AN: Thanks for reading and reviewing!
"Dyad's Blessing, Dyad's Curse"
By EsmeAmelia
Chapter 54
"I want to talk to Rey now . . ."
"I'm Rey . . ."
". . . I want to talk to Ben . . ."
"I'm Ben . . ."
He floated through the dark, answering questions as they came to him even though they were of little importance. Why was this voice interrupting him when he just wanted to float in the comfortable blackness?
Except . . . he wasn't floating anymore, he suddenly realized. The darkness was still complete, absolute, but now he was walking on some solid surface, his footsteps echoing all around him. Was this a tunnel? If it was, did it lead somewhere?
Maybe he was supposed to find where it led.
"Ben, can you tell me where you are?"
"I'm going through a dark tunnel," he replied.
"Rey, can you tell me where you are?"
"I'm going through a dark tunnel," he replied again, wishing the voice would be quiet. He needed to get somewhere, somewhere, somewhere . . .
Then came the screams.
He couldn't discern the individual voices or any actual words – all he could tell was that they were children. Children who needed help. Help . . . help . . . help them!
His pace broke into a run towards the voices.
Something stabbed at his mind – an intense, persistent feeling that he needed to remember something, remember . . . what? The screams were growing louder, pouring into his ears to the point of near-pain, making him want to sink to his knees and cover his ears, but he forced himself to keep running.
Suddenly a stifling heat seemed to envelope him like a blanket, causing sweat to drip down his face, but still he stumbled down the tunnel, following the screams.
"Talk to them . . ."
That wasn't the voice that had been asking him questions; it was female . . . warm . . . familiar . . . seeming to come from a memory . . .
"Hello?" he called out, the echo of his voice bouncing against the unseen walls. "I'm . . . I'm . . ." Well, names weren't important right now. "Who are you? Do you need my help?"
Then it was like a dam broke, sending a torrent of cries into his mind, forcing him to use all his willpower not to cover his ears.
"Help us!"
"Please!"
"They're hurting us!"
"HELP US!"
"I want to help you," he said steadily, trying to ignore the jumping in his stomach and the sweat drizzling down his face. "Where are you?"
"They brought us here after the war ended . . ."
"It's a dusty, sandy planet with lots of tunnels . . ."
"Lots of dark underground tunnels . . ."
"Tunnels like this one . . ."
"A dusty, sandy planet with tunnels like this one," he repeated. "I'll remember – I hope."
Suddenly something soft and vulnerable wrapped around his legs. Though the darkness was still as absolute as ever, he could sense the child's fear and neediness. He bent down, wrapping his arms around the child as the child started to cry. "It's all right," he whispered, "it's all right, I'll find a way to help you."
If he remembered, at least.
. . .
"Wake up!"
Krain's voice and his three gentle claps pulled Ben out of the . . . trance? Dream? He still wasn't sure exactly what these hypnotic states classified as. At least they were waking on the sofa instead of the floor. His eyes blinked open to bring the counselor's office into focus. Next to him, Rey was also blinking the world into focus, running her hand over her eyes as if waking from a peaceful sleep.
"Rey!" Ben quickly exclaimed, desperately trying to keep the children's voices in his mind before they vanished. "Did you hear them? The kids?"
"Yes," said Rey. "I tried to talk to them like you said and they said something . . . something about being on a planet with tunnels – and one of them hugged my legs."
Ben nodded. "That happened to me too – or maybe it happened to us, if our consciousnesses really do merge when we get hypnotized."
Krain cleared his throat as if trying to remind them of his presence. "Well, I don't know anything about these children, but perhaps Ben is right and your consciousnesses are merging during these sessions."
From the floor, D-O craned his head upward. "K-kids need your help?"
"I don't know," said Ben. "Maybe."
The little droid rolled back and forth in a slow, inquisitive manner. "I-Is it like Ochi?"
"Maybe," said Rey, looking down at him with wide eyes. "I don't know if they're being abused like you were, but they sounded like they were in a lot of trouble."
"W-we should help," said D-O.
Ben swallowed, his legs feeling cold, as if they'd actually felt the warmth of the frightened child's embrace. Even though he didn't know what the child looked like or its species or even its gender, he found himself wishing he could have somehow pulled it out of the trance state and taken it to safety, maybe found its parents . . . did it have parents?
"That one kid," Rey was musing, as if she'd unconsciously picked up his thoughts. "The one who hugged me – us – I think we're supposed to find him or her."
"I think we're supposed to find all of them," said Ben.
"Yes," said Rey, "but that particular child – I felt a connection with it, like we're supposed to get to know it."
"A-adopt it!" D-O suddenly exclaimed with an excited whistle.
"What?" Rey, Ben, and Krain exclaimed together.
"Adopt the child," D-O repeated as if he'd come up with the greatest idea in the galaxy. "W-we can all be a family then."
The droid saying family yanked at Ben's heart. Surely D-O understood that once Ben's trial came, the best thing he could hope for was life in prison, right? For the briefest of moments, he saw that nonexistent universe in his mind – himself, Rey, an adopted child, and D-O as a family. Then he figured that so long as he was fantasizing, he might as well throw Leia and Han in there as well – they would have definitely loved to be grandparents in that Kylo Ren-less world that never existed.
But now it was too late for that world to ever exist.
"D-O," said Rey, "we don't know anything about that child. It might have parents of its own, and it wouldn't be right for us to take it away from its parents."
"B-But maybe it doesn't have parents."
Ben sighed – even though D-O had been abused, he could still be persistent when he wanted to be. "Well, first of all we need to find the children," he said, trying to keep his voice from shaking. "A dusty, sandy planet with tunnels."
"Geonosis, maybe?" asked Rey.
"Maybe."
"I could have the Resistance send a scouting mission there."
"Or maybe . . ." Ben couldn't believe the words as he spoke them, but he couldn't stop himself. ". . . maybe we're supposed to go there ourselves."