Six months earlier. …
It had been a week since the battle at Crait; a week without standing on solid ground. On a larger ship this would not be so bad, but the Falcon with its trademark bumps and rattles made forgetting you were barrelling through uncharted space in a rusty metal projectile impossible. It was quickly becoming unbearable for Rey. She had never been off-planet for so long, nor gone so long without being alone. A few short weeks ago, she would have killed to be in this exact scenario: far, far away from Jakku on a ship of her own, travelling with those she called her friends or even her family. But it seemed the habits developed over a lifetime of simple survival do not die easy, for she found herself hiding out in dark corners, leafing through the Jedi texts and sneaking tiny nibbles from the rations she'd squirreled away. And, despite the mustiness of all the bodies packed into the ship, the ceaseless static of nervous conversation and the reverent nods that greeted her at every turn, she had never felt more alone.
She knew she was lying to herself when she wondered why she felt this way, but she lied anyway. In her moments of weakness, when she couldn't distract herself with books or stupid exercises or games with Finn and Poe; when everyone else was sleeping, and she was left to deal with the throb in her chest, she remembered his senseless face: melancholy and young in the light of drifting embers - how she'd knelt beside him on the lacquered floor and brushed the dark locks from his forehead so she could kiss him there. It was gentle, so he would not wake; so that she would only be a whisper in his floating mind - one that would weave itself in and remain long after she was gone. …
Why had she done that? This, she truly did not know. He'd tried to kill her, after all - not long after she'd given him that kiss.
Then there was his face again: hurt, defeated, betrayed. She'd stared deep into eyes that were no longer pleading but still retained a singular question, and then she shut the door on him. Again. In that moment, it had felt right to end it. She had been infuriated - enraged at his viscous retaliation and high off the thrill of piloting the Falcon and using the Force to save her comrades. She didn't need him. She didn't need a teacher. She had her friends and the Jedi texts. As Leia would say, she had all she needed.
But now, after countless hours spent poring over densely-filled pages and head-splitting jargon, she had made no progress in the Jedi department. As for her friends, Finn was still Finn, but it wasn't like it was before. As she watched him linger for days over the comatose Rose, she realized for the first time how little she knew him - how brief their time together had been, no matter how impactful. And Leia? She was entirely occupied with trying to save their rebel asses, and there wasn't much Rey could do to aid her in those diplomatic quests. Their interactions were few and far between - nowhere near what Rey would have liked.
So she was left with this feeling. It was familiar, the one she hated most of all:
A memory of a memory. A mother and a father; promises made and tears shed. And then their absence and the sand whipping up to sting her eyes as a ship lifts off, watching it dissolve into the atmosphere under broiling heat. ... That first night spent alone and the shock of the cold setting in. That first mark scratched into scrap metal with trembling hands. … Another memory - this one more vivid: a trader with kind eyes. "A gift fit for a princess," he says as he pulls a shimmering orb from his bag. He holds it before her with two hands. "Coruscant," he says. Spiderwebs of golden light stretch around the tiny planet, and as she takes it delicately and holds it up to the sun, the lights dim to reveal a mosaic of geometry. When brought close to her eyes, she can see towers and arteries and the movements of life. It is the most beautiful thing she has ever seen. … She carries it with her everywhere. She knows the risk, but she wouldn't dare leave her treasure unattended, lest it be stolen. She is always wary of it there, wrapped in the folds of her scarf. But one day she slips, and she hears the shatter far below. When she slides down to its resting place, it is an opalescent dust. Beyond repair. …
It had been a week since the Bond last connected them. Rey assumed that when she'd shut the door on the man she once knew as Ben Solo, she had quite literally done the same with the Bond. This understanding did not settle well with her as yet another restless day passed by on the Falcon, and her comrades fell silent in sleep.
Despite her best efforts to deceive herself, she felt as though she'd done something very bad. She felt dirty, almost, like she had stepped on a beautiful moth. But it wasn't real, she told herself, again and again. We were just mice in a trap. …
But somehow, that thought twisted the knife deeper still. And it was because of this that she plunged even deeper into her book, filling her mind with a din of meaningless words to occupy the dark space inside of her.
She felt him before she saw him. When she looked up, he was sitting at a desk, engrossed in some kind of clerical work. He glanced back and forth from one data pad to another, typing entries with nimble fingers. He had dark circles under his eyes and his unwieldy hair was unkempt. Rey knew he felt her there, though he didn't make any moves to show it.
She waited, breathless. It felt like it had been an eternity since she last saw him, and there may as well have been an eternity between them. She understood this, so she just watched him. The hunched, dark mass of his form, conforming awkwardly to the confines of a chair; the crease in his brow, the slight movements of full lips.
He may be Supreme Leader, but an actor he is not, she thought as he visibly struggled to feign indifference. His eyes never wavered from his work and his demeanor was collected, but it was the jumping muscle in his jaw that gave him away. It amused Rey that she could read him so easily, though after several minutes of watching this, her intrigue gave way to frustration.
"So this is how it's going to be from now on?" she broke the silence.
Nothing. … Rey sighed audibly.
"You're going to ignore me? Like a child." There was a lightness in her tone - she wasn't trying to chastise him too much. He had every right to ignore her, given the circumstances. Though in all fairness, she had the right to kill him, given the circumstances. So he could at least acknowledge her.
When he finally spoke, it was calm and controlled, but he couldn't keep the edge out of it: "You're up late." He did not look up or neglect the task before him.
Rey hadn't actually considered what she would say if he did speak. "I - I'm reading."
"The Jedi texts?" he asked without hesitation.
"Yes - how did you know?"
"I'm Supreme Leader of the galaxy and the most powerful Force-wielder with formal Jedi training alive - did you think I would not know if the sacred texts of the Order were stolen?"
Rey gulped, suddenly nervous. "No."
"Well, don't worry, I'm not mad," he said a bit mockingly. "You can keep them. ... They're the stuff of antiquity. Won't do you much good."
"Actually, I'm learning a lot," Rey lied. She was about as good at that as Kylo Ren was at acting. "I just started healing, actually."
"Even if those books were at all useful," he cut her off, "you can't learn how to wield the Force from a book. You need a teach -"
"No." Rey stood up was this one subject the cause of so much strife? She fought to keep her voice low so as not to wake the ship. "We are not doing this again. I don't know how long we'll be stuck here in the Bond, but I won't hear anything else from you about being my teacher. Is that understood?"
It shocked Rey in her trembling state as Kylo Ren finally raised his eyes to her. As he did, she was sorry to look at him, because those eyes were so very dark.
"I wasn't offering," he said flatly.
His dismissal stung her more than she could have expected, and for a moment she was at a loss for words.
"Fine," she nodded. "Good."
He said nothing more after that and returned to his work. Not knowing what to do or say, or how long this pleasant interaction would last, Rey sat back down and pretended to read the dusty old text that was before her. They remained that way, in uncomfortable silence, for many long minutes as Rey snuck glances in his direction and he did not reciprocate (as far as she could tell.) It was like being alone, almost, with the entire ship fast asleep - the only sign of their presence the occasional snore or groan.
After a while, she forgot herself and that he knew she was there, and she just stared at him: the formidable Kylo Ren bent over his clerical duties. It was a sight that warmed her, strangely enough. She had never seen him this way, so quiet and still. And the longer she watched him, the harder it became to remember why she had ever been afraid of him. What was this man capable of? she asked herself again. The question had consumed her over the past week. In either direction - dark or light - how far could he go?
Rey realized then that perhaps the Bond was waiting for her to ask - that perhaps it was sentient and merciful, and it knew that she could never truly rest if she did not know. And so, in a leap of faith, she asked it:
"Did you know that I was flying the Falcon?" Her own voice startled her.
As the dark knight raised his black eyes to meet her own, she quickly remembered why she had been afraid of him.
"What?" he asked softly.
"Did you know?" she repeated, gathering her courage. "Did you know I was flying the Millennium Falcon at Crait?"
He stared at her. Rey saw something pass through his eyes, but she didn't know what it was. She could not read him now.
"No," he finally answered. It was a definitive 'no'. Simple yet firm.
Rey realized she had been holding her breath and released it in a long sigh. Emboldened, she asked another question: "Are you hunting us now? Is that what you're working on?"
"No."
Rey found that very hard to believe. "So you're not chasing us?" Surely, he had something up his sleeve.
"No," he repeated dismissively. "I know you think ruling the galaxy is all war and rape and pillaging, but in reality it's a lot of paperwork. I have more important things to do than chase you and your friends through deep space."
"So you're just going to let us go?"
"Are you disappointed?" he asked with a ghost of a smirk on his pallid face. "I'm sorry to break it to you, but you and your - cause - are now irrelevant. It's over. You should find a planet to land on before you run out of rations. Or, on second thought, maybe you should just keep going." He shrugged wickedly. "Bottom line: I don't care what you do, as long as you stay out of my way."
"That isn't true," retorted Rey, finding herself unable to sit. She rose to her feet once more to level with him. "It's not over. Leia will bring us back. You know she will."
"Maybe," he shrugged again. "I know she won't give up. She's never known life without war. ... I, for one, would like to."
"Like to what?"
"Know a life without war." He delivered those last words sagely, as if he were addressing a six-year-old student, then returned to his datapads.
Rey studied him for a moment, growing increasingly annoyed. He could hate her all he wanted, but she would not allow him to treat her like a fool.
"No. ... No, that isn't it." She shook her head. "Kylo Ren is not a pacifist," she scoffed, taking a step toward him and growing taller over his seated form. "Kylo Ren thrives in battle. A lifetime of this," she gestured at his desk and his datapads, "this would kill you. …. No. That definitely is not it."
"It isn't?" His eyebrows raised in mock interest. "What is it then?"
She took another step, now looking down at him slightly, which gave her confidence. "You won't chase us anymore because you know you can't kill us."
He didn't appear to have a response ready for that statement, though she didn't wait for it. "You've tried, many times, to kill me - and your mother. And each time you've failed." Kylo Ren's visage remained stony, but his jaw had begun working overtime. She pressed on: "I can't believe that it was a lack of prowess or know-how on your part. … No. You can't kill us, and you've finally realized it."
Her words settled over them like drifting snow, and the usually close cabin of the ship grew icy cold. Had she overstepped herself this time? she wondered. He wasn't saying anything, and he was looking very dangerous indeed. Suddenly, he was a man, barely hanging on.
Abandoning his previous task altogether with the abrupt flinging of both datapads, he balled his broad hands into fists and fixed his eyes on the desk. Rey found herself standing very still. She would not provoke him any further.
"What do you want from me, Rey?" His voice was unnervingly low and strangled through clenched teeth. "You want me to say it?"
Without warning, he stood up to tower over her, piercing her with his deadly stare. Any guile she had was now gone.
"After all this," he waved his arms at everything around them and in between them. "After all of this, you want me to say it?"
At this close distance, with the heat of his breath almost palpable on her face, Rey could take him in fully. He looked exhausted. He looked resigned yet still slightly crazed, the scar she gave him stark against ashen skin. And he looked distinctly tortured - more so than usual. He was a puppy that had been kicked too many times.
"Do you?!"
"No," she whispered.
"Good."
He sat back down, still shaking with whatever emotions were raging through his system. He struggled to regain his composure as he bent down to pick up the datapads and placed them on the desk. "Just stay out of my way," he warned with a tinge of finality. "And stop reading those books. They'll only make things worse."
And with that, he was gone as if he had never been there at all. Rey breathed a sigh of relief. It took her a moment to gather her thoughts. She wasn't sure what had just happened - there was so much swirling around inside her. Laying her head back against the wall, she closed her eyes and allowed the vibrations of the Falcon to lull her into a quieter state.
No, she still wasn't sure what had happened between them. But as she went over in her mind the truths that he had revealed to her, she arrived at a startling conclusion: Ben Solo was not dead. Kylo Ren was now Supreme Leader, but it was Ben Solo who could not kill her, and it was Ben Solo who could not tell her why.
So I know I meant for this to just be a one and done, but these two are too much fun. So I might do more with this, we'll see … Let me know what you think!
