A/N: *long sigh*
Alright...Hartmannclan, you've beaten me. Here's your early update...
Hope you all enjoy this chapter! I'd love to hear what you think of it! Let me know what you like/dislike or any constructive criticism you might have. I love to hear your opinions/ speculations. Thanks again to everyone who continues to follow/favorite/review and to my beta Leona2016. You all are the reason I keep plugging away at this monstrosity.
He should have known something was wrong. He should have sensed it. He should have stopped her.
His thoughts screamed at him, accusing him of leaving her alone and in danger as he stood over her still form. Rey was sitting cross-legged on the floor with the holocron before her and various metal pieces and parts scattered on every side. Her hands were lying at her sides, palms up, with a crystal nestled against the callused skin of each. Her eyes were open but unseeing and her face was fixed in an expression of pain. Ben swore, fighting down the urge to strike out at something.
He shouldn't have left her alone with the crystals. He knew the darkness in her had been tempting her to master them from the moment she'd first bent them towards her will. There would be no stopping her now. She was too deep in the trance to bring her out. She would wake when she'd forced them under her control, and she would awaken deeper under the dominion of the dark side. He was helpless. He swore again, and kicked savagely at the wall, slamming his palm against the flat surface hard enough to leave a dent.
"No!" he roared, pouring his impotent frustration and anxiety and fury into that one, useless word he knew no one could hear.
The realization that he could do nothing paralyzed him and he collapsed into a chair to stare across at Rey, drained of all but his ever-present fear.
"What were you thinking?" he asked her, knowing she wouldn't reply.
After Hux's insinuations, he'd meant to tell her that he'd be sleeping in his own quarters for a few days, but as he watched the shallow tide of her breathing and saw her pale face, twisted in the ghosts of fears and pain of years past, he found that he couldn't leave her. He couldn't leave her side during what would be her greatest test yet. To bleed the crystals, she would have to visit parts of her life again. He'd lived his terror and rage and guilt in an endless repetition to make his saber. She was reliving her years of waiting. He wasn't sure which was worse.
Hours seemed to pass as he sat before her, waiting for a sign that Rey was awake. She didn't shift so much as a finger, though her eyelids slid shut as time drifted past them. Ben fought his own exhaustion, hours without sleep beginning to take their toll. He perched on the chair, blinking hard and squinting through a haze, catching his head nodding several times before his chin at last hit his chest and he slipped into sleep without realizing he'd passed the threshold.
...
The loneliness was eating into him, carving the wound in his chest still deeper. Abandoned. Alone. He was alone on a forsaken little desert planet. He hurt. His feet hurt from walking and his shoulder hurt from being pulled along by the great hand of the Crolute that kept such a tight grip on his arm that he could see bruises beginning to form under the fingers. His throat burned from screaming.
"I want mummy," said a small, scratchy voice he didn't recognize, but that seemed to come from his own throat. "I want my daddy."
"They're not coming back."
The ache in his shoulder grew steadily worse as he tried to pull away, and the little voice became more insistent.
"You're lying!" it wailed. "I want my mummy and daddy!"
A great, ugly face obstructed his field of view and he was being shaken.
"They sold you," said the creature. "You belong to me now."
Ben woke with a gasp from a sleep into which he hadn't meant to fall, shaking and running with cold sweat. He turned his head back and forth, trying to remember where he was. His eyes stopped on Rey. Her face was twisted into an expression of horror- her mind trapped in a nightmare from which she could not wake. Everything slammed back into his memory and he slumped in the chair, feeling as if there were a weight pushing him down. He wished more than anything that he could pull Rey from the darkness clutching at her. It clung to her and beckoned to him, its familiar seductive call tempting him to sink deeper into the dark with her. It would be so easy to just give in. He was on the very point of releasing the weak grasp he'd managed to keep on his will and allowing the dark to flow through him when a prickle at the back of his neck distracted him. There was a presence behind him that he hadn't felt in years. He spun, not quite believing it.
A man stood before him, shaggy hair nearly obscuring a brow Ben remembered to have fewer furrows, his once neatly kept beard now grizzled and flecked with gray. But the eyes had remained unchanged. Bright blue and piercing so that they seemed to peel back every lie Ben had ever told and expose every atrocity he'd ever committed. He had always been a little afraid of those eyes, but now he stood utterly terrified under their steady gaze. The man didn't say anything- just stared at Ben. Ben swallowed the lump in his throat and opened his mouth.
"Hello, Uncle."
"Hello, Ben," said Luke Skywalker. "It's been a while."
Ben's fear changed swiftly to anger and he fingered the saber at his belt.
"Through no fault of mine," he snapped.
Luke raised an eyebrow.
"That's not entirely true, now is it?"
Ben drew the saber from his belt, thumb hovering over the activation switch. He bared his teeth.
"What are you doing here?" he growled, "I've got enough to worry about without you coming here and making accusations."
"Dark side not all that you expected it to be?" Luke asked, a slight smile on his lips.
Hatred darker than any but what he held for Snoke bloomed in his chest and he swore violently at his uncle.
"It's easy for you to laugh," he shouted, his rage getting the better of him. "You don't live it every day. You don't have to watch when she follows the same path you have-"
His voice choked off into silence as he realized what he'd said. Luke just kept smiling. Ben found that it stoked his fury. He welcomed it, as he welcomed the relief of shouting after months of silence and fear. He longed to lash out at his uncle but knew it wouldn't do any good. Luke wasn't really there. He could tell by the feel of his presence in the Force.
Luke ignored him and Ben saw his eyes drifting to where Rey sat on the floor, still deep in her trance. His face went grave.
"Was killing not enough for you?" he asked. "Did you have to corrupt her too?"
Ben's insides went cold and despair mingled with his anger, weakening it.
"I tried to keep her from it," he said.
"You didn't try hard enough," Luke said. "You're bonded, boy. Can't you feel the pain she's in?"
The anger rushed back in to drown his despair. He felt Rey's pain more keenly than Luke knew. Dark thoughts and emotions flowed from her into him, memories not his own plaguing him. Harsh words he'd never heard before rang in his ears. When he'd tried to sleep, he saw faces he didn't know. She was lonely, and so he was lonely. She was hurting, and so he hurt with her. Luke had no idea.
Ben's thumb depressed the activation switch and his lightsaber blazed to life in his hands. He no longer cared if his strokes were useless. He needed to strike at something, and Luke was before him. He had years of pent up anger and grief behind him and the power of the dark side in his veins.
"This is your fault," Ben bellowed. "She was safe with you. You should have made her stay."
He slashed at Luke's image, the red light passing harmlessly through his uncle's insubstantial form.
"What makes you think anything that I could say would have kept her from you, Benjamin Solo?" Luke shot back. "The dark side called to her even in the brief time I taught her. You called to her. I saw you that night. I knew you'd bonded yourself to her, trying to draw her to your side. It seems you've succeeded."
"It wasn't me!" Ben shouted back at him. "It was Snoke. He was the one-"
"So be it," Luke interrupted. "But how do you explain what she is now? When she left me, she was bound and determined to bring you to the light."
Ben glanced back at Rey's horror-stricken face, trying to block out the memories of a little girl's screams flitting through his head.
"I thought-" he started, "I thought she was like me. I only wanted her then because she was like me."
"Then?" asked Luke.
Ben struggled with the tangle of emotions in his chest. He was so tired of being angry. The awful boiling emotion slipped from him more easily than he'd imagined it could. It seemed to leave a void where it had drained away.
"I love her," he said helplessly. "More than anything."
Luke watched him without speaking, those terrible eyes roaming over his face, seeming to search him to his very soul. Ben looked away. Shame filled him, memories spilling over into his mind. He'd pushed them back for so long. He saw again the young faces of his classmates, pale and still and silent. Dead at his own hand. He saw Luke's face, twisted in horror and fear, a green lightsaber raised above his head.
"You lied to her," he rasped.
"At first, yes. Why do you think she ran to you?" Luke murmured. "I tried to protect her, but you told her, and I had no choice but to tell her the truth. She took it as a betrayal."
Ben glanced up to see his uncle at Rey's side, his hand stroking her hair as a father might his daughter's.
"Don't touch her," he said, striding forward with his hand outstretched to knock Luke's away.
His old master didn't move. He continued to pass his fingers over Rey's hair, expression distant and sad. Ben's hand fell to his side, and he watched as Luke bent and pressed a kiss against the top of Rey's head. She didn't respond.
"I was wrong," Luke murmured. "I was wrong and now I bear the burden of another student lost to the dark side."
Ben kept stubbornly silent. Luke didn't look up as he continued.
"I helped you lay the foundation on which Snoke built his empire. I taught you to fear the dark side and yet I drove you straight toward it with my actions. When it really mattered- when the fate of my own nephew was at stake- I was weak and I let my fear control me. My mistake has cost you everything. I failed you, Ben. I'm sorry."
Ben felt his jaw tighten.
"I'm sure you are," he said, voice hard and cold.
Luke's hand had stilled on Rey's head.
"There is a chance for her," he said. "There's still a spark, though it's buried deep. It won't be easy for her, but she may still turn back to the light."
"And who but Vader has ever returned?" Ben spat out. "I'm not a fool, Uncle. I know the cost."
"She was in tune with the light side from her first awakening. I cannot believe she would abandon it so easily."
"Then you don't know the strength of the dark side," Ben muttered. "It consumes all."
Luke's face went stern.
"I know its strength as well as you do. Better, because I resisted its seduction."
"So, you think I'm weak, is that it?" Ben snapped.
"No," Luke said, shaking his head. "You've always been powerful in the Force, but you didn't even try to resist the call of the dark side."
Ben glowered at him.
"Leave," he growled. "I don't want you here."
Luke drew away from Rey's still figure. He paused, looking from the saber that still glowed red in Ben's hands to the scar that crossed the right side of his face from forehead to chin.
"I was wrong about one more thing, Ben."
"And what's that?" Ben asked sarcastically.
Luke glanced back at Rey.
"I taught you to avoid attachments- to avoid love and the comfort of family."
"You told me that love led to fear and fear to the dark side."
"And I was wrong," repeated Luke. "Fear and love in and of themselves do not lead to the dark side. It is only when we refuse to let go of those we love in our fear that we draw close to the dark side. It is a selfish love- an inability to surrender those held most dear to the designs of something greater than yourself. When you cannot trust; that is the moment you are lost to the light. I taught you as a child to have faith, and I ask you now to remember that lesson. For your sake and hers, let in the light."
And with that, Luke vanished.
Ben stood frozen, staring into the empty air where his uncle had been standing. His lightsaber slipped from his nerveless fingers and clattered to the floor, the blade disappearing with a sharp buzz. Ben sank back into his chair, not sure what he should do. He hadn't seen Luke in over a decade and now he'd just decided to appear. Ben shivered, fighting to put the memories back where he'd managed to keep them in the years since the night of his betrayal. Shame and self-disgust plagued him, drowning the fire of his fury and leaving him hollow, only to be filled with Rey's loneliness and fear.
Seeing Luke reminded him again of his parents. Ben clutched at his head, desperate to get rid of the picture of his father falling into the abyss below his feet that played and replayed in his mind's eye. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying not to remember the pool of his mother's blood or the jagged shard of metal jutting from her broken body. It was all his fault. He wished Rey was awake. Anything would be better than being alone with himself in the darkness and silence.
...
It was four days before his desperate pleas for Rey's return were answered. Four days and nights in which Ben did not sleep or eat. Dark thoughts swirled in his mind and nightmares waited for him if he closed his eyes. When he wasn't watching Rey, he attended to his duties on the ship with one ear always cocked for news that might help him find Snoke. There was nothing but silence. His patience, already short from anxiety, drew closer to nonexistent with the lack of sleep.
"Hux," he muttered, rubbing his gritty eyes after his fourth night of pacing, "Get to the point. You've called all of us for this meeting and you have yet to say anything of importance."
Hux gave him a withering look.
"Spending too much time with your apprentice, Supreme Leader?" he asked.
Ben caught the drift and swore vehemently at the red haired general. Several of the younger officers turned his way and stared, surprised at the outburst, but the older ones knew better and kept their eyes on their holopads. Hux gave him a triumphant smile.
"As I was about to say," he continued, "we've picked up transmissions coming from a tiny settlement in the middle of nowhere called Niima outpost. Intel suggests that there is a Resistance presence in the area."
"Niima outpost?" muttered one of the young officers, looking at the rotating hologram of Jakku. "Why there?"
"It's small," Ben said, "and even though it's got the closest thing resembling a communications grid on the planet, it's isolated. They can keep out of sight there. It took us this long to find them, didn't it?"
"Locals reported activity in the area just a few hours ago," said Hux. "Fighters. Bombers. Ammunition. The Resistance is alive and well, as we all suspected. This will be the first of the remnants we must wipe from the galaxy."
"When?" asked a vice admiral sitting on Hux's right.
"My troops will be in place by tomorrow morning. I expect to need at least part of the fleet for fueling and weaponry stores."
"You'll have our full cooperation," said the vice admiral.
"Excellent," Hux said, waving a hand to dismiss them. "I'll expect your reports in three hours. The transports will leave in ten, and I expect the supply ships to be in place two hours before that."
The vice admiral nodded, and he and the other officers quickly got to their feet and left the room, some already barking orders into comms. Ben stood to take his leave with them when Hux's sly voice stopped him in his tracks.
"And what about you, Supreme Leader?"
Ben scowled.
"My apprentice isn't ready."
"Then you'll go alone. May I remind you that you volunteered, Supreme Leader, and as loth as I am to say it, we'll need your skills on this venture."
"She would be an asset- she knows this planet better than any of us. Besides, my bargain was I would go only if Rey goes with me."
"Then, by all means, bring her along. I'm sure trial by fire is a viable training opportunity."
"A few days are all I need to prepare her. This cannot wait?"
"You know they'll be gone if we delay. The hand of the First Order must prevail. Would you turn traitor for a woman, Ren? A scavenger?"
"I am no traitor," Ben said, fighting to keep his voice from shaking in his anger. "But if you are such a fool that you blind yourself to the fact that she is the best resource we have, then nothing I say will convince you."
Hux stood with a jerk, back straight, expression murderous.
"I will not stay this attack," he hissed, eyes fixed on Ben. "And if you are not in the front, as you promised, so help me, I will find a way to eliminate this confliction of loyalties."
A chill went down Ben's spine.
"I am not conflicted," Ben shot back. "As I have said time and again, my loyalties lie solely with the First Order."
"Your attachment to the scavenger suggests otherwise."
"She's stronger than you, Hux," Ben snarled, warning in his voice against the thinly veiled threat. "You would be dead before you could get close."
A slow, deadly smile creased Hux's face and Ben reached for the Force, his fingers beginning to curve inwards.
"There are ways to level the playing field," Hux said, throwing a meaningful glance at Ben's hands. "And I would advise you not to try anything. You and I both know that she's helpless right now."
Ben felt the blood leave his face. A desperation to return to Rey's side seized him, but he forced himself to remain still. Hux took a step closer until he was staring straight into Ben's eyes, the sickly smile still on his face.
"We all have a weak spot, Ren," he whispered. "And I know exactly where yours is."
It took every ounce of self-restraint Ben had to keep himself from striking Hux. Jaw working, he spun on his heel and slipped from the room before the general could say another word. He strode purposefully for Rey's quarters, in dread of what he could find. His heart skipped several beats as the door opened to reveal the apartment beyond. Rey had disappeared. The place where she had been sitting was vacant, and the bits and pieces of scrap metal that had remained strewn around her had vanished too. Ben's hands began to shake.
"Rey?"
There was no answer.
He swept through the rooms, searching each briefly for any sign of Rey. She was nowhere to be found. For a moment, Ben started to panic. He fought it back and covered his face with his trembling hands, trying to settle himself enough to concentrate and figure out where she'd gone. His mind wouldn't cooperate with him. He was almost too tired to see straight, let alone think. In his desperation, his instincts took over and he stretched for the Force. To his relief, he could sense her presence, though it didn't feel quite like he remembered. She was somewhere close. He followed the gentle pull to the door of a training room and slid through the darkened doorway.
He should have known.
Rey stood alone in the middle of the floor, her back to him. He could tell at a glance that something was different. Her spine was stiff, and she held her chin high. She seemed somehow taller. Fiercer. She felt strange in the Force, as if she wasn't quite the same person he'd known before.
As he watched, Rey's fingers tightened on the shining hilt she clutched and twin blades sprang from the weapon. He took an instinctive step back. They were red. Red as his own blade. Red as blood. He sensed a cold darkness gathering around her, growing in strength. She stood there, feet braced, arms straight at her sides, head thrown back and body tense as if in pain. And she screamed.
The hair on his neck stood straight. It was a cry full of rage and an unknowable agony- so like to the one she'd let out under the torturous power of Snoke's mind that he instinctively shrank away. Her emotions swept through the bond toward him, washing over him in a wave. There were years of anger there: anger at her parents for leaving her, anger at the injustices she'd suffered at the hands of others, anger at Luke for his betrayal. There was loneliness- that old, familiar loneliness that had been closer to him than his own skin for longer than he could remember. And there was fear. Fear so dark and dreadful that he staggered another step back. It was like an echo of his own terror- of the nightmares that stalked him when he slept, or the constant watchfulness that had kept him on his feet and wide awake for days on end when Snoke had been his master.
It was a relief when Rey stopped screaming, but it seemed to have released something inside her. She darted forward and swung her staff at the empty air with a furious yell. Ben watched in silence as she thrust and parried invisible strokes, whirling about as if she were surrounded. Her feet wove intricate patterns as she moved with the grace of a dancer. There was a new power in her movements, the shadow of which he'd only seen when he'd battled her with a staff. Unlike a lightsaber, she was utterly at ease with the saberstaff, leaping high and swinging it wide in glowing arches of light. It was beautiful and awe-inspiring, but his heart twisted when he caught glimpses of her face as she battled her imagined foes. Her teeth were bared in a terrible grimace and her eyes were fear filled and wild. She was awake, but her mind was far away.
Ben reached for his saber and strode forward, igniting the blade as he drew close to her. Her back was to him again and he reached out to grip her shoulder before jumping back, knowing full well how she would react to being startled. Rey spun on him, saberstaff at the ready. This close, Ben was amazed to find that the blades weren't entirely red. As he stared at them, he noticed the faintest color emanating from the depths of the blade. Gold. At the very core of the saber was a spark. In the roiling chaos of fear and anger and darkness, Ben saw what Luke had sworn existed. Rey's spark.
She took a wary step toward him, staring up into his face as though she didn't recognize him. Slowly, carefully so as not to frighten her, he reached out a hand and took her arm. She blinked and shook her head, seeming to try to clear it.
"Rey," he whispered, "Come back to me."
"Ben?" came her faint voice.
"Right here."
The lightsaber's blades extinguished and the red light that had been reflected in her face vanished. For the first time, he could see how deathly pale she was, and the deep purple shadows under her eyes. There were tears on her cheeks. He cradled her face, gently brushing his thumb over her skin. How he'd missed her. Her eyes were mercifully brown and beautiful, and he didn't even try to fight the impulse to lean in and kiss her. She kissed him back, desperately, tears falling faster as her arms twined around his neck.
"I thought I'd dreamed it all," she said in a hoarse whisper. "I thought I was going to wake up on Jakku alone again."
Ben shook his head and pressed a kiss into her hair, inhaling deeply.
"I missed you," he murmured, pulling her tighter to himself.
She wrapped her arms around his waist and nestled her head against his neck. He ran his fingers through the hair that had come loose and hung down her back. They rested there for several minutes, each quiet in the warmth of the arms of the other. In spite of the darkness surrounding them, it was a moment that felt almost like peace. Then everything rushed back and he remembered his meeting with Hux.
"Rey?"
"Mmm?"
"They found another pocket of the Resistance. We're going dirtside tomorrow."
She drew away, brow furrowed.
"What?"
"Hux plans to attack tomorrow. We'll be at the front."
Rey let out a long sigh and let her head droop until her forehead pressed against his chest.
"What planet?" she asked, resignation in her voice.
"Jakku. Niima outpost."
"Niima outpost," she repeated, thumb moving to cover the activation switch on her saber hilt. "I can't go back there, Ben. I can't."
"Then I'll go alone, like I was going to if you hadn't woken up. It's alright. You don't have to go."
Rey shook her head.
"I won't let you go by yourself either. Why not let Hux handle this one?" she asked, a shiver running through her. "Why does it have to be us?"
"Because he looked me in the eyes and all but made an outright threat on your life unless I, at least, went."
She started and looked up at him.
"He can't be serious," she said. "I could kill him without even touching him. I would have if you hadn't stopped me. Does he forget so easily?"
"He doesn't forget," Ben said. "But it wouldn't be impossible for him to kill you. There are things scattered all over the galaxy that could weaken you or sever you from the Force, if only for a short time. That's all he would need."
Rey was silent for a long time before she gave a little shudder and the fight seemed to drain out of her.
"We're never going to be able to rest until they're dead, are we?" she asked. "Both Snoke and Hux."
"No."
She sighed before managing to give him a small, sad smile and igniting her saberstaff. The red light shone out again, casting eerie shadows across her face.
"Spar?" she asked, turning from him. "We'll both need the practice for tomorrow."
Ben ignored the question and reached out, gripping her arm to turn her back toward him.
"Together, Rey. Alright?" he said. "We go into this together."
Rey didn't reply, but there were grateful tears in her eyes when she turned away again.
