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Luke came into the tent. It was late, and the other students were asleep-- Luke had seen them, yawning and talking by the fire, wandering on brief walks before bed, putting their hair up in small buns and retiring. Ben was asleep, now, too.
Something else was not.
Luke had sensed it the moment he entered, and could feel it now: a presence. The room felt crowded and hot; as he looked at Ben it was obvious. Luke felt shame, then, and anger-- shame for himself, for letting this go so far without noticing; and anger at what had taken residence inside Ben, what had changed him from a lost boy into a cruel man.
There was a Jedi way: that would be to kill him. After all, he was gone. Lost. Evil. Luke could do it, and excuse it, too. Could tell the other students what happened-- they would understand; they had seen it in Ben, too. The way he snapped at them now, the way he took a second longer than usual to respond to his own name.
But Luke knelt by Ben’s side. He was weaponless, and in simple robes. Ben’s breathing was soft in the night. Luke took his left hand-- his human hand-- and placed it quietly over Ben’s forehead.
It reminded him of sick days. Days with Ben coughing and sneezing; Luke taking the other students on field trips to other parts of the galaxy, having them use the Force to float the tissue box into Ben’s tent. It used to make him laugh. All that remained of that now, in the dark, was Ben’s hot forehead and the pervading feeling that he wasn’t alright.
Hello, Luke Skywalker.
The voice was old. It was old and it was horrible; hearing it filled Luke with a kind of terror and guilt and nausea; he thought of Ben hearing it and felt worse, he would have done anything-- anything-- to get it out.
He had no idea what to say.
Come here to save Kylo, have you?
Kylo? The name echoed in his head, but found no purchase.
I’m sorry, the voice said, and it did not sound sorry at all. It hissed with a kind of cruel happiness, a fearsomeness that crawled at the periphery of Luke’s mind. You call him Ben, don’t you?
“He is Ben,” Luke said, and it was in a harsh, sharp whisper. Something so angry that it would have torn anything with feelings in two, and so quiet it couldn’t wake Ben. Ben, who was sleeping right here, who Luke would not allow to vanish.
Not anymore. There was a soft laugh, and it chilled Luke and made his skin crawl. If it hadn’t been so thoroughly permeating, Luke might have turned around to ensure there was no one there. As it was, the voice came from all sides. In the past few years, Master Skywalker-- and to hear his title like this was to take the skin from his bones-- your ‘Ben’ has been turning to me. While you sit idly--
“No--”
--he comes to favor me, and what I am. Another laugh. Luke is caught in what must be a nightmare. And you never sensed me here.
“I thought-- I hoped I was wrong--” Luke had hoped Ben would overcome this. He had believed in him; believed like nobody else that Ben was the brightest pupil, the kindest man. He had refused to let anything change that, and now--
Now your Ben becomes my Kylo. The voice paused, and there was a strange texture to the Force surrounding Luke. Luke suddenly felt the finality to its words. And now you will regret training him for me.
“No--” Luke said, but then the voice disappeared, and the room was empty. Under Luke’s hand, Ben gasped, and woke. Luke tore his hand away. The air was ice.
Luke was filled with the saddest and most irrevocable kind of vertigo.
“Ben?” he asked. His voice was unnaturally loud in the silence.
Ben’s head turned slowly towards him, and as Ben's eyes came into view, for a moment the light in the tent changed them. In that single second, Ben’s eyes were no longer brown, but gold.