Ren swept out of the turbolift and took a sharp right. He gathered his thoughts, struggling to form a coherent report in his mind that Snoke would approve and hopefully not bombard him with questions. Best case, he just wanted to exercise his power over him by summoning him less than three hours after returning from a mission. Worst case, after forcing him to do a training session, he'd do a thorough search of his mind.
He would be sick again. Rey would be sick again.
Several students dressed in light gray cloaks pressed themselves against the wall. They did not whisper among themselves, but he could feel their fear in the Force. Good. His cold expression was holding. He could feel Rey in the back of his mind – a beacon of light – pulling at the grief that weighed in his heart.
She was gone. His mother. Shot in the chest by his own knight without a care for her life, her achievements, her weight on the galaxy. Without a care for her son watching meters away.
Ren swallowed hard. The Force within him seemed like a storm, ready to unleash a vengeance upon anyone unfortunate to come across him. It screamed to end the life of the knight who had fired at Leia Organa. He clenched his hands into fists so that Karis at his heels would not see his hands shake.
At least she had not suffered.
He took another right and made it nearly ten steps down the corridor before he realized the Nightsister had not followed him. He turned, taking a deep breath. His voice barely cracked, but he cleared his throat to cover the noise. "Leader Snoke's preferred communication room is this way, Karis."
A pale eyebrow rose. "Leader Snoke requested our personal presence."
Ren remained where he stood, an ache beginning in his shoulder as his entire body tensed. "I don't have time to travel to Snoke."
"I don't think he exactly cares about your play schedule with your little pet." She took a step toward him, her eyes running predatorily over him. "He wants a full account of the mission. Unless you have something to hide?"
Ren strode past the Nightsister, his arm brushing her shoulder as he passed. He heard her scoff, and the rage boiled closer to the surface. She thought this had just been another mission. A few casualties, a report to Snoke, and she would be in bed without a second thought to one of the most important people in the galaxy.
Karis's bored voice broke him out of his thoughts. "He only wants to see us because we lost that wannabe Jedi."
Ren looked at her out of the corner of his eye. He was sure he was too pale, and he regretted having smashed his helmet against the wall of his rooms. "Did he request both of us?"
She rolled her eyes. "Well, not officially, but another account will be in your favor, Ren." She shrugged, a sly grin pulling at her lips. "Besides, I want to see how he reacts to my account of your new pet."
The Force smashed into the Nightsister. Something behind Ren broke with a snap. His vision seemed to turn red. Pain laced up his hand. His chest hurt.
"Ren!"
He blinked and suddenly found his fist smashed against the wall by Karis's head. A voice in the back of his mind whispered to kill her. She was a threat to his position. To him.
To Rey.
It would be easy to further constrict the Force around her body. Ignite his lightsaber through her. Stop her heart. Break her neck. A small manipulation of the Force, and she would be dead.
Karis whispered something, and Ren flew backward. He hit the opposite wall, pain shooting down his arm from his shoulder. He flexed his fingers and gave the woman a glare to mask how uncomfortable the movement was. "Do I need to give you an order to stay on base while I meet with the Supreme Leader?"
The Nightsister walked toward him, her stance annoyingly calm. "Stars, you really hate losing, don't you?" Her eyes ran over him as her tilted her head to the side. "Or don't you like sharing your master? Once that little scavenger of yours trusts you, I imagine you'll have to share Snoke with her all the time. That is why he assigned her to you, I assume." She stepped closer, her face inches from his. "Is she why you were distracted on the field? Has the little rat wormed her way into Kylo Ren?"
Ren gritted his teeth and took a step forward to force the woman to move back, using his superior height to loom over her. The Dark Side pulsed within him, feeding on the fear from the Nightsister before him. "I will be seeing the Supreme Leader alone." Karis's back hit the wall. "You will stay here and write a report. That's an order."
Karis's nostrils flared before she nodded once, pressing her lips together. "Yes, sir." She stalked down the hall, her body tense.
Ren's pulse pounded in his ears as he made his way across the main hangar, his boots stomping against the ground. Mechanics scrambled out of his way, and the crew members of his Upsilon-class clambered into the ship. The engines whined as he stepped onto the ramp.
"The Supremacy, Captain."
A middle-aged woman saluted and turned to the cockpit, sliding into the pilot's chair. The ramp sealed with a hiss, and Ren sank into a seat. Another wave of grief threatened to overwhelm him again, but he shoved it aside, toward the little light in the back of his mind that was Rey.
You're leaving?
Her voice resonated through his mind, and he latched onto it. He chewed on his inner lip as the ship lurched forward and out of the hangar. I have to.
Snoke.
She had not asked, but Ren gave an affirmative. His stomach twisted. Kriff. He wished he had been allowed some rest before this, but Snoke liked having those before him at a disadvantage, however he could get it.
Will you be sick again?
Stars, he already felt sick. Snoke would be angry, not that Ren had broken any official orders, but the Supreme Leader had been more volatile than usual. He would sense the conflict in him, use his emotions to stoke the Dark Side.
Likely.
Rey could not tell what her body needed. She stood at the end of Ren's unkempt bed, her limbs trembling with rage as if another scavenger had stolen her day's salvage. And yet they felt like she had just trekked across the Goazon Badlands without her speeder, and she just wanted to rest for several days.
She should get some sleep before Ren returned and got them both ill, but she remained rooted to the floor. Why had she offered to take these emotions? Ren was holding her captive, and here she was helping him face his abusive master.
Kriff.
Her knees gave out, and she collapsed onto the bed, her fingers curling around the dark blankets. Ren's grief had faded since he had left the planet, but her chest felt tight.
There had to be some way to turn their connection into something more productive than this. Surely the old Jedi had not allowed themselves to be crippled when the other member of the bond was injured or emotional.
Rey used the blanket to wipe a stray tear from her face, and something hard bumped her forehead. She fumbled in the low light until her hand closed around a datapad. The screen lit up, asking for Ren's hand to unlock it. She stared at it, her fingers trembling over the light. She might be able to open the device and rewire it to access it, although the make of it looked more sophisticated than the few she had come across on Jakku. Her mind felt foggy, so she shoved the thought away for another time.
Her hand dropped onto the screen limply, and she jumped as it flickered to unlock. Did Ren not lock his own datapad?
She sat up slowly, her eyes glued to the ship specifications file he had left open. It resembled a TIE fighter, even had the same twin ion engines, but major modifications had been made. The imperfect lines looked as if Ren had drawn sketches himself. She tapped the screen, and another page showed an outline of a missile launcher with scribbled notes littered across the margins. The next tap showed the solar collectors, and another the pilot's dashboard.
The last page was devoid of Ren's scrawls and instead had neatly typed reports with meticulous details of flights. The dates showed Ren had abruptly stopped his weekly flights nearly five months ago for three weeks and then had begun flying every day before they stopped again. Rey glanced at the datapad's displayed date. Her fogged mind took longer than it should have to calculate. He had flown everyday during her time in that room and then had not written a report since she had begun staying with him.
She flipped back through the file, soon becoming engrossed in Ren's notes and analyses. It should have surprised Rey that he could actually write by hand, but she was too absorbed in deciphering the words around his sketches. An early report noted a correction in the wings for easier banking, another adjusted the fuel line for faster acceleration. The reports were formal and likely went to mechanics, but she felt as if she read a personal diary of sorts from Ren. Beyond the technical notes, she could tell he relished flying.
Stars, she wanted to fly again.
She was deep into his report on the targeting systems when the bed sank down behind her. The datapad slipped from her hand as she whipped around, her heart racing.
Ren had lain across the short way of the bed without her noticing his presence. His forearm draped over his eyes, and she suddenly became aware of how exhausted they both were.
She waited for him to say something, waited for the nausea of Snoke's cruelty to hit. She almost thought he had fallen asleep until his arm dropped to the bed and his eyes met hers with surprising sharpness.
"He was… happy." He huffed a short laugh. "I mean, for him. In a better mood than usual."
Rey remained quiet for a moment, expecting him to elaborate. When his eyes closed, she spoke softly, "Because… of what happened?"
He nodded, and the smallest quiver of his lower lip betrayed the inner turmoil. "I can," his voice cracked, and he cleared his throat, which did not help, "take it back. The, uh, the…"
He trailed off, but Rey nodded in understanding. Slowly, the ache in her chest, the swirl and fog of grief and it's accompanying struggle to deny reality slipped out of her acute senses. But she could feel him, feel his intense emotions just as she felt the slight ache in her shoulder that did not come from her own tendon.
She rose from the bed, a sudden pang of unease twisting her stomach. Ren did not say anything as she slipped out of the room.
Rey was beginning to wonder if Ren had a secret exit from his bedroom. She had felt flashes of his emotions over the past several days, but nothing lasted long enough for her to understand Ren's thoughts. She tried to be there for him, as much as one could be there for a captor who did not want to interact with her. She practiced the Force by first moving furniture yet again, and when that quickly became boring, she took her little makeshift weapon and allowed it to hover in front of her face before using the Force to spin it in small defensive maneuvers.
When she heard the crash, she first thought it she had accidently broken something with the pointed object. She knocked quietly on Ren's door, her heart hammering in her chest. "Ren?"
Another crash answered her.
Rey took a step away from the door, hesitated, and then stepped back, using the Force make the door slide open. The light from the main room cast over Ren's tall frame hunched over the side of the bed. His breaths came hard and uneven as he looked up, his eyes flashing in fury.
"Get. Out."
Rey crossed her arms over her chest and raised an eyebrow. "Come on."
Ren blinked, and the tension his body changed from her unexpected response. "What?"
Rey turned away and beckoned Ren with a small wave of her hand. "Come on," she repeated.
She made it to the main door before he began following her. "Where are you going?"
"Do you want to break something else or actually do something productive?" The door irised open without protest, and Rey strode to the room he had shown her almost a week before.
Ren trailed after her, but Rey did not look at him until she took down the wooden staffs and tossed one to him. Red tinged his eyes, and slight stubble shadowed his jaw. "What's this supposed to – "
He did not have time to finish his sentence before Rey forced him to defend himself. They exchanged several rapid blows that sent vibrations down Rey's arms. The cracks of the wooden staffs reverberated around the room until they danced away from each other, both panting heavily. Ren focused intently on her, a spark in his eyes that had not been there at the beginning of their fight.
He lunged forward, and Rey spun to avoid him before bringing her staff to his exposed side. He twisted, and the tip of her staff grazed his shirt. He turned, and she blocked his retaliating blow. Their staffs held together for a long moment as they looked at each other, until Ren gritted his teeth and pushed.
Rey staggered backwards and fought for a moment to keep her footing before she let gravity take her down. Ren's staff swung above her where her shoulders had been a moment before. Rey lashed out with her staff, and it caught the back of Ren's knee. He fell beside her, his breath audibly leaving his body as he fell onto his half-healed shoulder.
She got to her knees, phantom pain lacing up her own shoulder, and held her staff to his chest. "I win."
Ren's chest rose and fell rapidly. He stared up at her, an unreadable expression on his face. His emotions swirled through their bizarre connection in a jumbled mess. Confusion, exhilaration, fear, exhaustion, the anger of grief, dread toward the future, a trace of loneliness coiled with her own uncertainty, irritation, insecurities, and worries.
And then their lips met.
AN: Massive apologies for how long updates are taking. Thanks to anyone out there still reading, and happy new year!
