He is asleep.
She can see him in the room. No, none of the details. Somewhere in a battle cruiser, in his room of metals and greys. A sparse utilitarian room fits her concept of his preferences. Not that she would admit to wondering or even knowing. Rey knows it is his room, that he has been observing the movements of the First Order, the troop drills, trained until he collapsed in a thoughtless heap all so he can wipe his mind free of her. Their bond works both ways. The time when they least expect it, brings them into each other's sight. Sight and touch magnified in the senses until all else fades.
The intimacy is shocking to her mind.
"Can't you put on a cowl or something?" Her panicked words come back to her, surfacing from the jumbled mess of her thoughts. The memory of his bare chest exposed to her sight - her flustered reaction return to her forcefully. The cold spray of sea water against her back with the tide of rising wind of the island sanctuary felt a grave or sepulcher to shattered dreams than a place of reverence.
He is more monster than man until that moment, then irrevocably Rey begins to think of him as more man than monster. Betrayal has a way of altering one's thinking. She doesn't want to imagine the disgust behind Luke's words, didn't even try stopping yourself - from going to the Dark Side, magnified into the penultimate act of sacrifice.
How would that feel, your own flesh and blood, your master standing over you…with the intent to kill? Rey advanced closer to the sleeper, the dimensions of the tiny space she has for herself falling away until it's them alone.
She wants to understand him.
She wants to know there was more light than darkness in him.
Most of all, when she touches his black curls, brushing them carefully back from his brow, she wants to know she didn't make a mistake in not ending it all in Snoke's throne room..
Kylo is awake.
He can feel her body coiled down beside him. Rey is ready to flee at the first sign that he was conscious of her presence. He is always conscious of her presence. Since the moment of their minds connecting on Takodana, he is ever more aware, painfully aware of her growing inside him.
He must hate her.
Kylo was born from the darkness in Ben Solo's mind.
He needs to hate her, Rey from Nowhere, in order to not need her. The paradox of wanting something just beyond his grasp is almost more than he can tolerate. He wants to hate her for touching him, but…can't. Rey's fingertips feel…good. Gentle. Never since his mother years ago, had anyone else touched him so gently, lovingly.
He shifts a pretended motion.
Rey almost jerks back.
She's suspicious; he can feel her suspicion pushing at his mind. She doesn't want anything else, no information on the First Order's movements, nothing to tell where they are, or where he is physically, only his feelings. The difference surprises him and his eyes flicker open to look into hers.
"Rey."
Once he called her girl. Scavenger. Anything demeaning to demean her in the eyes of others. Because of the beacon she is to his soul, he knows where she is, where her friends are. Rey is an open book to him, her surface feelings skittered across her face in a heartbeat of pain. But, she doesn't run.
Good girl.
Rey's courage causes the faint stirring of desire toward her to blossom in him. Kylo wasn't sure if she sensed it, watching her face curiously, searching it for a sign of the same. Rey stared back, lips pressed together. She was unwilling to speak, but not willing to leave or show weakness of any kind.
"Kylo."
"No."
"You don't deserve the name your mother gave you." She says quickly, bitterly, fury sparking in her eyes.
He would concede her enough for now only so she would stay. "You have a question you want to ask." Oh, yes he can feel it in her mind. Unformed words that she turned over and over in her mind. Rey colored a little just enough to show he had proved her mind open.
"Did I make a mistake…"
He knows it even before her stumbling lips complete the sentence. She hates herself almost as much for that weakness. "Killing me is the same as killing part of yourself…is that what you think?" The space between them is undefinable neither where he is nor the place on the Falcon that is hers. Rey tries to look away, but he catches her face, holding her spirit self captive.
"I don't know."
Kylo doesn't know the answer either. He is no longer the child in a mask nor Vader returned. He is Kylo Ren and maybe Ben Solo in her eyes. The moment before he draws closer to her lips, she almost stops him, but her will just isn't there anymore. It occurs to him then that she needs this just as much as he does.
In this space, they can just be.
-Fin
AN: Thanks for reading!
No flames!
Please review