The Final Balance

Chapter 2

Thanks to everyone who has taken an interest in this story! Sorry the first few chapters are a little short but they will be getting longer over the next few posts.

The flames leapt in front up in front of him, preventing him from reaching his target. Seeing that time was running out, Kylo wrapped his cloak tightly about his body and burst through the fiery debris. The heat licked at his skin as its smoke left him marked. His eyes stung as he searched frantically for his quarry. Kylo finally spotted a familiar body lying motionless on the durasteel floor.

"Rey!" He screamed for her as he ran, coughing heavily on the fumes, He skidded across the floor and landed soundly on his knees.

"No, no,no," he repeated over and over as he gently rolled her onto her back. "Rey, you have to wake up."

A large gash on her forehead was desperately leaking blood and a darkening bruise was forming on her right cheek. But it was the gushing wound to her side that had him concerned. He checked the pulse in her wrist to find it erratic and frightening.

"Rey, sweetheart, please wake up," Kylo begged as he slipped his arms underneath her body, pulling her onto his lap. He cradled her closely to his chest and freed a hand so he could put pressure on her head wound. His hand on her skin startled her into a bleary consciousness.

"Ben?"

"I'm here, sweetheart," he assured her, doing his best to sound more confident than he felt. "I need to get you out of here."

Rey lifted a trembling hand to rest on the very scar she had placed on his cheek.

"Ben, it's too late for me," she coughed and her body shuddered from the effort. Ben shook his head, his eyes stinging from more than the smoke.

"Don't say that! I can get us to a shuttle..." He trailed off when her fingers reached his lips.

"It's time for me to go," Rey gave him a watery smile.

"No!" He half shouted, half sobbed. "I won't let you die for me!"

"I had to save you."

He lowered his forehead to hers, needing to pull her as close as he could manage.

"I'm not worth saving," he whispered, fully believing it.

"You are to me," she murmured weakly. He felt her fingers slip from his skin as the life faded from her body.

"No!" Kylo shouted out into the emptiness of his cold chambers. He panted heavily and sat up, looking around for the woman who had died in his arms. Upon realizing it had just been a dream, he pushed the sweaty bangs out of his eyes and he attempted deep, calming breaths. He glanced down at his still trembling hands. He could still feel the weight of her dying body in his grasp.

She had died. To save him.

Kylo tore out of bed, his entire being now shaking near violently. He paced the floor of his chambers, tearing at his hair, his breathing became labored. He was a force user, he knew that had been no ordinary nightmare, but a frightening vision of the future.

"I will not let this come to pass!" He growled out, surprising himself at the ferocity of his tone. But as soon as he said, he knew it to be true. The young, naive, and oh-so-lovely scavenger had wormed her way into his veins. Nearly every thought that came to his mind since battling her at Starkiller base had been consumed by her. The bond developed between had only amplified this strange...attraction he felt for her. In her, he found a soul, like his own, lonely and craving companionship. She understood him, like no one had ever done before; not his parents, not his uncle. When she looked at him, he wasn't just a monster. He was Ben.

Kylo had forgotten how good that felt. Good. She was good. She was light, drawing him in, filling him with her warmth. Even the memory of her brought out these feelings he thought long buried. But for all the light creeping into his awareness there was the all encompassing darkness ready to meet it. Snoke had not been wrong, Kylo felt his soul split in two. HIs father's death at Kylo's hand had been a furious wound upon his heart. The light left its scars both inside and out.

He paused his pacing in front of the mirror in his refresher. Kylo brought a trembling hand to his scar, much like Rey had in his dream. He closed his eyes, remembering one of the first conversations they had after discovering their force bond.

"You called me a monster."

"You are a monster."

"Yes. I am."

He opened his eyes to stare at the person looking back at him. His mother's eyes in the face of a monster gazed back at him. He pummeled his fist through the mirror, fracturing the glass in the same manner as his spirit. The pain surging through his fingers was grounding, a reminder of his strength, of the anger that fueled him. He watched as the blood gathered on his skin and he reveled in it.

The air stilled behind him, a sure-tell sign of the audience that joined him. He turned around, expecting to meet her hate filled gaze. Their last meeting had been far from pleasant. She had awoken from a nightmare, calling out his name, and without realizing it, called out to him through the force. His hopes had soared with the possibility of her opening back up to him after three months of near silence on her end. But it had been an accident, one she made clear she did not intend on letting happen again. Rey was still furious with him for not joining her, for not choosing the light again. She felt betrayed, believing that he had used her to distract Snoke, and she was not willing to accept that he felt the same betrayal. He had pleaded with her to stay by his side and rule together. But she just rejected him and ran away. Kylo had been willing to give their bond another chance to grow but Rey demanded that he leave, unwilling to speak with to any further.

So he was indeed surprised to find not an angry, glaring Rey, but an apparently sleeping one.

She was curled up on her side facing him, in what he expected was one of the sleeping cots on the Falcon. It was where he had found her two days prior. He stayed still for a long moment, waiting for her harsh dismissal but it never came. Cautiously he took a few steps closer. He knew how angry she would be if she caught him watching her in her sleep. But the opportunity to observe her unnoticed was too good to pass up. Kylo took a few more steps till he was within a few feet of her sleeping form. He knelt down so he was eye level with Rey, able to study her features more closely. Her lashes were long and fluttered gently against her skin. Her cheeks had a small scattering of freckles stretching from one end to the other and coming to meet at the bridge of her nose. Her lips looked soft to the touch and her brandy brown hair floated about her pillow like the halo of an angel.

Beautiful was the only thought that came to his mind.

A small, feathery creature shuffled at the top of Rey's pillow. Its wide eyes turned on him, as if it could see him and it began to chirp, loudly, in Kylo's direction. Afraid the chirping would wake Rey, Kylo stood up, intending to back away until the connection dissipated. But he was frozen in place when his eyes met hers. He steeled himself against the onslaught of fury sure to come, but he was met with only silence. Her gaze never left his. It seemed that she was observing him in the same manner that he had been observing her. If her eyes dropping to his lips was any indication. The intensity of her stare set his cheeks aflame but he hoped the darkened cabin hid his emabarrasment.

He grew even more uncomfortable as her studying continued further down his body, until her eyes landed on their intended target, his still bleeding hand.

In a startling movement she shifted her legs off the and and reached out a small hand.

"Let me see," she instructed softly, gesturing to his injured appendage.

He didn't know what possessed him to lift his hand towards hers. He wasn't even aware that he had done so until he felt the warmth of her small fingers engulf him. The last time their hands had touched, they each saw visions of a different future, but this time all he saw was her. Memories, reminders of her assaulted his mind. The forest at his base, Takodana, Snoke's throne room, Crait; all of the times he had been near her or too far away. It all came back to him. But he stood motionless, entranced by the concentrated look on her face. She closed her eyes and pressed her other hand on top of his, so that his injured hand was nestled between her two smooth palms. The stinging slowly gave way to the pool of heat that started at his fingertips and shot through the rest of his arm. Startled, he pulled his arm away and inspected his hand. He was stunned to find it completely healed. He glanced back down in awe and his heart skipped at the radiant smile she gave him.

"I've been studying how to do that, but I haven't had a chance to try it out until now."

He tried to speak but his heart had suddenly lodged itself in his throat.

"Thank you," was all he could manage but it was sincere.

"You're welcome," she returned quietly, glancing down at the hands she rested in her lap.

Kylo could feel the connection beginning to slip so he knelt down before her once more and met her mixture of curious and wary gaze.

"Rey," he started, pleased at how her name felt rolling off his tongue. "I hadn't decided to turn against Snoke until I had to watch him torture you."

Her eyes widened, surprised. "Why are you telling me this?"

"I wanted you to know that I killed Snoke because it was the only way to save you."

The last thing he saw before the connection ended was her trembling smile.