NAMESAKE
Once again, Ben Solo was alone. He always felt alone, but this time, it was the literal truth; even his father had left. Just as well, he thought angrily. The last beings he wanted to see were his family. Kira would have been all right, but the rest of them could get lost-and stay that way. They weren't helping him. They never did.
He knew there was no way they'd ever understand what he was going through. His parents were talking about taking away his ability to use the Force. They'd told him it was up to him, but they'd also made it clear that if he didn't agree, he wasn't going to go home with them. They'd lock him up forever, send him away somewhere; they'd never see him again.
It was obvious his mother and father didn't love him. They didn't even care about him; they only cared about Jana and Kira. Ben could feel anger building in him like storm clouds fed by a raging wind. The ferocious gale twisted through his brain until his body could barely contain it. Of their own volition, his hands clutched and pulled at the sheets.
Ben kept trying to tell himself that his parents didn't care. So why did their pain keep hurtling toward him, trying to confuse him? He could sense that his mother wanted to cry, but of course she wouldn't—not the princess, he sneered; he could feel his father's heart breaking. But he knew it wasn't because they loved him; it was because he made their lives difficult. Bitterness sucked him back into the black hole that his life had become.
I never should have been born, he thought, weighed down by bleakness and anger. Everyone would have been better off. Especially me.
It was bad enough that he had to put up with his family—at least Mom, Dad, and Jana—he loved little Kira and couldn't stand that he'd tried to hurt her. Now there was Uncle Luke to deal with, too. He hated his uncle—the perfect Jedi—who was always telling him to do better and to try harder. Uncle Luke, who was always telling him he was falling to the Dark Side.
Maybe I should go to the Dark Side, just to shove it in his face, Ben thought furiously.
The maelstrom in Ben's brain had blinded him so completely that he couldn't hear the voice that was saying: I need my mom and dad.
Instead, the emotional storm overwhelmed him. Ben felt as if he was about to explode out of his skin; he couldn't contain the fury inside of him. He twisted and turned in the bed as the molten lava of his soul threatened to spill over; he could hold it in no longer.
Vaulting from the bed, Ben stormed out of the plasticine cube that was his room, screaming at the top of his lungs. The guard droid moved toward him, trying to stop him, but Ben threw it to the ground, pummeling it with both his feet and fists, shrieking incomprehensibly.
Several droids and human staff, racing from other parts of the medcenter, struggled to pull the boy off of the mangled droid. Though Ben still wore the slender lines of adolescence, he was very strong, and exceptionally strong for his age. It took two droids and three humans to pull Ben to his feet.
As soon as he was upright, the boy began sobbing violently.
"We're going to give you a sedative, Ben," Seven-Three-H said quietly.
"No. No drugs. Comm my dad. I need my dad," Ben sobbed, still struggling against the staff holding him firmly by the arms.
"It's a sedative or restraints, Ben," Seven-Three-H said, and if his vocabulator could express emotion, it would have been one of sadness. "I would prefer not to physically restrain you."
One of the nursing droids produced a syringe, and injected the sedative into Ben's upper arm. Seven-Three-H led the still sobbing young man back to his bed.
Once Ben, whose sobs subsided as the drug took effect, was settled, Seven-Three-H went to meet with his medical team.
"I know the parents forbade restraints," Seven-Three-H spoke quietly to his staff. "I've done my best to accede to their wishes. They've also proposed the idea that his Force sensitivity be removed, but they insist he agree to it." The droid seemed to sigh. "If he does not...I fear that I'm going to have to recommend institutionalization."
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Ben was neither awake nor asleep. He floated somewhere in between, wishing he could control his mind, and his heart, and the tears that continued to stream down his face.
Kriff! I'm fifteen years old and I cry more than Kira, he thought in disgust. Finally, his eyelids closed, and he lapsed into a fitful state somewhere between reality and beyond. He shifted restlessly in the bed, unable to find any comfort in his rest.
"Young Ben," a quiet voice called.
"Dad?" Ben asked. He opened his eyes, but didn't see his father in the room.
"No, Ben. I'm Obi-Wan Kenobi." An ethereal figure appeared, sitting on the end of his bed, bathed in soft light, and clad in shabby Jedi robes. He appeared to be very, very old. "Though I spent many years going by the name of Ben. I'm your namesake."
The young man sat up in bed and stared at the apparition in front of him.
"You?" Ben scoffed. "You're just an old man, not some great Jedi knight." He shook his head to clear it. "I don't know what was in the drugs they gave me-"
Kenobi smiled gently. "Relax, son. You've had a busy day."
"That's one way to put it," Ben said sourly. "You're sure it's not the drugs? 'Cause I hate 'em."
"It's not the medication you were given, Ben. You and I are having a conversation," Kenobi gently explained to him.
"You're the one doing the talking," Ben spat back.
"And you're listening," Kenobi said quietly. "You're very strong in the Force, you know, otherwise you wouldn't be able to see or hear me."
"For all the good the Force has ever done me," Ben remarked bitterly. "And now my parents want me to let my uncle take it away from me forever."
"No, child, they don't," Kenobi told him. "They want you to be healthy. They would much prefer that you keep your Force sense, but sometimes, it's better not to have it."
"Easy for you to say. You're dead," Ben shot back.
"One with the Force," Kenobi corrected him. "We're more than just flesh and bones."
Ben considered this, in silence.
"Yeah, but if I lose the Force, all I am is flesh and bones" he said finally. "What're you trying to tell me, anyway?" Ben was losing patience with the old man.
"What I'm saying to you, Ben, is that while the Force is within you, you can live well without it." Kenobi's voice was tender and sympathetic.
Ben couldn't believe what he was hearing. "How would you know? You never lived without it!"
"No, I didn't. But most beings aren't able to use the Force, even though the Force is in all of us.
And some of those who are Force-sensitive choose not to exercise those abilities. Your mother has made decisions as to how to live her life and what use to make, or not make, of her talents. I would never presume to tell her she did not choose wisely. Her life is a good one."
Ben's bitterness was in no danger of receding any time soon. "Be nice if she was around once in a while! All she cares about is saving the kriffing galaxy!"
"That does not mean that she doesn't love you and worry about you," Kenobi pointed out. "She fights for what she does because she wants a better life for you."
"Maybe she could start by listening to me!"
"She hears you, Ben, very well, in all senses of the word. And she's worried that your life will be destroyed by the combination of your illness and your Force-sense. For that matter, she's found herself doing a great deal of soul-searching; she's done tremendous work for the galaxy, but I expect that she may now be turning her attention to more personal matters."
"She still has the Force, even if she doesn't want to use it," Ben reminded the presence in his midst. "What's gonna happen to me if I lose the Force forever? It'll be like being dead."
Kenobi smiled. "Your father isn't Force-sensitive. And yet, who could deny that he's very much alive, living a fine life, doing good by doing well. I see you've become quite a good pilot, much like him."
"My uncle says his father was the best star pilot in the galaxy," Ben said stubbornly.
"Your grandfather." Kenobi was saddened. "Indeed, he was one of the best. And he and I were once good friends. But I failed to recognize that which dwelled in him that made him a risk. I felt, by training him myself, that he would learn to use the Force to control his emotions, but it has dawned on me that he suffered much as you do. The Jedi Council refused to have him trained; I ignored their admonitions. I was wrong. He was indeed strong in the Force, but he was, I believe, afflicted as you are now."
"Are you saying my grandfather had the same thing I do?" Ben was astonished.
"Obviously, I'm not medically trained, so I can't properly diagnose him. But he could not control
what went through his brain much of the time, and his emotions swung wildly, and often dangerously. He was vulnerable to influence, and that was the great tragedy of him falling under the control of the Emperor."
"So are you saying I'm gonna end up like him? What happened to 'the future is always in motion' like Uncle Luke is always saying?" Ben snarled.
"It is, Ben, it is," Obi-wan replied patiently. "But some things are so strong in the current of the Force, it's hard to deny their possibility."
The figure of the old Jedi continued to look straight at Ben; it felt as if Kenobi were looking into his very soul. Ben squirmed uncomfortably. He was trying to fight against him, but the old man was too powerful. Ben could feel himself weighing Kenobi's words, and it angered him that the old man had such an influence on him.
Ben crossed his arms over his chest, his expression hostile.
"You're just saying this to me," he argued, "but you don't know!" Ben tried to resist, but he could feel a tiny spark of light ignite within him, and it couldn't be denied, no matter how much the boy tried to thwart its presence.
Kenobi smiled gently. "Search your feelings, Ben; you know it to be true."
"I don't even know what my feelings are!" Ben shouted furiously. He hated that stuff; he always hated it when Uncle Luke said it. He wanted to lunge at the cloud of light and the old man it surrounded, but recognized the futility of such an action. You couldn't kill people who were already dead.
"You will know them, Ben." And with that, the figure and the voice were gone.
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For a long time, Ben found himself trembling, not quite able to comprehend what had just happened to him. He felt as if he'd been dreaming, but it had been a waking dream, both wondrous and terrifying.
The old man hadn't told him what to do; he'd simply laid out what he'd seen. Maybe he was wrong, Ben thought. But his own sensitivity told him otherwise, much as he tried to fight it.
Ben's gaze traveled miserably around his small cubicle. He was alone again, and frightened. He closed his eyes, shoving the old man—the dream—out of his thoughts. But still there was no peace; he could see clearly beyond his closed eyelids.
A dark place, a bridge. He could feel excruciating pain. His own? He didn't know. And sadness, infinite sadness, all around him.
Ben shoved himself from the bed and walked unsteadily from his cubicle. The watcher droids moved toward him, but he held out his empty hands in silent supplication, telling them he meant no harm. They let him pass.
A human nurse, looked up from her console, her eyes steady and kind. She reminded him of his mother.
"Yes, Ben?"
"I need my dad," Ben choked out.