Chapter Eleven: Acquiesce Part One
Ren's quarters were still and quiet, a comforting sort of sight for sore eyes away from everything she so wished from which to hide. From Hux, from the rest of the occupants of the ship, the stormtroopers posted on guard and meandering through the halls. Prying eyes staring through their helmets at the battered girl in a tattered shirt following meekly behind Kylo Ren; a sight ripe for speculation and gossip spread throughout the ranks. She wasn't an idiot, they'd talk about her. They already had been, how could they have not after her grand escape and her even grander arrest. The last thing she needed, was anything and everything filtering through the troops, least of all her identity in full spread amongst them. She had friends on board still, of that she was certain. But on the more troubling flip side of the coin, she was just as certain she had enemies; and the spies planted throughout the forces of the First Order would be sure to jump at the chance to give word back to the Resistance that she was alive and well and back playing for the other team, or so to speak.
"Sit."
He commanded, flat and unreadable in his tone as she followed him into his sanctuary a few steps short of being at his side.
She paused momentarily, curiosity flashing through her as she pondered for what possible purpose he would have brought her back with him. She complied without question, however. They trusted each other now, she and him. They trusted each other, and though it remained a small stumbling block for Elara to wrap her mind around, people who trusted one another didn't snub hospitality and gestures of any kind. Or so she had always been told. People who trusted each other tossed lingering skepticism aside and set themselves at ease. It was expected of them, and as such she adhered to his request and gently took her place on a small black couch offset from a familiar glass table; obviously newly placed in the stead of the one Ren had shattered so easily the last time she had privy to be in his quarters.
She watched him tentatively, as he briskly moved through the room, vanishing momentarily and returning with a small metallic packet he massaged firmly in his hands. Ren dropped and pulled a small stool towards himself to take a place opposite her. Elara flinched as he extended his hand towards her face, still a little gun shy after Hux's rough treatment, and guarding her injuries intently.
"Easy." He sighed and lowered his arm slightly, holding the packet out for her to take instead. "For your cheek...to bring down the swelling at least. It'll be cold. It should feel nice."
The tables reversed again, as they seemed so pleased to do. He was her nursemaid now, as out of character as it seemed.
Elara nodded silently and took the pack from his hand, hesitantly pressing it to her tender and still throbbing jaw. She hissed and jerked back from her own touch and Ren smirked softly.
"I'll correct myself...it should be very cold. Keep it on there if you can...it'll work quickly."
She nodded again.
"Let me see." Ren muttered, roving his eyes over her and he slowly reached towards her again to be able to assess the rest of the damage.
She watched him as he scanned his way over her, making sure that there was nothing else that needed attending too left sight unseen. She watched him, like a hawk. His deep brown eyes laced with concern he would likely rather not speak of or be let known for fear of betraying his formidable exterior. She watched him, like a hawk as a rise of disgust tainted his features as he surveyed the marks that marred her face at the hands of her captor. She watched him like a hawk. She watched him a violent, explosive, unpredictable and supposed monster of a man reduce himself to bear the gentlest, quietest touch as he grazed his thumb across her lip and pull it down to inspect it for deeper watched him reduce himself to bear the gentlest touch as he turned her head and slightly smoothed over the raw skin at her neck. It was one thing to have experienced the gentleness in his tone of voice and his demeanor towards her, even fleeting as it bad been in the forest hollow, but it the way his touch fell so unexpected and gentle against her was enough to flood her eyes with fresh tears and she sharply jerked out of his grasp to turn and hide her rush of emotion once more.
"Flesh wounds nothing more...they'll be fine in a day or two."
"Okay."
"You're quiet…" Ren concluded his examination and shifted upright on his perch.
She shrugged silently,
"You don't need to worry about Hux." He shot her an understanding look. "He's all bark and no bite."
"Yeah." Elara scoffed. "Okay."
"He is...trust me."
"I do."
"Are you sure?"
Elara swallowed, her pricks of emotion gnawing at the back of her throat. She kicked herself inwardly for being such a pathetic sap. A wimpy, weepy, soppy, sobby puppy dog that got choked up over a stupid word; a stupid concept that she'd been so hung up on forever. It'd been a hard couple of days but nevertheless she couldn't stand the way with little more than a few words Ren could seemingly break down her tough facade and strike the chord right where it needed to be played to reduce her to such a state.
"You showed up didn't you?" She muttered softly. "You stopped him...you came and got me out of there didn't you?"
"Late." Ren gruffed at his own misstep in his ill foresight.
"Late's better than never…most of the time it's never."
Elara sighed and flipped her arm upwards to drag her fingers through her hair, flicking the shredded remains of what once was her sleeve and Ren hazarded a glance at the two red scars across her upper arm. Flooded with self consciousness, sighed tugged at the material and struggled to hold if over the seared flesh as if hiding what had already been seen would matter in the slightest.
She hadn't wanted him to see. She'd never wanted anyone to see.
Judgmental eyes feasting on the well known brand of a whore house that labled her as something she had been as if it were a choice she had made on her own; as if she had had any real choice in the matter to begin with. An ugly reminder of painful memories, a scar on her psyche and a stigma against her in the mind of anyone who laid eyes upon the marks. All of it she wished she could erase of course, but so long as the brand was on her fles she would remember. So long as the brand was on her flesh everyone would know.
Ren's eyes quickly darted from the scars on noting her discomfort and her grabbed at an errant article of clothing draped over a small table at his side.
"Here." He extended it to her in the means of comfort, small smirk and a quip passing his lips to to try and make light of the blunder and ease her guard. "It's warmer than that one anyway."
"Thanks."
He nodded and flipped his gaze over his shoulder to allow her her dignity as she peeled her tattered garment away and slipped into the heavy black sweater. Ren was right, it was warmer. A rich soft layer of material that instantly wrapped her in a strange form of comfort it was enough to knock her off her feet. A rich, soft layer of material that smelled so good and so thickly of him it was all Elara could do to keep herself from taking a deep breath and losing herself.
But in a second, the reality of all of her situations came running back and she had no idea how to get her mind around it. Everytime, or so it seemed, she had made the slightest headway down the path to securing herself some sort of position that wouldn't end with her out on her ass, a boulder was dropped down smack dab in the middle of the road. And at the rate things were going, the next one was likely to be immovable no matter who was on her side.
"Ohhhh, I should have never have come here." She bemoaned herself, not fully intending to speak her thoughts out loud; not that it would have made a difference in current company anyhow.
"Why do you say that?" Ren asked wyly.
"Because it's the truth."
"Then why did you come?"
"I already told you why." Elara grumbled.
"Stop assuming I want the obvious answer to everything I ask. That's not it." Ren fired back. "Why did you come here? Why did you come back? You didn't have to. You didn't have to stay. You could have given me all your wisdom….you could have given anyone else your wisdom and walked away without a second thought...but you didn't."
"Doesn't really seem like I had much choice in the matter."
"No?"
"Prisoner and all."
"Obvious."
"Whatever."
She was frustrated, he could tell. Maybe a little at him, for a new form of interrogation, maybe at the situation, maybe even at herself. But more than that she was clutching at straws trying to protect something, yet again; even though she knew full well he would ferret out whether she liked it or not.
His eyes flashed, daring her to say a single word as he waved his hand and the doors to his quarters breezed open without so much as a sound.
"Walk away." He offered flatly. "No one would stop you. No one will go against my word if I say you're free to go and return to wherever it is you'd like You've already had the chance twice. You had a good enough lead in that fighter you could have made good on it-"
"With you on my tail?"
"Don't act like that wasn't a game." Ren sighed. "That's not the point. You had the chance then...you had the chance again on Nebrus. I offered, you declined."
"Yeah well…" Elara scoffed.
"You did." He continued. "You said it's not what you wanted...that 'it's not what…'"
She perked up at the recount of the conversation in the clearing and shook her head slowly.
"So, you tell me…'It's not what…' what?"
He leaned in and caught her in her thoughts, in her defiance, and put her back against the figurative wall; even though whatever stonewall she was trying to throw him was a shadow of what she was capable of and was crumbling by the second.
"Why did you come here?"
"It's not what…is supposed to happen…"
"Oh?" Ren arched a brow. "And you know everything that's supposed to happen?"
"No…but it's just not what's supposed to happen...it's not what I'm supposed to do…it's not what…"
"Not what?
Elara sighed and rolled her eyes, knowing just how idiotic she was about to sound.
"It's...not...what...she keeps telling me...what the dream keeps telling me…"
She hung her head low and rested forward on her knees in embarrassment, feeling altogether something like a fool and at the same time entirely missing Ren's reaction to the words that had just spilled out of her mouth.
"Dream?" He half choked.
Dead still seriousness washing over his expression as everything froze and for a change it was his turn to be thrown off his game. He eyed her intently, readying himself for any nonchalant statement she would put forth in order to dismiss whatever it had experienced; all the while his heart thrumming in his ears as he waited for confirmation of what he already knew to be true.
That their meeting was no chance circumstance.
That there was nothing about her all but placed in his lap being mere coincidence.
He waited, baited breath for her to confirm what he already knew to be true, even if he didn't want it to be. Even if he was still desperate to chase his own dream away as just that; a feat which would have been most easy to do had he not been haunted by it, or some incarnation of it, every time he managed to sleep since returning from Nebrus. A feat which would have been all too easy to do could he not sense the ever mysterious bond between them coming ever clearer and pulling ever stronger, even if Elara herself could not yet.
"What dream?"
Elara's head snapped up and she looked at him in disbelief. "Just a weird dream...I don't know."
"About?" Ren pressed her, forcing indifference in his tone.
"Weird stuff." She spat. "Why does it matter?"
"Who said it did?
"Why do you have to speak in riddles?" Elara groaned and plunged her face into her hands in frustration. "You said so...just now."
"I didn't."
"You implied."
"Then humor me."
"For fuck's sake...fine...my mother alright?! It was a weird dream with weird shit and my piece of shit mother in it at least I think anyways alright?! Okay?! Happy?!"
"No."
Elara chuckled in frustration and took a moment in silence to collect her thoughts and her words respectively before she continued on. Not that it was anything at all she so desired to talk about at that precise moment in time, if ever at all. It had been a long, hard, terrible two days and all she wanted to do was collapse in a heap somewhere and sleep for the rest of the week instead of talking about what was tantamount to a nightmare at that point as far as she was concerned; but she new Ren didn't really have an inkling of concern for what she wanted to talk about or not. Just like that he had flipped the switch from being compassionate, being a decent human being concerned for what she had just been through to being commandeering and manipulative; self service rising once again as his only motivation.
"It was a dream about my mother...I think it was her voice. If you must know." She relented and began to explain, albeit more than just a little frustratedly. "Random words, random thoughts for most of it, I don't know. All I know is my mother...or whoever she or it was, kept telling me to find away back here. That the only light I would find was 'drowning in the dark' that I would find exactly what I needed but it was the only way...and I don't know what else."
"Try."
"It's not like I'm not. I've tried to make sense of it for a long time...all I know is it was a dream, a weird one but it felt-"
"Different." He finished her sentence for her, a sudden spark of appreciation passing between the pair of them.
"Yes...like it was telling me something or trying to convince me of something...like it was…like it was…"
"Important?"
"Ha, ha." She scoffed. "Very funny."
"You've had it before?"
"Yes."
"Have you had it since?"
"Yes...or...no." She groaned and drew her hands over her face. "Maybe...I don't-I don't know...I-I don't...I can't remember. Maybe...I think...I'm not sure...and I don't even think I've slept enough here to have been able to dream...except that night."
"You slept here."
She nodded. "Sorry. I really don't know."
"It's alright…don't worry...it's nothing." Ren tried to assure her as much as he did himself. "It's just a dream."
He sighed and pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose, trying to gather himself in his own right and wrap his head around the parallels and piece together just what exactly was at work with the situation that once was mere curiosity to him and had now grown into something, it seemed, much more serious.
"I'm sorry...I'm just so tired." She flopped backwards against the couch and threw her head skyward in emphasis. "I just want to rest."
"Then so you should." He agreed curtly, pulling himself to his feet briskly and making for the door. "I'll leave you to it."
Elara's stomach knotted at the thought of being left alone and she staged an impromptu protest, timid as a door mouse.
"Wait...but…" She followed suit and pushed herself awkwardly, and a little sorely, upright along with him.
"I have matters to attend to, things to arrange." He held his hands outward in a bit to keep her from loosing her calm.
"Things to arrange?"
Plans to be made with what you've given me...and if you're staying…"
Elara softened, suddenly a little bit ashamed at the way she had bemoaned her current situation and had shown very little in the way of gratitude and little else other than frustration. It may have been a shitstorm in her mind, accurate or not, but it was the only place she had to go for the time being and she really hadn't given any inclination at all that she was thankful for being allowed to stay instead of just discarded to god knows where in the galaxy without a second thought.
"Of course I'm staying."
"Good." Ren nodded. "Then I need to arrange a room, I can't imagine you'd want to stay here forever."
"I suppose you have a point." She smirked, even though the idea wasn't entirely terrible in her mind.
"Make yourself comfortable this time...I'll be back before long. Get some rest."
"Yeah."
"You're safe here."
Ren mirrored her, and softened in his own right.
"I know."
"Good."
