Kylo woke up on the Death Star the next morning, cold, rain-soaked, and alone. Alone.

He certainly hadn't been alone when he fell asleep. Rey had been in his arms, and they had been cold and broken together.

Now Kylo didn't feel her at all, not even the slightest lingering of her presence.

He stood, walked around the metallic surface of the Death Star, and wondered where Rey could've gone now.

He half-heartedly searched around the Death Star remnants for another few minutes, finally coming to terms that Rey had left him.

Obviously, Kylo wasn't the slightest surprised that she had disappeared— she was a scavenger after all; unreliable, fickle, wild. It ran in her blood, just like murder ran in his.

Kylo was just surprised he had managed to hold onto her for so long. Knowing Rey, she would be gone for a good few days now.

Part of Kylo was relieved. But all the more, he felt disappointed. He wasn't exactly sure why.

Kylo Ren returned directly to base from the Death Star. He didn't bother stopping to look for Rey. If she didn't want to be found, hunting her down would be futile.

Ben had learned this in their early days together, when Rey was a Rebellion fighter and Kylo was her greatest adversary.

Back then, Rey had still believed in the lie called justice.

She knew better now, and so did Kylo. There was no justice in the world, no crime. Just humanity, in its purest form, at its most raw.

In one way or another, they were all monsters.

Two days later, Kylo found Rey back at the base, acting completely normal and carrying out her usual duties with uncanny composure. Obviously hiding something but hiding it well.

He didn't ask where she'd been gone for the past two days.

She didn't tell him.

Life went on.

After Rey's return from her little escapade, Ben suggested to her that they wait to kill Palpatine after the Rebellion is less of a problem. It would make things easier, he said. They'd have one less thing to worry about.

Rey just nodded and walked away. She was too tired to care anymore.

Rey and Kylo Ren didn't speak much for the next few days. They agreed that it would seem too conspicuous if they were seen together. People might start smelling treachery.

That was a lie, a pitiful excuse just to avoid each other. But what did it matter? The past was dead, and so was truth. The best thing to do was to keep on living an ordinary, mundane life, distracting themselves with frivolous thoughts and trivial problems.

To do this, Rey and Kylo went through their normal routines, day by day, thinking as little as possible and feeling even less.

Training, flying, killing, and more killing.

Rey was almost getting used to the stench of blood on her hands and heart.

Kylo tried in vain to get used to the dead void in Rey's once-living eyes.

After two weeks of blissful silence, talking became an alien notion. Something other people enjoyed but not them.

People spoke languages such as Shyriiwook and Huttese. Some people understood the incomprehensible Droidspeak.

Rey and Ben spoke Silence. Fluently.

Words were useless, after all. Rey could tell Kylo everything he needed to know in just one glance, a fleeting gesture. And she could read him like a book, if she wanted to.

Words were meaningless anyways. Every last confession of their's had already been spoken (screamed). Every last insult had hit its mark and burned. There was nothing left to say, no plans unplanned.

The tracks for their coup d'état were laid and ready. Palpatine was going down, and the dark throne would be theirs.

All that was left now was to wait and wear their betrayal behind a mask called "loyalty."

If war was a storm that kills everything in its path, then it is approaching, quickly.

The First Order intercepted plans for a Resistance all-out attack, and immediately began making preparations for its own.

Things were progressing at an alarming rate, too fast.

If everything went as planned, the Resistance would fall and the Empire would rise victorious at last.

But Rey knew better. She knew that the Empire's time to fall would come just as surely as the Rebellion's. War was like that. War wouldn't care if you were a virtuous soul that didn't deserve to die. It wouldn't care if you were strong, the strongest.

In war, everybody is on equal footing.

In war, nobody really wins.

Rey and Kylo Ren stood together, looking out the window of the command ship and watching a small troop of Resistance fighters burn.

In only a few short months they would joins those ships on the battlefield. Rey wondered if she would burn, too.

Kylo shifted his gaze from the glass and turned to his companion. "Are you scared?" he asked Rey. His words were light and casual-sounding, but the meaning behind them wasn't.

Rey's eyes widened behind her mask, shaken by the sound of Ben's voice after so long. She'd forgotten how much she had missed his deep, abyssal voice. And how much she hated it.

"… No," she answered, her voice coarse from misuse. "I'm not."

"Good," Ben said, smiling behind his mask. "Because I am."

Rey blinked her eyes once, twice in disbelief. "Scared of what?" she asked dubiously.

"Of losing."

Rey laughed and pressed a hand to the cold glass. "Does it really matter?" she asked softly. "We have nothing left to lose."

They stood in silence for a long time, watching the explosions in the sky as if they were fireworks. As the last Resistance ship turned to fire and ash, Kylo looked away and said,

"I do."

Realization dawned on Rey and her heartbeat thundered to life in her chest after being dead for so long.

Do you still want to die? Ben asked Rey as he lay awake at night, unable to sleep because the silence was too loud.

Rey didn't answer at once, but he knew she was awake. Kylo could feel her fatigued eyes staring blankly into nothingness, seeing things that weren't there.

Why do you ask? Rey questioned, speaking to the shadows more than him.

That day on the Death Star. You told me you wanted to die.

Rey closed her eyes in remembrance.

I did say that, didn't I?

Kylo nodded, his lips pressed tightly shut. The room was so dark he might as well be blind.

Is it true? He croaked, whispered:

… Do you?

Rey's lips were so dry that when she bit them she drew blood.

I don't know, she answered truthfully. She wrapped the darkness around her like a blanket and closed her eyes, ready to escape into some dream or distant nightmare.

Apparently, Kylo had different ideas.

Are you feeling better now? he asked, some kind of distorted concern in his words as he asked her about that fateful night on the Death Star.

Rey shook her head, already drifting off. No… Not better, she said dully.

… Different.

Whether different was better or not, that was the question. But whether he was ready for it or not, Kylo Ren was going to witness just how "different" Rey could become.

He would watch her flower and bloom like a black lily she was, and then wither and die.

Kylo wondered, if Rey would pull him down along with her in death, or if he would be the one to have plucked her at the very end.

At night, Kylo lay awake, terrified. He was scared of losing Rey.

And all the more scared of losing himself.

Rey thought about how pleasant it would be to let it all go, to actually die. There would be no more pain, no more feeling. No more color.

Rey wondered if she even wanted to kill herself, and if she was strong enough to do it.

She thought maybe not.

But soon.