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“You’re reckless.”
His lips form a thin line, trying to keep the grimace off of his face while his gaze falls to the smaller woman standing in front of him.
Her teeth are nibbling her lower lip, the only indication of any sort of emotion on her face, while she maintains a steady grip with her hands and works at dressing the wounds on his side with bacta patches. “Wouldn’t be the first time,” he mutters in response.
Rey pauses for the briefest of seconds, before resuming her movements as if nothing happened. “What planetary system have you destroyed this time?”
“Already thinking the worst of me, are you?” He asks, disdain coloring his tone.
“It’s not like you’ve done anything to prove me wrong, right?” She asks back, her tone neutral.
His eyes narrow, wanting more than anything to be able to delve into her mind; tear into it just as much as he wishes to caress against it. Against her .
Six months since Crait. Six month since he extended his hand to her, offering her the galaxy .
Offering her his heart.
And yet she trampled it beneath her heel when she turned away. When she left him behind , his mind hisses as a reminder. As if he needed it, considering he still carries the sting of rejection with him; a hollow ache that persists no matter how many things he destroys.
One of the few wounds he’s sustained that refuses to heal.
“Why are you here, Rey?”
Her hands still then, fingers tightening their hold on the rolled up cloth in her hands. She doesn’t know how to answer that question other than saying, “I don’t know.”
Which is the truth. She really doesn’t know why she’s here. Six months ago, she forcibly closed off her connection in their bond, driven by a single-mindedness to protect her friends from his wrath, to protect herself from the pain of reality and knowing what could have been.
But she didn’t account for the resulting emptiness that came with it.
It was a persistent ache that accompanied her every waking moment. A sick and mocking reminder of his absence and of her failure to turn him to the light side. Yet she prefers it vastly over the nights she’s spent since leaving him behind on Crait.
The nights were the most tortuous of all.
Dreams that filled her with hope. Gave her glimpses of what could have been, the future that would have been theirs. Visions of his smiling face, crouched down with his arms open while a wobbling toddler ambles over to him and squeals in excitement. The child chants daddy's home while he laughs and easily lifts the child up, standing up as he does so. The look on his face filled with love and adoration as he regards the small bundle in his arms. Seeing them turn their gazes towards her, smiles equal in their openness. And she is always frozen by the sight.
He had his eyes .
She basks in those dreams, seeing their time together as a family, their child happy and healthy, how he showers them with affection. And then she wakes.
And she’s reminded all over again of how cruel the Force can truly be.
It fills her with anger, and that anger fuels her continued efforts to find a way to sever the bond.
She was able to manage, the burning ache still present but suppressed by her other thoughts and goals. She honed in on the Resistance rebuilding as her sole mission and partly as her distraction. It was working fine, she wasn’t living, but she was surviving.
She knew all about surviving.
But then she felt it, the echoes of pain tearing through her abdomen. She could hear his grunts of pain within her mind, and with it, the bond tore itself open once more.
And before she could even think about it, she had suddenly found herself in his room, watching him hobble in with a hand pressed to his stomach and uselessly trying to clean the ragged wound. Within seconds, she wordlessly walked over to him, ignoring his look of shock, and began to clean and dress the wound herself.
Apparently, she must also be a masochist for subjecting herself to further pain.
He scoffs before muttering, “You don’t have to be here then. You can leave, it wouldn’t be the first time.”
A loud cracking sound echoes in the room, and it takes him a few seconds to register that his head is now turned to the side and his left cheek is stinging. When he turns his head back towards her, he sees her chest heaving with effort, her hand still hovering midair from where she had just slapped him.
“Don’t you dare put this on me,” she hisses in response.
He‘s briefly taken aback by the venom in her voice before he grits out, “ I wasn’t the one that walked away, scavenger. Or have you forgotten that?”
He lets out a pained grunt when her fingers suddenly yank harder on the bindings, quickly finishing her work and stepping away from him. He’s at war with his conflicting need to both keep her away and pull her back, the internal struggle so great that he fails to notice the slumping of her shoulders and the hitch of her breath.
But then he hears the beginning of her tears.
It was a small sound, a muffled sob, desperate to hold back the tears that threatened to fall. Her hands are over her mouth, clasped tight in a losing battle against the sobs that continue to spill forth; at first barely audible but quickly escalating to hiccups and full-blown crying.
He automatically moves towards her, his hands already up to bring her to him before he stops, balls them into fists, and lets them fall to his side.
“It’s not fair.” She says in between rushed breaths. “That the force would let me see what could’ve been the future. Our future. All I’ve ever wanted...” She’s unable to finish her sentence, her body shaking with the intensity of her sobs. He sees her turn away from him then, walking over to the transparisteel viewport.
His legs again carry him to her, always pulled to her in an invisible siren call. His mind reminds him that it’s the force bond, but he knows that this goes further than that. This connection is deeper than either could ever know.
He reaches for her, consequences be damned, and pulls her to him, encasing her within his arms and using a hand to press her face against his chest. "It's okay," he finds himself murmuring, "it's okay, sweetheart."
"It's not okay!" She cries out, the sound muffled as she brings herself closer to him. "none of this is okay!"
His arms tighten their hold on her, for once pleading that the force be kind enough to allow him the time to comfort and soothe the woman in his arms. “I offered you my hand once. You wanted to take it, why didn’t you?”
She doesn’t answer, and instead asks him, “You wanted to kill me, why didn’t you?”
He stays quiet, unsure how to answer, unsure if she would even hear him or accept his words. How could he possibly encapsulate the degree of love that he holds for her? The pain he’s felt since she walked away? The constant pull to the light whenever he sees her? The temptation that she brings, the desire to sometimes leave it all behind and join her.
It was dangerous. She was dangerous.
And yet…
“I don’t know,” he finds himself lying to her.
He is met with silence on her end and by the time he looks down, she’s disappeared from his grasp once again.
He’s scowling. The grip he has on the cylindrical piece of durasteel that is his lightsaber is so tight that the metal is close to cutting through his leather glove and into his skin.
His day has been terrible so far. Having to deal with a meeting of generals. Hux in particular was very persistent. And annoying. They were beginning to question his leadership. Bringing doubts as to his ability to bring down the Resistance. He hates them all.
It also didn’t help that they only added to the growing frustration that began since he’d last seen her a week ago.
The meeting room was in shambles after the end of their conference - the cleaning droids definitely have their work cut out for them - but he can’t find it in himself to care. His whole body was riled up, thrumming with energy the closer he got to his room.
There’s only one reason why.
The doors slide open, allowing him access, and he casts a quick glance around the room. His gaze hones in on the flash of tan and white, blaring in its contrast to his otherwise dark and cold room.
“Rey.”
She doesn’t move, doesn’t even flinch, at the sound of his voice. Her elbows are on her knees, her head cradled between her hands. “I don’t want to do this now.”
His frown grows, “Yeah, me neither.”
It was almost funny, how easily they repeated the same lines from before.
“Why did you do it?”
He tilts his head, “Do what?”
She turns then, and he’s caught off guard by the amount of ire and hatred in her gaze. “The invasion of Lah'mu!”
“What invasion?”
She stands and stalks up towards him jabbing a finger at his chest, “Don’t lie to me! I saw the First Order ships! They did nothing to you! They were innocent!”
Before she could pull away, his hand snatches her wrist, his grip tight to the point that he was sure she would have bruises had she actually been here with him. “What are you talking about?” He hisses.
She tries to break free of his hold, but he stays firm and instead she lets out a scream at the same time that her knee comes up.
He grunts in pain when she makes contact right at his crotch, and he’s never been so thankful before now for the protection his clothing affords him since he would have easily doubled over in agony had he felt the full impact of her attack. Instead, his hand tightens its hold on her wrist, hearing her sharp inhale, seeing her refuse to show any sign of pain.
Admirable and reckless.
He hears the beginnings of the dark whisperings of the force, offering encouragement to his depraved thoughts, demanding that he make her submit to him. That he takes what he craves. He ignores those thoughts and the unease that forms in his stomach from having them, “You judge me before hearing me out? That’s not the Jedi way.”
She’s scowling up at him, her anger clear on her face, but underneath it he barely catches the brief flash hesitance and doubt. “Hard not to judge when I saw the ships.”
“Humor me.”
She’s skeptical, he can tell, but she grants his request nonetheless. “There was a rumor going around about the Resistance hiding away in the Raioballo sector of the outer rim. Lah’mu, specifically. I didn’t think that anything would actually be done, we were never actually there, but something told me to go and visit. And I saw them.” She sucks in a deep breath, holding his gaze as she finishes, “I saw the First Order boarding their ships. I saw the ruined settlement in their wake.”
He stays quiet, mostly because he has no idea how to respond. He really had no idea about any of this. Her words were a shock to him, and he can only surmise that if it happened and he doesn't know then it’s because someone didn’t want him to know. Someone was calling the shots behind his back.
Someone like Hux.
He’s muttering curses under his breath, pacing back and forth in the room. There are dark thoughts in his mind, far different from the ones he had earlier. These thoughts were fueled by rage, wondering how he could best dismember him, how he could make it hurt .
“Stop it.”
His eyes move back towards her, open in surprise. “What?”
“Your thoughts are practically screaming in my mind.”
Oh, that was a bigger surprise. “I thought you closed the bond. How are you hearing me?”
She frowns then, her expression pensive for a moment before she looks up and replies, “I don’t know.”
He opens his mouth, unsure what he would even say, but she’s gone again before he can even finish formulating any words.
This time he was the one that found himself in a strange environment.
A second prior he was standing in his empty room, accompanied just by his own thoughts, and within a blink he found himself in a dark and barren room. A cave, he realizes.
There are muffled sounds which he registers as footsteps beyond the rather crudely made wooden door. It was open by a few inches, enough for him to peek through to the other room and at first he didn’t feel any compulsion to look at who was at the other side until he heard it. A light, lilting voice that he would recognize anywhere.
Rey .
His feet carry him before he can process it and he can see her, just feet beyond the doorway.
“I don’t know what I can do, Leia.”
His heart stops for a second. Leia?! The sound of her name fills him with a familiar sense of pain, loss, and fury. His hands are balled into fists at his sides, nails biting into his palms to the point that he could feel them breaking past the skin.
“I thought I could bring him back.”
He pauses in the murderous thoughts forming at her sentence.
The older woman is silent for a moment before she asks, “Do you think there’s still light in him?”
Of course Leia would ask that, he thinks. She could never see past his wrongs, and the disappointment and shame it brought upon her name.
“Don’t you?” he hears Rey ask back, bitterness and accusation coloring her tone.
Her back is to him, and it’s a miracle that she hasn’t sensed him until now. He thinks it could be due to her emotions at the moment. Or maybe her part of the bond is still closed off, considering he can’t sense her through their connection.
He hears a resigned sigh, “Rey, look at where we stand. Where he left us.”
Silence stretches between the two of them, and he can see the way her shoulders slump, surely she’s coming to doubt herself, doubt him . It brings a weird sense of unease in his chest at the thought.
“I can’t give up, Leia. Not after what I saw.”
“That vision is not a guarantee of your future.”
“How can you say that?!” Rey ends in a raised voice, a tremble at the end of her sentence. “You know what I saw! I told you! Are you telling me that it’s wrong to believe in him? In us ? In that future that I saw?”
“I’m saying that you can’t lose sight of the goal. The peace of the galaxy--”
“ Kriff the galaxy!”
He’s temporarily stunned by the venom in her voice, having never heard her so mad before.
“Rey…”
“I need a moment... by myself .”
Leia is silent and he can imagine the look of concentration on her face, the way her lips are surely set in a thin line as if contemplating how to turn things around her way. After a few seconds she replies with a soft, “of course,” and he hears her stand and begin to walk away, the sound of a door closing with a soft click.
Rey exhales then, tension seeping out from her body, “Why are you here?”
He pushes open the door, a fleeting question about how he was able to do that considering he wasn’t actually there skimming through his thoughts, and walks into the space. The room was no different from the one he just came from, walls of rock surrounding them. “Where are we?”
She turns towards him then, and his breath catches at how fierce she looks, how radiant she seems in her anger. “Why? So you can invade this planet too?”
He bristles at her statement, “I didn’t order that.”
“But you lead those that did,” she states simply, no accusation in her words. “That makes you just as complicit.”
“Even if I would have been against it?”
“What have you done to change things? Have you found the ones responsible? Have they paid for their crimes?”
“No,” he bites out, unbidden guilt creeping up his spine at the admission.
“Then how am I supposed to believe you?”
“By believing me!” He yells, his anger leaving him in waves, “if you would actually open the bond you would see that I’m not lying.”
She looks away then. “I can’t”
It was whispered so low he almost missed it, but he could catch how hollow she sounded. His own face hardens in response, “Then we have nothing more to discuss.”
“I guess not.”
He turns away from her, facing the stone wall. He’s on edge, rage thrumming underneath the surface with the need to hit something. To hurt something. The lance of pain is the first thing that registers in his mind before he realizes that his fist actually hit against the roughened stone wall. He lets the pain fuel him, and hits the wall again, and again, and again .
He distantly registers the crack of bone from his knuckles as well as the splatter of blood on the wall but he doesn’t care. The pain distracts him, it feeds him. He can hear the voices in his head again, commanding, ordering that he ignite his saber, that he turn around …
“Stop!”
Her voice stills everything. The other voices that were filling his mind suddenly disappeared. He looks down to see her slim and delicate looking hand grasping his wrist, stopping his movements. His eyes move upwards, taking in the smooth, tan skin, of her arm before taking in the peak of the thin column of her neck that isn’t covered by the collar of her tunic. He greedily takes in the glimpse of her pink lips, the dusting of freckles across her nose before finally stopping at her eyes.
He panting from the exertion, taking in lungfuls of air that smell like earth tinged with the smell of her ; something sweet with a hint of cinnamon underneath.
She holds his gaze as she tugs his wrist and he follows willingly. Always for her. He didn’t even realize that there was a cot here until she leads him to it, turns him around, and presses on his shoulders, wordlessly instructing him to sit. She walks away, and he feels the urge to call her back, the ever present conflict between the need for solitude and the need for her company.
She returns though, holding a rag in one hand and a bowl of water in the other. “Short on supplies,” she explains, “have to make due with what we can.”
She sets the bowl aside on the small table that is to his left, dipping the rag and wringing it out before holding her left hand out to him. He glances down before slowly bringing his injured hand up, watching it practically engulf hers. The damp rag cools his heated skin and he now feels the rapid pulses of pain from knuckles. Rey’s careful with her movements, lightly wiping at the broken skin to clean up as much of the blood as she’s able to. Once she’s satisfied, she sets the rag back into the bowl and looks around, frowning before looking down and grabbing one of the sashes of cloth that hung from her hips. His eyes widen when she pulls at it, the sound of the fabric ripping loud in the otherwise quiet room. With the ripped strip, she puts it on top of his injury, wrapping it around securly and tying it off, taking a step back to give him room.
His eyes are glued to his bandaged hand now, curling his fingers into a fist before stretching them out again.
He looks up, ready to say something, and finds himself back in his room once again.
Their bond is growing.
It’s the only explanation he can think of. The only reason as to why the strip of cloth is still wrapped around his hand; days after their last connection.
He’s sitting at the head of a massive conference table. It’s the same room as before, only this time cleaned up from the last disastrous meeting. The droids and engineers have done their jobs well.
His thoughts are scattered and he finds himself unable to concentrate on the actual meeting occurring, instead allowing his mind to ponder on the intricacies of their bond and it’s latest developments.
“--Ryloth.”
The name of that planet caught his attention, and he’s able to glance over at the sneering ginger a few seats down to his right.
Hux.
“How sure are we about this tip? The last one went disastrously.”
What?
“The informant is dependable, they’re from the Lessu command. There is no reason to doubt their words. The Resistance is in Ryloth and now is the best time to strike. We were informed that General Leia Organa ,” he spits the title and name out like it’s poison, “has sent several resistance scum to Bracca and Corellia to gather reinforcements. We can invade, pick off the few that are on the planet, and position ourselves strategically to receive the remaining forces and crush them.”
His eyes are wide then though the others don’t seem to have taken notice. One of the other generals begins to speak, a manic gleam in their eyes. “We’ll send a squadron down to Ryloth, mask it as additional troops looking to collect the tithe they owe us. Once they reach close proximity, we can enact a coordinated attack from multiple points, blocking their chances of escape.”
The rest of the words were now muffled sounds compared to the ringing in his ears. Rey was in Ryloth. The First Order knew that.
She was in danger.
He’s walking before he realizes he even stood, barely registering the words and looks of confusion from his officers and generals. His steps are rushed, the sound loud in the hallway while he rushes to the elevators, pushing his way past any stormtroopers who were stupid enough to stay on his path. Anxiety gripped his heart, his lungs burning with the need for air that he doesn’t seem to be able to bring in enough of.
The ride in the elevator was torture, memories from months ago flooding his mind and haunting him.
You don’t have to do this.
I feel the conflict in you, it’s tearing you apart.
When we touched hands I saw your future. Just the shape of it but solid and clear.
You will not bow before Snoke.
You’ll turn.
...I’ll help you.
She had said it with such conviction that he had actually believed her. He had offered her his hand. The galaxy.
Everything.
Only for her to turn away.
And yet he was going to help her. He’d laugh at the irony of it all if he wasn’t gripped by anxiety. Despite the anger that simmered beneath the surface. He would help her.
He would still give her anything.
He’s back in his room when he sees her there, and for a moment he’s thankful at the convenient timing, considering he had no idea how to communicate with her and warn her of the impending danger.
Her back is to him while she’s staring out of the transparisteel view port, looking at the span of darkness and stars just beyond.
“Rey.”
Her shoulders stiffen, her body taut and seemingly prepared for another fight. “I don’t know why I’m here. I’ll leave and wait for the bond to close again.”
The resignation in her tone throws him off temporarily but he quickly remembers the pressing reason he had to see her. “Rey, The First Order knows where you are.”
Her eyes are wide in shock, “How did...did you-- ”
“No!” he growls out. “I had no idea where you were! Someone from the Lessu command betrayed you all. You need to leave!”
At seeing her still rooted in place he curses and walks up to her, grasping her shoulders and shaking her. “Rey, you have to go!”
The urgency in his tone seems to finally snap her back to attention. “I have to tell, Leia,” she mumbles to herself before looking back up at him, “I--”
He shakes his head then, “just go!”
She nods and he reluctantly lets her go as she scrambles off. Curious, he decides to follow when she disappears into the next room. The scene before him changes, disorienting him for a few seconds while he takes in the sudden shift in his surroundings. He’s no longer in his rooms, that much is clear by the lack of black durasteel and transparisteel. He instantly recognizes it as the cave from before, and realizes that Rey has been here for days now in hiding.
She shuffles from one foot to the other, and he wants to yell at her to leave, but then he sees why she’s reluctant to move. Up ahead is the familiar figure of Leia, she’s next to a blue Twi’lek male and they seem to be exchanging in some sort of important conversation before the man glances over at Rey. He says something to Leia and she turns around, smiling at Rey in a way that brings a pang of unrecognizable pain in his chest.
Rey is already stepping closer to the older woman, “Leia, somethings happ--”
The blare of sirens catches them all off-guard, including himself. He’s looking around trying to find the source and barely registers the other male yelling out, “that’s the proximity alarm!”
There was a flurry of activity then, and the ground underneath them shook at the same time that a loud blast was heard in the distance. He sees Rey quickly grab a cloth bundle, yelling at Leia to move to the next room. The Twi’lek male was already guiding them both, and he saw Rey’s frantic eyes meet his for a split second.
Just before a second blast is heard and he finds himself in his room once more.
It’s been hours .
He’s pacing, his nerves are on end. After their last connection he found himself marching straight to the conference room, demanding that any updates on the raid come straight to him. Those under his command seemed to take it as him taking charge in the eradication of the remaining Resistance forces.
If only they knew.
The last report he received was just minutes ago, where a poor underling had the misfortune to inform him that there was no update. The look of fear on the man's face when he ignited his lightsaber would’ve bought a sense of joy at any other moment. But today, he had no stomach for it.
He knows she’s not dead, he’s sure of it. For whatever reason, he knows that if she had died, he would be able to feel it; maybe it’s the bond that fills him with assurance. He’s not sure.
But even the relief that he feels at knowing she’s alive doesn’t do much to ease the roiling in his stomach. She could be alive, but injured. She could be alive, but trapped. She could’ve been captured. They could kill her at any moment, a real possibility despite his explicit orders that if she’s captured then she is to be brought back to him alive.
With a snarl he turns and ignites his saber, holding it up and ready to swing at the electrical paneling in front of him…
Until he feels the bond flare to life.
He lets out a shaky exhale, turning his saber off and placing it back in it’s holster before turning back around. She’s sitting down, so he assumes that she must be sitting wherever she’s actually at. But here she looks like she’s seated on his bed which causes a pang in his chest at the sight.
“Rey?”
She doesn’t move or even acknowledge his presence and for a moment he wonders if he isn’t somehow hallucinating until he remembers that he can feel her presence through the bond. She speaks just as he takes a step towards her.
“She died.”
His eyebrows are furrowed at those words, “Who died, Rey?”
She doesn’t answer and again that feeling of unease is settling into his stomach. His first thought is that it’s Leia, but he knows that can’t be true. He would’ve felt it in the force. “Rey?” There is a hint of desperation and urgency in his voice now, despite his best attempts to sound calm for her.
“Hahnee.”
Confusion filled him even more. He isn’t familiar with that name, doesn’t recall hearing it in any of the reports from his generals. “Rey, who’s Hahnee?”
She turns her head and his breath is caught in his throat at the sight of her. In just the mere hours since he’d last seen her he can see the exhaustion that she carries with her. The lights in his room are dim, but it’s just enough to illuminate her face and show how her eyes appear to be dull and sunken, dark circles underneath them a stark contrast to her usually bright hazel eyes. Her whole body is slouched, hands hanging limply between her legs while she continues to stare at him; expression completely empty and unreadable.
“Yendor’s daughter.”
He thinks he’s heard that name before. It registers as familiar in his mind though he can’t seem to recall the exact details of where he’s heard it.
“He’s an old ally from the galactic civil war. He was part of the Rebel Alliance.” She says, answering his internal questions.
“Oh,” he mumbles in response, unsure how to proceed from here. He’s a few feet away from her and he’s fighting the urge to close that distance between them physically. He would also like to do the same mentallly but knows that neither is ideal at the moment. So he just stands there awkwardly, waiting for her to dictate how they move from here.
“She died trying to warn us about the First Order invasion.”
Ah, now it makes sense to him. It doesn’t help him figure out what exactly to say though; but he knows that at this point he would say whatever he has to--whatever it takes for Rey to smile again.
“I don’t know if I can keep doing this.”
Her expression is still unreadable, but he can sense the trickle of emotions from their bond and the amount of melancholy and self-doubt that comes from her almost staggers him. She’s struggling to keep her end of their bond closed, because he feels the emotion and thoughts from her increase in its intensity.
Her anger towards him, her self-hatred, her sadness, her mourning.
It wrenches something within him to see her so lost in her despair.
He actively and ruthlessly pushes back against the dark whispers in his mind, his sole focus on comforting her, on holding her and telling her that it would be okay. Even if it was a lie, he was willing to do anything to soothe her.
She doesn’t flinch when he comes down to his knees in front of her, doesn’t shy away from him when his fingers hook underneath her chin to direct her to look at him. He wishes that his eyes would convey the depth of his emotions to her, that she could see that his feelings for her are beyond those of anger or displaced hatred. And although he doesn’t know how it’s possible for him to hold such immense and indescribable feelings towards her, he knows them to be real.
He knows that he will only ever be hers.
She seems to pick up on those thoughts then, and chokes back a sob though the tears flow freely. She looks as if she’s been wounded, stabbed straight through the heart with an additional twist of the blade and it breaks something within him.
Her right hand comes up to caress his cheek and he leans into her touch, starved for contact with her. “I did want to take your hand.” She whispers softly, barely audible enough for him to hear it but he does, and he feels an odd sensation swell up within him.
Hope.
This hope is something different from before, before the hope he felt was one that was tainted by the whispers of the dark, one that emerged at the thought of her ruling at his side, at her following him, at obeying his every word. Submissive, his .
This hope is different. Purer in comparison.
This time, he doesn't envision them sitting at a throne, he doesn’t envision himself dominating her. No, this time the vision he sees is different. It takes him a moment to realize that these are not his, that they are her visions, memories of what she’s seen of his future.
Of their future.
Of a small boy ambling over on wobbly legs to him. The way his face lights up in an open smile while he crouches down to bring the toddler up into his arms. Standing straight before looking over at her, at Rey. He can’t see her since he’s experiencing the vision through her eyes, but he can feel every emotion that courses through her. The warm content she feels at seeing them together, the sense of belonging, of happiness.
Of love.
It nearly overwhelms him in its intensity, the ferocity in which she feels things, and he can only gape at her in wonder while she continues to hold his gaze.
“I wanted to take Ben's hand.”
It was the first time she’s said his name since Crait and the peace that it brings to him is indescribable. In that moment he knows within the deepest part of himself that for that future that he saw, he would do anything. For that chance with her, he would take any risk.
This time she’s the one extending her hand.
Her smile is hesitant, tears are still streaming down her face and yet she’s never looked more beautiful than in this moment.
He doesn’t even need to think about it when he pulls his gloves off, when he reaches out and grasps her hand.
The bond flares to life between them the moment they touch, and it opens him up to his most raw and vulnerable parts of himself. She can see everything , his past, the way he was brought under Snokes wing, how he was turned to the dark, he knows this because her tears increase in intensity while she looks at him.
He can also feel her, see the lonely nights she’s spent on Jakku while she etches another line into the steel walls of the abandoned AT-AT that she called her home. Feel her own sadness and loneliness while she did her best to survive. He can feel and see every bit of her and he feels a wetness gathering on his cheeks before realizing that he’s crying too.
It felt cathartic, to be laid bare to her and there was nothing but relief when he sensed that she didn’t feel any repulsion from what he’s done, if anything he feels her desire to bring him with her increase in intensity.
Rey’s chest is heaving while she stares at him, his eyes so open and expressive. That one touch was electric, her body coming to life with renewed energy when she sees him, really sees him , for the first time since they first met. He doesn’t try to hold back any piece of himself, his feelings, or his past; instead letting her experience every memory he has to offer her. Even the ones he has of her.
Her breath is stolen away by the raw emotions that he shares with her, and she feels the walls that she’s tried so desperately to keep up crimble down with ease.
“Rey.”
She brings both hands up to cradle his head while she leans forward, her eyes searching for any hint of hesitation from him and finding none. It helps embolden her as she closes the gap between them, her lips pressing against his.
She feels the air leave her chest as she savors the feel of him against her. His lips are soft and warm, moving against hers softly, as if she were fragile. It causes her heart to flutter at the way he’s handling her. How he seems to worship her.
But a small part of her doesn’t want to be handled like she’s breakable, that part reminds her that she doesn’t know how long the bond will last before she’s whisked away and finds herself back at the newest Resistance hideout. That part of her encourages her to push further. So she tilts her head a little, her lips slotting better against his while she shyly runs her tongue against his lower lip.
His answer groan causes a wave of warmth to cascade over her, a tingling sensation settling over her spine as his hands come up to pull her closer. His mouth opens at her silent request, and she slowly explores his mouth, savoring the taste of him. Her fingers skim down his jaw, feeling the strong set of his jawline before they move down to his neck and tangle themselves in his hair.
At some point he stands up and gently guides her to stand with him before his arms come around her waist to hold her to him, his hands large and warm even through her layers of clothing.
When they part, she’s panting heavily, greedily grabbing lungfuls of air. It takes her several moments for her eyes to open and when she does she sees that he’s flushed, his chest expanding with rapid breaths.
He can’t seem to form any thought, his mind fogged in pleasure and warmth. Her pupils are blown, black nearly swallowing the bright hazel of her eyes. He’s sure that he also looks affected, but it doesn’t matter to him in the slightest. Nothing seems to matter beyond having her here, and sharing this moment of vulnerability and intimacy together.
He brings one of his hands to cup her cheek, leaning down to press his lips against hers in a chaste kiss before whispering against them, “I’ll come back to you, sweetheart.”
He hears her sharp intake of breath, and sees the shimmer of unshed tears in her eyes as she whispers, “Be with me, Ben. Please.”
“I will, Rey. I’m sorry, you were right I--”
She shakes her head. “It’s okay. I forgive you.”
He searches her face, seeing only love and acceptance. His heart stutters in his chest, never before seeing someone openly love him and accept him they way she was at this moment. Her compassion, her love , the way she felt things so fiercely calmed the dark thoughts in his mind. Her light touched him, and ignited something that he thought had been long dead.
He presses his forehead against her, basking in the peace and tranquility of the moment. “No matter where you are, I’ll find you, Rey.”
Her mind offers him another flood of warmth and comfort at hearing his works, and he closes his eyes to savor the moment.
When he opens them again, she’s gone.
It was, admittedly, a risky move.
Even sending the message through his comm link could’ve caused an uproar and fueled the potential coup that was forming behind his back. But it had to be done. In order to make the change, to cast aside the identity that was Kylo Ren, he had to start by correcting the wrongs that he’s done; even those that he inadvertently had been associated with solely because of his name and position within the First Order.
Every single First Order base, every name of those within the higher ranks, numbers of troops and coordinates to their locations. Blueprints for their prototype ships and other projects. Every little piece of intel that he had, now in Resistance hands.
You’re reckless
She told him that once. He smiles as he picks up his saber, hostering it before taking one last glance at his surroundings, different thoughts formulating while he mentally calculates how best to achieve the results he needs. His final thought being that he would make it back to Rey, no matter what. He would find her. And once he does, he will never let her go.
Reckless indeed.