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What was time, but a construct? At this point he swore it was simply something that existed back when he was…what…alive? Possibly living was also a construct, he wasn’t sure.
Kylo Ren had thought he’d been a master of the concept of “existing,” but his past was nothing compared to this. His former days, going from one battle to another had once felt like just existing. Going from one moment to another, waiting for something more, waiting to be something more, to do something more, turned out to be real time, and living. Wasn’t that an ironic bitch?
Because now he was caught in a loop. A never ending existence of reviewing what was, with no hope of what might be. Because there would never be a future.
He used to think that he lived in hell, a boy stuck in a man’s body. Always fighting everything, even himself. Wanting to go home, to be safe, to be loved, yet knowing there was no safe home, no loving to be had. The best love he could find was that which Snoke gave him, and he spent every moment of his life trying to live up to Snoke’s hope and expectations. Morals? Ethics? What were these but shadows of a weak mind. There was no room for them with Snoke.
At least…not until her. And he couldn’t, he wouldn’t let himself dwell on that. He’d rather float here, his mind on endless repeat of the years of pain, suffering and torture, than think about her. Because she represented what could be. Hope. Love. Contentment.
None of these things were destined to exist for Kylo. No. His destiny lied here, in what must be true hell, amidst the never ending blue. Some days he was able to close his eyes and pretend he was elsewhere in the now. It was never anywhere pleasant. He knew instinctively that he once lay in the grass, blue butterflies magically flying around him. But he couldn’t bring up that image - it was only words. No, his existence was being surrounded by blue, by memories or if he was “lucky,” an endless snow. Hoth, maybe? Or sometimes if he was “really lucky,” he found himself on the sands of the desert. Jakku, perhaps? No. Tattooine. Jakku was too closely linked to her. But they weren’t real. They were silent. No sounds of swirling snow or sand. No far off echoes of living beings trying to stay alive.
Even with the lack of unrealism, it wasn’t all bad. He didn’t actually feel the cold, the sun. He didn’t feel the pain he knew he should - remnants from when she stabbed him with the lightsaber. From him falling down the rocks on Exegol and breaking his leg. No, the only things he ever felt, were in his memories. And if he clung to the memory of pain as Snoke hit him with lightning, over and over again, just to feel, well, that was no one else's business but his own.
Because he was most definitely alone. No one else was here. No one was coming for him.
***
It wasn’t all bad. Knowing the fact that he was well and truly alone, that no one was coming for him, wasn’t necessarily the soul sucking emptiness one would think. He was Kylo Ren, after all. He’d spent most of his life knowing no one was coming for him. At least here, no one could hurt him. No one but himself. And even in that, he couldn’t physically hurt himself. There was nothing to grab, to hurt himself with. Nothing to hit himself against. He tried punching himself, but it’s like he wasn’t really there.
Sometimes he wished he could try and puzzle this out. How he could see himself against the endless blue, but there he couldn’t really feel himself. He was like a ghost, but the only ghosts he knew truly existed were Force ghosts and he knew enough to know that wasn’t what he was. He wouldn’t be alone, for one. Luke would be by his side every moment, tormenting him, and the fact that he wasn’t, was probably one of the best things about all of this.
So instead he closed his eyes just to escape the monotony, and let his past take him over.
The look in their eyes as he stabbed through them with his lightsaber. The way the fire played against the darkness as he set fire to villages. The screams, the begging - they became his friends. Literal music to his ears, as otherwise there would be nothing but silence.
Yet another irony. He’d spent his entire life wanting nothing but silence. The voices in his head, his constant companions, falling just short of driving him mad. He’d longed for silence. Wished he’d been able to truly feel the peace that Luke and the others had reportedly felt while meditating. Now…now the silence was everywhere but in his memories. He clung to them like a non Force user in a rising river, holding to a branch and hoping it wasn’t going to snap.
The Force. Ah, the Force. He remembered it like he remembered the butterflies: they were just words. He remembered that there was once a heady rush of power. The knowledge that he could do whatever he needed to. That it would never fail to help him stay alive. That’s probably why he didn’t feel it anymore. He didn’t know what he was, but he knew he wasn’t alive. Besides, if he had the Force here, he’d probably just let his anger take over and slash away at the endless blue, hoping to make it bleed. And how pointless would that be?
Anger, expelling it and letting it drain him…surely that act would weaken him. Make him rest. Make him sleep. Allow him to feel something other than this endless nothing.
Which was probably why he didn’t have it. He didn’t deserve that type of rest.
***
Sometimes he just closed his eyes and let himself float. At least when his eyes were closed it was black. He’d always thought blue was his favorite color, but now…now it absolutely was not. As far as he was concerned, the color could disappear right off the spectrum and everything would be better.
He’d scream at moments like these, if he could. But there was no voice. No sound to be made or had. He’d never thought that he’d miss the sound of his own voice.
He was starting to think of her more now. He wasn’t sure if it was making him more mad, or more sane, but it was at least a nice change. When he remembered her, he remembered passion. Goodness. Everything he wasn’t. If he had the ability to dream, to pretend, to create, he would build a made up world that existed of the two of them. Draw on the light that was her, and take some of it for himself.
But he couldn’t do that. So instead he just watched her like reels in his mind, from the anger she harbored towards him, to those tender moments that might have turned the course of his life.
His favorite memory, he watched as often as possible. He remembered how she looked, so young, so impressionable. So…wet. It must have rained where she was, as her damp hair fell across her shoulders. The firepit in front of her keeping her warm, and she was reaching towards him. He was reaching for her and their fingers almost touched. They were so close. Just. One. Stretch. More.
Then the world turned upside down, and he felt a jolt, a wrench in the pit of his stomach that would have made him vomit out the contents, had he eaten. His eyes closed against the swirl of colors, the flashes of blue, of black, of white, and he felt, for the first time in…well he really had no idea.
His shoulders slammed to the ground and he grunted in pain, feeling the tears welling up in his eyes. The nausea, the pain, the sound. He didn’t remember his breath being so loud. It hurt to breathe. Everything hurt. And what was that noise? It was a gut wrenching sob, a keening, and he felt it in his bones. If this was what it was like to feel, he didn’t want any part of it. He just wanted to go back to floating. Why wasn’t he floating anymore?
“Ben?”
He froze. The sound he’d been hearing instantly quieted and he wondered if that noise had been coming from him. Was that possible? What was happening? He felt around, expecting to feel nothing as usual, but he felt something hard with one hand (the ground?), and something soft with the other (flesh?). His mind raced to try and comprehend, but the silence of his mind was still there, refusing to let go.
“Kylo?”
He roared in anger. Wait. Anger? Emotions? What were emotions? But no, he knew anger, knew it like it was a long lost, most familiar friend and it was back.
He flipped over and dug his fingers into the ground, feeling it give beneath him. Sand, he thought. It was sand. Damn it, why was it always Tattooine? He hated that it was one of the only places he could picture, and he’d thought he hated that it felt unrealistic, but now that he was feeling it in all it’s glory: the sun beating down on his skin, the itchy sand flowing through his fingers, well, this was much, much worse.
He intuitively knew what was going to hit him next before it did, and he roared with anger as it did. Thirst. Hunger. He didn’t know how long it had been since he’d taken care of any needs of the flesh, being as he hadn’t had flesh. He decided he didn’t miss it.
He felt his fingers ball into fists, and he pounded the sand repeatedly, relishing in the painful vibrations jolting up his arms. Hell, he was relishing the feeling of even being able to make a fist at all.
No, it didn’t surprise him at all that the second thing he embraced besides anger, was pain. Pain had been his lifelong companion, after all.
“Ben?”
He stilled this time, now that his senses were starting to exist again. He felt something other than himself, his emotions, his pain. He felt…her.
He slowly opened his eyes, feeling the tears leaking out of them. From the pain, from the anger, from her voice, from the BRIGHTEST FUCKING LIGHT HE’D EVER SEEN, he didn’t know. He slowed his breathing to match hers, as he let his eyes slowly adjust to something that was new, that was different. New. What a concept.
It was sand all right. Might as well have been staring at the sun, but he knew it was just sand reflecting the sun off it. When the pain in his corneas subsided, he pushed himself up to his knees, feeling every movement like a thousand needles stabbing through him. Then he slowly let himself look at something other than sand.
It was a knee. Two of them. They were on the ground next to him, and then there was a hand, and he knew that hand. He’d just been reaching for it on repeat. Only it wasn’t quite the same. He let his gaze follow the hand, up the arm, to her body and finally, to her face.
It was Rey. But it also wasn’t Rey. The youthfulness was gone from her face, and it had rounded out with what could have only been the passage of time. He cocked his head as he gazed at her in wonderment. His mind couldn’t construct this. There was no part of him that could have ever imagined an aged Rey, because he’d only had memories of what had been, not what could be. Which meant…
She flushed red and averted her eyes to the ground, her shoulders slumping. “I know, I look different. I didn’t…it wasn’t supposed to…I didn’t think it would take this long.”
This long? This long to what?
“I had to make sure you’d be safe, Ben. I had to make sure that no one would ever recognize you. I had to make sure that if I was truly able to save you, that you’d stay saved. I wasn’t about to bring you back just for you to stand trial or be killed. I even had to make sure they forgot about me. But now…now no one would ever even think or contemplate your return as a possibility.”
Ben reached up, watching his hand, covered in sand, stretch towards her face. Before it reached her, he remembered she was real. Living. She would feel this sand on his hand and she would not want it on her face. Frowning, he swiped angrily at himself, trying to get the sand bits off. They wouldn’t fall off. They clung to him and he growled.
Then she was taking his hand in hers, and firmly guided it to her face, leaning into it like she didn’t care about the sand one bit. Her eyes fluttered closed and he felt her contentment through the Force.
The Force. Ben felt it slam into his veins, and he yanked his hand away from her, pulling himself to a standing position. He ran, or stumbled, or whatever it was he was doing, running from her. He had to get away before…before…
The excruciating pain in his leg, the nausea, the anger, overwhelmed him and he felt the scream rip out of him as he collapsed. The ground shook and he felt the sand whipping around him as his anger, his emotions, his pain, his confusion, swirled around him. Maybe it was good he was on fucking Tattooine instead of a ship. Surely he’d have ripped the ship right apart and he’d be floating in the frozen nothingness of space right now. (Would he float in space like he’d been all this time, or was death different?) As it was, he wouldn’t be surprised if he’d caused a polar shift in the planet or some such disturbance. If he had, he didn’t care. It was Tattoofuckingine.
But then there was that other feeling. That feeling of rightness. Of comfort. Of softness. Was that what love felt like? It was approaching him slowly, and he felt the storm raging around him start to dissipate.
There were warm, soft arms around him now, and he was sobbing again. With every physical touch, every pulse of the Force, she was comforting him. Possibly she was even audibly telling him it was ok. The rush of blood in his ears wouldn’t allow him to confirm or deny this suspicion.
Then he was collapsing into her arms, and he felt himself fall the rest of the way to the sand. But she didn’t let go. She would never let him go again, he thought. He didn’t know if she was saying it, or if he was feeling it in the Force, but he knew, unequivocally, that it was the truth.
He let himself look up at her face, taking in all of the little changes that he’d missed somehow. He swallowed, licked his lips, and inhaled slowly. He had screamed, right? That meant he could do this, if he focused. It came out more gravelly than he remembered his voice sounding, but at least it was clear.
“You are beautiful, Rey.”
And there it was, that brilliant light radiance that he knew made up his Rey. It shone through her as she grinned down at him, the years practically melting off her face through her relief, her love.
“I love you, Ben.”
And there it was. Everything that had been missing in his life. Those years of torture under Snoke…and however much time it was that he’d been…whatever he’d been. It all faded away, and nothing else mattered but these four words. He wasn’t alone. He would never be alone again. And there was no need to stop himself from saying what he’d felt for so long, now.
“I love you too, Rey.”
The End