"Wake up." A harsh voice said in her ear, startling her. She bolted upright, and noticed that the dark figure in front of her took a step back as she regained her poise.
"What are you doing here?" She asked, not even needing to look up to know who it was. The tone of his voice told her that his mask was once more off.
"I need you to tell me something." He stated. She waited for him to say more.
"Did you have anything particular in mind?" She was excited to see him, and yet simultaneously confused as to why he was here. What could he possibly want from her now?
"What were you doing on Jakku?"
His question took her aback. She had never realized that he would want to know why she had been there. It made sense though, in a strange way. She had left their old home shortly after General Organa had told her that Ben had gone missing.
"The base reminded me too much of you. I could not stand staying on D'Qar without you."
He was silent for a minute.
"What if he had come back?" She knew that he was referring to Ben, his old self, and it broke her heart a little to hear him refer to himself that way.
She stood up, walking towards him. He stepped away from her, apparently still slightly shook up from their last encounter. She had made him even more confused about his allegiance to the dark side than he was before he captured her.
"Were you planning to?" She countered, full well knowing his answer but needing to hear it at the same time.
"No."
She sat back down, feeling slightly defeated by his answer.
"But what if he had?" He asked, forcing her to answer him anyway.
"I knew you would be able to find me. I was right."
"Though not in the manner you had hoped for, I suspect."
''You could say that."
He turned his back on her, and she noticed a change in his demeanour. His shoulders tensed up, his hands curled into fists by his side; his entire body trembled with rage. She wondered what could possibly have made his mood change so quickly. He had always been volatile, even when they were younger, but nothing like this. Nothing like the man that stood in front of her now.
"Why choose Jakku? Why that deserted pit of a planet? What happiness could you possibly hope to find there?"
"Happiness? Who said I was looking for happiness? I was merely looking for a way to forget about you."
The tone of his voice changed once more; while it had been tinged with a hint of confusion before, it was now tinted with malice. Malice that cut her more deeply than she would have liked. She thought she had built up a resistance to him by now – it would seem she had been wrong.
"Do I disappoint you?" He asked, turning his head in her direction but still keeping his back turned on her.
His question was so unexpected that she did not know how to respond.
"Excuse me?" She said, unable to form a coherent sentence.
"Do I, disappoint you?"
"Yes." She said, deciding it was better to answer earnestly than to have him root around in her mind again. She half-expected him to pull out his lightsaber, but his hand did not even reach for the hilt as she had now seen him do so many times before.
"Why do you think that is?" He asked, his head turned away from her again. It was easier to answer now that he was not looking directly at her.
"Perhaps it's because you have shown a complete disregard for the family that loved you. Perhaps it's because you have disrespected everything you could have been. Everything you could have worked towards. Maybe it's because you have turned into a man I can barely recognize who still wears the face of a person that once meant the world to me. Maybe it is a combination of all these reasons. Perhaps you should just pick one for yourself and run with it." She said, challenging him. She was still sitting down, but she did not feel as small as she would have expected too. Instead, she felt empowered. She was the only one who could seem to get through to him on an emotional level. It was hard, and it was mostly unrewarding, but she was doing it. She was defying who he was trying to become. She was the one thing that stood in his way. It may have taken her a while to figure out, but she knew now. She was his only real adversary.
"There is more to it than that. Why were you hiding on Jakku?"
"What does it matter why I was hiding on Jakku?' she asked, becoming exasperated, 'Why does there need be an ulterior motive?"
"Because there always is one! There is always an ulterior motive. Even when we were younger, you would use anything you could to get your way, as long as you believed it was the right thing to do. You never do anything without calculating the risk and the worth, and there has to be a reason that you went to Jakku!" He shouted, but his eyes grew wide as he realized what he had just said.
Not once in the entire time that she had been there had he truly acknowledged that they had a past together. Not once had he used a memory of the two of them together to make a point. Yes, he had searched for them within her mind, but he had never acknowledged that they meant anything to him. He had never admitted that there was a part of him that remembered.
"Why did you come here?" She asked, ignoring his hurried question. She could tell that he was becoming impatient, and she knew that that was dangerous territory to enter into, but she needed to know. She needed him to tell her why he kept coming to her. Why he was keeping her here. She needed to hear it from him.
"Why do you keep me here?" She asked, paraphrasing her previous question.
"I don't know." He whispered, his back still turned to her.
"Do not lie to me, Ben."
"My name is not – it's not Ben. It's not. It's not." He was repeating it to himself as though it was the only thing keeping him grounded to reality.
"Why am I still here?"
He did not answer her, but she could tell that he was losing his grip on whatever it was that made him Kylo Ren. His shoulders slumped, and he steadied himself against the wall, hanging his shaking head low, as if to clear his mind of whatever memories were clouding his judgement. Memories of the two of them, together.
"Do you want to know why I hid on Jakku?" She asked, trying to get him to respond to her. His body stilled in anticipation of her answer. She took it to mean that yes, he did want to know why she hid on Jakku. Desperately.
"I went there because it was the only planet that we had never planned to visit together. We made maps, Ben, we made journeys and trajectories of where we would go and how we would get there. We made plans to explore the galaxy as far and as wide as we could, and the only place we never promised to go to together was Jakku. Because you are right! It's a cesspit of a planet. Nothing truly good can happen there. People are lonely, they are desperate. The sun burns too hot and the water is filthy. But I went there because we never made a promise to go there together. And I had no good reason to break that promise. Not at the time, anyway."
He finally turned around, her words seeming to have roused an anger inside of him that she had not yet seen before. He turned, slowly, assuredly, and before she knew what to say to him to calm him down, he had grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her up against the wall. He did not use his body to keep her trapped this time, though. He merely used his physical strength to push her shoulders into the wall, manipulating the Force so that she could not move a single muscle. For a moment, she thought that the reason he was now using the Force to trap her was because he was too scared to get close to her – that he did not know what he could be capable of if he closed the gap between them. Her suspicions were confirmed as she felt a sharp pain in her head and he snarled in front of her. He had read her mind and heard her thoughts.
She gathered her courage once more, remembering the power that she held over him.
"I answered your question, now you answer mine." She said, putting as much authority into her voice as she could muster.
"And why would I do that?" His voice had become eerily quiet – it was the calm voice that he generally used to frighten her, but now she knew that he only did it to intimidate her whenever she was getting closer to the truth.
"Because if you did not want to, you would not be holding me hostage anymore."
Once more, he did not answer. She could tell that she had hit another nerve within him.
"Tell me why I make you so angry."
She could see the tremor in his cheek and feel the quivering of his fingers digging into her shoulders.
"Tell me why I make you so angry." She repeated. She felt she was deserving of an answer.
"You do not make me angry." He answered, enunciating every word as though he was trying to convince himself it was the truth.
"You are lying to me again, Ben Solo."
He took a small step closer to her, and she could feel herself warm as his body heat and sheer power radiated off of him. It seemed he had finally regained some of his Kylo Ren composure.
"You do not anger me. You do not control me. You hold no power over me, as much as you would like to convince yourself that you do. Ben Solo does not exist anymore. He existed once, and you were a part of that life. That life is now in the past. You would do well to remember that. You would do well to remember who I am and what I am capable of. I see great potential in you, yes. Your penchant for fury, anger, resentment and desperation makes you the perfect candidate for training. You could make something of yourself, here, with The First Order. I will show you what it is you think you are right in denying yourself. I will show you the authority you could wield."
His words sounded exactly like something Kylo Ren would say, but his body language did not comply. His fingers were digging harder into her skin, sure to leave bruises there the next morning. His eyes darted around, searching her face for any signs of anxiety and fear. She could tell that his heart rate had quickened, and the twitch at the corner of his lips said that he was more uneasy than he was letting on.
She decided to forfeit this battle; she had the feeling there would be at least a few more to come. She also knew he was lying to himself – he knew that she held power over him. Perhaps he just did not yet fully understand how much.
She let her body slacken against the wall, an indicator that she was indeed, ready to give up. He released his control of the Force first, and she suddenly found it was easier to breath. His hands stayed on her shoulders for a moment longer than they needed too, and she knew in that moment that he would visit her again, soon. He could not seem to stay away.
A/N: Hope you enjoyed the chapter! As always, thank you for reading.