They landed on Ahch-to in the middle of a thunderstorm. Ben thought it was entirely fitting. They waited inside until the weather cleared enough to only get drenched in the rain instead of blown away.
"I know you all are ready to get back to work, but, Finn, I need you to come with me for a moment." Ben turned toward the ramp but Finn didn't follow.
"Basic courtesy, Ben. Use basic courtesy, please," his mother's voice echoed in his ear. He wasn't sure if it was a memory or her Force ghost. He felt pretty sure it was just a memory. She'd had to remind him often enough.
"Finn, would you please come with me for a moment?" he asked. "It's pretty important."
"Yes, I will," Finn replied smugly. "Since you asked nicely."
Rose and Poe had a good laugh at his expense, but instead of anger Ben only felt a little embarrassment and actually managed to smile at himself. "He'll be back soon. I promise," Ben assured the two.
Rose just waved them away. "Keep him as long as you need him," she declared. "Poe and I are going to work on the starboard thruster."
Ben's brow wrinkled. "Is it giving trouble? Dad had issues with it ever since he traded for some bad parts. R2 managed a workaround, but it's always needed adjustment since. Do you need help?"
"No!" Poe immediately interrupted. "No. You take Finn and go do whatever it is you do. Rose and I have got this."
"Because I don't mind," Ben continued, glad for any reason to delay his next step.
Rose put a hand on his arm. "Ben, I don't know what it is you're avoiding, but you've done so much already. You've faced down the Emperor and the entire First Order." She gave him an encouraging squeeze and a smile. "You can do this too."
Ben sighed and nodded. "You ready, Finn?"
"Why not? I don't know the first thing about working on a ship," Finn replied. "I think they're glad for an excuse to get me out of the way too."
"No!" said Rose.
"Yes!" said Poe, and Rose clouted him on the arm. "Ow!" he cried in mock pain.
Finn burst into laughter and headed down the ramp.
Ben led the way back to his hut where he picked up a few tools. If this worked, he might need to do a little adjustment. Then he led Finn across the island to the dark hole, his rope still dangling.
When they got to the edge of the bluff that overlooked it, Finn froze. "What is that place?" he asked suspiciously. "Why have you brought me here?"
Ben stopped his climb down the face. "You don't have to get any closer. I just wanted you to know where it is in case you can't find me when you get back. If the rope is down, you'll know I'm inside."
"Yeah, but what is that?" Finn asked fiercely, jabbing a finger at the hole. "What kind of work do you have to do here? I can feel something...something awful." He took a step back. "What are you doing here? Some Sith thing?"
"No!" Ben practically shouted his denial as he climbed back up. He took a breath and continued more quietly. "No. What you feel here is darkness. Darkness often attracts evil or either evil is attracted to it, I've never been quite sure which. But darkness has lessons to teach, just like light. One of the trials a Jedi has to go through is a vision quest in a place of darkness, like this one."
"So Rey did one?" Finn asked.
"Right here."
"Did you?" Finn's tone had become more curious.
"I did. But not as a Jedi. Snoke took me to a cave on Dagobah as part of his training," Ben answered. "He said I'd find the things inside I wasn't strong enough to bury." He shivered at the memory. "The cave showed me Luke and my parents."
"Let me guess, you had to kill them to get out," Finn surmised.
Ben sighed. "I was still very angry at Luke. That was easy. But I couldn't hurt my parents. I destroyed the cave instead," Ben answered.
"But then later on, you made good on killing Han." Finn's tone was even, not accusing.
"Yes, I did." It did no good to deny, to rationalize, to even consider any other answer.
"I felt Leia die," Finn continued. "She was reaching out to you. I could tell."
"She gave the last of her strength to reach me," Ben admitted sadly.
"Why?"
Finn's question took Ben by surprise. "Why what?"
"Why did she do it?" Finn continued. "Why did she die to reach you, knowing what you did to Han, knowing that Luke died trying to reach you? Why? What made you worth all their lives?" Finn didn't sound angry. He genuinely sounded curious, like he was trying to figure out a puzzle.
"I wasn't worth it." Ben replied defensively. "I don't know why they loved me. I never did anything to be worth it. I turned on them and everything they stood for. But they still kept trying, right up to the end, to reach me."
"Then make what they did worthwhile. Rey's gone. You're the only one left who can do what you do whether we like it or not." Finn's voice went cold. "Fix it. Fix yourself. Quit being a tragic disaster and help rebuild the New Republic."
Ben shook his head in disbelief. "They'll never accept my help. Not after everything I've done."
"I'm not saying it will be easy, but the folks in the top levels all know what you've done to take apart the First Order. Everyone else has seen stormtroopers come out and start over. No one knows the inside of all this like you do. Start where you can," Finn advised. Then he took a long look inside that dark well before them. "I can feel it calling to you. I know you've got something to do inside that's going to change everything. So do it. Fix it."
"It may take a while. If you all need to leave and can't find me when you come back, you'll know where to look," Ben stated.
"I'm not leaving." Finn took a seat on a nearby boulder and pulled his rain gear firmly around him. "I'm going to make sure you see this through."
Ben nodded and climbed down the bluff to the ledge below. The ocean roared on the other side. He stepped through the web of plant growth that ringed the edge and knelt next to the rope, but before he could take it to climb down, he felt the force grip him around the chest and pull.
He fell twenty or so feet into the pool and kicked up to the surface to gasp for air. The shiny mirrored wall beckoned to him as he blinked water from his eyes.
"Don't be afraid of the truth of who you are," his mother's voice whispered into his ear.
"I know what I am," he told her as he pulled himself out onto the shoreline.
"Do you? Or do you just know the stories you were told-by Snoke, by Palpatine, by your own guilt? Look at yourself through our eyes, Ben," she said gently. He could smell her perfume. "You know why we tried so hard to reach you."
"You love me," his voice broke.
"Yes. Were we weak and foolish?"
The words burned. "No."
"Rey believed in you too. And in the end she was right. You came to help her."
"Not that I did anything." He took a seat before the wall and pulled out his tools.
"Didn't you? Knowing you were there, that she was not alone, that was what gave her the strength to fight back." Leia's voice was firm and he could make out the shape of her form kneeling beside him. "Was Rey weak and foolish?"
"No. Never." His fingers trembled as he took the lightsaber into his hands.
"Then see what we see. See the lie for what it is."
"I'm afraid," he admitted at last.
"Of what, son?" He felt her hand on his.
"That I should have known all along. That I did know and did it anyway. I'm afraid I am more guilty than I think I am. I don't want to do this. I don't want to live it all again." Painful tension gripped his entire body.
"Before you can move on and before Rey can move on, you have to." Leia's voice was firm. He knew that tone well.
"Rey?" he asked. "What does Rey have to do with this?"
"You two are bound together. Light and dark in balance. She found her place in the force, but you haven't. You carry the heavy weight of the past. It's time to let it go."
"Kill it if I must?" he asked cynically.
"No, Ben. Don't kill it. Heal it." The slight pressure on his hand faded as she did.
The cave was silent but for the distant sounds of water dripping. He could hear his own ragged breath echoing against the rocky walls.
He extended his awareness into the kyber crystal in the lightsaber in his hands. He remembered finding it, the way it had spoken to him. Luke had told him the crystal was flawed and would not be usable as a weapon. He remembered how angry that had made him. He'd dug out old texts on his travels with Luke, seeking construction techniques that had been lost in the purge, lost to the ages. He made himself an expert on lightsaber construction. He'd become determined to show his uncle he was wrong as he crafted it into a weapon worthy of a Jedi.
When he'd ignited it for the first time, its steady blue sheen reflected his soul back to him. It was beautiful. Luke had been impressed.
Snoke hated it. He called it a child's toy and declared it unworthy of the heir of Vader. Ben shuddered when he recalled the torrent of rage, pain, and frustration he'd poured into the crystal in an attempt to make it something worthy of his new Master's plans for him.
"Show me what you truly are!" Snoke had hissed at him.
He remembered how the crystal had screamed and bled, blue into crimson, as the full force of his unreserved emotions poured through it.
"Stop! That's enough!" Snoke had shouted to him.
But it was too late to stop. Hurt, pain, loneliness, abandonment, anger, and fear poured out of the depths of his heart and into the crystal. How it had roared as its flaw became a crack!
"You've ruined it! Stupid boy!" Snoke had berated him.
But in the darkness that overshadowed Ben's heart he knew that he'd only given the crystal its true voice, the voice of the broken. Once the hilt had been reconfigured, he ignited it once more, its spitting unstable red anger reflecting his soul back to him anew.
It had blazed like a tongue of flame as Ben Solo fully became Kylo Ren.
Now he ignited it once more, feeling the pain and the fury in his hand, knowing that this would always be with him, but finally seeing the divide between his truth and the lies he'd been subjected to for his entire life.
He wasn't ready to forgive himself, but he knew he had to confront his past with clear eyes and see events for what they really were, just as he'd done with his mother's lightsaber.
So he extinguished the blade, closed his eyes, and let the past wash over him.
-0-
A dark-haired boy lay in the bed, no more than four or five. He thrashed and moaned in his sleep. Ben sat on the edge and placed a hand on his forehead.
In his dreams, the boy had fallen into a deep pool and was drowning. He called out for help but was alone. Then he saw his mother sitting at a conference table and called to her. She ignored him. "Mama! Please! Help me!" he cried.
"No one is coming for you, child," a voice whispered, a voice Ben knew well.
"Mama!" The boy strangled and sank beneath the surface of the water.
Then the boy woke and sat up. "Mama!" he cried out in terror. After a few moments the door opened.
"She's not here, Ben," said the young woman Ben recognized as one of the household staff on Chandrila. "She'll be back tomorrow."
"She's never coming back," the dark voice whispered.
"I want my mama," the boy repeated, rebuffing the woman's efforts to comfort him.
"I know, sweetheart. I'm sorry she's not here right now." The woman sat on the edge of the bed. "Do you want me to read you a story?"
"No!" With his shout, the door to the room slammed shut with bang.
Startled, the young woman leaped to her feet, clearly unnerved. "You just try to go back to sleep, okay?" she said and edged toward the door. "Leia will be back tomorrow. If you sleep, the time will go faster."
"She's afraid of you."
"I'm sorry," the boy whispered. "I just want my mama."
"You've been bad. She'll never come back now."
The young woman had already left the room. Ben watched as the boy began to cry himself back to sleep.
-0-
"They want to get rid of you," the familiar dark voice whispered. Ben could see himself a few years older now. "The staff is afraid of you. You've heard them talking." His younger self stood beside a ship at a little distance from the other children.
His mother and father were having another discussion across the bay. He could tell his dad was angry. "It's your fault they fight. They don't know what to do with you."
But by the time they reached his side, they'd put on cheerful faces. His dad ruffled his hair. "I'm jealous, kiddo. You get to go off and learn to be a Jedi. All they'll let me do is fly a rustbucket with a cranky Wookie." The boy laughed. "When you come home next, we'll take a trip together."
"Can we do the Kessel run?" little Ben asked eagerly.
His father shook his head and held his finger up to his lips.
"Han, you haven't been filling his head with those old stories, have you?" his mother snapped. "No, Ben. You are going to be a Jedi, not a spice runner!" She kissed his cheek. "We'll miss you, sweetheart."
-0-
The academy many years later. He waited his turn with the training droid, thoroughly bored by watching Uncle Luke- "Master Luke. You are just another student here, remember?" -work with one of the others on a task Ben had mastered weeks ago. "None of them have your talent in the Force. Luke should let you move past them. He's keeping you from achieving your full potential. He is jealous of your abilities. They all are. You are destined for greatness and they know it."
A pair of the other students sat off to one side whispering. Then they each glanced over at him.
"What?" he demanded angrily.
"Your mother lost her council seat." The girl who said it sounded triumphant.
"What are you talking about?" Ben retorted.
She sent him a link to the report she'd just received on her datapad. He scanned the headlines-"Hero of the Rebellion revealed as secret daughter of Darth Vader. Forced to resign council appointment."
"What are they talking about?" Ben asked. "My grandfather was Bail Organa, Viceroy of Alderaan." But his senses in the Force assured him that the truth had finally come out. His grandfather was actually Darth Vader, legendary evil apprentice of the Sith.
"They lied to you. They hid the truth from you because they were afraid of the power of the dark side. Darth Vader was a great leader of the Empire. Learn about him."
So he did. And all the while, the voice downplayed the atrocities and oversold the great order created by the Emperor with Darth Vader at his side.
-0-
Over and over Ben watched his younger self be lied to, manipulated, seduced, coerced, bullied, and abused by the voice of Palpatine.
Over and over, he saw the light surge in response, countering the arguments. But his younger self lacked the experience to realize how he was being manipulated. He watched Luke try to build his defenses, but Luke thought he was dealing with a boy, not the presence of evil itself inside that boy.
He saw that boy become a young man, who loved his parents and respected his uncle but who was told incessantly that he was neither loved nor respected in return. Every ordinary setback was inflated by the voice into a heroic trial. Every misunderstanding was a deliberate attack on him. He watched himself grow paranoid, insecure, threatened by everyone, and told the only path to self-defense and strength was to embrace that fear and anger and turn it into power.
Then the night came when his own uncle turned on him. He ran to the only place the voice would agree to-Snoke.
In Snoke the voice came to life fully, placing him firmly into the grip of darkness. Ben watched as Snoke alternately coddled then bullied his younger self, teasing him with great reward then attacking him viciously for perceived failings, keeping him always on edge.
He took great physical abuse, but was then shown tenderness. The small cruelties Snoke enticed him to commit were rewarded and turned into greater cruelties. He was courted by the Knights of Ren who offered him a place where he would be understood, where his darkness would be valued, not feared.
The first life he'd taken had been in self-defense-or so he thought at the time. Now as he watched it replayed through more experienced eyes, he realized that the entire situation had been manufactured to bring him to that point.
Over and over the lessons continued, build him up then tear him down, ask an atrocity of him to redeem himself. Treat any questions or doubts with disdain and punishment.
And inside his head the voice repeated its litany of lies:
"You were born for greatness."
"You are weak and foolish."
"You are a great warrior."
"You are a child in a mask."
"Serve me and you will always have a place by my side."
"No one else will ever care about you. They know what you are."
"You belong to the darkness."
"You are a monster."
And until he met Rey, he believed every word.
"You were not to blame," he whispered to the little boy who'd scared the staff.
"You were not to blame," he told the boy who heard his parents arguing.
"You were not to blame," he told the young man who'd pulled a building down on top of his teacher.
"You were not to blame," he told the student of Snoke as he made his first kill.
Then he faced himself on the catwalk of Starkiller Base. Ben stood next to Kylo Ren and watched his father gasp as the lightsaber entered his chest. He felt his father's hand on his cheek then watched him plummet into the chasm below. Any second now, Chewie would fire, so Ben reached out and froze the moment.
He stepped forward and turned to face himself, looking himself in the eyes. "What did you just do?" he asked Kylo.
Kylo's eyes were full of pain. "I killed my father."
"Why did you do it?" Ben asked gently.
"I had to. I had to prove that I was strong enough," Kylo responded, but Ben could hear the paralyzing doubt.
Ben put his hands on Kylo's shoulders. "I'm sorry. It was a lie. You were lied to. Killing your dad did nothing but break you."
"But I felt it," Kylo began to stammer.
"I know. What you felt was a lie. It wasn't you. It was never you," Ben assured him. "That doesn't mean you didn't do it. It doesn't mean you don't have to live with it. But it does mean that you are not to blame, okay?"
"But I still did it. I can't undo it," Kylo replied, anguish in his voice. "And if it was all a lie, then I did it for nothing! What does that make me?"
Ben pulled Kylo into his arms. "Blame Snoke. Blame Palpatine. They set you up. They pulled your strings from the time you were born. It's not on you. It's on them."
Kylo put his face onto Ben's shoulder and wept. "I'm sorry," he whispered over and over. "I'm so sorry."
"So am I," Ben felt tears roll down his own face. "So am I."
