Will of the Many~ Poe Dameron

Just as they use to be...

I must get my soul back from you; I am killing my flesh without it...

-Unknown

Serena looked out her bedroom window, but she didn't see anything. She pressed her nails into her palms but didn't feel any pain. She took in each slow breath but didn't feel the life circling inside of her. She was numb, she always thought she knew what that felt like, she was comfortable living with the numbness because it was soothing. But now... now she realized the difference between living in a void and living without feeling. 

Before she lived in a void that swallowed her whole, she was barely wading up to her neck, gasping for each next breath just to assure her survival. Then, she had a glimpse of what it was like to truly live. Not just to survive, but to bask in the rain and laugh- not out of spite- but because she enjoyed herself. But... just as quickly as it came, it left and now that she knew what it was like, she knew the true desperation that came with being numb. There was no wading just above water, she was drowning with no surface in sight.

"Serena?"

"Not now, Ren." Serena dismissed him without a second thought. "It's late."

"And you feel something for the pilot..."

Serena turned around to smite him, but stopped with her mouth hanging open as she saw him standing just by her bed without his mask on. She took in a sharp breath as she met his dark, quizzing eyes. 

"It's not like that, Ren, and you know it." She tried to keep the edge to her voice, but it broke at the last second and neared desperation. 

He took a step towards her. The small space of her personal quarters didn't allow for much room, so the single step let him tower just in front of her. 

She lifted her eyes to look up at him through her pale eyelashes. His crooked jaw clenched just enough for her to watch the tendon bulge out along its sharp edge. His dark, deep eyes flickered over her face as he soaked her in. 

"Then tell me what it is like," His voice was soft without the mask and the disguise. "Tell me so I can understand what it was like for you out there, because the Serena who is standing in front of me right now... is not the Serena I knew a year ago."

She closed her eyes as the tips of her brows scrunched together. She nodded her head in slight understanding. "I know I'm not..." She slowly opened her eyes. Without even trying she lifted her gaze to meet his. She saw so much of Leia in them and through that- so much of the old him, before Kylo Ren and the First Order. The him she met back when they were training to be Jedi Knights.  "I don't know what happened either, if I'm honest." Her petite shoulders raised in a pathetic attempt to convey her true confusion. "But... I want to get back to the old me, the me you know." She nodded her head as she tried to convince him. "Just... give me time to find her again."

Kylo Ren tilted his head down as he looked between her amber eyes. They were the same eyes he dreamt of while she was away. Though... he did notice a slight shift in them, a softness he hadn't seen in almost half a decade. It startled him and reminded him of older days- simpler days. 

He lifted his hand to cup her almost translucent cheek. His touch was tender as he lifted her jaw up so she looked at him fully. 

Serena's breath stalled in her lungs as she refused to move. His leather glove chilled her cheek and threatened to expose goosebumps over her entire body. 

"Okay," He whispered with an unfamiliarly soft voice. 

She gulped as she looked between his eyes. She had never recalled a time in the past six years where he had touched her with so much care.