tagline: and bitchin' moves to catch the ladies ain't one of them. Matt trash- for someone special.
Her disguise was flimsy at best after the amount of time he'd spent next to her (memorizing the profile of her face and the look of her eyes boring into his with a fire he'd never thought he'd see again) during their last encounter. It fooled everyone else, though. Clearly. And she moved about the ruined console with a trace amount of tension in her muscles as she worked with the others to clear the debris.
She was trying to play it cool in his presence. The only problem was that her compatriots were clearly terrified. Her calm demeanor made her stick out like a sore thumb. At least to him.
"Did you hear me, Ren?" Hux barked out. His lips strained into a thin line as he glared angrily at his childish cohort.
When she had entered, though, hair tied back into a simple ponytail and cap pulled low, glancing only for a moment up into his mask before quickly averting her eyes, he had forgotten about everything he'd been furious about a moment before completely.
He blinked inside his helmet, desperate to turn his head in her direction but holding back.
"Fine," he bit back, and with a clench of his fists, quickly strode out of the room.
What is she doing here?
Part of him- half of him- wanted to turn back, slam through the door, grab her by the arm, and drag her with him to demand some explanation as to what she was up to. But the other half of him- the calmer, more practical half- urged him to wait it out, play it to his advantage….perhaps there was something to be gained from this little spy venture the Resistance thought they could pull off.
A slow smile curled on his lips as he made his way to his quarters. His hand hovered over the door release when a thought came to him. His brain shifting gears, he yanked his hand away and marched down another hall which branched into another stark walkway until he found himself in a less harsh-looking part of the ship, the hint of perfume wafting through his filters.
He glanced around at the collection of doors in the dimly lit corridor before turning to one. Sensing the other side was empty, he flicked the door open with a wave of his finger and carefully stepped inside.
The room was a gaudy mess, as if the hoard of a Hutt had thrown up into ever corner- expensive furniture, silks draped about the place. He had only ever ventured to the Pleasure Quarters of the ship once in a moment of embarrassing desperation he still hadn't felt he'd lived down, and this was definitely not the room he'd been let into.
Looking over to a long dresser crammed surely with every vanity item in the galaxy, he spotted a collection of carefully brushed hair pieces perched on equally overdone mannequin heads that glistened gold in the light. He stepped over to them, observing them carefully before hovering his eyes over one that shone exceedingly blonde.
"That'll do."
Grabbing it up, he snatched the darkest, mutest scrap of fabric he could find, rolled the pilfered item up, and left.
Pummeling the metal flooring under foot in his usual gait, he sighed at a job well done.
This could work, he thought to himself. This could actually work.
—
He stood in his quarters, adjusting the collar of a tech's uniform he'd stolen from a locker on the way there (along with a grossly oversized pair of glasses), and looked at himself in the mirror. He sighed.
"I look ridiculous."
Still, clenching his jaw, he roughly unwrapped the wig and carefully tucked his hair inside. It was quite long. Too long. And he wrenched open a nearby utility drawer until he came away with a wickedly long pair of scissors. With a deep breath, he held up a length of the faux hair, and he cut. The noise of it was grating, and he was paranoid that he would somehow end up cutting his own hair by mistake but, thankfully, the netting was high quality. His locks were safe.
Looking back into the mirror, he'd really done a hatchet job. Bits of hair stuck up unevenly all over the place.
Don't they have those caps, though? he tried to reason. Ahh, but he didn't grab one of those on his way in, did he? Idiot!
The hatchet job would have to do.
Gritting his teeth, he took hold of the glasses and carefully put them on, blinking back as his eyesight adjusted to the slightly enhanced lenses.
It's for the good of the Order, he said over and over. She cannot be allowed to have her run of the ship.
Deciding he was ready, he flicked through his datapad until he found the tech manifest.
Sshit— what is she even calling herself? he screamed internally when he realized looking up 'Rey' would get him absolutely nowhere.
Slipping the useless thing into one of the pockets of his jumpsuit, he closed his eyes and tried to feel. Reaching out for her, envisioning what she had looked like only an hour before…his brow flinched as he seemed to keep hitting wall after wall.
That must be it…how she was able to get by me….keeping herself from me…
Gritting his teeth he gave one final shove until he felt something new in his mental grasp- a line of sorts, that seemed to dully throb as he latched onto it.
Rey…
There. She was there.
Opening his eyes, he marched through the door.
—
Rey had already begun her second scheduled maintenance run of the day. While amongst the techs it wasn't unusual at all to be called away to deal with sudden emergencies, all of them, she'd discovered, absolutely dreaded attending to what remained of Kylo Ren's fits. Besides making consoles utterly unsalvageable, having to stand in his presence while he was usually still teetering on the brink of extreme violence occasionally ended very badly for one too many an innocent employee. Her group today was one Fate deemed to be nearby at his next outburst.
As she checked the calibration on the panel in front of her and dug around in her pocket for the modified transponder she planned to add to the circuitry, she thought back to the call. She'd never anticipated seeing Kylo there- not so quickly after arriving, at least- and a part of her still itched at the thought that he could have seen her and ruined everything.
She signed. He showed no sign of recognizing her, though. She was safe. For now. As she reached down to switch tools, her hand brushed against a loose wire and she jolted from the shock with a loud squeak, dropping her spanner to the floor.
As she reached down, her fingers curled against someone else's as they both reached for her section-issued tool.
"Need some help with that?" a low voice asked.
Rey gaped and quickly re-pocketed the hacked component in her hand. Looking up she spotted a man much too large for the access space with fogged up glasses and uncombed hair sticking up all over his head.
"I'm fine," she breathed, giving the tool a tug, but his grip didn't budge. He said nothing, staring at her as the glass in front of his eyes began to adjust to the higher temperature.
"I said I'm fine," she repeated with a growl, and jerked the spanner towards her, pulling it free of his grasp, before turning back to recheck the panel.
The man swallowed.
"Well, ahhh…" he mumbled, eyes roving for any sort of clue in the small space. "Do you need any other help?" he asked awkwardly, and he winced at his own lame question.
Rey huffed. "For the third time," she said, reaching deep into the cell with gritted teeth before pulling out a large circuit board, "I am fine!"
She grunted as she slid the board out and carefully eased it onto the floor with legs spread in an effort to support the massive weight of metal and wires.
The man's mouth fell slightly agape at the feat of strength as she carefully lowered herself down and began working on a piece of the circuitry. He hovered conspicuously, pulling somewhat at the edge of his jumpsuit before squatting down to look at the other side of the board.
"What are you doing?" she insisted, angry to have to pause in the middle of her work.
"Helping you," he replied, and took a blue wire between his fingers and gave it a gentle tug. That was all it needed for it to come loose and for sparks to fly on the other side.
"Shit," he cursed, quickly high-stepping it away.
Rey yelped and crawled back in a panic, arm flung over her eyes, until the entire board dimmed to black. She leaned back on one arm and panted.
"Are you alright?" he asked sternly, stepping over the burned out piece of technology towards the girl. She said nothing and just sat there with her arm raised.
"Hey!" he said again.
"Sorry! Sorry, I…" she breathed. Her chest heaved and slowly he knelt down beside her.
"It's just that I…I caught the flash, and…," she tried to explain with a whimper.
The man blinked and, tilting his head to the side, raised his hand to lightly grip her arm.
"Hey," he said softly, swallowing. "Let me see…"
"I really think I should—"
"Please," he interrupted. "Just let me take a look."
He could feel her tremble under his hand until, slowly, her arm lowered revealing tightly-closed eyes. Dark streaks of soot shot across her face, but he could see no damage. Releasing her arm, he brought up a thumb and, gingerly, wiped away at one that streaked across her forehead and down her nose. She flinched as he made contact and he pulled away until he saw her relax and brushed off the rest.
"Try opening your eyes," he suggested.
She frowned and nervously licked her lips. He felt his jaw shift as he watched her until his eyes fell back onto hers.
"…open them," he ordered gently.
Slowly, like a newborn kitten, her eyelids cracked, blinking into the dim light of the service corridor.
"Well?" he asked curiously. She blinked a few times rapidly when there was a sudden loud bang at the other end of the walkway.
"Hey!" a voice called. "What's going on down here?"
Resting a hand on her knee he shifted up to look down the walkway.
"Just a wiring malfunction!" he shouted back. "Nothing serious. We'll have it back up in a moment!"
He saw the figure salute and disappear.
"You know I should report you for that," she said groggily and his attention snapped back to her. He looked at her curiously.
"Didn't I just help you? Isn't that how this is done?" he said more than a little sarcastically.
"How is what done?" she asked irritably, pushing his hand off of her knee to pull herself to her feet. He stayed where he was, looking up at her.
"I should report you for breaking this priceless control board," she began. "And also for the blatant lie you just told to the overseer."
He arched a brow, and pushed himself up to stand. He towered over her, and while she swallowed hard, she didn't let his size intimidate her. "And that bothers you?"
Rey cocked her head at him. "Yes of course it does, especially when you jeopardize my job, you….you….."
The anger dropped from her face as she shook her head at him. "Who are you?" she asked finally.
"Hey down there!" the overseer called again, and this time Rey turned to answer.
"Yes sir!" she called back primly. In a panic, his eyes darted about the space taking in anything and everything- he had totally forgotten to come up with a name.
"Do you need any more materials? We're doing a run!"
He blinked. "Anymore what?" he asked irritably.
Rey rolled her eyes with a sigh. "Materials," she enunciated. "Like what you just broke here," she continued to detail, grabbing the useless board and giving it a shake. She turned back to her boss.
"Yes sir- several reels of standard wiring and soldering material, sir!"
The overseer nodded and disappeared again, and as Rey turned back she was met with the mystery man's wide-eyed gaze.
"Matt!" he shouted suddenly.
Rey blinked, taking a step back. "I'm sorry, what?"
He coughed, trying to pull himself back together. "Matt," he said at a more reasonable volume over the mechanical hum. "My name is Matt."
Rey gave him an odd look before nodding finally. "Well, 'Matt', you've royally botched my job here, so if you would, actually be so kind as to assist in repairing the damage you've caused, that would just be stellar."
—
The next time she saw him was in a darkened hall where the construction work had shorted out the lights. There was a loud clang of something metal dropping hard to the floor when she was the only one assigned to the space and she swung her flashlight towards the offending noise.
"You again," she huffed. He squinted into the spotlight and gave a quick wave.
Rey dropped her flashlight back to where it was before (propped at an angle on her toolbox to shine exactly where she needed it), leaving him to stand in darkness as she went back to work.
"Need any help?" came his voice from the void of the chamber.
"No," she replied. "Why? Did Cella send you?"
The darkness hid his blank expression. He had no idea who 'Cella' was. Her flashlight slid against her toolbox, shifting the light away, before she quickly corrected it.
"No," he replied. "I'm…doing the rounds."
Rey scoffed. "Really?"
Kylo felt his chest relax. She was buying it.
"Yes," he replied simply.
Rey continued to work in silence as 'Matt' stood there, unmoving. Her flashlight slid from its spot again and a soft curse broke the silence.
"Let me hold that for you," he offered, reaching down to snatch up the offending piece of equipment before she could.
"No thank you," she replied firmly. "Matt, was it? No thanks."
She held out her hand for her flashlight but he ignored her, stepping up to her to shine her light over her shoulder and onto her work.
"Looks like a fried conduit," he commented casually.
Rey huffed, her arm brushing against his chest as he arched over to nose into her work.
"Very good. You know what basic burnt-out circuitry looks like," she quipped back, sarcasm dripping from her tone as she reached up to grab the light from his hand only to find herself jumping as he lifted it out of her reach. She scowled bitterly but jumped again, and again he lifted it out of reach.
A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth at the futile display. He found it actually…entertaining. Was that even the right word?
"What's got you wound up today? You were much more…docile…last time we met."
Rey sighed, glaring at the light instead of at the jerk refusing to hand it over, and she crossed her arms in front of her chest.
"I had bridge duty earlier today, alright? Now please—" she half pleaded, making another reach.
"Bridge duty?" he asked, holding it away again. This time she did glare at him, and Kylo thought that any other person would've done as she wished with that look- it burned into him, but surely it would cut others to pieces. He held back a grin.
"You know!" she insisted. "Dealing with all of Hux's nit-picky requests."
She dropped her arms and her voice took on a sharper tone as she scrunched her face. " 'This light is too dim! That button is one notch too far to the right! Why wasn't this tiny bulb that no one noticed but me that burned out two hours ago replaced already!' "
Kylo's jaw was on the floor. The mimicry….He knew that Hux knew the crew indulged from time to time in mocking his orders, but after making it a court-marshal offense, he didn't think anyone dared to—
It came suddenly, the laugh. It sort of…bubbled up out of him like something uncontrollable, like hiccups or some other undesirable biological function. But soon he was nearly doubled over, and dammit there were tears in his eyes.
Rey stood there blankly as he hunched over, his deep laughs echoing down the hallway. Someone would hear.
She huffed. "Well I didn't think I was that funny."
Wheezing now, he tried to recover and looked up at her as he struggled to stand upright. "No, you are!" he grinned.
He reached up to put a heavy hand on her shoulder as he tried to push himself back up, and Rey almost buckled under his weight in surprise before quickly recovering. Once he was standing, he didn't remove his hand. Rey glanced at it suspiciously until a caress of his thumb got her attention.
"Let's finish here, huh?" he said, nodding towards her work. "I promise not to break anything this time."
—
Rey sat in the ship's cafeteria, absently shoving food into her mouth. She was lost in thought, trying to recount how many hacked parts she'd planted at circuitry junctions so far. Her past couple of attempts had to be aborted due to a rather constant unwanted visitor.
Matt.
Rey spun her fork thoughtfully in her mouth. She'd tried looking him up on her work manifests, but he wasn't part of her unit. Her only conclusion was that he must've been a member of another, and kept running into her every time he tried to skip out on assignments. But that didn't explain how he, especially recently, had known her work orders in detail. Members of a unit weren't privy to what other units were working on- only the overseers could pull up that. So how did he know? And how was he able to find her even when she went off the beaten path to do bits of her mission?
She narrowed her eyes. Something wasn't quite right. Once or twice was coincidence, but five times? If he showed up again, she'd definitely confront him over it.
There was a sudden scraping of chairs against the floor when a contingent of troopers in full armor filed into the hall. At its center stood Kylo Ren. Rey's eyes grew wide, and she tried to hold her head down just enough so her eyes couldn't show. She only saw them- saw him- from the waist up, when he barked the order through his distorted vocoder.
"You," he sneered quietly, pointing in a direction Rey couldn't see. "Get up."
Apparently someone had still been sitting when the commander of the Knights of Ren came marching in, and even Rey knew that wasn't wise. Rey saw as the man was nearly swept off his feet and yanked forward. She watched as Kylo's fist clenched.
"I'll show you…what we do to traitors."
She was frozen to the spot, unable to move when she saw his hand lift out of her range of vision. She'd seen him do this before, been even on the other end of it herself, and hated that they were most likely going to bear witness to a very gruesome execution. It was just like the monster to think he'd be setting an example by doing something so barbaric. But just then, he seemed to shift. He turned back towards the body of the hall, back within eye-shot of Rey, and internally she began to panic. His hand dropped, and it seemed to unclench slightly. There was a pause.
"Take the prisoner away," he said suddenly. There was the soft hit of their armor as they saluted and carted the poor man off.
Was he one of them? Another undercover Resistance member? Would she be next?
He seemed to stay behind for just a moment until he turned on his heel and left.
—
Rey was deep in the bowls of the ship, hoisted up in some tiny nook some way away from her assigned work area. If she were questioned, her excuse was already prepared- 'I detected some residual malfunctions in this sector and thought I'd check it out'. Short, sweet, and realistic- the best excuses you could make.
But she was unprepared when, Resistance-approved conduit in hand, a large shadow loomed in the crawlspace opening.
"Rey!" he half shouted.
She gave a short scream, fumbled violently with her tools in surprise, and dropped the conduit on the floor. Wires littered the area, and as she shifted to stand more to the side in order to find it, she didn't see as her overly-large standard issue boots kicked it underneath a bit of pipe. She hissed a curse as she tried to fumble with her flashlight, looking downward at first before shining it at the intruder.
"Matt?" she cried incredulously.
He made a face and held up a hand to shield his face from her light. "That's me," he replied.
Rey grunted with exasperation as she shifted her attentions back towards the floor.
"What's the matter?" he began, "You drop something?"
Rey's eyes grew wide as she shifted the flashlight on him again. He groaned at the blast of light and she moved it towards his shoulder instead.
"I…I thought I dropped something but I didn't. Matt, what are you doing here?"
"I came to find you," he said.
"What?"
He sighed. "Can you come out of there?"
"No. Tell me what you're doing here now."
Rey watched curiously as he seemed to lift his hand to run it through his hair before thinking better of it. "There was an incident today. At the cafeteria."
Rey nodded, maneuvering closer to the opening. "Yes. You were there?"
He nodded. "Yeah."
Rey sighed and slumped back against a nearby pipe. "Yeah….wasn't pretty, was it? Poor fellow."
"Well…apparently he was a traitor. At least that's what Kylo Ren said…"
Rey tilted her head at him and tried to hold back the look she actually wanted to give him as he stared awkwardly at his boots.
"I mean…" he continued, and quickly he looked up, his glassy gaze meeting hers. "He could have killed that man in the cafeteria in front of all of us but he didn't- he didn't do it," he finished rather hurriedly.
Rey blinked. "…ok. And that's supposed to make him a kinder, more benevolent leader?"
Matt frowned and Rey gave a short laugh as she went to reholster her spanner. "You and I both know he still died, probably painfully, somewhere else on this ship. What difference does it make?"
Matt seemed to carefully consider her words without losing the marked skepticism on his face. "You know it's treasonous to say something like that about Kylo Ren….but I think there's a huge difference. He decided to spare you…"
Rey gulped under his gazed.
"…from seeing it," he finished.
He held her eyes, the indirect light still managing to glint off his glasses when Rey cautiously pressed her lips together. "You going to report me, Matt?"
His eyes didn't waver. "No."
Rey breathed in.
"No, but I still think you should come out of there. Aren't the rest of the techs down the corridor?"
Ahh, but Rey was prepared for this, although the words caught in her throat as his tall frame had no trouble at all in stretching up and suddenly grabbing her by the waist.
"Yes, but…" she began as she was hoisted from the nook and back down onto the walkway. "I detected a related malfunction down here and wanted to check it out."
Her eyes darted slightly before looking back at him and she saw, just for an instant, a grim expression on his face before he suddenly smiled again.
"Yeah, I thought it was something like that. But you can never be too careful, you know? Especially these days," he supplied helpfully.
Rey forced herself to return his smile and nodded.
"Going with?" she offered.
He shook his head. "No…just passing through to another quadrant."
Rey nodded, raised a hand in farewell, and left. When she had cleared the corner at the end of the corridor, Kylo's ridiculous expression fell and he immediately turned back to the crawlspace she'd been in. He lifted his arm and felt around on the floor until he felt something skid beneath his fingers and he snatched it up. Shining his own light, he held the tiny chip in his palm. No, definitely not First Order design.
He sighed, looking back down the way she left. It wasn't time to out her yet. He'd frame anyone else he needed to until it was.
—
Rey was stuck working on a real blow-out of a quadrant. It had exploded from an overload and a small section of the ship was running on backup power. There was an access port in prime reaching distance for the next of her plants, but in this chaos, and under the watchful eyes of so many, she knew there'd be no way.
Multiple tech units were gathered to fix the problem, and as she stepped away briefly to take a swig of water, she looked around at everyone present. Nearly every tech unit had been called on scene to repair and assist, but she couldn't spot one familiar blond-haired man among them. As someone from another unit passed by her, she grabbed their arm.
"Hey, you seen Matt anywhere?"
"Who?"
"You know," she said with a prompting nod. "Matt. Glasses. Way too tall. Never brushes his hair."
She stifled a giggle over the end of her description but the tech in her grasp was unmoved. "Never heard of him. Or seen him," he replied, jerking out of her grip and continuing on down the halls.
She sighed, capped her water, and slid into an adjacent group of techs.
"So ahh…" she knew members of the First Order weren't big on small talk, but something sat uneasily with her. She screwed up her courage. "You guys seen Matt anywhere?"
She made her way down the damaged corridor, bouncing from group to group offering help, asking the same question, and not a single person had ever heard of Matt. In fact a few, like herself, had even laughed at the description.
A chill started to come over her, despite the corridor humid with bodily perspiration and heat.
Something wasn't right. In fact something was very, very wrong.
—
Rey was scaled halfway down a wall the next time she saw him. He leaned timidly over the edge, glasses threatening to fall.
"Hello there!" he called.
Rey looked up with surprise. "Matt!" she half screeched, swinging from her harness. "I'm coming up- will you give me a hand?"
"Sure!" he called down to her, and as she maneuvered the ropes, she extended her hand and without hesitation he took it, almost hauling her up by himself.
She rose up to her full height with Matt still holding her hand as she caught her breath. Briefly she looked down at it, before he quickly pulled away from her.
"Matt," she began again. "I've been looking for you."
He blinked in surprise. "You have?"
She nodded. "I wanted to ask you- what unit are you with again?"
"Ahhh…" he shifted nervously. Why was he always garbage with small details?
"Because I asked around in a few units, and nobody'd heard of you."
His eyes grew wide for a moment before a slow smile spread across his face and he tried to laugh. "OH! Oh, oh, yeah….yeah, that's a little joke, see?"
"A joke?" she asked flatly.
"Yeah," he replied, making to run his hand through his hair again before suddenly changing his mind. "They ahh…they like to pretend they don't know me. They're all really big jerks."
Rey arched a brow. "No…no, I don't think they were pretending, Matt. I asked around at nearly every tech unit. I think they were pretty serious. What are you playing at here, Matt?"
"And how would you know? What would you know about any of it?" he shot back petulantly, leering at her.
Rey's face filled with concern as she arched away and defeat seemed to fall over him. Matt leaned back, staring at his feet.
"I guess this is it, then," he mumbled.
"What?" she asked, hardly catching a word.
He looked up again, a strange sardonic grin plastered to his face. "I'd hoped we'd have more time, but…"
Suddenly the look in his eye changed and he stepped languidly towards her. Rey shifted her head to the side, her instincts desperately trying to tell her something, only for the information to be just out of reach.
"Who are you?" she asked quickly. "A spy?" she accused.
His pace didn't cease and Rey found herself inching backwards away from him and further down the walkway.
"Planting enemy transponders into communication conduits," he croaked.
Rey's eyes widened as she stifled a gasp. She couldn't give herself away. She couldn't.
"Replacing circuitry with chips cobbled together by the Resistance…"
Rey swallowed hard. "What is this?" she asked him harshly when a thought came to her. "Are you confessing then? Are these things you have done?"
He huffed rather affectionately. "Oh Rey…" he purred.
If the bells hadn't been ringing loud enough before, they were certainly blaring now. That smirk, those eyes, that….was that a patch of dark, dark brown peeking through the blond?
"You!" she breathed.
The corner of his mouth quirked. "Me."
Rey had reached the end of the walkway and the safety railing was pressing hard into her back. He watched her as she squirmed like a cornered animal- as that is what she was- and moved in for the kill.
He stood before her, all pretense gone, as that intense gaze she remembered so well looked back at her with perfect clarity. How did she not see it before?
"Hello, Rey," he said simply. "You're going to tell me the reason why you're here….and every junction you've tampered with. In that order."
Rey's hands clutched hard around the thin railing as she quickly shook her head. "I'll do no such thing," she replied with feigned confidence.
He stepped closer, the space between them narrowing by the moment as his large hands covered hers gripping the railing with white knuckles. His ratty wig brushed briefly against her forehead as he leaned in close and her mind tried to fit the pieces together, tried to merge these two people into the same entity. It was…
"Tell me," he whispered softly.
Rey looked down at his lips as he formed the words and tried to swallow before looking back up into his eyes.
"And what will you do if I don't, hmm?" she asked quietly. "Turn me in like that man from the cafeteria?"
"No," he whispered with a flinch of his brow. "No, he was just to protect you."
"What?" she gasped.
Kylo hummed. "Hux had discovered one of your less concealed handiworks in a bit of wiring and demanded someone pay. I knew it was you. But I chose someone with a poor performance record instead."
"Kylo, ho could—"
"Stop," he ordered roughly, glaring at her. He stared hard into her horrified eyes, willing her to understand, willing her to see how he had protected her- the real traitor. The one he knew could never be handed over to satisfy one of Hux's insecurity problems.
"You'll tell me what I want to know now," he repeated again, and Rey frowned heavily at him.
"Or else what?" she spat back. "What will you really do now?"
She could feel her confidence returning, anger over an innocent life lost for her sake boiling in her blood, even if the life did belong to a member of the Order. He'd been a tech. He'd been nobody. She stood straighter against the railing, the shift causing Kylo to now look up at her from his hunched position and she could help the slow, wicked smile that spread onto her lips.
"What will you do?" she continued. "Reveal that every time Hux couldn't find you was because you were down here, with me, cavorting in a bad wig and working maintenance?"
Kylo became very still and she watched as he paled a bit. A tiny sense of victory bit at her.
"And give me these!" she scolded, yanking off his glasses, and suddenly the man behind the disguise became much, much clearer to her.
Her breathing slowed as she looked at him, slowly folding the glasses in her hands as her eyes roved his face before finally meeting his own eyes again. His eyes looked at her large and limpid, and she felt a heat rise to her cheeks. She hated herself for it.
"You know…" he said, pushing off from the railing to straighten out to his full height, "after watching you these past few weeks, you really do know your stuff."
Rey's eyes flared at such a cursory statement. "Yes, well, fourteen years trapped in a sand pit scouring ships for parts and learning from damaged data chips, I think I'd know a thing or two," she bit back.
Kylo nodded. "Yes, I remember."
It was like he was intentionally trying to anger her now, and she bared her teeth at him. Raising her hand, she pushed at his chest.
"Those memories do not belong to you!" she snarled, trying to give him another shove, but he wouldn't budge.
"You don't think it was a fair exchange?" he said mildly, caging her in again and she sighed in exasperation.
"What? Like how you keep the skull of your grandfather locked in a secret room who you share stories with? Kylo, please," she chided with annoyance.
It was his turn to color. "You saw that?" he said quietly. She glared up at him as if to say 'you have to ask?' and he sighed.
"Well then," he continued. "See? We're even."
"We are not even," Rey protested as he moved in even closer.
He seemed to ignore her when she found herself pressed between him and the bars.
"Kylo," she said nervously, "what are you—"
He leaned down then, his breath ghosting along the slope of her neck, and Rey stood stock still unsure what to do.
"Oh Rey….if only you'd said yes."
Rey felt her pulse spike at his words whispered against her skin. His arms came close to her sides but never touched her, and even now his breath seemed to dance in the space between them without ever making contact.
"Pull it off, Rey," he said quietly.
"What?"
"The wig. Pull it off," he said softly, and leaned back slightly to put himself in better reach of her hands.
She looked at him with marked confusion- what was he even trying to do?- when her hand raised up, reached behind his head, and, slowly, pulled the wig away. His own natural hair fell free and curled against his face almost like a shroud. He looked back at her, and as she dropped the ugly yellow thing to the floor, she couldn't stop herself from reaching up and running her hands through his hair. She did it once, twice, drawing out the knots as she went, and she found him leaning into her touch and almost purring at her attentions. She traced her fingers along his scalp before pulling away and tucking a loose strand behind his ear. When she looked back into his eyes, what she found there was more terrifying than when he'd first said her name. He leaned his face against the palm of her hand and briefly closed his eyes. Despite herself, her thumb moved to caress his cheek. His skin was so soft.
"I can help you escape," he said finally. "But you need to give me something for it."
Nervousness started to seep back into her where calm had managed to settle. How had calm found its way to her at all in this…?
"Give you what?" she asked timidly.
"Anything," he said hurriedly. "Any piece of information at all."
Rey sighed.
"With the scene we'll have to cause, I'll need at least something to hold over Hux."
"We?" she repeated. He cracked his eyes and looked at her almost dreamily.
"I said I would help you."
Rey bit the corner of her lip in thought, her hand reaching up of its own volition to run once more through his hair. She seemed to relish it as much as he did.
Finally, she nodded. "Alright."
—
Redressed as Matt, no one suspected a lowly tech to 'accidentally' nudge to the ship release panel, and no one else was able to explain how the shields were down at the time of the unsanctioned departure. He stood there a bumbling mess and a sheepish grin on his face. "SORRY!" he called out loudly, before dashing down the hall. A whole contingent of troopers instantly chased after him, but when they reached the end of the corridor, Matt was nowhere to be found.
Meanwhile, Kylo Ren stalked onto the bridge seething with annoyance. "Sir," a lieutenant said. "We've had a bit of a breach…"
"Forget it," came the staccato of his modulated voice. "We have more important things."
The lieutenant was visibly sweating. "But Sir…General Hux…"
"Can wait," Kylo finished for him. "Get me the latest observational data on Hoth. I expect a full report in 8 hours."
And with that, he turned on his heel and stalked back the way he came.
'I'm coming for you, Rey,' he projected out into the universe as he walked quickly down the passageway towards his quarters. 'Wait for me'.