When Light Meets Dark - A Reylo Romance

Epicinium

A few people stood up and left. The rest stayed to comfort their friends and family, or just to sit and stare at the coffins. I waited for a while, and then got up and left as well. I couldn't stay there, not when the body of the person I was mourning was halfway across the galaxy.

***

I knocked on Kylo's door. The metal vibrated beneath my knuckles and I tensed, hoping that I hadn't knocked too loudly. I received no response, but I could sense his presence within the room and so I pressed the button outside the door and let myself in.

When I entered my eyes quickly scanned the room. The bed was made and everything else was immaculate, as if the room hadn't even been used. I'd expected to find him sitting on the bed, or looking out of the window, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Then, I spotted his boots sticking out from the other side of the bed. I walked over hesitantly, fearing the worst, and found Kylo stretched out on the floor. Immediately I froze, but once I sensed him breathing I relaxed a little. He was lying on his back, fully dressed and staring up at the ceiling. He didn't even look at me when I approached and his eyes were glazed over and distant. His hands lay by his sides and his cloak stretched out beneath him like a dark ocean.

"Kylo?" I said softly. He didn't move a muscle. Then I crouched down beside him and held his hand. It was cold and limp. "You need to eat something." I said, watching as his chest heaved up and down slowly, laboriously. His eyes swivelled to the side and he looked at me with an unreadable expression, before turning his gaze back to the ceiling once again.

A minute passed, and all I could do was kneel there and stare at him. There was nothing to say, no words that could describe the pain.

It's going to be okay I whispered softly with The Force.

It's my fault He replied.

I frowned at him trying to understand what he meant. Then he pulled my hand closer and placed it on his forehead. I closed my eyes, and he showed me a conversation he had had. The voice was unmistakably Snoke's and in the memory I could almost sense his fear.

You kill one of mine I kill one of yours.

I knew that Snoke had killed the General, it had been one of the things that the survivors of the Ground Team had reported when we landed. I'd been too dazed to listen properly, but I had heard snippets of their description. Snoke had surprised them in the engine room, gone for the General directly. He'd whispered something to her, before he slit her throat with his lightsaber.

My eyes snapped open and I looked down at Kylo. He was still lying there, clutching my hand to his forehead.

It's not your fault  I said. Snoke knew what The General's death would do to Kylo, that he would blame himself, and be swallowed up by grief and self-loathing. Snoke is a monster I added.

Kylo didn't say anything, and then a single tear slid down his cheek. I watched in horror as another followed, and soon they were streaming down either sides of his face. I pulled his head into my lap and he curled up, his entire body shaking with sobs. Kylo, one of the strongest people I knew, capable of showing the least emotion, was sobbing into my lap. The sight made me want to crumble into pieces. Don't cry Rey, I said to myself. You have to be strong, for him.

And so I held him close as he continued to cry, his face soaking with tears. To see Kylo completely broken like that, made me wonder if all hope was not lost, and filled me with a hatred for Snoke so deep that it ran through my entire being.

I don't know how long we stayed there like that, but when it seemed that there were no more tears left in his body then he just lay there, curled up. I gently pushed a lock of hair out of the way and wiped his face with my sleeve. He had a faraway look in his eyes.