Chapter 1: I'll Bring Her Back
He has everything he could ever want.
Hundreds of thousands of subordinates who scuttle to obey his every whim, lest they incur his displeasure. Stormtroopers ready to lay down their lives at a moment's notice out of devotion to him. Or maybe it's just because they are programmed to obey from the start. Either way, the idea of guaranteed human shields is comforting. Even that sniveling ginger Hux has remained silent and bland, jumpy whenever the Supreme Leader barks out an order to him.
Yes, Kylo Ren, Supreme Leader of the First Order, has everything he could ever want.
Or does he? He can command entire star systems, bend them to his will. And yet the one entity he wants more than anything else in the entire galaxy remains elusive to him.
And not just elusive. She dared to flat-out reject him when he offered to make her his bride, his Queen. The Queen of the First Order. It still has a nice ring to Kylo Ren, even if a dull ache quickly follows. Every strong authoritarian needs a doting spouse to pull him back from the most taboo of edges. And Rey, the last Jedi, would have been the perfect partner, the perfect conquest even. More than this, there has always been something about the scavenger from Jakku that was maddeningly... fascinating to him. To this day, Kylo can't quite pinpoint what it is. Perhaps her strong will. Her connection to the Force that he can only envy. The way her eyes flash during lightsaber battles. Or how his name on her lips - "Ben..." - still makes him go weak at the knees.
But now she is gone. And not even the drug-like Force Bond between them has been of any comfort or help in keeping her close to him, if only a tiny piece. Nevertheless, Kylo reaches out with the Force again... Rey...
He feels her. Her essence faint and flickering, so she must be at a great distance. But the ability to see her, to immerse in the illusion of standing right next to her despite the physical barriers, is still denied to him. He cannot access her thoughts or inner feelings. Every time he tries, it is like running headlong into a locked door. Oh, he can sense her moving, behind that proverbial door. Yet he has no way to open it. Or even kick it in. And sadly, he can be sure that Rey will do neither herself, if it means letting him in voluntarily.
He knows he should be thankful that the Bond has been blocked. He should be rejoicing at the decrease in distraction, relieved that Rey's bewitching persona is no longer at immediate access, like a drug addiction that you cannot shake. Yet, her aloofness is only increasing her enchantment, only fueling his fascination. Nay - obsession.
Perhaps this is what it feels like to be in what some traders and smugglers call "withdrawal."
He wants her. He wants her, dammit! He wants her as his Queen, bride, apprentice. He wants her in his bed, impaled on his manliness. He wants her mind, body and soul.
And after all, what Kylo wants is what Kylo gets. He is accustomed to it. To be refused has been a foreign concept never before considered, much less experienced. Never in his First Order career has he been told, "No, you can't have that." Indeed, such a reply has never been uttered, for it is certainly beneath Kylo to actually ask for something. Bile rises in his throat at the very thought. So, to approach a situation where the object of his desires will not immediately surrender to his possession without so much as a conscientious protestation baffles him. Then enrages him. Rey's image in his mind - laughing and happy and free, free from him - makes the lava of anger boil from the tips of Kylo's toes to his fingers. So that his hands have no choice but to summon his lightsaber, will it to sputtering life, and slash his entire chambers into crackling ruins.
"I'LL BRING HER BACK!" howls Kylo like a wounded animal. Then he bursts out of the wrecked room and snaps at Hux, who is standing right there, perhaps having been sent to investigate the carnage.
"General! Prepare my shuttle!" Kylo barks. And he stalks towards the Finalizer, ready to seize what he believes to be rightfully is, even if he has to carry her off with his bare hands.
Though the Force Bond is closed to him, and even if it were open, it could never make him privy to Rey's location anyway, Kylo has always been mindful to search his feelings. And by sorting through these, he uncovers a hunch.
A hunch of where his little Jedi scavenger might be.
They may have lost Luke Skywalker. They may have lost badly on Crait and been dwindled down to extinction-level numbers. They may have experienced the crippling blow of General Organa's passing.
But for Rey, being back on Ahch-To with what is left of the Resistance, she has never felt more relieved or safe.
The death of Leia Organa, the legend, actually became the rallying cry for any freedom-loving beings to rise up and fight the First Order. Slowly but surely, recruitment has been bringing the numbers of Resistance fighters back up. Hit-and-run bombing campaigns on outer First Order targets have begun. Rose is expected to make a full recovery from her injuries, in no small part due to Finn's help. Rey met the slicer soon after they fled Crait on the Millennium Falcon. Though weak, and hardly in the mood to chat - even the briefest of small talk could wind her at that time - Rose seemed nice and a wonderfully calming influence on Finn. Rey thinks there might be something going on between the pair, but she can't be sure. Still, if proven true, she thinks it would be good for her dear friend. Finn and Rose seem suited for each other.
And Rey has made new friends as well - one in particular whom she is not quite sure if he could be... more than a friend.
From the start, Poe Dameron has possessed a confident swagger that thrills Rey even now. Never mind that he is very handsome besides - she was struck by his beauty the minute she met him on the Falcon. What's more, Poe seems to treat her as no one else has - like an equal, with kindness. Even if it might be mixed with transparent flirtation, Rey has never had any reason to doubt that he is sincere.
In breaks from Jedi training, and he from pilot runs, they have taken long walks together on the island. The healing landscape of Ahch-To has seemed to help Poe take his mind off the new leadership passed down to him by Leia. Young Dameron is now the de facto leader of the Resistance, the rebel counterpart to Kylo Ren himself.
So it is one day when Poe has to lead a bombing raid that he and Rey must say goodbye. Bidding farewell to fellow rebels is never easy, with the added stress of possibly never seeing them again. Poe tries to remain confident as he gives Rey a crooked grin.
"I'll be back, Rey."
Rey tries to give him an easy smile back. "Of course. Don't be late," she chides.
And then Poe suddenly takes her in his arms and kisses her.
Rey was not expecting it, but she relaxes into it. On the whole, it is a nice kiss, for a girl who is experiencing her first. And yet, as she closes her eyes and tries to picture the kiss, of her kissing Poe, she senses that she is thinking of kissing... somebody else...
After Poe leaves, all is quiet on the island of Ahch-To. Rey is on what she has dubbed Shaved Ridge Rock, practicing lightsaber combat, when suddenly -
The peacefulness of the rebel base is shattered by TIE fighters blasting out of hyperspace and into the planet's orbit. Blaster fire shrieks and explosions send the Caretakers and Resistance fighters runnning for cover and whatever ships can be spared. Finn leads a valiant bombardment from the ground, but it is too late. The surprise attack has caught the base flat-footed.
Racing down the stone steps from the first Jedi temple, two at a time, Rey watches as an especially imposing TIE fighter touches down on the rocky shores. A Force essence she has never wanted to sense again begins to pulsate at the outer reaches of her psyche, and she gasps, unbridled terror - mixed with a strange... hope (?) gripping her. It can't be... He couldn't have known about this place... It can't be...
But it is. Kylo Ren strides from the shuttle and watches his men surround the remaining Resistance fighters.
He is stockier than she remembers. He has obviously kept up lightsaber training along with his duties as Supreme Leader. And he is conspicuously not wearing his mask. Perhaps he thinks his striking face is just as intimidating without it.
The sight of... Ben again leaves Rey in a daze, so much so that she has no time to seize her lightsaber, no opportunity to come out of this strange trance the Sith pretender has cast over her, before he is nearly nose-to-nose with her, his Stormtroopers surrounding her with blasters trained.
"Either you will surrender to me, or your friends all die." His command gleans no response forthwith from Rey, which Kylo angrily interprets as an insolent refusal. He spins to his deputy, down by the rocks. "Kill them all."
"Will you promise not to hurt them?!" Rey blurts it, blasts it out desperately, if also a little tardily. Kylo snaps his head back to her, interest newly piqued in his features.
"What?"
Rey steels her shoulders and speaks as confidently as she dares. "If I go with you, will you promise not to hurt these good people?"
Kylo's face creases; it is taking his entire complexion to weigh this suggested barter. He lays down a term of his own. "Will you promise to remain with me forever?"
Forever is a very long time. Rey is well aware of that. But that is not to say that there might not be some way to escape one day. And if she remains obstinate in this moment, her friends will be murdered. The deal she and Kylo have clumsily crafted together is the best one she is going to get.
So she steps forward and looks him squarely in the eye, refusing to bow at least in this. "You have my word."
"Done." And before Rey can prepare herself for it, the Supreme Leader of the First Order is sweeping her off her feet, like a bride of the olden days - one who was truly carried off by force at the hands of the groom. A Sabine woman with galactic undertones.
Rey, the Last Jedi, is being carted off to become a... slave? Apprentice? Bride? Queen? She isn't sure yet.
But one thing she is sure of - at least for the present, there is absolutely nothing she can do about it.