A/N: Hello fellow Reylo shippers, new and old! What a wild ride The Last Jedi was! I just couldn't get those Force Bond scenes out of my head, so I had to write this.
Please enjoy!
It had been three standard weeks since she'd seen him in person.
She could remember everything from those moments near-perfectly. The sights, the sounds, the smells. Ruin everywhere. The smell of charred flesh and death burning her nostrils. Him. Standing meters away, covered in other beings' blood, tears wetting his face.
Every time she closed her eyes, her lightsaber was held tightly in his hand. She'd thrown it to him. To save him. His other hand was reaching for her, pleading with her. Join me, it said. "Please," he'd whispered.
She knew what he was asking for. It wasn't what she wanted; what was right. She couldn't do what he was asking. She'd refused; he'd gotten angry. His words were cruel. He was desperate, frantic, harsh. It broke her heart.
You were so close, she'd thought. You were almost there, I could feel it.
She'd believed that ending Snoke would be what did it. What finally turned him. She'd sensed the shift on her knees in front of him. Scared as she was, it wasn't long before she realized something had changed. Even as he looked down on her and said the same words he'd said to his father that night on Starkiller, his lightsaber pointed straight at her chest, she knew this time would be different. The look in his eyes told her so. And it was.
She'd watched in relieved disbelief as he'd killed the man that seemed the root of all he had become, let her faith in him rise as she felt him fight at her side. And for a moment, she allowed herself to hope. This would be what brought him home. His mother would see her son again, at last.
She'd been wrong. He'd killed Snoke for selfish gain, murdered only to murder more, and she couldn't support that. This wasn't Ben asking her for help, this was Kylo demanding her allegiance, her assistance in unjustly ruling over others. They fought. She left him behind. She hadn't spoken with him since.
But she saw him everywhere.
He would appear when she was alone, sometimes even when she wasn't. In the late hours of the night when sleep wouldn't come, during her self-taught lessons that never seemed to go quite as well as she hoped, even in the middle of conversations with others. It was as if his presence was an itch at the back of her conscious, and if she ever scratched it, he'd appear.
The encounters never lasted longer than a few seconds, but they might as well have lasted several lifetimes. They never spoke. They only stared, silently daring each other to speak, to say the words that hung in the air like a dark cloud. She'd thought about speaking to him more than once, but had never gone past opening her mouth.
I'm waiting for you, she wanted to say. When you're ready to come back, I'll be here. I'll still help you, even after all that's happened. But you have to come back on your own.
It never felt like the right time. It probably never would be.
She'd expected him to be angry when she saw him for the first time since the fight. Hurt and up in arms, she'd expected him to come after her, lightsaber swinging. He hadn't. He hadn't even seemed angry enough for it to show. He was hunched over on himself, like he wished his existence would swallow itself whole. A soft fire burned in his eyes, but she couldn't tell whether it was aimed at her or himself. She'd opened her mouth to give him a real piece of her mind, because if he wasn't angry, she certainly was. But one pitiful glance from him, and she refrained. His dark eyes bore holes into hers. She could sense that he knew he'd made a mistake. She wouldn't give him any comfort - his own choices had landed him where he was - but a lecture was not something he needed at the moment. Everything she was going to say had already been shouted at him several times, the words hurled at him like weapons. He was tired of being lectured. By now, she'd done all she could for him. He needed to be the one to make the decision.
The second time, he'd still been silent. She hardly even noticed he was there. Too preoccupied with her lightsaber, she didn't turn around until long after he'd shown up. He'd been watching her silently. She wanted to say something. Wanted to tell him what she'd had to say since she'd left Crait, and him, behind. But she hadn't. She'd turned and walked away.
Now, he was here with her again, silent still.
She was in the empty cockpit of the Falcon, though she knew that wasn't what he saw. Rey decided it was probably better that way. She didn't look at him. He didn't look at her. She decided that this, too, was probably for the best. But it was silent. There was no one else around, which was a rare occurrence, anymore. Would there be a better time to try to bridge the gap she'd been met with?
"Your mother asked about you."
He stiffened. His head turned just enough that Rey knew he could see her out of the corner of his eye.
"As soon as I told her what happened, she asked if you looked alright. Healthy. I told her no." She paused, fiddling with her hands. "I don't think that was the answer she wanted."
She could feel his eyes on her, but she hadn't looked up to see him. She wasn't afraid of him, but of what she'd see when she looked in his eyes.
"You could still come back," she said softly.
She looked up, finally meeting his eyes. What she saw made her dizzy. There was so much there. Too much. She didn't know how he handled it.
But that was the problem, wasn't it? He didn't. He didn't handle it on his own. Maybe he couldn't. He needed help. Help that she was willing to give. If he was willing to receive it.
"I can help you. I still would. But you have to make the choice; I can't do it for you-"
"I've already made my choice."
It wasn't loud. It wasn't harsh. It wasn't angry or cruel. It was resigned. It was like the choice had been made for him, and he didn't see a way out of it. Maybe that was how he felt. He felt like it was too late. But she knew that it wasn't. She'd seen the conviction in his eyes as he'd killed his master, seen it when he'd fought her for her lightsaber, but it hadn't been present when she'd glanced at him before leaving with the entirety of the Resistance on the Falcon. He was already doubting the choice he'd made; he knew it was wrong. That had to count for something.
"No, you haven't."
"Yes, I have. I've made the choice I've made, and I will reap the rewards of my decision. I can't change what I've done, and neither can you."
"You're wrong," Rey insisted. "There's still hope. You can still change."
"You, however," he pushed on. "I offered you a home, a position of power, a spot at my side. I offered you a place in this story. I offered you everything - everything - and you refused. You're the one who really made the wrong choice."
He looked hurt. She'd realized that her refusal had offended him, but she hadn't realized that she'd wounded him like this.
"You didn't offer me anything," she whispered, willing herself not to cry. "You offered me a lie. A false sense of hope and belonging. You don't find a home in a place of oppression and cruelty. That's what you wanted this galaxy to become. Please, just come back and we can fix this. You can make things right."
He stood up, advancing toward her, fire behind his gaze, but she wasn't afraid. She stared at him with an equal amount of fire in her own eyes, daring him to shout, to yell, to throw a fit.
"What is it that you think you're accomplishing?" he said, his voice dangerously low. "Do you think you're saving me? Changing me simply by existing? You're not. If you think you're doing anything for me, you're delusional."
Rey stood up, not breaking his gaze. "I don't think I'm the one with the delusions, Ben," she whispered.
She expected him to rear back, to lash out and shout and yell and insist that it wasn't true. But he didn't. He simply stared.
Rey looked to his eyes. Again, his eyes. They'd never failed her, not once, and they didn't disappoint her now. This time, they told her she was right. That she was right, and he knew it. He stared at her for a few seconds more.
When she blinked, he was gone.
I'll be posting the second part of this (Kylo's part) in a little while. This was all I could get written for now (it's finals week and I spent time on this that I should've spent studying), but there will definitely be more soon!
To those of you (if any) who read A Fine Line, the response has been overwhelmingly positive, so I'm going to continue. There will be more of that soon, as well!
Thank you for reading!