Is that the Outer Rim?

Ben lowered his face but flicked his eyes up at Hux, standing in the middle of the dreadnaught bridge as though he owned it. It certainly is not. He ground his teeth together and strode through the bridge, the sharp snap of his heels on the polished steel floor echoing back to him. I need to concentrate. He had long ago learned to tune out the constant drone of the many souls aboard an imperial vessel, and while Rey's constant presence over the past few days in his mind was a balm, Ben wasn't ready to let her feel the kind of rage that Hux normally aroused in him. The connection between them was still too fresh, too tenuous, too precious.

"I don't remember asking you to take us to Teerius 4."

Hux had the audacity to sneer at Ben over his shoulder. "Merely a brief pause on the way. We were already scheduled to take on fuel and a passenger." Hux nodded at a helmsman; he had already anticipated Kylo Ren's objection. "Supreme Leader Snoke approved the manifest in his final hours."

Ben glanced at the manifest the helmsman had brought up on the display. "Who." The word came out a demand, rather than a query.

"Supreme. Leader. Snoke."

Ben glanced up at Hux. Hux's mouth was pinched into a malicious smirk and his eyes danced with the insult. "The passenger," Ben growled. "Who is the passenger?"

"Doesn't the manifest say?"

Ben straightened and closed the few steps to Hux. Though Kylo Ren stood a couple of inches taller than Hux, Hux refused to lift his chin to meet his eyes, instead rolling them up to glare at Ben from beneath his eyebrows. Ben turned his face to growl quietly into Hux's ear. "You know it doesn't. You would do well to remember that I am Supreme Ruler now."

Inclining his head with an ostentatious roll, Hux hissed back, "You must think I'm very stupid. Do you think I haven't seen enough carnage caused by your weapon to know the difference between the bloody, jagged mess it makes of a corpse and the clean cut a more elegant weapon makes?" Ben froze. In the years of wearing a mask that disguised the play of his emotions across his face and in his voice, Ben had forgotten what little he had learned about concealing the feelings that seemed to always be boiling just beneath the surface. When Hux's smile broadened, he knew that he was failing to conceal his shock and fear completely. "Over half those Praetorians were cut down by your lightsaber, Supreme Leader, and some of them bore wounds from both your blade and hers. In fact, there is some speculation that the worst of your wounds were . . . self-inflicted."

"It is the way of the Dark Side that when the student becomes more powerful than the master, the master is removed."

One of Hux's brows twitched up in what could have been construed as concession, but wasn't. "I pray you will find an adequate student soon."

Ben's fingers twitched, and Hux's windpipe slammed shut. "For your sake, I suggest you get these rumors under control. Men in your position have found themselves replaced for less." Ben released Hux to collapse onto the floor and turned to the helmsman. "Get the fuel on board; strike the passenger from the manifest. Get us—"

"You can't do that!" Ben was shocked to hear Hux's choked voice. "Supreme Leader Snoke—"

Ben's lightsaber roared into life. "Is dead."

The dreadnaught bridge became very quiet and very still. The helmsmen refused to look away from their displays, frozen in place in terror. Ben advanced on Hux, and Hux was forced to crawl backwards at a ridiculous pace as Ben strode back up the length of the bridge with the blazing tip of his saber a hair's breadth away from Hux's throat. Hux's hands made a wet smacking sound as they scrabbled, and the heels of his boots squeaked as they pushed frantically against the slick floor. He looked up at Ben with deepest loathing, bathed in the blazing heat and blooded glare of Ben's blade, but didn't blanch when Ben continued, "Contradict me again, and you will be too. Count yourself lucky that I do not provide the same courtesy for Snoke's guest."

"Supreme Leader, sir."

Ben did not take his eyes away from Hux to address his lieutenant. "What is it?"

"Snoke's passenger never showed up at the docks, sir."

Ben's blade winked out. "How interesting. That's probably best for all involved. Get us underway."

Ben took the last few steps into the lift and punched the code into the terminal hard enough to snap the plastic covering one of the input keys. Too close. That was too close to insubordination. Too close to mutiny. Too close to the truth. He propped his arm on the wall of the lift and pressed his damp face into his sleeve. If he didn't deal with Hux decisively soon, whether or not he was the Supreme Leader would likely be a moot point.

Ben stood straight again in the lift and flexed his shoulders, trying to reign in his fear and anger. Without willing it, his mind drifted toward Rey's consciousness, and through the barrier, he could feel a warm pull as though he was being quietly summoned through the barrier between them. Curiously, Ben let the barrier fall, and he saw himself holding Rey in her quarters, but from a different angle. Though he'd not registered it at the time, he now heard how she had sighed when he had traced the arch of her throat with his kisses, and he drew a quick breath when he realized that even now, he could still taste her skin against his tongue.

His quarrel with Hux forgotten, Ben was anxious to see her again. He followed her consciousness and found her half seated. By the way the light undulated over her skin, he guessed that she must be in the cockpit of the Falcon, and they were still travelling at light speed. Her head was tipped back as though to receive his kiss, her lips barely parted and almost smiling, and her eyes were closed. Rey laid a hand against her neck and turned her head slightly into her shoulder, and she rose slightly on her toes. Though he sensed someone else in the room, Ben stepped forward and reached for her.

As though she sensed his presence, Rey opened her eyes, looking for him. You look like you are waking from a dream.

Ben was used to glares of hate and revulsion, mouths twisted in disappointment, and even occasional sneers of grim approval. He was used to no expression or acknowledgement at all from scores of anonymous storm troopers. Nothing in his chaste upbringing in his uncle's temple nor the cold, sterile hostility of the First Order had prepared him for the sight of a beautiful woman smiling sweetly at him with pleasure and invitation. He admired her courage and strength, was inspired by her defiance and spirit, but was completely undone by this.

Maybe I am.

A lifetime of being forbidden emotional attachments of any kind . . . Ben looked away with embarrassment, ashamed that he should so desperately want to touch her, but aching to do so nonetheless. She'd given him so much already, and he was fully aware of his unworthiness. From the few years he remembered bouncing from space port to bunker, base to compound, chasing bolts rolling across the tilting floor of the Falcon, he remembered clearly the way his mother had often looked at his father. Between fights and eyerolls, Leia had looked at Han as though the entire light of the galaxy had been compressed into his lanky frame. In those moments, he knew that for her, all of creation shrank to a tiny shred of warm incandescent space that contained just them. He'd never have imagined that a woman could look at him in the same way. Hoping to hide his obvious pleasure, he stepped back through the force bond.

Through the glow of his pleasure, Ben dimly heard Finn. "He looked like . . . It looked like . . . It looked like I was interrupting."

Ben couldn't help himself from interjecting, He was. The bond between himself and Rey shimmered, and he realized that that must be what a laugh felt like when it passed through the veil of the Force.

Kylo Ren apparently has a sense of humor.

Ben pushed the barrier closed more firmly. No, but I do.