A/N: Thanks for your support. You're an angel, every single one of you.


They sleep together twice more, Rey takes Sarif the next morning and again after their meagre evening meal, her passion untameable and strength ignited. She uses the desire to fuel the fire raging within, a new source she's tapped into since bedding the handsome, sweet farmer boy. She's going to use it to bring Uquine to its knees and the rest of the Colonies. Rey Snoke doesn't bury her emotions, she lets it storm inside and uses it to channel the dark, because lovemaking without love is just enthusiastic shagging and after the third time she's too jaded by the strength borne of passion that she doesn't quite care about the consequences or dangers to come.

There's consequences if her enemies find out about Sarif harbouring a fugitive.

There's danger in heading back to the Capital.

There's potential consequences for unprotected sex, something she'll have to make a trip to the med-centre about upon her trip home.

There's looming danger for the reprimand that's waiting for her back at the Supremacy should she fail to recover the negotiations.

Consequences and danger, indeed, because the will of the Force aside, Lady Rey Snoke hates uncertainty, and that's all her future holds. There's a shape of her destiny, and it's anything but solid and clear, more like a misshapen blackened nebula torn apart by solar winds and forever shifting, rising, collapsing.

And of course, like a satellite passing over the sun and casting a small and inescapable solid shadow, there's Kylo Ren. Try as she might to keep her distance, he's always just… there. She hasn't seen him in months, but she knows he's coming. It's an assumption more than a feeling, because the Force feels too quiet right now, too calm, like a still ocean beneath clear skies, right before a meteorite makes planetfall and destroys it all.

It's late now, or early, and Rey pushes Sarif into a Force-sleep, ensuring he won't wake for several more hours, before she ventures out into the night, awaiting the inbound pod with her supplies. She waits and waits, in the night, in the fields, for a sign of her pod. It doesn't come.

Then suddenly, a crack, like the sound of a vibro-whip, but distant, and another and another. She looks up and sees the angular outline of three Resurgent-class Star Destroyers in orbit, stark black against the stars and barely visible, except that she knows what to look for. Then, her pod comes streaking through the atmosphere, landing in the fields a short distance away.

"About time," she runs off towards it. She finds the tiny smouldering crater in the irrigation canal, and BB9-E, a black BB astromech droid with chrome plating comes whizzing out to greet her enthusiastically. She strips naked in the field and pulls on her tac-gear, a black, skin tight tunic with a high collar, black tights, boots, and belt, blaster, and two vibro long-knives strapped to her back. BB9-E in an unusual routine she's practised with the spherical droid, uses its mechanical arm with tools that serve as makeshift fingers to twist Rey's long tresses into a single, tight braid. She clutches her black hood in one hand as she hears the engines of a familiar shuttle approaching. She turns to see the Upsilon-class ship heading towards the house, and as it passes overhead, she bolts at top speed through the tall crops back to the farm house.

She feels him before she sees him.

She's too late by the time she arrives, leaping out of the tall grass into the farmhouse front yard, where the shuttle has parked, and she comes to a graceless stop, right in front of him. The Force of his anger nearly knocks her back, and he turns his masked visage towards the farmhouse, silently assessing, thinking, surveying, before returning his gaze back to her. He takes two steps closer, bearing down on her smaller stature and clenches his fists at his sides. The darkness emitting from him surges through her like a red-hot branding iron to her heart. After being so far away from him, for so long, the intensity of his rage is excruciating, but she's not sure exactly to whom its directed at, until he makes himself perfectly clear.

"The boy must die," he says softly to her, his tone quiet and assuring, but final. She wonders why he's speaking in undertones, and then she sees the rest of the Knights of Ren waiting in the shuttle, out of earshot.

"He saved my life," she implores.

"That's not all he did."

It takes one heartbeat for her to catch his meaning.

He knows. How, HOW can he know? She thinks back, wondering when she'd been so careless, when she'd possibly let her guard down… and all she can come up with is the unrestrained heights of her orgasm, when she'd thrown herself wide open to the Force. And had she not sensed something else out there, if only for a moment or two? Kylo… she grimaces. The magnitude of what she's done feels like she's being crushed from the inside, and she can barely breathe. This is her fault.

"I…," she begins but can't form the words. "I didn't realise that you… that I could-" She can't finish her sentence; her cheeks are burning with embarrassment and she can't meet his unfaltering stare.

"You need to let go of what you think you can do, and what you think to be possible and embrace the truth that's so plainly in front of you, that you refuse to see."

She shakes her head at him, puzzled. "What truth?"

"That your powers could be limitless. Why do you think Snoke chose us?"

She wants to wipe that all-knowing, superior expression off his face, the one hidden behind the mask but she knows is there. He's stronger and wiser and he kriffing knows it. She feels indignance simmering to the surface and she grinds out, "It's just a meaningless dalliance."

That assessment is not up to you, you don't get to make that choice, your position holds you to higher standards, love is weakness, you're too young to understand, duty comes first… some selection of those words are on the tip of his tongue, and she knows it, so she cuts him off.

"As if your precious Knights of Ren have never screwed anyone on shore leave. We're leaving. He poses no threat. He's no one," she commands and stalks towards the shuttle. The girl that slept with Sarif wasn't the Supreme Daughter, she was a refugee named Tes, and has swept in and out of Sarif's life like a leaf on the wind, and they'll never see each other again. He's just a simple farmer, like his father before him, and the next generation to come – and for that, he doesn't deserve to die.

Several of the Knights have turned to stare at Lady Rey. She knows she looks a fright, battered, and bruised, barefaced with dark circles under her eyes, but she doesn't quite give a damn and she's the Supreme Daughter, how dare they look at her with pity or curiosity. They are lower than the ground beneath her feet, and she won't let their informality slip.

"What the hell are you looking at?" she snarls with unhinged contempt, startling them into action as the shuttle doors close and the craft gives a gentle jolt as they begin the take-off sequence. As they start flying high through the atmosphere towards the Capital, she gives command to the pilots and explains that she wants them to land at the steps of the Council Chambers, a large square building in the city's dead centre, approaching from the south; before she resumes her seat at the back of the shuttle, as far as she can from her reprehensible escorts.

She closes her eyes in brief meditation, guilt-ridden for leaving Sarif without so much as a goodbye. Several minutes into their journey, she'd hoped the feeling would dissipate, but it doesn't, and she chuckles darkly to herself. Funny how she'd gone from being carefree, emotionally expressive, and unburdened; to cold and repressed the very moment Kylo Ren stepped in. She takes the guilt and buries it deep within, stuffing it into the crevasse where she hides all her weaknesses and fears. Absently, she wonders if perhaps one day the abyss will burst at the seams and all her nightmares will come pouring out. "Not today," she says to herself.

She feels Kylo Ren approaching to sit next to her, three seats between them.

"I don't think they like me much," she quips, gesturing to the cloaked Knights at the rear of the shuttle.

"I can't imagine why."

She allows him a smirk, cognizant of the hazard of familiarity, then assumes her usual expression of indifference. "I sent for a bombardment, not a rescue party. Did my Father send you?"

He shakes his head. "Hux."

She sighs, then. "I don't know why, he knew the plan, I needed him to target the harvesters, not to have me collected."

"Initial reports said that you were injured."

"I was. I'm fine now."

Silence. She feels the question looming as he removes his gloves and turns them over in his palms. "When you were attacked, hurt," he begins, masked face looking squarely at the exit ramp and specifically not at her. "Did you reach for me?"

"… yes," she admits hesitantly. "I didn't know what else to do, my stormtroopers were dead, they'd destroyed my ship, I had no commlink. I was…"

"Afraid," he finishes for her, and she nods.

"Yeah."

"It takes an extraordinary amount of power and focus to reach that far. You are unpractised. The effort could have killed you."

"It wasn't my primary concern at the time."

He nods in understanding, and after a few moments of silence, he speaks up again. "Why me?" She's floored by his simple question fraught with meaning. She wants this conversation over, it's becoming precariously friendly and familiar as it is. "You could have contacted the Supreme Leader, he would have heard you. Why me?"

"Because my Father would have shelled this planet into oblivion. I need to finish this trade deal," she shakes her head and looks away. "You wouldn't understand."

"Try me."

She exhales heavily, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees, and rubs her hands over her make-up free face. "The Uquine system is the pinnacle of agriculture in the Colonies. It makes up for eighty percent of the food supply and forty four percent of agricultural trade with the Hosnian System. If we succeed in bringing Uquine under control, the First Order will have a reliable food supply and transport network that will last a hundred years, which is the projected limit of sustainability until the planets resources are depleted. With control, we can abolish their trade partnership with the Core Worlds and force the New Republic out of the Colonies. With careful diplomacy, a strong hand and a little fear, the remaining Colonial systems will bow to First Order control."

He looks at her sideways, considering. "You want to spare the traitors."

"I don't want to. I have to. I need twelve signatures to make the trade deal legal. There are twelve Councillors. Although I suspect only three sought to have me killed. I'm sure they've broken several laws, it wouldn't take much to convince the Uquine Council to have them executed on the grounds of conspiracy – but that would take weeks and they'd insist on conducting their own investigation."

"Intergalactic law protecting ambassadors on diplomatic missions dictates that they committed treason, punishable by death. I'll see to it myself."

"That's why Hux sent you," Rey realises, and his posture stiffens in unequivocal discord. There's no changing his mind. She might have spared an innocent farm boy from the wrath of Kylo Ren, but she can't spare the inevitable collateral when he slaughters the Councillors. She at least wanted to spare the half who'd taken her side before negotiations turned aggressive, it seems a waste of good political rapport. But he's got orders, and even if he didn't, she wouldn't be able to stop him. "Would you kindly restrain yourself until they sign my trade agreement?" she asks.

"As you wish," his tone unusually placid and subservient. It's an odd behaviour for him, and she can't sense an ounce of sarcasm.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say you were trying to make me feel better," she scoffs in disdain.

He shrugs.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why would you do that?" she narrows her eyes at him. "We're supposed to hate each other, remember?"

He pauses before answering, his response is careful and considered. "Not today," he replies. "Tomorrow you can hate me again, but today you will let me do what is necessary."

"I don't need your help," she insists.

"Says the girl stranded in the countryside. I could take you back, let you walk to the city?"

There's the heavy sarcasm she's become accustomed to. "It's my shuttle," she says with an eye roll.

"It is mine, actually," he counters, hesitating a moment before adding, "General Hux has commissioned a new one for you."

She chooses to overlook the way he sneers General Hux's name like he's a thorn in Kylo's side. Although, he probably is, knowing Hux is a stickler for protocol, advancement, and cares little for the Force or the Knights extra-military status. "Some girls get cake and pretty things for their birthdays. I get diplomatic missions, assassination attempts and new shuttles."

"Some girls get nothing," he admonishes.

"I just meant it would be nice to be someone else…" she trails off, unsure where she was even going with that sentence, and he's not sure either. But thankfully he says nothing in response. After a moment's deliberation, she decides it would have been nice, on her birthday, even just for one day – to be someone else, someone unimportant, unremarkable, and forget about politics, war, prophecies, and the Force. She thinks about the Sith Code, about victory and broken chains. The Force shall set me free, she muses to herself. So, I can live my life breathing recycled air in space and never have any fun ever…