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He feels their presence before he sees them, twin flames in the dark.
The taller of the two feels familiar to Kylo. Like kin. And even before his eyes begin adjusting to the shape of the dark, he’s certain he can see a pulsing outline of energy where the taller figure must be standing.
It’s a faint blue outline, barely visible through the gloom of Kylo’s cell.
He calls out “Who are you?” but the figure—the ghost—does not reply.
The smaller figure next to him doesn’t feel like kin. He’s not even entirely sure it’s human. The lines and curves suggest a horned female, an alien of some kind.
He wonders if these two died in this cell before him. Maybe this was to be his fate?
“Who’s there?” he tries again, not expecting any answers.
Predictably, he gets none.
Kylo settles down on his cot and closes his eyes.
“How long do you think they’ll keep him here?” Ahsoka tilts her head toward Anakin, keeping her voice low even though she knows the man huddled on the dirty cot in front of them won’t be able to hear her.
“I don’t know,” Anakin replies, sounding troubled.
“We should have some fun with him,” Ahsoka says. “Have you ever haunted anybody?”
“I’m not haunting my own grandson,” Anakin grumbles.
Ahsoka sticks a hand out, waving it through Anakin’s wispy, incorporeal form. “You’re missing out,” she teases. “A girl’s gotta do something to keep from dying—heh—of boredom.”
“Ahsoka,” Anakin sighs. He turns and looks back down at his grandson, his ghostly robes sweeping over the cold stone floor. “Must they keep him in this cell?”
“Better than the alternative, don’t you think?” Ahsoka asks, tweaking Anakin’s cheek playfully. “He’s lucky his mother begged for clemency or he could be one of us. But probably not. He was never a Jedi, was he?”
“No, he was not,” Anakin says, sounding forlorn. “He never received the proper training.” Here, Anakin’s voice hardens and his form flickers in the dark like a guttering flame. “Snoke got him before he could…”
Ahsoka tries to pat him on the chest but her hand slips right through him. Sighing, she drops her arm. “He’ll get a second chance,” she says, trying her best to sound soothing. “He’ll have the opportunity to atone and try to set things right. That’s more than most could hope for.”
“More than I could hope for,” Anakin replies. He floats closer to his grandson’s cot and drops to a knee by his bedside. “You know, Snips…”
“Yes?” Ahsoka prompts when he trails off. She lets Snips pass unmentioned. It’s strange to hear her old, childish nickname fall from his pale, unmoving lips.
They’re neither of them children now.
“He only knew part of the story,” Anakin continues, softly, reaching out a pale, incorporeal hand to ghost it over Ben’s sleeping brow. “He never knew that Luke saved me. That I turned my back on Palpatine in the end.”
“Maybe stories only matter when the ones who know the endings are around to tell them,” Ahsoka says, with a shrug.
“No, I don’t think that’s true,” Anakin says, getting to his feet and drifting back over to Ahsoka’s side. “I think there’s some value in a story even when its ending isn’t known.”
Ahsoka gazes up at him. “Like Ben’s story,” she says. “Rey’s and Finn’s.”
“And ours,” Anakin says and, for a brief shining moment, Ahsoka feels the press of his hand against hers.
His energy shimmers with the effort, and Ahsoka concentrates everything left in her to press her hand back against his. They’ve never gotten this quite right, either he loses the connection or she does.
This time, though, she manages to lace her fingers with his and squeeze before the connection fades.
Anakin quirks the corner of his mouth in a smile. “We’ll get that right, someday.”
“We’ll have a lot of time to perfect it,” Ahsoka muses, turning to gaze back at the sleeping form in the cot in front of them.
Ben stirs in his sleep, tossing to and fro. Anakin leans forward and brushes his hand over his grandson’s cheek. Ben settles after that, into a troubled sleep.
Ahsoka takes Anakin by the hand and the two of them slip quietly away.
Kylo’s dreaming now. He’s certain of it. A tall, dark man with a scar running down the side of his face bends over him, his hand outstretched. There’s a female beside him, baring tiny fangs in the implication of a smile.
The man puts his hand out and touches Kylo’s brow.
“Your story’s not over yet,” the man says, drawing his hand away. “You’ve committed terrible crimes. You won’t find the absolution you seek. But you have been given a gift. You’ve been given the gift of a second chance.”
Kylo sits up, slowly, his scratchy gray blanket falling into his lap. The shadowy, shimmery figures—ghosts, he realizes—step away from him and link hands.
“Wh-who are you?” Kylo tries again, though he doesn’t expect any answers.
“Someone who knows,” the man says, mysteriously.
The two blink out like a transmission cut short.
Kylo reaches up and touches his forehead where the man had brushed his hand.
In the morning, Kylo would stand in front of a tribunal. Most of them want his head on a pike but, thanks to his mother’s intervention, that option isn’t currently on the table. He’ll probably be sentenced to hard labor in a prison system. It’s where Hux and Phasma ended up. But maybe they’re saving some truly terrible punishment for him.
He thinks about what the ghostly figure had said. Your story’s not over yet. There are still chapters left unwritten. He thinks about the parts of his story he’d scribbled out or excised completely. A book was constantly being written and rewritten, wasn’t it?
Kylo slips a hand out from under the covers and drags his finger in the thick dust underneath his cot.
Kylo Ren. Ben.
That’s a start.