Summary: Kira Ren has ascended to Supreme Leader, leaving both her and Ben Solo bewildered with their continuing bond. While the distance between them is greater than ever before, their bond overcomes their disparities to draw them into an inescapable intimacy. Meanwhile, their allies face the repercussions of the conflict between and within the First Order and the Resistance. The choices they make will have far-reaching impact for the long-lasting struggle between their respective sides.

Or, a re-imagining of the last chapter of the Skywalker saga, if Rey had been the one to fall to the Dark.

The fourth installment of Light Rises and Darkness to Meet It ~ Updates every two weeks

A/N: Hello, welcome! Just a forewarning of sorts, this is the fourth part of a series beginning with my story MFCIY, also posted here. If you're confused by this story, that may be why. Also this chapter is atypical for my storytelling format and I'm still not sure if I like it. Next chapter will be business as usual, but please leave a review to let me know what you think!

The first time, after everything, neither of them had had words.

They'd more than enough the last time, hadn't they?

Yet there was so much left unspoken. The air was fraught with the weight of it. At least they weren't screaming at each other with tear-blurred eyes.

Ben took advantage of the silence to look at her, really look at her. Rey looked strong, after everything. Her eyes were hard and the line of her mouth firm. Her eyebrows drew together as she returned his look, the muscle in her jaw jumping.

She didn't fit into the scenery behind her, a dark smudge against the tangle of vibrant plants and fungi practically glowing in the sunlight. The light didn't seem to touch her.

Ben set aside the plate of foodstuff he'd pilfered from the base's kitchen. He hadn't joined the others in the dining hall because he hadn't wanted to bother with conversation. They'd been all too eager to talk to him once they figured out who he was to Leia. Ben hadn't wanted to talk to them about his mother. He could barely talk to Leia, but that was okay for both of them. They could both appreciate the silence together.

But now, with Rey glowering at him, he still didn't think he wanted a conversation, except maybe he'd try for her. Because damn did he want.

He stood from rock-like fungus he'd chosen as a seat to eat his dinner. Rey eyed him, judging him. He took a step forward, his mouth parting as he tried to think of something to say – anything, really, if just to hear her voice.

She turned away and scoffed, the echo of it harsh and sharp in the boundaries of the bond.

He snarled, summoning the half-eaten plate of protein paste and vitamin sauce to his hand, and hurled it at her back.

She was gone, the congealed foodstuff splattering across the fronds covering the forest floor.

Ben growled in frustration and kicked his seat with passion, his boot rebounding abruptly from the tough spongy growth.

"Kriff," he hissed, partially because of the pain radiating from his foot, partially chagrin at having thrown his dinner at the Supreme Leader like a schoolchild.

Mostly because of the ache in his heart.

She appeared while he was meditating, feet tucked underneath him and eyes closed as he knelt in the bunkroom.

Ben had taken up meditating for its practical benefit while living with the Resistance: if anyone happened upon him while he was in his contemplative pose, they didn't dare to disturb him because they assumed he was engaged in some mysterious Jedi practice that required no interruptions.

He didn't correct them. He definitely wanted no interruptions because he got enough of those whenever he set foot outside the bunkroom. He sure as kriff wasn't trying to commune with anyone who had passed on – he'd given up on ever reaching his grandfather and he had nothing to say to his uncle. He kept his own company, and that was exhausting enough.

He listened to Rey's breathing for a minute, the soft noise loud with the rest of the sounds wiped out within the bond connection. The pattern was even, almost soothing, but as he waited, it quickened perceptibly. Then it sharpened a hiss.

"At least look at me. This is pathetic, even for you."

He didn't want to give in, which was juvenile, he knew. But the last time he'd seen her was not an hour ago during a Resistance briefing, her likeness in flickering blue projected from the holotable. Why he was invited to the briefing, he didn't know. Dameron wasn't invited, although Finn and Rose were both present. He hadn't bothered to learn anyone else's name, or rather he'd made a conscious decision not to remember them. His mother had presided over the discussion he hadn't heard, acknowledging him with a brief smile before they were both absorbed in the content of the briefing.

The footage they had showed Kira Ren plowing through insurgents, scattering their corpses like chaff before a gale. It had been terrifying. It had been heartbreaking.

He'd told Leia he couldn't help them, and he'd walked away.

Rey scoffed and Ben's eyes snapped open to find her glaring down at him. He startled; Rey was closer than he anticipated. He could smell the tang of iron and smoke on her clothes.

"Since when do you meditate?"

His mouth opened.

"Don't kriffing answer that. It was rhetorical."

Rey strode past him and he scrambled out of the way, keeping her in his sight. She pulled off her gloves and tossed them away, wrenching the cloak from her shoulders.

"Do you think this will keep happening? This... bond?" she said.

He watched her silently as she removed her outermost layers, made from finer materials than he remembered, befitting her elevated status.

"That one wasn't rhetorical," she snapped.

"I... don't know." He rose to his feet. "I'm not causing this."

Rey turned back to him, her eyes still furious. "If not us, then what?"

Ben started to retort but she vanished when he blinked, as though she'd never been.

A week later, when he was once again in a meditative pose, he began to wonder if she was on to something. The bond was them; they were the bond. Of that he was suddenly sure. And the bond was the strongest manifestation of the Force he'd ever known.

Ben ran a hand through his hair, pacing beneath the Falcon in the dark. It was probably about midnight, or maybe later; it had been a while since he checked a chrono. The insects were still maintaining an incessant drone that did nothing to assuage his burgeoning headache. He reached the end of his path and spun on his heel, nearly crashing into her as the nighttime chorus was cut off by the abrupt presentation of the bond.

"Karking hell," he spluttered, staggering back.

Rey crossed her arms. "You're distracted."

He glowered, although he doubted she could see him clearly in the gloom. But she could feel it, he was sure. Their emotions were more tangible in the bond, even more so than in person. Everything felt raw, exposed.

"I need to find answers," he said vaguely.

The silence stretched out, more acute in the confines of the bond.

She sighed. "What are you going to do?"

Ben struggled with what and how much to say. Something about how the bond drew them in, kept them alone together, made him want to reach out to her. Rey was still bitter, though; he could feel it. He ran a hand through his hair. "I'm leaving."

"Leaving?"

He nodded. "Leaving the Resistance. I can't find what I need here." He looked away. "Anyway, I didn't mean to stay so long."

"You're good at that. Leaving." It was flippant, a reflex. But that reflex had been learned.

He crushed his anger before he'd say something stupid in response. She wasn't wrong. He knew how it looked, how familiar it was for him to disappear and he hated it. He wanted to explain so badly that this time was different, that he had done it for her and not because of his fear, but that would only sound like the old excuses so he held his tongue.

She came closer so he could see the glitter of her eyes in the darkness. "Where will you go?"

His heart seized. Her simmering anger scaled him. You, he wanted to say. I'll come back to you, if you still want me.

But he had burned that bridge, hadn't he?

And, more significantly, he had a task now. One that he hoped would lead to her, eventually.

"I see." She made a frustrated noise. "You're right not to trust me."

"It's not that –"

"Oh, so you trust me?"

I think so, despite everything.

She must have sensed his conflict because she snarled, "Stars, you're an idiot."

"Did you just realize that?" he drawled, withdrawing.

She hissed, the sound of her displeasure merging with the insects as she faded away.

He almost lurched forward as if to snatch her to himself, to explain to her that I'm doing this for us, this is for us I think, can't you understand that? But again, echoes of his past mistakes would make the words hollow, so he let her go without a struggle.

Ben stretched out on the Falcon's bunk, switching on the glowpanel to its dimmest setting. He had been giving sleep his best attempt for several hours, but pretending wasn't good enough to trick his insomnia. The past few nights had been similarly unrestful.

It gave his thoughts plenty of time to run wild and wreak havoc on his emotional equilibrium. Not that his emotions had resembled anything close to an equilibrium in years, but at night he was forced to give up any pretense.

As much as he pretended to avoid news of the First Order, it was inevitable to avoid it altogether. The rapid consolidation of power with the newly ratified treaties and the harshly executed conquests made for excellent headlines and conversation fodder everywhere he went. He could hardly not hear about how the First Order had been disastrously stymied in the Sloo system by a former Crimson Dawn cell, which should have been an easy win. It was an embarrassment, to be sure.

He wondered if Rey was alright.

If he wasn't thinking about that, it was his research, which had been a jumbled mess. Maz had only been able to give him the barest hint of a lead to begin his inquiries, but between the fall of the Republic and then the Empire and the general lack of precedent, he really had gotten no further in his quest to understand the bond and what it meant. What had started as a puzzle had become an obsession.

His mother wanted him back, he could tell from their regular holocalls that it wasn't enough to just talk to him. She wanted him back and not just for how he could help the Resistance, which was struggling, but to be each other's support. They were the only family they had now.

But he couldn't let this go. Sometimes, like now, in the furthest hours of the night, it would frighten him, the not knowing. It made him sick to his stomach to wonder at its significance, made his head ache to stress over its consequences. Maybe he had been looking for the wrong sources.

Maybe for once the bond knew he was thinking about it. He felt it coming, rising softly in his awareness like ripples on a lake, growing into a wave that overtook and doused him with that unique sense of her, a singularity in the Force.

He sat up, the bedding twisted around him. "Do you still have it?"

Rey was coiled in her own blankets, her back aligned rigidly against the wall. She looked exhausted, her eyes slightly unfocused, her hair an unbound mass over her shoulder. He wondered if she was in her own rooms, or on a shuttle, or some borrowed accommodations planetside.

"Have what?" she asked flatly.

"The pearl," he said. "The pearl I gave you."

Her lips pressed together. "Yes."

"How'd you get it?"

"They took it from you on Starkiller, when you were processed for interrogation."

"Oh."

"How'd you get it? I thought I'd lost it."

Seeing her out of context, he could remember other late nights, sitting on the steps of the Temple, wrapped in the rough quilts of the Academy. They had been just children. So much time had elapsed, separating them from simpler times, although they'd seemed complicated at the time.

"I found it the day after you left Alaris Prime."

"Ah."

"Have you ever wondered why?"

"What kind of question is that?" she scoffed.

"It's always been you." He said it plainly, his gaze unwavering.

She turned slightly, so that she was in profile to him, soft against the glowpanel. He studied her, the curve of her jaw to her throat, the point of her brow to her nose.

"You felt things as I do. Even before we met, across lightyears I knew you were there, understanding how I experienced life. I felt you."

"I was just a child then. How could I have known anything about your life? I didn't even know your name."

"But you knew me."

She didn't respond to that. They both knew it was true even though it should've been impossible.

"Those first nights, on Chandrila..." He drifted off; he didn't have to say it. They were both remembering. How she had been fighting her awakening in the Force, wrestling with the Dark Side, and she had clung to him, the only familiar thing in a strange, new world. How had they known each other, even then.

"I was desperate and frightened and lonely," she offered. "You were the strongest Force sensitive nearby. It was convenient."

"Convenient like hell," he chuckled, then stopped as his own amused noise echoed awkwardly in the bond. "You're the least convenient thing that's ever happened to me."

"I was a child," she retorted, but it wasn't defensive. It might have also been amused.

"So was I," he pointed out.

"I always wanted to make my own choices," she said. "That's all I wanted, to know that I was in control."

He watches her look down at her hands, twisted in the blanket.

"What if I make the wrong choices?" she whispered.

"You could leave," he said quietly.

That was the wrong thing to say.

"No," she snapped. She rose to her feet, the covers dropping away. She was still wearing her armor, minus the cape and gloves and thick robes that made up her uniform. It was flexible, molded to her form like an exoskeleton. She had no soft edges, scowling at him across the room. "If you're having regrets, don't put them on me."

"You said –"

"I said nothing of the sort."

He stared at her, his jaw tight. "Fine."

She smirked cruelly. "Fine."

The next time they connected, neither acknowledged the other.

Ben didn't even bother turning around, focusing furiously on the datapad where he had compiled all his research notes. It took a concerted effort to ignore her within the activated bond, especially when his theories told him that he wouldn't be able to ignore her, at least not for long.

Because it would be like ignoring a part of himself.

The bond was much more than he had previously imagined.

But because he was a stubborn bastard, he gave his best shot at ignoring her simmering presence.

He regretted it as soon as she vanished, leaving him alone.

It had been almost a month, but he was ready when he felt the bond drawing them together.

"What the hell do you think you're trying to do?" he hissed at her.

She spun the staff idly in her hand. She looked thinner with hollow eyes and flat cheeks, but maybe it was just the way her hair clung with sweat to her reddened face. She was wearing her training gear, clearly having exerted herself just recently. "I don't think I'm trying to do anything. I'm Supreme Leader."

"You nearly killed my mother!"

She crossed her bare arms, glaring up at him. "The Resistance is interfering with the First Order's objectives. I did what I needed to, and I'll continue to do what I must."

"No," Ben growled. "You don't touch her. Understand? If you're angry at me, hit me. Not her."

Rey's nostrils flared.

More quietly, he said, "I know you don't want to kill her."

Leia hadn't told Ben how close it had been when they'd talked. He'd had to hear it from Finn, who told him in a low voice how the Knights of Ren had nearly blown up Leia's transport before they'd been able to make the jump to hyperspace. It was incredible the starship didn't disintegrate on the way, limping through deep space.

Rey looked away. "Who says I'm angry at you?" she asked.

He jerked his shoulders in a stiff shrug. "You're always angry at me."

"You'd like to think that, wouldn't you?"

He narrowed his eyes. "What's that supposed to mean?"

She waved a hand dismissively. "It was just a show of strength. The High Command demanded –" She stopped herself, then admitted, "I wouldn't have let them hurt her."

He scoffed. "I don't care. You're not to hurt her, you're not to touch her either."

"Well, if you're so eager to offer yourself up in her stead, why are you running away from me?"

"I'm not."

"Don't pretend I don't know what you're doing. Running all over the galaxy, always got your nose in a holobook, trying to read the answer to all our problems and fix whatever has us hobbled to each other."

"That's not what I'm doing."

"Isn't it?"

"No. I'm not running from you, Rey."

"You keep saying that. You made it very clear last time you wanted to leave."

He sighed. "I can't run away from you. And I don't want to, either. I just want to understand this." He waved at the space around them.

She rolled her eyes. "You're an idiot," she muttered.

"So I've heard."

Rey turned away. "I promise you Leia won't be harmed."

His eyes slid down her form unconsciously. "Thank you."

"Hmm." She turned and caught him looking. She smirked, her sallow expression brightening for just a second. "It's not a favor that you have to thank me for."

He glanced away, and when he looked back, she was gone.

The bond awakened just after dawn on the planet where he was currently holed up. He barely glanced up from the stacks of parchment he'd been reading through, but he was forced to do a double-take when he caught sight of her position.

"Rey?"

She seemed to be collapsed in on herself, sitting on the floor with her head on her arms. He hadn't realized he had stood and walked towards her until his hand almost brushed her shoulder.

"Switch off, Ben."

He stalled his movement, confused and concerned at the lack of venom in her tone.

"It's so kriffing annoying," she groaned.

He clenched his hand, forcing it back to his side. "What?"

"This bond," she snapped, raising her hand to scrape a hand over her face. "No respect for privacy." Her voice cracked on the last word.

Ben shifted his weight. He couldn't leave her, even if he wanted to. The bond wouldn't release them until it was satisfied. And anyway, he didn't want to leave her.

"How are you?" he queried hesitantly.

She scoffed. "What kind of asinine question is that?"

He grimaced. "What do you want me to ask?"

She lifted her bloodshot eyes to his. "Not that."

"Well..."

"Are you happy?"

He collapsed gracelessly to sit cross-legged beside her, facing the opposite way than she was. "Now who's asking the dumb questions?"

"Is this what you wanted?"

"No." He shrugged. "But I've never gotten what I wanted, so."

He felt her scrutinizing his face. "What do you want?"

His eyes darted to hers, feeling his breath catch in his chest. "Things I can't have."

"You could have, if you let yourself."

Kriff if she didn't sound a little desperate. "Maybe," he said, reaching up to drag the parchments to the edge of the table and rolling them up. They hadn't told him anything he didn't know already.

"Did you find the answers you were looking for?"

He grimaced. "Maybe. I don't know."

"And?"

His gaze flickered up to hers again. He was drawn into her hazel eyes, so wide and open she could've been eighteen again, asking him to choose her rather than his fears.

"Rey –"

But she was already gone.