Work Text:
In the dark recesses of Rey's mind, a hazed, uncannily familiar scene emerged. She rose to consciousness with a sensation of bitter coldness. Delicate snowflakes cascaded past the frost-bitten trees that filled her vision, the soothing image a stark contrast to the feeling of dread that filled her gut.
As she was pulled further and further from the grasp of her stupor, two things became clear. First, the snow-covered forest floor beneath her was shaking; violent at some moments, an afterthought in others. Second, the odd noises that filled her ears were the telltale sounds of lightsabers crackling and clashing somewhere in the vicinity.
Rey blinked a few times, clearing the haze all the further she could manage before she steeled herself and lifted out of the snow. Her body ached in protest as she stood, the vivid memory of being flung into a tree surfacing as she began piecing things together. She remembered now. This was Starkiller Base. She'd been taken here against her will by a man. A monster. Kylo Ren. She'd managed to escape only to witness the monster kill Han Solo before her very eyes. She and Finn had fled, running through the planet's forest in desperate escape, but it wasn't enough. He'd chased them. Cornered them. And debilitated Rey with the mere flick of an arm.
Now, past the maze of forest, she saw two figures careening through the shadows, hues of red and blue dancing between the trees. She stumbled forward, regaining her bearings with each step as she desperately hurtled toward the duel. Her heart was pounding by the time she could make out the resolute figures of Kylo Ren and Finn locked in combat. Their lightsabers struck with furious intensity, but with Finn staggering every few strikes, it was clear that one held the greater power.
Rey lost her footing when she witnessed a particularly devastating blow, falling to grasp a nearby tree while she watched, helpless, as Kylo spun, sliding his saber up the length of Finn's back. With a gut-wrenching groan, he fell flat into the snow, his saber hilt flinging into a nearby snowbank.
It was then that Rey felt a sudden distortion in her mind. A misalignment of realities. For what came next was wrong. So very wrong.
Saber still ignited, Kylo Ren circled Finn's lifeless form, steadying his breaths as he regained composure. Then, without a moment's hesitation, he plunged the crimson blade between Finn's shoulder blades, puncturing all the way to the roots of the forest floor.
Rey's breath was ripped from her lungs with an anguished cry. The ground beneath her shook violently and she fell further against the tree, gasping for breath as she stared at the murderous scene before her.
In a flash, Ren's crimson-hued gaze was upon her. Emotionless. Unrelenting. Rey had but a moment to think, and in a haze of blind nerve, she made a sprint for the lightsaber hilt still wedged in the snow. Mere feet away, however, the saber was suddenly and invisibly flung from its place. Rey dodged as it flew past her head, tumbling into a nearby drift with a yelp.
She lifted herself in time to see the saber land in Kylo's grasp. Wordlessly, he clasped it to his side, stared her down for but a fleeting second, and swiftly trudged after her. Rey desperately scrambled to her feet and did the only thing she could. Run.
Through the forest he chased her, never tiring and never giving ground. Rey dodged between the trees, through creviced formations, and over fallen limbs, but nothing was enough. He only grew closer, the menacing crackle of his saber swelling behind her against the sound of cannon fire overhead.
The ground shook with overwhelming force, sending her falling onto the forest floor once more. She crawled and scrambled forward, hands frozen beneath the blanketed snow, but it was all for naught when she shortly came upon her doom.
The earth had split before her, a gaping fissure opened wide to swallow her whole. Mere feet from the edge, she rose to her knees and looked to the now-open sky. Fighters flew to and fro overhead, but her battle was not their own. They could not help her. She watched defeatedly as a black X-Wing was shot down above her, soaring to the ground in a blaze of inferno.
Rey's eyes slid shut. The blaze of Kylo's saber filled her ears, the heat of it present against her back. She lowered herself, slowly turned, and was horrified. This was the face of a monster. Cold. Lifeless. Utterly wicked and vile. His face was ignited in red, his eyes black, devoid of any sense of being as he stared down at her.
Instinctively, Rey inched herself back, her frigidly numb hands shuffling through the snow. He stepped forward the same. At her wit's end, Rey sought something deep within herself. A knowledge and a hope that she could barely sense, but one that compelled words from her lips.
"Ben. Stop."
Another step.
"Ben!" she screamed. "Stop!"
Tears were spilling from her eyes.
"Please," she whispered between a sob. "Please, Ben. Don't do this."
Kylo raised the crimson blade, callous and indifferent.
And plunged it through her chest.
———
Rey screamed into the silent air, shooting up from her bunk. She gasped for breath, reaching to her chest where the unstable crimson blade had pierced it just moments before. Her hand grasped only the crosspiece cloth of her tunic; the feeling in her fingers implying, too, that the frost-bitten numbness was nonexistent just the same.
Breathing out a quick sigh, Rey shook her head in an attempt to grasp back onto reality. It was dark around her, and with the lack of distant noise that usually fed through the corridor leading to her room, she presumed the sun would not rise for another few hours; deep within the Resistance base, the only sounds were the subtle whispers of moving air and the echo of her scream reverberating off the barren, stone walls.
Taking deeper breaths, she blinked rapidly in an attempt to adjust to her surroundings. As her senses slowly eased themselves, the defined edges of the small room became clear, as well as the shadow of a hunched figure seated near the far corner. Rey startled.
"Finn? Is—is that you?" she breathed.
She must have been making noise in her sleep, Rey figured, and he had come to make sure she was alright. Who else would be here, watching over her in the dead of the night? That was her half-asleep mind's reasoning, at least, until the figure slowly stood to reveal a much taller and larger frame than that of the former Stormtrooper. The realization clicked, and Rey scrambled out of her bunk, landing on the cold, stone floor and backing into the furthest opposite corner. Panic raced through her veins, her heartbeat quickening as the dizziness of her sudden movement made her sway on her feet.
"No, no, no, you can't be here," she faltered, nearly stumbling over a step.
Rey had always been fully aware of when the bond had connected them before. There was always the same sensation that alerted her of his presence, but this time she had felt nothing. Or, at least, she didn't remember feeling anything. Her mind was still in a haze, reeling from both the dream and Kylo Ren's sudden presence.
He stepped closer, enough for the low lights in the room to reveal a portion of his impassive features. A memory from what seemed just moments before flashed behind Rey's eyes—a crimson hue illuminating a lifeless face, charging through the snowy forest on Starkiller with malicious intent. Sinister eyes pierced straight through her, emotionless and unrelenting, the eyes of a monster.
"Stay back!" she snapped, pushing herself further into the cold wall, the panic evident in her voice.
Ren hesitated, stopping dead in his tracks. Confusion crossed his features. "Rey?"
"Don't—!" she whispered, tears brimming in the corners of her eyes. "Don't take another step," her voice shook with urgency as she raised a warning hand between them.
Kylo raised his hands in surrender, gesturing that he would not advance any further. Despite it being very late—or very early, she wasn't exactly sure—he was wearing his full attire, spare that dreadful, refracted helmet she hated so. She almost wished he had been wearing it, though; then, at least, she wouldn't have to confront the very face of her nightmare. The thought of it sent another wave of memories crashing through her. Rey squeezed her eyes shut, shaking her head to rid herself of the images playing over and over again in her mind.
"Rey?" he asked again.
She knew she wouldn't have the strength to resist the bond now, not with her mind in such dazed and conflicted fear. Rey took a deep breath before slowly raising her eyelids.
"Please. Just... I can't do this right now," she whispered, gaze timidly meeting his. To her surprise, where she had expected to see empty, apathetic eyes, devoid of any emotion, she saw... concern? No, that couldn't be—not him, not for her.
She could sense the gears turning in his head as he worked his jaw in thought, his stare falling to the ground before him. The air between them filled with an uncomfortable silence, and Rey wanted nothing more than to walk straight through him and leave him to fester in it. If their previous interactions were anything to judge by, however, she feared that she would simply run right into his solid form if she tried.
"You said my name," he murmured.
His eyes returned to hers as her brow furrowed in confusion. "What?"
"In your sleep," he spoke slightly louder. "You said my name. More than once."
Rey was taken aback. The bond had connected while she was asleep. He hadn't just appeared there when she woke as she'd presumed; he had been there for some time, evidently long enough to hear her calling out in her sleep. No, no, no this couldn't happen. If the bond couldn't be contained even while they slept, he could appear when she was most vulnerable and Rey would be none the wiser.
"H-how long have you been here?" Rey breathed in a tone of distress.
"Long enough," he said calmly.
"How—how did you," she stammered, "Why are you here?"
He shrugged, seeming just as much at a loss. "I was on the bridge of my destroyer when I heard your voice. I followed it back here and there you were, still asleep."
Rey waited for further explanation, but he gave none. "You heard me on your destroyer?" she whispered, mostly to herself. She could almost sense it then; the black, durasteel walls surrounding him, artificial lighting shining through ornate panels, and the smell of recycled air flowing through vents—a stark contrast to the plain, chilled environment of her quarters.
Kylo nodded. "Through the bond. It connected and I couldn't break it, so I waited. I didn't know why the Force had chosen to join us at that moment, but you were saying my name. Repeatedly. Why?"
"I—I had a dream," Rey muttered. "You were in it."
She didn't want him to know what she had seen. The memories existing in her head were brutal enough, but sharing them aloud would only stoke the fear inside her that she was desperately trying to suppress, especially when all of that fear was centered around the man now standing before her.
Kylo took a tentative step forward. Rey instinctively tried to step back, only to remember she was already against the wall. Her eyes flared in panic, but Kylo stopped again, seeming to understand.
"Whatever you saw, Rey, it wasn't real," he assured. His eyes pleaded for her to realize the truth in his words, but she hesitated.
"Wasn't it?" she questioned, her voice barely above a whisper.
"It was just a dream—"
"You're my enemy, Ben. Did you forget? What's to say it won't come true?" Rey could feel the fear she'd been forcing down slowly being replaced by anger, and she gladly grasped onto anything she could use to cover up just how frightened she still was.
"Rey— " he started, but she cut him off.
"You're the Supreme Leader!" she snapped. "Why wouldn't you try to kill me? What's stopping you from slaughtering my friends in front of me and driving your lightsaber straight through my chest? You killed your own father! You said yourself that I'm nothing! Am I meant to believe you hold any reservations in the matter?"
Despite her mind's own resistance to the movement, she dared an accusatory step forward.
"You would have killed me on Starkiller if it weren't for your wounds and my own blind luck," Rey seethed. "But maybe that was just the Force saving me for a more meaningful death by your hand. Maybe I just needed to suffer a little more before you got that chance."
She glanced at the hilt clipped to his side, tears beginning to stain her cheeks. Rey could feel herself shaking as thoughts that weren't entirely hers began to surface.
"You could do it right now, couldn't you? I'm defenseless. It would be too easy. You could make it as slow and painful as you like and there's nothing I could do to stop you. Or maybe you'll wait. Maybe you'll take the time to destroy everything I care about before you finish me off. You wouldn't hesitate to kill Finn, kriff, you nearly did! You've tortured and you've murdered for far less, and you would have done the same to me had I not escaped before you got the chance. Resistance lives mean nothing to you, and I'm sure you would gladly destroy the entire planet beneath my feet the moment you found where we're hiding. There is nothing to stop you. So tell me, Supreme Leader, was it real? Or did I simply imagine the truth of what you're capable of?"
A heavy silence filled the room when Rey finally fell quiet, her words lingering in the air with a bitter sting. Kylo stared at her for some time, his expression unreadable spare the storm of turmoil behind his eyes. Minutes stretched into eternity, a hollow chasm of confoundment deepening between them until at long last, the silence broke.
"In your dream... I killed you?" he asked quietly. Calmly. He didn't try to deny any of it, didn't try to defend himself in any way. In fact, he seemed more concerned with whatever this fictitious version of himself had done to provoke such distress in her; the realization of which evidently disturbed him more than any of the harsh accusations laid against him.
Rey focused her tear-filled eyes away from him. Even if she dared to form an answer, she feared that it would merely leave her mouth in a broken sob. She unwittingly raised a hand to the phantom wound where his blade had pierced through her, a shiver crawling up her spine. Her gaze once again fell to the hilt clasped at his side.
"I thought I knew who you were, Ben," Rey muttered. "But I'm not sure of anything anymore. I have no doubt you've already murdered hundreds of rebels, the Jedi... there's no reason that I'm any different. So if you're planning on killing me—"
Without warning, Kylo suddenly grasped the hilt of his lightsaber. Rey jumped at the swift movement, preparing to defend herself, but before the action fully registered, he had pulled the saber off his side and thrown it to the floor behind him. It clattered against the metal flooring on his side of the bond, coming to rest several feet behind him. The room fell silent once more.
Hands still raised in a defensive position and chest heaving from the sudden surge of panic, an involuntary sob escaped Rey's lips. Tears streamed. Her body shook. The terror that had suddenly coursed through her left her choking for breath. When her hands finally slumped to her side, she teetered backward until her back pressed into the wall, gracelessly sinking against it until she came to rest on the floor.
Rey pressed her palms against her eyelids, willing the tears to stop. For a moment the darkness was soothing, but the harsh cold of the stone around her served as a reminder that it wouldn't be that easy. She couldn't ignore that for the briefest instant, despite any intentions otherwise, she thought he would do it. For only a moment, she'd accepted that he would try to kill her—no, she'd accepted that he would kill her. Her emotions were muddled, jumping from fear to anger to sorrow.
Eventually pulling away from her eyes, Rey wiped her hands against the fabric of her pants. Staring straight ahead, she found Kylo still standing mere feet from her, but she dared not look up at him, maintaining a forward gaze as she slowly curled herself inward. The fear was subsiding, but she still wished for him to disappear. She was tired; the strain of their perpetual conflict was too much to bear. Rey couldn't take any more. She decided then and there that she would simply stay put on the frigid, stone floor until the bond inevitably shut.
Somewhere in the midst of their shared silence, however, Kylo found the need to be at her level. Sweeping his cloak aside, he lowered himself to a half-kneeling position before her. Rey adjusted herself to avoid meeting the eyes she knew were waiting there. She couldn't do much to stop him, but she wouldn't indulge him either.
"You know... for years, Snoke warned me that as I grew in power, so too would my equal in the light," Kylo spoke in a low tone, repeating to her what his master had said in the throne room. "But as time went on, the idea of ever facing that equal became a distant afterthought. Day after day, year after year, the Force was... quiet. Hollow. Filled only with darkness."
He paused, gathering himself somewhat. Despite her aversion, Rey glanced vaguely in his direction to convey that she was listening. She could tell he was hesitant, trying to get his words out in the right way.
"Then the map appeared, and suddenly everything I trained for was falling into action," he continued with measured care. "Except somewhere in the midst of it all there was... something else. A sudden light that appeared in the Force. I didn't know what to make of it then; it was small, just barely there, but as time passed it grew stronger. And all the while, I was so caught up in finding Skywalker—so preoccupied with anger and revenge and 'fulfilling my destiny' that I didn't realize... the thing I'd been searching for was right in front of me."
There was a breath lodged in the back of Rey's throat as she listened intently. A part of her knew where he was going with this, but another part of her didn't want to believe it.
"Or rather... who I'd been searching for," he clarified, pausing briefly. Rey felt the intensity of his gaze on her as she pieced together the remainder of his statement.
Me.
"When that saber landed in your hand, that's when I knew. All along, it was you."
'It is you,' he'd said to her. What did that mean? He should have been furious when Rey pulled the lightsaber from the snow, but for that brief moment, he'd regarded her only with what one might consider awe. The statement and his reaction hadn't made any sense to her then. It did now.
"You're right. There was nothing to stop me. I was destined to destroy my equal, but then it was you—the girl from nowhere; the girl with nothing, and that shattered everything I thought I knew and I couldn't—" Kylo cut off before his words could get away from him. He sighed again and his voice came out much softer, "It should have been easy, but in that throne room..."
He could have killed her. He should have killed her. Rey knew that. She was helpless, nothing stood in his way, but then after everything, he made the choice to kill his master instead. Why? With Snoke gone, she was the only thing standing between him and all the power he could ever want. What was there to gain from saving her life?
"Why didn't you?" Rey asked, sniffling as she wiped away a tear that had broken free. "You would have had control of everything; the First Order, the Force, all of it with both Snoke and I out of your way. So why didn't you just kill us both?"
Something inside him had fought for more than just power in those brief moments he stood before the vacant throne. It was why, instead of killing her and taking everything for himself, he offered it to Rey without question. Anyone else wouldn't have hesitated to remove her from the picture when the entire galaxy rested in their grasp, but when given the choice, he acted as if the two coincided and he couldn't bear to have one without the other.
Rey continued to hold his stare as she considered this but, for a moment, there was a sudden familiarity in his eyes that caused those thoughts to falter. They were the eyes of the man on Ahch-To, who had comforted her in her desolation, who made her feel safety and warmth like she'd never believed possible. They were the eyes of the man who had stared down at her, the enemy at his mercy, filled only with the resolve that he would save her life, and they held the same vulnerability of the man who had pleaded she join him as his world collapsed into flames around them.
"For the same reason you left me there breathing," Kylo said softly.
Rey remembered it well; waking amongst the ashes, turning to see his still form lying across the polished floor, resting on his side with dark hair falling across his features. There had been a small moment of panic, a sinking feeling in her chest at noticing how rigid and lifeless he was. She could still feel him, though; his presence in the Force as well as their bond, and with enough focus, she caught his form gently rising and falling as his lungs filled with breath.
She didn't have time to linger there. Rey knew the Resistance needed her help and she'd been given a window to escape to them, but as she rose to collect the remnants of her saber, she'd turned back for the briefest moment. It was a mistake. One that urged on the weakness in herself that called her to stay—forget everything and stay there with him. But she couldn't, and it took more strength than she'd admit to tear herself away from the idea and board the escape pod.
She had never even considered the idea of what he was insinuating, Rey realized—of killing him there in cold blood and ending it all. The only choice she made was to turn away and leave him behind. She never wanted him dead. Despite the hurt of losing him to the darkness, the pain of losing him altogether would have been far too great.
But was it the same for him?
"Why?" she sounded near exasperated, waving a defeated hand. "You know I can't join you, so why?"
Why don't you want me dead?
He knew what she was asking. It seemed a simple enough question, but Rey doubted even he knew the answer. And if he did, it was clear he wasn't ready to admit it to himself. Truthfully, if he had asked the same of her, she wasn't sure she'd know it either—at least, that's what she'd tell herself. Perhaps they shared similar truths in the matter. Either way, there was something lingering between the two of them that neither wanted to acknowledge. For the time being, Rey decided it best to leave it that way, even if it made everything that much more painful to bear.
"I'm the last Jedi," she spoke, her voice somewhere between a sob and a broken laugh, leaving the statement to hang heavily between them. "And you're the Jedi Killer."
How cruel the universe was, forcing them together this way when they ought to be clawing at each other's throats, making it impossible for them to regard each other as the galaxy intended. As everyone and everything demanded.
With an exasperated sigh, Rey leaned her head against the stone wall to stare vacantly upwards. "So what does this make us, Kylo Ren?"
Kylo shifted then. Rey glanced back to see him bring his other leg forward, moving until he was balanced on the heels of his toes. He rested his arms across his knees as his hands joined together, raising to support his chin pensively. He said nothing as his eyes continued to hold hers. Despite the unease of addressing their reality, it was oddly comforting the way he studied her. While she remembered this similar position from when she'd woken on Starkiller, strapped down for interrogation as he waited for her to come to, Rey could truly see him now; every thought and emotion he would have hidden behind his mask fully displayed before her. Had it not been for the vulnerability shown in its absence, she would have felt just as helpless sitting before him now as she had then. Yet despite her fears and doubts, deep down Rey knew he had no intention of hurting her. Not anymore.
Seeming to reach a conclusion to his musings, Kylo's hands formed a fist against his forehead as he looked downward. Though she couldn't see his face, there was a small noise, low and barely audible, but sounding very much like an ironic laugh. A laugh. "It seems neither of us know, do we?" His eyes returned with an amusing glint.
Rey huffed with a small smile, rolling her head to the side. "So it seems."
Truly, how could they know? None of it made sense anymore. They were enemies too senselessly stubborn to be enemies, bound together in defiance of everything that ought to be. There was no use trying to resist it any longer, she was just so, so tired of fighting. So tired of pushing him away.
Decisively, Rey leaned forward with a heavy breath, running a hand through the length of her hair. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I shouldn't have said those things, I didn't—"
"Don't do that."
Rey stopped mid-sentence and looked to him searchingly.
"Don't apologize," Kylo's voice was firm, his expression even more so.
She shook her head. "I was just scared. None of that was—I know you wouldn't..."
"Whatever you saw," he insisted, "There's a reason those thoughts exist to begin with. Don't apologize."
Rey opened her mouth to speak, but the sternness in his gaze made her close it again. Even if she got the words out, it was clear he wouldn't have them.
All the same, he hadn't done anything to warrant her outburst. He was calm and... understanding when she woke, yet in her terror of seeing what could have been, Rey dismissed his attempts to ease her fear and instead screamed at him with accusations of every horrible thought that came to mind. But that was all they were—just thoughts. Yes, what she said about the past was partially true, but she had twisted it into something it wasn't and it was cruel. He couldn't blame himself for that. She wouldn't let him.
Her hand moved of its own accord, sudden and unsure of where exactly it was reaching until it settled firmly over his. Kylo nearly jumped at the sudden contact, his breath hitching in the back of his throat, but he didn't push it away. His eyes were frantic, however, searching hers in uncertainty and near disbelief.
"You can't put this on yourself," she urged quietly. "You can't take the fault for something that was never real."
Kylo thought for a moment, his jaw working absentmindedly as his gaze flicked to Rey's hand atop his. "Maybe not. But that doesn't make me blameless for everything else."
Rey sighed. "No, it doesn't."
Of course, whatever happened here wouldn't change what he'd already done. It couldn't erase the sins of his past. But the blame for that wasn't entirely his—how could it be? People and powers beyond his control set him down this path, and those he'd needed most abandoned him—betrayed him, even.
There always was and will always be both light and dark in him. Rey knew that. But the fault of it wasn't his own. His legacy was a burden; one whose significance made him prey to those who would use it against him, and whose weight he shouldn't have been forced to carry alone. So how, then, could she hold that against him? How could she deny what glints of goodness he'd shown despite it, when she had been the one to incite them? She couldn't. She wouldn't.
"But that doesn't matter now," Rey settled. "It doesn't. What matters—what I care about—is what you do here. Now."
Kylo was silent. He hadn't looked up from where her hand rested atop his, and by his lack of reaction and indifferent calmness to her admission, Rey almost wondered if he'd tuned her out completely as he studied the way his palm dwarfed hers. She flexed her fingers slightly, brushing over his skin as she attempted to pull him back.
"Ben?"
He tilted his head faintly, a small frown rising to his lips. "Your hand's cold."
Rey blinked, unperturbed, and looked to where it settled over his. "Is it?"
Kylo furrowed his brow, turning her hand in his with all his concentration. He shook his head. "Very cold."
And his was very warm, she realized as he ran a thumb across her palm. His calloused fingers moved with surprising tenderness, the touch carrying a weight of familiarity that stirred something in her. It was oddly mesmerizing to watch, and without any thought, she murmured, "Everything's cold here."
His eyes snapped to hers very briefly. She'd absentmindedly given him the slightest clue to her whereabouts, but as she held his stare knowingly so, Rey found that she simply did not care. If anything, she wanted him to know. She wanted him to know everything—the loneliness she still felt, the aching burden resting on her shoulders, the knowledge that she couldn't do this alone, the secrets, the fear, the exhaustion, the cold.
"I can't do this anymore." Rey shook her head. "I'm tired of fighting this, I'm tired of fighting you, I'm just... so tired."
Kylo slowed his tracing of her palm, sighing lowly before uttering, "Then don't."
Rey felt a pang in her chest, fearing what he may yet again be insinuating—a notion that would swiftly turn the moment sour, should he press upon another proposition to join him.
Catching her eye, he seemed to discern that impression and quickly added, "Just—for this one moment—stop fighting it. Forget everything else."
His gaze pleaded that she hear his words for what they were—not another attempt to pull her to his side, nor an effort to force her astray, but a simple request that they be allowed to exist, just the two of them, here and now, forsaking all other powers which sought to pull them apart.
"Please."
A single tear trailed down Rey's cheek, stirred by the renewed depth of his plea. With a soft exhale, she responded by intertwining her fingers with his. The hold was warm and solid, and it held the shared promise made amidst the flickering embers of Ahch-To. Neither were alone. Not then, not ever again.
Before either of them fully comprehended the shift, Rey was suddenly wrapping her arms around his neck, pulling herself close. She pressed into the curve of his shoulder, locking onto him in a clinging embrace.
Kylo's surprise was evident when he tensed beneath her, a hand shooting to the floor for support as the unexpected weight threw him off balance. The initial shock gave way to a steadying presence, however, when she felt his arm encircle her back. He adjusted position, settling into a side sit and steadying them both before his other arm followed suit.
She breathed a sigh of relief, nestling herself closer. Tensions melted away as they both surrendered to the moment, each finding comfort in seemingly the only other person in the galaxy with whom they could allow their masks to slip; with whom they could be unreservedly vulnerable and true, forsaking rights and wrongs, their faiths and their duties, their truths and their misgivings, and all there in between.
Time slipped by unnoticed as they sat there, wrapped safely and securely in one another's arms. When Rey eventually withdrew, she discovered her cheeks glistening with fresh tears. Not tears of sorrow, no—they were tears born of relief; of absolution and acceptance and an unfamiliar, suffusing warmth.
Still close, Kylo's dark eyes flicked across her features, and once again, Rey marveled at their remarkable tenderness and vulnerability. A gentle crease formed in his brow as his hand rose to her cheek, brushing away the streaming moisture with his thumb. Rey reached gently for his wrist, clasping on and holding it tenderly in place. Trust enveloped her as her eyes slid shut, and it felt the most natural thing in the world when she leaned in, their foreheads meeting with a raw intimacy.
They breathed one another in. Hands found napes, fingers threaded through hair, and a palpable sense of surrender permeated the air before their lips converged in a tender kiss.
It was soft at first—almost hesitant, in a sweetly tentative manner. Yet when they both realized the unanimity of the action, it deepened. Lips slanted, mouths parted, and Rey found herself kissing Kylo Ren without a shred of hesitancy, fear, or regret.
It was just him. Just them. Together.
Whatever dreams may haunt her in the night, Rey wished for this moment to be among them—the feeling of his secure embrace, the warm touch of his lips against hers, the disbelief that it was him doing these things, rendering her blissfully breathless; but then again... who else could it ever be?
When they finally parted for breath, Rey opened her eyes and was surprised to see a small grin playing at the corner of his lips. Kylo Ren was smiling. The Supreme Leader of the First Order was smiling because of their shared kiss. Rey giggled softly at the notion, which caused his grin to turn mirthfully wicked.
He leaned in, placing a final, drawn-out and endearing kiss on her lips. Rey smiled into it, her heart soaring amidst the newfound, enrapturing sensation. When they parted again, a sense of calm settled over them, the world coming to a slow as their breaths seemed to synchronize, each beat of their hearts echoing in harmony.
Kylo pressed a gentle, fleeting kiss to her forehead before drawing her into another embrace. Their fears and doubts had fallen away to be replaced by the security of truce. The bond no longer felt like a curse, but a refuge; it was the solace amidst the chaos, the relief amidst the encompassing burden. Wrapped in each other's arms, with the span of lightyears reduced to inches between them, the world around them faded away to insignificance.