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Rey ignites her handmade saberstaff - made from the remnants of Skywalker lightsaber - as she runs into the throne room on the Fallen Star, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren's personal ship and the main headquarters of the First Order. The ship is huge. She barely found her way to the throne room, and if it wasn't for the spy that sent the Resistance a map of the ship then she wouldn't have found it at all; the Resistance sent a small team onto the ship for two purposes. One, gain information on a new super weapon of unknown power. Two, kidnap the Supreme Leader - Rey's task since she's the only who can get close enough to him. There's also a part of the team that causes a little bit of trouble as a distraction.
"I wasn't expecting you," Kylo Ren muses from across the room where he stands, staring at her.
Rey shrugs. "Sorry, Supreme Leader, call it a surprise visit."
Kylo smirks. "Not an extraction?"
Rey muses over his words, "What would you say if it was?"
She hasn't been taking any steps forward, preferring to assess the situation before rushing in - she wasn't going to ruin this one chance - but he was. He was taking careful steps towards her, now only about two feet away.
"What exactly are you extracting?" He asks as he takes another step forward.
She studies him as he gets closer. She hasn't seen him for months, since he started blocking her out and building up walls to keep the Force Bond from connecting. He's wearing his same dark outfit, but he looks so different that she can barely contain her gasp. There are dark half-circles under his eyes, and if it's possible his skin looks paler than usual. His hair is messy, not in it's usual messy-groomed way, just messy. She can't say anything though, she knows that the same dark circles and pale skin are infecting her appearance too.
"What's happened to you?" She asks angrily. She might not be his biggest fan at the moment, but she still has hope that he will be turned away from the dark, that he will be on her side, so seeing him like this . . . She doesn't like it. She clicks her the button on her saber, sheathing the blades. Maybe he'll come peacefully.
He shrugs. "Ruling the Galaxy isn't as fun as I thought." He says it nonchalantly, but she can tell that that's not true. There's something else bothering him.
"Glad I turned you down then." She mutters, watching his facial expression shift from carefully neutral to heartbroken. It's only like that for a second before he composes himself, but she notices it all the same.
"You didn't answer my question," He starts, shifting the topic away from that terrible day, "What are you extracting?"
Telling him would make her task difficult, she has to wait until the sirens go off. Once the sirens go off, she has a moment of surprise to take him down and get him out of her. Just keep talking, Rey.
So she asks him the same question she's been waiting to ask for months, "Why did you shut me out?"
He blinks, as if the question is surprising, "What?"
"Why did you shut me out?" She asks again. "You and I have a Force Bond, Kylo," He seems to flinch at her calling him that, every single time. "and blocking me out, it's only hurting us both."
Kylo shakes his head, only slightly, as he says, "I want it gone."
This time, she's the one taking steps forward. Forward until she's right in front of him, looking up at him. "Why?"
He seems to struggle with his answer as his gaze drops to the ground instead of where it had been, on her face. "Because it only serves as a reminder of something that I want but can't have."
"And what's that?" She asks, the question coming out sharper than she intended.
His head whips up sharply, his eyes widening as he yells, "You, Rey!" He takes a few steps back and starts pacing. His voice is quieter as he says, "I want you, Rey."
Rey knows this, of course she does, but she also knows that he doesn't want her enough to give up the First Order. He doesn't even have to turn from the Dark Side completely, he just needs to turn away from the First Order.
"You know why you don't have me," She replies in a voice that's as quiet as a whisper.
He hangs his head and mumbles, "Because I'm a monster."
"You're not a monster," She argues, starting to take a step forward, when the elevator that she had come out of dings and a certain redheaded general stomps in with a squad of stormtroopers behind him.
That's when the alarms go off.
Rey doesn't have time to react as Hux yells, "Shoot her," He points to her as the troopers aim, "she's with the Resistance!"
She hears the guns fire, but she doesn't have time to find cover and she still isn't sure how to use the Force to shield herself from gunfire. Damn Luke for dying before he could teach her that.
She doesn't feel any pain though. She looks down at herself and sees nothing, no deep red staining her tan robes.
Her eyes swivel to the stormtroopers, but she sees Kylo first.
Kylo on the ground with red seeping out of him, and that's when she realizes. He covered her with the Force, but didn't cover himself like Hux expected him to.
"Ben!" She slides down on her knees next to him. Rey places her hand on his chest, hoping to Force-heal him when she sees that it's not just one bullet that pierced his chest but multiple. This isn't something she can heal.
"Kriff, Ben," She swipes some of his dark hair out of his eyes, "what the hell were you thinking, laserbrain?"
She looks over her shoulder at Hux who's white as a sheet and yells, "Aren't you going to do something? Get a doctor or a medical droid or something!" When he nods and runs out of the room, she turns her anger on the stormtroopers who are standing there awkwardly, "Get out of here, you bucketbrains!"
Kylo coughs and she turns back to him to find blood dribbling out of his mouth. She gently lifts his head into her lap and feathers her fingers through his hair while wiping the blood away from his lips.
"Don't worry, Hux is going to get a medical droid and you're going to be all fixed up and ready to take over the galaxy again," She whispers as she wipes sweat away from his brow.
"We both know that by the time the medical droid gets here it'll be too late," He says, coughing up a little more blood, "it's already too late."
She shakes her head as tears threaten to pour from her eyes, "No, it's not too late. Not yet."
He weakly reaches up and grabs her hand in his, his large hand dwarfing her smaller one, "I wish I had just went with you back to the Resistance."
"I wish that none of it existed. The Resistance, the First Order, the Sith, the Jedi, everything would be easier," She says as she wipes tears away from her cheeks.
Kylo smiles slightly as he thinks about what a world would look like without all those things then he shakes his head weakly, "If none of it existed, we wouldn't have met."
"Yes, we would have. Even if those things didn't exist, the Force would and the Force wants us together," She explains.
She's sure of it. It's kept them from killing each other during each of their fights. It gave them their bond. It made them equals and showed them visions of a future together. That wasn't all for nothing. Or maybe it was, Rey thinks as she looks down at the man dying in her arms.
Kylo says, "How would we have met? If things were different." It's not a sarcastic question, he wants her to explain it, explain a world in which they weren't enemies.
"I would have stayed on Jakku, and one day your dad would have come back for the Falcon," She watches as his paling face darkens, pinching with regret, at the mention of his dad, "You would be with him."
She continues telling him about their made-up meeting, "Han would be making a deal with Plutt and I would be in line for my meager rations, and you would see me . . . " She trails off, unsure what he would do.
"And - And I would awkwardly ask you to have dinner with my father and I; only because Uncle Chewie shoved me into you, telling me to ask you out. I would be blushing the ugliest red - " He stops coughing up more blood and she can feel him struggling to hold on through the bond.
"I would eat with you guys and laugh more than I ever have in my laugh," She leans down and kisses his forehead as she continues, "and you would shyly kiss me goodnight before leaving with your father and Chewie."
"But I would come back," He says in a thick voice, "I would come back at least once a week in my own small ship until I asked you to come with me."
"And we'd visit every planet in the galaxy."
"Together?" He asks.
"Together."
He's quiet. He's so quiet for so long that she thinks he died in her arms but she's too scared to look. She breathes a sigh of relief when he says, "You never answered my question earlier."
"I'm here for you, Ben," She says, feeling him shudder at the use of his real name, "I came to bring you home."
"Why?"
"Because there's still light in you, Ben," He opens his mouth to argue, always looking to dispute the light that's coursing through his soul, "you might not see it, but your mother and I do."
This time he doesn't argue, instead he says, "Tell my mother I love her."
Rey bites her lip as the tears come back, threatening to spill, "I will, I promise."
His hand tightens around hers as he says, "Rey," She looks down at him, her gaze holding his, "I love you."
She whispers, "I love you too, Ben Solo." She leans over and kiss him, this time on the lips. Their first and last kiss.
When she parts from him, he whispers, "I know."
And those are the last words he'll ever speak.