"I'd rather not be doing this."
"Yeah, I didn't want to either." The reply came from her left, muffled as he shifted over to face her. The light from above fell in shafts over his face. Her gaze drifted to the scar tracing its way across his cheek, verging upward above the eye. It was a face that couldn't be called handsome in any world. It was interesting, she thought. It was a face that displayed too much emotion hence his adoption of the mask.
But, that was before.
"What do you…," she mumbled, her brow quirking in confusion. "Oh."
He propped up his chin in one hand, slightly gesturing to the room.
Oh.
"You were watching me sleep?!" The words came out accusatory, heightened by the embarrassment of recent nights. She hadn't been fully safe in the world of dreams. In the lightness of slumber, she had tossed and turned, feverish with fantasies concerning one person. Rey's mind had turned traitor. Furious, she leveled a glare that he predictably ignored.
He shrugged fluidly. Like there had been anything else to do. "You're a light sleeper. I'm surprised you didn't sense it beforehand."
"Why is the Force doing this to us?" She remembered Snoke's words vividly. He had showed them what they both had wanted to see. The light side, the dark side, he had manipulated them both into an inevitable confrontation of ideals. Rey had thought with his demise, the link between them was finished. It was done. She told herself constantly she didn't want anything to do with that monster.
"It's getting stronger, isn't it?"
She was almost afraid of the answer.
"You can see my surroundings. I can see yours." Kylo said as if it meant nothing. "You look real to me. Solid."
She almost pulled back then stopped. "Don't touch me."
"You let them touch you. They treat you like the Jedi reborn. Deified, something precious. Is that why you cling onto them?" He sounded almost bitter. Rey hunched up, curling her legs and arms closer.
"You tried to order your mother's death!" She was damned if she was going to let him play the blame game.
"I didn't know she was still alive." He couldn't explain how blinded by rage he had been after her rejection. When he was in that state, he couldn't feel anything only darkness choking his senses. "I ordered the Falcon taken down -and you were on it." With supreme effort, he struggled with the desire to strike out at her. "I'm sorry."
Rey tried to glare, failing miserably. How many times had anyone ever apologized to her? Had he ever apologized to anyone? Uncomfortable with her line of thoughts and where it was leading to, she lapsed into silence waiting for the connection to break.
"Do they know about…this?" He gestured to the room. Rey refused to notice the details were getting sharper by the moment. "Us?"
"There is no us."
"Then, you're a fool for denying this- whatever this is." He reached out for her suddenly, the tentative grasp of his fingertips brushed her arm, the touch burning through her clothing. Rey pushed backward and fell to the floor with a groan. She was back in familiar surroundings, bathed in the blue glow of hyperspace.
"Do you hate me?"
"Leave me alone."
"Hate is an emotion unknown to a Jedi."
"I said…," she had thought to meditate. There were meditation techniques in the sacred texts she had taken from Ahch-to. Rey had skimmed through them curious as to their contents. Her glower was preceded by a huff of amusement. She refused to look at him lying there only inches away.
It was impossible to concentrate.
"You're no Jedi." The look on his face was one of smugness. He reclined openly on the cluster of dark grey pillows, the sheet drawn up mid-level to his waist. "There's passion in you, fire and hope. You're still hoping I'll turn."
"And you think you can make me." She retorted mildly, smirking.
"I don't give up so easily."
Like destroying the Resistance? She can think of a few examples.
"I know you don't, Ben." It gave her a secret pleasure to say his old name, his forbidden name. No one else called him that so boldly without expecting retaliation. For just a moment, his eyes narrowed.
"You're not alone."
The pressure faded. The bedroom within the Star Destroyer faded and she had returned to the dimly lit room one of many in an old Resistance hideout.
BB-8 bumped her knees.
"Were you just talking to someone right now?"
I was thinking aloud." Rey murmured, dropping her gaze. How long had BB-8 been there? Had the droid overheard her say his name?
Finn was with Rose more often. She saw them leaving on mission together, heard of their crazy adventure in Canto Bight. She had listened with subtle envy watching Rose linger beside Finn, occasionally touching his arm, supplying a suggestion concerning mechanics that Rey knew nothing about.
"What're you afraid of?"
"Nothing." She sighed. "Stay out of my head."
"Ah, you think FN- that traitor will abandon you. Friends, comrades…they can't be your family."
She felt her heart sink, her eyes stung. Rey turned away from him, placing her back to the shadowy dimensions of his bedroom.
He was being deliberately cruel.
"They'll find others, they'll drift apart from you. It's inevitable, Rey. You even have looked for a mother in Leia."
She considered a world where things had been different. Parents, belonging. A world that was never hers. Han and Leia…she had begun to come to the painful realization that he had been right about some things. Neither had been perfect people. "That's odd, then I'd be your sister." She managed to smile despite her watery eyes. Kylo or Ben…whoever he was at that moment, looked at her without a brotherly look in his eyes.
"You need a teacher."
"I had one until you killed him." She was wrong, but it felt good to spit those words. The Resistance was encountering setbacks. No one wanted to go against the First Order whose face had become one all too human.
"Luke Force projected himself. The effort killed him."
"He did it to save us."
"I wouldn't have killed you."
"Yeah? I wasn't so sure that day."
Ben could say nothing to that. Rey was truthful to a fault.
"You left me. Didn't I have a right to be angry?"
"I had to." She had begun to question her own motives. Was the Resistance right? What made their ideology correct? Rey had heard of a minor skirmish on another planet. Civilians had been killed in the attack. "I…did make sure you were alright." She admitted finally when the silence full of recrimination became too unbearable. "I wouldn't have left if you had been seriously hurt."
He reclined fully clothed on his bed, a datapad in hand.
"Not again." She was tired. Her arms ached from constant training. She lacked finesse, the core of her fighting style consisting of her memories of his movements, the wild swings and devastating upper cuts. Rey shrugged off her outer vest, taking a seat on an upturned crate.
Tiny figures moved from the surface of his datapad. Against her will, she found herself frequently glancing at it. Curiosity finally got the better of her.
"What is that?"
"Records that survived the Empire's purge. It's a display of Form I Shii-Cho approved by the Jedi Council hundreds of years ago."
Interest piqued, she moved closer. "That's…amazing." The two combatants were Master and Padawan. They engaged in light sparring demonstrating footwork and swing of the Sword style.
"Do you want to practice?"
It was on the tip of her tongue to refuse. It sounded too good to be true. Luke had given her two lessons, furthering her understanding of the Force, but none had touched on sword play.
"Just…that one."
So they practiced. Kylo had her clear the room. She found a stick that resembled a blade. He explained how in the beginning, both sides had used swords of metal and not the kyber powered blades. Shii-Cho utilized raw emotion to power the strikes but was considered potentially unusable against more complex forms. The core of the style was evocative of the Jedi code to disarm and not to injure the foe.
"Do you know…."
"I've studied them all." He said shortly seeming to understand her reluctance.
"Makashi, Form II. It was popular among duelists."
"I've never seen anything like it." She said truthfully. The form was elegant, each movement precise. Kylo watched her perform a mirror image dance of Form II, deciding to refrain from mentioning the style had fallen into decline among the Jedi becoming a known battle form of the Sith. Count Dooku from the days of the Empire's rise, was a notable duelist.
"What's wrong?" She caught sight of his expression. If asked to define one single emotion present, she would've been hard-pressed to describe it.
"Nothing, it's nothing." But, it was something. It was beyond wonderful to teach her, to watch her grasp the complex sword forms of another age. He had almost forgotten the breakage of the Skywalker light saber.
Rey studied the spare movements of Form III Soresu. Close quarters combat. She was learning fast.
"I prefer Form II." She slid into the stance for Makashi, performing the first moves with the stick extended out from her. His gaze traveled slowly over her lean, muscled arms to her slender legs. Sometimes, he couldn't stop looking at her. On Takodana, on Starkiller he had sat on the floor watching, waiting for her to wake up. During their battle in the snow of the ice world, he had been distracted. Kylo watched her footwork, her careful shifting from side to side to outward thrust like a duelist.
It suited her. The elegant, gliding movements. He had no holos of Dooku, but imagined she could encapsulate some of the Sith Lord's grace on the battlefield.
"Beautiful."
She looked at him startled.
But, he had faded away.
It was the first true compliment anyone had given her. Beautiful? She studied her face in the dull metal siding. The hazel eyes, the smattering of freckles across her cheek. She was thin, ever presently so. The shadow of hunger had kept close to her heels. Rey had taken the crystal out from the broken light saber. Soon she would have to rebuild it or…
"Let the past die." The ghost of his words flittered through her memory.
Find another.
"I'm going to build another light saber."
"It's about time."
Talk soon turned to the possibilities of forging an alliance with someone from the former crime syndicate, Black Sun. Only Leia reached out and touched her hand, smiling reassuringly.
She offered her the blue kyber crystal before she went off world.
"This belongs to you." It did once to someone who had meaning to Leia. Leia, whose Skywalker blood ran strongly in her son, folded Rey's hand over the fractured crystal.
"Bury it somewhere."
The light saber belonged in the past buried along with Rey's memories of Jakku. In that, Maz had been right. The belonging she had sought was not to be found on a desert planet. She watched the closest thing she'd had to a family recede as the shuttle lifted off from the blue-green planet.
Only Leia stayed watching; BB-8 rolled after Dameron who had resumed work equipping a lighter starfighter for action. Finn and Rose were off recruiting along with the remainder of the Resistance. Rey puzzled out her thoughts as she entered upper spatial atmosphere.
Finn and Rose. She liked Rose Tico. It was always Finn and Rose these days, never Finn and Rey.
The slight sting of exclusion persisted. Why did she feel it? The thought remained like a stubborn pebble disturbing the flow of her conscious state of mind. Everyone had someone they depended on. The similarities between her and Finn ended where they began. She had not been taken from her parents at birth, inducted into the Stormtrooper training program. She had not had parents who fought in the Rebellion like Poe nor had a sister beside her who had watched the First Order destroy their home world.
She had the Force and nothing and no one at all could understand how lonely that felt in the galaxy except for one person.
"Ben."
As if her present state of mind had summoned him, she felt the air change. Someone breathed through the connection, heavy as if he had run a great distance or been engaged in a serious sparring match. Rey turned in cockpit unsurprised to see him filling the small space with his dominant presence.
Ben looked livid, furious. His dark eyes flickered to her then to the red light saber in his hand. Thumbing the switch, he returned the hilt to his belt.
"Are you alright?"
He straightened and glanced around likely ensuring he was still alone. If she focused hard enough, she could see a Durasteel room outfitted with equipment.
"Setbacks."
That could've been a good or bad thing considering their respective positions. "Hux?" From his stony silence, she gathered she wasn't far from the truth.
"You've left the Resistance?"
"Not for long," she said too quickly. "I-I wanted to practice Form II with a light saber and…,"
"You're going to build one."
"Yes." She knew what was in both their minds. A replay of her hand shooting out almost involuntarily trying to summon the Skywalker light saber to her hand. Rey expected to see slivers of anger. She expected him to retaliate, but instead he looked almost reminiscent.
"I remember building my first one. The crystal produced a true aqua hue."
She remembered. She had seen him use it against Luke the night of the temple's destruction.
"The crystal came from the Ajanta Caves on Ellora. It was once a warzone there, the opposing tribes wiped each other off the face of the world. If anything survived on the planet, it could be dangerous. Stay on your guard, Rey."
"Why so forthcoming? You're going to spring a trap…"
"Don't be ridiculous!" He snapped, eyes flashing. "If I wanted to, I could capture you right now. I know where you are, Rey. I always have."
She faded away from him, stunned. Kylo watched his surroundings come into sharper focus. It had been easy, almost too easy to tap into his old Jedi training. Despite his distaste for such tactics, the old methods of meditation had worked. He could've looked at a star map and pinpointed her location with accuracy.
He looked around the room he had been about to destroy. Strangely, an odd peace seemed to have settled over him. The desire for destruction was gone.
"Balance, huh."
"The Ajanta Caves…,"
Ellora was a dying planet. Rey could feel the decay beneath the surface of the withering oceans, the green stalks of grass hiding the rusted weapons of war. The only life she sensed was in the fauna, a few alien birds in the skies. Seeing them she remembered the porgs from Ahch-To and the Millennium Falcon. Chewbacca had Finn and Rose with him, she needn't have worried. Shouldering the straps of her rucksack, she looked toward the west where the outline of mountainous terrain appeared through a break in the treeline. She estimated she had a few good hours of daylight to make her approach. The datapad from the shuttle hadn't said much more beyond what she already knew.
The Ajanta Caves were a known source for rare Kyber crystals during an earlier age. As she walked, Rey began to imagine the different color spectrum of light sabers she had never been privileged to see. Green. Dark blue. Violet. White. Red made her think of Ben/Kylo, and in turn made her think of the Jedi who had come before her, who had made those tentative steps toward creating their light sabers. She felt almost one with their memory and didn't feel so lonely waiting for the coming night.
The glow of the fire lit the clearing with a warm amber toned light.
"What was your day like?"
She didn't want to talk about the past or rehash angry recriminations. She was alone and not alone on Ellora.
"Taxing." Ben smirked, sitting across from her. "I ordered some of our profits redirected into stabilizing Iocury, a former mining planet. Hux was...being Hux about it."
"That's...good." She said carefully, a thin brow tilted. The First Order doing something...positive? When had that ever happened? Rey decided to keep her sarcasm to a minimum. "I've never met Hux, but I can imagine." She had seen holos of the ginger-haired man, heard the rumors about his illegitimacy.
"Yours?"
"I arrived here." She shrugged, "nothing's happened yet. I'll probably reach the caves sometime tomorrow. You were right, this world does seem abandoned."
Ben was studying her, the scrutiny didn't bother her so much as it had before. It was almost comforting, feeling his gaze on her. Through it, she could feel concern, warmth that touched her deeper than the crackling fire.
"You should sleep."
"You should too."
Unspoken, they sat together in companionable silence, watching the flames consume the dry wood until only embers remained.
She sat in the field of grass studying the crystal she had plucked from the cavern wall. The faint glow of lilac reminded her of peace, spiritual serenity. As her fingers closed over the rough, uneven surface, she felt a familiar presence. Rey turned her head a quarter of the way, resisting the urge to smile.
"You found one."
"Yes, I did. It seemed to...call out to me."
"What color is the crystal?"
She opened her hand revealing the roughly hexagonal prism refracting a delicate play of multihued light.
"Purple? It suits you." He said before fading from sight. Rey had wanted to ask how to construct a light saber. He was the only one who knew if his hastily constructed saber was anything to go by. "I'll figure it out…,"
Her shuttle drifted in the blue streaks of light speed.
Rey set aside the clumsy inner workings of metal coils, conductors, a curved tube and the funnel-shaped edge she had come up with. It was a whole bunch of junk, but it was all she had.
Here it goes...
As her hands worked, fitting the crystal into the conductors, her mind wandered. She thought of the boy Ben Solo had been. She thought of him as perhaps shy, retiring once. Young, with his whole life ahead of him; Luke had been harsh on her, he would've been crueler to his own flesh and blood. Luke was afraid of Vader's shadow tainting them so much so, he had let it in. The nature of the Jedi was hubris, she could see where he had spoken true. Their deeds, their goodness wasn't all a lie, but at the same time the Sith whose creed was passion, the acceptance of emotion had been flawed.
They needed to end.
The light wouldn't die without them, but become something more.
"Become who you were meant to be." Rey murmured to herself, pushing up from the table. The newly constructed hilt felt foreign, heavy in her hand, the curved hilt fit snugly in her palm. She had used spare metal bits from the Skywalker saber, salvaging the conductors, but the funnel she had liked for its gold color. Rey stepped back, ensuring she had enough space in the room, then she depressed the switch.
A familiar hum filled the air.
The blade was a perfect hue of pale violet.
A rare smile lit her face, it was the first true smile she had worn in a long time.
"Do you want to keep going?"
There was no true night in space, only their perception of it.
They should both be asleep. Rey was too happy to remain passive. She had built something for herself rather than relying on someone else's memories. She was sleepless as was he.
"What's next?" They had covered Ataru Form IV before she had left the Resistance Base.
"The perseverance form, Shien and Djem So. I don't have holos...,"
She could see the outlines of the room he was in. The beams supporting a shadowed ceiling, there were small blaster droids floating around him. "But, I can show you."
Juyo Form VII was the last one.
She had moved on through the sixth form, perfecting her footwork through the weeks of a cool spring. On her own, Rey practiced Makashi, wielding her new light saber with finesse. She almost wished for the full-length mirrors of a proper training hall in order to see her own reflection - see what he saw - when she performed the duelist's dance.
"Beautiful?" Rey looked down at the curved hilt in her hand. She was alone as she was more often than not. Leia and Poe had left for a meeting with one of their contacts. She had opted to stay behind and practice. The Resistance was important to her, it was, but she had always felt out of place. It wasn't as if the contact wouldn't question her purpose for being there. She wasn't reconnaissance, nor a pilot, she wasn't part of command nor a mechanic. She was a Force sensitive, the Force defined her and made the Force adepts of other species wary of the saber clipped to her belt.
Once Poe had commented to Leia about it.
"Does she have to be so obvious with that old thing?"
Poe never had his blaster far from him. Rey had taken offense simply because it was her own light saber he was referencing. The weapon was part of her, didn't they see that?
"You're not concentrating."
"I am." She felt sweaty, annoyed. Ben wanted her to be perfect so he made her repeat the sequence of brutal moves again.
"You're not." Almost smugly, his crossed arms fell to his sides. "I can feel your aggression, Rey. Channel it through to your hands. Use it to fuel your strikes."
"I can't." She bit off, wishing she could hit something. "The darkness feeds off of emotion."
"I'm only trying to help you become better."
"Why? Why are you doing this?"
"I already told you."
"That's a lie." She stopped, powering off her light saber. "There's more to it than that. I can feel it, Ben."
They stared at one another across the gap of ideals, pretending light nor dark could touch their bond. But, it was only a pretense. They had let themselves forget who they were, needing the few minutes of contact to the long stretch of time when they were alone together.
"I need you to tell me what it is, because I want it too."
Ben/Kylo said nothing at first, then parted his lips to speak - and was gone.
"Come back." Rey looked around the room with its pitiful, hard bunk, the table of corrugated metal and crate that served as her chair. She had nothing of her own in the room, nothing that belonged solely to her except for the curved saber in her grasp. "Please."
She practiced Form VII in the hours that constituted a warm summer night. Rey swung with implacable calmness, internalizing her emotions. She had understood Juyo the most because of its need for emotion, she had always felt things deeply and the light saber form called for the abandonment of emotional restraint. Rey felt the pressure on her eardrums.
"You never answered me."
"Don't you know?"
"I can't read your mind."
"Almost." He smirked at her sudden fury. "You've almost learned it."
Rey felt a small, sharp disappointment he hadn't meant something else. "I don't want to be perfect."
"No?"
"You're not...perfect either." She looked at him quickly trying to gauge his mood. Good. He didn't seem angry. She dropped her stance, powering off the saber. "You don't need to be, Ben." Rey clipped the saber to her belt, tentatively approaching him. She had a brief flashback of when she had done something similar, charging into the Supremacy with only blind faith in him protecting her. She had approached him with words in the turbolift, not actions.
She brushed her folded fingers against the scar she had given him years before.
"Tomorrow, I'm going to be alone. I want us to duel."
"I've been waiting for this moment."
They faced each other in the room, present and not present in the reality of space.
Rey stood in the elongated hallway, a grin threatening to ruin the gravity of the moment. She had been eagerly anticipating the passage of hours, her hasty sleep, the consumption of food while waiting for the time to come.
"So have I."
He reached for the light saber attached to his belt. The cross guard glowed a sudden vivid red. Rey ignited her own violet shaded blade with a flick of her fingertips. The blade hummed to life. She lifted it high, angling in a defensive guard. For a second, her gaze dropped to his feet. They slid a fraction of an inch to the left then he charged at her, swinging high. Rey evaded, spinning around to strike at his lower back. The light saber glided inches above his back. Kylo retaliated with a swift countering turn; they clashed heatedly, the ghosting touch of their light sabers meeting sent a minor cascade of sparks to the floor. Rey pushed forward, throwing her weight behind the lunge. Kylo braced his feet, shoving back.
Her wrists shook. She broke up and out, blocking each successive strike with a quick parry. They spoke no words. They didn't need to. The conversation flowed in the elegant dance of blades, the admiration in his look studying her fluid movements. Rey had refined her artless, brutal style into a varied form of Makashi. He didn't need to examine her footwork to know she was copying his steps, matching his relentless pace with the turn and twist of the torso, the sharp stab and parry of the saber.
They dueled as fiercely as if their lives depended on it. To go easy on her was the same as breathing a word of her weakness. Kylo held her in too much esteem to deny her prowess. The pride he felt for her far outweighed the paltry emotion he had reserved for his knights. They were a different breed, blunted instruments to wield against his enemies. Rey was just as much a creature of her own making as his.
She nearly disarmed him -
She had never felt so alive until that moment.
So effervescently happy.
Then, she turned toward the doorway where they stood.
Hope had surged within Leia's heart.
Luke hadn't been able to save him - but this girl, this nobody, had made the connection. She had seen it months ago, knowing they shared more than their thoughts. Seeing him now standing behind Rey, appearing so real she felt she could almost take him in her arms again like when he was a child - was almost too much.
She didn't see Poe reach for his blaster.
Rey stiffened and the blaster went off. Leia slapped the trigger happy pilot's hand down. "Stop it, Poe!" Even as she turned back toward the pair, she saw Rey's lilac shaded blade deflect the bolt into the wall leaving a smoking crater behind. Rey had come and gone on her private mission to restore a light saber to her side without anyone noticing the lack of her presence.
"What is going on here?!" Poe shouted in the ensuing silence.
Rey's lips tightened; Leia had seen that expression once before on her son's face. The girl turned and headed back to her room.
"You saw that…didn't you? Rey and that creep?"
"That creep is my son," Leia said coolly, pushing past him.
"Leia…c'mon, you have to see he's - hey, why am I always the bad guy here?" Poe hurried after her, catching her by the arm. "Leia, please, you know I trust you, but that guy…he tortured me."
"Poe-"
"No, don't you see he's tricking her. He killed Han Solo and countless others."
"What if he can be brought back?" She demanded, the look in her eyes fierce. "Luke said no one is ever truly gone." She shook him off with another glare, knocking gently on the door.
"Rey, sweetheart, can I talk to you?"
Poe was silent until the girl opened the door. Rey's hazel eyes snapped to him, furious, but softened when she looked at Leia.
"I think we both need to talk to you."
"He was training me."
"What- like in the dark side?"
"No. They were light saber forms." Rey spat, her eyes narrowing. "Ben had holos from the Jedi Order. He showed them to me."
"Like how exactly?" So, now he's Ben?
They sat across from one another in the kitchenette. The square table held only so many, when the few remaining gathered, they still overflowed into other areas of the base. Poe stared at her, at this slip of a girl…the galaxy's hope. It was ridiculous actually to think that a girl with a laser sword could save them. He preferred blowing things up rather than relying on some mystical energy in the universe.
"I can't explain it, not to you." Rey worried her lip between her teeth. She had a habit of doing that when she was nervous. Leia had sat on the left side playing devil's advocate. "He appears to me and I to him."
"So he knows where you are."
She looked so uncomfortable that he began to genuinely feel sorry for her. "He…told me he did."
"Is that a lie or-"
"Poe, please."
He held up his hand for Leia to stop.
"I don't think he was trying to scare me. So, yes."
Maker. The very thing they were hiding from had been let in. But, why…if he knew where they were, why did he not move to destroy them? Ren certainly hadn't hesitated on Crait.
"How long?" She was pretty, almost too pretty. Poe was glad his weakness hadn't been women.
"Two years."
He swore loudly and Leia shushed him.
"I know...," Rey exhaled, he could tell she wanted him to understand. The last two years had been hard. Finn and Rose were still rebuilding contacts. They had successes and misses. They had adventures together that brought them closer. Poe was thankful always to the girl for being the one to help BB-8 on Jakku. But, they had never jelled as friends. She was there and he was there, always supporting Leia. He had known Finn a time fraction longer than Rey.
"I know what it looks like. But, I can't stop it."
Poe saw the barely concealed pain in her face and he knew the truth she denied even to herself. "You don't want it to end." Kylo Ren offered her something no one else did. He offered her, himself. "You want him. You want a monster."
"Poe, leave the girl alone."
"No." He stood up, "I watched my entire fleet of fighters destroyed - people I've fought beside my whole life! We've been reduced to nothing because of the First Order. She let him in 'cause she felt sorry for his wounded soul!"
For a fleeting second, he almost thought she was going to shoot him or attack with her light saber. The shifting light in her turned to the darkness. But, she did nothing, only stared at him with hard, deadened of emotion eyes. If he was honest with himself, Poe would've preferred anger or tears, not the absolute silence she maintained.
"We need to move."
"Don't do this, Poe."
"General, with all due respect. Let's not have a replay of D'qar." He strode away from the table already running through a set of star charts in his head. Contacts would have to be made and transfers met. He almost wished BB-8 hadn't gone with Finn this time around.
"The one thing I know is that she stays here."
Leia found him on the rooftop, packing up his tool kit.
"Poe, don't do this. You know I can't agree to abandoning her."
"She - if they…," he thought of their few allies. A Toydarian gambler, a Rodian merchant who could supply them firearms and a handful of others. "If they learn about her, they'll desert us." Leia looked pale in the wan sunlight of the arid planet. The grey in her dark hair more pronounced then the days of D'qar.
"You know I'm right."
"I can't…it's not…"
"Look, at least until she cuts herself off of him. Then, she can rejoin us."
She heard the sounds of their preparations from her room. Rey forced herself to meditate, her feelings threatening to overflow. She meditated the way Luke had showed her, the way the Jedi texts had spoken of, seeking balance and comfort from living for the Force.
She could feel life flowing beyond the walls of the base.
She could feel death in the small desert animals.
She could see peace in the grey where her power delved and became one with her instincts.
There is no emotion, there is peace.
They were leaving her.
There is no chaos, there is serenity.
Her eyes opened to the steady blue glow of the binary beacon left on the night stand. Leia had brought it to her.
She wasn't sure when she had realized she couldn't follow the Jedi code.
"When you're ready."
Unspoken.
Leia clasped her hands. "When you see Ben…tell him…tell him that I love him and I believe in you both."
"I will."
She wasn't a child anymore.
She wasn't going to stand there and cry for them to come back.
Rey shut herself off of her emotions. Stony-faced, she watched the shuttle lift off beside the smaller U-Wing. Poe saluted her, his expression unwaveringly stern. Leia looked ahead as she always did, resolute, every inch the princess she had once been.
Then, they were gone.
The words sunk into her consciousness.
Alone.
She was alone with a quad jumper that needed fixing. There were food stores, water, enough to last her for years.
…cut herself off of him?
She didn't even know what it was.
Poe had seemed so sure of it.
"You want him."
"You're a Monster!"
"Yes, I am."
"You want a monster."
I…invited him in?
"Don't be afraid…I feel it too."
The pull, the calling of something inside her.
Cutting Ben from her felt the same as tearing out a piece of her soul. Couldn't they see what they had asked her to do was impossible?
Rey blindly snatched at her light saber, igniting the blade. She wanted to strike out, hurt something. The blade clove through the table where they had sat, through the chairs sizzling with a shower of sparks to the floor. These she reduced to kindling, slashing them with the same degree of frenzied violence she would've shown an enemy. In the midst of her inner chaos, she slowly subsided into fitful crying.
I made a mistake.
I should've told them.
I should've asked Luke what it was.
Why hadn't she? Because it had made her feel special, the unwanted thing had grown into the one thing that connected her to someone else.
"I am nobody…I'm still no one to them."
The floor creaked beneath someone's weight.
"You are somebody to me." Her crazily shifting world stopped when he spoke.
"Ben!" She lowered her hands from her face. Her cheeks were red, her eyes swollen from crying. He stood in the doorway, expression impassive. He had seen it all already, felt her reaching out to grasp the threads of fury. Rey had tapped into the dark side, unleashing her emotions in a raw display of anguish and loneliness.
"I…"
"They left you."
He had known they would. Eventually. He had warned her of their duplicity. Oh, he could believe his mother wasn't at fault entirely. She wouldn't have wanted to make the same mistake again.
"I don't know where they're going." Rey wiped her tears away, trying to glare. "So if you're here for that-"
"I'm not…I don't care about the Rebel scum." They posed no threat to him. Hux could deal with them. "I came for you."
"No!" She held her hand out warding. "I won't join you."
He saw her tense when he reached for his light saber. Kylo's fingers curled around it then he plucked it free and left it on the countertop. Before he had asked, not understanding the need for patience, the need to prove her instinctual reactions were wrong.
Rey's eyes shot to the cross guard hilt then suspiciously to his face. She reached out for her own, snatching the silver flash when it lifted up with the Force. Rey ignited it decisively, the lilac glow silhouetting her form. Kylo watched her settle into the defensive Makashi stance. His instincts screamed at him to defend himself to pick up his own light saber.
If he did…everything would be over
Rey would neither be light nor dark
She wouldn't trust him.
She wouldn't believe anything he tried to say. It had come to him already the knowledge that he would have to prove to her the validity of their bond.
I'm not going to fight you.
She could hear him, his breathing, his voice.
Why?
She changed into the stance of Juyo, Form VII. Kylo stepped closer, his hand extending to her own gripping the hilt.
"To prove to you that we were both wrong."
He depressed the ignition. The blade vanished and the room fell silent. Rey stared into his eyes, trembling all over. She loathed her weakness, as he had said it, her greatest weakness, her need for companionship. Reluctantly, her hands loosened their desperate grip. The light saber fell between them to the floor. Rey released a sound between a sob and an exhale.
"Your mother wanted me to tell you, she loves you."
Kylo accepted the words with a sigh.
"She believes in us."
Instead of answering, he enfolded her against his chest. Rey almost protested, thinking back to the few times when someone had held her. With Finn it had been different, brotherly, affectionate. In Kylo's hold, a rush of conflicting feelings arose within her. A bubbling mix of desires that drew heat to her face. It was odd, so very strange. The edge where her thoughts ended and his began, had worn away until she couldn't tell the difference anymore. There was hesitation, concern over rejection, old hurts, the vibrant color of anger, but it wasn't directed at her. He was angry on her behalf. When had anyone ever concerned themselves with her hurts?
Rey pressed her cheek against the ribbed tunic, inhaling the scent that was uniquely his. Kylo had come from the Durasteel corridors of a Star Destroyer, but he wasn't perfect. His hair was tousled, his clothes were rumpled from the flight.
"Is this real?"
He kissed her brow.
She closed her eyes, melting into his touch. "Ben…,"
"Shhh." His lips traveled down her face, pressing warm, gentle kisses to her eyelids, her cheek, lingering above her lips.
"I'm not ready for this, Ben." Rey murmured, "I'm sorry, I can't give you what you need." She pushed him away, stepping back from the circle of his arms. She was almost afraid to look into his face at that moment. Had she led him on? She almost expected him to throw a tantrum, to destroy things. She imagined his rampage through a Star Destroyer.
He was going to disappear.
Hate her for another rejection - the thought made her pause in the hallway. Could their connection be subverted through hatred? No…She had come close to hating him for killing his father, it had only gotten stronger since then.
"I've been patient with you."
He stood behind her.
"This time…I thought it be would be different."
"Why would it?" Her temper flared. "I couldn't stay with you and you won't come to me!" He glared at her, stalking toward her with a deliberateness that caused her heart to skip a beat. Rey was unprepared for the suddenness of his mouth on hers.
Is that real enough for you?
I can't do this…,
Yes, you can. Does it feel wrong? Rey couldn't answer his silent challenge. She could scarcely even think. He had always felt emotion stronger than her, using the negativity to feed off the dark side. Within the torpid heat of his lust, she felt the warmth of comfort, she saw love.
She could feel him probing inside her; their lips parted, he nuzzled the sides of her face with gentle kisses. Something he had done for no other.
Searching for those same feelings.
"Ben."
She was an open book that he knew cover to cover.
"I think you know how I feel."
She had been too open with him, too willing to see beyond the dark side. It was true he was conflicted, equal parts light and darkness. Leia had spoken of his birth, when she had known he was gifted in the Force.
"Maybe I need you to say it."
"I…I can't." Those two words were said too much. It wasn't enough to say them. It was beyond the simple understanding of love, it was completion.
"Then, show me."
Encouragingly, he touched her hip, she felt something lurch and settle inside her. The light? The dark? Or a chaotic mixture of both. Whatever was inside her, the Force inside her, became the balance.
"You know what I saw." The flat of his hand slid down her stomach. Rey felt the pressure of his fingertips coaxing warmth into the coldness of her chest. "Say it." Her bed was barely large enough to hold both of them side by side. For a long time after their lovemaking, she had held his hand in the warm darkness. She had seen it too in those first moments. Images. Hadn't she learned not to trust everything she saw concerning him? But, Snoke, the perversion of their bond, was dead.
"Say it." He shifted, hovering over her, dominating her.
It was hard, so very difficult to put her longing into words. Rey struggled, opening her mouth several times finally a whisper came out. "Children. My family with you."
He exhaled breath into the crook of her neck. The gust warmed her skin, sending a delightful play of chills racing across her pulse. "Yes. How did you feel?"
"Happy." Tears came to her eyes. She had been so blissfully happy in the vision. "There was balance and peace."
"Victory without war. Rey, come with me..." He kissed her in the darkness.
"Welcome back, Supreme Leader." Into his cultured voice, Hux injected as much venom as possible. He had gathered a retinue of Stormtroopers in perfect alignment, leery of an overextended show of military might in front of Ren. The sharp black lines of the shuttle gleamed with a layer of dust. Hux's lip curled as the ramp depressed and his nemesis stepped into sight.
Hux was about to say more when Ren extended his hand; unconsciously stiffening for potential attack, he didn't expect someone else to take that hand. Hux stared at the sight of the girl - Snoke's murderer, appearing, glancing around the Finalizer's hangar.
They were holding hands.
She wasn't a prisoner.
"Oh, for Kriff's sake…not another Force user!"
-Fin
AN: I needed a break from studying so I decided to post this. I've had it in my doc files since Christmas. I have another fic almost done with Kylo's redemption in a slight au setting. Thanks for reading!
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