All of the Stars

Part 5: Desideratum

I need to see her.

Kylo stood outside the entrance to the worker dormitories, he had his helmet on for he had just emerged from the meeting with Supreme Leader Snoke, but the need overtook him, he was desperate to know that you were okay. How could you be?

He knew you were not going to be in there.

Not after what had happened. Kylo hated himself at that moment, for allowing Snoke to do that, for allowing Snoke near you, and for discovering you in the first place. Letting such Darkness inhabit you.

It was his fault, he deserved guilt and hatred, he deserved for the resistance fighters to murder him, for the things he had done, the atrocities he had committed.

But for this moment, Kylo wanted it to stop. He wanted to welcome an end to the suffering of people at his hands. The suffering of you at his hands.

Using the Force Kylo let his mind try to locate your thoughts, although faint he could hear your sobs, your despair was flooding around you, leaving an aura of sorrow.

She doesn't know.

Kylo's heart felt shattered. While he knew you were never perfect, or even near it in your training, to him you were becoming special.

Someone who gave him light, when darkness reigned free in his world, you gave him direction and a reason. You gave Kylo something to look forward to, your thoughts were beauty, and he felt you were almost... A friend...

He had ruined that.

He found himself scared. No. Terrified. Your thoughts betrayed how broken you felt, Kylo wasn't sure if he could fix you. All at once he realised, there was nothing worse for him than not having you in his life.

I have to find her.

You ended up finding yourself in one of the control rooms Kylo had ruined, the very one that you found the helmet that had started it all.

You weren't sure if it was Kylo that had started it, Kylo had shown you what you had coursing through your veins all this time, but he was not to blame for what blood was inside you, the darkness.

Sitting by the large window you could see the stars and planets outside the ship, and when your eyes became unfocused or blurry with tears that hadn't fallen yet, you could see your reflection.

Your cheeks were damp and your nose ran freely. You could feel your eyelashes heavy from the tears and your knees were beginning to be soaked as tears from your cheeks fell onto your legs, drawn up to your chin.

Her body.

It was clear in your mind. The memory of her death. Her murder.

It was coming back to you, it was like a dream remembered in pieces but there was truth in it. There was no running from what you had done.

You wondered about her family. While none of the cleaners remembered where they came from previous to joining the First Order, you were sure that there was a family somewhere, on some planet in the galaxy, waiting every day for the time that their Katrina would come home.

The blood oozing from Katrina's hairline seemed as if it was stuck on your hands, your face, your hair.

Katrina's blood was everywhere. No longer tears were falling from your eyes but droplets of dark, crimson blood. It pooled on the floor, creating a wider and wider circle, ever expanding, around you, it was like the blood that surrounded Katrina as she lay with her head bent in that strange way.

You were drowning in the blood, gargling with it, a lump in your throat from your tears became more of the substance and you found yourself retching.

On your hands and knees in this pool of crimson, as it climbed up and absorbed into your clothes, painting your body dark, you heave until every muscle hurts, but nothing comes up.

Only your horror and agony remains stuck inside you.

You barely notice as arms wrap around your waist and you fall into them, your back to the chest of these arms as they crouch behind you and you turn your head to cry into this black-clad shoulder.

The arms wrap more tightly around you, moving your hands apart from where you didn't even realise you were attempting to scratch the skin off them as you continued to rid yourself of Katrina's blood.

It was a liquid that wasn't even there, but the memory was tainting you as much as any object could.

"Let me take it." Kylo Ren's deep voice whispers behind you, those strong arms belong to him.

You nod through your gasping tears and feel him readjust his arm until his hand is on the side of your head.

As you breathe Kylo lets the Force flow through him and into you, before taking the memory of Katherine's body, of her blood, from you.

He takes your consciousness with this memory, allowing it to flow out of you and into his mind, allowing you to relax and sleep.

"I'm sorry, Y/N." Kylo whispers again and scoops you into his arms, your head lolls back.

You can't hear his words through your heavy mind, but that is how he likes it.

He walks through the corridors, ignoring the halting troopers as they salute him, and then ignoring them as they look to each other in confusion, asking for confirmation on their blank helmets that they had witnessed the same.

As he lays you on a foreign bed and pulls a blanket over you, you don't move, your mind for once. At ease.

You don't notice how Kylo sits on a chair opposite the bed, watching the rise and fall of your chest letting it relax him, the even rhythm of it.

In the silence, he imagines he can nearly hear your slow steady heartbeat. Hesitant to ruin it he barely dares to open your memory and let it cover his mind, but at the same time being too weak to resist.

The way your Force flowed through you and into Katrina, killing her, coats his mind and he shakes his head.

He locks your memory in a little box in the back of his head, along with others that he cannot allow to escape.

And then, as he looks back to you and focuses on your gentle breaths, he lets a tear fall onto his cheek.

"Kylo?" Your soft voice breaks you out of his doze, he had moved your chair closer to your bed where he had lain you the previous night, and you was now sitting up, staring at him.

"Y/N." His voice matches yours in softness. He looks into her your which have lost their swelling from last night, as well as the flushing in your cheeks and nose are also gone.

"Thank you." Your words surprise him.

He didn't expect her thanks for what he had done. You didn't understand that you were driven to do what you did by the influence of Snoke, of the Darkness that he himself had introduced you further into.

So far that it was taking you over, making you a doll for the control of Snoke.

"Sleep, Y/N." He does the unexpected and reaches out a hand, pushing a strand of hair from your face. His bare fingers briefly brush against your cheek and he withdraws his hand quickly.

You are also shocked at his tenderness, not knowing what else to do, as well as the pounding in your head taking over your senses as you lie back into the bed again and shut your eyes.

He can sense you isn't sleeping yet, but they sit in this silence, not to be described as comfortable, but free of awkwardness and tension.

Only sorrow fills the room at that moment. Sorrow like the void of the galaxy outside the ship they are in. Sorrow for different reasons, but centring in on her. On the girl. On Y/N. You.

Previous thoughts on how he wanted to be gone from your life flew from his mind. He knew, at that instant, he had to do anything in his power to protect you, to keep you from harm. To keep you from Darkness. With maybe the hope of saving himself in the process.