Title: White Noise

Fandom: Star Wars

Rating: T for now

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars or any of its characters. That all belongs to Disney, along with most things these days, I hear, including George Lucas's soul, which I assume is what you get when you pay someone $4 billion. I own pretty much nothing comparatively and I'm not making any money off this. Don't sue me.

Author's notes: After watching The Last Jedi for a third time, I'm pretty much over my initial misgivings about it and am happily sailing my new Reylo ship into the double Ahch-To sunset. This came to me today and despite all the other things I should be doing, such as working on my X-Files fic or, I don't know, my own original writing, I simply had to dedicate my afternoon to writing it down, mostly to explore my fascination with Rey and Kylo's relationship and, a little bit, to redeem another character I still feel was improperly treated by the TLJ narrative. I haven't written for Star Wars before so please forgive any transgressions of fandom etiquette I'm not aware of. I have plans for more but I'll see what happens with those. I hope you enjoy, and would love constructive feedback!

/

She shouldn't have touched his hand.

Months passed and she tried not to think of him, not as she worked with his mother and her loyalists to rebuild the Rebellion, not as she found herself increasingly relied upon as a pilot in their decimated force, not as she struggled to find time to refine and practise her skills as a fledgling Jedi among her other, more pressing responsibilities. She tried not to think of him as she watched Finn and Rose grow closer, painfully sweet as they were, and she tried not to think of him as she watched Leia and Poe's respectful warmth, more acutely aware than most of whose role Poe was filling for the grieving General.

When she kept busy, which wasn't hard, she succeeded in forgetting him. He was licking his wounds just as surely as his First Order were, just as she and the Rebels were. It was the closest approximation of peace anyone could have hoped for so soon, both sides too weak to strike out at the other, the galaxy at a breathless standstill, wary of choosing a side in a war that could still go either way.

When she ran out of productive distractions, that was when she felt it – their connection, forged by Snoke, still unbroken despite Kylo Ren's betrayal. She couldn't explain it but neither could she ask anybody about it. Rarely an experience so complete as when she was on Ahch-To, she no longer found herself looking at him, talking to him, trapped in an artificial room with him while all her other senses dulled. Trapped with him in endless white noise. She was actively avoiding thinking of him, and distinctly felt he was doing the same thing, and didn't expect that to happen again without Snoke's intervention. Instead, it was snatches, glimpses, a feeling she couldn't, or wouldn't, pin down. It was a gaze catching hers unexpectedly when she zoned out during a boring briefing, gone just as soon as she blinked, startled back to her senses. It was another breath synchronised with hers when she meditated and felt for the Force, gone as soon as she opened her eyes. It was a flick of a black cloak at the edge of her vision while she trained with her staff, a flash of sizzling red in the sparks of her microtools as she frustrated herself trying to fix the Skywalker lightsaber. It was a pull when she lay dozing in the pilot seat of the Falcon, ferrying supplies for the Rebellion, a disconcerting whisper against the silence of hyperspace.

It was temptation. The first of the books she'd stolen from the island warned of this: the dark side, tugging at her soul, baiting her with what it knew she couldn't resist.

Worst was when she slept, when she dreamed and had no control of where her mind strayed. And stray it did. Confused, conflicted feelings of anger, loneliness, fear, disappointment, admiration, hurt and curious fascination swirled unchecked inside her, taking unsettling shapes in her subconscious, playing out in imaginary scenarios that varied in inappropriateness and foolhardiness, ensuring she woke most nights gasping and ashamed with the truths of herself.

In her dreams, her memories and desires and fears coalesced murkily. She found herself in battle with him over and over, in the snow, in Snoke's throne room, in the jungle, on the salt flat in Luke's place. Sometimes she won. She wanted to kill Kylo Ren for what he had done to the galaxy, to Han Solo, to the Jedi Order, to her. In those dreams she played out her desire to hurt him, see those dark eyes he'd inherited from his beautiful mother widen in shock and fear of her as she bested him and brought him to his knees, right before she put her saber through his chest. Always through his heart. He never wore his mask and she never took his head; though she slashed furiously at the face that haunted her, she could never do more damage than she'd inflicted outside Starkiller Base. He gained that scar over and over, and she burnt a hole through his heart over and over, and he screamed and begged and snarled and fell and tears spilled from those eyes she could not forget until the light went out in them, over and over again, but it was never enough to quell the hatred she felt for him. There was no satisfaction to be gained in defeating him.

Other times, she lost. These dreams left her just as hollow and unsated. She fought with all she had but in these dreams, it was not enough, and he took her down. He was unreasonable, infallible, the monster she had accused him of being, and he was so much more than she, stronger and bigger and better. His moves were fast and unpredictable, his slashes hacking, his posture animalistic, his control of the Force formidable, and he found her lacking at every turn. He shamed her with his impressiveness, drawing her childish admiration of him into painful, vulnerable light. He hurt her, he tired her out, he humbled her. Sometimes she thought he was toying with her; other times, he just wanted her done with. Every time, his eyes were cold and hateful and vengeful as he kicked her feet out from under her and drove his lightsaber through her. He went for the heart, too. He cared nothing for her, not in these dreams, and she woke from them afraid, face wet with humiliated tears. She was no match.

Then were the dreams that were more memory than fantasy, where he killed his master rather than kill her, where he brought her lightsaber back to her with the faintest touch of the Force he controlled so eloquently, where he stood over her and ignited his lightsaber not to hurt her, but in preparation for the consequences of what he had done. Where his eyes watched her get to her feet, the same eyes that had just watched as she was tortured and thrown about like a useless doll, where those eyes regarded her with resignation and respect and kinship – where she had known he believed in her to be able to fight at his back and hold her own, not needing his protection, where she had known that he trusted her and she could trust him. In the dreams where she battled Snoke's Praetorian guards with Kylo Ren, she was alive, and emboldened, and afraid and horrified by what she was doing, killing with her own hands, killing with him…

She woke from these dreams unsure, even less sure than she awoke from the make-believe dreams, because the reality was far more frightening. She had never felt the Force like she had that day, and she had let it all in – light, dark, all of it, and used it as it guided her to use it. And it had guided her into an alliance with the darkest and most dangerous man she knew, which should have made her feel guilty or wary, but instead it had felt right, and worse: it had felt like Not Alone.

It was short-lived, the goldenness of Not Alone, because then the blue blade ignited through the red guard's helmet and Ben Solo got to his feet, and she asked one more thing of him, to throw his power around a little more, power of the kind she could only fantasise about, to rein in his armies and save the day, and he was Kylo Ren again and he let her down.

The dreams were invariably violent, but not always in this same way. There were dreams of running away, either on foot or in the Millennium Falcon, chased by his dark and menacing presence at the back of her awareness. In these dreams, her heart was in her throat, thudding with terror, knowing when he caught her, she'd be done. She ducked under fallen trees or staircases or space debris in her desperate attempts to lose him, but it was never enough. His TIE fighter swung at her from the other side and fired on her, ending the dream, or a black-gloved hand closed on her collar and dragged her out screaming into the path of a swinging red blade, or, mid-step, she suddenly froze, caught in the web of his power, powerless herself, and behind her, his footsteps crunched on the undergrowth, ever closer, ever nearer…

"Rey…"

His voice left her weak with fear, and something else. Shame? With everything he said to her, he stung her. His words were cutting, even when he didn't mean them to be. When she heard him speak, she knew she should run, but instead she stopped and listened. Somehow, absurdly, his voice had power over her she should be strong enough to resist, but wasn't, even just in dreams. It elicited an instant kick to her heartrate, a drop in her ambient temperature if the goose bumps were anything to go by, and a shaky longing she'd never admit to. In dreams, though they left her red-faced in the dark, she could hear again as he spoke her name, in his dangerous voice that made her quail and sent a shiver along her nerves, and to say again the things he hadn't meant to mean as much as they had – that she was not alone, that she was no one, but not to him.

Things no one else had ever bothered to say, but which she'd always, desperately, deeply wanted to hear. How had he known?

Indulging in reflections of words that meant far more to her than to their speaker led her into spirals of self-disgust, for what kind of nobody needs her enemy's validation to feel whole and worthy? What insufficient scum needs more than the unconditional love and acceptance of a friend and brother like Finn?

"Join me… Please."

Kylo Ren offered no love, certainly none such as the unending, protective love she had found in the former stormtrooper who had thrown his future away for the Rebellion, and for her, but he made her feel needed, wanted; and he did not accept her as she was, as Finn did, but he understood her. He saw her.

And she desired that too completely, too fully, and in her unguarded moments, waking and dreaming, she was haunted by his eyes, seeing her, understanding what she was, wanting her on his side.

Their fingertips touching impossibly through space and time.

The shock of electricity shared between them. The Force, untempered, wild and eerie.

The intensity of his vulnerable gaze. Not Kylo Ren. Ben Solo. Or were they one and the same, indistinguishable? Which one was it in the dreams where his eyes burned into her and made her stomach flutter? Who did she imagine would drag his fingers through her hair and murmur her name against her skin?

His fingertips tracing her arm…

His breath on the back of her neck…

His low voice in her ear, forever mocking.

Tonight, it was one of these dreams.

"Go on, say it," he breathed, poised over her, taunting her. Pinning her to the bed, stretched along her. Eyes glinting, dangerous and fierce in the terrifyingly familiar face she'd scarred. His voice made her shiver with longing, and she tried to sit forward to meet him, but he never made anything easy for her. He pushed her back down."Say it."

She swallowed. "Please."

And he gave in to her.

Rey sat up in bed, gasping for air and struggling against the binding of her loose blankets, which just a moment ago had been his hands, running the length of her body under his as his mouth closed on hers, his full lips exactly as soft as they looked each time she noticed them but exactly as strong and disarming as the words they produced. She pushed the blankets from her legs and swung her arm blindly at the wall beside her bedding. A warm, soft red light grew from the sconce above her, protecting her night vision. The small cubicle she called her quarters at the new Rebel base was darkened for the two daily night cycles, one of which she used for her scheduled sleep shift. She looked around the tiny space, from her one-person bunk (containing, thankfully, only one person, despite the inclinations of the dream) to the workbench along the opposite wall where her lightsaber still lay in the glinting pieces they'd wrenched it into like spoiled children fighting over a toy, to the small mat she'd laid on the floor between. She could see nothing out of place, no signs of disturbance, no indications of another presence.

She was alert now, so there would be no whisper, no flick of black cloak, no unexpected loaded gaze. But she still breathed deeply until she had control of her insane pulse, and listened, and looked, and waited, just in case.

She was pathetic.

She lowered her head into her hands with a groan, feeling sick. Who was she? The Rey of her dreams was variably a vicious murderer, a failure, a victim and a traitor. Her skin felt clammy and slick, and she dug the heels of her hands into her eyes when she felt them start to sting with the threat of tears. This had to stop but she felt out of control. These psychotic dreams of killing, kissing, hurting, fearing, wanting her greatest enemy, himself a murderer and a traitor but also her heroes' son, they couldn't be the product of a healthy, stable mind.

As much as she hated him, she admired him and desired his respect and attention. She wanted to kill him as much as she wanted to trust him at her back and feel the Force guiding them as one incredible unit. In sync with his every move, protecting his back as he fended off the majority of their foes, knowing he was protecting hers, feeling his motions before he shifted, ducking below his blade before he could swing it, tapping into the intentions of those intending to do him harm and blocking their weapon's path before they could, intensely aware of the way the Force surged through him in the forms of passion and adrenaline, not fear and anger as she'd assumed, she'd felt connected, intimately connected, to another person. He was right in what he'd said, that she was lonely, and searching for family in everyone she met. In Han Solo she'd found a hero but not a dad; in Luke Skywalker, a legend but not a role model; in Leia Organa, a mother's warmth but not a mother's need. Poe Dameron had filled the gap Ben Solo had left in the general – the loss of either of these boys would be what destroyed Leia, not the loss of Rey.

She wanted to know him and be known by him, like nobody had ever let her know them or bothered to know her. They were the only two left, the only ones out there like the other. Two halves. Did she want him like these most disturbing of dreams suggested? She hoped not, refused to analyse them or give them any credibility. They made her feel unwell. The dreams were psychosexual, she told herself, metaphors for the powerplay between them. Domination. Submission. Winning, losing. Manipulation. Need. Desire. Fear.

She wasn't worthy of Luke's tutelage. She saw that now. Whether the hand of the dark side or of Kylo himself, she still fell into the same mistakes every night.

So it surprised her every night that he pretended not to know how troubled and pathetic and absurdly conflicted she was, and he afforded her the benefit of the doubt he had not afforded his own nephew. Faintly blue around his edges, transparent, he appeared cross-legged on the mat on her floor after every nightmare, beard tidy and trimmed like she'd not known in life, haggard face revitalised with spirit, eyes bright and patient and kind and optimistic like the boy his sister Leia remembered.

But not Luke Skywalker, the farm boy from Tatooine.

Not Luke Skywalker, the legend.

Not Luke Skywalker, the bitter old recluse.

Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master, at peace. And what peace he brought her with his timing every night, balancing her sickened queries of self-worth and her place in the galaxy with his steady presence and his steady, determined failure to ask about the dreams or pass any sort of judgement for what he must already know.

"So," he asked, "shall we continue with Lesson Three?"

Rey smiled in spite of herself. Lesson Three, it turned out, encompassed everything about the Force and the Jedi Luke had left out in the first two very minimalist, very reluctant lessons on Ahch-To. She pushed herself off the bed onto the mat opposite him, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and pushing her damp hair from her sweaty forehead. Pushing Kylo Ren, Ben Solo, whoever he was and everything her weak subconscious had attached to him, from her thoughts with more strength than she possessed in her lonely, susceptible solitude.

Lesson Three and Luke didn't make her feel needed or wanted or understood, but Luke, lofty now in his higher plane, could not be said not to see her. He gave her the things he couldn't in life – patience, time, knowledge, wisdom – the things he understood and could see that she needed. He made her feel grounded. In control.

Like a Jedi.

"Yes," she agreed firmly. "Please."