“I know.” Freya nodded as soon as he voiced what she’d been thinking for a long time now, one way or another. “I feel that way, too. It’s… confusing.”
Confusing was a massive understatement, but there was no other word for it. Everything since she reached into the Force to find Ben and found Kyle instead had been confusing. Not in the least because nothing happened the way she expected it to happen. Rey’s past was not a blueprint for Freya’s future, yet it was her only point of reference for her ever-shifting present with Kyle. It informed her every action with him, and every reaction, too. But what had thinking that way gotten her except a long list of things he’d done that had taken her by surprise?
That had to stop – and it would now, she thought. In a way, he and Kylo were right, though she would never admit it. She did have to kill part of the past in order to move forward. Expecting Rey’s history with Kylo to play out the same way (or worse) with Kyle was only holding her back from considering the possibility that this time it could be better.
Even without Ben, it could be better.
There would always be a part of Freya that would refuse to give up her hope for Ben to break through Kyle’s darkness, but now… Now she could at least accept that it would probably never happen, and maybe she didn’t need it to. Kyle wasn’t the monster she’d been afraid of. The potential was there, that much was obvious, but with their hands locked together, she saw past it now. She saw the potential for something else entirely.
Balance.
Freya’s brow furrowed slightly at the thought, and she uncurled her fingers around his hand – not to let go, but to test something. Shifting their arms into a horizontal position again, she slipped her hand past his palm. His skin was rougher than hers but surprisingly supple, no doubt thanks to the gloves. It was a detail she wouldn’t remember until later; now she was distracted, thinking aloud as her fingers gently but decisively circled his wrist.
“But… we balance each other. Maybe that’s the secret of a dyad. Not Light or Dark, but Light and Dark.”
The weight of her words didn’t fully hit Freya until she said them. Swallowing hard, she brought her free hand to her neck, if only to give it something to hold onto, and unconsciously gripped Kyle’s wrist a little tighter. This idea ran contrary to everything Rey had ever been taught, and the arrogance of believing the rules of the Force could be different for them was not lost on Freya. Even so, it felt true. Otherwise she wouldn’t have said it at all.
“How would we know?” she continued after a moment, asking with rhetorical desperation. Throwing everything she knew about the Force out the window had not been on her list of things to accomplish today, yet there it went, along with the idea that she might ever be able to sleep again. “How would anyone know? No one else can do what we’re doing right now and survive.” She exhaled sharply, almost a laugh. “And nothing else really explains why I want to be your friend.”