a/n: Title taken from the aptly named track from The Last Jedi's OST. Probably posting this a little too late for anyone to care, but eh, I liked Kylo's character arc enough to finish this. I also kinda revised the whole fight scene, and I don't know if it's better but hey, it was still fun to write.

The elevator confined them in solitude. There had been a lack of comfort in the knowledge of Rey's surrender, and even now, the way she looked at him.

I know there is good in him, she had said, and he had wanted to believe her then, on the island, her palm small and callused from years of toil and survival, warm against his own gloved fingers. He wanted to believe her now, even when she was in cuffs, because she had offered herself up of her own volition. There was no strategic reason for someone like her to do it; Kylo knew she wasn't stupid. Proud, or brash, definitely reckless, but not stupid.

They were side-by-side, unaccompanied by stormtroopers or Hux or Captain Phasma, only the Force. Kylo was strangely glad for this, but he also wished that he did not have to stand so close to Rey unaccompanied. He wasn't even sure why he was afraid; he was the one with the upper hand, the training. He had been chosen. She was nothing but trash, and she didn't even know it, confident in her own self-perpetuating lie.

If there was any fear in her now, it was not where Kylo was concerned. With a jolt he managed to conceal, he realized Rey was looking at him. He stared back in hunger and uncertainty. There was a strange, familiar desire that hummed beneath the skin, seeking refuge, tactile or mental. The impulse flourished, imperfect and volatile as his nature.

Kylo did not speak. He knew his weakness, and he would not allow himself to succumb.

He wasn't sure what he would do, only that he would decide once the door opened.

And there was Snoke, flanked by praetorians. Ren heard the words between his master and Rey, comprehended them without truly processing the extraneous details. Rey's friends did not matter. Snoke did not seem to notice, too enraptured in his victory to pay attention to his own student. Arrogance, Kylo reasoned, would be his downfall, same as Lord Vader's.

Of course, Rey stood no chance, but it did not matter. There was time enough to bide, to watch without presence as she was interrogated, mocked, tortured briefly.

Rey was pure, untapped potential. Bold enough to draw her saber—Luke's saber—against Snoke, even now, and it was lucky for her, Kylo thought, that his master was in such a good mood as to merely rip it from her grasp, smacking her 'round the head with the hilt instead of decapitating her.

He picked up his own lightsaber and saw her, grounded and weak, defenseless. The flicker of fear in her dark eyes turned into solid terror. "Please, Ben."

Ben, she called him. Not Kylo Ren. Not the monster, but the boy, the man behind the mask.

Snoke's laughter was a hiss. "You think you can turn him… I see his mind, I see his every intent."

The words of his master permeated even now, but their effect was lost on Ren, who stared at Rey because he would never be able to look enough.

The hilt of Luke's lightsaber rattled upon the arm of the golden throne, unheeded. His own saber remained inert.

"I know what I have to do," Ren told her, and reached out.

A flash—not red, but blue—and Snoke's eyes bulged as the saber cleaved through his belly, clean and bloodless. He gaped comically, but there was nothing to be said, no anger or contempt to read in his expression or his thoughts, just shock echoing in pained spasms through the chamber before his body hit the floor. Kylo drew the lightsaber towards him and Rey grabbed it fast, equally surprised as his dying master.

Eye-to-eye, another emotion pulled at him, like coming home. He saw that in her, in her eyes and the Force around them.

Ren didn't smile. He just looked at her, trying to convey all he could not speak aloud. A fractured thank-you settled on his tongue, and he stood at her back, lightsaber at the ready, like they'd been raised side-by-side, done this dozens of times, just another training exercise as Padawans.

The praetorians advanced—seven of them, circling—and Kylo was exhilarated now in a sense that had evaded him for many years, forgotten amidst misery and rage; Snoke's men were honed, but he was vicious. Freed from restraint, feeding into what he had been taught, he cut into the first man, then the next behind him. Ren was a strong man, but the third praetorian was faster, anticipated him and lunged to stay his hand, the fourth disarmed him, kicking his saber out of reach.

From the other end of the room came a scream and Kylo recalled himself; Rey was still outmatched. He'd have to cover for her. They were drawing her away from the center of the room. He grabbed the third in front and drove the weapon he carried upward through his chest, twisting and retracting, then crushed the fourth's windpipe with the Force and a sharp clench of his fist.

"Ben!" Rey shouted. Wrenching the now-dead praetorian away from him, he closed in just as she managed to stun the fifth guard, sending him flying with a sharp push of the Force; Kylo brought him down head-first with enough power to shatter the skull.

He turned in tandem with her to face the last two. Rey had Luke's saber—once again, Kylo was privately impressed and a touch jealous of her raw skill—and as the sixth sized them up, his fellow lunged for her. Rey snarled; there was a shift of energy, and the seventh praetorian went flying into his partner, toppling them both in a moment of surprise. Ren took advantage and drove the stolen weapon between the eyes of the seventh, reaching out for his own saber and finding only air. He grit his teeth, but Rey was close behind him, and she plunged the blue saber into the sixth's chest without delay.

There was a pause. They were each panting hard, and the throne room rumbled, struck with the Force or whatever battle was at hand outside. Rey finally looked up as though recalling herself, and Kylo grinned back shiftily, sure they could be more than enemies, and he could be more than a blemish on the Skywalker legacy. He was only half-right.