Keeping Your Promise

Take it Back

Summary: The good thing about rock bottom? You can only go up from here.

WARNINGS: PTSD, rape trauma.

The important things are always the most difficult to say; they come with that stomach-churning uncertainty that strikes through your skull and tightens your throat. The moment that first admission comes, though it may be the easiest, there is a lightness to your shoulders that you thought would never return. You knew this. Even so, when you told Mason of the event that preceded your escape from Starkiller, you were a shaking, petrified mess.

Now, sitting on the edge of his bed, eyes bloodshot from two days of crying, you listened to the rhythm of his breath. He was sleeping off the emotional exhaustion you had put him through. The night you had rang his residence had been the worst of it; you could barely speak for those first twelve hours, too preoccupied with thoughts of whatever suffering Kylo Ren had in store for you on Canto Bight, too scared of how Mason would react to the news that you had taken a life.

That second night he had your head pressed to his chest, patience warm in his hold, and you finally felt safe enough to tell him everything – Robbie's involvement, his trespassing, the violation still singeing your veins. Tears framed every word, an eternal blotch forming on Mason's shirt. He could take it all, and he did; no question or comment, only a hand stroking your back and cool breath blowing over your ear.

But that was not what you had been afraid to tell him. Of course it wasn't. The fact that you had endured Robbie's attack was a preface to words you had only spoken once before, and even then you'd believed they would remain only in your mind. A crushing guilt coiled around your rib cage, Mason shushing your sobs, a bitterness flooding your tongue.

Yes, Robbie had hurt you. Yes, Robbie had raped you. Yes, Robbie had permanently marked your life with the pain he had inflicted. You knew all of these things. They were undeniably true. A part of you, though, loud and overwhelming, was reluctant to let you rationalize your actions. In the hours you had spent in the medbay, and even now in the dark of early morning, you fought back the mentality of a true healer does not kill. A true healer would have found another way.

Staring Mason in the eyes, trying to make out his expression through a bleary view, you told him how you had no choice but to act in defense. Robbie was not going to stop; it was him or you. You told Mason how the lights went out and you clung to a life you were unsure if you wanted, only explaining that the scissors had hit the stormtrooper's femoral artery with miraculous precision, not including how you felt the body-hot blood spurt across the backs of your hands. There was no mention of how you watched the tile beneath him bloom with crimson, not a word to describe how your skin buzzed when the door slid shut, leaving him to time.

Kylo Ren was nowhere to be found in your recount; Mason, even with the knowledge that you had taken someone's life, was not ready to hear anything involving his commander or supreme leader. In keeping their involvement in the matter to yourself you were protecting him; Mason would get himself killed if he knew what was hidden beneath his hand-me-down pajamas. It was obvious in the way he would not allow you to be alone during these past two days that you he loved you. And you did love him; not the same as before, but enough to the point where sleeping in his arms was safe, not suffocating.

But even in their safety the nightmares still found you; it was uncertain if they would ever cease, and it worried you to think you were supposed to be broadcast to who knows how many planets in a matter of days. It was surprising that your lunge from the mattress had not woken Mason, a cold sweat encasing your body; he had only shifted, fingers reaching for your now absent form.

If you were relying on his alarm clock – which you were, the watch tight to your wrist still out of commission – it was cusping on three in the morning. These past three nights had supplied the most sleep you had gotten since fainting, exhaustion finally catching up with you. Mason had called out the past few days, explaining to Dr. Soto that he had a family emergency. When you had overheard him speaking on the phone, that detail had heated the tops of your ears. You had stayed in the bubble he'd provided since entering, but you needed to prepare for travel as in less than thirty-six hours you were going to be strapped into a transport ship and headed to your potential demise.