A/N:

Welcome to my Ep 9 speculation fic! This is more or less how I would like the episode to go, but there are so many possibilities I may explore another at a later time.

This was originally a One Shot delving deep into the thoughts of Kylo/Ben. It has since been converted to a prologue for the purposes of this story. If you don't like passages of rumination, feel free to skip it - it wont compromise the overall narrative. It's just meant to give some insight into Ben's thoughts and struggle over Rey.

Kylo Ren

"Supreme Leader Ren, you are displeased with our victory?" The annoyance in Hux's voice made his words fall flat.

"I would hardly call this a victory," Kylo said coldly. "These industrial systems clamor for someone to tell them what to do and provide steady business. Bringing them to heel is no cause for celebration, General."

As Hux turned away, Kylo saw a flash of contempt in his eye. It was nothing new. He'd often seen contempt in the eyes of his enemies. In just about everyone, actually. Still, he knew he had to be careful of the weasel before him. Hux devoted unflagging loyalty to Snoke out of fear, yes, but also awe, ambition, and a shared vision for the future. At the moment, Kylo knew he only inspired fear. Certainly Hux felt no awe of him, and as for the shared vision — he sensed doubt in the general over where Kylo's priorities lay. His obedience, therefore, was given only reluctantly and very tenuously. The failure on Crait had bred disgust as well as contempt.

Hux cleared his throat and offered a quiet rebuttal. "Simple though the task was, my lord, these successes are important in building your empire. And others have been more difficult victories. You brought the notoriously difficult Mantell system into compliance despite our devastated armada. That was no small feat. I would have expected our excellent progress to please you, Supreme Leader."

"General, what was the undoing of our forefathers? The downfall of the Empire? Remind me."

Hux looked at the ground, his jaw tightening. "A Jedi and the rebellion"

"And who was it who killed Supreme Leader Snoke and devastated the armada you commanded?"

"A Jedi and the resistance."

"And for months now you have failed to bring me any information on the whereabouts of that same Jedi and her resistance. You expect me to congratulate you on a job well done?"

Hux made a noise of impatience. "With all due respect, Supreme Leader, we haven't been troubled by a single resistance fighter since you let them trick you on Crait. I've brought you no news because we cannot find any. No disturbances. No rumors. Our uncontested victories clearly show that they are too small and weak to keep up their pathetic fight. We ruined them. They are finished."

But Kylo Ren knew he was wrong.

There had been disturbances, just not the kind Hux could identify. Kylo could feel them, the ripples of her power through the Force. She wasn't finished. And he knew there was nothing small or weak about what she had inside her, nor what she would build out of the shattered resistance remnants.

He stared out at the vast emptiness of space, his fist tightening. Hux began to cough and tug at his collar. His little accusation had not gone unnoticed. Not bothering to look at him, Kylo said firmly, "She's out there somewhere, reforming the rebellion, making plans to tear us down. To underestimate her is dangerous, General. We will not make the same mistakes as our forefathers. Do you understand?"

Hux trembled and nodded, clutching at his throat, face turning purple.

Kylo released him, and he fell to the ground, gasping. "You will not come scraping and clawing after praise again until you have brought me the information I require."

"Yes, my lord," Hux wheezed.

"And chart a course for the new shipyard. It's time we check on the fleet."

With that, Kylo spun on his heel and left the bridge, cape flowing behind him like a shroud of darkness.

He felt good about his decision to visit the construction site of his new armada, just as he felt good about his decision to come to the bridge to oversee the takeover of this small star system himself. He would not make the same mistake that Snoke, or even the Emperor before him did. They put too much trust in their weak, flawed subordinates, relying on threats and an apprentice emissary to ensure their commands be carried out. Not him.

Supreme Leader Ren would not be the holographic ruler, the absent father. He would personally oversee every step of this business of building a new empire.

Every crewman he passed radiated with white hot fear at the sight of him. They went about their business without making eye contact, hoping to go unnoticed. That wasn't anything new either, though it was stronger now than before. People had been looking at him with contempt and fear for a long time. He first saw it in the eyes of Luke, and then in the faces of his fellow students who turned against him and fought for their murderous teacher — a man who tried to kill his own nephew! That was when he knew for certain that light was more sinister and evil than dark. It compelled people to take the "noble," if very wrong, course of action. Not in the dark. In the dark there was absolute justice.

Except…it wasn't in the dark that Snoke met his justice.

It was somewhere in the hazy twilight of gray, when his dark and her light mingled into one powerful Force.

He tried not to think about it, hating the gnawing, empty feeling inside him that came on the heels of that memory.

Nothing was ever enough to drive out that feeling anymore. Not the victories of his new empire, not his own rise to glory, not his full and unhindered access to everything the dark side had to offer. Even as his mastery over it increased and his power in the Force grew, the darkness inside him swelling to knew strength, he continued to feel empty. Dissatisfied. Unbalanced.

Damn her.

Riding a lift to his private quarters, he deliberately ignored the glimpse of his reflection in a mirrored panel. That jagged scar slicing down the right half of his face was the only thing he could see anymore. She'd made her mark, and he knew that it cut far beneath the surface. She had sliced right to the very core of him.

Snoke accused him of becoming unbalanced when he killed his father, and in many ways he wasn't wrong — but Kylo knew the scales had started to tip before that. The chasm of chaos inside him had split open the moment she pushed back against the intrusion in her mind, and glimpsed into his instead. Something powerful and intense had been forged in that moment, each prying open the other's inner heart. It had sent him reeling, and he hadn't been able to catch his footing ever since.

Miserable little creature. She'd come in and carved up his already conflicted soul into a thousand pieces, then left him again in a heap upon the floor, unable to rebuild himself without a gaping hole. He thought she understood. He thought she finally saw the truth. She'd gotten in to the most vulnerable places inside him, and now he didn't know how to cut her out. In that most intimate of all moments, when their minds melded and she reached for him, and his flesh touched her flesh — in that moment, they'd promised each other that neither was alone. Yet in the end, she'd left him more alone than ever. Traitor. Like her traitor friends.

So why couldn't he hate her? He wanted to. Wanted to dream of her death, to plan the vengeful killing of her. After all, he'd promised Luke to destroy her. But try as he might, hate would not rise. Even as he tried to convince himself of her betrayal, he knew she hadn't truly left him alone. She was still out there, dealing with the same uncertainty, the same crushing loneliness, the same eternal pull towards the other side. She too struggled to understand this immense power within her, difficult to wield and even more difficult to balance. She felt the same thing he did. The whisper of a shared destiny.

The lift opened and he stalked off, grinding his teeth. He needed to find a quiet space to meditate, to access the well of darkness deep inside him and remember his purpose. It wasn't to find her. It wasn't to fixate on her like this. It wasn't even to root out the remainder of her resistance efforts and crush them. They were tiny insects beneath his boot now. His purpose was to bring each and every star system under First Order control and restore the empire his grandfather helped build. It was his legacy, his birthright. That effort was going well, but there was a ways to go yet. He needed to stay focused on that. Not on her.

Not. On. Her.

Perhaps it was time to gather his Knights of Ren, scattered throughout the galaxy on various assignments given to them by Snoke. If word got back to them about his new leadership, they would likely come anyway. Unlike Hux, they were force users and would be better able to sense where resistance fighters were hiding, where the force moved around powerful light. Then again, perhaps that wasn't such a good thing. Yes, he wanted them to kill the traitorous defector, the irritating pilot, and all their co-conspirators. But what if they killed Rey, too?

— And so what if they did? Wasn't that the best solution, in the end? The last Jedi needed to be destroyed — if he couldn't do it by his own hand, what did it matter if someone else did it? Spare him the torment of looking into her eyes again.

Then again, knowing how powerful she was, would they even be able to defeat her? If his mood weren't so tired, so melancholy, he might have entertained a smile at this thought. They'd be no match for her.

As if thinking about her had triggered it, he felt her presence brush against his through tremors in the Force. He froze, barely daring to breathe. They were very close this time, despite the great distance he sensed between them. Any closer and he knew he'd see her. But what would he say? What was there to say?

Come back to me. Please.

But even the whisper of that felt inadequate and tired. He'd begged her twice now to be with him. The first time she'd slashed his face open and the second she'd split his family's lightsaber and shut the door. She wasn't going to come running to him now just because he said it a third time.

But it didn't matter. The feeling of her receded again before the Force could resolve them into an intimate, face-to-face connection. Still, he had felt her, and he knew she had felt him. When she was gone, an ache began in the pit of his stomach.

Could they never escape one another?

He delivered an irritated kick to a small custodial droid scuttling in his way, sending it spinning across the floor.

Snoke boasted about bridging their minds as one of his many manipulation tactics, but he was gone now, and the Force continued to pull them together like this. A powerful link had been established between them that no longer needed the aid of Snoke. This time, they had more control. Kylo always waited to see what she would do, but she did not allow them to lay eyes on one another. She shut out the Force in that moment and cut herself off from him. Effectively shutting the door again.

Each time he was a little bit hurt, and a little bit relieved.

The worst part about all of this was knowing just how horribly unbalanced he was. Before Rey, he'd been certain he belonged in the dark. Struggling always against the tug of light, perhaps, but he knew what he wanted. He couldn't get back to that now — it remained just out of his reach. Holding on to anger and hate gave him just enough grasp to continue, but he knew how hollow and empty it all was. He thought he wanted this, but now he wasn't sure of anything.

Nothing could compare to what he'd felt that day in Snoke's throne room. That moment when conflict turned to resolve, and he finally, finally knew exactly what must be done.

Hearing his master taunt Rey, he realized that Snoke had manipulated him. Like a puppet dancing on a damn string.

This time, however, he'd gone a step too far. Exploiting them like this had meant he'd allowed them to glimpse into each other's fractured souls, and something intimate and precious had developed because of it. They understood one another now, understood the crippling loneliness and uncertainty that lurked in the heart of both of them. They were two of a kind. Two sides of one coin. She was the first to look at him in that way — as an equal. That bond had become something he valued greatly, and only realized how much when he saw Snoke making a mockery of it, using it to torment the girl who so recently had offered him her touch.

Hurting her. Hurting her.

His rage made him calm, centered, sure. And he acted.

And she rose beside him. And all the chaos in their two souls settled into place, fitting like twin pieces snapping together. Fighting with her felt right. It had fulfilled him, satisfied him. For the first time in his life, he felt perfect harmony. Two halves of one powerful whole.

"Do you know what you've done?" He whispered, now in the privacy of his own chambers. "Do you feel it too?"

The emptiness. The incompletion. The splintered knowledge that nothing now could compare to that singular moment.

He pulled off his cape and gloves, agitation gone in favor of that dull, tired ache. He was just so tired. Tired of the constant struggle, the fracture of his soul, the fight every single day of his life had been. He thought Rey offered a balm of rest, of acceptance and understanding, but the absence of her had only made it all worse. Now he had to figure out how to destroy her, or at least her people, and he knew even that would bring him no relief. Nothing would, except the unity and purpose they'd so fleetingly enjoyed.

"You've ruined everything," he snarled accusingly into the emptiness of his chambers.

Well, not everything, he knew. Because of her, he had ascended to heights achieved by no Skywalker before him. Would his grandfather be proud? Darth Vader never got to rule, he never sat at the very top. But his grandson now did. She was the catalyst for him finally overthrowing his master. Because of her, the blood of Anakin now reigned over the entire galaxy. So no, she hadn't ruined everything, just ruined his ability to feel satisfied in his achievement.

She must have felt the same. He saw it in her eyes, felt the shared anguish between them in that final meeting — across the red-strewn mineral of Crait, in the ashes of his humiliation and the triumph of her victory. They found one another in the tremors of the Force. But she did not look victorious, and she did not rejoice in his humiliation. Her gaze held the same regret churning in him. The regret of perfect balance, now lost. She could not submit to his darkness, nor he to her light. She had disappointed him, and her eyes clearly conveyed her disappointment in him. They were right for each other for one brief instant, and then it was gone.

They could not advance towards one another. But after what they'd felt in that throne room together, they could not retreat either.

Did it torment her as much as it did him? Did she think of him as constantly as he thought of her?

No! Damn it! Why did he always slide into these fixated ruminations? He wanted to forget her! She had rejected him. Left him. Just like his father, just like Luke, just like everyone. They all chose something else over him. He wasn't enough for them, or her. Despite her regret, she had closed the door in the end. Closed the door on him.

He shuddered.

His utter failure against Luke, his mistake in allowing the resistance to escape while he played the fool, and then that final, painful encounter with Rey in the Force — it all culminated into the worst moment of recent memory. This, on the heels of his triumph over Snoke.

He had to win. He had to win! He had to prove his supremacy over her, over the galaxy, over the weakness and pull to the light inside him. He had to rise in the darkness and become the titan of power his birthright promised. He must overcome. All would bow and tremble before him, and no one would be able to reject or close the door on him again. His word would be law throughout every system. No one could walk away then.

Except Rey.