Author's Note: To all my new readers, welcome! To the rest of my followers, welcome back! I hope everyone is enjoying this tale so far but remember...I've barely begun...
Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars. Never have, never will. I simply play in their world.
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"He picked bouquets of silence,
Wore the shadows as a coat,
Then used their inky darkness
When on empty air he wrote:
"My whole life I've chased Nothing.
For it I have Nothing to show.
I've got Nothing in my heart
And there is Nothing that I know,
But I'd give Everything for Something
That could erase what I've been told,
For emptiness is the heaviest thing
I've ever had to hold."
-E.H.
Ren
Talons digging into my mind, the putrid odor of decaying flesh around me.
"Lord Ren, what news of the scavenger?"
The screams of the dying filling me and I clench my fist against this invasion from Palpatine.
I don't spend energy fighting him. If he can reach me this far from Exegol better to hide my real strength for the battle that is coming.
"My Knights continue their hunt throughout the galaxy. The Falcon will be spotted and I will have her before the fleet leaves Exegol."
"Be mindful that you are not distracted from your true purpose," barbed words that hollow my bones and I grit my teeth against the heavy weight of his power, "Do not disappoint me as your grandfather did."
The air clears and the pressure in my mind lifts.
He has retreated, for now. I have no doubts that he will return to 'check' my progress with Rey.
He expects treachery from me and soon I will show him my true intentions.
But not now. All the pieces are not yet in play.
The bridge is commanded by Pryde. He has sent both Griss and Hux to the Sith Destroyer in preparation for the invasion that will take place shortly.
"Commander Murin relay this message to all Star Systems: Seek the Millennium Falcon. All who aide or attempt to hide the Resistance will share their fate. Annihilation."
"Right away Sir." The Operations Commander carries out my will with alacrity.
"Supreme Leader," Pryde coming from behind to stand at my side, "this will slow the war effort if we focus our attention on one ship."
"That ship, Allegiant General, carries the scavenger."
"Perhaps, but to divert all of our forces for the sake of one little girl..."
That 'little girl' will be your Empress and I will not forgive any slight against her.
"If you disagree with my orders," I stare at Pryde and he quickly averts his gaze, "then you may discuss the matter with Palpatine."
"That will not be necessary. We will find the scavenger for him."
How quickly he changes his stance when the old Emperor is mentioned.
"Supreme Leader? Communique coming in from the Maldictus."
"Relay message."
"A ship bearing the markings of the Falcon spotted passing by Onderon before disappearing. Coordinates Nine Two point Six by Three Seven point Four."
The Falcon was leaving the Inner Rim and heading south towards the Expansion Region.
"The Night Buzzard in pursuit of the Falcon, attempting to track now."
I have faith in my Knights but I know the capabilities of the Falcon and those who fly her.
If Dameron is using Han Solo's tricks to evade my forces then it will take time for Ap'Lek and the others to reach her.
Time I don't have to spare. There is only one sure way to find Rey and only I have the means to do it.
"Continue pursuit of the Falcon. I will be in my quarters."
"Might I inquire why you are leaving the bridge Supreme Leader?"
Pryde questioning my decisions but in a way that is not outright defiant.
"I have my own methods of seeking the scavenger. That is all you need to know."
Silence in my wake as I leave him to follow up on the pursuit of the Falcon.
I needed absolute focus if I was going to find Rey and I would not find that among my crew.
My quarters are far colder than the rest of the ship. The frigid air helps to center my thoughts, focus my intent and sharpen my senses.
I will need all this and more to find her. I have not forgotten that she can actively block me but only when she focuses on the task.
Recent cracks have begun to appear in that focus and I will take full advantage of her distracted mind.
I lift my hands to my helmet...and stop.
"B-Ben?"
That name spoken with vulnerable eyes and trembling lips that quicken my pulse, stutter the beating of my heart and crack the fault lines in my soul...
I drop my hands and leave the mask in place.
It is Kylo Ren who Rey needs to see, to remember.
Not Ben Solo.
The Force around me and I reach for it, seeking the woman who has the other half of my sundered soul.
She is mine and I am hers. There is nowhere she can go that I will not follow.
Everything around me falls away as I search the dark galaxy for a single, piercing light.
There.
Sunlight that caresses me with fiery wings, a single evocative flower to ensnare my soul...
Night surrounds me, torches that throw dark shadows into vivid relief as bodies sway to a melody that thrums in the air, alien voices lifted in song.
Hot winds blowing behind me and with it the scent of strange spices.
Rey, her back to me. The winds tease at tendrils of dark hair, the torches catching the fire in the strands.
She stands dressed in white, a vision of moonlight to pierce the darkness that encircles her. The hood is drawn back, the echo of flowing robes in the clothing she now wears.
I clench my fist at the sight of the band around her arm, concealing the scar from our fight with the Praetorian Guard.
The leather band I gave her a lifetime ago.
Even now, in the midst of war, she carries a piece of me with her.
Just as I carry a piece of her.
Yet...
The Force that bonds us whispers to me of her emotions.
Chaotic and fragmented, giving lie to the serene form she presents.
It is no wonder then that I found her so effortlessly.
A sharp tension down her spine, her shoulders stiffening and her head snapping up from its bowed position.
She's become aware of me.
"I can feel your chaos Rey," I choose my words carefully to keep her attention split, "Still plagued by nightmares?"
She turns slowly and I watch her hands clench into balled fists when she finally faces me.
Shock alight in her gaze, her lips parting but no sound emerging.
Anguish flickering through amber that quickly shifts to burning topaz.
Anger singing through our bond as she looks upon the man I have become.
"I have nothing to say to you Kylo Ren."
Not the lilting cadence I know but harsh vehemence when she speaks my name, a cold fury that momentarily distracts me.
As though I were a stranger to her...or her enemy.
I wanted her attention and I have it but not in the way that I desire.
"Denying who I am won't save you Rey."
Distaste crawls across the smooth lines of her face when I speak her name. She lifts her chin, pure defiance screaming at me with every taunt line of her body.
"As if I need saving."
Yes she does, even if she isn't aware of it. Time to rip the veil from her eyes.
"Palpatine is hunting you."
A tremble in her body, fear coating our bond that makes me want to strike at the nightmares that haunt her steps.
Soon I will quell those fears once and for all.
Her eyes never leave my face and I read the disappointment in them. Feel her sense of betrayal long before she speaks.
"Is that why you placed a bounty on my capture?" venomous words that make me flinch beneath my mask, "Bowing before the wishes of another master?"
Nothing but contempt, as if I were so weak as to submit to another leash after having broken the last one.
"Never."
She blinks as my anger slips free and I take a second to regain my composure.
Her opinion matters to me and to find that she thinks so little of me...
"He is merely a means to an end."
For her alone I will reveal a part of my true aim.
I sense her hesitation, caution at war with her curiosity.
"What ends?"
Curiosity wins and I indulge her need to understand.
After all, she is the reason I am doing this.
"The end of this war." That is my true goal, "I made you a promise, I intend to keep it."
Just as she made me a promise, one that I intend for her to keep as well.
I've surprised her and for a second I see the shift in her eyes...that hint of longing...but denial falls hard on its heels.
"You're lying."
I am many things but a liar is not one of them and I don't like hearing it from her lips.
"I've never lied to you Rey."
Bitterness as I have never sensed from her, tears that make her eyes glisten in a way that I don't understand.
I can feel her withdrawing from me.
"I'm done."
I watch her close those luminous eyes and realize she is turning away from me, about to shake off the bond.
Again.
All of my words, my actions, are nothing to her.
It is never enough for her.
"Why did you walk away from me?"
Quiet words from the broken part of me that never got over the loss of her rejection.
Her eyes snap open, confusion and something more and all of my careful plans are laid to waste by that single look.
"You were happy," sweet, cajoling laughter...lilting words of ardent love and gentle caresses, "why did you leave me?"
Why did you leave me in ruin when I all ever wanted was to belong to you.
She is no longer looking at me with contempt and burning topaz fades to fractured amber.
Desire and quiet despair vying in her eyes and I feel as though I no longer wear a mask before her.
"You left me," chocked words of unrelenting pain that take hold of my heart, "I never asked you to leave."
Her torment is an echo of my own and the truth of my feelings slip free.
"You didn't ask me to stay."
"What do you want from me?"
She sounds so confused, so lost and desperate.
I move closer, unable to stop myself from wanting to be where she is.
To ask the question that she has never answered.
"I want to know why you didn't join me." All of our suffering, it didn't have to be this way between us, "I offered you everything...and you still denied me."
Still continue to deny despite what I know to be true.
"Why?"
What would it take to make you believe me? To believe in me.
In this moment I see the woman I lost my heart to, the woman who took the broken pieces of my soul and made me consider that I was worthy of love.
To be loved.
Panic spikes along our bond and amber flares back into topaz.
"You offered me nothing," echos of rage that take me aback, "you speak to me of my own nightmares but what about yours?"
I feel her now, inside my soul. Seeking out the secrets that I share with no one.
"Tell me, Kylo Ren," soft words that are just a touch cruel as she step deliberately towards me, "do you still see the face of Han Solo after you killed him?"
She could have shoved the saber at her side through me and it would have caused less damage than her words right now.
"Son..."
The phantom touch of his calloused palm on my face, traces of regret upon his face...
The rage of grief that has not dimmed over the year, only deepened.
So...I was wrong.
This feeling of love, like everything else in my life, nothing more than an illusion.
She had drawn then line between us. Let us see how well she can maintain it.
"Do you see the faces of your parents Rey?"
Cold, hard words to hide the wounds she has inflicted.
Stricken eyes looking up at me as she takes a step back, the flash of rage cutting across my senses.
"Shut up!"
There it is, the darkness that has always lived inside of her, coaxed to life.
"Such anger in you," I murmur, the tenure of her fury a living heat beneath my skin, "so much pain for people you can't even remember."
Her father with eyes of hammered gold, slapping her across the face to quieten her screams.
Such churning emotions for a person she was better off not remembering.
"Shall I tell you what your parents look like?"
Another step back, the rage smothered beneath incomprehension.
"What?"
So I was right. She doesn't remember the nightmare that I pulled her from.
I follow her footsteps, the sand swirling between us as I close the distance.
We are inches apart, I can see the flecks of gold in her eyes, see the spikes in her lashes from tears she refuses to let fall.
"I've seen your nightmares," Let me remind her of the nights she came to me when she was most afraid, "and the faces of your parents who left you behind."
"Stop it..." Furious denial from her lips, "you can't...you can't know that!"
"But I do."
She can call me a liar but the bond that allows us to channel each other's emotions speaks the truth.
I have no reason to lie. Not about this.
But it seems she requires more proof than just my word alone.
I lift my hand to her.
"Take it and know the truth."
I am offering her my memories and my knowledge of her past. She has but to accept it.
To accept me.
She's trembling, her hands clenched hard at her sides.
She wants desperately what I have to offer...and still she refuses my gift.
"Is it fear or stubbornness that stops you I wonder?"
She's shaking her head and retreating.
"You're lying," desperate words from a woman with far too much courage and not enough sense, "trying to distract me from what I'm suppose to be doing!"
Eyes lifting, that glare of defiance directed back at me.
She's not going to accept my offer. Such obstinacy and for what?
"I'm not going to give into you Ren."
So that's it.
"I will show you the truth Rey and when I do you won't turn away from me again."
I sigh and drop my hand. No matter what words I try and speak she will not listen.
It seems only actions will sway her.
My eyes drop to the necklace around her neck. I don't remember her owning anything that simplistic, so at odds with what she is wearing.
Something she picked up from where she is now?
Her mouth opens, no doubt to refute my statement but I have spent enough time bandying with her.
I reach out...and snap the necklace off of her neck.
"Stop!" Panic ablaze in our bond and her tremulous emotion breaks the fragile connection I forged between us, "Wait-!"
It is ironic that she is asking me stay.
The world shifts between one breath and the next.
I no longer feel the hot, desert wind at my back. Night has been replaced by cold, sterile light.
In my hand lies the necklace I took from her.
She seemed genuinely distressed at losing this. It is nothing more than baked beads and husk dolls on a string.
Yet I sense her energy woven into the strands...a sense of the Force...and my vision darkens...
"Pew! Pew!"
Tinkling laughter as I track down the sound of my daughter. It is close to her bedtime and she has disappeared on me.
Again.
Her mother is going to kill me if I don't get her back where she belongs.
Echos of laughter coming from the X-wing that is grounded.
I fold my arms and sigh. I should have known by now.
"What exactly are you doing up there young lady?"
Her head emerges from the cockpit, the stolen helmet far too big on her as it covers more than half her face.
"Papa!"
Her grin shows the gap from the missing tooth she lost this morning.
"Fightin! Pew! Pew!"
I'm fighting back laughter at the adorable sounds she is making.
"Are you now?"
"Uh huh!"
I sigh and remind myself that I am not going to be charmed by her.
"Fly papa!"
She's pulled off the helmet, arms waving in the air and that delighted grin on her face...and I've lost.
I lift my hand and my daughter floats into the sky and out of her mother's ship. Her arms and legs are spread out, delighted giggles as I let her 'fly'.
"Papa! I fly!"
Exuberant laughter that fills the sky...and I drop her suddenly into my waiting arms.
"Papa!" squeals of laughter as she wraps tiny arms around my neck, smacking kisses against my cheek, "Again!"
Extortionist.
I gaze into the midnight eyes of my daughter, press my hand into the soft waves of her hair that have escaped her braid.
She has my eyes...and her mother's beautiful hair, sable and dark fire.
"Ben."
I turn to the sound of lilting laughter calling out my name, my arms full with my wiggling child.
The setting sun bathes her in beauty as she joins us outside, arms crossed as she shakes her head at me.
She's left her hair down and it brushes the base of her spine.
"If you get her riled up before bed then you get to settle her back down."
I look to my daughter who has buried her face in my neck, giggling at her mother.
"A tiny female giving me trouble?" I cock an eyebrow at my wife, "sounds just like her mother."
Our daughter's head lifts from my shoulder as Rey begins to laugh and she is quick to join in.
"Mama!"
She's reaching for her and Rey comes to my side as I wrap arms around both of them.
Their laughter is the music of my soul.
I don't know what I did to deserve this but I am never letting them go.
They are the beating of my heart. The reason I live...
The beads drop from my hand, breaking the impossibility of the vision I just witnessed.
Our child.
A beautiful little girl who was her mother in miniature.
Rey as my wife. Standing by my side...as if she had always belonged there.
No wars. No battles that seem to have no end. No struggles to understand each other. Just a simple life filled with the joy of being together.
Of having a family.
It was everything that I longed for. That I dreamed of...and it was the cruelest torment.
My heart is slamming into my ribs as my hand shakes.
That fragment of time...that was not my life as it is now.
That was the life meant for Ben Solo.
If he had never fallen, never had to become a monster in order to survive.
The intact necklace lies innocently on the floor and gingerly I pick it up, bracing myself for another vision...but my sight doesn't waver.
No lilting laughter.
No sweet voice calling out to me.
Nothing but silence.
I want to smash this...thing...so that I will never be tormented of what might have been...and yet I never want to let it out of my sight.
A desperate yearning to believe that the life I glimpsed...could exist.
If only...
