"I had duties." She spat.
"What duties?" Kylo scoffed. "Keeping the empire safe? I'd say this force restricting cell is doing your job for you."
"As remarkable as it might seem, the world does not revolve around you." Her freckles looked more prominent when she was angry, he noted with amusement. She looked around the cell.
"Why do you want to see me?"
"Why not?"
"It's a bit odd to have a catch-up with an enemy on the eve of..." she trailed off. She quickly looked out of the window.
"You're not my enemy. You never were."
He moved away from the window and sat down on the chair by the desk. His bones ached. Oh, if only he could sleep.
"What am I then?"
"You're my guest."
A breath rushed out of her nose almost close to a snort. "I think it's safe to say you are our guest."
She looked at him again and slowly sat herself down on his bed so they were directly facing each other.
"Your mother is struggling. I can feel it." Rey announced and looked down at her hands. "I don't know what to say to her. What can I say to this?"
"It's not your job to take on her troubles."
"Someone has to!" Her eyes pierce his again. He knows she's thinking about what happened on that bridge when he took away the only person who could have had an inkling to what Leia Organa was going through.
Let her hate him. She doesn't have any reason not to.
"I'm sure the General and me will speak at some point tomorrow. Until then, let it be."
Rey didn't seem to miss the irony of taking advice from Kylo Ren but stayed silent.
"You haven't answered my question" Rey pressed. "Why did you want to see me?"
Kylo crossed his hands over his lap.
"Granted, I haven't much experience in this line of tradition but it seems common practise for a condemned man to have a final talk about his life the night before the big event. As we don't have many elderly Jedi left to hear me and there is no way I'm going to call your Master, you seem as good a choice as any."
Rey was clearly prepared for most things but not that.
"You want me to be your… confessor?" Rey rolled the words over her tongue to try and see if they tasted any better coming from her mouth. She was disappointed; they still sounded baffling and darkly comedic.
Kylo merely shrugged. "To a certain extent. You already know more about me than my own family. And all my sins have been publicly read out."
"What is there left for you to say then?"
Kylo looked at his hands and then out of the window. The sun had almost disappeared. The glow threw shapes across his face. Rey took a deep breath through her nose. Now was not a good time to notice he had a dusting of freckles similar to her own under the silver line her blade had left behind on his face at Starkiller Base.
"You have always felt I had more to say than anyone else. I could feel it. Through the bond. I personally don't know what it is you want to hear. But I'm in an indulgent mood. And it's nice – to think that someone actually wants to listen to what I have to say. Even now."
Rey's fingers gripped the thin quilt underneath her. Ever since that battle where she had scarred his face, they had forged a connection. Neither had sought it. Neither had wanted it. The last thing she had wanted was to feel rage and violence while she was trying to practice meditation on Ach-To.
It was hard to fill yourself with the light of the Force while feeling someone destroy themselves from the inside a galaxy away.
Rey had spent her nights in prayer before the waves of the ocean. She would sit herself on a rock next to where the Millennium Falcon and Chewbacca were waiting dutifully. She would not say a word and after some time Chewie would go about the maintenance of the ship without disturbing her. She would stare at the ship and the eight foot tall beast who resembled an animal you found in the wildest of planets and had none of their viciousness.
Chewie had lost his friend and comrade. The ship had lost its pilot. Leia had lost her husband. Rey had lost her chance of a father.
She had to focus on that to keep her objective alive. To avenge her father figure. To ignore how much Ren's tears and choked sobs affected her when he thought he was alone.
Master Luke warned her against this method. Revenge was a trait of the dark side and can twist the strongest of good minds, he preached. Rey couldn't allow herself to fall to that seductive power. But the alternative was that her compassion for him would fester.
She grew stronger. She grew more confident. The barriers around her became tighter. Certain memories were safe from anyone getting close to them. She never wanted her loneliness and vulnerability to be seen ever again.
It had made her sick. Knowing he had seen her at her weakest. At her worst. His breath on her face as he told her tale back to her. The pathetic hopes of a child hit her ears like a bum note.
His eyes throughout. So pitying. So understanding. Because he knew. He knew this loneliness.
Having something in common with him was the worst of it.
They met again on battlefields. Each time rewarding the other with fresh wounds that bacta could heal and time would need longer to erase. His voice was getting louder. Anger, fear, irritation, desperation. In the name of the Force, no wonder he was so volatile. Half an hour a day of this turmoil and Rey was clawing at the ground in her little hut.
Enough. Enough!
But it wasn't just torment and that's what stopped Rey from trying to cut the bond altogether.
It was what was beyond that. What came before.
Rey likened it to a hallway of doors. She would be walking down it when one would open briefly, giving her a glimpse of an image before slamming shut again.
Another would open, and something would dash out, shoot past her and into another door. It would slam closed before she even got a glimpse. Echoes would remain. Conversations. Music. Laughter.
The one that kept coming back was a musical kind of laugh. It sounded like a child's. It bounced down the hall. It was locked away in Ren's mind and yet it was given something of a free reign to rove around the corridors. He let it out of the doors now and again and let it fill the cavities of his psyche.
It was the only time he reached something that resembled peace.
Rey didn't think the light in people was given enough credit. It could manipulate and turn a person just as powerfully as Snoke could do.
When he was captured, she felt… fear. Fear for him.
She had reached out tentatively when she heard he was on Naboo with the Resistance. Although she knew his lineage to the General would keep him from any real harm from more heavy-handed forms of justice, she knew a trial would come.
It was with amazement that she found the anger, fear, disgust… it was there but it… wasn't. It wasn't at the front door of his mind ready to greet her. It was tucked away. Sleeping almost. It was acceptance and tiredness that came forward to take her cloak instead.
The trial came and she was among the spectators. She had hitched up the hood of her Jedi cloak lest he catch sight of her. She wanted him to know she was there with him but she wanted her face hidden. To think he may look up and see her face amongst those condemning him… No.
He had stood tall, hadn't given any sign of fear, contrition, anything. The mask which the Resistance had made a point of crushing before taking him on board their ship didn't seem necessary. He had always been hopeless at schooling his emotions. He still was.
The only conclusion was he had no emotion left for his face to showcase.
Guilty. Death.
No. No…
His blocks had been in place so he could sense her presence but not hear her. Maybe he hadn't wanted to. He hadn't wanted any more conversation in the head. Come to me or keep your words, it seemed to say to her. She felt like clawing at the metal door of his mind.
Fight. Protest. Ask for clemency. Give information in exchange. Do something!
Nothing. He was led away with Hux.
Poe's message was almost a relief. Almost.
She had first thought to stand resolute with the General and honour Han's memory by not giving an inch. Leia may have only been doing it because Ren seemed to convey that he would not want any motherly grief in his cell, but that was beside the point.
She lasted nearly a week until she witnessed Hux's execution.
The blaster gun had only just rung out over the square when she ran to the General and requested a visiting pass.
This story couldn't come to an end with blood on the palace steps.
Kylo watched as she seemed to mull over his words.
This girl. Oh, this girl.
He had done things to get her to come to stand at his side that had defied logic and reason. He would do them again.
With this woman, he could have done so much. He could have been unstoppable. Omnipotent.
I could have even been good.
She raised her head and looked him in the eye.
"Very well." He could feel her push forward to step into his mind. He raised a hand to signal her no further.
"None of that. I think we've both had enough of that. Ask me a question. Any question. I will answer. I want us to have a conversation before I die that doesn't involve one of us strapped to a gurney or you trying to cut the rest of my face off."
"How will I know you are telling me the truth?"
Kylo did something then that made Rey want to both cry and be sick: he smiled. It was a soft kind of smile. Amused. His face crinkled when he smiled. He looked so young. So human.
"If anyone can tell I'm lying, it's you."
Rey focused on the pull of his lips, such a sensual pair of lips, before looking him in the eye.
"Anything I ask?"
He nodded. "So tell me; what do you want to know?"