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1. Tea
As Rey left Leia's office, the General stared at the girl's back in perplexity.
A part of her couldn't help but feel hopeful that someone as detached from their family as a scavenger from Jakku still held out hope for her son. Another part wondered how the Force was she supposed to pretend she didn't see that the Last Jedi had a crush on the Supreme Leader of the First Order.
Solo men, Leia thought, shaking her head as she blew on her hot beverage, I have a bad feeling about this.
2. Incoming
"Wait, wait a minute, you're telling me that if we want allies in Pasaana, we need to go to a party?" Finn furrowed his eyebrows.
"Festival," Leia and Rose corrected him.
"Right." Finn crossed his arms over his chest. "With music and harmless dancing people and no one trying to blast us or maim us?"
Rose rolled her eyes at her boyfriend's antics. "The Ewoks only tried to maim you once."
"Yes, one time too many!" The former trooper’s voice went so shrill Rey considered checking if the Transparisteel windows were cracking. "I only have one neck."
Before Leia could speak words of assurance to the distressed officer, Kaydel suddenly appeared at the door looking pale and panting.
"General, I'm sorry to interrupt." She took a deep breath and Leia nodded at the disheveled girl to continue. "Our Comm/Scan detected a ship approaching."
Poe straightened up from where he sat by the conference table, a mix of fear and excitement over impending battle energizing his mood. "A Star Destroyer?"
The blonde shook her head but she seemed to ashen even more. "A TIE fighter."
The pilot wrinkled his forehead, asking what they were all wondering, "What would a TIE fighter be doing alone—"
"A personal TIE fighter," Kayden croaked out the explanation.
Everyone in the room widened their eyes in immediate understanding as there was only one person in the First Order that had such a vessel. A gasp along with a muttered “What is he doing here?” echoed before Rey jumped from her seat almost as if Kaydel had just ordered her to do so.
Finn tried to grab his friend's wrist, hoping she wouldn't do something as reckless as running alone in the middle of the desert towards danger. But his hand connected with air as Rey all but sprinted towards the door.
He shook his head and stood from his seat in a flash, whispering a "dammit" under his breath before running after the Jedi.
“Wait!” Poe yelled at Finn, knocking over his chair in the haste to go after the two, “Wait for me!”
(+1. Optometrist needed )
Of all the ways Finn had imagined a Rey-Kylo Ren face-off happening, this wasn’t the last possibility.
It wasn’t even on the list.
There she stood, with her powerful lightsaber in hand, as he always pictured. But it was turned off instead (why was it turned off again?) and she just stood there waiting for him to reach her. For some reason.
And Kylo Ren. Oh…. Kylo Ren was staring at her as if- as if-
As if he felt something for her that didn’t involve killing or maiming, like at all.
And where the kriff was his lightsaber? Rey had just destroyed his precious (and very expensive) ship and there he was, strolling along the desert as if he had all the time in the Galaxy to just let the wind blow his ridiculously voluminous hair. As if he wasn’t the first person in the universe that was in need of anger management classes.
Finn then turned to Poe, hoping to convey an “are you seeing this?” look but his friend was already watching the scene unfold with an open jaw and the right eye twitching, which was enough for Finn to confirm he wasn’t going insane.
“What do you want?” Rey’s sharp voice carried to them when the Supreme Leader finally (finally) reached her.
Kylo then seemed to… was he pursing his lips? (Am I going blind? Finn briefly wondered) and then he averted his eyes. “I need your help.”
Her eyes suddenly hardened, and she clenched her jaw so tight the next word was spoken through gritted teeth:
“No.”
There was that look again in him, full of anguish and hurt and... what the kriff was Finn watching again?
“Rey...” Kylo swallowed hard. “I wouldn’t be asking you if it weren’t important.”
The Jedi let out a humorless laugh, so full of bitterness it was almost as if she transformed into an entirely different person. Which, looking back, maybe that was the problem. The cheery, always smiling Rey they had witnessed all year long, was not the same person full of pain that they were watching now.
“You tried to kill me last time I saw you. Do you remember that?” she asked.
“That wasn’t the last time I saw you,” his deep voice murmured bringing the pair to just stare at each other in silent (and, apparently, agonizing) understanding.
Poe was the one that looked at Finn at this point, to which the latter just offered a wide-eyed shrug to convey he also had no idea what they were talking about.
Rey shook her head. “Doesn’t make any difference,” she declared before turning around — yes, turning around and leaving her back completely exposed for the enemy to stab her.
“Palpatine is back,” Kylo shouted out to her retreating form and she halted.
Still with her back to him, she furrowed her eyebrows probably trying to connect the name with the person she knew from history holos. It wasn’t possible. If it really was the name Finn recognized on the spot, it just wasn’t possible, they must have misheard it.
“I imagine you are thrilled then,” she shot out a reply. “Finally someone that can help you drown all the Galaxy in darkness.”
He huffed. “Except he wants to kill me.” He paused. Poe and Finn watched as his eyes traveled her back in a gentle and unguarded way Rey wouldn’t be able to see. His voice then carried on softly, “And he wants you.”
"Well, he won't have me," she retorted, turning back to the Supreme Leader.
Kylo sighed. "Do you have any idea how powerful he is? What he can do?"
“Yes,” she lied. Finn worked inside the First Order and he didn’t know the extent of the Emperor’s abilities. “And I have my friends, we have been handling the First Order just fine.” Another lie. ”And we can take the old Emperor too, I don’t need your help.”
“I’m not saying you need my help.” The dark sider tilted his head. ”I’m saying that I need yours.”
At that Rey paused, for a moment the Force-sensitive duo only stared at each other and the Resistance fighters could see the girl’s throat moving up and down as she swallowed hard.
“What about the First Order?” She asked weakly.
“Not my problem anymore,” he stated, taking an unconscious step towards her.
Her left eyebrow went up and she cocked her hip, “Not your problem? After everything your organization has done to the Galaxy, all the lives it killed, it is not your proble—”
“I left it,” he interrupted, closing his hands into fists at his sides, “That’s what I meant. And you know it.”
It was Rey turn to advance in his direction, jutting her chin out at him as her eyes blazed. “I don’t know anything about you anymore, Kylo. I once made the mistake of thinking I did but never again.”
Kylo’s expression fell, and he gazed down at her, seemingly to search something in her expression. “If you aren’t willing to believe in anything else I say then believe in this,” he murmured, desperately. “Please.”
Those words disarmed the girl somehow, and she looked back at him with her mouth slightly open, also searching for something in his face.
“Okay, I think it’s about time we step in,” Poe said when he was finally able to take his jaw off the floor.
But before Finn could tell his friend that perhaps now wasn't the best time to interrupt; before they could watch what would happen next between Jedi and Jedi Killer, six figures appeared on the horizon.
And they were approaching.
3. How high?
“So….”
“So.”
“If this is some sort of trick I swear—” Rey’s scream reverberated on all the walls of their conference room, even though she wasn’t there, but in the next room along with General Organa and Kylo Ren.
“...So you are the Knights of Ren?” Finn asked casually to the six figures looming in the room as everyone else pretended not to hear the incredibly loud fight blasting off from the adjacent room.
The tallest of the six, who stood in the middle of the group almost as if to create a symmetric sight, just shifted on his feet and sounded off a “Yep,” while popping the “p”
Rose stared them up and down, noticing that the two shorter ones who stood at the edge of the Knights-of-Ren symmetric row couldn’t stop glancing at the helmets they were forced to remove and place by the door. Before they could sulk any longer, she asked:
“So, what are your names?”
“Myka,” the woman with long, curly and green hair answered stately, which seemed to prompt the others to follow her example.
“Saurus,” said the short man with a patchy blond beard.
“Eniia,” declared the girl with eyes so fair they were almost white as her hair.
“Zaul,” saluted the bald man with a plethora of tattoos only concentrated around his neck like a wide choker.
“Bottiac,” the tallest answered curtly.
“Fernando,” the second shortest one said with a blinding smile, turning heads all over the room... apparently shocking his fellow Knights, too.
“He’s going to kill us all, don’t you understand that?” Kylo’s voice boomed from the other room, and a few chairs rattled in the floor but everyone carried on as if nothing had happened.
Poe raised his hand in the air. “Excuse me but, Fernando Ren?”
Fernando looked at his colleagues that seemed to be questioning him with their eyes just as much as the pilot had done verbally.
“Aren’t we using our real names now?” he asked them.
Zaul crossed his arms and raised one eyebrow, “And why would we do that?”
“Isn’t the master doing it?” The confused Knight of Ren pointed with both hands towards the wall that nearly shook with the fight happening nearby. “The old lady called him Ben!”
Myka slapped the back of his head then addressed the Resistance, “Forget you ever heard that.”
Finn already knew Kylo’s name was Ben regardless of his (or Leia’s) slip up but Poe, Rose and Kaydel seemed to be confused.
“The old lady is his mom, you idiot!” Zaul raised his hands in the air.
“How was I supposed to know that?!”
“They are very much alike,” Eniia commented softly, with her eyes unfocused as if seeing the world on a whole different plane.
“Anyway, did we turn to the light or not because honestly—” Fernando continued, running a hand through his short wavy brown hair.
“Did you?” Finn asked furrowing his eyebrows, the last hour had been just too much for his poor heart to handle.
“Of course we did.” Myka replied to Fernando, ignoring their audience, “But we always remain as Knights, with our Knight name, don’t you remember anything from our oath—”
“Hold on, hold on—” Poe interrupted them again before a full on fight started there, because along with the other one next door, he was about to go completely insane. “Why have you turned to the light exactly?”
“Because Master Kylo did,” they all answered in chorus as if it was the most obvious thing in the whole Galaxy.
Rose blinked. “And do you do everything he says?”
“Yes,” they chorused again. “Of course,” Saurus added at the end.
The commander opened and closed her mouth, trying to figure out what to reply to that. “So if he says jump, you...?”
“What do you mean ‘jump’?” Bottiac seemed to voice the confusion that spread on the group of former dark siders. “You mean like this?” The gigantic man skipped on the spot like a twig.
“No." Rose closed her eyes, “You know, if he asks you to jump from a high altitude, you ask...” she trailed off, hoping they would understand what she meant.
Fernando snapped his fingers. “If we have the right gear to climb any nearby mountainsides!”
Bottiac’s eyes seemed to spark with his friend’s answer and he pointed back at him. “Like waterproof ropes and—”
“No." Myka raised her hand to stop him. "We would use jetpacks."
“Why not just fall to the bottom, I can swim, “Saurus added.
Zaul rolled his eyes at him. “You idiot, who said anything about water?”
“...No.” Rose placed a hand on her forehead as Poe, Finn and Kaydel watched wide-eyed the group of supposedly scary Knights of Ren commenced a discussion about the best spots in the Outer Rim for bungee jumping.
4. Hurricane
If having a meeting in a room next to Kylo Ren and Rey was bad, having a meeting with them along with a crowd of Resistance members was worse. Oh, way worse.
Kylo gripped the edge of the conference table from where he stood across from Rey. A vein pulsed on his neck and his words were sharp and final as if he was still the Supreme Leader:
“You’re not going alone.”
She narrowed her eyes and their gazes locked with such intensity it seemed to create an electric charge in the air. “I’m not asking for permission.”
Leia, who was unfortunate enough to have had more meetings with the two than the rest of the people present, closed her eyes and sighed.
“Maybe I didn’t make myself clear enough before,” her son continued, tone dripping with sarcasm. “The Emperor wants you and your powers.”
“Which means he will allow me to face him instead of killing me on the spot,” she explained. “Unlike you, who he wants dead.”
“That’s hardly relevant,” he bit out.
Rey’s eyes widened and the glasses of water over the table began to shake. “Hardly relevant? He has spies all over the Inner and Outer Rims looking for you, he is going to kill—”
“Which is nothing different than what everyone I know has been trying to do to me for the last six years,” he cut her off and they stared at each other in some sort of silent conversation that made Rey avert her eyes, “This is something else, the Emperor will try to lure you in and deceive you, if you’re alone you will be vulnerable.”
The girl scoffed which made a few people nearby flinch in anticipation of the battle of tempers it would bring.
“I’m going to just ignore you said that but I will say this: last week you stood there and swore to me, you swore, that Palpatine was unlike any danger we have ever seen and now you want me to believe you’ll face him and leave unscathered? Which one of the two statements do you want me to believe because it can’t be both,” she said.
Kylo took a deep breath and a couple of the already trembling glasses exploded, spraying water, and thankfully only small shards, all over Poe, Chewie, Larma D’Acy, and Eniia (who skillfully dodged the blast).
All unnoticed by the two unstable force users, of course.
“The Emperor was able to fool the Senate, the Jedi and the entire Galaxy into entering a fruitless war that only resulted in his ruling. He could easily manipulate any of us, no matter how smart or powerful, to do anything he wishes,” the former dark sider pointed out with gritted teeth.
“But they didn’t know who he was back then.” She motioned with her hand to somewhere behind her back, supposedly to indicate the past and Finn noticed wide-eyed that the holopad to his right was starting to float. “ We know how history went, and I will not be stupid enough to fall for his tricks.”
With a clench of Kylo’s jaw, Rose had to hold down her necklace so it wouldn’t choke her as it threatened to fly up to the ceiling like other small objects around the room.
"Hum, guys?" She called while trying to keep the necklace cord from bruising her throat.
“This is not about being stupid, don’t you see?” He carried on, oblivious to the commander's distress.
Rey huffed, forever annoyed Ben had this eternal need to "inform" her about anything, and everything. “Oh, please, enlighten me on what this can possibly be about.”
Poe watched in worry as, ironically, two lamps in the back of the room blew up, leaving them in a more gentle lighting. Leia just shook her head and placed a hand on her forehead.
Rey's sarcasm managed to actually get an eye roll out of the Supreme Leader, who exhaled loudly and glared at her. “You know full well what Palpatine can use to distract you, don’t make me enumerate it.”
Kaydel was wondering if she was imagining the wind blowing her hair even though they were on a windowless room when Rose seemed to jump on her seat. The blonde looked at her friend and realized she was gripping the arms of her chair, trying to push it down as it seemed to be shuddering even underneath her (admittedly low) weight.
"Erm, excuse me, Rey can you tone it down—" Connix hoped the Resistance Jedi would hear her and see reason.
“Yes, I know!” Rey was shouting at this point, raising her arms in the air in frustration and completely unaware of the mess they were creating or of Kaydel's plea. “Your dead body on the floor would be pretty distracting!”
Chewie suddenly growled catching everyone’s (except the fighting pair's) attention, as they looked down to realize even his seat was shaking at that point. Leia took a sharp breath.
“Okay, that’s enough—” the general said while standing up.
“Your parents, Rey!” Kylo boomed, obviously not noticing his mother speak as he hadn’t noticed anything else. “He will not hesitate to use them, feed you with any lie that he invents to get you on his side!”
“Oh sh—” Finn muttered, nearly throwing himself on the table, holding on as his vest began to be pulled up with an unbelievable invisible force, almost bringing him along for the ride. From his spot, he watched as Maz Kenata started floating on air as if a wind current was lifting her up. She used one hand to hold on to D’Acy's shoulder beside her, and another to hold her goggles to her head.
Myka slapped the arms of her chair and stood up, apparently having had enough of the craziness. “Hey, hello!” She screamed as the chair she left empty flew to the ceiling. “Yo, you two! Hello????””
“Well, then you have nothing to worry about!” Rey yelled, ignoring all the noise, “The last dark lord I encountered tried to use that against me,” she spat and Ben scowled. "And guess what? I passed with flying colors!”
“Earth to the Force-bonded.” Myka snapped her fingers between them, “EARTH TO THE FORCE-BONDED.”
Somehow that did the trick as the duo halted, blinked twice, then looked at her.
“Can you stop this?” the Knight asked once she got their attention, then she pointed at Maz. "You’re making the orange woman fly!”
Rey and Kylo then finally looked at the hurricane around them, then again at each other, taking a calming breath that seemed to bring everything (and everyone) down to the ground in a cacophony of noise.
Despite the spectacle of power in front of him and the near flight experience, Finn only leaned towards Bottiac, who was on his left, and whispered, “Earth?”
“Her home planet,” he answered with a sigh, then he bulged his eyes. “But she doesn’t like to talk about it so forget you heard that.”
The girl in question then sat back on her seat and brushed a green curl out of her eyes, then her exasperated expression turned into the biggest smirk anyone had ever seen. “I knew it.” Myka then addressed the other Knights of Ren (minus the leader) and held out her hand, “Pay up.”
A series of groans later, piles and piles of credits were placed on her open palm. She tucked them on her pockets with an even bigger smile and the rebels watched the interaction in utter confusion until the General asked:
“Force-bonded?” She turned, not to Myka, but to Ben and Rey.
For a woman that couldn’t stop talking for the past ten minutes, Rey seemed to lose all her articulation, uttering spluttered words as her cheeks reddened. And for a man that could stare down a whole planet with the intensity he was looking at the Jedi just seconds prior, Kylo couldn’t look at anywhere but the floor.
“Of course they are.“ Myka laughed. “I don’t know how many Force users you lot have known but it’s not that common for them to destroy furniture with the power of their minds without noticing, or having the same lightsaber fight stances”— she started counting the odd situations they’ve encountered with her fingers up in the air—”Or talking to each other while not even on the same room, or single handedly killing dark evil Lords and their praetorian guard—I’m talking about Snoke here obviously—”
“We didn’t—” Rey began to protest as all her friends turned to look at them with shock in their expression.
“Shush“ Myka shook the finger of her unoccupied hand at her as she silenced the consterned Jedi. “Or conjuring kriffing Force storms while on a fight, I saw that by the way”— she glanced at the blushing pair then turned back to her counting—”Or for a dark sider to not try to kill a Jedi even while presented a million chances, or for a Jedi to constantly break her admittedly boring code to scream angrily at said dark sider that she's going to kill him every other five minutes. And last but not least, it is definitely not common for a dark sider to turn to the light, apparently out of the blue, forfeiting all the power in the Galaxy to run after the Jedi that is supposed to hate him, then for said Jedi to just accept this situation as if it didn't surprise her at all. Conclusion: Kylo Ren and Rey of Jakku are force-bonded.” She then leaned forward and pointed at Zaul who was already rolling his eyes. ”Suck it. I told you, they were force-bonded." Then she sat back on her chair, steepled her fingers and addressed the room again, "Any questions?”
Even though the question was obviously rhetoric, Fernando raised his hand which prompted not only the Knights of Ren but all the Resistance members present to shout in chorus, "Not you."
He crossed his arms and sunk in his seat as he muttered under his breath, "I just needed to go to the refresher."
5. All Bets are On
As Rey and Kylo moved their very animated discussion someplace else (with hopefully less glass and less Maz), a few Resistance members and Knights were left to clean up the upturned conference room.
Rose was lifting a chair from the ground, checking if it was unscathed when she noticed Saurus and Zaul whispering to each other while everyone else worked.
"A hundred credits that it happens before the war is over," Saurus said with his ever meticulously straightened back.
Zaul raised an eyebrow as he typed down his friend's prediction on the holopad in his hand. "Are you sure you are that confident in Kylo's ability to not be a flustered mess?"
Saurus seemed to pause for a moment, then his eyes hardened again and he nodded. "Positive."
"Ookay..." the bald man trailed off, shaking his head as he confirmed what he had typed.
Rose approached them, crossing her arms over her chest. "Are you guys going to help us or not?"
"He is." Zaul pointed at Saurus who indeed went to retrieve glass shards from the floor with the precision of a soldier. "But my duty lies elsewhere for now." He looked around the room and his eyes landed on the tall, dangly Knight of Ren. "Bottiac?"
"How much did Sau bet?" He shouted from the spot where he was trying to rearrange the leg of the table.
"A hundred."
"A hundred?" Bottiac yelped, nearly hitting his head on the piece wood above him. "You guys are ripping me off this month!"
Zaul tsked and raised his chin. "It is what it is, pal. It is what it is."
The other man stood up from the ground and huffed. "Fine, a hundred and twenty that it is on the final battle."
"The final battle?" Zaul eyed him. "I thought we had a different round about whether there would even be one or if Kylo is just gonna kill the Emperor with his bare hand—"
Bottiac rolled his eyes."Yes and I'm going to win that one and this one and get all my credits back."
"Ookay..." Zaul trailed off again with raised eyebrows while typing his colleague's answer down. As he finished, he noticed Rose was still watching him and tapping her foot on the floor.
"I just need to keep the Knights guesses in order and then I will help. I promise, Miss Tico." He placed a hand over his heart.
"What are you even betting on?" Finn asked from where he stood throwing away the broken glasses.
"Hmmm?" Zaul frowned looking at the screen in his hands. "You have to be more specific. We have two hundred and fifty seven rounds happening simultaneously at the moment."
"Two hund—" Finn spluttered, approaching them while rearranging his disarrayed vest, "Do you people have a gaming problem?"
"This is far from a game," Saurus stated as he placed pieces of broken chairs over the table, "the possibility of monetary loss is nothing but an incentive to keep us sharpening our acute senses of allies, enemies and surroundings."
Finn blinked at the man's answer. "Right."
"And all of you participate in dozens of bets every month?" Poe asked, heading slowly towards them as he dusted off his pants.
"Not all, only six of us," Zaul explained, still checking his pad.
Finn laughed at Poe. "As if Kylo Ren, lord of seriousness and darkness, would be part of this."
"Oh, he is." Zaul raised his eyebrows, the bluish glow of the screen illuminating his irises as Poe and Finn jaws fell. "Eniia is the one that refuses to join."
The three resistance members turned to the pale girl who was slowly and delicately helping Kaydel to brush debris out of her hair.
"She can see the future. So, she says it's cheating," Myka commented, rolling her eyes as she took the chairs shambles left on the table by Saurus and threw them on the overflowing trash.
"It is cheating," Eniia's soft voice confirmed as she conjured a mirror from her front pocket and placed it in front of Connix so she could see her hair.
"And do you have any ongoing bets about someone that we know?" Rose asked, placing a hand on her hips.
"Oh, several." Zaul scoffed, then looked around the room and realized maybe he had said too much. "Not all of which I can divulge. It is forbidden to let the subject of the bet to know of its existence. It would ruin the odds."
"And the one you guys were just making?" She asked.
"Oh, that." He relaxed his shoulders. "A simple one: when Rey and Kylo Ren are going to get together—"
"What??" Finn yelped.
"Which is different from the one about when they are going to declare their love for each other—" Zaul continued unfazed.
"The fact that there are two bets as if those two things aren't going to happen exactly on the same day, and in sequence, shows how I'm only working with amateurs here." Myka sighed.
"...Or the one about how they are going to declare it," the bald knight continued while glaring at the green haired girl for her unprompted comment.
The former stormtrooper opened and closed his mouth repeatedly until he settled for closing it on a thin line and exhaling sharply from his nose. "I don't know what to say except all of you are going to lose because Rey would never—"
"One hundred credits on the day after Rey comes back from being captured by Palpatine after being saved by Kylo who went after her desperately," his girlfriend interrupted, addressing the bet organizer.
"Rose!" Finn yelped, throwing his arms in the air.
She shushed him. "Trust me, I'm guaranteeing the future of our children."
"What children?" He spluttered, "We don't have any children!"
"Not yet," Eniia commented, causing Finn to turn to her in shock. Then she grimaced noticing her slip up, and cursed under her breath before continuing braiding Kaydel's hair as if nothing had happened.
"You know, your gifts could actually help so many people." Connix smiled as Eniia arranged her hair. "Do you know if Rey's plan to find Palpatine will work?"
"That's not important." Poe waved his hand then addressed the white haired woman, "Do you know if my piloting skills, even if outstanding, will be enough to hit the Finalizer's weak spot on the attack we're scheduling for Monday?"
Finn glared at them. "Just ask her if we will win the war and be done with it."
"Forget that," Rose interrupted, "Do you know when Finn is finally going to propose to me?"
Her boyfriend looked at her as if she had grown two heads but she only raised one eyebrow and crossed her arms over her chest.
"I already did!" He screeched.
Rose shook her head and turned her focus back to the betting pool, staring over Zaul's shoulder at the list as she replied, "It doesn't count if you were scared for your life and with an Ewok breathing down your neck."
"Literally," Eniia added with a soft smile on her lips and Finn rolled his eyes.
"Um... Sorry to interrupt but..." Fernando suddenly said, raising his arm in the air hesitantly. "I'd like to ask a question."
Zaul groaned and rolled his eyes along with more than three people in the room. "What?"
"Is Saurus even allowed to be on this bet?” He scratched his head. “Because last night he told me he saw Ben and Rey training and Ben pinned her down to the ground and their lightsabers were nowhere to be seen and they were really close and, like, breathing in each other's space and looking intensely into each other's eyes and leaning in and—"
"I can't take this suspense." Myka grabbed him by the collar. "Was there any kissing or not?!"
"No," Saurus stopped his floor sweep to answer clinically and then resumed his ministrations.
After a round of a few groans and some cheers, Zaul raised his hand.
"Irrelevant, they do that at least five times a week.” He then turned to Fernando with a pointed glare. ”And for the love of Force. Stop. Calling. Him. Ben."
"Why not?" Fernando shrugged as Myka lowered him back to the floor. "I saw Rey calling him Ben, too."
At that the entire room seemed to freeze. For one moment, its occupants only looked at each other silently until a chaos of shouts and pleas exploded.
"No," Zaul shouted in the middle of the noise, to no avail, " No, no, no, no, no," he repeated until there was finally silence. "No one is allowed to change their wager after it's already placed. To quote the old and wise Darth Plagueis: you snooze, you lose."
"Fine." Poe broke the stunned silence and pointed a finger at the infamous holopad. "Two hundred credits they get together before Rey goes to Palpatine."
"Poe!" Finn yelled.
"What? I didn't bet before." He raised his hands in innocence but as Finn placed his hands on his hips to indicate that wasn't the problem, Poe opened his mouth in an "O".
"Come on, man, I need the money," the pilot argued but his friend didn’t relent. Poe then raised an eyebrow and opened a fake smile. "For the Resistance?"
6. Honey, I’m home
Finn thought he had seen sulking in his life, he had thought it even after being more familiar with Kylo Ren who had rearranged all the definitions of sulking in his head.
But nothing, absolutely nothing, was like Ben Solo brooding over Rey.
Yes, Ben Solo. Because for some reason now his mind couldn’t think of him in any other way.
Whatever that meant.
“We are going to get her back.” Finn found himself in the oddest position of being the one offering words of comfort for the former Supreme Leader as he leaned over the table with his face in his hands. “Rey is the strongest person I know. I mean, she was kidnapped before by an angry dark lord and she survived, didn’t she?”
Finn grimaced to himself. He was joking with Kylo Ren now? Force, he needed therapy after these past months.
“That doesn’t count,” his voice came out muffled before he lifted his head, “I never had the intention to kill her, not once.”
“Neither does he, right? Remember?” He replied before flinching at his own answer.
Before he could amend his own mess, Ben replied with a moody, “Right.” And the far away trash bin began to crumble on itself.
One more item to the collection of broken object around the room, or what was left of it after Ben run his fiery lightsaber through all the walls.
Rose placed a hand on Finn’s shoulder to get his attention and drew her other hand across her neck in the galactical signal to cut it out.
“Oh, I can’t watch, this is a trainwreck,” Myka said as she kept staring at them unblinkingly while twirling a curl with her finger.
Poe ran a hand through his hair, tugging at it. “When is his ship, or any ship for that matter, getting ready again?” He would rather allow Kylo Ren to use his personal x-wing to face alone the entire First Order, or Palpatine’s, or whoever it was fleet than witnessing one more minute of that lovesick fest.
“I’m not sure, the last battle left our fleet in shambles,” Kaydel said, playing with pieces of concrete that had fallen from the wall onto the table.
“Twenty minutes,” Eniia answered with a calm smile.
“Worry not, insurgents! Your salvation is here!” A nasal voice boomed from somewhere outside the room, so loud and flamboyant Finn was sure he was imagining the dry smoke coming from the door.
Suddenly a shadow moved amid the fog, growing closer and closer until they could make out a figure raising their arms in a dramatic flair, then they finally entered the room and revealed… Hux.
“What the kr—” Poe yelped before Kaydel slapped his arm so he would mind his vocabulary.
The ginger wore a blinding smile until his eyes landed on the gloomy figure sitting at the head of the table.
“Oh.” Hux deflated. “You’re here.”
Kylo extracted one hand from his face to stare at his formal General. “Yes. Where else would I be?”
“I don’t know…” Hux trailed off, raising his chin as his eyes sparkled. “Dead?”
"Huxerly, he was fighting against you and the rest of the First Order just a couple hours ago." Myka chuckled.
He pursed his lips. "And?"
Poe sighed, placing a hand on his forehead as he asked, "Okay, Hugs, not that it wasn't delightful to win against you again back there, but what are you doing here?"
The redhead seemed to redden from the roots of his hair to his toes as he spat, "What does it look like I'm doing here?!" He spread his arms out, encompassing the room. "I am saving you all, I am turning to your side!"
"No," Finn said and everyone's attention went to him as he started shaking his head. "No, no, no, no, I'm done." He stood up, and motioned towards the First Order occupants in the room. "What's next? You're gonna tell me Phasma is alive and right behind you just taking a lift with Mitaka?"
Hux's expression turned grave as he looked down to the floor and folded his hands in front of himself. "Phasma's wounds were indeed nearly fatal and she gave us a scare." He then raised his head, a soft smile playing on his lips. "Thank the stars she recovered, but I'm afraid she won't be able to join us as she decided to take vacations in Naboo so she can recuperate. But, she sends you her love and hopes for your forgiveness." The former General nodded at a wide-eyed, open mouthed Finn. "Mitaka, however…" Hux dropped his head again. "He's still very much in the darkness. I'm afraid he's a lost cause."
Finn blinked, still flabbergasted. "...Is.. Is this some sort of plan? Is this a hostile takeover or something-"
"Well, It's not hostile," Rose commented unhelpfully.
"Fine, whatever." Finn exhaled, waving his hands frantically. "Is this a gentle takeover? Because I swear, if anyone else from the First Order shows up at our doorstep—"
"You're one to talk," Myka said with a laugh.
The ex-stormtrooper's expression fell, he lowered his hands and sat back down, sulking right next to the already moody Ben Solo.
"Well," Hux interrupted the moping. "It's not my fault Ren stole my thunder."
Saurus turned to him and asked, "Which Ren?"
The General wrinkled his forehead, for the first time realizing the crowd of Rens before him. Looking from one Knight to another, he tried to find a recognizable way to describe Kylo.
"Um..." Hux paused noticing there was a taller Ren and one with an even more prominent nose. He then waved his hand generically towards the table. "The pretty one."
"Aahhh." Everyone in the room nodded, conceding to his point.
The man in question then suddenly straightened his back, turning to his former General. "How did you get here?"
Hux raised an eyebrow. "I don't see how that's releva—"
"Just tell me," Ben retorted.
"Well, if you must know, I stole a First Order shuttle." He lifted his chin but the former Supreme Leader just stood up, barely caring about the details, and stormed past him.
Hux blinked, then turned around. "Where are you—"
"Solo!" Finn called, successfully making Ben stop.
He pivoted to face him with one raised an eyebrow, silently asking, what did you just called me?
The resistance fighter ignored the expression and said, "I think you're gonna need this." He took a blaster from his holster and threw it across the room to his unlikely ally. "One lightsaber might not be enough."
Ben held it in the air and nodded a thanks to Finn before rushing to his previous destination.
"Where is he going?" Hux finally managed to ask.
"To steal your stolen ship," Myka replied while checking her cuticles.
Rose suddenly frowned. "Hmm…guys, why aren't we going with him?"
That seemed to spark a wave of realization on the group, as they swiftly all stood up and started running out of the room.
"Wait, exc—" Hux began as Finn bumped into him. "Excuse—" he tried again before being thrown sideways as Zaul bulkily slammed his shoulder into him. "Excuse me—" he grunted as Bottiac nearly knocked him down while leaving the room as haphazardly as always. "I am TRYING to turn to YOUR SIDE here!" He screeched, realizing he was talking to an empty room.
Hux sighed and shook his head.
"Come on, Hugs," someone said and Hux twirled around to see Poe, of all people, motioning with his head towards the direction where everyone else had run to.
Before he could ask, the pilot grabbed the man by the wrist and pulled him along for the ride. "We're on a schedule here. And, oh, welcome to the Resistance!"
7. As Darth Plagueis used to say
As it turned out, everything was just fine with Rey. That is, after Kylo helped her at the very last minute, preventing Palpatine from sucking out all of her living Force.
A fact that the former Supreme Leader was not letting go until the end of the century, probably.
"It was just one day—" Rey raised one index finger in the air as she held a cowl to her shoulder with the other hand.
"Two. Two days," Kylo thundered as his jaw clenched.
The Jedi sighed. "Fine, it was two days that I had to stay at the medbay. But he didn't fool me, like I said he wouldn't. And I survived, exactly as I said I would."
"Barely." He grinded his teeth.
"Are they always like this?" Hux turned to the nearest Knight of Ren, being careful not to take his arm out of the sling or to move his concussed head too quickly.
"Yes," Saurus answered shortly.
“If you would have just listened to me-” Kylo’s voice began to raise but he was interrupted as his mother raised a hand.
“I thought we agreed you two would remain calm on group meetings considering how the last one turned out,” Leia said.
Finn and Poe exchanged a look, grateful that they decided to move all the chairs and glasses away from the room, and hold that meeting during daylight when the lamps wouldn’t be needed. The General could try to control the two but, by the Force's sake, they could definitely not control themselves.
Leia’s son huffed, then took a deep breath before turning back to Rey. But before he could finish his sentence again, she went ahead of him.
"I don't understand what is your problem." The Jedi shrugged, palms up. "We won, Palpatine is dead for good, we can just forget about all this and celebrate." Then she stared him in the eye. "We're safe now, Ben."
A few heads turned upon hearing that name. It wasn't a secret Rey called Kylo Ren by his birth name, not anymore. But she sure had never done ‘not’ by accident and/or in a meeting full of people.
Hux furrowed his eyebrows. "Ben? Do you people call him—"
"Shhh." Rose put a finger on his lips as everyone watched the interaction between the two Force users like a lightsaber match.
The former First Order General looked down, her index was still on his mouth but the girl didn't get the hint to just take it off so he sighed and just followed the scene unfolding.
“Of course you don’t understand.” Ben sighed, staring down at the table. “All that matters is the Galaxy and how we save it in the end, isn’t it? Doesn’t matter if you get hurt or killed”—he then looked up, tapping his finger on the wooden surface as he gazed at her— “or the people that would miss you if you were gone.”
Her eyes widened, heart racing on her rib cage either due to her feelings for him or just because of sheer anger. “Of course that’s not all that matters,” her voice was shrill.
He tilted his head disbelieving. “No?”
Rey grunted, closing her hands in fists as she nearly shouted at him. But she held herself back at the last minute, took a deep breath and placed a hand on her face. “You’re insufferable, Ben Solo,” she muttered against her palm.
Rose, still with a hand on Hux’s face, exchanged a quick look with Finn and then the rest of her friends in the room.
So, the name she chose was indeed not an accident then.
“You said you didn’t understand me so I was merely providing an explanation,” he explained in clinical tone despite the emotional turmoil.
She dropped her hand and raised her head again, glaring at him. “You know very well why I did what I did—”
“Which we discussed and decided was a foolish reason, before you went behind my back—” he interrupted.
“A foolish reason?!” her voice raised up in the sky, “I never agreed to that and I told you I was going to allow Palpatine to get me and you just ignored—”
“It’s my life and I had the right to decide if I wanted to risk it, or not, to help you—”
“Well, it’s my life and I have the right to decide if I want to risk it, or not, to protect you,” her voice rumbled through the room. “Because maybe I don’t ever want to see you die, even if it is for me, even if it is for the kriffing Galaxy. Because the mere idea of seeing you die would keep me awake at night for the rest of my kriffing life, because despite you being the most careless and stubborn person in this whole kriffing universe, I love you—”
She slapped her hands against her mouth, eyes going wide as moons as she realized the slip up too little too late. Across the table, Ben Solo’s eyes were just as bulged, and he was speechless for the first time. . . . ever.
Slowly, Ben walked around the table and towards Rey, both never breaking eye contact as he approached her and she remained frozen in place. He stopped mere inches away from the girl, capturing both her wrists to remove the hands from her face. She looked up at him, opening her mouth as she tried to find anything to say. Before she could settle for any explanation, he leaned down and kissed her.
Rey then seemed to lose herself in the moment immediately. She rose up on her tiptoes and began running her fingers through his hair, forgetting consequence, or more accurately, the audience.
The former dark sider didn’t seem to mind it either as he held her waist and brought her closer, tilting his head to deepen their embrace.
“Okay, we should leave them alone,” Leia said, kicking everyone out.
“What? Why?” Hux complained as he was being pushed by Rose and Chewie, “It was just getting good.”
As soon as the Resistance General successfully abstracted the crowd from the room, checking to see if everyone (except the two entwined force users) was out in the hallway, she turned to Zaul.
“Alright. Who won?” She asked.
“General!” Rose admonished.
Leia glanced from the Knight of Ren to the girl. “Oh, please, Commander Tico, don’t pretend to be innocent.”
She then looked at the holopad Zaul had held up after her question as Rose nodded to herself in shame.
“I did,” Myka declared, approaching them. “I said they were gonna get together and declare their feelings in sequenc—”
“Yes, but you got the date wrong,” Zaul responded, reading the guesses on the screen. “You said it would be on the same day Kylo went after her.”
Rose perked up. “Then I win by approximation because I said it was one day after—”
“I said it was one day and a half after,” Leia interrupted her, to which Chewie growled complaining he was the one that guessed Rey would end up on the medbay when no one else did, to which Bottiac interjected complaining there technically was a final battle so he won at least half the bet, to which Fernando whined that no one congratulated him on guessing what Kylo would be wearing when it happened, to which Konnix yelled that she—
“Stop it! None of you win anything,” Zaul cut them off. As the noise died down, he continued, “I’m afraid there was a perfect match.”
“What?” Myka raised both her eyebrows up to the green hairline. ”No way.”
Poe, who had lost the bet even before Rey had been kidnapped, finally participated in the mess simply to ask, “A perfect match?”
Zaul glanced at him then back to the text in front of him. “Someone guessed everything perfectly.”
Myka crossed her arms in front of her chest. “As I said, there’s no wa—”
“Rey will go to Palpatine without Ben. Ben will follow her and kill Palpatine at the last minute—” Zaul began reading.
“Okay, anyone could have guessed that,” the female Knight grumbled again.
“Rey will stay in the medbay for two days before she recuperates from minor injuries and General Leia Organa calls for a meeting. Rey and Ben are going to fight on that meeting, which will result in Rey accidentally shouting ‘I love you’ to Ben. Then he will kiss her in front of everyone and he will tell her he loves her too—a fact no one participating in the bet will see, because we will be already out of the room at this point. But Eniia Ren will be able to confirm,” Zaul paused.
At that point everyone turned to Eniia, who widened her eyes at all the attention, but solemnly nodded after to confirm the fact.
“Okay...that was good but—” Myka said.
“Then,” Zaul continued reading out loud, “Ben will show up at the Conference room door and scream—”
“Do you mind?!” Ben Solo suddenly yelled from the doorway.
“That, and then he will—”
Ben slammed the door.
“Do that and then he and Rey will continue making out, another fact Eniia will confirm”—when they turned to her she was already nodding her head and motioning with her hand for Zaul to carry on—“and all of us, instead of moving on with our lives like normal people do, will be reading this hunch in the hallway, outside their door, like creeps.”
Rose felt her mouth falling to the floor. “Who..who made that—”
“Wager submitted one week ago by No Surname comma... Finn.”
“That’s right, baby,” a voice sounded.
They all looked up from the pad to no one other than Finn, who was leaning by the opposite wall with his arms crossed and a winning smirk. He walked towards the crowd of jaw dropped people and held up his hand.
“Pay up,” he said.
Chewie growled loudly, raising his hands in the air and threatening to rip off the former trooper’s arm.
‘I’m sorry, my friend.” Leia rested a hand on his fur. “But it looks like you will have to accept defeat this time.”
The wookiee then moaned pitifully and gave his credits to Finn.
A round of loud groans followed, as well as the clanks of credits being retrieved from pockets and then dropped on his palm.
As people kept grumbling and paying him, Finn held his chin high and smile wide. “That’s right, you snooze, you lose. You snooze. You lose.”