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This was the third time Rey found herself here: in the med bay of the Finalizer, hovering over the prone, defenseless figure before her. The meager fluorescent light cast a menacing shadow; Rey watched as the shadow mimicked her movements and wondered, idly, if her shadow could do what she couldn’t. She willed her shadow to do it, to press the knife further, to perform that one swift motion (one that she hasn’t hesitated to do in the past) and end her problems.
For the third night in a row, Rey hovered over Kylo Ren’s unconscious form with a knife at his throat.
For the third night in a row, Rey stayed her hand.
For the third night in a row, Rey watched him – pale as death, cold as death, barely-breathing. This wasn’t a regular injury; the rumors in the ‘Trooper barracks claimed that he was still injured from his fight with the escaped girl and the defected Stormtrooper, but Rey knew better. Whatever was keeping Kylo Ren subdued wasn’t internal. There was an oppressive presence around him, sinister and sharp and suffocating.
Do it, and was that her mind? Kill him. End your suffering. The voice was dissociated and dream-like, and Rey wondered why she couldn’t listen. It was what she wanted.
Rey wasn’t sure how long she stayed there, straddling his prone body, knife at his throat, staring at the shadows the casted on the wall; when she left, the taste of failure was strong in her mouth.
///
By the fifth day, Rey was damning her sense of empathy, cursing Finn, swearing off ever caring about another person again. Empathy was what landed her here, in this fascist hellhole, and empathy is what would get her killed.
Next time, she’d kill the damn ‘Trooper. No matter how much she was reminded of Finn.
///
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Rey hadn’t had these many sleepless nights since Jakku. She’d grown soft during her time with Luke. Now she was back to her usual routine: scavenge, scour, survive.
She wandered the halls of the Finalizer in her Trooper uniform. So far she’d only have to use the Force to make…suggestions…to two officers. Both of them had been weak-willed, and it had been woefully easy to have them turn around and forget they’d seen her.
Rey’s nature was to investigate, to pry, to satiate the gnawing curiosity inside of her. So she waited until the halls of the Finalizer were near-deserted, at 0300 hours, and she wandered the halls like a specter.
Presently she was crouched down, desperately trying not to be noticed, desperately trying to hide her Force signature. Whoever was in that room wasn’t even trying to hid theirs; it was thick, and cloying, and hot, and it made breathing difficult.
“-better from you, General.” Something about the voice made Rey uneasily frantic, made her want to fight and flee all at once.
“And I expected better from Ren.” The second voice was clipped, polished, and gave Rey the impression that the man it belonged to was perpetually annoyed. “And my men. Perhaps we should revert back to clones.”
“Perhaps,” the first man said. There was a heavy pause. “Perhaps more...drastic measures need to be taken.”
The air itself changed, warped into something that Rey could hardly imagine or name; she was rabbit-scared, caught between staying absolutely still and fleeing, but then -
She hardly registered that she was running away until she was safely out of that corridor. A cold sweat had broken out on her brow and her heart was pounding so hard and so fast she thought it might explode.
Rey made for the barracks, but she didn’t get much sleep that night.
///
It was the eighth night when he stirred.
Rey was there, Stormtrooper armor left behind and knife at his throat, ignoring the ebb and pull of the dark, humid, Force. She kept replaying that scene in her mind: Kylo running his saber through Han, Han’s hand coming up to touch his son’s face as he fell to his death, the sad, surprised look on Kylo Ren’s face, like a child who just seemed to realize that his actions had consequences…
Ben. That’s what Han had called him.
Rey scowled at the thought. Ben. It humanized him too much. He was a monster, a fanatic, somebody who deserved to die.
But as Rey sat there, contemplating, Kylo Ren shifted in his anesthetic-induced sleep. His neck nicked the edge of her blade, just enough to scratch the skin, but Rey still jerked her hand away at the sight of his blood.
Her empathy would be the death of her.
///
Rey gathered her intel during the day, now, eavesdropping on Stormtrooper gossip in the mess hall and during muster. There were a few useful tidbits here and there - the First Order would likely stay under the radar, many governments considered the attack on the Hosnian system a declaration of war,
There was another Force user on the ship. She hoped, she prayed, that it wasn’t Kylo Ren’s master, Leader Snoke. According to Luke, Snoke was from a far off ice-planet, one of the last of his species and a cold, cruel, creature. But somewhere, deep in the pit of her stomach, Rey knew. That same oppressive presence surrounded Kylo Ren, kept him subdued.
Rey wondered if Snoke knew she was on board.
///
The tenth night saw Rey slipping out of her bunk, padding through the hallways without her ‘Trooper uniform. Perhaps she’d grown comfortable, or perhaps she didn’t care anymore. Rey wasn’t sure.
She made her way to the med-bay, to Kylo Ren. She waited in the threshold, almost afraid to cross. Something moved in the dark.
He was awake.
Terror and fury struck Rey all at once, but just as she made to flee, he said, “If you mean to kill me, I’d prefer you do it quickly.”
Rey swallowed her fear and stepped inside, sticking to the shadows. Kylo Ren kept talking, “I’m surprised it’s taken the General this long to send an assassin. Kill me. I won’t stop you.”
This man was so vastly different from the Kylo Ren Rey’d encountered: there was no anger, none of that vitriol. This man had thoroughly given up. He was a shell.
Rey said nothing, but stepped out of the med bay and walked back to her barracks.
She wasn’t sure what she was doing, anymore.
///
Years ago, Rey stumbled upon a jackalope - a horned rabbit creature that inhabited the desert - with its leg caught in a trap. The way it looked at her - Rey could see the wish for death in its eyes. She was used to the frantic look of fear, of desire to escape, but this creature, half-dead already, was different.
She did the job quickly, and ate its meager meat.
///
The twelfth night, Kylo Ren was back to lying in his bed. Rey made sure of that before stepping into the medbay.
She padded closer and closer, held her knife in a while-knuckled grip. If he wanted death, she’d deliver.
But Kylo Ren’s hand flew out and grabbed her wrist, his eyes glinting yellow and locking on hers. “You.”
Rey felt his consciousness press against hers; she grit her teeth and shoved him out, jerked her arm away easily; he was weaker than he’d been on Starkiller. The oppressive aura had abated, but only slightly. She took two steps back and waited. Kylo sat up, swung his legs around the side of the cot.
Rey narrowed her eyes, sizing him up: he was thinner than the last time she’d seen him, muscles atrophied and face looking thin and worn. He had a raw, jagged scar across his face. Rey thought it served him right.
“What are you doing here?” Kylo hissed, hands fisting into the white sheets. He made no move to get off the cot.
“You wanted to die,” Rey said. “I figured I’d help.”
His lip curled with contempt. “You’ve had the opportunity every night. But you haven’t.”
Rey narrowed her eyes. He’d been unconscious and she’d been concealing herself - how had he known?
His gaze was unwavering. “You even nicked me.” He tapped his neck, where a thin scab had formed. “You could have killed me. You want to. Yet you haven’t.”
I should, Rey thought. Kill him right now and make it look like a suicide. “You weren’t lucid.”
He tapped his temple with a single long, elegant finger. “Trapped here, yes. But I was aware of my surroundings. Snoke’s punishments are unique.”
“Who is Snoke?” Rey found herself asking, an idea already forming in her mind. If she could use Kylo Ren for information and then assassinate him - or better yet, capture him - then this mission might be worthwhile....
“The Supreme Leader,” Kylo said. “My Master. He will bring order to the Galaxy.”
“But who is he?” Rey pressed, then rethought her question: “What is he?”
Kylo Ren did not answer.
///
The next night, Rey did not visit him. Too shaken to skulk around the Finalizer’s halls and too conflicted to see Kylo Ren, she instead spent a sleepless night in the barracks.
She did not dream.
///
Rey was going to kill him tonight.
“You didn’t come last night.”
Rey stopped dead in her tracks. His voice carried across the room, stronger and clearer than Rey would’ve suspected.
“Why are you suddenly lucid?” Rey asked, not moving.
“The Supreme Leader decides my state.” He sounded resigned to his fate, as if he didn’t care that he was being held prisoner in the med-bay.
“Is that the…” Rey made a gesture. Kylo nodded.
For a half second, Rey almost felt sorry for him. To have the full weight of that presence in your mind must be awful.
…then again, Kylo Ren had no problem invading people’s minds, so maybe it was just desserts.
Or maybe, said that tiny little voice that Rey had been resolutely ignoring, it is all he knows.
Rey walked towards him, stopping a safe distance from the cot. “Why haven’t you tried to kill me? Or tell Snoke that I’m here?” The question had been niggling at the back of Rey’s mind. She’d half expected to be executed on the spot at muster that morning.
“What would that accomplish?” was his response. He was looking at her with a heavy gaze, with a heated gaze, and Rey had to force herself to not look away. “Snoke is enraged after the disaster on Starkiller. He is in no state to take on another apprentice.”
Rey was dumbstruck. “You actually think I would train under a thing that made –“ and again, she made a sweeping gesture in Kylo’s general direction, “that sort of signature?”
Kylo’s expression was solemn. “Is it really that repulsive?”
Rey nodded. His face fell, and he suddenly looked very lost and very young. Again Rey felt that pang of empathy. Again, she shoved it away. “Do you really not feel it?”
His silence was answer enough.
///
The twentieth night found Rey sitting opposite Kylo atop the cot. She still had the knife in her hand, but she held it with less conviction.
“Why do you let him do this?” Rey asked. She should be trying to capture him, should have taken the opportunity to kill him. Weakened has he was now, he was the real powerhouse on the battlefield.
“The Supreme Leader,” and he always called Snoke that, the Supreme Leader, “says it will make me stronger.”
“Just like killing Han Solo would make you stronger?” Rey couldn’t help the snide remark. She was still hurting over his death, wanted revenge, wanted answers.
“Vader killed my grandmother. It increased his powers a hundredfold.”
Rey didn’t bother hiding her disgust. She hadn’t heard that part of Anakin’s fall to the dark side. “You destroyed any chance you had at redemption when you did that,” Rey told him.
“I know,” he said.
///
“Why do you want to kill me?”
It was the twenty-fifth night that Rey had been on the Finalizer, ten nights since she’d started her nightly interrogations of Kylo Ren, and she was unsure how to answer the question.
So she went with the obvious. “You’re a terror unto the galaxy. You’re directly and indirectly responsible for thousands of deaths. You killed Han.”
He didn’t react, simply took in the information. “Snoke knows you’re on board, you know.”
Rey swallowed thickly. “I had figured.” She tried to act nonchalant about it, tried her best to hide the pounding in her heart. If what Kylo had told her about Snoke was true – he was practically omnipotent, he had killed armies in a one-sided massacre, he was almost as old as the Sith dogma itself – she had real reason to be terrified.
“Why hasn’t he done anything? You said he was angry after Starkiller.”
“He can be patient. Should I bring him to you, he will likely punish one or both of us. He will recruit you on his own time.”
So he likes being in control, Rey thought.
…well, that was obvious. He blew up an entire system that opposed the First Order. If that didn’t scream control-freak-fascist-egomaniac, she wasn’t sure what did.
///
It was the fortieth night that Rey gave up all pretense and stopped bringing a knife with her.
///
Somewhere in the predawn hours of the fiftieth night, Rey awoke to find that she had fallen asleep next to Kylo.
She was alarmed. She was sickened by Snoke’s cloying Force signature. She was terrified that this was the first night she wasn’t plagued by insomnia or nightmares. Kylo was back in his Force-induced state.
She really ought to kill him, one of these days.
///
“You keep staying in the night,” Kylo said.
“I keep falling asleep here,” Rey told him. She could feel her heart racing. “I’ll leave before I get too tired, this time.”
“No,” Kylo said, voice soft and eyes wistful, “No, it’s okay.”
He did not bring it up again.
///
“This is hell, Rey,” and that was the first time he said her name, the fifty-second night. “This is hell.”
And there it was, empathy rearing its ugly head. “I’m sorry.”
His hand came up and touched her face. His eyes were tear-streaked. “Don’t submit to Snoke, Rey. Whatever you do. Please.” There was that plea in his yellow eyes, the one begging for death. Rey wiped his hair from his sweat-slick forehead, and rubbed his shoulder. He had lost even more weight, and all Rey felt was bone.
She really, really ought to kill him.
///
Rey wasn’t sure if he kissed her or if she kissed him, that seventy-seventh night, but she did know that she felt like she was kissing a corpse.
“If you leave,” he whispered in the aftermath, his forehead touching hers and his eyes closed, “Please kill me before you do.”
Rey swallowed, unsure if she could fulfill such a request.
Empathy had won over, after all.
///
Her escape was sudden and selfish. Her cargo was a half-dead man and a sense of empathy a mile wide. The TIE was easy enough to acquire. Freeing Kylo Ren of Snoke was another matter. Snoke was in his blood, in his bones; Snoke was a drug, and Kylo Ren would be in withdrawal.
But, Rey figured, he was free. And wasn’t freedom worth it?
When they landed, on a planet with a core and atmosphere that almost completely negated the Force, that made Rey feel wrong and off but safe, finally fucking safe, he turned to her with his too-young face and yellow eyes and said, “I think I’m in love with you.”
“I think,” Rey said tiredly, “You’re tired.”
///
He was healing.
It was a slow process, a painful process, but Kylo Ren was finally learning who he was without Snoke.
Rey kept meticulous count of the days that passed – one hundred and fifty – and did what she did best: survived and scavenged and shouldered the burden of life.
She slept next to Kylo Ren almost every night, and refused to dwell on its meaning. He had regained his lost weight and finally was looking healthier, more vibrant. His eyes were still yellow, still filled with a depth that Rey was almost too afraid to pursue. He kissed her, and when he did Rey felt her heart soar and her blood sing.
It terrified her.
But still, she stayed.
///
“You know,” he said one night, after they’d retired to the makeshift bed they shared, “I do love you. You are clever and strong, and you listened when no one else would.”
He was lying on his back, one arm around Rey as she rested her head on his chest. Rey felt her heart skip a beat.
She pretended to be asleep.
///
“Kylo,” and his name no longer tasted sour on her tongue, “Stay with me, please.”
He was feverish, body breaking out in a sweat, face pale and trained. She pushed his hair out of his eyes and placed a cool cloth to his forehead.
In that moment – terrified of losing him and almost angry that he would dare make her worry like this – Rey realized that she loved him. Her empathy had warped and warmed and become a new thing entirely, a scary and wondrous thing that made her stomach flip and her heart soar.
“Please,” she said to his half-conscious form, gripping his hand, “I love you.”
Rey swore she felt his hand squeeze back. “I know.”
///