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i call out to him, and he shall answer,
for i will know him anywhere
and he shall always remember me
at the end of the road, at the end of goodbye
no more parting for you or i
out of great darkness still
you will always recognize me
His story, like all great stories, began and ended with a woman.
Leia was all he knew at first- her long hair, that all grace and worries were caught up in, her frown lines, where all her stress lived, the joy inherent in her silvery voice. When Ben grew up, people would say he was definitely his mother’s child, and he’d grin a specific diplomat’s dimpled grin just to prove them right.
Not that Ben was any less his father’s child- his first real memory is sitting on his father’s lap, entering lightspeed, hearing the dry side-grin-laughter of Han Solo, reformed smuggler, reluctant, beloved (reluctantly wholeheartedly loving) father.
No scoundrel could ever resist the charm of having a son to teach marksmanship, trickery, and snark to, and Ben’s safest moments were in a little, broken ship, looking up at the shadow of a man who cannot stand straight, and past him straight up, up, into the darkness.
Leia taught Ben hope, and Han taught him harmony, and both of them taught him love.
Love is like this-
You never, ever let go.
You always do what’s right for them, whatever the cost to you.
You do whatever is necessary to ensure their safety.
You love them, love them, love them, until everything else is silent.
That is the bottom line.
Love is about silence.
Even when he was very little, Ben could hear the echo. He was a slow learner for most things, everything except that which was to do with his hands and dexterity, which made Leia roll her eyes (smuggler’s son!).
Whenever Ben would take longer to read a word than the rest of his class, the echo laughed. It was a poisonous, bitter sound, and it sounded perilously close to his own voice. It seeped into his soul,and made him less likely to raise his hand, to raise his voice.
Why would such bitter words come from him? He was safe, he was loved.
He began to bury, just to block it out, just to make it be quiet.
Just for some peace. That was all.
Sometimes, rocking back and forth in his chair, he believed he could remember being in his mother’s womb.
There was naught else left there, nothing but the dark and light. His mother’s heartbeat was always close by, and as a baby, Ben would always try to be as close to it as possible.
He missed it, as much as he’d miss his own body if he left it behind, somehow. He missed being able to be joined to someone, to be absolutely known and protected, to not having to speak or react, but merely having to exist.
What was it like, for that to be the only requirement for being alive?
From the light came voices, but from the dark, only the heartbeat of a mother.
The only trouble was, as time went on, the echo in his voice-
Began to sound like his mother.
Ben adored his mother, and held her in highest reverence above anyone else. In some ways, he did not feel like he was able to exist until she told him he should. Her opinion was law to him, child that he was, because she represented everything he wanted to be- composed, passionate, empathic, a marriage of fire and ice.
She was everything he could not- cannot ever- be.
Ben, for all his trying, could not be balanced. He could not be steady.
His heart was always the loudest part of him, screaming above all the clamor, filling his life with red, red, staining everything else that should be calm and collected.
His emotion would always be the end of him.
(Too much color always ends in draining out in the dirt, he knew.)
His mother, ever the cool one, was always in her head. But Ben could not even comprehend thinking over something without feeling it in equal measure.
He cannot be her.
So of course, that must mean she was disappointed in him, and-
Always was.
(In the dark, the echo drips with blood out of the corners of its mouth. His blood. He thinks it means to say despair.)
The echo has her voice, and it has her laugh. He hears her funny, dramatic voice, making fun of the latest batch of politicians, but in the echo it’s him she strings up for sport.
He hears her, high and haughty. What a fool, a tragic end to the line of Skywalkers. Why did I carry you so far?
Ben knows that is not his mother. He knows she loves him, absolutely, through and through. It is not the truth-
But-
But- he never knew how to feel without thinking in equal measure, without every emotion, racking him to his core.
He shudders from the despair of it all, the hopelessness. Leia taught him hope, so hope lives on.
They learn quickly what he is, what things he can do. There are fewer days in the Falcon, and more spent in the classroom, hurrying him along for some great destiny.
But Ben just wants to feel. His favorite tangible thing are written script, to feel a letter transcribed and set down in stone. He loved to think of someone reading it someday, looking at it captured and absolutely understand the exact meaning of someone.
(To have your soul transcribed in stone, and not be misunderstood.)
The day he must go away to his uncle, he weeps openly. Loud, ugly tears, sobbed in the privacy of his room, for he would not dare cry in front of his mother. He had already seen her lip tremble when telling him, and his father’s brow all drawn up, like this was some confusing puzzle.
He must go, he must go, he might hurt them if he stays.
But going from them feels like ripping your own limb straight from you, muscle by muscle.
He curls his fingers against the glass, but he doesn't look back.
The last sight of his mother he ever has is her with her hair pulled back, serious, stern, pale. So worried.
She never should've worried over him.
He ties up his hair and works at the Force like nothing else, with all the single-mindedness of a sensitive child, but he experiences none of the warmth that his uncle says is there.
There's life, and there's death, and there's birth, and rebirth.
To him, there's just the darkness.
To him, there's just the absence of all the people he should be loving, and the distance between him and them.
He is just a ghost among men, a stranger in the halls of someone else's home.
(Everyone is so young, young, and he's grown old already.)
His uncle, at least, is strange and brusque and cruel and loving.
He teaches Ben about the most unlikely things, things that the Savior of the Universe shouldn't really know-
Things like-
Jumping over fences,
Climbing to the roof of any house you want,
Making friends with various wildlife (The echo laughs viciously at this former farmhand),
Of gardening,
Of hoping,
Of dreaming,
Of loving,
Of connecting,
Of belonging.
Too soon, too soon, Ben knows that he loves his uncle, and because it's him, he's well aware he'll never let go.
For all that Luke is gruff and terse, Ben can tell that he loves Ben too quickly, too.
For a while, they are family together, looking after one another. They are both the ones who left, and the ones who got left behind. They are both the ones who had their hands in the dirt, trying to convince something to grow, just something, just one thing.
For something to come out of this great darkness, coaxed out by the least of the blinding sunshine that Luke could contrive.
They were a pair, for a time.
He wasn't happy, but he was existing.
(Sometimes, at night, Ben could believe he heard someone crying. Someone, somewhere, crying into their hands underneath the moonlight. Someone who was left behind, too.
But they- still believed they were going to be found, and loved, and known.
So Ben cried for them, too. For what they both would never have.)
When it fell apart, it fell with a roar. He made certain of that- pulled on all that void within himself, the darkness that Luke flinched away from.
His uncle loved him.
That was what turned the echo into a scream.
Ben loved Luke.
He couldn't stop it.
He couldn't let go.
If someone who loved him, who knew him, who had sat with him in his garden and growled at him with complete affection thought he was too far gone to be reached, Ben knew it was over for him.
He might as well throw himself to the ashes before he burnt everything else up, trying to find the light within himself again.
(His mother, standing on the opposite end of the galaxy, could feel him falling apart.
His uncle was lying somewhere in the wreckage before him, and Ben could hear the sound of his heart shattering.
As for his own, well, it had been frozen long before.)
He might as well wrap himself up in the darkness, if his fate was to always be running from it.
He might as well admit the truth, that he was too far gone to be brought back, and stop wasting everyone's time.
He might as well bury good impulse and dive headfirst into the voice in his head, if all he ever did was the evidence of it's foresight.
When Ben finds Snoke, he realizes that Snoke had never left him all his life. In some way, in some form, Snoke had always been there.
He had never been all alone, not like he'd thought. At least there had been the darkness to sit there beside him.
What a strange comfort it was. He could cling to that. He could dedicate himself to that.
That darkness would never leave him all alone, like the light had.
It would never let him feel the despair the light had filled him with.
(He forgets when being alone was what he was running from.)
If he was going to be torn between two worlds, he might as well throw himself to the dogs and let them really break him. He might as well be good at being broken, if he cannot learn how to be whole.
Snoke pulls at the knots that Luke had tied in the frayed edges of Ben, and unravels it all.
The hope, the belonging, the love, the dream. Ben Solo, just son, dedicated student, coming apart like putty in the hands of a demon.
Ben Solo closes his eyes and decides to sleep for awhile.
A monster opens his eyes in his place.
The monster does monstrous things- the monster buries his heart and learns to use his head. The Supreme Leader teaches him all there is to know about burying- that pain is the cleanest way to clarity, that pain can be his salvation under power's unblinking eye.
Ben Solo finds the rest he always wanted, and does terrible things, just like they'd always been afraid of him doing. He was the ultimate self-fulfilling prophecy- after awhile, the fretting turned into resolution, and the despair into acceptance.
Yes, thought Ben Solo, from somewhere inside the monster. If this is who I always was, make it full. Make it truth.
(Make him regret ever believing in me, because-
He was wrong to have. Never let him doubt that. Never doubt it.)
He covers himself in more blood than his own, and drowns himself in horror and despair.
The silver, clear voice of power rises within him, but he can't seem to get drunk off of it. (Snoke believes he is a fool for this. Kylo Ren knows there is a knot still within him that does not allow him to, somewhere that cannot be reached, even by an echo.)
And after a while, the voice in his head is of an old gruff man, sitting in his corner of the universe, cutting off everyone around him, believing himself to be the final word in everything, loving too much, despairing too much.
Left all alone.
Kylo Ren twists up his heart as much as he can, and over time, he knows he must put it to rest. It has no use anymore- his parents have disappeared, and he knows that they believe he is lost.
He must search down the last person who believes he can feel, and destroy that last shard of truth.
(Maybe when Luke is gone, it will be the truth. Maybe Kylo can tuck away his heart, just like everyone else. Maybe he will become the darkness, at least, not just called to it, but the void in its entirety.)
He is desperate.
(That is exactly how the light gets into him once again.)
The voice crying out in the wilderness comes and sits before him, and looks back with searching eyes.
That girl....always knew too much.
That girl always used her heart and her head, too much.
That girl found him before he was ready, and Ben Solo was drawn out before he even knew what was happening.
(Damn it, heart.)
She scars him and leaves him, and he's left to lie in the snow and gape at her.
All he can do is look up, and up and up.
The very earth is falling apart, and so is he.
He knows she left a mark on him, and it's deeper than his face.
She's scarred his very soul.
(But it's not even a scar- it's something more golden. He can't take it back. Neither can she.)
Every time she comes and stands before him, she slaps him out of himself, somehow.
She draws him out.
(He didn't know there was still someone that could reach that far.)
Ben Solo, scarred and bloody and beaten, wakes up.
Kylo Ren, gritting his teeth, resolute, has to stop himself from falling too fast- but-
He falls just as hard as he ever did.
Leia taught him yearning.
Han taught him denial.
Luke- regret.
But Rey is here, and she makes it all fall apart.
He's spent so long burying, he forgot what growing, healing felt like.
(It feels like coming alive after being in the dark.)
She finds the first truth- he is a monster.
She finds the second one- that he was left behind.
The last, she always knew- that he loves, and loves, and he destroyed himself to forget it.
He tries to deny it, he tries to run from it, he tries to ruin it. Ben Solo was never allowed to have a good thing for long, and Kylo Ren never even knew what softness was.
But she brings him out, and shakes out all the things he hid.
Rey does what no one else ever thought to do- she meets him where he is.
They touch hands, just barely, in the dying firelight. He thinks the world falls apart because of her, but maybe it's just his own heart yearning to beat again.
She comes, and she finds him. She digs so deep, he starts to remember how to hope again.
He will dedicate himself to her, and they will never be apart.
(He won't have to be alone, not anymore.)
He throws it all away on that chance- on the barest hint of a promise. The embers of his old life, he sets up into a blaze, and the image it makes it glorious enough for even him.
(If he fell to her feet, he would never get back up. That's the only reason he can stand.)
But he forgot one glaring fact-
Rey still believes she is whole, and cannot break it all off, not like he can.
If he had offered himself to her, she would've taken him and all the world. It was the same thing, he thought. But she disagreed.
She's more powerful than him. She always was.
(Rey knows more about being alone, than perhaps even him.)
She leaves him, like-
she-
always-
would.
He cannot beg forgiveness, for there is no one left to forgive him.
He drove the stake through his own father's heart, just so that Han would never try to forgive him again.
You finally got what you wanted, said the echo. It's his own voice, once more. (Snoke is naught but dust, but the cracks he left would never fade.)
Ben Solo that he knew what despair was like, what bitterness was, to love someone and have them leave you for dead.
It's only that this time, he knows he deserves every bit of it.
To bury a heart and commit evil is a terrible sin, indeed.
But to feel your heart, beating and crying, and commit evil- is a sorrow that cannot be described.
If he throws himself off enough edges, perhaps he'll finally catch up with his endings, someday.
(It's easy to hate yourself, every part. It's pure torture to start to love yourself because someone else saw you in the right light, and to know that you drove them away.)
As Supreme Leader, he has all the world on the tip of his finger. He was power, greed, and gravity all within his reach, at last. He has the rest that he always longed for, but-
But- he just wants to sleep.
When he dreams, he dreams of his mother's heartbeat.
When he wakes up, he shudders at the sharpness of the morning light.
(He cannot find Leia, not through the Force, not anymore. Rey hides herself from the bond, and Luke is nowhere to be called. Kylo Ren and Ben Solo have only one another for company, and all they want to do is not think anymore.)
He doesn't know what there is to go on for. He does not recognize- anything. It is all changed, and his whole life is gray. He drags himself along like a ghost, once again.
What is there left?
It's all gone, now.
He can't look for her. He can't even bring himself to call out for her.
His heart hurts too much to turn away from it anymore.
But there is nothing left.
The fury of battle is all that's left in his world, and he shatters himself within it, over and over. Eventually, he falls, and with the blood and exhaustion burying him under the bodies of his army and theirs', his weariness drags him under.
Of course, he dreams of her, then.
Maybe that's the only person he can belong to, now.
Rey is weary too, he can tell. Her hair is down, and there's a scar on her face, too.
(He could never leave a mark on her. She's too high above him. It hurts him that something else could, though. Even she couldn't be kept safe from him, from the world.)
But she-
Rey smiles at the sight of him.
All at once, Kylo Ren and Ben Solo burst into tears. Terrible, stormy tears. He falls apart, every part, and all the while she smiles at him.
He can hardly remember what it was like, to not be understood.
She sees him, through the mask, through the monster, through the abandoned child.
He cannot be steady. He never was. Everything in his life pushes him over and pulls him apart, in all directions. All the people he has ever loved are cold as stone, or wilder than wind. They fall through his grasp like water, and he cannot keep anything.
Nothing- nothing is for him to keep. No promises, no loves, no people.
He just doesn't want to sit alone anymore.
She is so still. She pulls his hands from his eyes, and kneels before him, and he falls before her. They are on equal ground, here. There is no angel, no demon. No monster and no savior.
There is only two hearts, and two minds. Two souls, linked, chosen by each other.
If she had pressed her handprint into his soul, he couldn't have known her any better.
"Everyone in your life has always left you. You believe that, don't you? But they loved you. They really did. I'm sorry that they made you believe they didn't- that they were better off being without you. But your strength is your love for them, and their strength is their love for you. You cannot be alone- you never were. They were sustaining you, all that while. They deserted you, and you broke yourself, but they were always trying to come back to you, in the end.
I left you, because I want you to remember how to choose. You went to the darkness so you could close your eyes- but, Ben, it is time to wake up. I choose you. I choose the light, too. I choose life and death and birth and rebirth. I choose everything. And so will you.
I have faith. Don't you?"
"Always, Rey. Always. I- I run from it, but it always catches up to me. I love, and I always did. I can't bury that in shame, not anymore. I cannot be who I was, or who I am, not anymore. I must be made new. I'll rise again. I'll remember who I really am- and I'll come back to you."
She kisses his brow.
"You always will, my love."
He's tossing and turning, falling apart. He is full of love, and darkness, and life, and hope.
Power has no thrall over him, because there is nothing in it that he really wants.
He cannot be steady. He always loved it in other people, because it was nowhere within himself.
But Rey is silent and somehow reaching, steady and yet stirred, like snow falling and looking.
She is the balance of everything he always reached for, and she reminds him of the truth. She holds truth in her very soul, he believes. She brings everything back to earth.
She picks him up in her hands, and tells him a story of who he is-
Ben Solo. Kylo Ren.
And somebody who can be neither man.
Rey loves him, and he loves her. If that is true, then he can rise again. He can try again. He can live again. Something good can come out of the darkness. Something can be broken and whole. He'll find the child that his mother carried. He'll find the boy Han Solo tried to find. He'll find the soul that belonged to Luke Skywalker. He'll even find what Kylo Ren was looking for. He'll join the halves of his heart he cleaved in half so long ago.
He'll be his heart. That will be his own form of steadiness.
He won't be alone. He never had been.
When he wakes up, he'll rise, and make his way home-
To her, and the truth of who he'd always been.
There would never be any more goodbyes.