Rey was getting ready to sleep. After piloting the Falcon for 8 hours and going on a supply-run, she was beat.
The Falcon was jammed. People slept everywhere – even on the gangways. She retreated to her smugglers cabinet, curled up in her filthy blanket (at least it was thick and warm) and closed her eyes ready for sleep to take her.
Damn him.
She was terrified he saw her today. Should she tell Leia? Rey being on the ship was actually putting the entire Rebellion at risk. With their connection, he may always be able to get clues to their whereabouts.
She felt overwhelmed at that moment. She should go into exile and protect the last spark of the rebellion. Was she destined to be alone for eternity? Tears fell. A familiar sense of loneliness overcame her and she wobbled between needing to stay desperately with her friends and needing to protect them from Kylo Ren.
Kylo Ren.
Why is he doing this? Doesn't he realize he has a choice? He's always had a choice? She believed in Ben so fully. Remembering his eyes when she told him about her visions of the Dark Side on Ahch-To, she feels serene all of a sudden. He looked at her with such immediate understanding. She felt waves of empathy and something like kindness coming off of him in that moment in the hut. He looked at her like he wanted to hug her. Hug her. That's why she reached out.
I've never felt so alone.
You're not alone.
Neither are you. It's not too late.
Their words come back and she feels them again. Can hear them again. She wishes for them again, him reassuring her. It felt so good. She felt loved.
She remembers the Throne Room. The moment the light saber came to her grasp. The moment Ben saved her. She remembers fighting, yet not being scared. She remembers pulling from Ben's strength – feeling powerful – knowing exactly what the next moves were. She remembers it felt more like a dance than a fight to the death.
The familiar waver begun again. Sounds faded slightly in the background, a deep feeling, an opening around her. She felt HIM.
NO. Not again!
She opened her eyes. To her utter horror – he was sitting right in front of her cross-legged. Her room was so confined, his image was close. Too close.
WHA?!
She was frozen. Her eyes widened as did his. She didn't speak, didn't move a muscle. He looked like Ben. Looking at him, he was Ben. His hair was tousled, he looked so young to her at that moment.
Ben.
The tears came. They came, and came, and came and soon she was close to sobbing.
"How are you planning on killing me Ben? Will you shoot us out of the sky from afar? Or are you looking forward to putting your saber through me?"
His face contorted in anguish for a moment. He gaped at her, unable to hide his horror at the very thought of those deeds. His repulsion at the thought wasn't lost on her. Hope for Ben opened up in her heart like a dam, renewed hope overcame her and it felt like the Force was signing all around them.
He looked away, closed his eyes and sighed.
Around them, the Force swirled. Rey was comforted, and she felt a bit better for some reason. Was Ben doing that?
Ben turned to Rey, lying down right in front of him. He saw her rough, tattered blanket. He saw her injury bandaged on her shoulder from the Throne Room. He saw her. He reached out so slowly, as if asking permission, and wiped a newly fallen tear from her eye.
"Bloody hell, Rey", his voice cracked with emotion. He was barely keeping it together. The thought of killing Rey physically hurt. He squinted his eyes in pain as he relived his father's face with the red crackling blade protruding from his back.
It was too much for him. He felt her love and hope and kindness and goodness seeping off of her and into him like a warm bath. He was trying desperately to get a hold of his emotions. He was failing.
Tears gathered. He felt them. He HATED them. He loathed them. He refused to let them fall, but the moment and his feelings were not lost on Rey.
He heard Rey gasp, and then all of sudden her arms were around him. She held him fiercely, her head nestled under his chin.
"Ben. Oh Ben. I'm not giving up. I won't lose hope. I promise. I'm here, I'm here.".
He felt like a man torn in two. His conscience is newly awakened and he cannot seem to separate himself as he used to. He feels her corrupting him with her light. He thinks he wants it.
He wraps his arms around her, crushing her body to his. The embrace was desperate for both of them. Comfort. Relief. Safety.
Their Force signatures came together, intertwined. The Force was singing, singing for them, for their bond. Forces of darkness and pain with lightness and hope rising to meet it. The Force sang. Sang a song unsung for thousands of years.
It sang for the balance.
They both felt it. They were both immersed in it – their minds wholly open to each other. Rey saw Ben as a child, feeling rejected and abandoned by his parents. She saw Luke fearful of him, never showing him love, only distrust. She heard Snoke in Ben's mind – twisting him. She saw Snoke torturing Ben into submission, the first time he tried to escape his clutches. Rey saw everything and understood.
She was his only hope.
Ben saw Rey. Saw her raw pain at the abandonment all while desperately clinging to the hope they were coming back. He saw her narrowly escape many attempts on her life, on her person, saw her fight off men over and over again. He saw her staggering, lost in the desert. That time she went too far and almost died. All for a rumoured new ship to salvage. He saw her starving, more than once… going 3 days one time without any food. Ben saw everything and understood. And above all this, she wasn't bitter. She wasn't cruel. She was pure light.
She was his only hope.