'Everybody move,' Poe yelled, the first to regain his composure. 'Finn, get Ochi out of that cave. Rose, unhook the skiff and fire up the engines. Rey, how did you know?'

Rey was still listening to the Force more than to her companions, unable to understand how it could have led her so astray. Ben was here somewhere, and rapidly getting closer; she'd sensed him even though his whereabouts had been a mystery until something had connected them again a few days ago. She had a nasty suspicion that through the Force she'd told him exactly where she was.

Poe grabbed her by the upper arms and shook her hard. 'Rey, he's here isn't he? Kylo Ren. How did you know he'd be on Pasaana? You said it back on the Falcon and now here he is. Is he tracking you? Are you talking to him again?'

Not for the first time Rey wished she'd kept the Force enabled conversations she'd had with her enemy before Luke died a secret. She nodded dumbly.

He gave her a final shake. 'Why didn't you say so? We're going to have words about this.'

Ochi and Finn emerged into the sand, the former blinking rapidly and attempting to haul one of his arms out of Finn's grip. 'What is Ochi doing here?' He squawked as he looked up to see the might of the First Order navy occupying the atmosphere. 'Flee, Ochi must flee!'

'Couldn't have put it better myself.' Poe jumped onto the skiff, forcibly removing the shopkeeper from the driver's position. 'I'm the pilot. Everybody on. Maybe they haven't seen us yet. We might be able to hide in one of the canyons. Rey – move.'

She shook her head. 'I'm not going. This is my fault. I'll cause a distraction and give you time to get away. I'll meet you back at the Falcon.' She unclipped her saber, turning in the direction of the open sand and beginning a slow jog into the middle of the desert.

Finn's call came back over the roar of the accelerating engines. 'Remember, don't capture him, kill him.'

It was silent this far out in the desert. The ion engines that she'd heard on exiting the cave had all faded away, as the TIE fighters sped after the departing Resistance craft. Rey had stopped running, knowing that no matter how far away she went he'd find her anyway. It was a while before the rush of air and the faint hum of engines signalled his approach. This ship was quieter than the standard First Order craft. She focused on her breathing, hearing the gentle pull and push of the air in her lungs above any other distraction. She was dimly aware of the fighter whizzing towards her over the sand but she ignored it.

Breathe. Was that what Leia had said? Or had that been Luke? Both, most likely.

She breathed, and then with the Force, flipped up and backwards into the air, bringing the lightsaber down in a long, slow arc that sliced through the top of both wings before the swing was complete and she landed lightly on her feet, back on the sand. The TIE fighter immediately began to struggle, shaking as its stabilisers attempted to cope with the missing parts of its structure before giving up and sending the whole ship twirling gracelessly nose first into the sand. Rey stood and waited.

The red glow of the Pasaana star threw shadows across his face as he scrambled out of the wreckage, black cloak swirling in a stark counterpoint to the light with which he was surrounded. He stomped towards her over the intervening desert, gesticulating wildly and it was so quiet that his words reached her easily. 'What did you do that for? I wasn't firing at you.'

She ignited her lightsaber.

'I'm not going to fight you. Put the lightsaber away.'

She adopted an opening stance, cycled through the rest of the form carefully and calmly while she waited, remembering to breathe.

'Ataru. Good choice, if you know how to jump like that. Who taught you?'

She returned to her opening stance, ready and waiting. 'Did you steal my necklace and use it to track me here?'

'Yes.'

'How?'

'Put the lightsaber down and I'll tell you.'

'Is that Star Destroyer capable of recording this conversation from that distance?'

'They don't record my private conversations.'

'But don't you think it will look suspicious if we're standing here chatting instead of fighting? Maybe they'll think you're trying to defect.'

He sighed. 'Fine, I'll fight you. But whatever happens next it's your fault.'

The red flame jumped into life in his hand and she braced for an assault. The first swing of his blade was slow, clearly signalled but as she moved to block it his off hand gestured in the periphery of her vision and her weapon catapulted out of her grasp. In the seconds it took for her to summon it back he slid inside her guard, tossing his own sword carelessly to the sand and grabbed her wrist, yanking it up until her palm met his cheek with a light slap.

An immediate thrum of pain lanced through her chest and before she could react to that he was leaning forward into her space, far too close for comfort. 'Read my mind. It's the only way you're going to trust me. Go on. I'll let you in.'

He smelt faintly of singed wiring. The desert wind whipped his hair into his eyes but his attention didn't falter; she read no dishonesty in his steady gaze, but then, he'd fooled her before. She yanked her hand away, held it out to catch the flying lightsaber.

'I'm never going to trust you. You brought a fleet to kill me, exactly like I said you would. Defend yourself, or I will kill you.'

He leaned back and folded his arms, unimpressed. 'You would never attack an unarmed man.'

She held the blade to his throat. 'Try me.'

He didn't so much as blink. 'Into every generation the Force is born, its potential existing in thousands of individuals who may find their way to the light side or the dark and learn the ways of its power. But sometimes, that balance is destroyed and the number of Force users falls to a handful. Sometimes, it falls to two. Always one from the light and one from the dark and when that happens all the wasted capability of those thousands of other people concentrates in these two. They are equal, they balance. Neither one can destroy the other, although they may try.'

She wasn't expecting him to move and she didn't react quickly enough when he did. He stepped forward, right into the path of her blade and she both saw and smelt his skin smoulder as the tip of her lightsaber burned into the base of his neck. A blinding flash of agony exploded in her chest, and her vision blurred with it, shudders wracking her shoulders as the pain ripped through her body. She dropped the blade, bent over, gasping.

He continued as if he were impervious to such physical irritations. 'Together, the power they wield is greater than either may call on alone. The Force binds them, concentrates within them. Together, they are unstoppable.'

She glanced up, the pain passing as swiftly as it had come. 'Is that what Vader told you?'

He nodded. 'And more besides.'

She straightened, picking up her weapon but making no attempt to strike him again. 'Then I understand why you're here. These Force twins…' she waggled a hand dismissively.

'Force couple,' he corrected.

'Force captives,' she continued firmly. 'Are bound together, they can't escape each other because there isn't anyone else with the same power left in the universe.'

'But that power is unlimited.'

'And your theory is that when your mother died, that left us as the last two Force users in the galaxy, and we're now linked somehow? Joined as some kind of team?'

'Rather more than that. We are the living embodiment of the Force, and with it we can do anything.'

She put her hands on her hips. 'So, you're pretending to have converted to the light side so that you can deceive me into giving you, Kylo Ren, Supreme Leader of the First Order, ruler of the galaxy, even more power than you already have?' She clipped her lightsaber to her belt, wondering why there now seemed to be two at her waist. 'I think not.'

'You fail to understand,' he snapped. 'Again. There is no light side or dark side for us – we are above such things.'

'And you fail to understand that there is no 'us'.'

It was going to be a long walk back to the Falcon with no transport, and she was apprehensive about what she'd find when she got there. It was likely that the Resistance had been captured, or killed, given the complement of that ship – stormtroopers were probably overrunning Pasaana by now. The best she could hope for was that Poe and the others had managed to hide somewhere, and could keep evading the First Order until such time as she found them and they could work out how to escape.

The sand shifted behind her under the pressure of heavy boots and a large hand yanked at hers. 'Then prove it,' he hissed in her ear. 'Prove that there's no connection between us and we can go back to fighting each other.'

She glanced at his hand in disdain. 'And how do you suggest I do that?'

This was clearly the wrong answer. He pointed up at the Star Destroyer. 'That isn't a fleet. It isn't even a ship. It's a demonstration. That's why I brought it.'

The handholding was making her uncomfortable. His hand was too big, and his fingers were too warm and they were wrapped around hers as if they belonged there. She was conscious that someone on the Star Destroyer was probably recording this little tableau to laugh about later. His grip tightened and made it all worse.

'Could you move that ship on your own?' he asked, a thread of excitement now evident in his words.

She shook her head.

'Neither could I. It's possible in theory but there's a mental barrier I can't break. It's too big, too heavy. Now, let's try to move it together.'

'Which way?'

He gave her a sideways look, attempting to gauge the level of sarcasm in her tone, then shrugged. 'Left?'

She raised her free hand in a parody of control, waited a few seconds, and then dropped it again. 'Oh dear, it doesn't work. Let me go.'

But he didn't answer. She flicked a glance up to see his eyes were closed and his hand was out but after a brief moment she realised that wasn't all she could see. There was something else behind his features, something restless and swirling, something strong. The air around his form appeared to be bending in a way that had nothing to do with the desert heat. She closed her eyes and concentrated, properly this time, brought the otherworldly senses that had taken such effort to hone into effect.

It was so faint she almost missed it. A little pulse of something shimmering in her impressions of the Force, dancing just out of sight, beyond her reach. It was a gentle, fleeting thing, not the sledgehammer of power his words had conjured up in her mind. This was delicate, graceful, neither light or dark and she had no idea how he had ever thought it might be strong enough to move a starship.

There was a sigh beside her, a faint curse and the grip on her hand was released. Before she could open her eyes he moved, his arms wrapping around her waist, her back pulled tight against his chest and she was enveloped by him. He surrounded her, smothered her, the sheer weight and bulk of him solid in her consciousness; he lowered his face and his breath was hot against her neck. But the dancing thing steadied, drew on the wall of power now braced firm against her spine and it sharpened, strengthened, made itself ready. Without looking, she raised her arm, conscious that Ben's arm was moving at the same time and there was a rush of power that thrilled along every nerve ending she possessed, leaving her trembling with exhilaration.

She said, 'Left.'

'Look,' he breathed.

In the sky above, the Star Destroyer was moving. Slowly, ponderously, it obeyed the joined arms pointed at it from the planet below, and, with a flash of warning lights and a faint blare of sirens, it shifted sideways.

Rey felt the power drain out of her as her concentration frayed, distracted by the enormity of what she had done. What they had done, together. Behind her, he straightened, his chin brushing into her hair as his arms tightened on her waist in some kind of hug.

She broke free with an effort and when she faced him he bore an expression she recognised from a vision. 'Still want to fight me?' he asked, with a lift to the corners of his lips and a lightness around his eyes that wasn't usually there.

'I…that...'

'I know,' he said. 'I know.'

'We could have crashed it.'

He gave a dismissive shrug. 'You wouldn't have let me crash it. It felt like you were in control. You're the pilot, I'm just the engine.'

'But if we can do that, what else can we do?'

A smile flickered briefly and he held out his hand. 'Do you want to find out?'

She crossed her arms, nodded at his fingers. 'It seems to require slightly more in the way of physical contact than that.'

That smile again, tentative and fleeting. 'I'd noticed. So you believe me now? You trust me?'

A movement at the limits of her vision stilled the reply on her tongue. Over the capital of Pasaana the Star Destroyer was manoeuvring itself back into position, and once it had finished a bright blue light emerged from the undercarriage, spotlighting something on the ground. She wasn't too far away to see what the tractor beam had picked out, and was now lifting into the hangar. A small ship, far too small to be any threat to the behemoth about to swallow it, with a round profile interrupted by two distinctive arms.

'No!' It was a yelp of outrage. 'You can't take the Falcon.'

'I think I legally own it.'

She spluttered at the cheek of it. 'You planned this. You planned this whole thing – the ship and the Force and the… the hugging – you set me up.'

'We've just accomplished miracles together, we've discovered a power that almost no one has ever possessed and you're worried about a piece of junk I'm going to melt into slag the minute I get back on board? Hux has standing orders to capture that ship and all its crew the minute it's spotted. I doubt he even knows you're here.'

'You do. If you're on my side then call the First Order and get them to release that ship right now. If you want me to trust you then prove where your loyalties lie.'

He looked from her up to the Falcon, making its stately entrance into the belly of the beast, and then back to her again. 'I'd prefer it if you asked me to prove it some other way.'

'Fine,' she snapped. 'Fine. Then in that case I'll help you destroy the First Order, and I'll help you turn from the dark side, and I'll trust every single word you say if you declare a truce.'

'Pardon?'

'You heard. Declare a truce. Ask the Resistance for peace. Put an end to the war and I'll even hold your hand again.'

He opened his mouth, shut it again without saying anything at all.

'I thought not.' She stomped away from him across the sand.