Freya was no stranger to her own darkness. She had never spoken about it openly, with Kyle or anyone else, but neither had she denied its existence. That was where so many Jedi failed, and she didn’t intend to be one of them. Accepting the darker parts of herself didn’t stop her from being a force for good in the world. If anything, it was the one thing that kept her sane during her lowest times. With no shame to weigh her down, she found peace within herself despite her chosen solitude. A balance.
Now, of course, that balance was shaken. Some days it seemed like it stopped existing altogether, because it was getting harder and harder to separate all the different lives she led and the secrets she kept from the people in them. Harder emotionally, but easier the longer she did it, and all for one reason. To protect the part of her life that felt more real to her than all the rest. The one that made her feel like her purest, strongest self.
Her darkness was growing with Kyle, and she was doing very little to stop it.
That should have scared her more. It did at the beginning when the thought of being tethered to the volatile reincarnate of Kylo Ren was a likely death sentence, but now, holding each other’s wrists the same way they held their lightsabers, the fear was gone – or, at least, the worst of it was. The shift away from something antagonistic between them to something unknown, something more like a partnership, was still so new that a little fear inevitably came with it. But it was a thrilling kind of fear, like standing at the edge of a precipice and knowing something incredible was waiting for her below.
Also inevitable, though, were the challenges that would come along the way. Her own darkness she would have to keep in check alone, but beyond that, there was still so much she didn’t know about Kyle. Like this. Like whatever kind of life he was living that meant he had no friends.
His admission wasn’t much of a surprise to Freya, but even so, it triggered something in her that she couldn’t immediately name. Guilt, maybe, that even at her most isolated she still existed in the world? The co-workers at her cover job, the owners of the restaurant below her flat – she considered them friends, though all of them thought she was just a quiet British girl who kept to herself, not an American self-exiling from tremendous loss and playing spy in a reincarnate war. None of them knew the real Freya, but even a fake Freya couldn’t help but make friends wherever she was.
Kyle didn’t have that. Of course he didn’t. Through their connection, she sensed the ghost of a reason for it – not a simple solitary life prompted by the loss of his family, but something more. A deliberate, lifelong separation from others.
Had that been his choice, or someone else’s? Freya’s curiosity was potent enough that she nearly pushed to find the answer, but at the last moment she realized what she was doing and pulled back. The temptation to take more than what he was offering was so strong now that she knew what she had to do, for his sake as well as her own, though she was reluctant to do it.
She had to let go. For now.
Her free hand briefly touched the top of his hand around her wrist, a silent apology as she released him and slipped out of his grasp. The loss of a tactile link to him didn't to weaken their bond – they were far past that now – but everything around her felt duller once it was gone, even her own connection to the living Force. She closed her eyes to ward off the almost woozy feeling that came over her once her hand was her own again, but a wave of delayed fatigue immediately followed, doing nothing to clear her senses as her body seemed to suddenly scream for sleep.
No. Blinking several times, she pushed everything back, just for a little longer, if only because she knew how easily he could misconstrue her separation from him. Kylo always jumped to the worst conclusion, and nothing about Kyle told her he was any different. Sleep could wait.
“Well.” Freya looked at him evenly despite her tired eyes and, neither judging nor pitying, offered him a choice. “Do you want one?”