Prompt: Something very angsty. This probably makes me sound like a terrible person but I love reading fics where one half of the ship dies and the other half is left mourning and completely torn apart. I'm always a fan of that, especially if they never really admitted their feelings until moments before or just after the death.
Written as a Valentine's prompt fill for jedi-ren on tumblr
Title from Chiseled in Stone by Vern Gosdin (I may or may not have googled 'saddest country songs' and picked from that list you have no way of knowing)

There are people, after everything, who tell her that it was heroic, or brave, or honorable. They talk about him like he did the right thing, like he's a better person for what happened- as if somehow that's supposed to make her feel better, that he's somehow elevated in the minds of random insignificant strangers. All it makes her feel is angry. Angry and despondent and lonely and hurt somewhere deep and unfixable.

At the heart of it is how fundamentally unfair the whole thing is. It isn't even about how much pain she's in, but about the fact that he'd worked so fucking hard to come back, spent so much time and effort and practically shattered his already-broken self in the fight to escape the darkness. She doesn't know everything he did, and she never will, now, but she knows that the man who restrained and interrogated and fought her on Starkiller and the man who showed up on Ach-To with a scar dividing his world-weary eyes were as different as could be, a hundred lifetimes of struggle condensed into a few impossible years.

All that, and for what? Not enough.

15:42 3-19-35

Audio Message

To: Rey

From: Kylo

"Hey, it's me, just checking in to make sure everything's going well. I hope the Dogma's doing you right, I know you aren't used to flying ships that actually function as they're meant to, but rest assured the Falcon is in good hands and is almost back to working order after that stunt you pulled with the ion cannons in the Iego system. Anyway get back to me whenever you get a chance."

He showed up on Ach-To two years into her training. The war was still in full swing and no one had heard anything of him since Starkiller, so everyone had assumed he'd died when the planet exploded. Luke and Leia had mourned for Han and Ben, months of Rey feeling their earth-shattering grief in the Force as if it were her own, even as they continued fighting the war and living their lives as if they'd never known anything but grim, steadfast determination.

And then Rey felt a disturbance in the Force and she looked up and he was standing there, in beat-up spacer's garb, his hair long and shaggy and pulled back into a messy bun, looking like he'd been through hell and back. It was a hectic few days while they worked out what to do with him, and then a hectic few weeks while the Resistance argued over whether to put him on trial. In the end, they decided to release him into Luke's care, with the guarantee that he would either help train new Jedi or be imprisoned if he was still too tempted towards the dark side.

Rey hadn't been happy about it, at first. In fact, she'd been furious, on behalf of Finn, who hadn't woken for weeks after Starkiller and still couldn't quite use his left arm like he'd used to, and Han, who never got to come home, and the Hosnian system, and everyone else who'd ever been hurt by him. She was cruel and petty, taking every opportunity to remind him that he was a monster. He accepted it, over and over, with a grimace, like he deserved it. To this day she has no idea when things started to change, but gradually she found herself calling him by his name more, smiling at him, pulling punches when they sparred. She started looking past the person she'd already decided he was and seeing the person who was in front of her- not someone heartless or cold or wicked, but someone sad and passionate and deeply repentant. He didn't talk much, but he never raised his voice. He wasn't good at controlling his temper, but he never hurt her. He didn't seem to know how to be kind or gentle or good, but he tried anyway. She stopped seeing him as the monster who lived in darkness, and started seeing him as the man who'd fallen and then found the strength and courage to claw his way back to the light.

Without really noticing, she stopped hating him- she started to admire him and respect him, and then admiration and respect turned to fondness and affection, and then love. Somewhere between his coming back to Ach-To and the last year of the war, she fell in love with the man she'd once despised.

09:26 08-02-36

Kylo: Rey

Kylo: How is your room such a mess

Kylo: You own like four things

Kylo: I've tripped over at least twelve times the amount of clothes I've ever seen you wear

Rey: I own a lot of the same thing

Rey: What are you doing in my room anyway?

Rey: Get out of my room!

Kylo: I can't tell you it's a surprise

Kylo: I promise I didn't touch anything

Rey: Surprise?

Kylo: You'll see.

20:47 8-03-36

Rey: (attached image)

Rey: !

Rey: THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Kylo: Oh you liked it good I was worried

Rey: Thank you thank you thank you thank you

Kylo: I just wish I could've been there to see your face

Rey: Yeah, me too… war waits for no man.

Kylo: Unfortunately

Rey: If you get back safely I promise I will recreate my exact reaction

Kylo: Fantastic I look forward to it

The war had taken its toll on both of them, but peace was almost harder. During wartime, every decision had the weight of life and death on it. So even though they both knew, on some level, how the other felt, neither ever said anything. It was too much of a risk- every day their lives were on the line, and the thought of starting something only to have it ended before its time by the cruel twists of fate at war was almost unbearable. For almost a year, every look between them, every soft heavy moment, was a promise- after. After the war. After it was over. After there was peace and stability and a foundation for something.

Kylo had seen how succumbing to the desperate, reckless passions of wartime had worked out for his parents. He wanted something different for himself. So he'd resolved to wait.

Rey had lost too many people in her life, and he was already important enough to her that losing him would be devastating. She didn't want to compound that. So she'd resolved to wait.

But when the First Order finally crumbled, brought to its knees, and the business of rebuilding started, neither of them really knew what to do. They had both spent so long relying on the certainty of danger as an excuse not to take the leap that neither of them really knew how to make a move now that they could. Finn and Poe had been similarly dancing around each other during the war, waiting for safety, but their relationship was fundamentally different- they were both so good, and their love was something wholesome and uplifting and idyllic. But Rey and Kylo were like unlit matches in a roomful of gunpowder, all passionate potential with the necessity of so much care. It was heady and terrifying, the prospect of all they could be, and they both waited for the right sign to come along, something else to bring them together with the same dramatic explosiveness that had accompanied every other milestone in their lives.

Instead, it was quiet.

It was a soft kiss under the stars, the gentle touch of silvery moonlight and cautious lips, immense love being given over in pieces, both wary of overwhelming the other. He was nervous and uncertain, and she was deeply afraid, but they closed their eyes and they opened their hearts. Tand they let the dizzy thrill of emotion drown out their fears.

It was careful, exploratory touch, his hands like butterfly's wings on her glass skin, and her lighting up from the inside out, warm and intense, springtime sunlight flooding from her chest. They kissed and caressed with all the fumbling excitement of teenagers, and then they laid tangled together under the wide starry sky and filled the darkness with their whispered secrets, teaching themselves to each other word by word, piece by piece, all their worn paths and shadowy corners.

It was the hushed reverence of dawn in their hearts, something new and bright and lovely just beginning, eager and tender and just a little bit scary.

And, stars above, it was so good. It was everything Rey could have imagined and more- she loved him, every inch of him, all his strength and his brokenness, all his passion and intensity and unexpected gentleness, the smile he had just for her and the certainty she had that no matter what, he'd be there for her, that he wouldn't ever leave her. And he loved her with all the fierce adoration and loyalty of a man who'd lost all hope and found it again in her, handed her his heart and all he was and trusted her not to break him. It was the kind of love that would have either forged a bond like iron or gone up in flames and brought them both down with it, but they'd never get the chance to know which one, because he was gone.

15:48 01-23-37

Holomessage

To: Rey

From: Kylo

(Kylo and Poe are onscreen, flushed and grinning. They look like they've been drinking.)

Poe: Hi Finn!

Kylo: No no this one's for Rey, Finn's next

Poe: Why are we doing Rey first? That's stupid, we should do Finn first, he's better

Kylo: Shut up, you're biased

Poe: So are you!

(Kylo covers Poe's mouth with his hand)

Kylo: Hi Rey! And Finn, I guess. I hope you guys are having a better time doing Jedi shit than we are

Poe: (pulling Kylo's hand off his face) The Senate is the worst, you guys

Kylo: Amen to that

Poe: We were gonna sing a song but I forgot Kylo can't carry a tune in a bucket-

Kylo: Bite me

Poe: Only if you want me to, baby

(Poe winks, Kylo hits him, they start wrestling, the holovideo cuts out)

Rey knows her friends want to help her, and she can't help but feel childish every time one of them comes to visit, only to find her curled up in bed or staring listlessly out the window. It's Finn she talks to about it first, because she feels like he'd be the closest to understanding her turmoil about it.

"I don't understand why I can't get past this when I already lost my entire family," she says one day, a couple of weeks after the funeral.

Finn shrugs. "Grief doesn't always make sense. Just… it's okay. Just be sad for as long as you need to. We'll be here when you're ready."

"Thank you."

"Of course."

18:13 9-24-38

Audio Message

To: Rey

From: Kylo

"Hey, love, it's me. Listen, I know I was supposed to get home today, but things kind of exploded a little bit and it's looking like I might have to be here a while longer I'm really sorry. I know Jedi shit's been keeping us at opposite ends of the galaxy for a while and I really, really miss you. I'm thinking we should take a break for a little while after I get back, nothing big, just a few days on Naboo without our commlinks, see what it's like to be regular people for a while. (Pause, distant muffled speech) What? They're- what? Why do they have blasters, do they think- okay. I'm on my way. I have to go, Rey, I'll call you later, I love you."

Leia took it upon herself, in the weeks after his death, to look after Rey. She was at her apartment every spare minute, making sure she ate and showered and looked after herself. For a few days after the funeral, Rey was too numb for much of anything other than mutely following Leia's instructions, but when she started to come back to herself enough to speak, she cried on Leia's shoulder and asked her how she was so strong, how she wasn't falling apart.

The general had smiled a sad smile, hugged Rey, and said, "Lots of practice."

18:57 9-24-38

Audio Message

To: Rey

From: Kylo

"Rey, love, it's me, I- (distant blaster fire) fuck, no- things are really... things are not going well here and I think it might be a while- (crash, static)"

Their bond in the Force was strong. When they were close, they knew each other's feelings and thoughts effortlessly, almost before they happened. When they were far, they could sense strong emotion, danger, fear. They were like magnets at opposite ends of the galaxy, always pulling towards each other, the pull stronger as distance waned, satisfied only when they were together.

And then came the day that his end of the bond blinked out of existence.

He was on a diplomatic mission on the other end of the galaxy, something meant to be safe and easy and simple. Anything meant to be that way never was. She woke up one morning and reached out with the Force, habitually, feeling for him, wanting to know where he was and how he was feeling. Nothing. She tried harder. Still nothing. She scrambled out of bed and sat in the sun to meditate. Nothing. For hours, nothing. It was like going blind- everywhere there should have been something, the sense, the feeling, he was just… absent.

It took weeks for her to stop panicking when she woke up and reached out and he wasn't there. Being alone in her soul again is a fresh sort of agony.

She misses him.

19:04 9-24-38

Audio Message

To: Rey

From: Kylo

"Hey love it's me I- (rattling cough, distant sounds of blasterfire)- um. Fuck. We might have to wait on that trip to Naboo. This mission- (shouts, crashing, blasterfire, pained yell)- fuck! Rey I'm so sorry I'm so so sorry I love you so much, okay? I love you I love you I lo- (crash, shouting, clatter, silence other than the sounds of a distant battle. Static.)"

Nobody said anything about Force ghosts after the funeral. Rey managed to forget about the possibility in her daily haze of haphazard survival. Every time she saw Luke he'd examine her with his ancient ocean eyes and fail to find whatever he was looking for, then sigh and continue with whatever business he was there for. Luke didn't do as well with grief as his sister, so he tended to give Rey her space, let her get through it on her own. So she focused on waking up and facing the day and finding the inner strength that had let her survive for so long alone on Jakku, ignoring the echoing emptiness of the Force without his presence in it, warm and close and familiar.

And then she feels it again.

It comes like a gust of wind and she gasps for a second, turning around in time to see him, looking disgruntled and a little bit frustrated in the neat black robes he'd taken to wearing as a Jedi. His eyes land on her, and a smile spreads slowly across his face, and before he's even finished saying, "Hey, love," she's launching herself at him.

She goes straight through him and crashes into the table.

It's that, more than anything, more than the daily ache of knowing he's gone, that stabs her in the heart and sends her crumpling to the floor. She's trying not to cry, though, her gaze fixed on him, taking him in as much as she can. She's played and replayed every audio and holo he ever left her since the funeral, a hundred times, enough that they're all memorized, but they can't compare to the real thing. Or as close to the real thing as she can get now.

"You're back," she manages, voice rough with unshed tears.

"I'm sorry it took me so long. As it turns out, coming back is kind of a fucking challenge." He reaches out like he wants to touch her, but hesitates and pulls his hand back at the last second. "But I couldn't just… not try."

"I miss you," she says. "I miss you so much."

"I know," he replies, sounding just as wrecked. "I never meant for- I never wanted this to happen, Rey, you know I didn't want… the last thing I would ever want is to leave you."

"I know. I know."

"I wish I could've stayed."

"Me too."

They sit in silence for a while, taking each other in, settling their raging hearts.

"What's it like, over there?" she asks, finally. "Are you… is it good?"

"I got to meet my grandfather. He's not… terribly pleased with some of the things I've done in his name." Rey laughs, small and shaky. "But he's proud of me. And so is my father. There's a lot of great people on the other side." He smiles crookedly at her and she feels the pain of his death all over again. "But there's no you."

"Then it must be terrible," she says, trying for a haughty, joking tone and missing by a mile.

"It is." He's completely sincere, and she wonders absently if the galaxy really needs her, if she can't just…. "Don't even think about it, Rey, you know that's not an option."

"I know. I wouldn't do it. It's just… hard. Everyone is so good to me, and they're doing their best, but they don't… Leia and Luke mourned you after Starkiller, it's… it's easier for them."

"It's okay," he says, and she can feel how ardently he wants to reach out and hold her, how deeply it pains him that he can't. "It's okay, just… be kind to yourself. And don't dwell. We'll see each other again."

She can feel him starting to fade, and she holds on with all her might, trying to memorize the way he looks and sounds, how it feels to have him there again, anything new for her to hold onto when the night is cold and empty and she feels more alone in the universe than she has since the day her family left her behind. But she's not strong enough, and with a sigh and a smile he disappears, and she's alone.

"We'll see each other again," she whispers. "Someday."