The water rushed over her aching body with the soothing touch of a mother's hand. Rey had long since been scraped and cleaned of the day's exertion but the abundance of water on their frozen planet, heated through solar energy supplied by their twin Suns, gave her the simple luxury of comfort.
Water had been beyond scarce on Jakku; that came with the desert climate. It wasn't unheard of to go months without being able to clean herself in a proper way. Alcohol soaked bags of sand had worked well to scrap the grim from her skin but often left her feeling dryer, chaffed.
Rey took in a shuddering breath as the water cascaded down her face. Even under the steaming water, the dessert –borne scavenger never seemed to find the warmth her body craved. Her skin was numb just like her mind.
Two standard weeks since the battle on Crait had sped by; a blur of frantic motion. The Resistance, or what was left, had jumped from planet to moon to planet again, once to cater to the wounded, again to refuel and a third and fourth and fifth time to scour abandoned settlements and old Rebel basecamps.
They had found paltry amounts of freeze-dried portions, a half a week's worth of fuel for the Falcon and a handful of bacta patches worth taking. Rey had almost felt at home among the rubble, sniffing desperately for anything useful.
In all that time, for it felt like a year rather than fourteen days, Rey had strained against her predicament; the unnatural connection. She felt his Force swirl and pulse against her day in and day out but still she persisted; holding her own against the dark tide that threatened to drown her at any moment. She had not allowed him to show himself.
Though, if she were honest with herself, she couldn't be sure how much his absence was due to her own effort or how much it was due to the Force showing her mercy. She had no idea how the bond worked or how to impede its efforts. She only knew she had to try.
And the effort was exhausting.
Rey stood, her muscles protesting against the movement, and switched the shower off. The sudden lack of heat left her shivering, pulling into herself as she wrapped herself in the one rough towel she was permitted.
At this time of night, Rey knew only a few would be up but she ran to her room regardless, her feet slapping on the cold cement floor.
She shut the door behind her and dressed quickly, the cold seeping into her soul. Her hair curled like vines of ice around her neck but nothing could have been more frigid than the vibration in the Force that practically smacked her in the face without warning.
Panic shot through her core: an all-encompassing torrid maelstrom of rage, fear, and all manner of emotions she had words to name.
His gaping mouth and wide, wild eyes told her he had felt the same at their sudden connection, if only for a moment. His face quickly adopted the void mask of cold, indifferent durasteel she had come to expect.
He made no movement, made no sound. She in turn starred, her heart pounding so vigorously against her chest she wondered if he could hear it. Or could he feel it through the Force? The idea made her imagine a sandsnake on Jakku, a predator that found its meal through infrared hunting.
Of course, that left her as the meal.
When he spoke it was soft, almost a whisper as though his voice had grown unaccustomed to speech. "You're cold."
She blinked. "Am I?" She wondered if he could feel her cold or if his assessment came from careful observation.
"You're…" she tried to find a feeling around him, pushing her Force through their connection. He was neither warm nor cold. He was on a ship; climate controlled.
What she did feel left her reeling: he was angry, raging just beneath the surface and his Dark screamed in her ears. She dragged her Force back from him quickly, terrified and breathing heavily.
His eye twitched, an infinitesimal show of emotion that told her he had felt her repulsion. It terrified her how well she knew him.
She couldn't think of anything to say. Or rather, she couldn't think of how to bring up what she wanted to say. She was furious, disappointed, heartbroken. She wondered if he was debating the same thing as he stood, tall and imposing, unmoving.
His leather-clad hands flexed, clenching and releasing as though in search of something to hold, to transfer his rage into, no doubt.
"Go away," Rey finally said, hissed.
He scowled. "I'm trying."
"Why are you here?" She asked, more demanding from the Force than from him.
"I can't control it," he growled. There was such an edge of frustration and Rey felt how in grated, how it wrung at his senses to not be in control. What had once been curiosity, wonder at their connection, had morphed, dissolved, into hatred of the unknown.
She held herself, pulling as far from him as she could though she knew that even if she ran, hid from him in the expansive base, he would always be there, a presence in her mind that could not be evaded.
"Go away," she said again. "Go away, go away, GO AWAY!" She was screaming, doubled over in her own Dark.
When she looked up, he was gone.
She knew nobody would come to check on her. Rey had her own room on purpose: her nightmares never stayed in her own head.
Rey walked the long, cement halls of their hideaway, her shoulders slumped, her hair pulled into a tight braid. She imagined the circles under her eyes were what kept her fellow Resistance fighters from making conversation.
That suited her just fine.
She had spent years alone; conversation reserved for survival. Regardless of her own want, she was afraid of what she could or couldn't know about their strategy. She avoided Poe and Leia, afraid that they would tell her something vital, something that she would inadvertently let slip in her mind where Kylo Ren would find it.
Should could forgive him for wanting to succeed his former master. Objectively, it made sense. She had come to him, he had dethroned Snoke: their joint succession could fit as a natural result. But when he had pursued them, when he had intentionally sent his TIE fighters against her in the Falcon, knowing full well they would sooner obliterate her than take her prisoner… she knew he was truly lost.
His sudden oscillation: offering her the galaxy then attempting to take her life; it terrified her.
In the dessert a man was one thing: friend or foe. He could never be both. She knew where she had stood on Jakku, where she could place the men and women around her. The rules had been set and never wavered.
Here, even with the Resistance, she felt more lost than ever. He friends, Finn, Poe, Rose, Chewie: they were all at risk simply by being near her. He had felt her cold. She still struggled with that. Had he felt her? Had he felt the cold? Had he looked into her mind and read that she had been cold? Could he discern where she was just by process of elimination?
She knew what she could feel from his end of the connection, but she was well aware of her lack of training and experience. He had decades of training over her. How could she know what he was truly capable of with the Force? Snoke had called him her equal. Equal in strength but more competent with that strength didn't sound equal to her.
Rey snatched a wrench and laser solder and set to work. The base, as useful as it was, was a veritable heap of junk, clinging to its last leg. Rey had made herself useful, immediately setting to work making whatever patch-work repairs she could while simultaneously avoiding human interaction. Nobody interrupted her when she pulled on her goggles.
Nobody, except him.
She shook, her hand tensing then failing altogether; the wrench fell to the floor with a dull clang. She breathed, her eyes shut. She could feel him, his Force, his presence, yet he said nothing.
Rey looked up from the vent. To her, he was standing only a few feet away, his arms clasped behind his straight, rigid back as he starred across her hallway, unmoving, unblinking. In her mind, she saw what her eyes could not: he was watching something, out a window perhaps. She had the faintest taste of the word stars.
He was watching the stars from his ship's viewport.
She watched him.
His jaw clenched and she could see his hand grasp tightly on his own wrist. She knew he felt her; it was impossible to not notice the bond. He was trying to ignore her. Or trying to leave her alone.
Rey took a shuddering breath when the connection lasted more than a minute. She turned back to the vent, pulled her goggles back over her eyes, and continued to work.
Their meetings continued in this way for days. Sometimes their eyes would meet, a thousand questions, declarations, and accusations passing in those moments. But more often than not, there was silence, a pair of mutually fuming Force-users who refused to be moved.
Rey could not help the smirk as she thought how stubborn the both of them were.
It felt like a game of chess (something Poe had taught her and Finn one night when she had allowed herself the luxury of friends). They were both pawns, stuck face-to-face, unmoving, resolute, and stranded as the rest of the board played out around them. One day, something would break their stalemate but for now, neither could move against the other.
Rey grabbed her staff, mind numbed from the ceaseless repairs their base called for, and headed out into the frozen forest just beyond their durasteel walls.
She was dressed just sensibly as every other Resistance fighter, but the cold seeped into her bones nonetheless. She was thrown back to Starkiller. It had been the first time she had seen snow and she hadn't even a moment to realize it. She growled.
Just one more thing he had taken from her.
She swung her staff, moving through the steps she had taught herself through years of fighting and self-preservation. When sweat began to tingle the hairs on the back of neck she pushed harder. Crying had stopped giving her the release she sought so long ago. Now, only self-inflicted pain, punishment for her failures, seemed to bring her a sense of balance.
She felt his Force swirl around her before her staff smacked against an unfamiliar wooden stave. She caught her breath, holding her staff firm against what seemed to be his own practice stave. Their eyes met, both wild, breathless and in awe of the physical contact made possible through their connection.
It was wordless but certain. She took a step back, twirling her staff with her teeth barred beneath her scarf. His feet made no indentation on the snow but she didn't care. Their staves could meet, and they would.
She lunged, striking, parrying and releasing everything she had pent up for weeks. He matched her, not as adept in staff play as she but a skilled combatant nonetheless. She wondered briefly why he had being training with a staff rather than his own lightsaber. She'd certainly prefer her saber.
The thought spurred her on. Why did he have to take so much?
Cold wind bit at her face but she was determined to best him. She fought like a woman possessed, screamed, leapt, and hacked until they were both stumbling and out of breath. His own cries of exertion excited her, pushed her to draw more from him.
When the connection faded before a victor could be determined, before a word could pass between them, Rey collapsed in the snow with a scream.
She felt more alive than she had in days.