It's the next day when Luke finds her. She's made her way to the training room and is sitting off in one corner contemplating the lightsaber that has been left in her care.
Kylo didn't want it back.
She knows of his feelings, his obsession, with his grandfather. She doesn't know what it means for him to leave the relic with her. But there had been something in his voice and eyes the previous night when he told her to keep it.
Keep it.
She never wanted it.
She wanted to stay on Jakku until her family came to find her. She wanted to be left alone to scavenge and live her life out in her AT-AT. And then everything changed.
Kylo Ren came for her.
And she left with his father to escape his search for BB-8, only to find her way back to him. It must mean something. She's sure of it, can just barely feel it on the edge of her mind, brushing against her emotions. Everything comes back to him.
And she doesn't know when she first realized he was the creature she'd seen in her dreams and nightmares for all those years. This dark, shadowy masked thing that lurked in the corners and occasionally came out to challenge her. She doesn't know when she realized that those moments might be real.
Have they always been connected?
But…how?
"My lightsaber, huh?"
The voice startles her and she lets out a small gasp before looking up to see Luke Skywalker standing in the doorway.
"Kylo said the same thing."
He takes a step into the room. He looks a little less careworn this day. His beard is trimmed and his hair cut shorter. He looks less the hermit and more the Jedi master she had expected to find on Ahch-To.
Luke shrugs. "How did you find it?" He waves one hand at the lightsaber.
She takes a deep breath. How much do you tell him? She can feel him in the Force now, this gentle wave buffeting her as she makes the decision to tell him the reality.
She can hear it. A sort of hum underneath the sounds of the cantina above her. As she walks away, down silent hallways, it becomes louder.
Until she finds it.
A chest.
A metal tube inside it.
Pick me up, it seems to say. And she cannot resist, putting her hand on it.
And then a dizzying array of scenes.
A ship that tilts wildly around her.
Her parents, leaving her.
Unkar Plutt.
"We'll return…"
Voices in the air and a snowy forest. She runs then, hunted. She can feel something close behind her.
And then him.
Kylo Ren.
"The Knights of Ren," Luke says when she finishes her story. "I haven't heard about them in some time."
"Who are they?"
Luke doesn't speak for a moment, but then finally runs his hands over his forehead and through his hair in a gesture that's startlingly similar to his nephew's. "We've never been sure, exactly. I always suspected they were…" Here he pauses and looks even more troubled. "Students," he finally says. "Some of my former students. I heard Ben had taken some of them with him."
"What did happen with all of that?"
"With what?" Luke asks and she somehow knows that he's feigning ignorance.
"At your temple. With Kylo…Ben…" She lets out a huff of annoyance. "What did he mean back there on Ahch-to?"
"He hasn't spoken of it?" Luke asks.
"To me? No. Why would he?"
Luke's eyebrows rise. "I thought there…" His voice trails off. "But there's not, is there?"
"What are you talking about?"
"It's strong in you, you know," he says instead. Conversationally, as if there wasn't something brimming just beneath the surface, just waiting for someone to bring it to the light of day. "The Force."
"You're not the first person to tell me that," she admits. You're strong in the Force.
"Ben."
"Yes." She finds no reason to hide their conversation from the night before.
"He would know," Luke mutters. "I'm still researching," he says a bit louder.
"Please," Rey says on a huff of air. "I need to know. Something happened there, with you. With him. It had to have."
"It's his story to tell…"
"It's not." Rey doesn't mean her voice to be quite so strident. Luke says nothing and she jumps up, paces around him. "It's your story too. It must be or else you wouldn't be hiding out on that planet and you wouldn't have cut yourself off from the Force."
"That's probably true." Luke's voice is quiet and she finds it just plain annoying for some reason.
"Then why won't anyone speak of what happened there?"
Luke just shakes his head. "Ask Ben."
"I will," she tosses back at him.
He's silent for a moment and then offers a sad smile. "You're going to have to learn to control some of that passion if you wish to be a Jedi."
She glances down at the lightsaber she's still holding. She's offered it to Luke, to Kylo. No one wants the kriffing thing. "Who says I want to be a Jedi?"
"A Sith, then?"
"Is that what Kylo is?"
"Not quite," Luke admits.
"Is there no path open that's not one or the other?" She doesn't really want any of it, if she's going to be honest, doesn't want to be Jedi or Sith or anything to do with the Force. She's just Rey.
You're not just anything.
She's not even sure whose thought it is. Hers, his. But there's a truth there she wants to ignore.
Luke shakes his head. "There may be," he hedges.
"May?"
"I need to…"
"Do more research," she finishes with him. "Is that all being a Jedi is?"
He shrugs. "Maybe it's all being a Jedi is for me. My fighting days are long behind me."
She stands then, cocks her head to the side. "Are they? You're here, aren't you?"
"I didn't want to be."
"But you are," she points out. "You weren't going to, but you changed your mind about coming with us when you found out Kylo had come back." And she doesn't know what that means. It's important, she knows. Everything connects back to him. The dark son who destroyed Luke's temple, who destroyed his mother's dreams and seemingly destroyed his parent's marriage. He's the lynchpin here, the one everything revolves around.
Even you…
When Luke doesn't respond, Rey gives him a sad smile. "If you find out more about this grey area between Jedi and Sith, come find me."
And she walks off.
Luke says nothing, but she can hear him shift behind her, can hear him offer up a small sigh. When she glances back just before she leaves the room, he's sitting cross-legged on the mat, eyes closed and face strangely peaceful.
She feels the scream more than hears it and her eyes fly open.
What?
She's not in her room. Her eyes flit left, right. No, definitely not her room. It has the same general shape, the same basic furniture. But it's backwards, and the few personal effects sitting on the table near the bed are not hers.
It's quiet there, almost too quiet. And there's some sort of strange low humming noise that vibrates within her ear drums. She shakes her head, trying to dislodge it. And that's when she sees him.
He's twisted into the sheets, only one arm and shoulder out of them. His hair is sweat-slicked and plastered to the sides of his head, his overly large ears sticking out of the messy locks. His hand clenches into a fist and unclenches. Over and over.
The cords on his neck stand out.
The shoulder she can see is stiff and the arm below it locked tight. She tries not to notice that he is, once again, not wearing a shirt, and she can see the way those muscles bunch beneath the expanse of pale skin that's revealed.
"No," she hears him mutter. She's almost sure he can see her, but no, his eyes are screwed shut, his mouth open in a silent scream.
Then he shouts again.
No. No. Noooo…
She doesn't know if this real or if it's a dream.
Is this her own nightmare? She tries to wake herself up, pinching her arm and waiting for the scene to change around her.
It doesn't.
She feels the slight pinch and starts to wonder if she is really there, watching him. It makes no sense, but nothing does when it comes to Kylo Ren.
He shouts again, high-pitched and terrible, and his back arches off the bed. And she feels it this time, like lightening tracing along her skin. A phantom pain, to be sure. It's not hers. She can see the way his skin almost ripples beneath whatever nightmare he is trapped in.
Whatever nightmare they are trapped in.
"Kylo," she whispers.
His eyes fly open and he turns to look at her. His lips part, his eyes go wide.
She's flung back into her own room, coming to with a gasp as the sounds around her return. She can hear the hum of the generator keeping the base going, the beeps of the computers, can feel the thrum of the electricity flowing through the walls.
She takes a deep breath.
What did she just witness?
She can't have been there. In his room. With him. As if by magic. The Force, she realizes. It's…connecting them somehow. There's no other explanation. They've been inside each other's heads and she doesn't know what that can do to a person.
She'd really like to not find out, if she's honest with herself. And yet at the same time, she is intensely curious about the whole thing.
It's becoming habit, almost, creeping down the hallways in the middle of the night. The rest of the base sleeps on, a few guards positioned haphazardly here and there. They wave at her as she passes and she gives them a sheepish grin.
Everyone knows the weird orphan girl from Jakku who likes to go outside into the terrifying forest around the base, who seems to not be able to sleep a full night through.
They've heard rumors, of course, that she's one of them, a Force sensitive. They've seen her talking to Luke, seen her talking to Kylo Ren. But except for a few people, no one knows her and so they cannot figure her out. Most people leave her alone. Or watch her with curious stares. She's almost used to it by now…almost.
She doesn't like being cooped up. It makes her feel like an animal, caged and watched and studied. Being outside, away from people, that makes sense. It's like all her years spent in her AT-AT, only her own thoughts for company.
She cuts through the edges of the forest, only going as close as she needs to follow the path that runs alongside it. She skirts around and makes her way back to the beach she'd found the night of the party. Quiet and peaceful and set just far enough away from the base that she feels free of it all for a time.
And that's where she finds him.
She doesn't know how he beat her there. She doesn't know why he's there, on her beach. But he sits on the boulder she'd found, a nice large flat-topped thing that while not comfortable is at least a place to rest that's not the grittiness of the sand below.
The sand feels familiar at least, her feet easily finding the rhythm to walking on it, falling back into the ease of the desert-dwelling scavenger rat she'd always been.
He sits cross-legged on the boulder, eyes closed, and he looks almost at peace. Except the furrow between his brows, the lines at the edges of his mouth. He doesn't hear her approach until she's almost upon him. When she clears her throat, his eyes drift open and flit over to her briefly. "Scavenger," he murmurs, but there's none of the ire behind the word. It almost sounds…affectionate.
"Kylo," she responds with. She has no such dark nickname for him. His name, or at least his chosen name, will have to do. And then – "What was that? Back there?"
He turns then to face her, his lips slightly parted. "You don't beat around the bush, do you?"
"Was I actually there? In your quarters?" Her voice breaks slightly on the last word.
He doesn't respond for a moment and she watches the play of emotions over his face, the way his lips clamp together. His jaw clenches, his eyes close tight and then open again. "Yes," he finally says. "Yes I think you were."
"Like I was on the hillside."
He glances up at the hill where she had once seen him practicing his lightsaber moves. "I thought you said you walked up that hill."
"You know I didn't," she shoots back with, and then takes a deep breath. And another. "What is happening?"
He shrugs. "Ask Luke."
"So you don't know."
"I…" he started to say. "I'm not sure."
"You must have an idea!" She can appear in his room, appear where he is. She realizes that she first experienced it when he stood upon the bridge on Starkiller, contemplating killing his own father. She'd been there. And then she was back above them, as if by some sort of magic.
"I have some," he says. She waits for him to go on, but he says nothing more.
With a sigh, she walks around the boulder, watching him. He watches her too, his dark eyes following her every move. She comes to sit on the boulder, imitating his cross-legged pose.
"Have you ever meditated?" he asks and there's nothing more than curiosity in the question.
"Do you really think I had time for such things while living on Jakku?" She pauses there, but doesn't give him a chance to go on. "I know you think it's some sort of joke or something, that I was a scavenger on Jakku. But it's not. I didn't get to indulge in meditation and playing around with rocks or whatever it is you Jedi kids do. I had to survive. That's the only thing I'm good at, Kylo. Surviving by repairing the broken things of our world and hoping they're worth something."
He doesn't say anything. His hands remain limp in his lap and he watches her with hooded eyes.
"That's the most you've said to me at one time, I think," he says almost thoughtfully.
"That is what you get out of that?"
He shrugs. "I'm not sure what you want me to say."
"Nothing." She can't help the note of bitterness that creeps into her voice. He's had everything. The kid of heroes, raised in some Jedi Academy where he got to learn all about his powers at a young age, learned to harness them and use them, supposedly, for the good of the galaxy.
He says nothing else for a moment. "Would you like to learn?" She almost says something, but he raises a hand up. "I know. But you're not there now. You're here. And you can learn if you want to."
"You're still trying to teach me."
"Perhaps."
She shakes her head. "What was that, in your quarters? Not my appearance. But…you."
He turns away from her then, eyes downcast. His shoulders tense and she almost reaches out to touch him, almost offers a bit of comfort. But it doesn't feel right, somehow. She can't quite define why, but she knows that reaching out would send him spiraling down and away from her.
And she doesn't even know why that matters. Why she wants to keep him with her in this moment.
"A nightmare."
She waits for him to say more.
He doesn't.
"A nightmare?" she asks. "That sounds rather simplistic."
"Isn't it?" he says with a shrug.
She doesn't know how to respond to that. "It was him, wasn't it?"
"Snoke?"
She nods and waits for him to respond. He studies her for a moment and there's a darkness there. He wears it like a mantle over his shoulders, wrapped around himself like a shawl.
"It's always Snoke," he finally says.
She shudders at the tone of his voice. "Who is he?"
"What, is more like it."
"He's not human." She's seen him, a shadowy figure. Humanoid at least, if not human. A crack down his skull like the deep ravine between mountains, piercing eyes, flattened nose.
"No," he says with a wave of his hand. "I'm not even sure if that form he takes is his real form," he admits. And she can sense the truth of that. The Snoke in the nightmare she'd been a part of looked like an alien's impression of an elderly human. But there had been something off there. Like he just didn't quite get it.
"What is he then?"
"Something you never want to meet." There's pain there behind the words, pain and horror, and she remembers the way his back arched even in his nightmare, the way he'd whimpered softly, as if he were trying to fight off whatever Snoke was doing to him.
"He was really there?"
"Now you understand."
She takes a quick breath. "It wasn't a nightmare."
"No."
"No," she repeats and takes another shuddering breath. "He was there. Inside your mind."
He doesn't respond, turning his head away from her, letting his hair hide his eyes. She can feel something coming off him in waves. Anger, terror, all mixed up together. Snoke is a terrifying presence and he still has access to him in some ways, has access to her through him. They're going to have to do something about it. She's sure of it. She and Luke and Kylo. They need to fix this if they have any hope of defeating him.
"He was in mine, too," she whispers and his head shoots up.
He studies for a moment. "I…" he starts to say.
"Don't apologize."
"I wasn't going to."
"No?" She can see almost a faint trace of a smirk at the edges of his too-pretty mouth. "Kylo?" When he nods, she goes on. "What happened with Luke?"
He lets out a breath. "He hasn't told you."
"No. He…he said I should ask you."
He lets out a dry, humorless laugh. "He doesn't want to admit the truth. He never could own up to it."
"Own up to what?"
"Can I show you?" He turns to her then and there's an earnestness in his voice that she didn't expect. He's watching her, studying her, his eyes searching hers for something.
"Show me…?"
He reaches out his hands and stops just short of taking hers. She glances down at where they're resting so close to hers. They're large, long fingered and broad. It shouldn't surprise her really. Everything about him seems to be large and somehow over the top, including his Force powers. "If you'll let me."
"How does it work?" She remembers his getting into her mind, that sensation of crawling ants inside her head. It had been equal parts terrifying and humiliating. At least until she'd turned the tables on him. Then there had been only exhilaration.
"We're…connected…somehow. You know that, right?" She stares at him, eyes wide, and then finally nods. "I can use that. I can…draw you into my memories."
"You won't get into…"
"No," he says quickly, moving one hand in a slashing motion in front of her. "Not into yours. Not without permission. Not ever again." And there's a promise, a vow, behind the words. She's taken aback by the fervency to them. It's certainly not what she expects out of him. He's still very much Kylo Ren in her mind, still the creature who ripped his way into her mind. But here he is vowing to not do it again unless she invites him in.
She can't imagine why she ever would, but she feels a sense of almost giddy relief at the words.
"Alright," she finally whispers. "Show me."
"I need to…" He holds up his hands, gestures at her. "It helps."
She nods and holds out her hands, and he wraps his hands around hers. They're surprisingly warm, and she shivers at the contact. She doesn't reach out and touch people of her own accord much and it feels weird for a moment. And then she settles into it, lets her hands rest more fully in his, her calloused palms against his much smoother ones. He wears gloves, she reminds herself. Thick leather that protects him. She's spent years scavenging in the desert, building up callouses and the scars of small cuts and abrasions. She almost feels embarrassed by their roughness, but then looks up to meet his eyes.
His hands tighten on hers.
"Close your eyes," he murmurs and she does so without hesitation. "Breathe."
"I…"
"Don't talk. Just breathe. Concentrate on me, on the link."
She does as he asks, breathes in deeply, tries to center and calm her wild thoughts. She can sense him there, just on the edges of her mind, a bit of red, shot through with dark veins and one piercing bit of light that cuts through it all. She can feel him breathe and she takes a breath as he breathes out, releases it as he breathes in.
He makes a small humming noise in the back of his throat and she leans just a little further forward, her hands tightening on his. "Let go," he whispers.
And she does, falling forward into nothing.
It's dark wherever she is. Dark, cold, a little damp. After a moment, her eyes adjust and she realizes there's a bit of moonlight flooding in from a small, high window.
She waits.
There must be more.
But nothing. Not for a moment.
The place brightens up just a little bit, as if someone has turned up the lights that aren't actually there. And that's when she can look around a bit. There are books on a shelf off to the side, a calligraphy set, a compass.
And there's a pallet in one corner. She steps closer to it when she sees something moves on it. There's a person there, curled up into a small ball, hands curled at his sides.
A sound behind her causes her to whirl around and there he is. Luke. He looks younger, his beard properly trimmed, hair short, less grey shot through it. But his eyes look tired and his mouth is set in a grim line.
"Oh, Ben," she hears him whisper and the sound of it almost breaks her.
And then he has his lightsaber in his hand and there's a flash of something in his eyes as he raises it up and ignites it.
Rey lets out a gasp.
The person on the pallet comes awake, turning over to look with sleepy eyes. Ben Solo. He looks terribly young here, his hair shorter than he wears it now, his eyes those of a confused boy.
And then he realizes what's going on.
And his eyes widen with fear before he reaches out his hand and calls something to it.
His lightsaber.
Green, this time. Not the red she's used to. But he's raised it up against Luke's as he rises from the pallet.
"Ben, no!" Luke calls out just as Ben reaches out with his left hand, pulling the Force to him.
The hut they're in collapses in on them both and everything goes dark around Rey.
She comes awake with a gasp. "He tried to kill you?"
"Yes." Kylo's voice is tight with suppressed rage.
"That's why…"
"Yes."
She's left reeling. Luke Skywalker. Master Jedi, hero of the Rebellion, hope of the Resistance. He tried to kill his own nephew. "I don't know what to think of this," she murmurs.
"What is there to think? He tried to kill me." There's a tightness to his voice. More than anger, resignation perhaps. "And so now you know why there's no love lost between us." He drops her hands then and she realizes she'd forgotten they were even linked in such a way. "Just remember that the next time you go to your great hero for help."
He turns away and she watches the lines of his back as he pushes off the boulder and retreats. He's shoved his hands into his pockets and she almost does the same, just to feel the warmth on them again. It's cold, sitting all alone out there by the lake.
And then she's up and following him, running gracefully across the sand until she's caught up with his rapidly disappearing form. "Wait!" she calls out and is surprised to see him turn toward her.
His shoulders are rounded and hunched and he wraps his arms tightly around himself, as if he can somehow disappear completely if he just curls close enough in on himself.
"There's nothing more to it, Rey," he says and his voice sounds tired.
"That's not it," she says. His eyebrows shoot up as he watches her. "You can teach me." The words come out in a rush before she can even think of what she's saying. Luke tried to kill him. And she doesn't know why it's so important to tell him that right now.
But it is. Somehow, she just knows it is.
He watches her for a moment and then finally nods. "Alright," he says, almost too nonchalantly for the wild emotions flying between them. And then he walks off, leaving Rey to stare after him.
Just what had she gotten herself into, exactly?
