"Life as a Dyad"
By EsmeAmelia
Chapter 27
"Why haven't you been attending your sessions?" Darna's blue face glared at Ben from the hologram, as intimidating as if she were physically present.
Ben had no answer. He just stared at her, running his teeth over his bottom lip.
"Ben, listen to me," the officer continued once it became apparent that Ben wasn't going to answer. "We've been lenient with you. You performed a great service when you helped rescue those children, which is a large reason why you didn't get life in prison, but if you want to continue living as a free man, you have to cooperate."
"So what do you want me to do?" Ben asked.
"Your therapist is right here," said Darna. "We can have a session right now."
"Now?"
"Yes, now. Unless you would prefer to be arrested again."
Ben let out a sigh. "It appears that I don't have much choice, then."
With that, the officer's hologram disappeared and thirty seconds later, in came Krain's hologram. "Ben," the therapist said, "I haven't seen you in a while."
"My wife is here," said Ben. "Is it all right if I go somewhere more private?"
"Of course."
Going "somewhere more private" involved climbing down the ladder and settling himself on a box in the corner of the docking bay. Rey remained on top of the Falcon, waving to him as he sat down.
"All right," said Ben, "let's get this over with."
Krain's hologram flickered, bringing the Zabrack's face in and out of visibility, making Ben feel uneasy for some reason. "What's been going on, Ben?"
"Well, I was fired, for one thing," said Ben. "Fired after one day of work, so that probably doesn't look good on my job history. Add 'Supreme Leader of the First Order' to my list of past jobs and probably no one will ever hire me again."
"You sound angry," said Krain.
"Damn right I'm angry! I think I was better accepted in prison than I am now!" He gritted his teeth, running his hand through his hair. "I'm just . . . I'm tired of my mere existence being seen as repellant. I know, I shouldn't think like that, I should understand that of course people are going to see me as a monster, but dammit I'm tired of it!" He felt his lip quiver slightly despite his efforts to still it. "But I should understand, shouldn't I? Of course people are going to see me as a monster because I am a monster. I should just put up with it all."
"You have a right to feel frustrated," said Krain.
"But I still deserve it." An invisible clamp seemed to be squeezing Ben's heart. "Even if I have a right to feel frustrated, they have a bigger right to see me as a monster. I'm better off just never going anywhere."
The therapist licked his lips. "Darna and I have been talking to the other officers. We think it might be good for everyone, including yourself, if you made a public apology to the galaxy."
Now it was like an invisible fist punched Ben's chest. "A public apology? No, no, I couldn't do that."
"Why not?"
"You're asking me to appear in front of the entire galaxy when I can't even go to a restaurant without being kicked out just for existing?"
"That's exactly why it might be beneficial to make a public apology," said Krain, his eyes staring into Ben's. "If the galaxy could see you show how much you regret your past actions, some people might be more open to forgiving you."
Ben groaned. "You make it sound like I did something naughty in school and I should say I'm sorry. Apologies don't fix murder."
Krain twisted his mouth, as if he had been hoping that Ben wouldn't bring up that inconvenient little detail. "You're right, they don't. Nothing fixes murder, so the best thing you can do is try to ease people's wounds as best you can. Also . . ." He cocked his head slightly. ". . . a public apology might help your case to get off-planet leave to work at your wife's Force school."
Ben glanced up at his wife, still on top of the Falcon, and once again he imagined both of them teaching on Ahch-To under the wide sky, far away from the glaring faces on Coruscant.
"What kind of apology?" he finally asked.
. . .
It turned out to be a prewritten apology.
The police escorted Rey and Ben to a holostudio where Ben would record his message to the galaxy that he didn't write. A droid applied makeup that felt like it instantly caked onto his face, but he knew better than to complain. His insides tightened as the police led him to the stage on which a simple podium sat. No one was in the audience and the only other people in the studio were the holocamera operators and Rey in the wings, but as he stood behind the podium, Ben felt as if he were about to take off his clothes and go romping around on Hoth.
Facing the podium was a screen that would project his prewritten speech. He didn't even know what it said, yet he was about to broadcast its words to the entire galaxy.
This is ridiculous. The Solo part of him wanted to say those words out loud and storm out of the studio, but the Organa part of him said that this was for the good of the galaxy and his family even if he thought it was ridiculous.
"We are live in five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one!"
The holocameras turned on, their lights blaring into Ben's face, and the words projected onto the screen.
"Hello," Ben read, his voice already sounding stiff, "my name is Ben Solo, but for many years the galaxy knew me by another name. Some of you were young children or not yet born during that time, but others – many others – remember the horrors I committed with that name, Kylo Ren." A deep inhale through his nose. "I murdered countless innocent people, including my own father, the great war hero General Han Solo."
He felt his nose wrinkling as he said the words "the great war hero General Han Solo," as if Han's murder was horrific mainly because of how he had fought the Empire and if he had been someone else his murder wouldn't matter as much.
"Then I killed Supreme Leader Snoke," he kept reading. "I could have brought peace to the galaxy right then, but instead I declared myself the new Supreme Leader and continued my old master's tyrannical ways, prolonging the war and leading to more lives pointlessly ending."
He glanced over at the wings where Rey was smiling at him, silently encouraging him to go on, then he looked back at the speech. "You know all this and I don't expect any of you to ever forgive me. Nonetheless, I offer my sincerest apology for my acts."
Sincerest apology, even though he didn't write it.
"You cannot trust me, I understand that, but I hope you will at least give my wife Rey and my son Gavin your friendship. They did nothing wrong, and in fact my wife saved the galaxy from Emperor Palpatine's return. It is wrong for her association with me to tarnish her reputation."
Why did they write that part in? Surely most people recognized that Rey was a hero, right?
Then again, they were both banned from the restaurant.
"I also ask that you remember how I helped to rescue hundreds of kidnapped children from a stormtrooper training facility and I obtained information that let us find and shut down all the stormtrooper training facilities across the galaxy so that they could never again be used. The First Order might still be kidnapping babies and children to this day were it not for my actions."
Now they were making him sound boastful. How long would this thing go?
"I bring this up not so you will praise me as a hero, but simply to remind you that I had every opportunity to retake my place as Supreme Leader and yet I didn't do so. After that, I willingly served twenty years in prison as punishment for my actions. You may think that punishment wasn't severe enough, but I still served it."
Where was this going? What was he even doing here?
"My father was a criminal."
Shit, what? Why was he bringing up his father's past?
"He committed many illegal acts during his smuggling years before he joined the Rebellion, then he committed many more illegal acts when he returned to smuggling years later."
Ben felt like he was going to be sick.
"Yet he is still revered as a hero. You are willing to look the other way from his smuggling past because of his heroic deeds. I know he never did anything as severe as murdering innocents or committing patricide, but I ask that you still remember that you believe in second chances with him."
Was this going to tarnish Han's posthumous reputation? Ben had to restrain himself from declaring that he wasn't going to read another word of this.
"If you believe in second chances with my father, perhaps you could believe in second chances with me. I don't expect to be anyone's friend; all I ask is that you remember that I have been trying to make amends for my actions for two decades. I can't change my past, but I am trying to change my future."
Finally the end of the speech. As soon as the cameras turned off, Ben rushed offstage, where Rey wrapped her arms around him and kissed his lips.
"You did great," she said.
Ben sighed. "I don't feel like I did anything."