A breath…
Another breath…
Harsh.
It rattles around inside her and she opens her eyes.
She blinks and finally manages to peer through something that half-blocks her view. She's looking up, far up, though she can't see much in the darkness. As her eyes move around, she realizes she can just barely see through a small slit and she finds she has to move her whole head in order to peer around the room she's in.
Her head feels heavy.
She takes another breath and it's hot and heavy against her face. She has no room to breathe and her breaths get more and more shallow, more and more panicked.
Ants inside her brain…
Crawling through her veins…
"Rise, my apprentice…"
And she does so without thinking, trying to see through the gloom of wherever she is. Her head turns to the left, the right. Nothing.
Ahead of her is only darkness and she steps forward.
Her head feels heavy.
Her feet feel heavy.
She can barely lift her arms up and so her gait is clumsy and staggering.
Where am I?
There's laughter then, from all around her. Cold, malevolent. She shudders beneath the heaviness. There is a horror crawling through her mind, ripping through her thoughts with long, spindly fingers and a snarl of dissatisfaction.
"Always so unfocused, my apprentice," the voice muses and she still cannot see it.
Inhuman.
Another step forward.
Another breath.
She tries to speak…who are you?...and the voice that comes out is distorted. The words are gibberish and still the voice laughs.
"Step forward," it commands and she does so. She cannot resist it, cannot get away. It pulls her closer even while she fights it. And then she's there. And it leans down close to her.
She cannot look away.
Its eyes are close, its mouth almost human in its sneer, its face humanoid and scarred. The creature is both massive and small at the same time, dressed in the flamboyant trappings of a human while yet retaining the feeling of malevolent horror of an ancient evil.
"You know who I am," it says. "And you will not escape."
She comes awake with a gasp, sweat plastering her loose hair to the sides of her face, her hands scrabbling for purchase. Sucking in breaths of cool air, she rolls to her side and nearly wretches at the dizzying sensation of movement. "Kriff," she mutters as she tries to calm herself, finally managing to push up and out of the bed, landing heavily on the floor.
She needs out of the small room.
She needs space.
There's not much on the Falcon, but she needs out. Maybe the cockpit, where there's the viewports and hyperspace all around her. Something, anything that will allow her to feel like there's more around her than the closed in space of her room, the darkness of that nightmare room.
More kriffing nightmares.
She's out of her room before she can even think of what she's doing. It doesn't matter that she's still wearing her nightclothes. She just needs air and she can't find it in the close confines of her room.
Only a step or two outside the room, the door slamming shut behind her, she runs into something. Something hard and yet immovable and when that same something reaches out to grip her arms, she looks up.
And up.
"Kylo." His name comes out on an exhale of a breath.
His hands are still gripping her shoulders and his eyes are boring into hers and she realizes that he's at least as much of a mess as she is. His hair is askew, long wavy strands sticking out at odd angles. His shirt is loose about his waist, unbelted, one leg of his pants is stuck up around his knee while the other goes to the floor. He looks, for wont of a better word, completely wrecked.
And the tightness to his shoulders, the dark look in his eyes, all tell a similar story.
"What was that?" she asks.
He says nothing, but she can feel him grow ever tenser. He leans in close to her for a second and she's almost afraid he's going to hug her. Ridiculous that, the thought of Kylo Ren hugging her. Perhaps even more ridiculous is that a small part of her longs for that sort of comfort and might actually accept it.
But then he releases her, pushing back, His eyes scan the hallway, wild. She can see the whites of his eyes and can feel the terror that flows off of him in waves.
He knows, she realizes.
He knows what that was, who that was. And she's just about to ask him, beg him to explain because she doesn't understand how she's gotten mixed up in this. These are his nightmares, she realizes. His and now hers. He's been in her mind and she's been in his and now they're all…mixed up…somehow.
She can still feel her breath…his breath…against the insides of the mask, can feel the terror and shame and horror of it all, the icy fingers of cold dread and death digging into his heart. Is that what it's always like to be him?
"Yes," he hisses at her and then he's gone, storming away from her. She's left watching his retreating back. For a moment, she contemplates going after him but she feels something hit her. A wave of something, a feeling, dark and hard, and she thinks better of it.
What are you even doing? Somehow she's forgotten. Forgotten he's the enemy, the creature who hunted her through the forest and ripped her very thoughts from her mind. With a snarl, she turns away from where he's disappeared and heads to the cockpit. Chewbacca should be there and he's a comforting presence, if nothing else. He doesn't ask questions but offers a near-silent sounding board when she needs him. She can see why Han Solo had gravitated to the massive Wookiee. There's a kindness there, despite rumors that he'll rip your arms off as soon as look at you.
She doesn't find Chewbacca in the cockpit though and her eyes settle on Han as he swivels to look at her as she enters. "Can't sleep, kid?"
Traces of the nightmare are still just beyond the periphery of her vision. "No." Her voice cracks on the word and she cringes.
Han watches her for a moment longer. "Nightmares?" he asks and she finds herself surprised at just how in tune the old smuggler is with people. There's something there, in the kindness of those light eyes, that makes her want to break down and tell him everything.
But the words choke up inside her before they can come out. She nods, even though she's not sure if they're really nightmares. Memories, perhaps, of Kylo Ren's time in the First Order. Or something much, much worse.
Han looks like he wants to ask questions and she steels herself for having to answer…or evade if necessary. Instead, he turns away from her and his voice turns a little sad, a little nostalgic. "Ben used to have them…nightmares like that. They haunted him most of his young life."
Rey comes to sit down in the other seat, watching Han carefully. "Always?" she asks. She doesn't know why.
Han doesn't answer for a moment, but instead leans toward her, watching her carefully, eyes searching out something in her face. He must have found it because he leans back suddenly. "Something happened between you two." He doesn't even phrase it as a question. He doesn't have to. He knows and she doesn't know how. "He captured you, didn't he? Took you to his ship?" he says in response to her unasked question.
"That's what happens when you're being hunted by a creature in a mask…"
And then he wasn't.
Then he was a young man, smooth unmarred skin, only marked by numerous moles. Long wavy hair framing an intense face.
She remembers looking him up and down.
She remembers the shiver that passed through her.
"He…" she starts to say, though she has no idea just what she intended to say.
"Look," Han says as he leans forward again and there's an intensity behind his eyes she's not seen before. "I don't need to know the details. Whatever happened, that's between you and my son. But just…" And here his voice breaks, just a tiny bit, and she feels the well of tears that threaten to spill any second at the sound. "Give him a chance? He's not that monster. Not anymore. He's turned his back on it."
She thinks of the nightmare.
She thinks of his being trapped, hiding behind that mask while something malevolent haunts him.
"Are you sure of that?" she whispers. Because it's there. It's still there. Not even deep inside him, right there, just below the surface. It's waiting to come out. And worse, it's trying to get into her mind. She can feel it, like claws poking at her mind, weaving its way into thoughts that are sometimes darker than she'd like.
"He's here, isn't he?"
She takes a deep breath. "He is."
"I think that counts for something."
"It probably does," she agrees. But she's not really sure. She remembers his telling his father he's only there because he would have killed him eventually and she suspects that he is that dark alien presence she'd seen in the nightmare.
"So give him a chance – " Han starts to say when she feels a presence behind her and she swivels toward the entrance of the cockpit.
Kylo is standing there. He leans against the doorframe and she knows if she wasn't watching him carefully, if she hadn't been there, a part of whatever his nightmare was, she'd think he looks completely calm and just a touch arrogant, arms crossed over his chest as they are. But no, she can see the dark circles beneath his eyes, can see the lines that aren't usually there around his lips.
His face is too pale, made even more so by the dark hair that's still sweat-slicked and slightly askew. He's made some attempt to brush it down over his ears, but he still looks disheveled. And lost, she realizes. There's a tightness to the corners of his eyes and she's not quite sure he's focusing on where he's looking.
His eyes rake over her, over her father. His lips tighten. And then he turns away and disappears, leaving Rey and his father to feel just a little bit guilty.
After a moment, Han lets out a small huff. "Kid never did like being talked about."
Rey turns to stare at him. She wants to ask, doesn't dare. Did they often? She knows their relationship is troubled, but she's assumed that it was his fall to the dark side that cut that rift so deeply between father and son, mother and son, even father and mother. But now there's something more. "Does anyone?" she shoots back at him, the words perhaps a bit more pointed than she'd met.
Han says nothing, watches her for a moment, and then finally nods.
There's meaning there.
She doesn't know what.
And she doesn't dare ask. Instead, she turns to stare out the viewport. There will be no more sleep for her that night, she's sure of it. And the unending deepness of space seems like a good place to lose herself until morning comes.
He can't sleep. Not that night. He's wracked with a pain of memories he's pushed away all these years.
I don't know, Leia. I don't like what he's becoming.
He's your son.
But he's something else.
Ben remembers mouthing the words himself. They won't voice them, but he can and he does.
Monster.
His parents never said it, not exactly, instead they danced around it in hushed conversations and loud fights. He was uncontrollable, there were the nightmares, terrifying and horrible, the temper that resulted in things moving around him in erratic ways. He was other to his father. He was him to his mother. Darth Vader. She'd feared him, as everyone did, but her fear was so much more personal, so much more terrifying.
But he'd never known.
No, instead, his mother had kept his own history from him. As if that might divorce him from it, make him something he couldn't possibly be. He was their son and yet the terror was there. Even from a small age, he remembers their fear.
Being feared was something Snoke wanted for him. Being feared was something Kylo Ren reveled in. Fear was power. Hate was power. Anger was power. And Ben Solo had learned when he was still toddling about in diapers that people feared his powers. It's a strange thing, really, looking back on his parents and realizing they didn't sleep at night because of what such a young child might do.
He ends up back in his quarters after hearing his father talking about him with Rey. Give him a chance… A chance to do what? Kill her? Kill them all?
Maybe I should have let Luke…
He stops the thought before it can go further, but the sentiment bubbles up inside him anyway, racing like fire through his skin. His hands clench into fists, muscles tense. It's a sharper sensation without the gloves he's worn for so long, nails digging into his palms until he draws blood. His mouth opens in a snarl and he reaches out, not with the Force, but with one fist, to connect with the wall.
Durasteel is not forgiving.
It does not bend.
It does not shatter.
It does not break.
And so he pummels it, one hit after another, after another. His lips drawn back in a snarl of pain, of rage and hate and that ever-present terror that he detests more than anything. Snoke has seen to it that he will always feel it, sliding into his head whenever he dare tries to break his mind away.
Even now? Now, as he rages, he feels the dark side welling up inside him like a parasite that won't let go and Snoke is there. He can sense him. Taunting. Laughing. That wheezing noise that passes through whatever shriveled organs he considers lungs.
Kill them, he hears in between his breaths and the sound of his fist hitting the wall.
You're in the perfect position…
All you have to do is…
He doesn't let the voice finish, shouting into the void, throwing up wall after wall to cut it off.
"No!" he shouts, feeling every vein and artery in his body on fire as he tears himself away from his former master. As he collapses to the ground, he can still hear the echo of Snoke's laughter deep inside his mind, echoing away into nothing.
I'll always be here, Kylo Ren. You cannot escape…
She's dragging. That's the only way she can describe it. Somehow she managed to nod off in the cockpit. When she comes to, she's still curled around the co-pilot's seat, a blanket draped over her. Han is gone, hopefully to find his own sleep, if he can. There's a tension on the ship that she can feel rippling over her. The waves of it buffet her and for a moment she feels herself being pulled into the Sinking Fields, sand closing over her head.
She gasps.
Chewbacca turns in his seat and there's concern in the lines of his heavily furred face. He growls softly and she shakes her head. "I don't know."
She does, though. She can feel it…can feel him. The darkness that hovers around him, threatening to lash out or bury him alive in equal measures. It's there all around her, choking her with its acrid flavor. The darkness has never been so close, so terrible, so beautiful. And she has to choke back the sob that threatens to overwhelm her.
Chewbacca gives another growl.
She blinks and the world comes back into focus. "I think I need to hit the 'fresher." Maybe the hot water will clear her head. Maybe it will take the bad taste out of her mouth, chase the darkness from the corners of her mind.
As she steps into the hall beyond the cockpit, it's quiet. But she can feel a current of something roiling there beneath the peacefulness of the early morning hours. Han steps out of his room, rubbing sleep from his eyes.
He stops her there and there's a look in his eyes, not quite pity, maybe worry more than anything. "Did you sleep at all, kid?"
She shrugs. "A little." Sleep is not perhaps the term she'd use. She was somewhere between waking and sleeping, the visions too real to just be dreams. Kylo's presence leaves her unsettled in ways she'd rather not think about.
"Hmph," Han says in response.
"How long?" she says as he steps past her.
He turns back. "Not long now. Another hour or so by my calculations."
"So soon?" He nods and is gone then, disappearing into the cockpit, leaving her standing alone outside the door to her cabin.
And she realizes she's not quite sure she's ready for this. She feels something building, this Force that she's been exposed to, that's awakened inside her. She knows what it is, but not what to do with it.
She doesn't know if she wants to do anything with it.
She's terrified.
She shivers as she steps into the cooler confines of her cabin, wrapping her arms right around her. This thing that is alive inside her is not something she wants, has ever wanted. She wants to push it away, shove it in a box and seal it shut, never allowing it to see the light of day.
The sounds of the ship fade away around her and her spine straightens, eyes scanning the cabin for any sign of danger. Any sign of him.
You have to learn to control it, comes the voice in her head.
"I don't want to." She hates how petulant her voice sounds, even though there's no one there to hear her speak.
Without control, there is chaos.
"Get out of my head."
He's gained purchase in there, and the worst thing is she doesn't even know if the voice is really there or if she's just supplying it. Either way, it says nothing more and the sounds of the hyperdrive, the shifting of an old ship, all return.
"The 'fresher," she mutters. She needs to get ready to face Luke. The legend, the myth, whatever he might be. She's not sure what they'll find on this distant planet. But face him they will. And he'll either return with them, be the hope they need. Or not, and they'll have to find another way.
Either way, she has some sense that her life is about to change.
She just wishes she knew if it were for the better.
Or worse.
