Chapter 5

Rey was making her way back to the Falcon in the semi-darkness of twilight when she felt it - that tentative pull towards him. She sighed. "Kriff," she muttered, irritated.

"Yeah," Kylo Ren agreed quietly from behind her. She turned around and was shocked to see his appearance - if she looked awful from the lack of sleep he looked even worse. He was white underneath the gruesome purple bruise spreading the span of his jawline. There were dark circles under his eyes and a thin sheen of sweat on his face - it was almost as if he'd seen a particularly terrifying ghost. For the briefest moment, she felt a flash of something akin to pity. "Don't stare at me," he said, likely sensing her thoughts.

She looked away. "Sorry."

There was awkward silence for a moment. "Did Skywalker tell you what happened?" he finally asked.

Her eyes still on the horizon, she replied, "He said you turned on him to join Snoke." She was unable to keep the note of hostility from her voice - never would she be able to understand how someone with a loving family could abandon it all for...for what, exactly?

"No." Kylo said it so quietly she almost didn't hear him.

She returned her gaze to his face, her eyebrows drawing together in confusion. "Pardon?" she said.

Kylo took a step closer to her, his eyes boring into hers, and he replied, "That's not what happened." He held out a hand. "Let me show you."

"No thanks."

He attempted a nonchalant shrug, but she could sense the sting he felt at her immediate rejection. "Fine," he said. "But I think it could help you."

"Help me how?"

He held out his hand again, and instead of rejecting him as she wanted to, something held her back. A...feeling. The Force, maybe? Her eyes flickered from his hand to his face, and though his face was schooled in that careful blank expression she hated so much she thought she saw a flicker of hope in his dark eyes. She took a deep breath and nodded, taking a step closer to him. Her arm left her side and slowly extended towards him, her fingers reaching for his. Their hands hovered for a moment in midair, parallel, and then he moved his fingers just barely to touch hers, his eyes never leaving her face. She gasped.

Physically she felt the warmth of his hand.

Mentally she felt everything.

It was like a door inside her mind that she'd never noticed before had been thrown wide open, and behind it were all the memories and emotions she never knew she had. Glimpses of what she'd seen inside Kylo Ren's mind on Starkiller came back to her along with other images...a younger Leia and Han, smiles on their faces but worry in their hearts...a younger Luke, broad-chested and full of confidence...a beautiful green planet like this one, with Padawan learners scattered across the training grounds before her (somehow she knew that's what they were called despite never having heard the term before), and of course Kylo Ren stood at the center of it all, but it was before he'd even dreamt of the name. Here, in the distant past, he was Ben Solo. She glanced down and was surprised to see herself - how did she have a body in this? It wasn't until then she realized her fingers were wrapped around someone else's, though she already knew who it was as her gaze followed the arm up to its owner. Present-day Kylo stood there, watching her face carefully.

"How am I seeing this?" she asked, her voice echoing as if they stood in a vast cave.

"I don't know. The Force allows us to share memories but not like this. It shouldn't be possible," he replied, sounding as puzzled as she felt.

She looked away to the scene unfolding in front of them. The shifting memories had finally settled here, on a sparring session between young Ben and another Padawan. He was winning handily, the wooden saber spinning so fast that she could hardly see it. It was all the other Padawan could do to parry the blows until finally, the poor girl was on her back, Ben pointing the staff at her neck with a serious expression on his face. But then he grinned, the smile stretching from ear to ear, and he held out a hand to help her up.

He should try smiling round the base. It might make everyone less terrified of him, she thought and felt a distinct flicker of amusement, but the emotion wasn't her own. She glanced at Kylo and saw him looking at her from the corner of his eye, one of his eyebrows quirked. Color rose to her cheeks. Gods, they could sense everything about each other here, couldn't they?

It seems that way, Kylo replied.

A third voice entered the conversation then, one that made her blood run cold.

Good, good...you're growing strong. You can't rely on any of these Jedi to watch your back in combat, it said, its presence oily, disgusting...chilling.

Young Ben's smile faded and he turned his head to the side. You don't know that.

But I do. The weak fear the strong. If they ever see you go down they will make no attempt to help. You know it to be true, the voice replied, making Rey's skin crawl.

"Who is that?" she whispered.

"Snoke," Kylo replied tersely. "But this isn't what I wanted you to see."

He didn't ask her to follow or pull at her hand, but she could sense his intent and followed without a word. Together, they walked hand-in-hand away from the training and towards a small cluster of huts outside what had to be Luke's training temple. As they did so, the bright daylight slowly faded to night. The chirping of cicadas filled her ears as she followed Kylo into one of the huts. His younger self was fast asleep on a cot, and over him stood...Luke.

Rey watched, entranced, as Luke held his hand out and closed his eyes, reaching for something inside young Ben's head. Whatever he saw there caused tears to roll down his cheeks, and when his eyes opened again they were filled with a murderous rage. He thumbed his lightsaber and as the green energy crackled to life, the boy stirred. He looked over his shoulder and his eyes met his master's. She could sense young Ben's emotions, not as clearly as his older counterpart but they were still there - in this moment, he was terrified of his master. But just as quickly that fear was replaced with a resolve to live and he summoned his own lightsaber to his hand. The blue sang to life and met the green, and young Ben reached up and brought the stone walls of his hut down on both their heads.

Kylo released her hand and she fell to her knees, gasping, gulping in the cool night air of Ahch-To. She had been inside his mind for only a short time but it had been absolutely suffocating, trying to contend with it all. The expectations of his parents, Luke, his peers, and that oily presence always at the back of his mind, whispering in his ear. And that final moment...Luke, the legendary Jedi, had tried to murder a sleeping boy.

"He did," Kylo said quietly. She looked up and saw him standing over her. He offered a hand to help her stand and she took it without a second thought. Once she was on her feet Kylo put his arm down and continued, "He sensed my power, as he does yours. He feared me. He fears you now." He took a step closer to her, his tone changing to one of urgency. "Forget about this fool's errand. Come back before it's too late."

She took a deep breath and thought about her response before speaking. "I can't. I need him," she said. Surely Luke wouldn't try to hurt her, not with Han and Chewie around, and besides, she was sure she had sensed something in the Jedi master. He wanted to help her despite his inclination to stay out of the fight...didn't he?

"You don't," Kylo replied, his voice short. "You think you know him, don't you? He'll disappoint you and worse, he might try to kill you."

"He won't," she said with confidence that might not be entirely justified, not after what she'd just seen. "Besides, I need a teacher. Who else if not him?"

"I can show you things he never could."

Rey hesitated, her eyes drawn to the ground. She knew now that he wasn't completely lost to the Dark Side - the fact that he had left Snoke willingly coupled with the trip through his mind was proof enough of that. But there was still a certain amount of darkness inside him that set her on edge, that made the idea of trusting him feel somewhat foolish, and if she had learned anything from Luke since arriving on the island it was to trust her feelings. Kylo Ren wasn't her ally. He couldn't be, at least not yet.

"Think it over," he said quietly.

She looked up from her musings then and, much to her disappointment, he was gone. How much had he been right about? Were they wasting their time here? She sighed and continued her path back to the Falcon, completely unaware of the fact that Luke stood on the edge of a nearby hillside, hood drawn. He had seen everything.

When she arrived at the campsite, she found Chewie asleep, snoring loudly, and Han taking a shower judging from the sound of running water coming from the bathroom. She took advantage of the privacy to creep into the cockpit. If anything could make her feel normal again in this moment, it would be talking to someone so far removed from all of this that he would have no idea what she was talking about if she started going on about the Force. She slipped the headset on over her ears and flipped a switch. "Falcon to Black Leader. Do you copy?" she said.

For a few moments, she heard nothing except static, then…"Rogue Three to Falcon. I copy. What's your status?"

"Still no progress," she replied, allowing the disappointment to fill her heart. She hadn't realized how much she had been looking forward to their chat until this moment. "Where's Black Leader?"

"He's away on a mission. He should be back soon."

Something must have cropped up unexpectedly...but what? "Thanks. Falcon over and out," she said, pulling the headset off and setting it aside. She ran a hand through her hair and stood, the events of the day crashing down on her shoulders all at once. It was all she could do to stumble across the ship to her bunk and turn off the lights before sleep descended upon her.

Ben was experiencing a rare moment of restful sleep - when his hand had touched Rey's earlier that day he had seen some of her memories, too, and now he found himself watching her younger self getting into a fistfight with a boy her age, free of any dark influences or expectations. She was just a young girl rolling around in the dirt over a stolen meal portion, and while it was a bit sad it was also amusing to see that she had always been incredibly stubborn. Stubborn...and strong and self-reliant. Yes, she was a desert rat, but the more he learned about her the more he realized just how much he had underestimated her.

Suddenly, he was ripped from the memory and thrown into total darkness. He couldn't see an inch in front of his face - had he gone blind? And the cold...the awful cold...it felt like he was suspended in ice, unable to move, unable to breathe…

It was impossible to say how long he was stuck in this state, but at last, he heard a hiss near his left ear. The mighty Kylo Ren… Snoke whispered. The Prince of Darkness...you told your new friends about the hyperdrive tracker, didn't you?

Ben took a deep breath, trying to ignore the frantic fluttering of his heart, and did his absolute best to keep his mind blank. Don't think about the Resistance...don't think about Mother or Dad..don't think about Rey, he chanted silently.

He knew his information blackout was working when he sensed how frustrated his former master became. No matter, Snoke whispered. Your silence is proof enough. And then he ripped into his mind with so much force that it knocked the breath from Ben's lungs. Snoke's objective wasn't to find information, no - it was to rip his very soul into pieces. His thoughts, his consciousness, his being faded away and was replaced with pain, pain, pain, screaming, screaming, just let it all end please -

Rey jerked awake at the sound of someone shrieking loudly. She sat up, soaked in sweat and shaking, unable to figure out where the noise was coming from until she realized it was from her own mouth. She forced herself to stop and looked around wildly. That was pain unlike anything she'd experienced before, and yet she knew it wasn't her own. Kylo.

The door to her quarters slid open and Han ran inside, his eyes wild with worry. "What happened?" he practically shouted as Chewie and Luke appeared behind him. He sat down on the edge of her bed and took her hands.

"Snoke found Kylo. He's hurting him. We need to go back," she said, unable to keep the edge of panic and fear from her voice. Tears welled up before she could stop them.

"How do you know that?" Luke asked, his voice careful and measured. He was watching her face with a great deal of interest, though she was too distraught to notice.

"I saw it. I felt it. He's in so much pain," she answered, her voice cracking on the last word. Even though it was happening to him it felt like it was happening to her, too, and she couldn't stop the tears from spilling down her cheeks. She didn't want to consider the reasons behind why she wanted to save him - in this moment, all she cared about was getting back to the base and banishing that horrid presence from Kylo's mind.

"Okay, kid. Easy. We're going. Chewie, go start the take-off sequence," Han said over his shoulder to the Wookie. He roared and disappeared. "I'll go break down the camp. Just...just breathe, okay? Everything is going to be fine. I promise," he said, returning his gaze to Rey's face. He squeezed her hands and then released them, standing up to leave.

Rey buried her face in her hands, praying that they would get back in time. She took several measured breaths and wiped her face with her sleeve, opening her eyes only when she felt a weight on the edge of her bed again. She was expecting it to be Han, but it was Luke. He was gazing at her with something akin to pity in his eyes. "You're right, Rey," he said softly. "You need help. Ben needs help." He looked away, lost in thought, then groaned loudly. "There's no way around it, is there?" he asked.

"Around what?" she mumbled, her voice strained from the screaming and crying.

"I have to come back with you."