A/N: The responses to this story have been absolutely off the chain. I'm overwhelmed. Thank you guys so much! Please enjoy!

Duality

Chapter 3

Days passed, or so she thought. Time was as useless to her as the lightsaber attached to Ren's hip. The room morphed from light to dark many times a day, the light flickering out seemingly at random. She was fed a strange, almost tasteless food twice daily by a black droid, to her chagrin. She could not figure out how to manipulate it. Other than that, there was nothing. No contact. Not with him, or anyone. Her thoughts were destroying her.

Her mind presently dances to Finn, his kind face and bright smile. Would he come? Would Han come? As each hour slipped by, her hope thinned. It was agony. The Light in her was fading, despite her efforts to cling to it. Black thoughts found themselves wrapping around her spirit in increasing volume, until she had to physically shake her head at times to try to regain some clarity. When she slept, it was worse. He was always there.

Kylo Ren. The Master of the Knights of Ren. The monster. She couldn't shake the burning image of his ghastly mask from her sight when her eyes closed. He was always there, taunting her, his knowing eyes gleaming from within the mask. Evil, though he was, she could not deny the strange pull her Force center felt when he was near her. Like a rope around her midsection, dragging her invisibly into the jaws of doom. It didn't make sense. He was so dark, so wrong. How could he draw her in such a way?

She remembers Leia's words about him. 'We can bring him back. There is still good in him.' He was a foul being, but he was her son. The maternal awareness lent some credit to the notion of his faulty Darkness. Han seemed to think he wasn't completely lost, either. Rey had seen the strange glitches in his eyes, the frantic jumps to emotions he was deeply petrified of. Yes, he was evil, but perhaps…perhaps he wasn't beyond redemption.

The door slides open and light fills the room, and she blinks as her eyes struggle to adjust to the sudden change. But she didn't have to see to know who was there. She could sense him. His energy, the power rolling off him in waves. It was like a Rancor had entered the room. She watches as he strides through the enclosed space toward her, mask in place. He was a nightmarish sort of majesty.

He stops feet before her. For several moments, he simply stands there. Watching her, like some fiendish predator savoring the sight of his kill. She stares brazenly back at him, though her mind is weakened significantly. She feels the urge to look away, to succumb to his dominion, but she bats it away. It wouldn't be easy for him. Not while she had breath to give to the air.

"I trust you've given thought to what I've said," he says evenly, the metallic hum of the distorted syllables filling the room.

She scoffs. "No, I've just been planning all the different ways I'm going to shove that mask up y-,"

"Silence!" he commands, and she complies, jaw set rigidly. Sith have no sense of humor.

He approaches her slowly, and with every advancing step he seems to grow huger and huger until he is like a leviathan before her. The air seems to be drawn to him, and she finds her lungs become tight. The air almost crackles with his dark zeal.

"Rey," he says, and the closeness of his manufactured hiss causes her to flinch. "Don't fight anymore. You know as well as I that it is useless. You have felt the Darkness. I can see it worming around in your pretty little skull. Why so afraid of what you know you want?"

She pushes back against his words as they leak into her ears, into her head, into her very soul like some sweet toxin. She focuses on the images of Finn, of BB, of Han. Her eyes draw shut as he continues.

"You are afraid of the Darkness because you do not understand it."

He kneels, and she hears the rush of air that signals the opening of his mask. She opens her eyes and looks, and her breath is almost stolen as she takes him in. Under this spell, this intoxication of the shadow, he looks like a devil. A devil so alluring that hell almost seems like a paradise.

"The Darkness is not your enemy, Rey," he intones softly. "The Darkness is just a tool. It is passion; it is anger. It is not so meek as to shun emotion as the Jedi do, wielding the Light like going into battle wearing a two ton metal suit. You have heard so very little about the Force. You're just an infant in its ways." He pauses, his eyes trailing over her features, pausing momentarily upon her lips. "Don't let what you've been told fool you. Believe only what you see, and not what you hear. Believe this."

He jolts up and throws his arm out like he's delivering a blow, and Rey watches transfixed as bolts of black lightning emit from his fingertips and collide with the wall, singing its surface and causing the light to flicker wildly. It is a display of vicious beauty unlike anything she's ever seen. She drinks it in like a man at a well in the desert. Gods, the power…

And then the bolts are gone, and she's left staring at his hand awestruck. He turns to her, and the wide smile on his face is almost maniacal.

"Don't you see, Rey?! Don't you see what you can have?"

Somehow his jubilant tone snaps her from the trance.

"Kylo," she proclaims, voice shaky. "You know that is a lie! The Darkness will consume you. You'll be left as mad and as ruined as all the Sith before! Just turn away from it. I know you have a flicker inside you."

He looks away instantly, and a shroud falls over his face. She senses the tiny confliction in his Signature, but she knows it is not enough. The state he was in was too gripping.

But it is enough for her to decide. If that spark was there, she would fight to the death to bring it into full illumination. Leia was right; he could be redeemed. And she would do it from the inside out. She would plant the seeds, and she would bring him back. She would be his servant in order to free him. It was that, or she would die. There was no middle ground.

"You'll look back on this resistance to the Dark someday as your weakest point," he nearly growls. "And when you do, you'll be at your strongest. You will serve me."

A tear slips down her cheek. The choice was made.

"Yes, I will serve you."

He smirks.

"I know."

oOoOoOo

"We have to go get her!"

"Finn, you've gotta relax, buddy. There's nothing we can do right now."

"You're wrong! You won't even try!"

Han rests his face in his hands. The kid was persistent. Loyal. But foolhardy. His care for the girl would most likely someday be the end of him. He had been going on for days about rescuing Rey from the clutches of Starkiller Base, but they simply could not do it. There just weren't enough pieces in place.

"Finn," he repeats, more gently this time. "We'll get the girl. She's too strong for them to just dump off. They need her; and if I know anything about her, I know she'll fight to stay alive as long as she can. We just can't right now."

Finn's face is a maelstrom of hurt and anger and anxiety. Han feels for the kid. He knows what it's like to have a loved one in a dangerous spot and being unable to help them. It's crushing. But there simply was nothing that could be done. He would have to accept it.

Han places his hand on the kid's shoulder.

"Finn, come on. It's best if you get some rest. Try not to think about it too much, alright?"

Finn doesn't respond. Just nods his head once and walks dejectedly toward his chambers. Han watches him retreat and feels a twinge in his chest. For him, for her, and ultimately, for his son. His son he could have done more to protect. The urge to punch something jumps on his back.

By the gods, they would get her back. Even if it meant his son didn't come with.