"Hey, kid!"
Ben rolled his eyes and ignored the car just as he had been ignoring the terrible headache following the dreadful night he had. Was everyone mad or was it just their plan to make him go mad? Though, considering all the things everyone was accusing him of, maybe he was the mad one or at least suffering from some sort of temporary amnesia too.
"BEN!"
"WHAT?" he turned around taking his hood off and looking at Luke like a vicious animal ready to dig his claws in his flesh. Now that he had finally stopped jogging, Luke stopped the car too and opened the door to the passenger seat.
"Get in!"
Ben's initial answer was meant to be less polite and not very representative of his education, but he bit his tongue and got inside the car, letting Luke drive wherever he wanted. Though, the last time they were in a similar situation, they both ended up in hospital, reminder which was keeping him from feeling less tensed, especially with Luke reeking of alcohol so early in the morning. But at least now there the roads were not slippery and it was broad daylight.
"Last night, we had lots of complaints from your neighbours," spoke Luke and Ben looked at him unsure why he was supposed to care about such thing when there was something more important to discuss. "You know, Ben, if you two like it rough, at least don't wake up the entire neighbourhood."
"Are you my father?" he chose to ignore anything that would bring up his future ex-wife.
Luke hit the brakes so unexpectedly that it was sheer luck the car behind didn't crash into them. It was Luke's time to ignore the angry driver and the cup of coffee he threw at his window.
"I'm not in the mood for bad jokes," he huffed.
"Nor am I," Ben snarled. "I found out that I am adopted and that my mom had been telling people that you're my dad. Everyone knew. Everyone but me."
The old man took a moment to recollect, then focused again on the road. They were already leaving the town when he finally sighed and spoke to Ben.
"Almost everything you said is wrong, but you do know something."
"I'd rather not know anything," he scowled. "But now I do and I need answers. Don't disappoint me for once your life."
Luke rolled his eyes recognizing his family's dramatic genes in the boy, then shook his head in amusement, though he was beginning to feel things he hadn't felt in thirty years.
"Listen… you only need to look in a mirror to see your father's face. You have your mom's cheeks, chin and soft eyes. You are your parents' son. Your mom must have said that when she was already unwell."
"But I was adopted. I remember people talking about it when I was a kid. They were either praising my mom for her courage and selflessness or pitying her for having ended up with someone like me as her son. Besides, I was in the photos at their wedding."
Luke made an exasperated sound as if trying to remember himself the old story. Eventually, he pulled near a roadside memorial and massaged his forehead. His heart was feeling rather strange and he had to take deep breaths to calm down before getting too upset.
"When your mom… Leia , to be more precise, got pregnant, it was a really difficult time for her. She had lost her family, had found that she was adopted and the shitstorm her birth family was. Then she got pregnant with Han. Their relationship had been mostly an affair she regretted back then. I don't know if he wasn't what she had hoped for or if she simply didn't want more from him. After all, he was much older and she had more expectations from her life, unlike him. So they broke up, he left, and she moved in with me while I went to academy and she to college. We were both broke and she was also pregnant, which was quite an expensive little detail. We managed to make ends meet and I helped her raise you until she turned the right age to claim her inheritance. She then repaired her adoptive parents' house and moved back there. At the same time, she met Han again and you know the story."
"But it doesn't explain the adoption part. Why-"
"You used to call me dad because I was your paternal figure in your first years of life," sighed Luke cursing his own feelings for that little boy with messy dark curly hair and ancient eyes and with an inexplicable obsession for elephants which he had outgrown it, thankfully. "People never knew Leia was pregnant, so when they saw a giant baby with black hair calling me dad, they'd assumed that I was a single dad giving my son to my sister to raise. And as I said, Han and Leia got back together, he adored you, you too and you sort of forgot about me. And once they got married, he had to adopt you to change your name and so you became Ben Solo. The rest is just town gossip and… your poor mom being confused. Memory is such a tricky aspect of our existence."
Ben knew exactly what he was trying to say, but he was too busy assimilating the information. If it was true, then why on earth his parents had never used that part of their lives as another embarrassing story to be told at Christmas dinner?
"I could show you a photo of your great-grandma to explain the dark hair and then take you for a DNA test," he patted his nephew on the shoulder. "I'm not your dad, kid, even though you used to call me so."
Ben said nothing. It didn't appear as if he was completely convinced, but at least he looked less menacing and had again that puppy face of his.
"Your wife knew this. Or at least her old self knew. She once came to me and demanded me to take responsibility for my thirty-something-year-old son. I told her the truth."
"She never bothered telling me anything until a couple of days ago. Though she must have not remembered that part of the story. Not that it would have changed anything."
Luke looked at his grumpy nephew and his lips thinned in a firm line.
"I understand that you're upset and you're right to be so, but maybe you should talk to her."
"I don't care about her anymore. I hate her! I swear I could… destroy her if I had her in front of me."
"Yeah, the entire town heard how you destroyed her last night," the old man laughed and hit the gas ignoring Ben's angry red face. "Now let's talk about more important stuff. I read those diary pages you sent me."
"Oh, I forgot I sent them to you," he mumbled scratching his forehead. For a moment, he regretted all the rage he felt and the pain he caused Rey, but now he remembered the diary and all those horrible things she wrote. The fact that his childhood was not in fact a lie didn't change that his marriage had been one since the little critter came to him with her delicious biscuits. How could someone so pretty and sweet be so cruel and vile?
"Rey came to me a few nights ago. She had been crying and she wanted to know about the investigation. She gave me some details that night and they helped a lot, though it would have helped a lot more to have all the details. I mean, she was lying through her teeth, but at least she gave me something."
"So do you have anything to say about what you read ?"
"I'm gonna get there too, but first, we need to talk about Margaret Shay."
"What's that?" shook Ben his head before he would make any unpleasant remarks.
"It's a person. And you've met her, though… she wasn't quite alive."
Ben glared at his uncle then blinked confused as he remembered the poor girl lying under a sheet at the morgue. She looked so much like Rey that it took him a very traumatising close analysis of her body to figure out that it was just another poor unfortunate soul.
"What about her?"
"You know that scar she has on the back of her head? We know from her file that she had a surgery, so I decided to try my luck. So I took out the files I had from the hospitals in the area and found a certain Margaret Shay. Must I tell you the reason why she was in the hospital around the time the real Margaret Shay was already rotting and Rey Solo was still missing?"
Ben bit his lip.
"Maybe it's just a coincidence."
"Maybe, but the hospital should have a copy of her ID card."
"Luke, this is madness."
"Do you want to go back to jail, but this time with your wife accusing you directly of all those things she wrote in that diary?"
Ben pursed his lips.
"I… At some point I actually wondered if I had done those things. But I couldn't have! Luke, you know me!"
"I do, but I also sort of know your wifey."
"But you remember what I've gone thought and Rey… she ch-"
"I know, Ben. She's quite a liar the little one, but if those things really happened to her, maybe we should give her the chance to sort things out."
Ben bit his lip and looked at the farms gradually getting replaced by more and more trees, like a curtain. Rey didn't bother giving him a chance to explain himself. Why would he give her a chance? He had been suicidal and miserable for someone who had been enjoying his pain.
" If."
Please stop… Ben… Please… It hurts…
Rey shed another tear watching the first sun rays form a bridge of light on the surface of the lake. She had spent the entire night driving around until she decided to go back to where everything began. At least it was not that cold and she was wearing warmer clothes. However, unlike that last time, there was no one looking for her and no one came to rescue her. This time, no one cared about her anymore. She had made sure of this.
Her eye twitched when the headache hit and she closed her eyes, letting her mind relax and embrace the memory.
She was in so much pain that she barely found the strength to lift her cuffed hands to grab his wrist and squeeze it. Ben looked at her as if barely seeing her while he continued. But as her desperation was showing off, his gaze too turned into a panicked one. He immediately pulled out and uncuffed her.
Rey? he called her helping her to get up. What's wrong?
She touched her head and parted her lips unable to speak.
Have I hurt you? Do you need an ambulance?
She straightened her back and gently moved her head back and forth. Now that her skull was no longer pressing onto the headboard, the pain was getting slightly tolerable.
It's… I'm fine. I couldn't…
She looked at his worried face and gulped. They had been looking forward to that night for weeks and her sudden headache ruined their game. She needn't tell him about the rest of her symptoms.
Sorry, she whimpered and he shook his head pulling her gently in his arms. The scavenger failed both her mission of defeating the evil Kylo Ren and seducing him to earn her freedom.
Stop joking, Rey, he pressed his forehead against hers. I'm really worried. It's not the first time you're in pain or you faint or… Just promise me you'll go see a doctor and stop overworking yourself.
"I promise," she murmured staring once again at the lake. She'd been so wrong about him and with him knowing everything, there was no turning back. She'd ruined everything. The only time she was right was when she had the tiniest seed of doubt that maybe, just maybe her memory was not the most reliable storyteller. And it hadn't been the first time either. Ever since Luke saved her from freezing to death, she had doubted Ben, their relationship, friendship, their love, his faithfulness…
She gasped remembering how Kaydel was straddling him in her own couch. Indeed, he was drunk that night, drunk enough to barely stand on his own, but he was so full of hate and no longer willing to care about anything. Had she not stopped them on time, he would have done to her the same she did to him.
She let her body fall on the dock and stared at the sky - there were still a couple of stars visible.
What was the point in even hoping to save her marriage when she'd been smashing it like a porcelain vase and had even given Ben a hammer to join her in destroying even the tiniest remaining shard? There was nothing keeping them together when they took every sweet aspect of their marriage and turned it into a bitter one. Or… maybe there was still something. She touched her belly with her cold hands and watched a dark grey cloud move, slowly turning into a tiny elephant. It wasn't fair though. Her… their baby deserved a better environment and family than what they had now. And, suddenly, she was beginning to understand why she might have not wanted to give birth to that other child. What did she, an orphan rejected by her own family, know about motherhood?
Some say love hurts, but it is never actually the love that hurts. It is people breaking promises and never loving enough. Now that she was looking at herself in the mirror, she could finally understand that she never loved enough, which was good, because she was never loved enough either. She wiped the blood dripping from her nose cringing at every single touch and movement. It was not love what made her entire body hurt. It was the lack of it. It was the obsession she had developed for someone who had never loved her. It was her need to find someone to finally look at herself as a human being with feelings and a lot of emotional baggage, not the pretty face, hot body and huge inheritance. Just her… Kaydel. And for a while, she had hoped and foolishly believed that it was finally happening.
She looked at her swollen lips, bruised neck, bloody red eye and the scratch marks on her cheek. It was not love what made her body look like that or her chest feel that physical pain with each breath. It was her mistake of not keeping her mouth shut and demanding too much from someone who was just plain fucked up. It was her mistake of falling for the lies of a sick man.
She dragged her feet to the hallway. The ringing in her ears had been there ever since she woke up after she fainted after the final blow, but now it was louder than ever and despite her nausea and heavy head, she could now distinguish the familiar sound of her intercom.
"It's me!"
She clenched her jaw, though something was rather odd about it. Of course, any possible fracture was not much of a surprise following the last six punches she was still able to remember and relive with each movement. Hesitating, she pressed the button allowing her visitor to enter the building before she continued her way to the kitchen. With painful clumsy steps, she reached the cutlery drawer and pulled out the largest knife she could handle. Her bruised wrist and rather odd-looking elbow were not helping her much, yet she still held the knife on her way to the front door. She put on the safety chain and breathed anxiously as she listened carefully to the elevator reaching her floor, then to the footsteps followed by someone knocking.
She opened the door and looked at him with her less battered eye.
"Kay, sorry for not calling, but we need to talk about last night. I have no idea what happened and I don't wa…"
He stopped as she stepped back, making her bloodied nightgown and all of her wounds visible.
"Kay, what happened to you?" he panicked.
"What happened to me?" she snorted. " You happened! Do you really think you can come and apologize after what you've done?"
Ben blinked confused and shook his head.
"What are you talking about? Kaydel, this is a huge misunderstanding and we need to talk! Please, let me in!" his voice was cracking, but she did not even flinch.
"What's a huge misunderstanding? The fact that you tried to murder me last night?" her mask fell and she snapped as tears began streaming down her face, making each wound and scratch hurt even more. " I asked you, begged you to just talk and sort things out, but I guess you didn't hear me as you were already fucking strangling me!"
"Kay, I was home last night!" he said approaching the door. "After you left, I argued with Rey and she asked me for a divorce. I accepted and then went upstairs and slept all night because I was drunk. I never left the house until a few hours ago."
Kaydel took another step back. She was already in bed when the doorbell rang and was surprised to see Ben. He was indeed clean and sober, but she did not pay attention to such details. Many things about their relationship made no sense, but it had been too beautiful to ruin it with stupid questions. So, without asking anything, as usual, she just invited him in and helped him get undressed.
How did you get here so fast? Did she give you her car?
No. I took the train as usual.
Kaydel tilted her head and shrugged, then sat on his lap and kissed him. Indeed, he did not taste like alcohol as he did just a couple of hours before.
I called you, but you didn't pick up , he scolded her grabbing her by the hair and pulling merciless while kissing her neck. As sweet as he seemed before, when they were only friends, in bed, he was quite a wild ferocious beast.
I dropped my bag when Rey kicked me out and I didn't realise until I got home. Good thing I had my keys inside my pocket.
Ben let go of her hair and furrowed. Kaydel sighed and caressed his face, where his scar was no longer visible. It sure had healed out of the blue.
Look, I know I shouldn't have done that. You said to keep this relationship a secret for a while, but now that Rey saw us kissing and she knows about us, you can finally get a divorce. If that bitch won't leave you much money to buy that apartment I found, then you can move here with me.
Ben blinked with his lips parted and grabbed her hair again, this time Kaydel letting out a whimper.
Oh, dear… You really shouldn't have done that. Now I must punish you.
If in those two months of dating in secret the idea of punishment had always been something rather fun and satisfying, this time, his menacing tone was the first thing to announce what would come once he dragged her into her bedroom.
"Kaydel, I don't understand!" he cried worried about her mental and physical state. "Why did you kiss me? What relationship? Who are the three of us? Why are you saying I was here last night?"
The three of them? She touched her belly feeling a suspicious numbness after all the punches in the stomach. She had found blood on the sheets, but considering all of her wounds, she could not yet know whether there was anything left of the third one. And it was also rather incredible how she did not even care. She'd been rather cold-blooded and analytical during her younger years, but things changed when she met Ben. Now it was time to go back to her older self. And her older self would not need the noisy crying spawn of a monster to remind her of her foolishness.
"Wait," she snarled closing the door and taking off the safety lock. "Come in."
Ben stepped inside cautiously. The place looked fine, but as far as he could see through the ajar door, her bedroom was an actual crime scene. He looked at her trembling and holding the knife like an animal showing its teeth. If he had learnt anything from his trashy friends from college, it was the fact that one could easily guess how quickly the opponent could get disarmed. In her case, she was barely holding it. The only person she would have hurt, it was herself.
"What's going on?" he whispered. He seemed so innocent and the complete opposite of the monster who almost killed her in cold blood.
"Don't do this, Ben. Don't try to fool me. I'm not as stupid as you think I am."
"But I don-"
" Don't lie!" she lifted both her hands pointing the knife at him as he stepped back until he found himself compelled to sit down.
"Kaydel, I've been working from home and barely seen you and you know this."
"No! You chose to work from home to not cause me any trouble. You insisted on keeping everything a secret."
She stopped for a moment and wept silently.
"And I believed you because it all made sense. You pretended that evening to not know about my supposed date. You even dared to ask me out to dinner and I was actually wondering why on earth a guy whose wife had recently returned from the dead did not want to spend more time with her. But I've always been by your side so I didn't even bother overthinking anything. Then you had the accident and my date suddenly disappeared and kept everything so low key. Ben, you had the guts to watch me cry on my own birthday and never once said anything that maybe the reason why I was so miserable was right there in front of me. You toyed with me and made me fall for you and for what? You were the perfect guy and I was your only support and you ended up treating me like shit like the rest have done my entire life! And what was the point? I used to see you as my best and pretty much only true friend and you had to take advantage of me and use my insecurities and loneliness to seduce me! I even defended you, Ben! Your wife was calling me a whore right in my face and all I cared about was cleaning your image! God, if you did this to me, I can now believe everyone when they said that you were involved in her disappearance! I thought that I was the one who won, but she is the actual winner because she got away!"
"I did nothing to you!" he panicked once more as the knife touched his cheek.
"Did you at least love me the tiniest bit? At least in those moments when you were done supposedly with her and no longer obsessing over her?"
"I did love you… as a friend. You're wonderful, Kayde, but I've never wanted more from you and you know this."
"Then why the hell did you do this to me?"
He opened his mouth to defend himself once again but gave up. Rey's accusations, even Phasma's and now Kaydel's… was his life more than just work and self-pity? Was he indeed the monster everyone was accusing him of? He saw the look in Luke's eyes when Margaret Shay's hospital file showed the details of someone who had died long before the surgery even occurred. Even worse, he had to see Luke's faith in him drop considerably once his own face revealed that he knew who Kylo Ren, the tall man with dark hair who brought Rey in for the surgery… after she had given birth, truly was. But when did a character he invented for a silly party and kept as part of their kinkiest games became someone so corporeal and capable of taking his own decisions and leading his own separate life?
"There's something I don't understand," he uttered later when Kaydel was sitting down too. She looked at him while carving something on her coffee table. He tried to not let his worries overwhelm him, though, with his friend's robotic movements and soulless gaze, it was rather impossible.
"If you say that I'm the one who beat you, then why did you invite me here? If I am the monster you claim I am, then why you did you even let me in? Am I not a danger to you?"
"You are, but I had to take my chance and kill two birds with one stone."
He furrowed and looked at the large windows. Were those sirens he was hearing?
Kaydel got up and headed towards the front door.
"I called the police as soon as I woke up."
Luke was getting tired of waiting inside the car, but following their most recent discovery, he let Ben go visit his only friend. The boy was already surprisingly calm for someone who was visibly going through some emotional turmoil. He was so worried about him that he couldn't even think about what he should do with that information they got about Rey. Or how did the real Margaret end up abused and dead right around the same time Rey needed to hide behind the identity of a lookalike to get away with her initial disappearance? Also, what was the deal with that Kylo Ren?
He scratched his beard and looked in the rearview mirror. Was that…
"Hey! Ben!" he ran to the cops arresting his nephew. "Where are you taking him? Ben!"
The boy looked at him with a lost gaze, then at the girl heading towards the ambulance helped by some medical staff and a police officer. She… He had known her for some time, but now, without makeup and battered, she looked exactly like Margaret Shay… and Rey.
Luke looked again at Ben and bit his lip, shaking his head in disappointment.
"Ben, where's Rey? What have you done to her?"
Ben shrugged like a little boy and teared up, mouthing I don't know.
Rey got up after a long while spent on the dock. Her muscles were sour and she was not sure whether she had fallen asleep with her eyes wide open or if she'd just been numb for hours, watching the clouds change their shapes and colours. She couldn't just linger there all day long. Maybe Ben was already sober and they could talk without yelling and crying. Just two adults sitting at the table, establishing boundaries and the terms and conditions of their relationship. And it sounded much easier than it was actually going to be.
"Rey!"
She massaged her neck and turned to the one calling her. She hadn't even recognized his voice.
"How did you find me?"
For a moment, she considered the possibility that maybe her mind was once again playing tricks on her, but as her blurry vision was getting clearer, so was he approaching her. Her heart was beating faster with each step of his and she had to stand up to make sure she would not hug his legs begging for forgiveness. Maybe she'd been wrong about certain things, but she had decided she could not yet forgive his little indiscretion with Kaydel. Not when he had promised her to let the past die only to let their past kill their relationship.
"Why are you here, Ben? You've made it clear that you don't want me in your life anymore."
"Let's go home, Rey," he ordered her.
She shook her head and refused to take his hand.
"That's not my home. Not anymore."
"Then let's go to our real home. The place where we've been the happiest."
What was that supposed to mean? The old Organa house had been sold years ago and it most likely belonged to someone else. But she now did remember the rose garden and how sweet and innocent their love used to be back then. So, even though still refusing to take his hand, she passed by him and headed towards her car, with him following her.
"Wanna drive?" she asked throwing him the keys, which he didn't catch. Rey smirked. Ben had some excellent reflexes, so maybe he was nervous as well.
He unlocked the car and waited for Rey to get inside before he joined her.
"I must say that I'm glad you came for me," she said on a neutral tone as her eyes analysed his bruised knuckles. "I guess we have a lot to talk about."
He said nothing and she pursed her lips. There was something strange about him. He was making her feel uncomfortable with just his simple presence. It was as if his energy was so negative that it was killing any drop of confidence in her body, flooding her with anxiety.
"Is it going to be just the two of us?"
"If you're asking me whether Kaydel is going to be there, don't worry about here. She's no longer going to be part of our life."
"Our life?" she snorted, though his empty gaze made her clear her throat and avoid continuing to look at him. "So you won't divorce me?"
"Rey," he slowed down to cross the bridge. "I know about the baby. Now please stop asking questions until we get home."
She swallowed all the saliva in her mouth and blinked nervously and slightly tired. But he had said… Oh well… She yawned closing her eyes. It was still early in the morning and they had all the time in the world to figure things out. And if that trip was going to be a silent one, she could use some sleep after the night she had.
