Warnings: This story contains descriptions of sex work, past rape/non-con, and torture.
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CHAPTER ONE
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Rey spends her days picking clean the bones of fallen star destroyers and her nights in the hollowed out skeleton of a lamed walker. She bargains the bounty of wrecked ships for the same tasteless meal: polystarch and veg-meat.
This isn't the only kind of trading that goes on at Niima Outpost. Once the sun sets and the scavengers have scurried back to their boltholes, the night workers come out. Prostitutes set up their pallets and advertise, bartering the use of their bodies for portions. Mostly women between sixteen and thirty, although there are some younger, some older, and a few men who cater to clients' less traditional tastes.
Rey knows about these people, but she never thought she'd be one of them.
Pride convinced her that she'd rather starve to her grave than trade her body for food, but she's grown too set on survival to give up now. For thirteen days in a row she's found nothing of significant value, and she's been lucky if Unkar Plutt gave her a quarter portion for her finds.
She's lived a hungry life, but Rey has never known desperation like this before in her seventeen years. The empty ache of a starving belly, the light-headed hollowness that dulls her wits and slows her body. She's dying by inches, and she'll be too weak to save herself if she doesn't act now.
This isn't much different than the work she does already. The back-breaking labor of gutting imperial wreckage dirties her in its own way, after all.
Rey takes an oil bath, scrubs her skin with a porous stone to remove her body hair, and dresses in the cleaner of her two sets of clothes. Before she leaves for the outpost, she starts to scratch a mark into the wall of her rusting home, but she decides against it. She doesn't want to immortalize this day on the metal. Rey would rather pretend it never existed.
An hour later, she lays a blanket on the outskirts of town, stands beside it, and waits. It doesn't take long for a man to approach her and strike a deal. He offers five portions to fuck her, but Rey has the sense to demand ten. She's never done this before and tells him so; if he wants her virginity he'll pay double for it. His blue eyes linger on her small breasts, run the length of her too-slender legs.
"Eight. It's all I've got with me, and besides, you're too skinny for ten."
"Fine," Rey says, even though she almost chokes on the word.
It'll be over soon, she tells herself.
She undresses, feeling sick and exposed in the cold desert night, with no walls around her or roof over her head, then lies back on the blanket and opens her legs.
The man is neither young nor old, ugly nor handsome. Just a plain, weathered, middle-aged scavenger with the luxury of extra portions to spend. Rey doesn't look at him as he climbs on top of her, unfastening his pants. Instead, she stares up to the stars. Picks out the constellations she's made up for herself and imagines that someone is coming back for her. She just has to wait for them. Just has to survive until then.
It hurts. Her body isn't ready for his, but he thrusts inside of her anyway, moving rough and fast, and she can feel herself tearing. Rey squeezes her eyes shut, blocking out the stars, and bites back a sob. Tears slide down the sides of her face, wet and warm.
The man on top of her stops, breathing heavily, and says, "Look, if I have to do all the work, I'm not gonna pay you eight."
She wants to throw him off of her, to beat him with her quarterstaff, take the portions he owes her, and go back home. But he's a big man, well over six feet tall and heavily built. Besides, she's gone this far, already sacrificed her pride and her virginity. What does it matter if she has to give up more?
He orders her to suck him, and when Rey closes her mouth over his cock, she tastes her own blood.
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Jakku may be light years away now, but some memories feel too close to be bound to a planet so far. Rey wakes in the middle of the night, shaking and crying, the unforgiving ghost of salt and red iron on her tongue. She runs to the 'fresher and vomits, then takes the hottest shower she can stand. She wants to wash away the feel of that man's fingers on her skin, but no amount of scrubbing seems to do it.
The next morning, Finn puts a hand on her arm and asks if she's well. Even this, the touch of her closest friend, all comfort and concern, makes her itch to pull away.
"I'm fine," she says, but the smile she forces to her lips feels too strained to be convincing.
Finn nods, frowning, and says, "If you need me, I'm here. You know that, right?"
"I know." She kisses his forehead, the way she once did when he was lying prone in the medbay, and says, "Thank you."
Finn has claimed a special place in her heart; he's her first true comrade, the man who took her hand and led her out of Jakku amidst a whirlwind, who came back for her on Starkiller and risked his life for hers. She'll never love anybody in quite the same way that she loves him, this soldier who taught her more about friendship in a day than she'd learned in nineteen years.
Rey wishes she could tell him about what she did on Jakku—what she let that man do to her. Finn would never judge her for it, she knows that, but she doesn't want to see his sadness, or worse, pity.
So she tells him she'll see him later, then hurries to her meeting with the general. Leia asked to meet her at the lowest level of the base, in a room just down the hall from the holding cells. It's a strange place for a discussion, Rey thinks, but she goes without question.
Leia smiles, hugs her, and if she leans into the embrace a little more than she usually would, Rey hopes the general doesn't notice.
After she's stepped back, Leia's soft expression saddens, and she says, "I need your help, Rey."
She nods. "What can I do?"
"My son was captured last night, just outside the Pelloria System. He's in a holding cell, and I'm about to speak with him, and I—I don't think I can do it alone."
"Kylo Ren is here, down the hall?" Rey asks.
The last time she saw him a chasm had opened in the earth between them, and the collapse of Starkiller was the only thing that kept her from taking his life. She'd felt the pull to the dark, urging her to end his suffering right there, this miserable creature who had haunted her every step from Jakku.
"That's not his name," Leia says quietly. "No more than that mask is his face."
She doesn't especially want to see a monster like Kylo again, no matter what his true name is, but Rey can see how much it pains Leia to put her son in chains. How afraid she is to approach him as a prisoner.
"I hate to ask this of you," Leia says, "and if you don't want to—"
"I'll do it," Rey says. "I'm not afraid of him."
And she isn't, not anymore. How could she fear a wretch like Kylo after seeing him scrambling in the snow, unmasked and bloodied and defeated?
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He's restrained in a chair, his wrists and ankles bound by manacles. Less refined than the surgical contraption he had her confined with on Starkiller, but just as effective in its purpose. Rey had expected stubborn pride from him, but Kylo only sits slumped in this chair, limp and defeated.
Instead of giving his mother any kind of recognition, he looks Rey up and down and says in a dull voice, "Nice clothes. You don't look like a scavenger anymore."
"Nice scar," Rey says. "Now the outside matches the inside."
Monster. She doesn't have to say as much for Kylo to hear it.
He smirks, just the faintest trace of a smile playing around the edges of that full mouth.
"Ben," Leia says, and Rey is impressed at how firmly she speaks her son's name.
"Don't call me that," Kylo spits, his gaze settled on the duracrete floor.
"I gave you that name," Leia says, softer now. "I'll use it if I want to."
Kylo laughs, a broken sound, and Rey has to look away from him. He's trembling and glassy-eyed in his mother's presence, and it's impossible to witness without feeling sorry for him.
"Might as well send in your interrogators now," he says quietly.
Leia shakes her head, her voice hoarse when she says, "You know I don't want to do that. Just cooperate, Ben. Please."
He shakes his head. "I'm no traitor. If it's insider information you want, go talk to that coward, FN-2187."
"His name is Finn," Rey snaps, before she can stop herself. "And if anyone's the coward, it's you. Hiding behind a mask and a fake name. You'd rather be the sad shadow of Darth Vader than your own man."
Kylo finally looks up, right at her, something blazing in his eyes that makes Rey want to step away from him. "You don't know anything about me."
He's not the least bit frightened of her, and it angers Rey that he isn't scared like she was on Starkiller. That he's so confident in her goodness—which he sees as her weakness—that he believes she won't hurt him.
He's wrong, though. Kylo brings out the worst in her, draws her to the darkness, and she's neither weak nor very good when faced with him.
"You should step out," Rey says to Leia. "It's obvious that he's not going to cooperate, and you shouldn't have to watch me question him."
Leia's brown eyes widen. "Rey… that's not why I asked you to come with me."
"If I don't do this, what's the next step?"
Leia frowns, bringing out the lines on her regal face. They both know that the Resistance needs information on Snoke and the First Order too badly not to employ every method to make Kylo Ren speak. As much as she loves her son, Leia won't spare him for the sake of the galaxy.
"I'll be as gentle as I can," Rey promises. And she will, but that's as much for her own sake as Kylo's.
He's listening to their quiet exchange, no doubt catching every word, waiting for the verdict.
"I'd prefer torture to the scavenger's company," Kylo says dryly, "if that sways your decision, Mom."
Leia flinches when he calls her that, then says to Rey, "I'll wait for you upstairs. Report to my office with any information you get from him."
She leaves without another word. The metal door slides closed behind Leia with a shudder, and then Rey is alone with one of the creatures of her nightmares. She approaches, closing the distance between them until she stands over him. But Kylo is so large that, even seated, he isn't much shorter than her. This close, she can see the fine details of the scar that divides his strong features. How the rich color of his bright eyes changes under the sterile, white lights. Rey wishes she found him ugly, that the mark she burned across his face would distract her from the compelling vulnerability of his full mouth—but it doesn't.
She intends to simply reach out, to hold her hand a spare inch from his skin, but instead Rey finds herself cupping his cheek. He's impossibly warm, almost feverish. She flicks her thumb across his plump bottom lip, a gesture borne from curiosity. And something more, but she isn't ready to examine that just yet. His mouth is so soft, and she can feel the heat of his ragged breath. She expects Kylo to freeze, or pull away, defiant. Instead, he leans into her palm, as if he can't help but savor the sweetness of contact. From the way he nuzzles her open hand, those tempting lips parted and long-lashed eyes closed, she expects it's been years since anybody touched him with kindness.
Except for Han, of course.
He's unguarded, defenseless, and if she reads his mind right now she'll find everything she's looking for in an instant. Maybe he brings out more than darkness in her, because something like compassion keeps her from doing it.
When she draws her hand away, Kylo's dark eyes flash open and his lips snap shut. He looks surprised at himself and maybe a little angry. His gloved hands curl into fists and his jaw tightens. "Get on with it."
Rey takes a steadying breath, then leans close enough to smell the metallic scent that clings to his hair, intentionally copying the intimacy he forced on her when their roles were reversed. She holds her hand beside his cheek and reaches with her mind, probing through the wall of his resistance and into the reservoir of memories beyond it.
She sees a small boy alone in a grand house, playing by himself while the golden droid C-3PO looks after him… He's a little older, maybe five or six, crying in the darkness of his bedroom while his parents' raised voices filter through the thin walls… "I'll be back in time for your birthday, Ben," Han Solo promises with a lopsided smile, but he knows better, because whenever Father goes off-world it's always weeks and weeks before he returns… Mother looks at him with horror when she finds him with his hands buried in the body cavity of a lizard, exploring its still-warm organs, all curiosity without regard for life… A week later he's going to live with Uncle Luke, and Ben can't help but think that this is because his parents never much wanted him anyway…
Rey can feel him trying to force her out of his head, but he's not as strong-willed as she is. Sweat beads on his brow, and he's breathing hard from the effort of trying to expel her presence from his mind. It's wrong to sift through his most private memories, it's wrong to do this at all, and wading through the mire of a child's pain hurts to experience, even secondhand.
She takes pity on him, and herself, and stops probing.
"You were lonely too," Rey whispers. She understands the ache of isolation, how it can drive you half-mad if you let it, and it keeps her from reaching back into his mind.
Tears streak Kylo's pale cheeks, sliding the length of his narrow face and dripping from his chin, and Rey hates herself in this moment for bringing his suffering to the surface. Never mind that he did the same to her not so long ago. It's cruel, it makes her sick.
"Just tell me what I need to know," Rey says, and it isn't until she hears the shaking of her own voice that she realizes she's on the verge of crying.
"No," he chokes out. Then he gives her a wobbling smile. "I'm not giving you anything."
She kneels on the tiled floor before him. If he wasn't restrained, Rey would hate being in such a deferential position, but he's too helpless right now for her to feel subservient. Still, he looms over her, so tall and broad. She cradles his cheeks between her hands, brushes away his tears with the softest of touches, and leans near enough to him that she can see the subtle trembling of his mouth.
We're close enough to kiss, she thinks for a fleeting moment, before pushing the thought away.
"Help me, Ben. Tell me something, anything, so I can stop this," she whispers.
He winces when she says his name. "Don't."
"Ben," Rey says again, and this time she savors the simplicity of the single syllable on her tongue. It's such a plain, honest name for such a complicated man, but somehow it suits him. "That's your name, your real name, and from now on it's the only one I'm going to use," she promises quietly.
Fresh tears course down his face, wetting her fingers. "Don't be afraid," Rey says, mirroring his own words back at him, the way he'd just mirrored hers. "I feel it too."
Witnessing weakness from him, seeing his humanity, has dulled her hatred for this man. She doesn't want to invade his mind again. Just the thought of it makes her skin crawl.
"You can't do it, can you?" he asks. Ben sounds confident now, determined and prideful, despite the fact that he's still restrained, that he just cried into her palms.
"No," Rey says. "I can't." She stands, wipes her tear-streaked hands on her pants, and says, "You know what's going to happen if you don't talk to me."
If Rey had her way, no one would touch him. She disapproves of torture, no matter how valuable the victim's information or how terrible his crimes. Besides, she expects that trying to pry information out of him will be an exercise in futile abuse. She remembers how relentlessly he fought on Starkiller, pushing through the pain of his wounds.
He shrugs, as if the suffering of the body is a small, inconsequential thing. "I guarantee that your interrogators aren't half as ruthless as the Supreme Leader's. There's nothing they can do to me that hasn't already been done."
"Snoke—he, are you saying he had you tortured?" Rey asks.
"My mother is Leia Organa, the Resistance's general, and my uncle is Luke Skywalker, last of the Jedi; of course he had me questioned," Ben says. "Any intelligent leader would have done the same."
Rey can't begin to dissect the nature of his thinking, it's so foreign and so strange to her.
When she turns toward the door, he asks, "Where are you going?" There's a familiar note in his voice, and now she recognizes it for what it is: desperation framed in aggression.
She leaves Ben, reports to the general, and admits that she was unable to draw any useful information from him. Leia's shoulders slump, and Rey can see the weight settling on her at the thought of what must come next: ordering the sharp interrogation of her only child.
"Don't do it," Rey says. "If you have him tortured you won't be able to forgive yourself and we'll never make an ally out of him."
Leia looks up, a gentle optimism kindling in her expression. "You think he still has good in him?"
"I'm not sure," Rey says, hesitant to give Leia false hope, "but I do know this; torturing him would do nothing but hurt him pointlessly. He's not going to talk until he wants to. Treating him with kindness is the only way we might sway him back to the light."
Leia puts her head in her hands, nods. "I couldn't have done it anyway," she says. "Thank you for giving me a reason."
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That night, Rey sits up in bed, afraid of what dreams might come if she lies down and closes her eyes. Perhaps she'll see Ben's tear-stained face, twisted in agony over the half-buried memories she forced to the forefront of his mind. Or maybe she'll feel the rough fabric of a blood-stained blanket beneath her back and wake crying again.
Rey doesn't know what to do with herself. She masquerades as a strong woman, but the truth is that she's like a rag doll made up of unwanted pieces, a patchwork girl just barely stitched together. The slightest strain on her seams and she'll fall apart.
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