Kylo came back to his senses before Rey. It was a powerful vision between them. A very exhausting and detailed memory that would probably take her several moments to recover from. With her eyes closed and her face resting gently against his chest, Rey clung to him, her toned left arm seeming so delicate as it wrapped around his shoulders and neckline in an attempt to help him support her measly, but full weight.

Her small, gently calloused hands, indicating that she'd physically worked hard for everything she'd ever owned or needed in life, pulled at the thickness of his traps and neck as she dug her face deeper into the blanketing warmth of his body. Ren felt his world slow. He felt his legs wobble as his knees shook under the weight of the way she felt clinging to him... And of her own accord!

They had been submerged in freezing water only moments ago and yet, his temperature had been, and apparently still was, rising exceedingly fast. Sweat slicked along his forehead. It clung as desperately to his arms and shoulders as she did. They were melting into each other. Everywhere their skin met, he tingled. Every particle that touched felt like lightning in controlled volumes. It hummed and buzzed across his skin in small waves.

Kylo was so completely consumed by her that he forgot about the man who stood only a few feet away from them. He slowly trudged through the water, passing Skywalker with out even a glance in his uncle's direction and the stunned Jedi let him. Rey flinched as though she were in some kind of pain and Kylo's eyes moved over her in every direction, searching for any discomfort he may be causing her. He scanned her as best he could through the blackness of the night and storm that cloaked them like a foggy wet blanket, but he saw nothing of physical concern.

Luke still had his saber ignited as he watched his nephew in awe. Something visually passed between them... all three of them thanks to how vulnerable Rey's mind was. Luke didn't know what to say, he didn't know how to respond to the awful ordeal he'd just witnessed through her eyes; their eyes, if he was to be exact. There were parts of that memory that Kylo's mind had filled in for her. They shared their experiences as though they were one person. He'd never seen anything like it in all of his years or through all of his studies. Their minds blended their memories into one fluid vision. He'd seen it like he was there and the memory was as remarkable as it was tragic. He'd never known about what'd happened. He'd never know of his students abuse or that Ben had stopped it. He was forced to. Luke didn't know what was worse, witnessing such a traumatic and shocking ordeal, or watching his nephew take his first accepting steps into the Dark side.

Luke couldn't blame him for what he'd done, not even the extreme reaction he'd had or the brutal action he took. If he'd  had been there himself, could he really say he would have done less? Probably not. His nephew had done what he thought to be right at the time. Though his method was defiantly taken to the extreme. He was forcefully thrust into being a man in a very shocking and brutal way and he was so young.

He watched now as his once protege waded past him through knee deep water. Rey clinging to him as though he were her lifeline and maybe he was. Luke wondered if she realized now who Ren was. The experience they had just shared had cracked the box of memories he'd had locked away in her years before. It was a wonder the chains he'd placed on it hadn't already come completely undone by now. There was nothing Luke could do to reinforce the stronghold that kept her past at bay. He studied his nephews face while he walked past with the girl. He wasn't the same man who stood in front of him seconds ago.

Seconds ago he was ready to strike him down. He strained to focus on the once familiar face of his nephew as he stepped further away from the illuminating glow of his lightsaber. Kylo Ren's face had softened as he gazed down on the half conscious girl in his arms. He looked young, hopeful, alight with understanding and... something else.

Compassion... His mind filled in the blank.

Luke didn't understand at first what had changed between the two to cause the hardened war lord to stare down on her in such away. Then all at once, it clicked. His nephew had finally figured out who she was. Luke had assumed that he already knew. After the effort the young man had put into invading her mind at every turn and then here when he had risked own life for hers. He had no reason to believe Kylo Ren didn't already recognize the girl.

Luke watched as he carefully set her body down, as Kylo held her even while her weight rested on the ground. He gently propped her up against the cliff's wall , tilting her head into her shoulder to successfully shield her face from the rain. Kylo's internal struggle was eminent as he peeled her clinging hands away from his neck. He carefully placed them in her lap and crouched in front of her. His gloved hand caressed her cheek before he finally pulled away from her. Kylo Ren in all of his menacing form positioned his body in front of her, protectively shielding her from Luke's vision. His lightsaber was still in his hand. His bare chest was heaving and his white teeth were clenched together tightly. He angrily breathed through those teeth. His jaw flexed and his lips curled. Ren stared at Luke with death in his eyes and his lightsaber blazed to life in his left hand.

"I hunted for you for years." He declared flatly over the rain. "I searched solar system after solar system. High and low... for years!" He continued, his volume rising with each word he spoke. He took one step forward and Luke shook under the weight of Ren's anger. He was quick to steady himself but he couldn't control the fear that was quickly building up in him. This was not the way of the Jedi but Luke hadn't considered himself one of those in years. He had seen how this fight ends. He'd seen how he would end. His nephew would slay him in only a few moments from now.

"And do you know why?" He asked the older version of the uncle he remembered from so long ago as he spun the fiery red blade in his hand, cutting through the screaming air and rain around him.

Luke said nothing. There was no need. Nothing he said would help. Nothing he did would change or redirect his nephews anger now.

"Because you took her away from me." Ren's blade spit at Luke. They were still several feet away but he could feel the heat from the unkempt sparks.

"I didn't hunt you for my Master.... I didn't hunt you down for revenge... I didn't even hunt you for those books I know you have hidden away in that old Force tree you think I don't know about." He declared so casually that Luke actually found himself taken back by his nephew's knowledge. "I don't care about your stupid books; I already know what you've been trying to understand for the better part of the decade that you've had them. No Skywalker, none of that means anything to me. I've thought about you everyday since you took her from me. Every day since you took Kira from me I have hated you!" He admitted taking another long step forward. "You know what recently I found odd?" He paused and his saber whined impatiently.

Again Luke said nothing in response. Kylo's head tilted to the left, closer to the burning lightsaber that sizzled against the rain in his hand.

"I thought about you everyday... until I met her." His saber rotated in his wrist and he half turned back to the shivering form of the girl they both now knew as Rey.

Kylo Ren already had her tucked safely away behind him where Luke assumed Ben thought she should have been since the day they first met.

Maybe then his nephew would still go by then name Ben. Luke's guilty conscience pointed out what he'd been struggling with for years.

Ren pointed the plasma at her and though Luke knew it was physically impossible, he was positive the blade extended to reach for her.

"The only reason I ever had to find you, the only reason I ever had to subject myself to seeing your face again, the only goal that was ever on my mind; Was to draw the information on where you kept her, where you hide her away from me all those years ago, out of your lying mouth. Little did I know we would find our way back to each other on our own." He squared his shoulders against his uncles.

The fuming form of the dark warlord before him was foreboding to say the least. Luke knew it would be over quick. He knew his time would be up soon so he did the only thing he'd ever wanted to do before his nephew had disappeared to join in with his enemies. The only constant thing he had thought about the entire time he was on this island...

"I'm sorry." He called out to his once very loved nephew. He still loved the boy he knew back then but the man who stood in front of him now, he didn't know. He wondered if that boy was still in there somewhere hidden away in the back of that dark twisted mind.

Kylo Ren haunched forward as though he were punched in the gut by Luke's words. It was his anger that pushed the air from his lungs with such force that it brought him bending forward to catch his fleeing breath before it could completely escape.

"You don't get to say your sorry! Don't you dare pretend to give a Kriff about any of this!" Ren boomed over the storm that was already picking back up. "Once, I loved you more then anyone else. Almost as much as I loved her." He paused then looking over his shoulder at the slowly recovering form of the girl behind him. "I thought maybe that's why you took her. Maybe that's why you took the only person who ever loved me back enough to never try to leave me, who never abandoned me like the rest of you did. Maybe you did it because you couldn't stand me loving someone else as much as I loved you." A flash of the boy from the past flew momentarily across the hardened features of Kylo Ren's face. Those lost brown pools glossed over and his lips flattened together only to trembled.

He suddenly looked so much like his Ben. Luke moved to say something but Kylo was quick to cut him off.

"She saw my darkness and instead of fearing it, instead of running away or rejecting me, instead of treating me like I was broken," He stepped closer to his uncle as he spoke his pace and volume growing with each word.
"She accepted me! She comforted me and you know what old man... it made my light so much stronger." He slammed his balled fist into his bare chest every time the word me left his lips as he yelled.

Ren lunged and swung high at his uncle. Luke was so dazed by the revelations and omissions from the almost unrecognizable man before him, that he almost didn't block the strikes at all. He back peddled and stumbled barely cartching himself against every powerful strike that his nephew threw at him.

"No matter how hard the darkness pushed and pulled at me... no matter how hard it tugged or whispered to me... she was there. She was an impenetrable shield that encased the Light I wasn't strong enough to protect on my own. She kept the true power of the darkness at bay. And then you betrayed me. You took her away. Abandoned me just like my mother did years before. I was delivered into the void filled mouth of darkness by the hands that were by birth and blood, supposed to protect me!" He slashed across his uncles torso and this time, frozen by hurt and shock, his uncle did nothing to stop him. The lightsaber cut through his emotionally weakened Force shield and skimmed across his body. It was only barely a surface burn, but it felt like the tongue of the devil himself had licked across his skin.

"I'm sorry." He repeated again, this time through the ragged breaths of pain and guilt.

"Stop apologizing, Jedi." His nephew growled at him and he swung again but this time it was Kylo who stopped the plasma from making contact against the man who didn't fight back.

The blade hissed against every drop or rain that attacked it. It was inches from Luke's face, he could feel the heat caressing his skin. The slash would have easily decapitated him. Ren's eyes were hard and angry as he yelled for Luke to fight back. His face was strong when he threatened to cut him down where he stood wether it was through one sided combat or not.

Luke's blade collapsed and he tossed the saber aside. Ren twitched. His lips twisted and he stared at his uncle in disbelief. His shoulders shifted and he very slightly leaned back.

"Don't you know what I did to him?" Ren's lightsaber wavered and his mouth pursed as though he were fighting a quiver.

Ben always did wear his heart on his sleeve. Luke found himself suddenly unable to separate Kylo Ren from Ben Solo.

"Don't you know what I did... to my father?" His voice broke but still he held the plasma blade inches from the kill.

Luke lowered his face but his blue eyes never veered away from their focal point. Kylo clenched his jaw and his face hardened once more. Suddenly he pulled his arm back and the saber mewled through the air in disappointment. Kylo spun the blade re-warming his stiff wrist back up. He circled his former Master with disdain in his darkening brown orbs.

"Pick up your lightsaber Prophet of the Light. Show me what your righteous fury looks like." He goaded his uncle.

He hadn't noticed when Rey regained her wits. Not this time, not while his sanity was so unstable. Once again he was on the precipice of darkness and this time he had nothing to hold himself back from the edge. His rage tugged at him, his darkness clawed at his insides and his brain wracked inside his head. He was loosing his balance again and this time if he fell, he feared there would be no more coming back.

So why didn't he strike his uncle down? His fist shook with the weight of the lightsaber in his hand.
He couldn't do this again, he didn't want to do this again; But something pulled him closer to that edge.

You need this. It will free you. Something inside of him hissed. It was a voice he didn't hear often but it always had more sway over him then his own willpower had.

He could feel the slithering poison clogging the blood that ran through his veins. He felt it slowing his heart, clouding his vision, and fogging his mind.

"I know about Han." His uncle finally replied. "I knew about Han long before it happened... and so did he." Luke admitted to his visibly breaking nephew.

Kylo Ren froze. His heavy booted feet dug into the rocks and clay beneath them and he leaned forward at the waist. Rain moved through his soaked hair matting it to his face and neck as he leaned in to hear his uncle's words through the storm. He didn't even blink as it ran in thin streams over his eyes.

"What did you just say?" He asked far quieter then he intended. He switched the hands that held the lightsaber from left to right. This was his power hand. This was his killing hand.

Luke didn't answer. He could already see the message passing through his former students eyes as his brain processed the damaging information.

His father had in fact known the outcome... and still he had tried. Luke had known what would happen... and he had done nothing to change the outcome.

What could he have done? A small voice in his mind tried defending his former Master.

It doesn't matter what he could have done, he knew and he did nothing. His anger easily countered.
He did nothing because he was lying! His Darkness relentlessly continued to destroy the small voice of reason that he had tucked away somewhere with his light. His uncle was a liar in the past and he is still lying now! Ren couldn't handle the direction his own thoughts went in, he was already too far gone.

"Your a liar! You lied about her and your lying again now!" He accused in his fury. His eyes grew hateful and they darkened several shades. They were quickly frosting over. Their temperature dropped the more distant his emotions became.  

"Ben..." Even as he watched the blinding darkness growing around him, crawling over him until it engulfed him whole, Luke tried calling out to his long, lost nephew as though the name could have jostled him free of the title Kylo Ren.

The dark aura clung to him as though he was the only hand that could control it. The only force that could harness and feed it. Like some kind of animal that had previously lacked a master suitable for it's power or strong enough to bare it's weight. The most prominent problem was that it was consuming the Master that harnessed it more and more with each passing second. Perhaps that was because the Master it chose was unable to handle that power, but staring into the eyes that showed just above Kylo Ren's, he was betting it had more to do with the fact that their Master was currently not at the controls.

Kylo blinked at that name. His eyes still locked on his uncle but he couldn't see him. He couldn't see anything.

"Don't call me that, Han Solo called me that before I killed him." He said coldly.

He twisted and swung his lightsaber with such power that it crushed the Force field Luke had once again created around himself. Kylo didn't know it was there. He was blind in his rage. He would have killed his uncle with that strike and he wouldn't have know until it was over.

It wasn't the attack that surprised Luke, he'd known that was coming. It was his nephews lost eyes that shook him to his core. They were dark now, nearly black, like onyx. His face was blank. He showed no emotion as he advanced on him. Only seconds ago he was familiar, only seconds ago his emotions were flooding through his eyes and face. And now... he was not himself at all. He hadn't been Ben for a long time, but now he was not even Kylo Ren.

"Ren stop." Rey called from behind him and unable to watch him kill anymore of his family, she was struggling to her feet. She knew the damage it would do to him and she, herself couldn't handle any more loss. Neither of them could. She would drown in both of their pain if he did this. "Please." She pleaded as she clung to the rock wall behind her.

Kylo didn't even hear her. She didn't even register in his head. He struck again but this time Luke was ready. He had called his lightsaber to him just in time to intercepted the blow. The blades clashed in a flurry of sparks and Kylo pulled away, already recoiling to swing again. Luke was parrying and back peddling. They were getting closer to the moment where Luke would fall. The end for him was drawing near. He was ready to die but it wouldn't be in vein. He would meet the eyes of his killer head on because they were not his nephews. The last thing he could do for his fallen apprentice was bring him back under his own control before he died.

"It's ok, Ben." He said, barely stopping another blow that came uncomfortably close to cleaving his right shoulder off.

He growled back at his uncle, attacking several more times and gaining more power through his fury with each passing strike. Finally, Kylo caught their blades together and for a fraction of a moment, his face loomed so dangerously close over the searing plasmas that one wrong move would send them pushing into the soft flesh his own throat. 

"I told you old man, that's not my name." He pushed off of his uncle's lightsaber and lashed out with an unforgiving bout of strikes. Luke took the powerful blows one at a time until he found an opportunity to slam his force into his attacker and his nephew took the full brunt of it. Kylo Ren jerked back but his feet stayed planted. Luke's eyes widened in surprise but it didn't deter him from his mission.

"No, your right. Ben was weak... like his father before him." Luke echoed the words Ren declared to his father moments before he killed him.

Luke had memorized that vision, it haunted him nightly.

Kylo Ren gave pause then. Something stirred behind his blackened eyes. Something sad and regretful. Luke wasted no time in continuing to coax his nephew back from the clutches of the intruder that had him. "It wasn't your fault Ben. None of it was your fault."

His nephew's straight spine bent and he slightly leaned forward as if trying to catch his breath and Luke continued.

"I should have been there for you. I should have been there for all of you. It was my fault." Luke lowered his lightsaber and slowly approached the man he once knew as a boy.

The second the words registered in his brain, Kylo's fury was back. His distant eyes shot hot daggers at the deceitful Jedi in front of him.

How dare he play martyr. Months ago this may have worked but Kylo knew better now. He was in control of his own actions when he took his father's life. That was his burden to bare. He would not give Luke the betrayer, the satisfaction of thinking that he still had that much control over his actions. He may have in the past. Kylo was not foolish enough to deny that the man only a few feet in front of him had his own weight to bare in his initial fall to the Dark side, but he would get to claim no credit where the burden of his father's blood was concerned.

"You're right old man. You should have been there in the beginning. You took us on as your responsibility and by your own selfish actions you failed us, but that's it. That's where your legacy ends Skywalker. The day I left your temple burning was the first day I was responsible for my decisions, my actions, and my life. I chose the dark because I was sick of the light failing me. I was sick of you failing me. I was tired of the disappointment!" His darkness tugged him forward and kylo's feet followed the temptation.

"All I ever learned in the light was corruption and fear. Everyone feared something, most feared me. The stench of that fear followed me like a pungent aroma that sent every one around me fleeing... even you! And we both know where fear leads us don't we Skywalker? How can your students and teachers call themselves Jedi if they are consumed by such a weakness? How can you?" Kylo raised his blade high and twisting his wrist he sent the saber cutting X's in front of him. The blade whipped through the tears of the crying sky above them. His arm flipped behind him and he repeated the movements again.

"Now I welcome that fear. I fan it like flames and wield it like a weapon, because we both know the Jedi are a lie. They are founded by lies that were built on more lies!" He took another massive step forward, twisting his wrist with a great speed that caused his lightsaber to burn brightly in a stream of circular light at his side.

It was a familiar show of technique. A more complicated version of the technique that Luke had recently seen in blue.

"Tell me I'm wrong, Skywalker. Tell me!" He ran at his uncle swinging furiously.

Their sabers connected and with amazing speed Kylo quickly rotated his wrist, locking Luke's plasma blade under his, giving him the dominant position over the shorter, older man. He pushed his blade closer and closer. The searing heat and sparks reached for the Jedi's skin. Spitting and hissing in unison with his nephews blinding rage. It pressed over Luke's shoulder and he knew this was it. He fought to keep himself from screaming as the plasma melted into his skin, he wouldn't die screaming and he knew the next strike would lead to his last breath. He'd seen it a thousand times before now. Luke closed his eyes, readying himself for the afterlife and then...

Something light jumped on Ren's massive back, clasping at his arm and shoulder, throwing him off balance and dislodging his lightsaber from the lock he previously had control of. It clung to him with all of it's weight and strength. The small form wasn't much use against Kylo's much larger size and brute strength so he flung it away as though it were no more then a small insect. It flew back, slammed into the ground and was blasted hard with a push of his Force. He felt it smoosh and flatten to the slick rocks beneath it and he smiled darkly.

"Stay out of this girl!" He heard himself call out in a voice that didn't sound like his own.

Something about the word girl cut into his mind. It scratched and raked across his brain painfully but something blocked the receptors that told him what significance the word held for him.

Why was that an important word? He thought for only an instant before he was struck from the side by a wave of Luke's Force. It slammed into him jostling his previous thoughts, bringing him rolling across the ground and mentally back into the fight.

Rey shook her head clear of the pain her body was feeling. Luke needed her and more pressing then that, her Master needed her. He was in trouble. He was not himself. She was too distracted to notice her own recognition of the title she had used for Kylo Ren.

She only knew that something was off. He'd just risked everything to save her life. He'd risked his own life to save her and now he was calling her girl as though she were something disposable. She'd heard his voice in many different ways over the past several months and never had he sounded like that. His words dripped like poison from fangs. She couldn't see his face, couldn't see his eyes but she was betting if she could they wouldn't be that deep brown she loved falling into. The realization surprised her but she didn't have time to linger on it right now. She pealed herself from the ground, took to wobbly legs and reached for his mind with her own just as he went rolling past her.

It was darker then she had ever seen. There was some kind of shadow present. Something that felt foreign in the once familiar space. It clung to his cerebral cortex pumping venomous hate through it's buried fingers. He was a puppet on the strings of something his own power couldn't even touch. It polluted his thoughts, poisoned his mind until he couldn't think straight. She tried blasting it with a push of her Force but it rolled off of the creature just as easily as Ren had tossed her from his back only moments ago. She searched his mind for some information she could use as a weapon, something she could use to her advantage against the seemingly indomitable creature that filled him with evil. There was no other word for it. This was beyond the light and the dark. It was malevolent in it's intent and it was controlling him.

Finally she found something. Something unlikely but not unexpected; It was light. A glittering glowing pool of warmth and... love. He kept it safely tucked away right where the flow of their connection began. Rey didn't hesitate. She mentally dove into it, bathing her mind with it's radiance until she understood the power of her own light. She used his mind to empower her own, once again learning from him on the spot. She pulled at both his light and dark and it mixed with hers. She called all of their strength forward until it mentally rested on her fingertips. Then, she focused on everything and everyone she held dear and sent a concentrated dose of both his and her power into the invading creature that noticed her interjection a fraction to late. Pure golden waves of lightning shot out from her fingertips.

It was so blindingly bright that she had to close her eyes against the scorching light. It blasted into the creature and it's shadowy skin instantly began to evaporate.

Kylo screamed in agony as his body lurched forward. He dropped his lightsaber and his hands dug into the earth beneath him. He twisted in pain as his eyes rolled in his head. He was suffocating while something deadly clawed at his brain. He fell forward and his forehead pressed painfully into the rocks and sand beneath him. His hands pulled at the sides of his head and he squeezed his face between his forearms. His mind pushed her out in a fury. Rey couldn't focus on containing her connection and the assault on the creature at the same time so she flew out with out any resistance. She was panting and gasping while Ren was hunched over in excruciating pain.

Luke stared between the two of them. He almost couldn't process what he'd just witnessed. She was nearly glowing and it wasn't just light that she emitted. She had a twinge of darkness mixed in with her... golden aura?!?
He'd never even seen a golden aura before. He himself was the strongest living user of the light and his was a cool blue. She was the color of solar flares and stars and Ren's darkness encased her glow with the density of space. Luke's face shot back to his groaning nephew.

His aura had visibly changed as well. He was still enveloped by thick blanketing shadows but they seemed more under his control now. They swirled and moved around him rather then the previously consuming form they took only moments before.

Luke blinked in his disbelief. It was unmistakable though. Within Kylo Ren's dark aura of swirling shadows were sparks and flakes of her golden light. Together they spiraled like a living solar system of both light and dark. It was Rey who got up first as she half dragged herself to him. Luke could only observe the pair. He wasn't sure of what had just transpired between them and he still wasn't sure of what would happen next!

She stumbled to her knees before kylo who still cradled his head in his arms but his screams had died down to muffled whimpers. Her hand reached out to him but she hesitated before her skin met his. Her fingers twitched and her breathing hitched in her throat... and then she placed a shaky hand on his trembling arm. It was immediate when he stilled under her touch and the surface of where their skin met, glowed.

It wasn't darkness, it wasn't light. It was something new. Something caught and created in between.

In that moment it was as if lightning had struck the old Jedi where he stood and the passage came back to him all at once;

"First comes the day
Then comes the night.
After the darkness
Shines through the light.
The difference, they say,
Is only made right
By the resolving of the grey
Through refined Jedi sight."

-Journal of the Whills, 7:477

Luke had been such a fool. He had thought to create something impossible. He thought the grey was to be a balance within one Jedi, but now he knew better. There could not be a sustainable balance within just one. His eyes bounced from his nephew to Rey then back again. It was a balance within two; He was born to the light but consumed by the darkness, yet he maintained just enough of that light to accept hers without weakening the integrity of that darkness. She was the light but with just enough of her own darkness to understand and accept the invasion and weight of his engulfing darkness. She allowed it into her light with out fearing it's corruption. She seemed to understand it. She accepted it and seemed to have no desire to destroy it. Her light allowed it to exist within the both of them with out the need to purify. Within their mutual control, it was free to cast beneath her glow like a shadow under a life giving tree.

Their Forces swirled acceptingly around one another. They mingled and multiplied under the pairs acceptance of each other. When they weren't fighting they molded together. Her light blended into his darkness and vice versa.
Together they became one powerful Force. One swirling torrent of grey energy that looked like the endless Cosmos with all of its burning galaxies encased within.

To think Luke had encouraged her to fight him. To think he'd tried to encourage her to kill him because he was to weak to attack his nephew on his own, and thank the, Maker for that.

What a stupid fool. His inner voice labeled himself.

He thought it was the only way to save her, to keep her from becoming like him. His own fear had blinded him just as easily as it had his father before him. Ben had been correct all along, fear had always been in Luke's way. It had always been a veil that Luke couldn't see through.

After all of these years of searching, now he could see the maker's glorious hand in the Force and he felt as though he were witnessing creation as it was in the beginning.

...And he'd almost destroyed Rey and his nephew. His nephew who he now know could be saved. His nephew who had never fully been corrupt, but was clearly not always in control either. Tears almost stung at Luke's eyes but he held them back for another time. He'd been selfish long enough. This was not about him anymore.

Fire and ice and electricity ran through her hands when Rey touched him. Kylo's head quickly lifted when her fingers skimmed his cheek. Her hand fell over the same space his father's had once held. His core shook and he felt it crashing down in him all at once. He recognized her. He knew who she was. She was the girl that had been stolen away from him all those years ago. It was her all along and he couldn't imagine how he didn't see it before the illuminating vision they shared only a few moments ago. He'd been so blind to everything. So lost in his grandfather's mission and his own guilt over the past that he shut every previous thought and memory of her out of his head to focus on the things that everyone else demanded from him, but she never truly left him and he knew now, that he'd never really left her either.

He searched her nervous face for anything that hinted towards the recognition that he found in her. There was none. She was scared of him. Scared of how close she was to him. Scared of how vulnerable she was around him. He moved to his knees and she flinched back. Her hands pulled away from the two points of skin she had previously held to comfort him, and his soul fractured as she pulled away.

He felt it like a blade to his chest. She only knew him as the patricidal murderer. The villain and enemy to her friends and her cause. He was no longer capable of holding his emotions back and they came flooding to the surface. His eyes filled with the tears he'd held back since his youth. His face dropped and his shoulders slouched under the weight of the universe and every hardship he had ever placed upon his back. Kylo Ren, Master of the Knights of Ren, and apprentice to Lord Snoke, broke before the woman who was once the girl he loved.

He humbly kneeled before her. His knees sunk in the muddied earth beneath him. His arms hung weightless at his sides and his chin fell to his chest as he barely balanced on the pads of his feet. He finally had her back and still she was gone. Kylo felt the weight of the one loss that he couldn't carry. The one loss that he couldn't cope with internally or lash out against in his fury. It pressed him down with such force that it buried him alive until finally, he let go... Finally and silently, he cried.

Rey was overwhelmed. She felt such a pain through their connection. Such an unfathomable sadness and sense of loss. She had to touch him again. She had to comfort him. She didn't care about his past any longer. His demons where his own and she couldn't judge him for them.

Breaking before her was not the man that chased her down or hurt her friends. It was the boy from the memory of his vision. The one who went to great extremes to protect two young girls that he cared for. The one who took the weight of the situation upon himself to protect those two and probably others there after, because he would rather carry that burden on his own then subject anyone else to it. The one who had come to her aid time and time again after she had offered him nothing in return but hate and anger. She wrapped her scrapped and bloodied arms around his trembling form and she held him.

Kylo Ren rocked back on his heels to catch himself from falling when her arms suddenly wrapped around him. Her hands clasped his shoulder blades and his world stood still. He still kneeled in the puddling sand and mud but he felt as though he were soaring somewhere high out of reach from the rest of the world. His arms stayed at his sides and he dared not to move for a long time, unwilling to risk her freeing him from the bounds of her arms.

Regardless of wether she knew him or not, this was still his Kira. This was still the same warm hearted little girl that he remembered. No, not the little girl. This was a grown up version. A new and improved version if there could be such a thing. She was strong and capable. She had defended herself all alone for years before he'd found her again. She had thrived on her own while he sat in the consuming darkness.

No she was not the same, but neither was he.

"It's ok Ren, you didn't hurt him." Her words were soft, comforting, but sorely misguided.

"Luke is all right. You didn't kill him." She added trying to lesson the loss that was drowning the both of them.

His face lifted to hers. His eyes searched the sympathizing pools of her hazel depths.

She was so innocent. So good.

And she thought he was in turmoil over his uncle because she knew deep down how regretful he felt about killing his father. But he was too selfish to break over that. He would have bore that guilt and weight until the day he died before he would ever let something like this reaction transpire over it. Like everything he did since the day he found her, even before he knew who she was, this was about her and she was so ignorant in her innocence that she had not even an inkling about it.

Ren straightened his spine, pushing himself forward on his toes again. Frightened and unsure of his motives, Rey pulled away. Kylo's eyes moved to his uncle who was still staring at them in a dumbfounded manner. He wondered how much his uncle, if at all, had told her about who she was.

Using his knees to push himself up, he climbed to his feet. He wiped the mixture of tears and rain away on the back of his bicep then pulled his palms down his face to clear away any remaining hints of his breakdown and just like that, again he was the hardened warrior that every one expected him to be. His left hand reached out and within only seconds, his lightsaber flew into his palm. His fingers closed around it and Rey flew back on her heels. Her hands barely stopping herself from falling onto the slick ground beneath her. He ignored her response, unable to handle any more of his own weakness where she was concerned.

His eyes never left his uncle while he clipped the saber to his waistline. He looked as if at any moment he would change his mind and cut the man down. His left arm extended and his hand reached out again but nothing flew into it this time, leaving Rey briefly eyeing him curiously.

Then he sent his right hand reaching out in a different direction. He reached down to Rey, offering her his assistance. She was reluctant at first, her eyes flying between Kylo and the focus of his heated gaze, Luke until finally she reached out and his hand closed around hers. Heat shot through her as he pulled her closer to him, lifting her easily from the ground so she could stand on her feet again. The second she was steadied Rey promptly tried to pull her hand away but he caught and kept it in his grip, holding her steadfast. Locking her in close range and increase her unease at his nearness.

Then he was gazing intensely at her. His heated eyes bore into her and she froze under his stare like a frightened animal captured by a predator. Rey's panicked eyes searched Ren's intense irises and she jumped when his grandfather's lightsaber smacked into his still opened left palm. His fingers didn't close around the hilt however. Instead he upturned her palm and he placed it into her hand before closings her fingers around it and cupping her hand in both of his.

"This belongs to you now." His voice sunk deep into her brain and for some unknown reason, her heart fluttered.

His large, warm hands released her. His gloved fingers dragged over her skin like the rain that cascaded down their bodies. Their leather clad tips ran down her knuckles and skimmed over her fingers as they fell away, releasing her hand to the cool night air around them. His brightly glowing eyes stared down at her in the dark and she swore she could see tiny flakes of gold swimming around in the endless brown pools. Her breath caught in her throat and she could do no more then stare at him.

Finally she pulled the lightsaber to her body and acceptingly clutched it to her chest just above her heart, and Ren gave her a weak half smile. That was all it took to make her knees weak and her breath explode out from behind her now parted lips. With out another word, Kylo Ren turned and walked away from the two gaping sets of eyes that followed his unarmored back into the darkness.

~ I hope it's not overbearing for me to say this as the writer.... but omg I think I am in love with this chapter! Please, please, please let me know what you think! I have big plans ahead and I really hope you guys are liking it.
                     *Hey guys n' gals thanks for reading! Please comment and ⭐️ if you liked it. *
                            -DarkGuardian-