Spoilers for The Force Awakens!

In short, I'm obsessed with Kylo Ren.

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars.

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Ben Solo was four when he woke up suddenly in the middle of the night.

For a moment, he lay in his bed and gazed up at the ceiling—illuminated by the constant bright lights of Coruscant—as he wondered why he was awake. He wasn't thirsty, nor did he need to use the 'fresher. He hadn't been having a nightmare—in fact, he'd been having a rather pleasant dream (from what he could remember of it) in which he was a pilot, flying fast ships like Daddy and Uncle Luke did, and he was rather keen to get back to it.

But, still, something bothered him.

No, not him, he realized to his surprise—Mommy.

Reaching out—carefully—Ben could feel Mommy's emotions, swirling chaotically. She was sad, afraid—so much so that Ben could feel it all. For as long as he could remember, he could always sense what people were feeling; Daddy, Chewie, Uncle Lando—(It's the Force, Uncle Luke explained to him once before he'd levitated his stuffed bantha into the air)—but, with Mommy, it was somehow different. She could keep him out, when she wanted to. Uncle Luke said it was because she had the Force, too—though, Ben couldn't help but note, she didn't like to use it as much.

Mommy didn't let Ben feel when she was upset—She didn't want him to worry, she had told him, kissing the top of his head—but he felt it now and her fear chilled him to his core.

Grabbing his stuffed bantha—that he'd once, in an exaggerated show of maturity, threw out (only to retrieve it an hour later)—Ben slipped out of his bed and crept out into the hallway. Through the doorway into the lounge, he could see the gleam of C-3P0, his golden body reflecting the Coruscanti lights as he stood, motionless, powered down for the night. Good—there'd be no-one to tell him to go back to bed, if Mommy or Daddy didn't catch him.

Mommy and Daddy's bedroom stood at the end of the hallway and he inched his way towards it quietly. The apartment was silent, except for his own shallow breathing and the distance sound of speeders coming from outside. Mommy's presence thrummed loudly in the Force as Ben neared her bedroom, the door to which was already ajar. Clutching his stuffed bantha tightly in his little fingers, he peered inside—in time to see Mommy get out of bed, her long brown hair loose and tumbling down her back.

From the bed, Ben heard the rustling of sheets and—then—Daddy's sleepy mumble: "...Leia? What is it? What's th' matter?"

Mommy didn't even look at Daddy when she spoke, "It's nothing..." she said, though her hands shook as she wrung them anxiously, "Just a dream. Go back to sleep."

"No, hey, don't do that," Daddy was out of bed and he took a step towards Mommy, one hand outstretched towards her, "Come on, Leia, don't shut me out. This dream—what was it about, huh?"

Mommy turned around to face him and sighed, shaking her head, "I told you—it was nothing."

Daddy's brow furrowed, clearly unconvinced. It was a look Ben was familiar with, having just seen it the day before when he had lied to his father about not eating any cookies before dinner.

(In truth, he had eaten three.)

"Was it... about him?" Ben watched, confused, as his father—the great Han Solo, bravest man in the galaxy—paled visibly, "About Vader?"

An instinctual shiver ran down Ben's spine as the fear within both his parents spiked noticeably. He had heard the name before—Darth Vader—though it was always spoken in hushed whispers when they—Mommy, Daddy and Uncle Luke—all thought that he was out of earshot, safely preoccupied by a game or toy. One day he remembered asking Daddy about him—something told him it'd be better to ask Daddy than Mommy—but he only succeeded in getting his least favourite response: You'll find out when you're older.

Ben hated when they said that. He was four years old (almost five!)—how much older did he need to get?

Mommy looked at Daddy, her face puckered into a frown, "Yes," she said eventually, "In a way."

"What do you mean?"

Mommy shook her head and prepared to turn her back on Daddy again, but he caught her swiftly and placed a hand on each of her shoulders, "Leia, tell me."

"Han, it..." Mommy whispered, before she sighed again and glanced around her briefly, until her gaze found Daddy's again, "I dreamt that I was back on the Death Star, and that Vader... that Vader was interrogating me, torturing me all over again, but there was something different about him."

"Different?" Daddy echoed, "Different how?"

"I didn't know, but then—then he took off his helmet," Mommy inhaled a deep breath that rattled slightly in the silent bedroom; on the other side of the door, Ben clutched his stuffed bantha close to his chest and crept one step closer, "Han, it was—it was Ben. He was all grown up, but it was him—I knew it, I could feel it. He was our son—he looked just like you—but his eyes..."

"Hey, hey," Daddy pulled Mommy close against his chest and hugged her tightly, though Ben could sense the thrill of panic that had arisen within him, "It was just a dream. That's all."

"But it felt so real," Mommy breathed, drawing her head back to look up at Daddy, "Luke says... he says that the Force can sometimes give visions of—of the future."

"Yeah, well, that wasn't one. No, no, Leia, listen to me," Daddy said when Mommy stepped away from him, a look of disbelief flashing across her features, "Now I'm not gonna pretend to know all about that Force mumbo jumbo, but there is no way that our kid is gonna turn into the next Darth Vader. He won't, Leia. I'm not gonna let that happen."

"I don't know..." Mommy raised a hand to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear, "I still think that maybe—maybe we should let Luke train him more? Ben's powers are growing more and more every day. Maybe Luke can help get them under control and make sure that he stays within the Light?"

Daddy was unusually quiet and a tense silence stretched out between him and Mommy, until she placed a hand on his arm and whispered: "Han?"

In response, he blew out a breath from between his teeth and ran a hand through his hair, "Yeah—Yeah, maybe," Daddy agreed, "But, listen, we're not about to make any decisions this second, right? So why don't we try to sleep on it and, in the morning, we can comm Luke and the three of us can talk it over together, all right?"

Mommy paused for a moment, deliberating, before she nodded once.

Ben swallowed and, unable to hear any more, he turned quickly, retreating to the sanctuary of his bedroom. Climbing into bed, he pulled the covers over his head and squeezed his eyes shut, as his heart hammered wildly in his chest. Mommy and now Daddy were afraid—he could still feel it as they lay in their room, just down the hall, and he wished that his head would go quiet. It was just a bad dream, he reasoned—that's what they always told him when he had nightmares. Mommy's dream wasn't real.

He wasn't Darth Vader. He was Ben Solo.

Darth Vader had hurt people—he knew that much, from the snippets of whispers he'd picked up and pieced together—people like Mommy and Daddy and Uncle Luke. Ben Solo would never do that.

Ben didn't care what Uncle Luke said. Mommy's dream wouldn't come true.

He wouldn't let it.

:-:

Ben Solo released a sigh as Han Solo's hand fell away from his face and his body disappeared, forever, into the chasm below.

"Thank you," he whispered, closing his eyes for the briefest of moments as he felt the darkness consume him, banishing the last vestiges of the Light.

Through the Force, he felt his mother's anguish and the pride in his actions only burgeoned when he found that he felt nothing.

Whatever remained of his former self was gone—he was not Ben Solo.

Nor, even, was he Darth Vader.

No, he was something new. Something just as awe-inspiring and—at last—just as steeped in darkness as his grandfather.

He was Kylo Ren.