A Bond worth Breaking
AN:
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
She had just escaped from his torture session and was almost glad to be out of his suffocating presence. It was unbelieveable how she turned his own mind power against him and was able to see his own fears, but it may have cost her something in doing so. Rey just had to find out where she was and get as far away from him as possible.
There were Stormtroopers at every turn and by the way they were walking, she knew that they were searching for her. From the limited speech Rey had heard, she was on the StarKiller, a base that was gearing up to destroy 'another' planet from the sounds of it, which didn't exactly fill her with hope of getting out of there anytime soon. There was hope inside her though that her friends would come for her, they wouldn't just leave her, would they?
Kylo Ren was still trying to find her with his own mind and she felt the flicker in the back of hers. Whatever had happened when he had started to go through her memories and she had rebounded it back on him had linked them in a way she was unaccustomed to, being a loner all of her life on Jakku. Rey threw up the block that had protected the map from him and instead thought of the island from her dreams. She could feel his frustration at her and decided to go on instinct rather than long thought.
Making a quick decision, she went over the ledge where she had been running at one point to avoid a group of stormtroopers and pulled open a hatch to make her way through the system undetected. She passed a lot of wiring and duct work and tried not to get hopelessly lost. It gave her a comforting sense though, vaguley reminding her of the hunk of junk she called a home back on the sand planet.
'What am I thinking, I have no idea where I am to begin with so how can I get lost?'
She set herself to follow an exhaust line that would lead to a hanger and finally came to a vent that looked out on a room. Having passed others that had shown her the control room with people bustling everywhere and a few barracks, even a mess hall, this room was different, and there was a melted helmet in one corner.
The door leading to the corridor opened and Ren walked in. It was clear he was beyond angry and if the way the others walked past his still open door was any indication she did not want to stick around for long.
Just as Rey went to make her way down the exhaust line again she paused when she felt him again in the back of her mind. 'Would he never give up?' Suddenly, pulled backwards, Rey found herself thrown against the hard floor, his door had been shut and he still had a hand held up to keep her in place.
"So I didn't lose you after all."
'Coward.'
Rey had thought the word at him since she was unable to speak due to his Force Grip on her body, restricting her movements and her mouth.
"Would you like to repeat that out loud?"
Ren relinquished his control enough to allow sound to make its way out of her throat but the rest of her was still pinned in an awkward sitting position on the floor. She had tried to flex her muscles to figure out the extent of which she was trapped and gave up soon to reserve her strength.
"I called you a coward."
So she would be as defiant in her head as she was outloud, and is their earlier encounter hadn't been proof enough. Still, it gave him pause as he was unfamiliar with this new disobediance and found it somewhat refreshing in an offputting way.
"And why is that Scavenger?"
"You are too scared to try to face me on even ground and instead use your powers on those who have no hope to beat you."
She was clever, he'd give her that, and she wasn't afraid to speak out towards him. No, she was afraid, but it was of being caught rather then being near him. Being in his pressence just gave her this odd opressive feeling that borderd on claustrophobia.
"In my eyes that is called being tactical. Why would I allow my enemies to be on equal footing as myself?"
"And how am I your enemy if I am only a scavenger?"
He tried to keep his temper in check as he held her in place, this allowed him to study her more than he had on the way to the base and even when he was waiting for her to wake in the interrogation room. Ren had been watched during those times and only now was he staring with such intensity that Rey felt a blush start to creep up her neck.
He reached out again with his mind towards her own, and it felt almost gentle as a voice filled her thoughts. 'Does it embaress you how easily I can slip past your walls that you've built to keep everyone else out? How I can touch you in the most intimate ways with just a thought.'
He hadn't meant to go as far as he had, sending tingles down her spine as his mind started to lose control. Almost at once though the tenderness was gone as he threw her away from him, acting as if he had been scalded by her meer pressence.
"Go."
It was almost a whisper, but it was all Rey needed before she hoped back into the ductwork of the ship and towards her freedom. He had placed a map into her head, guiding her through the maze, and she was soon, surprisingly, reunited with Finn. It wasn't long after though that she watched the man she had just shared an intimate moment with kill his own father, a person she had hoped to fill that same void inside herself.
'I'm sorry.'
He was gone as quickly as he had come, but Rey knew what he was referring to and had to pull herself away from the scene below her. There were other matters to take care of, and she had to find Luke.
The island that had been inside of her dreams, that had protected her from Kylo's onslaught was actually a real place, and she felt as if she had been there before, more than just in those dreams. It was where she found Luke Skywalker hiding and the original Jedi texts, a boon in her opinion but he just seemed as if he could care less, even going so far as telling her that he came to the island to die.
As for her and Kylo, they were connected in a deeper way then she thought. He had managed to find her at the very edge of the universe and still pervade her thoughts. There was something different about him though, she sensed a light inside of him that she thought she could strengthen with the right guidance. Rey soon thought she could save him, to bring him home to Leia and hopefully help to fix the relationship between mother and son.
"You don't have to be alone anymore."
She had told that to Ben, not Kylo, but Ben, buried deep inside the monster that was Kylo Ren, seeking her out. While they were connected, both were able to see the other, nothing else but the one they were connected to, and it allowed an intimacy to form that she had tried to distance herself from while on the Starkiller. He was familiar in her mind now and although there was an instance she caught him without a shirt, a blush creeped up her cheeks at the thought, Rey was still hopeful that if she could bring him to Luke, the Jedi Master could fix everything.
That was her thought though until she found out the awful truth between the two of them, Master Jedi and Jedi apprentice turned to the Dark Side by the Supreme Leader Snoke. It was Snoke who had caused the bridge between their minds and she suddenly felt tainted, unclean in a way that would never be forgotten. Her connection to Ben was untrue and she now knew the truth about her parents as well.
In turn, once Kylo had found out what Snoke had done, the once conflicted boy turned on his master, killing him, and then he had reached out to her, to rule with him, but she couldn't, Rey could not turn her back on the light, on her friends. He was left alone, and her rejection hurt more than it should have. Snoke may have connected them, but he had developed feelings.
It was a few days before he could bring himself to reach out to her again, to test their link since she had tried to shut him out and yet he still only felt emptiness radiating from her consicous. Rey knew he was there, searching for any indication that she would come back, that she would join him, but Leia was her number one priority and she couldn't let the princess know her conflict, let alone the failure that followed in trying to bring her son home. Instead, she focused on how to help rebuild all that was destroyed, how to protect the ones she loved even if she couldn't save them all.
That night though, she allowed her guard to slip and the wall to come down, for when she rolled over in her bunk her mind had rolled straight into his arms. He was just as surprised as she but rather than say anything, he just held her. Rey hadn't lied when she had told Ben that he wouldn't be alone, but Ben wasn't fully there anymore, she knew, and Kylo still had a conflicted mind when it came to the brunette Jedi.
They soon fell asleep that way, his arms holding her protectively, and she breathing in a scent she knew would never be hers. So, in a galaxy far far away, their emotions could never be...