AN: Kylo POV, TFA. Slight tweak on Reylo's first convo.
"They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered."
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise
The girl in front of him, the one he has heard so much about, is nothing like he expected.
She hid her fear, pretty eyes wide and defiant. Desert rat. Scavenger. She somehow wore the titles with a fierce pride.
Although Kylo had been mentally unguarded when he entered the room - an oversight he was unable to remedy - her intrusion into his mind was both exhilarating and terrifying, comforting in a way he couldn't admit. In her, he felt the same aching loneliness that was his daily existence. She understood what it was to live apart. Never belonging. Completely alone.
He never believed someone would have the capacity to know the depth of isolation he felt. But there it was.
And she felt it too.
He watched recognition wash over her face. The same surprise. A moment where her gaze softened, then immediately hardened, as she remembered her location.
Kylo, schooled in some of the ways of the Jedi from his formative years of training, knew a connection like this was rare. That she was Force sensitive was actually a lesser interest. Snoke, of course, would be fascinated in the range of her power, but Kylo was less so.
Ben...
Her voice in his head. How could she know?
As familiar anger boiled over, he welcomed the emotion, blocking out anything else. Standing up and quickly donning his mask once again, Kylo's cape flowing behind him as he departed the room.