To Be So Lonely // Ben Solo

19

"I was worried today," he whispered. His brow furrowed, and Cyra felt it, so she pressed a soft kiss to his lips, but remained with their foreheads together, eyes closed. It enclosed them in a world of their own. Not being able to see each other, relying on their voices to convey everything that was wrong.

"I know. I'm sorry, truly," she whispered back. "I didn't mean to worry you. I just couldn't comprehend how I felt after what I did to you."

"I never should have pushed you to use the Dark, I should have just taught you and not showed it. It's not you--"

"I just gave in to it so quickly," she muttered. "I feared it as soon as I used it, which was what you said not to do."

"You stopped so fast. You dropped it so quickly, Cyra," he said immediately. He hesitated to speak about his own experience the first time he used a power designated to the Dark, but decided against it. She didn't need to know more about his training days; ignorance would better her state of mind.

Cyra pulled back from him. "Thank you."

"I should've known your place and not pushed it," he continued.

"Ben, stop," she muttered, accepting his apology. He looked at her with such regret that she almost told him...She decided long before she left that closet space that she could not tell Ben about her meeting with Luke. He was warming to her, but not and perhaps never to his Uncle. Hearing she spoke with him would only further in Ben's subtle distrust her.

He hummed softly, wondering what she was going to say. He could not sense her feelings or hear her thoughts, though he would admit he did not try too hard to penetrate her mind. The longer they stayed together, the more privacy he wanted to give her. He had to start showing he could trust her; it was the only way to keep her around when was on such thin ice in the first place.

Cyra continued, breaking the silence. "I barely even know my place. I don't expect you to. I just feel that I'm supposed to stay in the middle of all of this. Not a Jedi, not a Sith. Just me. Plain, old, barely powered, human Cyra from Chandrilla. It's where I feel most powerful, and I think choosing a side to train underneath would take away from where I feel strongest in my power and in my morals."

"I see that now. I'm only sorry I didn't realize sooner that you don't desire training," he said.

"I do want to train, I just don't want an affiliation. I don't want to use Sith powers or Jedi powers, I just want to do what the Force lets me," she explained. "I don't know. I don't expect you to understand because you've been shoveled your whole life into a role, into a side. I wasn't. I chose all of this."

Ben knew she wanted that to be the end of the conversion. He could accept that she forgave him and he could feel that it was genuine. Still, he didn't feel it to be enough. Stooping to such low level as to bring her to remember her dead father was something he did not twice about, and it proved to show him that he was not feeling as far gone from Kylo Ren as he thought he might have been. If Cyra was disgusted by how quickly she gave into the Dark Side, Ben was disgusted by how simply he gave into saying vile things to the woman he loved.

"Because of me," he said, and she had to agree. No other reason except the Force could explain how the Solo family and Cyra's miraculously became neighbors with children of the same age and parents who were in the Rebellion. The two had decided long ago the Force brought them together.

"Because of the Force, and you," she corrected softly, smiling. She rested her forehead briefly on his shoulder.

"Cyra, can I do anything for you?" is what he said, and when she didn't move from his shoulder, awaiting more words before she reacted, he tried to correct what he meant. "Uh, I just mean...To make you more comfortable here. What I did today could have tore you away from me. I jeopardized what we have because I wanted you to become something you're not. You came to me and I've let you get stolen, injured, regrettably angered you...I just want to see if there is anything I can do to make your time on this ship better."