A/N: Sorry for the long hiatus! I had to finish law school and got a bit bogged down.

I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,

That now are wild and do not remember

-Sir Thomas Wyatt

...

His dusty clothes are dark with blood at shoulder and hip. His face is battered, eyes, feverish.

Rey stands in daylight, and feels her hand go cold.

Kylo falls at her feet.

For a moment she foolishly believed it to be voluntary. But even his sense of pageantry has limits; when she stoops down beside him, his eyes are closed. He's breathing shallowly.

And Rey has so much to explain.

An hour ago—no, was it two? The day cycle seems different here—she ground her teeth and lied a little. "We have to wait."

Han eyed her skeptically. "And here I thought you wanted out of this place."

She does. Or she doesn't know what she wants until she finds him. Isn't that the trick? "I've sensed…a disturbance in the force. There's someone I have to save." Someone she has tried to kill before, who is still (presumably) trying to kill her, but that is beside the point.

It took some convincing. These Solo men have haunted smiles; they have all the tangled cynicism of the scavenger life.

They may well leave her, or try to kill her, and kill the one with Ben Solo's face.

She will stop them, if she has to.

She does not want to. There is too much—there is too much of Rey's heart here, for all of them. She cannot even tell herself what that means.

The Ishi Tibb is all concern and interest, and Rey pays him off with a coin she filched from Ben Solo's purse just this morning. (He saw her doing it, and allowed it anyway. She does not think friend is quite the right word.)

Kylo hasn't moved.

Don't you die, she thinks angrily, don't you leave me here.

A murmuring warmth answers, and Rey starts back, cheeks hot. She hadn't realized that she sent that through the bond.

He weighs so much. He's tall—a full head taller than her—and broad-muscled. His hair, matted, presses against her cheek and his when she draws him up against her. She doesn't know, exactly, what the point is of always categorizing these observations, but so it is.

Fully limp, he is more than she can bear. Rey supposes that the Force would help her, but in Kylo's last warnings he had been so adamant that the Supreme Leader was looking for her. She doesn't dare call attention to herself by levitating another Supreme Leader, however in need of care he is.

Han and Ben were following her at a distance. She knows this, and she waits for them to make an appearance. The wharf is sandy and narrow; there are bushes not so many lengths away. Rey drags Kylo by the shoulders. Perhaps she should have asked the Tibb for help.

She dreams about him. She does, and she should not, should never have let the sight of his face, lit blue and red and wondering, intrude upon her like it does. Rey imagined the warmth of his hand long before he stretched out to her. They are bound together, and she knew that sooner than she believed.

If everything the Force bond has sent her is true, he dreams of her too.

It's not like that.

She slumps, arms screaming with tension, no nearer to the bushes than before. She is strong, but not this strong. And they are alone here—what does it mean?

Footsteps behind make her turn. Han and Ben, side by side, matched in stride in a way that makes her chest ache, are hastening towards her. She'd thought them mercenary only the night before. But it doesn't matter, does it? Hearts are still hearts. And here they are, not running. Trusting her vague words and coming to help her.

All the same, she tugs a fold of Kylo's cloak over his face.

"Who in all Hoth is this?"

Rey is frozen. She has no plan, no answers. She has no way to explain that Han Solo is about to see the face of the son who killed him, the son whose path was set by fate and darker things.

"Please," she hears herself say. Heard it, too, from Kylo's lips—it might as well be a lifetime ago.

Ben's eyes narrow. Before she can stop him, he springs forward, and pulls back the cloak.

Between the two Solo men, they carry him back to the ship.

(Rey wonders if he knows the touch of his father.)

Ben was angry and Han was quiet.

"Why wouldn't you tell us?"

"It's complicated," Rey spat back. "I told you there was another you. I wasn't sure if he was here…I mean, I knew he must be. I can…sense it." She doesn't want to explain the Force Bond. There are, in fact, many things she does not want to explain. Whether it is to keep herself safe or Kylo safe, whether she should be concerned for his safety at all, is a different question.

"He gonna kill us?" Han asked. Rey set her jaw. It hits too close to home, if only he knew.

"He's badly injured," she said. "At the hands of your Supreme Leader."

Ben winced, at that. But Han just nodded, stopped, and slung one of Kylo's arms over his shoulder.

"C'mon, Ben."

She sees him, in his known but unknown face. She sees Kylo, all of a sudden—something dark and uncertain. Even angry. Ben Solo does not know what lies ahead, and that makes him afraid.

"I just want to get us back home," Rey whispers. If she speaks louder, her voice might shake. She doesn't want that. Sand-rats of Jakku are even less inclined to whine than Jedi. "I think I might need him for that."

Ben Solo stoops, and lifts Kylo's other arm.

Rey…

Wake up, she urges him. He's calling to her, because of course he is, because nothing makes sense anymore, in this tilted world, except that Kylo will try to reach her through the Bond.

His eyes stay shut.

They're on the Falcon. Ben is brooding in a corner, arms folded over his chest, but Han is making himself useful and gathering what they have stocked in their medpac. Bandages, and some bacta patches. Not much else.

On Jakku, burns and scrapes are common. Broken bones are dangerous things. Deserts take and take and take. The weak perish and the forgotten remain so.

Rey's hands are calloused and ungentle. An unlucky fall from a freighter carcass once snapped her wrist. She splinted it herself and keened over it for weeks, not quite crying.

It is always better not to cry.

Rey stills her trembling hands, poised to mend the wounds of her never-quite-enemy, and gets to work.

He isn't waking up. Rey grinds her teeth and prods his shoulder. She can't bring herself to touch his face, to find the raised edge of the scar she put there. This is necessary, she reminds herself, which is foolish enough on its own, and begins to tear open his shirt, stiff with blood and dirt.

He murmurs something but doesn't open his eyes.

"He's exhausted," Han says, low, beside her. His lined face reveals nothing for the moment. He's just a frown and a steady gaze, not so different from usual.

Rey remembers that she misses him, remembers that the man lying quietly before her is the reason that she must.

Han knows none of this. Han is looking at a son who is not his son, and all of a moment his hand is on Rey's shoulder, a comforting grip.

"Must be a mess, back where you're from."

"It's a mess here, too," she answers absently.

Han shakes his head. "No. Not the world. Him."

Beneath her hands, his skin is hot and damp to the touch.

"Feverish," observes Ben—the other Ben, the one who didn't kill his father, that's right, Rey, don't forget it

"I don't suppose you can help?" Rey snaps. She doesn't mean to be harsh, but the secrets are too much for her to carry, as is the knowledge that if Kylo wakes up she will be both very relieved and very afraid for what will happen next.

Ben crouches beside his father. "There's more you're not telling us, Supreme Leader." He jabs a finger. It's all Han, that gesture.

Rey realizes that her hand is still pressed against Kylo's chest. Before Ben's eyes can follow that, she tugs it away and begins to count the bacta patches.

"Yes," she says, slowly. "As I already said, I didn't tell you that he was here. I wasn't sure myself. And I needed your help, and I didn't know if…if you would help him, if I told you who he was."

"Why wouldn't we help me?" Ben demands, but he sounds suspicious, which is answer enough in itself.

"He's not you," Han says gruffly, and just like that, Kylo opens his eyes.

His mind finds Rey's—not, she thinks, by choice. For once, he's caught too much off-guard to throw up any kind of barrier. Rey is swept away by pain. Kylo is all pain and longing and disappointed glory.

And he isn't thinking of her.

"Fa—Solo." He struggles, hand pressed to chest, staunching the flow from shallow, angry wounds, and tries to sit up. "Enough. Leave me."

"Look here, kid," Han says. "I know this is a big shock, but—"

Kylo laughs. It's a guttural, frayed sound. "How many more times? How many more times will you make me do it?"

"He's hallucinating," Rey says, leaning into Kylo's line of vision. "Ben, please." She is betraying herself utterly here, showing—well, showing that there is much that she's tried to hide, even from her own heart. "Ben, you've been badly hurt. Remember?"

His eyes focus on her, still wild. "Rey, you have to go. I don't want you to watch."

"I'm really here. This isn't a dream." She swallows hard. He dreams of killing his father, again and again. That is what this must all be. And he does it laughing, and he does it with pain. To this, he falls, and has fallen.

He is silent. His eyes are dark as the sky behind the stars.

In her mind, she whispers, let me help you, and he answers, you left me.

Rey can see the floating sparks, the crackle of flame, the want in his eyes. It is always there if she looks for it. You asked me for something I could not give.

She expects anger, but he falls back against the bunk. He shuts his eyes, jaw set. She thinks he cannot bear to see his father.

Rey turns pleadingly to Han. She pleads a great deal in this strange world. "Can you give us a little while? I think—I think it might help."

"I don't trust him," Ben says.

Kylo's eyes open again, but before he can see his mirror image, Han tugs his son's arm. "Let's give them a minute."

When they are gone, Kylo says, "There's so many voices."

"You need to be quiet, and—" Just like that, she's lost again. Because this is Kylo Ren, who swore to kill her only a few day cycles ago.

His voice rises, urgent. "You can't be here."

"I am. No time to argue. Would you be quiet? Please?" Maybe a little of his mother's sharp tongue will keep him in check.

He seems too spent to protest. He has lost of blood; that is what she should be tending to instead of gawking. But all the same his eyes meet hers for too long.

Go back to Takodana. Are they enemies, here? Do they have to be?

Rey does not cry. She begins to clean the lacerations across his ribs, conscious of every brush of fingertip to skin. She wonders why Leia sent her, if Leia knew anything.

If Luke, here, would know.

"She'll find us," Kylo murmurs, eyes drifting shut.

"The…" Rey pauses. It's strangely difficult to say. "The other me?"

"She isn't you." He seems particularly decided on that.

"Looks like you need a drink, Supreme Leader."

She hates and loves the fact that the Falcon is the same here. That she knows its passageways and quirks like the back of her hand. That she can be tucked away in the same corner she was in their world, the proper world, watching Finn worry over her.

She realizes, belatedly, that Han is speaking to her.

A little Corellian whiskey sent Kylo back to sleep when she was done patching him up. She used five of the seven bacta patches. Han assured her that it was alright, that they'd find plenty more at the next trading post. Now he's standing in front of her with a flask of the same whiskey.

It's fairly clear that Han Solo wants to talk.

"Where's Ben?" Rey asks. She wipes her lips with the back of her hand.

"Planning tomorrow's flight in the cockpit. Pouting." He lifts a grizzled eyebrow. "Other one pouts too, I'll bet."

Try, 'destroys galaxies', Rey thinks, but what comes out is, "Yes. Sometimes."

"He has a hard life there?"

"Yes."

"But he has his mother."

Rey cannot speak of Leia, who has lost everything, not now. "Leia's alive."

Han's too quick by half. "That's not what I asked."

"They're not close." Rey says it in a strangled whisper, hoping that she keeps her footing on the blade's edge. To fall is to watch someone die. She has done that too many times before.

She thanks the stars—whatever stars there are—that Han drops the subject. He hands her the flask. "Keep this with you, if you need it. It's Ben's. He'll get over it."

It's far too risky for her to take one of the bunks, given the number of Solos aboard ship, and the secrets they haven't yet learned. Heavy-footed, she returns to the med-bay, where Kylo is motionless, blank-faced. She had washed the blood away and though bruised, she does not think his face will scar—at least, not any more than it already has.

Rey is used to cramped quarters, to settling her spine against durasteel. This is almost the closest she has ever been to him, without some kind of unbearable tension. Once more, she finds herself wandering in a field of hopes she has no real claim to.

I am tired, too, she reminds herself. I am tired, too.

Rey…

We mustn't talk, remember? You keep saying she'll find us.

She twists her neck to get a glimpse of his face, but it reveals nothing. In sleep, he is unreadable as his father, with age and wisdom, can be.

She was too far away to see what his face told on his bridge, what Han saw there.

If Han knew he was about to die, Rey thinks, he would have stayed there all the same.

His thoughts keep trying to twine with hers. Relentless, almost child-like. Children never understand when they have been cast aside or forgotten. Rey knows that better than anyone. It is her weakness; hating what it means to leave; to be left.

She needs sleep. He needs rest. The two will be impossible, if he doesn't stop this. She takes a leap of faith in this unknown, unsought galaxy and imagines her hand in his.

His onslaught recedes at once. For the first time: calm.

Rey keeps her hand there. She thinks warmth, comfort, peace, and she sleeps.

When she wakes, her shoulder aches. She glances down and sees that her arm is raised. Her fingers, linked through Kylo's, are not imaginary at all.