Chapter Text
Kylo stares at the ceiling above his sleeper, a palm pillowed behind his head. He loves how Rey’s lips shape his real name. Sometimes fierce, sometimes soft, but always purposeful. What a contrast to Snoke, who forbade speaking it aloud. He never ceased to be Ben Solo, not in his heart of hearts, no matter how many times he denied it. He sees that now. In the same way, Kylo Ren never became his full identity and only represented one facet to his nature.
Someday he’ll go by Ben Solo again but not yet, at least not outside the privacy of their quarters or the sanctity of their bond and not while his authority remains tenuous in the First Order.
He crosses then uncrosses his ankles. He can’t sleep. Maybe it’s the usual insomnia. More likely it’s due to Rey’s presence in his sleeper. She insisted a mattress this large was meant to be shared and wouldn’t hear of him returning to the lounger in his receiving room. He only argued long enough to verify she was sincere.
His head lolls to take in her form mounded beside him. She’s near enough to cast body heat without touching, much to his disappointment. What did he expect? Snuggling wasn’t likely, given they’ve both slept alone and alert all their lives.
Except Ben craves more. The way she held him when he fell apart in the training room? He was mortified, yes, and heat scorched his ears. But he wants that again. He wants her lips, her hands, her heart. He wants it all. Greedy man.
She pried the cover from his soul, only to expose the void within. He’s a bottomless pit, yawning with need. He’ll swallow her whole. In sending her away, he meant to ensure her safety and protect her, yet here she is sharing a sleeper with her greatest threat. Him. He sighs.
The linens have slipped, revealing her delicate collarbones bordered by his black thermal. Would tracing his fingertips along the neckline wake her? What if he leaned over and kissed each freckle? Ben has always viewed possessions with indifference—it’s the Sith way and the Jedi before that—but on Rey, his sweater is a treasure he’ll cherish forever. Who knew it would stir him to see her wearing his clothes?
He ought to have requisitioned a proper wardrobe, but he never planned for her to stay. He never dreamed she might, thinking only that she would secure her beloved Resistance and then leap at the first chance to leave. At this point, Rey was to be far, far away from the Order, safe from Pryde, Hux and the Knights and hidden from the mysterious Force-presence lurking in the Unknown Regions.
But he wasn’t strong enough.
Weak, echoes in his mind. Bested by a girl who had never held a lightsaber.
Ben turns onto his side, tugs the coverlet over his shoulder, and pulls it tight against his chest. The voice is only a memory. A bad one, but a memory nonetheless. Snoke can’t torment him any longer.
You failed. There’s too much of your father in you.
Switch off! Ben screams in his mind and squeezes his eyelids shut. He won’t think about Han Solo. He’s won’t. Recalling that betrayal only sends him spiraling into darkness. He curls around his clutched fists, but it doesn’t stifle the agony.
Let go of the past. Kill it if you have to, he said once. What irony. He tried, but his past casts long shadows, and he can’t kill a shadow. Is he destined to be haunted forever?
His taut muscles shake the sleeper. He’s going to wake Rey.
He slows his breathing and forces his fingers to unclench. No matter how much Ben might wish otherwise, he can’t change his past. He can’t bring his father back. But at least Snoke is dead, his signature dissolved from the Force just as his body dissolved from existence. Even if the voice in his head sounds real, it can’t be Snoke.
Yet if Ben is honest, he can’t deny the judgment rings true. He has failed. He’s failed Rey—failed them both. He should have prevailed. If he couldn’t persuade her, then he should have loaded her into the pod against her will. That would have been better. She’s too good, too innocent, too hopeful. She can’t know what she’s chosen—whom she’s chosen.
But, oh—
To have her near, in his life, in his suite, in his sleeper? Did he ever have a choice? Confronted with her presence, with beauty as radiant in person as in the Force, how could he send her away? He’s deceiving himself to believe he could.
Call him a coward, call him selfish, but he never wishes to be parted from her again. Even the lounger a room apart is too far, despite assuring her that he’s slept in worse conditions—which he has—but never with the other side of his soul beckoning like a siren.
Maybe minutes pass. Maybe hours. What is time in her presence? Ben doesn’t check the chrono. The ache in his hip demands a change in position, but he won’t look away. Who needs sleep? Sleep is overrated. He could lie here and watch her forever.
The low light brushes her cheeks with dusky color. Her eyelashes flutter open. “Ben?”
Kriff, all his sighing and tossing must have woken her.
“You okay?”
He isn’t, but he won’t admit it. He grunts. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
She presses her palms together and pillows her cheek on the back of her hand. “Can’t sleep?”
“Something like that.” His lips quirk, though not quite into a smile. How long has it been since he smiled? The impulse is foreign. Even in the wake of dark thoughts, she makes him happy. “I’m glad you stayed.”
“I am too.” She doesn’t suffer his restraint and grins wide, her teeth bright in the dim chamber. “How about that ‘midnight repast’ you mentioned?”
Never mind that midnight is long past. Since they departed late in Coruscant’s afternoon, she’s devoured an astonishing quantity of food, no less than two meals, three desserts, and one bedtime snack. Humor bubbles in his throat. “How can you be hungry?”
Her lips draw into a pout. “But you have so much.”
“You’re right,” he says. He’s being insensitive to the food insecurity she was vulnerable enough to confess over dinner. He did promise she could eat anytime she wanted, even the middle of the night cycle. “What would you like? I’ll bring something to the sleeper. Ever tried Chandrilan steamed milk? It’s helpful when you can’t sleep.”
“You’re the one who can’t sleep.” Her fingers worm beneath the covers and collide with his forearm. “I’m not hungry. Not really.”
He knows what she wants, even without her saying it, even without their bond to tell him. He rolls onto his back, withdraws from her touch, and folds both arms across his stomach. “I can’t, Rey.”
She wants their bond restored. She wants the wall broken down. She wants the current of thought, sensation, and emotion that they shared until they cut it off in a moment of mutual crisis.
He’ll never forget. The last time their bond opened, he was kneeling inside Crait’s fortress, humiliated by Luke’s Force-projection and incensed at Rey. His mother’s Force-signature lingered with her scent of candlewick blooms while he cradled his father’s golden dice, still dented from his teething.
Rey stared, her tumult of emotion bleeding through their bond: compassion, sorrow, determination, pity. He couldn’t bear it, especially not her pity. He channeled the pain and anger into his grip on the Force and choked their link the same way he’d like to choke Hux’s pasty neck. Severing the connection might be impossible, but the Force ceased to flow between them.
Then the dice vanished, evaporated like every good in his life—including Rey, who had refused him and left him unconscious aboard the foundering Supremacy. He should be inured to betrayal by now.
If he lets go, she’ll see it all: the darkness, the brokenness, the weakness, every way he’s failed and fears to fail still. He’ll be exposed before her, more naked than if he removed his clothes. Not that he would object to the latter.
And that’s not even considering she might be sucked in and consumed by the “too much” that defines his life. Too much anger for his parents. Too much darkness for Luke. Too much light for Snoke. The bond was unavoidable when their souls were joined against their wills, when they fought the connection for all but a few moments reaching across the galaxy and battling Snoke’s Praetorian guard. But to enter into soul-deep intimacy by choice?
“Don’t you see?” Weariness makes her voice sharper than usual. “We’re together now. There’s no reason to hold back any longer. Aren’t you exhausted?”
He is, but his lips thin to a line. He was weak in indulging their mutual desire for her to stay. He must be strong to resist reopening their bond.
“I’m sorry, Rey,” he says, and he means it.
“If our bond survived Snoke’s death and it has, then he must have lied about creating it.” She tucks a loose tendril behind her ear. “If the Force did it, then maybe our souls are meant to unite. Maybe that’s how we’re supposed to live. Maybe that’s the reason we’ve been drawn to each other all along.”
He snorts. “Or maybe that’s wishful thinking.”
Although, it’s partly true. Because he was drawn to her in the forest on Takodana. She fascinated him, thrilled him, excited him. He longed to explore her mind—for the map to Skywalker at first—and then for the loneliness he recognized as his own, for her strength in the Force, and for the brilliance with which she shines. Yes, she draws him—with the inescapable gravity of a celestial body.
“Please, Ben,” she whispers. “Try. For me.”
An invisible cord pulls taut and cuts into his heart. His rough swallow echoes in the quiet room. “I can’t.”
The light gutters in her eyes, and it stabs straight through his gut. Maker, please. Don’t let her hope die because of me.
How can Ben explain? How does he bare his soul enough to convince her?
“I wish we could. I wish it were that easy,” he begins. “But the scars in my flesh are nothing to the scars on my soul. That wound is like an all-consuming black hole. It takes and takes and never gives back.
“I’ve done terrible things. I live with their weight every day. It’s crushing. I don’t know what it would to take to heal. I don’t know if healing is possible. But I sure as hells know that I won’t burden you with it.”
“Maybe that’s the answer.” Her eyes brighten. “Maybe that’s the key to finding peace and healing in the Force. That we do it together.” She rolls onto an elbow and her chin adopts its stubborn jut. “I was abandoned by my parents. I raised myself. I’ll always be an outsider to the Resistance. They live by a set of rules I never learned. But with you? I don’t care how much Luke feared the dark side—”
Ben scoffs. “For good reason.”
“With you, I’m home. You’re my belonging, Ben. Dark? Light? I’m not afraid.”
“You should be.” He knows too well the dark’s power to corrupt and destroy—and what it’s cost him.
“They’re both the Force, and it’s what we do with the Force that matters. You said yourself that you must stay to protect the galaxy from your rogue commanders.” She stabs a finger into his chest hard enough to make him wince. “That’s because you care, Ben Solo. Because no matter how much you deny it, compassion beats in that big heart of yours.”
“Don’t make me into something I’m not.” How can she see good in him or find anything to value in his blighted soul? Yet he can’t deny her optimism buoys him and ignites a flicker of hope. He catches her hand before she pulls away, tugs her finger toward his mouth, and kisses the tip. “You’re amazing, you know that, right?”
She waggles her eyebrows. “You’re going to let me in, right?”
Then it hits him: he’s a fool to think he could keep her out, just like he was a fool to think he could accept her surrender and then send her away. Because this was never about her surrender at all; his capitulation was inevitable. Maybe he’ll regret this and it will be their undoing. Maybe she’s correct and this will transform them. But if he’s honest about his fears, then he should be honest about his desire—that he longs to reunite as much as she does, come what may.
“Yes,” he says.
She squeals and scrambles closer, tangling the linens around their legs, until she balances on one elbow and hovers half above him. The sparkle in her eyes is infectious. “Truly? What do we do?”
She’s so eager that he can’t resist a tease.
He grins. “Kiss me.”
Her eyebrows arch high. “What?”
He taps his lips.
Her nose crinkles, hopefully more in suspicion than distaste, but she hauls her body up his. He won’t be distracted by identifying which curves exactly are pressing into his ribs. He won’t. She leans over, and their lips meet.
He never knew what living was until this moment: all soft skin, hot breath, and the clash of teeth. His hand cups the back of her neck to angle her head just so—and yeah. This. Coherent thought evaporates. He could grow accustomed to this.
It doesn’t last long, and she pushes away. Crimson splotches ride high on her cheeks, every bit as rosy as her fresh-kissed mouth. She levers against his chest and her brow puckers. “Did that work? I still don’t sense you through the bond.”
He folds an elbow behind his head, the picture of ease, and battles the smirk vying to split his face. To hells with it. Who cares if he grins from ear to ear?
“Did you like it?”
“Kissing you? Of course I did, you nerfherder. But what about the bond?”
“That has nothing to do with the bond,” he says. “I just wanted to kiss you.”
She punches his shoulder. “Ben Solo, you—you—”
His mother used to take that tone with his father, and it sobers him at once. He sighs.
She taps his nose. “You know you don’t need an excuse to kiss me?”
He nods. “Fine. Reopening the bond should be something like removing a tourniquet so the blood can flow again.”
She hums and nestles down into his side, her temple resting in the hollow at his shoulder. He moves his arm around her back to hold her. She fits against him like she’s always belonged, a piece that was missing, both comfortable and comforting. Does she feel the same? Hasn’t she already said as much?
She exhales, quiet and long, and sinks deeper into him. The shift in Force registers before she speaks. It’s like sunrise through a dark curtain, a subtle rise in temperature and a glimmering around the edges.
“I did it. I let go. I opened my side.” Her fingers pluck at his black sleeping tunic. “Your turn.”
Ben pulls his hand from behind his head, stills her fingers, and flattens her palm over his chest.
“Your heart is racing,” she says.
The darkness within him clamors to be free, like a chained beast slavering for prey just beyond reach. Without Snoke to stoke Ben’s rage, he achieved better control and is no longer prone to burst into destructive frenzy. But to loose his darkness into Rey’s hands? He trusts her, yes, but he doesn’t want to hurt her.
“Rey,” he says. The thunder continues unabated beneath their joined hands.
“You’re still holding on,” she quotes in gentlest reproof. “Just let go.”
Ben visualizes a tight band constricting the flow of Force between them. Apart from flashes of light and heat, he can’t see her side, but on his, darkness has built and pooled until it bulges like an aneurysm threatening to rupture.
He sucks a deep breath and snips the band. The pressure releases, and relief is instantaneous. That wasn’t so bad. Why was he afraid? He starts to exhale—
And light blinds him, so bright that he can’t breathe. Radiance blasts through him and sets fire to his veins. Every shadow flees. He’s burning from the inside. Oh, Force, what sweet agony! If he must die, this is the way to go. But what about Rey?
He clutches at her. Her fingers scrabble for purchase in his chest, and she clings to him.
When the burning and brilliance recede, she’s there, in his arms, his heart, and his soul. Her Force within him is soft, warm and bright. His Force within her is strong, cool and dusky. They’re balanced. Controlled. All struggle ended. Their souls are at rest.
His heart slows with his respiration. Peace settles over him—over them. She feels the same.
Her light has joined with his light. His dark has merged with her dark. Both sides of the Force move unimpeded through their bond, coursing like lifeblood between them, circulating with strength and vitality, and uniting them in power and purpose.
This is no ordinary Force-bond. No, this is something he’s never seen or studied before. Maybe what they share is something new. They were granted a foretaste in Snoke’s throne room when they battled the guards, but even those heady moments can’t compare to their connection now.
This is how they were meant to be. They were made for this—formed for each other. Rey was right.
I usually am. Her tone burbles like a sunny brook within his mind.
This is the future they both saw when their fingers met across the stars, the one they parried in the turbolift. She did turn. She left the Resistance and came to stand with him. He turned too, with her help, not to the light or to the Jedi, but to a balance that neither could foresee. Their only mistake was in assuming their visions conflicted. Here and now, in the union of their souls, they have stepped onto the path to wholeness and to fulfilling their true purpose, which will unfold, he is confident, in a glorious becoming.
Ben marvels, sweeps aside her messy locks tumbling over his shoulder, and traces a finger down her cheek. How beautiful she is. How blessed to hold her in his arms. Warmth blooms at her temples under his unspoken praise. She knows all that is within his heart as he knows hers—and she accepts him as he is: conflicted, wounded, battle-scarred. More than that, her love and desire perfectly mirror his.
“Ben,” she murmurs and tries to hide her blush in his sleep shirt.
“Shh, sweetheart.” He presses his lips to her forehead. There’s no need to be ashamed. This is only the beginning.
Whatever must be faced—Pryde, Hux, the First Order, the malevolence in the Unknown Regions, or even the healing that remains to be forged within their own souls—they will meet each challenge together.
Beyond that, bright hope stretches—filled with children, family, and every good thing—like the shimmering Chandrilan beach that fronts the Silver Sea and dissolves in the haze of distance.
“I love you.” He tugs Rey closer, as if their bodies could nest within the other as do their souls. “I will always choose you.”
Her cheek tightens against his chest as she smiles into their shared vision. “Was there ever any other choice?”