Keeping Your Promise

It Can Wait

Summary: Some things are better left unsaid.

The ringing silence of the elevator lied in stark contrast with the bustling chaos currently inhabiting the rest of the Finalizer, though it was hardly a relief. The quiet was no salve, only allowing the roaring thoughts to claw deeper into your skull, your head pounding as fingers dug into red, wet eyes. No amount of physical torture would ever compare to the unrelenting wound encapsulating the entirety of your soul, knowing it would be less enduring to physically rip out your own heart than to eviscerate the connection you'd formed with Kylo.

Just an hour ago you would have given anything to never think of him again, spending every thought half-wishing your head would already leave your body so you didn't have to think about any of it anymore, growing in the belief that there was nothing left to fight for any longer. Now, as you stood with hiccuped breath and unwanted tears, there was an undeniable truth that at least one thing still mattered, the very thing – person – who'd prompted the hopeless outlook to begin with. Snoke gave you an ultimatum, but in doing so had offered insight into the mind you so deeply wished you could read.

That is what made the task so sickening, made your chest contort with an inexorable plague of guilt, made your cheeks burn with the friction of quick hands wiping away the infinite supply of torment weeping down your face – Kylo Ren held you in his thoughts, too. The possibility had sparsely crossed your mind for the past month, your own head too busy wasting time chasing an answer you didn't want, one you learned was barely Kylo's to give. Worsening the constant and blaring ache was the confusion you felt when considering the fact that Snoke didn't have to tell you anything other than your task; it ate at your sanity to think if this blinding guilt was a purposeful manipulation or if it was your own doing, nails digging into the heels of your hands while you questioned the reality you'd been thrust into.

Multiple attempts at words were made in the upward catapult towards your duty, tears suffocating any practice efforts, the thoughts themselves barely finishing in their cognitive state. I hate you, you would have to say, the mere thought inspiring an image of the guarded brokenness they would outfit the face of their recipient. It would be more complicated than that. You would have to work at convincing him, at convincing yourself, that they were true; the conversation would never end there, those first three words being the foundation for the very obliteration of two souls, not just the one they were intended for.

The floor indicator rocketed upward with the apparatus, slowing as you neared the place – the home – you were meant to return to much earlier, regarding the radar on your watch indicated you wouldn't be alone when you got there. Inverse to the slowing machine was your heart, picking up as you clawed away at the betraying tears, hoping it would still be too dim for him to notice your puffy face, knowing there was nothing that would disguise the pain which resided in your voice. There was no courage to be built up in performing such a wicked act, only the presence of a previously unimaginable amount of shame to accompany you in your journey towards both life and death – living past your trial to lay witness to the murder of a considerable piece of your heart.

With two floors left before the doors were to shoot open, you considered what you were ensuring in doing this. Snoke had promised you a life and a license, but in questioning what would happen if you denied him, he'd in turn threatened another life that had already been threatened by the very person you were instructed to destroy. Mason had been unfairly roped into the tragedy that had become your life; if it was the last thing you did in this realm, you were going to do everything in your power to keep him from becoming collateral damage. He had already endured too much of what was intended for you, and to even imagine him dead because of you – not only in place of you – was to have another crack splinter upwards from the apex of your heart.