For a girl who had grown up between a bright, open sky, and the seemingly endless sands of the desert, the tunnel was a torture. If she tried to sit up, she would smash her head. In fact, if she moved too much at all, she might lose her balance, fall into the quickly flowing maccawater beneath them, and be disintegrated within seconds. The darkness offered no comfort either. After her confinement on Baudere, Rey had had enough of the dark to last a lifetime.

"Does this tunnel never end?!" she snapped. Her voice rang too loudly in the confined space, and she could hear the warning note of panic in it, the sound of it made her flinch.

"It ends," he confirmed, his voice calm and quiet.

"How do you know it doesn't end at the edge of a drop-off? How do you know we won't fall over the side and be melted? She demanded, nevertheless, lowering her voice to match his calm tones.

"I suppose I don't know that," he admitted, and even in the darkness, she knew he was smiling that lopsided smirk, she could hear it in his voice.

"Funny!" she hissed, her anger growing almost as large as her fear. She had to calm down. Master Luke never lost his temper, no matter the circumstances. He always had control over his emotions, even when it seemed like they were facing certain doom.

"That's not true," Kylo replied as though she had spoken the thought aloud.

"Stop. Get out of my head!" she growled.

"We're not going to be pitched over the side of any waterfall," he continued. "We're slowing down. Can't you feel it?"

And immediately she knew that he was right, the feeling of movement was slower, the water lapping at the sides of the stone, much gentler.

"We're getting closer to it. I can hear it," he soothed.

"I… I don't like tight spaces," she admitted. "Not for very long anyway."

"You were a scavenger for most of your life. Didn't that involve—"

"Yeah. Yes it did… sometimes. There was an old Star Destroyer in the graveyard back on Jakku—I think it was called the Inflictor. Everyone stayed away from it, for the most part. I heard stories about squatters living in the ship's conning towers. They were supposed to be dangerous, real territorial types, but I was quick. I knew my work well. I figured I could be in and out before they even knew I was there. I was repelling down a corridor when my rope was cut. I fell about 15 feet, broke my arm, cut my leg up pretty bad, but I was able to get away. I spent the next few days hiding in a ventilation shaft. Very little water… extremely dark… and I could hear them all the time, looking for me. Haven't liked tight spaces much since then."

He did not respond and an irrational panic seized her—that she was alone in the dark, trapped and alone, and she would die here and no one would ever know.

She froze as his gloved hand brushed again the exposed skin of her leg. He was, perhaps, only changing his grip on the stone, but the way he had positioned his hand, so that she could just feel the side of it touching her leg, seemed deliberate, and she was thankful for it. The slight pressure served to anchor her, and she no longer felt quite so alone.

And yet his continued silence bothered her. They were never equals—captor and captive, master and apprentice- he always held the power over her. This dynamic often led her to feel angry with herself— especially whenever she opened to him in some small way and left herself vulnerable.

"Now you say something about yourself, something I don't know," she said. "That's how conversations work."

"I have shown you many of my memories already," he reminded her.

"That's different. That's not conversation, that's—that's like taking someone hostage and showing them things whether they want to see them or not."

He was quiet for a moment more. She had almost given up hope of an answer when he spoke again.

"You frustrate me," he admitted simply.

"I already know that," Rey sighed.

"You're powerful. You could be more powerful still if you would only embrace the dark side. It was my goal to break you the way I was broken, to force you into realizing your abilities, as I have—"

"And you're frustrated because I won't break," she guessed.

"No Rey. If I wanted to break you, though you are strong, I would break you. It would, perhaps, take physical torture to do so, but it could be done. When I am not directly confronted with you, I tell myself that I will do it. That it is imperative that I do so, and yet when I inflict the pain I know is necessary upon you…"

His words trailed off. Against her leg, she felt his hand curl into a fist. Though he did not complete the sentence, she knew what he was going to say. She could feel him thinking it. When he inflicted pain on her, it felt as though he were inflicting it upon himself.

It surprised her. Although, searching through her memories, she realized that perhaps it shouldn't. Perhaps she had always suspected as much.

"Some nights… I still can't sleep," she admitted. "Some nights, I imagine my mother coming back to Jakku, and I'm not there. But I know that it won't happen. Deep down, I guess I've known for a long time. She's dead. Master Luke says that a Jedi shouldn't have strong attachments to individuals anyways, that we can't see the greater good if we focus too much on the good of those we love best."

"No matter which Force you serve, they both require their acolytes to sacrifice," he said in a low voice.

"The rewards are different though," she said confidently.

"Not always."

"People turn to the dark side because they want power, and they don't care what they have to do to get it!"

"My grandfather embraced the dark side in order to save the one he loved."

"Master Luke's mother died when he was born. Darth Vader spent the next twenty years as an evil, twisted, murdering—"

"You don't know the first thing about my grandfather," he hissed, his tone becoming dangerously sharp. He moved his hand away from her leg.

"I know that he destroyed General Organa's entire planet in front of her. I know that to this day, she carries that wound on her heart."

"He had tried the way of the Jedi and the Republic. He saw corrupt politicians sway the senate. He saw how the greed of a few took precedence over the good of the many, while the Jedi were used as a tool to prop them up. No one would listen. His master betrayed him. When he lost his wife, he finally realized how much of his life he had wasted in futility. He saw that the only thing that could destroy evil was evil. He spent 20 years building an empire where all living being would exist under the same laws. He used his power to destroy the corrupt system of entitlements and lies that politicians had built. He bid his time, playing the obedient apprentice to his master, Palpatine, using his master's knowledge and experience to bring planet after planet under the Empire's peace, but knowing that ultimately, he would one day be strong enough to destroy the most corrupt politician of all, the Emperor. Did Luke never tell you what my grandfather offered him? To destroy the Emperor and rule the galaxy together? No. Because Luke Skywalker was brainwashed to believe the lies of the Ben Kenobi. He could only see the world as dark or light. He is brainwashed still."

"He is a good man!" Rey cut him off.

"He is a coward!" Kylo seethed, raising his voice at last. Rey cringed as his words echoed loudly through the tunnel. The stone pillar rocked nauseatingly from his restless movements.

"He is a coward," Kylo repeated, his voice calm again. "A coward who hides. His father gave his life to destroy the greatest source of evil in the galaxy, and it almost worked! Do you really believe that after twenty years of planning, and working, hiding his true intentions from a master who could read his every thought—a master who knew too well the Sith rule of two, and constantly expected that Vader would one day attempt to kill him—do you really believe that Darth Vader was broken at the sight of a son he had never known being tortured? That his core beliefs and life goals were abandoned in an instant? Or can you understand that he saw Palpatine distracted, sloppy in his madness, his energy draining from shooting bolt after bolt of force lightening, and he realized the chance to finally realize his ultimate goal had come?"

Rey closed her eyes—a useless reaction in the dark, she realized, but her head hurt from all the things she wanted to say, all the arguments she wanted to make. But one thing above all others stood out to her.

"Almost," she murmured. "You said almost."

He gave no answer to this.

She sighed. With her eyes closed, he was the first to see it.

"Light," he whispered.

Rey opened her eyes and blinked. Lifting her head slightly to see better, she squinted.

There was something up ahead. A scattering of faint, blue, pinpoints of light. They flickered slightly like dim starts, and seemed to be concentrated in the shape of a half circle. It took her a few moments to realize that the glowing half-circle was the end of the tunnel.

"What is it?" she whispered.

"I… I'm not sure," he admitted.

The pillar moved slowly, drifting now instead of rushing, but the half-circle of faint, twinkling, lights grew larger and larger until at last they passed out of the mouth of the tunnel and into the largest cave Rey had ever seen.

Massive, icicle-shaped rock formations hung down from the ceiling, their pointed tips dangling threateningly over their heads, while other pointed rock formations grew up from the bottom of the black lake, narrowing to sharp points high above. They gave the cave the appearance of a yawning mouth filled with dangerous fangs. The sparkling blue lights seemed to cover everything.

Carefully, Rey got to her knees, and then, extending her arms for balance she slowly got to her fees. Kylo copied her movements.

"There," he said, and she saw a glowing finger of earth which jutted out into the inky blackness of the lake. Rey leaned forward, stretching her arm towards the nearest pillar of glowing rock. When they finally drifted close enough, she shoved off, hard, sending the floating pillar toward the glowing shore.

The floated silently together, waiting to reach the shore, both of them staring around at the glowing blue cavern, at the shimmering rock formations, and the faint reflection of the twinkling, blue lights across the calm, black surface of the lake.

"It's odd isn't it?" she asked.

"Not the word I would have chosen," he replied.

"Well it is. Korriban is a planet that seems to breathe death and evil, everything that tries to exist here is ugly… twisted somehow… I would never have expected to find something beautiful in a place like this.

She turned to see his expression, but discerned nothing from his profile. He seemed to be focused on the shore.

He jumped first, and tuned to offer his hand. She took it and allowed him to help her to the shore. It felt good to have her feet on something that didn't move. He did not release her hand, but instead lifted it closer to his face, turning it over so that her palm was open to him.

She drew in her breath sharply. Her hand, was glowing blue where she had touched the rock to push off. She leaned in to study it closer, just as he glanced up. Their eyes connected. His face, bathed in the dim glow of her hand, looked serene and sort of… sort of… the corners of his lips turned up in the faintest hint of a real smile. Tiny sparks of blue reflected in his dark eyes.

He leaned forward first. She knew what he meant to do, and closed her eyes. She could feel the heat of his breath against her lips, and hear the rustling of—

His grip around her wrist tightened.

Rey's eyes opened.

"What…?"

"Shyracks," he whispered. "I had forgotten."

"I don't understand!"

"Keep your voice down, and don't move until I say. They're blind. They're cave dwellers. The blue… I didn't realize their waste was luminescent."

"What?!" she hissed, snatching her hand back to wipe it hastily against her shift.

"They come out of the caves every six years, a migratory or mating pattern, I can't remember which, but in the old days, people would come from all over the galaxy to see them. There would be so many, the skies would turn black for days on end. They were famous for the blue waste they left across the red deserts of Korriban. They called it the 'purpling' of Korriban."

"Well that's… that's…" she fumbled for the words to voice her disgust, but the sound of rustling wings was growing louder.

"Don't move," he reminded her.

Rey's eyes darted back and forth, searching frantically for the source of the sound, but when the first shyracks swooped down from the ceiling, skimming across the water toward them, she had to press her lips together not to shriek in horror.

These were nightmare creature. Their skin was pale, wrinkled and corpse like, and they were shaped like something between a human and a worm, with bony wings. They had no eyes, only gaping, hole-like mouths with no lips, and needle-sharp teeth. Their shrieks were ear-piercing.

"Don't move," he mouthed the words again.

The first shyracks shot by within inches of them.

He leaned forward slowly, until his lips were beside her ear.

"There's a fissure in the rock, twenty steps behind you. There's a current—warm air, coming from it. We should be able to just squeeze through. When I say run…"

The shyracks continued to swarm past them, Rey cringing when a sharp-edged wing grazed across her back.

"Steady," he whispered.

The last cluster shot past them, the sound of wings fading in the distance.

"Go," he hissed.

Rey pivoted, and ran. She did saw the fissure, but almost immediately, heard again the sound of wings. The swarm was circling back.

"Faster," he urged.

Rey reached the rock wall, turned to her side and began to push herself through the crevice in the wall. She had to hold her breath and wriggle hard, and realized almost immediately that she would just be able to squeeze through, but Kylo was too large to pass.

"It isn't large enough!" she yelled, igniting her light saber. She began swinging wildly at the crevice.

Beside her, Kylo lit his blade and held his other hand out in front of him. The lead shyrack crumpled, fell from the air and crashed to the ground, dead. The creatures would be upon them in a second, and all her effort was doing little to widen the passage.

He swung, severing a wing and then spinning back to slice the head off another. Rey gave up and turned to face the swarm. She swung and swung again, but it was obvious that their numbers were too great.

"GO!" he ordered. "GO NOW!"

"No! NO!" she yelled, felling yet another of the endless swarm. A sharp-taloned claw snatched at her arm, and though she jerked it away and ducked, she was still cut deeply across her shoulder and back.

Kylo glanced quickly at her, baring his teeth, he cut wildly through several more of the flying terrors and then in one forceful movement, snatched her by her uninjured shoulder, and shoved her hard into the passage, backing against it so that she could not get out.

She screamed a curse word at him. Beyond his dark form she could see wings flapping and the flickering of his blade arcing quickly back and forth. She would not go! She would not squeeze through, deeper into this cave of horrors and completely alone while he was torn to shreds by shrieking monsters.

She could feel herself drawing in the dark energy before she was even conscious that she was trying. She felt it filling her, her power steadily growing. Her fear, trapped and alone, fueled the need for more. She had never drawn in so much before. She could no longer even feel the pain in her back and shoulder.

With a scream of rage, she let it out, unfocused, a dark wave of raw power.

The cave reverberated with her scream, and then it shook harder, rock crumbling from the walls and ceiling, massive stalactites crashing to the ground. Falling rock crushed shyrack after shyrack, while rocks and dust rained down around her. She no longer had to hold her breath, the crack had widened, and Kylo was beside her now, shoving her through.

She fell to her knees as they passed through into…into…

There was real daylight in the strange chamber. Cracks in the low ceiling allowed rays of warm, red daylight to shine down in spots, illuminating a black marble floor, covered with deep drifts of red sand.

Kylo fell to his knees beside her, breathing heavily.

"Beautiful… I thought it was beautiful… but it was monster droppings," she said in a shaky voice, and let out a single, hard laugh.

He leaned over and brushed the hair which had fallen loose from her bun, from her face. His hand cupped her cheek, turned her face so that she had to look at him, and what she saw in his eyes then made her catch her breath.

His eyes were wild.

"Do you see now?" he demanded. "Do you understand what you were made for now, where you belong?"

"No," she mumbled, turning her face away, ashamed… and confused.

He lurched forward, his hand wrapping around the back of her neck as he hungrily pressed his lips to hers.

She pushed away.

"No!" she repeated, forcefully.

He froze.

"What's wrong, Kylo? I thought we both knew you could take whatever you wanted," she said, her voice breaking. "That's a lie. It was even back then, because what you want… from me? That's something that can only be given willingly."

"And what is that you think I want from you?" he growled, low in his throat. "You ridiculous, love-starved, scavenging, little orphan. Do you think I want your heart? Do you really believe that I place any value on sentiment?"

Rey looked directly into his eyes.

"Yes," she said simply.

The sneer on his face wavered a fraction, and then melted away completely. The two of them were left staring at one another. He looked away first, his hair falling across his eyes.

"I don't," he said.

"You're a liar."

"No. Not a liar. I don't love anything. What I love, I must destroy. It is the price I have to pay. One need alone drives me. Every other thing that I touch turns to ashes."

"That's not true."

His smile was bitter when he spoke.

"If nothing else I say is true, you should believe that much."

"You can't destroy me," she shrugged. "You can't. I'm stronger than you are."

He stood, straightening his robe, but Rey got to her feet as well, refusing to let him ignore her. She had underestimated the amount of energy she had released, and standing up so quickly caused the room to sway.

She stumbled drunkenly back, and he caught her by the shoulder, accidentally pressing his fingers hard into the deep scratch left by the shyrack. She gasped in pain. He loosened his grip but continued to press against the wound.

"Stronger than I am," he scoffed. "You can never be as strong as I am as long as you hold onto wasteful emotions like trust and affection."

"You're… hurting… me," she said, struggling to stay calm.

"Good. Let go of what you don't need. Am I hurting you Rey? Remember that. Your heart isn't needed, your power is."

She slapped him, hard.

"Stop it!" she hissed. "Stop your games, your lies. Stop trying to hurt me when we both know—"

"You don't know anything," he cut in. "Do you not remember Baudere? How did you feel about me there?"

"I hated you. You held me against my will. I despised you."

"Now who's the liar?" he taunted, his lip quirking up into that knowing smirk. "I know what you thought about me. I could read every thought in your head whenever I chose to. What I'm asking…" he bent down, bringing his lips to her ear and dropping his voice to a whisper. "What I'm asking, is how did you feel?"

The implication of what he meant sent a shiver down her spine. She knew. She remembered. The times she had woken, and immediately listened for the beating sound of his presence… wanting to see him… wanting him close, even when she wanted to kill him. She remembered wanting him to touch her, wanting him to look at her, wanting him, and constantly having to fight herself. The struggle between her mind and body.

"That's right, Rey. You remember. Do you know what I noticed first about you on Takodona? Your health. Growing up on Jakku, malnourished in that harsh of a climate- under those circumstances, your body should have shown the wear. Your heart should have been bitter, your eyes dull, but no. There you were, practically glowing with life and hope. I guessed what had sustained you through all those years even then. The nutrients you didn't get from food, the love you didn't receive from family, all the things you needed to grow, you took in from the light side of the Force, without ever even realizing it. Your body used it for nourishment. When I brought you to Baudere, cutting you off from the Force your body had always depended on, I knew you would seek another source of energy to draw from. The only power your body could draw from there in that place—my own dark energy."

She shook her head slightly.

"Yes, Rey. You are a Force Reaper. When you can't get one type of energy, you take in the other. Your body needed mine. You fought it admirably enough, but as your physical need began to conquer your mental resistance, you looked for a way to justify it— trying to make an emotional connection that would, to you, rationalize your physical need. You made yourself needlessly vulnerable to me."

She shook her head more forcefully.

"Yes, Rey. Do you understand now? Even the Jedi know that love is nothing more than a distraction, an irrational justification for valuing an addiction that will only serve to weaken you."

Rey sucked in a sharp breath.

"In the cave just now…" she said. "In the cave just now, you had no way out. Your only chance at survival would have been for us to fight through those monsters together, but that's not the choice you made! You made the choice to sacrifice yourself to save—"

"I had no intention of dying back there!" he snapped.

"Oh, Kylo," she whispered. "I do understand… better than you think. You poor—"

He snatched her injured shoulder and gave her a hard shake which stopped her words with a gasp of pain. She brought her hand up to slap him again, but he caught her wrist with his other hand and twisted her arm up and over her head. She struggled, trying to free herself as he backed her against the wall, and pinned her body between it and his own.

Unable to move, breathing heavily, she looked up to meet his eyes.

"Nothing you've said changes anything. You still can't take what you want from me, but you've also done everything you can to convince yourself that I can't even give it to you. I feel sorry for you. You've been so twisted by—"

A searing pain behind her eyes stopped her words this time. It hurt terribly, causing her to cry out as he delved roughly into her mind. She pushed back, fighting him mentally, and just as before, she found herself spearing the foremost thing in his mind—fear. It was always fear. His fear… of the pull he felt to the light. A pull that seemed to grow stronger every time he admitted what he really felt for that girl—for her.

He knew that she saw it, his lips parted as though he would say something, but nothing came out. There was nothing he could say. Rey pushed herself up on her toes, and kissed him. He jerked back as though he had been burned.

"No," he whispered, releasing her arm.

"No?" she asked, pushing her body against his.

He did not answer, but neither did he pull away this time. Boldly, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her lips lightly to his. He did not return her kiss.

"Alright," she whispered. "Alright, Kylo."

She let go of him and with a sigh, turned to survey the chamber they found themselves in.

"I suppose we should try to—"

His arms were around her, squeezing her against himself, and then his mouth was on hers, and then on her neck, and jaw, and ear, kissing her roughly, nipping her earlobe. He had backed her against the wall again, pressing her body between himself and it. She could feel what was straining against his robes, and worked her arm between their bodies, so that she could run her hand against it. Even through the thick cloth of his tunic, it caused him to shudder, and he moaned low in his throat, his lips still pressed against her neck. He broke away only to drop his belt and pull the tunic over his head. When she didn't move fast enough, he grabbed the hem of her tunic and ripped it up. She put her arms up, allowing him to pull it over her head.

He drew back slightly, gazing at her naked body for a moment, and then reached out slowly to trail his fingers down her neck and across her collarbone. The gentleness of his touch and the look in his eyes raised gooseflesh up and down her body, but it was only for a moment. The next instant he seized her around the waist, lifting her up, and setting her back to the wall. She wrapped her legs around him, and felt him reach down and drop his pants. He was exposed as she was, and she could feel the swollen head rubbing against her inner thigh, and she wanted… she wanted…

He kissed her again, roughly, pressing her back hard against the wall, and when she cried out, it wasn't all from pleasure. The wound on her shoulder throbbed painfully, but she almost forgot about it when she felt his hand slide behind her and down between her legs to touch the aching spot between them. The wetness he found there made him groan, and he ran his long middle finger around her entrance tauntingly before sliding one finger slowly- agonizingly slowly—into her. Rey moved with his hand, moaning as she ground herself against his palm, wanting more, but he was in no hurry. He gave her another finger, still stroking her slowly, not allowing her demanding thrusts against his hand to dictate his pace.

"Oh, please just… just…" she cried.

His tongue traced the down the length of her neck and then his lips pressed against the hollow at the base of it.

"Please what?" he murmured against her neck. "Tell me what you want, Rey."

He withdrew his fingers and she almost cried out at the absence of them, but then felt the head of his cock press firmly against her opening. She gasped in anticipation. He leaned away to adjust her position against the wall, accidentally dragging her injured shoulder against the rough stone and she flinched with the pain.

"Rey?" he asked, uncertain at her reaction.

"Just please..." she begged.

He pressed his lips against her neck again, and then, bit down as he entered her with one swift thrust.

She cried out, digging her nails into his back. He pulled out slowly and then another thrust, fast and hard. With each thrust he seemed to hit something deep inside of her that sent a jolt through her entire body—and then the slow withdraw, so that she felt every inch of him—the competing sensations had driven every thought from her head but one:

"Faster," she begged.

He stopped completely, still fully inside of her and backed away from the wall. She gasped and clung to his neck, and then they were down on the sand, and he was beneath her. Straddling him, was a different sensation entirely, she lifted herself on her knees and then slowly eased down the length of his cock. He moaned, and she felt a thrill at the control she had. She moved faster now, up and down riding him, feeling herself tighten around his shaft as her orgasm built. He was meeting every one of her thrusts with one of his own and every time she felt a jolt and another and another, faster and faster, she was almost there, she was almost—

"I'm… I'm…" she cried.

And he sat up, wrapping his arms around her tightly, and thrust hard into her. She cried out and felt an explosion that seemed to race across her body, fading into a tingling in her toes.

He fell back on the sand panting, with her head on his chest, and his arms still wrapped tightly around her. When she looked up, and saw his face, she knew that in that instant, for that one moment, he was completely at peace.