Skywalker Rises

A Brutal Reaping

Kylo Ren would never have had this conversation. He wouldn't have stooped so low. But Kylo Ren was dead, and had left Ben holding all of his baggage. For once, Ben wished the portal would open up and swallow him. Maybe Rey would forget about this until the next time she saw him. The look on her face wasn't promising. He halted his internal whinging and tried to find a good place to start.

"Have you heard the expression, 'You reap what you sow'?"

Rey nodded.

"The crossing from the land of the dead to the living is a repository for all of my sins whilst alive. The reaping ground, for lack of a better term."

"That sounds awful."

"Awful is putting it mildly. The Kylo Ren part of me is gone. At first, I didn't trust the transformation. I suspected some of him was still buried deep, and that at the first sign of fear or anger or hate he would come raging back out and take over. So far, so good. I think he's really gone."

"I do, too."

That small affirmation meant the world to him. He placed his trembling hands on his thighs and squeezed to keep the shaking at bay.

"The problem is that I'm still responsible for what Kylo Ren did. I can't shake that off. Those sins adhered to my soul. In order to pass through the portal, or whatever it is, the Force requires me to relive those sins. Over, and over, and over. Each one, in gruesome, realistic detail."

Rey put her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It was my fault. I experience those events as my victims. I watch the monster I used to be hurt people. And I feel what they felt. If the Force deems my repentance true, it allows me to pass from one sin to the next, and decides when to let me through to see you. If I fail, I go back to the land of the dead and start over. It's why it took me so long to get here at first. The pain from those experiences lingers after I'm through."

"Stop doing it!"

"Then I can't see you."

"Oh. But you changed. Why are you still responsible for what you did in the past?"

"It was still me, Rey. Forgiveness and consequences are two different things."

"That sounds like something Leia would say."

"I stole it from her."

"What kind of things?"

"Um, what do you mean?" His stomach twisted with dread.

"What did you do?" Her voice was so soft he barely heard it.

If there was any mercy in the universe, the damn portal would take him back right now. But no wind came to save him.

"Are you sure you want to know?"

She took a deep breath and nodded.

"Imagine the worst possible crimes."

He cringed a little when Rey shifted back, placing more space between them. He wasn't sure if she was conscious of the movement. It was the natural response to a monster. Rey didn't say anything. She just looked at him, waiting. She actually wanted him to talk about what he had done. These women in his life felt the need to make him talk. He prepared himself for the crushing disappointment of never seeing her again. After this, she wouldn't look at him the same way.

And he deserved it. There was to be no happiness for one such as he. Monsters didn't deserve it.

"The worst thing I ever did was stand by whilst the First Order destroyed entire planets."

Rey nodded for him to continue.

"I murdered indiscriminately. I killed my enemies, and anyone else who got in my way."

He paused, and when she still didn't say anything, he decided to stop waiting for her feedback and just plow through the entire mess.

"I killed peaceful members of religious orders. I trained the Knights to cause endless torment in the galaxy. Some of them are still out there, operating on their directives."

He pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, curling in on himself.

"I abandoned my soldiers to their deaths without thought for their lives. I treated people like things. I destroyed homes and families. I tortured and bullied. I allowed myself to become a weapon of lethal rage, to be wielded indiscriminately - a wild animal on a very long leash."

"I killed my father," he whispered.

He knew what was coming next, before she even opened that beautiful mouth. Everyone had a list of unforgivable sins. They thought all sins were bad, all unthinkable, but deep down, a few outweighed the others. Most could be overlooked with evidence of change. He was about to find out what was on Rey's unforgivable list.

"So the portal does to you what you did to others?"

"Yes." He tensed, waiting.

"Did you ever kill a child?" She looked him straight in the eye.

"I am responsible for the deaths of an uncountable number of children. But I never killed a child with my own hands. That is more a result of others protecting their children and removing them from my line of sight. I cannot honestly say that I wouldn't have done so if the situation seemed necessary."

Her lips pressed into a thin line. Was that answer sufficient? He had made a promise to himself that he would never lie to her, even if it meant his words would cause a permanent schism between them. She deserved better; she deserved the truth. If they were going to work together, she had to trust him. The second question was coming. Most people had a few on their lists.

"Rape?"

He hadn't expected that one, but looking at her now, so pale even her lips had lost their color, he wondered what she had experienced on Jakku. She had been alone and unprotected for much of her life, and without the use of the Force. All he could do was hope this wasn't a question birthed from personal trauma.

"Never."

She didn't say anything.

"Not all men with power direct their anger into rape. I cannot speak for anyone else under my command. I never left them much time for such behavior, but I can't say for sure. I will never lie to you, Rey Skywalker. Of all of the many sins I committed, that one is not in the tally."

A muscle in her jaw twitched, and he could hear her teeth clenching.

"OK," she said.

She stood and walked away without another word. He stayed where he was, and waited for the portal to reclaim him. He had thought the portal was the reaping ground. Confessing to a person he loved had been a much more brutal reaping than the portal could ever inflict.