To Be So Lonely // Ben Solo

14

Cyra awoke peacefully, this time. There was a distant humming, a machine, she was guessing. Her eyes remained closed, as she could see the bright florescent through her eyelids and was not ready to be overwhelmed by them.  She started to move her toes underneath the blanket, bringing them together, and wiggling against the strict blanket covering her. She stretched her hands out when she started to feel them sitting against her hips, but her left hand broke from being held. She felt her brows crease.

"It's me," he mumbled.

Cyra's fingers flinched, and he slipped his hand back into hers. She blinked her eyes open, wincing at the light. She turned her head towards him, pulling her other hand from under the covers to wipe at her watering eyes.

He looked peaceful as he sat beside her bed. Surely different from the last place she remembered seeing him, the Supremacy. His hair fell in soft waves around his face, his face was relaxed. He moved from his tattered clothes and into a better arrangement of the same outfit, though there was now a cape over his shoulders. The scar across his face was a pale pink and was no longer stitched together. He watched Cyra with his head tilted, blinking slowly.

"The Troopers who shot you were taken care of," he muttered. His hand fell from hers and slid up her wrist, revealing her bandaged forearm to her. "One shot was a skim, burned off some of your skin, but they were able to patch it together."

Cyra's hand fell underneath her collarbone, where she felt another padded bandage. Ben nodded for confirmation. "Went straight through the tissue. He shot high enough to miss anything vital. Your leg is fine, as well. You lost a lot of blood, but everything was able to be fixed. You'll just have a few scars."

"Hope you don't mind," mumbled Cyra groggily.

Ben smiled softly, shaking his head. His hand reached for her face, sitting underneath her jaw. "No, I don't."

"It adds character," she added.

"It does," he said, nodding. "I should go and let you rest. It's only been a few hours since they stopped operating."

Cyra protested. "I want to know what happened, Ben. On the Supremacy, why you guys were on Crait. What's going to happen to me and you with Snoke dead?"

Ben insisted nothing happened on the Supremacy, beyond a maneuver pulled by the last Resistance craft to lightspeed jump through the ship. The impact knocked out both he and Rey. Because Rey was the first one to recover, she took Cyra and Snoke's craft and left. The remaining Resistance transports landed on Crait and barricaded themselves into the old Rebel Base, where the First Order then tried to capture them.

"Skywalker was there," said Ben quietly. His hands tensed. "He projected himself from wherever he was, distracted me long enough for the Resistance to escape."

"Luke?" asked Cyra. "Did he say anything?"

"He apologized. But it doesn't matter. What's done is done," said Ben. He took his hands from Cyra and stood, turning his back on her.

His distance from her caused her to watch him carefully. She asked what he did.

"I didn't do anything. He's dead. He died saving the Resistance, the effort to project himself killed him," he explained.

Cyra lowered her head. She imagined his sorrow for Luke's loss was not as great as the one for his father; most of his hatred stemmed from the fault Luke made that fateful night. Her own heart hurt, mourning for the memory of Luke in her childhood. But she knew his death was not for nothing. His actions helped preserve the Resistance, he died with purpose, and with reason to make up for his running from the fight. Luke and Cyra were not all that different, she thought--both aiming to redeem themselves from their instinct to run from doing the right thing.

"And what of us?" she asked.

Ben's chin turned past his shoulder. He did not turn.

"The Resistance got away and the First Order lost again," she told him. "But you won. You killed Snoke and you got me back. So, what of us? What's to happen now that the First Order is without a leader?"

Ben turned to face her, though his eyes remained away from hers. His wrists crossed in front him. He exuded shame, as he told her his new title, where before, he would have been proud. He could not feign the pride in front of the woman who knew his every thought and feeling. She knew his conflicted heart, his tight-walk between the Light and the Dark. He had asked her to join him to settle his heart, but the night in the Throne room changed it all. It changed his duties.

Cyra lost all the kindness in her face. She heard his words and her face fell before it twisted into that of anger, of disappointment. "You're not serious."

"I was next in line."

"You lied," snapped Cyra. "You said you didn't care about any of it, so long as you got me, you said we could renounce it all--the First Order, the Resistance."

Ben continued over her. "I didn't lie about protecting you. I now have political and military control of the First Order. You are safe from it all. The Resistance will need time to form enough ranks to foil another attack, of which we do not have planned. For now, we will focus on maintaining our presence in the major systems. When you recover, you will rule beside me."

"Like hell I will," she snapped.

He took a deep breath. "You chose me--"

"I chose Ben," corrected Cyra. He was brave enough to look up at her for a second before her angry eyes forced his away again. "I chose Ben, not Supreme Leader Kylo Ren. You can lie to your colleagues and the whole of the First Order, but you can't lie to me, not when I've seen your heart. You're not as far into the deep end as you think you are. All you are is an angry little boy who ran away from home because you were scared! You got yourself into all of this because you couldn't escape being that same too-proud Solo boy who never saw himself in the wrong!"

Ben had enough. He let out a growl, ripping his lightsaber from his side, and igniting it. Cyra shrieked, throwing her hands out in front of her. She didn't notice her eyes slam shut, awaiting for impact, until her ears recognized the sound of the saber slashing against metal. She watched him thrash his saber against the machinery along the wall across from her bed, punching the melting panels, kicking them, until the wall was a glowing red painting of fury, and he retracted his lightsaber then turned on his heel and left without so much as a look to her.