NOTES:

Smut only in chapter three, if you'd like to avoid it, you can easily read chapters one and two only if you want, take your pick.

It was supposed to be a PWP one-shot, but something clearly went astray.

I can't believe we have to wait two years for the continuation like?

Warning: English is not my first language. I don't write often and it shows. If you spot any particularly clumsy sentences, punctuation or grammar mistakes, please feel free to let me know :)

Any feedback in general is greatly appreciated, whether it be kudos, bookmarks, or comments. Also, this is my first time writing these two.

Enjoy! :)

She felt him reaching out multiple times after Crait.

It was so frequent that she got used to the weird sensation of being tapped on the shoulder by an invisible hand the moments she least expected it to happen. His looming presence followed her everywhere - when she was eating nutrient paste in the canteen, listening with half an ear to Finn and Rose's playful banter, taking notes during numerous strategic meetings. She felt him lurking in the shadows upon her sudden awakenings from a nightmare in the middle of the night, covered in an icy sweat.

Sometimes she managed to push him out completely, but usually shoving him away just enough, so that she wouldn't see him at least, just feel his slightly voyeuristic vicinity, not quite real, but there.

She didn't tell anyone about the strange connection binding her with Ren.

Finn was a loyal friend, she trusted the ex-stormtrooper and loved him like a brother, but despite everything he's been through, the force was still just a bunch of mumbo-jumbo to him, the powerful space magic used to lift rocks and occasionally throw things around. She hadn't even told Leia when she had a chance and now there was nothing she could do to fix that mistake. Couple of weeks before, the general had fainted during one of the war councils. Everyone was exhausted, so such incidents were nothing uncommon, but the whole base was kept at the edge of their seats for three days. Being her usual self, Leia demanded being kept up-to-date with everything, practically leading the resistance from her own bed. And then the unimaginable happened. She fell asleep in the afternoon studying some old maps, never to wake up again. Just like that.

That was when the communication attempts ceased suddenly, like cut with a vibroblade.

Rey sometimes experienced weird, phantom pains and felt ashamed that the possibility of him getting hurt was making her that anxious. Maker her witness, she wanted the link to sever, but the bond felt as natural as breathing; as much as Rey hated to admit it, it was much harder to shun the connection, than to fully embrace the contact and the lack of it was making her strangely uneasy. She felt empty, absent, as if part of her mind was constantly somewhere else.

When she finally decided to reach out to him on her own, Rey felt like a thug prepping for a robbery. It was the dead of night, though she could still hear a distant buzzing outside her small room. Sleep was the last position on a very long list of things to do in the resistance base. She sat on her old, squeaky cot and took a couple of deep breaths.

Come on now, it can't be that hard, she thought.

All of their previous joinings occurred either without any contribution from their sides, or because Ben somehow managed to get through to her. Rey closed her eyes and tried to recall images.

She could see him clearly in her mind; his imposing posture towering over her, strong shoulders and dark eyes, gleaming in the elevator lights. Broad chest, glistening with steam. She could feel the slightly wet warmth of his hand when their fingers touched clumsily for the first time in a small hut on Ahch-To. His black hair a mess and the determination on his face covered in sweat, when they fought together against the high odds, side by side, back to back, for the first and last time, dancing in perfect synchrony on the floor covered in blood.

In her memory, he wasn't a murderous psychopath that once tortured Poe and kidnapped her, at least it wasn't entirely him. It wasn't Kylo Ren that she was coaxing into joining her that day on the Supremacy. She hated Kylo Ren with all her heart, but with Ben Solo... well, for him her feelings were quite offbeat, whether she wanted this, or not. The image in her head became more vivid, she could almost hear his voice, almost touch him...

'Rey?'

She opened her eyes. He was right there, standing in the far corner of the room, half hidden in the shadows. 'I would lie if I said I wasn't surprised. Why now?'

'Ben, if you don't want to do this now, just say the word.'

Silence. She always called him that. Ben. It's been so long since that name held any meaning to him.

'You've been quiet for some time.'

'I was preoccupied,' he replied with a light chuckle. Rey wondered what kind of activity would make him feel so full of himself, but considering the range of possibilities, she decided it's better not to ask.

As someone that strong in the force, he must have felt his mother's passing. Rey wondered if it had rolled off him like water off a duck's back, or if it was just another one of his countless masks.

Ben took a step forward. 'Can I sit?'

Rey nodded and moved aside on the cot. He was much paler than she remembered him to be, with dark and sickly circles prominent under his eyes, the skin color emphasizing extensive scars on his face now more than ever. At least there was something he couldn't hide.

'Did she suffer?' he inquired casually, as if asking about the model of her blaster. For a brief moment she wanted to scoff at him, to lie out of pure spite, to see these dark, beautiful eyes filled with pain, punish Ben for failing Leia, for failing her when she was ready to bet anything on him making a right decision for once. She could feel the anger slowly boiling in her veins and a second after - shame. How disappointed Luke would be to see her sinking so low?

'No. She died in her sleep. The doctor-' Rey's voice cracked slightly, 'he said that she took too much onto herself too quickly and her heart just gave out.'

'I see.'

Silence stretched between them like a piece of worn, brittle elastex.

'You could have been with her, you know? With your mother. You could have talked to her before she...'

'Rey, don't-' he wriggled uncomfortably on the cot.

'Don't what?! I would give up anything, anything I have ever had for just one chance to see my parents, drunkards or not, and you threw it all away!' Rey said bitterly through the clenched teeth.

'I'm not going to apologize. I did what I had to do,' he countered.

'I don't want any of your apologies. I want you to reconsider,' almost unconsciously, she grabbed his hand for a moment and squeezed gently. He could feel the heat of her skin radiating through the glove. 'In my vision...'

'No vision is certainty. The force may give us an insight, but the future is fluid, shaped by our decisions. We altered ours by choices we have made over Snoke's dead body that day. What we both saw back then doesn't matter anymore.'

He remembered that moment, that spark and images flashing before his eyes. Some blurred, some clear, some depicting things that would disrupt his sleep at night.

'It's not too late, Ben. We can still set it all right, I know we can.'

'Such naivety doesn't suit you, Rey. The resistance would never accept me in their ranks. A monster, the murderer of their friends and family. Especially now, that my mother is gone. There is no going back, don't you get it?'

As he was speaking, more and more agitated, Rey could see irregular red patches crawling randomly onto his face and neck.

'There are dozens of triggers that would happily put me down the second I stepped inside your base, wherever is that hellhole that you're currently hiding in. Like that hip-shooter Dameron, or your treacherous friend, FN-2187-'

'His name is Finn,' she retorted, deeply offended. He could speak whatever the hell he wanted about her, but calling Finn by his number? That was low, even for him.

'Doesn't matter. Besides, do you really think I would like to go back to this? Being a Jedi? Living by the Jedi code that forces me to suppress my emotions? When I told you to let the past die, I meant it. That's not who I am. And it's not who you are either.'

'You don't know a thing about me.'

A lie. But Rey didn't care. The only thing she had in her mind right then was a rising urge to release. To let go of all the pain and tension of the previous months.

His jaw clenched. Her ignorance aggravated him. Why was she so blind? Why couldn't she see that she was destined for something far greater than rotting on some remote planet with a motley crew of rebels?

'You're acting like a child,' she said. 'Off to destroying things and throwing tantrums when something doesn't go the way you wanted it to go!'

His eyes darkened, as Rey's words resonated in his mind along with other, painfully alike.

You're just a child in a mask.

See you around, kid.

'They really believed in you, you know? Han and Leia-' Rey could almost feel the air electrifying, as she spoke their names. Ben could have easily reached out and choke her if he wanted, crush the trachea with a single move and watch life escape these hazel eyes of hers, he was that close. The thought had definitely crossed his mind.

The rant was unstoppable at that point, with anger and anguish seeping out of her every pore.

'But it seems that they were all wrong. You are just a weak, vicious creature that can only feed on misery, death and pain, like that little worm of yours, Hux, you're not that different after all-'

'THAT'S ENOUGH!'

His words reached her ears and echoed through, as if magnified by thin walls; suddenly, one blink of an eye after the other, Rey was alone again, accompanied by nothing but darkness and a sound of her own sobbing in a piercing cold of her room.