A/N: Crossing fandom signals here, but I would recommend listening to "Shine" from the RWBY volume 2 soundtrack during this chapter.
Also, the details for this chapter kept changing...While there is a lightsaber fight *technically,* it's not really described.

***
A swirling vortex of colors burst to life in front of Rey's eyes. The blinding white tones contrasted dramatically with the void of pitch black looming at the edges of her consciousness.

Or is it Ben's consciousness? It that moment, she could hardly tell the difference.

Sharp pains stabbed into her mind and she suddenly recalled the first time the Force had reconnected them after Crait: How she had felt every ounce of agony that Snoke had been inflicting on Ben. How the debilitating pain had seemed as if it would never end.

Instances like this reminded Rey how inherently dangerous their Force connection actually was.

Their bond went so far beyond simply knowing each other's thoughts and emotions. If they weren't careful, or constantly guarded, they were capable of feeling every second of insecure vulnerability, every white-hot beam of suffering, every pulse of rage, every spark of hope, every twinge of concern, every fleeting doubt, every firmly-held belief as their own, even when the emotions had not originated within them. Or, if they hadn't, it was impossible to say.

Rey did not struggle as she was pulled deeper and deeper into the connection. With every fiber of her being she longed to fight, to break free of whatever dark hand was dragging her down into the depths.

But she couldn't. Not unless she wanted to cause Ben's mind more harm.

That's where she was, wasn't it?

Though the emotions flooding through her consciousness felt like her own, the memories rushing past dripping with blood were certainly not hers.

She had never slaughtered entire villages.

She had never spent days on end devising new ways to maime and torture for information.

She had never murdered her father.

But she might as well have done all those things.

She was numb to the frightened screams of defenseless villagers as they were brutally cut down without a second's hesitation or regret. Men, women, and children - aged and newborn - all slain without discrimination, their bodies left to rot across blooming fields, arid deserts, and rocky hills.

She was filled to the brim with loathing for the once-proud dignitaries and foolishly stubborn rebel traitors who begged and pleaded for mercy as their bodies were meticulously ripped apart until they had no choice but to confess their misgivings and spill their secrets. Their suffering was justly deserved and she derived pleasure from their pain.

She was carefully impassive on the surface, even as her insides writhed and twisted, even as her unfaithful heart implored her to tread a different path. But she had failed once before when tested in this manner and to fail again would mean certain, indescribable agony. In the end, it hadn't mattered how deeply she had tried to push down her emotions, just as it had made no difference how she had refused to give in to the siren's call of brighter, happier memories - the conclusion was the same: She was broken far beyond repair and the only way out of her imprisonment, out of her misery, was for her to be put down once and for all.

But her father was too weak, too sentimental to do what had needed to be done.

So she had split her soul and killed him.

There were plenty of her father's enraged allies who would now be all too willing to bring her miserable life to a welcomed end.

Logically, some small part of Rey recognized that none of these emotions and memories belonged to her. But logic was unable to lessen the devastating impact.

If not for some outside source of blisteringly cold and fragile light that continuously tried to divert her attention from the memories brazenly assaulting her senses, Rey would have quickly become lost in the cavernous maze of disjointed images and corresponding emotions that were both hers and not.

Her mind was desperately trying to peel away - the shock of Ben's raging emotions quickly overloading her mind's capability to function.

He seemed just as determined to push her away, to shield her as best he could. As such, she was only moderately surprised - and extraordinarily relieved - when a buzzing energy field of thin, red vapor wrapped itself protectively around her consciousness, blocking her mind from computing the memories and emotions as her own, though she could still see and feel them.

She was traveling at lightspeed through his memories now, unable to catch anything more than quick snapshots of distorted images as her consciousness rushed past. She had never been this deep before - he had never allowed it. And now she understood why.

The atrocious acts he had committed as Kylo Ren were numerous and varied. But his complete apathy to the destruction and sorrow he was responsible for causing caught Rey off guard more than the images themselves.

Based on how he had been acting around her the past week and a half, how uncharacteristically human he seemed to be when he was with her, she had expected him to feel regret for his past actions.

But there was no real sadness, no guilt, no regret. Not for the hundreds of innocent lives taken by his own hand, not for the dozens of rebel spies he had mercilessly tortured, not even for his own father.

Knowing it was in vain, Rey hoped that perhaps those feelings had just been suppressed by Snoke. But there was no evidence to support her wishes.

With each passing second that she spent hurtling towards some unknown memory, Rey acknowledged that it was becoming harder and harder to balance these seemingly conflicting personas of her newfound ally and friend.

Perhaps he really was a monster.

But if that was true, why did he continuously refrain from killing her? If he truly was so uncaring, then why was he protecting her? She noted then, not for the last time, how it often seemed as if she was dealing with two wildly different people.

Steadily, the colors dancing before her eyes began to solidify into clearer images; once-distant sounds grew in intensity.

Rey saw the hard, tiled floor rushing up to greet her seconds before she crashed into it, unable to brace her body for impact. Thankfully, this was a memory and so she experienced no real pain upon landing.

Dazed, she propped herself up slowly on her elbows. Reflexively, her eyes darted around the heavily-shaded room, expecting to see enemies lunging toward her.

This is Snoke's throne room, she realized with dread.

The large, circular chamber appeared exactly as it had the last time she had been there. Alibet, before it had gone up in flames. Resurrected Praetorian guards stood still as statues around the perimeter of the room; the tips of their energy spears gleamed sinisterly in the flickering torchlight.

Though she knew she was in one of Ben's memories, her right hand still grasped at the empty space on her belt where her lightsaber would normally be hanging. Her only comfort was that she was relatively certain that no one could harm her in a memory, especially one that did not belong to her.

Standing warily, her eyes flickered uneasily between the very-much-alive Supreme Leader Snoke resting easily in his golden throne and the two men standing a respectful amount of space away from the foot of the dias.

She immediately recognized one of the men as a much younger Ben Solo. Though he was facing away from her, she could tell simply by the way he stood so confidently before his master that he was yet unburdened with the conflict she had come to recognize in his older self. This was a man wholeheartedly convinced of his own beliefs, who would not be swayed from his chosen path.

The thought was unnerving, considering the many terrible things he would, at this point in time, go on to do.

This, Rey decided with a sense of clarity, is the real Kylo Ren.

Rey turned to look at the second man: He was thin, but seemingly well muscled underneath the same style of black, First Order garb that Ben still wore; standing next to one another, she noticed that this man was only an inch or two shorter than Kylo, and certainly couldn't have been much older.

A nagging sensation in the back of her mind had her questioning who this man was: She felt as if she ought to know.

"Is it treason," Snoke questioned, tone just as condescending and eerily parental as the last time Rey had heard it, "to be loyal to two people at once?"

Neither Kylo nor the other young man answered.

Annoyed that she couldn't quite tell what was going on from her position in the back of the room, Rey slowly and carefully began picking her way along the inside wall, keeping the Praetorian Guards within eyesight even though she knew they couldn't see her. For, if they could have seen her, she would certainly be dead by now.

"As of late," Snoke continued, unconcerned with his unanswered question, "many faint whispers of treason have reached my ears. Planets filled with strife and the outraged cries of the ungrateful are as common as the stars. Troublesome Rebel Alliances and burnout legends can be properly dealt with. But what I cannot abide," Rey's heart began to race in a sudden bout of unnatural fear as Snoke's eyes darkened and a scowl stretched the warped skin around his mouth, "is disloyalty among my soldiers."

"Disloyalty?" The unknown man repeated, his tone carefully even and betraying no discernable emotion.

"Surely all of your soldiers are loyal only to you, Supreme Leader." Kylo Ren assured his master. "Any other loyalty would be foolish."

Snoke sighed heavily, leaning forward a bit on his throne. "I would very much like to believe that."

The two men glanced uneasily at one another, clearly confused.

"Rey."

The sudden acknowledgement of her presence caused Rey to spin around, startled. She breathed a sigh of relief upon realizing it was only Ben. Though who else it could have been, she was unclear on.

She had expected to turn and find him looking at her with concern, as he was wont to do whenever he suspected she was in danger. Instead, he was staring, dazed and unblinking, at the man standing next to his younger self.

Rey opened her mouth to question what was happening, to ask which memory this was and why it was so important. But as she glanced back over at the stranger to try and find some distinguishing mark that would clue her in to his identity, the man shifted slightly to the left, exposing the deceptively pure white handle of a lightsaber strapped to his belt.

So Anya gave me his lightsaber to use? Who is this guy? A thousand questions clouded her mind.

"Ben, what's going-"

Her words were quickly drowned out by the echoing tenor of Snoke's voice. "Your only allegiance should be to me. And yet," his tone lowered, displeasure coating his words, "I see before me a clear example of divided loyalty."

At his words, hostile tension immediately permeated the air.

As she stepped forward to get a closer look at the events unfolding before her eyes, a large, calloused hand wrapped around her wrist, silently pleading her to stop.

Fear, tangible and all-consuming, filled Ben's eyes.

Rey realized then that she had never actually seen him afraid before. Felt his fear, yes, but even in the very few instances where she had felt fear coming from his side of their connection, it had always been in relation to some danger that he perceived she was in. Never before had she felt him be afraid for himself.

"Ben," she whispered, a part of her breaking upon seeing his terror.

Heart-gripping fear, she decided then and there, was not allowed anywhere near her friend.

She could deal with his weird mood swings; she could learn to be more appreciative of his fierce desire to protect her; she could even forgive him for the horrible things he had done - for all the people he had killed - because he was absolutely no longer that man.

But she could not bare to see him in such agony and do nothing to try and help alleviate his suffering as he so often did for her.

For her, everything clicked suddenly into place. In the middle of the most unnatural of situations - stuck inside her former enemy's nightmarish memory - she stumbled upon the most blatant of revelations from which she had unconsciously been hiding.

He would burn the galaxy if it meant protecting me.

And I love him for that.

He clearly hadn't overheard her mental revelation, fixated as he was on the muddled conversation taking place behind her.

Something was about to happen, Rey knew, something terrible.

And it couldn't be stopped.

Maybe her morals prevented her from carving permanent, gaping wounds throughout the universe, but she was more than willing to help mollify the consequences of whatever was about to take place in this memory.

Gently, she pried his hand from her wrist. But she refused to let go entirely. In entirely different circumstances, perhaps she would have given thought to how extraordinarily natural it felt to intertwine their fingers, or how surprised she was by the way his hand instinctively curled protectively over hers, though he gave no indication that he understood what was happening.

Snoke was still speaking in the background, but Rey was actively trying to block out his patronizing tone - she already felt like an intruder by simply being present in this memory. Besides, she had no desire to hear more of Snoke's poisonous words.

Nor did she have any desire to watch the memory unfurl. Likely due to the Force bond, she understood how the memory was going to end and desperately did not want to see the final confrontation.

The distinct hum of lightsabers being ignited filled her ears.

He doesn't need to see this again.

As she had never experienced anything like this before, Rey had no idea how the intricacies of watching a memory play out in someone else's mind actually worked - there wasn't exactly a set of detailed instructions to follow. Logically, she figured that she and Ben would only be trapped in his memory until the entirety of the recollection played itself out.

At least, she hoped that they would make it back out to the present reality and not be stuck in a loop for the rest of eternity.

She had no real plan, only the inkling of an idea.

How does this even happen in a memory - why are we both physically here? Rey tried to clear her mind of the questions: this wasn't the right time to be speculating on the details of their Force bond.

I hope this works. If it doesn't, then I'll just have to be more creative.

Considering their height difference, Rey knew it was impossible to block Ben's view of the battle about to take place.

Reaching out with her consciousness proved just as challenging as she had feared it would be. Instead of simply brushing up against his mental walls as she normally did, she was literally submerged in his consciousness, unable to distinguish any telltale signs of where her thoughts would be directed.

So she opened her mind and broadcasted her thoughts everywhere, hoping that these tattered remnants of Ben's mind wouldn't interfere with their bond.

"Ben." Urgency pressed upon her so she didn't wait to see if he reacted, "I need your help with something." She allowed threads of anxiety and fear to spin out of her mind - if this had any chance of working, then he needed to believe that she was in some sort of danger.

"Ben," she tried again, pushing harder through the thick fog that encroached upon her consciousness. "I'm scared," she admitted, though she was mostly afraid for him.

Rey stubbornly ignored the sounds of lightsaber combat coming from behind her.

"Please just look at me."

Confusion nudged at the edge of her consciousness.

It was odd, Rey noted, how she was both fully immersed in Ben's mind, yet able to still retain her own sense of individuality. Likely, it was due to whatever he had used to shield her mind.

"Rey?" he questioned, dark eyes flicking down to stare at her in disbelief. "You're still here?"

She breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Now, hopefully, all she had to do was keep him distracted until the memory concluded. "I never left."

"Are-" he paused, clearly torn between his concern for her and the battle being fought across the room. "Are you alright?"

"Mostly," Rey answered honestly as she slowly shifted her position in an attempt to turn Ben away from the source of conflict. "But I wanted to ask you something." His fear was still palpable but, as she predicted, his confusion by her presence and his concern for her safety overrode much of the deafening terror rolling off of him in ever-thickening waves of energy.

"...Right now?" She smiled at the slight annoyance in his tone.

"Yes. I-" Rey froze, momentarily distracted by the stunning clash of yellow and red as the lightsabers cut through the air faster than her eye could track.

That chilling light flared again in the peripheral areas of her mind, shattering the feeling of dread that had been steadily creeping up her spine from the moment she first found herself trapped in this memory.

"How are you doing that?" she gasped, suddenly feeling much more clear-headed.

"Doing what?"

"Using the Force to protect me like that like." As the buzzing of his uncertainty grew louder, Rey expounded, "You know, how you somehow keep managing to shield my mind from your emotions, your thoughts, even from Snoke. But it's strange," she continued, grateful that he was focused more on her now rather than the memory, "sometimes your consciousness burns so intensely that I think it will consume me. Other times, it's calming and bright."

Rey paused, considering her words, "It's almost as if…"

She was unsure how to finish her sentence in way that wouldn't cause him to recoil in distaste.

She knew exactly what she wanted to say, but even thinking it made little sense when contemplating everything she had learned of the Force. Yes, there was light and dark inside everyone since the Force itself was neutral and only those who drew on its power fell on one side of the spectrum or another.

But from everything she had learned from Luke, from Anya, and from Ben, it seemed almost impossible to be in connection with both the light and the dark - it was one or the other, never both.

That ultimatum, however, failed to explain how Ben, who was so deeply entrenched in the dark side, constantly used both light and dark side attributes of the Force. Of course, her theories did not have consistent examples - Anya had explained how Jedi and the Sith were often unwilling to draw on the opposing side of the Force, not because they were unable, but because of the severe drain of strength the action required.

The only consistent factor Rey was able to pinpoint was herself.

But she was absolutely certain that she was not the direct cause of anything.

Though she had been tempted on numerous occasions to draw on the dark side, she had never really used any of that power. Losing herself to the darkness was not an option. And she worried that if she allowed herself to experiment with a broader range of Force abilities, she would be unable to pull herself back to the light.

"'As if' what?" he queried.

"I-" The words wouldn't come. How could she explain her insane-sounding theory? She could feel the conflict constantly swirling within him, but there were moments - fleeting as they were - when the light and dark seemed to mix harmoniously, neither side greater than the other.

And it was in those brief instances when he appeared most confident, most assured of his convictions - whatever those actually were since they had a habit of changing as swiftly as his moods, though Rey knew for a fact that Ben wasn't nearly as unstable as most people, himself included, often believed.

"Maybe right now isn't the best time to discuss-" a grimace of pain shot across his face, though Rey could physically see no reason for it. Nothing in the memory had changed - the battle was still going on before her eyes.

It was Snoke, then. His presence hung heavily over Ben's consciousness and repeatedly attempted to break through the barriers around her own mind.

Any agony she had perceived before through their bond paled in comparison to the raging current of pain she sensed rushing through him. Even from the trickle of pain that forced its way into her consciousness, Rey could not comprehend how Ben had not immediately passed out.

Maybe you can't pass out in your own mind. Still, there had been many instances - Starkiller Base, the first time the Force had connected them after Crait, when she had rescued him from the First Order - where he should have succumbed to the pain overloading his nerves, but had somehow managed to remain standing and even fight, seeming to regard the pain as a mere inconvenience instead of debilitating.

This time, however, perhaps because he had already been so drained from their training session and his duel with Tahl, the pain won out.

If Rey hadn't already been standing so close, she would have been unable to halt his fall. As it was, she barely reacted in time to grab hold of his arm with her free hand to slow his descent. Though the suddenness of the fall caught Rey by surprise and caused her to sink to her knees as Ben did, he still retained enough willpower to not simply become deadweight in her clutches. For that, she was especially grateful. Considering the majority of Ben's frame was toned muscle, Rey knew she wouldn't have been able to catch him at all if he wasn't somehow still slightly alert.

"If you can leave," his consciousness whispered faintly, almost lost among the sounds of battle, "you should."

"I'm not going anywhere," she stubbornly replied.

He sighed heavily, apparently accepting her decision since he didn't argue further.

Rey tried to reel in her shock as he lowered his head to rest lightly on her right shoulder. He was still conscious, but just barely.

Her mind went blank and she couldn't think of anything remotely reassuring to say. She couldn't tell him to "just hang on" because she had no idea if they were ever going to make it out again. There were no words of encouragement she could offer. She had no idea how to help ease any of his pain - there was no doubt in her mind that if she tried to widen their connection and take more of his suffering on herself, he would find some well of energy and block her attempts.

They were similar in that regard: Neither of them understood how to accept help without looking for underlying, corrupt motivations.

So she did the only things she could: She held onto him and tried to transfer as much of her own peace and steadfastness as possible. Maybe she couldn't fight this battle for him, but she could make sure he didn't go through it alone.

The sounds of battle suddenly grew distant. Glancing up, Rey noticed with only a hint of surprise that, other than in her immediate area, her vision was fuzzy and so distorted that it was extremely difficult to make out any specific images.

"Ben," she said, trying hard to control her frustration, "you're doing in again."

"...What?" If he wasn't about to pass out, Rey would have hit him.

"Protecting me even though you need to be conserving your energy."

He mentally mumbled something unintelligible in response. But considering the memory remained hazy, Rey was relatively certain that her concerns were not going to change his mind and that he had said something along those lines.

Or possibly he had strung together a bunch of curses - it was difficult to tell. Either way, the meaning was the same.

She sighed deeply, preparing herself mentally for his likely hostile reaction to what she was about to say. It'd be nice if we could have an actual conversation when one of us isn't potentially dying.

"I already know what happens in this memory," she admitted. Rey felt him shift slightly in her grasp - the only indication he had heard her. "I know who you were fighting." She wasn't sure when the pieces had locked together - there was only one person it could be.

She swallowed out of habit even though her words were not vocal. "Krillien. That's why Anya had his lightsaber. Snoke didn't give you a choice: he made the two of you fight and you won. You killed your best friend because you didn't have a way out."

Self-preservation was one of his strongest qualities and it had undoubtedly kicked in when he and Krillien were forced to fight.

"No," he replied, "it was much worse than that."

Worse? She silently wondered to herself, How could it possibly be worse?

It crashed upon her like a wave: All of the sadness, all of the guilt, all of the regret that Ben had felt when he killed Krillien. She had wondered where those emotions were in relation to the many people he had murdered over the years. Now, she realized that all of his sorrow was confined to this one moment - nothing could eclipse what had taken place in this room almost six years ago.

How fitting it was, then, that Snoke had been physically defeated in this same room.

Justice had been served. A vengeful sort of justice, to be sure, but justice nonetheless.

"I didn't kill Krillien."

"What?" She knew that couldn't possibly be true - she had felt the impending death the moment Ben had arrived.

"I didn't kill him," he repeated, tone strangely even. "Snoke had us fight, yes, but I didn't really believe that either of us were going to die - I thought we were both too valuable. But Krillien kept insisting that one of us wasn't going to make it out alive." He paused a moment, uncharacteristically relaxing a bit more into her hold. Rey could feel his mental walls slipping; whatever strength he had managed to find was fading quickly.

"He believed it...so I slowed my attacks, began missing by centimeters on purpose. Then," Rey had a difficult time keeping her running commentary to herself. "Then he apologized. And took a step to the left, directly where he knew my lightsaber would be."

Wait, Rey thought, what? How is that worse than purposely killing your friend?

"He sacrificed himself for me, the idiot. I don't understand why anyone would do that - it doesn't make any sense."

'Because love doesn't make sense,' she wanted to proclaim. "Because he was your friend," Rey said instead, "and friends would do anything to keep the people they care about safe."

"It's stupid," he muttered tiredly.

Rey decided that now was not the right time to point out that the exact thing he was condemning Krillien for was precisely the reaction Ben himself had whenever he thought she was in danger. Maybe not to the extreme case of death, but he had proven on numerous occasions that he would certainly put himself in dangerous situations to protect her.

Thinking it through in the context of sacrifice made Rey uneasy. It was one thing to admit to herself that she loved Ben, but it was an entirely different matter to consider if he felt anything for her.

Her consciousness suddenly cringed in anticipation as the memory faded out of sight.

She expected to begin falling again, to have to float along in Ben's consciousness until reality returned.

But nothing drastic happened.

One moment they had been in Snoke's throne room, and the next moment the solid, scorching hot stone of the courtyard on Korriban was underneath them.

They were both alive. They had made it back.

Granted, Rey thought, feeling the heaviness of Ben's head on her shoulder, he's unconscious. Again. I really hope those knights have a plan for fixing him.

Rey was relieved by the thought of their survival for only a few seconds.

A Force presence unlike any she had ever felt materialized in front of her. Still, it took her only one glance to recognize the individual - she had just spent the last however long staring and wondering who he was.

"Thank you." Krillien's mild and soothing tone came as a shock to Rey.

"For - what?" she managed to get out.

He smiled slightly; his dark green eyes lightening at her confusion. "For everything, really. Mostly, for picking up where I left off," he said, glancing down at Ben's unconscious form. "I know it doesn't often seem like it, but he means well."

Before Rey had gotten to know the man under the mask, she would have immediately laughed at the thought of Ben having any good intentions in his attempts to control and enslave the galaxy. Now, she wasn't really sure she understood what his intentions had been.

If she had to guess, she would say he had just been searching for someplace where he hadn't felt so alone - where his talents were put to good use.

"Do me a favor?" Krillien asked with no obvious expectations of her agreement.

She nodded anyway. Ben had told her there were only two people he trusted - now, she was the only one left. So if there was any advice Krillien was going to give her, she would gladly listen.

"My lightsaber - keep it. Seems fitting that you should use it, at least until you have time to construct your own."

Rey had to agree: it did seem fitting. Besides, she felt comfortable using it.

"I just don't know what to do about Snoke," she admitted.

"Snoke?" Krillien laughed lightly, "I wouldn't fret too much about him."

Rey gaped at him in shock.

Krillien's form grew blurry, translucent. "Let's just say that Snoke was wrong about a lot of things: It's never a wise idea to underestimate Ben."