Chapter Fourteen

The bed in the captain's quarters looked comfortable when she came in, but Rey spent at least a quarter of an hour flopping around on the Kajak hair-lined mattress. Lumpy with age, the mattress was more a series of squishy craters.

Ben and his freakishly long legs would have a hard time squeezing in to the bunk in the guest quarters. Good. I hope he gets leg cramps.

Eyes hot and tired from crying, she decided to close them and lay on her back — the least offensive position she'd found. Why did she keep assuming the wrong thing when it came to Ben? Why wouldn't he want to reconcile with his mother? With Leia Organa? — Probably the greatest humanitarian in the galaxy.

A soft knock rapped at the door before it slid open. Ben loomed in the doorway. He looked way too composed. Rey pinched her eyes closed again. "Go away. I don't want to talk to you right now." It was a weak protest with no feeling behind it. Their conversation had not gone the way she thought it would and it was eating her up inside like a rusting ion engine.

"I have your dinner."

Rey didn't open her eyes but the clatter of the dented metal plate on a small table filled the room. She flinched.

"You have to be hungry," said Ben. His shadow fell over her eyelids. Rey wanted to drag her eyes open and look into his but it felt like she was covered in sand, too heavy to move. He didn't sound angry and some of the sand blew away, leaving her just a little lighter.

Ben told her before that Han would have disappointed her as a father. Apparently he thought the same thing about his mother. For the life of her, Rey just couldn't see it. Leia nurtured Rey in a way no one ever had. Han listened to her — made her feel confident and capable. Weren't those all the things a child could wish for from their parents? If they did that for a random desert scavenger, Rey could only imagine the love Ben received from them.

Rey's stomach growled louder than an angry rancor in the small room. Ben's low chuckle curled through the air and into her ears. It was almost as bad as a shock from a coupling motivator. A zap from one of those that wasn't completely dead when attempting to salvage any hyperdrive components had been a regular occurrence on Jakku. The shudder of electricity was unmistakable.

The mattress sank near her feet and her eyes flew open. Ben perched on the edge of the bed and stared at the floor. Sighing, he glanced at her as he rubbed one of his large hands down his scared face. The scratch of his light five o'clock shadow rasped against this palm.

"I know how important the idea of a family is to you," Ben said slowly, the words dripping out of his mouth like his mother's favorite honey. He gulped and his Adam's apple bobbed. "But can you please try to understand I am not ready to see my mother? What can I possibly say to her?" He met Rey's eyes again and they were bloodshot and glistening. "Hi, mom. Sorry I killed dad?" His voice cracked and Rey broke with it.

"Maybe you don't have to say anything."

He lifted heavy lidded eyes to study her. "Will that work with you?"

Rey sat up and put her hand out for his, palm up on the mattress. "You can show me. I just… can't imagine."

Kylo's mouth twisted. "What, you think I just ended up this way because I'm evil?" He put his hand into hers.

"No, you're not evil. And you have to admit — your parents aren't bad people."

"They aren't bad people. I don't hate them. They're great people but they were horrible parents. What good is it to take care of the galaxy when you don't take care of your own family? I wasn't joking when I said I was almost killed by a kitchen droid," Ben said darkly.

"Then what happened?"

Ben's hand tightened around Rey's and he let his mental barriers fall for the first time since they'd started their duel in the swamp. Scalding sand conducted a passionless heat but his hand in hers, without any of his feelings hidden, overheated her system as easily as if she were a binary droid.

He swept Rey away from the memory he held of her in the front his mind. She caught a glimpse of it though — she saw herself from the vantage of his height. She looked up at him in the memory, the bright lights of the turbolift glowing behind her. His memory exaggerated the flitting light and dark across her face. Ben's eyes lingered on her lips. He couldn't kill one more thing he cared about in service to Snoke.

It vanished into a wisp as he pulled her through his mind to the memories he wanted her to see. She followed him reluctantly. Ben as a half-asleep toddler watching his father sleep through dark eyelashes. Running down a hallway with Han's golden dice being chased by an indignant household droid. Han calling him Little Star Fighter, running him around the gardens behind their house so he could pretend to be flying a Y-Wing.

Leia holding him close. He was still small enough to fit in her lap. She knew the secret language that dad couldn't hear. She soothed the shadow that crept into his mind leaving him restless, inconsolable, angry. His father's hurt face when he realized he could never comfort Ben like Leia. Ben didn't want to disappoint his father and resisted the voice in his head but it was hard. Han went away more often and then started staying away longer and longer. He grew old enough for Leia to rely more and more on school and a droid to care for her son while she helped Mon Mothma shape the galaxy.

A memory sharpened out of the blur Ben sped her through. He was old enough to know when he was being talked about behind closed doors. His parents, who were never around, whispered their worries. Those whispers escalated to hushed yells that still had volume to carry through the door without Ben leaning in to hear. They didn't know what to do with him. Ben was too angry. Why was he so sullen, irritable? His parents discussed him like he was an aberration. Like he was turning into a monster. He was desperate for them to understand he just wanted them to be there.

It felt pathetic and weak to need their attention so badly. The voice in his head taunted him for his dependence.

Ben yanked her out of the moment and memories flew by her at a rate that made it impossible to understand what she was seeing and hearing. She could assume what happened from there knowing about Luke and the Jedi temple. Ben didn't want her to see his apprenticeship with Snoke. It was a sinister blur of pain, adrenaline, deep despair, excitement, hunger, and loneliness.

The whiplash of feelings gave the illusion of spinning until she was sitting in Ben's TIE Silencer. She felt Leia through the Force. Leia was worried for Ben. She wasn't angry. Ben's finger was on the trigger but he couldn't press it. He was shattered moments later when his wingmate fired on the Raddus. Then his mother was gone from the Force.

Pushed out of his mind, Rey refocused on reality and Ben's face hovering in front of hers. His eyebrows knitted together and his lips pressed tight.

Rey opened her mouth to speak but it was so dry she couldn't get any words out. None of the moments she'd observed had been a dramatic rending of family. Not like the moment that defined her relationship with her parents. Just a young girl screaming, "Come back!" into the glaring sky. Their ship disappeared in the haze of heat distorting the horizon. Her relationship with her parents ended with a nightmarish finality when they left her in the hands of Unkar Plutt. It wasn't the same as the incremental devastation of a boy she saw in Ben's memories.

She closed her mouth and swallowed before trying again. "I'm sorry." She shook her head. "After I left you on the Supremacy, I promised myself it was up to you to redeem yourself, however that would happen. It had to be a choice freely made. I suppose… being around you, allowing myself to care for you, let me think I had the right to push you. As it stands right now though, you're still on that path," her voice was firm even if her eyes were soft.

A smile curled both corners of Ben's mouth that transformed his striking face into a handsome one. "I'm not the same since I met you, Rey. I never will be."

Rey stared at him. "You—what does that mean?"

Ben used her hand in his to reel her in towards him. Only the faintest hint of pink at the tips of his ears peeked out of his thick hair, contrasting the smooth confidence of his action. In a blink, she was across the bed, nearly in his lap.

"It means I find myself wanting to be a better man. Maybe it's not about letting things die… rather, letting them grow."

"The dark and the light?" Rey asked, making the words as undemanding as she could.

"Yes," he conceded shortly. "But that's not just what this is about." He cleared his throat and rubbed his thumb over her knuckles. The bond vibrated between them with mild frustration. "You need me to say it plainly." He chewed on the words some more. "You said my mother wanted us to 'be together.' I want that too. I have wanted it. That's what I meant when I asked you to join me."

Rey raised her eyebrows even though her heart thundered in her chest and heat flooded her body. It blistered as quickly as if she'd lain out on the sands of the Goazon Badlands under the glare of the midday sun. "Hmm.. not sure that's clear enough," she teased.

His lips brushed against her ear and his nose nudged her cheek until she turned her face to his. Rey sensed his anticipation through their open bond. Ben's gaze lingered on her lips, his own parting slightly.

Rey could only look back with eyes she hoped reflected the thousands of yeses she wanted to shout. Fate or the Force conspired against them. A discontented snarled erupted from Rey's belly at the same time her binary beacon began strobing an alert for an incoming message.

It was a recorded transmission forwarded from the Resistance. Rey played the message and the holo whirred into existence with a low whine.

"Hux," rumbled Ben, taking in the cruel face shaded in blue.

"I say brute force is underrated," said Hux, circling Oona Ren. She lay tilted back, strapped into an interrogation chair. Hux had her gagged. Her constant supplications for dark blessings had been mystic nonsense grating on his nerves. He'd nearly snapped and ordered her immediate execution.

Oona's dark eyes tracked him around the chamber. The bright white of her eyes stained red from the duress of her captivity stood in stark contrast to her midnight skin that was not quite blue or black. Unmasked she was inky night channelled into a living being. She was what Hux imagined when he thought of 'mighty' dark Force users. Darkness personified. Not a whiny, unstable Kylo Ren.

Hux may not have Kylo's Force ability to extract information from his prisoners, but he did have a reliably effective IT-4 interrogation droid. "Don't you agree, IT-43O?"

"Yes, Master," the round black droid answered in a monotone. "Brute force requested. Activating bone fragmentation armament." A pair of thick duristeel clamps ejected from an opened panel in the droid's domed surface.

To her credit, Oona Ren remained motionless — expressionless. He'd seen greater men defecate themselves at the suggestive red flash of the droid's sensor.

"Abort," Hux instructed the droid with a dismissive wave of his hand. The droid responded in a descending beep and the clamps retracted with a violent snap.

"Joint crippling armament?" the droid queried. Another panel opened and the whir of a serrated circular saw buzzed. IT-43O flew closer to Oona and upon receiving no response from Hux, intoned, "Confirmation required."

With his back turned to Oona Ren, Hux rolled his eyes. These droids had no flair for the dramatic, no sense of timing. He sighed. "No, the electroshock."

"Affirmative." The whir of the mechanized arm departing the interior of the droid sounded. Hux didn't turn around. He didn't need to. The Knight of Ren inhaled sharply as the nerve probe made contact with skin. The interrogation chair rattled as she shook from the pain.

"I'll ask you again. Where is Kylo Ren?" Hux asked and executed a crisp pivot on the heel of his boot so he could examine his prisoner's face when she answered. "Stop, IT-43O. Let our guest speak."

Her eyes flashed purple and her eyelashes lowered. Her chest heaved, restricted by the restraints. Oona Ren did not answer. Hux raised his copper eyebrows.

"Ah, it'll be like that, shall it?" In two strides he stood inches in front of her. "I know you've been trained to endure the pain of torture, but no one can train to endure nerve pain. Not even Kylo Ren's dark lackeys," he whispered.

Hux expected her to lunge at him and fight her restraints to try to harm him. Oh how he wished she would. If she pushed just a hair too far, the chair's failsafe shocking mechanism would trigger and send another delightful jolt of white hot energy through her body.

There was an art to this method of interrogation. Brute force could be necessary. Kylo Ren exploited his power to muscle his way into a person's mind and manhandle their memories — forcing them to give up knowledge. What victory was there in that?

When Hux conducted an interrogation, it was with the refined skill of one who knew how to pace the shocks, allow for foolish moments of hope just so it could be dashed away. It was a dance to pry the information to be delivered by the defeated captive.

"Proximity alert," IT-430 blared.

Hux jerked to the door just as it crashed open, swinging back to hit the wall hard enough to leave a dent. He suppressed panic and maintained his cool exterior.

"Your inferior methods are slow," boomed Yomin Carr. The grotesque man filled the doorway and looked around the room like an angered Zillo Beast.

"We have only just begun," said Hux, gesturing to IT-43O. He circled around to the side of the interrogation chair, a little further away from the Yuuzhan Vong warrior.

Yomin Carr didn't just have the serpentine red weapon of a creature curled around his arm — his other arm had sickly green and yellow creature coiled on the bicep.

"We will use the spineray," growled Yomin, holding out his left hand for the putrid looking creature. The well-trained creature slithered down to his palm.

"I beg your pardon," Hux said, very much not begging this barbarian's pardon. "But there is a procedure to such interrogations. Standards that I must uphold as the leader of the First Order."

Yomin stalked to Hux and invaded his space. The massive Vong's mutilated musculature was covered in savage tattoos. He glowered at Hux through a lowered, split eyelid. His bared teeth revealed the tear extended from lip to cheek. "You will use the superior spineray and not your blasphemous piece of junk."

Hux was well practiced at keeping a glare off of his face and this seemed like a moment to pull on that skill. Yomin Carr's intentional disfigurement evoked the same dark anxiety as Snoke's grotesque visage. The display of the Yuuzhan Vong's deadliness with the death troopers hadn't just been a show for the troopers, but the whole of the First Order. It was a calculated play at intimidation.

Hux gestured towards Oona Ren, who watched the exchange with growing alarm, evident only in the way her eyes rounded. "I will not tell you where he is," she spat. "I don't even know. You followed him to Mustafar and he escaped. How has he had time to tell me his plans while you've held me prisoner?"

Yomin Carr's face lit with manic delight at the reaction provoked from Oona. "You're proving yourself a worthy adversary. Your disguise was resourceful and I admire your perseverance. Perhaps you will recognize the glorious pain of the spineray's abilities as an honor. It does not have to kill you." He swung his monstrous face to regard Hux. "Do you believe this infidel?"

"Why don't we find out if she's telling the truth? We'll use your spineray and send a little message to our fallen Supreme Leader. He's gone soft. With the proper motivation, he would come to us."

"Time to earn your warrior's death, Oona Ren." A deep, grating chuckle tore out of Yomin Carr's twisted mouth.

"We can't stay here. Not a moment longer. You saw what they were doing to her, Ben. I can't sit around wasting time while she's suffering like that," Rey said, pacing the Falcon. The whole Falcon.

Ben trailed her as she exited one of the gun wells. She'd been ranting and planning out loud since they'd turned off the holo message from Hux. The new Supreme Leader had been smug with Oona strapped down behind him and a hulking humanoid creature hovering just off to the side. The creature had glared into the holocam with baleful eyes, underscored by sacs of flesh and scars slashing the face. He couldn't tell if it looked skeletal… like it was missing skin? Or whatever skin it did have was discolored.

"Ben!" Rey scolded, jerking him out of his musings. "Have you been listening to a word I've said?"

He squinted at her. Apparently it was his turn to start contributing to the conversation. "I have. You've been saying some variation of 'let's go' for the past fifteen minutes."

"And?" Rey tilted her head and raised one eyebrow. She picked up a roll of engine tape out of an open toolbox in the lounge and spun it up in the air.

"And what's your plan? Just waltz in, grab her and run straight back out, no problem?" He shook his head and snatched the tape mid-air. Ben put it back in the toolbox along with a thermal wrench and tight-beam emitter sitting out beside it. "That's not going to work. That holo was bait. He wants us to deliver ourselves straight into his hands."

"We can contact the Resistance for help and — "

"No," said Ben. He glanced around the messy lounge, looking for any other stray tools. "I might have a way we can get onto the Finalizer undetected." He studied Rey with his eyes narrowed. "Are you familiar with Radar Analysis Support Systems? A hydrospanner?"

Rey scoffed. "Of course, I am. I grew up in the bones of ships your First Order imitates. What about you, flyboy?"

A rascal's smile spread across Ben's lips. "Sweetheart, I know my way around a pulse repetition frequency."