Chapter Text
The heat was oppressive. Each breath felt like a struggle, the air laden with moisture and musk from the surrounding jungle.
“It had to be hot.” I mumbled, dragging tubs full of scavenged equipment into the medical tent. “Couldn’t of been somewhere like Hoth, with blissful sub-zero nights.” The heavy containers sank in the damp dirt as I tugged, leaving a trail like a giant slug. “We had to go to the tropics. Bugs. Everything wet all the time.”
Sinking onto the edge of a sparse military cot, I stared bleakly around what was now passing as a medical facility. A large, camo green tarp blocked out the sunlight, rows of battered cots and chairs lining the edges. Basic medical supplies were stuffed in industrial containers. The medical frigate, along with most of its supply had been lost on the way to Crait over two years ago. Barely anyone had made it out. A shudder ran through me despite the sheen of sweat on my skin.
Had it not been for Luke and Leia, the Resistance would have ended there. Luke had provided enough of a distraction to allow the survivors to flee into the recesses of the caves, and General Organa had managed to move enough of the rocks so everyone could slip out the back and into the Falcon where Chewbacca had been waiting. Even in her weakened state, she had saved us all. Again.
Rey was dead. Killed by Ben Solo.
My head fell back to rest on a tent pole. I had to stop thinking of him as Ben.
Kylo Ren was the Supreme Leader of the First Order, not Ben Solo. Kylo Ren, I repeated over and over, trying to remind myself it had been seven long years since I had seen him, awash in the bright oranges and reds of the fire. Still a young man. He’d be thirty-one this year. Time seemed to simultaneously crawl and accelerate.
He spared you. A voice crooned sweetly in my mind.
The memory takes me under. It always does.
My lungs. Burning. Screaming. I’m trapped.
Crawling out from scorching debris, my skin searing no matter how fast I move.
Air. The night sky filled with a terrifying storm. The thrum of lightsabers. I blink the smoke from my eyes and struggle upright, blearily searching my surroundings.
Billows of smoke block my vision, but I head toward the sounds of sabers clashing. I briefly consider the wisdom of this. My weapon is buried in the rubble, and I’m not a fighter.
Rounding a corner, I can’t believe what I see. Ben. Ben is fighting our classmates, his face a mask of fury. They fall quickly, no match for his easy command of the Force. I don’t know why I stay silent. Waiting.
I let him kill them.
He stands alone, bathed in firelight.
"Ben.” My voice is a croak. He turns my way, eyes black. I barely recognize him. “Ben.” I repeat again, an entreaty. I start toward him.
“No.” His hand starts to raise. “No. Not you.”
“Not me what, Ben? What happened?” I make myself as small as possible, but I keep approaching.
Pain and confusion skitter across his face as I close in. I gaze up at him, his large frame towering over me. I should be afraid.
“Luke. Luke tried to kill me.”
Fury blazes in his eyes again and I hold my breath, aware he may strike at me- and then the words penetrate.
“What?! Master Luke- your- your uncle tried to kill you?” I try to place all the information of the last five minutes into the reality that I knew just before I’d fallen asleep. This doesn’t make sense. Everything is on fire, Ben is razing down classmates, and Master Luke tried to kill him?
“You don’t believe me?” His voice is dangerously low.
“I do believe you!” I find myself shouting, and I try to stay calm. I think I’m in shock. “But, this, how-“
“- because he thinks I’m a monster.” He looks around us. “I am a monster.”
I shake my head. “No, no, Ben. You aren’t a monster.”
He grabs my arm roughly, turning me to face the pile of dead bodies. “DO YOU SEE WHAT I’VE DONE?” He jolts me again so I’m against him, and he stares down at me. “I almost burned you alive.” It’s a horrified whisper.
“But you didn’t. I’m fine. I’m fine.” I have my hand in his hair, rubbing soothing circles at the base of his skull. I’m ungrounded, without focus, and I’m drowning in his emotions. Despair, shame, fear, anger. Betrayal.
Then his mouth is on mine. Hard and desperate, he roughly bites my lower lip and I gasp, allowing him entry. His grip on my arm is punishing, his tongue and teeth stroking and nipping at me. I let myself get lost in chaos, the passion dark and unruly. The intensity of it swallows me. Ben has always fascinated me, knocked me off center.
Just as quickly as it started, I’m shoved away, stumbling. I see him start to stalk away.
“Take me with you!” I don’t know what part of me calls out, the words tumbling from my lips before I can think.
He looks back at me over his shoulder, surprised. But his face falls into a cool, flat expression. “You can’t go where I’m going.”
Darkness dances around him. I’d always felt it from him, his edges frayed and shadowed.
I fall to my knees as he turns and leaves me behind.
There were tears streaming down my cheeks. I’d been falling into past remembrances with increasing frequency, the experience more visceral each time. Power was welling inside of me, an ocean of energy and Light crying for release, begging me to reach out. Longing overwhelmed me.
No. The last words that Luke Skywalker said to me as he left, the second man to abandon me to my own fate that night, rang in my ears.
Never let him find you.