Forces Intertwined: Part 1 - marla_singer21 (2024)

Chapter 1: The Lighted Path

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The trek to the Starkiller Base Detention Center left Kylo Ren with a deepening sense of unease.

Approaching this sector of the base had been akin to nearing the quintessence reactor nestled deep in the ice planet on which Kylo now stood. As he snaked through the corridors with his usual thunderous stride, Kylo had become increasingly aware of the resurgence of the same dull spike in the Force, one whose soft radiation grew ever so gently the closer he drew to the holding cell. Having been conscious of it before today, he surveyed it as the Stormtroopers and First Order officers had stopped to acknowledge his passing, as Captain Phasma waylaid him to deliver her report of the weapon’s status, and, finally, as the halls fell silent the deeper he descended. Kylo followed the trail as it happened to coincide with his own destination, and, as he did, the undeniable vibration in the Force grew stronger.

It was no coincidence, of course. It had been there since Kylo had confronted the girl on Takodana, and he admitted to himself now that it had contributed to his decision to spare her life and retain her in lieu of the certainty of the BB unit.

He could have killed her easily, no question, despite her flashing eyes and sloppy but effective marksmanship—no match for his power; however, he had felt the dull ebb of the Force with every move he made toward her. Minuscule as it was, it was the first time he had perceived the presence of the Force in any opponent since cleansing the galaxy of the Jedi—no, nearly cleansing it—years ago. Undeniable, he had sensed it, observing its unseen aura as he pursued her, and he glimpsed tiny spurts of it unconsciously fueling her as she successfully dodged and fled his admittedly facile advances.

Curiosity already piqued by her ominous interference on Jakku, Kylo had lightly probed her mind, an unguarded vista that easily revealed she had seen the information he sought from the droid. Thus he chose to holster his lightsaber rather than burying it deep in her heart, though he questioned his instincts within mere moments upon feeling the alarming way the Force lightly pulsed through the lithe prisoner he carried to the command shuttle.

And now here he was, at the door of his preferred interrogation room, helmet downturned as he recalled these events and concentrated on the alien thrum in the Force as it emanated before him.

“Sir?”

Kylo looked up sharply at the Stormtrooper guard whose presence he had completed ignored. It was at times like these that he valued the privacy of expression his mask afforded him.

“Open it,” Kylo said through the helmet, resuming his swift pace as the guard struggled to reach the door’s locking mechanism in time to admit him.

Hearing the door slide closed behind him as quickly and softly as it had been opened, Kylo immediately stopped to view the rear of the interrogation rig situated in the center of the room.

Aside from the exposed bun of brown hair peaking over the vertical metal, no normal person would have even known the girl was in the room, restrained and unconscious and utterly accessible; however, her presence dimly radiated in the wake of Kylo’s extensive Force-based training.

Similar to the previous day when he had carried her through the trees of Takodana, walking slowly to her now was like approaching a gentle heat source. Now that the situation was calmer, however, Kylo was able to concentrate on the dull glow of her aura, all the while bemused that it was a young scavenger from Jakku through which the subtle power flowed, not a Jedi or Sith, not even a Knight of Ren.

Finally rounding the interrogation rig, Kylo was able to patiently observe the girl for the first time.

She was younger than he, perhaps nine or so years younger, and the best estimate he could give centered on 18, 19 at the most. Her eyes, though closed at the moment, had a subtly feline quality that was complemented by the tilt of her shapely eyebrows. The lightly suntanned skin of her Jakku upbringing had brought out a few sporadic freckles that were charmingly childish to the point of making her appear almost juvenile to the untrained eye. The skin enveloped classically high cheekbones and a soft but defined jawline adorned by blush-colored lips.

Noting these details, Kylo could not help but focus on her lips, how lush and smooth they were despite her lifetime of scavenging in the burning sand. In fact, he was taken aback by how absolutely devoid of blemishes she actually was. Her cheeks were healthy, the exposed skin of her upper arms and calves was neither sunburned nor blistered, and the visible hair of her limbs had become a downy gold over time. Darker in contrast, the chestnut hair pulled back from her face was a bit disheveled, several small tendrils having pulled loose from her practical buns during their confrontation.

Kylo’s observation was briefly interrupted as a slight whimper escaped the lips he had just admired so closely. She twitched briefly, her head slacking uncomfortably to one side, and he watched the rapid rise and fall of the dirty muslin neckline that intersected over her heart.

The girl was dreaming, of something distressing, and, if he wanted to, Kylo knew he could invade her mind to seek out what was causing the perspiration to glisten on her brow, her temples, her soft throat, knew he could explore the extent of the Force as it continued to flicker from her…. But no. That was no concern of his. There would be enough of that soon. In fact, it was time to begin.

Chapter 2: The Interrogation Pt. 1

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Rey’s eyes ripped open. Something had jolted her awake so hard that her limbs connected for a split-second with the cold metal she soon found restrained her, producing a painful clang that briefly resonated throughout the chamber and up the nerves of her forearms. Her vision cleared almost instantly, and with it came the jarring realization that she was not alone. He knelt directly in front of her—the phantom who had chased her through the green, who now held her against her will, wherever she was—and she scrambled to grip the memories of her last waking hours as quickly as possible, to arm herself against him with full awareness.

Rey stared at him as boldly as he had presumably done to her while she slept.

“Where am I?” she asked, struggling to hide the terror in her voice behind a fickle shield of fearlessness.

The hood of his cloak was presently lowered, but the pitch of his mask still returned nothing—neither expression nor any inkling of humanity—not even her own reflection. She felt she spoke to a void, and that sense of disconnect frightened her here and now more than it had when he had hunted her on Takodana.

He did not answer immediately, allowing Rey a short but tense silence in which to contemplate her fate. She shivered slightly in the cold of the sterile room, the sweat on her skin now compounding the chill caused by the metal rig and her ill-acclimated body.

“You’re my guest,” Kylo Ren said mechanically, motionless in the shadows.

“Where are the others?”

“You mean the murderers, traitors, and thieves you call friends?” he asked with a calm venom that crawled under her skin. “You'll be relieved to hear that I have no idea.”

Rey did feel a wave of relief wash over her, swallowing hard at the dryness in her throat. No matter where Han Solo, Chewbacca, BB-8, and Finn were—especially Finn, though he had long since fled, no doubt—she was grateful they had not also been taken or, worse yet, killed.

Another uncomfortable pause followed as he remained unstirred in the dark. Rey began to grow painfully aware of just how vulnerable she felt in front of him, trapped, as she was, directly beneath the room’s main light source.

“You still want to kill me?” he asked, his helmet co*cking inquisitively to the side.

“That happens when you're being hunted by a creature in a mask,” she said, returning his gaze with narrowed eyes. Her pulse quickened as she secretly braced herself for whatever fallout her defiance may have incited.

A brief moment dragged into eternity, and Rey swore to herself that she could almost feel him seriously considering her words. Her breath caught in her throat when his limbs suddenly came to life, his gloved hands reaching deliberately up to the temples of his helmet to trigger some unseen mechanism hidden from Rey’s view. She heard the unlocking of a working latch succeeded by the automated slide of something depressurizing and shifting beneath his fingers. He abandoned his supplicating position to finally stand, and as he did, his hands lifted up to free himself of the mask.

Rey could not have been more stunned, blinking in disbelief and dropping her veil of rebellion away as quickly as he had removed his mask. In place of the monster Rey had envisioned, a young man now stood staring back at her with cold, impossibly dark eyes.

Rey guessed they were roughly the same age, her eyes racing over the pronounced contours of his smooth skin. Perhaps he was a just a couple years older; it was hard for her to tell. His features, she thought, might have been considered unconventional if they had not been so consistent in their balance. The curve of his face was as sharp and unforgiving as his glance. A stony, angular jaw ran upward for miles before giving way to impossibly high cheekbones. His slender nose was equally lengthy, and the bones beneath his dark eyebrows overlaid the naturally shadowy tint of skin encircling his hooded, inset eyes. Contrasting his natural pallor, a full head of black waves framed his long face, tumbling down to the base of his long neck. His thick hair would have been his only soft attribute if not for his lips, which were quite full and supple over his uncompromising chin.

Beautiful, Rey thought on impulse, then dropped her eyes in shame that the word had even popped into her mind. No, no. How could she even think that of this monster?

He walked swiftly now, slamming his mask down roughly into a nearby bin of ashes as he closed the distance separating them. Despite him appearing more human—more real—to her now than ever, he caused a surge of fear in Rey’s heart as he drew closer, and it took great determination for her to regain her facade.

Kylo Ren approached from her left, stopping mere feet away. Reeling, Rey let her head fall back in the rig and turned to looked straight ahead, refusing to meet the unforgiving gaze that had never once left her face. He towered over her, tall and absolutely intimidating. She only allowed her curiosity to give him one fleeting side-glance.

“Tell me about the droid,” he said.

Free of his mask, his voice remained deep, but it suddenly lacked the menace and detachment the filter of his helmet afforded him so easily. It was softer but still stern, the voice of a young man.

Despite this revelation, Rey remained indignant.

“He's a BB unit with a selenium drive and a thermal hyperscan vindicator—“

“He's carrying a section of a navigational chart. And we have the rest, recovered from archives of the Empire, but we need the last piece. And somehow you convinced the droid to show it to you. You…” he paused, “a scavenger.”

Rey’s eyes instantly became moist in anger despite her sincerest efforts to fight off any tears. She hated being reduced to nothing—resented that word—and it infuriated her tenfold to be belittled by him.

She shot him her best glance of indignation, but her defiance instantly turned to cold fear as she sensed something predatory in his eyes, something ruthless focusing its full, unforgiving attention on her.

“You know I can take whatever I want,” he said, slightly shaking his head as his gaze shifted below her neck for a split second.

Watching him say this, Rey’s body gave instant rise to gooseflesh, the truth in his threat striking some private nerve. Her deepest core became suddenly inflamed, sending an alarm of panicked chills through every inch of her skin, especially when he leaned in near her, practically touching her. His threat, his proximity—something now afflicted her, vibrating softly and washing through her limbs, up her neck, between her legs. Something was wrong.

Trying her utmost to clench her mouth shut, Rey turned away as he raised a gloved hand mere inches from her face. The overwhelming sensation burning through her body catapulted an abrupt feeling of dread. Breathing normally became a struggle, as if her lungs bore the metal restraints of her arms and legs, and her chest began to heave as her blood ran cold. He was now close enough that his scent—all leather and dark hair and warm skin—filled her lungs. Afraid and overcome, Rey began to tremble, her eyes focusing desperately on some button affixed to the right wall of the room. She wished she were there. She wished she were anywhere but here.

It was then that Rey began to feel him penetrate her mind.

Chapter 3: The Interrogation Pt. 2

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Incensed and steadying his hand on the surface of the interrogation rig, Kylo Ren recovered his complete concentration before forcing himself into the girl’s mind.

As much as her fiery spirit amused him, he was beginning to grow impatient with her games of establishing indifference. Supreme Leader Snoke expected Kylo’s report well in advance of the impending destruction of D’Qar, and this would inevitably lead to new plans for destroying Luke Skywalker (at last!) And then there would be the matter of what to do with the girl. The girl….

It has to be.

Standing so close to her now, Kylo marveled at a sudden swell in the Force as it flowed through her, around her. He had observed it throughout their conversation as it had been when he carried her to the shuttle—murky but undeniable—but it had cleared and intensified when he had revealed himself and crossed the room to her. Now, his face mere inches from the cheek she had indignantly presented him, the Force positively radiated. Her energy seemed to reach out to him, creating minor vibrations that resonated throughout his body and mind, and he grew mildly alarmed at how it seemed to cling to him, to almost grab and pull him toward her.

Kylo noted every sensation it caused, doubtless that his master would be interested in knowing of the girl’s power; however, it seemed as though she herself was unaware of it. Unlike any of the Jedi he had encountered in the past, the Force flowed loosely through her, an unfocused circulation of untapped potential that merely was. But something in it grasped at him, trickling through him in small streams that flowed over his nerves ever so slightly, but heavily enough to stir him, his breathing, his body.

Kylo took this in stride and focused, lowering his head and closing his eyes to shut out the vision of her shapely face as he once more explored her mind. He had been right; it was as unguarded to him now as it had been on Takodana, and again it did not take him long to find the opening, to locate what he sought: her secrets, her innermost thoughts—the stronghold of her soul. Pushing into it now, Kylo found its limitless chasms more delicate and intricate than before, when he had rushed. He navigated it skillfully as he had been trained, but also gently, guarding himself from common mistake of being overcome by the images there.

“You're so lonely...” he observed empathetically, “so afraid to leave...”

Now securely planted in her mind, Kylo opened his eyes to look at her as he pushed harder. The hot tears that coursed down her cheeks reassured him that he had cut her deeply, communicating for her private truths she had never said aloud. Her breath came shallowly but quickly, her body shaking from some unseen fever he could only attribute to his probing. She still refused to look at him. Watching her like this, his eyes transfixed on her gasping, parted lips as they trembled, Kylo became excited beneath his composure.

“At night, desperate to sleep...” The images flooded him, vibrant and pristine. “You imagine an ocean. I see it.” He watched her cheeks flush red under the fresh tears that now mingled with the perspiration from her temples. The Force surged around them, with him inside of her like this.

“I see the island.”

Kylo’s mood suddenly darkened as he came across an image that made him recoil from her in disgust.

“And Han Solo.”

She jumped slightly at the mention.

“You feel like he's the father you never had. He would've disappointed you.”

“Get out of my head,” she demanded finally, her eyes flashing. She had had enough, but so had Kylo, the image of Han Solo all but derailing the permissive way in which he’d maneuvered through her mind.

His anger flooded back as he realized she showed no willingness to cooperate. It was time to treat his prisoner justly.

“I know you've seen the map,” he said with renewed coldness, standing again in front of her but keeping an extended hand a few feet in front of her face. “It's in there...and now you'll give it to me.”

If Kylo’s previous venture into her mind had been considered lenient, the one he now began was an outright ruthless violation. The leather of his outstretched hand mildly shook as he channeled the dark side of the Force toward her with nearly full effort, a concentrated bolt of energy that clawed its way into her thoughts with sharpened talons that pried and pulled and pierced as they scoured for the elusive speck of information. Under this attack, the girl leaned forward in the rig and convulsed slightly, gritting her teeth and clenching her restraints with desperate fingers.

Watching her breath catch in her throat, he knew the immense pressure was filling her head to the point of white-hot pain, the unbearable agony drawing out, searing and unyielding to the point where she would soon cry out. But no screams ever came, and all the while Kylo could not help but still feel the draw of her power, tugging at him like a gnawing distraction.

Rounding a corner in her mind, he became instantly aware that she felt the Force’s pull to him too, though her naivety of her power treated the thought with sheer desperate panic.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said softly. “I feel it too.”

The girl gasped.

That was when something in the air flexed.

“I'm not giving you anything.”

“We’ll see,” Kylo said, disregarding the shift and hiding behind a slight smirk as he accepted her challenge.

He pushed harder now, watching the small beads of sweat trickle down her forehead. But something had changed—his violent foothold in her head had slipped. Myriad steel doors slammed down where open vistas had held promise only a few seconds earlier, and Kylo quickly realized that his attack had unwittingly forced the girl to find and tap some secret well that had been until now untouched, to utilize a hidden muscle bound beneath the surface. For the first time, the Force flowing through her seemed to stabilize and move with purpose, propelled by some kind of deliberate agency.

Alarmed, Kylo mistakenly recoiled for a split-second, which was more than enough time for her to completely solidify her defense.

He attacked again, this time as hard as he could, his body lunging and his top lip curling into a fleeting snarl. His arm wavered laboriously under the weight of the Force he wielded at her, but again his power collided with the doors, scraping at them desperately to find them evenly thick and impenetrable. The air around them both seemed to hum with each blunt impact, and the girl stared straight into his glassy eyes as he faltered and she gasped and even leaned toward him in her defiance, her entire body shuddering under the pressure she inexplicable deflected.

That was when Kylo fell on the receiving end of what suddenly became an alternating current, reeling as an overpowering shift in the Force shoved warm fingers into his brain, leaving him with an agonizing sensation he had nearly forgotten from long-ago days of training with the Supreme Leader. Never before and never since had someone been powerful enough to push his or her way into his subconscious, and though these fingers were weak, even fragile, they were still too capable for him to channel enough strength to pull them back out.

Now Kylo’s lips shuddered as the pressure began to build. His focus divided to defend himself from whatever she sought, and he felt as though the blood would begin streaming from his septum at any second.

She scowled straight at him as she pushed and then finally opened her mouth to deliver the blow.

“You,” the girl spoke lowly, controlling the convulsions of her efforts. “You’re afraid…”

His body tensed in a foreign moment of fear.

“…that you will never be as strong as Darth Vader.”

Kylo released her instantly, his hand falling limply to his side, and as he did, he felt her grip retract as well.

Visibly shaken, his eyes never leaving hers, Kylo mustered all he had to control his breathing and regain his composure, but the vibrations of her power lingered in his quaking limbs, enflaming them. Fumbling, he removed the glove of his right hand to brush under his nose with trembling knuckles. Somehow they came back unbloodied.

The girl (a scavenger!), still restrained in front of him, panted deeply.

Open-mouthed, he asked, “How is it possible?”

Chapter 4: I Am You

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“I don't know!” Rey shouted audaciously, as if trying to impress upon him that whatever revelation had just transpired was not her fault and that her being here was a mistake he had made in his own blind stupidity.

The high of her strange victory had begun to plummet with each full breath she took, and, now that the pain was gone, she was overcome with confusion at all she had just experienced. Something buried deep inside her had surfaced in the thick of the pain and humiliation he had inflicted, a truth she had always known but never acknowledged, and furthermore, it was still there, dully flashing through her body with its warming flame. Was it the Force? Was that how she was able to eject him and, even more spectacular, steal her way in to uncover his most-guarded fear? It couldn’t have been the Force, not in someone like her—her, a lowly scavenger.

But what else could it have been?

“I don't know,” she repeated softer now, praying he would just stay away.

---

Seeing the girl’s fire subside, Kylo Ren expelled the panic and disbelief that had momentarily clouded his judgment. Now he was simply amazed, still shaking slightly in the wake of her power, and although he quickly righted his labored breathing for fear of appearing weakened by her, she had taken him aback like very few ever had.

He watched her lips part and her wet, hazel eyes soften as she stared at him now. They absolutely pleaded, somehow he knew. It was impossible for him to ignore, especially here, still immersed in the sustained electric pull that emanated from her, and it was equally impossible to look away from her.

Kylo felt the sudden irresistible urge to touch her, this girl—this stranger. His adversary.

She did not turn away this time as he succumbed to the lure and crossed the short distance, though she did blink away fresh tears that suddenly re-anointed her now burning skin.

Kylo reached his bare hand to her, his thumb hovering over lips that shivered, either in fear or in the lingering tremors of her new potential.

He cupped her face.

---

The shockwave the contact ignited in the Force nearly tore Kylo’s hand away as soon as it fell on her feverish skin. The energy field was suddenly more animate than he had ever known it in his lifetime, a living tidal wave that crashed over them both and flooded every nerve with its powerful stream. He staggered and fell into her slightly under its weight as it broke through him, his eyes instinctively shutting beneath the current. Everything he was seemed to be washing away from him now, flowing into her.

Beneath Kylo, Rey’s mouth opened wide against her will. The electrical charge rushed and circulated beneath her surface, spreading through her like a wildfire ignited by him, by the Force, by something unseen—she didn’t know or care. All she knew was that her very soul convulsed under the grip of its pressure. Suddenly his heartbeat was in her ears, thundering in syncopated time with her own, and his mind was as limitlessly open to her as the night skies of Jakku.

Pushed by some unseen hand, she fell into his subconscious from a precipice, plunging much differently now than she had only a minute before. Although more energized, this push was serene, allowing Rey to gently observe the multitude of jagged edges that surrounded the small but lush plateaus inside him. The plateaus were sporadic, barely any at all, but they were the most inviting parts, and, touching one with her mind, she became submerged in a vision—it must have been a memory—of a small boy sitting on his father’s (Han Solo!) knee in the co*ckpit of a ship. Recognizing the dingy setting, she knew it was the Millennium Falcon. The child was ecstatic, gripping the steering column of the grounded freighter, flipping the colorful switches with vigor while his father laughed. And behind her protective screen, Rey knew it was him, this man whose bowed forehead had now fallen against the cold metal of the rig next to her face, far before he had become this man.

She pulled away from the plateau, suddenly overcome by an overwhelming sadness that caused her to shed fresh tears.

Kylo’s hand trembled on her face as the wave receded to him with the same paralyzing energy. He was suddenly lost, his mind yielding to the obvious truth—that he could not sever this current connection right now even if he wanted to—and having accepted that, he did not try to eject her from his mind when he felt her treading lightly there. Rather, he explored as she did, again behind the metal doors that had so recently (or was it forever ago?) protected the chasms comprising her soul. There were the unforgiving deserts of Jakku, their golden dunes shifting in the wind like the billows of fine silk, and also the gargantuan cliffs of Namenthe's Crater, unforgivably steep and breathtaking. There was the Starship Graveyard, forever followed by scorching rides to the Niima Outpost (“Please don’t take my portion! Oh, please!”). Always hungry, always thirsty. And at night, the stars came with the blessed desert cold, spilled in with the escape to the ocean. The deepest secrets now, the deepest core. There again, the green island with the rocky ledges. There now, the sound of a little girl pleading not to be left alone. There, a transparent need. There, his mouth on hers, his skin on hers, his hands grasping tightly at the small of her back….

She wanted him!

But these final images suddenly were not hers at all—they were his. And that was not really true either. The abstractions were both of theirs, interconnected—a thought shared, for now she saw exactly what he saw: the most heavily buried secret of all.

They pulled away from each other’s minds in perfect mutual shock, jarred to reality so abruptly that the intense energy field released its electric grip at last.

A million years had passed, and now they were thrown back into the cold of the interrogation room, both gasping as though they had been deprived of oxygen the entire time. Kylo’s hand slipped unstably down Rey’s jaw to the base of her throat, and the soft waves of his hair brushed her cheek as he pulled away from where he had been leaning over her shoulder.

Rey looked up at him, eyes wide, and for a minute they merely watched one another in bewilderment, his shaking hand still lightly paralyzed on her throat, her chest rising and falling weightily under his arm as she again breathed against some immovable pressure. Kylo felt it too now, his heart racing; he understood.

Something had happened to them.

He felt the crushing compulsion to lean into her, to take her face in his large hands and pull back the moist skin of her temples as he covered her mouth with his own and pressed his throbbing body against her in search of relief.

Heeding his impulse, Kylo lowered his lips within inches of hers and whispered her name.

“Rey…”

Rey lowered her eyes to his full mouth as it neared hers, her entire body shivering with a shameful elation that lay far beyond her control. Her eyes then shut, her body pushing desperately against the contact of the fingers and thumb still planted on her collar bones. In this moment, both of them trembling in the afterglow of the eruption, it was as if nothing before mattered.

Kylo Ren. His name was Kylo Ren, of the Knights of Ren. She just knew.

Still fighting the intense drive, Kylo’s body suddenly tensed and froze.

He could hear her thinking about him, in his head, listen to her pull the information from his mind with the most minimal effort possible, as if everything were now raw and uprooted and lying like exposed nerves on the surface. Kylo could not even tell she was in there! And this discovery triggered new alarms within him, a sudden rupture of realization at his vulnerability that wrenched him from this Force-fed trance, this daze, whatever it was. He was wide open to her, and she was still the enemy.

Rey perceived the shift in him, knew his mouth had stopped its descent as his breath suddenly fell still on her cheek. Feeling what he felt, she sensed the burst of panic flood her, a scramble of thoughts, and then the slam of a roughly slammed door. He had blocked her out, and it snapped her rudely back into her surroundings yet again. What was worse yet: she knew he was right. What was she doing? She was about to let him kiss her, had wanted to kiss him, wanted him to touch her, and more. And he had felt the same. What had happened to them, to her? A profound shame began to quell the overwhelming blaze that had overtaken her, stamping it out utterly in a matter of seconds.

Someone help me! What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me?!

Rey emitted a drawn-out moan of absolute despair through clenched teeth as Kylo pulled away from where he had lingered over her cheek. His hand retreated sleepily from her throat, and she turned away from him once more, a final torrent of hot tears spilling down her skin. She could not bear to look at him. She feared again being overcome, being reminded of her utter disgrace.

Burning and hard from head to toe, Kylo stepped away from her as if she were red-hot. Having sealed her out of his mind, he ached as an alien sense of—was it compassion?—swept through him, and he watched her helpless tears flow steadily and silently and again wanted to kiss her, now just to stop them coming. But it was more than that—witnessing her utter despair began to flare something deep within him, something that appealed to the cruel, sad*stic corners of his mind and propelled him into an internal frenzy. He felt out of control of himself, and the organic way in which his new instincts toward her surfaced profoundly disturbed him. His own thoughts were betraying him. He needed counsel, to consult his master. But, most of all, he needed to get away from her.

Rey tilted her trembling head an inch and watched through matted lashes as he replaced his helmet and donned his hood with a speed that bordered on frantic, and within seconds he tromped past her with no acknowledgement whatsoever. However, she heard the heavy footsteps stop shy of the door, as if he had become lost in some new contemplation that robbed him of all his focus.

A minute of silence passed before the steps grew louder, and Rey knew he was returning to the rig.

After that, there was only darkness.

Chapter 5: Bonded

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It took Kylo Ren nearly an hour to gather himself after leaving the Detention Center, to flush the feel of her from his mind and body. He had retreated swiftly to his quarters and, removing his mask again as soon as the doors had resealed, taken several steady breaths until his body finally ceased shaking.

Despite his orders, Kylo knew it would have been a grave mistake to go directly to the Supreme Leader, especially now when Kylo felt so visibly saturated with her; Snoke would have been able to sense it in an instant. He chose instead to collect himself—to regain control of the situation and maintain his power, as he did in all things. This was more difficult than expected as he replayed the sequence of events over and over in his mind to try to make sense of what had happened. Remembering, his hands would begin to twitch and his eyes would soon close against their will as specific moments threatened to tug him back into a state of shattering want, and he would be right back where he began, feeling weaker and angrier than before.

Kylo also had to determine how best to report the events to his master, deciding to focus on relaying Rey’s (Rey, yes—that was her name) considerable power above anything else, even above the fact that he had failed to obtain the missing chunk of map leading to Skywalker. He had already known that Snoke would be intrigued by her Force sensitivity, but now he himself recognized the astounding potential his master would be unable to ignore. She was so young and fresh, so untapped and unguided, and, Skywalker aside, Kylo believed she was now the only Force-sensitive variable that had the capacity to legitimately threaten their domination of the galaxy.

He found solace in these thoughts, in the stroke of luck that he had discovered the girl’s power while she was a prisoner of the First Order, before they had the chance, and his speculations as to how Snoke would supervise the girl proved relieving enough to permit him a revived sense of control. Despite what had happened and how it had rattled him, Kylo was in control, and with the destruction of the Resistance imminent and Skywalker practically as good as dead, he would not allow himself to be sabotaged now.

Calling upon years of careful self-discipline, Kylo soon neared the broad entranceway of the Starkiller Base Assembly Room.

“Kylo Ren,” Supreme Leader Snoke said as Kylo traversed the hall to the reception platform.

As always, the monochromatic hologram of Kylo’s master dominated the Assembly Room, spanning the immense height of the great hall to all but block out its only light source at the apex. This monstrous expanse effectively bathed Snoke in a cascade of shadows, only slightly highlighting the dull surfaces of his obsidian robes, his hairless, scar-laden skull, and the sallow, paper-thin quality of his aged skin.

Towering monument-like above Kylo, the hologram sat as motionless as if he were carved from stone, his clothed arms resting idly forward and shriveled fingers clutching at their fingertips as if he sat upon a desolate throne. Only his eyes, beady but completely blackened in the shade of their hollow sockets, seemed to move at present, studying Kylo as he took his mandated knee of supplication and bowed his head respectfully before rising again.

“Master.”

Kylo suddenly sensed an air of suspicion in Snoke’s looming gaze.

“Remove your helmet, my young apprentice,” Snoke said, flooding the great hall with his resounding command. “I want to see your face at present.”

Though this command was not at all unusual in their correspondence, Kylo immediately knew his master was well-aware that something had not gone as planned. He quickly obeyed, bracing himself for the impending fallout and using the sudden swell of anger at his failure to reinforce his resolve.

“What news of the map?”

Kylo paused briefly, fine-tuning his answer. His exposed face sweat slightly where his black hair spilled over it.

“I am currently unable to retrieve it, my master,” Kylo said carefully. “The scavenger girl…resisted my interrogation.”

“This scavenger…resisted you?” Snoke asked with a subtle undertone of mockery mixed with growing annoyance.

“She's strong with the Force,” Kylo said defensively but truthfully, “untrained but stronger than she knows.”

Snoke seemed to ponder this news with a subtle but piqued interest before continuing.

“And the droid?”

Kylo hesitated again.

“Ren believed it was no longer valuable to us.”

Immediately recognizing the distinctive twang of General Hux as the First Order officer entered the Assembly Room, Kylo felt the warm bile of rage quickly rise in his dry throat. He swiveled slightly to see the general’s pompous countenance approach and stop directly beside him on the platform, all smug expression and gloating eyes.

“That the girl was all we needed,” Hux continued. “As a result, the droid has most likely been returned to the hands of the enemy. They may have the map already.”

“Then the Resistance must be destroyed before they get to Skywalker,” Snoke said with visible anger.

“We have their location,” Hux said, his red eyebrows lifting in self-satisfaction. “We tracked their reconnaissance ship to the Ileenium system.”

“Good,” Snoke said, leaning toward them as his fury gave rise to excitement. “Then we will crush them once and for all. Prepare the weapon.”

“Supreme Leader,” Kylo interjected, alarmed at the drastic development that had just stemmed from his failure. “I can get the map from the girl. I just need your guidance.”

Snoke paused, seemingly weighing Kylo’s appeal.

“If what you say about this girl is true, bring her to me.”

“Yes, my master.”

“But ready the weapon regardless, General Hux,” Snoke commanded, pointing with a sluggish, bony finger. “We have come too far to allow the Resistance any opportunity of finding Skywalker. Dismissed, general.”

“Yes, Supreme Leader,” Hux said, his eyes pausing briefly on Kylo and mouth forming a partial smirk as he turned to leave.

Clinging to calming indifference to keep his hatred at bay, Kylo waited until Hux had completely exited the Assembly Room before speaking again.

“Am I dismissed, Supreme Leader?”

“No, my apprentice,” Snoke said. This time the enormity of his projected head drifted very far forward, eyes fixed coldly on Kylo’s face. “There is something you are not telling me. Something about the scavenger girl.”

Stilted panic caught in Kylo’s throat. He had been foolish to think Snoke would not scrutinize his failure, not sense his deep unease. He only hoped he could still avoid the discussion.

“I admit my previous statement about the magnitude of the girl’s strength with the Force was downplayed. She possesses incredible power, especially for one so unguided and uneducated in the ways of the Force. I think she was not even aware of it until this morning, and I believe now that she is aware, her power may grow exponentially.”

Kylo swallowed, deciding to reveal one failure in lieu of discussing what happened after.

“When I probed her mind for the map piece, she was able to block me out. Completely. And then she was able to traverse mine despite my most-skilled defenses.” He paused. “In my failure, I do recognize that the girl has the potential to become a considerable weapon of the First Order.”

“Yes, I have realized this, Kylo Ren. The girl could be an invaluable ally to the First Order, perhaps a vital determinant in our conquest. It is imperative that we entice her to adopt the power of the dark side of the Force. But…” Snoke grinned, leaning back amusedly in his massive throne, “what you have said is not the whole truth, is it? You are hiding something, my apprentice.”

Below Snoke, Kylo looked down, his shame and confusion now insurmountable. Something within him, perhaps written all over him, had betrayed his composure to Snoke. There was no way of escaping his utter humiliation.

“My master,” he said, grasping at the words. “I…something happened, I do not know what. I am ashamed of my ignorance and weakness.”

Kylo paused, staring at a lone crack in the grey platform.

“At one point in my interrogation, I removed my glove and touched the scavenger girl’s skin. That was when it happened…something…. Something transpired, like an energy exchange the likes of which I’ve never felt…like a pathway that cannot be closed has opened between me and the girl. I know this is the truth. It was disarming. And now, if I leave myself even momentarily unguarded, the girl can sense my thoughts…and I hers.”

Kylo suddenly dropped again to his knee, his eyes closing in desperation.

“I fear that, until I sway the girl to become our ally, I may be a potential liability to our mission. I seek your guidance, Supreme Leader.”

Kylo braced himself for the painful impact that would have typically followed such an outright display of weakness in front of his master. When seconds passed and none came, he rose to his feet, keeping his head bowed in respect.

“This is most rare, my apprentice,” Snoke finally said with eerie calmness, “though not necessarily detrimental to our purpose.”

“Master?”

“Sections of the ancient holocrons of both the Sith and the Jedi speak of this phenomenon, though I myself have never witnessed it in all my long years. But I am certain that it is of which you speak. You and the girl have forged a Force bond.”

“Force bond?” Kylo asked, but as soon as it passed his own lips, it did resound something he had heard or read, perhaps a passage he had glanced over in his earlier days of reading through the artifacts recovered by his master from the Sith Academy of Korriban. Or perhaps Skywalker had spoken of its existence back in the long-ago days when Kylo was someone else. Yes, it did ring familiar.

“The connection between those linked resides in all things—mental, physical, spiritual, emotional…. It flows unbridled through the Force, an anomalous manifestation of the Force’s power.”

Snoke mused.

“This intrigues me. In the olden days of the Jedi and the Sith, the bond commonly formed only between masters and apprentices. Furthermore, it was typically formed to serve a purpose, initiated by those Force-sensitive beings who desired to be connected; yours seems to have occurred unconsciously, as though initiated by the Force itself.”

“How can I sever it?” Kylo asked, trying to mask the desperation in his voice.

“You cannot,” Snoke said matter-of-factly, giving a slight wave of his hand, “but this may aid us in our endeavors, Kylo Ren. Your bond with the girl will be instrumental in showing her the true power of the dark side of the Force. Taking into account her innate as power you have described it to me, I believe her efforts to resist will be nothing compared to the influence you hold over her. You will take her as your pupil, and I will assist you in training her in the ways of the dark side. Our efforts combined, she will become a significant asset.”

Cannot be severed, Kylo thought frantically, all but tuning out everything else. Forever bound. Forever weakened by this girl.

“You are to use all measures necessary. She must be persuaded.”

“Yes,” Kylo finally answered, “I understand, Supreme Leader.”

Kylo prepared to launch into a multitude of burning questions, but, no doubt sensing Kylo’s intentions, Snoke cut him off at the pass.

“Leave me now. Join General Hux to oversee the charging of the weapon, and then bring the girl to me when you are finished.”

Stunned and overcome by all left unanswered, Kylo dismally resigned to bow once more before replacing his helmet and turning to leave.

“And Kylo Ren,” Snoke’s voice called after him before he exited the Assembly Room, “the influence of the bond you both have forged must not be underestimated in either direction. Guard yourself. I do not wish to be disappointed by you again.”

Snoke’s words ringing in his ears as he found the adjoining hallway empty, Kylo immediately drew the red lightsaber from his belt and began slashing indiscriminately at everything around him, pretending it all was her.

Chapter 6: Rey's Escape

Chapter Text

6

Still bound in the interrogation rig, Rey bucked against the thick metal bands covering her wrists, ankles, and waist. She hoped to loosen some latch, strip the threads from some crucial bolt, anything to finally free herself of her fate.

The floodlight illuminating her in the center of the uninviting room had dimmed alarm-red at some point, and the saturated glow bouncing off the metal walls had painted everything a visceral shade that disoriented Rey’s senses. She did not know when this had changed or how long she had been there; she only knew overwhelming frustration in her prolonged predicament. Her helplessness ate away at her resolve, gnawing at her with a consuming sense of despair, that she would never be free of the torture rig that imprisoned her, never be rid of this place.

Or was it that? The stark thought seemed to sound off, like a siren in the air of the confined space. There was something else, wasn’t there? It was an idea now permanently attached to her, she knew, an extension of herself hiding somewhere out there, camouflaged in the overpowering light. It clung to her, unshakable, its arms enfolding her. And Rey suddenly felt devastated at the notion that she would never be able to escape that private fact, that secret thing.

Anguish gripped her then as she sensed him at her side. And then she saw him—his thick hair and long face blood-bathed in the sickly light above them and his eyes frighteningly black as leaned down to her. However, she somehow knew he was not really there; it was just an apparition clothed deceptively in Kylo Ren’s skin come to haunt her. To remind her of the truth.

Help me! she screamed, lips motionless. I will never be free of you, will I?

His answer was only to cover her mouth with his, and Rey cringed as she obediently complied with his demand. It was as if her body were completely outside her control, as if she were standing idly on the ledge of a chasm forming her own subconscious, a traveler looking down in absolute astonishment at the beauty of the abyss. There came an icy cold flood rushing her core, vibrations Rey knew were coursing dangerously low inside her body. Her body’s mouth held tight to his and melted beneath its pressure.

No, she warned, appealing to her drowning soul. No, no, no, no. Please don’t. This can’t be the way it is now. This can’t be the truth.

As if sensing her plea, the Kylo kissing her suddenly pulled away from her treacherous lips. But suddenly it was not his cold eyes that met hers at all. The eyes were her own, wide and reflecting sheer horror….

Rey jolted awake from the sudden impact of excruciating pain in her left side. Already gasping from whatever unconscious illusion had overtaken her, Rey heaved as the excruciating thrum of lacerated and searing flesh completely knocked the wind from her lungs. She would have doubled over, clutched at herself naturally, if she had not been locked down still; as it was, she merely fought to overcome the agony, teeth gritted the entire time. After a minute that passed far too slowly, Rey was able to inhale one large croaking breath. Several more succeeded until she regained control of her air and the sharp assault of pain slowly subsided.

Forehead sticky with sweat, Rey leaned forward as far as the rig’s restraints would permit her and peered down below her ribs. The harsh white spotlight above her had returned, allowing her to clearly see her injury.

To her shock, her muslin wrappings were clean, her tunic only spotted with the inevitable grime of her long ordeal. Nothing was bleeding, no harm inflicted. Relieved but confused, she leaned back and recuperated. The pain fulfilled every notion she’d had of what it would be like to be blasted, but now it was merely the dull ache of a memory, the phantom lingering of some outside force.

The Force, Rey thought, recent events flooding back into her mind. The probing, the agony, and then the immense power she had felt in some flash of indescribable clarity. She never would have imagined the power could have surpassed that moment of strength, but it did. It had all-out climaxed, leaving her wanting everything from him, yearning to sacrifice all she was to him. And then they were in each other’s minds, cruelly linked by some unseen energy.

Linked by the Force, and then she paused. The Force flows through me.

Rey’s thoughts turned immediately to the lingering spasms of the phantom pain that had wrenched her from her nightmare.

The Force flows through him. The Force flows through both of us.

Allowing her confidence to cast all ideas of proper method to the wind, Rey reached out with her mind as she had before, propelling it like a spark travelling along a forerunning electrical current between two points.

She was surprised at how easily she found him, what little effort it took to cross the distance and ascend the levels of metal and rock, and she was suddenly convinced that she would be able to find him from the darkest corners of the most hidden systems of the galaxy. But what she found at the other end of the link quickly alarmed her, stealing away any elation at her success.

The Resistance was here, everywhere. Kylo Ren knew. They meant to destroy Starkiller Base, to sabotage the First Order’s “weapon” before it was able to annihilate the Resistance once and for all.

Rey concentrated harder.

He was hurt. His left side bled steadily where Chewbacca had fired upon him with the bowcaster. (The same spot!) He stumbled slightly as he limped away from a protracted walkway bridging a seemingly bottomless chamber.

What was he doing there?

That was when Rey saw it, flashing from Kylo’s point of view in a series of soundless, sickly red images: Han Solo approaching (“Ben,” Han had called him), Han Solo with an expression of impossible shock and confusion, and then Han Solo’s hand upon his son’s face in weakness, resignation, and despair (the little boy in the memory).

What happened?

The acerbic smell of seared flesh and blood. The fading thunder of a heartbeat stilling in the silence. The trembling of Kylo’s murdering hands. And then gone, tumbling from view far below. Forever and done, one of the remaining ties severed. His biggest trial finally overcome.

“Ah!” Rey screamed, hyperventilating, the tears instantaneous. The great war hero Han Solo was dead, the legend, she knew. Her friend was gone.

Clenching her teeth, she screamed again, nearly overcome with nausea at having witnessed it from the viewpoint of Han’s murderer: his son.

“You monster!” she shouted, closing her eyes and balling her fingers into hot fists until the nails dug in. “You monster.”

She knew he heard her, could feel him stagger slightly as he was inadvertently assaulted by the brunt of her unbridled hatred and anguish. His power then flared as a careful blockade rose in his mind, cutting her off from his own mental chaos and guarding himself from the onslaught of her emotion. But Rey was able to pick up on one final thought before the rejection.

“He’s coming,” Rey said aloud, opening her eyes in panic.

“I said to be quiet!”

The sudden presence of the Stormtrooper guarding the door behind her made Rey’s heart jump. If he had said anything previously, she had ignored him utterly while tapping into the horrible link, but now she welcomed the guard as a feasible means to a solution.

Believing now more than ever that the Force was something she could successfully yield, Rey choked back her nausea and blinked away the image of Han Solo’s victimized eyes. If this were at all possible, Rey needed to be total control of herself.

What would a Jedi do?

“You will remove these restraints and leave this cell with the door,” Rey said clearly, concentrating.

The typical white-washed armor of the Stormtrooper soon rounded the rig and halted in front of her.

“What did you say?”

“You will remove these restraints and leave this cell with the door open,” Rey repeated and then waited.

“I’ll tighten those restraints, scavenger scum!” the guard spat through his mask, leaving to return to his post.

Knowing Kylo was mere minutes away, Rey was not to be deterred. She pushed harder, doing her utmost to calmly siphon from the buzzing energy she felt enveloping her.

“You will remove these restraints and leave this cell with the door open.”

“I will remove these restraints and leave this cell with the door open,” the Stormtrooper repeated, returning to her.

Much to Rey’s amazement, the guard reached an obedient hand to each of the latches holding Rey’s body to the rig, and within seconds, she felt the sweet relief of finally being free of the wretched rack that had bound her even in her dreams.

Thinking fast, she commanded the Stormtrooper to drop his weapon before leaving, and she briskly retrieved the discarded blaster from the floor, giving her arms and legs a much-needed stretch.

It was just as Rey began to ponder how to get to the hangar bay that the entire room quaked with a sudden tremor, as if some massive foundation of Starkiller Base had exploded.

Chapter 7: The Web

Chapter Text

7

The deafening blast waves rippled through the outer wall of the thermal oscillator precinct at Kylo Ren’s back, pitching him forward violently. Though caught off-guard, he was able to marginally brace his fall, but the fresh hole in his side nevertheless connected sharply with the unforgiving grates of the hallway floor and, compounded by his weight, sent a fresh shock of agony through his system. His mask lost on the catwalk, Kylo’s unhindered vision now blurred for a split-second in a hail of smoke, debris, and engulfing ache. He was grateful for the sudden thrashing, however, feeling the pain swell and center inside him, lifting his awareness back to the surface.

Only a minute earlier, Kylo had gotten somewhat lost. His body and mind had fallen at odds with one another, the strange discord paralyzing him as some unforeseen state of internal collapse slumped him against the corridor entranceway. He had been thinking—possibly even reeling—at what he had just done, regarding it largely with a hollow numbness as if it had been some performance he had spectated. His body had betrayed him, however, winding down suddenly as if protesting for him what his current disconnected logic could not fully grasp.

It was almost ironic; he had always thought finally killing Han Solo would be the prize to heighten his power, be the defining moment to solidify his greatness, his worthiness to wield the dark side of the Force. He had done what Luke Skywalker could not, what even Vader could not. However, the stark reality was that now, victorious and numb, he felt weaker than ever. The malaise had stopped him from pursuing the other two, Chewbacca and the traitor Stormtrooper, and had overcome him, that is, until the girl’s violent outburst had jostled him.

“You’re afraid that you will never be as strong as Darth Vader.”

Oh, yes, she had seen it all, hadn’t she, his little scavenger. She had pried her way inside with that same sabotaging power, uninvited as ever, and then cursed him for what she had found there, the conqueror condemning the spoils. He only presently admitted that she had unknowingly saved him, as her presence had roused him from the shock that had stranded him immobile against the precinct doorway; if he had stayed just a few seconds longer, he would be dead now, crushed under a mountain of charred quadanium. But with no place lower left to fall, Kylo had suddenly wanted to hurt her, to make her suffer viciously for her intrusion into his most destitute moment, her interference in his life. Presently, though, he was content with feeling his own intense pain.

Kylo’s left hand clutched at the dripping wound, and he let a muffled groan escape as he reached up with the other hand to the small surface of the corridor’s comm station. Now that the last of the explosions had detonated, he pulled himself roughly to his feet. Behind him, the opening into the precinct from which he had so recently staggered was now completely blocked off, its lights obscured by dense rubble and flames.

He knew they were responsible for breaching the wall. They had likely set the charges before his arrival, before he had sensed him hiding in the dark like the coward he had always been. Indeed Kylo had been too distracted by Han Solo’s presence to check, to weigh the sincerity of their motives, and now he cursed his foolish shortsightedness. This was the way the Resistance intended to destroy Starkiller Base before it could fire on D’Qar. Furthermore, he sensed they were going to succeed, knew the X-wings firing overhead would soon be alerted to the breach and converge on the oscillator like vermin trailing the scent of blood. It was imminent now. And just as the First Order would be doing any minute now, Kylo knew escaping the planet was presently the only choice.

Just as he had been taught by Supreme Leader Snoke, Kylo focused on the pain pulsing through his nerves and, curling his gloved fingers into tense fists, used it and the rage it fueled to energize himself. He meditated like this for several moments and more metal and rebar gave way behind him. Finally, Kylo felt the dark side of the Force once again flowed vigorously through him. His senses stirred and his strength escalated, and soon he was fully upright, no longer hunching to favor his trickling wound. And the rage flowing through him suddenly felt insurmountable, amply capable of annihilating everything in its path. It narrowed its focus.

Where is she? She must know what is happening by now.

Blindly reaching out to her now, Kylo knew she had escaped the Detention Center. In fact, she was somewhat close, somewhere presently nearby him. The defenses she had wisely raised to guard her mind against him had strengthened, but she had not taken into account the fact that he could physically sense the radiation of her presence in the Force. He would always be able to feel her proximity now.

What are you doing out there, Rey? he mused cynically, black eyes staring straight ahead at the open end of the corridor lying ahead.

Now wholly assured of her intelligence and resourcefulness, Kylo decided to leave her to her devices. Empowered, he walked away, leaving the exposed oscillator in his tracks. There was only one logical place she could go, and, if she made it, that was where he would find her.

---

Mere yards and several collapsed walls away from where Kylo had bled only minutes earlier, Rey cautiously peeked around the only remaining entranceway to the thermal oscillator precinct. The rest of the access points had been demolished by the blasts, she saw now as she dislodged enough of the rubble blocking her way to look out across the vast canyon. In the distance, a sea of lights blinked surrounding what remained of a connecting catwalk (where he had done it). In contrast, her half of the abyss had been reduced to a fiery avalanche of blasted metal and mineral, the smoldering and the burning mingling together in close proximity. The intense hotness heated her skin as she glanced around at what remained.

Rey had entered from a direction perpendicular to where Kylo had been, utilizing her newfound acuteness to follow the blasts. The escape from the Detention Center had been stressful, but she had successfully thwarted any detection made by the First Order or him, assuming he was still coming after her. She knew she could not stay long here though, if the thoughts filling his mind had been any indication of the Resistance’s intentions for the base. The task of locating the hangar bay and stealing some sort ship still daunted her, and the more time she had to escape, the better.

All at once, she felt a foreign draft of cold that drew a thoughtless shiver from her in spite of the burning debris. Her eyes following the current, Rey looked up, mouth agape, to white flakes of precipitation stories above her, swirling sparsely through the extensively ruptured wall and rising clouds of smoke before reducing to droplets and plummeting. After all that had happened, Rey had completely forgotten to consider that there was a world outside this prison, and it nearly shocked her to see a beam of sunlight shine down suddenly into the gigantic crevasse below. Its rays united with the light emanating from the bottom of abyss, illuminating the massive canyon with a dull glow that allowed her to see everything much more clearly: the scene of something horrific.

Biting back her tears, Rey scanned once again before turning to leave and then suddenly froze in place. Something reflective suddenly blinded her for a nanosecond, something shiny she would likely not have noticed in the fire’s orange glow if the outside light had not fortuitously highlighted it for her. It lay motionless on one of the jagged ledges that had once comprised a platform some several feet to her right, half-buried and gleaming in the dying coals, but teetering precariously near the edge of a jutting shard of quadanium. It was cylindrical, almost like the hilt of a….

It can’t be.

Her eyes widened.

How could Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber possibly have gotten here?

The last Rey had seen of it had been on Takodana, when she had been overcome and refused to accept it from Maz Kanata. The lightsaber had called to her as soundly as any person, or more likely the Force had called to her (she had become so familiar with the Force lately after all). It had gently whispered a siren’s song only she could hear, led her into the depths of Maz’s castle, and then disarmed her soul with gut-wrenching visions (memories?) when she had touched its metallic handle.

Did you bring it, Han? she thought now, purposely avoiding staring down into the lighted abyss for irrational fear of seeing a hero lying there, broken, lifeless, and betrayed. Someone had brought it, or had dropped it in the midst of the fray.

Did you bring it for me?

Rey stared at the disabled weapon now, her flushed cheeks tensing in the daylight that continued to pour into the building. Though relatively close, the lightsaber was unquestionably beyond her reach, and even if there were a way she could scale the wall, rubble, and flames to get within arm’s length of it, there would be nothing to secure any reach. To reach for it….

To reach for it like a Jedi.

Closing her eyes, Rey thought back to the centered calm she had felt when blocking Kylo’s merciless probing her mind, the way the power had seemed to amass so rapidly, overflowing her with the confidence and knowhow to turn the tables on him. Oddly enough, she had felt like the arachnids often hiding in the crevasses of the many fallen Star Destroyers she had scaled during her years in the Starship Graveyard, perching in the center of a web whose silk threads stretched in all directions. Hers had been threads of pure light energy, seemingly reaching straight through everything all the way to the far reaches of time and space, and her position at its epicenter had been one of light, of pure balance and control. Concentrating, Rey had tugged and accompanied the energized strand of the Force flowing from her hub to him. In that moment of collected tranquility, almost tied to the universe, anything had seemed possible.

Tug the silk, Rey thought, keeping her eyes shut while reaching in the direction of the lightsaber.

The interior of the building was too loud to hear anything so miniscule, filled with the reverberations of roaring flames and crumbling walls, but Rey could feel the fragments of debris covering the weapon’s hilt vibrate. They soon fell away, leaving the weapon exposed.

Rey pulled harder, concentrating more intensely as her upturned palm shook in spite of her calm. The weapon shifted slightly, dangerously close to rolling off the edge to be gone indefinitely. The hilt felt so heavy to her, worse than the weightiest haul she had ever dragged to the Niima Outpost. Conversely, the thread of energy connecting her to it was weightless but impossibly dense all at once. If only it were part of her, just an extension of her arm.

But isn’t it? she thought suddenly, her mind expanding and relaxing. If the Force flows through everything, links everything together, wouldn’t it be a part of me?

That was when the lightsaber gave at last, flying swiftly into her outstretched fingers.

Panting slightly, Rey examined the Jedi weapon in her hand with thrilled eyes. It was hefty in her slender hand, though nothing compared to how it had felt as she tried to bring it to her, and examining it again, she admired its functional design and sleek elegance. The lightsaber had been given to her and lost and then had somehow found her again, and although she still felt as anxious and overwhelmed as she had with Maz, now she at least felt ready.

Chapter 8: The Fall of Starkiller Base

Chapter Text

8

Rey sighed a breath of relief that her instincts had not led her astray.

As she hugged the shadows of the corridor wall, the Stormtroopers and First Order officers came into sight ahead of her, black-and-white blurs interweaving in the luminosity beyond the darkened entranceway she carefully neared. Far beyond them and the massive, boxy opening of the hangar bay, Rey soon recognized the many swirling specks of starfighters as they swooped and fired upon one another in high-speed combat. She delighted in recognizing the tell-tale shape of the X-wings as they persevered despite their low numbers. As they approached, backtracked, and approached again, their shrill engines roaring loudly overhead, Rey was suddenly grateful that it had only taken her a matter of minutes to find her way from the breached building where she had discovered the lightsaber. Somehow she knew there was not much time left before the Resistance found the vital target it sought in the base.

The new weapon dangling near the rear of her belt scraped the polished metal as she peered one cautious eye around the threshold and spied. There were few ships left for the taking. Of these, several were launching, their black-clad pilots boarding and being directed outward to join the fight. Rey counted only nine stationary TIE space superiority fighters and two Upsilon-class command shuttles, all of which had been unlocked and readied to fly. Knowing her ships, Rey deliberated. The TIE fighters would provide her with the speed and maneuverability necessary to get her through the war raging in the skies outside (and to perhaps even join the Resistance in its aerial assault). However, recalling her experience scavenging the outdated transport ships that had fallen in the Battle of Jakku, she knew the command shuttle would be better equipped to sustain any lengthy travel, not to mention the bonus of its deflector shield generators and twin laser cannons. For the moment, she decided to make the command shuttle her target and hoped, either way, she would be able to alert the Resistance that she was a friendly before getting shot down. If she succeeded at all.

She shrank back as a deafening siren sounded in front of her, resounding off the towering walls of the bay. Heeding this warning, the officers and Stormtroopers dissipated slightly, many running presumably to the embedded gunneries flanking the hangar entranceway, other technicians rushing to various comm centers installed in the bay’s walls, while only a handful remained busied with the starfighters.

Rey knew now was the time. She ran lowly but swiftly into the blinding natural light of the hangar, trailing the right wall, crossing a large but safe distance, and then ducking and sliding under one of the many grey airshafts that ran the height of the wall and protruded outward at its base. Her stomach against the polished black of the bay floor, Rey scanned the hangar again from her advanced position, eyeing the TIE fighter and command shuttle towering closest to her. Unfortunately, they were still roughly 40 feet away, 40 dangerously exposed feet. Her only prospect lay in a small stack of crates containing what she assumed to be replacement parts for the TIE fighters’ ion engines, piled chest-high no more than 20 feet between her and the two ships.

Checking the officers and Stormtroopers’ positions one final time, Rey held her breath as she soundlessly slid out from under shaft, crouched, and sprinted as swiftly as she could to the crates. Luck seemed to finally be on her side—she reached them unspotted and fell down quickly to her hands and knees. Scrambling up against the protection of the stack, Rey sat, knees bent, her back carefully touching the metal containers as looked straight back upon the vacant hallway that had veiled her only a minute before. She caught her breath, straining to hear any audible reactions from the technicians and pilots on the other side of the stack. When Rey heard none, she cautiously tilted her head up to the left to assess the distance that remained between her and freedom.

All at once, the buzz of a familiar electricity ignited and whirred in motion, and Rey’s eyes immediately widened at the neon heat of a red lightsaber blade shoved mere inches from her flinching cheek.

She tentatively scooted away from it now and watched it with wide eyes as it followed her, while the mere act of escaping its proximity soon raised her to her feet and exposed her to every enemy in the bay.

Rey followed the hissing trail of the plasma blade to look upon Kylo Ren now, alarmingly pale and fatigued under black robes sticky wet with camouflaged blood. She immediately sensed a wild desperation she never imagined he could possess, as if all that defined his humanity had disappeared in this moment to be replaced by stark hatred for her, for himself, for whatever it was that pulled his strings. The gaze she returned was almost animalistic, a mixture of physical exhaustion combatted with forced adrenaline and raw anger. She had never, not even in the interrogation cell, been as frightened of him as now, staring into his void.

And indeed, on the other end of the hissing sword, Kylo was submerged in an alarming detachment as he watched her uneasy eyes shy away from his outstretched blade. Snoke’s orders to deliver the girl now sat idly in the back of his brain, only mildly acknowledged by his current mindset and clouded by the base temptation to hurt her.

“I knew you would come.”

Behind him, First Order officers and technicians stared at them over their shoulders with visibly cautious expressions, as if alarmed but heeding an unspoken rule not to interfere.

“I figured you’d be long gone with your tail between your legs, you coward,” Rey hissed, again flashing to the sickening shared memory. “You murderer!”

“You don’t know anything,” Kylo said, shutting his hollowed eyes momentarily. “You think you do. You think you know everything just because of this bond, but you know nothing!”

Bond? Rey realized he was privy to information she was not, something about what had happened to them.

“What is it?” Rey demanded, her right knuckles falling instinctively to the back of her hip and brushing the polished hilt of the lightsaber. “What do you know?”

As soon as the question passed her lips, she regretted asking, fully knowing—just as he knew—that now was not the time, nor was it the time for him to explain. Furthermore, she realized too late it had been an even graver mistake to draw even the slightest bit of attention to the object dangling from her belt, for despite how she had turned to hide the weapon from his view, Kylo’s expression nevertheless diminished briefly to complete surprise upon recognizing the treasure she possessed.

“Where did you get that?”

Rey clenched her jaw and wrapped her hand around Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber protectively, retreating from him one wary step at a time.

Kylo was baffled as to how she could have possibly acquired it, but the mere glimpse of Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber in her scavenger’s grasp both astonished and infuriated him beyond measure. The lightsaber that bore Darth Vader should be his! It was his legacy! In his fever, the idea that she was likely completely unaware of its lineage consumed him obsessively.

“That lightsaber. It belongs to me!”

“Come and take it from me,” Rey said lowly, furrowing her eyebrows defensively. Despite the slender build of her hand, she felt an uncanny perfection as it naturally wrapped snugly around the hilt’s grip.

“You don’t know what it is you have. You’re powerful, Rey, but it amounts to nothing without guidance. You need someone to show you how to wield such a weapon, how to wield your power. Right now it’s all just wasted on you. You need a teacher.” He paused, stepping slowly toward her and lowering his tri-bladed saber to a 45-degree angle at his side. “It has to be me.”

“No, I can’t do that—I won’t,” Rey said, shaking her head. The mere consideration alone screamed disaster, for even in her undeniable fear and the hatred she held for him after Han’s death, Rey felt the troublesome tug toward him now that he was again so close. Her last words cracked past her lips under the strain. And she sensed it persevered for him too, like a magnet attracting at both ends, but he was currently so determined, so entirely strained physically and emotionally, she knew it was altogether out of his realm of acknowledgment.

The siren continued to wail in the background, and behind Kylo’s sweat-drenched hair, Rey spotted the calculated advance of a group X-wings approaching in the distance.

“Kylo,” Rey said, her utterance of his name eliciting a momentary ease in his temperament, “I know you realize we don’t have much time. You have to let me leave. Or we’ll both die here.”

Kylo smirked in response, converging on her more quickly now, his eyes abysmal and feverish.

“You underestimate me if you think I will just let you walk away from here. You have to leave with me.” His voice was icy, almost as mechanical as it sounded filtering through his missing mask. “I never wanted it, but I see it now. I see the limitless potential in you, the rage buried deep inside. The passion.”

“I’ve been in there with you,” he said inside her head.

Rey shook her head slightly and then gasped as her heel struck metal and her fingers pinched painfully against the rear hangar wall. There was nowhere left to run. She was suddenly more afraid than she thought possible, her heart thundering in her chest and her hand trembling around the metal hilt at her hip. Her nerves perched on the verge of exploding when he mercifully stopped a few feet in front of her.

“That’s where the power lies, Rey. I can show you everything.”

“I’m not like you! Just let me leave. Just let me go home.”

“Where? Back to Jakku? To scavenge in the desert?” he mocked her, weapon still buzzing viciously at his side.

“Shut up!” Rey shouted suddenly to his face, bending slightly in her rage.

“They’re not coming back, Rey. Trust me, I know.”

Crushed and reeling, Rey shook and looked away in anger and disbelief. Somehow he did know, because she sensed he was telling the truth underneath it all.

He then added, “They’re as dead as Han Solo.”

In one fluid motion, Rey ignited the lightsaber, snapped it from her belt, and sliced upward toward him in a cerulean blur of unadulterated fury.

Kylo was ready, had even been waiting for the line to be crossed, and a flicker of a deranged smile flashed across his lips as he blocked the blow with arms high and wrists pointed skillfully downward. Sparks flew as the lightsabers connected—the percussive crash of a sharp electrical sizzling that held only the promise of excruciating pain—and their mouths nearly met for the second time as they strained to push against one another’s weapon.

“I hate you,” Rey said with clenched teeth, feeling the heat of his unruly tri-blade what seemed like an inch from her cheek.

Kylo’s eyes were like desolate nighttime waters reflecting glowing silhouettes. The rage they saw looking down into hers excited him.

“No, you don’t,” he said near her skin, “but that’s a start.”

Rey pivoted her body, twisting away from his push and thus freeing his blade to sink clumsily into the wall. No longer pinned, her back now to the rest of the bay, Rey righted herself as he twisted toward her and then charged him second-naturedly, wrists up, elbows out, eyes flashing. The cool blue of her laser sword struck high against Kylo’s red, driving him back briefly before swinging naturally down to connect again with his deflection at the thigh. Her emotions raged dangerously out of her control, and she began to strike again and again with all her might, instinctively anticipating his reactions as he learnedly predicted hers.

Despite the cold natural light flooding the hangar, the collisions of the two blades painted the brilliant lightshow of a violent and prolonged stalemate. They demolished everything near their path as the fight progressed—starfighter exterior and cargo alike—and each crackling contact echoed like the crash of lightning throughout the acoustics of the bay. Black robes unfurling around him, Kylo fought defensively in his weakened state, taking sporadic advantage of every forceful blow that knocked her away to strike himself hard in the seeping hole beneath his ribs with his fist. Appropriating this self-sharpened pain, he fended off her continued blows with maximum effort as the pair battled for what seemed like hours, both scuffling toward the face of the hangar in quest of surrender or blood. Rey’s intuitive swings were impressively swift and furious, one-two-one-two in a rapid-fire succession that tested his skill, stamina, and remaining coherence. And all the while, it was Anakin Skywalker’s blade he met over and over, brandished in her unworthy hands.

Finding a resurgence of strength in his outrage, Kylo pressed forward now and drove her back again into the shadowed interior of the hangar with everything he possessed. Rey faltered slightly under the unforeseen pressure of his retaliation and assumed the defensive, scrambling to block the accelerated hits that pummeled, rebounded, and returned again to her at breakneck speed. Kylo was unyielding, his preemptive strikes quickened and solid, but it was only when Rey finally lost a split-second of balance on a lip of scarred lacquer floor near the command shuttle that he was able to at last deliver a searing slice to her outer left shoulder. Upon landing the blow, they both receded in physical shock, sharing Rey’s pain together as she recoiled protectively.

Feeling her wound compound his own, Kylo tried to divert the sensation and regain control of his own sense as quickly as possible. The physical impasse caused by the Force bond was all too evident to him now.

“You need a teacher!” he panted, watching her recoup and, warrior-like, raise her lightsaber to him once again. “I can show you the ways of the Force!”

Rey’s answer was merely to center herself in deep concentration and then assail with titanic force, meeting his saber once more in a thrusted deadlock wherein both pushed with all their strength. This time, however, Rey was fortified, shoving back against Kylo with pure light energy. In one circular motion, she spun her lightsaber downward with his and pulled back, deflecting his weapon to the side as her own spun round, pivoted back up in a counterattack, and struck him upwards across the face.

The burning impact of the slash knocked them both on their backs, while in the near distance, the Resistance succeeded: Starkiller Base’s thermal oscillator began to explode.

Lying dazed by the pain splitting across her face, Rey felt a rough vibration begin to surge under her back. As frantic shouts began to erupt, her left eye slit open enough to watch unformed legs running past, the officers, technicians, and Stormtroopers rushing in various directions throughout the bay. The quaking of the floor grew rougher and was soon compounded by quickening ruptures that radiated from the collapsing oscillator precinct.

As the phantom agony splitting across her nose finally subsided, Rey sat up and squinted through watering eyes and the sweat-drenched wisps falling around them. Kylo lay stunned a few feet from her, his lightsaber extinguished but still protectively clutched in one hand while the other reached out weakly in an attempt to push himself up from the floor. Rey took advantage of her quick recovery from his wound to cautiously rise and stand over him on the trembling surface.

Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber had caught Kylo mid-right cheek and scorched a deep incision at a near-perfect 45-degree angle all the way up to the middle of his forehead. Though fairly thin, the cauterized burn was raw and gory, and even though the most efficient medical droids would not be able to save it from leaving a massive scar, Rey thought he was lucky that it had narrowly missed both dark eyes. Those eyes that now stared up at her in a chaotic mixture of pain, surprise, and disorientation.

Beautiful, she had thought only hours earlier.

Rey extinguished the blue lightsaber and then swiftly slung the full weight of the hilt to bash Kylo roughly across the back of the head.

No sooner had his body fallen in unconsciousness than a tremendous earthquake began to breach the floor of the hangar. The thunder of upturned lacquer, stone, and metal diffused as sections of the bay began to splinter around them, and those who ran now shouted in panic as they fell unstably from the dynamic tremor. Fire from the uprooted electrical system soon spewed near one of the gunneries, and remaining pilots and technicians began to scramble to board the remaining starfighters. One pilot approached her through the smoke and flying debris, inconspicuously eyeing the open Upsilon shuttle at her back through the visors of his black helmet, but he immediately fled when Rey threateningly ignited the full potential of the Jedi weapon still extending from her arm. He was a coward, but he was right: it was time to leave, and fast.

Rey rushed toward the lowered ramp of the grounded shuttle, stumbling repeatedly as the hangar convulsed and shook her off her feet. The quaking had reached a critical mass, and pieces of the hangar ceiling and walls had begun to give way and drop dangerously to the floor. They struck a few panicked onlookers who then struck the demolished lacquer below their feet as it cracked, rose, and subducted into severe ledges.

Her heart racing, Rey felt a momentous relief as she dodged all these obstacles and fell roughly onto the ramp, clutching at the hydraulics, her life intact. She scrambled up to the crest and turned back to locate the manual control panel embedded in the cargo floor. As she did, chunks of debris rained and small explosions began to erupt in succession in front of her eyes. The foundation of the hangar had begun to give. And there was something else.

By some miracle, only a thin layer of dust had settled on the scarred features that lay expressionless, facing toward her in the midst of the collapse, and as Rey’s eyes fixed distractedly on him, her hand fumbled to open the control panel and her gut twisted into a sudden nauseating knot at the idea of leaving him there to die. It was almost as if, sensing her intentions, their link had triggered a moralistic alarm that manifested stressfully throughout her breathless chest.

You can do this! she thought, her fingers now shaking so hard she could barely grip the panel latch. He would leave you in an instant! You know that! And she did want to do it, to let him implode in the righteous flames engulfing the First Order’s failed schemes and be rid of his monstrosity forever. But, as he faced her now, eyes closed peacefully in unconsciousness, his face deathly white but serene under its bloody ornamentation, what only could have been the light side of the Force tugged sharply at her core with its pure, white grip.

Damn it all, Rey thought, running back down the ramp as fast as her legs would carry her. She only made it a few feet before being knocked off her feet by a brutal tremor and having to crawl the rest of the distance to him on hands and knees, hugging the narrow, unblocked trail from the command shuttle to Kylo. Grabbing him roughly under his broad shoulders, Rey crouched and pulled with all her might, her exhausted body fighting the dead weight of his as they traversed one of the only preserved expanses of bay floor that remained. Her teeth gritted in her effort, but drawing upon her years of hauling scrap caches on Jakku, it only took her a handful of agonizing seconds before she was able to tow him securely up onto the foot of the shuttle ramp.

Now Rey returned to the control panel and activated it quicker than she had ever done anything in her life, and she did not stay to watch his body slide and tumble limply down the ramp and into the ship’s hold as the door raised and sealed—she was already in the pilot’s chair at the bow, rousing the engines from their idle hold and prepping the flight controls. Glancing distractedly through the red-tinted co*ckpit window, she watched wide-eyed as the mouth of the hangar began to collapse in vast consecutive sections, and she was momentarily thrown from the captain’s chair as a hefty piece of debris from the bay interior fell and struck one of the shuttle’s large retracted wings. In conjunction, the spark of something shorting leapt from the piloting control panel, but Rey was unfazed, holding her breath as she initiated the ship’s wings to lower and then….

The command shuttle burst from the disintegrating hangar like a bolt of plasma energy from a blaster, skyrocketing at top speed as the crumbling edifice it left behind was slowly leveled to nothing beneath a smoldering grey cloud. Higher and higher the shuttle climbed until the white of the arctic blanket gave way to the inevitable darkness of the galaxy, and still Rey pushed the sublight engines, unable to breathe until she felt the colossal shove of Starkiller Base exploding into space-dust behind them.

Chapter 9: The Spaces in Between

Chapter Text

9

When Kylo Ren finally awoke, it seemed as though he emerged from oblivion. Darkness gradually gave way, and untold minutes elapsed before he was able to mentally claw his way out of a dense fog of exhaustion he never knew possible, and as he neared the clearing, he became increasingly aware of a dull ache gnawing through the body he had forgotten he had. It permeated him, concentrated mostly in his head and ribs, and as it did, associated memories clung to it, flashes of the girl, her fierce eyes tinted red in the glow of his abandon, his unhinged thoughts, the base’s emergency sirens, a pain in his face….

Kylo’s eyes squinted as he reached a heavy hand slowly up to his nose, and there he felt the soft give of meticulously cut bacta patches stretching farther and farther upward. His sight beginning to clear slightly, Kylo peered into the black cave of his palm as his fingers traced the bandaged trail practically up to his hairline. The impressive blow she had landed on him now centered in his mind, how majestic she had looked as she struck him, how she had brimmed with hatred, and how, upon the impact, he had felt the same fear she had stricken in him in the interrogation room, when he had almost lost himself to her pull. Now he wore the brand of his weakness for all to see—a deep one at that—and it stung him both physically and mentally.

Removing his hand, Kylo let his vision gradually adjust to the room. He recognized the charcoal metal of his command shuttle’s ceiling instantly, and as he lay blinking past the patches lining the bridge of his nose, he realized he had absolutely no recollection of boarding the ship. The shuttle’s fluorescent lights were dimmed low, and the air stank of sterile antiseptic and dried blood. Feeling the cold of space, he realized now that his torso was nearly naked, that his tunic, outer robes, and belt had been removed, leaving him only in his black trousers and an intricate binding of white bandages that wrapped and reached up to the pits of his arms. His robes had been spread underneath him, presumably to ease the discomfort of sleeping on the shuttle’s grated floor. Trying to raise himself up with his right elbow now, Kylo felt something beneath the white binding shift on his left side, and the sore muscles comprising his body were quickly drowned out by a sharp pain emitting from a wound he currently did not wish to relive at all. He forced himself to take it slow, to stiffen so as not to disrupt the bacta plastered below his ribs.

He glanced slowly around the ship’s main transport hull and became slightly startled to find Rey only a few feet away, slumped uncomfortably against the side of one of the affixed seats embedded in the ship’s interior, her arms crossed and eyes shut, asleep. Her dark brown hair had been let down and hung loosely around her serene face and craned neck. The beige wrappings of her desert garments had been discarded for a clean First Order pilot’s undershirt and trousers, and as Kylo noticed the opened containers, blood-stained needles, and discarded bacta bandage wrappers lying near her outstretched legs, it became apparent that she had resourcefully found the shuttle’s emergency supply crawlspace. Perhaps more astonishing to him was that she had obviously tended to him, cared for him for however long he had been unconscious. All this after they had tried so hard to make each other hurt, after he had provoked her and she had again revealed such powerful promise, albeit at the cost of his pride.

Propped up by a slender, muscular arm, Kylo conceded to study her for quite some time in her vulnerable state. Whether due to his lingering exhaustion or the pain-management medication she had given him (the wrappers from which cluttered near her delicate, naked feet), he felt a momentary tolerance for her, even a fascination with her, the way she twitched very slightly, the nearly silent way she exhaled, the supple curves of her chest rising and falling lightly under the foreign black cloth. Despite his immobility, he knew he could end her now if he wished, just as he had so many in the past, swiftly and effortlessly. It seemed unnecessary to him now, however, even illogical considering his physical predicament. In addition, he had directives to follow, orders that had resurfaced and regained their weight. (“You are to use all measures necessary. She must be persuaded.”) And besides, the anger was currently sleeping along with her.

Kylo finally lay back down, feeling the onset of overwhelming fatigue, and closed his groggy eyes with her soft image peacefully engrained behind them.

When he next opened them, it was to much brighter light and a much more intense pain than before. Squinting and sheltering his eyes with the back of a hand, Kylo clenched his teeth at the sudden flood shooting through his epithelia and the torn muscles beneath. He swallowed and quickly concentrated on the pain, again recounting Snoke’s teachings, accepting the agony and appropriating it to strengthen himself. This technique had always helped him combat the nagging sabotage of his mortality.

Suddenly, warm hands fell on his naked side, gently placing a fresh set of bacta bandages on the throbbing bowcaster wound. Kylo instantly froze and stilled his struggling breath. When finished with their work, the soft hands remained, palms level, emanating their heat through the patches, and then a strange sensation emerged. It radiated beneath the lengthened fingers that both burned and soothed his side simultaneously. Even through the frigid bacta gel, her touch began to induce an alien tingling. There came a numbing that accompanied and combatted a foreign internal pressure, as if the torn tissue were slowly stitching itself back together under the fog of some ethereal anesthetic. And beneath it all, riding the wave of this unfamiliar feeling, a stirring in his very blood at the feel of her fingers on the tender white flesh of his stomach, the touch of her body where very few had ever laid hands on him in his lifetime. Their Force bond—the tenacious voice that could never be silenced. His weakness and her power.

Her Force healing.

Removing his hand from his eyelids, Kylo reached out, seized her roughly at the wrists, and looked into the hazel eyes that stared back, perplexed.

“What are you doing?” he asked, his throat like sand.

Rey lifted her slender hands away from his smooth skin and extended her fingers vertically, not bothering to shake off his firm grips.

“I don’t know,” she answered truthfully. “It just…happened a couple days ago. When I was cleaning your wound, it happened.”

Rey bit her lower lip in subtle distress, avoiding his glance suddenly, and Kylo suddenly could not tell if she was bewildered at the rapid development of her talents or embarrassed to be caught touching him without permission.

“Whatever it is, it seemed to be helping,” she added.

Masking his astonishment in stone, Kylo marveled at her, at her honest innocence. She was charmingly oblivious to the tremendous power she possessed, and yet she had already accomplished so much so soon out of mere instinct. Force-healing even, like the cursed Jedi! Her potential intimidated him and enthralled him simultaneously.

All at once, Kylo felt enflamed as he watched her gaze fall confusedly to the firm hands around her wrists. The uninvited compulsion to pull her to him and fall under her touch flared despite his sincerest efforts to push it away. How he despised the way even the mere sight of her stirred him as if he were just a common man, captive to petty impulses that only distracted from true power.

Swallowing hard this time, Kylo released her, looking away as though his own eyes might betray him to her. He did not wish to talk to her. After what they had been through, conversation was too uncharacteristically familiar, a seemingly disingenuous and trivial act. In fact, he could have sat in silence for eternity, waiting patiently for some providence to suck her neatly away into the farthest reaches of the galaxy. Anywhere far away from him, a billion parsecs removed from the weakness she created in him. And yet he found himself speaking.

“Where are we?”

“We’re still in the Ilum system,” she said, hands slightly trembling as she scooted away from him now to lean against the opposite wall of the hull.

“The base?”

“It no longer exists, I’m pleased to report. Your friends failed miserably. We’re currently heading toward Rakata Prime.”

Kylo’s temper flared suddenly at her impudence, but given his current physical disadvantage and hidden ambitions, he did his best to control it.

“Why Rakata Prime?” he asked, leaning up now on his pale elbows. “There is nothing left there anymore.”

“Well, I don’t intend to stop there.”

Kylo smiled with visible sarcasm, realizing exactly where she meant to go.

“We’re going back to Jakku, aren’t we?”

“Do not speak to me about it,” she said sharply, her cheeks tensing and glance falling swiftly away from his shoulders.

“Then why aren’t you there now? Why aren’t you back to your beloved home in the sand, waiting for nothing, and why am I not a prisoner of the Resistance as we speak?”

“Because,” she said, drawing out the vowels, “while I was busy saving your life, the ship took on damage from the hangar.” Her eyes narrowed at him slightly. “It caused an overload in the circuit board of the hyperdrive motivator that I cannot fix without the correct replacement parts. Or else, trust me, you and I would not be stuck together like this.”

Rey stood up now in her obvious frustration and began to walk toward the co*ckpit. However, she soon stopped, paused briefly in her oversized trousers, and then took a seat in one of the transport chairs near him instead.

Only now that she had mentioned it did Kylo realize he had not made it aboard the command shuttle of his own will. Indeed the last thing he remembered was the immense pain, the uncharacteristic fear, and then a rocking explosion in the back of his head. In truth, she had already saved his life twice.

“You should have left me. I was weak. Why didn’t you leave me to die? That is what true power is, Rey: the position to hold someone’s life in your hands, to choose whether someone will die.”

“Well, I chose for you to live,” she sighed, annoyed. “Though I’m beginning to wonder what I could have possibly been thinking.”

You didn’t really have any choice, he thought, careful to keep her out of his head. Verbally, however, he remained indignant.

“Those are the kind of impulses we need to rid you of.”

“I want nothing to do with the dark side,” Rey said emphatically but lowly, suddenly rising up and then kneeling near his thigh again to grab one of the larger bacta bandages from an open container. “You’re a murderer and a liar. I told you before, I’m nothing like you."

“I’ve seen a great deal of you that is like me, exactly like me,” Kylo persisted, flashing back again to her at perhaps her loveliest: full of anger, fueled by rage, striking to kill. “I’ve seen it in action, how powerful it is and how powerful it could be. I wear it on my face. And I’ve also seen what’s hidden inside.”

Rey ceased tearing the packaging off the bacta and stared at the floor now, the blood coloring her cheeks. Lightly touching her mind, Kylo sensed a disparaging torrent of shame and embarrassment. It welled up as her thoughts flew back to what had happened, or almost happened, between them in the Detention Center, when they had both been fatefully vivisected and left pinned open for each other’s whims, and the connection—sensual and fierce, corporal and immaterial—had been all that existed in the universe.

“You forced my hand. I didn’t want to hurt you. I just lost my head…and I didn’t….” She paused again, swallowing hard. “I….”

Oh, but she had wanted to hurt him, to make him pay for everything he had said and done. And only hours before that, locked into that damnable rig, she had wanted him to hurt her in the most intimate of ways.

Her tanned hands fumbled with the packing for several long seconds before Rey finally said, “I don’t want to talk about it. Not now.”

Although Kylo was not used to bartering or relenting with anyone, even in unplanned conversation, he decided there would be ample time to broach the subject again and work toward tearing down her impenetrable barriers. She was too strong-willed, too innocent. Her pull and her power positively overflowed with light energy; convincing her to embrace the dark side of the Force would be no easy task, he realized. He would indeed have to use all measures necessary to break her if he was to successfully carry out his orders.

“Has the First Order made any attempt to contact the shuttle?” he asked instead, trying to ignore the stinging that had now resurged in his side and face.

“I’m sure they would have, but some of the wires in the ship’s comm unit shorted at some point. There are no incoming signals and no way to send any out. I can probably fix it once I have a chance to rip replacement wires from somewhere else in the ship that can spare it, but I haven’t had the opportunity to look everywhere yet.”

Rey pulled aside the tattered flaps of a deliberate rip at one shoulder of her pilot’s undershirt. Beneath the black cloth and the bandage she now removed, Kylo saw the angry smile of the lengthy gash he had given her, tender, bruised, and hand-stitched shut. Against her will, she let a short hiss pass her lips as she cleaned the puffy mounds of swelling and covered them with the fresh bandage. Kylo had no doubt his face looked exactly the same, and the thought of the scar it would inevitably leave might have infuriated him if he had not been so in awe of her innate power while she had inflicted it upon him. Even Anakin Skywalker had once been marked. And more.

“You’ve been pretty time-consuming,” she added, taking a few deep breaths to combat the searing pain. “You needed a great deal of blood. Luckily, your shuttle seemed to be stocked specifically for you.”

“This class of command shuttle is reserved for top-ranking officers, which is why the exterior is so heavily protected. The emergency medical supply unit would have been fashioned primarily for me, yes.”

“I know,” Rey said, closing the fabric back up over her shoulder. “It’s lucky for you that I happened to commandeer your shuttle, or you’d be completely buggered, Ren.”

She gave a small laugh and even smiled slightly, still looking downward, and Kylo, watching her through his stoic expression, could not help but be struck by the youthful beauty her smile briefly brought out. It was the first time he had seen it in ages, the unfamiliar air of something resembling happiness, and it was also the first time he had seen it on her.

“Is there any water left in the supply?” Kylo asked, staving off his admiration by focusing instead on his painfully dry throat.

“Yes, plenty.”

Rey reached into the container against the wall behind her and produced the polished metal of one of many portable cylinders. Kylo noted the oddly curt way she handed it to him, as if she were suddenly afraid to even risk touching him despite the innumerable times she surely had while tending to him. However, the bottle in his hand, Kylo suddenly realized the full extent of his thirst momentarily trumped everything else and greedily gulped down the entire contents of the travel bottle.

Rey watched this, her eyes drifting carelessly to the bouncing Adam’s apple below the upturned bottle.

“Unfortunately, ration packs are the only food in the supply, but there are enough to last us even after we reach Jakku,” she added unnecessarily, watching him wipe his full lips with the back of the large hand that had struck at her so mercilessly only a few days earlier.

As if on cue, Kylo asked, “Where is my lightsaber?”

Rey paused at the question, seemingly scanning a plethora of possible answers.

“It’s gone, on Starkiller Base. But I still have Luke Skywalker’s.”

Kylo raised one arched eyebrow at this, setting the empty cylinder aside. He would have easily been able to detect her lie even if they had not been connected through the bond. As she was a slave to her demure demeanor, obvious uncharacteristic quirks gave her dishonesty away, like how she now looked directly at him while speaking rather than avoiding eyes in her regular embarrassment.

“Am I your prisoner then?” he asked, amused.

“Yes, I suppose you are. I’m going to try to contact the Resistance when we reach Jakku, about what to do with you.”

“That will not happen, Rey.”

The abrupt honesty of Kylo’s startling tone sparked an intense moment of silence wherein they studied each other warily a body’s width apart. The subtle threat had caught Rey off guard, striking the chord of her naivety. He was certain she had not irresponsibly assumed he would gratefully comply after her efforts to heal him, but he realized now that she also had not anticipated the full consequences of her decision to spare his life. She became guarded again, a rejuvenated wariness now darkening her face and driving her carefree mouth back into hiding. And, watching her demeanor shift from under his thick black waves, Kylo knew with utter certainty that if he were to test the alternating current of their connection at this moment, he would find it completely one-sided.

Secretly assured that the cards had now been laid out on the table, Rey seized the opportunity to broach a subject that had been burning within her for days.

“My parents, the people who left me,” Rey swallowed. “You told me they’re dead. How do you know?”

This time it was Kylo who paused, for once favoring a cautious precision in lieu of his typical coldness. The answer he gave was simplified, sincere, and reserved.

“I know because I was there.”

Rey’s mouth gaped and her chin quivered slightly as her gaze burned through him.

“Did you kill them?”

“No, I did not. But I can assure you that they are dead.”

The slackened torso of the pilot’s uniform Rey wore now rose and fell in a quickened series of stifled shudders, in-out, in-out, in-out, and holding her stare, Kylo watched her vision grow wet despite her sincerest efforts to mask her upset.

“What happened to them?”

But this was something Kylo could not answer, at least not now. It was one of those special ghosts, the private apparitions occupying the deepest reaches of his mind alongside the suppressed memories and the primal hunger and the other burrowing secrets she had so grazed upon during their intimate exchange in the interrogation room a lifetime ago. In fact, it had been a miracle that she had not haphazardly overturned the truth in that moment of mutual vulnerability. But Kylo also did not believe in miracles. Chance had granted him the advantage of choosing the opportune time, and now was not it.

Sensing his disinclination, Rey’s mouth completely dropped. His refusal to answer stunned and insulted her, as if she were all but owed his complete confession and honesty regardless of their mutual opposition. Feeling her outrage flare as she waited for him, Kylo empathized despite himself. She was burning to know, aching to resolve nearly a decade’s worth of unanswered questions, hopes, and prayers with revelations that, whether she could appreciate it presently or not, were completely inconsequential at this point in time. Knowing better, Kylo coldly withdrew into himself in response, letting his silence communicate volumes.

Jaws suddenly clenched as a tear began to fall, Rey shot one last resentful look before rising to her feet and brushing past his naked shoulder to disappear into the co*ckpit beyond.

In silence, Kylo lay back once again and stared at the ceiling.

Chapter 10: Tactility

Chapter Text

10

Far, far away, something silently watched Rey as she meandered through the bodies of the Takodana trees. It surveyed her outstretched fingers as she caressed the choked trunks and emerald-laden branches for a blissful eternity while strolling her Möbius strip—greener and more vibrant now than Rey swore she had ever seen in her life. It also watched her shapely feet fall, bare and soundless, on the cool soil and freshly fallen foliage. The canopy towered cathedral-like meters above, only permitting the occasional crack of the outside world to break through before being absorbed completely by the moss-lined rocks and overgrown boulders. In turn, a diffused glow highlighted the understory, a sunless radiance made even richer by the dewy lichen and brilliant ferns of the forest floor.

Rey noted the gaze, its look omnipresent, as if pulsing through the veins of the leaves.

Everything so green. When was I here?

The closed loop of thick woods finally released her to a ravine of overgrown ledges, and here she paused briefly before descending the trail that naturally splintered through them. She had been here too, she knew, and she had been watched then as well. Following the dirt path the ancient rains had eroded, Rey was soon swallowed up by the jade cliffs until they loomed multiple feet overhead, their weathered surfaces crumbling under a bottomless spill of suffocating vegetation. She rounded one jagged cut after another, each break to the next, climbing and falling through the boulders and cliffs that enclosed her, leading her only one way. The glow of the forest began to dim above the labyrinth she navigated, obscuring her in the shadows of woodland giants.

The ravine’s deteriorated pathway now ended as abruptly as it had risen up to meet her, and, staring ahead, Rey was sure she did not remember the cave. Gaping and ominous beneath the mossy ledges, the opening seemed grossly misplaced in her lush memory, and Rey knew with utter certainty that it did not belong here despite its clever camouflage, not in this forest, not on Takodana. The thick, abrasive vines that snaked from its cavity curled coarse and brown amid the fern-encrusted bluff that bordered, and the pitch blackness of its depths was impossibly shallow, cloaking absolutely everything just beyond its borders. It frightened Rey tremendously, intimidating in her inherent certainty that whatever had been watching must dwell within that mouth. And yet Rey knew beyond a doubt it was her destination.

What’s in there? Rey asked the universe.

“Only what you take with you.”

The wise voice’s words on her tongue and her heart in her throat, Rey broke the barrier of darkness and stepped through with seemingly no motion. Amazingly, her vision adjusted to perfection once inside the cave, its interior indirectly bathed in a dull illumination whose source remained indistinguishable amid the dangling vines, bare roots, and jutting rocks. She did not dare look over her shoulder for fear of finding the forest altogether vanished on the other side of the divide. Rather, she stepped farther into the depths, her bare feet and soft skirts falling gracefully around sharp branches and over cold reptiles who slithered silently in their coils. All at once feeling painfully claustrophobic in the bowels of the cavern, Rey clung to an innate knowledge to resist the gripping fear that pervaded her mind and thundered beneath her ribs: she was meant to come here. Whatever lay in wait for her in the shadows ahead was something she was destined to face.

That was when the terrifying hum broke the silence, and the cave’s terrestrial walls began to radiate in the glow of a sickly red light exuded out of sight.

Rey’s wide stare was soon bathed in the familiar brilliance of the lightsaber that now emerged, inch by agonizing inch, round the jagged ledge ahead. The black glove of the large hand that followed gave way to his high collar and then his tinted face—her imprinted mental picture of him: cavernous eyes, full lips, and thick, falling hair—and as he rounded completely into view, Rey grew cognizant of a sudden weight in her fingers. Her palm gripped tightly around something all at once strange but familiar. Instinctively, she lifted the dual-bladed lightsaber—her lightsaber—and listened to the whirr of the twin silver-tinged blades as they sliced through the air.

With barely any hesitation, the figure that was Kylo Ren came at her now as he had before, the monster with black robes trailing lightly behind, and Rey spun her saber’s lengthy hilt second-naturedly to block the attack, first with one end high, then the other end low. The grey-white of her saberstaff connected repeatedly with his red tri-blade, and Rey discovered the newfound ease at which she wielded herself empowered her quickness tenfold, as though her arms had only just been freed from some invisible restraint she never knew bound her. Indeed it seemed only a matter of seconds before she was able to drive him backward, flush against the clay walls and moss cushions that trapped them inside the wretched enclosure. They locked their hissing blades near both handles and shoved anew with all their strength, and yes, she had seen those eyes before, those glassy onyx pools reflecting at their centers the fiery slivers of their sabers—no, don’t let up—and a perpetual darkness of a man seemingly lost to everyone and everything. Sloping upward, her warrior’s brand had healed and left the evidence of their previous battle in the damaged crevasse of a lengthy scar. And it was all such a vicious beauty—stop—and always had been, a cruel one undermined by a provocative vulnerability only she had seen in him, and—help me, he’s so close—the power and the need that stole her breath the harder they pressed against one another and the closer they came to….

The snarl of the furious sabers faded into nothingness as Rey’s lips crossed the painfully small threshold and locked onto his within the cave. All the noises of the world suddenly ceased and drowned around them, replaced only by his desolate heartbeat and hers, the heightened pulses of their bodies filling her ears as if she had been deafened to anything else. The rhythms raged when her mouth finally released his for a sharp inhale before desperately returning to the savage lips again as if he were the desert oasis that had eluded her all her life. Quietly, the elegant weapons were lowered and cast aside, freeing their hands to claw voraciously at one another through the burden of their clothes. Her body absolutely humming with desire, Rey suddenly knew a flood of overpowering sensations under the new pressure he exerted on her, the heat of his soft skin as it brushed her exposed surfaces, the hunger with which his lips devoured hers, and his forceful fingers tangling in her hair and running roughly up her supple spine.

Their hearts thundered in rapid cadence as he pulled her now to the very dirt of the cave floor and, finally breaking from her panting mouth, lay back, eager but obedient, on the vile leaves and grit. There Rey instinctively settled, quaking knees astride his waist and desperate hands clutching frantically to bring his cold black eyes back up again to meet hers and taste the mouth once more. Beneath her, the place that ached the most fell painfully close to what it sought, instinctively aware of the secret hardness it first grazed and then pressed against with all the wanton pressure she never knew she possessed until she thought she might….

---

Back in the captain’s chair of the First Order command shuttle speeding through the Ilum system, Rey jumped awake at the shrill beep of the ship’s communication unit operation panel and, fumbling incoherently with the switches, once again, silenced the alarm that had been indicating the hardware malfunction at regular intervals ever since Starkiller Base.

“Kriff,” Rey whispered, falling back into the seat and catching her breath in the silence of the co*ckpit.

Recovering from the start, Rey placed a steadying hand to her chest and closed her eyes again despite the shadows that covered her. Most of the light betraying the glimmer of sweat on her forehead and throat came here and there in blinks from the vibrant mosaic of piloting controls in front of her. The rest—the gleam of the stars and the blue shine of the passing planet, Rakata Prime—projected diffusely through the ship’s crimson-tinted viewport, painting the co*ckpit’s darkness with only a dim red sheen.

Always red, she thought, like that awful lightsaber.

Wiping at the perspiration with the back of her hand, Rey lay back passively and felt her heart beat loudly as it calmed in her chest, thudding just as it had beneath his fingers in the dream. Rather than expel the experience and drown it her usual troublesome shame, she was compelled to hoist it back up in its entirety before it faded away like nearly every other dream she had ever had. As she grasped, however, she knew this one was different. It was true that her unconsciousness had sacrificed the small somatic details in favor of the outcome, but what persisted was the memory of sensation—the disturbing aura of the cave, the heat of the blades, the fervent pressure of his scowling lips. Then the soft Sith-black waves falling against her skin, contrasted by that latent firmness that Rey just knew, despite her veritable lack of experience with the opposite sex, promised a part of him she could not even begin to imagine. And just thinking of the events of the dream and connecting them, like constellations in a star chart, to the tactile memories her body knew first-hand—the smooth density of his stomach, the alluring scent of his skin, the impossibly piercing way he watched her—was enough to reignite the voluptuous flame that had flickered so brightly a minute earlier, when he had (or really had not) dragged her, reckless and resolute, into the cave dirt.

In spite of herself, Rey’s hot hand suddenly left her forehead and fell again to her breast before initiating a lethargic crawl of unadulterated instinct. Her body vibrating beneath it in the darkness, the hand slowly slipped down to her belly, tore the fabric free from the oversized waistband, and paused on the newly exposed flesh below her sunken navel.

Knowing Kylo Ren slept a mere 15 feet at the most behind her in the makeshift gurney, Rey gave a cautious glance over her shoulder, through the co*ckpit entranceway and into the ship’s dimly lit hull. Squinting, she vaguely spied his silhouette as she had left it, shadowed eyelids and threatening but motionless hands atop the blanket of robes that camouflaged him in the darkened cargo hold. The reassurance provided her with an overwhelming sense of relief, but for an instant, she caught herself wishing he would awake, to intervene one way or another.

Rey pivoted back into the comfort of the captain’s chair and resealed her eyes to block out the visceral glow. Her sleepy fingers began to gently trace the smooth incline of her empty stomach, hesitating only slightly in the foreign act. Indeed, in all her lonely, adolescent years, never had she been tempted until now, never had her blood come anywhere near this close to boiling at the mere thought of anything or anyone, let alone this remorseless killer who mocked and silently plotted against her at every turn. But the cold black eyes were there, shut in sleep behind her, and the hand that had fatefully fallen on her jaw and been the cause of everything had grasped feverishly at the small of her back in some nightmare kingdom where the immoral and the possible met and coexisted in anxious harmony.

The fingers now crept downward, beneath the band of the ill-fitting trousers, and descended the aching slope of the feminine mound they discovered. Rey’s mouth slackened and hips buckled slightly in response. Unsure, she found that the instinctive movement had felt good against the weight of her index and middle fingers as they lingered against her undergarments. Applying more pressure between her legs, Rey slowly bucked against those fingers with a natural inclination, pushing against the invasive touch she now pretended was not her own and envisioning the ravenous mouth from the dream, identical to the one that had come so close to touching hers days ago. The sweat rekindled now, and Rey hoisted her left knee to rest uncomfortably up on the edge of the controls, an impulsive compensation that proved all too rewarding when her pressing fingers instantly fell into the hot depression of her womanhood and found there a small secret almost too sensitive to contact. But she did converge on it—that hard little spot—and released a series of quickening controlled exhales to choke back the reactional moan that very nearly spilled past her lips.

Feeling the wetness saturate the thin fabric separating her from the blatantly shameless, Rey rolled her head to the side, bit at her lower lip, and gripped tightly the cushion of the seatback with her free hand. Shutting out the red, her closed eyes resurrected him in their nothingness, the Kylo Ren who had threatened her (“You know I can take whatever I want”), who had trembled defenselessly on her shoulder, whose raven hair clung wetly in sharp strands on his pale, perspiring face as he slashed at her with blood on his tongue. And then now, in the midst of her stifled panting and instinctive undulations, the apparition of Kylo Ren—the inescapable fate she had met in the cave—the cruel mouth that had smothered hers, the wraith-like hands that had gripped her at the hips and pulled her farther down, harder down, harder….

---

Control! Kylo Ren thought desperately, staring at the dimmed ceiling lights 15 feet away from the shuttle’s co*ckpit. Discipline. Remember your training. But these thoughts were waning, quickly losing their effectiveness as the waves began to wash over him.

He had awakened only minutes before to the noise of the same infernal alarm that had been sounding on and off relentlessly since his return to consciousness that morning, and upon opening his eyes, had instantly been awash with an undeniable flood of energy radiating from his would-be captor. Lightly treading the unshakable tightrope of their connection, Kylo had been quickly overwhelmed by the vivid images comprising the aftershock of Rey’s unplanned vision. That in itself had almost been too much—the mere inundation of images and the lingering vibrations. The Cave even! Impossible that she could ever have known about the Cave! But this—his subordinate experience of Rey’s dormant passion awakening against even her own control—was enough to drive him to the very brink. And control had now become his own personal struggle as well, even as he feigned sleep under the scrutinizing gaze that momentarily fixed upon him and then turned away, satisfied.

Beneath his robe, Kylo’s fingers gripped the waistband of his trousers desperately, white knuckles abound and meticulously avoidant of his body’s painfully hard manifestation throbbing mere inches away. He physically heard nothing, saw nothing—she was being oh so quiet and careful—but he felt absolutely everything. The nerves of his body pulsed maddeningly with the currents of her sensuous discoveries, and as it did, his mind raced, tumbling in a vicious cycle from resentment to deliberation to abandon and back again.

If only he had been able to blame her, it would have been easier. If he could have seen she was doing it on purpose, that she was abusing the infallible power of their tight-knit link to unnerve him for some reason, he could have ignored it with clear resolve and justified resentment. However, his logical side intervened; she had no motive for this, not really. Besides which, he had only to steal undetected into her mind to know everything, to revel in the innocence of her chaste mind, her chaste body, as it yielded to the unknown, crushing urges thoughts of him seemed to disclose.

Kylo swore internally, struggling against the sensual curl of another wave as her tide unconsciously washed over him again. Thinking of his directive, he knew the time had already arrived, much sooner than he could have anticipated. He had merely to crawl—mindful of his tender wounds—to her, to supplicate himself before her on bended knees, rip away the cloth, and intuitively bury his bandaged face between her golden thighs, and he would claim another generous, vital piece of her soul as his own, positioning him drastically closer to terminating her link to the light of the Force. And by everything that existed in the galaxy, he wanted to do it, was dying to, imagining her wet and shivering and sweet, and she would let him, he knew. Furthermore, Kylo knew all too well that he had free reign to do it, to embrace and appropriate the passion and strengthen himself as dictated by the power of the dark side, severing him even further from the abstinent practices of the Jedi. All he had to do was move.

Instead, Kylo gripped harder at the waistband as a familiar pang of outrage resurfaced amid his excitement. He felt crushed under the pressure of the veritable triumvirate that was Snoke’s orders, her desire, and his own weakening need for her, none of which, it seemed, had ever been a conscious choice. Years of training begun by the destruction of the new Jedi Order, proving himself again and again to the Supreme Leader and Knights of Ren, developing and solidifying his power over the decade to at last overcome even his greatest challenge with Han Solo falling to his blade—but all of it nevertheless undermined by this thing he could not control, these laughably common feelings that eclipsed his vast achievements and perfected inhumanity. The irony, though not lost on him, incited him to rebel, to rage against everything, even the direct orders of his master. There had to be another way, a way that left him uncompromised and restored his command. There had to be a way out.

It all could have been easily avoided if only he had simply…so long ago just….

“You’re afraid that you will never be as strong as Darth Vader.”

Gritting his teeth, Kylo released his trousers and shoved a furious hand beneath them, forcing the tips of his thumb and index finger to finally connect around the sensitive stiffness of his aching co*ck, and there he stroked his traitorous flesh, up then down and up again, in an unavoidably brief series of agonizingly slow motions. Cursing her name, it did not take long before he carelessly spilled into his hand, drawing blood from the tongue he bit to keep from crying out in the most shattering cascade of ecstasy he had ever known. Whether it was aided by her own private eruption, so near yet so far away from where he lay, he neither knew nor cared. Rather, he reeled, hand still cradling the drawn-out throb, and pressed the dew of his burning eyelids to the refreshingly cold floor as he caught his breath and felt the fog begin to dissipate.

He was not going to let her win.

Chapter 11: The First Lesson

Chapter Text

11

It seemed far too early—or possibly too late—when Rey sluggishly began to stir. The minuscule muscle memory instantly prompted her to squint in the synthetic brightness overhead, and as she shielded herself, her foggy waking thoughts drifted somewhat longingly to Jakku’s unforgiving sun. Since her hasty escape with Finn and BB-8, she had become disoriented lacking that reference point to guide her, without the warming morning stream that penetrated one of the many battle-damaged cracks of her AT-AT and signified the start of the day by lighting her makeshift kitchen.

The galaxy, Rey had found, was timeless beyond her imagining. It was temporally vague—a realm perpetually lacking beginnings and ends. And the absence of that stability seemed to be affecting her ability to maintain.

You could lose yourself forever up here, Rey thought, rubbing her eyes with the eclipsing back of her hand.

But even the reassurance that she would be back home in a matter of hours gave no comfort now. His bitter truth had robbed her of all she had possessed for as long as she could remember: hope.

The passing notion of him was enough to snap her back to the events of the previous night.

Contemplating the scene now, Rey finally succumbed to a fresh inclination of shame, though it was swiftly overshadowed by a kind of wonderment at what had possibly possessed her. Never before had she done anything so foreign to the nature she found most comfortable. She had been in a trance, almost been another person entirely—a vulgar slave to the culmination of strange impulses that had found purchase deep in her core over the last week. But being someone else had felt good, very good. For a few taboo minutes, there had been no independent facade to uphold, no thoughts of the parents who would never come for her; there had only been perceptions—sensitivity—a longing robust enough to send torrents of icy blood spilling down her legs and away from the shrewd origin of her inconsolable want.

Beneath that same probing hand, Rey blushed at the outsider’s vision of the unexpected release that had finally overtaken her on the precipice of her voluptuous climb. Despite herself, she shuddered even now at the memory of its intensity and the new, fantastic convulsions that followed, when the person she was in that explosive moment forfeited all control in every possible way and whimpered in delicious agony in lieu of crying out to the very stars.

And all because of a surreal dream. All because of him. And her own erratic power.

Rey took a calming breath and removed her hand to let in the light in at last.

Somehow she had wound up in a quaint sleeping ball in a corner of the transport hold, curled up against the wall separating the co-pilot’s half of the co*ckpit from the hull, and only now, sitting up and pulling down her disheveled man’s shirt, did she realize she had been covered with Kylo Ren’s soft robes.

Stunned at the gesture, Rey looked for him now and was equally shocked to find her impromptu medical bay at the far side of the hold empty, a bare spot now occupying where he had lain on wrinkled pilot uniforms repurposed as well-worn cushioning.

Rey would have sprung to her feet in alarm if he had not emerged from the adjacent co*ckpit in that instant. Meeting her watchful stare, his black eyes softened strangely as he turned to her with a sealed ration pack in his pale hands.

“What were you doing in there?” Rey asked impetuously. If she posed the question much too accusingly, it was only due to the sudden anxiety that flooded her cheeks upon seeing him again after her irrationally prurient night. All at once, she grew paranoid, wondering if he would be able to tell, whether some unconscious gesture or moment of lowered guard would give away her undeniably wicked indiscretions. And not just for the embarrassment, but the satisfaction it might give him if he knew, the ammunition….

You’re not right about me, she caught herself thinking and instantly hoped he had not sensed it.

“I was hungry,” he answered neutrally, impossibly tall above her. “I didn’t know where you had put the rations. And I thought you might want something too.”

He offered a field ration kit to her with one outstretched hand while the other braced his broad shoulders against the entranceway. His hunched posture only highlighted the subtle way he favored his left side.

Without thinking, Rey’s feline eyes narrowed slightly as she studied the newfound lack of tension in the slender V of his face. Why was he being so nice to her?

“I’m no expert, but I don’t think you should be moving around,” Rey said, opting to accept the food and avoid his eyes with a mild gesture to the stained bandages on his side. They had surfaced behind the bowcaster’s hole in the black-and-bloodied shirt he again donned presumably out of modesty or cold.

“No, I suppose not.”

Grasping the remaining ration pack, Kylo turned from her and followed his focus to the safe opposite side of the boxy cargo hold, where he hunched, gently and cautiously, to lower himself next to the final embedded seat of the transport’s starboard side. His booted feet stretched unknowingly toward the control covering whose simple latch had factored so heavily in deciding his fate.

Watching him, Rey knew she would have been privy to a pain-filled wince if he had chosen to face her. As it was, it took him a few seconds to gather himself before pivoting his face back into her field of vision and tearing at the pre-packaged kit in his dark lap.

“How are you feeling?” she asked with as much implied indifference as possible, following his lead to satiate her own empty stomach.

“I’m fine,” he answered shortly, his torso slightly obscured by the seat on which he now leaned a supportive elbow, lengthy back straightening against the durasteel wall.

Rey knew this to be a lie but did not feel a necessity to press the matter. Instead, she bit hungrily into a dry crust from her field ration, finding it bland and unappealing but still a vast improvement over the substandard polystarch awarded her—and more often denied her—by evil Unkar.

Having sequestered herself in the co*ckpit, Rey had avoided Kylo most of yesterday and, with hard-won effort, all of last night, her furious resentment and devastation at his revelations having snuffed out any further conversation. However, despite her continued outrage at his cruelty, Rey found the current silence too awkward. She felt the need to break it, to distract from her lingering disgrace.

“I promise to get you help once we reach Jakku. I know someone at the Niima Outpost; she’s helped me before, once when my repelling rope broke and I fell a pretty good distance. She set my leg.” Rey grimaced slightly at the memory of crawling through the blistering sand and struggling to hoist fractured bones up onto her speeder. And then the painful hunger that followed in the weeks of her recuperation.

“Anyway, we should be there in a few hours.”

This reassurance garnered no response from her companion. Rather, he continued to eat in silence and stare narrowly at the cold grey ahead, every once in a while glancing down at the packaging of the mediocre dish he consumed.

Rey paused her own laborious chewing, observing once again his stony profile, the half-covered bridge of his lengthy nose, the shadowed hair the wall behind pushed forward to frame his long face. Marking him now, she saw no obvious interest in his stoic gaze, and so she looked away, resigned to the quiet, and continued to eat.

“You shouldn’t have saved me.”

Another paused mouthful. Her eyes returned to their point of interest.

“But I thank you,” he finally added, never once looking up from the kit.

Swallowing hastily, Rey uttered a surprised but sincere “You’re welcome.”

For the next several minutes, the two finished their meals in the placid wake of the exchange. The stillness was only broken when Rey, sufficiently full, rose to deposit the empty dish in the ship’s vacuum disposal, which was installed beneath a flexible rubberized seal in the wall opposite against which Kylo still rested. In doing this, Rey gathered up the black robes that had covered her, folded them carefully over one arm, and laid the tidy stack—an unspoken gesture of thanks—lightly near his feet after unloading her trash.

“You were cold,” he said, dark eyes rising up to meet her now.

“How could you tell?” she laughed slightly.

“I know.”

The brief crack of Rey’s smile faded as quickly as it had formed on her blush-hued lips, and breaking away from his gaze, her sculpted cheeks flushed as they seemed to do automatically whenever he alluded to their connection—the joint wavelength that remained a mystery to her despite its potency and utter inescapability. Not even a full week had passed and she had already been so changed by this presence, its effective coils so deeply rooted in her being that her very identity now seemed to her a blur, an ambiguous mirage infusing into the searing surface of the swirling desert skyline. A shared existence. Rey safely assumed his experience had mirrored hers for the most part, but she was wholly certain (“You think you know everything just because of this bond…”) that he at least knew something substantial about all of it, and that was information she desperately craved. If she could get him to talk….

Never one to back down, or so she had discovered in her recent blossoming self-awareness, Rey seized the opening to soundlessly plop down across from Kylo’s feet and fold her own, crossed-legged, effectively cornering him as she leaned equally against the icy hull.

“Listen,” she began unsteadily, surveying the unstable meeting place between honesty and weakness, “I can’t say I understand much of what has happened in the past few days. Nothing has been the same since that BB unit rolled into my life. Honestly, things have progressively gotten more complicated at every turn. One minute it’s just any other day of being on my own, and the next thing I know I’m enemy no. 1 of the First Order. Nothing was ever easy for me, but at least it was simple. You said it yourself—I’m just a scavenger. I just survived and waited and waited and survived. Whatever’s happened to me, all this…power…out of nowhere…I don’t deserve any of it. I’m nothing even close to a Jedi. I didn’t ask for any of it, but it feels like it’s here to stay. It doesn’t help that I know so little about what’s happening to me. And it doesn’t help that I know absolutely nothing about what’s happening between us.”

Across from her, Kylo’s slender jaw tensed.

“I know you know something, Kylo. What happened back there on the base, in that room? Why are we so impossibly exposed to each other now? It’s like everything around me is a door I can open, except for you—you’re already open because you’re always there, practically ingrained in me. You’re like a raw nerve. Sometimes it’s difficult for me to even function….”

Silence radiated from his downturned gaze as Rey left the statement unfinished in fear of overstepping that line. Her frustration mounting, she uncrossed the foreign black of her pants and brought her knees up to her chest.

“I know you still feel it there too,” she added, solidifying her shins to her torso with steadying arms placed over her shaking knees. “You can be quiet all you please or pretend it’s not happening—whatever you’d like—but I know it’s the same for you.”

Rey narrowed her eyes at his indifference, watching him, cat-like, her head lowered over her folded arms.

“I saw you, you know. I saw you as a little boy.”

Kylo’s eyes snapped to meet her upturned ones instantly, their disinterest giving way to something bordering annoyance or worry in spite of themselves.

“You were on the Millennium Falcon, in the co*ckpit. With your father. You were so young. Happy, laughing—a different person. You were Ben Solo.”

The black eyes twitched in a mediated anguish before her, and the fingers tightened instinctively at his sides.

“Why did I see that, Kylo? What’s happened to us?”

Rey noted the accelerated rise and fall of his broad chest beneath its ragged tunic, and suddenly she was unsure of whether he would speak, remain content bottled up, or lash out and strike her bold mouth with the straining fingers flanking his legs. Given his newfound civility that day, Rey nearly regretting pressing him this mercilessly, though that dread soon subsided when his full lips eventually slackened and formed meticulous words.

“It’s called a Force bond.”

He was articulate but subdued, and Rey detected the honesty underlying his tempered reply.

“The Force has linked us together in every way possible. This wasn’t common, even back when the Jedi and Sith were abundant in the galaxy. Masters would initiate Force-bonding with their apprentices; they made a conscious decision to link themselves together. I was told our situation is…unique—some sort of aberration in the Force.”

“Because it just happened on its own?”

“Yes. I don’t know why. I can only assume it has something to do with your Force sensitivity, how immense it is.”

Rey frowned slightly, initially resenting being the sole figure of blame, but, weighing the circ*mstances, she conceded to the soundness of his logic. At the same time, she could no longer ignore the burgeoning perception that he had just unexpectedly leveled one of the many formidable walls he had built up against her. A foreign humanity had abruptly crept into his low-pitched voice, a rare exposure he had seemingly denied her until this very moment. Rey could have almost believed they were allies, united to fight against the same common threat.

“How do we stop it?”

It was Kylo who gave a marginal smile now, though its undercurrent was far from pleasant and its corners curled with noticeable bitterness.

“That was my first question too. Supreme Leader Snoke said we can’t stop it. It’s permanent.”

“Who is that?” Rey asked, masking her disappointment by questioning the credibility of his source.

“My master. He is the wisest being in the galaxy. He would know.”

Mind racing, Rey scoffed silently at Kylo’s audacious statement. The monstrous creature who would train the little boy she had seen in the vision to become the patricidal Kylo Ren was anything but wise—evil, manipulative, cunning, and unquestionably powerful, but no, not wise. Nevertheless, a hollow legitimacy somehow rang true and equally dreadful to her, that she would never—no matter what vast reaches she flew to the intangible edges of the galaxy—not feel him trespassing in her soul. And what if it worsened the farther she ran? What if it intensified as time went by? It was already so much, almost debilitating.

“I don’t think we should discredit the possibility that we can reverse this. You said the Jedi and the Sith used to Force bond with their apprentices. Did they leave any records, anything we might be able to learn from? Maybe there is a way to stop it and your master just doesn’t know.”

Kylo paused, seemingly finding her suggestion encouraging and sensible beneath his skepticism.

“We could consult the remaining holocrons;” he proposed, and then, for her benefit, added, “holographic information containers passed down through the ages by both the Jedi and Sith.”

“Where can we find those?”

“They are scattered throughout the galaxy. The First Order actually has an impressive library of preserved holocrons that were confiscated, some of which date back to the Old Republic-”

“Well, we’re going to have to find them elsewhere then, I’m afraid,” Rey said coldly, cutting him off in hopes of reinforcing the notion that he would not be returning to the First Order anytime soon.

Despite her interruption, Kylo remained collected, and for an instant, Rey even imagined she saw the sliver of his malicious smirk resurface and elevate the small brown mole above the right corner of his lip line.

Suddenly handing his consumed ration pack to Rey to throw away above her head, it was Kylo who continued the conversation.

“I’m assuming by now you have a fair grasp of the Force. You’ve figured out how to utilize it easily enough with no guidance.”

Unsure whether the question was rhetorical, Rey fell into a momentary silence while disposing of his dish.

“What do you think the Force is, Rey?” he asked curiously, waiting until the mechanical whoosh of the disposal seal had sounded and she had resumed clinging to her long legs.

Settling back in front of Kylo’s boots, Rey all at once envisioned herself again the arachnid, residing in the heart of the web whose strands she had learned to tug. This was succeeded by the memory—the rush and impact—of Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber hilt connecting with her coaxing palm, no more a foreign object than if it had been a careless hand or foot she had leaned on too long and whose circulation she had gradually awakened.

“Pure energy,” she finally summarized, concentrating on it even now, its positive charge flowing generously through her as she sat in the hold of the insignificant shuttle speeding through the Expansion Region. “I feel as if everything is connected, and all of it is equal despite its size. It doesn’t come as easily as it does with you, but I can feel the energy of everything around me. And if I concentrate hard enough, I can use my connection to that energy to move things just by thinking they are an extension of me.”

“You’re right,” Kylo said, giving a slight nod of approval. “All living things in the entire galaxy have an energy, and all those energies are bound and networked. The Force is that network, that energy field. You are correct that the Force connects you to everything. Being Force-sensitive, you have the ability to use the connections to manipulate those energies. What our bond means is that the link between our two energies is abnormally clear and accessible, which allows a great deal to pass back and forth, so much so that….”

“We are becoming dependent upon one another?”

Rey raised an amused eyebrow at him, her completion purely mental.

“Something like that,” Kylo admitted in spite of himself, consistently taken aback by the ease at which she could speak inside his unguarded mind. “But your strength also compounds it, Rey. It’s unbridled; it has no focus, and that affects us both. There are many reasons why I told you that you need a teacher.”

“Why does there even have to be a dark side to the Force? I don’t understand. To me the Force feels so peaceful, so pure and passive.”

“That’s because you’re viewing it through the lens of your own energy. The energy of every living thing is grounded in its emotions, whether they are dark or light. So, everything has a dark and light side. It stands to reason the energy field has to reflect the dichotomy of what it comprises.”

Rey bit her lip slightly, contemplating the rationale. What he said made perfect sense to her, and the subtle relief of knowing more about the power flowing through her body and mind quietly combated her recurring notions of hopelessness at their shared predicament.

“And I can tell you that the emotions some view as negative are actually untapped wells of strength. You can’t even imagine, Rey.”

“No, I can’t,” she shot back defiantly, narrowing her copper eyes again.

Somewhat annoyed, Kylo co*cked his black brow somewhat accusingly toward her.

“Your energy isn’t really all passive and peaceful, now is it though?”

Taken aback by the insinuation, Rey’s mouth fell agape behind her penitently folded hands.

“You could lie, but I’d know, wouldn’t I?” he grinned slightly. “No, I’m willing to bet a great deal of what flows through you doesn’t come from the calm places you’d like to claim. That massive gift of yours isn’t all light energy; we both know it’s true. You’re a grey area at best.”

Her long neck straightening, Rey quickly presented him with her own indignant profile, feeling the blood rush panicked to the surface of her cold skin. Her dumbfounded thoughts raced to piece together her defense—any possible argument—to counter his vicious implications, but nothing came to mind other than the indisputable vision of meeting his imitation lips in that vile cave.

Does he know? Please, no.

“But there’s nothing wrong with that, Rey. You need to let go of this nagging notion of goodness you carry. Your morality is only holding you back. You have no idea how powerful you could become.”

Rey shrank beneath the fresh weight of his emphatic appeals, isolating herself as if her honesty had been a careless spring that only nurtured his malevolence. Her deep-seated hunger to explore the Force and master the ability to control it persisted, but that desire was overruled by her own wariness of the way he mixed facts with his own twisted bias. Her chest sinking, Rey feared learning anything from him would always be a slippery slope—benevolent truths forever underscored by treachery—which, considering their inseparability, daunted her. The conversation that had begun productively now seemed a harbinger of that dread, to the point where Rey now wished she had never initiated it. She felt much less threatened by him when he merely wanted to kill her.

No doubt sensing Rey’s rapid egression, Kylo withdrew both literally and figuratively, lifting his sharp chin and repositioning his head against the wall to watch her predatorily beyond his bandages and upturned nose.

“Fine. We don’t have to talk about that.”

The throbbing slice adorning Rey’s shoulder suddenly felt much cooler against the durasteel.

“But we could begin some basic training.”

Turning back to him, Rey flashed the epitome of a warning glance.

“Relax,” Kylo said curtly with a much slower shake of his head. “This can be introductory. There are exercises every Force-user should master at the beginning, regardless of the chosen path. It’s a completely neutral exercise. Believe me—I’ve been on both sides.”

“Like what?” Rey questioned cautiously, her interest piqued.

“We could begin with guided meditation, to build your concentration and awareness of the Force. You’ve utilized it out of necessity up to this point, but you’ve never had time to fully explore it unrushed, to truly familiarize yourself with it. This will always be a good exercise for you to do on your own, and you should do it often. I do it as often as I can. Never take your connection with the Force for granted—there is always room for growth.”

“Guided?”

“Just this time, to show you. It should be easy considering our...situation.”

Rey’s full lower lip tensed as she observed his downturned eyes—focused unwaveringly on her—for any disclosure of ill will. It was routinely difficult to tell with him; the windows to his soul were naturally too unforgiving, too bottomless. However, their current lenity and the sudden aura of ease she derived from very gently brushing his mind gave her a tiny measure of reassurance. Also, the stark truth was that Rey desperately yearned to learn everything within reason, especially any method of combating her increasingly unruly urges.

“What do I have to do?” she asked, brushing back a loose tendril of hair that had fallen forward.

“Sit up, but make yourself comfortable. Lower your knees.”

Following his instructions, Rey repositioned herself as Kylo simultaneously pulled his own torso upright to face her equally head on. Watching her unfolding knees as she did this, Rey was oblivious to the sudden arousal these simple commands of her body fueled in him.

“Close your eyes,” Kylo said with an indicatory tremor before gently clearing his own throat to mask it.

Already leery of being so near to Kylo Ren in general, Rey hesitated briefly, assessing the distance in terms of her ability to dodge any attack from the masculine hands that now lay upturned and prostrate on his thighs. Cautious but confident in his incapacitation, Rey followed his lead, placing her lax palms upward and shutting his shadowed eyelids from her vision.

“Clear your mind of everything except the Force. Concentrate on it. Focus on it flowing through you, through me, through us. Feel it inside this ship and outside, in the stars, connecting us to them. Remember that it’s everywhere.”

Rey obeyed in the blackness, lessening her breathing until it grew inconsequential and her physical body became a mere afterthought. Focusing first to visualize the strands of her web—beginning with the strand that effectively bound her to Kylo—Rey accidentally strummed the taut silk rather than merely observing its energy. This resulted in thick vibrations that resonated at both hubs, exposing the pulse of their pull and inundating her senses with crippling desire. Stigmatized and again cognizant of her now-burning body, she retreated.

“No,” Kylo said shakily, clenching damp fingers in protest against his ignited lust. “Don’t worry about that now. Don’t pull back. This source of energy is tremendous, and if you choose not to use it, you’re going to have to learn how to get past it. Let it go, Rey.”

“I can’t,” she shuddered shamefully at the center of the web, fighting to again rid herself of her aching body.

“Yes, you can. Go beyond it; go past me. Let it go and concentrate. Follow the web.”

Kylo’s stern tone resounding in her private blackness, Rey gradually emptied her flooded mind the way she would unload her daily cache for cleaning at the Niima Outpost: meticulously, piece by piece. Gradually her trembling hands steadied and uncurled again over her knees, and it was not long before she forgot they existed at all. She was too busy trailing the silk, finding it still easier to visualize herself doing this, hovering over the refined channel of energy as it led her a billion lightyears away. Beneath her, the vitality of the strand trilled in the realm of her awareness, while above her, infinite lines crisscrossed and ebbed from one point of the network to the next, their energies staggering and inescapable. Her accessible mind completely transparent and boundless, Rey basked in this newfound perception, mingling with limitless interwoven energies as if they were part of her—neurons firing within her own expanded brain. These extensions flowed from the suns to the stars, from the stars to the planets, from the planets to the clouds, from the clouds to the droplets, and then from the droplets to the cerulean sea. They led her someplace safe, or perhaps she led them someplace safe.

“Take me there, Rey.”

The luminous strands surging from the white caps and everything they covered reached toward the green island in the distance.

“Take me to the safe place.”

Now the rocky brown ledges sliced naturally into the verdant, jagged but impenetrable beneath the crashing of those same waves. Each narrow blade of grass and every curl of emerald moss radiated with energy in a living tapestry, and though she could not physically affect any of it, Rey plainly sensed the Force’s vibration in every animated strand that built the island upward and upward into the blue sky. It filled her to the brim, her porous, eager mind—so open and welcoming—as well as the absentee body she had left lifetimes away.

Following the net up her island’s winding ladder of chiseled, stony stairs, Rey grew aware of the presence of something altogether massive. A special energy pulsed from the heights of the rugged peaks. In all the years and lonely nights of Rey’s dreams and imaginings, it had never before presented itself, but now its strong emanation practically painted the mountaintops with its dynamic glow.

“What’s up there, Rey?”

“I don’t know. It’s so powerful. Can you feel it?”

A long pause.

“Yes.”

“It’s…I’ve never…” Rey stammered, her mentality unexpectedly faltering. The serene field of the Force began to blur in her mind’s eye and detach from her soul.

“What’s…happening?” she asked, fading rapidly.

Rey was able to glimpse the green aura atop the mountain only briefly before losing consciousness.

When she awoke an untold amount of time later, crumpled on the freezing floor of the command shuttle, it was to the sight of twin white feet, polished and positioned threateningly close to her face.

Gasping at the jolting sight, Rey sprang up and away from the Stormtrooper who presently loomed over her. Beyond the intruder, the shuttle’s lowered loading ramp gave way to several other troopers, blasters drawn, one of which—presumably of higher rank—was plated in reflective metal armor and stared unwaveringly in Rey’s direction. Next to the silver leader, a black-clothed First Order officer with orange-brown hair spoke to Kylo Ren, who sat upright upon an official medical gurney hoisted by two grey medical droids. The pair quieted and turned to look at her as well.

Completely speechless, Rey’s mouth dropped aghast as she glared in disbelief and betrayal, and for a split-second, Kylo’s cold eyes seemed to waver under her daggers, to look away in something resembling guilt. They soon uplifted with reinforced frigidity, however, returning her accusatory stare with renewed, icy willpower.

“Take her to the medical bay,” Kylo finally ordered, swallowing hard from behind the droid’s shoulder.

“You utter bastard,” Rey whispered.

Chapter 12: A Guest of the First Order

Chapter Text

12

All but cloaked in infinite blackness, the broad obelisk of the Finalizer’s extensive hull sped forward in the quiet cold of space. Only very dully did the twinkling illuminations of far-off stars betray the battlecruiser’s veneer, highlighting the seemingly microscopic projections and depressions of its pockmarked surface, but never once dispelling the shadows of the beast’s smooth underbelly. The nearly 3,000 monochrome meters of armored skin only moderately disclosed the gradual slope of its immense height, the scattered white specks of its reinforced viewports, and the jutting protrusions of its various armaments and scanners.

Perhaps due to its intimidating mass, the Star Destroyer seemed to creep, its near-silent ion propulsion driving it stealthily onward like the surefooted stride of some animal predator mid-stalk. This calm menace was secretly contradicted by the countless activities enlivening its many interior layers. Thousands of First Order officers, Stormtroopers, and enlisted personnel manning the late shift of the standard day toiled in the midst of their responsibilities. Safe just outside the reactor core, engineers and maintenance crew checked and rechecked their lists alongside repair droids in the ship’s belly, moderating and adjusting as required. Below the Stormtrooper barracks, the white-clad early morning unit hustled through maneuvers in the training complex at the command of their squad leaders. Seated high above them all in the ship’s apex, high-ranking First Order officers and pilots manned the primary bridge, treading its polished floors with collected tenacity. Here and there, the corridors comprising the Finalizer’s vast circulatory system teemed with activity of various sorts, although some inevitably remained undisturbed—especially during this last slated shift—their diffused lights dimmed and evenly spaced along the cobalt sheen of the lengthy hallways. Many such hallways stood adjacent to the remaining majority of thousands upon thousands who slept the sleep of the just in their respective hierarchical quarters.

Despite the late hour, Kylo Ren was not among those who slept. In fact, he was fully awake, although in the fog of unexpected déjà vu, having just entered the maximum security detention cell near the ship’s bow. Breezing past the four Stormtrooper guards posted as far away from Rey as safely possible and then listening to the holding cell doors seal shut through the mediation of his mask, his mind now floundered measuring the days elapsed since he had gone to her on Starkiller Base, the blink in time when events had taken such an unforeseen shift, and he faltered at the realization that her presence in his life had come to distort even time itself. It now seemed as though she had always been there rather than clumsily barging her way into his life at random.

But, in a way, she always has, remember.

Shaking free of his mind for the millionth time that tedious day, Kylo quickly found the manual controls next to the door, locked himself inside, and extinguished the automatic overhead lights as quickly as they had flooded. Returned to the welcoming darkness of the observation foyer, the curved strips of metal lining his mask’s visor now only reflected a dull glow. Kylo turned to face that glow, though he was careful not to move anywhere toward it.

Some 12 feet away, Rey lay uncomfortably beneath the lowered light, her muslin-clad knees pulled tightly to her chest for warmth as she slept on the transparent cell’s single bench, affixed near the opposite holding wall behind the one-way transparisteel. Facing him in her unconsciousness, her expression exuded a delicate mixture of exhaustion and serenity. Her long eyelashes did not flutter under the weight of any dreams, but the indicators of stress painted crescent outlines beneath her closed eyelids.

Seeing her for the first time since they both had been carted separately to the ship’s med bay, Kylo grew attuned to an organic sense of relief that streamed through his veins, a warming swell that at last gave respite from the maddening sensations he had tried to smother and kill for the more than three days they had been parted. No, admittedly he had never stopped feeling the draw to her, not beneath the surgical droids’ hands on the examination table nor while submerged in the prescribed bacta tank. The fatigue had only multiplied when she had been taken to the Detention Center and he had been released in “oddly exceptional condition—already well-healed considering the scope of the injuries” (no doubt due to Rey’s powerful contributions aboard the shuttle). It had tugged at him with its electrified claws in both private and public, stifling him during the long days and suffocating him during the sleepless nights. And as he suspected, only now, having admitted defeat and come crawling to her practically on hands and knees, did he feel any shred of slack in the devastating magnetism.

Kylo’s rage now flared at the success of this experiment. He had never wanted so strongly to be wrong about anything, but his accuracy stubbornly persisted, and there was nothing to be done about it at present.

There was also no one to which he could turn.

Tracing the soft lines of Rey’s upturned cheek from behind his tempered visor, Kylo replayed his audience with Supreme Leader Snoke from earlier that night, their first meeting since his retrieval. Head bowed, Kylo had honestly but decisively relayed all his observations of the past week. As before, he was careful to omit certain unmentionable details—many more this time than last. When he had finished, the figure seated upon the shadowed platform before him had reclined and paused in what seemed to be annoyed contemplation.

“Impressive,” Snoke had finally said, tapping the two stick-like index fingers of his skeletal hands together at his chest as the others interwove. “Her innate abilities have proven beyond even my expectations. There is no question that she must join us or die. The former will be far more beneficial to our cause, but the latter cannot be dismissed should she prove untrainable. Either way, she cannot be left to join the Resistance, especially now that we have been so severely set back in our plans. Despite her lack of guidance, she could prove to be a dire threat to the First Order. Even without Skywalker, she would be an effective ally to the Resistance—something we cannot afford.”

“I understand, Supreme Leader.”

“Do you, my apprentice? Then why do I sense such hesitation from you? I was under the impression that we had agreed the girl must be seduced to the dark side, and yet here you are, having accomplished nothing, even after ample opportunity. Absolutely nothing, and the scars to prove it.”

Kylo had been left speechless in his mortification, mouth slackening beneath the concealing façade of his new mask. When he was finally able to dispel his exasperation and anger, the words he formed were equally as powerless and inconsequential as he felt.

“Master, the Force bond between me and the girl…. It has proven…formidable.”

“I will not accept this weakness, Kylo Ren,” Snoke had cut him off, the phlegm of outrage noticeably flying. “It is true that your own training is not yet finished, but I know I have not taught you to succumb to such cowardice, especially when the girl is clay in your very hands. I refuse to believe you have allowed yourself to be intimidated by something even the feeble Jedi masters could maintain with their padawans; you, the master of the Knights of Ren, you who possess the ashes of hundreds of slain enemies. Your recalcitrance disappoints me as much as your failure to protect the Base’s weapon.”

It was then that Kylo had known with utter certainty that Snoke altogether underrated the unique nature of the Force bond Kylo and Rey shared, either underestimating its strength or simply not caring in the slightest.

“Bring the girl to me tomorrow. I want to meet this little scavenger who troubles you so.”

“Yes, my master,” Kylo had affirmed obediently in his disgrace, and then, in an attempt to redeem himself, had delivered the planned news. “There is one more matter, Supreme Leader: the girl has shown me the whereabouts of Luke Skywalker.”

He doesn’t want to understand, Kylo thought now, leather-lined fingers repeatedly clenching an invisible lightsaber as he watched Rey’s sleeping mouth.

His mask, the returned motif that defined Kylo Ren, suddenly felt too constricting, too stuffy despite its meticulously engineered ventilation. Unlocking the mechanism in earnest, Kylo whisked the whole apparatus off to free his humid skin and take in the cool air. Exposed. But the scar she had given him still burned despite the phenomenal way it had healed to leave only a deep crevice of pinkish tissue spanning the near length of his long face.

He doesn’t care to know the truth.

Leaving the meeting with Supreme Leader Snoke, Kylo had returned to his quarters and, after a cathartic outburst of thrashing and pacing, had again foolishly attempted sleep before finally conceding to find her cell.

He doesn’t understand what really hangs in the balance.

Snoke’s disgust rang in Kylo’s ears, colliding with own palpable desperation. Not once in their multiple years as master and apprentice had Snoke been wrong about anything, and Kylo’s sudden realization of his master’s fallibility only served to propel his own self-doubt. He had never felt so aimless, betrayed and divided by his own master’s willful ignorance, and no amount of slashing or smashing would ever relieve him of this newfound isolation from his mentor and most-trusted confidant.

Kylo abandoned his mask at the door and followed the electric trail, growing warmer with every step toward the transparisteel hub dividing the observation foyer. Appearing out of place, like some exotic creature on display, Rey paid him no mind in her unconscious state, not even when he circled to the opposite side of the glass-like cube, crossing into the other half of the room situated at her back. Approaching the towering walls as cautiously as if she might possibly see him, Kylo hesitated several times, turning away from the diffused brightness and freezing in small fits of internal rebellion before succumbing again to the pull toward her prisoner’s cage. He finally reached the one-way barrier, his alabaster face all the whiter in the low glow, and briefly looked down at her blunt vulnerability before crouching next to her. Instinctively, his hand inched out to the transparisteel, spread its trembling fingers, and fell flat against the impenetrable boundary that divided the light from the dark.

Seemingly concentrated through this outstretched conductor, the bond now fluttered from his sudden closeness. It was only a matter of seconds before Rey instinctively stirred and rolled—rotating her slender torso and long limbs toward him in a graceful series of fluid motions—folding her chilled arms to her chest and yawning diminutively, a small act that carried with it for Kylo all the charm in the galaxy. Her eyes never opened, placid above the constellation of girlish freckles that adorned her petite nose.

Kylo reeled but was unable to look away. The call to light echoed to him in every detail, from the soft strands of hair that traversed her temples to the immense power radiating beneath her tranquility. And despite this—despite the chaos its prying fingers strummed within him, the merciless tug that promised relief if only he could touch her, and his newfound estrangement from Snoke—Kylo felt a sense of comfort at her side, if only for now. For in this moment, there was no weakness, no failure, no insecurity. There was only her perfection in his eyes.

How long Kylo basked there, in the wake of her somnolent glow, he did not know. When he finally returned to himself, black eyebrows suddenly furrowing, he jerked his hand away from the clear wall as if it were white-hot and fell backward. His self-consciousness assaulted him instantly, highly charged with the fresh alarm of having lost himself so completely with such ease, and riding the coattails of that fear was a protective anger he now plunged back into as if it were a safety net. He let its prickly arms envelop him tightly, finding a renewed fortitude in its hatred of her and everything she had done to undermine all he had accomplished. Why had he come here? By everything he knew, it had been a mistaken show of weakness.

I will not fail you, grandfather. I will carry on the strength of your lineage.

Multiple meters and many levels away from the Detention Center, the hunched form of General Hux pulled back from his viewscreen, his divisive eyes reflecting the relayed motion of Kylo stomping back to the foyer door, rapidly replacing the mask and hood, and leaving the holding cell in his tracks.

---

Seven hours and little sleep later, Kylo returned to the Detention Center with restored resolve in the face of his mounting exhaustion. Thankfully, the activity of the late morning was much more settling than the barren quiet of his earlier call. A mouse droid sped noisily away from the lift tube as he stepped into the Detention level. The corridor spanning the length of the sector had since been brightened for standard hours, and, far removed from the basic holding cells, two additional troopers had been stationed outside her privileged door. Of course, that he did not come of his own despondent accord now made a great deal of difference as well, though he did catch himself briefly pausing mid-stride and staring distractedly though the open doorway of the unoccupied interrogation room nearest her cell.

This time he waited outside the entrance—all the time in the world—to receive the lead Stormtrooper’s report that the girl had been properly prepared for her audience with Supreme Leader Snoke as instructed earlier that morning. “The prisoner” was ready. His prisoner.

Kylo entered the observation foyer for the second time that day and, without hesitation, advanced upon the holding cell.

If his entrance initiated any disturbance in their link, she chose to outright ignore it. She remained leaning forward, her chin rested upon her kneecaps and her lithe arms stretching to grasp to tops of the freshly booted feet that held her attention. Her hair had been washed, dried, and brushed, Kylo noted, admiring its new sheen as it poured, a silky auburn waterfall of a braid, down between her shoulders. As per his instructions, he knew the rest of her had been bathed and groomed to current human female standards as well, and the mere notion of her carefully tended body immediately compromised every ounce of composure he had upheld upon entering the cell. Quieting the abrupt frenzy in his blood, Kylo concentrated instead on her clothing, which appeared to meet his specifications beyond the standard prisoner muslin she had shivered beneath the last few days. There was the lengthy but sleeveless tunic—slim-fitting but practical for her impending training—as well as the arm coverlets he had thought she might appreciate for their warmth and mimicry of her desert garments. There were also the trousers and short-sleeved over-jacket—all of it a neutral but conspicuous cool grey among the emblematic black and white of the ship’s crew. Admittedly, he had never seen her look so immaculate.

In superfluous haste, Kylo fumbled with the holding cell control panel before at last disabling the transparisteel’s one-way capabilities.

Rey’s planted chin lifted somewhat from her legs and turned almost begrudgingly to acknowledge him. Seemingly not intimidated by his sudden presence at her cell-side, she lay her left cheek lazily upon her knees and stared at him sideways with what could only be described as an air of boredom. The act of indifference annoyed and subsequently recollected Kylo.

“The creature, back in his mask,” Rey commented audaciously with vertical mouth. “To what do I owe the visit?”

“The Supreme Leader of the First Order has instructed me to bring you to him.”

“Is that a fact? Snoke? Your master.”

“Yes. And yours now.”

“I see,” Rey said, slitting her eyes. “That explains the humiliating scrub-down with the Detention droids this morning, and the new clothes. Thank you for that humbling experience.”

Beneath his mask, Kylo ignored her sarcasm, instead swallowing hard and burying an alluring image in the dirt of his mind. On the other side of the wall, Rey sat upright and folded her arms tightly over crooked knees the way she had on his command shuttle.

“You activated the ship’s tracking device, didn’t you? That’s what you were doing in the co*ckpit.”

“I told you I would never become a prisoner of the Resistance.”

“Yes, you did,” Rey said, seemingly mulling over the legitimacy of his actions. “I just never thought you would….”

Kylo formulated a daggered rebuttal, but Rey’s intelligence prevented her from finishing, no doubt aware of the ridiculousness of any possible ending to her statement. Why would she not suspect him of wanting to recapture her? She now withdrew from the subject, and he had only to skim the surface of her mind to sense that she rather blamed herself for not thinking to disarm the tracker, for underestimating him and fabricating a sense of obligation for the wounds she had helped heal. Her frustration elicited a faint smirk from under his mask.

A moment of silence passed before Rey rose from the bench. Her face soon met his mask on the other side of the thin transparisteel, her desert skin noticeably losing its golden tan.

“So, you still mean to train me.”

“With the supervision of the Supreme Leader,” Kylo answered lowly in the definite hum of their bond.

The fiery brown of Rey’s eyes scorched straight through his deceptive visor.

“You’ll have to forgive me if I say, judging from our last session, your training is the last thing in the universe I want. I know you weren’t lying about the meditation. It was impartial—until you took advantage of it—and it did help me. I’ve been practicing using it since, and it’s made me stronger. I agree that I need a teacher. But I cannot be taught by someone who would betray me, and that’s the essence of your dark side, isn’t it, always? Betrayal. Fear. Hatred.”

“All sources of unfathomable power the Jedi were too weak, too afraid to wield….,” he said, then swallowed his bile.

“That is not who I am. And I can’t trust you.”

“You don’t have to trust me to let me teach you how to use your power optimally,” he reasoned before delivering the blow. “But what you can trust is that if you don’t begin to entertain the idea, Snoke will have you killed inside the hour.”

Rey flinched from her half of the transparisteel, the bluff of her confidence not only called out but gravely countered. Her gaze sank, more in disappointment than dread, before returning to him once and then breaking away completely.

“That’s the alternative then?” she asked matter-of-factly from the opposite side of her intricately woven braid.

Kylo allowed his silence to answer her and then waited somewhat impatiently for a reply. His curiosity piqued when she did not speak after a minute, and it utterly skyrocketed when he again followed their tingling current with stealthy feelers and found her impenetrable. He had somehow expected her to instead be crystal, terrified but fully accessible in a notion of martyrdom. However, the beige skin of her exposed upper arms did not even tremble with impending dread. What would she not want him to—?

She thinks she can resist it.

The realization took him by surprise.

She thinks she can take only what she needs and simply play along until she either escapes or the Resistance comes.

A composited grin of admiration and amusem*nt overtook the fullness of Kylo’s hidden mouth.

All right then, Rey. Let’s see how far that gets you with the dark side. You’ll understand soon enough.

“Let’s not keep your master waiting then,” Rey suddenly announced, pivoting back to meet his mask with all-too-contrived determination.

“You’re already learning.”

---

Trailing the sheen of black robes that billowed from Kylo’s waist, Rey tried her utmost to ignore the turned heads she wrested from Stormtrooper and prisoner alike during their exit from the Detention Level. Somewhat surprised herself that Kylo had not restrained her as an exercise in caution, Rey could imagine the unusual sight of a freehanded prisoner, all long hair and slender frame at the broad back of Kylo Ren. Thus she felt compelled to play the part—chin up, shoulders back, and peripheral glances disguised: an apprentice to the commanders—Force help me; can I really do this?—of the First Order.

Luckily, the walk through the sector seemed to end as promptly as it began, as they soon ascended the lift tube in what proved to be a long and adequately silent ride. It was lengthy enough that Rey suspected Snoke’s reception chamber must sit just forward of and below the protected primary command bridge (she easily recognized the tell-tale architecture of the Star Destroyer, though it had been notably updated from the ravaged heaps that still lay baking in the Jakku heat). When the upward motion of the compartment finally slowed to a halt, Rey was momentarily startled when the opposite side of the lift tube slid open behind her. It only occurred to her then that they were entering a highly restricted area of the battlecruiser.

Without hesitation, Kylo ushered her into a starkly lit but altogether uninviting foyer of metal walls and sparse seating. At the far end, two Stormtroopers with red pauldrons adorning their shoulders stood erect, their otherwise colorless armor sliced by the blasters angled across their torsos. Rey was not given the necessary split-second she needed to collect herself between them. The abundant doors hissed aside as soon as Kylo neared, and Rey turned her wary eyes to the guards one final time as she followed him into the dark.

Sealed inside, it took her eyes a few seconds to adjust to the somber interior of Snoke’s reception chamber. The only source of light she could discern was the bright path on which they now walked, a brilliant strip of blinding white evenly bisecting the room’s infinite blackness. Because of this, it was difficult for Rey to guess the room’s exact height or how far into the pitch it extended on either side. Beyond her feet—falling silently on the walkway’s fluorescence behind Kylo’s characteristic plodding—she gained no depth perception until, peeking over his left shoulder, she glimpsed the impending giant of a gargantuan viewport. The creeping light of the universe passed through it and bounced—shinier and shinier—off the reflective black of the walls as they neared its clear transparisteel. She suspected at the end of the pale strip was a front-row seat to the fight for the galaxy.

“Ah,” she suddenly heard beyond Kylo.

“Master,” Kylo said, dropping to an obedient knee in front of her and subsequently revealing their host.

Even somewhat bathed in the shadows, he repulsed Rey immediately. Her eyes flew to the deep crevice of a scar that snaked its way over his paper-thin skull and stopped between his eyes like the limit of a ravine. Somewhat more unfavorable was the large section of missing cheek that all but revealed the subcutaneous muscles and tendons of his skeletal jaw. Perhaps the worst to Rey, however, were his beady onyx eyes—not the beautiful glossy black of Kylo’s, wherein the iris and pupil rarely had any noticeable division. No, even the whites of this man’s—this thing’s—eyes appeared inky, two misshapen orbs whose centers were only animated by the radiance of the walkway before them. The translucent flesh below the sunken sockets was bathed in a bloody under-glow of red lights inset strategically around the base of a platform that elevated his arm chair several feet above them. Behind his illuminated skull, the stars passed them by, oblivious to Rey’s fear.

Kylo rose ahead of Rey and moved to her left side, taking advantage of where the walkway widened at the base of the platform steps.

Some six feet about them, Kylo’s master leaned forward on the arms of his “throne.”

“So, this is the scavenger I’ve heard so much about,” Snoke said in a bottomless bass growl that sounded biologically as menacing as Kylo’s voice sounded mechanically.

Having no real reply, Rey returned the gaze of this seemingly fragile but terrifying thing seated above her.

Glancing down between Rey and Kylo, Snoke suddenly commented, almost absentmindedly, “I see now.” The tone of his voice had become lackluster, drained of its initial venom and position of privilege. She did not have to know him to perceive how taken aback he now sounded, a star-struck observer in the presence of some monumental force….

The bond, Rey realized and felt an instantaneous surge of embarrassment. Beside her, Kylo lowered his head slightly.

“Yes, I see it. Unbelievable. Just extraordinary….”

Above them, the figure silenced and gathered itself, seemingly careful not to reveal too much about the nerve center of incredible energy that visible charged the Force between the two figures at his feet.

“Master, she has acquiesced to be trained,” Kylo offered, obviously attempting to change the subject.

“Is that so?” Snoke asked, his sneering undertone revived. “That is a prudent decision, my dear, though somewhat suspicious, I must say. Considering your preceding reputation, I would have anticipated more…resistance.”

In spite of the shadows of the vast reception chamber, Rey felt the heat of an invisible spotlight. A fresh interrogation had initiated, one equally as daunting as the previous one with Kylo had begun.

“What compels you to train under Kylo Ren’s guidance?”

“Supreme—”

“My apprentice!” Snoke suddenly roared, creating a startling reverberation in the chamber and effectively snuffing out Kylo’s interjection.

Rey felt the rumble of his voice echo thunder through her chest cavity, and out of the corner of her eye, she watched Kylo’s helmet fall in dutiful resignation.

“Speak, my dear.”

“The Force is a mystery to me,” she finally answered, uncomfortable with his terms of endearment. “I want to fully understand it and what has happened to me. I want to know how to wield it, to become strong. Kylo Ren assures me that he can teach me.”

To protect her façade, Rey did her best to not lie completely, but even that felt dangerously transparent. She decided to delve into retrospective honesty for good measure.

Fighting a tremor in her voice, she added, “All my life, I’ve been powerless. I feel like that has the potential to change now. I’ve been given a chance to take control of my life, to be more than just a scavenger. I’ve been given purpose.”

“Hmm,” Snoke mused, completely unreadable to Rey. He reclined slightly, seemingly more at ease. Another contemplative silence passed before he addressed her again.

“How old are you, scavenger?”

“I don’t know really.” Rey’s honesty persisted in spite of herself.

“Were you born on Jakku?”

“No.”

“How long have you lived there?”

She envisioned the many silver mosaics of notches on her AT-AT’s walls.

“I believe around 10 years.”

“And you are only a child even now. You must have been very young when you arrived on Jakku. Are your parents still living there?” Snoke asked, the intact side of his face constricting into a slight grin he knew she could not see.

Tensing, Rey looked past Snoke, through the wall of transparisteel behind, and into the vastness.

“I…my.... My family had to leave. They had to leave me on Jakku. It’s hard for me to remember what happened. I don’t remember much of it.”

Beside her, Kylo’s head turned toward her very slightly.

“That’s a very long time to be on your own at so young an age,” Snoke mused, reclining to fully connect with the back of his chair. “Why would they leave you?”

“I don’t know. I wish I remembered. I always thought they would come back for me, until recently,” Rey said with obvious despondence, now returning Kylo’s masked gaze.

“I wonder why they would leave someone they loved, someone so lovely. Sell her into slavery and never return for her.”

Rey turned back to face Snoke, biting her lip. Her voice now wavered faintly.

“They loved me. They must have had a good reason.”

“Perhaps you did something, something to make them want to be rid of you,” Snoke said, upturning a bony palm on one chair arm.

A familiar spasm erupted across Rey’s torso, twisting something deep and wet within. In her many years scavenging, there had certainly been times when the thought had crossed her mind and plunged her into fits of despair, making the lonely Jakku nights all the more unbearable. Many evenings she had faltered, curling up in a stream of hot tears only to be reborn the next day by the hard distraction of grueling work. Now, those nights resurfaced. The deep-seated doubt that tugged at her sleeve now stood on her chest with all its stifling mass.

“I don’t believe that,” she said, almost muted. “I was just a child.”

“Ah, but not like other children. There was something special about you. Maybe something that frightened them?”

“What?” Rey asked sincerely.

“What I can see utterly radiating off you right now, girl: an incredible power with unspeakable potential. They must have sensed it too. Perhaps they saw it in action. You were a little girl. Perhaps you did something without meaning to, something they considered bad.”

“No,” Rey said, closing her eyes to keep them dry, to maintain her stony pretense. “No. I don’t believe that.”

“But isn’t it possible? They were afraid of you. They didn’t want to face your power. It was easier for them to rid themselves of their burden.”

The pitch marbles of Snoke’s sunken eyes glittered as Rey’s upturned hazel ones plummeted to the floor. At Kylo’s side, Rey struggled against the logic of the stranger’s words and the knees that threatened to buckle beneath her.

“Why don’t you let me look? Let me have a small tour of your mind. I assure you that I will be able to find the truth. Suffice it to say I have the power to see things you cannot.”

“No,” Rey denied him, shaking her head and shrinking unconsciously.

“Apprentice,” Snoke said, the serpentine ‘S’ escaping in a drawn-out hiss as he leaned forward, “I don’t believe I need your permission.”

Rey’s lips only marginally began to form irrelevant words before the spear of pain cracked sharply through her skull and stole them from her throat. Instantly crushed under an expansive pressure unlike anything she had ever felt, Rey instead gave an open-mouthed gasp and doubled over, her grey elbows rising reflexively to her temples. A deafening ringing overtook her ears as she fell roughly to her knees. The ringing then evolved into a horrible screeching, the loudest sound of metal upon metal imaginable as something ruthless pried into her brain and wormed its way down, savagely deeper and deeper. It scraped mercilessly with electrically serrated edges, and Rey cried out in blind suffering with every gouge, every reckless plunge it took, feeling as though the very tissue of her brain would be shredded apart. It was a torture that afforded her no mentality to even contemplate how to fight it off or push it back out with her mental barriers. Instead, she only wished for death.

Beside her, Kylo stumbled slightly, the fatigue insurmountable as it passed into him, by proxy, on their distressed electric currents. He began to sweat beneath his mask, his vision growing filmy. Every agonized cry Rey gave was a disarming jolt to his system. Despite his removal, it felt like an eternity to even him before Snoke suddenly began laughing. It was a demoniac cackle, one with which Kylo was familiar, only this time its bitter flavor carried an undertaste of cruel delight that cued Kylo to his master’s success: he had found the ammunition he sought. Paranoid, Kylo found himself dreading whatever treasure had been unearthed.

“Well,” Snoke grinned with mummified lips between chilling peals of laughter, “is that what happened then? How delightful.”

Seemingly satisfied with whatever secret part he had eviscerated from the deepest recesses of her mind, Snoke relinquished his ruthless probe as indifferently as if he were releasing a caught insect from his fist.

“Take her away,” Snoke finally commanded, his sad*stic glee fading back into the blackness. “Begin the training, and keep her close by. I will send for you.”

Turning to look at her now—stunned and half-conscious and defeated, the blood trickling from her nose and forming a small neon puddle on the walkway—Kylo was overcome by an alien sensation, a feeling he had forgotten over the course of a decade. He was sympathetic.

After all, he had once been in that very same position.

Chapter 13: Arrangements and Spies

Chapter Text

13

Safely behind the seal of the lift tube, Kylo felt Rey tug her limp arm down from the back of his collar. Releasing her fingers, he watched her stumble ahead and press her moist forehead and hot palms flat against the metal of the forward door. Though she hid her face from him, he knew she struggled to open her eyes, fighting against the spotted blur of disorienting aftershocks that diminishingly rippled through her mind.

In spite of himself, Kylo’s sympathy lingered as he indicated their destination—one level lower—on the lift’s control panel.

“Do you want me to carry you?” he asked beneath his mask.

The braid at her grey back shifted in a very slight nod of refusal, and Kylo immediately admired her strength or her stubbornness—whichever motivated her to trudge unassisted through the pain.

Turning around now as though balancing fine crystal on her shoulders, Rey pivoted gradually and stopped opposite him. The sanguine stream running from her nose had coagulated and partially dried in a thick horizontal line across her right cheek, and the rosy hue of distress had finally begun to leave her face. She kept her eyes shut beneath the lift tube’s overhead light until the forward door unlocked at her weighty shoulder a second later.

Kylo reached out to again take and lift her hand about his neck, but she snatched it away as he neared her. Staring into the empty corridor ahead, Kylo did not have to follow their link to understand Rey’s unspoken embarrassment and resentment. The early memories of days long since passed training under Snoke’s heavy hand—the inaugural agonies, the hardening exercises and subsequent coldness—Kylo remembered them and the lessons they had taught him all too well. And yes, he had ultimately been grateful for the fortitude and tenacity afforded him by each and every one of those hellish trials. But then why did he feel such inexplicable compassion for her right now?

Kylo wound his gloved fingers cautiously but sternly about Rey’s protesting wrist and hoisted her up to his side, and he steadied her upright as they shuffled into the dimly lit hallway. They followed the dual lines of encased duct work overhead, passing the evenly situated junctions of opened auto-doors and dulled vertical lights embedded sporadically in the corridor walls.

Turning the first corner of the highest-ranking First Order officers’ quarters, Kylo was relieved that the cobalt-grey hallways were empty, as he currently had no patience to deal with anyone questioning this uncharacteristic scene. As if on cue, Rey tripped slightly over a gridded section of grating sunk into the floor, but, having somewhat regained her bearings, righted herself quickly by placing her free hand weakly on the cowl covering his chest.

At last they came to the locked doors of the starboard-side priority wing, which Kylo effortlessly opened in a small, routine gesture. Beyond, there were only two doorways visible in the shadows of the restricted hallway—his at the far dead end and a closer one at which Kylo now stopped. He had ordered the latter remain unoccupied to ensure his complete privacy in the wing, rendering the choice of where to keep her “close by” all too obvious during instruction. However, though good in theory, the simple solution now unsettled him, the sobering reality of the proximity sinking in as he opened the door of her new quarters and stared at his own, only a few accessible feet down the hall.

Kylo listened to the hiss of the door closing behind them as he led Rey to the meager table and chair lining the wall opposite the doorway and released her to sink down onto its rigid seat. He then stepped away to allow some space as she placed her heavy head in the soothing cradle of one propped-up palm. After a short minute of watching her downturned eyelids and slackened lower lip, Kylo grew aware that the sight of her in this state—utterly devoured and disoriented but nonetheless impermeable—roused within him a chaotically diverse collection of instincts that collided in his mind and froze his tingling hands. As a means of distraction from this discord, he glanced about to ensure her quarters had been properly attended, quickly noting the room was a mirror image of his own. In fact, their rooms would have been identical were it not for her quarters’ lack of privileged viewport and recreation space. Two empty utility closets flanked an adjoining washroom wherein he knew standard-issue towels and freshly filled dispensers of hygienic products lined an inset cubby between the shower and washbasin. On his opposite side, the same full-sized bed lay parallel to the wall, its linens downturned in military fashion over the synthetic roughness of an all-too-familiar charcoal-colored blanket.

His gaze lingering on one side far too long, Kylo decided it was time to collect himself.

“I’ll leave you now. These are your quarters. I am the only one who can open the door to leave, and no one else will be authorized to enter this wing of this level without my permission. I’m sure you can appreciate why.”

Rey’s eyes did not so much as flutter to acknowledge him or her outlined predicament.

“You should have whatever you need,” he added unnecessarily, “but you can let me know if you require anything else when I return later with food.”

His words did not sit well with him, as if he were listening outside himself to the ramblings of a stranger. Feeling her exhaustion flow through him, Kylo felt compelled to say more—honesty, something real—though its manifestation eluded him. The compulsion tongue-tied him with formulations of apologies and tender inquiries to be laid at her pitiful feet.

I didn’t know it would happen so soon, Rey. I didn’t think he would…not yet…. There was nothing I could do.

Instead, Kylo defaulted to his newest, most challenging skill in self-control, swallowing everything he might say to her back down, no different than if sincerity were some creeping bile threatening to return to the surface. After all, the ordeal was inevitable and would only serve to make her stronger.

“We begin training tomorrow,” he said instead and headed to the door.

“Kylo,” a subdued voice finally uttered.

Feet out the door, Kylo pivoted his mask to at last see the bloodshot whites of her eyes.

“Thank you.”

Completely taken aback, Kylo held her gaze until she disappeared behind the grey eclipse of the locked door. He remained frozen there for several seconds before at last realizing he was not alone in the hallway.

Leaning against one of the jutting frames of the junction doorway dividing Rey and Kylo’s wing from the rest of the officers’ quarters, General Hux watched him, black arms folded and upper lip slightly arched in his natural resting sneer.

Kylo confronted the uninvited eavesdropper, his smoldering hatred now freshly ignited.

“What is this rubbish?” Hux spat, righting himself to meet Kylo head on. “What is she doing here?”

“These are orders from the Supreme Leader. The girl is under my supervision, to be trained as an ally.”

Hux smirked beneath a sinopian helmet of hair.

“Oh, I have no doubt of that.”

Though he could typically stomach it, Kylo currently found Hux’s smarmy sarcasm unbearably infuriating.

“I’m not sure I understand your implications, general.”

“What I mean,” Hux said, elongating the words unnecessarily, “is that while you waste your time obsessing over this Resistance scum, your attentions could be put to better use restructuring the First Order after the fiasco at Starkiller. We will soon reach Morcanth and haven’t yet cemented any plans for the new weapon with Supreme Leader Snoke.”

Kylo’s breath caught slightly in his throat, his body stiffening defensively before he coolly replied, “Watch what you insinuate, general. I’m aware of our mutual regard for each other, but I don’t respond well to accusations.”

Hux took a pronounced forward step with no other purpose than to intimidate.

“Don’t give me that, Ren. Your mask doesn’t fool me. This is beyond mere orders, isn’t it?”

Behind his visor, Kylo’s mind began to retreat in a tumult wherein all the possible modes of reception—humiliation, vulnerability, rage—swelled dangerously upward, teetering on the edge of blunt eruption.

“I saw you last night in the detention cell. I saw you crawling like an insect at the feet of your scavenger whor*-”

The final insult passed Hux’s lips in the form of a semi-wheeze as an invisible pressure latched onto his windpipe. The pressure then expanded and contracted, clamping and lifting him by the throat until only his booted toes manically scraped the floor beneath. Devoid of air, Hux gritted his teeth and clutched at nothing, desperate and choking out several frantic gurgles as Kylo’s mask casually tilted upward to observe him.

“I’ve grown tired of your constant meddling, general. Make no mistake that I am in control of the situation. And do not make the mistake of assuming your authority prevents me from stepping on you like the vermin you are.”

Noting Hux’s wide blue eyes, matching indigo lips, and flying spittle, Kylo assumed the general got the gist.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” Kylo said, releasing his Force-wielded grip as he nonchalantly turned his back to the officer who now thudded to the floor.

Unable to speak through his coughing and gasping, Hux looked up after Kylo through a salty lens of pure venom.

“And you might want to consult with the Supreme Leader,” Kylo added before disappearing into his quarters at the end of the hallway. “The Finalizer may soon have a new destination.”

Chapter 14: Kylo Ren

Chapter Text

14

The training room reserved for Kylo Ren in the battlecruiser’s recreation deck was larger than Rey would have imagined.

She passed him as he locked the doors to ensure their session’s privacy, her vision scanning beyond the thin central sparring mat to the variety of exotic weapons mounted neatly on the far wall more than 50 feet away. In a far-off corner were stacked several objects of varying sizes. Squinting beneath the bright illumination of the inset overhead light spanning the far reaches of the sparring mat, Rey noted the stacked objects were uniformly cube-shaped, and she safely assumed they represented weights ranging from a full cup to a multi-ton boulder. Eerily drowned in the shadows of a different corner stood the mangled outlines of three full-sized figures of different heights—floor-weighted practice forms that had visibly suffered under Kylo’s dedicated exercises in assault.

Kylo spoke at her back.

“We should begin by exploring the basics of lightsaber-”

“No,” Rey interrupted, turning to face him.

“No?”

“I was hoping we could take a different approach. Focus on something more mental.”

“What would you prefer for your first session?” he asked, his mediated voice surprisingly respectful.

Rey bit her lip, eyes drifting sideways to her own figure reflected in the mirroring panels lining the closest of the room’s four walls. She looked much stronger than she felt.

“I was hoping, maybe…something along the lines of…mental defense. I’m assuming that’s covered somewhere in your training.”

He was ever-unreadable behind his mask, but Rey sensed he understood her allusion full well: she had been victimized yesterday. She had been mercilessly probed and tortured with zero knowledge of how to defend herself. Suffice it to say she never wanted to be that unarmed, that vulnerable again. And despite the obvious identity of the attacker from whom she sought protection, she somehow knew Kylo would help her.

In lieu of confirmation, Kylo returned to the door and adjusted the room’s luminosity, dimming it to a calmer, less abrasive 50 percent.

“Another request,” Rey spoke, all confidence before him again. “I can’t train with you if I can’t see your face. I have to be able to read you—to trust you—at least somewhat for this to work. I think it would better enable our training if you took that off.”

“What do you think you’ll see if I do?” he questioned.

“I’ll see you.”

A long succeeding silence was eventually itself replaced by the familiar metal sliding of automated locks now released, and then Kylo appeared before her, young and stoic, mask now reluctantly in hand.

Seeing his face after the many days of absence and concealment, Rey experienced the same concealed jolt she had upon first beholding him in a far-off corner of the galaxy. Indeed, she had not seen him unmasked since the command shuttle (she had been asleep, exhausted and slumped over the table of her room when he had delivered her food at some point last night). Her disloyal mind, grasping so fiercely to hold onto hatred for him, had secretly preserved him with an artist’s attention to detail—the unwavering eyes, the full mouth among the steep angles of his jaw, the mane of dark, lustrous hair. The bandages were the only notable difference; their absence now bluntly annunciated her past victory—narrow and well-healed but lengthy and permanent—the only imperfection marring his otherwise alluring looks.

Circumnavigating her, he took a seat adjacent to the edge of the sparring mat, agilely lowering himself and folding his legs before placing his mask aside. He gestured for her to do likewise.

“I thought I could do it,” she said, collecting herself as she turned to follow him. “I can shut you out fairly easily. I don’t know why I couldn’t push him out of my mind.”

“Supreme Leader Snoke is the most powerful being in the galaxy. There’s no way you or I will ever be able to totally protect our minds from his reach. You also can’t compare our situation to yours and his. I don’t need to tell you that you and I have a constant connection; it’s much easier to access and shut down a direct line.”

“Just not permanently,” she added, voicing the understood truth.

“No, I suppose not permanently,” he admitted. “It’s too strong. But we can use that to our advantage in training. I think we can practice extending the time of how long we can keep each other out—shoot for longer intervals each time, more impassable each time. That will walk hand in hand with training in ejection.”

“You make it sound like you’ll be training with me rather than teaching me,” Rey joked. She gave a playful grin while folding her own long legs across from him.

“I’m an apprentice, Rey,” he replied somberly. “We both share one master. My training has to be ongoing alongside and apart from yours. I can guide you, but doing so will require us both to grow stronger.”

Her grin fading, Rey nodded obediently, the hairs on her exposed upper arms prickling at his cold resolve, his blind dedication to his dark path.

“I think it’d be easier for you to first see the defense technique in action. Put you on the offense to start.”

“Are you saying you want me to…?”

Kylo gave a stony nod.

“I hate to be the one to bring up the obvious, but I’ve done this to you before. Twice. And I was successful both times.”

“You caught me off guard,” he interjected, his mouth suddenly tensing at her presumptuousness. “My defenses were not as resolute as they should have been. You’ll recall we were both in a very strange state at the time as well.”

“Oh, is that what it was?” she asked coyly.

Avoidant, Rey focused on the mat to fend off the color that threatened her cheeks. So much had happened since that instant when his hand had fallen on her in conjunction with their bond, the first contact tearing an anomalous rip in the very fabric of the Force flowing between them.

“Do you want to practice this or not?”

“Yes, I do,” she said enthusiastically, pulling back into the present. “I have to.”

“Then we’ll start this way,” he said matter-of-factly. “Just pull back when you finally get through.”

“All right. You’re the teacher.”

Wasting no time, Kylo tugged each glove one hurried finger at a time and set them with his mask. His narrowed drive to do this thing admittedly surprised Rey, almost as if the genuine motivation lay not in showing her how the technique was done, but instead in proving something essential to himself.

Following suit, Rey instinctively pulled behind her head, ensuring her three looped ponytails were sufficiently tight before smoothing any loose tendrils back behind her ears. Feeling the burn of his shadowed gaze, she finished quickly and gave him a muted nod of readiness, and though it was unnecessary, Rey shut the grey walls, the mirror, him—everything physical—from her vision.

With little to do since being brought aboard the Finalizer, Rey had meditated to the point of considerable fluency in locating and traversing the Force. Very rarely now did she need to envision her infinite web; its silk had become hidden—transparent threads of energy she could physically caress like solid keys on some electric instrument. Furthermore, every strum she gave the energy field now produced quicker results, almost instantly propelling her power toward her area of focus.

Rey currently found Kylo’s mind that way, subsequently slamming her full-force into the mental barriers guarding the vista of rocky terrain she knew lay beyond. Pushing harder, she collided with the metal again and again, its walls unscalable and impermeable. Rey refused to accept the rejection. Extending her hand toward him in the material world as he had once done to her, her outstretched fingers brushed over the surface of his cerebral barriers and there touched the dark side’s energetic assemblage as he had amassed it to shut her out. Her mind interpreted its hate-filled power as rough and cold to the touch she did not physically apply.

You’ve done this before, and you can do this now, she thought, not caring whether he heard her. No one ever said it would be quick and easy. Not quick and easy….

Envisioning the infinite wall, Rey now chose to consolidate her energy on one focused point rather than bluntly shoving the Force to topple the entire structure. Her disembodied fingers the extensions of her power, Rey meticulously scraped and then hammered, over and over, her efforts and concentration perfectly centered in the surging swell of her white light. The results came quickly. A small fissure—all she needed—soon appeared and beckoned her inside along the pathway of her accomplishment. However, Rey soon found the wall to be the same unsteady precipice she had crossed sometime before. As if sucked inward by the native power of their bond, her fingers pried deeper into his mind at their own agency, and she fell—flailing and tumbling—beyond her control.

Wait, she thought, sensing his mind begin to recoil as she plunged headlong into the jagged surfaces she had never been able to forget. Indiscriminate and overtaken, she found one such surface and instinctively swept its coal-black crests.

A lovely woman with artfully interwoven dark-brown hair fed a grinning toddler who delighted at her every word and gesture. Food encrusted portions of the child’s black locks, which only caused the motherly woman to laugh harder. She then rose to fetch something from a nearby cabinet of what seemed to Rey an upscale but cozy kitchen. At her back, the cheerful toddler enthusiastically swept his arms and, in doing so, knocked the jar of food to splinter loudly on the floor. Surprised, the woman turned to the infant, who, startled and hungry, began to wail. At that moment, the carefully stacked plates at the washbasin behind the seated child suddenly flew to the ground with palpable force, as if they had been furiously swept off the counter by some invisible arm. Every plate exploded upon contact with the floor, the mass shattering mingling shrilly with the child’s cries. Visibly shaken, the woman backed away slightly, staring at the plates in disbelief. Then slowly, as if in the distant grips of some epiphany, her brown eyes turned to her son and watched him cry, her face a perfect picture of astonishment and concern.

No, said Rey, her fingers sliding deeper, pressing onward over the next threatening plateau.

“I can’t believe you!”

The same woman, chestnut hair this time flowing soft and veil-like down her back, followed insistently behind a man in a white shirt and black vest as he escaped a beautiful foyer.

“Do you know how humiliating it is? Being told your husband was arrested for smuggling? Having to pull strings and ask favors to get him off the hook?”

“Well, I’m sorry to make you look bad in front of your New Republic snob friends, your worship.”

“Where are you going?” the woman demanded as the man approached a main door.

“Out!” he said, turning to face her now.

“Why do I feel like I’m the bad parent, Han? Why does it always feel like I’m raising two children?”

“You knew what you were getting into when you married me!” Han said, and then added, “Maybe it was a mistake,” before rushing out the open door.

“Han,” the woman said, delicate hands propped against the doorframe. “Han!”

Finding herself alone, she turned back inside and leaned wearily on the entranceway, defeated eyes focused on nothing. Suddenly, her gaze shifted sideways to meet the eyes of something spying from the shadows of a nearby doorway.

“Oh, honey,” she said sympathetically, leaving the open doorway behind. “Don’t cry. It’s all right.”

Deeper now.

A boy of 10 or so sat with his back to the woman, who suddenly appeared much older, small wrinkles having taken hold around her brown eyes and pained mouth. She sat on a child’s bed near him, staring at him with that same recurring expression of concern. In his hand, the boy held a small replica Millennium Falcon carved from sand-hued wood.

“Please don’t be angry, Ben. I think this will be the best thing for you, going to live with Uncle Luke.”

“Is that what Dad thinks?”

A pause.

“Yes, darling. We both think it’s a good idea. Uncle Luke is going to teach you so many things. He’s going to help you not feel so angry all the time. Don’t you want that? Don’t you want to become a Jedi?”

“I don’t want to leave,” the boy said sorrowfully, looking out the window with welling eyes.

“I don’t want you to either. We’ll both miss you so much. But we want to do what’s best for you because we love you.”

The boy began to cry silently, a single tear descending to stain the toy in his hand.

“Please don’t send me away,” the boy moaned, dropping his curly head.

Deeper still.

“Do you know why I asked to see you today?” a wise-looking bearded man with dark blonde hair asked, sitting next to the raven-haired boy in a modest hut.

Avoiding the man’s eyes, the boy looked pensive and unhappy, clothed in layers of tan robes that seemed ill-suited for his countenance.

“You’ve been here three weeks,” the bearded man continued, “and I know this is all new to you. But this is something we should address immediately. What you did today, when you were training with Dohoune—that is not the way of the Jedi. You must never do that again.”

“But why, uncle? We were training. Why can’t I use my power to my advantage?”

“Ben, a Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense. You must never use it to attack. This is something you must learn. It may be much easier to use it that way, to achieve your purpose, but you cannot. That habit will lead you down a path you were not meant to follow.”

“What path, Uncle Luke?” Ben asked innocently, upturning his head.

“A dark path wrought with misery,” the man sighed, eyes at all once vacantly. “And that is not meant for you.”

“No one likes me here,” the boy volunteered. “They’re all afraid of me.”

His eyes returning to Ben, the uncle smiled and gave a light-hearted laugh before wrapping a consoling arm around the boy’s tense shoulders.

“No one is afraid of you, Ben. They do not fear, just as you should not fear. They just recognize how strong you are. Remember, they are your allies, your brothers and sisters.”

Then he added, reassuringly, “I love you, Ben. And your parents love you. Give it time. I know you will find peace.”

Faster now. Pieces.

The scary old man in the hut on the outskirts of the training compound had just levitated the speeder.

“How did you do that?” Ben asked excitedly, now appearing a teenager and looking much more familiar to Rey’s mind’s eye.

“I used the Force, a very powerful facet of the Force,” the man seemingly confided, turning his emaciated face to the teen. “But this is probably child’s play compared to what you can do, what with your lineage and your power.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, considering who your grandfather was,” the man cleverly added, grinning eerily from beneath his hood.

The boy shook his head, the tension in his high cheeks visibly surfacing.

“I only know that Anakin Skywalker was a great Jedi. He saved the galaxy by defeating the Emperor of the Galactic Empire, but the Emperor killed him during the mission. He was a war hero.”

Hearing this, the strange man gave a deep, drawn-out cackle that clearly unsettled the boy.

“My dear Ben,” the man chuckled sinisterly, “let me tell you about your grandfather.”

Keep moving.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” the boy shouted at his uncle, the tears streaming down his freckled cheeks. “Why didn’t anyone tell me the truth?”

Watching the boy’s shoulders quake in anger, the pain and concern in his uncle’s eyes was unmistakable.

No. Even fragments are too much. Leave, Rey, leave.

The teenage boy sped back to the outskirts of the compound in secret. Even so young, his face already reflected his internal dissonance. A foreshadowing mask.

No more, please. I don’t want to know.

Near the outskirts of the compound, the teenager sat spread-kneed upon a cliff, his eyes engrossed in contemplation as twin suns set in vibrant crimson over a rippling skyline. He did not see the little girl—perhaps all of six years old—until she was at his side, her small feet having snuck soundlessly through the soil behind him.

“Hi, Ben!” she cooed. “What’re you doing up here anyway? Come back down so we can play! But I want to be the Jedi this time!”

The teenager reluctantly smiled, as he always did with his only friend.

“Yes,” he sighed with contrived exasperation, tousling her auburn hair with a playful hand. “You can be the Jedi. I’ll be the Sith.”

“You can be the Jedi….”

NO MORE!

Rey let out a sharp gasp that reverberated off the walls of the training room, taking in oxygen as though she had been holding her breath underwater. As if recoiling from an electric shock, she marginally fell back and braced herself on the mat with an unsteady wrist.

The opposite hub of their current, Kylo similarly balked at the release. Struggling to control his own breath, he instinctively brought the sweaty cup of a closed palm to his forehead. Just as in the interrogation room, the constraint of her probing had been abnormal. It had lacked the indiscriminate pain inflicted by the dark side. Instead, it manifested as a numbing wave, its curl washing over him—over them both—with limitless energy, dragging them beneath the surface and into a trance. A waking dream. And he remembered everything from this dream. It had been his dream after all. His life.

And she had seen it. The most private things. The deepest secrets.

Kylo felt the fog lift from his mind, and only pure rage lay beneath its swirling confusion.

“I told you to back out,” he said icily, accusing eyes flashing her direction. “I told you to stop once you’d gotten through.”

“I tried,” Rey panted, righting herself. “I don’t know what happened.”

“What do you mean you don’t know what happened? I told you to back out!” His flaring tone burned through the empty space of the training room.

“I….”

Open-mouthed, Rey stared unwaveringly at him, far past excuses. Her lower lip tensed, its blush-stained curve hardening, and that was when Kylo noticed the growing moisture of the corners of her glassy eyes. Its glitter was barely detectable in the dim of overhead light, but it was undeniable, on the very brink of spilling down her clenched cheeks. There was no point in even tapping their buzzing link; Kylo could feel it positively radiating from her in the afterglow of all she had seen, her sadness, her love, her warmth. Her sympathy.

“You’re so lonely. So afraid to leave.”

She pitied him. She pitied him!

The hairs lining the back of Kylo’s neck stood on end, his entire body growing rigid with unstable anger. His outrage now filled him like a hollow glass, the consuming aggression altogether heaving him dissociatively outside himself, detaching him from his trembling body.

“No,” Kylo said, manically clenching and unclenching his bare fists. “Don’t you do that. Don’t you pity me.”

The little boy’s heartbreak still ringing in her ears, Rey stifled a sob back into her chest as she watched Kylo transform before her dampened eyes. The ironic onset of this sudden rage wounded her all the more, but she bravely met his snarl head on. Her only betrayal was the single tear that escaped, the tender evidence that streamed downward and rolled off her defiant chin.

It did not go unnoticed.

“Don’t you pity me!” Kylo shouted, watching the figure of himself hurl its shaking body forward to knock hers flat.

Rey landed roughly beneath him with a surprised yelp, her head thudding painfully even off the protective padding of the mat. She did not fight him, however; she merely succumbed to his weight plied over hers and held the burning stare that now hung over her face in the midst of its frighteningly disconnected frenzy.

“I don’t need your pity!” he shouted at her placidity, grabbing her wrists—so fragile in his monster’s hands—and slamming them severely next to her shoulders. “I don’t need it! I don’t need you! Do you understand that?”

Distracted by melancholy fear, Rey did not foresee the sudden vibration that emanated from his closeness—closer than he had ever been before. Without warning, it assaulted her chest—heaving under his pinning weight—setting it alight, and then sparking downward, down to the private place, to stir it against him. She modestly attempted to pull away, to somehow elude the tension thoughtlessly pressed against the nerve center of her desire. But there was no escape for Rey. Utterly engulfed, she merely quaked in the momentous swell of their shared energy.

Her arms beginning to flutter in his cruel fists, Rey had to concede and break their locked gaze. Her eyes shot to the side in the height of her sudden embarrassment.

“Ben,” she pleaded.

It was a warning.

On top of her, Kylo froze. The old name, now spoken by her, instantly catapulted him back into his body.

His moist brow furrowed under the weight of his actions, as if the trance of her probing had only just now relinquished. But it had not been her agency, it had been his. Now, his cognizance restored, his breath suspended in his chest as he found himself precariously poised over her, her lithe wrists crushed in his hands, her eyes almost courteously avoidant beneath his clenched teeth. That was when the pull ignited him, its fire stoking his already boiling blood with the unfathomable longing that presently radiated through her. And now came the tidal wave of his own lust, the rip current that swept his adoration to the surface and animated every cell of his body that now touched her. Had he even been alive until now? Before this shattering moment, when she was so staggeringly close, so utterly exposed, so perfectly attainable….

Trembling as if fighting the force of some invisible hand, Kylo lowered his lips to Rey’s upturned mouth.

The foundation of a raw ecstasy detonated. The surge was instantaneous, blazing through them both like the blowing embers of some unstoppable wildfire that had been smoldering for weeks or millennia. And every minute of that refrain—every agonizing second the fire had simmered—had multiplied, accumulating to crippling proportions behind a facade of various confines. But the dam had now burst, and sublime alleviation flooded from the breach.

Rey’s lips, though hesitant in the first split-second, came alive against his in the flood of sweet relief, her entire body shuddering beneath him, and on the other side of that kiss, Kylo grew unable to curb a moan of pure intoxication. She tasted like home, like totality, her mouth soon parting instinctually for him to now explore there, to slip beneath the surface with his driving tongue. The intimate line crossed at last, the shared sensation quickly drove them both to the breathless brink of urgency. Rey followed her body’s initiative to kiss him harder, faster, her heart thundering upward at his. Freeing her hands from his slackening grip, she found the thick folds of fabric at his back, running her fingers up his clothed form until she reached hair. She then sank her fingers into its soft thickness and pulled recklessly, forcing his hot mouth against hers until it hurt them both, an overwhelmed moan now escaping her throat. Desiring everything from her with equal fervor, his distraught hands tore at her hair and traced over the feminine mounds of her covered torso. A new demand had taken its voluptuous shape in the wake of their surging bond, and Kylo knew he needed to be inside of her more than he had ever needed anything in his life—Force and First Order and the war all be damned. And it was even beyond that: he wanted to tear her to pieces, to touch and consume every perfect piece that defined her.

Starving in the sudden absence of his mouth from hers, Rey tilted upward to watch Kylo’s hand disappear and fumble with the black material beneath his tunic, and when he again returned to her panting lips, her inexperienced body nevertheless recognized the foreign weight of something freed pressing against her thigh. She instinctively helped all she could, hiking up one foot to catch the side of his trousers and shove them down with an extension of her leg.

“I don’t care, I don’t care,” she repeated with swollen lips, shutting her eyes in a breathless mantra of sheer abandon. “Please, I don’t care. I don’t care. Please.”

Her mindless encouragement only reinforced his greed. Kylo shoved her grey tunic up only far enough to rip madly at the waistband of her trousers and pull with all his strength. Having not unfastened them, Rey heard the fabric rip sharply at the seams as they were forced down with her undergarments and pulled off one shivering leg. When he hastily returned a mere second later, a delicious warmth—the electricity of skin on skin—followed with him, his commanding knees eagerly prying between hers to spread her pale thighs.

Rey began to sweat beneath the weight of the fabrics they had no time to remove, especially when she felt him—swollen and impossibly thick—part and slide the length of her silky, secret lips several times, anointing and readying his co*ck in the tell-tale juices of her infinite desire. Gasping in anticipation with the threat of every close call, Rey convulsed against him out of pure instinct. And when he could no longer submit to even his own teasing, Kylo shifted to the angle he needed to pause at the entrance of her suffering, untouched sex.

Rapaciously frantic, Rey bucked her begging hips, gradually dying in the hollow anguish of her need. It was Kylo who finally paused at the height of their frenzy, fighting every ingrained impulse to proceed regardless of her comfort. Exercising the restraint he knew was required, he gripped her soft cheeks in his palms, thumbs spreading the sensitive flesh between her legs and allowing better himself access to press carefully—slower than any act ever performed, inch after agonizing inch—into her aching hole, finding it unspeakably hot, damp, and snug beyond his imagining.

Feeling her secret flesh forced to stretch around the rigid passion for which it had yearned, Rey’s mouth widened beneath his gritted teeth, a sharp inhale crescendoing to a whimper that filled the room with its desperation. Any inclination of pain proved fleeting, however; the hum of their bond pulsed wildly in its brief wake, its two poles at last conjoined in the union it had relentlessly sought for so long—finally bound as one the only way physically attainable. And Rey found the hum engrossing above everything else, now attuned to the deepest chills that manifested through her body as he maddeningly filled every hungry inch of her possible.

Kylo remained there for a precarious amount of time, trying his utmost to stave off the persuasion of extraordinary gratification that threatened to sabotage him. He was finally able to retreat and fill her again, his lust slick with the evidence of her arousal, and soon found a delicate but moderate cadence he could maintain.

Consumed by the feel of him, Rey’s body began the same voluptuous climb it had made by herself aboard the command shuttle, only now its steepness increased exponentially, as did the drop she felt approaching on the other side. Completely overcome, she clutched at him, at anything her frenzied hands could grab, lifting her slippery hips to meet him with every filling stroke.

Already teetering on the edge, Kylo was nearly overcome by the additional sensation that now inconspicuously emanated from her. It was ecstasy twofold as he began to perceive the bliss she felt—the pleasure he gave her—blending with his own sublime fire and mounting, a culmination approaching an explosive bedlam. It was almost too much for him to take, threatening to push him over his own cliff far too early. And, his thoughts shifting, Kylo knew beyond a doubt it was her incredible power, seeking to undermine him yet again.

He needed to remind her. He needed to remind her of who gave her this pleasure.

“Look at me,” he whispered, pulling away from her reddened mouth.

Rey’s dewy eyes opened from their desperate closure and found his watching her from the bottomless depths of their blackness. The icy numbness began to spread through her loins and down her legs, pulling her ever closer to that carnal precipice.

“Who am I?”

Blinking, Rey hesitated and struggled to achieve rational thought in the midst of her absolute gratification. But, behind it all, she knew what he meant, and that truth stung sharply at her heart.

“Say it,” he demanded, his long, full thrusts unyielding.

“Kylo,” she whispered. Unbridled tears spilled hotly down her inflamed cheeks as the humiliation unearthed an epiphany she had thrown to the wind in her stark need for him.

“Kylo,” she repeated.

Basking in the evidence of his vindication, Kylo’s thoughts grew dark, reconnecting him with the subdued rage her audacious pity had ignited. Congealing with his devastating desire for her, the anger now appealed to those cruel confines of his mind, demanding only to be unleashed on her. Obedient, he abandoned his restraint, mercilessly burying himself in her with rough, rapid strokes that shook her entire body with every vicious drive.

Unprepared for the assault, Rey gave an open-mouthed cry, exasperated by new pain that comingled with the intense, persisting euphoria coursing through her every nerve. Unable to control herself, she shut her eyes, suddenly terrified that the ruthless depth of his obsidian eyes and throbbing co*ck would send her plummeting over the edge.

“I said look at me,” he demanded in a voice stern enough to jar her back to him instantly. The large, trembling hands that wound gently in her hair and at the base of her neck contradicted the way he currently spread and filled her deliciously, his own hair clinging wetly to his forehead the way it had when they had fought in the hangar bay. Rey envisioned that battle now, her tear-filled eyes struggling to hold the uncompromising gaze whose disconnectedness shamefully excited her. And her lingering humiliation was soon compounded when the hidden, receptive parts of Rey’s body—already so completely taut around him—suddenly began to narrow further against her will.

Reading her physical cues, his own rapture becoming harder to postpone as he lost himself in her watery eyes, Kylo bent closer and kissed against her gasps once more before pulling back to command, “Look at me while you come.”

That was when Rey fell beneath him, bounding the capstone of her desire and exploding down the other side in a magnificent rupture that cemented every muscle in her body. The helpless tears that still fell now trickled from eyelids tightly squeezed, running down her temples as her back arched beneath him, her slackened mouth uncontrollably exclaiming at each unbelievable swell.

It was too much; Kylo knew it utter certainty, a wretched observer of the beauty of her painfully won climax. It would overtake him now no matter how hard he fought.

Clutching at the gap of her raised back, he surrendered to an ecstasy as yet unknown to man, erupting deep inside her, everything he was completely conquered and stolen as her corporeal spasms drew it all out of him in torrid, clenching waves—again and again, one after the other—a consummate rhapsody that echoed their infinite pull. Lost to her forever, Kylo loudly crushed against Rey until there was absolutely nothing left of his body or soul.

Eternity ensued, black and dizzying, introducing itself with ebbing cries, elongating aftershocks, and the gentle, inadvertent interlocking of two unsteady but affectionate hands.

On the brink of blackout, Kylo retained enough physical control to free himself from their bliss and fall onto his back alongside her. There he lay, shutting out the world, struggling to calm his winded lungs and cling to consciousness.

At his side, Rey lifted a shaky arm to her sweat-drench forehead, her parted lower lip violently trembling beyond her control, as if the room had suddenly morphed into the frigid terrain of Starkiller Base. Though her body still burned with the feel of his, her mentality finally resurfaced, slowly and steadily, amidst the fading tremors. The initial shock overthrew her quite fast. The unthinkable had happened, and in her letting it happen—even demanding it happen—she had foolishly weakened herself to him in every conceivable way she never wanted, every ounce of willpower and strength she had ever accumulated toppled in one fell swoop. How could things ever be the same? How could she ever reclaim any dignity, any independence from him now?

Rey’s emotions grew raw and frantic behind darkened lids that still shed tears. He had morphed before her very eyes, the evidence of his transition now beginning to radiate painfully between her legs. And yet, she had loved it, every alleviating minute, unable to deny that her sore body now ached equally in his absence, would eagerly take him back this very second if possible. The bond had won, and the anticipated promise of its pull had indescribably exceeded every expectation. But the union of their Force energies now tasted bittersweet, leaving Rey lost and frightened in its electric wake.

What have I done?

Suddenly terrified of the repercussions, Rey concentrated on the hand whose fingers still entwined wetly with his at her side and was flooded with relief to discover the pulse of the light remained, the white strands of the Force still flowing powerfully through her. Somehow, despite her abandon, she knew she would be able to feel the dark side if it flowed through her, and its blessed absence satiated her worry slightly. But how was it possible, after what had just happened? How could she still be good now? She had sacrificed all she was to him. And then the question that should not have mattered as much, though it secretly held equal weight in the most vulnerable chink of her heart: did he even care?

Kylo at last opened his eyes, his reemerging control reinforced by a sudden awareness of Rey’s fingers tensing in his. Finding the dimmed overhead light much too bright, he turned against the collar covering his neck to watch her next to him. Her profile was more beautiful than anything he could ever acknowledge—her disheveled hair, the swollen bottom lip that now turbulently shook, the tears still trickling from matted lashes. But the vacancy of her upturned eyes now irked him, and the cruelty of his actions settled upon him with a gruesome weight. He had humiliated her in an act of self-assurance, debasing her genuine compassion for him as surely as he had savagely defiled her chaste body. It had been unprovoked, emerging second-naturedly from the facade that had defined his life for so long. And he had enjoyed it, felt it heighten his eroticism. But the vile truth was that she had not deserved it, she—his preordained other half—so innocent, ingenuous, and brave. His apprentice, his wounded warrior. His everything.

For the first time he could ever recall, Kylo felt ashamed of the villainy of his actions, an impression only compounded when Rey finally turned her own wet eyes to look tumultuously into his. And feeling his shame give rise to the vicious cycle of resentment and the inevitable rage that clung to its back, he knew—beyond his heart’s desire to stay with her like this for eternity—he had to get away from her as quickly as possible.

Rey felt Kylo’s hand slip slowly from hers as if it had been a sleeping thing he did not want to waken, a hollowing absence that instantly reignited the insatiable pull of their Force bond. This was contradicted by the sudden haste in which he presented his cold back to her and pulled his trousers up beneath his robes. Within what seemed like seconds, he snatched his mask and gloves and rose on legs of gelatin, almost falling once as he fled toward the door of the training room.

“Kylo, wait,” Rey pleaded, sitting up to modestly cover her naked legs with her tunic.

Already at the door, Kylo paused in his disgrace, the pain of her appeal dragging his head down even lower. The human piece of him already dying in the act of leaving her there now completely eclipsed beneath the dirt. But he knew with utter certainty that far worse cruelty lay ahead for her if he remained.

Incapable of even looking back, Kylo replaced his mask and left her alone in silence.

Rey watched the door for several minutes, hoping for him to return in some reprieve of conscience. When he did not, she turned and, catching her reflection in the mirror lining to wall, observed the stranger within it, unable to recognize the dichotomy of the increasingly powerful but now abased Rey who stared back. The well-worn lips, the tousled hair, the undergarments still wound round one parted leg, but most of all, the wanton aura of a woman who, even now, sensuously quaked in his lecherous wake and hungered for its return.

Drowning in abandonment and ruination, Rey’s sobs echoed throughout the empty room as a mixture of fluids trickled down between her thighs.

Chapter 15: Absolution

Chapter Text

15

To Kylo Ren, the two days that followed the incident of the training room might as well have been a century, one whose successive years silently spanned the landscape of a futile winter he could neither see nor touch, but whose achromatic cliffs now enclosed and isolated him. Indeed there had been a spring, an untouchable moment in time when beauty and purpose had intertwined under the guise of desire. But now it was gone, and, in its absence, all progress and equivalence seemed forever undermined by a depressing cycle of chaos and disarray. And so it was for Kylo, secluding himself within his cold quarters with strict, hastily barked orders to remain undisturbed.

He had initially collapsed upon entering the room. Ripping his mask from his slick skin before it had fully disengaged, Kylo had launched the apparatus into the darkness with all his strength and followed the dance to fall on hands and knees in the scolding echo of its impact on the wall. Then, tearing at his gloves and cowl, he had retreated to the closer of the two walls flanking the door, propping himself up with tensely bent legs and clasping his pounding forehead. The stars through the opposing viewport were blotted out. There he sat, raggedly breathless, until the perception of her lingering smell—still clinging to his ringing hands, his damp clothes, his saturated hair—invaded the stale musk of his room, an intrusion not unlike all her others before it. And for moments on end, Kylo abandoned all humility to cling to it in a wretched display that shamed him greatly, never wanting it to fade, his palms below his ravaged lips as he inhaled through the exquisitely scented filter of his fingers.

His mind began a holoprojector, the events preserved and replayed with perfect clarity, and thereby flooded a rough sea wherein Kylo was tossed from one choppy wave to the next. Despite the dark bookends he had shoved upon their passion, there had been a perfection unique to the universe. The bond had been completed, the union more powerful than any superweapon the First Order could ever forge. Its draw had been satiated, and only now, as alone as he had left her a few levels below, did Kylo realize the pull was—and always had been—merely a symptom of his emotions toward her, not the cause, an exhibition whose increasing clarity had begun to expose those secret recesses. They were feelings of undermining tenderness he never would have imagined having, even a dozen years ago—those far-off days when he had been another person—but feelings nonetheless. They had merely become heightened by her own emotions toward him, catapulted starward by her awakening potential, and though there was some peace of mind to be found in this sudden epiphany, it only saddled the cruelty of his actions with additional weight.

The faint sound of running pipes soon brought Kylo’s scarred skin up from the cradle of his hands. Even through the durasteel walls separating them, he instantly knew the Stormtroopers had gone to fetch her from the training room, having waited the 15 minutes he had conscientiously ordered in some pitiful effort at courtesy. Now she was on the other side of his own washroom, no doubt scrubbing to cleanse herself of the vile creature who had so sad*stically deflowered her and left her demolished in every way. And even in his contrite desolation, Kylo’s body continued to vibrate with the very feel of her, still shook in the afterglow of every paralyzing sensation, every critical kiss. It was a cursed knowledge that eclipsed the previous weeks of ignorance, as if their torment had never really existed until now, and the way it inflamed him even in the midst of this considerable shame only compounded his guilt. Now he saw the upturned hazel eyes beneath him, obediently struggling to stay open, silently pleading through the tears they unleashed as he mercilessly humiliated and filled her. And beneath it all, her genuine affection, the warmth of her heart. To not go to her now, to refrain from crossing that painfully short distance and begging her forgiveness, was a formidable exercise in willpower he had never suspected he possessed. It was also a natural instinct that in itself took him aback.

The salient rush of the water soft in his ears, Kylo knew there was no going back now. His suspicion—that buried fear—of the consequences of using “all measures necessary” had been realized and surpassed. Snoke had not understood, had never tried to, but Kylo had known, even underestimated, what it would mean to possess her, in all her light and innocence and boundless magnetism. He had been a fool to believe he could deny their connection, and now his self-assuredness—the companion ego that had fueled his rebellion—recoiled in the ease with which he had sabotaged himself despite all sensibility.

The kiss.

One satiating split-second of instinctual weakness had been all it took to let her in forever. Lost to her forever. How willingly he had sacrificed his authority as her teacher, captor, and superior, and how vicious and embarrassing the desperate attempt he had made to maintain his control of her during their union now seemed. Unbelievably, he recognized it as such despite all the innate immorality that remained. Yes, it was still there—the source of his strength—its savagery emblazoning his every fiber, long-conditioned to erupt and obliterate anything in its path. The rejection of tranquility’s weakness had served him well. Despite his volatility, he had become powerful with the dark side as his ally. So close to becoming Vader. But the vexing truth he reluctantly acknowledged was that her light had felt blissfully peaceful. He now longed to be back there despite everything he knew, to caress her scavenger’s hands and hear the excited thunder of her heart pulse electrically in the pull. To be that close to her again. The Master of the Knights of Ren, who had only ever wanted to rule the galaxy, now longed for something seemingly far less attainable, something that betrayed everything that defined his existence. And that impossibility now plunged him into sheer hopelessness.

“You’re a grey area at best.”

For the first time since his youth, Kylo wanted to hide, would have begged the century to stretch as far as possible, to swallow him up completely and leave him forgotten in its solitude. But the second day of seclusion came despite him and, with it, the eventual interruption of a summons he could not avoid.

It seemed Kylo no longer even recognized the tromping of his own stride as he neared the reception chamber that afternoon. The gait resounded slower, its normal lumbering menace now marked by what could only be described as strain, as if he were smuggling untold weight in his core.

Stopping at the pauldron-clad guards at the reception chamber door, Kylo summoned all his capacity for deceit for the first time ever when convening with Supreme Leader Snoke, carefully collecting and concealing every rampageous doubt far beneath the surface his master had so freely tread for so long. The guise simply had to be infallible, just this once, or at least until he could bring himself back from the depths of his melancholy and confusion. He could never endure the humiliation of discovery in this state.

A sudden hiss and reddish blur nearly deterred Kylo from armoring himself, and all at once he was mask to face with the startled form of General Hux. Halting just long enough to parade his trademark smirk, Hux’s satisfaction reflected in Kylo’s visor mere inches away from his own pretense.

“Enter, my apprentice,” came the expected growl beyond Hux’s shoulder.

Hux’s curled lips now rose higher on one side, and despite his confident lack of fear of the general, Kylo dreaded the fallout of whatever report the fool had no doubt volunteered to their esteemed Supreme Leader. The mere suspicion was enough to ball Kylo’s fingers within his gloves, his only recourse for being unable to thrash the worm who finally bypassed him and went on his arrogant way, and for a moment, Kylo felt himself slip back into discord on the very threshold of his trial.

The Master of the Knights of Ren. The Jedi Killer, Kylo mentally exhaled as he at last commenced to follow the barren T of the lighted walkway.

“Supreme Leader,” he said, paying tribute voluntarily before reaching the staircase of his master’s obscured throne.

The figure above, currently more obscured by the hall’s shadows than Kylo had ever seen, did not return his acknowledgment. The emaciated hands clutching their rests—all that was visibly lit—remained unmoved. Finally able to discern the animal-like gleam of a glassy eyeball in the chair’s shade, Kylo knew with uneasy certainty that he was being examined.

“I have to say,” Snoke eventually sighed, reanimating to incline into the sanguine glow that undercoated his mangled jaw, “I despise that weak-minded twerp. Every meeting leaves the distinct taste of filth in my mouth. I assume you are of the same mind.”

“Yes, my master,” Kylo replied in an honesty that was not the least bit difficult to muster.

“However, he is like his father in many respects. What he lacks in spine, he makes up for in ambition, tenacity…intuition.”

Staring blankly beyond Kylo, Snoke somewhat drew out the last word, an ambiguous act that rubbed Kylo’s blistering apprehension.

“Remove your helmet, Kylo Ren,” the specter soon commented, his beady eyes finally falling as if prying themselves from a prolonged distraction. “I want to see your face. What is your assessment of the girl’s willingness to train? I am curious as to her progress, as well as her sincerity.”

“Master,” Kylo began as systematically as possible, “I have only had the opportunity to initiate one training session. I admit I gravely underestimated the entry level. I believe she already possesses the innate skills and knowledge to advance beyond basic Force training, and, likely, basic combat training as well. I will know more upon my next opportunity for evaluation.”

“Ah, but did you find her willing?”

He knows. He knows something has happened.

Kylo clenched the length of his narrow jaw beneath its unkempt surface. He would have been able to completely dispel the upset that crept up his slender frame had it not been for the invasive flashes of her wounded eyes staring up into his, nose to nose, her mouth falling open as he pushed harder….

Fight it.

“Yes, I did.”

“Very interesting.” Snoke formed an ill-fitting grin with what remained of his puckered mouth, reclining back into obscurity. “She is most impressive. A true anomaly. But then again, you have known that for quite some time, haven’t you, my apprentice? Intriguing how our moments of weakness come back to haunt us.”

“Supreme Leader, may I be dismissed? I must gather with General Hux, Captain Phasma, and the senior officers to to prepare for our arrival to Ahch-To.”

The façade was becoming difficult for Kylo to maintain overtop the raging storm, and he was now beginning to suspect the current audience Snoke had requested served no real purpose other than to test his resolve.

“Not quite yet, Kylo Ren. Your own training has lapsed far too long since the unfortunate events of Starkiller Base. We must resume your apprenticeship parallel to training the girl. I have entrusted you as her charge, but you yourself are still not ready. You require guidance.”

“Yes, my master.” Another truthful answer. But Kylo soundly knew there was no more Snoke could teach him that would rid him of this new turmoil.

“Begin the course for locating Skywalker, and return at this time in two days. Leave your hesitations at the door. I need my prized pupil resilient and focused.”

“I understand,” Kylo said, nodding respectfully before turning and taking his leave amidst the darkness.

“I never told you about your grandmother, did I?”

Lowering his helmet back from the point of replacing it, Kylo came to a subliminal stop over the light, as if the arctic blast of the galaxy outside the Finalizer had just punctured the hull to freeze his blood in its vacuum.

“I thought not.”

Too shocked to register suspicion, Kylo slowly turned to face his master.

“During his time as the padawan of Obi-Wan Kenobi, before the Empire, Anakin Skywalker met your grandmother, Padmé Amidala, who was a senator and the former queen of Naboo. They eventually fell in love and began a secret affair hidden from the Jedi Order. She was his most prized possession. His emotions ran rampant, stamping out his training, the Jedi, and the Force. And do you know what happened to her?”

Kylo swallowed hard, attempting to stifle the thundering muscle in his chest.

“He killed her,” Snoke said, his chilling baritone reverberating off the walls. “She died shortly after Leia Organa and Luke Skywalker were born. And from that death, Darth Vader was born as well.”

The wan glow whitening Kylo’s already pale skin from beneath was suddenly far too bright in the black hell of the reception chamber.

“The mirage of fools. Love has no place of power in the Force, not for the strong, not for those destined to conquer. Nothing but pain and suffering comes from such emotion. But we do know the power of pain, don’t we, Kylo Ren? As you can see, pain can create an Empire.”

---

When the capsule of the lift tube unleashed Kylo onto the floor of the officers’ quarters, nothing emerged.

Immovable beneath his mask, Kylo watched the corridor’s dim stretch of segmented shadows while Snoke’s thinly veiled warning clawed at the soft tissue of his insides.

Even Darth Vader, the icon of the strength of his very blood, had been unable to compromise, to find that mythical middle ground where the darkness and light met and coexisted in some bubbling chaos bordering on harmony. Even he had destroyed the thing he had loved the most. And yet, it had been the final hurtle to achieving greatness.

“…from that death, Darth Vader was born as well.”

Was he wrong? Had Snoke given Kylo an admonition of doom, or had it really been an indication of directive? Was it never really supposed to have been Han Solo he-?

“No,” Kylo said aloud, unconsciously breaking the silence of the hallway.

Don’t even think that. Never, no matter what you have to do. It can’t be her.

Regardless of his suspicion’s accuracy, Kylo would have done anything in his power to avoid her, just as a precaution in the grips of his paranoia. After all, she had made his absolute lack of control painfully evident. But the fact remained that the Force, perhaps even fate, had been determined to entangle them, and the enduring consequence was that she had taken root in his soul, utterly immovable from him. The venom was in the wound, had permeated him utterly, and now it was equally impossible for Kylo to heal or die. And Snoke was right—there could never be a grey area of existence in between.

Nothing good can ever come from my nature. It’s too late for me.

Hopeless and more lost than he had felt since his days as Ben Solo, Kylo finally escaped the confines of the lift tube and followed where his body led, passive as he was organically pulled to the sealed entranceway adjacent to his. Now, as he had become so accustomed to doing these days, Kylo removed his mask; he wanted to look at her with free eyes, to behold the effects of his savagery—the evidence of their doomed disharmony. And even in those few short minutes, his veins began to hum excitedly in her proximity. The bond’s cruelty incensing him, Kylo clung fiercely to stability.

At last he released the doors.

The unexpected softness of the hazel eyes that met his instantly took him aback, a far cry from the dejection that had relentlessly haunted him since the act. Contradictory to everything he had expected, they held no resentment, no despair—not even a glint of surprise—though he noted their modest reddish tint and slightly enflamed outline. Her sleep had been uneasy too. She had cried, though not today.

Unmoving as he entered the room and sealed the door behind, Rey merely stared with stony interest from her seat at the table across the room, as if curious of what he may say or do. The ashen sleeves of a fresh tunic lay extended, and her lithe fingers fell delicately over the table’s surface, as if gently brushing the keys of some musical instrument. It was a picture of poised loveliness that made Kylo conscious of his own unhinged appearance, his tousled hair, his unshaven chin, his desperate, bloodshot eyes.

Kylo tried to form words, but here they eluded him. Over the last two days, there had been too many words, imagined scenarios, and rehearsed apologies that, when assembled, fell superficially short of articulating his remorse. Finally in her presence, words both amassed confusingly and faded into obscurity, leaving him mute. Indeed his impulse had led him to her both naturally and completely unprepared, but, really, what could he say? What could ever excuse his actions? How could he possibly tell her everything? There was so much to tell, so many truths, but, ultimately, no disclosure, no matter how raw or sincere, could impact the impossibility of their bond, could curb his biological need for her.

On the verge of disintegration, Kylo abandoned words and again followed his intuition, descending to his knees in near collapse to cast his mask aside and lay one side of his repentant head upon her warm lap. Closing his stinging eyes, he sensed her hands rising from the table in surprise, and he waited for whatever blows or protests she might inflict upon him in his desperation. But none came. In their place, Kylo soon felt the relief of hands placed tenderly upon the cowl over his rounded shoulders. The touch began hesitantly, as if the simple act held significant implications in her mind. Then one set of fingers lifted and fell again, now lightly stroking the aching skin of his forehead, his upturned temple, the crest of his scar, to gently brush back the downy undulations of his black hair. They then returned to repeat the motion slowly, over and over, often lingering on some favorite part or detouring to brush an untouched blemish or earlobe, tracing his features as if physically recording every detail of his offering of remorse. Adrift in the comforting sea of her caresses, Kylo knew her fingers were the silent acceptance of the apology mere talk could not convey. There he remained, paralyzed in the relief of absolution, his mind at last calmed by the infinite peacefulness of her touch and his arms unconsciously clinging to the linen covering her calves. It was she who at long last broke the eons of blissful silence, her mind speaking softly to his.

“You should leave now.”

Feeling her fingers retreat and rest where they had begun at his back, Kylo emerged from the lull as if waking from a dream, squinting beneath the dull glow of the room he had left behind.

He knew she was right. Her acceptance had—for the moment—eased his guilt, but the underlying impossibility remained, the tragic bell dragging his foot. Nothing good would come from his staying any longer, just as nothing good would come of his returning to her as anything other than her teacher.

Releasing her legs, Kylo lifted his head from her sealed thighs and sank back onto his heels to look at her. Watching him, her expression maintained its previous composure, only now her girlish features seemed tinted by something bordering sadness and compassion. To him, her eyes appeared warm and sympathetic—perhaps she was pleased to know he did, after all, possess a conscience—but her blush-colored lips were now flatly tense, as if biting back her own acceptance of their shared hopelessness. But she was exquisite in that moment, walking that emotional tightrope with a capability that Kylo had, as always, foolishly underestimated, and he took in that image of her in what would likely be their last intimate moment, tracing her face with his bottomless gaze as she had done with her forgiving touch—the strongest, most beautiful creature he had ever known.

Rising to his feet, Kylo left his apprentice in peace. He knew that, this time, she did not want him to look back.

Chapter 16: There Is Peace

Chapter Text

16

A rush of pouring water washed Rey from the light sleep she had tried so hard to attain.

Emerging fatigued and unduly panicked in her exhaustion, Rey jerked the bedclothes to her chest and bolted upright before fully registering her surroundings. Her prisoner’s quarters were beginning to ring more familiar and less intimidating with each passing day, the icy walls the same gunmetal grey of her abandoned AT-AT back in the desert. However, waking in them, bathed in the sterile darkness of space travel, remained a disorienting routine, especially of late. Especially when coming from vivid, disturbing dreams.

Rey had been on the island again this time (it was fading so very quickly now). She had been scaling the ancient stairs, looking for something—seeking out the powerful green aura hiding at the zenith. It was there as it had been during the waking illusion comprising her first meditation with Kylo Ren. She could sense it again, like the charged mist surrounding a fog-laden electrical field. But the tidal wave had come again as she neared the stony structures, cerulean and gargantuan—more than enough to knock her from the dizzying height of her progress. It had just begun to break across the emerald-cut cliffs, its foam heralding the imminent impact that would end her journey. She could even hear the spray heralding her doom.

Of course, it had not been the sea. It had not even been an intruder in her own room. Listening for the trickling now in the perfect stillness of sleep’s wake, Rey realized the cascade was not nearly as resonant as it had registered in her delirium. In fact, it was almost completely subdued, coming from another compartment beyond her washroom.

Rey knew quite suddenly that it came from his quarters, that it was him showering on the other side of their shared wall.

Illuminating the chrono embedded in the locked comlink near her bedside, Rey exhaled unhappily at the much-too-brief stretch of rest she had gotten. The morning hour was still ridiculously early, but there would be no returning to sleep, not now that his name had reclaimed its place on her tongue.

Rey attempted to swallow the familiar lump of nerves thoughts of him provoked, but her throat rejected the desiccation, feeling suddenly like the sands of the Goazon Badlands. Braving the frigid floor against her bare soles, she abandoned the false promise of the bed and stumbled through the blackness to find the washbasin faucet, from which she drank two greedy handfuls before thinking to activate the inset fluorescents overtop the mirror. Materializing in the whitewashed glow, Rey was relieved to recognize the face that stared back—still sharp-nosed and cat-eyed—though her exhaustion had begun to manifest in shadowy circles beneath her squinting eyelids. It was also now the reflection of a woman.

The rush of the pipes hummed louder here than in the other room, Rey now realized, her ears growing more attuned, and as she extended a dripping hand to the towel on the inlaid shelf adjacent to the mirror, she could physically feel that he was very close. It was similar to brushing skin over the cathode of a capacitor bearing that still held a charge, a mistake she had made many times while picking clean the bones of so many fallen destroyers; there was an intense contact, a spark igniting down her arm. A resultant ache in her chest.

Conceding to reflect once again on the previous few days, Rey felt she had emerged intact from the training room and ensuing hours of anguish and self-doubt. It had not been easy. Like the arduous slopes of the green island, the ordeal had begun chaos and ultimately equalized into an acceptable composure, sans the occasional spasms of hopelessness and shame jutting through the plateau of her acceptance. The initial shower had been vital, washing away the evidence of her recklessness and discarded virginity, as had the fresh clothes to replace the ones that smelled painfully of him. Rey had then taken a tender seat at her table, struggling to rein in unruly thoughts of her disgrace, his obvious lack of concern for her, and what repercussions her actions would have for them both. Despite her reassurance in the training room, she also feared for her ability to retain the power of the light she had only so recently only discovered. Finding her worries tirelessly encircled themselves, she had decided to meditate, though it took an hour’s worth of attempts and tears to attain the necessary peace of mind, to feel the Force’s soothing flow and allow it to calm and claim her soul.

The nights had been, and continued to be, the worst times, as thoughts of him came to her most vividly in the throes of her exhaustion. For restless hours upon end, Rey had stared into the same disorienting blackness, which would only echo his eyes, how they had first flashed with anger, then warmed over top of her, and then grown vacant and depraved. That viciousness had frightened and disappointed her, like a knife in the fresh hole the visions of the pitiful little boy had left in her heart. Then the crass commands had added insult to injury, humiliating her in the midst of her vulnerability—the most exposed she had ever allowed herself to become to anyone.

Yet, much to Rey’s shock, an undeniable arousal clung wetly to every ounce of shame regardless of all of it—despite the consequent bruises on her wrists, soreness between her thighs, and gripping anxiety the act had caused her. Her deceitful body lit up with excitement at the memory of finally tasting the lips that had been so full and cautious on Starkiller Base. Then the thrill of threading her fingers through his silken curls, gripping his invasive weight, feeling her body part for his unseen greed; it had all been so unexpected but alleviating after so many instances of prioritized discipline. Despite how they had repelled her in the moment, even his humiliations now added a sensuous throb to her already aching womanhood, the ruthlessness of how he had commanded her gaze as he filled and filled her. Embarrassingly, it brought her blood to the surface to even think of it.

Prior to that, however, she had seen a departure from the dark—a clarity of genuine affection in his eyes. And Rey had hated him for that. She hated knowing his buried past well enough to understand his nature, hated that she was unable to dispel her sympathy despite his indifference toward her. And it had taken hours of meditation to abandon that hate in favor of the Force’s serenity. But she had triumphed—yes, she had. Through hours of self-collection, she had been able to reach the epiphany required to live with and learn from her actions, settling on a foundation of trusting in the resiliency of her own strength and goodness.

Grappling with her disappointment in their shared weakness, Rey had resolved to focus on empowering herself as much as possible under his tutelage until a chance for escape arose. She would rather take her chances with the Force bond as far away from him as possible, light years removed from the guarantee of hurt.

Resigned to this acceptance, Rey had felt somewhat healed by the time he had arrived the second day, both mentally and physically. Indeed she would have been crushed but secretly relieved if he had acted as though nothing had happened, been characteristically cold, or even mocked her surrender. But no; she was beginning to understand that nothing would ever be so black and white with Kylo Ren. Instead, he had defied her expectations, abandoning all the pride she knew he possessed and offering every shred of his humility the only way he knew how. He had begged her forgiveness, and though it had not been professed, it had been communicated through his broken eyes, his supplicant knees, his clinging arms.

Despite their connection, Rey never would have imagined the devastation he harbored. It shook her to at last see him so blatantly lost and uncharacteristically unguarded after all this time, and her compassion for him quickly overrode the plethora of secret deals she had struck in her solitude. Studying the breathtaking contours of his face—suddenly more puerile and defenseless than she had ever seen—as she instinctively comforted him, Rey knew with perfect certainty that he cared for her despite all confliction, that he had navigated the unstable pathway of his own threatened identity to be with her. And like a healing wound torn afresh, that realization revived the emotions she had resigned.

“Damn you,” Rey whispered in her solitude.

Removing herself from the prone radius of the washroom, Rey returned to the living area to locate the recessed closet near her bedside. From it, she pulled clean garments that she then donned in frustrated haste. Her thoughts were beginning to relapse, and she did not want to return to the disharmony that had seized her upon his exit, when she had watched the onyx robes of his broad back disappear from view, her thighs resonating with the warmth of his humanity.

Yes, Rey had been broken in the immediacy of their passion. The very nerves of her emotions had been exposed, pulsing raw and susceptible as he had fled the training room. But she had grown confident in her lingering strength. The retention of her very soul assured her that being with him had rendered her no less powerful with the light. She maintained the potential for good in that precarious place—the grey area, as he had called it—the realm where all things were possible in the Force. And despite everything—the slaying of Han Solo, the bloodlust of the hangar bay, and now the cruel scene of her most intimate offering—she was certain he coexisted with her in that uncertain place.

I was going to be all right, she had said silently to herself upon his exit. I was coming back from it. Why did you have to care? Why do I have to understand you?

The water hissed away to nothingness somewhere in the distance. Rey’s glance darted to the washroom in the sound’s sudden absence, still paused distractedly in the act of sliding one linen gauntlet up her chilled forearm.

She could no longer hide, not from him, from what happened, or from her destiny with the Force, no matter what that may be. Only by reasserting herself would she be able to regain control.

Peace, Rey thought. There is peace. Even in the grey.

She then broke their mutual silence at last.

“We’re both awake at an unusual hour.”

A lengthy stillness followed, so lengthy that Rey began to curse herself for reaching out too soon. She was more relieved than she expected to hear him finally resound inside her empowered mind.

“It would seem so.”

In spite of her composure, Rey felt both soothed and excited to hear that voice again—the low, smoky tone he took on when speaking very close to her in the absence of his mask. The one that had overtaken her in the interrogation room.

“Perhaps we should begin my training early today.”

Another long pause.

“I didn’t expect you to be eager to resume your training so soon.”

“Every day I’m kept cooped up in here is only opportunity wasted.”

“I agree. You’ll have to excuse me for that. I needed time-”

“Yes,” Rey cut him off quickly, preferring not to even broach the topic. “I understand. But I believe I’m ready now. There is much I need to learn. And for that to happen, I need a teacher. Otherwise, what am I doing here?”

The spell of seeming hesitation that followed convinced Rey that the notion of training now overwhelmingly daunted him, if it had not before.

“I’ll come for you within the hour,” he said with a marked return of confidence at last.

Rey began to slip her boots on in lieu of confirmation.

---

“You’re not serious,” Rey said as Kylo placed the small black cube apart from the stack that dominated the far corner of the training room.

Kylo flashed a testy upward glance as he returned to her side.

“Don’t be co*cky,” he said in gentle seriousness, turning face forward next to her. “co*ckiness only leads to underestimation, and underestimation can be deadly. And don’t be insolent either. I’m aware of what you’ve told me you can do, but I need to observe you for myself. I’m your teacher, remember.”

Staring forward, Rey allowed herself a rebellious smile.

Now in the late afternoon, the day had been highly prosperous, and Rey was admittedly enjoying herself more than she could have foreseen.

It had been a progression, of course. Now intimately knowledgeable of each other’s state of mind, master and apprentice’s early morning journey from their level to the training room had been marked by a speechlessness that differed from their normal silence. The uncomfortable quiet had clung to them oppressively like shared leaden chains they rattled as they strode past First Order officers freshly relieved of the late shift. Their unspoken awareness of obvious issues was only outdone by the awkward return to the scene of their crime.

Despite her best-laid plans, even Rey had grown impulsively distracted upon entering the room again, her eyes absently wandering to the sparring mat she knew so well. It had been freshly cleaned, she quickly noted, all evidence of their lapse hidden in time. Nevertheless, she felt compelled to avoid it, choosing instead to stand reservedly near the wall of unkind mirrors.

Obediently at Kylo’s back, Rey had observed his hesitation as well. He had removed his mask upon entering and, intending to place it upon the weapons shelf on the far side of the room, stopped at the edge of the sparring mat. After a noticeable pause he attempted to disguise as a natural change of mind, he had opted to walk the long way around the mat rather than cut over it, as if it were sacred ground he would only taint to tread.

The struggle to return to normalcy had been very real for both of them. Memories lay subtly strewn all around them—hidden landmines that threatened to ignite lingering sensations or irritate healing wounds. To fight them, Rey had chosen to perceive his predicament of handling such a complex situation from a position of supposed power, the challenge of reviving and facilitating their rapport as student and teacher rather than linked spirits who had so recently entangled in the very room they now occupied. She deliberated on how carefully he conducted himself around her—the distance he kept, the way he avoided her eyes, the formal tone he maintained, the instruction he so fastidiously stuck to—as if he were wary of her.

In spite of herself, Rey had appreciated both his tact and the obvious helplessness he hid beneath his careful tutelage. She found his tiptoeing and conspicuous efforts charming, and the more she grew aware of the lengths he now underwent to avoid causing her any upset, the more strangely empowered she felt over him. As a result, she caught herself opening up to him more and more as the day wore on, feeling increasingly at ease with him—perhaps even more so than before the incident. And, amazingly, the more she blossomed from the bedrock of her hesitancy and discomfort, the more he let down his own guard, until it seemed the awkwardness had been all but shed.

The first exercise had taken her the entire morning to perform with any noteworthy progress. The focus had been Force-based, namely to acquire a foundation of stopping moving energies within the Force itself. Activating an automated blaster mounted within the wall to the right of the training room door, Kylo had suspended the first crimson pulse mid-fire. Rey had watched in wonderment, admiring his intense concentration beyond his outstretched glove, but she had been outright impressed when he second-naturedly divided his attention to instruct her, the energy bolt crackling and unmoving behind him.

After an hour’s worth of attempts, all exploding with frustrating finality into the anchored durasteel backstop, Rey was at last able to “snag” the plasma within her reliable Force-web, tugging at the projectile to delay its inevitable impact by hard-earned milliseconds. Regardless, the effort had been painstaking, like trying to rip a greased power converter from the tiniest cubby; however, by noon, Rey had finally realized the key lay not in her normal method of pulling from her stationary position at the center of the web, but rather in shoving the energy of the projectiles head on and holding them back from the opposite direction.

“You envision the Force as a series of straight lines, but you limit yourself in doing so,” Kylo had concurred in agreement. “Our brains restrict us; we cannot fully map out the vast network of the Force as it flows through living things and the lifeless objects between them. Every living thing is connected, which means your ‘threads of energy’ limitlessly intertwine from every angle and run through countless objects in between. There is always more than just forward and backward.”

Within the hour, Rey had noticeably slowed the course of each shot in succession, and a short time later, she had at last successfully caught one plasma pulse, converging upon it three-dimensionally in an enveloping push-pull motion that completely froze it in its path. Behind closed eyes, she had seen the pensile blast—buzzing in anticipation of its lethal purpose—as clearly as if viewing through an infrared lens, had felt its heat in the grip of her electric palm as its energy flowed through hers and vice versa, and it was then that Rey had known with confidence that a major doorway to understanding how to manipulate the currents of the Force had just been opened to her.

Some minutes later, Rey had released the pulse and listened to the jolting impact with humble contentment. Lowering her hand and turning behind, she had been pleased to find a slight grin of approval from her master, one made all the more obvious in the way it curved the base of her scar below his cheekbone. And because she so rarely saw him pleased, the approval reinforced her sense of accomplishment with additional satisfaction.

“I’m your teacher, remember.”

“You have to trust me,” Kylo currently added.

Rey smiled in spite of herself, ignoring the gentle vibrations caused by his presence at her side as she reached out to levitate the small cube from the floor. The memory of the first moment, when she had retrieved Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber from the oscillator rubble, suddenly came to mind—the stink of the smoke, the heat of the flames, and then the impact of the lightsaber’s metal hilt connecting with her hand.

The tiny dark box elevated against the dull backdrop of the wall, rising slowly and hovering steadily high above the ground.

“All right,” Kylo said placidly at her side. “You may put it down.”

Another new endeavor. Obeying, Rey concentrated on releasing her energies from the cube as gradually as possible so as not to drop it. As a result, the tiny block sank to the floor bit by excruciating bit, finally settling with all the care and caution of handling fine crystal.

“I’d hate to see you gathering eggs.”

Rey turned to Kylo in shock to find the return of that foreign grin. The drastic way it transformed his entire demeanor elated her.

“Did you just make a joke?” she asked, her voice rising as her own lips curled into an amused smile.

Kylo did not answer, though she watched him carry the lingering smirk away as he again left behind.

“I’ve never set anything down before, OK?” Rey protested in playful defense.

Across the vast space, Kylo returned the cube to its crowning position atop the expanding stack. He then removed a burlap covering from a nearby mound that had piqued Rey’s curiosity earlier, revealing a massive matching block of waist height and equal thickness.

“Your control is impressively advanced,” he commented, discarding the cover as he again returned to her. “I think we should skip right to this.”

“How much does that weigh?”

“Five tons.”

“That’s impossible,” Rey scoffed. “There’s no way I can lift that.”

“Never say that,” Kylo said, his dark eyes suddenly hardening as he stared down at her. “Don’t even entertain that thought. Remember, the Physical Force links you to your surroundings.”

“But it takes so much effort to even lift small things. Lighter things.”

“You’re letting your eyes, your perception, hold you back you again, just as you did with objects in motion. Size, weight, velocity—it’s all irrelevant. Remember that you are connected to everything around you.”

Rey turned away from him to stare at the daunting challenge lying across the room.

“Anything is possible with the Force, Rey,” Kylo nearly whispered over her shoulder.

Of course, Rey knew he was right. He had to be—it only made sense in the realm of what she had seen and done up to this point. Her experiences as a Force-sensitive had laid the groundwork for a perception that expanded every day, but the fundamental truth remained that she was bound to the galaxy, felt as one with it when her mind was sufficiently clear of all doubt and disbelief. How could she have any cause to doubt after all that occurred over the last few weeks? The secret was merely to reach out in tranquility.

“To reach for it like a Jedi.” Just like the lightsaber or the plasma blast—an object in the extension of my own energy.

Shutting her oblique eyes, Rey stretched a sheathed arm toward the cube and proceeded to focus.

The enormity of the undertaking became apparent the instant she caught the boulder-like mass in the web of her energy. The cube weighed heavily like a limb caught in a trap under insurmountable pressure. Rey’s concentration momentarily wavered at the memory of once scavenging too close to the Sinking Fields, the immobility akin to how her body had felt when she had escaped drowning by pulling her lower body free (thankfully she had been smart enough to secure a safety rope to her speeder). Her life had seemed so desolate then, and she had felt so weak, her useless legs submerged in the quicksand and no one in her world who cared whether she lived or died.

Rey’s hand wavered. Recollecting her thoughts, she tried again, sensing the mental strain transfer to heat her physical core. It was so much more difficult to surround this thing, so additionally complex to appropriate her energy as it flowed through the cube’s vast density. Reach. Grasp this part of you. She could almost do it; she felt so close. Several times she was positive she had it, could swear she perceived the Force’s concentrated flow eluding the illusion of gravity. And yet, despite her moments of certainty, it did not budge.

At last, she withdrew, sullenly lowering her eyes and panting as the perspiration rolled down her flushed temples.

Her disappointment was interrupted by Kylo’s voice at her right ear: “It’s all right. No one ever does it the first time. But maybe it’s time for you to throw your collectiveness to the wind. Gather your emotions. Use them to your advantage.”

A forgotten blaze reignited as Rey felt the warmth of his body at her back, followed by a hand softly placed on her left shoulder. Surprised and unavoidably enflamed, she curiously turned up to watch him as he stared ahead and extended his own right arm next to hers. There, practically wrapped in him, his body painfully close, the many ebony folds of his sleeves contrasting the grey of her own, she watched Kylo close his eyes. Instinctively, she followed suit.

Trying to ignore the sensation of his naked thumb as it unconsciously brushed her outstretched hand, Rey again reached out to the hefty obstacle with her mind. However, something now felt amiss. Her mind had become blurry, and her body was not calm. The steadfast magnetization to him had awoken with a fierce hunger, a feeling that only burgeoned when she felt an immense stream of foreign energy wash through her fingertips—his energy, commanding and crimson behind her eyelids. It prickled Rey’s nerves as it flowed outward and consolidated at the shared apex where their hands met, and the more she attempted to cleanse and clarify her own power, the more her awareness of him—his tremendous force, his impeding frame, his very essence—infiltrated her efforts. And, in her soul, she knew his actions bore no malice. In this electric union, the struggle was hers.

The light and the dark coexist in the Force. Harmony is attainable.

Reaching deep within the stronghold of her fortitude, Rey retrieved all the white light she could muster and, letting it at last permeate her conflicted spirit, propelled it through space and time directly alongside his own power—two opposite energies, dynamic but united toward the same end.

Both Rey and Kylo opened their eyes to acknowledge the weightless block suspended far above and beyond them.

Chapter 17: Stay

Chapter Text

17

Rey meditated in the still of her quarters until it was time to go.

She had only risen from her seated position on the floor once to check the chrono and, confirming that she had roughly another hour until the time she estimated the late shift crew relieved the second shift of its duties, had easily returned to her collective introspections. When the moment finally came, when Rey was fairly certain the smallest shift of the Finalizer had assumed its various duties, she moved quickly but purposefully. The first task was to grab the meat and bread she had saved from the dinner Kylo had delivered a few hours earlier, her first meal after the long day of training. These dry tidbits she wrapped in a hand towel and stuffed into one pocket of the thick short-sleeved jacket, which she then donned along with her boots. However, there was not much else to take, nothing the room would allow her in terms of an easily portable weapon or container for water (she only hoped she would find these items on whatever ship she would commandeer, or perhaps along her way to the Star Destroyer’s launch bay).

Returning to her seat on the floor, Rey briefly mused that she was already escaping the First Order with more than last time, meager though it was. She then turned her attention to the entrance to her quarters. Kylo had passively exited to leave her to eat in peace, and, as usual, she had watched the pneumatic doors seal behind his broad back. Her first few days of being held there, she had often envisioned the entryway sensors she knew so well, the wiring she could skillfully manipulate if only the access panel were on her side; however, only this evening, after their hours of unification in exploring the energies of the Force, did she think to envision the physics inside the aperture. Now she saw the working parts and imagined the pounds per square inch pressing the doors immovably together. Surely, at its core, the mechanism was simply energy in motion, two massive weights that only need be separated. Only objects in the Physical Force.

Concentrating as she had earlier that day, Rey blocked out her surroundings and extended her index and middle fingers toward the gunmetal grey doors that bound her there.

Within seconds, a muted mechanical whine became audible in the silence of the room. It slowly crescendoed to a dull whir—the shrill pitch of struggling revolutions and working parts being forced in reverse—and when the crack of diffused hallway light finally leaked through to bisect the darkened panels, the motor gave a final dying shriek before its circuitry wound down to crippled silence.

Smiling as she rose, Rey approached the entranceway and, slipping both sets of fingers carefully through the crevice, pulled oppositely. Without the applied pressure of the controlling mechanism, the panels slid apart within the aperture as easily as if they had been on gliders, and within moments, Rey was in the private wing, gently closing the doors behind her with the pads of her fingers. Looking to her right along the cobalt walls, she assessed the second set of locked doors at the junction separating her from the rest of the First Order officers. Freedom so near. And, as luck would have it, the access panel was embedded on her side of the junction.

Approaching the hefty doors with soundless delicacy, Rey pivoted in an automated exercise in caution. The priority wing beyond her defective entranceway remained ever-vacant, dead-ending in that same panel of slit lights that intermittently adorned the gloomy hallways of the entire Finalizer. Forward of it, inset and eclipsed as hers had been, were the unlit doors to Kylo’s quarters.

Rey knew he was in there, had heard and felt him. The biological alarm ingrained in her body had buzzed ever so slightly in the midst of her meditation some 30 minutes earlier, followed by an audibly brief hiss of the ambient flow of water she knew too well. After that, nothing—she had successfully shut it out in the excitement of her opportunity, lest her mind wander. Until now.

Her meticulous feet suddenly trudged through unseen quicksand, each step increasingly intense in its effort. Rey swallowed hard into her chest, which she now perceived as hauling the burden of something elasticized, growing ever tight with each solitary inch toward the junction. And, in that extraordinary constraint, she at last fully conceded to the thoughts she had only briefly considered prior, about what it would actually mean to be separated from him once and for all, he in all his volatility, his allure…and possibility.

She replayed the dynamic progression of their day, how the icy shame they had toted had all but melted away through his sincere efforts and her compassion for him. But even more unbelievable had been the final exercise. United by their bond, the combination of their abilities had proven not merely possible but sublimely empowering to them both. The opposite ends of the current had cooperated as one in the Force, humming harmoniously as it had during their recent entanglement. However, the latest union had proven somewhat more phenomenal in its simplicity and concentrated ease. There was no sabotaging awkwardness, not a single cause for doubt. As a result, the dark and the light together had felt altogether unstoppable. And she knew the awe had taken him aback just as much as it had her, although the innate impulse to positively flood into his arms in the aftershock may have been hers alone.

Dangerously clouded, Rey extended a steadying hand. Her private resolution now seemed tragically irrelevant. The recent memories of apologies, atonement, and effort rose above it, highlighting a turn of events that Rey—bruised and nearly broken—had never foreseen. However, even stronger, there had been an authenticity she was certain he had never revealed to anyone before, a truth she had recognized within the anarchy of his spirit. Truly, Rey knew she had discovered something amazing—it was an honesty that had miraculously survived beneath the tragic armor Snoke had placed on Kylo’s soul. Despite all the kills and carnage and cruelty, this emotion’s moral heart still beat. Its mouth, beneath the surface, still gasped for reconciliation. All at once Rey knew that even if that goodness could never lead him again, just its mere existence may be sufficient to stabilize him, to empower their coexistence in their inseverable ties. Might be enough to fulfill her longing.

Rey’s awareness of this, coupled with their proven potential for harmony, now threatened to bind her to him far more soundly than any fated link in the Force.

“I can’t.” Rey’s gentle whisper was all steam on frigid metal.

I was meant to be here now. It must be possible. There has to be a way, together.

“Anything is possible with the Force, Rey,” he had said.

Rey abandoned the promise of the junction for the only remaining set of doors that truly kept her confined. This time she did not need to shut out the world to deactivate the sensors and depressurize the mechanical output. It was easier now, faster, the struggling screech of the motor protesting for a pathetic split-second before winding down to its nonfunctional end, and with equal speed and finesse, Rey exited and sealed herself away from the corridor.

She found him sitting upright at the head of his bed, shirtless back to the wall. It was the first she had seen him disrobed since she had stripped his unconscious body of its blood-soaked clothes aboard the command shuttle and tended to his wounds with nervous hands. The forgotten sight now caught her off guard.

Here he studied her with curious eyes that seemed much blacker in the shadows of his darkened quarters. Only ambient light from the room’s viewport revealed his bare chest and long limbs, a brilliant illumination from some passing planet rending his pale flesh almost luminescent in the pitch. Monitoring his reaction, Rey marked her privileged position out of the glow’s reach, feeling her flushed cheeks speak volumes of the excitement her body now withstood here, having broken her way into yet another of his private places to find him again exposed and excruciatingly desirable.

Neither figure stirred, as if both feared the wrongdoing of any word or action that would sully the moment’s ambiguity. When Kylo finally did take the initiative, it was the reaction Rey had foreseen.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said somewhat hoarsely, turning his avoidant face to the transparisteel.

To Rey, his continued self-restraint only reinforced her decision. It was only another atypical act of concern to further guide her already adamant instincts. Standing there of her free will, hands trembling in their painful emptiness, Rey felt no trace of shame or awkwardness in her immeasurable desire for him.

No sooner had the gentle rustle of the fabric drawn him back than Rey felt his eyes on her—all over her—hesitant but nonetheless hungry as she removed her clothes piece by piece with careful precision. When she stopped at the grey tunic, she returned his stare while freeing her undergarments to slide down from beneath the linen draping her smooth thighs. And there she stopped, turning her attention to remove the three gatherings from her hair and free the brown waves to her loosely covered shoulders. Bared in every way possible, then and only then did Rey go to him.

On the opposite crux of the bond, Kylo beheld Rey with an astonishment that now receded to show almost maddening fascination. In all his fevered, shame-filled longings, he had never imagined her as she was now—completely willing and almost ethereal in her beguiling conviction. From the defiance of her delicate feet as she crossed the gated shadows projected on the floor, to the command of her unflinching eyes as they held his, to the revealing outline of her backlit hips through the screen of her shirt—every detail filled and stiffened him from head to toe. And when she joined him on the bed, her bare knees sinking on either side of his as she hovered over him, Kylo met her siren’s lips in a gasp of relief that they were, by some miracle, his once more despite all the wrong he had done them.

The energetic flare of this connection decimated Rey’s memory of what it had been like the first time. It struck anew a voluptuous spark in the Force that coursed through her torso to the very limits of her reach, numbing her extremities and icing her burning blood. She momentarily faltered under its intensity, dazed and crumbling past the lush lips that had halted upon the precipice of her mouth in their own absorption of the shock. But he caught her. Trembling hands held fast to her linen-lined shoulders. Steadying herself, Rey planted her knees at his sides and gently sank to rest on the sheets at his rocklike lap.

Caught in the dynamic ripples of their bond, Kylo failed to suppress a close-lipped sigh at the pressure of her body atop his already substantial misery, separated from her heat by the thinnest layers. His hands slipped drowsily down from her shoulders to the curvature of her sides and grasped at her waist. The suppleness of her unbound chest against his lowered eyelids deceived her bold assertions. The musk of her hair, the strength of her sturdy hips beneath his thumbs, the shuddering breaths at his ear as she recollected herself from the kiss—it all pervaded and engulfed him, sending him spiraling into a realm of absolute devotion wherein he would have decayed and expired and faded forever if she wished it. He became lost there, spread fingers circling to the small of her back and pulling her desperately against him until he felt her touch direct his lips back up to her revived mouth. Feeling her part for him, he fed there indiscriminately, not able to taste her enough, and as he wound her in his arms, caressed her throat, threaded his fingers through her downy hair, it was as if nothing in the universe could harm them. As if they had touched for the very first time. As if he had done nothing wrong.

But a flush of toxicity now coursed. The talons of phantom claws suddenly buried themselves in the pith of Kylo’s gut. His mind, the bitter agency behind them, sounded an alarm that manifested again in that image of struggling eyes and helpless tears, of savagery at his hands—the same hands that now gripped her so very tightly, eager to tear her apart in their greed.

You said it yourself. Remember what you said.

“I can’t do this,” Kylo gasped, tearing himself from her fingertips.

Rey opened her eyes to find only his profile where his full lips had been. The feel of his hands withdrawing from her skin now tormented her beyond any suffering she had ever endured, and she quaked in the cold of their absence.

“There’s so much you don’t know,” he continued, his chest rising and falling heavily under invisible vibrations.

Rey laid a gentle hand on his established bicep. It was a gesture meant to calm, but the molecular frenzy of the contact was anything else.

“I can never be good for you. You know it’s true—you’ve seen what I’m capable of. It’s too late for me.”

“That may be true,” Rey agreed, shivering on top of him, “but I told you already—I don’t care.”

Kylo turned back to her, suddenly more seductive than Rey had ever seen him, his unending eyes, grimacing and lost, staring up at her in a reversal of privilege, his midnight hair full and contrasting behind his exposed throat, the crescent-moon shape of his smooth cheeks utterly pallid in the light. And his wet, wide mouth—made only for her…it now struggled.

“But I can’t control…” he stopped. Kylo then, raising the same palm—the one that had begun it all so long ago—to her burning cheek, confided at last, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t hurt me,” she said with an air of ominous certainty that both shocked Kylo and instantly dispelled his doubt. Rey then leaned forward, pressing her mouth to the peak of his scar. Following the path of her work, she paved his marred flesh with gentle kisses, the mental image of how he had looked—bloody and bloodthirsty—at the end of her blade now inexplicably exciting her, until she reached the mark’s end at one lovely cheekbone. “No more than I want you to.”

Kylo felt her hands over his, followed by a pull much more mild than that of their bond, and when she now placed his palms on the covering of her thighs, she slid them purposefully beneath the hem of her tunic. Wholly enflamed at the gesture, he observed her shadowed expression in search of the slightest indication of doubt—some uncertain twitch or nervous blink betraying her fear of him. But all he found there was sincerity, resolve, reassurance unmistakable enough to subdue his deepest, most insecure apprehensions. Overlying it, there was only a wellspring of beauty—the slight tilt of confident, almond-shaped eyes inset beneath graceful brows in the heart-like contours of her face. The luscious, youthful mouth he now believed. Kylo trusted in her completely, felt empowered by her unwavering trust in him. And, for everything they were both apart and together, he wanted her.

Grasping at the hem, Kylo lifted the fabric up over the porcelain of Rey’s body, carefully eclipsing that beauty behind the grey until it stripped loose from her eager arms. He then dared to take in a lifetime’s worth of her nakedness in one sweeping glance before reconnecting with the restless mouth he had never truly wanted to leave. His fingers continued the exploration of his wandering eyes, returning to the gooseflesh of her thighs and trailing the unveiled paths over her naked hips, past her trembling abdomen, until he found and gently caressed the untouched skin of her shapely breasts. Kylo lingered there, mindful that his greed had denied him access to all her soft perfection the first time. Sensing her melt beneath his cupped hands, he fondled her slowly and deliberately, felt her shudder as he circled her petite nipples with his large thumbs, brushed over the hardened flesh there until she broke away from his mouth, overwhelmed. This respite afforded him the opportunity to taste there now, his hands slipping round to pull her tight.

Even in the fog of their passion, Rey was distracted by a chilling déjà vu as she felt Kylo’s hands clutch at the small of her back and draw her to him so that he might plant his lips on her perspiring throat. It was as it had been in the cave, when she had been forced to make a choice within the nerve center of that living nightmare. Had she known even then, when she had instinctually kissed those murderous lips and allowed him to pull her into the filth? Had she already known what she had to-

“Ohh,” Rey inhaled shallowly as Kylo drew one tender nipple between his lips. The delightful warmth emanated throughout her entire body, heightening still as he applied pressure to gently suckle the sensitive skin. He followed by flicking it ever so slightly with the tip of his tongue, even taking it carefully between slackened teeth. The hand he clutched to her spine was soon covered in silky waves as her head tilted farther and farther backward in intoxication, while the other hand again thumbed over the pink tip of the opposite breast and teased it until the combined attention elicited a lascivious groan from her open mouth.

The audible evidence of Rey’s unrestrained pleasure drove Kylo to the verge of madness. Her moans were near-whimpers, something akin to the pathetic whine of a wounded animal, as if she had bounded in silence and lost against the jagged-toothed trap of his hunger. He relished in the fact that she could not contain it as he teased and touched her, his hands now roaming to stroke over her navel, the depression bisecting her back, the hidden dimples above her backside, and knowing he ruled her desire unequivocally set his blood boiling. It was such a natural instinct—the need to make her suffer, to leave his mark on all that beauty, perfection, and embodied lust. But Kylo’s memory was too fresh, his awareness of his volatility too keen, to let himself be overtaken again. She had literally placed herself in his hands. His brave scavenger.

Kylo released Rey’s delicate breasts and, upon returning his lips to hers, was met with an assault of fiery grazes fueled by the frustration of her arousal. This was multiplied by the pressure of her eager pelvis pressing down, desperately down, onto his body’s own painfully stiff need. It was as before: despite all he wanted to do—the plethora of coveted explorations his regained access to her body and soul had inspired—Kylo knew he could no longer deny her or himself.

Rey followed Kylo’s initiative with ravenous enthusiasm. Like his, her hands fluttered in anticipation as she toiled, fighting to discard the sheets from beneath her shins. When she returned to her kneeled position, she found he had tugged his sleeping slacks just far enough to free the thing she now craved so desperately in the summit of her want. And readying herself on the brink of the impossibly hard flesh he now positioned for her delectation, Rey deliberately pulled away to meet his upturned gaze. This time, she wanted to watch him.

In her most sublime fantasies, Rey could not imagine anything more alluring than watching Kylo’s obsidian eyes hold hers as she began to gradually lower herself onto his unyielding co*ck. The urgent, almost injured way they searched her face gave the impersonation of someone her own age or younger, like an adolescent awakening to an intimate embrace for the first time—an impression of vulnerability under her control that stirred her most primitive appetites. Working her way onto him with agonizing care, Rey meditated on the tensing of his slender cheeks, the sweat beneath the waves over his forehead, the way he held his breath and finally released it over his luscious lower lip in a clenched hiss. When she could take him no farther and her adoration was swallowed whole by lewd chills beyond measure, Rey’s gaping mouth finally succumbed to the satisfied cry that had been silently amassing in her throat. And all the while, the powerful unity of their bond buzzed energetically in her blood.

As if compelled by the very makeup of her biology, Rey slowly drew up. Between her legs, he felt slick, sinfully dampened but no less challenging for her still inexperienced body. And he still watched her, his breathless mouth betraying a look of determination that threatened to push her over the peak she was already far too near.

Beneath her, Kylo’s body was a pyre of sensation. Even the metal wall at his back ceased to cool his feverish skin, especially as she sank back down on unsteady legs. That was when she at last broke her provocative gaze, wrapping her arms about his neck and kissing him as if she had no alternative to alleviate the agony. Kylo held his captive as if forever had come, feeling her swollen breasts pressed tightly to his chest, and behind them, the pounding of her heart against his own as she began to meticulously roll her hips. Steadily, euphoria approached, driven closer and closer with each sway, each greedy rock of her body on his sensitive downfall. This added to the already unbearable gratification of their connection in the Force, and Kylo knew he would die if anything interrupted them now.

As if her own struggle could have possibly been insufficient, Rey suddenly floundered beneath a foreign bliss. Electric and stealthy, it infiltrated her nerves, rushing through her abdomen and concentrating almost externally at the height of her exposed womanhood. The sensation blossomed as she took him again and again, every motion assuring her with increasing clarity that it was him. By some new mystery of their link, she now writhed in the swell of his pleasure as well as her own, and it was an exotic mixture—an ecstasy the color of hellish embers swirling into nighttime skies. And it was now more than she could bear.

Rey rocked more forcefully, riding on a friction that began to numb the wettest, most hidden corners of her body.

Guiding her hips with his drenched hands, Kylo began to drive upward to meet her tightening undulations, and each time he did, thrusting ever harder and more deeply, he lost himself more and more, basking in the sweet sound of her cries until he was frantic seconds from joining in them.

“Don’t…stop,” Rey begged, eyes shut against his scar, fingers tense in his hair. But no sooner had she uttered the words than the creeping vibration he strummed and plucked so exquisitely within her core culminated in a violent torrent of release. It was a veritable onslaught the likes of which she could have never foreseen. Rey disintegrated in his arms, her body carried away by harrowing spasms of pure sublimity.

Kylo would have followed her to the ends of the galaxy; it was nothing to fall with her now, so completely saturated by every single detail. Loud against her own moaning throat, Kylo ensnared Rey’s slippery shoulders to pull her down as hard as he could, spreading her deliciously one final time as he exploded in a physical release seemingly disproportionate to the absolute pleasure that wracked his body. Crushing into her, feeling her take everything he was, Kylo surrendered to the grey light of their bond.

Their unified starburst stretched into infinity in a lush cycle, one in which their mutual throbs, shudders, and clenches only fueled each other’s climax and perpetuated the most extraordinary bliss imaginable. When the haze at last receded, the scene almost betrayed their true potential—their combined significance among the countless worlds outside the viewport’s prying eye. In this moment, Kylo and Rey were merely two shadowed figures, exposed, spent, and shivering in each other’s arms. But the aftermath of their shattering intimacy lingered in the throngs of the Force as a reminder of who they were together rather than apart—an anomalous potential that had fatefully come to exist in the vast stretches of the galaxy. Their power now seemingly betrayed Rey’s weakened body as she finally released Kylo and collapsed to the bedside, but it prevailed nevertheless. It endured as she at last rose to leave his sheets. It thrived as Kylo pulled her back with imploring lips and encircling arms, wordlessly inviting her to stay. It hummed as Rey curled up next to him, returning his groggy kisses with tender mouth until her head and hands slipped heavily down to rest on the drenched skin over his heart.

Wrapped in each other’s nakedness, Rey and Kylo drifted to sleep in the lull of the Force. For the first time in their lives, neither of them slept alone.

Chapter 18: Promises of Dawn

Chapter Text

18

Kylo could not recall the last time he had longed for the first rays of a rising sun.

There had been a time, when Kylo Ren had been someone else, when he would wake early, usually from restless sleep, and leave Luke Skywalker’s academy, the temple, all of them, far behind his stealthy speeder. To the edge of the compound he would race, conquering his preferred hill on foot to settle near the grassy bluff overhanging the valley. His place. The suns would come then as if they had been waiting, their emerging radiance heralded by the brightening underbellies of flight-suit orange clouds. Slowly but steadily the twin orbs revealed themselves in vibrant amber behind the darkened skyline of his solitude. He would sit there and watch, inundated by his own apprehensions and worries, until it was time to return to the academy for the morning meal. However, it was usually not worthwhile to leave the dawn for that (the others had ostracized him from the beginning), nor was it rewarding to favor communal dinner over returning to watch the suns’ inevitable retreat at dusk.

But sometimes he had not been alone, astride the speeder, atop the cliff, in the glimmer of titian daybreak. And those had been some of the happiest, most carefree times in young Ben Solo’s life.

“You’ll always love me, won’t you, Ben?”

The hidden hairs lining the back of Kylo’s neck stood on end as if physically tugging him back, instantly reminding him of why he had thought of those foreign, fortuitous days.

She came back into focus, unmoved still warm in the crook of his shoulder.

Again Kylo imagined the rays of climbing suns leaking through the window of the viewport to wash over her. He clearly envisioned the creeping gold as it painted the pale sheets hiding her feet, her calves, the hillside of her thigh, the peeking cleft of her firm breasts. It would then fall on her fading skin, still clutching him, until it caught and reflected in the subtle highlights of her bronze hair.

Not that any living soul would ever be able to fault her without it. She could never have been any less enchanting than she was now, wrapped in his smooth arms. In place of the sunlight was the blue-tinted glow refracting from Ahch-To below the Finalizer, and that was more than enough to reveal every detail he had tread with ravenous lips beneath the cover of the previous night.

He had awoken from the deepest, most genuinely restful sleep he had ever slept and, growing instantly aware of her delicate warmth and desert limbs, had frozen solid in the strange reality of not being alone. It was an alien sensation, that feeling. He knew it had to be comfort. But it was also more than that, in the way their daring need for each other had proven to be more yet again…the way she was always more than merely Rey. Her body had entwined to fit seamlessly with his, eliciting a sense of wholeness Kylo found almost more seductive in its peaceable entreaty than any promise the dark side had ever held for him.

Still blindly following this new departure from himself, Kylo had admired her unconsciousness loveliness as he had become accustomed to doing since Takodana; however, the current context underscored a significance that set this adoration apart. For the first time, Rey’s features were tranquil—free of distress and the unsettling dreams he always sensed through the bond. Dreams like his own. She had not moved once since he woke, the soundless rush of her breath escaping against the unimposing rise and fall of his chest. The delicate hands she normally hugged for warmth, the same that had explored his flesh so fervently only hours earlier, still emitted their energetic tingle as they clung to him tightly even in their dormancy. Her hair lay disheveled but soft and strewn over his bicep. Of course, the biggest discrepancy of them all: she was in his arms of her own free will.

The dissonance of his instincts nearly overwhelmed him. After endless searches and infuriating dead ends, Skywalker was at last within reach, and all directly thanks to her. Yet, what should have been a time of gratifying victory seemed a trivial afterthought in the perfection of the moment. The bloodthirsty anticipation, the impending confrontation, the darkness in which Kylo should have been meditating at this very moment—all of these fantasies of yesterday were now overshadowed by the chaos of a sudden perfection. He wanted to kiss her unmoving eyelids, or even the slight part of her slackened mouth. He wanted to lay her back and make love to her again in all her drowsy irresistibility. He wanted to run far away from her power over him, wanted to bury his lightsaber to the hilt in Luke Skywalker’s heart and rid the galaxy forever of the Jedi.

He wanted to reconcile Kylo Ren.

But, like Ben Solo, Kylo conceded to merely wish for the sunlight.

Finally, he could no longer ignore the chrono embedded in the comlink blinking beyond her naked shoulder. He had already failed to appear at his own mandated briefing on the results of Ahch-To’s life-form scanner readings. Furthermore, the resumption of his training with Supreme Leader Snoke was both impending and crucial, he knew, before facing Skywalker at long last.

Despite all his burning impulses to wake her, Kylo withheld from granting himself even the least obtrusive of indulgences. A cynical fraction of him still attributed her visitation of the previous night to some possessed whim, and he still half-expected her to wake in horror at her present company. The more logical side, however, recognized the seed of doubt in all its mingled foundation, both longing for and dreading the act of feeling her come alive in his arms and all the undying tenderness that would flood forth from him as natural as breathing. His own candid admissions, the truths he had uttered only hours earlier beneath her confident hands, still shocked him—by far the most exposed he had ever let himself be. How would he conduct himself now as her lover, he with so many years of blood anointing his soiled hands?

As enslaved by her as Kylo had become, the hopelessness of the entire prospect daunted him. His ability to be someone else for her (someone more like Ben Solo, perhaps), to revel in the grey for her alone in the whole of the galaxy while conquering the rest of its reaches according to Snoke’s plan…. Where could he draw the line between the self he knew so well and the uncharacteristic supplicant her very presence commanded? How she softened and humanized him, and how intensely he enjoyed that feeling in secret.

Dark side help him, Kylo Ren reveled in that light.

Shifting his pale torso beneath her with the same attentive meticulousness he had mocked her for the day before, Kylo allowed Rey to slip from him with the utmost finesse and breathed a sigh of relief when she settled, angelic and undisturbed, into the rumpled mess of the linens. They had both slept so soundly as to be unbelieved.

More satisfied but apprehensive than ever before, Kylo left Rey warm in his bed.

---

The bedclothes smelled of Kylo Ren.

Rey knew that scent well by now. It was a distinct fragrance, strangely earthy and wholesome, one oddly reminiscent of Rey’s first inhale upon exiting the Millennium Falcon amidst the bountiful green of Takodana. Like the emerald forest floor she had tread in her dream. Always blended with it was the undercurrent of tailored leather and coldness, the way the ice outlying Starkiller Base’s hangar had swirled inside simply smelling of cold. Having been deprived of all of those aromas during her lifetime, Rey was not only able to detect them with keen sensitivity—they obliterated and roused her senses every time he was near. And he had been oh so near throughout the night, not a dream at all.

Rey raised herself from his bed, rubbing eyelids that felt as though they had been shut for days. It was unnecessary to monitor the silence to know that he was gone; the bond spoke for itself, as it always did, in its energetic vocabulary.

Alone in his private space, Rey surveyed the room she had previously ignored and found it to be a perfect mirror image of her own. She also perceived it equally as sterile and devoid of possessions and as her own quarters, though still better than any home she remembered having during her lifetime. The viewport—the one that had shown her the shadowed path to his bed—was the only distinguishing feature, providing an illusion of openness that relieved the room of its claustrophobic confinement. The previous brilliance that had illuminated the room was now somewhat cerulean, bringing Rey’s attention to the fact that for the first time since she had been taken aboard, the Finalizer was not moving.

Rey swung her feet onto the frigid floor. A slight wince befell her features as a delicious soreness awoke between her legs. Its protests flooded her senses with tender but tantalizing muscle memories, and all at once her body was flush with a renewed desire the pain only served to heighten. Blunt curiosity was enough to subdue both types of ache for the time being, however.

Gripping the loosened sheet that smelled of him, Rey wrapped her body in an effort of modesty and approached the convex paneling of the transparisteel only to find the view obscured. They were too high up, she realized, in the apex of the vast ship whose hull expanded disproportionately far below. Hovering over the light source at the angle the Finalizer appeared to be maintaining, the priority wing of the Officers’ Quarters was currently on the wrong side to view even a sliver of….

It must be a planet, Rey thought, baffled at the way the diffused turquoise glow seemed to tug magnetically at the Force she felt flowing through her core, inspiring unprovoked images in her mind’s eye. A watery one, nearly devoid of land…scattered islands amidst an endless sea.

Just as she devised a way to crane her neck for a more advantageous view, Rey detected the faint trundling of well-oiled metal upon metal at her back. Her fingers tightened defensively at the sheet wrapped beneath her exposed arms; however, they relaxed just as quickly as she spun. She had been too engrossed in the ominous call of the mysterious light beyond to heed the familiar tingle of his approach.

The figure of Kylo Ren quickly cemented in the doorway as though he had not planned for her to be awake, a backlit outline of flowing robes and haloed hair. When at last he activated the room’s overhead light, Rey at once saw his gloved hands were full. The one that had reached for the panel held what appeared to be a metal thermos. Securing his mask to his side, the other gripped a small box from which pleasant smells began to waft.

Rey would have expressed her nervous relief had it not been for the fluidity of emotions that immediately washed over his endless face. The initial surprise quickly gave rise to a façade of divided embarrassment and concern disguising something else…some kind of stigma—a conspicuous worry that clung to him as steadfast now as she had throughout the night. It was so starkly discernible that Rey was unfazed though nevertheless perplexed when Kylo turned his head evasively to the side.

For reasons known only to him, he was afraid to look at her like this.

Silent but for the slight hiss of dragging fabric, Rey closed the space between them with a newfound familiarity in which her fear for him finally obscured her fear of him. Beyond a doubt, their revived tryst had further stripped them of the charade dynamics inhibiting their openness and cloaking the obvious veracity of their codependence. Despite this undeniable truth, the profile Kylo presented now was anxious. He glanced fleetingly upward, his Adam’s apple bobbing once as if his throat were arid, and then turned slowly to meet her imposing figure, sporting her favorite desperate look—the one she found both irresistible and alarming for the tortured volumes it spoke.

Unhurried and eyes locked, Rey took the items from his arms one by one and placed them on the small bedside table with a free hand. His mask was last. Touching the frightening thing for the first time, Rey nearly recoiled as if connecting with a blue flame. In all her years of scavenging and sleeping in the unforgiving metal of dead enemies, she had never laid hands on anything more unpleasant and unfeeling, as if, despite being one in a series of replicas, the apparatus had somehow absorbed the hateful essence of all the atrocities he had committed since his fall from the light, whenever that dismal day had been. It was pure alleviation to rid her hands of it and return her attention to the lovely, haunted face it so often obscured and transformed. There she dwelled regardless of his consent, knuckles and slender fingers brushing sleepily down the merciless contours of his face, from the pronounced ridge of his brow to the sporadic beauty marks adorning his jaw.

He transitioned before her as gradually as a thawing glacier, his searching eyes sweeping over her face as if frantic to spot some cure-all answer hidden in the promise of her skin. And when the innate worry at last disappeared and his softening eyes settled unwavering on her own, Rey could not help but give a subdued smile of triumph, one that only widened as he reached out to brush the tousled hair back from her forehead.

“Why, Kylo Ren, I believe you’re staring,” Rey joked beneath his chilled touch.

She was amazed to see him return a semblance of her smile. It was far fainter than her own, not much more than the diminutive curl of a close-lipped grin, but it was nonetheless a milestone exaggerated by the supple wealth of his mouth. This small quirk rendered his face positively boyish, as he always appeared when his features were not grim with tension. Whatever apprehension clung to him seemed all but dispelled.

“Is that so?” he asked, his thumb now tracing the rouge ridge of her worn bottom lip.

“It’s true. One might think you enjoy it. Looking at me.”

“And they wouldn’t be wrong. I feel like everyone aboard this ship can see how much I enjoy looking at you.”

“But you’ve got your mask to protect you.”

“What good is that around you?”

The sharpened tinge of something broken—a semblance of the recalcitrant crises Rey knew Kylo harbored behind that detached aura—inflected his fleeting playfulness so openly that she thought for sure their split-second of normality had come and gone. Instead, he surprised her, gently lifting her jaw to graze her parted mouth before slowly, deeply taking her lips with his.

Falling heedlessly into his kiss, Rey urged against him tightly enough to alleviate her chills in the warm repose of his cowl, her hands tangling lightly in the voluminous mane about his temples. Would there ever be a time when she would cease to lose her soul to the fervor of their connection, when his touch did not ignite the Force to sing throughout the very fiber of her being?

When at last Kylo broke from her, they did not separate. Rather, their foreheads pressed together, their eyes shut, and their breathing labored beneath the burden of a shared euphoria. That satisfied, electrical silence stretched further and further until finally….

“I don’t know how to do this,” Kylo disclosed near her skin.

Rey pulled back to search for his lost eyes beneath their long lashes.

“I don’t know either,” she said in perfect honesty, forcing a refreshed smile to ease his mind. “One instant at a time, I suppose. We’re off to a better start this time though. You did bring me breakfast.”

Kylo’s own small grin resumed as Rey wrapped her arms about his waist and leaned against him with impishly overzealous affection.

“The least I could do for you,” he purred into her hair, wrapping his black-clothed arms about her naked shoulders. “But I don’t have much time. In fact, I have to leave you very soon.”

Rey’s arms tightened.

“Not yet though?”

“No. Not just yet.”

---

“I just realized you found where I hid your lightsaber on the shuttle,” Rey said, swallowing the last of the sweet fruit he had brought her.

“That was very clever of you,” Kylo said with the extent of his stunted grin, “but I knew you were lying when you told me it was gone. You’re not a very good liar, Rey.”

“Hmph,” she huffed. “I just haven’t had the practice.”

Taking a sip of the steaming tea in her free hand, Rey admired the unique craftsmanship of the implement that had nearly ended her life. Her curious fingers began to chart the twin vents of the blade’s functional hilt as it lay on the table.

Seated behind it in a slight recline, Kylo watched her caress his weapon with his usual silent fascination. He had declined to partake of the fruit and bread he had brought, though he accepted some of the tea when she had offered to pour it. He drank it slower than she, seemingly not needing the heat Rey now felt stoke her insides and warm her core.

“Do you still have my…um, Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber?” Rey added carefully, the somewhat crude design of his weapon making her long for the sleek, relatively simple beauty of the one stolen when Kylo had betrayed her.

“Not merely Luke’s. Anakin Skywalker’s.”

“A relation of Luke’s, I’m assuming,” Rey said, intrigued.

“His father. But so much more than that.”

“How do you mean?”

“Anakin Skywalker began a Jedi, but he eventually became something far more powerful—an unstoppable Sith Lord who changed the course of the entire galaxy under the Emperor’s command.”

Rey noted Kylo’s eerie enthusiasm with a degree of caution, her thoughts instinctively harkening back to the first time she had reversed his ruthless probing and spilled her own consciousness through the rocky dells she found there. Yes, there had been a pedestal in that jagged disharmony, an admiration built upon crumbling insecurity.

“You. You’re afraid.” She had once vocalized his fear in the waking of her power.

“Darth Vader,” Rey said aloud, wondering if Kylo’s anxieties remained the same even now, in the midst of their dangerous attachment. A slight shudder rippled across her limbs. How many times as a child had she heard the old tales traded in various languages at the Niima Outpost, her blistered little hands nearly stopping dead in fright in the midst of their grueling work, and how many nights had she lain awake, frightened of a visit from the Empire’s most-feared killer despite his death so long ago? Indeed Darth Vader had been the boogeyman of her early years, until she at last realized the horrors of reality—of abandonment—far outweighed those of her liberating imagination.

Rey felt Kylo’s eyes upon her and realized he had been studying her as her thoughts had been swallowed by the past (or what she could remember of it). In response, she sipped her tea nonchalantly and straightened the hem of the borrowed black tunic over her bare thighs.

“I don’t suppose that’s something you’re willing to part with then?” Rey meandered to the viewport with an indifference that disguised her genuine hope that Kylo would relinquish the Skywalkers’ lightsaber to her. The truth was that she had yearned to have the Jedi weapon back in her hands since their cataclysmic duel at Starkiller. Having been summoned from the ashes, the hilt had seemed practically alive in her novice grasp, and that extant magnetism persisted in her mind as a true extension of herself, literally and figuratively. However, as soon as she uttered the question to Kylo, it rang ridiculously inconsequential: Rey knew beyond a doubt that she would wield that metal again regardless of what he said.

This was an inevitability Kylo seemed to realize as well. She heard him hesitate only slightly at her back before making his concession.

“If you were anyone else, never in a millennium,” he said, audibly rising and coming closer, “but because your apprenticeship is accelerated, we’ll soon begin combat training. When that happens, you’ll need something for lightsaber combat until I can take you to make your own.”

Rey closed her eyes as lips fell at her jaw and large hands snaked around her waist, flattening her man’s shirt against her hips from behind.

“Besides,” Kylo purred, his scar fittingly brushing against her cheek, “you wield it so effectively.”

Feeling her body threaten to dissolve under his parted mouth, Rey clung to the downplayed notion of constructing her own lightsaber with a pang of excitement that overruled her body.

“I’ll get to make my own?”

“Yes, when you’re ready.” Kylo lifted his head to follow her own gaze into the turquoise and pitch beyond the transparisteel. “I’ll take you to Ilum to craft a weapon from your chosen kyber crystal. Just as I did.”

“Why is yours so….”

“Unstable? I constructed it using an ancient design. The crystal I chose was cracked, you see. The crossguard is essential to stabilizing the blade. But that is the choice the dark side led me to make.”

Rey nodded against him, unable to deny that the weapon was well-suited for the tragic path Ben Solo had chosen.

“What kind should I build?”

“That will be your decision completely. The Force will guide you when the time comes.”

His head pivoted slightly before his stooped mouth returned to her temple.

“I have to go.”

Rey blinked in the blue glow. Kylo’s leaving was an inevitability she had long forgotten in the comfort of their relaxed conversation and freely placed kisses, and now that it was upon them, she longed for more time to enjoy their newfound intimacy. She treasured it, appropriating and pitting it against the nagging twinge of doubt turning her stomach with worry that it might be the last time, that the threatening doom of their bond would arrive sooner than later.

“Does it have something to do with that planet?”

His mouth noticeably tensed against her brow.

“Yes, it does. Today I resume my training with Supreme Leader Snoke as well.”

Rey failed to subdue the stiffening of her own body at the mere mention of the monster’s name, at the horrifying idea of what cruel devices his instruction must entail.

“I…” Kylo began lowly. “I would like to see you afterward, if possible. Tonight, if you'd like. I don’t know how long the session will last.”

“‘Would like to see me’ or ‘want to see me’?” Rey asked, turning her face up to the side to look at him with thinly veiled insinuation.

“I want you to come to me tonight,” he said far more sternly, sparking wanton chills across the surface of her entire body as he took her mouth for added emphasis. One wandering hand left her hip and crept upward to the hollow valley of her throat, its long fingers driving her harder against inescapable hunger she would not have shunned even if she physically could. Rey soon shifted her body in his arms, turning to fully meet the onslaught of Kylo’s devouring lips and the meeker tongue they bore and upon which she feasted until the whisper of the pull absolutely roared.

As if sensing how her hands struggled against tearing at the fabric separating their skin, Kylo grabbed her forcefully at the wrists and held them firmly above the covered cleft of her backside. Like this, they connected with desirous abandon, over and over, until his kisses began to wane and finally halted on the brink of Rey’s open mouth. Trembling and wet, they withdrew to paint a line of delicate grazes up her cheek, over her forehead, to finally rest in the silk of her hair as he held her to heave against his own panting chest. That was when Rey heard the soft hum inside her head.

“I have to know.”

“Why didn’t you leave, Rey?”

“What?” Rey asked, peeling her eyes open against his cowl.

“I heard you escape last night. I could feel you leaving, but I couldn’t bring myself to stop you. I wanted you to get away from me, because I knew you would be safer that way.”

It took Rey some time to recognize the implications of all that he said. Still enfolded in him, she realized that Kylo Ren had waived his loyalty to Snoke, the First Order, even his own feelings, in favor of her safety. Rey could not help but adore him all the more in that moment of epiphany.

“After all I’ve done, all I’m capable of doing…. Why didn’t you leave?” he asked again within her mind.

Rey’s thoughts splintered in a thousand directions, each path leading to reasoning too vague, too emotional, and, ultimately, too silly to be uttered aloud. Although she had a successful history of trusting her gut, the current struggle against sounding utterly foolish forced her to again ponder the level of intuitiveness that had played her decision to remain at Kylo Ren’s side.

She could never explain to him how she just knew, how she recognized that, despite their polarity, they would have entangled even if the bond had never been forged. Somehow, they had always been essential, even familiar to one another—the embodiments of each other if the opposite paths had been chosen. It was almost as though the living current of the Force had guided Rey’s hand, laid it on the shard of virtue still surviving within him, and told her to hold fast. Even if he continued his dark path, that thriving piece of him was essential to her destiny and to both their destinies, together.

No, she could never say that, nor could she sensibly articulate how she thrived on the unstable way Kylo both frightened and enthralled her starved soul. When it came to him, Rey’s very biology undermined her, defying all logic. There remained an underlying idea, however—an innocent truth representative of the universe of her devotion.

“You and I were both abandoned,” Rey spoke softly against his chest, her hands curling up to tenderly caress the smooth ones that still encircled her wrists. “I don’t care what you’ve done. I’m not abandoning you now.”

Chapter 19: The Interrogation (Redux) Pt. 1

Chapter Text

19

Rey knew something was wrong as soon as the tingle of the bond began to stir, awakening in the Force like a released limb regaining its blood flow—with numbness and cool, dull ache.

Not that the previous night had provided any glimmer of easing her mind despite its hopeful beginnings.

The waiting had been unassuming at first. Rey had understood and respected Kylo’s honesty when he had explained the unpredictability of his training, and she had successfully concealed her inexplicable worry for him beneath the composure she felt he deserved as her mentor.

He had left her upon the precipice of his room with a final embrace and an unexpectedly lighthearted tease regarding the doors she had broken, offering her one final entreaty to stay as long as she wished as he disappeared behind the narrowing sliver separating her from the rest of the First Order. But Rey had not wanted to stay. In fact, she had retreated as soon as Kylo was cut from view, slipping back into the clothes she had so brazenly shed in the dark and grabbing the remaining food he had brought. His private place felt too ominous, the thoughts provoked by the tousled bed too unforgiving. Despite its equal lack of feeling, her own quarters at the very least provided a much-needed respite from the faint wake of energy that seemed to linger behind his every step. And despite how indescribable the night away had proven to be, Rey fully recognized she needed her own space to recollect herself.

Sliding the brisk metal closed at her back, Rey had discarded Kylo’s gifts at her table and fallen lithely upon the neat cover of her cold bed. There she had lain for a careless amount of time, breathing the same manufactured air as Kylo Ren and suddenly feeling less like a prisoner despite her lingering doubts about the nature of her presence aboard the Finalizer.

Rey conjured loaded memories of the first time Kylo had shown her his true face rather than the façade he aspired to assume, recalling how the air had caught in her throat when the pressure of his unyielding gaze had fallen heavily upon her. Had she known even then, even before his critical touch, when he had revealed himself to be all too human? She had been frightened of him, no question, and conceded she still was in certain respects she chose to ignore in lieu of newfound hopes. Submerged beneath her fear, however, had been curiosity and inexplicable awe drawn from intrinsic recesses Rey had never known she possessed. Yet despite that initial inkling of ingrained need, Rey would never have imagined all that had come to pass since.

There was no doubt in Rey’s mind that confronting the call to Kylo’s side had been unavoidable and utterly necessary. Pondering the agonizing progression of their connection and the sheer instinctual way they had first allowed it to overtake them in the training room, Rey became convinced that had she chosen to steal away the previous night, persisting thoughts of him and all that had passed between them would have haunted her body and soul indefinitely. She who had learned to live so long without reliance on anything had unearthed a latent need amplified by his own, desperate and misshapen yet passionate and boundless as it was.

Regardless of how singularly significant their bond had proven to be, Rey at last conceded a secret fear that it might somehow consume her whole and render her completely unrecognizable. It would be infinitely worse than when she had seen herself so differently in the mirror of the training room, the inflamed and corrupted woman staring back where her girlhood had been left sprawled, spoiled, and shamed. How salvaging it had been, to feel the comfort of the light still flowing through her after giving herself to him. It remained even now, Rey’s consistent reassurance of her goodness, coursing through her body like a steadfast friend unwilling to abandon her despite the questionable paths to which her heart instinctively tugged. It remained and, furthermore, it appeared to swell with her developing powers, defining her with purpose her life as a scavenger had forever lacked. How Rey wished she had been given time—months, even years—to discover and appropriate the Force within herself before Kylo Ren had so completely complicated her existence. Navigating both developments simultaneously had left her more unsure and desperate for guidance than anything before. Even growing up on Jakku had provided more certainty, as lonely and harrowing as it had been.

However, the irony that Kylo had been the one to awaken her was not lost on Rey. The coincidence bore an inevitable perfection she could never ignore. Almost…fated.

Acknowledging Kylo’s indispensable role in her destiny somewhat eased Rey’s tumbling mind, energizing her appreciation for their current accord despite all its blindness and shaky uncertainty. A momentary contentment overshadowed Rey’s dread of the future, as did a personal pact she forged: She had to preserve herself by all means necessary. Yes, she had chosen to remain by his side, sacrificed her freedom for her hopes, but she could not sacrifice herself, nor the person she now believed she was destined to become in the Force. The two of them had become so conjoined by the bond already, the prospect of losing herself to him so alluring…Rey had to be careful. She could not exist first and foremost as his lover, especially surrounded by the enemy. The role of student simply had to trump her personal need for Kylo, and even that required caution, for Rey fully recognized that if there was anything more seductive than Kylo Ren, it was the deceptive promises of the dark side.

Fueled by her clarity, Rey had decided to shower, groom her body in the fashion administered by the Detention droids, and unearth a set of clothes from the depths of the hidden closet. Though identical to her previous attire, the new garments had been the finishing touch for her sense of rejuvenation, everything down to the fresh coverlets pulled high above the icy flesh of her elbows.

Feeling cleaner and more refreshed than ever before, Rey had chosen to again focus on her meditations, this time incorporating intermittent lifting exercises lest she forget the great strides she had made in the Force under Kylo’s instruction.

The experiment proved to surpass Rey’s modest expectations. Whether it was merely the continuation of her recent progress or the lingering feel of Kylo’s hands placed familiarly about her shoulders, she had found her mind much less tangled than it had been during prior exercises. The serenity of the light within was waiting with open arms as brilliant as the shimmer on the crests that exploded against her imaginary island. Half-immersed, Rey had manipulated the living hand of the Force to lift the cup, the thermos, the chair—anything available—without the slightest slit of her relaxed eyelids. The more deeply she concentrated, the less effort it took to lift the objects evenly, and the more steadily Rey lifted the items, the more second-nature the act became in spite of the varying sizes.

That was not to say the exercises had been easy, however. As before, Rey found even the smallest objects induced even a meager strain. Isolating and extending herself to the objects in her immediate surroundings was as simple as opening her eyes to view them, but to lift, pull, or push them required an extremely delicate recipe of factors Rey strived to summon as quickly as possible. To apply herself to the object, she had to achieve calm, coalesce with the peace of the light, even if only for an instant. She summoned to mind how she had felt reaching for Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber, as well as the moment of tranquility that had filtered through her consciousness before marring Kylo’s beauty in the Starkiller hangar. It was only in that juncture of completeness that she could propel herself—her very will—along the Force’s web and send the item into desired motion.

The longer Rey repeated her exercises, the more she had accustomed herself with summoning the necessary motions and the greater her aptitude became. Finally, her ability to maneuver the Force’s permeating energy began to solidify as an ingrained part of her being, a sacred tongue she was learning to speak more fluently with each passing minute.

This peaceful pursuit had stretched calmly into the early evening. Only twice was Rey stirred from her routine, once when a reflexive Force push sent her cup shattering into splinters against the far wall, and a second time when the footsteps of First Order technicians approached to fix the pneumatic door motors in the hallway panels. Rey had taken her only recess then, when the technicians had completed their work and left the wing. Testing the door, she had found it again functional and now auspiciously unlocked, but still she was content to leave the aperture as an afterthought in her burgeoning discipline.

The situation soon changed after she had returned to her preferred seat on the floor. A nagging fatigue began to creep across Rey’s unused limbs as she played with applying pressure to the chair suspended before her closed eyes. She had been monitoring the soft cries of the chair legs as she manipulated them from multiple angles, squeezing them inward and then backing off when the squeaks indicated an impending break. The fatigue worsened with unforeseen rapidity, a sudden onslaught of exhaustion sabotaging her concentration.

Lowering the furniture with perfect speed and care, Rey succumbed to lightheadedness. She had glanced at the chrono, marveling at how time had slipped away in the fog of her exertions, until her vision began to grow alarmingly cloudy. A wave of nausea had then cycled through her body, beginning between her ears and washing down into her torso, tightening into a queasy knot in the lower regions of her gut. Becoming somewhat dizzy, Rey had risen and forced herself to swallow a few handfuls of water from the washroom tap. Unable to silence an ailing moan, she had then lowered herself warily to the bed on which she had contemplated only hours earlier.

Admittedly, she had lost track of the time, but Rey would never have anticipated such exhaustion from such small trials, especially when they only seemed to leave her feeling more determined and empowered. Mentally noting the negative effects for future reference, Rey curled her chest to her knees as she followed the onset of another, more intense wave of nausea from start to finish. It flooded through her veins, riding high a surge of ache that discharged in white-hot flashes behind her clenched eyelids. When the wave finally passed and she had been able to swallow a steadying breath, Rey felt overcome by weakness that threatened to shove her straight into unconsciousness, but not before perceiving the nausea coming from somewhere independent of her body. From someone else.

“Kylo…what…” Rey faltered, reaching out only once before passing out from the next influx of fatigue.

Rousing with a start, Rey had awoken in the late morning of the next day in a crumpled ball on the floor. Aside from her being uncomfortably stiff and chilled to the bone, no remnants of the foreign affliction remained in Rey’s body, although she had remained somewhat disoriented for several minutes. It was difficult to remember what had happened before she could recall nothing at all. When she had recounted the episode to the best of her abilities, Rey hastily began to formulate a plan to find Kylo in the vastness of the Finalizer.

Pulling her hair into her traditional three gatherings as she sat at the displaced table, Rey had begun to mentally connect the Finalizer’s many ventilation shafts. Though she had almost no knowledgeable of the Resurgent class of Star Destroyer, she knew she could piece the metal labyrinth together into a comprehensible pathway based on her proficiency in older models. However, it had to be a route that would take her the farthest undetected before she would be forced to find other means of evading the First Order. Despite her racing heart, she was certain she would be able to pinpoint him, knew she could reach out to him as she had done before, when he…when Han Solo….

But that never came to pass. Just as Rey readied herself to leave, the wavelength to Kylo Ren began to tremble.

Rey bolted upright from fastening her boots, her hand physically falling to touch the place in the center of her chest where their mysterious network always resounded most heavily.

He was all right, and he was coming to her.

However, the cadence of the growing magnetism was abnormal. The nerve, always so raw and brimming with electricity, was flat, almost dulled, as if they were separated by lightyears rather than a few walls of durasteel and carbon fiber. Disconnected.

“I said look at me.”

Sucking in air as if her breath scaled the tallest peak, Rey shut out the room at the thought of the last time her link to Kylo had felt this cold.

She did not have to see him to confirm her suspicions. The refurbished door to her quarters gave way with a hiss far more vicious than Rey remembered. The concealed gaze she perceived silently studied her from behind the bottomless black of its visor.

When Rey did concede to look at him, her senses stirred in both dread and blind relief, he stood just as she envisioned—a towering figure, fatally powerful, buried beneath onyx robes, every inch of humanity hidden from sight. She was the only one who knew better.

“Kylo…”

“Come with me,” he said, the electric growl of his modulated voice sending ripples of panic across Rey’s chest.

---

Silent but for the echoing clop of her boot heels on the metal floor, Rey recognized the concave hallways of the Detention level from her subordinate position behind Kylo Ren. The primary corridor’s various panels, ports, and ducts bowed inward like the ribs of a deteriorated beast, encasing her and her indifferent leader in the endless shadows of its bowels. Her upturned gaze followed the enormous twin red vents overhead as a means of distraction, mentally charting the system that led them increasingly closer to the ship’s bow.

Only sporadically did she glance at the large inky folds of Kylo’s hood, the broad shoulders made even wider by the glinting drapes of his cowl. However, Rey refrained from lingering there too long, choosing instead to maintain the obedient avoidance that had defined their lift tube descent into the heart of the ship. She preferred the detachment of her apprehension, at least for the time being. Besides, Rey was innately certain that, at the moment, nothing she could say would touch his current state of mind.

Thus, she prepared herself for her return (was it always inevitable?) to the Finalizer’s grim Detention Center, passing identical door after door as they neared what she remembered as bleak solitary confinement.

Pondering the boundaries of her compliance as a prisoner, Rey’s shock was all the greater when Kylo halted at two stationed Stormtroopers just shy of her prison hallway. He then ushered her between them and through the parting metal of one of the anonymous doors. Curious and uneasy, she obeyed with subdued hesitation.

Crossing the threshold from the shadows of the Detention corridor, Rey squinted as she encountered a piercing overhead light that overwhelmed the center of a small room. When she was at last able to focus her vision, it fell upon a familiar sight that paralyzed every muscle in her body.

The chamber’s layout was only marginally different from the one she had known on Starkiller Base (the First Order was no doubt strict with its requisites, especially when it came to exercises in savagery). The square footage was much more compact, the side-lamps beyond the floodlight far fewer, the controls contained on either side of the door rather than spaced along the circular walls. But Rey recognized the back of the interrogation apparatus, the complex rig of vicious metal, intimidating controls, and suggestive wiring. She flinched at the memory of her confinement on the unforgiving vertical slab and then openly jumped at the realization that this particular rig was already host to someone.

Rey followed the border where floodlight met darkness on the floor, circumnavigating the bulky back of the cruel device and finding it restrained a man, or at least as far as she could tell. He was slumped forward, his limp body restrained in the same system of clamps. This posture revealed a full head of brown curls more than any features Rey could distinguish from where she stood. His modest clothes were the color of Jakku dunes at dawn, though they were tarnished with grime and various smudges of something dark. Blood.

Beaten, Rey thought before realizing quite suddenly: He’s with the Resistance.

An unseen specter brushed icily across her spine, simultaneously soft and hard as stone, his rousing scent again filling her lungs. He stood at her back, so close she could feel the pull bristle the translucent hairs of her upper arms.

Kylo’s approach did not go unnoticed by his prisoner either. The captive sluggishly, wearily, raised his sagging head as high as his remaining strength lent itself.

Judging by the man’s rugged good looks, Rey placed him at mid-age, older than Kylo, though not by many years. It was almost impossible for her to determine for the embellished shadows the spotlight above cast over his features, combining there with the lingering agony that marked his unshaven face. Perspiration greased his tanned skin, and gore congealed where it had recently leaked from the flat tip of his nose.

Purposely ignoring Kylo’s presence, his brown eyes fell directly on her hazel ones, and his thick, dark brows arched in an expression of amusem*nt despite their agony.

“Sweetheart, this is no place for a young lady,” he said with a forced laugh, his squarish jaw slackening to reveal perfect, blood-stained teeth.

“What is this?” Rey asked, spinning with undisguised horror to face Kylo.

“We captured this Resistance scum as he was preparing to leave a secret Jedi temple on Ahch-To. He had just secured Luke Skywalker’s escape.”

Luke Skywalker! Rey’s heart nearly leapt out of her chest.

“That’s right,” the man gloated with a slight groan. “A little late to the party again, weren’t you, metal face?”

Completely obscured by the black beneath his cloak, the deep amplification coming from Kylo’s mask ceased until the prisoner had concluded his defiance.

“Now he refuses to reveal Skywalker’s destination,” Kylo added at last.

Rey turned back to face the man, her downturned mouth parting in dismay.

A friend of Luke Skywalker’s, she silently repeated, her curiosity absolutely brimming. Thinly closing her eyes out of Kylo’s view, Rey could not help but gently reach out to the man’s vulnerable mind. Discovering it completely accessible (she found him very brave and strong-willed, but not at all Force sensitive), she brushed the facile surface with the utmost care and finesse. She did not want to alarm him, did not want him to even know she was there. To trespass at all shamed her, but the need to know who he was now outweighed her sense of etiquette.

For fear of her own strength and inexperience, Rey dared not graze the vistas too deeply. To do so was unnecessary regardless, for at the very covering, Rey encountered a most-recent imprint.

It can’t be, not real! It’s not possible!

It was an image she knew far too well, one she had envisioned herself so many times in the night, in the dark, clutching her Alliance pilot doll tightly to her chest, weeping for her parents into the crook of her weary arm. Denial sprang to her defense. Were her powers failing her? Was she projecting her mind into his and seeing her own dreams? Impossible.

And yet Rey clearly saw the prisoner before her, clean and unharmed, assist a robed man into the X-wing stationed alongside his own at the base of the green island—her island—the two starfighters perched on the only level knoll settled amongst the mossy bluffs. The same waves crashed, the deep sapphire of her loneliness scaling the steep, jagged cliffs with relentless explosions of diamond spray. And the man in the crude robes—bearded and wise, with painfully haunted eyes (Could that really be the same man from Kylo's memories?)—called out a warning to the Resistance fighter and his BB unit as they watched below:

“Right behind me, Poe. They’re coming. I can feel him drawing near, and it is not yet our time.”

“Poe? Poe Dameron?” Rey said aloud, unintentionally jarring herself from the exterior of his mind. It was a name she had almost forgotten. “You’re BB-8’s master. The Resistance pilot.”

“How do you know BB-8?” Poe Dameron asked. He stared at her quizzically with bloodshot eyes, as if trying to ascertain her role in the hierarchy of the First Order, and then asked, “Are you Rey?”

The sound of another soul besides Kylo Ren saying her name aloud jolted Rey, almost as if the word carried different meaning uttered by a soldier of the Resistance rather than a commander of the dark side. As if he spoke of someone she did not know.

“Finn thought you were dead,” Poe added with obvious confusion.

Finn. It had been so long since she had thought of him. Her friend.

“He and Han and Chewbacca, they went to Starkiller Base to rescue you and destroy the oscillator, but they couldn’t find you. He thought you died when the explosion-”

“What are you going to do?” Rey urgently demanded of Kylo. This was someone she nearly knew, practically a friend.

“It’s what you are going to do. This is your next exercise as my apprentice. I want you to draw the information from this prisoner. Invade and attack. I know you are capable. Pull his mind to pieces if you have to. Whether you discover it yourself or he squeals it aloud makes no difference to me. We must find out where.”

“You’re his what?” Poe interjected, turning his disbelief back toward her.

Rey recoiled in horror in front of the unfeeling metal of Kylo’s mask.

“I must know where Skywalker has gone,” he said coldly. “This is your test.”

An insurmountable weight dropped in Rey’s center, dragging with it a dense pang of disgust and disbelief that physically hunched her shoulders with its unbearable heaviness. Her mind was a whirlwind, a sandstorm, an immature hand reaching out into the sun while a stronger one held her back.

How long had she feared this moment, when her bluff would be called in the name of the dark side? How easy it had been to cast the repercussions aside wrapped in his arms.

Unable to look at either Poe or her merciless companion, Rey lowered her focus to the lighted floor and far beyond it. For an instant impersonating forever, she swore she could feel the ruthless electricity searing again through her brain, the inescapable agony Snoke had inflicted upon her when he had so cruelly assaulted her mind. The scorching lightning, the earsplitting drone, the perceived sensation of tearing. Such pressure and, underlying it, such immense power. It had been an unbearable torture whose few brief minutes had brutally languished into eternity.

No, she would never be able to forget that pain as long as she lived. To inflict anything close to that on another living soul…Rey could not bear the thought. Help her, she could not do that.

“No,” she whispered.

Chapter 20: The Interrogation (Redux) Pt. 2

Chapter Text

20

“No,” Rey repeated, louder this time, raising her severe eyes to meet the hidden face of Kylo Ren. “I will not do that.”

A horrible stillness filled the chamber, the anxious kind wherein any small sound or movement seemed unwittingly capable of sparking chaos. The recessed visor angled downward at Rey revealed nothing. Only its silver ridges and charcoal sheen—dented, no doubt, from past atrocities Rey would never want to know—reflected the floodlight that now left her feeling as vulnerable as Poe Dameron. All she could do was commit to her rebellion, though the pleading rise of her slanted eyebrows betrayed her. When Kylo gave no reaction either way, Rey braced herself for the worst.

“Thanks, kid,” Poe said suddenly, breaking the pain-filled silence.

The interjection seemed to trigger Kylo. Without a word, he turned and left her in the floodlight. Rey heard the pneumatic doors release but not reseal. Glancing around the grey shoulder of the rig, she saw that Kylo stood motionless outside the aperture, his mask aimed toward the end of the corridor.

He meant for her to follow.

For an instant, Rey thought about reaching out to him, pursuing the shared current that even now numbly plucked at her senses and appealing to him for understanding. However, her logic assured her that would be a mistake in the present, especially in his prevailing state and the physical presence of bystanders. They needed to be alone again, for her to assess whatever damage Snoke had done, for there was no question in Rey’s mind that their shared master was the agency behind Kylo’s disturbing disconnection.

Swallowing the sand in her throat, Rey turned to the Resistance pilot one final time. Poe’s reddened eyes met hers, soundlessly conveying her worry for her.

Rey left her only contact with the outside universe behind and rejoined Kylo’s side in the darkened hall, though it was impossible to not look back inward and watch Poe Dameron’s light disappear from view. Her turned cheeks tensed in worry of what would happen to him, of what Snoke or even Kylo might do now that she was unwilling to-

Rigid pain shot through Rey’s scalp as a large hand instantly dug beneath the three gatherings of her hair, gripped the bulk of the silk, and pulled mercilessly.

“Ah!” Rey exclaimed, instinctively reaching for and clenching the cruel fist. Her body twisted to free herself, pivoting wildly from wall to wall. Her boots shrieked and stomped against the metal floor. Despite its gloved grip, his claw was like steel in the taut hair it commanded. Even worse, he used his strength, towering height, and long arms to painful advantage to drive her forward.

“Kylo!” Rey’s shouts were angry. They echoed past her clenched teeth, resonating throughout the corridor. “Stop it, Kylo!”

But Kylo seemed not to hear. He merely shoved, twisted, and pushed her to the end of the corridor, and though she wriggled and fought his intentions every step of the way, she could not escape the mad grasp that forced her onward, moved her through the last of the identical entranceways before her privileged prisoner’s hallway, and dragged her through the precipice before turning to lock the doors behind them. And as he sealed them away from those who might interfere, Rey twisted in his hand far enough to see the punishment that awaited her.

“No, Kylo!” she now screamed, her annoyance fading to reveal something akin to real terror. Her twists and turns became frantic kicks and jerks, wrenching away from him so forcefully Rey thought for sure she would lose her scalp in his fingers. But that was inconsequential now. She could not go back into that thing.

However, the harder she fought, the more unrelenting Kylo’s hold on her became, until he finally released her head, spun her to him, and seized her torso with both arms. As undeniably lanky as Kylo’s frame was, Rey’s small fists beat against chiseled stone as he carried her kicking and screaming to the front of the empty interrogation rig.

“Damn you, Kylo, let me down!” Rey shouted amongst a string of other pleas.

Practically hyperventilating, Rey groaned in wretched frustration as her back landed roughly against cold, flat carbon fiber. The same strong hands she had kissed only a day earlier now held her own painfully flat out at her sides until she finally heard the electric snap and latching of restraints overtop them. Terrified by her immobility, Rey summoned all her physical strength, braced her neck against the rig’s headrest, and gathered her limber knees rapidly to her chest. The contact of her boots across Kylo’s mask sent him flailing backward, splaying him against the far wall of the chamber with an echoing thud.

“Kylo, stop it!” she repeated once more. “I don’t want to hurt you!”

Before her, Kylo staggered momentarily, appearing to regain his balance as he lowered and fumbled at the apparatus covering his head. Rey listened to the familiar hiss and clicks of locks springing to life and noticed only then that she had succeeded in cracking the full width of his visor.

“Hurt me?” Kylo roared as he pulled the ruined covering from his head. “Hurt me?” Sending the freed helmet spiraling against the nearest wall, he pivoted back to her in an unbalanced lurch, discarding his cowl and hood in the process.

Rey winced. What should have registered a victory—to have direct access to him at last—only heightened her dread. He was perspiring heavily, the strands of his thick hair plastered to his skin like ebony cracks in fine alabaster. They clung to his forehead, fell over the furrowed ridges of his brow, and scattered alongside his lengthy cheeks, which presently appeared hollowed and painfully sallow. Despite his feverish skin, his robust lips were dry and slackened as he breathed heavily through his mouth. Just like on Starkiller Base.

A mirror image of that bloodthirst now loomed before Rey. Her thin limbs strained in their bonds, reliving the memory of the unadulterated rage that had fueled ever pummel, every determined blow of his lightsaber against hers. How he had wanted to kill her rather than let her leave. It was the same now, especially in his dangerous, deep set eyes, the dark circles surrounding them all the more exaggerated by the overhead light. Those eyes burned like dying coals, unnaturally black, straight through her, as if she were again his enemy.

“Kylo,” Rey said breathlessly. “Stop. You don’t want to do this. I know you don’t. Try to think, Kylo. This isn’t you. This isn’t-”

Rey’s last words emitted in a stifled croak as Kylo shot one gloved hand forward and a deadly tension fell upon her delicate throat.

“Traitor,” he hissed.

Icy horror flushed through Rey’s veins as she realized she could not breath. Her eyes widened in unrestrained fear while her gaping mouth emitted a choke in frantic search of air. But the power of his invisible grip allowed for nothing.

“You are mine to command! You dare to defy me? Make me look like a fool in front of the enemy? Betray me? You’ve failed me. Sabotaging me, always weakening me! You and your power and your cursed light! Traitor!”

But Rey did not need to be reminded of the light. On the brink of unconsciousness, she hastened to follow an outlying path of intuition, reclining in the chair and, for an instant, falling utterly passive to the assault on her body. Gazing upward into the blinding white, Rey called out to the Force in that centered resignation, that flawless mixture wherein harmony allowed her to touch the galaxy. So practiced was she now that she found it almost at once despite the intense taste of fear and anger on her tongue, just as she had instinctively done the last time she had been in this position with him. Now, feeling the Force flowing through her unconditionally, Rey knew she could push back. Furthermore, she knew she would overcome him.

“Rey, these are your first steps,” said the universe.

The initial life-giving gasp was more than enough, but Rey continued to gulp the air with automatic greed, panting in raspy succession before succumbing to a fit of coughs that left her sore throat even dryer. Still, even this was welcomed compared to the pressure in her head, which now began to dissipate as her blood abated and the purifying calm enfolded her mind. Gradually, Rey’s breath caught up with her physical body. The more stable she felt, the more vigorously she pushed against the Force with which Kylo gripped. Most astonishing of all, however, was that the clearer her mind became, the more she recognized the irony that, here and now, the heart of her strength was fueled by the desire to protect the other half who stood before her equally as much as the need to save herself. Even if that meant saving him from himself. Force be with her, she trusted him after all.

Lowering her face from the piercing floodlight, Rey opened her eyes and stared unblinking into Kylo’s vacant, determined blackness. She had already driven his Force grip so far backward that he had furiously compensated by coming closer. His right hand was drawn back as if to strike, and it shook violently as the power it concentrated crashed bluntly against an ever-thickening wall of Rey’s energy. He now stood near enough to be touched, his skin burning mere inches above hers. As close as the first time.

“Don’t be afraid. I feel it too.”

“Ben,” Rey spoke. Her voice was soft yet unquestionably dominant. “Stop, Ben.”

---

“Stop, Ben! You’ll burn out the speeder engine, silly!”

“What?” Kylo Ren whispered.

“I said you’re gonna overheat the engine! Ha, slow down, you big nerf herder!”

“Ben,” Rey’s voice said somewhere nearby.

Kylo squeezed his stinging eyes shut to battle his dimming vision, an impulse he instantly regretted. He faltered slightly in the dark he found there, as if his frenzied mind had all but sabotaged his body’s equilibrium. As a result, the colossal power of the dark side he channeled began to disengage. His raised arm suddenly felt on the brink of collapsing. In fact, every muscle of his well-formed body seemed all at once exhausted. Only now did he grow aware of a latent sting of discomfort rippling across sections of his fevered flesh, pain that had twisted and sustained him for hours on end, since….

Wobbling confusedly, Kylo fell forward and braced himself on metal and velvet. Her scent, untouched and sweet—all perfumed oil and suntanned skin—engulfed him as his aquiline nose crushed into her hair. He followed her aura, focused on it, savoring the feel of the rig’s frigid casing on his temple. The heartbeat that now thundered against his seemed to reach out with steadying hands of light energy, grasping and stabilizing him, and that alleviation was purely sublime.

In spite of Kylo’s disorientation, he perceived a fog receding from his mind. It had been a dissociative stupor the likes of which he had never known. And as it cleared, so did his retention of all that had just happened.

“Rey.”

Kylo again recognized the words he spoke.

“Kylo,” he heard her whisper, her head angling to press her hot cheek to his.

Kylo’s eyes tore open. Fueled by adrenaline and urgency, he wrenched backward and examined her in absolute panic, his gloved hands grasping wildly at the taut contours of her face.

“I’m fine,” she hoarsely assured him, her eyes filling with inexplicable tears. “I’m fine, really.”

As with her pleas, Rey’s reassurances fell on deaf ears, for as certainly as Kylo now realized the depravity of his actions, he swore he saw the sickly violet of bruises already begin to form about the base of her throat.

“Rey,” Kylo’s voice cracked, his jaw clenching in agony. Crushing guilt shook him all over as the shock of what he had tried to do—what he had nearly done—sickened all that was left of him that was good. And though he would have rather died than lay another impure hand on her, he could not suppress the blind impulse to touch her face, brush back her loosened hair, and kiss every inch of her that was blessedly alive.

“I’m sorry,” his anguish echoed over and over against her skin.

Still trapped beneath him, Rey was overcome. Whether it was the trauma she had just endured, the consolation of Kylo’s frantic lips against her own, the renewed vibrancy of their bond in the air, or a combination of all three, she did not know. Her tears now flowed freely, each one emblematic of a different emotion. Her mouth formed an overwrought smile, and she heard herself choke out a sob that morphed into a desperate laugh as his mouth found her eyelids, her chin, the small freckles adorning her nose. Tumbling in a swell of manic relief, Rey began to return his kisses with equal intensity, tasting the salt on his clammy skin and aching to hold him if only she had use of her arms. She gasped intermittently against him, feeling as though the beating in her chest shook her entire body. In spite of everything, a fire ignited in her already heightened core.

Kylo leaned into the reclined angle of the rig, bracing himself on one side and bowing his head to smother Rey with his contrition. His body reinforced, he wrapped her securely in his arms as though her acceptance were another rage-induced haze and letting her go would reveal her crushed and broken at his hand. The impression of her softening beneath him distracted him from the remorseful ache in his chest. Her stiffened limbs gradually melted against him, and her lips grew hungrier the more her apprehension faded. Steadily, the pull to her evolved until the current permeated his already ardent body and sent him reeling with desire for her, to feel the assurance of her warm and living around him. So great was this explosive need that he was instantly distraught to even think it after all he had inflicted upon her.

Repulsed at his base instincts, Kylo began to pull away once more to beg Rey’s forgiveness. However, she sensed his withdrawal, exhaling a soft whimper of protest against his lush mouth. Her exasperated body was far too stirred, every nerve now too provoked against him to allow him to retreat.

Desperately, she leaned outward to follow him, nestling against the high collar of his tunic to kiss there above the fabric at his dramatic jawline, moist temple, and obscured ear. She lightly nipped at the latter, gasping and burying a quaking lower lip into his damp waves as her hips reached out for him.

Rey heard him moan deeply into her disheveled hair, and she followed the sound to kiss its supple origin and pull him back down into her with parted mouth. At once, all grew exposed and electric. Even her infinite relief that he had mentally and physically returned to her began to fade, to be replaced by the urgency of their shared yearning.

Kylo read her like a holocron, not that their bond ever allowed any room for doubt. However, he still pulled back for an instant to search her face; it was just too impossible for him to believe. How could she want him? How could she still care? Yet Kylo found Rey there, lucid and clear, giving a small but vigorous nod of encouragement. She whose hazel eyes spoke both strength and fragility, she who had chosen again to remain by his side. Her beauty now, like this—enflamed and captive and immaculate, everything identical to the first time Kylo had imprisoned her—stole his breath. It was almost too much for him to bear, but his appetite for her offered no room for negotiation.

Thus, Kylo did what he felt he did best: destroyed. Returning his mouth to meet the invasive heat of her tongue, he fumbled with gloved hands, seized the waistband beneath her shirt, and violently tore the seam in half as far back as it would give.

Jarred slightly, Rey moaned into him at the tearing of the fabric, then again when he easily discarded one strap of her exposed undergarments with an additional rip, allowing them to slip away as surely as everything beyond their two bodies now faded into obscurity.

“Ohh,” Rey broke away to gasp as cool leather cupped the trembling mound between her legs.

His large hand did not move, though it applied a gentle pressure to every aching inch it had uncovered. Reflexively, she pressed into it, sacrificing her shame as his kisses fell down her tender throat.

With his free hand, Kylo shed his belt and reached beneath his own tunic, certain that if his frame of mind were reasonable, he would have doubted his stamina and taken precautions to ensure it. The instancy was too shattering, his body already too wired. However, all logic and trivial concerns now paled in this immediacy, and Kylo knew no matter how long this moment lasted, it would resonate as forever with Rey alive in his arms (alive, thank the Force), struggling to wrap her long legs around his robed thighs. Grateful but devoured by this single-minded want, Kylo cradled the firmness of her bottom with both hands, lifting her against the rig far enough for her to lock her ankles at his back and pull him to her exposed desire.

Rey’s cry rang unintentionally sharp as Kylo sank himself deep inside her. This time he allowed her body no preparation, exercising no caution as he pushed the boundaries of her narrow crevice. In truth, she had not wanted him to. She wanted only to unite with him completely, to feel his immensity throb within her drenched flesh, to listen to the charged rhythm of their bond as it serenaded her soul. And so she cried out again and again beneath his ravenous mouth, her bound hands balling into helpless fists as he filled and filled her.

Awash in a lawless sea of tactility and emotion, she soon perceived Kylo’s rapture and the delirious relief that lay behind it radiating throughout her deepest niches. Already their wavelength threatened to pull her to the brink upon the smallest tingle, but she did not want that to happen without him in her hands.

“Kylo, please, I want to touch you; let me touch you,” Rey groaned as a single word.

Breaking his lips from her damp forehead, Kylo glanced about in confusion to only then remember Rey’s arms still restrained at her sides. In lieu of an apology (no, there was no time), he reached one hand to release the rig’s mechanism while still supporting her with the other.

The freedom Kylo gave proved advantageous. Sparked by her mobility, Rey wrapped her arms about the collar covering Kylo’s throat and followed as he pushed her upward to a more convenient height upon the chair’s back. There she unlocked and pulled her legs up in front of him, raising her knees and draping her calves over his braced arms. Her hands now clasped beneath his untamed hair to secure herself to him as if her life depended on it.

Kylo welcomed the rearrangement, as it opened the rig to him for better leverage to lean over her, hold her up, and properly access her. Spreading her open once more, he found the position allowed him to plunge more fully and far deeper into the agonizingly snug core of her lust. The sensation nearly overpowered him. It was more than enough to draw an almost pained growl from his parted mouth, which he returned to hers between the legs he now greedily bent backward. And as her hands held tight and he sensed the shivering heat of her bliss nearing his own approaching ecstasy, he treasured every gasp, sigh, and cry she unleashed against him.

“Rey,” he worshipped, his wet forehead pressed to hers as he lifted her against the rig with every thrust. “Rey, Rey, Rey.”

Rey….

Chapter 21: A History of Violence

Chapter Text

21

The journey from the Detention Center to his wing of the officers’ quarters all but drained Kylo of the last soldiering shred of his strength.

He held his head high despite his visibly cracked mask, lumbering at his usual pace now more out of necessity—to reach isolation quicker—than habit; he had to maintain normalcy as he encountered the random Stormtrooper or technician in the dimness of the obligatory corridors. As soon as they were out of sight, however, Kylo slackened and stumbled slightly on disloyal legs, even occasionally steadying himself against the walls or Rey’s arm. Excessive discomfort and tiredness threatened to wash him away before he reached privacy. In addition, Kylo’s short-term memory had almost fully materialized from the destructive haze that had obscured it, and with it came the recollection of nauseating pain and other fortifying tortures in lieu of sleep all the previous night.

Of course, his fatigue was not entirely grounded in horror. The need for Rey—flush, wet, and shaking in his arms—and the taste of her sweat as he had erupted deep inside her, had topped off his exhaustion. It had been an unspeakable release, one skyrocketed by its immediacy and all the extremities he had forced upon them both that morning. Presently, that euphoria lingered like the effects of a fading drug, the charged feel of her body still vibrating throughout his hollow shell as they braced each other’s steps far from prying eyes. Near collapse, Kylo clung desperately to that intoxication, to the warmth in which the light energy of Rey’s affection had enfolded and steadied him, knowing that when it finally faded, no comfort she offered could console him in the shadow of his vile offense.

Sometimes at his side, sometimes following him to maintain the façade, Rey struggled to swallow her own diminution. Despite the seemingly endless stretch of time they had lain recuperating in each other’s arms against the foot of the interrogation rig, her head had ceased to clear, her core had not yet stilled, and both her throat and the subversive place between her legs now throbbed with soreness.

Still worse, Rey had grown considerably self-consciousness since they had left the interrogation room. With silent tenderness, Kylo had wrapped her in his surcoat, hood, and cowl to hide her ripped trousers and sticky flesh, and thus she remained as they walked. His immediate access to her had been critical, oh, yes; she would not have taken it back for anything. But the knowledge of how she must now appear to each passing First Order officer—she swimming in his robes, her hair disheveled and face ruddied from their passion—instilled in Rey a sense of shame nearly as terrible as her recoil after their first disastrous attempt at training. Never walking with him as his equal, even as his secret companion, she now did not even appear to be his student. It had to be obvious now, that she was his lover—an inadvertent perception she did not welcome.

In her paranoia, Rey gently brushed the minds of all the oblivious officers and Stormtroopers she and Kylo left at their heels. To her shock, their surfaces either showed no interest, assumed she and Kylo had simply been training in their “sorcery nonsense,” or feared Kylo Ren’s wrath far too much to dare even think of him. Though this reassurance comforted her to a degree, Rey’s humiliation persisted. Even as Kylo unlocked the large entranceway leading to their wing, the uncomfortable feeling simmered in her gut alongside the myriad other emotions the chaotic morning had provoked.

Their privacy restored, Rey attempted to push her apprehension aside as she helped Kylo into his quarters. If he had not looked so far beyond exhaustion, she would have pushed him straight to the stall in the washroom and perhaps even joined him under the rush of water. However, the weakness he now revealed only to her was obvious, even to the point of traveling their shared current to perceptibly drag her down with it.

“Take all of this off,” Rey instructed absent-mindedly, gesturing to his ribbed tunic before leaving him for the washroom.

Not his whor*, Rey thought, searching for a small towel. Apprentice, confidant, even prisoner was welcome at the moment, but (please) not his whor*. Rey feared the branding just as she still feared the depths of her excessive desire for him. To forfeit her dignity even to the filth of the First Order was to sacrifice a part of herself to him, and Rey had already promised herself that she could not let that happen. There was good in her—she knew in spite of the longing he incited in her bared soul. Her goodness stood protected in that precarious place in the grey wherein they somehow cared for one another against all logic. And she had sacrificed so much to him already.

Kylo stared wearily after her with encircled eyes, watching Rey unearth a small towel and wet it in the washbasin. He soon obeyed her, first removing his belt and the malicious lightsaber it guarded before unpeeling his damp gloves, tunic, and undershirt from his skin. Uncovering new evidence of their lovemaking, he also opted to shed his trousers and don his sleeping slacks in their place. He was embarrassed to feel the effort leave him somewhat dizzy, and his bed felt far too welcoming as he sat back down upon it.

Returning with a heated and rung cloth in her hand, Rey unleashed a gasp of horror from the washroom doorway.

His back turned to her, Kylo could not share her full view of the angry burns splitting across his broad back. The wounds were plentiful but unevenly distributed, as if some great monster’s searing fingers had struck him repeatedly with no rhyme nor reason. Seeing only slight blistering among the rosy cracks, Rey was relieved to know they would heal with only minimal scarring (oh, how many times had she learned the hard way about touching metal left in the desert sun), but scars were merely an afterthought—regardless of the irony, the idea that someone had hurt Kylo disturbed her, and in the pit of that upset rose pure rage, something she so rarely felt. Rage against the creature who had harmed him and who, Rey was now certain, had incited him to harm her.

Rey swallowed and lowered her hand from her mouth. Walking to the comlink embedded near his ravaged back, she flatly requested the officer on the receiving end have bacta gel and bandages sent immediately. Who is this?

“Kylo Ren’s apprentice,” Rey hoarsely assured them both before promptly disconnecting. She then jumped as a hand touched her.

“Rey?” Kylo watched her from beneath the prominent ridges of his brow with eyes softer than she had ever seen before. Their sudden gentility threatened to soften her as well, to speak to her own tiredness and implore her to his side with their sudden warmth. But Rey was too incensed, her body now rewired to the verge of snapping. That was not something she wanted him to see.

Taking his hand, Rey sat facing him on the bed and roamed over the strained beauty of his face. In response, he regarded her with a kind of confused awe, as if she were some fascinating puzzle he could not solve. It was only when she tenderly touched his forehead with the dampened cloth that he shut her from his sight.

Kylo exhaled unexpectedly. The warmth felt good. Behind the towel, the energy of her hand felt good. She was good, good in all the traits he had learned to condemn, so good despite him.

“I’m sorry, Rey.” His face twisted in anguish beneath her goodness. How many times had he apologized to her in his recent reacquaintance with shame? A hundred? A thousand? How many times would he have to say it again?

“I should have made you leave. I shouldn’t have let you stay here with me.”

The cloth fell momentarily still at the peak of his scar only to reawaken a few seconds after.

“I told you, I’m not leaving,” Rey reiterated, wiping away the dried sweat beneath his mussed hair.

“I’m not in control, Rey. I’ve been torn for so long. I thought killing Han Solo would end the call to the light once and for all, but it didn’t; it only left me feeling worse. Weaker. And our bond has only widened that hole. My instincts toward you, what I feel for you, it goes against all I know to be true, all that I’ve learned.”

In the stillness of the room, Rey grew aware of her heart pounding in her chest. Even if Kylo's fatigue threatened her perception, she suddenly reveled in it for truths it allowed him to freely speak. What he feels….

“You have to go while you still can, before it’s too late. Before I either kill you or we can’t function without one another. Right now there’s still a chance we can thrive apart—I feel it, how strong you grow every day. I’m so weak, so pathetic in this bond. Unworthy to train you. There’s still time before….”

Pale, impulsive fingers fumbled through the air toward her throat as if feeling blindly in the dark—frantic but overly cautious—and stopped short with obvious restraint. Never before had Rey admired their delicacy as she did now, their thin but flawless softness in spite of their size. Though she had never seen one, Rey likened them to the hands of some meticulous artist rather than the conduits of a commander of the dark side.

“I’ve hurt you again.”

“Kylo,” Rey said, catching and caressing that hand. There was no doubt in her mind that they were the two most closely connected people in the galaxy, and yet he had so rarely let her in since the bond had forged. Now she positively longed to hear more of his mind, but she could sense him slipping into delirium, the melancholy tearing him to shreds. It frightened her, audibly hearing the helplessness he usually only communicated through his searching eyes, seeing him slip much further from his dominating persona.

“I can feel how tired you are,” Rey eventually urged, her slender hand lost in his large one. “Sleep. You and I can talk about this later. I’ll be here with you when you wake. I’m not going-”

The comlink sounded in a jarring beep beside her. Rey gently lowered Kylo’s arm and addressed the officer on the other end with no more than a word before again disconnecting and turning to the drooping slope of his scalded back.

“Kylo, the doors sealing off this wing—will you open them again?”

“They’re open,” he assured her, a step ahead even in his current debility.

Rey soon returned, arms full, from meeting the medical droid at the open junction. To her relief, she found Kylo lying on his side, eyes closed and long arms folded against his bare chest.

Seating herself on the other side of the bed, Rey immediately began administering the bacta to the clammy expanse between his waist and neck. The bandages she reserved for the more blistered scorches while applying the gel to their jagged pinkish edges and other, lesser burns.

Running her fingers over his pale skin with the utmost care, Rey grew dismayed to only now recognize the shiny, scattered disclosures of many similar wounds, most long since healed but nonetheless permanent. She had never once noticed, not while clinging to him in the shadows, not even when removing his blood-drenched tunic on the shuttle, and these scars now alarmed her as much as her obliviousness to them. How long had Kylo allowed himself to be tortured? Some of the marks looked to be many years old, all of them littered among his few but equally lasting battle wounds. Was this part of Ben Solo’s seduction and Kylo Ren’s apprenticeship, to grow so incredibly strong through repeated exercises in pain, anger, and hatred?

Rey grimaced at the thought of the troubled boy who survived in Kylo’s mind suffering so, using it to empower himself, exploit the powerful lineage of his blood, and become Master of the Knights of Ren and almost—so very close to becoming—an authoritarian over the entire galaxy. Using it just as Snoke used him.

Again, Rey felt the hot bubble of rage rise to the surface of her already flushed cheeks. For her, it was an unchecked emotion, one that had rarely flared even in all her years of scavenging. Once, she remembered, when she had likely been around 10 years old and still worked directly for the “Blobfish,” she had left Plutt’s shack with a desperately needed quarter-portion (she had not eaten in four days at that point) and been attacked by three other scavengers who promptly ripped the food from her tiny hands. Oh, how she had cried and begged, hysterical at the mere thought of another hour of hunger, and when they had mocked her, dangling the package always just out of her short reach, she had seethed with anger. It had been a dark feeling, a cesspool within her comprising desperation, outrage, and the agony of her gnawing stomach. That was when the peculiar had occurred. Some sort of combustion burst in the air, a solid wave of energy from nothing sending the boys flying in all directions. And Rey had grabbed her ration from a stunned hand and run as fast as possible. Of course she had not known then; she had been ignorant of both her power and her rage’s innate potential to fuel it. Only once since had she so lost control and surrendered to her hate. Kylo now bore a more prominent scar to remind them both of that slip.

No. Never that path, no matter how lost I become in all of this. The light is my strength, the Force is my ally.

Rey laid her gel-slicked hands upon Kylo’s checkered back and began to focus on the Force pulsing through her fingertips, just as she had on the command shuttle. She had become so much more in tuned with the light since then, much more equipped to conglomerate and focus her energy. The tingling began rapidly, not the usual titillating current of their bond but the dull tickle of a warm, concentrated dynamism. From his wide shoulders to his taut waist, Rey gently caressed the rolling hills of his muscles, the valley of his spine, the indentations sloping inward at the small of his back, all the while feeling the power permeate and spread throughout his distressed skin.

At one point, Kylo released an unconscious sigh beneath her touch. It was brief—somewhat feverish but soft with undercurrents of pleasure—a semblance of reward for Rey’s good work and ingrained desire to heal him. Fixing his body was such an easy task in the eccentric scheme of their linkage. Rey basked in the moment, suddenly overwhelmed by the enormity of her feelings for the man who had nearly ended her life a mere hour earlier.

Yes, she could still escape; it would be all too easy, except she would know. Rey would leave with the knowledge that he did feel for her what she felt for him—more than the connection, beyond their need, surpassing their combined powers—so much so that it was breaking him in two from the inside out (and yes, how intimately she understood that divide). His eyes spoke the truth when they were not possessed by his manipulated, unchecked emotions. Now he had admitted it with his own lips, again betraying the First Order without question of loyalty or consequence, all with blind concern for her safety. What once had been a faint, gut perception she had been unable to ignore had now been fortified by his weary confessions. How could Rey bring herself to rebuke the truth she knew? The answer was that she could not, just as certainly as she could not deny the intrinsic perfection they embodied—despite every obstacle—together.

These are my first steps. I must believe that.

In this moment, Rey believed death at the hands of Kylo Ren would be a better defeat than yielding to the dark side that haunted their bond. She did not suffer alone while at his side. Even in her battle for their souls, at least she was not lonely. And battle she would, always as close to the light as their grey would allow.

Removing her hands from the mending flesh she longed to kiss, Rey pulled the bedsheet over Kylo. She then left to do whatever she could to hurt Snoke and the First Order.

Chapter 22: Mind Tricks

Chapter Text

22

Rey’s ears perked when the tell-tale clanking of militant footsteps began their crescendo toward the priority wing. Stiffening at the signal she had been anticipating, she anxiously rubbed the prickled flesh above her coverlets before sealing the doors at her back. Rey then peeked habitually around the few feet of smoky casting that separated Kylo’s door from hers. Its shadowy solitude was reassuring, though she was certain the approaching Stormtoopers would not rouse its occupant regardless. The malaise that had swept from his veins into hers earlier had dissipated like dying wind not long after she had left him, unconscious and healing, in the quiet of his bed. Now, the Force streaming through her body swelled and stabilized despite her own physical exhaustion. But there would be plenty of time for rest later…if all went well.

At last, the two white figures rounded the darkened corner, their blasters drooping at their waists as they came upon Kylo Ren’s quarters. Their response time had been efficiently swift, Rey noted, somewhat impressed. Of course, what Stormtrooper would dare make Kylo Ren wait?

“What?” One turned to the other in confusion as they crossed the unlocked junction.

Rey narrowed her deep-set eyes as both lowered weapons came to attention. Though her self-assurance thrived, she now remembered how she despised being on the business end of a First Order blaster.

“We were called to assist Commander Ren,” said the second trooper, raising the bass of his voice. “Where is he?”

Inhaling with the utmost control, Rey recalled a far different release from Kylo’s interrogation rig than the devouring one she had known that morning. How many millennia had it been since she…?

“I am his apprentice, and I am the one who summoned you. Neither of you needs to speak to Kylo Ren.”

A pause.

“Neither of us needs to speak to Kylo Ren.”

Rey released the same air in an elongated sigh of relief and hesitated. This present sensation was far different than it had been escaping Kylo on Starkiller Base. Here and now, the Force practically paraded each impressionable ripple of their weak minds before her, rolling off her tongue like an ancient language resurrected.

“You both will take me to the Detention Center. Right now.”

As she had done only hours earlier, Rey allowed herself to be led out of necessity, this time taking great pains to maintain the appearance of an armed escort rather than a distressed student following her master. Regardless of the danger, however, this trek brought considerable more ease than the previous one.

Having left Kylo in the deep convalesce of sleep, Rey had hurried to her own shower, stripped away every garment that was either sullied or belonged to him, and cleansed herself of the fallout of their intimacy. The excess of loosened hair that came out between her fingers had been predictable, but the swelling of the purplish necklace she had seen herself wearing in the mirror alarmed her, not just because she did not want anyone else to see it—especially Kylo—but because she grew disturbed remembering the nightmare sensation of airlessness beneath his power. To conceal the bruises, she had zipped the neck of her grey over-jacket up to her chin before donning the remainder of a fresh outfit. Rey had then slipped a Force-healing hand beneath her short sleeves, resting it to work on her clavicle as she laced up her boots with the other hand. Soon after, she had left her quarters for his—more specifically, for his comlink—and proceeded according to the uncertain semblance of her plan.

Presently, Rey and her convoy neared the lift tube, painted in unified steps by passing shadow after shadow, and stood at its illuminated threshold in shared silence. However, when the doors finally opened, the lift proved occupied.

Eyes cautiously lowered behind the obscuring Stormtroopers, Rey nevertheless flinched as a tall blur of orange-red authoritatively whisked past them and into the officers’ quarters. She thanked the very stars when she heard not a sound of protest as positions were exchanged and the trio came about-face. Still, Rey grew apprehensive when she saw the man—high-ranking and of obvious importance—come to a stop halfway down the main corridor and turn to glare back at them with undisguised suspicion.

Him, Rey thought, recognizing the fair features and head of fiery hair belonging to the First Order officer who had been talking with Kylo when she first awoke aboard the Finalizer. He had peered at her then as he peered at her now, and though he never said a word nor made a move toward them, he targeted Rey’s curious glance between the shoulders of her Stormtroopers. The look he projected was of such sheer disdain that Rey positively shrank from the notion of brushing his thoughts with the Force. It lasted up to the very moment the doors cut his smirk from her view, and as the lift tube sank, so did a ball of lead in Rey’s already jittery gut.

When the three of them were again released, Rey found the Detention block ahead practically silent but for the murmuring among a lone officer and two technicians stationed at the reception area. As she had predicted, the amount of personnel had been reduced at shift change, leaving the level practically barren. Rey’s accuracy in timing notwithstanding, her confidence had been jostled by the encounter with the officer above. A pang of clear intuition told her that if her plan was to work, it had to now play out as quickly as possible.

The officer behind the central screen of the reception station rose and arched his bushy brows in confusion.

“Where are you taking this prisoner?”

Rey brushed past the squeaky-clean armor of her escorts, ever vigilant of their impressionable minds, and again summoned her most persuasive intonation.

“As a prisoner of the First Order, I will be allowed to pass, and you will ask no further questions.”

Her severe eyes held the officer’s until he at last blinked a mere foot from her face.

“I will allow you to pass and ask no further questions.”

“You two,” Rey said sharply, her gaze darting to the two technicians who had begun to rise from their seats, “you will continue your work and ask no questions.”

Rey marked their full obedience and ensuing indifference with satisfaction before turning her attentions back to the officer. Tricking their militaristic minds was growing easier by the minute; nevertheless, she was wary of possible rejection should she impose any more-complicated tasks. As a precaution, Rey compensated by pushing more forcefully.

“You. You will release the captured BB unit from holdings and bring it to the interrogation cell housing Resistance prisoner Poe Dameron. You will do this now. Should you be questioned, you will say you act upon the orders of Commander Ren.”

The man’s squarish head trembled slightly under the weight of her mental pressure (not too hard, Rey—don’t harm him). He soon gulped behind his raised collar, confirmed her wishes, and vanished swiftly from her trailing sight. Relieved for the moment, Rey commanded her escort lead her promptly into the familiar lifeline of the Detention Center.

Rey’s foresight was again justified as her troopers guided her straight to Poe Dameron: the familiar sight of a prisoner being led to confinement did not upset the fresh set of guards posted at his doorway. Their blasters remained at ease in the cover of the doorway, and the dim hallway light reflecting in their black visors barely shifted as they passively noted their cohorts’ approach. It was a successful deception that gave Rey the necessary opportunity to meticulously split her authority over all four.

When her voice came again, its influential resonance shocked even Rey.

“You will both open this door, leave it unlocked, and allow me to enter.”

Despite Rey’s astonishment, the division of concentration was challenging—a narrow tightrope that wobbled beneath her capable feet. Her mind permeating the stationed Stormtroopers, she still feared that, at any moment, the entourage at her back would find clarity and transmit a call for backup. Yet her trust in the Force remained unshakable; the calm, guiding hand that, once grasped, still quieted, soothed, and empowered her spirit.

Verbally and physically compliant, the two guards momentarily presented their backs to the trio before resuming their posts. The familiar hiss of the receding doors elated Rey, and she bisected them with a renewed confidence that fueled her next order.

“You three stay here,” she said effectively, pivoting away from the familiar floodlight inside the interrogation room to address them from its entrance. “You will allow me to interrogate the prisoner. You.” Rey swallowed the tenderness of her throat toward the final trooper. “You will go to Supreme Leader Snoke. Tell him Kylo Ren’s apprentice requests an audience with him. You will return here when you are given an answer.”

If you survive, Rey winced as the trooper faded into the depths of the corridor.

The room’s interior was just as she had left it—the concave ceiling gathering tightly at the floodlight and the stark chiaroscuro dividing darkness and light. On the surface, the compact cell was as it had been in the identical room down the hall where Kylo had shown her no mercy atop the broken vistas overlooking death and devotion. Compared to that utter bedlam, the aired desperation Rey currently entered was almost mundane. Nevertheless, she regarded it as she had viewed the other, entering into the unknown with the innate certainty that what she now did was ultimately worth her life, if it did indeed come to that.

This time, Rey allowed her vision no chance to adjust to the brutal contrast. Single-minded and squinting, she followed her frantic fingers to round the menacing rig, barely even glancing at the pilot slumped upright in the chair as she located and released his restraints in a matter of seconds.

The mechanical buzz of the discharging cuffs shook Rey unexpectedly, however. For a moment, her senses were overrun by tactile recollections so consuming they bordered on hallucination, like a rich, sensuous fog through which she had no visibility. Her skin bristled and flushed amorously at the memory of Kylo releasing the latches as he cradled her, the way he had kissed and chewed at her wrists about his neck, how wet his wide mouth had been when she had crushed her crippling climax out against it. What had he said then? He had said something, whispered it to her matted lashes just before giving way himself. Somehow she had heard it in the throbs of her euphoria. It had made no sense. Always.

“Always, Rey.”

“Kid?”

Rey again beheld the controls of the rig’s locking mechanism. Suddenly lightyears removed, she looked up to find Poe Dameron’s backlit face staring down at her. He should have seemed almost celestial to her, his aura practically angelic as he obscured the hub of the room’s floodlight. Instead, she felt as though she looked up at a total stranger. Where had she gone just now?

“Always.”

Alarmed at how far she had slipped away from the task at hand, Rey sprang to her feet with defensive urgency and pulled at the closer of Poe’s khaki-covered arms. Despite being far shorter than Kylo, he was equally as solid, though his skin felt naturally warmer to the touch as she gripped his hand. Rey soon heard him emit an injured groan as she draped the arm’s bruised muscles about her shoulders and attempted to steady him.

“Gotta admit,” Poe laughed through his aches as she helped him from the cuff holds, “I didn’t expect you to make it back, kid.”

“Don’t call me kid,” Rey said matter-of-factly, leading the Resistance pilot to the closest of the room’s circular walls. Poe took the initiative there to relieve her shoulders of his weight, though Rey was surprised at how steady on his feet Poe actually was despite what the First Order had certainly done to him. Watching him brace himself against the reinforced steel, Rey did not have to call upon the Force to know he needed a moment to fend off dizziness more than collapse.

“I’m Rey, remember?” she added at his hunched back once she was certain he was all right. “I’m here to rescue you.”

“Sorry…Rey,” Poe said politely, the brown waves of his head bowed again the wall. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon. Your friend didn’t seem too pleased the last time.”

“Yeah, well, he doesn’t know I’m here.”

“Somehow I guessed as much,” he added, laboriously rounding back to her. Beneath his full brows, Poe’s mahogany eyes were less bloodshot than Rey had last seen them, but they now cast an obvious air of judgment Rey did not enjoy.

“And when did all that happen?” His voice was gravelly and dry. “Last Finn said he saw you, you were on our side. Something about murder and tyranny that appeals to you?”

Rey’s mouth gaped. She knew she should have been prepared for the eventuality of such an accusation, but it stung nonetheless.

“I don’t follow the First Order! You have no right to judge me.”

“I hate to tell you this, ki…um, Rey, but if you really are Kylo Ren’s apprentice, you’re technically working for the First Order.”

“I’ve done nothing to help the First Order, and I don’t intend to help the First Order. I was brought on board the Finalizer against my will. I….”

As she had watched her mentor do on so many occasions, Rey purposely evaded Poe’s scrutinizing stare. The act seemed a fitting alternative when nothing that could be said was appropriate and every ounce of despondency she had internalized was now at risk of discovery. In addition, she feared her eyes might betray her, especially to someone so good and morally unblemished, and scream the memory of every doubt, every hope, every tender sentiment and wayward desire she harbored for Kylo Ren.

There was no point in even trying to explain. Rey knew words would always run bone dry when it came to the nature of her association with the commander of the First Order. Even if Rey could explain the Force bond to Poe, that would not even begin to scratch the surface of their complexity, the depth of their connection, or the transcendent highs and terrifying lows they had shared in only one short month. No one would ever be able to understand when Rey herself barely understood.

And yet, was Poe right? Every day Rey did not fight the First Order, did she only serve to aid its evil? When she possessed such a mighty and progressive gift, was her ambiguity under Kylo’s tutelage just as deplorable as helping them?

“It’s complicated,” Rey finally murmured, her blush-colored lips tensing under the strain.

Poe evaluated her; Rey could sense it as she concentrated on her distant spot in the wall of gunmetal grey and bit back an onslaught of brimming emotions she could not express. Maybe he could feel the hopeless anarchy seeping from her every pore, or perhaps he could simply hear the desperation her voice struggled to subdue. It was possible that he even felt sorry for her for reasons he did not comprehend, watching her statuesque frame give way to a small shudder as her fists balled against the cotton of her jacket. For whatever reason, he refrained from further accusations, and for this mercy, Rey was thankful, though it left the two renegades in a deafening silence she felt to compulsion to break first.

“Why would I be helping you escape if I served the First Order?” Rey finally asked for his benefit, recomposed just enough to face him again with clarity.

Rey found that both Poe’s tone and gaze had softened, though he still questioned with sincerity, asking, “Why are you helping me escape?”

“Because I have to do what’s right. I’m not going to let them kill you.”

Poe seemed to weigh this reply with only slight skepticism.

“I believe you…but mostly because I don’t have many other options.”

Enjoying that answer, Rey felt her tension curl into a half-smile the way Kylo’s did in the rare thievery of his contentment. Poe had rewarded her truth with his trust, and that was all she realized she could hope for from him.

Suddenly straightening himself, Rey’s companion broke her gaze, his dark features squinting toward the open doorway beyond the rig as he wiped at the dried gore beneath his nose. Rey followed his lead, curious at how her guards were fairing in their disorientation.

“So, what is our escape plan, if you don’t mind me asking? And how did you get back here if the First Order doesn’t trust you?”

“Don’t worry about that. The plan is for these guards to lead you and BB-8 to the launch bay and secure a TIE fighter to get you away from the Finalizer.”

“Oh, really? Do I have to ask them really nicely, or will they just do it out of the goodness of their hearts?”

Rey pivoted from her view of the Stormtroopers outside just long enough to shoot Poe an annoyed glance.

“Just trust me, Poe.”

“You’re like him, aren’t you? That’s why you agreed to be his apprentice. That’s how you got here. You can do those things…all those things…with the Force. Like a Jedi.”

“I’m surprised you believe in the Force,” Rey feigned sarcasm after a particularly sandy gulp.

“Oh, I believe in the Force,” he sighed behind her. “I’ve seen and heard too much to ever doubt it. I knew Luke Skywalker before he disappeared. I always tried my best to understand what he said, what he was trying to rebuild with the Jedi until Kylo Ren destroyed it all. General Organa told us everything.”

Like a sparking fuse, Rey’s mind came alive. Uncontrolled, it unearthed a vivid vision of loveliness so real, such long hair, large eyes, and soothing arms, now wrapping, pulling Rey close, comforting her.

“Well, now I see what all the fuss is about. You’re going to outshine us all someday, sweetheart. The brightest star in the galaxy.”

Stop! Rey recoiled from her own vision, recognizing the woman from the humanizing troves of Kylo’s mind, but the feeling of happiness, the warmth of the sunlight on the woman’s skin, persisted. This isn’t me. This isn’t my memory!

“What’s wrong, kid?”

As before, Poe seemed deceptively removed from the space and time surrounding her, his voice and concerned hand on her shoulder utterly disconnected from the haze that had again seized her cohesion. Rey bucked against the threat, alarmed. Stumbling slightly against cold metal, she ejected the vision from her consciousness with all her will and then froze in her tracks as if the slightest movement would cause it to reappear. When she was certain the memory had receded from wherever it had sprung to life, Rey pressed her eyelids to the inviting crook of the elbow she had propped against the interrogation rig.

“It’s nothing,” she whispered, reassuring herself more than Poe. “It’s nothing. I’m going to get you out of here. I promise.”

You’re just exhausted. You’ve been through so much today. Don’t give up now. Don’t lose it, Rey. There’s still a long way to go. Stay sharp.

“Rey,” she heard at her side, “Come with me. I don’t know what’s keeping you here, but trust me, there’s nothing for you here. You can do all those things, but you’re different from him. You’re like Luke—it’s obvious you are. You don’t belong here. You don’t seem…well here.”

Icy panic resounded in Rey’s chest. It was the same toothless gnawing that tore at her insides every time the thought of permanently separating herself from Kylo’s side surfaced, though its hollow ache had intensified, as it always did with every new experience they shared. To leave him forever, to give up and take her chances on the other side of the universe, far away from him—from everything he was in the grey—and the danger she willingly endured living amidst Snoke and the First Order….

“We need your help. The Resistance needs you.”

“You don’t understand,” she said, smiling sadly against her coverlet. “I can’t. Not now. And I can’t tell you why.”

Rey let in the light, as blinding as it was. Out of the corner of a weary eye, she now saw the fourth Stormtrooper had returned and stood obediently among the others at the door. It was just the sign Rey needed to face Poe head-on and submit to him the only redemption she currently had to offer.

“But I swear to you, I will never become one of Snoke’s puppets. Tell the Resistance…tell Finn I’ll never join the First Order. And if I die here, it won’t be without taking as many as I can with me.”

Chapter 23: Revelations of the Great Hall

Chapter Text

23

Not yet, Poe.

Crossing the threshold into the restricted foyer, Rey felt the frigid beads of apprehension run single file down her temples. The walls she now scanned to the left and right were a familiar cobalt—barren and devoid of any chrono or embedded comlink that might reassure her. Undeniably, the hall that would take her to Snoke’s grand chambers was as unforgiving as she had left it, on the verge of blackout, nearly a week earlier.

She had taken too long. The pace of her plan had decelerated from the instant she had left Poe Dameron and BB-8—reinforcing them with reassurances and plying the minds of their entourage one last time—and returned to the Detention Center reception station with her trooper. Skillfully, she had bent their minds to her will anew (it was becoming almost second-nature to her despite the challenge of division), slipping among them and the neon control panels to take care of one last order of business: to erase all surveillance recordings for the entire level.

However, this had immediately proven to be a challenge despite her considerable technical skills. Rey discovered access codes, identification requirements, and several perplexing digital navigations in the system with which she was unfamiliar. Given time, she was certain she could have mastered it; after all, it was merely an updated version of something she had tinkered with countless times. But the fact remained that the clock had begun ticking the moment she had rejected Poe’s final offer to escape with him and BB-8 to the Resistance.

In haste, Rey had resorted to the square-jawed office—the one who had blindly fetched the droid that had gotten her into this entire mess. She had infiltrated him somewhat impatiently, commanding he access the data himself, and, swayed by her power yet again, he had complied. Within seconds, Rey had been able to see herself, projected with panoptical clarity, her privacy violated with a relentless deception only fitting of the First Order. She had seen herself paraded to Poe’s interrogation room, freeing him inside the cell, and shaking his warm hand on the threshold as she wished him and her little friend well. Rey had even watched with curious fascination as the figure that was her faltered not once but twice, overcome by visions and false memories, if that was indeed what they were. Looking so weak, so unfamiliar, that Rey had almost collapsed under some invisible strain, disoriented and adrift…against the rig….

No. How could it not have occurred to her before? No, no, no.

“Show me the surveillance from this morning,” she blurted. The realization had struck Rey so suddenly that her voice unintentionally floundered. Her grip had begun to slip. At her side, the officer had started to rebel, protesting loudly as he spun rebelliously away from the controls.

“Show me the surveillance from this morning!”

Oh, Rey, too hard.

Rey had not meant to do it; help her, she had not. Clasping an appalled hand to her mouth, she had watched the officer spasm beneath the deafening echo of her mind, his stare dimming and growing eerily vacant. He then regained his footing and had obeyed more loyally than any droid or Stormtrooper in the galaxy, a single droplet slicing downward from one nostril to cleave his thin upper lip with its crimson. Studying him, wide-eyed in her shame, only then had Rey fully grasped the delicate boundary between her manipulative sway and the dangerous probing Kylo had demanded of her earlier that day. Before he had not meant to hurt her. Before she had not meant to harm the living being who now retrieved the data she sought. It was so easy to hurt, she had realized in that moment, feeling so powerful.

Worse even still, the resultant data had confirmed her dread. There they both were, transmitted in shivering shades of black and white. Kylo leading her to Poe’s now vacant cell, Kylo dragging her down the hall, Kylo throwing her into that damnable rig, and then….

Someone, anyone could have seen this, she had cringed, pressing her knuckles to her lips so forcefully they connected with her two front teeth. What if someone had seen it? What if someone had seen them?

“You will delete the data for the entire day,” Rey had commanded before the projection was anywhere near done, desperate to bypass anyone else who might see the playback’s culmination. Her persuasive voice had sounded far gentler then in spite of her throat’s eidetic throb.

In the blink of an eye, the last 12 hours in the vast Detention Center were erased forever. Except they really were not; they secretly survived, frozen beneath Starkiller snow in Rey’s body and mind. And with those reminders persisted her mortification and anxiety.

Those ill feelings prevailed, ever obstinate as Rey now approached the reception room, but she knew they had to be buried, and quickly. Snoke would be able to smell them on her.

Not yet, Poe, please. Just a minute more. As long as I’m in his presence.

Perhaps because the Stormtrooper who led her through the emptiness was so much shorter, or perhaps because she had so easily bent the soldier’s weak mind throughout the evening, Rey now missed the feeling of protection that following Kylo Ren had given her. Despite her distrust of Kylo at that time, trailing behind his cloaked shoulders and sharpened will had somewhat assuaged her fears. Though, in the end, he had not protected her at all, just as he could not protect her now.

Force help me, this is a mistake, Rey buckled as the marked armor of Snoke’s guards grew nearer over the shoulder of her mindless escort. What am I doing here? What am I trying to prove? Her porcelain fingers began to quake against the swishing of her slate trousers. Every resounding step toward the metal doorway crowning the foyer rang as another bell dragging at the foot of her already palpable weariness.

When the pangs of anxiety threatened to all but suspend her hesitant in her tracks, Rey reached out to the Force for stability as she had so recently been accustomed. The last shred of her calm proved precious. Having already found the light that day on the brink of death, she now discovered it with an ease that nevertheless surprised her tormented heart. If the light had materialized then and there as an embrace, Rey would have plunged herself deep into those arms and reveled in their warmth, just as she had done to Kylo’s mother in her unsettling vision. Regardless, she allowed the light to enfold her in its repose.

The Stormtrooper stopped dutifully before her.

You’ve come so far today, Rey reminded herself, ridding her body of the brunt of her negativity in one composed exhale. Just a few steps more. You’re not alone.

The large ashen doors dwarfing Rey and the three soldiers gave way, the functional ring adorning them splitting horizontally. Within seconds, Rey beheld the lighted runway disappearing into the vast abyss of the great hall.

There is peace, Rey heard as she closed her eyes beneath the stronghold’s archway. Whether the source of this comfort was the universe or her own subconscious, she could not pinpoint and did not care. In this moment, it did not matter.

Carrying herself with reinforced purpose, Rey crossed the division into the Supreme Leader’s reception chamber.

“Welcome, my young apprentice.” The familiar vibration of Snoke’s growl sounded suddenly far more disembodied than Rey recalled, echoing off the hidden walls and the door that now sealed at her back.

The end of the walkway arrived quickly, and with it, the undeniable origin of the chilling greeting. Rey stopped and peered upward to locate the unforgettable remnants of the face that had once so repulsed her. As before, the stark pathway glowing brightly beneath her feet affected her vision, obscuring him all the more in his raven cathedra. But Rey found him in the shadows nonetheless. Devoid eyes, still beady and saturated, watched her with no discernable emotion from the shaded craters of their sockets. His emaciated claws stuck out again from generous robes and fell languorously over the arms of his elevated chair.

He would have appeared deceptively regal, Rey thought, backlit by the stars—his captive retinue—were he not such a monster inside and out.

“This is most irregular, I have to say,” Snoke rumbled again, upturning one bony palm. “I would not have expected this of you.”

Rey noted his suspiciously courteous tone and decided to return it with an equally dishonest bow of formality.

“Thank you for the audience, Supreme Leader. I promise I won’t take much of your time.”

The ruse then fell by the wayside as Rey took one disciplined breath and proclaimed, “I came here to let you know in person: it didn’t work.”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean,” Snoke replied, raising the shriveled skin above one eye.

“I think you do. Just as I don’t think you expected to see me here tonight, still alive.”

At this, Snoke’s mummified lips curled into the only semblance of a smile his scarred muscles could form.

“Why don’t you explain what you think it is you know.”

“Kylo Ren,” Rey spoke plainly, her shoulders drawn back. “I know what you did to him. I know what you’ve always done. I know how you twist him and torture him. And I know you baited him to kill me.”

“Ah, is that what you think?” he mused with undisguised delight. “How interesting.”

“I know you did.”

“And you came all the way up here on your own tonight simply to flaunt your triumph, is that right?”

“I just wanted to tell you I know, that I am no longer in the dark. Nothing more. I know you want him to kill me, and I know why.”

“Why is that, my apprentice?”

“Because that would be the ultimate hurdle, wouldn’t it? Because of our bond? That would be the real test. It wasn’t Han Solo at all, though you may have originally thought it was. Slaying his father became just another vital step in completing your training; you realized it wasn’t enough to turn him undividedly to the dark side. Killing Han Solo couldn’t extinguish the good that refuses to die in Kylo, but you think killing me would do it. You’ve been inside our minds; I know you can see the magnitude of our connection, what it’s done to us…what it continues to do. If he killed me, there would be nothing left of Ben Solo, not when he realized what he’d done. And then he’d be yours completely…forever severed from the light. Yes, I know why you allowed Kylo to train me as your apprentice. I understand the purpose I serve for you. And it’s not going to work, because now that I know, I will defeat it every time. Me, here right now, I am the living proof of your plan’s flaw.”

The wider Snoke grinned, the more the glossy folds of scar tissue lining his pitted face caught the lamplight lining his pedestal—that same sickening tri-blade crimson Rey so loathed. It would have disgusted her if she were not already so irked by the joy her honesty seemed to give him.

“Your misplaced arrogance amuses me, as does your boldness. I have spent years ensuring no one would ever again have the audacity to speak to me with such disrespect. I have killed for much less.”

“I don’t doubt that, nor do I question your superior power. You could kill me right here, right now. But that wouldn’t serve any purpose, would it? And you aren’t one to waste purpose, especially when it comes to empowering Kylo Ren to help you wipe out the Resistance and the last of the Jedi.”

“I do admire your spirit, my dear, and I admit that I’m impressed with your deductions. Sadly, you are wrong. You remain pathetically naïve, and you have only your modesty and shortsightedness to blame.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why do you really think I allowed you to begin training under Kylo Ren knowing full well your refusal to embrace the dark side of the Force?”

Though Rey held Snoke’s stare, her body betrayed her by catching the air in her lungs. As subtle as it was, it was a grave display of panic.

“Girl, did you actually think I did not know? Did you really think you could fool me? I could sense the recalcitrant light in you before stepping one foot in your mind.”

Of course, Rey thought. How could she have been so foolish to believe otherwise?

“I once told Kylo Ren he was the ideal candidate for apprenticeship because his background had made him inherently powerful. That was one among a million necessary half-truths, my dear. The reality is that his history, particularly his upbringing and training under Luke Skywalker, had laid the foundation for a delicious and utterly essential opposition. You see, despite how ideal it might seem, the most powerful allies cannot be molded from darkness alone. I’ve had several apprentices—so many mistakes, so many buried disappointments—and what I’ve ultimately learned is that it is the discord between the dark and the light that provides the most effective framework for promise. The finest sculptor cannot fashion a masterpiece from poor materials. He must have something pure, something strong, something unbreakable, with which to work."

“What are you saying?”

“I think you know, my dear.”

A grey area at best.

Aghast, Rey asked the question whose answer she already knew: “Me? You want me to kill him? You want me to kill Kylo and take his place.”

“From the moment Kylo Ren came to me on Starkiller Base talking of the scavenger girl, ‘strong with the Force,’ who had resisted his power, I knew you had come to assume his place at my side. I felt the awakening of your potential in the Force the minute it was triggered, so great it was, and quickly realized death would be a waste of your talent. Even now, only a few days after our last meeting, and your power has already grown and centered by unbelievable strides. And as you said, you have survived this day to come here, as I had predicted. You are most impressive, my dear.”

Hearing her life’s crossroad mentioned even in passing was enough to flush the horror from Rey’s mind and drown it instead with a charged reminiscence—still imprinted on her every cell—of the way their blood had combusted when Kylo had dared to touch her. The unfathomable energy field of the Force had melded them then, binding them in ways Rey could have never foreseen. At least she had always believed that, based on what information Kylo had provided. But what if it had not been the Force behind it all? What if it had been merely a crucial step in Snoke’s ploy?

Please, no…it can’t all be built on nothing. It can’t be. I know it can’t.

Dreading the answer more than any other of her life, Rey asked, “And the bond?”

“A most fortunate coincidence from the very start, but, again, nothing I could ever claim responsibility for initiating. Your bond is purely the will of the Force, and it remains the most extraordinarily strong I could ever imagine has existed. How fortuitous…for all of us.”

The dryness of Rey’s weary eyes was temporarily soothed as she recklessly shut them in relief. Regardless of Snoke’s myriad deceptions, Rey was certain he was not lying now, in this moment—this one truth that mattered most. The truth she had known from the start. However, the obvious pleasure he took in the bond’s debilitating connection was disturbing, the foul insinuation crawling and twisting inside Rey’s uneasy gut. How artful Snoke had been from the beginning, so easily plucking at the unsteady strings he knew already bound and tumbled his two puppets.

“Your plan is fallible on all fronts, Supreme Leader, but your biggest error is me,” Rey soon spoke, recovered and eager to continue bashing his monstrous plot to bits. “I do feel as though Kylo’s tutelage has empowered me to grow in the Force every day since I’ve been here, but I will never be as powerful as him. It’s impossible.”

“Always underrating yourself. And yet you bested him on Starkiller Base. With no training and a Jedi’s weapon at that. Anakin and Luke Skywalker’s own weapon.”

“Kylo Ren was severely wounded. I had the upper-hand before we even crossed blades.”

“But there was something else, wasn’t there? Something living and breathing inside of you, fueled by your hatred of him in that moment.”

“Please don’t take my portion! Oh, please!”

“I do not hate him now,” Rey downplayed as much as possible, waiting for the painful image of her younger self to dissipate. “And I refuse to feel that hate again.”

“Ah, but that is inconsequential,” Snoke purred, reclining almost leisurely in his throne until his mangled skull disappeared back into the shadows. “What matters is that we both know you harbor the capacity. You recognized it in yourself on Starkiller just as I see it within you here, standing now before me. You suppress immeasurable power, bottling it deep inside with your fear and rage and all the other untapped founts of your potential within the Force. Choice is unimportant, my dear—these feelings are a part of you. They will never be obscured by that troublesome light. You were meant to use them. When you do, your power will eclipse Kylo Ren’s without compare, and we will have no further need of him. I have foreseen it. It is your destiny to rule the galaxy at my side.”

“No,” Rey stammered, warding off the creeping nausea his words provoked. “I cannot believe that. I refuse to believe it.”

Above Rey, Snoke grinned beneath his cover of darkness.

“It doesn’t matter whether you believe or not, my dear. You can rebel all you wish, but you know what I’ve said is true. You are destined for such great things, but, ultimately, only one path will lead you there. And on that path, I want only the strongest at my side.”

“No. Not now, not ever again will I harm Kylo Ren.”

“Such noble intentions from one so deceptively self-righteous. Your efforts at self-control are your greatest hubris. Where does this sense of goodness come from, my dear? Just how do you justify your commitment to the light of the Force? Never forget that I’ve been inside your mind. I’ve seen what lies in there, and I’m sure if I were to return there right now, it would be exponentially more chaotic and astray than last I looked. Like our mutual acquaintance, more pathetically conflicted than I’ve ever seen him, but with greater delusions of restraint. I’ve never borne witness to anyone struggling so desperately to maintain such a façade. You must sense how useless it is. You must know, just as Kylo Ren knew his destiny lay in the dark side.”

Rey’s strong shoulders now hunched slightly, her mind staggering as she fought back the sour bile of disbelief. The glow beneath her feet was suddenly far too piercing, the wafting scent of Snoke’s repellent skin far too vile.

He’s lying to you. It can’t be. It can’t be the truth!

“Yes, just as Kylo Ren knew. Just as you and I know how, despite our sincerest intentions, accidents tend to happen in the pinnacle of emotions. And I have no doubt so many emotions are alight in a bond like the one you share with Kylo Ren. Such struggle, such pain. So many…scars, so many…bruises.”

Rey caught her trembling hand before it reached her concealed throat. Help her, it was all too easy to give Snoke what he wanted. He knew too much, perceived too flawlessly, his advantage as privileged as the pedestal from which he ruled. Knowing the manipulative master of the First Order as she did now, Rey realized she could never have faulted Ben Solo for falling so very far from the light. How many lies had Snoke shrouded in truths already set in vulnerable stone?

“Even if there’s truth to what you say, I’ll never choose your path. I refuse to believe that my fate has already been decided.”

“And yet we both know the Force bond was fated, don’t we? Don’t deny that you have recognized your union with Kylo Ren was inescapable. More so than you yet realize….”

Yes, Rey was sure of that; she had been for some time now. But what did he mean? What did she not understand?

“It is useless to resist, my dear. One way or another, you will come to realize the power of the dark side. You will embrace your destiny.”

“Never!” Rey shouted sharply, the limits of her anxiety, patience, and exhaustion exceeded. Defiantly she glared up into the glistening marbles watching her from the back of the chair, waiting with bated breath as her tormentor grew silent.

When at last Snoke spoke, he made a point to lunge his sinewy jaw so far forward in his throne that Rey could smell the putridity of his breath and gaze deep into every cavernous cavity notching his disfigured head.

“Know as surely as you stand here that I would kill anyone else who refused me so insolently,” Snoke spoke down to Rey, admonishing her with subdued but terrifying venom. “But that is how certain I am that it will come to pass, my apprentice: I am certain enough that I can wait. In this matter, I am the vigilant gardener whose patience and cultivation yields the ripest fruit. Regardless, you must realize that I am destined to win.”

“Yes, I believe it,” Rey snickered with courage she never knew she possessed. “One of us…dies, you still have a capable apprentice at your side, and your plans for Luke Skywalker and the Resistance remain intact. Assuming what you say is true, it’s all inevitable. But even if you’re right, that doesn’t mean I have to let it come easily. I can choose to fight it every step of the way. I can make it my absolute mission in life to prove you wrong. Not just about me, but about Kylo as well. I can prolong the light in both of us as long as I have a choice.”

“Careful, my dear. I am still your master, and this is a challenge you do not want to wage. You only waste valuable time prolonging the inevitable.”

“If what you say is true, you’ve nothing to fear. Not from a silly scavenger girl from Jakku. Now if you’ll excuse me, Supreme Leader.”

As surely as Rey knew she should not have come, she was certain it was time to escape this poisonous exchange, lest her resolve crack beneath the pressure of Snoke’s twisted truths or, worse, she fatally invoke his wrath. However, Rey was disturbed by how the prospect of death suddenly seemed far more welcome a fate than the one he had prophesied for her. To kill Kylo and take his place in the First Order. Never had she contemplated anything more horrifying.

“Do as you wish. Let’s see how long your blind devotion to your light and your tutor will carry you. Eventually you will discover how weak and untrustworthy both really are. Mark me, it won’t be long. There will be a revelation, and when it comes, you will seek me out. You will need guidance only a consummate teacher can give. And you will hunger for the true power the dark side alone can provide.”

Snoke’s words reverberated off Rey’s slender back as she walked away with all the remaining poise and dignity she could muster, and as they did, she realized she had grown afraid to listen. A stubborn remnant of willpower was all that prevented Rey from running from his presence as fast as her unsteady legs would carry her.

“But, of course, maybe I was wrong about you,” Snoke added, donning a rather matter-of-fact tone that attacked her in stinging echoes from all sides. “A silly scavenger girl who gives her chastity away so freely is hardly worthy to wield the pure power of the Force, is she?”

Rey’s feet ceased mid-step just shy of the broad doors, the bottom ripping from her chest. It was then that the Finalizer’s alarms began to shriek in rhythm with her wounded heart.

Chapter 24: Fragility

Chapter Text

24

She had done it at last. She had left him.

Wrenched from sleep, Kylo Ren had sensed Rey’s absence even before prying open his leaden eyes, before remembering where he was and why his body protested so wearily. The utter lack of her. It had pervaded him as he emerged from the thick nothingness of sleep, while, in the background, the drawn-out wails of the siren only seemed to grow more deafening.

The bed was again cold beneath Kylo’s steadying hands, the processed air devoid of her soothing energy. Even the faint hum of Rey’s proximity in the Force, the constant reassurance that had both lulled and taunted him since it began on Starkiller Base, had seemed all at once undetectable. And the awareness of that sudden void had seared straight through Kylo, burning and wounding him far worse than the superficial wounds across his back.

Throwing off the sheets, Kylo had followed an alien instinct to defy every embedded principle of his training and grapple for something, anything, to subdue his anguish rather than exploit it to his advantage.

It doesn’t matter, he had rebuffed silently, pulling fresh clothes over his stinging eyes with as much speed as his sluggish will would permit. Bond be damned, everything be damned. She is nothing. She made you weak. She complicated everything you’ve worked so hard to achieve!

Still, Kylo’s efforts to placate himself had been worthless. The harrowing feeling had welled, a barren hole widening deep within his chest, and easily exposed the flimsy exterior of his denial. It bared remnants of agony Kylo had not felt in decades, not since he had been someone else, someone excluded by those who should have loved him and been honest with him—those who had infected him with their weakness. He now recalled that hurt, buried beneath the rubble of years of discipline and cathartic punishments that had both hardened him and healed him of his vulnerability.

But this tearing was something altogether different, a sensation too formidable and entirely gutting. Fumbling in his personal storage nook for his spare mask, Kylo knew that whatever had preceded the feeling had lain outside the boundaries of his inexhaustible anger and hatred as something far purer and untouched, filling and driving him for a precious crack of time. But now it had withdrawn, and in its wake lay only engrossing emptiness.

Rey was gone. She was gone, and despite that being what he had wished for her—for her safety, which had somehow become first and foremost in his mind—the reality of her absence had begun to eviscerate Kylo from the inside out.

You know it’s for the best, no matter the punishment. It’s best for her, for you. It was inevitable.

How selfish he was and always had been. How pathetic. To long for her even as he acknowledged the wisdom of her actions, to wish for her return despite causing her so much pain (You almost killed her mere hours ago!), to crumble to dust at the very thought of never again feeling the electric flare of her sundrenched skin…Kylo despised it. Even now, his heavy limbs pulsed with the enduring feel of her body, so freshly imprinted on his every nerve.

He loathed the weakness that had led him to know those divine secrets and fall victim to those moments of unforgettable bliss; they had all been so perfect despite how he had tainted them. The callous coward he had become choked him with shame, but more than that, Kylo resented the epiphany that he had come to need her, like oxygen, like anger, like the Force rippling through his vacant body. Kylo Ren, so practiced at the art of requiring so little, had become dependent on another living being. And beyond all else, he hated the natural instinct to sacrifice everything he was to have her back.

“Rey,” he had spoken aloud if only to hear himself say her name once again outside the mask of Kylo Ren. But too late did he discover the very word had become unbearable. The sound incensed the void in him, provoking him to turn his blunt fist on his own flesh, to unleash the burn of his lightsaber on every sterile surface of the room she had touched with her slender hands. Indeed, Kylo would have demolished all that surrounded him were it not for the ship’s alarm, still calling relentlessly in the background of his devastation.

Yes, Kylo had conceded, hot hands clenching—it was imperative that he take charge of the situation before General Hux sought him out (he was in no mood for that sniveling scum) and Supreme Leader Snoke demanded a full report from one or both of them. The alert demanded assessment, particularly because Kylo had little doubt Rey’s escape was the cause. Had she overtaken an officer while leaving? Had she commandeered his shuttle once more? Had she…been injured?

Gritting teeth through his agony and the tiredness that compounded it, Kylo had ventured out of his quarters to do his duty, treading the wide open wing doors through which Rey had undoubtedly fled and making his way up to the Finalizer’s vast bridge.

Surprisingly, the exhaustion ravaging Kylo’s body began to loosen its unconscious hold on his mind the more he walked. A dense veil lifted farther and higher from Kylo’s vision with every laborious step, revealing the clarity and self-control he greatly needed to function through this ordeal. This coherence enlivened the energy of dark side within his icy veins and, on its coattails, the nagging, murky grey wherein he had so recently become trapped…with her. Despite its tenacity, that intermediate realm where the darkness met the light was where he now felt most empowered and consoled. And by the time Kylo had reached the bridge, that neutral plane was where he at last rediscovered the sanctified current to Rey.

Still here, Kylo had nearly said aloud behind his mask. Rey, still here.

Kylo had done his utmost to camouflage his fervor beneath his generous cowl. Beyond his mask, Captain Phasma had droned on dutifully, though only snippets resonated. The Detention Center traitors had freed the Resistance pilot and fled in a separate shuttle only to be obliterated by the ship’s ventral cannons. Having commandeered a different command shuttle, the best pilot in the cursed Resistance had been luckier than in his last escape. He and the droid had evaded the cannon fire and made the jump to lightspeed, no doubt to return to the new Resistance base.

But what did any of that matter right now? Rey was still there, a fiery beacon somewhere amid the Finalizer’s murky corridors. Yes, he felt it with utter clarity, engulfed once more by the familiar way their anomalous link disturbed and tantalized the very fabric of the Force. She had not left him, and though it meant her safety and his strife, Kylo was relieved. Curse his wretched soul, he was relieved.

His steps once again thunder behind Phasma and her handpicked squad of Stormtroopers, Kylo refused to permit any false sense of pride stop him from reaching out to Rey as soon as the lift tube opened to the Detention level.

“Rey, where are you?”

The dull clop of Kylo’s boots on the grating reverberated heavily amidst the patter of the unit, but no response came, no glimmer of her lustrous voice shining in his mind.

Kylo and Phasma followed their entourage down the pipeline of the Detention Center to inspect the empty interrogation cell.

Noting the absence of forced entry into the cell, Kylo surveyed the vacant rig at its illuminated heart. The polished dips of the open restraints shone in the frigid glass of his visor. Again, no signs of tampering, no indication of struggle. Poe Dameron had definitely been freed from the rig and the cell itself by someone else, a conclusion Kylo now marked almost as an afterthought as he removed his gloved hand from the familiar restraints.

“Rey?” he reached again as his company withdrew from the interrogation room.

“Bring up the surveillance records,” Phasma instructed the troopers on Kylo’s silent behalf. Lingering on the bond’s current, he had been oblivious to the captain’s inquisitive stance as she waited somewhat impatiently at his side, but now he completely aware.

The surveillance.

Kylo swallowed a mouthful of filtered air.

“Everything from the last three hours,” he interjected with a revived intensity that turned every polished helmet. “Show it to me, now.”

Careful to conceal the buzz of his swarming thoughts far from the privileged place where he and Rey conversed, Kylo cursed his grave misstep as he now led his guards back through the corridor they had just tread. How could he have been such a fool? Yes, he had been exhausted and undeniably spent, his sensibilities eroded to near delirium, but how had he not remembered? Just as he had forgotten its prying eye in the height of his desire, he had walked right by it and still never thought! Now, his carelessness had put them both at risk.

A blurred afterthought to the rapid speed Kylo set, the convex walls of the cell hall opened to the reception area in what seemed like seconds, and just as quickly, one of Phasma’s many numbered subordinates was seated at the control panels. Kylo strategically towered behind him, severing Phasma’s line of sight to the viewscreen as casually and exactly as possible. He had to exercise caution for the time being, at least until he could order his subordinates elsewhere and erase the-

“Commander, there’s nothing here.”

“Explain,” Phasma demanded in modulated urgency, circumventing Kylo’s broad shoulders to join her Stormtrooper at the controls.

“Captain, there is no surveillance data file on record for this sector.”

In the shadow of their obliviousness, Kylo’s disguised eyes wandered instinctively back to the opening of the Detention hallway. No record….

“EK-8560 is correct, sir,” Phasma confirmed, pivoting back to meet Kylo’s hood. “The data file is missing for the entire Detention Level, not just for the last three hours but for the last 24. The traitors must have erased it while freeing the prisoner.”

While this may have been the obvious conclusion for Phasma, and likely all others aboard the Finalizer, Kylo divined its lack of logic as plainly as if looking through prison cell glass. Even if he had not been privy to his information, he would have overruled the idea immediately. It made no sense that the dead traitors would delete any of the Detention Center surveillance, let alone the data for the entire day; there were no identities to protect, nothing to hide after the escape. Just as it made no sense for that particular shift—a random assortment of technicians and Stormtroopers, as well as a decorated officer—to aspire to sudden rebellion.

“I’m here.”

Kylo heard her, lithe and melodic, like a cue. After a decade of bloodcurdling attacks at Snoke’s will, the delicacy with which Rey tread the private realms of his mind felt less like an intrusion and more like an extension of his own thoughts. That voice resonated more than gentle now, however. It was drained and diminutive, as was the normally dramatic swell of power that propelled it along their untouchable current. And though Kylo was utterly relieved to hear it, the creeping anger at his sudden realization threatened to overrule his concern.

“Are you all right?” Kylo finally asked, far less emphatic than he had been minutes earlier.

“I’m fine.”

“Where are you?” Unable to stifle an inherent lick of venom, Kylo added with subdued implication, “Where did you go?”

A pause in his mind. Hesitance. Kylo could sense it unmistakably, as if its presence in his consciousness rendered it all the more transparent.

“I’ve returned to my room. Please come back when you can.”

Please come back, Kylo repeated to himself in a place she could not hear. Yes, that was right; Rey was really still here. He had forgotten everything so quickly in his blind rage at her deceit, his agony over her loss and relief in her continued presence both snuffed out like a lone flame in a storm. Regardless of what she may have done, she had decided to remain, even as Poe Dameron scurried back across the galaxy to the Resistance. Again, she had chosen him, and no doubt fully well-knowing he would uncover her treachery. But why, Rey? You could have been rid of me, as much as you and I will ever be rid of each other as we both live.

“Sir? How shall we proceed?”

Kylo broke from the deceptive mouth of the corridor and turned back to face the broad armor of Phasma and the handful of Stormtroopers who stood subserviently at her back, loyal to the death to the First Order. Loyal to Snoke. Loyal to him.

My brave scavenger. My willful apprentice. How much you’ve learned already.

------

Never before had Rey felt such a sense of safety to return to the icy seclusion of her quarters, away from the weak-minded Stormtrooper who had led her back and away from Snoke’s daggered words. Far from the red-haired officer, far from the hero Poe Dameron, and far from the judgmental glances of the First Order.

Kylo had called for her, but she found she lacked replies. Sinking onto the side of her bed, Rey covered her burning eyes with palms that were no longer damp. But they did shake. Like her very spirit, they shook uncontrollably against the collapsed head she cradled.

For the first time since her promise to fight for Kylo Ren, Rey’s resolve succumbed to the overwhelming sense of hopelessness she had so faithfully defied again and again. Her plan had been successful; somehow she had seen it through. But now, returning to the respite of silence, Rey felt the day’s toll heavy and inescapable, dragging her beneath the quicksand of the fatigue she had battled since the morning. Since she had first fled the phantom who pursued her through the trees of Takodana.

Rey was weary. No, it was not supposed to be quick and easy—she knew that in her heart. The Force had taught her that, whispering gently to her life force every second of every day so that she might stay the course. But now that path, always so clear in the light, seemed as grey and uncertain as the halfway point where she and Kylo met in each other’s name, and that uncertainty frightened Rey far more than anything she had suffered at Kylo’s hands.

Why did I go? Rey lamented, shutting out the room. What was I thinking? She regret nothing she had done prior to confronting Snoke. Oh, she would do it again gladly regardless of Kylo’s reaction (surely he knew by now; he was far too intelligent, too perceptive to believe her complicity). But the burden of Snoke’s prophecy was crushing, the pinnacle tipping point stacked atop a load she already barely managed to bear. It was also a burden she would have to carry alone, for surely Kylo would do something to endanger one or both of them were she to tell him what she knew. More likely, he would not believe her at all, a probability she would not begrudge Kylo given the tight reigns by which Snoke yet led him. Though Rey was certain the light their bond infused revived Kylo’s own surviving humanity more and more with each passing moment, the dark side’s foothold was so impossibly strong in him. She could not—would never—fault him for any of it.

“That is not my destiny,” she said aloud through clenched teeth. “That is not our destiny.” Yet despite this assurance and the oath she had sworn against Snoke, emblazoned permanently on her will, Rey now felt more powerless than ever before, completely unable to control the events transpiring around her. Despite the multitude of unbelievable miracles the Force had shown her, she was…so helpless….

“No! Come back! Don’t go! Don’t leave me here! Please come back!”

The vision triggered the steel trap of Rey’s hands to spring to her lap as the barren walls echoed her cry. It was the same vision she’d had touching Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber for the very first time. Again, the child’s frantic arm reaching toward the sky as if she might catch the ship leaving her to face years of hardship and heartbreak. This time, Rey had no doubt it was a memory that belonged solely to her.

“Why did you leave me?” Rey’s voice cut through the stillness. “Why did you both leave me there? I was your daughter, not a slave. I was your child!”

The anger that now bypassed her sadness surged through her body invigoratingly, reanimating her energy and pushing her mind almost naturally toward the brink of darkness. How easily those prevailing feelings resounded through the web of the Force in the midst of her hopelessness. The deck seemed as though it were unfairly stacked against her, against Kylo, against any other Force sensitive in the history of the universe. Rey recognized how easy it was to embrace her fear, of Snoke, of his prophecy, of Kylo, of losing herself to him, of what would become of them. And that longstanding fear, that private dread that had grown with her over the years and haunted every night she spent beneath the moons of Jakku: that she had deserved to be abandoned.

Breathe, Rey. Breathe. Peace.

Rey folded her narrow forearms to her chest and hunched against them, connecting the long lashes of her upturned eyes.

Alone. Alone for so long. But not alone now. Please not alone right now. Kylo.

Admitting outright defeat, Rey reached out as calmly as her heart would allow: “I’m here.”

The door to her quarters subsided not long after the exchange. Before she even looked up from her boots, Rey felt an instantaneous chill spark across her skin, the soft hairs of her arms rising attentively to acknowledge his arrival. It soothed her so much that she was content to allow him to enter and remove his mask unobserved.

When Rey finally felt prepared to look upon him, she found he had not moved from the doorway. Hair mussed and skin still clammy from lingering exhaustion, he watched her curiously, his gloved hands clenching at his side, studying her as though he could not decide whether to draw his lightsaber against her or beg her forgiveness for some nameless indiscretion. The deep-set eyes that disarmed her even now evaluated hers again as though seeking some betraying glimmer of falsehood, some small flicker that would send him, teetering on the peak, one way or the other.

Rey grasped the fingers of one upturned palm on her knee and felt hot tears gather in her stinging eyes for no reason and a thousand reasons at once. In the face of everything the day had brought, she was simply unspeakably elated to see him, his very presence comforting in ways she would never understand even if she lived to be ancient. No matter what happened in this moment, he was impossible perfection—the central curves of his lips, the endless onyx of his bagged eyes, the secrets he harbored that only she knew.

Only one escaped tear rolled down upon Rey’s smile. Regardless of everything they had been through in the short time they had known one another, when Rey looked at Kylo, seeing through him better than he could see himself—she found hope. And in that hope, Rey now regained peace.

Regardless of everything left unspoken, in this moment, Kylo seemed to find it in her as well.

He softened before her at last, seemingly making a decision she would forever let be his own. Eyes never leaving hers, the tension of his lush mouth transformed, the ice melting away as if beneath the sun. His stance slackened, allowing Rey renewed access to his exhaustion—a fallibility that contradicted the persona of Kylo Ren.

He came to her then, settling upon his knees before her as though the small expanse of room had been an impenetrable wall, and reached softly for her hair. Rey caught and pressed into his fateful palm. There she nuzzled against the energy of his cold skin and allowed his thumb to glide over her lively lips, up her sculpted cheek, and across the balmy skin of her eyelid. All the while he searched, endlessly searching, his face now a mixture of concern and relief, as if it were miraculous that she was really in his hands but she could disappear at any moment…as if she had been gone a lifetime and just returned to him, wounded and victorious but all the more precious.

Rey felt the brush of Kylo’s lips, warm and consuming, on her forehead, her heavy eyes, her silken cheek, and finally the parted mouth with which she would have told the truth if he had asked. But he did not ask. In this peace, he demanded nothing. He merely soothed her, just as she had needed him to, lacing his unsteady arms beneath her tired legs and lifting her, his lips never straying, to lay her carefully on the far side of the bed. Breaking from her skin only to remove his gloves and boots, he sank next to her, wrapping her in his arms and the wool of his cloak and holding her to him gently as though she were a fragile thing he had broken and then pieced back together.

More relieved than she could have imagined, Rey nestled into his robes and shut her eyes at last against the collar scaling the length of his neck. Fingers carefully loosened the gathers from her hair and began to brush through its newfound freedom, easing her gently into an unconsciousness that fast approached them both. Feeling Kylo’s face bury in her badious waves, Rey again knew warmth and contentment, curling her fingers in his own generous strands and breathing him into her lungs until he had again saturated her every fiber. Marking his compassion and the overruling emotion she dared to hope fueled it, Rey drifted off to sleep mere seconds before him, again knowing faith in herself, in him, and in them both.

With that, the longest day of Rey’s life at last came to an end.

Chapter 25: Armitage

Chapter Text

25

The Finalizer’s formicary of dwarfing halls and neon-studded corridors was bustling uncharacteristically by the time the late shift of the standard day was relieved of its post.

Ever vigilant, Captain Phasma had overseen the assessment and damage control of Poe Dameron’s escape, commanding an emergency company of able-bodied Stormtroopers throughout the evening, in addition to the battlecruiser’s regular assembly of crew and solider. Divided into squads of nine, they had combed the entire ship, swarming every shadowed nook and cranny in search of the traitors and the droid, lest one should remain hidden in an espionage-driven double-cross. Tirelessly they had retraced the multi-tiered pathway between the interrogation room and the launch bay, amassing reports from stationed personnel and scanning every vulnerable system and inlaid device for evidence of tampering.

At Phasma’s metallic right hand, Chief Petty Officer Unamo remained with Phasma’s preferred squad in the Detention level and readied the report on the First Order traitors that her superior would inevitably be expected to deliver to Kylo Ren, General Hux, and, ultimately, Supreme Leader Snoke. Lower in the ship’s hungry underbelly, Lieutenant Mitaka supervised as charged, coordinating the maintenance and technician crews’ restoration of the blast-fired launch bay.

Only one figure stood out amidst the swarm of glossy white and ashen grey. Kylo Ren moved among them like a wraith, emerging noiselessly and, all but obscured in the sidelines, surveying the damage the Resistance pilot had inflicted upon the hangar bay with the shuttle’s twin blaster cannons at his overly capable fingertips. While Kylo’s own shuttle remained intact, the two commandeered by Dameron and the traitors had unleashed an onslaught of verdant fire on the platform and demolished more than an entire docking unit of TIE fighters. No, that was not right; not traitors—not at all. Dameron and the weak-minded loyalists sent on their fools’ errand.

That was all they had been, after all.

Rey, Kylo sighed, his grimace concealed from the Stormtroopers who now passed warily at his side. I can’t even stop myself from hurting you. How can I keep you safe from the First Order when you defy me like this? You’ve put us both at risk. How can I protect you from him?

To his own surprise, Kylo felt his anger at Rey’s betrayal all but dissolved in acidic apprehension. Never in a millennia would he have imagined not only allowing someone to willingly defy his master and the entire order for which he stood, but to abet the crime—to willfully swallow his knowledge behind his clamped jaws. A silenced mouth that still tasted her floral flesh.

No, try as he might, as he would have so easily been able to do before touching her, Kylo could not begrudge Rey her nature—the innate goodness he had recognized so well before unwittingly binding his life to hers for all eternity. He had only to picture her as he had last found her, the defeat in her gemstone eyes and the languor of the energy she emitted to him, and his stormy resolve softened to the faintest of whispers.

His wits returned, Kylo would have sensed her ache separated by a legion of stars. He had felt it even as he had trudged back to the officers’ quarters in a torrent of blind fury and sublime relief, but then…to actually look upon her, so beaten, so despondent. Kylo had seen her bruised before—once by his own cruelty—but he had never seen her truly lost, regardless of all he had done to her. And though he refrained from asking the cause (no doubt what he had inflicted upon her that morning coupled with the stress of her efforts to free Poe Dameron undetected), it had shaken him to see and feel her, always so unwaveringly strong, on the verge of collapse.

The hopelessness of Rey’s tears, the way her graceful limbs had flooded into his for stability and comfort, the childlike way her slender fingers clasped his throat all the closer to her sunset skin…it had touched him. Kylo admitted it now, even in the midst of everything that opposed sentiment—she had moved him more deeply than he thought himself capable of being moved. Against every instinct he knew, he had overflowed with concern and compassion for her and frantically sought to alleviate her unspoken hurt. Would he ever become accustomed to the foreign, tender impulses she drew from places within him he did not know still survived?

No, Kylo had only to recall that image of Rey, that clear inclination that he, the Finalizer, Snoke, the First Order—all of it—was slowly breaking the spirit of the most beloved creature he had never imagined in his life, and Kylo’s rage at her deceit was snuffed out like the last embers of a smoldering pyre. And though her transition to the dark side had been his mission since the day she had claimed everything he was with her fantastic power, and though the thought of Rey commanding the Force at his side with equal brutality and ruthlessness excited the bloodstained corners of his mind beyond measure, some splinter wedged beneath the surface of Kylo’s shattered being suddenly dreaded that degradation of Rey’s soul. Weak fool that he was revealing himself to be more and more, it was almost as if it pained him to see her cast-iron will begin to erode.

More urgent at present, however, was the inclination of what Supreme Leader Snoke would do to Rey if he discovered her deceit. The mere thought chilled even Kylo’s glacial soul. He still heard the echo of her screams wailing off boundless walls as she thrashed against the lighted walkway of Snoke’s chamber. The shrill, desperate agony had resonated in his own bruised bones. Yet, despite how horrific it had been to witness, it would be child’s play compared to her potential punishment, a far graver threat Kylo was now determined to thwart before there was even the slightest chance of the truth surfacing.

This urgency at the forefront of his mind, Kylo came alive, seeking out Captain Phasma for one final update before ascending the lift to the heights of the vessel.

As the levels of the Finalizer came and went, Kylo realized that for the first time since Snoke had approached him on the outskirts of the Jedi Academy so many years ago, he would lie to his master. He had told so many abridged truths since taking Rey to Starkiller Base, and though deceit was a granted component of his dark path, he had not once outright lied to the man who had awoken him to the true power of the Force. To do so was now a dangerous prospect that troubled Kylo, whether he was successful or not.

His destination nearing, Kylo found he could not summon a number like those flashing before him, reflecting, one after the other, like a crimson laser sword in the bottomless lake of his mask. How many years had been flayed away with his naivety? How long since Snoke had found him, shunned and misguided and mewling in light, and shown him the way? More than that, how many eons had elapsed since he had left behind his only joy?

Kylo shut out what little brightness seeped through his visor. When he did, he saw only her: Rey as he had left her barely an hour ago, a slender huddle of soft breaths, warm muslin, glistening eyelids, and russet tendrils melting beneath the bedclothes he placed over her. And peeking out beneath her jacket collar as a parting reminder only for him, the unhealthy purple stains of fresh bruises, and, from there, the creeping flicker of memory, of feeling the Force crush the air from her windpipe….

No, no. Not now. Later. You must prepare yourself.

Somewhere beyond the rolling dunes of Rey’s sleeping cheek, a door announced itself with a hiss.

Kylo now forced himself to take in the harsh fluorescence of the foyer leading to Snoke. The stretch to the decorated shoulders of the guards suddenly seemed far shorter than he remembered, but even that misgiving was inconsequential. Be it a few paces or a million kilometers, Kylo knew he had to cross it for her, to protect her. Force help him and his laughable failure as a master of the dark side, had he allowed himself to fall that far, to undermine his power and succumb once more to the ultimate lie he had left behind in Ben Solo?

Was this…love?

Kylo Ren, fortify your mind!

Intercepting the steely doors before they were able to close upon him, Kylo sliced through the room with clear purpose, an imposing cascade of pitch robes and tense arms among the foyer’s effulgence.

The last time he had walked through the nearing archway, his will had been brutally hardened and his mind flushed of every doubt and weakness of the last month, and, oh, how good it had felt to have her stripped from soul. The dark side had always been so simple, the intensity of the pain and the anger so focusing. Wrapped in the icy blanket of his hatred, he never wandered or worried. But now the consequences of his inhumanity haunted him as never before.

One step through the great doors, so cruel in their eager efficiency, and Kylo immediately felt spotlighted by the darkened hall’s only path. Fortunately, his paranoia seemed to cling to the bright world outside, dissipating with every inward step, but only to be replaced by sheer loathing, for as Kylo converged on Snoke’s pedestal, he began to clearly distinguish the familiar helmet of orange hair amidst the ruby glow at the end of the walkway.

“Kylo Ren, your timing is impeccable,” Kylo’s master said somewhat coyly, his sunken lips pulled back in an alien enthusiasm above General Hux. It was an expression Kylo had never enjoyed despite his eternal devotion, mostly for the grotesque way it tugged at Snoke’s raw, ropy ligaments than for the clever calculation it promised. This time, however, the latter disturbed Kylo far more. “Join us.”

In no mood to humor Hux’s intrusion on his delicate plans, Kylo bridged the remaining platform and found his knee at the base of the stairs with not so much as a side-glance at his company.

“Supreme Leader,” Kylo acknowledged and then removed his helmet forthright. The chill of the reception chamber felt good on his freed skin, but the baring brought the need for extra caution. He was already exposed enough.

“General Hux and I were just discussing the recent security breach. Tell me, what is your assessment of the Resistance pilot’s escape?”

“I have inspected the Detention Center myself, my master,” Kylo said after deliberate pause. “There is no indication that the prisoner forcibly freed himself. The six traitors—one petty officer, two technicians, and three infantry troopers—conspired and planned the infraction well in advance. The BB unit belonging to Poe Dameron was also released from holdings and taken when the criminals escaped. We have isolated surveillance of the traitors fleeing as a single group to the launch bay shortly before dividing to hijack the two command shuttles.”

“And yet you sound unsure of the prisoner’s emancipation. What did the Detention Center surveillance reveal?”

“It has been erased, presumably by the traitors before taking their leave. Captain Phasma is currently developing a full, detailed report of the incident, complete with possible points in time when the conspirators may have been recruited by the Resistance.”

Snoke co*cked his parchment skull sideways in a manner Kylo recognized as an imitation of surprise. The Supreme Leader was never surprised.

“Erased, you say? This is most peculiar, my apprentice. Just as it is most embarrassing that the same Resistance pilot has escaped our imprisonment not once but twice under your command.”

“I am in agreement, Supreme Leader, and I seek your counsel to overcome my failure,” Kylo agreed dutifully, jumping at the opportunity for which he had been waiting. “However, I believe this repeated treason by members of our own troops is cause for alarm. I recommend a full profiling of the vessel’s crew, as well as individual evaluations of the Stormtroopers, to identify signs of…discrepancies. Being that we have resumed a steady course to Morcanth now that Skywalker’s whereabouts are again my personal mission and not the Finalizer’s priority, I believe now is the time to devote the manpower to this precaution. We must identify if any other crew or military have been compromised. We must weed them out and dispose of them.”

From the corner of his eye, Kylo was privy to Hux’s undisguised snicker.

“I am inclined to agree with your solution, Kylo Ren. However, General Hux has expressed a differing evaluation that may interest you to hear.”

Only then did Kylo concede to turn to his fellow leader and gaze upon the fixed sneer that automatically set his blood boiling.

“As I was saying before our interruption, Supreme Leader,” Hux said, ignoring Kylo’s presence with equal ease, “I don’t believe Poe Dameron’s escape was orchestrated by the Resistance. Kylo Ren’s report concerning the Detention Center’s surveillance only confirms it. Why would the traitors bother to delete the data knowing their identities would be clearly known?”

Eyes fixed on the sharp edges of Hux’s profile, Kylo cursed himself for underestimating the man’s intelligence. He was a nuisance and a feeble redundancy in Snoke’s grand design, but he was no fool.

“Perhaps you would entertain telling Kylo Ren what you have told me,” Snoke purred, waving one shriveled hand in his apprentice’s direction. Assured of himself, Hux was at last content to turn that way too.

“I saw your…” he began with unabridged venom and then seemingly thought better of it. “I saw the scavenger girl last evening, being led by two troopers through the officers’ quarters. I passed them at the lift. You were not chaperoning.”

Oh, Rey….

“I’m not sure I understand the relevance of your observation, general,” Kylo answered in his most natural indignation. “Must I always escort my apprentice?”

The faint freckles of Hux’s face stiffened in their hollows. “One of the troopers escorting her was part of the escape party.”

“Maybe you’d like to just skip straight to the point. Neither the Supreme Leader nor I have time for your paranoia. I have given my apprentice privileges to use the training room when she requires it. As a student of the Supreme Leader, she must be given access to the only facility on this ship of use to her training.”

“My point, one would think, would be obvious, commander,” Hux said with restrained fury so subdued Kylo could almost smell it simmering beneath the surface. “The girl cannot be trusted. Don’t you find it coincidental that the girl was with the renegade trooper shortly before the offense? Don’t you think it’s far too convenient that our own Stormtroopers would randomly, with no prior indication, sabotage us twice in such a short span of time? The first incident was suspicious enough, but again, and a decorated officer at that?”

Kylo stared unwavering beyond the pale blue daggers Hux now flashed and grappled for any inconspicuous rebuttal that would not betray his intellect. Had he not proven himself so consistently over the course of the First Order’s rise (recent mistakes excluded), he may have been able to feign ignorance, but that was impossible at this point in time. Even Hux, for all his resentment, knew Kylo would never ignore the barrage of evidence in blind acceptance as Phasma and the rest had.

The sneer on Hux’s face twisted into unabashed smugness as he shot Supreme Leader Snoke a tell-tale glance. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t, would you?”

If Kylo had unknowingly allowed his stance to slacken in the midst of the conference, it corrected itself now when every bone in his body straightened in unmediated outrage. He spun to Snoke and spoke with all the control he could muster.

“Supreme Leader, I can assure you General Hux’s speculations are completely unfounded.”

Standing out amidst the black of the galaxy, the translucent hands above him tapped their fingers.

“It is true that my confidence in your decision-making has only recently wavered, my apprentice, but I still must ask, how can you be so sure?”

How? Think of Rey. How?

“Because the girl was with me when the prisoner escaped.”

Somewhere overhead, a skeleton grinned.

“I sent for the girl to meet me in the training room,” Kylo divulged to his jury with impartial simplicity. “Both troopers were dismissed when she arrived. We were beginning combat exercises when the escape occurred later.”

“Well, there you have it, general,” Snoke delighted, revealing a rare and inconsistent row of tiny cracked teeth. “I hope this puts your doubts about my new apprentice to rest and we can begin to investigate the source of this treason among the ranks. Order Captain Phasma to follow Commander Ren’s recommendations and proceed with a precautionary review of all crew and military aboard. I want the source of this rebellion eradicated as quickly as thoroughly as possible.”

Desperate to recover his face lest some small look or gesture betray him, Kylo donned the weight of his mask and blocked out the scowling figure at his side.

“You are both dismissed.”

-----

The chamber doors had no sooner eclipsed the chamber when General Hux pivoted on well-polished heels and closed the space between Kylo’s blank visor and his own burning eyes.

“Please do, general,” Kylo goaded as he turned to meet the rat, his patience exceeded and aggression reinforced now out of his master’s sight.

Rey was safe for the time being, yes. Snoke had believed Kylo’s lie, but the audience had definitely not gone as planned. In fact, it had left Kylo feeling far more disturbed and hostile than before, and the fault lay in the relentless interference of the coward craning his boyish face mere inches from Kylo’s. And though the logical side of Kyle knew it would be the gravest mistake he could possibly make here and now, his current state of mind fell his gloved hand instinctively to grip the tri-bladed hilt at his belt.

Either unobservant or unfazed by Kylo’s recklessness, Hux proceeded to unleash his bile: “I don’t know what you and Snoke are playing at, but mark my words, Ren, I’m not going to stand by and let it jeopardize the First Order.”

“This foolishness is becoming tedious,” Kylo said, steadfast in both stance and facade. “Your delusions are affecting your better judgement.”

“I know the girl helped the Resistance pilot escape! Somehow she did it.”

Kylo could not stifle a buried chuckle. “You’re going to have to do better than somehow if you’re going to question my integrity as a commander of the First Order, Hux.”

“I may not be privy to it, but I’m not fool enough to underestimate the power your lot wield. There is no doubt in my mind that you’re lying about being with the girl. Snoke can see it too, straight through you; I can tell.”

A shrill alarm sounded behind Kylo’s ribcage. Could he be right? Does the Supreme Leader know?

“And yet the two of you protect this traitorous pet scurrying among us, this parasite ready to undermine us at a moment’s notice,” Hux mused, his tone suddenly softening in genuine contemplation. At once he abandoned his attempt at intimidation, presenting Kylo instead with the narrow end of one broadly padded shoulder. “It makes no sense. Why does our own leader allow this girl to undermine us? Your reasons are too obvious. The girl is pleasing enough to look at. Your weakness deceived you the moment you spoke of her on the base. Despite being leader of the Knights of Ren, I always knew you lacked the fortitude for our mission.”

At the general’s side, Kylo’s learned instinct was to reach out and rip the incessant tongue from Hux’s pink mouth, either with the Force or his own hands or both. However, his arms remained paralyzed at his sides, the fists shaking with violent tension. One swift movement—a matter of milliseconds—that was all it would take to spark his lightsaber and sever Hux’s sniveling face from his collar at last. But then Snoke would definitely know, if he did not know already, and Rey would be lost to him.

Did Snoke know?

The transparency of Kylo’s bloodthirst must have betrayed him. Hux eyed him with brief curiosity, clenching his own gloved hand at his chest as if waiting to deflect the inevitable strike and, sensing it would never come, deemed the whole situation boring and no longer worthy of his time. Casting one final glare for good measure, the First Order commander turned and walked away.

“Hux,” Kylo growled after him, the simple word made weighty with a warning both men understood.

“Spare me your threats and your strong-arming, commander,” Hux said, not even bothering to face his opponent as the foyer lift doors parted. “You forget I now know that only one of us has something to lose.” The doors then resealed, leaving Kylo Ren in silence.

Chapter 26: Between the Shadow and the Soul

Chapter Text

26

If Kylo could have perceived the falling water from the hallway, he would not have been so brazen as to enter her quarters. He would have defied his entitlement, walked on, and waited deep in the cave of his own company until that tormenting rush, its faint hiss loaded with subtle implications, had ceased, and then he would have come to her. It had been more than a day since he had gone to see Rey—what did a few minutes more matter?

But they did matter. Every second had counted, equally heavy and vacant with the magnitude of her absence from his side. The night in particular had resounded as empty as his bed and his pale hands, devoid of her inherent fit in their clutches. The two blissful evenings of respite shared with Rey had over-indulged him regardless of how he had spoiled their perfection with his actions. Now, Kylo found anything less than Rey, her downy limbs tangled in his arms, afforded him as little sleep as he had endured in the long-ago evenings when he merely imagined how she would feel to touch. Kylo had shifted; he had tossed. He had lain awake in the dark, chest thundering, unable to ignore the natural call of her pull next door as if it lit his room with a brilliance his tired eyelids could not eclipse.

Yet, though he had languished in his returned solitude, Kylo had done it for her. He had thought it best. As much as it pained him to concede it, Hux’s words had crawled beneath his skin and tangled their roots about his already displaced nerves. Following the ordeal he had subjected Rey to the other morning, her defeated eyes that night still branded on his core, Kylo had not wanted to throw his own discord on the pyre of her suffering. He had needed the time to gather himself, to regain some sense of control over his fate and strategize potential plans for the both of them based on all possible scenarios.

The latter was particularly important right now, for Kylo could sense the disturbance dangling—faint but steady—beneath the sierra of their bond: there was blood in the air.

He had always been sensitive to that feeling, even long before he had been reborn Kylo Ren. As a child, his acuteness with the Force had granted him a talent, if one could call it such—an infallible but ambiguous gift for prognostication. How often had he woken from troubling dreams to stumble out of his bed, his miniature Corellian freighter pressed to his chest, in time to witness his parents’ latest row? How many weeks had he pleaded with Alana—handmaiden to his mother and the smiling face of his childhood—before she finally succumbed to the plyridian fever she had assured him was “just a bad chill that won’t go away, my little love.” And how long had he known (oh, yes, he had sensed it, but how could he have ever believed they would really do it?) Han and Leia were dying to send him away before telling him at last?

Now, whether due to his estrangement from the Supreme Leader or to Hux’s growing duplicity, the air of premonition had resurfaced and sunk its familiar hooks into Kylo’s already uneasy center once more. It had been so long since he had sensed it to this degree, he had barely recognized it till now. Ben Solo had felt it before he had disappeared into the swirling hell-flames of Kylo’s vengeance, and only once since then, the morning preceding Mitaka’s news of “a girl” on Jakku, had he known even a semblance of that disturbance in the Force again. “What girl?” he had demanded on the brink of meltdown, practically hearing the crack of that little locked box in his mind—that single secret moment of weakness he had struggled to bury beneath the mountains of his dark deeds—as it sprang open at last.

Did I always know what would happen?

Regardless of the past, real danger lay ahead, and underscoring it was Kylo’s unassailable shame. The reality of Rey’s near-death at his hands, once again—another act of absolute cruelty betraying her trust—had solidified in his need for exile. Indeed Kylo would have crawled on hands and knees like an animal to beg her forgiveness, but he had already done that once, had he not? In the end, it had meant nothing in the blinded face of his perfunctory rage. Thus, he thought it best to leave her in peace, unsoiled by his untrustworthy hands for as long as his pathetic will could withstand.

It was not long.

A sleepless night, a moment’s hesitation outside her door, a morning briefing, and here he was, physically unable to pass by her quarters again, and now incapable of leaving despite his obvious poor timing.

Wait for her, Kylo bargained with his reasonable self, reaching for the locks at the height of his throat.

Within seconds, he heard the rush of the water behind the washroom door with unfiltered clarity. Kylo placed his mask and gloves on the bedside table, noting the neatly made sheets he had left her beneath the previous morning. Despite the inherent sterility of the air, her alluring scent now clung to those linens, the pillow, the chair—all the meager comforts the First Order permitted—a perfume so soothing yet so alien beneath the unfeeling fluorescent light that now caused Kylo to squint.

Closer now to the foot of her bed, Kylo opted to dim the lights using the smaller control panel on the wall adjacent to the washroom. It was only once the quarters had dimmed and he had turned to sit patiently at the table that Kylo noticed the washroom door had been left cracked. Three inches, no more, revealed the concealed glow of the washbasin vanity, the slight bit of steam the ship’s ventilation efficiently whisked away, and the rust-proof metal of the stall…the faded taupe of a slender palm upon the durasteel….

The thoughts of courtesy Rey instilled in Kylo, growing ever stronger each day she remained his lover and student and not his prisoner, rolled away as absentmindedly as the droplets racing down the rounded cliffs of her shoulders. There was no turning away. He had never seen her this way, bathed as steadily, head to toe, in stark light as she was in the shower’s generous streams.

Kylo beheld Rey’s body as a nirvana of gentle slopes and silken plunges. Everywhere, skin softly rose and fell at smoothed angles melting into rounded, compact curves Kylo knew his lips and hands had touched nights, centuries, ago. His starved gaze traced the vertical lines of her statuesque back in particular, the dynamic acclivity where dark hair began the brief journey down her supple spine, which led to her taut waist and blossomed into the half-moons of her arced backside.

Overcome by the course of every bead atop her flawlessness, Kylo’s complete awe was only overpowered by the sudden painful tightness of the robes concealing his insatiable desire. Only a stubborn shred of decency overruled his instinct to go to her at once, clothes be damned, and take her from behind as he pressed his open mouth to every trickle until he was saturated inside and out. This sliver of pity was enough to spare her from his coarse adoration, for as he watched her, she never moved or turned.

Something had paralyzed Rey. Her face remained hidden against the stall, her pink shoulders hunched as though the streams that exploded off them only pushed her farther down. The pressed hand was all of Rey that moved, its delicate fingers spanning and connecting and clenching over and over in some limbo between distress and euphoria. She felt him close by, Kylo knew, though he was certain she did not realize just how close. It was as though she would sink to the bottom were it not for the electricity of their current—flowing forever through the Force surrounding them—reanimating her spirit like a lifeline.

Yet another floe of Kylo’s soul toppled, thawing and dissolving with unexpected tenderness as he bore witness to Rey’s hopeless ache. How it mirrored his own despite all her brave words and reckless resolutions. The instinct to take her in his arms and comfort her now eclipsed the deafening demands of his lust. His mercy was compounded by a sudden awareness of some added burden beneath the surface of their shared suffering, some freshly unearthed stone about her stately neck.

There’s something more, isn’t there, Rey? Kylo thought only to himself.

He would have followed his suspicion, tapping the wellspring of their link to tread lightly in the temple of her mind, if her other petite wrist had not finally come alive and reached aside to stop the water.

This was enough to jolt Kylo back to the reality of his actions, and he was able to round the foot of her bed and sit before silence again filled the quarters. Staring at the far wall, Kylo hoped the back he now presented the washroom might disguise his lewd invasion of Rey’s privacy. Nevertheless, in spite of his remorse, he still sought to assail it further and find the secret source of her dismay. He would alleviate her of her every worry if he only could.

The washroom door slid aside and the room again fell still.

Turning inside the stronghold of his collar, Kylo surveyed Rey over his shoulder. To his surprise, she did not appear upset to find him there. In fact, her face seemed to soften at the sight of him, a pleasant reaction that helped to assuage his apprehension. Nor did she make any attempt to cover the bare knees or dripping valley of bosom her carefully tucked towel could not hide.

To Kylo’s meager relief, the bruises above her clavicles had miraculously faded. Only a faint tartan the color of enemy ashes and wind-blown sands remained about her throat. The great scar he had given her right shoulder in the Starkiller hangar remained, however, like an ornamentation of the terrycloth, as deeply roseate and permanent as his own more obvious keepsake.

“I’m sorry,” Kylo said before she could protest, apologizing for a plethora of trespasses she would never know. “When I came in, I didn’t know you were…”

Excuses faded as Rey found his side of the bed and, stepping between his bent knees with bare feet, gently pulled him to her core with balmy arms.

Immediately Kylo was inundated, lost and blind in the wet warmth of the towel, the scent of soap, and the tender strength of what he knew was her firm belly beneath it all. He wanted to kiss there, to tear the flimsy pretense aside and worship her showered skin with his lips until there was no more First Order or Resistance left in the universe. For the moment, however, he was more than content to flow into her, to wrap his covered arms about her waist and bask in the relief of feeling her against him once more.

“I had to see you,” he eventually sighed as dewy fingers combed through his thick hair. How easily she drew the sentiment from within him; words said by the weak, things he had never envisioned himself uttering at all let alone so readily.

“Have I made a mess of things?”

Though it pained him, Kylo withdrew from his bliss to look up into the source of the question. Just as she sounded, Rey’s face now wore her worry, her shapely mouth tense with anticipation.

“General Hux knows it was you.”

Rey paused with subdued caution, her upturned eyes all the more feline as she studied Kylo’s acknowledgement of her deceit. Finding no malice in his tone or expression, she at last nodded down at him and conceded, “The officer with the red hair.”

“Hux is not just an officer. He’s the commander of the First Order. More so than I in a sense.”

At this, Rey broke gently from the horizontal seams lining Kylo’s arms and took a seat on his left. Gripping the edge of the mattress, she leaned on limbs of gooseflesh and let the tangles of her tousled hair spill forward.

“I’m not sorry I did it, Kylo,” Rey said. Her voice bore a sudden confidence her avoidant eyes betrayed. “But you have to know why I did it.”

“I know why you did it. It’s who you are. It’s in your nature.”

“I have no allegiance to either the First Order or the Resistance. But only one imprisoned me. As ironic as it may seem, the Resistance stands for something I’ve always strongly believed in: freedom. Poe Dameron should have been freed, even if I can’t be.”

“You can be, Rey,” Kylo said with an unplanned honesty that spilled forth as he turned Rey’s temples to face him. Just speaking the words wrenched and wrung all the vulnerable places his skin hid, but as he searched beyond Rey’s matted lashes, he knew the truth had to be reiterated for the sake of what he saw there. “You can be free from all of it. I wouldn’t stop you, no matter how it….” He paused, swallowing his despair. “You were never meant to be here with me...like this.”

“Kylo,” she semi-smiled, the fingers of her right hand again disappearing beneath the lush waves covering his forehead, “I don’t think I was ever meant to be anywhere else more than here, with you, right now.”

Rey’s body then seized with an involuntary shudder, her lush lower lip trembling like it had the first time he had tasted it, and Kylo at once realized the water’s heat had already faded in the chill of space.

“I can’t protect you.” Kylo unwrapped the snake of his cowl and draped its dark warmth over her naked shoulders. “You’ve become the most valuable, most essential part of my entire existence, and I still can’t protect you here. Even from myself.”

Kylo stopped again. Had he really just said that? Why did he suddenly feel such ease in speaking freely of his weakness for her?

Clutching the fabric at her heart with hidden hands, Rey raised her shapely eyebrows in playful indignation.

“I’m still here, aren’t I? Perhaps I can take care of myself.”

Kylo would have smiled if he could bring himself to do so. He had thought mentioning the depth of his feelings would have taken her aback, and yet Rey was more offended by his implication of her inability. His adoration she accepted as if she had already known implicitly, perhaps because, like every other factor in their merged existence, she somehow shared it, regardless of how he continued to torture her.

She was all living durasteel, a veritable pillar of strength he never would have believed possible, but the fact remained that Rey was still shamefully undertrained and dangerously assailable. Even in the short time of their highly accelerated sessions, Kylo had failed her as a teacher with his obsession and its resulting inadequacy. And as powerful as she was by her very nature, she would never be any match for Snoke should he decide to end her.

If only it were true, Rey. But you’ll never be safe as long as you’re with me.

“There is a reason for this—I believe that. There has to be, or else it wouldn’t be so strong. The Force connected us for a purpose. Please trust me, no matter how hopeless it may seem. I don’t know what it is, but I refuse to believe this occurred by random chance.” And then Rey added, a shadow falling across her bright features, “Our bond is the only fate I choose to accept.”

Though he basked in the relief of her devotion, Kylo found the sudden detachment of her tone perplexing and chilling for reasons he could not divine.

“Even if you’re right, it’s not what you deserve, Rey.” (No, she had never deserved any of it.) “You’re too good for this realm of uncertainty where we exist. I have nothing to offer but misery, chaos, and pain. You’ve seen it already. The half of our bond I have to be for you, that my very soul compels me to be for you…is at odds with who I am.”

“You mean with who you’ve become,” Rey interjected.

“They are one and the same.”

“That’s not true, or else you wouldn’t have the capacity to try so hard for me. And yet you do—I know you do. Ben Solo survives within you, buried under the rubble. You weren’t able to kill him. Snoke wasn’t able to kill him. I’ve seen it.”

She had seen it, Kylo knew, what no one else had. Rey had leaped headlong into the blackest pools of his mind and followed the faint underglow to its origin: the inextinguishable light that had never really stopped beckoning to him despite all he had accomplished through the supreme power of the dark side. Han Solo’s death had created not so much as a flicker, and Rey—oh, Rey, in all her brilliance and bravery—had proved to be the ideal conduit to exploit it.

“I am not that boy anymore,” he said, the truth as gentle yet loaded with implication as the electric palm into which he now pressed the long curve of his cheek.

“I know. And that’s all right. I’m here with you, aren’t I? You as you are, sitting right here in front of me.”

Kylo nearly sighed as the silk of her thumb brushed the sharpest corner of his wide mouth.

“Force help me, you make me want to believe you.”

“Then believe me,” Rey purred, leaning upward to connect every exposed surface of her soaked lips to Kylo’s.

The flint ignited, its spark combusting to the limits of every extremity, and Kylo knew as surely as anything he would never get used to the shock of her mouth connecting with his. That initial jolt and the flush of fever that nipped at its charged heels, shared between them, instantly propelling them to a place beyond space and time, where nothing mattered beyond a perfect, shared need.

But there were things that did matter, Kylo knew, even as he coaxed her mouth to take his lying tongue and tasted his salvation in her. There were truths he could not deny, despite how her enlivened hands tugged and pulled him against the thin sheath hiding her reclining body, her exposed legs trembling and begging to be bisected by his heat.

He had almost killed her. That truth resounded like a scream amidst the breathless gasps that disturbed the stillness of the room. The hands that now clasped and slid upward against her slick thighs had attacked her and then, in the wake of their failure, defiled her for good measure in the midst of her misery.

Yet this truth was almost superficial compared to the root of Kylo’s trepidation, the genesis of the immeasurable guilt he never imagined he was capable of feeling. It was a secret that threatened them as surely as Snoke, the First Order, and his own instability. For that secret, and for all his violations of her trust and her purity and her light, Kylo was overcome by his shame. Unworthiness. Still such a foreign feeling, one that echoed the old days of his weaker self, and one that trumped even the deafening desire that roared through his deprived veins. He was pitifully unworthy of her, to touch her like this with his filthy, blood-stained hands. And he would never be worthy as long as that apprehension remained.

And so Kylo mustered every ounce of willpower he possessed, every feat of restraint he had cast aside in the training room, and pulled away from the perfection he had just coveted in the shower. No, he could not sully it once more.

Kylo’s body immediately suffered the new agony of being denied its addiction. He removed his knee from where it had planted between her own and resumed where he had sat. Most importantly, he was careful not to look back lest he see her—flushed, mouth moistened, towel loosened—and forfeit his resolve to her readiness. All that remained were the tremors that rattled his empty hands. There Kylo focused as he heard her sit, rearrange her towel, and retrieve his cloak about her shoulders.

“What’s wrong?” she soon asked. In Rey’s voice, there was only concern—no trace of frustration or disappointment.

Tell her. Tell her now.

“I….”

“Kylo?”

Silken and unsteady fingers vibrated on his shoulder, but he escaped their comfort as quickly as possible, rising to his feet and stepping away from the bed.

It will only get worse. You know this. When it comes, it will be the end.

“Talk to me, Kylo.”

Turning to meet that demand, Kylo saw her just as he had imagined. She kneeled on the edge of the bed. Her aching palms rested on her knees as her reddened chest heaved behind his cloak. Her eyes, however, were suddenly much rounder, much more concerned as they stared up at him with limitless compassion…full of what Kylo believed to be love for him. Love.

“Dameron.”

You truly are the greatest coward of them all, Kylo Ren. Damn you.

“What about him?” Rey blinked, brushing back a stray snake of hair.

“He didn’t know anything.”

“What?”

“He didn’t know where Skywalker was fleeing. I had already probed him when I took you to him. It was simply a test. My mind was…I’m sorry.

I’m sorry, Rey. You’ll never forgive me if you know. You are everything. I can’t lose you.

Kylo watched Rey’s eyelids close as she endured the sting of his latest betrayal. There she remained in their shared silence until a visibly hard gulp brought her to again meet his gaze.

“You weren’t thinking clearly. I know that.”

“I was thinking like Kylo Ren. I was thinking as though we’d never met. For a few hours, you were nothing to me; our time together had been washed from my mind. Everything was so clear again. I was in control again. At the same time, it was all so devoid of meaning. So empty…without you. And then I realized what had happened, what I did to you. I never want to feel any of that again. I never want to feel you ripped from my soul again. But I never want to feel you dying in my own hands.”

“You won’t. Never again. I’m right here.”

“I’m ashamed to touch you. I’m ashamed to want you so completely, so endlessly. I can barely look at you without drowning in your beauty and your strength and wanting to soil them with myself.”

Rey calmly shook her head, but her words were adamant: “Please don’t say that. You won’t hurt me, I told you; no more than I want you to. You breathe life into me when you touch me, when I can look at you and see that you care despite everything.”

A hand emerged from Kylo’s cowl and extended, still shivering in the cold or the aftershocks of their touch, beckoning for Kylo to return. It pained him to hesitate, but, regardless of all her assurances, he feared far more than losing himself to her touch. He worried how his actions might soon end her life or her faith in him, for surely one of the two was inevitable.

To Kylo’s surprise, Rey’s mouth slackened suddenly and drew to a smile. “You realize this is the first time you’ve talked to me. Really talked to me. I mean, when you haven’t been delirious or plotting against me.”

How Kylo reveled in seeing that joy again. Every detail of her smile charmed him, etching its loveliness in the cold marble of his mind more clearly each time. It was utterly childlike, the way its energy lit up her entire face, revealing her flawless top teeth and lifting the tight apples of her cheeks. And the miracle—that timeless grin was aimed toward him. Someway, somehow, he had caused her some semblance of happiness, if only for one moment in a lifetime.

His soul allayed, Kylo took Rey’s hand and felt its chilled fingers intersect each of his own to press her small palm to his. More than the current it ignited, the gesture disarmed the last of Kylo’s lingering apprehension to touch her, allowing him to return and lie back against the wall at the head of the bed. However, he still would not be able to bring himself to go any further. This Rey seemed to understand as she lay her wet head against his chest contently and curved her free arm about his waist.

“Don’t stop talking to me.” Her hand never released his.

“No, please,” Kylo implored, single-handedly arranging the felt blanket over her chilled legs, “no more from me. Tell me something about you. About you alone.”

“About me?”

“Yes. Anything. Tell me about you before you came here.”

“You mean before you kidnapped me twice,” Rey corrected, leaning back on Kylo’s arm to look up with one impishly raised eyebrow.

“You know what I mean,” Kylo sighed, narrowing his hooded eyes down at her with equal playfulness.

“Well, you know about me before I came here. I see it in that General Hux’s eyes. ‘Scavenger scum.’ You thought the same at one point.”

As factual as Rey attempted to keep her tone, Kylo sensed a raw nerve lying beneath the surface.

“Never mind that,” he added, stroking the valley of her upturned hand with a reassuring thumb. “Tell me about your life on Jakku.”

“There’s nothing you would want to know.”

“You said you were there about 10 years?” Kylo pressed with innocent determination.

“About 3,520 days, give or take a couple. I didn’t start counting right away. I thought….” Rey stopped all at once, and Kylo sensed her free hand gathering his robes in a tense fist. That claw did not loosen when she chose to continue. “I don’t know what I thought.”

Kylo ached at the implications of Rey’s life, brimming with sympathy Snoke would have struck him dead for possessing. He pulled her tight to him as if to reassure her. He even paid homage to her skin, burying his nose in the damp incense of her hair as he planted penitent lips on her forehead. And though he dreaded the answer, he still asked, “Did you have any happiness in all those years?”

Rey seemed to mull this over, which gave Kylo hope.

“One morning, a couple years after I was brought to Jakku, I woke from this dream. It’s been so long I honestly don’t remember much about it. I just remember in the dream, I had a friend. It was someone who loved me besides my parents, but he was far away, like them.”

“He?”

“I think so. I remember he had short dark hair, but for some reason he had one long thin braid on the side. Who knows what my little mind was thinking to dream that part up.”

Beneath Rey, Kylo worried she might hear his heart threatening to burst.

“That’s about all I can remember anymore though. What stays with me the most is the general feeling, this blanket of an idea that someone was out there who cared for me. I’d look up at the sky at night and pretend my friend was doing the same wherever he was in the galaxy. Sometimes I’d fantasize that we would be starfighter pilots someday, racing our X-Wings together between those distant stars. For years and years I would stick my hand up until the moons shone between my fingers and pretend I could touch my friend’s hand.”

Rey lifted Kylo’s clasped palm with her own and, spreading his large fingers wide, pressed her delicate pads flat to his until the entirety of their hands lined up as one. Her slender paw dwarfed by his, Rey raised both toward the overhead lamp of her quarters. Only one hand was visible in that outstretched shadow, a single unit eclipsing the dimmed light.

“It was silly, I know, but suddenly I didn’t feel so completely alone waiting for them to come back for me.”

Oh, Rey.

“Don’t misunderstand me. It was lonely, especially when I grew old enough to stop believing in dreams. Eventually I began to dream about the island, and even though that felt like a safe place, I never felt him there. That was the worst time, when I didn’t even have a fantasy to keep me company. I had no one. There was just…nothing other than hunger and thirst and mercilessness. Working all day and waiting alone every night, with only the hope that they would still come for me.” She lowered their one hand and pressed the back of his to her lips. “You felt how lonely...that day.”

Yes, he had—unbearable loneliness he had not then realized equaled his own. And, hidden deep inside, he had known the reasons for her loneliness, deny them as he tried, before even entering the room with her.

“I suppose meeting you and, well, this awareness of the Force—it’s all restored my faith in the power of dreams, as difficult and strange as it all is. My dreams…seem realer now than they ever did. And what I…feel for you also…”

Kylo’s chest stilled beneath her, waiting for a conclusion that never came. When a soft sigh emerged from her unseen mouth instead, he was relieved, not because he already knew what she would say, but because he could not bear to hear anymore. Her devotion, her innocence, the suffering of her life—it had already been too much for him. Rey’s honesty had unknowingly cast the weight of the universe upon his already guilt-weary shoulders. But it was no more than he deserved.

Yet Kylo now felt an uplifting awe in the face of his burdened conscience, for he was never so certain than in this moment that he felt absolute love for her. Kylo recognized it the way he had first become aware of the Force flowing through his young body—standing in awe of a foreign power he implicitly understood. He loved this immaculate creature dozing peacefully against his chest, this suffering saint with her optimistic heart and warrior’s spirit, inescapably entwined in his life as he had somehow always been in hers. Every corner of her pure mind, every follicle of her skin, every swell of Force light she emanated—all the attributes he had been taught to hate, he now cherished. In her and her alone. His salvation.

Still gripping Rey’s hand, Kylo wrapped their arms to cover her and again pressed his mouth to her unconscious head. He would keep her here forever, exactly like this—in the safe cocoon of the only happiness he had ever known—if he could. But even the Master of the Knights of Ren could not conquer time.

He would let her sleep a bit longer instead.

Chapter 27: Fight without Hate

Chapter Text

27

“Come at me.”

Saturating the back of one coverlette, Rey wiped at the sweat trickling off her brow. As she did, the muscles of her forearm uttered a slight complaint, already feeling the fatigue of yesterday’s session.

Gloved hands still clutching the hilt of his training staff, Kylo was the image of pure placidity before her, not a sweat broken or dark tendril astray in the shadows of the overhead light.

Rey had not anticipated it, but that first physical training had been wholly necessary. Kylo had awakened her as she had dozed off against him (after a decade of sleeplessness in the face of her exhaustion, who would have ever imagined he could send her into unconsciousness so easily?) and, plying gentle lips to her sluggish eyelids, suggested it time they continued her tutelage. They had lost many valuable sessions thanks to the complications he had caused, Kylo had explained in a tone Rey easily detected as critical despite how much he tried to disguise it. Her already accelerated training would have to be hastened further to keep her on track, though, on track for what, she was not entirely sure.

This news had delighted Rey so much that she leaned up and kissed him gratefully as if he had spoiled her with some precious gift, and she felt her enthusiasm curve his receptive mouth into a smile beneath her own. The relief to return to the realm of her empowerment was a welcomed distraction from Snoke and the myriad other worries plaguing her. Restored to this purpose, Rey could willfully ignore everything, including the urgency in Kylo’s voice when he spoke of her training.

“Come at me, Rey,” Kylo now said again before her.

Panting into arid lungs, Rey again studied her opponent. Kylo had removed his mask and cowl early on and now stood defensively, his powerful legs nimble at the knee and lightsaber substitute lowered to that tell-tale angle Rey so clearly remembered in the stark, snow-blinded light of Starkiller Base. In fact, from the first impact of her staff against his, that dreadful duel was all her mind could envision. Blood. Struggle. Blind rage. The very walls coming down around them as they fought, alone in space and time, only to end one another’s life.

The previous day had been so much simpler compared to the fog through which Rey now stumbled. They had been on the same side of the fight. Her mentor had stood alongside her, their boots treading on that infamously soiled place on the training mat, and guided her with a strict, precise focus she both appreciated and drank up greedily. Like an artist reunited with his media after great deprivation, Kylo had mesmerized her, displaying one perfected technique after another and instructing her to “watch carefully,” as though her wonderment had not already etched his every move into her eager mind. With perfect attentiveness, Rey had observed his lean but muscular body as it had modeled each step in a series of motions and then, one-two-three-four, piece them together with all the spellbinding rapidity and fluidity of a dancer gracefully executing his choreography. Every whoosh of his training staff severing the air or landing a fatal hit on a practice form had impressed her beneath her apprentice’s professionalism.

Only then had Rey fully considered the years of discipline Kylo Ren had already practiced despite his own incomplete training. Yet, she somehow suspected that a majority of the poised stances and calculated katas he showed her called upon training he had received prior to Snoke. There was too much clarity, his movements too methodical despite their quickness and accuracy—they communicated a sense of harmony, more defensive than offensive.

Rey knew harmony was not where the source of Kylo’s strength lay in the dark side. She had seen the burning hatred in his eyes, after all, felt the impact of unbridled rage in every crushing stroke. With his wounded side, he had been slightly slower-moving but no less tactful, beating her back among the onlookers and the rubble. However, his blows had been less poised and more exaggerated, even heavier and more relentless—almost manic.

Now, having seen the almost sublime purity of Kylo’s training methods, Rey had gained a reference level for his brutal attack on Starkiller and regarded it as a distortion of his true skills. They had been tainted and polluted by the power of the dark side. He had been fueled by the darkness of his hatred for her, more than willing to put her to death should she not accept his tutelage. So many weeks later, having agreed to do what she never in a million years would have imagined, Rey was now fascinated by the dichotomy of his combat.

When it would come Rey’s turn to mimic his various lunges, blocks, and attacks, he had sent her heart racing as he touched her, lifting a forearm, squaring a shoulder, planting a foot, widening her stance. Still, Rey had been far too enthralled to break character in her role as his pupil. Only once, when she had accidentally sent the training staff flying while attempting an evasive spin of the hilt he had shown her, did Rey concede to laugh at her own failure. Though it was gentle, Kylo’s look of disproval was more than enough to remind her of the seriousness of their work.

Though Rey had proven herself a quick study, the truth remained that she found herself strangely ill at ease with the training staff Kylo had provided. The two hands she joined about the hilt seemed to lack the power of delivery they had possessed in the hangar bay.

Of course, Rey suspected why. After several years of defending herself on Jakku with whatever makeshift weapon she could fashion, she had at last found the quarterstaff she would call her own, salvaging it from the wreckage of a fallen ship belonging to a senator of the New Republic. She had trained herself with it for years, to the point where wielding the weapon had unarguably become second nature, and it had saved her life in more than a handful of close calls. Given this, Rey still did not quite understand how she had been able to handle Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber so effectively against Kylo, especially when she currently felt so clumsy and clunky with the wooden equivalent in her hands.

Only now, watching him as she listened to the diminishing thunder of her heart, was Rey finally able to put a name to her inability. The training staff, her tiredness—none of that really excused Rey’s current failures. Kylo had warded off the last dozen or so blows she had attempted to deliver, presenting her with the narrow surface area of his side, just as he had taught her.

“You’re hesitating,” Kylo finally said, rejoining his feet and lowering his staff completely. “Tell me why.”

“I don’t know why,” Rey answered with a slight shake of her disheveled hair. “Something doesn’t feel right. Different.”

Kylo must have seen Rey glance at the grip she lowered to her waist.

“The training staff doesn’t suit you. But surely you understand why I don’t think it would be practical to give you the Skywalker lightsaber for practice. Not yet anyway.”

“Of course.” Despite her desire to wield Luke’s weapon once more and her knowledge that she would fare far better doing so, Rey recognized just how unwise that prospect would be in their training…how dangerous.

“There’s something else,” Rey’s mentor acknowledged, his velvet voice more curious than judgmental.

Having caught her breath, Rey tensed her dry mouth shut.

Of course he would know, just as she could physically feel the vibrant warmth of determination and worry pointedly radiating from him, speaking only to her in the strong, silent language of the Force. He would know; he could even find out if he so chose to invade the privacy of her mind. Given how clumsily they both navigated the vast labyrinth of their bond, Rey often forgot there was nowhere to hide. Not from each other, not really. One would forever be attuned to the other’s hesitation, the other’s unease. The other’s anger.

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t. But that’s a start.”

Rey attempted to swallow away the excruciating memory of feeling Luke’s lightsaber sear through the pale flesh she had since recklessly worshipped with her kisses, but it was no use. The evidence of her hatred remained, and would remain forever, etched deeply over the darkness of one eye, fracturing downward through the hidden ice of his pale throat. Sheer luck alone had prevented her blade from reaching the fatal depth it sought in his skull. Or perhaps it was something else—the very same fateful conduit that presently sabotaged her efforts.

“Not now, not ever again will I harm Kylo Ren.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

The few words took more energy to expel than any she had put forth in all of her combat training thus far. She might not have even said them aloud had the epiphany not suddenly materialized in the center of her uncertainty. Now that she had, she braced herself for his disappointment, perhaps even his ridicule. Avoidant, she scanned the topography of the mat below her feet as though some solution lay hidden in its trampled fabric. She found nothing there, however, other than a map where all routes led to that spot, that unassuming altar where she had offered her body to accompany the soul he had already claimed.

Only when two leather boots came into the peripheral did Rey break free from the hold of that sacred place and look up to her master. To Rey’s relief, Kylo’s face greeted her with no trace of disapproval. In fact, it had visibly softened from the stony facade he always maintained during instruction, and she quickly appreciated how difficult it must be for him to break from his professionalism. This was his domain, after all—a sphere of discipline, battle, and severity, where only hatred and anger had a place in a warrior’s training. How weak her admission must have sounded to him. How she longed to tell him…everything.

I won’t let you win, Snoke. That is not my destiny.

“You can’t be afraid of hurting me, Rey,” Kylo said softly, commanding her gaze from the downcast shadows beneath his brow. Then, more emphatically, he added, “You can’t hold back with me. I’m your teacher.”

“I know. I just…sometimes, when I look at you…” and Rey did look, “sometimes, all I can see is what my hatred has done to you.”

Though nonetheless a confession, it was only a fragment of the truth Rey wished she could reveal. Yet even such an abridged admission of her fear seemed to strike a nerve with her darker half. She watched his determination falter, eluding her eyes the way he always did when he was lost.

“What happened is not your fault,” Kylo said at last, emerging from whatever distant place he had gone and looking down upon Rey with restored intensity. “I wanted to hurt you then. I saw your potential and provoked you. I saw a vulnerability, and I exploited it. I have no excuses for who I am, the monster I can become. Force help me, Rey, you’re the only thing that makes me wish I could take those things back. This…” he paused, gesturing the hilt of his training staff slightly upward toward her mark on his skin, “this is the least I deserve from you for what I’ve done.”

Ungloved, Kylo’s other hand raised to gently touch the muslin over Rey’s own Starkiller scar with his fingertips. They traced a path of perceived shame, drifting inward to rest on the last resistant stain of cruelty above her clavicle. Rey dutifully subdued the jolt triggered by his fingers on her bare skin, feeling as though her cheek would scorch the generous palm he cupped there now.

“I need you to let go. Fear can be an ally, but not this fear. I know you don’t want to hurt me, but I need you to fight. Trust me in this. Because there will be people who want to hurt you.” Kylo wavered, the steep acclivity of his features suddenly tighter than ever. “I…could hurt you.”

“Kylo—”

“I need you to give in. Let go and give me everything, just like you did on the base.”

“I don’t know how to be that person again,” Rey balked, gently shaking her head against his touch. “It’s not who I am. Hatred and anger isn’t who I am.”

“It needs to be. To reach your full potential, it needs to be.”

Rey noted a subtle unraveling behind the forced restraint in Kylo’s voice, the way his thumb suddenly fell like lead against her rigid jaw.

“To protect yourself, it needs to be. You have to be ready, Rey. Nothing can happen to you. I can’t allow anything to happen to—”

All at once, the training room was alive, personified by a voice blaring from the comm station at the entryway. Rey jumped against Kylo’s immovable hand, startled in spite of herself. Briefly eyeing the source of the call as though it were an unwelcome intruder in their world, she again returned to Kylo, who delivered a lasting glance she could only read as thinly veiled concern before removing himself from her skin and the training mat altogether.

Her eyes trailing her teacher as he left his classroom behind, Rey knew with some certainty that Kylo was keeping something from her, some small but urgent parcel of information regarding her continued safety, perhaps under Snoke, perhaps under the First Order, perhaps even just aboard the Finalizer. The sense of alarm had surfaced despite his best efforts, clearly exceeding any simple concern that her emotional inadequacy would keep her from reaching the peak of her power or, more selfishly, that she might prove a humiliating failure as Kylo’s first and only pupil. No, his demeanor had simply slipped, in itself suggesting something more, some more immediate threat.

Across the tar-black pit of the training room floor, Rey squinted into the shadows until she saw the crimson flash of the comm indicator finally illuminate Kylo’s distinct profile. More phantom than flesh and blood, he would have been all but swallowed by the darkness were it not for the luminous quality of his flawed skin.

Surely Snoke lay at the core of Kylo’s anxiety. Rey wondered what new lies he had fed Kylo to leave him so distraught. And she wondered if, beyond everything, she and Kylo would ever be able to exist together in a place where they hid nothing from each other.

“I have to leave you,” Kylo sounded from the doorway, interrupting Rey’s thoughts. “But not for very long. Please practice while I’m gone.”

Authoritative yet caring, his tone now restored the meticulous balance he always struck while educating her, though Rey swore she detected a slight emphasis on the please.

She nodded her acknowledgement obediently.

Despite the vast divide of the shadows, their eyes latched onto one another in a moment communicating tacit endearments finally understood and accepted, before Kylo finally turned and, retrieving his mask and gloves, disappeared into the unfeeling world outside of them.

He was right, Rey knew. Independent of whatever threat to her Kylo harbored in his own stronghold of secrets, Rey realized she had to overcome her paralysis. In all her childhood dreams of becoming a true Jedi, of flying through the stars at the right hand of Luke Skywalker and counting herself among the righteous worthy—the very essence of right, the very stuff of legend—she would never have imagined any hesitation wielding a lightsaber let alone a silly wooden stick.

The training staff suddenly heavy in her cuffed hands, Rey tried to recall that moment in the ruined cavities of Starkiller Base when she had spied Luke’s weapon, its brilliant gleam calling to her almost as assuredly as it had from the depths of Maz Kanata’s castle. And, oh, that had been the first moment when she had felt any semblance of the Force as more than a mysterious ally. As she extended her being through its viscosity, Rey had instinctively stripped away the surface to reveal the Force as a navigable entity, a boundless system that was able to bring the Jedi weapon to her eager hands.

Snowballing mercilessly from the ignition of Kylo’s touch, that day—the day the Force awoke in Rey—would forever obliterate everything she had ever believed to be true about herself, the least of which was her ability to fight with the light sword of lore.

“There has to be some way,” Rey said aloud. Yet, the saber replica still felt awkward in her delicate hands. Not awkward, perhaps…maybe ill-suited. Incorrect. Even unworthy.

With no real certainty to her actions, Rey followed her master’s footsteps to the dimly lit boundaries of the training room, where she soon found the horizontal rack of training staffs amidst the wall of melee weapons she had so often studied with wonder. There she returned the one Kylo had given her earlier that morning, placing it in the empty mount beneath the one he had chosen and recently returned.

Looking down the line, Rey saw the faint outline of several metal implements against the obsidian walls. Some of the more straightforward sported blades whose cold, polished steel seemed extant, aglow with the training square lights at her back. Others, many of which Rey would not have been able to use even if she had been told how, stood dull and clunky, though nonetheless lethal, in their reinforced holsters. Only the multi-weapon and vibro-axe did Rey recognize among them, remembering the day the foul-mouthed Gamorrean lost a scuffle near the watering troughs at the Niima Outpost and she had not been quick enough yet to snatch his weapon for her own survival or, better yet, the many portions it would have brought in trade. Now, standing in front of a vibro-axe so many years later, she was doubly assured it was never meant for her.

Of course, the armament was not really the problem, was it?

There has to be some way around it, Rey thought again, blocking out what little light still flooded her. To attack without anger. To fight without hate.

It was too simple to surrender to rage the way she had in that frigid hangar, to fulfill Snoke’s future for her the way Kylo had fulfilled his eons prior to picking her like a precious flower from the Takodana green. The quick and easy path of the dark side, so rewarding in its immediate gratification and fearsome power. And love Kylo Ren with every fiber of her existence though she did (yes, it was becoming easier to acknowledge the truth of that word), Rey would have sacrificed all she was to have spared him the dismal years that followed his rejection of the light, especially the discord she now observed firsthand at her inclusion in his life. Who knows how different Ben Solo would be right now if he had not been seduced, how clearer and less conflicted? Who knows how much different they would be together—that is, if they still would have been fated this same, inescapable way.

“Concentrate,” she urged herself, pushing away the clouding temptations of irrelevancy. “Think. Breathe.”

Breathe, Rey, she had coaxed herself only a few days ago, when she had wanted to give up. And then he had come to her when she had been alone, and, in the face of everything he was in opposition of her, loved her without words. Again, that word; loved her, Rey knew—meeting her in the grey.

Breathe. Peace.

“There is peace. In the Force, there is peace. The Force lies at the center of everything, neutral but brimming. Its energy connects all living things indiscriminately. Just as it bound you to Kylo, it binds birth to death and death to rebirth, and the light to the dark and all that is in between. There is always a balance in the Force, Rey. You can find peace in that balance, in that in between. That is where your strength lies. Take the light there.”

Wrapped in the calming blackness, Rey envisioned the fine fringes of her lips sharpening to a subdued grin the way she was always wont to do when the universe seemed to speak to her. Or maybe she did not smile at all; she could not be sure. The faint whisper of her breath was a sudden sonorous waft between in her ears, through her chest, beneath her feet, across every far-reaching strand of the web that connected her to everything alive. In for eternity, out for another aeon. Inhale, exhale. The silk rippled, and Rey was lifted and exalted by the dynamic tugging at the blood in her veins. The Force flowed through her. Tranquil and amassed, she drifted in that special place, hearing nothing else, thinking nothing else, feeling….

Rey sensed her hand falling upon something physical. It was something that existed in the same plane with her body.

All that’s in between. Rey exhaled a zephyr that bridged the electric expanse back to her senses. The grey. Between darkness and light. Between love and hatred.

Opening her eyes, Rey examined the smooth cylinder upon which her grip had tightened.

The grey between offense and defense.

Lifting the object from its resting place high on the rack, Rey lightly wrapped two sets of energized fingers familiarly about its wooden surface and held it like a long-lost treasure recently returned to its rightful owner.

Attack without anger. Fight without hate.

The wooden combat staff felt natural in her powerful hands.

Chapter 28: A Lesson in Restraint

Chapter Text

28

When the end that would never come finally came and the steel trap of his quarters locked their secrets away, Kylo unleashed his private inferno on Rey, attacking her with the sweltering fire of his lips.

Deceptively small in his hands, his companion let out a startled yelp as her back struck the wall adjoining the entryway. Still, her receptive mouth was proof that she was unharmed. It would take more than that to hurt her right now, he knew.

She had been magnificent. Oh, she had been simply extraordinary.

He had returned from his call to the restored Detention Center, having been summoned to review the documentation on a soldier flagged for possible treason. Kylo had gone through the motions demanded by the First Order witch-hunt he had incited (he knew, of course, there was no conspiracy). Eventually, he had authorized the trooper to be released back to the barracks, on the condition that he be monitored until further notice.

The whole performance had taken less than a standard half-hour, 45 minutes at most—apparently ample time for some latent switch to have flipped in his troubled apprentice.

He had barely set foot through the threshold of the training room door than something had flown toward his unguarded face. Intuitively, he had dropped his discarded mask and caught the projectile by its solid hilt and, brandishing it as his expertly tuned instincts dictated, readied himself for whatever assailant was foolish enough to challenge him.

To his shock, Kylo had seen only Rey, her curved side silhouetted in the floodlights of the training square. Even drenched in the shadows, her overturned eyes had seemed to light up at his reaction. She had then given a close-mouthed grin that struck him as playful. Perhaps more surprising, her right hand clutched at her side something narrow and as long as her own body was tall. She did not attempt to hide what Kylo soon recognized to be a reinforced combat staff; her stance was purely defensive. She meant for him to charge.

Brows furrowing, he had indicated his confusion.

His opponent’s sly grin had then split to reveal her perfect front teeth the childlike way he so cherished, as though her elegant mouth could not contain the wealth of her happiness. A brief whir followed. Suddenly, the lengthy staff was shielding her front, her long fingers locked short of the raised bases of both balance tabs.

“Come at me,” Rey had commanded. Her smile had retreated in lieu of focus, but the impish little smirk remained.

Kylo had co*cked his head, permitting a blink of his own diminutive smile before abandoning it along with his leather gloves. He had been puzzled but nevertheless game to fulfill her wish. Indeed, Rey already seemed so changed, so confident compared to the unsure student he had left such a short while ago, that his curiosity overruled his restraint. He resolved then to follow her lead but tread lightly until he could understand her sport.

The first advance had been purposefully sluggish, though Kylo made sure the “blade” of his staff was much quicker than his feet. He had wanted merely to test her mettle and determination, to gauge her reaction before proceeding further, but not comfortably enough to insult her.

To Kylo’s surprise, Rey had parried with one end of her staff and, with effortless stability, delivered a sublime riposte with the other, nearly knocking the hilt from his hand.

All right, Kylo had inwardly conceded, joining his other hand at the base of the staff the way he should have from the start. Show me, Rey.

What followed the next hour had been a challenge Kylo could not have foreseen. Rey had been pure poetry in motion, an indomitable force of nature that would have left him in gawking awe had he even a split second of freedom to admire her superlative stances, her accomplished deflections, her spotless recoveries. A moment’s hesitation, however, she had not afforded him. Quite the opposite—he felt as though she had tested him.

She had deflected every remise he delivered until seizing her moment to return the blows with equal speed and repetition, pushing him backward, allowing him to come forward, and all the while impeccably executing and surpassing every rule he had instilled in her. Her method was so effective that Kylo soon cast fancy techniques aside and gave the fullest possible effort he could muster short of losing his patience and calling upon darker feelings to fuel him.

But there had been no need for Kylo to summon the reinforcement of his rage, not when he was so overcome with amazement. In the absence of hatred, master and apprentice seemed evenly matched. Head to head, they had tread every surface of the training room. At certain points, they were separated, allowing themselves ample room to crash down upon one another’s staff or evade such contact with an innate deception. Several stray deflections connected with the walls, shattered a mirror, cracked the holster of a set of melee weapons. In other instances, they had touched, Rey gritting her teeth in the midst of a corps-a-corps, Kylo trying his absolute hardest to anticipate her next move.

Throughout the entire skirmish, Rey had fought with a clarity Kylo could only term divine, her movements with the combat staff so seemingly calculated that no shred of effort went wasted. The flush of her cheeks, the sweat on her brow, the cool determination in her eyes, all conjured images of her as he often remembered her, with the very walls of the base’s hangar crumbling behind her blows. Despite the lack of rage, her current splendor echoed that immense power, meeting him head-on—at times, even dominating him—with subdued ease.

Just as in the hangar, Rey had been perfection in the training room, and each and every flawless blow she landed struck and vibrated the chord of Kylo’s desire until, when their duel at last ended in a draw of exhaustion, it took every ounce of his self-control to not take her again, right there in the open, just as he had the very first time. It was absolute madness, how he craved her. That need to possess her perfection, her beauty, and her strength.

Now, far away from the place where she had proved yet again his equal, Kylo could no longer suppress that requirement. He throbbed with the knowledge that she wanted him to touch the slender arms that had outmaneuvered him, the gentle hands that had absorbed his every impact, and the skilled fingers that had spun and jabbed and thrashed the combat staff as though it had always been hers. And as he pressed against her, afraid his ecstasy would erupt before he even disrobed, he envisioned the goddess she had been amidst the rubble, flames, and impending doom of Starkiller Base. The warrior was resurrected at last. She had marked him for life again as surely as she had with the Jedi weapon and her own exposed fury.

Kylo turned her roughly in his arms and shoved again. The breathless moan she exhaled, one ruddied cheek flat against a doorway guidelight, only fortified the justification of his lust. His bed beckoned from somewhere in the darkness. Lifting her disheveled hair, Kylo bent to taste the salt of her neck, still hot and dewy from their duel. That first voltaic rush of renewed skin-on-skin contact—the sensual side effect of their bond—drew an animal growl from the depths of his throat.

His lips bathed in her electricity, Kylo crushed himself against the taut curves above her thighs; he wanted her to feel him, needed her to know exactly how hard she had made him. Rey acknowledged him with her prickled flesh and the restrained wrists that struggled to pull him even harder into her backside.

His hands encircling her healed throat, Kylo tilted Rey’s chin back until the crown of her head rested against his chest. There he traversed the dynamic terrain of her profile with rapt, open-mouthed kisses. He found her moist forehead, her matted eyelashes, the pointed tip of her nose, and the parted lips over which he brushed his leather-bound thumbs. When Kylo finally converged on her upside-down mouth, he stifled her sighs with such ferocity and depth that his own lips began to ache from the strain.

Rey, however, accepted his rapacity as she always did: with grace and nearly equal fervor. Her fingers began to pry a space between them to locate and undo the wide belt overtop his tunic. This, Kylo welcomed. His thumbs fell from the hollows of her cheeks to instead slip off his gloves, her grey jacket, and her coverlets, in that order. This enabled his bare fingers access to slide the slippery slope down, over her shoulder, under her own damp tunic, until he reached the stiff pinnacle of one breast. Her sharp inhale kindled his own arousal at the touch, and he took the initiative to tease the sticky undercurve and slowly drag the length of a rough finger over the sensitive flesh of her nipple. Her vibrations soon encouraged Kylo to do away with the pretense that remained. Pulling roughly at the muslin overlapping her chest, he drew it down around her elbows until she was fully bared for both his hands to cup and explore.

Kylo would have sensed her excitement even if it did not absolutely saturate their bond. Pushing away from the wall, she lay her head back over his shoulder and offered Kylo further access to lock his hungry lips to her throat. Her soft flesh heaved in his hands as though cold space had sucked all the air from the room, and her back arched against him so that she might press her bottom harder into his groin.

Rey was right, of course; Kylo could not get close enough. By their very life forces, they had been joined more tightly than any other two beings in the universe. It exceeded anything anyone before had ever been granted in the Force, Kylo was sure of that. Yet, it was still somehow never enough. Everything fell short of the instinct to rip her to pieces and consume her every cell. Better still, he secretly wished she could absorb and carry him with her until the end of her life…anything to become, literally, one with her and erase his miserable existence. It would all be so much simpler if she could do that for him. Despite their mutual fluency with the Force, however, they were merely human. Their only recourse was to be as close as their powerful bodies would allow.

Kylo wanted that consolation now, to press his bare skin to hers and bury himself deep in her molten core. He had never ceased wanting it over the past few days, since….

There it was. That forgotten knot of disgust in the pit of his stomach had unearthed and tightened.

No, no, no.

How conveniently the memory had lapsed in the blindness of his desire. She had enraptured him so completely that he had nearly been able to blot out that lingering stain. What he had done.

His body responded to Rey out of instinct, but Kylo was suddenly far away—an outsider looking in from the gross abyss of his exile. It was a repulsive place where all that dwelled was the countless ways he had threatened and defiled her, this deity who now urged him toward his bed.

All at once, he remembered Rey’s tears as they had rolled like liquid crystal down the metal of the interrogation chair. He recalled how he had ruined the purity of their first time with his viciousness and vulgarity and, before that, his obedient willingness to seduce her by “all measure necessary” at his master’s behest. Then, all at once, much longer ago, not many months after he had fallen Luke’s Jedi Temple in fact, Kylo had been ordered on occasion to “satiate his lust” with any male or female who should appeal to him on the closest planet. Thankfully, that had been only a minor part of Snoke’s years of exercises, supposedly meant to mature him and intensify his passions and emotions. How distasteful and embarrassing his very first time—all those times that year—had proven to be with the various slatterns, all of whom proved utterly foul despite their high prices and decent skin. Teenage Kylo had found the whole operation repugnant and distracting, the release not worth the time it wasted. Even if Snoke himself had told naïve Kylo that he would, someday, come to desire a woman, he would never have believed it.

Yet, here he was, altogether crippled with need, overcome by love, and still unable to demonstrate either without causing pain and disgrace. In this moment, Kylo simply wished to return all the care and devotion Rey had bestowed upon him, to live through one day where he could aspire to be worthy of her.

“Kylo?”

Below Kylo, Rey’s eyes—bleary with longing, but always that same starburst of brown exploding in a sea of green—watched him. She had been nipping at the defined muscles of his abdomen, her fingers clasping his back. Kylo shook at that sight. He knew he had only to loosen the waistband of his trousers and guide her, shy but willing, to take his rigid ache in her chaste mouth, and she would try. That provocative certainty, coupled with the chronic frenzy of his awe of her, nearly broke him then and there. To instead sink to his knees demanded every ounce of Kylo’s willpower.

Face to face, her jaw shivered in his hands as he untied and brushed back her lustrous hair. There he seized the opportunity to admire her simply as she was before him—neither fighter nor Force-user, neither superior nor student, neither good nor bad. In the face of all that was powerful and mysterious about their bond, Rey was, in this moment, merely physical—all flesh and blood and beauty. A girl barely a woman. His other half. In that, she was the redemption he had never known he required.

When at last Rey spoke in his hands, it was an echo of his own words.

“What happened is not your fault. I need you to let go.”

“This isn’t the same thing.”

“How is it any different?”

“It just is. You can’t equate a single scar to all the things I’ve done to you. I told you before; I feel just…. Every time I touch you, it leaves a mark. Every time.”

Rey leaned forward then, stopping only when he felt her plump lower lip graze his.

“Let that feeling go, Kylo.”

“You’re so good. It’s as if I never felt guilt or doubt until I met you. It’s difficult for me.”

“That must mean something,” she teased.

Kylo whispered, “It means everything,” closing his anthracite eyes as he melted against her mouth. “You mean everything.”

Her flowery flavor, her fingers caught in the thick of his hair, her heart pressed inseparably to his, her unpossessable spirit—all of it in itself—was relief…relief that she was somehow with him. And right now, relief was enough.

“No,” he said gently, removing Rey’s hands from the catch of his trousers. “Let me….”

Compromise, Kylo thought: a way to satisfy them both and leave her unblemished.

His mouth reconnecting with hers, Kylo forced her backward on the bed until the length of their provoked bodies lay flush against one another. There he stripped her legs of her remaining garments.

“I want to make you feel good,” he vibrated into her ear, his free hand reclaiming the lovely slope of her breast.

“You do.” Rey’s objections fluttered in time with the heartbeat beneath Kylo’s palm. “Nothing has ever felt as good as you.” Kylo did not require reassurance, however, silencing his lover with the renewed fervor of his mouth.

Compromise, he thought, his fingers reviving their drowsy journey down her sternum. Then, lower, across the firm plane of her stomach, beyond her quaking navel, to finally skim and then brazenly caress the small mound between her legs.

Kylo unraveled to touch her this way at last. Swallowed alive by the intensity of their bond, their prior intimacies had wavered between desperation and raw requirement. To be sure, they had never truly paused. Now, at long last, Kylo caressed undeniably the smoothest, hottest part of Rey, who burned like an ember in the hearth of his hand. Her obvious arousal belied the helpless way she curled and clung to him, and Kylo felt his fragile resolve teeter on the edge.

Nonetheless, Kylo met the agony of abstinence head on. Every careless instinct was cast aside to follow the train of her sighs and twitches. And yet, regardless of how he restrained himself, the warm tendrils of satisfaction still curled tightly round his nerves. Yes, this felt safer. Even as Kylo’s flame still blazed dangerously in the wake of her magnificence, this was the best choice.

Wandering blindly along the boundaries of his deviance, Kylo finally rediscovered between Rey’s legs that secret place he had vicariously known by way of their bond aboard the command shuttle. This time, however, she was at the mercy of his hand rather than her own. Spreading the velveteen folds of her crevice now with two fingers, he located the hidden bud of her sensitivity with a third. He circled there, massaging softly. Finally, he traced the length of her exposed flesh, down and back up again, with that finger and was enflamed to find her already wantonly damp.

The bridge of Rey’s spine was solid stone over the crook of Kylo’s free arm. Her whimpers slipped sweetly into his mouth. It was that deceptive sound—that wounded moan betraying the truth of her immense power, coupled with the way her thighs clamped around his arm—that again brought rise to his need to have and hurt her. The remedy was only to stroke her more, particularly at the peak, where he found the hard flesh beginning to swell.

Kylo soon knew that, were he to continue, he would most certainly bring Rey to the summit of her passion within minutes. Already he could sense the wave of her pleasure curling higher and higher through their inseparable channel, dragging his own body down with its euphoric undertow. The Force was never so alive in the universe as it was between them. Its hyper vivacity forever sabotaged even their most animal functions, functions Kylo now wanted to prolong.

On the verge of delirium, he rolled over the length of Rey’s lithe body and, in a moment of weakness, wrested her wrists at her sides. His chest to hers, his sable hair falling lightly over her face, Kylo pressed himself against her only briefly, finding the temptation too strong, the strain against his concealed lust too effective. If he chose that path, there would be neither time nor caution. Therefore, he opted to follow with his lips the trek his fingers had recently made.

When at last he scaled the creamy length of her core, Kylo kneeled, a suppliant before her gathered legs. Her supple shins filled his hands like bolts of silk. He plied them with adoration and unspoken gratitude, scaling the apex of her knees before starting his descent down the elusive interior.

“Wait,” Rey protested, the first coherent lyric in the song of her sighs, and Kylo felt her trembling knees begin to crush together in his hands.

Rey’s shyness here and now, despite their closeness and all they had done, charmed him. Kylo almost took pity. But that plea, the way her upturned fists unconsciously lay over her breasts, continued to communicate a deceptive helplessness that threatened to erupt the darkness beneath Kylo’s shaky foundation. The fine line between his carnal instincts toward Rey and his sad*stic urges had become yet another tone of grey to navigate. The answer was no; he was not going to let her self-consciousness deter him from what he sought. Never before had he done or wanted to do such a thing to anyone, but he hungered for it now as he had on the shuttle: to taste her.

The pressure Kylo applied to Rey’s legs was gradual but commanding, purposely overpowering her every effort to close him off. This violation he compensated with his full lips, leaving one kiss a millimeter lower than the next as he held her gaze. She had to see it in his eyes. She had to know that he was going to take what he wanted in lieu of what he could not allow himself to have.

The border of Rey’s lower lip quivered in the shadow of the entryway, but she never said a thing. Only her knees rebelled. When Kylo reached the base of her milky thighs, he asserted his desire with a final jerk that spread her remaining timidity. Shamelessly bared to him, Rey gasped her surprise.

“I think you should st—”

But Kylo had already found what he sought and, adorning it with a single kiss, had instantly stolen the breath of her objection. That kiss was nonetheless incomplete, not nearly as deep as he needed, and her hips were pulling away.

Leaning on his elbows, Kylo wrapped her thighs in the vice grip of his large hands and yanked Rey back to him as though she were the doll of a child. There, in a position only to please, he finally abandoned himself to the onslaught that had wracked him over and over, touch after touch, blow upon blow. Guided by pure instinct, he gorged himself on a paradise only fitting with the rest of her perfection. Like the mythical fruit of some ancient religion, she was sweet and tangy and dripping, and, sealing his lush mouth over the crown of her sex, Kylo lapped at that sacred nectar below with complete abandon. Every inch was finally his to anoint with his ardor, from the satin folds, to the sensitive sublimity, down to the petite mouth of her arousal.

He soon devoted himself to the latter, circling the entrance with the tip of his tongue before plunging into the taut little hollow it concealed, and all the while, Rey struggled in his grip, not because she still fought to break free, but because every single sensation caused her to jump and squirm beyond all control. Never had Kylo been so crudely aroused than to look up and watch her writhing beneath his mouth, her fingers tearing at the sheets at her sides and her eyes squeezed shut as though she could not bear to watch the pleasure he inflicted on her. Then, when Kylo shifted his attention to tease and engulf her most susceptible node, he sensed her fingers digging deep into his disheveled hair and gently pulling him into her. Meanwhile, his own painful arousal absolutely skyrocketed at the evidence of her enjoyment.

He had restrained himself in the grey until then; he could not help but say it. Every fiber that was Kylo Ren wanted her to recognize her own need.

“Tell me to stop,” he purred between her thighs. Before his eyes, Rey broke into a thousand pieces as he slowly licked up the full height of her wet divide. “Tell me to stop, Rey.”

Her answer was predictably visceral—a breathless language of convulsions and moans—and that deplorable side of Kylo was gratified by her panting mouth, moist forehead, and arching back. And so he repeated the motion, and the more he repeated it, the more Rey pulled him into her, and the more Rey pulled him into her, the more that impending surge of blue curled into him through the tide of the Force. It was not long before she openly ground into him with a carnal carelessness that both shocked and enthralled him.

When he was certain their bound bodies stumbled on the brink, Kylo pressed the length of one broad thumb deep into the rosé opening where his tongue had recently lingered. But never once did he break the potent motion and rhythm of his mouth beneath her bucking hips. She needed to clench upon him in some way, he knew, as equally as he was dying to be inside her again. He knew this because Rey knew this—because they knew this—because they would never not live within each other.

When Rey’s wave at last broke and crashed, so did his in sublime unison. Despite being confined to the tightness of his trousers, Kylo’s every nerve flooded and inundated beyond expectation. His mouth relentless upon her altar, Kylo fought through the throngs of his intoxication to steady her spasming legs and bask in the shrill cry she could in no way suppress.

When at last it became too much, Rey freed herself from his grasp as though escaping certain death. Shivering head to toe, she whimpered small, breathless sobs of euphoria as Kylo fell against the honey of her rejoined thighs. There, his vision clouding, he endured the crippling remainder of their final throb until it at last released its stranglehold on his body. When it receded, they both trembled in the dim stillness as one, their useless hands struggling to touch one another.

Rey found Kylo first, her fingernails wavering as they brushed the daggered strands from his drenched forehead. He was eventually able to follow that touch, pulling himself back up the bed and gathering Rey’s nakedness to him. Wearily, she filled his arms and vibrated through the final quakes of her org*sm.

“I can’t be without you.”

Dazed, Kylo thought her voice sounded like a dream at first. The icy pang of panic that followed—the very idea of being separated from his Jakku scavenger—convinced him she had indeed spoken.

“Never.” With that single reassurance, Kylo had admitted the selfish truth: He had to be with her always, even if it was the very antithesis of what was best for her. “Never,” he said again, pulling her tightly to his broad chest.

Never without her.

“How will we exist?”

Kylo looked over the beads on her brow and to the stars out the darkened viewport beyond. Among them, he noticed the passing of a binary star system of radiant turquoise, one body at some point in its revolution around the other, both somewhere in the middle of their orbital dance.

“We’ll find a way,” he whispered, feeling Rey begin to drift against him.

In that moment, he nearly believed it himself.

Chapter 29: Always in the Light

Chapter Text

29

Rey’s question was the only dulcet note that morning aboard the star destroyer. From Kylo’s quarters all the way to the second lift tube, the assemblage surrounding them had been a percussive symphony. The footsteps of passing officers were ornamented by the clicks of faceless technicians striking their technicolor buttons. The murmur of the commotion and the dull clash of automated doors only accented this cadence. Then again, Rey would not have heard any of this had her master not unexpectedly led her out of the lift leading to the training room and across a vast cobalt-colored corridor crawling with her enemy.

Yes, something was happening today, she soon realized, something important in the ranks from which she was kept separate. Equally unknown to her was where Kylo was leading them, and, truthfully, Rey’s chest fluttered nervously as she obediently followed him into a secondary lift and watched him access a restricted floor above them. In Rey’s scarred associations, up only meant Snoke, and Snoke only meant pain for them both.

In this way, the morning’s rhythm of the First Order at last faded a diminuendo, its hectic coda concluded by the mirrored hiss of the lift doors closing in front of them and Kylo removing his mask at her back.

When the doors sealed, Rey spun toward him to break the newfound silence.

“Kylo Ren, will you tell me where we’re going?”

In lieu of words, his cold lips responded by covering her own. The kiss was consuming, pushing her hungrily against one of the lift’s three lighted walls. Rey understood perfectly, her hands grasping the endless hollows of his cheeks. It was as though the short walk in public—the place where they could not touch—had erased every lush embrace they had shared that morning, waking up warm and languid in each other’s arms. Kylo was right; it had been far too long since she had given herself to the unique beauty of his mouth. He knew what she needed before even she did, and the answer was always him.

When the doors again parted to the darkness and Kylo finally released her, Rey grinned beneath his enthusiasm.

“Someplace you haven’t been,” he said, the imperfect outline of his lips arching ever so slightly to form the finite smile totally his own. Limited though it always was, it was a smile Rey treasured more than water or freedom or any other rarity of her life. To see it again outside their secret realm in each other’s arms surprised her pleasantly.

“Where?” Rey persisted, but Kylo only brought his moist lips to her forehead and, clasping her hand in his, led her away from the light.

Sparsely lit in segmented strips, the hallway was not unlike any other aboard the Finalizer. Its durasteel walls gradually widened at that trademark angle that had always struck Rey as fittingly cruel for the ship’s cargo. Like the lake on Takodana, the onyx floor reflected Rey’s muted outline but not Kylo’s robes, making it appear as though she strolled alongside a phantom. Looking up from the lacquer, she soon realized this corridor was much smaller and shorter than the many they had just traversed. As such, it did not take long before they stood at the inset threshold of one of the few doorways adorning the hall. This, Kylo used his privileged clearance to unlock and guide Rey through.

What Rey beheld on the other side was unlike anything she had seen before.

The room they entered was not exceptionally large—Rey estimated perhaps the depth of both their quarters combined, though no taller—but it seemed smaller due to its lack of open space. The walls were lined with various sets of matching cases sporting several tiers of shelving. Each case corresponded to the one across from it and stood parallel to the ones ahead and behind, creating at least a dozen rows one could walk between. Backlit by a strip of bright sanguine, some of the case shelves housed strange, delicate-looking cubes and pyramids, as well as a plethora of additional objects Rey did not recognize at all. Others clearly held the colorful fence line of rudimentary spines and covers. Though she had never seen a physical book, Rey imagined these could be nothing else—ancient texts from ancient times when words were still written or printed.

Four cases stood taller than the rest, softly illuminating the room with their contents. Rey immediately admired the row upon row of oblong blue and red lights, and, releasing Kylo’s hand, walked ahead on her own accord to inspect them. Along the way, she bypassed the ebony veneer of a single desk and high-backed chair situated at the heart of the room, both hard-edged and elegant but dwarfed by the surrounding high-rises of information. Once past those, she reached out toward the vertical stacks of the lighted objects with great care.

As if her obvious curiosity had given Kylo a desired cue, Rey heard her companion reach toward the panel at the doorway, and as the room sealed shut, sterile light ignited at the borders of every case to flood the room with its brightness. Bathed in this white intensity, Rey squinted once more at the hard beryl surfaces and brushed over them as though she could absorb their contents with her fingertips.

“What is this place?” Rey eventually asked in amazement.

Kylo came to her, placing his gloves and mask on the reflective surface of the desk. “This is Supreme Leader Snoke’s personal library,” he replied, undoing the cowl about his shoulders.

“Library?” Rey turned back to gaze at the luminous shelf she had just examined.

“The documents and texts he travels with, that he references or instructs me to reference. His private collection. The majority of what the First Order possesses has been moved to Morcanth, but these are what he keeps close by. Much of what you see here is the last of its kind, acquired long before you and I were born. Collected after the Empire fell. The Emperor had saved several texts from Korriban, texts spanning several generations.”

“Korriban?”

Nearing her side, Kylo casually leaned on the edge of the tabletop and coiled his bare fingers over its cold trimming.

“You probably know it as Moraband. It was the Sith home world, where they and the Dark Jedi once resided. The Emperor gathered those remaining texts. Those loyal to the Jedi smuggled what they could from the Jedi Temple on Coruscant before the Imperial Security Bureau had a chance to destroy everything. Then, when the Empire finally fell, the Supreme Leader collected all he could find. The Alliance did the same. All that had been hidden or had not been destroyed from the Old Empire on. Those are archives that once belonged to the Jedi.”

Rey tilted the corner one of the bright blue folios from its spot on the shelf and imagined the wealth of information it surely possessed.

“I’ve gone through that one. It’s a digital copy of a very old journal on mathematics from the Library of Ossus. It survived the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. Obviously, these are a bit rarer due to being....”

“Confiscated, yes,” Rey added, thinking of their talk aboard the command shuttle. “I remember.”

“Do you remember me mentioning the holocrons?”

“Yes, of course.” How could she ever forget any shred of detail of being near him, even if they were adversaries at the time? The nights he lay unconscious—the warm tingle of his smooth blood-stained skin healing beneath her hands—and the way he shut her out then let her in only to betray her. They had both been so awkward maneuvering through those first ropes of their attachment, Rey especially. After all, she had succumbed first, sinking into the inevitability of their bond as surely as she had sunk into his arms in that cave.

That cave.

A chorus of voices suddenly rose. The jumble sounded no more than a whisper of consonants, too faint and far too raspy to be understood. They echoed and buzzed in the well of Rey’s mind, and though they were not at all like the child’s cry that tugged her into the stony depths of the castle on Takodana, Rey now thought only of that moment, of the mysterious lure that had preceded the one she and Kylo shared. This new call also pulled, plucking at the strings attached to her mind, and Rey felt her body instinctually come alive as it had on the shore of Nymeve. Thus, she drew away from the radiance of the Jedi archives and pushed farther down the library’s open partition to a different, much shorter case on the left.

Where? she questioned, but she already knew the answer.

It sat unremarkable, one in a row of objects situated on a brilliant shelf at the height of Rey’s waist, and yet its construction was striking. Its cubic frame caught the bleached glare and returned it a brushed silver, while the centers of its crystalline panels were accented in steel with some sort of symbol Rey could not place. Her fingers fell there now, large on the box’s exterior, to carefully trace the outline of the vertical spear rising from the center of the jagged, incomplete circle. The cold energy of the metal traveled up her fingers the way it had when she had touched Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber for the very first time, enlivening the voices that now fused, tangled, in rising unison….

Rey jumped and spun at a weight on her shoulder. In the restored silence, Kylo stared down at her with an intensity more forbidding than curious, as though he had been privy to all that had just transpired in her mind but found he could not relate.

“You are always in the light, aren’t you?”

Rey blinked at the strange ambiguity of his question in her mind, unsure of how to respond.

“What happened to you just now?” Kylo soon asked aloud, retracting his hand.

“I don’t know how to describe it,” she spoke in a lull, her mouth slackening. “Sometimes I feel as though the Force…speaks to me, guides me…though not always in the same way. Sometimes it’s very pointed, very…concentrated, like a single voice from somewhere across the galaxy. Other times…I don’t know how to describe it. Other times it’s more diffused. It’s as though the Force speaks to me in feelings. My feelings for you especially.”

Lifting her face back up to Kylo, Rey realized she stared into eyes of brilliant brown, their subtle amber highlights unblinking and deeply inset. Ben Solo eyes, Rey thought. The case’s frosted glow had eliminated from his gaze the piercing darkness that constantly captured and dragged her soul, replacing it with sadness and warmth. In the light, Ben Solo eyes. All at once, Rey could clearly see in Kylo’s face the boyish youth he had been a decade earlier, the isolated teenager—brimming with turmoil and potential—she had found in those forbidden glimpses into his mind. Comforting and familiar, always familiar, and the urge now to touch the lengthy incline of his jaw, and the compulsory instinct that had made her stay with him that night….

Nearly overcome, Rey clung fiercely to her original train of thought.

“And, sometimes, I see or hear things. Like before we met….”

“What happened before we met?”

“On Takodana, the day we met, I was in Maz Kanata’s castle with Finn and….” Rey felt a stab in her core at the thought of that same boy’s father. Whether she feared Kylo’s reaction or facing her own forfeiture of punishing Han’s murderer, she quickly skipped ahead. “I heard a child crying somewhere down in the depths of that place. I felt…compelled to follow her, like something in the sound was pulling me. Somehow, I knew she wasn’t really down there, but I couldn’t stop myself from going to her.”

“What was down there?”

“It was Luke’s lightsaber, hidden away. Just another box in another room. I just went straight to it. And when I touched it…I saw things, things I can’t explain. Memories. Not mine or all mine…I don’t really know. Terrifying things, sad things that had happened in the past.”

“Do you want to tell me?”

“Darkness. Fire. Destruction. A ship leaving the little girl screaming for someone to come back to her. I have no recollection of that in my life, but she has to be me. Of everything I saw, I am certain that has to be my memory, why the Force called me to Luke’s lightsaber through her cries. And I saw you too, before I had ever seen you.”

Rey watched Kylo’s expression freeze with tension as he turned toward the shelf. His closed lips rolled, pursed, and leveled out again, a habit Rey had noticed he was apt to do when particularly pained or frustrated.

“Fitting that you saw me in such a terrible vision,” he finally said, his teeth releasing the inner flesh of one cheek.

“It was pouring rain. So dark and cold. There were bodies everywhere. Someone came toward me. He tried kill me, but you killed him first. You protected me. But still there was death all around you. And six others standing at your side. Then, I saw us in the snow together. It must have been the Starkiller Base.”

His stare burning straight through the case, Kylo swallowed hard into the heaving chest he clearly fought to still. Rey followed that pensive gulp until it disappeared, pale beneath the height of his collar.

“Is that what happened just now? Something led you here?”

He was being evasive. He did not want to talk about her vision, much the way he always avoided revealing anything about himself that did not involve her. This only slightly disappointed Rey, who never really ceased wondering if Kylo would always be an endless mystery despite how his heart continually bared itself before her. Regardless, she trusted his reasoning here and now. Perhaps he thought he would sadden her or, more likely, terrify her. The gruesome past of Kylo Ren, the Jedi Killer.

“Yes. Well, in a way. I heard voices…whispering…pulling me to this.”

“It led you right to it.”

Growing anxious, Rey again beheld the elegant box at her waist. “What is it?”

“A holocron copy of a guide passed down from Jedi Master to Padawan for hundreds of years. It was given to students, to beginners in the Jedi Order. Luke created this holocron from a particular physical copy that had been handed down from the most powerful Jedi, including my grandfather…before he became…someone else.”

“Did Luke pass it down to you?”

“Only the holocron. He didn’t trust me even then, I could tell, not with something that precious to him. It contained notes, addendums, written by the Jedi Masters who’d trained him. He was wise to have only given me this copy.”

“Why didn’t you destroy it?”

The question was honest, though, for a split-second, Rey feared Kylo would take offense to it.

“I should have long ago. Before the Supreme Leader took it from the ruins of Luke’s temple and treated it like a relic trophy. So many times since then, I’ve wanted to destroy it.”

All at once, Rey’s companion was gone, his stark contrast immediately obscured by a neighboring case.

“I’m going to leave you now,” Rey heard from the center of the room. “We reach Morcanth in a few hours and there’s much to be done.”

“Morcanth?” she questioned, rushing round the same set of shelves to find Kylo reapplying the various accessories he had discarded.

“The secondary base of the First Order is there. It’s been our destination all this time, but we’ve been in no hurry to get there, especially when finding Luke took obvious priority.”

Kylo reached the doorway, mask tucked beneath one ribbed sleeve, before Rey spoke his name.

“Kylo.” His cowled shoulders froze evenly between the protruding walls of the threshold before her. “Are you upset with me?”

A moment passed, then another. Then, as swiftly as he had left her side, Kylo returned to it and kissed deeply beyond the tight ridges of her perplexed mouth. Rey found that the intensity of that contact assuaged her fears as quickly as they had heightened. “No, I’m not,” he said, pressing the soft waves of his lowered head against her brow. “I only forget how strong the light always is in you, in your spirit and your energy. Even in this middle ground here with me.”

“I don’t know how,” Rey whispered, her lips still tingling with the vibrancy of his, “and I don’t why. Sometimes I feel so lost.”

“It speaks to you, Rey, through you, the way it never spoke to me. You possess strength I never knew the light could grant. I can acknowledge this while still….”

Still feeding from the dark, Rey thought and instantly hated herself for thinking it, even though she was sure he wanted to say the same. Like him, she also forgot; she forgot the dissonance Kylo Ren juggled in that she alone, by some miracle or some curse, was his exception to every malicious rule that defined him.

“I brought you here to find answers,” he continued, pulling away, his fingers now tracing the places his skin had just been. “I want you to open it. I want you to open all of them, but the Force meant for you to open this one. Snoke will never know which you open and which you don’t. I just can’t be here when you open this.”

Rey understood, nodding in the tender cradle of Kylo’s fingertips. That he even encouraged her to learn anything about the ways of the Jedi stunned and impressed her enough already. Perhaps he wanted her education in the Force to be well-rounded, perhaps he intended to exploit the teachings later as examples of weakness the dark side could surpass. Or was it somehow possible that even he, in the face of everything he had been taught to believe, recognized and submitted to the guiding hand that drew Rey to the light time and time again? Whatever Kylo’s reasoning, Rey could never demand he sit obediently at her side to guide her through teachings he had long ago rejected. In an empathetic gesture, she willingly lent the palm to which he pressed one last farewell kiss before remaking his exit.

“How do I activate it?”

Rey squinted past the bulk of the doorway and into the ebon aisle outside until she found his everlasting gaze. In the pitch, the eyes of Ben Solo were once again shrouded beneath Kylo’s somber twilight.

“You will know.”

Steel then met steel with a dull thud, and her lover was gone.

Rey stood alone in Snoke’s library, a small whitewashed ghost amidst a city grid of lambent skyscrapers. She looked about at the stacks of covered surfaces, suddenly overwhelmed at the abundance of learning towering above her. How many instances had her more logical side—the technical Rey, reliant on the evidence of taking things apart and putting things together—longed for an understanding of the Force beyond what she merely perceived? When her sensitivity to the Force had first truly unveiled itself—especially then—she had needed more than her gut and Kylo’s knowledgeable summations. Now, tossed into a wealth of information, Rey’s uncertainty intimidated her excitement.

If the relentless energy that chaperoned her spirit wanted her to open Luke’s holocron, then undoubtedly that was where she should start. It was indisputable. Why then did she feel such anxiety toward what she might discover there?

Listening to the hollow patter of her own footsteps as she retrieved the holocron from the shelf, Rey was suddenly struck by the lack of Kylo at her side. Why this small isolation stood out amongst a lifetime of solitude, Rey was not sure, especially because she still felt him—always felt him—in the Force—he, the living, tingling extension of herself. Perhaps it was because the last few days had been a strange paradise, albeit one marked by unspoken hopes and fears. No tricks, no crises, no need to venture into each other’s minds—at last, something akin to normal behavior between two people who care for one another. Like a rare desert flower, Kylo’s openness with her continued to blossom an arterial red, and this eased her own contentment to trust and confide in him. Indeed, they had not left each other’s side in all that time, training in solidarity, taking their meals together, talking in scattered bursts on safe subjects, touching…always touching….

Setting the holocron on the desk, Rey felt the warm blood flush her cheeks as she thought of Kylo, of what he had done to her to previous evening. She had never before thought of such a thing, had truthfully not wanted him to do it. Yet, the small hairs on her neck had risen under the force of his hands, and the slippery heat of his mouth had settled where his cold fingers had caressed her, and the sensation had sensuously swooped down and carried her up again and again and again.

Even now, in her own company, Rey’s mouth gaped in embarrassment. She covered it quickly as though someone might see, and still the image of his gaze, stern and shamelessly carnal between her thighs, reignited in her memory and sent her spiraling. Help her, Rey had loved it, succumbing to every intoxicating inundation of him claiming yet another piece of her purity for himself. But, even more so, she had loved the way their recent familiarity had at last come close to satiating the wild call of their connective, the untamed need to be near him. Therein lay again the truth that her feelings, grounded in the Force, had recognized the night she had almost stolen away from the Finalizer: In the face of the turmoil it caused, their union was nonetheless an inescapable perfection.

There was plenty of time to fall down that hole later, though. All that mattered currently was activating the holocron, and Rey knew with obvious certainty she would never be able to open it while thinking those thoughts. They were too wicked and chaotic for someone touching something grounded in such decency. If Rey had learned one thing by now, it was that peace of mind proved necessary for her to accomplish anything and everything.

Seating herself at the study desk, Rey lowered her hot palms to the lacquered surface until the cool crept in and doused her private inferno. The physical aided the mental, and she was soon able to draw her mind together in that adept, effective way she had come to master. Only then did she again pick the cube up in her inquisitive hands.

The document was surprisingly lightweight in her grasp. Allowing the box to rest atop the outstretched ledge of her fingers, Rey took the opportunity to admire its unique craftsmanship from new viewpoints. The cut angles of the crystalline entranced her in particular, the way their fine edges intersected to form their identical pattern on every panel, all joining round beneath the brushed steel. And that exotic symbol, like the uplifted wings of some magnificent bird, with its protruding spike and regal starburst, emblazoned atop it all like a seal. Yet, in her admiration, Rey grew aware that the cube’s perfect symmetry bore no locks, hinges, or buttons. In fact, she saw nothing indicating a way to open it—she, who considered herself fairly talented when it came to the inner workings of mechanisms.

Rey set the holocron down and sighed. Out of habit, she folded her arms on the table top and leaned over to rest her mouth against her wrists. “How?” she asked, staring up close, through the glass slats, at the tiny metal core as though the confounding thing might come alive and tell her.

“You will know,” he had said.

How would Ben Solo or Luke Skywalker have opened it? How would a Jedi open it? Before Rey had even finished questioning, she realized the answer should have been obvious to her from the beginning.

Rey closed her eyes and breathed, clearing her head of the last clouding thoughts of passion and adoration. Even something as genuine as her love for him always derailed her from finding that place in the center of her serenity, that calming hub where there was only her, connecting to and existing alongside every other living thing in the universe.

Recently, when her thoughts had want to stray, she had come to imagine the island—her island—the exact one she had seen in Poe Dameron’s memory. Then, beyond its green peaks—always the same dark emerald as her haunted forest—Rey envisioned the raging sea. The white caps crashed and broke turbulently from mossy boulder to orange horizon the way they always did in her dreams. However, the more she meditated on the repetition of those sights and sounds, the calmer the ocean before her grew, smoothing more and more until it appeared a lake of titian glass that mirrored the burning sunset. All Rey would hear then was the faint trickle of the shoreline and her own drawn-out respiration. As one with every facet of energy in that tranquil, steadied world, she felt the flow of the Force so vibrantly that she ceased to be Rey entirely. When that happened, there was peace. When that happened, she was able to reach out.

The initiating light, the unlocking corners, the disengaging pieces—Rey knew it was all happening, felt it occurring through the very wavelength binding her to the object. She did not have to open her eyes to see the holocron unlocking. Physical sight was unnecessary. Her eyes, her muscles, her skin…every corporeal element was inconsequential to her existence, because the power flowed inside her, through her, in all places eternally.

“This is Jedi Master Luke Skywalker.”

Rey perceived the projection of the robed figure. His minimized form stood suspended in the air above the desk, a beryl sun at the center of a solar system of detached holocron pieces.

The Jedi whose lightsaber she had adopted appeared more here as she had always imagined him from the gossiped legends of her youth. His clothes were tidy, his beard and hair were well-groomed, and he bore an air of welcoming and enlightenment. These things all lay in opposition of the man she had beheld in Poe’s mind. There he had seemed a vagrant, his obvious wisdom hidden somewhere behind haunted eyes and an expression of defeat. Admittedly, the years elapsed between recording the holocron and present day now amounted to more than a decade. Still, Rey knew mere time was not responsible for Luke Skywalker’s transformation. Something had lived in the Jedi before, when he had recorded this, something long vanished. Hope.

“Before the Supreme Leader took it from the ruins of Luke’s temple….”

A chill jolted Rey, who inexplicably flashed to the terrible vision of Kylo, surrounded by death, that had befallen her when she had first touched the lightsaber. So suddenly did it engulf her that she thought she might lose her concentration and the holocron deny her access again.

Had touching Luke’s weapon somehow shown her his undoing? Had Kylo been responsible for the destruction of Luke’s temple?

Rey inhaled and exhaled through her physical form. Discipline, she commanded herself. You must have control. He can show you how.

That train of thought proved rewarding, for the recording continued as Rey restored the harmony of her energy.

“ABY 18:3:7. Recently, I gained possession of an annotated copy of The Jedi Path, the manual for students of the Jedi Order. The copy I acquired was salvaged among other artifacts not far from the Byss ruins. To my wonder and great delight, the manual had been annotated by two Jedi Masters who have guided me on my path—Master Yoda and Master Obi-Wan Kenobi—as well as other powerful Jedi masters, such as Qui-Gon Jinn, Thame Cerulian, and my father, Anakin Skywalker. As an interesting contrast, the text also contained notes from Sith Lords Darth Tyranus and the Emperor himself, Darth Sidious. In all these ways, this copy of The Jedi Path is unspeakably rare beyond being perhaps the only copy to have survived the dark days of the Empire.

“Having received only a brief education and extremely accelerated training in the Force, I cannot understate how much I have learned the past few years, scouring the pages of this manual from cover to cover and back again. Since the acquisition, I have fully implemented the manual’s teachings with my students of the New Jedi Order and have taken the liberty of adding my own notes to its print. I intend to make several holocron copies of this text for preservation. This, the first copy, is bestowed upon my Padawan and nephew, Ben Solo, who constantly impresses me with his vast potential and for whom I care very deeply.

“What follows is a direct reading of the text of The Jedi Path, meant to preserve the wisdom amassed by the Jedi over millennia. May future generations of Jedi learn from it, as I surely have, and build upon it as well.”

To Rey, the hours that followed flew by like minutes wrapped in a lifetime of invaluable detail. Trying her best to take in every in every fact and theory, she sat and listened in a perpetual state of awe. From the introduction all the way to becoming a Jedi Grand Master, the truths finally revealed themselves to Rey’s undernourished mind. Conduct, sense abilities, lightsaber construction, combat techniques, the importance of meditation—all of it enraptured and educated her despite its deliberate brevity. A compressed history of the Jedi and the Sith was laid out chronologically, conjuring in her mind images of great masters and massive, primitive temples past. The differences that divided the Jedi and the Sith were also discussed in simple terms, but those served merely as exemplars of the fundamental divide: the light and the dark of the Living and Unifying Force.

Time and time again, Rey’s heart would ripple with jubilation when some revelation of the Jedi writings resounded with her, confirmed her suspicions, or eased one of myriad worries. Even if the teachings of the Jedi Order fell at odds with some aspect of her current existence, she nevertheless revered the epiphany as a vital piece of information, a point of contemplation, a goal.

Above all, she was sure to engrave the five principal mantras of the Jedi Code in her malleable mind:

There is no emotion, there is peace.
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
There is no passion, there is serenity.
There is no chaos, there is harmony.
There is no death, there is the Force.

When the chapter on transcending death at last ended and drew the recording to a close, Rey sat for several minutes, her hands trembling and mind racing, before willing the holocron to reconstruct itself. The pieces floated and twirled in the dance of their azure incandescence, delicately magnetizing to reform the deceptively small treasure. Rey watched them absentmindedly. The excitement she clung to, the great relief of knowing and the additional questions that accompanied it, was a temporary cloak covering contradictions in her lifestyle and very identity she could not even begin to confront right now.

Awash in wonderment, Rey put the holocron back on the shelf, replacing it with the same care and respect she had shown Luke Skywalker’s weapon. As she finished, the drone of the library door suddenly announced itself, and Rey practically bumped into the neighboring case as she rushed to bypass it.

“Kylo, I never knew….”

Rounding the walls of the cabinet, Rey’s smile and feet ceased abruptly.

Kylo was not there. Where there should have been Kylo instead stood the red-headed general—the one who had seen her before she had helped Poe escape—flanked by two troopers with both pauldrons black.

“No,” said General Hux. “Not Kylo.”

Chapter 30: Casualties

Chapter Text

30

She was trapped.

Rey realized this, her wide eyes locked firmly on the undisputed leader of the triad before her. Ingrained fight-or-flight instinct nevertheless pushed her peripheral to scan and her mind to survey the boxy layout of Supreme Leader Snoke’s library. She had not explored its limits when Kylo allowed her access to the rare documents. There had been no need with him, and she had been too enamored then, too engrossed in Luke’s holocron, to even think of such things. More importantly, given the library’s location and her familiarity with star destroyer blueprints, Rey knew the three men now blocked her only escape.

Comingled with that certainty was the real sense that something horrible was about to happen. Rooting her feet in well-disguised apprehension, Rey perceived it like a bitter aftertaste tainting the sweet energy flowing through her and rendering it swill. It disturbed her. The red-haired officer’s disdainful glare, the way he mocked her with his tone—all of it disturbed her.

“General Hux,” Rey finally said, forcing her chin high. Yes, that was the name Kylo had told her.

The First Order commander co*cked his head and squinted pretentiously. “So formal, scavenger. Yet, you’re on such a personal, first-name basis with your master. No honorific titles there. I thought your lot addressed each other more respectfully.”

If she had not realized it during their previous passing, Rey was now sure nothing redeemable lay behind the green eyes that now studied her with transparent disdain. Situated high above the squared shoulders of his padded overcoat, those eyes reminded Rey of the only time she had ever seen jade traded at the outpost of her past: brilliant and smooth but cool and impenetrable. Not the cold nighttime waters of Kylo’s eyes, no; these were devoid of all passion and complexity. Despite his youthful appearance, the general’s gaze communicated a sense of superiority, and, in that self-assurance, a singular hatred for everything beneath him.

So obvious was his ridicule that Rey was left frozen in perpetual hesitation, sealing the anxious crack of her parted mouth and forcing her breath into submission in her chest. He meant to harm her in some way, she sensed it, or else he would not have brought the two Stormtroopers with the black pauldrons. Still, she was unsure of how. Rey preferred words. Words, she could take. His last remark still rang with a passive aggressive insinuation that she refused to dignify with a response. Rey hoped belittlement was all Hux had planned.

“What can I do for you, General?”

“What can you do for me?” Again, his perfectly coiffed red hair tilted in faux confusion. Lost in his charade, Hux’s eyes avoided hers as he brushed against one lengthy side of the lacquer desktop. “What a strange question for a junker from Jakku to ask a commander of the First Order. What can you do for me?”

Prepared for anything, Rey watched vigilantly, her pulse nearing lightspeed. The general’s leather-covered hands clasped one another behind his slender back. Now closer to the first case Rey had admired, the moist flesh of his natural scowl caught the blue glimmer of the Jedi archives.

“It sounds so silly spoken aloud, doesn’t it? It makes one wonder how we wound up in this situation, you and I—why we are even speaking now. Why am I having to deal with a desert slave-girl in the middle of a galactic war I’ve been preparing for my entire life?”

Rey’s limbs calcified as Hux turned to her as though waiting for her to produce some sort of explanation. She chose to neither look nor speak, instead focusing on the incomplete map of a handprint—Kylo’s hand—on the polished tabletop. Plunging herself into each familiar swoop and arch, Rey explored the topography and escaped into the thought of his touch.

Please come soon, she thought, but only to herself. For now.

Unfazed by the silence that met his rhetoric, Hux resumed his leisurely stroll past Rey, stopping at one of the many cases. There, he feigned interest in something on a shelf. Even sightless, Rey accounted for the commander in her far-reaching web.

“You know, ever since Ren brought you aboard this ship, I’ve been trying to figure out what it is you remind me of. The way you came uninvited, the way you…slink around the corridors in places where you’re not allowed. The way you seem to be constantly in the way in this place where you’re obviously unwanted. Finally, it came to me one day: You’re like my cat, Millicent.”

Thud.

Rey’s shoulders lurched at the sound of one of the Jedi archives striking the floor, and she instantly hated herself for showing her surprise. Tugging at the silk, she had clearly sensed what he was doing and yet was still startled when he did it.

Peace, Rey.

“You’re both scavengers, both resourceful little creatures tricking everyone into favoring you. You’re both little whor*s rubbing yourselves all over the powerful to get your way.”

Thud.

“You think you have everyone fooled. Yes, your ‘promising talents’ are constantly being touted. ‘You have the potential to be our greatest asset.’”

Thud.

“But we both know that’s not true, don’t we? We both know the real reason you’re being kept here. And now we both know that I can see right through your rouse.”

Thud. Thud. Thud. Rey’s heart sank and shattered along with every fallen document.

“I don’t let my sweet Millicent get away with it. I keep her for my own amusem*nt, but I know very well if I were bleeding on the floor, she would chew me down to the bone before she’d starve. It’s in her nature—the instinctive nature of a little survivor. No honor, no allegiance. I know her real motivations. That’s why I’m her master and she’s my pet. That’s why I make sure she knows her place.”

Hux had practically spat the “T” as he emptied the shelf of the remaining electronic folios in one sweeping motion. The archives struck the ground in a crashing cascade that reverberated even off the crowded walls of the library.

All at once, Hux was at Rey’s side, so close she could see the faint constellation of his freckles out of the corner of her left eye. With this intimidation came the stink of toilet powder masking some terrible acerbity, followed by the acidic bile of his exhale on her stony cheek.

“You don’t seem to know your place here,” he leered, his gaze searing a hole through her profile. “You seem to overstep it at every turn.”

She did not acknowledge him. Instead, Rey lifted her sights from the haven of Kylo’s hand to the troopers still guarding the door, their distinguished shoulders perfectly aligned.

“I know it was you who freed the Resistance pilot.”

Help me.

A perfect mask of insulting self-confidence, Rey did not flinch as she turned to meet Hux’s fury head on. “I don’t know what you’re talking ab—”

He was far too close for the blow to knock her off her feet. Still, the slap connected sharply across the swell of Rey’s jaw with a crisp crack that broke her gaze. Slack-mouthed in an explosion of heat, she held fast to the table and choked back a groan of shock. The evidence of Kylo was still there, seemingly reaching out to her. In the endless veneer, the handprint lined up almost exactly with the stinging half of her face.

All at once, Hux was joyfully emphatic, even giving a slight laugh at her foolishness. Turning from her to inspect his pale knuckles as though her face may have damaged them, Hux continued: “You’re not listening to me. I told you: It doesn’t work on me, the little witchery you’ve used to win that buffoon Ren’s loyalty, even the trust of our Supreme Leader. I see right through it. I know your nature. I know your secret. So, let’s try this again: You were the one who freed the Resistance pilot.”

The defiance of outrage now slowly spilled over Rey’s fear. “I told you—”

This impact was heavier and sharper than the first, catching her higher and successfully driving her to stumble over her own planted feet. Dazed by the blow and the equally severe aftershocks ringing through her head, Rey clutched at the icy desk to keep from falling. Her equilibrium faltered. Her stomach churned. Her battered eye instinctively shut out the world in the wake of his hand. And somewhere deep within Rey, the throbbing pain exhumed a voiceless rage.

“Scavenger, I can do this all night. But that would be quite boring for us both, wouldn’t it? A creature as resilient and manipulative as you would never be deterred by that. It definitely wouldn’t be an effective use of my time. And besides, that’s not how you show a pet who is in control.”

If her assailant was at all astonished by Rey’s ability to right herself above the table so quickly, he hid it well. The pink-lipped sneer was once again so near to Rey that she was sure he could feel the red burn of her stricken skin and simmering resentment.

“One last time. You don’t even have to say it; just look at me when you deny it. Look at me and tell me you didn’t help Poe Dameron escape and set up those innocent men. Tell me you were training with Kylo Ren when it happened.”

This time, when Rey turned to face Hux, she smiled below her swelling skin. Then, expectorating more saliva onto his face than she imagined she had gathered, she sprinted toward the door.

Rey had always been fast, from her early days of escaping desert scroungers and outpost pedophiles, to just the other day, when she had met every blow of Kylo’s staff. But even the fastest could not have evaded Hux’s soldiers here and now.

The desk proved a fateful barrier to her attempt to pick up enough speed to slide over the polished floor where Hux had recently stood. Her lithe body came to a stop mid-glide, just shy of the hallway. Even as quickly as Rey scrambled the rest of the way into shadowed freedom, she failed to avoid the hand that seized one of her three bound buns and cruelly jerked her back onto her feet. She grimaced and grunted, grabbing at that fist. In answer, it spun her back into the library and wrenched her hard. The roots of every follicle seemed to give as Rey peered over the horizon of her face at Hux, still wiping at his eye at the far end of the desktop.

“Hold her down!” he shouted.

Rey fought with all her strength, with more than her strength—with the ferocity of some wild thing roped into grim captivity. But not just any captivity: one that caged Rey in horrifying déjà vu. The brutal fingers entangled in her hair, being cast forward, the weight of dominant hands shoving her arms and legs against the cold finish of the desk, so unfeeling…like metal. Had it only been just a few days since she had almost died this way, at his hand?

“Get off me!”

Just like then, nothing. Pleas falling on deaf ears. Only, he had come back. For her, for love of her, Kylo had pulled himself out of the darkness.

“Kylo!” Rey cried aloud to no one and everyone.

His name was a sudden echo. The shriek seemed to cut through space and time, resounding in an unforeseen void wherein every other noise in the room was utterly decimated. Her struggling, the squeak of the Stormtrooper armor, Hux’s open-mouthed vitriol spewing into her hair…the volume of everything else in the galaxy had suddenly turned way down. Rey alone filled her own ears. Her panicked breath was a violent storm. Her back thudded against the table like a thunder punctuated by the growls of her frustration and effort.

And suddenly Kylo was there, really there!

Out of the corner of her eye, Rey saw him, standing in the right nook adjacent to the door, as she kicked and thrashed against the hands that held her. He faced the grated air vent of the far wall as though he had never seen it before. Then, removing his helmet as quickly as it would release, Kylo stumbled backward slightly as though stunned. His breath, as familiar and prominent as her own, faded from his slackened mouth as he swung toward the origin of those distant shouts and shuffles. When their eyes met, Rey only briefly glimpsed the horror that washed over the flawed ivory of his face. His confusion did not linger, nor did he; he was instant action, an immediate blur of black and sizzling crimson rushing toward her. Her own name filled her ears, his shout tuning into the same energetic current hers had and roaring in their shared vacuum.

Then, as quickly as Kylo had appeared, he was gone. In an instant, he vanished before Rey’s eyes like a single frame of some projection, just a foot or so shy of burying his raised lightsaber in the back of the soldier fighting her ankles.

Only when he disappeared did Rey realize it—the release of some electric grip she had ignored in lieu of her physical restraints. Something in the Force had taken hold of her. Rey felt it fading, rejoining with the limitless cord that forever wove her to Kylo Ren. And now that its magnitude had retreated, the world outside—all the venom and the pain—again amplified only misery.

“Those men were killed, you realize!”

Rey’s stare shifted back up to the general, who was still shouting down at his preoccupied prisoner. He had not seen Kylo. None of them had. She and she alone had been privy to the vision. But why would the Force forge such a hallucination when she needed help? Why would their connection taunt her with the false promise of escape when she needed it most? The mere notion that the light would tease her, the idea that the Kylo she saw was not him and only some mirage, plummeted Rey’s hope into the icy desk on which she struggled.

“They were killed, those soldiers and that officer you swayed with your little tricks while you were doing the work of your real masters in the Resistance! I am going to burn you and Ren for your treason!”

A monstrous tension had begun to build in Rey’s slender core, a collective emotion that swelled fuller and more destructive with the general’s every word. Despite the energy the Force fed it, there was no peace, nor was there focus. If she had been more coherent, Rey would have recognized feeling a weaker version of it nearly a month ago, even a decade ago, and shied away from pursuing it. Now, though, especially hearing Kylo’s name threatened, she felt compelled to follow it, to dive deep and locate it below the waves. And the more she followed it, the more the tension compounded, and the more the tension compounded, the more disconnected she felt from herself.

“Do you know what happens to true traitors of the First Order? This is what happens. This is what happens when you can no longer flaunt your tawdry little wiles to dupe stupid, weak-willed fools like Kylo Ren. You finally learn your place, like any silly little pet.”

No! Rey screamed behind eyes squeezed shut, blocking out the world, as that tension—the weight of her anger and anguish—crushed her, pushing her farther and farther away from herself. It’s not like that! That’s not me! You don’t understand! I’m good! I’m good!

The lighted cases surrounding the figures audibly shuddered in a rapid tremor.

“Kylo!”

“Let’s see what we all know you’re hiding: the real reason Ren keeps you here. Let’s see the makings of a First Order slu*t.”

As a crowning insult, Hux’s gloved hands snatched at the muslin at Rey’s chest and pulled. The cold of the open air soon assailed her breasts as the tunic split down to her waist, leaving her on display for everyone to see. At last, the surmountable tension released along with that final, humiliating tear.

“Noooooo!”

---

“Come on!”

The first punch fractured the frosted covering of the lift tube light as though it were made of paper. The second demolished the fixture beneath, sending shards of bulb through leather and into his indifferent knuckles. The third ensured the glass was well-embedded.

Groaning loudly through clenched teeth, Kylo allocated the pain, his mind all bloodthirst and frenzy behind his dripping brow. The flutter of the display screen above mocked him by slowing the higher he climbed, and every time he looked, his thriving rage took its toll on some part of the lift. Trapped in his flickering cell, so close to helping her, yet still so far away, he screamed and tasted blood—his own, or perhaps a premonition of the gallons he would shed from Hux when he arrived. He cursed that there was no other way to get to Rey, and he cursed himself for leaving her alone.

Kylo had been on the bridge, completing his last task, when it happened. Towering above the technicians in the pit, he had watched the spherical silhouette of their destination enlarge in the transparisteel as the Finalizer plunged deeper into the Morcanth System. Only when the planet’s maroon pools and swirling vapors at last consumed the entire triangular window frame had he given Unamo the order to ready the transports for launch. This he had said already turning on his heels; he had grown more impatient to retrieve his apprentice than he had initially realized. The mere prospect of being near her again alleviated his militaristic persona like the push of a button.

Unamo had said something, he could not remember presently, a final question requesting his attention. Kylo had stopped at the boundary of the charcoal walkway. Nothing had seemed out of place until he turned back to her. Center of the bridge’s ring of celestial vistas, framed in Morcanth, the officer had begun to speak to Kylo in muted vowels. Every subdued step she had taken toward him seemed detached from the hollow steel, and every technical steward of the First Order below her boots had gone about his work in equal silence. More than that, it was as though he had been stricken deaf to every background noise to which he had grown accustomed—the bridge, the ship, the very universe—secluded in some private membrane constructed by the Force.

Then, Kylo had heard her, heard her as though she were there on the bridge with him—the only noise in that drowned-out existence.

Impossible, he had thought, practically tearing his mask off to free his doubting ears. And yet, it was unmistakably Rey, her frustrated cries fading in and then back out like a broadcast to his soul, blaring, ringing…suffering in his strange echo chamber.

Alarmed, Kylo had followed her voice, again turning his back on the bridge and far-off base. What he saw seemed to suspend time the way it had suspended sound.

The shadows of the bridge foyer were suddenly filled with things that should not have been there: Hux, a red-faced pantomime of muzzled threats over top a familiar desk. Two security troopers flanking the desk, one fighting to secure delicate wrists, one to steady naked shins. And Rey’s limpid eyes, wild and pleading to his. Rey, his Rey, forced onto her back, the tender flesh of her face already coloring a hue of violence.

Not once in that moment had Kylo even thought to weigh the plausibility of the scene blocking the bridge lift doors. Like a machine, his instincts had been automatic: unbridled anger combusted through him as quickly as his heart pumped a single beat. This strain of rage, however, he had not felt in years; it was one that saturated Kylo’s every cell with fear, fear not for himself, but for her. And in that rare, forgotten terror, the superior might of the dark side empowered him.

Igniting his lightsaber with his wide-legged stomp, Kylo had sprinted to put a fatal end to Rey’s attackers. Her name became a battle cry that split his ears in their joint chasm. But no sooner had he prepared for the first killing stroke than the entire vision evaporated back into thin air, and Kylo was left, weapon drawn, helmet thrown, on a platform surrounded by onlookers who were only silent out of confusion. Only then, returning the stares of his oblivious audience, had Kylo realized what had transpired. And he had run then, faster than he ever had before, slowed only by the unavoidable and the debilitating shatter of Rey’s scream in his mind.

The angry crackle of Kylo’s lightsaber ignited even before the lift tube doors opened. When they eventually did, he was at the interlocking library door in seconds, and milliseconds after that, the door whirred open to him. Only then, breathless and aghast, did his adrenaline subside for the first time since the bridge.

A thermal detonator had exploded in the heart of the room.

Stepping cautiously through the gateway, Kylo’s gaze lifted to the jungle canopy of dangling light fixtures, sparking wires, and cracked bulbs struggling to illuminate their last. Beneath them lay the thick onyx of his master’s desk, now leveled to a slab of deep fissures and crumbled chunks upon which his boots now crunched. On either side, the once tall cases housing Snoke’s collection lay reclined, one atop the other, the ones behind the table toppled backward and the fore shelves knocked forward like some child’s tile-topple game started in the middle. This had caused the closer cabinets to launch their contents, some of which had been cast all the way to the entryway. These documents Kylo carefully sidestepped as he glanced at the massive bowing of the library walls. From the front to the far end, the mid-wall showed evidence of blunt indentation. Some singular impact had left an equal impression in all the surrounding durasteel. Yet, Kylo smelled no fire, no smoke—nothing electrical aside from the shorting lights. Nothing that would indicate a blast.

What he did smell was blood. No sooner had the familiar scent found him than the fragments of white armor came into view at the rear of the room. Lowering his readied weapon, Kylo reached out with his free hand and navigated the Force to the trooper. No energy flowed through the body anymore. The same was true of the other soldier, whom Kylo soon spotted near one of the two corners at his back. The vague impression of his body remained, imprinted in alloy above where he now slumped, his neck resting at an unnatural angle. Both Stormtroopers dead, both broken.

“Rey?” Kylo called, his bewilderment trumping his fury.

Nearing the rubble of the desk, Kylo grew aware of the reflection of polished boots in the distance. They lay sprawled and adjacent to the far dead security trooper, peeking out from the strewn archives and bits of chair that littered the floor. Again, Kylo reached out.

Alive. Just barely.

Brandishing his saber with renewed ferocity, Kylo thundered to the back of the library, where he righted the final two cases sheltering Hux and drew back to strike his vengeance. However, one look at his rival assured him there was no need.

The general had obviously caught an equal brunt of the blast, even if he had escaped any collisions. His lanky frame twisted in ways that reminded Kylo of Ben Solo’s childhood days of playing with a beloved Alderaanian marionette that had belonged to his mother. Indeed, Kylo did not have to lay hands on Hux’s limbs to detect the various fractures, breaks, and internal punctures. The sanguine halo forming wetly around the man’s fair face, so much redder than his copper hair, was evidence enough of that.

“You deserve worse,” Kylo eulogized, extinguishing his lightsaber.

A lone sniff added to the chorus of sparks beyond Kylo’s shoulders.

Reflexively, he pivoted and touched the hilt of his holstered weapon. The sniffling repeated and disappeared again.

Kylo peered at the opposite row of jagged cases and called out. “Rey?” No response.

Desperate, he retreated to the guidance embedded in his core. The pull was there—forever there, like any part of his being—though it was faint, struggling beneath the burden of his anger as it tended to do when he lost himself to darker emotions. Calming himself heightened it more and more toward vibrant normalcy, until, finally, he was able to follow the organic trail with familiar certainty. His body once again buzzed with her vitality.

Kylo tilted his head and looked into the depth of one of the titled caves still housing the holocrons, the sloe fullness of his hair falling from his shoulders. Just as he had felt, the soft length of a haunch appeared in time with the light flickering overhead. Taking far more care than he had for Hux, Kylo pushed and pulled on the two fallen cases until he was able to free them from the tumbled chain.

The treasure he unearthed, the most precious of his life, was faceless—a small, shivering coil curled tightly into itself. Even when Kylo fell to his knees and brushed the loosened red-brown strands off of her arm, Rey refused to lift her bent head from the nest of her folded limbs. Kylo peeled off his gloves and enclosed her tight frame in arms. The sniffling turned to stifled sobs beneath him. Then, in a fit of pure selfishness, he covered the exposed flesh—temples, forehead, fingers—with his large, grateful lips, just as he had in the Detention Center.

When Rey finally raised her face from its cradle, his wrath rekindled at the sight of Hux’s assault, rosy even on her inflamed skin. Seeing her this way, it suddenly struck Kylo how when she was happy, she radiated a contagious brilliance to which nothing could compare. In moments like the present, however, when her lashes matted and the apples of her cheeks were moist and her lower lip shook and her eyes mourned defeat—like that fateful day in the training room—she beguiled him beyond the limits of sanity. Her raw beauty. Her fragile confidence. Her wounded spirit. And above all else, here and now, her life, intact and once again teeming in his hands; the only thing that would ever matter.

Rey flooded into his arms then, coming alive as though his thoughts had awakened her from some melancholic trance. Inundated in emotions that were still new to him, Kylo silently rocked her against him in the flickers of destruction. Eventually, her tears and tremors subsided.

Chapter 31: Half-Truths

Chapter Text

31

“He will live.”

The news did not stir the grim figuration standing before Kylo, not that he would have expected it to.

Supreme Leader Snoke was stoic in a sea of checkered transparisteel, a small sunken vessel marooned in a sea of violet-red. Despite their ample layering, his dark velour robes indicated the unnatural crook of his narrow shoulders. Not even his lowered hood could hide those malformed twists and turns. On the contrary, it revealed the rarely seen aberrations of his bulbous skull, now shadowed by Morcanth’s ample glow but nonetheless as pale, scarred, and sinewy as every other surface of his exposed flesh.

Standing at the foot of Snoke’s reception throne, mere feet from the man who had guided him to greatness over the past decade, Kylo tasted only distaste behind his mask, surprised suddenly by how much the sight of his master disgusted him. Perhaps because his mind had grown so clouded, or perhaps because fate had so recently indulged him in such sublime beauty, he now felt a strange revulsion he had not known since the days when Ben Solo first met the old man on the outskirts of Luke’s compound.

“He will live, but he will require extensive implants in both legs, as well as in his spine and skull,” Kylo continued, careful to mask his repulsion. “The impact of the fall caused a multitude of fractures, one of which fully severed the spinal cord. Even after the implants and treatments, the rehabilitation will take several months, perhaps years. This is, of course, dependent on how long the coma lasts. The droids gave no estimation of when he might regain consciousness.”

Again nothing. At present, paranoia gripped Kylo as tightly as Rey had throughout the night. Had the report had been too thorough? Had his tone rung too invested? That possibility loomed and had ever since he began this dangerous game with his first well-intended lie. However, the truth remained that Kylo knew better than anyone that his master was no fool.

“This is most inconvenient,” the skeleton finally spoke with a genuine annoyance that immediately assuaged Kylo’s mind. “Sorjin has finished readying the new regiment at the Da’k base, the tracking technology is on the verge of being perfected, we are nearly finished finalizing the plans for the new base, and now that clumsy fool Hux has unwittingly betrayed my primary reason for his presence above the ranks. This, at the very eve of our arrival. He was to oversee all base operations, strategies, and regrouping while we continued the search for Skywalker.”

“The integrity of the rails is currently being assessed to ensure there are no other flaws that may be hazardous. The safety officer is to have his report to me within the hour.”

Yes, that had been the best Kylo could do in the limited time he was allotted. He had been forced to think quickly to exonerate her—to protect her the only remaining way he could having failed to protect her from Hux.

It won’t be you, he had thought while taking Rey to her room, carrying her—trembling and mute in his arms—for the first time since he had found her in the forest. Burying his lips in her soot-covered tendrils, he had silently willed his promise over and over. It won’t be you. Let them blame me. Let him kill me. It won’t be you.

However, Kylo’s frantic cover-up had proven completely convincing. And why should it not have? Even scrambling, he had been so meticulous. He had begun by bidding the Force to cart the bodies behind him and plunged deep into the heart of the Finalizer. There he had positioned them on the Storage hangar floor, far below the rows of readied transports, the reserve TIE fighters, and, most importantly, the suspended observation walkway stretching the room’s length far overhead.

He had encountered no one, he had overlooked nothing. The railings adjoining one junction of the Storage walkway had been easy to loosen. The Stormtroopers who currently toiled in Snoke’s library had been simple to persuade. A group of technicians sent to ready the transports had discovered the broken bodies after the “accident.” All appeared normal in the face of such abnormal circ*mstances.

All but Rey—his Rey, having revealed herself more like him than even he had foreseen. Since that fateful day on Starkiller Base, he had known she carried the capacity. Her power had flourished in that single day enough to equal years of any lesser Force-sensitive, ably beginning with her reversal of his probe and altogether bursting with the rupture of their bond. Indeed, their time together on the doomed base had revealed fragments, unnatural limpets well-hidden in the tranquil sands of her mind: hate, anger, fear, and, most obvious at the time, desire. Their violent duel aside, the latter had eclipsed the others, blossoming into the antithesis of all the feelings Kylo had been ordered to exploit in her. That love had claimed him, and her growing strength in the light had bewitched him, swaying him to abandon Snoke’s plan and preserve her goodness.

Kylo had forgotten. Rey had made him forget, with her resilience and her unwavering affection, with her mastery of the Force and her uncompromising rejection of the dark. Nevertheless, the potential remained, stowed away beneath the fragile serenity of her mind: the fear, the unbridled rage. The darkness. In that reality, hers was the mirror opposite of his own mentality, where the dangerous feelings had long ago been uprooted and, like the barbed vines of some ruthless weed, completely blanketed the surface of his aptitude for goodness.

Yes, Rey’s capacity was there, and it had revealed itself at last. Still in awe of its devastating consequences, Kylo knew without a doubt that it exceeded even his own terrible power. More so, deep within his most secret place—that hidden bedrock where the call to the light grew alongside his love for her—Kylo feared losing any precious part that made her his Rey: the flawless perfection that he worshipped, that he would never change despite all its ingrained complication. It was a truth he simply knew: He had to do whatever he could to save her from giving in to the dark side.

In his conviction to save Rey, Kylo knew another necessity. This—the real reason for requesting the audience with Snoke—had led him back to his mentor’s side.

Guarding his thoughts as he would always guard her, Kylo now added, “It is fortunate for Hux that he even survived, falling that distance. The medical droids believe he would be dead had the troopers not broken his fall.”

“Fortune does not favor the weak, my apprentice,” Snoke corrected him, connecting his twig-like fingers gently at his back. “If Hux does survive this embarrassment, his integrity as a commander of the First Order should still be questioned.”

“Yes, Supreme Leader.”

“What of the transports?”

“All authorized officers and personnel have disembarked. The first platoon of soldiers should be departing for Da’k as we speak.”

As if on cue, the stern of the first of many AALs appeared beyond the lower of Snoke’s shoulders. Soon clear of the Star Destroyer, the transport’s sublight engines boosted in silent fire to begin the ship’s descent, shrinking more and more until it was at last lost to the vapor swirling over the planet’s burgundy center.

Those clouds soon backlit the steep plunge of Snoke’s beak as he turned his head toward his throne. “How progresses our spirited protégé?”

Though Kylo had prepared himself for the inquiry, it still managed to catch him unprepared. The truth was most obviously not an option; however, outright lies were out of the question as well. As in everything, half-truths remained the only alternative, and Kylo now relied on his better judgment to navigate those dangerous waters.

“Since the moment I brought her to the First Order, I’ve been assessing her power. Even in this short of time, she has proven herself formidable in the ways of the Force. She commands it…speaks it…with a natural affluence that empowers her every ability. Her telekinetic talents—her attacks, defenses, interrogational skills—they grow stronger every day.”

All truths, Kylo thought—all sincere from the standpoint of such a novice tutor charged with guiding the even more inexperienced. With that, the opening he had sought presented itself.

“For these reasons, I feel it is time to discuss furthering her training.”

“Oh?” Snoke asked, his gravelly voice rising in that way Kylo knew meant only skepticism and sad*stic indulgence.

Confidence. Let him think you naïve. Let him forbid it at the worst. You have to try. She cannot be here any longer.

“She has accelerated at a pace beyond my expectations. I finally recognize in her our greatest weapon. Her potential in her natural draw to the dark side exceeds everything I had initially assumed about her. You were wise to pursue her power. I believe, with her on our side, the Resistance has no chance of surviving.”

Kylo paused in the planetary glare, letting the dust of his subtle flattery and mechanical reassurances settle before at last blowing it all away.

“I believe she is ready to wield her own lightsaber. I fully understand the timing may not seem ideal, but I am convinced it’s now imperative to take her to construct her weapon.”

The sinister smile line in Snoke’s corroded cheek presented itself, coiling, snakelike, upward. Again, he turned to monitor the passing transports. Inside his mask, Kylo tentatively steadied and calmed every part of his being.

“Long gone are the raw elements the Sith used to construct their crystals, as you know. If she is to construct a weapon, you must take her to Ilum, to the cave.”

Even unseen, Kylo nodded once in acknowledgement and relief. Not only had Snoke accepted the prospect, but he had voiced the critical details rather than leaving Kylo to plant those seeds himself.

“This is true, my master. I know she must choose, just as I did, and I believe delaying this step in her training will only sacrifice valuable time. I know Phasma and Sorjin are fully capable of acting in my and Hux’s stead.”

Kylo had not fully finished his careful placation before his master turned completely and regarded him with sly curiosity.

“Remove your helmet, my apprentice,” he said at last in an even tone. “I want to see your face.”

This order was, of course, not uncommon to Kylo. However, he was aware that Snoke demanded it only when he wanted to assess emotional control, particularly those little telltale giveaways he could always read like a map and use to his advantage.

Manipulate. The word rose in the jagged depths of Kylo’s mind and sank again just in time for his denuded eyes to look upon Snoke’s cratered moon face. Neither teacher nor student flinched in the uneasy seconds that slowed to a standstill.

It was Snoke who at last broke both his silence and his skillful scrutiny. “You’ve told me much, but your plan neglects a vital detail,” he lightly sighed, slinking out of his own shadow and past Kylo to pause at the foot of his icy pedestal. Even in that chill, the familiar stench of decay assailed Kylo’s senses in time with his foresight into Snoke’s implication.

“You speak of the girl’s achievements in the most practical terms,” the voice now gnarred at Kylo’s cowled back, “but you’ve failed to mention my greatest interest: Have you succeeded in turning her? You know as well as I that she must use the dark side to choose and deform her crystal. Has she embraced it?”

At last, there it was, the question.

Kylo knew as well as his master that all other details were of no real consequence in comparison to this one fundamental thing. At the center of its coal-black heart, the raw, superior power of the dark side demanded very little in terms of passed down discipline, training, and steady achievement. The Sith had known that the power could not be handed from one to another like a fiery torch. The dark side was a venom. Be direct, be fast, be strong—be whatever it takes to channel your aggression. Emotion—passion—was the essential foundation of the path to unchallenged strength, the ominous road Kylo had so long ago followed into the abyss. It was sheer irony that he suddenly found himself turning back to look at the sun.

Who are you anymore?

“Supreme Leader, I believe her acceptance is within our grasp. In your wisdom and perception, you no doubt saw the strength of the light in her power. I don’t believe it can be completely broken down in such a short time. It is hard as stone. But, like stone, it can disintegrate with time. It must be a progression. I have devoted the last few weeks to chipping away at it, piece by piece, and I believe I am on the brink of bending her completely to our will.”

Play the part. Be Kylo Ren. Try to remember who you are.

But not even in the most sinister heights of his rage had Kylo ever known the passion that he did with Rey. Those emotions—the love he knew for her—had overpowered all else and offered him unimaginable comfort in spite of how they subjugated his very being, how they crushed him….

Kylo could still see the ravaged surfaces of the library, every overturned case, all the muddy tears…and the feel of shattered bodies: the devastating fallout of their passion within Rey.

“I have seen the promise. On the occasions she has given in to her hatred, she has shown power the likes of which I’ve never seen. She has started down the path. I know she will embrace it, that it will soon consume her. When that happens, I promise you that Luke Skywalker will no longer be a concern.”

Far in the distance, another AAL accelerated toward the crimson mist and swung wide among the outlying stars. This transport illuminated a brilliant silver in the glow of the planet’s sun, its destination no doubt one of the outposts at the world’s edge. Kylo now tried to spot himself there, the anomalous Kylo Ren he had become in the grey with Rey. He longed to be there, a tiny speck isolated from the reach of the First Order, somewhere far removed from the person who now lauded his every buried fear for his other half.

“I believe the process of constructing her lightsaber will prove to be a turning point in her seduction. She is already too far from the light to be led to a pure crystal. It will solidify her allegiance to the dark side of the Force. It will also be a symbol of her devotion to you and the First Order.” And then, watching the transport disappear into that faraway place—that exotic exile—Kylo heard himself swear to his mentor, “I will make sure of it.”

The great hall was again dead stillness, the outlying corners of its towering walls projecting only the ship’s faint, symptomatic hum. Of course, Kylo did not require the hush. A full-fledged battle could have erupted in the dim surrounding him and he still would have been able to sense Snoke’s eyes burning straight through his broad back as though watching for the first transport’s return. Fighting off the nausea of his wretchedness, Kylo now drew upon years of training and readied himself for everything and anything.

“Very well,” Kylo heard at last. “Take your pupil to Ilum.”

Turning, he saw only the glossy ripples of those same plush garments. Like the transports, his master’s robes diminished as they glided over the white walkway and left Kylo alone in bloody luminescence. Snoke’s hood again obscured the odious origin of the growl that now fell heavily upon his disciple.

“On the contrary, Kylo Ren, now is the ideal time. The First Order is in rehabilitation. It is vital that we do everything possible to reemerge stronger and more powerful than ever before. Go on, but do not dally. I need assistance on Da’k.”

“Of course, my master,” Kylo affirmed, thankful to take a knee and lower his weary eyes.

Somewhere in the distance, the deceptively soft footsteps ceased and the great grey entryway to the foyer slid apart with an automated hiss.

“One more thing, my apprentice. I want the girl Rey to be given complete clearance to pilot your shuttle to and from the base.”

Kylo looked up in surprise at the faceless phantom who now paused on the threshold. “Supreme Leader?”

“Let us simply say…you have convinced me.”

With that, Snoke disappeared behind militarized steel.

Chapter 32: Our First Steps

Chapter Text

32

Captain Phasma was speaking.

Rey knew this by sheer contiguity. She perceived the conversation as though lolled on sea floor sands, dreaming in syrupy slowness beneath the crashing waves of her island. Numb and suspended, she seemed to float beneath the two faceless entities who now communicated with voices not their own.

Indeed, she felt as though she would be swept out to some cold, uncertain depths were it not for the lifeline that held her firmly in place. Even in Rey’s disconnect, that cord was uncompromising, steadying her with a sobering vibrancy that snapped her back every time the melancholy and shame threatened to rip her away forever.

The other end of that support secretly radiated at her side. Rey did not have to listen to know he said only what was necessary, commanding with as much brevity as possible. In fact, his urgency seemed to exceed her own.

Rey merely focused on the command shuttle—fully readied and much improved from how she had left it those weeks ago—as it sat in the distance. Despite the sinister associations its appearance suggested, the shuttle was suddenly a symbol of promise, its long ailerons raised like some unjessed hawk, free in mid-flap. The gaping beak of its lowered ramp invited Rey to somewhere, anywhere in the black void of space that lay behind it. Anywhere but here.

Not just anywhere, Rey thought, the reality of seeing the spacecraft—really there, in front of her—easing the negative energies that drained her soul. Soon they would arrive at Ilum, and then she would craft her weapon the way Luke Skywalker had described in his reading of The Jedi Path. Discovering her very own crystal was a moment Rey had clearly envisioned many times despite the recent fog of her shared future. Suffice it to say, it was a milestone she had longed to reach through diligence and dedication. Never would she have imagined the time would come shrouded in such doubt.

Now, on the cusp of following in the footsteps of countless Jedi and other Force-sensitive warriors throughout history, Rey felt as utterly unworthy to take up a lightsaber of her own as Kylo felt to touch her.

She had failed. Despite all her efforts, she had failed the very essence of the Jedi Order so gravely.

Rey had known better. Even if she had not just learned so much from Luke’s holocron, she had known better in her heart. Yet, finally confronted, she had given way to her emotions, toppling headlong into that raw, terrible place where she found herself unrecognizable. Yes, she had been there before, sucked into that deep, desperate void, but what had she known of the Force as a child? Now, having experienced and learned all she had, she should have known better. She should have trusted in the Force and controlled her fear.

Perhaps even more troubling a thought: If she were truly meant to be a true Jedi, she should not have felt those emotions at all.

You promised, Rey lamented, drifting in the deep. You promised you wouldn’t let Snoke be right. You promised you would always fight. Fight for yourself. Fight for him.

Turning from the smoky steel of the shuttle, Rey stared hazily at the stannic profile of the commander of the First Order. To anyone else, Kylo Ren was barely a person. Rather, he was a symbol—a one-dimensional figurehead of the movement. Phasma, the officers, all of them…they did not see him. They saw only ashen metal, elusive power, and a history of remorseless strength: something mechanical and single-minded in purpose. Vader reborn. In his years of manipulation, even Snoke had discounted Kylo. To Snoke, his apprentice had been the ideal instrument at the right time, no more human than the promise of his turmoil and the powerful blood that fed it.

Rey knew better than any of them.

He had shown her and her alone. Only she knew Ben Solo dwelled within Kylo Ren, and only she had been claimed by the amalgam of the two. He remained the vibrant mainstay that, every day, simultaneously grounded, enlivened, and perplexed her.

She would have reached for him then and there if they had been alone and her arms had not felt so heavy and lifeless inside their muslin wrappings. The enormity of Kylo Ren, however…the enormity of it all…was so…difficult. It demanded everything from her. Luke’s holocron had confirmed why it was so arduous, how their sunken feelings for each other had sabotaged her progress even before she had begun to use the Force.

How would she ever become a Jedi with Kylo Ren running through her veins? How would she ever be able to control the terrible ticking charge within when their emotions constantly fed it?

There is no emotion, there is peace.
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
There is no passion, there is serenity.
There is no chaos, there is harmony.
There is no death, there is the Force.

No passion. No emotion….

The daunting truth left Rey reeling. Weak and dissolving, she swirled cloudily the way she imagined the Jakku surface would overcome by an apocalyptic sea.

No death.

She had not meant to kill them. Even Hux. She had not wanted that.

What if I was never meant to be a Jedi?

All at once, Rey’s senses were inundated with the scent of rich leather and fairytale forests.

Back on the rippling surface above the murk, Rey grew aware that Phasma had gone and she and Kylo remained, two fixed figures lost in the center of an animated arena. The Finalizer’s remote hum again magnified in her ears, as did the faint banter of technicians amplified somewhere in the hollow alcoves of the bay’s lighted walls. At her side, Kylo’s matte visor titled down toward her blankly, and Rey knew he was studying her with concealed intensity.

Rey straightened herself with leaden hands and glanced about, finding more maintenance technicians and officers shuffling about than she had perceived. The frost that lined her lungs fortified in the cool blue glow that surrounded them. It was so cold down there, beneath the waves….

“It’s time.”

Rey only nodded her agreement with his voice in her head, first slowly, then more rapidly as she glanced around at the enemy they would soon leave behind. For days on end, she had known the somber uniforms of the officers, the blanched armor of the troopers, the synthetic air, the beryl glows, the sterile light, the shadows—the opposing backdrop to her renegade heart. Somewhere amidst it all, also, was Snoke, sitting atop his foul throne, waiting for her to do the unthinkable. He had known the whole time what she was capable of….

No! Rey darted forward, physically escaping the doubt that leered over her. Anywhere but here, she breathed to herself, each step leading her—leading them—closer to escape. It will be all right. As soon as we’re away from all of them, everything will be all right.

You promised.

All at once, Kylo towered at Rey’s side and remained there as though it did not matter that they appeared as equals. His distinctive stride patted loudly on the lacquer next to her silent footsteps, and with each crisp tap of his boots, she concentrated harder on the peace of mind leaving the First Order promised.

Nearing the shuttle, Rey at last spied the creeping outline of what she knew had to be Morcanth as it began to appear beyond the bay’s magnetic shield. The closer they walked, the more its massive border devoured the promising darkness of space, stretching the entire height of the hangar’s concave opening. Rey knew that was where they all had gone. There was most certainly a base below, an alternate to Starkiller hidden somewhere beneath swirling clouds and surfaces the color of cheap Outpost wine spilled on sand. The color of blood drying on her thighs.

Instantly, Rey’s mind was awash in that long-ago moment; how she had shaken and throbbed and panicked next to Kylo as they both recovered from the loss of her chastity. Yet, even then, broken and exposed in every way, she had known as surely as she knew now that she would recognize the dark if it had claimed her. Like him, despite all the bad Rey had done, the light of the Force somehow persevered in her. And if it survived that moment—those moments—when she had been at her absolute lowest, it had to be able to survive this. She had merely to fight to keep it alive. The light lingered and pulled her onward as surely as it had dragged her through the stars, to the figure at her side.

Anything is possible with the Force, Rey. His words. They carried her still. At present—at last—they carried her onto the platform and to the base of the shuttle’s banded ramp. The first step up the incline was successful in blocking out the grisly planet and all that lay at the forefront. For that simple courtesy alone, Rey was grateful. More than that, she sensed relief, finding that her mien grew positively lighter with each climb.

Seemingly unconcerned with who might see, Kylo had removed his hood and gloves and unlatched his helmet the moment they ascended. Barely a second passed before Rey felt the heated tingle of his bare hand engulfing hers. It clasped with a gentleness that belied its stability, and as Rey and Kylo entered the belly of the ship, those powerful fingers lifted hers to hold them fast to his core.

At the secluded crest of the ramp, Kylo stopped them both in their tracks. His free hand then fell upon her before Rey could even turn to face him, brushing over her forehead and taming the few nagging strands of hair that had loosened from her gathers. The touch was so warm, so welcome, so required that she would have shown her gratitude in tears had a glimmer of hope not just flickered. As a consolation, Rey allowed her weary temple to rest against his large palm, shutting out everything but the perfection of his comfort.

“I’m fine,” she volunteered, extinguishing his questions before they could come.

“You’re not,” Kylo gently insisted. “I feel it.”

Rey gripped his ribbed cuff and reopened her blinking eyes toward the base of the ramp, now dim and vacant beyond his pale fingers and the entryway’s stark side-lights. All evidence of the cruel world outside was at last hidden from sight.

Of course he can feel it.

“Rey….”

Her brows furrowed against his energetic skin. Turning to look up, Rey recognized the small tells that betrayed his stony façade: the tensing V of his steep jaw, the scouring of his eyes beneath spilling hair, the tightening and release of his ample lips. The dark beauty of his intensity never ceased to take her aback.

He worried for her. He was sorry. He blamed himself for leaving her alone in the library. He was responsible for not getting her away from the First Order sooner. He felt guilt for ever tempting her to the dark side. His instincts were in constant conflict with his actions. He feared the future. He questioned what to do after their mission to Ilum was complete. All this and more Rey knew without asking, and all of it reinforced the concession that fueled her devotion: He felt the same way.

“I can’t let anything happen to you again,” Kylo said at last. “I’m not sure of what I’ll have to do to keep you safe. I don’t know what I’ll have to give up, how far we’ll have to go. But I’ll do it. I’ll do whatever it takes.” The rosy slope of his scar and the hoods of his inset eyes had unconsciously risen, communicating an obvious concern Rey had not seen since that terrible day in the interrogation room when she, restrained and moments from death, had led him back from the brink. The energy of his touch now slid down to her shoulders and gripped the bare parts of her arms as though she would be ripped from him right then and there.

“We don’t have to think that far ahead just yet. Look where we are now. Once we’re away from them…once we’re away from him, we can take it as it comes.” Rey then forced a smile to ease both their minds. “You risked everything to get us here.”

“I risked nothing but you. There’s nothing else anymore. I should have done it sooner, no matter how illogical and suspicious it would appear. I was a fool to have waited so long, to have endangered you the way I did. I’ve known for so long that you were never meant to be here.”

“You were smart to wait for the right moment. Imagine our chances if we’d simply run. And please don’t say that I wasn’t meant to be here. I was meant to be with you, wherever you are…even if you had to kidnap me to get me there.”

Above her, Kylo’s anxious stare suddenly rolled upward in nervous exasperation as though shocked that she could make a joke at a time like this.

“I’m an utter bastard, I remember,” he sighed, surprising Rey by playing along.

Rey’s smile instantly grew genuine. She seized the opportunity to reach up and thread cold fingers through the thick hair overlying his collar. “Do you remember that you said we’ll find a way?”

The fleeting playfulness retreated from his voice as his body stiffened in her hand. “Yes,” Kylo whispered, tilting his head and falling to her mouth so gradually as to seem almost wary. When his lush lips did find hers in the heart of the shuttle, they tread in unison with the bond: an initial jolt that had to be overcome, then lightly, cautiously—surface against surface—then more and more, until nothing less than deep would satisfy and Rey’s breath was stolen from her body. And when she finally found the willpower to break away and the sublime music their syncopated hearts made faded to a murmur, they both wavered from the rush of that fateful narcotic.

“What do you say?” Rey grinned, trembling in the void behind her eyelids. “Get us out of here?”

“What do you say you get us out of here?”

Rey’s chest froze mid-shudder. When she opened her eyes, she was greeted by the crescent of Kylo’s modest smile.

“What do you mean?”

“You pilot the ship.”

Unsure of his rouse, Rey released the folds of his robes from her fist and gave him a halfhearted push backward. “That’s not funny, Kylo.”

“Rey,” he said sternly, taking her again by the shoulders. “Take us out of here.”

Rey squinted, studying the exquisite umber of his softened eyes for any glimmer of revelation. He did not flinch. Instead, he released her and turned away, his smile intact. She watched him tap briefly at the control panel between the life support cabinets and the storage before blending into the shadows of the co*ckpit. Immediately, the entry ramp beneath came to life, hissing in compliance as it rose to meet her feet. When the resounding clank echoed throughout the hull—when they were at last sealed away from everyone and everything—only then did Rey cross the evened surface with curiosity.

The co*ckpit Rey remembered so well was bathed in pitch save for the few console lights that illuminated Kylo’s oblong cheek. He sat in the co-pilot’s chair, his full attention turned to flipping and activating the necessary controls to ready the shuttle’s sublight engines. Resting her arm on one of the auxiliary seats, Rey seized the opportunity to admire his cool tenacity before turning her sights to the empty pilot station he had left for her.

He meant it, she soon realized, her pulse enlivening in a surge of excitement. Kylo was giving her control of the ship. The mere prospect of again being at the helm of the Upsilon shuttle—of any ship—breathed new life into her deflated spirits. Her thoughts as an apprentice behind First Order walls had been so preoccupied that she had not realized how much she missed that simple freedom. But how would a prisoner like her be allowed to leave the Finalizer?

Placing her complete trust in him, Rey assumed the pilot’s chair across from Kylo and, as though it were just another one of many flights they had shared, assisted him in preparing the ship. Instantly, her tenure with the controls of the old Lambda in the outskirts of the Starship Graveyard flooded back. On its heels rode the more recent memory of hightailing the contemporary version away from Starkiller Base with fractions of a second to spare. She never would have believed they’d make it out alive. She never would have imagined all that was to follow.

Hearing the ion engines yawn to life, Rey activated the display monitor and deselected the ship’s idle settings. Slowly, the sloped windows surrounding them cleared and let in the cerulean light of their surroundings. Rey instantly appreciated that the new transparisteel was no longer tinted with the crimson that had haunted her before. The trade-off, however, was a clean view of the bay’s towering rear walls, docked TIE fighters, and other remnants of the First Order that Rey had not wished to see again.

When all that remained was to engage the manual controls, Rey looked to her co-pilot with lingering uncertainty. He had been patiently watching her, still watched her, with his normal steely fascination, as though the sight of her working gave even the most mundane tasks new allure. That same bottomless gaze held Rey’s as he reached down to activate the comlink between them.

The link went online and soon hummed as the recipient on the other end of the channel waited. Rey, however, was suddenly devoid of words.

“Command Shuttle 2, do you copy?”

Kylo’s large, lithe fingers extended from the darkness and covered hers on the controls. The nod he gave her was only patient and encouraging.

“Command Shuttle 2…” Rey both began and stopped. The moment she had imagined for so long was finally here. “Command Shuttle 2 seeking departure clearance from Starboard Launch Bay Platform 1. Acting shuttle pilot Rey requesting.”

“Affirmative, Command Shuttle 2. You are cleared for departure.”

Without the slightest provocation, the words of the universe came to Rey’s mind.

“Rey, these are your first steps.”

Our, she thought, feeling the bond between them course in powerful harmony. These are our first steps.

Chapter 33: A New Destiny

Chapter Text

33

Stillness.

Rey had set foot upon the same winding path twice before. She had overstepped the same fallen logs, navigated the same jutting rocks, and brushed the same mossy timbers. Once had been real—a living nightmare in which she had fled the faceless monster who pursued her. In the other instance—a thing of dreams—the earthen trail had ultimately led her to those same threatening arms.

Now seemed neither prophecy nor reality. Every inch of frond glittered with an alien sheen that varnished its brilliant emerald. So lustrous had the forest become that Rey knew she would have been blinded had the sun reached the understory the way it had that fateful day. But this time, the canopy left her in roseate dusk, a hazy gallery drenched in pale shadows and coral highlights.

Her legs carried her through the glossy groves, and yet she did not appear to move. The ivory wrappings that sheathed her body billowed behind her like milk into water. The waves of her unbound mane stirred and fell over her shoulders like fibers of the lightest cloth.

Time seemed to have faded in her fabled forest, the air sucked out. Here and now, not a creature, not a leaf, not even her own footsteps made a sound. Her sacred woodland had been overtaken by an eerie…

Stillness.

Rey marveled at this, confined to it but unworried in her role as a passive wanderer. In truth, she might have been more alarmed if he had not been at her side.

Yes, Kylo was with her. She knew her hand rested in his between them. When she looked to him, she found the treasured impression safeguarded in her soul—him watching her with irises the color of his robes, his hair, and the porcelain of his boundless cheek deceptively fragile beneath its scar. Watching her behind the ghostly specks of glister that fell slowly and softly around them. Forever watching her…but calm, seemingly accepting of the phantom landscape their meeting place had become. Accepting of their fate.

“…swimming in the Force in our every moment….”

The voice, fixed and immeasurable all at once, broke the silence.

Rey stopped, and Kylo with her. She looked about for the source, but every direction ahead appeared the same endless expanse of shadowed blush and shimmering bark.

“—breathing it, tasting it, riding its currents to our unique destinies.”

Where is it coming from?

Grasping Kylo’s hand tightly, Rey shifted in the air’s viscosity and searched behind them. But the origin of the voice was not there. Nothing was there, as though she and Kylo had emerged from total darkness.

The cave is back there, isn’t it?

“The Living Force is raw and close at hand.”

Where are you?

Though she could not place it, Rey was certain she knew the speaker. The universe did not speak to her; the voice was more condensed, more human—words that had been freshly imprinted upon her mind.

All at once, Kylo stepped forward and, holding fast to Rey’s hand, ushered her on without a word.

Kylo must know where to find him.

Perhaps because she was now being led, the idea of discovering the source now filled Rey with dread. As in life, however, her body obeyed Kylo’s gentle tug. Together, there was nothing to fear. He would always be with her as he was now, the sable hems of his cloak unfurling around them like thick molasses as he led her through the falling tinsel and towering trees.

I trust you, Kylo.

Devoid of time and space, Rey had no perception of whether their journey stretched on and or elapsed rapidly. This dominion operated free from the constraints of reality. Their two bodies seemed to glide through brushwood and thicket, around the bulbous boulders and beneath the fallen firs. Though he never looked back, Kylo guided her gently through the frosted sage, and Rey at last found herself content to be guided in this place she did not know. Or did she know it?

This gorge.

Rey studied the stones that now engulfed them as they descended into a glistening gully. At some primordial point, the earth had cracked and opened its rocky cavity to swallow them. The path now appeared all too familiar to Rey despite the crystalline shimmer that dusted its tufted walls.

She did know it. It was where they had first met, where he had emerged from the rocks, lightsaber scorching, like some predator descending for the killing swoop. Yes, it was here that he had stolen her, body and mind. He had heard so much about her….

We’re leaving the forest. We’re going back to the water.

“It is the life energy tingling around you….”

Now Rey could sense what Kylo seemed to have known all along. The voice sounded ahead of them, though it never grew louder the farther they traveled through the trees and the twilight.

“…when you pass among plants and animals….”

Soon, the glow over Kylo’s generous shoulder grew brighter. Rey held tightly behind him and watched the topiary taper at their sides. The obeliscal shadows of her cathedral began to dwindle, the twinkling trunks surrounding them growing fewer and fewer, and she soon realized the canopy was yielding to some sort of clearing.

When they had fully emerged from the forest and Rey’s feet settled upon vibrant grasses, she found herself awash in murky sunlight the color of forgotten flowers and ripened citrus. Only then did her guide conclude their journey.

Rejoining Kylo’s side, Rey again saw what she knew to be the lake bordering Maz Kanata’s castle. However, it had transformed to a vast ocean that now washed soundlessly into the rocky cliffs beneath their meadow. And Maz’s castle—full of secrets and revelations—was entirely gone. In its place stood Rey’s island—unmistakably Rey’s island—connected to the mainland by a long, narrow strip of land barely as wide as she was tall. Her island; the safe place. Although it was not large, it all but dominated the bay, its jagged body hiding the bulk of the setting sun and slate-stained waves that fought to bypass it.

It’s been so long.

Rey smiled to see the familiar sight after so many weeks. The island brought her joy despite the unfriendly rifts of its unforgiving peaks and cut valleys. Moreover, like the grass on which she and Kylo now stood, the island appeared devoid of the strange spell that had befallen the forest at their backs. Though bathed in shadow, the steep ledges and craggy hillsides were the same rich verdigris she had been robbed of all her life. The old sight of the stone staircase remained, twisting upward among the lichen-spotted boulders to that zenith where…

“The Unifying Force is a vast cosmic power.”

…where it remained. That incredible energy. Its aura seemed a living, breathing thing, swelling and recessing in a slack succession too subtle to see. As before, it emitted from the basin of the highest bluffs the way it first had when Kylo had followed and taken advantage of her mind, and, as before, it beckoned to Rey.

This is where I’m supposed to be now.

Beyond curiosity, Rey succumbed to what she inherently knew to be fate. After all, had it not been calling to her since those early, languorous days following her power’s forceful awakening? Had it not suddenly appeared in the heart of her island?

No sooner had Rey taken the first steps to join it was she anchored in place. An unmovable weight held her back. When she looked to her outstretched arm and the precarious place where white met black at the joining of pale hands, her confusion voiced the question. Kylo only nodded down at her, the teardrop of his full lower lip soft and his demeanor more confident than she had ever seen.

The answer was no. He was not going with her. Just as he knew where to lead her, he seemed to know she had to go alone.

Although Rey felt a million parsecs removed from her body, an alarm sounded through the entirety of her being. To be separated from him, even briefly, now when they had just found each other was a requirement she was not sure she could endure. It implicated so much more than any two beings in the galaxy could understand, more than leaving a lover, more than losing a limb…. It threatened the loss of everything.

Cautiously, Rey unlocked her fingers from the chain their hands had created, watching his sink back through the syrupy air and disappear into the inky pool of his cloak. She studied his face again, desperate for any small semblance of doubt to excuse her leaving. Kylo, however, was silent acceptance, impassive but warm in the smoky titian sunlight.

“The Unifying Force is the stars and galaxies….”

Gradually, cautiously, Rey turned from the extension of herself and began her journey. Despite the unseen weight of the atmosphere around her, Rey surpassed the cliff drop quickly and stepped onto the thin walkway, its sedgy carpet limp and dingy in the deep shadow of the great island. On either side of the isthmus, the ocean broke and burst upward in a series of foamy geysers. Each crash was as muted as the forest, driven to collision by the silent sea wind that cascaded the many dove-tails of Rey’s translucent robes. She did not peer over to watch, nor did she glance down to ensure the accuracy of her footing. Rey simply followed the path laid out for her.

When the natural bridge had been crossed and Rey stood minuscule at the base of her island’s ancient stairway, she looked to the mainland for her heart’s reassurance. Yes, everything was all right; Kylo was still there, still with her, as fixed and statuesque as the forest rising behind him.

And so, Rey continued, ascending the eroded steps she found she knew all too well. Indeed, each turn that presented itself was natural, as though she had rounded it many times over. The steep inclines became predictable, the breaks in the stone expected. There was soon no question that she had already admired the valley beds of waxen wildflowers that vibrated in the seaside air. This familiarity struck Rey in flashes of memory, ones she knew could not be real. They were memories forged in dreams, and they had remained with her. How many times had she scaled her island to know its map so intimately?

All the while Rey climbed, her sights remained fixed upon the guest presence far above her. Occasionally she would glance below to make sure Kylo had not left her, and the relief of seeing him—even reduced to a mere figure in black, ever smaller and more out of place among the seascape—provided the necessary encouragement to drive her onward and upward.

Even when she could not see the aura above her—when it was obscured by crumbling wall or decaying ledge—Rey could feel it, perceiving the energetic way it disturbed the Force, just as it had upon its first invasion of her consciousness. She felt herself drawn to it, to the light she recognized in it. Despite its immense power, it radiated with a purity Rey had never been able to perceive in Kylo, neither in his darkness nor in the grey. Its presence comforted her, the clarity it promised and the wisdom of the words Rey already knew.

“…the rippling surface of space and time.”

At last, Rey reached the final ruined stair atop the highest cliff. She stopped, neither weary nor winded, and beheld the stooping dale from which the power called. It beamed before her, emanating from the core of a single tree on the far side of the valley that Rey had never before seen. Devoid of leaves or branches, the tree’s enormous base gave way to three large trunks placed evenly around a much taller fourth trunk. The growth was gargantuan albeit lifeless, with only splintered, sunlit tops where foliage should have been, and Rey suddenly wondered how such untainted vibrancy in the Force could come from such a sad, lifeless thing.

“It is this voice that whispers of your destiny….”

The origin’s grisly appearance aside, Rey knew…Rey understood in her soul that it was where she was meant to be now. Now, in this moment, she was meant to be with the light.

Kylo, come with me….

Smiling, Rey turned back to the open sky, her eyes scaling the vast expanse she had just conquered until she found her companion, now only a single dark star outlying the canopy of a lush universe. Kylo watching her. Kylo seeing that she had made it. Kylo…turning around?

The contentment of Rey’s cheeks came crashing down as she watched the figure that was Kylo Ren present the fullness of his cloak and begin walking back to the forest.

Kylo? Kylo!

Rey sprang forward in a panic, catching and righting herself mid-step lest she tumble headfirst over the ledge and splatter upon the rocks below. But that was inconsequential now. She could not breathe for a choking sensation—the sharpened desperation driving into her body. He…he was leaving her!

No. No! Where are you going? Don’t leave me, Kylo! Come back!

The tears came then as if they had been waiting, streaming almost unnaturally fast down her quivering cheeks. Her mind raced as she called to him in screams that relented to sobs. What was she to do? She could not possibly make it back down the staircase in time to stop him. Force, what could she do?

No! Kylo, please! Please don’t go! Please don’t leave me!

But it was useless. He seemed not to hear her no matter how she shrieked, no matter how her cries cut through the silence and echoed through the bluffs. As her body doubled up with anguish, Rey wrapped her arms around where it hurt and clawed at her sides, her shoulders, and all the other pieces she would sacrifice to stop him.

How? How could he leave her if he loved her? How could she be without him?

Kylo! Please come back! Please don’t leave me alone again….

Rey’s mouth distorted in helpless misery as the ebony figure disappeared into the wall of enchanted wood. Breathlessly, she succumbed to the weight crushing her chest, and as her screams subsided, she swore the echo that traveled through the glen at her back was not her own. No, it was the same child’s voice from Maz’s castle ringing sharply through the hills, picking up where hers had left off.

"No! Come back! No!"

And as Rey shut out the world in resignation to despair, another voice filled her ears. It was neither the child nor the voice that had guided her to the valley. It was the voice of the universe, as soothing and celestial as a mother’s arms.

“Rey, it’s all right. It’s all right, Rey.”

Rey lamented in her darkness, powerless to stifle her sobs, unable to bear the thought of never touching him again. The thought of being alone again.

“It’s just for a short time. Just a short time, Rey.”

Through her tears, Rey turned again to look upon the safe place in the heart of the old tree. Although the universe spoke all around her, the sacred place was where her destiny called.

“They were wrong, Rey. It is possible. Love is possible. It can be done. You will be the one to show them.”

The one? What do you mean 'just for a short time'? Why does he have to leave?

“Love transcends emotion. Love is not weakness. It is strength.”

It can be done? I don’t understand. What’s possible?

“Coexistence. Love and peace, together. You are the one to show them. Anything is possible with the Force, Rey.”

But I don’t understand. Please tell me what you mean.

Only silence answered Rey, the returning stillness of the island and everything around it, and although the universe had again spoken its truths to her, Rey felt more lost than ever. Confused and devastated, she wept in the well of her loneliness, crying just as she had that morning—that hot, sunlit morning like a dream—after the fire, after the rain, after the bloodshed and the bodies and the bad men, when they had first arrived on Jakku.

“It’s all right, Rey. Rey, wake up. It’s all right.”

Chapter 34: The Storm

Chapter Text

34

“Rey, it’s all right.”

Kylo lay a naked hand on the crook of his companion’s arm and shook cautiously, as though any rougher motion might ignite the fierce power that poured from her slender frame. Even if he had not heard her—the wails of some poor wounded thing suffering deep within the shuttle—he would have sensed the surge in the Force, especially when the hour prior had somewhat calmed his unquiet mind.

He had sat in the hush of her tiredness, all but his face camouflaged in the co*ckpit shadows. There his thoughts had been sucked into the whirlwind of the blinding storm that confined them to the shuttle. He had always found that time spent physically removed from Snoke and the First Order brought a necessary clarity that reinvigorated his drive, but to be alone with her at long last elicited an altogether different stream of feelings. Relief and rumination, perhaps even repose…something akin to a comfort.

Returning to Ilum after so many years, knowing the caves lay not far in the white-washed distance, Kylo had recalled his two previous visits. The second he remembered far more vividly. He had used the last of Luke’s mandatory self-sufficiency training periods to leave the temple, the planet, and meet Snoke there, in the Unknown Regions. Then, without so much as a word, he had followed his master—who, to this day, was much more mobile than appearances would suggest—like a mindless droid into that frozen cavern across the tundra. Of course, he had known without asking where Snoke was leading him: It was the place Luke had told Ben Solo never to go when, years before, he had taken his nephew to the ruins of Ilum’s Jedi temple.

For the first time in a decade, Kylo had tried to remember little Ben Solo’s thrill on that day when Luke had sent him to find his kyber crystal. As with many memories of his former self, Kylo struggled to pry the vision from the depths of his subconscious. When he did at last, it replayed in his mind as most from that time did: more akin to viewing a holocron than reliving something that had happened to him. The bits and pieces he had managed to unearth—the hopeful weeks leading up the journey, C-3PO’s message from his mother reassuring him of how proud she was, the other pupils questioning why he and Luke were going alone, the piercing cold, the frosted pillars of the decrepit temple—they all paled in clarity next to one memory: that moment of his solitary Gathering when sad but obedient Ben Solo, after his years of looking forward to that rite of passage, first saw the pale illumination of his crystal. The azure glow had been so faint, so very weak. But that was all the light side of the Force had chosen to offer him.

The later expedition with Snoke had been much simpler, his mind so much clearer with the knowledge of what he was meant to become. No excitement or joy entered into that day with Snoke, but neither did it present anxiety or doubt. Unlike Luke’s long-winded speeches and insistence on reviving long-dead rituals, Snoke’s guidance for choosing the new crystal had been candid and concise. After all, he trusted the boy’s instincts and abilities…unlike everyone else. And Snoke had been right: How much more honest and empowering it had been for young Ben to engage his raw emotions rather than suppress them! He’d had only to claw through the pain to hear the dark side carry his crystal’s call, and that shard, like a fiery beacon melting the icy depths of that forbidden place, had been equally fractured and alone.

All these years later, it had only suddenly struck Kylo that his younger self never reflected on the strange turn of fate that led him to the heart of his weapon as a student of the dark side rather than the pupil of the light. He had accepted his destiny as he had accepted the inevitability of his rise to power: as Darth Vader’s bloodline heir. Back then, he had been so fueled by rage, so ready to extinguish every sect of all who had rejected and underestimated him. In the meantime, 10 years had flown by in the gale of that same hatred, accelerating ever faster in a sanguine blur of conviction, vengeance, and bloodshed. Bloodshed especially. The other padawans, the eighth knight, the scattered Jedi, the hundreds of others, and…and even his own….

But Rey’s appearance had brought time to its knees. Watching the snow swirl outside the transparisteel, Kylo had realized that, without Rey, he would have willingly lived a lifetime—however long was necessary—in an instant and dedicated every passing decade to securing his and his master’s vision: the new order that would correct the galaxy. Before now, his life had been expendable in pursuit of that dream, because there had been nothing else for him. Nothing else existed.

Had it been Snoke’s vision all along? Why did her presence lead him to challenge everything he had till now followed without question? Her belief in him, and even the bond itself, seemed to come from a place of such purity despite him; Kylo found it impossible to escape the new lens their influence provided his every thought.

Who am I now? Kylo had questioned, ashamed that those same entombed parts of his mind secretly wished the light would speak to him, guide him...the way it did her. How can I exist to finally deserve her? To help her? And then the greatest question they now faced, the one he had been avoiding even before hyperspace had dropped them into Ilum’s ice-blue orbit: What will we do when the mission is complete?

To his surprise, the Force had answered, though not in the words for which he had hoped. It spoke only in disruption. He was soon able to make out Rey’s voice over the hum of the cabin’s resting power supply. Leaving his cloak and gloves on the pilot’s seat, he had followed the trail of the disturbance as it vibrated, sharp and intensifying, through his general sensitivity and heated the exposed mainline of their connection. For a moment, he imagined an intruder, perhaps some agent of Hux’s, somehow stowed away on the shuttle and now threatening his Rey. His hand had fallen instinctively to the lengthy hilt of his lightsaber. Blood would be spilled.

However, when Kylo rounded the storage corridor corner, he had found Rey still in the cargo hold, asleep in the center of the medical gurney he had ordered installed before they left the Finalizer. She was just as he had left her, and yet not at all. Even in the shadows, the perspiration that dotted her smooth forehead caught the fluorescent corridor lights. Those lights also revealed the pained grimace that twisted her cheerful beauty. Her cheeks were streaked with tears, and her closed lips restrained the drawn-out groans of her distress.

Brushing away the hair fallen over his eyes, Kylo had quietly lowered himself to the edge of the oversized cot and watched her with innocent fascination. Whatever was troubling her—whatever she dreamed—was real enough to be believed. Real enough to upset her peace in the Force.

Satisfied that she was not ill or injured, he’d dwelled on the belief that he had only to step foot in the unguarded palace of her mind and he would be able to see as she did. In fact, he was certain of it. By this time, Kylo knew better than to doubt the radical agency of their bond. After all, it had been strong enough to project them both into the same physical sphere. Such a feat would have crippled even the most accomplished Force-user. To him and his beloved, however, it was just another compelling link in the chain that bound them till the end of their days.

Still, trespassing was out of the question. As concerned (and admittedly curious) as he was, Kylo refused to take advantage of her vulnerable state. He had done enough of that in the past. Besides, watching her suffer in the grips of whatever terror paralyzed her, Kylo sensed a rare pain overthrowing his curiosity: He ached to see her so upset, to feel the raw power of her fear overshadowing her normal light.

And so, he peeled back the wool and roused her gently. Despite knowing what to expect, his fingers flinched. What would have been undetectable to any common being was a live wire to Kylo. Instantly, he recalled that first glance into Snoke’s leveled library.

So powerful. Stronger than she knows.

“Rey, wake up. It’s all right.”

Rey shifted slowly, her consciousness reconnecting piece by forgotten piece. This, Kylo understood. He knew all too well that deceptive waking realm wherein the dream world and the real fused indistinguishably for a split-second that stretched into infinity. She did not deserve to be lost there. He caressed her again, his tone carefully relaxed and his fingertips smoothing the dampened silk back from her temple.

When Rey at last blinked beneath his touch, Kylo allowed her the silence necessary to collect herself. To his surprise, she neither jumped nor recoiled to find him at her side. She merely chased and caught her breath and, in what Kylo could only attribute to some notion of embarrassment, turned away. Facing the cold steel wall rather than him, she wiped at her tears with the back of one wrist.

But the tears did not stop, even as Kylo brushed back the amber baby hairs her pillow had mussed. Only a second passed before he watched her body stiffen to stifle the residual sobs she hid from him. As it did, Kylo sensed his ingrained suffering for her lodge itself in his throat.

Driven by that same uncontrollable place where his compassion for her would forever redefine him, Kylo rose only for a second to turn off the corridor lights, activate the soft lamp over the cot, and remove both belt and boots. When he returned, he reclined on his side, slipped under the rough cover, and, interlocking with her as though she were every missing piece of his riddled puzzle, pulled her tightly against him. Still, she was stiff in his arms, sapped by her efforts to regain her composure. Kylo wanted desperately to reassure her that she was free to be upset in front of him. But words rarely had a place in Rey’s anguish, he knew. In their stead, he simply held her and breathed in that undying scent. He would never tire of holding her this way.

Before long, the coupling curves of her body melted into him. The sniffs ringing off the beryl-lit hull faded to gentle inhales, and the agitated current of the Force running from her slender frame quieted along with them. Kylo noted its passing, marveling at how quickly that unstable potential faded like a fleeting cloud uncovering the sun. In this case, it uncovered the “normal” ubiquity of their pull.

Soon, a moist hand crept up to find the stretched arm on which Kylo rested his head. When it located what it sought, he felt the warmth of her fingers threading through his. The satisfaction of that fit….

“How long have I been asleep?” the unseen voice asked, clearing her throat demurely. “Has the storm passed?”

“Not long.” Kylo planted a modest kiss on the crown of her head as his eyes roamed over the hull’s rivets. “The storm should pass by afternoon tomorrow. It’s still night yet.”

The plumage of Rey’s hair caressed the slight aquiline ridge of Kylo’s nose as she nodded. It seemed to him then so long ago that they had shared this very same space as enemies, he, beguiled but determined—damaged and struggling to deny his feelings for her even then—and she, strong but uncertain, surprising him at every opportunity. They had since grown to embrace one another like a remedy for afflictions they had never acknowledged. Even now, as Kylo held his long-ago prisoner the way an ordinary man might comfort an ordinary lover, he recognized the relief he had robbed himself of all his young life. She, in turn, was as equally transparent as his own exposed need: He coursed through her veins as well.

Yes, in her own alleviation and devotion, Rey had freely given him so much more since that day she twice saved his life. And yet, despite her sublime reciprocity, the trials had only compounded…for them both.

“Do you want to tell me about it?” Kylo recalled that image of Rey—that first waking glance at her, exhausted and exquisite, swimming in that pilot’s uniform as she dozed next to his sickbed.

“No,” she responded gently. “It’s nothing. Just a dream.”

“I don’t believe anything could be ‘just a dream’ with you.” Kylo instantly regretted the comment. Unaccustomed as he was to teasing anyone, he was dreadfully terrible at it, and what was meant to be playful now carried a heavy implication. Rey remained, after all, a true anomaly in the Force, and, in this moment, he sensed she would rather be anything else.

Wary of his faux pas, Kylo added, “You don’t have to tell me.”

To his surprise, Rey came alive then, turning just enough to spy him over the pale horizon of his hand on her shoulder. Where Kylo expected sadness or upset, he found only closemouthed adoration and eyes rounder than he had ever seen them…the look of someone who was relieved to see and feel him at her side. Those windows to Rey’s being caught and seemed to return the soft overhead glow behind their matted lashes, blinking above the map of freckles that led to her glistening mouth. Only a few inches above her, Kylo tread the taut curves of her flawless face like an intruder to her perfection: carefully and quietly.

Like a forgotten switch flipped on, Kylo sensed his body reacting instantly, shamefully, to the sight of her inflamed cheeks and unshakable stare. She was so warm and alive against him, so deceptively supple and alluring in the wake of her unhappiness. Like that first time in the training room—that moment when the innate need to possess her had trumped everything he was and would be—the craving he had fought so hard to bury in her recent melancholy suddenly burst and welled with a vengeance. She alone fueled that inescapable fire. Help him, he would never not desire her.

Seared by the sudden flare, Kylo knew his voice would fail him. Still, he could not let her know, did not want her to see how her vulnerability, and, more so, the way it contradicted the strength it overlaid, drove him to frenzy. And he had promised himself. He had sworn.

“The truth is nothing about either of us is ordinary,” Kylo said the only way possible.

At the opposite end of their bond, Rey sensed the tingling of the open current bridging their bodies. It was inherently intimate, the sound of Kylo’s voice in her head. It personified his deep timbre until it resonated more like a touch. This touch, however, was more a grasp…charged, heated. Rey perceived it like the Jakku sun on her skin and welcomed the way it melted away her fears. Even if she had not noticed the strained swallow, the heavy rise and fall of his chest, the way his eyes at once grew even blacker beneath their inset shadows, she would have perceived the immensity of his longing there—at the other pole of their private world—on that guarded plateau in his jagged mind.

Rey ignited instantly, swallowing the last of her tears. He knew what she needed before she herself had recognized it, and she wanted—absolutely required—the same. He was here beside her, as real and viable as their inseparability. They were also finally, blissfully, alone. Leave the bad dreams in their rightful place. He had not left her. He would never leave her. They would always be two halves of the same person. And, in this moment, Rey needed to be one with him again. The time had come when nothing else would satisfy.

Revived against him there, in their warm nook in the cavern of the ship, hidden from the outside galaxy somewhere beneath the Ilum snow, Rey reached back with her free arm and, pulling at the hidden nape of Kylo’s neck, drew him down until his lush mouth sealed against hers.

Kylo gasped against her, stunned by a kiss whose every intimate detail echoed his longing. How easy it was to abandon all promises and restraints to the taste of her, to the explosion of their divergent union in the Force. Especially when she spoke to his mind….

“I need you, Kylo.”

But he already knew she did. Her commanding mouth, the fingernails clutching his collar—those were the least indication. Kylo inherently understood her desperation even if he was ignorant to the cause. And Force help him, he would die and decay without it.

The small fingers above their heads squeezed Kylo’s as she crushed and sighed against his lips. “Please let go. It’s just us now.”

Those voiceless words were so simple and yet so truthful. They advocated the thoughts he’d had since their arrival on Ilum, and yet he had not acknowledged it. Yes, there was a purity to be found in this moment. He sensed it too. Here and now, light years removed from Snoke, the First Order, the failure of Ben Solo, and the transgressions of Kylo Ren, was it possible that they could start over together? He wanted so much to believe it. He wanted to believe her. He wanted to kill the past and begin anew, to erase every ounce of pain he had caused his brave scavenger…all of it, since the day they met.

Rey gladly abandoned herself to him then, surrendering to an onslaught of famished lips and starved fingertips. And as he seemed to wake beside her as she had beside him, Rey now realized that beyond her unquenchable thirst for him, some wicked and wanton part of her absolutely craved—perhaps even fetishized—his reckless abandon: the bottomless black hole of Kylo’s desire. Fueled by years of cruelly cultivated yearning that had been never before found its outlet, it refused to compromise. But, in the arms of Kylo Ren—the Kylo that Rey knew—nothing less would do.

When he took her as he did now, his hand betraying its tremors as it gripped and pulled her face to his so emphatically that Rey imagined he might steal her soul, there was no end and no beginning between them. In such a single, solitary act, their short, miserable histories always erased and rewrote as one. And, oh, it was so good to be lost there, to be eaten whole by that void where Rey ceased to be Rey and instead became part of the perfection of Kylo’s imperfect being. Removed from the light, adrift in the dark universe behind her eyelids, Rey knew only Kylo—his skin, his tongue, his taste. This was the realm of the senses, the domain of the physical and all the energies it encompassed. This was the place where she witnessed the shaky walls of his restraint and good intentions now falling, at last, one by one, to the wayside. Rey fed on that stark union as surely as their bond did, allowing their shared fire to swell and spill over her as he pulled both their outstretched arms down and, never unlacing his fingers from hers, bound her tightly to him.

Then came that enticing strain against her. Rey met and returned it, pressing back into the stone wall of his body and arching her back in his arms until her bottom crushed firmly, purposefully, against a hidden monolith. It was a promise Rey required him to keep.

But he absolutely meant to, she could tell. Noticeably incited by her response, Kylo turned away her face and, clearing the smooth auburn spill of her hair, laid a trail of open-mouthed kisses from her ear to the nape of her neck. This mingled with the force of his body grinding into hers and plucked a wilted moan from the dewy garden of Rey’s mouth.

Rey’s body overtook her reclining mind as she succumbed to the sheer ferocity of their passion. Her flesh prickled, her chest fluttered, her lips sampled the coarse fabric of the pillow. Turbulent but determined, her free hand burrowed into the linens at her back until he allowed it the space to locate the warm flesh about his navel. Rey shivered with excitement to feel him there. Like some ancient explorer, she rediscovered the landscape of silken skin and raised scars she had committed to memory in that same corner of the ship. There, she charted the channel that segmented the well-developed muscles of his stomach and thigh and, unfastening the band that denied her fingers, followed that line to its intimate end.

As Rey grasped the swollen flesh she had freed at her back, Kylo froze as soundly as the world outside. His body echoed the selfishness of his past, immediately betraying him with its cry for release, and he was forced to call upon all his learned discipline to fight spilling everything he had into that exotic touch. To distract himself, Kylo bowed his moist forehead to her hair and removed his tunic and loosened trousers so that her undershirt was all that separated their hearts. Then, gnawing the ample flesh of his lower lip, he allowed her to return and stroke him as she saw fit. But it was still too much, and the sharp air he gulped did nothing to alleviate the throb beneath every gentle tug and brush of thumb. Kylo soon conceded to her primal instincts the way he did her power: She was superior. She simply knew what to do, exactly how to touch him. And that perfection was excruciating. He could not let it end this way.

Masking his instability with necessity, Kylo grappled with the cloth that still divided them. Rey was eagerly compliant, and he drank in the blue-lit rise and fall of her taut thighs, incurved waist, climbing torso, and firm breasts lifting and sliding out of the muslin. Kylo’s hands followed the same delicate progression and stopped at the top, where he lightly caressed and cupped the rigid little peaks with his palms. At this, his scavenger sighed, her skin burning and heaving in the cove of their little nook. She then settled back against him until there was no doubt her bared backside felt full-well the hardened severity of his hunger. Rather than shy away, her hips reared and slid against it as though answering an unspoken question. Yes. Please, yes.

Please, Rey begged Kylo with neither word nor thought. The room spiraled behind her closed eyes. The air sucked from the ship’s hold. The pillow dampened beneath her forehead. His body radiated energetically against her. His breath came shallow at her ear. Please, please.

Please, I don’t care, she had once said.

Rey’s free hand grasped Kylo’s as he forced her knee up to her stomach and then reached between her legs from behind. Normally, she would have blushed to discover with him how damp she was from thigh to thigh. But now was no time for inhibitions, not when he spread the petite folds and exposed the evidence of her greed to the world.

When his fingers had thoroughly sampled her and magnified the lewdest of chills of Rey’s arousal to a luscious breaking point, she finally felt Kylo’s hand pull away empty and return full of his co*ck. Enraptured almost to frenzy, she curled her body against him so that nothing in the world could separate them. He followed her lead, coiling his legs behind hers and enfolding her firmly in his arms as though she might try to slip away. But there was no escape. She would never escape him.

Try though she did to hold back, Rey gasped sharply as she felt Kylo part the slit of her suffering flesh and fill her bit by tender bit. It had been far too long, and her body remained far too unprepared for him. Help her, though, it was nothing compared to the agony if he were to stop.

Whether Kylo inherently understood Rey’s ardor or turned a blind eye in the wake of his own, he was unsure, nor was he in the mindset to care. To be inside her again was nearly as maddening as it was to not. He had not forgotten that tactility, that wholeness, that feverish grip (How could he ever forget?), and yet the sweet tension of her body yielding to his appetite shocked and nearly paralyzed him. In all history, was there ever a sense of completion that could compare to uniting with her? And still, their consummation simultaneously satisfied and stirred Kylo’s most innate urges. He needed to make her take all of him, only that. He had to be buried inside her, no matter how it tested them both.

Kylo’s next thrust was drowsy and drenched, allowing him to sink farther and more easily. A third and then a fourth found the position’s limit as tight and torrid as the first. The air she drew so deeply in his arms mirrored his own, and Kylo found he again teetered on the brink of release. Desperate, almost animalistic, he lowered his lips to her shoulder and clamped down on the salty flesh.

“Oooh,” Rey exhaled, squeezing her closed eyes tighter. The pressure of his teeth was cautious but effective, nowhere near breaking the skin but firm enough that when he sealed his moist lips over his mark and suckled there, the dull ache overran Rey’s senses. And when Kylo finally released her and kissed her breathless, bruising body, any discomfort she had perceived had crumbled in the pyre of his distraction. Only then did he fill her again.

Acclimated but already on the verge of collapse, Rey felt his flesh brush the most hidden parts of her young womanhood. Her teeth clenched, her spine flinched. Her fists fumbled in the sheet, her sighs saturated the shuttle’s hollow hold. Thankfully, every automated response of her body only urged him on. Before long, she found her slippery hips undulating to meet his every movement. The graceful slope of her back glided against him as slick as the sex she had anointed, and Rey knew she could never break free from the pleasure he commanded in her body. More than that, she never wanted to.

Little time passed before Kylo perceived the impending eruption within Rey to equal his own. As if it were not enough to graze and worship the most untouched parts of her powerful body, the loaded nature of their intimacy again threatened his arousal. Beyond her wounded whimpers, beyond her grinding hips and sinfully wet little secrets—even beyond the way she so shamelessly blossomed only for him—every scalding drop of sensation now flowed and compounded between them so freely and vigorously in the Force that Kylo again feared the slightest touch or encouraging word might spoil everything. He could not have that, not without watching her. He needed to see her face in that sacred moment, just as he had the first time.

Better than the first time. Erase the past.

Carefully, Kylo endured the torture of withdrawing from her warmth. He then rose to his knees, mindful of anything that might provoke the stiffness between his legs. The sight of Rey below him was nearly enough to do it. Even in the dull lamplight of their nook, her adolescent skin was flushed and wet with passion and dried tears. Her blushing cheeks and glossy throat might have mimicked the aftermath of one of their training sessions had it not been for the injured way her long limbs gathered in on themselves. She had been as close as he was. He would take her there again.

Seizing her ankles, Kylo unabashedly spread Rey’s quivering legs and turned her over onto her back. If it had been any other time, he might have paused longer to gratify himself with the evidence of his fervor—the muss of her hair, the darkening of her shoulder blade, the swelling of her private flesh. But there would never be enough time for them, especially not when her lashes finally unlaced and revealed a look of total submission and wonderment.

Kylo basked in Rey’s silence, captivated by the refined and graceful way it belied the hands that tugged him down to her. Nestling between her thighs, his arms suddenly overflowing with her loveliness, he met her gaze as he parted her once again. Kylo quickly found the new position allowed him fuller access to her, and even though he could not have endured another second divided from her, he drew the motion out with caution. But Rey’s body remembered. Her innermost memories stretched to accommodate him until he was totally enveloped. And, help him, she was so good at taking him. Her upturned eyes never flinched beneath his, her long legs never resisted him. Only her bright lips hinted the cataclysm that swept her core, their full centers parting in that overwhelmed way Kylo remembered so well.

Devoid of language and afraid her rearing knees were not enough permission, Rey nodded silent encouragement up at Kylo. And, for an instant, she was able to take in his beauty in that state, that most compromised condition he showed no one but her: the shudder of his inflamed lips, the sultry strings of his raven hair, and the intensity of his boundless pupils—all deceiving his age and façade. That flesh-and-blood vulnerability. As powerful as he was, he was merely a living, breathing, sensuous being…just like her.

Ending its denial, Kylo’s hungry mouth returned to Rey’s at last. There they both fed blindly on one another as he slid against her, first slowly and then at the medial pace he had maintained earlier.

The flame of their intoxication rekindled instantly. Locked tightly in Kylo’s arms, Rey relinquished all she was to the pure feel of him—the feel of him against her, the feel of him inside her, and the feel of him in the Force.

When his movements sped, Rey reached out for something, anything real to counter the unreal numbness invading her body. Her fingers only skated the expanse of his sweat-soaked chest and shoulders. Even the air around them seem to burn with their heat, insulating them like a glove muffling her open-mouthed cries. But Rey did not care. There was no world, no existence beyond this. There was only contact after contact, wave after wave, all swirling in a voluptuous storm that carried from the tips of her toes to the roots of her hair.

In Rey’s stead, the perfect sync of their shared demands spoke clearly to Kylo. It gave all the consent he needed. He quickened once more—deep, rhythmic, hard, long strokes, not unlike how he had punished her in the training room. But that darkness, that embedded cruelty always lying in wait below his miserable surface…it had failed to break through. Kylo had controlled it at last. The temptation remained, raging in the chains he had placed about it, but she shook him more. Her purity, her perfection, her eroticism…her love. For her, Kylo could be better. He could sift his savagery, allowing only what she desired from him. And she desired this now, her hips bucking, her walls hugging, and her pleasure echoing loudly throughout the hull. Kylo nipped and licked. He gripped and tore. He sealed his mouth over any soft part of her he could reach. He tried to sustain sublimity as surely as she did beneath him.

Somewhere outside, a single snowflake dissolved against the ship’s hull.

Against her wishes, Rey gave in first. But no sooner did she cease fighting her climax than she embraced it with open arms, savoring every crush, every seizure. She allowed it to take her as he had taken her: completely—to whisk her higher, higher, so far up, until the confines of her physical form seemed altogether fluid and she floated in a charged mist.

More than ready, Kylo fed her org*sm as long as possible, strumming her every spasm, sharing in her every wave, until it finally cost him his own crumbling will. The flood then was ineffable. It drew from every extremity of his being and culminated in a release he could never have anticipated. Faint and shaking and emptying all that he had suppressed inside her, Kylo submitted to a new relief. Somewhere in their shared ecstasy, both beyond his arms and in them, she beamed and sighed in grey light. Transported, he joined her there and allowed himself to be caressed by the vital current that flowed like a lifeline between them. And, despite all its carnal instigation, Kylo could not recall ever feeling more harmonious with the light side of the Force.

When the construct of time had passed without note or bearing, Kylo seemed to emerge from a daze. He should have been familiar with that reconnection. After all, it was not so long ago that he had crawled from the vile pit of a similar stupor. Thankfully, this lucidity was entirely different—positive, pleasant, intimate. Like a numb limb tingling back to life, the extremities of Kylo’s body awoke first, and with those carried the visceral presence of her gentle weight in his arms.

The confusion had not yet fully lifted, but Kylo found Rey’s panting lips regardless and adorned her with his own breathless kisses. For her, the fog cleared more slowly. The V of her tensed eyebrows leveled little by little as her pleasure loosened its grip and her awareness returned. At some point, her fingers had plunged into the fullness of his hair and clung to him like a life support. She released those thick handfuls now in lethargy and exhaustion, her fingertips falling down the pale slopes of his biceps.

Kylo, however, refused to part from her just yet. Though he knew it was futile, he revived between Rey’s legs as if waking from his own dream. There he weakly drew out the final throes of their fulfillment, cherishing her sweat and her sounds, her sleepy eyelids and upturned chin—every cell of her—as though he would never know them again. And when even his own body began to rebel, Kylo still did not pull free without conceding with a final kiss.

Minutes passed as they lay side by side, the hoarse fusion of their breath retreating beneath the cargo hold’s normal hum. Such total devastation demanded reverence, silence.

Reeling from all he had just experienced, Kylo suddenly found the lamp above reflected too brightly off the steel, like a spotlight exposing their act to the rest of the ship. He soon turned to see her again in that light. Instantly, the sharp jolt of déjà vu stunned his pulse. She lay there now as she had after the first time, her gaze to the ceiling and her gentle profile accented by an aura of tousled hair, and, for an instant, Kylo felt the alien sensation of his chest plummeting to the earth. Had he been too rough? Had he hurt her? Should he have been more cautious?

Kylo stretched a hand to Rey’s shoulder and massaged it with the back of one humid knuckle. To his utter relief, she looked upon him from the corner of her eyes and even, help him, broke into a short but mischievous giggle. The reaction was reassuring and infectious, and Kylo found himself smiling back at her and her lack of tears.

“We should do that again,” he said, shifting his finger to shamelessly trace the grade of her closer breast. In turn, Rey drooped her face dramatically to the side so that it rested in front of his. The disgust she faked made him want to kiss her ruddy cheeks.

“You’re a scoundrel.”

“And an absolute liar.” Kylo exhaled loud exhaustion, calling his own bluff.

He watched her playfulness morph into the most perfect smile he had ever seen. It was full and bright, revealing only the top row of her beautiful teeth in that delightful way that belonged to Rey and Rey alone. At the same time, it bore a current languor, its innocence underscored by a sensual glow that only someone who worshiped her—only Kylo—could discern and appreciate. That conflicting mix beguiled Kylo now more than ever, perhaps because he had directly contributed to both aspects of it, perhaps because he knew the dual nature of Rey’s goodness would always be a mystery to him. These little details shone through despite the blue glare that now colored them, blue the shade of Ben Solo’s lightsaber, of the cave she would soon see, of the lake where he had once carried her…of the rain where….

An absolute liar. But I can’t lose you, Rey. I can’t. I love you. I don’t care if it’s weakness. I don’t care if it costs me everything. There’s nothing without you. I love you.

“Rey, I….”

Say it. Say it now. Yes, they’re words, and words are nothing. But she needs to know. Tell her. I love you, Rey. I’ve always loved you.

And even though Kylo had neither uttered a sound nor spoken to Rey’s mind, she seemed to understand, sliding one hand up the sheets until it rested—an exact fit—beneath the slope of his cheek.

“You don’t have to say it. I know it.”

Chapter 35: Unknown Regions

Chapter Text

35

The dying breath of the blizzard rasped coldly across Rey’s cheeks.

She had stopped in her leader’s tracks to loosen the muffler of her breather hood and let it dangle uselessly down her long ivory coat. Despite the warmth it gave—really, the insulation the entire Snowtrooper getup provided—the precautionary headpiece was too stuffy. Rey had already opted to skip the standard-issue goggles, and Kylo had agreed that most of the accessories were unnecessary for the sub-freezing afternoon temperatures into which they would venture. Even now, the fatal winds that had moaned outside the shuttle walls throughout the night had dissipated to barely a frigid breeze.

Rey welcomed the fresh air in her lungs. Kylo’s pace on the unsteady terrain required it. Though the snow beneath Rey’s feet was mostly solid—packed firmly by millennia of Ilum’s unchanging climate—she still shuffled through the ankle depth of the freshest deposit and, occasionally, sank more quickly than expected. This she tackled as she always had skirting those treacherous Jakku pits for whatever reason Plutt had ordered there, regaining her balance in no short order.

Ever mindful of her, Kylo stopped a few short feet ahead and turned. The drooping folds of his cowl revealed the steam escaping above his collar. If only brief, those puffs were pale and opaque—yet one more blanched burst that juxtaposed every onyx inch of him from the landscape. Only the lengthy flesh stretching from his coral mouth to where his dark hood fell at his equally dark eyebrows blended in with the snow that stretched as far as the eye could see.

Rey flashed an open-mouthed smile at him and took in a few deep chestfuls of the biting air.

“Do you need to stop?”

His tone lacked any judgment, but Rey still somewhat resented the implication, especially considering they both could still plainly see the shuttle in the distance behind them.

“I’m fine,” she said a bit defensively right as a sudden gust caught the muffler and blew part of it up into her mouth.

“Now who’s the liar?” Kylo asked coyly, watching her spit and pull the fabric out of her mouth.

“You know,” Rey gummed in all vowels, tasting leather as she pulled a lingering hair off her tongue with her thick gloves, “I think I much prefer when you weren’t funny.” Empty-mouthed at last, she revived her smile to reassure him she only teased. She was delighted to see one thick corner of his own smirk rise with a foreign mischief from behind his cowl. Although she never doubted his contentment with her, his smile was always the rarest of all the secret gifts he gave her. But why did this one suddenly take her aback?

Force help me, it’s Han, Rey reeled. Despite their drastically different features, that familial look was as unmistakable as the remnants of Ben Solo that survived in Kylo. And it was the first time Rey could remember plainly seeing Kylo’s father in him.

“Don’t worry.” That ghost’s grin turned from Rey as he resumed walking. “I’m still not funny.”

Rey watched his solid form, deceptively lanky despite the thickly lined coat and trousers over his normal attire, grow steadily smaller in the bitter sunlight. Beyond them, the gentle rise of rolling hills framed him in mounds of feathered softness. Just as the unstable crunching below her feet echoed the feel of home, Rey could almost compare the vast sight to gazing upon Jakku’s own barren landscape. Both spilled into forever, like an immense bolt of some elegant fabric carelessly unrolled. Not unlike the desert sun, Ilum’s brightness was equally inescapable on the occasions that it slipped through the veils of passing vapor. The way it reflected off the sheen of the terrain more than made up for its diffusion. In truth, Rey could never have imagined anything like it. It was quite literally breathtaking in its icy desolation…just as he was surrounded by it.

Catching up to Kylo in a matter of a few steps, Rey welcomed the pleasant thoughts that settled on him, the previous night, and the struggle it had been that morning to tear themselves from the bed of each other’s heat.

Their first morning truly alone had surpassed the rest. Kylo had awoken her with downy lips, the earthy musk of his hair, and placid caresses that suppressed their undying appetite. His initiative had flourished into kisses whose languor drew out the already prolonged act of waking at his side. Inevitable longing had followed and, despite their lingering exhaustion from the previous night, they had made love again in the bright sunrise of their awakening. Their newfound freedom had welcomed it nearly as much as the stark contact of their nakedness.

Rey now recalled how willing she had been despite the soreness the morning had stirred, her bosom already pressed against him, her thighs spread overtop him. Without word or warning, she had eased back until the critical core of her desire completely eclipsed his and the skin they inhabited again mirrored every other facet of their oneness.

To her surprise, she had discovered the fresh ache of his body inside hers compounded the old into inexplicable sublimity, stoking a sensitivity that wracked her every nerve with chills far colder than the air she presently huffed. And Kylo, of course, had sensed it immediately and converged on her weakness like the skilled assailant he was. Deeply, deliberately, he had exploited her pleasure with every undulation of his rising hips, and Rey had threaded her fingers through his ample hair and surrendered gladly in close-eyed bliss.

Her first release had come quickly and unfolded into infinity, every spasm drawn out by Kylo’s sheer will and lack of mercy for all her cries. Even then, he had refused to relent to her. Instead, he had held her quaking body like a vice, his thumbs imprinting on her hips and his palms cupping the soft curves of her backside. Then, through the clenched teeth he buried in her hair, he had asked her if she liked how he felt inside her. Delirious and shaken, Rey had answered only in breathless affirmation.

“Say it,” he had whispered while pulling her steadily again to the base of his firm flesh. “Tell me you like how I feel inside you.”

“Gods, yes.” Her words had inhaled his, their honesty soothing the twinge of some hidden stigma. “I love how you feel.”

“Tell me how much.”

Again, her lips had responded before her mind could catch up. “So…much….”

One more kiss plied to her damp throat. One more thrust buried in the taut core of her conquered body. One more paralyzing current spilling through the bond. And one more wicked command kept in check.

“Tell me who you belong to.”

“You,” she had sighed, her arousal soaring to new heights. “I’m yours.” Then, rediscovering his mouth with hers, she had repeated words he had once told her between desperate lips. “Always. Always.”

His words burning her ear, Rey soon peaked and fell upon him yet again, the culmination flaring like a wildfire leaping from the reignited embers of her euphoria. In turn, Kylo had, as always, responded with perfect synchrony. Enfolding her in his arms, he had gripped her twitching frame as he filled her one last time and finally, hotly, joined her in crippling dissolution.

What followed had been less prurient but no less cherished. They had recuperated gradually and inseparably. Clinging to his alabastrine chest, one of Rey’s ears had thundered with Kylo’s powerful heart while the other had listened as he described the history of the Jedi Temple where he would lead her. Fascinated, she had first imagined the grand sight as it once stood and then reenvisioned it as he spoke of his own time there with Luke, not so long ago, when all that remained of the sacred majesty was rubble and ruin. And all the while, Kylo’s fingers had stroked her damp hair, and Rey, interrupting his relaxed conversation only to kiss the beauty marks that sporadically dotted his otherwise waxen complexion, had thought that this—this moment in time, here and now—must be what happiness is.

Replaying these waking hours in her head, Rey feigned a chill and held up her breather hood to hide her already pink cheeks as they filled with blood. In the distance, the cliffs he had described began to materialize through the clearing weather.

Although her excitement for her lightsaber had most definitely been revived, Rey could not wait to be back there with Kylo, safe and warm in his arms—the arms of the person who loved her—even if that meant they were one step closer to facing a most difficult decision. The truth was undeniably selfish, but, help her, her hopes had been so far surpassed. The cleansing powder shower, the late-morning ration pack breakfast, the shared chuckle at how ridiculous she looked in the Snowtrooper suit, the hands that frequently gripped her from behind and held her tightly to him without warning—all those little details during their first day of freedom suddenly meant more to Rey than any other personal achievement she could imagine.

Here, secluded from every star, system, and ship beyond Ilum’s orbit, Rey felt almost foolish to have ever doubted her need for Kylo Ren. The love they had grown to share was strong enough to overcome anything; Rey was certain of nothing more than she was certain of this, assured that the galaxy beyond them and all its inherent chaos lay at the heart of every anxiety that had plagued them since the day they met. Even years before, the confused and withdrawn Ben Solo she had never known had been innocent, manipulated and exploited while struggling to come to grips with his own significance. She herself had been sold into poverty by parents who either cared nothing for her or had no other choice.

It was never Kylo, nor was it ever Rey who complicated the strange perfection of who they were together. And now that they were both isolated from all that meant to tarnish them, every complexity seemed to vanish with the waning snow. Alone with only the Force as a constant companion, the simplicity of their love had already flourished in so little time.

Clinging to the thought like an embrace, Rey smiled as the flakes packed beneath her feet. The epiphany was a comfort to her troubled mind, just as the last 24 hours with Kylo had been a comfort. In spite of her doubts and her failings and her troubling dreams, he had again restored her hope for the future by nothing more than caring for her.

Looking to her companion, Rey suddenly recalled Kylo standing, conflicted and weak, in her doorway aboard the Finalizer the evening Snoke had shattered her fragile certainty. So many times leading up to that terrible day had Rey clung to the hope that Kylo truly cared for her despite who they each were. But, remembering that night, the way he had abandoned all allegiance, humility, and anger to soothe her in her despair, Rey now believed that might have been the first moment she was sure that he loved her.

She then thought of that last terrible night, that aftermath in the hours beyond the rubble that had been Snoke’s library. How cold the bed Kylo lay her on had felt and how uncontrollably she had shivered in his absence as he scrambled to control the damage she had done. When he had returned to her room, he had gently washed the ashes from her cheeks, pressed a damp cloth to her swollen eye, and, when she had been ready—when she had finally stopped shaking in his steady arms—talked her horror into exhausted sleep.

“Kylo…” she had whispered, “in the library…something happened. I…saw you…there. Before now, I could reach out and see you with my mind, what you were doing where you were. But this was so different. I saw you, I heard you, actually there, with me. I felt like I’d have touched you if I could have reached out. I don’t know how to describe it. You were really there, and then you were gone. And when you were gone….” The tears had threatened to well again. “When you were gone, it was terrible.”

For a long time, Kylo had answered only tangibly, pulling his cloak over her shoulders and holding her tightly against him. At last, he had spoken above her: “I was told of it briefly, by Luke…from his studies. Some Jedi were able to project their being through the Force; the ability to be somewhere and interact with that environment without actually being there. He told me it had very rarely been accomplished, and not for much more than a few seconds. The skill required to do it was too advanced, and the strain was said to be too great on the projector. I didn’t believe it at the time. I thought it was just another legend. But…I saw you where I was too. I saw you how you were on that table. You were right there, in front of me, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.”

“Do you think that’s what happened to us? This projection?”

“I’m not sure. That’s the only explanation I know of. But how could we possibly have done it, unconsciously have done it? How could we have survived it? I don’t know what I think anymore, Rey, I don’t. I only know that I won’t let them hurt you ever again. I know we need to leave.”

“Kylo, what have I done?” Rey had broken down then. “I couldn’t control it, and people are dead because of me. And I’ve put us in danger again. What you said about me on the shuttle was right. There’s something dark inside m—”

“Don’t say that, ever. I never should have said those things. I was wrong. You are good, Rey. Never doubt that. You were never meant to follow my path. You were meant for the light. I couldn’t care for you this much if you weren’t.”

And oh, how Kylo’s words had been just enough to bring her back from the brink that night.

He always brought her back.

“Remember what you said,” he had added, consoling her with kisses he crushed against her throbbing temple. “The Force connected us for a purpose.”

To save each other, Rey now thought, lost in the great white wilderness beyond Kylo’s sable robes.

As if he had heard the clamor of her mind, Kylo turned to her and raised his eyebrows until they disappeared behind the drape of his cowl.

“What is it?”

Rey turned back to the freezing ground and hid her fading smile there rather than behind her hood. “Nothing.”

“You should be collecting yourself.”

“Who says I’m not?” Rey quipped, feeling far too serene to take his seriousness to heart.

“Rey,” Kylo sighed. The wind billowed his hood as he stopped to face her. “I’m still your teacher.”

“I’m sorry,” she conceded contentedly. He was right, of course. Her thoughts had overrun her yet again, and from all that he had told her, harvesting her crystal from the cave was to be a major undertaking. Although she felt more in tune with the Force now than she had in days, Rey knew that sacred connection was nothing to be taken for granted. How many times had she herself nearly crumbled in fear of losing her fluency with the light?

“Everything just feels so clear right now,” Rey admitted. “Here, with you.”

Kylo’s voice suddenly melted with the feathery flakes dampening his skin. “I feel that too.”

Beneath Kylo, Rey’s close-mouthed smile revived. For no other reason than it felt natural, she reached out to clasp the fingers of Kylo’s nearest glove with her own.

“I’m ready, Kylo. I feel more ready than I have in days and days.”

“I don’t doubt you. Please don’t think that I do. I only….” Kylo turned his head toward the horizon crowning the distant cliffs, and Rey gawked at how even such dim natural light colored his pale profile exquisite, pinkening his scar and uncovering the elusive bronze of his eyes. “I don’t want thoughts of me—or us—to cloud your mind in there.”

Kylo turned back to her over the height of his collar and studied her rosy features. “Entering the Crystal Caves may no longer be the challenge it once was, but being in there—harvesting your crystal—is a trial greater than any other I’ve given you in training. The Force is still concentrated there, even if most of the crystals have been mined.”

“You told me: the vergence.”

“Yes. You once dreamed of a powerful vergence, on Dagobah. Without ever having seen it, somehow you dreamed of the Dark Side Cave exactly.”

“That place was real?” Rey stiffened in a frosty gust. She had nearly forgotten the vile vision of that slimy place, how openly it had feasted on her fear of her desire for Kylo.

Had he trespassed into her dream that night? He must have. Had he also known, all this time, what she did when she woke, desperately enflamed, from that illusion? Why did that prospect now mortify her after all they had done?

“The Crystal Caves are a vergence of the light, but they’ll test you just the same. In there, you are your own obstacle. You are your own adversary.” Then, his free hand tilting her chin up so that she met his sunlit gaze, Kylo added, “You know I can’t go with you. But I can’t be with you either. I will weaken you.”

Rey blinked, surprised by the concern that leaked through his efforts to downplay it. She understood its roots. His own experience in the temple had, after all, been much more traditional regardless of how the Empire had spoiled the site for the Jedi ritual. He had been formally trained, with years of tranquil guidance and preparation under his belt.

Is this what her nightmare of the last evening had meant? To harvest her crystal, did she have to separate herself from him completely? Or did the dream simply foretell the plain fact that Kylo could not go with her to find the shard? If the meaning were so uncomplicated, why then had his leaving broken her so completely? Even now, recalling her wrenching sobs atop the island with vivid clarity, Rey felt her gut twist in despair. And the universe—that soothing, motherly voice—how it had tried to comfort her.

“It’s just for a short time. Just a short time, Rey.”

But, Rey suddenly reasoned with no one, had Ben Solo not also been troubled while harvesting his crystal? Even at his early age, the Skywalker heir had already entered his own grey realm of uncertainty. Indeed, their two situations were too different to be properly compared, and Rey could not in good conscience equate the boy’s loneliness and uncertainty with the love, desire, and hope she felt for his older self. Still, regardless of their differences, they were both strong in the Force despite navigating emotions they were forbidden as Jedi to feel. Like her, Ben Solo had born a vast potential in the face of his fears, even if those fears would eventually wipe him from existence. He had also, at least momentarily, overcome his doubts to locate his crystal in those sacred grounds.

It seemed to Rey that the padawan had found strength in the light of his own grey there, in that place she would go. Like the boy, she had to take with her all the faith that made her strong. Unlike Ben Solo, however, she would never be seduced by the dark side thereafter, regardless of all she had done and all that Snoke had prophesized she would do.

“You’re always with me,” Rey told Kylo, joining him, almost chest to chest, as their linked hands fell to dangle at their sides. “I take you everywhere I go. I thought it was a weakness at first, but now I know it’s not. It’s a strength…our strength.”

Rey then squeezed his large hand once before releasing it and stepping back.

“We’re stronger together,” she added as she turned to walk on, “even when we’re apart.”

At some point in their conversation, the panorama that lay before Rey’s bright eyes had transformed. The blizzard had finally subsided in full and, with it, the fading curtain that had obscured her vision had lifted. Now, the soft banks Rey had assumed unfurled forever to dimple the valley in pools of shade came to definite end in the near distance.

Beyond lay a minefield.

The closer Rey shuffled through the firn, the smaller she felt approaching the landscape ahead, and the smaller she felt, the more she gaped openly at the sight. It was as though she neared some front line separating battlefield from trench. Crudely piled hills of chunky snow suddenly towered and divided her from the remainder of the valley. The expanse beyond those piles was no different, stretching all the way to the distant bluffs, and next to every giant heap lay one of dozens of quarries whose deep cuts revealed the muted turquoise of Ilum’s icy depths. The canyon was riddled with these massive craters, which, in Rey’s mind, resembled the site of some ancient bombardment dropped evenly from the sky.

Only now did Rey understand why Kylo had, by virtue of his memory, asked her to set the ship down so far away from their destination. It would have been impossible to land an Upsilon-class command shuttle on the fine ribbon of land winding around one pit to the next. The only semi-level land that remained was too narrow, sparse, and uneven—an edgeless maze snaking through the basin’s pock-marked surface.

Beyond it had to be the temple. Pulling a windblown tendril from her lip, Rey studied the colossal barrier that dominated the far side of the minefield and cut them off from the rest of the planet. Like the quarries ahead, its edges shone a dusted aquamarine in the setting sun, the cut ice stretching up for what seemed like miles before culminating in powdered caps. Centuries of erosion had texturized the surface of the escarpment by carving it into a wall of sharpened shadows and glistening seaglass. Rey found the sight dramatic but threatening, like the frozen fortress of a mythical princess under a curse, and yet much realer and more spiritual. Hallowed.

A singular section at the base of the central bluff suddenly caught Rey’s eye through the snowdrift glare. As if the mountain itself had protested the valley’s demolition, a hollow mouth bellowed an opening there to cleave the crystalline columns that jutted upward. The dark recess stretched broadly but squarely up much of the cliffside, possibly manmade, but most definitely forged unnaturally. For lack of any reflection within that blackness, Rey surmised that the cavity was deep. At its foundation stood the same messy hills of ice and debris, all entombed in years of snowfall. Rey would have taken in that barren sight for far longer had the familiar tingle of Kylo’s energy moving closer not distracted her awe.

“Mined,” he spoke, so near to Rey’s back that she could see his vaporous breath high in one peripheral. “When the Empire had exhausted the caverns, the mining ships focused on the valley in hopes of finding more crystals. But there was nothing.”

Rey shivered involuntarily, her teeth clamped more in ire at the thought of the Empire and, by proxy, the First Order than from cold. “Used up and abandoned,” she found herself whispering.

“Yes.” Then, movement at her back as Kylo turned to the sunset in their wake. “We should keep moving.”

Silently, Rey complied, sensitive to his reasoning. The temperature had already begun to drop with the dipping sun. Even more relevant to Rey was the ambiguity of the task ahead. Who knew how long it might take her to harvest her crystal…if she was able to find it at all?

The time that followed slipped by as slowly as the two tiny figures who wound their way across the lowland’s circuitous surface. What normally would have taken a fraction of the effort to cross was drawn out by the navigation necessary to skirt quarry after quarry and climb and descend icy pile after pile. Yet, despite how their trek might have appeared to any casual observer, Rey doubted anyone could have chosen a more direct course to the Jedi Temple than the one Kylo plotted through either instinct or memory. Lacking any straight shot, they zigged and zagged a concise albeit serpentine path across the canyon floor, allowing themselves to be lost among the evidence of damage long since done.

Rey matched Kylo’s haste as she trailed him, the constant tap of Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber against her thigh reminding her of her goal. Gradually, she adapted to the foreign way the air seared her lungs and flooded her ears with every draw. Indeed, now that the freezing breezes had calmed, the world around her had grown nearly soundless. Barring a few renegade gusts, the two travelers alone disturbed the barren expanse, the echo of their every step shattering the stillness. Before them, the cliffside steadily rose like a waking giant.

Occasionally, Rey gave in to her own curiosity to look away from the overcast sky above the great wall and peek over the ledge of whatever pit they were bypassing. Every time, the floor deceived her with its fluffy blankets of flakes, always concealing what she was sure were crumbling ledges and spikes of earth and ice long grated by soldier and machine. Falling meant certain death, Rey was positive. There were no substantial ledges or lifesaving notches to grab anywhere down the crater drop.

Although she was ever mindful of her footing—especially while walking the thinner divides separating one quarry from another—Rey was surprised at the thoughts of dying the quarries conjured in her mind. She had never considered it the few times she had skimmed Namenthe’s Crater while taking scrap to Cratertown, and, truly, that massive landmark far exceeded these Imperial mines in size and scope. The instinct now was inexplicable, like the muscle memory of a danger not yet realized. Rey offset her apprehension by admiring the gemstone teal of every plunge and pretending the icy valley they crossed was once a vast ocean like the one that crashed and broke around her cherished (and recently foreboding) island.

When Rey and Kylo at last reached the temple entrance, the sun had dissolved behind the mounds of the rolling plateau from which they’d hiked and painted the sky a palette of pinks melting into smoky cerulean. Rey turned briefly back to take in the sight beyond the gutted valley they had just crossed. She was particularly awestruck by the way the clouds that cloaked Ilum’s atmosphere seemed to reflect the fuchsia sunset and cast it down. This phenomenon colored everything from the snowdrifts, to the glaciers, to the pallor of Kylo’s forehead a rich blush that seemed too warm for such frigid conditions. Even the air appeared this color, its vapor catching and compounding the roseate glow the snow reflected upward. Rey soon realized it was a color fresh in her mind. She had seen it the previous night.

Coincidence, Rey disregarded, cutting her anxiety off at the pass. Yet, before she realized it, she found herself presenting her back to the valley. No part of that terrible dream could be real.

The preliminary issue had not changed. Rey still stared into the frosted core of an ice boulder that outmassed her several times over. Dozens of similar chunks of various heights stood next to it and likely behind it, effectively thwarting any way of reaching the deep gateway that lay beyond. Above the ice blockade, the temple’s shadowy opening hollowed the glacial frontage that stretched high to the heavens and shined with the same haunting hue of the day’s end.

In truth, Rey could not subdue the urge to marvel at how actually immense both the cliff and temple entrance now that she stood at their base. The hinges of what once were undoubtedly massive gates still protruded from jambs hidden up the mountainous frame, the exaggerated lengths of their rusted components made even longer by the icicles that hung dangerously from their bottoms. One hinge still clung to a lingering piece of door, and Rey could barely but certainly make out the ornate Jedi carvings in the durasteel beneath the frost. Little imagination was required to envision the pattern extended, to see the dramatic dive and climb of the ancient design as it snaked up to the gathered keystone so many stories above.

What a glorious sight it must have been, once upon a time….

Gentle pressure encircled Rey’s left hand. She glanced down at that phantom leather and then followed it upward as he lifted her arm. When Kylo stopped, his palm rested flat beneath hers, the black-and-white of their gloved hands outstretched before them, and Rey instantly relived that perfect moment aboard the Finalizer when their combined efforts had lifted the training block and she had first realized the possibility that, despite their rocky beginnings and insurmountable odds, she and Kylo could coexist together. As he had then, Kylo now projected beneath windblown hair and hood an uncharacteristically tranquil look that urged her on with soft, unspoken patience.

Rey gulped the rawness in her throat and nodded. She was ready; despite every stain and emotion—every deviation from the Jedi path that shaped her history—she was certain of it. Her teacher must have sensed the same truth underlying her many reassurances and renewed clarity, for Kylo withdrew the large platform of his hand and crunched backward until he had allowed Rey ample space.

Warm, Rey thought, the slivers of her eyes sealing out the stinging air. Warm like the sienna sands at sunset. Warm like her tiny hearth in the belly of the fallen walker. Warm like his skin when it touched hers…like their binding current and the currents that tied her to everything outside of him. As surely as she and Kylo shared their single wavelength, Rey rediscovered the plethora of other vital lines connecting her to everything that existed in the galaxy, all still present and perfectly accessible in the caress of her subliminal sweep.

Regardless of the discord that had filled her recent days, Rey knew the power had never truly left her. And yet, now, reaching out and skimming those countless cues and conduits as one might brush over blossoms in some pastoral green, she felt reacquainted with the energy of the Living Force surrounding her. Somehow, the light was still there, still embracing, even cleansing, her unclean spirit and all its faults, dreams, and desires. The eternal absolution.

The world outside—the frost and the cave and the dusk—ceased to exist in the harmonic realm Rey again shared with the Force. The light warmed her, illuminating her restored serenity and her ardent, overflowing heart. As Rey fixated on that elucidation, the Force shed its light on her amplified reach and then on the objects she knew lay near her body. The channels were clear, the energy practically begging her to direct it. Robust and responsive, it followed her directive and lifted for her in that functional way taken for granted by the physical and the oblivious. She did not have to look, nor did she have to hear the sharp cracks and loud pops that echoed through the hollows of a frozen world. Were it not for the tremble of her outstretched fingers—the channel of the strength she commanded—she might have forgotten her body altogether.

But Rey knew she could not stay in that tranquil place forever, at least not yet. Someday, when the impassioned flesh that confined her took its last breath, perhaps then. But not now. Until that day came, Rey would learn, oh yes—she would master attaining that sacred peace regardless of all that threatened to disrupt the quiet of her mind. She would unite with the light, already so ingrained in her being, until calling upon it became second nature and she was worthy of becoming a true Jedi.

This was her destiny, not the one Snoke had foretold. Only this.

Rey opened her eyes and, very slowly, exhaled a pale cloud she felt she had been holding in forever. The dozen or so fallen boulders of ice that had impeded her mission hovered above her now like translucent ghosts guarding the temple’s sanctity…just like she knew they would. She, one of a nameless thousand of lowly Jakku scavengers, held them there, all the more frozen in their suspension.

Looking back over her shoulder, Rey sought Kylo, not so much for approval as much as affirmation that, yes, she had really done it. By herself, she had done it.

Rey found Kylo backlit in royal twilight, the evening shade well-gathered into a mask of shadows beneath his coif. His mouth, so generous and alluring above his narrow jaw, looked as though it might have smiled if not for the composure his dedication as her instructor required.

He had never doubted her, Rey knew, a fact confirmed when Kylo suddenly returned to her side and, professionalism be damned, kissed her fully in the midst of her concentration. He was enthralled by her progress and promise. But more so, he trusted her, trusted in her powers and abilities—her exceptionalism ever-burgeoning in the light he had abandoned beneath the ruins of his past. He believed in that shared dominion of grey she tasted on his cold lips.

With a flick of her wrist, Rey sent the ice crashing off to the side and turned her full attention to Kylo’s tepid mouth.

Chapter 36: The Gathering

Chapter Text

36

Kylo’s recounting had set the stage, but nothing could have prepared Rey for either the grandeur or the wreckage of the Jedi Temple.

The tunnel she had unearthed had been disproportionately short, a dark mouth yawning wide into unending blue. No sooner had the valley winds exhaled Kylo and Rey into the glacier than the latter stopped, transfixed by the sight.

The vestibule simply stretched into eternity. Its vertical walls soared abruptly, arch upon arch, story upon story, the full height of the cliff before curving and joining nearly out of sight. Rey might not have seen the darkened dome so far above at all had it not been for the final drops of salmon sunlight trickling onto the chamber cupola. The ornate putlogs that carried the sun banded the rotunda, the ones on the outer wall permanently open to the wintry elements. These dying rays spotlighted the carved bows in cool violet before dissolving in the temple’s shadows.

Rey turned about as Kylo ignited the glowrod attached to his belt. As it came to life, its artificial yellow overlaid the natural cerulean of the ice and rock around them and painted everything an electric green. Only then did Rey acknowledge the surrounding debris.

Just as he had said, the Empire had left the temple in utter ruin, but the destruction was greater than Rey had anticipated. All traces of the Jedi’s presence had been razed to the ground or stricken from nearly every surface. The decorative alcoves and semi-columns that encircled the great room in repeating, rising rows had been all but eaten away by some manmade means. The meticulously carved bands that separated these layers were no different, their ancient characters ground off stratum after stratum, over and over, save for an overlooked symbol here and there Rey could make out in the distance. Where holy ornamentation had once welcomed generations of would-be knights, there was now only ragged rock and floe as far around the circular shrine as the eye could see.

The temple’s vast floor had caught and collected the bulk of the vandalism. The gravel had been plowed aside to clear a straight path along the temple radius. Rey’s Snowtrooper suit was lost among chunky heaps of frosted rock and ice several times her height. Like the valley pits, their slopes sharply scaled the walls like ladders leading to nowhere. Scattered and barely detectable at the feet of those embankments were the bases of various monuments—perhaps pillars—that had long since been leveled.

One such base caught Rey’s eye. What remained of it showed an exterior chiseled into rolling waves akin to the folds of a garment. As if someone had felled one of Rey’s beloved Takodana pines, the bulk and its carved curves climbed to knee height before abruptly ending.

A statue, Rey realized and was quickly able to make out three other such trunks that, together with the one at her side, were situated the same distance apart—two on each side, creating a perfect square among the hills of rubble. Guardians. Jedi.

Recognizing this only reinforced the feeling rooted in Rey’s gut that in spite of every effort the Empire had made to erase the Jedi sanctuary from existence, there remained an air of undying consecration, intact as if embedded in the very glacier that housed it. Like a ghost clinging to its earthly shell, the cathedral was revenant, frozen yet alive with an underlying voice whose whispers bounced off every deepening shadow and distant cranny.

“You feel it.” The hollow hall heightened Kylo’s soft baritone and folded it around Rey.

“I feel…something,” she agreed, removing her helmet and muffler as she looked about. The chill of the glacier air assaulted her bare ears, but she found it a worthwhile tradeoff to hear plainly the sacred stillness of the temple and the dull groan of the breeze outside.

“You feel the vergence.”

“Yes,” Rey agreed, only now able to distinguish the latent but unusual concentration of the Force that caressed her in its grasp. “But it’s more than that. This place is….”

Holy, she thought to herself. Still steeped in the light.

“I know. I felt it…when I was here,” Kylo added, watching her as she drifted into the temple’s sunless heart.

Her back to him, Rey turned her head to the side and stared at the glassy crumbles near her feet. “Do you feel it now?”

Silence answered her in the vast hush that held them. Mindful of her empathy, Rey abandoned the subject. There was nothing to gain by shaming Kylo for how far he had strayed from the light since his time with Luke, especially now, when he had returned from the dark side and given himself to her completely in the middle.

Following the lead of a thick exhale, Rey again looked ahead at the enormous black hole that gutted the opposite wall.

“Is that it?”

“The opening to the caves.”

Rey left Kylo’s voice farther behind and, listening to her steps echo off every vault and cranny, crossed what remained of the sunken path.

Fitting with the rest of the massive temple, the opening had been exaggerated by blasting and the passage of Imperial drills. The vital components as told to Ben Solo by scholarly Luke—the ice sheet and discreet entryway behind it—had long ago been obliterated with all other evidence of the Jedi tradition. Rey now recalled the wealth of Kylo, held tight in her slick arms, as he described how the Jedi Masters would use the Force to activate a refractory device mounted high in the cupola. The device would harness the Ilum sunlight, melting the ice sheet covering the entrance and sending a cascade of water down the massive staircase leading to the crystals. The Padawans would then be warned that they had to return before the ice sheet refroze and sealed them inside. This was meant only to add another challenge to an already difficult test.

Rey doubted if much had changed in the last decade or so since Ben had stood, breath and brain equally cloudy, on the same brink and studied the dejecting sight. Rounded and several stories high to allow for cargo haulers and excavation equipment, the threshold the Empire had left behind was more reminiscent of an explosion. Rough edges revealed foot upon foot of rocky, sooty earth. Ice crystals mottled the raw layer of wall, glistening and gradually fading into the darkness beyond Rey’s wide eyes. What she could see of the tunnel beyond revealed the innards of a drab geode, its surface having crumbled to sharpened points over time, as if the cave beyond were ready to consume anyone who entered it. Only permafrost and shattered rock ground together beneath her feet. Absolutely nothing remained of the stairs and solemn doorway through which millennia of Jedi had passed.

At this, Rey was touched by a sudden sadness, her intuitive spirit lamenting the gate. Like the temple, it been robbed of all its outward splendor, the humble honor paid to its Force energy gone forever. Luke and Ben had been cheated. She had been cheated as well, along with generations of potential Jedi.

Yet, despite how efficiently he had erased the Jedi Temple and emptied its caves of their precious minerals, the Emperor had failed to weaken the vergence in any way. Rey knew this to be true. The Force was more than the precious crystals and the frozen earth that hid them. It was the essence of this place as it was the essence of her, of Kylo, of the bond they shared—exceptional, eternal. And she had to face it.

The torn temple floor crunched toward her and was again still beneath the ghostly sigh of the world outside.

“Don’t let it fool you. The caves are as much a labyrinth now as they were before the mining.”

“How will I find my way back?” Rey shivered.

“Trust in the Force. Listen to it. It will guide you back just as it will guide you to your crystal.”

Rey turned to Kylo and found the steep climb of his neon-lit cheek as placid as it had been at the foot of the cliff. The peace of mind his faith in her seemed to provide him steadied her own wavering nerves.

“I’m always afraid it won’t speak to me,” she said, masking her doubt in a playful grin.

Unexpectedly, Kylo reached to the beltline of Rey’s coat. “You are always in the light, Rey. If me being in your life hasn’t changed that, nothing will. It’s where you were meant to be. I believe that.”

Now beaming at his words, Rey looked down to watch Kylo unclip Luke’s lightsaber from her belt.

“You can’t harvest your crystal if you’re carrying someone else’s,” he said, handing her the glowrod in trade. “This is your time. It will be waiting for you when you return.” Securing the ancestral weapon to his own belt, Kylo then took the ill-fitting Snowtrooper helmet from beneath Rey’s crooked arm. “I’ll be waiting for you too, but you have to leave me here. Believe in yourself…alone.”

The persistence of his warning despite her earlier reassurances now gave Rey greater pause. All her trust in the power of their unity aside, Rey decided, as Kylo’s student, to heed his words. He had been there already; he knew fully the ways the vergence would test her.

This must be what the dream meant, she reasoned suddenly, easing the strange dread that had clung to her ever since. It’s just for a short time. I can do this.

“I will,” Rey nodded but then found the words pouring past her lips: “But promise you won’t leave me here. No matter how long it takes, you won’t leave without me.”

It was Kylo who now smiled—that broad but stifled Kylo smile, framed by the cowl over his jet hair, never revealing his perfect teeth but always disclosing so much more.

“Never without you.”

Chapter 37: What You Take with You

Chapter Text

37

Much to Rey’s relief, the frozen lake was far more forgiving than the slope she had tumbled down to get to it. Transferring her weight onto that first wary foot, she peered at the pearly surface and pressed her teeth to her lower lip. After all, there was no shame in abandoning the idea at any sign of give. But the solid water held fast and the fatal snap she anticipated never came.

Thank the Force, for as certainly as she had been wandering for hours, Rey felt as though she had gotten nowhere…until now.

Kylo’s memory of the Crystal Caves had held true: They remained a maze, if, however, a much more sizable one than during the days of the Old Republic. At the very first turn, the veins of the glacier had fractured multiple directions, branching off again and again until Rey abandoned all hope of simply memorizing her path so that she might reverse it later.

Like the Jedi Temple, every square inch of the caves had been abused in some way. The passages linking one to the next had been hollowed out by machine work. What Rey suspected were once tight aisles and claustrophobic connections now, like the entrance, gaped with the evidence of their violation. Listening to her boots tap along these passageways, she imagined the biological beauty of every nook and grotto as it must have been in those old days, the icicles blocking various paths, the stalagmites jutting like memorials, the cosmic twinkle of crystals embedded throughout a translucent universe….

Rey supposed the only semblance of those times was the frost. A powdery layer dusted every surface of the network. It helped light her way as it had reflected the sun off the temple walls, carrying Ilum moon-glow through pipelines stretching, sight unseen, to the outside. This filtered through the glass of fledgling ice formations and created the wintry wonderland of pale beryl and lustrous white through which Rey wandered.

She had left Kylo, a dark wick framed in a halo of temple light, and emptied him from her thoughts as much as possible. But even as she thrust him to the back of her mind, his nearness had not been as easy to forget. More than once, Rey had sensed the alarm sounding in her core, reminding her that he was close but not close enough, and she would have to drown the sensation again to salvage her clarity. These flare-ups she had chosen to view not as nuisances but as opportunities to exercise her control over the Force that poured through her. Skillfully, she had subdued the intimate energy in turn, but secretly, she took comfort in the reminders that he was still there, still waiting for her. Regardless, and despite all her hopes and belief in them both, Rey was pragmatic enough to understand the fundamental truth: If she was to ever become a true Jedi, she would eventually have to overcome the ferocity of their bond.

For now, her general peace of mind had been enough to lead her onward. Although it seemed ages since she had meditated or had the confidence to drown out the doubts and death, she now found that wondrous tranquility within easy reach. As she wandered from one chamber to the next, Rey exposed herself to the vergence as surely as it opened itself to her with its enormous atria and colossal caverns. Gradually, she began to worry less and less about the end goal, although she remained ever attentive for any familiar trace of the universe. Kylo had told her to listen, but, in truth, she had already known that deep in her being. After all, that pure reception—forever rooted and burgeoning in the storm of her emotions—had always been the essence of her fluency with the Force.

Her trust fixed in the light, Rey had meandered in this way, unfazed save for her body’s occasional tremor in the deep cold of the subterrane. As she wandered, she came upon scored catwalks crossing ravines great and small. There were also taut tunnels through which Rey crawled on hands and knees from dead ends only to find herself in another of the Empire’s vast drill paths. There were groves of see-through spikes that grew taller with each occasional drip from equally cruel ceilings. There were azure cliffs within the cliff and vast plains of chalk and scree. There was the open grave of mining casualties in one of the shallower shafts, the trooper armor—similar to her own—stiff with well-preserved flesh. There was a close call when Rey had inched herself around the slivered edge of an unavoidable pit and, having nearly toppled in, listened to her surprised yelp bounce off the tunnels. There were scalable hills whose untouched formations she had used to pull her insulated body to the top, and there were the opposite slopes of those hills, equally slippery and treacherous. One of these banks had led her down to the lake she now crossed so cautiously. And all of it was the color of the sickbay light on Kylo’s skin.

After a few more steps onto the ice, Rey contented herself that it was thick beneath her and, feeling small in the middle of the arctic stadium that surrounded the lake, continued toward the far shore. Thankfully, the strange inclination she had latched onto grew with each stride. Although what she could see of the other side of the solid expanse looked to be another dead end—more snow, stalactites, and shadows—her attuned senses yielded to the tow of the invisible field. It drew in Rey’s spirit just as she had first learned to tug on her energy web, gently strumming a shared mainline in that placid, almost ethereal, but nonetheless energetic way that so differed from the fierce strain that bound Kylo to her and her to him.

By the time she neared the frosty bank, a familiar chorus had drowned out the grind of her boots. It was that same mass of voices that had guided her before, always clear but forever unintelligible with their razor hisses and soft urgings. They had led her to Luke’s lightsaber, and to his holocron, those guides, their whispers, like the universe, well-meaning and embedded in the very stratum of her life force.

Was she close? She had to be.

That was when Rey felt her crystal, actually felt it, close by. One ivory knee camouflaged in the embankment, Rey warmed her eyes in their lids and took the cold into her burning lungs more slowly. Converging on that feeling, she was surprised to find the crystal vibrating in the Force like a new appendage tingling to life. Even more shocking was the manner in which it beckoned to her. How many times had she manipulated objects in the Force by treating them as extensions of her being, to pull or push or stop or slow them in that brilliant tangle of energies comprising the galaxy? This, however, resonated as a natural part of her whole in a way with which she was all to intimate. She did not have to imagine it, did not have bridge the gap or identify the channel.

For the first time, the Force connected her to something that was not Kylo Ren.

When Rey sighed balmy recognition and looked again upon the arctic shore before her, she saw the faint gleam of the thing she already knew was there. It shone like a pale lantern, flickering there, somewhere, embedded in the ice, tucked away from the troopers and the rest of the galaxy.

Though her chapped lips ached, Rey smiled and scurried up the rest of the slippery bank so that she might peer into the dark ahead. The colossal cavern sloped sharply at this end of the lake. It then plunged in pale opalescence until it came to a stop a few yards ahead. There, obscured by scattered columns of age-old ice, it abruptly plunged to form a quaint alcove that hid itself from the bulk of the blue basin.

A secret cave, Rey imagined, never taking her eyes from the soft sparkle within.

Rey crossed what seemed like one of a million thresholds where splendor met shade, threading herself between two of the thickly frozen rungs that barred the mysterious cell. Only when her eyes adjusted to the dim was she able to make out the beacon that had guided her way.

The kyber crystal was smaller and more delicate than Rey had envisioned weeks ago, when Kylo had mentioned it after their first blissful night together. Barely bigger than a capsule, it hung there, almost as translucent as glacial wall that suspended it. As Rey moved nearer still, the form of her backlit figure reflected dully off the ice and cast a foreign umbrage in the shadows. When she stopped, the gem aligned directly at the center of her fluttering chest.

What happened next was unexpected, though, Rey soon felt, the reaction she should have foreseen: The silver-white glimmer at her core rekindled with a renewed radiance. What had been the fading pulses of a dying star now revived and beamed with a fixed brilliance. The wall of ice before her amplified this light, carrying the discharge until the entire alcove wall glowed with an even incandescence.

Overlooked by the Empire and now roused from centuries of sleep, her crystal had come alive for her. Like Kylo, it was a living part of her—a vital piece she had not known she was missing until this very moment. And, like Kylo, now that Rey knew it existed, she would never again be parted from it. Already, she felt the unassuming thing focusing her power. Like herself, the crystal endured, utterly bared and susceptible to the inescapable energy of the universe. The moment of their union had come at last—the time for her crystal to be free.

Following the train of instinct that had led her this far, Rey tugged at the tips of her left glove. The sea of sighs that had guided her grew louder and more restless as she lifted her hand and spread the slender digits. Gently, she pressed her palm to the entombed crystal.

A strange sensation engulfed her. The crescendo in her mind cut off. On the other side of the glass, the sister palm disintegrated like the vapor from her lips. Rey perceived the limitless knots that bound her to the Force drawing tighter, tangling about her and pulling her in, as it was so often wont to do. What other choice did she have but to allow it to take her?

Grasping at her fragile serenity, Rey watched, mouth agape, as the ice transformed. Although the light remained, the mirrored surface, its nicks and scratches—even the crystal behind her palm—all faded into nothingness. Her reflection melted away with it, dissolving outward as though the heat of her contact cleansed the ice of its natural fog. The wall that held her touch was now a sheet of tempered transparisteel, a perfect window with a perfect view of….

Rey gasped. Impossible.

But there was no doubting the image of herself on the other side of the glass, nor the unmistakable silhouette of Kylo. Their eternal chiaroscuro was all too recognizable as they stood, black against white, face to face, blue and red lightsabers drawn and held aside. In their unarmed hands, Rey noticed the length of a brilliant red yarn. The slimness of the weave dangled between the pair, drooping lower as they embraced one another with the same unrestrained tenderness they had only recently allowed themselves. Caught by a phantom gust, the narrow ends of the strand unfurled in two crimson bursts and was carried around them as though nature itself was intent on binding them. And although the vision lacked any hint of background, Rey knew in her soul that, this time, it would not be the foul and frightening cave where she had first conceded her need for him. Nor would it be the mauve-hued dusk that so haunted her. No, it would be the color of his scent: that cool woodland emerald where they had met. She practically smelled it now. Its rustling breezes led their eternal thread in its dance.

However, the illusion did not linger long enough to confirm her faith. Though the evergreens, the cave draft—whatever it might be—still whistled in Rey’s ears, the display disappeared behind a spill of frost that poured rapidly across her looking glass. Then, just as quickly as it had appeared, the flossy curtain vanished again, and Rey once more saw two familiar figures take shape amid the same blank canvas. This scene, however, was far different.

They were being attacked! The master and student of her illusion fended off a band of ornately armored soldiers. Back to back, the two figures positioned themselves, their silent blows falling swift and lethal on every apparition that charged at them.

Where? When? Please tell me! Rey’s mind scrambled for answers she knew the Force would never reveal. It was no different than it had been in Snoke’s library, when Kylo found himself transported to her and her to him there, on the Finalizer bridge: Only they and their assailants were visible. She had nothing to help her identify the scene.

Though she looked no older, this Rey—the fearless Rey of this battle—seemed wiser somehow. More skilled, more confident, but somehow hollower, almost weary—much more mature than she was even now. Her ochre hair swung loosely above the grey muslin at her shoulders as she spun and then jabbed (Whose lightsaber is THAT?) through the face mask of one of the crimson-clad warriors. And, though it made no sense, that equally crimson thread remained, clutched in one of the fists she wrapped around the lightsaber’s dual hilt.

On the other end of that link, Kylo, too, appeared changed despite the familiarly ferocious way he slashed and charged at his assailants. His fierceness belied the circles of exhaustion beneath his wide eyes. His damp hair was less coiffed—wilder, like the cries of his efforts to ward off the soldier who now wielded the electro-chain whip. But he clung to his end of their yarn as she did: steadfast, entwined in the gloved fingers below the crossblades of his lightsaber. Despite the brutality of the skirmish—wherever it was, whenever it would be—neither of them released that scarlet tie.

Repelling her anxiety over what she might see, Rey exhaled her relief when the projected danger faded with the fleeting permafrost. She could not allow herself to fear, not in a place as powerful and manipulative as the Crystal Caves. But help her, she wanted to, for truly, Rey’s visions had never been kind, and the back of her mind harbored a learned dread of some terrible prophecy the vergence might show her.

What she saw next stole the entire breath from her body regardless.

The toddler could not have been more than four. The highlights of her baby-soft chestnut hair suggested a ghost sun overhead as she ran with glee from Rey’s window and the figure in white. Before the latter two, Kylo’s open arms scooped the little girl up and, resuming his full height, playfully spun her around.

Yes, it was unmistakably Kylo, yet…not at all Kylo. Though he had definitely aged since her last vision, this Kylo looked somehow more boyish than ever. The tension about his mouth had abated and transformed into a broad, cheerful smile Rey had only ever imagined him making. His clothes, though still as black as the First Order, were ordinary—a long-sleeved pullover falling loosely atop the band of simple trousers. No, though he looked nearly identical, this man was not the Kylo that Rey knew. He was transformed. His happiness somehow made him stronger, lighter, and more breathtaking. His typically troubled gaze was exotically soft as he focused on the child in his arms. And the little girl spoke to him before she turned back to Rey and the woman in white, and….

“Oh my god….”

Rey knew those eyes so inherently. Somehow, she had always known them. Naturally dark and deep-set, but, oh, in the light, the color of smoky quartz and terra-cotta. That same Ben Solo umber tinted by that same Kylo Ren bottomlessness.

Ben Solo’s child.

And the pale-clothed figure turned in her raised collar as she reached father and daughter, and Rey grinned through fast tears as she beheld the woman in whom she had never lost faith: the woman she knew she was meant to be. Older and radiant of a great strength and knowledge that deceived her youthful looks, this Rey was serene as she wrapped her deeply scarred left arm around the youngling Ben Solo held to him. As her other arm disappeared behind him, she rested her tautly pulled hair on his shoulder and beamed at the little girl who shared the same apple cheeks, the same squarish jaw, the same toothy smile.

Behind the family, the cardinal cord that bound the two parents again fluttered in a future breeze.

This, Rey thought, laughing over the wind and her tears and her surging heart. Please, forever this. Never alone again, never apart…. Our family.

A fourth figure now emerged behind the glass wall, her royal blue robes crisp against the mirage’s neutral backdrop. She neared the family with careful movements that communicated her advanced age. Indeed, Rey guessed the woman was several times Rey’s current age. Yet, the many cracks lining the small face failed to mask the tenacity of her beauty, and the woman carried herself with a regality that only added to her elegance. More than noble, however, the lady appeared tender and wise. She smiled warmly beneath her braided crown of ashen hair as she spoke, wrinkled hands clasped, to this Rey, this Ben Solo, and their child. Yes, tender, wise, and…familiar, someone Rey had seen before.

Where had she seen this person? It was right on the tip of Rey’s tongue and yet so inaccessible. And had she not also seen this woman somehow recently? How?

“Well, now I see what all the fuss is about. You’re going to outshine us all someday, sweetheart. The brightest star in the galaxy.”

With this unsettling stab came the frost again, crackling and clouding over the polished surface as though it were a mold spoiling her happiness, and in the pit of her stomach, Rey was certain something in the Force had shifted.

When the barrier to her crystal again cleared behind Rey’s palm, only darkness remained. The luminous white of her future had retreated, its secrets intact. The vergence had nothing more to offer her than a limitless view of a starless night.

Or…was she wrong, for it seemed like something was moving there in the dark. Like the bottom of an agitated lake, the visual settled slowly and formed fiery cuts amid the murk. Three burning slits that now highlighted his face.

Rey’s confused grin fell to an open gape.

Though the shadows were dark and deep, Rey now saw that the Kylo she knew had returned. He was younger than the Ben Solo she had just seen. In fact, he was nearly the Kylo she knew now, though his hair again fell untamed and his robes were now more cloak than cowl. But the inherent worry of even his most restful resignation defined his expression anew, until it was overtaken by utter surprise….

One of the fiery blades jutted from Kylo’s cape.

Rey muffled her own shriek with the back of her free hand. She watched helplessly as Kylo released his lightsaber—the same sickly red as the one that had passed through him—from where he had lowered it. Help her, he had let it happen—his own slaughter! Why?

The crossguard extinguished as it fell and clunked shrilly off some unseen steel. The air howled as the man she loved buckled, clinging to consciousness and the robed shoulder of his killer. He then reached weakly beneath the drawn hood before him. There was no malice in the gesture, no violence, only wide-eyed shock lined with tenderness and…sorrow: the acceptance of a final goodbye. It was a look etched in Rey’s memory, one she had witnessed long ago through Kylo’s mind. Only then, he had been the dealer of the lethal blow.

Choking on salt and venom and ragged air, Rey beat against the ice with her gloved fist. But the murderer pulled the fiery blade from Kylo’s rib, not even merciful enough to simply extinguish the plasma, and stepped backward. The farewell had ended.

Rey then watched Kylo follow his lightsaber to the ground. She watched as the executioner lowered the weapon, revealing a second ruby blade at the opposite end of the fatal one. She watched as the figure jerked an arm and the dual blade folded at the hilt so that both sabers buzzed ahead like an electric sai. She watched the lightsaber extinguish as Kylo’s killer turned to nudge the crumpled body with her foot. Her foot.

“No.” But the vision paid Rey no heed. “No, no, no, no.”

Rey knew. She knew the truth even before the folds of the flaccid hood revealed it. Yes, the pale cheeks were hollowed, and the somber smock was foreign. The soot-lined lashes were vacant, and the bright spark had vanished. But there was no possible way Rey could deny it, not when the wind wailed and the scarlet thread sailed downward—forever severed—and coiled over Kylo’s lifeless body. Her greatest fear.

“Noooo!”

Crack! The fissure splintered from Rey’s palm faster than she could register. Within a microsecond, the glass shattered and dropped with a thunderous crash.

Startled, Rey plunged backward onto the cave floor. The shards bounced around her in the dark, glimmering off the lake light like a shower of diamonds. When the pieces settled and the clinking ceased, Rey scrambled to her knees and panted in the deafening silence. The bare hand, so bitter and numb from the ice, nonetheless trembled as she held it. Her whole body shook along with it, although her shock had all but dried her stinging tears.

Several minutes passed this way, with Rey paralyzed, gasping, and staring into the dingy alcove where the ice wall had stood. What had she just seen? Her mind was a flurry that threatened to blanket all her reason. What of the premonitions was true? Most certainly the first part was, had already occurred, but what else? Why had it shifted so violently? Kylo had said the vergence would test her, but, oh, she had never imagined the pain…to show her dreams she never thought possible, only to undo and obliterate them moments later. Like that terrible moment Kylo had disappeared from the library when he was so close to helping her, Rey felt wounded by the Force.

It must be Snoke, she reasoned, fighting a wave of nausea that threatened to bring up the bile in her empty stomach. You let him into your head! You should’ve never gone to him. He’s not right. You know he’s not! He doesn’t know how it will end. You let him into your head, and the vergence found him in there. He’s not right about you!

“In there, you are your own obstacle. You are your own adversary.” Yes, Kylo had said that. He had warned her. Force help her, she felt so very far away from him right now.

Rey nodded spasmodically to no one. Breaking her own spell, she thrust her hand into the shards to snatch her missing glove. The ice was sharp, and she felt the cut almost instantly. The pulse of the pain was suddenly welcome, almost inviting, centering her scattered thoughts.

Bringing the lost glove to her face, Rey studied her wound. Despite how her hand shook, the warm blood trickled a straight line down her thumb. In her secret alcove, the blood looked so dark…dark like the cloak that had hidden her face. Dark like her eyes beneath it.

But also, yes…dark like the child’s eyes. Their child’s eyes—the child she could bear him. Just the possibility of that happiness, that inconceivable joy, was enough to settle Rey back into herself. The notion of hope, no matter how small and fragile, carried such relief, such serenity. And there, far below the Ilum earth, Rey at last understood the trial of the vergence. It was merely an amplification, as their bond had always been. Her trial had begun before they’d even reached the snow, and how she would overcome it would never be set it stone.

Her destiny was only what she made it. The choice, as Rey had always believed, would be hers.

Suddenly, the throb in her thumb was pain to overcome rather than exploit. Her breathing gradually relaxed and, as it did, a gentle luminescence began to radiate both inside and outside her mind.

Rey blinked at the fragments that now glowed in the frost. How could she have forgotten? Returning her wounded hand to its glove, Rey calmly combed through the crystalline at her knees. Her hands had ceased shaking by the time she found the crystal and held it up to the stream of blue light at her side.

Shutting her eyes, Rey tucked the jagged gem into one of the pockets of her quilted tunic. As she did, she sealed the image of Ben Solo and their child safely in her heart.

“Take me back,” she whispered, surrendering herself again as an instrument of the light.

As Rey had hoped, the light of the Force was present, as it was present in all things. It flowed through the glacier around her, through the air she breathed—through the very stars—with a fresh vitality. Or perhaps she merely perceived it with a new understanding, the awareness of someone with renewed faith her own inner peace and hope for the possibilities of the grey she shared with Kylo. Rey was not sure which, but she welcomed its guidance regardless.

Out of the secret cave, back across the lake ice, up the bumpy hillside of the great cavern, and on, Rey traveled. On and on, upward and upward, her attuned instincts led her with such clarity and accuracy that no more than an hour—perhaps two—could have passed before she recognized the sawtooth corridor to the Jedi Temple. And when she passed back over that ruined threshold, her spirits soared to find Kylo, who, having felt her near, had risen from his patient seat in the midnight rubble and activated Luke’s lightsaber to guide her.

Seeing him there, Rey desired nothing more than to run to him, to wrap her arms around him and bury her lips in his silken hair and feel his hands clutching her back. She wanted to tell him everything the Force had shown her. She wanted to hold his stunned face in her hands when she told him about their child. She wanted to stroke his silken cheek as she promised him that she would never do anything to harm him.

But Rey could not bring herself to do any of this, not yet. There would be a time and place, her more reasonable side assured her. Truthfully, she was also uncertain whether she had the strength to answer the questions that would inevitably follow, questions about visions she could barely interpret herself. No, now was not the time for him to know.

Rather than heeding to her compulsions, Rey carried herself with the composure of a refined student who had mastered her greatest test yet: confident yet humble, save for grateful smile she could not hide at the sight of him (Alive and safe forever, I promise). When she reached him in the electric blue essence of the temple, it was Kylo who pulled her to him and kissed her deeply, fully, on her shivering lips. And Rey knew that, however long she lived, she would not forget this kiss among so many, nor the complex perfection of how his simplest actions always eased her soul.

When he finally broke from her mouth eons later, Kylo pressed his brow to hers to linger in his blind satisfaction.

In lieu of everything she wanted to say, Rey again grinned in her own close-eyed bliss and said, “Let’s go get warm. I’m freezing.”

Minutes later, the expanse of the glacier and its sacred contents was behind them as they began retracing the long and winding road back though the valley.

In spite of the tremors of cold and stubborn stress that occasionally jolted her body, Rey felt wholly up to the challenge of this final leg of their journey. Although her fateful hand refused to unfreeze in its glove, her cheeks soon thawed beneath her returned helmet and muffler. She even took the lead and was pleased to discover that, like the caves, the return journey seemed much quicker and more direct.

Still, it was not fast enough, for all Rey wanted in the world was to be back with Kylo in the shuttle. They were so close to the only sanctuary they’d ever known, so near that she could practically feel the warmth of Kylo’s naked arms holding her as they slept. And then, later, when she was truly revived and ready, maybe then she would tell Kylo about the omens of free will the Force had shown her. Maybe then. For now, Rey pushed the limits of her tired legs and was reminded of all that had transpired every time she felt Luke’s lightsaber rap the tiny crystal in her pocket.

At last, just as they had cleared the final crater at the valley border, Rey stopped in her tracks. Though one of the planet’s moons had already set, the other hung stubbornly and fully on the horizon. Despite the growing indication of the dawn behind it, the entirety of the orb was as brilliant as a searchlight. This total illumination produced a peculiar effect on the rolling hills to the brink of Rey’s vision: The Ilum snowfall shimmered with an almost aqueous appearance where it lay.

Though she hated to slow them down, Rey removed her helmet so that she could look upon the sight with her own eyes. She had seen bright nights almost like this before. So many times, she had ventured outside her AT-AT on chilly evenings to marvel at the shadows she cast in the cooled sand. But Jakku could never have compared to the rhinestone-studded sea that separated them from the shuttle. Not even the Crystal Caves, with all their azure gleam and glimmer, could compare.

And yet, Rey knew she had seen that same sheen before, seen the light twinkling off it as it would on the ripples of an uneasy ocean. No, not the ocean that surrounded her island, but not far away. It was the glitter of a forest where every fern and trunk shone with fairy dew—the ghostly gloss of a nightmare.

Though she did not know why, Rey staggered backward, and as she did, her Force energy sounded an alarm she never knew it possessed. “Kylo…” she gasped.

Behind her, a well-known buzz sparked, and Rey saw the snow at her feet turn a deadly hue.

Rey whirled back to the valley and followed the focus of Kylo’s stony apprehension into the distance. No more than 20 yards from them both, a heavily robed stranger that Rey somehow knew stood, casting a shadow giant in the sparkling snow. And when he spoke, his voice echoed the gruff timbre Rey remembered well from Poe Dameron’s head.

“It’s over, kid,” Luke Skywalker told Kylo.

Chapter 38: A Revelation Pt. 1

Chapter Text

38

Kylo had sensed his uncle’s presence in the Force only seconds before Rey. The foreign energy had registered, unnatural and intrusive in the safe sphere of Kylo and Rey’s bond, as the corner of Kylo’s eye spotted the source in the moonlit distance.

A decade of well-preserved bitterness and wrath instantly sprang its cage. Succumbing to his swelling hatred, Kylo flared his lightsaber, threw back his cowl, and assumed his battle stance.

How could have he possibly been caught so off guard? How had he not sensed Luke’s power the second they approached the same atmosphere? Any other time, the sheer effort it must have taken Luke to mask his presence might have impressed Kylo.

Oh, yes, the Jedi had hidden himself well. Even his blanched robes blended him with the blanket of midnight snowfall that surrounded them. And, in Kylo’s racing mind, all that trouble and care meant the old fool had a mission other than finishing what he’d attempted so long ago.

“Yes, you’re so right. This ends now.”

The figure closed the distance between them, his Jedi vestment carving a shadowy ravine in the diamond-studded snow. When he stopped within saber range, he removed his own hood and bared his bearded features to Ilum’s effulgence. He appeared much more aged in the night shade, so much older than Kylo remembered. Yet, the crags of his face remained calm and collected, as if he had no intention to fight.

“That is your decision.” And then Luke turned to the final point of their triangle. “I’ve only come for Rey.”

Kylo’s enflamed nerves blazed a sudden pyre that blocked out his companion’s look of confusion. The floe crunched like bones beneath the foot he ground to the side. The crackle of the crossguard filled his ears, encouraging him as he raised the hilt to the level of his face. Narrowing his gaze over the electric red, Kylo reveled in the truth that he would rather die finishing what Luke started than give Rey to him, to anyone, ever.

Methodically, Kylo pulled the angry blade back at his shoulder. After all, he was owed the first strike.

But Luke was unphased. “It’s time for it to end. She needs to know the truth.”

Kylo blinked. His fatal hand wavered.

No…. Please no.

It was too late, though. Already, Rey shifted toward him with a questioning that would never be silenced, even if Luke was. Kylo shifted his focus away from his opponent to find that look. Even in the brilliant darkness, the innocent eyes he adored now glimmered with alarm and confusion, and the lips he so coveted parted in their puzzlement. Hers was the face—the most perfect, cherished face—of someone who had only ever wanted answers and had forever been denied…despite being owed them for so long.

“What’s he talking about, Kylo?”

Her voice already hesitated. She was disturbed by Luke’s words, Kylo knew. She could sense their validity, their underlying truth. Rey was always so perceptive, ever so astute. His strong, beautiful scavenger.

The weapon Kylo had drawn back now trembled violently in its lateral hold. The whole of his body followed it as he turned back to the old man. Kylo’s gritted teeth slacked as he read the determination written across Luke’s world-weary face. There was no escaping this now, not even if he fell beneath Kylo’s blade.

Force…Force help me, Kylo’s imperfect being gasped. Luke meant to take Rey from him, and he was completely powerless to stop it. How could he even try when deep down, ingrained in some neglected place his love for her had resurrected, Kylo knew his enemy was right?

His stunned eyes locked on Luke’s cold ones as a spectral sword ran him though, and Kylo felt the life feeding his body plummet to the snow. Everything he was followed it, including his extinguished crossguard.

A few feet away, Rey’s breath froze over the icy stab in her chest. What had been simple curiosity was now seized and throttled by her apprehension. She had never seen this Kylo before. Perhaps she had seen semblances of him before. A similar Kylo had come to her after their first intimate catastrophe in the training room. That Kylo had been so lost. He had all but begged for forgiveness for what he had done to her, and she had seen that truth, recognized the undying humanity she was capable of pulling from his darkness. And that knowledge had changed their course forever.

But this Kylo…this Kylo had surpassed shame and devastation. Not until this very moment had she seen him utterly, completely defeated. Never before had she witnessed that look of complete helplessness etched in his porcelain face or seen his eyes so wide with fear, and his rouge mouth slackened as if praying in a wordless language no one but him could understand. And, for the first time Rey could recall since his training with Snoke, Kylo’s profound upset shot through their bond and engulfed Rey so fully that she teetered on the verge of illness or passing out altogether.

Yet, exceeding all these obvious warnings—for reasons Rey could not articulate even in her own mind—she dreaded the cause of Kylo’s surrender.

Nevertheless, she cast her helmet sailing into the night and stumbled to Kylo’s side as quickly she had ever done anything in her life.

“Kylo?” She joined him on her knees in the soft snowbank where he had collapsed and, frightened and unsure of what to do, wrapped her arms about his broad back. “Kylo, what is it?”

Whether he was unable or simply refused, Kylo did not look at her. Panicking, Rey yanked the bulky white gloves from her hands so she might clutch his shoulders, brush back the thick length of his hair—anything to get him to acknowledge her. But he was unmoved despite how he quaked in her hands.

“Kylo, talk to me!”

“Tell her.”

Rey followed Kylo’s gaze up to the commanding figure who now towered over them. “Kylo?” she croaked, the string of nausea tightening in her gut. “What’s he talking about?”

“Tell her now,” Luke urged softly. And something in the tone of his demand had shifted. He now sounded almost…sympathetic.

Slowly, Kylo turned in Rey’s arms until he faced her. Despite the dramatic shadows the moon painted beneath his hair, his pronounced brow, his aquiline nose, Rey made out the unmistakable expression of a man—not a warrior or a commander or a teacher or a formidable Force-user—just a man…shattered.

“I…” he gasped in a sudden spasm, his hands now frantic and grappling at Rey’s arms as though it was all he could do to keep her form fading into the ether at any second. For a time, he held her like that, at that intimate arm’s length, his open mouth forming nothing, his fingers grasping to find her smooth shoulders beneath her snow-gear, his black eyes pleading with her. Smoothing back his hair in vain to comfort him, a horrified Rey returned all of his desperation as she waited for something, anything, to help her ease his crumbling heart.

At last, he transformed beneath her touch. His glistening lips closed, though they continued to vibrate with crippling tension. His gloved hands released her arms and instead grabbed at her hands about his neck. He clasped them in his own, squeezing them so tightly that Rey nearly felt pain, and lowered them to his snow-packed knees. Then, still holding them in one hand, raised the other until it nearly touched her own shivering chin.

Kylo softly shook his head. “I’m sorry, Rey.” It was a whisper of pure dejection.

His glove then drifted oh so slightly, barely more than an inch, the pointer and index fingers extending from right to left. Such a small, simple gesture. And as he did, Rey succumbed to the lift of a powerful weight rooted somewhere in her being.

Inhaling sharply as though a great pressure had been abated in her mind, she retreated into herself to locate the source. Inside, far removed from the chill and the night and the fear, she found an unearthed path through a familiar vista, and she followed its plunge down to the bottom. It was deep, this uncovered thing, buried far beyond the sand and the sea, the island and the forest, and all the other subconscious terrain she’d tried so hard to guard when Kylo had first invaded the privacy of her psyche. Perhaps he’d even touched it with his own mind that day, that moment in time when everything changed between them and Rey’s potential awoke from its long sleep. For Rey detected traces of him on the trail to that secret place. When she at last located what she sought—at last exhumed this unearthed atom of her mind—the antique fingerprints of his power were everywhere, strewn about in the dust he now wiped away so that she might see…could finally see….

An amber twilight on a woodland planet. In the air, the earthy smell of damp oak and fragrant blades of sweetgrass. The song of the owls emerging. Everywhere scent, sound, and texture.

“Kylah?”

Although the child was much younger, barely a toddler, Rey recognized her from the vision in Maz Kanata’s castle. This time—this memory—bore the perfect clarity the other had lacked. It resonated in Rey’s mind with an intimacy so second-nature as to leave no room for doubt.

It was her. The name was hers as well. Kylah.

Kylah.

Oh my god.

The toddler lowered the cornflower blue bud and giggled from her hiding place in the overgrown field. When she looked to the row of trees that separated her meadow from the temple looming above them, she saw the kind man. From her earliest memories, the girl remembered how she had known she could trust him. And she had been correct, so right, in fact, that everything prior—those flashes and fleeting feelings of infant recollection—had all but been erased by love, happiness, and the passage of time.

The setting sun brought out the beginnings of grey in the man’s blonde hair as he hailed her in the distance.

“Kylah!” Master Luke called pleasantly. “Time for dinner! Come now!”

Keep moving. Go deeper.

Little Rey (no, little Kylah)—maybe a year older than before, but still so tiny—levitated the stones next to the temple’s bowed entrance. With her narrow back to the courtyard, she concentrated, her rosy tongue pressed tenaciously to her mud-caked lip. How she loved the Stone Dance game! She was forever delighted by how her mind could make the pebbles waltz and twirl. Besides, it was much more fun than Master Luke making her pick up all the heavy things.

“Kylah! Come here, please!”

The girl let the stones fall in front of her as she sprang up from her seat in the dirt. Master Luke stood in the green at the far side of the rounded courtyard. He was not alone. A boy who looked more than double her own age stood shyly next to Luke, his dark head lowered as he stared vacantly at the grass.

Brushing the grit off her bare knees, she ran obediently across the expanse, crying, “Coming, Master Luke!” in her shrill child’s voice. When she reached the pair, she grinned widely in her dirty trousers and stained frock.

The boy at Luke’s side did not look up to acknowledge her presence, but in her blind innocence, little Kylah paid no attention to this slight. She was far more fascinated by him. He had the beginnings of a peculiar face, unusually oblong, with a great deal of it falling below his high-set cheekbones. His hair reminded her of the leaves above her campfire at night, pitch black except for where the firelight caught them and seared them a rich sepia. It had been cut short save for a thinly braided lock that fell behind one pronounced ear. Kylah immediately liked how he looked, innocently basking in how new and interesting the boy seemed to her.

Real. Help me, he was real. And he was—

“Kylah, what in great stars have you been into?” Luke said sternly, though lacking any real anger. He reached out and brushed some of dried flakes off her cheek. “I leave you alone for a few hours and you decide to turn yourself into a mud pie?”

“Master Luke, I was making you a scrulpture!” the little girl protested, wrinkling her deeply freckled nose under his wiping.

“A sculpture?” Luke asked indulgently, his smile pulling at the corners of his trimmed beard. “Well, you are sweet for thinking of me. But I was hoping to introduce you to my nephew looking your best.”

Oh my god. Please no. No. It can’t be true!

Kylah was all smiles and excessive volume as she held out her tiny hand to the awkward teenager at Luke’s side. “I’m Kylah! Pleased to meet you, Ben! I’m so happy you’ve come to live with us!”

In place of taking her hand, the young man only nodded at the ground. But little Kylah was undeterred. She ogled the dark eyes that refused to meet her hazel ones, and she whispered toward him as though Luke were out of earshot.

“Ben, there’s the best mud pit behind the temple. Do you wanna come make a scrulpture with me?”

“There will be no more sculpting done today, artisan Kylah,” Luke sighed, placing his hand on the girl’s back as he ushered her toward the hot springs on the far side of the woods. “Ben’s a little too old to be playing in the mud, as are you, young lady. It’s time to get you cleaned up.”

Obedient, Kylah allowed Master Luke to nudge her along, though she looked back with continued curiosity at the mute figure in their wake. Her mischievous grin returned when she saw one corner of the boy’s generous mouth curl up into a smile.

Why, Kylo? Why didn’t you tell me? You should have told me! All of this. Why?

“Why?” Ben called back over his shoulder as the rusty grey landspeeder squealed back down the dirt trail from their cliff.

“Because if you don’t, you’re gonna overheat the engine!” Kylah shouted back to him, eyes slit in the whipping wind as she squeezed her grimy arms beneath his ribs. “You can’t gun this old thing down something this steep!”

“I know what I’m doing!” her pilot insisted, pressing the engine harder as they pivoted sharp right at the halfway rock and whined downward into the field. “And you’re the nerf herder, you little nerf herder!”

Kylah, a few years older than Rey had last seen her, rolled her little eyes beneath her tangling mane. She peeked around Ben’s robed shoulder and saw the dots in the courtyard surrounding the funnel-shaped central sanctum of the temple. The sun was at its highest in the sky. Kylah knew by this point in the afternoon, the Padawans would all be practicing their multi-opponent katas, like Ben should have been.

After all, she had been watching them for months, aching to spar with at least one of the younger boys and girls. She so resented being younger than everyone else, frowning now as she recalled what Master Luke would say every time she tried to convince him that she was ready to be trained with them rather than apart from them: “I believe you, youngling.” She then recalled the one day she had questioned why she wasn’t allowed to tell anyone about her training. Her teacher had said, with a solemnity that startled her, “You have to trust me that it’s for your own good. And theirs.”

A loud pop echoed through the valley like a blaster shot, jarring little Kylah from her thoughts. She turned her windblown head to watch the black puffs of smoke bellow into the torn switch grass behind them. Childishly, she feigned exasperation as Ben futilely revved the unresponsive throttle and the engine spat back him in defiance. As she knew it would, the antique overlander began to stall and slow.

When the whole heap at last sputtered to its final choking stop at the edge of the courtyard timberline, Kylah did not even have time to serenade Ben with her triumphant “I told you so” before he jumped from beneath her hands and, shouting a sudden blind fury, began to violently stomp the thrust nozzles with his brown boots.

Kylah boosted herself off the back and watched, shocked and unsure of what to do. He seemed so angry that she was afraid to say a word. His head of thick, shoulder-length hair (this Ben was older as well) fell over his red face again and again with every strike, and the way he gnashed his teeth made him look wild and unrecognizable.

Finally, when she heard the metal shriek and buckle under an invisible weight, she knew she had to do something before they had nothing left to repair.

“Ben?” Kylah said warily as she reached up to yank at his outstretched arm.

Ben shouted so loudly that it echoed off the distant mountain they had just left. “WHAT?”

The little girl jumped back, stunned. Her eyes grew moist as she watched her friend pull back his hand and raise it to his closed eyes as though recovering from a blow. He stayed like this, his lanky frame rising and falling rapidly from his exertion, while the shouts and grunts of diligent students sang on in the background. Only when Kylah’s sniffling broke their shared silence did Ben drop his hand from his bloodshot eyes to look at her. His dark brows rose with unmistakable shame.

“I’m sorry,” he wheezed, his composure so drastically altered that the little girl’s tears grew more confused than hurt. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell at you.” The teenager came to her then, falling to his knees and enfolding her tightly in his robed arms.

“What’s wrong, Ben?” she sniffed as she hugged him back. “You’ve been acting so weird since you started going out beyond the boundary all the time. Tell me, please?”

He hesitated. His young voice broke as he squeezed her a little tighter. “I can’t tell you, sweetheart, but I promise it’s OK.” He then pulled back so that he could look her in the eyes. “C’mon now,” he implored, forcing a smile as he used one muslin sleeve to wipe at her cherub cheeks. “You forgive me, right? We’re still best friends? Right?” He beamed at her emphatically until she nodded back her relief.

But, unexpectedly, Kylah wrapped her thin arms around his neck and lay her head on his shoulder. She didn’t know why she felt so sad for him. The strange apprehension gnawed at her little heart. “You’ll always love me, won’t you, Ben? You won’t forget about me when you become a Jedi? When you leave? We’ll race our X-Wings together someday, like you promised?”

“I’ll always love you; you know that.” His smile was far more genuine as he pulled away from her this time. “I promise you. You know you’re the only friend I have in the whole world. My only friend in the entire galaxy.”

Kylah nodded, her bright smile returning as she wiped the last of her heart-shaped face with grubby hands.

“Now what do you say?” Ben exhaled loudly, climbing back to his feet until he again towered above her. “Let’s see if we can fix whatever I’ve done to this old hunk of junk.”

Inseparable, even then. Both of us, so young. He was just a boy then, when Snoke found him.

Please, no more. Please, just let me remember it this way. I don’t want to know.

As if they returned only to taunt her, Rey’s memories resonated suddenly like a wellspring, a barrage she could not escape. Pieces now, fragments flowing like leaves in rushing water.

Roughly eight years old now, Kylah stared through the boulders she had just set back down in the babbling brook on the east side of the compound. They were normally so easy to lift, especially when she remembered Master Luke’s words about reaching out, about breathing. But her mind felt so fuzzy, and her heart felt so heavy. All she could do was watch the sparkling water gather and spill, over and over, around those mossy rocks.

Weeks had passed since Ben had spent any time with her. He had been acting so strangely. He had even noticeably gone out of his way to avoid speaking to her. And she was so lonesome without him, so isolated. Out of nowhere, life was as it had been before he came to the temple, when she hadn’t a single friend in the world. More than that, something about his behavior made her uneasy—a jitter of a bad feeling in her bottom of her belly she didn’t quite understand. Worse still, perhaps, was that she knew she had no one to tell. She didn’t know any of the students, and if she told Master Luke, she might get Ben in trouble, and then everything would be ruined. The situation seemed so hopeless.

“Kylah,” Master Luke said nearby, startling her where she sat. “Please come meet someone.”

Kylah peered around the trunk of the tree where she leaned. Not far down the stream, Master Luke looked after her, having spotted her among the limbs and the thicket. Next to him stood a woman with long, shiny hair that dangled in an elaborate braid down her back.

Kylah could not help but stare as she boosted herself up from the forest dirt. She had never seen a woman before. Sure, she had spied many of the female students who had come to the temple the past few years, but a grown human woman? Never.

Though neither knew the other, the lady smiled sincerely with lightly painted lips as Kylah followed the rushing stream to her. She even kneeled in her rich blue skirts and enveloped Kylah in the velvet of her welcoming arms. And Kylah was soothed by the peace that radiated in the lady’s embrace, smelling her faint perfume and letting the warmth comfort her troubled spirit.

“Kylah,” Luke smiled above them, “this is my sister, Leia.”

“Well, now I see what all the fuss is about,” the woman smiled, rocking the child gently in her grasp. “You’re going to outshine us all someday, sweetheart. The brightest star in the galaxy.”

It was never Kylo’s memory at all. It was mine. This whole time, it was my memory. It was me.

Kylo….

The rain fell so cold and hard that night. It would have woken Kylah up, pelting the roof of her bungalow like shrapnel, if the explosion had not already throttled her from her sleep. And she was so scared to go out, especially when she heard the screams. Those horrible screams, the feral wails of excruciating pain; they cut her in two. Her small heart thudded in her ears as she clamped her hands over them and buried her face between her knees. Paralyzed with horror, the little girl sat, deaf to her own sobs and the fading pleas outside, in the orange glare radiating into her hut.

Seconds stretched into infinity before she found the strength to lower her hands. Only when the cries had subsided and all she heard was the animal roar of the fire did Kylah find the courage to leave her hut.

The pitch sky opened up with the door, and she was instantly soaked. Still fearful of whatever or whomever had destroyed the temple, Kylah scurried through the mud as low to the ground as possible. But the mountainous fire at her back blazed despite the downpour, and her chest pounded with fright thinking the raging flames lit her up like a spotlight on a target.

When she stumbled and fell at the foot of Master Luke’s hut, she called and thrashed at the door, over and over, until she was hoarse and her little fist throbbed. But he never answered. Swallowing her deep sobs of defeat, Kylah tried to remember what her master would tell her to do. Help her, what would a real Jedi like Master Luke do?

Then, somewhere overhead, engines growled to life, revving in time with the thunder as both descended from the heavens. Kylah shielded her eyes from the harsh landing lights and the fierce heat of the inferno.

“A WTK-85A,” she recognized, squinting through the stinging torrents the ship threw as it touched down, a shadowy beast backlit by a smoldering scrim.

All that happened next seemed to play out much more swiftly than Rey was sure she now remembered…quick cuts, flashes bridging one adrenaline-fueled memory to the next.

Running, hiding, watching…shivering as she hugged her favorite courtyard oak. The bad men were giants, each of their faces hidden behind frightening masks. They deboarded and filed into the storm. All but the one scattered, the faceless monster with the mushroom-shaped helmet. Equally metallic in his hand was a thick, sharpened sword. The raindrops joined and trickled down to the hilt like blood. He sloshed through the sitting water and then lumbered near her into the tree line.

Kylah held her breath as she flattened her cheek against the bark, her thoughts racing behind her squeezed eyelids as fast as her mind could carry them. Her head pulsed and her tiny frame shook as she tried to silence her sobs. Help her, she was so scared, so alone. Master Luke was gone. No one else….

In that terrible, desperate flash, Kylah sensed some hidden dynamo of the Force inside her spark and propel her thoughts as she pleaded, “Ben! Please help me!”

The pure power of Kylah’s muted cry jolted her little body. Shaken, she opened her eyes—not a moment too soon to glimpse the lightning on the sword’s razor edge. Kylah ducked just in time to avoid the thing taking off her entire head.

It all happened so quickly.

She ran, oh, she ran so fast! But the mud was too thick, and the temple was smoldering, and she couldn’t help but look back at the bad man trying to dislodge his sword. She stumbled over something, head-first, splashing into a small pool at the west end of the courtyard.

Coughing out the water she’d inhaled, Kylah blinked toward what had tripped her. She saw the body of the student lying motionless, his dark blood mixing into the muck. One hundred feet tall above him, the hunter now drew back his sword for the killing stroke. Kylah gasped.

She then sprang to her feet as a burning blade shot from the bad man’s chest. Another killer rose at his back, another monster in disguise. This fiend yanked the weapon (a lightsaber, like Master Luke’s!) from the assassin’s back and sent the carcass to splash at Kylah’s submerged feet. Like the slain one, this monster towered above her, although his frame was much slenderer beneath its inky robes. Unlike the fallen, however, he did not attack. He only stared down at her; she was sure of it despite his hidden face. In the violet dark of that hellish eternity, he studied her intently, as though unable to settle upon her fate.

The lightning soon ignited the sky again, and Kylah noticed the band of equally masked monsters behind him. She flinched as one rushed toward her now, vibrocleaver held high.

The tall one who had saved her turned to his peers. The warning he gave from beneath his metal-trimmed visor was mechanical—more machine than man. “Touch her and you follow him to hell!”

“Kill her!” the giant at his side barked. “She is nothing to us!”

“I will get rid of her my way, by my hand!” The lightsaber spit and hissed in the deluge as her defender raised it threateningly toward the pack. “You forget who leads you now!”

What I saw in the castle was true. You saved me. You saved my life! But then, how…?

No.

A bright, familiar heat on her skinny shoulders. An audible spray of sand clinging to where her tears had dried.

No. I beg of you, no.

Like a desert mirage, Ben reappeared in the distance, the wind whipping his dark hair about his stoic mouth. He had been speaking with the fat Crolute who waited off by the landspeeder. Although he had removed the mask and revealed himself to her, he did not see her with the same eyes. He viewed her with a foreign detachment. To him, she seemed a stranger whose liability must be carefully weighed…as though they had never met. He had locked her in the cargo hold for the length of their journey and then refused to acknowledge her as he led her into his blinding world. Her questions, her pleas, her cries—all were useless, carried away with the breeze.

Now he bent one knee of his dark trousers and settled upon it in the sand. At last face to face, Kylah grimaced. The pupils seemed blacker despite the barren brilliance. The lips were listless at the center of his slender cheeks. If any spark remained of the only friend she’d ever had, she was powerless to find it. Had he truly forgotten her?

Despite the finality of his expression, she offered one last appeal. “Please, Ben.” Her arms flung around the strange cowl over his shoulders, she held tightly as her eyes welled with hopelessness. “Please don’t leave.”

The embrace seemed to go unnoticed for eternity. Kylah’s tears fell against living stone. A sculpture.

Then, finally, miraculously, the inmost recess of his mind seemed to bend, some self-made bargain broken by her tenderness. Gradually, she felt him come to life beneath the sobs that rocked her fragile body. Gloved hands at last raised to her mud-caked back and pulled her close, and then closer still—so tightly that she felt the sudden quaking in his turbulent chest.

One precious sob escaped next to her ear before it was shrouded and laid to rest forever.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted as a single word before choking back another wave of emotion. The strain of his composure was so obvious that Kylah squeezed tighter, doing her best to steady his trembling frame.

“Please don’t do this, Ben,” she wept into the silk of his hair. “Please don’t send me away. Let me stay with you.”

“It’s too late. I can’t…I can’t turn back now. There’s no going back now.”

“It’s not too late.” Through matted lashes, Kylah stared out into the dry desolation of her future. “You can take me with you. You don’t have to leave me alone here. You promised, remember? You promised.”

Ben pulled back and searched her misery through his own silent tears. On the verge of tearing in half, he twisted his young profile avoidantly toward the same wavering horizon.

“It has to be like this.” He stammered as he chewed deeply at the inside of his mouth. “Please believe me. You’ll be safe this way.” Then, as had always been his habit when he was serious, he turned back and ducked his head to make sure she looked him straight in his brown amethyst eyes. “I can’t risk anything happening to you. I have to keep you safe…even from me.”

His companion nodded as though she understood, but her little brows still knitted, and her rosebud mouth pouted beneath the streams of her heartache. “Please, Ben.”

Please, Ben. Please, it can’t be you. Don’t do this to her. Don’t do this to me.

Ben’s smooth chin trembled beneath the burden of his determination. Sucking in a sharp chestful of air, he lifted a hand to the pink skin of her forehead. His eyes closed.

“Forgive me, Kylah.”

It couldn’t have been you, Kylo. It couldn’t have. You couldn’t have done it to me. Please, no. Please, help me, it can’t be true!

The mind trick took hold quickly. The Skywalker heir was already so strong, already the prodigy she had always wanted to be. And she was just a child, her mind so innocent and unguarded, especially with him.

When the pressure finally subsided and the little girl opened her bloodshot eyes, her tiny features communicated a confusion that satisfied her companion. The youngling now looked into the adamant gaze of a stranger. And she did not know this man, although he seemed to know her. The upset written across his youthful face, the scrutiny of his stare—they perplexed her with their familiarity, as if she should know him, was supposed to know him.

Her own rigid mouth slackened, but no words came to fill it. There was nothing to say. There was nothing at all, no recognition of him, of the alien world around her…even of herself. No memory of a life before now, here, among the dunes and the drifts, her fluttering stomach lodged in her parched throat, his gloved hands grasping her shoulders, and the wasteland winds drying their drenched cheeks.

“I’ll come back for you,” the stranger in black said. But the pain in his voice belied the promise he did not intend to keep, and the words were painfully empty, as though he placated himself rather than her. “I’ll come back, sweetheart. I promise.”

Even in the girl’s disorientation, some surviving speck of self screamed at the center of her chest when he finally stood. This was wrong. The very air she breathed wailed an arid warning she did not understand. Tears again rolled where they had left salty trails.

No, this was not right. No matter the assurance, he was not supposed to leave her. Though she knew nothing else, she knew this to be true.

“Wait!” she called out to him. “Come back!”

She took two burning steps, and then two more, and then two more, until she was running after him.

“No!” she called frantically, but her legs were so small and his stride was so wide. “Don’t go!”

An oversized hand snatched her arm.

“Quiet, girl!” the bulbous creature growled over her.

There was no fighting that fleshy hand. But she tried, help her, she tried, wrenching her arm in his thick fingers so hard that she thought it would snap. She tried, and though he paid her no heed, she cried out to the man in black.

“No! Come back! Don’t leave me here! Please come back! No! Please!”

The little girl pleaded even as the vessel’s hatch sealed behind his cloaked back, even as the twin engines fired to life and the airborne ship sped toward the scorching sun as though it fled a war. She shouted and fought with the certainty that, even now, he could hear her and that the next appeal might finally be enough to change his heart. The screams wretched into exhausted infinity, and the blob’s blows and reprimanding came sharp. But maybe the next one, maybe just one more call to him…. She couldn’t give up hope that he would keep his promise, couldn’t lose faith that he was someone who cared for her.

No more. Please, I can’t. Force help my soul, I can’t! Please…NO MORE!

Chapter 39: A Revelation Pt. 2

Chapter Text

39

Snap.

The energy permeating Rey’s subconscious suddenly gave. The elastic cord forcibly split, as though her attempts to escape the vault of her memories had only heightened the pressure. The effect was swift, literally ejecting her from her mind.

Her eyes tore open as she collided with the snowbank. The release had knocked her flat, the fallout of the mental effort no different than if she’d been struck squarely in the gut. Beneath her frozen cover, Rey rolled onto her side and choked on polar dust as she fought for one life-saving gulp. That new fight restored reality, and the frosty sting suddenly felt good against her sore eyelids, her burning cheek, her open mouth.

“Rey, breathe!”

Gloved fingers fell over the numb ones clawing the frozen drift.

His hand, she knew—the hand that had ushered in her life’s greatest storm. The hand that had hurt her so many times, that had twice tried to end her very life. The hand that had touched her at her most exposed and comforted her at her most vulnerable. And this—all of this—done knowing he had stolen her life from her!

Shrieking a hard-won breath into the starlit sky, Rey snatched her fingers away and scrambled to haul herself up onto all fours. There, she coughed and wheezed until her chest ached, and the more it hurt, the more she buckled under the new outrage that pumped through her upset veins. Her watering eyes darted toward him as he kneeled penitently at her side.

“You…”

The concern written across Kylo’s moonlit skin shrank beneath its prior agony. His eyes shimmered like the snow when he spoke again.

“I’m so sorry, Rey.”

“It was you…all along,” Rey gasped. Drooping her heavy head to the ground, she searched for her strength and was met with an outpouring of pain. “You left me there…alone. You made me forget everything.”

“Please believe me, Rey, I had to do it.” Equally breathless, Kylo’s pleas tumbled and fell over one another. “I had to keep you safe, someplace they’d never find you. If they’d known about you—what you meant to me—they would have killed you. He would have killed you. He would have made me do it, I know it.”

Stop! Rey commanded nothing and no one behind the haze lingering in her head. She wanted him to stop, needed him to. Help her, what did she care for the reasons? What did they even matter when everything she had ever believed was disintegrating around her?

“And if you had remembered me, talked about me, to anyone, you would have put yourself in danger. You were so young, Rey. I couldn’t take the chance. I couldn’t. And….” Kylo’s voice cracked beneath the weight of her wounds. “I didn’t want you to remember me. I didn’t want you to remember what I’d done that night the temple fell.”

“Ten years.” Rey’s uplifted eyes were wet, her shivering lower lip aghast in the disbelief she aimed directly at him. “You made me a slave. I’d still be a slave right now if BB-8 hadn’t—”

“I swear I didn’t know Plutt would keep you there. I swear it. I paid him to send you somewhere else. I couldn’t know where you’d end up. I couldn’t know where you’d be sent, because if I knew, they would know. Snoke would know. I just wanted you to be safe. I didn’t know what to do. Plutt told me you’d be a palace servant somewhere, that you’d be cared for, that you’d have a good life. He said…. I swear, Rey, I swear to you—I didn’t know he’d keep you there. I wouldn’t have left you there if I’d known.”

Rey sank back onto her ankles and latched onto where it hurt, clutching at that dark thing uncurling in her core. The more the moments passed—the more he explained—the more the implications of his actions lay their leaden arms on her, dragging her down, so far down, ripping every cherished emotion away from the faithful heart that had held onto them so tightly for so long. And that awful emptiness surpassed the loneliest of days and most harrowing of nights before he’d found her again. The gravity of his manipulation since the day they met in the forest (Not even really the day they met!), how it gnawed and shredded every precious fiber, hollowing her out more and more by the second.

Rey muttered as if stirring from a deafening dream. “You knew all along. This whole time. From the very start, through all of it, you knew. On Takodana, you knew.” When she looked up at him again, white-hot rage blurred her vision. “You knew and you didn’t tell me!”

“I didn’t know at first!” Kylo grimaced as he bore the brunt he deserved. “I didn’t know it was you, not for certain. When they told me about you, I suspected. But you weren’t supposed to be there, not still on Jakku! I swear to you I didn’t know for sure, not until the interrogation.”

“Since then. You’ve lied to me since then. From the beginning, all this time. You lied to me every possible second. Every single thing that’s come out of your mouth has been a lie!”

“No, that’s not true!”

On the receiving end of Rey’s fury, Kylo watched her destruction play out like a holoprojection he could not escape. Synchronously, what she had revived of his callous soul now lay in an equal million pieces beneath the sleet.

Please, no. Please let her understand!

Moreover, burrowing itself deep in her heartbreak was the tension of immense power. As insignificant as it seemed alongside their misery, no Force-sensitive—especially Kylo—could ignore the impending danger.

Desperate and drowning beneath the waves of Rey’s devastation, Kylo followed his inmost instincts and grabbed at her scorching temples. With gentle force, he fended off her fists and flailing arms to cradle her disgust in his hands.

“Rey, I swear, I never lied. I lied, yes, but not about us. I never lied about us, never about the way I feel. Finding you again, and then everything that happened between us—it all happened so fast, and I was so clouded at first. And even though I knew who you were, it was like we’d only just met. You were so grown up. So powerful, so separate from who I knew before. Completely different, a whole other person to me.”

“Because of you!” The shriek shook his hands and snapped the night in two. “Because of what you did to me! You should have let them kill me! You murdered everything I was! You made me forget everything that made me me! And this whole time, you kept it from me! This whole time, you let me believe in a lie!”

Kylo winced, tasting blood as he fought back tears he didn’t know he still possessed. Never in a millennium, even when they were enemies, could he have imagined the hatred darkening her pupils, nor the venomous vibrations spreading through their bond. Even in those first weeks when they were acclimating to one another, the affection she’d denied had underscored her every word and glance. And what an exotic, extraordinary feeling it had been to recognize that wonder in her, even if he had not noticed it at the time.

But that was over now. In these hateful tears, nothing remained of his brave warrior and her unshakable faith in him.

Yet, Kylo still clung tightly to this Rey, the struggling, incensed creature he’d decimated with his betrayal. For what good it might do, he spoke from the depths of his traitorous soul.

“You don’t know how much I wanted to tell you, how many times I stopped myself from telling you. It made me ashamed to even touch you. But I was so afraid of losing you. I was afraid of this, afraid of exactly this! I knew it would be the end, but I was paralyzed every day. Just a coward. I couldn’t lose you, Rey, I couldn’t…. I can’t.”

“Liar!” she spat, her jaw like iron and her fierce eyes twitching in his grasp. “You’re a liar! Everything you’ve ever told me! You…! Oh god….”

Rey was a sudden deadweight slipping through his fingers. Kylo caught her before her head sank beneath the snow covering his knees.

Oblivious to the hands that cradled her, Rey doubled over. She gasped, sure that the hole in her chest would drain the life from her body if she let go. The strain was nauseating, and she heaved into the soft snow, trying to rid herself of that searing emptiness. But no relief came, neither from her stomach nor from the Force energy amassing in her injured core. And no matter how alleviating it was to follow, that terrible, abysmal tension now suffocated her.

“Rey, please, listen to me!” Frantically, he buried his face in her quilted collar and abandoned the last of Kylo Ren’s humility. “You know me. You’re the only one who does. You know how I feel, I know you do.”

And how Kylo’s poison stung, the sincerity of that treasured timbre in her ear. And every syllable of his voice was a memory, a snapshot of his beauty, his magnetism, his complexity, his disclosures, his devotion—all sealed adoringly, safely, behind the glass of her mind. And she wanted to smash all those lies to pieces.

So many lies…for so long…. And look what they’ve made you!

To Kylo’s dread, the fearsome energy swelled in his hands.

“Please, Rey! Please try to understand!”

“Rey…” a voice outside their universe added to the chorus.

“Stay out of this!” Kylo hissed up at Luke, his hands protectively covering her head on his thigh. “You don’t know her! You don’t know what you’ve done!”

What I’ve done, Kylo’s mind admonished before he’d even finished.

Pale and lost beneath the ice, the crumpled ball in his lap began to hyperventilate.

“No, no,” Kylo panted, his panic-stricken hands running over her shoulders. “Rey, resist it! Don’t give in to it!”

If Kylo had been able to look away from the childlike shock frozen on her face, he would have seen Luke’s mouth drop in the radiation of an unforeseen surge.

“Move back from her!”

Kylo grabbed Rey’s saturated fingers in his, ignoring the live-wire burn as he shouted, “Get out of here! Leave us alone!”

The destructive tension Rey followed beneath them numbed her to everything outside a familiar voice that now echoed off every nook and cranny of her chaotic mind:

“Let’s see how long your blind devotion to your light and your tutor will carry you. Eventually you will discover how weak and untrustworthy both really are. Mark me, it won’t be long. There will be a revelation, and when it comes, you will seek me out.”

Snoke always knew. He was right! And he’s right about me!

Rey’s grief split the soundless sky. “Noooooo!”

“Move NOW!” Luke shouted, and in one motion, channeled the Force to send Kylo’s body sailing back into the cushion of a far knoll.

The Jedi Master then gasped in surprise as a radial blast wave hurled him much farther.

------

Darkness. Cold.

But…disquiet. A well-known sound. Luke heeded it outside the rising ring in his ears: the distinct buzz of an electricity he hadn’t heard in ages. The angry spark of hatred, of energy against energy.

His eyelids fluttered. The sharp stab in his torso beat his vision to clarity. But the scene was unmistakable, even through the blurry velum of melting flakes that covered him: a long-lost blue connecting with an ominous red.

Luke rolled onto his side and coughed, though his regret was instantaneous. He cried out over his stony jowls. But the frostbite was minor and the cracked ribs would heal in time. Acting now, before it was too late, was all that mattered. How stupid he’d been to underestimate her abilities, even lo these many years. He had to stop her, couldn’t let her do it. If she did, there would be no turning back. She would be lost to the dark side forever.

Like Ben.

“Rey,” Luke wheezed. But the effort was too agonizing and the pressure on his sternum too great. He had to get to them, to those vivid blurs, already so far past the sonic boom that had sheared eons of ice and exposed the tundra beneath. Curse his wretched soul, he had been both foolish and fortunate to escape the calamity of such power.

Shutting out the cries and crashes that rattled the daybreak, Luke hastened his concentration.

On the opposite side of the crater Rey had carved into the crystal surface, Kylo dodged a fatal wrath. His arms tightened as his stance widened amid the slush. His death-grip on his lightsaber was now vital. It shielded his skull, his throat, his mended side. But every deflection sparked and crackled more out of instinct than will. The actions were rehearsed and mechanical. Only sheer reflex defied the drive to let her bury her vengeance deep in his heart.

Those same habits now defied a lifetime of learned skill. Kylo had to be conscious of his every move, had to catch those powerful strokes and repell them in place of his normal, often deadly counters. The keen foresight and rapid return that had till now kept him alive was such a natural impulse. How many hundreds of enemies had he outmaneuvered with his strength and speed?

The forbidding ferocity of his past now threatened his life. Like looking in a mirror, Kylo recognized the bitter taste of her bombardment. The disorganized, brutal blows and the vicious, erratic strikes—their only rhyme and reason was the pure hatred that fueled them. He had almost forgotten. She had made him forget so much of the dark.

And the sight of her on the other end of his ancestral saber broke him as surely as he had broken her. Her wild, flashing eyes, her lips pulled back into a mindless snarl—how they disgraced that afternoon she had found her perfect cadence in the training room. Not even in the hangar bay, when she had enthralled him with the promise of her anger, had she been so lost. So hungry to take his life.

Kylo blocked another crushing blow aimed at reopening his scar.

“Stop, Rey!” The steam of his breath sizzled cloudy crimson next to the emitter at his cheek. “Please! This isn’t you!”

Teeth clamped, Rey retracted her lightsaber and sliced at him again. “Stop calling me that! That’s not even who I am! I don’t even exist because of you!”

“It is who you are, Rey! It’s who you are now!”

“It’s who you’ve made me!” The outcry was guttural, the rasp unrecognizable as it bounced off every cavity in the indigo valley behind them.

Kylo understood all too well. He knew the hurt had reduced her to something primitive, something dangerous. Seeing it now in contrast to the Rey he had strove to protect—the innocent, effulgent scavenger who had pledged herself to him—he lamented beyond words his early, misguided efforts to lead her down the dark path. He’d been so blind, like her now, so clouded by that evil. If only he’d admitted his feelings to himself sooner, he might have told her everything from the start. Those weeks of wasted opportunity were a fresh knife twisting in his gut.

Drowning in adrenaline and regret, Kylo retreated again. His boots shuffled through the deep, unsteady drifts. He could not attack, refused to attack. And so he allowed her to drive him back like cattle to the slaughter. To whatever end lay in wait, he would never harm her again.

A curtain raised through the wispy crown of her disheveled hair. Scalded orange suddenly slit across the horizon. The first rays of the rising sun, the titian daybreak he had always imagined on her skin….

Don’t give up. Remember what she said. It’s not too late…for either of you.

“Rey, stop!” he begged, switching off his activator. He dangled the hilt loosely between the upturned fingers of his raised hands. “I don’t want to fight you. Stop and listen to me.”

Rey’s arms drooped as she lowered Luke’s lightsaber to her thigh. The tip of the beryl blade sputtered its protest into the ice-packed earth.

“I’ll never listen to you. EVER…AGAIN!” And despite the darkness in her feral eyes, the lashes were again damp.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Rey!”

“You’ll never hurt me more than you already have!” The tremor of her fingers raised the silver handgrip to her shoulder. “And if you won’t fight, you’ll die where you stand!”

Kylo’s breath froze as Rey swung. The ruby blade he reignited shot to life not a split-second too soon to catch her blow. But her entire weight powered that killing stroke, and the crossguard shifted vertically in his hasty grip. The tip of Luke’s lightsaber buried itself in one black shoulder, while the hilt of his own weapon connected equally deep above her elbow. Rey screamed as one fiery end of his crossbar squarely dragged the height of her upper left arm.

Both recoiled in their shared suffering. Kylo groaned and clutched at his wound with his free hand. His gored shoulder blade and seared lung would have knocked the wind out of him alone, but their combined agony was entirely crippling. Her pain was a sudden avalanche atop his, trapping his entire body beneath its load. But the knowledge that her suffering fused with his own squashed any dark inclination he might have to exploit it for the sake of his strength.

One boot found a depression in the ice as he stumbled, and Kylo caught himself from tumbling backward. When the fog of his fatigue cleared, he was shocked to see he had been inches from plummeting into the depths of the Empire’s nearest mining pit. The sun highlighted the sea-glass edge he’d crumbled beneath his foot. Below was at least a hundred-foot drop he had completely forgotten. In the onslaught of Rey’s rage, Kylo had not realized how much they’d backtracked into the glacier floor.

Rey….

Ignoring the massive mouth of the mine, Kylo turned. His breathing came raspy as his lung threatened to collapse. But he found his pupil again. She was stooped and panting her own pearly vapor into the morning air. Gentle snowflakes danced and twirled about her before settling softly in her mussed hair. A few specks carried upward in a quiet breeze. No, not snow. It was the down of her coat, the quilting exposed. And though her lowered head hid her face, her clenched fingers could not hide the raw and lengthy gash under the fabric.

The scene echoed in Kylo’s mind. After all, every cell that defined him had seen its vile harbingers. He could never unlive the nightmares that began there, in that forest, the very second he’d so cruelly ripped into her mind. Another time, not long after, how she had wilted beneath the sparks of his blade colliding with hers in the hangar. Exigent, of course, was the training room—that most shameful of crimes, that most cruel of violations—when his darkness had torn and spoiled the pure flower of her surrender. Then, a fourth: that horrible day of his stupor in the interrogation room, when he’d felt her life—worth a million of his own—slipping away beneath his fury.

And now, once more. The actions of the monster he used to be. The monster he still was.

“Rey,” Kylo whispered. “I’m so sorry.” And he was, sinking to his knees on the ledge of that crumbling caldera. And he was tired, so very tried, of hurting her.

“Kill me!” Her hiss darted past him and skidded off the pit walls at his back. “It’s all you have left to do!”

Emptied physically and mentally, Kylo shook his head in refusal. Below his eyes, the bittersweet sunlight reached out to him.

Her boots shuffled into his line of sight. The intimate energy that always preceded her was nowhere to be found.

Head bowed, Kylo stared up beneath the raven hair plastered around his eyes. Unlike him, she was not defeated. Not a trace of mercy shone through her exhaustion. In his life’s greatest irony, the anger his conscience denied him now sustained the hate on the tip of her tongue.

Her cleaved arm trembled as she presented the hilt of his lightsaber.

“Pick it up!” she sibilated. “Pick…it up! Fight me! Kill me!”

Finding the familiar darkening of her amber-green eyes, Kylo conceded the truth in Rey’s words: He had made her this. And he had known he would. He had known he would destroy her one way or another, as he had ruined everything before her.

But it had felt so good, being one half of a single, shared soul so perfect in its imperfection. Before her, Kylo had never known the hope such love could give him, nor had he ever felt faith placed so blindly in the light of his nature.

And without that, and for what he had done to her, he would rather die.

Shivering, Kylo lowered his eyes again to the prismatic ice. He could not look anymore.

His parted lips stiffened and his excruciating breath slowed as he heard Rey ignite his tri-blade. The two sabers buzzed a deadly chorus in his ears.

Whether his final lament found her mind or not, he did not know, nor did it matter anymore. “End it, Rey. Do what I never could.”

“Rey, stop,” another voice said gently. “It’s time to go, Rey.”

“Ben, it’s time to go. Come now, Uncle Luke is here to get you. Please don’t be sad, sweetheart. You’re going to learn so many things. Uncle Luke is here to help. We’ll miss you so much. I will miss you so much, my darling. Please believe that. And please believe that this is for the best. I’ll be seeing you soon, I promise.”

Kylo’s weariness sank into the tar behind his closed eyes as he waited. The anguish of his every breath drew out, suddenly tinged with an old grief he had long forgotten. Though it paled in comparison to this eviscerating loss, the memory of that dreadful day—the day Han and Leia had finally ridded themselves of him—nonetheless magnified his emptiness. Why did the Force unearth that sorrow from his mind now? There could be no other reason than to thwart the memory of Rey—radiant, warm, and soft, smiling her bright smile at him—the image he needed to hold safe and close as she ended his miserable existence. Why had the light always been against him, even now, in his final moments?

All at once, a voice Kylo had never before heard in his life—soothing, disembodied, celestial—repeated: “Please believe that this is for the best. I’ll be seeing you soon, I promise.”

Comforted by that voice, Kylo accepted his fate.

But the blow never came.

In its place, the pulse to Rey revived. Kylo sensed it at the center of his serenity. Its rapid growth was startling. The pull fluttered as it thrived, so battered with despair and dismay. But it was still there. And Kylo had never been so consoled than to feel the bond retangle itself in his blood, spirit, and soul.

The deadly drone at his throat died next, first one saber and then the other. Only then did Kylo let the cold world back in.

Although the reborn sunlight framed her in glorious dawn, Rey’s expression exclaimed the horror she could not convey. Her quivering mouth gaped wide open. The disconnect in her distended, unblinking eyes had faded with the eventide. Though it stung him to see, Kylo was still relieved to find only shock and guilt beneath her raised brows. She cast this despair down at him and, at the same time, no one at all. Both handgrips toppled from her shaking palms and impaled the sleet below his knees.

As Kylo watched the light restore her to the woman he loved, the cumulation of pain flooding every fragment of his being overwhelmed him at last. And when her eyes overflowed with tears of regret, so did his for the first time since he’d left her on that forsaken planet.

There they stayed, silently weeping in the wake of one another’s existence.

And even in that moment of mutual apology, the pathetic truth remained that although Kylo could not bring himself to beg for his life, all that he was and still wanted to be for her selfishly begged her not to leave.

This she seemed to know, to read on every rare tear he now shed.

But the fresh reality that haunted them loomed there, casting its shadow over the love they both innately understood. His lies, his betrayal. And Kylo knew, in her mind, both were now indicative of an overarching hopelessness she could no longer ignore.

Regardless of how they shook, Rey’s chafed lips touched and flattened. When she finally spoke, her voice lacked the severity and accusation Kylo expected. The words he had never wanted to hear were as honest, simple, and resolute as she could make them.

“I don’t want you to hurt me anymore.”

The repercussions settled over them both like thick snowfall. Even Rey seemed astonished. She blinked in bewilderment as if someone else had spoken, as if the farewell had murdered some lone, surviving hope she hadn’t known endured.

Then, as though her resolve might languish and die at the sight of him, Rey turned and staggered into the center of the sun. After all, there was nothing more either could say that had not already been said.

Stunned and powerless, Kylo surrendered her in silence. He watched as a phantom silhouette met her in the near distance, directing her somewhere beyond the shimmering hills. Holding his side, that silhouette then backtracked the path of Rey’s escape.

When the old man found Kylo on the brink of blackout, his broad shadow engulfed what little remained of the splintered, gasping soul that had once been his nephew. What Kylo heard resonated lightyears outside himself.

“You may think this is my vengeance for what you did,” Luke said with Rey’s same poise. “But you’re wrong. This is for Rey.” The old man then pulled his lost weapon from the firn and turned a cold shoulder, but not before adding, “She was meant for more than you.”

A new wave of convulsions rocked Kylo’s body. Squinting, he followed his former master as he traced Rey’s tracks into the blinding beyond. Luke at last disappeared beyond a rolling slope, leaving Kylo in the alien stillness, a scant, lonely speck swallowed by the deceptive gold of a new day.

Chapter 40: Epilogue

Chapter Text

Epilogue

The figure stood alone above the others. A dozen dormers wove a cubist world beyond their own. Before him, the ship’s pyriform panes held the planet as it turned quietly on its axis. He watched it through a literal lens of necessity. Like milk spilt into wine, the wan of soft nebulae spiraled and spread across the burgundy atmosphere, obscuring the surface beneath.

A much different storm brewed below the ship’s shadow on that vaporous cover. Plans reformed. Resources amassed. Technologies advanced. Legions grew.

There, ambitions thrived, despite how he had forsaken them—hungers passed down through generations of the loyal. There, the ideals of law and order he had chased in another of his previous lives still flourished. Regardless of their setback, their mantra remained intact: no defeat, no surrender, no compromise.

It offered purpose he had long forgotten. And purpose was now essential.

Perhaps he had known. Though insignificant at the time, perhaps that purpose had been the one thing stopping him from a literal downfall. Alone on that broken line, death had been just as easy. Forward or backward, both a matter of a few insignificant inches.

But something had pushed him onward. It had driven him through the consumption of that long, arduous walk and that solitary, unbearable flight. It had spurred his body through the more trivial trials: the droids, the surgery, the tank. It carried him even now, in the midst of his unshakable sleepwalk. He required it, whether it was the incompletion of a grand vision or the fact that, after all that had happened and how much it had changed him, the blood of legend still flowed through his hollowed veins. He stood powerful, remained capable of even greater power. Whichever of these things it was, without it, there was nothing.

But perhaps it was something else.

The figure’s fierce façade sank briefly before turning starboard. Hesitantly, he followed that train of thought. Technicians in the shaded pits below watched him from the corners of their wary eyes as he crossed the walkway. After all, they did not know what had happened. To them, he remained untouchable, otherworldly, unpredictable—something to be feared.

Though equally luminous, the transparisteel on this side was less sanguinary. Beneath his feet, icy metal gleamed an icier silver. A skewed spotlight traveled upward, catching the sheen of his new garments. He stopped when it divulged the slinged arm he hid beneath his cloak. That should have been reminder enough. Yet, he found himself persisting, allowing his mind its first lapse to lower that bruised guard. How could he avoid it when the moonlight practically spoke her name?

The greatest pain. The greatest loss. It was senseless to think now of the flickers of memory he had struggled for days to blot out. What was dead had to stay dead if he was to go on. But here, the stars were so exquisite and the light so stark. Everything so pure. And….

Maybe something else had compelled him that black day, the seed of something only recently planted. His entire life, it had evaded him, to the point where his identity had become its very antithesis.

And then she had come back. Born anew, she had come bearing all the light of the universe in her sacrosanct soul. She had made him feel it in spite of himself. No matter how desperately he tried to forget the belief she had spurred—to dismiss it once again as delusion and allocate the grief of its failure—it refused him that small concession.

For surely, this feeling had to be denied. He could not depend on it. He could not live for its small possibility, nor could he let it define his days…not when he retained the common sense to recognize its hopelessness.

Things could never be as they were. For her sake, things should never be as they were. And for what he had done, things would never be as they were, ever again.

And yet….

Reaching slowly, as if the gesture sealed a vow he could never break, the figure raised one gloved hand until it covered the wealth of the orb. Just as she had once described, the pale light of the moon poured between his shrouded fingers.

He dared to hope. No matter how painful it became, no matter its discordance with who he was, he would harbor this secret until the end. He would preserve its frail innocence until nothing else remained of it or him. Whichever came first.

Because she was still out there. He felt it.

And in his soul of souls, he was certain their bound completeness eclipsed the most extraordinary anomalies of the universe. He understood implicitly. The twinkling infinity into which he stared had never known them before and would never know again. The gift they had been given transcended time and space, life and death, light and dark. No, he could not justify living for the hope of something so special, so perfect, but….

She was there, hidden somewhere in the boundless darkness beyond his grasp, beyond the polished glass, beyond the cold moonlight. Somewhere outside his realm of steel and sovereignty, where unknown planets danced in azure harmony while meteors dashed to their glittering ends. Far away, where each faint flicker blazed a billion brilliant starbursts and the effervescent ribbons streamed in vivid color to the edges of the galaxy. There, tucked safely away in the outer realms of her asylum. There, but still here, still living and breathing in every part of him. And….

As long as she endured within him, hope remained there too.

And if he had been able to follow that imperceptible trail of stardust, he would have indeed found her there, at that same moment—worlds and lightyears removed—a nymphet on a nightfallen shore, her feet sunken in the crashing surf, her unbound hair soft in the sea breeze, and the moonbeams cascading from her outstretched hand as she lifted it to the sky.