The One That Got Away

I never meant to get us in this deep

It was before the battle of Savareen.

The year didn't matter, but it was months after Crait (and Kylo doubted that the months mattered either), and the First Order was trying to take Savareen over. There was a part of Kylo, a part that was frustratingly still Ben Solo, that wondered what Aunt Enfys would think of him — but he squashed it down. It was all for a better galaxy. A galaxy without Jedi and Sith, that simply...was.

"The Resistance has its eyes on Savareen," Hux said. "I would dare say that they're thinking of taking it back in a performative show of heroism."

"Performative is a good word for it." Kylo said. It seemed, in Hux's case, that even a broken chrono was right twice a day. "Taking back Savareen would be valuable. It would send a message to the Resistance — whatever they have, we can just take away. That they, for all their delusions of virtue, are not invincible."

"Shrewd." Hux said. The underlying tone of his voice seemed to just be impressed that Kylo had come up with it in the first place. Did Hux really think so low of Kylo's intelligence? "Should we have a show of Force? Decimation? Lovely word, decimate..."

"Not yet," Kylo said. "For now, we have to actually win."

***

Vader's helmet was in Kylo's quarters on the Steadfast. Kylo was grateful for that, at least. Grateful, for the presence of that half-melted artifact. Even as he approached, lightly touched the mask, he found images flashing across his mind. Two boys, running in a field. Ben Solo, hugging Poe when he came back from Kijimi.

Kylo shuddered, feeling the grief tense his body.

"Grandfather," he said, "Watch over Poe Dameron. Look after him. Someone as rare as he should not be allowed to die."

No answer. Of course, no answer. But Kylo thought that he could hear Vader's familiar heavy breathing in his mind even as he left for his TIE Silencer.

***

The space battle should have been easy. Even as Kylo flew out, backed up by his two wingmen (it wasn't like he needed them but they insisted), he knew the ropes. Knew how to steer out of the way of the blasts of the Resistance ships. To fire back. It wasn't anything personal. Like Tallissan Lintra and the others, it was just tactical.

Until Poe came in.

Poe. Kylo felt like he had gone rigid behind the console of his TIE Silencer.

No. No please not again...

A voice, laughing in his head, sounding like Snoke — but Snoke was dead, Kylo had cut through him like butter, and it made no sense...

"Supreme Leader." One of his wingmen, over the comm. "Shall we handle this problem for you?"

Kylo swallowed. He wondered how audible it was over the comm system. "I'll handle it myself," he said. "Just cover me."

There was a doubtful silence, but the wingman didn't comment.

He ought to pull the trigger right then and there, Kylo thought. Pull it and just make it stop, right then and there. End the pain that seemed to blaze bright in the Force like a sun.

He couldn't.

He just couldn't. To pull the trigger would end his pain — but to pull it would also continue it as well.

His finger trembled on the trigger. Trembled, as Kylo considered doing it and not doing it, of taking out the Commander of the Resistance right then and there...

Slowly, his finger strayed away from the trigger.

One of his wingmen fired anyway, before Kylo could so much as stop him, and someone — Jessika Pava? — shot at Kylo.

He fell.

And fell forever.

Right now, he doubted that he could stop falling. Until he did, and all went black.

***

Time passed.

It was Kylo that woke in that moment, realizing that his TIE Silencer was in ruins. Ruins, really. Even pulling himself from the wreckage, he couldn't help but think that there was no way that he could ever get this thing intact, ever again. And, stumbling through the marsh (Kylo would be damned if he knew where he was), he just managed to pull Poe (who looked more than a bit worse for wear) from the X-wing. From Black One, where he was unconscious.

He looked banged up. Kylo thought back to the interrogation room (shadows and bruises and blood) and struggled, at least, not to drop Poe despite how badly his hands shook. Poe looked so fragile in his arms, so very delicate, and yet Kylo knew better. Kylo knew that this man had endured torture that would break anyone — and here he was. Strong, brilliant, beautiful.

They needed to get to some form of a shelter. There was no use getting soaked from the rain that was starting to pour down. Poe was badly injured, and it struck Kylo that this man had survived two ship crashes.

That and Black One seemed to be cursed.

As Kylo continued towards the shelter, carrying Poe in his arms, he thought of how he had blown up the hangar of the Raddus. He wasn't a fool; he'd felt the immolation of the pilots who had died there, felt Poe being knocked back — and for a moment, he had been afraid that he had actually injured Poe. (And the pilots dying? It should have been just a task, something he was trying to do just to disable the Raddus and keep threats from it from getting to him. It didn't make the impact of their deaths feel any less painful, like he was feeling stars going out)

It had been practical — and he hadn't even been able to go through with killing Leia Organa just because of some delusion that he wasn't unwanted by her. He hadn't been able to. Who was he, in the end?

Somehow he just hadn't been committed...

The shelter was at least a good place to stay for the night. Poe...there was still a pulse. Thank the Force. Kylo wondered how he could still be fighting when Kylo had all but ruined him. (The electric shocks over his bond with Snoke...)

And it was as he was treating Poe's injuries, the various cuts and bruises, the various burns, that Poe stirred. Said a name that managed to cut Kylo deep to the bone.

"Ben?!"

Apparently Lord Vader had managed to watch over Poe after all.