When Cyra returned to their corridor, she barely stepped through the locked door before she saw Ben stomping down the corridor at her. He waited until the door to the rest of the ship closed before he looked down at her, his brow line almost covering his eyes with how angry his face appeared.

"Where have you been?" he snapped. "I haven't seen you since this morning. I thought something happened. I thought some Stormtroopers were disobeying my direct orders and went after you, or hurt you! You could have been hurt. I almost put the entire ship on lockdown to find you—"

Cyra reached her hands up to his face and pulled him down to her lips. She waited for him to recognize their sudden shift in spacial movement before she continued to kiss him. It was him who broke their lips apart when he leaned away from her face, his hands wrapping around hers. He searched her eyes, confused and anxious about the subtle spark of peace in them, even after he attacked her with his worry. They remained close to each other's face.

"I survived," she whispered to him, stealing a quick peck. She almost laughed at how stunned he appeared, still, and wide eyed from the sudden kiss. "You don't have to worry about me, Ben. You'll know if I'm in trouble, remember?" she said, moving her hand to tap his forehead gently. She stepped away from him and started to walk to their room.

Ben remained in place for a number of confused seconds before he turned and followed her. He watched her hop down the stairs, randomly and confusingly joyful in her movements. She disappeared behind the wall where their bed was.

Ben stayed at the top of the stairs, his hands grasping the railing. He watched the spot where the doorway was, awaiting vigorously for her to appear again.

To say he was confused was an understatement. Cyra left him early in the morning, crying and shaken from allowing herself Dark Side control, and returned just before the night, seemingly fine. Beyond inquiring to her mood, he needed to convey to her his pure fear upon not being able to find her all day, and subsequently chew her ear off a bit about her greeting with Hux. He would, perhaps, leave out the part where he force-choked Hux to get the man to shut up about disrespect and all of it. Ben wondered if the other Board Members would take the hint that Cyra could do no wrong, and they would not push on her presence on the ship.

Cyra only changed into the clothes she wore to bed. It seemed she took a short shower, too, Ben noticed, as she walked by him to the couch and smelled of lavender. Maybe he was daydreaming too much about her mood to have noticed.

She tilted her head against the couch, eyebrow raised. "Are you going to come sit or just stand there all night?"

Silently, Ben stepped down the stairs and took a seat beside her on the couch. Their body languages were always widely different, but none more so than on the couch. Cyra was comfortable, her legs tucked underneath her bottom, leaning on the side of the couch to face him, and Ben was sitting upright, his hands on his knees.

"Will you relax?" she sighed, reaching to push him gently. He barely moved, but he did look her way. She giggled at how scared he looked. "Ben. Just relax."

Cyra scooted closer to him and put her hand on his chest, pushing his back to the couch. She left her hand there for a moment until it trailed down his body and found his hand, which she held loosely in her own. As he stared at their hands, he realized he could never forget the feeling of their hands together. How small her fingers felt laced between the grooves of his long fingers. The longer he held onto her hand, the more he started to remember the feeling of being loved by her.

She leaned her nose against his cheek, her forehead touching his temple. Ben surprised himself with how easily he leaned into her as well, turning his head to feel her nose against his own. His eyes closed. He could almost hear her smile, the relief of him complying with what she was trying to do. He was letting himself go...

"I was worried today," he whispered. His brow furrowed, and Cyra felt it, so she pressed a soft kiss to his lips, but remained with their foreheads together, eyes closed. It enclosed them in a world of their own. Not being able to see each other, relying on their voices to convey everything that was wrong.

"I know. I'm sorry, truly," she whispered back. "I didn't mean to worry you. I just couldn't comprehend how I felt after what I did to you."

"I never should have pushed you to use the Dark, I should have just taught you and not showed it. It's not you--"

"I just gave in to it so quickly," she muttered. "I feared it as soon as I used it, which was what you said not to do."

"You stopped so fast. You dropped it so quickly, Cyra," he said immediately. He hesitated to speak about his own experience the first time he used a power designated to the Dark, but decided against it. She didn't need to know more about his training days; ignorance would better her state of mind.

Cyra pulled back from him. "Thank you."

"I should've known your place and not pushed it," he continued.

"Ben, stop," she muttered, accepting his apology. He looked at her with such regret that she almost told him...She decided long before she left that closet space that she could not tell Ben about her meeting with Luke. He was warming to her, but not and perhaps never to his Uncle. Hearing she spoke with him would only further in Ben's subtle distrust her.

He hummed softly, wondering what she was going to say. He could not sense her feelings or hear her thoughts, though he would admit he did not try too hard to penetrate her mind. The longer they stayed together, the more privacy he wanted to give her. He had to start showing he could trust her; it was the only way to keep her around when was on such thin ice in the first place.

Cyra continued, breaking the silence. "I barely even know my place. I don't expect you to. I just feel that I'm supposed to stay in the middle of all of this. Not a Jedi, not a Sith. Just me. Plain, old, barely powered, human Cyra from Chandrilla. It's where I feel most powerful, and I think choosing a side to train underneath would take away from where I feel strongest in my power and in my morals."

"I see that now. I'm only sorry I didn't realize sooner that you don't desire training," he said.

"I do want to train, I just don't want an affiliation. I don't want to use Sith powers or Jedi powers, I just want to do what the Force lets me," she explained. "I don't know. I don't expect you to understand because you've been shoveled your whole life into a role, into a side. I wasn't. I chose all of this."

Ben knew she wanted that to be the end of the conversion. He could accept that she forgave him and he could feel that it was genuine. Still, he didn't feel it to be enough. Stooping to such low level as to bring her to remember her dead father was something he did not twice about, and it proved to show him that he was not feeling as far gone from Kylo Ren as he thought he might have been. If Cyra was disgusted by how quickly she gave into the Dark Side, Ben was disgusted by how simply he gave into saying vile things to the woman he loved.

"Because of me," he said, and she had to agree. No other reason except the Force could explain how the Solo family and Cyra's miraculously became neighbors with children of the same age and parents who were in the Rebellion. The two had decided long ago the Force brought them together.

"Because of the Force, and you," she corrected softly, smiling. She rested her forehead briefly on his shoulder.

"Cyra, can I do anything for you?" is what he said, and when she didn't move from his shoulder, awaiting more words before she reacted, he tried to correct what he meant. "Uh, I just mean...To make you more comfortable here. What I did today could have tore you away from me. I jeopardized what we have because I wanted you to become something you're not. You came to me and I've let you get stolen, injured, regrettably angered you...I just want to see if there is anything I can do to make your time on this ship better."

Cyra could think of a million things to do. Her first thought was to leave the Order and he sensed it, judging by the slight shake of his head. They both ignored her thought; there were other things to speak about than her not-so-secret plan aboard the ship.

But ultimately, Cyra shook her head at him. "I don't know exactly what I expected to have other than you," she whispered, cupping her hand around his chin. She pulled his face to hers for a kiss. "This is new and different and completely separate of anything we have done together. But you and I still love each other, which is about the only thing I know anymore."

He looked at her, his eyes slightly wide. She chuckled. "Yes, I said that I do believe we still love each other. We wouldn't be here right now if we didn't... We've always said the Force brought us together. I trust in that, if anything anymore. Where would I be without it?"

He was immediate to answer. He'd thought of this scenario often, more than he cared to admit. "On Chandrilla. In the lakes, running through the fields. You'd have your father and a good job if you wanted it and you'd be married to someone who deserves you. Not stuck in a ship with someone who doesn't know who they are, who doesn't remember how to love you."

By the simple curious look on her face, he could tell that she sensed and was confused by his energy shift. Sometimes he hated how attune they were to something as insignificant as mere energy radiating from one another. He tried to be honest, instead, because he did not want to dive further into what he had just admitted to her. Frustrations meant to stay inside of his head somehow found an easy way out when speaking to her.

"It's been hard," he said.

Cyra knew what he meant. Not hard to be with her, but hard to recede back to the people they were when they were young and in love. She nodded. "We have to see if that translates to the people we are now."

Ben lowered his head once more. She could feel him doubting her love, and she did not disprove him. Her words were true. She loved Ben for all of her childhood, up to the day he left, and even then, she continued to love him. He was family. But they both knew exactly the person he had grown to be since he joined the First Order. He was further out of pocket than Cyra was, when it came to being the people they fell in love with, but that did not mean he couldn't recognize how cold she had become.

He didn't hate it by any means. She was no longer the shy, quiet girl he loved and he supported her independence and growth. She proved to him she did not need him, or anybody, but that she chose to surround herself with him, and somehow that made all of the difference to him. Despite who they had grown to be, the choice to stay together remained the same.

"I want to," he said quietly. "I want to, but I feel so far."

Cyra could've screamed. He was trying. He was recognizing he wanted to love her and starting to think about the reasons he was finding it so hard. She dropped her hands into his and squeezed it, hoping to convey her relief in a subtle manner.

"Even if you don't say it, or I don't, I know that it's still there," she told him. "We don't have to become the people we were as kids to be in love. We can make our own path. Love how these versions of us feel comfortable doing."

"Yes," said Ben, because that was all he could think to say. He did not deserve her. He didn't deserve the kindness or the patience she was giving to him.

Cyra nodded and moved to lean away from him, but he caught her hand. She froze. He moved slowly to recline against the couch and open his arm along the length of it. He looked at her, a nervous expression tilting his eyebrows inward. Cyra smiled at him and leaned into him, her arms wrapped around his waist.

It didn't feel normal. He hadn't been hugged in years, he hadn't been simply touched in years. It was a foreign feeling to him, a forgotten one, but he wanted to try. He was trying to remember what it was like to love her and to be loved by her, and small bursts of physical affection could be a way to show her, if he could not say it.

"Ben," she mumbled suddenly, and his arm fell to sit on her waist. She tensed under his touch, but they both loosened their clenched muscles to adjust to it. She was hoping he was loose enough to joke. "We could always run away."

He almost smiled. "Hux would have my head."

"As if you can't beat him in a fight," she said in return.

He knew she wasn't being serious. It felt nice to almost smile, to joke with her. Even in her jokes, however, they couldn't escape the severity of their reality. "No, but he is on the Council. He already does not approve of my being Supreme Leader, he disproves of you. I have to maintain my position."

"But why?" she asked. She hesitated, given that she meant for her suggestion to be a joke. "I know you want it to protect me and have the definitive say over my safety, but you know we could run away. You know we could find a corner of the galaxy and live our lives. The First Order would be nothing if you left."

"You underestimate these people, Cyra," said Ben, disagreeing. "I thought about leaving with you the minute Snoke was dead, but whether or not you can see it, I need to be here. My position is not only about keeping you safe."

Cyra opened her mouth to quip back and she stopped just as quick. It was his annunciation on 'you' registered in her mind for her to stop. By the way he avoided his eye, she assumed he did not mean to admit such a claim, but it was too late. It was all she needed to end their conversation, at last, proof and reality that he chose to become Supreme Leader for little to no personal gain or reason. It was for Cyra and it was for others, disclosed, but it mattered not to her who they were. His mother, innocent people, the galaxy--it didn't matter. He designated himself to Supreme Leader because he knew another would and could be worse than his reign. It was reflection and growth all in the same and it was beyond enough for Cyra to realize that her presence was finally making a difference in his life. Hope could continue.

"If I left, I don't know that I could live knowing that worse than me could be in control of all of it. You've seen Starkiller. You saw what the capabilities of this new era of reign could be. All of it ten times worse than a turned Jedi," admitted Ben to her, assuming she connected the undertones of his previous statement. "Besides, could you? Could you return back to living away from the galaxy?"

"I would if it meant I could save you and your mother from any more of this," she said immediately.

Ben shrugged. He expected to some degree Cyra would agree. "My resignation wouldn't cause her to abandon her post. She has a duty...She's predictable like that."

"What's yours?" Cyra wondered.

Ben shrugged once more. "I don't know," he said, clearly not wanting to think about it. He said enough. She got more out of him in mere minutes than he had been forced to think about in several months, just by being able to listen to him and guide him through the muddle of feelings bottled up in his body. He was done speaking. His head hurt. He wanted to lay down.

"I don't know. But you deserve a better place in all of this," he said. "I'm sorry that you are burdened by your love for me."

"Thank you, that's what I was waiting for," said Cyra, feigning a tone so serious Ben turned to look at her. When he realized she was joking, he sighed. She wrapped her arms around his torso, her head on his shoulder. "You don't need to apologize for the decisions I make. I chose to be here, putting myself through this for us."

"I'm going to do better," he mumbled, wrapping his arms around her. He tilted his head back to rest on the edge of the couch, closing his eyes. "I'll do better, for you, Cyra."

"Ben?" she wondered, instead. He hummed. "Are you going to yell at me about how I talked to Hux today?"

The corner of his lip tilted up. "Not today. But at some point."