Chapter 14

As Leia's screaming continued, Kylo could barely get a word in to defend himself. Fortunately for him, it wasn't long before Rey came rushing down the stairs, with last night's gift in hand. Noticing that she hadn't bothered to change out of a rather thin night shirt, he stared only a moment with his mouth slightly agape before averting his eyes. He didn't want to give Leia another reason to smack him—especially on the right side, where his black eye was still healing.

"He got them for me. I'm so sorry, I should have known these were yours. Here," Rey explained quickly, holding out the flowers towards Leia.

"Oh no, dear, it's alright, you keep them. I can't exactly just put them back where they were," Leia sighed, looking over the cleanly cut stems of the flowers before turning back to her son. "At least he was trying to do something nice for once….But for God's sake, Ben, I could've taken you to the store today to get her some better flowers if you had just waited!"

He shrugged. "Then it would be too late, it wouldn't be her birthday anymore."

Rolling her eyes, Leia pinched the bridge of her nose. "It isn't a crime to give someone a gift a little late, alright, just…don't do it again."

"Yes, mother dear."

She shot him a glare before stalking off, grumbling about how she'd have to buy new plants and start from scratch. Meanwhile, Rey didn't seem too happy with him either.
"Well, since my birthday is officially over, can you stop trying to be nice to me? Or just…find a normal way to do it?"

Raising a brow, he shifted closer, to the point he was only a few inches away. Rey was quick to increase this distance as he spoke. "I always heard women like flowers and having men fight over them. Should I change my technique?"

She groaned and turned away, arms wrapped tightly around herself. "You need to stop this. Seriously."

"Why?"

Huffing with annoyance and turning back to him, she lowered her voice to explain the obvious. "I'm a student. You're my teacher."

"Not anymore I'm not. Semester is over," he reminded her. "Oh, and by the way, I finished everyone's final grades. You ended up with an A after all."

She was clearly taken aback by this. Crossing her arms, she narrowed her eyes with suspicion. "Did you change my grades or something?"

He looked insulted at that accusation. "No, you're just that good."

"Wow. I was hoping for a low B at best," she admitted. "Well, thank you, for making me 'try harder' or whatever, but I don't think I'll be taking anymore history classes, so…"

He snorted and shrugged. "That's fine with me. At this point, I'd really prefer you not be in my class."

Clenching her jaw as she clearly understood what he meant by that, she muttered under her breath. "I could still report you."

"For what? I haven't done anything," he said coldly."You know, you keep threatening to take me down for this or that, but you never do it. Why is that? I think it's because you don't hate me half as much as you pretend to."

She flinched back slightly, her eyes narrowed as she looked up at him with an expression he couldn't decipher. Had he gone too far? Did she know he was right? Her silence was deafening. Finally, she relieved him with a response. "I never said I hated you. Sometimes, I…I almost like you. But you always end up doing something that makes me regret that."

With that, she turned to hurry back upstairs, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

Work was slow this morning, leaving only Finn and Poe at the counter, with Connix cleaning tables. Whenever a customer came in, Poe ended up doing most of the work. Finn had been very preoccupied with his phone for the past couple of hours. And the night before.

As he received a new message, his eyes almost popped out of his skull with horror. "He gave her flowers? No, no, hell no, I am not comfortable with this...!"

Knowing exactly what Finn was talking about (since he hadn't been able to shut up about it all day), Poe sighed and shook his head. "Why do you even care, man? You still like her?"

Huffing indignantly, Finn started typing out a text back to Rey at light speed. "No—I mean, maybe…but no, right now, I'm concerned for her safety. That man is a psychopath."

I don't know how he hasn't been arrested yet. We all know he's got serious issues, and he's been after her since day one, and now…?! Obviously, she's in danger. Why isn't anyone else worried? I am not the crazy one! he thought furiously as he sent the text. He flinched as he suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Relax, okay, she's a grown woman," Poe reminded him, giving his shoulder a subtle rub before dropping his hand again. Something about those dark eyes looking at him like that always had a way of calming Finn down. "Besides, aren't they with his parents? I'm sure she'll be alright."

Leaning against the counter, Finn shrugged, still a little bitter. "Yeah, but they can't be around to supervise all the time, I mean, what if—"

As he lifted his phone to check if Rey had responded yet, Poe put out his hand again, stopping him. "I promise you, she's fine. She'll be here in another hour or so and you'll see that for yourself."

Setting her phone down on the vanity, Rey padded over to the shower to turn on the faucet before undressing. She had only a couple of hours left before work and needed to get ready. Before heading out for the same reason, Leia had informed her about Kylo being pretty much forced to work at La Résistance, and Rey was none too happy about it. In responding to Finn's constant check-ins, she decided against telling him about this new arrangement, knowing he would be even more upset than she was. There was hardly an hour that went by where he wasn't asking if she'd been murdered yet.

Which is a silly question, since if I had been murdered, I couldn't tell him that, she thought, stepping into the warm spray of water. Smiling slightly, she closed her eyes, just letting it fall over her for a moment. This shower was so much nicer than the one at her dorm, which had the pressure of a fire hose and always seemed to be out of hot water. As she reached for the shampoo, which had some minty scent clearly intended for men, she remembered this wasn't just her shower. Then, she found her mind returning to a similar scene from last night's dream. Her first instinct was to shove the thought away, and she did, but the thought continuously kept worming itself back inside her mind. Biting her lip, she decided to entertain it as she continued washing. Brief though it was, that part of her dream had been admittedly enjoyable, and she had a strange curiosity to know what it would have been like if it hadn't ended so quickly. This curiosity disturbed her, of course, but she had her reasons. She'd never denied Kylo was attractive physically; it was just everything else about him that repulsed her. Besides, a dream didn't mean anything, and it wasn't real, so what was the harm? It wasn't like she'd act out on it anyway. A fantasy version of Kylo was probably much, much different than who he really was.

After a few more minutes, she decided she had the idea out of her system and was ready to face the rest of the day at work, even if he was there too. She was about to get out and dry off when she stepped on a slick part of the tile, and suddenly, her foot slipped out from underneath her, sending her flying back against the wall of the shower. Sharply crying out with pain as her head cracked against the wall, her unconscious body crumbled to a heap on the shower floor.

When she opened her eyes again, her head was throbbing, and it felt like there were daggers stabbing her all down the side of her leg and on her right arm. When she tried to move it, she screamed with agony.

"Hold on, I've got you…"

It was only then that she looked up and realized she wasn't alone. The door, previously closed and locked, had been kicked open, and Kylo was crouching over her. Apparently, he was trying to pick her up. She gasped and immediately moved to cover herself, squirming away from him.

"What the hell are you doing, get out!"

"I'm trying to help you! Stop moving so much, you'll hurt yourself!" He groaned as he finally managed to lift her out of the tub, still holding onto her with one arm as he reached for a towel with the other. "Can you stand?"

As he started wrapping the towel around her, she tried to steady herself on both legs before quickly stumbling back just on the right one, whimpering with pain. "I—no! Ow…oh God, it hurts…"

"We're going to a hospital, right now." She was already lifted off the ground and into his arms before she could protest, but as he started carrying her out the door, she started clawing the air for something.

"Wait a damn second, alright! I am not going anywhere dressed in a TOWEL!"

Despite the fact that dressing herself with a two possibly broken limbs was an agonizing nightmare, Rey refused to let Kylo turn around, let alone help her, until she was covered. All she managed to get on was a t-shirt and some athletic shorts, and literally nothing else, but it would do for now.

After carrying Rey downstairs and out to his car, Kylo started to try and help her with the seatbelt, but was swatted away.

"And they call me ungrateful," he muttered, shutting the door for her anyway and walking around the car to get in the driver's seat. As they started to drive off, Rey grit her teeth, trying desperately not to scream. But it was hard not to whenever the car would go over a sharp bump in the road, or swerve too quickly, putting pressure on any of her sore spots.

"Slow down! I'm not in labor, alright, you don't have to speed," she hissed, cradling her wounded arm.

"Oh, I'm so sorry for being concerned," he snapped. "You know, next time you fall, I'll just leave you there if you're going to be like this."

Glaring at him, she pushed on as he sped around another corner. "Then I'm so sorry that I didn't want you to see me naked! Why didn't you just call for Leia or something?"

"She already left, and if she was there, I doubt she could lift you. And really, you'd be more comfortable with your boss seeing you naked than me?" he scoffed. As traffic slowed, his nails dug into the wheel with impatience. "Oh come on…"

Rey shrugged. "Well yeah, given your not-so-subtle feelings—"

"As great as it was finally seeing you in the nude, I wasn't exactly focusing on that when I didn't know if you were even going to wake up again, so get over your modesty already!"

"Stop screaming, I have a migraine—"

"I'm not even screaming, and I'm about to have a migraine if this jackass in front of me won't speed up," he fumed, swerving out into the other lane to pass the other car without even looking to see if anyone was coming.

A split second later, a truck plowed straight into the left side of the Mustang, sending it spinning out into the intersection, sparks flying behind it as metal scraped against concrete. Frantic screaming could be heard from the inside before there was dead silence. Her vision blurry and her entire body aching, Rey looked around in shock and confusion, slowly taking in the chaos. It looked like the truck mostly got the front engine, and smoke was pouring out of its demolished remains, but the passenger side of the car was practically untouched. Looking over towards Kylo before herself, she could see that he was conscious, but there was blood everywhere. The crash had shattered his window, and shards of glass were imbedded all over his skin.

It didn't take long for the ambulance to arrive, picking up where they left off on their journey to the hospital. Rey, now recovered from her initial shock, was of course glad they were both alive—but that didn't stop her from being furious with Kylo for almost getting them killed.

Looking over at her from the other gurney, he weakly tried to explain himself. "I was…just trying to help you."

She snorted. "Yeah? Good job."