A New Beginning // reylo

2. Who Are You?

He sauntered over to her.

Rey couldn't understand why she felt confused when she saw Kylo's face without the mask.

Was it because she expected something else?

Had she never thought that he would've had a face behind that mask?

Was it because she didn't understand why someone with an undamaged face needed to hide it?

A beautifully undamaged face. Why did he feel the need to hide it?

"Tell me about the droid."

"He's a BB unit with a selenium drive and a thermal hyperscan vindicator—"

"—he's carrying a section of a navigational chart, and we have the rest. Recovered from the archives of the Empire, but we need the last piece, and somehow you convinced the droid to show it to you.
You. The scavenger."

Rey looked away, feeling in a way that that word was somehow shameful.

"You know I can take whatever I want" Kylo's voice was slightly coarse. He stooped to her eye level, his face inches away from hers, lifted his hand up by her head. Rey, all of a sudden, felt something invade her mind.

"You're so lonely...so afraid to leave..."

It wasn't painful, it was just new to feel another, and might it be added, forceful, presence in her head. Either way, to her, it felt like torture. But she had to push through.

"At night, desperate to sleep...imagine an ocean. I see it. I see the island. And Han Solo...you feel like he's the father you never had. He would've disappointed you-"

"-get out of my head." Rey said with such intensity and certainty.

"I know you've seen the map," Kylo slowly positioned himself directly in front of Rey, hand outstretched towards her, "it's in there, and now you'll give it to me."

He began to pull on the wall in her mind that she had built, protecting the information she didn't want him to have. Resisting as much as she could, threatening tears failed her by trickling down her cheeks.

"Don't be afraid. I feel it too."

"I'm not giving you anything."

"We'll see."

Ren pulled harder as Rey pushed back more, resisting that force.

Slowly, but surely, Rey began to reverse the pathway of force from his side to hers. Staring down into his eyes, determined to get information out of his mind.

"You. You're afraid. That you will never be as strong as Darth Vader!"

Ben jolted awake on the bed in a panic, sweat soaking his shirt.

**********

As everyone landed back on the resistance base after their victorious win against the Final Order, crowds of cheering uproared from the people. Finn went to find Poe, hugging it out and going on about how amazing it was seeing all of those civilians show up to fight. Rey walked around smiling as some resistance members came up to hug and congratulate her.

She was proud of what came out of it all in the end. Little did she know, this was only the beginning. A new beginning.

Rey walked back onto the empty Millennium Falcon and just as she was approaching a sleeping Ben, he jumped up, panicking. Sweat soaked his hair and shirt.