She is tinkering with droids again.

He feels her elation as she finds the right point on the circuit, watches the droid whir to life, bleeping its gratitude. She has a whole little family of them now. Droids with loyalty so fierce he wonders if all creatures sentient – and not – are bound to worship her. He is losing himself in her and he knows he needs to stop.

She is in the rain again.

He can feel the moisture moving down his face in rivulets as she holds herself open to the magic of water falling from the sky. The irony is not lost on him. She turns towards the darkening sky and grins like the wild thing she is. Reveling in the absolute miracle of a storm that brings life, not death. No huddling in her AT-AT, waiting for the scouring sands to pass, hunger hollowing her out. Choking on loneliness, gagging on her loss. But in the rain she feels held, filled, surrounded. The cool water that never leaves for long. He is basking in her and he knows he needs to stop.

She is enjoying him again.

His warm laugh dances up her spine, his dark eyes hold hers a beat too long. She doesn't even understand what any of it means. She is a creature of loss and loneliness; she doesn't have the space for this in her mind, in her life. Oh but he does, raised amongst hundreds of anonymous children. But human connection will not be denied. Unless you are adrift on an ocean of sand and need. And how he understands that need. Kylo Ren understands it, too. He is being rent in two by jealous fury and he knows he needs to stop.

At first it was a flutter, fingers drawing through silk, wind on the back of his neck. So subtle as to be dismissed, ignored, forgotten. But the Force was not something you ignore and this feeling whispered in his bones. And yet he didn't focus on it, didn't follow it, didn't pursue it. The gentle warmth was too delicious, too forbidden to be examined. So he let it settle in his veins until it was wrapped around his lungs, burrowed in his spine, and his heart – oh, his heart. He wonders now if he'd known then what Rey would do to him, would he have rooted her out, killed this blissful connection like he'd killed so many beautiful things?

~KR~

Walking the decks of the Finalizer, flagship of the bloodied, but not beaten, First Order should bring him peace; should make him feel in control; should give him the satisfaction of the tang of their fear as his strides eat through the corridors. But he barely notices the shifting tides of entombed Stormtroopers and skittish officers. She, she, she is beating in time with his pulse, shadows his consciousness, wrapped and kept sacred. She is bleeding into everything, her blazing hazel eyes sear him through the halls of memory.

"Ren."

Oh, Force, she is laughing. He hates it when she laughs, craves it when she laughs, is brought low when she laughs. She has him on his knees and doesn't even know he is there.

"Ren!" Impatient, now. Ginger irritant.

"Ren, you are disrupting my officers. What brings you to the bridge?" General Hux says with contempt, not attempting to conceal his genuine frustration with the mercurial Knight.

Kylo Ren pauses, because he truly has no idea why he is there. His thick boots had simply brought him here as he stalked the halls, concentrating on ridding himself of her. Focusing intently on her.

"I do not recall needing a reason to inspect my ship."

"Your ship!" Hux sputters in fury. His face takes on the look of having tasted something foul. The red lights of the delicate machinery glint in his always perfectly combed hair.

"Our ship, then," the looming black figure concedes. "The fact remains I've no need to explain my presence here. Perhaps I simply wanted to ensure… order." He tilts his head to the side, his black helmet sucks in all the light, thin bands of silver showing the contrast thoroughly. He is dark as pitch but you would always see him just before you saw nothing at all.

"I assure you that everything is, as ever, perfectly in order."

"Hmm," is all Ren says.

A lilting peal of laughter rings through his head – please let her not be with him . He simply can't take it. He looks to the left of Hux's head, intent on her, sensing her, he searches for more, more, always more. Ah. The droid. That orange sphere of frustration that had brought him to her. Better than the traitor, he supposes. It offers up a bloom with its strange arm-like apparatus. He is instantly alert. This is a gift, a token, he sneers to himself. From wh-

"Ren if you insist on being in the middle of everything, could you perhaps menace another part of the bridge?" Hux has grown rather more arrogant since saving him on Starkiller. It is only Ren's new… preoccupation that saves the console in front of him and the officer manning it. He turns his back on the bridge and continues his frenzied pace off the bridge, away from Hux. He needs to be able to concentrate. As long as she does not feel him she cannot block him and that… that is imperative.

Now, about the Traitor and his gifts... She giggles softly, smiles down at the little droid. "Where did this come from? Oh, I see, another big secret, classified." His eyes strain to keep from rolling, a strangled grunt of disgust escapes his control. Marvelous, must he contend with every man on that forsaken base courting her? His his his. It doesn't matter that she has no way of knowing. She should know, should feel … Did their time together mean nothing to her? Did she have no proper feelings at all? His anguish masquerades as rage and he feels his control slipping. But no, it won't do for her to sense him after all this time; to cut him off from his supply. He wonders, idly, when this would cease to be enough. When the shiver of her sighs and the lava of her light will eat away the last of his reason and lead him straight into madness. Break down the walls he so carefully crafts to keep Supreme Leader out, to protect this shameful, terribly essential secret. He wonders when he will break, driven demented by his need; his awful, mewling, gasping need.