Note: For Limra, for AO3's Ring in the Reylo gift exchange. (I only posted this briefly to FF, but the work is over on AO3 as an orphaned work... I'm reposting under Juulna now, however.)

Based on this prompt: "Ben and Rey are married, The war is over. She wants babies buy he's afraid of how their children will be treated with the burden he has to carry. Rey tries to convince him."

Thank you for the prompt, Limra, and I hope that you enjoy it! Happy New Year, and may the next be most excellent to you!

To my regulars: It's good to see you again! I've been on hiatus, but this was a nice project to work on over the last little bit while I've been so swamped with work. Hope you're all well!

I do not own the characters or anything from the universe of Star Wars. Text in full italics has been taken directly from Claudia Gray's book Bloodline, being mainly dialogue. I won't explain much as that would ruin things, but it's not mine!

"No."

The word quivered in the air between them. Rey froze, her brushing motion stopped halfway down the long curtain of her hair. She swiveled around, quickly placing her brush face up on top of the vanity so that she could try to catch her husband's gaze.

No luck. Kylo was staring out into the dark of the night through the window above his desk, the dim city lights of Thokos' capital city the only thing lighting the inside of their rooms.

"What?" Rey asked quietly, after taking a few moments to control her voice. She somehow managed to speak with only a slight quiver shading her voice.

"You heard me," he said gruffly. He still wouldn't turn around. "I know you heard me."

"But why?" Rey inquired, attempting to keep the desperation out of her voice as she remained frozen to her seat, twisted around. Her eyes flickered over her husband's hunched back, and she couldn't help but recognize that he was in pain. Why… why did this hurt him so much? She'd thought he would be receptive to her musings from last week, but he had shut right down. She hadn't pushed… it seemed now her patience would be rewarded, and he was finally willing to talk.

Or not.

"Rey. Rey… you know why. I just… I can't have… I could never subject children to a life tied to me. Never," he choked out.

Rey let silence fill the air between them as she pondered the words he had spoken. She knew that he hated himself, hated the things he had done and the choices he had made. She knew that over the last six years of their relationship, including the four that they had been married, he had been battling with himself and his inner demons. She had helped him through many, and for many still… there was nothing she could do. Either because there was nothing to be done, or because he hadn't let her.

And she had respected that.

Instead, she had done what she could to support his damaged mind, while he had helped her heal in his own ways, and they had gone about their new life as best they could.

Finally, she spoke up, her words quiet, though she knew that they would be loud enough to carry over to where he was sitting. "Do you fear what people will say of them—of you?"

Kylo hunched his shoulders even further, and still refused to turn around, but he answered her almost immediately. "Yes. That, and more."

Rey furrowed her brows, but took a moment before replying to wind her hair into a loose twist, clipping it up with a battered, antiqued silver clip. A family heirloom from Alderaan, Leia had explained on the morning of her wedding as she braided Rey's hair. One that her mother, Breha, had given to her as a young woman. Rey's heart clenched at the emotions the memory evoked, but pushed them aside quickly so that she could focus on the man she loved.

"Their opinions don't matter to me -" she started.

"They should!" Kylo exclaimed, finally throwing himself and the chair he was sat in away from the desk, and turning to face Rey.

Carefully schooling her expression, Rey kept her gaze on the man across the room from her who was trembling with emotion. He had never been able to keep his emotions in check, but he had never been violent with her since… well, since after the war, and after they had begun to dance around each other in ever-decreasing circles of need and fascination.

It was something she loved about him, honestly, and while it did have its… problems… it wasn't something she would ever change.

Rey stood up gracefully, her loose silk nightgown flowing around her body as she strode with purpose across the room. She reached out through the Force towards him, tasting his emotions, and was met with a wall. It didn't concern her, though it did sadden her slightly—but it was something she was used to from him, this clamming up when he was frightened.

And he was frightened. That was the only thing she could feel leaking through the tight ward around his mind.

"Kylo," she stated firmly as she placed one hand against his sternum. She could feel his heart beating rapidly beneath her fingers, and she resisted the urge to stroke them soothingly over his chest. "Kylo, I do not care what this city thinks of me. I could not care less about what the Senate believes of me, or of you, or of what we do with our life. That is our business. Plus!" she said quickly, overriding the words she could tell were about to come pouring out of his mouth. "Plus, as the Temple's ambassador, I am only here for part of the year, and you for even less than I am."

Kylo looked down at his wife standing before him, his expression still shuttered, but his features gaining an increasingly distressed and dark cast. He finally opened his mouth, and whispered fiercely, "You don't know what they say about me, about us, behind your back. But me… they are far less careful around me, and I have always been good at hiding in the shadows. I hear what is said, Rey." His voice nearly broke, and he clenched his eyes and tilted his face away from her. "I know what they think of me."

Rey narrowed her eyes, frustration at Kylo falling back on an old argument starting to furl within her mind. But she knew he was right—at least in part. There would always be those who would never forgive him for what he had done, and for his part in the war. And that was their right. She knew that. She understood that. She even understood why they felt that way. She had been like them, so many years ago, from the moment they had first crossed paths on Takodana, and for years yet as the war raged on.

She had once hated him with a blinding passion.

And yet… There was no use going down that road again, rehashing said argument one more time. It would be no use. Instead, she said softly, "I do not believe that anyone would say anything bad about children, Kylo. They cannot be held responsible for the sins of their father, whatever they may -"

"Oh they can't, can they?" Kylo bit out, anger nearly consuming his voice.

He pushed away from Rey, and she nearly lashed out at him angrily in return… until she saw the grief etching his features. Instead, she kept quiet, standing nearly immobile where he had left her except for the slow descent of her raised hand to a more comfortable place by her side. She watched him beneath her lashes, wishing she could ask, could speak—but past experience had taught her that he would completely shut down if she were to do so.

So she waited.

"You don't know much about the awfulness of human nature, do you, Rey?" Kylo asked quietly.

"I -" she started indignantly.

"I'm sorry," Kylo said immediately, his tone remaining soft even as he apologized insistently.

Rey closed her mouth, content for the moment to see where he was going with his train of thought.

"I know that you have suffered a lot, and greatly, Rey," he finally continued. "I know you have seen some of the terrible truths of humanity—have experienced a great many—but you… you always just keep going on, with the greatest of optimism, and there has always been something about you that is just so light, Rey. You know that. You know that's what has drawn me to you… well, not just that. You know that. I mean -" Kylo clenched his fists, struggling briefly with his words from what Rey could tell. But she was patient; she waited for him to continue.

"Have you ever seen or heard what happened to my mother?" Kylo suddenly changed tracks, and Rey could hear resignation and despair creeping into his voice.

"No," Rey replied quietly. She had never pushed where Kylo's family was concerned. Even during the war, she had never gone looking where she hadn't been invited, holding a great respect for Leia and Luke at the time—and when she had started… this, with Kylo, she had held to the same self-restriction, allowing him to come to her with whatever he wished to share. That, and no more.

Kylo huffed. "That's surprising, given that a good few of these Senators were around when it happened."

"But many were not," Rey said quietly, reminding him gently of the great loss of life that had occurred years before in the Hosnian system. He may not have approved of what the weapon Starkiller had been used for, but he had been instrumental in its protection and its day-to-day rule.

"No. Many were not," he agreed, regret coloring his words. "Come here," he said after a moment of silence, slightly louder this time, "and see how the sins of the father certainly can be transferred to the shoulders of his children, no matter how unfair that may seem to us both."

He did not turn towards Rey again, but he held his hand out and backwards so that she could grasp onto it. He drew her with him as he walked towards the living room, and sat her on the edge of their plush couch. The darkness of the room was broken by the activation of the room's holo-projector as Kylo searched for a specific file in the encrypted database. Rey kept her hands in her lap, knowing that she shouldn't touch him until he initiated contact—not when he was on the edge of anxiety and anger as he so obviously was.

Suddenly the room was filled with the soft swell of murmurs that Rey knew only too well from her time in the Senate chambers. There may have been changes to the way the government was run, and the chamber itself, but there was no replacing the way that thousands of voices ran together, even when they were trying to be careful.

On screen were—"That, as you can see, is my mother. Perhaps, what? Two decades ago?" Kylo explained as he gestured towards the left half of the video screen. "And that is none other than Ransolm Casterfo," he growled, anger and vitriol spitting from his lips as he introduced the name of the blond and blue-eyed man who filled the right half of the screen. Rey was going to ask 'who?' but the man was already speaking.

"The First Senator of the New Republic can only be granted supreme authority if we, the citizens, feel that person deserves our trust." The man looked sickly pale, as if he were weak or afraid or even nervous. He was holding himself up with one hand on the console of his Senatorial pod, as if it were the only thing holding him up. "To my deepest regret, I have learned that Leia Organa does not deserve that trust."

Murmurs welled around the room. Ransolm continued, "Princess Leia's lies have protected her long enough. Her deception cannot be permitted to endanger the entire galaxy. If people are considering electing her as First Senator, they have the right to know exactly who they're voting for."

Rey's breath caught in her throat. She knew where this was going. She just knew.

Her fears were realized as Ransolm pointed across the Senate chambers, directly at Leia in all likelihood, and declared for all and sundry, "Senator Leia Organa is none other than the daughter of Darth Vader himself!"

Uproar and pandemonium ensued, Senators and aides turning to each other and gasping, shouting, stomping, crying, yelling, and all sorts of things the likes of which Rey had never seen, even when the Senate had been at its most volatile before her.

A senator declared loudly over the mess of noise—likely only caught because she was near the camera and microphone that was hovering before a pale, though still composed, Leia—"This is a lie! A filthy, outrageous lie, and one Senator Organa will rise to deny!"

Rey watched as Leia remained seated exactly where she was, her thoughts obviously churning at an extreme pace within her mind. It wasn't as if this was news to Rey, Leia being Anakin's daughter, but it had obviously been kept a secret, for whatever reason—although understandable—and had exploded as if the galaxy was being betrayed.

Now Rey knew what Kylo had meant, by the sins of the father being passed to the children. She was about to turn towards him, words on the tip of her tongue to that effect, when the video continued.

"I do not come without proof," Ransolm said. "I will now present my evidence for everyone to hear, so that they can all know how close we came to allowing Lord Vader's daughter to rule over us all."

Leia remained motionless, the camera locked on a close-up of her image.

Then Ransolm held up a box. From within he pulled out a music box, and the tune began to play… then a man began to speak. Rey only recognized the man's voice as Bail Organa's, Leia's adoptive father, because she had once listened to records containing one of his speeches on the tenets of the then-powerful Jedi Academy.

"My beloved daughter," the man spoke over the now-soft music in the background, "The supreme governor of Birren, whom I trust completely, said that he would keep this here for you when you someday inherit this title. My hope is that this recording contains no new information, that I have had the chance to explain everything to you myself.

"However, I make this recording during a time of increasing danger for our Rebellion. I know too well that I may not survive the war that is surely to come. By hiding the information here, on a world of no significance to the Empire, I hope to keep it out of the wrong hands and deliver it into yours. For this is knowledge you—and only you—have the right to possess.

"You've never expressed much interest in knowing about your birth parents. So many times, you've told your mother and me we are the only father and mother you've ever needed—and never doubt how much that means to us both. But Leia, the story of your origin is one you must know. You were hidden with us, for your own safety, and for that of your brother. Yes, you have a twin brother, though you must not seek him out until the war has ended, and both Palpatine and Lord Vader have been defeated.

"Obi-Wan Kenobi took your brother for safekeeping, and I took you. We hid you both from each other, and from your father, who could not know that any child of his had been born alive. You see, Leia, I always told you the truth about your mother and how she died. But I never told you that she was Padmé Amidala, former queen and senator of the planet Naboo.

"Nor could I share that your father was Anakin Skywalker, one of the last Jedi Knights and a great hero of the Clone Wars. But now I must tell you the worst, and you must be strong. I must tell you what became of Anakin Skywalker.

"Your father has become Darth Vader."

Mayhem again ensued, after a short, shocked silence.

A tall man in a scarlet cloak, listed as Tai-Lin Garr, Populist beneath his image, somehow managed to gain the floor. The vast chamber fell mostly quiet to hear him speak, and Rey had a feeling it was likely out of respect for the man who stood before them, tall and commanding. "We have no proof that this object is authentic. No evidence at all. Given that Bail Organa was a well-known public figure, any number of recording devices or droids could have captured and synthesized his voice to say anything the programmer wished. Surely a mere music box cannot be allowed to slander one of the most illustrious members of the Galactic Senate."

"I have every reason to believe it is genuine," Ransolm replied. "But if it is not, let Senator Organa pronounce it false."

There was only quiet. Absolute, eerie, complete silence. Long seconds ticked by. A minute… nearly two.

And then Leia stood, managing to face the rest of the Senate, her career falling to pieces around her even as she stood strong and unwavering and unapologetic before them.

"Senator Casterfo's accusation is true. My father was Darth Vader."

Rey blinked, increasingly stunned, as Kylo flipped through a number of video and audio excerpts of the days and weeks that followed. The state of humanity was… well, it was absolutely deplorable.

There had been very little forgiveness for the princess, for the war hero, for the woman who had done nothing but give her life and her all to the people who were now ruining it for her—even though she had been instrumental in making the galaxy a place where they could live free and happy. For making it a place where they even had these rights to say whatever they wished on the news and talk shows. Where 'freedom' meant so much more than it had before.

Abruptly, still not having made a single movement to touch his wife in comfort, Kylo changed to the files to those surrounding him. The ones from the early years of the war, where reporters spoke in varying levels of fear and anger and distrust and—sometimes—curiosity… about him.

And it was all negative.

"No!" Rey finally cried out, flinging herself from the couch to stand in front of the holo-projector, trying with fumbling fingers to press the physical button that would pause what was on the screen. Her hair had come free from her precious clip, and she had no idea where it had fallen to, but she didn't care. She could only stare at her husband through the loose strands of her hair, her shoulders heaving with the emotions that were flooding her system after she managed to put a stop to the reporter who was explaining exactly who Ben Solo was, and what he had done to his mother and uncle, let alone his father.

They didn't know. None of them did. None of them would ever know or understand. And they wouldn't want to.

But…

"Kylo."

He wouldn't look at her.

"Kylo!" she snapped at him, her temper flaring before she could tamp it down, and she flew back across the room to snatch the holo-controller from his hands and fall at his feet, one hand on his knee and the other reaching up to cup his cheek with her palm.

"Kylo," she said, softer this time. "That's not the truth—not the whole truth," she corrected before he could open his mouth.

He wouldn't meet her eyes, but at least he had turned his face around towards her upturned one. His face was pinched, the long scar over his eye tugging at his skin awkwardly, and Rey's heart went out to him. He knew that she loved him, but sometimes… sometimes he needed to be reminded. And sometimes he needed to be reminded that the rest of the galaxy… well, it didn't hate him as much as he thought.

Sometimes it was easy for him to get stuck in the shadows where he liked to hide. Normally Rey would not bother him, leaving him to remain where he was most comfortable—especially in the limelight that her life had gained. It was beyond her wildest dreams when Kylo had told her he wanted to come with her when she stayed in the Senate's capital here and there throughout the years. He had even come to a gala with her last month. She thought they'd been making so much progress...

"You know how much I hated you at first, right?" Rey inquired, suddenly deciding upon the route she would take with him.

Kylo's eyes snapped towards her and his body tensed beneath her fingers, but she kept them where they were. She met his eyes steadily and calmly, and the glow of the holo-projector allowed her to see the expressions that were trying to take root on his features.

She wouldn't attempt to soothe him with the Force, knowing that he would hate it and would constantly wonder if his thoughts and feelings were genuine as a result. They had both agreed, long ago, that they would never use the Force on each other in such a way, and had kept their word through the years.

Freedom of choice was exceedingly important to them both, especially after what they had both been through in the war at each other's hands… and at others' as well.

"Yes," he answered succinctly, eyes closing briefly in regret and then opening to catch hers again, "I do. I'm so sorry -"

"But," Rey interrupted, her fingers tightening slightly on his cheek in a silent signal for him to quiet down. "I came to love you. After everything. I had more reason than many to hate you, to never forgive you, no matter what you did, and yet here we are. Here we are. Do you know why?"

He opened his mouth to reply, or to deny, she wasn't sure, but Rey blazed on before he could utter a single word, "Because there is good in you." She underscored every word with the intensity of her eyes and with a grip of his knee with each syllable that left her mouth.

Before he could say anything else, again, Rey continued. There was no way that she was going to let himself get hung up on a single point, a single argument, before she could demonstrate her entire point. "You remember that the battle for Coruscant was filmed, yes?" He nodded slightly, eyes widening at the direction she was taking their conversation.

It was a long time in coming. She had held off from showing him the collection of clips she had amassed over the years, knowing that he would need time to deal with a lot of things on his own before he was anywhere near ready for what she was about to show him. She knew he was aware of much of it, but he had always shied away from dealing with the topic—and Rey had let him.

Well, ready or not, now was the time.

"Did you ever watch or listen to it later?" she asked softly, sympathy coloring her words. She knew he hated ever thinking about what had happened during his time with the First Order, with Snoke, and it had taken him a long time before nightmares had ceased to plague him—at least, not as much as they had before.

"You know I did not," he answered gruffly, his features tightening. He lifted his hands, as if to push her away from him, clenched them, and then dropped them to his thighs again. But this time… this time he let the pinky of one hand brush against Rey's hand where it rested upon his knee.

It was a promising sign.

"Watch. Please, watch, even if just for me," Rey implored, knowing that he would—just knowing—even as she turned around to pull up her hidden folder using the data-controller. She wanted to watch him as he watched what she had seen so many times before, but she knew that that would be too much for him and so she kept herself turned towards the screen, resting her back against his shins and knees as she leaned against him. It was the only physical contact she knew he would allow, especially once the descent into his nightmares began—but it was more than she'd ever thought he'd allow, when this had all begun years ago.

On Coruscant the battle had raged for days, but the final results of the battle were decided in a secluded courtyard in the middle of the once-abandoned Jedi Temple—a place where the Resistance had decided to hole up in in the final months of the war. How the media had gained access, Rey wasn't sure, but she was sure it involved some of the satellites that even now cluttered the orbit of the planet. Either way, the whole planet—and with increasing delay as the signal was sent further and further away, the whole galaxy—watched what was happening in as close to a ring-side, in-the-moment, seat as they could.

The Temple was in shambles, the courtyard filled with stormtroopers and officers—and with the imposing figure of Snoke, robes barely singed despite the fires surrounding him as he paced the grounds. There were bodies everywhere, and the previously excited and optimistic play-by-play by the news anchors had descended into horror-struck silence. There was no sound from the feed of the courtyard—the satellites were not good enough for that, despite the clarity of image—but you didn't need to hear what was being said to know what was happening.

Luke, the darling of the galaxy, the hero of the Rebellion, and again now with the Resistance, and the formerly-disgraced child of Darth Vader, lay crumpled in a heap in the middle of the courtyard as Snoke paced slowly around him. Luke's robes were singed, torn, and bloody, his mechanical arm crushed in vengeful retribution for the deaths of their comrades beneath the boot of one of two remaining Knights of Ren.

Luke Skywalker was no pushover, even in his older years.

The sobbing of one of the anchors could be heard, starting up as Snoke finally came to a stop by Luke's head where he lay unconscious on the ground. He placed the toe of one boot beneath Luke's stomach, and pushed the man onto his back, igniting his blood red lightsaber as he did so.

But another lightsaber was ignited and in motion before Snoke could even begin to lift his arm for the killing blow—one that he had not been expecting, and never would have expected after the young man had sealed his loyalty to him so many years previous.

He thought he had had Kylo Ren—Ben Solo—in his grasp, firmly under his control and command.

He was wrong. He found out just how wrong he was in the seconds between the saber piercing the place where his species' heart beat beneath the sallow skin belying his age, and the moment when the camera captured the life draining from his manic eyes.

And in the stunned moments that followed, Kylo Ren turned on as many of his former allies as possible, starting with the last Knight of Ren, before he was forced to retreat into a corner with the body of his uncle gripped against his side with one arm, and the other fending off as many blaster bolts as he could.

Some, of course, made it through.

The announcers were shocked. "Did you -?" "What the -?" "Oh Maker, what just happened!?" "Did he just -?"

"We are just as in shock as the rest of you must be! The Kylo Ren… he… oh Force—literally!—He turned on Snoke and just killed him. After all these years. You saw it first here on—oh stars he's going to die! No! No, don't die!"

"Lyfa, what are you talking about? You don't want him to die?"

"Of course not! Not after what he just did… we need to know more! He wouldn't have just done that if he was completely evil, completely lost to the dark side, would he have?"

"But -"

"No! We are reporters, not gossips, Saszmi, and we will not judge him before we have learned the truth."

"Well, it looks like we might not learn the truth from him if there isn't—oh! What's going on now?"

Rey watched, not needing to look at the entirety of the screen, as she had it memorized, eyes trained on Kylo and Luke. She knew what was happening, and she knew that Kylo did, too. But he had never seen it from this perspective. Had never heard what the anchors were saying.

The Resistance had stepped in, finally able to safely enter and finish off the rest of the stormtroopers and First Order officers, beginning a rout that would see the end of the Order in the galaxy, its ships all destroyed or surrendered over the coming weeks.

All because of Kylo.

Rey watched as her own image ran in, brandishing her blue lightsaber before her. She watched as her past self narrowed her eyes at the sight before her, and advanced warily on the forms of the two Force users in the corner. One was completely unconscious, though still breathing, and the other… the other was on his knees, his hands behind his head, and his saber deactivated and thrown away from easy reach. His helmet had been ripped from his head after one too many blaster bolts had ruined its technology and protection, and his chin was tilted firmly upwards, mouth set in a grim yet stubborn line even as he surrendered himself to the young woman in front of him. The young woman whom he had crossed paths with many a time before, each with the intent of killing the other.

Rey watched as her previous self struggled with that same intent, seeing the moment where her morals got the better of her and she quelled the final blow she had been readying for the man's neck.

She became fully aware that she had fallen deep in thought when the room quieted, the video having fully played out—at least, the clip that she had saved from the entirety—and when Kylo's hands came down upon her shoulders, bending forward to rest his forehead against the crown of Rey's head. His whole body was quivering, she realized, and she ached to turn around and wrap him in her arms but was too afraid to move. He was like a frightened animal—albeit a terrifyingly destructive one—sometimes, and she preferred to wait to see how he would deal with his demons, instead of trying to force him in a direction that might be the completely wrong one.

So she waited. And waited. Waited for the quivering of his body to slow, and for the deep, gasping sobs to quiet—the ones which had started shortly after his head had touched hers.

Finally: "Did they really… did they really not want me to die? Did they truly believe that there could be something good in me? Something light? Something… something like you?"

He sounded so much like the lost boy that Rey knew he had been, so much so that she abandoned everything that she had been telling herself and turned around to push herself into his arms, holding herself against his chest as she cried with him. "Yes, my sweet, yes. They believed that. They and so many more. Did you truly not know? Did you have no idea that there were those who came to trust you outside of our own family, outside of our own inner circle and the school? Have you truly been so lost in the shadows of this city, of this galaxy, of your own mind and soul, that you believed no one besides us few could love you and want you, and believe that you have truly changed and atoned? Have you?"

Rey didn't expect an answer, and she didn't get one. Instead, Kylo tightened his arms around her, burying his face in her neck and hair, letting his tears flow silently against her skin. They remained like that, holding onto each other as if they were each other's last best hope at sanity and security and love—and sometimes they were.

But not everything was as bleak as Kylo had obviously assumed it to be—not as bleak as the life he had been living in the shadows for years without Rey truly realizing it.

It was time for him to come out from the shadows.

"There is more…" Rey's voice shook as she whispered the words. "Would you like to see it—to hear it?"

He was quiet for so long, his one hand curled into her hair and the other running up and down her spine through the silk of her nightgown, that she thought he would never answer her. Long minutes passed, perhaps nearly over twenty, before he finally said:

"Yes."

Rey tried to pull back and look him in the face, but he held her tightly to him, not allowing her to draw away. She asked anyway, needing clarification, "You'd like me to play the rest of them?"

Kylo was quiet for one beat, two beats… then, "No."

And he pulled back, smiled one of the most beatific and hopeful smiles she had ever seen on him, and she knew.

She knew that this was his answer. That he would never change his mind. That he wanted this, now, just as much as she had for the last months of their lives together. She knew it didn't mean he was ready to have them right now, but it was his promise that he would be. That he would work hard, with her, to be ready—to have children with her in the future, and to love them as much as he loved her… and, hopefully, as much as he would come to love himself.

Rey let a grin spread slowly across her own features, and darted forward to brush her lips briefly over his. He breathed out against her lips as she pulled back, giving his answer once again. Rey could hear the conviction in it, and it brought tears to her eyes.

"Yes."