Bonded

Chapter 10: Monsoon

Rey sets her shoes and socks to the side, then rises to take a look around the cave. It's not too deep but tall for its size, the ceiling a couple feet above her head. The earth is relatively firm and the walls are pure rock, uneven, gray slabs of stone.

She walks to the opening, as close as she can get without being sprayed with rain, and takes a seat, curling her right knee into her chest.

Then, she watches. Watches and listens.

Now that she's out of it, the rain seems nice, beautiful even. The sound of it is soothing, steady streams beating down to the earth, interrupted only by low rumbles of thunder and, every now and then, a crack of lightening.

This is her first time being in a thunderstorm like this. She might as well take the opportunity to enjoy it.

Rey gazes quietly out at the rain, her mind wandering over the past few days.

The base here is coming along well. It will be their primary training facility when they're done, where all the new recruits will go. She's been part of the scouting team, surveying the land for several miles, charting the terrain, setting up a perimeter, marking the best spots for lookouts.

The Resistance has been busy. Their numbers are starting to pick up, slowly but surely, so there's a lot to be done. It's been good to be busy. She's needed the distraction, especially since...

She bows her head.

The memory rushes upon her at once— Being in his mind. Being in his arms.

Her throat constricts, and she sets her jaw, taking a deep breath. She focuses on the torrent of rain in front of her, struggling against the tightness in her throat.

Rey hates that this happens every time she thinks about it. And yet she can forgive herself. Because what happened the last time the bond brought them together was a kind of closeness she's never experienced before.

It wasn't like getting in his head on Starkiller. No, this was something very different.

It was as though she wasn't just in his mind... She was in his heart too. His emotions were her emotions. She felt all of it— the agony, the anguish, interminable guilt eating at him, diminishing him a little more every day.

And self-hatred. That was the worst part.

He despises himself for what he did. He's utterly sick with self-loathing. There's a part of him that hates everything he's become.

Rey takes a breath, then sighs it out slowly. She tucks both knees into her chest as she gazes into the rain, not really seeing it.

She's known that Ben Solo is still in there. She just didn't know how much of him is still in there. Now she knows.

And she's shocked yet not shocked at the same time.

She lifts a thumb up to her lower lip, grazing it.

She's been thinking about it a lot lately, him, the bond, what she saw in his mind. And she's been thinking about what she saw when she touched his hand on Ahch-To.

She'd avoided thinking about it since Crait. She'd been so stunned by how it all turned out— the Supremacy, the throne room. She's still certain of what she saw, but the reality that played out before her eyes was nothing like it, a spectacular mess ... What went wrong?

She failed. Or he failed. Either way, the vision she'd seen would not come to pass. Perhaps she didn't have the skill to understand it. Or perhaps it was just a trick from Snoke to lure her. After watching it all fall apart, she tried not to think about it.