Rey came to, unsure of exactly how much time had passed. It couldn't have been more than a few moments, maybe a couple of minutes. She opened her eyes and found that, lying flat on her back, one of the dim lights above was shining directly in her eyes. A shaft of pain shot through her head and she squeezed them shut again. Slowly, slowly, she rolled onto her side and began pressing herself up, trying to force back the headache and nausea. Once she was on all fours, her eyes opened again.

There before her was the huge, red helmet of a Praetorian Guard. The broad dome overhung the face mask, blood seeping out and pooling beneath it. The body it was attached to was large and powerful, the armor still shining. She couldn't recall if she or Ben had felled this one.

Ben.

She put one foot flat on the ground and pushed on her knee to drag herself to her feet. Her head was still swimming with pain and the images of dead men at her feet. But she had to get to Ben.

He was lying on his side, facing away from her. She took a few steps, stumbled, righted herself, and fell back to her knees beside him. He was alive.

Rey curled over him, afraid to touch him. She started to reach for his shoulder and drew back, unsure what reaction waking him would prompt. She silently mouthed his name.

Positioned as he was, she could see only the left side of his face, the side without the scar she'd given him in the forest on Starkiller Base. He looked almost peaceful, sleeping: his soft black curls, streaked with blood, stuck to his forehead and cheek; his eyelashes, wet with sweat or tears or both, clumped together; grime dusted his skin. Even still, she was reminded of the man she'd first seen, not so many days ago, when he'd taken off his mask just to put her better at ease.

She held her hand over the crown of his head, barely touching his hair. It would be easy now to look within, to see if anything remained of Ben Solo.

She'd been so sure – so sure – that freed from Snoke, Ben would join her. Save the Resistance. But his response had been to offer her the galaxy at his side. And what if she'd taken his hand? She'd wanted to. She'd wanted Ben to pull her close to him, to repent of all his misdeeds, to be the man she'd looked up at adoringly, wonderingly, when he'd killed his master to stop her suffering. Instead she got Kylo Ren.

No. She would not invade him at his most vulnerable. She would not be that which she herself feared most.

What to do then? Wake him and try again to turn his heart? Take his lightsaber from his belt and kill Kylo Ren – and Ben Solo along with him?

An alarm was screeching somewhere beyond this throne room. Troopers would arrive quickly to see their Supreme Leader split in two, the guards in pieces on the floor, and her crouched over an unconscious Kylo Ren. She had to leave. Tears of frustration finally overflowed and slipped down her face.

Rey bent down low toward him, until she could feel the warmth of his skin on hers.

"Please just … be safe," she whispered. A moment; that's all she had to spare.

She got to her feet again and willed her body to move. The lightsaber, broken in two, lay there. She had not seen it before. She bent and picked it up. The crystal interior was rough and perhaps damaged; what did she know about such things? Cradling its two halves in her palm, Rey ran.