Chapter 6

Kylo woke to a warm body in his arms and a finger trailing down his jawline. He opened his eyes and found Rey studying his chin intently.

"It's bristly," Rey said. "Your face. It's bristly." She rubbed her thumb against the bristles on his chin as if to emphasize her point.

Kylo stared at her, half wondering if she were somehow drugged or drunk despite her lack of access to such things. "I haven't shaved since this morning." He gazed at Rey, who was still wrapped in his left arm with her head resting on his left shoulder. "You're comfortable touching me like this?"

"Don't you feel it? Let the force flow through you."

Kylo narrowed his eyes at her but did as she suggested. Instead of directing the force to his will as he usually did, he opened himself to the force's pull. Immediately, he felt enveloped in an overwhelming sense of safety and right, like watching a puzzle piece fall into place. "I feel it," he said. "It's peaceful." He closed himself off, distrusting the nature of the force's guidance, and found himself disgusted that Rey would so blindly follow it. He freed his left arm from Rey and sat up to create some space between them. "It's wrong."

Rey sat up as well with her legs beneath her so they faced each other on the bed, and her face twisted with… what was that? Embarrassment? Frustration? Hurt? He didn't dare reach back into the force to be certain.

"You're right. I shouldn't have touched your face while you slept."

Kylo groaned. "You're missing the point. Stop relying on the force for everything! What do you want to do?"

Rey narrowed her eyes at him. "I want to trust the force."

Kylo glared at her. "Are you so desperate to become a proper little Jedi that you're jumping in bed with your enemy just because the force told you to?"

"You're not my enemy!" Rey protested.

"I'm Kylo Ren, Supreme Leader of the First Order! I destroyed Luke's jedi academy. I killed your hero and my father, Han Solo. I demanded the deaths of you and everyone you loved in the Resistance on Crait. Even now, you're my prisoner. Tell me, Rey. How am I not your enemy?" Kylo's heart beat furiously in the silence following his outburst. He hadn't meant to say all that. He didn't want to discourage her, and yet he didn't regret it. He didn't want there to be any misunderstanding this time as to exactly how monstrous he was. He couldn't bear the disappointment twice.

Rey's eyes shined with tears, and her posture sank as she looked down. "I don't know. Everyone thinks I'm crazy for risking my life for you, and they're convinced you were using me to take down Snoke. Most of the time, I was too. But then I remembered how you tried to be kind, how you wanted to teach me, how you listened when I had no one else, and how you saved me. I remembered that your offer was not to serve you, but to be at your side, and I wanted to believe that it's not too late for you. I still want to believe."

Kylo's heart was thick with emotion. "It's too late for Ben Solo, Rey."

She looked up at him with those piercing eyes of hers. "Is it too late for Kylo Ren, too?" she asked. He inhaled so deeply his chest hurt. No one had ever offered to care about him as Kylo Ren before. "The force is telling me it isn't too late for you, so I want to trust the force."

Hope was blooming so fast in Kylo's heart that he didn't know what to do with himself, and yet what she said didn't quite make sense. "You said you gave up on me. Was that not the force?"

Rey shook her head. "The force stayed my hand on the Supremacy. The force had never given up on you. I was the one who had given up." She sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

Kylo didn't know what to say. He could hardly think through his shock at what he was hearing. He took her hand in his, wiped it with the hem of his shirt, and kept his own hand tightly wrapped around hers.

"I didn't know what to do about our force bond. Your mother, when she found out, ordered me to ignore you as much as possible when we connected to avoid leaking information to you. Some of the leadership wanted me imprisoned… even Poe, who I thought would be more understanding than that after all the good things Finn had said about him. And everyone kept telling me that you only reached out to me to manipulate me, and I... " Rey paused, catching her breath. She looked down at their joined hands, and then looked up at him again with surprise in her eyes.

Kylo cleared his throat. "I am a monster, Rey. Never doubt that." He glanced down to their joined hands. "However, where you were concerned, I never really thought past how much I wanted to be beside you. I offered to teach you because I wanted you near. The offer to rule at my side was no different. I am mostly darkness, but where you exist within my heart, there is overwhelming light."

"Your conflict within is me?" Rey asked.

"Not all of it," Kylo admitted. Killing his father had burned Han Solo's light into his heart. His mother's love still flickered within, and his desire to not cause suffering. For though he was often cruel and ruthless out of necessity, he was not sadistic. He did not enjoy hurting others. Still, Rey's light was the only conflict that consistently threatened to overwhelm him. "Yours is the brightest."

They were silent, and Kylo found himself rubbing his thumb along the back of her hand. When they had touched hands through their bond a month ago, her skin had been rough and calloused. Now it was softer and smoother, and he wondered at the change.

"Rey, what do you want?" Kylo asked, repeating his earlier question. He knew she wouldn't give him the same answer as before.

"I want to believe that we can be something other than enemies," Rey said.

"I would like that," Kylo said. She smiled brightly at him, and he smiled gently back. He wanted to kiss her hand, but he still wasn't sure what she wanted from him. Something other than enemies could mean a lot of things, and he was thankful to have even this much.

Rey yawned, which reminded Kylo that it was still the middle of their sleep cycle.

"Let's get back to sleep," he said and released her hand to lie down on the bed. Rey followed suit, and he tucked the covers back up over them. This time, they faced each other, and if Kylo wasn't mistaken, Rey was closer to him.

Rey looked away a moment with her face screwed up in concentration, as if facing an internal battle, and then closed the distance between them to wrap herself in his arm and return her head to rest on his shoulder as it had been when they woke up earlier.

Is this okay? She asked through the force.

He smirked that she must have felt too shy to ask out loud. It's okay. He replied. You can even go back to feeling my bristly face.

He felt Rey smile against his shoulder, and she gave his chin a good-natured stroke before letting her hand rest loosely on his opposite shoulder.

Really, you can touch me anywhere you want.

Rey stiffened in his arms, and Kylo cursed himself. He hadn't meant to broadcast that thought, and now she would surely…

Intense curiosity blossomed through the force from Rey, and Kylo gasped.

"Anywhere?"

Sorry this chapter took a while to get done. I ended up writing at least 4 different versions of it that didn't feel right before this one. I don't feel great about ending it on a cliffhanger, but it seemed a good stopping point.

Let me know what you think!