Rey sighed with relief as she warmed her fingers on the hot cup of tea, the steam rising into the cold air. "That feels good. And smells good."
The jedi knight smiled at her. "It's a lot better than what I was fed during my training on Dagoba, that's for sure."
She returned his smile as he settled himself around the fire, across from her. Suddenly she laughed, breaking the gravity of the moment with her giggles. "I'm sorry–I just can't–this is…" She furrowed her brow and suddenly stopped laughing as she caught sight of his perplexed look. "Sorry. It's just…"
"What?" He was at a loss.
"You're….You're Luke Skywalker! And you are a Jedi! And the Force is real! And it's not all just fantasy, and I am here, actually here, and not on Jakku, stupid stupid Jakku, and I just can't believe it…" Suddenly, her head swimming, she felt faint.
He peered at her intently. "Take a deep breath. You must bring yourself to calm, if you cannot bring calm to yourself." He nodded approvingly as Rey quieted her mind. "I know you have many questions. And I don't know that I will be able to answer all of them."
"Because you can't-or you won't?" She asked sharply.
Luke Skywalker's eyes flashed at her in the firelight. He stared at her for a moment, then nodded slowly. "I see. When you fought him, you saw things. Memories-of me. Of what happened."
She shook her head, confused now and embarrassed that she had challenged him. "I don't know what I saw. I know only that-he was angry. That he felt…ignored, neglected perhaps."
Skywalker sighed deeply as he rose, turning from her a moment and leaning against the stacked stone wall of the structure. "Yes," he said. "That is my fault. I can take responsibility for that. Ben needed a father and…" Here he paused and faced her, his eyes shining with unshed tears. "And I was too busy with my own dreams about being a great Jedi teacher to really notice what was happening with him. "
"Ben?" she said softly.
Skywalker smiled at the memory, blinking away the tears in his eyes. "Yes. Named for a great Jedi, a hero of the resistance. I will tell you his story one day. If Ben had still been alive, if Yoda had still been alive…" he sighed, his frustration apparent. "If I hadn't been the last living Jedi Knight, i could have spent more time with Ben. Given him the attention Han never did, really taught him how to resist the dark side. But…" He shook his head sadly. "I felt like it was up to me to resurrect the whole tradition. I tried to do too much, to teach too many. And it all came crashing down."
Rey gazed into the steam rising from her mug. "When your sister-when General Organa sent me here, she told me that she had believed that Kylo-that Ben still had light in him. That she still thought he could be saved." She raised her eyes to Skywalker, shaking her head. "Which…I don't understand. He killed his father. He's killed so many, tortured so many. How could there still be any light in him?"
Skywalker smiled, a sad smile. He crossed to sit beside her. "Rey," he hesitated, and then continued. "When you were force-locked with him, what did you sense inside his mind?
She thought. "Hate. Fear. A desire to control."
Skywalker nodded. "Yes, of course. And what else?"
Rey stared into the fire, stiffening her back. "N-Nothing," she stammered. "Just-ugliness. That's all."
Skywalker tilted his head at her. "Face the truth, Rey. A jedi must be able to see things as they are-not as we want them to be." He nodded at her encouragingly. "Close your eyes. What was beneath all of that?"
She stubbornly gazed into the fire for a moment longer, than squeezed her eyes shut. She had come here for training, hadn't she? She would do as this old Jedi said.
"Remember…remember. When you were in his mind, and he in yours. Go beneath the surface. "
Rey deepened her breathing as she recalled the unpleasant memory of being inside Kylo Ren's mind. For several long, frustrating moments the memory simply danced before her, but as she continued to examine it she felt it grow larger, until she could imagine herself stepping into it. And then she was there-inside the memory so clearly that she could almost feel the interrogation chair underneath her. Focus, she thought, and turned to see him there, standing before her. She felt it again, the intense pushing of his mind into here, and like before she bore down and pushed back until she found herself with the mind of Kylo Ren.
It felt like a cold slap of icy seawater, the chaotic brew of self-loathing and will to destroy. Rey gasped, feeling like her breath was stolen from her as she struggled to get a foothold in that toxic stew of memory. "I can't–" she whimpered.
She felt Skywalker take her hand, felt his cool strength beside her. "Go beneath it, Rey."
She took a deep breath. She plunged down, deeper. beneath that level of hate and fear. Beneath the desire to maim and kill. And for so long it just felt like-nothing. Like numbness. A cold and never-ending numbness that she was sure would last forever. Some part of her knew that time was passing around her, and she felt Skywalker set a rough blanket around her shoulders. Deeper and deeper she fell into this trance, into the sea of Kylo Ren's numbness, becoming increasingly aware of a bottom–Yes, there was something there, something very big, and she was so close now.
Suddenly she sat up, the blanket falling from her shoulders as she wailed loudly, the pain overtaking her as she lost all sense of difference between who she was, who he was. "I'm so–I'm so lonely! Oh, oh-it hurts!"
Yes, she felt it-the loneliness, there at his core. Or was she feeling the loneliness at her own center? It felt so familiar, this sense of loss. This feeling of something lacking, something missing. Images swirled before her. His mother, engrossed in deep conversations for hours with politicians trying to get them to support the Resistance. The Millennium Falcon, taking off and taking Han Solo on yet another adventure away. Herself, as a young child, extending her small hand with just a few pitiful parts for exchange and getting only a 1/8th portion. Wondering if it was even worth the expenditure of water to cook. Both of them, feeling so lonely and unregarded. So desperate for attention that either of them might be susceptible to the skilled manipulations of an evil man. But only one of them had been important enough to draw his attention. Young Ben Solo, a fine prize for the taking.
Rey felt sadness and pity dawn in her heart as she understood, finally, what had happened to the child of Leia Organa and Han Solo, to the nephew of Luke Skywalker. As she understood what she had escaped, growing up unnoticed on Jakku, her force sensitivity something that no one could use against her. How could she have thought to judge him, when she had no idea of what he had been through–had suffered through.
Scavanger? How dare you-get out of my head!
The words in her mind came with a blast of fury, and Rey's eyes snapped wide open with shock. Skywalker rushed to her side and she grabbed his hand for support. "It's not a memory," she gasped. "I'm not in his memory. I'm in his mind-now. And he knows."
The seasick feeling was back, his fury pounding into her head as he attempted to force her out. She felt him discover her feelings of pity for him, and the response of rage was enough to push her to her knees.
Stop, she thought at him. I didn't mean to do this. I didn't mean to be in your head. But I see you, I can feel you–Ben!
You will die scavenger, you will die. I'll destroy you, and Skywalker too, Yes I see him there with you. She got a clear image of her and Luke, choking, bloody and cut down with a red light saber.
It doesn't have to be like this, Ben. I know you–I know how lonely you are. How numb you've had to make yourself to get through it all. It doesn't have to be like that.
I'm coming for you, he thought at her, with one last blast of blood and hatred. And then he was gone.