Author's Note: When this was originally written in 2017, I was a big believer in the Kenobi theory. It's still a better backstory than the one we got for Rey in TRoS, lmao.
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She woke slowly, blinking against the sunlight. Cheering around her.
"Ukubulala abulale ukumbulala! Ukubulala abulale—" One became indistinguishable from the other. Her arms were pinned above her head. Wide, open space. Arena, she thought dumbly. Her vision swirled. A roar sounded. The cheers increased.
Her vision stilled. The roar loomed again. Gates, too far for her to see exactly, opened. From the perimeter, they came. Creatures. Roaring, spitting, snarling creatures.
"Ukubulala!" screamed the ground, clicks in their tongues. All of them, shaped in the colour of sand, their faces formed in the shape of insects.
The creatures skittered, lumbered, hissed, and roared. They sniffed the air. Scenting.
"… You requested, Master—" She lost the words among the crowd and the creatures.
Who she was, her blood the same, felt fear in his bones. The Force flowed, and she was centred, but she wasn't, she was screaming, rattling the chains—
Then she was among the stars, searching for a lost planet, diving into water that chilled her bones, standing as her brother—her padawan, her life, her master's dying wish—burned by the lakes of Mustafar—
She saw, he saw, they watched Anakin Skywalker. He raced across the dunes of Tatooine while they sat in the stands. They watched him in the confines of a yacht ship, speak with a girl as young as he yet with wisdom pouring from her fingertips.
He gave her a pendant.
Then he went away, to Coruscant, where beings lived and breathed in confines; even the wealthy. They met again, but the dreams—the dreams didn't stop—
He married the girl. He loved the girl.
The dreams still didn't stop.
He killed for the girl. For his children. He fell, for the girl and his children.
She saw him, fallen and ashamed and guilty, repeating what his new master whispered to him and not finding tragedy when he found meaning in the poison.
So much misery, so much pain. This was what made a Jedi. Infinite sadness, with a soft smile. Rey screamed now, in the dark, alone, curled within herself with her hands on her rumbling belly, begging for whoever left her to come back. Finding a flower. If Jakku can grow such things, then maybe it isn't so bad, maybe her family knew she would be happy here, someday…
Then she floated among the dark of the universe. Her body hung there, slowly dancing among stars that burned before her.
They collapsed in on themselves. One by one, shrinking, shrinking. Until there was no more to see. Only the dark.
Planets below, far below, in this galaxy and the next, living and breathing. They would all become stars. They will become stars. In time. When her flesh and blood is gone. When the Force has taken her, soul and mind into its arms.
The Force sparked, blazed, burned. Light burst forth. It rolled like spreading fire within the energy of the burning stars. It blasted into her flesh, her muscle, her sinew. Every broken part, shattered and made anew.
"It's so much bigger," Luke Skywalker had said. He was right.
She sat now at the mouth of a home once burning and wearing the clothes given to her by the Shorak. The brown tunic and the black leggings. Reality was melding with the dream. Rey squeezed her eyes tight.
Her arms were wrapped with grey now. Her white shirt and grey trousers and the boots with which she danced over Ahch-To's stone in practised form while Luke Skywalker watched sadly.
Smoke trailed into the deep lilac sky from the home. Two suns shone bright beyond dunes.
In her hands, she felt the weight of a broken Rebellion pilot's helmet.
Crossing her legs, she stuck it into the sand.
The desert wind brushed over it. Eventually, while she watched, even its emblem was buried beneath the harsh sand.
He will sit by her side, and talk with her.
And he did.
He wore a black tunic threaded with thin gold. His knuckles were scuffed from the arena training.
Together with him in this quiet, Rey watched the setting suns.
"I understand," said he.
"Do you?" asked she. They, Skywalker and Kenobi, joined by the Force. Destined to play a hand of fate already dealt once before. He laughed, she laughed, and she felt his fingers brush the back of her hand. She turned her palm face-up. He drew idle circles into her skin, drew his thumb over the lines.
Kylo was handsome. That had always been a passing thought, at the back of her head. He favoured his father, had Han's arrogance and humour, but as she looked closer, when their lightsabers clashed on this planet, that planet, she found a general. Dark eyes, forever searching others and the world around them. Passion, hurt, conviction, sacrifice. Regret and guilt. Every day, since Starkiller, she had felt those in his mind. Heard the voice of Han Solo echoing in his thoughts, especially on the days when he finally dreamt. In his dreams he saw only the lightsaber through a heart. Felt only the rough pilot's palm cradle his cheek. That alone. Never the promised strength, nor the darkness.
"I've tried to understand," he admitted, amidst the high towers of smoke, "what this is. Why this – link – exists. All I know is what I feel. You, in my head, with nothing hidden. Every moment… I felt it, Rey. You're scared."
A tear rolled down her cheek. She laughed, short, sharp.
"You promised to stay out of my head."
"You promised not to use the Force."
The icy feeling surrounded her, despite the desert warmth. The grey binds unravelled, leaving only the brown tunic. She looked at him fully.
"What's happening? Out there?" Out there. Like this image around her was a cocoon. Something made of the softest silk she could wrap herself and him within to escape. The two suns could be on any planet; the sand could be any desert. She simply had to imagine. And it would all be so real.
That was the danger of the Force.
"Thassa has condemned us to eternal servitude, in her father's house. The others are jealous. The Bimm especially," Kylo added. Rey's tears broke with another brief laugh.
The use of his name, so intrinsic and yet so apart from 'Ren', was foreign to speak. Foreign to even think. Ren represented the First Order, represented the fact that he was her captive and she his captor. But so was 'Kylo'. That was the fire that trailed smoke over his true name. Kylo was the mask he hid behind. Han Solo had stripped away both, Kylo and Ren, with a single echoing call.
"What will happen, Kylo? If we reach the end of this?" She wondered when "if" had taken over from "when", when possibility had taken over from inevitability. "I mean – you're the only one who understands. Truly understands. I don't want the Force, this – thing – within me. But I have it."
"You would defy everyone if it meant stopping it. Wouldn't you?"
More tears came, down, down, slipped down her cheeks, however much she clenched her fists and tried to stop.
She shook her head. She wiped her tears from her face. She knew what would happen, eventually. She knew what she was trying to defy. They were enemies.
Enemies did only one thing in war.
"I can't kill you."
"I can't kill you either."
She snapped her head up. He shrugged, a small smile coming, owning the overdue truth. It was why every battle ended in injury and stalemate. Power did not matter; it hadn't mattered for a while.
She sighed a small smile.
"Then what do we do?"
A sensation like a boot to her stomach flipped within her body. She was launched back, the two suns a blur, until she hovered in space among a galaxy. Below her, a black hole. Roaring, expanding and shrinking. Constantly in flux.
She looked to her right. Kylo was at her side, still in the colours of the Shorak. He lifted his head and found her eyes. He smiled. Reached forward. She lifted her hand towards his, their fingertips brushing. She breathed, the pain softer.
They stood on the Finalizer together now. Through a viewport, they watched the streak of stars. He still had his scar. Her binds were black, her boots leather. Her fingers gloved. Her loose hair framed her face. Snoke lay at their feet. She kicked his lifeless body with the toe of her boot. He came between us , she whispered, linking her fingers with his. Their eyes glowed yellow, their smiles dark and delicious. Never again.
Then they stood among the quiet crowd of D'Qar. Her hair was scooped into a low bun. A hologram, of another threat, another Resistance, another battle, lit all the familiar faces in blue. He spoke with soft intensity beside her, dressed in the garments of a general, his chin scattered with scruff from late nights dedicated to the cause. His forefinger brushed over her thumb as she breathed, listening to harried arguments around them.
Wind blew on Ahch-To. They stood back-to-back, armed with lightsabers, their Jedi robes flapping against their legs. Faceless enemies advanced with a roar. Such a roar it pounded in her ears, rattled inside her head until the roar was a quiet cry, a whispered thank you and it was him that knelt at her feet. Her lightsaber run through his chest. The final battle.
Trajectories. Winding through the stars, shining through years.
Her mind returned to the burning homestead and his fingertips ghosting over her own.
Rey breathed a sigh. She sank her fingers between the gaps of his, and held on tight.
His scarless face smiled.
"We're in Station 3Z3 now," Kylo explained. His mouth tilted with a smile. "They're ordering me to tell them when you wake."
"Kylo…"
"Mm."
Rey breathed. "May I kiss you?"
His smirk became a smile filled with affection. Not with hunger, nor greed. Affection and… relief. His relief flooded Rey, enveloping her in warmth as he enveloped her then, curving his arms around the small of her back in an embrace. He held her close. Her arms slid around his neck, her fingers stroked his nape.
Somewhere within it, the relief the security, she finally pressed her lips to his.
Somewhere within the kiss, she deepened it. Shifting her position so she was knelt before him, she arched her body against his, whispered in his ear and kissed his cheek. Her mouth caressed the edge of his jaw and the line of his neck.
Fucking him would be simple. It wouldn't be complex, like politics. It wouldn't be a choice, between Light and Dark like the Jedi. It was just a process where she could simply be. Simply feel. Lost within the Force, she hadn't felt for so long. Everything had been a mission, a chance to choose her path and win the war. This was just two parts fitting together. Such simplicity was a blessed contrast.
That was what, after all, she had done on Jakku. Processes. Wake, dress, and wash if she could, scavenge, sell, scratch and savour each flavourless portion Unkar gave her. Wake, wash, steal, sell, and scratch. All their own mechanisms with their own routines. Even her hunger was a routine.
Running her fingers over his torso, his body now over hers, she discovered the narrative of Kylo Ren. She traced the scars from former battles. They were white cracks, a jagged map across his skin, as if they had never seen a bacta tank. She was used to such scars. When he removed her tunic, pulling at the belt around her waist, his eyes widened slightly to find she carried them herself.
When an outlander came to Jakku with patches and gel, scavengers would slip into their ships in the dead of night and steal them. Barter for them the next day, fight for their gains. Rey was never one of those scavengers. When beaten, she lay on her cot in her AT-AT and let them heal. She made supports out of scraps rejected and worked when the pain was enough to let her work. Jakku wasn't a place for healing.
A scar ran along her belly. One of Unkar's goons, seeking amusement. He'd slashed his whip against her stomach, laughing when she collapsed in the middle of Niima Outpost. Kylo's thumb traced the faint line of pink flesh, its twisted surface. His eyes flickered up to her, just as his lips pressed a kiss to the tip of it, within the valley of her breasts.
Her fingers ran through his hair in reply. The world zeroed in to his hands sliding underneath her tunic. For a moment, her breath stilled. But this was a dream; no consequences lay here, so she breathed. Kylo continued, edging her trousers from her hips down to her ankles, inch by inch. She peeled them off and settled against the sand. Waiting. Wanting. Desiring.
Her quiet gasps came as he tested her, sliding his finger into her folds, found her wet and waiting—he grinned up at her, boyish to match her giddiness—and kissed her inner thigh.
She shivered, shuddered when he tasted her. The two suns and the desert crumbled around them. They were back within the stars, floating through colour (purple, black, white, sheer white, silver, gold, grey, blue) as he hitched her legs over his shoulders and went deeper.
His tentative touch betrayed a naivety. It told her of gentleness hidden. Seeing it, feeling it course through her body, the pulse of electricity without the Force was intoxicating. Dizzying. Every shout, every jolt and moan as he found new places within her, that bubbled up in her throat, she rolled her hips against his mouth, fucking him as recompense for every sensation he pulled from her body.
He fucked her after that. Filled her as she hooked her arms underneath his armpits, hunkering down on his shoulders, lifting up her hips as his came down until their rhythm was like their heartbeats. Quickened, hurried. Precious to only themselves.
He panted in her ear while his fingers thread into her hair and his free hand caressed her side, threading underneath her back. He hauled her up, a brief break in the rhythm, a hitch in the beat, until she was draped against him, him on his knees and snapping up his hips while she rocked. They shushed one another, swallowed each other's words with heated kisses. The rhythm became irregular; she panted.
"Kylo – I don't think – I can't—"
He understood her, the thread of her sentence in both of their minds. She couldn't come like this. She needed his body over hers, needed her ankles locked against the small of his back, guiding him to that sweet spot.
She came underneath the guidance of her fingers and his cock, keening with a cry and a sigh. He choked, kissing her neck, her shoulders, her breasts. She caressed his cheek, brought his face to hers. Sliding her palm underneath his jaw, she tilted her head and kissed him.
Softly. Slowly.
Gently.
She held him, as he held her. Every last broken part. Slid his hands over her back. Soothing. Kissed his shoulders.
The Force hummed within their bodies.