Han's unconditional love and Leia's longing were two of my favorite things in the new movie. Kylo Ren getting a redemption story is my other favorite, so here we are. I had this idea at work when thinking about what would happen if Snoke really did just crush Kylo when he was done with him.

They were hiding out on a forest moon when Rey found Kylo Ren's body wreathed in white flowers. He was laying on his side in a crumpled heap of black and pale skin, his long hair ragged and covering most of his face. All she could see was his jaw and parted lips, too white and completely still. She slowly approached, almost unable to believe what she was seeing. It had been years since she'd first met and clashed with Solo's estranged child, but since then they'd crossed blades at more and more crossroads, each growing stronger when apart.

In the four years since she'd first struck him with Luke's saber she'd matured into a strong young Jedi, and at each new encounter she'd been able to sense the raw power coursing through him, heating his blood, fueling his very life. The force flowed in and through every living thing—it was true—but most living things had a sort of grey that sustained them. The dark and the light. Kylo had plunged himself so deep into the dark that it had consumed his soul and gave vitality to his very heartbeat.

So why was his body laying broken and lifeless only a few miles from their base? What had happened to him? She crouched in the dewy grass, cool, white petals brushing her legs as she reached out a hesitant hand to brush the hair away from his face. He was damp with dew and the skin under her fingers was near as cold and white as the snowdrop flowers forming his coffin. The scar she'd given him so long ago was the only flush left in his elegantly strung body. She swallowed, a host of emotions following the questions that crossed her mind as she regarded him.

The last time they'd fought he'd been so fierce, so humming with power that she sensed he was going to burn himself out. He would build and build and build until he collapsed on himself and became a burst of violent light that fell into the void of a black hole. This—this was no such magnificent end. He was broken and abandoned, apparently having taken his last breaths with no one to witness. His tall build and warrior's physique prevented the 'small' illusion death often cast over her victims, but it only made the sight more pitiful. Cruel and twisted though he had been, it was all too apparent that this was a man struck down in the very prime of his life.

She wondered if that's what she'd felt earlier when she'd woken up in a sweat, grasping at her sheets. She'd sat there for a full minute trying to understand the sensation and then spent a good hour after meditating to try and locate its source. It was a disturbance in the force unlike anything she'd ever felt before, and it was what had driven her out to explore the base's surroundings in the foggy morning. She cupped his scarred cheek, studying his lax features and realizing that what she'd felt was the moment his heart gave up its struggle and ceased beating.

She felt suddenly guilty for leaving the base as early as she had. If she'd felt Kylo's death surely Leia had as well. She swallowed, an ache coming to her heart not for the dead murderer at her feet but for his mother and the broken heart she must surely be carrying now that her son would never come home. That was one of Rey's greatest inspirations towards compassion and patience with the light side of the force—Leia's absolute, irrevocable love for her child.

"What happened to you, Kylo?" she murmured, turning his head and then pressing gently against his shoulder to roll him onto his back. His hand fell away from his body with the shift and the charred, ruined hilt of his saber fell from it and into the grass. She picked it up and studied it, then the hand that had been cradling it against his chest. His hand was burned badly and the hilt was warped and cracked beyond repair. She thumbed through the wreckage and red dust fell into the dirt. His saber hadn't just been damaged, it had exploded. Further burns up his arm and the damaged front of his robes told the same story. She looked up and a slight frown creased her brows. Something dark was lingering just under his jaw. Carefully, she tugged his collar down. What she saw shocked her so much she drew a startled breath and pulled her hand away, her wide eyes fixed on the damage.

He's just using you for your power! When he gets what he wants, he'll crush you.

Han's words came echoing back from across the years as Rey reached out a hand to touch the violent bruising marring Kylo's throat. This was not done by the force. This was done by hands. Someone had taken Kylo by the throat and squeezed both hands around his neck, choking the life out of him. Afraid of what she'd see and yet morbidly curious, she worked quickly to undo the clasps holding the front of his tunic together. When she finally got through his layers she swallowed, feeling vaguely sick. Kylo was her enemy, his death was in some ways a relief if she was being completely honest with herself, but no one deserved this. Not even Han's killer.

His ribcage had been broken. Whoever had done this, be it Snoke himself or some other assailant (Though Rey couldn't imagine anyone taking Kylo down like this except his own master), he'd crushed Kylo in a very literal sense.

"What did you do to incite his anger?" she asked, carefully closing the cloth back over his broken body. She fastened the ties with a sad reverence, realizing how far she'd come in the light side since their first encounter. She still struggled with hate towards him, but seeing him now, she realized the real tragedy was that he never got the chance to come back. The relief of having him out of the picture was dampened by the grief of his loss.

Leia. She had to get him back to Leia. One way or another, she deserved to look on her son one final time and bury or burn him on her own terms.

Chewing on her lip and sitting back on her haunches, Rey glanced at her speeder and then back at Kylo's body. He was heavy but she was strong and getting him onto the speeder wouldn't be too difficult. She'd have to hold onto him for the whole ride though, and the thought of cradling his corpse all the way back to base made her uneasy. She'd do it though, for Leia's sake.

She took his ruined lightsaber and clipped it next to her own, bracing herself and calling on the force to help her lift him. She could throw him over her shoulder, but his chest was damaged enough as it was and she didn't want his body in any worse shape. Bridal style it would have to be, and that was harder. She worked one arm under his shoulders and was about to pull him up so she could place the other under his knees when something struck her in the force and made her pause. She frowned, pulling Kylo up a little firmer so he was resting against her chest, cradled in the crook of her arm. His head was leaning against her shoulder when she reached her free hand and passed it over his face, apprehension and disbelief clouding her mind.

The force runs through every living thing. Luke's voice came back to her as she stared down at the man in her arms. Every living thing. Living. Kylo.

She'd felt the barest, static flicker of the force inside him. The force did not remain with a body. That's all bodies were—vessels-and the force had nothing to do with them once they were empty. Thing was, she was suddenly very afraid and near convinced that Kylo's wasn't empty. Not yet. She looked at him with new horror, reaching down to grip his cold wrist in search of a pulse. She couldn't feel one and didn't dare check his throat amidst all the swelling, so she bowed her head and very gently pressed her ear to his chest. She closed her eyes and focused, feeling with all her might for that brush she'd felt before.

She heard nothing but silence for a long time, but when she made herself relax and just listen, listen for the force, listen for his heartbeat, she heard both. Her breath caught and she shifted her head, listening harder even as she slipped her hand inside his robe and lay it against the pale flesh of his stomach. He was still warm. Clammy and chilled, but not cold. She'd felt that breaking in the force hours ago. He'd been laying there, barely alive, for hours.

Leia, she thought, now realizing her mission got a lot harder. She needed to get him home alive, if only so his mother could say goodbye.

"Kylo?" she called, cupping his cheek and realizing now she could hear his shallow, rasping breaths. It would have been almost funny if it wasn't so tragic—he'd wanted to emulate his grandfather in every way possible and now he lay broken and unable to breathe. She knew he wasn't going to wake—he was barely clinging to life as it was—but sometimes using a person's name brought the force to attention inside them, gave them something stronger to fight with.

"Kylo Ren I need you to keep holding on," she said, speaking through the force and into the spark left inside him. It didn't respond, and for a moment she felt disappointed. He wouldn't survive the trip back if she couldn't strengthen what was left. It was as if he'd given up. She chewed her lip again, gazing down at him and trying to decide what to do. It was suddenly so important to her that she return him breathing—

She blinked, realizing suddenly that what she felt inside him wasn't the dark side she'd encountered so many times in their past. The spark that was left truly was a spark—it was a sliver of the light side hanging on. That sliver that had tormented him much of his adult life was now the only thing tethering him. She bent closer to him, gripping his shoulder with her free hand and focusing on that one pure filament glowing weakly in his breast. She bent near his ear and put all of the hope and strength she could into the next word.

"Ben."

The sliver responded, flaring weakly, and she couldn't help her sad smile or the way tears suddenly pooled in her eyes. She remembered Han's death all too clearly, the way he'd called his son's real name and the way Kylo had insisted that part of him was dead. It wasn't. It had never been. Perhaps what she'd felt earlier really was the death of Kylo Ren—but Ben Solo still lived.

"You will live to see your mother again," Rey said, renewed strength helping her lift him carefully and carry him back to the speeder. "You owe her that." She settled him on the speeder and hopped up behind him, making him rest against her chest so she could hold him steady. With the force helping her to steady him and pilot the speeder both, she raced homeward.