She lies on the ground beneath him, her dark hair stuck on her forehead smeared with sweat.

It's cold outside, snowing once more as it was the last time. But inside, inside there is no cold. There's nothing.

Already the first time he had seen her, he'd realised something about her was different. Perhaps the look in her eyes, or the way she moved… something was different and yet familiar. Strange, but not entirely unknown.

Then he'd watched over her as she stood before him asleep, chained beneath his curious gaze. He'd noticed her beauty, and for a moment had solely focused on that… she was young, much younger than him, almost a girl… thin, so thin… small… she had felt so light in his arms…

No.

When he'd finally entered her mind, he had found something in her which he had not expected. A solitude, an emptiness like his own. And that emptiness had resonated inside him… and she understood him, though she would never admit it to herself, as he had understood her. He knew it. The scavenger girl from Jakku, that desert rat, had seen inside his mind, and she had understood.

How could that be?

How?

It made him angry. And yet, perhaps not.

The pangs of loneliness emanated from her to him and then back to her. As if they were talking. As if they were thinking together. As if they were one.

She had completed and filled him for the briefest of moments.

And just for a second, he was not Kylo Ren. He was darkness.

And she was light.

They were the force.

Just them.

After her escape, he had thought about her, again and again. He was angry. He was furious.

He had killed the others, all of them. Skywalker was somewhere far away, just an old man, and he would soon be dead too…

The darkness was spreading throughout the galaxy, but then she'd awakened. And he could feel her… he could feel her constantly.

Perhaps he had always felt her… she was the light, she was the call… but now she'd taken the form of a woman. No. A girl.

And the girl made him whole. Like her light made his dark whole.

As he thought of her one day, an idea had slowly taken shape in his mind. And he had feared it… and he had believed it… and he had wanted it. An old prophecy had once spoken of a chosen one to bring balance to the force. Some whispered it was Anakin Skywalker, his own grandfather, others that it was just a tale… and yet, there had to be balance. How could there be darkness with no light? How could he cast a shadow over the galaxy if no light shone behind him?

And how can she be without me?

Could they… could they bring balance to the force?

The idea was absurd. It enraged him.

Was it though?

He had played with the thought during his troubled slumbers, remembering how her eyes had shone with a curious light when he had offered to show her the ways of the force and how he had felt a powerful, invisible but blinding feeling emanate from her.

He had hated her for rejecting him then, the desert rat. He could have been her master and mentor…

And yet, for how long could she, when he could hardly reject her himself? Already her eyes had betrayed her when she had left him wounded and bleeding in snow and fire.

And so the thought kept on presenting itself to him.

Much as it did now.

She was at his mercy, his lightsabre casting a sickly, red glow on her skin.

I should kill her.

But what of us? What of what we are?

We are nothing.

But they weren't.

Something, something else about her, which he couldn't quite grasp, drew him to her.

Different and yet familiar. Strange, but not entirely unknown.

"Do it, monster." Her words cut him like a blade.

He gazes long at her, but remains still.

"Or are you too much of a coward? You murdered your own father, surely you won't have any difficulties with me… I'm no one."

No one. Yes, she is no one.

"How dare you?" he asks.

She doesn't reply, a feral look in her eye.

She is defeated, alone, but she will not show it. Her weapon is lying in some far forgotten emptiness below them, but she remains fierce.

My weapon.

Why it had answered her call rather than his in the first place, he'd long wondered.

I am a Skywalker. The lightsabre belonged to Anakin and Luke before me. But now it is mine. It belongs to me!

"You are no one!" he half whispers, lowering his sabre, so that it almost touches her neck.

She hears him though and for a moment he thinks she looks betrayed.

What did she expect?

"And now you die…" he states, hoping there is no uncertainty in his words.

And now I kill her. Destroy her. Before it is too late.

He lifts the sabre. It will be a clean cut. She will feel nothing.

Destroy her.

Destroy her.

"Ben…"

A voice he hasn't heard in years calls him.

An old friend…

An old foe…

"Ben…" he hears Luke's voice again.

No. He doesn't want to hear his words…

"Leave me." He states firmly.

"You will regret your deeds. If you kill her, there is no going back…"

There has been no going back for a long time…

"You know who she is… you have known it for a long time. There has been blood between you, but blood there always was… she is my daughter. You cannot be without her… she cannot be without you…" he says.

And then his presence is gone, as if he'd never been there.

He looks at her and he can tell she's heard everything. She knows too.

He takes a few steps back, confused and conflicted.

As he's always been, ever since he can remember.

Help me, he calls, not sure who can hear him.

And suddenly she stands and walks to him, leaving soft, shallow footprints in the snow.

"What can I do? I don't know what to do…" she whispers.

"How could you?"

And then her hand comes to rest on his cheek gently. It's cold, like the ice beneath them and that inside his heart.

"There is not only ice inside you…"

"Yes, there is."

"There is also this…"

She leans in closer to him and their faces are almost touching.

But she stops there, as if uncertain.

He makes the final step and kisses her, their frozen lips finding warmth at last.

And it's just like when he's inside her mind, when he feels her emptiness as his own, her pain, her suffering, her dreams, her… love.

Yes, it almost feels as if she loves him… but what does he know of love now?

He has deprived himself of it long ago, he has forgotten it, forgotten its soft caress and warmth.

"No." She says suddenly.

She hold his face with both her hands, slowly stroking his cheeks.

"There is also light… there is light inside of you, I know it. Just… just let it in…"

"No!" he cries and a single tear falls from his eyes.

He grabs her neck, holding it firmly, but so as to not hurt her.

"Don't you understand? I cannot! You have made your choice, you have chosen the light, and so now I must make mine… you and I, we… we will bring balance to the force. But there can be no balance if there is not also darkness. We were born to be one, but we cannot be one if one of us renounces our path… you were right, you could never be my padawan… you can never be mine."

And it dawns on them both, that a cruel fate has fallen upon them… one but separated, divided…

"It doesn't have to be like this…"

"I told you… we cannot turn back now."

"You say we are one, but are we?"

"We cannot be one, Rey… not like that." It's the first time he says her name.

"No… no, we cannot. But we are not the balance, Ben… the balance will come from us. One will come from us."

He is taken aback by her words.

Not moments ago, she called him monster and now it is with the same monster that she wants to…

A child.

A child borne from them would be strong with the force, yes. A son or a daughter of light and dark.

He has never wanted to be a father, never wanted to become like him. Han Solo.

And yet the idea of…

He can see her small frame beneath her clothes, her narrow hips and long legs… her breasts…

He wants her. He aches for her.

What they could create in a single moment of careless bliss, makes him desire her even more…

Unite the two Skywalker lines…

He looks at her and is met by an intense stare and all that lies behind it, hidden but open to him.

He breathes in and whispers:

"Come with me."