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Kylo Ren laid alone in the dark. He was in bed on the Silencer, on his back, hands folded over his naked stomach. He couldn’t sleep. The silence was too loud.
Silence. That’s what he had now that Snoke was dead. The thoughts in his head were his own. Where before there had been a voice reprimanding him, ordering him, degrading him, destroying him, there was now nothing. Silence.
And it was too damn loud.
Kylo sat up in bed. He reached out for the Force, let it wash over him in its dark waves of power. He breathed out a long, shaky breath. Now, he didn’t feel so alone.
Maybe that was the problem. He didn’t want to be alone. He wanted… something, some one . But who?
“I know.”
The look of understanding in his father’s eyes right before he’d driven the lightsaber through him.
That feeling that he’d gotten before his mother had been shot out into space.
His family…
His family was gone. He had no one.
“You’re not alone.”
“Neither are you.”
The way his hand had touched Rey’s, skin on skin. When was the last time he’d had contact with a person like that? Physical contact? Human skin touching other human skin?
Kylo couldn’t remember. It had felt like a breath of fresh air to him. Being with Rey calmed him, because it made sense. It made perfect sense. She was light and he was dark, but there was both in him, and both in her. She had felt the call of the Dark Side. She knew .
But she wasn’t with him now. She had refused to take his hand when he’d offered it to her in the burning debris of Snoke’s throne room. And then, the last time he’d had contact with her through the Force, she’d shut a door in his face.
So he was alone.
Alone in the quiet.
And in that quiet, he yelled. He rose from his bed, punched the closest thing to him: his lamp. It fell at his force, shattered. The wall was his next victim. It hurt, and he could tell it hurt, but he couldn’t stop himself. He had to fill the quiet, fill the void.
He stopped, his body finally saying it had had enough. He fell back onto his bed, panting, blood running hot between his fingers. It was dark, but he was pretty sure he had broken knuckles. It wouldn’t be the first time such a thing had happened. He would need a medical droid, but later.
More things from the past leapt up at him. Luke, with his lightsaber, standing over him, ready to kill him.
“Ben, no!”
And that had been the last time anyone had called him Ben. Until Rey. Rey had looked at him, and seen past Kylo Ren, seen past the monster.
“Ben.” It was Rey’s voice that spoke to him now. A memory, but still there, still filling the silence. He sat up, clutching his injured hand to his chest. He remembered the feeling of Rey’s presence. He’d seen everything about her, everything that she was and would be, and she said she’d seen the same for him. They were connected, whether he liked it or not.
He reached out with the Force, trying to find her. It seemed impossible though. He felt the minds of sleeping officers, captains, Storm Troopers, the minds of those awake and tiredly doing their jobs. He reached beyond the Silencer, into the blackness of space, and he began to strain. Breathing hard, sweating, he reached further. Further .
He gave up. He couldn’t do it anymore. He could feel his energy dimming, being sapped out through the Force. There was nothing past the Silencer.
He looked down at his bleeding right hand, the hand that he’d touched Rey’s with. He decided he would wrap it himself, and search for a medical droid in his next waking hours. For now, he needed to be alone.
Because he was alone. Truly alone.
Ben had no voices in his head. No voice but his own.