Rey wore black. It was fitting, as it felt more like a funeral than a marriage ceremony. There had never been funerals for any of the others, and she thought of each one of them as she spoke her vows. She and Kylo Ren kneeled in front of each other; he pulled her black hood over her head before leaning in to press a soft kiss to her lips. She shuddered as his cheek brushed hers when he pulled away. He was looking directly into her eyes with his heavy-lidded gaze. Loneliness crushed her, and Rey had to look away.

Rey could only be grateful there was no kind of celebration afterward. It would have been out of place with such a somber event. They simply arose as husband and wife, and were escorted by armed stormtroopers to their new quarters. If she had ever pictured herself getting married, which she had not, Rey would have not pictured having a blaster aimed at her on her wedding night.

Still, when the door closed behind them, locking them both in their honeymoon suite, Rey found herself wishing for the company of the stormtroopers again. She was now alone with her husband in the bedroom. Neither of them turned to face each other immediately. There was a moment of still quiet.

He dropped his heavy cloak to the ground and strode across the room, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. Rey didn't move.

"So I suppose we have a few choices as to where this goes from here," he said when one of them finally broke the silence.

"Do we?" Rey took a heavy breath and looked up at the ceiling. "I wasn't aware of that. I thought it was pretty clear what was expected of me."

"Of us."

"Right," she said, looking back down and meeting his eyes. "Us." He was penetrating her with that same endless stare that he had during the ceremony. She had tried to avoid his eyes, but they somehow had kept finding her. They were married, she kept remembering. Married, married, married. She didn't know what that meant to her, or to him, but she knew what it meant to others. What it meant to his 'supreme leader'. She knew why she was standing in a bedroom with him inside of lying dead with all of her friends. Naïve was something that Rey wasn't.

"So what now?" he asked.

"I was waiting for your instruction," she said, a little too acidic, but she could hardly help it. She had tried to keep calm ever since her capture, ever since that last battle where everything had gone wrong, but some bitterness could not help but leak out now. Rey had been ordered around, she had been poked and prodded, pushed around, dressed, married against her will and now this sullen-faced enemy of hers was looking up at her as if suddenly everything was in her control? "I'm only here to serve your purpose, right?"

She could tell her tone was upsetting him. He did not hide his emotions well. Rey was honestly baffled as to what he had expected. She could tell that he was thinking, trying to piece together words in his head. Anger and confusion and sadness were fluttering through him. There was an intensity to his emotions, and the immature grasp he had on controlling them, that made something heavy set in her stomach.

"The marriage was just for the sake of your dignity, you know," he finally said to her. "They originally just wanted to use you as breeding stock. Keep you in a cell and then throw you away when you outlive your usefulness. This is the best I am able to offer you. I don't know why you are too stubborn to see that."

"I don't care about your best. Your best and your worst are pretty much the same to me." Rey hugged her arms around her body. The dress she wore had no sleeves, just draped fabric at the top, and the room was cold. Goosebumps appeared all over her arms. "Don't ask me to be grateful for something I had no say in."

"I'm not asking you to be grateful, I'm just trying to make you understand!" His face was in his hands, and then they moved and he was clenching his long black hair in his fists. He looked very young when he was so distressed, just the bare face of a boy instead of a menacing mask. He took a breath. "I just want you to realize I did not orchestrate this just to- I wanted to-" He shook his head. "There is no reason to make you understand. It is unimportant. I just wanted to say that if you want to only sleep next to each other tonight, no more is expected of you."

"And how many nights is that going to work?" Rey asked. She knew the only thing keeping her alive was her possible progeny's use to Snoke. "If I am going to live so I can to continue to fight for what I know is right, then I know what I have to do. I won't give up, ever." She would be Kylo Ren's wife. She would bare his children, if need be, and she would raise them to the light. She would. Rey knew that the deaths of all her comrades couldn't be in vain, and she would reach the end of this story.

"If I'm going to do this," Rey said, undoing the fastenings at her shoulders that tied her dress together. "Then it is going to be on my own terms." The dress pooled at her feet, and she wore nothing beneath. Her entire body was exposed to him, and despite her confidence, Rey felt herself turn slightly red at the thought.

"Do not tempt me," Kylo Ren said, making an obvious attempt to hold himself to his spot. "I don't want to take anything that you are not willing to give."

"I'm giving it, aren't I?" She took a shaky step forward, fully aware that her husband's eyes were taking in everything. They were wide, and his tongue unconsciously darted out to lick his lips. She pressed her small body into the space between his spread legs. "I think you have to get undressed, too," she said in little more than a whisper. Without breaking eye contact, he reached down and pulled his shirt up and over his head. He dropped it to the floor when she placed a palm on the bare skin of his shoulder.

They kissed for a second time that day, and it felt more like a vow than the first.

As the parted, Rey's breath came out in shudders, and she felt a gloved hand on the small of her back. He slipped his gloves off, let them fall to where his shirt was and placed both hands on her bare skin, rubbing small circles in her hip bones with his thumbs. Without a word, he pulled her closer and began laying open kisses on the flat skin of her stomach. Rey stiffened up, and he looked up at her through dark tresses.

"How much experience do you have with this?" he asked, and Rey supposed that was as polite as she could be asked about the status of her virginity.

"Absolutely none," she said, deciding there was no reason not to tell him the truth. Still, the words stung her as she heard them leave her mouth, because of what it meant. The only experience she would ever have was here, with him, in a marriage she had not chosen. Still, an unbidden part of her was thankful it was with him instead of any other member of the First Order. There some tie between them, a strong connection that Rey could feel within the Force. There was also still a flickering of light inside this man, and Rey wanted to fan this flame to see how high she could make it burn. "And you?"

He looked back down, tracing the curve of her body down to her thigh with a single finger, watching as if he found it endlessly fascinating. "Not much. I have...but not in some time. I find it difficult to give myself to someone so openly like this." There was a surprising amount of tenderness in his voice, and Rey had not considered how this might be difficult for Kylo, too. Not that she had a large wellspring of pity for him, after all that he had done, but it did feel a little better knowing that they were both being pulled by the strings of something larger.

"You're cold," he said. "Get in the bed." He stood up and stepped around her to pull back the heavy coverings. She followed directions, slipped herself under the blanket and Kylo pulled them up to her chest. Oh, this was weird. He walked around the bed, shedding his pants as he walked, pulled up the covers on his side and lay down next to her. They just looked at each other, and then he kissed her again.

It was lazy kissing, with their eyes closed and both heads on pillows. Rey kept her hands to herself, but Kylo's played all up and down the length of her torso, light touches. She didn't mind. His hands began to dip lower and lower, but still not where Rey found herself desiring to be touched. She couldn't deny the heat she felt building as they kissed. She had never been touched so intimately by anyone, and her body responded.

"You can touch me," she said lightly, and he did. A finger moved across her entrance, lightly breached her, and Rey felt a jolt run through her. It felt so different than touching herself. He began to rub her, and when Rey looked at him she noticed uncertainty in his eyes. He was a terrifying man, but sometimes he looked so much a boy.

"You're going to have to show me," he said. "You're going to have to show me what you would like me to do." She reached down and took his hand, showed him where, what pace to set, what pressure to use, the way she touched herself alone in her old bed at night. He looked almost fascinated as she began to move her hips, as she began to let soft little noises slip through her lips. They moved together to bring her to orgasm, which spread warm through her stomach and left her body feeling tingly and sensitive, yet wanting to be touched more.

Rey felt his body shift next to hers. Kylo had started to move down, until his face was right by her legs, and he looked up at hers. "I want- is this alright?" Realizing what he wanted to do, Rey nodded quickly. Then his mouth was on her, licking up the wetness the last orgasm had caused in her. She heard him moan into her. He sounded like a desperate man as he circled his tongue around her clit, slipping two fingers inside of her and curling them under. "I want to see you feel that way again," she heard him say from between her legs, and mourned the momentary loss of his mouth against her. She pushed up, bringing herself back up against his lips, and he eagerly accepted. This time when she came, she had his tongue on her clit and two finger deep inside her that she could feel herself clench around on.

He kissed her again when he crawled back up her body, and she could taste herself on his lips, which he kept licking. She could feel his erection hard against her belly, straining against the undergarment Kylo still wore. She reached down, feeling it on the outside of the cloth. Kylo's eyes went wide, then closed. The energy coming from him was humming please, please, please, please, please, please, and Rey reached in and pulled out his cock, letting her hand stroke up and down the length of it once. He let a surprised moan, and kicked off the last of his clothing. She moved her hand off him, and, hesitantly, let her arms curl around his waist, let head head lean on his chest.

"I thought we would come together one day," Kylo said into the quiet, burying his face in her hair, kissing the top of her head. "There is something strong between us. I thought maybe we were destined to be together like this, or destined to kill each other. Something of our base urges, something soaked in blood and flesh."

"Murder is not one of my base urges," Rey couldn't help but say.

Kylo tilted his head down, and he nodded. "I know. That is one of the reasons I kept being pulled to you. Your light. I thought it was so dangerous. I wanted to extinguish it completely. But that was short-sighted of me." He unwrapped her hands from his waist, and slowly laid her down on her back, moving to where he was hovering over her. His dark eyes connected with hers, and she nodded. He looked down between their bodies, and Rey looked, too. He was holding himself, aligned to where one simple push would put him inside of her. She put her hand over his, gently guiding him until the tip had passed her entrance. "I don't want to hurt you," he said. The laugh that came from Rey at the absurdity of that statement coming from him distracted her as he shifted the weight of his hips and slid himself the rest of the way into her.

Involuntarily, tears sprung to her eyes at the sharp pain. She clenched her fists and dug her top teeth into her lower lip. "It's okay," she managed to heave out, and she realized as she spoke that she could taste blood. "It's okay, I'm fine." She was.

"I know this is not an ideal situation," Kylo said, stroking a finger down her cheek, following the line of her tear before swiping it off her jawline. "But I want you to know that we are on the same side now. You are my wife. I respect what that means." He studied her face, and leaned down to place a kiss on her forehead before slowly pulling back, then pushing in again. She let out a small cry, and squeezed her eyes to try to rid them of the other tears that were welling up in her eyes. He cupped a hand around the back of Rey's head and pulled her into his chest, where she began to cry softly. "Do you need to stop?"

Her head shook against his body. She pulled back, looking into his eyes as she wiped the tears from her own. "We need to do this," she said, and he began to move again.

Slow at first, pausing for a second at Rey's every wince, until her pained groans seemed to melt into to low, contented moans. It was a few minutes before she became used to the feel of him inside of her. When she finally did, she looked up at him with bleary eyes, biting the edge of her lip, sucking in air. Just the sight of it made Kylo Ren drop his head, eyes rolling back, and he pushed slightly harder into her. "Is this okay?" he asked, his voice hungry and slick with lust.

She nodded quickly. "It's not so bad now," Rey panted, thrusting herself up at him experimentally and eyeing his reaction. He growled, and looked down on her with extreme pleasure. He began to thrust into her harder now, his eyes always on her face to watch her response. Her mouth was slightly open, and she let out little gasps every time he filled her up.

"I've wanted this," he said, pounding inside of her, leaning down to lick the sweat on the inside of her neck. "I've wanted you since the moment I saw you in the forest on Takodana. Since the moment I felt you. I know you haven't, but you have felt the- the connection, haven't you?" Her eyes were filling with tears again, but her fingers kept gripping his back, pulling him to keep going. Kylo kissed both of her wet eyes, then her lips. "As wrong as this must be, you still want it, too?" He began to make his strokes long and slow, and he pushed back some hair that was plastered over her face. He was looking down at her was such affection that Rey didn't know what to do with it.

"Why?" she asked, kneading her fingers into his back, kissing his chest whenever he pushed in close enough for her lips to reach. "Why me when you seem to hate everything else so much?"

"I don't know," he said, stilling for a moment as if he were really pondering it to. "I wouldn't have chosen it. It is beyond me." He put his hands around her back and scooped her up, and she was almost sitting in his lap. They faced each other and Rey stared at the man she had married as he went in and out of her. He stared back, then slowly closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against hers. "This war has taken more from me than you know," he said so, so quietly. "Neither of us have many choices anymore."

"There's always a choice," Rey said, letting her head fall to his shoulder. They were quiet as they made love after that. Rey's heart raced. She cleared her mind and thought of nothing but the feel of him inside of her, his lips pressed to her collarbone. When he finally came, he enveloped her entirely with his arms and squeezed her as close to him as he possibly could, as if he couldn't tolerate any distance between their bodies at all. She thought that she heard a single sob, but when he finally pulled back, pulled out, there was no evidence of it on his face. Just the flush of man hot and truly spent. He put his hand under her chin and kissed her one more time.

"Let's sleep," he said, and he curled into her back and she could feel his breath on her neck. Rey didn't know how she could possibly sleep after that, her body felt afire in both good ways and bad, but when she shut her eyes she realized that she was more tired than she knew.

She was right on the edge of sleep when she felt him speak in a low voice behind her, almost mumbling into her skin. The words gave her hope, but she wasn't going to count on them. Not yet.

"I thought you were my weakness, but I think you can be my strength."