In a galaxy light years away,
on a planet as green as his is blue,
in a hut as peaceful as his throne room is ravaged,
Rey sleeps, unaware of the figure looming over her,
watching her.
Her fingers twitch, her lips part, forming unspoken words. She tosses from side to side as an outside force roughly yanks her away from her dreams, wrenches her into reality.
Her eyes fly open. A silent cry escapes her lips as she abruptly shoots up, scrambling to her feet in a retreat. Her hand reaches up, reaches out. A low hum fills the air as her lightsaber leaps from the ground, into her hand.
Wrapping her hand about its familiar form, she brushes the trigger, but restrains herself from igniting the blade.
Of all the times for him to invade her privacy. "Do you mind?"
...
Kylo almost wishes she hadn't woken. She seemed restful, lying on the ground at his feet, a figure of calm in the ruin. Now she stands before him, as battle wearied as his surroundings.
"Do you mind?" she asks again, each word punctuated like a slap. He does his best to not look too long at the simple shift she is wearing. It hangs baggy over grey leggings.
He's reminded of the time she found him half dressed. An uncomfortable encounter for them both. An embittered laugh slips from him before he can stop it.
"Of course you blame me," he mutters, though he knows that he did not ask for this. She won't believe him if he insists on innocence; why try to convince her?
...
Rey scowls at him, standing there all tall and drenched. He's dripping water all over her mattress. Wherever he is, it's wet. That narrows it down to some hundred planets. Maybe he'll catch a cold. At least he's fully clothed. At least she is too. "I will forever demand the right to blame you for everything wrong that happens."
He gives a smile that's just a shade too eager. "So, you believe there's a forever for us?"
...
Kylo hates how eager he sounds. He's not the only one. The whispers rage again, roaring in his ears, a painful clamouring that forces him to his knees, forces the muscles in his face to clench.
His hatred changes, new loathing rising for how weak he must appear to her. Weakness he has fought so long to conceal.
"Ben?" Her voice echoes through the whispers, dispersing them, freeing him.
...
Rey almost lunges across the room to kneel at his side, to help him.
But then she remembers. All the ones he killed, all the ones he tried to kill.
The urge subsides, as quick as it came, an urge she chooses to blame him for as well.
She does not hurry to him, but her shoulders do drop, relaxing in their stance, her brows resting low over her eyes.
Kylo rises slowly from the ground, his head turned away from her, his gaze pointedly averted.
"Where are you?" she asks, wanting to take advantage of his state.
...
Kylo's shoulders tense. His gaze shifts towards her, meeting her eyes without reproach. He's impressed that she's trying to wheedle this information from him. "You first."
She shivers within the throne room, chimes twinkling around her, a soft background music. "There's no point to this," she says, her voice suddenly tired.
...
Rey doesn't mean to sound tired. The force moves through her, filling her with energy. Adrenaline doesn't lack, but her heart is wearied trying to conceal how it beats harder every time he comes. For all her wishes that he would leave her be, for all her knowledge that he won't change, every time he shows his face she hopes that this will be the one moment that brings him to her side.
"We've said all we had to say," she continues. He just stares at her, dripping onto the floor, a wild wind gusting through his soaked locks of ebony hair. "Unless you have something new—"
"I don't." His eyes glint, his fist clenching tighter around some object she can't see. Red light escapes through the cracks in his gloves.
...
Kylo follows her eyes down to his hand, to the glow slipping out. For a second, he imagines opening his palm, showing her what he holds, having her react, seeing what she will do, if she will feel the power there. Maybe she would move to strike him down. Maybe she would make this difficult choice easy.
His fist stays clenched. "How do I know you aren't the one bridging us?"
"I was sleeping," she says, folding her arms defensively. Her withering stare brings out the strength in her face, the curves of her jawline. He keeps forgetting how intimidating she can be.
...
"Maybe your dreams of me called us together," he suggests.
Rey balks at the ghost of a grin on his lips. Is he...? He can't be... "I don't dream of you. I never... I can't stand the sight of you."
That strikes the grin from his face, his mouth thinning as he turns away from her again. "I hear chimes."
It's enough to to warn her that the connection is growing, that he might be able to see her surroundings, to summon a clue from something as insignificant as the circle of cylinders dangling in her hut.
...
Her darting eyes betray the anxiety within her. Kylo feels it trembling through him too. If he can keep this connection open a little longer, maybe he will know, maybe he will see...
But then the world is shifting, the chimes dimming, her presence slipping. She's fading, forcing this to its end, as she always does.
"There's a reason this keeps happening," he calls after her.
...
His voice echoes, dim around her, as his body begins to bleed into his surroundings.
"I don't care why. I just want it to stop. Make it stop," Rey orders him, knowing that he's to blame, that his mind is the one that seeks her out. Never once in the last year did she draw him to her. And for all her attempts to close her mind, she can never stop the initial contact, only end it.
As she will now.
Turning her back on him, the world shifts back into focus, his presence fleeing like a pressure easing.
Not before he leaves her his final words, "I'm trying."
...
Alone again in the throne room, Kylo uncurls his fist. The gem pulses there, its light growing again ever more intense.
... take what is yours ... it will free you ...
He lifts the gem up, holds it within an inch of his face, on the precipice of acceptance. Breathe it in. Claim it. Then she will stop coming to him. Then he will stop wanting her to come. Wanting her to convince him to change.
... take ... take ... take ...
He falters. In that second when he can find resolve, he loses his nerve.
There's no rush. There's time to decide. For now, he will wait.
... coward ...
Kylo shrugs and slides the gem into his pocket.