Author's Update: Just the second installment of the brief interlude. Hope the madness of the holidays hasn't gotten to you yet but if it has...just remember we're all a little mad here and you're in good company...
Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars. Never have, never will. I simply play in their world.
Reviews! Any and all comments are welcome, so long as they are constructive.
"I wish you could feel
what I feel when I
look at you.
And maybe then,
you could have
an understanding
of why I can't
look at anyone else."
-Jm Storm
Kylo Ren
She stares at me with skeptical eyes, still clinging to the belief that her friends have not betrayed her.
"They wouldn't abandon me...I know they wouldn't..."
She has such compassion in her, a rare ability to believe in the innate goodness of others despite the harsh life she has lived.
For all of her struggles, she has that naïve optimism of youth about her.
But naïve optimism is the quickest route to grief.
"Just like your parents never abandoned you?"
Even this far away I hear the sharp intake of her breath, amber darkening as pain etches deep shadows across her eyes.
Like me, she too is haunted by the ghosts of her past and they color her every action, her every waking thought.
"That...that's not the same thing!"
Ah, there it is. A moment of hesitation...the first glimmer that she is finally looking beyond the illusion to see the truth.
I cross the threshold, moving towards her. My men follow behind me and I see her stance change, muscles locking as her saber lifts in anticipation of an attack.
I motion for my men to stand down.
This is only for the two of us.
"No?" I chance moving closer and her eyes flicker in the darkness, "Why is that?"
Her foot slides back and I halt.
She is backing up to the opening and we are thousands of meters above Kijimi City.
Jedi are many things but flying without wings is not one of them.
One misstep and she will plummet to her death.
"Because..."
Confusion coloring her answer and again I see that glimmer of hesitation and something else. A subtle softening in her eyes, the barest tremble to her mouth as snow kisses her skin.
She wavering between what she think she knows...and what she truly believes.
I move closer but slowly. I have to do this carefully or I will lose her.
I can't fail with her. Not again.
She's on the edge of the platform, the wind teasing her clothing, her hair. I watch as she turns her head to look at the night sky and then back to me.
Icy fingers wrap around my soul, chilling my heart when I see the calm, almost blank look upon her face.
As if she no longer cares whether she lives or dies.
I didn't come here to fight her and shut down the saber, returning it to the clip on my belt.
A flicker of awareness returning to her banked eyes, a sense of confusion at my unmitigated action.
"Rey..." I know what I'm about to do next will cause her pain and it is a heavy weight in my bones but she has left me with no other options, "I wish that it didn't have to be with way. But you need to understand."
She hasn't spoken and I'm drowning in her silence. I pull the remote transmission from my belt and steel my nerves for what I'm about to do next.
Dameron's voice fills the hanger from where I activated the recording sphere.
"Finn...we've talked about this...you saw what she did in the desert..."
I wanted her anger. Expected her rage but not this...
I see the shattered, lonely girl of Jakku staring at me in uncomprehending hurt. I hear her screaming in my soul, a grief so consuming it nearly puts me on my knee's.
"No...no," mumbled words from frozen lips, anguish that cuts sharper than glass, "they're my friends...they have to understand...I didn't mean it..."
"...wasn't Rey. Kylo Ren was manipulating her...You saw the way he caught that lightning in his bare hands. It was him. Not Rey."
She closes her eyes and she is just standing there, a terrible sadness settling on her face.
As if something had broken inside of her.
I...didn't want this.
I wanted to show her truth not drown her in sorrow.
"Turn it off," an agonized plea for me to stop tormenting her and something inside of me tells me I've taken this too far.
I'm already reaching to shut the device down when her eyes snap open and I see the ring of hammered gold around the iris.
"I said TURN IT OFF!"
Her command is a whip across my senses and I grit my teeth as the Force attempts to make me comply.
The voices cut off abruptly and the hanger is once more filled with deafening silence.
I stare at her and wonder if she knows what she just did when she commanded me to stop.
She's bowed her head, her shoulders hunched and I see her shaking.
Why would you do this to me?
I thought I knew suffering, tasted the flavors of despair and regret so many years ago.
But her voice inside my head gives a lie to everything I have known.
Do you hate me that much now?
Hollow grief and sorrow without end echoing in her words. My breath catches in my lungs as her emotions pull me under.
I have never hated you Rey.
She is too much a part of me. She has changed my life and reshaped my world since the day our paths crossed.
She snaps her head up and stares at me with eyes of bewildering hurt. As if she no longer knows who I am anymore.
She has lost the ring of gold around the iris in that small glimpse I'm allowed before closing them on me once more.
A stillness to her that makes me pause and I feel the delicate touch of her mind reaching for me.
If you don't hate me, shadows and sunlight in that lilting cadence, then why?
I close my eyes, despite the fact that she can't see my face.
Touching her mind...having hers touch mine...there can be no greater intimacy between us and for her alone, I let down my guard.
To show you the truth, because no matter the pain, it is better than a pretty lie.
To make you understand that your friends will never accept you for who you are.
Not the way I already have.
I feel her soul shivering in the darkness and open my eyes to watch a single tear slide down pale skin.
There is a haunting beauty in her sorrow and I am captured by it.
I can almost taste the salt of her tears, feel her trembling mouth and the mask I wear is now suffocating.
I reach up and release the locking mechanism, the cold chilling my exposed skin as the wind blows through the hold.
Fractal amber stare up at me, laying bare all the scars of my soul.
Her eyes no longer look upon me like a stranger but something with far more intimacy.
I have always been vulnerable to her and in this moment, I have no fear of what she might see when she looks at me.
"Ben..."
An ache of longing I hear in my name and I am undone.
"Are you ready for this Rey?" It was time for her to stop running, "To face the truth you already know?"
I see the shadows gathering in eyes, a flicker of awareness before it is banked.
"I...what are you talking about?"
She is still trying to pretend that she doesn't know.
To shield herself from the hurt that she knows is coming.
Pain is inevitable but necessary. The memories she has hidden for so long have become like a slow poison in her blood, driving her to madness.
It was time to purge the wound.
"Your nightmares Rey." Again that flicker in amber, "The ones you have been running from since you were a child."
I have walked through her dreams, tasted their flavor and know them for what they are.
"You're wrong...they're just nightmares...they don't mean anything..."
Her fear is an acid tang in the air, a coating in the back of my throat that is distasteful. I ache to cross the distance so I can gather her in my arms and show her that she doesn't have to be afraid anymore.
"That's not true and you know that," Her eyes are beseeching, pleading for me to stop but I can't let her do this to herself anymore, it's killing both of us, "It's why you're fighting so hard to forget."
She trembling and it's not just from the snow settling in her hair, the razor's edge of the wind stinging our skin.
I can barely breath as I take another step towards her and watch her saber lower further to her side, almost forgotten as her eyes never leave my face.
"Don't be afraid," I don't know if I'm saying the words to her or myself as I lift my hand in offering, "I'm right here."
She is all wide-eyed and parted lips as she stares at my hand and I see her desire kindle in that gaze.
She wants to take my hand.
"Ben..."
Our eyes lock as I deliberately take one, final step towards her. So close now that her scent drifts in on the wind.
Dappled sunlight and notes of an elusive flower that only blooms at night.
It teases my senses, makes me lightheaded with remembrance of the way she nestled in my arms, her head on my chest.
"We can do this together." All she has to do is reach for me, "Trust me Rey. Believe in me."
Believe that I was made to find you. To catch you when you fall.
Just as you have with me.
Another tear slides down her face, ending at the delicate point of her chin before dropping to the ground.
She is breaking me apart, tearing me down from the inside out. Doesn't she know that I would move the heavens for her, defy even death if she would only give me her hand.
My heart clenches as impossibly vulnerable eyes gaze into mine. Vulnerable but clear with purpose.
"Who am I Ben?"
Time is frozen around us and there is a rush of white noise inside my head when I see her hand lift towards mine.
She was choosing me.
Pain lances in my heart, a happiness so long denied that it is almost too much to endure.
Our fingertips are inches apart, she has but to take a single step forward...
"REY!"
Our eyes lock as Finn's voice rips through the night, shattering this fragile moment between us and everything in me is screaming to grab her hand, drag her to my side and be done with this.
But I can't.
She has to choose me. Of her own free will or all of this is for nothing.
She accused me of trying to cage her but it is I who am caged.
Trapped by my yearning to be a part of her life.
"REY! COME ON!"
I hear the sounds of metal ringing and know that my troopers have entered the hanger to in response to the Falcon appearing.
But I cannot move, my hand still stretched out for Rey to take. She and I suspended in this moment until she chooses.
The Falcon makes an abrupt turn, the propulsion from its engine creating a gale that pushes my troopers back.
But Rey and I are grounded in the Force. The howling wind rages around us and I see the war taking place in her eyes.
To take my hand and learn the secrets of her past.
Or go with her friends who should have abandoned her...and walk away from me.
My life is an endless loop and it seems I have no choice but to walk the same path, again and again, where she is concerned.
The wind rips the words from my lips as soon as I speak them but I cannot stop.
It is the same demand. The same plea that I speak for her alone.
"Stay. Please."
