The sudden alarm and the early morning sounds of the Falcon interrupted her slumber and she rolled over in bed, realising at once that only her chest and arms were obeying that command. She jerked upright, twitched off the bedcovers, rubbed at her legs, trying to stir some life back into them. She had to manoeuvre one after the other over the edge of the new mattress she'd had replaced yesterday, grabbed for the staff leaning against the wall and tried to stand.
She was aware of falling, and then her head banged against metal and everything else went dark.
She woke to Finn's voice calling her name. She was upright again, or nearly upright, sitting in a chair on the far side of her bedroom.
'Take it easy Rey,' he murmured, patting her hand. 'Don't try to stand.'
She tried anyway, got as far as lifting herself on her arms, but she simply couldn't feel her legs, couldn't get any sort of signal down to them whatsoever, couldn't so much as wriggle her toes against the blanket that was covering them. She sagged back into the seat, gasping.
'Why don't you tell us exactly what is going on, Rey?' Leia's voice came from behind where Finn was standing, and he shifted out of the way. 'Rose tells me you've been unwell for some time, but there isn't anything medically wrong with you.'
Rey tried to quell the fluttering twist of fear inside her. 'I haven't been right since a few days after Crait. I felt sick at first, and then every time I moved I got tired, and I fell over, and now I can't feel my legs. Do you think it's permanent?'
'What do you think is causing it?' The older woman was gentle, coaxing.
'Snoke.' She rushed on quickly to counter the flicker of doubt in the General's expression. 'The bond is getting stronger. I saw Ben twice yesterday, and he seems to be staying for longer each time. I'm sure he isn't doing it. He says Snoke created the bridge between our minds to make me come to him in person, and that since Snoke died before he could turn it off, the connection is still working. I think this is Snoke's way of forcing us together.'
Finn frowned. 'He's dead though, how can he be doing anything?'
'It's a dark side thing.'
Leia cut in. 'Did he tell you that? My son?'
Rey gave a half-hearted shrug. 'Yes. It isn't him. He doesn't want to see me any more than I want to see him.'
'Don't ever make the mistake of trusting him,' the General's tone was firm. 'I've never heard of the Force having this kind of an effect on anyone. Not remotely, and certainly not after the person supposedly manipulating it is dead. I think it's far more likely this is a slow acting poison of some kind, maybe something given to you while you were on board the First Order ship. We'll take you to a proper doctor, and have it checked out.'
Rey sighed. 'You'd better go. He's coming.'
Within seconds, his gloomy presence had materialised next to her, along with that same traitorous rush of warm pleasure her body always insisted on providing whenever he appeared. This time though, because she was concentrating so hard on not being able to feel her legs, she realised that the tingling feeling that started in her chest, ran all the way down her toes. She wriggled them beneath the blanket without any effort at all.
'At least you're not in bed this time,' he remarked, coolly observant. 'If not actually dressed.'
She ignored him, flicked away the blanket, exposed the useless flesh of her thighs to the air, then, one after the other, stretched both legs out in front of her.
'Can you put something on?' he complained, putting his back to her.
Rey put both hands on the arms of her chair, thrust upward, and rested some weight on her legs, taking a few tottering steps, which swiftly firmed up into several confident ones.
Leia shot her a hard stare. 'And you couldn't do that before he arrived?'
'No,' Rey confirmed. 'I couldn't move at all.'
'Who are you talking to?' asked Ben.
'Your mother.'
He sighed heavily. 'Perfect. Now my day is complete.'
'Are you having a bad day? I was having a terrible day before you arrived, but it's suddenly got better.'
'I'm not talking to you about my day, Rey. We're not friends. We don't do chit chat. This is just an inconvenient interlude before I kill you.'
'Fine,' she snapped. 'Then just stand there and be quiet.'
'Don't tell him anything,' his mother hissed. 'Don't tell him you couldn't walk, don't admit to any weakness.'
'Because he'll use it against me?'
'You can't trust him. Remember that. How do you know he isn't doing this himself?'
'He just told me I'm an inconvenient interlude and that he's going to kill me the next time he sees me.'
'That doesn't mean he isn't responsible for what's happening to you. Ask him if he knows how to break the bond.'
'Your mother wants to know if you know how to break the bond?' Rey parroted.
He threw her a contemptuous glance over his shoulder. 'You know I don't, or I wouldn't be standing here having this conversation. Ask her if she's proud of what she did to Chandrila.'
'Are you proud of what you did to Chandrila?' Rey asked, with an apologetic shrug.
Leia took half a step backwards and then her eyes narrowed. 'Ask him if he's proud of what he did to his father.'
'I'm not asking him that,' Rey objected.
'Ask him.'
'Ask me.'
She was surprised by how very similar the two of them sounded in their assumption of command.
'Are you proud of what you did to your father?' She winced as she said it.
His shoulders set, but he didn't turn. 'Ask her if she's proud of what she did to me.'
'What did she do to you?'
'No chit chat, Rey.'
'He says, are you proud of what you did to him?'
Leia folded her arms. 'Yes, of course I'm proud. I loved him. Despite everything he did, despite what he became, I loved him. I still do. Tell him that.'
Rey swallowed, then repeated, hiding a tiny quaver. 'She says, yes, she's proud – she loved you, despite everything you did, despite what you became. She still loves you.'
She waited for a reaction. There wasn't one.
He stood in silence with his face to the wall, and after what seemed a very long time, he disappeared.
Rey crashed back into the chair, Finn managing to half catch her on the way back down. Her legs had turned into useless meat appendages again, and she felt like crying with frustration. She hadn't asked for this, she'd done nothing wrong except maybe run to the rescue of a man who thought he didn't need saving. Now she was held prisoner in her own body, a far more effective gaol than any real cell Snoke could have devised.
The message was clear. If she wanted to walk again, she'd have to start spending a lot more time with Kylo Ren. Dejected, she put her head in her hands, but Finn pushed a button on the arm of the chair and it lifted off the floor, settling in to a low hover.
'We'll fix this,' he promised. 'We just need to find a place to start.'
She sniffed. 'The kyber crystal caves on Ilum. Let's start by finding out how to get there.'
'Anything you like.'
The chair was easy to control, a couple of buttons would do it, but she resented having to use it at all, anger building inside her against the dark side abuser who had put her there.
Finn used the computer banks to bring up a map of Ilum and some background information. 'Ilum is a small planet in the Unknown Regions, uninhabited, with an oxygen-based atmosphere but it's inhospitable, judged too cold and dark for colonisation with few natural resources. And the current intelligence we have on it is…' Here he paused, gave Leia a small, self-satisfied smile and hit a few more buttons. 'Provided by our new friends in the Skylon resistance. Ilum: there are four recently arrived Star Destroyers in orbit and the whole planet is crawling with troops.'
Rey sagged back in the chair, passed a hand over her eyes.
'What is the significance of Ilum?' Leia asked.
'Trust,' replied Rey. 'Ben told me he'd help me build a new lightsaber if I got a new crystal from Ilum, but it was obviously a trap. You're right. I can't trust him. I won't tell him there's anything wrong with me. We'll have to find the answer on our own.'
Or, he squinted, half naked. She was sitting in a chair, her lower half covered in a blanket and across her shoulders were two thin straps, mere wisps of fabric attached to a low cut, shiny dress. One of the straps had slipped downwards towards her elbow, revealing the top of a high, round breast. The nipple of her other breast was clearly visible through the gauzy material. He muttered something, and launched himself sideways into a cleaning cupboard so that he wouldn't be disturbed.
She slid off the blanket to reveal an expanse of long, shapely flesh, and his eyes travelled up over her toned calves, lingered on the pale, creamy skin of her thighs and stopped when they'd reached the apex of her legs, barely covered by the hem of her nightdress. He couldn't tell from this angle whether she was wearing underwear or not, but even the thought that she might not be had him spinning smartly away from her, so she couldn't see what was going on with the front of his trousers.
Although he didn't have feelings for her, and even though she'd rejected him in the worst way possible, his pants were tight with a speedy erection. He jerked down his tunic to try to hide it, but the action just pressed heavy fabric right against the head of his cock and the friction hardened it further. He felt a surge of anger and shame at the thought of being so out of control in front of her, but the anger took over as soon as she told him she was talking to his mother.
The old woman was obsessed with telling him she loved him, she'd made a point of saying it the last few times he'd seen her, as if it would make any difference to him now. She could talk as much as she liked, it was her actions that counted. I love you Ben, but I'm too busy to come to your school play. I love you Ben, but I can't come on holiday because I have to negotiate a peace treaty. I love you Ben, but I forgot your birthday because something else was more important. Never once had she been there when he needed her. She was available for the rest of the galaxy, she gave them all her time, but not him, never him.
'I love you,' was just a collection of empty words, he'd heard it so many times. Instead, he ignored her and any conversation in which she was involved, imagined that she'd never gone to Rey's bedroom.
Instead, he'd arrive to find Rey alone, and she'd notice too late that the flimsy strap of her nightdress had escaped her shoulder, exposing her left breast to his scrutiny. She'd blush, shy, and then bite her lower lip, wanting him, but not daring to admit it. He'd say nothing, simply watch her glorious indecision and eventually she'd reach out a trembling hand and remove the other strap, revealing her naked chest, her nipples dark brown stains on a canvas of purest white. He'd take a step closer, another, and she'd be forced to look up at him from her chair, but he wouldn't reach for those hardened mounds, aching for his touch. She'd nibble her lip until it was red and sore, and then the blanket would slip to the floor and her fingers would toy with the hem of her skirt, deciding, before she lifted it for him. She wasn't wearing underwear.
He'd go down on his knees between her legs and worship her with his mouth and her cries would be soft, wondering at how such a monster could be so tender, so gentle, so skilled with her. She'd wind her fingers into his hair, crush her cunt against his tongue and he'd stop for a second, look up, before he slid two fingers inside her and she'd arch her back and shudder with pleasure. He'd fuck her slowly with those fingers and when she begged him, he'd use his tongue again and she'd explode in his mouth. Then he'd…
The pain crashed back over him in a tidal wave of agony, washed every other thought from his mind and he staggered against the wall, the pressure in his groin easing immediately. Focus. Concentration. Turn it into strength.
Snoke's dead laughter echoed in his ears. He breathed deeply, feeling his mastery over himself return, accompanied by shame that lust had swamped him in the first place. That couldn't happen again. He changed course, decided to use his anger on Hux instead.
The General was in his office, and although he rose to his feet as Kylo arrived, he didn't bother to salute until he was reminded.
'The army is out of control,' Kylo announced. 'And you are to blame. I just had to decommission Captain Casenby and four units for insubordination.'
'Decommission?' Hux asked in a neutral tone.
'Permanently. I want a new training programme in place by tomorrow morning based on complete loyalty to the Supreme Leader.'
'Of course, Supreme Leader.' Hux smiled his patronising smile and resumed his seat behind his desk, picking up a pen and making a note. After a while he realised that Kylo hadn't left. 'Was there something else, Supreme Leader?'
Kylo wanted to wipe the smile off the General's face with the business end of his lightsaber. He bent forward. 'I know what game you're playing Hux, and you won't succeed. I'm your worst nightmare. Now get on with what I've asked you to do.'
He didn't leave the General's side for the rest of the day, sitting in on all his meetings, reading all the communications he wanted to send before they went out, prodding all Hux's contacts for signs of insurgency. Hux grew steadily more anxious as the time went on but he hid it well. When Kylo left him in his room late that night he felt he'd frightened the other man enough to enforce his loyalty, at least for the next few days.
The pain meant that he wasn't able to sleep so he spent the night ensuring that every decision the General made would have to come to him for ratification. He reviewed the electronic surveillance records for Hux's last few days on board but could find no contact with Captain Casenby, which just meant that the General was very good at covering his tracks. Kylo was tempted to kill his second in command but looking at the sheer volume of work that Hux got through in one day he wasn't sure he would have the time, or the boredom threshold to take it on.
He needed a replacement, but one who was unquestionably loyal to the role of Supreme Leader, someone who would die for him, if the occasion demanded.
In the early hours of the morning he checked in with the commander of the ambush force on Ilum, who confirmed that no unusual activity had been recorded in the last few days and the crystal caves were empty, apart from the hundreds of stormtroopers now stationed there. He could only think that Rey's delay in falling into his trap had something to do with his mother.
Anger sustained him during the rest of the night and in the morning, when Rey finally did appear, he was in the middle of another strategy meeting and couldn't speak to her anyway. Three sides of the conference room were now lined with Praetorian Guard and more were stationed outside the chamber. He was leaving nothing to chance.
He pointed at the minion who was looking most nervous, shifting in his chair in an irritating manner. 'Why have my orders on the slave colony on Merades not been followed?'
The man licked his lips. 'It has proven very difficult to find an alternative to using slaves, Supreme Leader. If the slaves leave then the production facility will come to a halt.'
'That's an excuse, not an answer. Do you dare disobey your Supreme Leader?'
He choked the man to death without regret, in the hope that a short murder first thing on the agenda would make the rest of the meeting go more smoothly.
After the body was tidied away, the same adjutant who had approached him yesterday about conquering the mining planet had another try and was rejected, getting a near death experience for his pains.
Hux stepped in. 'I believe the Supreme Leader has got out of bed on the wrong side this morning. Perhaps I can provide what he needs.'
The General proceeded to give a comprehensive run down of progress on all the key items on Kylo's list, which he must have been up most of the night preparing, and much as he wanted to deny it, Kylo felt a grudging respect for the man. Hux would not have survived so long under Snoke had he not been the best candidate for the job.
'Perhaps in future, the Supreme Leader could direct his questions to me, rather than brutalising my staff.'
Kylo could even see why Hux's lackeys respected him, but it didn't matter. 'Dangerous territory Hux. I won't warn you again.'
He ended the meeting, sat there in silence for a while with only the Praetorian Guard for company, practising control. Behind him he could hear Rey's heavy breathing and grunts of effort, but he refused to turn around, or even think about what she was doing. When the splash of water running caught his ears and he realised she must be removing her clothes, he still didn't look round, and the contents of his underwear remained still and quiet.
With that reassurance, he got on with writing another set piece speech, this one designed to both terrify the troops, and secure their loyalty to him over Hux.
But as he walked to the podium less than an hour later he could tell that something was wrong. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, or maybe he'd had to exert so much self-control over the last few days that his body couldn't take the strain, or maybe it was something more sinister – all he knew was that as he stood there clutching the lectern and spoke the opening lines of his speech the edges of his vision went dark. He felt his control cracking, the pain flooding back through holes in the dam, an enormous surge of it, too powerful to manage. His jaw clenched with agony, tremors rippled through his shoulders, his arms, spread down into his thighs and made them shake.
He tried, but it was too much – all he could do was concentrate on not screaming as he fell to the floor.
