Part II

On day one hundred and fifty-six they had a quiet moment alone in their quarters. The few other times that the bond had opened since the impromptu dance lesson, one or both of them were occupied with other tasks or around too many people to interact more than just a passing glance. Perhaps during one of those times, Kylo might have reached out a gloved hand and twirled a lock of her hair around his leather covered finger and perhaps he may have loved the blush that rose on her cheeks at the simple gesture.

But on this night, they were seated cross-legged on the floor in front of each other. "What did Luke teach you?" The name of his uncle was bitter on Kylo's tongue but he had to know where Rey was in her rushed and most likely lackluster Jedi training.

Rey looked down at her tangled hands, thinking about how she had parted from Luke, pointing a lightsaber at his neck and telling him that Kylo Ren was their only hope. She had only half believed the words when they left her mouth, but here she was now, learning from someone who was as gray as they come.

"Not much..." she admitted almost embarrassingly. "He had me reach out and feel the Force, feel the connection between everything. He was scared of my power, he was scared..." she swallowed, not wanting to admit the next part, especially to Kylo. "He was scared that I went quickly to the Dark when it offered me something that I wanted."

Kylo pressed his lips together knowing that the Darkness had enticed her with the promise of information regarding the identity and fates of her parents, and while the Darkside had not revealed the answers to Rey, Kylo had been privy to the visions and memories that had been long forgotten.

"He said that he had only seen that type of power once before...with you...and while it didn't scare him then, stating something about his hubris, it scared him now." Rey had felt shameful over this. While she had not shown it on the island and stated that she would never become anything like Kylo Ren, Rey was disappointed that Luke was unable to see the good in her.

Even though she sat with the man she swore to never learn from, go to, or become like, she felt no shame in the decision now. Perhaps she was not becoming like Kylo Ren, but he was becoming more like her. They were meeting somewhere in the middle and she knew that is all she could ever ask of him.

"Luke told me that the Jedi had to die, but never went into detail as to why. He lived in an exile of his own making, serving out a penance while the galaxy fell apart around him."

"My uncle was a coward," Kylo said before he could stop himself.

Rey gave him a tight-lipped sympathetic smile, "I know what he did to you at the academy was wrong, you both had faults in that tragedy. I know he hid away on that island and buried his head in the sand for years, but when it mattered...when it really counted, he came through and distracted you from killing your mother and her followers. He kept you from killing me..." She looked down in her lap, thinking back on all his misdeeds.

His large hand came into her view and wrapped around her two hands that were clasped together. "I never wanted to kill you...truly..."

She snorted, "You had a funny way of showing it...ion cannons are a pretty lousy way of saying that you want me to live on to see another day."

"I was hurt," he said defensively and withdrew his hand from hers.

Rey reached out and took his hand again, "I know," she said softly. "We were both hurt that day but I would like to think that we have been able to do some healing over the past five months." She bit at her lip, mulling over her next thought. "If we are going to make this work...whatever this is between us, we have to forgive each other for the pain we have caused one another."

Kylo would never stop being amazed at the emotional maturity of the beautiful woman before him. She was never coddled and throwing fits would have been a waste of energy, a luxury she did not have growing up in the harsh deserts of Jakku. While he would do anything to go back and erase the suffering from her past, he also suspected that the reason the Force put her through the torment of Jakku was so she could be the balance that he needed. So that she could survive the tragedy that was his existence.

"You have nothing to be sorry for," Kylo looked deep into her open expression. "I am the one who has done the unforgivable. Since the moment we touched hands on Ahch-To and I saw your future…our future, I have wanted nothing more than to try and be worthy of what was shown to me."

"If I go to him, Ben Solo will turn..." Rey rehashed the words that she had spoken to Luke on the rain-stricken island. She looked up to meet his eyes, "When Luke wouldn't come with me I told him that you were our last hope."

Kylo pressed his lips together again, "I did turn, just not in the way you hoped I would..."

"You said that I would be the one to turn," Rey thought back to their brief conversation in the turbolift.

"I never wanted you to turn to the Darkside, I just wanted you to turn to me," he spoke the words like a spoiled boy unwilling to share a new toy on the playground.

She wasn't sure if her blush was because his words were sweet or assuming, but Rey's chest heated. They were getting off topic again and she didn't want to go down the road that the conversation was heading. "Forgiveness Kylo..."

"I wish you would call me Ben," his voice was almost a whisper.

"Perhaps one day when I know he is in there," she reached across the small space that separated them and placed her hand, flat-palmed over his heart.

Leaving her hand in its place, Rey started her long ramble, "I forgive you for kidnapping me on Takodana and invading my mind. I forgive you for hurting my friends, Poe and Finn. I forgive you for firing on the fleet..."

"That wasn't actually me...that was Hux and Snoke..."

Rey gave him a pointed look, "So you had nothing to do with the bridge blowing up while your mother was on it?"

"Oh," he looked down at his hands in his lap. "That."

She put a little more pressure through her fingers, pressing into his chest. "I forgive you for trying to kill your mother, both on the Raddus and also on Crait. I forgive you for trying to wipe out the Resistance. I forgive you for attacking your uncle." Thinking of the fallen Jedi made her eyes start to water and she sniffled. "I forgive you for killing your fa..." his eyes shot up to her, "...for killing Han."

He couldn't believe the words that were coming from her lips, sounding like the song of angels, trumpeters announce the inflow of her Light, seas and stars part for the feeling that crashed over his broken body and soul. Rey's hand still on his chest seemed to breathe life back into the hollow space that existed just behind his ribs.

Without a second thought, he reached up and brushed the tears that now streamed down her face. He had nothing to forgive her for, she had done nothing wrong, having only protected herself and the people that she loved. Unlike Kylo, who had done horrible things for revenge and power. But why was she looking at him like she also had pain that needed to be relieved?

He took a shaky breath and tried to ease her strain, "Thank you for sparing me on Starkill and leaving your mark on me. Thank you for making Luke believe there was still something worth fighting for. Thank you for being there when I had no one else..."

Her tears were falling harder. "Thank you for believing in me, for coming to me, fighting for me, and for pushing me to kill the person who truly caused me the most pain. Thank you for saving me in more ways than you can ever fathom..."

Somehow they had moved closer to each other without any thought, "Thank you for saving my mother and trying to get me to come home. Thank you for understating now why I couldn't go with you...for understanding the work that I am trying to do. Thank you for trusting me and being here..." he placed his large hand over hers as it was still pressed over his heart, "...with me."

"Thank you for being the Light that I am pulled to. Thank you for being the reason that I no longer feel alone..."

Rey blinked a few times, his voice had become very low and she was lost within his dark gaze. She licked at her lips and her eyes flicked to his mouth that was slightly parted at the end of his speech. She wondered what it would feel like to be kissed by Kylo Ren but shook the thought from her mind as she sat back from him, pulling her hand with her. "I don't think I did all of that..." she said bashfully.

"You've done more, Rey," Kylo interjected, not allowing her to discredit everything she had done for him...what she was doing for the galaxy without even being aware of it.

She bit her lip and looked up at him through her lashes, oblivious to the power that she held over the Supreme Leader of all that was known and unknown, but when he reached for her, she scampered to her feet, quickly pacing the other side of the small room.

"I thought you were going to teach me about the Force..."

Kylo cleared his throat, wiping his palms on his pants before standing as well. "Yes, uh, well the books you have are a good start because they were written before the Jedi bent the Force to their whims before the Jedi were a political party with influence in law and war."

Rey twisted her face at the idea that the Jedi ways she had read about in the first scrips could be used for anything other than good.

"Under the Jedi code, this right here," he motioned between them, "would be forbidden."

"What…friendship?" Rey asked confused.

Kylo's face fell for just a moment before he clarified, "Attachments. It is probably a miracle that the two of us exist at all."

Rey's face was once again confused and he sighed realizing that he would have to spell everything out to her. At times he forgot how young and sheltered from the rest of the galaxy she had been. "My mother, while she has the Force, decided to not join the Jedi order and instead chose to marry my father. It can only be assumed that one of your parents had the Force and picked attachment over the cult of the Jedi Order.

"My uncle, if he was faithful to the Jedi code, lived like a monk. No feelings or emotions towards others, not even family, though I know he cared for his sister. But the Jedi were not allowed to marry or even take a lover. So we would not exist if our parents had become Jedi."

"And what do the Sith say on the matter?" Rey asked.

"Passion..." he swallowed, "in all forms, is encouraged."

Rey was tired of blushing under his suggestive tone. She wasn't ignorant to romantic relationship…well she was, but she had witnessed others on Jakku and she was often subjected to the borderline nauseating displays from Finn and Rose. She also knew that what she had with Kylo was beyond friendship…she had seen a glimpse of their future and saw no reason for the Force to lie to her, but that didn't mean that she had to accept her fate at this very moment.

"So where does this leave you, if you are not Jedi, nor Sith?"

"I suppose it leaves us somewhere in the between." He needed her to understand that she also did not belong to one side or the other. She belonged with him. "We want passion and peace, strength and knowledge, emotion and serenity, and harmony within victory."

"Balance," Rey breathed in understanding.

"Yes," he said excitingly, taking a long stride towards her. "Yes, balance."

The air around them became thick again as if the Force was trying to physically push them together. Kylo didn't really mind, but he still saw the fear in her eyes when he got too close, so he decided humor would break the tension. "You would make a pretty lousy Jedi anyways…"

Rey looked offended, pinching her brows together and cocking her hand on her hip, "How so?"

"You have too much heart," he smirked when her expression softened. "You could never suppress your emotions and anyone who would ask you to is a fool. You love those around you deeply and are loyal almost to a fault. You are fierce and protective, you are stubborn and passionate even if it is in your hatred towards me."

She wasn't used to having such nice things said about her, let alone such intimate complements coming from Kylo Ren. "I never hated you…" she said trying to still hold the blush at bay.

"You don't have to lie," Kylo laughed. "It's just us."

Rey cracked a smile as well, "Ok…so I hated you a little." She watched the beautiful and boyish smile stay on his face and she regretted having to bring down the light atmosphere in the room but she had to know. "Did you ever hate me?" She asked in a small voice.

Kylo's full smile fell to just the slightest curve of his lips and he exhaled. "No," he answered simply. "I was intrigued, jealous, embarrassed, enamored…but hate would never be an emotion that I would associate with you."

Her face screwed up again, "Jealous? Embarrassed? How…why?"

"You were untrained, not even knowing that you had the Force and you bested me both mentally and physically. When I failed on Starkiller Snoke was…" he blinked remembering his punishment, "Snoke was not pleased."

Seeing the pain in his eyes, pain from his memories, Rey reached out again, "I'm sorry I caused trouble for you."

His smile was now sad, not reaching his eyes as his gaze danced over her expression, "It was nothing that I hadn't endured before."

She wondered how many scars lay under his dark robes and worried about the ones that were unseen and marked his mind and his heart. She wanted to reach out to him but the bond crackled and she only got one word out before he was gone.

"Ben…"

During the next week, Rey mulled over their discussion, not only feeling lighter at expressing her forgiveness and receiving his words of praise but also thought more on the idea of the space between Dark and Light, Jedi and Sith. The lines of right and wrong began to blend together as the Resistance started to build in numbers again.

Crews would come back from missions, boasting about how many TIEs they shot down or how many Troopers they had killed. She wondered if the same back-slapping was happening within the First Order and it put war into perspective for Rey. That what was considered 'right' was only relative to which side one stood on.

But she was in the between, in the middle, in the Gray, and this did not help her with the feeling of belonging that she still sought. How could she feel like she was a part of something bigger than herself, but also feel like the smallest parts were just slightly askew, causing the machine, her body, her mind, her spirit, to run a bit off kilter.

It was that night, six days after their last meeting, on day one hundred and sixty-two that he appeared in her quarters. The mask, the one that no longer scared her, but that she still disliked was covering his face and made his steady voice sound mechanical.

"You look tired," Kylo said, having just stepped into his own quarters after a trying day.

"It's been a long day…a long week," Rey relayed to him but only admitted to herself that it was long because he had not been around. She looked up at the sound of his helmet disengaging and she watched him pull the heavy crown from his head. "You're face…" she gasped.

His hair was wet and matted to his head and his naturally pale skin was peppered with red spots and areas that were already starting to bruise in varying shades of purple. Now that she really looked at him, his shoulders were slumped and he looked as exhausted as she felt.

"I can still feel hits through this thing," Kylo tapped on his even more battle marked helmet, but he froze when he looked back up and saw her walking towards him. He held his breath as she reached out her shaking hands and laid them against the heated skin of his face.

Rey wished she was trained in Force healing so she could take away his pain and upon closer inspection, there were burn marks dotting his surcoat. She reached up and firstly ran her palm across his right cheek, the pad of her thumb tracing the mark she had left on him.

His breath shuttered in his chest as she inspected all of the wounds on his face before she moved her fingers down each arm. She easily found the blaster injury to his left arm and she let out another gasp, looking up at him with worry in her eyes. "It's just a graze. It doesn't hurt…"

But he sucked in a breath as she tried to peel back the layers of leather to get a better look at the wound. "Okay," he admitted. "Maybe it hurts a little."

Rey became determined and went to work. First pulling off his gloves and seeing the busted knuckles of his right hand, then it was using her nimble fingers to unhook the closure down the center of the surcoat, carefully sliding each of his long arms out of the pleated sleeves.

The damage to his left arm was worse than they both had thought, a chunk of his forearm was reduced to heated and angry skin. He sat before her in just his boots, pants, and a sleeveless undershirt, all black of course. Kylo tried to concentrate on anything other than the fact that she was undressing him or the feel of her hands across his skin.

"Did you get hit anywhere else?" She asked, running her hands over his chest and abdomen feeling for wet spots indicating a bleeding wound.

"Rey," Kylo said in a pained voice as she was kneeling before him, her hands grazing below his navel and across his hips.

"If you took a shot to center mass, we have to fix that one first…" Rey mused and continued her inspection, feeling him start to tremble under her touch.

Kylo clenched his fists next to his thighs, using all of his self-control to not grab her and pull her into his lap. "Rey," he said a little more forcefully. "Stop."

She pulled away from him as if she had been electrocuted but also worried that she had hurt him by pressing on an undiscovered injury. But when she looked up at him, seeing the burning in his gaze and the heavy rise and fall of his chest, she asked with concern, "Did I hurt you?"

His expression twisted with pain, but not the physical variety. "No…no you didn't hurt me. But you can't touch me like that and not expect…" His jaw pulsed as he gritted his teeth before he let out a calming breath. "Thank you for taking care of me and you are always welcome to touch me…in any way you want, but unless you want…" he breathed again. "I don't think I would be able to stop."

Rey was shocked at his admission and most likely took too long to process what he was saying and he stood and walk away from her, not being able to handle any more outright rejection at this point. But she quickly reached out, grabbing his right wrist. "Do you have dressing supplies in your quarters…or I could go get some…"

Looking down at the compassionate and amazing woman before him, Kylo thought he might have felt his heart swell just the smallest amount before he sighed in relief. "I usually tend to myself, so I have a med kit."

"Go fetch it and we will get you all patched up," Rey said with a bright smile but remained in her kneeling position, her butt resting on her heels.

Kylo walked to the fresher and came back out with a white metal box that contained everything from saline and gauze to bacta and sutures. He walked back to the couch that was in a small sitting area in his quarters and took back up his perch in front of Rey.

With great care, she took the needed supplies and with the grace of a well-trained nurse, cleaned, packed, and dressed his arm wound. "You really should have a med droid take a look at this tomorrow and see if it needs stitches."

"It will be okay," Kylo reassured, he wore his scars like badges of honor or as reminders to train harder, be better, and fight cleaner the next time.

Rey went to work wiping the dried blood from his knuckles but flitted looks up to him every few seconds. "I know we don't really talk about your…uh…work, but what happened to you?"

He leaned forwards, almost curving his body over hers, "We took the Senate today."

"On Coruscant?"

"Yes," he said and his gaze was testing, trying to apprise her reaction to the news. "It was the last stronghold of the New Republic."

Her expression didn't give away anything, and truthfully she didn't know how to feel about this turn of events. She had known that Kylo's First Order, or his New Order as he started calling it, couldn't exist alongside the Galactic Senate, but she also didn't know how he was planning to overthrow an entire governing system.

"Say something," he pleaded quietly. They had agreed a few months ago to not invade each other minds without permission, and for good measure, he had taught Rey how to strengthen the barrier around her mind.

"I don't know what I should be feeling right now," she admitted to him, knowing that he wouldn't judge her for her indifference. When she looked back up at him and saw intrigue and not disgust on his face she felt comfortable continuing. "We never felt the influence of the Senate on Jakku and in my meager travels with the Resistance, it appeared that the outer systems, at least the ones that didn't have a resource to offer to the Core Worlds were basically forgotten.

"All I have ever known was the lawless state governed by Plutt or the attempt at democracy here with your mother, but even here we have rank and order. The Senate doesn't have any control over the Resistance, we don't follow the orders passed down from the capital. The General has her counsel and they plot their next terrorist attack and decide what is best for the galaxy with again only the Core Worlds in mind."

It felt good to speak her mind as she smeared bacta gel on his hand before wrapping it in gauze. She was never invited to the council meetings but was told to either work on the flight decks repairing ships or Leia would just shoo her off to meditate and connect to the Force. If only they knew that the Force had a different connection in mind. "Who give her any more right than you to govern? Who gave the power to the Core at the expense of the Rim?"

Kylo may have cared deeply for Rey in the past, but as she mended him, in every meaning of the word, and spoke out about the hypocrisy of the Senate and his mother's one woman to rule them all attitude, he may have just fallen in love with her. "I'm so glad you are mine."

She heard the whisper of sentiment pass his lips and decided to not to give a reply beyond a smile that just pulled at the corner of her lips. Securing the last of the gauze between his fingers she finally looked up at him, "I think you will have to let the bruises on your face heal naturally unless you want to rub some bacta on them before you go to bed tonight."

"Thank you," he simply replied, thinking to himself that he never used those words towards anyone as often as he had with her in the past few months. Or perhaps now he truly meant them. "I'll be fine, but tell me what is bothering you."

Rey sighed and moved to sit back on the floor but his voice broke through before she should speak. "Where is your bed?" He innocently asked and her eyes went large before he continued, "It's late and I feel bad about you just sitting on the floor."

The blush finally came, all the way to the tips of her ears. But she took his wrapped right hand and allowed him to help her stand before moving across the room a few feet and sitting down on her single person cot.

Once she was settled, Kylo walked around his couch and easily pushed it across the polished floor of his room, saddling it up next to what he could only assume was a barracks cot. When he was a boy he had toured some of the old Rebel outposts with his mother and while he would rather wrap Rey up in the wool blanket that stretched across his large bed, he would take the cramped couch if it allowed him to be next to her.

He took one last glance at her before reclining and lying across the couch, his feet propped up onto the arm due to his height. Rey took his cue and also laid back, her cot was slightly higher than what he was lying on and when she turned towards him, pillow tucked under her head, she had a good view of his face, not wanting to miss any emotion that crossed his dark eyes.

Kylo could feel her gaze on him and he let her look for just longer than he should have before he turned and looked up at her, thinking that he would just about give up anything to spend every night falling asleep next to this woman. But as she had tended to him, it was his turn to care for her. "What's on your mind?"

She blushed again and oh how he wished he could have slipped into her mind to catch the slightest image of what caused the rosiness to rise in her cheeks again. Instead, she shifted on her bed and pulled a blanket up her body, tucking it under her arms.

"It's been a while since Ahch-To…a while since Crait…"

"One hundred and sixty-two standard days," Kylo confirmed.

Rey blinked, thinking that she had been the only one keeping count, "Yes…but I feel no closer to knowing why I am here. I am more mechanic than the fated Beacon of Light that the General talks up to get new recruits. Which don't get me wrong, I love working on the ships, but I just know that I am meant for more."

"You are," Kylo stated, not hiding what he was implying.

She pressed her lips together and rolled to her back, not able to look at his expressive face, "I once told you that I had never felt so alone..."

"And I told you that you are not alone," Kylo answered back with just as much meaning behind the simple but heavy words that passed his lips in her small cold hut on Ahch-To.

Bitting her lips again, she turned just her face to his, "Promise that you won't read too much into this..."

He smirked, "I can't promise anything."

Rey sighed, knowing that he was just teasing to get a rise out of her, and she was sure that perhaps Kylo had been the only one in her life that had never broken a promise to her...maybe because he didn't make promises. But she still sighed again, looking back up at the gray metal ceiling, before speaking. "The only time I don't feel completely lost and alone is when we are like this...when I'm with you."

When he didn't reply, Rey chanced a look at his face and she groaned at the wide tight-lipped grin that caused his cheeks to crease. He was trying to suppress a laugh and was looking quite proud of himself. Rey rolled her eyes and grabbed the pillow from under her head, swinging it with her right arm and bringing it down on his smug face.

Not being able to physically hurt him through the bond in the past, like when she had fired her blaster at him, Rey didn't think that the pillow would connect, but when she heard a muffled 'oof', she released the pillow and propped herself up on her left elbow as both of her hands when to cover the shocked and nervous chuckle that was falling from her lips.

Kylo palmed the pillow, pulling in the scent of her for a brief moment before he pulled it off his face, "Did you just hit your Supreme Leader in the face with a pillow?" His voice was a mix of dark power and mischief.

Rey gasped at the dark look in his eyes and the deep tenor of his voice that seemed to get under her skin and vibrate just below the surface. Almost dumbstruck, she said that first thing that came to her mind, "You aren't my Supreme Leader."

His eyebrow rose with challenge and amusement. "Oh?" Kylo mirrored her posture, lifting his torso off the couch and turning towards her, propped on his right elbow.

Her brain was still fuzzy under his intense gaze but she was able to string together the simple thought, "Snoke was Supreme Leader and I think that the title is almost an insult to what you are trying to achieve." She looked over his face, watching for him to give away his feelings towards her speech, but he gave her nothing. "You can be so much more than he ever was...you are better than he was."

The air seemed to be sucked from the space between them and she felt a nudge at the back of her head, begging her to lean into him, but she fought the tiny voice down and put it behind the wall with her other secret desires. Instead, she let out a breathy laugh, "Anyway, if I were to join you, we both couldn't be Supreme Leaders and Co-Supreme just sounds ridiculous..."

"Empress perhaps," the words ghosted out of Kylo's lips.

Her expression became pained, feeling like she was being asked an impossible question.

The bond cut them short before she could answer but her reaction plagued his thoughts as he tried to get comfortable on the couch, wanting to stay in his current position in case the bond opened again during the night, he could lay next to her still. He was surprised to notice that her pillow that had been resting in his lap was still there. This was a new development in their bond and he pulled the rather flat pillow to his chest as he stared off to the now empty space she had once occupied.

When his form disappeared from her quarters Rey flopped back on her cot, hitting the stiff surface harder than she intended. Sitting up again she looked for her pillow and noticed that it wasn't on the floor and cursed the bond for taking one of her only items of comfort.

As she pulled her blankets up around her shoulders, she played his words around in her mind. He was putting into play everything that he told her he would all along, he would rule the galaxy and he still wanted her at his side...not at an apprentice or padawan, not as a counselor or member of a committee, but as an Empress...his Empress.

Her mind also flicked back to when she had been checking him for wounds and he made her stop touching him, she saw the pain and longing in his eyes and it sent a shiver down her already warm body. Kylo...Ben had always been forthcoming with his feelings towards her, outright telling her that she was not a nobody, not to him. He had wanted her back on the Supremacy, had asked her stay, and she did what she feared the most. She had left him alone, hurt, and rejected.

Rey cried herself to sleep that night, even more confused about her place in this war, within the Force, and her budding feelings for Kylo Ren.

AN: I have this written through Part V with a total word count so far of 30,500. I have a feeling this will be around ten parts by the time we get to the end. I will get them out as soon as I can get them edited. Which...lots of love to my Beta Missing A Muse.

As always, I love to get love. Thank you for taking the time to read my dribbles.