Chapter Text
“Please,” he pleaded.
Rey could only stare at his outstretched hand. She dare not look into his soft, brown eyes, vulnerable after his spoken need. If she looked into those eyes she knew she would lose her hard resolve completely. The moment stretched on, impossibly long, the electrical sparks within a destroyed throne room a mimic to the decision that lay before her. A large spark sputtered loudly in the background, catching her attention. Rey suddenly realized this spark came not from the background at all but was in her hands.
She was standing in the pouring rain, sparks sputtering wildly from her raised lightsaber. Righteous fury enveloped her. As she held the saber aloft waves of realization peeled over her. This old man had ruined an innocent child, his own flesh and blood, and begat a misery that consumed not just this one child’s life, but an entire galaxy’s. In that moment Rey knew certainty and purpose. She was the one that would end the pain that he had brought to so many. She would be the savior of the boy betrayed by those closest to him. Tears mingled with the rain as the truth of it washed over her. She also had been the child betrayed by those that came before. Betrayed by those who were supposed to protect her but threw her away instead. She would save him, save these children, the future, the galaxy, or Gods help her, she would die in the attempt. As she raised her lightsaber to strike him down, Rey looked up into the heavens. A single star twinkled enchantingly, momentarily capturing her focus. How was it raining and yet there are no clouds? There were so many stars visible. The sky seemed endless with the number of stars. The rain fell more softly now and warm. Somehow, it became more still. Inhale. Exhale. Rey lay floating in a endless sea of stars. She thought if she reached out, she might just be able to touch that one star twinkling so brightly. As she began to reach for it a brighter object, perhaps it was a moon, appeared off to her left. She turned to look at it and blinked. Something about this moon was very strange. It quickly rose into better view. She scrubbed at her eyes, unsure of what she was seeing. It was not a moon at all! It was an eye. His eye. Soft brown and vulnerable with his exposed need. Rey gasped with recognition. “Ben,” she breathed.
“Hey. Hey! Wake up, Rey!” Finn said as he shook her awake.
“I know sleeping quarters on the Falcon are tight, but if you are going to shout and mumble every night maybe I could find some room closer to Chewbacca? At least he only snores,” Finn said in a half-joking tone.
Rey scrubbed at her eyes in utter confusion. Her emotions were in a jumble. It had seemed so real, so close. Those stars were so real she could have touched them. She finally understood her place in all of this, what she had to do, she, she...it all slipped from her consciousness like sand through her fingers. A dream. It was only dream.
———
Kylo Ren stood alone gazing out of a large transparisteel window on a quiet deck of The Finalizer. This place had become his favorite spot on the ship. No one save Hux dare interrupt his repose here.
Kylo Ren would not choose a grandiose throne room as his master had. It held too many reminders, feelings he wished to leave behind. It held too many secrets. No, he preferred the endless black of space with the light of its’ stars pushed away, tiny and distant, as his backdrop. The expansive view of space and stars helped focus him on the vast, dark void within himself. A well-worn tactic he had learned after so many punishments endured from Snoke. When the pain would begin he would imagine an endless, black expanse of space. Focus his feelings and memories until they were nothing more than tiny pinpoints of light, stars, that were present but far away. He would draw on the vast pool of dark space which contained it all. The darkness which kept the stars at bay. Snoke had insisted that the punishments were important to develop Kylo’s meditation technique in the dark side. But, deep down, Kylo knew Snoke continued his medieval punishments far longer and more frequently than was strictly necessary. Snoke enjoyed watching him squirm.
“Your pain is exquisite, apprentice” Snoke would coo.
As Supreme Leader, that lesson, at least, would come in handy. Kylo would surely need to use every opportunity to clear his mind and focus now. He closed his eyes for meditation, imagining the vastness of space before him. Inhale. Exhale. A bright star twinkled annoyingly in his mind. He reached out with the Force to swat it away. As he touched it he heard a sharp intake of breath echo in his mind, followed by a single word.
“Ben,” the voice exhaled.
It was her voice.