A/N: Lana Del Rey's cover of "Once Upon a Dream" definitely provides the vibes for this one! Thank you for reading!

The first time Rey dreams of the throne of the Sith, she is nineteen, still living on Jakku. It is the night before BB-8 becomes ensnared in Teedo's net. The usual stars are not visible in the sky, and there is a coldness to the air that is foreign to the desert. It unsettles Rey, prickles along her skin. Still, she settles in her hammock to sleep, fighting off the uneasiness.

She dreams.

A man stands before her. His pale, scarred face is handsome, framed by dark hair. He reaches for her with gloved hands and looks at her with something akin to adoration. Though she can feel the danger of him in her bones, a strange warmth envelops her at his touch. He draws her close to his chest, wrapping his arms around her and murmuring her name into her hair.

For a girl who has gone fourteen years without being held by another, the embrace is overwhelming. It feels – perfect. Right. Like the sound of this man's heartbeat beneath her ear is an echo of her own.

He draws away then, still holding her hands, and leads her to a throne. It rises out of the darkness, a monolith of stone. The jagged lines across its top remind Rey of a sunburst. She whispers her awe of it to the man, and he gives her a look that is almost a smile.

"It's yours," he says, his deep voice carrying in the cavernous space. "It's all yours, Rey. Just as I am."

She wakes in the morning, the comfort of his presence still lingering in her mind.

The next night, with BB-8 tucked into a corner to charge, she dreams of the strange throne and the man again. He wears a black cloak with the hood drawn up. When she turns to face him, she sees that she wears a matching cloak and hood, though hers is white.

There is a hunger to his gaze this time, a yearning in his eyes that she recognizes in herself. When he reaches for her tonight, she does not need to be guided into his arms. She runs her hands up his ribbed sleeves, across his broad shoulders, along the line of his jaw. When her fingertips trace the fading scar that cuts across his cheek, his eyes close, and he leans into her touch.

"Rey," he says, more a sigh than anything else.

This time, it is she who leads him to the throne. He sits upon it like a king. Like an emperor. She smiles down at him, a peculiar pride filling her at the sight. The man's eyes never leave hers as he places his hands on her waist and tugs, pulling her close, so that her knees are pressed to his.

Rey jolts awake in her hammock to the sound of BB-8 powering up for the day.

The monster crouched before her removes his mask, and she feels the familiarity of him in her bones. She knows him. She has seen him before – or a phantom that resembles him, at least – in a dream. In a nightmare. She knows his voice, for he has vowed himself to her, spoken her name beneath a sky filled with lightning.

Something in Rey cracks open at the sight of him. It is something that has always been there, but now, it is awake. The thought terrifies her.

She runs.

She runs, she escapes, and she leaves her mark on Kylo Ren.

On Ach-To, the dream changes. His presence feels jagged and unsteady, as if she will cut herself on his edges if she gets too close. She knows she should be frightened, for this is Kylo Ren, the man who murdered his own father. He is also the man who captured her, tore through her mind, and tossed her into the air as if she were nothing. But she isn't afraid. Instead, she is drawn to him, a star caught in his orbit.

Lightning cracks across the sky. From atop the throne, he says softly, "This is who you are meant to be. Claim what is yours, Rey."

She begins to ascend the stairs that lead to him when suddenly, the cold dampness of Ach-To floods her senses. Startling awake, she turns to find Luke Skywalker looming over her. A memory that isn't hers flits through her sleep-addled mind, turning her stomach and filling her with fear.

"Three lessons," he says, breaking through the fear.

But she only receives two before she leaves for Ben Solo.

Alone in her bunk on the Falcon, tears in her eyes and a broken lightsaber beneath her bed, Rey wonders if Ben Solo dreams of a life in the light.

"Finn, there are things you don't know," she says, a year later, when everything is falling apart. Still, she doesn't tell him that it is more than one vision – that the dreams have plagued her since Kylo Ren set foot on Jakku. She doesn't tell him that, every night for a whole year, she has willingly gone to their enemy in her sleep and allowed him to hold her, to whisper words of endearment in her ear.

Then she journeys to the ruins of the Death Star, and her dreams collide with reality.

The wayfinder tumbles across the tilted ground directly into his waiting hand. For a moment, a thought crosses her mind, another almost-memory – a lightsaber ignited, words exchanged, and a duel in the crashing waves. But she stays her hand. The sight of him here, dark and beautiful, is too distracting. She wants to run to him, throw her arms around him as she has a thousand times, and beg him to take her away from all of it.

Instead, she asks, "What do you dream about?"

"You," he says simply.

Again, she runs, too afraid of what he offers.

When she arrives on Exegol, she is expecting Palpatine. She is not expecting Kylo Ren.

He sits on the throne, just as he has in her dreams, Palpatine's grizzled form lying slain on the ground.

"You killed him," she says, dumbfounded. The only family she has ever had the chance of knowing, gone.

"Every voice of darkness in my head came from him. He murdered your parents. He has been trying to destroy my family for years. Then he asked for your death, too." The words are even, measured; he speaks with a sense of calm that she has never heard in him before. "So I finally freed myself."

She walks closer.

He continues, "No more legacies. No more pain. Rule with me, Rey."

She is even with him now, the toes of her boots brushing his. At her silence, his gaze turns pleading, uncertain. Hesitantly, he settles one hand on her waist, his fingers curling around the edge of her belt.

Rey takes in a sharp breath. "The Resistance…"

"With the power of the Final Order at your command, their fate would be in your hands. You can give them their freedom, too, so long as they don't oppose us." He pulls her closer, until she must place a hand on his shoulder to keep from falling into the throne with him. "Stay with me," he whispers. "Please."

She thinks of the years she spent on Jakku, alone and unwanted, abandoned by a family who claimed to love her. She thinks of her time spent with the Resistance, their expectations weighing heavily on her shoulders, until she became more a symbol of hope than a human being.

Rey is tired of only dreaming of love – of belonging.

Claim what is yours, his phantom once said, in this very room.

So she does.

Releasing his shoulder, she falls into his lap and kisses him.