Chapter 6: Join me.

Kylo Ren knew who was in the escape pod even before it opened with a hiss of vapor—her presence had been a steady pulse from the Force the moment his father's junk-heap freighter once again somehow heaved itself out of hyperspace without disintegrating.

The stormtroopers behind him stood ready, awaiting his command. Peering down into the pods tight confines, their eyes locked. Rey stared up at him with a look of naive hope and wonder, while he looked down on her with a slight frown. She felt her heart shudder and stop, a cold feeling of dread wrapping itself around her. She had made a terrible, terrible mistake.

"I'll take that," he said, referring to the lightsaber clutched tightly in her hands. "It belongs to me."

Despite knowing that she was outnumbered, she held the lightsaber appraisingly for a moment.

"Strange, then, that it called to me at the castle," she said, studying the ancient weapon almost idly before returning her icy gaze to him. "And not to you."

The corner of his mouth twitched in the beginning of a smile, and he inclined his head at the soldiers filling the hangar. "You're in no position to argue."

She held the hilt out to him, as if daring him to take it. The stormtroopers shifted uneasily. He frowned, then reached out, his face momentarily uncertain. The slightest tremor disturbed his black-gloved fingers as he reached out for the weapon sitting motionless in her steady hand. He snatched it away and gestured curtly for a First Order officer to approach with binders.

"That isn't necessary," she said, as she climbed out of the pod and allowed the officer to handcuff her.

"It is," He replied, hustling her into the depths of the massive flagship. "We have an appointment."

She quickened her pace to match his long strides, not wanting to be seen scurrying to keep up. Behind them, the accompanying stormtroopers' armor rattled. She could feel their anxiety about a situation they couldn't fit into one of their training regimens. That anxiety was shot through with fear—not of her but of the mercurial, unpredictable Kylo. She didn't blame them—his turmoil all but filled the Force around them, roiling and churning it. The troopers couldn't sense it the way Kylo and her could, but that wasn't the same as saying they couldn't sense it all—they were part of life and the Force, and couldn't help but be affected on some level.

He stopped at a lone turbolift ringed by stormtroopers and dismissed the guards. Stepping inside, the doors shut and left them alone.

She turned to face him, the pain she felt inside twisting her beautiful features.

He was still contemplating the lightsaber in his hands, avoiding her gaze.

"You don't have to do this."

"I do."

Fury spiked through her - hot and fast. She understood now why he had held in the cave that night. It all suddenly made perfect sense. He hadn't done it because he cared for her. He had just been manipulating her. He had put the vision of a redeemed Ben Solo in her head. It had all been a trap. An elaborate lie, designed to get her to deliver herself to the First Order. And it had worked. He had preyed on her weakness and vulnerability. In her darkest hour, he had used her. The devastation that she felt was so all consuming, it took everything she had not to cry out. To drop to the floor and wail as long and as loudly as she could, until her voice grew so hoarse she'd never be able to use it again.

Sensing the turbulent violence of her emotions, Kylo shifted his weight, as if trying to block out what he knew she was feeling. On top of her raw hurt, she could sense that his emotions were resolute. He was firm in his decision to betray her, she could not detect even a hint of wavering. She did not know it was possible for him to cut her any deeper than he already had, but somehow, this realization twisted and broke what tiny piece was left of her heart. Her eyes closed, and when she opened them again, she was no longer the same girl he had held in that cave.

The turbolift doors opened with a hiss and Kylo led Rey into the throne room, where the Supreme Leader of the First Order awaited them on his throne. His faceless, crimson-armored guards stood on either side of the throne, bladed weapons ready. Snoke himself was almost slouching—indolent in his golden robes, secure in the safety of his sanctum. But his eyes were piercing and hungry. Rey tried to avoid them, but his gaze was like a lodestone, dragging her attention involuntarily to him. Their pull was akin to what she'd felt near the pit on Ahch-To—whispering of secrets that had been reserved for her, that belonged to her. Ancient, hidden knowledge that would destroy the weak but elevate the strong. The worthy.

Snoke grinned hungrily at her and she found she couldn't look away until the Supreme Leader fixed those dreadful, bottomless eyes on Kylo instead.

"Well done, my good and faithful apprentice," he said, the voice deep and slow. "My faith in you is restored." Then his gaze pinned her once again. "Young Rey. Welcome."

Interpreting visions of the future was a dangerous game. Whether Jedi, Sith, or some other sectless celebrated by history, all those who used the Force to explore possible timelines kept that uppermost in their minds. Those who didn't died regretting that they hadn't. Snoke had learned that lesson many years ago, when he was young and the galaxy was very different. These days, what struck him was how much visions of the future left out. For example, who would have guessed that the girl Rey would be so slim and fragile-looking? She looked lost in the throne room, dwarfed by both her surroundings and the galaxy-shaking events for which she was the unlikely and unwitting fulcrum.

But Snoke knew appearances were often deceiving—sometimes fatally so. Underestimating Rey had nearly cost Kylo Ren his life, after all. Snoke knew better. For he had his own legions of uncounted dead, their ranks filled by those who had underestimated him.

Snoke waved and Rey's binders parted and clattered to the floor—a trivial demonstration of the Force. He noted approvingly that it no longer awed her.

"Come closer, child," he said. She refused him and Snoke reached out with the Force, whose power had grown stronger even as his body had withered. To his delight he found Rey strong—even more powerful than he'd imagined. Strong with the Force, and with the kind of towering will that made her able to command it. She would have made a fitting instrument for Snoke—if he'd still had need of such crude tools.

"So much strength," Snoke said, savoring the currents of power in the room and the chaos of their collisions. "Darkness rises, and light to meet it. I warned my young apprentice that as he grew stronger, his equal in the light would rise."

Another seemingly offhand gesture and Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber ripped itself free of Kylo's grasp, tumbling past Rey to smack into Snoke's hand. He turned the weapon gently, admiring both the skill of its construction and the power coiled within it. To Snoke's eyes, the weapon's very form revealed the Jedi lineage behind its creation, a string of once mighty names that no longer had any meaning.

"Skywalker, I assumed," he said. "Wrongly." He set the lightsaber down on the throne's armrest and pinned Rey with his gaze. "Closer, I said." She resisted him again, but this time Snoke didn't limit himself to testing her defenses. He used the Force to compel her body, yanking her centimeter by slow, unwilling centimeter toward him across the polished floor.

Rey tried to resist, commanding her feet to remain planted on the floor of Snoke's throne room, but it was hopeless—she was pulled closer and closer to the Supreme Leader. As on Takodana, with Kylo Ren, she found that both her mind and body had been invaded and overwhelmed. The feeling sickened her—her stomach wanted to revolt, as if Snoke were a physical malady it could purge.

"You underestimate the Resistance," she warned the gaunt, robed figure, her voice strained by trying to keep her distance. "It will be your downfall."

Snoke's eyes glittered with feral amusement. Few things were more entertaining than an opponent who mistook a little bit of knowledge for the entire picture. Their downfalls were so much more satisfying.

Snoke dragged her to his throne, her face paralyzed just centimeters from his own. Holding Rey pinned there, Snoke considered Kylo. He had seen his apprentice's enormous potential when he was still a child—the latent power of the Skywalker bloodline was impossible to miss. And he had also seen how to exploit the boy's feelings of inadequacy and abandonment, and his mother's guilt and desperation to contain the darkness within her child.

And indeed, Ben Solo had performed the role Snoke had envisioned for him perfectly. The combination of his potential and the danger he posed had lured Skywalker into seeking to rebuild the Jedi. His power had then destroyed all Skywalker had built and sent the failed Jedi Master into exile, removing him from the board just as the game entered a critical phase. But what role the boy would play in the future was less clear. He called himself Kylo Ren, but as with so much else about him, that was more wish fulfillment than reality. He had never escaped being Ben Solo, or learned to resist the pull of the weak and pathetic light, or had the strength to excise the sentimental streak that had destroyed his legendary grandfather.

And then there was his most glaring failure of all: his inability or unwillingness to use his power to redirect the course of his own destiny. Snoke had once seen Kylo as the perfect student—a creation of both dark and light, with the strength of both sides of the Force. But perhaps he had been wrong about that. Perhaps Kylo was an unstable combination of those sides' weaknesses—a flawed vessel that could never be filled. Snoke pushed the thought away. There would be time to consider Kylo's fate later, after the Resistance and the last Jedi had been destroyed. And both of those goals were now at hand.

Snoke turned his attention back to Rey, still gamely struggling to fight something she had no hope of contending with, let alone defeating. It was a pity about the girl, whose unexpectedly strong powers intrigued him. But her role in the story was just about over. She had one final service to perform, after which she could be discarded.

"And now you will give me Skywalker," he told her. "And then I will kill you with the cruelest stroke."

He saw horror in her eyes—followed by stubborn defiance.

"No!" she managed.

"Yes!" Snoke replied, exultant. He raised his hand and hurled her across the room with the Force, then held her in the air as he smashed aside her resistance and began rifling through her thoughts, her memories, making them his to do with as he would.

The skin at Rey's temples pulsed in waves, a physical manifestation of the violent intrusion into her mind. She realized now that Kylo had actually been exceedingly gentle in his mental invasion of her, as the pain she had felt during it was nothing in comparison to how she felt now.

"Give me everything," Snoke commanded. The very air between them bent and wavered as Snoke harnessed the Force and made it his weapon. Rey thrashed in pain, screaming and seeking an escape that didn't exist. Kylo could feel Rey's pain and panic, a bright roar in the Force that overwhelmed all else—even the dark presence of Snoke. And although it nearly killed him, he did not intervene.

Rey could feel Snoke in her head, his consciousness a live, hungry thing, carelessly sifting and sorting through what wasn't his, what he had no right to. She was unable to push back against him—his mere presence threatened to overwhelm her. And unlike with Kylo, she had no sense of that mind being left open to her. Snoke's presence felt like a pit, empty and cold and dark—as if the dark-side cave beneath Ahch-To had gone on forever.

Random bits of memory came back to her as the Supreme Leader scrutinized them and cast them aside. Here she was, alone at sunset on Jakku. Waking from a dream of a cool island in a gray sea. Stunned and reeling beneath Maz's castle. Holding a lightsaber hilt out in mute appeal. She felt his interest quicken at that last moment burned into her mind. That was what he wanted: Skywalker's island, and the planet of which it was a part, and what it was called and how she had reached it.

She tried to blank her mind, to shut him out, to fight him off. None of it worked. Snoke found what he wanted, took it, and discarded her. She found herself on the floor of his throne room, writhing in pain, consumed by hatred for him. He just laughed at her. "Well, well," he said, voice oozing satisfaction. "I did not expect Skywalker to be so wise. We will give him and the Jedi Order the death he longs for. After the rebels are gone we will go to his planet and obliterate the entire island."

She raised her hand toward Luke's lightsaber, sitting next to Snoke on the arm of his throne. She willed it into her hand—and it flew into the air, in a perfect arc that would end in her grasp. Watching Rey struggle against him, Snoke smiled. Calling a lightsaber into one's hand was such a trivial use of the Force—a trick for the greenest apprentice, its workings almost beneath the dignity of a master of the Force. Nevertheless, he admired the girl's resolve. She was beaten but persisted. Such hubris would have to be punished. Snoke twisted his fingers, altering the weapon's path so that it smacked Rey in the back of the head, nearly knocking her unconscious—then spun and continued back to its place beside him.

"Such spunk," he said, feeling the hatred swelling in her and savoring it. It was too bad, really. The girl's power could have been catalyzed by hatred and fear, forging her into a potent weapon. In another era, she would have made someone a superb apprentice.

"Look here now," he said, summoning the Force to drag Rey across the room. The red curtains of the throne room parted, revealing a curved bank of viewports. Before one of them was a lens-like oculus. Forced to stare into it, Rey saw the Resistance fleet had been reduced to one warship and a collection of small transports. The smaller ships were exploding, erased one after another by the First Order's guns.

"The entire Resistance is on those transports," Snoke said. "Soon they will all be gone. For you, all is lost."

Rey turned from the window, teeth bared. Her eyes burned like fire. Oh yes. Such power. A pity, really.

"And still that fiery spit of hope," Snoke said mockingly. Rey's hand reached out again, fingers splayed, and Snoke could feel the Force in motion around him. This time, her target wasn't Skywalker's weapon—but Kylo Ren's. This unexpected, desperate act caught Snoke's apprentice by surprise. His lightsaber flew off his belt and across the room, the Praetorians tensing at its flight, to land in Rey's hand. She ignited it, the crimson blade a snarl of energy, the crossguard energy channels sputtering to life a moment later, and ran at Snoke.

The guards sprang forward, blades raised, but Snoke stopped them with a raised hand, chuckling at the sight of Rey, face bathed in the red light of the unstable blade. "You have the spirit of a true Jedi," he told her—then used the Force to fling her across the floor. She landed hard, groaning, and the lightsaber clattered and spun across the floor to land at Kylo's feet, spinning like a top. "And because of that you must die," Snoke said, turning his cobalt-blue eyes to Kylo.

His apprentice had barely moved since delivering Rey. His emotions, which were usually so tumultuous, had been replaced by an eerie calm and focus. Snoke had been surprised, but pleased. Kylo—that endlessly conflicted mixture of light and dark—had finally found himself.

"My worthy apprentice, son of darkness, heir apparent to Lord Vader," Snoke said, knowing how Kylo had yearned for such praise. "Where there was conflict, I now sense resolve. Where there was weakness, strength. Complete your training and fulfill your destiny."

Kylo rose, his unlit lightsaber in one hand and the other hand held carelessly behind his back. Step by step, he advanced on the helpless Rey. Snoke used the Force to hoist her to her knees and pin her arms behind her back. He eyed Kylo, wary of some new retreat into sentiment, into the weakness that had held him back for so long. But Kylo's face was cold, and his eyes were determined.

She regarded him with an icy stare. She would not beg or show weakness in her final moments. But she would force him to look into her eyes as he killed her. It was the least he could do.

Kylo stopped once Rey was within reach of his blade. "I know what I have to do," he said, his voice emotionless. Snoke laughed. By eliminating Rey, Kylo would be excising the flawed, hesitant, weak half of himself for good.

The Supreme Leader closed his eyes. This was a drama best appreciated through the Force, not the crude approximation offered by mundane senses. "Yes!" he said. "I see him turning the lightsaber to strike true. And now, foolish child, he ignites it and kills his true enemy."

It was the last thing the Supreme Leader ever said. — Kylo had indeed rotated the hilt of his lightsaber so it was pointed directly at Rey's chest. But even as he did so, Luke's lightsaber was rotating silently on the armrest of Snoke's throne—unnoticed by either the Supreme Leader or the Praetorian guards. When Kylo's fingers twitched behind his back, the blue energy blade of Luke's lightsaber sprang into existence, spearing Snoke. Then, with a flick of Kylo's hand, the blade carved through his master, cleaving him in two, and flew through the air into Rey's hand.

Rey's mouth dropped open in shock as she looked behind her, at Snoke's fallen form, and then back at Kylo. He winked at her, and she blinked.

Had Kylo Ren just winked at her?

And then a warm feeling gushed through her, as the pieces started to fall into place. He hadn't tricked her afterall. But, he hadn't been able to warn her, either. Snoke would have sensed it, had her feelings of fear and betrayal not been real. Kylo had managed to hide his feelings only because he had kept his thoughts vague - he was going to destroy his enemy, just not the one that Snoke had assumed.

She became aware of his hand extended down towards her. Taking it, she allowed him to pull her to her feet. In a moment that seemed to drag on forever, they stared at one another as they had in the cave. Anyone watching would have averted their gaze, so private and intimate was the moment.

After you. Rey heard Kylo's voice inside her head, and understood his meaning. Turning, she came face to face with the crimson-armored guards advancing on them. Four sets of pairs, she realized dizzily, and looked back at Kylo, frightened. He nodded his encouragement, and suddenly she felt stronger, as if some of his life force had been funneled into her. Not only that, but the scene before her changed: instead of regarding the guards with fear and trepidation, she hungered to meet them, to devour them whole and toss aside their lifeless bodies. She smiled with her teeth.

The guards tried to approach them all at once, but Kylo erected a field around them using the Force, allowing in only one guard at a time. As the first guard entered the makeshift arena, Rey could hear a hum from his bladed weapon, and realized the edges were enhanced by ultrasonic generators. She could feel the sensation as a throb in her teeth and sinuses.

As he lunged towards her, she shifted her feet, raising her lightsaber to meet his polearm as he tried to split open her skull. She expected the lightsaber to cleave the weapon apart, but it merely blocked the blow, and the impact sent a painful vibration shooting up her arms and into her shoulders.

She fell backwards and dodged another blow.

Let the force guide you. She heard Kylo instruct inside her head.

She exhaled, opening her mind to the force, and the room seemed to snap into focus. She could sense Kylo's excitement, and his hunger - as if he were a beast finally freed to confront its tormentor.

She felt the guards' coldness, mixed with determination. Their master had been undone through treachery, and they would be the instruments of his retribution. She could also feel their frustration at being held back by the forcefield. And around all of them, she perceived the evershifting web of the Force.

Lunging towards the guard, she sent her lightsaber into a dizzying arch, the bright beam nicking the brim of his helmet. He stumbled away, regarding her with newfound respect. She followed his retreat with her eyes, like a shark locked onto the scent of blood. With a brutality she didn't know she was capable of, she flung the lightsaber like a javelin, and watched as it buried itself in the guards thigh. He screamed in pain, a bloodcurdling sound, and fell to his knees. She stepped forward, wrapped her hands around the handle of the lightsaber, and pulled it out. The smell of cauterized flesh tickled her nostrils. With one swift strike, she executed him, his head rolling onto the ground.

Kylo watched the display and felt his chest bursting with pride. He felt like a lion, teaching his young cub how to hunt. One day, she would be a force of nature. Together, the two of them would be unstoppable. The image he had seen in the cave when she had touched his face surfaced - her standing beside him, their yellow eyes peering out from beneath their hooded cloaks. Together, they would bend and twist the galaxy to their will. And there would finally be peace. And above all - they would be together. Seperating a dyad in the force was a cruel and unusual punishment, even for the Sith. Now, nothing would keep them apart. He would never let her out of his sight again. Not for as long as either of them lived.

Rey looked up to see two more guards enter the arena. She spun her lightsaber in slow, lazy arcs, eyeing the pair as they approached her. She tried to anticipate her attacker's motions, using the Force to warn her where they would be.

Good. She heard Kylo praise her. Very good.

One of the guards rushed her, electro-whip crackling with energy that would shock her into unconsciousness. Rey's eyes didn't track the coiling tip of the whip, but her lightsaber was there to deflect it and send its wielder staggering away. Reaching out with her hand, she shoved the other guard backward with the Force, and then found herself spinning in the other direction. The guard with the electro-whip had grabbed hold of her arm, and suddenly electric jolts of pain shot up her arm. She tried to wiggle out of his grasp, yelping in pain. She realized too late that their armour was electric, simply touching them would shock her.

And then he was gone. She looked up just in time to see him rocketing up towards the ceiling, and then back down towards them. He landed with a sickening thud beside her.

Trying to will the feeling back into her tingling fingers, she looked up to see Kylo enter the arena. Letting down his forcefield, she watched as the remaining guards swarmed him.

In his hands, the lightsaber was a wheel of red fire that sent his attackers spinning away. One guard's sudden uncertainty bloomed in the Force and Kylo advanced on him, his whip connecting with air, then falling from his hand as the lightsaber found a gap between his armor's segments. Driving the lightsaber blade through the guards heart, the man slumped and Kylo shoved his body away with his booted foot.

The guard with the voulge saw his opening and charged at Kylo, weapon lowered to cleave open his stomach. The lightsaber knocked it aside and easily found the guards throat. She watched as the remaining guards attacked, one after another, until they were all reduced to a pile of bodies on the floor. When he was finished, he was barely breathing hard.

As they stood amid the smoke and carnage, her eyes were filled with joy, his with some unnamed emotion she couldn't place her finger on. Excitement? Lust?

The deck of Snoke's throne room thrummed, and the air was lit by the glow of turbolaser fire. After a moment, she remembered where she was, and what she needed to do. Rushing into the oculus, she stared at the pinpricks of light that represented the Resistance fleet.

So few.

"The fleet!" She yelled. "Order them to stop firing! There's still time to save the fleet!"

When he didn't respond, she turned to look at him.

"The fleet?" She prompted, imploring him with her eyes.

There was neither fear nor anger in Kylo's tone now - just a deep resolve.

"It's time to let the old things die," he said. "Rey, I want you to join me. Snoke, Skywalker, the Sith, the Jedi, the rebels? Let it all die. We can rule together and bring a new order to the galaxy."

And just like that, it all came crashing down around her. Kylo hadn't crossed over to the light side. He had just wanted Snoke out of the picture so that he could become the new Supreme Leader. She stared at him in disbelief and horror.

"Don't do this, Ben," She said quietly. "Please don't go this way."

Kylo stepped over Snoke's corpse.

"You're still holding on," he nearly shouted. "Let go!"

He advanced on her, the ignited lightsaber held loosely in one hand. But there was no threat in his approach. Somehow, that scared her even more.

"Do you want to know the truth about your parents?" he asked. "Or have you always known and have just hidden it away - hidden it from yourself? You know the truth. Say it!"

She tried to find the strength to defy him, to shove him away. But he was right. She did know the truth - and it was the same as her greatest fear, the one that had haunted her for so long.

A truth she could find no refuge from.

"They were nobody," she said quietly.

"They were filthy junk traders who sold you off for drinking money," Kylo said. "They're dead in a pauper's grave in the Jakku desert."

Tears filled her eyes. She fought to keep her emotions contained, fearing that if she released them even for a moment they would overwhelm her and sweep her away.

Kylo was a pace away now, his eyes locked on hers.

"You have no place in this story," he said. "You come from nothing. You are nothing."

And then his eyes softened.

"But not to me. Join me. Please."

He turned his uncle's lightsaber off and stretched his hand out towards her.

In the ruined throne room, Rey regarded Kylo's gloved hand, held out to her in supplication.

She knew, without a doubt, that taking his hand now would corrupt her, inside and out. Already she felt high from the recent string of murders, painfully lusting for more. It would be too easy.

She envisioned what the galaxy would look like with the two of them ruling over it with an iron clad fist. Maybe they could handle it, maybe they could quell the violence that always seemed to inevitably bubble over when sentient beings co-existed.

Or, maybe they would simply incite more violence, making everything worse than it had been before. More likely than not, the latter would ring true. Bringing peace and order to the galaxy was a farce, some phrase employed by the Sith to hide their true intentions: destroying everything and everyone around them.

As much as she wanted to take his hand, to give in to the bloodlust that was permeating her thoughts, she knew she couldn't. It wasn't who she was. It wasn't who he was. And, as angry as she was with her parents betrayal, she couldn't let it destroy her. And it would destroy her - it would destroy them both. If she took his hand, it would be their downfall, she knew it in her bones.

And more than anything else, she couldn't stand to lose him. She understood now what she had been running from for so long - she was in love with Kylo Ren. Not because they had spent enough time together, or because she knew him well, or because he was redeemed, but because their souls were two halves of a whole. How could she not love him, when he was half of her?

In order to protect him, to protect them, she couldn't take his hand. She could survive without him, as long as he existed somewhere out there in the galaxy. But she couldn't survive if he somehow ceased to exist. It would kill her. This, she was sure of.

There wasn't time to tell him all of this, and even if there were, he wouldn't listen. He would see her actions as a betrayal, but she didn't know how she could help that. As much as this was going to hurt him, it was going to hurt her more. But one of them had to resist the dark side, and it clearly wasn't going to be him. At least, not yet. He needed more time, and she would find a way to give it to him.

Quickly formulating a plan, she reached out with her own hand - and before he realized her aim, she had snatched Luke's lightsaber out of his grasp with the Force. The weapon tumbled toward her - and then froze in midair.

Kylo, his entreaty rejected, had flung up his own hand, harnessing the Force to arrest the lightsaber's flight, as she had known he would.

The weapon hung in the air between them, quivering faintly. She stared at it, willing it into her grasp. But he was pulling it toward him with equal determination.

Between them, the lightsaber shivered and danced. They stared into one another's eyes and saw themselves reflected back in the brilliant light. They were truly One.

She could feel the Force heaving like the sea on Alch-To, whipped into a fury by their attempts to manipulate it. And she could feel the kyber crystal at the heart of the weapon seeking a resonance, trying to find harmony where there was only dissonance. Caught in their tug-of-war, the crystal seemed to keen in the Force, a wail that she could feel in her bones. Just a little more… she thought desperately, knowing what was to come, having gleaned the information from Kylo's head during his mind-probe of her.

They were sweating now, neither willing to give so much as a millimeter in their standoff. Until, finally, the crystal sheared apart, its unleashed energy tearing the lightsaber's housing in half and filing the throne room with a flash of brilliant, blinding white light.

When she awoke, Rey was elated and relieved when to realize that she had recovered first. That was the only part of her plan that had hinged on pure luck.

Seeking out Kylo's sleeping form in the throne room, she crawled over to him. Peering down at his face, she was struck by how much younger he looked. The hard angles of his face were softer somehow.

I wish it didn't have to be this way. She thought to him, even though he couldn't hear her. I'll be here when you're ready.

Bending down, she lowered her lips to his facenand planted a gentle kiss on his forehead. The tears were flowing in earnest as she scrambled to her feet and took off running.

Now we are all caught up on TFA and TLJ (In just 5 days - can you tell that I'm just a little bit obsessive, lol). I took some creative liberties with some of the scenes, I hope no one minds too much. They don't change the overall outcome of the story at all. I just thought it would be cute to include a scene of Kylo "training" Rey before they were thrust back onto opposite sides of the war.

Additionally, Kylo's much more certain about his future with Rey in my FanFic than he is in the movies, so that's why he wasn't conflicted about betraying her or Snoke - betraying her was never an option. That's why I cut out some of the elevator dialogue about him being conflicted, even though I liked that scene in the movie.

The mirror scene from the last chapter pretty much wrote itself, I wasn't really intending for it to go there, but it felt right, so I left it (plus this way they get SOME intimacy before, once again, they're thrust onto opposite sides of the war).

Sooo, the novelization for ROS doesn't come out until March 3rd. I've been going back and forth on whether or not to write the remaining story myself, without the help of the novelization, or to wait until it's out to continue.

Basically, this is the first thing I've ever written, and without the novelization to lean on, the quality of the writing will be much, much lower. I really thrive on having something already written and tweaking it. The thought of having nothing to go off of is… frightening, to say the very least. The chapters would also take much longer to write, obviously.

On the other hand, 2 months is a long time from now, will we all still be as obsessed with Reylo as we are now, now that the movies are over? Lol. (I'm pretty sure I will be).

What do you guys think? Wait 2 months for something higher quality, or take a stab at it now and see what happens? I'm leaning towards the former, just because I don't want to butcher the story, but I'll definitely take what you all want into consideration as well. Let me know in a review!

2 months really isn't THAT long… (I just got into Star Wars last month, so I was able to binge the Reylo thing, but understand some of you shippers waited FOUR YEARS for that to become canon, holy crow!). Also, this time a girl is writing the novelization! Not just any girl, but she's written romance before! I'm SO excited.