A/N: This is my version of what could happen after episode VIII. I loved the way RJ wrote Rey/Kylo storyline and I simply cannot wait until next December to see it unfold :) Hope you'll like my fanfic - please let me know in your comments what you think!

Disclaimer: None of the characters or locations belong to me, unless stated otherwise. No copyright infringement intended :)

Chapter 001: Nowhere

In Rey's dreams he always died. Night after night. Time after time. The light of the explosion had blinded them and threw them across the throne room as if they were weightless, two marionettes of the Force. When she had come around, when she had run up to him, he was dead. She touched his cold neck, searching for pulse, but she already knew this version of events – life wasn't there.

The moment dragged itself endlessly and Rey could just about hear something collapsing within her. An awful, nauseating sound, as if her heart was falling to pieces, ripping out the veins and crushing the organs.

It was her fault, what had happened. She had instigated this carnage, she hadn't made him turn and now he was dead.

Rey woke up drenched in cold sweat, gasping for breath. Some nights screaming, others just silently crying. It always took her good few moments to shake the nightmare off and to remember that the unfamiliar, grim surroundings were of a cheap room she had rented in one of the hotels of Five Points Station.

After the narrow escape from Crait, the remaining members of the Resistance had decided to take cover in the Five Point System, insignificant and largely forgotten part of The Outer Rim. They split amongst the five planets of the system, but they knew it was just a temporary measure – the planets were uninhabited for a reason.

"It's a fair place to wait out the worst", Leia had said and decided she would stay on Falcon with Chewie, while the rest of the rebels would go separate ways for a while. Rey had watched general Leia command the tiny group of rebels with calm confidence. She admired Leia, even if she found it difficult to imagine how can one person bear so much grief and not only not completely break down, but take responsibility for others. Last thing she'd heard from Leia was that Falcon would hole up on the surface of one of the larger asteroids drifting around the planets and, for some reason, this hade made both Leia and Chewie share a little laugh. It had been a sad laugh, though. Rey had known better than to ask why.

Now she was sitting on her bed, face wet from the tears, the heaviness in her chest slowly receding. She knew it was silly to panic this much about a dream that wasn't even true. He was alive. Alive and well. Very well, in fact.

Ruling the goddamned galaxy.

Every time she thought about him, Rey felt immense anger overcoming her. Which meant she was angry a lot, because she just couldn't focus on anything else. The nightmares didn't particularly help either.

When she had dreamt it the very first time, still on Millennium Falcon, she'd woken up screaming and scaring the hell out of mostly everyone on board. She'd looked around frantically, barely recognising the familiar faces of her friends and burst out crying.

"Rey! Rey, what's happened?" Finn asked. He kneeled next to her bedroll, his sincere face full of worry. Even in the state of shock the nightmare had put her into, Rey had known she couldn't tell Finn – or anyone else, for that matter – that dreaming of the mighty Kylo Ren dying aboard The Supremacy had made her cry. "Just a nightmare about, you know, war and all," she said and forced a smile. Technically, it wasn't even a lie.

After dreaming it eleven more times (yes, she counted. She couldn't help it. She'd always been counting days, ever since she could remember, so – why stop now? Nights instead of days, what's the difference? Nightmares instead of disappointments, so what?), Rey was still just as stunned as the first night.

Oh, are you? A little voice at the back of her head seem to whisper. Is it really that hard to understand why his death makes your heart break? Or why you had run to him, grasping at the tiniest pieces of vision, against all reason and advice, as if your life depended on it? You couldn't stay away, could you.

Annoyed, Rey shook the uncomfortable thoughts off and got up. She knew she wouldn't fall asleep again, she was just too agitated. She had spent most of the previous nights watching the propaganda holovids about the new Supreme Leader, but this only made her angrier, so this night she decided to explore the station.

She had been warned to keep to herself, but, after ten days of sitting in the tiny, stuffy room and listening to a couple of Rodians either arguing or having surprisingly loud sex, Rey felt like she was going crazy. The only times she had left the hotel were to go to a nearby street market to buy something to eat. She had to admit – food on Five Points Station was an colourful mix of dishes from the most unexpected places in the galaxy. As much as she would want to explore the market and try all the unfamiliar foods, every time Rey went for bland but nourishing – not to mention cheap – food portions and quickly retreated to her room.

Twice she had run into Poe, who had also been dropped off at the Station too, but, just as they had agreed, it was safer to act as if they were strangers. It had given Rey some relief to know she wasn't completely alone in this chaotic place, but the feeling didn't last long. The moment she closed the door to her hotel room behind her, it was just her and her thoughts. And the noisy Rodians behind the wall.

This night Rey was determined not to give in neither to anger or self-pity. She put on her hooded cape and walked into the maze of streets and alleyways that the station was.

Even though it was middle of the night, the lanes were only a little less crowded and loud then usually. All the shops, cantinas and casinos were open for business, colourful neon signs a feast for Rey's eyes. As she wandered deeper into the statin, Rey idly wondered whether a place like this, a space post suspended between planets and sea of floating space trash, with no sunrise or sunset, even had a distinction between day and night. It certainly didn't seem to need one.

With her hood deep over her eyes, Rey discreetly watched the passers-by. Diversity of species was astonishing to her. Jakku had a fair amount of scavengers and minor criminals from all over the galaxy, but Five Points Station was full of creatures Rey had never even imagined existed. Unsurprisingly enough, most of them had the distinctive aura of dishonesty about themselves. Rey felt chilly air of evil surrounding, well, basically everyone. One didn't need to be trained in the Force, though, to realise, this wasn't the kind of place where one would come in pursuit of honest employment.

Which didn't make it any less exotic. And, actually, made it all the more exciting.

She stopped in front of a bright blue window display of what seemed like a giant aquarium. Dozens of scaly, fluorescent fish were lazily swimming in the water. Each of them had at least four pairs of bulging eyes that shone in all colours at once. Their movements seemed chaotic at first, but soon Rey noticed they held an intricate pattern. She stood in front of the display, mesmerised and so focused that, when the sounds of the street went abruptly quiet, she didn't notice straight away.

And then she saw his reflection in the aquarium windowpane.

Ben.

She turned on her heel, startled and short of breath. He was so close. And he felt so real. If she reached out, she was certain she could touch him.

"Rey," he whispered. There was no anger or malice in his voice. In fact, quite the opposite. He sounded vulnerable, almost pleading. Just like when he had asked her to join him. Just like when she almost had.

"Why are you here?" she asked, surprised how weak her own voice sounded, "Why is this still happening?!"

She was angry at herself, mostly for not being actually being angered by his presence or alarmed by the fact that she'd just seen his reflection in the window display. A terrible thought flashed through her mind: what if he saw her surroundings, what if he, somehow, made their connection stronger and could see where she was?

He was so close.

Snap out of it, she scolded herself and, suddenly aware that she was shaking, she took a step back. Her back touched the cold glass, she felt tiny emissions of distress coming from the fish inside the aquarium.

"I could ask you the same question," Ben said, taking a deliberate step towards her. He was always doing this, Rey thought, closing the gap between them. And she never felt the urge to move away.

Everything is different now, Rey thought without convicion, we made our choices. I should just walk away.

"I would imagine Supreme Leader has all the answers," Rey said. Much to her dismay, Ben gave her a weak smile. Last thing she wanted was to amuse him.

"I would imagine people will think you're crazy, talking to yourself in a crowd." Ben said.

"There's no people here, I'm in the middle of nowhere." Rey said, hoping her voice was calmer than her heart. Could Ben see where she was? Could he find her – and the Resistance? I really need to walk away, she thought, and made no move.

"Nowhere?"

"I can talk to myself all I want," Rey said, "There's no food, no people, nothing – "

"Nothing, except a massive fish tank with species from, I believe – Kamino?"

"You shouldn't even be here. This should have ended with Snoke's death!"

"And yet," Ben said, "Here I am and here you are, not running away." There was something in his voice, some kind of mixture of sadness and relief, that made Rey want to wrap her arms around him. She didn't want to analyse, why, despite everything that had happened, Ben affected her this way.

"There's no point, is there," she whispered. He shook his head slightly. At least they agreed on this part.

"Where are you, Rey?" Ben asked, talking another small step towards her. She could see the tiny golden sparks in the brown irises of his eyes. His proximity was both intoxicating and unbearable.

"Nowhere, really." She said. Her mouth felt dry, her heart was beating so loud that he could definitely hear it.

"You do know that I could locate you just by finding out where they illegally display fish from Kamino, right?" Ben asked, "Sure, there will be perhaps thousands locations, but we have our spies in most of them already anyway."

"I know you could, Ben." She said. His breath caught when she said his name. Probably she was the only person in entire galaxy who still called him that. "And I know you won't."

"Why not?" he asked, but they both knew the answer.

"There is no point, is there," she said, reaching out slowly and resting her hand against his chest.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed the first installment in this reylo fic. Thanks for reading and, please leave a comment :)

* Five Points Station: originally appears in the awesome book about Jyn Erso "Rebel Rising" - highly recommended, if you liked Rogue One!
* Kamino: I'm going to assume y'all heard about this planet :) if not: it's a water planet featured in "Attack of the Clones". To be fair, I had no idea whether it was inhabited by tiny fluorescent fish, but I'd like to believe so :)