Chapter Text
The moment the hilt of his lightsaber leaves his hands, Kylo Ren feels nothing. His heart is pounding an erratic rhythm in his chest, like it is a fist trying to beat him apart. Han Solo looks at him, their eyes locked in a heavy silence, clutching the saber, their fingers still brushing. As if disembodied, in this moment of focus, he feels the Force through him, divided in him as it has always been. There is darkness, a simmering hatred that he has been nursing for years, that wants to see this man ruined. And there is light, pulling him in dizzying turns, which calls and says in gentle whispers, ‘Give up this fight.’ But he feels nothing, numb. Not seduced, not played, not a puppet.
‘I want to be free of this pain.’
Who is he now, if he takes this away? If he severs this last piece of himself, what will remain, and what will he do with it?
He will be powerful, he remembers. More powerful than Darth Vader, who fell to compassion in his end. He will be free from love and the suffering that comes with it.
The wind in the oscillator’s deep chamber whistles faintly, brushing Kylo’s hair from his forehead and cooling the sweat beaded there. Distantly, Kylo knows that they have an audience: the stormtroopers, Chewbacca, the traitor. The scavenger, the light of her bright and present, but jagged with worry. The hum of idle blasters buzzes like flies.
“He will know,” Kylo Ren promises, his voice hoarse. “The Supreme Leader is-”
“Fuck the Supreme Leader.” Han Solo’s voice is savage as he blinks away tears, his hand hefting the hilt to hold it, suspended, above the drop below their feet.
Kylo can still stop him. He can take the saber back, strike down his father - his father - as easily as a child. He can cut out this weakness, and be free.
Kylo Ren watches, rigid, vibrating, a coiled spring of something unstable, as the saber falls from Han Solo’s hands.
There is a blaster shot, sharp and hot, and Han buckles before him with a cry, clutching his side. Kylo’s arms go out to bracket him, to keep him from falling, and they kneel together. Chewbacca cries out in alarm, fires the bowcaster at the stormtrooper who had shot, and more blaster fire raises from the platforms around them.
Kylo Ren looks up the stormtroopers, and lifts a hand, reaching for each of them with ravenous focus. They glow like small candles, and all it takes is a gentle press of darkness. They crumple, consciousness snuffed out.
There is blood between Han’s fingers, but the wound is not deep. “Ben-” His father is looking at him with such profound relief, and such terror. “Ben, I-”
“What’s the plan?” Kylo can feel his face drawn in a grimace, can feel adrenaline still pumping through him, feels apart from himself too, like he is watching this reunion from above.
“Charges. We need to destroy the oscillator, destabilize the core,” Han explains quickly. He is clutching Kylo’s arms tightly, as if he is afraid he will suddenly disappear.
Kylo looks up, around at the columns and the charges set there. At the figures above, backed by pale light. The weapon is nearly ready, and the Resistance base will soon be gone. He shakes his head, a quick jerk. His lips peel back from his teeth.
“It won’t be enough.” He can still do it. Rage thunders through him, bottles up in his throat and fills him and there is nowhere for it to go. The familiar feeling of its crystallization in the center of him, hardening, catching fire, makes him grit his teeth. He looks into Han Solo’s eyes, and clutches him back, both of them locked at the arms in vice-like grips.
“There are fighter pilots ready to bomb this place straight to hell, as soon as we break it open.”
X-wings. That might do it. He imagines the base in flames, and something like satisfaction pools in his gut. The darkness roils. The corridors of his head are empty; Snoke has left him alone for this trial, and he keeps these images away from the pathways between them. He swallows, weathers the push-pull of the Force inside of him, and nods.
He has failed this test. The truth of it is like a sudden ice bath, like he is being shoved back into his body after an impossibly long dream. The shame of it is devastating; he hasn’t felt like this in years, not since he was very young and very lost.
When they stand, the look in Han’s eyes is a punch in the chest. What he would have given to be looked at like that as a child.
They make their way across the chasm, and Han Solo does not let go of him until they are well away from it. His hands tremble when they lower, and they leave a ghost of warmth and bruising through the thick material of Kylo’s uniform.
They climb to the upper platforms, and Kylo has to help Han, hauling him up with relative ease when he falters in pain. They leave drops of blood in a small trail on the metal. His father feels light, smaller than he remembers. Memories flash behind Kylo’s eyes, brief impressions of being picked up, of feeling so tall when he was very small.
“Chewie!” Han calls, and Kylo watches as the Wookiee gestures the detonator and roars. “Punch it and let’s get out of here! Before more of these moofs show up,” he adds in a mutter, scowling down at one of the fallen stormtroopers and nudging their boot in passing.
Kylo is behind him, staring at his turned, trusting back.
Han turns to look at him. “Let’s go-” Home. Only there is no home. Not for Kylo Ren, or even Ben Solo, but he means the Millenium Falcon, of course. He means, ‘Let’s leave this place and whoever it is you’ve become.’
Kylo Ren’s hands are empty. He curls them into fists. He looks down at the bridge, at his helmet lying forgotten, metal on metal. Then he follows.
When the three of them reach the door at ground level, FN-2187 and the scavenger are staring at him with disbelief and some amount of terror. The girl has a blaster in her hand, half raised, and as he draws closer she falteringly brings it up to point at his chest.
“Han?” FN-2187 demands, the real question unspoken as he looks between them. His hand is hovering over his own blaster, and he edges closer to the girl, as if to shield her.
“Relax, big deal. Let’s get back to the Falcon.” Han does an admirable job of concealing the tremor in his voice with gruffness.
“If you think I’m getting on a ship with him-”
“He’s my son,” Han bites out, cutting him off. “And this place is about to blow. But if you want to stay here,” he spreads his hands wide, shoulders lifting in a shrug as if to say, ‘Be my guest.’
There is a tense silence, and their eyes - his, hers - flick to Kylo Ren.
He stares back impassively, gritting his teeth, nearly baring them. “You’re the one with the lightsaber,” he points out in a low voice, looking pointedly at the hilt at Finn’s belt. His grandfather’s. He would recognize it anywhere. He should like to know how the traitor came across it.
Chewie breaks the stand off with an indignant chuff, and rumbles at Han, bending to examine the blaster shot to his side.
“I’m fine Chewie. Get to the - no,” he swats away the Wookiee’s searching hands and says, “Get Ben to the Falcon, Chewie, start her up.”
Chewie roars acknowledgement and hurries out the door into the cold. Kylo follows immediately after, ducking his head against the wind and snow, and hears the rest of them at his back.
“We can’t stand around here all day, in case you haven’t noticed,” Han tells them.
“Do you know what he’s capable of?!” FN-2187 hisses, furious. “I saw him order the massacre of an entire village.”
“I know what my son is capable of,” his father’s voice is simultaneously cavalier and grim. He really, really doesn’t.
“He kidnapped Rey,” FN-2187 insists, positively seething. “Probably tortured her!”
“This could be a trick,” the girl - Rey - says, her voice low and wary.
“Like I said,” Han growls, “If you’ve got a problem with it, you’re welcome to stay behind.” Stubborn. Uncompromising.
Kylo resolutely does not turn to look at them, trudges through the snow and squints against the biting wind. The pale light casts cool, hazy shadows, and snowflakes quickly wet down his hair and bare face. He keeps his eyes on Chewie’s back.
The charges erupt when they’re clear of the base, sending faint vibrations through the ground beneath their feet, and by the time they reach the Falcon, X-Wings are descending upon it, the sound of their engines distinguishable from the firing turrets and TIEs.
The loading ramp is down, and Chewie is already heading gamely up it; at the top, he turns to look at Kylo, and calls out to him.
Kylo Ren sucks in a breath of cold air, and stares up at the hulking figure of the Wookiee, staunch and resolute, seeming so certain in his acceptance of the situation, so unwilling to leave him too far behind.
“I’m coming,” Kylo mutters. As soon as he is out of the wind he can hear the rest of them clanking up behind him, but Chewie is growling and beckoning him to follow to the cockpit. So he does, resolutely not looking too closely at anything that he passes. He was here just hours earlier, with a squadron of ground troops, searching the Falcon for their fugitives. Then, too, he had averted his eyes, the details too raw, the interior of the freighter dirty but the details as he remembers them.
He steps into the cockpit and watches Chewie initialize takeoff. Han is right behind them, and then he’s in the pilot’s chair, flipping switches and calling back to his younger companions, “Unless the X-wings work fast we’re going to have a lot of fire on our tail.”
FN-2187 and Rey file into the cockpit, and stand in the opposite corner from Kylo. They’ve still got hands on their blasters, like they’re expecting a sudden duel to take place here, finally.
For a moment, Kylo’s eyes jump to Rey’s face, and it’s that same spooked, savage look she gave him from an interrogation chair. He thinks of nights spent in a desert, stomach empty and limbs heavy with exhaustion, but so full of hope and pain she could barely stand to close her eyes, to stop moving-
He looks away, ahead, and fixes his face into something unreadable.
“Sit down,” Han shoots back at them scathingly, scowling over his shoulder.
Kylo knows where an extra passenger seat and belt folds down behind the other two passenger chairs; he situates himself in silence and keeps his eyes on the viewport, jaw clenched.
The Falcon jolts, suddenly rocking, and the low, reverberating sound of an explosion somewhere below the ground is deafening.
FN-2187 and Rey rush to strap themselves in.
“That’s our cue,” Han grunts, and they’re lifting off, rising off the ground as it splinters, and the Falcon screams towards the atmosphere.
They don’t see it when the planet explodes, a ball of fragmented light, but the force of it seems to propel them forward, the distant stars of dead space filling the cockpit’s viewport.
In his periphery, Kylo can tell that Rey has her eyes on him instead, watchful. The pull of it is too much; he cuts his eyes toward her. His expression must be something terrible, because she flinches, but she also doesn’t look away. Her brow creases, and she glares back.
Han activates the hyperdrive.
The blue light of hyperspace bathes the cockpit of the Millenium Falcon, and they hurtle towards D’Qar.
Kylo Ren can feel something drop away, like a taut rope breaking, and he closes his eyes.
What has he done?