AN: Thanks again for the kind reviews and all of the views! I'd like to apologize for my less frequent updates, I've been super busy lately, hopefully next week I'll be back to my regular daily updates.
I spent the night in the comfort of Kylo's arms, we didn't speak, we didn't need to. He wasn't the type that felt the need to fill silences with pointless talking and I appreciated it. I couldn't imagine him having much to say in the way of sympathy for a departed parent, knowing his story I should've mourned his loss just as much.
I'd never felt more protected than wrapped up in him, the musky scent he carried lulled me into a sense of security I was surely going to miss the moment we had to disengage.
He was right, I was selfish, nearly far too much for any of our good, but – I told myself – just a little longer, a tiny bit more and then I would stand on my own.
We had to get back to training, the guise that we planned to take the helm on the attack to Leia's base still stood. Frankly, above all else we had to decide how we were going to get away. I didn't say anything but I wanted nothing to do with ending lives to further our agenda, it wouldn't do us any good in the potential for seeking asylum.
I was nervous to bring it up, there was so much left unsaid and even though we had a few weeks there was no mention of an escape. Honestly, I was my idea and he knew nothing of it, of course it was foolish and headstrong, to imagine just escaping the order.
What happened next? I was anxious to connect the dots and have something planned, the fact that we had nothing set in stone yet gave me an uneasy feeling. I liked nothing more than having every aspect of every day planned, it gave me a sense of control I knew I truly didn't have, but pretending was something I was getting good at.
"We when run," I sighed, into his hair, planting a soft kiss where my lips lingered, "when we're out of here, I want to stay away from the war."
He shook his head beneath my lips, "as if it were so easy," he sounded forlorn, "we are the war, I can't just run away."
"So even now we will have to pick a side?" I sounded angry, which was not my intention, I didn't want to make this difficult, no more than it already was.
"I," he paused for a long while, "I need to atone for my sins."
"You have none," I argued.
"I killed many people, I can't just walk to the rebels and denounce my stance, they would never accept it," he laughed dryly.
"It's your mother Kylo, I don't believe she'd turn you away."
I couldn't imagine meeting Leia Organa and telling her with beaming smiling faces that we're swapping sides, it just wasn't feasible. They'd have our heads before we even got an audience with the woman. Perhaps, at the end of the day she wouldn't be our first target after all.
"We need to find Luke Skywalker," he conceded, "if anyone can purge me of blood on my hands it's him."
"The Jedi man?" I was curious at to how he could aid us at all, he above all else would kill us without discrimination, we were his enemy.
Plus, to our knowledge he still had the Rey woman. I knew she had no qualms when it came to ending lives, I remembered the state Kylo was in when I'd first met him. I shuddered to think that such a live wire would allow us to speak before brandishing her light saber, as she had before.
"He is my uncle, we can not live with the pull of the dark side Em, it will destroy us and any chance we have, there is far too much bad in me and even your aura is red around it's edges," he kissed me gingerly.
There was a darkness in me, I'd felt it occasionally and I could not deny it. I fought for a cause that was not my own and that alone tainted me. I killed men and women alike at the base, I all but killed the trainee boy. For all the light Snoke and my mother have – at the time – unfortunately seen in me, there was still a darkness that needed to be purged.
"My mother saw light in you," I murmured, "you are not bad Kylo, not this heart."
"Your mother," he mused, "she liked me did she not?"
I giggled, despite the pain I felt speaking about her, "aye."
I was going to continue, to tell him that she knew he was good, she knew that he would switch sides had I asked for it. I couldn't help but to wonder – even if for but a brief moment – if she was using me as Snoke was using Kylo. People seemed to have little reservation when it came to using others to further their devices.
Was I nothing more than another pawn in the game of war? Was I being used, even in her death to help a plot that I hadn't exactly agreed to, again?
"She is right," he spoke softly, "they are in fact using you, but they are not wrong in doing so."
I looked at him curiously, wondering how he'd gotten into my head without me noticing. Perhaps I was too entranced in him to deny his entry into my mind. It was even more possible though, that he was getting stronger. He was but a trainee himself at the beginning of everything. And, there would always be room for him to grow. His strength no longer scared me.
"You make me weak," he confided, "and I hate you for it, do not get me wrong, but I will fight for you, because I lo -"
The door slid open and we disengaged from our rather provocative position.
I felt a searing anger at the sight of Hux's ginger head poking through the door, I felt a flare of dark surge within me and it took everything that I had to shove it down.
Naturally he picked the absolute worst moment to show himself, I couldn't help but to wonder what Kylo had to say, if life were like the smutty stories I'd read, he was about to tell me that he loved me and sparks would fly and the world would stop spinning.
Something told me we weren't quite there yet, despite how I felt for him love seemed like an awfully serious thing. People fell in love in situations where their lives were perfect and then they lived happily ever after.
After seeing Hux I doubted our lives were anywhere near 'happily ever after' it was more than likely that he came to ruin things, it was after all something he was adept at.
He eyed us carefully, our proximity on the bed didn't speak of anything we could have been doing before, there were no signs of affection between us except for perhaps the tinge of a blush that colored my cheeks, but anger could do the same.
I wished the man knew my feelings for him, Hux was at the very bottom of the list of people I would miss should we just disappear. My mind wandered to the old man in the medical wing, there were people that would be sorely missed. But I understood that there would be no grandiose savior tactics from Kylo nor myself, there just wasn't a possibility.
People here, innocent or not would die, with or without us. It was a dour thought, I could only hope that the rebels managed to kill those who deserved it, Hux and Snoke, Phasma, there were a lot.
Innocence had been lost amongst the ranks as well, when I saw people cheering for the destruction of my mother I'd understood that at the end of the day alliance meant culpability. We were – at the moment at least – just as bad as them.
Kylo, was the worst. We would seek forgiveness, but I couldn't imagine many people accepting him with open arms. He was right to be worried, as was I. Not that it mattered, in my eyes he was redeemed, and I could only hope people took that for what it was rather than hold grudges.
"We are going over plans for the infiltration of the rebel base," Hux spoke carefully, eying us both as if there was a great crime committed from being in the same room together and not going at each others throat.
Kylo rolled his eyes, grunting, he obviously did not want to leave just as much as I did.
"You have ten minutes," Hux said, before turning in a rigid march as he often did, the door slid closed behind him leaving us both in the same comfort bubble we'd created.
"Do we have to?" I whined, I knew that acting as a part of the order was still necessary until the time came where we left, however that might happen the details were still nothing more than a homogenous blob of wishful thinking.
"We must," Kylo spoke as if I were a petulant child, rather than the woman he'd been canoodling with moments prior.
It irked me to no end, but it was part of his temperament, an air of superiority that made him seem wise beyond his thirty-some odd years.
I scooted closer to him once more, closing the gap that Hux's arrival forced between us, I wasn't finished inhaling his scent and I mourned the loss of his warmth dearly.
I knew that in the moment I was using him, he was a security blanket and I needed that desperately. Fear was all I felt when I was not near him, when I could hear his heartbeat, I knew that we were both safe, we'd be okay.
He planted a chaste kiss on the top of my head, I'd never get used to his affections. Perhaps because of the indifferent – and particularly cruel way – he treated others, or maybe because it was something I knew only belonged to me, but I reveled in it. I wanted all of him, from his anger to the anxious beat of his heart.
I couldn't help but to wonder how he felt about me, I felt the niggling sense of a woman enraptured, I needed the relevance only his words could offer.
It was petty of me to 'need' such a thing, his actions spoke leagues and he was not a man of many words, especially those that involved his feelings. I just wanted to know that he felt this helpless draw to me as well. That I was not some disposable thing that offered him comfort in the moment.
"We must go," he spoke, dragging us both off of the bed in one fell swoop, having his arms laced around my body made me wish we'd never have to leave. Damn the entire world if it meant that we could stay just like this. I'd watch the order fall down around me if it meant I got to keep him.
"Glad you could join us," Hux's smarmy voice filled the small meeting room.
I offered him a rather poignant glare from the entrance, "yes sir," I mocked.
We both took our seats at the table in the center, and watched the ginger man stalk about in all of his pomp and circumstance.
"We plan to attack the rebel base much sooner than the bitch so kindly suggested, two weeks time would give them ample opportunity to prepare, we on the contrary are far more ready, are we not?" Hux stared at Kylo.
"When do we leave?" he asked in return, I felt the anxiety swell within him.
"Tomorrow," Hux responded, as if we were daft.
The fact still stood, twenty-some odd hours were but a few grains in an hourglass. What that meant for our plans was entirely beyond me, previously our two weeks was a baffling short amount of time to construct a solid plan but a few hours, that was mere fodder.
"I am sending the two of you with a small token of soldiers to scope out the base, you will report back and we will go from there."
"Yes sir," Kylo responded, smugly causing Hux's brow to twitch.
"You are free to do your own planning, dismissed," Hux waved his hands flippantly in our direction.
We exited the room amongst Hux's idea of a 'small token' of men, there were perhaps fifteen troopers in the mix, I feared for our lives considering we'd have trained men to escape from, but I knew deep down that Kylo had a plan in order, he was always at least ten steps ahead of me.
"Come back," he whispered, stalking off in the direction of his room.
Rather than follow him immediately, I knew there was someone I had to see, even if I could not tell him everything – or anything at all really – the old man would offer me a slight bit of comfort different than that of Kylo's. I needed to see the only other true ally I had.
The medical wing was never changing, always sterile and white and filled with bodies, I couldn't imagine this many people always getting hurt, but the life of a soldier was perilous in ways I was just beginning to understand myself.
The old man was seated in a corner, his nose tucked in a book. There was a tired look that graced his features that I'd come to recognize as a busy day in the infirmary.
"Tell me you're coming back to help," he joked, offering me a smile.
"Only if you're taking my place on the field," I responded, "you can even have my light saber."
"Always the funny one, you are," he chuckled heartily, "can't imagine you came back to stare at this old face, what''s troubling you?"
How I wished I could sit down and tell him everything, instead I shrugged as if nothing were truly bothering me, despite the weight of the world being on my shoulders.
"I needed to see a friendly face after staring at Hux's sour puss," I jested, taking a seat beside him.
"I feel a turmoil in you," he smiled, "that boy," he clicked his tongue, "who would've thought?"
I felt a blush rise to my cheeks, "and how do you know?"
"The force may be weak in me child, but reading your mind is simple if you're that unguarded," he replied, putting a hand on my shoulder comfortingly.
"I never knew you were one with the force," I mused, "may I guess that your old age is what stopped you from actually being in my place?"
We laughed in unison, it was so easy to make jokes with him. My mother would've been glad I had someone on the base long before I had Kylo and herself, albeit briefly.
"Then who would kiss the boy?" he balked, "not me!"
"I came to wish you well, old man, tomorrow things will change, and I need the one good soul left in this hellhole to know that I will fight for them," I confided.
I felt a coldness reach into my mind, rather than fight it off I helped by opening myself up, allowing it to search.
"I see," he hummed, "I wish you all the luck in the universe if it means this old man will live to see brighter days."
"I make no promises, I may just run off and get married or something," I laughed, "damn the entire world if it means I get to be selfish."
"But you are noble," he conceded, "and you will do what you must, of course."
I nodded, "of course."
"Go to your man, he is growing impatient," the old man offered me an awkward one armed hug, "and may the force be with you M-0001."