"And between it all... Balance."

1. Nothing

Rey was in the middle of a form when it happened again. She stopped and sighed, waves of disappointment crashing over her – not all of it hers.

"Are you controlling this now?" she said, turning slightly to meet Kylo's eyes. He looked like he always had, but there was something even more angry and desperate in his expression now. She knew that he felt betrayed by her decision; she felt the same about his. He'd had a chance. He'd saved her. And then he'd become something else, although just what that was, she wasn't sure yet.

"No," he said angrily, rubbing his face. He looked tired. He felt exhausted.

"Well, amazing." Rey resumed her form; eventually the connection would stop, but she didn't want to talk to him. It was hard not to let out her anger and disappointment.

He moved closer and she had to adjust her swings so she wouldn't hit him, although there would be something satisfying about slamming the staff into his stomach. "Why didn't you come with me?" he said, and although he sounded calm and cold enough, his mind was raging. That same disappointment and betrayal but also, deep confusion.

"Why didn't you come with me?" she retorted, swiping her staff towards his head. He didn't move, just flinched a little.

Irritation pulsed hot from him and he scowled, crossing his arms. "You think your friends will be there for you? You think they can save you? Trust me, Rey, they'll always let you down."

"Just because Luke let you down doesn't mean everyone will," Rey said shortly, finally stopping her form and tossing the staff onto the ground. So they would talk now.

"He was my uncle, Rey," Kylo growled. "You think you can trust an ex-stormtrooper and a reckless pilot more than I could trust my own family?"

Rey mulled hard over what to say. He was angry and lonely and was justified in his anger. He was also wrong, but she couldn't pinpoint quite why. She just knew he'd fundamentally missed something. She tilted her head to the side and looked at him. He should have been intimidating, but so often he looked like a lost boy. Luke's betrayal had shattered what little resistance Ben had had to the Dark Side. She knew he was picking up on her feelings of compassion and curiosity because his face contorted in an ugly grimace and he looked away. She felt his disgust curling behind her compassion. "I'm not a child," he said harshly. "And I don't want your pity."

She wanted to say it wasn't pity, wanted to say she was sorry he'd been left alone. Instead, she realized she understood why he was wrong, and why his pain had twisted him up inside while hers never had. "You think that if everyone thinks you're nothing, they're right. Your whole life, even though you had heroes for parents, you felt like nothing because no one wanted you. Except for Snoke, and he told you that you would be nothing unless you embraced the Darkness."

Kylo, to her relief, didn't tell her to shut up, although he was angry. So dangerously angry. She stepped towards him, wanting to try to reach him again. She understood him, for better or worse.

"You said that I came from nothing, that I was nothing."

"I don't think you're nothing though, I-" he began, hastily.

Rey shook her head. "No, you think that I'm nothing by nature, but that my power makes me important. You think I must feel alone, that I must feel how useless I am, and that's why I wouldn't accept that my parents sold me." She sighed. It hurt to know that she wasn't left on Jakku for an important reason, that it wasn't the selfless act of kind parents or a dramatic legacy like Luke's. It hurt that her parents would sell her for a few credits. But that didn't make her useless. Did it?

"You do. You feel hurt and abandoned and betrayed," he said fiercely, quietly, stepping towards her. "You're just like me but you're hanging on to the notion that there really is a difference between the light and the dark. But there's not, Rey, that's just what we were told as children to make the world seem comfortable and easy."

"I am like you," she told him, and that was true. But she was not, in the ways that he wanted her to be. "But I'm stronger. I am not, and have never been, nothing. And neither are you. You're not defined by the choices others make, you're defined by your own. And your choices have mostly been monstrous ones, Ben."

"Yes, I know, we've agree I'm a monster," he hissed. She couldn't pin down the emotion he was experiencing – his thoughts were chaotic.

She crossed her arms and met his eyes, brown like hers. "I choose to trust my friends. But even if they fail me, I refuse to ever fail them because I love them. You failed me, Ben. You failed your uncle and your parents and everyone who ever believed in you. But I'm not letting you take this path any further."

He laughed, and it was a cold, angry sound, but his fear crept like smoke past the laugh. And somewhere, somewhere a spark of hope that he wished he could stifle. "I failed you? I don't owe you anything. You should never have gotten your hopes up."

"Your mother hasn't given up on you," Rey said. "Somehow, after everything, she wants you to come home."

Kylo took a step back, although he still looked angry. "Does she?" he scoffed.

"Yes." Rey took a deep breath and smiled at him, at this violent, angry, lonely boy who'd disappointed her and his family and legacy time and again. "And I'm not giving up on you either."

He scoffed again, but there still she felt the fear and the hope and something like longing intermingling in his mind.

"This isn't a story, Rey. There isn't a happy ending for us if we play by the rules and do all the good things your Jedi order is so infatuated with. We have to make our own destinies. Stop being so naïve!"

She sighed and shook her head. "Of course we make our own destinies. But it's how we do it that really shapes them. So keep me updated on how your choice works out for you, because while you're on this path, you're still going to be alone, and you're still going to feel like you're nothing. And no amount of power is going to change that."

And she felt his fear that she was right like the cold sea spray.

A/N: This is gonna be multichapter but I don't really know where it's going? I just love the idea of their Force bond (which btw has been my headcanon since the beginning.

Please review!