As ever, Ben Solo's heart is at war.
Half of him is blinded by inarticulate rage. How dare she? Rey knows what Vader means to him. She has violated his privacy, his trust, by entering this room without his permission. His fingers itch with the familiar need to destroy.
The other half of him feels every inch the wounded boy he used to be. How could she? He would never deny her anything; she need only have asked for access to this part of him, and he would have obliged. He is so desperate to share his soul with her, to be seen, that such a request would have felt like an invitation to know one another on an even deeper level.
Unsurprisingly, the rage wins out in the end. Ben swallows back his hurt, forcing it down, and allows the familiar burn of his anger to consume him. Before Rey can say a word, he grasps her upper arm, towing her back into the central area of his quarters. To his surprise, she does not fight his grip, allowing him to deposit her in the simple black chair by his bed. He grips the armrests on either side of her, caging her in, and leans close.
"You are not to return to that room," he says, voice low. "Ever."
Indignation blazes in her eyes then, and he is almost glad for it – for the fight that he can feel brewing between them. "That's not fair," she retorts. "You don't even know why I was there!"
Ben glares down at her. His patience is a dangerously thin, unraveling rope. "Then explain."
Her mood shifts abruptly, her uncertainty a palpable tang in the back of his mouth. A thought of hers flashes through his mind before she snatches it back, stuffing it behind her shields: He wanted to speak with me while Ben was gone.
"Who?" he demands. "Who wanted to speak with you, Rey?"
She bites her lip, her resolve to stay silent wavering. Then, she inelegantly pulls forth her recent memories, thrusting them at him with enough force that he physically rocks back on his heels. Images, sensations, and sounds flood Ben's mind.
When he has seen everything – when he finally understands – he pulls back from Rey as if she has burned him, his rage reaching a fever pitch.
Anakin was here. He spoke to Rey.
Ben lets out a furious, pained sound that is half roar, half scream. The Force crackles beneath his skin, dangerous, and all the furniture in his room rattles in response.
Rey stands, lifting a hand as if she might place it on his arm. "Ben – "
He steps out of her reach, flinching back from her touch. All those years of agony, of begging his grandfather for guidance, only to receive nothing – but the moment Rey touches the artifact, his grandfather appears to her?
The hurt returns in full-force now, overwhelming in its intensity as it mixes with his rage.
He needs to do something. Break something. Hurt and hurt and hurt until he no longer hurts.
With another yell, he snatches the sleek black chrono off his bedside table, violently throwing it against the far wall. It crashes to the ground in pieces.
He does not stop there. A book, a data pad, a handful of writing instruments, an old training saber – Ben rips through his room in a matter of moments, slamming his fist into the nearest wall when he has run out of things to destroy. And even then, the awful pit of darkness in his chest is not satisfied.
Sparing Rey a cursory glance, he storms back into the chamber that houses his grandfather's helmet. "Grandfather!"
No answer, save for the sounds of Rey scrambling after him and his own harsh breathing.
"Grandfather!" he screams, his voice sounding desperate and mad even to his own ears.
Still nothing.
Again and again, he calls for Anakin's spirit to return, until his voice grows hoarse and painful as it scratches in his throat. But Anakin never comes.
He does not know why he expected otherwise.
"Grandfather," he rasps, one last time. The words tumble out of him before he can bite them back. "Please. Please, I don't know what I did, I don't know why you — why you abandoned me, I don't know what went wrong — "
Ben breaks off abruptly, falling to his knees beside the pedestal as all his rage drains from him. Despair and self-loathing threaten to drown him.
"Now you know the truth," he tells Rey, his voice nearly gone. He does not lift his head to meet her eyes. "This is the creature you have sworn yourself to. This is the monster you will marry, so wretched that even his own family leaves him to rot in darkness."
The silence stretches on too long, the tension between them so thick that Ben hunches his shoulders. So this is it, then. She finally sees him for the awful thing that he has become. Surely he will find no sympathy, let alone care, in her now.
But as always, Rey proves him wrong. She crosses the room in quick strides and wraps her arms around him, drawing him against her. The embrace nearly breaks Ben. He shudders, letting out a half-stifled sob, before he clutches her waist with shaking hands. Rey's warmth envelops him completely as she leans over him, her Light soft and steady as it holds his Darkness at bay. She runs a hand along his back, rubbing soothing circles into his skin, and all Ben's thoughts stutter to a halt.
He cannot remember the last time that he was touched without violence. Suddenly, his skin feels starved for it, for the innocent sensation of Rey's calloused fingers on his back. Swallowing another sob, he holds her tighter, pressing against her touch with a desperation that, if she were anyone else, would embarrass him.
"I will not leave you to rot in darkness," Rey vows, conviction clear in her voice. "They failed you, Ben. I won't."
Ben's heart aches at the sincerity that lies beneath her words.
He believes her.