Another one I may continue. Or rewrite. Doesn't quite capture the thought right now. But. Anyway.
SSS
It's the first time he's felt her reach for him, and the sensation stops him dead in his tracks, forcing the two troupers behind him to step sharply to the side to avoid a sudden collision with the Supreme Leader. The call is sudden and sharp, almost like a scream, and gone so fast it leaves him reeling.
Rey?
He reaches back, hungry for the contact after so many weeks of silence, but just as his control has improved these past few months since Snoke's death, so has hers, and now that she's done metaphorically screaming in his ear, she's blocking their connection. Hard.
Rey. he tugs on the bond between them, something he imagines as a door not unlike that of the Falcon, and manages to pry it open a crack. Enough to see her, but not the surroundings he has only just become adept at viewing. She fades into view gradually, and he's not sure she's even aware he's managed to reach her. Her body appears pressed against the wall opposite him, her head tilted down and away as though she's looking at something he can't see. He takes a step toward her.
Rey?
She jerks her head up, shock registering in every line of her body, and he hits an invisible wall that he knows wasn't there a moment before. Rey's eyes are wild, and he can feel her trying to shut down the link between them. To hide from him. Unable to get any closer, he sticks a metaphorical foot in the door she's trying to close, fighting to keep it open.
Rey, what's wrong? It shouldn't matter. Her fear should please him. But it doesn't. It doesn't please him at all.
She shakes her head, almost desperately, and he pushes harder. Slowly, his determination overcomes her fear, until they're no longer standing in a corridor on his ship.
Instead, they're standing at the bottom of a deep ravine, the nearly vertical walls comprised of blue grey stone. Almost directly above, twin orange-gold suns cast their rays down, harsh and a little too bright, illuminating what it was she was staring at when she first came into his view.
Bodies litter the dusty rock, at least a dozen scaley carcasses still smoking here and there from the cauterization of the lightsaber's touch. Something he recognizes as rough clothing covers the bodies, and primitive weapons lie where they fell when their owners were slain. He takes it all in, bile rising in his throat as he forces memory back to silence. Then his gaze moves back to Rey, and he feels his eyes widen. He hadn't realized how much of herself she'd been able to hide before.
Her clothes are torn, gashes running from shoulder to elbow, hip to knee, across the width of her belly, and the wounds beneath are still ragged and weeping. Blood drips from both her nostrils, painting her lips and chin with red. Her hair is wet with sweat, clinging to her cheeks, and her eyes-
The emotions he finds in her eyes hit him like a hammer, and she nearly succeeds in forcing him back out as he struggles to filter through the tangle of rage and pain and stark cold fear. Fear. Not fear of her attackers, but-
Understanding flickers through him, and he takes another step forward.
Rey. Tell me where you are. There is no hesitation in his words, and he wants her to hear that. To know that he doesn't care what happened.
She shakes her head vehemently, droplets of blood splattering to the ground. He reaches out, cups her cheek in one leather-clad palm. She closes her eyes, turns her face as far away as he will let her.
I can help you. He tells her, but she doesn't respond.
He's never done this. Not since that first time they met, when they were enemies and strangers. He doesn't want to do it now.
He leans in, pressing his forehead to hers, feeling her ice cold skin against his, and reaches his mind out to hers. More intimate and intrusive than the Force bond they share has ever been. He doesn't want to do this.
Let me in. he pleads.
Her eyes squeeze tight shut, two tears squeezing out to trail down her cheeks, over his gloved fingers. And she shatters.
By the time their thoughts are each their own again, she is leaning into him, face buried in his chest as she cries. He holds her there, lips against her sweaty hair, giving what reassurance he can with his continued presence, the tenuous solidity of his body against hers. But it takes only moments for her to realize what happened, what she allowed him to see, and then she jerks away. She sinks to huddle on the ground instead, tears and blood still flowing down her face.
He kneels beside her, presses a kiss to her forehead.
I'm going to come get you. Wait for me.
He leaves before she has a chance to respond, and again he's striding down the corridor of his new flagship, on his way to the bay where his fighter is docked.
Wait for me.