Prompt given by a tumblr anon, asking for a fic based on the song "Clarity" by Zedd. I'll mention there are references in this fic to child abuse, bullying, and it is set in a hospital (although nothing is graphically described).

High dive into frozen waves where the past comes back to life
Fight fear for the selfish pain, it was worth it every time
Hold still right before we crash 'cause we both know how this ends
A clock ticks 'til it breaks your glass and I drown in you again

"Clarity" by Zedd

Rey never expected to see him again, and yet here he is, standing in front of her with scrubs and hair just as long as it was in high school. He gives his name as Kylo Ren, but she sees through his lies.

You're Ben Solo.

Her first day of her emergency medicine rotation, and for the first time since she started her rotations—since she started med school—Rey wants to quit.

But she can't. Rey's earned the right to be her, dammit, and she won't let Kylo Ren or Ben Solo or whoever the fuck he's pretending to be scare her off. She narrows her eyes at him, taking in the scar marring his face.

Rey never saw him after the accident. Ben was still in the hospital during the funeral, and Luke never brought the subject up to Rey.

She needs to stay. For Luke. For goodness's sake, he's the one paying for her education. It's what Han would have wanted, he always tells her, a soft smile haunting his face.

Rey hopes so. Because she can't say for certain whether it's what Han would have wanted, because Han's dead and this asshole in front of her is the reason why.

"I expect to see you at seven tomorrow morning," Kylo Ren tells her. Rey refuses to call him doctor. Besides, he's just a resident.

A resident whom she has to shadow for the next six weeks. Rey grits her teeth and glances at the shiny white tile floor. Her shoes squeak against it when she shifts her feet.

"Wonderful," says the orientation director. Rey could punch the dour redhead in the face.

"Rey Kenobi?" Kylo calls as she turns to leave.

"Ben Solo," Rey says, avoiding his gaze. Machines beep around them. The acerbic scent of hand sanitizer twinges at her nostrils.

"Good to see you," he says, with a crooked smile. Is it even a smile? His lips barely curve.

"Listen," Rey says, her eyes burning. "If you fail me or try to pull anything—"

"Why would I do that?" he counters. "It's been years since high school, Rey. I've—"

"Become a creature with a fake name?" Rey quips, crossing her arms. "I just want to survive this rotation."

"I'll do my best to help you," he says. How professional. He scowls. "Do you really hate me so much, still?"

"You killed your father," Rey says, the words that have been stirring inside her since she was fifteen gushing out at last. "I'll never forgive you for it."

Kylo's face blanches. He runs his hand through his dark hair and blows out his breath.

"There's no way I can shadow another doctor or resident in this department, is there?" Rey asks.

He shakes his head. "We can try to make the most of it."

She has to ignore him for the sake of the patients. Rey nods.

"Ben Solo?" Finn gapes at her.

"Wait, so what's this new clown name he's going by?" Poe demands, ripping open a bag of Cheetos.

"Kylo Ren," Rey reports as she flops down on the plaid couch she and Finn picked up from a Craigslist ad last year. The stuffing's already protruding from one of the cushions. "Poe, why are you eating Cheetos with chopsticks?"

"Because I like my fingers not orange," Poe returns, settling down on the floor. Finn, his boyfriend and her long term best friend, sits next to him.

"I can't believe he's even in town," Finn moans. "Much less the resident you're supposed to be shadowing for the next—how long is it?"

"Six weeks," Rey says gloomily. Six. A fitting number. 666 would be more appropriate. God, she's tired.

"Too long," Poe declares. "Way too long."

"Can't you ask for a different doctor?" Finn queries.

"I'm more amazed he's made anything of his life," Poe grumbles. "Based on what you two have told me, he's basically always been a particularly selfish brand of asshole. Why would he even consider helping people as a career?"

"Psychopath looking for a new excuse to cut people up?" Finn jokes.

"Shut it!" Rey leans over and digs her hand in the bag of Cheetos. "No, Finn, I can't. I mean, I can, but it'd be more trouble than it's worth. It's just six weeks. And Poe, I have no idea. Emergency medicine isn't surgery, not necessarily."

"His face is not one I'd like to see looming over me as I hover between life and death," Finn remarks.

"What was the worst thing he did to you in high school?" Poe questions, chopsticks digging back through the bag.

"Just be a general jerk," Finn says. "He used to call me all sorts of names after he thought I ratted him out for cheating on a chemistry test."

"Did you?" Poe asks, peering into Finn's eyes.

"It may have been a high pressure situation wherein I had no choice, but yeah, I did."

Poe kisses him.

"And he beat you up," Rey comments.

"Until you," Finn says, holding up his hand for a high five. "Beat him up."

Rey smacks Finn's hand and smirks.

"But actually," Finn tells Poe. "He was super jealous of Rey."

"Jealous of a foster kid. If that isn't rich white boy syndrome…" Poe rolls his eyes.

"His parents liked her. Took her out. Han tried to encourage her." Poe's heard the story before, but neither Rey nor Finn mind telling it again. So long as it stops before a certain point.

Because Rey doesn't like to remember the day they lost Han. All because Han stayed late at a restaurant to help Rey apply for an internship, and when Han picked Ben up from his part-time job before dropping Rey off, Ben exploded.

"I'm just twenty minutes late!"

"Well, congratulations for not being forty minutes like usual!"

Rey slouched in the backseat, trying to disappear. You'd think after all those years living with strangers since her parents died, she'd be better at it.

"You wish she was your child instead," he huffed.

"Ben, don't you ever say shit like that again!"

Instead of calming him down, that just stoked Ben's rage. "You do!"

"Have a great night," Rey squeaked out before darting out of the car and up to her front door. She could hear the father and son still bickering as they drove away.

The next morning, she woke up to a phone call from Finn saying there was a car accident, and Han's car was wrapped around a telephone pole, and he didn't make it. If Ben hadn't been arguing, hadn't provoked his father…

Han was the only father Rey ever knew.

That was the day Rey finally accepted that life would take, rather than give. And yet she still searched for a miracle, and Luke gave her one by sponsoring her to get through college, and now, med school.

She has to stick it out. She has to.

Two weeks pass, and her work in the emergency department of D'Qar Regional Hospital never allows Rey's mind to rest on Kylo Ren/Ben Solo for long. Rey hasn't decided what she wants to specialize in, but emergency medicine comes close to the top of the list, along with pediatrics.

"I never see you," complains Finn when he returns from running early one morning. Winter's fully settled itself on D'Qar, and how Finn can run with the frigid air and snow and ice coating the roads and sidewalks, Rey can't imagine. Of course, Poe always says he can't imagine getting up at the crack of dawn like her, or dealing with blood every day.

"Med school ate me," Rey tells him as she swallows her cereal.

"But seriously, are you working Friday night?"

"Yes."

"Dammit. Saturday?"

"No…" But Rey is busy. Ish. She has plans. Plans that include a steaming bath and an early bedtime and Netflix.

"Well, Poe and I are going out. You should come."

"Can I think about it?"

"Sure thing." Finn grins at her. "Kylo-Ben isn't being too obnoxious?"

Rey takes another spoonful. "He's surprisingly professional."

"Huh. Never would have guessed that." Finn sighs. "Leia homeschooled him after thye accident, right?"

"Well, that's the story, but it's not the real story." Rey chews and frowns. Her stomach feels squicky. She's never told anyone this before, because Luke asked her not to. What the hell, though. "He ran away."

"Are you for honest to goodness real right now?" Finn gapes at her.

She nods and chases around the last few bits of cereal. "Luke told me. I think he came back, eventually, but he was gone for a long time. Leia was—"

"Devastated," Finn puts in. "You'd think I wouldn't be surprised, but that's far more selfish than I could've imagined."

"Yeah." Rey lifts her bowl and drinks the milk.

Finn frowns. "Were those Lucky Charms?"

"I like marshmallows," Rey protests.

"Aren't they unhealthy, Dr. Kenobi?" He cackles. "I so thought those were Poe's when I saw them hidden under the sink!"

"I'm not going to be a nutritionist!" Rey calls as she gathers her bowl and dumps it in the sink. "And if I didn't hide them, your boyfriend would eat them."

"Fair enough." Finn grabs a banana. "Let me know about Saturday!"

"Okay!" Rey grabs her keys and darts out into the stabbing cold.

"Hey," says Jess Pava, one of the nurses Rey's grown friendly with, as soon as Rey arrives. "There's a five-year-old in room 21 that Dr. Ren wants you to look at."

"What's been going on?" Rey asks, grabbing the chart and flipping it open.

"Abdominal pain. The mother's in there as well."

"Hey," Rey says as she swings back the curtain to reveal a dark-skinned girl who offers her a shy smile. "I'm Rey." She turns to the mother. "I'm a fourth year medical student. Are you okay with that?"

"As long as you're still able to get the job done," the woman agrees.

"Should be," Rey says. "Can you tell me what's going on?"

"She's been vomiting for the past day and she can't keep anything down."

"Any water?" Rey makes a mental note to get Jess to start an IV ASAP.

"Little bits. But mostly, no. I just don't want her to get dehydrated."

"Can I look at your tummy?" Rey asks the little girl, who nods. "What's your name?"

"Annie."

"My names Rey," she says as she presses down on the girl's side. The girl gasps in pain.

"It hurts!"

The mother's eyes widen in concern for her child. She strokes her daughter's hair, and Rey's heart twinges. What would it be like to have a mother who loved her enough to take her to the hospital when she was sick? One time, when Rey was seven, she broke her arm and her foster mother told her to stop crying. The nurse at school the next day saw her swollen, bruised arm and took her instead. And that woman was not exactly known for being maternal.

"I know," Rey says to Annie. "We're gonna make you feel better soon, all right?"

Rey orders a CT scan, suspecting appendicitis. She stops by the front desk to grab a cup of water as Jess rushes by. "Car accident, multiple victims."

Rey closes her eyes. I can do this. I can do this. She has to. Rey straightens her shoulders and finishes her water. She blocks Han from her mind, because she can't think of him, not when she needs to work. Except he's always there, whispering, telling her she can do it, offering her a part time job, offering her hope, telling her that she's not worthless even though he'd never have said such sentimental words out loud.

She met Han after Ben beat Finn up, and Rey intervened, and they all wound up in Principal Snoke's office. Han forced Ben to apologize and took and interest in her and Finn after.

The first patient comes in, bloodied and moaning on a gurney. Rey's mind snaps into action mode. Kylo Ren's there for a bit, barking out orders. Rey follows them without considering their source, because nothing matters except the patient, who has several broken ribs and, Rey guesses, some internal bleeding. She manages to give the frightened man a reassuring smile before he's rushed off to the OR.

"Clear!" She hears Kylo shouting before the shocks go off. Rey pauses by the door to the other room, where the man she worked on's companion, a woman with gray hair, lies. The heart monitor groans as a flat line streams across it.

"Clear!" Kylo says again, and Rey fights tears. Jess puts a hand on her shoulder. "Let's go." She tugs Rey away.

"Call it," she hears Kylo saying in defeat.

"Take five minutes," Jess tells her. "Then come back."

Rey steps into an unused room, wiping at her eyes. She didn't even work on the woman, but she hates losing patients. And yet she knows it happens-she's seen it happen to many patients.

The door opens, and Kylo Ren steps in. He stops when he sees her. "Are you... all right?"

She nods. "Are you?"

"Yeah." His eyes mist over. "It's always sad losing-"

"I know," she snaps. Car accidents make everything worse, though.

As if he knows what she said, he adds, "Especially if you're thinking of Han."

"I assume you don't think of him," Rey retorts, crossing her arms.

Kylo flinches and won't meet her eyes.

You do think of him, Rey realizes. All the time.

"You did well," he offers.

"Save your compliments," Rey says, shoving past them.

"You wouldn't know a compliment if it smacked you across the face," he calls.

"So all those times you hit Finn in high school were compliments?" she asks, shoving her hands under the Purell dispenser. It zz's and drops the liquid onto her palms.

Kylo sets his jaw and turns away from her. she heads off, but not before seeing Kylo slam his fist into his side, into the place-if what Luke told her is correct-he has a scar from the accident that killed his father.

Rey forces herself to go through the rest of her shift. When the clock strikes four in the afternoon, she grabs her bag to leave.

"Rey," calls out Kylo, jogging behind her as she strides through the parking lot. She's so tired she'll have to get a coffee just to make it home.

"What?" she snarls. "Can't you leave me alone?"

He scowls and holds up his hands. "I just wanted to tell you that the girl with appendicitis this morning-her mother came back down. Annie's had surgery and is doing well, and the mother wanted to say how well you did. I guess Annie really liked you."

Rey's jaw drops. "Oh."

"More practice with compliments?" he suggests.

She shrugs, not sure what to say.

"You're going to be a good doctor," he tells her. "You're still a little rough in some ways, but you'll get there."

Rey's eyes narrow. "In what ways?"

"Well—"

"You know what? Never mind. I can ask Jess." She shakes her head, climbs into her car, and drives off. She picks up her coffee, and instead of going home, she drives to her favorite cliff, the one she looks out on and remembers to live on. It faces the ocean, and during the winter, the waves are white and choppy and angry. They batter the shore like Rey would like to punch a few choice people.

Like Ben Solo.

Who is now Kylo Ren.

And who is helping people. Rey shakes her head. In her mind, Ben Solo never felt anything after his father's death. He blamed Leia, blamed Luke, blamed everyone except his own stupid self. And from what she heard from Luke in the immediate aftermath, before they stopped talking about it, that was precisely his reaction.

He was kind of a bratty teenager, but he was a teenager.

Rey groans as she drinks her coffee, overladen with cream and sugar the way she likes it.

She should be willing to take instruction from him. She kind of has to, if she wants to become the best doctor she can be.

But Rey's spent hundreds of lonely nights in her college dorm room comforting herself with the thought that she's not like Ben Solo. She's not a monster.

Can monsters save people?

Walk on through a red parade and refuse to make amends
It cuts deep through our ground and makes us forget all common sense
Don't speak as I try to leave 'cause we both know what we'll choose
If you pull then I'll push too deep and I'll fall right back to you

"Clarity" by Zedd

When Rey staggers out at eleven in the evening on Friday, legs aching and back throbbing, Finn's we still on for tomorrow? text makes her want to cry.

The sound of a car sputtering draws Rey's attention. Kylo Ren stands over his shiny black car with his face twisted in fury. He always did have a taste for finer things. Karma, bitch, Rey thinks.

He swears, and Rey unlocks her own car, her half-falling apart rusted red Ford that's been nothing but faithful to her.

Damn.

Rey slams the door shut. "Your car dead?" she calls across the parking lot.

Kylo swears.

Okay then. Rey doesn't have the energy to put up with this.

"If you're going to gloat, that is the last thing that I want to deal with!"

"Why would you think I was gloating?" Rey retorts.

"Forget it."

Rey could smack him. "You have someone you can call?"

"Yes. A tow truck." Kylo snorts and rests his head on the roof of his car. S small bloodstain dots his knee.

Don't do it. "If you need a ride," Rey says, exhausted. "I'll take you."

Kylo cocks his head. "Is this where you drive me off the grid and leave my body in the woods?"

Rey narrows her eyes and climbs into her car. She slams the door and starts the ignition.

"Okay," Kylo says, yanking open her passenger side door. Rey gasps. "If you could give me a ride, that'd be great."

"Get in." Rey glances over her shoulder as she backs up. "Where to?"

He tells her the address. "You're still driving this piece of junk?"

"Mine's the one driving," Rey points out. "And you still have the same haircut."

"You still wear yours up in three buns."

Rey snorts, glancing at him. Instead of glaring at her, he's smiling. Rey doesn't like it—or more accurately, she doesn't hate it, and she hates that.

"How is Finn?" Kylo asks.

"Do you actually care?"

"I often thought about writing a note to you both. Telling you I was sorry."

The heat blasting from the car's radiator can't warm Rey. "Why didn't you?"

He shrugs. "I was busy with med school?"

"I still have time for my friends," Rey protests. She yawns. Maybe.

"I'm sorry, Rey. I really am. And I didn't know whether it would make things better or worse for you."

"Why did you do it?" Rey demands. "You really made our lives hell. Why?"

"I was jealous of you."

Rey slams on the brakes for a red light. "What?"

"You didn't have any expectations. With my mother—my father—my uncle and my grandparents—"

"Oh, yeah, I had no expectations. Because no one cared enough to expect anything," Rey says bitterly. Tears sting her eyes.

"But you were good in spite of it. People liked you. And you were kind and good at sports, at school, at everything, and you liked things. I hated everything. And everyone hated me, or so I thought."

The light turns green. Rey hits the gas. A snowflake catches on her windshield. She almost laughs. You aren't a special snowflake, Ben. "Bullshit. Your parents—"

"Yeah, Rey, my parents. My mother saw me twice a month because she was off in D.C. working for Congress, but wouldn't dream of pulling me out of Tatooine High, because God forbid I didn't get the best education possible." Kylo rolls his eyes. "And my dad was bitter he couldn't be with Mom, and—"

"He loved you! He wasn't—"

"Did you live with him?" Kylo blinks and Rey's stomach roils. Her GPS tells her to take a left. Is he crying?

"You think he wanted you to be like me." Rey scowls. She's zero percent here for any of this juvenile—

"No. He wanted me to be like him and I couldn't be. I like studying. I didn't like hard physical work or—or—anything he and Chewie worked on. I wasn't like them. And I was a teenager, Rey, and I was bitter and angry and I thought no one would listen."

"Is that why you ran away?" Rey pauses in front of the address. "You have arrived," chirps her phone.

"You know about that?" Kylo demands.

Rey crosses her arms. "Luke told me."

Kylo clenches his fists. "He shouldn't have."

"Was that why?"

"Partially. I was just so—so angry, and that night in the car—with you—I took it out on him. I wasn't really angry with him. I was—"

"Angry with me?" Rey supplies. She studies the scar on his face, a jarring pink line. Does it scare you? she wonders.

"With me." Kylo meets her eyes. "I wished I could be more like you. I wished that I was anything that my father approved of and at the same time I hated him for not—not approving of me. We fought. I told him I wished he wasn't my father. And then we hit ice." Kylo's eyes fade at the memory. "I'd give anything to get him back. To take what I said back."

Rey leans her head against the steering wheel. Han wasn't perfect and she never thought he was—did she? "I'm sorry, Ben."

"For what?"

"Blaming you."

"I couldn't face my mother. Not until a few years ago. When I started med school, actually." He rubs his nose.

"Did you go to med school because of your father?" Rey asks. Snow drifts lazily around the car. According to the weatherman, the storm won't get very bad.

"Maybe. I don't know. I just—I ruined my life that night, and for the rest of it, I want to—make something of it. Like I was supposed to all along and didn't want to. Well, now I do. I want to. Because of him. I just—shouldn't have had to learn that lesson this way." He fumbles for the car door. "Thanks for the ride. Appreciate it."

"You aren't a special snowflake," Rey informs him.

He turns to face her, halfway out of the car. The wind taps her nose with cold. "You are."

I'm going out of my damn mind.

Rey paces in her tiny living room, a mug of chai clutched in her palms.

You are.

He's teasing. Apologizing. Atoning. Something.

I'm not special.

What if you are, to him?

The idea should make Rey shudder, but it doesn't. Does he like me? Rey rolls her eyes. And here she is complaining that Ben hasn't grown up since high school.

They have nothing in common except for her rotation, and a dead father/father figure.

And loneliness.

And fear driving you.

And wanting to prove yourself.

Shut up! Rey chugs some of her chai, wincing as it scalds her tongue.

You hate Ben Solo, she reminds herself.

Does she? Does she really hate him?

Like it or not, Rey drags herself to a bar with Finn and Poe the next evening. Her mind's still at the hospital, but not with the patients. It's centered on Kylo Ren, who seems to have glued himself to her brain, and she can't scrape him off and dump him out.

"You okay, Rey?" Poe asks as she downs her second beer. "You've been really quiet today."

"Is stuff at the hospital bothering you?" Finn asks, concerned.

"Yeah. Hospital stuff," Rey says. "Work stuff." She grabs a chip, dips it in salsa, and chews.

"Anything you want to talk about?" Finn ventures.

"Here?" With the pulsating music and everyone laughing and enjoying life around them? Rey shakes her head.

"We can go somewhere quiet," Finn suggests. "And get ice cream. Music's lame tonight anyways."

"Ice cream?" Rey doesn't care that it's the dead of winter. "I'm there."

Forty minutes later, Rey clutches her mint chocolate chip hot fudge sundae, while Finn eats strawberry out of a cup and Poe licks a double chocolate cone. Finn parks in front of the cliff Rey likes to go to and they both turn to her.

"You two would make terrible therapists," Rey complains.

"We're not therapists," Poe points out, wearing an ice cream mustache in the overheated car. "We're your friends."

Rey laughs as she unbuckles her seat belt and sprawls across the backseat. "Kylo Ren's bothering me. Ben Solo. Whatever I call him."

"How so?" Finn asks, eyes darkening. He jams his spoon into his cup with vengeance.

Rey finishes her whipped cream and moves on to the ice cream, hot fudge, and sprinkles. "He hasn't done anything to me. And I think that's what's bothering me actually. He's been nice."

"Wait what?" Finn's jaw drops.

"Seriously," Rey agrees. "He's been so nice, in fact, that when his car died last night I gave him a ride home." She tells them about her conversation.

"Sounds like typical Ben," Finn says, rolling his eyes. "Trying to blame everyone except himself."

"Except that's not exactly what it was like," Rey says around a mouthful of hot fudge. "He kinda took responsibility. Apologized for what he did to us."

"Huh," muses Poe. "Doesn't excuse it. He made your lives hell, from what I hear."

"Yeah, but, like, I always assumed he had a peachy life. He had everything I ever wanted." Rey licks her spoon. "Han and Leia for parents, an uncle, just… everything. And maybe things weren't really so perfect for him after all."

"Oh, poor Ben," Finn mocks. "It's still nothing compared to—"

"Can you compare that, though?" Rey asks. "Can you compare the fact that he thinks his childhood sucked? Can I really tell him no, yours didn't, because mine sucked worse? If it sucked for him, it sucked for him."

"Well, yours did suck," Poe points out. "And you turned out fine."

"So did he," Rey says. "It just took him longer to get there."

"Well, there were those rumors," Finn says. "When we were in college. About principal Snoke."

"What rumors?" Poe demands.

"That he'd abused kids… he was arrested and charged, but I don't know if it went to trial."

"It didn't," Rey says. "Other prisoners killed him."

"Damn, how did I not know that?" Finn asks. "But my point is… he and Ben were close."

Rey winces. Her brain freezes. She remembers Luke saying that Ben stayed with Snoke, after he ran away, and Snoke refused to let Leia talk to him.

Her parents broke her when they left her, false promises an empty string to get her through, except when she came to the end of that string and found nothing, the pain hit her just as hard as it would have had they simply told her they were never coming back when they abandoned her at five. Ben's parents were there for him physically, but if they missed something like that… Rey remembers her work in pediatrics, her rotation in psychiatry.

"It doesn't matter now anyways," she says, her voice hollow. "It's years ago."

But it does matter.

Was that your way of screaming for help, Ben?

Monday at the hospital, Rey's about to take her lunch break when Kylo storms up to her.

"Car okay?" she asks.

He nods and holds out a prescription. "Can you read this for me?"

Rey frowns as she takes the slip of paper. "Who's handwriting is that bad?" Oh. It's her own writing, prescribing antibiotics for an older man who came in with several bites from his cat. "Is there a problem?"

"Read the name of the medication."

Rey's stomach flip-flops, her appetite gone. Shit.

That's not the right medication.

Her hands fly towards her burning face. "Is he—"

"Snap Wexley noticed and fixed it. He got the right medication and he'll be fine."

Rey covers her eyes. "I'm so sorry. I can't believe I—"

"It happens. I just wanted to show you so you'll be more aware next time—"

"What was I thinking?" Rey rubs her eyes. A lump grows in her throat. She feels so irresponsible—and the what could have happeneds form an ruthless maelstrom, sucking her in and churning her around. Nausea surges in her stomach.

"Rey," Kylo says. "It happens. All med students make mistakes. You're just lucky it got caught."

I could have landed that man in the hospital… deservingly gotten us all sued…

"Rey," Kylo says, grabbing her arms. "It's okay."

She cranes her neck to look up at his scarred face. You can't ever escape your worst mistake, can you? "Did you ever do something like this?"

Kylo snorts. "I did."

"And did it turn out okay for you?" His hands still grip her wrists. They're warm.

He nods. "Like I said. It happens." He releases her. "Sorry for grabbing you."

"It's fine."

He almost smiles and nods, turning away. Rey stands there, shame still smoldering in her cheeks.

But he didn't berate her. She remembers him calling Finn stupid in high school.

Had he ever called her a name?

He was rude. He treated her like she was less than him. He didn't have to use names.

But that look—she's seen it before. Prom, when she and Finn went together because Finn wasn't out of the closet and Rey was, as she's always been, single. She always thought that look was shock, horror at the sight of her.

What if it never was?

This whole time?

Don't go down this route, Rey. It won't end well.

She clutches her scalp, her apple and sandwich lying untouched. The girl she's always been vowed never to forgive Ben Solo. For Han's sake. For Finn's sake.

Rey groans. Why can't she just be herself, as she is right now? Who is she even trying to honor anyway, besides ghosts?

Maybe Han clung to his son like she clung for so long to the notion that her parents loved her and would come back. And his son did come back, only too late for him to see.

Rey bites her tongue and reins in her thoughts as she finishes up the last few weeks of her rotation. She watches Kylo save lives and wonders if it's enough to wash his guilt away, or if it's a futile effort for him. Or maybe, by saving lives, he's saving his own.

Like you.

The last day of her rotation passes without any fanfare. When she worked in pediatrics, they bought her a cupcake, but no one has a spare moment in the emergency department. Rey doesn't mind.

"You've done well," Kylo tells her. "You have kind of a calming presence. People like that."

"Trying to persuade me to consider specializing in emergency medicine?" Rey jokes.

"Maybe." He grins. "And thank you."

"For what?" Rey blinks.

"For your patience, and restraint."

"Thanks for not failing me," Rey offers.

He smirks. Jess and another nurse brush by them. Do I really have to leave?

"Do you want to get dinner sometime?" Rey blurts out.

Kylo's eyebrows fly up his forehead. Rey's face burns. What did I just do? "I mean—"

"Yeah," Kylo says. "Sure, okay. If you—if you really want to."

Rey nods. "It'd be good to catch up." He's still smiling. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Like what?" He runs his hands through his hair.

"Like… smiling." Rey shifts. Her stomach lurches. Dammit, Kylo Ren, Ben Solo, I want to know if you like me.

"Nothing—I just—I used to think about you. When I was staying with Snoke in college, and such. I remembered that you wanted to be a physician—well, I know my uncle suggested it, but you really wanted to. I hoped someday I could see you again, make amends." He shrugs. "Didn't really expect this, though."

Rey leans closer. "Well, I forgive you. I really do."

"Thanks." He laughs. "It may creep you out to know this, but I really—when I was with Snoke, and kind of floundering, and I couldn't call my mother—I thought of you, and thinking of you and how strong you were in spite of everything in high school—it helped me get better. I mean, it inspired me to try and—and change, really."

"I don't think that's creepy," Rey manages. Her head tingles, and the lights around them glaze over all the people bustling about.

"You were so strong in high school, and I wasn't."

I was?

Rey doesn't remember being strong. She remembers crying herself to sleep at night, loneliness gnawing at her. She remembers the notebooks of tallies, one for each day, she kept until Han died, and she burned them with her foster's mom's lighter. She remembers people laughing at her and clinging to Finn to keep from everything crushing her.

But it didn't crush you.

She looks into Kylo's eyes, dark chocolate with hints of forest green and gray, and she knows he's telling her the truth. She remembers what Finn said about Snoke. He hurt you, didn't he?

We were always more alike than either of us realized. We could have kept each other afloat.

But she inspired him, and strangely, it's like a crack in Rey's armor. All the loneliness, the losses, the cruelty of life—it wasn't for nothing.

It gave something, even if not directly to her, and now Kylo's giving it back to her.

You thought you couldn't be strong, Rey thinks. But you could be. You always had it within you.

To hell with common sense. Rey leans forward and pushes herself up on her tiptoes. Her hand wraps around the back of his neck and—dammit, this is a bad idea, Rey!—she presses her face into his shoulder. Just a hug.

He hesitates, and then his arms wrap around her as well.

Screw it, Rey thinks as she breaths in his scent: Old Spice deodorant, sweat, and Purell. A doctor's scent. She's falling. She might as well dive.

Rey lifts her head and kisses him. Instead of pushing her away, which he should really, his lips open, and he kisses her back.

And then she pulls herself away. Not here.

"I'll text you about dinner?" Kylo asks, eyes wide and mouth hovering open.

Rey nods.

'Cause you are the piece of me I wish I didn't need
Chasing relentlessly, still fight and I don't know why

"Clarity" by Zedd

"You did what? You kissed who?" Finn shrieks.

"He's grown up a lot," Rey offers as she locks the door for the night, shaking out of her jacket. The spicy taste of pad Thai still lingers in her mouth.

"I would hope so, but still, God, Rey."

"Emergency?" Poe asks, sticking his head out of the bedroom. Hair mussed and eyes bleary, he stumbles out into the living area. "What's going on?"

"Rey just went on a date with Ben Solo!"

"Eh—what?"

Rey rolls her eyes. "He's nice now. I like him. We had fun. He's a good kisser and he likes me." More than that. He looks at her like he admires her, like he respects her.

No guy she's ever gone out with has done that.

"Were you safe?" Poe asks.

"Poe!" Rey hurls her scarf at him. She drops onto the couch and pulls off her shoes. "If you guys wanted to meet him, you might see—"

"Not really sure I do," Finn cuts in.

"I have no stake in this," Poe declares, holding his hands up. "I'm Switzerland."

"Are you really mad at me for going out with him?" Rey demands.

"No!" Finn throws his hands into the air. "No, Rey, I'm not mad at you. I'm just—worried. And I think you can do better."

"Better according to what standards, though?" Rey asks. "And it was one date." But her heart's singing and she still feels that warm urge to grin. She likes him. A lot. He makes her laugh and dammit, she admires him.

"Well, if he mistreats you, tell him I'll deck him," Finn declares.

Rey cackles and pulls out her phone. FYI, Finn says if you upset me he'll deck you.

Fantastic, comes Kylo's response.

Rey starts her surgery rotation in a hospital that takes almost an hour to get to, thanks to D'Qar's city traffic. Within a week, she knows that she won't be a surgeon.

"I kind of liked surgery," admits Kylo when she tells him. Rey rolls her eyes.

A few weeks in, she arrives home at midnight. A note's left on their small wooden kitchen table, where Poe scrawled that he and Finn have gone away for the weekend. It's our anniversary.

Oh, that's right, Rey recalls. She kicks off her shoes and drops onto the couch. Nope. She pries herself up to make tea. Or hot chocolate. Which one?

Tears prick her eyes. She wishes Finn and Poe were here. It's so goddamn lonely without them.

As she waits for the water to boil, Rey texts Kylo. She hasn't seen him all week. You awake?

Just got home, he responds.

Same. How was your day?

It was good. Yours?

It kind of sucked, Rey admits. Two patients died. And my roommates are gone.

Do you want me to call?

Rey squeezes her eyes shut. The kettle starts to whistle. She's being childish. It's fine.

Opting for hot chocolate, Rey adds a generous heaping of whipped cream to the top and flicks on their old TV. They don't have cable, and the only stations Rey can find are news stations, detailing every horrible thing that's wrong with the world. Rey flicks it off.

Bang! Someone pounds on her door.

"Shit!" Rey leaps to her feet, spilling hot chocolate. "Oh, shit."

"Rey?" she hears Kylo call.

"You!" Rey marches to the door and flings it open. "What are you doing here? You scared me!"

"You stopped responding and I was worried."

"You could have called."

Kylo shrugs.

It's so him, really. Ben Solo Kylo Ren. Take the least logical yet most dramatic route. "Well, I have to clean up hot chocolate and make a new cup. You want one?"

"Wouldn't turn it down." He follows her into the kitchen. Hey, at least she gets a second serving of whipped cream.

"What happened?" he questions as she waits for the water to boil.

"Eh, nothing that we could have prevented. It was just—I can't stand it. I hate seeing people die, and logically I know it happens—it's a part of being a doctor—but—"

"It's different when you're in charge, or partially in charge," Kylo finishes.

"Yeah, exactly." Rey wraps her arms around herself. "No one told me how lonely it would be."

"What do you mean?"

"Like—I've wanted to be a doctor since high school. Since… since your father, really. And I've been working towards it ever since, and I want it more than anything—but it's really hard," she admits. "And I'm scared I don't have the right stuff."

"You do," he assures her. "But I remember my rotations as well. They were—some not so good. And it hurts when you can't fix everything. I punched through a wall in my apartment once during my pediatrics rotation, because a seven-year-old boy named Lyle died." Kylo sucks in his breath as if the memory still stings.

But they have to move on, forget some of the pain, at least most of the time, if they're going to draw as many people back from the brink as they can. Rey nods and offers him a cup of hot chocolate. They drink in silence.

"I can't believe you came here," Rey says as she finishes.

"I didn't want you to feel alone. And you texted, so I was guessing you didn't want to feel alone either."

"You know what that's like, don't you?" Rey asks softly. She thinks of Snoke.

He nods, and his eyes—he knows she knows, or suspects. "You don't deserve to feel that way."

"It's kind of part of life," Rey says. "I've always been lonely." Tears hitch her breath.

Kylo takes her face in his hands, and for the first time, she thinks the scar adds to his attractiveness, rather than mars it. His lips brush hers, and then she's caught in a whirlwind. His hands roam through her hair and her arms clutch him to her chest.

Do I want this?

"Do you want to do this?" Kylo asks, pulling away to catch his breath.

"Yes." Rey keeps her hand on the side of his face.

"Are you sure? Because I know I came over here, but—"

"I'm sure, Ben. Kylo." Rey shakes her head.

He bites his lip.

"If you don't want to," Rey says. "We don't have to. But I would, okay? I kind of care about you a lot." Maybe I love you. If she has any idea what love is. "And if you don't want to, that's okay too."

"I do—I just—I'm not—I'm kind of nervous, Rey," he admits. "Oh, God."

Rey laughs. "That's okay."

"I don't know why you care about me," he admits, voice low and eyes tracing every inch of her face. They linger on her lips.

"Well, I do."

"I know," he answers, shaking his head. "You're amazing. You—that gives me hope. That maybe I'm the kind of person that can be—cared about."

Loved? Rey wonders. And Kylo—he gives her hope, too. Hope that she can finish what she's started. Hope that she can achieve, that she can do what she needs to do as a doctor and still care, still have a bleeding heart but not bleed out. She's not alone, not with him.

They head to Rey's room, where she tosses her rag doll off her bed. Kylo smiles at it.

"It's kind of a mess, sorry," Rey confesses.

Kylo shrugs.

Do we really have a chance? Rey wonders as she loops her arms around his neck. His breath is hot against her skin.

Maybe. Because he's helping her see that things are possible—he can change, she can change, she can make it in med school, in life. She isn't destined to a life of loneliness. She's worth being loved. All those fears lurking in the back of Rey's mind, haunting her when she tossed and turned at night—they've vanished. He is the light and the darkness, her mirror.

"This is so bizarre," Rey pants as she pulls her top off. "I never would have thought."

"I might have," Kylo teases, but even in the darkened room, Rey can see his cheeks flushing.

"Did you have a crush on me?"

"Sometimes. Yes. I don't know if I would have called it that, but yes." And he looks at her like she's water when he's thirsty, like she's exactly what he needs, like she's always been a remedy, but he still can't quite believe she's choosing him. He kisses her like she's a ghost, like she'll vanish.

Maybe she never knew as much about Ben Solo as she thought. And him—she does he knew very much about himself, either.

Did I help you? Rey wonders. With that?

His weight's on top of her, and instead of feeling trapped, she feels secure. His lips trace the curve of her jaw, the pulse running down her neck, her clavicle. He murmurs her name like she's holy and his fingers grip her arms like she's his grounding point. Several months ago, Rey would have drop-kicked anyone who suggested she'd be in bed with Ben Solo, that she'd love him. And now this is what she wants. She chooses Kylo, screwed up as he is, as they both are, and she lets him in.

Rey wakes to the sound of Kylo's soft breathing, a soothing rhythm. His arm strewn across her, she leans back and rests her scalp against his chest.

The world was cruel to us, but we don't have to make it worse. She hopes. Her childhood, her job—all of them set her up to see the world as a place riddled with children's tears and fathers' blood and the screams of family members gone before their time.

She doesn't want to be a doctor to drown herself in the cesspool of suffering. She wants to pull people out of it, when she can, if she can. She just wasn't certain that she was made of the right stuff. That she wasn't defective, somehow, that her parents didn't leave her for some good reason.

Rey stares at her palms in the room. Dawn's amber light crawls in through the windows. I'm okay.

Thank you, she thinks as she watches Kylo sleep.

If our love is tragedy, why are you my remedy?
If our love's insanity, why are you my clarity?

"Clarity" by Zedd

"Good job today, Rey," the head surgeon calls.

"Thanks," Rey pants, taking a sip of water. The patient will live, and Rey got to tell the family that their father, their husband, will make it. Rey could cry for joy. I'm going to make it. She texts Kylo a series of grinning emojis.

Finn was not pleased when he and Poe walked in on Rey and Kylo eating Frosted Flakes in the morning. "Sleepovers?" he asked.

"Hey, Finn—" Kylo tried, but Finn slammed the door to his room.

"This is insane, Rey!" Finn insisted later that night. "Don't look at me like that. I'm worried about you. What if he's just playing a game, or if he drops you, or—"

"For Pete's sake, give me some credit, Finn."

"Rey, we saw this pattern of behavior before. He wants something from you. That's the only—"

"People change, Finn!" He does want something, though. He wants to love her, and she wants to love him. Is that so selfish?

She doesn't know whether everything will work out between them. She doesn't know that she won't get hurt. But if she's falling, it's exhilarating, and she's tired of playing it safe.

Rey stops for coffee and drinks it as she drives home. It's dark out, and frigid.

Her phone rings, and Rey answers as she slows down for a stoplight. "Hello?"

"Rey?"

"Poe?" A sob cuts through the phone. Rey's spine stiffens. "What's wrong?"

Poe's response comes garbled, but Rey hears the words "accident" and "hospital."

"What hospital?" Rey screams into the phone. Someone beeps behind her. Rey swears as she pulls over to the side of the road, her hands, her legs, her jaw, all shaking. Finn.

"D'Qar," Poe says.

"I'll meet you there." Rey turns it off and sucks in her breath. Breath, breath, breath. She grabs her coffee and slugs it down, not caring about the taste. She needs to remember where she is. That she needs to get to the hospital, and do it safely.

Rey squeezes her eyes shut and shifts the car into drive again. At every stoplight, every stop sign, she thinks of Finn, reminds herself Jess and Kylo work there, and all her friends. He'll be okay. He'll be okay. It's a mantra she repeats to herself.

When she pulls into the parking lot, Rey sees several ambulances, lights still flashing. Her heart in her throat, bile surging, Rey races into the ER. A terrified friend, not a doctor.

"Rey!" calls out Snap Wexley. "Good to see you. Are you—"

"My friends," Rey stammers, grabbing Snap by his arm. "My roommates—Finn Storm and Poe Dameron—I heard there was an accident—" Her voice breaks. Don't cry, dammit! Hold up!

"Rey, you need to sit down," comes Kylo's voice.

"Kylo!" Rey sees him through her tears.

"We'll take good care of them, but you need to wait out here," Kylo tells her, his hand cupping the back of her neck.

"How bad?" Rey asks, but she sees Kylo's pallor and knows. Not good. "Can I—""

"No, Rey, it's a conflict of interest. You can't help."

She nods, fear rattling around in her chest, bruising her heart and burning her ribs. "Don't let him die. You can't let him die," she croaks.

Kylo pulls away, heading back towards the automatic door. "Trust me, Rey. Please."

And then he's gone, and Snap's gone—when did he leave?—and Rey's alone.

She collapses into a chair, tears streaming down her face. She balls her fists over her eyes and the tears still escape.

Finn was the first friend she ever had. The first one who made her feel like she was worth something. They were both lost kids, looking for anything to hold onto. Rey's hopes of finding her parents were dissolving, and Finn had given up on his parents as well. They didn't love him. They didn't want him.

But he wanted her as a friend, and she needed him. When Ben Solo mocked Finn the first day of high school, a junior picking on a freshman, Rey had marched up and told Ben where he could take his insults, because she was fourteen and sick and tired of always hurting and never getting to hurt back. They were two bleeding souls, and they bled into each other and gave each other life.

Don't die, Finn. Not like Han. Please.

"Rey," a voice calls to her. Hours later. Maybe? Rey can't tell.

"You can see Poe now," Jess tells her. And she wraps Rey in a hug.

"Rey!" Blood drips from Poe's face when Rey sees him. His arm's in a sling.

"What happened?" Rey cries out.

"Concussion. Broken arm. Finn… they won't tell me anything." Poe looks up at her with screaming eyes.

She has no comfort to give, but Rey still puts her hand on his shoulder. "They've got great doctors here." It's the only truth she can say.

"A driver hit us. I don't know if he was drunk or what." Poe groans. "I should have—"

"Stop it," Rey snaps. "It's not your fault."

Poe leans against her shoulder, and they hold each other.

The curtain swings back, and Kylo appears. Blood stains his scrubs, and every muscle in Rey's body stiffens. She can't breathe.

"We sent him off to surgery," Kylo reports. "There's some internal bleeding that they need to work on—his spleen probably needs to be removed."

"Can you live without a spleen?" Poe asks.

"Um, yes," Rey tells him, raising her eyebrows.

"I don't claim medical knowledge, Rey."

"Do you think he'll be okay?" Rey asks. He's alive. Finn's alive for now.

"We have some pretty great surgeons," Kylo answers, but he gives her a subtle nod. "We did our best—"

"I know you did," Rey says, her throat closing. Kylo wraps his arms around her, holding her tight. "You've got to get back to work, don't you?"

"Yeah." He releases her.

Poe wipes his eyes, and Rey sits next to him again. Waiting. The clock ticks by with unbearable slowness.

Three hours later, the doctor comes to tell them that Finn made it through surgery, and Rey and Poe traipse up to the recovery room. Exhaustion drags down every limb, but when Rey sees Finn's heart monitor jumping and hears him breathing, she could cry.

"He fractured two vertebrae," the doctor says. "But there doesn't appear to be any spinal cord damage,"

"Holy shit." Poe clutches his head. "Finn could have been—"

"But he wasn't," Rey cuts in. "He's okay."

Poe meets her eyes, his own watering. "I know."

When Finn's eyelids finally flutter just as dawn's salmon and gold ribbons float through the window, Rey and Poe both fly over to his side.

"You're alive!" Poe exults.

"How are you feeling?" Rey demands.

"Hurts," Finn mumbles.

"Hurts where?" Poe asks. "I'll call the nurse. God, Finn—" He sniffs.

Finn mumbles something that sounds like "hacker's gone."

"Hackers?" Rey questions.

"Say that again?" Poe leans closer.

"Your jacket's gone," Finn rasps.

"Oh!" Poe starts to laugh. "I'll get a new one. I'll get you a new one. He was wearing my jacket," he adds to Rey.

"Love you," Finn mutters, eyelids drooping.

"I love you too," Poe ekes out.

"You scared me," Rey says.

"Did you operate on me?" Finn tries to joke. His smile's lopsided.

"Conflict of interest," Rey says, deciding not to even bring up that the hospital's different from the one she's currently doing her rotation at. Although she called out today.

"Kylo Ren did fix you in the ER," Poe puts in.

"Ben Solo?" Finn's eyes widen.

"Yeah," Rey says, wiping her eyes. "He did."

"Huh." Finn closes his eyes again. "Maybe he's not so bad."

Rey guffaws. It feels good, to laugh.

"He really said that?" Kylo questions later that day, when his shift ends. Rey's on her seventh cup of coffee and still sways on her feet.

"Yeah." She nods. "If you want to stop by and see him, I'm sure you can."

"I don't want to upset him."

Rey peers into her boyfriend's eyes. "You won't." She takes his hand and leads him to the elevator. She raps on the doorframe before they enter.

"Oh hey, Dr. Solo," Finn says, still doped up on morphine. Poe holds up his phone. He's been recording various things Finn's been saying, and it's making Rey laugh, so she has no complaints.

"Hi… Finn." Kylo stuffs his hands in his pockets. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I lost my spleen and broke two vertebrae."

"You forgot the concussion," Poe puts in.

"Damn the concussion."

"You were in pretty rough shape," Kylo admits. "I'm glad to see you doing better."

"Thanks for helping," Finn mutters. "Hey, you two are holding hands."

"We're not in high school," Rey counters as Poe reaches out to grasp Finn's hand—at least the one that doesn't have a monitor attached to his finger.

"Sometimes I wonder. But go ahead. Kiss. You can hang out at our home," Finn tells Kylo, who starts to grin.

"He's so drugged up," Rey comments.

"Yep," Kylo agrees. Rey clutches his hand, warm against hers.

"Thanks for saving my friend's life," she murmurs, keeping her voice too low for Finn or Poe to overhear.

Kylo cocks his head, and Rey expects something along the lines of it's my job or whatever. Instead he tells her: "thanks for saving my life."

Rey wrinkles her nose. How? She can't grill him with Poe and Finn here.

But she thinks she knows. She inspired him, even when she wasn't trying, when she hated him. She wasn't ever terrible, or worthless.

You give me hope, Rey thinks as she watches Finn grumble and Poe muffle his laughter. We're going to be okay.