Chapter Ten
Transference
Ben's head swirled in a kaleidoscope of colors complete with voices he couldn't identify. And he sure as hell couldn't block it, or them, out of his mind. The combined strength was something so far out of the ordinary. He lay somewhere between awareness and total lack of consciousness.
Finn called for help as he collapsed under the weight of the larger man. He'd known that Ben was large, but he hadn't expected him to be quite so dense...or heavy. He glanced up as several armed resistance fighters burst through the door followed closely by Poe and BB-8. He stumbled to a stop when he recognized the tangled heap of flesh on the floor. "Finn!" He hurried forward to help roll the dead weight off of his friend.
"I don't know what happened." The younger man said as he slipped to the left and helped to settle Ben down on the ground. His eyes were rolling back and forth beneath his clenched eyelids. His face was scrunched in pain and he'd curled in on himself as soon as Finn released him.
Poe stepped away as a medical technician hurried into the room. "What're you even doing in here?"
With a shrug, Finn ignored the question.
"Rey…" Ben rasped heavily. Blood trickled from his left ear and his nose as he started to regain his senses. He pushed at the probing fingers of the medical person and slowly shifted into a seated position; his head buried in his hands.
Finn glanced as Poe before sinking down next to Ben. "What happened?"
"It's Rey. Something changed; something happened to her." He said shakily.
Poe leaned against the opposite wall, folding his arms over his chest. He wasn't sure if he believed Ben or not, but he didn't question Finn's loyalties. "What the hell does that mean?"
"I don't know." The confusion was evident in his dark eyes as he tried to shake some clarity into his head, there was an incessant buzzing that he couldn't seem to eliminate.
The pained expression on his pale face sent panic fluttering through Finn.
"It was like she…was overloaded by the Force?" Ben added, he broke off and blinked a few times. The small medical tech started cleaning the blood from his right ear before depressing a hypo spray into his shoulder. He never so much as flinch.
Finn ignored the feelings of nausea that seemed to hang around their guest. Whatever was going on it was grounded in the Force, which meant that Finn could also be affected. Looking at the bent over form of the other man he was glad he wasn't that sensitive.
Ben didn't know how to explain the savage pressure inside his head. He wasn't even sure if it was him or if it was residual from whatever had happened to Rey. His insides twisted at that.
Finn knelt down near him, his hands twitching with the need to do something. "Ben." He used the other man's given name hoping it would focus him. "What did you feel?"
He couldn't breathe, his chest shuddered with emotions he didn't know how to release. And the racking pain inside his head felt as though he was being ripped in half. There was a distinct taint of the darkside and woven through it was Rey's Light. It scared him, no…it terrified Ben to think that Rey may have finally lost her battle with the darkness. He racked his brain trying to come up with a scenario that would cause the strongest woman he'd known to hand over her soul and power to the darkside. He couldn't come up with one.
Swallowing, Ben pushed at the hands of the medical technician as he shifted into a seated position. The world swam before him in a sea of blurry lines. He closed his eyes and focused on centering himself. The Force was still out of his reach due to the drugs, but at least he could settle his raging mind into a calmer state. He'd spent so long being ruled by his emotions that he would take any chance he could get to begin working through that.
"It was like something was ripped out of her. I don't know how to explain it." He admitted honestly. This was beyond Ben's experiences. And unlike Rey, he didn't have some Jedi Master Force-ghost to give him sage advice. He'd spent his life trying to find his place in the galaxy; it had started to feel like an impossible task; and then he'd met Rey. "It is a power unlike anything I've ever felt, and it electrified the bond between us. The power… it was like being force-fed from an endless ocean of it."
Finn's eyebrows lifted and he glanced at the technician. Whatever he saw in the former stormtrooper's eyes caused him to gather his gear and hurry from the room. Poe finally seemed to have had enough of imitating a statue; he shoved away from the wall and strode over to where Ben was awkwardly leaning against the metal partition. Squatting down, he exhaled loudly.
"You need to stop speaking in riddles. My friend asked a simple question, you need to answer it." His eyes darted between his Finn and the most ruthless man he'd ever had the misfortune of knowing. Poe's blaster hung at a loose angle in his hand. Ben had no doubt that the resistance pilot could aim and fire before he could stop him. Not in his current condition.
Frowning, his eyes went vacant as he searched for a way to better explain the extraordinary power that governed their galaxy. Because what he'd just experienced was beyond his verbal acuity to describe.
Something out there had been seeking an outlet, and it had hit his drugged mind with a vengeance. The intoxication of his mind due to the drugs had repelled it. The moment that had happened, that entity had been enraged. Rather than releasing that power it had backlashed on the wielder; in this case Ben believed that origin had been Rey.
Was it possible that in his fugue state he'd just destroyed her soul? The depth of his pain at that possibility almost swallowed him whole. His eyes stung with burning emotion and his head pounded in time with his heart. "I think it was sent by Rey." He managed, his eyes shifting to meet Finn's. "She's still out there."
"And fighting." Poe said, he surged to his feet and ran his hands through his hair in agitation.
Ben shook his head, immediately regretting the act when his brain seemed to swish inside his skull. His stomach flipped dangerously, and he wondered if he would ever feel a hundred percent again. He was starting to seriously doubt it. "It didn't feel like that. It was like, she wanted to send it out."
"What?!" Finn cried; denial clearly evident in his pitched voice. His shoulders squared and his eyes narrowed. "Rey would never do that. She's the strongest person I've ever known."
Ben nodded once. "Yes, she is. But even the strongest tree can be felled by the right axe." He responded softly, a hint of sadness creeping into his words.
Without warning, he found himself staring down the barrel of a blaster for the second time that day. He wasn't afraid, though he knew he probably should be. Poe had no qualms about ventilating his head. Although, if it saved him from the migraine he was going to have later, he might be okay with it.
The small droid beeped curiously.
An overwhelming sense of anger settled like a black cloud just before the door to the cell blew inward with a blast of power that sent all three men rolling into the far corner.
XXXX
Rey stood in the center of the narrow doorway, her white garments clinging to her body as the moisture impregnated the material. Her vision was ringed with a haze of red and anger wavered in and out of her mind. Her hazel eyes searched for a specific presence and when they landed on Ben Solo, she stepped into the room.
His eyes went wide at the sight of her right hand. Clasped between her fingers was the t-shaped handle of his lightsaber. There was no way she could have that; he'd tossed it into the raging oceans on Kef Bir. And yet she did have it.
"Rey." Finn breathed, gathering his legs beneath himself he began to rise to his feet. She didn't look like the girl he'd met on Jakku. In fact she looked as scary as Kylo Ren had when he'd been standing in the snow threatening their lives.
"I'm not here for you." She said simply. Her gaze never leaving the stunned form of the former supreme leader. "I'm here for him."
Poe was quicker to regain his feet. He didn't have a clue what he was seeing, but the lack of smile on Ben's face probably wasn't a good thing. "Rey, we thought you were—"
"Dead?" She responded evenly, her body never even shifting so much as a muscle. "I was. Because I had to do what he couldn't. I had to save the Skywalker legacy." She tipped her chin toward the man in black.
Reaching out with her mind, Rey began lifting Ben to his feet. She was slow about it when the pain it was causing him flashed through her mind. She smiled. Finn and Poe started forward, but she pinned them with the Force. Slowly, deliberately she raised up the last Skywalker until he was teetering on unsteady feet. His face a mask of pain and uncertainty. And buried beneath the intensity of his emotions was a fear of rejection that so was much a part of him that she could taste it.
"Where's Rey?" he asked through clenched teeth.
"I am Rey."
Shaking his head, he coughed before answering. "No. You might be wearing her body, but you are NOT Rey. I can feel it."
She twitched her hand and he screamed as fire seemed to rocket through his veins. He doubled over before collapsing forward onto his hands and knees. His left shoulder gave under the impact and he toppled to the floor.
Both Finn and Poe tried to protest, but she held them in a silent still state as she knelt in front of the felled figure of the last Sith apprentice. Rey's fingers slipped out and she touched his face.
Ben's entire body stiffened; his eyes wide in shock. Power seemed to ripple between them as the entity passed along the connection seeking his body as a vessel.
Even Poe, who wasn't Force sensitive at all, heard the mental cry of anguish as Ben's mind was peeled apart to make room for the dark presence. If he'd been conflicted before, now he was nothing but rage and purpose. His body healed before their eyes as he climbed nimbly to his feet, smoothing his hands through his soft black hair. But his expression was cold, calculating and devoid of the warmth had been there moments before.
Rey's legs collapsed beneath her as the power sought another host. She'd believed that it had been a part of Ben, but as she stared at the sudden shift in his eyes, she knew better. In her desperation, she had brought the dark power from the depths of Exegol and handed Ben Solo over as a sacrifice to its' dark designs. Desperate to undo her mistake, she reached out with her mind, seeking the Force-bond between them. The pain and betrayal she felt through that bond nearly broke her resolve. Beneath the hatred, anger and vengeful fury, she felt him fighting to regain control over his mind and body.
Ben…I'm sorry. She sent it along the link, hoping he would hear it. Rey was surprised when she received the clear acceptance of her apology. It was tinged with the soft blue of his love for her.
I love you, Rey… As quickly as she felt it, the emotional connection blinked into the blackness.
He didn't address her or the other two men in the room. He simply walked out of the cell, but not before he thrust out his hand and called the lightsaber into his waiting fingers. And then they were left along.
She had no idea how she'd gotten here, or even where here was. The only thing she knew for sure was that she wasn't dead anymore and in trying to achieve that, she'd just resigned Ben to a living hell.
TBC…
Author's Note: Short chapter, I know. But everything just kind of fell into place with this one and I wanted to share it.
