Across the Stars (Reylo fanfiction)

Nightmares and Daydreams

*** Note: Contains major spoilers for "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" if you haven't seen the movie, please do not read this story until you have. Ok you've been warned, now buckle up buttercups and let's hit that hyperdrive ... :) ***

He was dying.

She could feel his presence fading. Noo! She screamed internally. She threw her lightsabre to him. He caught it and activated its glowing blue spike of energy into his asphyxiator's skull. The red armoured guard dropped his weapon and fell back dead.

She was breathing heavily. She couldn't believe it. They'd done it. She'd done it. Her vision was real. She ran towards him, "The fleet, order them to stop firing! There is still time to save the fleet!"

At first he didn't look at her. He was staring at the corpse of his former mentor and torturer upon the sleek black throne. The body was cloven in two.

"Ben ..." she said, her voice trailing off.

"It's time to let old things die," he said, "Snoke, Skywalker," turning he looked into her eyes and walked towards her, "the sith, the jedi, rebels -- let it all die." Then he spoke her name and reached towards her with one of his leather gloved hands, "I want you to join me. We can rule together and bring a new order to the galaxy."

In that moment she felt like someone was tearing the chambers of her heart apart -- right down the middle. "Don't do this Ben, please don't go this way," she begged softly. She could feel wetness gathering in her eyes.

"NO! No! You're still holding on! LET GO!" He commanded.

She felt tears spilling down her cheeks.

"Do you wanna know the truth about your parents? Or have you always known? You've just hidden it away? You know the truth. Say it!"

"They were nobody." Force help her hold it together! she pleaded.

"They were filthy junk traders who sold you off for drinking money. They're dead in a pauper's grave in the Jakku desert. You have no place in this story. You come from nothing -- you're nothing ..."

Her chest started to quiver as she couldn't hold back the new rush of silent tears marking her face.

"... but not to me," he finally twisted his sentence into the strange compliment. Extending his hand further toward her, he said, "Join me ... please."

He was begging her. And she wanted to, force help her, she wanted to! This was Ben. Ben, who was brought to her as she tried to find her path, and brought comfort to her when she felt most alone. She understood him and was understood by him like no one else she had ever met -- not in the entire galaxy. He was so vulnerable and so desperately wanted her to say yes. To accept him and to stay with him on a shared path going forward.

But as she looked at that dark leather, she also saw that this was still Kylo. She had never thought that she could eradicate the darkness from within his soul entirely; she'd never wanted to. But she saw that as much as she was drawn to Ben, the dark turmoil that raged within him still held a toxic and blinding sway over his heart. As evidenced by what he was asking her to sacrifice, and where he was longing for her to go.

She reached her hand forward, pulling through the force with all her might.

As the fierce white light of the sabre exploding tore through her vision, she sat up bolt upright in her bed.

***

His breath came in gasps. Let go! he commanded himself. Again he swung his crackling red lightsabre against the hologram figures that charged at him. But all he saw in his mind was her face over the force bond as she closed the Falcon door. He stopped assailing the ghostly figures. Walking over to the circular control desk, he gripped his weapon. As he reached the source of the mechanical beeps and whirrs he raised his sword above his head and screamed. He kept screaming as he began hacking with all his might against the metal. The control desk made distorted blipping noises and its tiny multi-coloured lights flickered erratically. He paid it no head. She is nothing to you! You offered her everything, all that you have, all that you are, and she rejected you! For what? To run and hide and be hunted, with the filth of the universe?

He paused as, uninvited, the face of his mother filtered into his thoughts. Her bright brown eyes and infectious laugh. The computer gave one last dying wail, and then went silent.

He sank to his knees before the ruined piece of technology. As he powered off his sabre, it dropped to the floor beside him. He swallowed and attached it to his belt. Standing, he called his cloak to him and threw it over his shoulders as he walked out the dark double doors on the far side of the room. He force pushed his way through them, stepping out onto the balcony that they opened to. Before him, rivers of glowing lava spilled out of the earth in criss-crossing threads of death across the barren rock between the foot of his fortress and the horizon. He leaned against the railing and took it all in.

"Grandfather..." he breathed finally, "help me."

Unbidden, he remembered his vision. Of her standing with him. He had thought ... he had thought. He blinked rapidly. Remembering the feeling of fighting with her instead of against her. It felt as though someone was squeezing his heart, remembering. It had been months, without even the force bringing them together, and it was still as freshly hewn into his mind as anything he had done that day. He cursed and gripped the railing. The lava beneath him swirled. Didn't she see? There was no future for them her way. With such rivers of blood on his hands, there was no going back, only forward. Whatever light was left in him, only she could feel it. And it wasn't enough. He wasn't strong enough. Only in the dark could he find the strength to carve a new world from the ashes of the old. A world in which they could belong together.

"I can't let her go," he whispered to the ash darkened sky, "I won't."

***