When Light Meets Dark - A Reylo Romance

The Happy Place

"Your memory feels like home to me.

So whenever my mind wanders, it always finds it's way back to you."

~Ranata Suzuki

Kylo

My entire body felt weak, like my muscles had been stretched too thinly over my bones. I lay down on the ground face up and the rocks beneath me jabbed into my back as I stared up at the sky. The sun was rising once more, and I could feel the air around me surging with the red light. The ground grumbled faintly below me as distant craters erupted, and in that moment I felt a peculiar sense of peace.

Sullust was a planet which I had only visited twice, that being my second time. The first time I had come to Sullust had been not long after I'd left the Jedi Temple, before Snoke had found me. It was the first and only planet that had ever made me feel small, insignificant. In the midst of the wind and the smog and the fire I felt as if my troubles were somewhat lessened, and the chaos that surrounded me served to calm my mind. It was barely inhabited, and not often stumbled upon by anyone who was not looking for it. But why would anyone be looking for it? Sullust had nothing to offer except unforgiving weather, abandoned Imperial bases, and my own unbalanced self. Sometimes against the dark sky I would see the outline of an ash angel as it flew past silently in the wind. Would this be where I died?

I sensed a ship approaching.

The calmness which had surrounded me for so long vanished in an instant, and I became aware of it's presence as it entered the atmosphere. In the seconds before I realised who it was, my mind ran through a list of possibilities. I thought that maybe Snoke had come for me, to finish me off, and it probably wouldn't have been very difficult for him to do so. But it wasn't Snoke, it was Rey.

Mustering all of my remaining energy I heaved myself off of the stony ground and stood, with some difficulty, on my own two feet. Since I'd finished the emergency supplies on the fighter I had taken I hadn't eaten or drank a single thing. After a while I'd lost all sense of time, and just watched the sin rise and set day after day. But Rey's presence, as overwhelmingly strong as it now felt, had awoken me from my state of oblivion. It had been five days, I then realised, since I'd last seen her, since I'd last had a chance to look into her eyes and think of nothing else. Five days since I'd heard her voice, since I'd felt her skin against mine. Five days, and yet it felt like an eternity.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I knew that she could sense me too, which is why she had been able to find me so quickly. But how had she even known that I was on Sullust? One of our first conversations reminded me of how, and I thought of how long ago that had been. I had no idea what I would say to her, or if there was anything to be said at all. Then I saw the headlights of the ship pierce through the smoky atmosphere, and touch down on a stone structure in the distance. I stood and watched from afar, straining my eyes to see if I could make out anything through the smoke, but I was only able to see the light spilling out as the door of the ship slowly opened.

I waited. In all my time there, there was nothing more difficult than those minutes I spent waiting for Rey to appear. At a point I felt the urge to go to her, and yet I found myself rooted to the spot. After a while I heard a scratching sound from the edge of the monolith where I was and then, Rey climbed up.

She froze when she saw me, as if she hadn't been expecting to find me there, as if she'd been looking for someone else. She froze, and stared at me with such intensity that I was afraid my weak legs might give way. But I stood my ground, while fear and longing danced around in my stomach. She looked tired, I could see it by the way her hands hung limply by her sides and her hair was matted together in places. She was wearing her Resistance uniform and the dark grey fabric clung tightly to her body. I searched for words, but there were none. Then she advanced towards me, sometimes taking small hesitant steps, sometimes large determined ones. She stopped when she was close enough to speak over the symphony of the craters that surrounded us. I swallowed.