Chapter 2: See You Around, Kid

The moment the connection was broken, Kylo stumbled back into the sterilized wall of the nondescript First Order corridor, panting and eyes wild with shock. Never before had Rey cut him to the quick so deeply - a habit she had maddeningly perfected over mere weeks. His grandfather's lightsaber, his birthright, flying into her hands rather than his? That had stung. Her calling him a monster, multiple times and with such vehemence? That, too, had stung, despite the facade of bravado he had placed up in agreeing with her assessment.

But this reversal of her convictions? That she had at any time thought to reconsider her appraisal of his inhumanity, only for her initial conviction to be confirmed and upheld... and all while she dissolved into tears over a person he could not be for her? Well. Kylo felt the shame and emotional agony inside him like a knife.

That knowledge that he had lost her forever, had lost any chance he might have had with her, festered inside of Kylo like a gaping gash. The echo of her words, darkening like the purpling flesh injured by a bruise, clung almost to his very skin as he stalked like a wounded animal back to his chambers. The bite of Rey's pronouncement indeed seemed to sit in the still-very uncomfortable knot in his side where the Wookie Chewbacca had fired a bowcaster bolt. In a small way, Kylo was grateful that Rey had entreated him to take the mask off, now hanging limply in the clenched fist at his side. If she hadn't, he would now be ripping it off in a hasty and desperate attempt to get the air that was rapidly eluding his lungs, no matter how deeper his breaths were taken. Just as desperately, he now dug at the dark shirt and cowl he was adorned with, feeling the frantic need for his body to get air also. He nearly ripped the fabric in his haste to part with it; the shirt and cowl clung too tight to his epidermis quite suddenly, the way clothes might if he were sopping wet. And yet both articles were bone-dry - caustic and itchy and Kylo had to tug with extra strength to get them over his head and loose. His chest heaved at the relief of no longer feeling so constrained, and he finally allowed himself to chance a good look at the scar on his stomach from where Chewbacca had struck him.

The wound had not healed at all well, and the ugliness of the scar reflected this. The porcelain skin just off his stomach proper was pink and mottled. Kylo remembered deliberately hitting the open wound whilst facing her and the traitor on Starkiller Base, convinced by Snoke that the pain - the act of leaning into it - would give him strength in the dark side. During the battle and its aftermath, Kylo had been unable to ascertain whether the practice of self-injury had had its desired effect, so if the wound had failed to heal correctly on its own, perhaps it was - in a way - his own damn fault.

Rey's words reverberated in his brain just then, as he stared down at the ugly flesh: I should have known you could never be anything but a monster... He snarled at this, clenching his free hand into another fist, and deliberately struck the stomach wound hard. Fierce spasms licked through his insides and throughout his torso, acidicly mixing with the lingering emotional discomfort, and he howled in pain. Kylo's displeasure reeled to find something, anything to unleash its wrath on, and spying the mask, he hurled it into a corner in an absolutely spastic fit of rage.

Yes, it is the mask's fault, a voice in his head encouraged him. After all, Rey doesn't like the mask.

Kylo was no stranger to hearing voices in his head, but this voice wasn't conniving and malevolent like Snoke's. No, oddly enough, the voice he heard now sounded like him, or at least what used to be him. Ben Solo - the voice of a carefree young man with no troubles and no impossible legacy on his shoulders. This voice had a schoolboy quality to it, teasing, the tone not unlike a friend needling someone over having a crush. After all, she doesn't like the mask.

Breathing hard, Kylo stalked to a small table just off his armoire dresser. Atop the table sat a large and locked safe, which he now opened. The hydraulics lifted the lid with a hiss, so that a blast of cold steam now emanated from the container. The artifact needed to remain frozen so as to be carefully preserved.

The charred, melted, concave mask of Darth Vader stared back at him.

Once upon a time, the face of his grandfather at his most glorious was soothing. But now, glaring down at the idol, Kylo felt nothing but resentment. How many years had he spent speaking to this inanimate object like a possessed madman, pleading with it to show him the power of the darkness? Of course, the mask never said anything back, so maybe he really was insane. And besides, the face of another had supplanted this one in bringing the most warmth and comfort to him. The face of that idol appeared in his mind now, with deep brown eyes... eyes that now sparkled as they smiled at him...

The silence in his chambers was oppressive, so much so that it practically rang in Kylo's ears. Face contorting in agony, cracking under the pressure of a bubbling cauldron of emotions, Kylo let the silence have it with a sharp and abrupt blast.

"YOU SAID YOU'D ALWAYS BE THERE FOR ME!" Nothing but a quiet as eerie as death answered him. "... but you're not." The last came out in a defeated groan, and he felt the humiliation of having to admit that he was beaten - yet again - deeply. And what was worse? He didn't know if he was yelling at Vader or Rey or Snoke or even a combination of all three. Kylo hung his head and for the first time since seeing her walk away from him on Crait, he wanted to cry.

"If you could just get a look at yourself..."

The voice that now chuckled at his back had most definitely not originated in his head, nor had it ever been amongst the cacophony of voices regularly residing free of rent in his head. Oh, kriffing no...

Kylo wheeled around, and if he could have gotten a glance in the mirror, the look of horror now collapsing onto his face would have chilled his bones. Just as much as how the presence of this new intruder also made his blood run cold.

The blue apparition of his uncle stared back at him expectantly, with a cocked eyebrow and an even more cocksure smirk on his face.

"You... you... you're supposed to be DEAD!" Kylo yelped like a startled dog.

The damn smirk widened. "That I am." Luke even splayed out his arms in a kind of 'Ta-Da!' flourish; he looked so pleased with himself. "I told you I would see you around, kid, and I meant it."

Kylo actually buried his head in his hands. Snoke's body was scarcely cold, his voice only just snuffed out, and now... "I am to be haunted by a gloating old coot like you?"

He felt Luke's mirth even as he desperately tried to shut his eyes against it. "We who have passed on into the Netherworld are called Force Ghosts for a reason, Ben. And ghosts haunt... if that is how you wish to view my appearing to you."

Kylo's head snapped up from his palms, eyes flashing. "That name no longer has any meaning for me!"

"It is the name of your true self! You've only forgotten!" The stupid smirk was back on his face, now with an air of nostalgic wistfulness to it, as if he had somehow heard those words before. Then Luke twisted the knife deeper. "Or maybe you don't like hearing it because it reminds you of her. Rey's the only one allowed to say your real name - is that it? I should feel so envious..."

"RRRRRRAHHHH!" The lightsaber flew into Kylo's palm like a limb magically being sewn back on. Igniting the blade of fire, he swung it as hard as he could, its arc possessing the barest minimum of control.

Lightning fast Jedi reflexes. He blocked it with his hand. The old fucker actually blocked the crackling plasma of an activated laser sword with his bare hand. Kylo wobbled through the sharply halted inertia of his swing. He gave the blade the slightest tug, but it wouldn't move from his uncle's grasp.

Kylo's mouth fell open in flabbergasted disbelief, just as it had on Crait upon realizing that he had only succeeded in slicing at empty air. A tiny bit of his brain not consumed by rage chided him for thinking that hacking at a ghost would actually work, but he paid it little heed. This man... this insufferable man... who was he? What was he?

Luke's expression flip-flopped into a chiding frown right then, and in his tunnel vision, where another would have viewed the frown as admonishing, Kylo only saw it as ghoulish.

The younger man sneered, baring his teeth. "Oh, you are so enjoying this, aren't you?"

In reply, Luke did something most unconscionable. He laughed in his nephew's face. The man positively chortled. He was even moved to wipe a jovial tear from his eye. "It is rather amusing..."

The fist holding Kylo's lightsaber slacked just a bit, enough for him to yank it out his uncle's grasp with a growl. When he wildly glanced back up, Luke was back to his admonishing ways, staring Kylo down as though he was a chastened child. Ben had seen that look before in his youth, and it summoned a whimpering whirlpool of inadequacy in him more instinctual than a Pavlovian response. His entire expression shattered, and no amount of red adhesive could put back together this second, invisible mask of self-confidence which had now abandoned him.

"What do you want from me?" Kylo stammered. "What must I do, Master, to be free of this pain?" He scolded himself too late for ever granting Luke with the respectful title of Master. And in referring to 'this pain,' he should have been more specific. The pain of you returning from the dead to mock me.

Kylo could will it, think it as much as he liked, but in reality, that was not the pain he spoke of. The pain most eating away at him like acid had been inflicted by someone who wasn't even in the room.

And most terrible of all, Luke damn well knew it.

The pain of you leaving me... Why did you leave me?...

"Get your head out from between your ass cheeks, for starters," Luke diagnosed crassly. "Then, take the reins of that Bond and go to her. Your wife needs you."

Kylo blinked, perplexed, even as goosebumps bubbled up on his flesh. "But I have no wife."

By now, Luke's smirk had become more aggravating than that of a creepy clown. "That's what you think. The Force holds so much that you still do not know. My advice? Start reading. And remember these words: two that are one." He dared to wink. "See ya around, kid."

And by the time Kylo had lunged forward with a scream to wring the tottering old fool's neck, Luke Skywalker had vanished.