Chapter 1: Why, God, Why?
The Millennium Falcon was little more than a half day's journey from Crait. Seated on a shipping container back in Han Solo's former quarters, Rey of Jakku cradled the two broken halves of the Skywalker lightsaber the way one might cradle a baby.
To anyone who happened to pass by, the sight of a forlorn Jedi mourning a dangerous weapon might have been construed as odd. Yet it was what this asundered weapon represented that caused Rey to wallow all crestfallen.
This lightsaber represented all that could have gone right which had now gone wrong. A beautiful and bright promise now destroyed. Snuffed out. Just as the last little glimmer of Ben Solo, the Light in Ben Solo, had been snuffed out by the dark, siren song of power.
The moment the last Prateorian Guard fell, Rey's heart had swelled and beat with ectopic happiness, as she breathlessly anticipated that the moment she had worked towards - a moment she had subconsciously yearned for her entire life - was now at hand. The moment where Ben Solo would turn, and he would take her hand... and with his acceptance, Rey would finally find belonging. Love. A family.
But had that vision materialized? No. Instead, Ben had offered her his hand, still gloved. And with it, power. Protection, cloaked in the seductive yet suffocating blanket of possession. The love of a possessive kind.
But Rey did not want power. She did not want protection. Those were the offerings of Kylo Ren. All Rey wanted was understanding. Companionship. And chief of all... love - the offering of the man she wanted: Ben Solo. All she wanted was Ben Solo's love.
It had still been the hardest thing she ever had to do, refusing him. Going in a desperate grapple for the lightsaber. Leaving him unconscious on the Supremacy and fleeing from him. And closing the door of the Falcon on him, wishing that the Bond be shut forever? That had been the hardest thing to do of all.
In her heart of hearts, she did not want the Bond to be shut forever. But she felt that she had little choice, or else be tormented in pining anguish over what could have been for the rest of her life. Besides, Snoke - the madman who had tortured her precious Ben, the monster who had supposedly conceived their union - was dead. Should the strange gift not die with the giver? Its creator?
No...
All at once, Rey felt that rush, that warm, tingling sensation vibrating at the back of her spine. In her head. Accompanied by the squelching of time and space, bringing them together across lightyears.
Across the stars...
Rey's traitorous body shivered in yearning delight, even as her eyes went wide, panic overtaking her emotionally exhausted brain and she whimpered.
"No... please..." she trembled. He couldn't see her like this. She refused to see him as he now was - a twisted version of his true, beautiful self. A nefarious imposter of her true, lost love, who looked like her Ben, at times sounded like her Ben but still was not him, as though he had been warped in a funhouse mirror. Standing, taking a shaky breath, Rey tried to flatten her face into one of stone as she turned to face her denied future, which would now only ever be the most bittersweet cap on her tragic past.
The first thing she noticed, upon turning to face him, was that the mask was back. The kriffing mask was once more imprisioning his handsome face. She nearly wailed. She wanted to scream at the black, obsidian device of horror as though it was a living thing - how dare it hold her sweet darling captive! She felt a twisted satisfaction at the red streaks of congealed adhesive which were now holding the monstrous thing together, but it was hollow. A Pyrrhic victory. A reminder that while the darkness could be beaten back, it could come back stronger than ever if merely left for dead rather than having the life squeezed out of it. And now, Rey wanted to squeeze the life out of that mask just as tightly as the darkness had squeezed the life out of her sweet Ben.
The creature, Kylo Ren, tilted its head as it studied her.
"Do you really wish to hurt me? To defend the honor of one who cannot be helped?"
She glared at him defiantly.
"Go ahead," he encouraged, whispering like a lover after emerging from the entanglement of sheets and descending from the heights of passion. "Give in to your anger. Unleash it on me."
She wanted to. Oh, how she wanted to. The urge to kill the mask and everything attached to it was almost as strong as the urge that compelled her to simply rip the mask off and run into his arms and hold him. She wanted to yell and scream at him and give him a real dressing down - for using her, for leading her on, for dangling out all her deepest desires like a sweet treat only to rip it away at the last moment. She wanted to spit. She wanted to damn him.
Rey didn't do any of that. Instead, big, fat tears leaked from her dark brown eyes and slid down her cheeks, before her face scrunched up as sharp, punctuated sobs bubbled up from where they had been lodged in her throat. She wept quietly, ignoring the dwindling strength inside of her - now scolding her for coming apart like a cheap deck of Sabaac cards... and all over a boy.
Gods, why was she so pathetic? What had Ben Solo done to her? Whatever beauty and happiness he had blessed her with, she bitterly wished it gone, as she had once wished to have their Bond die in its cradle. Out, out, damn spot! Ben Solo had made her so weak, and she all at once wanted to wring his neck... and kiss his lips.
Kylo's presence passed over her thoughts just then, feeling simultaneously like a fleeting shadow and a lover's caress. Clamping down on her inner musings too late, Rey felt herself oddly blush. Her sobs turned into sniffles, but the sheen of moisture was still unyielding in her eyes, which now flashed as anger finally deigned to make an appearance.
"You lied to me!" Rey wept. "You promised me that once Snoke was gone, you would come away with me, back to the Light! You promised me!"
"I've never lied to you, Rey," and despite that blasted voice modulator that made his timbre send chills through her body, his tone was oddly soothing. "But I also made you no promises. You saw the vision that I would turn and foretold it to me so. I'm afraid you took whatever the Force promised you and projected it onto me."
Rey nearly had to stagger to bear the weight of the truth... that he was right. Kylo or Ben or whoever he was had never explicitly promised her anything. Each had simply communicated to one another their firm conviction that one would turn to the other... and come away from that tender moment alone in the elevator believing that they both were right. That they both could be right.
Uncomfortable truths, however, have a way of making a believer double down, and this Rey now did. "Well, then, you did the same thing! You projected onto me your belief that I would be the one to turn!"
"And imagined or not, that promise? You still broke it!" Kylo hurled.
Rey leaned back, stung, a fresh wave of tears coming. For a parsec, she reached out her hand, then retracted it back.
"Let me see your face," she pleaded in a whisper.
No response. He moved not a tick. Rey wrestled down a sob. "Ben," she whispered. "Please."
She feared that in saying his true name, she had pushed him too far. But like before in the elevator, something about her speaking his true name on her lips seemed to reach him. Slowly, Kylo reached up and unclipped his mask. He paused there for a moment, his hands hovering as they framed his face.
A tiny moan escaped Rey's lips. "Ben," she crooned. "Take it off. Please take it off." Another tear slipped down her cheek.
There was a click and a hiss, as finally, the cursed thing came off.
Ben's chiseled, striking face appeared and Rey let out another moan, this one of relief. He simply stared at her, with those same hang-dog, sorrowful, heartbroken eyes from the hangar bay... and Rey felt her heart cleave in two anew.
She broke down once more.
"Why did you leave me?" she sobbed.
Ben reflected her own tears back at her. "Why did you leave me?" he agonized. Never, not even in the throne room, had he sounded so vulnerable.
"You were going down a path I couldn't follow!" Rey blubbered. "You were becoming a person I didn't want!"
Ben's eyes flashed with rage just then, and the sudden change made Rey's voice trail off in a frightened gasp and whimper. "What you want is something - someone - that can never be! The man you wish to take as your lover is dead! Ben Solo is no more!"
Rey groaned melancholically, squeezing her eyes tight. She nearly put her hands over her ears, to block out the blasphemy, but refrained. "I refuse to believe that!"
"Believe it, silly girl."
"No!" Rey yelped. "My sweetheart is alive!" She opened her eyes, gazing at him with steadfast determination. "And I know he's in there somewhere."
Kylo sneered. "Then content yourself to be a widow before you could even be a wife! Ben Solo is DEAD!"
"NOO!" Rey screamed in frustrated rage. The entirety of Han Solo's chambers seemed to vibrate with the sound, the Force amplifying it as the energy field too howled in protest.
Rey finally sank to her knees, all screamed out. Weeping quietly, she hugged herself, bemoaning her fate. Their fate. Were she and Ben truly doomed? It would seem so.
She felt his presence, hovering closer but not wanting to come too within reach, and through the Force Rey felt a soothing balm of... concern. Sniffling, she turned away from the warmth.
"I should have known you could never be anything but a monster!" Rey whispered fiercely through her tears.
To her bitter satisfaction, and unlike on that island down by the water, when he had agreed with her assessment, Rey felt her words pierce Ben. Like she had shanked him with a lightsaber. The squelching sound could be heard once more, and when she next glanced up... Ben was gone.
Before she could seize on the crazy impulse to apologize.
Bowing her head, Rey wept.