photophobic | [IC CONTACT]

[ He is there already, of course- standing perfectly, unnaturally still, the tension coiled up inside dangerously tight. He wants to pace- but he doesn't want her to see him like that, stalking back and forth like a caged animal. He wants her to see him strong. Controlled.

Unwelcome concern tugs at his heart as he sees her approach- she's so old.So old. So many years separating them. He swallows, and waits for her to come to him. This is her silence- let her break it. ]

[ Seeing him there, Leia only pauses briefly. He was waiting. There were so many more emotions going through her upon seeing him standing so tall and so still. Relief, concern, love. Each fell and sat heavy in their own right in her very being. This was her son, her flesh and blood, a man who carried his father’s height and his mother’s eyes.

When she stops, there’s but a few feet separating them. Her fingers tighten over the top of her cane. She tilts her head to meet his eye, gaze searching his face. What does she say? Are you well? Are you eating? Does she reach out for him?

Physically? No, not yet. With the Force? Yes, like a gentle brush against his jaw. ]

[ This is dangerous. He knows it. Something of her has been here in this world since before he arrived, but he's been able to keep some kind of distance with her being younger- as if she were a living holovid of a time before he even existed. In moments of weakness he had chosen to see her as he needed to, yes, but she had always been something separate from the woman who approaches him now.

She is his mother. It sits within him, that knowledge- heavy, solid, immutable.
She is his mother, and a part of him will always ache for the comfort she had once been able to give him, when he was small and didn't yet understand that comfort wasn't for people like him.

He meets her eyes. Forces himself to. He is firm and strong, he is the power she feared would destroy him.
And he is tired. Hollow and lost. He is both these things. But neither side of the struggle under his skin flinches away from her as she reaches out for him through the Force. ]

I'm here.

[ She'd wanted so badly to reach out when he'd approached her ship, in those last few moments before she'd sensed the incoming shots fired that would send her and her crew out into space. Then she could only sense the turmoil and struggle within him, the worry in herself, the longing that he would come home.

Now, here, Leia gives a faint smile, grateful that he doesn't pull away or push back her touch with the Force. ]

As am I.

[ There's no smile in return. Something in him twists- but he won't allow it to reach his face. He swallows, keeping his eyes steady on hers even as everything that boils beneath the surface aches to run. To her, from her- both at once. ]

You wanted to see me. Are you satisfied?

Yes, I am, and no.

[ Leia doesn't want him to run from her. Although she and Han were the ones to push him away, him running from her is the last thing she wants right now. She doesn't have much time, she knows this, and perhaps...he knows this as well. Things cannot go unresolved between them.

A small step closer is taken, her focus as unwavering as his as she watches him. ]

[ He doesn't flinch. She asked him to come meet with her, he came. Mostly, to prove to the both of them that he isn't afraid of her. That no matter what she could say or do, he has made himself immune to further injury.

For Kylo Ren, this is almost a test. ]

Then what is it you want from me?

To see you for myself, with my own eyes. Not in dreams, not in memories. I wanted to see my son.

[ And now she has. It's been too long. Fleeting brushes with the Force, she needs more than that, but Leila won't push him. She knows they've hugged, her younger self, from the past. How unfair is it that it's been what feels like ages since she'd had such an opportunity. ]

And?

[ There's a very slight tremble at the edge of his voice. The storm raging under his skin whirls and tumbles, very barely contained by the unnatural rigidity of his stance, the steeled resolve in every muscle and sinew that holds him together. ]

Do you see him now?

[ Her voice comes out soft, hoarse. Emotion feels thick in her throat. ]

Of course I do. Ben—

[ Not thinking, just acting on her emotions and what she can sense from him, Leia reaches out for his arm, a hand hopefully finding a place at his forearm. ]

Edited (That was an angry icon oops 😩) 2018-09-05 00:44 (UTC)

[ He doesn't stop her.

His heart lurches sickeningly in his chest as he looks down at her, at her hand on his arm, but he doesn't pull away– and before he has any time to react further she says that name. He stills completely, his heart racing.

He knew it was coming, and still... that name is tied to so much hate, so much rage, so much raw, unprocessed hurt. His fingers curl into tight balled fists, the muscles of his forearm shifting under her touch. ]

No. I stopped answering to that name a long time ago. Just as you stopped seeing him when you looked at me. All of you.

No. I see you.

[ Her grip tightened on his arm, a response to the shift she felt beneath her hand. The struggle to hold on and not let him go too far when she knew he wanted to pull away. Leia would plead, until her last breath. Was he all she had left? Luke was gone, though she knew he would never truly be gone from her. Han was gone. Even the rebels were far and few. ]

No matter who you become. No matter how strong or how powerful.

[ He swallows, unable to respond immediately. His rage, his grief– it wants to scream back at her, make her hurt the way he is hurt. Nothing she says can unmake the past. The wound is so deep.
And in many ways, it's the only thing he has left that makes any sense. He's built himself around it. ]

No matter what I have done?

[ His voice is raw, torn ragged with bitterness. ]

I wish I believed you. But you threw me away before I had done any of it.

We didn't throw you away— [ The way those last three words come out, hoarse, disbelieving, Leia stares up at him and sifts through what emotions lay bare, in the Force between them, in his tone, his expression. Her fingers squeeze again at his arm. Why can't he just understand? ] Your uncle knew more about the Force than I ever could. And your father...

[ It was just mumbo-jumbo that he didn't care to fully understand. Han just knew it was there, it existed in what tricks she or Luke had done from time to time. Thinking about Han now, it was bittersweet that he lived on in this world, as young as she remembered. Their Rebellion days. ]

Luke was a better mentor. He was the only one I could trust who could teach you.

[ He stares, chest heaving– fury roaring in his ears, surging stronger with every word. ]

Do you know?

[ His eyes are sharp. ]

What he did. Your better mentor, who was the only one you could trust. Do you?

[ She doesn't hesitate, doesn't doubt what he could say next. She's quiet, however, as she tries to think about what Luke could have possibly done to her son. The way things were now, had it always been because of Luke? Leia thinks back on their last meeting in the old Rebellion base. Luke had been there to face Kylo Ren, had said that he couldn't save him. ]

Tell me.

[ He's seething, now. But if he tells her the truth, he'll never get the answer he wants. He'll never know what his mother believed of him, all those years. ]

No. You first. Tell me what you thought happened to your son. Tell me what you believed.

[ Her brow twitches. What..? But then they furrow. ]

I believed that Luke had failed. Failed you, failed me. Even he was no match in guiding you through the Force, Light side and Dark. I knew both were in you, I knew from the first moment I felt you within me.

I believed that, because he had failed, that my son was lost to me. My son was hurting, and I didn't know how to help beyond what comfort I already offered him.

What did Luke do? Tell me.

Your precious hero of the Rebellion?

[ His voice drips with venom, a seething, boiling hatred.
But she's his mother. If anyone could see the mechanism of protection Kylo doesn't even recognise he has built around himself, it would be her.
This rage, this fury- it's a wrenching, desperate pain turned outward. Deflected and transformed into a weapon. ]

The hope of the Galaxy, the son who looked into the heart of Darth Vader and restored him to the Light?

Yes, I will tell you what he did, mother. When you handed me over to him because you were afraid of me. What I might become. I will tell you what his great knowledge of the Force earned me.

He crept into my bedroom. Do you understand? My teacher. My mentor. My uncle. The great Luke Skywalker, the rebirth of the Jedi Order. He crept into my bedroom, while I was sleeping, to put me to death.

[ She faces that fury, doesn't balk. Her jaw sets; Leia sees it, that mechanism. Which is why now is a good time to let her hand slip away from his arm back down to her cane. To break that connection for the time being as he uses his words and his tone of voice to lash out. There's no denying what Kylo first states— she had been afraid, in the beginning, of the darkness, of what her son could become.

Mouth opening to cut in and cut him off, her response never gets the chance of escape. Why would...Luke sneak into her son's room at night?

Leia's shoulders straighten then. That...doesn't sound like her brother. What Kylo is saying doesn't sound like what Luke would do...

She leans against her cane. It isn't a request: ]

Show me.

Show you what?

[ He almost snaps it, crushing the shape of his words into something less overtly aggressive at the last moment.

He's not even certain he can do what she wants. His power has always been one that takes, rather than gives. But it isn't like he needs to show her an argument, or a long, drawn out fight. Ben Solo's execution was the matter of a moment. It had been over in an instant.

He'll dredge it up for her, the memory. Let her see it, if she can, if only in outline: the sudden, screaming lurch of awareness as the knowledge that his life was in danger pierced through his unconscious mind. The fear, the wild terror of scrambling awake, the brilliant green light and the hum of a lightsaber. Let her see through his eyes, that moment, twisting his head to see Luke's face, the blade raised to strike. Let her feel the searing agony of betrayal sink into his heart.

His own eyes blaze with fury, impossibly dark, sharp. There's a tremble under his skin, now. ]

Do you see it, now?

[ What she sees looming above her is her brother, his blade raised, and his eyes... Leia's breath feels trapped in her throat at the raw desperation staring down at her, the unspoken apology in his strained expression, the internal struggle he goes through in preparing to deliver the cutting blow to his nephew. What he's about to do, Luke knows that it's not right, Leia can see it. He would be betraying her, snuffing out the life she'd entrusted him with.

Leia feels that betrayal as her own then. It's not just something she experiences through the flash of the memory engulfing her senses. Her own brother had been prepared to murder her son while he slept. What would drive him to such an act? Was that what he'd meant when he said he couldn't save her son? Had he given up and gone for a quick end?

The realization changes her entire expression. Her cane clips once against cement as she catches herself, the air sucked out of her. But why? is what she wants to ask. Why? ]

I... [ How can she deny what she saw, through him? A tremor leaves her knees trembling, her entire being grasping for balance. Softly then, pained in her admittance, her eyes squeezing shut: ] I see it.

That was what you abandoned me to.

[ He snarls it, raw and freshly wounded from the memory, seething with fury and pain. There's no room within him for sympathy, in this moment– there's barely even recognition of any suffering outside of his own. ]

We didn't— I did not abandon you to anything!

[ Suddenly she's now lashing out in retaliation, eyes snapping open, her own fury quickly building. The cane digs into her palm as she grips it. Her parenting skills may not have been the greatest but she would have never abandoned her own child. ]

I trusted Luke to help you! Your father and I had no knowledge that this is what would've even happened. Why didn't you come to us with this? If we had just known—

Why didn't I come to the people who had lied to me about my grandfather, who had talked about me as if I was a monster when they thought I couldn't hear them, and been so afraid of what I might become that they had sent me away because they didn't believe they could help me?

[ The question is clearly rhetorical. He stares, furious. ]

What would you have done? If you had just known. What could you possibly have done. You had nothing before. Why would you have had anything after Luke Skywalker decided there was nothing worth saving in me.

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