Rey awoke with a start, hair prickling at the back of her neck. Her eyes could see nothing in the total darkness of the small hut, but in her mind she could see, clear as if he were right in front of her, Ben Solo lying in his bunk. She blinked several times to try to dispel the vision, as she always did, but his large, dark eyes still stared back at her from across light years.
A salty gust of wind blew past, whistling through the stones of the small hut. She pulled her thin blanket closer to her body, willing herself not to shiver. Hate burned in her stomach as it always did in these moments, but tonight it was dampened by sleep. She was fully exhausted and lacked the energy to rail against him. Today had been particularly brutal. She closed her eyes, but could still feel his gaze on her.
"What do you want?" she asked, voice low. The huts were made of stone, but there were many gaps and holes in the walls. She didn't wish to be overheard by the caretakers, or Luke.
"I want nothing. You know neither of us can control this. I am only waiting for it to end, same as you."
"That's not what I meant. You're staring at me. You could just close your eyes and go back to sleep, but you want something from me." Ben remained still, eyes shining. "Why do you stare?" She felt agitation rising in her. She was fully awake now, and knew she would have difficulty getting back to sleep.
"Because I want to." he said simply, a hint of a shrug in his voice. Her body filled with revulsion and confusion. She opened her mouth for a violent reply. Then, as quickly as it had come, the connection severed. She was left feeling restless and angry. Memories of Han Solo, the man who should have been (could have been?) her father, lurked behind the red haze of anger. She rose and left the hut to stand on a cliff edge. She felt easier staring at the sea, and she watched the sun rise before she hiked up to Luke's hut to begin a new day.
"Don't you know what it was like for me?" he asked, not waiting for her to fully grasp at the connection between them. His voice was distorted at first, then evened out to normal, as if they were standing only a few feet away from each other. "So much power, more than my master, but constantly being chastised for small infractions, always under more scrutiny than any other student. I met every expectation and more, but it was never enough, never enough for Skywalker. I always felt that he was just waiting for me to turn, no matter what I did to try to quell the suspicion." He paced across a dark chamber, looking at his hands as he spoke. His words came deliberately, slowly, as if planned.
She listened to his monologue. She had gone from screaming at him every time they connected to meeting his gaze with icy silence. More often than not, he spoke through the whole connection, painting a picture of himself for her to see. He was so self-centered, but she was beginning to see there was more to him than just that. She felt the conflict in his soul. She could feel the longing in him to be good, to turn to the light, but he felt that it had pushed him away, forced his hand. The dark side had accepted him, nurtured him, allowed him to pursue his power without restraint.
During the days she followed Luke Skywalker around the island through the same daily routine over and over. Every day, she tried to make inroads with him, and every day he pushed her away. She was endlessly persistent. She never showed a single sign of weakness. She hiked the mountain in the driving rain, leaped from one peak to another, swam in the icy waters, and collected her own food. She would prove herself and make him take her on as a student. But as the days wore on, she began to see how exacting of a master Luke could be. She began to understand just how it must have felt, trying to live up to those ideals for a young boy with so much promise.
Late at night she told Ben the story of her sad existence on Jakku. The pure, mindbreaking loneliness that had defined her youth. The constant wondering about what had happened to her parents, where they were now. She had a million different theories, each developed to minute detail. She asked him, loudly, often, looking him right in the eye, how he could have killed his own father. How he could have chosen to throw away something that she would have killed for. He never answered, just stared back at her with his big eyes. Sometimes, she could almost see them welling up before the connection between them was cut.
She never allowed herself to think the thoughts that hid underneath everything else. Under all the logic and layers of protection and hardened, street-smart barriers, there had once been a flicker of a hope that maybe, just maybe, Han would think of her as his daughter. It was now well and truly extinguished, and she was staving off the pain of the loss by closing down, ignoring it completely. Life on Ahch-To gave her too much time alone with her thoughts, but this one was too painful to touch and so she held it back, containing it as best as she could.
She took to bathing in her clothes. When first arriving on Ahch-To, she had luxuriated in swimming in the bracing water of a small cove, spending the long hours when Luke stayed in his hut out in the waves. Water had been such a rarity on Jakku. Being surrounded by an entire ocean all the time was such a novelty to her. She had simply abandoned her clothes on the shore and let the salty wind dry her when she finished. However, they had once connected as she lay on the shore drying off from swimming. She pulled her knees to her chest trying to cover herself when she realized that he had closed his eyes. She knew he would still be able to see her in his mind, as she could when her eyes were closed, but the gesture stuck with her. Now she swam in her underthings at the least, and covered herself immediately when she left the water. She refused to be caught unaware again.
Ben had no shame about his body. Rey found him half-dressed so often that she wondered if he stayed that way on purpose to display himself to her. She could not help but notice him. Her whole life had been spent alone, hardly ever seeing other humans, never seeing anyone she considered at all attractive until Finn appeared. Now the only other human she had any contact with was an old man that pointedly ignored her, and Finn was well out of her reach.
Her body ached for intimacy. Sometimes, late at night, in the grip of her loneliness, images of Ben's body came to her. She imagined his broad, strong shoulders. Imagined him holding her in his arms, protecting her. But from what? He was one of her biggest threats. She imagined taming him, holding him close, stroking his hair as she took him inside of her. When her mind cleared after these moments of weakness, she always lay there in shame, holding herself. She could not let him invade her mind.