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He almost calls home.
The holo-message port is just a short walk down the hall. It would be simple to input the coordinates, and in a second Ben would be talking with his mother, his father. Would giggle at Chewbacca’s exasperated wail in response to something oh so ‘Dad’ and his father’s retort of “Who’s embarrassing? You’re the embarrassment, fur ball!” He knows the comfort seeing their faces would give him. It would distract and he would be okay for another hour, another day.
Then Ben thinks about the questions they will ask. How his father will see right through any feeble attempt to lie. How his mother will say just the right thing, hold his gaze a moment longer than Ben can take, and he will spill his guts. It will be obvious how badly he's doing, and that the pull to the dark isn't fading the way they hoped it would. His father's face will pale, and suddenly there will be a crisis on the Falcon that has to be seen to, or a surprise supply run he will leap out of his chair and drag Chewbacca along to take care of. His mother will follow, and Ben will hear the beginning of a very familiar argument echoing through the transmission.
The moment ends and he's walking past the call room. Past the meditation chamber where Uncle Luke teaches other Padawan, all the way to the Med Bay. There is a small greenhouse space and laboratory on the other side of a locked door in the far corner. Ben pulls out a stolen keycard and opens it. Inside, foreign plants grow affixed to rows of horizontal metal pipe. Their roots are exposed to a steady mist of nutrients and the excess drips down, feeding the beds populating the ground.
Ben takes a moment to strengthen his resolve. Condensation causes water droplets to bead on his clothes and hair. He inhales, trying to stop the anxiety that comes with committing petty theft, followed by questionable self-medication. The green house constantly smells like after-rain and blooming flowers. There is a sweet, cloying element to it that always accompanies bog plants. Everything in the room is sprouted from pods and seeds Uncle Luke cultivated from his time in the Dagobah system, and their uses range from curing illness, to inducing hallucination, to death.
Ben references a torn page he pocketed months ago when the idea first crossed his mind. Until this morning it had remained hidden between the pages of a book wedged at the back of his shelf. He had kept it as insurance. A simple solution to everything, tucked away for emergency. On bad days the presence of it, and the fact that he had an escape if he needed it, was enough to put him at ease. But that had only lasted so long.
It seemed the stronger his connection to the Force became, the more powerful the polarizing elements of light and dark acted upon his body and mind. Every day was worse than before. This morning had been unbearable. He had been unable to manage even the small task of getting out of bed. Uncle Luke had braided the small lock of Ben’s dark hair and looked at him with such sadness that it made Ben’s chest ache. Luke told Ben to take the day to care for himself, that he could catch up on training with the others tomorrow. Ben felt left behind, as if he were falling slowly into a place he could never climb out of, becoming stagnant as a blurry weight draped over his thin body and pulled him down into darkness. He only had one glimmer of hope, and it was his fixation on the page at the back of his shelf that ultimately got him on his feet at all.
He uses it now to identify a particular plant blooming violent purple under fluorescent light. The flower is a subspecies of the Lahdia Plant found on Dagobah. It is similar in biology with exception of the flower's stamens, whose pollen produces a neurotoxin capable of permanently blocking the part of the brain that triggers force sensitivity. According to Ben's research, the pollen from two stamens is enough to incapacitate a fully realized force user.
He steals six and leaves the temple.
Ben kick-starts the rusted Jumpspeeder and races through the forest. He strives to put as much distance between himself, Uncle Luke, and his mother and father as possible. He tries not to think of the face they will make when they realize he can no longer be a Jedi. Not without dread does Ben wonder if he'll find out just how much of his worth rides on him upholding the Skywalker legacy. Blurs of green whip past him on either side as he weaves off the cleared path and into the wilds. He has a particular place in mind, somewhere he wants to spend his last moments connecting with the Force before he wipes that part of himself away.
The place is not noticeable as a crater because of how much the forest has reclaimed, but he feels it the moment he arrives. There is something special about the large hole in the earth that sprouts small trees arranged around a charred mark at the center. Moss grows in a thin layer over hunks of crystallized rock left behind from the heat of the initial impact. Ben slides down the side of the crater, digging his hands into the dirt, feeling connected to the planet, reaching out with his mind to the sky above him and the stars beyond. The pull to the light is so strong in this place, the connection to the Force so pure. He breathes deeply, in and out.
Why can't this be the way he always feels? This is the right way to be, the way that doesn't hurt. It is fleeting and slips through his fingers, so easily replaced with the call to the other side of the Force.
The presence of the dark side is clear. An eternal susurrus in his hindbrain. A void gently existing right under his skin. He can ignore it easily enough. Except for when he can't. The pull he feels is a justified and vindictive anger, a desire to dominate everything in the universe. It feels foreign, invasive, ancient. Ben fears the shape of a pale monster with white eyes that picks him apart, lays his soul bare, and finds him lacking.
It is there every time he falters from the light. A pressing presence whispering without words, hitting him with raw feeling, with raw truth. Showing him that he isn't strong enough, that Ben is the reason for Uncle Luke's reluctance. That he has an integral flaw at the core of his being and this is why Luke is slow to share his knowledge. Why Ben is lagging behind the other Padawan when he should be better, needs to be better. His weakness and Uncle Luke’s excessive caution are why Ben must spy and eavesdrop behind closed doors to learn Jedi secrets that should be his by birthright.
It shows him the truth about what others see when they look at him. How afraid they are, how they sense the darkness in him like a cancer. It pulls at him, distorting Ben further away from the light. It hurts. It is pain that he can not speak about. A constant ache, a bone deep, chronic feeling.
Ben is young, but even he recognizes it is abnormal to be this angry. He desperately tries to ignore it. The desire to lash out that is always there, the anger he feels when he screws up, the frustration of being weak. He's afraid of himself, and so tired. It's only a matter of time before he hurts the people he loves.
And oh, the things it reveals about his parents, especially his father. How they despise what Ben is, how afraid of the Vader in him they both are. How deeply they wish he had never been born at all, and that is why they sent him away.
Ben realized it some time ago; that his only option is opting out. He must sever his connection to the Force completely if he doesn't want to become the monster that stands in the doorway of his dreams.
He takes one last moment to reach out for everything the light side of the Force has. Already he is being pulled back by the heavy veil of ink, pale hands grasping for him possessively. He shuts them out as best he can, this needs to be private. Ben uses the power of his Force connection and the love he has for his family, for everything living, and light, and kind, to say a quiet final goodbye. For a moment it shows him all that he could be. A future where he is whole, where he is light. Ben lets go of that hope, swallows three Lahdia stamens, and closes his eyes.
It takes a few minutes for anything to happen. Then it feels like something is slipping away, little by little, the way a musical note fades into silence and leaves only emotion. It's a soft loss deep in his soul that makes his face wet with tears. Ben gasps quietly and holds his arms across his chest, trying to sooth the feeling of a hole being born. There is relief too. He sighs though he is sobbing, it's finally going to be over.
Finally he can go home.
A few more seconds trickle by. Ben looks around, anticipating something, anxious now. Is this it? Does it work like a switch? He was expecting something more.
It’s then that the dark rises up from under his skin and his whole body screams. His eyes go wide as the feeling of a thousand fingers claw into him, digging deep, hanging on and unwilling to let go. A spike of white hot rage impales the back of his brain and he vocalizes the pain, long and high, scaring a flock of birds from the trees. Ben falls forward, clutching the back of his head, trying to shield his mind from the roar of the dark side.
Of course it won't die. Won't let him go. This has gone so wrong. Everyone was right about him, the dark side is the stronger of the two. He would have fallen regardless, he will still fall.
Unless he erases the option entirely.
The realization brings new tears, there are still things he wants to do! He wants to grieve for the insignificance of his life, but he no longer even has time to stall. Ben scrambles, fighting against the loud, hungry, wrathful dark. It covets him, possesses him. Seethes, betrayed that he would dare try to get rid of it. Ben takes the rest of the Lahdia and mashes it into his mouth, desperate to put an end to things permanently.
He thinks it has failed until pain strikes in a new place and he folds over, gripping at a stomach full of needles and fire. He retches, scarlet pain filling his throat, and a dribble of blood sliding over his bottom lip to join a nosebleed.
Ben sobs messily into the dirt. He is afraid. He wishes his mother were here to hold him, that he could tell his father he loves him more than anything. His body convulses and he retches one more time before his vision flashes red, then black, and he slips away.
***
Ben comes to in his bed with Uncle Luke holding him up and pouring some plant based concoction down his throat. He barely swallows before he pitches over the side of his bed to vomit. Uncle Luke rubs his back and helps him to down the rest of the mixture. Ben can not see anything more clearly than a blur. He is drenched in sweat, hot and cold in such quick succession that he loses track. That night he runs a brain fever of 105 degrees and it takes Luke three days of constant force-assisted healing to break it.
The morning after he is stable, Luke comes to speak with him. “What's going on Ben,”
Ben bites the inside of his mouth, chewing at his lip. He remains silent.
Luke moves in close, sitting beside him on Ben’s bed. “Ben, talk to me… Please. Tell me why you would do something like this,”
Ben tightens his grip on the sheets. Luke's words are twisted to sound like rejection in his ears, like blame. A familiar thought whispers that he is hated, that it is only a matter of time before they cast him out of the temple, before his parents shut their door to him.
“I’m sorry,” he manages through the tightness in his chest, the flush of his face, the sting in his eyes.
He's so ashamed he wants to die.
"Why are you apologizing? You have nothing to apologize for,"
The words are like a physical blow and Ben's guilt shoots into overdrive.
"Yes I do! Yes I do. I keep messing up, I keep failing,” Ben shouts,
Luke blinks several times, his next words are carefully chosen.
“I don't understand. Ben, how are you failing? You're working hard like everyone else, it takes time Ben. Time and patience,”
The dark fixates on the first part. On how Luke can never understand, never know this kind of pain, how he treats Ben with such hypocrisy.
Ben's voice breaks on the uptake, fighting to convey his feelings, needing help but unable to ask. "You always talk about accepting the light and dark parts of yourself, but it doesn't work that way for me,”
Luke kneels down and looks up at him.
“It’s not so easy to…ignore,” Ben falters as a buzzing starts at the base of his scalp, a warning of impending pain.
He knows. The dark hisses, interrupts. For the first time it has a distinct voice. It is deep and fluid, with a quality of cold domination that promises to ease the pressure in Ben’s head if only he complies.
He knows how twisted you really are. He’s afraid of what you will become, how powerful the dark side will make you. That's why he's holding you back. He calls it patience but he's afraid, he's a coward. Hiding away on this planet, teaching children while the war goes on. That's why the galaxy is still in conflict. Darth Vader would never have allowed it to come to this.
Ben seizes up, words snatched away. The voice is persistent, looping the same brutal truths in different configurations.
"Do you want me to call Han and Leia? Do you want to go home?”
Home. Run away. Like a coward, like Luke. Would they even welcome him back?
“No!” Ben finally manages. The voice takes hold of his fear, promises him that they hate him. It assures he's already a well on his way to becoming a Sith. That he killed the light back in the forest and revealed his true self. Luke will sense it, everyone will sense it. They'll hurt him, they'll torture him trying to get it out of him, but it won't work. The darkness will always be there, the voice will never stop.
"Shut up, shut up! Leave me alone!" Ben lashes out in defiance.
He feels Uncle Luke back off, giving him space. This isn’t what he wants! Instinctively Ben moves to reach out. He wants comfort, he wants his uncle to pick him up and hug him, to show him the light side of the Force. How he longs to bury his face into Uncle Luke's robe, strong arms secure around him, protecting Ben from shadow and pain. He desperately wants his parents. Only wants to hear them say that they don't hate him. That they don't believe he will fail, that they will be with him to fight off the dark.
Ben grapples with himself to get the words out. It's in the middle of his struggle, trying to say what his mouth will not allow, that Luke gently lays a hand on his cheek and looks at him with soft blue eyes. Immediately Ben is overcome by the need to cry, but the tears won’t come. He can no longer feel the proper level of emotion. There is a veil between his heart and his family. It pulls, tightened from somewhere far away. It catches and he feels deprived, as if trying to breathe through a heavy cloth. He aches all over, his little patchwork body held together by a numb sting. When he gives no response, Uncle Luke smiles sadly, removes his hand, and leaves the room.
Ben shakes quietly, a contained thing. In the absence of Luke the light that naturally radiated from him is also gone. The room is left nothing more than a vacuum of cold solitude. Ben is still unable to release any external signs of anguish. It's as if he is on the verge of feeling, but the dark pulls him back before he can let go of the stress. Ben is completely alone but never by himself. Nothing will be there for him if it is not the dark. The voice turns soft and kind. It tells him not to fear, that it will always be right next to his heart, right inside his brain, right under his skin. They don't need anyone. Not family, not friends, and they certainly don't need the Jedi.
Ben knows that it lies, that it is wrong. Still, he is alone and afraid. He curls in on himself as it continues to speak, comforting him sweetly, relentlessly. He has no way out, no way not to listen. Never, not for the rest of his life. It won’t even let him die.
Fear gives way to despair and a seed of hatred is born. It takes root in his heart and begins to grow into the void under his skin.