Wisps of buttery sunlight danced on the dew of the morning air, trickling in through the window of her small hut.

She watched his bare chest rise and fall in a slow, steady rhythm. The scars of his body-some that she had given him a lifetime ago-marred the perfect ivory flesh of his chiseled torso. She traced each swirling imperfection across the length of his skin. The tangible chronicle of their twisted, tender history weaved back and forth in jagged lines beneath the soft caress of her fingertips.

He didn't stir— likely too exhausted from the fervor of the night before. She hardly felt rested in full herself, but the overwhelming closeness of him kept her mind too entranced to allow sleep to come for her.

She withdrew her hand, letting it come to rest on the japor pendant draped around her collarbone.

"Don't stop," he breathed in a low whisper.

"I thought you were asleep," she replied, meeting his eye.

"I was...mostly."

He inched closer, placing a gentle kiss at the peak of her forehead.

"I haven't slept like that since..." his voice trailed off.

His eyes lingered on her, but she felt him looking beyond, as if groping for a distant memory that seemed just out of reach.

"Since before Kylo Ren," she answered.

He nodded, casting his gaze down in shame and regret.

"Ben," the tip of her finger again found the crevice of his scar. "You may bear the marks of Kylo Ren's deeds, but you are not that man anymore."

His eyes locked on to hers. "I haven't been Kylo Ren for some time now. Ever since I came to you on Mustafar, it's like I've been slowly moving toward myself—my true self."

"Even before then," she whispered back, curling her fingers around his.

"Each one of these scars is a reminder of what I've done. And I don't know how to live a life as Ben Solo without bearing the burden of Kylo Ren's sins. I have to live with that, Rey."

"You do," she answered. "And we'll discover what that life looks like together."

He cupped her face with his hand, fingers nestling into her hair. "If you want us to return to the Resistance, of course we can go. I was wrong to mislead you."

"We cannot abandon the cause now. It's your mother's legacy, Ben. Your father's, too, really."

"My grandparents' as well."

"Vader?" she asked, surprised.

"Anakin, more accurately. And my grandmother Padme. Her especially. She was adamantly in favor of democracy. She served as a senator after her term as Queen of Naboo."

"If I may," she replied cautiously, "what happened between them? How did your grandfather lose himself to the Dark side when he was so happy in love?"

Ben sighed, a sorrowful crease forming at the curve of his brow. "He feared that he would lose her as he had his mother. Palpatine promised my grandfather that the Dark side could give him the power to save his loved ones from death."

"But it didn't?"

"No," he shook his head. "His actions killed my grandmother, and alienated all those who had ever loved him. He'd have died alone and loveless without the intervention of my uncle. I'll give Luke that much, at least."

He fell silent for a moment.

"I'm so sorry, Ben."

"Don't be. The love of a woman may have driven my grandfather into darkness...but that same love has been my salvation."

His eyes softened, peering into her own as if willing himself to behold every piece of her.

"I'm in love with you, Rey."

"Since when?" she asked, suddenly curious.

He paused, brows furrowed in mild confusion.

"Of course, I know that you love me," she added. "But since when? That's the part I do not know."

"Just a moment. So, rather than voice your reciprocation for my affections, you want me to identify the precise instant when they took shape?"

Rey chuckled, "Ben, you can literally sense my feelings. You know that I do."

"Do what?"

"That I…" she hesitated.

"Go on. Say it," he coaxed.

"I...I do. It's just that I've never said it to anyone before."

"Well, neither have I."

"Ben," she turned her gaze away, and a shy smile tugged at her lips, "I was in the room last night. I know that wasn't your first time...your first…"

An amused chortle escaped Ben's mouth. "Ok, no. It wasn't my first time doing that. But it was the first time doing that with a woman I love."

"Drusilla?"

Ben shrugged, "And...others."

"I see," she replied, trying not to let a surge of envy pepper her voice.

"I didn't love them. And they certainly didn't love me," he asserted. "They loved my power, my prestige, my title, my familial legacy. I have experience with women like that. But you...it's different with you."

"Even so," she continued, lips trembling a she spoke, "you at least said those words to your parents when you were growing up. I never had a family to love in the first place."

And now he understood. He placed a warm hand at the curve of her face, stroking her cheek softly. "Rey, has anyone ever told you that they love you? Anyone at all?"

She took a deep breath, "Not until this morning."

He nodded slowly, and pressed a kiss against the silky slope of her shoulder.

"I love you," he whispered.

He breathed in again, moving his lips to the crest of her collarbone.

"I love you."

This time, his lips did not leave her skin, but traced themselves up the dip of her neck until they found the soft berth of her lips. He kissed her hard, drinking her in like a man discovering an oasis in a desolate desert.

"I love you," he declared again. "Since the moment I witnessed your courage under the trees on Takodana, I began loving you."

Silent tears trickled onto her pillow now.

"Since the moment..." her voice quavered a bit, "...the moment I saw a glimpse of Ben Solo. I saw you peeking out from behind the dark mask of Kylo Ren. I called you a monster a second time, but you didn't deny it. In that moment, I saw you as a man in pain; a man reaching out for someone—anyone—to hear him. That's when it began."

Ben put his arm around her until her head rested on his chest. His fingers combed the wild strands of her willowy hair.

The words came tumbling from her lips in a single breath, "I've been falling in love with you every moment since."

They lay motionless in intimate, connected silence, a sacred moment stretching out between them and binding them inexorably together.

"The Resistance," she said at last, casting her eyes upward to find his, "can have us tomorrow. For today, let's just have each other."

He nodded, and in a single, nimble motion, rolled her supple body underneath the solid mass of his own. She gasped as he overtook her; her gasps turned to rapturous cries, her rapture to exhaustion.

The late morning sunlight blanketed the whole of the tiny hut now. But Rey would sleep soundly all the same.