"Such is the Force of Happiness—
The Least—can lift a Ton
Assisted by its stimulus—
Who Misery—sustain—
No Sinew can afford—
The Cargo of Themselves—
Too infinite for Consciousness'
Slow capabilities."
Dickinson
What had he done? Horror swept through him like a tornado, engulfing his very being. Regret replaced the blood in his veins. But how? This act should have severed him from the hold of the light completely. Instead it was as if the pull had grown in magnitude by tenfold.
Dizzy from the blood loss due to injuries sustained from the fight scene he had just fled, he staggered through the woods.
Where was the girl?
A rustling in the trees – and her lightsaber was at his neck, his on the ground, pushed out of his hand with a force so strong he was in shocked surprise. She was shaking, because of the frigid embrace of the snow now billowing around them, but with a rage so deep and holy he felt that he could not stand to be in her presence much longer. She steadied herself, her lightsaber still at his neck, and gathered resolve.
"Why, Ben?" Her lips uttering his name – his real name – brought him cold chills.
"Don't call me that."
She acted as if she had not even heard. Suddenly a pain ripped through his head so intense that he staggered and fell to his knees. She was in his head. With care, she looked through his every thought, stopping only when she came upon the memory that had been haunting him. "You are so very lonely," she said. "And scared." He saw compassion flicker in her eyes. She felt each emotion as they both relieved him plunging the lightsaber deeper and deeper into Han's chest … horror washed over her body visibly, then tears. "It's tearing you apart?" she asked. She came towards him then, and reached out her hand to brush it tenderly across his face. "Let me help you," she whispered.
Suddenly he had her against the tree. "Why would I want to turn to the light?" he sneered, "Why, when it makes you drop your guard like you just did?" He held her firmly, one arm across her shoulders and the other restraining her hands. But she seemed calm still, even serene.
"Because," she said, "it calls to you. You can't resist it, not for much longer. Let it take over you, Ben."
He tensed. "You don't know what you're saying."
"But I do. This might be too much for you. But it's not too much for us."
The desire that he had felt so strongly in the interrogation room was rising again in his bones. The force between them was growing stronger by the second, and he could not breathe. He was a boat in a tempest-tossed ocean, and he wished more than anything to allow her to captain the ship. When she lifted her head to meet his, he didn't resist. Her lips felt like fire and ice. He began to lift his hold, as the emotion worked through them both, the passion so strong that he felt as if it might consume them in a flame. She broke away from his lips, and found his ear. "Ben," she said, so softly that her words felt like just another of the snowflakes that was encircling them. "Let me help you."
He pulled her down into the drifts, and his heart, minutes before so broken that he didn't feel as if there could possibly be a number to the pieces that were scattered, seemed, ever so slightly, to mend in the heat of their embrace.