Kylo Ren drained what little of the tea was left in the cup before pouring himself some more. He picked out the vacuum-sealed portion of veg-meat and the packet of dehydrated eggs from the pile, and did his own math. There was at least eight weeks' worth of food for one person. She was planning to still stay at least those eight weeks by halving her portions with him. That didn't necessarily mean he had eight weeks to figure how to get off planet. Everything depended on if and when Rey found her kyber crystal and the weather.
He tore open the top of the egg packet and held it over the frying pan. She said it was all right for him to take her portion, but she hadn't eaten and barely drank. He could already hear her stomach growl in an hour, and he knew she wouldn't complain about it. She'd sip tea and look miserable. With a sigh he tapped out about half of the packet and tightly folded the foil packet closed. Next to the fluffing eggs he laid down his piece and a half of veg-meat.
When his meal was finished, he ate his eggs a puff at a time and chewed on his veg-meat slowly like he had seen Rey do. There wasn't much flavor to savor, but he didn't feel that usual disappointed dip in his stomach when he finished his plate and his tea.
Her communicator's signal was dead, but that was no surprise. Kylo Ren felt as if he was wearing an invisible, noise-cancelling helmet in the cave. He was sure Snoke was trying to contact him but, like the communicator, simply couldn't. It gave Kylo Ren space to think, but he also worried that Snoke would ambush them without warning if he stayed down here with her for too long. He highly doubted that his state-of-the-art ship would be so easily destroyed by the storm. At the very least, the communication system would still be functional. The problem was getting to the ship without freezing to death or being torn apart by the local fauna.
He pressed a hand over his abdomen, where his biggest wounds still felt like they stung from the inside. Plus, he couldn't breathe too deeply without feeling like he was ripping his skin apart. He couldn't risk escape anytime soon. The order to bring Rey with him alive was an even bigger obstacle. The Supreme Leader had given him this assignment specifically because Rey would be alone and unguarded—and yet he still couldn't stop her. He had failed again.
Fuming and his fingers itching to break something, he folded the tin plate in half. Suddenly, he knew what to do. He snatched her communicator and examined it. If he completely destroyed it, she would have no choice but to go to his ship if she wanted off this planet. When would be the right time to do it?
He put the communicator back on the first aid kit and stepped outside the tent to see if Rey was still meditating. She was no where to be seen. His heart raced as he hurried to the edge of the stream, but she wasn't floating face-down in it again.
"Rey?" he called out, and there was no answer.
He hopped over the stream and walked to the smaller cave openings.
"Which way do we go, Uncle Luke?" said the voice of his twelve-year-old self.
"Wherever the Force pulls you," his younger uncle answered.
Kylo Ren closed his eyes and tried to force the voices out of his mind, but the crystals that still held on to these moments were much, much stronger.
"What if I choose the wrong cave and we get lost?" Ben asked, sounding defeated before he had even started.
"Getting lost is part of the adventure."
It was reassuring to him then, but now it felt like a kick in the teeth.
Out of the two caverns right in front of him, he chose to walk down the one on his right. The green stalactites and stalagmites burned brightly for a moment in greeting before dulling again. The smaller, jagged crystals that studded the ceiling sang to him in their shivering, sparkling voices.
"Can I bring a crystal for Mother? I think she would like these."
"We came only to gather your crystal, Ben. You can always make her a synthetic one when we return."
"But it wouldn't be the same," he mumbled.
The crystals even repeated the skidding sound of the pebble he kicked out of frustration. His heart sank at the thought of his mother. She was still alive, still leading the Resistance, and no doubt still disappointed with the path he chose.
The slope of the tunnel he currently walked down plateaued into a small dead-end. Here the green crystals grew in thick clusters as thick as his arm. At the far corner where craggly wall and floor met was the small, dark hole of where his crystal had once gleamed so beautifully bright to him.
"How do I get it out, uncle?"
"With the Force. In your mind, call out to it. If you are truly ready, it will reach back to you."
Kylo Ren squatted down and pressed his thumb into the hole. The crystal seemed so much bigger when he was a child.
"You did it, Ben!"
"It just…it just flew in my hand."
"Let me see. Ah, that's a pretty good sized stone you got there. I'm proud of you, Ben."
"What are you doing here?" Rey said from behind him.
He stood up quickly and folded his arms over his chest.
"Looking for you. How did you get here? I was just walking down the tunnel and didn't see you."
"Oh, there's actually a secret passage way between the two tunnels. But why were you looking for me?"
"Can I show it to my mother before we put it in the lightsaber?"
"Of course. And I'm sure your father would like to see it too."
"He'll try to pawn it."
"Kylo Ren!" Rey said, standing almost toe to toe with him now.
He blinked hard and shook his head. "What were you saying?"
"Are you all right?"
"I'm fine," he said sharply.
She furrowed her brow and opened her mouth, but shut it for a moment before speaking again. "Well, I'm going back to the tent."
"Me too."
They were quiet as they hiked up the tunnel, Kylo Ren's mind echoing with past conversations.
"Actually, do we have to go back? Can't we just train here, uncle?"
"But I thought you were excited to show the crystal to your mother."
"I know, but—"
Rey nearly jogged to keep up with his longer strides.
"I shouldn't have come here," he grumbled.
"What?"
"I don't even know if they'll be there. They fight all the time and—"
He chewed back his irritation with her, with his assignment, and with this whole damn place. "You know how you've been having visions?"
"Yes."
"I've been hearing the talks my uncle and I had when I came here the first time. I don't see anything, I just hear voices. This tunnel has a lot of strong memories."
"We can't stay in here and avoid our troubles forever, Ben."
"I wish we could."
"Well, now that we have the crystal, we can stay here for another night. Maybe two, if the weather holds. What do you think of that?"
He had reached the river first and hopped over it. The voices silenced themselves, but there was nothing said immediately after Luke offered to stay a couple of extra nights. A young Ben Solo had hugged his uncle tightly, tears in his eyes. Kylo Ren was dry faced as he entered the tent and gestured to the rations.
"I only ate half, so you can have your half," he told her.
"But I told you that—" she stopped herself when her stomach whined, then laughed. "Thank you for thinking ahead."
In between bites Rey explained how she had heard something in the Force call for her in the tunnels, so she followed it but found nothing but the secret passage way. She wouldn't give up looking for her crystal so easily, and he couldn't help but smile at her determination. He decided then to wait until she found her crystal to destroy the communicator.
They went to bed that night as they usually did: with his head and her feet facing the tent doors. His exhaustion allowed him to fall asleep quickly to the rustling of paper from the notebook Rey read from.
He was expecting another fight from his deceased grandfather, but he was no longer in his private quarters. Instead, he looked out at the bold blue sea from the bone-white beach. Next to him was the body of a girl he didn't know, with a face masked with blood. Wave after wave rolled over her, but she didn't move an inch forward or backwards on the sand.
He turned towards the island that he had seen before. It almost looked like Ach'to with its huge, rocky hills, but the greenery was all wrong. His legs were brushed by ferns while the pine trees gave him shade as he walked up a pathway to the top of the island. Moss velveted piles of rocks on either side of the muddy pathway. Midway in his journey, something tingled on his right arm. He turned to find Rey staring at him.
She flinched back, but said, "Can you see me?"
"You're standing right in front of me, Rey."
She grabbed his hand and squeezed it, and he understood. She wasn't a figment of his dream. There was a weight to this Rey, and this island was hers. But he had felt her presence in earlier dreams, and never seen her.
"I don't know how I do it, but I visited your other dreams before," she answered him. "Your hand feels cold."
He woke up with Rey's face inches away from his own. She lifted her head up off of his arm, and he sat up to massage the blood back into his hand. Rey turned on the small lantern that hung above them and cast a warm yellow glow on their face. He couldn't read Rey's face at all, but her pulling at the ends of her beige tunic gave away her anxiety.
"So you visited my dreams before now," he said lightly.
"Not on purpose," she said quickly. "And by the time I realized what I was doing, I would wake up. You didn't seem to notice me, anyway."
"What did you see?"
"I didn't see a lot. It was a lot of walking down empty hallways and hearing you argue."
"With who?"
"With other soldiers. With Snoke." Her voice grew softer. "With your grandfather."
"Darth Vader was not who I expected when I finally met him." He looked down at his hand and flexed it. "He's nothing but a quivering old man talking nonsense. Luke told me about their final encounter. Luke was going to kill him, right in front of the Emperor. But instead he held back, and my grandfather sacrificed himself to save Luke. I didn't think it would change him that much. I still thought he would be Darth Vader."
Kylo Ren realized too late what came tumbling out of his mouth, because Rey was staring at him and seemed unsure about how to address his outburst.
"I don't know why I told you that," he mumbled. "You wouldn't understand that kind of disappointment."
"I understand being disappointed," she said quietly. "My family sold me on Jakku when I was a very young child. I thought they were punishing me for something I did at first, but after a while I convinced myself that they were doing it for my safety, that they were secret heroes in the war, or were being held prisoner somewhere. Always, I thought they would come back for me." Her voice hitched in her throat. "I had to accept that weren't coming back. I didn't want to believe that. I wanted to believe that they still wanted me."
Rey fell silent, wiping her nose with the back of her hand.
"I guess I really don't understand your kind of disappointment."
Her parents abandoning her wasn't new to him. He had glimpsed it in her mind when he had first interrogated her. To listen to her tell the story herself…how had she not turned to the dark side? With a family that abandoned her, with having to learn how to survive at such a young age—what drove her to the light? Did she not crave revenge on all those who had wronged her? He could feel her anger from where he sat, the tears in her eyes, the flush in her face. She wanted to explode in that moment.
She closed her eyes, her tears rolling down her cheeks, and let out a shuddering breath. The anger dissipated, mostly. Her sudden glare cut into his heart. She wiped her tears away and buried herself back under her blankets, her head to the ten flap this time.
"I'm sorry," he said, though it was suddenly very hard for him to breathe.
"Just turn off the light," she told him between sniffles.
He did. Instead of going back into his bed, he crawled out with one of his blankets to lay on a few feet away. Even the murmur of the stream couldn't fully mask her crying. He stared up at the twinkling blue crystals, hoping for sleep that wouldn't come. So he waited until her cries stopped before entering the tent again. Her blanket laid crumpled at her feet, and she slept with her knees tight against her chest. He pulled the blanket over her before laying down with his back turned to her.
Kylo Ren sat in the dark of his bedroom, the only light coming from the blue glow of the ghost of his exasperated grandfather.
"Ben, you still have a choice. It is a hard choice, but you can still make it. Go back to your mother and uncle. They will give you the salvation you need."
Before, Kylo Ren had spat the word 'salvation' back at his grandfather.
"I can't go back to my mother and uncle."
"Why?"
Answers he would have been content before now felt petty and small. His grandfather shrank into the form of Luke, but the Luke who had first brought him to the caves.
"We can't stay in here and avoid our troubles forever, Ben."
He knew that, but he wasn't avoiding trouble. He was followed by it every minute he stayed in these caves, and maybe it was time to finally face it before he had to rejoin the world again.