Sleep had finally taken Rey. One so black and deep, it came without images or memories to plague her. When she woke, she found Kylo Ren preparing food. His dark uniform was replaced with an off white tunic and drab trousers. Feeling and hearing the soft whispers of rustled silk, she looked down to see her attire had made a change. Those carbon black threads that were once soaked undetectably in blood were replaced. A cream colored gown, loose and elegant, held her frame carefully as if it knew just how delicate of a state she was currently in.

Though she felt well rested, there was a hollowness within her. A sense of self inflicted betrayal. She knew now what had happened. Whether instinctual or otherwise, she understood nonetheless. Initially, she was ignorant and spiraled into a panic. She had never seen so much blood or suffered that nature of discomfort and vertigo. Being without a mother or any maternal influence for that matter, Rey always had to awkwardly figure things out for her own.

The sheets along her cot had been removed, perhaps discarded. She looked around her home.

Her home.

Kylo did not grow up with the stinging sands or the beating sun. He didn't know what it took to survive such conditions, to scour the stretching desert during high noon because that was when it was less likely to be mugged or killed. He, especially, fell ignorant to the trials it were to be completely alone. And even within the confines of this acclaimed Walker, she felt ashamed that he was here now with her, stuck in the heat and desolation. She knew how Kylo Ren lived even before the First Order. Han Solo, the smuggler and the Rebel General. Leia Organa, a princess!

Rey didn't have to see him to know he was there, pausing in the doorway with the scorching desert light blotting out his features.

"What's happened to me?" Her voice was flat and lifeless, like her womb.

Kylo seemed to bristle under her sudden inquiry, but he obliged her and gently.

Reluctant, at first, to breathe life into the words of untimely death, he finally said. "We lost the child."

Her eyes narrowed while he cast his own to the floor. That was it. That's all he apparently had to offer Rey.

"Why do you look so guilty?" she spat. "Did you know this was going to happen?" It wasn't that he appeared guilty, it was that she felt it― like a fragrance so sweet, it was sickening.

His dark figure came through the door carefully. One step before the other.

A moment too long for Rey came and went and the fury she had been suppressing for days and weeks came rushing forward through her voice.

"Answer me!"

"Yes," he flinched, furrowing his brow while shame colored his cheeks. "I did, but I hoped it wouldn't."

"You hoped?" she gawked, "You?"

This formidable man; the last thing he ever did was hope. He plundered and pillaged. Burned and killed and raped people of their memories. He did not hope.

Rey felt herself becoming angrier as the seconds passed.

"So you never thought of warning me?" Her voice trembled. "This never crossed your mind?"

He met her with silence.

"So you knew the likelihood that I would lose this child and yet you didn't think once about warning me!"

"I thought it would make it." he murmured.

"You thought wrong!" she spat, tears brimming her eyes until she couldn't see. "What else are you keeping from me?"

Kylo seemed to shift under her glare. Even his own countenance shadowed with discomfort and frustration, but Rey found it difficult to feel pity. In truth, he had been there, braiding together their Force sensitivity beyond the void so that she would not burden the pain in isolation. But it wasn't enough. Since he had come crashing into her life, scaring her away from Jakku and cornering her upon Takodana, she felt it was nothing short of selfishness. Maybe her thoughts were erratic and arbitrary, or maybe she was onto something.

Rising, she carefully stood from her cot, testing the strength of her legs after earlier's transgression. Watching her, Kylo Ren regarded her evenly, still reeling from her harsh choice of words. She could read him now, see the apprehension that took refuge behind his eyes. Did she repulse him suddenly? Now that he knew she was unfit to sustain life within her? That she could no longer bare him children? Was she no longer any use to him?

"What do you want from me?" she asked suddenly, feeling more spiteful than curious. "Was I intended to be some Force-sensitively breeding machine? Did Snoke put you up to this?"

Her veins filled with ice and the anger continued to coil tightly, rearing an ugly head. She didn't want this. She wanted to remain on Jakku, salvaging or scavenging. But then she met Kylo and became pregnant like a lovestruck fool. And to think it was the catharsis they so adamantly needed and now, it was gone. What was there left for them? More darkness? More pain? Why couldn't Rey finally stop running or fighting and better yet, how many more lives would she have to take?

"Snoke told me to bring you to him," Kylo said, "I feared he'd see your ferocity and wish you dead. I didn't want that." He kept his eyes downcast to the floor.

He must be hiding something.

"Why?" her voice broke, "Why did it happen?"

Kylo Ren shook his head gently, pinching his lips tight as if the words were too sour to admit. "I'm afraid I can't tell you."

There he was with secrets again, she thought bitterly.

Rey approached him, looking up to meet his gaze and perhaps find what he was hiding. His eyes scoured her face before finally resting along her lips. He wanted to kiss her, she knew. Maybe he wasn't so repulsed but did he still love her?

Rey rose to her toes, pressing their chests together and snaking her arms around his shoulders. She kissed him and he kissed her back without protest, bringing his hands to rest along her hips.

"I never wanted this to happen to you," he admitted with a whisper against her mouth. "I'm sorry."

Breaking away, Rey brought her arms down so she could run her fingers through his dark curls. He leaned into her touch and closed his eyes. She loved him, she truly did but...

"It wasn't enough."

Her hands clutched the sides of his head as she delved into his mind in the most brutish of fashion, neither attempting careful extraction but absolute raw, searing effort. Rey knew it hurt him because it hurt her, as well, knocking a staggering blow through both knights. He gripped her, buckling at the knees and they both fell to the floor. Pulling him close as the pain locked his muscles from thrashing or being able to push her away, she cradled him.

She had done this before in their bedroom, but it didn't mean she knew exactly what to do. Furthermore, it hurt. So much so, her grip on his mind kept slipping but she held fast. She sifted and rifled, tore through his memories. His failures and successes. The images were a blur of tears, childlike screams. An absent mother and father. A dark, amorphous whisper that came from the back of his mind like a sweet lullaby. Then came the hatred and the despair. The inhibiting fear that Rey had grown to know very well within herself for that matter. She saw, and recognized at once, the Academy. Luke Skywalker, a folklore, and living and breathing myth. More hatred and fear that ran Rey's blood cold, or was that Kylo Ren's she was feeling? She pulled him closer, absentminded of the blood that began to trickle from their noses.

At any moment, he could have resisted her. She was powerful but still novice when it came to mind reading and he was far more deft with the ways than she. But alas, he did not and she couldn't stop the pain or the anguish or the sadness that enveloped them both.

And then...she saw a little girl of brown hair and chestnut eyes. So small and lost, with knotted braids racing through the corridors, evading her elders with a mischievous grin and little pitter-pattering feet.

She felt the arms that came out from hiding, scooping her up. Rey jerked but did not egress as she saw her smile only widened when the little boy found her.

"No!" She squealed as his fingertips danced up and down her sides until she cried with laughter. The locks of dark hair, the freckles that were now lost to age.

Rey remembered.

But soon the soft lighting that had told Rey of love and care and light was dulled by a deep, sinister shadow with flickering bouts of lightening. And the boy put her down and told her to be quiet, to never use the Force not matter how much she wanted to. That she held a precious gift within her, more than the Academy harbored and more than anything in the entire galaxy. She had to keep it locked away and safe only until..

"We meet again..." Kylo Ren whispered.

Rey released him and he fell out of her grasp coughing and heaving for breath. Blood had taken a gnarled path down his lips and chins, leaving several drops on his tunic. His eyes tinged red eyes were glistening and he trembled.

"I'm sorry!" his voice broke as he gasped. "I'm sorry!"

Rey was stunned.

She didn't move as he tried to gather himself, nor did she rise to her own feet.

The metallic tang of blood sat on her tongue, resonating with the vivid images of young Kylo Ren holding a little Rey. The transporter that came directly before the bloodshed. The secret to her lineage...

"You did this...", she sounded far away and cold. "You brought me here."

this chapter STRESSED ME OUT. thank you for the patience, truly. Also, I appreciate the reviews BetterInTexas and the number of guest(s) and their kind words!