Who: Kyle Roth & Freya Shepherd What: Intimate conversations turn into accidental Force cuddling Where: Kyle's private quarters inside the Resistance base in LA & Freya's flat in London When: Backdated to Monday, July 6th 2020 (late evening) Warnings: None probably
It wasn't unusual for Kyle to shut himself inside his quarters once the day was done. There were enough people who resided inside this place that he had no desire to interact with outside of what was required that he wasted no time in voluntarily confining himself to his own rooms that night as soon as the last training session had ended. Tonight, he found the silence deafening, sparking a restlessness in him that he couldn't name. The never ending solitude of his existence within these walls used to pass by unnoticed, he had never bothered to think much of it before. What had changed?
He knew the answer to that, but Kyle was still unwilling to acknowledge it, even to himself.
Every day had been exactly the same for him until it wasn't. Every day the same routine; wake up, train, deal with the other higher-ups who he hated as much as the recruits he trained, lock himself away in his quarters until he could sleep. Once he'd also had training of his own, when his guardian had still been alive. Kyle had long surpassed him anyway. He no longer needed to undergo training himself in order to reach his full potential. Or so he'd thought.
Meeting the reincarnate of the scavenger had changed everything. He'd thought he could grow more powerful on his own, but the realization of her had shown him how very wrong he was about that and resisting it was pointless. He needed her. Whether she liked it or not, she needed him too, he was sure of it. After only a few months, they'd already achieved more then Kyle would have thought possible on his own. His entire understanding of the Force and how he fit into it had been turned on its head, all because of her.
Freya was everything he might have expected from her reincarnate and also miles from it. For all the things she did that he felt he could anticipate, there were also plenty of ways she still managed to take him by surprise. He'd hated that, at first. He wasn't sure how he felt about it now.
What he knew for certain was that the more time they spent together, the more unsettled he grew during the space in between when they were apart. Unbalanced, where once he'd only felt a steely resolve. Those first few months he was sure of his intent, he could visualize the goal he'd set for himself. Turn her to his side. Make her see that they'd been wrong. That was where Kylo had failed before, and where Kyle wouldn't fail now, his full rejection of Ben Solo unwavering when this had all started with her. Everything had felt so simple then. He should have known better.
He should have anticipated that she would complicated things.
The goal he'd set was still the same, but the road he was taking to get there was no longer clear to him. His instincts still sharp, but it was his motivations that now appeared clouded. Every time he met her at the location of her choosing, on her terms. Technically on neutral ground but it was as foreign to him as everything else outside of the place he spent most of his time so by that reasoning it was more hers than his. He indulged her when she wanted to try something outside of their routine, instead of forcing things his way as all of his most basic instincts screamed at him to do. Why?
Everything he'd done since they'd first met was a mystery to him and it had left him fragmented, torn between his duties and the secret he now kept. Freya was his secret, what they were doing together the thing he was keeping from those around him who posed a direct threat to what he now coveted. For as unbalanced as he felt, for the first time in his life, he didn't feel so alone. Selfishly, he wasn't willing to give that up, even if he was no closer to turning her then he had been months ago.
The idea that it wasn't only about that for him anymore was something that he immediately dismissed as he breezed into his chambers, tossing his disengaged lightsaber onto the nearest surface with a noise of frustration. He'd only narrowly avoided Clark in the hallways, who no doubt would have detained him simply for the sole reason that Kyle would have resented it. Even the smallest of annoyances that Kyle had gotten used to long ago now seemed more intolerable then before.
Kyle had never spent so much time outside the confines of the Resistance base as he had in the last handful of months. For so long he'd been used to the tightly secured walls that surrounded him but now, there were some days when he found them unbearably oppressive. Tonight was one of those nights, sitting in silence on the edge of his bed and very nearly allowing himself to imagine that he was some place else. His thoughts betrayed him enough that he couldn't deny when they inevitably landed on her, wondering where she might be in the world at that moment. To know that all he would have to do was reach out to find his answer was almost a comfort, but he never got that chance. Almost as soon as the thought crossed his mind, that's when he felt her.