*** Content warning: Violence and self harm

**Last time on WO: Rey wakes in severe pain and Ben's heart is breaking. They make tough decisions about how to proceed. They are still unsure but want to see how Rey is the next time she is off sedation. They are also trying to get in touch with the Damerons for some back up. **

Ben woke up and couldn't breathe. Between gulps for air, he vaguely felt like his arm was being ripped from his body. He tried to sit up but he wasn't able to move. It felt like his heart was going to pound out of his chest, protesting the lack of oxygen. There was a popping noise and his arm felt like it was on fire. His eyes searched for anything to help him. He didn't want to hurt her, but he also remembered the conversation from the night before. Well, he thought it was. In reality it could have been minutes or hours. Once he'd curled into Rey, he fell asleep quickly. The exhaustion and stress had caught up with him, and it may have been the weakness that killed him, and possibly in turn the love of his life. Who was the one currently physically choking him and doing something horrible to his arm. With black spots dancing in his vision he glanced around again. The droids were smashed against the wall, and he couldn't feel any signs of life in the immediate area. He didn't know if it was just empty or if she'd killed them. He didn't have time to focus on that though.

Rey had finally let go of his arm, and had her hand raised, focussed intently on something. Sweat beaded on her forehead and the outstretched hand was shaking. Ben wanted to use her momentary distraction to get out of this. He tried to move his left arm, since he thought he could get more leverage since it was opposite the way she had his head locked. His arm wouldn't move though. He was getting desperate and it went against every instinct, but he used his good hand to reach up and grab her burned one. He twisted as he dug his fingers into the flesh that was far from healed. She released him just a little as she hissed in pain, but that was the opening he needed. He took a deep breath and continued the twisting of her hand until he had space to roll out of her reach. His left arm hung virtually dead weight, but the rest of him was strong now that he could take normal breaths again.

She growled and dropped the hand that was trying to summon something. He guessed she was after a lightsaber again. That was one thing in Ben's favor-the med wing didn't have a surplus of weapons. He reached out and tried to yell for Luke or Leia, but he had no way to know if they heard his mental plea because Rey had gotten up from the bed and was advancing on him. In a lightning quick move, she rushed him and tried to kick his ankles out from under him. He jumped and used that momentum to get in her space and try to get hold of her so she couldn't keep moving. She elbowed him full force in the stomach and when he stumbled back, once again gasping for air, she backed up and sized him up. She faked right but then slammed into his hurt shoulder, sending a jolt of lightning down his arm. She flicked her wrist and Ben found himself pinned against the wall, immobile.

She lifted her hand again, strain evident on her face. Ben grabbed the bond and searched. He tried to force so much calm in the bond that if it would have gone through she would have slept for a week. The wall was as strong as ever, darkness spiralling out, trying to reach out and latch on to his signature. He pushed away the threads and threw up a shield. He gave up on the bond, and felt around her mind, trying to find whatever it was that Leia affected in order to put her under, but he wasn't sure what he was doing. They had never taught him that trick and while he could understand their hesitation it was costing him now.

"Get out! Get OUT!" Rey shrieked, and Ben wondered if he had found something. He ran back over the place he'd been mentally poking at and Rey jerked. "Don't. He'll punish me," she said, pleading with him. Ben hesitated and she used that. She waved her hand and Ben ducked just in time. She'd thrown a chair at him. He stared at her. Rey's eyes were wide, pupils so dark they looked blown. Her legs were shaking but she reinforced her hold on him, pinning him once again to the wall. Ben felt the force barrier, looking for any weakness. There was none to be found, so he went back to trying to get into her head. He felt sick as he pushed against the virtual place on her brain and that was effective at distracting her. He wasn't quite sure what he was doing, so he chanted 'sleep' under his breath but nothing seemed to happen. Since he'd often found the force listened to him better when he was physical about it he concentrated on his hands moving and pushing the force at her mind. I'm sorry Rey. I love you. He thought as he redoubled his efforts.

"No! Master says it's a trick. You want my power. I know you do. You don't love me, no one can love me." She muttered, but Ben heard every word.

"Rey! It's me. You know how I feel, push away the darkness and…" Ben couldn't finish because it felt like his brain was being cracked open, waves of agony coarsed over him. His eyes were wild and when they finally met Rey's he knew that this was costing her as well. He gave a push as hard as he could, directing the force out and away. It was like a sonic boom of power, and it left a hole in the wall, leaving sunlight streaming through.

Rey slumped to the ground and it took every ounce of willpower Ben had to stay on his feet. He tried again to put her to sleep when she lifted off the ground, mouth contorted in a silent scream. Ben wasn't sure if he was causing her agony or the sith, but he stopped pushing the power into and she dropped back down and didn't move. He ran over to her, deathly afraid that she wouldn't be breathing. But he saw the rise and fall of her chest, and slumped down in relief. He was prematurely confident that he had figured it out, but in the next moment, he was caught up in the swirling current of air. He was lifted off the floor, and the winds kept him from moving much at all. There was a deafening roar in his ears, and he could only make out a blurry image of Rey and the rest of their surroundings. She advanced on him and the maelstrom didn't seem to affect her at all.

She kept at it until their faces were inches apart. "Rey. Please," he begged, hoping that his voice would carry over the chaos of the whirlwind all around them. She met his eyes, and the laugh she gave was otherworldly. Chills ran down his arms and he was grateful that if he was going to die, he would be looking at her. She raised her hands and blue crackles formed on her palms. The first struck him with no warning. It felt like his mind and body were being torn apart, tingling and tearing through every fiber of his being. Ben tried to block out the pain, the noise, the sense of betrayal, he reached for that quiet place that he'd been trained for years to find. Where he was one with the force, and gathered his power.

He'd read about an ability called force light and it could drain darkness from a person or object. Luke had mentioned that he was trying to learn it for the sith temple, as a way that could destroy the artifacts. But Luke wasn't sure he was powerful enough, which surely meant that Ben wasn't. But nothing was more important to him than Rey, so he tried. He flung up his good arm, trying to deflect the force lightning she was pouring into him. The agony stopped for a blessed few moments, and Ben tried to push all the light he could into the crack he'd found when he was trying to put her to sleep.

For a moment nothing happened and it felt like everything was on pause. The lighting stopped mid bolt, the wind quit rotating around him, and there was a connection. His wave of light met with the dark that she was channeling into her attacks. He pushed at it as hard as he could, but so did she. The connection shook and minutely shifted from one side to the other before it grew unstable and exploded. It knocked Ben and Rey from their feet and clear across the room. Everything glass had shattered and it looked vaguely like a newly fallen snow.

Ben heard a ringing in his ears and he slowly pushed himself to his feet. He scanned the room and saw Rey doing the same. He was dazed, and the pain he'd been pushing down was begging to be felt, and acknowledged. Rey grabbed a shard of glass and scraped her already damaged hands, a technique Ben knew that would help to hone the focus of the dark. Pain fueled dark, and helped to master it. Tears leaked from his eyes, and he tried to push healing and the force light at her again, but he was exhausted and couldn't summon what he needed. Healing had never been his strong suit even though he had gotten better since Rey had come back to the academy. He doubted that what he'd summoned earlier had been a true force light but it had been something and it combatted what she'd pushed into him. So maybe if he could just…

He heard a frantic beating on the door, and he sensed his family on the other side. Rey had erected a thick barrier around the door and at some point, Ben wasn't sure when exactly, half of the furniture had been thrown that way. He used some of the power he had left to move the debri and force the door open. In the second that he turned his attention from Rey, she had propelled herself in the air and was just about to stab his side with a shard of wood she'd found from a side table that was in pieces.

Luke blasted the wood from her hands before it could fully pierce his side, and Leia must have caused her to be unconscious again because she dropped on him, completely dead weight causing the air to be knocked out of him once again. Ben coughed and turned Rey over as gently as he could, so he could sit up. It looked like a verifiable tornado had ripped through the room. Glass, wood, and metal from the droids was everywhere. It crunched under Luke and Leia's feet as they came to assess Ben and Rey. Han stood back, too shocked to really respond or do anything useful.

Leia eyed Ben and stifled a sob. She never got used to seeing her son injured and in pain. Ben's throat was already purple, distinct handprints wrapped around as far as she could see, disappearing under his hair. His face was bloody, but it seemed to be mostly from a number of small cuts, probably from the glass. His left arm hung from his shoulder at an angle that made her want to vomit. His robes were torn at his side and luckily Luke had stopped it in time otherwise it may have punched through one of his organs. If he had more injuries they were hidden from her and she didn't know if she should be concerned or grateful.

She turned and looked at Rey, and had to force down feelings of misplaced hate towards the girl. She couldn't help but think that Ben had always managed to pull himself back before the dark took him this far, but she knew that she wasn't being fair. The only major injury to Rey seemed to be once again to her hands. She too had the same cuts on her face and arms from the glass but nothing else was evident. Leia was sure that both her and Ben had more mental damage than physical from their battle, but there wasn't much besides time that could help that.

At some point Han came back with a doctor and droids in tow. They got both Rey and Ben onto stretchers and wheeled them out of the room. Leia went to walk by Ben and her heart hurt for him. He somehow looked small, drawn into himself, blood all over him. His face was devastated and his eyes followed Rey. He protested, quite loudly, when they were going to put them in different rooms and Luke said something and the doctor nodded, and waved them into one room.

Droids hovered around both of them, cleaning wounds and applying bacta patches and salves. When Luke tried to go to Ben for healing first, he huffed and raised his hand to stop him. "Rey first," he instructed. His voice was hoarse and gravley, much like Han's and again, Leia had to take a deep breath and push away resentment for this girl who had tried to kill both of the men in her life in as many days.

"She probably… Well, it probably won't take. Though it doesn't make sense since Leia can make her sleep," Luke began saying, but stopped mid sentence at the look on Ben's face. "Okay, okay."

Luke stepped around the droids fussing over her raw and bloodied hands. They were so bad if you weren't able to see fingers, it would probably be unrecognizable as a limb. They were debriding the wounds, pulling out so much glass and wood it almost turned his stomach. It looked like the glass had been ground into her hand, and for all Luke knew, it had been. He lightly touched her temples and focused. He still felt the cloying darkness that coated everything that he could see or probe. When he pushed healing into her, it bounced back towards him, but this time it wasn't pure light, it was tainted and he had to think fast and bat it away before it hit him.

He shook his head at his nephew and went back to his side. "I'm sorry, Ben. Do you... Do you want to talk about it?" He asked quietly.

"No," he answered flatly. He barely moved, and didn't take his eyes from Rey as Luke placed his hands first on his throat, which still felt like he was swallowing glass, but it slowly faded until it was easy enough to push down and ignore. He felt the healing wash over his side, then Luke did something to his arm that made him want to punch him or puke. Or both. But it felt a lot better immediately, so Ben was quick to forgive. It was still sore, but he could feel the blood flowing through it normally again, and it was such a thing to take for granted. "Thanks," he muttered. He could barely keep his eyes open but he fought it, wanting to keep his eyes on Rey to make sure she was okay. He was also wary that she would wake up again, she had fought physical and mental barriers that should have kept her under for days.

He knew that they needed to act soon, but his thoughts were dim and everything felt dreamlike. Fuzzy and far away. He stared at Rey and relentlessly pushed calm, healing, love and light into the bond. But nothing changed and finally sleep dragged him under.