Archive of Our Own ^beta

Hello Rey.

Rey rolled her eyes, dropping the glass to the bar top hard. The drink inside sloshed around, but no one around her noticed her sudden reaction. Maz Kanata's castle was too busy today with celebrating smugglers and resistance fighters for anyone to pay her much mind. The fame she had achieved as a Jedi in training quickly faded amongst such people, and she was grateful for it.

I’m too sober for this. She thought, knowing that he could hear her. Get out of my head Ren.

A chuckle came across their bond. She hadn’t known what it was at first, when they had fought against each other on Star Killer, the way she had been able to see through his eyes, hear his thoughts, feel his pain, but she had learned since. She had learned that this thing between them was called a force-bond.

He had explained it to her, something he had read about once in an old Jedi text, something he had assumed was merely a legend. She hated that he had to be the one to tell her, but what other choice did she have? The few remaining Jedi texts she had been able to come across herself had never mentioned such a thing.

She could hardly ask Master Luke. She could only imagine what that conversation might be like. ‘Oh Master, your nephew, yes the one who killed all your other students, is in my head and won’t stop talking to me. What should I do about it?’ It would be even worse if he knew that she had learned how to kick him out and keep him from entering, but for some reason or another she continued to let him back in. She supposed that she was simply a glutton for punishment.

Force me out. He said, and she could see the smile on his lips, or maybe she could feel it. She was never quite sure which of her senses was registering him, sometimes, in weak moments she would barely admit to herself, she thought that maybe it was all of them. Force me out, we both know that you can.

Leave me alone. She leaned on the bar as she closed her eyes, her mind reaching out with the force doing just the opposite, prodding at the edges of his consciousness, feeling him and knowing instinctually that he was somewhere years away, alone. He felt relaxed. He was laying down, she could see it. In a bed. No mask. No robes.

She pulled back, her body reacting enough that she nearly fell off her stool.

Like what you see?

Shut it. She replied, her voice, or the voice in her head, was cutting, but the fiery blush covering her cheeks couldn’t be beaten back.

That’s not an answer.

She was too flustered to seal the gates between their minds, and when she reached out for the force to assist her, it flowed away. It was like she was back on Jakku, control slipping from her, like sand through her fingertips. She grabbed the glass from in front of her. It was solid, and when she knocked its contents into her mouth, the burn was satisfying. She tried to focus on it rather than what she had just seen.

Corellian rum, huh? You’ve been spending too much time with my family.

Rey didn’t register any venom in his voice. Lately, though she kept her realization of it closely guarded, when he spoke of his father it wasn’t quite as angry as it had been before. He no longer warned that he wouldn’t have been good to her, his words about the departed smuggler never had the bite that they did before, and most recently there was even a tinge of regret in some of his words. It never lasted for long, but she knew it was there, and he did as well, she knew, because he always changed the subject quickly when she felt him catch himself.

She tossed a couple credit chips on the bar and tried to bring up her barriers again to no avail.

Still too sober for this.

You know you like it.

And she did. She hated it, but she did. Whenever he was in her mind she felt less alone. He was a murderer and a kriffing pain in the ass, but sometimes when they spoke through their connection they were able to put each other at ease. She wouldn’t let him teach her, she was firm on it, but she did sometimes listen to his advice when she was having difficulty with a particular lesson of Master Luke’s. Every now and then when he was raging about something, or in pain, his walls would come down enough for her to return the favor. In those moments she swore she could still feel tendrils of the light working around him. They grew stronger the longer they spoke. She liked knowing that she could do that, make him doubt, even if he refused to voice it. She liked to think that maybe the man he was when they spoke was the man he could be one day.

It didn’t make her want to forgive him. In fact from time to time it made her even angrier with him. There was so much good within him, so much that he could do to help, but he was so wrapped in the dark he couldn’t see it. She tried to tell herself that seeing that in him was the only reason she wouldn’t sever their link, but when the heat in her cheeks refused to calm, and her thoughts drifted back to him, alone in his room, bare, she couldn’t hide from herself that there might be more there.

You’re still blushing.

You’re a Slimesucker.

Language. He was laughing, and she could see his smile. She didn’t mean to look at him again, but she was. He was sitting up now, and she managed to keep her eyes on his torso, and his face.

He was covered in scars, some of which he had suffered at her hands, others that appeared faded, some marks fresh. A bruise bloomed over his ribs and she reached out for it, pressed at it lightly with a manipulation of the force. It was working for her again, so long as she wasn’t trying to push him out it seemed more than happy to comply to her will.

She heard him inhale sharply, saw him jump and grimace, and she pulled away again. There was another drink before her, the credits having been replaced while she was lost in their moment. She quickly drained it like the first.

Can’t stay away?

Shut up. She sighed. Sorry. Did that hurt?

He shrugged, but then she could feel him again, the force reaching out to her. She felt warm, like she were being encircled in his arms. She didn’t fight it. It wasn’t new. Sometimes she allowed him this much, though her mind knew it was wrong. Letting him in so much was dangerous, but it made her heart beat fast.

I could do this a lot better if you’d come to me.

She sighed, this time audibly, but her exhalation covered by the noise of the watering hole.

I won’t. I can’t. Even this is wrong. We both know it. Don’t deny it. You’re in my head, and I’m in yours too. That much was true, but in these moments, where they weren’t Jedi and Sith, when they were Rey and Kylo, it didn’t feel as wrong as it should.

There was a balance in the space between them, between the light and the dark. A grey area that neither could reach without the other. And she desperately wanted to meet him in it.

There’s so much wrong in the Galaxy. This feeling…

He trailed off, but she understood. She felt it, and she knew he did as well. The way it felt when they stopped fighting each other, the balance between them. There was something right about it. Something natural. They hadn’t asked to form this bond. It had simply come. Who were they to fight the will of the force.

The Jedi code teaches against attachment. She knew that it was a weak argument, one he revolted against, one he already knew.

The Sith code says that there is only passion.

She knew what he was getting at. Their bond was an attachment, but it wasn’t all about passion. There was more to it. Something that she couldn’t quite name, and something that felt almost pure to her.

“Rey!”

The voice pulled her out of her thoughts, and the feeling of Kylo’s arms, the manifestation of his touch through the force, also disappeared at the sound.

“Finn!” Rey replied, turning to her friend, seeing Poe not far off speaking to Maz herself, “What’s up?”

“We’re thinking we should head back. I mean, first order already knows about this place, and as much fun as this has been, having three of their most wanted in one place for this long is probably a bad plan.”

Rey nodded, though she already had Kylo’s word that Maz’s place was far at the bottom of the First Order’s hit list due to the increased Rebel protections around Takodana. “I’ll meet you two in Poe’s transport. I just need a minute.”

Finn squeezed her shoulder, then walked back over to where Maz and Poe were speaking. Rey relaxed slightly, and was met by Kylo’s voice.

Meet me somewhere in the mid rim. Your choice, any planet, any city. No first order, no resistance. Bring your saber if you want, but you won’t need it.

She felt him open his mind to her more than he ever had before, keeping her walls up enough to protect what she couldn’t let him know, she let herself explore his thoughts. He was being honest, and there was a need in his words that was matched only by her want to do as he asked.

Lantillies. In a week. Just you and I.

She felt him again, this time, in a press of lips to her hand. She shivered, the blush that had momentarily disappeared returning in full force.

I look forward to it.