Chapter Text
Part I
The Force...
"Fuck the Force," Rey whispered to herself and rested her forehead against the cold durasteel wall of her meager quarters. The metal felt heavenly on her heated skin and she only lifted her head to tame the flyaways that tickled her face.
The heat of this planet was miserable, nothing like the arid climate of Jakku that felt like sticking her head behind a firing thruster. Instead, the humidity made her sweat through the linen arm wraps just a few hours after sunrise. Dantooine would not have been her first choice to settle what was left of the Resistance, but then again—nobody asked for her input.
Just a few months ago, Rey would have been mortified to utter a curse at the Force. Having a special connection between every particle of energy in the galaxy gave her a Goddess-like status with the rag-tag group of rebels. She was awakened to the Force about a year and a half ago on Starkiller Base when Kylo Ren reached into her mind.
Thinking back on her youth, Rey felt maybe she always had the Force on her side. The fact that she survived on Jakku to adulthood was a miracle within itself. Just the danger of scrapping the fallen Star Destroyers was enough to test fate. She remembered falling from a gangplank in the Ravager, thinking she would land on the open landing deck, but ended up ten feet to the left in a pile of shifting sand. Or how she somehow knew there would be a stock of perma-sealed portions in a random Captain's quarters on the Inflictor when she was too ill to scavenge.
But now—after everything, she really meant it. "Fuck the Force," she repeated, a little louder this time and kicked the toe of her boot against the wall.
To fully understand her current frustration with the Force, Rey had to go back...
The small group of Resistance fighters escaped Crait after the new Supreme Leader, Kylo Ren, battled with the Force projection of Luke Skywalker. The old Jedi sacrificed himself so that his sister and her comrades could find a way out of the mines of the red, salt covered planet and be rescued by Chewie and Rey in the Millennium Falcon.
The Force first connected Rey and Kylo Ren when she trained with Skywalker on Ahch-To. It began with Rey hissing insults at Ren and Kylo trying to better understand her. She learned the creation story of the monster Kylo Ren and she felt compassion for him. She reached out to him and they were both surprised when they could touch each other through their bond.
Rey delivered herself to him, thinking that she could convince Kylo Ren to turn to the Light, but old Supreme Leader Snoke laughed at both of their foolishness. Snoke took credit for bridging their minds, stoking Kylo's conflict, and relying on Rey's empathy to bring them into his trap. How wrong he had been. When given the order to kill Rey, Kylo faltered, choosing to strike down his Master instead.
When the smoke and ash settled after a heated fight with Snoke's Praetorian guards, Kylo turned to Rey, extended his hand to her and asked…no, pleaded with her to join him, to rule with him—to be with him. Rey denied Kylo in glorious fashion. They split Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber and she left him behind, unsure if he would survive the rest of the conflict. Reflecting on that time, Rey regretted not assuring he was safe, presently not able to fathom the galaxy without his Force signature.
They both thought that the bond died with Snoke, but when they were connected on Crait, Kylo knew that the bond was something so much more. As he looked up at her, the words he screamed at Skywalker in anger and hurt, I'll destroy her... He knew it was a lie.
After those few seconds of connection on the salt covered world, the bond was silent for sixty-two days…
On day five Kylo reached out attempting to find her location so he could destroy the rest of the Resistance.
On day seventeen Rey tried to reach out, wanting to give Kylo Ren a piece of her mind.
On day thirty Kylo concentrated on the bond, with the hopes of seeing her face.
Perhaps the Force was wise to keep them apart. Allowed both of them time to collect their thoughts and feelings. Kylo was angry and hurt. Rey was confused and felt more lost and alone.
Finally, on day sixty-two, the bond opened. Rey was in the mess hall of the new Resistance base on Dantooine, surrounded by her friends and some new recruits. Everyone wanted to know the last Jedi and at times Rey found it suffocating. Kylo was in a room full of top leadership going over plans for his New Order.
They sat across from one another, the bond flickered for just a moment, long enough for Rey to suck in a gasp and Kylo to clench his fists. But in those few seconds, when their eyes met, they had an unspoken conversation that tried to express the feelings that festered for two standard months.
Rey felt that she had a cooler head when it came to Kylo Ren and she was almost thankful for the time that the Force chose to keep them apart. So the next time the sound was drawn from the room, she was ready for him.
It was day seventy, late at night, and Rey was alone in her quarters. Kylo appeared as if he was sitting on an invisible chair, his surcoat hung open and he pulled at his boots. Rey sat up from her prone position, threw her legs over the side of her cot to mimic his position.
Kylo glanced up for just a moment, met her gaze through a veil of black hair, and then went back to stripping his boots from his tired feet. Rey watched him but picked at a hangnail—anything to reduce the urge to spew every feeling and thought that had been circling her mind since they were last together. She studied his face, pale and drawn, deep purple shadows hung under his dark eyes. His hair looked longer, as if he had not tended to it in some time and she found herself wondering if it was long enough to stick out from under his ridiculous mask. But she knew that it didn't. Rey was following all of his public appearances on the holonet.
He removed his gloves and pulled his coat off of his shoulders, rolled his neck and then ran his bare fingers through his hair. He carried on with his usual nightly routine because if he acknowledged her—that she was sitting right in front of him, he wouldn't be able to control the flood of emotions that he held back for months.
When he finally looked up at her, she was chewing on her bottom lip. He sucked in a deep breath, closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them again just to be sure that she was really there and this was not another dream. "I'm sorry," he spoke just above a whisper, his voice rough from disuse.
Rey's breath shuddered as a chill ran over her. "Me too,” she answered, tears started to form in her eyes and one escaped down her cheek.
"Rey," he reached out to wipe her delicate face, but she disappeared and her tear landed on his outstretched fingers.
The Force seemed to know when they needed to be connected and it continued to be something that they had no control over. Sometimes Rey saw Kylo every day and other times it was two week between their meetings.
There were moments when they screamed at one another and times of just sitting together in silence.
Rey found that she was spending more time trying to understand her connection to the Force but was still too stubborn to ask for help. She would pour over the text that she took from Ahch-To and Kylo would try to ignore her while scrolling through memos on his datapad.
Finally, on night ninety-one he looked up from his work. "Real books are uncommon."
"Yes," she answered without looking up. "It's very old." She heard the sound of shifting leather and knew that he was moving towards her. A moment later she could smell him—it was something between ionized air and singed hair and knew that he had lit his saber that day. She only wondered how many lives were ended by his hand and unstable blade.
When he looked down at the book, he couldn't believe his eyes and without thinking he reached down and ran his finger tips along the tattered page. "Where did you get this?" His tone was half awe, half accusatory.
"The library on Ahch-To," she answered and swatted his hand away.
Kylo rubbed at the back of his hand, not because her strike hurt, but because it was the first physical contact they had since the Supremacy. "That's where Skywalker was?"
"Yes," Rey finally looked up at him, seeing no point in continuing to hide the location of Luke since the last Jedi was one with the Force for almost a quarter year. "The library is no longer there. It burned to the ground."
"You've been back there?"
"You're not the only one who gets to crisscross the galaxy."
"It's not safe for you out there." He went back to his seat across the room.
Rey scoffed, "It would be if you didn't have a bounty on my head."
Kylo could tell that this would be one of those connections that kept him up for the rest of the night. "The order does say to bring you in alive and unharmed. That's the best I can do."
"Right, must keep up appearances that I was the one who killed Snoke. Wouldn't want your group of flip-flopping thugs to turn against you."
He put his head in his hands and ran his fingers through his hair, "We've been over this, Rey."
She would never admit that her name crossing his lips made her shiver. "Yes, yes. You are changing everything from the inside—all for the betterment of the galaxy." Rey rolled her eyes and twirled her hand in the air as if reciting something that she had heard a million times before.
"You could have been a part of all of this if you would have just stayed!" He almost regretted the words as he spoke them and they looked at each other in silence for just a moment more than what was comfortable.
"I know," Rey finally said between gritted teeth.
Her response shocked him. Never in their countless bonds had she admitted that it was a mistake to leave him. Kylo was sure that her standing by his side would have come with many stipulations and impossible compromises—all of which he would willingly grant her.
But the bond closed before he could reply, as it always did when they were reaching a new pinnacle in their relationship. He was beginning to believe that the Force was unkind, the Force was wanting, and the Force was going to drive him to insanity.
On day one hundred and eleven Kylo sat in his newly acquired throne in an empty audience chamber aboard the Finalizer. The room was smaller and not as garish as Snoke's throne room, but it was enough to display Kylo's power over any subject that came before him.
He just dismissed a group of leaders from Tava Yagen and still wore his mask. The First Order needed a steady supply of durelium to repair their fleet and negotiations always went in his favor if the room was cloaked with fear. So the mask and modulated voice afforded them a thirty percent discount for the rare ore.
His posture was that of imposing apathy, legs splayed wide, leaned to the right on his elbow as his other arm laid upon one of the massive stone rests flanking the sitting platform. His heavy alloy encased head was propped against two leather covered fingers and he looked out at nothing in particular.
Then the sound pulled from the room.
Rey materialized before him, her laugh echoed in the empty space as if she was truly there. She was twirling about, her head thrown back as she continued to shriek with joy. When her face came back up and her gaze met his, her feet faltered and then she snapped her head back to the left, "I'm sorry Finn!" She cried out, holding her hands out, palms up as if hovering over an open wound. "I forgot the steps. Your poor toes," her voice was back up to a laugh by the end of her speech.
Dancing, Kylo mused. Rey was dancing and looked radiant doing so.
He shifted his body, sat up a little straighter, moved his hands to the base of his mask, and removed it with a swift up-jerk of his elbows. He palmed the crown of the helmet, and placed it with a heavy thud on the arm of his throne.
The sound gained her attention again and Rey scratched at her arm nervously, as if being caught doing something she shouldn't. Rey thought for a moment that Kylo would lash out at her for being so close to Finn, she learned that Kylo had a bit of a jealous streak when it came to her. But she was shocked and pleasantly surprised when a smile pulled at the right side of his lips.
"Please don't stop on my account," he said lazily and held out his hand as if giving a gestured order for her to continue.
Rey bit her lip, dropped her gaze from his, and thought about making an excuse to leave the party and her friends. It appeared that she and Kylo were in a better place than just a few months ago, when he cut his Master through for tearing into her mind with a violating force.
So she did as he requested and turned back to Finn, allowing him to take her around the waist and then lead her into another hopping and twirling dance lesson. Rey never lost awareness of his dark eyes that followed her every movement, but she was able to relax under the silent observation. She cast glances his way every few moments and silently wished to continue seeing the light expression on his scarred face.
Sure—Kylo's hand itched to touch her, to hold her close and spin her around a room in the practiced elegance of a Senator's son. In his twenty-three years prior to the academy, he attend countless State dinners and entertained many diplomat's daughters. But if he was allowed to actually hold her, hold his little scavenger, he would make sure that Rey felt that she was his only.
His attention was snapped out of his musings when he heard Rey telling her friends that she was going to get something to drink. She walked towards him and made a motion as if she was closing a door and then continued to just below his dais. "I can't go any further in this room," she said quietly. "You are going to have to come to me."
An amused huff of a laugh breathed through his nose and Kylo looked down at her before shifting forward off his throne and took the four steps down off the dais with careful slow motions. A few long strides and he stood before her. "You are having fun with your friends," it hung as a statement more than a questions.
"I am," Rey smiled up at him.
He brushed a stray curl that came loose from her half up, half down hair style. Her cheeks were rosy from laughing and the physical excursion of the dance. Her bright eyes sparkled and if he were a braver man he would have tried to kiss her, but instead he just returned her smile and said, "I'm glad."
Her body betrayed her and she blushed from her chest to her hair line and she tried to bring back some banter, "I'm sure you find all of this childish. I mean it's not like the great Kylo Ren knows how to dance," she said snickering to herself and just the thought of him in his cumbersome robes performing some of the moves that Finn had just demonstrated.
"You'd be surprised. I have attended more galas than I'm willing to admit to."
Rey bit her lip, "Well Supreme Leader, show me what you got."
Kylo's face when slack, "I don't think so, Rey..."
She stepped up to him, captured his wrist in her small hand and pulled at the glove on his right hand. He lost the ability to breathe as Rey willingly touched him and undressed him—even if it was just his hand. So he brought his left hand to his mouth, gripped the thick leather between his teeth and pulled the other glove off, throwing it to the ground as if it was inconsequential.
He reached for her hand and placed the other at the small of her back, pulled her closer and he was satisfied to hear her small gasp. "This is a simple box step," he instructed, speaking quietly to her and then started to move to the count of four.
Rey looked down at their feet, wondering how a man who looked like he lumbered everywhere, could move so slightly. Her left hand was on his shoulder and with each of their movements, strands of his hair tickled her fingers. Her mind shifted to thoughts of what it would feel like to run her fingers through his hair and she had to continue looking down to distract herself.
"Don't look at your feet," Kylo started. "Look at me."
When her eyes came back up and met his, Rey felt for just a moment that the thing she had been searching for her entire life was found. Lost in his gaze she needed to regroup and she looked over his entire face, found his lips and cursed herself for spending just a second too long on them.
"You're quite good at this," Rey finally said and wished to break the feeling the Force pulsed around them.
"I'm hurt that you doubted my ability," he joked.
"What is this dance called?"
"It's a waltz," Kylo answered and then started to hum a soft melody as he led her in more sweeping movements and even at one point encircled her tiny waist and lifted her for a half turn.
Rey let out a small 'eep' of surprise but followed it with the same laughter that she had barked out at Finn's less graceful movements.
"You are a quick learner," Kylo commented and leaned in towards her, needing to bask in the Light she was giving off.
"Well, I have a good teacher."
Kylo's pace faltered at her words and he thought back to the side of a cliff on Starkiller. "There are so many things I could show you, Rey." He halted their movement and his tone turned serious, “Let me teach you."
Rey stepped out of his hold and instantly missed his warmth. "You know that can't happen."
Kylo took a step back towards her, wanting to reach for her hand, and pleaded, “Why?”
"You are on the Darkside and I am on the Light. I can not fall into darkness with you."
"Rey," her name was like a prayer on his lips. "It is just us. There is no Dark or Light side. There is just us and we can make our connection to the Force into whatever we want."
"But we want different things, Ben—Kylo..." she stumbled over his name, not knowing what to call him. When he tried to take the saber from her in Snoke's throne room and when he fired upon her and her friends on Crait, she was sure that Ben was gone and Kylo was all that remained. But the man that hummed to her and spun her around a darkened supply room, couldn't be that same man.
"You can call me Ben—for you I will always be Ben."
His words were soft and his breath ghosted across her face in a calming manner and it sent a shiver down her spine. She gulped, "We want different things from the Force, Ben."
"We want peace and balance. The rest we can figure out as we go." His brows dropped and his gaze bore into her. "Please, Rey. Let me teach you—let me show you the true power of the Force and we can find balance, together."
Kylo held his hand out to her again, with the knowledge of what happened the last time he extended her an offer and uttered the word 'please'. To his complete surprise, Kylo felt her warm hand slip back into his and this caused a dumbfounded look to develop on his face.
"So we can find balance," she repeated and just as his fingers started to close around her small hand, they were pulled from the bond and she was left cold and alone in the supply room.
He stood in the middle of his throne room for a long moment and stared at the space in front of him where Rey had just occupied. She was agreeable to him teaching her about the Force and he wasn't going to blow the opportunity. He wasn't going to stick with the narrow-minded ideals of the Jedi or drag her into the dark deeds of the Sith. He was going to give her the best of both sides, warn her of the downfalls of each and allow her to find her own balance.
Kylo, on the other hand, was an ever swinging pendulum. Diving into the Dark when needed and then called back to the Light. He would always straddle the line. Leading the galaxy would never allow him to have a strong foothold in one or the other, but as he lay wake that night, Kylo was unsure if balance was a state of mind or state of being. Perhaps he believed that balance was embodied in the small woman he just held in his arms.