Kylo Ren was alone, eyes closed, the taste of blood in his mouth. Bring her to me. His ears were still ringing, undone by his own failure. This girl had unraveled his future, his plans, all that he had destroyed and sacrificed for his legacy. A parentless, pointless, nothing that had somehow succeeded in burrowing into his mind and staying there, a sea-salt speck of white in the black.
Ren grit his teeth, shutting out the seduction, the tender voice within him that whispered the girl was the center of his kaleidoscopic future. The bright, baffling obsession he harbored since he felt her on Takodana collapsed into Snoke's plans much too easily, the worlds colliding too fast. If only he could have stayed at the fringes of her for longer, a ghost in the forest of her dreams.
Ren couldn't abandon himself yet. He was compelled, after all he had done, to complete his mission. That meant finding her, feeling her, with a subtlety so gentle that she wouldn't sense his invasion at all. It didn't take him long – it never did.
Rey was humming, dipping her head under the ocean. The water was warm, weightless, like a second skin. She was a desert dweller, of course, but she learned to swim as a child in the salty, knife-thin geyser pools of the outlerlands. Happiness glowed through her, illuminating her, like the sun on her face. Rey was a sweet flush of heat that burned through Kylo Ren like a fever.
She faded from him, so slowly that he realized he was grasping at her echo across space. Ren shuddered, his eyes wet. So that was it then, a fleck of a planet on the outer rim. He would do what was commanded of him, required of him. Kylo Ren always had. What Ren couldn't admit was that it was the light that he loved, that she tasted like fire.
Rey opened her eyes, combing her hands through her wet hair. A day and a night had passed since she landed on Ach-To, and she lingered only because she couldn't bear to return to the Resistance and face failure. Besides, she was used to being alone. And it made sense to wait, anyway, if Luke happened to return. She filled her time walking along the mountain paths, feeling the softness of the green leaves, plunging into the ocean. To be surrounded by water – she had realized one dream since she left Jakku, at least.
The next day Rey made the long march back to the Jedi temple, wanting to see the ruins a last time before she finally returned to the Resistance base. The walk alone was worth it, the ocean melting away into a smudge of grey-green on the horizon. When she finally reached the center of the mountain Rey paused, breathing heavily, taking in again the spire of silver and vines.
It was quiet, peaceful, and Rey dropped beneath the tree in the courtyard, looking up into its golden branches. She heard that Jedi would meditate, pool their powers within the Force. She wondered what it would have been like to be a student of Luke Skywalker, taught by a master. Rey pushed the thought from herself.
She tried to break the habit of dreaming long ago. It had only half-worked, she thought with a smile, remembering the weight of the X-wing pilot's helmet on her shoulders. Every day when she scratched another mark on her makeshift calendar she dreamed of a family who wanted her, waiting to return.
It was this feeling, this hollow longing for someone good to happen to her, that brought Rey's mind back to Kylo Ren. She had never felt the same kind of hungry emptiness in someone before – in him it was so acute it was painful. She could tell by the self-conscious way he allied himself to the First Order that turning away from his family hadn't filled the void. No, it had only deepened it, made it worse. Rey sensed that now the part of him that cried for the light cried louder.
Rey pulled in a few even breaths. The way something in her called to Ren was a puzzle she couldn't solve. In so many ways he was her opposite, an upside down version of herself. That had to be where the link lay, a thread between the light in him and the darkness in her, both drawn to each other's negative.
In a nauseas moment of awakening, Rey realized she wouldn't have to wonder anymore. Kylo Ren was here, on this planet, and she was his target.
Ren must have been hiding himself from her, masking the hint of him in her mind. Rey pulled herself up from the ground, heart racing, grasping her lightsaber. She didn't know what he wanted, but she could guess. He was always caught between two things that couldn't coexist with the other, and Rey would never, could never, give him both.
Kylo Ren was at the entrance to the temple now, hovering in the doorway, tall and black against the green. It was surreal, disorienting, to see him again after her dreams. He wasn't wearing his helmet. His dark eyes, ruffled hair, the sadness curving down the ends of his lips - it made his face hard to hate. Maybe that was why he wore the mask.
"What are you doing here?" It was a weak question, inane even, as soon as it came out of her mouth.
"I'm here to take you back with me." His voice was low, just as she remembered.
"To who? Snoke? The First Order? You know I won't go." She was facing him, heat high in her face, her eyes narrowed. She meant it to sound strong but her voice wavered. Rey thought he was going to come towards her, her heart jumping to her throat, but all he did was sit on the edge of a small pool. He didn't even look at her. Bent over, his hand skimming the water, he seemed small.
"I haven't been here in years." Ren's face was drawn, half in shadow.
"I know what you did. What happened at this place." He didn't move, didn't acknowledge what she said.
"Luke Skywalker isn't here. He left, didn't he?"
"I don't know." It was the truth. Ren glanced around the temple, and Rey sensed something else pulling at the center of him. "You're glad, aren't you? That you didn't have to face him?"
"What does it matter? I found who I was looking for," he said, still listlessly tracing the water. Rey backed away towards the door, wondering if he would let her leave.
"I'll find you." Now he met her eyes. "There is nowhere you can go. I sense you everywhere."
"What will they do if you take me back? Train me?" She paused, her voice catching. "Kill me?" Kylo Ren didn't answer. "Do you even know?" She caught a half-repressed confession. I didn't plan past seeing you again. Ren pushed it away before she could let it sink in, the yearning behind his slack face.
"I have orders," he said finally. "If you escape, I'll follow."
"I'll keep running." Kylo Ren stood up stiffly at that, glowering.
"You must come with me." His hand flexed, his eyes hard on hers. Something was rising within him, dark and wrong and terrifying. Rey stepped backwards toward the temple.
"I'm not going anywhere." Kylo Ren's lightsaber roared to life, quivering with electricity.
"Then I'll have to take you." Rey's lightsaber was barely ignited as he charged towards her, swinging.
She met it with a crack, staggering backwards, struggling to keep her grip. She felt immediately that this was different than their fight in the forest. There had been an element of newness there, a kind of question in the way he approached her, toyed with her. Now his saber swung at her, impossibly fast.
Rey stabbed back at him, trying to fill herself with the peace of the Force, trying to keep up with his furious parries. Yellow leaves crunched under her feet, swirled in the air. They moved closer to the center of the courtyard, under the entwined tree branches. Her saber caught his shoulder somehow and he breathed so hard it hissed through his teeth. Blood bloomed in the gash, but still he raised his arm to jab at her, heady and erratic. His swing was so wide that Rey overcompensated, and in blocking him her lightsaber dragged across her thigh in a quick blur of blue.
Rey screamed, dropping to one knee. Her hand clutched at the wound, smoking, already cauterized. A flicker of regret passed over Ren's face. Rey somehow staggered to her feet, putting distance between them. He was looking at her intently, mind buzzing with so many thoughts, so many feelings, that it was impossible to decipher.
"I'll stop," Ren said, breathing heavily. "I'll stop if you leave with me now."
"So the First Order can make an example of me? I'd rather die here." Rey meant it.
"Why do you keep saying that? There's nothing for you here!" He was shouting now, swinging his lightsaber at the empty temple. "They've abandoned you, look! You're alone!" Rey shook her head, pushing away the tears building behind her eyes. "You've always been alone!"
"Don't," she whispered, backing towards the tree trunk.
"I know." Ren's voice was softer now. His dark eyes bored into hers. "I know you feel it."
He was watching her, still but for his heaving chest. His black eyes were heavy, rimmed with red.
I do. Rey bit her lip, looking into herself, summoning whatever strength she had left. Unexpectedly it was Kylo Ren who broke the surface of her thoughts, but not the Kylo Ren in front of her, eyes burning. No, it was the way Kylo Ren's hands had cupped her face, reverent, gentle. The way every part of him overflowed with longing, how even just the touch of her far-away presence in his mind felt homesick, comforting.
It was almost easy, now, what she had to do. Rey closed her eyes, took a breath, and dropped her saber.
For a moment Kylo Ren didn't react, couldn't react. He dragged in a breath, mouth agape. "What are you doing?" His voice was hoarse, hardly louder than a whisper.
"If you need this so badly," Rey answered, "go ahead." Her leg buckled beneath her and she steadied herself against a branch. "I won't go with you, and I won't join you. This is all that's left." Ren didn't move. "Go on, you've done it before – killed someone you cared about."
"Pick it up." He was still unmoored by disbelief, still six or seven paces away. "Pick it up and fight me."
"No." Rey's heart was pounding, leaping into her throat.
"Pick it up!" Ren's voice rose, ending in a yell. He slammed his lightsaber against a nearby rock, sparks flying in the air. Rey shook her head.
"If this is what you want," Rey breathed, "do it." Ren's fingers tightened on the hilt of the saber. He was coming towards her now, his steps long and purposeful.
Rey squeezed her eyes shut, her stomach sick. She could sense him. His lightsaber, shaking and buzzing and unstable, hummed closer.
Finally there was silence, nothing at all, except for the soft rise and fall of their breath. Something hung tenuous in the long moment until she heard metal fall to the floor, roll away. Rey opened her eyes to Kylo Ren before her, black hair disheveled, eyes wide, boyishly lost. His hand was empty, his lightsaber on the ground.
"I can't," he stammered. His eyes blinked, half-filled with tears. "Rey," he choked, "I won't."
"I know."
"I'm sorry." It sounded like an apology for everything, somehow. Rey reached a hand up to his face, to the black hair streaked across his forehead. He leaned into her palm, closing his eyes.
There was relief in the way he finally pulled her to him, buried his head in her hair. Rey breathed him in, his heart pounding against her, his arms tight. Something warm and dreamlike drifted over her. The shadows seemed to fade, all the solitude and heartache and hurt made right. She could feel a change in him, in herself, like the empty spaces in them filled.
"What are we going to do?" Rey whispered softly, head still pressed against his chest.
"I don't know." But when faced with the choice, he had never wanted anything more than her.