When he was a child, Ben Solo dreamt he was drowning.

It started with two figures locked in combat, lightsabers throwing up purple sparks every time their blades met. Again and again they drove at each other, soundless except for the hiss and whir of their sabers. It seemed as if they were equally matched, until the red stumbled, falling over another figure. The blue never hesitated to kill him. As Ben watched the red swordsman fall into the lava, he realized that he had been sinking into lava the entire time. It did not burn, but it encased him, sucking him greedily into the depths of the earth. He tried to scream, always. For help, for the blue figure to notice him, for his mother, for his father.

No one came to rescue him.

At first, he had woken from the dream sobbing, running to his mother, unable to fully explain the terror. She would soothe him in her own way (it's just a dream, Ben, don't be silly) and send him back to bed.

The dreams did not cease. One day, Ben stopped talking about them.

Kylo Ren awoke suddenly, and all at once. For a moment, he thought he had been blinded, but blinked as he found himself in a sterile, white room. He was restrained and very, very sore. Critically, he glanced around the room to answer a question he already had. Obviously, the Resistance had captured him. The days of being tested by Snoke were long behind him, but nonetheless the room he was in was far messier than anything he would find in the First Order.

Good for them, he thought, highly irritated. With such a military blow, the brainwashed citizens of the Republic might forget the incompetence of their pathetic little Resistance force. The General could continue playing war for a little while longer. Well, it would not take Snoke very long at all to track him; he would be surprised if the Grand Master's troops were not already in pursuit. Perhaps his capture would be the military advantage they required to finally crush the Republic.

He glanced around the room once more, then down at his flimsy restraints. Where was this sense of unease coming from? Something was off…

Dread ran down his spine like shards of ice. His connection to the Grand Master had been severed. "No," he murmured through clenched teeth, and threw himself into the Force.

There was nothing.

"NO." He threw his being again and again into it, trying to find any opening in whatever bond they had placed over him. All that he could sense was his own fear and rage. It was consuming, maddening. How had they—

Luke Skywalker. Of course. His one-time master thought to tame him.

Kylo shook with fury, his vision blurring. He lurched up off the cot, and immediately tripped over the chain connected to the wall. Unbidden, he threw his rage into the Force, trying to break the chain, and screamed when he could find nothing, again. He pulled at the chain savagely, shrieking and cursing. Unable to bend it, unable to even hurt himself, Kylo turned to the table before him, shoving his hip into it. It didn't budge, and pain ripped through his side. Bolted to the floor. It was just like his mother to be so uselessly vindictive.

The rations and water on top were not attached, and he threw them at the wall, unsatisfied even by the scrape of metal. Rage flowed through him like lava, so hot and heady it was difficult to breathe properly. He hissed through clenched teeth, eyes darting around the room. There was a door five metres away, but the chain only extended halfway past the table. He was trapped, like a caged animal.

He screamed until his voice was raw. He slammed his body into the table, again, and again, hoping to feel the comfort of the dark, to excise the aching in his soul. Blood oozed from his grazes as he threw himself into the wall. Eventually, sobbing, repulsed, exhausted, he collapsed.

No one came.

Of all the things that Luke had done, this was the most agonising. No amount of meditation could ease his discomfort; he felt the wound in the Force keenly, an empty, yawning hole that caused great imbalance. For days, he could not use the Force even to lift simple objects.

For days, he had been avoiding his nephew.

Luke grimaced, stretching his muscles loose from his sitting position and rising to his feet. It was most difficult to do what was right, but even more to do what you were unsure would work. This was a gamble. Potentially the most important gamble of his life - not only in what it meant for his family, but for the universe and the balance of the Force as a whole. He damn well hoped it paid off.

When he reached the hallway of the cells, he could hear voices.

"The General wants to execute him, you know," said a male. "I mean, you saw -"

"I know! I know. I saw him; we both did. I just have this feeling, Poe. Han wouldn't have wanted anyone to give up on him. If you let me inside -" As Luke turned into the hall, he was struggling to contain a smirk. There was the young woman who kept badgering him to become his apprentice, newly badgering a frazzled looking man. Rey was persistent, he would give her that, but he was worried that it wasn't all for the right reasons. "Oh!" she said, surprised. "Master Luke, I've been -"

"Still not going to train you," he said simply. She opened her mouth. "And no, I'm not discussing what it would be like if I trained you." Rey scowled, opening her mouth once more. "And no, I'm not going to tell you what it was like to be trained as a Jedi. Is that it?"

"You didn't mention what it was like to destroy the Deathstar," she said sulkily. "Or what Han Solo was like, or what General Leia was like."

"Right. Not doing that, either, kid." Even with the Force so limited, he could sense her irritation, and he grinned. It felt good to call someone kid. "Why are you so interested in the prisoner?"

"No reason!" she said, flushing bright pink. "Just, uhm, just this feeling I… um, I think I need to go do maintenance at Sector 5, see you later, Poe!" He watched her flee, still grinning. That was the first time she'd ever tried to get away from him. But he was curious to know why she of all people was desperate to see Kylo-Ben. She had already eagerly regaled him with all the stories (four times each) of what it was like to be tortured by him, to fight him, how she'd awakened the Force in the middle of a battle… Perhaps he should take her on, he thought, then dismissed it. His failures at teaching were well documented - in fact, they were in the room before him.

"Uh, sir?" said the boy called Poe. "Did you uh. Were you just checking out things, or am I supposed to know what you want, or uh… Like is the silence a secret code among Jedi or…?"

Luke smiled. "None of that, sorry. I was merely lost in thought. Your friend is very lively."

"You're telling me," Poe muttered, grinning even so.

"I wanted to see Kylo Ren."

The boy stiffened uncomfortably. "Uh, orders from the General were that nobody goes in."

"I'm sure Leia would make an exception in this case." Poe looked uncertain; Luke gestured quietly. "You should let me in."

"I'm not sure, sir." Of course the Force wasn't working when he needed it, damned moody universal energy. Poe chewed his lip; he hadn't noticed the failed attempt at manipulation. "I guess it would be okay, you being a Jedi Knight and all. You'll yell out if there's trouble?"

"What would you do if there was?" Luke asked, amused. He answered before the boy could think on it too hard: "Yes, of course. Have you, ah, heard anything from him?" Reports from the first night were that Ben had been screaming for hours on end. Nobody had been brave enough to go in. After that, it had been eerily quiet, like the desert before a storm.

Poe shook his head. "Not a peep."

The door slid open with a muffled hiss, and Luke stepped into the painfully bright room, neatly dodging two days worth of rations on trays beside the entrance. Another tray was lying, face down, next to the right wall, its contents sprawled across the floor along with a dried water stain. At the far wall was a cot, a chain connected to the wall above it leading to the black, prone form of his nephew. He was staring at the ceiling, and did not react to the opening door.

"Ben," Luke said softly, filled with regret and loss. To have the sense of his nephew ripped away from him so suddenly had been wearing at him for the past few days. He had tried, very hard, not to imagine what the severing of the Force must have done to Ben. Luke stepped further into the room, eyes fixed on Ben. He no longer knew what his nephew was feeling, and the knowledge was suffocating. "I missed you." Luke said it like an apology. Ben did not stir. "We all missed you. I felt like I had to…" He sighed, running a hand through his greying hair. "Where did I go wrong, Ben? Where did I go wrong with you?"

There was no answer.

"Your father loved you," he continued. "Your mother did - I loved you. I thought it would be enough to undermine Snoke's influence, but," grief welled up inside him, "he was too strong. I left after you… I left to find a way to bring you back. I thought this was the only way." I'm sorry, he didn't say. I'm sorry I couldn't be strong enough for you. "Please forgive me."

Ben stared at the ceiling with a dull, lifeless gaze. Luke had been expecting rage, vitriol, hatred. This kind of empty brokenness was much worse. So, he did what he was best at, and fled the room, a surprised Poe shouting to ask if he was alright.

"You have to see him, Leia."

"No, I don't," she said curtly. "Hand me that holo-reader." Luke picked it up, but kept it; she sighed.

"There is still light in him," he insisted, his metal hand curling slightly. "You know Han would have -"

"Han is dead because of me," Leia snapped. "Han is dead because of our son. Let me repeat that for you: my only son murdered his father in cold blood. So no, I do not have to see him, and I will continue to not see him, and that is absolutely final."

Luke frowned. "What if I mentioned a prophecy?" He ducked under a holo-reader thrown with unerring accuracy at his face.

"You go see him if you have faith in whatever misguided endeavour you've come back to pursue," she said, irritated. "And don't think that I'm not annoyed at you too! You don't write for fifteen years, then you swan back into the Resistance like you're the chosen one himself, spouting about Force this and prophecy that and dad's ghost told you so and so."

"He did," Luke muttered. "And I have seen Ben."

"I don't care, one! And two: why are you still bothering me? And pass me that damned holo-reader before I throw another one at you."

"He looks broken, Leia," he said, handing it to her reluctantly. She snatched it out of his grasp and activated it instantly. "I'm afraid that what I did was… wrong. He was always so sensitive to the Force; I thought severing the connection would free him, but maybe I've failed again."

"Stop it," she snapped. "Stop throwing yourself off a cliff to become a martyr again and again. You did this when he murdered the academy-" Luke winced at the memory. "-and you're doing it again now. You have no idea what it felt like to be his mother, and I'm sick to death of you acting like you're the only one who's suffered." He opened his mouth to protest, but she steamrolled over him. "Either you find a way to make him atone for what he has done, or I will have to execute my son."

"Leia!"

"He is a murderer and a Sith," she said flatly. "The number of lives he's taken, the number of families he's ripped apart - it doesn't seem to matter to you. To be truthful, it didn't matter to me, and then he killed…" her voice shook suddenly and she swallowed hard. "I don't believe there could be light in him anymore, Luke. I truly don't."