Chapter 14
5 days to D-Day
Training had only picked up since Luke had told Rey they would be leaving soon. Despite the added attention she now had to pay to learning Form V and finishing Form IV at the same time, she had been unable to get the image of Kylo destroying the clearing in the wood out of her head.
She had only seen him so angry once before – in the woods on Starkiller; a memory she found hard to stomach when she thought about it. It pained her to realise that it was her fault. Rey knew she couldn't be truthful but then she didn't have to be cruel.
The anger followed Kylo through the day, so much more poignant than any other emotion she had sensed from him and it grew increasingly violent, increasingly profound and palpable. By the time early evening had descended, Rey could feel herself internally screaming for him to stop.
Her fear bled into him just as his anger bled into hers and Rey knew it must have been isolating for Kylo. It was a trigger that made her see just what she was doing to him by pushing him away. She had to, but she had somehow become a beacon for him; someone who knew his soul – even if he didn't want her to – and she wanted to destroy that. He had treated her – touched her, held her, kissed her – with such warmth and care because she was important to him. Even though it couldn't have been right, even if this had been orchestrated by the Force – by darkness even – the connection was very real. They now shared very real emotions, fears and worries. They were both two people alone in a world where they had too many responsibilities.
It made Rey want to cry. No matter how hard she pushed him away, it indeed was inevitable. It was so much more than what they had done together or any shared lust. Rey knew it was wrong as a Jedi in training, but this went beyond that, so far that rejecting it or even just ignoring it felt on equal footing to a slight against the Force.
She willed him to stop, deciding to meditate rather than eat with Luke and she did so for several hours before turning to sleep; to speak to him directly.
When she eventually drifted off, she found herself at the sea, looking down at it from the top of the cliff. It was a cold morning by the cliff side, but the wind was weaker than usual.
After looking around for a few moments, Rey spotted Kylo sitting in the sand below the cliff face, relief filling her. She began her descent, quickly climbing over the precipice and then down until she was beside him.
Rey paused and looked at him with a deep frown. Unlike usual he was in what she suspected was his sleep wear – a loose sleeveless undershirt and pants. Bandages were wrapped around seeping wounds, and bruises and burns scattered his pale skin.
She had suspected that he was unable to heal himself or others and the evidence was in front of her, brought out of reality and into this dream world. Rey was surprised she had not felt the wounds being inflicted, and wondered whether he at least had the ability to reserve pain to himself. The thought tore at her heart and she wished that he had let her feel his pain.
'I'm sorry,' she began. If he had met her gaze he would have seen the sincerity there, but he just sat there, basking in her emotions: Fear, frustration, guilt and broken longing. 'I was wrong to be so cruel when I didn't mean it. I wasn't trained to be like that…I never even grew up to be like that. But you didn't have to be so cruel with your own body, with your own mind.'
'Do you feel purged yet?' he questioned as she stood in front of him. The question jolted Rey and he repeated it.
Rey frowned and looked into her hands. 'You know what I feel, you know I won't ever feel purged.' Her fingers wrapped around the hem of her tunic and she rumpled it in her hands. 'Why did you do it?' she asked, her voice small. 'I felt all that unnecessary violence and why?'
Kylo looked up at her, squinting through the sunlight and meeting her gaze and he sighed. 'The answer is the same as it will be for any question you ask, so stop asking.'
Rey shook her head and knelt in front of him, pulling at his arm. 'Answer me, why did you do it?'
He looked at the overcast sky before looking at Rey again. 'Your emotions are overwhelming. They threaten to suffocate me and I can't allow it.'
'As if yours aren't?' she questioned with a frustrated frown.
'They aren't the same. I try and forget how isolating this bond is and I concentrate on my anger because at least it makes me stronger, it's something my adrenaline can feed off. You don't forget. You carry your emotions with you and because I can feel them, I feel just as terrible as you.'
Rey looked down at the sand. 'It's your fault,' she murmured.
'Perhaps it is,' he supplied. 'But there isn't much else I could do, that I was even compelled to do.'
'I shouldn't have let you touch me,' she mumbled, though her hands were slow to detach themselves from his arm.
Kylo looked into her face. 'I know what you feel, Rey. It is pointless to pretend I can't, let alone pretend it is not there. I've told you before that I feel it too. Since I first saw you, I did. Why do you think I'm pushing to see you by my side?'
Rey bit down on her lip, trying to draw blood. 'That's what the darkness wants and I can't give it what it wants.' She looked at him, her eyes filling with fear that he could clearly feel. 'It feels like it's always there waiting for me and it wants to destroy me, it wants to destroy the both of us.' Her mind flashed with the memory of how the darkness had touched her, had made her feel things she knew were wrong. Catching Kylo's gaze, she knew he could feel what she had felt then, perhaps even see it. 'I don't know what I'm supposed to do when I'm stuck here with you, when we have this bond.'
'You didn't stop it; you didn't stop me.' Kylo swallowed as he looked at Rey. 'You could have told your master and you didn't because you feel it too. You feel that this is necessary and that we were put together for a reason.'
She closed her eyes, guilt washing over her because she had not asked Luke for advice. Before she could open them again, Kylo's warm hand was against her cheek and his thumb was wiping away absent tears.
'I don't think pretending will work anymore. I can feel your heart beating and you can't hide that. You can't hide the way you look at me.' He moved closer to her, finding her height once he was on his knees. 'Nor what I felt when we were together and how much you wanted it to happen.'
Rey shook her head. 'Just because it's there doesn't mean it's right.'
'What's so wrong when we feel like this? When I can feel your heart and I can feel how scared you are of what's in front of you.'
'Because it's not real,' she responded, dejected. Even her words could not erase the speed at which her heart beat and she begged the Force for some reprieve. 'This connection, it has made things that weren't meant to be and it blinds us.' Rey pulled Kylo's hand away from her face. 'These feelings aren't real, none of this is truly real.'
He frowned and Rey knew he was angry again. 'It's real to me and at the very least I can admit that. You need to admit it to yourself.'
Rey pulled away and stood, shaking her head, adamant that she would believe herself.
Kylo followed her. His gaze was overbearing and Rey stepped back, trying to be outside of his sphere even if she naturally gravitated towards it.
'Will you really say you felt nothing real? What excuse can you give for everything that has happened?' he asked and Rey began to walk away. 'You took me out of that house. You healed me, and comforted me. Why would you do that if we're supposed to be enemies?'
She didn't respond and Rey kept walking until she woke, her face buried in her pillow, trying to make his questions disappear. Her heart strained in her chest uncomfortably and she willed the Force to make her see properly.
XxX
It was the same the next day.
After a day of training to use Force barriers, Rey's defences could not help her against Kylo and he found her curled up in her cot in the turned over AT-AT. She knew her anxiety was what filled her mind and by the tension in his jaw, Rey knew it frustrated him.
She turned around, facing away to look at the wall rather than Kylo. Despite sensing him moving towards her, she still jumped when his fingers ghosted across the back of her neck and he pulled her back to face him while sitting on the small chair beside her cot.
'You are leaving soon, aren't you?' he questioned, his fingers moving stray strands of hair behind her ear.
Rey didn't respond, so he continued.
'That's why you are anxious. I never did figure out where you went and now you're leaving so quickly. Your training can't be over; you don't even have a Lightsaber.'
She covered her face uncomfortably with her hands and Kylo's fingers folded over her left.
'I can train you. Better than my uncle and you'll have everything you've ever wanted. We won't have to dream to see each other.'
Rey turned away again and this time Kylo slipped into the cot beside her, his arms wrapping around her and pulling her into him, finding no resistance from Rey. She could smell blood on his cloak and it chilled her with fear. Rey felt for his wounds, sensing a deep gash across his shoulder blade.
Kylo's breathing grew heavier as she healed it, unable to leave him in pain, even when she couldn't feel his emotions; it was enough to just know it was there. The thought brought new tears and she wanted to scream in frustration at her lack of control.
He turned her in his arms and his fingers wiped at the tears coating her cheeks. Before Rey could say anything, his lips were against hers in a light graze. If she had closed her eyes, she could have pretended it was her imagination, but he was there in front of her, meeting her gaze as he leant forward.
'You can't run away from this,' he murmured.
'This isn't what's supposed to happen,' she replied, her voice low.
'But it is happening.'
Rey could see the sincerity in his eyes and it put her further on edge. She couldn't say she felt inclined to go to the dark, let alone leave the light, but his eyes, they distracted her from what was important. It did not help that he chose not to look away from her and that his hand still held her face in his line of sight.
'It will be better for you to admit it yourself.'
She shook her head and tried to push him away but his hands held onto her tightly. 'I wish you would let this stop. I wish you would understand that this will just make it harder for us both. Why are you so short-sighted? Why is everything you do based on how you feel at that moment?' Kylo's brows furrowed. 'It's so frustrating because I feel as if I know you, these dreams, this bond, I've been able to see who you are, but I still can't understand why. Why don't you think about anything you do?'
'I do think about what I do,' he responded, his jaw tight. 'It's all I do and I realised that when it comes to you, anything to do with you, thinking doesn't change anything. If I were to pretend that you didn't have access to my emotions and to my mind to some extent, what good would that do?'
Rey closed her eyes and breathed heavily. 'You should protect yourself to the best of your ability. I am your enemy.'
'Isn't it too late for that already?' he questioned. 'There's nothing I have left to shield from you. You already know everything.'
'Why are you admitting that to me? Why are you leaving yourself so open to me?'
Kylo sighed and looked at her squarely. 'Because it's you. Don't you realise that we are bound or have you forgotten?'
'I haven't,' she replied, her teeth gritting together.
'And what I feel, you feel too. I thought that this connection happened so I could bring you to my side by whatever means, but I think it's more than that now.' He closed his eyes and when he opened them again, his gaze had become more intense. 'I need you. Every part of you and I can accept that because I know this is what the Force wants.'
Rey's expression dropped to a frown again as she tried to catch some sort of dishonesty in his voice, but she found none.
'Do you really think this is what the Force wants?' she asked carefully.
Kylo nodded.
'Even if it will end in our destruction?'
'Even if that is the case,' he answered.
'Just because the Force wants it that way?'
He nodded again and his fingers stroked her cheeks, seeing and feeling that sadness had descended on her. 'We can only follow the Force's plan. That's why it's more than darkness and light, because in the end, the Force is one with both sides, they are both the Force. They are equal and I know you fear the darkness, you said you feel it around you and that it seduces you, but its intentions are all part of the plan.'
'Do you really think that way?'
'Yes and it's how you should see it too. The Force has a plan and we must follow it.'
Rey found herself nodding and Kylo's arm tightened around her waist. She could consider that her path was unknown and if she only had to follow the Force, it would be what was best for the galaxy. The Force was the deciding factor, it was the be-all and end-all and if she could believe in it, it would lead her down the right path. The darkness was only a test and an obstacle and perhaps then, even if it wasn't the light alone that called her, it was goodness and justice. Kylo – no Ben, he could still come to her, he could still follow the Force to her. It wasn't about a seduction any more, they were joined by their bond and that was enough.
'Do you see it now?' he questioned.
She nodded again and her mind seemed to ease. He could feel her relax in his arms and his lips slipped into a minute smile. Rey put her hand against his arm and he expected her to push it away from her, but it slipped to his own cheek and her finger ran down the scar on his face. She didn't see Kylo anymore, she only saw Ben and Rey knew that feeling had been there ever since that dream in the field of flowers.
'The Force knows best.' Her words were barely above a whisper.
Ben nodded and Rey pulled herself closer to him, her arms wrapping around his neck until she was hugging him tightly, believing that he would change, if not for the Force, for her.
Thanks for reading everyone.
I really hope the transition from Kylo to Ben wasn't awkward. I've been thinking about how to do it for a while and this is the way I decided on. So yeah, I hope it wasn't too jarring.
