Rey stared at the keypad for a long moment, willing herself to enter the combination that would open the door. She lifted a hand, only to have it flop back down by her side.

She should leave. She had a very early morning to look forward to as one of the pilots chosen for the mission to end this conflict between Snoke and the Resistance once and for all. C-3PO had confirmed the intelligence she had extracted from Kylo Ren, and they were set for Jakku in the morning. It would always come back to Jakku, it seemed-much to Finn's disgruntlement.

Down the hall, a guard cleared his throat. Rey turned to him, taking a few steps away from the keypad. He looked hard at her, though she didn't think she recognized him. The guard glanced at the door she was vacillating between actually entering or not, then back to her. Then, very pointedly, turned his back and left the hallway.

Rey took this as signal enough and hurriedly entered the release code.

Kylo Ren sat in much the same position as he had the last time she had entered the room-on the metal bench with his forearms braced on the tops of his thighs. He had been changed out of his tattered First Order uniform since she'd seen him and while the change of clothes were not the same relentless layerings of black, whomever had seen it appropriate to give them to him had taken some small mercy on him. He was outfitted now in dark greys and charcoals, tidy, though the fabrics were less fine than that of his other clothes.

He was still chained.

He wouldn't acknowledge her, which she thought was something she probably deserved. She simply walked in and leaned against the wall opposite him. After a moment more of silence, she slid slowly down the wall to sit again on the floor, her arms resting on the tops of her knees. And waited.

"What are you doing here?" he asked after a long moment. His eyes were trained on his clasped hands before him.

Rey sighed, not daring to look at him. "I am weak."

She felt his eyes on her then, felt him willing her to look up. When she did, she suddenly had the mad thought that she wished he was masked again. His face was too raw, the tempest of emotions playing across his eyes was nearly painful to witness. He was pinning her like a beetle to the board with his gaze alone, and it terrified her.

She lifted a shaking hand, and with a unique twisting of her fingers, the manacles dropped from his wrists with a loud clank.

The room was eerily quiet once his bonds fell away. She realized belatedly that she wasn't breathing, waiting for what he might do next. She took the tiniest sip of air, and he moved.

He stood, kicking the chains that pooled at his feet out of the way. The noise was jarringly loud in the quiet room and Rey couldn't stop the flinch that shook her body. He took slow, decisive steps toward her and from her place on the floor, he looked impossibly large. He positively loomed over her.

He raised a hand toward her and she waited for the crushing grip of the Force to close off her air supply, or for him to fling her across the room. She was more adept at countering these advances than at their last meeting, but she still feared what damage he could inflict on her.

Instead, he crouched before her, still so large, such a staggering presence. His outstretched hand lifted to her neck, hovering just over the skin. His eyes were stormy in his otherwise meditative face.

"Did I do this to you?"

He was looking so steadily at the dark scattering of bruises that she was sure she could almost feel the insistent nudge of his gaze.

His assault on her neck from her last encounter had indeed marked her with crescent bite marks and odd, stippled bruises. General Organa was wary of these marks, as was Finn, but Rey didn't know why. Poe had smirked when he saw them, but had ultimately blanched when he found out their origins.

"Yes," Rey whispered, searching his face for a reaction.

He seemed… pleased.

"You mark so easily." His voice was low, reverent. He smiled-a small thing-before lowering his hand from his almost caress. When he brought his eyes back to hers, the smile was gone.

"Why are you here?" he asked again.

Rey wetted her lips to answer-an action that Ren watched with furtive attention-but when she tried to voice the words, they wouldn't come. She didn't know why she was here. She only knew that she couldn't sleep having held the simple gift of touch ransom over this boy. She had fed upon a weakness that he showed her, and she was sick with it. She wanted rest again. She wanted-

"Touch me."

She was slammed back against the wall so hard that her eyes danced with stars from the impact. He pushed her back, not with his hands, but rather with the full power of the Force he wielded now that he was unchained.

"Are you trying to be funny?" His words hissed from between clenched teeth.

"No!" she managed to squeak out. "I want-"

"To see me beg? To have me on my knees before you with my mouth open?" The pressure on her body increased as he leaned closer. "Want to see me come on the floor like an animal, so starved for the friction of your body?"

She shook her head and it took all her energy to speak, "N-no!"

He released her and she nearly collapsed entirely.

"Tell me what you want, you cruel little scavenger!" he roared. He crouched lower, his face so close to hers that the hot blasts of his breath fanned across her sweat-dampened neck. "Wicked girl, you know I'd let you pick my bones dry."

"Stop it!" she wheezed.

"Then tell me what you want!"

"I have!"

He turned from her and she nearly reached out for him, her hand mere inches from his sleeve. willing him to not move away from her.

"I want you to touch me."

He whirled on her, saw her outstretched hand. She lowered it, wetting her lips again as she watched him.

Anger still seethed in him as he searched her face, her body. As if he couldn't make up his mind.

Then he brought his hand to her lips. The gesture squeezed at her heart as she recognized his copying her own initial touch from before-as if he were so unaware of intimacy that he could only act on mimicry. So she did the same as he had, catching his first finger between her teeth, drawing it into her mouth.

Something changed then. He exhaled, relaxing so thoroughly that it was as if invisible tie-lines had been holding his weight and had been suddenly severed. He brought another hand to her face, wondering at the shape of it in the palm of his hand, tracing her jawline. She released his finger and lay a small kiss to the web of skin that connected it to his thumb. He chewed his bottom lip, watching her tentative movements, and his grip on her jaw tightened. She didn't take her eyes from him.

He moved to her hair, roughly pulling it from the singular bun she had taken to wearing. Ran his hands through the lot of it, roots to ends. When he came to a snarl, he raked his hands roughly through it as Rey winced. Pulled his hands back to find that he'd pulled strands from her head. He did it again-pulled away and out strands of her hair-not to hurt her, but to understand that he could, and how little effort it took to do so. To learn the fragility that is always present even in the face of great power.

She sat still, hands resting on her thighs as his hands drifted to her neck. Probing, nimble fingers tracing over the skin already marked so thoroughly by him. Then he sat forward suddenly, setting her pulse to race as he laid his lips along the line of hurt again. But gentle, soft; retracing bloody footsteps in the snow. Not quite kisses, but rather learning what her skin felt like under his fingers first, then his lips. Discovering the textures of her in as many ways as he could.

His hands drifted to her shoulders, her arms, her impossibly slender wrists, all while measuring the flits of her pulse with his lips. When he squeezed her wrists, the pulse quickened, and she felt his small smile against her skin.

He released her long enough to tug her tunic quickly over her head, gleaning only the barest look at her naked skin before pressing his mouth to her pulse again. Chuckling darkly when he discovered her heart had the capacity to thunder even harder. He drew another bruise there with his lips, marking his place for later.

Ren pulled away then, really looking at the girl for the first time. She looked small. She wasn't, she was tall enough for a girl, and stronger than many men, but in nothing but her leggings and his large hands hovering over her body, she looked small. He tugged the grey tunic that had been given him over his head and, as an afterthought, pulled off his own trousers so he was left only in tight drawers that reached the bottoms of his thighs.

Hoping, in his own nakedness, to become smaller with her.

He pressed one of her cool hands to his bared chest, and waited.

It scared Rey how much she wanted him. When she saw his face unmasked for the first time, she had also been frightened. She hadn't expected a young face, a kind one. She hadn't expected a wide, generous mouth that looked made for smiling, made for-

Without his clothes, he looked slighter, now. Less impossible. More breakable. She fanned her hand across the warm flesh of his chest, over the smooth expanses of skin. Her fingers brushed over a nipple and he jerked, just so. She tucked that discovery away for later. Rey let her body follow the lead of her hand and slowly, awkwardly, climbed into his lap until they were flush-chest to chest, her face tucked into the crook of his neck. He wrapped those great arms around her and held her tight, drawing fingers down her back; first in painful, discerning strokes, then in gentler, tickling caresses.

He was hard beneath her-though, if she were honest, she didn't know exactly what to do about it. So she kissed his neck and felt him twitch against her. Hoped they would figure it out together.

They did, eventually. It was a slow process, ridding each other of the rest of their clothes, because neither seemed willing to touch the other any less. But once she was naked, and he was pulled free enough, she settled back into this lap, fingers counting his ribs through his back if, for nothing else, to have something as simple as counting to focus on to calm the shaking of her body.

He shifted, and she thought that he meant to finish things. But he surprised her, and brought his mouth to the shell of her ear. Laid soft kisses down the line of her cheek, across her jaw.

And kissed her gently. She almost laughed at the feeling of it, realizing that they had forgotten, in the need to touch and be touched, to think to bring their mouths together. She felt less scared now, more whole, and he slid easily into her as she moved to deepen their kiss.

They found a hesitant rhythm after a long moment, rocking into each other as they discovered what felt best. And as the urgency grew, Rey found that she wasn't willing to stop kissing him to attend to it. It felt too right, to be so flush against his body, connected through so many points of contact.

When she eventually tore her mouth away, it was to bite down hard on his shoulder as her whole body shuddered with her climax.

"I need-I'm not-" Ren muttered into her hair as she just held on.

"Keep going-" she urged.

She kissed along his neck to help him along, raked blunt fingertips over one of his nipples in remembrance of his earlier reaction. She cried out when he came, crushing her so hard against his body she couldn't keep the air in her lungs.

And after, still holding each other so tight, Rey remembered kissing, and how much she liked it. She brought her mouth back to his and urged him to remember, too.

"How do you do it, Rey?" he asked once they parted for breath. The sound of her name fresh from his lips warmed her cooling skin and she snuggled in closer to him.

She trailed her lips along his jaw, finding the faint prickle of hair there a particularly wonderful texture. "Do what?"

He pulled his face from her, seeking her eyes with his.

"How do you find such strength?"

Rey resisted the grin that tugged at her lips. "I thought you said that I was weak."

His expression hardened. "I lied."

She shook her head. "I'm no stronger than you are, Ren."

He shifted from beneath her, disengaging their bodies. She missed him instantly and reached to hold some part of him. He dodged her reaching hand and passed her her tunic instead.

"Ren."

"You felt it. I know you felt it. You gave into it for a moment, when you threatened to starve me of touch for the rest of my life."

Rey looked down, ashamed that he had known of the Dark calling her name.

"Don't look away from me, Rey." His voice was sharp, but not unkind. When she brought her eyes back to him, he continued. "Put on your clothes. Go back to your bed and sleep."

"But-" she reached for him again and this time he did not pull away. Her hand wrapped loosely around his forearm and she squeezed with all her strength. Wishing he would stop this.

"Do what must be done on Jakku." He grabbed the wrist of her grasping hand, shaking it in emphasis. "And don't you even think about dying."

"Ren." She set aside her tunic and moved toward him. She wanted to feel him again, to stop him from sending her away.

"No!" he barked. "Go! Sleep! Rest in preparation for battle." He reached out and grasped her jaw with one powerful hand. "Live. And come back to me."

Her heart lifted, daring to hope at his vehemence.

"Come back to me, Rey," Kylo Ren whispered.

"I need a teacher."