"We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered. - Tom Stoppard

Her eyes closed, her heart clenching agonizingly beneath her breast as she stared blankly at the sleek data pad lying limply in her palm. 'Call ended' flickered off the screen a moment later, and she numbly placed it face down upon the dark granite counter. She wasn't really sure how to process what she was feeling, especially once she remembered who was softy snoring in the very next room. She smiled weakly at the memory of how he would look right now, curled up and snuggled deep in their comforter; probably drooling. A small giggle slipped past her full, rosy lips at the mental image only a moment, before the faint smile slipped away again and warped into a bitter frown. The words 'I'm happy' played on repeat in the forefront of her mind, while her aching heart seemed to throb in protest to what her mind was trying to convince her of. It said 'If I am so happy, then why does it feel like my heart, just got trampled?'

It shouldn't still be this difficult—just to talk to him—after all this time and distance. After all, it had been almost a decade since they had both been in the same room, let alone the same planet. Absently a slender hand moved to curl possessively around a white, ceramic mug that contained her long-since-cooled peach tea. The absence of heat causing her to pause in her distracted attempt to comfort herself. She had brewed it in preparation for bed as she always did, but it had been swiftly abandoned once her datapad had begun to ring. Under normal circumstances, she never would have answered a call this close to bed. Anyone who was important to her was aware of her usual routine and also understood how much she hated her routines being interrupted. That said, when she had seen the name of her caller lighting up in the corner of her pad; she had instinctively answered when she should have been figuring out a way to track the call.

It was way past the time for that though, and if anyone actually found out who it was that she had been talking to; she would face worse than a court-martial. Freya released the breath that she hadn't noticed she had been holding and swayed a little on the balls of her feet; other hand moving instinctively to catch herself on the counter. Her knees wobbled uncertainly as her traitorous heart clenched again painfully and it stole the breath from her lungs. She bit her lip to hold back the sound of her quickly forming sobs, just in case her peacefully sleeping boyfriend in the next room wasn't quite as asleep as she thought he was.

He was trusting her, probably a little to much, not complaining about her helping an old friend through a shitty patch of his life. Not that she had exactly told him who it was she would be talking to... She really ought to have known better than to put herself in this position again, but she was never really good at just watching people suffer alone. Especially when that person was one of her oldest friend, and despite what horrors he had inflicted upon the world. On a regular day, she could barely recall his face on her own without having to glance at old photos, but fresh out of that call; his face was clear as day, and as branding as the proverbial laser knife she had had to use on the wounds he'd left her with another lifetime ago. Frey had thought herself to be in a better place than she obviously had been, but hearing his lilting voice and broken chuckles at shared jokes over the clear line... Well, she had definitely underestimated her resolve.

She had thankfully declined his attempt at a vid call, as she was sure even back then that she lacked the resolve to properly school her facial features enough to get through a conversation with him without causing some kind of upset. True to form, had he seen her silent reactions to the words he had spoken to her, he would have known she wasn't alright. 'That's the problem, I should be alright. There is nothing left of the man I remember,' she assured herself harshly. Even as the words formed in her mind, she knew them to be lies, especially with the memory of his words still freshly branded into her mind.

(moments earlier)

"She cheated on me Kai..." why was he telling her this, she wondered silently, making absent 'hmms' and 'mhms' at appropriate times while she tried to reconcile who's voice it was on the other line. They hadn't spoken for years, and he hadn't called her by her middle name since the last time she had seen him; before the mask. Not since he'd burned her world to the ground around her like a loose spark on a dry field. Still, his voice pinned her in place like a bystander watching an accident; she couldn't look away if she'd tried. "I thought she loved me... she said she did..." Was he even capable of love anymore? She knew he had been once, but how after all his atrocities could he possibly claim to be able to love.

"It felt like how we were back then... I'd forgotten how that felt after you..." Frey fought back a sudden sob that had caught in her throat upon hearing those words. Unfortunately she couldn't tell if it was due to her own feelings, or the wave of depression that was washing over her. Curiosity killed the cat they say, "Do you know why she did what she did?" Silence met her question on the other line, and a sardonic chuckle was the only answer that she had gotten at first. With the absence of his rambling, she heard the subtle swishing of liquid as she then assumed he had taken another drink of whatever it was that had inebriated him.

"She said she was bored... Ha, can you imagine that? I literally took her to the most amazing places Kai! I took her to the Festival of Lights on Naboo, and swimming in the beautiful pools of Bespin..." he was rambling now, but each place he mentioned was like a physical stab to the heart. They had talked about going to all of those places when they grew up, but they had been only children with big dreams and bigger aspirations. They were going to become the best Jedi that had every existed, even better than their master Luke Skywalker... Funny how things work out in the end. "So what are you going to do?" The question had formed and was out of her mouth before she could stop herself. Why the fuck did she even care!

"She called me today, asked to come over..." he began, and the tone of his voice had her wishing she could stop the words that were flowing from his lips. "I told her to fuck off at first but she refused to stop sitting outside my door. Hell, Kai she even slept out there in the hallway..." Once again she felt like she was strapped into a runaway speeder aimed at a wall, as much as she wanted to slam on the breaks, morbid curiosity kept her wondering how much it would hurt to hit the wall full speed. Maybe this conversation would be the last thing needed to break the remaining ties that bound them together still. "I let her in, we talked... she told me some things that had been festering in our relationship... it was actually pretty eye-opening but really hard to hear."

He paused as if he was waiting for something, or maybe because he didn't really want to tell her what happened next. She could have dropped the subject, tried to turn it to something else, but the masochist in her was in full control reins, and she had to know. "Sounds like things went well then, right?" Another sardonic chuckle and another swishing chug of whatever it was he was drinking, and then she hit the wall. "Well yeah, I guess. We were just talking out on a cruise in my ship and things got a little hot... and I ate her out." She couldn't breathe for a moment, and she was instantly worried that her heart had stopped. Half a second later in thumped again painfully and she silently released the air in her lungs. Frey felt like she'd been punched in the gut. "Oh, well, really good then," was all she managed to squeeze out of her brain, which had apparently short-circuited. He chuckled again and sighed before replying "Yeah I guess so, but what if she's just staying because she's afraid I'll kill her or something?" She balked at the question, unsure how to reply without upsetting one of the most powerful men in the universe. Especially when he was obviously sloshed. On one hand, she could be honest and tell him that it's entirely possible that she was scared for her life, after all he hadn't flinched at the idea of killing anyone before; let alone some girl who had wronged him. On the other hand, telling the truth to him right now would probably only end badly for her. Better to evade this time. "Well, is that even a possibility? Would you kill her if she didn't stay?" Silence met her on the other end of the line, and for a moment she was sure she had stepped over a line. Thankfully he didn't make her wait long.

"To much work I think. Better to just ship her off to some slave world..." Yeah she was pretty sure that in that girl's situation, being bored was definitely better than the prospect of a lifetime spent in the chromium mines of Burnin Konn. "You were never scared of me Kai... that's why I always loved you." Once again her lungs seized and she found herself getting light-headed. "Remember that time we were hiding from the minders on that large tree by the archive building? We were eating jogan fruit we'd stolen from the kitchens and you got the juice all over your robes." Strangely, she did remember that day. It had been uncharacteristically nice out that day and they had snuck away from their teachers so they could enjoy it. They couldn't have been more than six or seven at the time. "I only spilled it on myself because you kept poking me in the ribs and tickling me..." she grumbled, her tone leaning towards amusement.

He laughed at that. Not the sardonic chuckle he had been giving her up to that point, but a real laugh that brought her spirally backwards through time; back to when things had seemed so much more simple. It was lyrical and entoxicating, just like she remembered it being. Well, maybe it wasn't as deep back when she had known him. That day had been amazing, even if you two eventually had to face up to your minders when dinner time came around. It had been the first time you had gone to bed with an empty belly, but it hadn't been the last. Still, Master Skywalker and been lenient and had given you both extra dessert for breakfast the morning after. His voice brought her back to the present though as he continued to drag her down memory lane. "I had forgotten that honestly, but when you told me you were worried that my uncle would punish you, I promised that I wouldn't let that happen..."

"Because you said you were going to marry me someday..." she finished with a small gasp. She wasn't sure that he'd actually heard that, but she had tried to hold it down. She had obviously failed. "Yeah... I did, didn't I? We were really young back then." You weren't sure where this conversation was headed, but you were pretty sure that eventually he would ask about her life now, and she wouldn't be able to answer him. How did one tell a first-love-turned-greatest-enemy that she was responsible for the deaths of many of his higher ranked generals? Either way, it wouldn't end well. She needed to once again aim this conversation in another direction. As hard as it was to heard about his newest exploits, it was agony to hear about her past. As far as she was concerned, everyone she knew had died the day her temple had burned to ashes.

"So... anyway, I honestly think that if you believe you two can work it out, you should try. You never know, she could surprise you." Freya didn't believe for a single damn moment that this girl would ever actually love him again. If she had cheated on him once, she was bound to do it again. It was just the way of the 'verse, but if her little lies could save that random girl she would never actually meet from a horrible life in some Outer Rim mining colony, she would lie as much as necessary. "Hm. Really? Yeah I guess so... Well Kai, I have some big stuff going on in a couple days and I have to get some sleep. Talk to you later?" As confusing as this whole whirlwind conversation had been, she hadn't been expecting him to so easily release her from this kriffing conversation. "Yeah, sure. Goodnight..." she had almost slipped and allowed herself to use his name, but that would have extended the conversation exponentially, and she had already wasted so much precious time on this strange call as it was. "Hey Kai?"

"Yeah?" she questioned quietly. "Maybe one day I'll keep that promise we made back then..."

(back to present)

The line had gone dead then, and she was left feeling bereft. How much had just hearing his voice affected her? Clearly more than she had first thought it would. She pressed down on the counter with the arm that held her upright, and righted herself while attempting to wrangle her rebellious heart back into submission. How she was reacting wasn't fair to her either of the men on her mind, and it wasn't really healthy for her either. It wasn't like Poe wasn't the most amazing guy she had ever met, because he was. He was sweet, attentive, and most of all he was safe. He kept her safe, and guarded her like a sacred, irreplaceable treasure. With Poe she knew she was loved and he proved it in small ways every day. Their quarters weren't spacious, but they had filled it up to the very corners of every wall with mementos of their life together.

It would be considered impressive that they had actually managed to accumulate so many knickknacks in the first place, if one considered the fact that life within the resistance was often times spent on the run moving from place to place. Life of D'Qar wasn't always sunshine and daisies, but for the last couple years it had become home. As Freya parted her eyelids to hesitantly glance around the room, it hit her once more how shifted her world felt now in comparison to only a few hours ago. In that moment, standing on shaky legs in the middle of her small kitchenette, she felt like a stranger in her own home.

A sob caught in her throat and she jerked her hand up to her mouth to halt the sound, and inadvertently brought her ceramic mug plummeting towards the ground. Instinct and fear won out in the end as she threw her opposite hand out towards the glass and it halted mere inches from the ground. Power thrummed betwixt the distance of her fingers and the prone glass. As she lowered her hand, so too did the glass until it gently made contact with the floor. Frey's eyes widened and she flinched before swiftly pulling her now-fisted hand against her chest and shaking her head in shame. It had been years since she had last needed to tap into the deep reservoirs of the universe. It was only one of a handful of damning secrets that she had ever kept from Poe, but how would she ever find the right words on how to explain it to him; let along string them in the correct order.

The brunette sunk down to the floor, her back sliding harshly against the plasteel sides of the counter. 'What the fuck is wrong with me? I am never this careless.' She sat there on the chilled floor, whimpering in silence, and chastised herself thoroughly. Only one person in the entire resistance knew of her ability to wield the Force, and she had sworn to keep her secret; as long as she remained in service to the resistance. At the time it made perfect sense. After all, The First Order was merely a subtle reflection of what the Galactic Empire had claimed to be, and she was everything that they claimed to hate. Her and her secret keeper had shared a common bond as well, thought she would never understand just how at odds she had placed Freya's heart when she had bonded her in service. It hadn't all been hell though, as one could plainly see.

Once again her eyes slammed shut as she fought off the impending anxiety attack that she could feel coming with every labored sob that wracked through her body and every swiftly aching beat of her heart. Between the muted keening and her increasingly rapid breathing, she managed to pull her knees to her chest and wrap her arms securely around them. 'I can beat this. I can keep myself from falling apart. I won't let him do this to me again.' With that thought firmly in mind, she forced herself to clear her thoughts by casting them out into the vast and twisting universe. It was like trying to catch petals in a hurricane.

Falling back on her training, rusty as it was, she managed to slow her breathing and reduce her sobbing down to muted whimpers. Her arms dropped to her sides, dangling uselessly as her hands collided with the floor with a low thud. The necessity to meditate on this level didn't happen all too often in her life anymore, but with the revelation she had gone through tonight; she needed to face her feelings and cast them into the Force to find an answer to her plight. The idea of it scared her, if she was going to be honest with herself. The threads of her connection to the Force was a many-reaching, tangled thing. Complex and simple at the same time, and only easily navigated by though of calm minds and patient practice. She had little patience, and she was the furthest thing from calm at the moment.

Notes

So this is only he second story I have every written, but the first I've posted in years. I hope you like it, and I apologize for any errors. Also, in the canon they state that Kylo is about 30 in 'The Force Awakens' and that Rey is 'about twenty', and that he turned dark side when he was at least 23. This is currently in conflict with the idea that Rey went to the Luke's academy and was there when Kylo attacked it. If she had been there he would have actually been around 16 when he turned. This is the direction that I'm going with in this story.

Question time: Who do you think the mystery guy is? 50 points awarded for answers since this one should be easy. :)