AN: Hello Readers! This is a story that explores the old "Arranged Marriage" Au. I sincerely hope you enjoy it! Happy Star Wars Day everyone!

They dress her in black.

She remembers hearing old stories where people would wear black to commemorate death, to grieve.

So it is fitting.

She'd watched them fire the weapon, seen the distant explosion and felt the deaths of hundreds of people ripple through the force that had only so recently awakened inside of her. The Resistance had known the attack was coming, so Rey clings to the hope that some of them had managed to escape. But she had to accept now that no one was coming for her. Not that she'd had much hope for that to begin with. She wouldn't have risked so many lives for the sake of one.

She thought that they would kill her too, once they realized there was no getting the map from her mind. She had thought that was her fate when the droids came into her cell. But they hadn't tortured her. They'd cleaned her, and to her embarrassment, conducted an extremely invasive medical exam. Or at least, she assumed that was what they were doing, she'd never had an exam before. They'd given her a black dress to wear, simple and soft, long sleeves and a high neckline, falling to her knees.

If they were going to execute her, they certainly intended to make it a spectacle then. But what she had assumed was her imminent death was not nearly as troubling as what she felt from him. From Kylo Ren- from the monster with a handsome face that he hid behind a mask. She recognized that it was him; she knew what it felt like inside of his head, and now he never fully left her. It had been the night before that she'd struggled to sleep that she'd felt the strangest range of emotions from him.

Confusion, doubt, anger, disbelief, and acceptance. But always some pain. Horrible pain that came from inside and outside. Someone was hurting him, but not as much as his spirit was hurting. She felt pity for him, followed by disgust at herself. That man was a monster, he didn't deserve her pity.

She's led to a large room at the heart of the base, she looks at the people in the room. A stiff, stately looking red headed man. A trooper in chrome instead of black and white. A nervous looking man in a uniform. And Kylo Ren, his mask held at his side. THey're all staring at her, she realizes.

"So. Is this where I'm to die?" She asks, and the redheaded man lets out a short laugh before he punches something into a control panel and a large hologram appears. Rey gasps at the sheer size of the image, and her face forms a grimace as she sees the puckered, scar riddled flesh of the creature in the holo.

"So...this is the girl Kylo Ren has told me so much about…" Her eyes turn briefly to the man in black who has taken a knee before the holo. The others in the room have too. She's the only one who is still standing. Well, she won't change that. "Yes...hm, Kylo's thoughts led me to believe you'd be something better to look at...an incomparable beauty, though I see nothing special on the outside...but I suppose that is in the eye of the beholder." Rey feels her face heat up, and embarrassment radiates from the black clad figure before her.

"Sorry to disappoint." SHe mutters, and the creature laughs.

"But I do see something else- something beneath the skin...yes, power! Untrained, raw power!" The creature speaks with an edge of lust that disgusts her. "I have seen this power only once before...in my apprentice. Yes, powerful light rising to meet powerful darkness. You could be broken, made to serve the darkness…" Ice cold fear pools in her stomach.

"I will never serve the darkness. I will never serve you!" She spits, and he has the audacity to laugh.

"I sensed that before you spoke it…"

"Then kill me and be done with it." She hisses.

"Kill you?" He makes a tutting sound with his tongue. "No, my dear...that would be...a waste. Such power...and in a human female...I had not thought we'd encounter that. Tell me, General Hux, have the droids sent the results of the medical probes?"

"Yes, Supreme leader." The redheaded man- Hux- says as he pulls up a holopad. "The girls reproductive system appears to be in working order. It would appear that within days she will be in prime state for conception...She's even a virgin." Rey's face turns red with embarrassment and then with rage.

"Wonderful! Yes...I can see it now...an army of powerful force sensitives raised from birth to serve the darkness…" The hologram grins and pulls her forward with that mysterious force. She grits her teeth. "And what better vessel for the army of darkness than this being of pure light?"

"I will never submit to you!" She says through gritted teeth.

"As if you could refuse this, child...Your friends are dead...there is nowhere else for you to go...Refusing would mean death to you."

She'd never been overly afraid of death. Growing up on Jakku, she'd expected it almost daily. But now, she'd discovered how much more there was to the galaxy, how many people were out there longing for hope. For freedom. Hope she might be able to give them. She knew from the legends that force users brought hope or destruction. Left alive, she could be that hope. She could continue the fight that the Resistance had begun. She looks at the hologram again, and disgust pools in her stomach. How could she accept if it meant being used by this creature...he's hideous, and old, scarred and ruined. She almost vomits just thinking of it. And he laughs again. Maker, she hated that sound.

"I sense fear from her. And disgust. Come now my dear child, is my apprentice really so horrible to look at?" He asks, and Rey feels herself stiffen in surprise. "I see, the girl had mistaken our intentions. A human female holds no appeal to me- but a human female with great force potential means the potential for mighty offspring from my first knight...Yes, heirs of the Skywalker bloodline by you would be strong…" She feels an invisible hand wrap around her throat, lifting her from the ground and closing tightly around it, cutting off her air supply. "Of course...We hardly need your consent. Just as easy to drug you and breed you."

"Supreme Leader, that's not necessary!" She recognizes Kylo Ren's voice behind her. He's angry. Not at her, no...he's...disgusted? Suddenly he's been dragged to her side, and she sees the set of his jaw. Yes, he's furious, but the fury is directed at the hologram in front of them. Suddenly, the pressure on her throat is gone, and the hologram raises a skin and bones hand to his face.

"I suspect you are correct, Kylo Ren. After all, it would be much easier to keep her if she were willing...and come to think of it, I have no real desire for an army of bastards. Mitka, have you got the paperwork?" The nervous looking man nods and stammers out an affirmation. "Excellent- I'd much rather have the heirs to darkness legally bearing the Skywalker name." Rey's brow furrows. Skywalker? Why did he keep saying that name? The only Skywalker she'd ever heard of was the Jedi Luke Skywalker, and this dark, mysterious man at her side was not him. "You wonder about the man beside you- do not worry dear child. I'm sure your future husband will have all the time in the world to explain his story to you."

"Husband?" She scoffs.

"Of course, My dear. Unless you'd prefer death?" Rey turns and looks at the man at her side. He meets her eyes, and she's struck by how deep his seem to be. So brown they're almost black. He's silently pleading with her, she feels it. Somehow, something inside of him has been linked to her- he cannot stand the idea of her death. He is afraid for her- he is protective of her. She almost scoffs, considering the fact that he had been the one to capture her and torture her to begin with. But his eyes do not lie to her.

"Please." She gasps, hearing his voice in her head as clearly as if he had spoken to her aloud.

"I take your silence as your consent." Snoke says, and she nods mechanically. Kylo Ren's relief is almost tangible. "Very good. General, proceed with the ceremony."

She'd never had romantic notions of a wedding, not like other girls she'd met. She'd never even really wanted to get married. She assumed that if she ever found someone that she wanted to spend her life with, they'd simply do the Jakku thing and live together until they died or fell out of love. So it shouldn't have hurt her to hear a man who didn't love her vow his loyalty and love to her. It shouldn't have hurt, but it did. The words stick in her throat as she repeats them, each one like a blaster bolt to her heart.

She forces herself to remember that she's doing this because she has to live to fight another day. She doesn't know how she knows it, but she senses that Finn still lives. Han and Chewy too. And they were not the only ones. If she felt out far enough, she could feel life forms near to the destroyed Rebel base. Yes, there were survivors.

She had to live to fight for them, beside them. To learn to manipulate this force to her advantage to help them. Perhaps to find Luke Skywalker and train under him. She had to stay alive to accomplish any of that.

If that meant being the wife of Kylo Ren, she could bear that.

If it meant having a child for him, she could do that. This Supreme Leader wanted children to be trained in the darkness, she could have those children...but she would never let them be taken by the darkness, by anyone. She would love them, infuse them with the light.

Even if she did not love the man that would father these children, she would have what she had so long craved. A family.

These thoughts spur her on, and give her the strength to bind her life to his. He has a look of resignation and sorrow in his eyes as he leans forward and places a chaste kiss on her lips. It's not her first kiss- she'd kissed a few of the other human scavengers on Jakku, trying to fight off loneliness, but had never gone farther than that. It had never seemed right, no matter how the kisses had staved off her loneliness for a time.

But the moment his lips press against hers, she feels something she's never felt before, something that scares her and thrills her.

Home.

Something inside of her cries out that she's home. She looks into the eyes of this man, this monster- her husband, she supposes, and she feels a traitorous sense of warm contentment. She breaks apart from him, and sees the same emotions echoed in his eyes. For just a moment, a single, solitary, beautiful moment, she can pretend that this is a man she has chosen for herself. That she chose him because they were wildly in love with each other, and could not bear to live apart. That he loved her, wanted her, needed her to survive.

But the Supreme Leader's slow, amused applause shakes that fantasy away and she is left with nothing but emptiness.