Help Me Understand

Supposed to Hate

You'll fight this war from the outside, I'll fight it from the inside.

Those were the last words you'd whispered to Poe as you held him tightly, right before he left and you became a prisoner again.

Fighting a war alone, without an army, without even a fragment of a battle plan.

And you were fighting an enemy that you didn't actually hate.

You wanted to hate him. You really, really wanted to hate the man. He deserved it, after all. He deserved it one hundred times over.

But you didn't truly hate him. You surely hated the things he did, but you still couldn't hate him. You just couldn't.

Not after you'd seen the man he really is. The kind of man that carries his prisoner to the medical wing after she almost drowned. Braids her hair while she was asleep. Still feels raw pain when he thinks about his uncle's utter betrayal.

That certainly didn't mean that you weren't absolutely, completely enraged with Kylo.

But it meant that no matter how much you tried and how badly you wanted to, you just couldn't bring yourself to truly hate him.

You mindlessly flipped the page of the book you were reading. It'd been two full days since you'd seen Kylo. Since you'd resumed your status as his prisoner.

A small part of you wanted to just talk with him, ask him what the hell he intended to do now. But the overwhelming part of you wanted to scream at him until your throat was raw and your voice was gone.

But you hadn't gotten the opportunity to do either of those. After Poe was gone, Kylo had his Knights escort you to the room you'd occupied before, not saying another word to you. Most likely letting you cool off before he came to you.

He gave you something to keep you busy, however. After his Knights had brought you to the room and left you there, you saw a stack of nearly a dozen books on your nightstand.

The book you were flipping through now, something of an adventure novel, was the third one in the stack. At this rate, you'd need a lot more books.

Besides the books, you noticed some other things he provided for you. Nice smelling shampoo and conditioner, scented body wash, fresh clothes. He was making you comfortable here, stocking the room as if you were a hotel guest rather than a prisoner.

And it made you even angrier.

If this asshole thought he could bribe you, buy his way into your goods graces, he had another thing coming.

The sound of blast doors opening caught your attention, followed by the sound of heavy boots entering the room.

You were lying on your side, facing the wall, and therefore unable to see who was entering. But if it was like any other time, you knew that it was a Stormtrooper delivering a meal to you.

Your meal from the previous day was still on your nightstand, practically untouched. You ate a little bit of the food, enough to keep your stomach from growling, but you didn't have enough of an appetite to eat more than the bare minimum.

You heard a deep, very familiar voice. "You need to eat, Little One."

You froze, your hand dangling above the page you were about to turn. Apparently, the person in charge of delivering your food today was not a Stormtrooper.