29. Chapter 29: Sorry

Slight Trigger Warning: Emotional/physical abuse description

29. Sorry

Over the next couple days, Tess (and then her little gang) quickly became fixtures at Kylo's house – which he wasn't sure he liked. The whole group was enamored with the Falcon and with his mother, and he'd be lying if he said that the undivided attention his mother gave those children wasn't painful to witness. That being said, he'd ended up with one little boy named Tyr who trailed him most days (Tess' brother apparently) who he couldn't help but be a little fond of. The boy didn't like him a lot, but he did like when Kylo showed him how to fire a blaster, so Kylo had him working on target practice.

Rey had taken to just going straight to his house to sleep at night, although he had yet to convince her to take his bed again. She insisted she didn't need it, then curled up in her bedroll and drifted off within minutes. He found it a little harder to sleep with her in the house, although he would have hoped it would be the opposite. It was just that all he could feel was another presence in the room that wouldn't go away, and it didn't feel right. He didn't tell Rey that – she'd go back to the Falcon if he did, and not be able to sleep.

Today, she'd asked him for help understanding how lightsabers worked, and he'd actually taken his apart to show her how it was supposed to work. "This one's not exactly… conventional," he said, not wanting to admit that it was an old fashioned design that no one used anymore and that wasn't actually very practical. "But the basic principle is the same. I suspect you're not going to want to work with a broken crystal." Rey had caught on fairly quickly, seeming fairly comfortable with mechanics, although she told him quite frankly that she thought all the ceremony of finding and "choosing" a kyber crystal was ridiculous.

"They're semi-sentient," Kylo told her wearily, shaking his head. "You can't just grab them and stuff them in a casing. Except Snoke bombed the Temple and the Crystal Caves years ago, so if there even is still kyber on Ilum, it'll be hard to find. We might be talking about this for nothing."

He knew she needed a new lightsaber, so he told her he'd help her get there and find the caves if they ever had a chance. Which didn't seem likely, but maybe they'd just have to make time.

"So the cave gives you visions?" Rey asked.

"It does, apparently. Like a journey through everything that's wrong with you," Kylo growled. "You have to face your weaknesses to get kyber."

"How did you get your crystal? It's broken, and Luke must not have known."

"I made it after I was apprenticed to Snoke. He had brought a few crystals back from the Caves before he destroyed them. He told me that because I never completed a ritual to create my saber, I wasn't truly worthy of it." He sighed and rubbed his eyes.

"How did you let him treat you like that?" Rey asked softly, her face soft with confusion and, he thought, sadness. "Manipulating you all the time."

"You don't notice so much at first," Kylo sighed, and he hadn't, because Snoke had been so understanding and kind and thoughtful when he spoke to little Ben, or even when he spoke to Ben before Luke tried to kill him. Snoke was the one who knew his secrets and worries but didn't mock them, but instead encouraged him that he was right, of course he was. How nobody else appreciated him, how sad that was, how he of course knew better. And Maker, Ben had needed that. It was after he took the Knights and went to Snoke that everything became… not right. Not that he cared at that point, because there was the Darkness, and whenever he thought he might hate Snoke a little, Snoke would, like a father, teach him something new, teach him how to step a little further out into the black ocean. And how could he hate the person who was giving him what he wanted, the one person who listened to him, who knew him this well?

Surely if Snoke, who knew everything he'd ever thought, thought he deserved pain, he was right. Who was he to question what his master said?

He still did, sometimes, and then how disappointed Snoke would be, and how increasingly painful his punishments became. And that had been right, that had been deserved, and Maker how he'd hated it but he knew it was no more than he'd earned.

"He was the only one who, I guess, cared," he said, and cared was the wrong word, he was sure, and yet that was what he thought of. "He listened and he taught me things and he gave me power. No one else did."

"But he-"

"I know," he said, cutting her off with the raise of a hand. "I know. He was just using me. I know. But it didn't… it didn't always feel like, and then when it did… I was in too deep, and it was too much to think about." Until you, he thought, but didn't say.

Rey reached out and grabbed his hand over the pieces of his lightsaber, impulsive, as she always was. "That wasn't fair," she told him, and it was quiet and certain and he wasn't sure why it felt so loud. Her touch felt reassuring, though, as it always did, and he tried to meet her eyes – she always looked at him like she was paying close attention to him, and that made it hard to look at her, but he still tried. "You didn't deserve that from him, or anyone."

That, Kylo thought, wasn't true, but it still made something ache in his chest and throat. "Thanks, Rey," he murmured, and he wished she wouldn't look at him like that. He didn't know how to deal with it.

"It's okay if you don't believe me, though," she added, and she sounded tired. "Eventually you will."

"How do you even know that?" How was she always this certain? This kriffing hopeful?

"I don't. It's just… that's what I tell myself."

He sighed and threaded his fingers through hers, staring down at his lightsaber. "I killed him because of you," he said, and it was hardly the first time he'd said it, and they both knew it was true, but it still felt hard to say. She tightened her grip on his hand and he knew, although he didn't look at her, that she would be smiling. "He hurt you, and I couldn't let him. And he should never have dug into your head like that," and there was something else that wanted to be said too, something he didn't even want to acknowledge, "And I never should have either." He hadn't pushed as far as Snoke had, hadn't looked at who her parents were, and she'd thrown him out. But still, he'd looked at things that were private, things that she hadn't given him to see. She'd returned the favor, and he'd deserved that.

He had to look up now, because he only had her eyes to tell him if she hated him right now, and stars, there was nothing there but tired acceptance. "I'm glad you said that," she said, frankly, but she seemed to be struggling. "I don't... You took things I don't even give to people. It was like you were forcing me to trust you and I… I hated it. You. My thoughts have always been the one thing that was mine and mine only."

Kylo knew that was all fair, and he sensed she wasn't angry anymore, but it still hurt to hear.

"But I trust you now. And I can… I can forgive you, too. I think. And I'm sorry I read your thoughts, too."

"Fair's fair," he told her.

"That doesn't make it okay," she answered, so he just nodded.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome." And she smiled, and stars, he thought he loved that stubborn, brilliant smile. It made him feel like everything really was okay, even though that seemed unlikely.

"Want to try putting this back together?" he asked, gesturing at the saber. "For practice?"

"Okay. I'm going to do it better than you could."

Kylo wasn't sure he knew how to handle the soft, warm feeling in his stomach.

A/N: Look who's already back with another chapter about my kids! I keep saying this but my big headcanon for Kylo is that he has ALWAYS learned that his worth is derived from other people, whether it's who he's related to or how they see him or whatever. It's going to be tricky having Rey help him with that without her becoming his source of security, which I really have to think about how to tackle.

Rey's problem is similar, but her issue is more (imo) 1) I'm nothing because I'm just a scavenger from Jakku, but really important to me, 2) I can't be enough - whether that's for her friends or for herself. She feels like she can't save everyone, can't help everyone, because it's so important to her to do that that if she fails she perceives that as "well I'm just not good enough" in some ways - that's part of why I think that heroics are her defense mechanism. Anyway, food for thought, little hints as to where I'm going to have to take their journeys and some potential tricky things.

Okay enough meta. The next chapter is going to be intense. I'm letting you know now, even though it's a little spoilery - it's going to get more violent and dark than the rest of these chapters really have - except maybe chapter 14.

I suspect it'll be fast in coming, the next couple chapters, but we'll see. Please keep reviewing, you lovely peeps!