"I thought I'd find answers here… I was wrong. I had never felt so alone."
It was cold in the shed, dump clothes sticking to her skin and drops of water falling from her still wet hair. With a blanket around her shoulders, Rey set next to the fire. Close to the warmth, close to the light, always the light.
But the darkness… the darkness is seductive. It catches up with you, slowly, and before you know it you are diving into it, while It whispers directly into your hear.
"You are not alone."
Rey lift her eyes to Ben Solo, and in him recognised the same cold, the same hollow emptiness she was feeling inside. She was scared and ashamed of what she felt, but whispering in a dead man's ear doesn't make it real.
She was looking for answers and found only herself, and she couldn't be the answer. Or could she. Her whole life wasted waiting, and that sense of belonging to something, to someone, always unfulfilled. But she had something to fight for now, her own path to walk. If she could find hope and a new purpose, something to live for, why couldn't he?
"Neither are you. It isn't too late."
No one else would understand this, that pull to the dark, but she could feel it, in her just like in him. If she could touch it, dive in it, be surrounded by it and still come back so could he. She could feel the conflict in him, even stronger than before, and tentatively raised her hand and offered it to him, as an anchor, something for him to grab and pull himself out.
He looked at her hand and then back at her face and her eyes, they were calling him. Everything in her was calling him and he felt it again, the pull to the light. It had never really left him but now it was stronger than ever and it was tearing him up inside. He had to feel her light with his own skin. Without breaking eye contact he removed one of his gloves and slowly raised his hand to meet her own.
It was impossible, he wasn't really there, but she felt his touch as soon as their hands. From the point of her fingers right to her core and, still looking into his eyes she saw in him, for the very first time. And she saw something else, the possibilities. No one's future is written in stone and she saw what his could be. Whole again, together, with her.
He saw her too, he had been into her head before but this was different, something else. Like a window directly into her soul and in that moment he knew her. Her past, her future, her everything and he wanted more. He rested his fingers on her wrist and felt her heartbeat, it was fast and erratic just like his. Without breaking contact he moved his fingers on her arm up on the gentle curve of her shoulder and felt her shiver. With the back of his hand he traced her neck and wiped a single tear from her cheek. He didn't know how long it had been since he had started feeling her, time seemed to be stretching out forever, one second could feel like minutes or hours in this strange dimension they were in, and he couldn't see anything else, just her. And he still needed more. The need for her light was morphing into something stronger, deeper. He cupped her jaw and slowly started tracing her upper lip right to her lower one. Mesmerized he moved his gaze from her eyes to her mouth and again to her eyes and started inching closer.
In that moment Rey knew two things: Ben Solo was alive and, whatever the future was going to be, they were connected by something deep, call it Force or destiny. She could not save him, he needed to save himself, but she was going to do anything in her power to help him get there. Their lips were a mere inch from each other when a scream broke the connection and the world started crumbling around her.