All the Resistance leaders had gathered to hear the trial of Kylo Ren/ Ben Solo; together, they would judge him for his crimes and decide his faith. They hadn't advertise it like that though, to Rey, they had simply told they wanted an account of Ben's action, an evidence of his loyalty to their cause; but Poe had found out the truth and had told Ben about it. Rey was surprised that he hadn't waited to tell her and that he had trusted Ben enough to tell him something like this; she truly loved Poe, but like a brother, which was not something he wished. But Rey shook that thought off, now was not the time. She watched closely as Ben stepped on to the small, round podium into the centre of the room. She remembered his mother standing there and giving the orders that would save their lives, and she smiled at him.

"Before we begin," a female general, one that looked old and hardened by the years of war, spoke, "do you have a preferred name?"

"Kylo Ren would do," Ben glanced at her briefly, his jaw clenched.

Rey bit her lip. Why had he said that? Why use that name?

"Very well," the woman carried on, "Kylo Ren, you are here today to face the crimes you have committed in the galaxy," she announced the room.

Ben stayed silent.

"You have been accused of numerous crimes, during the time you have been an apprentice of Snoke and later in your governing of the First Order. However, this council also acknowledges that you have killed Snoke and that you have given up your role of Supreme Leader in order to help the Resistance in defeating the First Order once and for all." The woman expected Ben to do something, react a certain way; when he didn't, she carried on. "We will now read the main charge pressed against you, the murder of Han Solo."

Ben hadn't thought it was important to speak, the people of the Resistance would have want to punish him regardless of what he said. They didn't want closure, they wanted revenge; and their forgiveness wasn't something he knew how to deal with anyway, whilst he was familiar with being hated. But then they had said the name of his father and the floor fell from underneath him, casting him into the deep recesses of memory.

Flashback (2 years ago)

Ben had tried to block this particular set of memories for what seemed like years. He had focused on anything else but it. He had dealt with his mother, with his uncle, with Snoke, but he had avoided his father at all costs.

Because he had murdered him.

Because for the first time after he had done it, he didn't feel torn; he felt guilty.

Ben had tried to prepare himself for the avalanche of memories and for the way this would drain him of strength, but nothing could have prepared him for what happened next in his training room. He'd fallen to the ground, the side of his face hitting the marble floor, as the walls around him morphed into the most important memories he had of his father. First, when Han had given him the Flacon miniature, then when he had taken him on his first flight, after that, when he had taught him how to shoot a blaster. The next memory had been after a while, when Ben had already become a young man, that was the next, most important memory; the time in between these memories hadn't been covered, because Han hadn't been present for much of his young life.In this memory, he was showing his father what he could do with the Force, but that had scared Han, making him leave again; in the next one, they were having an argument in the Jedi temple and Ben walked away from him furious; in the last one, Ben was killing his father.

Ben gasped for air and sat up. His head was pounding and his lungs were struggling to fill with air. He felt the pain being birthed on the inside of him, something he'd kept hidden, something that kept growing, and he let the bitter tears fall from his eyes and onto the shiny floor.

He had killed his father. How would he ever move on?

End of flashback.

In that moment, when the judge had read his crime, he had felt that for the first time, he had been rightly judged as a monster. He could feel Rey's reaction through the Force, the pain in her heart, how she still missed Han. He wondered if he was allowed to miss him too, when he had been the one to take his life away.

"Do you plead guilty to this crime, Kylo Ren?"

Ben nodded.

"Very well, we shall move on to your uncle, Master Luke Skywalker. You have been accused of destroying the last Jedi temple, of killing padawans and attempting to murder your uncle, is that right?"

Ben nodded.

"How do you plead?"she inquired.

"Guilty."

It was the truth, nobody had been surprised, yet, it had taken Ben months to reach that conclusion.

Flashback (2 1/2 years ago)

Ben had revisited that night many a times whilst Rey had been on the island with Luke, but tonight, he was seeing it all with new eyes, with compassion for his uncle.

He had seen the fear in Luke's eyes and recognised it as if it had been his own, because in a way, it was. The fear of the darkness in him, that he could read on everybody's face, was the same he could see when he looked in the mirror. Yet, he had been forced to live with it, when his uncle had wanted to take his life.

He went back to that night in his memory and he saw it through different eyes. He saw the fear he had caused, the pain and suffering of his uncle, the cries for help of his fellow Jedi apprentices, the ones whose lives he had taken. He knelt down besides R2, just as his uncle had done, and watched the temple burn to ashes, and he didn't see his actions as righteousness anymore, he saw them for what they were, chaos and destruction.

End of flashback

The woman nodded. "A list of the crimes of the First Order will now be read out to you, to which you can plead partially, fully or not at all guilty." When Ben simply nodded, she motioned to the reader to go ahead.

Rey closed her eyes briefly, her anxiety had made it harder to breath which in turn had made her side ache. She had known all of Ben's crimes, knew that he would be accused of all of them and yet, something in her heart broke each time they read a new line and she could see the resignation on Ben's face. Why was he so quiet? It was true that there was nothing that he could have said yet to defend himself, but he looked like a lamb, too ready to be slaughtered. Why wasn't he fighting this?

"...attacking and torturing Rey..."

Rey's ears had picked up on that and her eyes immediately flew to Ben. His were already on her. She was thinking about how it was all in the past, how it didn't matter now, but she felt like her thoughts couldn't penetrate his mind. He only gave her a sad smile, before he looked away.

"Well, now, Kylo Ren, how is it that you plead to these accusations?"

Ben glanced at her for the shortest of moments before he spoke. "Fully guilty."