paralyzed force (gesture without motion)
Kylo cannot believe how small the Resistance is. He hasn't been among these people since he was little, but he still remembers hundreds of people, some military and some executive, secure in their new Republic and his mother's leadership. Now these twenty-some shattered people are all that's left.
He is barely allowed to be here, and he feels that there are many people blaming him for her death. He's been spat on twice today, which he knows he deserves. The Resistance is this broken because of him. He killed Han Solo, he took out their fighters, he led the attack on the base on Crait, it's thanks to him that Luke Skywalker died, and in their minds he's the one who fired on the Hosnian system.
And now it's also him who's brought their leader back to them dead.
He has not allowed himself to grieve. It's such a delicate balance yet, keeping the Dark from swallowing him whole, and he knows if he lets the pain come, he will drown in it altogether.
Rey slips her hand into his, and it's strange how well it fits. She looks so small and Kylo wonders if she can see the Darkness that edges the corners of the rooms and creeps in on him when he's alone.
"At least they let you come," she says, her voice empty. There is no comfort in any of this but Kylo smiles so she doesn't worry.
"It doesn't matter," he says. He's not sure what it is that doesn't matter.
The funeral is a traditional one, and he wishes it weren't. His mother is lying there in front of him and still the Resistance members stand there, as if they have any right to grieve his mother's death. Rey stands by him, her shoulder tucked against his side, her hand in his. He can feel her pain and loneliness, and wishes he could give in to his own. He had not been allowed to see Leia's body before the funeral, had not been allowed to make anything for her, had not been allowed to speak. So he has to stand here in silence as they bury his mother. He's written her a letter in shaking calligraphy, and he'll burn it later in the hopes that she somehow hears it.
After the funeral ends, the Resistance members finally filter away until it's just him and Rey standing by the casket. He wants Rey to leave, in a way, because he doesn't want her to see how he'll crumble if he lets himself, but if she leaves he's afraid he won't be able to take it.
She seems to understand, somehow, because she lets go of his hand and steps back, giving him space, space he's been afraid of getting. He moves forward to the casket, runs his fingers along the edges, avoids looking at his mother's face.
It's mainly anger that he feels now (because anger has always been easier to bear than pain, for him), coursing hot and black through his veins. He can't stop it, he doesn't know how, and he feels the thrum of the Darkness creeping across his skin. It wants to take him, and in the face of this, he thinks he may let it. He drops his head and reaches out with one hand, puts it over her closed eyes, and wishes he could feel her instead of this emptiness where her presence should be. He aches, and feels the Darkness respond, knows instinctively that it wants to destroy things because he does too.
"Ben?" He senses Rey come to stand by his shoulder. "Ben, they want to start burying her. I'm sorry."
The Dark lashes out almost before he thinks it, and he hears a grinding sound and then a small explosion and he looks up, knowing he's just destroyed one of the droids that's supposed to do the work. Rey touches his shoulder, and he's relieved to feel that she isn't scared so much as sad.
"I'm really sorry," she says again.
Part of him wants to grab Leia's body and not let them anywhere near it, although he knows they need to do this. He straightens up and lets Rey take his hand and pull him away, through the gardens and back to the base. He keeps the Darkness back at a distance as they walk through the hallways, Rey proud and defiant with her chin lifted against the looks they're getting. He can't be defiant, so he keeps his head down and holds tight to her hand.
She leads them back to his quarters (a nice term for what is essentially a cell) and once the door is closed, she lets go of his hand and faces him. "You know, it's okay to let it hurt," she tells him. There are tears in her eyes, and Kylo feels selfish because here she is trying to comfort him when she's grieving too. He knows Leia was the closest thing she'd ever had to a mother.
"I can't," he tells her, because even his jaw is hurting from holding all the emotion in check, from holding still. He knows if he doesn't hold himself back, the pain will wreak havoc on everything around him, maybe even Rey, and he doesn't want to let her see how broken he is under it all, how unstable.
"It will only get worse if you don't," she says softly, and he knows she's right, but she's here and he doesn't want her to see.
His hands are clenched into such tight fists that his nails dig into his palms, and the pain is familiar and makes the Dark curl tighter and stronger against his skin. There is fire under his skin and it's eating him alive but he will not let her see him burn.
"I know," he grits out. "But I can't let it… I can't stop the Dark if I do." He knows she can feel that. She already knows there's too much Dark around him, so why is she telling him to give in to it?
"I think… I think sometimes you don't have to stop it," she says softly.
He breathes out, unsure, meeting her eyes. He can't cross this line, can't be this, can't risk hurting her because he's had enough of inflicting his own pain on everyone else. He knows she's already seen how lost he can be, but he doesn't want her to see that anymore, not now that she trusts him, not now that he's here with her. But stars, he wants to let the rage go because it is aching to hold it in, aching to hide it, and his mother is dead and he is not allowed to watch them bury her, not allowed to grieve, barely allowed to be here. She died for him and he's forced to hide in his cell and await judgement from the people he'd long thought she loved more than him.
But she didn't, oh stars, she didn't, because she'd died for him and there was nothing they could say that would take that from him. Not the love it implied.
Not the guilt.
The Dark has never left him one moment of weakness – the second he considers letting it in, it's done, the power screaming into his veins hot and ready to destroy, and he knows he's lost, knows it even as his restraint crumbles and he reaches for the Force and flings his bed across the room so it smashes against the wall.
He pretends he doesn't see Rey flinch.
He curls his fingers into a fist and the metal frame of the bed twists, crushed like tin, but it isn't enough, it isn't what he wants, and he knows he shouldn't but he turns and pounds his fist into the wall, and that is what he needs, so he does it once more so his knuckles burn. He wants his saber, but he has nothing but his bare hands, so he turns and casts about for something, anything to do that will stop this ache in his chest and this awful, awful feeling because there is pressure in his lungs and in his hands and it's all too much.
He is crying when he grabs his journal off the floor by his bed, and Rey reaches for his arm, a soft echo of Ben, not that in his head, but it's something that will hurt no one but him and there is something in him that needs to feel this hurt, needs to not think about his mother, so he yanks out the first page, twists the binding till the book's spine snaps, tears out nearly half the pages at once, throws the book hard at the opposite wall. The pages litter the ground as he finally gives way, falling in on himself and landing on his knees, the anger burning its way around the room as a sob chokes him. He feels the Force is out of control, feels the Darkness crashing against the walls of the room and the one chair they've given him and whatever is left of his bed. He has enough awareness to keep it away from Rey, but only just, because it all hurts.
His mother holding him on her lap, her soft brown eyes crinkled with a smile, humming a lullaby she said she learned from a planet that was entirely underwater.
The two of them lying on her bed, staring through a skylight at the stars, green and gold and never-ending, and his mother told him she felt like she could almost reach them.
His mother walking out the door, ready to take on anyone who would challenge her dream for a new Republic, and not coming home again for days except to sleep, leaving him alone in the living room because no one had time for him, not even her.
Sending her letters about his training, about Luke, about the Voice that whispered in his dreams and how angry and afraid he was. Letters that were rarely answered, and yet he saved every line she wrote him until they all burned.
Screaming at her, telling her she failed him, telling her she'd never loved him as much as she loved the Resistance, telling her it might as well be her fault Han died. Standing there waiting for her to scream back even as she started crying and touched his face with her hand, tracing her fingers over his new scar. "My son," she called him.
His mother shoving him and Rey away from her with the Force, falling to the ground like a rag doll, like she didn't matter. Carrying her close to his chest as he ran with Rey to their ship, not even able to think.
His mother.
He curls his fingers in his gambeson, rocking back and forth, struggling to even breathe because she's dead and he never told her he loved her, he told her she'd failed him. He aches and he doesn't know what to do now because there's no fixing this, any of it, and he still wants to break things.
And then she's there, as she always somehow is, and Rey takes his hands in hers and lightly traces his burning knuckles, pressing her forehead to the top of his head. He won't look up past her waist because he's afraid of what he'll see, he's afraid of how hard he's crying, he's afraid of how badly he wants to hurt. This is why he can't let go, because the Dark isn't just dangerous, he is.
"Ben, I'm sorry," she says, and he recognizes from her voice that she's crying too. "I'm so sorry."
He lets go of his gambeson with his right hand and clutches her gentle fingers in his own, holding on as if he could soak up some of her warmth and softness. But there is none of that for him, just hard edges and torn and broken things and the pain in his fingers and black fire scorching his bones and making every sob hurt. She puts her hand on his cheek, light and careful, and he wants to shove her away because she has to stop touching him, has to stop doing this, but he makes himself stay still and lets her brush tears away from his eyes. He sees drops of water falling into her lap and recognizes them as her tears, so he tentatively frees his right hand and, daring to look up, softly brushes his thumb under her eye, leaving his hand against her jawline. She doesn't look like she's afraid, or like she hates him, so he rests his forehead against hers and lets himself keep crying, holds her hand and catches her tears and tries to forget how tense he is, how he still feels like if he makes one wrong move he could break her, break everything.
"I wish she wasn't gone," Rey whispers brokenly, tightening her grip on his hand. "I didn't… I didn't have people like her."
Ben doesn't know how to express what he feels, so he just nods.
"I feel like it's my fault," she adds, and Ben almost laughs because it's not her fault, it's his, but he listens instead. "She saved me. It should have been me, Ben, it shouldn't… she shouldn't have done that."
He strokes her cheekbone with his thumb and lets out a soft laugh in the middle of his tears, surprised at the admission. "That's… that was how I… It's my fault too, Rey, she saved me too."
She laughs a little too, and leans back, leaving her hand on his face as if she expects him to fall apart without the contact. He most likely will – she grounds him like nothing else. He tries to breathe deep, although he isn't sure the hiccupping sobs will ever quite stop. "Stars, Ben," she says softly, and there's something that's almost a relief about this, because he looks at her and knows certainly that it isn't her fault his mother is dead (dead), and he knows she knows the exact same thing about him. He is still guilty, but there is comfort in it.
"Do you want her here?" Rey says, and Ben is glad, because he could never say it himself, that he wishes desperately that nothing had happened, that Leia could walk in and laugh at them both and he could tell her that he doesn't hate her and he… he had never hated her.
"I do," he whispers, and the sobs and the Dark abandon him, like poison drained out of a wound, and he's just left with the ache and the tears.
"I'm sorry," she says again, and that's all.
"I'm sorry too." He's sorry for so many things. He wishes he could tell his mother that; he wishes she weren't dead. But she is, and he will never see her again, like his father, like his uncle, like anyone he's ever cared about. All that's left is him – and Rey, but she'll be gone soon enough too. If he doesn't destroy her, someone else will, and it'll just be him and the Dark and the pain.
Always the pain.
A/N: I wrote this in preparation for killing of Leia in a different fic - I wanted to explore how I thought Ben would react. The answer was not well.
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