Armistice
Do you trust me? Hold onto me!
Rey had wanted to believe him. Now she clung to those words as Kylo Ren and a small escort of Stormtroopers marched her back to the detention cells from a meeting with Supreme Leader Snoke.
Hold onto me! He had practically begged of her as he slid the neural disrupter around her neck. Then, with shaking hands, had pressed the tail of the band down her spine. The needles had slid in between her vertebrae with ease, but the pain had been extraordinary. Though Rey was unable to see his face for the mask, and now rendered unable to properly feel his Force presence due to the specialised band, she was viscerally aware of the pure pain in Kylo Ren's voice when he had asked her to hold onto him. When her knees finally buckled, Rey was glad to have grabbed his shoulders, and glad for his arms around her waist, both supporting her and clinging to her.
Kylo Ren had left her cell to meet with the Supreme Leader alone. When he returned, he bore the case with the neural collar. Supreme Leader Snoke demanded she be brought before him, and he insisted she wear the collar to prevent any 'incidents'. Kylo Ren had been maskless earlier. He had been Ben.
Rey supposed then that the Supreme Leader had not wanted any pesky resistance when invading her mind, perhaps. She had been very wrong. So painfully wrong.
The same group of Stormtroopers who attended her back now had been the ones to arrive at her cell after Kylo had applied the disrupter. Both then, and after the meeting, Kylo had dismissed their move to drag her to and fro. Instead, he supported her himself. This was to ensure her co-operation, of course. Though now, on the return trip, Kylo Ren was clutching her to his chest with a bitter sense of urgency. All cautious hope and nerve from before was gone. In its place was an ugly panic that reflected in his unsteady breathing. Rey was doing her best to focus on something- anything- that diverted her mind from the skin-crawling agony that the collar was still causing. It numbed if not completely cut off her feel of the Force, and it made her want to scratch her skin off. Beginning to hyperventilate, she felt Kylo's arms shift around her to better cradle her, and purposefully slowed her breathing in response. It killed her that he could feel and hear her as loud as if she were screaming, but she could barely feel a thing from him. Sinking deeper into his embrace, Rey became aware of his heartbeat. Fast and panicked.
Perhaps Force Lightening truly was as physically taxing as they said, Rey thought deliriously, her head lolling against the rough spun cotton of his hooded cape. She knew just how ridiculous that thought was, but the alternative reason for Kylo's state was both far too terrifying and far too hopeful for Rey to digest at the time. Though, as things often went, Rey figured she was going to be forced to face it sooner than she would like.
Rey was pulled from her reverie when a Stormtrooper protested Kylo taking a left, away from Detention and toward Residence. One swift look from the man, even with the mask, was enough to send the Stormtroopers away to their posts in Detention with no further argument. Rey assumed that the slight crackling of electricity in the immediate air around Kylo Ren may have had something to do with their willingness too.
Now that they were gone, Kylo took no care in modulating his laboured breaths, and they fast became audibly erratic. He practically ran the last few steps to his door before punching the console to open the door and closing it just as fast. He placed her as gently as he could on his lone lounger before staggering back and wrenching his mask from his head, and throwing it to the floor. The man in front of her was gasping for air and paler than usual. His cheeks were wet.
Rey was unsure of many things, but not of that fact that the man that stood before her right at that moment was not Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren had shattered in that amphitheatre where nought but a hologram of Snoke was waiting for them, contrary to Rey's belief. And contrary to Rey's belief, the neural disrupter was not to prevent her from defending against him, it was to prevent her from communicating with Ben. It was to prevent her from resisting Ben. It was there to ensure that Snoke would be able to test his apprentice again, with no surprises. So, Supreme Leader Snoke had ordered Kylo Ren to electrocute Knight Rey until he saw fit to end it.
"Ben." She said, only managing a hoarse whisper. He was looking at her in pure fear.
She should have felt hate. She should have been furious. Rey only felt her heart ache.
"Ben." Her voice was louder now, and she shakily lifted herself into a seated position. He only edged farther away from her, shaking his head in disbelief and horror.
"Ben please," Rey could not keep the pain out of her voice now, she wanted to reach out to him but couldn't, reminded once more of that Force-damned collar, "please get this thing off of me."
He nodded shakily, quickly moving to her and lifting her into his arms as if she were made of porcelain. He pulled his gloves off and began working on the complex linkages over Rey's spine once she had looped her arms around his neck for support. Ben had freed her up to the nape of her neck when she froze at the feeling of a raw sob wracking his body. As he moved to the collar around her neck, there was a beat when Ben lightly cradled her face in his hands before moving them down to hurriedly pull the horrendous thing open.
Once again, he let her fall to the couch as he put distance between them, clutching the collar in his hands.
"Ben-"
"I can't." He forced through clenched teeth before retreating into the adjoining room.
Rey could only lie listlessly on the couch as sounds of the poor room's destruction at the blade of Ben's lightsaber met her ears. At least she could feel him again.
What she felt, however, shook her to her core.
Ben Solo's Force signature had more light in it. Flashes attacked the red and the red was powerless to fight it. Even his rage couldn't sustain any lasting force of resistance. Memories of the meeting were flooding his mind as he hacked away at anything within his reach.
"Compassion," Snoke had sneered, "Is a weakness. Crush it now."
"Channel that anger you feel at your weakness. Use it to snuff out the light that causes it."
Then, an intrusion on his mind during Snoke's vocal goading.
You will do it, Ren. You will or I will make sure you can never have her again, in any way. You will grow to hate her. You will LEARN to cultivate hate in the weakness she causes in you, and you WILL do as I say. You know what I'm capable of- Imagery of Snoke possessing Ben and running her through with his own saber overtook Ben's mind as she heard him scream-This is the power of the Dark, and you WILL bend to me, boy!
It was then that he had broken.
It was then that Ben fell to the floor in the antechamber and wept aloud.
What was Rey to do but force herself up from the chair and stumble to him?
Her arms around his shoulders only made him shake more violently, a barely intelligible string of 'I'm sorry's' muffled by his hands over his face.
Rey reached out to Ben over their bond and, ignoring his protests and attempts at pushing her out, pulled him into her consciousness and tried her utmost to calm him, even if it was only a little. It hurt her to see him like this, but she had always known it to be an eventuality.
Kylo Ren had been bound for a fall, and now Ben Solo was bearing the burden.
I can't do this Rey. I can't.
Do what?
He was inarticulate in his distress for a moment, before speaking again.
Us, Rey. She felt ice run through her veins, but what she couldn't tell is whether it was purely her who was frozen at the thought.
Ben?
I can't keep hurting you. I just can't, but my path demands that I must. He was silent for a long time, taking measures to calm himself before continuing softly, I don't know what to do, Rey. But I know, out of the possibilities that I have, that any route ending in your death is unacceptable to me.
Ben cleared his throat, his voice cracking when he spoke aloud, "I just don't know what to do, Rey. After all this time…" He trailed off.
Rey nodded against his cheek, where she had come to rest, "It's time to decide, right?" she finished for him.
Ben swallowed heavily in response, his thoughts jumping to his mother. Rey was startled, but pleasantly so, that he even considered the General in his possibilities. Snoke had most probably just sabotaged his own plan. Ben's eyes widened at her when he realised she could still hear him clearly. Rey smiled, leaning forwards and placing a soft kiss to his temple. His mind spoke of fear. Rejection. There was such intense fear.
Rey sighed, pulling him closer.
"I'll facilitate your escape, Rey," Ben whispered when he returned her embrace, "a stolen TIE or similar. Few less Stormtroopers, I don't care I-"
He was rambling, and Rey neatly cut him off by shoving her memory of his Force signature into his mind.
Ben Solo was left speechless.
It was a long time before he tore his attention away from the sight that shocked him to his core, and incited a hope that left him possibly more terrified than before. Rey nestled further against his chest, smiling again as he dozed off, head resting on hers, the image of his own inexplicable proof of light etched into his mind.
Rey fell asleep with the cautious hope that, perhaps, Kylo Ren might not come back.