Category: Star Wars

Author: Mrs Pettyfer

Title: Rewrite the Stars

Pairing(s): Rey/Kylo Ren (Of course there will be other pairings as well. This is just the focus.)

Genre: Fantasy/Romance/Adventure

Rating: M

A/N: If you follow me on Tumblr, you know I'm a big Reylo shipper. So here I am! This will simply be a collection of one-shots and drabbles, much like my Rubik's Cube collection for ATLA/LoK. Some will be more than one "chapter" and others will just be one. I'm not sure how regularly I'll update this; just when the ideas come to me. I hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: The world of Star Wars belongs to Disney/Lucas Films and this is just for fun.

Also, this first chapter/one shot was inspired by an amazing comic by ninjapancake314 on Tumblr and a lovely post by reybens, also on Tumblr. They so graciously allowed me to write the companion piece below.

01 - Stand With Me

Rey thought she was prepared to face him.

For a year or so they had not come face to face, their interactions reduced to the bond neither could break. The first time the bond flared up there was only silence, neither willing to break it. The second time, enough time had passed that his new title was well known across the galaxy: Supreme Leader Ren.

She didn't care what he called himself: Kylo Ren. Ben Solo. Supreme Leader Ren. She knew what she saw when they touched hands and no matter how much she wanted to forget it, she couldn't.

Sometimes they argued. Sometimes they didn't speak at all. Neither put out the offers they both knew they wanted to give, their stubbornness too strong and pride too wounded. Their bond strengthened, despite weeks passing between unexpected connections. And with that strength and some effort, Rey and Ben could now communicate telepathically. For some reason, this was easier to control than their apparitions.

The first time it happened, Rey shot out of bed and grabbed her blaster on instinct. But as she blinked away sleepiness and came to her senses, she lowered the gun, expecting to see him. Only there was no one there.

And yet his voice rang out again. In her head.

Rey?

It was the only thing she had kept from the Resistance. This connection. It was too intimate, too personal, and maybe Rey knew Poe would want to use it to their advantage. She knew she should want to use it. And yet…

She reasoned with herself that if their connections revealed anything that would be helpful to the Resistance, she would speak up. And maybe…maybe she would have the courage to speak to Leia about it. Someday. When Rey had told the story of what happened on Snoke's ship, she had told Leia how she had felt the conflict within her son, but didn't know anymore if Ben Solo was still there.

"Someone wise once told me no one is ever truly gone," Leia had said with a sad smile.

Rey wanted to believe it, though she had expected Ben to use their connections to demand information on the Resistance. But he never did. Only once, when he had appeared suddenly as she was training alone in an empty field, he said simply:

"Why continue to run when you know you can't win?"

To which Rey replied, "Because I'd rather be running and free than trapped in a cage."

He didn't say anything to that.

Maybe he knew it wouldn't matter, that in the end, the First Order would snuff out their flame. It was no secret the rebels were losing. The First Order's numbers were so impressive that it scared people too much for them to join. While they needed a rebel base, they needed actual rebels even more. So they traveled from city to city, planet to planet, to small villages and dark forests and isolated islands, looking to form new alliances. But their resources were depleting, their allies shrinking, and their numbers still too small.

After a devastating skirmish on a small, dense planet Rey had never heard of, the First Order had showed up and destroyed any chance the Resistance had at making a new alliance. Rey was back in the falcon nursing a wound on her shoulder when Ben appeared. She expected him to gloat in his victory—though she had not personally seen him, despite sensing him off in the distance. She expected him to tell her their opposition was futile.

She should have been used to him surprising her.

"Did you hesitate?" he asked quietly. "Did you even consider my offer?"

They never spoke of the throne room, of what happened with Snoke and the guards. What happened to the legacy lightsaber he so firmly believed to be his.

Rey looked at him, surprised to see he had not cleaned up from the fight. His dark wavy hair was messy and sticking to his sweaty neck, a small gash on his temple dripping blood down his face. He had been in the thick of it, then. A king that preferred the battlefield to his throne.

Now, he stood in her chamber, just as he had appeared to be inside her hut on Ahch-To. She wondered if she reached out if she'd be able to feel him, or if her hand would glide straight through.

She answered him honestly. "Yes."

Did you consider mine, Ben? She did not voice it aloud, but sent it through their bond.

His face did not change, but she saw him swallow. He did what he usually did when he didn't want to answer and switched to a new question. "Do the rebels know you could have taken my life and ended it?"

"Does the First Order know you were the one to kill Snoke?"

She had heard the stories—wild, exaggerated stories, most of them pinned on her being the one to kill him.

They stared at each other in silence. He was too tall and big for this confined space, taking up more room than physically possible due to the intensity and power he radiated. If he stepped any closer he would tower above her.

Finally Ben glanced away, his mouth working. He turned his back on her, as if he would reach for the door and walk out of the room. But then he just glanced partially over his shoulder, not looking at her. His voice was quiet, even a little curious. "Why didn't you do it?"

It was a fair question, a question she had asked herself a thousand times. A question that had a thousand answers.

"Because of what I saw…when the moment comes, you'll stand with me," she whispered, settling on one.

It was several months later that General Organa passed away. Not all heroes die grandly, poetically. Sometimes they just die.

For several weeks the General had been struggling with memory and concentration, and complaining of headaches; a result likely from her near death experience at the hand of the First Order months ago. But Leia refused any more follow up treatment, insisting it was nothing and that she was fine. But one night she simply went to sleep and never woke up. When they found her the next morning, she had been smiling. At peace.

They didn't know where to lay her to rest, and eventually settled on Ahch-To. It was a sacred place, where she could be with Luke. The caretakers had welcomed them and showed them where they buried Luke, where a once sacred tree stood. Poe dug the grave by himself, not allowing anyone to help. Lt. Kaydel Ko Connix watched him in silent grief. When he finished, she put an arm around him and held him close.

Poe spoke fondly of Leia, sharing stories that made Rey laugh, some that made her cry. She looked around at the handful of rebels, at the caretakers as they prepared a feast for their guests, at the rocky huts and lapping waves of the island.

General Leia Organa deserved more than this, but it was all they could give.

They agreed to spend a night or two on Ahch-To.

After the feast, which consisted mostly of green milk and roasted fish, Rey had found a hut and slept for hours. Then she cried for a long, long time. Finn had come to check on her in the morning and she wiped her eyes, insisting she would be okay.

Then she found the strength to reach out to Ben. He deserved to hear it from someone that cared, not by some military personnel.

She's gone, Ben. I'm so sorry.

He knew. Without her saying any more, he knew who she meant. A single, strained word echoed down the bond. How?

She told him. She felt his grief, his rising anger. His emotions were so strong that she felt them in her bones, through the bond, as if they were her feelings. She had to reach out to grip the stone wall to steady herself.

And then she felt nothing. Emptiness.

Ben had somehow managed to slam a door on their bond. It was still there, Rey knew that, but somehow…it was as if their minds were linked by a bridge, and Rey's mind was at one end, Ben's at the other, each with an open door that allowed thoughts to pass between them. A door he had managed to shut.

She had pounded at his door, at his mind, but it remained closed.

His grief turned to anger, and that anger led to a dark recklessness, to destroying cities that did not bow to the First Order and causing havoc that Rey knew was not the new order he had proposed in the throne room so very long ago.

It had to end. It was something Rey had said to Poe that gave him the idea that led to this moment. As she struggled to learn more about the Force, as the Jedi texts proved to be either impossible to decipher or impossible to understand, she complained, "What good is a single lightsaber against an army?"

Now, they stood on a remote icy planet along the cliffs, the sun setting in the background and casting the snow in pearly white. Rey looked across the precipice and saw a small army of Stormtroopers and an AT-AT walker. But her focus was all on him.

She hadn't shared a thought or connection with him in two months, since Leia's passing.

His dark eyes met hers, his face colder than she remembered. He was dressed in his typical black, his cape fluttering against the chilly wind. His lightsaber was ignited, the red flaring up against the stark white of the snow around them. It reminded her of their fight in the forest, on Starkiller Base. Only this time, she was not afraid.

Ben.

The first time she said his name, she spoke into the bridge of their minds, testing his strength. She was met with something cold and solid. She wondered if she could break it down if she truly tried.

"Ben," she said aloud. She swallowed hard, knowing what she was about to do. Knowing the risk and choosing it anyway. She lowered her newly made staff saber. "If you're still in there…I don't want to do this."

"Rey," she heard Poe warn behind her.

The Resistance didn't need to defeat the First Order. They couldn't defeat the First Order. They could possibly defeat their leader and General, to get them isolated and away from their numbers. Without a proper leader, they would crumble within as men and women fought over rank.

Rey started moving toward the thin bridge of ice. This wasn't part of the plan. But she couldn't go through with it. Didn't want to. "You can stop this."

"No!" Poe shouted just as Finn yelled, "Rey, come back!"

She ignored them both and switched off her saber. She continued forward, stepping onto the narrow icy path. Rose cursed in the background. BB-8 swiveled and beeped nervously behind her as she took another step. And another. Chewie let out a roar of protest.

"We can both stop this," said Rey. Ben's face was still of stone, but he made no move to attack her. She stopped in the middle of the bridge. "No one else has to die. Too many have died already. This…this path isn't what you wanted, Ben."

For a long moment, Rey feared he would say nothing. But then he moved forward, closer to her. His voice was empty and deep. "Is this the surrender of the Resistance?"

"No," she breathed. "Just my own."

He stared at her. "I swore that I would destroy you."

Her eyes flashed to his flickering saber and she imagined it then, how this would play out. The moment he struck her, Chewie and Poe would fire at him. He would block them, but be too distracted by their pursuit to notice their best shot in the Resistance, Kaydel Ko, hidden above and aiming right at him. Finn would rush forward without thinking, and Rose would try to stop him. General Hux on the AT-AT walker would fire everything it had. Maybe one of them would manage to survive, if they were lucky.

But not Rey and Ben. They would die here, surrounded by allies and enemies and friends, falling deep into the ravine below.

Maybe that's how it should be. Maybe Luke was right. Maybe it was time for the Jedi to end. Maybe this would at least bring balance.

Rey closed her eyes, preparing for the end.

Ben's lightsaber switched off. "But…I know now that I can't."

Rey's eyes flew open in shock, surprised to find Ben on one knee in front of her. His head was bowed in resignation, but his hand did not shake as he held out his lightsaber. To her.

"You know what you have to do," he said thickly.

She remembered knocking Kylo Ren to the forest floor, standing over him as he was powerless. She remembered an unconscious Ben Solo on the ground, his lightsaber next to him. Remembered how destiny had given her opportunities to take his life. How it presented itself again now.

Rey reached out—and instead of grabbing the lightsaber, she touched Ben's shoulder and helped him stand. She opened her mouth to speak, but he grabbed her other hand and placed the saber in it.

"Don't be afraid," he said quietly. "Just finish it."

And with his resolve, the door of his mind opened. The emotions flooded Rey's thoughts. He was ready to die. He believed it was the only way this could end, the only way to be rid of the conflict within him. She could feel that resolve in him.

And it broke her heart.

The belonging you seek is not behind you, it is ahead.

Tears welled in her eyes as she reached up and placed a hand against his cheek, her fingers brushing his scar. His eyes closed and he leaned into her touch. "Finish it?" she said softly. "All right."

Rey rose up on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his. She felt his sharp intake of breath against her mouth just as she heard the shocked reactions behind her. She pulled back before Ben could react, before she could react, looking up into his stunned face.

"You once said to let the past die." It took all her effort to keep her voice from shaking. "And you were right, in a way. Our past…we shouldn't kill it, but we should learn from it. Weshould accept it. What matters now…" she held his gaze as she spoke softly, "is the future."

Ben's eyes searched her face, his mouth parting. Before he could speak there was a series of sharp blasts. Rey barely had time to do more than gasp as a flash of red surged for them—

Only to halt as Ben raised a hand, never taking his eyes off her, stopping the blasts in midair. "Our future?" he asked, his deep voice filled with awe.

"Yes." Her mouth twisted into a small smile.

They stood in the middle of the Resistance and the First Order, in the middle of the dark and light. It was time for the old Jedi to end, and a new order to begin. Rey saw the moment Ben understood, that he realized the vision they had both seen and both misinterpreted, had been one in the same.

He turned and redirected the blast back at the AT-AT. The Stormtroopers leapt out of the way as the AT-AT came crashing down. Chewie and Rose let out exuberant roars.

Rey stepped to his side and ignited her saber. "We're in this together, then?"

Ben glanced at her, his lips twitching almost into a smile.

"Always."

A/N: Thank you so much for reading!