Author's Notes: Update! I want to thank everyone who has come back to this story after I deleted the original. For those of you just joining, welcome! Again I want to remind everyone that while you will see threads of TROS woven into this tale, it is an AU so it will be different from what you remember.

Disclaimer: I do not nor have I ever owned Star Wars. I simply play in their world.

Reviews! Reviews! I would love to hear from my readers. For better or worse I am always interested in your thoughts.

Once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away...

"All my grief says the same thing:

this isn't how it's suppose to be.

This isn't how it's suppose to be.

And the world laughs.

Holds my hope by the throat.

Says:

but this is how it is."

-Fortesa Latifi

Rey

I dream of him, even when I am awake. I feel him when the rains come sweeping down through the base, the bite sharp and cold...reminding me of how he felt pressed against my soul.

I see his face when the sun sets in the distance, the cloak of night settling on this world. A reminder that darkness and light can exist side by side.

I bite my lip and push back a lank tendril of hair. The humidity on Ajan Kloss makes it nearly impossible to keep it contained.

I wonder if I simply shouldn't cut the entire mess off and be done with it.

Ben, his fingers braiding my hair, his touch gentle yet undeniably sensual and I drowse softly...content to let him play with my hair.

The memory is so vivid I can almost feel him...the cool kiss of shadow feathers over my mind...

Immediately I shut away the memory, burying the emotions that go with them.

I have to be constantly on my guard, shielding my mind against the Bond.

It is not so much that he is reaching for me through the Force...but that I am hopelessly drawn back to him despite the choice I made all those weeks ago.

All the control I'm using to keep him at bay leaves me exhausted and I swallow my frustration and the tears that try to clog my throat.

BB-8 rolls up to my side, whistling softly and for a second I forget about this pain in my soul where a part of me is forever missing.

"Yes BB-8," I tell the small droid, "I'm going to go run the course."

I snap the rest of the bands around my hair, it should hold for a little longer.

I know that I will not cut my hair. I made him a promise and even now I will not break it.

Poe and Finn are leaving first thing tomorrow, along with several others, to chase down the rumor that threatens to cripple the galaxy.

It is the rumor that the mad Emperor Palpatine still lives...that he did not die all those years ago at the hands of Anakin Skywalker and his son.

No one knows the secrets I still harbor.

Not even Leia, whom I now call Master.

I should tell them everything that I know...that I've been to Exegol and felt the evil that crawls in the recess of the Unknown Region.

But I don't. I...can't.

Those memories are tied up with Ben and I cannot speak about one without revealing the other.

"Go away," I mutter as I take up my staff, "quite haunting me. I made my choice...and so did you."

This conflict I have, the doubts that plague my every waking thought, they shouldn't exist anymore.

I made the right choice.

Didn't I?

BB-8 whistles at me and I realize I'm worrying the little droid.

"It's alright,"I reply putting a smile on my face for his benefit, "just...talking to myself. Go on ahead I'll catch up with you."

I snatch up my staff and take off through the woods.

It has become routine for me now, to run this course...though in the past three months I have only finished it twice.

Too many thoughts in my head, too many feelings that I can't sort out.

No, not that I can't. Just unwilling to face them.

So I run and I fight and drive myself into exhaustion so that when I finally fall into bed, it will be a respite and not a torment.

Sweat sliding down my collar, hair plastered to my face as I take a swing at the red remote training sphere circling me.

"Ah!"

The tiny laser hits me directly between the shoulder blades, the sting a painful one and I feel my temper ignite.

"You wretched...damnable..."

I hate this training droid!

No matter how fast I am or how much I deflect, it always dodges my attempts to hit it and instead I am the one who gets stung.

My thoughts wander and I feel the burn across the back of my leg.

"Damn it!" I've lost track of it and snap my staff out to protect my vulnerable skin.

"Alright you lousy piece of backwater technology, come and get me!"

The hiss of air, a shift in the wind and I turn, deflecting the laser that would have hit my arm had I not just twisted my staff.

For a moment all I feel is elation that I managed to dodge it...and let out another cry as the sting cuts across my back.

I am going to kill it!

"You stinking pile of Rancor-"

"Rey."

The training droid drops to the ground as Leia emerges from the woods.

I swallow the nasty words I was about to say and quickly regroup.

"Master...what are you doing out here?"

I wipe the sweat from my brow and plant my staff into the ground, frowning. This was no place for her so far from the base.

"I could hear your swearing all the way at command. You're picking up Dameron's bad habits."

A dull flush creeps up my face and I sigh, unable to say anything.

Leia crosses her arms and gives me a gimlet stare.

"You're letting your anger get the better of you."

"Yes Master I know but..."

"But nothing," Leia cuts in, "I want you off the course now."

I snap my mouth shut, despite the retort rising to my lips.

I sigh again and swing the staff to my side.

"Yes Master."

"Rey," Leia moves with obvious stiffness to stand at my side, her hand reaching out to squeeze my arm, "be patient. I know your frustrated but you've come a long way in such a short time."

I make myself to let go of my anger in the face of her calm.

"I just...I don't know what's wrong with me lately. I feel like I should be doing more."

"Burning yourself out isn't going to help anyone," Leia points out as we walk back to base, "Finn tells me you're still not sleeping well."

"Finn has a big mouth."

"Yes he does," Leia chuckles, "but a bigger heart. He's worried about you."

Yes, I know that. He's always worried about me, so much so that I feel as though I am smothered beneath his constant need to check up on me.

"I know but it's nothing. Just...too many thoughts in my head. It'll pass."

Leia doesn't speak but her silence is loud enough.

She never asks me about my dreams or why I don't sleep more than a few hours every night.

She doesn't point out that my clothes have become loose or the hours I spend pouring over the books that I took from the Jedi Temple on Ahch-To, almost obsessively.

She never asks because she is waiting for me to come to her and tell her.

She is my Master and I love and revere her...but I cannot speak to her about all the doubts that have stayed with me since I severed the Bond between her son and myself.

I cannot tell her how broken I feel and how training in the Jedi way is the only thing that keeps me going.

She is so strong, never wavering in her belief...and I cannot stand the thought of seeing the disappointment in her eyes if she ever finds out I am not as strong as I pretend to be.

I am the last Jedi, the 'hope' of the galaxy. I cannot appear weak.

Not even to my Master.

"Rey," Leia turns to me just as we reach the central part of command, "you know you're not alone. You can tell me anything."

"I know," I pull a smile onto my lips, but it feels as false as the words I speak, "but I have nothing to tell."

A sigh from Leia but she lets me go and I slip away to the small work area I have claimed for my own.

There among the piles of boxes and littered remains of tech I am fixing, are the Jedi tomes.

If I cannot train my body then I will feed my mind and I settle in front of these books, my fingers running over the worn pages.

Most of it I can read except for the parts that are written in ancient Jedi code that not even Threepio can understand.

Which is strange considering that most of his former masters have all been Jedi.

Irony of the universe I guess.

I settle Luke's journal into my lap, flipping pages until it opens into a section that makes me stare for several minutes.

There was an entire portion dedicated to the wayfinder...

Most of it I cannot read, it's too deeply encoded but I have never seen this part before.

I've read his journal over and over again and I know this wasn't here.

My eyes skim the words and my breath catches.

Luke writes of not one wayfinder but two that were created by the Sith.

One for the Master and one for his Apprentice.

My thoughts instantly go to Ben...and his search for Exegol, using a wayfinder.

Quiet, intense rage that tints my world crimson...a grief so profound that I drown beneath it...

I gasp, clutching the book as emotions that are not my own spill into me.

That dark rage, the grief that splits my soul like a saber...that was Ben.

"No," I whisper, "Ben...stop."

I stumble from my work station and away from camp, my heart aching and the sting of tears that I don't want to have to explain.

I have to breath, to clear my mind...or he'll find me.

He always finds me.

The silence of the forest blankets me and I stand there, listening to the call of the insects, the quiet rustle of animals in the brush.

I ground myself to the living world and push back the rage and sorrow carving fault lines into my soul.

That is twice now I felt the brush of his mind and I am shaking from even that tenuous contact.

Where is he?

Why is there so much rage in him and the grief...endless as an ocean and pulling me under until my head is throbbing beneath the pressure.

I clutch my head against the pain, my hand blindly reaching for a tree to halt my stumbling fall.

"Rey? Rey!"

Hands on my shoulder, pulling me away from the woods and I look up from the pain spiking through me to see the worried face of Rose staring back at me.

"I...," a wave of nausea rolls through me, "I don't feel well..."

"Your white as a ghost! Come on, you need to go see a med droid..."

I don't have the strength to tell her no and I let her drag me to our makeshift med bay. It's mostly deserted and I lay down on one of the beds, my hand over my eyes.

I know this feeling...this pain in my head, of burning out...it is the same as when Ben and I Bonded through the Force but the distance was too far apart...or we had been maintaining the connection for too long.

But we weren't Bonding. I had been shutting him out for months...yet I could still feel him, a shadow of his emotions overlapping mine.

"Rey! I have the med-droid."

"Hmm," the hum of equipment as the droid does a body scan as I manage to sit up, my head pounding, "your vital signs are irregular. Blood pressure and heart rate elevated and serotonin levels dropping."

"What's wrong with her?"

"No sign of virus or infection. Your weight is below normal parameters."

Rose makes an impatient noise and I crack my eye open to look at the droid.

"And?" I croak out.

"You are dehydrated and slightly malnourished. Additional readings indicate high levels of stress."

The droid drops the scanner and looks at me.

"I will give you an infusion of nutrients to replenish what you have lost. You will need quiet and rest to recover properly, along with a high calorie diet to balance your weight."

I blink at the droid, my fuzzy head taking a moment to understand the diagnosis.

"So you're saying I'm suffering from...exhaustion?"

A slight tilt of his head. "Yes. I will return momentarily with your infusion."

I swing my legs over the bed, intending to get up.

"Whoa! Where do you think you're going?"

Rose has her hands on my shoulder, preventing me leaving.

"Out of here," I mutter, "I'm not sick. No one died from being tired."

"Like hell you are." Rose glares at me and I gape at her sharp tone, "Look at you! Maybe no one else will say it but you look like shit."

"Thanks."

Rose pats my shoulder and sits next to me, a frown on her face.

"Rey...why are you pushing yourself so hard?"

"I...I just want to help with the war..."

Rose shakes her head and makes a despairing sound that I've never heard from the usually upbeat technician.

"How? By collapsing from strain so that when you are needed, you can't even function?"

The words are snapped out and I turn my head stung by her accusations.

She's not wrong...but it still hurts.

A soft sigh and I feel her calloused hand rest over mine.

"Rey...I'm sorry. I shouldn't have snapped at you like that. It's just...everyone is worried about you."

"I'm fine."

Rose has a strange look on her face.

"No you're not. Who did you lose?"

I don't understand her question and wonder if the pain in my head is distorting her words somehow.

"What?"

"I should have seen it earlier. You are just like me...when I lost my sister. I was so angry with her that I threw myself into work, desperately trying to tell myself that I was fine. I worked until I couldn't move, until my fingers bled and it wasn't enough. It still hurt every time I remembered she was gone."

I swallow hard and tell myself that I'm not going to cry.

"I...no one died. Everyone I care about is still alive and here with me."

But not Ben.

He wasn't dead...but he was lost to me and she was right, I was so angry with him for being gone.

Again that strange smile on her face, compassion and rueful self-deprecation.

"Rey, you're my friend so I won't push at what's eating you but because I am your friend I need to tell you something you might not want to hear."

"What is it?"

"Destroying yourself isn't helping anyone. You might not see it but your hurting everyone who cares for you. I told Finn this a long time ago but apparently you need to hear it as well. We're not going to win this war by destroying what we hate. We're going to win it by saving those we love."

Rose gets off my bed and nods to the droid who has returned with my infusion.

"And we love you Rey, so stop making us watch you destroy yourself."

I can only stare after her as the droid lifts my arm and pumps the infusion into my bloodstream.

Her words are vibrating through my mind and the guilt kicks in.

Night on Ajan Kloss

I can taste hot ash in the back of my throat, the stench of sulfur that burns my nose as I try to breath the acrid air.

The sky is a bloody wound awash in crimson and I feel a shiver run through me at the desolation around me.

My footfalls make no sound as I pass by twisted bodies and the smoking armor of fallen Stormtroopers.

I look down at a single body, alien to my eyes and note the smoldering hole in his chest. The hole has a the same diameter a lightsaber strike might cause and the wound is already cauterized, as if seared by an immense heat.

Each body I pass has the same wounds, some vicious slashes across the chests, limbs burned off.

All cauterized.

All dead.

Hundreds litter the ground and I cannot look away from such wanton destruction. So much death...and for what?

What was worth taking all of these lives?

I see him, in the distance. A dark god that stands among the ruins of this world, cloaked in shadow.

Something is in his hand...something that whispers incessantly, malicious and cruel and my soul cries out in pain to hear it.

This object is evil and a sick, pulsing light emits from it.

"Ben!" I cry out, "don't touch it!"

A sharp stillness falls over him, but he doesn't drop that cruel device. Instead I see him squeeze it tighter in his grip and he turns and I swear he is looking at me.

I gasp...there is no anger, no hatred in his gaze.

Only aching loss, a sorrow so vast that I cry out...I can't stand to see his pain...

I snap out of my dream,tear stains on my pillow, a throb in my head as I sit up. The silence so unforgiving, I am drowning beneath the weight of it against my skin. I shake my head and slip out of bed, walking silently across the cold, metal floor of the Falcon.

Even here on this beloved ship I cannot find rest. The ramp is down and I feel the warm breeze flow over and around me, bringing the scent of loam and dirt. I follow the wind, leaving the comfort of the ship for the world outside.

Poe and Finn leave in the morning, electing to stay in the main camp to be with friends before they start their mission in the morning.

But I chose to come out here, away from everyone.

It is so quiet. Even the insects are still, all the world asleep. No moons tonight that I can see, just the glitter of cold stars spilled across the deep night as clouds drift in and out.

Thousands upon thousand I see...and I wonder if Ben is looking at the stars as well.

That dream had been so vivid and the sky had no stars...just and endless haze of red, as if the world itself was coated in blood.

Ben...where are you? Do you...

His eyes, I can't shake loose that look in his eyes. Such anguish...as if something in him had been shattered...

I dig fingers into my arms, furrows of pain that anchor me to this world. Tears stream down my face, barbed claws tearing into my soul, crueler than any physical pain.

Because I cannot forget...

Damn him!

"I didn't ask you to love me!" I scream at the sky, screaming for all that I had lost...for all that I miss with an ache that is inconsolable.

I didn't ask him to love me...but now that I knew the flavor of his love, how could I not want to have it back again...

The bite of ice, sharp and clear. Falling rain that cleanses my soul...

A jagged pain to my heart, my vision blurring as the world around me turns hazy...

it's just the tears in my eyes and I lift my hand to brush them away. After all these months, I thought they would have run dry.

"Rey."

The dark cadence of his voice sweeps over me, soft and compelling and I can only stare at the man who now stands in front of me.

The moons are hiding behind rolling clouds but the fragmented light is enough to see him and he is a dark shadow, a phantom playing tricks on me.

He cannot be real...but I want so much for him to be here with me.

"Ben?"

The name slips out of me as I stare into his obsidian gaze and watch his mouth twist into a mocking smile.

Not Ben, there is no gentleness in that smile.

My hands fall from my face, clenching hard as he answers with a single word that twists like a knife in my heart.

"No."

"Why are you here?"

I meant to sound defiant, like I did that night I told him to leave...but the ache of being able to see him, to speak to him...it has taken all the anger out of me.

That mocking smile leaves his mouth and I brace for whatever lie is about to tell me.

"Why are you crying beneath the stars?"

I swallow hard...his words are soft and his eyes...I cannot bear the tenderness I see in his dark depths and I turn my head, using my hair as a shield.

He is not Ben...he is Kylo Ren...he's not suppose to look at me that way...

"What makes you think I will tell you anything?" I feel so confused right now, "What makes you think I even want you here at all?"

But I do...until now I thought time and distance would make the feelings I had for him fade.

I was wrong. So desperately wrong.

A touch of heat to my skin, the weight of my hair being pulled back and I look up, trembling to see him so close to me.

I never heard him move.

A frown marring his face as he strokes his knuckles across my skin.

"What has happened to you?"

I close my eyes, remembering Rose's comment on how I was destroying myself. The droid telling me that my weight was no longer healthy.

"You happened to me."

The grief of our parting, the loss of the only person who ever felt like home to me.

I hear the sigh in his voice when he speaks.

"Look at me."

He never could ask me for anything without making it sound like a demand.

"Always with the commands."

But my eyes open even as a tear falls across his skin, unbidden and unwanted.

It seems I am fated to be at my most vulnerable whenever I am with him.

I am the one crying...but he looks at me as if he is the one suffering.

"Don't cry Rey," his arm around my waist, pulling me into the curve of his body, "I'm here."

How many nights have I woken, reaching for him, wishing he would speak those very words to calm my nightmares.

My fingers dig into his chest and I don't know if I want to shake him...or hold onto him so that he can never leave me again.

"You're not here," he is tormenting me and I bang my fists on his chest out of frustration and not anger, "that's the problem."

"You sent me away, remember?"

I remember but with his fingers gliding through my hair, the solace of his arms around me, I am once more ridden with doubt that I made the right decision.

"You've done rather well keeping me at bay," he sounds almost impressed and I don't know whether to laugh or cry at his praise, "Until now."

There is that double-edged compliment he delivers so well. It is such a familiar feeling that I drop my fists to brush against his waist so that I can lean my head against his chest.

His strength surrounds me and for what feels like a lifetime, I can breath freely.

"Until now." I whisper in agreement. There is no pain in my mind, no exhaustion pouring into my veins.

I've stopped trying to block him and it is the first time I have felt at peace in months.

"Tell me this is a dream."

Wistful words that come from deep inside of me.

"Why?"

His question isn't mocking or cruel. Just a quiet sigh as though trying to comprehend my strange request.

"Because then I can pretend," I tell him as my fingers tighten on his belt, "for a little longer, that I don't hate you." Can he feel the frantic beat of my heart, the tremble of my soul, "That you don't...hate me."

His fingers tighten in my hair, just shy of being painful but then he slides his hand down to cup my face.

Why is this man so gentle with me?

I look up and though shadows dance across his face, I see his soul reflected in raven eyes.

"I don't hate you Rey," the pad of his thumb brushing against my skin, leaving a trail of fire in his wake, "and this...is not a dream."

This has to be a dream. This can't be real...because the man holding me is Kylo Ren...and I hate him.

Don't I?

I struggle to free myself but his grip around my waist is too strong and I am trapped, staring up into the eyes of my enemy...

"No...you can't be here." This was impossible, "I...I closed our connection."

The Bond that had connected us through time and space, both giving and taking.

"You did," a soft purr in his voice and I am unable to tear my eyes away as he leans in closer, his mouth hovering over mine.

So close that his breath becomes my own.

"But you called to me...and I answered."

He's lying, he has to be. I never called..I stop and remember my screams to the night sky, of wanting his love...

"I...I didn't...I couldn't have..."

There is no way he could have heard me but my fumbling excuses are being ignored.

He is staring at my mouth, a devouring look in his burning eyes.

I know that look...it is the same look Ben gave me when he wanted to kiss me.

I'm trembling beneath the weight of his desire, at war with the fact that I want him to kiss me...and fearing what it will do to me.

"Ben," a flicker in his eyes but he doesn't let go, "please...you can't."

"Because you hate me?" silken purr from his lips, a hint of challenge and I swallow hard.

Whatever I feel for him, it cannot be hate.

His mouth is so close all I have to do is reach up and press my lips to his.

Moonlight shatters the darkness as clouds break and I see a single, gleam of blood on his lower lip.

It shouldn't be there.

I don't think, I just reach up and press my fingers to his mouth wiping the blood away.

He doesn't try to stop me but I feel his muscles lock in place and I quickly pull back my hand.

His blood is bright against my skin, warm and wet and I am chilled to see it staining my fingers.

A whisper of premonition across my senses as a hollow grief fills me with a despair I cannot explain.

"Ben," I can't take my eyes away from my hand, "you're bleeding..." a shift in the wind and with it comes the scent that forcibly reminds me of the dream I had just before he came to me, "and you smell of sulfur and ash..."

I look up at him, that dream I had...it couldn't be...but he hesitates in answering my unspoken question and I pull away from him.

I stare at the crimson smear across my fingers but it is not myself I am seeing.

The piles of bodies...a sky that looks a gaping wound...

"Where are you?"

My words are hard, demanding and I look up to see Ren crossing his arms over his chest, looking down at me with an arrogance that is all too familiar.

"Questions Rey? After months of nothing but silence." He lifts a condescending eyebrow and I want to scream at him to stop playing with me, "Where are you?"

I turn away from him, digging bloody gouges into my hand as I bite my lip in agitation.

Why did I expect him to actually answer me.

This was Kylo Ren...and he bowed before no one.

Least of all me.

"Mustafar."

A sigh in his answer, a weariness that is unlike him.

His answer is so unexpected that I snap my head back to him, trying to make sense as to why he would be there.

"Mustafar?" That was a dead world, "But why would you..."

A passage from Luke's journal speaking of Mustafar being home to Darth Vader early in his life and a possible resting place of the wayfinder, though it was never confirmed.

"The wayfinder," visions of a pulsing object that reeked of evil, "you found it."

"Correction, I have it."

No arrogance, no boasting, just a quiet declaration that chills me more than anything else he could have said.

I shake my head, even now I remember the malicious whispering and I am horrified by it.

"Ben!" I meet his eyes, trying to make him see reason, "This is madness, even for you!"

No change in his expression and I scream at him.

"You...you cannot go to Exegol by yourself!"

I am terrified for him. Doesn't he remember how we were nearly trapped by that...that thing that lurks in that cursed place.

"Why?"

His calm infuriates me, it was as if he was discussing the weather and not that deathtrap of a planet.

"Because it's suicide," I snarl at him, "you idiot!"

I stalk over to him and jam my finger into his chest, I am so frustrated with him that I forget he is my enemy.

"You know what's waiting out there...you...you can't!"

I won't let you.

His hand grasps mine, lifting it from his chest and the feel of his fingers wrapped around me is startling enough that I am momentarily speechless.

"I do know what's out there...and I intend to kill him."

The burning embers in his gaze tell me that he isn't playing around.

It took both Anakin Skywalker and Luke Skywalker to destroy Palpatine...and even now it seems he managed to avoid death.

Yet Ren believes that he can take on the mad emperor...and win.

"No, no!" What he was saying was impossible, "He's too strong...you can't you'll...you'll..."

You'll die. It hangs in the air between us but I can't say the words.

I won't say them.

"I'll what?" The cold, derisive cut of his words makes me shiver in apprehension, "Die?" I flinch at the callous way he throw that word out but he continues, heedless of my response, "What does it matter to you if I lose my life?" I stare at him, I have never heard such bitterness in his voice, "That is the outcome that your Resistance wants. My death...and the end of this war."

Tears spill from my eyes and they are not of sorrow, but anger and I tremble with the force of that anger, gripping his hand tight in mine.

How dare he speak of his death as if his life meant nothing!

"Yes...I...," I take a shuddering breath and try to find the words to make him understand, "we want to end this war...but Ben," the anger drains out of me, leaving only hollow ache in my breast, "...how could you even think that I want you dead?"

I've tried to deny it all along but seeing him, standing beneath the shadow of the moons with his hand in mine, I can't ignore the truth.

He has and always will be the other half of my soul.

"Because you hate me, you said so yourself."

His quiet response has the same effect as having a cold bucket of water thrown in my face.

I did tell him that...but I lied.

To him. To myself. Because it was easier to feed the anger than deal with the grief.

"I...I...no...that isn't..."

He moves so fast and whatever I was about to say is lost between one breath and the next.

His hands leaving to capture my face and all I feel is cool fire of his mouth on mine.

Desire licking through my veins, burning me alive and I part my lips, giving him all that he demands.

I cling to his mouth, heady with the taste of him.

My arms around his neck, burying my fingers in the thick strands of his hair.

A low growl that makes me shudder and press myself closer to him, his arm a cage that I cannot bear to leave.

His breath is my own and I sigh as a familiar feeling sweeps through me.

I am home.

"Ben," his name an ache on my lips...and his fingers dig painfully into me before thrusting me away from him.

There is a wild madness in his eyes as he gazes at me, his breathing as ragged as my own and I don't understand why he suddenly withdrew from me.

"You should not kiss your enemy like that Rey," caressing darkness, cruelly sensual and I press fingers to my mouth when I realize that wasn't Ben kissing me, it was Ren all along, "I just might believe that you don't hate me."

I stumble away from him, shaking with arousal and not understanding how I could have mistaken him for Ben.

He...he felt like home.

But he was Ren...wasn't he?

I have to know and I lift my head to look at his face, but he has turned his back to me and his hands are balled at his side.

I can hear the cracking of his leather gloves, the pressure he is exerting palatable.

"This war will end, I promised you that much," how could he have kissed me like that and sound so distant now,"...and I will keep that promise."

But at what cost?

"Ben..." I'm reaching for him, that promise he speaks of...that is Ben, I know it is.

He snaps his head around and my breath catches, a dark rage crawling through his eyes as he stares at me.

"I am Kylo Ren, Ben Solo is dead." Abrasive words that make me flinch and a shuttered look over his face, remote and unyielding, "You would do well to remember that."

My lips open to deny him...and he disappears from my sight...

...I'm on my knee's, gasping for air as my head is filled with the echo of his parting words.

That...there was no mistaking what that was.

The Bond connecting us once more...but it's not the same.

The ache in my head has not abated and the place in my soul where he once resided is still hollow and empty.

Somehow, despite what just happened, I am still able to block him.

I think.

I don't know.

I clutch my arms around me and lift my head to the sky. The clouds that obscure the moons drift far enough apart that I can tell that they haven't shifted far into the sky.

It felt like we had talked for hours...but the physical evidence suggests that only minutes have passed.

The dynamics of our Bond...they've changed.

Yet I feel the press of his mouth against mine, hear the dark cadence of his voice...and the smear of his blood is still visible on my skin.

That was real...so was our conversation...and I am chilled by what he is about to do.

Just how far is he willing to take this quest for power?