How can you be around me if you can't accept my choices?
It's not rhetorical, Finn. I don't I haven't done this. I don't understand. I don't know how to do this.
[ where 'do this' is 'have friends.' and she feels nauseous even saying it because she knows that she's the problem because she has never had people and she doesn't know how to weather real interpersonal conflict with them without being afraid that everything and anything could be abandonment. ]
[ it's a long time before he even says anything in response. ]
Maybe I can't.
[ because he doesn't know how to make her see how this isn't just about them. it's picking someone who hurt him, who's hurt poe. and he knows if he even so much as mentions han or leia it might be going one step too far, but it doesn't make that less true either. ]
You want Rey Skywalker back. You want someone that I can't be.
[ she wishes that she could. she wishes there were space in her to be everything finn believes her to be and also reconcile this connection she has to ben solo.
but it doesn't feel like she has a choice. they're stuck together. that connection exists whether she wants it or not — and the lonely child on jakku who just wanted someone to love her does want it, that impossible connection. she may not be able to get free of the force bond's implications, but neither can ben leave her like it feels like finn is doing now.
she'd never have said she wanted it more. it still doesn't feel like she does. it just feels like being torn apart. and she understands, then, ben's conflict. he could neither be everything his family wanted for him and true to his nature. finn is her family, and she doesn't feel like she can either.
shutting him out wouldn't change that she had been drawn to him, that it had been true since ahch-to. it wouldn't make her into the shape that she thinks finn wants. she entertains it for a moment anyway, but it's just regressing to the mean. denial. if she wants to make finn understand, then she needs to understand in a way that makes it possible to explain at all. she can't keep avoiding the truth of that pull. she has to confront it. ]
Rey, I know the truth. About your past, about who your parents were. You told me. Or... you will tell me. I'm not sure how much of it aligns with what you remember, but who you are has nothing to do with this.
I care about you. [ he almost types something else and then backspaces at the last second. ] I always will. But what you're doing, what you're choosing to do, I can't support that. I'm sorry.
[ it's as close as he can get to admitting right now that he's from a certain point in their lives. he's already had doubts over whether he should have told her anything about what transpired from when she — the other rey, still her in a sense — had been here before. still questioning whether it was even the right thing to do. to fill her head with thoughts about a life she'd technically never lived herself. it's like he'd told her — he hadn't wanted to be unfair to her, make her feel any kind of weight of expectation pressing down on her. like she had to fit herself into the situation they'd all had before.
he hasn't talked to poe much about it, but he knows he's hurting too — just more quietly, shoving it down and trying not to think about it much rather than expressing anything out loud.
but it's hard. it's hard for finn to sit here, holding onto the last memory he has from home, the three of them clutching onto each other, the heat of tears pinpricking in his vision, and weighing it against... this. ]
I'm not asking you to support it, Finn. I'm asking you to believe that I need to I need to figure this out.
[ isn't that different? she wouldn't say she supports it either. if she did, she wouldn't have hidden it, wouldn't feel so conflicted. but it hardly feels like a choice when she is thus compelled by it, and when it's inescapable, and so deeply tied up in her history.
but even as she makes her plea — and it is a plea, because she can feel him slipping through her fingers and her defensive outburst was only fear of this exact situation — she already knows it's going to fall on deaf ears.
he can't be around her if she can't explain herself. and she can't let go of this. ]
[ he's fully cognizant of the fact that whatever relationship she and kylo ren have, his understanding is never going to be able to scratch the surface of that. he's felt that, he's always felt that to a deeper extent, even if maybe part of him didn't want to admit it. and it's something he feels uniquely attuned to just be the very nature of what he is able to sense, on a level different from most.
but he also remembers the one and only time his path had crossed with kylo ren's in this city. and he doesn't have to reach very far to guess about what would happen if their paths crossed again. ]
[ while she doesn't quite say 'he's your friend, not mine,' the sentiment seems to linger there. poe has been kind to her and she understands they have some history too. but it's so distinct from the reluctant cooperation that she's used to, while finn tugs between the two of them, that it honestly hadn't occurred to her.
that, and he'd barely spoken to her here. there's probably a connection. she had chosen not to think too hard on it. ]
[ which means it's up to him, although for once he's not only thinking about it from a contract standpoint. if anyone out of the group deserves to know that kylo ren is in duplicity, it's poe. finn's still not sure the extent of what had happened when he'd been captured; he just knows there's no love lost there. ]
[ she can't do another one of these. she really can't. she feels fragile, on the cusp of breaking, because her vision is tunneling from the surreality of knowing that there's this divide between her and finn. the lonely feeling left behind in it scares her. ]
I'll steer clear, if that's what you need. I'm so sorry.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Time.
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About the contract. About... what it means.
It's just a lot to think about.
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[ she can't force him to spend time with her. she can't force him to look at her like he used to. all she can do is hurt. ]
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But I can't be okay with you choosing to do this with him. I'm not... there, right now.
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It's not rhetorical, Finn. I don't
I haven't done this. I don't understand. I don't know how to do this.
[ where 'do this' is 'have friends.' and she feels nauseous even saying it because she knows that she's the problem because she has never had people and she doesn't know how to weather real interpersonal conflict with them without being afraid that everything and anything could be abandonment. ]
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Maybe I can't.
[ because he doesn't know how to make her see how this isn't just about them. it's picking someone who hurt him, who's hurt poe. and he knows if he even so much as mentions han or leia it might be going one step too far, but it doesn't make that less true either. ]
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You want Rey Skywalker back. You want someone that I can't be.
[ she wishes that she could. she wishes there were space in her to be everything finn believes her to be and also reconcile this connection she has to ben solo.
but it doesn't feel like she has a choice. they're stuck together. that connection exists whether she wants it or not — and the lonely child on jakku who just wanted someone to love her does want it, that impossible connection. she may not be able to get free of the force bond's implications, but neither can ben leave her like it feels like finn is doing now.
she'd never have said she wanted it more. it still doesn't feel like she does. it just feels like being torn apart. and she understands, then, ben's conflict. he could neither be everything his family wanted for him and true to his nature. finn is her family, and she doesn't feel like she can either.
shutting him out wouldn't change that she had been drawn to him, that it had been true since ahch-to. it wouldn't make her into the shape that she thinks finn wants. she entertains it for a moment anyway, but it's just regressing to the mean. denial. if she wants to make finn understand, then she needs to understand in a way that makes it possible to explain at all. she can't keep avoiding the truth of that pull. she has to confront it. ]
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Rey, I know the truth. About your past, about who your parents were. You told me. Or... you will tell me. I'm not sure how much of it aligns with what you remember, but who you are has nothing to do with this.
I care about you. [ he almost types something else and then backspaces at the last second. ] I always will. But what you're doing, what you're choosing to do, I can't support that. I'm sorry.
[ it's as close as he can get to admitting right now that he's from a certain point in their lives. he's already had doubts over whether he should have told her anything about what transpired from when she — the other rey, still her in a sense — had been here before. still questioning whether it was even the right thing to do. to fill her head with thoughts about a life she'd technically never lived herself. it's like he'd told her — he hadn't wanted to be unfair to her, make her feel any kind of weight of expectation pressing down on her. like she had to fit herself into the situation they'd all had before.
he hasn't talked to poe much about it, but he knows he's hurting too — just more quietly, shoving it down and trying not to think about it much rather than expressing anything out loud.
but it's hard. it's hard for finn to sit here, holding onto the last memory he has from home, the three of them clutching onto each other, the heat of tears pinpricking in his vision, and weighing it against... this. ]
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I'm asking you to believe that I need to
I need to figure this out.
[ isn't that different? she wouldn't say she supports it either. if she did, she wouldn't have hidden it, wouldn't feel so conflicted. but it hardly feels like a choice when she is thus compelled by it, and when it's inescapable, and so deeply tied up in her history.
but even as she makes her plea — and it is a plea, because she can feel him slipping through her fingers and her defensive outburst was only fear of this exact situation — she already knows it's going to fall on deaf ears.
he can't be around her if she can't explain herself. and she can't let go of this. ]
I wish I could make you understand.
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[ he's fully cognizant of the fact that whatever relationship she and kylo ren have, his understanding is never going to be able to scratch the surface of that. he's felt that, he's always felt that to a deeper extent, even if maybe part of him didn't want to admit it. and it's something he feels uniquely attuned to just be the very nature of what he is able to sense, on a level different from most.
but he also remembers the one and only time his path had crossed with kylo ren's in this city. and he doesn't have to reach very far to guess about what would happen if their paths crossed again. ]
Are you going to tell Poe?
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[ while she doesn't quite say 'he's your friend, not mine,' the sentiment seems to linger there. poe has been kind to her and she understands they have some history too. but it's so distinct from the reluctant cooperation that she's used to, while finn tugs between the two of them, that it honestly hadn't occurred to her.
that, and he'd barely spoken to her here. there's probably a connection. she had chosen not to think too hard on it. ]
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[ which means it's up to him, although for once he's not only thinking about it from a contract standpoint. if anyone out of the group deserves to know that kylo ren is in duplicity, it's poe. finn's still not sure the extent of what had happened when he'd been captured; he just knows there's no love lost there. ]
I'll do it.
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[ she can't do another one of these. she really can't. she feels fragile, on the cusp of breaking, because her vision is tunneling from the surreality of knowing that there's this divide between her and finn. the lonely feeling left behind in it scares her. ]
I'll steer clear, if that's what you need.
I'm so sorry.