Ch. 12: Madness

"Sir. I think you might be experiencing a nervous breakdown."

Ben doesn't look at him. That sounds about right. He feels reality sort of shimmering around him, like a holo you can only see from certain angles if you squint right. He suspects, but isn't sure, that Hux has been speaking to him for ten minutes. Ben didn't say a word the whole journey back from Arkanis, and he doesn't remember how he ended up here.

They're in Hux's office, a bad choice on Ben's part since with Hux behind a desk he feels like he's been called in to the headmaster's office for breaking school property. You had that datapad for less than fifteen hours, what the hell do you mean you need a new one? But here they are: General Armitage Hux, destroyer of worlds, the improbably young genius in command of the galaxy—and Ben. Ben Solo. Him, the hapless idiot with no skills and no allies and no kriffing clue what he's doing. Ben Solo, who killed his master and choked Hux on a whim and took control of the galaxy as an afterthought. He's sitting here, now. With Armitage Hux. In this office. Here they are. He picks at the threads holding the fabric to the arms of the chair just to make sure he's here, and not wherever Rey is, and not inside that tower on Arkanis, and not in a bar, and not on that endless bridge on Starkiller, and not in the throne room kneeling to his Master.

"May I suggest a trip to medbay?"

"I thought you weren't concerned about me."

It's more of a habit, the prodding. He's not really listening.

"I'm concerned about the prospect of a madman using my mind as a playground."

"It's a unique experience."

Hux raises an eyebrow, like he sees Ben's indifferent admission as some kind of victory. "Ah. Finally starting to resent your late master, are you?"

Ben says nothing, just gazes out at the ships loitering in the Voratrix's airspace. They seem almost bored, the ships, like they're waiting for something terrible to happen.

"Sir." Hux wears an expression Kylo hasn't seen on him before. Awkwardness. It suits him in a way that suggests he used to wear it a lot before he disciplined himself out of it. "Perhaps if you confided in someone."

Ben feels surprise tickle the edges of his awareness but it doesn't really break through. "Are you offering to be my counsellor?"

"Absolutely not. I envisioned a droid, or I could have a companion sent to your quarters. In my professional opinion, a drink and a shag would do you wonders."

Ben opens his mouth to say something cutting, but Hux interrupts as though he's left the most important information out and only just remembered it. "Male, female, something else, sir, the contractors' decks are crawling with options."

Even Ben isn't so sheltered from life aboard his vessels that he hasn't heard stories about what the contractors bring aboard. Hux mirrors his disgust, but for different reasons.

"Right. I suppose you're celibate," he says, pronouncing the word like a curse. With resignation, as though it physically pains him, Hux reaches down to what Ben assumes is a locked drawer. Idly, Ben wonders if he's going for his blaster.

Hux is wondering the same thing.

Ben observes his thoughts in real time: Hux is a good shot, he might have a chance before the half-mad Ren manages to stop him.

But, no. The general pulls out a bottle of some brownish liquor and two glasses that wink mournfully in the starlight as Hux sets them on his desk. "Rejoin the world of the living, sir," he says as he begins to pour. "If you were ever part of it."

Ben says nothing. He rests under the tumble of Hux's thoughts: the situation isn't stable enough yet for Hux to hold the galaxy himself. This Kuat business disturbs him, and Mitaka's missives from FOSB hint at other enemies in the mist. Ren's careless and it will be easy enough to dispose of him when the time is right.

Besides, if Ren does what Hux expects him to do and slips into a depressive episode that keeps him sequestered in his quarters for days, weeks—well, that's no hardship for Hux. It's the threat of Ren he needs. The farther away he can keep the man-child himself, the better.

All this sloshes through Hux's mind as he pours two generous shots into both glasses, stands, and clinks one down in front of the Supreme Leader before sitting. He abandons the large chair behind the desk, lowering himself instead into one of the chairs for guests. The leather squeaks indecently as he drops stiffly into the seat, and Ben feels him conceal a grimace when the side of the chair scrapes the huge welt on his hip. Hux unbuttons the first few clasps of his tunic—his greatcoat hangs on the hook by the door, while Ben threw his soaking wet one carelessly over the back of the chair—and Ben notices a patch of yellowish-purple skin below his collarbone, the corona of another bruise.

Ben watches Hux swirl the liquor appreciatively. Hux seems to enjoy this, musing on his plans to assassinate the Supreme Leader to his face. It appeals to the exhibitionist in him, it ups the challenge. But he does wonder why the Supreme Leader hasn't killed him yet.

It troubles Hux. It troubles Ben, too.

Delicately, Ben reaches out with the Force. He wants to remind himself that he's not helpless and it soothes him to wrap his power around Hux's neck, softly, like one of the fine synthsilk scarves Hux treats himself to on the rare occasions he goes planetside in civilian dress. He likes fine things, Armitage Hux. Of course he does; there was no silk at the Academy, no silk for the bastard son of a refugee hiding out in the Unknown Regions. Even in Admiral Sloane's quarters the furniture was dented and hand-me-down, the liquor was black-market swill, whatever the supply runners could get.

Hux swallows as he feels the Supreme Leader's power ghosting down his windpipe to settle around his beating heart.

Could he use the Force to rip out a living heart? Probably not. It would be a glorious thing. If it could be done, someone would've done it already.

"Your father was a madman, wasn't he, Hux?"

"I believe I just refused the invitation to be your counsellor, sir."

"But he was."

Ben considers him, and he considers his drink. The fear in Hux is delicious, and so is the defiance as the general lifts his glass and tries to take a casual sip while Ben presses the fist of his power around his beating heart. Ben's raw lip burns as he, too, takes a sip, tasting the fear more than the whisky. Then he lets Hux go.

Hux frowns. "Whatever curiosities you have about my neuroses, Ren, you can satisfy them easily enough without my input."

Ben decides to ignore Hux's use of his name. Ben likes this, this game between them. They both do. And it doesn't matter what anyone calls him at this point since all his names are imaginary. "I can. But you want someone to ask you about it. That's why you enjoy having someone inside your mind, so you can feel understood."

"Sir. We need to address the Apolin situation—"

"If you ever say that name again I will rip out your intestines, tie them around your neck, and have you hanged from the command bridge railing."

Ben catches Hux's subtle eyebrow raise and mental reply: Gold star for imagery, sir.

"Get out."

"This is my office, Supreme Leader, and that's my quite-literally-irreplaceable Hosnian whisky you just wasted."

Ben thumps the glass down and wipes his stubbled chin, relishing the sting as the alcohol trickles into the cut Hux punched into his lip that morning. Of course Hux would've invested in Hosnian whisky before he blew the place up. The Order probably controls the whole galactic supply. Ben's stomach protests the alcohol.

"When was the last time you ate, sir?"

"You're not my mother," Ben says, and immediately regrets the phrasing. It makes him sound even more like a schoolboy and it jerks his attention back to his mother's ghostly shadow as it hovers over Rey.

"Thank the gods for that, sir."

Rey's still shivering; it's been almost two hours. Why the hell doesn't his mother give her a coat? Dameron gave her one. Ben feels the leather against her skin. His stench, cheap cologne and arrogance and mindless, mediocre conformity, wafts through the Force.

"Do you know how many zeroes are in eight-hundred trillion, Supreme Leader?"

"What?"

"Fourteen. Fourteen zeroes."

"You just felt the urge to share this fact."

Hux tugs at the collar of his tunic, loosening it further before leaning in toward Ben, like he wants to protect his neck but he doesn't want to give Ben the satisfaction.

"Eight hundred trillion is the approximate number of lives affected by your decisions, Ren. Not that I care for them personally or expect you to. But eight hundred trillion living, breathing, shitting lives create a steaming pile of bureaucratic problems that require your oversight. If you were expecting long holidays to brood on cliffsides in the rain, you've chosen the wrong career, and I and the galaxy would be better off if you would disappear before your negligence drops us all into a civil war."

Ben can't be bothered to choke him again for his tone or for using his name; he's learned his lesson, and he's giving useful advice. "There won't be a civil war. I took care of Apolin."

"Be that as it may, sir, Onara and gods-know-who-else sense a power vacuum. If the Drive Yards are not secure, we are not secure, especially when we send the Supremacy there to dry-dock."

Rey's finally left his mother. Good. He sips his whisky and regrets it when his stomach gurgles in an undignified way.

"How many zeroes are in forty billion?" Ben asks.

Hux leans back, templing his hands.

"You talked to—the Senator from Kuat—before you dispatched him," Hux observes.

"Why would you think so?"

"Because, Ren, he's a sanctimonious prat who can't wipe his arse without consulting the original Charter and you, for all your faults, are Vader's blood and like him you're too realistic to get your panties in a twist over a little geocide."

Ben refills his glass. He is Vader's blood. Snoke can't take that away from him.

"Ten," Hux says.

Ben raises an eyebrow and sets the bottle down, deliberately placing it on the exotic wood of the desk, not on the tray.

"Ten zeroes," Hux clarifies. He moves the bottle to the tray and wipes away the ring. "Tell me, if you could kill one person to save twenty thousand, would you?"

"Probably."

"Twenty thousand Hosnian systems would almost make the population of the galaxy. By sacrificing that one system, we avoided a costly war that would've lasted generations, with a death toll of ten or twenty or a thousand Starkillers. Slow, grueling deaths, years of misery, little children ripped from their mothers' loving arms, all the lovely little things that go with war, Supreme Leader. Not the instant, sanitary death we granted them. I suggest that, instead of driving yourself mad fretting over one tiny, insignificant system, you do your damnedest to ensure that we avoid that war. The galaxy will thank you for it."

Hux swirls his drink, takes an appreciative sip.

"Well, actually, they probably won't, but neither of us is doing this for the galaxy's thanks."

Ben regrets refilling his glass. He tips it toward his nose, savoring the feel of the smooth coolness on his lips, forcing himself to inhale the toxic-smelling vapors because they hurt, and he wants to hurt, because it comforts him. Rey's in the snow, and the cold hurts, too, but she feels strangely warm. He makes himself take a little of the whisky onto his tongue. It smells like Dameron's cologne, smoky, vaguely industrial.

How the hell does he remember that? From the interrogation?

He spits the whisky out and stands so quickly Hux jumps up too. Dameron is right there. Glass shatters; he tried to slam it down on the side table and missed. The chair hits the backs of his knees as he tries to back away. Hux is leaning toward him, saying something, but Ben doesn't hear it because he's covering his mouth against the sickening sensation of lips against his.

"Sir?"

And then it's over, and Rey's adrenaline has suddenly risen to meet his. Something's happening on her end, something that interrupted them.

Whatever Hux sees in his eyes cows him.

"It's nothing," he says, even though Hux, in the last shriveled tatters of his Force sensitivity, can certainly feel the wall of his fury. "I'm leaving."

Hux frowns at the shattered glass. He doesn't believe Ben, that it's nothing, but he knows he's not going to get any more information about what happened with Rax and he's not going to get Ben to voluntarily submit to a psychiatric medbay visit. He's annoyed that the Supreme Leader managed to distract him with an ethics discussion. Ben picks up his coat and is half-way out the door when he hears Hux's reply.

"Very well. Shower and shave, will you? You smell like old seawater. It's an embarrassment to the Order."


By the time he gets to his new permanent quarters he's fighting nausea, and he's grateful when he slams his fist on the panel to shut the door behind him. His few belongings have been transferred, the console informs him, and Lt. Yan Havel has officially taken up his duties as steward and is available whenever the Supreme Leader might require him. Good. Right now the Supreme Leader requires only privacy.

It should be funny, this transgalactic kissing. He, the ruler of eight-hundred trillion people, brought low by the misguided hormonal exploits of a twenty-year-old girl hundreds of light-years away. But it's not funny. He's too tired to take out his rage on anything more substantial than his sopping-wet greatcoat, which he throws at the floor, taking absolutely no satisfaction in the disappointing, moist flap as it lands. If he ever designs his own flagship-and he could, he realizes, and he will, because if he can help it he'll never board the Supremacy again-he'll insist on a door he can slam.

He's thirsty and he doesn't know where the glasses are so he goes to the small kitchen sink—as though he's ever going to cook or wash his own dishes—and drinks body-temperature water from his hands, because he doesn't need fine things and because he can't be bothered to care.

He shuts the water off and huddles over the sink for a few seconds, feeling sick, and then he collapses on the sofa to pull off his boots and his damp socks, wondering whether he can pull together enough energy to take a turn in the sonic. Hux is right; he smells like a fish-market.

No, that smell is too strong, and there's a hint of rust to it, and soiled laundry. Rey. She's-here. He always feels her, but this is new. He stands up and closes his eyes, listening, but not with his ears.

Adrenaline spikes through her as she cranes her neck upward, looking at the sky. Her feet are cold like she's walking through snow. Without even realizing it he's mirrored her posture, looking up and out the floor-to-ceiling window of his new quarters with his lips parted and his eyes half-closed.

And there she is. Rust, hot metal in the sun, rain on his skin, stained linen, the ocean, all woven together in the melody he knows so well-but transposed into a minor key. She's reaching out to the Darkness. She's reaching out to him, and before he can react she stretches out her claws and rips his power out of him.

He stumbles against the window; his hand flies to his chest, trying to keep everything inside, but he feels it slip through his fingers, leaving him hollow.

It's familiar, this hollowness. She's broken open the wound that his madness has been healing, the wound Snoke cut and re-cut and allowed to fester since before he was born. He's been so used to someone sucking away his power like a lamprey he never knew what it felt like to be whole.

No. No, but she can't possibly know how to do this. Luke didn't even teach her to meditate. His eyes flash open and he chases her in the Force but he doesn't need to look far since she's hurled his power and her power together out toward some distant object. He traces the contours of it in his senses like his fingers are reaching across the galaxy. A ship.

She's trying to stop a ship. Because she has no training and so of course she has no idea what's impossible. Still, somehow she's drawing on hispower just like he suspects Snoke would've done.

Then-he feels the ship slow, and stop. The strain of it pulls at every fiber of every muscle in his body. But he's used to the strain. That's not what drives him to his knees as she guides the ship to rest as easily as he might float a pebble across the practice yard at Luke's temple.

She's better.

She knows how to fight with a lightsaber because he does. She's not some prodigy, she's sucking every hard-won, agonizing skill he's ever learned, his decades of training, the training he gave up his whole life for, like a parasite through this bond. It's his. She stole it from him; he'd suspected before, but now he knows.

But she channeled his power and he has no idea how. And he, he, couldn't do a damn thing to stop it. He can only kneel here with relief that almost brings him to tears when she falls to her knees in snow he can't see and the power returns to him, filling him up, healing the wound and making him whole again. He presses at the curves of the bond like a doctor searching for a fracture, he listens to the subtle harmonies between them in the Force, but he can't figure out how the hell she did it.

She's better. She's doing things he never could, not with the Light, not even with the Dark. He gave up everything for this power and she's better. It's not possible.

The Force has chosen her.

The Force is his only true Master, and like every other goddamn master he ever had, the Force has betrayed him. It's chosen her now. Not him. Not him, after he gave up everything for it, after he suffered and killed for it.

He stands, because he's not going to be on his knees for a single damn second longer. The stars swing lazily past his window, and he breathes as he looks at them and he tries not to fall apart, because this was the only thing he had, this bloodline. You have no place in this story. You come from nothing, you're nothing.

But it's not his story. It's hers. The Force chose her, because of course the Force chose her. She's only been in his life for a month and already his father chose her, his mother chose her, and Luke chose her, when they all rejected him. And what does that leave him? Exactly what Snoke always said he was: nothing.

He breathes, and he watches the stars that he doesn't deserve to own, and he hates her. For ten, fifteen long minutes, he inhales and exhales his hate. It's all he can do.

Then her body sparks across the bond, all around him and electric like a Geonosian field generator that cuts him off from his power. Something twists like a vine around his lungs, suffocating him, and the thorns of it pierce his esophagus, his stomach, the muscles below. She's with Dameron again; he's got his hands on her cheeks. Ben closes his eyes and tries to shut the gates of his mind because he knows where this is going and he can't, not now. Not ever. Her second-hand arousal beats his body into submission, sending blood rushing to places where it normally only trickles.

Celibacy had never been a sacrifice, not for him—no one would want him anyway, and the Force was always more interesting. But the feelings he usually dismisses so easily refuse to leave, because they're hers. He covers his ears impotently, as though that can drown it out, but he can't keep out the humiliation, the violation, like someone is holding him down and pressing lips on his and choking him, and this is her, this is Rey, and she didn't want him.

He does the only thing he can do: he runs to the emergency medical kit inside the cabinet in the 'fresher, and rips out a syringe of sedative. He tears off the cap with his teeth and holds the needle above his neck, desperate to escape this.

And then it stops.

He stands with the needle poised above his neck for a few seconds, breathing hard, waiting for this to get worse, for those hands to creep over him. When they don't he spits the cap into his hand and sets the syringe on his sitting-room desk with a soft tap. The nausea he's been battling attacks again, and he stumbles to the 'fresher and retches over the sink. His stomach rejects the whisky, the wine, the chocolate, all his culinary cries for freedom, as if to remind him that even though his brain might try to make a run for the free air, his body knows his true Master and will always obey.

This can't go on.

But it will go on. Rax was wrong: this isn't her prison, it's his.

When his breath slows and he disciplines his body back to comfortable apathy, he focuses on the sensations that will keep him grounded. His tunic: wet. His pants: wet. His hair: dirty. A shower feels beyond his ability right now, but he scoops up the syringe of sedative just in case and stumbles into the bedroom without turning on the light. Blindly, he grabs for some of his loose black exercise clothes. He usually sleeps in his shorts and nothing else, but tonight he wants to be covered. He leaves his wet tunic on the 'fresher floor and cleans his teeth, grateful to spit out the taste of whisky. He still stinks and he looks like shit, but he doesn't care. He just wants this wreck of a day to be over.

"Lights thirty percent," he orders as he walks into the bedroom, tucking the syringe of sedative into his pocket like a protective amulet.

The bedroom is spacious, ominous; the bed is large and looks too soft, and something anomalous rests on the pillow. There, above the regulation-folded sheets, wrapped in blue foil with that familiar golden logo smiling up at him, is a single piece of chocolate.

Ben walks to the bed and stares at it, dumbfounded. He picks it up and examines it like it might conceal a bomb. It doesn't. Havel must have put it there; no one else can get into his quarters, and no one else would carry around chocolate from that little shop by the Senate complex in Republic City.

His face feels tight. Something's making the skin around his eyes feel too stiff; the vomiting, probably. He leans his head back against the wall and glances up to the display. Up. He wonders how he got to the floor. The display is blurry and his cheeks are wet. All systems normal, the display informs him.

The chocolate isn't regulation, he'll have to punish Havel for his presumption, for thinking he of all people will tolerate sentimentality. He'll have to inform Havel he sleeps on the floor because his Master required him to, because he has to keep his body strong for the Force.

Something huge seems to well up in the space between his diaphragm and his lungs, and when he fails to choke off that first dry sob he finally, finally gives up. The tears start falling as he holds that little square of blue foil in his hand like a priceless artifact, because it is. He holds it until it's melting and he can feel mucus on his upper lip. He clutches it against his temple like it's the last shred of human kindness in the galaxy, because as far as he knows, it is.

The tears fall into his hands, against his will, as the voices of the ghosts patter at his mind like rain—weak pathetic sentimental, just a child, this is what happens when you doubt your Master, I told you you were nothing without me, this is what you deserve, failure, weak weak weak—murderer, torturer, seduced to the Dark side, fallen, dangerous, creep, creature in a mask, because we loved you, monster, this is what you deserve, too late too late too late—monster.

He sobs for minutes, a quarter of an hour, trying to hide from the voices. Somewhere across the galaxy he feels his mother, and her cheeks are wet, and she's telling herself not to cry. In the Force she pulses with the Dark. She always did. It was the only thing they had in common and she hid from it.

Is he doing this because she is, or is she breaking, finally breaking, because he broke? It doesn't matter. It's over. He doesn't know what it is, but it's over. He can't get any lower than this. He's nothing.

As if to prove him wrong, the stillness descends around him like a cage. He feels her there. He feels Dameron, too.

Not now. He can't. Please not now, when he is this.

He wipes the mucus away but doesn't look at her, keeping his head in his hands. He feels her clothing against her, but it's just a thin layer, like she's in the middle of undressing. And the stink of Dameron is all around her, and he grabs onto his fury and his hate because he can't do anything but sob. He doesn't want to see whatever he'll see if he turns around, he doesn't want her to see him like this. So he hides in his hands, clasping that chocolate to his temple.

"Is Dameron there?" he demands. Anger flares from her in response, because of course, she doesn't know he can feel her. He keeps his head in his hands in case he turns around to see her hair undone, her lips red and swollen, in case he feels alien hands on her—his—arms.

He shouldn't reveal all the things he knows from this bond—the tactical decision is obvious. But goddamn it, he'd been huddling on the floor ready to sedate himself because of what this bond can do to him, and he needs her to understand, he needs her to stop.

"I felt what you felt," he says, spitting at the floor as he talks. "I knew it was him. He stinks in the Force."

She'd gone apoplectic when she'd seen him without a shirt: her prudishness is a weakness, one he doesn't share, whatever Hux thinks, and in his need and his fury and his desperation he throws hooks into it and pries it open. He wants her to hurt right now. For what she did to him, for taking his destiny from him.

"How do you think he'll like it when he knows I'm there, feeling his hands on you? Feeling how desperate you are? Will you like it, knowing I'm there, always with you?"

"How dare you, you—"

"You think I care? I saw enough of Dameron's sex life when I was in his head. Yours too, not that there was much to see."

He feels her shame, instant and overpowering, and he wants to keep going but he can't, because he can't look at her.

And of course she pities him, because she's so naïve, and so good, and because she saw whatever lie Snoke put into her head and she believed he was worth saving.

She has to see what he is, what he really is. He'll only hurt her. He just did. And then he'll do exactly what he always does, he'll sit on the floor and be sorry and do it all again, because he needs to be punished.

"I feel what you feel," he says, trying and failing to sound gentle. He doesn't do gentle, and he can't forget how much he hates her for what she did with his power.

With difficulty, he pushes himself to his feet, wavering, like he can't tell if the ship is rotating or if the stars outside his viewport are falling toward some unseen center of gravity, finally tired of holding themselves up in space. She's wearing what he assumes is Dameron's jacket.

"Even now, I feel you breathing, I feel your anger, your pathetic need to pity me, to save me," he says. She has to understand.

"I don't pity you," she snaps, stepping right up to his face. She's lying. "I told them everything. Everything. Everything you ever said to me."

There it is. She's stolen this from him, too, these memories with her that he keeps wrapped up tight, precious, under his skin. She'd given it all to his mother, to her doomed Resistance. It wasn't just paranoia, that first day after Crait. The Resistance really was laughing at him. He wonders if she really did mimic that please. Did they applaud? Did his mother really tell that story about hiding in the storage compartment in the Falcon?

"You could sit there and weep for the rest of your miserable life, Ben, and it wouldn't change anything. No matter what happens now, no one's trying to save you. No one cares about your pain, least of all your mother, and least of all me."

Good. He breathes out slowly. Good. He doesn't want to be saved. Too much blood has already been spilled trying to save his soul. Luke was right. Rey was wrong, when she said it wasn't too late, and now she knows.

It's too late. It's really, really too late. She needs to let him go, because this thing between them, this is war.

"So that's all this is now. You run back to her, you sit in a briefing and tell them everything I say to you. This is just another part of the war."

"That's all it ever was," she says. They're inches from one another now.

"Don't lie to me." He hates how broken he sounds when he says it. It's stupid, to hold on to this one thing after everything else he's lost. But he won't let her deny it, either, because she already denies so much. "That was real, on the island. When you came to me. That was real, I felt it."

She gives up. She knows.

"And you threw it in my face."

"I saved your life. I killed Snoke. I offered you the galaxy. I gave you everything I could give you, and you betrayed me." If they were in the same room, he would've been spitting at her face as he shouts. His voice is thick, mucus-filled. But her face doesn't change, like she has no idea of the sacrifices he made for her. He threw his Master on the fire for her and charred his soul, for her. For himself, too. But for her.

"Stop it, Ben," she says. "I'm not falling for it again. I don't care how lonely you are, how pathetic you look, how much you think you regret what you've done, because you keep doing it. It's too late. Whatever you're trying to get me to do, it's too late."

Yes. Exactly. It's too late. He doesn't regret what he's done, not at all, and he'll keep fucking doing it because every other option has been stripped away from him now. This fantasy of hers, that he's going to run back to the Resistance, that's over. Nothing else needs to be said.

Even she thinks he's pathetic.

He turns away because he can't meet her eyes. His power was a lie, the Dark side was a lie, Snoke was a lie, his destiny was a lie. He killed his father for this, to stand here sniffling in front of a scavenger, to throw up half-drunk into a sink because he tried to feed himself without his Master's permission, to sob over a piece of goddamned HosPrime chocolate. He suffered six years of agony for this. Jyun died for this. He destroyed Rax for this. He killed his father for this.

His nose is running, and when he sniffs he hates how weak it must sound to her. When she disappears, he's grateful. He's exhausted. He's losing his mind.

Numbly, he pads out to the kitchen and places the chocolate reverently in the conservator, then returns to the bedroom. He considers the huge bed. He hasn't slept in one for twenty years, since he went to Luke's. He sits down on the bedspread, black, and floats his comm into his hand.

The Force chose her. Not even she thinks he's worth saving anymore, and that, he realizes as he strokes his thumb over the fingerprint recognition and enters his security code, was the only reason he was keeping her alive. He pulls up the empty black box, watches it blink at him, waiting for his order. He knows the coordinates. He puts it down on the nightstand.

He doesn't want to draw this out. He saw it in Rey's eyes—she knows he can feel her now, soon she'll suspect that he can track her, and she'll run, and keeping her alive will be even more pointless than it is now.. Putting this off any longer is only cruel, like he's toying with her.

He gave her a way out when he offered his hand and she rejected him. She made her choice, and his mother made hers a long time ago.

He'd waited, hoped for something to change the path. But he's in control now. This thing between this is war, because she made it that way.

He picks up the comm, types in the order, the coordinates. Puts it down.

He takes a long, deep breath to steady himself, resenting the wetness on his cheeks, the ache in his throat. He picks it up, double-checks the coordinates. Sends.

Instantly the communications officer on duty responds: Request security code to confirm strike.

He enters his code, sends.

Dual authentication required. Audiovisual.

He puts down the comm and stands, walks numbly to the console below the wall display, enters the separate security code. Then he holds his comm up to his ruined face for the retinal scan and vocal analysis, speaking to the bored-looking comms officer on the screen. "This is Supreme Leader Kylo Ren. Confirm strike." He repeats the coordinates.

"Yes, Supreme Leader," says the comms officer. "Strike confirmed in-" He hits the button to send all further updates by text. There will be several hours of recon, planning, transit, all the tedious details of war that aren't supposed to burden the Supreme Leader's time.

He clinks the comm face-down along with the syringe of sedative down on the side table, kicks off the covers, and stretches out on the too-soft mattress. It shifts against him like quicksand but he doesn't recoil, he doesn't struggle.

Still, his body knows he's defying his Master, and it refuses to obey. For an hour he tosses and sweats but everything in this room smells like the ocean. He needs to sleep. He can't.

He pulls himself to the side facing the bulkhead and its huge window. The starlight glints off the clear plastene cylinder on the side table. Next to it, his comm.

He doesn't think. He grabs the comm and enters his security code, bringing up the comms officer directly. It's the same one.

"Belay order for strike on KX-04," he commands.

"Yes, Supreme Leader," the comms officer replies, as though this doesn't surprise him, as though stopping the attack won't cause a massive inconvenience to several hundred people. "Executive strike suspended."

Kylo goes through the motions of security codes and retinal scans to finalize the abandonment of the strike. He's not ready, not yet. When he's certain she's safe, he sets the comm back down on the nightstand and stabs his hand out toward the syringe. He takes a breath, and, with a wearied flick of his thumb, pops off the cap, places the micro-needle against the skin of his neck, and accepts the sharp stab of pain with relief. He drifts off with his fingers still touching cool plastene, and after almost two days of madness, the Force finally, finally lets him go, and he sleeps, and he does not dream.

Hours later he bolts upright with his lightsaber in his fist, ignited, ready to face—nothing. In the Force he scans his surroundings. Sweat-damp sheets under his thighs, the tickle of unshaved mustache, the dull and distant engines harmonizing with the crackling hum of the blade, an urgent need for the 'fresher. Lights auto-adjusted to eighty percent to simulate late-morning sun, empty plastene syringe peeking out from the disheveled sheets. His wall-display shows all readings normal, time 1037, forty-four notifications, briefing long-since over.

But power pulses through the silence. Dark power. It's so thick, so beautiful, that he can't focus on anything else, he takes huge, gulping breaths around it. Then—pain. It shocks through his thigh—skin, muscle, and bone—and then, a second later, his shoulder feels like it's been set on fire. It hurts so much he doubles over, singeing the sheets with the lightsaber.

Rey's down. Then she's up. She's a pillar of Dark energy, and her fingers struggle to grip a slick, smooth staff, and she's fighting, and she's slaughtering, and her body sings with joy.


She's alone again. She's good at staying alive on her own, sure. It's just the bleeding she minds, and Finn, unconscious and covered in blood, and the blizzard. She Force-drags Finn gently off the ancient 74-Z speeder bike she stole and pushes him against the engine to keep him warm. "It's gonna be okay, Finn," she says as she tucks him against the casing. He doesn't answer.

The blizzard's a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it helped cover Poe when he raced back toward camp. She and Finn were right behind him, but the bombs broke open the marketplace like an overripe gourd, and then the villagers surrounded them, following the orders blared from the command shuttle: surrender the enemies of the First Order and your lives and property will be spared. And then Finn got shot. And then they lost Poe's speeder trail in the snow. There were things in between, but she doesn't think about those.

On the other hand, she's freezing, and this stupid piece of junk speeder cracked a modulator and left her and Finn alone here, five kilometers from the village with no cover, night falling. The numb fingers of her left hand press her orange jacket against Finn's wound, futile. No. Not futile. They can't get back to camp but she'll find some way to help him. Her tears froze a few kilometers back. The fingers of her right hand are numb, too, but she's pretty sure it's not from the cold.

She considers her options.

If she had a lightsaber she'd cauterize the hole in Finn's side. She did that once, in the desert, when she sliced a big vein in her leg falling down the shaft of a destroyer. She could've fixed herself with a blaster if she'd had one, but a blaster would've got her twenty portions at the concession stand if she caught Plutt in a good mood, and she usually did. I protect my Rey, she brings me the good stuff. So she'd lit up a little pyroil and got a console support bar red-hot in the toxic fire and seared her leg shut. It hurt like hell and it blistered. Plutt's meddroid slapped her around for it, but he fixed her up with a bacta—special treat, that; normally Plutt let them keep their wounds for a good long time to remind them not to be stupid—and now she's got a brown line on her inner thigh and a memory for her troubles.

But she doesn't have a lightsaber. And Finn's bleeding, and she's got a hole in her shoulder. A hole. All the way through. The flexifiber jumpsuit has melted into the wound. She ignores it.

She shivers, and thinks, and refuses to give up.

Best option: take their chances with the First Order. There's no survival, not out here. The RDF base she's called home, and the Falcon, and her T-70, and the broken pieces of the lightsaber and the Jedi books, those are all swarming with TIE-fighters and anyway it's twenty kilometers away. She's better off doubling back to the village and hoping for someone to pick her up, friend or foe. When she loses consciousness—and she's not stupid, she will—Finn's done for. Besides, maybe Poe got captured. They'll have to go back to check for him, anyway. They won't leave him with the Order.

Sighing, she stands. Then she falls. Then she stands again. Takes a halting step forward through the snow.

The speeder engine's metal. It'll lose its heat fast, but it's still heat, and it'll keep Finn alive. Should she stay, wait for one of those TIE-fighters to spot her? She's got nothing to use to make a beacon. She lost her blaster in the fighting, and so did Finn.

No. They need to get close to the village. She can't take the 74-Z and she can't repair it, but she kicks at the side casing as hard as she can. The rusty panels give way almost as easily as the snow under her soft boots, revealing the glowing heart of the thing, all sleek Aratech Repulsor construction, sleek but shoddy, lowest-bidder pre-Empire government contract work. She's scavenged enough to know they came standard with blaster canons but this one's long-since been stripped. Still, that generator's hot. That's why she wants it.

She thanks the Force for shoddy government contracts as a few kicks and twists with her weak left hand pull the power generator free. No rivets here, just screws apt to break if they don't just vibrate out of the generator compartment. And break they do, letting the generator plop with a sickening sear into the blood-soaked fabric of her jacket, which she promptly stuffs against Finn's chest to keep the important parts warm, crying out as the motion pulls at the exit wound in her right shoulder. Finn might lose some fingers and toes, and she's almost certainly going to lose that arm, but they'll worry about that later. It'll be okay.

Instead of worrying about it she calls on the Force, and exhales with relief when Finn's body rises off the ground. She feels the resistance of it. The heaviness of him. There's no way she can do this for five kilometers back to the village; she can only hope they run into stormtroopers out on patrol, that they don't have orders to kill on sight, and that they don't have retinal scanners that will pick up FN-2187.

She trudges through the shin-deep snow, battling the wind and the biting snow for every step. Finn floats beside her, as close as she can get without bumping into him and hurting him. It's not very precise, but she's just grateful she can use the Force at all. Whatever she did back there, at the village, seems to have cured the block in her power she felt this morning. But she doesn't want to think about what she did. She plods on, one crunching, soaking, freezing, snow-lashed step at a time.

Blood flecks the snow behind Finn's body, but not much blood. She's not sure if that's a good sign or a bad sign. She can't see anything in the deepening darkness and the near-solid sheet of snow, but she feels the village in the Force, a beacon of nervous, careful, cautious calm as the villagers adjust to curfew and try to figure out if their new overlords are better, worse, or the same as the New Republic. But it's disconcerting, picking her way blind. She's gotten caught in plenty of sandstorms, but she'd always had proper gear, goggles, head covering. Here, she's helpless. Not helpless. She's never helpless. She's spent a lifetime making sure of that. But she's under-prepared.

Even if she does manage to fix this, what happens next? If Poe made it back to camp there's no telling if he survived the attack, and if anyone managed to jump to hyperspace they're long-gone. Rey has no idea where they would've headed. They'd be stupid to come back for her and Finn. The planet's crawling with First Order. It's not worth the risk, not even for the Jedi, if that's what she is. She just hopes Leia talks some sense into Chewie and Poe, who won't hesitate to put their lives on the line to get her and Finn. If they're alive. Can't worry about that, either. She'll find them again, she and Finn both.

Luke, she calls, remembering something the market-women had said about Force-ghosts. Luke, if you're out there, I could really use some help.

She waits for six, ten, fifteen trudging steps, but no sound greets her but the howling wind. Of course he doesn't answer.

Milk-squirting bastard, she thinks in no particular direction. Her right arm hurts, which seems odd, since she's pretty sure the nerves have been destroyed. She checks Finn's chest to make sure the wrapped-up power generator isn't burning his skin. It's not. It's not much warmer than her icy hands now. There's not much time, not for either of them.

In the silence, she can't stop herself from thinking. She tries not to do that, to think. It leads to self-pity and crying late at night, to wondering what her parents were like and why they gave her up. It only gets in the way. She likes to focus on the here and now.

That's not helping, either—everything she's come to love about these people is gone like a dream and here she is again. Alone. Surviving.

In her heart she knew it couldn't last.

She's too cold to reach out for Finn's hand. She'll keep him safe, whatever happens. And after that, if this is over, this interlude with the Resistance, she'll be sad, but with her head down, fighting the snow and the pain and the darkness step by grueling step, she feels more like herself than she has since she left Jakku. Struggling. At ease. Alone.

No, she can't think that. She'll find them. The Resistance is all she's got.

But it does feel good to remember she's not weak. These people, this comfort, this world of friends and flirting and food and politics, it makes her weak. She feels so soft around Finn, around Poe. There's lots of hugging in that world, lots of smiles and trust. She's not used to it. It makes her a little nervous, if she's honest with herself—and that makes her guilty. But she trusted her parents and look where that got her. She trusted Ben. She loves her friends in the Resistance, of course she does. But it felt good, in that village, with the Dark side coursing through her, to remember she isn't weak. It feels good now, to put everything she has into every single step and remember that underneath everything she's always been alone and she's always survived whatever comes.

The wind gets louder, the snow gets thicker. With each step her boot seems to stick a little more, like gravity's reaching out just for her. Finn's body weighs against her strength in the Force like iron, like lead, and by the time she's struggled a half-kilometer he's levitating at her hips. Another quarter-kilometer and he's at her knees, and so is the snow, and the village is still so far.

His jacket, Poe's old jacket, traces out a line in the snow as she floats him along. Every few steps she has to psychically readjust her grip just to tug him on a little further. She keeps falling down—her leg's wounded too. A blunt impact, not much blood but maybe a fracture. She hadn't noticed that when she'd been in the Dark side. Or maybe she had but it hadn't made a difference.

But it hurts now, and she's finally gotten weak enough that the structural damage to that leg overwhelms her power of denial. She gets up. She falls. She gets up. Finn's body gouges a trench in the snow. It's dark. No stormtroopers, no civilians, no help.

She falls again and she doesn't get up. Finn falls too, but gently, because she catches him with the Force and cradles him into the snow. She kneels beside him, her jumpsuit soaking wet and quickly freezing against her skin. Even her undershirt is wet, crispy with ice against the goosebumped skin of her chest.

She places her good hand, numb and stubby in her massive orange glove, over the bleeding wound in his side and she has to hold herself back from crying because it's Finn, he's the best thing that's ever happened to her, and he's going to die. She feels it. She's a survivor, she's used to being alone, but she doesn't want to be alone again. Not ever again, and she can't lose him. Light side, Dark side, she'll do what it takes to keep him alive.

But she stops the tears and rests her head on his strong chest. She is not helpless. She may be weak now but she doesn't give up. After all, she and Finn have been hopeless in the snow before and everything was okay.

She closes her eyes, takes a deep, freezing, chattering breath, and lets the Force crash through her like a river, following its own course. It leads her right where she wants to be: a light. Soft, not raging like the fire she'd tapped in the village. Flickering. About to go out.

Finn? she says.

Rey, he says, and the relief of his voice seems to fill her up with power, with hope. Rey, are you okay?

Cold as she is, she rolls her eyes. Her eyelashes have frozen; when she sniffles, her lips are covered in icy mucus. Of course Finn's worried about her when he's the one lying unconscious. Yeah, Finn, I'm fine. How are you?

To be honest, I'm scared. Cold.

It's alright. I'm here with you. It's going to be okay.

She's not good at lying. She doesn't know what she's doing at all. But she stays with him in his mind, and breathes in the Force, and tries to make it true, even if no help comes. It's going to be okay.


No sight but snow streaking horizontal lines across the night, no sound but the wind. The floodlights of the bat-winged command shuttle behind him bounce uselessly off the wall of snow, blinding him, and he presses his comm to shut them off. There's nothing but darkness and wind and Rey's pain, pulling at him like a chain, drawing him deeper into the dark.

He brought no crew. He gave no explanation when he tore onto the command bridge of the Voratrix demanding to know about current operations on KX-04, the First Order code for this nothing of a planet. I belayed that order-Of course, sir, this was a local operation authorized by system-level command; they were never even notified of your strike order. He gave no explanation for ordering an immediate end to all operations. There wasn't much of a fight, Supreme Leader, they've already secured the base and the civilian settlements around it. Of course they did. Rey must've escaped the battlefield; she's freezing, she's not wearing cuffs. He ordered Hux to relay his presence on a highly classified mission to the commander here, which he seems to have done. Hux knows he's after the Resistance, knows he's come to finish them off. He's annoyed Ben didn't share their location, and he wondered why the hell Ben wanted to go out there in person, but Ben will deal with Hux later. Later.

The lightsaber and the Force light his way. Snow sublimates off the blade with a pelting hiss, blinding him with steam and forcing him to hold the blade low. Snow lashes his bare face, snow falls into the tiny gap between his pants and his boots, running down the waterproof fabric to soak his socks. In his massive coat, designed for show and for battle, he's freezing.

He set down his shuttle about five kilometers from the smoking ruins of the village, fifteen kilometers from the less-smoking ruins of the RDF base where his people have based their operations. The snow is so thick he catches only glimpses of shuttle lights and fighter lights reflecting off the clouds, managing curfews and transferring supplies. They're under strict orders not to interfere in the unknown operation taking place here.

He feels her.

Out here there's no shelter, not even a tree or a boulder to give her cover. There's no reason for her to have chosen this spot, except that she couldn't go any further. Only the night and the blizzard saved her, covering the treacherous line of her speeder's wake, confusing the scanners that must've been looking for survivors to round up for processing. Standard procedure.

He walks for less than a minute before he hears her breathing. He smells blood. She's not afraid—no, she is afraid, but not of him. She's afraid for the traitor.

She was supposed to be alone. He's not sure if he's here to beg her forgiveness and run away to the Resistance or to stab her through the heart—he has his lightsaber and he has the package tucked safely in his coat—but he can't think if the traitor's watching. He doesn't know why he came here, but she was supposed to be alone.

But the traitor's not watching. In the Force, he's ominously calm, heartbeat sluggish, his life spreading out over the snow.

The Force vibrates softly around her, like quiet music through a wall. The movements of her power are so slight, so precise, like she's using it to guide a tiny silk thread through a needle.

Finally, the light of his saber resolves her form out of the darkness, just a suggestion of red lines, like she's been painted by the same artist who made that black-and-red silhouette of Kylo Ren. One hand, bare, splays out across the side of the traitor's body, resting in half-frozen blood and covered by snow she hasn't bothered to wipe away. He watches, not knowing what else to do, as the red-glinted snowflakes melt and slide down the skin of her wrist. The other hand, gloved, hangs useless at her side below a horrific, shiny wound in her shoulder. One of her buns has come undone and snow-slicked strands of hair stick in the blood at her shoulder.

He shouldn't be here. He should've jumped a couple of destroyers here and ordered them to open fire on the planet and exterminate every living thing on this continent. He should've ordered radiation-bombing to make sure nothing, no one, not this girl or anyone else, crawled away alive, because the Force chose her, and not him. But he didn't. And here he is.

She doesn't look at him because her eyes are closed and she's so deep in meditation that his presence makes no impression on her; she just notices and lets it go. He studies her hand, fighting the ridiculous urge to brush the snow off her bare fingers.

What the hell is she doing?

He glances up at her face and sucks in a freezing breath: she's watching him. When Kylo would meditate on the floor before the throne, sometimes his Master would sink down into depths of power that Kylo could never hope to reach, and then he would open his eyes and speak to his apprentice from that place, and in his dilated pupils Kylo would read the book of the universe.

And Rey's looking at him just like that, here in the darkness, here in the snow. Like a master. Like his Master.

It's curiosity, just curiosity, that drives him to unbutton his coat just enough to reach in with his free hand and pull out the waterproof package. There's more in the ship, but she won't come to the ship, because she knows better than to trust him.

He floats it over to her and her expression doesn't change as she reaches out to pluck the medpack from the air. He knows she won't use any of it on herself, and for him, that changes everything. Let her die for the traitor out of sheer stubbornness if she wants to, let her lay down her life for a damn stormtrooper who doesn't even have a name. That traitor is nothing, just like she is, and they deserve to die here, and why the hell did he come?

He turns to leave. He's already done too much. Even if she does use it on herself, this illusion of helping her now is only cruel, like an animal playing with its food. But the decision was made as soon as he felt her femur fracture, and he's not going to think about it, he's done this and that's the end of it. It's over.

Her voice sounds from behind him, deeper than usual, and so weak.

"I don't know how to use this," she says. She's talking about the medkit.

He stops. He doesn't turn around. "There are instructions in the pack."

The wind picks up and flings a wave of snow hissing against the lightsaber, so he can barely hear her whisper.

"Ben, I can't read."

He inhales, too hot and too cold from the steam and the snow.

"I didn't come here for him."

"I don't care. You're here now. You're going to help me save him."

"You don't give me orders."

"I just did."

Through the spike of rage-he's Vader's heir, he rules the galaxy-he can't help but admire her. She's got a fractured femur, a hole in her shoulder, she's lying half-frozen in the snow, and he, the ruler of the galaxy, who towers over her even when she's standing, has a lightsaber ready to swipe at her head. But she's not afraid. She hadn't been afraid of Snoke, either, and he'd envied her that, too. He pulls his coat tighter around him and takes another step toward the shuttle.

"Ben."

He closes his eyes. It's the same voice she used in the turbolift, when she called his name. It's so, so weak now.

"I need—" she begins. Her voice comes out mucus-thick, but she's not coughing. That's good; her lungs are clear. "Can you see what I'm doing? I'm trying something in the Force."

He keeps his eyes closed. He's trying not to scan her body through the bond to check how badly she's injured. He clenches his fists at her words.

This is a Force problem and she's asking for his expertise. She's used the Dark side twice now. Maybe he could convince her he was right. He could turn her. Maybe. Not that it matters, since the Force chose her.

It's curiosity that turns him around, curiosity that carries him back to the traitor, that drives him to kneel in the snow to study that tiny current she's spun out in the Force. She says nothing and she doesn't look at him.

He extinguishes his lightsaber and hooks it to his belt. Then he closes his eyes, blinking through frozen eyelashes, and listens in the Force as she re-weaves the net she's made around the traitor's wound. He recognizes it with a stab of fury that pushes him back to his bedroom, to the moment he collapsed with the chocolate.

She's Force-healing. Luke taught him this, and he could never do it, and then Snoke taught him, and he could never do it, but she's doing it. She's holding the traitor together with the Force like she was born to it. But she isn't. She stole this from him, from the hundreds of hours of frustrated, futile practice over a decade.

"Ben, the Dark," she says hoarsely. "Do you see? Do you see?"

He sees. With his eyes closed, he sees. His anger, his envy, his bitterness have spun out their own bright red thread. It's weaving through her net, wrapping around each fragment of it, constricting the delicate blue strands but making them strong. His power, his anger, branches out from the fine blue net and begins winding its way up the traitor's skin, his spine, the arteries whose names Snoke had required him to learn but he can't remember anymore. The blue threads chase it, intertwining with his power like the Alderaanian braids he used to weave in his mother's hair. He's not trying to do this; he's never seen or heard of anything like this, not in almost twenty years of constant training in the Light and the Dark. She's directing it, guiding his power, guiding him.

There's no surge of strength. What she's doing is infinitely precise, slow, careful but not directed by any conscious thought. She's feeling her way in the Force, listening to it.

He hates her for this, for taking the only thing that was ever really his and doing it better. But he recognizes a master at work, and he watches her with his eyes closed and awe in his heart, watches her in the Force, and he listens like she listens, and he hears what she hears, and the Force speaks to him, and he knows what he has to do.

This was the lesson he learned on his knees, polishing the floor for his Master. The Force isn't his. He only enjoys the illusion of power because he tunes his body and he tunes his mind and he submits, and the Force makes him its instrument when it wants to. He hates the Force for choosing her after he'd given it everything—but he's always submitted to masters he hates.

"Your gloves," Rey says, breathless. Ben understands, and he doesn't think about what he's doing because if he does he'll ignite his lightsaber and stab it through her heart. He pulls off one glove with his teeth, eyes still closed, and he jerks in shock as her freezing, clammy fingertips brush his.

At her touch, whatever binds them springs to life. Rey sucks in a breath, he feels it, and he feels her heart race as the full brunt of his anger and grief hits her, but she's too focused on the traitor right now to let it distract her. She's breathing hard as the red and the blue strands twine around every vein and every bone in the traitor's body, braiding him together, keeping him warm. He knows she's talking to the traitor, he feels her drawing the thinnest possible strand of his power to weave with her own and slide under the traitor's mind, supporting his failing brain like a baby's head.

He holds on to his hate, his anger, his bitterness, and he reaches into her and pulls at the strands of anger and hate and bitterness in her, coaxing them. They leap to him, almost joyous in their violence—it's him she hates, almost as much as she hates her parents. She doesn't know she hates her parents, she refuses to do anything but deny it, and that makes it even more powerful.

She understands and pulls at strands within him, too, things he doesn't have names for but shine with the Light, and they are mirrors now, and they're all mangled up together as they weave their net knot by painstaking knot. The snow begins to melt slowly on the traitor's body, then it pours off in rivulets as their power—his power—warms the blood from the inside.

Then it's time. He feels it first and he ties it off. He opens his eyes. She opens hers. She's wrapped her fingers around his and she's squeezing as hard as she can and he's never held anyone's hand before.

She doesn't let go as she tries to catch her racing breath. He doesn't want her to. He's breathing like he ran a race, like he channeled extraordinary power instead of measuring it out inchwise in the thinnest thread. Her lips are flushed, her pupils are wide and round and black, and he's sure his are, too. He can't think about anything but the warmth of his hand in hers.

He swallows and forces himself not to look away. She didn't work for this. She doesn't deserve this. He doesn't deserve to be forced to watch her take away the only thing he ever wanted. Or maybe he does. Maybe he deserves worse.

"Does that CS-07 come standard with an emergency bacta suit?"

She breathes out the question in a haze of vapor under her wide eyes. She's shivering so violently that she can barely keep her hand on his and he adjusts his grip so that her fingers are wrapped in his palm. Each shudder jerks open her shoulder wound a little more.

"What?"

She indicates the ship with her gaze.

"Ben. He's stable but not for long. You feel it. Bacta. He needs it."

"He's nothing."

He watches the words condense in the air between them: a wall. Her expression hardens but she doesn't let go of his gaze, she doesn't let go of his hand. She's so cold.

"He needs it," she says again.

"You need it."

He hadn't meant to say that, and he hadn't meant to punctuate it with a press of his bare fingers harder into her hand. He can't tell if the liquid between their palms is sweat or melted snow or both.

"Ben."

It's a command. She won't stop giving him orders.

She lets go of his hand like she's finally realized who he is, like she's finally come to her senses and remembered to hate him as much as he hates her. His fingers clutch at the freezing air, seeking her warmth. Through the bond he feels the moisture on her palm suddenly burning her like liquid nitrogen.

She gets up to start walking toward the command shuttle, but she falls. Without thinking, he catches her in the Force and lowers her gently back down to the snow. She says nothing, but can't repress a soft grunt as a particularly ferocious round of shivering forces her to tense the muscles around her shoulder wound.

He shrugs off his coat, his greatcoat, the Supreme Leader's greatcoat, and, taking the two shuffling steps to her side, he wraps it around her shoulders. He helps her slide her functioning arm through one sleeve, tucking the other beneath her useless right hand. Neither of them looks at the other. She doesn't even nod her thanks, and he's grateful. If he thinks too hard about what he's doing he'll kill her and the traitor both and jump back to hyperspace like he should've done in the first place. But he feels her shoulder muscles relax a tiny bit under the warmth, he picks up a pianissimo strain of relief in the Force as he wraps the huge coat around her as tightly as he can, raising the collar to shield her neck and her ears from the wind.

He doesn't ask if she can walk—that fall told him all he needs to know. Without speaking, without looking at her, he bends down next to her and hoists her good arm around his shoulder, holding it secure with one hand while he slides the other around her waist to guide her to her feet. Through the bond he feels the sharp stabs of pain at the sudden movements, but he's not going to carry her, and she'd kill him if he tried. Even without training she can handle physical pain as well as he can. That surprises him.

Once she's adjusted herself, pressing her coat-draped body against his for warmth, he uses the Force to raise the traitor, wrapped in his net of Dark and Light, out of the snow. She's got almost no strength left, but she reaches out with the Force and guides the traitor to her like she's planning to catch him with her useless hands if he falls. Ben sucks in a breath as he feels her stretch out effortlessly and twine her power with his. She keeps doing impossible things, this scavenger.

He feels her take a deep breath, and when she's ready, he steps out into the snow, supporting both of them and guiding her with an arm around her waist, trying not to think about how he's never been this close to another person outside of combat, trying not to think about how Hux is right and he's gone completely mad, trying not to think about anything at all but the next step and the blinding, driving snow.


Thank you all so, so much for your comments! I'm very excited to get to this part of the story-Ben and Rey both have long roads ahead, but I hope you find their interactions believable, especially Rey. Is anyone still reading? It's hard to tell!