He felt them before he saw them. He felt the panic, the regret... the shame. Then he saw the dreams. Her dreams. She stood before Luke Skywalker, the old man asked her if she was happy with herself. He asked her why she didn't resist it. But she couldn't respond. Her mouth wouldn't move, her lips wouldn't part. She could only fall to her knees and cry as others gathered around her. Leia and Han. The three of them stood before her, asking her why she did it. Why did she run from the light, why did the dark lure her in? How could she be seduced so easily? She could still come back. He's gone, one voice said. He's not worth saving, another said. Come home. She couldn't defend herself, she couldn't respond. She could only cry.

These weren't dreams. They were actually there, in her head. They were reaching out to her, calling her back to them. They were taking her away from him.

He felt her body shaking, her felt her heart pounding, he felt her mind swell with confusion and anger. Like thunder rumbling through a canyon. The feels echoed through her body into his. He shared her pain. He felt the shame, the regret, the panic.

His eyes flung open, finally he could escape Rey's mind. Rey wasn't in the bed, she was standing above him. He breathed heavily, he couldn't explain why but he was afraid. Her cheeks were stained with tears, her eyes were red and puffy, her hands were balled into fists beside her. She didn't say a word. But her body shook as she looked at him. She looked disgusted, betrayed. She left her family in the Resistance for what? For him? What an awful trade, he thought.

The intensity of her eyes did not waver, he was pinned to the wall, unable to speak to her ferocious glare. The glare that broke his heart. He didn't know why but his chest tightened and his body went cold. The moment either lasted for an eternity or a second, he couldn't tell which. He was trapped in a moment with no time. A moment where nothing existed but Rey and her anger, all directed into him.

"Rey..." his voice was pathetic, shaky and unsure.

She didn't respond. She only cried.

What was she doing here, why did she agree to this. What were they even doing? What did she think would happen by taking his hand in Snokes chamber. Leia and Luke and Han were right. She needed to return to the Resistance. He couldn't be saved. The darkness enveloped him more everyday, and if she wasn't careful it would infect her.

She couldn't save him. She wasn't strong enough. She couldn't even resist him.

She finally shut her eyes and more tears slipped down her cheeks. She could no longer look at his terrified face. She could no longer break him apart with her stare.

She left the room. She went into the bridge and sat in the pilots chair. The only thing that comforted her now was the stars before her. Endless and constantly expanding. She heard him sigh from the other room.

She knew he was watching her dreams. She knew he could see them all telling her to come back.

She felt so alone. A girl, lost and confused and angry among the stars. A girl who couldn't even trust herself to make the right decision. She should have said no. She should have killed him in those chambers. Or else he would haunt her the rest of her days. She knew that to be true. There was no escaping Ben Solo. There was no cutting this sting that tied their fingers to one another, and their souls. She was trapped here.

—

That morning she left. They landed on the planet and she packed her bag. She stared at the saber that sat next to her bag. She left it. Ben called at her, asking her where she was going. She didn't answer. She didn't want to talk to him. She made a mistake coming with him.

The town was busy and full of people of all kinds. She noticed people who looked like they have enough money to own this town, and people who begged for a single unit to the passerby's. She looked regretfully at the beggars. She had no money to spare, no money at all.

Her first stop was a small market. She hated doing it but stealing was not a new thing to her. Back on Jakku she had to steal sometimes to stay alive. She didn't take much, only what she would need for the day: a loaf of bread, some fruit. The shopkeeper didn't notice, it was too early in the morning for the keeper to be fully awake.

Her next stop was to find a ship she could stow away on.  Or perhaps a ship that would take her somewhere in exchange for manual labor. She needed to get off the same planet as him.

He watched her walk into the unknown town. Trudging through the trees they landed in, determined to get away from him.

Thinking she would agree to running away with him was pathetic. He knew she had the intention to turn him from the very beginning. He sensed it in her the moment she said yes. But he didn't care what her intentions were he just needed to be with her. He couldn't control that urge.

He did want to rule the Galaxy with her. But before that, he needed to gain her trust. That's why he chose to leave the first order and go far away with her. They would train and learn to trust one another. He could convince her to rise to power with him. They could let go of the past and everything that hurt them. She could forget her parents, Jakku, Han, Luke, Leia, the traitor, the Millennium Falcon. She had to let go of it all to move forwards.

But that dream proved she can not simply let it go like he had. And that inability to let go was what would drive them apart, as it was now. He was going lose her to it.

But the connection he felt. It was like she was the other half of his soul he didn't know he was missing. Or like his heart was filled with so much anger, and somehow she replaced that anger with her laugh. How could she abandon that bond? He couldn't. That intensity they felt when they touched hands, it was unworldly. It was the most powerful thing he has every felt. Powerful enough to overcome anything, even this. She could leave him, but she would never be gone. She would come back. He had to hold onto that, she had to come back.

She had found nothing in the last few hours. Nothing but unfriendly people and dirt. The jungle was lush around her but the town was dirty, she felt more unclean now than she did in all her years on Jakku. She found herself becoming more anxious and upset with every swat at a bug landing on her plump skin.

She could not forget her dream. Or maybe she would not. She had been so foolish and weak to be seduced to agree to this. She didn't want to rule the Galaxy, she didn't want to take over the First Order. She didn't even want to create a new order. She just wanted to bring Ben back to his mother, back to the light. This was not how she was going to bring him back.

"Young girl?" A voice croaked from behind her. She turned to find the owner. An older man, a black hood over his head, salt and pepper hair with wrinkles dragging his face down. His back hunched like he had been in an accident.

"Oh, hello." She put up a fake smile, keeping her distance,

"Do you have shelter?" He asked,

"I'm sorry, what?" She asked at the blizzard question, shelter for who, him?

"There's a storm coming, you shouldn't be out here long." He waved his hand to the clear, blue sky,

"Is that so?" She asked, furrowing her brows.

He smiled and nodded, using a wooden cane to walk away from her confusion.

"Don't pay no mind to him." A middle aged shop keeper assured,

"Is there a storm?" She asked, approaching the woman,

"Doubtful. Old John likes to walk around and tell fairytales and far fetched predictions." Rey smiled, "But it would be wise to find a place to rest soon, once the mine workers come back things can get pretty rowdy on the streets."

Rey thanked her and went on her way. She was much too far away from the ship and too determined to turn around. If either of them were right, she needed to find somewhere to rest.

Ben saw the walls shake before he heard them. The storm came suddenly and unrelentingly. Like Rey's awakening. He came to the bridge, looking up at the sky and at the trees as they struggled to hang on to the earth. The wind vortex was all around, blowing sideways, skyward, downward. The rain followed that same path. Soaking the earth so quickly it flooded a few inches in the first ten minutes.

Rey.

He pressed the ramp release, the door began to open but he quickly realized he couldn't even get outside. Water washed across his face and into the shuttle. He couldn't go out there. His heart started to pound, falling into rhythm of the banging on the shuttles exterior from the stress and rain.

He ran to the helm, maybe he could take off and look for her. Maybe if he could just get airborne he could find her. She surely was out there alone, in the storm.

The screen in front of him flashed in his face,
Unable to take off.

Unable to take off.

Unable to take off...

"Dammit!" He screamed, cracking the screen with his fist.

He couldn't get to her. Not on foot, not from the shuttle. He couldn't help her. He was trapped here. Wasn't he?

He sat down on the floor, his head in his hands. He breathed deeply, letting his chest full with air and then fall. His lungs filled with quiet and exhaled the anger, stress and panic. He shut his mind off from everything but one thing. He reached out,

Rey

Rey

Rey

She hasn't noticed she had been walking for hours. She had already eaten the stolen fruit and almost all of the bread. She tried stopping and sitting but someone always shooed her away speaking in a tongue she had no mastered. She has yet to find a friendly pilot. She has tried talking to at least three but they all laughed at her offer. A free ride to wherever they were going for labor... from a woman. Maybe if she was a man, finding a ride would be easier.

She was tired of walking, tired of rejection from every stranger in this town. Last time she was here it seemed way nicer of a place, back then it seemed beautiful. But that was before the First Order landed here and attacked. It was when Han Solo was with her, with the Millennium Falcon and Chewy. The memory was fond, landing here with him to find his friend, Maz. But since then it has been tainted. The memory of Han Solo destroyed. Maybe the First Order destroyed this towns resilience too.

She was too trapped in her mind to see the three men approach her. They were dirty and greedy with their eyes. One grabbed her wrist, the other her shoulder, the third spoke,

"Where you thinkin you're goin?"

"Ah-Hmf- what?!" She tugged at their grasp on her, struggling to get free,

"I said, where you think..."

"I heard you!" She screamed, "Let go of me!"

She looked around her surroundings to see why no one was helping. But the sky was orange and the sun was setting. The people were all gone home.

One mans hand glided down her sides, touching every inch of her body, greedily,

"No weapons... I like that." He said dangerously close to her face. His breath was swimming in alcohol. She recoiled and tried to kick him, screaming. 

"Let me go!"

Her mimd became more fuzzy every moment the men had their hands on her. She could hardly see them through her eyes. She was filling with anger like boiling water, swelling inside of her.

"Now I cant just let's a pretty lady like yous wander all alone."

The other two filthy men laughed. Disgusting. She kept struggling against them, yelling foul words at them,

"Feisty aint ya..."

The sky rumbled, and then split in half with light.

"Naw, shit." The third one said.

"We better get inside Tella," the one holding her wrist said,

"It would be wrong to leave this lady in the rains." He smiled a disgusting, toothless smile.

As the sky opened and poorer relentlessly on them, they hauled her into a nearby building. She tried to put her feet up and stop going into the doorway, but the third one-Tella, slapped her.

She was thrown to the ground of the musty, concrete floor. That was there mistake. She jumped to her feet and collected all the anger in her veins. Her anger at Ben, her anger at her choices, her anger at the attackers, and her fear. Her fear, her strongest emotion. She gathered that too.

She held her hand out ferociously, they three looked like they would laugh. But before they could she had lifted the leader into the air,

"H-Hey! Put me down! I saids put me..."

She heard a crack as she tossed him against the wall.

"What-What are you lady?" The other two shook in terror as she approached them. They raised their hands up, pathetically.

"S-She's a Jedi mate!" The other shrieked,

"That can't— ahhgn!"

They screamed as she shoved them aside into their limp friend. She stood before them and raised her hand again, one of them was raised to his feet... and then off the ground. He grasped at his throat,

"Please!" The one of the ground called, "Please! My brother! Please!"

Her eyes went through him like daggers, the mans face turned purple and eventually he stopped struggling. She let him fall to the ground on top of the other men.

"You're no Jedi! I️ thought the Sith were extinct!" The man cried over his friends' bodies.

She flung the door open and stepped into the rain.

She fell to her knees. Her head pounded, or was it her heart, or both. Her whole body shook. She had never felt that kind of hatred, and that kind of anger. She felt tears fall from her eyes, mixing with the rain stinging her back. That power had never coursed through her body... that anger unlocked it. She cried out of fear, fear of what she just did. Afraid of the power she had when she accessed and manipulated the anger.

Just like the training with Luke, she couldn't resist the darkness. It gave her something she needed, power. And she abused that. She couldn't do this on her own... she was so scared. She didn't want to go down that path, she didn't want to feel like that anymore. It wasn't right, it wasn't natural, it wasn't good. It was clouded in rage and anger, she was blinded by it. She never wanted to access that again.

Rey...Rey...Rey!