The distance is numbing the pain considerably - and that alone perhaps would serve to help her analyse it better - but she is in no state to treat herself and the wound is still open and festering. She will not nurse it, nor allow Kylo to tend to it either. It is a lie when she tells him that she is fine - and she both knows that he can tell (his force powers have returned - and returned in full bloom) and presumably hates it but she cannot summon the will to address it.Ā
She is functional - she feeds herself, washes herself, dressed herself and is doing at the very least a passable mimicry of dealing with it - he is too busy, she tells herself, for her dependency. His absence, after all, had been incredibly noticeable.Ā
His attempts to draw it out of her, clumsy and uncertain as their relationship has been since before their agreement to try - result in a form of punishment. She withdraws further from himĀ until he stops - and she canāt tell if heās bewildered, or hurt, or understanding but she can not- will not- can notĀ conquer his emotions when she cannot touch her own. They talk but it is nothing of importance... What heās doing, where the tunneller is now, what their future here might be...
She can see him - on the other side of the chasm - that is steadily expanding, a stretching maw growing between them - but she is trapped. They had never... Their intimacy had been progressing slowly- carefully- and had stalled since their return. And slowly started to reverse - they still share a bed but there is none of the easiness there - both of them lying awake. He doesnāt reach for her as much and she doesnāt reach for him - and she can see it - his fault? Her fault? (Almost certainly her fault - all her fault, all her fault) - sometimes itās all she can see (which is a relief from feeling everything else) but she canāt fix it.
She remains in his room and he is- he is busy. Until heās not. The sound of the doors opening does not bring her racing to his side like it once would have - needy of his attention after a day alone on his ship, but she does, at least, turn her head to acknowledge his presence.Ā Ā
