AN: Been a while. Truth is, I lost confidence in this story. But then something amazing happened, one of my friends e-mailed me a certain well known awful hary potter story. That thing will make anyone feel good about their writing. Anyway, I haven't stopped writing, I just haven't posted in a while. I have seven or eight more chapters written. You guys can decide if you want a chapter storm of all of them or if you would like the rationed out.


Rey stood up and looked around innocently when the door of the prison opened. The General hid her smile behind a stern look.

"How much of that did you hear?"

"Just bits and pieces. The odd word here and there."

"So, all of it? Eavesdropping isn't polite you know."

"I wasn't, honest. I just thought the two of you might need some help."

"Help?"

"I thought you might need me to run some interference. Your opinion is the only one that matters to him right now. He needed this to go well."

"So you were looking out for him."

"And you. And myself. A selfish part of me wanted to know what it's like to be reunited with family after so long." She looked down and shook her head, trying to clear out that line of thinking. "Anyway, it sounds like you didn't need my help after all."

"You brought him back to me. You brought them both back. Your help is always welcome here."

"While I was listening I figured out why I'm so quick to forgive him, but you probably wont like it."

"Something other than love or manipulation?"

"It's because I hate him. I want him dead. I know that Ben and Kylo Ren are the same person, but when I'm with him I can almost pretend that Kylo Ren is dead. Or better yet, that he never existed. I could forgive anything if it meant that I never had to see that person again."

Leia stared at her for several seconds, her face morphing between several emotions before speaking again. "You can't ever tell him."

"I know, I wont. I just-"

"No you don't know. You're lying to him. Do you have any idea what will happen if he finds out?"

"I haven't lied. I believe in what he's teaching."

"But not in him. You just think he's better than the alternative."

"It's not that I don't care about him, but I'm not going to apologize for being happy that Kylo Ren isn't out there anymore."

"I hope you know what you're doing or we may get something a lot worse than Kylo Ren."

"Yeah, me too" she mumbled, feeling considerably more uneasy than she had a few minutes ago.

"You should go in, he's expecting you."

She nodded and tried to compose herself enough to avoid suspicion. She walked into the room and raised her eyebrows. "Why are you doing that?

"Doing what?"

"That thing with your face."

"Smiling?"

"Is that what that's supposed to be? It looks painful."

"You'll have to forgive me. I'm out of practice."

She chuckled and sat down on the floor in front of the force field. "Are you okay? They didn't hurt you did they?"

"I'll live. What about you, my mother said they might be pressing charges against you."

"I'm not worried about it. We'll both be out of here before our trials anyway, right?"

"Probably, as soon as I come up with an escape plan."

"You don't think we could just fight our way out of here?"

"Letting them cuff me was just a formality, but when you gave away my lightsaber and they put me behind this force field, things got a little trickier."

"So what's the plan, just lay low for a while?"

"A few days maybe. Learning the routine will make things easier."

"What do I do between now and then, collect intel or something?"

"Patience really isn't your strong suit. What did you do last time you were here?"

"You want me to just go on acting like normal?"

"These people aren't our enemies. We are theirs, but they aren't ours, we don't need to spy on them or learn their weaknesses. Don't do anything suspicious and just go about your day."

"Don't you think it's a little optimistic to think they wont move you or interrogate you over the next few days?"

"If you have an escape plan right this second I would love to hear it."

She thought for a minute and sighed in defeat. "You're right."

His eyes widened. "Wow. I never thought I'd see the day."

"Don't let it go to your head"

"Of course not. I'm sure it was painful for you to say" he smiled.

"I still hate you sometimes" she scowled.

"As long as it's not all the time" he said seriously.

She looked up and locked eyes with him. "You have your moments, no matter how fleeting."

His mouth turned up in a small smile of satisfaction and he felt the need to return her half compliment. "As far as padawans go, I could have gotten stuck with a worse one."

She opened her mouth to remind him that that technically wasn't true, but thought better of it and bit her tongue. "Thank you, I appreciate that."

They both realized that if either of them stopped talking, the conversation would immediately turn awkward.

"I've decided that after we get out of here I'm going to teach you how to swim."

"What's a swim?" She hated the look of pity he gave her in response.

"Swimming is like playing in water. It's like a bath, but on a bigger scale. It's fun."

Even after her travels these last few months, some things were still hard for her to comprehend. "Bathing for fun sounds like a waste of moisture."

"Water isn't as scarce on most planets as it is on Jakku. On Kamino for example, it rains so often that cities are built on posts sticking out of the ground because the land has been overrun by water." He could tell by the look on her face that she couldn't quite believe him. He realized that continuing on this line of conversation would eventually lead to her becoming frustrated by her ignorance, and decided that a quick and distracting change of topic was in order. "How is FN-2187?"

She tensed and broke eye contact and he immediately regretted asking. "He's the same as he was when I left."

He tried to glean some hidden meaning from that answer but came up short. "Are you two fighting?"

She jerked her head up quickly to yell at him for his insensitivity when she realized that he honestly didn't know. "No, we're not fighting, he's comatose. He never woke up after Starkiller."

He tensed and let out a heavy sigh. "I'm sure they've scanned his brain, did they find swelling or trauma?"

"He took a hit to the back of the head, but nothing that should cause this kind of long-term damage."

"That's because he's not comatose, he's dormant."

"What does that mean?"

"It's a command conditioned into anyone working with the first order, if the attempt to attack myself or Snoke they will be..nutralized while they are assessed to see if they should be re-eudcated or terminated.

"Can you fix it?"

"I can wake him up, but his conditioning will reset. He will be a stormtrooper again."