Archive of Our Own ^beta

Kylo hadn’t accounted for the bond opening when one party was unaware that the other could see; he could only conclude that Rey hadn’t, either.  But just now, he didn’t know her thoughts on that, since they hadn’t really interacted since Crait.

He came to relish these moments where he saw her at her ease, even as he hated himself for the worst kind of creep.  He told himself that if he caught her at an intimate moment, bathing, undressed, sleeping, engaged in other activities that were best kept private, he would immediately try to alert her or disconnect or whatever.  He didn’t actually know how to disconnect, though; this wasn’t like using a holocomm.

But it was the mundanities of her life that he loved to see.  She tinkered with nuts and bolts on nearly every ancient piece of equipment the Resistance owned.  She and the small woman who had bitten Hux seemed to be the best mechanics among them. He hadn’t been present for the actual event, but what he pulled from Hux’s memory was plenty satisfying on its own. If he was honest, he owed the little biter a handshake at the very least, a planet at the very most.  It amused him a bit that that was actually within his power as Supreme Leader.

Honestly, Kylo had no lecherous intent when he watched Rey without her knowledge.  Seeing her genuinely smiling at her friends--and Force help him, his mother --made his heart ache a little.  He didn’t even want to entertain the idea of being the target of her bright smile.  He deserved no place in her life and tried hard to draw a line for himself. Well, it turned out that boundaries were hard to enforce when only one party knew where they were.

Rey’s confidence was a sight to see, and nowhere was it more apparent than when he watched her train.  She ran full tilt up an incline. When that didn’t prove sufficiently challenging, she found a large boulder and pushed it  up the slope, still at an impressive speed.  For her finale, she ran up the hill, with the boulder suspended in the air before her.  Once she reached the top, she set the boulder down, snatched her staff off her back and began shadowsparring.  

As impressive as Rey’s solitary training was, Kylo found his heart touched by the walks she took.  Every day, she chose a different way through the landscape. Wherever the Resistance had put down their stakes now was green and teeming with life.  It was a colder climate, so the plant life was different from Takodana. He didn’t know exactly where she was and actually put forth no effort to try to find out.  He was simply too selfish. He didn’t relish the idea of rounding up his mother and her pathetic band of dissidents.

As much as he tried not to pick apart his lack of desire to put an end to the Resistance once and for all, he couldn’t ignore it; it was an itch he couldn’t leave alone.

He found himself meditating upon it.  There were still pieces of Luke’s training  that Snoke hadn’t managed to tear out of him.  In this contemplative state, Kylo’s thoughts slid out of him and around him in a way he couldn’t ignore.   Why  had he been so angry upon seeing his uncle?

The words of an old man in the middle of a blaster-burnt, laser-levelled desert village came back to him.

The truth of his family .

It kept coming back to that, didn’t it?  

Snoke taunted him about having too much of his father’s heart, so he’d made sure that his father’s heart was no more.

His mother’s face flashed before him every time he made a decision he knew she’d have disapproved of.  She wasn’t angry, no, she was sad.  And then, all at once, he’d been in his ship, his guns and the guns of those under his command hurtling toward her, aimed directly at the place he knew she was, that one exact point of blinding light in his Force-sense.  Yes, he’d pulled up at the last second, and he hadn’t fired, even as he knew  the pilot on his wing was firing.  Ah, but he didn’t know exactly when .  The timing was all different in space, so it wasn’t like stopping plasma fire in atmosphere.   Keep telling yourself that, Ben .

He’d watched the bridge of her ship explode, just as everyone else had.  He was a strong empath, which was another thing Snoke hadn’t succeeded in beating or burning out of him.  So he didn’t rightly know if his mother’s presence was extinguished in the cacophony of emotion he felt in the midst of battle. No, it wasn’t until Crait that he realized he hadn’t actually witnessed his mother’s death.  

On Crait, the tension of the standoff between First Order forces and the ridiculously overmatched Resistance was slightly more organized than the heat of battle.  Because of the relative quiet, he felt his mother like a beacon. She was a bright light, calling him home.

No.  No way.  All things considered, he had no home now, just a space where he was.  Someplace to exist. And right now, there was a shrill ginger general taking up way too much space where he was.  No, he didn’t belong here, didn’t belong anywhere. Not when he could feel his mother so strongly and could see  his father’s ghost flying over his head in the form of a rattletrap Corellian freighter.  He never gave a thought as to who might be in that freighter until much later, but he fell to his knees when he did.

As it was, with the specter of Han overhead, drawing fire from First Order fighters, with the presence of his mother in that bunker, wasn’t it inevitable that Luke Skywalker would come walking out alone to face down his nephew, even before the armed might of the First Order?  His only other living relative, here to complete the trifecta, of course.

And dammit, dammit all to nine hells, he should have known . Kylo should have known that his uncle was going to walk unscathed from that cloud of dust and sparks. But that, and the probable reason for it, flew straight over Kylo’s hot head.  

So no, he hadn’t denied the truth of his family.  He’d murdered one, nearly allowed the murder of another--twice, and made a damned fool of himself trying to murder an apparition of the last.

*******

Crait had been an unmitigated disaster.  He was never going to see her again, was he?

Kylo tried hard not to sink into despair.  He didn’t want  to be Supreme Leader, had never  wanted to be Supreme Leader.  It hadn’t even occurred to him until his encounter with Hux in Snoke’s throne room.  Kylo really hadn’t thought things through. Hux was, indeed, a rabid cur who couldn’t reliably be left in charge.  

Kylo didn’t delude himself about his ability to rule, yet he knew that he was the better choice.  Hux was obsessed with ruling over a galaxy that lived in constant terror of annihilation or subjugation.  

Kylo didn’t think that would be a successful end.  He wasn’t the son of a daughter of Alderaan for nothing.  Hux’s tactics just plain wouldn’t work. Destroying entire worlds and enslaving whole populations would do the government no favors.  He knew this, but saw no purpose in trying to impress the point upon General Hux. Oh, well, foolish consistency, little minds, and all that.  

The irony of it all was that Kylo didn’t want to rule.  He didn’t even really want the First Order. With Snoke’s death had come waves of disillusionment and disappointment.  The only bright spot was the one he’d seen in Rey’s eyes.

*******

Rey looked around with wonder in her eyes.  Piles of charred rubble were everywhere, but it was clear that this had once been a complex of structures built by sentient beings.  Some of the ruins seemed to have been walls. Other heaps of more irregularly-shaped fragments must have been sculptures. Rey was no stranger to the destruction wrought by war, but there was something different about this place.

As far as she could tell, there were no beings around for quite some distance.  Still, though, she wouldn’t call herself “alone;” she never was. Since she’d developed her connection to it, the Force was her constant companion.  Indeed, sometimes it even brought her unwanted company in the form of Kylo Ren. Since Crait, she’d continued to see him, but as far as she knew, the connection wasn’t a two-way one, as he never seemed to notice her presence these days.  

Sometimes she saw him training or eating, always by himself.  Once, she saw him sitting in a meeting, surrounded by crisp First Order uniforms.  She’d had to stifle a laugh when she seemed to be the only one who noticed Ben rolling his eyes while a pompous redhead droned on and on.  So far, she hadn’t caught him half-dressed again. It wasn’t that she wanted  to, of course! And if she did, she’d turn away immediately.  

Besides, it stood to reason that if she could see him when he didn’t know she could, he could see her when she didn’t know he could.  And that was why she kept her guard up, even somewhere like this, where it was so quiet that each of her footsteps sounded like an earthquake.  Rey’s instincts told her that something unseen was there with her. The Force wrapped around her even more tightly than it usually did, pulsed in her head even more strongly, hummed in her ears even more loudly.  

This place meant something to the Force, then.  But where was she? No, that didn’t make sense. Why wouldn’t she know where she was?  This wasn’t right. She always received detailed instructions for her missions. Rey closed her eyes and stretched out with her senses.   Oh .  Of course.  This was a dream.  She wasn’t really here.  

It may have been a dream, but the Force had put her here for a reason.  But what was it?

*******

The Supreme Leader of the First Order saw no reason to upgrade his quarters.  He knew where everything was, his bed was comfortable enough and he was used to it.  It didn’t take much to throw off his sleep, and he didn’t want to encourage that.

Kylo was used to a certain order when he slept.  This night defied that.

He was in the ruins of the Holy City on Jedha, so he knew immediately that this was a dream.  But why the kriff was he here? He was enough of a student of history to know what had happened here--the real story, even.  It was put about that it was a mining disaster, sure.  But the Imperial archives that Kylo could access told the truth.  This was a test of the Death Star.

Kylo’s feelings on the Death Star were complex and varied.  It took him to very dark places within his idea of his grandfather. As much as he admired his grandfather, he had questions.  The Force had furnished him with the appropriate recollections. His mother’s memories were reliable, only colored with the requisite horror as she’d given up the location of the Rebel base, but had had her home obliterated anyway.  His grandfather had stood silent that whole time.

And now, he had more questions.  How did Vader not  know that he held his own daughter hostage?  How had the Force not given that up to him during the hours when he tortured Leia?  How had Vader stood impassively as an entire planet was destroyed? Kylo was painfully aware, though, as he realized he’d done the very same thing.  He hadn’t wanted to be onstage while Hux realized his masturbatory fantasy as Starkiller fired. But at the same time, Kylo had known  what Starkiller would do.  And, truth be told, he hadn't been entirely sure that his mother wasn’t on Hosnian Prime when it happened.

If he was entirely frank with himself, there was more than one time that he couldn’t be entirely sure that he wasn’t at least indirectly responsible for the death of his mother.  

That wasn’t really something Kylo wanted to have in common with his grandfather, even as much as he’d idolized Darth Vader.  Vader had terrorized his own daughter; Kylo Ren had terrorized his own mother. Was that a legacy he desired?

All of those things  had swirled through his head as soon as he’d realized where he was in his dream.  Yes, right now, here he was, but wasn’t, in the Holy City on Jedha. But why?

The ruins were silent, but evocative.  The footprint of the Temple complex was immediately apparent, even as the burnt walls continued to crumble around him ever so gradually.  The Force was strong here; he could taste it in his mouth, as absurd as it sounded.

And then.  He suddenly knew exactly why he was here.  He felt her before he saw her. He rounded a corner and knew he’d been correct.

*******

Rey’s eyes were wide and startled when Kylo Ren came around the corner before her.  In fact, she was so surprised that she couldn’t even fall upon him in the way she’d dreamed of, attacking and screaming rapid-fire questions, beating him within an inch of his life as she did.

Kylo flinched instinctively when Rey came into his view.  She hadn’t even raised a weapon against him or come at him offensively, but he still defaulted to defending himself against her.  He wondered why that was, but then he realized--all he wanted was a chance to explain himself before she attacked him. In his mind, he just wanted to say  his piece. But, if she found a reason among his own thoughts? He’d fall at her feet and give her everything.

That terrified him, but his feelings in this moment grabbed him by the throat and took his breath away.

She looked at him, hazel eyes appraising; he hoped with all his heart that he wouldn’t be found wanting.  He wanted to be honest before her as he gazed off into the distance of the rises and plateaus of Jedha. He’d consciously tried to shed any pretense of anything while she looked at him.  He wanted her to see him as true as he could be. This place, though . . . this place made him want to strip himself, made him want to leave nothing between himself and the ground. Kylo wanted no artifice around him as he stood before her. The ground here was sacred--maybe he should take off his clothes, his shoes, leave nothing in between it and his body, strip himself to meet it properly?

She smiled at him, and the breath he released was a gust.  This was the place they met--the ruins of the Holy City of Jedha surrounded them, both physically and invisibly.  Ruined or not, this place was consecrated; the ground knew and the land understood who was upon it.

*******

When Rey’s eyes met Ben’s, she noticed that he wore the same look of unabashed wonder that he had the first time the Force had brought them together.  His face was so charming when his guard was down. She couldn’t help but smile at him--all right, so her guard was down, too.

An expression passed briefly over his face--relief, Rey realized.  He’d expected her to try to kill him on sight, just the same way she had the first time the Force had brought them together.  

Her heart ached a bit as she realized that he thought they were back to square one.  No, she wasn’t entirely  pleased with him, but she wouldn’t turn her back on him here.  The Force obviously had a reason to bring them together and to bring them here .  This was a neutral location--neither his turf nor hers.  The territory here belonged only to the Force.

What did it want of them?  There could only be so much--Rey wouldn’t leave the Resistance and Kylo wouldn’t leave the First Order.  Neither one’s pride would allow that.

Maybe this was where he would say goodbye to her--but only for now.  She had to leave without him--but only for now.

One day, there would be a place and a time for them.  Somewhere, sometime.