annexedlogs | The number one drama causer is at it again. He's not really sorry.

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The number one drama causer is at it again. He's not really sorry.

Who: Vader
What: Self-surgery, healing, dragging people into his mess
When: Early month, prior to the mini-missions
Where: A room in a rent-by-the-day building in the Magitech, Obi-Wan's hut, probably other places as things develop
Content Warnings: self-surgery, blood (lots of blood), to be updated as needed

Given the chip implanted into them was at the base of their skulls, what it did, and the experiences he had with implanted chips - both in his men and in himself - it probably shouldn't surprise anyone he decided to handle it himself.

Not that he hasn't taken done preparations. A field surgery kit, mirrors, some kind of healing gel and bandages, a tarp on the floor under a cheap chair, and furniture moved away. The room was paid for a couple of days. After thinking it over before he started, he sent a text message to Padmé and a message to Obi-Wan.

Then he washed his hands, the back of his head and his neck, and sat in the chair, prepared so the mirrors allowed him to see the back of his head and neck clearly, even when his hands were in the way. And started cutting. Peeling. The scar tissue was thick, tough, and hard to pull apart. But pull it apart he did, because he didn't want to cut nerves or large blood vessels - there wasn't a bacta tank here. It took time, to get down to muscle, to scrap it away from the implants in his spine without harming his implants or causing too much muscle damage (what he thought was too much anyway).

He didn't winch or flinch, only swore when a blade broke. Angerly threw the disposable ones across the room and set a blade into the reusable ones.

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He bristles a little at the implication of his grandfather being anything like Snoke. Even if he understands why she'd felt that, when all she'd noticed was the sheer darkness in either... there is no comparison, not in Kylo's mind. Vader's aura may be cold, but he's treated his grandson with more warmth than Kylo had ever expected.

But what she says further draws him from that thought. She hadn't wanted him to fight on his own. That's touching, in its own way.

His brows knit as he tries to make sense of it all, and as his memories go back to that moment on the Supremacy, when they had been so intensely unified for a moment before it had all promptly fallen apart. "You left," he eventually says. Not accusation, but confusion. She hadn't left him with Snoke, no. But she'd left him alone, on a burning ship, to deal with the rest of the First Order entirely on his own to deal with the mess left in Snoke's absence.

She'd sorted it out by the time she got there, and now that she's been in his presence a little while she could easily differentiate Vader from Snoke. Snoke had been fathomless evil, incomprehensible to her. There was something more to Vader. Something she could nearly understand.

She blinks at the sudden change of topic, taking a few beats to catch up.

"You know I didn't want to."

She'd come so close to taking his hand. Even knowing he was leaving the Resistance to die, she'd considered it.

She didn't want to, he does know that. But she had, nonetheless, and that somehow makes it sting even more. He's not as angry about it now. He's all too aware of his own faults in the moment, back then, and they've proven well enough that whatever this connection is between them still holds. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't still hurt.

"You just wanted to save the Resistance more." There is a bit of accusation in that one, though not as strong as it could be, with the echoes of his grandfather's advice still sitting present in his head - find out why.

She can feel that lingering hurt, and she'd like to be able to take it away. Does it hurt you, too? she'd asked, and still he'd tried to comfort her. But she can't tell him that the accusation isn't true.

"Would you ever have stopped before they were all dead, if I'd stayed?

If he'd stopped the fleet. If he could tell her he wanted all the violence to end. If he hadn't decided to name himself Supreme Leader the very instant the old one was dead. She'd never be able to support him so long as his goal was conquest.

It's hard to say just what would have happened. Kylo had barely been in his right mind at that moment, even before the betrayal that had set him on a mission to personally destroy every last bit of the Resistance if he could. But if she had stayed? If she had given him what he'd been hoping for, rather than doing the exact thing he most feared?

"I wouldn't have chased them." He can say that much. His thought had been to let things go as they were, to let the Resistance die or get away as they managed under the current circumstances. Whoever did escape, he wouldn't have pursued, especially not with her there convincing him not to. It's easy to imagine that if she had stayed, the battle on the surface of Crait might not have happened at all.

It's more than she'd assumed. Could it have been enough?

If she'd stayed, might she have been able to talk him into a truce for some amount of time? Long enough to get him to see a way forward that didn't involve more blood on his hands? Or hers, for that matter?

The look she gives him is infinitely sad. There's not much she can say to a possibility that no longer exists. Even if they could forgive one another, Crait had shifted the balance of things. She couldn't bring the former Supreme Leader of the First Order back to the Resistance the way she could've returned with the General's son who had broken free of Snoke's command.

"If I'd joined you," she begins slowly, a part of her already withdrawing in anticipation of how much this is likely to hurt.

"If I'd taken your hand, what would you have expected of me?"

Any of the ways he could answer is likely to hurt, but finding that she's made the wrong choice might actually break her.

Nor would the First Order be so enthusiastic about accepting the girl he'd claimed killed Snoke in the panic of waking up to Hux yelling at him. Though he knows that would have been a difficult thing to attempt explaining, regardless.

"I told you." For a moment, that's all he can say back to that, too baffled by the question to find words to explain whatever she thinks needs explaining. He hadn't said things in the best way then, but as far as he's concerned still, he did say them. "We had an opportunity to make the galaxy be whatever we want it to be. You and I. I wanted your help."

Your help.

She searches his face for any sign that it meant what she'd heard at the time; that he'd wanted her power. That he'd wanted to make her into weapon the way Snoke had done to him. That she was valuable for what she could do rather than what they could've been together.

You need a teacher, he'd said, and all she saw was someone who wanted to bend her into the only shape he knew, and she looked at herself and knew deep down what she'd be capable of if her darkness were fed.

Her lower lip trembles. She's so tired.

"I was afraid."

The confession startles her a bit even as she speaks it.

"Not of you. Of me. I was afraid of what I might be, of what I'd turn into."

Why would he need her power? He was a weapon, himself, and one tired of serving the whims of someone who had never truly appreciated him for anything other than that. There had been a long time in which Kylo had thought that Snoke had his best interests in mind in some way, but in enough time, he'd proven that thought wrong over and over again.

What he wanted was a new start, free from that. With someone to help guide him as an equal, not as a servant, or a new master. But that had been too much to hope for, it seemed.

Whatever words he might have expected from her, those weren't it. "Why?" he can't help asking, though a part of him understands entirely, through memories of the days when he still strived to live up to the heroic Jedi image everyone expected of him, even as a much darker voice whispered into his head.

There it is; the thing that sent her out here in a panic. The thing that makes her push herself harder and harder in the hopes of dreamless sleep. The thing that Luke Skywalker had seen in her the very first time she touched the Force.

"Luke Skywalker -- the older one -- knew me for approximately five minutes before he told me he was scared of me."

It's not his fault, not really. But it's a way into the things that scare her still.

"There's something wrong. With me. I see it in my dreams, and I--"

She takes a breath, feeling the chill from earlier wash back over her again. She digs her fingers into the wooden step beneath her, needing to hold onto something but afraid that if she reaches for Kylo she'll fall apart entirely again.

"-- I felt it in there, when I touched Vader. There's something. I guess it's the Dark side, I don't know. It's familiar, and it's always been there, waiting. I'm afraid of what I'll do if I let it out.

It's to Kylo's credit that he doesn't have anything to immediately say to that comment about Luke, though the thought of "Of course he did" is probably loud enough in the space between them for her to hear it regardless. His uncle had been scared of anything that so much as brushed the dark. He'd tried to hide it with regard to Kylo when he'd been younger, but he'd seen that quiet fear well before Luke had ever come after him with a lightsaber in his sleep.

The rest of that confession is more surprising. He had known from the first time they fought she had more connection to the dark than she would let herself acknowledge. And by now, he has a better idea of why, though he hasn't found the right moment to tell her what he had learned about her own grandfather, and he's not certain that the answer should be now, when she's already feeling such distress.

Not sure of any words at all, he goes a different route and lays his hand over one of hers where it grips the step between them, hoping that will provide some comfort, at least.

Some of the tension goes out of her when his hand finds hers, and the overwhelming tiredness that always follows in the wake of healing someone starts to take its place. With an exhalation of sheer relief at having told someone -- someone who didn't want to use the information to hurt her -- she leans into him, resting her head on his shoulder and letting her eyes fall closed while she tries to gather up the pieces she feels shattered into.

It's long enough before she speaks that she might've fallen asleep. She doesn't open her eyes, even, but her words are clear enough, if softly spoken.

"I'm sorry. For shutting you out."

And for walking away, but mostly for refusing to hear him in any way in the year that had passed.

He's glad that it seems to relax her. His own thoughts are spinning a bit, but he does his best to keep them quiet, for now. So far, he's avoided talking to his grandfather about his former master and, apparently, the man behind the whole thing, but it might be time for that to change, when there's a chance.

He's starting to wonder if she actually may have fallen asleep when she speaks again. An apology he hadn't expected to ever hear from her, even if they had managed to speak more reasonably again since being here. He doesn't acknowledge it directly, nor does it take away the hurt from all that time, but he won't hide that he's grateful for her saying it.

"It was hard, trying to lead on my own." Even simply being on his own, when he was so used to the presence of another person in his mind, and she'd kept her side of their connection so incredibly silent. It's a confession, not an accusation. A relief, in a way, that for at least a moment, he doesn't have to pretend that he's been just fine this whole time being Supreme Leader alone.

She's very nearly asleep, having used every ounce of her spare energy in trying to keep her emotions in check, and so overwhelmed that she doesn't want to do anything but fall into the nearest bed and sleep until the sun is very firmly down. But she's awake enough to hear him, and to turn her hand so she can squeeze his in acknowledgment and maybe something like a promise. One she hopes she can keep, this time.

You won't be on your own.

She doesn't manage to say it clearly aloud; only murmurs something not quite so intelligible before drowsiness pulls her under. A soft snore a few moments later confirms it; she's quite soundly asleep for at least the next little while.

He feels that squeeze, and he understands it. Trust that it will last is a bit more difficult, after everything, but that doesn't matter so much for right now. He stays there a short while longer, turning his own thoughts over in his head and letting her rest. But it's not too long before he decides to gently extract himself from her.

She's very heavily asleep, it seems, barely stirring at all when he tries to move. Not wanting to just leave her on the front steps, he ultimately decides to scoop her up and carry her inside, quietly willing her to not wake up in the middle of that lest she be less than pleased about being carried somewhere. He sets her down again on a chair, in a different part of the house from where his grandfather has been resting, before returning to Vader. He wants to be able to talk in relative privacy.

Had he actually been resting?

No. Of course not. With the return of the Force came the return of the need to move, to do things. That feeling of itching crawling wrongness that came with being still. And he was well practiced at using the Force to pull himself up and front health. So he'd moved, stretched, tested his body for strength and balance before sitting again. Had it weakened him? A little.

He'd also kept a light feel for those around him. Obi-Wan, Padmè, Kylo, Rey. Where they moved, their emotional states.

So he was ready when his grandson walked in, sitting up and at least looking better.

"You look better." He isn't aware of Vader having been doing more than was likely wise during his absence, though Kylo wouldn't have faulted him for it. He'd do the same thing under the circumstances.

That Rey's healing seems to have indeed helped is a relief on a few levels. He'd be glad for it, no matter what, but perhaps especially glad now that he has a lot of thoughts on his mind to perhaps talk out, and Vader seems perhaps in a better state for that conversation.

"I feel better." There's a shade of warmth to it, gratitude really, but he's not voiced it. His presence however, reflects it back.

"How is she?" He doesn't expect her to have recovered so quickly. But she was asleep, and so he took it to mean 'calmer' which was good. For all of them.

"Sleeping in the other room." Vader probably knows that already, but it's the simplest answer. He steps further into the room, settling into the chair he'd been sitting on earlier.

"Did you sense anything from her, when she healed you?" He hadn't been certain how to start this conversation when he came in, but it now occurs to him that Vader may have also felt whatever it was that had scared Rey so badly. He has some of his own guesses about it, but he'd like his grandfather's insight.

"Good." Not just for her sake or for returning a mercy with mercy, but for his grandson's sake. He seemed more settled as well.

"I did." It's heavily guarded. His voice quiet. "What do you know of her? Her people? Do you know how she came to be on Jakku?"

That line of questioning tells him enough to give him the answer to the question he hadn't voiced. His own reply is just as guarded.

"I do. But she doesn't." He'd solidified that false story himself, though he hadn't realised it at the time. He had seen that her parents abandoned her. The story of why, in retrospect, might have been a falsehood drawn from her own fears rather than from the truth.

"Her parents left her there. I saw a vision... I thought they'd sold her for their own selfish reasons. It seems they were trying to keep her hidden, instead." He can't say his opinion of Rey's parents has improved terribly much since he'd learned that, considering the life they'd left her.

There are a few topics that immediately gets his hackles up. The muscles on his head tensing, his mouth pulling into a silent snarl complete with the threat of teeth.

Selling children? Actually one of those.

"She must have been quite young." That's troubling as much as it's relieving. "How old were her parents? Can you guess?"

He doesn't know the details of what agreement her parents had with the scrap trader on Jakku. Rey hadn't been a slave. But he'd seen enough in her memories to know that she hadn't been much better off, spending her days searching through junk in the hopes of finding enough useful parts to trade in for food to eat.

He shakes his head at the question. "I'm not sure." Old enough to have a child, but beyond that, he doesn't know. His vision hadn't been that clear, and that hadn't been a part of what he's learned since. "But I do know who her grandfather is. You felt it, too, didn't you?"

Was there really a difference? No where to go, dependent on him for survival, with refusal spelling death?

His mouth draws. "Yes. I did." It's still guarded, darkened. His head turns just a little toward her direction as if listening. "It's concerning."

And now he gets to the complicated part, the things that he himself doesn't understand fully. It takes a moment for him to find the right words.

"I met him. Recently. Everyone thought he was dead, but he was just staying hidden. He's the one who sent my master, Snoke, to find me." That feels like a horrific simplification, when Palpatine had claimed to have been the voice he had heard all his life, and said it in a way that echoed of Snoke. When Snoke himself seemed to be a clone, entirely replaceable if need be. But also Kylo had seen him die, and there had been a time after when the familiar presence in his head had been silent. He doesn't know what the truth is, really.

"He's been looking for her, too. She doesn't know, but she feels it."

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