MOTHER

You are joy
My sun
You are sorrow
My moon

Don't forget
Your goodnight kiss

Please, take me with you
Don't leave me here alone
In the twinkle of an eye
Everything will disappear

I dreamed a dream
I was raping
I dreamed a dream
I was killing

Don't forget
Your goodbye kiss

Please, hold me close
So tight I can't breathe
Please, tell me it's a lie
Tell me it's all a dream
Please, take me with you
Don't leave me here alone
In the twinkle of an eye
Everything will disappear

Don't forget
Your goodnight kiss

Melt
And disappear...

You are joy
My sun
I want to melt into you
My moon

[Lyrics: Atsushi Sakurai for 'The Mortal'
Translation by This Is Not Greatest Site with minor KS/TATFS adjustments]

—

Kylo sat in the corner of his room, hands covered in his own blood as it weeped from his battered knuckles, and he brooded dangerously from beneath his tangle of hair. His hate had leveled out to a blanket disgust for everything and it worked beautifully to keep his mind at a low hum instead of an overwhelming cacophony of thoughts and feelings. When the lights clicked off, his head jerked up to look around him. It was pitch black with nothing but a dim blue glow emanating from the tiny window in his door.

He sighed and leaned his head back against the wall behind him with a dull thud. He tried to close his eyes, tried to ignore the throbbing in his hands, to ignore the tightness in his chest and the creeping nausea in his stomach. They never brought him a meal. He didn't really blame them. He'd probably have killed whoever walking in through the door, doing to them what he so desperately wanted to do to that damned pilot. He sighed again against the dark of the room and absently licked at the corner of his mouth.

He couldn't sleep. And he thought of Rey. He looked down at his arms propped up atop his knees, and although he couldn't see them, couldn't see himself, if he tried, pressed his eyes closed tight enough, he could almost feel the rough wool of her clothing beneath his hands.

"Rey…" he murmured into the black.

He covered his face with his hands again and waited out the night.

—

Rey collected her caf in the morning with shadows under her eyes. Her exhaustion had won her a couple standard hours of sleep, brushing against her almost like a caress, but then the nightmares crept in again. She'd been free of them the past few days- the one bit of grace she seemed to have been allowed during the latter half of her traipse in the wastes- but they had come back for her with a vengeance.

She'd been alone, seven years old again, sleeping with a rough cover at the back of Plutt's shop- her home for years before she found her AT-AT. She didn't know why he let her stay there, but she always tried to make herself as small as possible in the corner of his work shack. She never touched anything, not even out of curiosity. She knew what the consequences of that were.

The fear from those memories came rushing back like a fresh wound and it twisted her stomach making it almost impossible to eat. Almost.

She forced herself to take up some breakfast bread with her caf. She sat down at an empty table and was startled when Finn suddenly sidled up next to her.

"Hey!" he said cheerily, setting down his tray with a clank. Rey nearly jumped.

"Whoa, whoa, it's alright. It's just me," he said comfortingly, resting a hand against her upper back. Rey smiled. Tried to.

"How have you been holding up?" he asked her, digging into his breakfast. A strange blue cream took up a good portion of his plate along with a bit of bread and a smidge of protein. Rey sipped her caf and cradled it carefully in her hands.

"I'm doing alright," she lied. She held onto her smile but sighed warily. Finn peered up at her from over his utensil.

"You don't look alright," he commented between chews. His eyes flickered to and from her face and she pressed her fingers against the heat of her mug.

"Well, it's been a long week. I imagine it'll take me a few days to recover," she tried to say lightly.

A week. They had told her that's all she had been gone for. She still wasn't sure she believed them, but when she went back to try and count the sunsets from her memory it seemed to be correct. A week. It had felt like a year. A year of walking into bleak nothingness. A week of heated conversations that somehow always ended in her learning something despite the man she argued with and rough black draped around her at night. She shook her head as that last thought threatened to creep up on her again.

No, it had felt so much longer than that.

Finn frowned as he watched her in silence but decided to say nothing as he scooped a bit more of the blue cream onto a slice of bread and took a bite.

"Did he, ah…." he began, casually taking a sip of water. "Did he do anything to you at all?" he said finally, as if it were the most conversational thing in the world.

Rey's eyes darted immediately to his and as Finn caught her gaze, he watched her eyes harden. He scraped at his plate with his utensil without looking away.

"No," she said flatly. "No, he did nothing. Not unless you count causing the situation to begin with. But when we were together, no."

"Together?"

Rey's brow flickered, missing his comment entirely. "Actually I'd probably be dead if it hadn't been for him. Or I could have died anyway when his ship crashed on top of mine."

Rey sighed and ran her hands up her face, digging her fingers into her hair as she stared at the table. "Or I'd probably be scarred if he hadn't been so careful in raiding that camp. Or I'd've been fine anyway if he'd never even—"

Rey gritted her teeth and knocked her elbows into the table, rattling the cutlery. Some people eating nearby glanced for a moment in their direction, but Finn just smiled back at them as Rey stared avidly at a particular spot on the table. In Rey's mind, the contradictions jangled around in her head like loose bolts trapped inside a speeder. As he looked at her, he wasn't sure what to say. He got the feeling she wasn't really talking to him anymore but to herself. He crashed his ship on top of hers?

Rey sat up suddenly, freeing her head as she breathed deeply in. "I'm sorry, I have to go," she said, rising to her feet. She picked up her mug.

Finn looked up at her in mild surprise and gave a slight nod. "Alright…look," he began. "This afternoon, Poe's gonna have me run some flight simulators. You should come and watch. You're a pro at them, right?" and as he looked up at her, he flashed her a very deliberate wide grin.

Rey, feeling herself drawn back into the present, looked down at him and his expression warmed her a bit. She gave a small smile in return. "I'd like that," she said with a nod.

Finn's eyes lit up and he nodded back. "See you there then."

As Rey turned to leave, she heard his voice again. "Rey? Are you sure you're alright?"

Looking over her shoulder, she gave him the biggest smile she could manage. "I'll be ok."

She put her mug into the bin and slipped through the cantina door.

I'm not ok.

—

A slot he hadn't been aware of had popped open at the bottom of his door early in the morning and a tube of ready-to-eat rations was slid on a steel plate into his cell.

No utensils…no sharp edges, Kylo mused. He was loath to eat it, but words about reasonably acceptable behavior, or something, equalling some time in the refresher had begun to repeat in his head so he reached down and quickly made work of the tasteless paste.

A few hours later they had come for him, several men in body armor, as they hauled him to his feet. His escort was the same number as the day before, but not even their numbers, he noticed, were enough to give them complete courage in his presence. When he flicked back his head to shift his dirt-clotted hair away from his eyes, he noticed a few of them flinch.

The base was active now, and as they passed through the corridor, it widened into a common artery and he watched from the corner of his eye as the traitorous Resistance adherents peered at him, some pressing against the walls to let them pass, and he snickered.

"Move along," one of his guard spoke gruffly, prodding him in the back with his weapon. Touching at the edge of the guard's mind, he found his name, his hobbies…his fears. I'll remember you, he thought outwardly, knowing the man was too deaf in the Force to hear him. He didn't care, though, and as he glared behind him, he continued on in silence until they passed a particular hallway and his head snapped in its direction.

Rey…

His step faltered, and that bastard was at it again, hitting him in the back, but he heard nothing from her. He stifled a whimper and swore to any long-forgotten deities that still listened that he would bludgeon this poor fool's brains against the wall if he laid a hand on him one more time, but they were there. When the door slid open, his head turned quickly towards it in surprise and they stepped into a large, white debriefing room.

His eyes took a moment to adjust to the brightness of everything. How the Resistance, and the Rebellion before it, had ever thought all white facilities were a wise decorating choice he had never been able to fathom.

His guard fanned out around him, keeping him in the center of the perimeter they formed, and as he looked up, he could see the panel gathered before him between the two men at his front. He stood there, cuffed, clothing ragged, covered in dirt and now also old blood. He flexed his battered hands cautiously and a loud sigh interrupted the silence.

"Somebody get him out of here." said his mother, "Clean him up- we can't do things like this," and he flexed his hand hard, breaking open one of the scabs again.

"He chose to not keep the peace when he arrived. He must go through the proceedings as he is," said an unfamiliar voice.

"I'm not going to sit here for two hours and stare at him looking like he just waded through a Hutt's mudbath. He has untreated wounds anyway and there are such things as prisoners rights. I move to postpone until this afternoon."

"Prisoners rights? For him?"

Leia sat up in her chair, leaned over, and fixed her counterpart with a no-nonsense stare. "For any prisoner. It's the law."

There were several bouts of coughing and a few minutes of low murmuring until it was decided he would get his three minutes in the 'fresher, and a couple of bacta packs for his hands. He stood there awkwardly, running his fingers along the edges of his busted knuckles when the shine of his shackles glared up into his eyes. He winced away at first, but when he adjusted the reflection, an image of himself shone back up at him and his lip curled. No, he didn't blame her. He had already felt disgusting but now he was absolutely sure of it, and a strange sensation started to creep over him.

Thank you, he whispered across the Force to her. Even in the midst of the bubbling discussion of the room, he felt her go still with shock, and then felt again as the emotion became razor sharp.

Don't you dare, she whispered back. "Get him out of here," she said aloud, "We reconvene in two standard hours."

As they led him away, he had to suppress an ironic laugh. Whatever he imagined it would be like to be captured by the Resistance, it had never come close to this…domesticity…as his mother dictated who he could and could not see and ordered him to essentially take a bath. Neither did he fathom the unregimented flow of people that made up the Resistance base, and he knew if Hux could see it, see how people went wherever they wanted in a great flood of humanity, he'd be in tears.

When they reached an offshoot of yet another featureless corridor, they opened the door to a small room with nothing in it, shoved him in, threw a towel at him, and barked at him to show his hands. They released the shackles, and Kylo sighed in relief as he rubbed at his chafing wrists.

"Don't get too excited. You have approximately 60 seconds to get out of whatever it is you call that getup and fix yourself however you deem appropriate for the refresher. They will then be going back on. Is that understood?"

Kylo glanced up at the man as his hand closed around his battered wrist. "Crystal," he croaked, and the door slammed shut. Standing there alone, he swung his arms once, twice, three times, tried to stretch them, and then quickly stripped out of his clothing leaving nothing but his undershorts as he flung the towel over his arm.

Just as the man had said, 60 seconds later, there was a banging rap on the door and it swung open again.

"Present your hands," he grunted.

"Is that really necessary?" Kylo said lightly.

"Present them!"

Kylo's mouth twisted as he flung the towel over his shoulder and held out his arms. He bit down on his tongue as the shackles clicked shut and rubbed at his wrists all over again.

"You're to be given ten minutes in the refresher. After that, a member of medstaff will see you," he was informed.

"I thought it was supposed to be three?"

The man cleared his throat as he pulled Kylo through the door and back into the guard perimeter. "They made it ten."

Kylo watched as the door to the room he'd been in was pulled closed. "What about my clothes?" he asked as he was pushed forward.

"You'll be provided standard issue garments," the guard replied, and suddenly found himself taking in his prisoner's height and width with dismay.

The situation was awkward to say the least. Soldiers flanked him as the steam rose from the water and Kylo looked to either side of him, partly in disbelief that they still insisted on surrounding him here of all places. He opened his mouth to say something but only felt a spike of anger drive into him instead.

Looking down at his undershorts and back at the welcoming spray of water, he made up his mind and threw down his towel to walk strait in. They insist on giving me new clothing anyway…

He was provided one all-purpose gel, and as he looked down the row of showers he noticed they all had the same. Somewhere deep down he felt his entitlement start to fester, but as he looked down at the drain he saw the dirt slide off him and into the tiny whirlpool below. The water ran down his face, droplets streaming down his nose.

"Stay still, Ben! Mommy's got to get this spot and—"

"DSHHH!" he hissed, his tiny hands plunging the toy ship into the water with a gigantic splash, sending a wave of water right into his mother's face. His eyes grew wide as he stared at her, her own eyes closed and her arms hanging limply over his tub as the bathwater dripped down her pleasant features. Suddenly, she opened one eye and scrunched up her face at him.

"I'm gonna get you for that."

Ben squealed.

"I'm gonna get you!"

"Nooo!" he cried, dissolving into fits of laughter as his mother started sending tiny splashes at him and in revenge he smacked is toy ship over and over into the water to add to the chaos when a deep voice called out from the next room.

"What's going on in here?"

A familiar lopsided grin…

Kylo's eyes flared open. Gritting his teeth, he reached out his infuriatingly cuffed hands to feel for the wall and steady himself.

No. Dead. Gone. Ghosts.

Still staring at the tiled floor, he felt for the container and pumped the gel vigorously into his palm.

Nothing to be done about it.

With a low growl that gained the attention of his guard, he smacked the soaped up hand into his hair and began to rub vigorously, his shackles hitting into him. He scrubbed so hard at his head he wouldn't have been surprised if his scalp bled, and rubbed quickly over every other inch of his body that he could, careful to still get where the fabric of his undershorts clung but still afforded some cover from prying, selfish eyes.

He was grateful for the water, because he could still see that young, pretty face grinning at him with her scrunched up nose. Grateful for it because it covered up the kind that currently blurred his vision and that he couldn't seem to stop because the memories started to trickle back to him now.

That ship- it had been a model copy of the most recent kind his father had acquired, and he'd been furious when Ben had loved it so much he insisted on taking it with him everywhere- even into the bath. And it became a bath toy ever after. His mother had just rolled her eyes and smiled.

Mother.

The moments trickled back to him, like the water that swirled around the drain.

—

Rey hurried back to her quarters and, panting, locked the door behind her. She ran her fingers through her hair, mussing it and pulling up tufts from its loops completely before finally slumping down to sit on her bed.

What was the matter with her?

Rey tried to catalogue everything that was wrong. She'd learned long ago to be her own diagnosan as she couldn't afford a proper one unless she was absolutely certain she was dying.

Part of her still didn't comprehend how she had gotten to this point. Sure, the parts about training on Ahch-to, discovering a panic-inducing bond shared with her enemy, and then having to lure him away ultimately to a week-long standoff in a wasteland made sense- that she could parse. But that was just the skeleton of the problem.

The parts of it worth picking out for examination, well…whenever she tried to think about it, her head hurt.

How can someone live with so many contradictions? she screamed in her mind.

She twisted her face in pained frustration, and just as she was about to give up, she opened her eyes and spotted it. Her pile of ruined clothing still laid in a heap outside the refresher door and underneath lay a thin flutter of black.

Her breath came back to her, and almost without her realizing, Rey found herself starting to stand and slowly, she walked towards the discarded garments. She felt calm, unerringly so after the stress of that morning, and reaching down, her fingertips brushed against the fabric before grabbing it in her fist and pulling it free.

Seeing it in the light, it was just as dirty as the rest of her things, the black color hiding the pale dust little, but she ran her fingers along it anyway. Absently, she took her fingernail and lightly scraped free a bit of caked dirt.

Out of everything in the room, this felt normal. The texture beneath her fingertips was almost comforting, and slowly she raised it to her face. When she inhaled, she felt her brain seize. It smelled like the wastes, but just beneath that…that same smell of musky earth.

Rey…?

Her breath sputtered in her chest as her eyes grew wide and she slammed the cowl to the floor. His voice clung to her ears like an echo.

"How did yo—"

Her eyes snapped to her door as she felt a familiar something just on the other side. She moved forward, her conscious mind unwilling to accept why as she followed the compulsion to hit the door release and step out into the hall. The tug at the back of her mind pulled her to the left, so she followed it. She walked quickly past the occasional person she met, and then broke out into a run. When she hit the open atrium, it suddenly went slack. She was lost.

She looked around herself, hoping for some sign or new direction, but when none came she blinked once, twice, and then looked around at the busy people going back and forth through the various hallways and passages.

How did I get here?

Rey frowned, feeling dizzy all of the sudden, and raised a hand to her forehead. People started to stare, and as her frown grew deeper, she headed quickly back to her room.

With the door safely closed once more she kept it at her back, her fingertips pressed against its cold steel, as she eyed warily the place where the black fabric had tumbled to the floor. She narrowed her eyes at it.

"Why do I feel terrible?" she glared.

The fabric didn't respond.

Stomping over, she snatched it up off of the ground and sat hard on the bed causing the supports to make a mild squeak. She ran her fingers over it, through it, and sighed.

"Why do I feel terrible?" she pleaded with it again, and leaning her head back, she fell over onto her pillow and curled herself into a ball.

"I don't have to see them until this afternoon," she said quietly aloud. "I can do whatever I want…"

Clutching the fabric to her chest, she tucked her head in close, just enough to let her breath pass through it, and tried desperately to find peaceful sleep.

—

He sat before the panel in a standard issue black sleeveless shirt and dark brown pants that were one size too small for him. A comb had been denied when he ask so his hair hung somewhat disheveled around his face. Between his hair and his scar, he mused, he felt like he might as well have been wearing some sort of disguise.

He felt a faint tingling at the back of his neck, and when he twisted his head up he found Leia looking straight at him.

As the spokesman for the panel began to speak, the General heard none of it. All she had space for was the man- no longer a boy- sitting before her, and she found herself cataloging the little things that only a mother would bother noticing. He'd gotten even taller, the seat they provided him looking almost comical compared to his broad frame and long limbs. It suddenly occurred to her that it was almost shocking that the little baby that had come from her own body had grown to such a size, and she could see him now, tiny and perfect, tucked in the crook of her arm as he gurgled contentedly up at her. He'd been such a good baby. Never cried unnecessarily.

As her gaze drifted lower, she noticed the length of the pants they had given him and scoffed.

"General? Did you have something to add?" the spokesperson said to her, eyes hooded.

Leia blinked in surprise as she was pulled abruptly out of her thoughts. "No," she said, clearing her throat. "Please continue."

As they turned back to continue with protocol she looked back at the prisoner and found him smirking at her from beneath his long bangs. Her mouth twisted.

How has it come to this…I tried so hard. So hard… she thought to herself, and her eyes traced over the thin white scar that peeked from underneath his hair and dragged the length of his face. Inwardly she winced, and suddenly before her eyes she saw her son, about three years old, a familiar but long-forgotten toy starship clutched in his tiny hand as a younger version of herself worked to pry his other hand from her clothing.

"I'm sorry, Ben, but mommy's got to go back to work."

"But I don't WANT you t' go!" the child pleaded, and his mother merely shook her head testily.

"Ben, please, I'll be back soon, I promise. It's just for a little while, alright? I'll see you in a couple days."

"Mommy I'm scared!" he shouted, tears rimming his eyes.

"Ben, don't be ridiculous- there's nothing to be afraid of. Everything's still the same, see? I'll see you soon."

Leia stifled a gasp and Kylo stared at her in shaky satisfaction.

What went wrong? he mused to himself, holding his thoughts tightly inside. I'll show you what went wrong…

Almost like an assault Kylo pawed through every memory Ben Solo ever had where his mother had left him just as the shadows in his head had started to close in. Suddenly he was five and screaming clutching to her leg as a nanny had to drag him off of her as he begged her not to leave- he tried to tell her he wasn't allowed to sleep when she went away, but he had trouble finding the words. Then he was eight, his face buried in her chest as he sobbed for her not to go again- and every time she was pulling down his arms telling him he had to be a big boy now. When he was eleven his mother stared in mild shock as her son just stood there, his face blank- no tears, no screaming, just a simple, "Goodbye mom. Have a good trip."

She'd thought he'd finally grown up a bit. She'd thought everything would be alright. But as these moments streamed past her, Kylo pried them open to reveal what laid beneath: phantoms hovering in the corners of his nursery like tall spectres no one could ever manage to see but him, whispers that floated around his head whenever he was the only one in a room, conversations and promises spoken into the dark telling him who he was, what he was, what his true lineage is. And how the only way to attain what was rightfully his was to kill for it, and all the while she was never ther—

"Ben, STOP IT!" Leia screamed, jumping to her feet and sending the chair behind her clattering to the overly polished floor.

The entire room was shocked into silence as tears streamed unbidden down the woman's cheeks and the prisoner sat leaned forward, looking as if he were ready to pounce. No one said a word.

"Who's 'Ben'?" came his strained voice.

Leia panted. "You know very well who," she insisted.

Languidly he leaned back into his chair, his cuffed hands falling casually between his legs, but the bitterness rolled off of him in nauseating waves. "I'm afraid you must be mistaken, General."

Leia was exasperated. "Ben—"

Kylo shot back to the edge of his chair. "Ben is DEAD!" he barked, and instantly the guards around him pounced, yanking him back against the seat back and pointing several blasters at his head. Leia gasped, reaching out a hand towards them before realizing what she was doing and smoothly bringing it back down again in one fluid motion. She winced as they yanked him still.

"General Organa?" said a soft voice at her shoulder, and the woman next to her looked at her with questioning but sympathetic eyes. Leia was at a loss for words.

"While they…rattle off the list," came his voice again. "Why don't you tell them?"

She looked at him in shock and felt a flicker of those images still linger at the back of her mind. She said nothing.

He tilted his head as he watched her, and slowly looked at each member of the panel in turn. Poor Ben… he thought absently. The memories had shaken him more than he'd anticipated. She had shaken him more than he'd anticipated. Suddenly his head was filled with toy ships and smiles and crying and that thing. He closed his eyes tight, willing that last shadow back into its box far away, for his own sake, before opening them again and burning a hole straight into her.

"Tell them how you left me when the darkness began to close in. How you turned your back even as the Supreme Leader welcomed me."

Leia shook her head in distress. "That's not what happened!" she cried.

"Tell them!" he screamed "Tell them how you ignored the desperate pleas of a little boy who just wanted the nightmares to stop, and how you and that pathetic excuse for a husband couldn't stop yelling at each other long enough to—"

"That is enough!" a deep voice boomed through the chamber, and an older man, Major Caluan Ematt, stood before them. He fixed Kylo with a stern look which Kylo met with more than equal intensity as his lip twitched and his hands strained in his shackles. Turning back to the General, Major Ematt's expression softened slightly.

"Leia, is there any truth to his words?" he said quietly, fingers balanced on the table before him.

"What?" she gasped in disbelief, and she looked away, her face stricken.

Ematt raised a brow with a sigh and looked about the room. "It goes without saying," he said, letting his voice carry, "that whatever goes on in a hearing does not leave it. This will now apply exponentially so as I am sealing into strictest confidentiality the entirety of this case. Anyone who so much as whispered what goes on today will be subject to the toughest penalties allowed by the law. Have I made myself clear?"

No one spoke, but there was a visible shuffling throughout the room.

Major Ematt looked back at Leia who stared now, clearly lost to herself and to the past, unblinkingly at the floor.

"It's clear that in order to make a sound judgement that we will need all the necessary pieces of evidence first. Until then…" his eyes drifted to the prisoner.

"Kylo Ren," he called, and Kylo glanced up at him from the worn out figure of his mother with a glare. "Consider this your final warning against unruly behavior. Whatever your feelings towards Leia Organa, they are meaningless in the face of the law. Is what I'm saying making sense to you?"

Kylo let his eyes drifted off to the side as he bit lightly at the corner of his lip.

"Answer," the major barked, "Or discover the first taste of the consequences I just warned you about."

Kylo looked at him again and had to suppress the urge to laugh suddenly. This entire situation was absurd and he had no idea what this man hoped to play at.

"I hear you," he replied finally, raising his brows, and the man frowned back at him as he was forced to accept the partial acknowledgement.

And just like that, the hearing ended, and he was quickly being pulled up to his feet and back down the corridors to his cell in the bowels of the base.

As the door slammed shut behind him, Kylo stumbled over to his thin cot and fell into it, rubbing his face into the coarse fabric with a pained sigh. When his eyes closed he saw his mother's face again and her repeated denials burned into him, old wounds that threatened to open up and devour him completely. He was so exhausted, though. And yet utterly terrified of sleep.

I know what waits for me if I try… he told himself. He'd been feeling the tug inside of his skull for days now, and out of both fear and self-preservation he'd tried to wall himself up from it. It was only in the wastes that he'd ever successfully pushed the sensation away long enough to actually sleep. But there was a bounty on his head. He knew this. Certain people were furious with him.

Everyone is furious with me, he inwardly chuckled to himself, but then a sob broke through his chest. This was it- what he had held back out of vehement contempt for the woman who gave birth to him came flooding into him now and the tears flowed down his cheeks. He did his best to silence it, pride and the idea of anybody outside hearing him holding him back from weeping openly, but the tears he could not stop.

In the back of his mind, a voice absently commented, Well it's better than destroying a room, but he wasn't sure he totally agreed with that. At least slicing his flickering saber through the steel of a ship (or a base) held some primal release he was never able to really recreate anywhere else.

Practical and utterly impractical thoughts, like these, passed easily through his mind, as if a filter had been removed, and his chest felt deathly tight as he rolled over to face the wall.

He was exhausted and everything hurt. No, there would be no sleeping. He was alone now. Sleeping was dangerous.

—

Rey's baggy regulation trousers, at least one size too big, hung off of her hips but at least hid the bulge of balled up black fabric in her pocket. Rey hadn't slept when she went back to her room, but she'd gotten up as promised that afternoon anyway. Instead, as she had felt her exhaustion try and tug her down, a shock had run through her so profound she was very nearly sick. The only thing she could do was crawl off her bed and lay against the cool of the floor in hope of some relief.

This time, when the misery, self-loathing, contempt, and abject hatred for all things had rolled over her, she knew where it was coming from.

Clutching his cowl in her hands, she had held it against her mouth to try and stifle the sobs that shivered through her.

"Please…please," she had begged, whispering into it. "Whatever they're doing…don't let them get to you, please. I can't take it, I can't—"

And just like before, it had abruptly stopped.

As Rey walked slowly into the hangar and towards the small group of people gathered around what appeared to be a monitor, she brushed her fingers against it in her pocket and stuffed it in deep. It was becoming something of a talisman- if it could somehow make the pain go away, maybe it could do other things, too. Rey knew thinking of it like that was absurd, but she had very little to lose.

"Rey! You made it!" cried Poe as he laid eyes on her, and he pushed his way through the crowd before finally resting a friendly hand on her shoulder. "He's just in the middle of the next simulation now. You wanna watch? I think he could use a few pointers- he crashed on the last one," he said with a sly grin.

"It wasn't me!" cried Finn, eyes glued onto the simulator screen. He jerked the joystick sharply and gave a very odd squeak when the ship started to dive and he worked desperately to recover. Advice started being shouted at him from those gathered and Rey grinned. This would be a good distraction.

Although the time on the simulator was meant to help Finn train, a few others took a go at it as well. Some of them were experienced pilots, showing off and then excusing themselves profusely whenever something went wrong. "It's just a simulator! If it were real that wouldn't have happened!" A few who had never flown before in their lives also tried with some heavy coaching from Poe.

Rey thought back to her AT-AT still sitting somewhere on Jakku and her little computer she'd built from scratch with components she'd carefully cleaned and repaired to allow herself her one luxury. So many nights, and sandstorms, spent on her outdated simulator program when she could spare the electricity- nothing like the sophisticated one being played in front of her- and she smiled rather wistfully at how it had all somehow managed to pay off.

"Do you want to give it a go, Rey?"

She blinked, pulling herself out of her mind and back into the present. "Oh…" she began, and she watched awkwardly as all eyes turned towards her. "But isn't it better for the others to get more practice?"

A cacophony of voices sprang up to tell her otherwise, and Rey found herself standing there, gripping her arms in front of herself with a sheepish grin.

"Oh alright."

They made space for her, and Finn hovered over her shoulder, eager to try and pick up anything, as she picked her ship- a light freighter- and her conditions. Rey almost instantly immersed herself, her mind slipping easily into familiar patterns. She pulled the ship to and fro as she avoided obstacles and completed scenarios, and every now and then a gasp could be heard behind her with comments about how 'that shouldn't have worked!' amongst other things…

Rey didn't hear them, though. Her mind was locked onto the sim, and for the first time in what seemed like ages she found a kind of relief in having such a narrow focus task to do. When it ended, 'scenario complete', she felt it came much too soon.

There were pats on the back, questions. She tried to answer what she could.

"And not only that," she could hear Finn's voice waft through the group, "But Kylo Ren ran his ship into hers and she still managed to pilot it and survive. She's brilliant, I'm telling you…"

Rey felt her stomach drop. Why was he saying that? Not the brilliant part- she agreed there. But why was he bringing up him?

"Finn…" she said softly, and raised her hand to reach out to him.

"Rey, is that true?"

"Is it really true he tried to do that?"

"What a monster!"

"Don't they say he's insane? That would explain all of it!"

"Who would do such a thing? I know he's in the First Order but still…"

"Pfft, he's Kylo Ren- what did you expect?"

Rey closed her eyes, the comments and questions coming too thick and too fast for her to answer and address at once. She felt her chest start to tighten and her hand found its way into her pocket. Slowly, she stepped back from the group.

"Rey?" she heard Poe's voice call. "Rey, are you alright?"

Rey gripped the front of her shirt in her fist before quickly letting go again and trying to smooth away the resulting wrinkles like they had never happened. "I'm alright. Just a little tired all the sudden," she lied. "If it's alright…"

Poe nodded looking mildly surprised. "Of course."

Rey willed herself to smile and waved goodbye to the group. She gripped the thing in her pocket when Poe's voice called out again.

"Rey?"

Spinning around quickly, she turned to face him. "Yes?"

Motioning his head towards her, he glanced down at her hands. "What've you got there?"

As Rey looked to try and see what he saw, she spotted a small corner of black fluttering out of her pocket. She bit her lip to stifled a gasp that wanted to escape and shoved it back inside.

"It's nothing," she said with an exaggerated shrug. "Just a piece of cleaning cloth."

Poe nodded with a slight frown and Rey could feel he wasn't totally convinced.

"Anyway, I'll see ya!" she said rapidly, and quickly but measuredly left back through the hanger door and into the base.

Her mind was reeling as she made her way into the maze of corridors, but her stomach was growling. She forced herself to the cantina and ate quickly in silence.

Why did he have to mention him? Why did I even blurt out that story to begin with?

Rey felt the overwhelming urge to put her head in her hands and hide. Why did Finn do that? Couldn't he have been trusted?

But was it a secret? You're going to have to file a formal report anyway- soon it'll be common knowledge. Why did you expect him to keep it all to himself? Anyway, wasn't he using it to brag about you?

She sighed. Her thoughts were fractured, jumbled.

This is ridiculous. I have to get some sleep. I won't survive like this.

Putting away her tray, she made her way back to her quarters and for what seemed like the thousandth time that day, tried to will herself to feel sleepy. She stripped off her clothing to shuffle back on the oversized shirt from the night before and sunk into the covers.

I forgot the cowl.

She was tempted to get it, sorely tempted. With a shiver, however, she pulled the blanket close and squeezed her eyes shut.

Everything felt so far away.

"We'll be back for you, sweetheart. I promise!"

"Mama?"

"No! Come back!"

The swirling sands, the hot sun, the ship that flew up, leaving Rey forever, into the shaft of red light that became the planet-destroying beams from Starkiller Base.

"NO!"

The ship was annihilated on contact, nothing of it remained, and the dust fell back onto the surface of Jakku and became its sand.

"Come to me. Now there is no one else who can save you…" came a raspy, unfamiliar voice, and a boy with dark hair, not much younger than Rey although infinitely taller, knelt, covered in blood, before an altar. The centerpiece reeked of Darkness, of a power so old and so corrupt that not even death could stop it.

WHEEEERRREEEE ISSSSS HEEEEEEE?

Rey screamed. She shot out of the covers, pressed her back to the wall, and desperately reached for the lights. Her blood stormed through her ears deafening her and her head felt so light she felt she might pass out. Desperate to catch her breath, she tried to still her panting but the panic still flushed through her. She looked at everything, every corner of her room. Nothing.

Slowly, the tears began to fall from her eyes as her grip relaxed on the bed. It was just a dream. Another nightmare, and yet…

Trying to sniff back her fear, she leaned over and clambered on all fours until she reached the edge of her bed. Lowering herself down, she reached for her discarded trousers and with a finger pulled them closer towards her. Slightly off balance, she eventually managed to see through the tears enough to plunge her hand into the correct pocket and come away with the cowl.

She clutched it to her, and as she lowered herself back onto the bed, she left the lights on. There would be no more sleeping tonight. She would never sleep again.

A/N: HAPPY 20th CHAPTER! This is a rather long one. Thank you SO MUCH to everybody who's read along so far, and as always to the lovely commentors who buoy me along. A big huge chapter 20 thank you to River Fox (as always- thank you so much for your sweet comments! No chapter is complete without you), firerosedreamer67 (they really are going through a lot right now, aren't they? eheheheh), RandomShippingFangirl (hope you aren't too mad about the leia/kylo relationship here haha! And I'm so glad the update made your day!), SilverclawRose (bringing everybody into the mix was always the plan! Glad you like it!), MeanoPatino (Nooo, we have such a long way to go still. Thanks for reading!), and CharlotteCAgain (you are such a trooper for commenting both here and at ao3! thank you SO MUCH for your support!).

We've also had some fan art done for this fic, but I can't post links on this site so I'm really bummed out I can't share it here. If you go over to these-are-the-first-steps on tumblr, though, and in the url type /tagged/prey you should see them (click to page 2 there to see the other/s)! I'm always blown away that this story could inspire that sort of thing, so thanks so much.

With regards to the song at the beginning, normally I do my own translations for you guys if I use Japanese songs, but This Is Not Greatest Site has such a fantastic translator that when I looked back at the Japanese for this song, there was very little I wanted to change. I also have only heard a short snippet of this song (I can't find the whole thing- the CD is only two months old) but I pretty much trust Atsushi Sakurai with my life and the lyrics were just perfect. Please do look up Buck-Tick, Atsushi's solo projects (like The Mortal), and the site This Is Not Greatest Site if you ever have a spare moment and are curious. I'm happy to provide song recs.