This is based right after my 1-shot The Space in Between which was written for a compilation project. While not completely necessary, I do recommend reading it first since it's only one long (long) chapter.

It was disturbing how paper thin the walls of the escape pod actually were.

Rey's lightsaber had made short work of them, splitting a hole in the wall of whatever place was now up. How strange to think that something that thin was the only thing that had kept her and Kylo from becoming vaporized on their way down.

She doesn't remember the actual crash. At some point when they had breached the planet's atmosphere, hurtling at an uncountable rate through space and then air, she must have blacked out. Probably from the difference in pressure, or maybe because Kylo was hugging her tighter than a wookie to his chest and damn near smothering her as he was doing it.

Rey had be wearing a safety harness. Kylo hadn't. He was also still unconscious when she crawls out of the jagged gap she'd torn in the side of their tin-can emergency pod.

And, because her whole day hadn't been going terribly enough, they had landed buried about halfway in muck. Wet, sloppy, sinking, stinking muck. Sinking slowly, but sinking nonetheless.

This planet has a breathable atmosphere, at least. That part was a miracle. There had been no way to check before the crash. Rey had been all alone in the Falcon before her kriffing bondmate had ambushed her. One thing had lead to another and then Kylo, the idiot of intergalactic proportions that he was, had destroyed her damned ship. His dad's damned ship. Blew out the electricals and the engine and left it as just a floating husk ambling through space.

Things had happened after that, but she's not talking about those. Not at all.

Both their ships had been, for all purposes, effectively destroyed. That's the important takeaway. Hence, the need for the life pod. Singular pod. They'd had to share. And that might have been the second worst part of all of this because now he's unconscious in a broken metal box that's ever so slowly sinking below the surface of whatever godsforesaken mire they've crashed into.

"Kylo, I'm leaving you here."

Rey doesn't know why she bothers telling him. He can't hear her, but he'll need to wake up and help himself pretty soon. Even though the ground is almost thick enough for her to stand on, it immediately starts to shift under her, making her boots sink and tumbling her down to her knees.

She's never been in a place like this and she hates it already. The weight of her own feet in the filth is as heavy as the burden on the other side of her mind.

"This is it, Kylo. Lights out. You've gotten us stuck here on a kriffing jungle. I aint dragging your heavy ass out. That's all on you."

It's evening. Or maybe dawn. Or maybe the planet is just dim. But the sky is red and pink and striated and she's absolutely going to let him drown in the strong smelling silt-water because all of this, all of this, is absolutely his fault.

As Rey slogs to what looks like a shoreline, or at least a solid edge to the sinking bog, she can feel him pulling at her. Not him exactly, because she's quite confident that he's still completely unconscious, but their bond itself. Tugging at her a trying to will her to go back and attend to her other half.

Yeah, no dice, Bond. It's your fault as much as it is laser brain over there.

She thinks that the grass, or grass-like lifeform, that covers the jungle floor is purple. It looks glossy black in the fading light. Guess it must have really been evening after all. When she activates her lightsaber and holds it closer for the illumination, the blades of the plant quiver and flatten. Either reacting to the concentrated force of the saber itself or the heat it emanates.

Interesting. It's an odd reaction. Most plants don't respond to the energy of a kyber crystal at all.

But Rey can worry about all that in the morning. If she survives until morning. She had made it through the crash largely uninjured with Kylo taking by far the worst of the impact. He's hurting badly. A sharp, stabbing pain blooming like a phantom along her right temple. That's all him. She's fine, but whatever damage he's taken on is begin broadcast into and that's exactly the last thing she needs. No part of him should ever touch her, not even from a long distance.

Oh. Right. There's that element as well. If he dies, what will happen to her?

They are bonded more closely now than ever before. Something had happened between them up there, when they were stranded together in space and waiting for their clocks to countdown. She had allowed herself to make a horrible mistake and now it's preventing her from running away. Each step she takes further from her other half in need makes her legs feel like lead weights. Even breathing becomes a challenge as she drags her way through the underbrush, the weight of guilt and destiny quickly crushing her resolve to just get the hell away from the creeper that ruined her whole entire life…

Rey comes to rest against a tree, leaning on it for much needed support then suddenly pulling away as something in its bark stings her hand.

Poe had once told her that everything in a jungle is out to get her. Maybe he was right. He was definitely right that she should have never taken this mission solo. A support squad and a couple dozen blasters would have changed things.

"I'm not going back for you."

He's still unconscious. His presence in her mind is muted. Muddled. It's been at least ten minutes. He should have woken up by now.

With a grunt, Rey pushes back up off her knees that she'd been resting her hands against. It's growing dimmer by the second. Darkness seems to come easily to this planet, and she'll save the metaphor of that for dawn.

One step. Two. She never makes it to three.

I thought it was the only way we could be together.

She'd hated him so much at that moment, when he'd said that to her. That whole twisted ambush of his had ended exactly the way he wanted it to, and she'd fallen for it every step of the way. He'd taken so much from her, and then he'd had to take more.

And, if she's not mistaken, her feet are wet. Not her real feet, because her boots had mostly dried by the time it had taken her to get from there to here, but his are. Which means that the pod has sunk down far enough that the escape slash she'd cut out is starting to go under the surface.

"Wake up, you kriffing idiot. Wake the fuck up."

It's easy for her to throw the words into his mind. To shove her anger and righteousness into his thick skull and demand he come back to reality and self-rescue.

Nerves fire in his head to her command. Pain blossoms through her temple, shooting heat across her face and sending her crashing to her knees. The grass, that strange mobile plant, pulls away from her touch.

And Kylo can't do it. He can't seem to make himself wake up. He must be much more severely hurt that she'd realized. It comes as a true surprise. She's not used to seeing him at a physical disadvantage.

Granted, she hadn't actually bothered to examine him when she'd come to herself. Had simply shoved his massive, unmoving bulk off of her with the Force and focused on getting the hell out of there and away from him as quickly as she could.

"Get up," Rey growls the words, both in her head and on her lips. Tangles her fingers against the flinching grass and tries to throw some real power into their connection. "Wake up. Right now. I'm ordering you, you-"

You what? You monster? He often responds to that.

"You're a monster, Kylo. You're far too wicked to die an easy death. It's going to be by my blade and my blade alone, so wake. The hell. UP."

Her fingers twitch. His fingers twitch. She folds over on herself and rests her head on her knees. Focuses on focusing.

His eyes open. It's dark. Their shared mind is reeling. He's confused and doesn't get it at first.

And he reaches out for her, pulling at her, and Rey automatically starts to crawl back to him before catching herself.

He's wet up to his knees. The water is seeping in slowly, and it reeks to high hell. The sharp smell of it alone makes him blink and shake his head.

Oh yes, he is pretty injured. The wound on his head from when he presumably had slammed into something upon impact, and there's something wrong with his shoulder as well.

"You have to get up, Kylo," her mental voice is as deadpan as her feelings for him at that moment. "Look up over your head. That's how you get out."

Her jaw jerks up. She's not sure if she's doing that or he is. He must have a concussion because the motion makes them both nauseous.

"Damnit, focus Kylo. Get yourself out. Crawl up through that hole over your head." And mind the sharp edges, wouldn't want to cut yourself. "You're in an escape pod and it's sinking. You need to get out of there."

Where are you?

The transmitted dampness keeps rising. If he doesn't get his act together soon, he's going to have the tension of the muck to deal with.

"Don't talk to me, Kylo. You don't get to talk to me. I'm nowhere. Now get the fuck out of that pod so I can kill you."

Just feeling him awake through their bond again makes her so angry. And worried and confused and a million other things she hasn't had time to process let alone understand yet. But it's the anger that both comes the easiest to her and she's betting will be the most effective for him.

She can see Kylo blinking up at the night sky. It's the last edges of twilight now, and everything is dim.

When he rises, shaky and unsteady on his legs, he's tall enough that he can almost reach the hole as it is. This annoys Rey further because she had been too short and had to climb up the walls and clamber on the navigation panels to get out.

"Hurry up," she hisses.

Maintaining this detailed a connection with him should have been an extreme challenge. It isn't. That's something new between them and she really doesn't like it.

Where are you?

Rather than answer again, she starts to pull back. To distance her awareness from his. He yanks at her abruptly, tugging on the ties that bound them to keep their minds tightly fused.

And he keeps doing it. Pulling and pulling and pulling. It almost feels as if he's trying to physically drag her back to him, the pull is so strong.

"Kylo! What are you-"

His side of their connection suddenly stops. Grows dark. Poof. Just like that, he's gone.

Rey blinks. Stares at a facefull of trembling grassblades. Her mind is her own again.

Hesitantly she gives their cord a yank. He's alive. But he's also fallen unconscious once more.

She frowns, heaving herself up onto her hands and knees. She feels soaked and stiff. The idiot really is going to drown if he doesn't-

He's much more hurt than she'd come to realize. That's why he'd passed out again. That's why he'd been reaching for her so desperately. Why their bond had been acting so resolute.

He needed her help but he'd been too… Well, he was Kylo Ren, after all. It's not like he's going to ask for help. Not from her and not from anyone.

"I hate you. I honestly hate you, you monster."

It's hard for her to stand up. The water was getting deeper around him. Pretty soon it will be up to his neck.

Rey had promised him that she'd kill him if they survived their crash landing. She meant every word of it. But it can't happen like this.

As Kylo grows weaker, so does Rey.

By the time she makes it back to the clearing with the crash site, it's full blown night and she feels like she just did a half marathon through thick fog. She's soaked and pissed off and everything about everything is such a nightmare that it's hard to take.

Her bondmate's lifeforce glows brightly though their connection, but it is dimming. It makes her wonder what he would have done if she wasn't here. Would this have been it for the great Kylo Ren? Drowning a fool's death on some backwater piece of nowhere?

She highly doubts it. That simply doesn't sound right.

But, of course, if she wasn't here, neither would he have been. And if he had, he would have used the safety restraints in the escape pod on himself and not be tossed around like the useless black ball of pure evil that he is upon the crash landing.

If Rey was any less frazzled, she might have been able to focus the Force enough to raise the pod out of the wetlands it was now nearly buried in. But she's not and she's so damn weary and in pain that it's ironically easier to trudge through the quicksand muck and go over there herself.

She slices the top hole in the pod open wider with her lightsaber and uses it to illuminate the insides. Intergalactic dipshit is sprawled in a heap, swamp water halfway up his chest and rising. And the side of his head gleams like black liquid vinyl under the blue glow of her makeshift light. Perhaps some of his uselessness was due to blood loss rather than a full-on concussion?

In the grand scheme of things, that doesn't really matter. She has to get him out of here somehow.

Their bond tries to lend a hand. Whatever part of his addled brain is still firing must know that she's trying to help him. His body is a dead weight as she drops down inside next to him and wraps her arms around his torso. Just a few hours ago they were-

Nope. Not now. Not ever.

One-third physical strength and two-thirds Force. That's how she manages to lift him up, drag him along with her as she climbs up and out. It takes a massive effort, and she can't help but flinch as the jagged edges of the hole tear at his clothes and her own skin stings in sympathetically.

Scavenge something useful before you go. You have nothing and you may need it.

The voice of her former self isn't wrong. Gods know how she's going to make it off planet. Wiring some sort of comm array seems like the obvious not to mention only choice.

"Oops, sorry."

Kylo makes a morbidly satisfying 'smuck' noise as she dumps his limp body into the mire. He landed face up, at least.

The basic navigation panel is all she has to work with. She slices it wide, taking as big a chunk of the housing and wiring as she can. It's an ungainly piece, probably weighing a good ten kilos or maybe more. And she has no tools. This is not going to be fun.

Still better than dragging Kylo's tremendous bulk through muggy quicksand, though. The idiot who crashed them here and now he doesn't even have the decency to wake up from his life-threatening injuries and crawl to safety.

In Rey's book, that's just plain selfish. He's a bad man and bad things deserve to happen to him. Pity she has to be dragged along with him for the ride.

The jungle is hot and damp but Rey's hand still shakes when she holds a blaster to Kylo's skull.

She doesn't have to shoot him. He'll die on his own, bleeding out like he is now. But she wants to do it. Wants to shoot his lying, duplicitous, conniving brain and make the universe a better place.

"Boom."

She presses the trigger.

Click click click.

It's empty. She'd taken the charge out of it hours before when she was cleaning it since she's learned her lesson about not randomly shooting holes in things. And it's ironic that then he'd attacked her ship and she'd forgotten all about it. If she'd had the power supply in it…

Everything would have gone exactly the same. Blaster fire is just an annoying mosquito to a skilled Force user. But maybe she could have used it come daylight when she no doubt brilliantly an expertly turns her hunk of computer debris into a means of rescue.

Click. Click click click.

"Boom, you're dead again. Brain's everywhere. I got you good."

She'd been doing this for, oh, probably a solid ten minutes. Long enough to feel her own soul get pulled down as Kylo's spirals slowly. He's not dying quickly. He couldn't even do that much for her.

Instead he's bleeding from a massive head wound and all she can do is press his cowl tightly against it since she has no medkit.

"Did you hear me before, Kylo?" she shakes his body with her knee, trying to bounce his weight which she's resting on her lap. "Did you hear me? I said I hate you. I hate what you did to me. I hate it so much."

Her words ring hollow. She hates herself for allowing herself to get into this situation at all. Hates herself for all of it.

They'd very recently shared something that should have been, in nearly any other circumstance, an extremely special and touching moment in any young woman's life. And then he'd ruined it by being Kylo Ren, the man who ruins everything he touches.

The man who's currently bleeding out in her arms and there's nothing she can do about it except stroke his forehead and wait.

"And you're going to leave me here all alone to fix this, aren't you?"

Does he also hate swamps as much as she's discovered she does? Would he have been a help or a hindrance?

He would have been company. Rey never used to long for company until she suddenly had it in excess. Turns out she'd been missing on a lot.

"Kylo?"

He can't hear her. She can hear him less and less as well. It makes her eyes sting and her throat constrict until she has to put the blaster down to wipe her nose on her sleeve.

Why is this so fucking sad? She's getting what she wanted. What she had said it to in him a thousand and one times and meant it in as many ways.

Except back on the ship she hadn't hated him, at least for a few minutes during their time together. She can still feel the weight of his lips on hers if she closes her eyes and concentrates. He'd been so desperate and needing. Pleading. Soft. Kind. Ben. So different from the man she's come to know.

It wasn't fair. Why couldn't she have had that version of him all the time? Was it really imminent, inevitable death that was needed to draw it out of him?

She wipes her first tear off his cheek from where it had fallen. Before it could slide down his profile and mingle with the traces of blood caught by the collar of his robe.

He can't hear her. So… she should probably say something poignant, shouldn't she?

A deep breath in. A shaky breath out.

Their bond lies in tatters. Stronger than ever before, but also fraying. Decomposing into nothingness.

Oh. So that's what's going to happen?

It scares her and profoundly upsets whatever part of his mind is clinging to fading his own awareness. She could try to smooth that over, at least. Since she can't fix what's killing him, she can at least soothe them both while she waits.

Rey closes her eyes and wills him closer to her. She can't dip into his head. Breaching the mind of someone unconscious is so far beyond the boundaries of her side of the Force that she wouldn't even know where to begin.

But she reaches for their bond. Draws it around her and visualizes wrapping it close to herself like a funeral shroud. She'll probably die along with him. She doesn't feel like she's dying, but it makes sense. They are bonded, after all.

And maybe it's better because otherwise she's all alone again. And Rey is so very, very tired of being alone.

The Force surges in her, swirling around her tangled emotions. Hate and… and something that is its opposite. They are both very powerful entities. Only when she accepts them do the feelings inside her begin to change.

For a moment, just a fleeting second, she can feel him again. That same broken presence who ruined her.

It's gone in an instant, but Rey knows what she needs to do. Master Luke had told her of Force Healing, but their time together had been so short. She knew only of its existence and how it was pure and of the light. Nothing about how to implement it.

Pure and of the light.

What is that? Well, that's… that would be love. And if she can't bring herself up to the lofty moral high ground of love, maybe purging herself of its dark opposite will work to?

"I don't hate you Kylo."

She whispers the words against his chilled forehead.

It doesn't work. He slips further from her grasp.

Their bond likes it when they're soft with each other. It's the most powerful thing they have between them, and she can't do this without it.

I don't hate you, Kylo. I hate the things you do, not the person behind them.

She kisses his temple when she pushes the words into the numb space on his side.

Who is going to inherit his lightsaber? What's going to happen to it?

The random thought pops into her head and she pushes it away. That godsdamn saber of his… kriff, it's a symbol of everything that's wrong with him. Wrong with the whole universe.

Rey concentrates harder. Has to because he's getting further and further away. Their bond used to lead her straight to him, and now it just leads her to a dim space. A dark corner that is rapidly growing.

Her tears start to flow freely and she has to fight to keep calm. Panicking is not the answer. Fear is not the answer. The only answer is-

"Fuck it Kylo, I forgive you, okay? I forgive you for being such a intergalactic fuckup that you made a moment like this even happen."

Her words are muffled by the shoulder she buries her face against as she starts to sob. This shouldn't be happening. None of this should have happened.

And I forgive you for that, too. For… what happened up there. But I won't forgive you if you leave me. I'll never forgive you for that.

Their bond nudges at her. Prompts her to pick her head up and look down at him with bleary eyes. Mercifully it's the dark of night now. She wouldn't want to see him like this otherwise.

Her hand finds it way under his cowl. Lightly skims the massive wound reaching from his temple to nearly the back of his skull. It's even indented like the nav terminal in her backpack, and just how sick is that?

Touching it makes her own head burn. Throb painfully with fresh heat.

Rey blinks, heart fluttering at the realization.

It hadn't been doing that before. Before he'd been cool. Clammy and chilled.

Her breathing falters for a second. It's working. It's actually working. Before he had been cold nothingness, and now he's in pain and she's in pain. As twisted as this is, this is progress.

She closes her eyes again. Visualizes skin knitting over. Flesh rejoining with flesh. Whatever is wrong with him becoming un-wrong. It's an incomplete thought, but she throws her intention behind it.

Their bond rolls in a wave. Ebbs back into her mind and brings a very sharp flood of fresh pain in its wake.

Back there on the ship, they'd had a moment like this. Not an agonizing moment teetering between life and death, but a moment where she had felt so connected to him. So unguarded and yet protected at the same time.

It had been… the opposite of hate. So that's what Rey thinks about now. Thinks about that flickering second when they had both been at utter peace with each other.

The skin under her hand is hot. It was cold before. Rey doesn't let herself get distracted.

"Kylo-"

Their bond shimmers and they both work together to pull him forward to hear her.

"Kylo… I don't hate you. All you need to do is change. And not die. That's all I'm asking from you."

Yes. Very much yes. He's getting stronger. Feeling his damaged skin pulling smooth under her touch is very odd. Master Luke would be so fucking proud of her right now. She's saving his nephew. Saving his nephew so she can kill him later on when they're on an even playing field. Or maybe Master Luke will come down as a Force Ghost and do the deed himself.

Don't think about him. I hate him.

Kylo's weak and faltering voice in her head comes as such a welcome relief that Rey bursts out laughing. Laughing as she is crying and it makes her whole body shake and Kylo gasp as the movement under him sends new pain lancing through him.

Pain is good. Pain is proof that you're alive.

Pain is… Lightsider, your true colors are showing.

Rey drops her hand from his burning skin with a huff. Well that's done, then. If he's healed enough to deliberately piss her off, that means that he's probably going to live. What a pity.

"Rey..." the words are a tortured choke. She shakes her head, lifting him offer her with the Force.

"Gotta go, Kylo. It's been swell but the swelling's gone down. Got places to be and all that."

He reaches for her with their connection. She smacks him away, still too pissed off to let him get long-distance handsy.

"Yeah Kylo," her toe nudges his shoulder and he grunts, "I don't hate you. All you have to do is change one hundred percent about everything about yourself and become a new and better person. That's not too much to ask. You go ahead and think about that while I get out of here."

He tries to whisper her name again but shuts up when she balls his cowl underneath his now unblemished head. It lulls him, soothing him into a fitful rest of recovery.

Rey unclips his lightsaber from his belt and picks up his hand. Wraps his palm around the hilt so it's handy just in case any big jungle baddies try to sniff out the newcomer for their next meal.

Then Rey turns into the night, walking away from her sworn enemy with a clean conscience and a determination to her steps.

Gotten bored with my other WIPs and I've been itching to try something new. I've got a fully complete shiney new action-packed outline for this fic so yeah, let's do this. *cracks knuckles*