Light Up the Dark

Hair Pins

Rey laid in her bed wearing new sleeping clothes and stared at the ceiling. She was clean and warm, something to which she still wasn't accustomed. Food had been sent to her room via droid while she had showered, and she had walked out to a large spread of fruits, breads, meats, and drinks that seemed to have been prepared for royalty. As much as she wanted to rebel and fight the comforts of the First Order by refusing such luxuries, she gave in to hunger and exhaustion. She had awakened before her alarm and now lay listening to the bustling outside her door while she thought back to when Kylo had found her in the crowd.

'He thought I wouldn't remember.' She laughed quietly. How arrogant he was to think his antics would fly under the radar.

Suddenly, she snapped upright in the bed.

'I had...enjoyed...his advances,' she realized, a new horror sweeping over her body. 'And he knew it.'

She had buried Kylo so deep in her mind that she had convinced herself she felt nothing for the man other than hatred. Every time she trained in the small patch of field outside the base, she focused on his face, on the scar she had given him when they first fought. She would picture herself slicing through that same scar, except this time he wouldn't be able to walk away. She twirled her saber at her side, Luke's saber that had called to her in Maz's cantina. Rey was elegant, her feet seeming to not reach the ground as she fenced with her invisible enemy. Kylo would die for his crimes, and it would be her who would strike the final blow.

However, everything had rushed back once that drug had kicked in a few hours before. How he had looked at her in the hut when they touched hands for the very first time. How he had asked her to join him in the throne room, bodies littered everywhere as fire sweeping across the ceiling. She remembered his eyes when he waited for an answer, the hope and pain and fear inside those dark orbs that made her want to swim in them. And now, she remembered how he had touched her in that crowd, invisible to everyone, using the Force to seduce her freely, no holds barred. And she had liked it...no. She had loved it.

'No, no, no, no, no, no,' Rey silently screamed to herself. It was too late to hide those thoughts now, so she decided to leave them exposed. Maybe it would help her in the end.

'I can do this. If he lets his attraction get the best of him, then it will just be another weapon I can use to gain more information.'

But could she really carry on a fake relationship with Ben...no, no, he wasn't Ben anymore...with Kylo Ren without developing her old feelings for him?

'If I feel anything, then it's just physical attraction. You can't love someone who murdered your friends.'

Why did the word love even come up right now? There was no love there. She had to be cold and calculated. Her heart wasn't a part of this anymore. It was for the resistance. She was the only one who could bring down the First Order.

She shook her head as if she could physically shake out all the feelings.

With a deep breath, she reached out to him through their bond. He responded almost instantly.

'Apprentice.' His deep, melodic voice hit her like a brick and she jumped.

'Master,' she communicated back through her mind.

'You're up earlier than the scheduled time I gave you. I told you to sleep.' She felt how frustrated he was, but it wasn't coming from his darkness. It was as if he was worried about her health. He could worry all he wanted; it didn't matter to her.

'I'm sorry, Master. I can't sleep right now. I'm not used to sleeping much anyway.'

'Would you like some company for breakfast?'