Rey's breath crystallizes the air in front of her as she waits.

Snow falls quietly around her prone body. The parallels this planet has to the one where they last battled each other do not go unnoticed. Rey finds a poetry to it, the first place and the last place they will truly fight being such mirrors of each other. Her mind wanders back to the last time she saw him, and the face that she had forced out of her mind comes back to her. She shudders, but not from the cold.

In the two years since she has seen him, she has lived a full life. She has never regretted the decision she made in the throne room. She feels like she belongs, finally, somewhere. Like she belongs to Finn and Poe and Rose. She has been made to feel safe, under the watchful eyes of Leia and Chewie. The family she had so desperately expected on Jakku had found her, but it wasn't the family she was waiting for. It was something better.

With them, she feels, for the first time, complete.

She feels complete when she and Poe move deftly past each other in the cockpit of the Falcon, arguing over who is the pilot or co-pilot, working off muscle memory to make the old metal purr when they occasionally face an odd outlier of the First Order. BB-8 and Chewie always sit in the back, dueling in their concerned beeps and growls, respectively. She feels complete when she feels Rose's weight next to her in her bunk, late at night when they should be sleeping, as they talk about their childhoods, slowly bringing the pain from hers to the surface where Rose smooths it out with kind words and soft jokes. They stifle laughter that brings them to tears, happy and sad, depending on the night. She feels complete when Finn sneaks her knowing smiles whenever the galaxy, and life, reveal how vast and complex they are, and she always feels better knowing that everything that is new to her, is also new to Finn.

She knows her place now, and it is protecting them, with whatever she can.

Which is why she now waits. Now draws him out. To give them time. They all have their skillset, and this is hers.

She centers herself in the memories of her friends as she tries to block out the deafening, all-encompassing sounds of X-Wings and TIE fighters swirling above, her vision of them obscured by the dense forest around her. She fills her lungs with the cold air until they burn at capacity and then slowly controls her exhale, and she imagines the Aurabesh lettering that appears in Luke's old Jedi books, spelling out "meditate" and "focus" in her mind.

The chaos around her tucks under her consciousness, hidden below the cover of the force she wields. She feels both planes so clearly, both the planet she stands on and the veins of the force which run through it all. She remembers how much doing this used to hurt, used to tear her apart, when she tapped into it for the first time. Now, it envelops her, the threads of it inextricably linked in her DNA.

It is only in these meditative links where she senses him, his presence hangs like the black afterimage seared into her retina by the sun on Jakku. He is never more than a muddled trace, blurry and dense. Often, he stays in her periphery, lingering unobtrusively, making it easy for her to pretend he is nothing but a shadow, and not the one symbol of impending doom for her and her loved ones.

But sometimes, the shadow weighs heavy. Too heavy. Sometimes he becomes a black hole that dips the force so heavily into him, bending it all around that she, and everything around her, slide into him. Panic has always snapped her back out of the strata of the force before she reached his epicenter, and her muscles would ache for days after these particular sessions, thick with unused adrenaline. She stays away from meditation after these particular incidents, sometimes for days, sometimes for weeks, not wanting to intrude on his hysterics.

In the quiet now, she sees a black spot in the distance that is him, the only other being that can tap into this plane so fully. She knew he would come for her before them, which is why they are on the other side of the planet and she is here (with the exception of Poe, who was probably barrel rolling above her, hollering in the victory of a direct hit). At the thought of Poe, his force signature flares in a way it never has before, its edges turning red. This must be what it is like when they are in the same physical space, she can see more, they can hear more. She quiets her thoughts as the spot grows larger.

Suddenly, the spot's steady pace towards her picks up. She thinks about bracing for his imminent impact, but the force picks up like a gentle breeze, running softly through the tendrils of hair that frame her face, and she calms. As he gets closer, this familiar bond alters in another way, as he starts to become clearer. The lines of his cloak are what she notices first, emerging from his usual blur in crisp lines. She notices then his outfit has changed slightly from when she last saw him last. His robes now wear a thin trim of gold, which traces him all the way down throughout his cowl, a nod to Snoke, no doubt. She frowns at the thought that even with Snoke long dead, his presence still lingers in Kylo Ren. The static around him dissipates until finally, with her eyes still closed, he stands fully in front of her, within striking distance. She angles her sight in the force to look into his face, and in the same instant, opens her eyes on the physical plane, breaking her meditation. Their eyes lock as the sound of war rushes back in.

For a long time, neither of them move. Rey can feel his thoughts racing, too fast for her to pick up on any one. He senses her prickling at the edges of his consciousness and goes blank. They both present as impenetrable fortresses, doomed to face each other eternally.

This silent reverie is cut with the hissing of Kylo's saber.

"I told Skywalker I would destroy you, and I intend to keep my promise to that dead scum." Kylo shouts over the sound of his weapon.

His anger is palpable in the cold air between them, vibrating turbulently off the slow moving molecules.

Rey doesn't move, doesn't flinch at the mention of her dead teacher. She stares back at Kylo's dark eyes with her own hazel. He starts to pace, not willing to strike yet, but also not wanting to waste his adrenaline. Her eyes follow him, back and forth in the snow, waiting.

"What is your plan here, scavenger?" he stops and eyes her, "You have no weapon, you can't fight me with force of will alone."

Standing still, the force breeze picks up again, catching her hanging rags to reveal her hilt below. Kylo's eyes flash when the double-hilted saberstaff casing reveals itself close to Rey's hip. The silver of its casing almost glistens in the low light of the double moons that streams through the thick canopy above them. Rey notices and places her hands lightly on her weapon, more out of habit than threat.

"How?" Kylo stands stock still, his eyes darting between the saberstaff and Rey's face.

Rey stands resolute, unwilling to give him anything more than she has. Sadness for how uninformed he is and embarrassment for her younger self unintentionally bleed through her thoughts as she looks at Kylo's face again. An overwhelming pity overtakes her for that lost and lonely girl she was, grasping for anything real, who turned her back on Luke to try to save this man who sputtered in front of her. It had never been real, it was all a trick an old monster played on them.

"Stop!" His deep shout breaks her shame. Kylo's face contorts into something else, as if he had put his mask back on, but he still stands bare faced in front of her.

"I killed my master for you, and you, you scavenger, have the audacity to think that wasn't real?" His rage is too much, it hurts too much, but she doesn't break eye contact, she doesn't step back. She knows what he wants, but she doesn't say anything to his direct questioning.

His saber sputters, magnifying her silence, her defiance.

"I offered you EVERYTHING" a guttural howl pierces her.

At this, Rey flashes with the thoughts that plagued her mind since the Supremacy. Before she can stop herself, her calm voice breaks, juxtaposing the scream that just dissipated, "You used me to get the power you craved. All I was to you was a vessel by which to increase your influence. You offered me nothing."

His rage breaks at this, and he rushes towards her with more elegance than their first fight. He had been training.

But so had she. From behind her, she draws out her saberstaff. As he notices it, a hesitation registers in his step, but his stride is too full now, too close now to stop.

He has to commit fully, and as he rises his staff up above Rey, she waits until the last possible millisecond before hers ignites from both ends.

His eyes lock on her face and her teeth bare. He sees the purple glow hit her face and something in him catches.

Of course it's amethyst his mind bleats before taking his eyes off her to look at the blades. He stops completely when he realizes what is inches from his face.

From one end of the saber, the familiar blue of his grandfather's saber juts out, matched completely, beautifully even, by the deep red hue of the light on the other side.

He breathes out a disbelieving "Rey" before her two-toned saber collides with his, showering them both in sparks.