"Ben."

Kylo could hear Rey's whispers calling to him throughout the night, but when he turned to where her voice emanated from, she was not there.

He was not even sure that it was truly her calling to him through the bond, or whether it was just his imagination, but he was certain he had never felt more alone in all his life.

The feelings of contentment within the grey disappeared as soon as the reality of their situation resurfaced at the forefront of his mind. He was days away from Rey's location, and the thought of such should have elated him, but the closer he got to her, the more danger she would be in.

Their connection the night of his mother's death had faded soon after Leia had completely become one with the force. Neither wanted it to close, but the extreme exhaustion of their reactions meant they could not help it when the other disappeared. She would not fade from his mind though, and the anxiety of the peril she would soon be in plagued his unconscious and waking moments.

The loss of his mother fuelled a façade of rage and control towards those he encountered through meetings and strategy preparation, especially Hux, whose eyes seemed to flicker with a quiet arrogance.

The façade was just that, though; he felt emptier and emptier by the moment, the rage just a hollow motion of old routine.

His mask also seemed to be a glass panel to Hux, who pressed Kylo with snide comments and attempts to assume command over particular plans. Kylo felt something take hold within him, especially since his recruitment of the Knights of Ren, something that seemed to grow in strength with each passing moment. Even his threat and use of violence seemed to do little to deter the parasitism of the General.

Kylo could snap his neck so easily, with only an afterthought in his mind, but he needed to pry the information from him first, to find out exactly what it was he was planning.

The strange tugging within a corner of his mind that whispered hesitation at such a callous action also gave him a pause on the action.

"You're growing weak," Kylo spat as he paced within his quarters, falling into a familiar pattern of thoughts in his exhaustive, anxious state. He threw his blood-stained gloves across the room and dug into his hands again, needing to feel the pain to help devise a plan to stave off Hux and the Knights.

Only three days until they exited hyperspace.

Only four days until the Knights of Ren would arrive from the Ilum system.

The Ilum system…

"You are not weak."

Kylo sighed as the familiar sensation of light filled his mind, though it was mingled with the even more familiar emotion of grief. He turned to face a drowsy Rey, her eyes bleary as though she had only just woken from sleep.

He frowned slightly at her words before turning his attention to the more pertinent issue. They did not have enough time.

"You're already in the Outer Rim, aren't you?" Rey's bleary eyes widened in response, her grief turning quickly into anger as she came to her own conclusion about the source of the information, the darkness beginning to writhe within her chest and through the bond at the thought of yet another betrayal.

"How… Are you tracking us? Are you using this bond to track us down?" Rey stiffened and turned to run, but Kylo crossed the distance between them and grabbed her hand before she could sever the link.

He couldn't let her believe that this was his fault. He couldn't stay silent as he did after Luke became one with the force.

He couldn't let her believe that he was still the monster.

"Stop, Rey. Please." Rey had begun to shrug out of his grasp until he pleaded with her, letting his walls down so that she could see and feel the honesty behind his words.

"Your transmissions were analysed from the base on Crait. I… I assumed you had already arrived due to the lack of humming engines and the fact that it looks as though you have just woken up… It must be morning there now." The scepticism on her face told him that he wasn't doing well enough, so with a deep breath, and a shaky voice, he continued.

"I know that I have given you nothing to allow you to trust me. I know that I have done nothing to deserve anything you have given me… But you must trust me now… You and I, and your… Your friends… We are in far more danger than you can imagine. I am trying to thwart the attempts of the First Order reaching you… Reaching my mother… But I failed her, just as I have failed everyone else… I cannot fail you."

There it was; the tide swelled and breached his defences, spilling his deepest fears from loose lips.

Kylo's fear of failure was rooted deep within his core. As a child he felt as though he had failed his mother and father when they didn't spend time with him, when they sent him away. As a teenager he felt as though he had failed Luke, and Snoke, as though there was something wrong within him that neither thought was good enough for them.

Then he met her, and he hadn't done anything but fail her. But something was different. Something told him that he would take as many chances he was given to keep trying to prove himself to her.

He hadn't realised he had closed his eyes against the tide of emotions within his chest, until a calloused yet gentle hand brushed the skin at his cheek. Relishing in the touch, the feeling of her against his nerves, he slowly opened his eyes to meet her tender ones.

It was like every time he let his guard down in her presence, the way her amber eyes cut right through his walls and saw straight down his soul. He had said once that she couldn't hide from him, but as he delved into the way she observed him, he realised that it was he all along who could not hide.

The thought terrified him in a way that was beyond fear; it was excitement, something raw and vulnerable, a feeling of warmth that begun to seed within his chest.

A feeling of belonging...

Swallowing the lump in his throat, he took Rey's hand from his face and squeezed it tight, imploring her eyes with the determination and impatience which refused to be forgotten, boiling from beneath the surface where he had been letting it simmer.

"The saber, my..." Kylo blinked against the pain he still felt at the thought of his Uncle, but pushed through. "Luke's saber... Do you have it? It wasn't aboard the Finaliser when I woke."

Guilt flashed through her eyes as she remembered the memory, a vision behind her eyes as she refused Kylo's hand and took the lightsaber instead, the force between them ripping the blade in two. Kylo squeezed her hand again, gently this time, reassuring her that it was okay, despite the aching he still felt at the choice she had made.

There wasn't enough time to reconcile the reasons and his emotions. He needed to focus on a way to protect her from the imminent threat. Rey felt the gentle nudge against her mind at the urgency and she, too, strengthened her resolve. Nodding, she reluctantly let go of his hand and walked several metres away to collect the remnants of what was once his grandfathers saber.

Dejectedly she turned, the pieces within her palm.

"I've been attempting to salvage it, but... I am not familiar with how kyber crystals work. The texts that I took when... When I left Ahch-To... They aren't complete in their information..." Rey walked the distance between them once more, regretful eyes pinned on the twisted metal in her fingers.

Kylo held out his hand, asking for permission to hold the saber. He felt a tiny part of her hesitate with doubt, but she physically shook that niggling in her mind away, before shifting her gaze back to him, and slowly pressing the two pieces into his palms.

The saber felt strange within his grasp. It was Anakin Skywalker's and then Luke's, and after Luke forsake his own after almost taking Kylo's life, it was his again.

It was moments before he could properly assess the damage and explain to Rey what she yearned to understand.

"The texts aren't complete because the teaching of lightsaber building is an oral history, a teaching too important to be inscribed for anyone to obtain." He rolled the pieces over to reveal the core of the saber, where the kyber crystal pieces were jagged from being split in two.

"This kyber crystal is too damaged," Kylo continued as he walked to his war table. He knew there were plans and information on the onyx table top, but he found he didn't care. Let her know, he thought. The more she knows, the more likely she will survive this.

But her attention didn't falter from the fingers he used to carefully pry the damaged kyber crystal from its casing. Rolling the pieces within his hands, he could see the way the crystal had cracked and shattered from within. The power of their force had caused damage that just shouldn't be possible in an element as hardy as this.

Looking to her curious eyes, he passed the kyber back to her. She rolled them around in her palms, examining them with such avid concentration, as though they would release all the answers she desired. The corner of his lips twitched at the sight, a movement which caught her attention from the side of her vision, or perhaps, out the periphery of her other senses.

Kylo looked away, but not before Rey was able to observe what she had. Dumbfounded, a tiny laugh escaped her lips. He turned back to face her, the wonder in her eyes shining as bright as the Cassaidian Stars.

"Were you smiling?" Rey threatened to break into her own smile, though when he replied there was no containing it.

"You're mistaken. The fumes from your space junk must be getting to your head." His words were harsh but the tone in which he avoided her question was anything but. He had to avert his eyes from hers, so that she would not see the way he was sure they softened for her. Despite how vulnerable he had allowed himself to become in her presence, a portion of him was still terrified.

Terrified of the pain, of the betrayal, and of the rejection that he felt were just a moment away.

He hadn't known anything else.

It was Rey's childish laugh that brought him back from the edge of an abyss he was dangerously close to falling in; turning back to her, it took all of him to not smile fully at the way she giggled.

"If you say so," she remarked, her tone telling him without the assistance of the force bond that she did not believe a word he said. Shaking his head, he held out his hand for the kyber crystals. She obliged, and he continued.

"These crystals can only be found on a planet called Ilum, in the Ilum System. Jedis in training would make their pilgrimage to the planet, traversing through the freezing elements and icy caverns in search for a crystal. It was a calling; they would use their connection to the force to guide them to their crystal."

Rey was entranced by his knowledge, leaning in with wide eyes as he continued.

"The journey out of the caverns was harder than the trek in. It took all the strength you could muster; physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. It was a trial, a test to determine the rest of your path as a Jedi... Or not."

Realisation flashed across Rey's eyes as she understood the way in which he spoke of the trial. She knew he was speaking from experience.

"You went to Ilum? To collect a kyber crystal?" She was excitement and curiosity all wrapped into one, imploring his eyes to tell her more.

But there was a pain there as he spoke, something he felt become more and more evident as he continued.

"Yes. I completed the trial, others did not. It..." He took a deep breath, struggling to verbalise a piece of his past that only two others knew; a secret that died the day he killed Snoke and Luke became one with the force.

Rey sensed the struggle within him, and she took the kyber from his palms and filled them with her own, squeezing his hands as he had done not minutes earlier.

Looking down at her rough hands within his own, he was struck with a wave of emotion as he saw what he had wanted, this whole time.

Rey taking his hand willingly.

There were no tricks, no subterfuge. She was here with him, laughing with him, encouraging him to tell the source of the shame that he had held onto for far too long.

Gathering his resolve, he took in a deep breath, wrapping himself in the light he felt radiating from Rey, balancing his shame and guilt enough to speak.

"When I travelled to Ilum with the other Jedis in training, and Luke... I journeyed into the caverns of old, guided by the force I felt to find the kyber that called to me. I was in those caverns for hours, freezing against the elements, trekking deeper and deeper until I thought that if I died there, no one would find my body." Another deep breath in and out.

"I was so close to giving up, and turning back, but I felt a pull so strong I couldn't ignore. Twisting myself into a smaller part of the cavern I was in, I saw them. Two clear kyber crystals, growing side by side, both calling to me." Kylo closed his eyes, and breathed in deeper this time. Counting to three, he exhaled and continued.

"Everything I had learnt had led me to that point, yet couldn't prepare me enough. I had never read of a Jedi who had been drawn to two crystals at once. At least, I hadn't yet. Deciding to trust the force and to trust what I felt, I took both."

"It took me hours to climb out of that cavern, and when I finally made it to the surface of Ilum, Luke was waiting for me. He had a look in his eyes that I couldn't understand, until I pulled out both crystals to show him I had completed my trial. The way he looked at me..." Kylo shifted, the memory just below the lids of his eyes. "The way he looked at me was with such fear and loathing, that I couldn't comprehend what I had done. He didn't even explain it to me, and before I was able to even begin the rest of the training with the crystals..."

Kylo looked at Rey with such anger and loneliness, and he was sure the heartbreak he felt was hers. He didn't have to finish the story of his past; Rey already knew what came next, though she still couldn't understand why.

Nodding in response to her confusion, he took a moment to reassemble his resolve before he explained.

"After... I followed the voices that I had been hearing, and I found Snoke. He had explained that there had been others before me who had travelled to Ilum as part of their training, and had been drawn to two crystals... He... He told me that those few were along the likes of Sheev Palpatine... Those who had been drawn to dual crystals had continued on to become Sith."

Kylo's jaw stiffened as he remembered the shame he had felt when realising what Luke's expression had meant. Luke knew what he was meant to become; he knew he would walk freely into the dark.

Rey's soul gently nudged him through their force bond in a way he hadn't felt before. It was a gentle warmth of light; of love, of trust, of understanding, but it was tempered with the deep blacks of a night sky. He could feel the pain of understanding, the fear of trust that he had felt since his parents sent him to Luke, and the desire of love she felt for him.

It was a darkness within the light, a beauty that he had only begun to feel with her.

A balance to the way the force pulled them, rather than ripping them in two.

Squeezing the hand that still held his, he sent what he felt down their bond; the shame, the guilt and the pain at his memory and his trauma. But within that was tempered the light that he had begun to tentavively embrace, rather than pushing down to the very core of himself.

The darkness was speckled with the marked heat of light, as stars that burn in the great expanse; the forgiveness of his shame, the acceptance of his guilt, and the healing of his pain, tempered and swirling in his chest, and through their bond to meet.

He could feel the way that her light met and danced with his dark, and the way her dark embraced his light. It was tandem in a way that left him breathless and left him feeling small in the presence of the force, but strong when he was with her.

It was a fire and a rain that he didn't understand yet, but he would do anything to protect.

hello pals! if you celebrate, merry Christmas and happy holidays! if you don't, then I hope you have a nice day regardless! I uploaded the first chapter of this story on Christmas day two years ago, after becoming fixated on Kylo/Ben + Rey's story post TLJ... so uploading on the same day after that spark has been reignited post TROS feels good. I have a good feeling I'll get this finished! I'm already half way through the next chapter, so expect another by the start of next week at the latest. thanks for the new favourites and follows, y'all are the best! lots of love xx