Chapter Text
“I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.”
— Jimmy Dean
I’ll come back for you sweetheart, I promise!”
The voice surrounded Rey, filling her ears. It kept getting louder and louder with every word — the words of an empty promise.
She was back on Jakku, watching the ship her parents fled in while Plutt held her arm, preventing her from chasing them. She had screamed, she had thrashed — she did everything But even if she did manage to escape Unkar’s hold, she knew it would be useless. They weren’t coming back for her. They didn’t care about her.
No one did.
Rey woke up with a jolt, only to find an arm curled around her waist, keeping her from moving any further in her bed. She turned her head to see a set of black curls resting where the curve of her neck met her shoulder, a steady, hot breath leaving a mark on her skin.
Kylo Ren.
Rey moved her head back into the position she woke up from, trying not to wake him as she snuck her hand between her cheek and the pillow to muffle any sort of sound. But once she had, Kylo had already stirred awake.
He adjusted the way his arm was positioned around her waist, not completely letting go but making sure the hold was comfortable and light enough. His head moved as well, his chin now resting on her shoulder. Rey did nothing to oppose this new way he held her, too afraid to know what would happen if she did.
They laid there in silence for what was most likely minutes but felt like hours, neither one willing to break the sudden comfort each of them gained from the experience. She could hear his quiet yet heavy breathing in her ear, which was surprisingly soothing to her in a way that it almost made her eyes flutter close and let sleep claim her once more if Kylo hadn’t broken the silence.
“You still have nightmares?” He asked, his voice as quiet as a whisper with a tint of curiosity.
Rey drew her lips into a line. She knew what he really meant to say but instead chose the simpler form of the question. Do you still have the same nightmare?
Ever since she was left on Jakku, she would always have the same dream over and over again claiming her parents were going to come back. She would always here the same words spoken by a man who called her sweetheart, and the same gentle arms of a woman who could be her mother. These dreams held no solace, no comfort that could be gained by the two people that left her on the desert wasteland of Jakku to live on her own for several years of her life.
It was the same dream every night, a constant reminder that she never knew the truth of what actually happened. She had always thought if she actually knew what really happened that day, the nightmares would go away. But even after the events on the Supremacy where the supposed truth was revealed, the voices continued to haunt her at night. They were getting so bad that sometimes Rey refused to sleep at night — to instead lie awake in bed staring at the ceiling in hopes that she would one day sleep a dreamless night.
“I still see them,” she whispered her answer. “Every night I still hear their voices.”
The arm around her waist tightened slightly, as if it was meant to give her contentment. Her back was placed against his chest, and she could hear the sound of his heartbeat, almost aligning with her own.
“How long have you been here?” She asked him, changing the subject.
“I’m not sure, a couple of hours maybe,” He replied, his voice edged with sleep. “You were here when I woke a few hours earlier. I didn’t want to wake you — you seemed peaceful.”
“This is the longest one so far,” she realized, trying her best to ignore his last statement.
This wasn’t the first time Rey and Kylo were connected while they were both in bed. The first time actually happened three months ago, when Rey woke up to find a pair of brown eyes staring at her. She immediately started lashing out, her self defensive side of herself quickly taking over her actions. The connection then snapped shut at that moment, leaving Rey completely alone in her bed.
The next time it happened, Kylo had been ready and before she could punch him, quickly catching the swing and pinning her down to the bed where she could no longer fight against him. When she had come to her senses and stopped resisting his hold on her and her wrists, he chose to let her go and left the room abruptly and without a word, shutting the connection close.
The Force constantly connected them during the night cycles, each encounter leaving them both at a loss of sleep. They eventually came to an agreement: they would split the bed so they could no longer bother each other, physically or verbally. They would try their best not to wake the other, and they could not cross the imaginary boundary line that divides the bed.
Of course, some rules were made to be broken.
Kylo was the first to reach out. Rey had woken up one night to find an unconscious Kylo Ren grasping her hand tightly, as if it was intentional. She didn’t have the strength to move it, nor did she want to. It almost felt like the moment where they touched hands for the first time on Ach-To. It felt nice, gentle even.
After that night they let themselves move closer to each other, each touch becoming more and more consuming. They both knew it wasn’t supposed to be a sign of compassion or kindness, just a means of giving the Force what it wants and satisfying their own needs and urges.
They barely talked, but when they did there was an unspoken promise to not discuss the war and current conflicts that made them enemies. If they were to bring it up, it would only ruin the only time where the conflict didn’t affect them. It was only during the morning hours did they have the occasional fight about politics and ethics.
“Why does it matter to you? How long each visit lasts?”
Rey sighed. “Whatever this is, this connection, it’s going to go away at some point. It should’ve disappeared when Snoke died since he was the creator. But every time we connect it keeps getting longer—“
“Have you ever considered it won’t go away?”
His question was only met by silence.
Rey had tried to build up her mental shields when she felt him reach for her mind for a more forceful way of getting an answer, but it was useless. His hand was already near the side of her temple, searching.
“You have,” he realized. Though his probe had found what he was initially looking for, he dug deeper, analyzing every memory and every thought sitting in Rey’s mind. “You just don’t want to believe it. You know the truth but you hide it away. Why is that?”
“Because sometimes the truth isn’t exactly what you are looking for,” she sneered, pushing him out of her mind with a clear yank.
His grip on her faltered and with that, she was able to sit up, the sheets still covering her lower torso. He followed suit, getting up to lean against the headboard.
He wore no tunic, his bare chest exposed. After a while, Rey had gotten used to this figuring it would be useless yelling at him every time to put a shirt on all the times he would show up next to her naked from the waste up.
His muscular form was well built, and you could tell that even without the Force he could put up a good fight and still come out of it victorious. But what told the real story were his scars, not just the one she gave him.
Each scar came from a different place and time. Sometimes Rey would ask about them, and others she would just stare at them, wondering how much it hurt not just from a physical but a mental point of view as well. Most of them were from various battles at different locations, and others were from training exercises that went far past a sparring level. The one that interested Rey though was the large, rigid one on his back.
She could sometimes feel the pain that radiates off of it in their bond, even though the scar is far from new. It almost looked like the aftermath of the slice of a lightsaber to the back, but for some reason, it didn’t feel like that kind of mark.
Kylo had told her Snoke had given it to him as a lesson, but for what reason he didn’t tell her. He instead wanted to move onto a different topic. Rey never understood why even after killing the former Supreme Leader, he still believes in his methods, even though they caused him a great deal of pain. Rey had felt it once through a projection of his memories, how his skin burned from sudden flares of heat and how his heart almost stopped with a snap of fingers. He went through so much, and yet he still believes that the pain was needed in order to become something more than just a child in a mask.
But he was no longer a child.
When he turned his head to face her, she couldn’t see the remnant of a boy Leia and Han once knew. She could only see the eyes of a broken man trying to hold the face of a monster.
“You still don’t believe me,” he murmured. It was more of a statement than it was a question. “You still think what I told you on the Supremacy was a lie.”
Rey looked down, trying to think of a way to answer this. “You were trying to make me vulnerable,” she claimed with as much confidence she could muster. “So I would join you. So I would have someone like you to comfort me.”
“I didn’t lie, Rey.”
Rey scoffed. “It would’ve been so easy though. That in that situation I would’ve been so weak that I actually believed you, that you may have been telling the truth.”
“Manipulation wasn’t my motive in that situation. I only told you what you wanted to hear, and not one word I said was a lie. You know that, you always have. I didn’t mean to weaken you, only give you the truth.”
“Then why isn’t it enough !”
The raise of her voice startled Kylo, causing him to move back a bit in the bed. Rey only looked away, embarrassed. She brought a hand to her cheek and realized tears were falling from her eyes.
Why isn’t it enough? Her mind kept asking her, him — anyone with an answer. Why isn’t it enough for me to believe? Why isn’t it enough for these voices to just go away!
Arms enclosed her waist from behind her, tugging her close to the figure behind her. She didn’t try to chase them away, to chase his compassion for her away. She allowed the weakness take over her as she felt her back being pressed again his body, holding her tightly to him.
She needed to be held by someone right now, to belong and to feel loved by anyone — even Kylo Ren.
“You’re not alone in this,” he whispered to her, his breath hot on her ear as he spoke. “I know what it’s like to feel abandoned, to feel lost. I can help you if that’s what you want. I won’t force you to do anything.”
“Just stay,” the words escaped Rey’s mouth before she could think of anything else. Her face was still hot from tears and her voice muffled by the contracting air. “Just stay with me for the night, just this once. Please?”
Kylo’s grip on her didn’t tighten, nor did it loosen. His breathing hitched a little, a nervousness that wasn’t there before. Rey could already think of a dozen ways he could say no.
When she thought she already knew his answer, he surprised her saying, “Alright.”
Still a bit shaken by his answer, Rey felt his arms pull her back to the bed with him. Her head laid on his chest like it was a soft pillow, her waist still encircled by him that was neither possessive or painful, but instead gentle. Rey had never thought someone like him could be gentle.
After a few moments of silence, Rey let sleep take her. For the first time in years, Rey slept dreamless and completely at peace.
”Just Let It In.”