When you awake the next morning Ben is no longer beside you. The blanket beside you neatly tucked under your pillow, as if no one was ever there. In the haze of waking up, you wonder if you had dreamt him coming over, however on your nightstand atop the book laid a note:
** (y/n),
I'll meet you outside to walk to breakfast.
Ben Solo
All of this was written in some of the most beautifully constructed calligraphy you had ever seen. You look over to see it's not quite bright enough outside to leave so you lie in bed for a few more minutes.
All of this was so new; someone to care for you, someone who understood not only the feeling of darkness but also understood the panic attacks and anxiety that came with it, and someone who you thought was attractive. You pondered it all, but then you thought back to Luke and how adamant he was of you and Ben not being as close as you are. It didn't make any sense, and you hoped Ben felt the same way.
Getting out of bed was easy knowing that Ben was waiting for you outside. You pulled on some clothes and shoes and then grabbed your satchel and opened the door.
"Hey," Ben was reaching towards the door when you opened it, his face instantly lit up as his gaze met yours, "Good morning." He spoke softly as he pulled his hand back to his side. Ben was wearing white robes today, you wondered if you would be getting robes any time soon.
"Good morning," you looked at him questionably, wondering why he was reaching towards your door.
"I was," he reached into his satchel and pulled out a few pieces of paper, "I'm assuming you didn't get around to writing the rules out on paper like Luke asked," he gestured the paper towards you, "so here." He smiled.
You looked down to realize that he had written it all down for you, "Won't Luke know it is your handwriting?"
"No," He laughed, "he would have no clue what my handwriting looked like."
You just nodded, "Thank you." You put the papers in your satchel and then reached your hand out to grab Ben's.
"(y/n)." Ben pulled his hand back from yours. "I think it would be better if we didn't pretend to ourselves that this," he gestures to your hands, "is okay."
You stop walking, "What? What does that even mean?"
"It's just, I don't want Luke to be on you all the time about us." Ben continues to walk, "I also don't want you to feel like you have to defend yourself just to spend time with me."
"Ben, wait!" you chase after him, he turns around to face you as you approach "I don't really care about Luke – and this," you also gesture to your hands, "doesn't have to be any more than a friendship."
"(y/n), if this continues, I think we both know it'll be more than a friendship." Ben's voice is lower, his eyes are dark as they stare into yours, "And we both know that that isn't tolerated within the Jedi community."
Ben turns around and starts walking towards the mess hall, and you are left speechless in the middle of the dirt path with other students passing all around you.
You look around and notice a path of worn down grass and decide to follow it. You need to take a moment to yourself, and you're hoping that you can find somewhere to do that.
As you walk down the path, the grass gets taller and there are plants that nearly reach your hip. You look around and realize you are quite a bit away from everyone else and decide to sit down in the middle of the path.
Tears immediately fill your eyes. Hurt, pain, anger, it feels like every emotion possible is hitting you at once.
Nothing made sense: Ben showed up in the middle of the night to help you calm down after your nightmares, he read you a bedtime story, he even did your "homework" for you – yet, it feels like he wants nothing to do with you. And you could only blame Luke.
It had been three days since you had stepped foot here and you wish you could take them all back and go elsewhere. It was your own decision to come here after your sister died and after you had killed your father – you had hoped to overcome all of that and be better than your family was.
The grass around you was at your mercy as you picked pieces and tore them into smaller pieces, you could hear footsteps behind you so you stood up onto your feet and wiped your eyes as quickly as possible,
"(y/n)," you turn around to see Luke approaching and immediately start crying again, "It's useless to cry like that. It won't get you anywhere."
"I'm okay," his words hurt but you won't let him see that, you wipe the tears from your face and straighten your posture, "I would be better though if you would leave me alone." You gesture towards the path back to the common area.
Luke laughs and sits down in front of you then gestures towards the ground for you to sit as well.
Part of you was telling you to run and try and leave, but you knew that wouldn't work so you put your satchel on the ground and then slowly sat down beside it.
"You know why I don't want you and Ben to be close, correct?" Luke was looking at you, but his emotions were not easily readable, you shook your head 'no' as you truly had no clue.
"(y/n), I spoke to Ben this morning after your little altercation. If you think he is in any better shape than you are at this moment, that's where you would be wrong." He spoke a bit louder, "You two both let darkness come off of you in such powerful waves, if something were to happen (y/n), I don't think I'd be able to stop either of you – and together, I don't think anyone would have a chance." He genuinely looked scared of you at that moment.
"I-" you paused to think over what to say, you knew he was right. You knew what you were capable of, and you can only imagine Ben would be stronger, "I think the chance of something happening would be more likely if we can't help each other." You keep your eyes on the ground when talking.
Luke shifts himself to start standing up again, "After this morning, I would have to agree with you."
Something about his tone told you that he didn't mean your altercation with Ben,
"What do you mean?" you ask, assuming that Luke wouldn't tell you anything.
"Go ask Ben." He said sternly and walked away.
He was out of sight before you could even notice and you snatched up your satchel and started following the path out with one thought only, 'Find Ben'.
Once you got back to the dirt path you look around and didn't see him anywhere. You started walking towards the mess hall and notice that the two trees that were to the right of the building were completely destroyed. And in a way you couldn't explain. The limbs were strung all around the grass, large branches laid on top of the few tables that were under them, but more importantly the trees looked as though they had been burned from the inside out.
You stopped in the path and gawked at this sight – knowing that the only logical thought was that Ben did this.
You picked up your pace when you started walking again, Ben needed you if he did this.
As you approached the mess hall a few students stopped what they were doing and stared at you, one small boy pointed into the mess hall and you looked in and noticed Ben was the only one still in there. You gave the young boy a smile and nodded as you walked into the room.
"What the hell is that?" you practically yell at him as you approach him.
Until then he had his head buried into his arms on the table, with his eyes tightly closed. However, as soon as he heard your voice he lifted his head and turned to look at you.
"I'm---" Ben spoke, but before he could finish his sentence you bent down and put him in the biggest embrace you possibly could.
"I'm sor—" he didn't finish his sentence again and instead just nuzzled his head into your shoulder.
You closed your eyes and rested your head against his and played with his hair. You weren't planning on moving until Ben didn't need this anymore. You held him there for minutes before he finally loosened his grip on you and backed up in his chair to look at you,
"I'm sorry." He finally managed to get out, "I don't know why I did that. I just got so angry. I don't even remember doing it." He closed his eyes again. You put your hand on his knee.
"Hey, it's okay." You look at him and he looks at you, "Or at least it'll be okay."
He shakes his head to acknowledge you, but he never says anything else.
"Ben," you tap his leg, "Luke said this was okay." And you grabbed his hands as he looked up at you.
He opened his mouth to say something but nothing ever came out.
You stay there for hours. People come in and out of the mess hall to grab a drink or a snack, but they never give either of you much attention. You keep his hands in yours as he lays his head on the table. There were several moments you weren't too sure he hadn't gone to sleep but you weren't going to bother him to find out.
You finally looked outside and noticed the sunlight coming through the doorway was becoming more golden, you knew there wasn't much time before dinner was going to be served.
"Hey, Ben," you tapped him, this time it was obvious he was asleep as he jumped when you touched him, "you need to wake up because it's nearly dinner time."
You wanted to laugh at yourself. After hours in silence, all you manage to say to him was that he needed to wake up to eat dinner.
He wiped his big dark eyes and gave you a smile – a genuine smile. You could practically feel the warmth coming off of him, it was all but consuming you.
He pushed his shoulders back and stretched to wake up. All you could do was look at him. You were emotionally exhausted from everything, but comforted to know that if you were lucky everything would be okay from here on out.
You couldn't help but worry about what had Luke said earlier about the two of you being unstoppable if something was to happen; you could only imagine he meant if one or both of you chose the dark side. The thought made you shake your head.
"What's wrong?" Of course Ben noticed,
"Nothing." You tried to sound happy as you smiled at him.
He didn't question but you could tell he didn't believe you.
At this point students were starting to walk in, grab their meals, and fill the tables around you.
"You can stay there," Ben pushed the chair under the table as he stood up, "I'll go get us something to eat."
Before you could protest he was already gone. As Ben walked through the crowd, younger students all but fell trying to get out of his way. You laughed knowing that they were probably terrified of him. Not only is he by far one of the tallest ones in the room but you can only assume they all saw what he did to the trees this morning.
"Here you go." Ben placed the tray in front of you as he sat down with his own.
"How are you feeling? I know I was always exhausted if I acted upon my feelings" you look at the food, and all but push the tray out of your way when you see the bread.
As if Ben can hear your thoughts he grabs your bread and gives you his fruit.
"I'm feeling better," he takes a bite of the bread and coughs, "well, I was." He laughs and he takes a drink of water to counteract the intense dryness of the bread.
You laugh, and start eating.
You converse with Ben throughout dinner as if nothing had ever happened. Small talk mostly, it seems like both of you are afraid that bringing up anything of sustenance could cause unnecessary stress.
As you finish up dinner, Ben grabs your tray and disposes of it for you, when he come back you two decide to walk back to your huts.
The air was brisk and the sky was beautiful. You felt like you could see every single star in the galaxy – though you knew that was impossible.
You realize Ben staring at you as you look at the stars, "One day you'll tell me why you look at the sky like you've never seen it before." He smiles at you. "Whenever you're ready of course."
"If you want to know, you're in for a long story." You laugh, but you can feel the pain in your heart just thinking about it.
"We've got all night." Ben says as he grabs your hand and starts walking you in a direction away from the huts.
"Where are we going?" You question.
"Back to the river." He looks back at you, "It's the most relaxing place for miles." He pauses, "If you want to talk, at least you'll be relaxed."
The rest of the journey there is in silence, you can feel your heart rate quicken as you try and work out your story from start to finish. Ben holds your hand tighter which calms your nerves ever so slightly.
When you get to the river you both take off your shoes in silence and sit down alongside the rocks.
You don't know how to start it, but you decide it'll be easier if your just blunt at first.
"I killed my father." You keep your eyes on the water wavering around feet, you can feel Ben tense up at your words. "He wasn't a good man though, terrible really. He would've killed me if I didn't do it." Your eyes start to tear up as you know you're going to have to talk about Lyra.
Ben never said anything, he just let you tell your story.
You told him how your entire childhood was spent wondering when the next time your father was going to come home and hit you – not if he was going to but when he was going to. Your mother did nothing but sit on the sidelines and cheer him on. She died though when you were fifteen – which, for whatever reason, made your father worse. You and your sister weren't allowed an education, and you weren't allowed to leave the house,
"The only time we could leave the house is when our father had sold us for the night to one of the locals to have their way with us. And most of the time we were told to keep our heads down so we wouldn't draw any attention." You could feel Ben's anger flowing off of him, "That's why I look at the sky the way I do, I guess." You try and let out a laugh but you aren't able to fake it.
You continue on, Ben staying silent. You told him about the night Lyra died. How you were asleep in your room when you had heard Lyra screaming. That entire day your father's mood was worse than you had ever seen it, he had threatened to kill the both of you multiple times – and you knew that he wasn't lying. You knew when you woke up that he was killing her. You told him how before then you had never really used the force, you had known you could, but never felt inclined too – it was easier for you to ignore it than use it – but that night everything went black. There was no way out of using it, the feeling overcame you, and you did so to kill your father and ruin every building in the surrounding area. You had no idea if you had killed anyone else, but you assumed you did. You escaped and managed to find Luke, he offered to help you, and you weren't in a position to turn him away.
You felt numb saying all of this out loud to someone, but at the same time it felt good to finally put all of it into words. The only other person you ever talked to growing up was Lyra – and she was living through it with you.
"(y/n), he deserved it." You could tell Ben was still radiating anger.
"I know he did. And part of me thinks my neighbors did too for knowing what was going on and just letting it happen." You sigh, "But that doesn't mean it doesn't keep me up at night scared that I'll let myself go again."
"I know how you feel." He takes a moment to ponder what to say, "I have dreams that I let myself go and I cause a lot of destruction and pain." He kicks the water with his feet, "Sometimes I wake up though and it feels like I don't have any choice but to follow through with it, but I have been able to talk myself from doing anything."
You both sit in silence, letting the light from the reflection of the moon touch your face. You look over at Ben and let out a slight sigh. He was looking at you, but not in a judging way. He was looking at you like you had looked at him; memorizing the curves of your face and taking in every blemish you had.
You can feel yourself blush, and you can see Ben blush when you turn to look at him.
"Don't worry about it." You laugh and then kick water at him, he looks at you and his mood immediately goes to being playful.
"So, this is how it's going to go?" he laughs and kicks water back at you. His long legs were able to kick a whole lot more water than you did at him and you are instantly soaked.
You spend the next ten minutes splashing water at each other and laughing. You had never laughed so hard in your entire existence. You were both dripping wet, but you were both radiating warmth at each other.
"You know we can't be together-together, right?" he says, still playfully, but you knew he meant it.
"Yeah, yeah. Jedi conduct and all." You scoff.
He lays back onto the grass and pulls you down right beside him, wrapping his large arms around you and placing his face atop your head,
"Nothing will ever hurt you again," he squeezes you a bit tighter, "not as long as I'm around."
You practically feel yourself melt against him. You nuzzle your head into his chest and wrap your arms around him back.
"Thank you." You say softly.
It was a weird feeling, but you knew he meant it. If he was there, you were going to be safe – and that wasn't something you were going to try and ruin.
You both spend the next few hours stargazing in silence. He plays with your hair while you lay right beside him, fighting to stay awake.
"(y/n), we should probably go back to our huts." He shuffles himself to put some distance between the two of you, "We are only going to get a few hours of sleep before breakfast at this point."
You move into a sitting position and Ben holds out his hand to help you up.
"Thanks." You say softly.
You both walk in silence as you head back to your huts, Ben walking you to your door and stopping you from entering,
"As much as I want to go in there and fall asleep with you," Ben grabs your chin so that you look at him, "it would probably be best if I fell asleep in my own hut for once." Ben laughs and lets go of you.
He grabs your hand before walking away, giving it a tight squeeze, "Good night."
"Good night." You say as he walks away and you wiggle your door open.
You barely even made it into your bed before both of your eyes were closed.