Lose your mind and come to your senses - Frederick Salomon Peris
Chapter 1: It All Breaks
"ENOUGH!"
A barrage of blaster lasers exploded from the open door. Finn, arm held high, a furious grimace on his face, fired rapidly into the chamber. Off-guard, Snoke swiveled his thin head to the intruder, but a second too late. A well-aimed blast flew across the room and struck Snoke in the chest. He tumbled back over the dusty throne. But Finn continued to fire, a snarl leaving his lips.
The next shot blasted Ren's saber against the wall, shattering it.
"NO!" a wounded Ren shrieked. From the floor, he ungainly stumbled to his feet and as a third shot came barreling towards the leader of the First Order, Kylo Ren lunged in front of it.
"BEN!" His mother screamed.
Time slowed. Finn lowered his weapon, his mouth opening in horror, as his eyes slid to General Organa. Leia's hand flew to her mouth, brown eyes growing. And Kylo— closed his eyes, his brow un-furrowed, relieved— the blast pierced him—
But only an inch before it halted in midair. Ren grunted in pain.
Across the room, Rey stood on her feet. She breathed heavily but her arm was steady. She held the blast, quivering in the air.
"Talk to him, General," Rey said. She looked over at Organa, who in turn made eye contact with her. "Tell him what you told me."
Leia slowly peeled her gaze away from the young Jedi to her son, on his knees with a blast protruding from his chest. His mouth is a hard, lop-sided line, his face tight as if desperate for silence. Kylo Ren looked away from the General and gave Rey such a look full of such absolute seething hatred, she felt a block form in her stomach.
"Ben," Leia began. Her voice, often the sound of a command, was small and quiet inside the ancient Sith temple. "He doesn't have to own you anymore. I can protect you."
Ren tried to sneer, but the pain from the blast grew worse. His skin broke out into cold sweats. "I live to serve him, Organa, he is everything to me—,"
"He is a liar, and a thief, and—,"
"And so am I." He finally made eye contact with the General, but it was a look of frustration and sorrowful anger. "He trained me in the dark. I am his apprentice and he is my Master."
"And you are my son."
The sentiment echoed in the chamber. There came a distant rumbling, as though such a place of pain and hate could not accept unconditional love. Ren jerked and looked away, his jaw impossibly tight.
Leia took a step forward, as though urged on by his falter. "I know what he made you do. I know what he made you see. He—,"
"You know nothing," Ren whispered menacingly, his lip reared. "You know nothing about me, you foolish—,"
"I know he made you kill Han, your father." Again, echoing silence. "The light is too strong with you. Of course, he doubted you. There's not enough power in the verse to turn you completely to the Dark." Leia, her hands clasped, stepped to the dilapidated stairs leading up to the throne. She stared at her son. Rey couldn't see her face now, but she had a clear view of Ren's. And he was absolutely petrified.
"Darth was not completely Dark either," Leia said. "I sometimes forget that. But you are so much stronger than he is. By emulating him, you're only making yourself weaker."
At that, Ren scowled, as if someone pressed a hot poker against his face. "Don't say that. He built the Empire. He led thousands."
"If he takes my son away from me, then none of that matters to me."
Ren lifted his head, his eyes unreadable.
"I would burn galaxies for you, Ben. You just have to come home."
She repeated Han Solo's final words to his son and Rey's arm shuddered. That night— so much death, so much pain, and— the red knife slid in further. Ren grunted, his eyelids fluttering in pain.
"I have no home. Ben's home is gone."
Instead of yelling at Rey, Leia stepped forward. They were in arm's length of each other.
"I will fight for you every day, Ben. I swear it. I will never let anyone lead you astray. I am sorry for the part I played, when I turned you away— I hate myself for what your father and I did. But Ben, I'm not afraid of you. You have to come home."
Ren swallowed, shifting the blaster embedded in his side, tearing through his chest, into his upper ribs. He was sweating profusely now and tinged green.
"I am nothing more than a, ah, h-h-hostage negotiation to you," he panted, through gritted teeth.
Rey sensed a crackle of Leia's annoyance and hurt through the Force. "You are my son, you goddamn idiot, and I love you!"
Ren again shifted, groaning, his skin white and shiny. He looked up into his mother's face, huffing shallow breaths, his damp hair clinging to his forehead. He looked above her shoulder, in a gesture that at one point might have appeared haughty and arrogant, but the unforgiving glow of the blaster's glow robbed him of the opportunity. He was just a boy now. A boy who had given up, because he was simply too tired. The shadows under his eyes and jaw made him look ghastly.
"Just let me die," he murmured quietly, "please."
Leia's power surged, like a giant bird opening her wings in a powerful swoop.
"Ben Walker Solo, you are my son and what you ask is obscene! It's time you remembered who you are."
Kylo Ren, leader of the Knights of Ren, recoiled.
It was as though someone had turned on a projector in Rey's head. Thousands of memories—that were not her own— came across her mind's eye, caught up in a gust like a smattering of everlillies.
A small boy climbs a tree for an apple. The giant Wookie, Chewbacca, stands below, keeping watch, while Solo is up on the first limb, carving out the core of a fresh red apple, as he encourages his son to climb higher, be better, be faster.
A young Leia comforts a crying three-year-old boy in the middle of a cabinet meeting, while the other senators look on fondly.
Solo laughs as his tiny son, wearing goggles entirely too big for him, pretends to fire blasters from the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon. When his mother calls, the boy jumps down and runs off. Han gently touches the gears where the tiny hands briefly grasped, and murmurs something that sounds like, "one day."
Picnics on a sandy beach by a lake. Holidays spent inside. Giant sleds. Goggles that actually fit. Warm bread. Hot soup. A very small leather jacket.
A shadowy figure on the edge of memory, threatening to ruin it all.
As quickly as they had come, Rey was sharply removed from the flickering happy memories. Memories of a family she never had. Memories of happiness she didn't know could exist. She blinked and felt a painful tug from her arm. The blast was fighting her viciously. Her knees shook.
"Please stop—," a voice came, cracking her focus.
The voice was clogged with agony.
Kylo Ren was crying. He turned his head, and shuttered, tears suddenly rolling down his pale cheeks. Ren gasped, his dark eyes swimming, "Forgive me— make it stop—,"
A bloody gloved hand reaches forward towards Organa and she swooped to him. The General kneeled and touched her son's face. The heat from the hovering blast was overwhelming, wetting his hair in thick sweat.
"There's nothing to forgive," she crooned.
Ren's face crinkled in shame, tears seeping from the corners of his brown eyes. He almost shook his head.
And then, without warning, the blast shifted an inch forward, and Ren gasped in pain. Rey's fist is shuddering violently now, sweat pouring down her face. It embedded deeper into his side.
Rey's pulse pounded in her palm. She knew with certainty the bolt was going to kill him.
But Organa only squeezed her son's hand tighter, determined to keep eye contact. He could barely hold her gaze. His skin took to a sickly, ashen pallor.
"But you have to come home. You can't stay here."
Ren sighed harshly, grimacing and burrowing his face into his mother's palm. The tears rushing down his cheeks turn blood-red in the light of the blast.
"I c-c-can't go." He wheezed, the blast now puncturing his lung. "I'm sorry— so— sorry, Mother." He sobbed again, a sound that frightened Rey. He was sweating from the pain as much from the heat from the blast. His breathes were irregular and stunted.
His mother sat for a moment, staring at her lost son finally finding the strength to come home. Then she gathered herself on her knees, taking his thin face in both her hands. She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his damp forehead.
"I will always save you, Ben." His breath shook as he let loose another rush of tears.
Over her shoulder, the wounded Knight raised his drenched eyes to Rey, who was beginning to feel faint. Leia Organa turned, and Rey could see she's been crying too, despite her incredibly comforting and even voice. Organa's chin went hard. Her hands, now clasped tightly around her son's, were shaking.
She nodded.
Rey released her hold on the blast. It rocketed forward, an electric dagger, through flesh, and blood, and bone.
The gasp he made was sickening. His eyes fluttered, his body swayed, sweat and tears spill from his face with the force of the impact. The light faded from his once hate-filled eyes, and he crumpled forward into his mother's waiting arms.
The blast connected with the back wall of the temple and broke loose rock and stone, weakened by thousands of years of abandonment. The wizened body of the once great evil was crushed beneath the crumbling ceiling.
Ben
Ben
Leia's cries seemed so distant.
The break caused a chain reaction. The temple walls started shuddering, heaving dust and debris into the air.
"Rey, we have to go!" Finn yelled behind her. She had forgotten that he was there. His eyes darted around the room, as if trying to determine where the ceiling would next give way. "This whole place is coming down!"
She looked back to Leia Organa and her fallen son. Rey rushed the stairs, and crouched next to the General.
"Ma'am, we have to go." Rey put a hand on the older woman's back and suddenly released she had been crying too. The dust clung to her wet face like sandpaper, making her eyes burn even more.
Leia Organa was still holding her son's hand. "Not without him," she said quietly.
The building gave another unbalanced sway. "Rey! General! We have to go!" Finn screamed.
Rey, overcome by guilt and sadness, squeezed the small shoulder. "Ma'am—," her voice broke, "ma'am, he's dead."
"No. Listen, not with your ears. Listen to him."
Rey stared, stunned, sniffling, and turned her attention to the body of Kylo Ren, still cradled in his mother's lap. Blood pooled at the corner of his mouth. His long eyelashes touched his skin, still damp from his tears. His chest didn't move. He looked absolutely—
"Rey, listen to him."
Rey swallowed, a lance of fear suddenly spiking her heart, and yet, she closed her eyes, managed to steady herself against the swaying of the temple, and reached out into the current that flows through every living creature.
And there in the darkness, in the gray, in the deep recesses of life, something shuddered. It was weak, imperceptible, but it was there.
A heartbeat.
Rey ripped herself from the meditation, her own heartbeat thumping wildly.
"FINN," she screamed over her shoulder, "help me pick him up."
Finn, still wide-eyed and terrified, rushed over without question. Together, he and Rey managed to get Ren to his feet, but with his incredible size, it was near impossible to walk.
The ceiling behind them gave way, and the four stumbled out of the throne room. Leia led the way, the light in her hand glowing. She was trying to reach someone over the intercom in her ear, but no one came through.
Rey was crushed under his weight, and she could feel Finn struggling as well. She could feel the wound from the blaster against her side. It was still wet and warm, blood oozing over her tunic. He still had yet to move on his own.
Wiping sweat from her brow, she adjusted him on her shoulder and her hand came away bloody. She was panting and tried focusing on the blue light ahead of her. Finn groaned beside her.
In one of the few quiet times before the final attack on the Sith temple, Rey had found time to read old Jedi tomes. Old methodology, old scriptures. Old tools and talents. One in particular caught her attention and she remembered how she had tried many times to fix her own bruises with the Force, just as the tome had instructed. Not one time had she succeeded then, and his wound was much more severe than a simple bruise. But she had to try.
Just let him die. He captured you, invaded your mind, threatened to ruin you. He tried to kill you.
Rey's muscles burned, her head hurt, and her side was tightening painfully.
"Finn, wait a second—,"
"Rey, we don't have a second!"
They stumbled into a wall. Leia, ahead, paused. "What's wrong?"
Rey tried to clear her mind yet again, tried to access her connection to the Force. "Please, just let me think—,"
A muffled hush descended around her. The swaying slowed and the crumbled rocks knocked like a distant echo. Rey dove down the long dark well in her soul, careful to not nick her elbows and knees on the rocks. She gasped when she hit the blue water and drank the water into her lungs. She felt power again. It moved through her body, until she was as much consumed by it as she controlled it. She willed it upward, through her, around her.
She heard the building crumble, and someone shouted her name, she felt pain directly between her eyes— she tasted wet blood— then she felt the Force. The healing Force.
Her hand moved on its own accord, drawing itself towards the open wound. Her hand was warm and behind her eyelids, she saw green light. She covered Kylo Ren's fatal injury with her light and willed, with all of her strength, that he be mended. She willed it over and over again.
She was practically propping him up, a heavy rag draped over her. The wall behind them shuddered. His body was still warm.
C'mon— please— please— work—
Slowly, then all at once, his bones cracked into place. His muscles repaired their split sinews, and the burn crackled, then faded—
She heard his heart suddenly start pounding so loudly it hurt her ears.
He gasped, his eyes flying open, and Leia let loose a noise that sounded like a cry of relief and scream. Ren shuddered, before passing out again. Finn pulled his dead weight off Rey so she could breathe.
"Rey, you don't look so good," Finn muttered. She knew she was going to be sick, but she jerked her head back and forth.
"I'll be fine. We-we have to keep moving. C'mon, he can walk now."
They took a few steps, dragging him again, before his feet fell into a shuffle with them. Leia whipped back around, her eyes shining again, and drove them forward.
They managed to find the entrance to the Sith temple on Korriban, but a sandstorm had picked up. The wind howled, hurling gusts of sand-crisp blows into the black sky. Purple lightening split the night in half. Rey's cheeks felt bruised from the sand, another wave of nausea spiking again. Finn and Rey eased a mostly unconscious Ren onto the steps of the temple.
"Hello, hello," Leia yelled furiously into her com, her voice lost under the rushing wind and sand. "Is anyone there?"
What seemed to be a crack of lightening in the distance soon revealed itself to be the lights of a black X-wing fighter. Out of the whirling din, the fighter landed and its bottom slowly opened. Poe, with a ripe purple eye and a split lip, came stumbling down onto the sand.
"We need to get out of here now! The worst of the storm is coming!"
Rey's stomach churned as she moved to her feet. Her bones felt crack like thin ice every time she moved. Poe moved to help Organa onto the ship, but she waved him away and said something to him, but Rey couldn't hear over the groan of the storm. But he nodded and rushed over to grab Kylo's shoulder from Rey. But with the grounding weight suddenly gone, Rey felt impossibly light-headed. A dark rim began to cloud around her vision and she tripped, and fell to her knees. She watched her friends carry the dark body onboard, the figures slowly turning into murky shapes.
Her heart fluttered painfully— no, they're going to forget about me— but she couldn't get up. Her eyelids grew heavy, sand ripping across her open skin, and she toppled forward from exhaustion. Her hand was merely inches from the platform.
Please, don't leave me.
"In the end, it is our defiance that redeems us. If wolves had a religion – if there was a religion of the wolf – that it is what it would tell us." - Mark Rowlands