Kylo is waiting with his mother, watching Maz's ship descend. It's a strange design he's never seen before. It's painted garishly and it reminds him of its pilot.
The last two days have been … strange. He and Leia have come to some semblance of an accord, both choosing not to speak of the past. Last night she'd clasped his shoulder as she'd said goodnight. It had felt … right. He's spent most of his time with Rey, talking, holding, touching. They've not taken things further, but he's grown more confident when he touches her, more sure of his right to do so.
The ramp descends and the small, ancient woman walks out, blinking through her giant goggles.
Maz walks swiftly to Leia and pulls her down until they're seeing eye-to-eye.
"My child," Maz croons. "I told Han to go home to you."
Leia's eyes fill with tears and she looks away. Maz puts her hands on Leia's face and forces her to look back. "Han did the only thing he could; he had to try."
Kylo wants to go back to Rey. He doesn't … he can't face this. His mother's tears, they're like acid against his heart. He's never faced what he did that day, not really. It's growing harder and harder to push it away.
"And you!" Maz exclaims as she focuses her intense stare on Kylo. "I knew the day I met her that she would bring you home. You always were such a lost little boy. I'm glad to see she finally found you." Kylo had expected scorn, anger, rage from Maz. He remembers visiting her castle when he was very small, before his powers spiked, before his father withdrew from him. He doesn't know what to do, how to feel.
"Ach, boy, Han never knew how to be a father to you. He didn't know how to care for anything but the Falcon and your mother. Some people just aren't built that way. You did pick a permanent solution to a temporary problem though, didn't you?"
"Maz," he says formally.
"You expect me to hate you, to tell you you're evil for killing my friend."
"I … yes."
"Well, boy, you've never known anything about anything. Though you do seem to be learning. Enough wasting time, bring me to that lovely girl of yours. Let's see what we can do, Ben Solo."
"That's not my na-"
"Yes, it is. It may feel like broken glass, tearing you to pieces, but it is your name and it always has been. Best be a man about it, Ben Solo." The small woman takes off towards medical, not needing to be told where to go. He looks at his mother who looks almost as bewildered as he's feeling. They follow Maz obediently.
"Oh, there you are, sweet girl. Look at how pretty you are. He's been taking good care of you, hasn't he?" Maz says to Rey's still form.
Maz waits for no invitation, simply crawling up onto the bed. She places both hands on Rey's cheeks and touches their foreheads together.
"Hmmm, yes, I see. I see." Maz stays like that for what feels like forever. Finally, she sits back and fixes Kylo with a long stare.
Kylo can't take the silence any longer and exclaims, "Well? Can you help her?"
"You love her very much, don't you?"
Kylo still finds speaking of his feelings for Rey to be quite uncomfortable so he only nods.
"Oh, lost boy, do not be embarrassed by how you love her. It is the purest thing in all the galaxy."
"Yes … yes, I love her." His voice is impossibly gentle. Maz grins.
"Just so. And she loves you. That will be the key," the ancient woman says wisely.
"What do you mean?" Kylo asks.
"Snoke has severely damaged her connection to the Force, but she's so strong that the Force has protected her, wrapped her up, and kept her safe like a nice little package."
"Why can't she wake up?" Leia joins the conversation.
"She needs to be shown the way, we'll need to heal her connection to the Force and nothing manages that better than love. I suspect your love kept her tethered in the first place, Ben Solo."
He can't help the stab of pain his name causes in his chest. "I don't understand," he says.
"Ach, you don't have to. Just trust old Maz. Now, come here and give me your hand." Kylo does as she instructs.
Maz joins his hand with Rey's and beckons Leia over. "You too, Mama. You love your boy and you will come to love Rey soon enough."
Now Leia's hand is over Rey and Kylo's and Maz puts both her hands around their tangled fingers.
Maz closes her eyes and starts to breathe very slowly. One by one, Rey, Kylo, then Leia are breathing in tandem with her and he feels the familiar pull of Rey. Soon they're all in her mind, on the clearing on 'D'Qar'.
"Hello, child," Maz says as she walks to Rey.
"Maz! Leia! Oh, it's so good to see you." Rey's face is open and full of affection. Maz continues to move towards Rey and takes both of her hands in hers.
"You've found the belonging you seek, sweet girl," Maz says.
Rey's eyes widen in memory. "Is that what you meant?"
"Yes, I could see what was coming. I did not foresee the pain, your capture, but I understand now that it was the only way. You've brought him back."
Leia approaches Rey then, and Maz steps back.
"I am so relieved to see you, hear you. Thank you. Thank you for bringing him home," Leia says.
Rey shakes her head and says, "I didn't. He did that." Leia looks skeptical.
Kylo stands away from the three women, unsure as to his place in all of this. When it is only he and Rey, he knows he is welcome. But what will she feel now that she's surrounded by others who care for her?
"This one, he's still full of doubt," Maz remarks.
Rey moves to him then and places a gentle hand on his face. "I've told you before, there is no reason for you to doubt me, to doubt who you are to me." Kylo looks away, feeling very exposed. He doesn't know how to be with her where others may see. This is private.
He knows she's said that she wants him … loves him, but everything could change when she wakes. He hopes, how he hopes, that she will still choose him, just as he doesn't want to bind her with promises made while she's so vulnerable. "I know … but when you wake up, if you find … if you find that you would prefer I leave, I won't force myself on you."
"No … no. Maz is right. For the first time in my life I feel like … I feel like I have a home. In you."
She feels like he's her home? He suddenly doesn't care that Maz and his mother are right there; he pulls her to him and kisses her fiercely. Then he moves his lips to her ear and murmurs, "You are the only home I ever want." He feels her arms tighten in answer.
"See, Mama? Everything will be alright," Maz chuckles to Leia. Kylo remembers himself and pulls back from Rey, but he takes her hand in his.
"Now, let's get to work. Rey, dear girl, we must heal your connection to the Force. That beast nearly severed it. You and your young man will need to travel deeper into you, find the wound, and heal it."
"But how?" Rey asks.
"By traveling into the memory of when Snoke did this to you. Now, Ben Solo—don't make that face—you've already sensed the first part. Take her other hand and face each other. Rey, remember. Pull him with you and remember. Mama and I will keep you tethered, and pull you back if you get lost."
He concentrates on Rey and he feels himself tumbling. For a long time they spiral and he finds himself in her memories of that horrible day.
"Well, little scavenger, Kylo Ren tells me that you have agreed to be his apprentice," Snoke's menacing voice envelopes his senses. Years of loyalty turn in his stomach.
Rey shudders, and Kylo can feel her cloying fear.
"Y-yes, I have agreed," she chokes out.
"I wonder why you acquiesced so quickly, Rey of Jakku." Swiftly, Snoke is in her mind, pulling and prodding.
"Hmm, you fear the dark side, but you do not fear him."
Kylo is within Rey's memory and he feels as Snoke rifles through her mind. They're in her AT-AT and Rey is very young. She's curled in a small ball, her hands wrapped tightly around a handmade doll of a Rebellion pilot. She's crying, her small, thin frame shaking. He feels her desolate loneliness as she plaintively calls out, "Where are you? I'm sorry, I'm sorry I'm so bad. I'll be good, I promise I'll be good. Please come back for me. Come back ... come back."
Kylo wants to gather her into his arms and console the child-Rey, but he's only a witness. That Rey ever felt so lost, so alone ... it tears at his being, his soul. How could she have ever thought she was bad, her abandonment her own fault? He will soothe this aching hole within her, somehow. He will fix this.
He hears Snoke's voice slither through the memory. "No one wanted you, I see. Good, good, he will be able to work with that, exploit that. No one wanted him, either."
They're in another memory. Rey is surrounded by a gang of other scavengers as she defends her day's findings. She looks to be around 10 and she's threatening them with her staff. Kylo immediately wants to stand between her and her attackers, but he is trapped, a silent observer.
"Look at her, all alone, no one to protect her. We'll take that, sand rat," the largest man says as he moves to steal her scavenge. Rey tries to strike at him, but one of his compatriots easily yanks her staff from her hands.
Yet another scavenger grabs her from behind, holding her as she kicks and screams, "That's mine!"
"Oh no, it's ours. Thank you for making today so easy on us. Look at the condition of this console, boys! We'll eat for a week on this."
Rey's little face is red and furious, but Kylo can still see the tears gathering in her eyes. The leader walks over to her and sneers, "Maybe we'll let you keep one thing. Don't want you to starve, after all."
Rey looks hopeful. He strokes along her cheek and says, "If you ask me nicely." Kylo knows there is nothing he can do, but he wants to cleave this man in two. He feels those disgusting fingers touching Rey like a trail of fire along his own face. He burns with the need to stop this.
Her lip quivers and she whispers, "Please?"
"Poor little orphan girl. Ask again." Kylo feels the taunt deep in his heart. He knows what this must have done to her.
Rey's eyes flash in anger, and her expression is stony, but she says, "Will you please let me keep the power converter?"
The scavenger walks over to her pile of carefully gathered technology and picks up the converter. "This? This is what you'd like to keep?"
"Yes. Please," she pleads. Kylo can see that this young Rey was already a proud thing and this submission is costing her dearly.
"What do you think, lads? Should we let her keep it?" The other scavengers laugh.
"Here, girl." He makes as if to hand it to her but just before her small hand closes around it he snatches it back and breaks it in two. "Oops."
"No! Please, I haven't eaten since the day before yesterday." She struggles against her captor's hold.
"Not our problem; your parents shouldn't let you out here alone. Oh wait, you haven't got any. Come on, let's get this to Plutt."
The group of scavengers start to move away, pulling her scavenge with them. As soon as they let her go she flies at the leader, pummeling him with her little fists. He rears back and strikes her so hard across the face that she flies back, landing hard in the sands. Kylo is seething, helpless as he watches this horrible scene. She scrambles to her feet and rushes him again, but this time he punches her in the abdomen and she falls to her side. He kicks and kicks and kicks her until she lies still, gasping.
"Stupid girl, you'll learn." The gang moves off, leaving her broken and bleeding. She whimpers in pain. Again, Kylo is desperate to wrap her up and keep her safe. He wishes Jakku had been part of the Hosnian system, these despicable creatures now nothing but stardust.
Snoke's voice moves through her mind, a sick, foreign feeling. "You are so fierce, and so beautifully angry. Kylo Ren has chosen very well, very well indeed. Now, let us find why one so strong would give in so quickly, shall we?"
Snoke pushes in deeper, attempting to access her current thoughts, but is blocked. "Don't fight me, I will find it. You're only hurting yourself." Kylo feels as Rey's mind blooms with pain and she struggles hard against Snoke. She told him that she was protecting her feelings for him from his former master and he dreads what he knows is coming.
Kylo hears her chanting, "No, that's mine, you can't have it. No, that's mine, you can't have it." She says it over and over again. He's brimming with conflict, wishing she had simply given Snoke what he had wanted and in awe of how viciously she fights to keep the seed of her love for him safe. Can he ever be worth her ferocity?
Dimly, he perceives the moment that he had arrived to find Rey struggling. He hears himself say, "Master, what are you doing with my apprentice!" He feels the hope and affection that floods her when she hears his voice. Kylo is disgusted with himself anew. He knows what happens next, knows how he failed her.
Kylo's presence has brought her fledgling love to the surface and Snoke almost has it. She reaches deep for every last bit of her connection to the Force and uses it to shield her mind. Snoke rips and tears and Kylo feels as her beating, glorious light is torn to pieces as she starts to convulse. Here, this is it, this is when it happened. He feels her start to fade from him, the memory somehow pulling her soul into its gnashing maw and he knows that here, now, he must save her.
He thinks of all that she has come to mean to him, how somehow she looks at him and finds something worthy. He feels how deeply he loves her, gathers it together and reaches out, bathing her in the fierceness of his devotion. He failed her once; he will not do so again. He will never leave her, never hurt her. He gives all of himself over to her, holding nothing back. "I love you, Rey, I will always love you. I love that beautiful little girl; she is so good, so very good. I love that young warrior, so brave, so strong. Everything you are, everything you were, everything you ever will be, I love you," he vows into the void.
Kylo remembers the feeling of her small hands in his and channels all that he is, all that she's making him into, giving, giving, giving. He senses his own connection to the Force and offers it up to whoever might be listening. He will sacrifice anything and everything if only she will have the beautiful life that has always been denied her. He feels himself start to wane but then, there, she's coming back, she's fighting her way back to him, to them. He feels as her connection to the Force knits back together. Somehow he can see their essences winding together, crimson red and cerulean blue. It's beautiful, and it's total, and he thinks he might be experiencing her very soul.
They're still in her memory of that terrifying day but, instead of falling unconscious, she stands and turns to him. Snoke disappears and the room evaporates. They're standing together, hands clasped. They're surrounded by warm light and somehow it feels like the Force is singing. She's glowing, pure, sacred.
She reaches for him and she's kissing him and her light floods into him. He feels a great push and suddenly he's back in his own mind. He opens his eyes to find Maz and his mother blinking quickly.
Immediately he untangles his hands from theirs and moves them to Rey's face. Just as he's about to call out for her, her eyes open—her eyes finally open. He can't help it; tears fill his eyes and he calls out, "Rey, Rey, Rey."
She lifts her hands and mirrors his position, holding her fingers against his cheeks. "You saved me …" she whispers.
He pulls her to him and feels her arms wrap around him for the first time and he's crying into her hair. There is a solidity to feeling her real body move, her actual arms holding him tight, that undoes him even further. He weeps, clinging to her.
Everything he's done, all of his sins, they're coursing through him. Being in that moment—feeling how he'd nearly lost her because of his own misguided loyalty—he knows he is tainted, obscene, and he deserves none of her comfort. He did this to her, not Snoke—him. He sees, oh how he sees. He had almost destroyed the only thing that has ever truly mattered to him because he had been too weak to protect her. He starts to pull away. She is not for him; he shouldn't stain her with his touch. He's brought her back and now he should set her free.
"No! No, don't you dare! Don't you dare think that." He's confused—how does she know what he's thinking? He continues to move away from her but she grabs his hands and holds him fast.
"Because I can feel you, I can hear you," Rey says.
Suddenly he becomes aware of a pervasive warmth and a trembling fear and he knows they aren't his own emotions.
"How?" he chokes out.
"I don't know, but I do know that you aren't going anywhere. I felt you give yourself to me; I heard everything you said, everything you felt. Well, I give you me right back," she says fervently.
"I may have an idea what's happened," Maz gently breaks in. Kylo is startled; he had completely forgotten there were other people in the room. He's embarrassed by his complete and total breakdown. He takes a shuddering breath as he rubs at his eyes.
"Children, I believe you have formed a Force Bond. There's no getting rid of each other now!" Maz laughs heartily.
"A Force Bond?" Rey asks in confusion.
Kylo is regaining his composure and answers, "They're very rare. It means I will always be able to communicate with you, sense your feelings … it's … it's permanent." He's elated at the prospect of always being connected with her and shamed that she is so tethered to such a beast.
"Good. Then maybe you'll stop trying convince me to let you go," Rey says.
"You must know I always want to be by your side, I just …"
"I know, I understand a little better now that I can feel you. But you have to stop thinking that." Neither of them seems to be able to remember that they aren't the only ones in the room.
"Maz," Leia says. "I think we should give them some time. Let's go arrange for quarters for both of them. I should be able to manage to buy a few days of freedom for Be- my son while I and the other leaders decide how to proceed."
"Together," Rey interjects.
"Together?" Kylo queries.
Rey looks at him and repeats firmly, "Together. We want quarters together."
Leia smiles a bit to herself and says, "I'll see what I can do."
Alone, he looks down at their entwined fingers, marveling at the feeling of her grasping back. He'd grown so used to the feeling of her unresponsive hands as he held them. He looks up at her beautiful, open eyes and he shudders.
"Listen to me, please," she entreats.
"I'm listening."
"You keep trying to push me away, telling yourself that you're tainted, broken, stained. Please, please stop doing that. I know that you've done awful things, but they are not who you are. You can come back, you can find forgiveness."
"I don't even begin to know how," he says hollowly.
"You will find your way and I will be right beside you," she says firmly.
"You truly want that? You truly want … me?" He knows he's becoming quite repetitive, that she's said that she wants him, but he just can't bring himself to believe it.
"Yes, you impossible man. You can't take back what you said—I won't let you."
"I would never want to take it back, I meant every word. Seeing more of what your life was, not being able to protect you, hold you ... it tore me apart." He wonders how many other pieces of pain she will reveal to him?
"I know. I felt that, too."
"You don't … you don't mind being Bound to me?" Kylo asks cautiously.
"You can't hide from me now."
"I don't want to hide from you, I just … I can't bear the idea that I've trapped you in some way." He rubs his thumb along her palm and smiles at her answering squeeze.
"And if I want to be trapped?"
"Then I do not believe I could let you go."
"Good, because I won't let you."
We're almost done! Just one more chapter. And I could not do it without ... bet you can't guess ... the fabulous Meaghan M/Juulna, my marvelous beta and dear friend. She brings a new meaning to steadfast, let me tell you!
Thank you all so much for reading! I treasure every hit, follow, favorite, and review!
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