She lay there for a minute, unsure what to do next, but the sensation of something dribbling out of her body and soaking into the bed was unpleasant and she sat up, wincing. The belt she was still wearing had cut into her waist and the black dress itself was ripped in a few places, stained with either her orgasm or his in others, so she threw it into the corner with the rest of her clothes. There was no escaping the ache between her legs, and the sore spot on her neck was going to be another love bite.

She hobbled in the direction of the bathroom but hesitated outside the door. This was her bedroom but was she supposed to knock? It was too late to preserve anyone's privacy, she'd already seen him naked so she pushed open the door slowly and found him braced over one of the sinks staring into the bowl, from which she caught a faint tang of mint.

He didn't look up. 'I did that wrong,' he said heavily. 'I'm not used to it meaning anything. I was too rough. You'd have been better off trusting someone else.'

She wasn't listening. 'What happened to your back?'

His skin was scarred with two large plasma burns, one running in a diagonal line from his left shoulder to his right hip and the other horizontally bisecting his spine. The first was a thin white line which had the distinctive regularity of a lightsaber blade but the second was much deeper, still faintly red in places and it had gouged away chunks of flesh, leaving his back with irregular ridges and hollows. That these marks existed at all was stark evidence of the fact that he'd been injured and had no access to proper medical attention for long enough that bacta would have been ineffective. That he was still walking, particularly after the second strike could only be testimony to his will to survive. Someone had hit him, and they'd hit him from behind, while he wasn't looking, or, she realised, while he was running away. This was what the other students from Luke's temple had done to him.

'I already told you,' he muttered.

She crossed the room as fast as she was able, ran her fingers over the worst of the wounds. 'This was why you went to Snoke wasn't it? You were dying. You had no choice.'

His eyes met hers in the mirror and they were filled with disgust. 'I wasn't dying. Of course I had a choice. Don't be so ready with your forgiveness.'

She frowned at him. 'Don't you want to be forgiven?'

'No. Not by you,' he brushed past her and she staggered but he caught her with an outstretched hand.

'Why not?' she stroked his arm, striving to soothe the distress she read in his face. 'You promised me complete honesty. I've been honest with you.'

His gaze flinched away. 'You're too honest. You're too…' he flicked a hand. 'Everything. You just gave me…and you were scared and I… the things I made you say…and now you can't even walk properly so don't forgive me. It makes me feel worse.'

She poked him in the chest. 'I'm not a child. If I'd wanted you to stop I'd have said so. But if you think you made a mistake then that's fine. You're allowed mistakes. Make amends.'

He glanced at her quickly from the corner of his eye, then glued his gaze to the floor. 'How?'

She moved to face the mirror, eyed the damage critically. 'Help me heal.'

She shifted focus, fell into the trance state through which she was at one with the Force but before she could raise her hand to her neck the power she was channelling was supercharged, as a naked dark side user wrapped around her back. His hand overlaid hers and when she touched her neck the bruise disappeared instantly. She moved to the next mark and he kept his fingers on top of hers although his reflection was still steadfastly refusing to meet her stare. She pulled both hands to her waist, ran along the red welt the belt had left, erasing it and then she took a breath, and slid their fingers downwards.

The Force worked its magic, easing strained muscles, smoothing out jangled nerves, removing incipient bruises but it wasn't the Force she was concentrating on. She was looking in the mirror. Two figures stood there and both had a hand between her legs, cupping the mound at the apex of her thighs. Just the sight of him touching her jumped her heart into a higher gear and a flash of pink spread across her chest.

He was looking at her now, his eyes full of confusion, but she knew what she wanted and she wasn't confused at all. Slowly, she extracted her hand from underneath his, and placed it on top instead. His eyes widened.

'Again?' he queried, as if he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing. 'You still want me to? After I…'

She said nothing, just laid her index finger on top of his and exerted pressure, pushing his digit between her folds until it lay against her clitoris. She was still sensitive and the slightest touch made her shudder but he took up the invitation and began to move gingerly, her hand guiding him on direction and speed.

This was exactly what she wanted, she thought, as she maintained eye contact with him in the mirror and watched him finger her into another climax. She hadn't minded what he'd asked her to say earlier because she was honest enough with herself to know that it was Kylo Ren she was fucking, at least in part. There had been plenty of men in the Resistance camp, and even some in her early life on Jakku but she had never really wanted any of them. They were safe, suitable, sensible choices, and she could have had the relationship she'd described with them – one based on friendship and trust built up over years. But there was something about the man in the mirror that attracted her more than any of the safer options ever had. He was as fierce, as passionate, as prone to excess inside the bedroom as he was out of it. Maybe it was the darkness in him that broke down her barriers. She'd never been able to fight it, she ran towards it without a thought for the consequences.

She trembled beneath his touch. He was hard against her leg. Without breaking rhythm, he reached out and hooked something with his foot, dragging it across the tile. There was a high stool against her right knee, helpfully provided for the use of any guest who preferred to sit at the sink rather than stand. Ben's eyes fixed hers in the mirror. She clambered onto the stool and with his free hand he guided both of hers onto the edge of the sink, bending her forward.

She felt the head of his cock slide against her bottom and she spread her knees apart, bent her back and gave him a nod to indicate readiness. This time when he filled her it felt completely different. Being entered in this position put a new angle on the penetration and the friction between her legs was immediately pleasurable rather than something to be tolerated as it had been last time. Her fingers tightened on the sink.

He studied her face, drawing back gently and sliding in again, pushing deeper this time. A tingle of excitement brought a gasp to her lips. He moved again, too tentative and the pleasure lessened.

'Harder,' she whispered, looking him right in the eye.

The finger working her clitoris increased its speed and a jolt of rapture leapt inside her when his cock thrust in again. She nodded and continued to nod as the force of his strokes ramped up. She arched her back, presenting a barrier so that when he banged into her the impact was harder, her climax that bit closer. His free hand clamped onto her hip, holding her fast.

The mirror reflected her approval – a red faced woman stared back, panting and desperate and when her mouth moved it said 'Faster.'

She forgot herself, forgot everything but the feel of his cock splitting her open, stuffing her cunt with all its wide and glorious heat while his finger blurred at the parting of her thighs. She watched as Kylo Ren fucked her, hard and fast and she wanted him to do it, wanted him as much as she'd ever wanted anything in her life; the sheer joy in his eyes told her he wanted it too.

She backed into his thrusts, striving to take as much as he could give. 'More,' she demanded. 'More.'

He gave her everything he had and by the end he was sweating freely, his face a mask of concentration while she couldn't keep still, moaning and crying out and urging him on with a stream of filth she'd never dared utter before.

She wasn't looking at him when she came. She didn't need to. She closed her eyes and she could feel him inside her far more intimately than the simple slide of body into body. The connection between them bound them together, the Force and the physical union now working as one. The tension built into a peak and erupted; stars turned the darkness behind her eyes to flashing colour and from somewhere behind her she was aware of him shouting her name.

The orgasm was so intense it robbed her of the ability to form a coherent sentence and her legs shook so much through the excess of passion that she was unable to hold herself in position, sliding down the stool. She was dimly aware of being lifted, carried and settled beneath cool sheets.

Before sleep took her a kiss was pressed to her shoulder and then she caught a whisper in the dark, words not meant for her ears, words she might only have dreamed.

She woke to a cold bed, an empty bedroom, though which a strange white light played. The temperature seemed to have dropped significantly and she shivered, goose bumps rising on her arms. Ben was nowhere to be seen. Rey felt a brief flicker of disappointment at his absence, before a glance at the time told her she'd slept late and half the morning had already passed - no doubt he'd got bored of waiting for her to wake up and had gone back to his own quarters. She sat up, stretching out the kinks in her back and tested out the feel of this new, slightly altered body. All trace of discomfort had faded and she felt well rested, relaxed although also – she sniffed – in need of a bath.

Slinging the sheet around her against the chill she padded in the direction of the bathroom to freshen up, but the unmistakeable chink of fancy crockery halted her halfway through cleaning her teeth. She followed the noise out onto the balcony, finding Ben seated at the dining table with a cup in one hand and a data pad in the other, his hair damp above the collar of a fluffy white bathrobe.

He gave her a brief, startled look and she could sense his hesitation before he pushed back his chair, strode over to where she stood and after another second of internal prevarication, kissed her on the forehead.

'Hello,' he said.

She smiled back; he smelled fresh, citrus-tangy this morning and his proximity set off a quick throb of memory in her groin. 'Morning,' she said.

This was going to be normal, she decided. This was how they were going to define ordinary, just a kiss on the forehead and a daily greeting and a chat over breakfast. Then her eye caught something behind his shoulder and her jaw dropped. She stumbled over to the edge of the balcony, clamped her fingers on the railings.

In front of her the sea was now ice. It had been frozen in the middle of a storm, giant crests standing poised to crash down on the shore, their depths emerald green, froth captured sparkling in each cap. Between the waves, the seabed emerged in patches of sand and dark rock, like creeping mould against the crystalline beauty of the surf.

'Did we do that?'

Only the Force would have enough power to pause an ocean, and only when it was in the hands of the last remaining couple able to use it.

He moved to stand at her side, rested his hand on top of hers and gave it a squeeze. 'As flattering as it is that you become so distracted by our interactions, I doubt that the inhabitants of Coruscant or the turtles of Dorumaa would approve.' He caught her expression, backtracked rapidly. 'I'm sure the sea isn't frozen over the whole planet, it's probably just the part we can see. All the wildlife will have survived.' He didn't sound convinced.

She turned her palm over, laced their fingers together. The connection between them was now so established she could join her fluttering control to his restless energy without requiring any further contact at all. She focused, gestured and the ice creaked and shifted, steam rising from the waves as they began to melt and fall.

'I don't understand how this happened.'

He didn't release her hand, but dropped the bundle of fingers so they stood side by side, watching the ice melt. This was going to be normal, she thought, this casual physical contact between them. She'd be able to reach for him any time she liked and find him there, and he'd touch her any way he wanted.

'You get distracted. You lose yourself too easily in what we're doing. You don't fight it. It's like when you go straight to the dark, you stop thinking about anything else.'

'And what were you thinking about? This was a joint effort. I didn't go massacring reptiles on my own.' Her nails bit into the back of his hand.

He shifted the contact swiftly, repositioning his grip so that they were now palm to palm, his skin at a greater distance from any further injury she might want to cause.

'I was thinking about you.' The way he said it was so simple, the expression on his face so honest that she didn't have the heart to criticise.

'Then how do I stop this happening again?'

His thumb slipped into the space between their hands, stroked her palm. This too would be normal, she thought, this demonstration of affection. Maybe one day he would put his arm around her as they walked. Maybe she'd rest her head on his shoulder.

'Learn control. You'll have plenty of opportunity to practice.'

She thought about that for a minute, although the stroking was becoming distracting. 'Wait. This has only happened twice, once on your ship and once last night and both times we were occupied. That means I can only practice when I'm…when you're making me…when we're…' she searched for the word he'd used. 'Interacting.'

He said nothing, but the way he looked at her spoke volumes. She felt the excitement burning her stomach, raw and dangerous, the sudden bang of her heart in her chest, the tightness of her throat as she swallowed. This was never going to be normal. She was never going to get used to this. Somehow overnight he'd discovered the power to stare at her and turn her into a quivering mess, probably because last night he'd used his body to turn her into a quivering mess and now every time he looked at her in a certain way she was reminded of exactly how that had felt, and how much she wanted him to do it again.

'What are you reading?' her voice was squeaky. She gestured at the table in an attempt to change the subject.

'I was shopping. I bought a freighter.'

She felt much as if the melting waves had crashed on top of her.

'I can show you if you like. It's fast but subtle. Blends in. The main cabin's a bit small though, and I'll have to get the weapons systems upgraded but it'll do for a while. Do you want to see?'

'When are you leaving?'

She made to pull her hand back but a frown developed between his eyebrows and he clung on tighter, picking up her other hand to complete the set.

'Tomorrow,' he replied. 'Assuming the Resistance destroys the Sith fleet today. If Dameron has any sense he'll launch an attack straight afterwards, while the First Order are still reeling from the fact that their back up navy has been wiped out. Pryde and Hux will look to me for leadership but I'll already be en route to collect the freighter and ditch my shuttle.'

'Where will you go after that?'

'I don't know.'

'You don't know, or you won't tell me?'

'It isn't you I don't trust, it's everyone else.'

'So that's it? You're going to leave everything behind, just like that? The throne, the First Order, all that power – you don't need it anymore?'

'I'm not leaving everything behind. You're still going to visit me, aren't you?'

She nodded.

'Then I will have all I need.'

'And what about your grandfather – this all started with him. Are you going to tell him you're leaving?'

'I think that would be a spectacularly bad idea.'

'You said I could meet him.'

'There won't be time for that now.' He tipped his head to one side, gave her a questioning look. 'If I didn't know better, I'd say you didn't want me to go. Yesterday you told me you weren't ready to join me and today you're upset because I've stopped planning a life together. What changed?'

'Everything,' she shrugged. 'And nothing.'

He pulled her into a hug, pressed a kiss to the top of her head. 'You'll be hard to leave.'

There wasn't going to be a normal. She stood there in his embrace and acknowledged the truth she'd been trying to pretend didn't exist. He wasn't normal and he wasn't ordinary, he was never going to settle into the sort of domestic life that would involve cosy chats across the breakfast table and walking along the beach holding hands. He was all about swirling capes, extreme situations and the clash of giant cosmic forces of light and dark and his idea of a future was travelling around the galaxy fighting everything he met. The relationship was - as she had predicted at around the same time yesterday morning - doomed.

He pulled back, tipped up her chin with a knuckle and she found she recognised the look in his eyes. She was starting to get used to him, his expressions, the way he moved, how he tasted. She threaded her arms around his neck and relaxed her mouth in anticipation. Without the pressure of her armpits the sheet she was wearing unspooled and fell away and he tightened his grip as he bent for the kiss, pulling her in with one hand on her naked backside.

Eyes closed, his tongue invading her mouth, his fingers spreading possessively across her bottom she decided she didn't want normal anyway. This was what she wanted, this moment of connection, the release that came with being joined to someone who knew her as no one else could. Someone who knew that she wasn't normal either.

His hand slipped between them and unfastened the tie of his robe, pushing it aside and she felt his skin against hers, the evidence of his desire for her bumping her stomach. This was something she was getting used to as well, the impact his proximity could have on her, the way he could make her want him so easily. Both hands were on her backside and then, in combination with a subtle push from the Force he lifted her, spreading her legs to circle his waist. She was split around the base of his cock and it rubbed between her thighs; she shuddered at the new sensation. He lifted his hands, shifting her hips upwards, dragging her clitoris up his length and then allowing her to slide back down again. The feel of it was all hard, hot friction and she crossed her ankles over his back, enthusiastically taking control of her pleasure in grinding her hips against his erection, kissing him so deeply her jaw began to ache.

While she was occupied he moved, walking slowly and carefully back into the bedroom and manoeuvring himself into a sitting position on the bed. He released her mouth and pushed her pelvis up, forcing her to kneel with her legs braced on either side of his hips. Licking a shining trail down her chest, his tongue swooped in and out of the hollow of her throat, over her collarbones and only stopped when he'd reached her right breast, swirling a spiral round it that ended with her nipple in his mouth and her hands on the back of his head. He sucked delicately on the hardened flesh, his fingers coming up to squeeze and roll its twin and she gasped. Excitement boiled in her stomach, born of the expression in his eyes as he gauged her reaction, swapping his flicking, soothing tongue and alternating full-on suction to her left breast instead. She loved this. She loved watching him do things to her that no one else had ever done. She loved the raptness of his attention and the way he was so eager to learn what she liked. She loved the excitement he was adept at building inside her.

She bucked her hips but his free hand was braced behind him, holding him up and there was no relief to be had from that quarter. She slid her fingers between her legs instead and she felt him jump as he realised from the little movements she was making what was going on. He had his mouth full so he didn't say anything, but his eyes were glowing with approval and soon a warm palm was inching its way up her inner thigh. His finger entered her smoothly, just one at first, testing for resistance, and she clenched herself around it with a moan of rapture. Whatever he said was smothered by her aching flesh as her back arched and she thrust her chest further into his mouth. She kept her eyes open though, letting him see how much she liked the second finger when he pushed it inside her and what it did to her when those fingers began to move.

She massaged the place between her legs, working up a climax as his fingers fucked her, driving deep and then curling to hit the spot that had made her come so hard the night before. He didn't let her reach the edge though, releasing her breasts with a final pop and extracting his hand, lying flat on the bed as he positioned her to take his cock.

Instead, she slithered away to kneel on the floor between his legs and he got as far as 'What are you?' before she put him in her mouth.

Her lips stretched wide around him and the taste was unpleasant at first, thin and bitter on her tongue but she attempted to emulate what he'd been doing to her breasts and sucked until her cheeks hollowed and his face had gone bright red. She took pity on him only when she'd run out of air.

'I'm sucking Kylo Ren,' she said, because he'd seemed to enjoy the filthy language she'd used before.

He frowned, rather to her disappointment. 'I think we can dispense with the jokes.'

She stuck out her tongue and licked a leisurely route all the way from the root of his erection to the tip, earning a flicker of his eyelids when the pleasure registered. 'Don't you want me to talk to you?'

'Rey,' his voice was uneven, and his breathing turned ragged the faster she flicked the head of his cock with her tongue. 'At the moment I'd rather your mouth was too full to say anything at all.'

She obliged, opening it as wide as she could and taking as much of him in as possible. He groaned, and the groan turned into something much more animalistic when she met his gaze, his cock deep in her mouth, that taste flooding over her tongue, and she bobbed her head, swallowing him down. She couldn't fit him all in without feeling like she was going to gag, so instead she clamped her fist around the part she couldn't manage and pumped up and down in time with the movements of her head.

He endured her attentions for a few minutes, no more and then, with a movement that was both hasty and desperate, he grappled for her arms and hauled her back on top. This time both his hands were on her hips, holding her steady as she straddled him and the penetration, when it came, stretched her open inch by slow and steady inch until he had sunk deeper than anything she'd felt before. She struggled to adjust to the feeling, to the extreme fullness between her legs but his thumb worked at her clitoris to wake the excitement that would leave her wanting even more than she already had.

Her body told her to move, instructed her to get rid of the intrusion and she raised herself higher but the hand on her hip guided her firmly back down, impaling her again. She shuddered with the force of it, the rub and the friction inside sending a tide of pleasure through her strong enough to arch her back, locking her muscles. She rose up again, no longer trying to escape and again he pushed her down, this time raising his hips to meet her halfway. She bought her hands up to his chest for leverage, sliding up for a third time and then dropping down more sharply, an action which brought a cry to her lips. Then she closed her eyes and rode his cock, lost to the steady circling of his thumb, the ram of the erection into her willing flesh, the excitement that took charge as she sped towards orgasm.

'Rey,' he said sharply, cutting her concentration.

She ignored him, kept her head down and her legs spread but his thumb stopped moving and she clenched around him in frustration.

'You're doing it again. Look at me.'

It was an effort of will to tear herself from the impending climax but she opened her eyes and found him staring at her, concern written into the lines of his forehead. He gave a quick smile and resumed his attack on her swollen clitoris, thrusting fully inside her with a sure, deliberate stroke. She felt her eyes roll but pulled herself together and met his gaze.

'Better. I want you to look at me when you come.'

It took a few more thrusts, so deep she was sure she couldn't possibly fit any more of him inside and on the last she watched his face begin to sag, the stern lines on his brow lose focus, his mouth hang open and he was shuddering, spending himself inside her with a groan of effort. The sight pushed her over the edge and she came as he watched, came hard on his cock, came hard on his thumb, came because he was coming too and the connection between them demanded it. She collapsed on his chest, shaking.

'You are astonishing,' he murmured.

She hummed against the thud of his heartbeat. 'I prefer magnificent.'

'That too.'

She rested on him for a few minutes while he stroked her hair and his breathing returned to normal, then he rolled her off him gently, slid from the bed and retrieved his robe. 'I need to fetch some clean clothes,' he said. 'I'll be back in a minute.'

'I'll run a bath,' she responded, lazily certain that he wasn't going to need whatever apparel he wanted to fetch.

'You are extremely hard to leave,' he said, and vanished.

It was only when a banging on her door accompanied by shouting from Poe woke her from a bath which had now gone cold, that she realised she might be easier to leave than he'd promised.