Wayward [Kylo Ren]

VI

VI

Kaida couldn't believe what she just heard.

"You...what?" She was utterly, genuinely confused.

Ben kept his eyes on hers. "I need your help."

"I don't...understand." But then it clicked for her: "I know what you're trying to do. You're trying to appeal to my empathy somehow. I don't know what this is exactly, but I won't fall into the trap."

"You...you think this is a trap?" Ben's eyes turned pitiful, and Kaida was almost pitying him. "This...What you've seen, Kaida, it's an act. I have to put on a show so nobody can see what's really going on."

"And what's really going on, Ben?"

"I...I'm lost."

Kaida's surprise perked at his...defeated tone. And the fact that he hadn't scolded her for using his real name. "Lost? And you're just now realizing it? Ben, you were lost a long time ago, and you didn't see it then."

"It's because I wasn't...me, then. I wasn't...right in the head."

"Well, you're not wrong." You still aren't.

Ben put his face in his gloved hands. "I...Something's...It's hard to explain."

"And you expect me to listen? Why don't you tell this to your Jedi slaughtering friends?"

"It would defeat the purpose of trying to find my way back."

Kaida let the words run through her mind. "What are you saying?"

"I regret what I've done. I can't reverse the damage, but I can at least change to prevent anymore. I can't do it alone, Kaida. I need someone to show me the way."

"And that someone would be me? A Jedi, who you've abducted, interrogated, and slightly tortured?" Kaida snapped. "You missed your chance of redemption when you turned your back on the Light Side, on all of us." On me. On your family.

"I don't think it's too late. I'm not too far gone, Kaida."

She squinted suspiciously. "And what prompted you to get this revelation in that brain of yours?"

"You." He cleared his throat. "When we tracked you down. I hadn't known it was you and Axel at the time."

"Don't put my brother's name into your mouth."

"Seeing you...it woke something inside of me, Kaida. Maybe it's will. Maybe it's...hope. But it's something, and it feels like something...good. I don't want to let it go. It hasn't gone since you've been around."

Kaida was still very wary of what Ben was spewing to her. She didn't want to believe this act. It had to be an act. To pull a one-eighty like this? Something felt off to her. "How do I know that this is real? That this isn't some ploy in some twisted scheme of yours?"

"I would say that I've never lied to you, but that's a lie in itself. I need you to trust me. I know I'm...different now, but it's a façade, Kai."

She cringed at the nickname. "Kai". Only her friends, and Axel, called her that.

Ben sighed loudly. "I know you don't believe me, but believe through the Force. Use it if you must to realize that I'm telling you the truth. I want the change. I can make it happen, with your help. I can get us all out of here. When I do, we can start."

Kaida pursed her lips. This stunk all kinds of bantha fodder to her. But maybe it was from the mental fight she'd had with him, but some part of her wanted to believe this. She wanted to believe that he wanted to go back to the Light Side. That he wanted her to help him make it there.

That he wanted to return to being Ben Solo, if that person even existed still.

"If you can prove it to me, then perhaps I might help you," she finally said crossly.

Ben's face didn't change. "I'll do whatever I can."

It was the one thing that Kaida had always admired about Ben: his tenacity. His determination. His insistence—or perhaps, persistence. She admired the drive he had in his soul. She'd felt it through the Force when they were younger.

But she'd also felt that drive under a dark influence.

And there it was again: the doubt. The caution. Could she think to put her trust into a person who was obviously the villain in this situation? Could she allow herself to throw her neck out there, knowing that if she was wrong about this, she and Axel could die?

Kaida wondered now if Axel had been listening to this entire conversation.

Quietly, Ben slipped out of Kaida's cell, leaving the said Jedi speechless with a lot to ponder.

She didn't have long to think, because her twin's voice came from the other side of the wall: "You don't actually buy that do you?"

"You...you weren't in here, Axel," she said dryly.

"So what if he tried to play the pity card? Something feels off, Kai. You must see this."

Kaida looked down at her hands. "What if it's just your instincts being wrong?"

"They haven't been. I can't say the same about yours."

Her hands tightened into fists. "At the time, he wasn't lost."

"But he ended up that way. And I told you, didn't I? Countless times, I warned you. But you insisted that he wasn't hiding something, that nothing was wrong with him."

"Now isn't the time to bring my...life into this." Kaida had almost let the word "love" slip off her tongue. Even though she felt the emotion, some part of her felt tongue-tied. Like saying "love" out loud was a sin.

Well, for Jedi, having attachments was forbidden, according to the Code. But that was the old Code, the old ways, Kaida told herself. Even Master Skywalker wanted to try and let the rules be more lenient.

"I don't want this to kill you, Kai," Axel told her softly. "You're all I've got left. We're all we've got left. I can't...I'm not sure what'll happen if I lose you."

A smile touched Kaida's lips. She loved her twin brother, it was the strongest, more enduring kind of love that she felt in her heart. More than her brief...romantic period in her life. "You'd be alright, Ax. You'd keep going. I would do the same if I...I lost you." She had to swallow down the fear. She knew better than to fear.

Here I am, when the Jedi are near extinction, worrying about the morals and Code. Why am I still trying to follow the rules? They're dismantled, the Jedi are few. It's time to stop living in that past and focus on the present so that I can live to see the future. 

**Do you guys believe Kylo/Ben, in his quest for redemption? Or are you on Axel's side and believe he's up to something, and that whatever it is can get Kaida hurt and killed?**