Drowning.
Where she came from, it was a pretty common way of dying, even if she had no real experience of it. She had her files smuggled from the database once, and did some research.
Her native planet was covered almost completely by oceans and since then she had dreamed a lot about water. Well, about drowning more precisely, since she wasn't able to swim.
So, the feeling of being crushed under the pressure of a large mass of water, the difficulty to expand her chest for breathing... It was not the first time she woke up to them.
But somehow, this time, they didn't seem to end with the regained conciousness.
She looked down.
And stifled a scream.
Half an hour later she was still frozen in position, looking at the top of Kylo Ren's head, still soundly asleep on her chest.
That's for sure, she never though he was the kind of man that liked to cuddle.
She wondered who he really was, this young, love-starved man living his life beneath a mask.
God, he must have some serious affection problems if he is that prone to cling on the first sign of care.
He had never stayed before, and she didn't like the new development one bit. She was pretty sure she was crossing a line that was better left blurred.
She might even be able to kill him right now, if she had the courage to act. It said a lot that he never thought of her as a threat, about his stupidity... Or about how well he judged her.
Too coward to condemn herself to certain death by doing something so foolish: she was in a battle starship in the middle of the space, where could she run away?
He chose that moment to wake up, stretching like a goddamned cat and sending tingles of pleasure to her brain with his soft hair sliding on her skin.
She swallowed.
"I have to go."
"You'll stay here till I say otherwise"
"My shift starts in half an hour. I'm already late, the general..."
His sudden anger was like a physical blow, and she winced.
The way he bit her nipple, viciously, effectively restraining her under his strong body...
He got what he wanted in the end, but he wasn't as gentle as before. Not at all.
She was completely unprepared when he entered her, a grunt of pure male satisfaction while keeping her motionless, one large hand pinning her wrists and the other one on her thigh, urging her to cross her ankles on his back and hang on for dear life.
He slowly stroked her hair after, lifting her head to look in her eyes: he was silent for a long moment, taking in her dishevelled figure. "I think I will keep you." he decided, a small smile on the lips before rolling out of the cot.
She was on the verge of crying when he finally started to gather his clothes.
He's like a violent kid with a puppy. He likes the idea of being loved and so he wants to keep it safe, but when he will feel the need to experiment with pain it will still be his first test subject.
How could have she been that stupid?
He had never, not even for an instant, stopped looking in her eyes.
When the general first saw her, a bruise on her cheek and a swollen lip where someone had bit hard, he moved out of the control room. Even if he sometimes favoured to look clueless on certain topics, there was little he didn't knew about what was happening on his ship. And he definitely didn't like that knight of Ren.
A couple of hours later, she was still sitting on her armchair, eyes fixed on the control panel when Hux shook her gently to gain her attention.
"The new base on Anarres requires a communication technician. I decided to sent you. Pack your stuff, you will leave in three hours."
For the second time that day she felt like crying, but this time it was simply relief.
Two weeks, standard time. Barely more than eleven days on a planet where the day-cycle is made of thirty hours.
It was a good place to be, even though in the rainy forest the temperature was stifling, the local mosquito almost big as a human hand and she still had to get used to the different day length.
She wasn't sure what was happening. Rumours had spread on the base about Resistance attacking First Order's cruisers, but the complete story never left the communication room. And, com technician as she was, her job there was just antennas maintenance: no exciting news, but at least she was entitled to a double ration of food.
That fourteenth day, after the shift, all she was thinking about while entering her cell, was to remove the soaked uniform and take a cold shower. Instead, sitting in the only chair in the corner, arms folded and hood lifted on his head, was a familiar black silhouette.
"Fuck"
"Indeed."
She felt the pull of the Force when he used it on her, throwing her against the wall and keeping her still. Her feet intercepted her heavy metal toolbox in her backward fly and she stifled a shout of pain.
"It took quite a long time to find you. That is, because I didn't know who to ask." his voice was calm, but she couldn't see his face behind the mask. It was impossible to read his mood, like that. Sha was pretty sure that 'chilled' was not a good description of it, anyway. "The general itself? Well played. Tell me, did you spread your legs for him too? I always thought he was a pouf, but maybe I am wrong."
Calm voice, almost disinterested in the subject. She could smell the trap miles before her and chose to stay silent.
"I see I have to find my answers by myself"
One moment she was struggling against a death grip on her arms, the one after the grip shifted to her brain. It was everything she had always tried to avoid: her thoughts bare in front of his prying curiosity, a diffused pain behind her eyelids while he roamed her memories for his own sake, dissecting all their moments together. She just stopped resisting when that first -and last- awakening together was brought in front of him, along with all her concerns: best to give him what he wanted that let him discover her most treacherous ideas. The scene unfolded until she was met by the eyes of general Hux. Full of actual pity.
Pity for what she was going through, pity for her having to deal with him.
He recoiled brutally.
"Ah. That's why you ran away"
He clenched his fists in an obvious attempt to stop his need to strike her.
"You should have just refused me from the beginning. You were just convenient. A pretty nobody with luscious lips, like thousand others. I would have let you go."
If his words were meant to strike her ego, he was sadly mistaken.
"I'm still a nobody. Why don't you..."
She felt like he was crushing her windpipe while not even looking at her. She was actually starting to suffocate when whatever was keeping her in mid air died away, letting her collapse to the ground with a wretched need to either cough or throw up. Or both together, more likely.
"That will not happen. You are coming back with me." he swiftly crouched in front of her, hands on his knees while he leaned towards her, invading her personal space.
"You have liked me once, I saw it. You will, again. I always get what I want."
She just openly started to cry at that.
Sometimes, it was difficult to remember that, beneath the monstrous mask of metal and hate, there was a man maybe even younger than her.
On the cruiser, she had to report to her direct superior on the main bridge to have her badge and starship uniform back. All the time, she felt Hux watching her, but when she glanced in his direction he just shook his head quietly.
Nothing to do.
Kylo Ren was kept away by classified duties until the day after and she was trying not to think at what would happen to her at that moment.
That's when the siren started to ring.
The Resistance was attacking, taking advantage of the distance from the battleship of their more formidable adversary.
Hostiles infiltrated the base, kill on sight. All technical personnel is required to evacuate to facilitate military operations.
It was just too good to be true. It felt like fucking karma.
She might have been a coward, but she definitely was not a stupid. She quickly formulated a plan, one of those stupid, high-failure percentage plans.
Looks like there actually is a point where the fear covers for lack of courage - she mused.
On the third bridge, a couple of assaulter where cornering a young man with the Resistance logo etched on his leather jacket and a bag full of what looked like high potential explosives.
"C'mon, put down those blasters. Sure as hell your boss would prefer to see me alive, we've already met a couple of times you know?" he was suggesting, both hands in the air while slowly walking backwards.
Whatever he wanted to obtain by delaying the inevitable, he didn't required in the end since the troopers fell down without a sound.
Well, no sound of their own, because two 'PEW PEW' coming from another blaster at their unsuspecting back could clearly be heard.
It was the most gaunt trooper he'd ever seen, since his armour was definitely too large in many places. When he charged rapidly in his direction, shouting "The ventilation shaft, you idiot!" he could do nothing but comply.
"What the hell are you doing?!" he reprimanded, hands still up while pushed in the aforementioned shaft with a gun between his shoulder blades "And why is your respirator connected backwards?"
"FUCK. I just saved your life, now you will bring me out of here with you!" replied the trooper, tossing down the blaster to fiddle with the helmet.
"Woah, AGAIN? What's up with you guys, First Order doesn't believe in productivity bonus?" he was trying to reach for the blaster, but it was so damn tight in that shaft he could barely move his arms.
When the helmet was removed, he found himself face to face with a woman with dirty blond hair falling haphazardly around her face.
"Oh. That's an improvement, though. What is your name?"
She smiled. "You know, that's the first time somebody asks it to me."
It wasn't an answer, but he still helped her, of course. He was nothing if not a chivalrous knight in Resistance's armour.
On a far, far away planet, in an hard cot with not enough blanket to keep her nicely insulated from the chilled air, she was sleeping like a child.
After more than ten hours of interrogation and a huge amount of hot beverage with cream she had been dismissed by an equally tired Resistance general who had looked at her with a strange mix of pity and guilt for the whole time while hearing her story.
That night, she dreamed again of her watery planet, inhaling happily the heady scent of salt and sun.
This time, she wasn't drowning.
This time, she had wings.
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
It could be much longer, but I'm probably too lazy for that. Also, I'm not used to write in foreign language, so be kind with stupid mistakes.
Merry Angsty Christmas!
R&R if you like.