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She tells me that I am good.
She tells me that I am not the product of those who have failed me.
I have no choice but to believe her; she is more me than I am myself.
-
An unbreakable bond. Two souls tied together; A dyad in the force. A power stronger than life itself with a connection that spanned through all of time and space.
Rey was always there in a way. Throughout Ben's life he had never felt alone, not truly. Before he even had the chance to understand it, he knew he wasn't alone. He could feel her presence, a connection in which he wouldn't understand the importance of at the time.
But with that feeling came yearning. The type of homesickness that you get for a home you have never had.
Rey was home.
Her presence was far different from the presence of the force, Ben knew that much. He could feel the force all around him, through the air and pushing up from the ground through his feet. He could feel it from his very fingertips and through each strand of hair. The force lived all around him, swallowing him whole.
Rey on the otherhand, felt distant. There, but not. As though her mind had wandered away from her body, making its home in Ben's bones. Influencing every swing of his lightsaber; each palm of his hands as he wields the force. Like the force, Rey was all around him and though she wasn't really there, her presence felt stronger than the force. It swayed him more than the force ever could.
Ben did his best to drown her. To suffocate the fire, let their connection burn out. She became everything he hated and loved. He couldn't hide from her.
He couldn't hide a damned thing from her. Not the inadequance. Not the fear down to his very core. Rey knew all of him as he knew all of her.
That's why when she reached out, he had no choice but to take her hand. Rey is the only person in the universe who will ever understand Ben. She is him and he is her.
"Ben."
"That's not my name."
"For as long as I've known you, it always has been."
"You don't know me."
She laughs quietly, voice strained. "We both know that's not true. Don't be difficult."
"I'm only difficult because it's you." Ben shutters as she squeezes his cold hand. There's electricity through his fingers, in his hand, scorching up his arm. It's an overwhelming feeling of the force in every touch. It's electrifying and he craves it like a drug.
"Do you feel it too?" She asks, squeezing Ben's hand tighter. "The force in us when we touch?"
"I do." Ben bites down on his lip, electricity spreading from his arm to his chest, his heart hammering.
Rey reaches out and places her hand on his chest. A small gasp escapes Ben's mouth. His heart feels like it seizes, electrifying every part of his body. It's warm and cold at the same time and his body screams for him to collapse into her. To feel it as much as possible. To feel her as much as possible.
"Rey." His voice comes out shaky. "I want..." He pauses, letting her feel his heart hammering in his chest. He lowers his voice just above a whisper. "I want to feel it more. I want to feel you. I believe in the time I have known you...felt your presence; seen you everywhere out of the corner of my eyes, I think I may have fallen in love with you." He stumbles on the words at first, hesitant. Like he was confessing to a crime. Like *loving Rey* was a crime. And in a way, it was.
For what Ben knew as love, it was violent. It was dirty; sharing the sheets with a woman he's met only in passing. It was bloodied, and brazen like a drunken bar fight. It was forcing women down and using the force in ways that deep down disgusted you because they begged for it. There was nothing gentle and kind about love.
But loving Rey, that was the kind of love that made you feel pure; baptized you. It was the kind of love that scrubbed your past clean and left you wanting to do better- *be* better.
Somehow, that felt wrong, because a man like Ben could never be good. He was dipped in the waters of River Styx and Rey was his Achilles heel. Perfect in all the ways except the ones that concerned her. Perfect on the surface until you look with scrutiny and see the scum that he believes he is. Confessing to all of that, confessing that he's anything *but* perfect felt like a crime.
Rey is silent. She pulls her hand away and Ben feels himself lurching forward subconsciously, yearning for her lingering touch. She looks as though she's perfectly calculating her next words and for a moment, Ben wishes he had done the same.
"I know it's only our first time meeting- in person, that is. But I *know* you. I've known you our whole lives. I feel you all around me, in my thoughts and somehow my bones. I feel you as though I feel myself. You are everything good in this world and I don't know what to do with that knowledge." Ben says quickly, desperate to break the tension between him.
"Ben- Kylo."
His name, the name he chose, sounds weird out of her mouth. Like a world that never existed. Said like spitting knives.
"I know you just as much as you know me." She wrings her hands in her lap. "I know what kind of person you are. You're good, deep down I see it. But I've seen the things you've done. I've watched the things you've done...with other woman." She adds the last part hesitantly. "You love like a monster. You're violent and cruel."
"Maybe I am, but not for you." Ben interrupts, reaching out for her hand.
"Maybe I don't know you." She says quietly. "How can I trust you?"
"The force is everything. Everything we know, Rey. It's everything we are. And it brought us together, surely that must mean something?" He pleads, squeezing her hand in his. "Surely you must feel it too?"
"But am I allowed to admit that?" She laughs dryly, pulling her hand back. "Am I allowed to love a man like you? Am I allowed to love Kylo Ren?"
"If you cannot bring yourself to love Kylo Ren then love Ben Solo." Ben says quietly.
She sits there for a moment, an unreadable look on her face. Ben overanalyzes it, wonders if she'll finally snap out of whatever this trance they were experiencing was. If she'd tak this moment of his ever growing weakness and strike him down with her lightsaber. Maybe she's stand and slap him across the face for the suggesting the mere idea of them being lovers.
But instead, she leans forward. She cups his face in her hands and her lips crash into his. There was something fierce and demanding in her kiss while his was gentle and merciful, unlike each other. She begged for more while he begged to cherish this moment. He could taste the sea on her lips and for the first time he'd willing pluge head first into cold water. She pressed her body into him, the force electrifying their bodies, unlike a feeling he had ever felt.
If this is what it felt like to be good, he'd kill Kylo Ren in an instant.
"Ben," Rey says shakily as his lips travel down her neck. "I love you too. I love you the way the way the force engulfs everything around us. Overwhelmingly and entirely."
"When we part ways I shall search for you."
"Not as the brazen, execrable Kylo Ren, but as the vulnerable, tender Ben Solo?" Rey asks, taking his hands in hers. He can't believe such gentle hands would take the ones riddled with malace and the blood of those she may have deemed good.
"Yes, as Ben Solo. As *your* Ben Solo."