What She's Worth (Reylo)

Chapter 3

He was a little boy again, surrounded by the upturned, the cracked and the broken. He could feel hot tears streaming down his face when he saw his parents standing at the doorway, their expressions laced with sheer terror.

"I'm sorry Daddy! I'm sorry Mommy! I didn't mean to do it! I didn't—"

They turned their backs in answer and stepped out, the light from the door leaving nothing of their forms but silhouettes and shadows.

"Mommy! Daddy! Don't leave me! I'll be good, I promise. I'll be good, please!"

The door slammed shut and darkness engulfed him. He turned and turned, blindly feeling around until he tripped and fell hard, pain shooting from almost every part of his small body.

A spark of light in the distance glowed brighter and morphed into the cloaked form of his uncle. He looked up at the older man's blue eyes, pleading with him for something he couldn't describe. But Luke only shook his head, pulled up his hood, and like his parents, turned and walked away.

"Uncle Luke..."

Laughter rumbled all around him. The darkness suddenly had eyes. Had mouths open wide in collective amusement.

Fingers pointing.

Insults flying.

He'd never felt so small.

So alone.

So unwanted.

"So weak..."

That voice. It had been his constant companion through the years. Deep. Rasping. Cutting.

He curled up into a ball and covered his ears, doing what he could to muffle the voice but he always failed. It was in his head. Always in his head.

"So, so weak, yet they have no inkling, how strong you actually are."

His eyes flew open, and it was there, standing over him, its mangled face blurry through the haze of his tears.

"The strength...the power coursing through your body, your very being. I can see and feel it like no one can. If you would only allow me—"

Another voice in the distance. Calling for him. Echoing through the oblivion, as though from a distant cave. He tore his eyes away from his childhood phantom and turned to see...

Light.

Pouring in from the window of his quarters.

Ben blinked and sat up slowly from bed. Another nightmare. That wasn't new. But that other voice. Familiar yet one he hadn't heard for a while now. A voice he'd rather not even think about and yet here he was, thinking about it.

Thinking about her.

He growled and headed towards his personal 'fresher, just like he always did at this time of the morning. Every day was supposed to be like clockwork. Wake up, take a bath, eat, train, eat, train some more, eat, then sleep. That should have been his routine from the very beginning. Only, that wasn't how things started. And now, after bathing and dressing up, he found himself once again standing at the doorway of his room and staring out at an empty hallway.

Well, good riddance to that, he thought as he closed his door and headed for breakfast. No more morning greetings, no more incessant questions, no more babysitting. Maybe now he can concentrate on more important things. Like surviving the next several years with his sanity intact.

He trudged towards the mess hall, feet dragging against the floor. He stopped for a moment and looked behind him.

Nothing. Not even a shadow of a movement. What did he expect anyway? He'd practically told the kid to board the nearest freighter and blast off to the Outer Rim.