"AGAIN," Kylo Ren roars as Rey hauls her body off the grassy floor, spitting blood at her feet.
They have been fighting viciously for hours. No punches pulled, no slices of his ragged saber delivered with anything less than the intent to kill. He would not insult her power by holding back, nor underestimate her ability to deal him a deadly blow, even without a light saber in her hands.
They both are long past the point of exhaustion, pulling fully from the force to keep fighting.
Rey screams, charging him. Her body bends unnaturally as he hacks at her torso. She drops, springs from her hands, and with a fierce spinning kick finally dislodges the saber from his hands. With a focused blast of the force she sends it flying over a rocky cliff, while her other foot kicks him mercilessly in the face.
Ren falls with a gasp of pain flat on his back.
Rey uses the last of her strength to straddle the winded Kylo Ren. Balling both her fists together she punches him as hard as her screaming muscles will allow.
Ren tries to bat away her blows but his arms are like lead, not effective at stopping her completely.
There's panting and grunting and groaning and the smacks of her punches. With the very last of his will Ren grabs her narrow wrists, and with a mighty thrust of his hips, sends her flying over his head.
She lands with a crunch on her back. Now head to head they lie gasping for breath.
And Rey finally lets go, slipping out of consciousness as the sun peaks over the horizon.
…
Pain brings her back to reality.
Everything hurts and Rey thinks she must be dying. Opening her eyes slowly she tries to assess the damage. Breathing appears to be the most painful.
Blinking away the harsh sunlight Rey tries to orient herself to her surroundings but her head is swimming. Finally an image takes shape.
Kylo Ren is sitting up in the grass overlooking a black, rocky slope. The wind is blowing through his wavy black locks, sunshine gleaming off his sweating muscular shoulders. He's discarded his torn outer clothing, sitting in a black tank top and ripped leather pants. His expression is peaceful as he turns a page of one of the giant tomes from her pack. He's reading the ancient Jedi texts.
Rey forgets her body, totally taken in by the sight of him.
So beautiful, she thinks a little deliriously. But she can't help but admit how handsome and vulnerable he is when his face is not twisted in rage, and how comfortable his posture is, almost like they could be friends. Like they could be more than that….
He could have slain her in her sleep, but here he is, reading in the morning light by her side, like they're the only two people in the galaxy. Like there's no war, no First Order, no death, no hurry, nothing but this.
He turns his head slightly over his shoulder but does not meet her eyes.
"You're alive," he says simply, controlling any emotion in his voice.
"Mmm" is all the response she can muster, still drinking in the sight of him, relishing in his peaceful closeness after the violence of last night.
His ears and the back of his neck start to go red under her intensely appraising gaze. Is it the sun or… she thinks but then he speaks again.
"Follow me."
He places the books back in the pack, slings it over his shoulder and rises. A large calloused hand wraps around Rey's upper arm and pulls her up to standing. She winces and gasps in pain. Hands on her shoulders, Ren steadies her, then lets go. He begins to walk down the hill and Rey limps slowly behind, a hand grasping at her side. She definitely at least has some broken ribs.
There's a strange device in his hands but Rey doesn't have the strength or the will to question him.
They walk on for half an hour, sliding down steep slopes and taking a turn into a more wooded area. Before long they come to an obsidian-like cave. The walls are black, but the deeper they go, the more the rock begins to glow. Bio-luminescent life lights their way.
They descend deeper. She doesn't know how long they walk before they come upon the spring.
"Here," he says, pocketing his device that likely led them to the water.
Crystal clear water shimmers, allowing you to see clear to the bottom, maybe five feet below. Their cave is illuminated by veins of blue glowing light in the rocks above, and the gentle light of the creepy crawlies that called this place home. It's one of the most beautiful natural formations she's ever seen.
Rey shuffles to the waters edge and, grimacing, scoops handfuls of refreshing water into her mouth. It's heavenly on her poor split lips and dry throat.
She feels Ren step up beside her and hears a soft thud. She looks up to see that he's shed his tank top. Her mouth goes slack as his hands unfasten his high waisted pants. Her eyes bulge and her mind catches up with what he's doing. She gasps and turns her head away just in time as he pulls his pants down, under garments and all.
"Ben!?"
This man has no shame!
She hears the splashing and lapping of water as he lowers himself into the spring. She doesn't dare look back up until she hears him moving away.
"What in the name of… you don't give two bantha ticks do you?"
He's swimming backwards, just his head above water.
"There's no time for something as frivolous as shame. It's a body. We have more important things to do."
Hmmf, Rey puffs trying to suppress her burning blush. Easy for him to say. She could never stay on an even footing with him, Ben was always throwing her for a loop, especially with that DAMN body of his. His was the most she had seen of any man. Growing up on a back water world with few humanoids, she didn't really know much about biology, except that she was good at fending off the advances of the few men who had dared tried come on to her with her iron staff.
But Ben Solo was something completely different, putting himself on display, disarming her in strange ways. He was her greatest enemy for Kriff''s sake! And yet, her body had never reacted this way to any one else before, though she didn't quite understand what it was. Rey tries to clear her confusing, conflicting thoughts and instead focuses on her anger at what a complete asshole he is.
She hears a low chuckle from the water.
"What," she spits.
"You think too loudly, we'll have to work on that."
Her blush turns into an inferno on her face, remembering how her singular thoughts earlier had been on how beautiful he was. Had he heard it all?
"As amusing as this is," Kylo says carefully, "I need you to get into the water. Just you."
Oh, he means I need to be naked.
Her mind blanks, then races with anxiety. But before she can put words to what's running wild in her mind, he anticipates her concern.
"I may be a monster," he whispers, "but I'm not THAT kind of monster," he finishes more forcefully. "Please… get in the water."
For some reason this assuages all her fears. Despite it all, she knows that he is about the only person in existence who has never lied to her. She trusts that there's a reason behind this madness.
She swings her sore legs over the side of the spring. Ben, who is up against the far wall of the spring, maybe 100 feet away, turns his back to her. With a deep, shaking breath she scoots her bottoms off, then pulls her tunic and wrappings over her head. Finally, she unwraps her breast band leaving it on the water's edge.
Rey slides into the deliciously warm, clear water, softly moaning her content as her wrecked body was momentarily soothed.
Something pulses through the force bond making her heart skip a beat, but it's gone as fast as it came.
Ben turns back around and speaks quickly.
"We need to heal if we're going to accomplish anything else. There is a technique, in the texts, that should help us."
"You were able to read it?" She asks across the water to him.
He considers this and realizes for the first time that she hasn't actually been able to decipher any of the writing.
"Ahh, I see. You need me so much more than you realize," he croons.
"We'll see, at the end of this, whether I want what you're offering… or whether you'll have to kill me."
His demeanor darkens and he frowns.
"Enough. Listen. We're going to heal each other."
She pauses. "I'm listening."
"Close your eyes and reach out. Feel the life in this cave." She does as he says, focusing on his impossibly deep voice. "Let your consciousness roll over it all, find yourself and find me. Wrap tendrils around the energy, of everything healthy and growing, down to the tiniest microorganisms. Everything feeds into each other. Harness the life and the light that you see. Now look over me and I'll look over you. Find every wound, feel every hurt, every bone, every organ, every muscle. Pull the threads into the water, let it be your medium. Fill the water with life, weave it into every hurt…"
He speaks like a chant, a gentle constant flow of words that leads her energy around. The gentle glow of the cave grows in brightness. She feels his pain. A broken nose, torn ligaments, bruised intestines. She senses he's taking a risk by using a light side technique, but he's desperate. He's desperate for time, desperate to sway her, desperate for an end to his conflict.
And before she realizes what she's doing, subconsciously she's pulling the dark wounds from his mind as well as his body. He stops speaking, shaken to the core, feeling her in his head.
"Stop," he whispers. But it's too late. She's flying through every memory, feeling every fear, every betrayal, sees every night crying afraid of his own power, not understanding why his parents feared him, fighting the voices in his head, the terror of Luke standing above him, the longing for the light, his pure screaming rage and need, his total consuming darkness, the security he feels in his hate, his righteousness, his regret, his longing, his devastating and consuming… love.
Rey gasps and floods him with light, the cave is a riot of brightness like a star suddenly blinked into existence inside. She feels herself almost levitating, enriched and energized in a way she could have never imagined, like every cell was new and brilliant.
When the blinding light subsides she stands in the water feeling renewed like a goddess.
But then she looks across the way, and sees Ben sinking below the surface.
She gasps and swims towards him.
"Ben!" she cries.
He sinks further and dives under the surface, wrapping her arms under his and kicking hard off the bottom of the spring. They break the surface gasping and she hauls him up to the rocky edge, letting Ben cough against the stone, just half his torso out of the water.
"Ben, what happened," she asks, totally forgetting their nudity and focusing her concern on him.
He coughs and spits, not looking at her. She reaches a hand up to touch him but he bats her hand away.
"STOP"
She freezes, then sinks back under the surface wrapping her arms around her chest.
Something is different, but she can't tell what. She only feels his confusion and fear.
Ben turns and swims back to the other side of the spring where their clothes lie. He hauls himself out of the water unceremoniously and this time she doesn't look away, more concerned than embarrassed now. She stores the image of his smooth, toned behind to process later.
He dresses quickly and starts trekking out of the cave without a word.
Rey swims back to her clothes and after fumbling into them, runs to catch up.
She's not sure what has happened, but knows that it could change the future of the galaxy.