For allbingo
Feb. 11th, 2019 07:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladyofleithianTitle: We Are Who We Are
Summary: Not long after Crait, Rey and Kylo speak through the Force Bond once more.
Prompt: Secret Messages
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
The Force Bond should have died down by now. Rey knows that much. And yet here they are. She’s sitting in her room in the Millennium Falcon, facing, not for the first time, the man that she left behind on Crait.
It wasn’t like it didn’t hurt. She can still remember, even closing the door of the Millennium Falcon on him, something akin to wondering if that was what it felt like. An amputation without anaesthetic, maybe. An amputation that was needed, because in that moment, it was like it had got infected, it had to be amputated —
It was an uncomfortable truth she had to come to terms with. Still, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt. A memory like a phantom limb, because this man...
He should mean nothing to her, and yet here they both are.
“You constructed a new lightsaber,” he says, looking at the lightsaber she’s made from parts she’s found. It’s not like it’s perfect — it’s very much a case of parts that she’s salvaged from different crates on the Falcon, but it’s her lightsaber, and that’s what matters.
“None of your business,” she finally says.
“I was stating a fact.” He sounds almost hurt, almost like what she says matters to him.
“Why are you here, Ben?” She would have been happy to forget about him. Like he really was nothing to her, really. Like he really didn’t matter at all. Just a relationship gone wrong, when she recognized the same abandonment — if different circumstances — that she felt.
“I don’t know any more than you do. I thought killing Snoke...”
He trails off.
“Ben,” Rey says, “Did killing Snoke give you closure? Did you find what you were looking for?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
But it does matter, more than Ben wants to admit. Killing Snoke hasn’t given him closure; it’s just left him more lost than ever. A whole maelstrom of pain, similar to what she’s felt all along.
“Was it worth everything you did?”
Ben actually looks like he doesn’t have an answer to that. Rey continues. “I cared about you, Ben. I thought...not like we had something. But I knew what it was like being lonely, and you just threw that away.”
A beat.
“You think you meant...nothing to me?” It’s like a slow realization is creeping over Ben. Small, but there. He isn’t about to renounce the Dark Side. Rey knows that much.
Rey nods.
Kylo is quiet for a while. Then, “The moment I sensed you on Takodana, I knew that there was someone else. Someone else who knew loneliness, who knew abandonment...as I did. And I thought, just a moment, that there was something beyond the galaxy I knew. I hurt you.” A beat. “I regret it, Rey. More than you know, I regret it. Hurting Poe, hurting you...I never enjoyed the interrogations, but it was a lot like hurting parts of me.”
Rey nods, still astounded. Of all the things that she expected to hear from Kylo, it definitely wasn’t this.
“Who are we, Ben?”
“We can’t be lovers. In the end, I think it is too complex for that. Perhaps...we are who we are, and we don’t need to be more.”
Rey swallows.
“But you are a rarity, and I wish I had seen that earlier.”
Rey looks away. She can already feel the sting of tears in her eyes — something that is nothing new when it comes to Kylo. They can’t be lovers. What they’ve done for and to each other defies what any relationship between lovers, family, or friends could do.
Perhaps, in the end, they are who they are, no more, no less. Weird kinship, maybe. And Rey can have peace with that.
"Rey.”
She looks at him. “I’m all right.”
For the first time in a while, though she shouldn’t, she feels fine.
Summary: Not long after Crait, Rey and Kylo speak through the Force Bond once more.
Prompt: Secret Messages
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
The Force Bond should have died down by now. Rey knows that much. And yet here they are. She’s sitting in her room in the Millennium Falcon, facing, not for the first time, the man that she left behind on Crait.
It wasn’t like it didn’t hurt. She can still remember, even closing the door of the Millennium Falcon on him, something akin to wondering if that was what it felt like. An amputation without anaesthetic, maybe. An amputation that was needed, because in that moment, it was like it had got infected, it had to be amputated —
It was an uncomfortable truth she had to come to terms with. Still, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt. A memory like a phantom limb, because this man...
He should mean nothing to her, and yet here they both are.
“You constructed a new lightsaber,” he says, looking at the lightsaber she’s made from parts she’s found. It’s not like it’s perfect — it’s very much a case of parts that she’s salvaged from different crates on the Falcon, but it’s her lightsaber, and that’s what matters.
“None of your business,” she finally says.
“I was stating a fact.” He sounds almost hurt, almost like what she says matters to him.
“Why are you here, Ben?” She would have been happy to forget about him. Like he really was nothing to her, really. Like he really didn’t matter at all. Just a relationship gone wrong, when she recognized the same abandonment — if different circumstances — that she felt.
“I don’t know any more than you do. I thought killing Snoke...”
He trails off.
“Ben,” Rey says, “Did killing Snoke give you closure? Did you find what you were looking for?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
But it does matter, more than Ben wants to admit. Killing Snoke hasn’t given him closure; it’s just left him more lost than ever. A whole maelstrom of pain, similar to what she’s felt all along.
“Was it worth everything you did?”
Ben actually looks like he doesn’t have an answer to that. Rey continues. “I cared about you, Ben. I thought...not like we had something. But I knew what it was like being lonely, and you just threw that away.”
A beat.
“You think you meant...nothing to me?” It’s like a slow realization is creeping over Ben. Small, but there. He isn’t about to renounce the Dark Side. Rey knows that much.
Rey nods.
Kylo is quiet for a while. Then, “The moment I sensed you on Takodana, I knew that there was someone else. Someone else who knew loneliness, who knew abandonment...as I did. And I thought, just a moment, that there was something beyond the galaxy I knew. I hurt you.” A beat. “I regret it, Rey. More than you know, I regret it. Hurting Poe, hurting you...I never enjoyed the interrogations, but it was a lot like hurting parts of me.”
Rey nods, still astounded. Of all the things that she expected to hear from Kylo, it definitely wasn’t this.
“Who are we, Ben?”
“We can’t be lovers. In the end, I think it is too complex for that. Perhaps...we are who we are, and we don’t need to be more.”
Rey swallows.
“But you are a rarity, and I wish I had seen that earlier.”
Rey looks away. She can already feel the sting of tears in her eyes — something that is nothing new when it comes to Kylo. They can’t be lovers. What they’ve done for and to each other defies what any relationship between lovers, family, or friends could do.
Perhaps, in the end, they are who they are, no more, no less. Weird kinship, maybe. And Rey can have peace with that.
"Rey.”
She looks at him. “I’m all right.”
For the first time in a while, though she shouldn’t, she feels fine.
