Rey was already up and out of the hut when Ben awoke the following morning. He found her huddled in his cloak outside, sitting on the low stone wall and partaking of the breakfast the caretakers had laid out.

He took a piece of fruit and joined her. "Comfortable?"* he asked mildly, observing the way the bulky cloak was folded and piled around her.

She grinned impishly and nodded, tugging the fabric closer.

He smiled in amusement. "I thought after breakfast, I might show you something before we start training for the day."

Her expression brightened. "Is it where you went yesterday?"

He nodded.

They finished eating and set off. The morning was clear and mild, with the promise of warmth on the way. Without the cover of fog, they could fully appreciate the views afforded along the hike. Ben delighted in Rey's awe as she took in the soaring heights of the mountain, the raging depths of the sea, and the distance of the far-off horizon.

The temple came into view up ahead. He led her into the towering structure, through the entrance and the vaulted corridors. She observed it all with the same sense of reverence as he'd felt the day before.

They came to the room with the mosaic pool, and Rey knelt by the rim to look into the water. "It's the Jedi symbol," she realized aloud, looking up at him for confirmation.

He nodded.

She looked around at the vast space. "Then this is…"

"An ancient Jedi temple," he supplied, completing her thought. "Probably the temple the Jedi of old visited on their pilgrimages to Ahch-To."

"Incredible," she breathed.

"Come look at this," he beckoned, moving toward the sunlit doorway.

She followed him, and gasped audibly when she saw what lay beyond. Ben leaned his shoulder against the rock and hung back as she ventured out onto the ledge, seemingly unfazed by the staggering height. She turned around in a circle, taking it all in with an expression of awe.

"This is amazing!" she exclaimed, beaming back at him. She gazed back out at the ocean. "I didn't realize there was this much water in the whole galaxy…"*

He folded his arms across his chest as he watched her. "Some planets are entirely covered in water. Some even in ice."

"There isn't another land mass anywhere," she observed. "This is the only one. It's so strange, though. I feel so…"

"Isolated?"

She shook her head, and turned back to him. "Safe," she murmured. She studied him thoughtfully, then smiled. "Let's meditate here."

There wasn't much room on the jutting rock, so they adopted their usual arrangement, sitting knee to knee, relaxing their hands palm-up in their laps and closing their eyes. Ben found it easy to fall into meditation here, with the sound of the crashing waves below, the feel of the gentle breeze upon his skin, and Rey's comforting presence calming him.

The Force was strong in this place, surrounded by nature and beauty and light. As he let go, it rushed over and around him, into him, through him. Every breath carried that life-force with it. He could feel the porgs, the blades of grass, the birds above and the sea creatures below; he could feel the dead and decaying creatures sinking into the soil, and the fresh new flora that was fueled from them. He could feel Han, Luke, Chewie, and Finn, all down at the village. He could feel the caretakers as they moved about the island. He could feel Rey, the effervescent awareness of her proximity, her breath, her heartbeat, her life.

He sat back, happy to observe in silence as her life force swirled and eddied about, taking in the world around her, discovering for herself the connections between the living, the dead, and everything in between. She was like the sea mist, light and refreshing against the shadows of the world.

He'd been lulled into a false sense of peace when, without warning, that effervescence suddenly turned and rushed directly at him. This time, it was no accident. He gasped in surprise and reflexively jerked away. He hadn't realized she would know to do that, let alone be mindful enough to even detect his presence.

When he recoiled, so did she. But then she reached out again, more forcefully this time, thrusting her awareness at him. Her energy was a strong, graceless push, crashing over him like a wave, tingling across his awareness with the abrasive sting of sand. He flinched at the overpowering sensation and automatically threw up his mental walls against the onslaught. And to think he'd been afraid of invading her mind! Oh Force, she couldn't be allowed to see—

…Ben?

He knew instinctively that he hadn't heard her with his ears. Her voice spoke against his hastily-erected barriers, through the Force into the very essence of him.

Oh, no.

This was bad. Very bad.

But stars above, he couldn't deny her.

Heart pounding, he slowly lowered the walls, hoping he wouldn't regret this later, that she wouldn't push too far and see too much. As long as he was careful, maybe it would be okay. She had sought him out, after all. And he'd wanted to reconnect their bond for so long…

Yes? he murmured into the Force.

I can feel you. Her tone was full of wonder.

Unbidden, his lips tugged into a broad smile. Stars above, he'd missed this. He knew he must look like an idiot, but he didn't care.

I can feel you, too.

I can't feel the others when I'm with them. I can't feel Luke, or Leia. Only you.

I know.

"Why?" she asked aloud.

He opened his eyes and found her watching him, eyes wide and wondering. Fearful. Hopeful.

Hopeful for what, though?

Dare he tell her?

"Because… we're a dyad," he whispered.

The breath immediately rushed out of him, and his shoulders tensed up in preparation for her rejection. He'd said it. He'd admitted it out loud. To her.

But she wasn't running. She wasn't crying or screaming or hurling rocks at him. She was sitting silently, a slight furrow between her brows, waiting for him to continue.

His palms were sweaty. He flipped them over to dry them on his knees. "It's a rare occurrence in the Force, but not without precedent," he explained, defaulting into academic mode. "Not much is known about them, or how or why they form, especially as there hasn't been one for generations, long before the era of the New Republic…"

He realized he was babbling, and snapped his mouth shut. But Rey seemed to take no notice.

"You mean we share a—a connection?" she asked. "Some sort of bond?"

You mean, I'm no longer alone?

He wasn't sure if the projection of her thoughts had been subconscious or intentional, but he heard them loud and clear. His throat tightened at the wistfulness in her tone.

"You aren't alone anymore,"* he breathed.

She bit her lip, and studied him for a moment before replying, "Neither are you."*

It was nearly his undoing. His breath faltered, and the backs of his eyes burned. How long had he waited to hear those words again? A surge of hope swelled so strong within him that his chest ached. He knew she wasn't his Rey, not yet, but she was here with him. She saw him. It was a step in the right direction.

He took a steadying breath and gave her a small, heartfelt smile. "Come on. We have a lot more training to do today."

…

They left the temple and started back down the stairs.

"How did you know we were a dyad?"

Ben looked down at her, where she was walking along beside him. "I figured it out," he answered carefully.

She smirked at him. "Yes, I realize that, but how?"

"I… came across the idea years ago, actually." It was technically true, after all. "I'd only heard of Force bonds before that, but a true dyad is different, so I did some reading on the subject."

"What's the difference?"

"Well, take Luke and Leia, for example. As twins, they have a naturally-occurring Force bond, which is a derivative of the Rule of Two. They are able to speak to one another over great distances, and feel what the other feels."

Rey's brow furrowed. "But… they are brother and sister."

He saw where her train of thought was headed. "We aren't related," he promised.

"I feel like we are already able to do some of those things," she said. "Like yesterday, when you came into the hut, I could practically feel your emotions roiling. What happened?"

He shook his head as he recalled the events of the day before. "Nothing. Luke and Han just know how to push my buttons." He hesitated, then quietly continued. "To my understanding, with dyads, the connection runs deeper than with an ordinary bond. There is a… a shared identity within the Force. Two… that are one."

She fell quiet as they kept walking.

He glanced down at her uneasily. Blast it, he'd said too much. He didn't want her to feel forced into this. He knew he should've kept his mouth shut. Kriff it all…

After a while, she asked, "How long have you known we were a dyad?"

He pursed his lips. That was a loaded question. "A while."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Her expression and tone betrayed nothing, but somehow, he was still left with the impression that she'd been hurt by his secrecy.

He sighed, and stopped walking. She stopped too.

"Because I wasn't sure if you were ready to hear it yet," he told her honestly.

"Why wouldn't I have been ready?"

"What would you have thought if I had come to you, right after I'd met you, and told you that we shared a connection?"

"Maybe I would've realized earlier I was no longer alone in the galaxy," she argued, her voice starting to rise.

"Or maybe you would've been frightened," he countered. "Or thought I was insane. Not everyone would appreciate knowing their very essence is melded to someone else's whom they'd just met and they had no say in it." Especially to mine.

She regarded him thoughtfully. For a tense moment, he wondered if she'd heard his thoughts as he'd heard hers earlier.

"In any case," he added more softly, "I am sorry for not saying something sooner."

She sighed, and met his gaze. "It's okay," she replied in kind. "You did it for the right reasons."

And just like that, he was forgiven. He could feel it; she genuinely and fully forgave him. Never in his life had his wrongs been pardoned so quickly or easily. It was a heady feeling.

They continued down the steps. The day had indeed grown warm, now that the sun was high overhead. Not even the persistent breeze was enough to dispel the building heat. Beside him, Rey drew off his cloak and bundled it over her arms.

After a while, she spoke again. "Did you know about our bond in your vision?"

Ben's sense of security dissolved like a puff of smoke. If her previous inquiry had been loaded, this one was a veritable minefield. "Er… yes," he replied reluctantly.

"So, we knew each other?"

"Yes."

"Were we friends?"

This conversation was quickly heading in a direction he'd wanted to avoid. "Um. Yes and no."

She frowned up at him. "What do you mean?"

His sense of impending doom was increasing by the second. "It's… complicated," he said with a slow shrug, hoping to give off an air of unconcern that might stop her line of interrogation. "But the situation is different now. The previous circumstances no longer apply. We're friends now, right?" He desperately hoped the sudden tension in his voice went unnoticed.

Rey smiled gently. "Yeah. We're friends."

He ducked his head, letting his hair fall forward to hide his smile.

…

They made it to the training grounds by late morning. Ben had picked up a couple sticks suitable for saber practice along the way, but for now he put them aside. She set her pilfered cloak with them.

Stepping into the middle of the training area, he unclipped his lightsaber from his belt and gestured for Rey to do the same.

"Before we spar, I want to show you a few basic moves with the lightsaber," he said. "It's good for you to learn how to handle the weapon, to get a feel for the weight and balance of it, before jumping into sparring with it. We'll get to that later."

Rey held up the hilt of Leia's saber and switched it on. The familiar blue blade purred to life, steady and waiting. But when he ignited his blade, she gasped.

"The color!" she exclaimed.

He studied his saber. "There are different colors of saber blades," he explained, and gave the hilt a practiced twirl, sending the violet blade humming end over end. "The color depends on the hue taken on by the kyber crystal that calls to you during the meditation and construction of your lightsaber."

"What do the colors mean? Why is yours purple?"

He gave her a sharp look. "It doesn't matter. Now, pay attention."

He demonstrated a series of moves, then instructed her to repeat them. She was a quick study, just as she'd been with everything else thus far. He pointed out a few things and corrected her stance a couple times. She took his criticisms well, and tightened up her form admirably.

When he was satisfied, he gestured for her to cut off her saber and take a stick. Her desert garb, he observed, was much better suited to the present temperatures than his Jedi robes; he could already feel sweat gathering along his back, and they hadn't even started sparring yet. He unbuckled his belt and shrugged off his outer tunic, then bundled the garments together and tossed them down beside the cloak. Immediately, the sea breeze coursed beneath his sleeveless undertunic, bringing with it a wave of relief. He picked up his stick and maneuvered it in an intricate overhanded whirl as he turned to face Rey.

She was squinting at him as he approached, the bright sunlight glowing in her cheeks and reflecting off the flowing swaths of fabric she wore. As he drew near, she brought her stick up into a defensive position and crouched slightly, ready to spar.

He moved slowly at first, allowing her to practice the moves he'd taught her with the saber. The mock-fight slowly increased in speed, until the sharp report of their sticks clacking together echoed in a steady staccato rhythm off the surrounding rocks. They revolved around one another almost in a dance, twisting out of the way, cutting off a retreat, swinging and blocking and striking and parrying.

Even though Rey was relatively new to fighting with a saber, her years of practice with her staff had prepared her well. Despite his years of learning, Ben struggled to find an opening on her, but neither did she break through his defenses.

His tunic stuck to his back as he flicked damp strands of hair out of his eyes. Little flyaway wisps had sprung free of her restrained locks, forming a halo around her pink cheeks and sweaty brow. She was utterly focused, watching his every move with the sharpness of a predator, reacting quickly when he attempted to strike at her, and demanding the same from him.

He'd never enjoyed sparring so much.

The fight went on for a while, and when they were both starting to flag, he called an end to the session. He'd never been able to land a hit on her. She'd done very well, and he was buoyant with pride.

"Come on," he said, putting his stick down and picking up his clothes. "Let's go back to the Falcon and get cleaned up."

"Wait."

He looked up at her. She had her head cocked to the side, as if listening to something. She looked around, and finally turned away from him, facing in the other direction.

"Do you hear that?" she asked.

Immediately, his senses went on high alert. "Hear what?" He strained to listen, but he heard nothing.

"It's around there."

She started toward the edge of the training grounds, drawn by the sound only she could hear. He armed himself with his lightsaber and took off after her, sticks and clothes forgotten.

They hiked along a narrow shelf around the edge of the mountain. Ben kept a wary eye on the sheer drop; one wrong step, and they would plunge into the rocks and waves below. But Rey pushed forward, and he followed closely behind her.

They made their way through hardy mountain grasses and wind-beaten shrubs, and then the trail turned inward, away from the cliffs and through a grove of short, sparse trees. The path curved around another bend—

And Ben finally caught a glimpse of what she'd been hearing. Just up ahead was a waterfall. The narrow veil of water originated far above them, pouring forth with a steady roar to fall into a pristine pool amidst the rocks, before coursing over the edge to the ocean far below.

Rey gasped.

He looked at her. "Have you ever seen a waterfall before?"

She shook her head in the negative, eyes locked on the wonder before them.

Sometimes he forgot she hadn't seen everything the Rey in his vision had seen. All she knew before the forests of D'Qar had been the endless, unforgiving desert of Jakku.

"Want to check it out?" he asked.

She nodded eagerly.

He stepped around her to lead the way. "Be careful," he warned. "The rocks get slippery when they're wet. Do you know how to swim?"

"No."

He glanced up at the height of the waterfall. "This pool is probably very deep. Don't stray too far from the shore."

This close to the falls, the roar of the water was nearly deafening. A cool mist met them at the edge of the pool. Ben sat down on a rock to pull off his boots and undertunic, and Rey followed his lead, stripping down to her banded top and pants. Bundling her clothes next to his, she trotted down to the shore and dipped her toe into the water.

"It's freezing!" she cried, jumping back.

"They usually are." Biting back a curse at the temperature, Ben waded in to waist height, then dove the rest of the way in. His body was immediately cooled from their sparring session. He swam a ways, pushing himself through the water and enjoying the feeling of it rippling over his skin, before finally breaking through the surface out in the middle of the pool. He took a fresh breath and shook his hair back, water droplets flying everywhere as the dark strands fell into a tangled mess around his face. He heard a tinkling laugh, and turned back toward the shore.

Rey had waded out to her waist and was watching him. He had to wipe a hand over his face and clear the water from his eyes to look again. Surrounded by the verdant green of the mountain, with far more stretches of bare skin on display than normal, she looked like some sort of mythical nymph, grinning impishly at him as she watched him swim. She was absolutely beautiful, and all the more so because she was completely unaware of it. He pushed his hair out of his face, then glided through the water to meet her.

He stopped a little short of her, standing on the rocky bottom of the pool, and held out his hand. "Want to try?"

It had been an unconscious gesture, but as soon as he reached out, he recalled the previous times he'd held out his hand to her. He'd asked her to join him, over and over, but she'd denied him every time.

Don't do this, Ben.*

Please don't go this way.*

You're a monster!*

He faltered.

But before he could pull his hand back, she reached out and took it. Bare skin to bare skin. And not just fingertip to fingertip, as she'd done in the vision, but palm to palm, her slim fingers curling tightly around his large hand. She was biting her lip, but looked up and nodded at him decisively. Nervous but confident. Trusting.

He took both of her hands and braced her as he walked backward, leading her deeper and deeper into the water. She followed, and only hesitated when the ripples began to lap beneath her chin. Her hands tightened in his.

"I've got you," he assured her, and she nodded.

"The most important thing is to relax and breathe," he instructed calmly. "Just like with meditation. Take a deep breath; there you go. Now, kick off with your feet and use your arms and legs to tread water."

She immediately went under, splashing and scrambling frantically for his arms. He quickly pulled her back above the water, and she clung to him, sputtering and coughing into his shoulder as she regained her breath.

His heart nearly stopped.

He'd never been this close to her before. It required all of his focus not to blush like mad—or Force forbid, become aroused. At least the water was cold; thank the stars for small mercies. She was pressed up against him, her soft, chilled skin in flush contact with his own. Her arms were wrapped tightly around his neck, and she'd buried her face in his shoulder as she sucked in lungful after lungful of air. His arms had automatically looped around her waist, holding her against him while she recovered. She pulled back to wipe at her eyes, droplets of water clinging to her lashes and dripping off her lips and chin as she mopped the excess from her face. This close, he could see the green flecks in her hazel eyes.

Her cheeks were flushed, and he wondered if she'd gotten sunburned earlier while they had been training. It had been a while since she'd been exposed to the harsh Jakku sun. On D'Qar, their outdoor sessions were always under the canopy of the trees; here, they were out in the open. They had trained hard this morning, and she was no doubt tired, which meant her taxed muscles were in no shape to learn how to swim. This had been a bad idea. She was from a desert planet, for Force's sake; she'd never seen this much water in her life, let alone tried to swim in it. He was such an idiot.

"Let's try another time," he muttered, and she nodded gratefully.

He helped her back to the shore, where they got semi-dressed and set off for the Falcon in silence. He could sense through the partially-open bond that she was disappointed. He glanced over at her, taking in the slump of her shoulders and her faraway look. Her hair sagged wetly against her neck.

"You okay?" he murmured.

She came back to herself with a start, and looked over at him. "Oh. Yeah." She smiled unconvincingly. "I'm fine."

He knew her well enough by now to know that it was uncharacteristic of her to back away from a challenge. She tended to face things head-on. It no doubt irked her that she'd failed at something, despite the fact that she'd succeeded at so much more. He hated to see her upset.

An idea flickered to life. With a growing smirk, he looked in her direction more fully.

"Leave it to you," he began dryly, "to discover a Force dyad, intuitively pick up on Jedi theory, avoid severing a limb the first time you use a lightsaber, and somehow manage to draw even in a duel with someone far more experienced than you—all in the course of a morning—and yet almost drown whilst wading neck-deep in a pool of water."

She looked over at him sharply, and a slow grin started to spread over her face. "It sounds pretty ridiculous, doesn't it?" she replied.

"Utterly ridiculous. No one will believe me when I tell them how you were floundering around, sputtering and—"

A sharp poke in his side made him flinch. He whirled around, but she was several strides behind him.

"I think I'm going to enjoy being bonded to you, Benjamin Solo," she said, and he realized she had poked him through their connection. She smirked proudly at him.

Before he knew it, laughter was bubbling out of him. Grinning from ear to ear, not caring about his crooked teeth or uneven face, he let go and laughed. A second later, she burst out laughing too.

He couldn't remember being this happy. Rey knew about the bond, and she actually liked it. She'd just spent the entire day with him, and she hadn't run away screaming. She'd teased him. She'd even willingly touched him.

He'd never had more fun in his life.

A/N: Starred (*) phrases were borrowed from Star Wars!