Freya didn’t expect an answer from Kyle. Once the words were out, she realized she didn’t really need one. As much as she agonized over it, the uncategorizable nature of their relationship was not what was bothering her. It was the fact that she had no one to talk to about it – no one she could talk to about him.
Once upon a time, she used to talk to her sister about boys. The thought of doing so now, when she could barely tell Olivia what she’d been doing for eight years instead of reuniting with what was left of their family, was unfathomable. Almost as much as trying to figure out a way to tell Matt and Lydia that she’d found the reincarnate of their reincarnates’ son and subsequently kept it a secret from them. Olivia wouldn’t understand that Freya’s plight with Kyle went far beyond the silly school girl crushes the younger sister confided in the elder, but Matt and Lydia… Well, knowing Matt, he also wouldn’t understand, but Lydia would, and in telling either of them, both of them would be hurt. Because Kyle wasn’t Ben, and here Freya was anyway.
That left Gabe. Gabe, who wrapped her up in a hug so tight when they first met that she couldn’t breathe, who danced with her and laughed with her and did all the things that friends were supposed to do. And Poe, who’d once been a victim of Kylo’s power. Maybe someday Freya would tell Gabe about Kyle, but… not now. Not yet.
And so Kyle was Freya's de facto secret, and figuring out what he was to her was something she could only do with Kyle. Not the most ideal situation given the seemingly oppositional goals of protecting herself and breaching the gulf between them, but she suddenly felt so much better after voicing only a fraction of the things that had been roiling in her head for ages now that she was finding it difficult to care. She didn’t need an answer from him, as she originally thought; she just needed to admit to someone – to him – what she didn’t know. That was it.
That feeling of unburdening was cut short with his own admission, much shorter than hers but just as meaningful. Freya knew almost nothing about Kyle beyond what they shared in the dyad, which was more of a feeling for him than facts, and her heart sank to learn this about him. This, of all things, though she couldn't deny it made a sort of terrible sense that the loss of their families was the first thing they had in common outside of Rey and Kylo. What else could have made them both so eager to throw caution to the wind just to find a connection with someone who had the most potential to hurt them?
In the back of her mind, Freya had wanted Kyle’s reasons for not immediately killing her to be more than just a thirst for the power she could give him, but she never wanted those reasons to stem from this. The worst thing a person could possibly live through. She wouldn’t wish what she felt after losing her family on anyone, not even her worst enemy. And Kyle… wasn’t that.
She knew that much, at least.
Freya’s first instinct was to reach out to him, physically this time, but something held her back. It wasn't like she'd never touched him before – that happened pretty frequently now, in their training sessions. Still, this kind of touch was different. Heavier. She wasn't sure either of them was ready to cross that particular line, in spite of their confessions and of her almost insuppressible need to offer some comfort to him.
A long moment passed after he spoke before Freya sat up and hugged her knees to her chest, a sort of compromise she made with herself, insufficient as it was. Her eyes were full of naked sympathy and the grief she’d kept buried for so long. Any thoughts of hiding her feelings from him were gone.
“I’m so sorry.” Equally soft, her words were not the empty platitudes they’d be from someone else. Freya felt them deeply, and he would know that.
She paused again, then sighed quietly and looked away from him, over her shoulder and out the window on her other side. “It doesn’t seem fair. For both of us to be this alone.”