She was dropped roughly on the floor of a small cell, the door locking behind the stormtrooper as he exited. Verena leaned back against the bench, not having the energy to lift herself from the floor quite yet, and stared at the opposite wall. At first glance, her only injuries were a bloody knee, visible through the tear in her trousers, and the cuts on her face from where bits of her exploding X-Wing had nicked her. But Verena could feel the piece of shrapnel that had stuck her side. It was still there, keeping the blood at bay. Each time she moved, it twisted further into her muscle. She wanted to pull it out, but she also knew she would bleed to death without immediate medical care.
Poe had been forced onto a trooper transport while she was placed on the winged shuffle. They had shared a look before being pulled out of each other's view but they didn't dare speak. She couldn't help but worry it had been the last time she would ever see her friend. She felt the ship take off, leaving the desert planet and recent slaughter behind. With a deep breath, Verena attempted to calm herself. When she heard the sound of heavy boots outside her cell door, she closed her eyes, trying to drown out the universe.
But she heard the door open and footsteps enter nonetheless. Still she didn't open her eyes, simply pretending to not have heard him enter. After a moment, a heavy boot collided with her shin causing her to throw her eyes open and cry out in pain. She looked up to see Kylo Ren staring down at her from the open doorway.
"Stand." The distorted voice demanded. She thought of shaking her head no, telling him that she was good down there. But she thought better of it.
Verena moved her feet under her body and put a bloody hand on the bench to push herself up. It was then that Kylo Ren noticed the source of her hardship. Verena leaned lazily against the wall for support as she felt the shuttle begin to slow in speed, preparing to land. The trip was short, indicting that there was a large ship, most likely a Star Destroyer, waiting for them. Even at her full height, Ren towered over her.
"You're bleeding." The man pointed out. Verena remained silent as Ren looked her over. Hair disheveled, covered in sand, blood and sweat. Usually, Verena kept her thick curly hair pinned up in a tight bun at the base of her neck, but the firefight and being captured had caused the bun to fall out leaving her unruly hair to cascade down to her shoulders. She knew she didn't look her best. She was only twenty-five, but in the moment she felt much older.
He reached out a gloved hand, examining her wound. She was too tired to flinch away. "Are you aware that you have a piece of twisted metal lodged in your side?"
Verena huffed a reply, refusing to look directly at the man in front of her. "I may have noticed." The ship shook slightly, signaling that it had landed.
With a hand still on her wound, Ren turned to the trooper behind him. "Transfer her to the medical unit."
She knocked his hand away. "I don't need your help." Defiantly, stupidly with a quick jerk, Verena pulled the metal from her body and let it clatter to the floor. She heard Ren let out a startled sound, muffled by his mask, as blood began to flow freely down her side, soaking much of her shirt. She became light headed and her legs weak. Verena collapsed but never hit the floor. She was vaguely aware of being carried and it took her a moment to realized whose arms she was in, a groan escaping her lips. She looked up at him, not having a very good angle as she took in the underside of his mask.
Deprived of adequate blood flow in her brain, Verena decided to speak her mind. "That mask is childish." Kylo didn't respond and Verena wasn't certain if she had actually spoke the words. He had barely exited the ship before she lost consciousness.
It was too bright and the surface below her too hard. And judging by the harsh aseptic smell that assaulted her nose, Verena knew she was in the medical bay before she even opened her eyes. Staring at the white lights above her, Verena lifted a hand to where her wound was. The twisted metal and the deep gash it had created in her abdomen were gone, replaced by a layer of warm synthflesh. Once her body had healed itself, the gel would flake off, leaving behind scarless tissue. Like the wound was never there. Her eyes adjusted to the light, allowing her to admire the austere steel ceiling above her. She didn't have to feel her face to know those cuts had been healed as well.
"Why are you here, Verena?" It was his voice, not the voice produced by that metallic helmet. It was him. He was sitting next to her, but Verena didn't looking in that direction, instead keeping her eyes on the ceiling. The medical staff, probably a droid, had removed her blood strained shirt and replaced it with a standard First Order issued thick black shirt.
"Because you carried me here." Her voice was rough from lack of use and dehydration.
"Why were you on Jakku?" His voice was more stern, anger leaking into it.
Verena closed her eyes, getting a headache. She knew she should be afraid, and she was. But she was never one to cower, especially not to him. "Looking for Luke Skywalker." She looked over at him then. His was mask was removed, allowing Verena to see the face of her childhood friend for the first time since she was teenager. His black hair was longer and his face more severe, but he almost looked the same. That unnerved her. She looked back to the ceiling before speaking again. "But you already knew that." His silence was confirmation. "Where's Poe?" She tried to hide the concern in her voice, but she was sure Ren noticed.
"The Resistance pilot?" He rose to his feet, arms behind his back, looking down at Verena where she still laid on the table. "He escaped. Leaving you behind." His tone was almost mocking. Verena forced herself to suppress the wave of relief at the news.
From his higher position, Ren's face entered her field of vision, but Verena kept her focus on the ceiling. She did her best to keep her voice and breathing even. "If you're going to kill me, just get over with it."
Kylo tilted his head, "I think you're more valuable alive, Calrissian. For now." Verena finally made eye contact with the man, his eyes a shade darker than hers. In their youth, Verena had found warmth in those eyes but now, she only saw hate and darkness. "Tell me the location of the Resistance's base."
Verena wanted to sink into the table she laid atop. "I'm not apart of the Resistance, so I don't know anything."
"Don't lie, Verena. You've never been particularly good at it."
With a rush of anger, Verena swung her heavy legs around to the edge of the exam table and put her feet to the floor. Standing brought her closer to Kylo Ren, closer than she wanted but she refused to flinch before him. "I don't know anything," she said quietly, but loud enough for him to hear.
She had not expected him to wrap a hand around her slender neck but it wasn't really a surprise. Kylo pushed her back, nearly bending her backwards over the exam table. Verena bit a lip to keep from crying out at the pain of the table's edge colliding with her lower spine. "You know there are ways for me to get the truth from you," he applied a bit of pressure to her throat. Not enough to cut off airflow but enough to hurt. "Ways that are not pleasant."
"Go ahead. Because there's nothing to take." He didn't wait any longer before using the Force to pry into her mind.
Of all the things Kylo Ren expected to find on Jakku, Verena Calrissian was not one of them. He had almost forgotten her and what he did remember wasn't much. He remembered she liked to run through the high grasses of Chandrila with no shoes on, something her mother often scolded her for. She had had a crush on him, this he knew. The kind of crush adolescents have on family friends who they rarely see. Kylo remembered that she would instantly become shy around him, never talking but always staring. Her father had teased her about it so much until one day, determined to prove him wrong, she sat by him and talked animatedly with him for nearly the entire afternoon. He probably would have been annoyed, having a child nearly seven years his junior trailing after him, but he been impressed by her determination to prove her father wrong, even though what Lando had said was true.
Kylo ignored his memories then, and instead focused on the ones he pulled from the depths of Verena's mind. He saw glimpse of her and the escaped Resistance pilot together. Poe, she had called him. Kylo recognized a few of the memories from the ones he took from the pilot during his interrogation. There was obvious friendship between the two. An odd feeling twisted in his stomach. Was it jealousy or betrayal, he did not know. And there were more pressing questions at hand than Verena's personal relationships.
He met little resistance as he searched her thoughts. Committee meetings, walks through the tall stone columned halls of the Senate, unplanned naps in her crowded office. To someone else, her work might have been interesting but to Kylo Ren it was tedious and inconsequential. It reminded him to much of Hux and his insistence on documenting everything. Another memory of the resistance pilot can up. The two of them walked through one of Hosnian Prime's public gardens, as a sun began to set on the horizon. They were holding hands.
"Those are private," she whispered but still she didn't fight to keep him out. He pressed on.
The scene charged. "They're saying you got reassigned." It was the pilot again. The two of them were outside on a large landing stripe, Resistance X-Wings were visible in the distance. "Feels more like I got fired." Verena answered with a frown, keeping her eyes to the purple sky. Kylo knew the planet. Pheryon. He also knew the Resistance had abandoned their base there years ago. He continued on. But there was nothing to be found. Pheryon was the last time she visited a Resistance base; all of her memories after were either on Hosnian Prime or Coruscant and the only Resistance personnel she ever talked to was Poe Dameron. Verena didn't know where the Resistance's current base was. She had been telling the truth.
Kylo removed himself from her mind and took a step back, resisting the urge to hit something. He watched Verena fall to her knees, cradling her head. There were ways to search someone's mind without causing discomfort, but Kylo had never cared enough to use them. The woman on the floor was covered in sweat and shaking. She hadn't fought against his invasion into her mind, hadn't even tried to push him away. Mentally or physically. Either she had a strong sense of self-preservation or she was weak and afraid. Neither matched up with what Kylo knew of her as a child. "The Verena I remember was stronger."
Her head snapped up to look him. Her round brown eyes met his. Her eyes were the most familiar aspect about her. Back then, they had been the curious eyes of a child. Now, they were the eyes of a woman who hated him. "People change." She responded finally. "And rarely for the better it seems."