A/N: Reylo is my second OTP. I need FanFiction to survive the next two years…

Disclaimer: No own, no sue.


Fading Touch

Prologue

It hits Rey harder than anything ever has.

At first, she feels the slight shift in her mind and a flicker of familiarity that makes her heart jump in apprehension. She knows the feeling well by now and she waits with slightly clenched fists for the inevitable moment that light brown eyes stare back at her, glaring and simmering with something dark. He's always glaring at her when it starts.

She wonders if luck will be on their side. Maybe he's in the middle of another meeting, or if he's busy working at a desk. He's always doing something and rarely sits still. It would be slightly more bearable if it were a simple situation like that. But…maybe luck won't be on their side. She wonders if she'll see him crying again, fumbling when her eyes meet his and trying desperately to hide it from her…

She takes a fraction of a moment to be grateful she's not the one sitting alone in her room covered in tears right now. He's appeared behind her in that embarrassing state so many times already. The persistent link is utterly unpredictable, but it always seems to connect them most during times of weakness - during times that both of them need solitude.

Embarrassing. Nerve-wracking. Unfair. Intrusively intimate.

'Comforting…' a tiny voice in her head tries to tell her.

Those words barely scratched the surface of describing what it's like to have him pop into every personal moment of her life the past month.

How bad will the yelling get this time? The back and forth arguments of betrayal and blame are never-ending. He doesn't listen when she tries to reach out to him. Will they even speak at all, or will they sit in agonizingly tense silence until the end? It stings as bad as the fighting. The ache she feels in her chest when that happens is unbearable.

She doesn't have the time to wonder which of the two choices was worse. He's almost here. She waits and waits. It's barely a few seconds, but it's never taken this long. The air in front of her is empty where he should be. That's when she knows something is different. This is not right.

For the first time since Snoke created this connection between them, she's pulled in.

It hits her with more force than anything she's ever felt, and it happens so fast that she can't finish her train of thought. Her ears ring, her vision fails her, and a thousand knives pierce every inch of her skin all at once. Nothing is spared, and the pain she feels is so intense that it savagely rips her breath away.

It's pain, then it's smoldering heat, and then it's fear.

All of it brings her to her knees.

Black, red, and awful shocks of white flash before her eyes. A blood-curdling scream rips from her throat and echoes through the chasm in her mind. She grabs her head, nails digging into her skin so hard that she bleeds. Somewhere, a door opens and footsteps run toward her. Hands grab her shoulders as someone yells her name.

"Rey….what's happening…you…Rey-"

The voice disappears, swallowed by the dark.

Panic overcomes her and she tries to get away from what's happening, but there's nowhere to run. This place is entirely him. She can feel him reach toward her as he hurts her. A hand that brushed so softly against hers only a few nights ago grips her like a vice, and it's tearing her to shreds. It's more than she can take. She can't fight this. She's not even sure she can survive this.

She screams Ben's name and begs him to stop.

His grip tightens and heat engulfs her all over again. A different kind of sting pierces through her chest when she realizes he's not stopping; he's not going to. His decision hurts. She spent every day trying to convince herself that what he said was a lie told only to manipulate her. You're nothing, but not to me.

But this…this shatters every sliver of hope she had that he was telling the truth, and her will to fight falters.

After all those moments in the past month of seeing the conflict on his face, this is what it boiled down to. The shadow of a second when he looked at her with hidden pleas in his eyes that told her he needed her help even when his words wouldn't - it meant nothing now.

She thinks it's over, but just when her broken pleas start to fade, something changes.

In the midst of the crushing pain, she hears him. It's not words he speaks, though. It's something she does not expect and her entire body freezes. They're his thoughts, and they are not cold and heartless like she expected them to be. They are just as chaotic as hers. He's panicking, just like her, and the hold that grips her isn't his at all.

He's bound by the darkness, too. He's more afraid than her. There's more heat surrounding him, and far, far more pain. She's shocked and realizes he's not the one doing this to her. Something terrible is happening to both of them.

She's able to reach out, just barely, and calls his name. He doesn't hear her, and she screams again as his thoughts continue to intertwine with hers. They're so loud and powerful that she can't keep them back. He's coming apart so quickly and hurting worse than she thought. Feeling terrified for entirely new reasons, she stumbles forward, searching desperately for him.

The air around them trembles. Time is running out.

She doesn't know how she knows that. It feels as if every fiber of her being is telling her the longer she was here, the more danger she was in. Death was alarmingly near, closing in like a monster searching for her in the dark.

She needs to find a way out of this now.

But she can't. Ben. She couldn't leave him here. Not like this. He had no idea what was going on; the agony he was feeling was too much for him. There was no way he was getting out on his own. If she didn't find him soon, he was going to-

"Ben!"

She screams and the desperation in her voice cuts through the chaos. This time, it works. It barely makes it to him, but he hears her. The world around her shakes and begins to shatter. She throws her hand out and reaches into the dark again, hoping with all she had that he will find her.

Just as everything comes crashing down on them, he grips onto her.


A/N: How was this for a prologue? Did I succeed in making you curious for more? Don't worry, next chapter we are backtracking a bit and jumping into Kylo's head. See ya next time!