the thought is even finished, he sees her leaned against the wall on his left side. The soft sound of water hits his ears. He watches as it falls over her naked form, her loose hair, her body curled into itself. The look of her now is so comfortingly opposite of what he saw in the throne room of his vision. It takes his breath away to see her like this. He exhales his held breath and speaks.“Rey.” She barely glances at him. Her body recoils further into itself as she sighs against her knees. Her voice comes out in a weak grunt.“I’m so tired.” He wants nothing more than for her to look at him. He wants her hazel green eyes to pierce through his, so he can search their contents. He wants to hold her, to tell her what he’s seen, to tell her he doesn’t know if he can stop it, if he can stop himself. He wants her to tell him she knows he can.
He watches her tense breathing, the exhausted rise and fall of her shoulders. When he goes to speak, despite himself, his confidence falters. “I’ll leave you be.” He whispers. “Thank you.” She exhales.As he stands away from her, and watches down at her recoiled form, that night’s vision screams in the back of his mind. It causes him to slip, to disconnect. He grabs ahold of their bond with a clenched fist. She looks over to him, her face drained and exhausted. Their mind and bodies mimic each other.He steps closer, and falls to his knees. He looks down at his palms, and remembers the pain of her fingertips surging through his entire body. “I’m tired too.” He chokes out. As quickly as the connection came, it breaks.Once again, he is alone. He grips his knees white- knuckled and yells out to the Force. The Light side responds in slips of recollections of his deeds, the Darkness he’s brought upon so many around him. Rey sits at the forefront of it all.‘I have to stop this.’ He thinks to himself. And as he feels the pull of The Light, the Darkness seeps in, just the same. And beyond better judgement, he embraces it, as he always has. It whispers to him. Kylo Ren realizes what needs to be done. How could he not have realized before now, he asks himself. The thought comforts him strangely, and despite all the pain that runs through him, he smiles.He has to end. And she had to be the one to do it. —-Escaping The First Order came easily to Kylo. A few tricked minds, a few scrambled codes. Hux had eyes and ears at every corner. Some overly confident high ranked troopers shot blasters, but he deflected them with just a wave of his hand. And in the same wave, he made them forget he was ever even before them. To some individuals, he casually told them he was taking a ship and leaving. He was, in fact, the Supreme Leader. Not many questioned his motives as he made his descent to the ships. Not many, but one.The last person he saw before he left, was General Artimage Hux. As Kylo stepped onto his transport, he heard his name spat out from behind him. He turned to look at the red faced man, his teeth bare, his face contorting in rage. In lieu of months of nervous words, or sarcastic backlash from the General, his confidence to call Kylo by anything other than Supreme Leader surprises even Ren himself. “You truly think to steal a ship?!” Hux sprayed out.“These are my ships to do with as I please.” Kylo retorts. Hux flinches, and when he realizes his throat isn’t having the breath forced from it, he straightens his back. “Supreme Leader, these are First Order army transports. We need them here.” His voice raises. “They aren’t made for you to go gallivanting-“ “Hux-“ Kylo stops his words with a raised hand. No Force hold, no rage filled scream. The pure lack of tension radiating off Ren causes the General to close his mouth. “-The First Order ruled by you, will burn itself to the ground.” And the last thing Kylo Ren sees before he makes his way inside the ship, and shuts the landing behind him, is the terrified look in the eyes of General Hux.—-He told her to kill him. She told him they were taking a trip. ‘A free man.’ Rey’s words ring out in his mind as he sits in his ship, just hours away from reaching her at the Resistance’s base planet. He tenses against the controls. He exhales. She made everything...difficult. It could be so simple.He knows himself. He knows the Dark. And, the idea of being alone on an island with Rey shakes him to the core. He won’t let her in, he won’t be kind to her.His mind wanders to his vision, of her sitting as Supreme Leader, all the Light drained from her soul. What if this is what causes it? What if this trip is the beginning of her end?No. These were her conditions. This is how he got what he wanted. They’ve both had visions of the future before. Neither of them unfolded as they thought. He could change the outcome of this one, as well. He will.—“Letting the Darkness consume you...it terrifies me.”Rey reaches to their bond, tries to find the meaning behind his words. A wall closes in her mind.“Don’t.” He glares at her.“I can feel it, everyday, all around me. I don’t know how to stop it from getting in.” Her voice nervously shudders from her. “Ben. Help me. Please.” He hangs his head. “I’m trying.” She moves closer to him again. “You won’t tell me how.”“You already know how.” His tired eyes glance at her, down at his lightsaber, and back to the fire. Killing him, in her mind, is not an option. It would be her breaking point. In this short time together, rolling her eyes at him has become a habit. She sighs. She pushes up from her spot and bends down to the crates along the wall. She moves dust off the bottle of wine with her finger. She tosses it up in one hand and smiles as she catches it.Maybe if they relax, if he relaxes, she can tell him about how much Leia does, in fact, love him. Maybe he can tell her how it feels to be pulled to Light after so much time in the Dark. Maybe she’ll get the answers she needs. “I don’t drink.” He says dryly.“Not even as a final cheers to a dying man?” The question drips with sarcasm, which causes Kylo to look even more recoiled at the idea then before. “Rey-“ He starts. “I came here on a promise. You told me-“ As she walks towards him with the bottle, she shushes him. “REY!” He yells, his blood boiling with annoyed rage. “THIS IS NOT-“ “Ben.” She drops down next to him, and without looking at him, unscrews the cap of the bottle. “Be. Quiet.” She pulls herself closer to him, until their sides rests against each other. She rests the wine to her lips and pulls it back in a short swig.Against all better judgement, the casual way she sits beside him, like he’s nothing but a simple man, causes him to calm. ‘A Free Man.’ The words flutter in his mind. He outwardly seethes against the thought, but grabs the bottle from her hand, and brings it to his lips. It runs equal parts smooth and sharp down his throat. For some reason, the bitter-sweet taste reminds him of his birth place. He closes his eyes. He thinks of his mothers face.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Vibrant orange, cascading against pinks, purples. They flood from the window of the hut. The air is dense with petrichor. Noises of creatures settling in for the evening can be heard from a distance. The fire crackles around the last bits of wood it can get it’s flame on.Kylo leans against the wall, with his legs out long in front of him. Rey’s hair sprawls onto his thighs, as she lies with her head in his lap. Her feet rest comfortably atop the wooden crate in the corner. The almost empty bottle of wine nestles in the crook of her arm. How they got like this, tangled with each other, he can’t pin point. He remembers her sighing, resting her head against his shoulder. He remembers her reaching for the wine bottle across from them, and laughing, landing her head gently in his lap. He fidgeted for a minute under her, not knowing what to make of it, but then as she beamed up at him with a smile, his body relaxed. So, he can pin point when their bodies met, but he can’t pin point when it started feeling like the most natural thing in the world. It just happened. Still, Ben has yet to figure out where to put his hands. He keeps them slumped against the ground, sometimes coming to rest casually at her stomach. She didn’t seem to mind. The vibration of Rey’s laugh runs through his legs and the walls of the hut. “He didn’t! He really said that?!” Her hand smacks to her mouth as her laugh slips through her fingers.“He called him General Hugs twice. I thought my communication relay link was shotty the first time. But when he said it a second time...” he chuckles. “Hux didn’t even notice.” “Hugs, you mean.” She giggles. Her hand falls to her stomach, and grazes his. She runs her fingertips over his knuckles. He doesn’t mind it.“It was the first time I had laughed in a very long time.” Kylo admits with a sigh. “At something so... childish.” “You would like Poe, if you really met him.” She said as she studied his hands.He looked down at her and tensed his jaw. “I tortured him.” Her hand freezes and she glances up. “Come to think of it, you two probably wouldn’t get on well.” They stare at each other for a moment. Despite all odds, Kylo is the first to break into a smile, and then a deep chuckle. Rey cracks out into a loud laugh, and he follows, and they sit there, their laughter ricocheting around in the air. “Ah.” She wipes the side of her watery eyes with a fading giggle. She crosses her arms to give the look of seriousness, but smiles all the same. “That is bad, Ben. You shouldn’t torture people.” The statement should make him tense, but it doesn’t. The warmth in his cheeks and the heat of her head in his lap makes him calm. “All of it was to find this damn island-” He exclaims. “-when I should’ve just told you I wanted to take a trip!” He flings his arms out dramatically at their surroundings. It causes her to break out in laughter for the third time. He could listen to her laugh for the rest of his life, he thinks to himself. The rest of his life. The thought rolls over in his mind once, twice.Then a realization- He was drunk. Force be, was he drunk. He winces slightly at the thought. ‘What are you doing?’ He asks himself as he looks up at the new darkening sky outside. He looks down at Rey, who lays with her eyes closed, a smile at the corner of her lips. He knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s prolonging it. He coughs, and sits up more straight against the wall- “Rey, it’s getting dark.” He says it with a sense of dread that he didn’t realize he had until he heard her laugh, felt her warm and happy in his lap. He pushes the feeling aside. “Mm.” She says behind closed eyes as she lazily traces his wrist with her fingers. “Rey.” His voice reeks of sadness, as hard as he tries to push it down. It causes her to look up. She rests her hand on his cheek, touches his scar with her thumb. “Can’t we just stay like this, Ben?” The idea whirls around him and then is cut short, trapped by the night’s intentions. He swallows. “No.” She retracts her hand and huffs. The look she gives him is sad, a pout resting at her lips. “You truly think I would kill you?” It comes out in a whisper.“You have too.” He says, cut and dry, and Rey’s face contorts in anger back at him. The anger she felt in her cot when he first appeared to her, telling her why he was coming, rises into her throat.“Why?!” Her voice raises. “Tell me why! Because you feel... grief? You should!” She’s practically yelling now, and sits up from his lap, turning to face him on her knees. “You-“ she points at him. He leans his head back against the wall and closes his eyes. “You can’t-“ She suddenly puts her hand to her stomach and silents a rumble of it. She shakes her head of her wooziness and returns her glare. “You.” she hangs her head. He looks to her.A few moments of silence pass tensely between them. “I am drunk.” She whispers. She rests her hand to her forehead and sighs. “So am I.” He exhales.Rey sits with her hands on her knees, trying to find the right words, trying to push through the dizziness of her mind. “Ben, feeling the grief and pain you caused... is... it’s so important.”“Rey-““You can’t just leave! You have to feel it! And, sit through it. And...learn from it.” She grips her knees tighter and looks up at him and her eyes glisten with anger, sadness, and something else.Hope. Her eyes glisten with hope. He can’t bare to look at them for more than a moment, his eyes turn to the ground. It makes her tense. “We didn’t even swim, Ben.” She whispers in watery croak.“What?” He asks softly.“I wanted to go swimming with you.” She moves closer to him. “Let’s...go tomorrow.” She rests her hand on his forearm gently. “Please.” He looks over her form, sweat glistens slightly on her face, her hair frizzes on the sides, curling tendrils resting at her cheeks. Her cheeks are flushed; her lips red with wine. She looks... perfect. But as he lingers on her eyes, and their contents, he sees her. He sees her sitting in her spot at the throne. He sees the surge of power running through her, the Light pulling from her soul. It causes his breath to hitch.“I’m sorry...I’m sorry, Rey.” He whispers frantically as he brings his hands to her face. His eyes water as he feels her trying to look into his mind. This is it, he thinks. How beautiful she looks, how warm and content she felt close to him, it’s all going to end now. He gives her a small smile, trying to receive one back, for the last time, in return. And when she smiles at him, unknowing, his heart breaks. His focus remains on her eyes. ‘Hazel, with flecks of gold, ridges of green. I want those eyes to be the last thing I see before I leave this life.’“Ben...”He pulls her in close, hesitating at her lips. Tears flow down his cheeks as he takes the sight of her in and whispers. “I’m sorry for it all.” And when their lips touch, it’s soft and gentle.And then in a flash, it all goes Dark. —Rey looks out at a long carpet in front of her. Her eyes move up and around her surroundings. The First Order symbol graces flags along the walls. The frigid metal under her brings a shock of cold up her muscles. Sharp red light illuminates the corners of the room around her. She readjusts her sight and her mind, remembering where she is. She’s in the throne room. As it should be, she tells herself. She’s feels anger rise up in her chest. She’s livid. She can’t remember why. She taps her nails against the metal of her armrest. Irritation lingers in her tense muscles.Who was she waiting for?She looks to her left, where the second throne sits. Two thrones, she reminds herself, distant as if it isn’t her mind she is thinking from, but a version of herself that lingers right above her. Lurking.The second throne, it’s empty. Unused. The elevator door to the room opens in front of her. The swirl of anger rises to her head.‘Ah. Of course.’“Come here.” Her voice echoes against the walls. She doesn’t even register that she said the words, as if they fell from her lips without her doing. As the visitor walks forward, the figure’s form unfolds before her. His black tunic, his long black cloak. He walks with his lightsaber retracted in hand. Her lips twitch up as she sees it. Will he dare fight her? Foolish.He stops in front of her steps, bends to one knee, and looks up at her. “You called for me.” She shifts in her sit. Why did she call for him? Why was she so angry?She looks over at the red and black flags, and back at him.Why was he kneeling before her? ‘Why wouldn’t he?’ Her mind whispers. ‘You demand it.’ The distant part of her body and mind, lurking around her, aches for him. Wants to touch him, to be touched and burned by his fingertips. ‘You’ve always wanted this.’ “I wanted... company.” She swallows. He meets her eyes, his eyebrows slightly risen in surprise. He gets off his knee and walks towards her with a wicked smile. He comes toe to toe at her throne, and looks down. She reaches for his shirt sleeve and pulls him down closer. He stumbles forward and rests his hand behind her head to stable himself. His eyes drip with lust and his smirk possessive- almost evil. At first, the look causes her body to flood with heat, and she wrestles with the idea of falling into him, devouring him. After a moment, his stare crawls up her neck and suddenly it’s freezing. She’s shaking. Everything hits her all at once. They rule the galaxy together. He brought her here and she let the Darkness consume her. He relished in every minute of it. But, why? She grabs his face in her hands and searches for answers in his eyes. “Ben?” She whispers. “Ben. Help me. Please.” But, Ben Solo doesn’t look back at her. Ben Solo isn’t here at all. All she sees is the darkness lurking in the eyes of Kylo Ren. He retracts against her plead and moves away to stare down at her once again. “Ah, little Rey...I knew this day would come.” His jaw tenses as he speaks. “I saw it.” He ignites his lightsaber. “You’ve become too powerful and now... you’re finally broken.” Her anger surges through her as the heat of his lightsaber radiates off her skin. She tenses her fists, bares her teeth, and screams. “NO!” And, in a flash, Kylo Ren is pushed across the room with a surge of purple electricity flowing through the air. She heaves, and looks down at her hands, the sting of power resting back into her fingertips. Her reality crumbles around her. She’s too far gone. She stands from her throne and walks slowly to Kylo’s seizing form, his body shaking, his bloodshot eyes looking at her in terror. Whatever power came through her, it was strong. So strong, he was convulsing, dying at her feet. She could feel his organs shutting down, and him fighting to keep them at bay, as she opens the bond. Fighting back tears, she narrows her eyes to look inwards, and searches once more for Ben. And with a snarl, he bares his teeth, and seethes. There’s only Kylo now. She steps back, gripping at her emotions to steady. She knows she should be scared for him, she should help him. But, she doesn’t. She remembers it all. This is his doing.She pulls his saber to her palm with the Force, and ignites it. And as she brings it down to his heart with a scream- it all goes dark.——Her eyes rip open, and she sees the sadness in the eyes of Kylo Ren, beneath her. She pushes the feeling aside. Her arms hover in the air, holding up his ignited lightsaber, ready to plunge it into his chest. Her fingertips tingle, and her muscles tense, as she adjusts her grip on the saber. She looks down at the face of the man who ruined her. She seethes, and pants above him. She’s ready. The breeze from the window of the hut turns into a harsh wind, her hair whipping around her, making her eyes water, covering her skin in frigid goosebumps. She feels the Force in her tensing muscles, in the angry howling current of the air around her. It pounds in her ear drums, her heart, and her mind. The fire in the hut rises once again, tall and crackling next to them. Her vision becomes clouded with a raging white fury, and all she can feel is her fingers squeeze the hilt of the saber, and the burning heat of the flames beside them. He closes his eyes and his whisper is final. “Do it, Rey.”His words slam into her chest, her very soul. The wind cracks loudly, so loud it’s deafening, the fire rising to the ceiling of the hut in an angry swoosh, and then in an instant, stops all together. Her hair falls gently to her shoulders. Her muscles fail her, and she shakes. She blinks down at him once, twice, her vision readjusting to his form. He opens his eyes and they stare at each other. Her eyes brim with tears and she gasps for breath. She searches over his face, and in this moment, sees nothing but Ben. The lightsaber retracts with a loud crackle, tumbling from her hand, to the ground. She falls forward on top of his chest and holds onto him for dear life.“I can’t. I can’t.” She cries into his shoulder.He exhales his long held breath and wraps his arms around her. The fire in the hut finally dies out with the cold evening breeze. ——They stay like this for what feels like a lifetime.Rey shaking and shuddering against his chest, and him, holding onto her, whispering ‘It’s okay, it’s okay’ into her hair like it’s his mantra. The look in his eyes, the eyes of Kylo Ren, as he told her she was finally broken, digs into her mind. The images of him seizing below her, life being drained from him at her hand, replay over and over.But, outside of her mind, there’s Ben. Holding her and reassuring her.Every logical thread in her wants to dissect the vision, what truths lies beneath it, and what falsehoods the Dark had planted there. She doesn’t understand the anger the planet felt as she made to kill him. She wants to understand. Why was the Force testing her like this? Is this what she has become? A mere experiment in the fabric of the Force, a test subject to how far a person’s spirit can take them?But, relief floods through her as Ben’s hands gently stroke her back, his whispers are softly placed against her skin. The panic fades, achingly slow. She starts to find she can’t focus herself on anything else but staying right here with him, listening to him breath.He doesn’t understand the sudden rightness he feels holding onto her, alive and well. It feels as though a weight has been lifted from his body, even with Rey keeping him to the ground. He feels empty, but strangely content. His emptiness is not a hallow feeling, not a dark void. It’s a bright light, slowly pulling shadows from the corners of his mind. It’s an emptiness that suddenly feels ready to be filled with something new. But more than anything, in this moment, he feels the need to comfort. To protect. He hadn’t felt that about anyone but himself, for a very a long time.So, he simply follows his instincts. He shifts and sits them upwards, moving her weight like it’s nothing, cradling her in his arms as he rocks. “You did so well.” He whispers. He doesn’t know what he means by it, but it feels right in the moment. She wraps her arms around his neck and holds him close. “You’re safe.” He kisses the words onto her temple. When his lips graze her skin with that soft assurance, she weeps. She feels her tears pool at his shoulder, and nuzzles into him. Being safe has never been a concept she associated with this man, but in this moment she’s never felt more protected, more at home than she does cradled in his arms. Protection is something she was never granted on Jakku, and though she felt safe with her friends of the Resistance, she also felt an overwhelming pressure to protect them, not herself. But here, in his arms, she suddenly no longer felt pressure, just relief. The tears she let spill started in terror, but now flow only because of how lovingly he holds her, how gentle the words fall from his mouth.When her tears subside, she feels the tiredness in her bones, the tug of her stomach recoiling from drinking, and the heaviness of her drying eyes. She knows he can he feel it too, the pain of their bodies and the relief of their minds mimic each other. With a soft grunt he pulls them backwards until his spine hits the wall, and leans his head against the stone. “Rest.” He whispers. She looks up to see his own tear covered cheeks, and rests her fingertips there, her thumb gently grazes the scar she gave him. They stare at each other for a moment, until she pulls away and closes her eyes, taking his advice. She allows herself to fall asleep against him, relishing in this quiet, confusing balance the Force is surrounding them with. And together, they rest.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Though he tries, sleep doesn’t overtake Ben. The feeling of weightlessness and calm that accompanies sleep, though he hasn’t felt it like this in years, resonates within him.
But, his mind and body won’t slip into the truly unconscious state he craves through his exhaustion.
He exhales and listens to Rey’s soft snores at his chest. Every so often, just as his eyes shut with heavy lids, a small pull in the back of his mind shifts him awake. At first, he thinks it to be Rey, maybe dreaming of him or merely even thinking of him for a fraction of a second. Her form so close to him and so calm causes their bond to be laid wide open, and the idea of her pulling at his mind does not phase him in the slightest.Slowly, as the night passes, the prodding and pull increases, and soon he realizes it’s something- or someone- entirely separate from Rey or himself.The realization causes him to shift under her, and in the most achingly slow way possible, he lifts her in his arms and brings himself to his knees. When she doesn’t stir from her slumber in the slightest at the movements, he determines that this is the work of the Force.
He places her gently on the stone slab against the wall, resting his hand softly on her shoulder for a moment, committing the warmth of her skin to memory. He retracts his hand, and tries to focus on whatever being is calling out to him in the corners of his mind. As he folds his legs beneath him, he begins to steady his breathing. A moment of panic rises in his chest- he starts to realize this newfound peace he feels also comes with consequences. He’s all too aware of how the being could be his late father, or his mother- maybe even Luke or worse, Snoke coming to ridicule him from beyond the grave. And he’s all too aware of all the people he’s disappointed in the end. He pushes the panic aside, hoping that whoever it is, will look upon him with some thread of understanding, and he will be able to look upon them with the same. He exhales, in and out. Let go, he repeats to himself. He closes his eyes and his heartbeat steadies. Let go.—“Ben.” His eyelids squeeze with the sudden presence of someone in the room; and the voice hits into the very core of his being. He’s never truly heard it before, but he knows exactly who the voice belongs to when his name is spoken. And though he knows, when his eyes slowly open, surprise still washes over. He looks out at the young man, who leans casually against the wall of the hut. Hair buzzed short, the ever familiar braid, the mark of a padawan, hangs right above the mans shoulder. His attire is also familiar, almost similar to the wraps that Rey graces everyday. Though, the color of them differ between dark browns and shades of black. A lightsaber hilt rests at his hip. His face is youthful, not burdened with the lines and dark hallow spots beneath the eyes that Kylo knows he himself has gained over the past few years. Though, when he finally looks in the man’s eyes, he can see all the sadness and agony that’s been stored there, and by that look alone, the man seems ancient. What surprises Ben the most about the soft blue aura of the man standing in front of him, is that his name was not being said out of the hallowed out holes where a mouth would reside in a menacing black helmet. This was not Darth Vader that stood before him, though his eyes carried all the memories of that time. This was Anakin Skywalker. This was his grandfather. A whirlwind of pride, shame, and admiration rushes through Ben. When he goes to open his mouth, he finds himself speechless. He searches for the right words to begin. Anakin pushes himself off the wall, and moves to stand closer. Though kneeling in front of this legend somehow feels like the only thing he should truly be doing, Ben finds the strength to stand and meet his grandfather’s height. Funny, how when they are level to each other Ben doesn’t feel the rush of intimidation he always thought he would. There isn’t a towering black masked form staring back at him. Just a boy, no older than when he himself was training under his uncle Luke. Anakin’s son, he reminds himself. His grandfather smiles, a genuine heartwarming smile, and puts a hand to Ben’s shoulder. Ben looks to his left at the hand, the weight of it, how real he seems in front of him. When he looks back into the eyes of the man he has so long looked up too, Anakin’s gaze is on the sleeping form of Rey.“Incredible.” He smirks. “So much strength in her.” Ben feels the slightest twinge of jealousy, after all this time, years of reaching out for his grandfathers presence, his attention is immediately turned to the power of Rey. The feeling subsides quickly when he realizes he cannot blame him. “Born of the Force, just as I was.” He whispers. This fact, whispered so casually, answers so many of Rey’s questions, and she isn’t even awake to hear it. Ben’s held breath is exhaled, and it’s as if so much of what Rey is, makes sense to him now. He finally finds the strength to speak.“Her parents-“ Anakin catches his thought before it even escapes. “Passed, yes. Just as my mother did. It’s funny. The life of your partner so tragically mimicking mine.” He moves from where he stands to crouch beside the stone, looking over Rey’s face. He looks back at Ben with a hint of sadness. “I don’t envy her.” He exhales- “But, her self control is so far beyond what I ever had. Even when she slips-“ and the look he gives Ben is all knowing, and the thought of what transpired between them earlier that day makes the heat pool to his cheeks. “-she still finds her way back.”Silence passes between them, as Anakin continues to look over Rey, and Ben stands looking over his grandfather, thousands upon thousands of questions bursting in his mind. He can’t find himself asking a single one expect for- “Why did you come here?” It comes out in a weak whisper, and he finds himself wiping away tears he didn’t know had fallen. Anakin stands, and faces Ben, clasping both of his shoulders in his hands. The face he makes is serious, though his eyes look soft for the first time since he appeared. “Ben. Don’t make the same mistakes as I did.” Ben imagines himself sitting in-front of the destroyed helmet of Darth Vader, pleading to his grandfather for help, begging to show him the ways of the Dark Side. Never did he think he would hear those words in response. His shoulders fall, his head hangs. “I’m afraid I’ve made the same mistakes tenfold.” He whispers.Anakin’s head rolls back, and he lets out a loud hearty laugh. The sound of it unsettles Ben, realizing he’s heard it before, in Luke. The way his grandfather appears before him now, he has no doubt in his mind that Luke took after him, without realizing, in so many ways.“No, Ben.” He says with a fading chuckle. “You still have one thing I didn’t until the very end.” He squeezes his grandson’s shoulders and causes him to look up. “Hope.” How odd it is to have a single word be a revulsion to you for so many years, a word to crush into dust, to snuff out of the galaxy. Now the word feels simple. It feels right. Ben almost laughs despite himself at the absurdity of it all. “The path you have in front of you will not be an easy one, Ben. It will be anything but. You will be tested in ways you’ve never been, and you will fall into old habits, many, many times. But-“ He looks down at Rey, and back at Ben. “Find your way back.” “Where do I begin?” Ben exhales nervously.“Begin with her.” Anakin smiles and nods to Rey who shifts ever so slightly in her sleep. Of course, Ben thinks to himself. He wouldn’t do it any other way. Anakin then lets go of Ben and turns, sitting on one of the stone stumps pushed to the wall, his elbows rest to his knees, and he folds his hands in front of his lips, taking one last look over his grandson. Ben suddenly feels like a young boy under his grandfather’s stare. A 6 year old Ben Solo, gripping onto Chewie’s fur when he finally felt the Falcon go to lightspeed for the first time, under the control of his smiling father. A 12 year old Jedi Padawan sitting cross legged from Luke Skywalker, his mind reeling with unanswered questions. A 15 year old young apprentice, hugging his mother after not seeing her for months on end. Her smile was brighter than he had ever seen it.As if his thoughts flooded from his mind to his grandfathers, Anakin looks up. “Ben. Your mother- I can feel her. Her days...are coming to an end. You must go and see her. Promise me that.”
His order drips with finality, and Ben swallows it down, along with a heavy lump of guilt.“Yes, grandfather.”Anakin sits up straight, and nods. And with one final glance between the Rey and Ben, he exhales, his eyes shimmering. He smiles wide, relieved. The feeling washes over Ben, and he can’t help but feel his own tears start to spill over. “May the Force be with you.” Anakin Skywalker disappears into the very air of the hut, and Ben can feel the emotions of his grandfather one last time surround him with the touch of the evening breeze. And, when he falls to his knees and gasps, letting himself openly weep, he knows that will be the first and last time he will ever see his grandfather.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

When Rey wakes, it’s in time with the rise of the suns.
She stretches out her legs, and finds that even though she lays atop hard stone, she feels more rested than she ever has.
The sunlight from the hut window warms her exposed skin, and graces her closed eyelids. And for a peaceful moment, all she knows is the color dusky pink, the embrace of sweet heat, and the steady heartbeat of the second body in the room. She exhales, and then let’s out a small yawn, opening her eyes. She twists her body to lay on her stomach, and looks down on the floor next to her.Her breath hitches at the sight of him, sun shining down on his face, showcasing his pale skin, flecked with moles like star dust. The scar she gave him looks less prominent when the bright light dances on his skin, and inwardly she curses herself for putting a crack in such beautiful marble. She pushes the thought away, knowing well that he liked the scar. It reminds him of her, even though he would most likely chalk up the satisfaction of it as knowing it adds to his menacing demeanor. She knows, though. He thinks of her every-time he see’s it, in every metal walled reflection, every projected holo of himself. More often than not, the thought of her visage filled him with self hatred, regrets, inner disappointment. Through all the conflicting emotions, he still hung to one thread of comfort.
‘To have a reminder of her at all, is a gift.’The thought is whispered into her mind, and with a full breathy sigh she marvels at how utterly open the bond is between them. She watches the rise and fall of his chest as he sleeps, tightly bound by his black tunic, the top of it unbuttoned, exposing the very beginning of his collarbones. How badly she wants to place her fingertips there, feel the warmth of his skin against hers. Feel his heartbeat underneath the calloused pads of her fingers. She looks out to the window, at the blue sky of the new day, and back to him. “You’re alive.” She whispers it as soft as breeze, as she dares to move a single wave of his hair from his forehead, hoping not to wake him. Something like cocky pride whirls in her for a moment, relishing in the fact that she knew he would never be able to drive her to be the death of him. Even so, she knows truly, she had gotten lucky. If Ben hadn’t spoken to her at the last moment, causing the Force to shift back to the Light right before the Dark took over, she could imagine plunging the lightsaber right into his heart, into the floor of the hut, and smiling down at her deed. The thought unsettles her, and she decides to indulge into the earlier idea of resting her hand on the exposed skin below his neck. She grazes it softly, and then applies ever so slight pressure. His heartbeat, though she can feel it always, in the far corners of her mind, beats steadily below her hand. He stirs underneath it, and she withdraws her hand gently, leaving it hovering close, praying she didn’t disturb what seems like a well needed sleep. His eyes flicker once, twice behind closed lids, and without opening them, his hand reaches lazily to her dangling one, and he presses her knuckles to his lips. He rests them there, letting his short warm breath tickle her skin. It floods her with want, that early morning heady buzz of want she is so familiar with, waking alone to the sensation so many times in her cot, in lieu of dreams of skin pressed against skin in dark quarters. Dreams of leather gloved hands, sliding over her skin. Dreams of being filled, desperately, looking at the hunger in his eyes as his cloak hung around them, casting her away from the outside world. Dreams of Kylo Ren. She finds it comforting now that she finds herself feeling that same buzz, as she looks down at the form of Ben Solo. Of course, they are the same man. She knows this, understands this and strangely, despite all odds, in this moment accepts it. But, where she once felt the ever overpowering cloud of only his chosen path, his chosen self, of Kylo Ren, she now feels a strange balance.Before, her mind would twist with the idea that she only ever wanted the man she couldn’t have, only wanted the feeling of his Darkness fighting against her Light as he filled her so completely, not just her body, but her mind. The intoxicating feeling of being pulled back and forth, good and evil- the danger of it and the thrill of knowing she could bring herself back down to peace at the last second. Her thoughts had been too cocky, she realized this when she lost herself in his actual touch, just the brushing of his fingers inside her, crumbled any hope of returning from the high she felt when his darkness consumed. She remembers the pain it caused her to actually let the darkness of him in, and how immensely sad it made her, to have him be the one to have to stop it when she was too far gone. But, somehow now, whether from the brushing of the Force around them, or her own pure instinct, she knows it would be different. She could let herself get lost in the man that lays before her, all the while staying true to exactly who she is, and he too, could be himself with absolution. She brushes the concept over the bond, and smirks slightly when his mouth twitches, a tiny sigh escaping his throat as he shifts. A small greedy part of her hopes it seeped into whatever dreams he was having, if any. She doesn’t prod his mind to see if he dreamt. Let him rest, she tells herself. Still, she can’t stamp out the feeling of pure want- no, need- she feels as she looks over him. “Ben.” She whispers. She experimentally swipes her knuckles across his bottom lip, back and forth, hoping with a twinge of selfishness that it will wake him. He doesn’t budge.“Ben.” She says a little more loudly, and after her touch of his lips doesn’t stir him, she gently shakes his shoulder. “Are you awake?”He huffs through his nose. “I am now.” He opens his eyes slowly to look up at her. The sun seeps through her messy hair, and her smile practically overpowers the bright light from the window as she whispers “Good.” and apologizes for shaking him. They lay in silence for a moment, taking in the morning air with deep breaths, readjusting to the feeling of being awake. She lays on her back as she looks up at her hand above her, filtering the stream of sun through her fingers. Ben watches her, mesmerized by the feeling of calm that radiates off her, and realizes that it had resonated with him in his dreams, and finds it comforting that it still lingers now that he is awake.She exhales, and rests her hand to her stomach. “Ben.” She says firmly, without turning to him. “Mm?” His response is distracted and drunk off the very sight of her.Her eyes meet his. She whispers-“I need you to touch me.”The air feels like it rushes to Ben’s lungs as he brings himself to sit up, the very words falling from her lips causing his blood to heat. His face is level with her now, and he moves in close. His breathing comes out shallow, shuddered. His deep whisper rumbles to the very core of Rey. “Where?” “Everywhere. Please.” When he slowly traces his fingertips along the muscles of her arm, she shudders. He makes his way down, to her wrist, and then his hand snakes up to rest on her belly. His fingers splay out wide against her wrap covered abdomen, and he just rests it there, rubbing his thumb back and forth against her ribcage. A small whine reaches up her throat as he looks down at the rest of her body, and back to her eyes with a hint of nervousness. “Are you sure?” His voice comes out weak but his look drips with a groggy early morning lust, his hair falling in messy waves to the sides of his face as he looks for reassurance in her eyes. She sucks her lower lip behind her teeth; and she practically whimpers with need as she nods for him to continue. A little “Mhm-“ escapes from her throat. That sweet reassurance was all Ben needed, his movements now seeming determined and calculated. He shifts up to his knees, leaning over the side of her, and studies her face as he moves his hands. He shifts his fingertips that were resting on her clothed belly beneath her wrappings, and covers the entire side of her waist with his large paw of a hand. The skin on skin contact makes Rey flush, and when he gentle rubs his thumb over her ribcage, now exposed skin beneath it, she practically jerks up. Ticklish, the chuckled whisper moves from his mind to hers, and she retorts with a smirk. He pulls his hands back from her wrappings and she immediately misses the warmth. She exhales as she watches him look to her thighs, and anticipation runs through her as he glides his hands up the length of her leggings. It takes everything in her not to pounce on him, pull at him. But, he’s being deliciously slow and deliberate and she basks in it. She swallows down her urge and lays still. “Rey.” He whispers. He locks eyes with her as she feels his hand reach underneath the hem of her leggings, brushing past the coarse hair there and laying his hand on top her now swelling nub. The touch and the way his jaw works around her name makes her back arch, and she grips onto what she realizes is Kylo’s cloak laying beneath her. She thanks the Force she has something to hold onto.He gently starts to move his palm over her clit, in achingly slow circle motions, and she swears for a moment she sees stars. She bites the inside of her cheek as he watches her face intently at her reactions. He rests his other hand up to her cheek, brushing the back of his knuckles against it as his other brushes a finger inside her. She squirms again, gripping his cloak, arching, and he moves his hand from her cheek to her forehead, pushing back tendrils of sticky curls that start to rest there. She was already so wet, so ready for him, and she could feel how pleased he was with that through the bond. The pride in him fueled her arousal even more, and she practically seethed when he easily pushed in a second finger, starting to brush up into her, over and over. Her whimpers cascade out of her throat when she bucks up against his palm as he slowly makes his way, in and out, in and out, of her. His other fingers tangle in her hair, gripping tightly, but not enough to pain her, and the feeling of being filled and grounded at the same time brings her close to the edge. He never stops watching for her reactions, though his heavy lidded eyes glance between her eyes and where his hand meets below the fabric of her trousers. As he feels her getting closer, so close, he outwardly moans, and she can feel through the bond that he is painfully hard, his member rocking against the stone slab as he leans into her. Just watching her like this could make him come undone. She sees that truth radiate off him. He moves in close to her face, lips parted as she bounces and writhes and he whispers to her shaking form. “What do you want, Rey?” She responds in action, pulling up to crash her lips to his, and a throaty moan escapes him as she slips her tongue into his mouth. She finally finds it in herself to wrap her arms around his neck, pulling him into the kiss deeper, as his hand still explores inside of her, imploring her to finally break beneath it. Her breathy whisper crashes against his lips as she shakes, “I- I want to come- please, can I come?” The plead whimpers out her, and he presses his forehead to hers. “Of course.” He kisses her and his voice drops. “Come for me, Rey.”Her body racks with shudders as she breathes out a small scream, sweet orgasm flooding through her, bright as starlight and then bursting into fireworks behind her eyelids. She comes back down with breathy moans against his lips, laying a kiss there once more and then falling back hard against the stone beneath her. His fingers retract from her with a satisfyingly wet pop, and she watches with heavy breathes as he brings his fingers to his lips and sucks her juices from them slowly.
She shakingly exhales and commits the image to memory for later use. Her hands rest on the back of his head as he crouches back down next to her stone bed. She twirls his hair in between her fingers as she watches him pant and recompose himself. Suddenly, she giggles, loudly, and he snaps up to look at her with curiosity. “This cloak is going to need a proper washing.” He hangs his head and chuckles, and then looks up at her with the most beautiful, genuine smile. A small gasp escapes her. “You have dimples.” She said in awe as she touched the side of his cheek. And his smile continued and continued as he pressed his lips to hers and ran his hands through her hair.“Not a bad way to spend the morning.” she says between breathes, and he nods, and she brings her hands to his face, wiping away the tears that started to fall to his cheeks. It doesn’t stir her to see them and she doesn’t ask him what’s wrong, because nothing is. She understands. Everything, in this stolen moment, is perfect.