After one particularly grueling day in which Luke required she wear a blindfold during her training, Rey found her canteen emptied on the ground inside her hut.

"Kriff." She spat quietly. The nearest clean water supply was at least two miles away, and the day's events had left her seriously dehydrated and hungry. Consuming the ration powder was not an option. She still had her pride, malformed as it may be.

Exasperated, she began to smooth back her hair for the late journey. Breathing echoed long and deep into her head and soothed her with its rhythm and pure normality. Almost ...hypnotic. She knew it was not her own lungs that made the sounds, but delayed her reaction almost two seconds before turning around.

Perhaps Kylo Ren's mask did serve some purpose. His every thought and emotion writes itself clearly across his face. At the moment, Rey could discern stress and, oddly, relief. This time, he was fully clothed in his First Order regalia, glinting off the moonlight through the cracks in her door.

"Did you spill my water?" She demanded.

"I was thirsty."

"Fuck the Force bond. Get out." Rey continued messing with her hair, trying to ignore the brooding man in her hut.

"This isn't the force bond." Kylo said. His low voice scared Rey sometimes, but the fear was always brief and somehow, satisfying. "I'm here. And I don't think your master would approve of that sort of language."

His jab was ignored, falling short at the blind panic on her face. "You can't be here!" She hissed.

"You know I can do whatever I want."

"Shut up." She scampered over to the wooden door and smashed her face to it, searching for any sign that Luke had sensed his nephew. "You'll be dead, do you want that? You know that! You moron!"

He started for her. "Then be quiet, and listen."

That stunned her into silence as he touched his gloved hand to her hair, and drew it back quickly. He truly did have a death wish, Rey thought angrily.

"I've been thinking." He started.

"Apparently not."

"Shhh." She obeyed, although reluctantly, and watched him carefully as she sat on her cot.

"I've been thinking." He began again. "Why would the Force bond me to you? You, of all people? A rebel. A desert rat. A scavenger. A mere girl."

With no warning, he was towering above her. "I know why."

"Why?" Rey breathed. There was that fear again, that delicious little spike of dread that raised the hair on her neck.

"I can't say it. No matter how many times I try. I can't say it, because that doesn't mean anything. Words mean nothing when you hear so many last ones. I can't say it because there is no word for it that fits."

"Don't"-

"I told you once I can take whatever I want." The Sith kneeled. "And I can. But I don't want to take it. I want you to give it."

Surprisingly, Rey was not unnerved by this strange announcement. Nor was she confused. "No."

"No?" He looked up to Rey, his face etched with hope. "Do you know what I am saying?"

"You want me to love you." It was simple and obvious.

There was one thing she could say for him- he knew when not to try. Kylo Ren rose to his feet. "That's one way to put it."

He turned to leave. "I love you, Rey. No matter what the Force has in store for us. My heart is yours, and my galaxy, whenever you choose to have it."

She bowed her head. It was almost imperceptible, but-

"All I want is Ben Solo."

The soft, loving man was gone, and he screamed, wordless in his rage, careless of the sleeping Jedi nearby. Wrenching Rey to her feet with the force, he held the woman he claimed to love in the air and let her writhe in her helplessness. "Don't call me that ever again."

She pawed at the air, desperate for the ground. Finally he released her, and she hit the floor like a cat, back arched.

"I will never love Kylo Ren."

They pounced on each other, at first in anger, and somehow the flailing limbs and snarls turned into a crushing embrace. "You are mine." He growled, and crushed her face to his.

Rey returned his kiss just as passionately, but it was gone just as quickly as it had started, with the man- Kylo? Ben?- staring at her, memorizing her, and kissing her gently just once before sweeping away and into the night.

She did not try to follow him. Why should she? He carried her with him, always. And she carried Ben with her.