"You will say yes, Rey. You will join me."
Rey was currently fighting with Kylo Ren on the wreckage left by the Death Star. Dark energy was very strong in the air here. It pulled at the Darkness within them. Rey fighting to resist, while Kylo Ren was giving in, letting it make him stronger.
After a long fight, Kylo Ren managed to knock Rey down. He had his lightsaber drawn on her. "This is it. This is where our battle ends, Rey. Give in. Join me." Using the concentrated dark energy swirling around them, he projected his will in her mind, pulling and seducing her to bend to the dark side, to his side. He didn't care what Palpatine wanted, only what he desired.
Rey grunted and groaned as she struggled hard, putting up a bitter fight to break free from Ren's grasp. She could hear him inside of her mind.
I feel your heart, Rey. I know you are drawn to me. I know you want to stop fighting and give in. You want peace, Rey, and that is what I offer you. Give in.
No! I won't do it.
There was too much tension and pull. Rey blacked out from the exertion. She collapsed, falling back and down. Kylo Ren sensed it in the Force and caught her before she made impact with the metal surface.
I've got you, Rey. Always.
A day later, Rey woke up. She came to slowly, groggily. Her head pounded with the aching pain of an overexerted muscle. "Ouch." She complained to herself as her eyes fought to open.
She looked around. She'd felt this place before. "Oh no." She breathed. I'm back in Ren's quarters. I'm back on his destroyer. How did I get here? What happened?
She looked around, confused. She last remembered confronting Ren inside the Death Star over the Wayfinder, which he rudely crushed in front of her. Anger rose up through her.
"Awake?" Kylo Ren was in the doorway, looking as dark and imposing as ever. He took off his helmet. Rey looked away. His was the last face she wanted to see right now.
"No, I'm obviously in some sort of terrible nightmare." She bit back with rarely displayed sarcasm.
"Is it that bad?" Ren asked, seriously.
Her eyes widened and she turned back to face him. "Of course!"
More clarity came gradually back to Rey and she looked around. She'd felt in the Force that she was back in his quarters, but now she could see that she was in his sleeping area. This was an area she'd been spared visiting her last time here. To her surprise, she wasn't restrained in anyway, besides the physical weakness and pain she felt.
Gathering up all of her will, she forced herself to sit up. Grunting and wincing at the pain in her entire body after the fight between their bodies and minds - every molecule of her felt like it hurt.
"Easy. Careful. You've had a hard battle." Ren cautioned. His dark voice betraying his gentle words. The same tone she'd heard from him during the interrogation: a terrifying memory.
"I'm not here to hurt you."
"The splitting pain in my head says differently."
"That was your doing. You fought me. You fought your origins, our bond in the Force, your destiny."
"You don't know a goddamn thing about my destiny, so don't lecture me on what it is."
"I do, Rey. I've seen it. You've even seen it for yourself, in the Death Star. Embrace who you were always meant to be." Kylo insisted. "You can't keep denying it. Let me help you. I want to help you transition to the dark side. I didn't have a kind Master to guide me along my path to the dark side. I will ensure that you do." He came closer to Rey, kneeling down beside her bed.
"Oh, yeah, right. A gentle one, you are. I've had enough taste of your kindness. Thank you." Rey tasted blood in her mouth from her cracked lips.
Kylo Ren reached forward and Rey flinched, frozen in place. She told herself it was his Force energy doing it and not her panic. With a blackened leather gloved hand, he gently wiped away the drops of blood pouring through the split open skin of her bottom lip.
"Does it hurt?"
"Not as much as waking up here, with you." She pointed her sharp words at him, hoping to cause hurt.
He kept his fingers there and closed his eyes. Rey watched him as he looked calm. She tried not to stare at his constantly perfectly placed hair. He smirked as he heard her thoughts and she had half a mind to smack him. Damn the consequences and the fact that she was weakened and a hundred stormtroopers could be summoned against her.
Rey was shocked as a strange sensation came over her. She'd done healing before, but she'd never been healed with the Force. Ben Solo was using his life energy to mend her broken lip. Rey could feel the skin slowly stitching itself back together with the Force. Slowly, the pain started to ease, fading away.
When he was done, her lips were like brand new - completely healed. In better shape than the dry, chapped shape they'd been in before their fight. They were now velvety soft to the touch, as he took his thumb off and she raised her hand to brush her fingers against it.
A smirk pulled at the corners of his own lips. He looked seriously into her eyes. "I meant it when I told you I meant you no harm. I only wanted you here, by my side."
With his last words, anger flared up in her. "I refuse to stand by Supreme Leader Kylo Ren and watch as he takes over the entire galaxy!"
A flash fell over his eyes and they darkened. "I've told you before. You know it. I can take whatever I want, even more so as Supreme Leader."
Dark Force rolling off of him made Rey shiver. It was as if the room had just dropped tens of degrees.
Rey raised her hands to demonstrate her next bold words. "Why am I not restrained?"
"I don't need to physically restrain you with shackles, Rey." This was all the answer he offered.
Kylo Ren stood up and came closer to her. In her battle weakened state with a pounding headache, he could easily pin her down with his dark energy in the Force. Though she willed it in her mind, she wasn't able to outwardly struggle beneath his invisible grip. She found talking just as futile of an exercise.
He watched, taking in her weakness, and desire to struggle but inability. He knelt down next to her head, as she now rested it against the luxuriously soft pillow on the bed again. Reaching out a gloved hand, Ren was able to find access into Rey's innermost thoughts.
Get out of my mind, Ben. Let me go. You know you want to.
Actually, I don't. This is what I want. You here with me, joining me, ruling beside me.
Keep dreaming. You're full of such strong fear. You think I'll be harsh and it'll be painful like last time, before I knew how bonded we are. So far, that wouldn't be an incorrect assumption on my part. Rey… I'll say it as many times as needed. I don't want to hurt you. Don't make me. I will never lie to you. I'll make this an easy, pleasant turn to the dark side. It doesn't have to hurt. Soften your heart to me, Rey. I know you're tired - so tired. I Stop! What I want is to see my friends again!
Rey could feel the Darkness swirling inside of her heart. She felt that familiar, easy, thoughtless pull to the abyss.
Friends? Rebels? Traitors? Do they even care about you?
Before she could respond, Ben was finding a memory in her mind. He pulled the memory up and replayed it to her.
Poe was back. He was furious with her. As soon as he saw her, he was yelling at her. He was rubbing the mistake of damaging BB8 in her face, accusing her of being careless with him and shaming her for how damage he was - as if she hadn't already saw and felt bad. Next, he was telling her off for not being out there and fighting with them. When she looked to Finn for backup and support, he flatly agreed with Poe, taking the stance against her easily.
You mean these friends? Who didn't even understand that damaging BB8 was an accident. Who didn't even care to ask why it happened? Would they have understood, even if you'd been given the chance to tell them? Friends, who held no concern for your training in the Force? Who just wanted you out there to use your power to easily win their battles?
They'll never understand you. They'll never understand the Force or how important training in it is. You'll never have the bond with them that you have with me. We're bonded by the Force, Rey, by our conflict. The Force means for us to be together, a dyad.
Rey shed a tear as she remembered how painful that memory was of Poe not warmly greeting her, happy to see her after their battle, but rather threw out angry yells of accusation and shame. The bitter feeling of her reaching out to Finn for support and being denied it. Rey acutely remembered how alone she felt.
Ren sensed it. How lonely she was feeling again, let down by her "friends." He summoned up his feelings for her, their bond.
You don't have to be alone anymore, Rey. You've spent your entire lifetime alone, due to Palpatine's actions. Join me, Rey. Take my hand. I promise with everything in me that you'll never be alone again. The Force joins us in a way that no other connection can match. I'll always be here in the Force with you. This is the close bond you have so desperately searched and hoped for your entire existence, Rey. Don't make yourself feel alone anymore.
Tears were more freely falling from her eyes, her face still frozen still. Ren looked down, studying them, before wiping them away. Rey didn't have a response.
I see your pain, Rey. I feel it. Come to the dark side, rule with me, ease the pain you've been feeling your whole life. Even if you don't come to the dark side, stay here with me. Be free from the loneliness you've always felt eating away at your starving soul. It will continue to eat you up from the inside out for the rest of your life, unless you let our bond free you from it. Stop doing all of this on your own. Be with me.
Kylo Ren lowered his hand, gradually easing his grip on Rey, allowing her movement and speech again. He sat across from her on a chair and looked over at her on the bed. She sat up slowly. Shakily.
Tears were flowing down her face, as they had been in the throne room after their battle against the guards, when Kylo Ren made her confess that her parents were nobody. He broke her down then, saying she was nothing. Then, he rebuilt her saying she wasn't nothing in his eyes. It hadn't worked then, nor in the interrogation, but it was working now.
The difference being that she was so tired and weary from long battles, from her friends letting her down, and had so much more connection to Ben now. Rey was too weak from a long journey and the hardest battle yet fought against Kylo Ren. The deeply sharp pain of loneliness flooded her heart.
Tears streaming down her face, she nodded. Her hand reached up to brush them back, as more fell, christening her acceptance. Kylo Ren breathed out a deep sigh of relief. All of his hard work had paid off this time. As he looked at Rey, he was struck with a sharp pain of guilt. The light was pulling at his heart again, seeing Rey like this.
He stepped closer and, in her state, she flinched. Her movement intensified his guilt, igniting it like a match to kindling wood. "Shhh." A comforting sound escaped his lips, a sound unfamiliar to both of their ears. What is she doing to me? He found it harder to escape the light around her.
Giving in himself, he wrapped his arms around her, cradling her body, which was broken from the inside out. "Your days of feeling so lonely are over, Rey. I'm with you, always." He placed a kiss on top of her head.
He sensed the pain inside of Rey. The pain inside of her head as it ached, the pain throughout her body - exerted from their fight, the pain in her heart at the choice she had made and the conflict within her.
Reaching out through the Force, he connected with life energy. He placed a hand on Rey's forehead and concentrated on easing the pain. In time, she felt all of her pain gently lift away - physical, mental, and emotional. She looked up at Ben with questions in her eyes.
"I don't like seeing you in pain, Rey. That's not why I brought you here. I brought you here for this, for us." He hugged her tighter to him. She clung to him and let all of her held back tears flow out, dripping down onto Supreme Leader Kylo Ren's perfectly pressed uniform.