Luke had spent many years seeking out the written teachings of the fallen Jedi Order, scouring ruins and old libraries in search of scraps. He'd brought his treasured books and scrolls to the planet with his students, the planet Rey only remembered in flashes, and he'd set the apprentices to reading about their own history. The Jedi books were a mishmash of science and history, mysticism and philosophy of war. His most beloved student had read them all diligently.

Inside her mind now, Kylo read off for her the core principles of Jedi society. Between her legs, he did something with his tongue she was positive he felt even more deeply than she did by the way his thoughts stuttered around principle eight.

"Swear to me your uncle didn't teach you lessons this way."

"I would have paid better attention."

If he intended to kill her, tipping her delicately between dull lecture and delicious sensation was one of the nicer ways she could think of to go.

Principle nine was as boring as principle eight. "We could go over the twelve approved meditation stances." He envisioned a series of drawings from an old tome, muscles and tendons lovingly rendered on unclad, nimble forms. "This book was very popular among the older Padawans."

His mouth and fingers pushed her up against her edge, swirling against aching nerves which he discovered one by one then explored with a single-minded intensity. "The first stance," he thought, in a droll monotone even in his own head, "is the Spear. Straight form standing, hands at the sides, feeling the Force flowing into you from the ground up through your body."

She lay back on the bunk, and allowed the Force to flow in through her, from the tips of her fingers to the curl of her toes against his back. The lesson droned away, filling her with dead teachings from dead Jedi Masters. This is the stance of the Reed, bending in a typhoon. This is the Bow, stretching muscles taut and back. Love and attachment were discouraged among the old Jedi, but in his mind she brushed the well-thumbed edge of an old page displaying the mutual meditation stance of the Joined Branches. Physical passion had no such taboo.

His lips hummed a song against her.

Life force filled her, grew, and exploded as Rey tumbled over into bliss. Rey pushed the energy into the engines, and she shouted as he went on, not stopping for breath, driving her to another peak, then a third, shoving the power they created between them further into the overworked turbine.

Show-off.

"We're going to ruin the engines if we keep spiking the capacitors this way," she said, pushing his face away. Breathing was hard. Thinking was harder when both heads were swimming and she no longer knew who had what thought. In ten seconds, or whenever his knees worked, Kylo would join her on the bunk and finish himself inside her or against her belly, and he wasn't sure which he wanted more.

He hoisted his body up with his arms and crawled over her until their faces were together and he was hard against her leg. In his mind, she saw the names of more ancient meditation stances and with them the static images of graceful bodies bending longingly towards each other forever across the pages.

"Let's ruin the engines."


The Falcon hid within the radar-scrambling field of asteroids Chewie had located. High enough iron content, low enough power on their systems, and Leia could watch, breath held, as the First Order patrol passed close enough for her to see them, distant pricks of floating malevolence traveling in a slow arc against the starry background.

Her son could be on one of the pursuit vessels. Finished with Luke, he could chase her now, aiming to complete his personal mission of orphaning himself. She'd never understood why he left, what Snoke must have said or done. She only guessed, and wondered, and grieved.

Like a clear path to yesterday, she remembered the first time Luke had sent the transmission that Ben had stolen Ezra's ship and run off. "He left a note. He says he'll be back in a few days."

Han's face had worn the worry she'd felt. "What happened?"

Luke's expression had turned to a mild guilt. "He asked about his grandfather."

"And you told him?" Leia had been furious with Ben and with Luke. Anakin Skywalker had died during the purge. The dark demon who'd risen in his place had nothing to do with her.

Luke had said, "I won't lie to him."

"Learn," Han had said, and they'd argued for a while, nothing painful said, nothing permanently scarred. Ben had returned to the school several days later, unharmed and more thoughtful and accepting the punishment Luke set out for him. They'd all believed it was finished.

He'd run away again a little over a year later. They lost him from the ifs.

If he hadn't left before, they'd have been more worried from the outset.

If Han hadn't said, "What did you tell him this time?" If Leia hadn't guessed the answer before Luke could say and shouted at him, half from anger, half from fear that her son had run off mistakenly believing Luke was his biological father. If Luke hadn't snapped, annoyed with them both, that he hadn't needed to say anything because Ben had read everything in Han's mind, and Luke had told Han about a million times that he needed to learn to shield.

If they hadn't quarreled about whose fault this was, if they'd begun the search immediately instead of waiting several days to let Ben cool off and let one another cool off, if if if. If one decision had been different, perhaps everything would have changed. They could have found Ben. They could have brought him home. They could have saved him from his own dark impulses, and saved those poor kids at the school, and saved each other from falling apart from the guilt and the resentment at the choices they'd all made.

If.

If wishes were raindrops, the desert would be an ocean. Luke always used to quote his uncle's favorite proverb before getting back to whatever task he didn't want to do.

Leia watched the ships pass by, and she listened in vain for the echo of her child's bitter thoughts.

She knew the patrol couldn't hear her across the vacuum. She whispered anyway. "They always travel in two sets. The first patrol will be followed by another. We lost a lot of good pilots before we learned that."

Chewie said they'd had their own run-ins with the Order. Sometimes they traveled in threes.

"Then we'll wait."

She'd been trying not to ask. She'd been desperate not to think, to feel. But she sat in this old ship, and she was alone with her memories and with the last person alive in the whole galaxy who understood.

"Where have you two been these last couple of years?" She read the hurt look on his face, and added, "That wasn't an accusation. I missed you. I missed both of you. I'd like to know what you've been doing." Chewie waited patiently. "Fine. I want to know how he was towards the end. You said you'd watch out for him for me, and you did. Someone had to. Thank you." He nodded. "Tell me. Tell me about where you've been, what you've seen. We're here for a while."

And Chewbacca would never tell another soul if he saw her cry.


"Were you going to tell me you have a crush on me?"

Poe froze. Finn hit him with what he hoped was a friendly rather than a creepy stare. Poe said, "You might be reading this situation wrong."

"I'm not."

He wasn't great with interpersonal stuff. He would be the first to admit that. The caretakers in the First Order's crèches kept a cool distance between themselves and their charges. He'd grown up with only the faintest memories of what it was to be hugged or held. He'd been taught emotion was a weakness, and desire was something to be quenched hygienically. He'd never had a date, and he'd been punished for spending time with his few friends. Yet for some reason he didn't understand, all that had done was make him more eager to learn, eager to meet people, eager to connect and discover for himself what he was missing.

In a lot of ways, he knew himself to be like a young child, which was an unfortunate thought to have when his pants were on the floor and his shirt was somewhere over thataway.

"You like me."

"Of course I like you. We're friends."

"Naked friends."

"Right." A warm, red flush had bloomed over Poe's whole body.

"I don't get it. Why are you embarrassed? I'm supposed to be the one who doesn't do feelings."

"Finn, I don't think you could stop doing feelings if someone held a lightsaber to your groin."

He winced. "I never was good at the emotionless, soulless killer part."

"Worst Stormtrooper ever."

"Yeah. But you're not. You like people." Finn hadn't spent much time with the Resistance, and even then he'd had his friendly babysitter keeping an eye on him, but he'd seen the smiles and the greetings. If Poe hadn't at least kissed half the people he talked to, Finn would eat his old helmet.

"Sure. People are great. I have a lot of fun, and I try to make sure whoever I'm with does, too."

Finn couldn't deal with his own confusion about this. Poe sounded like Phasma's pet project come to life, but he knew that wasn't true. "So what's so hard about admitting how you actually feel? It can't be all sex, can it?"

His face went through a few expressions, passing through an easy blowoff, and back to his regular self, the half-smile Poe wore when he didn't think anyone was watching him. "Your old pals were right on one thing. Emotions lead to trouble. Sure, I can share my bunk with someone cute, and we'll both have a good time, but if I have to lead that pilot into a mission the next day, I can't be worried if they're going to get killed. I have to focus on the mission. I'd be useless to the cause if I spent my time thinking about how to keep someone special safe."

Mission. Cause. "You're right. That's no different from what I grew up hearing." He slid off the bunk. They hadn't gotten far before his question, and his pants were right there.

"You asked me to show you. I didn't ask you." That stung, a little. Not because the words were angry, or even because they were true, but because Finn hated being led around.

"You didn't ask me because you're scared."

"You have a girlfriend. Which you've mentioned several dozen times."

"She's not my girlfriend. She's just..."

"You love her."

Finn made to push away the question, but he'd never been able to hide his emotions. Worst. Worst ever. He should receive a plaque of some sort. Other Stormtroopers would learn his designation in their history lessons: don't be this guy. "Yeah."

Poe's face moved again. Finn was terrible at reading expressions. Too many masks. "Then be happy you have a girlfriend and that you're in love with someone who likes you back."

"Is there some rule that says you can only feel things for one person? I mean, we weren't supposed to like anyone, but that was stupid, too. Does everyone else just pair off in twos like in the holovids?"

"A lot of people do. Humans do most of the time, unless you're on Corellia. Not everyone."

Finn sat on the bunk again. He had his pants, but hadn't put them back on again. He was circling around concepts because he didn't have the words for it all. He'd hoped his new friends would help him out, but Rey was elsewhere and Poe was evasive. As usual, if Finn wanted to know something, he'd have to find out on his own.

"So I have a girlfriend." He couldn't help it. He grinned. He had a girlfriend! "I'm crazy about her, and I think she's amazing, and she has all these skills I never even dreamed of, and she likes me even though I was the worst Stormtrooper ever and I can't do anything she does."

"Right," said Poe, voice tight.

"And I've got an amazing friend who has all these skills I've never dreamed of, and he likes me even though, you know, worst."

"Worst ever," Poe agreed, and something in his face warmed again, like the sun peering over the horizon seeing if it was safe to come up in the morning.

"So if I say you're both important to me, then what is the problem? Because I don't see a problem, and no one will tell me why there is one." Finn watched him this time, waiting him out.

"Emotions make things complicated. Something quick and easy," he stroked Finn's arm, "and there's no hard feelings later. What if you change your mind? What if Rey gets back and says you have to choose?"

"We'll talk. We'll all talk. People talk, right?" He wasn't sure about this, especially having observed Poe not talk about things, and General Organa refuse to talk about anything, and Rey being afraid to say something that would wind up getting her hurt. "Do any of you talk? I'm not the only one?"

Poe's hand found his face. "You talk enough for all of us." He leaned in for a kiss. "Can we stick with, yes, I think you're cute and I'd like to get to know you better? I think you're different from anyone I've ever met, and I can't decide if you're another naive little fluffken pecking at my toes, or something completely new. And I do like you."

"Good." Finn pressed his mouth against Poe's lips, enjoying this. He dropped his pants, and he hoped he'd be able to find them again later.

"You really want to learn how to make this work?"

"More than anything."

"You start with touching." Finn expected a hand at his groin but instead there were gentle fingers on his arms, and slipping behind him to knead at the sore muscles on his shoulders. Poe pushed him to lie back on the bunk, and he draped his body over Finn's like a blanket. The warm pressure sent shivers through his body, and he hissed as he felt the length of Poe's prick line up with his. "You do it, too. Remember, every inch of skin feels good."

Finn let his fingers wander over Poe's arms and down his sides, amused when he jumped at the tickle. He reached down and stroked his hips.

"Like that?"

"Like that."

They kissed again, and that felt good, matched with the tender stroke of his friend's fingers against his throat before Poe broke the kiss to place tender marks against the skin on Finn's neck. He inched his mouth up and kissed his ear. "Every inch."

The other night eased forward in his memory. He'd held her, side by side on the bunk they almost fell out of, and he remembered holding her hand, clutching to her fingers as she taught him the shape and feel of her mouth, as he felt her chest pressed against him under their constrictive clothes.

Nothing was between him and Poe here. On instinct, he took Poe's hand and kissed the palm. Poe's eyes shut and he wriggled.

This caused an immediate problem.

"No," Finn moaned, feeling his body betray himself again, the sizzle up his spine muted by his horror. He threw his head back on the pillow and groaned in frustration.

"It's okay." Poe's hand found him then, and that felt so good. Poe kissed him through the rest of his stupid orgasm, stroking with a knowing pressure. Finn twitched again and again, and lay still. Before he could apologize, or fall through the floor of the ship, Poe knelt down and, with tender laps against the sensitive head of his prick and the skin of his belly, he cleaned up the sticky mess as Finn absorbed the new sensations.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It's not a problem. It's why we're doing this." This time his kiss was salty, and thick with a taste Finn had only let himself try once, shamefully and alone.

"You're not done."

"I'm fine. Next lesson. If you manage to get your partner there first, you don't always have to go for it yourself."

That seemed counterproductive. Poe joined him on the pillow. His face had returned to that half-smile Finn liked. He reached out, returning to his previous explorations, sleepier now. His friend's skin was warm under his hand as he traced patterns over the expanse of bare, smooth flesh covering torso and hipbone. Small scars stood out in the low light of the cabin, pale pockmarks from old injuries. Finn counted each one with the tip of a curious finger, tracing the constellations of his friend's life.

He wanted to explain that he wasn't as innocent and foolish as Poe thought. He'd seen his comrades at arms naked in the shared sonic showers, and he'd watched the racier holovids and flimsies that got passed around like contraband in the barracks. He knew his own body well enough, and like everyone who'd ever shared sleeping quarters, he'd learned how to finish himself without making any sound. But it was all remote need and unaimed desire, at best fantasizing to the memory of a grainy holographic face thrown back in acted ecstacy.

This was different. This was personal and intimate, feeling the warmth radiating from another nude body, sensing the pull towards another soul. He'd felt an instant rapport with this man, and yes, had fallen in love with Rey the instant he'd met her even though she'd spent their first moments together ready to pound him into the sand with her staff. Emotions added a heady dimension to everything he thought he'd known, sending Finn spinning off in new directions.

He kissed Poe again.

"We have two days. No reason not to enjoy them."


Exhaustion had claimed her at last. He'd napped several times between their lessons and their more interesting exertions, but Rey had remained half-awake the entire time they'd been on the ship. She didn't trust him. Understandable. She'd kept an eye out on watch across the hours, some part of her always ready to fight and defend if he turned on her. This was the start of their third day together. He doubted she'd left behind her convictions that this was temporary, that he was dangerous. She was simply too tired to stay awake any longer.

For the moment, he relished the rarest of all moments, the first time in years he could remember existing alone inside his own mind. Other voices had always beckoned, or scolded, or lurked as a deep presence and constant reminder of his Master's hold on him. Even here in the depths between the stars he could feel Snoke's long mental fingers probing for him, while Kylo hid within himself and allowed the search to pass him by. These last few days, there'd been no room between the two of them for anyone else to edge inside their thoughts.

Beside him, Rey made breathless little sleep noises as her eyes moved under her lids.

She was lovely as she slept. He felt slow and stupid for taking this long to notice that her face and her smile and her desert-lean frame were attractive in themselves. The aura of her power had numbed him to anything else. His desire for her gifts and his recoil at the Light emanating from her both muted his notice of her physical features. He saw her now. Rey was a beautiful thing.

Kylo broke beautiful things.

In many ways, he was a terrible fit for the First Order. They sought to impose order on a disorganized galaxy, while he found the source of his power in chaos and anger and the erotic noises of breaking metal and glass and bone. He bowed his head when he needed to, and he gave lip service to order, and had none even inside himself, destroying lovely creations for the sake of watching them burn.

Curiously, having been given multiple direct orders to destroy Rey, all he wanted was to bend her into the perfect shape of the Order's ideals. A different destruction, perhaps.

She knew - she had to know, she couldn't help but read his thoughts - that he trained her now to forge her into his own weapon. She must see he had no interest in changing his own well-trodden path, that given the need he would turn her or strike her down. That he should end her now, while she lay sleeping, warm and bare under the shared blanket. Dreaming.

Kylo dipped into her dream.

The images he saw fractured into each other, jumping and merging. He saw her water planet, overlaid with the knowledge of its truth. Luke was there, and in her dream, he was tall and wise and powerful and handsome. Kylo hadn't known about her crush until this moment. Luke shattered into a thousand pieces, and the traitorous Stormtrooper stood there, FN-2187, bare-faced and angry and hurt.

"What are you doing?" FN-2187 asked Rey, but in her dream she could only keep wandering the huge coastline of the island, searching. "I love you."

"I'm sorry," she said, and repeated the words again and again while she searched for a sword. "I'm sorry. I love you. I'm sorry." She tried to kiss him, but FN-2187 turned away from her.

He shook himself free of Rey's dream, uncomfortable in the thick, clinging cobwebs of her sleeping thoughts. She dreamed about the Stormtrooper and in her dream, she loathed herself for what she'd done with her new lover. He felt the hatred rolling off her.

It seemed he'd already begun cracking her into pieces.

He could damage her further. His own arousal stirred the blanket. It would be the simplest thing to wrap his body around hers, slide himself deep into her, and wake her from her dream of her Stormtrooper to the reality of her pleasure. She would writhe beneath him, unable to keep back her own passion even as she ached for another, and she'd come with her soul torn.

As though she heard his thought, and there was a strong chance she did, Rey let out a soft sob, a sound she'd never admit to making when awake. She rolled, seeking out the other source of heat in the bunk, curling against him in her sleep, and sinking deeper into sleep past the level of unpleasant dreams and into pure unconsciousness. The sad line on her face smoothed out.

It had grown colder in the ship. This was the reason he gave himself for wrapping his arms closer around his enemy, and letting her sleep.


Axxila was all city. Finn's earliest memories were of the First Order crèche, hidden underground in land-based facilities that changed from time to time. They'd never been told why the children all had to line up, sometimes in the midst of a lesson, sometimes in the middle of the night, file quietly into an antiseptic transport, and be moved to another subterranean facility. Classrooms and sleeping units dispersed each time during the moves. Friends from one location never followed to the same assigned rooms in the next. Everything was cast in that peculiar artificial light that never felt like sunshine.

He'd grown up inside, taken out when he was older for extensive training ops, bunking under the sky to teach him on-site strategy and to remove the ingrained agoraphobia.

Finn had never seen a city.

Spires towered around them, scraping the sky with metal fingers. Ships flew between them, skipping from one tall peak to the next with their cargo and passengers. Around him here on the ground, a huge mass of life surged and moved, bent on their own tasks. Ground transports whizzed by.

"Great, huh?" Poe said. "I visited Coruscant a couple of times when I was a kid. It's not so different."

"How does everyone know where to go?" Where he came from, you followed your orders and you marched where you were told. He knew other people outside the Order didn't do that, but he couldn't imagine how they didn't all crash into one another.

"You keep your eyes open, and you go where you need to be." Poe grabbed his hand and they hopped an open transport, stepping onto a sliding pavement that whipped them along with hundreds of other life forms. The cold, rushing air slapped him in the face.

"How do we even find the spaceport where she's docking?"

"We ask." Poe hopped over onto another row of speeding pavement. Finn followed him, tripping, then put upright by his friend's steady hand. Poe tapped in the name of the spaceport Rey had transmitted an hour ago, right after they'd docked their own ship. "Four kilometers in this direction, then twenty storeys up. We're in luck."

Finn watched everything as they sped along. He saw a Halosian casually reading a newsprint, the film rustling in the breeze. Two small Twi'leks played with each other as their mother checked the time, and nudged them towards an outer pavement. Beings of every shape and size waited for their stops, most in business attire or what Finn was starting to think was the current fashion.

He let his mind open a little. He wasn't sure about this. Force-sensitive, Luke had said, but Luke hadn't said anything else and all his focus had been on training Rey. Finn had thought being a Jedi was like being left-handed: either you were or you weren't. Maybe it wasn't that simple. Maybe it was like being able to play the vibronium. There were naturals, born to make music, and there were people with enough talent that they could learn to be okay given a lot of practice.

He tuned up his mental vibronium, and he listened. "They're scared."

"Who?"

"Everyone." The people around him, except the two little Twi'leks being shuffled to their exit by their mom, all had a line of anxiety flowing through them. Words floated unspoken, so loud even he could hear them: Republic, First Order, invasion, destruction.

"No one knows what's coming next," said Poe. "They're going to be concerned."

Stormtroopers. "I think the Order has been here. Some of them are really worried."

"Well, we're not staying. Our ship needs repairs and fuel, which we can't pay for. We'll hop Rey's ship, and we'll get off world as soon as we can." He placed a comforting hand on Finn's shoulder. "It will be fine."

Finn tried to believe him. He was eager to see Rey again, and find out for himself that she was okay. Things made sense when she was nearby. They could come up with a plan, and they could rejoin the fleet.

"This is our stop."

He stumbled getting off the sliding pavement, but again, Poe helped, keeping a steady hand on his elbow as they walked. The spaceport was twenty floors up from here. Just as they were about to grab an open elevating lift, another popped open.

"Rey!" Finn slipped out from under Poe's hand to dash over to her. She had already ducked out of the slim gap to hurry towards him.

The door slid the rest of the way open. Kylo Ren stood there. Finn's feet tried to run in opposite directions from each other. He settled for grabbing Rey's arm to run.

Poe yanked his blaster out and fired.

Ren raised his hand, pausing the shot. "You have to have noticed that never works." His hand was at his belt, reaching for his lightsaber.

"Wait!" Rey pulled from Finn's grip and stood close to the frozen beam, blocking the three of them. "Do not kill him."

"Why the hell not?" Finn demanded, but he saw she was turning to Ren. Who moved his hand away from his belt.

"This is a truce, and we are about to attract a lot of attention. Move and let it hit," she said to Ren. He spent a second not doing either, then tilted away, allowing the blast to strike harmlessly behind him into the empty lift car.

Poe had his blaster aimed. "Rey, get back. There are three of us. We can take him."

"No one is taking anything. Truce. He's helping us."

"He doesn't help people!" Finn nearly shouted. Attention. There were Stormtroopers around here somewhere, and their boss was right there. With Rey. Who was telling them all not to kill each other.

Poe stayed where he was. "You know what he is, Rey."

"I don't even know what I am now," said Ren.

Only Finn saw Rey roll her eyes. "We need to get out of public. There's a lot of First Order chatter over the comms. They don't know we're here, but they're searching."

Finn gestured. "Do you think?"

"We'll take the ship to another world," said Ren. "Come on." He'd already dismissed Finn and Poe. He wasn't wearing his normal I-am-the-darkness cape and outfit, but instead was dressed in ill-fitted clothes. Nevertheless, Finn knew he was swishing his cape in his head as he turned.

"No," Rey said. "I told you, the engine is shot. We barely landed. The capacitors are blown, and it'll take a two week overhaul to fix. We need a different ship."

"We've got a ship," said Finn. "She needs some small repairs, and she's out of fuel. Do you have any credits?" He took her hand. None of the rest of this made sense, but he felt better touching her.

"No more than I had back on Yavin." He felt her touch his mind, a quick flash he wasn't expecting, like a kiss on the mental cheek.

"We'll figure it out," Poe said. "Rey, let's go."

She looked at Ren. "We can fuel and repair their ship easier than we can ours. All we have to do is convince the dockyard to fix and refuel for us."

"Easily done. Where is the ship?"

"He's not coming." Finn squeezed her hand. "There's no way."

She pulled her hand away. "Finn, at this moment, I am either going with all three of you, or I am going by myself. We need his help, and he needs ours."

Poe said, "If we kill him, that helps us a lot."

Rey let out a sad smile. "If you kill him, you'll kill us both. We are connected. I don't like it, but there's not much I can do about it now. Once we're done with this mission, I can research ways to break the link, and if you want to shoot Kylo then, that's fine with me."

We. Ours. Us. Kylo?

"You and I need to talk," said Finn.

"We do, but not here. Let's get to your ship, order the repairs, and find a quiet place where we can avoid attention. Poe? Are you going to help?"

"Tell me why."

Ren said, "Supreme Leader Snoke has been culling Force-sensitives for some time. He's consuming them and taking their power for his own." Finn fought his shudder. He'd only seen Snoke as an overwhelming hologram, and the guy gave him the creeps. "He intended me to bring my uncle to him. I can only imagine he planned to consume both of us."

"Luke Skywalker is dead, thanks to you. Your boss can eat you alive for all I care."

"He'd like to, and he'd have Rey for dessert. But right now, the Order has been given another mission after the failure of my previous task. The Millennium Falcon was spotted in a nearby sector, and all ships are on the lookout with orders to capture. Lord Snoke is inviting my mother to dinner."

"What the hell does that matter to you? Upset you can't kill her first?"

Rey pushed her arms out between them, and both took a step back. "We need to find the General before the First Order does. Even cloaked, he'll be able to find her. I can't."

Poe lowered his arm. "Fine. We'll get the ship ready. We'll find her."


tbc

Reviews welcome, anon reviews from those too embarrassed to admit to reading this also welcome