dear_mun | Spoilers likely in the comments. AU!Kylo is displeased with... everything. (X-posted to dear

Don't ever doubt your decision, Ben.

[Mom's back!]

No one ever said it'd be easy.

[He looks at her with a mixture of profound love and deepest regret.]

Considering I've been lying through selectively not mentioning things to you, perhaps you shouldn't have so much faith in me.

[She gave him a small smile. He looked just like Luke before he revealed the identity of their father to her on Endor.]

I don't know what secrets you've been keeping, but if they're important, I think you'll tell me when you're ready.

I doubt it. I haven't told you anything that wasn't self-serving. Think about it in detail and you'll realize upon reflection that I've painted myself as some tragic victim instead of the outright monster I was.

I tortured people. I killed people. I had a village of innocents slaughtered. I was an accomplice to helping fund a weapon that can destroy planets. I killed the rest of my Master's padawans before I left him and went to the Dark Side fully. [He lists them off with growing fury - not at her, but at himself. His self hatred is evident in his voice, and he watches her face for a reaction to each one.] I am not who you think I am, Leia.

[Leia's gaze hardened. Hold on, Ben, you're in for mom's rage.]

You listen here, and you listen well!

I'm not naive, Ben. I know what it means to be on the Dark side. I'm not some sheltered, fawning princess. I know what atrocities the Galactic Empire has committed - I'd be an idiot of a leader if I didn't.

Do I think you're off the hook for your crimes? No. You need to face up to them.

However, do I think you're deserving of forgiveness? Yes. I'm a politician, not an executioner.

So don't think I'm a fool. If I choose to put my faith in you, it's because I think you deserve it. No more, no less.

[He took a half step back, wincing at the sharpness in her voice. Something welled up within him, a mutual gratitude and shame for what he had done, for the horrors he'd inflicted upon people. His voice is thick with tears he's forcing back when he replies, arms wrapped around himself defensively.]

I never thought you were a fool, even when I was angry at you, even when I thought you'd abandoned me, Leia... Mom. You're. You're my mother. My full name is Ben Solo. Luke was my Master.

[Ben laughs, and there's nothing funny about it, no joy; it turns into a strangled sob.] How deserving of forgiveness am I now that you know the full breadth of my lies?

[It was Leia's turn to step back, her eyes widening. Her mind protested - how could he be her son, when he was her age? - but her heart knew the truth. He was her son. Ben.]

[Ben, named after Ben Kenobi, her only hope.]

[She'd always known he was her son.]

[Tears welled up in her eyes and she reached over to draw him in for a fierce hug.]

I forgive you, Ben. I love you.

[Despite being well and truly given to act of rage, he had never expressed his emotions through tears as a first impulse. Something had to truly touch his heart to bring that out.

His mother's embrace broke his resolve to remain strong throughout this, and hot tears flowed down his cheeks as his arms wrapped around her instinctively. It had been years since their last embrace, years since the galaxy made sense. Years, he had to admit, since he'd be a son anyone could be proud of.

He buried his face in her hair and the familiar scent was almost dizzying.] Mother, [he whispered, struggling to continue,] I am so, so sorry. I'm sorry for everything. I... [Ben can't continue, and instead clings to her tighter, as if he can convey his feelings through hugging his mother alone.]

[She clung to him just as tightly, feeling his emotions rush over her like the sea crashing onto the shore. She didn't know the details of their estrangement, of his descent to the Dark side, but right now, she couldn't care less. What mattered was that her son was safe, and he was free of the Darkness that gripped him as tightly as it did Vader.]

[Leia rubbed his back soothingly, in a way that she would do several years later when Ben was a little boy, crying of scraped knees or a fever. She let him bury his face in her hair and held him through his tears.]

Ben . . .

[She ran a hand through his hair gently.]

I'm here for you.

[He's a bit tall to hold onto someone of her height, but he dips his head, lets himself be embraced, allows himself, perhaps for the first time in years, to truly accept the love she has for him. His time away from her, time spent alone in the isolation and pressure of being a Jedi, had put walls between him and memories of how sweet his mother truly was.

How much time had they wasted, being apart and at odds with each other, how many years had been lost to the grip of the Dark Side? He could never get that time with her back. All he could do was make up for it now, or try to, at least.]

Mother. I've torn this family apart, and I can't - I know I can't just undo it by having come back to the Light. But if it takes the rest of my life, I'll atone for all my sins. I'll help you save the galaxy, I promise.

I love you.

[Leia was rapidly realizing that while forgiveness had not come easily for her when it came to her father, it came easily when beckoned for her son. She did not know Anakin Skywalker, and she'd technically just met Ben Solo - but everything was different when it came to one's own child. A parent's love was always unconditional, and this selfsame love was what brought Anakin back to the Light.]

[She nodded, letting him feel it.]

I believe you, Ben.

I love you too.

[Someday, when she was General Organa-Solo, she would feel the same way - that she'd love him, no matter what. As she told Han: "Bring back our son." Whatever he'd done. Whoever he was. He was her son.]

[Ben would have been darkly amused at his mother's thoughts. There was always 'too much Vader' in him. Han said it, Luke said it, Leia never disagreed with it, and he had internalized it as a child as hatred when it had only been concern and genuine worry for him. He had been such a fool.

He kissed the top of her head like she used to do to him when he was a child, feeling something in his heart grow lighter, less weary.]

I didn't mean to lie to you when we first met here. But I was scared that you wouldn't be able to forgive me. It would have been easier to have you look upon me aghast at what I had become if you didn't know. All those years spent growing to be anger's puppet and worship at the altar of the Dark Side twisted me until I couldn't fathom forgiveness was even an option.

And - and then Father, Han, he came for me. He told me he would do anything to help me. [And the unconditional love in that had undone all of Snoke's work in an instant.]

He did? [Leia smiled with no small amount of fondness. Han might've always been compelled to look out after his own hide, but when push came to shove, Leia knew he'd be there.] I'm glad he did.

[Leia knew the fear. She'd always been a brave person, but the need to protect loved ones was strong - she remembered telling Luke to run and escape, to postpone facing Vader. It was not in Leia to run, but she understood the fear of losing someone important.]

I understood why you did it. I'm glad that you made up your mind and told me the truth.

[The Princess smiled up at him, reaching up to stroke her son's hair affectionately. Funny how she had not sired him yet but she already loved him.]

After everything that had happened I at least expected him to be angry with me, but he... he just wanted me to come home.

[Both his parents did. He had tortured and murdered people they loved and cared about, and yet they were willing to reach out to him. They wanted him back, after he had done everything in his power to put space and time between them. Ben still struggled to comprehend the love they had for him, a love that encompassed him like a shield for a while against the darkness and conflict he'd known for so long.

He smiled through his teary eyes as she touched his hair. It was a familiar sensation from back before he'd been sent away to Luke's.] I'm glad that I did, too. I missed you.

I've missed you too, somehow.

[She missed him even before he was born.]

[It felt the same as it did when she found Luke - a piece of her falling into place, making her whole. She had been whole before, of course, as Princess Leia Organa, but as a Skywalker and as a Solo, there were gaps to fill that she didn't even know she had.]

Ben . . . I don't know what will happen in the future, but I'm sorry if I hurt you. [Her brow creased with sadness.]

You didn't hurt me intentionally. You sent me to train with Luke, because I was... unstable. I misunderstood, I thought you and Father hated me, that there was something horribly wrong with me that you couldn't stand, and I became isolated. And from that isolation the Dark Side called to me. I felt as if my options were to be nothing but a tool to rebuild the Jedi in the eyes of my own family or to be free to be a real person and forge my own path through the Dark Side.

It's hardly an excuse, [he winces, shaking his head. It isn't. The more he thinks about it, the less of an excuse it is.] But I hope you can forgive me with the explanation laid out.

[Leia listened to his explanation carefully, knitting her brows together in thought. If Ben's powers had been unstable, then she would have done as her older self did, sending him to train with Luke because he understood the Force more than she or Han ever could.]

[The mistake lay in not letting Ben know enough that she loved him, and that she wanted only the best for him. She should've spoken to him daily, visited him where Luke was training him. He was not Han, who she could answer with "I know" when he said he loved her. That wasn't enough for their son.]

[Her eyes were sad when she looked at Ben once more.]

I should've told you and shown you more often how much I love you. Your father and I should've done that.

You were both very busy people. The galaxy was still trying to pull itself together. I wasn't seeing things clearly, I was - I was almost eager to be a monster if it gave me a sense of identity. Clearly there was, to quote Father, 'a little too much Vader' in me. I'm not sure how much of my life is the result of choice or the result of destiny.

[That's the most horrifying thing, actually, the realization that fate might have lined things up for Ben to become Kylo Ren, that the fight might be futile. He'll still fight it - he comes by stubbornness on both sides of his family, after all - but it makes it far more daunting.

Still, diplomatic as wants to be, as much as he doesn't want to ruin the moment or burn new bridges before they're fully built, he says softly,] I expected you or Father to come after me, that first year after I joined Snoke. I thought you would fight for me. You didn't. [He swallows, ducking his head. The betrayal, it is clear, has not left him even now.]

You don't need to be anything to prove your identity. You're Ben.

[Leia had always done what she thought was right, regardless of obligation or lineage.]

[She frowned after hearing the news that neither she nor Han had gone after Ben after he went to the Dark side. Why did it take them so long? Why had she buried herself in her work and not listened to her feelings?]

I'm sorry, Ben - that was terrible of us. I know my words won't be enough to repair the damage, but I hope that I can make for it somehow.

[Her expression was filled with resolve. She won't let it happen in her future and in Ben's.]

I wasn't, not then. I didn't feel like I was anyone. Sometimes I would slip into myself and watch the world go by as if watching a holovid, unthinking, unfeeling. Part of me didn't feel like a person. There was no Ben Solo in my eyes. The role of Kylo Ren had more personhood and depth, more capabilities and potential. I needed it... or it felt like that, at any rate.

[He looks at her with tired eyes and places his hands on her shoulders.] Just be here for me. That was all I ever wanted. All I need is for something to stay and, just once, remain. Endure. And I promise in return I'll do whatever it takes to set things right.

[She listened to Ben's account with a growing sadness, unable to think that she'd allowed that to happen. How could she have been so clueless?]

Of course, Ben.

[She wouldn't make the same mistakes.]

I promise that I'll be here for you. I'll wrangle up your father too and make him promise as well.

[She couldn't help her smile.]

[In all fairness to Leia, Ben hadn't reached out for help. After Master Luke had told him so much about peace being integral to being a Jedi Ben had assumed that the hollow way the world around him could go on and he could watch from afar, neither upset nor happy, was peace. Snoke had preyed on that, instilling a fear that such a voidlike state was his future, and so Ben had jumped at anything that promised a freedom from that.

Her child was wrenched away from her by Snoke as much as, if not more than, by her own choices.] That goes both ways. I'll be here for you, too. I'll help repair what I can, and fight the battles you need me to. I won't turn my back on you ever again.

Now all we need is Uncle Chewie and it'll be like when I was little all over again. [He smiles, briefly, at the memory of climbing Chewie's fur with determination and tiny pouts when he was a toddler. They'd been so happy then, living in a happily ever after not yet touched by the Force.]

[Leia gave him a fond smile, giving his arm a comforting pat.]

Thank you, Ben.

[Before Luke and Han had busted their way into her life - literally - Leia had been self-sufficient, or so she said. However, she realized during the war that she'd come to rely on the two men, and it made her angry because she didn't want to rely on anyone. She'd eventually come to terms with it, though, and understood that living her life alone was no longer an option.]

[Now, she knew that she had a son, and he promised to always be there for her. It was a nice feeling - having a family.]

I'm sure he'll be glad to see you again. He pretends he's tough but he's quite a softie.

It's... strange, to think of all of us together again. I thought I had broken this family apart forever. You and Father barely stayed together after I went to the Dark Side, Uncle Luke is in seclusion and Chewie, well. He was ready to shoot me if I tried anything funny even as I laid down my helmet and handed over my lightsaber.

I suppose I have to make amends with him, as well. I just don't know how.

[Those were all startling bits of information, and the surprise probably showed on her face. It made sense, considering everything Ben had told her, so she simply sighed and braced a hand on one hip. It was a lot to take in, but she stored it all way, knowing she'd have to face the future in due time, but was now more equipped to do so.]

Just talk to him. He'll understand.

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I legit have tears in my eyes sob

I do too. It's hard not to.

this is a beautiful thread, thank you <333

I had to take a phone call and pretend I had not just been crying.

"why were you crying?" "oh nothing just FEELS"

I pretended I had allergies, actually. XD

hey, that's a good one - I'll be sure to use that the next time ;)

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