Hi! So after The Last Jedi my little Reylo heart was beating furiously in my chest! I don't know what's going to happen in Episode IX but honestly I'm scared. So I thought I'd give a story of how I'd like everything to go down. This chapter is about 2,270 words long, I aim to try and keep all the chapters just as long so if that's too short or too long, let me know and I'll fix it for you.

Reylo shippers, this is a slow burn.

Leave a wee review telling me what you think and if you're so inclined, favourite and follow!

Without further ado, here we go!

As Rey shut the remains of the Resistance into the Falcon, the connection broke. It was different now. Snoke was dead, no longer able to play them like puppets. No, this was all them, reaching out, touching each other's worlds. And it overwhelmed her senses. Before, Kylo Ren had manifested where she was, in her surroundings, an uninvited guest. She noted to herself previously that his black clothing and his harshly lit skin always seemed out of place in the beauty of Ach-to. But now, it was like she was drawn to him. Like she was right there in that mine with him, she could breathe in the stale air and smell the molten metal and scorched red earth. He didn't look out of place now, he looked much like the Rebel base itself, destroyed and abandoned. If he had the same connection that she did, and she knew that he did, he could see exactly where she was, who she was with and how they were leaving but made no move to stop them. Instead his eyes – Ben Solo's eyes – pleaded to her not to leave him. As the door closed, her heart broke.

The enormity of what had happened between them wasn't lost on her. Ben had trusted her enough to let his guard down and when they touched hands, Rey's mind was filled with answers on how to stop all the hurt, all the pain and torment that plagued the galaxy. Her mind was filled with Light, and in it, her and Ben together. Losing Ben's touch to Luke's fear and rage, Rey knew she had to find Ben, tell him of everything she'd seen and how she'd be there to help her vision become reality. Ben, however, had seen something different, he'd seen her join him in the Dark. When Snoke admitted that he had infiltrated their minds, Rey was no longer even sure if their visions had been real or a construct of Snoke's but as he dragged her, tossed her, tortured her in his Throne room she knew that whatever she and Ben were fated for, it was together. He proved this to her by killing his Master and taking on his entire guard with her fighting alongside him. When he held out his hand to her and whispered "please", her vision of them shattered. She was something to him, she'd never been something to anyone in her life but now, ruling the galaxy with him? That wasn't how this was meant to be, she couldn't be with him if this was the way. When she woke up from the blast of the lightsaber that sent them hurtling in opposite directions, Rey sprinted to grab the remnants of her Master's lightsaber to find that she was the only one grabbing for it. She saw him, sprawled on the hard floor. She kneeled beside him and pushed his hair from his face. His chest heaved, slowly, calmly, almost as if he was sleeping and she let out a breath that she hadn't realised she was holding. She could have killed him. Ended everything right there and then. But she had people that she cared about that needed saving, the problem was, Ben was now one of them.

Rey now sat on the Falcon, scraps of what was left of the mighty Resistance around her, elated at their miraculous escape at the hands of the Last Jedi. The Jedi however sat holding the two destroyed pieces of Luke's lightsaber, wondering how she would even begin to fix everything that had been broken. Her eyes wandered to Finn. He was wrapping a small, dark haired girl in a thick blanket. She had been carried onto the freighter, she'd heard that she'd been injured saving Finn's life. It was obvious looking at the way he was tending to her that he cared for her a great deal too. She was glad, being constantly at war, she'd learned, left no time to stop and appreciate things like caring for someone. Rey desperately wished she could go back and appreciate her time with Luke, appreciate her time with Finn, her moments with Ben. For a brief moment, Rey caught herself wondering what would have happened if she had taken his hand. Joined him. Would she be with him now? Would they be together? And for and even briefer moment she wondered if it would have been such a bad thing.

She snapped out of her reverie to the unmistakable excitable beeps of BB-8 speeding towards her.

"BB-8!" Rey exclaimed happily. She didn't manage much more than that as the little droid started beeping at her loudly, telling her all about his adventures with Finn and Rose. "Ah, so Rose is the name of Finn's friend?" BB beeped confirmation of this and continued his story. "You stole a ship?!" Rey feigned outrage at the little droid. He beeped hurriedly back at her "Okay, okay, so you helped steal and ship?" BB-8 wasn't happy with this either as he squawked back her. "BB-8, I'm teasing you, I stole a ship today too. We'll keep it our secret." BB-8 rolled around happily at this. Hearing BB-8's tales of heroism, Rey hadn't noticed the man approach her until he spoke.

"Hi" he said to her smiling. Rey looked up at him from where she crouched by BB-8 and smiled at the man.

"Hi" she responded.

"I'm Poe" He held out his hand to her. She took his hand and smiled at him. This was Poe. She'd only ever heard about him from BB-8 and Finn so she had no idea what she was expecting but he certainly wasn't it. He was young! Older than her of course but younger than one would expect a legendary Resistance pilot to be. He looked around the same age as Ben maybe? Her stomach knotted at the thought of him. Her attention was back on Poe, his face, it was handsome, she liked it. "Rey" she said.

"I know." He knows? Rey smiled, no one had ever known of her before, it was surreal but she found that she liked that too.

He'd done it, he'd broken the ice with her. Poe had heard so much about Rey from Jakku that he never stopped to actually think about what she might look like. She was gorgeous. Poe didn't really make time for courting girls, he just loved to fly. Plus he spent most of his time with BB-8, that probably put girls off. Poe was still a man though and it didn't matter if you had a type or not, no man could deny that Rey was stunning. For a while, he'd thought there had been something between Finn and Rey, looking at her now, he completely got it. He wanted something between himself and Rey. All this flashed though his mind while she smiled at him … until he realised he was still holding her hand …

"Oh, sorry! I didn't mean ... uh, I … you're gonna need that back!" he dropped her hand quickly, too quickly. Rey flinched at his outburst. "sorry" he mumbled quietly. She smiled. That smile, urgh!

"It's okay." What was wrong with him, he was usually so calm! He's faced a troop of First Order goons, in a lone X-wing with shoddy handling and faulty weapons systems before. Talking to a beautiful girl … woman … Jedi should be a piece of cake. Get a hold of yourself! He mentally berated himself.

BB-8's told me a lot about you. How you saved him on Jakku." He told her. She smiled and looked down at the droid who had parked himself in between them.

"Yeah, we became fast friends, didn't we?" BB-8 beeped in agreement. "He's told me a lot about you too, the dashing Resistance hero Poe Dameron." As soon as she'd realised what she'd said, her eyes widen and her face flushed pink. Dashing?!

"Dashing? You think I'm dashing?" Poe smirked at her, causing Rey to wriggle in her seat.

"No, I mean … yeah, you are but what I meant is that's what BB-8 told me!" Her voice sounded panicked. Poe had no idea why, any guy would love to hear Rey refer to him as dashing. He quickly decided that he didn't want her to be afraid to compliment him again so he cooled the tension.

"Oh really? BB-8, do you really think I'm dashing?" he flashed BB-8 his most charming smile and gave the droid a wink. The droid looked between the two of them, beeping an obvious denial.

"So much for fast friends" Rey mumbled. Having had enough nonsense for one day, BB-8 leaves Poe and Rey alone. It was quiet for a moment, each one of them waiting for the other to break the silence. "I always wanted to be a pilot y'know" she finally said. "I had an old Rebel pilot helmet back where I lived on Jakku, I would put it on and feel untouchable, hoping one day I could just fly away."

"Well you did amazing today! You'd be a brilliant pilot!" he told her.

"Oh no, that was all Chewie! I've only flown a couple of times. Nowhere near as amazing as you!" Poe smiled at her.

"No, no, I'm not that amaz- okay, I'm pretty amazing" He gave her his cockiest grin, and she laughed. Poe liked that sound. He wants to make her do it again. "I'll tell you what, I'll teach you all my tricks sometime, how's that?" Rey nodded.

"I'd like that."

Leia had insisted that Poe "stop blabbing", the General's words, at Rey and let her get some rest. While she was disappointed that her getting to know Poe chat was cut short, she couldn't deny that she could feel sleep creeping up on her. She didn't want to ruin her new friendship straight away by falling asleep during conversation. General Organa walked with her through the ship to the sleeping quarters. Most of the Resistance members had hunkered down in the main hold. They moved all the time, sleeping on cramped ships was nothing new to them. They knew it was wise to get sleep while they had the chance.

"Let's get you to a bed, you've had it rough today." The General said. She held Rey's hand in between her own older hands.

"We all have, I don't want to deprive someone of a bed, I'm used to sleeping on metal floors." Leia tutted at the young Jedi.

"You're more important than any of us, if anyone needs to get proper rest, it's you." Rey opened her mouth to protest but the older woman held up a hand. "Besides" she continued "we used to travel on this hunk of junk as a family and more, there's many rooms. Go find one, no arguing. That's an order." Her tone was forceful but her face softened into a smile. Rey smiled back at Leia and turned to leave her. "Oh, and Rey?" Rey turned back, the General's face more solemn now.

"Yeah?"

"I don't know what happened between you and Ben but when- if- you're ready to talk about it, you have someone who won't judge you." Rey just nodded. The Princess didn't push further, realizing that now was not that time.

When Rey found an empty room, she closed the door behind her. Seeing the door had a lock, she flipped it over. She flipped a switch by the door and light flooded the room. It was a bedroom alright, his. A single cot sat in the corner of the room and trunk sat on the floor in front of it. She walked to the trunk, sat down and opened it. Inside were various shirts and robes and bottoms, all the correct size for a tall child. She held a soft tunic in her hands, it was grey in colour and it didn't even look like it had been worn. She gripped the fabric tight in her hands and looked around the small room. By the top of the cot was a small piece of paper stuck to the wall, she crawled across the floor and took the paper from the wall. It was a photo. In it was the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon, looking as dilapidated as ever. In the co-pilot seat sat Han Solo, looking unbelievably young. He's grinning from ear to ear, his eyes reduced to small slits in his face where his smile had taken over. He has his arm extended out to encircle the pilot seat in which a small grinning face beamed out from under a massive headset. His pale face stood out from his impossibly black hair that was styled like his fathers. Rey felt a burning pain in her throat as she looked at the photo.

Her thoughts drifted to him. If they were keeping the bond alive now, could they control it? If she reached out to him, could she see him again? She held the photo and the tunic tight in her hands and closed her eyes. She reached out, the way Master Luke had showed her, searching for him. Finding nothing, she squeezed her eyes tighter, searching harder.

"Ben" She breathed, so quietly she wasn't sure if or why she'd said it at all. It this though, there was a flicker. He heard her. She opened her eyes and looked around, nothing. Closing her eyes again, she reached out and felt the same flicker. She couldn't see him or hear him but she could feel him. Feel what he felt right now. And she felt betrayal.

This chapter's very Damerey so apologies to Reylo shippers, believe me, it's coming. My Reylo heart is bursting to type!