"I promised I would never abandon you."
The implication of his last few words only fully sunk in as Cara released a breath she had not realized she had been holding. They were words that had always comforted her, words that had always made her feel safe. Now, though, the words were tainted with something sinister; attached to a new memory that would send shivers down her spine for as long as she would remember it. She wanted him to pull away from her just as much as she wanted him to hold her. She had never felt so conflicted in her entire life.
"This cannot be real. You heard that line in one of my memories and now you're using it against me."
He moved his head to once again look into her eyes. There was a mixture of fear, confusion and the smallest sliver of hope in them – her light grey eyes had always been able to tell him exactly what she was feeling.
"Am I?" He asked, his voice much softer than it had been during any of their previous exchanges.
"Yes – yes, of course you are! This is just another one of your games; a disturbing manner in which to get me to reveal more of myself to you."
"I am not in need of any games to get you to show me a new side of yourself." He stated, and in her heart she knew it was true – but it did not matter. She was shaken to the core. She never thought she would hear that old promise again, and now here he was, her torturer, her captor, promising her the same thing. It could not be a coincidence.
"Why did you choose those words?"
"I know that they mean more to you than any other promise in your life ever did. Your memories have not lied to me thus far."
He was still holding her against the wall, and she could feel the heat radiating off of his body as she felt her defiance slipping away from her. This was worse than any physical torture he could put her through. Every last bit of the barricade in her mind came crashing down. There was nothing to hold her back anymore.
She was tired, she was emotionally drained; at this point, all she wanted was to rest her forehead against his mask as she struggled to catch her breath. She restrained herself, though. She could not let him see how much his words had affected her. Mustering up the last bit of her strength, she finally pushed him off of her. She had expected some resistance from him, but received none. She quickly crossed to the other side of the room, trying to put as much distance between them as was possible in her small cell.
"I want – I need you to leave." She said, sounding as confident as she could considering her current emotional state.
"Do you, really?" He said, taking a step towards her.
"I…yes. Yes, I do. I need you to leave, right now."
"What makes you think I will listen to you?"
"What more could I possibly give you? What kind of reaction is it that you're looking for?" Desperation threatened to cloud over the last of her confidence. She was not sure what to do anymore.
"I want you to face the truth of your situation." He said, once more taking a step closer to her.
"The only truth I see here is that I have been manipulated into a situation with forces I can't control. That I have a mad man standing in front of me, who takes pleasure in emotionally mistreating someone that has done them no wrong. You can give me all the physical pain you want in the world, and I promise you that I will endure it – but you cannot use my own experiences against me and expect me to give in to whatever it is you desire from me."
"I seem to remember telling you that desperation is not in your nature. It would seem I was correct."
"You know nothing about me." She said, trying but failing to contradict him.
"I know you don't believe that."
He was right. Everything was falling into place. He knew exactly which buttons to push with her. He knew her limits, he knew her memories. It explained why she felt such a sense of familiarity whenever she was around him. His gestures, his ticks. She knew what it was all adding up to. She just did not want to believe it.
"Push through your barriers. Admit that the conclusion you've come to is the correct one." He turned to leave, walking towards the door with steps that showed how self-assured he really was. He was about to reach the door when Cara stopped him.
"No." She said, her hands curling into fists by her side,
"No?" He asked, a sadistic tone overtaking his voice. He stopped walking, but kept his back turned towards her. He craned his neck, slowly moving his head towards the sound of her voice.
"No. You won't leave. Not until you take off your mask."
Her heart started pounding as he slowly turned on his feet in her direction. She thought he would walk towards her, but instead, he remained in his place, feet seemingly rooted to the ground.
"Are you convinced that this is the road you want to take? Denial will not be possible anymore."
"Yes, Yes – I need to know. I need to see your face."
She sucked in a breath, impatiently waiting for him to take off his mask. Time seemed to come to a standstill, as he slowly moved his hands to the sides of his helmet. Something clicked, and something hissed, before he slowly lifted the mask off his head and placed it on the table stood next to him.
Cara did not control her own reflexes anymore. She walked towards him, staring at his face as she went. Somewhere, her subconscious did not want to believe he was standing in front of her. She could not believe that the man who was now standing in front of her was in fact the boy who had left her so long ago. His face was the same, only older. The light in his eyes had left, instead replaced with a shadow she could not fathom was actually there. His soft yet rigid features were still the same, yet more mature. His unique nose that had bothered him for so long when he was younger, looked the same, and his dark hair was now longer and messed up from its time spent under his helmet. It was him just as much as it was not.
She did not ask him why he left her. She did not ask him why he never said goodbye. She did not ask him if he had ever thought of her in the time they had spent apart. Instead, she asked him the only question that really mattered.
"What happened to you?"
She wanted to touch his face, to see if his skin was just as soft as she remembered. She wanted to know how he would react if she did so, if she could wipe the shadow from his eyes and replace it with the light that was once there. She controlled her actions though, worried that he would try to walk away from her once more.
"Nothing happened. I became who I always wanted to be."
"No this is not – your name is not Kylo Ren. This is not who you always wanted to become."
"You were the one who encouraged Ben Solo to train. You encouraged him to become stronger, more disciplined. You said he would one day be able to surpass Luke Skywalker in power. He did. This is who he became."
"I never said that you should become a mere shadow of your former self! I never said that you should abandon the people who cared about you!"
"And who would those people be? My parents? Who shipped me off to train when they knew I didn't want to? Is that who I should have worried about?"
"No – Yes! Your parents! They loved you, Ben. How could you do this to them?"
"My name is not Ben."
"You will always be Ben to me." She said, lowering the volume of her voice once more.
"Ben does not exist anymore. Kylo Ren took his place."
"I refuse to believe that."
"Then you are simply in denial." He countered, his voice rising with anger.
"I thought you said denial would not be possible anymore when you took off the mask. You were right."
"Ben Solo was weak. He did not deserve to use the Force. I have power that you cannot even imagine!"
"Then why am I here? If you had truly been pulled into the darkness, why am I here? Why did you decide to kidnap me that night? Why would I matter to you, if I'm only a part of the remains of a person who does not exist anymore?"
"I told you this already. I see great potential in you. You could join the First Order. Help us rebuild what was once destroyed."
"No. You told me that I needed to face the truth of my situation. I have, and now so do you! If you truly only kidnapped me for my potential you would have done something to change me already. You haven't. I'm still the same woman that Ben Solo left alone all those years ago."
"There is no other truth for me. I am a master of the Knights of Ren. That is who I was always meant to be."
"No, it isn't. No, Ben, please, it isn't."
She took her finals steps towards him, raising her hand to touch his cheek. She had hoped he would lean into it somehow – that her touch would bring back some of the man she used to know. Instead, it only seemed to anger him further; he grabbed her wrist forcefully once more, shoving her to the side. She noticed the spark in him though, she was getting through to him. He would not be this angry if it was not working. She decided to antagonize him further. She just had to trust that he would not actually hurt her.
"As long as I'm here I will only use your true name. You are Ben Solo, daughter of Han Solo and Leia Organa. You have to remember. I will help you remember."
"There is no need. They do not matter anymore." His voice changed. Instead of anger, it was eerily calm – it frightened her more than when he had shouted at her.
He stalked towards her, as though she was his prey. He backed her into a corner, until the backs of her legs hit her sleeping bench and she was forced to sit down. He towered over her now; his tall frame seemed more intimidating now than ever before.
"What – what do you plan to do with me?" She asked, tentatively. Her previous angry disposition had dissolved and she was now left in shock. The severity of her situation only just hit her now. Before she could contemplate what was happening, she could feel his presence in her mind. He was more aggressive now than he had been the previous few times – she let out an ear splitting scream as he pulled the one of the last memories she had of Ben from her mind.
She ran through the corridors, worried that she would be late for her medical training. She had fallen asleep after a particularly harsh sparring session with Ben. She knew that he wanted her to be able to fend for herself after he left. He was due to leave in two months, and she would take every opportunity she could get to spend time with him. Even if it only showed her the angered side of him.
She ducked through a small door that led to a hidden corridor she and Ben had found years before on one of their adventures around the base. It would take her straight to the training rooms where her teacher would be waiting for her. As she ran, the only worry on her mind was that she would once more be reprimanded for her negligence.
It was dark in the tunnel – the only lighting there was a few emergency lights that would activate whenever one of the doors was opened on either side of the passage. It cast an eerie glow over the tunnel, and the first time that she and Ben had run through it the shadows on the wall had scared her to no end. She had been eleven at the time. He had held her hand, laughing as he pulled her along. That was seven years ago now. Their relationship had been so easy back then. It was more strained now. There was a different kind of tension at the moment – tension because he was meant to leave, tension because she was confused as to what she felt towards him. She hated herself for feeling awkward in front of him. She was not able to hide it from him anyway.
She stumbled a little as she lost her focus thinking about her friend. She cursed to herself, feeling a slight twinge going through her foot. Before she could stop to take a look at it however, she bumped into a tall figure who had obviously been running from the opposite direction.
"What – Ben! What the hell are you doing here?"
"I was looking for you." He said, slightly out of breath.
"I can't talk right now, I'm late for training."
She tried to walk past him, but he grabbed her upper arm before she could take another step. His grip was strong, but tender; and she sighed as she turned around to face him. His handsome face was illuminated softly by one of the dim lights nearby, and she averted her eyes from his gaze. She always felt as though he could read her mind.
"I'm not letting you leave until you tell me why we've been fighting so often."
"Are you saying that I'm the reason we fight so much? Fighting comes from two sides, Ben. You taught me that."
"Of course not – I just – I need to know. Before I leave."
"We have to figure this out now? You're not leaving for another two months!"
"Well, yes… that's true – I just – I don't want us to fight for the next two months."
She finally tore her eyes away from the floor and looked up at his face. He was so close to her, she could feel his breath lightly on her face. Her heart rate quickened even as she tried to calm herself.
"Ben, we can talk about this later. I have to go."
His grip did not loosen from her arm. He was silent for a moment, as she pointedly looked at his hand, trying to give him the hint that he needed to remove it from her limb. He did not, however. Instead, he leaned in closer.
"Ben, what is the matter with-"
She never got the chance to finish her sentence. He pushed her up against the wall, rather forcefully, and before she could say another word his lips were on hers in a furious dance. The kiss was hungry, desperate, and full of life. Her mind became cloudy, she could not even bring herself to respond. She was shocked, excited, curious, confused. Before she got the chance to reciprocate however, he had already broken away, resting his forehead on hers for a second before he ran back down the tunnel and into the shadows.
That was the first and only time Ben Solo had kissed her.
"I find it intriguing that that is the first memory you would think of during this moment."
She sat quietly, tears forming in her eyes as she looked down at her hands crossed in her lap. One half of her mind was telling her to avert her gaze, the other half of her mind was telling her that he needed to see the pain he was causing her. He needed a reminder of who she was to him. She looked up at him, into those brown eyes she knew so well.
"Why does that surprise you? It was the last time I saw you."
A/N: Thanks again for all your lovely reviews! They make it so worthwhile to write this story. I won't be able to update tomorrow as I'll be traveling all day, but I promise a new chapter by Wednesday night!