Chapter 4: Fated
When Rey saw the Millennium Falcon's cockpit again, it was through blurry eyes and Chewie's arms.
Her chest was heaving, and with every breath she gave an audible cry.
The Wookie had pulled her to his chest, and had her enveloped in a warm embrace, rocking her back and forth.
But the night terror persisted still.
Rey found herself clinging to Chewie's hair, appreciating the comfort he provided, but dismayed that it was doing nothing to calm her, and chase the dreadful imaginings away.
The nightmare was not unlike the vision she experienced on Takodana. No, that was no nightmare. It was far, far worse. Only this time, when Kylo Ren had killed the other man, he had proceeded to advance on her. And she had been unable to stop him from running her through again, and again, with that jagged saber.
He didn't stop till he was kneeling over her, and her hands were wrapped around his mask.
This time, he did not remove it when she asked. Instead, he had picked her broken form up and carried her away from the sodden battlefield, into a courtyard where many still bodies lay.
Such tiny, tiny bodies.
But Kylo Ren carried on walking.
He moved through the littered enclosure, through an arch, and onto almost-white sand with Rey still in his arms. Rey did not know this place. At first, she thought it to be Jakku, but then she saw the ocean.
Kylo Ren waded into the shallows of a crystal clear pool with her, and as he gently dipped her body beneath the cool water, Rey's pain had ebbed away. He clutched her body to his then, holding her desperately close, and Rey curled her fingers around the latches of his helmet once more.
This time, he let her remove it.
The face underneath was not the Kylo Ren she had already met. The face was younger, more innocent, but still undoubtedly him. And so terribly scared.
He released her, and instead of drifting or sinking as she expected, Rey landed on soft sand, utterly unharmed. The ocean was gone.
The boy, however, collapsed. Rey watched Kylo in alarm, feeling the slightest of uncanny concern for him. His face was twisted into a pained grimace, but his lips were smiling. Kylo Ren clutched at his upper body, squeezing hard against his upper left chest, and tried to get up. He fell again, and Rey scrambled to help him, compelled beyond her understanding. She could not move. The sand just kept shifting, and she kept tumbling to meet it.
Kylo reached out for her, sprawled helplessly on the dune. The sand around his body bled red.
Rey stretched her arm out from where she lay, coming within millimetres of Kylo's fingertips, before his eyes locked with hers in one last, frenzied plea, and the crimson sands swallowed him.
Rey was left alone, clawing at the blood soaked desert.
Abruptly, searing pain sped over her chest in the same place Kylo had been clutching, and her whole body screamed with the phantom agony of sliced nerves.
As Rey had writhed, she found that pull as she might, her left leg would not move; it was sunken in the desert silt. Then it was her right arm, then her other two limbs, and then the discoloured sand overwhelmed her as it had Kylo Ren.
It was everywhere.
In her hair, in her ears, in her eyes, in her nose.
She could taste the blood in her mouth.
Rey tried to yell for help, but choked on the sand. She tried to breath, and it suffocated her.
Just when her own heartbeat pounded loud and frenzied in her head, she had heard Kylo Ren scream- a tormented, enraged cry- and Rey had awoken in Chewbacca's arms.
Rey's head still throbbed, but not with her heartbeat, but a splitting migraine over the right side of her face.
[Little One? Little One please. Please be calm.]
Rey nodded shakily against Chewie's chest, and took small comfort in the way his fur scratched her face. It was something tangible and here, unlike everything that was undoing her mind.
Rey froze. Her mind! She had left herself open again.
Her temper flared sharply as a malicious thought bubbled to the forefront of her mind.
That bastard. Was their Order truly so low as to manipulate her as she slept?
Rey turned her focus to the offending fetter in her psyche, intent on unleashing all the pure hell she could harness at the creature who dared to make her feel concern and pity for him in the one place she was meant to be safe.
But when she keyed in on the connection, Rey lost all of her ire, and was left having to retract every curse she had just thrown.
The bond was open, this was true, but Kylo Ren was wholly unfocused on her, and his state was one of chaos and distraction. This did not mean he had not just been in her mind, twisting her thoughts, but Rey knew he had done no such thing, even though the admission was a reluctant one. She knew the feeling of aggressive intrusion, and this was not it.
The connection was alive with the stimulation of one mind brushing against the other, but that was all, and though Kylo may have dipped into her exposed thoughts while she was asleep, Rey was certain that had been all he had done. There was no sting in her mind, no feeling of shredded mentality, and while that thought still unsettled her, Rey was unusually reassured that Kylo had not taken advantage of her unconscious state.
Whether he told the truth or not about being able to see anything she was unwilling to show, Rey still debated. She could hardly imagine herself wanting to dream of him, or even calling out to him in any way at all. However, this conundrum, as strange is it may have been, was not the most troublesome one in her head.
Rather, she was more bothered by the ghost-pain she felt. It was fading now, but still not ignorable on her chest and face. Even more disturbing was that she had no idea what caused it. Not even the dream had given an inkling to its origin.
Chewbacca shook her gently, shifting her attention.
[Are you alright now, Little One?] He rumbled.
"I think so," Rey answered slightly breathlessly, "I'm sorry Chewie."
Chewie shook his head at her in urgency, [No, Little One. Don't be sorry. Just get better. Such experiences do awful things to the mind. As does the Force. Just focus on getting back up each time such a thing pushes you to the ground.]
Rey stared up that him, her eyes wide. She had not once heard the Wookie speak so much all at once.
"…Spent many nights awake… comfort my son."
Leia's words jumped to the forefront of Rey's mind, bringing with them an awful realisation about the poor Wookie.
This was probably the second time Chewbacca had to comfort a struggling Force-Sensitive with nightmares he did not fully understand.
Force.
The damn Force.
Rey had no doubt she had just had her first taste of a Force dream.
First taste.
Something in her despaired, and she wrapped her arms as far around Chewie as they would go, letting him sway her to and fro.
[Don't worry, Little One. You will come to manage them in time. Perhaps, with Luke's guidance.]
Rey knew it was the best way to go. So why did Chewbacca sound so uncertain?
At last, the ghost-pain subsided, and Chewbacca let he go once he felt her muscles ease from the tense lock they had been in. He left her in the cockpit after one final once-over to be sure she was alright, and Rey was alone with her thoughts again.
Well, not alone.
Rey sighed heavily. She could not believe she was just walking into this, eyes wide-open, again.
But she had to know, and she had no one else to turn to right now without outing the secret she kept.
Kylo? She called, and instantly regretted it, nervous knots forming in her gut. There was silence, and she almost hoped he hadn't heard her.
I'm here, Rey. The anxiety vanished as mist before the sun when she heard his tone. He was exhausted, and if he had been speaking to her rather than projecting, she was sure it would have been a hoarse whisper.
She was drawn to the presence of his consciousness, now turned towards her instead of away. It was weak.
You can walk right in if you want, you won't find any resistance from me.
Rey was startled. This was not normal.
Are you alright? She asked without thought. A reflex reaction really, much like reaching for him in the dream had been.
A-alright? He was taken aback, then intensely curious. Dream?
Damnit. She hadn't intended to project that. Kylo was proving to be much for adept at partitioning his thoughts, but perhaps that was a perk of his training, where deceit was practically a requirement.
Nothing.
Dream, Rey? He sounded genuinely worried, despite the fatigue evident in his every mental shift.
Rey sat in uneasy silence, and felt him gently brush and graze the bond between them. He felt so sincerely troubled at her distress, and she wasn't sure how she felt about that.
Rey?
I think it was a Force dream. Or vision, whatever. It was… She trailed off.
When he responded, there was an edge to his presence that threw Rey, so out of place was it for Kylo Ren.
Rey, I'm so very sorry.
Sorry? Rey had meant to snap at him, but what came out was something else.
He was drifting in and out on the tether, and Rey was honestly feeling slightly concerned for him.
It's- It's like a weight that becomes heavier every time you need to carry it- Kylo was projecting with such difficulty, Rey even reached out further to pull him in, eager to hear what he had to say- It's someone dear to you who keeps begging you for water, and all you keep doing is lighting them on fire, despite being sure you were leading them to a spring. His presence was fading. It's you starving, pleading for it all to end, yet every time you reach that ledge, there's something there to s-sustain you, if only to torture you more. Kylo was almost completely gone, and Rey was clinging to the vague thread of his consciousness that was still there. She could have been imagining it, but she was sure he was fighting to stay there with her.
But why, Kylo? Why?
His answer was laboured, and she knew he couldn't hold on much longer. Whatever was wrong with him, Rey didn't know, but it was scaring her.
I don't know, Rey, I'm sorry. He fell away completely then.
Kylo! Rey called, alarmed.
No response.
Kylo?
Rey forced her mind outwards, feeling out the bond and following the tether to its other source. She was surprised how easily it went, despite having no active mind pulling her in, and somewhat proud of herself when she tracked him down. Rey marvelled at the feeling.
So this was what he felt each time he had tested out her barrier.
Rey was relieved to find him unconscious, asleep. Relieved? She did a double take on herself. Rey chose to ignore it.
She felt him out further, for once testing the limits of this new power she had.
To put it simply, Kylo Ren was a mess to her, and it made it very difficult to make out anything beyond mangled emotion. It occurred to Rey in that instant that, perhaps, chaos had its perks, if it was this successful in confusing any assailants.
He had not been lying when he said she would meet no resistance, but once she felt that pain, Rey staggered back as if branded.
Was that how he was trained? Beaten and pushed till physical failure? Rinse, repeat?
Rey jerked her head back and forth as if to throw the sudden onslaught from her mind. That was one exploration she was never going to try again. Kylo Ren could have his mind as private as he wished, and Rey would continue to ignore that persistent compassion that curled in her heart for him.
Compassion for him was something Rey simply could not afford to allow in herself.
She braced her hands on the console of the Millennium Falcon and stared out of the viewport into the hazy dusk of a misty D'Qar.
Rey knew she had to find Luke, even if it was only to bring him to Leia. But maybe, just maybe, he could help her with this energy that seemed to both pull her together and rip her apart at every turn since she had embraced it.
"Rey?"
Only Poe Dameron could pull off being so chipper in the midst of all that was happening. Rey was glad for it.
She turned to him and smiled, aware that it didn't quite reach the rest of her face.
"Morning, Poe."
He gave her a tight squeeze, then held her at arm's length and looked her up and down.
"Hmm, I'd honestly love to say 'You look like you had a good night!', but-"
Rey scoffed a laugh and lightly hit his shoulder, unable to not respond to his mischievous grin.
"-So I guess we just focus on 'You look like you slept!', and leave it at that?"
"Yeah," Rey sighed, "There's at least that, I guess." She looked up at him, not missing the slightly dimmer sparkle in his eyes, and asked softly, "How's Finn doing?"
"Well, actually," he bobbed his head as he spoke, "The cybernetics went in last night, and they give him about two weeks or so until his body either accepts or rejects it. Till then, we wait and see. But they say it looks promising!"
Rey couldn't help but smile as he led her out of the Falcon, a spring in his step after getting to share the news, and that smile only grew when she saw a familiar little yellow-and-white astromech speed towards them full-tilt, bouncing sporadically over the little pebbles on the tarmac.
BB-8 practically skidded to a stop in front of them, rolling back and forth to compensate, and beeped zealously at them both. Rey was out of her depth with the speed at which the little droid was talking, but Poe laughed and knelt beside the little ardent ball, and seemed to catch what was being said.
"Now, seems Leia has called a lil' meeting for us and BB here," he said, looking up at Rey, "Somethin' to do with good ol' R2-" He shrugged, "-That droid's been on low power ever since I've known it. Wonder what's up."
They followed a chirping BB-8 the rest of the way to the main control room in companionable silence.
Sure, Rey didn't know why they were all so accepting of her, but maybe that was just how it worked when people were decent. Maybe there was more. She didn't know, and quite frankly didn't care so long as people like Chewie, Poe and Finn felt as genuine as they did. That was enough for Rey, for now, and she was not oblivious to the fact that she had come to rely heavily on all of them, even in such a short time.
The control room was abuzz when they walked in. Leia was talking rather vigorously with two of her junior techs, and there were several others fussing over the R2 unit and the machinery around it. Both Poe and Rey looked at each other in simultaneous confusion.
What in the world was going on?
