They met on the plain, in the center of the battlefield that was to come the next morning, just the two of them. It was just after dawn and rain threatened to move in; thunder rumbled in the distance.
"Please, please let's not do this, Ben." I know you're still in there.
"Ben Solo is dead, girl." Kylo Ren gripped the hilt of his lightsaber and ignited it, then tensed into an intimidating stance, lightsaber hand leading.
"Ben..." Rey ignited hers but didn't lift it. "Don't do this-"
Ren roared a challenge and 'pushed' out through the Force towards Rey; she pushed back. He Force threw a rock at her and when she dodged it, charged her, slashing and stabbing.
Every move he made, she countered or blocked.
Finally, they broke apart. Both dripping sweat from the motions, Rey looked at Kylo Ren. "Ben, STOP- I know you're in there—just listen. Please—it's not too late. You don't have to be alone anymore-"
Kylo Ren froze. "Is that an offer? I could use a queen," he grinned malevolently.
"It can be if you just stop this!"
Her comlink crackled: "Rey, what are you doing?! Where are you?!" Poe Dameron's voice from the command center was panicked and horrified. They must have woke up and found her bunk empty.
"Something stupid, but I know he's still in there-" She had seen him, not the evil, twisted thing Kylo Ren was but the scared and vulnerable Ben, the one yearning for love and acceptance. "I'm not giving up on him." She muted the comlink but left the tracking on... just in case she was wrong.
Kylo Ren stalked towards her again, this time stopping just out of her reach but barely within his. "Why are you so insistent on saving him? He's out of your reach, child."
"Because everyone is worth saving," she whispered. She held out a hand to him. "Please, Ben..." Stop this. Take my hand. We can work on-
Ren attacked. With every swing, thrust and slash, he drove her back through the clearing. This woman was particularly persistent and annoying, but there was something about her. She had been there for him when no one else was. Her Force presence aroused a warm fondness instead of a cold loathing; the very thought of her made him want to throw everything away. No more First Order, no more conquest, just him and her in a hut on some distant planet.
His shock when she had touched his mind last night and asked for a meeting was palpable and that contemptible Hux had questioned him for several moments too long about what he intended to do.
What he intended to do was end this. And Hux had agreed: one was or another, it was time for this whole kriffing disaster to end.
With a roar, he swung the blade laterally in a blow meant to remove her head from her shoulders-
Rey ducked and rolled under the attack so she was behind him. She kicked out with her legs and connected with his knees before he could turn. He dropped to them with a pained cry, lightsaber extinguishing and falling out of his hand.
As he turned around, Rey's lightsaber ignited over his shoulder. It was shaking. "Finish it, then."
He heard a sniffle. "I...I can't do this, Ben. I can't kill you."
Ren reached for his lightsaber through the Force; it came to him. "I'm more than willing to kill you, then!" He whirled around on his knees, lightsaber igniting. The swing missed, but barely. Rey caught his wrist in the crook of her elbow as he brought it back and pinned it against her waist. Incensed, he tried to push out through the Force to get her OFF of him. She grabbed the wrist of the other hand before he could do anything with that one. "Release me, woman!"
"Ben, stop-" She stood there trapping his right wrist against her waist and holding his left wrist in her right hand. "Please don't push me away."
Something in her voice made Ren stop pushing out.
And when she bent to kiss him, time stopped. The world stopped.
The universe stopped.
There was nothing but her and her smell and her taste. She tasted vaguely spicy and of sun and sand dunes. She smelled of hope, of redemption.
Of love.
He stopped struggling against her and leaned into the kiss. She released his arms and gently ran her hands through his gilt hair. He wrapped his strong arms around her and pulled her closer, returning the kiss. He clung to her as a child clings to his blanket, as a dying man struggles for life against an untimely death.
Something in that kiss reached through to the boy who was, in fact, not dead but buried in a secret tomb. The tomb shattered.
"...Rey..."
Ben blinked his eyes. She was still there in front of him, in his arms and he in hers.
"Ben...?" Rey held his face in her hands. His eyes were no longer hard obsidian; they were soft, like bantha wool. Like a place she longed to call home.
Suddenly, she gasped, stiffened then sagged into his arms and Ben felt a burning in his chest. He looked up at Rey.
She was pale and a trickle of blood appeared at the corner of her mouth. "-Ben-"
It was only then Ben realized what had happened—and she wasn't the only victim. His chest began to tighten and breathing became difficult. He tried to stand but only fell over backwards with Rey in his arms.
The blaster beam had cut through Rey just below her right breast and had continued through Ben's upper left chest. Hux smiled from his command center—two tip-yips with one stone. The sharpshooter had done his job. "Leave them there to rot," he said contemptuously, the turned away. He had an empire to run.
They lay there, breathing heavily, gasping in air but finding no relief. Ben lay on his back with Rey curled on his chest. He gripped her tighter and coughed up blood. "...Rey... Rey, I'm sorry... for everything..."
"...will it...will it hurt?" She gasped in pain, trying hold on for just...a few...minutes because Poe and Finn and the rest would come and save them and...
Ben put his right hand on the back of her head and the other at her waist and remembered dimly a conversation with his mother regarding seeing a doctor for a childhood check up. He repeated her words back to Rey.
"...Only...only for a little bit...my love... But when...when it's done...we will go to..." Ben tried to think of something Rey would enjoy. "-the beach-we'll have... we'll have a picnic..." It was too hard to breathe, too hard to speak. All he wanted in these last few minutes was to hold her, to comfort her.
Rey gripped his tunic where she fell. This was it...everything was turning red. "...Ben... Ben... I'm scared..."
Ben didn't respond. Instead, he held her closer, as if trying to pull her into him, then shuddered and gasped once. Then he was still and, with a cough, so was she.
That was how the rebels found them and when they did, the rain set in.
For all the world, they looked as if they belonged in each other's arms, sleeping lovers cuddling on a rainy day.