Chapter Summary:

Where Rey's imaginary son gets an imaginary friend. Meanwhile, Kylo drives himself crazy contemplating all the ways he's losing his mind.


Skywalker had tried to destroy them both.

There was never a time that Kylo hated his uncle more than at that moment.

Rey crawling back to the old man was predictable. She had nowhere else to go and she probably thought enduring his tutelage was part of her duty or destiny or whatever rubbish he had been filling her mind with. No, it was painfully obvious where and with whom her destiny was intertwined with, but the stubborn little desert rat simply refuses to listen to rhyme and reason.

And, if stealing away Kylo's other half wasn't bad enough, his uncle had tried, had actually dared, to attempt to cleave their bond. He had tried to break the unbreakable and go against the will of the very Force itself. The… audacity and arrogance of it. The sheer nerve.

Just who the hell does Skywalker think he is? He's not a god. He's a useless and blind old fool who contaminates everything that he touches.

And Rey had almost let him. And he had almost succeeded.

That thought alone was enough to knock the air out of Kylo's lungs and leave him reeling. Skywalker had nearly succeeded in destroying their bond. It shouldn't have been possible. No one has that sort of power.

His comm had been buzzing, reminding him that he had duties beyond being a horrified onlooker to the spectacle unfolding across the galaxy. It didn't matter. Nothing would matter if Skywalker achieved his twisted goal.

But, in the end, she had stopped him. Now all Kylo wants to do is talk to Rey and ask her why she didn't let go through with it.

Her end of the bond is shaky. Enough to let some of her feelings through.

She hates him. She doesn't really. But maybe on some level she actually does. But even in her false hatred she saw the truth and couldn't let their connection be destroyed.

It wasn't much, but it was something to hold on to. The barest crumb of sentiment from the woman he's allowed himself to become so entangled by.

And the worst part in all of this is that he can still feel the child. The developing push and pull of Desmond's soul. It's a lie. It's a feeling that shouldn't exist, because he doesn't exist. Not in any form at all. Not a child or even a fetus or a gathering of the Force into a new life. Nothing. There should be nothing.

And yet… Kylo can feel him.

I think I'm going insane.

Kylo has thought that from time to time. The cracks that had rent Ben Solo's mind into so many pieces only to have his Master collect them and remold the debris into whatever it is that he is now. No one can go through that and come out whole.

But this is different. These thoughts in his head shouldn't be there. They're too real. Like he can reach out and yank on the boy's mind, just too see if he's there. Prove to himself and the world that he exists outside of Kylo's head.

He's tempted to, but he doesn't.

Because… what if he could? What if he really is hallucinating to this level? To this point where he genuinely can't tell reality from fiction anymore?

That would be very, very dangerous. Both for him and for Rey.

And if he can't control whatever this thing is that's happening to him…

Snoke will know. Oh, he'll find out one day or another, that much is inevitable. But Kylo can buy himself time. Time enough to sort out this chaos in his head and have a damn good excuse ready.

"Hello."

Kylo had expected silence when he walked into Desmond's cell again. He had also half expected to find it empty, and to spend the rest of his sleep cycle in an exhausting manhunt in pursuit of the Scavenger's son.

Instead Desmond is sitting on the edge of his bed, hair mussy and eyes red as if he's recently been crying. Was he really so upset to be here?

"You haven't changed your clothes," Kylo comments, stepping inside so the door can slide closed and lock itself behind him.

Desmond stares up at him and doesn't answer. He's wearing the same tunic and pants that he'd been taken in, and it had been two days already. No new clothes had been provided and, if they had been, no one had seen to make sure that he put them on. The stormtroopers really have been lacking in his care, haven't they?

The boy doesn't respond. Merely shakes his head in a mute refusal of Kylo's company and stays as silent as ever.

Kylo slips off his mask and sits down next to the boy. To his relief, he doesn't immediately recoil to the far side of his cot like he did before.

"So you've gone back to not speaking to me? I had rather hoped we were past this already."

Never before has he felt so much like a fish out of water. The child is so young. Barely out of his infancy. Caught at a tricky age that Kylo barely remembers of himself and therefore has little to no basis to ground their relationship with. What is it that young children like? They know nothing about anything.

"Are you bored in here? Would you like me to bring you some… toys? Holobooks?"

The boy seems to think the question over, negotiating within his own mind about his captor's intentions. Kylo sighs. Does he even know how to read yet? He probably does, he seems quite bright. But at what level? What would interest him? Lots of colorful pictures and simple plots seems appropriate, but the First Order hardly has much that fits that description.

If you'd asked Kylo a week ago if he would be contemplating educating himself on early childhood developmental milestones, it would have been far too ridiculous a notion to even contemplate. Of course, one week ago he hadn't known of the child's existence at all. What a difference a few days can make…

"You're lonely."

The boy looks at him, and Kylo knows he hit the nail on the head.

"You're lonely and you want your mother."

The dark head nods slightly. Kylo's shoulders sag.

"Your father as well? Do you miss him as much?"

It's a leading question, and the boy merely shrugs rather than give him anything concrete to build his hopes upon. The boy's seeming indifference about Dameron provides a slight relief, but only very slight.

"Alright Desmond, I will try to help. Your mother will be here soon, but until then maybe I can find some other children that you can spend time with. I wish I could promise you more but…"

But we're on a starship in the middle of a war and I don't want to start breaking promises to you.

"How long do I have to be here?"

Desmond has Rey's lilting accent which Kylo would normally appreciate, but the words behind the small voice make him wince inwardly.

"Until your mother gets here."

It's the simplest possible explanation that Kylo can give that's not a lie. No need to trouble or confuse the child with the logistics of dragging Rey in here kicking, screaming, and at any cost of Stormtrooper life.

"She's looking for me. She's upset and wants to find me."

Ah, yes. There's that complication as well. The connection between a young Force user and his mother. Ben and… General Organa had been very close throughout his young childhood. And Leia had nowhere near as direct a connection with the Force as Rey. It's impossible to know exactly how much Rey can sense through her son, even now when they're so very far apart.

"Does she talk to you?"

Kylo leans closer to the child as he asks it because whispering seems appropriate for their quiet conversation. "Does she talk to you in your head? Does she know you're here?"

Desmond shrugs. Kylo can sens a touch of sadness in him that gives him pause.

"What has your mother told you about the Force?"

He assumes Rey would be doing all the talking. That is, unless Skywalker has been trying to get his claws in early and corrupt the boy's mind before he has grown strong enough to defend himself. Most likely the boy's biological father would be worse than useless at explaining to Desmond what it is that makes him so special. If Poe is anything like Kylo's own father, he would rarely be around and only pop by for a token visit when-

"What happened to him?" Desmond asks, interrupting Kylo's bitter inner monologue.

Kylo realizes he had been squeezing his gloved hand into a fist, wadding up the material of the bed below him. Desmond reaches out and tugs on his sleeve. Kylo immediately forces himself to relax. The boy is terrified of him enough already, the least he can do is control his temper for a few minutes visitation a day.

"Whom?" Kylo asks, keeping his voice steady.

"Your father? You were thinking about him and you were very sad."

Oh kriff... He had been so distracted with trying to form empathy with the boy that he hadn't realized he'd been projecting his thoughts. Or, far more disturbingly, Desmond had been reading his mind and he hadn't even noticed it. Truly he his his mother's son, isn't he?

"I'll have to be careful with you," Kylo muses, cracking a small smile. "You're far too clever for your own good."

Desmond looks up at him expectantly. Rather than answering the unanswerable, Kylo stands up, straightening his clothes and feeling acutely aware of the child watching his every move.

"Oh," is all the boy says.

Kylo doesn't have to push at Desmond's mind to know that he hates being left alone. He'll have to find some sort of solution to that. If no other First Order children are available, and Kylo highly doubts there will be, than perhaps a droid would do. It would be like a pet to the child, but without the mess and short life expectancy.

"I will be back soon," Kylo promises, picking up his mask but holds it in his hands, hiding it behind his back and out of sight. "A droid will come in shortly to bring you food and clean up your room. Why don't you try and talk to it? It won't have a mind like a living thing, but perhaps it might have something interesting to say regardless."

Kylo had woken up from his dreams as soon as he had closed the door and left the child inside. He was beginning to wonder at what cost these dreams were coming to him. His head felt sluggish and his responses were not what they should be. Inevitably these will effect his performance for the First Order, but perhaps the vision will have played out too completion before it becomes apparent to anyone whose opinion could possibly matter.

Still, despite the cost the dreams drew away from him, they also came as a welcome, albeit exhausting reprieve. Rey had taken to shutting him out completely. Blocking him so thoroughly that, if it wasn't for the constant beat of her heart in the back of his mind, he wouldn't know that she was still alive.

That had to be Skywalker's doing. When Rey had left him, she had been far more open. Not quite willing to allow Kylo into her mind as often as he wanted, which was virtually nonstop, but she had been approaching a point of amicable to the idea of allowing their connection to grow.

Now all that progress had been undone. She truly was as stubborn as her son. Her son which doesn't exist.

Snoke will probably end the dreams. He'll see through the shoddy wall of excuses and justifications, and end Kylo's nightly visions.

The notion should come as a relief. His master will end the torment of a fantasy where Rey chose someone else but him. End the suffering Kylo feels every time he wakes up and the world is the same as it was when he went to sleep.

Yes, it should be a comfort. Kylo should seek him out to cure him. To fix his broken mind.

Except… Snoke has never fixed anything. The Dark side doesn't work like that. It can reshape and change and grow, but not heal.

And, when Snoke takes the dreams away, he'll take the child along with him. The boy will be gone, even through he was never really here. The visions will not have had enough time to lead him down the path of their intention.

That thought alone is enough to make Kylo balk. Make him dodge his master's summons yet again.

Kylo is being shown this for a reason, and he has to see it out.

Because the will of the force must not be denied. Not for anyone.

That night, Kylo threw himself into the dream with gusto.

He was still sleeping on Rey's former bed for reasons that he can't even pretend aren't obsessive and more than a little pathetic. He's quite sure that the dreams will come to him regardless of where he sleeps, so he closes his eyes and wills himself into the land of the unconscious.

And he had found a BB unit as a companion to the child.

There was symmetry in that. It seemed like a natural choice, and hopefully one that afforded the child a sense of home and familiarity despite the circumstances.

This unit was an older model that had a distinctive personality and a curious nature. Kylo personally found it highly annoying, especially with the unit's propensity to get in the way underfoot, but it seemed a more warm and personable choice than a standard serving droid.

The boy is playing with him when Kylo enters his room.

Or rather, to be more accurate, the droid the child named BB0 is attempting to entertain him with some of the First Order's flight training videos because they were the closest thing to a children's movie that Kylo could obtain without raising too many eyebrows. Desmond seemed to be terribly grateful for even the inanimate company, and he looked like he didn't want to hurt the robot's feelings so he was at least pretending to pay attention.

It made for an amusing scene: a wildly powerful force sensitive child and an ambling and high-strung robot both trying to make a good impression on each other.

"Desmond."

Kylo still hasn't gotten used to the child's name. When he has Rey again, and presumably when she's calm enough to speak to him rationally, he'll have to find out why she picked that title for him.

Desmond looks over at him as he walks closer, the door to his cell sliding closed behind him. The half smile on the child's face falls and Kylo mentally kicks himself and immediately takes off his mask.

The boy eyes the offending object in Kylo's hand with a slight frown as it gets set down on the foot of his cot. The cell he has been placed in is sparsely furnished, with only token interest in a prisoner's comfort taken into consideration. But it had been cleaned at least, Kylo notes with approval. The furniture is back in place and, aside from a few random odds and ends that are curiously out of order. Catching his eye in particular is a small plastic drink cup that has somehow worked its way up onto a high shelf in the room. Far higher than Desmond or the BB unit could reach. There's no furniture near it that could have been climbed on, and he highly doubts a careless Stormtrooper would have randomly put it there.

"So you haven't been trying to escape anymore. That's good. You wouldn't have been able to make it out anyhow."

Desmond seems a little put out by that pronouncement. Kylo leans closer to him, waiting for him to confess. Instead of being intimidated, the little spitfire scowls and crosses his arms, swinging his legs angrily against the open space below the frame of his cot.

"Do you like your new clothes?" Kylo asks, changing the subject now that he's sure his point has been received.

Desmond looks down at himself. The simple tunic and pants that he'd been taken in have been replaced with a blue and black flannel plaid pajama set. It was hardly dignified and not really suitable for outerwear, but it was also literally the only child's sized garment in stock that wasn't jet black from head to toe.

The First Order truly needs a little more imagination, Kylo muses, but he could easily say the same thing about his own sartorial choices.

"I really wish you'd talk to me," he sighs as the silence stretches between them uncomfortably.

BB0 whirs back and forth in the sidelines, holding its holovid datapad at the ready for when its services are needed. The moniker the child had chosen for him had been based off the droid's tattered paint where his original model number had faded to an unreadable, rounded shape. Kylo hadn't pressed him to pick a more interesting name because, frankly, he didn't really care. The droid was merely a crutch to ease the child's crippling loneliness until a better solution could be arranged.

'Do you prefer to talk to me in your head?' Kylo projects into Desmond's mind, following a hunch of what might be the problem.

The boy's head snaps up to him, and it looks like he's finally given up glaring at his shoes and waiting for Kylo to leave.

'Mom said that I shouldn't.'

Kylo's eyebrows raise. He is very curious to know what exactly Rey had been telling her son about the Force.

'It's alright with me, I can do it to. Do you talk to your mother like this?'

Desmond presses his lips together and his foot bounces excitedly. BB0 whirs closer, datapad extending. Kylo waves him away with a push of the Force, noticing how the boy's interest spikes at the simple display of power.

'Yeah. But… I can't do it with my dad. Mom said not to try because it upsets him.'

Kylo frowns as a few interesting parallels and differences are coming into focus. But Han had been more nervous or bewildered than upset when Ben's powers had first started to develop.

It would have been interesting to know Desmond as a young child. As a younger child. At what age did his connection with the Force first show itself? Where there tremors of it even as an infant, and he was able to nudge his mother into knowing what he wanted instead of simply crying his little head off like more basic children do?

Rather than ask the boy more questions he's unlikely to be able to answer, Kylo turns his attention back to that errant cup on the high shelf. It had been out of order enough to bother the back of his mind for their entire short time together.

"How did that get up there?"

Kylo gestures at it with a crook of his head. Desmond follows his gaze and his shoulders jump when he figures out what Kylo's referring to.

"I don't know."

Desmond turns his attention back to swinging his legs and thunking the heel his shoes against the leg of his cot. BB0 shrinks deeper into the background, sensing the child's obvious discomfort as much as Kylo can even without the aid of the Force.

'Yes. You do know. So why don't you tell me?'

The child tries to ignore the voice projected into his head. He pouts and frowns and pretends that the space between his feet is the most interesting thing in the room. Kylo nudges him with the Force, goosing him gently between his shoulder blades, and the boy jumps slightly.

'They put it there,' Desmond offers. He's a little more chatty with telepathy, though only slightly. Kylo doesn't mind. There's something extremely pleasing about witnessing Rey's son use his abilities so naturally.

A beat passes between them as Kylo waits. The child is clearly lying.

'No. They didn't. You did.' Kylo insists when it becomes clear that he's being consciously ignored.

Desmond pulls a face and looks down again. He doesn't want to admit to it. Why does he feel the need to hide his powers? What have others been telling him about this?

Kylo knows very little about young children. Or older children. Or humans in general. But he does know it helped before to get down to eye level or below with the child.

He tried that with the boy's mother once once it didn't really work, but those were extenuating circumstances.

So he kneels down on the floor to the side of the child. The boy looks at him and Kylo can feel him poking at the periphery of his mind. He has no chance of getting very far, nothing beyond what Kylo choses to let him sense, but the fact that he's trying it at all is remarkable.

"Why are you afraid to use your powers?" Kylo tries again. "Did someone tell you not to?"

The poke at his mind grows firmer. It's enough to make his temple itch slightly. These are critical formative years. The child needs to learn to grow and control his abilities now or he'll face a great deal of problems later.

"My mom told me."

That answer had not been what Kylo was expecting. He'd had visions of Desmond being picked on by simple, jealous children back at whatever Resistance base he'd been growing up on.

"Rey? Why wouldn't Rey want you to use your powers?"

It doesn't make sense. He's already somewhat skilled at the basics. Telepathy and telekinesis and perhaps a few other things as well. Those aren't the sort of abilities he would have been able to refine on his own without guidance.

"Because it scares people. She said not to do it when she's not there."

Once more Kylo has to ponder what sort of role Skywalker has had in the boy's short life. With Rey being his prized apprentice he can only imagine the drama that her pregnancy and Desmond's birth would have brought to the old man.

"You can do it around me. It's alright. I'm not afraid of you."

Desmond shakes his head quickly. He's not a fool. He knows who Kylo Ren is, though the details of what he's been told will make all the difference in these next few days.

Rather than belabor the point and try to convince the child to accept his words, Kylo extends his arm in the direction of the cup on the shelf and uses far more of the Force than necessary to bring it through the air into his hand. He wants Desmond to feel how he did that and, since the boy likes to hover over the surface of his mind like a satellite anyhow, it seems the most effective way to teach him.

"Here," Kylo opens his palm and rests the cup there out of reach of the boy's arms. "Now you try it. Bring it to you."

BB0 watches curiously, and Kylo makes a mental note to have it's storage wiped later on before it goes back into general use.

Desmond hesitates, but curiosity ripples off of him. He frowns, his small features scrunching up as he concentrates.

The cup lifts by a few millimeters than plops back down. He tries again, his will commanding it to move, and again he fails within a matter of seconds.

And then the boy pushes away, both mentally and physically. He flops over and turns his back to Kylo, hanging his head slightly.

Oh. He's embarrassed.

Desmond actually had been trying to move it, but for some reason he couldn't. Not when Kylo was around. He'd seemingly had no problem with sending it and other pieces around his room when he was alone. The only new variable was Kylo himself.

The realization hits Kylo like a punch to the stomach. That's right, he himself is the problem.

The boy is profoundly on the side of the light. There's virtually no darkness in him. Hardly even any grey. The inky black fissures in Kylo's force signature had been sapping away at him through the shaky link the boy had made to his mind. Kylo's own prolific darkness had literally been blocking the child's connection to the Force.

He stands up abruptly then, not wanting to take anything more away from the child than he already accidentally had.

"Perhaps you are tired and need to sleep," Kylo suggests, hurriedly edging to the far side of the room and the door. "Rest for a while and then try again. I'll be back very soon. I have… an idea for something that might help."

Rey had often called him crazy.

An insane, certifiable lunatic. Those had been her exact words. Turns out that she was probably right.

How else beyond a failing mental balance could Kylo explain why he felt so guilty? He had promised Desmond that he would only be gone for a few short hours. Then he had awoken back into the real world and it was already nearly time for him to rise and begin his day. All over again. The endless cycle.

Desmond would have to wait all day for many more hours than he'd told him it would be before he returned.

And he felt such guilt about that. Guilt that he had let a figment of his mind down. This isn't normal. This isn't the way a sane, adult man should think. Perhaps he really is going insane.

Once there had been a time that Kylo would have given anything to never dream again. During his transformation from Ben Solo into his new self his dreams had been…

There is no rest for the wicked. He could escape his past during the daytime, but at night there was no exit. It had taken him years to be able to sleep dreamlessly. Now all he wants is to stay in his dreams forever. The world his mind has created is so much better than the truth.

When he collapses onto Rey's mattress that night, it's with a deep sigh of unknowable emotions.

"You can control it with your mind. It takes quite a bit of practice and skill, but once you learn the techniques it can be quite a lot of fun."

Kylo has no idea what fun is for a 5 year old. He assumes that honing his command of the Force into the needle-like precision required to transform the light suspended in the glass orb would not provide a child with much amusement. Still… upselling it and all that.

He demonstrates again, making a show of concentrating and commanding the light to change colors and then bounce around the container like a firefly in a glass. It was a deceptively simple exercise. One that was similar to what Skywalker had taught him when he was a very young student.

Kylo refuses to follow that line of thought any further. No point in losing his temper around Desmond. The boy has reason to fear him enough as it is.

Instead, he tries to hand the orb over, eager to see what the child can do with it.

"I don't want it."

Kylo blinks twice at the child's deadpan rebuttal. It was rude of him, but pardonable because of his age. And it was also a lie. He'd seen how Desmond's eyes had lit up as the light in the ball had flickered and changed. He does indeed want to play with it, but won't say so out loud because he's a stubborn son of a Scavenger who always has to be so difficult about every little concession that's asked of him.

"No? Are you sure?"

Kylo makes the light bounce and blink, changing colors like a kaleidescope.

Desmond presses his little mouth into a grim line and scowls. It's… adorable. He looks like an angry kitten.

"I'll give it to you," Kylo prompts, holding back the urge to smirk and the child's obvious interest. "I'll give it to you and it will be yours to keep. But, first, you need to show me that you know how to use it. These kind of things are very valuable. And very fragile. I need to know if you're ready for a challenge like this yet."

The orb is neither unusual or worth particularly much, but Kylo hopes to bolster they boy's ego into accepting it. A trick like that would have worked on Ben, so it's worth the try now, isn't it?

Again Desmond probes at his mind. He's a very mental child. Very cerebral. It's unusual to try to read thoughts this young. Normally very young Force sensitives feel emotions but don't actively seek out the thoughts behind them.

"You want me to-" Desmond begins to say, but then stops himself.

Kylo sighs. Talking to the boy is like verbal quicksand. Every time he thinks he's gaining a footing, the landscape changes and all progress sinks down into the mire.

"Use the Force. Bring it to you and out of my hand."

Kylo holds his palm wide open. The boy stares at him with a look of blatant mistrust. So much like his mother. Impossible to reason with and frustrating to boot.

Then Desmond reaches out with his hand. Tries to snatch it out of Kylo's grasp.

"No," Kylo says quickly, standing up and effectively moving the toy out of the boy's short range. "I told you to use the Force. Use your powers. If you want this, you have to use your mind to get it."

Desmond doesn't like that one bit. His eyes narrow and his little hands ball into fists. He really is like a kitten: hissing and ineffectual but ready to claw to get at his prize.

"I don't want it. Go away."

Desmond crosses his arms and looks away, irritation prickling off of him like a coat of thorns.

It's frustrating because he's so unreasonable. But if he thinks he can manipulate Kylo through a tantrum he's about to be in for a rude awakening.

"Alright then, I'll leave if you want me to," Kylo says cooly. "I will come back tomorrow and we can try this again."

Desmond refuses to look at him. Glares at the wall but Kylo knows that he hears him. BB0 is wisely tucked into a corner, pretending to be in a cache cycle but kriff it if even the droid doesn't want to get between the this.

Kylo sets the orb on a high shelf, the one that had the cup on it earlier. Then he nudges the shelf a few millimeters with the Force, making it hang at an imperceptible angle.

He steps away and the ball begins to slowly roll down. Desmond's alarm spikes through the Force. He's too obstinate to go near Kylo to catch it before it rolls off completely and smashes into the floor.

It rolls. Further. Faster. Reaches the edge.

And tips over it.

"Nhh!" Desmond's hand flies out, pushing with it a wave of power. The delicate glass ball hovers a few inches above ruination on the hard tile floor. It stays there, bobbing and suspended in the air by the boy's will.

Kylo breaks out into a wide smile. He watches as the boy beckons the ball over to him and it wavers through the air, ducking and dipping in a manner that's as unsteady as the child's own grasp of the Force. But it lands safely in his hand and he latches onto it, holding it against his chest and glaring up at Kylo as if he expects him to take it away.

This is the most progress they have made yet.

Gradually the boy's shoulders gradually relax and he redirects his attention away from the his looming captor and toward his prize.

The lights inside the ball glow and flicker, changing color as the boy tries to focus his abilities.

"Good," Kylo praises, trying not to feel too pleased with himself lest the boy detect upon that. "You're learning already. See what else you can make it do. It's very sensitive to power, so you'll need to use precision to manipulate it."

"You're leaving?" Desmond asks, looking up at him as Kylo begins to turn to the door.

It has been a long, long time since anyone has said that to Kylo without relief in their voice.

"I have places I need to be." And people that I need to find. "Would you like me to come back again?"

Desmond presses his lips together in a now increasingly familiar gesture. But he nods and it's enough for Kylo. Little victories and all of that.

He has an odd impulse to walk over there and pat his head. Squeeze his shoulder and tell him he's glad that he has him here. But that would be too much. Today was progress. Once his mother is brought here, the changes can be accelerated.

"Alright, Desmond. I will come back when I can. And I expect to see you have a mastery over that light when I return or it be taken away from you, do you understand?"

The boy's eyes widen. He nods quickly, poking and prodding at the cheap novelty toy with renewed vigor.

Kylo leaves his room with a saunter in his step. He returns to the world of the living feeling that, for the first time in a long while, perhaps things are going well.


Next chapter:

Raising a Force-sensitive child requires someone with boundless patience, compassion, and understanding. And then there's Kylo.