It was late at night when she heard it. She threw on her pants and ran bare-footed out on the cool stones of the pavilion of the ancient Jedi. Lightsaber in one hand, silver pistol in the other, she ran to see a large shuttle landing next to the Millennium Falcon.
Out of the shuttle came the hulking figure of Kylo Ren. Rey wasn't afraid, far from it, but she wasn't so sure of his motives. Still, in a moment of passion, she met him at the stairs in an embrace.
Stars above, she loved his embrace, the way his arms, his everything would surround her, blocking the outside world for a little while. There was a silence as they embraced each other in the Force, the light and the dark entwining until it was something unrecognizable and more profound than either side.
Rey looked up. "Why are you here?"
"The Supreme Leader requested I find Skywalker's daughter and bring her to him," he said in his usual monotone, although his eyes betrayed him.
"I'm not going with you," she said coldly. "I don't care if you're my husband- I'm not leaving Luke or Finn. I know that Snoke either wants me dead or as an apprentice. That's not going to happen."
"I know," he said softly.
"Then go home," Rey said snappishly. "If you don't want to follow Snoke anymore, then go to Luke. Or to Leia- surely she'll welcome you back-"
"Despite her reaction at the cantina?" Kylo raised his eyebrows. "I sincerely doubt she would accept any surrender from me. And it's not that easy."
"And why isn't it?" Rey demanded.
"Because he's always there!" Kylo snapped. "I'm never alone! You know that!"
"Let Luke help you," Rey urged. "Surely he'll let you stay, especially if I tell him-"
"You want to tell him that we're married?" Kylo cried. "You think somehow that the old man won't want to kill me more when he finds that little tidbit out?"
"Yes, because he'll know that you're the father of my children!" Rey snapped. She then blinked. She'd forgotten in the heat of the moment that Kylo had no way of knowing she was expecting.
"You're pregnant?" Kylo's jaw dropped. "I'm going to be a father?"
"To twins," Rey said. The couple stared at each other for a moment, taking it all in. Kylo then grabbed Rey's shoulders.
"You need to hide!" he cried. "And not tell me! If the Supreme Leader finds out, he'll want you alive so he can take your- our- children!"
"I'm not hiding- it's my duty to train, and I'm only a month in," Rey insisted.
"Then how did- oh, Uncle must've sensed it," Kylo realized.
"I must've sensed what?"
The couple looked to their right to see Luke Skywalker, green lightsaber activated and ready for combat, standing there with Finn and Artoo by his side.
"Lu-Father, I-"
"Kira, just tell me the truth," Luke said calmly. "What's going on here?"
"I lied when I said Kyp Durron was my husband- well, from a certain point of view," Rey admitted. "Kylo is the father of the twins."
Luke's eyes widened. "Please tell me someone told you that Ben's adopted."
"We do!" The two chorused quickly. Kylo looked in particular like he wanted a shot of Corellian Whiskey at that remark.
"Good," said Luke, looking between the two of them uneasily. "If you didn't. . . Well, that's another story. I'm grateful you at least know that you aren't related. As for you, Ben- why did you come here?"
"I sensed something was wrong with Rey, and I left," Kylo lied. Rey silently thanked him, knowing that maybe, if Kylo would just let himself surrender to the light long enough, the boy that she was in love with, the one spark of light in the dark, the one who allowed them to be Kyp Durron and Jaina Fel, the one she saw in her vision talking to her mother- maybe he would take over, rather than the monster Snoke had created.
"And I told him that he was going to be a father," Rey said with a fake brightness, with an underlying, real optimism.
"I'm going to make sure my wife and. . . Twins," Kylo said awkwardly as he put his arm around Rey's shoulders. "I'm not going to let the First Order or the Knights of Ren touch them."
"It's good to see you're making some good decisions, Ben," Luke said, his blue eyes penetrating Rey's hazel and Kylo's brown eyes. Rey hadn't noticed it before, but Kylo had stiffened considerably at the use of his birth name. It made her curious, but she pushed the thoughts aside.
"We'll talk more in the morning," Luke said decisively. "Perhaps you would like to share a hut with your wife?"
The two nodded eagerly.
Rey had forgotten too soon what it was like to lie in Kylo's arms. She reveled in the sensation, much like his embrace. Her nimble fingers ran through his thick dark hair.
"Rey?"
"Mmm?" she refused to open her eyes, a part of her that was strangely, and perhaps foolishly in love with Kylo Ren not wanting to in case he would disappear when she did.
"I want you to call me by my name- my real name," he said.
"Ben?" she asked in surprise. "I thought you preferred Kyp."
There was a hesitation.
"I always preferred Ben," he admitted. "But the Supreme Leader never allowed it."
"Snoke was telling you what to call yourself in your own mind?" Rey cried, disgusted with the creature Leia mentioned with venom in her voice.
"Still does," he said. "I'm never alone."
"Is he here now?" she asked.
"No," he answered after a pause. "He never does seem to be in my head when you're around."
"Oh, Ben," she murmured as she burrowed into his embrace, and he clutched onto her like she was his anchor to life itself.
