It appeared that Jamis's feet was stuck to the floor, she was frozen stiff in where she stood, trying her best to keep her grip firm around the bowl. The sinking feeling in her heart bothered her so much that she does not know what it is about.

It was definitely not the thrill of seeing Kylo unmasked.

It was something else.

Jamis closed her eyes, briefly shook her head, and snapped out of it. TC-846 was standing behind her holding a tray of basic medical tools such as tongs, a roll of gauze, and medical shears. She tried to conceal her true feelings (even though she perfectly knew that she cannot fool Kylo in faking emotions) by trying to be playfully snarky.

"Huh, you're broken," she said in a mellow tone.

She walked up in front of Kylo, tilted her head to the side where she has a visual of the reopened wound. She clicked her tongue.

"I hope it's not that bad. Let's see what I can do to fix it." She added.

Jamis gestured Kylo to sit on her bed, she placed the bowl of water on the bedside table (or at least that is how she is using it), sat beside him, and slowly reached for the wound but Kylo turned his head to expose the cheek in front of her. The impact of Jamis's melee attack with her quarterstaff caused the bacta tape to tear, thus the bleeding; she took the clean cloth that was soaked in the basin and warned Kylo that it might sting.

"The antiseptic solution was mixed in the water," she reasoned.

"Go ahead," Kylo rolled his eyes, partially disregarding her warning and just stared blankly at the window.

Jamis softly dabbed the end of the towel on his wound—she tried as soft as she can—he winced and jerked away from her hand. Not a single sound came out of his mouth, not so much as a small yell or a grunt of pain, but only a sharp inhale followed by a deep, relaxed breath.

"Fair warning, I don't think it's a good idea to take off the bacta. You need to go to the med bay to get it replaced, I'm just here to patch you up," said Jamis.

"I'll go later,"

Jamis carefully cleaned off the blood from his neck and from the wound itself. She put a temporary bandage on Kylo's face to clog the bleeding. As she was gingerly wiping off the blood from the side of his face, her eyes trailed off and looked at him straight in the eye.

Chills went down her spine, she felt goosebumps underneath her sleeves, all over herself, and for some reason she felt like she was warped right back into a blurry point of her past.

Why do I feel like there's something with him? A connection? No! That's stupid… so stupid. Her mind yelled violently that it echoed in the walls of her skull, the voice of her own consciousness somehow nearing to burst into tears.

Her mind repeated the word "stupid" as she tried to find her words.

"This is only temporary, alright? Go get yourself really fixed before you bleed out."

While she was cleaning up the used gauzes and wipes, Kylo was astounded—surprised, even—when their eyes met, for him, it was as if staring through a void only to find the end of it. Paradoxical, but it happened. He found something that he thought he has forgotten, he never expected to find it in her. A memory. Memories, perhaps. Ones that he thought has dissolved into the far reaches of his mind, lost from remembrance. He never thought that it would Jamis would be the catalyst for those fragments to resurface.

What did she have to do with those memories? Why did it have to be her?

His thoughts just piled up after the other. He dared not to overthink it.

"Right, I…" he stuttered. "I should be going."

"Kylo," called Jamis. It was her first time, in weeks, to call him by first name—as she has always called him "Ren".

The young Sith lord stopped in his tracks, turned around, and waited for Jamis to say something—as if he was anticipating something important.

"Put that mask on again and that gauze would just feel stuffy inside."

He nodded, acknowledging her advice, and promptly leaves her room.

Jamis thought that it was quite strange of him to stay around and let her clean up his wound when he could just walk out, head for the medical bay to receive a much proper treatment from the medical droids, not just first-aid from a protocol droid and a bounty hunter. She did not take much mind of the thought, but it lingered for quite some time in her head.

Meanwhile, Kylo carried his mask tucked between his side and arm while he made his way to the medical bay. The medical droids were idle and they were active when they saw Kylo walk in. The single round eye of one droid immediately scans and assesses him, it detected that the damaged bacta bandage and concluded that it required immediate replacement. It buzzed and beeped, communicating to the other droids, it hovered towards Kylo who was already sitting down on the gurney.

More droidspeak and they started to work on removing the damaged bacta bandage on Kylo's face and then replacing it with a cleaner, fresher one.

He sat down, almost not minding the droids doing their work on him, it gave him some kind of allowance to think things through.

Hey, Ben?

There it is again. It has been weeks since he last heard that familiar voice.

We're friends, right, Ben? And friends stick together.

Yeah… we are. We'll always stick together—no matter what.

Little by little, the voice would sound as if it was conversing with him, it used to be just his old name and another word or two; he thought he was going insane until he realized that they were memories crawling out of his mind because he could have sworn he heard his own voice responding to the one speaking to him.

He did not realize that he had fallen into a trance of sort, with his eyes closed as the hypnotic, low, whirring sounds of the droids have almost lulled him to sleep. He did not realize that he was recalling a childhood memory.

Prior to being under Snoke's employ, the young Padawan who was once Ben Solo was consumed by the Dark Side, it extinguished the thoughts and emotions of Ben, along with it were his most prominent memories, henceforth, the makings of Kylo Ren. But as much as he wanted to deny it, there were just some memories, some people, and some events that were simply too difficult to forget and bury in oblivion.

In the weeks where he was preoccupied in training Jamis, he almost forgot about that voice of someone he knew—someone who belonged in his far past, who has now come to haunt him again.

But now, Kylo did not deny anymore, he knew to whom the voice belonged to. After hearing and thinking about it for so long, he recognized it.

It was no hallucination, no mirage either, certainly not a ghost.

It was his childhood friend.

The only friend he ever had back in Luke Skywalker's school of Padawans was a girl named Kalia. Her short, dark hair matched her brown eyes that would light up every time she performed well during their combat exercises. Her soft, withdrawn personality greatly resonated with Ben's shy, quiet, introverted nature; they did almost everything together from studying Jedi texts to conducting their own practice sessions (by always "borrowing" a remote T2 training droid from Luke's inventory in the learning hall). Kalia excelled mostly in being the strategist type while Ben excelled in combat and Force-wielding; their contrasting talents were the base of their friendship.

They had their own little world.

Like any other school, children would always tease other children—even to a point where it is deliberately a case of bullying—and Ben was a frequent target. He was teased for many things: they made fun of how "gigantic" he was because he was the tallest child amongst the other Padawans—there even came a time where one of the children, a Zabrak, called him a Rancor due to his height, and the young Ben was humiliated—other than his height, he was often teased by his appearance, his facial features, and even his personal interests. Luke always consoled his nephew that they do it out of jealousy because he was a brilliant pupil.

Out of the many Padawans who often teased, avoided, or ignored him, Kalia did none of the sort—she never ridiculed him. He never felt alone when she was around. He loved her company, her kindness was the only kindness he felt apart from his family, and he treasured her so much.

Aside from her talents inside the classroom, Kalia was an intuitive girl, also kind and compassionate; for some reason, she would ask Ben or make him promise things that—for him—seem absurd, unlikely for him to do, or to happen. At one point, while in the garden yard of the academy, the two children watch a meteor shower since they could not sleep.

'Hey, Ben?'

'Yeah?'

'You won't forget me, right?'

'Of course not. Why would I?'

'Nothing. Just a weird thought that came up.'

'Well, whatever thought that was, I'm sure I'd never forget you.'

'Hmm, I hope so.'

But that one fateful night changed everything.

That night where he saw how his own blood committing an attempt on his life with his own eyes.

The love he had for his family and Kalia vanished, his memories were blackened, and his identity was changed. He was a new man—and not a good one, either.

He had already let the dark take him.

So many young Padawans were slaughtered, no one managed to escape the wrath of the Knights of Ren, and the academy burned along with the entirety of Ben's past. When already brought under Snoke's wing, one of the early steps in joining the Dark Side was to cast off all the remnants of the person he used to be, including his fondest memories of Kalia.

There was no turning back. The boy had nowhere else to go.

To Kylo, it almost felt like Snoke's first instruction, which was to let himself into the Dark Side to repress his memories of the past, was to murder Ben—not as an identity but as a person. It meant long hours caged inside his chamber on his own whim, trying to erase what needed to be gone, pained sessions of meditation until he felt that his past was nothing but a white slate until those days of self-inflicted imprisonment paid off as it pleased to the Supreme Leader's wishes.

Meanwhile, in the confinements of his bedchambers, sitting on his bed, he tried to calm down his mind with deep, patterned breaths; when the storm in his heart dissolved, his grip loosened, and he mustered up the nerve to finally release the words he subconsciously wanted to say all this time.

"Kalia…" he said under his breath, in the hopes the ghost of her would hear, perhaps through the Force, "I miss you… I miss you so much."

And a tear rolled down his cheek.

In shame, not of crying, but of being unable to keep his promise to her, he wrapped his face with his gloved hands, staining the leather with tears until it pooled and overflowed to his wrists and arms.

He had been suppressing this feeling for too long that it welled up within him.