Chapter Text
No one was in the canteen when he walked in.
Well, he thought so, at first. But as Kylo Ren – or rather, Matt the Radar Technician – adjusted his (fake) glasses, he did notice one person, sitting in the farthest corner.
It was a young woman, maybe about his age, if he had to guess. Neat hair, impeccable uniform…nervous disposition.
She hadn’t noticed him right away, either. Not even when he started to walk slowly towards her. She seemed to be watching the other entrance at the other end of the canteen. But then she turned her head (Kylo could read in her eyes, not trying to delve into her mind…yet…that she must have been doing this for some time). Her eyes landed on him, and she immediately stood up, spine stiff straight.
“Hello,” she said, quick and…almost panicked. “Are you my supervisor?”
Kylo paused.
“Um…no?” he said, a bit afraid his disguise was too transparent. “I’m Matt. I’m a radar technician.”
Her posture relaxed the tiniest bit.
“Oh…okay,” she said, not unkindly. “Are you new, too?”
“…yes.”
Thank the Force. She was new. She probably had no idea who he really was. …maybe she did, who knew.
“Um…so what’s your name?” he asked after a moment.
“U-N-zero-one-zero-one?”
The woman turned, wisps of her hair floating in the air as she did, at the sound of the stormtrooper’s voice.
“Yes,” she said. “That’s me.”
“Follow me,” the stormtrooper ordered passively. “Your supervisor is waiting.”
“Okay, thank you,” she said politely. She glanced at Matt, giving him a slight nod before following the stormtrooper.
Nice to meet you. Unspoken in the air.
Well. That certainly was…an encounter, Kylo thought. Now, if only every encounter with all his other employees went as…smoothly?...as that one had gone?
***
“Whaddup, MATT?”
‘clank’
Kylo’s head darted in the direction of the tool that was now feet away from him.
“Hey, you kicked my wrench!” he shouted in the direction of the retreating stormtrooper, before he glared down at the now-empty space. “Jerkface.”
Kylo took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. Remember his place. A radar technician.
And no one would stoop so low as to help a radar technician.
The footsteps of someone else were passing by him…but then they faded in the direction whence they’d come. Then they came back towards him.
“Here,” a voice said. Kylo looked up to see the young woman from this morning handing the wrench to him. A slight sad smile on her face.
Sorry about that. Unspoken in the air.
“U-N-zero-one-zero-one!” the stormtrooper called.
“Coming! Just…getting a start on my job, sir!” she said, quickly following her (apparent) supervisor.
Kylo looked down at the wrench that was now in his hand. Then back up at the calcinator he was supposed to be rewiring.
Better try to get something done before the shrill muffin-loving radar technician got back.
***
When Kyl—MATT walked into the canteen for lunch, just about every table was full. Well, except for the one in the farthest corner. No one was sitting at that table.
…well…he THOUGHT. But as he walked further into the canteen, he DID see someone sitting there, hidden behind one of the taller stormtroopers.
It was her. Again. Sitting all by herself.
He had intended to sit at a fuller table. Gauge the opinions of those who worked at the base. But…
She looked up and around. Saw him standing...probably making a very awkward spectacle. Smiled at him for the briefest moment, then looked back down at her tray.
Sit with me? Unspoken in the air.
…he walked to that furthest corner and sat down across from her.
“Hi again,” he said after his tray clanked abruptly down on to the table.
“Hi again,” she said with a small laugh. “So…”
“…how are you?” he asked, looking down and poking around at the food he dearly hoped was edible.
“Okay, I guess,” she said. “First day jitters and all.” She glanced around the canteen again. “Feels like school all over again.”
“I know, right?” Kylo had no idea.
“How’s your day going? You know…outside of the wrench incident?”
“Um…good, I guess,” he said, shrugging. He took a bite of pasta salad, and tried not to grimace. It wasn’t BAD pasta salad. He just wasn’t a pesto fan.
“So…you’re a radar technician? That’s what you said this morning?” She took a bite of her own pasta salad. Whether she liked pesto or not, he couldn’t tell.
“Yes,” he said.
“And your name is…Matt?”
“Yes.”
“What’s that short for?”
“…um…Matthew?”
“No, I mean…your number. …Like, mine is U-N-zero-one-zero-one.”
“Oh.” Right. Those. “M-T-one-one-eight-three.” There. That sounded plausible and natural. “So what’s your name?”
“Oh.” She smiled a withering sort of smile. “I’m no one.”
“…no, you’re not. You’re a…um…sorry, I don’t know what you do. But you’re a person.”
“No. No One. That’s my name.”
Kylo must have looked just stymied enough for just long enough, because she covered her mouth in a somewhat desperate attempt not to laugh.
“I’ll explain,” she said, pushing her tray to the side, and leaning forward to cross her arms on the table. “It’s…sort of become a thing in my department.”
“In one day?”
“I know, right?” Another withering smile. “Well…okay. What’s my number?”
“…U-N-zero-one-zero-one.”
“No, not…zero.”
“…OH. U-N-oh-one-oh-one?”
“Yes. UN-0101. What does that sound like?”
“…”
“Yoooouennnnnohhhonnnnnneohhhhonnnne. Youenowenowen. Unknownnoone. Unknown. No one. So…I’m No One.”
Kylo raised his eyebrows. That was…a stretch if he’d ever heard one. But still…no one? Not even here a full day and she was already considered a no one.
“Not…Unknown?” he finally said. Because…what DO you say to that? But she smiled. Still withering, but tinged with amusement. Understanding.
“They tried both,” she said. “They decided ‘No One’ was funnier. ‘Who’s assigned to clean this room?’ ‘No One is.’ And thus…” She leaned back in her chair, spreading her hands as though presenting a surprise.
“…but you have a REAL name, right?” Kylo said after another long pause. She nodded.
“My parents aren’t as cruel to name me ‘No One’.”
“…that’s good.”
“…not that anyone in my department is cruel. Strict, maybe, but…I mean, I really am kind of a no one, in the grand scheme of things here. I’m just a…chambermaid? Janitor? Cleaning person?” She shrugged. “Like I said. No One. Well, no one compared to…”
“Kylo Ren?”
It was out of his mouth before he could think about it too much. But hey. Maybe it was worth a shot.
“I guess, yes,” she said, eyebrows raised. “He’s pretty high up there, being a commander.”
“Yeah, he is,” he continued. “What do you think of Kylo Ren?”
“…I…don’t have any thoughts about him,” she said, pulling her tray back in front of her. “I’ve never met him and…I didn’t really know anything about him before coming here. So...”
“Oh.” He supposed that made sense.
“I get the impression you think highly of him?” It wasn’t a teasing question, or mocking. Genuine. He nodded. “Well…I’ll keep an open mind if our paths ever do cross.”
***
No one had been cleaning Kylo Ren’s quarters.
At least, so he thought, at the time he – Kylo Ren, not Matt the Radar Technician – opened the door to his rooms. He stopped still at the sight of…
…someone increasingly familiar to him. Well…to Matt.
She’d whirled around at the sound of the door sliding open. Her back straightened, and she clasped her hands behind her back, trying to ball up and hide a cloth in her clutches.
“I’m so sorry, sir—Commander,” she said. “I was told you wouldn’t be present here for another hour or so, and I am almost done, but…it’s my first day, and I know that’s no excuse…” She lowered her head. “I’m very sorry, Commander, sir.”
Kylo stayed silent for a time. She didn’t move. He looked around the room.
“You’ve done a fine job,” he said. It was true.
“Thank you, sir…Commander.” She still didn’t move. Not even to look up at him.
“I have…returned earlier than I normally do. It is not a regular occurrence.”
Silence.
“…you are not in trouble.”
She nodded, glancing up at him quickly before looking back down.
“Is there anything I’ve missed, Commander, sir? Or is there anything else you would like for me to do, Commander, sir?”
“You do not have to keep calling me ‘Commander Sir’ or ‘Sir Commander’,” Kylo snapped, tiring of the double title.
“Which would you prefer I address you as?” she asked him, stopping herself from the offense. Kylo watched her as she straightened her posture even more, if that was possible.
“‘Sir’ will suffice,” he decided. She nodded.
“Do you require anything else of me at this time, sir?”
“No. You may go.”
“Yes, sir.” She nodded once more as she walked to the corner of the room and quickly gathered her supplies. She walked towards him, and paused in front of him. He looked down at her. Her head was still low.
“Excuse me, sir,” she said. Quiet. Polite. But afraid.
Oh. He was still standing in the doorway.
He stepped back and to the side to let her leave.
“Thank you, sir,” she whispered, nodding at him once more as she left. He turned and watched her walk down the hall.
It was the same kind of step he’d seen when she was following the stormtrooper to meet her supervisor. Very quick. Obedient. Timid.
He walked into his rooms and closed the door.
***
It was a week since he’d seen her, as either Matt or Kylo. He didn’t think much of it, deciding to focus more on his undercover boss duties.
As Kylo Ren was being called a “punk bitch” by some troglodyte stormtrooper to Matt’s face, he was almost regretting this undercover decision. It was hard enough to keep his temper as Matt (especially with the muffin-loving shrew). But as the stormtrooper laughed in the middle of a bite of pasta salad, he found an opening…
…that opening being the troglodyte’s trachea, which he clogged with the power of the Force. (And some pasta salad. For verisimilitude.)
Zack – the officer whose son Kylo had accidentally killed – began asking if the troglodyte (Tim, apparently) was okay.
“Oh no, he’s choking on food,” “Matt” said, without a trace of concern.
It was going to be so easy. Lift him to his feet with a wave of his hand. Slam him into the vending machine. Concuss him, if not kill him.
No one would be able to help the poor fool.
As Kylo prepared to carry this out, he was momentarily thrown off by the clattering of a tray on the floor. And he was completely thrown off as one UN-0101 ran over to Tim, asking his permission to help him (to which Tim nodded violently), and then informing him quickly what she was going to do (to which he, again, nodded violently).
She wrapped her arms around Tim’s waist and helped him stand up, asking Zack if there was a way to get past the stormtrooper armor. Zack went to her side to fiddle with the armor, trying to remove the breastplate. Tim’s face was beginning to turn a flushed purple. Kylo, in his surprise, unclutched his hand…his power. Tim continued to choke.
When the breastplate was loose, her arms were around Tim’s waist again, and she balled her hands against Tim’s abdomen. She pressed them hard and heaved him back. Tim retched, but the purple in his face didn’t dissipate. Again, she pressed. And again.
“Come ON,” she grunted as she kept trying to dislodge the food from Tim’s throat. Zack stood by, reaching out to steady her as he pointed at someone and called for them to notify medical.
After several more tense moments, Tim coughed, wheezing in breaths frantically. His knees weakened, and he half-collapsed to the ground. She followed suit, having continued to try and keep him standing. Zack reached to help her up.
“I’m fine, help him,” she said, gesturing towards Tim. Zack bent to help Tim sit up, rubbing his back as he continued to gulp in air.
“Thank you,” Zack said to her.
“You…saved…my life—” Tim was cut off by a string of coughs.
“Don’t try to talk, okay?” she said gently, reaching out to pat his arm. She smiled gently at him. Tim nodded.
The canteen was once again filled with people and confusion as medical officials entered. They hauled Tim up and spoke to each other, some speaking into earpieces to medical quarters.
“Who assisted him?” one of the officials asked.
“No one did!” someone called from the back with a moronic chuckle. She rolled her eyes. Someone from her department, probably.
“UN-0101, sir,” she said as Zack helped her stand up. She turned to gesture at him. “He assisted with the removal of the armor; I didn’t know how.”
“Can you come with us to answer some questions?” the official said. She nodded.
Kylo…Matt…watched the crowd leave. Watched her leave.
He, himself, was a bit breathless from…how everything had not gone as he intended. From what she’d done.
How did she know?
***
Kylo had been practicing his lightsaber stances that evening in his room to pass the time before meeting with Snoke and Hux. No one was present.
That is, until his door slid open.
It was her. Her face was flushed, and her supplies were gathered haphazardly in her arms. He extinguished his lightsaber and lowered it.
A part of him was grateful he’d remained in his mask. Another part of him wondered why he was grateful for that.
“Sir, I’m so sorry,” she said, walking over to a table to arrange her supplies. “There was an…incident at lunchtime and medical questioned me for…well, to be perfectly frank, a ridiculously long time, and I’ve been trying to catch up on my shift all day and—”
“What incident?” he asked, even though he knew.
Well…Matt knew. Kylo Ren did not.
“A stormtrooper was choking, sir,” she said.
“You yourself did not require medical attention?”
“No, sir.”
“…very well.”
“…I can come back later, sir, if you’re busy. I’m sorry for interrupting…even though I’m late and should be done by now and—”
“No.”
Her mouth clamped shut, and she looked down, her face flushing more.
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“Stop apologizing.”
Her mouth opened for a moment, before she shut it again.
“Was there something else?”
“…I was about to apologize for apologizing, sir.”
“…I have a meeting shortly. I will return later this evening. That should provide plenty of time for you to clean.”
She nodded.
“…you’re free to speak,” he said.
“Understood, sir,” she said, nodding, beginning to gather certain supplies to begin cleaning. “Is there anything in particular you need me to do while I’m here, sir?”
“No.”
She nodded. He moved towards his door, which had remained open. In the doorway, he turned back around.
“What is your number?” he asked. She looked up at him.
It was the longest she’d looked at him. Well…at Kylo. Not Matt. Even then, she was still more willing to look away from him. From the mask.
“U-N-zero-one-zero-one, sir,” she said.
“Very good. While I am gone, I will verify your story. If I find you’re not telling the truth…”
A threat. Unspoken in the air.
“Understood, sir.” Her face paled as she turned back to her supplies. He watched her begin to work. If she was aware of his eyes on her, she acted as though he didn’t. After another long moment, he turned, his cape billowing behind him as he left his rooms.
***
Kylo had not been making himself popular as Matt the Radar Technician. One too many outbursts after anyone spoke ill of Kylo Ren (especially the lightsaber-throwing incident).
So he wasn’t surprised, after another week of not being able to restrain himself, when no one came to sit with him at lunch.
“Hi, Matt.”
He instinctively ducked; usually, the calling of his alias resulted in something of his being thrown or kicked or—
“May I sit with you?”
He looked up. Her.
“Yeah…yeah, sure,” he said, trying to manage a smile to answer hers.
“How’s your day going?” she asked, arranging her plastic cutlery.
“Oh, you know…rewiring calcinators and…um…technician-ing other radar.”
His wince was probably very visible at the idiocy of what he’d just said.
“Sounds very…technician-y,” was her response. Not mocking, but with a kind amusement.
“How about your day?”
“Oh…very clean. And janitor-y.” Kylo could tell she was trying not to smirk. “Increasingly so as the day goes on what with all the janitor-ing and such.”
“Okay, okay, I know technician-ing isn’t a word,” he snapped. She giggled at his frustration.
“Hey, come on,” she said, reaching for his hand. “I have moments like that, too. No need to worry. We’re friends.”
Kylo still frowned as he withdrew his hand from underneath hers. She smiled again – one that didn’t quite reach her eyes – and she looked down at her tray.
They ate in a mostly companionable silence for a few minutes. But it was soon interrupted when she started to cough. Kylo looked up. She clutched the edge of the table with one hand, her other over her chest as she coughed. When she began to wheeze, he began to worry.
“Are you okay?” he asked, making to stand up, but she waved for him to sit down.
“Fine” she choked, reaching for her drink. She took a small sip and her coughing calmed. “Just…drank too fast. Went down the wrong tube.”
“You don’t need…whatever it was you did to that stormtrooper the other day?”
“No, no.” Her voice was coming back, her breathing growing normal. “No Heimlich maneuver.”
“Right. That.” She took another sip of her drink, then looked up at him, her eyes a bit watery.
“See? All fine now.”
“How did you do that?” he asked.
“…do what?”
“The…maneuver. With…?”
“Tim, the other day?” She shrugged. “Something I read about.”
“Really? Where?”
She was suddenly very focused on her food.
“Well…an old medical text I was lucky to come across when I was younger,” she said, looking up at him. “Don’t laugh…but I’ve always wanted to work in the medical field.”
“Why…aren’t you?” he asked. “Why would I laugh at that,” he’d almost asked.
“My parents…well…we didn’t have a lot of money growing up,” she explained, looking back down. “They wouldn’t have been able to afford to send me to the proper schooling. …so I read what I could find. It wasn’t a lot, but…” She smiled to herself. “It was more than what I would have hoped for, coming from what…where I did.” She stuck her fork in her pasta salad before crossing her arms in front of her.
“But…surely if your parents knew—”
“I never told them.” She looked back up at him. “They always talked about being lucky for whatever work they could get. Whatever they had at the time, no matter how awful or little it was. So…what would have been the use in telling them? In getting my hopes up?” She smiled. No mirth in it. “I expected as much when I began to work. I’m incredibly lucky to be working HERE. It’s the best paying job anyone in my family’s gotten in…forever.”
Kylo’s heart couldn’t help but drop for her a bit in that moment. He didn’t know exactly how much the cleaning staff made on Starkiller Base…but he knew it wasn’t a lot.
“No, it’s not a lot,” she echoed his thoughts. “But…to me, it’s a fortune. I can hopefully be able to give my parents a good life when they can’t work anymore.”
Kylo was taken aback.
“How did you know…?”
What I was thinking? Unspoken in the air.
“Could read it all over your face,” she said, her smile kind with the smallest bit of tease in it.
“I’m that obvious?” Too much worry in his voice. Kylo asking, rather than Matt.
“No, not really…but it’s the kind of reaction I’ve come to expect.” He inwardly sighed in relief. “It’s the same reaction I get when…well, anyone else in my department finds out I really AM a no one. No one from nowhere.”
That same small sad smile.
“But anyway, Matt…” Her voice was now brighter. “I do have some news that may interest you.”
“…really?”
“Guess who’s assigned to clean Kylo Ren’s rooms?” Her eyes twinkled.
Matt the Radar Technician had received the general reputation of being Kylo’s biggest fanboy. He realized he could use this to his advantage. Find out just what she did in his rooms when he wasn’t present.
“No one?” he asked.
“Indeed,” she laughed. “Yours truly.”
“What are his rooms like?” He could play fanboy for a little while. “Do you sneak around in all of his drawers and look for stuff?”
“Wha—no!” She looked offended. “Why would I do that? My job is to clean, not to snoop.” She poked at her food with her fork. “His rooms are…actually, very well-kept…well, on first appearance. He doesn’t like to dust. But hey, that’s what I’m there for. I mean, there are also some piles on his desk and tables that I try not to disturb or…” She gestured in the air. “Mess up, I guess.”
“Why not? Wouldn’t it make his room cleaner, if you put them in order?”
“Well…it’s possible they’re already in order. To him, anyway. And cleaning would mess things up…contradictory as that sounds.” She smiled a bit, almost to herself, but mostly to him. “I’m the same way with some things – method to my madness and all.”
Kylo had to give her credit. Her way of thinking was not only…courteous, in a respect, but also spot on. He did have some stacks of items in his room organized in his own chaotic order. He hadn’t noticed until just now as she mentioned it to Matt…but after he’d come back to find his rooms cleaned, the chaotic order had never been disturbed. He could still find everything.
“Have you ever walked in on him shirtless or anything? Or without his mask? Because I hear his face is the best.”
Her blush could be construed as flattering, Kylo supposed. He tried to quash that thought, because where had THAT come from (both the question and the thought about her blush)?
“No,” she said. “I’m scheduled to clean his rooms when he’s not there, but…”
Her manner was becoming increasingly familiar…it was as though she was before him. Kylo Ren. Not Matt.
“So you’ve met him?” he asked, continuing the manic fanboy façade.
“Twice,” she said. “Once, he returned…well, earlier than he usually does, according to him, just as I was finishing up. And…well, after helping Tim, I was held up by medical for questioning, and I got behind on my shift as a result, and he was already there when I finally arrived to clean.”
“So what do you think of him?” he asked. She shifted in her seat.
“I’m…honestly a little scared of him,” she admitted. “Just…in the sense that…well, he’s my superior. I’m always a bit afraid of authority figures, because they could easily…well, fire me. I mean, I clean his…private quarters, and that sort of makes him…another boss, as it were.” Her eyes shone with worry, and she leaned a bit closer to him, as though to divulge a secret. “After I was late, that second time I ran into him, he said he was going to try and corroborate my story, and if it didn’t match up…” Her face paled a bit.
“He would what?” “Matt” asked. Kylo, meanwhile, wasn’t sure whether the worry in his own voice was genuine or part of the character.
“I don’t know,” she said. “He left it at that. I mean…I told him the truth, but…Matt, what if he’s there this evening when I go to clean, and he tells me I’m fired because I was late? I can’t lose this job, I just…can’t.”
“…well…Kylo Ren’s basically the most awesome commander in the world.” It was harder for Kylo to keep up this fanboy persona, knowing how genuinely distraught she was. …he could use this to her advantage, he thought during the slight pause in his sentence. “So if you told him the truth, and everything matched up, he wouldn’t fire you for that. I don’t think.”
“…really? You’re not just saying that because…you’re his biggest fan?”
“…well, maybe I am a little bit.”
She reached out and punched him in the arm lightly.
“You jerk.” She was laughing…so Kylo had achieved…not HIS goal, but…something he wasn’t aware he’d wanted to achieve. She reached out for his hand. “Thanks, Matt. I feel better.”
He kept his hand under hers for a few moments before slipping it away.
***
“I’m not sure I’ve ever been in your room, Ren,” Hux said, taking a discerning look around the sleek, dark quarters.
“It can’t look all that different from yours, Hux,” Kylo said, matching the condescension.
“Hmm... “ Hux was still peering at the various fixtures and furniture. “Much cleaner than mine.”
“Admitting your flaws?” Hux glared at the smirk Kylo was barely holding back.
“I mean…much less dusty than my own quarters,” Hux clarified. “Who’s assigned to clean your quarters?”
“No one,” Kylo said thoughtlessly as he adjusted the position of the lamp on his night stand.
“I can’t imagine you’re that fastidious,” Hux chuckled. Kylo clenched his fist for a moment, before turning to face the general.
“U-N-zero-one-zero-one, I believe,” Kylo answered.
“You know their number?”
“She told me herself. She was quite late one day, and I needed to corroborate her story. To see if she was worth keeping on.”
“So…is she late often?” Hux asked, continuing to admire the spotlessness of Kylo’s belongings.
“No,” Kylo said. “She had assisted with a medical emergency—”
“Ah,” Hux cut Kylo off. “The medical staff. They do like to harangue everyone who walks into their turf, don’t they?” He gave Kylo a grim smile. “Well, I’d say keep her on, if her work is consistent.” He was now talking more to himself. “May need to let go whoever’s assigned to my quarters, get this…UN-0101 instead.”
Kylo chose to say nothing.
“Well. We had business to discuss, didn’t we?” Hux said, clapping his hands together.
“Before meeting with Captain Phasma, yes,” Kylo said. “If you’re quite done admiring your own reflection in my furniture…”
That look on Hux’s face never got old, no matter how many times he provoked it out of him.
***
“You still have a job, I see,” Kylo-as-Matt said as she sat down across from him for lunch a few days later. “I told you Kylo Ren was the most awesome commander ever.”
“I don’t know about THAT,” she said, with a smile generated from his first remark. “I’m now assigned to clean General Hux’s quarters as well. And possibly Captain Phasma’s. So…that’s more authority to answer to if I slip up even once.”
“I bet Kylo Ren gave you the most glowing of recommendations,” he said. “He won’t let anything happen to you.”
“You seem quite sure of this, Mr. Radar Technician,” she fired back, crossing her arms and leaning closer to him. “How do you know so much of what Kylo Ren thinks?”
“Well…because Kylo Ren’s the best,” he said lamely.
“So you keep saying.”
“He is. Have you seen his lightsaber? It’s awesome.”
“Yes, actually,” she said. “…that I’ve seen it. I don’t know about awesome. Then again, I don’t know much about lightsabers, other than they look dangerous. So…if dangerous equals awesome, then I suppose you’re right.” She shrugged. “He was practicing with it, I guess, when I walked in late that one time.”
“Did he look awesome?”
“He…looked like he knew what he was doing,” she finally said, sounding a little exasperated. “Matt, I know as much about lightsabers as I do about being a radar technician. How about you talk about technician-ing radar for a while?”
“You’re never going to let me forget that, are you?”
“Maybe shut up about Kylo Ren’s lightsaber for a while and maybe I will,” she challenged him.
So for the next few minutes, Kylo talked about what he’d learned from being a radar technician. Which, if he was being honest, he WAS learning stuff. Even if he still wasn’t good at doing said stuff, he was learning. And rather than using the topic as a distraction to stop talking about Kylo Ren, she seemed genuinely interested in what he had to say.
He tried to smother how…pleased it made him feel for her to care about what he said. And thankfully, there was a very easy way to smother it.
“Did you know Kylo Ren has an eight-pack?” he said.
“Matt, I swear…” She balled her napkin up in frustration.
“It’s true,” he continued. “A colleague of mine saw him take his shirt off in the shower. He said that Kylo Ren is shredded.”
“There’s a group shower I’m unaware of?” she asked. “I’m…honestly a bit glad I’m not assigned to clean that.”
“But are you glad to know that Kylo Ren has an eight-pack? Or did you know that already from accidentally walking in on him shirtless?”
“You are really eager for that to have been an incident that happens,” she said, pushing her tray away. “Are you trying to play matchmaker?”
“What?” Kylo asked.
“Like…are you a LOVE radar technician or something? Trying to get me to dirty Kylo Ren’s sheets since I already clean them?”
“Wha—NO!”
“Then why should I care that he apparently has an eight-pack?”
“Well…don’t women usually find that attractive in a man?” he asked, wincing at how pathetic he sounded. Really, he was still a bit taken aback from her matchmaker suggestion. At her…OTHER suggestion.
“I…don’t really care,” she said with a shrug. “Honestly, I’ve never really understood finding things like that attractive. Certain parts of anatomy, I mean.”
“So…an eight-pack doesn’t appeal to you?”
“Like I said, I don’t CARE,” she said, clattering her silverware a bit too violently on the tray. “It’s…not something I’m interested in. Physical attraction, sexual attraction…really, any attraction.” She looked over his shoulder at a clock on the wall. “I need to get back to work. I don’t want to anger the general or the commander.”
Kylo felt, rather than watched, her brush by him as walked away briskly.
He didn’t know why no one finding him attractive mattered so much to him. No one being interested in him in any respect, other than some frightening authority figure. But for some reason, it did.
He shouldn’t have been surprised. People didn’t care for him in most respects. It was easier that way, to be feared.
***
It had stayed with Kylo Ren the rest of the day, that frustration. And the fact that it was staying with him made him even more frustrated.
“Matt the Radar Technician” had the afternoon off, but Kylo Ren had been assigned to train with some of Captain Phasma’s squadron.
Needless to say, his frustration made it hard to concentrate fully. And he took it out on those he was training with, every time he missed a step or couldn’t block a strike or any other time he screwed up as he usually did. If mark hit flesh, he didn’t bother with it. The hurt was all he deserved for being so careless…so useless.
He didn’t bother to look around his room, to see if no one was around. He just burst in, as he had so many times before, with a fierce scream. He threw his saber at something in the room, barely registering the sizzle and crash of its decimation, before summoning it back to strike at something – anything – else. He went on until the pains in his body prevented him from destroying anything else.
“Sir?”
He whirled around. She emerged from behind a wall, her supplies in hand, her face drained of color…he could sense her trembling.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded, knowing full well that she was just doing her job but too upset to care. She opened her mouth, then closed it. He reached out to her mind…anything she said could anger him further, she feared. He turned away, wincing at the pain it produced in his side. Grazed by a blast from one of Phasma’s best.
“Sir?”
Stupid. Useless. Not quick enough. What did Snoke even see in him? He growled.
“Sir, are you--?”
He brought his fist down on the wound. Again and again and again, storming back and forth as he did. This, he thought as he yelled, was all he deserved. This pain.
“Sir, you’re hurt, please, sir!”
He was only faintly aware that she was approaching him…until she grabbed his arm and cried:
“Kylo, STOP!”
His fist uncurled, and he reached out to…slam the IMPUDENT little thing into the wall, how DARE she… But she’d already thrown herself back, the offending hand over her mouth.
“Sir, I’m so sorr—”
“What did you say?”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Did you just address me BY NAME?”
With three swift, sweeping steps, he was inches away from her, leering over her figure.
“Sir…please,” she finally said, gulping hard. “You’re hurt. I can help—”
“I don’t NEED your help,” he spat.
“Please, sir, I’ve read about—”
“Are you my doctor?” She stopped.
“…no, sir.”
“No?” he sneered. “Then what are you?” She looked down.
“I’m no one,” she whispered, her voice choking, barely audible to him.
As though reminding herself that she was a no one…
…that SHE was the…
…the worthless one.
He backed off. Walked away from her. Faced his bed.
“Get out,” he finally said. He knew without turning that she was looking up at him.
“Sir?”
“You heard me.”
“…but sir, shouldn’t I clean u—”
Her words shattered along with whatever it is he’d reached for with the Force and thrown against the wall (too close to her).
“GET OUT!” he screamed.
The pounding of his heart in his ears, matching the throbbing of the wound in his side, drowned out anything else she may have said or done. He wasn’t sure how long it took both sensations to subside, but when he finally turned around, she was gone.
Kylo took his mask off, hurling the helmet away and running a hand through his hair. Another shatter.
So what if it was his mask, his helmet, his saber.
All he was good at was breaking things.
***
He wasn’t surprised when she didn’t try to return that night to clean his rooms. But when he opened his door the following night to find no one had cleaned his rooms, he WAS surprised.
Because she was still there.
Everything broken had been removed, most of it replaced, and everything appeared…spotless as usual. And yet she was still there.
Her back was to him. She was kneeling on the floor, She appeared to be scrubbing away at…something…perhaps a scorch mark from throwing his lightsaber…
He cleared his throat. She didn’t turn (though admittedly, his mask had a tendency to…well, mask his voice too much at times). He stepped in closer and cleared his throat again, stepping around the bed, enough to see what on earth was causing her so much trouble…
…but there was nothing. She was scrubbing away at something that didn’t appear to be there.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Cleaning.”
He should have scolded her cheek, much as he did last night. But her voice was so…harsh, yet unsteady. Contradicting, but no less…just…not her.
“Obviously,” he started, but she spoke again.
“I cleaned the whole floor but…then clumsy me, I dropped a bottle, it spilled everywhere, had to clean again, still wasn’t clean enough—”
“It’s clean enough,” he interrupted.
“No, it’s not—damn it,” she hissed to herself, ready to hurl the sponge in her hand – her red, cracked hand – at the floor. “Need more soap.”
“UN-0101, this is not necessary.” She didn’t appear to hear him. The growing frustration in his voice. She was dipping the sponge in a bucket she’d picked up.
“Yes, it is, it’s not clean enough, just let me do my job.” Her order sounded more like a plea. Something desperate tinged in her voice.
“That’s enough,” he tried to demand, to no avail. She seemed as intent as ever, and was about to kneel on the ground again when—
“STOP IT!”
The bucket clattered to the floor, soapy murky water splashing on her feet and his. A fist banged against the wall. The sponge fell from her hand.
She froze, her arms hovering around her head, fists clenched. Her breath caught. Kylo reached out as she tried to suck in a breath, but to no avail.
Panic. Utter panic. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t breathe, she needed to move, she needed to get away and she couldn’t, she had to breathe and she couldn’t…
Her dread slammed through Kylo without him needed to delve too deep into her thoughts…
He walked over to her, around to look down into her face.
Stricken. Eyes watering. Face flushing in the attempt to…
“UN-0101?”
What was happening? He wasn’t causing this at all, every sign pointed to him choking the life out of someone with the Force, and it wasn’t him, what was HAPPENING?
“What--?”
One pained shuddering inhalation, her eyes watering but empty, and her breath came again…but in short quick gasps.
“UN-0101, calm down,” he said, cringing at how harsh it sounded, afraid of worsening her condition. She just shook her head, continued to hyperventilate. “You need to calm down.”
“Can’t—” she managed before dissolving into more short breaths. He reached out to take her arms, lower them, but she shook her head, her whole body, and they remained where they were, closing in, hindering her breathing further.
“UN-0101!” Kylo wished, more than anything at this moment, that he knew her real name.
“No—panic—attack—can’t—stop—”
Kylo took her face in his gloved hands.
“Look at me,” he commanded as calmly as he could. Her head shook, tears loosening, small sobs mingling with her hyperventilating. “Look. At. Me.”
“Can’t!” she sobbed, shaking more. Her gasps worsened, alternating with her wails. If she didn’t stop, she was going to…
…but maybe it would be better if she did.
He could help her.
Kylo let her face go. He stepped back. He waved one arm over her head and caught her falling figure with the other arm before scooping her up.
He must have been a sight as he made his way to Medical.
Imagine – Commander Kylo Ren, one of the most feared men at Starkiller Base, with a janitor cradled in his arms, in what could be construed as a caring manner.
Ridiculous.
Kylo Ren cared for no one.
…well…he did his best not to care.
***
The next afternoon, Matt the Radar Technician knocked on a seemingly random door. No one answered.
“…Matt?” she said, blinking. Her eyes were red. She wasn’t in her uniform (of course she wasn’t). Some shapeless plain pajamas, dark blue, sleeves so long they covered her hands. “What are you doing here?”
“I heard you were sick,” he said. “Had to check on my lunch buddy.”
“But…how did you figure out where my room is?”
“I’m a radar technician. I know things.”
It made as much since to her as it did to him, apparently, because she seemed to buy that. She stepped back and gestured for him to come in.
The room was small. Cramped. (Well, to him anyway, being as tall as he was.) Unsurprisingly, clean, save for the rumpled sheets on the bed. She went over and pulled them aside and tucked her legs beneath her, bringing the sheets over her thighs.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, pulling a chair from a small desk in the corner to across the bed so he could sit in front of her. She looked down. He saw her lip quiver.
“Oh Matt…” She covered her face with her hands for a moment, as though to calm herself. Her eyes still shone with unshed tears when she looked at him. “I had a panic attack in front of Kylo Ren. I’m…mortified. I don’t know how I can go back to work.”
“Wait, wait…hold on…” He reached out, as though to slow her down. “Did he do anything to provoke it, did he…hurt you?”
He had to know.
“No…no, it was all me,” she sighed. “I’d felt it building all day and…for the most part, I had it under control, worked through it as best I could. But then I got to his rooms and…I couldn’t get the floor clean enough. I kept…screwing up and I just wanted to finish and I tried to get him to leave so I could and…it was stupid and irrational and I knew that but my brain just…and then I dropped the bucket and spilled everything and…I don’t know, that was just the last thing and I…broke…in front of him.” She covered her face again. “It was so embarrassing…he’s going to think I’m incompetent and he’s going to fire me.”
“Hey hey, shh shh…” He reached for her sleeve-covered hands and gently lowered them, gently clutching his fingers around the fabric covering her own fingers. “Did he…know what was happening?”
“I think I tried to tell him but…I couldn’t really breathe or talk…”
“Do they happen a lot?”
“No…no, this was the first one in…months, I think,” she said, retrieving one of her hands from his grasp to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
“I’m…sure Kylo Ren will understand.”
“How? How are you sure? And don’t tell me it’s because he’s the best commander ever.”
“Well…what was his reaction?”
“I don’t…” She pressed a hand to her forehead, as though trying to remember. “I think…he told me to calm down, I’m pretty sure. And to look at him. And…I don’t remember a lot else, I must have passed out because next thing I knew, I was in the medical wing. I thought I maybe heard someone…talking about him carrying me here but…I doubt it.”
“Well…if he did, is that bad?”
“I don’t know…I just hope he didn’t hurt himself more than he already wa—” She stopped.
“He’s hurt?” he asked. She looked at him, reaching for his hand and gripping it tight.
“Matt…what I tell you…you CANNOT talk about it to anyone else,” she whispered. “I shouldn’t even be telling you, I don’t think, he may find out if I did.”
“What happened?” he asked. She breathed deep in through her nose. Partly preparing herself…but he sensed she’d been breathing deep all day. Calming herself, maybe savoring such breaths in the wake of hyperventilation.
“The night before, he…” she began, pausing, squeezing his hand tighter. “I don’t know what happened but…he was so…upset. So angry. He…just…took his lightsaber to everything. And he screamed so…he sounded so…and then he…something happened to his side, I don’t know what, but…” Her eyes were unfocused. “Matt, he kept trying to make his wound worse. Kept…screaming in pain but…didn’t stop. Like the pain was the only thing that made sense to him. And…I tried to get him to stop and that’s when…Matt, I grabbed his arm. And I called him by his name.”
“His…name?” He figured Matt would question that.
“Matt, I clean his room, I’m NO ONE compared to him.” She gestured to herself. “It would be like…I don’t know, addressing a queen or king by their first name. Reaching out to touch them to get their attention. I just wanted him to stop hurting himself further and I overstepped such a boundary—”
“Wouldn’t anyone else do the same?” he interrupted.
“I don’t know!”
Kylo knew. Anyone else would have let him rage on.
“It was…”
“Terrifying?”
“Yes—no—ugh…” She hid her face again.
“For him. Not…of him.”
“You…were scared--?”
“Okay,” she said, as though trying to start everything over. “I’ve heard rumors of such…incidents. And they always seem to generate one of two reactions. People are either terrified of him, think he’s going to hurt them for being the bearer of bad news. Other people…they treat him as a joke. Like, ‘oh, that’s just Kylo, overreacting as ever when things don’t go his way, trashing every room, so funny’ and it’s NOT funny. It’s…”
“Scary?”
“…yes, a little, but…also sad. I think.” She looked at him. “From what I can tell, he flies into a rage when something goes wrong for him. He doesn’t take it out on those who tell him; he takes it out on his surroundings. Like…he’s not upset that someone failed him; I think he’s upset because he feels like he’s failed himself. That he messed everything up again, even if whatever happened was of no fault of his own. And the only way he knows to cope with that is to destroy – destroy what’s around him and then…himself.”
She paused, as though trying to find more of the right words. Or maybe to give Matt a chance to interrupt. But Kylo had nothing.
“What I saw scared me but…FOR him, not OF him. I could…” She rubbed at her wrists beneath the deep blue fabric. “I saw myself in him, at that moment. Knew what he was thinking. ‘This pain is the only thing I deserve because all I do is mess everything up. The pain will never be enough to make up for what a failure I am.’”
Kylo noticed how tightly she was clutching at her wrists, how ravaged her hands still were from yesterday, and he reached for them again. Her long sleeves bunched up as he did, and he saw the remnants of scars on her wrists. Faint but glinting in the harsh light of her room. Evident enough.
“That’s what scared me,” she whispered. “That…that’s what he thinks. What he feels. Because I know it too well and…no one else should. …maybe that…triggered something in me yesterday…took me back to that time…convinced me I really am no one.”
“You’re not.”
“Matt, he said it himself,” she said. “That I’m no one.”
“…then he’s a fool,” he said.
Because it was true. He was.
***
“Ren, methinks your chambermaid is slipping,” Hux said in a meeting later that afternoon. “Walked into my rooms earlier today to find things still quite smudgy.”
“It’s not my problem that you leave smudges on everything you touch, Hux,” Kylo said, glaring at him. “She’s on medical leave today.”
“That excuse again?” Hux said, ignoring the smudge remark.
“She is,” Kylo said, a bit too insistent. He paused. “She collapsed yesterday, in my presence. I thought it best she take a day or two to recuperate.”
“Not like you to care,” Hux said.
“I don’t.” Again, too insistent. “It…wasn’t a normal fainting spell. It was something that required further medical attention.” Hux raised his eyebrows. “I was assured that it is not a regularly occurring incidence, and that she will be back to work day after tomorrow, at the very latest.”
“Well…we’ll have to give Phasma the heads-up,” Hux sighed. “She’s become used to leaving messes for that girl to clean up.” Kylo arched an eyebrow. “What? That’s what they’re for, isn’t it? To clean stuff we can’t be bothered with?”
Kylo looked away from him in disgust.
***
He returned to his room early several days later. She was present, flinching slightly as he entered.
“I’m just finishing up, sir,” she said without looking at him, polishing some decorative plate he’d managed not to smash in one of his rages. He said nothing. He watched her finish her work, observed her hands (healing, less pink, hiding the scars Matt knew of).
“Are you well?” he asked. Her hands paused, though her eyes didn’t leave the plate.
“Better, sir,” she said after a moment. “…thank you.” He entered his rooms, tossing his lightsaber on to a nearby chair as he made to pass her. “And you, sir?” He stopped.
“What?” She winced.
“Are you well, sir?” she echoed him, daring to look up into the mask. “You were…injured. I didn’t know—”
“Better,” he said, halting her words. She nodded and looked back down, One last swipe of the cloth in her hand, and she was placing the plate back on the table in front of her. She walked over to her the rest of her supplies to gather them together. “Thank you.”
“…you’re welcome, sir,” she said, her eyes darting to him for a moment. She quickly gathered her things and made for the door, pausing and turning. “I’m not a doctor, sir, but…I have read various medical texts, and I have some basic knowledge of how to treat injuries. If you ever…require anything without wanting to go to medical, I can arrange to leave some supplies for you. To dress your own wounds.”
“That won’t be necessary,” he said.
“…understood, sir.” It wasn’t what she wanted to say, he knew. But she didn’t press the issue further.
“But thank you.”
“You’re welcome, sir.”
She was gone soon after.
***
He had intended a bombshell announcement – that Matt the Radar Technician was, in fact, Commander Kylo Ren. Intended it right when the undercover mission was proposed.
But Matt wouldn’t be too terribly missed by the staff, given his incompetence at being a simple radar technician.
And no one would be shocked.
Most everyone else had guessed – or was at least ninety percent certain – that Matt and Kylo Ren were one and the same. How he’d managed to hide it from HER for so long was a miracle in itself. And if she found out…
He couldn’t do that to her. It was weak of him, but he couldn’t. She would never speak to him – Matt or Kylo – ever again.
Even if she wasn’t present for the bombshell announcement, word would spread. That Matt the Radar Technician never was.
So instead, he lied.
“I’m being transferred to another station. I received the orders late last night, to leave first thing this morning. I’m sorry.”
Short. To the point.
He left the message at her door before anyone else was awake. He returned to his rooms, singed all the blond hair off the wig, shredded the plastic orange vest and the shapeless jumpsuit, crushed the glasses in his hand until he felt shards slice through skin.
And that was the end of Matt the Radar Technician.
No one would miss him.