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The Jedi is running when he sees her.
Her traditional three buns are loose, coming looser with each step that carries her closer to where he stands, his dream-addled mind conjuring her as more beautiful than she has any right to be, as windswept and covered in mud as she is.
Maybe she is always more beautiful than she should be .
Even in his dreams, she fights him. He beats her, sometimes. She bests him, often. He is glad to wake up, to leave her in this force-bound part of his mind, never.
Tonight, at the end of the day-cycle in the First Order base on Corsucant, he is dozing off in his chambers, mask held haphazardly as his arms slacken with sleep. When did these restless moments between waking and sleeping, these small hours where she resided in his head, these additional bouts of conflict that already plagued his waking hours, become the part of the day he lived for?
He does not pause to wonder, focused instead on the image of her running towards him. Were the situation different, he might be able to convince himself for a few precious, fleeing seconds that she’s running towards him to change her mind, to reach out her hand and take his offered one. “You’re not alone,” he’d tell her, convince her.
“Neither are you,” she’d whisper back, breathless from her sprint up the hill to where he stands in wait.
As it is, however, the vision in his dream is short lived. For one, there is a battlefield stretched out in his mind today, or possibly in hers, and the fights raging on the ground around them and in the sky above their heads bring him back, anchor him, to this dream-reality. For two, were she coming to him to take his hand, he likes to think there would be slightly less murderous rage in her eyes, directed at him.
He does not know if he walks in her dreams the way she runs in his.
She has run almost all the way up his small hill now, her dream self hardly winded from the sprint and itching for a fight. He is ready to give it to her (to give her anything, everything). He has his light saber, in this dream, the cracked kyber crystal screaming louder in his head than it does in reality. The scarlet cross guards come to life, rising up to meet the steady thrum of the blue saber she does not hesitate to swing towards his head.
Her hair has nearly all come free, now. Do you dream of me, the way I dream of you? He wants to ask, the dark side of the Force calling to him even as he sleeps. Do you ever wish you’d taken my hand?
She blocks his lackluster attempt to shove her away with the Force, his emotions overwhelming him for a moment. He is unable to keep these traitorous thoughts of her out of his head yet remains unwilling to let her go. She retaliates without hesitation, her strikes strong and deadly, and Kylo Ren falls to his knees. Tonight she bests him, it seems.
I am the Supreme Leader of the First Order, leader of the Knights of Ren, he thinks to himself, I bow to none.
Her eyes are alight with the glow of his saber and hers, hair curling around her ears with the humidity and sweat of exertion. She is more beautiful than she has any right to be, as windswept and covered in mud as she is.
But I would bow to you.
He wakes to a flash of blue at his throat, alone in his chambers and her presence shielded from his mind.
*
The Jedi is screaming when he sees her.
Their force bond is stronger now, no longer confined to those restless hours between wakefulness and sleep. He sees her in the command centers of his dreadnoughts, in the ranks among his stormtroopers, in the space between his lids when he closes his eyes. He wonders if she sees him, wandering the halls of wherever she is, sitting quietly among her comrades as he stands above his own. She is silent, usually.
She is not silent, today.
Kylo flinches with the sheer volume of her voice, his chin lifting quickly and eyes searching desperately from behind his mask. This earns him side long glances from his governors as they report on the status of his empire, though none of them dare mention it. They cannot hear what echoes in his mind; they cannot feel the jolt of adrenaline running through him, the blood running cold in his veins. He idly identifies this reaction as fear, recognizing that it is not the fear he is intimately acquainted with, not the sort that is the predecessor to pain.
How long has it been, he wonders, since I feared for someone’s life?
It takes another moment for the tang of possessiveness to cloud his vision, to swirl around this unique fear in his gut, to temper it into an emotion he better understands. The thought of her dying by some unknown hand, of lying on a ground on some faraway planet while he is trapped in the walls of his own making, is unbearable. She is mine to kill.
He wraps the dark side around his mind, blocking out the corner of his thoughts that wonder but could I be the one to do it?
*
The Jedi is sleeping when he sees her.
He’d fought her today on their first shared battlefield in ages and he’s still drunk on the thrill hours later. Maybe it’s their relative physical proximity. Maybe it’s the amount of Force energy each of them channeled at the other today. Maybe it’s an inevitable strengthening of the bond over time.
Maybe it’s just her.
Whatever it is, their Force bond is stronger today than it has ever been. The quiet sounds of a service droid bumbling around in his chambers fade as the world around him narrows to just the Jedi, asleep on a narrow bunk in a cramped room. Part of him feels the adrenaline flow through his veins at the idea of her vulnerability. It would be so simple to draw his saber, she would never know what was happening…
The other part of him longs to lay beside her, to sleep in peace for the first time in forever. Maybe the first time ever. He stands above her, wracked with hesitation as the voice in his head that still sounds like Snoke tells him to end this, to draw his blade and finally, finally, be steadfast in the dark.
He could kill her, now. The bond is strong enough for them to touch and to feel, and if he can feel her, he can kill her. It is the voice that sounds like Snoke that turns his hesitation into resolve, the mental images of Luke standing above his own head with a saber drawn rising unbidden. He draws the saber from his belt, balances it in his palm, and sets it gently on the nightstand beside her bed. She does not wake, and he is proud that he fought her to exhaustion, drove her to weakness. She is vulnerable to him, here, and the possessiveness that reaches for him curls in his gut.
No one else will see her this way , he vows in his mind. Her bed is small and his frame is large, but as she settles against him drowsily, he finds he does not mind his feet hanging off the end.
Her dreams echo through the bond, and she does not sleep to ghosts of battlefields tonight.
*
She is crying when he sees her.
It makes him pause, for a moment, she does not cry often. This thought gives him pause, as well, because somehow, he knows her well enough to know that.
Maybe he knows her better than himself.
The bond has been out of control, these days. He sees her surroundings now, where he was unable before. Most days, her temper is as wild in the bond as it is on the battlefield, and he longs to feel the ruin she will bring to him. Some days, her eyes are searching and holding him hostage, his own personal reckoning. He draws his saber to force her hand against him and feels himself falling short with every step he takes closer to her. Today, she sits on a cramped bunk with tears in her eyes and a stray pebble in her palm.
She keeps her eyes closed against the tears. He feels her feel him, knows his presence in her space is known, and he simply sits beside her because there is nothing else for him to do, no where else for him to go. She meditates, or tries, as the pebble stays firmly in her hand. How is it possible, she begs in his head, voice wavering, that I am more alone now that I ever was before?
He ponders that, for a moment. How this desert scavenger managed to survive the loneliness of solitude but not of wide eyes and uncertain glances from those who didn’t feel the Force in their hands, the galaxy in their lungs. “You’re not alone,” he tells her, convinces her.
“Neither are you,” she whispers back. She breathes the long-dead name of a longer-dead boy and it echoes hollow in his ears.
If Han’s hand on Kylo’s cheek as he died had a sound, it would have echoed like this.
His gloved fingers tangle in her hair as mental walls fall with her tears. A thousand generations live in me now, her mind feels like his, with how few barriers remain between them. I kneel before none. Her thought is thrown at him with all the ire of a woman convincing herself.
He wraps the dark side around his mind in a desperate attempt to silence the echoing in his ears, the rage in his throat. I am the Supreme Leader of the First Order. The leader of the Knights of Ren. What am I, if not a king? The silence in their heads is louder than the echoing ever was.
“You’re mine.” She answers for him.
I would kneel to you, Ben.
*
Rey is his when he sees her.
He stands at the top of a small hill, overlooking the horizon of Naboo, as she docks her commandeered shuttle. Her traditional three buns are loose, coming looser with each step that carries her closer to where he stands, his stress-addled mind declaring her more beautiful than she has any right to be, as windswept and exhilarated as she is.
Maybe she is always more beautiful than she should be .
He feels her grin from where he stands. Maybe you’re always more dramatic than you should be.
His storm troopers are tired. His enemy is tired. He is tired. Possibly the only one who really wants to continue this war is Hux, and Kylo does not make a point to do the things Hux wants. The idea that he is here to discuss peace with the Jedi instead of trying to kill her is… nice. A change he is open to, anyway.
Her eyes as she crests the hill search him, hold him a willing hostage to her gaze. She grins wider at what she finds in his soul. “Ben.” There is peace in her shoulders, happiness in her eyes, and he thinks that maybe hearing the way it sounds when says his name is the best thing he has ever done.
His chest tightens around the emotions in his jaw. It is not rage, this feeling. It is not anger, and it is not fear. He does not have a word for it, so he ignores it. “Rey.”
She reaches him, reaches for him, and… pauses. He feels her intentions in the force, and his heart pounds with the rightness of it all. The blazing look in her eyes belies the intensity of her thoughts, her energy in the Force a beacon for his weary soul.
Every Jedi who ever lived, lives in me. I kneel to no one, Ben, but to you.
She is on the ground before him, and her declaration in his head makes his own knees buckle. I would bow to none but you, he swears before her, I would stay by your side until the last star dies.
Rey rises first and holds out her hand to help him to his feet. He does not take it right away, understanding the motion for what it is. Her hair has nearly all come free in the wind, now, her hand stretched out to him the way his once was to her. Do you dream of me, the way I dream of you? She asks in his mind, the light side of the Force calling to him even as he kneels before her. Do you ever wish I’d taken your hand?
He grasps her hand with his own, rising from the tall grasses swaying around him. In answer, he does not let it go.