When is a monster not a monster
Oh when you love it
They are the epicenter of the storm; they were bound to mold together like a sword and a sheath, reaching into the long desperate and lonely bits of each other until they lie together, bodies satiated against each other. They don't kiss. His lips don't meet Rey's, this is merely the sum of their parts. A light and darkness in their eternal fight, wrapping around each other, until they had to give in to the thrum.
This was always going to happen there in the silence of the heart of the storm.
"Leave." She commands him, and he hesitates , running his gloved hand against the sharp edges of her jaw. A tenderness Kylo Ren has never allowed himself and one she doesn't want echoing on him. This is a stolen moment, they both know it, and it will never happen again. She swallows as he gathers the last bits of who he might have been.
The vomiting starts a month later. Given her hunger - starved frame , she is surprised it could even happen at all. It won't last, nothing except Finn ever does. She knows how it goes among the scavengers; the hope that disappears as the months wear on and doesn't shape her frame. She'll bleed soon enough , she reasons. She was never someone meant for motherhood. She was meant to wait for someone that was never coming.
War against the First Order rages afterwards as she hears stories of Kylo Ren, the Supreme Leader, raiding villagers of innocents to gain a hint, or clue about where his mother hid them.
Rey learns from Leia, learns the secrets beneath her skin. She learns how to manipulate the F orce. Kylo was not Luke's first student, she tells her one day after a session.
"I knew the minute Ben was growing in my body." General Organa says staring into the stars. "He was so much even then. I had hoped…" And she looks at Rey, with her eyes sad and tired. Rey takes her hand and look at the universe ahead.
"There is always hope." Rey echoes the stars dancing in front of them and she feels them the way she feels the life inside her.
Whatever it is has taken root, a hold in her body in a way that shouldn't even be possible. They only connectthrough the Force one more time as the life inside her takes hold. He's in a battlefield; the dead of the rebellion at his feet. Their connection is being severed and she knows he doesn't understand why. They don't say anything as she sees the blood drip from his hands. Some sins carry with them going forward. She thought she could save Ben Solo, but she knows now that all the choices were Ben's all along. He doesn't notice the swell on her stomach, the sadness in her eyes. He only has seen what he always has… whatever Kylo Ren wants.
Poe and Finn clutch her hands as she goes into labor. This is unsanitary, this is unsafe, there are no medical droids or anything around her as she feels through the F orce. The child comes screaming out into the world, a girl. Her tiny lungs filled with air as her voice echoes in the walls of the cave. Rey stares at the tiny thing in wonderment. Feeling her with the F orce as Finn wraps the tiny child in a jacket. Her body is exhausted, the adrenaline running through her spine as she takes the child into her arms. She never thought she would meet it, let alone it live as she stares at her daughter and sees the Skywalker legacy in her eyes. They are new eyes, but she would know them anywhere.
The baby gurgles as she holds her daughter. Finn and Poe searching for anything to clean to area. She knows life will not leave her now. The silos take more damage but Rose holds her hand fast as she looks at the child. "She's beautiful."
Rey turns to her friend. "I know." She smiles and the belonging she had sought for her lifetime aches around her friends and her child.
"What will you call her?" Rose asks staring at the child.
She feels the name, a whisper in her ear, in her soul. A voice that not even Ben had been privy to. "I will finish what you started," she whispers, "Padme." She turns to Rose. "Her name is Padme."
"We'll keep her safe." Rose promises and Rey knows that they will.
Her body heals faster than she would have thought, but it gives her the knowledge that she knows what is coming as she meets Kylo Ren and his First Order on Maz's old planet. She can feel his anger, it's suffocating. It would choke her if she'd let it, but she has more than he does. She has a reason to fight. The hate she had felt does not consume her. "Ben ," s he yells and he turns to her. She is mother. She is creator. She is the light.
And this time , they battle for everything.
It's in the ruins of the first place Han Solo gave her a blaster that she runs her saber through his son's heart. It cuts into him like butter in a lunge that he could have easily blocked. This close to him again she can feel his heartbeat, the fight leaving his body, and she removes her saber, the S kywalker saber from his body and watches as he crumbles. His breath heaving and she offers him no comfort, not anymore. He looks at her as she feels the blood feeling his lungs, his being, rushing into all the spaces between him. Like he did with his father.
"Thank you." He rasps as the legacy of the First Orde r falls with him.
The celebration carries up to her quarters as she wanders the halls of the Rebellion like a ghost. She finds Leia hiding from the celebration, standing in Rey's quarters and holding the tiny girl in her arms. The last two Skywalkers are a sight to see.
"I used to see my mother," Leia began, "back on Alderaan. Always out of the corner of my eye. She always seemed to sad. I wonder if I'll see him someday."
"I still feel him," Rey stares at the tiny child. "Like something just out of reach."
"Ben betrayed us all. He killed my men. He killed Han." Leia nearly growls. "My son turned into a monster. And yet..."
"We still loved him."