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General Organa freezes outside of the door to her personal quarters, that pit in her stomach she’d been feeling all day suddenly made sense. Ben.
She could feel him in there, waiting for her. She goes to key in the code, no amount of preparation would be sufficient, so why wait?
She steps into the dark room; the second the door slides closed behind her, a harsh, unnatural voice cuts into her awareness.
“General,” it simply says.
Leia turns on the lights and is assaulted with the view of a fully robed and masked Kylo Ren, sitting hunched on her bed. Like this, he hardly seems like her son, but he is, without a doubt.
She sits at the small table she usually takes her morning caff at, and faces Kylo. She’s already formulating a plan, there’s no walking away from this, not for her, but maybe some of the others can make it out before the First Order battle fleet arrives, if it isn’t already too late. She realizes she is not happy to see her estranged son.
“Ben. Are the rest of your friends here?” her tone matches Kylo’s in professional detachment.
“No; and they won’t be joining us.”
Leia frowns. Did he think he could take the entire resistance base by himself? Could he?
“Don’t be fooli-“
“I want to join the resistance,” he cuts in.
She’s stunned silent, parsing the words over and over again, trying to figure out which of her current emotions is more appropriate, her hope, or her dread.
“You deserted the Order?”
“Yes,” he says calmly.
She wants her son back, but she won’t put everything on the line for it. He doesn’t seem like a man who’s come to question everything he has stood for. She doesn’t sense any regret, or fear now that he’s on the run. He doesn’t seem particularly concerned with any of it.
“How do I know this isn’t some kind of trick?”
“If the First Order knew where you were, it would destroy you. There’d be no need for games.”
“Maybe they can’t, I heard that new base of theirs was destroyed.”
“they still have a fleet of Star Destroyers, and millions of soldiers. Meanwhile you’ve just lost your biggest sponsor.” He counters.
She knows all this of course. “Still, you could be planning something we haven’t anticipated, I should order an immediate evacuation.”
She stands to make good on her word.
“Here,” he’s suddenly very close to her, and places a data-chip onto the table.
“What is it?” she says warily.
“Locations of the personal homes, of some of the Order’s highest ranking members.”
She looks down at the tiny black chip, “why would you give us this?”
“They’re too smart to keep anything useful on their databank, including these; however, I was able to procure them myself. If they sent me here, do you think they’d sign off on this? It includes Snoke’s own star system.”
She gives him a long look before seemingly accepting his logic and bringing the chip over to her comm.
“I need someone from data to come to my rooms, now.” She says over her private channel.
Kylo returns to his initial spot on the bed, neither allow the other to escape their sight, and they wait silently until the door chimes. Leia makes sure Kylo isn’t in view from the door, before opening it to the data technician.
“General,” she says, standing at attention.
“I need you to run these against our own files and tell me if there are any matches. Use the utmost precaution, whatever’s on here may very well be malicious.”
“Yes, sir.”
She walks back into the room and sits at her table once more. She wants to see her son’s face, because it’s been years, and because she’s sure she could tell if he was lying. But she doesn’t want to see what’s underneath that mask, soon, but not yet.
“We have personal data on a First Order General, and it’s been verified. If the data matches, I’ll bring your offer to the council.”
“I understand.”
She’s had dreams about this, this exact situation of Kylo just leaving the Order and coming home. But she’s not a fool, nor blinded by her love so much that she’s ready to accept that version of events.
“Why now? What’s made you come back?”
“You always knew I would.”
“I didn’t know why. I don’t really understand why you left.”
He doesn’t say anything immediately, deciding on whether to tell her the truth or not.
“You have something of mine,” he offers finally.
She shakes her head confused, “all of your things are back on Yavin IV where you left them, as far I as I know nothing’s been touched.”
“I meant my partner, you have FN-2187.”
A blank look took over her face before she realized that he must be talking about Finn, and another look passed over face when she realized what he meant by “partner.”
“I had no idea,” she says shocked.
Thinking about the kind, righteous boy now, it is impossible to picture what a relationship like that would look like.
“I’m not surprised he didn’t broadcast it.”
“Why did he leave?” the ‘you’ goes unsaid.
“I don’t know…”
Her comm beeps, and she goes to answer it, “this is Organa.”
“General, we’ve found a match; First Order General Welsh’s private residence. Would you like me to send you the details?”
She lets out a breath of relief, “No need, thank you Len.”
She turns back to Kylo, “This is a step, but it’s far from over. We’ll probably end up keeping you in custody, off base until we’ve felt you’ve proven your commitment to the resistance.”
“Will your colleagues agree with you in this?”
“They won’t pass up an opportunity to gain information about the Order. But let me be honest, I cannot offer you amnesty, you’ve taken too many lives, some of whom were held dear to people on this very base. It would be disrespectful to have you walk around freely.”
And then the elephant in the room gets even bigger as Han Solo’s forever absence is remembered.
“I don’t want amnesty, but I do have conditions.”
She raises an eyebrow, but motions for him to go ahead.
“I want FN-2187 to be able to visit me whenever he wants. I want him to feel comfortable, not like he’s visiting an inmate. I want our relationship, whatever its status has been, or is, to be kept between the three of us unless he himself decides to change that. If I must be monitored, I want it to be by you, or someone you trust. That’s all.”
The General observes him for a moment, “you truly left the Order for this boy?”
“Yes,” he says immediately.
Not because he realized he was wrong, or because he killed his father, but for love. Again, she’s conflicted on how she should feel.
“I have a duty to protect those who come to us for help, and who help us, that includes Finn-“
“I would never hurt him!” he cuts in.
“The scar on his back says otherwise.”
He hunches his shoulders and tilts his head down in the first display of emotion she’s seen from him yet.
“I won’t hurt him again,” he corrects.
“it’s up to him either way. I’ll see what can be done about your accommodations, I need to speak with the others. For now, the holding cells will have to do.”
“Send me a prisoner transport,” she says into her comm, then she holds out her hand to the man expectantly.
Kylo takes the lightsaber from his belt without fuss, and hands it over. Leia’s already grasped it when it occurs to her that this was probably the weapon that killed Han Solo. She puts it down quickly.
“You couldn’t just escort me?”
“No, I’m going to make sure you never walk freely through these halls again.”
“You just don’t want to be seen with me.”
“It’s best if I distance myself,” she admits.
“Will you speak with him for me? Tell FN-2187 that I would very much like to see him, after I’m out of the cage.”
“Finn,” she corrects, “his name is Finn now.”
Then the door chimes, and Leia releases her son into the custody of three officers who are admiringly, quite calm upon the sight of Kylo Ren stepping out of her rooms.
News of Kylo’s presence had spread through the base, and when she entered the meeting room, the atmosphere is more than tense. It’s understandable, there’s a monster in their vicinity and it’s her son.
She takes a seat around the round table; they hardly ever used meeting rooms, content to just stand around a computer viewport and discuss strategy there, but this matter required a discrete approach.
“Is it true? The prisoner is Kylo Ren?” a man asks.
“Yes, it’s true Admiral,” she answers
Another voice cuts in, “how was he captured? Was there a covert mission?”
“He wasn’t captured, he turned himself in. Upon entering my cabin earlier today, I found him waiting for me, and he expressed his desire to join the resistance.”
She was greeted with a long heavy silence, instead of the murmurs or outright cries of dissent she’d expected.
“General Organa, I suggest we evacuate our current position immediately,” one of their strategic leaders says not unkindly.
“That was also my first instinct Navi, however, he supplied us with very sensitive information, including the system that houses the Supreme Leader. We ran it against what we know, and it checked out. Snoke wouldn’t have approved a plan like this.”
“I agree, if the First Order new our location, we would be very aware of it. We have nothing they could want, that couldn’t be taken by force,” a younger member says. He’s probably the most level headed of them here, not paralyzed by fear of the Empire reborn.
“Maybe, probably, but isn’t it also possible that Ren is operating under his own volition?” says a portly gentleman as he rubs his short beard.
“This could be some convoluted scheme, but he’s alone, cut off from his establishment. If need be, we could take him.” Leia declares.
There’s a lull as they think over what was said.
“What would we do with him?” someone asks
“The General said he wanted to help,” the young member says.
“Hmph! How could we ever trust him?” the portly man says.
“Regardless, if he’s here, he’s not with the Order, and I can see nothing wrong with that.” A voice offers.
“He has some conditions,” Leia tells them, and that does cause a few grumbles and unflattering comments. “He wants to be given an abode to stay in, and for only one party to monitor who comes and goes, and the monitor cannot disclose any information concerning the identities or the visits themselves unless there’s an emergency.”
“Those are oddly specific requests, may we choose the monitor?” a man dressed in the garb of the planet they were stationed on, asks.
“Yes, ambassador.”
“I am reluctant to give him anything he asks for, his sudden appearance is troubling, but his time with the Order would certainly be useful to us” the ambassador adds.
“Turning him away is out of the question, keeping confined to his “abode” and out of resistance affairs seems to be the safest choice. But allowing him to aid would be the most lucrative,” Navi says.
“And potentially the most costing,” the portly, bearded man adds.
“I say we add a condition of our own,” the young member says, “Luke Skywalker.”
The name causes a few hums of approval.
“Skywalker would have a better handle on him than all of us,” someone says.
“Where is Skywalker? Wasn’t the intent to bring him back? It’s been months,” says another.
“I don’t know why he won’t come back, but Ben being here may change his mind,” Leia says.
“I say we allow Ren to aid in our efforts if Skywalker agrees to be his monitor,” says Navi. “Any dissenters?”
“Yes!”
They all turn to the source of the cry, a former senator of the new republic who had been off world during the Hosnian system attack.
“With all due respect General Leia, how are we going to let a man who’s personally committed some of the first order’s worst crimes, show up at our door and make demands? He gets to live in a private dwelling while refugee camps are full of people who’ve lost everything to the order, that’s more than not fair, that’s injustice. And now if Skywalker shows up he’ll be a member of the resistance, just like that?”
“No, of course not.” Leia insists.
“Before the First Order can answer to their crimes, they must be stopped,” Navi explains.
“So we’ll just forget Kylo Ren’s to look at the bigger picture? He says sorry and all the people he murdered get wiped off his record? They’re still dead!” the senator says.
“Sometimes it’s not enough to pay for your actions, sometimes you need to set things right,” the thoughtful ambassador tells them. “We could throw Ren into a box too small to sit in, and carry his weight around from base to base. This would satisfy some, but like you said, there are people in this Galaxy who suddenly find themselves with nothing. Do you think the news of Ren’s capture, or the conditions of his cell will reach them? Will they care if it does?”
“It just doesn’t seem right,” she bows her head in reluctant understanding.
“Ben is our prisoner,” Leia tells her. “He is not welcome here. We are in no position to judge him for his crimes, we can only hold him until the time comes for him to stand trial, when there is a court for him to stand trial in. His evils will be weighed, and yes, if he does any good here those will be weighed too. If they let him rot, fine; if they let him free, so be it. We’d have done our part by getting him there, by getting the Galaxy there.”
Kylo only needs to spend a little over a day in the cell before he’s moved to a little shack, far away enough that few from the base would ever happen upon it, but close enough that they can keep an eye on him.
Leia gives Lieutenant Connix the task of monitoring Kylo’s movements and interactions, until she can convince Luke to come back. Meanwhile, Connix stays safe in a private control room, following Kylo’s movements outside the house with a droid.
Leia hasn’t been to visit him; she hasn’t seen him since that first encounter in her room. He’s so different than who she’d come to think of as her son, even his speech pattern’s changed. It’s awkward and stunted, unlike the low, smooth current it had developed to in his early twenties. It made her question for a second if Kylo Ren and Ben were different after all. Besides, she’d much rather talk to Finn.
The idea of him, the man for whom Kylo not only left the order for, but followed back home, was larger than life.
“General,” he greets when he sees her.
He’s got blaster pieces and torches lying in front of him at his work station. Repairing blasters saved some resources, but Finn was capable of much more. Unfortunately, he’s a ground soldier on a side that relies on aerial maneuvers. Once he finishes his pilot training, she’ll start sending him on missions.
“How are you doing today Finn?”
“Pretty good General, and you?”
“I’m doing just fine,” she says with a smile. “I was wondering if you’d like to accompany me on a late afternoon stroll, I know your shift’s about to end.”
“I’d love to; let me just put these tools away. I don’t want more sig-sig getting to them.”
“Aren’t they the worst?” she says. “there are many benefits to uninhabited planets.”
“I think they’re cute, I just don’t want them to get hurt.” He says while he places everything back neatly.
“That’s lovely of you.”
“I mostly don’t feel like cleaning up another sig-sig civil war is all. It was a massacre last time.”
She leads him out through a back way that opens almost immediately into a wooded area, sparse enough to walk though easily, but dense enough that they don’t have to travel long at all before the base is out of sight.
“Did you hear that we have Ben in custody?” she broaches.
“it’s all I’ve been hearing. You must be so happy.” He gives her a small smile, and she can’t help but throw one right back.
“If his presence affects you at all, please tell me. I know he’s the one that hurt you.”
“Thank you General, but I haven’t seen him. I don’t think I even know where he’s being held.”
Finn talked about Kylo in so detached a matter, while Kylo only seemed human when it concerned Finn. She wondered if partners were the appropriate term for whatever was between them.
“Finn, were… did you and Ben ever have a personal relationship?” She asks.
Finn stops walking and turns his head to face Leia. His expression is an unreadable one, but he doesn’t seem shocked or horrified, maybe something like acceptance.
“Yes, for almost a year.”
That isn’t long at all
She wondered how Kylo could come to feel so strongly for someone in such a short time, and if what Finn felt for him came anywhere close to that.
“You don’t have to tell me anything else, I just wanted to know if he was telling the truth. He asked after you.”
Finn simply nodded his head in understanding.
“He wished to see you. Can I send you the coordinates of his location? You’d be free to come and go as you please.”
“Sure, General.”
“Thank you, Finn.”
They don’t talk about Kylo at all after that, Leia instead using their time together, coming to know Finn. It turns out, when Finn’s not high on adrenaline, he’s more contemplative; something that could be mistakenly used to describe someone as quiet. Finn liked to talk, he just liked to think too. Sometimes the silence that comes before his answers, stretch long enough for Leia to have some trouble recalling the question. It’s pleasant, and when they part, Leia is already looking forward to their next meeting.
Kylo can sense when Finn is coming.
It’s been twenty-one days since he’s been in this prison and since then, he hasn’t seen a soul. It’s a nice prison, crafted by the people here, from planet’s own materials. It’s probably meant to be an insult, signifying the resistance’s unwillingness to provide Kylo with their own resources. But he’s spent so long surrounded by durasteel, and duracrete, that this base dwelling seemed very beautiful to him. He can feel the hand that carved the walls and he feels grateful that someone would spend their time on this, honored even, to be gifted something not made by a droid. Most importantly, he thinks Finn would like it.
Kylo is waiting in the doorway when Finn approaches, leaning heavily on the frame, with his arms crossed in front of his chest. Finn stops when there are still a few feet between them and waits. They observe each other for a moment. Finn is wearing dark colored pants, made with a soft material tucked into a pair of worn boots and an off white shirt rolled up to his forearms. Kylo is barefoot, in a t-shirt and pants that don’t cover his ankles. It’s a shock for both of them as Finn has never seen Kylo in anything besides his black robes, and Kylo has never seen Finn in anything but Stormtrooper armor.
“You look beautiful,” Kylo says.
It’s clearly not meant to be either a compliment or an insult, his face is as flat and expressionless as always and he says it as if he is stating a fact. Finn looks down at his boots, away from Kylo’s intense stare.
“come in.”
He pushes off from the frame and goes inside. Finn follows.
They go through the pleasantries, the “make yourself comfortable” and “would you like something to drink?” and soon enough they are seated on opposite sides of the couch only slightly facing one another. Now comes the important part. The talk, the explanations, the admissions, and wherever they end up after, it’ll be far better than it was before.
“What happened on Jakku?” Kylo asks. He figures it’s a good place to start.
“I couldn’t complete the mission; I couldn’t follow orders. I just couldn’t. and when you looked at me, I knew I’d be killed for it.”
“I wouldn’t let that happen.”
Finn just shrugs.
“Is that why you left, you thought you’d be killed?”
“Not really. I-, do you think that the First Order is doing what’s good for the Galaxy?”
“I think it’s doing what’s right,” Kylo answers honestly.
“Then why are you here?”
“Because I love you.”
Finn looks down, “that’s not a reason.”
“Of course it is.”
“You would abandon what’s right?”
“What’s more right, is my love for you.”
“That…doesn’t make sense,” Finn says.
“It will when you love someone.”
Finn gives him a weary look.
“I know you don’t love me,” Kylo says, “but it doesn’t change how I feel.”
"On StarKiller, that didn't feel like love."
"I was hurt, and I turned it into anger, like I do everything. I'm sorry."
“I think you’re kind of evil,” Finn admits.
“I can’t deny that you are pure good.”
Finn gives a small smile at that.
During their brief time together, there hadn’t been much smiling. And if he thinks about it (which he won’t) it might have begun out of a sense of duty, instead of desire on Finn’s part, but that was not true anymore. Finn’s here because he wants to be, he made a choice, which means in the end, there was something real between them. Nonetheless, it’s good to see him content, and comfortable, and un-conflicted. And smiling.
“Luke is coming,” Leia says.
Kylo’s eyes change briefly before going blank again. Leia forces herself to continue looking at her sons face, despite the fact that it almost disgusts her in its unfamiliarity. She wanted this to be a personal evening, a chance to speak with her son, but neither of them has touched their food, and the first thing out of her mouth is business.
“The council decided they would allow you to aid the resistance if Luke were here to act as your monitor, he agreed.”
“Very well,” Kylo says.
Leia waits for Kylo to continue, but he doesn’t, instead he just keeps looking at her, unwilling to break eye contact.
“I asked him, why you did it, he said you wouldn’t tell him. Will you tell me?”
“I saw the hypocrisy and filth of the new republic, and I saw the resistance following down that same path. I joined the First Order to save the Galaxy from chaos.”
“You mean freedom,” Leia says tightly.
“I mean freedom from hunger, from poverty. I mean a Galaxy where you can travel to the market without fear of running into slavers. We want the same thing.”
“No we don’t. I don’t want to force out suffering, I want a Galaxy that has no need of it,” she sneers. “Besides, you’re lying.”
“You are a foolish old woman.”
“You left because of what you found out-“
“What you kept from me,” he screams.
“Vader was a thing of the past.”
“You should have told me about him!”
“Why?” She demands, “I didn’t know him; he didn’t care about me, he was obsessed with Luke. I met him once and he tortured me!” Her voice starts filling with emotion and Kylo seems taken aback.
“My father’s name was Bail Organa, and he was the greatest man I have ever known. My mother’s name was Breha, and she was the person whom I loved most in this Galaxy. My people, YOUR people, your culture, was Alderaan; and you’ll never know what that means because Vader and Tarkin, held me down while they destroyed my world.”
“The Empire killed Luke’s aunt and uncle too, do you even know their names? Of course not, they were just moisture farmers. What about Padme? Huh? Vader’s wife? Have you ever spared her a thought? Well my father loved her! Vader killed her too, the day we were born. She was beautiful, and kind, and strong, and intelligent. She did incredible things for her planet, for the Galaxy! She was a hero, my father always made sure I knew that. But you and Luke only ever cared about that madman, a man who took almost everything from me. And I guess he finally did,” she adds sadly.
Tears started coming out of her eyes a while ago, but now she was overcome. She’d kept all this in, always being too busy to sort out her feelings and now she dumped it all on her son, over thirty years of pain.
“I’ve never seen you cry,” Kylo says.
“I don’t make a habit of it. You always cried.”
“I still do. I cried when Finn left, I cried when I killed Han Solo.”
“I forgive you,” she says honestly. Kylo looks about as surprised as Leia feels.
“If I’d killed you instead, Han Solo would have never forgiven me.”
“That’s not true.”
“Luke will never forgive me. He always saw something in Han that I never did, something immense.”
“That’s not true,” she says again.
“I’m sorry, for causing you pain, I don’t think I ever wanted to.”
She lays a hand over his, “I’m sorry too.”
Fin