Chapter Text
Isolated shrieks tear through the night.
The village is in chaos. Flames consume makeshift abodes, lighting up the darkness with a sinister glow. People run screaming, desperately trying to dodge blaster fire. Few are successful.
A masked Kylo Ren surveys the scene, striding forward with a relaxed confidence that eerily contrasts with the war zone raging around him. Cadres of Stormtroopers advance, executing hysterical villagers with precision.
He slows as he nears a crude barricade made of heavy black sacks. He feels it… a presence on the other side. He stops for a moment just a foot in front of the wall. It’s barely higher than his midsection. He could easily look over it, but he turns and begins walking to the end of it instead.
As he rounds the corner, red bursts of plasma shoot towards him. He easily deflects the blaster fire with his lightsaber. He sees his attacker crouching against the barricade ahead— a boy, no older than twelve from the looks of him. As Kylo approaches, the boy attempts to fire again but looks down in shock as his weapon flies out of his hand before he can pull the trigger. He gulps and looks up at the tall figure approaching him, frozen in fear.
Kylo Ren towers over the boy who looks up at him with wide eyes. He’s too scared to run. He’s even too scared to move. He just stares into the black mask above, almost as though he were hypnotized.
For a few seconds, Kylo stands unmoving, returning the boy’s gaze. Then he raises his lightsaber high above is head. The boy flinches and falls backwards, realizing what’s about to happen. He squeezes his eyes shut as the blade descends swiftly upon him—
Ben gasps as his eyes fly open. His body is hot and slick with sweat. He tries to catch his breath as he stares into the blackness above. He’s foggy and disoriented, struggling to remember where he is exactly. The sheets stick to him as he rolls over, pressing a palm onto the mat to sit up. He swings his legs over the bed, bare feet connecting with cold floor below. He squints and looks around him. The room is beginning to take shape as his eyes adjust to the darkness… the door just ahead, the table to the left.
Suddenly, he twists his body around to look behind him. The image he sees brings him back to reality in an instant.
Rey lays on her side, eyes closed. She’s breathing deeply, peacefully. One hand rests on her belly and the other is curled next to her forehead. She’s wearing a thin undershirt and pants but is otherwise uncovered— no blanket, no sheet.
Slowly, he rests his body back down on the bed, turning towards her. He studies her as she sleeps. Her chest heaves softly with even breaths. Her face is serene and almost seems to glow. He stops himself from reaching out to touch her, from tracing the smooth angle of her eyebrow, slipping down the soft skin of her cheek to caress the curve of her lips.
To him, she’s pure innocence. Full of peace and purpose. Unburdened by horrors perpetrated in the past.
A heavy feeling clenches in his gut, a familiar one that communicates implicitly.
He doesn’t deserve her.
He lets his gaze linger on the soft angles of her face for a moment more. Then, he turns away. Carefully, he lifts himself from the bed and walks towards the door. It opens automatically, almost silently, as he exits into the hallway. He rubs his face with a hand as he staggers towards the kitchen. He stops at a side panel on the wall to check the time. Four hours until first light.
He pours a glass of water and sits at a nearby table. To his left is not a wall but a window, a giant window to the world outside. It’s still dark, but a few things are illuminated by the tepid moonlight— a large, twisting tree, thick grass that gets thinner as it stretches out towards the soft curve of the ledge ahead. He can just make out the top of the path leading down to the beach a few feet below. The ocean is relatively calm, waves crashing gently against the rocks.
This is one of the most remote planets in the galaxy. Remote and uninhabited. Mostly. It’s so off the charts it doesn’t even have a name.
He grunts.
It seems fitting, living on a planet without a name. It suits him.
He’s accepted being called by his birth name, but it still doesn’t feel like his own. The word feels foreign on his lips. Ben. It’s as though it’s someone else’s name, perhaps an alternate version of himself, from a universe where he was never Kylo Ren.
But, of course, he’s not Kylo Ren either. Not anymore. So who is he?
Three years after Mustafar and he’s still not sure.
It hasn’t felt like three years. You’d think time would crawl by, living alone on this planet. But no. A year here is a blink of the eye compared to the years that came before.
He hasn’t been here the entire time. Just most of it. He stayed with his mother and Rey for about three months. Stayed to finish what he started. Though he’s still ambivalent about what Rey did on Mustafar, he’s glad he lived on to crush every remnant of the First Order. Because he had to move up his timeline after Rey discovered his intentions, not all of the fleet was at Starkiller 2 when he destroyed it. And then there were the First Order stations across the core worlds, the massive production centers on planets they’d razed to the ground. It all had to go. Every Stormtrooper, every officer, every engineer…
Leia saw things differently, as did Rey. They both wanted to show mercy to those willing to seek it. He tried to convince them, to remind them how the First Order came to being in the first place— reborn from the ashes of the Empire. The decision to be merciful after the Battle of Endor, not to obliterate every person, place, and thing that had once been a part of the Imperial regime was their undoing… it sealed the New Republic’s fate before it even started.
Surely, his mother wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. Surely, she’d do what was necessary to ensure that the peace she fought so hard to win would last.
But no… even after all this time, she still doesn’t understand how cutting short a few lives in the present can save millions in the long run.
Rey didn’t like it either. She dug her heels in, just like his mother.
So he had to take matters into his own hands. It was regrettable, but necessary.
Because unlike them, he knows the First Order. He helped build it. He knows exactly how the machine was kept so well-oiled and functioning at maximum capacity… brainwashing. Every single member of the First Order complex had been subject to it, himself included. They lived and breathed ideology. They ate it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Absolutely no one was accepted into the First Order fold unless he or she had proven unwavering loyalty to the cause. They ensured this with mind probes, again and again and again.
The galaxy simply couldn’t take any chances. Even the defector had agreed with him. Finn. As far as he knows, this man is the only other person who was able to somehow reprogram himself, to overcome the First Order’s conditioning. He wasn’t at all surprised to learn that Finn became Force-sensitive after Mustafar. The capacity must have been buried deep within him, awakened when Rey released the power of the artifacts. In retrospect, it makes sense… his ability to resist First Order programming, how he could hold his own against him when they fought on Starkiller 1.
So he formed an alliance with Finn, him and that half-cocked pilot he’d captured and interrogated once— Poe.
The first time he saw the man again, he’d walked straight up to him and offered his hand. Ben remembers taking it tentatively.
“I can’t say that I’ve been a fan of your work,” Poe had said. “But I really liked that last bit… you know, the one where you blew up the entire First Order fleet with Starkiller 2. I was there. It was beautiful. Almost makes up for what you did before… almost.” He gave him a wry look before walking away.
It was easy to convince the pilot of what needed to be done. Together, they organized a rogue mission to take out the remaining First Order bases and production centers. It was lightning warfare— they started in the core worlds and made it to the outer rim within a week. One by one, they reduced the remaining First Order stations into ashes.
He feels a swell of satisfaction thinking about it now. Yes, he’s glad he lived on to see, to know, that every speck of the First Order has been obliterated for good.
But, of course, there was fallout. His mother was infuriated with him. She forgave him eventually, but only after several days of screaming followed by weeks of icy silence. Even now, whenever she comes to visit him, she finds a reason to tell him that not every problem can be solved by killing it. He can hear her now, see her sitting across from the table in front of him, forearms resting gently on the surface, hands clasped, leaning in with that all-knowing look…
“Destruction causes more problems than it solves, son. One day, you’re going to learn that. You say one death today can save millions of lives tomorrow? Well, it can cause a million deaths just as easily. Murder begets resentment, vengeance, the most extreme reactions. But showing mercy, respect for life and dignity? This inspires loyalty. And hope. It shows that no one is ever too far gone to be forgiven. I’d think that you, of all people, would understand that.”
Rey’s reaction was different than his mother’s. In some ways, it was worse. She never openly rebuked him. She had already asked so much of him… the leap of faith that day in the volcano. He vehemently disapproved her decision then, and yet he decided to live with it. The least she could do was return the favor.
So there was no screaming or accusations of betrayal from Rey. Instead, she was just quietly disappointed in him. He could sense it… her conviction that he made the wrong choice, again. Her dashed hope that he’d started a new life after Mustafar, a life that endeavored to accomplish something beyond destruction. Her fear that he hadn’t really changed, that he even after everything that had happened he was still Kylo Ren, driven by an instinct to kill.
He sighs, wiping his face with a palm.
He needed to get away after the whole mess. He needed some time for self-reflection. So, he came here. He built this house, the green room… everything he needed to be self-sufficient. His mother would visit him. And Rey. But otherwise, he was the only intelligent life form on this planet. Most of the time, he was glad for it. He needed the solitude. After years of living under a mask of some sort, constantly guarding his words, his expressions, his thoughts, trying to project the image others expected to see… isolation was a relief. It was a chance to reset himself, to find out who he is when he doesn’t have to perform for anyone or hide anything.
Of course, he’s not alone here now. Truth be told, it’s not entirely accurate to say he’s lived alone here at all.
Suddenly, he feels a change. He gets up and quietly walks down the hall. He looks through the open door into his room.
The bed is empty.
She’s gone. He always feels it when she leaves. He glances over at the panel to check the time. She overslept again.
He shakes his head as he walks back towards the kitchen. He told her to set an alarm, but she hates the thought of waking him up in the middle of the night. These days, she’s almost always on Cantonica where morning comes about three hours earlier than here. But at least she’s not on a planet where her night is his day and visa versa. He likes being able to sleep with her. She likes it too.
Rey doesn’t travel to this planet often by ship. She comes maybe every six weeks or so. But through the Force bond, she’s here every night.
The bond has grown even stronger over these past three years, mostly by necessity. He needed solitude. She needed to lead the galaxy in the New Age of the Force. The bond was the only way to bridge the gap. And what they’ve discovered they can do through it is nothing less than revolutionary.
It started very simply. They just needed to learn how to control it, how to trigger it. He remembers those evenings on the Resistance ship, curled up with her in bed, exhaustively reviewing every time the bond had brought them together, trying to remember what had happened that day, what they had been doing or thinking of just before. Then they discovered it— a pattern that had developed over time.
Love triggered the bond. But it wasn’t just any kind of love. It was a deep, compassionate love, selfless and unconditional. They first realized it when Rey confessed what she thought of that day in the cave before he appeared and healed her. As she was coming to grips with the reality of her situation, her imminent death, a memory had entered her mind. Snoke’s throne room. Him asking her to join him, hand extended, eyes begging her. He was so desperate not to be alone anymore. And despite all that she’d seen him do, despite her anger at his choice… her heart ached for him.
After they discovered the trigger, control came naturally. Truth be told, they’re both relieved the other can no longer show up randomly without warning. Now, there are no surprises. He can reach out to her through the emotion, and she can reach out to him. He can choose to respond, to give in and appear before her. Or he can choose not to.
Of course, neither of them can give in every time. That’s how they discovered they could communicate telepathically through the bond. One day, he reached out to her and she answered by speaking inside his mind. They can have an entire conversation this way. It was through one of these conversations that they happened upon a deeper level of the bond, a new ability that rattled them both.
Rey was telling him about a new recruit, a Force-sensitive girl she’d found and convinced to join her academy. Like all of her recruits, the girl was a former slave. She was young, only 13, but she’d lived most of her life in an underground pleasure house in Coruscant. Her story was sickening… but sadly not uncommon. As one might expect, her experiences made it difficult for her to trust anyone. She struggled to control her anger. She held everyone around her at arm’s length, Rey included. One morning, she woke up to discover the girl had run away from the academy in the night. Rey was heartbroken. She felt like she failed the girl.
As she was telling him all of this in his mind, his heart began to feel heavy with the weight of her emotions… her guilt, her regret. He closed his eyes and concentrated on her feelings, giving himself over to an intense empathy the likes of which he’d never experienced before. Suddenly, the space around him shifted radically and an image he didn’t recognize appeared before him. A small room, cluttered with half empty sacks, quarterstaffs, and other miscellany. There was a window to his left, sunlight streaming through it, lighting up thick layers of dust floating through the air. His vision was strangely blurred, hazed with liquid, as though he’d been crying. Then all at once, the realization hit him.
This wasn’t his point of view. It was Rey’s.
Immediately, he snapped back into his own eyes, back on the planet with no name.
They were both extremely shaken afterwards. This new development terrified them. The bond already had already done so much to blur their sense of individual selfhood. Then, to find out that empathetic connection through the bond could grant them the ability to experience life through the other’s eyes, literally? To enter the other’s mind as a witness to what they see and feel in the moment? It was all deeply unsettling.
But it didn’t take long for Rey to see value in this new ability. It was the perfect way to begin pressing him to reengage with society, to lure him away from his isolated haven.
She’d been patient with him for the first year. She’d always known he was going to need some time by himself to recover. She just didn’t realize how much time…
He’d refused all of her invitations to visit her new academy. She was bruised by this, but never said anything. Eventually, she stopped asking altogether. But after they discovered they could inhabit each other’s minds, she realized it was new opportunity to, in a way, get him off the planet, perhaps even to get him to see what she’d been doing all of this time. She’s desperate to convince him that his destiny is to join her in leading the galaxy through the New Age of the Force.
He knew exactly what she was up to, and he was extremely wary. He told her he wasn’t ready to leave yet, but she pointed out that he wouldn’t really be leaving. It was the perfect way to dip a toe in the water.
“Just one time,” she begged him. “We don’t even know how long we can do it. Aren’t you curious?”
He was. But his curiosity did not outweigh his desire to avoid facing the reality of that day in the volcano. They don’t talk about it much, mostly because Rey knows how he feels about it. He’s accepted that it happened, accepted that it is a reality he must live in… but he hasn’t accepted that it was the right thing to do. As Rey enthusiastically set out to find the new Force-sensitives now littered across the galaxy, he purposefully withdrew from them. They both know that, in a way, he’s hiding out on this planet waiting to be proven right. Waiting for some disaster, a confirmation of his worst fear… that he betrayed his destiny that day on Mustafar. This uncomfortable truth is unspoken between them but not hidden. The Force bond makes hiding such things from each other impossible.
Eventually, he did humor her. He refused to engage with anyone at the academy, but he did agree to a walk through the marketplace. It was difficult to figure out how to trigger it again. They tried and failed many times before they were able to. It requires an unreserved willingness to give in the other’s emotions, to let go of the familiar sense of being an individual and instead merge with another consciousness.
So far, they’ve been able to do it for about half an hour. They haven’t tried to push it any further. The sensation is still unsettling and unwelcome, though illuminating. He’s grown so accustomed to towering over most everyone around him. It felt strange to see the world through the perspective of someone small. People treat you differently, he discovered. They’re more likely to ignore you, shove you, push past you, talk down to you. It was infuriating. He has a new respect for Rey’s boundless self-confidence. He has no idea how she’s managed to develop such self-certainty over the course of a life where people take one look at her and underestimate what she’s capable of.
Rey enjoyed the experiment and when they reversed it the next time, she pointed out something he hadn’t noticed. When they enter the other’s mind, they can feel the other’s Life Force… their soul. It’s subtle but distinct. It’s like being in a shell that’s your size but still doesn’t quite fit. The contours are different; the scars aren’t your own.
They haven’t done this often. Four times— twice he entered her mind and twice she entered his. So, Rey had to adjust her strategy. She found another way to cajole him into taking at least some measurable step forward to reengaging with the galaxy outside of this remote planet. He was apprehensive when she first suggested it, but she reminded him of something he needed to hear, however begrudgingly. It’s time for him to do something with his life other than destroy. He needs to develop a side of himself he’s kept buried for a long time, a side of himself he desperately tried to kill… It made sense that he should start with something small but not insignificant. Something that presented a challenge.
He’ll give Rey this much— he’s surprised how easily he’s taken to it.
As if on cue, a loud thump from behind jerks him out of his thoughts. He gets up and quietly walks over to the bedroom door on the opposite side of the kitchen. For a moment, he closes his eyes and listens. Then he presses the side panel and the door whirs open, lights automatically turning on.
Both girls are on the floor next to the bed, Soya straddling her sister and pulling her hair wildly. Irenie is wrapped in blankets, beating her fists on the floor and yelling at Soya to get off of her. He swoops down, tucking his hands under the younger girl’s arms and pulling her up. Soya’s limbs flail about in the air as she screams, “No fair, no fair, no fair, no fair! Let me down!"
“I’ll let you down when you’re calm,” he replies evenly.
Immediately, Soya’s body goes limp in his arms like a ragdoll. “See, I’m calm,” she says matter-of-factly. He sets her down on the bed beside him.
Irenie rolls onto her back on the floor, struggling to unwrap the blankets around her. She points accusingly up at her sister. “She attacked me in my sleep! And I didn’t do anything!”
At that, Soya scoffs. “You stole my blankets!” She shrieks in a high-pitched voice. “All of them!”
“Shhh…” he says as he holds an index finger to his lips. She ignores him.
“Look at her!” She shrieks again. “She has three blankets all twisted on her cause she’s trying to make it so I can’t use them!”
“That’s not true!” Irenie yells back. “I can’t help it! I just turn round and round in my sleep and it happens by accident.”
“Liar!” Soya screams, jumping over the bed and down on top of her sister. He catches her before she lands, placing her back on the bed again. Irenie, finally free of the blankets, jumps up and lunges at her. His hand flies out to stop her. He’s holding Soya by the scruff of her nightgown and Irenie by the arm, keeping the girls from thrashing each other.
“If you two don’t settle down right now, neither of you are going swimming for a month.” At that, both stop dead, looking up at him with horror. Soya raises both hands as if she’s surrendering.
“That’s more like it,” he says as he lets both girls go. He looks at Irenie and nods towards the bed. “Sit down,” he commands softly. She sits on the bed as far from Soya as possible. They eye each other resentfully.
He kneels down between them and takes a deep breath. He looks over to his right. “Soya, do you love your sister?” he asks her pointedly.
She huffs, crossing her arms and looking away. “Not when she steals my blankets!” She cries.
“That’s not what I asked you,” he replies curtly. “You either love her or you don’t. Now which is it?” He raises an eyebrow. Soya avoids looking at him, letting out a great burst of air. Her eyes go up to the ceiling then immediately down to the floor. She shifts on the bed.
Finally, she looks up at him and he raises both eyebrows, tilting his head towards her. She rolls her eyes. “Fine. Ok. I love her. But I hate it when she steals my blankets!” She uncrosses her arms and glares at her sister.
“Alright then,” he says in a definitive tone. “In this house, we don’t hurt the people we love for any reason. Ever.” He makes eye contact with Soya. She looks confused. He looks over at Irenie. She’s perplexed as well.
“What?” he asks, twitching his head slightly, looking over at one girl and then the other.
“Well…” Irenie starts slowly. “Rey loves you, right?”
“Right,” he says cautiously, not sure where she’s going with this.
“Ok, so… didn’t Rey give you that scar on your face?”
“Yeah, and isn’t she the reason I can stab your right hand without hurting you?” Soya chimes in.
He rolls his eyes, picking up the blankets from the floor as he stands and begins to untwist them.
“First of all,” he starts, “Rey didn’t love me when she gave me this scar. And second of all… well, the other thing was a very special circumstance that will never happen again.” He holds out a blanket for Irenie and she takes it. “And between you and me,” he continues, lowering his voice as he leans down to give two blankets to Soya, “I think cutting off my hand was a little overkill. But don’t tell Rey I told you so,” he whispers before pulling back and winking at her. She smiles mischievously. Soya loves few things more than being privy to secrets.
He stands and tells the girls to tuck themselves in, watching them for a few seconds before turning towards the door. “Go back to bed,” he commands as he leaves.
“What if Irenie steals my blankets again?!” Soya calls out worriedly behind him.
He turns around. “Then you can sleep in my bed.”
Soya’s eyes brighten, clearly pleased. “Ok!” She says enthusiastically, wiggling herself into her cocoon of blankets.
He presses a button on the panel to turn off the lights. He takes note of the time— three hours before sunrise. He leans against the door frame, watching them for a minute. Soya starts to feign sleep with snoring noises. Then, he quietly walks away, leaving the door open.
He needs to get some rest.
He heads back to his own bedroom and sinks down onto the mat, rolling over on his back. He sighs and stares up at the ceiling. His body feels heavy with exhaustion but his mind is still awake and alert.
Soya and Irenie have been living here for a little over a year. Irenie is eight and Soya turned six a month ago. They’re both former slaves from Pasher.
After the destruction of the First Order, Rey joined a group of Resistance members dedicated to finding homes for all the former slave children. With financial backing arranged by his mother, they built orphanages on planets across the galaxy. They created a public record system that allowed estranged family members to find one another. They also matched orphaned children with families that would care for them, temporarily or permanently.
If he wasn’t able to read her mind, he would’ve thought Rey was joking when she first suggested he become a foster parent. He’s quite possibly the most ill-prepared father figure in the galaxy. When he reflects back on the father figures in his own life— Han, Luke, and then Snoke— none of them were exactly ideal models of parenting. Quite the opposite, in fact. He told Rey it was a terrible idea, not just for him but for the girls too. How could he possibly be a good father if he’s never experienced an example of one in his life?
But Rey wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“First of all, you don’t have to be a good father, you just have to be an adequate one,” she told him. “Secondly, it’s temporary. I told Rose we could take them for a year or two, but if things go really badly, we can always find somewhere else for them. But really, Ben, listen to me. This is your chance. You claim that you want to do more with your life than just kill and destroy. Here’s the perfect opportunity for you to do the opposite— Protect. Nurture. Rebuild. Try to rebuild these girls’ lives. Show them what it means to feel safe and cared for.”
So… he relented. And he can honestly say he hasn’t regretted the decision a single day since they arrived. Within a month of their being here, he realized that taking care of the girls is exactly what he needed to find himself.
His mind instinctively wanders to the nightmare that woke him up. The boy he slaughtered… he doesn’t even remember which planet he was on. And he had killed him for what? For Snoke. For the zealous belief that he’d ignited in him—that he was the true Chosen One. But what did killing that boy have to do with fulfilling his destiny as he understood it at the time? For the life of him, he can’t remember. It probably meant everything to him then. Now it’s just another long-forgotten mission for the First Order.
He increasingly doesn’t recognize the man who made those decisions. Soya and Irenie have a lot to do with that. When he interacts with them, when he sees himself reflected in their eyes… they never knew him as Kylo Ren. They only see Ben. The name feels most like his own when he hears it from them.
He can’t erase his past. He can’t even make up for it. Not really. Nothing will make up for the lives he took, the pain he caused. But creating a new life for these girls feels like the best way to confront it. To see it for what it truly is. And harness the memory of it to aspire to become someone else, someone better.
He meditates on this thought for a while: his yearning, his determination to reckon with his past through the choices he makes in the present. Without quite realizing it, he begins to drift into a deep sleep… a peaceful one this time.
When he awakens, sunlight is streaming through the windows. He’s still flat on his back, facing the ceiling. He blinks a couple of times to let his vision adjust to the light. Then he begins to rise. He stops himself when he realizes Irenie is laying on him. But it’s too late. She awakens as well and looks up at him with bleary eyes.
“Morning,” he says with a soft smile.
“Morning,” she says back almost at a whisper.
He scratches her back and she starts to giggle and flop around. He stops and sits up. She rolls over and pushes herself up with her palms, sitting back on her calves, wrapping the sheet around her. Her shoulders slump as she looks down. They sit quietly for a minute.
“Did you have a nightmare last night?” He asks finally. She nods her head without looking up.
“Do you want to talk about it?” She shakes her head no, eyes still downcast.
He doesn’t blame her. He’s seen the kinds of things she dreams about. Soya’s called him into the room some nights when she’s thrashing around in bed. More than once, he’s slipped into her mind to try to understand what’s haunting her, to try to help her. The images he’s seen there are a level of violent that no little girl should ever even know exists, much less have witnessed. But it’s clear that they are memories, very real memories. Soya seems to have been spared these experiences, or at least she doesn’t remember them. But her sister does. And they’ve left a deep, scarring impression, one she can’t seem to shake. Most likely, she never will. She must learn to live with it.
He sighs, looking away.
“I’m sorry I woke everyone up last night,” Irenie mumbles in a low voice.
“You didn’t wake me up,” he replies, crossing his legs and sitting up a bit. “I’d already been up for an hour. I had a nightmare too.”
Upon hearing this, her eyes fly up to meet his. “Really?” She asks incredulously.
“Yes, really,” he confirms, looking back at her solemnly.
“What did you dream about?” She asks eagerly, leaning in a little. Then her head jerks back as if she just realized something. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” she hastily adds.
He hesitates, looking down for a moment.
“I dreamed about…” he starts slowly, like he’s not quite sure where he’s going. He looks back up at Irenie. “I dreamed about mistakes I made in the past. Terrible mistakes.”
She looks back at him confused. “Like what?”
He takes in a deep breath, then lets it out. “Let’s just say that not too long ago, I was a different man.”
“What kind of man?” She probes.
He thinks for a few seconds. “A man who experienced some bad things. And then made some very bad choices.” He looks at Irenie intently. “A lot of people in this galaxy experience some very bad things, terrible things. And those experiences aren’t their fault. It’s not fair. Not at all. But they still have to live with it… and they have to be careful not to let those experiences become an excuse to do bad things to other people. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Irenie nods her head very slowly. Her face scrunches a little. Her eyes start to well with tears.
“I didn’t mean to steal Soya’s blankets,” she croaks with a sob.
He leans towards her, eyebrows knitted with concern. “Hey… I know that. I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant at all. I know it’s not your fault.” He holds out both hands towards her. She wipes away tears for a moment then takes them.
“Listen,” he looks at her with gentle eyes. “Soya doesn’t remember much about your lives before the slave rebellion. But you do. That’s an extra burden you have to bear and she doesn’t. She needs to understand that and respect it. I’m going to talk with her, ok?”
“Ok,” she nods, sniffling a little. He gives her hands a slight squeeze before he lets them go. She takes a corner of the sheet and wipes it all around her face before bringing it to her nose and blowing into it. He shoots her a look.
“Sorry,” Irenie says a little sheepishly.
“Get your sister and tell her it’s time for breakfast,” he says shaking his head. She scoots to the edge of the bed with the sheet still wrapped around her, then plops off. She lets it drop before running out the door.
Ben gets up to grab the sheet from the floor. He tosses it into a pile to his left before heading down the hallway. When he enters the kitchen, he sees Soya and Irenie through the large window. The older sister’s pulling the younger one up from her cross-legged position in the grass. He turns to open a panel to the side. He hears the girls clattering into the house behind him.
“What’s for breakfast?” Soya asks in a chipper voice.
“Stewfruit and yogurt,” Irenie mimics her response in a robotic voice.
“Wrong,” he corrects her. “Pears and yogurt.”
“Yaaay!” Soya cries in response. Irenie rolls her eyes.
“Why can’t you be easy to please like your sister,” Ben asks Irenie, nodding his head towards Soya.
“Because I have higher standards than she does,” she says, crossing her arms. He smiles wryly and shakes his head.
“Well, if you want to go swimming today, you’ll eat what I feed you.”
“Yesss,” Soya lingers on the S sound as she rocks back and forth on her chair. “When can we swim? After breakfast?”
He swings around towards her. “Are you kidding me? How long have you lived here? You know you have to earn it first.”
“What needs to be done today?” Irenie inquires absently.
“Other than your learning modules? Well, laundry to start.” He looks over at her with a raised eyebrow. “The west wing of the green room isn’t heating like it should, but I’ll deal with that. While I’m working, you two can—”
The pit of his stomach drops abruptly. He feels like the wind has been knocked out of him. He tries to inhale, but no air comes through. The dish he’s holding clatters to the floor. He brings a hand to his chest.
Irenie looks over at him curiously for a few seconds. Then, she gets up and runs towards him. He’s hunching over with one hand on the counter, holding his body up and the other at his heart. He’s trembling.
“Ben, are you ok?” She asks with alarm. His eyes are wide and his face is pale. He’s scaring her. She’s never seen him like this. He looks up at her as he tries to catch his breath.
“Can you take Soya outside for a few minutes?” He barely gets the question out.
“Alright,” she says in an uncertain voice. Her eyes are still filled with worry when she turns and scurries back to the table.
He begins walking down the hall towards his room. Half way there, he closes his eyes and reaches out to Rey. The warmth that rises inside him curbs the sick feeling in his gut.
Did you feel that too? He asks her.
Yes. She answers in his mind.
What happened?
I don’t know. He can sense that she’s just as shocked as he is. I’m trying to contact Senate headquarters right now, but I can’t get through. I’m heading to Coruscant in an hour. I’ll come to you as soon as I can.
Don’t, He replies definitively. I’ll meet you in Coruscant with the girls.
Really? He immediately brings a hand to his temple. Her enthusiastic reply just gave him a splitting headache.
Yes, really. I’ll be there in a day.
Suddenly, she appears before him. Her eyes are red and her face is wet with tears. She looks up at him with a pained expression, taking a short inhale. She brings both hands up to frame his face without breaking her gaze. He’s not sure if the aching he feels is his own her hers… likely, it’s both.
She lets her hands slide down his cheeks all the way down to his chest before she wraps her arms around his body and hugs him tightly. He returns her embrace, losing himself in it, closing his eyes and breathing in the scent of her hair.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispers.
“Me too,” he replies softly.
She pulls away, placing her hands on his chest and looking up at him. Her eyes are full of emotion. She starts to say something but stops.
“I’ll see you soon,” he says quietly, still dazed. She nods her head a couple of times quickly. She lets her gaze linger for a few moments more before she disappears.
He walks into his room and sits down on the bed slowly. He stares into nothing ahead, stunned… numb. He’s still trying to process the reality of what he just felt… what Rey felt too. His instinct is to deny it, but the feeling was unmistakable. It can only mean one thing.
His mother just died.