Rey
She dreams of an ocean. As vast and infinite as the Jakku sand, stretching for miles and miles. She's never seen so much water. The horizon is one, sharp line that slices open the sea, the sky. The salty air kisses her eyelashes, stirs the strands of flyaway hair that frame her face. Sea birds call to one another, riding the wind. She's floating.
She dreams of an island, a rocky shore. Here, the waves are unsettled, scraping against the rocks, growling like a chained beast. The birds stay close the island. Craggy outcrops of stone serve as nesting grounds, for them. The island, itself, has a song of its own. It beckons her. There's a pull, here. A struggle. There's something, here, for her. There's something she's supposed to see.
She dreams of a boy. A broken boy. Lost, full of doubt and fear. His long, dark hair falls into his eyes, and he shakes it away in irritation. Splashes of freckles dot his pale face. His face, full of angles and sharp edges, is tight and pained. He sits, poring over a datapad. He turns his head, sharply, and his eyes, dark and deep, land on her face. His eyebrows knit, together, and a flicker of recognition crosses his face. He opens his mouth, begins to speak. But the sound of waves and the calls of sea birds, drown his words.
She sits up, fists clenching around the sheets. She draws a shaky breath, staring into the darkness, trying to gather her bearings.
The dream is familiar in the same way a childhood bedroom is familiar. She pinches the bridge of her nose, struggling to remember it, but the edges are fading.
You dream of an island
Ahch-To. She hasn't returned to Ahch-To, in dreams or otherwise, since she left, Jedi Texts stuffed in the cargo hold, prepared to turn herself in to the First Order if it meant she had a chance to turn him, to look him in the eye and tell him
You're not alone
I'll help you..
Let me in.
Please.
Ben.
Rey slips out of the sheets, sweat clinging to her skin, hair falling in loose strands around her face. She draws her arms around her torso, shivering as her bare toes skim the cold, tiled floor of her compartment. There are no windows in the underground barracks, only a thick, steel door and a bunk. Rey kneels beside the bed and reaches under the mattress, carefully extracting a thick, old book.
It's the first volume of the Sacred Jedi Texts, stuffed in her bedding for safekeeping. She doesn't have any reason to suspect someone would steal her belongings, but she's still every bit a scavenger. She's used to thieves and pick-pockets and raids in the dead of night, all too common on the desert wasteland she once called home. Old habits die hard, she guesses. She tucks the book under her elbow and settles herself, cross-legged, on the tiles at the foot of her bunk.
She spreads the book across her knees, feeling its weight, heavy and comforting. She runs her hand over the cover, sighing, trying to rid herself of the clammy, twitchy, breathlessness—remnants of the nightmares that plague her sleep, these days. She swallows the lump in her throat and presses the heels of her palms over her eyelids, drawing deep, steadying breaths.
It's been three months since the Resistance forces landed on Hoth, an icy planet in the Outer Rim. They escaped here, after Crait.
Rey rubs a spot above her right eye. She resents the cold. After spending nineteen years in the scorching desserts of Jakku, settling on Hoth requires quite the adjustment. Of course, temperatures dropped during the long nights on Jakku, but nothing compares to Hoth's constant below-freezing atmosphere.
They're occupying Echo Base—what's left of it, anyway. The Alliance set up temporary headquarters here, during the rebellion. It's miserable and frigid, but as good a base as any, at the moment. The blizzards and bad weather keep the First Order at bay, and there's little risk of exposure. It's unlikely the First Order would ever find them here. Rey shivers, imagining the large, triangular shadows of their dreadnaughts, drowning the sun's pale rays—a housewarming gift, courtesy of Kylo Ren, yours truly.
A familiar tug, like the vibrations in a spider's web as it catches a breeze or some unfortunate insect, flickers at the edges of her consciousness. Rey freezes, stomach sinking.
Ben.
The intrusion is inarticulate, almost lazy, even for him. It's a restless, fleeting shadow, followed by a flash of irritation and resentment and something else she can't quite pinpoint. She frowns, annoyed, and drives him out, slamming the door on his prying claws. He doesn't pursue, quickly withdrawing as if she'd physically burned him.
She keeps her eyes closed, pushing air in and out of her nostrils, calmly and carefully taking the time to build up her walls, to reinforce the barriers she's built, over the years. Barriers to keep him out.
She turns her attention to the text in her lap, knowing sleep will continue to evade her, no matter how long she tosses and frets in bed. She pushes Ben into the farthest reaches of her conscious, peering at the pages, worn and crinkled with age. She's all but given up trying to decipher the texts, realizing, rather quickly, the futility of the task.
So, why do you stash them under your bed? Why do you spend hours poring over them, in the dead of night? Why do you persist? A voice chides, from the shadows of her mind. She sighs, running her finger along the spine.
Any advice? She thinks, dully. For a moment, Luke's presence is with her, in the room. She glances around, sensing him. He's near, in spirit, and , the warmth of his energy envelops her body like a caress. It's brief. The sensation passes—a light, winking out—leaving her empty and cold and somehow more alone, than ever.
In the aftermath of the Battle on Crait, word of Luke's standoff with the First Order spread throughout the rest of the galaxy. Their numbers grew, capping at three-hundred. Avengers of the weak, the poor, the hopeless. Ex-Stormtroopers, and deserters of the Empire. Refugees, pilots, Force-Sensitives, scavengers galivants, vagabonds, heroes, pirates, criminals, and smugglers. Broken people, lost people, all looking for a path. A place. A home.
A year passed. And another.
And life goes on.
Rey trains. She fights. She follows orders. She meditates, searching for a guiding light, for a purpose. There is only silence, and an ache in her heart that cuts deeper with each passing day. And Ben lingers at the back of her mind, as steadfast and bothersome as a flea.
Rey's gut wrenches, unpleasantly.
She hasn't held a proper conversation with him—one that doesn't end in tears or insults or both—since she shut the door of the Falcon on his face. Something happened, then. Something broke. She built a wall between them, trying to block him out, trying to forget that mysterious something between them. She tells herself it's better, that way. But she's not so sure. It's easier said than done.
He's still there, lingering. Watching and waiting, seeking out a chink in her armor. Like a predator, stalking a herd of prey animals, selecting out the weakest, most promising target. It's like walking around with his eyes constantly burning holes in the back of her head. He's obsessive, relentless, battering at the walls around her mind, bellowing, demanding to be let in.
She wounded him, by refusing his hand. He's angry.
She gave him a chance. Multiple chances, to make his choice. The right choice. To turn, to bring Ben Solo back from the darkness. She'd been hopeful, that night. She'd been so sure he'd turn. But he'd proven her wrong. There's no going back to the way it was, whatever it was. She has friends, a family, here. She can't risk putting them in danger to save a monster. It's time to let him go.
He won't let her.
He's always there, slipping through the cracks in her mental barriers when she slips up, when she forgets to keep herself guarded. She gets flashes of a world that's not her own, and it's like she's seeing through his eyes, if only for a moment. Fragments of thought, of speech, float across the bridge between their minds at times.
His emotions bleed through, easiest of all. She's not even sure it's intentional. A rush of something—anger, fear, longing—filters through the bond, so strong and raw and full of pain, it steals the breath from her lungs, dragging her into a world of hate and anger and pain that isn't her own. And she's drowning.
Rey leans back, closing her eyes.
He's pulling her into his orbit, chaotic and raging, burning like the sun. His presence is strong, in the quiet and peace of her own thoughts. She's got a strange sense of him. It's almost intimate. Even lightyears away, she knows more about his current thoughts and state-of-mind than she should. She can't help it. She's drawn to him, like an insect to light.
He spends fitful nights tossing and turning, trying to rid himself of visions and nightmares, as she is. He's angry, constantly. He's confused, and alone, and it bleeds into Rey—a dark, throbbing undercurrent, battering at the insides of her skull like a headache that won't go away.
Rey massages her temples, staring at the foreign symbols scrawled across the pages in her lap, trying to force them into a coherent thought, something resembling anything at all. She flips through the pages, groaning.
You're upset.
The sentiment floats across the bond, unbidden.
Get out of my head. Rey pushes back, hard and fast, and he's gone, leaving a flare of anger in his wake. She takes a breath, unsettled, and bends over the pages, again, trying to rid her thoughts of him and thinking of nothing else.
She made her choice when she shut the Falcon's door in his face.
They're fighting on opposite sides of a war that stretches back to the beginning of time. The light. The dark.
The balance.
She felt it, sitting at the cliff by the sea, on Ahch-To. The ebb and flow. Life, death. There's always a balance. It's the driving force. It holds the galaxy together. She knows it because she feels it. She knows it just as she knows there are stars in the sky.
She'd felt the Force, even in her youth. She's sure it had been there, inside her, like a slumbering beast. It had been there, when her parents sold her to Unkar Plutt, a slaver and junk and weapons trader, on Jakku. It had been there, as she carved a life for herself, hiding out in a fallen AT-AT on the outskirts of the Nima Trading Post, scavenging for pieces, trading every scrap of metal for a bite to eat. It had been there, as she grew up, competing with traders and slavers, escaping capture, fighting off thieves and rapists and gamblers and desert creatures, living by the day, by the portion. It had always been there, a lamp, as much a part of her as her own hand.
When she left Jakku, when he pushed into her mind and she pushed into his, it came awake. When she fought beside Ben Solo, the imbalance became balance. The chaos became order. And she felt . . . whole.
But allegiance and circumstance left them standing on opposite sides, again. Enemies. As if he hadn't fought by her side. As if he hadn't protected her, hadn't killed his master for her. As if he hadn't offered her the galaxy.
He refuses to join the light, and she, the dark. And there's no way, under a thousand suns, that either of them would ever put away their differences, for good. They're star-crossed, in every sense of the phrase.
She sees his outstretched hand, his tear-stained cheeks, his agonized, pleading eyes. Her heart does a funny little somersault, in her chest. What would've happened, if she'd taken his hand? What could've happened . . .
I couldn't, she thinks. It doesn't matter. He made his choice, and I made mine.
No. She can't do this, anymore. She can't spend another night agonizing over the choice she made, that day, her refusal to take his hand. She thinks of the sleepless nights she spent, in the aftermath of the battle on Crait. Guilt plagued her, for pressing the button that closed the door that severed what little hope remained to bring Ben Solo back to the light. Anger, at Ben, for turning away, for believing his choice was made. Despair, over the truth about her parents. And hopeless, burning want. Because she wanted to feel like something, to someone.
She misses the Ben Solo she met in the hut on Ahch-To. The man who, with tears shining in his eyes, listened to her and felt he could be vulnerable with her. The man who touched her, like no one had ever touched her before. The man who defeated the loneliness she'd carried with her, the entirety of her short life.
She can't shake the memory. Fighting beside him, every thrust of her blade mirrored with one of his, as they cut down Snoke's Praetorian Guards. Every breath, matched and mirrored. The power coursing through her body, in that moment. In that moment, everything fell into place. Like she'd spent her entire life confined to darkness, only to have her face pressed up to a sunlit window.
How can she stay, how can she fight this war, when everything is telling her that where she belongs isn't on Ahch-To or Hoth or Jakku, but beside Ben Solo, wherever he is?
Rey closes the book with a frustrated sigh, rubbing her eyes. She replaces it inside her bedding and crawls on top of the sheets, pulling her knees up to her chest. She stares at the shadows on the wall, willing sleep to claim her. As always, it dances out of reach.
In the dark, the quiet, she can feel the Force-Bond enveloping her mind. She can feel him, an ever-present ghost, silent, just there. He's not trying to invade. In fact, he's relatively unguarded, and Rey suspects he's asleep, or close to it. She feels the familiar weightlessness, about him. The serenity, before the fall. The drifting. She bites her lip, damning her curiosity, and reaches out, dipping a toe into the shadowy pools of his mindscape. And it feels like home.
Unable to stop herself, she dives in, letting herself float, riding the current of his dreams. His presence lingers in the spaces between the stars, in the cracks and crumbling pieces of her.
The thought is strangely comforting.
Ben
He sits in his chamber, poring over a datapad, flicking through pages and pages of reports and numbers, all blurring together. He rubs his eyes, stifling a yawn, mind wandering away from him. He dreamt of her, last night. Ceaseless, exhausting dreams, tainted with desire and heartache. Her face changes, in his dreams. It's darker, thinner. Sick. He wakes, weeping, ashamed.
Exhaustion weighs on him—his limbs, his eyelids, his thoughts. It's difficult to concentrate. Ben grunts, frustratedly. He doubts Snoke ever reviewed finances. And Hux insisted . . .
In his dream, a phantom Rey drove a lightsaber through his chest. He begged her to do it, kneeled before her, clutched at her cape with trembling fingers. He felt the blade enter his body, felt it pierce his bones, and the heat, the scent of cauterized flesh . . .
A flicker, in the corner his mind. The Force's pull. And she's there. Ben looks up, freezing, eye locked on her face. She crouches, low to the ground, dressed a overlarge fur coat and goggles. She's shivering, knees pulled tight against her chest, mittens balled into fists and resting against her chapped lips. Her face is hidden by the goggles and the hood. She's not looking at him.
Ben's breath snags in his throat.
There's snow caught in the wisps of stray hair around her face. A layer of white coats her shoulders, tangles in the fur of her hood, and flurries of it flicker in and out of sight.
Rey's gaze is fixed on something in the distance, something he can't see. She doesn't notice him. Or, if she does, she doesn't acknowledge he's there. A muscle jumps, in Ben's jaw. He clears his throat, softly, unable to stand the silence, any longer. Rey jumps, scrambling to her feet. She whips around, wildly, fear pulled tight around her eyes. She catches sight of him, and freezes. She's pale, almost transparent, save for the color burning high in her cheeks. There's snow in her eyelashes. A pitiful noise, something between a whine and a groan, grows in his throat. He swallows, averting his gaze. Rey's eyes flick to the ground, then back. He can feel her eyes on him. She turns on her heel and marches off without a word. He lunges for her, catching her wrist in his hand.
"Rey, don't . . . " He says. She whirls around, furious, eyes alight with the same disgust and resentment evident in her face that night in the forest, and again, in the rain . . .
You're a monster.
"Let me go!" She hisses, pulling away, wrenching out of his grasp as if he'd burned her. He opens his mouth, to protest. Before he can get two words out, the hum of the bond fades, and Rey disappears. Ben blinks, resenting her absence. The image of her face, pinched and twisted with hatred, flashes before his eyes. It stings, like a slap across the face. And he can't even find it in himself to be angry. He's just empty.
She has no idea, the effect she has on him. The way she can bend his heart, break it, without ever lifting a finger. He knows he could never hurt her. Not if she begged him. He can't, and he won't.
He raises his hand, touching the scar on his cheek.
You're a monster.
Snoke had taken hold of him so long ago, when he was still a child. Children are impressionable, easily bent one way or the other. It would've been easy, for Snoke to sink his claws in, to take root and grow like a weed, whispering in his ear, bending his will.
The years passed, and Snoke's influence remained. Leia sensed it.
His parents fought, and, too often, his father fled, unable to face the darkness that was already festering inside his son. Ben watched him go, seething, hating his father.
His mother wept when Han left. She was always so strong, so unshakable. She wasn't supposed to cry.
He went to her, held her hand. Hastily, she wiped her tears away and put up her walls, and an unspoken, unacknowledged distance grew between them all. His family was breaking apart before his eyes and he didn't know how to stop it. In the dark, private moments, he sobbed into his pillow, so very alone in the world. And the voices in his head were welcome company.
On his fifteenth birthday, his mother suggested he train with his uncle, Luke. That fight had been one of the worst, in his memory. He remembers his father, falling dangerously, deadly silent, before erupting. He shouted, red in the face, spittle flying from his lips. His mother's voice rose, to match Han's, until they stood on opposite sides of the room, screaming insults at each other. Ben excused himself to his room and slipped down the hall, barely holding back tears.
He hated it when they fought. He couldn't remember a time when they hadn't.
The shouting stopped, and Ben winced as the door slammed. He heard the Falcon's engine hum to life as his father fled. He could hear his mother crying, softly, attempting to hide it from him. He stayed in his room, contemplating going to his mother, holding her. He didn't. He stayed in the dark, feeling more alone than ever, back pressed against the wall, letting the tears fall, struggling under the push and pull, the light and dark, tearing him apart. And always, the voices, ripping into his mind like clawed, wild beasts. Snoke's voice. Snoke's presence, hiding in the shadows, singing him a twisted sort of lullaby.
By the time his sixteenth birthday approached, he'd begun his lessons with Luke. He did it because his mother wanted it, but some part of him wanted it, also. The Force had always been inside him, and he needed guidance, he needed a teacher.
He wanted power. He wanted to feel that raw, wild, uncontrollable energy coursing through his veins. It was already inside him, rising and falling like waves. It heightened his every sense, every emotion. It was a drug, and he craved it.
Even then, he was a bomb, a short-fuse, waiting to go off. He felt everything too deeply. He'd never been good at controlling, channeling his emotion. The anger and fear and rage and hatred always rose and rebounded inside him, trapped, with nowhere to go. His temper bubbled at the surface, and the smallest things had the potential to set him off.
The energy, the power, inside him grew steadily out of control. He felt it, and grew to resent the way he needed it, desired it. He hated the chaos inside him. Even then, he felt it. He knew it was there. And it scared him. The burning, toxic want, the thirst for power.
The two halves of him battled, relentlessly, each trying to best the other. Ben was ashamed; he suspected he was already becoming the monster his mother had sensed—feared—before she sent him away in a last, desperate attempt to save him.
Save me, he thinks, angrily.
Under Luke's instruction, he embraced the light, thinking if he trained hard enough, if he listened to Luke, he could snuff out the darkness inside him. But Snoke's influence ran too deep, already.
During his training, as he sparred with the other Force-Sensitives under Luke's watchful eye, he felt the darkness rear its ugly head, felt the wildness, the chaos, rush to the surface. He went too far, once. He injured one of his peers, badly. He'd run away, into the woods surrounding the temple, tears streaming down his face. He'd unloaded all the anger, the self-loathing, drawing his saber, slicing and cutting, and decimated an entire grove of Uneti trees before Luke found him and consoled him. He trusted his uncle, admired him, even, before . . .
Before.
Ben woke, to the familiar hum of a light saber, and turned to see his uncle's frenzied, frightened eyes boring into him. The green glow of the saber reflected in them, he remembers. And something broke inside him. Something shifted.
He remembers white-hot, burning rage, overwhelming him, drowning out everything else. And he exploded. He remembers Snoke's triumphant cry, his open, waiting arms.
Snoke's cold, cruel laughter echoes in his ears as he stares around the empty room.
He'd given Snoke everything, and Snoke had treated him like a child. Like a plaything. Something to be molded and manipulated, and, eventually, cast away.
Now, Snoke is dead. Luke is dead.
He's free.
Snoke occupied his mind, bending his will, for so long he'd forgotten what it felt like. His thoughts are entirely his own. His choices, his intentions, his will, are all his own. All his life, he'd been a puppet. A slave.
Now, he's free. And he's finding himself terribly unfit to lead the First Order. He thought things would change. He thought he wanted this.
Something shifted within in him, the moment he ignited the lightsaber that ended Snoke's reign. Perhaps, before that, when Rey's fingertips brushed against his own, and everything fell into place.
Maybe, maybe . . .
He could be different.
Somehow, he's afraid. What is he, if he's no longer Snoke's puppet? What is he, now that he's free?
I'm Ben Solo.
He imagines Rey, the look in her eyes, the soft, tender kindness, when she said that name, his name. The way she looked at him, like he mattered . . .
She'd come to him, after her vision in the mirror, at a time when she'd been so scared, so vulnerable. And she'd looked at him without any hate, any resentment. It had been so long since anybody had looked at him like that, like he was something more than a monster.
He'd begun to think of her as an . . . ally. If not an ally, a confidant. Until she abandoned him. She'd failed him, as his parents had failed him. As Luke failed him.
He stares at the wall, where she'd been crouching, just seconds ago, disgust and pity and loathing bleeding across the bond, leaving no room for him to guess how she felt about him. She didn't even try to hide it.
You're a monster.
He'd made himself vulnerable, before her. He'd defended her, protected her with his life.
And she left him.
To burn.
And the worst part is, he doesn't hate her.
Rey
Rey settles on the tiled floor of her compartment, practicing simple breathing exercises, toying with the concept of meditation. A handful of times, she's able to sink into her own mindscape. She can see the Force moving around her, can feel it humming in her veins like a second heartbeat. She welcomes it, harboring the energy within herself. She can see the web of life, the little pinpoints of light and dark in the space between all things. Ben's presence is particularly strong in the web, a powerful, magnetic beacon of alternating light and darkness.
Today, she's struggling. Every time she catches a thread of concentration, it's snatched away from her. She keeps her eyes shut tight, focusing on the movement of air through her nostrils, trying to surround herself with the Force's energy, blocking everything else. It's futile.
Ben's restless. She can feel his strings vibrating, like the struck chords of an instrument. She catches glimpses of the world through his eyes, the sleek, black corridors of a First Order ship. The thick, wet mess of anger and fear and longing in his chest, making it hard to breathe. Up and down, up and down, in endless circles. He's pacing. He's plotting and planning, working something out. Rey shudders, at the thought, not daring to imagine what sort of thing he's got in mind. Another Starkiller, maybe.
Rey sighs, giving her head a shake, imagining an infinite procession of ocean waves, a tide, letting it tow her away from reality and towards the Force's third space, like Luke taught her.
"Rey."
She keeps her eyes shut, trying to ignore the pressure of his eyes boring into her. She bites down on her lip, hard.
"Rey." Ben hisses, drawing nearer. Rey's heart flutters, in her chest. She shoots him a sideways glance.
"Get out." She says, quietly. He ignores her, and she can feel his probing thoughts, like claws, prodding at the boundaries around her mind. She withdraws, snatching her thoughts from his grasp.
"You're running." He says. Rey forces herself to meet his gaze. There's fire behind his eyes. "You're afraid. Why?"
"Get out." She says, again, ignoring his question.
"Answer me." He commands, sharply. Rey rolls her eyes, ignoring him. He steps closer, towering over her. Rey stands from the bed, drawing herself to her full height. Nevertheless, he dwarfs her.
"I don't take orders from you, Ben." She snaps. I'm not one of your puppets." She snaps.
"You're shutting me out. Stop. Let me in." Ben says, and his face, impossibly, softens. "Let me in, Rey." His voice is quiet, almost tremulous, and Rey finds herself drowning in his eyes.
"Why?" Rey says, heavily. "You killed . . . killed Han, Luke . . . You're a murderer, Ben."
"You're still calling me 'Ben'." He says, intrigued. Rey searches his face.
"Because I believe in the man, not the monster." Rey says. Ben barks a harsh laugh.
"A horrible idea." He drawls, eyes moving the length of her body. His gaze hasn't left her. Not once. Rey folds her arms over her chest, naked in her clothes, feeling exposed and vulnerable.
"What do you want?" Rey asks, keeping her tone measured and careful, trying not to betray her unease. His eyes swallow her whole.
He's selfish and cruel. He wants power, over her. He wants to scare her, get into her head. That's the reason he's here.
He ignores her question, wetting his lips with his tongue. Rey's heart beats faster.
"We could've ruled the galaxy, together." Ben says. Rey laughs.
"Rule the galaxy? What does that mean, exactly? Another Starkiller? A world governed by fear and cruelty and violence? I can't join you, Ben." Rey snaps. Ben's lip curls.
"A galaxy without vanity, and hypocrisy. Without the Jedi Order, and the Sith. A balanced world. A peaceful world." Ben retorts, nostrils flaring.
Rey scoffs. "What do you know of peace?"
"Enough."
"How many people will die, before you get what you want?" Rey asks, quietly.
"I will do whatever's necessary."
Rey shakes her head, disdainfully.
"I'm sorry, Ben." She says. "Men of war don't create worlds of peace. I can't join you."
"This isn't about peace!" Ben bellows, slamming his fist against the wall of the compartment. Rey steps back, reflexively, breath snagging in her throat. "This is about you and me." He hisses. Rey meets his eyes, taken aback. Ben swallows, curling and uncurling his fist. His eyes contain small storms of brooding, billowing anger, but there's something else, too. Something soft, almost tender. It catches Rey completely off-guard. He sighs, heavily, and closes his eyes. When he reopens them, the anger is gone. "This is about us."
Rey swallows, clenching her fists, trying to stop the shaking in her hands.
"You told me I'm nothing." She says, quietly.
The hard edges disappear from his face. There's no anger, no hatred. Just a man, scared and broken. His eyes flit to the floor, and back to her face, holding her gaze. Rey's shocked to find his eyes are filled with tears.
"I was wrong." He says, and his voice trembles. "You're everything."
Ben
He holds her gaze, and blood rushes in his ears. He watches her face change from irritation to puzzlement to pity to grief and back in a split second. She sighs, eyes dropping to the floor.
"Goodbye, Ben."
And she's gone. The Force-bond's energy ebbs, and he's alone.
His gut wrenches, and his heart sinks to the floor. Ben bites into his cheek. He slams his fist against the wall, feeling the skin of his knuckles split. He fists his hands in his hair, tugging. He draws a breath, forcing oxygen into his lungs.
Two stormtroopers round the corner, chattering, plastic armor clanking. They freeze, in their tracks, peering at him. The taller of the pair nudges the other, inhaling sharply.
"Supreme Leader, are you alrigh—" His words cut off, sharply, as Ben thrusts his palm towards the trooper, clenching his fingers into a fist. The trooper's blaster clatters to the floor, and he claws at his throat, at the invisible hand cutting air from his windpipe.
"Leave me." Ben hisses, dangerously, swaying on his feet. He releases his grasp, and the trooper falls to the floor like a ragdoll. He climbs to his feet and slinks away, spluttering. The companion hurries after him, throwing a glance over his shoulder.
Rey
Finn stands and brushes the snow from his pants, shivering. He stuffs a pair of binoculars in his pack and pulls his jacket tighter, around him.
"It's freezing as balls out here." He groans, grimacing. Rey nods, the ghost of a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. They start walking, following their footprints back to the Echo Base. They've been scouting the perimeter for the past couple hours, checking the radio towers for incoming signals and keeping an eye on the surrounding area.
"I mean, why couldn't we shack up on a tropical island base, or something? No wampas or blizzards or snot icicles, just sandy white beaches and ocean and sun." He says. He gazes at the snowy hills, wistfully.
"Sand?" Rey asks, frowning. "Not a fan."
Finn cracks a grin. Rey meets his gaze, struggling to keep a straight face.
"You're telling me the Jakku scavenger queen, herself, doesn't like sand?"
"It gets everywhere." Rey says, defensively. "And I mean, everywhere." She makes a face. Finn shrugs.
"Well, if not a tropical paradise, what?"
"Rain." Rey says. "Green."
They reach the crest of a snow bank. Rey spots the base, and the watch tower, just outside the hangar bay doors. She and Finn trek through the snow. A Resistance soldier waves at them, calling out a greeting. Rey waves back, and follows Finn through another, hidden door behind a shelf of ice, leading into the base. They enter, sighing as the door slides shut behind them, and warmer air hits their faces. Rey peels off her coat and mittens, pushing the goggles up on her head. She touches Finn's elbow.
"I'm going to the 'fresher. I'll meet you in the dining hall in an hour, alright?" She asks. Finn nods, shoots her a thumbs-up. Rey hurries down the hall and into the barracks. She enters her compartment, peeling off her clothes, and runs a bath.
She sinks into the warm water, sighing as it begins to ease the aching in her limbs, the stiffness. She scrubs her scalp, letting the dust and sweat drain out of her hair and pores, humming an old nursery rhyme.
She touches the bruises and scars on her skin. The thin, white scar on her jawline, the one she got fighting a Teedo over a piece of scrap metal that was worth twenty portions, and kept her fed for weeks. The flowering bruises along her skin, products of the hours she spends in the small gymnasium on the second floor, practicing with her quarterstaff. The healing slash across her right shoulder, the doing of Snoke's Praetorian Guard. She runs her fingers over the stitches, wincing, and a flood of memories cascade into her mindscape. She climbs out of the bath, lost in the heat of the battle. Fire and blood, crackling lightsabers—twin blades, mirrored and matched, perfectly synchronized, and the rush . . .
"Rey."
She freezes, gaze landing on him, and it takes a moment for the realization to sink in. When it does, she pales, squeaking in protest. She snatches her towel from the floor and hugs it to body, trying to conceal herself from his view. But it's too late. He saw everything. Blood rushes to her cheeks, and there's a ringing in her ears, distant and faraway.
"You evil, sick, perverted, son-of-a-bitch!" She screams. Without thinking, she grabs a bar of soap from the rim of the tub and hurls it in his direction. Ben flinches, raising his arm to block the blow. It bounces off him and lands on the floor with a dull thud. She sucks in a breath, chest heaving, wanting desperately to sink through the floor.
Modesty wasn't a priority on Jakku. Most people owned only the rags on their back. Where people fucked each other in broad daylight, rolling in the sand. Like animals without a care in the world, drunk, lustful, and dirty. Where whores and prostitutes hung around bars and pubs, and Rey scavenged to avoid becoming one of them. Those girls with bruises and vacant eyes . . .
But with him, somehow, it's different. Rey clutches the wall, for balance, trying to soothe the heat in her cheeks. She glances around, searching for something else to throw at him . . .
"Rey." He says, again. She doesn't meet his eyes, knowing if she does, she'll burst into flames. She turns her attention, instead, to the hairbrush, lying on the edge of the sink, preparing to hurl it straight at his stupid face.
"Rey."
"What?" She hisses.
"I didn't mean to, you know, see you . . . er, like this . . ." He stammers. Rey steals a glance at him. He, too, blushes profusely, face and ears stained bright red.
"Well, you did." She says, flatly. "And I ought to, er, get dressed. So . . ." She says, dumbly, unable to form a coherent thought. Too embarrassed to be properly angry at him.
"Why are you shutting me out?" He asks, again, brows knitting. Rey scoffs.
"You know why." She says, grimacing.
Ben frowns. "I offered you the galaxy. I saved your life. And you left me to die."
"You chose the dark side, Ben!" Rey says, voice rising an octave. "You were going to kill my friends!"
"Thieves and rebel scum." Ben shoots back, irritated. "They're not worthy of you. You don't belong to them. You belong to me."
Rey falls silent, closing her eyes. She almost pities him. Almost.
"I don't belong to you, Ben."
"Yes, you do. The Force is connecting us for a reason, Rey. You can't run from me. You're mine."
Rey shakes her head. She's beginning to realize the enormity of the situation. He's a toddler, struggling to win possession over a plaything. He knows nothing of friendship, of trust. He knows nothing of love. And Rey can't help him.
"No, I'm not. Nobody belongs to anybody, Ben. We choose who we follow. We choose who we're loyal to, who we trust. I'm not a trophy. I'm not a slave." Rey sighs. "These people, they're my friends. I chose them because they care for me, and they love me. And I trust them."
"I care for you." Ben spits. There's a note of desperation in his voice.
"No, you don't." Rey says. "You want to own me. That's all."
"Lies!" Ben screams, lip curling. Rey frowns, standing her ground, fingers clutching the threadbare edge of the towel.
"Show me." Rey says. "If you care for me, truly, you've got to convince me." She glares at him. "And you can start by trying not to spy on me while I'm naked!"
"I wasn't spying." Ben mutters.
Rey sighs, irritated.
"I'd rather not talk about it." She pauses. "I think you should leave."
Ben blinks, hurt.
"Rey," he begins, but the connection breaks. Ben winks out of sight. Rey stands there, staring at the spot where he'd vanished, mind racing. She rouses herself, blinking, and hurries out of the refresher. She dresses in gray pants and tunic, and wraps a long, black cloak around her shoulders. She brushes out her long, damp hair and sticks it in her usual bun.
In the dining hall, she finds Poe, Finn, and Rose seated across the hall, at the end of a long table. She hurries over to join them, slipping onto the bench beside Poe.
"Rey!" Poe says, happily, around a mouthful of bread. "How's it—" He stops, mid-sentence, frowning. He swallows. "You alright? You look like you've seen a ghost."
Rey cocks an eyebrow, waving him off.
"I'm fine. Just hungry."
Finn laughs, dumping his mashed potatoes onto her plate.
"Eat up, then. We've got plenty."
She's able to work her way through a meal of potatoes and salad and stew without dwelling on Ben. She listens to Poe Dameron's tales from various missions to the far corners of the galaxy, laughs when Finn cracks jokes, and warmth spreads through her body. She gazes at them, her friends, full and light. Despite the indecipherable Jedi Texts, the looming threat of the First Order, Ben Solo, and the war inside her head, she's happy. She belongs. She's home.
Ben
He sits in his chambers, a bottle of hard liquor sitting on the table, before him. He tips it back, taking a swallow, wincing as the burning liquid slips down his throat. He blinks, staring around the room, blearily. He stifles a burp, chuckling to himself. He's a mess. Oh, gods . . . He's reached the end of the line, hasn't he? Everything is dust. And he's lost. He laughs, again, takes another gulp. He wipes his mouth, setting the bottle on the table with a loud clunk. The worst part is, he's not drunk.
He can't get Rey out of his head. The image of her body, unclothed, dripping wet. Perfect hips and breasts and glittering eyes . . . full of fire. He bites his lip, ashamed, fingers clenching into fists. The memory is seared into the folds of his brain tissue. Every time he closes his eyes, he sees her. There's a monster, in his chest. A beast. Sniffing the air, hungry. . .
He's despicable.
His gaze flicks around the empty room, wishing she were with him, now. He wants to touch her, wants to plunge his hands in her hair, wants to trace her skin with his fingertips, his lips. He finishes the contents of the bottle, properly disinhibited. He stumbles to bed, tossing and turning, before succumbing to a fitful slumber.
He dreams of her, like always. She lies, naked, pressed against him, their bodies slick with sweat. She touches him, says his name, over and over, into his skin. She kisses him, in ways he never knew a person could be kissed.
He wakes, alone and broken, tears running the length of his face.
Rey
Rey dreams of the island, again, that night. She's standing on the rocky shore, and the tide washes over her boots. The salty air stings her nostrils, and the sea birds ride the wind currents in large, lazy circles. Rey watches the tide, eyes following the line where the sky ends and the sea begins. She blinks, and the ocean becomes sand. Sand, that stretches for miles beneath a bleeding, red sun. The tide washing over her boots is sand, as well, and she begins to sink. Rey tugs her foot free, scrambling to find solid purchase. Instead, she sinks to her knees. The more she struggles, the quicker she sinks, until the sand reach her chest and she can't move her legs. She screams, calling for help, and the sand fills her mouth. She gazes at the sky, fear coursing through her veins. A shadow appears, above her, blocking out the sun. She coughs, the sand clinging to her tongue, her throat, squinting at the figure. It's a man, in a mask. Kylo Ren. He tilts his head, regarding her.
"Ben." She coughs.
He grabs her, around the shoulders, and hikes her out of the sinking field. She falls to her knees, coughing. She spits, on the ground, saliva caked with sand. She wipes her mouth, looking at the masked man. Kylo Ren looks at her.
"Rey." He says. The modulator muffles and warps his voice. He kneels, beside her, and removes his mask. Where Ben's head should be, there is nothing. The body crumples, to the ground, and it's just a heap of clothes. She scrambles to her feet, turning, and she's no longer standing on Jakku's desert sands, she's standing in a cave. A cave, with a mirror . . .
She steps toward it, heart beating in her throat. She reaches out, fingers brushing along the cold, cloudy glass. Cracks appear in the glass, spreading from the places where her fingers touch the mirror. The cracks deepen, and the glass shatters.
She wakes, with a start, breath snagging in her throat. Her fingers clutch the sheets, and she whips around, staring into the shadows. Ben is there, standing at the foot of the bed. He regards her, thoughtfully. There's no hardness, no anger in his face. The bond is alive, humming with their shared energy. She senses curiosity, within him, and a overwhelming urge to look inside her head, to travel among her thoughts and turn them over in his hands. And beneath all that, a flicker of worry. Compassion, buried in the deep, dark reaches of him.
"You talk, in your sleep." He says, tilting his head. "You said my name."
"Did I?" She says, feigning indifference. She bites her lip, feeling the blood rush to her cheeks.
"You dream of an island. And the mirror, it isn't done with you." He says. "I saw it, too."
"Ahch-To." She says. "The First Jedi Temple, the mirror . . . I see it, every night. In dreams." Rey pauses, glancing at her hands, folded in her lap. "It feels real. More than dreams. Premonitions, or visions . . ." She wets her lips. "I dreamt these dreams as a child, too. I saw the island." She looks at him, and he stares back. His eyes are soft, his face incredibly open, vulnerable. Like the night on Ahch-To, in the hut, when their hands touched. When she felt like he was the only person she'd ever felt like she could talk to. Really talk to. Like he was the only one who truly understood her.
"I saw you." Her voice is barely a shiver.
"I saw you, too." He says. He steps closer, and his hand jerks, as if he means to touch her. He thinks better of it, for his hand returns to his side, limp and defeated. Before Rey registers what she's doing, she scoots over, on the bed. Making room for him, maybe. Shifting her weight. When he draws closer, takes a seat on the bed, his eyes never leave her face. His nearness, the sound of his breath, his unwavering gaze, sets every hair on her body standing on end. Her heart flutters, like bird wings, in her chest. Rey prays to the gods he doesn't notice the effect he has on her, doesn't realize he can provoke this kind of reaction in her with an act as simple as looking at her, sitting beside her.
"I saw you. A girl, in rags. A girl, cloaked in darkness. Alone." He pauses. "When I saw you in the woods, on Takodana, I knew you were the girl I dreamt of, for so many years. When I looked inside your head, what I saw only confirmed my suspicions. Our fates are entwined, somehow. The Force is pushing us together. We can't sever the bond. We can't run from this. Rey," he says, taking her hand. She flinches, resists the urge to tear it away. Instead, she looks at his face, finds herself drowning in the tide of his gaze. "It'll keep drawing us together, in one way, or another." He blinks, drawing a shaky breath. "I don't want to run from this."
Rey tugs her hand out of his grasp.
Why did you do it, Ben?" She asks, quietly.
"What?" Ben withdraws.
"Why did you turn away, from the light? There's still good inside you. I can feel it. I know it as I know my own name. They're wrong. Leia, Snoke, all of them. You're not lost to the dark."
He winces.
"I-I'm . . ." He begins, and falters. "You think you can fix me."
"What?" Rey says, taken aback.
"You think you can change me. You think you can make me into some light side Resistance pet. You think I'm going to jump through hoops for you. You're wrong. I can't change. I don't want to change." He says, fiercely.
"Ben . . ." Rey starts, defensive. "I. . . I'm not . . ." She starts, and trails off, helpless.
"I'm not an obligation, Jedi." He spits. "Consider yourself relieved of whatever righteous duty you think you're fulfilling by redeeming me." He spits.
"Ben . . ."
"I don't need your pity." He snaps, bitterly, and laughs. It's a cold, cruel sound. Rey withdraws, letting go of his hand. He presses on, feeling the darkness pulsing inside him, feeling the anger, the rage, coursing through his veins.
"That's right, Ben." Rey cries, fiercely, eyes flashing. "I pity you. I pity you, because you're stubborn and selfish. And it's exhausting, befriending someone who refuses to change!"
"Befriend?" Ben cries, incredulous.
"In case you haven't noticed, you don't exactly have a fan club. And you could probably use a friend, for a change!" Rey yells.
"We're supposed to hate each other." Ben snaps. "We're supposed to be enemies."
"No." Rey says, and her voice cuts through him. A sharp, swift blow that stops his tongue in its tracks.
"Why?" He asks, huskily. Tears glitter in his eyes. "Why don't you hate me?"
It would be so much easier if she hated him. He wishes she'd scream at him. He wishes she'd fight back. It was so much simpler when she was trying to take his head off. But then, nothing about her has ever been simple. She's a series of strange contradictions, a paradox, an enigma. She's fiery and passionate where the Jedi are not. She's a splash of color in world of black and white, and he can't pin her down.
"Because I . . . " She starts, and falters. "There's light in you. I can see it." She pauses. "And I can't stand by and watch Ben Solo wander through the dark, on his own, when there's a chance he could return."
Ben scoffs.
"You rejected me. You tried to kill me."
"I wasn't going to kill you."
Ben rolls his eyes.
"I didn't have a choice, Ben." Rey says, before he can retort. "I couldn't let my friends die. I'm no Jedi, but I'm not a monster."
He recoils, stung.
"That's not what I meant." She says, dumbly. Ben stands, going to the door.
"I know exactly what you meant, Rey." He says, and there's no anger, nor hate, behind his words. Only emptiness.
"Ben, don't do this . . ."
He wrenches the door open and tears down the hall, letting it slam behind him.
She stares after him, guilt eating at her gut like poison.
If she'd just learn to shut her stupid, blabbering mouth . . .
But she didn't. There's no taking it back, now.
Hot, stinging tears spring in her eyes and spill onto her cheeks. Angrily, she wipes them away. She wants to slap herself, for being so silly and girlish. For falling to tears every time they speak. She hates the way he can get a rise out of her so easily. He can elicit such pain and anger in her. He can bend and twist her will, to his liking. And she hates it.
She seizes one of Jedi Texts, a large, heavy tome, and throws it at the door, curses spilling from her mouth. A custodial droid taps on the door, beeping concernedly.
Rey doesn't sleep, the rest of the night, plagued by guilt and the image of Ben's torn face, in the dark.
Ben
Ben
Ben decimates an entire army of training dummies, one after another. He's in the gymnasium normally used to train and condition Stormtroopers. He's alone with his rage, though. He swings his saber in an arc, cutting a dummy right down the middle. It falls with a defeated thud, fizzling, raining sparks on the tiled floor. He doesn't pause, shifting his weight, pulling off an extremely difficult three-quarter turn, throwing his arm out for balance. He plunges the saber through the next dummy, all the way up to the hilt, then pulls it out, spit flying from his lips.
Sweat pours down his face, stinging his eyes. He pushes a lock of dark hair out of his face, chest heaving. He cuts down another pair of droids, thoroughly enjoying himself. He's glad for this outlet, this channel. He pours his rage into every stroke, every maneuver, rewarded with the hiss of melting metal and the pop and fizz of sparks as the dummies fall to the floor.
He imagines what this would be like if he was fighting alongside her. Rey.
When they fought the Praetorian Guards, he was so sure of every movement, every stroke. He could feel her energy moving freely within his body, his mind. The Force had been singing, alive with their combined energies. She'd held her own surprisingly well, considering her minimal training. She was strong, skilled.
Ben allows himself to imagine what it would be like to mentor her, to show her the Force. The light side and the dark. The Jedi and the Sith. Are they so different, really?
She's stronger than she knows. Together, they'd be invincible.
He laughs, coldly.
She doesn't want him. She doesn't care for him.
He's a monster.
He swings his saber, cutting a large slash through the nearest wall. His muscles coil and tense, and blood rushes to his face. The fight goes out of him, and he steps back, panting.
She'd offered him a path to the light. What did she expect?
Can't she see? He thinks. I can't.
She chose her path, and it's not one he can follow. He can't throw this away. Not after he'd given everything to the dark.
Even if he did leave, if he deserted the First Order, where would he go? It's not like he can waltz into the Resistance base, demanding forgiveness, expecting them to take him in with open arms. They'd imprison him or torture him or kill him, possibly all three. He'd given the orders that decimated their army, the entirety of their fleet. He'd personally tortured and killed several of their soldiers, in cold blood. He'd murdered his own father, a Resistance ally, a friend. There's no forgiving what he's done.
No.
He can't go back.
Ben stows his lightsaber away and leaves the gymnasium, making his way to his quarters. He'd exhausted both his mind and body. He's got a mind for only two things: a hot shower and rest. He need to gather his bearings, to take his mind of Rey. It's an impossible feat, really.
He's so absorbed in his thoughts that he doesn't notice the squadron of Stormtroopers approaching him until blaster fire sings by his ear, missing the right side of his face by inches.
He stops in his tracks, facing his attackers. The troopers are led by Phasma's successor, Captain Rigel—a big, brutish man dressed in sleek, black armor.
"Seize him!" Rigel cries, firing again.
Ben draws his lightsaber in one fluid motion, charging at the oncoming Troopers. He strikes the nearest man, and the saber sinks deep into his chest, all the way to the hilt. He coughs, spattering Ben's face with blood, and collapses. Ben pivots, blocking the oncoming advances, and cuts down two more enemies. He seizes one, around the shoulders, and uses the limp body to deflect the blaster-fire.
The Force moves through Ben and his attackers, linking them. He knows exactly where each blow will land, where the lightsaber finds its home, buried in the chest or neck or head, separating limbs from bodies.
He finds cold, cruel pleasure in killing. He gives himself over to the Dark, balancing his rage and fear with precise, learned maneuvers and confidence, trusting in the Force and in himself. He was built for this—the heat of the battle, the fine line between life and death. Every second makes the difference between survival and defeat, and it invigorates him. His heartbeat rings in his ears, and the Force hums in his body, his fingertips.
Soon, Rigel is the sole survivor of the squadron. Ben thrusts his palm out, drawing the man towards him. Rigel's weapon clatters to the floor. He struggles against Ben's grasp. Ben closes his fist, red clouding his vision. He can almost hear Snoke's cackling, cruel laughter. Rigel claws at his throat, gasping for air.
"Who ordered the attack?" Ben demands, spit flying from his lips. He rips the man's mask away, tossing it against the wall, where it hits the floor with a dull thud. Rigel shakes his head, refusing to speak. Ben growls, tightening his grasp on the man's throat.
"Who?" He asks, again, though he's already certain of the answer. Ben passes a hand over Rigel's face, extracting the information as easily as he would steal a toy from a toddler.
"Hux." Rigel gasps, face turning a rather ugly shade of purple. "General Hux."
Ben's lip curls. He should've foreseen Hux's intent. Hux despises him, distrusts him. He's always been a power-hungry, blundering fool. It's only right that he would lead a mutiny, without Snoke to stop him. It's so like him, to send some other fool to do his bidding. Hux would never risk getting his hands dirty.
Ben releases Rigel and the man falls to his knees, spluttering and gasping. Ben straightens, sweeping past the man, fuming. He climbs into the elevator, punching the correct floor without thinking.
He finds Hux on the bridge, in harried conversation He storms into the room. Hux turns. The sight is almost comical. The fool's face turns from white to red to purple and back in a matter of seconds. Wild fear glints in his eyes, and he cowers, scrambling backwards.
An invisible fist closes around his throat, and Hux falls to his knees. Ben approaches him, drawing his lightsaber. He towers over the General, holding the weapon against his face. Hux screams as the blade presses into his cheek.
"Give me a good reason why I shouldn't kill you, here and now."
"I-I don't know what you're . . ."
"You know exactly what I'm talking about. Your men tried to kill me. I should kill you and be done with it. You're just a fool. Fools are dangerous." Ben growls, furious.
"Ren, please," Hux begins, eyes wild with fear. "I was wrong, I . . ." Ben presses his lightsaber against his cheek again, and he screams. Around the room, people watch with frightened awe, not daring to move. It would've been easy to hear a pin drop, if it weren't for the sniveling, sobbing man on his knees for the entirety of the First Order's leadership to witness.
Ben relents, giving Hux time to gather his bearings. He's toying with the idiot, and thoroughly enjoying himself.
"You've lost." Hux wheezes, and Ben cocks an eyebrow, disbelieving something so ballsy could ever come out of his mouth. Yet, here they are. Hux presses on. "I've heard the whispers. The rumors. Some say you're, dare I speak it, a Resistance Sympathizer."
"Your people mistrust you, resent you. You're losing the support of the First Order. Kill me, and nothing stands between you and a full uprising. You're too busy sniveling over your mother and father, the rebel scum you call family, to see past your own nose. You're weak. You're powerless, without me."
Ben bites the inside of his cheek, drawing blood. After everything he'd given the First Order . . .
This is how he's repayed? With deception and lies and mutiny?
He won't stand for this. He can't let a fool sit here and bark insults into his ear.
Ben glares at Hux, imagining all the wonderful, terrible ways he could kill the man, here and now. He can't. If what Hux says is true (and Ben knows it is, at least, in part) killing him would be a grave misstep. Better to give the man a friendly reminder of his mistake.
Ben raises his saber and slashes a cut across Hux's face. The man screams, falling to his knees, pressing his hands to his face. Blood gushes between his fingers. There's a gaping, bloody mess of tissue where his eye should be.
Ben straightens.
"Watch your step, General."
He turns toward his audience, stowing his lightsaber in his belt. He glowers at them.
"Would anyone else care to challenge my authority?" He says, coolly, voice dangerously low.
He enjoys watching their faces pale, fear flashing in their eyes, like trapped animals. Most shake their heads, slinking backward. The fear in the room is tangible. Ben laughs, and the sound is ugly, strained.
"Good."
He sweeps across the room, ignoring Hux's muffled cries, cloak billowing behind him. He steps over the threshold, and the door slides shut behind him.
Rey
Rey elects to skip breakfast. She sits in her chambers, the first volume of Jedi Texts splayed on her lap. Ben lingers, in her thoughts, today. She takes a breath, steeling herself, and reaches across the bond.
He pushes back, expelling her from his mind, and pain flares in her temples.
Get out!
It's not so much tangible words than a fleeting feeling, accompanied by a swell of conflicting emotions, sadness and anger and reproach. She sits back, trembling, and her head throbs, painfully. She wraps her arms around her torso, trying to sort herself out.
The door to her compartment opens, and Finn enters, carrying a tray of leftover pastries, from breakfast, and a mug of caf.
"Rey, I thought you'd en—" He pauses, catching sight of her, and the smile slips off his face.
"Hey, you okay?" He asks, gently, crossing the room. He touches her shoulder, lightly.
She nods and opens her mouth, intending to assuage his concerns, and bursts into tears. He sets the tray on the edge of the bed and wraps his arms around her. She clings to him, grabbing fistfuls of his jacket, and the sobs that tumble from her mouth are strangled and ugly.
"You're okay, Rey. Hey, it's okay." He says, alarmed. She clamps her hand over her mouth to muffle the sobs. He takes a seat on the bed, and the mattress dips a little with the added weight. He rubs a hand over her back, and his embrace steadies her. She takes a few, hitching breaths and mops her eyes.
"I'm sorry." She gasps, pulling away. She wipes her nose on her sleeve.
"Sorry? You've nothing to be sorry for." Finn says, gently. "What's wrong?"
She looks at him, her best friend, and her heart breaks, a little.
"I can't . . . I can't tell you." She says, uneasily. Finn's brow furrows.
"You can't . . . Why not?"
She stares at her hands, clasped in her lap.
"It's complicated."
She expects him to get angry, to press her, to yell. He doesn't. He just pulls her into his arms, again.
"When you're ready to talk, I'll be here." He says, and his words are enough to prompt a fresh wave of tears.
It's not fair. He's always been by her side. He's the reason she's anything but a dirty scavenger, wallowing in dust and spare parts, growing old and wrinkled under the desert sun. His trust, his support, has never wavered. Friends shouldn't keep secrets.
But she doesn't have a choice.
Ben
He knows she's there before he even turns his head. She's standing in the empty hallway with her arms crossed over her chest, face drawn and unreadable.
"Ben." She says.
He turns, facing her. He clenches his fists, expecting to feel something, rage or resentment. All he feels is exhaustion. How long has it been since he'd slept? Two days? Three?
She approaches him, boldly, stupidly, and her hand finds his cheek. A bruise blossoms high on his cheekbones, where a trooper struck him. He stiffens, jerking away from her touch.
"I'd rather not do this." He says, tiredly.
"You can't run from me forever, Ben." She says. Strange, the roles are reversed.
"This bond is irritating in the best of times. It would suit us both to ignore it."
"Funny, I didn't hear you complaining when you were spying on me, in the refresher. You really ought to guard your thoughts more carefully." She says.
Ben fights to keep his composure, but his face betrays him. He feels the telltale heat in his cheeks and ears and knows he must be blushing. He longs for his mask.
"You think I'm nursing a silly schoolyard crush? You think I want a dirty scavenger rat?" He laughs, harshly. "You're naïve."
"And you think I want a dark-sider?" She screams, and clenches her fists. "You're a coward! You're scared. You're running from yourself, Ben. You're so desperate to kill the past, but it's the very thing that could save you." She glares at him. "You think everything's about you. It's not!" Rey screams, chest heaving. "You're despicable."
Her anger pulses through him. He probes the bond, curiously, sorting through her thoughts. Fragments of insults and curses, thrown at him, entwined with resentment and anger, dark energy.
"Get out of my head!" She growls, and pushes against his mind, driving him out. He pushes back, blood rushing in his ears, and a spark of electricity jumps between them. A reel of images flash through his mind, so fast it makes him dizzy. She's in his mind, picking through his memories ruthlessly, wreaking havoc.
He sees her, in the snow, lightsaber poised above her head, ready to cut him down. He sees her, as he does in dreams, lips brushing against his skin. He sees her, rain soaked, kissed by firelight, reaching out to him with her fingers outstretched, eyes wide and tender, almost pleading.
"No!" He yells. With one, fluid motion, he severs the connection, wrenching his mind from her grasp. She starts, as if he'd shocked her.
"Ben . . ." Rey starts. He grabs her wrist, drawing himself up to his full, considerable height, so that he's towering over her. He glares at her, watching a flicker of fear chase through her hazel eyes.
"Ben Solo is weak." He growls, and a film of red blooms over his vision. She's so close, his nose brushes her cheek. "You've no right to call me by that name."
She wrenches her arm from his grip.
"I'm beginning to think you enjoy the torture. You're only hurting yourself. You can make things right." She says, and her face softens. "But you're the only one who can make that choice, Ben." She puts emphasis on the word, spitting it in his face.
He draws away, regarding her with eyes like cold steel.
"I've made my choice."
He turns his back on her, sweeping down the corridor, leaving her staring after him.
"No!"
Ben sits up, fighting to draw a breath. He runs a hand over his face, staring into the darkness. His eyes sting, his cheeks and pillow dampened with tears. He'd wept, in his sleep. He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to shake the terror. It was a nightmare. The essence of the dream is recurring, but the faces change. He stands on the bridge, holding his saber, trembling with the push and pull. He can feel the two sides of him, battling, each pulling at the other. He can feel his pieces cracking, splitting open.
I'm being torn apart.
He hears the words, an echo, a ghost. The saber hums to life, and he watches his victim's face, bathed in scarlet light, as the life leaves their eyes. Sometimes, it's his father, his mother. Tonight, it's her. Rey. The light's chosen one.
His equal.
His enemy.
He laughs, but the sound is like broken glass.
Ben stands, pulls a cloak over his shoulders, and crosses to the window, gazing at the stars. He can't shake the nightmare. He sees her face, sees the fire in her eyes, as he drives his lightsaber through her chest, feels her fingers tracing his cheek. His skin reacts, to her touch, as if he's been shocked. It's akin to the feeling he got the moment their fingers touched, in the hut. Electricity. Energy. A shift, in the Force.
He knows he could never hurt her. Not if she begged him. He can't, and he won't.
He worries his lip, gazing into the endless black abyss, dotted with countless stars and systems. He casts himself among them, adrift with the tide of his thoughts. And the nightmare . . . he relives it, every time he closes his eyes.
Her hand brushed against his face, almost lovingly, as she drew her last breath. He only watched, frozen and shaking, tears staining his face, as she fell, lifeless, over the edge of the bridge.
He pictures her face, her eyes. The way the conflict, the battle, inside him ceases, for a moment, when she says his name. Not Kylo Ren. That's a lie. A facade.
Ben.
"Ben Solo." He tastes the words, balancing them on his tongue.
Ben Solo is foolish, weak.
The smile disappears. Snoke's voice echoes in his head, rebounding, a thousand times amplified. He tenses, breath snagging in his throat.
You must destroy him.
"No." Ben says, staring into the dark. He can feel the pulse of dark energy inside him, snuffing out the light. He can't breathe. He needs to get out . . .
His feet carry him towards the door off their own accord. He tears down the hallway, cape billowing in his wake.
He doesn't have a destination, nor does he pay attention to the direction he's headed. He makes a left, then another, wandering the base. Snoke' voice echoes in his head, snapping at his heels like a beast as he sprints through twisting, tiled hallways. Ben claps his hands over his ears, squeezing his eyes shut.
When he opens them, he finds himself standing in the center of Snoke's throne room, trembling, a strangled cry building in the back of his throat.
The Raven was Snoke's former flagship, before the Supremacy was designed as a mobile base for the First Order. It, too, is equipped with an elaborate throne room.
He forces himself to take deep, gulping breaths of air, trying to quell the desperation, the fear, bubbling in his chest.
He can't turn to the light. Not after everything he's given to the dark side. It's not an option. If he turns to the light, if he walks away from all this. Everything he's built . . .
It would've been for nothing. It would've all been in vain. The thought alone is enough to send him into some dark, twisted place inside his head, of which there's no escape.
This is the side I chose, he tells himself, running his hand over the arch of the throne, feeling the cool metal kiss his fingertips. This is the right path, the only path.
He's never been less sure of anything in his life.
He screws up his eyes, trying to ward off the flood of emotion, memory, threatening to break through the cracks in the barriers he'd built, over the years. He screams as his walls crumble, and a thousand images flash in his mind, memories and thought fragments that burn themselves into the backs of his eyes.
Snoke's presence, in his mind. Whispering, taunting, weaving intricate lies as carefully and patiently as a spider weaves its web. He clung to every word. He bared his soul to that ghost in shadows. Snoke listened. He was the only one who ever did. His parents were too busy screaming insults at each other, across the house, to ask him what he wanted.
The eyes of the students, no, friends, he murdered, the night he fled Luke's temple. They stood up to him, defended their beloved master, and he cut them down. He drove his lightsaber through their bodies, one after another, felt the life leave them. The light inside him dimmed, as he danced his blood ballet. His lightsaber bled bright red.
His own blood, sparkling on tiles, as he knelt before Snoke. His master's servants beat him, kicking and punching until a flowering of bruises painted his skin varying shades of red and purple. Until his lip was split, and his thighs quivered from kneeling for so long. Until the blows they landed left scars running the length of his body.
He tried desperately to quell the fear, rooted in some deep, primitive part of his brain. He tried, so hard, to extinguish the pull to the light. He didn't have a sanctuary, even in his own head. Snoke's presence tainted his mind. The voice in his head berated him, taunted him, pulling him apart with cruel precision, as a child would pull wings off an insect. Slowly, Snoke pushed him farther and farther into insanity. Carefully, efficiently, Snoke created the monster called Kylo Ren.
Ben comes back to himself, kneeling on the tiles, shaking with the effort to close the floodgates, to stop the swell of memories from driving him completely, irrevocably insane.
His whole life had been a series of lies. He jumped through hoops for Snoke, thinking—believing—that if he proved himself, if he followed orders, he would earn Snoke's approval. He'd surpass Snoke, himself, and carry on Vader's legacy. That he'd finally feel . . . whole. That the war inside him would end. That the wounds would heal, and the pain would give way to peace. But Snoke beat and bent Ben Solo, shaped him into the monster called Kylo Ren, used him up, until there was nothing left but a shell of a man. And Snoke intended to discard him, once he'd ceased to serve a purpose, like he meant nothing. Like he was nothing.
Blood seeps from the slit his teeth makes in the skin and trickles into his mouth, staining his teeth. He keeps biting, and the pain only fuels his fire. He draws his lightsaber, igniting it, and raises it above his head.
"You're wrong." He tells his phantom master, running his tongue over his bloodied lips.
He decimates the throne, cutting and slashing, tearing it apart. The Force pulses around him like a heartbeat, ringing in his ears. He lets his rage take control, blinded by it. It obliterates everything else. It hurts, and he's so angry. He can barely breathe.
He stops, tears streaming down his face, blood running down his chin. He extinguishes the lightsaber and throws it among the wreckage, stepping back. He draws a shuddering breath, feeling exhausted and weak but cleansed, better than he's felt in a long time. In his mindscape, phantom Snoke shakes his head, in disapproval.
"Kylo Ren is dead." Ben says, and pure, drunken elation rises in his chest, replacing the chaotic rage. He smiles. An insane, manic smile. Light glints in his eyes. "I killed him."
He falls to his knees, and weeps.
Rey
She meditates in her room, shut away, with nothing to do and nowhere to be. She lies on the sheets, staring at the ceiling, floating in the gray area between waking and sleep, reality and dreams blurring together. Fragments of voices, thoughts, reach out to her in this void her mind has created. Energies shift, ebb and flow, around her. She opens herself to the Force, letting it move and flow through her body, embracing it like an old friend.
The deeper she moves into the energy's net, the more she can feel a disturbance, a pull, a shift. It's him. Ben.
She holds her breath, taking a moment to pick through the tangled mess of other energies and fragments of thought, trying to get a clear picture of him. His energy pulses with emotion, blurring and bleeding. Desperation. Fear. Exaltation.
It's seductive in its strength. He's pulling her towards him, and she's helpless to resist it. It's a strong undercurrent, white-hot and raging, like the sea.
She opens her eyes, and he's there, kneeling a few yards from her bed. She jumps to her feet, stiffening, defensive.
He looks . . . different, somehow, wild and disheveled. Tears stream down his face. He doesn't look up, doesn't meet her eyes.
She winces as the dark, conflicted energy surrounding him hits her like a wall. She dawdles, frozen and floundering.
"Ben?" She asks. "What happened?" She asks. He's in pain, warring with himself. She can feel it through the Force, feel the darkness and turmoil swirling around him. This isn't Ben Solo. This is Snoke's broken toy.
She wants nothing more than to reach for him, to hold him in her arms.
He lifts his chin, slightly.
"Ben . . ." Rey says, again. She approaches him, slowly, resting a hand on his shoulder. His eyes flicker to her face, at the sound of his name, on her lips. His face changes, and Ben Solo's ghost appears for one, fleeting moment.
His eyes are locked on her face, but they've got a faraway, vacant quality that scares her. She places a hand on his shoulder, and he stiffens, flinching, but doesn't pull away.
She's never seen him like this, before. Breaking, falling apart.
"Let me help you." She says, kneeling on the ground, beside him. She takes his hands in her own, holding fast. "Please."
And it pours out of him. Weeks, months, years of something, bursting out of him. He weeps, squeezing her hands so tightly, she begins to lose the feeling in them. It's all she can do to stay steady, to keep them afloat as his waves crash over their head. His whole body, usually so strong, so steady, rocks with violent tremors. He's fragile. He wears his emotions on the surface, feels so deeply, so strongly, and it's taking a toll, on him. When his sobs subside, and the only sound in their shared third space is the hum of the Force and the beating of their hearts, keeping time with one another, he lifts his head, gazing at her face. And it's not Kylo Ren looking at her, but a lost, broken boy, running from the dark.
"Ben . . ." Tears blur her vision, and her heart aches, for him. "Ben, listen to me." She sniffs. "You don't have to run. You don't have to fight this." She reaches for words, tripping and stumbling over her thoughts, trying to make him understand.
"You're the only one who can save Ben Solo. But I need you to see that I haven't given up on you. You have a home, here. With me. Ben, come home." She says. "Come home."
He shakes his head, looking at her with a kind of helpless desperation, and the intensity of his gaze sets her body aflame.
"I can't." He says.
"You can." She says, softly, and closes the gap between them.
Ben
"Ben?"
His breath catches in his throat. He doesn't lift his head, not trusting himself. Her voice is just a fever dream, a product of his own insanity. He can feel his strings snapping. He's coming apart at the seams, standing at a precipice, teetering on the edge. And there's no one there to catch him.
Only when he feels the weight of her hand, on his shoulder, does he allow himself to look up. She's there, standing mere inches away, fear and concern etched deep in the lines of her face.
Let me help you.
He can feel himself breaking down. But the floodgates are open and there's no going back. The emotion coursing through his body is a tangled, unruly mess. He can't focus. He can't breathe.
When Rey wraps her arms around him, pressing him tight against her body, he stiffens, taken aback by the physical contact. The reservation passes, and he embraces her, instinctively. He chokes back tears, the pressure on his chest lifting. It feels good, impossibly good. He realizes, then, how starved he is. For another's touch, another's comfort. Her closeness. He leans his cheek against her crown, burying his face in her dampened hair, and breathes her in
He feels whole, and the thought crosses his mind that she's literally holding his broken pieces together, keeping him from shattering into a billion indistinct bits of star dust. He returns the gesture wholeheartedly, sucking in great breaths of air, trying to pull himself together. She doesn't move away, only holds him tighter, fingers running through his hair. A groan builds in the back of his throat, and it takes everything ounce of restraint to keep it from escaping his mouth.
She pulls away, touching his face. She's so close their breath mixes.
"I'm sorry." She whispers, and her voice trembles. She traces her thumb over his cheek, wiping away his tears. She nudges into his chest, again, and his arms reach around her, almost instinctively. He reaches for words, trying to make her understand. But she does understand. He doesn't need to tell her. She knows. This bond, this link, between their minds, runs deeper than either of them comprehend. And it's enough.
For now, it's enough.
Rey
Rey remains locked in his embrace until his features grow fuzzy and he fades away. The energy surrounding them ebbs, leaving her deflated, drained, mixed emotions coursing through her.
In the days that follow, he's always there, in the quiet moments and the spaces between her thoughts. When she lies in bed, in the dark, before sleep claims her. When she's training, or meditating, and the Force is strong in her body and soul. She opens herself to him, and he does the same, and the link between them grows steadily stronger. And it feels good.
She can feel his thoughts, as faint and quiet as footsteps on a bed of leaves, a lover's whisper, in the dead of night. She opens to him like a flower. He gives her a gentle brush of the mind, a spark, a flare. Too often, she falls asleep with his thoughts in her head and his name on her lips.
Every day, she throws herself into training, putting her quarterstaff through the paces. She pushes herself to a breaking point, allowing the Force to run like a constant undercurrent in her veins and her mindscape, reinforcing every movement, every stroke. She spars with other recruits and trainers, walking away with bruises blossoming over her arms and legs and sides, exhausted but thoroughly pleased with herself.
She abandons the Texts, convinced that what she needs isn't a pile of old books but a teacher, someone to show her the way.
Rey meditates, often, venturing farther, reaching deeper and deeper inside herself. She sinks into her mindscape, into the ocean of her thoughts, and lets herself drift. But her experience with the Force only stretches so far. She resurfaces, frustrated and disheartened.
In her room, she uses the Force to lift various objects around her quarters, floating them in midair. She soon grows bored of it, though, wishing her abilities stretched farther.
Rey dwells on the battle with Snoke's Praetorian Guard, years ago. It was one of the few times she felt completely, inseparably connected to the Force. The difference, she realizes, is the fact that Ben was there, fighting by her side. He's the other half. The dark to match her light. Even in the midst of the battle, he was paving a way for her, teaching her, guarding her as fiercely as he guarded his own life. And she's becoming increasingly convinced that he's the only one who can help her.
Ben's right. The Force seems hell-bent on bringing them together. Rey can feel it. The Force is at work, shifting, flaring, bending the fates.
Rey slips into her thoughts, easily, and it's there, in that third space, that she allows herself to enjoy his company. Begrudgingly, at first. Over the weeks, however, he becomes a sanctuary, a solace, on this miserable ice cube.
Sometimes, she catches small fragments of thought. A distant voice, a flash of color or some fleeting glimpse of the world through his eyes. He constantly lingers in the corners of her mind, like a shadow. In the throes of meditation, its easier to initiate connection. He intentionally reached out to her, the night he broke down and bared his soul to her. She's constantly analyzing that moment, realizing the enormity of it. It was incredibly intimate, even though they reside in separate corners of the galaxy, with billions of light years of space between them.
She lies awake, staring into the darkness, pondering it, her mind racing with the thoughts of him, gripped by shadows of doubt.
Luke's voice, warped and twisted in death, echoes in her head. Emotion leads to downfall. We cannot let our hearts rule us. Find strength and peace in the Force, and close yourself off from desire and lust and greed . . .
She feels too deeply. She's got too much darkness, inside her. And Ben only amplifies those dark currents of energy. She reacts to him like he's a magnet, a tide, drawing her in.
She can't begin to understand him. He's a storm. He's darkness and lightning and wind. But he can be so gentle, so tender.
His energy, his darkness, is intoxicating and exhilarating, and she finds it increasingly difficult to keep her head above water as his waves drag her out to sea. He's capable of scattering her sense, her self-control, in a million different directions. She saw a future with him. She can't ignore it. She can't run from it.
Rey wakes from a nightmare, a shudder running through her body. She fights to free herself from the tangle of sheets, clawing and struggling for breath. She staggers against the wall, shivering, tears blurring her vision.
The island. The ocean. The birds. The sand. The mirror. It's a mantra, in her head. Ben, wearing Darth Vader's warped, twisted mask. Snoke's gnarled fingernails, caressing her cheek.
She draws her arms around her thin frame, trembling, suddenly feeling like she can't breathe. She pulls on her shoes and a cape and wrenches open the door, letting her feet carry her up the stairs. She enters the gymnasium. It's silent, dark. She can see the silhouettes of the dummies on the shooting range, the various contraptions and machines the Resistance fighters use to stay fit.
Fragments of her nightmare resurface as she gazes into the darkness, and she tries desperately to push them into some dark, unreachable place in her mind. It doesn't work. Trying not to think about it is, in some twisted way, a form of thinking about it. If she can't even control her own thoughts, how can she become a Jedi?
Rey stands, and crosses the gym, picking up a quarterstaff. The weight is all wrong, unfamiliar. She turns, holding the staff, imagining a phantom foe. She grits her teeth, lip curling, the Force humming in her body. She swings the staff in a wide arc, blocking an imaginary advance. She side-steps, thrusting the spear into air, and makes a complicated three-point turn that Holmes, her trainer, taught her, during a lesson. She closes her eyes, letting the Force take control, an extremely powerful sixth-sense. It moves within her, guiding her maneuvers.
Rey loses herself in the fight, swinging and thrusting and stepping, practicing complex maneuvers. She parries to the left, and her staff strikes something hard. She opens her eyes and jumps back, surprised, finding Ben's face inches from her own. The corners of his mouth turn up, and he takes advantage of the five-second reaction delay to knock the staff from her hands with his weapon. It flies across the yard, falling on the snow.
"Ben."
"You need a teacher." He says, light glinting in his eyes. "I can teach you."
She draws the staff to her hand with the Force, eyes never leaving his face. She points the end of the weapon at his chest, giving him a hard look.
"Alright. Teach me."
Before he can respond, Rey thrusts her staff at him. He's ready, and knocks it away with a lazy flick of his wrist. She regains her balance, shifting her weight to the left, and knocks his leg so that he's forced to side-step to stay on his feet. She takes advantage, using a cross-body slash to disarm him. He manages to keep hold of his staff, thrusting it towards her sternum, but she knocks it away, easily.
Once again, she's awed by the complete synchronicity they share. They're perfectly in tune with each other, opposite but equal. Rey's completely lost in the battle, her entire attention focused on him and him alone, his movements, his eyes, his feet.
He feeds her instructions as they spar, refining her movements, teaching her more in the space of an hour than Luke ever did in the entire span she stayed with him on Ahch-To. She's taken aback by his sheer size and brute strength. He's huge, dwarfing her at six-foot-two, all lean muscle and broad shoulders. But he's surprisingly quick, almost elegant, she notices, as he pulls of an extremely complex one-eighty turn with fluid ease.
She grits her teeth, defending herself. He bears down, pushing her backwards, and she reciprocates his advances with equal fervor, face shining with sweat. The Force is alive, singing, crackling with their combined energy. It's a perfect storm, a beautiful, tangled web of light dark.
This is what it's supposed to be, Rey thinks, with a defiant, satisfied smile. Not one or the other, both. A balance
He Force-pushes her backwards several feet. She regains her balance quickly enough to respond, shifting the momentum into a thrust that knocks his staff halfway across the gym.
He smiles. Rey's struck by the way his face changes when he smiles. The perpetual frown-lines between his brows fade away completely, and the shadows in his face seem . . . less, somehow. Pride and admiration filter through the link between their minds.
She's breathless and sweating through her clothes by the time Ben steps back, dropping his staff. She wipes a hand across her brow, chest heaving, body and mind alive. Ben laughs, and Rey cocks an eyebrow, completely taken aback by the sound. She racks her brain, almost positive she's never heard him laugh.
It's a beautiful sound, startling in its rareness.
"What?" She asks, returning his smile.
"I . . . I forgot what it felt like, fighting like that, I . . ." He trails off, and the smile slides from his face. He looks at her, tenderly, and caresses her cheek. She stiffens. He frowns, disappointed, dropping his hand.
"Ben . . ."
"We'd be invincible. We'd rule the galaxy, together. Rey—"
"No." Rey says, and bites her lip.
"We could be together, you know."
"I can't go down that path, Ben. I've no place in the dark."
"You've no place in the Jedi Order, either. Rey, you're so much more than that old fool wanted you to believe." Ben says, and his voice takes on a hint of desperation. Rey's heart aches, and she feels the familiar heat of tears behind her eyes.
"That old fool was your uncle, Ben."
"No, he wasn't. He's nothing to me." He snarls.
"Ben—"
"But you are." He says, cutting her off. "You're family, to me."
Rey falls silent. Family isn't blood. Family is the people who care for you, who love you. This sentiment, coming from him, shocks her beyond words. She opens her mouth, closes it, avoiding his eyes.
"We're supposed to be together."
"Ben, don't . . ."
"You don't belong with the Resistance. You're not happy there. You need a teacher." Ben says, vehemently. "You're strong. You're powerful. Rey." He swallows, and Rey squirms under the intensity of his eyes.
"Let go, Rey."
"I can't." Rey stammers. "I can't join you, Ben." She says, biting her lip. "I'm sorry."
"You can. You will. I saw the future. One day, all of this will burn. And you'll join me."
Rey's eyes fill with tears. She shakes her head.
"You're wrong."
