AN: Thanks so much for the positive response to my first chapter! I'll be continuing this series, but it's more like connected one shots than a cohesive story. It makes it more flexible and I don't have to worry about an actual plot. I'll write a fic with a plot eventually. Eventually...

It was early evening and Rey watched, enchanted, as the setting sun painted the sky in a multitude of colours. Beams of light poured into her small quarters through the open window, drenching her in a golden glow. A calm, cool breeze kissed her skin and made loose strands of hair sway gently. Life, Rey thought to herself, really wasn't all that bad. On the contrary, the galaxy was rather beautiful. For the first time in a long time, Rey allowed herself to relax, to let her guard down. She smiled contentedly out at the endless fields surrounding their current base, beyond which the sun was sinking in the sky.

"Rey?"

She tensed for a moment, then groaned in annoyance. "Oh for-" She sighed, screwing her eyes shut. With great effort, she turned away from the window, until she was face to face with him.

"What do you want?" She asked curtly, crossing her arms over herself.

"You know what I want." He retorted, eyes narrowed. Unlike her, his arms remained relaxed by his side. "Join me." It wasn't an offer. Nor was it a request. He said it firmly, yet with little emotion betraying his voice.

"You know that's not what I meant." She muttered, glaring at the floor. She couldn't bring herself to maintain eye contact with him for more than a fleeting moment. They showed too much of the man trapped inside, the man she desperately wanted by her side. Rey couldn't bear to look into those eyes, Ben's eyes, lest she lose herself within them.

He huffed like a petulant child being denied a sweet by his mother. "I can't control when this happens any more than you." He conceded. "Trust me, I would if I could."

"It shouldn't be happening at all." Rey spat. "Snoke is dead, and this connection should have died with him."

Kylo recoiled at that, as though he had been shot. "Do you truly think that?" He asked, hurt evident in his voice.

No. "Yes." Rey lied, chin held high in defiance. "It was forged by your former Master to manipulate us. It's a sick, twisted use of the force." Her beautiful features were contorted into something ethereally ferocious.

"That doesn't make it so atrocious." He murmured. "We are not the same as we were once. Neither is this bond." He continued, eyes wide and pleading. She still refused to look.

"Oh, you've changed have you?" She snapped. "That's why you stayed in the Dark. Why you continue to hunt, and kill us." She flared, eyes finally meeting his in her anger. It was because of him they had to flee Crait. Because of him that she could count the remaining Resistance members on both hands. Her nostrils flared in anger as she fumed.

"You still think I'm a monster." He whispered plainly. Hopelessness tinged his words as he reached out a hand towards her. It never reached her sun soaked skin, instead lingering in midair halfway between them.

"You are a monster. You said as much yourself." She fired back. The pain in his eyes was overwhelming, and she snapped her vision away. Suddenly, she stepped back from him, as though just the proximity to his skin burned her.

"You want me to be the monster?" He asked, voice rising. "I'm sure that makes this so much easier for you. Just another despicable beast to be slain." Kylo confronted her, fire in his eyes.

"YOU'RE A MURDERER!" She shouted, cheeks flushed with rage.

"And what do you think your precious Resistance do, huh, Rey? Do you think they shoot rainbows and glitter? No. There were hundreds of menial officers on Starkiller base. Kitchen staff. Sanitation workers like your precious FN-2187." He sneered as he mentioned the traitor. "Officers had families on that base. Children." He stepped towards her, voice low. "Face it, Rey. The Resistance isn't innocent either - at least the First Order doesn't pretend otherwise."

Rey recoiled as if shocked by his words. "You killed your father." She countered, her voice little more than a hiss. "You would've…" You would've killed me. She couldn't bring herself to say it, but he understood. His face twisted in anger, she had finally crossed the line.

"You think I would have killed you?" He demanded, equal parts enraged and agonised. Impetuously, he reached out and grasped her upper arm, enclosing his hand around it. He towered over her imposingly. Rey gasped and stared at him fearfully. His own eyes bored into hers. "You think I could?" He continued hoarsely. Bitterness tainted his voice. It would have been oh so easy if he could have just killed her on the Finaliser. If he could kill her now. But he couldn't. The worst part was, he couldn't even bring himself to desire her demise, quite the opposite.

Kylo lowered his eyes and relinquished his grasp on her arm, which now hung limply by her side.

"I-" She opened and closed her mouth like a fish out of water, flailing for the words to say. Finally she closed it and turned from him. The sun had sunk below the horizon, leaving the deep, endless void of the night sky, across which a billion stars shone their faint white light. Tears welled in her eyes for reasons she herself did not understand, and her vision blurred. And a lump rose in her throat.

Finally, she turned to face him, only to be met with the empty darkness of her small room.

He was gone.