The dancing flames casted moving shadows across Kylo Ren's face. Every time Rey looked at him, it appeared as though there were new angles to his features for her eyes to roam over. It was strange, having him seated so still and calm in front of her. His whole body was too large for the storage bin he claimed as his seat—though she knew it was a trick of the Force, that when the light changed she could see glimpses of where he was, of a comfortable piece of black furniture on a First Order ship— and yet, he stayed and listened to her speak. He showed patience and understanding that she never thought him capable of before.
His behavior should have unnerved her. Truly, deep down, Rey knew that something in his actions was not truthful. Not vicious, but hidden from her, with intentions other than emotional comfort. But despite this knowledge, she felt at ease in front of Ren for the first time. His eyes were not as cold as she remembered, and though he did not smile, he did not sneer at her experience in the cave, either. Ren frowned, and leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, all his intention solely on Rey.
"You're not alone," he told her firmly. He had always said strange things like this, darting between kindness and cruelty from one moment to the next. Their shared connection had given her more time to examine him than she had ever wanted, and more time for him to speak to her than he perhaps ever intended. The two of them were given an opportunity by the Force, but Rey had no idea what it was.
"Neither are you." The words came out of her mouth before she realized what they were, but Rey meant every syllable. There was an intimacy building in the air around them, new and delicate, but certainly there. In this atmosphere, the closest thing they had to an understanding, Rey reached her hand out in an offering to him.
Was it only days before that the two of them had tried to kill each other? Weeks? Rey questioned everything. Time seemed different on the island, altered by the strength of the Force surrounding it. It couldn't have been long since the destruction of Starkiller, yet with their connection, Rey felt his presence all the time. He was never gone, even when she could no longer see him.
The fire played beside them, constantly moving and crackling. Ren looked hesitant, but removed his glove and moved slowly until their hands pressed together. The contact was gentle, hardly there, and yet her hand tingled. She heard nothing but her deep breathing for a heartbeat, and then she looked from their touching hands to his dark eyes.
The second their gazes met, colors exploded behind Rey's eyes, opening her mind to another world that was far, far away from a bricked hut on Ahch-To. She knew instantly that it was a vision, something she had only experienced once before when touching her lightsaber for the first time. Around the edges of her sight, there was a haziness that was not there in reality. Her head spun, and she felt the Force everywhere around her. It was nearly solid in the air, like she could run her fingers through it. The entire world was felt as though it was on the verge of falling over, and Rey took a step forward in the new world around her.
Wherever she was, the sun was at its midpoint in the sky. The air around her was warm, but not overbearing. Her shoes dug into green grass, and rolling hills painted the horizon. The surrounding area in front of her was nothing but land, with a never-ending forest opening up to the plain she was standing in.
Rey looked down at herself. Her clothes were linen-white, the tails of her shirt falling to her knees, sitting over her dark brown pants. It was similar to what she always wore, and there was familiarity in the wrappings over her arms, but she knew in her heart that these were the robes of a Jedi. Around her waist was a brown belt, and attached at her hip was her lightsaber, secure and unbothered.
The only thing Rey could hear was the roaring of blood in her ears and—the echo of laughter, sounding like it was from far away, though Rey knew the origin of it was right behind her. She turned around, and was startled by what she saw.
The first thing that flashed across her vision was two small children, no older than the age of ten, chasing one another across a small clearing and past a cluster of buildings. They were quick, and Rey's gaze could barely follow them before she looked to the group of huts made of rock and wood. They were similar to those on Ahch-To, but held much more modern characteristics that could only mean they were built recently. Even though nothing in her sight told her this, Rey knew, as if she had lived through it, that she herself helped build them no more than a few years before.
Moving past the buildings, Rey looked to where the children had come from, and lost her breath. A group of younglings of varying races, all around the same age as the other two, held lightsabers and were practicing their swings. For children, they were quite good. They had been taught how to hold their sabers, how much distance to stand between them and their companions. Rey had flashes of memories here: she was one of the teachers who had instructed them.
In the group, two or three had their sabers strapped at their sides like Rey. Instead of practicing, they gathered around their teacher for the day, and requested something of him. From a distance, Rey could see that he was dressed like her, in white and brown Jedi robes. His hair was long and dark, and everything about him shouted at the part of Rey that was not swept up in the vision. However, the rest of her only felt warmth when she looked at him, and before Rey could wonder who this man was, he turned around.
There was no doubt that this man, the teacher that these children crowded around, was Kylo Ren.
But there was something different about him. Other than his clothes, which were light and casual compared to what she had always seen him in, there was a touch of softness to his features. He smiled at the children, and when the wind shifted, Rey could hear another echo. She could hear the group of them whine, "Please, Ben, come on! We know you can do it! Go against the remote with your eyes closed!"
Ben, Ben, Ben.
He tilted his head, but it was indulgent instead of condescending. He looked on the verge of giving into their demands, but before he could do anything, he looked up and over to Rey. Like he could sense her. When he looked at her, nothing about him was the same as she was used to. He gave her a small smile, and the look in his eyes caused the warmth in her chest to spark into a flame that made her cheeks turn pink.
She couldn't have possibly known it from the short time in the vision, but Rey understood that this sight—Ben, the kind mentor of a group of Jedi children, who looked at her as if she was everything—was something that she got to wake up to everyday. There was no more conflict in the universe, no more battle with the First Order. Everything within her, within him, and within the Force was at peace.
Ben turned back to the kids, and looked down at one who presented a small black ball. Ben took it gently from his hands and tossed it in the air, then ignited his saber, much to the delight of the children who only cheered him on. Rey's eyes were glued to it. The lightsaber was blue.
Suddenly, she was yanked from this world, and it was like being submerged into cold water. Then Rey realized, she actually was. Master Skywalker had pulled the ceiling of her hut away from its foundations, and rain crashed down on her. Her fire had been washed away, and Ben, still at her side, pulled away and vanished.
Before Rey could think on what she saw, she jumped to her feet, grabbed her staff, and marched after Master Skywalker. Something deep inside her was livid. She didn't want to be removed from that world, taken out of its tranquility and warmth. In the real world, the one where Kylo Ren still stood across half the galaxy on the Finalizer, Rey demanded to know the truth of the past and was unhappy with the answer.
Somehow, she knew that despite all that had happened, that vision from the Force was meant to be her future. Their future.
In a one-manned escape pod that had been jettisoned from the Falcon, Rey wondered what the hell she was doing. She had acted without pausing, moving from her violent discussion with Master Skywalker to escaping the planet with the Jedi texts, Chewie, and her lightsaber. But as she laid in the pod with her arms crossed over her chest, Rey finally had time to herself to think.
Her mind reeled from the vision still. It hadn't left her thoughts, not that Rey wanted it to. The longer she pondered on it, the more she began to understand what it meant. The implications of such a future. One with a new Jedi order, one with her and Ben teaching a new generation together. One filled with light. Rey felt something tight in her chest that Master Skywalker claimed not to understand, though she knew he did. She was positive that he felt the same when facing the turn of Darth Vader from the darkness to the light. Rey knew that she could save Kylo Ren, and bet on it enough to send herself right into his clutches. First Order territory, with him as her only hope.
For a fleeting moment, Rey looked to the distance and saw a small group of fleeing ships. She wondered if she was making the right choice, going to him instead of helping them. But then the memory of his eyes looking at her, the emotion that seemed to spill from them, solidified Rey's will. This was right. The Force demanded it.
Except, when Kylo Ren looked down at her, still locked in the capsule, there was nothing in his cold, hard stare that reminded Rey of Ben. The handcuffs that the Stormtrooper presented to her made her frown, and any warmth in her chest left over from the vision curled up and died.
"Have you seen something? A weakness in my young apprentice is there?" Snoke had questioned. "Is that why you came?"
For a moment, Rey felt like the fool Snoke called her. But then Ben didn't kill her. He slaughtered his former master with only a moment of hesitation, and together, they fought off his crimson guards. She couldn't have taken them without him, and he wouldn't have survived the altercation without her. Rey wondered if this was why he had never killed Snoke before, or perhaps thought that he had never had a reason before she entered the room. He wouldn't be a slave any longer.
When Rey moved to stop the attack on the fleet, asked him to stop it himself, Ben had not followed her. He made no move to stop his weapons, and looked between Snoke's split corpse and the window in the hull, dazed and out of place.
"Ben?" she questioned. Rey's movements slowed until she stood still a few feet in front of him, arms limp at her sides. Around them, the ship burned, not long from absolute destruction. The Resistance ships, on the other hand, had a much shorter lifespan at this rate. She needed to help them. "Ben?" Rey repeated.
"It's time to let old things die," he finally said. "Snoke, Skywalker. The Sith, the Jedi. The Rebels. Let it all die." He moved towards her, a muscle twitching in his clenched jaw. He offered his hand towards her. "Rey, I want you to join me."
Rey shook her head, tears slipping down her cheeks without her permission. She glanced down at his gloved hand, and felt grief at his proposal. He kept going, and with each word the image in her head, the memory of their future, was more and more distant. Soon enough, there would be nothing left.
"Don't do this, Ben. Please don't go this way."
His words hurt. He forced the truth on her and filled her heart with ice. Her parents, dead somewhere on some lost planet. The fleet to their side, more and more killed after each blast fired. His proposal, of a future far darker than anything she had ever wanted. Rey couldn't do this. This wasn't why she went to him.
"I can't join you," she told him. "Not like this. Please, Ben. No matter what Snoke did, the Force showed me a vision of your future." Rey reached out for him, curling her fingers around his own, not to accept but to make him see the truth. "Please."
Ben blinked slowly, not at her or anything in particular. She knew he was seeing what she had before, and his face twisted into something ugly when he pulled out of it. Then, he put his free hand to his mouth and took the tip of his leather glove between his teeth, yanking his fingers free of it until his hand was bare. The glove dropped to the floor.
"Do you want to know what I saw?" he asked, and lets his naked hand hover over hers. Ben looked at her face, and upon seeing her hesitance, asked, "Do you think you could ever go on not knowing?"
Rey wondered if the Force wanted this to happen, if it wanted her to look into his crazed eyes and nod despite herself. Rey acted because she didn't know what else to do, and stared down at their hands as his settled on top of hers and took it in his viper-like grip. His skin touched hers for the second time, and instead of colors behind her eyelids, Rey only saw darkness.
She squinted as her eyes adjusted to the change in light, immediately going from the fiery wreckage of the First Order ship to something sleek, cool, and not falling to pieces. Rey found herself at a different height than she was used to, and realized when she looked to her side that she was not seeing the vision through her own eyes, but Ren's. And he was looking down at his vision's version of her.
Here, she looked nothing like herself. This Rey had given up all parts of her past just as Ren had told her to. There were no signs of Jakku in her, no signs of the Resistance or the Jedi. Her hair dropped without any bands tied in it, straight down her back and longer than she had ever seen it. Her clothes reflected the styles of the First Order—smooth, sharp, black—but lacked any insignia or uniformed design. Her arms were bare with no wrappings and her hands covered in expensive gloves. Like Ren, she had a cowl around her shoulders and a hood that had fallen from her head. From what could be seen of her profile, she looked at peace, staring into space from a Star Destroyer.
Though Rey did not look back to see it, she knew they were alone on the bridge, the ship at a standstill in the middle of space. No one would attack them from here, not when they possessed every planet for light years in every direction. This ship was the largest and most impressive in the fleet and, more importantly, it was theirs.
For a moment, Ren's self, and Rey by default, looked to the window too. In the stars, a fleet of Star Destroyers filled her view, going past where her eyes could see. A formidable sight, a fleet that no one would dare to fight against. Rey knew in that moment that, like in the other vision, there was no war here. The Resistance had been defeated by the First Order, and in its ashes stood an empire that would last for generations… and she and Ren were at the head of it. Two dual commanders who would crush their foes with their iron will of the Force.
"It's beautiful," her other self said, and the words echoed over and over in her ears as if said within a chamber.
"Yes," Ren agreed.
The other Rey looked up at him, and in her eyes, a very thin ring of gold circled around her irises. Hardly noticeable, but its presence signified a great power that couldn't be contained. Rey glanced down and saw a saber at her other self's side, one that she knew possessed a powerful kyber crystal that would light up red when ignited.
The other Rey smiled, red lips pulling around her teeth, which looked sharp in the lighting. Mischief glinted in her eyes, and she slid her arms up Ren's chest, over his shoulders and around his neck, and pulled him into a deep, possessive kiss. There was no love in it, but it filled Ren's chest with pride anyway.
As quickly as Rey had been pulled in the vision, she was forced out, seeing only what the Force had given Ren before they had been interrupted. For a moment, all she saw was him, and she was thankful to no longer be looking at an estranged version of herself. Instead, she stared at his face, taking in his features with her breath held. Everything moved around them. Sparks fell from the ceiling, the resistance's fleet fleeing in the distance, her friends counting down the seconds until they would lose their lives. Even the soldiers, decks below them, rushed around in a frenzied panic, trying to seal off the breached sectors of the ship. But they, she and him, stood without moving, afraid to break the moment and what that would mean.
Rey was acutely aware of their joint hands and the warmth shared between their touching skin. Her ears buzzed, like in both visions, but this time she wouldn't wake up. Reality was here and now, and a decision had to be made. Both paths her future would take were with him, and the Force did not show her one without him. Either way, they would end up side by side, not parted from this day forward.
Instead of pulling away or saying a word, Ren tightened his grip on her. He took in one large breath, squared off his shoulders, and Rey could tell that his decision had been made. Rey wavered only for a moment, before gripping back, and making her own.