I Need A Teacher
By TheOneAndOnlySlayer
Chapter 1
Note: this chapter has been edited 9-15-2016
A precious few of the Resistance are in hiding, on the coast of some planet Rey doesn't even know the name of. They've taken refuge in an ancient stone castle with no built-in tech at all. Here, Kylo Ren has relinquished his title and allegiance to the Dark Side, defeated by Rey and willingly humiliated. Interrogated for hours, Kylo – Ben Solo – iss kept in the strongest cell, where a sheer thousand-foot drop appears out of the only window.
It's damp and cold and there's hardly any food around, except fish. Salt and brine reek everywhere. The prisoner has been fasting, an attempt to calm his sense of defeat.
Rey barely survived her last and only encounter so far with Snoke. He put her in some comatose state with just a touch of his fingertip, where all the horrors of her life, her childhood, and her deepest fears swarmed around her and through her like a thousand cuts. When she woke up screaming, pleading for death, this man – Snoke's valuable student, her enemy – loomed above her, eyes wide with concern.
It was all just very weird. He was acting very weird, especially when he turned to an aghast Finn and quietly said something like, "You can return me to my cell now."
For days Rey was stuck in an improvised med bay. Snoke had even reduced her muscles to goo. Breathing had been difficult because her lungs had collapsed. She had been as helpless as a newborn.
The only two with medical training were unclear on how they brought Rey back to full health. They could only offer guesses on what the Force could have done for her. Rey, though, sensed that Kylo had something to do with it. No one meditates that often in a cell for no reason.
When she got out, Finn told her that Leia had been with Ren. Ben Solo, they were supposed to call him now. Or the prisoner, which worked out better for everyone else. They had been left alone, but not completely. Leia had worn a pulse scanner while she had a two-day-long heart-to-heart with her messed-up son.
Leia had not wasted any time asking about Rey's recovery. "The First Order is ready to crumble, but it can stay that way forever with Snoke's head on a pile of Bantha shit on a platter. Ben is the last key we've got to make that happen, but he needs you. You have to talk to him."
Which is how Rey ended up back in the same room with him.
Some time ago, Kylo's face felt like a weakness, an advantage in Rey's favor. It is always full of emotions, no matter how hard he has tried to tamper them down. Rey could sense his anger, fury, frustration, loss and overconfidence before he could. It had been easier to taunt him into a duel without a mask, just so that reservoir of emotion could be poked and prodded at her will.
Now she feels like an intruder. She feels uncomfortable looking him in the face. He is bound in vibro-chains which hang grimly around him, against the wall. His black hair is wild but he's somber.
It's like staring into a tomb. Rey had absolutely no idea what to say to him on her way up here. Now she's utterly blank, except …
"You said that I need a teacher."
Ben – Kylo Ren - raises his head from where he had been staring at the floor. He looks so exhausted and drained that Rey has to swat away the pity for him. Just – no. it's distracting now.
The son of her leader gives no indication he remembers this. He should. He said it so clearly into the wintry air that night so long ago.
"That night in the forest, where we fought the first time. You said – "
"I know what I said." His voice is without emotion.
Rey swallows. "Luke is gone. There's no one left. And," she hesitates, clears her throat. "And I need a teacher."
He glares at her with a sudden strength coiling around him. "You. Are. Batshit insane."
"No, I'm not!" she protests. "It makes perfect sense. Snoke taught you for years. He confided things to you. You know his methods, maybe even his weaknesses."
Ben is talking over her stubborn optimism as loudly as she is. "No. No, he would sense it a million light-years away. It's impossible, he's too strong, he is surrounded by the other knights right now – "
"Gods-dammit Ben, stop trying to hide from this and own it!" Rey shouts at him with uncontrolled fury. She actually kicks the rusty metal door, making the guards behind them jump.
Ben is completely unperturbed. The most he does is raise an eyebrow and scowl.
"You want to come back to us. You said you needed to repent. That you need to undo it. This," she points feverishly at the floor between them, as if the plan to destroy Snoke has manifested there. "This is the most important thing you will ever do in your life. Anakin Skywalker could only kill the master who enslaved him within moments of his death. And only because his son was being tortured to death in front of him."
"Don't mock my interest in my grandfather."
You mean obsession. Rey straightens. An absurd image of Leia or Han feeding him as an infant and acting this obstinate threatens to ruin her effort at getting through to him.
"Don't know why I'm bothering. I soundly kicked your arse the first time. Literally every time after. I'll probably do him in the same way."
He laughs. It's almost scary. She's never seen him laugh before, but damn, he must not have laughed (even if he may be in the brink of insanity) in a long, long time.
"I would be the worst teacher in the galaxy," he declares, though to Rey it's more like a pathetic attempt at self-pity. "Worse than Uncle Luke."
It sounds too childlike for a man his age to say "Uncle Luke." Rey's losing him. She tries for some humor. "Can't be any worse than the Blobfish who taught me how to be a scavenger. He was a right dick."
Then Ben shoots her a look. He isn't laughing. His long mouth is closed and his eyes are the most expressive, glittering and tired like dying stars. But in that look she can tell he's at least mildly amused.
All too quickly, she sobers. She tries for the first time to speak his real name. As if it really does have any power.
"Ben." She is quiet and patient. She has to get through to him. "We need you."
At this, Ben perks a little bit.
"You mother…needs you," she adds. Then, in a weaker voice, she admits, "I need you. Please."
Ben's hope is suspended by her. She can't believe she has offered this much, admitted so much. She wonders if Luke would have been upset that she is handing such a gentle piece of her soul to the man who has killed dozens at his own hand and almost killed her. Would he crush it, abandon it under too much pressure?
The weight of Luke's lightsaber weighs heavily in her pack. She knows what to do with it now.
She takes it out and crosses over to him. She takes one of his hands. They're so cold, she has to fight off the urge to rub them between her own. Where is this coming from?
When she places the hilt into his palm, he almost recoils. Absentmindedly, Rey studies his hand. It's a little paler than her own, with rough skin and faint traces of dark hair around the knuckles. His fingers are longer than hers. She wraps them around the hilt and tilts her head up.
He studies the lightsaber he has tried so zealously to acquire. "You're crazy."
Apparently this is his way of communication now. He's not going to simply play nice and say pleasant-sounding things like "Gee, thanks Rey, you're a real sport."
"I'm a little crazy, yeah," she assents with a faint laugh. "Look, I know this is all really fucked up and…we're both a little fucked up right now. But this is the only thing that's left. Snoke…he has to pay for what he's done."
She's so close to him that she can see the way his hair changes its shade in the light. There are a few freckles on his face. His nose is a little bigger than usual, too.
Rey refuses to look at his mouth, even though she eagerly waits for him to say something.
Something tells Rey that she ought to back off. It's a lot to process right now. Too much… overstimulation, she reasons, may cause Ben to retreat into his mind. He would be of no use then, and as much as Rey and Leia are determined to see him return to the light, the Resistance would be more than happy to execute him.
"I'll come back in the morning," she says tiredly. She was so close. Han Solo's body pierced by an angry red blade still echoes in her mind, but she could feel Ben drawing into the light a little more. She doesn't have a clue what she's doing, and for some reason meditation feels like a good idea tonight.
She retreats. Behind her Ben swallows, relents. "I can't teach you in here."
Rey pauses at the door. "Obviously."
Ben Solo, formerly Kylo of the Knights of Ren, stands in chains that are fused against the wall. In a strange contrast, he grips his uncle's lightsaber. It's this quiet, strong, dignified stance that Rey had seen in her dream a year ago, not believing that Kylo could be reclaimed into the side of good again.
She allows herself to believe it now.
His gaze is strong, and he doesn't look as anxious as he did before. He exhales. "Tomorrow."