Published February 3, 2018

"The Force Connects"

If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Driftwood

Kylo Ren sensed Leia Organa's presence on the Raddus, just as clearly as he had sensed Han Solo's arrival on Starkiller Base. His mother was on the bridge of the ship he was supposed to destroy.

He tried to convince himself to go through with it. He listed all the reasons why he should. She had neglected and deceived him throughout his childhood. She had abandoned him to Luke Skywalker's custody—not out of malice, perhaps, but out of negligence, lack of trust in her son, and misjudgment of her brother's character.

She should hate him now, for everything he had done in the past decade, even the past few days. But Kylo sensed no anger in Leia's recognition of him. Instead there was immense sadness and apprehension. What fear she harbored was more for her crew than herself.

Kylo had killed his father, proven that he could and would do whatever Snoke wanted, and yet Snoke was still not pleased with him. Why should he cause himself more pain without reward? With these thoughts, he pulled his finger off the trigger.

He saw the explosion, and knew, in some part of his mind, that she must be dead, but he felt no shift in the Force. It was as though she were present but not aware of him—perhaps unconscious.

The next presence he felt through the Force was that of a different Force-sensitive woman. The most surprising part of it was that it was completely inexplicable: Kylo and Rey were nowhere near each other, yet they felt and even saw each other as clearly as if they were in the same room.

Rey reacted the same way she had when she encountered Kylo in the forests of Takodana and Starkiller Base: her first instinct was to hurt him before he could hurt her. Kylo was so confused, his reaction time was off. Normally, if someone shot a projectile toward him in a fight, he would either evade it or use the Force to halt it in midair. Now, he did not have enough time or the clarity of mind to do anything; but Rey's blaster shot did not reach him, though his body reacted with a jerk in expectation of pain.

Kylo was startled, bemused, and intensely curious (as he continuously was around Rey). He was immediately determined to figure out what was happening and how he could use it to his advantage. If Rey was still looking for Luke Skywalker, she could bring him to the First Order. But when Kylo held out his hand and gave the command, she did nothing, except continue to stare, her fear making room for rising anger. Kylo realized he should have known better: she had learned to withstand Force mind tricks when he interrogated her on Starkiller Base.

"You going to pay for what you did!" she seethed. She did not know that he was already paying. He had thought the feelings of conflict would cease once he made his decision and saw it through. Instead they had intensified and he felt them more often than not. Where before he had felt apprehension about what he might have to do, now he felt guilt for what he had done. Certainty had replaced uncertainty, in a way, and it was hard to tell which was worse. His failure was not in the deed but in his emotions, not in actions but in attitude. He was not heartless enough to satisfy Snoke.

Kylo gathered that his and Rey's current situations bore some similarities. They were both contending with a mentor's disappointment, as well as their own isolation and failure. Though Rey did not reveal details about Luke Skywalker's current state, Kylo sensed her emotions relating to him. Evidently, she thought Kylo an ungrateful traitor to a heroic relative. But she barely knew half of the story, and what she did know of it came from Luke's half.

From the moment Kylo had discovered her strength and sensitivity to the Force, he had wanted her to grow in her power, to reach her potential. If she intended to learn from the last Jedi, and possessed as much darkness as Kylo had sensed in her, she ought to know, for her own sake, how Luke Skywalker would react to discovering such power.

While Kylo was intrigued by the connection between them, Rey hated it. She hated that her enemy could taunt her and rekindle all the negative emotions she had dealt with lately. He may not have been the greatest enemy of the Resistance—that would be Snoke, the highest source of power in the Dark Side and the First Order. But Kylo Ren was the enemy for whom Rey felt the most personal hatred.

When she stood under the Millennium Falcon in her poncho, reaching out to feel the rain, it reminded her of the last time she had experienced rain, in one of those frightening visions prompted by touching Luke's light saber in Maz Kanata's cellar. In one of them, water was falling on her, all around her, and on the masked creatures wielding red light sabers. Less than an hour later she had met their leader, not in a vision but in the flesh.

The man who kept appearing to her through the Force was the same one who had paralyzed her in the forest, held his saber up to her neck, separated her from her friends, invaded her mind, withdrew her most private secrets, killed Han, and wounded Finn. She had every right to call him a snake, a monster. Yet when he admitted that she was right to describe him as such, it left her confused. How self-aware was he? Did he recognize the wrongness of his actions? Did he simply not care? Or was it possible that he regretted them?

Seeing him half undressed was unnerving in multiple ways. It was not that he looked particularly good or bad—Rey hardly knew what traits were considered beautiful or ugly in their species—but having so much skin exposed made him seem vulnerable in a way that clashed with how she thought—should think—wanted to think about him. It was easier to hate Kylo Ren when he was unknown or invisible, a creature in a mask rather than a person with a face. Rey did not want to see his face, or any more of him. She did not want to be reminded of his humanity, his physicality, his mortality. She did not want to see how similar they were—the same species, even some common physical traits, like light skin and dark hair. The sight of the scars she had dealt him should have given her some satisfaction, but it did not.

For the first time, she asked him to explain himself. While he stood bare physically, she bared herself emotionally, tears flowing, voice choking, as she demanded why he had killed his father.

Instead of answering directly, Kylo turned the conversation back to Rey, to her own parents who had abandoned her more completely and more heartlessly than Han and Leia had abandoned him to Luke. She needed to let go of her parents, as well as the mythos of Luke Skywalker and the Jedi. The sooner she recognized her weakness, the sooner she would be able to remedy it.

He asked again if Luke had told her what happened the night he destroyed the Jedi temple. Rey replied affirmatively, but Kylo recognized that was not the case—either she was lying about having been told, or Luke had lied to her in his telling. So Kylo told her what he had experienced: waking up to the sound of a light saber, turning from his side to look up, and seeing his uncle and teacher with weapon raised to murder him. It was the first time he had told anyone what happened that night, besides Snoke and the other Jedi padawans who had joined him.

Rey tried to brush it off as lies, but he had planted seeds of doubt where she had been trying to grow hope and faith. If she was going to find the truth, she first needed to want it, and then she would have to seek it for herself.

Author's Note: I'm taking a hiatus for Lent (February 14-April 1 this year), but I have updates planned for April, May, and June.