Crystal Visions
With Kylo Ren's hand still outstretched, the connection was disrupted as suddenly as it had begun. He crawled back in astonishment, still feeling echoes of his uncle's fury. The soft hum of the Supremacy's engines and the smell of disinfectant in his quarters returned him back to reality. He exhaled with relief, remembering he was light years away, safe. The disintegrating hut's flying stones, the heat of the fire, and Rey were gone.
His stomach dropped at thoughts of her facing his uncle's wrath alone. Would Skywalker kill her just as he tried once to kill Kylo? Worried, he reached out for her presence. Yes, she was safe but she was angry.
Good, use your anger, he thought. It was the only way she could defend herself.
Kylo looked down at his bare hand that moments ago had been touching Rey's. He could still feel the sensation of skin on skin, the warmth of her body. He held his hand to his pounding chest. It was terrifying and exhilarating all at once. He couldn't remember the last time he had touched anyone without his gloves.
Then there were images flooding from the Force within the blink of an eye. But he could recall the visions like a holo drama slowed down to watch frame by frame. He had seen Rey's dreadfully lonely past: her cries as she was abandoned by poor and dirty drunks, being left to fend for herself in childhood after her parents' drinking money debt was paid off, marking time inside the rusted AT-AT she called home as she waited day after painful day for their return. She wouldn't even change her style of clothes or her hair for fear her parents wouldn't recognize her. He saw the people who spawned her come to an early end. The father dying on a filthy cot from disease, the mother collapsing dead on the dirt floor of her hovel shortly thereafter, poisoned by homemade rotgut that had gone bad. It broke his heart and made him furious at the same time.
Then he had a brief glimpse of her as a woman: no longer a scavenger girl, she was regal, powerful, confident, and beautiful. He blinked in disbelief, his eyes glistening with tears. Rey would come to him and she would forever be by his side. Not just as another strong in the Force. But as his partner, his queen, his lover.
He gasped at the visions of them together. His pulse and his breathing quickened as in that shadowy future he would kiss those once sun-roughened lips with unreserved passion, caress her freckled skin, and lose himself in her. Together they would create something pure and whole. The universe would be in their hands. And only he could give all of that to her.
Snoke's presence was now reaching toward Kylo, like a finger about to tap him on the shoulder. Kylo quickly shielded his thoughts and emotions. His master cannot know what he'd just seen and experienced. He locked them all away, buried deep in his heart.
Among them was the certainty his master, his abuser, his tormentor was as good as dead.