Confronting Fear

Confrontation

We could be perfect one last night
And die like star-crossed lovers when we fight
And we can settle this affair
If you would shed your yellow
Take my hand and then
We'll solve the mystery of laceration gravity
This riddle of revenge
Please understand it has to be this way

Our Lady of Sorrows - My Chemical Romance

"Rey, Rey wait!" Ben called desperately as the Jedi stalked out of the lift. She rounded on him, Darkness in her eyes.

Rey's boiling aura reached a level of rage even he wasn't aware she could reach... and she'd nearly killed him multiple times! The meeting could not have possibly gone worse.

Rey was right. He thought bitterly. There was more to that meeting than just hearing Pryde out.

"You've been keeping this from me?!?" she screeched, her face flushed red. The only one who had ever had the power to truly terrorize Ben was Snoke but Rey was quickly approaching that level.

"You don't understand."

"What don't I understand Ben? I thought we were passed this. Here I have been thinking we could have a future together and you've been making plans to expand this awful thing?" there were tears of rage in her eyes now.

Her stinging accusations put Ben on the defensive.

"I was hoping in time you'd understand how good this could be. Imagine if we could rebuild the First Order into something good, something that made the galaxy better and there was no need for the Republic? It's like you said Rey, using the Darkness to create something good."

Rey stood perfectly still despite her aura turning like a hurricane. Her voice took on the deadly calm of an executioner reading off a list of charges before swinging the axe. "You're not seeking to build something good you're still seeking peace through domination. I told you before Ben, that will not work and I have no intention of trying." Without another word Rey turned on her heel, entering her own room with the equivalent of a slammed door.

Ben knew better than to follow her. He also knew that if he couldn't calm her down before they left tomorrow they had no chance of surviving the trip to Ambria.

Rey threw herself on her bed, hot tears blurring the blue and green of the comforter into one teal color.

HOW.COULD.HE????

The Light had grown in him so much since she'd come here, it was almost equal to the Darkness. Enough that Rey had let down the walls she had so carefully constructed over the course of her life, enough that she'd let him in. Had she made a mistake as Poe and Finn believed? Was she foolish to think he could ever change?

She was sorely tempted to run, to take her ship and leave. But, she couldn't go back to Crait. Though she had never told Ben the location he had surely figured it out by now, he'd been in her head often enough. He'd regress even further back and she had no doubt as Kylo Ren he'd make good on his long ago promise to chase her down. He'd probably hurt her friends too. Rey was suddenly painfully aware that she was probably the only thing keeping him in check. In so many ways, she was still just as much a prisoner of Kylo Ren as she had been the first night she'd slept in this room.

Her hesitancy to run extended deeper than those very real fears. After all how could she run when even now, as angry as she was, she could feel the Force pulling her towards him? But she wouldn't, couldn't stay as his prisoner. She'd never let him control her, either as Ben Solo or Kylo Ren.

Never.

The acrid smell of burning plasteel filled Ben's nose in a cloud of hazy smoke.
Smoldering gashes covered the walls, sparking wires the floor. The training room was completely destroyed, more thoroughly than he had ever managed before and his rage was no where near sated. In a high pitched howl of frustration he removed his leather gloves and launched himself at a pillar that was somehow still standing, beating it with his bare fists.