"Come on, wake up," it wasn't Ben's voice. I remember him waking me the few times I used to sleep in the torture chair. He would gently speak to me until I was awake. Sometimes he would watch me until I sensed his presence. But who was calling me back from the dead place wasn't Ben. It was a woman.
My eyes open. I am soaking wet in something, maybe it is blood or sweat. I am wrapped in a blanket.
"Get up Rey," the voice sounds irritated. My head feels clear. My hair is loose and hanging around my face in wet tangled bundles. I force myself to a sitting, and cough a few times. I look over at the woman who was talking. She is working at something. They look like my clothes, she seems to be washing them. I am naked wrapped in the blanket. I blink over at her in confusion.
"Don't sit there like an idiot. Get up and get yourself cleaned up." The woman told me. She seemed to be talking to a child that wouldn't listen.
"Where am I?" I ask. My voice is scratchy and hoarse.
"Don't worry about that. Just go get cleaned up." The woman insists. I stand and walk across the cold floor to her.
"Where am I?"
"What makes you think you're so special huh?" the woman sighs. "No go wash yourself off so I don't have to." The woman points to a small door. I walk over to it and it opens for me. I step in and water starts shooting out of the ceiling. I drop the blanket outside the room and let the water wash me clean. I see a disturbing amount of blood that washed off of me. I stepped out of the little room and draped the blanket over my shoulders.
The woman is draping my blood stained clothes on a line. She glanced over at me.
"You can dress in that until your clothes are dry." She points at a dark blue jumpsuit that lays on a small shelf next to me. I stand where I am. I don't want to do what she asks, so I just stand there and she just stares at me.
"Where is Ben?" I ask. She glares at me.
"Don't speak that name in these halls again." The woman snaps at me. She walks closer to me, grabs the jumpsuit and shoves it into my arms. I grab it from her as she glares at me.
"Just because you are Kylo Ren's favorite doesn't mean you can go slurring him like that."
"Slurring him?" I stutter. This woman was starting to get on my nerves. I clutch the close to my chest and shove her shoulder and walk away.
"You better watch it Rey," the woman hisses. "Snoke isn't going to keep you here forever, when he realizes it is just Kylo is being soft he will kill you."
"Being soft?" I glance at her confused. She sighs and walks across the room to the door, it slides open for her.
"He stopped you from being tortured because he has a soft spot for you. He convinced Snoke that you were better here, training to be with us." I don't respond. "I don't know why Kylo Ren chose you of all people." She hisses. "He should better." The door shuts behind her. I walk up to the door but it won't open for me. I change into the clothes and sit on the small bunk that is in the corner. I tuck my knees under my chin and try to think more clearly.
After about an hour I have searched the room for anything I might use as a weapon. But everything is either too small or attached to the wall. I finally settle with sitting on the bed and waiting for something to happen.
The lights dim to a low blue glow. I assume that means it is night time. But the last thing I wanted to do was sleep. I sit staring at the door. Until he enters. It is maybe three or four hours. And he walks in and stand in front of me.
He seems surprised I am awake. Maybe he wanted to come in while I slept. He has his mask off, his black curly hair is damp. He looks at me with those piercing black eyes and shakes as he stands.
"Your awake." His deep voice says. I only swallow in response. I am not quite sure what I should say. Why did he bring me here? Why did he stop the torture? But somehow I am oddly comforted in seeing him. This room is unfamiliar, the woman I didn't know. The water from the ceiling was strange. But his face is the same as it was when I saw it last. His eyes had the same piercing intensity when he told me of his hopes for me to join him against Snoke.
"Aren't you going to say anything?" he asks quietly. I realize I have been staring at him in silence for the past few minutes. I don't want to say anything, so I just look away and take a deep breath. He is getting impatient with me now. He used to do a lot of that when we were in the torture room. "Say something." I glance back at him.
"Where am I?" he looks relieved I can speak still. Like my silence was slowly killing him.
"It doesn't matter," he tells me. "You are safe for now." He reaches out his hand, and when I flinch at it he draws back. "Snoke cannot get you here. You will be safe until I can get you off planet."
Off planet? Where was he planning on taking me?
"I don't understand." I stare at him blankly. I think of the torture I endured. I remember the deal he tried to make.
"You and I, we can finally belong to something." I wanted that more than my freedom. I had made a promise to Han after Starkiller base. I had looked up to the stars and promised him I would bring Ben back to the light. That I would try until my dying breath. His deal seemed like the best option for starting down that path.
"I am getting you away from Snoke."
"But what about your deal, about bringing back the Jedi?" I stretch my legs out and he pulls back as if I am a dangerous animal.
"I was wrong," he says turning away from me. "We can't go against Snoke, not like that."
"Of course we can." I tell him, standing from the bed. "You and I remember, us, together."
"You only wanted to deal with Ben. And Ben is dead." He tells me. I scream at him in frustration. He looks over at me startled.
"How are you so thick? How can you possibly believe that? You are Ben, right now, he never left."
"You're lying."
"No! It's true. He is right here." I jab a finger at his chest and he grips my wrist. For a terrifying moment I think he is going to hit me. For an even more terrifying moment I see as he realizes how he wants to hit me, and he stops himself.
He stands holding my wrist. I stand staring at his eyes, that are darting across the room franticly.
"Ben, stop hiding from this." He finally looks me in the eyes. I almost fall apart because of the hurt I see in them.
"But it's too painful to face Rey," he whispers softly. "You don't understand." I stare at him.
"I can try to understand." I tell him. He shakes his head and I feel like I am losing him.
"I killed him Rey. I killed my father." It sounds like a confession, but he spit the words out like venom. I hold his eyes with mine.
"I know." I tell him. He lets go of my wrist. I think he intends to leave. He would do that when he was torturing me, leave when I started to get to him. I don't let him leave this time. I quickly step forward and embrace him. It scares him as much as it does me. But I bury my face into his cloak and refuse to move.
His body is rigid and shaking. I can do nothing but hold onto him. Tears leak out of the corner of my eyes.
"Ben," I say quietly. "You are enough, just Ben is enough. I don't need Kylo Ren." I am afraid he doesn't hear me. I am afraid he will pull me off and leave. But his body starts to relax. And it starts to shudder in his sobs.
"You are the first to ever tell me that," he tells me.
"I know." I tell him back.