The ground shuddered beneath her body. She continued to lay on her stomach, her empty hands hanging over the invisible chasm which had swallowed him until the rumbling died into the skittering of small broken pieces as they descended unseeable slopes and settled.

And then silence.

Absolute silence, because she was holding her breath, and when she realized it, she let it out in a long terrified scream that sounded like his name.

No answer came. She was alone in the dark.

Paralyzed with fear, her breath came in shallow, shuddering gasps. The very thought of moving terrified her. She could not go forward, but neither could she go back. In that absolute dark, it was certain that she would eventually stray from the narrow path and set off another ground shattering quake.

And so Rey kept very still, and tried not to think about the fact that Kylo Ren had been standing on the marked path when the ground splintered beneath his feet, and that at any second, the same might happen to her.

She thought of Master Luke instead. She imagined him stretched out on the ground beside her. He would be silent as he considered how best to get out of the predicament. Her fear would subside as she felt the peace that radiated from him.

Master Luke would use the Force somehow. Even Kylo Ren had said it was not impossible to do so, just extremely difficult.

She cleared her mind again, attempting the meditative state that Master Luke had so often forced her to practice, and reached out… and felt nothing.

Of course! Of course she felt nothing! That was what she had been expecting after all, wasn't it? Using the Force wasn't like she had thought it would be on Starkiller Base.

When it had first awakened in her, she could feel it—like hot scoria, burning through her veins as she bent people to her will, and fought the monster himself! She had felt terrified and then angry and finally powerful, as though she could not lose to anyone.

And then came her training on Ach-to, and with it, the loss of that heady rush of power. The Force did not come to her in the same way again. It came like a wind, quickly and impossible to grasp, and it almost always slipped through her fingers before she managed to do anything with it.

She struggled to lift the tiny pebbles, and then the small stones, and her entire body shook as finally, Master Luke watched her levitate the jagged rocks around the base of the water fall. It had drained her, left her exhausted and hungry.

Master Luke had said that such a struggle was normal for all padawans. That it took time and patience to learn the ways of the Force, and when she had insisted that it had not been so when she had escaped the First Order, he would shrug and say that no skill worth having could be acquired without effort.

And though she had never said as much to him, she wondered if that was all there was to it.

Rey took a deep breath and tried again to clear her mind, but as she exhaled, her breath came out as a sob, and before she could force it down, another terrified whine slipped out, and she was struggling to breathe against the spasms of her own throat.

Terror had too strong a hold on her, and to fight it, she drew from her anger—her anger at Kylo Ren for capturing her and bringing her to this dark hole, her anger at the First Order, even her anger at Master Luke for not making her stronger.

And from the unknown depths of the chasm before her came a sound.

Or perhaps a feeling—it came like the beat from a deep drum—resounding and low, and then another beat, and then another…

She could feel it, could feel her own heartbeat slow to match this steady rhythm—because that is what this beating was—a life, a heart pulsing, and she knew it and knew it was his. Kylo Ren had survived the fall. At the bottom of the crevice, he continued to live. The blood in her veins throbbed along with the beating of his heart. She felt stronger.

"KYLO REN!" she screamed, and her voice echoed loudly back to her, but there came no answering shout.

Slowly, she moved her arm so that her hand skimmed the ground beside her, until her fingers traced over a lump—a small broken piece of the ground, perhaps.

Without hesitation she picked it up, flung it into the chasm and waited.

For a moment… silence, and then the sharp crack of it striking bottom echoed up to her—18 feet, or perhaps 20, which was far from the descent Kylo Ren had hinted at before, yet still far enough to do a good amount of damage.

Carefully, with her hands securely wrapped around the edge of the chasm, she sat up, and brought her legs forward until they dangled over the drop.

She took one last, steadying breath, leaned forward, and fell.

Legs bent, body loose, land on your toes, and above all, do not brace for the impact—Master Luke had made her practice falling. He taught her to stay calm and collected, and to trust in the force, and though she had never fallen blindly through the dark, she clung to his training. It was all she had.

Nearly there, she thought, squeezing her eyes shut, though it made little difference. Knees bent, toes pointed and ready to absorb the hit—she would doubtless break some of them.

But it was not the ground which broke her fall.

Her legs were swept up as she was snatched from the air, but the force of her fall was too great to be stopped. She was spun, her arms bound to her sides and her body cradled against something soft, before landing in a disoriented heap on top of someone else.

Quickly her hands moved across a torso, broad shoulders, a neck, and finally his face.

He stopped her searching hands by grabbing her wrists.

"You're alive," she said.

He sat up, causing her to roll off of him, and dropped her wrists.

"You jumped," he said.

Light flared beside her. Rey glanced down to see the outline of a large hand pressed against the ground. The ground was glowing blue where he touched it!

"How are you do—"

"Why did you jump?" he whispered.

Rey glanced up and inhaled sharply. In the faint light she could see that his face was only inches from hers. He was staring so intently at her that she almost wished for the darkness to return.

"I don't kn-"

"Why did you jump?"

"I didn't have a choice."

"You could have crawled back the way you came," he murmured, his eyes never leaving her face.

"And risked the ground breaking beneath me?"

"Still a better option than jumping into a chasm. Why jump, Rey?"

"Because… because, it wasn't as deep as you said it would be."

"Still deep enough to trap you. I'll ask again, why did you jump?"

"Because you fell."

"And you knew that I was still alive," he guessed, a slow smirk spread across his face.

"Yes."

"How did you know?" he asked, and it seemed that he had moved even closer. She could feel his breath on her face.

"I… I could feel it. I just knew."

"It is nearly impossible to use the Force on Baudere."

"You can," she said.

"Yes," he agreed. "And I could feel you. I felt your fear… your anger… your hatred. I felt you reaching for me."

He raised his hand from the ground, and the light extinguished. In the absolute dark, she could feel his fingers tracing the curve of her jaw, and then the soft press of his lips against the side of her face.

She froze. She should have pushed him—screamed at him to stop, or at least pulled away, but she did none of those things. She didn't hate the feel of him touching her. Perhaps it was relief. Perhaps it was only the realization that she was not completely alone in the dark, but her heart was pounding, and—

And she realized that he had known exactly when to catch her. He had used the Force to feel for her the way she had for him. He had heard her scream his name and not answered. Thinking back on it now, when the ground gave way, his demeanor had been strangely calm, even as he fell. He had not even attempted to hold on to her hand! He had waited silently at the bottom of the pit—waited, allowing her to think that he was dead, and that she was all alone in the dark with no way to escape.

All of this… was it a test?

Rey reached out. Her fingers brushed against his hair. Swiftly, she slid her fingers through it, grabbed a handful and yanked hard.

He gasped as she ripped his head back.

"What are you playing at?" she hissed. "You wanted me to jump! You could have answered me. You could have-"

"I wanted you to use the Force," he snarled, grabbing her arm and bending it to free himself from her grip.

"Then you should have asked. You tricked me. I was terrified and I thought… I thought…"

A new realization dawned on her. She had used to the Force to find him, but had only accomplished this at the point when she had been the most afraid, and felt the most anger. Fear… anger… the path to the dark side… the way the Force had come to her, almost too easily, making her feel stronger when it normally took energy from her… because it was dark.

"Monster," she whispered.

"I only want to help you… to teach you… but you must accept who you are."

""I am not like you. I will never be like you."

"We'll see."

The red glow of his light saber blazed to life casting the dark canyon in a reddish glow. Rey winced. He was standing. He had gotten to his feet without making a sound, and now he stood over her, watching… waiting.

"I'll kill you someday," she said in a low voice.

He nodded slowly, and turned away.

"Get up. We're going to have to climb out," he said, and began striding toward the far wall of the crevice.

Rey stood and followed. Though as she walked, she pressed her fingers to the side of her face—the very spot his lips had lightly brushed against- and felt the gooseflesh rise along her arms and down her spine. She could remember vividly the feel of his mouth on her skin, and the way her heart had pounded against her chest.

Gritting her teeth, she curved her fingers, and scratched hard at her cheek, as though she could scrub the feeling off her skin.