The new training schedule was more grueling than any Ailsa had encountered before. Day in, day out, no moment for a break. Kylo Ren had her under his thumb; too exhausted to do much more than follow his orders, too angry to give up and him take complete control.

She was stubborn. It felt like he was trying to break her as one might break a wild horse; work them again and again, over and over, making habits, creating patterns, setting a path in stone and lining it with walls. Such a thing made for training, but it did not make for loyalty. It was not what the other Knights of Ren had undergone. It was not how Snoke had found Kylo in the first place. This was for her. This was for Ailsa and the future that lay ahead.

She was led to and from her room, given food and left in silence, only engaged with when it was time to learn. She was a prisoner still and no one was disguising that fact. They needed her to be under their control; they needed to know that they had put habits in place that they could rely on even if she went rogue. Not that she would. Kylo Ren knew where her heart lay; he had known her so deeply, so intimately. He had that over Ailsa. She did not have that over him; not anymore. There were too many barriers in the way. Too many fortresses built around a heart that hid from all in darkness.

Such blackness was not evil. It seemed like a shadow; an ink that no one could look into and that made looking out hard. He was hiding. He was a secret unto himself and one that maybe even he did not understand.

Ailsa sat in the training room with Kylo Ren, meditating silently in a moment of respite. Her arms were bare, body clad in clothes made to sweat in. Standing nearby with a tablet of information, Kylo could see the naked line of her shoulder, the slope of the junction that connected her neck to her body, the way her hair stuck in humid ringlets to the skin that covered her spine. She was not looking at him but he knew what expression she wore. Lips ever so slightly parted, eyes shut so lightly that her eyelids would flutter every few seconds as a new thought crossed her mind. Her breathing was long and slow, so silent and still. She'd always been like that when she meditated. Backbone rimrod straight, limbs flowing off of her like water from a mountainside.

Kylo Ren knew her.

He knew her.

And yet, it had been so long that he had no idea who she was anymore. She fought differently, she stood differently, she moved with a new poise. They had grown up after their first time apart, and this time…they had grown into new bodies entirely. New bodies with the same flesh.

He observed her, and he knew that she observed him with the same intensity. Yet she was so silent about it. She knew a lot; there was no doubting that she held a great many secrets. It is what she was trained for. It was what she had been groomed for since the start, even without her having realized it then.

So much time had passed.

So much space had reared up between them.

"What?" Ailsa spoke evenly, her question splitting the void. "What are you thinking about?"

Kylo Ren stared at her, his arms crossed as he stood in the room. "How did you survive that night?" He asked openly, voice devoid of emotion. "Your life force was all but gone when I cast you aside."

The woman opened her eyes and turned, twisting her seat to face him. She wanted to ask him the same question; how did you survive? But she did not know what had survived in him, or if he could answer at all.

"I do not know how I survived it." Ailsa confessed. "I remember it all so vividly. Every moment. That water was so cold. I've never been so cold in all my life. Somehow I…I needed air. Somehow I found it."

His jaw tightened. "And who found you?"

"You know I will not tell you that."

"And you know that I will find out."

"So find out – but you will not come to find such information from me."

He approached her steadily, kneeling before the woman and bringing his eye level to hers. He examined her face tightly; the shape of her eyes, the way the color fell through them, the pout of her mouth, the slope of her nose…he knew that face. When he looked upon it the light side tugged at him, the grey middle ground somehow wrapping itself about his form and grasping his attention.

"You continued with Jar'Kai." Kylo stated flatly of her training, as if that might help him work her out.

"I always used two lightsabers."

"Someone had to teach you how to use them. Someone had to help you further master The Force. It was not Skywalker – so there are others out there. How many are hiding like you?"

"I do not know the number. You know my kin wander the universe."

His hand came out, gloved hands drifting over her temple, brushing the hair aside there, threatening to invade her mind and explore its pathways. He felt her tense, he sensed her coil up tight and wait to spring out at him, ready to strike back. The trust was gone. Most of it. But she did not waver away from him, she did not flinch away. She was anxious but she was unmoving.

"You will tell me." His voice came out evenly, factual, hand moving to the nape of her neck. "You know that I know your secrets. I know you."

"You were a different man then." Ailsa replied deftly. "The man who knew me…he has missed out on a lot of things these past few years."

"You're angry."

"Very."

"You hate him."
"No."

"Why?"

"I don't know."

He sighed and released his grip on her, eyes moving to the ceiling for a moment before rifting back to the storm colour of Ailsa's gaze. "You loved him?"

"Very much."

His jaw tensed, brow furrowed. "There is no space for love here."

"You don't make space for it. You know that. You know it isn't something that needs space. It just needs air."

"It cannot survive here."

"You thought the same of me that night."

Kylo looked away, a picture of disgust upon his face. Frustration etched into his brow, fury danced behind his gaze. He stood and paced away from the woman, distancing himself from her. Those who stood on the Light Side were exposed so fully, but they grew blind in the brightness. Those on the Dark Side felt so vividly, but they did not see. The grey…they hid from nothing and experienced it all.

"You should have died then." Kylo Ren stated matter-of-factly as he rose and turned from her. "I should have made sure of it. I wouldn't have to waste my time here with you now."

Ailsa raised her brows. "You don't have to waste any time. You can jettison me out into space in a second flat and finish the job now if you wanted." She rose to her feet, muscles sore as she stood, body aching from days of intensive reconditioning. "You could do it right now."

He half faced the woman, giving her a once over with his gaze as if to consider her query seriously. He looked upon Ailsa, upon the way the taught coil of tension had not left her. She was holding her anger, grasping it tight and not letting it free. She never let it free. Not like he did. She would never know the power of the dark side until she learned to let go and re-embrace it.

"You've been here for weeks now." His hands clasped behind his back. "We've had to keep you from Hux in case you try to finish what you started, and we've had to keep him from you because I know he would put you in the trash chute and empty you with the rest of the rubbish."

"It sounds like you're tempted by the idea."

"You're lucky that you're useful, Ailsa. You're lucky that you have some skill with The Force."

"Am I lucky that you used to love me too then? I'd say that is helping keep me alive."

"You think I loved you?" He spoke cruelly now.

"Oh, don't play that game. I know you did. You loved me and maybe you still do."

"Ha! Keep telling yourself that."

"Then get into my head, Kylo. Find out what you want. Go in there and see what you have to see. You will look in and you know I will look back and you know that I will see you. I will see you because I know you."

"You know nothing of me!" He stepped up to her, furious with the woman and her outspoken stubbornness. "You know nothing of this path." Kylo hissed. "You know nothing of what it took to get here."

"So tell me. What are you afraid of – that I'll find out the truth, or that you will?"

There was a moment of silence. He loomed over her like a shadow, hovering there in fury and instability. Her gaze held his with the same anger, but she had an inch more control. She had to have more control; without it she would topple into dark or burn in the light. One or the other would happen.

"You should have died that night." He spoke lowly. "You should have died with the padawans. You tried so hard to save them…and you never did."

Ailsa felt the air in her body stinging, she felt it vibrating with heat. She had blocked so much of that night off. She now saw their bodies again, she watched it all burn again. She could smell it, she could hear it, the sound deafening her and leaving everything silent, leaving her with just the fear and the confusion she had felt on that night.

"You." Kylo spoke. "You didn't even try to balance The Force. You just…you ran."

"No." Ailsa shook her head. "No."

"Why did you run?"

"Why did you start it all?" Her voice rose a little. "Why? Was it worth it? Was it worth becoming Kylo Ren?"

He stared at her, saying nothing, just standing there as he watched her begin to boil over. He brought it to the surface with exhaustion and prodding. He brought her forth. He brought it all up to explode out.

Ailsa was trembling a bit. Her voice waivered as she spoke. "Why did you do that to me?" She asked a question he had not expected. "Why did you do that to me? You loved me. You knew I loved you too. You were beautiful; so talented, so happy. You had such a funny smile and such a wonderful laugh. You didn't kill me that night. You didn't kill yourself. You killed something special. You hid it away and disrespected all that had held value and meaning in your life; that had been meaningful to me. I never fought you. I fought what you were becoming because you couldn't. You couldn't do it. You couldn't kill me and I could not die to let fate finish the job. If you want to do it then do it. But you cant. But you hurt me. You hurt me so badly; you left me for dead, you let all that was lovely burn. There was no Dark Side, there was just evil and hatred and everything that was not power but simple misguided anger instead."

Kylo stalked closer to Ailsa, and she took a half step back instinctively. His advance was violent and aggressive, and half a step at a time she found herself pressed against a wall, leaning there with her hands flat upon the surface and his face just inches from hers.

"I hated you." She managed to confess. "I hated you for so long."

A tear broke from her gaze and slid down her features, unhindered by her touch, left to glisten on its path. Instead of exploding her anger she was exploring something else. She knocked down a wall to make room for the expansion. She knocked it out so she would not burst and destroy everything. It hurt. It burned. She looked upon a place she had long since locked up and felt its every pain.

"Do you remember what it was like? Do you remember what you destroyed? Why did you do it? How could you?" She pressed a hand to his chest, pushing him back but at the same time closing her fingers to the fabric of his shirt, holding something after weeks of being alone. "Why, Ben?"

"Ben?"
She searched his face. "Don't say you're not him. Don't say he isn't there." Ailsa shook her head. "Don't say you aren't him."

He set a hand hard beside her head, the wall vibrating with the force of the impact. Kylo Ren leant in, hovering there, ready to destroy her. She faced him without fear, she looked upon the potential death at his hand and did not move to escape.

"Why?" Ailsa asked. "How did you get so blind?"

She was pulling at loose threads; at any she could find. She was pulling at him and at the light side that called to him in such a disgusting manner. The Skylander was reaching through the abyss and grabbing at him, pushing back so hard at the force he weighted upon her.

"I am not blind." He said. Such a response was not one he would have given to anyone else. Anyone else would already have perished. This woman…this girl. This little friend from a day so long ago…he knew he had to get rid of that feeling and yet he could not. His grandfather had suffered from the same thing. He had fallen from the light for it. Kylo had fallen despite it. It ate them both.

"It wasn't about you." He replied. "Don't you know that? It was never about you. You were just there."

"And if I had been on Skye? If I had gone home? Would you have done the same thing then? You would have had to. Snoke would have made you. You had to cut it all away."

"I was not made to do anything."

"Don't lie to me."

"It wasn't about you. Don't be selfish and think it was."

She could feel his breath upon her as he stood there. She could feel his heat. Beneath her hand she could feel his heart, its throb humming against her closed fist.

"That is why I didn't die." Ailsa mentioned. "You could have snapped my neck. You could have had me join you then and there. Now you force me to be a Knight of Ren because you don't have the option anymore. You cant set me free anymore. You have to look at me now. You have to look at me with those eyes that have looked at me a thousand times and you have to know that I know you."

"You don't know me."

"I know you better than anyone else. I know you. Not as a parent, not as family, not as a friend. I know you down to your bones. I know your taste, I know your touch, I know your everything."

"No." He stood straight and turned from her.

"So kill me then. Finish this. Finish it and move on!" Ailsa released her grip on him, half advancing after his figure, half remaining where she was. "Do it. Make a choice now. Make it."

"For whom?" He yelled at her. "Who is this choice for?"

"Me. Its for me. Make the choice for me again."

Without another word he turned on her, one hand on the nape of her neck, the other on her wrist as it came up in defense. He was so quick, he was so full of rage. He caught her tightly, pushing her back into the wall before pulling her into him.

Ailsa felt her pulse racing, she felt it pounding so hard against her veins and in her being. She felt The Force. She felt it all with such acuity. Every nerve stood on end, every fiber of her being stood to attention.

Before even half a second hand passed he had forced his mouth to hers, angrily giving into a shadow that had lingered between them in the distance that had formed. Ailsa pushed him away for a minute before using her free hand upon his collar and pulling herself back to him. His palm released her wrist, finding its way to her waist, fingers digging hard into the fabric of her clothes.

Such rage permeated the action. Such desperation on both parts. Betrayal was bitter on the tongue, and she forced him to taste it and experience the flavor she had been living with since the night at the temple. He pressed her hard to the wall, bruising her lips with intensity as she bit back at him with a pent up frustration.

Instead of having her explode they had both ended up imploding. Neither needed to use The Force to look into the mind of the other. They had both been there before. They had been inside and they had looked around and made a home there. So much had changed. So much had shifted. Each fought for the opportunity to look upon the vastness of that change. Each clawed to discover what it meant and how it would influence what was to come.

The kiss was angry. But soon it became tinged with sadness, with memory, nostalgia. It expressed the cracks that had formed between two people and showcased the places where repair was simply not possible. Yet it filled a need. It filled a void at least temporarily.

Kylo pushed himself back and away as he snapped back to full Darkness. She could not have this hold on him. She was not allowed to have this hold on him.

Yet she would always have that hold on him. Always.

Just as he would have it on her.

He stood and stared at the woman for a long minute. They were both so human, the air between them so vulnerable for just half of a moment. Ailsa stared at him, breath a little short, lips pained and yet still wanting more. He would be the death of her. He had caught her as a child and wrapped her up so tight. The Force, the fates, whatever it was – it had tied them up and never intended to let either go. This was a balancing game, and in that moment only one knew how to stay upright. Neither knew which that person was.

She took to him again, and he did not shy away. He had her back pressed to that wall again in a second, had her form beneath his hands and her scent within his mind. Things were bitter. Things were sour. The taste was hot and filled with all the moments that had been missed, all the disappointment that had transcended their time apart.

He kissed a ghost, and so did she; and neither knew if they believed in such things.

A/N: I apologise for the delay in updates. I encountered some personal issues and am sorry for the slower chapter posting.
If you are reading I would love to hear from you. It would be great to know what you think of the story! Constructive criticism is always welcome!