[ She snaps that out savagely, instantly rising to the defensive, frustration and hurt reddening her face and choking up in her voice. Letting him get to her like that, put her in that position, seems like losing ground, but she won't accept it. She won't let him rewrite the narrative in that way, even if he's the only one to believe it.
Not when she'd weathered all of this trying to hold onto him. Not when she'd wept to Loki about what Ben meant to her. Not when Ben had turned around and tried to throw her out like she was garbage at the first sign of a spine in her. ]
I'm sorry that I hurt you. I am. But don't you dare say — [ She bites down on that and finds a better tack. ] I'm still here. I'm not the one turning away out of fear. I won't let you blame me for your choices.
(No. You’re just turning away because you think I’m seeing things that aren’t there. Because you think me mad.)
[He looks crazy, when he says it, like he has something to prove as he closes the distance again — but he stops himself just short of committing to the act, closing his eyes and finding his center. He doesn’t always need to do the predictable thing. But that doesn’t mean he feels it any less. His eyes open again, off to the side.]
(You don’t trust my judgement. Yet you want me to trust your’s.)
[His head tilts, digesting the way her face reddens and the anger that coaxes him into conflict like food would coax a beggar.]
(You are asking me to trust others. Others I do not know, that I don't care to know, that I already don't trust.)
[Why doesn't she understand? Or does she, and it just doesn't matter? His brow dips again.]
I think people you've trusted have let you down, and you're afraid it'll happen again. So afraid that you're bracing for the pain already. [ She bulldozes straight into that clarification. Rey's tired of stepping carefully around him, around the conflict he feels that is so evident to her, but that he pretends requires no resolution. He can't keep avoiding it. He can't. ]
That's the difference. You're so afraid of what hasn't happened that you'd risk everything we have rather than try. But I have tried it your way.
[ She drops her hand, foregoing her offer in favor of a more meaningful plea now that he has grown closer. Even physically, she won't allow herself to budge towards him. Let him come to her. Let him show that he wants this, that he's willing to bend when that is all she's done for months. ]
Your way has already hurt me. But I'm still here. I'm not giving up because I'd rather risk being hurt than give up on you.
(You scorn me for taking steps to protect myself.)
[He accepts her assessment, but doesn't move any closer. He notes the way her hand drops, but unlike usual, he doesn't bother to point it out with some dramatic gesture. It just happens.
The way she talks about her pain doesn't move him. He blinks a few times as he absorbs the information, but otherwise does not react. He had to hold the line here.
There is a long stretch of silence where Kylo is clearly wondering why he is bothering with this conversation. A moment of hesitation where the bond feels far away, and it feels like he might be focusing hard enough on something else to try and will it away.
But he comes back, because he still has something to prove.]
(You might remember I have made concessions for you in equal measure. Your so called "friends" accuse me of manipulation. They insult me, make demands of me, and I stayed my hand.)
Because you insist on telling them I mean nothing to you!
[ This tears out of her chest, sudden and visceral. Clearly she has tried to stop it from bothering her for so long that she has no choice but to erupt with it now. He's never given her another choice. When Hayame had asked her, the sense of shame had been so profound —
Didn't it bother her? Didn't she feels it a disservice? To put his hands on her when they were alone, hold her like he did, then turn around and pretend it meant nothing? To make her look like a fool to Keith, to Poe, to Hayame, to every one of her friends? ]
If they thought for a second you actually gave a damn about me, they wouldn't see anything to protect me from. Don't you blame them for caring about me.
(Because honesty invites further investigation, and I do not owe anyone MY LIFE!)
[Finally he snaps back at her, shedding several layers of indifference but snarling all the same. The emotion floods the bond all at once -- yes he cares, no he doesn't want to talk about it or examine it, especially not with strangers. People who didn't understand them.
Loki hadn't quite taught him this (actually, it had been Rey who had reassured him that he could govern himself, Loki had merely cemented the idea), but he was no longer willing to entertain the demands of other people. He had the freedom of choice.
And he was going to use it as often as he could get away with.]
[ She feels like she's running in circles, but she can't stop. She wants him to understand. She'll never stop wanting him to understand because only through understanding will they finally get somewhere. ]
It's about what I mean to you. If I'm worth something to you, you should defend me. Not conspire to paint me as some helpless child chasing after something hopeless, investing myself in someone who could throw me aside and feel nothing.
[ The tears come now. Kriff. She'd told herself she wouldn't cry, wouldn't vest herself that deeply until he had shown some stronger move, but she comes apart as this bubbles out. It's what he'd done after all. In so many ways, they'd been proven right too. Just as Kylo had seen to it that Keith's betrayal had been a self-fulfilling prophecy, driving him to it with secrets and mixed messages, so too had her friends seen their prophecies of his disinvestment fulfilled.
And that was it, precisely. Neither camp was wholly correct. She still believed that she was better off with them than without them, despite the hardship and pain. And that's what Kylo Ren couldn't understand. ]
If I'm worth anything to you at all, you should damn well act like it. You shouldn't be able to call me nothing. I'm not nothing.
[ He knows where she comes from. Knows how easy it is for her to think of herself as nothing. She turns away from him then, letting the tears roll freely down her face. It doesn't even matter to him. He's only thought of himself. Spared no thought for her. ]
[He doesn't address the bit about calling her nothing. She is nothing, to the galaxy at large. He will not apologize for those statements -- it had been a compliment, whether or not she had seen it that way. Nothing else she lays down finds any purchase -- it doesn't make sense to him. She invests emotion into things that are simple fact, and he doesn't have the emotional sensitivity to understand why.
Nevermind that he cannot remember a time where he'd actually confessed that he believed Rey to be wasting her time trying to return him to the Light.
She turns her back to him, and he finds himself at a loss. He is not moved by her tears -- she's brought this upon herself, as far as he is concerned.]
(The last time I acted to protect what you were worth to me, you nearly killed me.)
[He says it in a way that is confused, and perhaps mildly bewildered.]
[ The worst part is that she can easily see the hiccups in his logic at this point. He only has one way of dealing with things, and that method is violence. It's the only language he knows. Certainly the only way he's ever solved problems.
She reaches up to wipe her tears away, trying hard to push that outburst down. What a stupid thing to get dragged into, crying about parents who'd never loved her. Still feeling like trash because of what they'd done when over and over again Keith and Finn and Hayame and Poe had made her feel worthwhile. ]
Killing my friends isn't protecting me. [ She spits this out. ] It's protecting yourself — from having to explain, from losing me because you don't trust me and you're worried I'll listen to them.
[ That's really his problem. He's selfish. Every single time, it comes back to his own needs and his own pain, while Rey has been sublimating hers for months to try and protect him from discomfort. She has been coddling him, she realizes, at the cost of herself. ]
(I am worried you'll listen to them. You have listened to them, because you didn't trust me.)
[And that was why Keith had needed to die, at the time. He'd agreed to pull back, when she had come to him afterward.
There is more passion to his voice, like he believes they are on the verge of understanding one another when they couldn't be further away from it. He catches himself getting caught up in it and takes a step away to try and remind himself that -- they're fighting. Its already over.
You're listening to them now is swallowed down. It feels weird to admit the fear of losing her, when he had resigned himself to the fact that he'd already lost her.]
[ This isn't about the past. It wasn't about Hanabira. It wasn't about what happened then. It's about now. It's about moving forward. It's about trying to find some way to understand each other and solve this.
She tries to hold on to the notion that the Force, apparently, sees that as possible. It's still connecting them. This has not driven them further apart than they were that first morning on Ahch-to, when she had been grieving Han Solo. ]
I'm tired of being held at a distance while you gather excuses to leave.
[At least -- here, where he had no power, and no way to control what was being said about him. No way to back up fear that was being generated. His only option was to be under a microscope.
He resists the urge to turn away entirely, but he does half turn as the over-stimulation hits him all at once. Something ripples between the bond and knocks the wind out of his lungs, causes something to sting behind his eyes.
Rey's inferred grief? His own reflection of frustration? The conflict stirring between them? He thinks of the moment before he'd killed Han Solo. He thinks of the moment when Rey had told him that his mother yet lived.
It all feels the same. The panic, the relief, the pain, the despair. He thinks to swallow his reaction, but it bleeds freely through the bond in spite of the fact that his lips never move.]
[ 'To me.' It's not a real search for understanding. It's self pity. In some ways, that brings on some disenchantment; he's always been a creature of self-pity more than anything else, selfish. If he hadn't been, then how much of this might have been avoided? It's hard to fault him entirely for it, given what she knows of his life, but it's certainly his choice now.
He's leaning back on it out of habit. Not because it's right or better, but because it feels safe. ]
Because I want us to be happy.
[ And they'd never have that as long as they were ruled by fear. ]
We can do better.
[ She draws a breath and looks back at him. Yes. If anything, this conversation has left her more positive. Seeing all the ways in which he lessens her worth and braces for disappointment and searches for her failings to justify his cynicism helps, in an absurd way. It'd help more if he didn't do it. She can only help that he'll hear her and see it. ]
I'm not going anywhere, Ben. I'm right here. All I'm asking is that you stop holding back. [ He's admitted to himself that she's important to him, but if he won't act on it, take risks for it, admit it to others, then he's still shying away from it. He's still afraid of her. ]
[He felt her turmoil too — but there wasn’t a day that went by where he didn’t feel that himself. Its just a normal part of living, particularly living as Force Sensitive. The height of their sensitivity surely only makes it worse.
But this, he recognizes, is an exercise in futility. They aren’t hearing one another, and Kylo Ren doesn’t have the energy for deep emotional examination. Acknowledging she was happy means that it wasn’t a lie, which means that something (or multiple somethings) of what she is saying must be true and genuine.
He opens his mouth to say something else, but the thought stops forming midway. He is frayed from lack of sleep, and the spark of his anger has burnt him out.]
[ Her lips twitch as though to incline towards a smile that he has called upon those fond memories, but her chest aches with longing for that happiness now. Wouldn't it be easy to reclaim? To fold herself in his arms and indulge in that momentary peace again. To lay down arms and find comfort in each other instead of this endless war back and forth. ]
When it was just us. [ When they were together and the world was gone and she could forget about it. Those cannot be the only moments, though. That can't be her only happiness. Clinging too hard to them had been what really began to change her. ] When I could pretend you weren't still keeping me at arm's length.
[ But then she'd see the rest of his behavior, the times he refused to act like she mattered to him, and she'd have to lie to herself that just knowing was enough. Or she'd see the disappointment in her friends, and she'd have to lie to herself that she still felt connected to them. He is keeping her at arm's length. And it's not just them. She understood now what Keith had meant the last time they'd been on Headquarters. ]
(I am not interested in doing better for other people.)
[That needs to be made clear. He doesn't deny the claim that he was keeping her at arm's length. This entire conversation has made that impossible to deny. He kept everyone at arm's length, but Rey had gotten closer than anyone else. Maybe that was a mistake -- but it happened.
And denying it -- there was no use in it. He could not co-exist with his father in the universe that way, and removing him had only made it worse. So how was he meant to confront it with Rey?]
(You want me to care for them, as you do. I will not.)
[Not murdering Keith for her sake was hard enough.]
[ She doesn't flinch — she's simply heard this argument from him too many times to react to it now. ]
Me.
[ It's about sparing her pain and letting her be the person she wants to be — hopeful and naive and compassionate. Because being anything else felt like it was killing her. Calling it a poison had wounded him, true, but she could think of no better word for the slow sap to her hope. But she can't make him see that it's worthwhile to confront his fear in the name of preventing her real pain — he has to be the one to decide she's worth that. ]
(If it was just you--then it wouldn't matter. But it is never 'just you'.)
[He wants to reach out in that moment -- to touch her, to shake her, he isn't sure. His hands stay at his sides, but the bond doesn't obscure his intent while he tries to decide. Whatever impression she had left on him hasn't gone away.
And then, finally, he tries to reach for her through the bond in silence. Just to see if something is still there, or if its all gone.]
[ In the midst of the storm of his conflict and confusion, Rey's thoughts and feelings are finally clear. Hope and certainty stand at the forefront — for herself, and for him. It's going to get better. It has to get better.
She can feel the way he longs to reach for her, a mirror of the ache she feels, and it assures her further that despite everything muddling the presentation, they're both coming from the same place, the same deep well of longing and affection. Connected, even when they struggle like this to understand one another.
Though she feels him reach for her, she doesn't try to shut anything out. There's a brazen, foolish openness to it — the same sort of all-in gamble she's begging him to make on her. He can take what he wants. She's done trying to measure it out and make it palatable in hopes that he won't find something that gives him an excuse to leave; she has to trust that he won't. More to the point, he has left, and she has survived it. She is closer to Poe and Loki and Hayame and Keith for letting him.
So laid bare for him there, if he doesn't flinch away from it, is the depth of her affection for him. He left, and it's still there. A bright, burning light which tells the story of how hard this is for her — if she didn't care so damn much it might be easier than this. But she does, and it's nearly impossible not to just crumble into his arms.
She won't, though, this time. ]
No. Just me. [ She holds this line. She won't let him distract it by making it about her friends. ] I want to feel like myself again. I want to have hope. I don't want to have to lie about how important you are to me, and I don't want to watch how easily you pretend that I'm nothing to you, all in the name of fear.
(You know the truth. What does what we tell the others matter? If they don't know, it cannot be used against us.)
[Like Thrawn had tried to use it against them. If he hadn't been transferred so soon after that, he doesn't even want to think about where that might have lead. But it was a very real threat that both of them had seen.
He frowns some, when she talks about how important he is to her. Even seeing it in the Force -- it makes him uncomfortable, to hear someone talk about him like that. Anxious bile rises in his throat.]
(If you do not feel like yourself, then...)
[Why did you bother? Were they just doomed to ruin one another?]
[ Maybe she's a naive idiot for thinking that circling this particular point means she's wearing him down, making headway, but it feels like she is. He isn't spitting venom and accusing her of lying to him anymore. So she keeps her voice soft, steady, firm. ]
You're worth it.
[ That's the most important part to get out. Otherwise, he might go back to spitting at her. Otherwise, he might lose sight of the fact that all she's asking is that he consider her worth it too. ]
But no one is trying to use it against us.
[ Keith and Loki, they already knew about the connection. They figured it out in Hanabira. But she'd told him that already. There was no use kicking a dead bantha. And it's too complicated to get into the point of their feelings for one another. She still doesn't fully possess the awareness necessary to talk about those things, even if it was that point which got her here. What would she have done without Hayame? ]
You're protecting us from a threat that doesn't exist. A threat that we could handle, if it came. I don't care if Thrawn and the Empire and the whole galaxy knows what you mean to me — if they tried to take you from me, I would stop them.
[ There's something feral and possessive to this final point she arrives at. Fiercely protective, but also a claim in its own way, made by a scavenger who's used to having to fight to keep what little she has. In a way, it demonstrates what she hasn't been able to articulate clearly — what she's looking for from him.
He's backing away from that possibility in fear of how those people could use her to hurt him. She has instead prepared to take up arms to make them pay for it. As long as that fear is winning out, she's not convinced of the truth he purports in these moments. Obviously he values her — more than he values anyone but himself — but not that highly. Not like she values him. ]
I'm not going to lessen my feelings to hide from them.
[If she is expecting him to make concessions, then she needs to work on her naiveté. Sure, it was hubris that put them in that situation to begin with, but that didn't mean that someone else wouldn't or couldn't try to do the same thing.
This time, he reaches for her across the bond, careless whether or not if it had weakened enough so that his hands might pass through her.]
(What if you couldn't stop them?)
[Keith didn't frighten him, but -- what if Loki had wanted to use it against them? Neither of them would be able to stand up against him. Rey couldn't know what it was like to have someone knowing every move they would make before they made it, being unable to hide from someone. What they had, the mutual respect of their boundaries -- it wasn't the same.]
[ Perhaps if only for the reckless commitment to the act, she is solid under his touch. He doesn't hesitate or second guess, tries despite the possibility of failure and disappointment, and that either puts him in sync with Rey sufficiently or the Force answers them, for she may as well be there with him.
The hairs on the back of her neck prickle with the contact. Not just the usual way, when they touch across space like this, blindly groping for one another, for some salve for their loneliness, and not just for the way it summons up memories of the dark of their room in Drakstaden with his hands on her and almost nothing between them — but for the very fact that it feels like coming home, to touch him. Like the universe wants to settle into place, and holding themselves apart has kept it off its axis.
She inhales sharply, rocked by the suddenness of it. She reaches for him, too, one hand settling at the base of his ribcage, the other in the center of his chest grabbing a fistful of his tunic. Her touch is gentle, though it's unclear whether it's meant to stay him or reciprocate. Both, probably.
Disappointment that he has gotten wrapped up in more hypotheticals to justify his paranoia never finds purchase before he corrects it. He knows. How? Who? That was not Luke's crime, or his parents'. No one had used and manipulated him like—
Her expression falters, falls. He doesn't talk about this. ]
Snoke.
[ It's not a question. She remembers the disfigured face in his mind, clad all in gold, jeering at him. She does not need to ask if that is who he means. She knows. Occasionally she wondered why he had risen to feel such murderous intent for his master, what had changed, but the information simply wasn't there. He'd just returned here clear in his purpose.
Now, the picture grows clearer. She gathers her resolve. ]
Then we'll stop them. [ Blind hope may not work for him, but it has been all Rey has survived on for this long. Maybe, just maybe, holding onto him like this she can infuse him with it. Offer him her own certainty, where his is too weak. ] Together we could. We will.
[ Even she knows how naive this sounds, and how it will sound to him though. After a beat, she sobers up further. No blind hope. A middle ground. So — ] But even if I failed, it'd be worth it. Because it was my choice. [ And given where she'd come from, her freedom to decide for herself is everything. Her identity, her sense of self, was all she'd ever really had. ] I'd rather fight and lose than allow someone to control my choices through fear.
[Kylo Ren goes quiet after that and does not let go of her. There is something of a stiffness that is adopted to him when she invokes Snoke's name. He'd always felt like he'd perhaps gotten away from his watchful gaze, and yet it still somehow showed up in every little action he wouldn't have approved of.
There is a lot of internal digestion going on here. There are probably people in the internet cafe looking at him oddly now, enough that it pulls at his awareness of the bond -- but Rey is holding him there too now.
Loki's words echo back to him again: Your fear is a poor master, and it allows everyone but yourself to control you. Is that what you want? Was that what this was? No -- and yes. In the past, it had been a promise. But many of the influencing factors simply weren't present, so was it just control from another realm?
He is caught in a loop of his own thoughts. When Loki had gifted him with that information, it hadn't been easy to digest -- and he hadn't really absorbed it, he realizes. But now that its staring him in the face again...
...well, he'd been right all along, hadn't he?
Slowly, he lets go of Rey as the epiphany hits him. There's no real argument left to make once he accepts that bit of information. He was being controlled through fear, and had been for many years now. It didn't make his need for vengeance burn any less -- but it made the need for protection seem...childish.
He glances back to her, lost for words. Does he apologize? No, there is nothing to apologize for. All of his feelings were valid, even if he understands now that perhaps he needed to try and work through them some.
Nod? Wait for the bond to fade and let her draw her own conclusions?]
[ She can see something settling into place. And it's not anger, or vengeful resolve, or hurt, or any of that. Not like before when he'd slid so easily into that grudging place.
Despite that, he lets her go. Her hands fall away from him in turn, however reluctantly. Despite the fact that she can sense something resolving itself in him, she picks up on his new sense of uncertainty too. Like maybe he's withdrawing because he still has something he needs to work out. ]
Ben?
[ A flutter of fear rises in her chest. Like maybe he's worked it out and he's simply withdrawing. But she'd been allowing fear to control her choices too — fear of him leaving. So she accepts the possibility and lets it roll off. She can't control his actions; only her own. ]
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no subject
[ She snaps that out savagely, instantly rising to the defensive, frustration and hurt reddening her face and choking up in her voice. Letting him get to her like that, put her in that position, seems like losing ground, but she won't accept it. She won't let him rewrite the narrative in that way, even if he's the only one to believe it.
Not when she'd weathered all of this trying to hold onto him. Not when she'd wept to Loki about what Ben meant to her. Not when Ben had turned around and tried to throw her out like she was garbage at the first sign of a spine in her. ]
I'm sorry that I hurt you. I am. But don't you dare say — [ She bites down on that and finds a better tack. ] I'm still here. I'm not the one turning away out of fear. I won't let you blame me for your choices.
no subject
[He looks crazy, when he says it, like he has something to prove as he closes the distance again — but he stops himself just short of committing to the act, closing his eyes and finding his center. He doesn’t always need to do the predictable thing. But that doesn’t mean he feels it any less. His eyes open again, off to the side.]
( You don’t trust my judgement. Yet you want me to trust your’s. )
[His head tilts, digesting the way her face reddens and the anger that coaxes him into conflict like food would coax a beggar.]
( You are asking me to trust others. Others I do not know, that I don't care to know, that I already don't trust. )
[Why doesn't she understand? Or does she, and it just doesn't matter? His brow dips again.]
no subject
That's the difference. You're so afraid of what hasn't happened that you'd risk everything we have rather than try. But I have tried it your way.
[ She drops her hand, foregoing her offer in favor of a more meaningful plea now that he has grown closer. Even physically, she won't allow herself to budge towards him. Let him come to her. Let him show that he wants this, that he's willing to bend when that is all she's done for months. ]
Your way has already hurt me. But I'm still here. I'm not giving up because I'd rather risk being hurt than give up on you.
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[He accepts her assessment, but doesn't move any closer. He notes the way her hand drops, but unlike usual, he doesn't bother to point it out with some dramatic gesture. It just happens.
The way she talks about her pain doesn't move him. He blinks a few times as he absorbs the information, but otherwise does not react. He had to hold the line here.
There is a long stretch of silence where Kylo is clearly wondering why he is bothering with this conversation. A moment of hesitation where the bond feels far away, and it feels like he might be focusing hard enough on something else to try and will it away.
But he comes back, because he still has something to prove.]
( You might remember I have made concessions for you in equal measure. Your so called "friends" accuse me of manipulation. They insult me, make demands of me, and I stayed my hand. )
no subject
[ This tears out of her chest, sudden and visceral. Clearly she has tried to stop it from bothering her for so long that she has no choice but to erupt with it now. He's never given her another choice. When Hayame had asked her, the sense of shame had been so profound —
Didn't it bother her? Didn't she feels it a disservice? To put his hands on her when they were alone, hold her like he did, then turn around and pretend it meant nothing? To make her look like a fool to Keith, to Poe, to Hayame, to every one of her friends? ]
If they thought for a second you actually gave a damn about me, they wouldn't see anything to protect me from. Don't you blame them for caring about me.
no subject
[Finally he snaps back at her, shedding several layers of indifference but snarling all the same. The emotion floods the bond all at once -- yes he cares, no he doesn't want to talk about it or examine it, especially not with strangers. People who didn't understand them.
Loki hadn't quite taught him this (actually, it had been Rey who had reassured him that he could govern himself, Loki had merely cemented the idea), but he was no longer willing to entertain the demands of other people. He had the freedom of choice.
And he was going to use it as often as he could get away with.]
( What I gave to you is NOT THEIR'S. )
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[ She feels like she's running in circles, but she can't stop. She wants him to understand. She'll never stop wanting him to understand because only through understanding will they finally get somewhere. ]
It's about what I mean to you. If I'm worth something to you, you should defend me. Not conspire to paint me as some helpless child chasing after something hopeless, investing myself in someone who could throw me aside and feel nothing.
[ The tears come now. Kriff. She'd told herself she wouldn't cry, wouldn't vest herself that deeply until he had shown some stronger move, but she comes apart as this bubbles out. It's what he'd done after all. In so many ways, they'd been proven right too. Just as Kylo had seen to it that Keith's betrayal had been a self-fulfilling prophecy, driving him to it with secrets and mixed messages, so too had her friends seen their prophecies of his disinvestment fulfilled.
And that was it, precisely. Neither camp was wholly correct. She still believed that she was better off with them than without them, despite the hardship and pain. And that's what Kylo Ren couldn't understand. ]
If I'm worth anything to you at all, you should damn well act like it. You shouldn't be able to call me nothing. I'm not nothing.
[ He knows where she comes from. Knows how easy it is for her to think of herself as nothing. She turns away from him then, letting the tears roll freely down her face. It doesn't even matter to him. He's only thought of himself. Spared no thought for her. ]
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Nevermind that he cannot remember a time where he'd actually confessed that he believed Rey to be wasting her time trying to return him to the Light.
She turns her back to him, and he finds himself at a loss. He is not moved by her tears -- she's brought this upon herself, as far as he is concerned.]
( The last time I acted to protect what you were worth to me, you nearly killed me. )
[He says it in a way that is confused, and perhaps mildly bewildered.]
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She reaches up to wipe her tears away, trying hard to push that outburst down. What a stupid thing to get dragged into, crying about parents who'd never loved her. Still feeling like trash because of what they'd done when over and over again Keith and Finn and Hayame and Poe had made her feel worthwhile. ]
Killing my friends isn't protecting me. [ She spits this out. ] It's protecting yourself — from having to explain, from losing me because you don't trust me and you're worried I'll listen to them.
[ That's really his problem. He's selfish. Every single time, it comes back to his own needs and his own pain, while Rey has been sublimating hers for months to try and protect him from discomfort. She has been coddling him, she realizes, at the cost of herself. ]
no subject
[And that was why Keith had needed to die, at the time. He'd agreed to pull back, when she had come to him afterward.
There is more passion to his voice, like he believes they are on the verge of understanding one another when they couldn't be further away from it. He catches himself getting caught up in it and takes a step away to try and remind himself that -- they're fighting. Its already over.
You're listening to them now is swallowed down. It feels weird to admit the fear of losing her, when he had resigned himself to the fact that he'd already lost her.]
no subject
[ This isn't about the past. It wasn't about Hanabira. It wasn't about what happened then. It's about now. It's about moving forward. It's about trying to find some way to understand each other and solve this.
She tries to hold on to the notion that the Force, apparently, sees that as possible. It's still connecting them. This has not driven them further apart than they were that first morning on Ahch-to, when she had been grieving Han Solo. ]
I'm tired of being held at a distance while you gather excuses to leave.
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[At least -- here, where he had no power, and no way to control what was being said about him. No way to back up fear that was being generated. His only option was to be under a microscope.
He resists the urge to turn away entirely, but he does half turn as the over-stimulation hits him all at once. Something ripples between the bond and knocks the wind out of his lungs, causes something to sting behind his eyes.
Rey's inferred grief? His own reflection of frustration? The conflict stirring between them? He thinks of the moment before he'd killed Han Solo. He thinks of the moment when Rey had told him that his mother yet lived.
It all feels the same. The panic, the relief, the pain, the despair. He thinks to swallow his reaction, but it bleeds freely through the bond in spite of the fact that his lips never move.]
( Why are you doing this to me? )
[It isn't directed anywhere.]
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He's leaning back on it out of habit. Not because it's right or better, but because it feels safe. ]
Because I want us to be happy.
[ And they'd never have that as long as they were ruled by fear. ]
We can do better.
[ She draws a breath and looks back at him. Yes. If anything, this conversation has left her more positive. Seeing all the ways in which he lessens her worth and braces for disappointment and searches for her failings to justify his cynicism helps, in an absurd way. It'd help more if he didn't do it. She can only help that he'll hear her and see it. ]
I'm not going anywhere, Ben. I'm right here. All I'm asking is that you stop holding back. [ He's admitted to himself that she's important to him, but if he won't act on it, take risks for it, admit it to others, then he's still shying away from it. He's still afraid of her. ]
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[He felt her turmoil too — but there wasn’t a day that went by where he didn’t feel that himself. Its just a normal part of living, particularly living as Force Sensitive. The height of their sensitivity surely only makes it worse.
But this, he recognizes, is an exercise in futility. They aren’t hearing one another, and Kylo Ren doesn’t have the energy for deep emotional examination. Acknowledging she was happy means that it wasn’t a lie, which means that something (or multiple somethings) of what she is saying must be true and genuine.
He opens his mouth to say something else, but the thought stops forming midway. He is frayed from lack of sleep, and the spark of his anger has burnt him out.]
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[ Her lips twitch as though to incline towards a smile that he has called upon those fond memories, but her chest aches with longing for that happiness now. Wouldn't it be easy to reclaim? To fold herself in his arms and indulge in that momentary peace again. To lay down arms and find comfort in each other instead of this endless war back and forth. ]
When it was just us. [ When they were together and the world was gone and she could forget about it. Those cannot be the only moments, though. That can't be her only happiness. Clinging too hard to them had been what really began to change her. ] When I could pretend you weren't still keeping me at arm's length.
[ But then she'd see the rest of his behavior, the times he refused to act like she mattered to him, and she'd have to lie to herself that just knowing was enough. Or she'd see the disappointment in her friends, and she'd have to lie to herself that she still felt connected to them. He is keeping her at arm's length. And it's not just them. She understood now what Keith had meant the last time they'd been on Headquarters. ]
We can do better.
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[That needs to be made clear. He doesn't deny the claim that he was keeping her at arm's length. This entire conversation has made that impossible to deny. He kept everyone at arm's length, but Rey had gotten closer than anyone else. Maybe that was a mistake -- but it happened.
And denying it -- there was no use in it. He could not co-exist with his father in the universe that way, and removing him had only made it worse. So how was he meant to confront it with Rey?]
( You want me to care for them, as you do. I will not. )
[Not murdering Keith for her sake was hard enough.]
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[ She doesn't flinch — she's simply heard this argument from him too many times to react to it now. ]
Me.
[ It's about sparing her pain and letting her be the person she wants to be — hopeful and naive and compassionate. Because being anything else felt like it was killing her. Calling it a poison had wounded him, true, but she could think of no better word for the slow sap to her hope. But she can't make him see that it's worthwhile to confront his fear in the name of preventing her real pain — he has to be the one to decide she's worth that. ]
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[He wants to reach out in that moment -- to touch her, to shake her, he isn't sure. His hands stay at his sides, but the bond doesn't obscure his intent while he tries to decide. Whatever impression she had left on him hasn't gone away.
And then, finally, he tries to reach for her through the bond in silence. Just to see if something is still there, or if its all gone.]
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She can feel the way he longs to reach for her, a mirror of the ache she feels, and it assures her further that despite everything muddling the presentation, they're both coming from the same place, the same deep well of longing and affection. Connected, even when they struggle like this to understand one another.
Though she feels him reach for her, she doesn't try to shut anything out. There's a brazen, foolish openness to it — the same sort of all-in gamble she's begging him to make on her. He can take what he wants. She's done trying to measure it out and make it palatable in hopes that he won't find something that gives him an excuse to leave; she has to trust that he won't. More to the point, he has left, and she has survived it. She is closer to Poe and Loki and Hayame and Keith for letting him.
So laid bare for him there, if he doesn't flinch away from it, is the depth of her affection for him. He left, and it's still there. A bright, burning light which tells the story of how hard this is for her — if she didn't care so damn much it might be easier than this. But she does, and it's nearly impossible not to just crumble into his arms.
She won't, though, this time. ]
No. Just me. [ She holds this line. She won't let him distract it by making it about her friends. ] I want to feel like myself again. I want to have hope. I don't want to have to lie about how important you are to me, and I don't want to watch how easily you pretend that I'm nothing to you, all in the name of fear.
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[Like Thrawn had tried to use it against them. If he hadn't been transferred so soon after that, he doesn't even want to think about where that might have lead. But it was a very real threat that both of them had seen.
He frowns some, when she talks about how important he is to her. Even seeing it in the Force -- it makes him uncomfortable, to hear someone talk about him like that. Anxious bile rises in his throat.]
( If you do not feel like yourself, then... )
[Why did you bother? Were they just doomed to ruin one another?]
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[ Maybe she's a naive idiot for thinking that circling this particular point means she's wearing him down, making headway, but it feels like she is. He isn't spitting venom and accusing her of lying to him anymore. So she keeps her voice soft, steady, firm. ]
You're worth it.
[ That's the most important part to get out. Otherwise, he might go back to spitting at her. Otherwise, he might lose sight of the fact that all she's asking is that he consider her worth it too. ]
But no one is trying to use it against us.
[ Keith and Loki, they already knew about the connection. They figured it out in Hanabira. But she'd told him that already. There was no use kicking a dead bantha. And it's too complicated to get into the point of their feelings for one another. She still doesn't fully possess the awareness necessary to talk about those things, even if it was that point which got her here. What would she have done without Hayame? ]
You're protecting us from a threat that doesn't exist. A threat that we could handle, if it came. I don't care if Thrawn and the Empire and the whole galaxy knows what you mean to me — if they tried to take you from me, I would stop them.
[ There's something feral and possessive to this final point she arrives at. Fiercely protective, but also a claim in its own way, made by a scavenger who's used to having to fight to keep what little she has. In a way, it demonstrates what she hasn't been able to articulate clearly — what she's looking for from him.
He's backing away from that possibility in fear of how those people could use her to hurt him. She has instead prepared to take up arms to make them pay for it. As long as that fear is winning out, she's not convinced of the truth he purports in these moments. Obviously he values her — more than he values anyone but himself — but not that highly. Not like she values him. ]
I'm not going to lessen my feelings to hide from them.
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[If she is expecting him to make concessions, then she needs to work on her naiveté. Sure, it was hubris that put them in that situation to begin with, but that didn't mean that someone else wouldn't or couldn't try to do the same thing.
This time, he reaches for her across the bond, careless whether or not if it had weakened enough so that his hands might pass through her.]
( What if you couldn't stop them? )
[Keith didn't frighten him, but -- what if Loki had wanted to use it against them? Neither of them would be able to stand up against him. Rey couldn't know what it was like to have someone knowing every move they would make before they made it, being unable to hide from someone. What they had, the mutual respect of their boundaries -- it wasn't the same.]
( You do not know what it is like. But I do. )
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The hairs on the back of her neck prickle with the contact. Not just the usual way, when they touch across space like this, blindly groping for one another, for some salve for their loneliness, and not just for the way it summons up memories of the dark of their room in Drakstaden with his hands on her and almost nothing between them — but for the very fact that it feels like coming home, to touch him. Like the universe wants to settle into place, and holding themselves apart has kept it off its axis.
She inhales sharply, rocked by the suddenness of it. She reaches for him, too, one hand settling at the base of his ribcage, the other in the center of his chest grabbing a fistful of his tunic. Her touch is gentle, though it's unclear whether it's meant to stay him or reciprocate. Both, probably.
Disappointment that he has gotten wrapped up in more hypotheticals to justify his paranoia never finds purchase before he corrects it. He knows. How? Who? That was not Luke's crime, or his parents'. No one had used and manipulated him like—
Her expression falters, falls. He doesn't talk about this. ]
Snoke.
[ It's not a question. She remembers the disfigured face in his mind, clad all in gold, jeering at him. She does not need to ask if that is who he means. She knows. Occasionally she wondered why he had risen to feel such murderous intent for his master, what had changed, but the information simply wasn't there. He'd just returned here clear in his purpose.
Now, the picture grows clearer. She gathers her resolve. ]
Then we'll stop them. [ Blind hope may not work for him, but it has been all Rey has survived on for this long. Maybe, just maybe, holding onto him like this she can infuse him with it. Offer him her own certainty, where his is too weak. ] Together we could. We will.
[ Even she knows how naive this sounds, and how it will sound to him though. After a beat, she sobers up further. No blind hope. A middle ground. So — ] But even if I failed, it'd be worth it. Because it was my choice. [ And given where she'd come from, her freedom to decide for herself is everything. Her identity, her sense of self, was all she'd ever really had. ] I'd rather fight and lose than allow someone to control my choices through fear.
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There is a lot of internal digestion going on here. There are probably people in the internet cafe looking at him oddly now, enough that it pulls at his awareness of the bond -- but Rey is holding him there too now.
Loki's words echo back to him again: Your fear is a poor master, and it allows everyone but yourself to control you. Is that what you want? Was that what this was? No -- and yes. In the past, it had been a promise. But many of the influencing factors simply weren't present, so was it just control from another realm?
He is caught in a loop of his own thoughts. When Loki had gifted him with that information, it hadn't been easy to digest -- and he hadn't really absorbed it, he realizes. But now that its staring him in the face again...
...well, he'd been right all along, hadn't he?
Slowly, he lets go of Rey as the epiphany hits him. There's no real argument left to make once he accepts that bit of information. He was being controlled through fear, and had been for many years now. It didn't make his need for vengeance burn any less -- but it made the need for protection seem...childish.
He glances back to her, lost for words. Does he apologize? No, there is nothing to apologize for. All of his feelings were valid, even if he understands now that perhaps he needed to try and work through them some.
Nod? Wait for the bond to fade and let her draw her own conclusions?]
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Despite that, he lets her go. Her hands fall away from him in turn, however reluctantly. Despite the fact that she can sense something resolving itself in him, she picks up on his new sense of uncertainty too. Like maybe he's withdrawing because he still has something he needs to work out. ]
Ben?
[ A flutter of fear rises in her chest. Like maybe he's worked it out and he's simply withdrawing. But she'd been allowing fear to control her choices too — fear of him leaving. So she accepts the possibility and lets it roll off. She can't control his actions; only her own. ]
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