"I have no intention of leaving anytime soon."
She sat on his bed, resting on her stomach with her chin in her hands as she looked to the book in front of her. Her feet remained in the air as her hair fell into her face. She yawned once before looking away from the book before her, her gaze widening as she saw him watching her with intent, his eyes almost full of annoyance as he did so.
"What?" she wondered from him. "I was listening to you and I heard you. You have no intention of leaving here anytime soon."
He sighed and shook his head. She never listened to anything he said when she had a book in front of her. He had grown used to speaking and she would go off into her own world. Then again, she was always in a world of her own for the most part.
"My mother feels as though I should go," he declared, sitting on the edge of his own bed as she rolled onto her back and moved a hand to his back.
He turned his head over his shoulder, looking to her as she smiled up to him. She had grown used to seeing him like this. He was excited, but she could see the fear inside of him. He was scared of what he could be. He had so much power that he didn't entirely know what to do or how to feel. There were times when she envied him. He had so much in front of him. He could be the best Jedi if he wished. Yet she saw how that scared him. It was then when her envy stopped.
"Your uncle is well prepared to help you," she shrugged, moving to take hold of her dirty brown hair to pull it over her shoulder. "Your mother and father want the best for you. You know that."
"I know," he grumbled, shrugging his lanky shoulders as she pushed herself onto her elbows. "It feels as though they are pushing me away. You know what they are like, Erinn. They are always arguing and father is always flying off for days on end."
Erinn shrugged her shoulders back to him and finally sat up, her hand making its way all the way up his back to his neck, her fingers tickling against his skin as his hair caught in her tips, the shiny black locks falling onto her flesh. Her cheek rested on his shoulder and he looked down to her, wondering what wise words she had to offer him.
"But he always comes back. I know what that is like," Erinn promised him. "You know what happened to me, Ben. Mother…she risked everything to escape my father. He was obsessed with the Empire. He still thinks that they can make a comeback. She did everything possible to help us escape. She never loved him…she never looked at him like your father looks at your mother."
Ben scoffed at that, his hands on his lap as he twisted his fingers together and shook his head, glancing down to the stone covered floor as Erinn tried to prise his gaze back to her.
"If love is about spending hours arguing then I have no interest," he informed her, glancing back to her and searching her narrowed blue eyes. "I have never fought with you, Erinn…not like they fight."
Erinn felt her heartbeat quicken at hearing that as she continued to search his gaze. Both of them had moments like this. They had to spend at least half an hour looking at each other, wondering if it was true. They wondered if it was possible for them to feel like they did. Of course they never told anyone. They kept it quiet. Erinn knew that Ben was destined for great things. Jedis took no wives. They did not love. There would be a time when Ben's life consisted only of learning the force.
And that was for the best. He needed to know how to control the power he had been gifted. It would take all of his energy. Erinn only wished that he could save some of his life for her. She pretended not to be bothered by his leaving, but it hurt.
She had spent the past year with Ben Solo ever since she bumped into him at the downtown bar he was in with his parents. She had, quite literally, bumped into him and watched him drop the drinks he had been carrying.
"But you do not love me," Erinn said and shook her head.
It was too dangerous.
"Do I not?" he dared to ask of her. "And where would you get that impression from? Have I not told you often enough how I feel? I would give it up, Erinn. I would tell mother that I have no interest in becoming a Jedi. I would not go."
Erinn bit down on her bottom lip and shook her head, trying to hold back the tears which threatened to fall from her eyes as he moved his hands to her cheeks, gripping them tightly inside of his palms as she struggled to avoid staring at him.
"Erinn," he whispered her name harshly. "Just tell me the words. Becoming a Jedi would mean nothing if-"
"-Stop it," Erinn urged him.
She moved her thin frame from the bed, escaping his grip and feeling cold as soon as she did so. Her arms wrapped around her waist as she moved towards the balcony of his bedroom. She stepped onto it and looked at the sight beyond. She had been travelling in space for months, but nothing looked lovelier than D'Qar when she had set foot on solid land. It was full of water and greenery and home to many. Erinn could barely remember the place she called home now.
"Erinn," he called out to her. "You know how much I care for you…how much I have grown to care for you."
And Erinn remembered her conversation with his mother even more. Every time she grew tempted to say yes she thought of Leia. She thought of her fear and she knew that her own selfish needs could not be the destruction of Ben. Leia's fear of what her son could become without the right training kept Erinn's mind on the right path.
Erinn knew the stories. She was born just after the fall of the Empire. She knew what had happened and her father had never let her or her mother forget.
"And I you, Ben," Erinn promised, turning to rest against the stone pillar behind her as she kept her arms folded over her body.
The dark blue pantsuit she wore was barely keeping her warm, its sleeves stopped at her upper arms to reveal how her skin was full of raised bumps from nerves and cold. Everything without Ben seemed to make her feel that way. Ben's blue gaze continued to follow her as she looked anywhere but at him. He remained still. He wore dark blue clothing that made his pale skin seem even paler, but Erinn wondered if that was down to the lack of sun he saw due to preferring his time indoors.
"Then why do you do this?" Ben demanded from her. "Why do you push me away?"
"Because I have to," Erinn snapped at him, her tone sounding harsher than she had intended for it to sound. "You need to do this, Ben. The power you possess…you know that it is inside of you. You need to know how to control it. You know that, Ben. You cannot give that up…not for me…not for anyone."
"I can control it," he snapped back, knowing full well that he sounded harsher than he had intended to. "I do not need to go to my Uncle Luke, Erinn. I am strong enough to control how I feel."
"Do you think so?" Erinn demanded back.
"I know so," he hissed to her and she shook her head. "I will forget this power, Erinn. If you tell me to forget it then I will."
"No," Erin said. She didn't want to shoulder that burden. She didn't want the burden of his powers on her shoulders. She knew that there would come a time when he could no longer control it. He was still so young. He had so much to learn.
Leia had told Erinn that. Ben had the force. She had the force. It was strong in their family. It was too strong to ignore. It had to be trained. Erinn knew that Leia had not trained as Luke had, and she had asked why Ben had to train. But the fear Leia felt for her son was strong. She was scared that he could take the wrong path despite her best attempts at parenting him.
"I do not want this responsibility, Ben," Erinn whispered. "I want you to go and learn, but I want you to come back. I do not want you to become a Jedi. If I must be selfish then I shall tell you the truth. I do not wish to see you leave and never come back…I cannot cope. I do not want you to join the Jedi Order. Is that what you wish to hear?"
Ben was shocked. Every time he broached this subject she tended to steer clear. She would snap at him and leave. She would come back the next day and they would pretend that nothing had happened. But she could no longer do that. She had been involved in too many of his arguments.
"The Jedi Order does not allow marriage…it does not allow attachment or possession…or jealousy…but I want you to feel those things, Ben. I want you to be attached to me. I want to be yours, but I want you to be mine. I do not want you to belong to a Jedi Order. I do not want to see you go. Do you think that I find this easy?"
Ben gulped then, shaking his head as Erinn wiped her eyes, refusing to let him see the moisture fall down her cheeks. She would remain strong for the time being. She could only crumple when she was back in her own bunker with her mother by her side. She could not let Ben see her hurt like this.
"I want you to go because I know that you need to," she told him, her voice back to a whisper as he moved closer to her, his hands running down her shoulders as hers found his waist and she looked straight to his cloth covered chest. "I know that you need to learn how to use the Force. You may not feel its power now, but what if you do in the future? What then? What if you cannot control it…all because of me…because I was selfish enough to ask you to stay here?"
Ben kept silent, his mind working over time as he moved a hand to her chin, lifting her gaze to meet his and he shook his head slowly to her. She didn't understand.
"And what about what I want?" Ben wondered. "Has no one thought to ask me that?"
Erinn chuckled at that, shaking her head as she sniffed. "Because we know what you want, Ben."
"Then why does no one allow me what I want?" Ben wondered back. "Erinn, if I go then I will come back. I will talk to my mother and father…tell them that I do not wish to join the Jedi Order…that I will compromise."
Erinn remained pensive, not entirely sure if he was thinking this through. She knew that Ben was prone to petulance. He usually had his way or no way. Erinn had learned how to deal with that. She would not give into him and he would usually be angered by that, yet he suspected that was what he found the most endearing about her. She did not look at him as though he was being foolish or spoiled. She would fight back. She would never let him win.
"I will train, but I will not join my uncle's Order. I will come back," he informed her and she said nothing, choosing to wrap her arms around his waist and hold him tightly to her as she squeezed her eyes shut. "Nothing will take me from you, Erinn Hux."
…..
A/N: So I went to see TFA and it was amazing! I just had to write a fanfic! This starts as a prequel and we see how Ben slowly becomes Kylo Ren! Do let me know what you think!