The next night, Ren and Rey met in her room. Both stood on opposite sides, making their way over to each other. They both stopped halfway, thinking a reasonable amount of space may be good (though they didn't talk about this).
Rey kept her head down, suddenly feeling so anxious to be around Ren. It was like she was afraid to look at him in the eyes. Not that she was afraid of him. She never had been. Sure, he had given her more than enough reasons to be so, even more to not trust him, to not give him the time of day—but that was another story.
Right now, she had jitters to be in a personal proximity with anyone, especially him at the moment. Funny to think that these feelings came after she discovered this intimate connection she shared with the one person she once would rather kill than share deep, sacred thoughts with.
Rey was all bubbly inside and she couldn't understand why. Her stomach was in knots and her chest was an inflated balloon. She drew in long, heavy breaths through her nostrils knowing he heard her just a few feet away from her. Eventually, her eyes fluttered, trying to sneak a peek at him through the loose, thin strands of hair cascading down her forehead.
Rey wiped a hand at the back of her neck, feeling tiny droplets of sweat tricking down her hot skin. She did her best to continue to secretly swat the incoming sweat dripping down from her neck in panic.
Rey was just outside a moment ago, doing some training with Finn who offered her to teach her some new tricks around a blaster when he noticed her boredom. She now regretted the decision after she took just one sniff of the thick, repulsive odor radiating off of her body. Being from a desert planet and all, she's used to obscene body-odors and uncontrollable sweat. She's been to the point where she hasn't bathed in weeks and she thought she'd suffocate to the smell of bacteria eating away at the sweat and dying skin cells.
So now, Rey worried he would feel the same way. She feared that he would smell the awful stench. In these conversations he had with her, Rey barely wondered if could even smell the same scents she did. She couldn't recount being able to do it on his end either.
Eventually, the awkward silence became so deafening that Rey decided to make the first move and greet him with a casual, "Hi."
"Hi," he replied back, not knowing what else to say other than that.
Rey sensed something off from his end. She felt a sadness radiating off from his end. She saw it in the way he stood—his head down, arms dropped at his sides and his back arched. He looked tired and uncomfortable. Maybe he was just like that being around her but she knew this had to do more with being restless. Maybe he's not getting enough sleep? Maybe another nightmare?
"What's wrong?"
"Just another nightmare," he murmured, shrugging his shoulders slowly wishing the effects didn't show too much on him. Though since its Rey and all, of course she'd be able to piece it together.
"Spill."
Ren rolled his eyes, expecting nothing less than for her to pressure him into talking. And because Ren didn't feel like arguing after the nightmare he went through, he'd rather just. . .talk about it. . .with her.
Rey and Ren found themselves siting on her cot again when he just eased himself into it. "I was back at the Jedi academy, reliving the worst part of it," he paused, running a hand through his ruffled hair. "Pfft, the whole experience was the worst part. Ever since I got there. . ."
Rey lifted a brow in curiosity, not expecting for him to have a nightmare about that. On the other hand, she was kinda glad the subject moved away from her and his father like she was expecting to hear. Rey just couldn't quite understand how because of one night, his feelings were influenced for his whole childhood experience.
Yes, he may have been betrayed by his uncle whom tired to killed him and that itself could lead to his trauma. But there was more to his childhood before that one life-defining moment. That was what she wanted to figure out.
"How bad could it've been?" she wondered. "You got to learn the ways of the Jedi. You got to learn how to properly use the Force."
"You think I'm lucky," he said more as a question. "Please, you're too much of a Youngling to these things."
Once again he calls me one of those names. Padawan. Youngling. What do they mean? Maybe they have to do with being a Jedi?
"I don't know if that's an insult?"
He intertwined his hands together and shrugged. "Only if you take it the wrong way."
Rey rolled her eyes and made a hand motion to let him know he could continue.
Ren looked at her as if he weren't serious about what he was talking about. He knew more about the Jedi than her. She didn't have the place to question his judgement. "Everyday at the academy, training to be a part of the Jedi. . .it wasn't all some memorable experience you were exactly enthusiastic to share with your future children," he explained, before he let out a scoff. "As if you could have children of your own to tell those stories to."
Rey blinked, not quite catching that last part. "What do you mean?"
Ren hunched forward, staring off into a spot on the ground. "Jedi are forbidden to marry," he broke it to her, "forbidden to have children as well."
Confused, Rey shook her head. "Why?"
"They're forbidden to have any. . ." Ren paused, gazing into her hazel eyes he's seen many times before, but this time they're a tint of green that reflected her curiosity growing. ". . .attachments. Families. Friends. Possessions. We give up everything that makes us individuals to be a guardian of peace and justice."
"Well," Rey said, shaking her head, "that's absurd."
He shrugged again and averted his gaze from her eyes back to the ground. "I believe that's what my grandfather thought as well when he married my grandmother."
For a short moment, Rey rehashed her memories about her childhood. Yet, there was so much downfall that she simply wished for a better one. To have a better experience at life. She wished for a family—which Ben had. She wished for someone to care about her—which Ben had. She wished she could have had a better home, a better life, at least an opportunity at doing something greater than herself. The chance to be a part of who she was meant to be. Unlike Ben, she will never get to prove her true identity amongst the Jedi race. She never got to learn about them expect from what she was told or read about from Skywalker's journals. That was something she hadn't yet stumbled upon.
"So was that why training to be a Jedi was so. . .horrible?" she finally asked, biting down her anger as she pushes back those thoughts. "Knowing you can't have. . .any attachments."
"Well, you see, I already had my source of attachment," he told her. "For so long I've carried the pain of being abandoned by my parents—"
"They didn't abandon you—"
"You don't know everything that happened." Ren snapped. "You think you do. . .but you don't."
Rey flinched when Ren raised his voice in a stern, cold manner. She was used to hearing this tone from him, but it always—not necessarily frightened her—but hurt her in another sense when he used it. She reframed from him having to use that tone when she decided to go deeper on his words. What he meant by 'everything that happened' as if there was more than that night that Luke was about to murder him. The night an uncle gave up on his nephew because of his darkness. The same night that Kylo Ren was created.
Ren stood up, walking around the cot like he owned the place. All Rey could do was remain quiet and wait for him continue. To give him the space he needed for him to go on explaining. "My parents thought for me to become a great Jedi knight like my uncle and his father before him," he said, placing a hand on his lightsaber in the holder. "I had to close off all attachments with them."
"Maybe they only thought they were only doing what was best for you," Rey suggested, knowing it wasn't her place to defend his parents. Still, it was hard to think of the strong, loving people she had the chance to know as heartless parents who would just abandon their son.
"Our minds are more alike than you perceive," he noted, pacing back and forth around the room. "I thought the same thing as I watched them leave me with that piece of junk my father called a ship. But the point is that really, they left me at that academy with my hermit of an uncle to fulfill some family legacy in which I never asked for." Ren turned around, each step with his foot in front of the other. "They never visited me. They never contacted me. They broke all ties!"
Rey watched Ren clutch his lightsaber in his hand without taking it out. She watched his feet walk one after the other. She sensed the anger and disappointment behind his voice, deep in his mind. It had always been there, knowing it was the same emotions when she sensed it in him the first time. It was a fire that's always burned, but yet it was lit as small as a candle.
He was also always bad at suppressing that anger. Well, anger in general. But there was a reason that anger triggered him at this moment. "Why are you telling me this?"
"You asked—"
"Not about your worst memories about your past," Rey said, "but about Jedi forbidden to have attachments."
Ren stopped in place, turning to face her direction. "He didn't tell you?" he asked, then he chuckled. "I would've thought you'd knew if you are so passionate to be a part of the people that believe in what and I quote to be, 'Absurd'."
Rey stood up, cocking her head to the side suspiciously. "Is that really why you wanted to tell me that?" she asked, sensing he's wrong even without using their bond. "You know I can sense you're hiding something from me."
Ren dropped the hand that clutched the end of his lightsaber. "Maybe I just want to shield you from the worst of it."
"Of becoming a Jedi?" she questioned, seeing how he sounded like he may actually be concerned for her. She stepped forward, crossing her arms over her chest.
"It's not all that fun as it turns out to be."
She stuck out a hip and tapped a foot on the ground. Now it really seemed he was concerned about her. Well, he didn't have to be. I've watched myself for most of my life and I don't need him to hang over me just because I may be this is a little over my head. "Then let me find that out on my own."
"Oh, scavenger—"
"Don't scavenger me," she cut him off, being the one to raise her voice this time. "Why do you feel like you have to shield me from my purpose?"
"There are just some things. . .we cannot explain," he told her. "Like this Force bond for instance."
"No, this connection, it's the Force which I'll have to do research thanks to your uncle's journals and the testaments he left. I might be able to figure it out," she said, feeling her blood pumping. "You, on the other hand, you can explain what you feel."
He raises a brow, locking his hands together behind his back. "Is that so?" he tempted her, this tone familiar to Rey from their other past conversations. Back when she hated his guts and couldn't bare the sight of him.
"Yes, and you do that by using something called words."
He took a step forward. "Maybe I'm done talking."
Rey stepped forward. "Because you're great at doing that!"
Ren defended himself. "I'm great at hiding things!"
"Not from me!"
"Why, because of this Force bond?"
"Tell me, then," Rey said as he took a couple steps closer to Ren. "The truth."
Ren averted his eyes from hers to observe their surroundings. He noticed how close they were compared to just a moment ago. He snapped out of it, though he could really tell how angry Rey was right about now. "Stop," he whispered, taking a step back.
"No," she refused, jabbing her finger at his chest. "Not until you explain why you want to warn me about my birthright! It's as if you want me to rebuke which you've never done until now."
Ren remembered the last time they were this close. Back in the elevator when she tried to convince him to let her help him before they confronted Snoke. He remembered how she wasn't afraid to get into his face like that time as well. To step up to him as if he weren't the threatening General of the Knights of Ren, a part of the First Order, apprentice of Supreme Leader Snoke. No, in her eyes, he was the one and only Ben Solo.
And that scared him. . .that she felt that way about him. That he was reminded of that part of him from the way she said his name, the way he looked at him. It also reminded him what it felt like to be. . .Ben. But he wasn't sure who that person was anymore.
Ren didn't think clearly about what he did next. For once, he allowed his emotions to take over and have his actions explain what his words obviously won't.
He stepped forward, quickly stretching his arm around Rey's back and pulled her into his chest, closing any space that was left between them. He did this, wishing he could have done it before in the elevator. And how he wanted to kiss her, too. . .
With his free hand, Ren pressed his fingers under Rey's chin and tilted her face up to him. Her hazel eyes have never looked so ablaze and unbalanced in their colors of brown and gold and green. The natural glint in those orbs made her look so spectacular. They didn't need any light to glow the way they do. They were light. She was light itself.
And Ren wanted to be a part of that light now more than ever. He tilted his head down, slowly, wary for her as she stared up at him, patiently. Carefully, he lowered his head, feeling the distance between his darkness and her light lessen. He ached for the moment that they touched.
"Maybe I. . ." he found himself saying. Am just trying to keep you safe. . .
That's when a different part of his mind bickered, But who does she need to be safe from?
The First Order?
Or you?
The very next moment, Rey's fingers reached up to his, covering where his fingers gripped her chin, keeping her steady. She took them into hers and removed them from her face. Rey titled her head down and stepped back, but felt Ren's grip still linger.
Ren tried to reframe from this moment, realizing what was happening. He felt his heart shutting down. He felt his stomach twisting into knots. Ren never felt so nauseous or afraid of how she was going to react. He had always felt so calm around her except in this moment, when he took everything he felt for her and laid it bare with something he needed to do.
Then, what truly shattered him, was how she whispered, "I have to go."
"What?" he asked, still in a daze from what he did, what she just did.
"We shouldn't have—" she said, but stopped mid-sentence as she felt his grip on her backside loosen. She broke through, but the ache she felt in her stomach grew. The fluttering feeling in her gut that told her to run. "I have to go."
Rey took another step back.
Ren caught her movement and threw his hand around her wrist.
"No," he told her. "No!"
Rey whipped her head to the side.
Ren didn't mean to raise his voice, unaware of how angry it sounded. He regretted blurting out immediately, noticing her flinch. It was not his intention to scare her after what what he was. . about to do. He was soft one second and the next he lashed out.
He was about to express everything to her, confide in her with a single notion. No more mind tricks, no more defense mechanisms, he wanted to take out his heart for her. . .this nobody girl from some nowhere planet . . .just for her to pull away.
Ren looked at her, the way she looked at him with her bright eyes, but this time, there was fear in them.
Ren's face softened, relaxing himself, steadying himself so he wouldn't scare her away, anymore. "Just. . .just stay here," he said, his voice barely audible as he was so desperate for her not to leave him here as broken as he was. "Just stay with me."
Then, he witnessed a single tear fall down Rey's right eye and it graze down her cheek. For some reason, Ren quickly removed the glove from his hand and pressed it to her cheek, feeling her warm, moist skin and just barely wiped the area under her eye with his thumb.
Rey, feeling his bare fingers against her cheek as if it were the touch of an old friend. But it also shocked her. Electricity. She waited for her heartbeat to slow down as it was trying to catch up with the race that is going on inside her mind. Her body eased into whatever her heart could process. She leaned into his palm effortlessly, allowing herself to relax in him. Rey pushed herself off the wall she built around him for so long only to fall on the other side, right into his comfort.
You opened yourself to the Dark Side for a pair of pretty eyes!
Those words from Skywalker resonated in her mind just then.
And that was when she realized what he was going to do a moment ago. Before she pulled back, afraid and surprised by what he was about to do. In hopes that she'll let him know she didn't mean what she did earlier, she gently lifted her left hand up to Ren's scared face. Out of instinct, he snatched her wrist. She hovered her palm just over the cheek where she marked him. She stared at into eyes for a moment before he eased his grip. Then her fingertip gently traced the length of his scar.
Ren let go of his grip on her wrist so he could use that hand to fix it over hers. His eyes found themselves home in hers. "Tell me. . .tell me that you feel it too," he whispered, feeling electrified just by the rare touch of her skin on his.
Rey dropped her eyes, unable to reply for what seemed forever until she found the words that could prevent anymore emotional damage. A couple more tears came streaming down, and she couldn't help but to let them fall.
"I wish there was no First Order. No Resistance. I wish there were no light or dark. . .no good or evil. . ." Rey's voice came out croaky and from being on edge of breaking down in tears, "but there has to be a balance." Just as she finished, she stepped back, taking her hand with her.
"Then forget it," Ren exclaimed. "Forget it all. What if we, you and I are the balance. We can choose to be. The dark and light together. Balance."
Rey blinked, completely perplexed by what he was telling her just now. Would that work? That the First Order, the Resistance, the light side, the dark side, it all didn't have to have a place with them. With their relationship. Like she just wished. That he and her could actually. . .
"Rey. . ." he begged.
Rey's breath hitched the moment she heard the reverberation of her name. Her eyes met his and he froze under her gaze, wondering what was wrong.
"What?" he asked, confused as she looked as if she had a revaluation of some sort.
It was as if she forgot to breathe, or she were submerged in an ocean of loneliness for so long, that hearing her name come out of his lips—Ben's lips—Rey found her way to the surface. She found an island to swim to, a place meant for her. A place where she belonged. And that didn't necessarily mean that the island amongst her endless ocean was, well, a place at all.
Rey lifted her hand back his cheek, tracing his scar with her fingertips. She took her time to follow the line down his face, gently brushing it, undoubtedly he might stop her again. Up close, she truly saw the work she had done to him back in the forest. "Look what I have done to your face," she whispered.
On that note, Rey didn't want to hurt him anymore. She hoped she didn't have to fight him again like in a dream she had. He was still her enemy, at least, if he didn't choose to be.
If she didn't chose him to be.
Rey felt Ren tense under her touch.
Ren opened his mouth to say something but closed it, not knowing what else to tell her. But then he saw her pulling away again and he yelled, "Wait!"
But then she was gone, and Ren was left with the linger of her touch.