To Be So Lonely // Ben Solo

23

It took only a few hours for Cyra to recuperate from her seizure. She was lucky to bounce back so quickly, the nurse told her. Cyra trusted in the Force. It was a warning, she insisted. Don't get too cocky, apparently. The nurse, who barely believed in the Force, simply nodded and told both her and Ben that she did not want to see Cyra again before she left the room.

"I'm trying," snapped Ben, glancing at Cyra, who shrugged.

"Do better, I guess," she said. She wiggled from the hospital bed and started to gather her clothes. Ben turned to face the wall, giving her privacy to change. "So, where we headed to? You said Mustafar?"

"We aren't going anywhere. I am going, you're staying," he told her.

Cyra laughed. "No. The Board said we are both going."

"I'm the Supreme Leader."

"Right, and you're so super important that someone has to go and protect you if things get dicey," she said sweetly. She tapped his lower back gently, letting him know she was dressed. She reached for the door handle, but Ben intercepted her, placing his hand on the door.

"No, I'm the Supreme Leader, as in I'm taking you off this mission," he told her strictly.

Cyra stared up at him, her face stoic. "Funny how you're only the Supreme Leader when you don't want me to go places."

"Cyra, I can't trust you. It's not about me. It's about you not listening to me and you don't follow my lead, if you act like this out there, in the world, you could die," he snapped.

"I could have died plenty of times. I haven't. The Force called, said it's not my time," she told him. He rolled his eyes and she pointed her finger at him again, poking his chest. "You need to not underplay Palpatine. If you're right, if this is him, he has generations of a vendetta to rule the galaxy under his bones. If you stand in the way of that, he will kill you."

Ben's fingers spread in agreement, shaking his head. "Then what do you think he'll do to you?"

"Kill me, too, but at least together, we have a fighting chance to kill him," said Cyra, tilting her head at him. Her eyes enlarged as an idea came to her. "Unless we ask--"

"No," he said.

Cyra growled under her breath. "You don't even know what I was going to say."

"Rey."

"Alright," she said, raising her hands in surrender. "So you did know. But either way, I'm going with you. You need the help. So, we find out what he wants, then we kill him."

Ben distanced himself from her, walking along the short length of the room. "It's not that simple, Cyra."

"Why? He's too dangerous to be kept alive," she snapped. "If he wants to join ranks, he wants to send the galaxy further into oppression, and we can't let that happen. If he doesn't want to join the First Order, that's a threat to your reign as the Supreme Leader. There is no alternative where he survives this and people don't die. We kill him and we tell the Board he wanted to kill the Order and the Resistance alike."

Ben stared at her. He replayed her admittance of his title over in his head a few times, feeling uncomfortable by her sudden belief in his position. She had changed in the last year and hearing her words only confirmed it. He could barely believe she was agreeing to and advising him to kill someone, albeit it was Palpatine. For someone who wanted to generally stay out of the fight, she had chosen a side, whether or not she admitted or understood she could not stay neutral to the war. He wished, beyond belief, he could submit to how simple her belief system was among all of this.

"Alright," he agreed. "We go there to kill him."