A/N:
This fic comes with a trigger warning. It is not a Reylo fic. If you're looking for shipping, you won't find it here. Also, I don't know anything about Star Wars.
So much happens.
It's mere days and she's running through the desert with a stranger and a BB unit so fast and TIE fighters shrieking through the air and shooting at them Force above she's being shot at and Han Solo and the Millennium Falcon this is the Millennium Falcon and oh no it's falling apart but you're the Han Solo and Finn getting EATEN for Force's sake and running running running through the bowels of a ship too big and so much green and there's so many people in Maz's cantina and Finn leaving why is he leaving and the lightsaber the lightsaber that calls her with a pull like a magnet she can't pull away but she jerks herself back and tears on her face and too much too much running running running and shooting at a figure in black terrifying she can't move she's frozen and the crackling heat of the lightsaber scalds her neck she's gonna die and then -
He reaches into her mind and she can't stop him -
And then she can.
But it's more running and blowing things up and watching Han Solo be murdered in cold blood by his only son and fighting that
Monster
In the forest, snow seeping through her thin shoes and turning her toes pale and red, fighting with a lightsaber she doesn't want to touch, doesn't know how to use, fighting a figure cloaked in black, in hatred and rage and the dark side.
A monster.
She doesn't know if there's a man left within the monster that is Kylo Ren, and she doesn't have time to think about it. Finn's hurt, Finn's dying, and she throws herself into that so she can't feel him reaching into her mind and she can't stop him.
You know I can take whatever I want.
No no no no no no.
And then they're at the base and Finn's whisked off somewhere and they take him away from her and she's so scared and something deep inside her lurches because without Finn how does she stop him reaching into her mind and she can't stop him can't stop him can't stop...
She finds a refresher and something rough and scrapes at her skin, digging into her hips and wrists and ankles, crying because there's no water, nothing to wash her clean of his presence in her mind.
So much happens, so much out of nowhere, crashing into her quiet little life on Jakku like a Star Destroyer into a moon and she doesn't have a single moment to process any of it until she's standing alone in a refresher on a hidden Rebel base that stands for a cause she was roped into not two days ago.
She finally emerges with red eyes, body curled tight, and there're fresh clothes set out for her and they're simple and grey and practical and not dissimilar to the only clothes she came here with. Clothes that are conspicuously missing.
No one knows.
It hits her and she breaks all over again. No one knows, no one was there, no one's been told to lay out fresh clothes for her because her other clothes reek of terrified sweat and oil and metal and should be burned.
You know I can take whatever I want.
NO.
She doesn't tear the room apart. She doesn't knock fixtures down and rip the bedding apart with her bare hands. She certainly pictures doing so. She definitely wants to. But she sits on the edge of the bunk, moving slowly as if her legs have been trapped in sticky goo not metal cuffs not his mind not his Force hold that is not what it feels like but she can't shake his presence, that dark impression like rot and rust tucked away in the guts of the ships she used to scavenge.
The dark side.
He's left his mark on her, a dark rotting rusting mark in the guts of her soul and she can't stop the thought soon enough and she wonders if it will ever leave.
And she cries silently next to fresh clothes that no one had a reason for giving her.
The Millennium Falcon is huge, and the veins of the ship groan and creak as they soar through hyperspace, and she watches the star tracks fly by above her head.
It's too quiet in the ship. She sleeps here, in the cockpit, when she sleeps. If she sleeps. Chewie knows well enough to leave her unbothered, but she can't help but seek out his company when she feels like moving out of the pilot's chair. That sticky staticky glue has adhered, almost permanently, it seems, to her legs, and she finds herself more and more unwilling to move from her spot until they reach Ahch-To.
You know I can take whatever I want.
She looks for distractions, outlets. She tries more than once to search for the Force, to try meditating the way she's read about in old texts passed around at the market in Jakku, heard in whispers passed down about the Jedi.
It doesn't work. She growls in frustration when she can't seem to summon the peace, the same way she did when he was reaching into her mind and she can't stop him but then she did and she pushed back and then when she pushed back again but with a lightsaber in a frozen forest. She can't get it to well back into her heart and mind and so she resorts to sitting curled in the pilot's chair watching the stars soar by in streaks of light.
Eventually, the creaks and groans of the Falcon and the silence of space and the sounds of Chewie tinkering with the mechanics somewhere close by lull her into a doze that is neither deep nor dreamless, and the Falcon dims the lights and drops the temperature slightly and rocks Rey to sleep beneath the stars.
A/N:
This will be a three-part fic corresponding to each sequel. This chapter corresponds to TFW; the next follows the events of TLJ.
So basically the reason I wrote this was that in the middle of reading a bunch of #reylo stuff on tumblr and twitter (and don't get me wrong, I contributed), I kind of started to realize that Kylo Ren is in reality a gross evil monster and in all honesty, that line (you know I can take whatever I want) has always given me the creeps and I always wondered why on earth JJ Abrams thought it would be a good idea to put a line like that in any kind of movie. So this fic is my response to that.