motherofresistance (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
motherofresistance) wrote2016-12-17 03:31 am
motherofresistance) wrote2016-12-17 03:31 am
Entry tags:
A trip to the doctor's
Who: Closed log for Leia, Gray!Ben, and NPC Doctor Harter Kalonia
What: Ben has some medical problems that need to be addressed. Fortunately, the doctor is in.
When: The day after this thread
Warnings: Discussion of mental illness, self harm, and eating disorders. Angst and feelings. Possible discussion of canon-typical violence.
The night had passed, as it inevitably did. And when the day had come, there had been plans to make. Once she and Ben had woken up properly, she'd contacted Doctor Kalonia. Normally, she would have just walked in, but this was a more... delicate matter than a typical illness or injury, and she needed to request a private consultation rather than just a standard visit to the medical bay. Fortunately, being the leader of the Resistance gave her significant pull, and the request was granted for later that afternoon. Short of an emergency, they'd have the bay all to themselves.
Now, here they were, about to step inside. Leia had come with Ben, partly for moral support and partly because she wasn't certain how the meeting would play out without her presence. It had been hard enough for Ben to tell her about his symptoms and what he'd been doing as a result; it would be that much harder to explain the situation to a professional and submit it and himself for scrutiny, even compassionate scrutiny. If necessary or desired, Leia could take some of the burden of explanation off of Ben's shoulders.
"Ready for this?" Leia asked Ben as they approached the medical bay doors. Beyond them was their best hope of a resolution to Ben's difficulties and the potential for real healing. But still, she knew that stepping through them probably wouldn't be easy for him.
What: Ben has some medical problems that need to be addressed. Fortunately, the doctor is in.
When: The day after this thread
Warnings: Discussion of mental illness, self harm, and eating disorders. Angst and feelings. Possible discussion of canon-typical violence.
The night had passed, as it inevitably did. And when the day had come, there had been plans to make. Once she and Ben had woken up properly, she'd contacted Doctor Kalonia. Normally, she would have just walked in, but this was a more... delicate matter than a typical illness or injury, and she needed to request a private consultation rather than just a standard visit to the medical bay. Fortunately, being the leader of the Resistance gave her significant pull, and the request was granted for later that afternoon. Short of an emergency, they'd have the bay all to themselves.
Now, here they were, about to step inside. Leia had come with Ben, partly for moral support and partly because she wasn't certain how the meeting would play out without her presence. It had been hard enough for Ben to tell her about his symptoms and what he'd been doing as a result; it would be that much harder to explain the situation to a professional and submit it and himself for scrutiny, even compassionate scrutiny. If necessary or desired, Leia could take some of the burden of explanation off of Ben's shoulders.
"Ready for this?" Leia asked Ben as they approached the medical bay doors. Beyond them was their best hope of a resolution to Ben's difficulties and the potential for real healing. But still, she knew that stepping through them probably wouldn't be easy for him.
Never be sorry for awesome tags of feels.
But the idea that she could think him weak? That was what ultimately made her move. She stepped forward, closing the distance between them and wrapping her arms around her son. "Oh, Ben...", she aid. "None of us ever thought you were weak. None of us think so now. It took more strength than most people would have had to hand your lightsaber over to your father. To come out from behind the mask that Kylo Ren was and come back to us. You're a very strong person, and I'm so glad you are because it gave is all a second chance."
She was quiet for a brief moment after that before speaking again, though she didn't let go of him. "None of us knew you were in the temple when it burned," she said quietly. "The heat damaged the security recordings, and by the time we got there... by the time we got there, it was all over."
Nothing but charred rubble and bodies. Ben had been gone. Luke had been gone. They'd found R2, inactive, next to a small holorecorder containing a cryptic message from Luke, but beyond that... there was nothing. She'd lost everything. Her world reduced to ashes. Again.
But she remembered that night too, even if she hadn't been there. The events had jolted her out of a dead sleep, what Luke probably would have called a 'disturbance in the Force'. Given that Luke had once mentioned to her that Obi-Wan had described sensing the death of Alderaan the same way, she was tempted to believe that the greatest gift of the Jedi wasn't the Force, but understatement; 'disturbance' did not in any way cover anything she had felt that he might have called that.
But Ben didn't need her own memory of that dark night. Not right now. But perhaps another memory would help. "I never thought you enjoyed those kinds of confrontations," she said gently. "Just that that's the kind of thing that usually happens when two people who care about each other at the same time they're carrying a lot of anger and hurt for one another meet."
"But I don't think you know what's in Luke quite as well as you think you do," she said. "I'd like to show you something, if you'll let me." She nudged gently against his mental walls, a knock at the door. Accompanying it was an equally gentle wash of warmth and love. You don't need those. Not with me, Ben.
no subject
Having people to live for was much harder. He didn’t know how to be the son Leia wanted. He didn’t know how to be the friend-maybe-more Rey was seeking. She would do better to look to Poe or Finn. His mother would be better off if he kept a distance so he couldn’t disappoint her, but oh, how much he had missed her. He wanted nothing more than to be held by her like he used to be, back when he was a child and didn’t understand that people saw Anakin when they looked at him. His arms wrapped around her in return when she embraced him on instinct. She was small in the sense of being short. He was small in all the wrong ways, the wrong ways that felt empowering, like armor. People could leave, but he could drive the Force into him, into his body and mind, no matter who walked away or who stayed. He could be a person. For a long time, that was all he’d had.
He’d had to live for himself without ever truly believing there was a self to live for. Now that he didn’t have to, he wasn’t sure what other options there were. Luke was not an option the way that happy endings were not an option; Ben fully expected his life to end in some overwrought tragedy that was typical of the Skywalker family, to either die on the battlefield in glory or be struck down and succeeded by Rey.
“Uncle Luke knew,” he muttered softly, closing his eyes. He was there, couldn’t he have sensed it in the Force, Ben’s struggle to stay in the heat while fearing the burning heat? Ben had screamed when part of the ceiling came down, terrified of what he had wrought, fighting with Snoke in his head as the man told him to save himself and Ben’s Uncle was silent in the Force, unreachable, leaving him alone... “Or I thought he did. If he ever actually told me what was going on with him, that might have helped salvage things. But he didn’t. He still doesn’t. He never will. That much, I know.”
He wanted to argue about Luke ‘caring’ about him, but his curiosity at what memory she might think could salvage the incredible mess he’d made of their lives was overpowering. Begrudgingly, he let down his mental shields, enough to let her in, not so much he couldn’t throw her out if more of his unpleasant memories popped up and he needed to keep her from being traumatized.
“Alright. Show me.”