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He feels the pull of the Force before his surroundings catch up to the shift of energy in the room. Suddenly he’s no longer in his chambers on the Finalizer, the sight of sleek black furnishings replaced by a cramped cot in the corner of the room, the only light streamed in from a small window near the ceiling. He turns his head to the corner where a hunched figure is scouring through what little belongings there was in the room, muttering curses under their breath.
He coughs, he still doesn’t really know how to alert her to his presence. This has happened several times, too many times, but it never gets easier, this strange dance. The tension always seems to reach fever pitch whenever the Force would bring them together in one space, too close and yet, too far from each other. She jerks from her position on the floor, her head whips back, and their eyes meet. Her eyes widen a fraction upon seeing his hulking figure in the small vicinity of her room, he always looked so terribly out of place whenever he would show up on her end of the galaxy.
“Ben.”
He barely catches his name from her mouth as she quickly averts her eyes from his, and turns her head to the floor at the rucksack at her feet, seemingly avoiding his gaze and moving far too quickly that he becomes suspicious. She stands up and takes the rucksack from the floor, holding it between her hands.
“What are you looking for?” He ignores her use of his birth name, he’s used to it at this point and he finds it pointless to argue the case anymore.
“Nothing.” She continues to rummage through the rucksack, pointedly avoiding his gaze, turning her head almost fully to the task at hand, the small wisps of her hair framing her face. He takes a small step forward, his steps echoing in the small metal room.
“Doesn’t look like nothing.” Why wouldn’t she look at him? They weren’t exactly on the best of terms but he’s starting to miss her defiant eyes staring back at him, the heat of anger simmering right under her cheeks, colouring her face a ruddy red. The light in the room is scarce, the slit of a window wasn’t proving to be helpful and the artificial light from the small lamp on the other side of the room wasn’t doing much better at illuminating the scene before him. But she turns her head slightly to the left and that’s when he sees it.
A gash and a bruise blooming underneath it on her cheek, her lip swollen and bleeding.
Suddenly he finds his feet carrying him to her and his fingers right at her chin, tilting her face up for his perusal, angling her face towards the light to see her face better. He’s thankful that he had shed his gloves in his room before the Force called him to her, the feeling of her bare skin against his fingers is a sensation he doesn’t want to ever forget. He turns her chin and his thumb reaches up to the drop of blood drying on the corner of her mouth, gently wiping it away on the pad of his finger, ignoring how the corner of her lip felt so soft against his callused finger. He reaches further and almost cradles her cheek in his large hand, and suddenly he’s aware of how close they are, of how his hands dwarf her small face, of the bruise that’s coloured her cheek purple, instead of the red he favoured. He’s suddenly choked with such a violent wave of anger inside him, causing his other hand at his side to clench into a fist and a feeling of rage burning brightly underneath his skin.
“Who did this to you?” His voice is quiet but Rey can feel the anger behind the words. His eyes were intense, raging fires lit behind them and while she’s incredibly aware of her cheek still cradled in his hand, surprisingly so soft and gentle against her heated skin, she’s also aware of how his other fist is clenched so tightly, his knuckles a pale white in the low light of the room. A strange paradox that was emblematic of the man standing far too close to her.
“It’s nothing.” She insists, trying to remove her cheek away from the comfort of his hand. Comfort, what a strange thought to have about her enemy. But comfort it was, his large hand acting as a balm against the smarting of her cheek.
“Who. Did. This. To. You.”
This time it wasn’t a question, and the anger was undeniable, raising the temperature in the room by several degrees. Each word was punctuated, the rage escalating with every word. Still quiet but this time she couldn’t avert her eyes from his own, his grip on her cheek and chin slightly firmer, to keep her closer to him.
“Ben.” She pleads, pleading for who knows what, she doesn’t know. But she looks at him imploringly, her eyes widening and she seems to tilt closer to the hand still cradling her cheek.
“I need a name, Rey.” He doesn’t say her name often and when he does, she knows he’s dead serious. Scavenger had almost become a pet name, easing the tension between them whenever the Force decided to put them together, but her name he seemed to hold with such reverence. A reverence she didn’t seem to share with his birth name, something she threw at him every chance she got, only using Kylo Ren when she was particularly annoyed at him.
“It’s just a bruise and a small gash, it’s no big deal, really. I have a salve in here somewhere...” This time she’s aware they’re getting too close and she takes a step back but she finds herself suddenly missing the gentle fingers at her cheek, the roughness of the pad of his thumb against the corner of her mouth. She turns back to the rucksack, rummaging through it once again and she hears his thunderous feet behind her and a hand reaching for the rucksack.
He grabs the ratty old rucksack from her and she finds herself steered towards the cot in the room. He kneels before her but at his height he’s still in her line of sight, his dark hair cascading down his shoulders. He rifles through the bag and pulls out the small jar of salve that she’d been too distracted to really look for and opens it, digging his finger in and smoothing a small amount of salve on the corner of her mouth and on the gash on her cheek. His hands are surprisingly gentle despite their size but she’s still aware of the shaking in his shoulders, the intensity in his eyes as they zeroed in on her injuries. Of how he was still so angry at the fact that she wouldn’t tell him who did this to her. Of how the silence in the room, where the only sounds were his heavy breathing and her heartbeat, was positively deafening.
“It was the First Order.” She whispers under her breath, doesn’t even know why she suddenly felt the need to let him know. All she knows is if no one said anything, the silence in the room would have suffocated her. His fingers drop from her cheek and he sets the jar down on the floor and turns his eyes towards hers.
“Who?”
His eyes are raging now, the black almost swallowing his irises. He’s not shocked, no, but that doesn’t stop the anger from rising within him once again, his fists clenching tightly beside him.
“General Beryl.”
She leans forward unknowingly, a part of her wishing to see his reaction up close, of how the veins on his temple are pulsing, his eyes narrowing at her mention of a high-ranking First Order official. One of his generals had laid a hand on her and caused the bruise on her face. He jerks up from his position on the floor and turns his back to her, looking at the wall, his fists clenching at his side.
“There was a commotion outside of town and some First Order troopers were targeting the villagers. I just stepped in and I had no idea Beryl was with them...” She didn’t have to finish her story, Kylo knew how Beryl could be.
“Did he know it was you?” He could imagine crushing Beryl’s windpipe with just a flick of his wrist, just like how he deals with Hux on a regular basis. Beryl was a menace, even he knew it. A special breed of sadist even by First Order standards.
“No, I had a mask on the entire time, it just cut into my face when he landed a hit, I guess...I just couldn’t let them get away with it...” He just nods, Rey was always too selfless for her own good. At least she was smart enough to stay hidden under the mask, he almost shudders at the thought of Beryl’s smug face if he ever found out that the rebel he struck at some random outpost was actually the last Jedi.
“How’d it end?”
His voice was quiet again, tight and almost menacing in its tone. He’d have to see Beryl after this at the meeting and he didn’t know if he could hold himself back from running his lightsaber through him.
“I knocked him out and ran for it. His troopers were too busy looking after him and I made my way back here.” She gestures to the small room they were cramped in.
“Where were the others?” He bit out, her stupid “friends” were once again of no use to her. FN-2187 and Dameron, the pair of kriffing idiots that she wasted her time with.
“It was just me, Ben.” She sighs, exasperated at the hatred he always showed towards her friends.
“You shouldn’t be going out into town, Rey. You have a bounty on your head and this planet is crawling with bounty hunters and First Order troopers.” He grounds out at her, his eyes pinning her down.
“You know I can’t just stay here.”
She’s been cooped up way too long, her whole life she’d been forced to stay in the shadows. She’d be damned if she had to continue living the rest of her life cowering in fear, like she did on Jakku.
“I asked you to stay with me.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“You wouldn’t be in this situation right now if you didn’t leave.”
“We all wouldn’t be in this situation if the First Order knew when to stop.” Her voice was starting to rise, the blood rushing to her cheeks in her anger.
Silence engulfs the room once again, her heavy breathing and his footfalls echoed across the room.
“I wouldn’t let this happen to you if you were with me.” His voice was pained, a low tone conveying the anguish he felt inside at knowing he could not do anything worthwhile to protect her. His eyes pleaded at her, willing her to understand this need he had to always keep her safe. With him. Even if he himself didn’t know exactly why.
“It’s not your job to protect me.” She turns her nose at him, her face indignant.
“I know.” He says with resignation in his voice.
“Ben, you shouldn’t be here.”
She sighs and hangs her head in front of him, tired of this push and pull between them. Tired of the Force playing with their emotions like this, putting them together and yanking them apart without warning.
“I can’t do anything about this. I’ve tried.”
Of course he’s tried, he’s lost countless hours trying to bend the Force to his will. Whether or not he was trying to close the bond or open it up further, he didn’t know anymore. But he can’t deny that he feels right at home when he feels the pull begin, when he senses her presence. It’s an odd comfort, being able to see her as if she were right in front of him.
Safe.
Alive.
Whole.
It keeps him up at night knowing she had a penchant for danger and that she practically had no one to keep tabs on her. Her power, untrained and impulsive. She could be gone in a split-second, that he knew. One wrong move and the First Order would strike her dead. He couldn’t fathom how he’d fare if that were ever to happen, after years of being trained to cut the feelings out of him, this was new territory. He didn’t even know why he felt like this towards her, was it the Force pulling him or was it his own doing? He didn’t know anymore where the lines were standing.
It was like gravity, he couldn’t help but be drawn to her, ever since they’ve met.
“I’ve tried too.” She whispers as she reaches up to touch the cheek he had fixed up for her.
Silence once again blankets them as he makes his way back to her, kneeling once again in front of her as the unanswered questions hang between them. She reaches down and takes one of his hands in hers, her small hand dwarfed by his larger one but the warmth was so comforting that she found it hard not to bring it up to her cheek once again. He raises his eyes towards her and for what feels like an eternity, he is overwhelmed with Rey’s feelings making their way through the bond. Her fear, anxiety, and the sense of comfort that she feels from having him so close to her. He’s drowning in her and her feelings and he doesn’t want to leave. He tries to push his own feelings through the bond: his anger, his pain, his despair at not being able to be with her and protect her. She looks at him with unshed tears in her eyes and she tightens her grip on his hand.
The moment feels too long and too short, soon he feels the pull of the Force, signalling that their time was coming to an end. The edges of the room had begun to blur and the black of his chambers had begun bleeding into the chrome of Rey’s own room.
“No...no...” He growls under his breath, pulling her closer to him in an effort to stave off the coming separation, pleading with the Force to leave him be.
“Ben...” Her voice soft and she rubs her thumb over his hand in her grip and he feels her slipping away from his grasp.
The transition is complete and Kylo finds himself onboard the Finalizer again with Rey nowhere to be found. He growls and slams his fists on the walls, the punches echoing throughout the room.
“Stay with me.” He hears the faintest whisper of her voice, carried over by the remnants of the bond. He slumps down to the floor, onto his knees, and leans his head against the cool metal of his door.
She doesn’t even have to ask, he would have stayed even if it killed him. He looks towards the window of his room overlooking the dark expanse of the galaxy.
”I’m coming for you, Rey.”