Kylo stands at the top of his shuttle ramp and takes a deep breath. He's probably about to get killed. The agreement for a peaceful meeting is a lie and this will be an ambush. It has to be a trap, for Kylo has no other explanation for why Leia Organa has let him land. In her position, Kylo would never have agreed to this folly. But if he dies today, then maybe it is fitting punishment for his many crimes. And for Rey.
It is dim but Kylo can still make out the shape of the Resistance matriarch standing not far from the bottom of the ramp. She is alone as he had requested.
"Mother."
Leia Organa makes no reply. She just crosses her arms over her chest. Kylo remembers that body language and he knows it isn't a good sign. But Kylo has no alternative.
She walks to the bottom of the ramp and into the light. He has his helmet off so they eye one another for a long moment in silence. Finally, Leia Organa speaks. "I see you know where we are. How long until the rest of the First Order arrives?"
"It's just us now," he says gruffly. "Come." Kylo motions her inside. He leads her to where Rey lays sprawled on a bench in a puddle of black velvet.
"Rey," his mother breathes her name and quickly kneels beside the unconscious woman. "Is she hurt?"
"Yes," he says simply. "She is hurt in ways I cannot fix." Rey has remained in a trance-like state since slitting her wrist. The doctors have no explanation, but Kylo understands. It is as if her mind has shut down because it is unwilling to endure any further Darkness. Rey has shut herself off from everything, including him.
"Oh, Rey."
"I need your help, Mother. She needs your help."
His mother searches to find Rey's hand buried in the folds of fabric. The movement jostles her black cloak and it falls aside to reveal the red dress beneath. The silk is stretched tight over his wife's hugely swollen belly. Leia Organa freezes for a moment. Then she turns back to him with accusing eyes.
Kylo is instantly defensive. "It was freely done. She is my wife. She wanted this child." He can't tell whether his mother believes him or not. But he knows that she disapproves.
Turning back to Rey, his mother rests a hand on her forehead. Rey stirs briefly and opens her eyes. Golden, yellow Sith eyes. His mother gasps at the sight, then turns again to look at him. She is repulsed.
"What's wrong with her?"
Kylo doesn't want to explain. Has his mother never seen Sith eyes before? Does she not know what they mean? Vader's eyes had been hidden behind his mask. But had his mother never actually met Emperor Palpatine?
"What's wrong with her?" she asks again, impatient with his silence.
Kylo steps forward to pull Rey's other hand gently from between the folds of her dress. It is bandaged at the wrist from the slash she gave herself. Kylo silently turns up her palm so his mother can see the sutures from the deep suicide wound. "She will try and hurt herself again, Mother. You must keep her safe for the sake of the child. Protect her from herself."
"What have you done to her?" His mother's voice is steely now. Every inch the general. "What's wrong with her?"
Kylo works hard to make his voice flat and emotionless. To state the facts as if he does not care. To keep control of his emotions. He must keep control of his emotions. "She has gone mad. The Dark Side has driven her to madness."
"M-Madness? His mother does not hide her outrage. She stands to face him. As petite as she is, his mother is formidable when angry. "You mean that you-YOU have driven this girl to madness?"
His mother's outrage transports him back decades in the past and once more Kylo is the young boy who has been called to account before his deeply disappointed mother. He sputters out the truth. "I betrayed her. I thought that I was helping the child, but I was wrong . . . I was terribly wrong. . . I did not protect her from Snoke and I did not protect her from myself." His words tumble out in a torrent of anxious fear. "Listen to me, Mother. She won't live long enough to birth the child unless I send her away. She will be consumed by Darkness if she stays with me and the First Order. Will you take her? Please—say that you will take her."
Leia Organa half turns to gaze down at Rey's pitiful figure. His mother's face softens.
"You have to take her—you have to help her!" he begs. "She's carrying your grandson, Mother."
His mother sighs and for a moment Kylo sees how old she has become since he had last seen her with his uncle a year ago. Leia Organa sounds and looks so weary. After a long moment of decision, she relents. "Yes, I will take her."
Then the veteran general crosses her arms and gives him a measuring look. "Ben, the only reason I agreed to meet with you tonight was because you owe me an explanation. I need to hear this from you. Tell me the truth, Ben. Why did you kill your father?"
Kylo doesn't want to talk about Han Solo. He's already barely holding himself together as is. His emotional control feels like it is fraying with each passing moment. But Kylo takes a deep breath. He can get through this for Rey. Mother and son lock eyes for a tense moment. Then Kylo looks away as he mutters the truth. "It was a test. I had to prove myself worthy to Snoke for more training."
"You killed your father to impress Snoke?" Her shock radiates through the Force.
"Yes."
"And Rey? Is she also a test?
He does not answer.
"Tell me, Ben—is there anything or anyone you will not sacrifice for the Dark Side?"
Again, he does not answer. His mother is looking at him now with deep loathing. With ultimate contempt and disappointment. "When will you learn that it's all lies, Ben? The Dark Side is all lies. In the end, it only brings tragedy."
Kylo will not be baited into that topic. He's here to help Rey not to listen to another lecture about the Light. So instead, he tells her, "The baby is due in a week's time. It's a boy. He is healthy."
His mother frowns but nods.
"There's more. Rey is . . . Rey has no will to live, Mother." He pauses, again working hard to look and sound emotionless. To maintain his fragile control. If he allows himself to feel now, he will explode. The rage and pain that is boiling inside him will be laid bare. And then his mother will see his full Dark Side self and she will not help him. So Kylo masters his emotions and forces himself to look at his mother. All the while wishing that his Rey could have mastered this necessary control.
"I think she hangs on only for the child's sake. Once our son is born, she will die. I have foreseen it." Over and over since yesterday, in Force visions that haunt him, he has watched his Padme die as he hears a baby's cry. In a week's time, his wife will be dead and his son lost to him as well.
"She's dying?" Leia Organa's eyes widen. "And the child?"
"He will survive. Take him. Take him and raise him, Mother. Please." Kylo can't meet his mother's gaze any longer. He looks away. He has never felt so ashamed. His voice drops to a near whisper. "Please . . . keep him far, far away from me. For his sake." Kylo's voice cracks now at this latest betrayal. For he had promised Rey that he would not separate their little family, and now he is breaking that promise. Yet again, he is letting his Rey down. This would have been his wife's worst fear come true: her child abandoned by its father and orphaned by its mother. Her child alone, as she had been.
Gods, it hurts that he has to do this. But he's doing it for his son. To keep him safe.
"I destroyed her, Mother," Kylo confesses, still looking away. "I didn't mean to, but I did it anyway. And I'm worried that I might destroy him too." In the moment, Kylo's mask of indifference slips and his horror at abandoning his only son is revealed. He feels a tear trickle out.
"Are you sure?" his mother ventures softly, "Ben, are you sure you don't want the child?"
"Want him?" Kylo echoes in a sob. "Yes, I want him! But I don't trust myself with him." In a flash of insight, Kylo knows that the real risk to his boy isn't him, it is Snoke. "Snoke will only take him from me and use him to control me." And Kylo knows his Master will train his boy to kill him and to replace him. That is the way of the Sith. "Take him, Mother. It is for the best."
General Leia nods. Then, Rey stirs again and her yellow Sith eyes roll back unfocused. This galvanizes his mother into action. "Let's get her inside. Can you carry her?"
This is the mother Kylo recalls from childhood. Pragmatic, capable and in command. As a child, she had seemed very remote to him, perpetually issuing impatient instructions and surrounded by aides. But at this moment, Kylo is very grateful to have been born to this woman. After all he has done to hurt his mother, she is still willing to help him. Is she doing this for him? Or for Rey? Or for her grandson? It doesn't matter. She is willing to help. And for that, he is grateful.
Gathering Rey in his arms, Kylo follows his mother out of the shuttle. A small crowd of armed onlookers has gathered at the sight of the First Order shuttle parked amid the Resistance fleet. No doubt there are snipers he doesn't see. Do the Resistance rank and file recognize their enemy without his mask? Some clearly do, for the uniform of a Knight of Ren is distinctive. Others wonder about him. Or wonder about the unconscious woman he carries who is dressed like a queen in the red and black of the First Order.
They are inside the Resistance base now. Kylo feels many eyes on him, some curious, some angry, some frightened. He ignores them, following his mother to a makeshift medical unit. He lays Rey down gently on an empty medical bed.
Old Ackbar moves to stand next to his mother. Others he recognizes in the Resistance—the senior staff and Rebellion veterans who know who Kylo is and know who he is to Leia Organa—begin to drift to her side protectively. No one draws a weapon. But several have their hands resting on their sidearms.
There will be no further private moments alone. Kylo knows that he needs to finish this and leave before someone shoots him.
"Here." He produces Rey's lightsaber and hands it to his mother. "Give it to the boy when he is old enough. She would want him to have it."
His mother accepts the sword and Kylo stares at the weapon in her hand. He wonders whether his child will grow to hate him the way Kylo himself had hated Han Solo. Will his own son one day stab him through the heart with this lightsaber? If he does, he will be justified, Kylo thinks.
And will his son ever understand the truth of his family, he wonders. Probably not. Truth is a point of view among the Skywalkers and his boy will never get the chance to hear his father's version of events. In surrendering his son to his mother now, he is forever losing the child in body and spirit. Now another Skywalker boy will be raised to hate and fear his father. And, quite possibly, to one day kill his father. And not as a Sith ascends by killing a Sith. But maybe as a Jedi claiming justice. For now the cycle of dysfunction and patricide Kylo had so hoped to avoid is put in motion once again.
He takes a deep breath. He has done what he has come to do. But looking down at Rey, it is hard to leave her. Kylo hesitates.
She is the most precious thing in the universe to him, and he is giving her away to his enemies. This is his wife. The competent and creative mechanic who can rebuild a hyperdrive all on her own. The Jedi princess who marked his face with a lightsaber and then married him a year later. The queen of his First Order flagship who turned heads in her wake and intimidated General Hux. She is his everything. She is his Padme.
He has failed her. That knowledge cuts deep. Rey did not deserve this treatment. Rey had deserved far better than Kylo Ren.
He can feel involuntary tears rolling down his cheeks. Closing his eyes, he struggles to channel his pain. To maintain control. He will control this pain for as long as he can manage, then he will let it explode.
"Ben?" His mother is watching him closely. The whole room is watching him closely. Watching him cry. Kylo Ren will not show his face to the First Order, yet here he stands unmasked and in tears before the Resistance. This is a private moment laid bare before his enemies. But still, he is not prepared to leave her. Not yet.
He tries one last time to get through to his Padme, using all of his skill. Cradling Rey's face in his hands, he reaches out with his mind. Their once effortless mental connection has waned little by little as Rey has unraveled before his eyes. Her mind in madness is a blank void to him. It is as if Rey is dead yet living still.
He speaks to her aloud and through the Force. "Rey . . . hear me . . . hear me." After a moment, her eyes flutter open. Yellow Sith eyes. With the intensity of his concentration in the Force, Kylo knows that his eyes are now as yellow as hers. He had wanted Rey for his Sith lady, and he had gotten his wish. But at a terrible price.
"Rey." She blinks at him. He thinks that he senses recognition in her mind. "Rey, don't leave me. . . please . . . I love you, Rey . . . I love you." The words come out before he can stop them. And they are true. He loves her. And now he is losing her. It is too late to tell her this. Rey's eyes fall closed once more and the moment is gone.
Love was all Rey had ever wanted. Kylo had known that, and he had used it as a strategy to win his lonely scavenger girl. She had been with him for himself alone. For the care and attention he could give her that no one else had. Not for the power of the First Order or the Dark Side. Not for his position or for his future. Just for him. For his love. And it is too late now to give it to her.
Once he had told Rey that he wanted everything from her. How he regrets those words. For Kylo has gotten his wish, and he has taken everything from her. But he too is bereft, for in this moment Kylo is certain that he has lost everything too.
He bends to kiss her one last time on the lips. Gently, he slips her gold wedding band from her finger. He needs something meaningful of Rey to have for his own. He rests a hand on her swollen belly, feeling through the Force the vibrant growing life within her. The son conceived in love but steeped in Darkness. The son he will not raise and might never know. The heir to the First Order, abandoned today to the Resistance.
Then, he steps back.
His voice is strangely calm to his ears, and completely at odds with the tears streaming freely down his face. "Name him Ben, Mother. Ben Solo. Rey would approve."
Leia Organa looks shocked at this announcement, but she nods her agreement. "Alright, Ben."
"Thank you." Kylo turns to walk away. He resists the urge to look back one last time.
He needs to get out of here fast. The Darkness is surging in him and he knows that he will lose control soon. He needs to vent this hurt, to soothe this pain, to feel this loss. Violence. Kylo needs violence. And he knows exactly who he plans to kill.
He finds General Hux on the bridge. His lightsaber is lit even before Kylo enters the room. As he advances on his redheaded nemesis, the general orders, "Stand down, Ren!"
Kylo ignores him and raises his sword. "This is for her!" he snarls. "This is for Rey! For insulting her and for leaking pictures of her to the Resistance."
Hux crosses his arms and smirks. "I had those pictures taken. But I didn't send them. The Supreme Leader sent them. Go complain to him."
Snoke sent them. Yes, of course his Master had sent them. Even Rey had recognized that had been a Sith thing to do. But this changes nothing as far as Kylo is concerned. His lust to kill must be abated. So, with one spinning swing he cuts Hux down. He hacks the First Order general to pieces before the stunned faces of his crew. This is what Lord Vader would have done. His Sith grandfather would never have tolerated a backstabbing, insolent commander. Kylo Ren refuses to do so any longer.
He feels the rush of power as the Dark Side flows through him, sharpening his senses and numbing his pain. This death is satisfying. Standing over what is left of Hux, Kylo's only regret is that the general had not suffered more.
Slowly, Kylo turns around. The busy bridge is hushed and no one moves. Every eye is on him now, on his secret face revealed. Seeing his yellow Sith eyes and the tearstains. In his bloodlust to kill, Kylo had forgotten to replace his helmet. Other than Hux, very few in the First Order have ever seen him without it. But now he stands unmasked before his officer elite. This is as it should be, he decides in the moment. Kylo will not wear the mask again. For if he can humble himself before the Resistance for his dying wife, there is no circumstance in which he cannot stand revealed to lead his own men. And every time he catches the flash of his reflection in one of the many screens that litter the bridge, he will see the slashing scar and think of her.
"First Officer Phelps!" Hux's second in command scurries from across the bridge to stand before him and execute a shaky salute. Kylo extinguishes his lightsaber. "You are in command now, General Phelps."
"Yes, Sir."
"Cancel the attack on the Resistance base. We will delay."
"Delay, sir?"
"DELAY!" Kylo roars. He needs to delay long enough that the Resistance has time to evacuate to another location. So that when the First Order eventually arrives, there will be no Resistance fighters left to be found and killed. And no baby son of his to be killed in the crossfire. He will let this war drag on to spare his son.
"A powerful Sith you have become. How proud I am of you, my boy." The ruined face of Darth Plagueis gives a semblance of a smile. Truly, his Master is well pleased with his Apprentice. "Henceforth, you shall be known as Darth Ren." Snoke beckons to him stand. "Arise, Lord Ren."
Sith, I am a full Sith, Kylo thinks. Snoke's esteem should be thrilling, but Kylo can muster only the smallest of nods. "Thank you, my Master. I am grateful for your teaching." At long last, Kylo has achieved his goal. But it has cost him. First his father, then his wife and his son. This should be a moment of triumph, but instead Kylo feels numb.
Snoke knows that he grieves. And Snoke does not fault him for it. Instead, his Master speaks of his own lost wife. "Loving Lady Plagueis was the greatest experience of my life. In life, she was the greatest support and comfort a man could have. In death, she is the greatest loss, the deepest pain. And so she makes me a better Sith even now today, Apprentice. For I cannot look back upon my beloved without hurting for her. And that hurt serves to focus my power." The old Muun nods sagely. "Such an exemplary wife was my Shan."
The old Sith can be surprisingly sensitive at times. This is one of those times. "All that you have endured, all the sacrifices that you have made, are preparation. Gain power from your pain and perspective from your loss."
"Yes, my Master." Kylo strives to sound like he understands and agrees. But the only lesson Kylo has discerned from his experience is not to love. A Sith should not love, he decides. That is where he had gone wrong. His Master had warned him of sentiment. But it had crept in anyway. Had Rey loved him in return? He will never know. Her last words to him spoke of hate and not of love.
Not for the first time, Kylo wonders whether Snoke had seen his love and filled his wife with Darkness as punishment for his weakness. And he wonders too whether the solitary old Muun had been jealous of his love and resentful of his Apprentice's happiness.
"These lessons are hard, Lord Ren. But they are best learned before you lead, when the consequences are purely personal. For the missteps of a leader can have ramifications on a grand scale. Witness how one brief moment of sentiment from Lord Vader brought down an empire and killed two Sith."
Kylo nods. He has heard the story of Darth Vader's single, epic failure many, many times. The loss of Rey and his own son makes Kylo reconsider it anew. For Darth Vader too had lost his beloved wife and abandoned a son. And over twenty years later, his notorious Sith grandfather had brought down an empire to save that son. A child he barely knew. Decades later the galaxy still has not recovered from that folly.
Is that how it will be for himself? Will he one day face the choice that Vader faced? And will his choice scar the galaxy for decades? Or will it merely scar his own wounded heart further?
"Do not despair, Lord Ren," his wise Master counsels. "You shall have your Sith dynasty. The cycle repeats itself. Your child lives. He will return to you in time. He will seek you out, as Skywalker once came to Lord Vader. But your son will have the courage to make the brave choice to lead. I have foreseen it. In time, you will get your wish. You will rule the galaxy together as father and son." His old Master settles in his chair, a satisfied look on his face. "Patience, Lord Ren. In due time, once more the Sith will rule the galaxy."
"Yes, Master."
It happens in the deep of night. The baby comes early. It is not yet a full week's time.
The tickle of the Force in the back of his mind wakes Kylo. Instantly, he knows what is happening. Wide awake, he stretches out his mind clear across the galaxy for the connection he knows so well. For his Rey whom he has loved and lost. Kylo uses every ounce of concentration on this, his special skill in the Force. There it is. Soft and fuzzy. And then it is gone. She slips away.
His wife is dead. Kylo repeats those words to himself as he walks to stare stone-faced at the marks on the wall. One for every day they were together.
The Force had awoken him in time. The Force has always been with he and Rey. But that was not enough in the end.
The Dark Side is not a lie, as his uncle contends. Its power is real and its promises are true. But they are not the whole truth. Yes, once you start down the Dark path forever will it dominate your destiny. But, as it turns out, it will dominate the destiny of those closest to you as well. In his descent into Darkness, Darth Vader had lost his Padme and his children. And now his grandson Darth Ren has lost his Rey and his son.
Too late, Kylo realizes that he has gone places where his Rey could not, or maybe would not, follow. In forcing his wife to be what he wanted, he had lost her entirely. And Rey has taken with her what little remains of the Light in him. For today is the last day that Kylo Ren will be called to the Light.
This, Kylo suspects, is the experience his Master had intended all along. First the love, then the loss and the sacrifice. Plus, the added benefit of a child. Ruefully, Kylo knows that it is Rey who has matured him into a full Sith. Rey is why his Master now calls him Darth Ren.
Did he make Rey happy? Kylo thinks so. For a brief time. Rey had made him happy too. And in the years to come, Kylo will look back upon his short marriage as the best time of his life. No one will know that, of course. For the rest of the First Order just assumes that the pregnant Lady Ren was a suicide. But rumors persist for years that she and her child were murdered by her husband in a fit of rage.
Somewhere out there a child has been born to him. Guilt over his son gnaws at Kylo. For yet again, another Skywalker prince has been orphaned by circumstance and ambition. His uncle will surely recoil from his boy. But hopefully, his grandmother will love him. Kylo had named his son Ben Solo in hopes that his mother might be moved to love him. That she might find in her grandson a second chance to raise her son.
And one day, curious about his birthright, that boy will come looking for him. Maybe he will even come to kill him. His son will need to be taught the ways of the Force. Ben Solo will need a teacher. Like his mother and his father before him.