Chapter 37: More Lies
At least, Rey told herself, my poker face is still working, I just need to work on not blushing. But she had no idea how to do that.
The sun was shining as she walked back to the dorm after lunch, and she paused outside to lift her face to it, eyes closed.
It was weak compared to Jakku of course, but it was welcome nonetheless. Once inside, she reported to Mara to let her know she was back. Then, she got some school books from her room and went into the reading room to study. Sadly, because the room faced northeast, there was no sun for her to sit in, but there was a very happy BB8 there. He purred at her like a freight train, head bumping her hands and lying across her books.
Rey took that as a sign that she didn't need to do work today and sat in one of the armchairs to cuddle the round little cat instead, which he was ecstatic about.
His purring kept making her sleepy, she considered going upstairs to have a nap but BB8 was happily settled and she didn't have the heart to move him, so she drifted in and out just on the edge of sleep- without Finn there her body wasn't able to relax enough to completely fall asleep in such a public place, but it was still restful.
Eventually she heard students start to arrive in the dorm, chattering excitedly about the weekend and about their lessons, the cadence of their voices rising and falling depending on the subject matter.
Poe came in and BB8 jumped off Rey's lap to go and enthusiastically wind himself around Poe's legs.
Finn followed Poe in and they both sat down with Rey, BB8 held in Poe's arms, purring even louder than he had for Rey.
"Awww thanks for cuddling my silly ball of floof," Poe said smiling as he rubbed BB8 in all the right places. "Looks like he kept you from studying though! Sorry."
Rey smiled, "Cuddling him was infinitely preferable, so don't apologise."
Finn drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair and looked at Poe, who nodded, "Peanut… I just wanted to give you a heads up… Ismasta is probably going to make a move on you today or tomorrow."
Rey blinked at him, and then looked between them both, Finn laughed at her expression, "We tried to talk him out of it, I mean, we're pretty sure you aren't interested?"
Rey shrugged uncomfortably and Finn carried on, "Yeah, thought not. You want Poe to have a word with him so he doesn't bother?"
Rey felt relief pour through her, "Yes please, sorry." She answered awkwardly. Poe laughed.
"It's okay… Is there anyone you do like though? Cos there are a few other people interested, you're new here after all."
Rey really wasn't sure what to answer, she still hadn't seen Kylo… Stars! She wanted to see him, and yet she was dreading it too, after all he may have changed his mind, or seen his face in the light and been angry… Though if that were the case wouldn't he had told people she had done it…?
Rey had no idea. She had paused too long.
"Ooo there is a blush and hesitation! There is someone, isn't there, who is it? Who is it?" Finn asked excitedly.
Rey glared at him, "Nope. Not telling."
Poe pouted at that and Finn made a whiny noise, but she shook her head, "Not until I'm sure anyway."
"Okay, well, be sure soon! Can you at least tell us if it's a boy or a girl?" Poe said and Finn nodded.
Rey sighed and said, "It's a boy." Poe laughed, "Hah! Kenjad and Brobard owe me twenty credits each!" Rey blinked at him in shock, not at the idea of her being into girls, at the amount of money they were betting with.
Finn caught her look and gave her a small eye roll, she returned it and they both chuckled to themselves. "Hey, what?" Poe asked and they both grinned. "It's an orphan thing," Finn said, laughing.
Poe smiled, "You two are weird... Anyway, Rey, we are taking you shopping tomorrow!" He beamed at her. Finn gave her a sympathetic look.
Rey looked at Poe horrified and Finn gave Poe an eye roll, "I told you we shouldn't have told her."
Rey rounded on Finn, "Traitor!" Finn just grinned at her. "I'll be with you Peanut. If it gets too bad we can ditch the others, and I'll take you to see the fountains or something."
"Nope. Not a chance in hell I am going shopping. I haven't ever been and I am not starting now." Rey said.
Poe shook his head looking confused, "But, how did you get clothes and stuff?"
Rey looked at him for a second, waiting for the penny to drop, when it didn't she shrugged, "I was a scavenger, Poe. I found, made or was given stuff… or sometimes I'd pike it."
Finn laughed and Poe looked shocked and confused, "What does pike it mean?" Rey smirked, but Finn answered, "Pike it, like nick it?" Poe still looked nonplussed and Finn pulled him in for a cuddle, squashing BB8 a bit, "She stole it, Poe."
Poe looked embarrassed which made Rey laugh, he gave her a firm look and shrugged it off, "You can't back out on shopping though cos the girls are so excited, it would break their hearts and they've been hoping you'd be feeling better enough to go."
Well that wasn't fair! Now she felt guilty, Finn patted her knee, "It's okay, we'll leave if it gets to be too much, Peanut. I promise it will just be a couple of hours anyway."
"Hours?" Rey almost cried, "How long does it normally take?"
"Oh, all day usually." Poe said laughing at her, "Seriously, you're getting off lightly!"
Rey just shook her head, how did it take so long to buy clothes? It was madness. Perhaps she would just hide tomorrow, they'd never find her in Kylo's room… Where was he anyway?
His mother led him to her office. She had a classroom and an office, one for teaching and the other she used as her counselling room. Kylo hated that room, it was always too warm and it had lots of annoyingly calm pictures on the walls with revoltingly saccharine quotes about being 'good to yourself' and 'hanging in there'... It made him want to punch things.
She gestured to the other chair as she sat in her own, he dumped his bag on the floor and folded himself into what he suspected was a purposefully uncomfortable chair. He wondered if she only brought it out especially for him.
She looked at him in silence for a few minutes, studying him as if she were looking at a machine and wondering how it worked.
Finally she spoke. "Obviously that did not happen shaving. Why don't you tell me what did happen." It was less a question and more a demand, Kylo sighed and rolled his eyes, only on the inside though.
"I was shaving, I slipped. I didn't think it was a big deal." He answered looking at the corner of the room instead of at her.
"Ben." She said, but he didn't fall for it and she made a small vexed sound. "Clearly you aren't self harming again, or you would have done it somewhere out of sight. So this says to me that someone else did it, why would you be protecting them?"
Kylo clenched his fists, breathed out, "Have you seen Han lately?" He asked, hoping that would piss her off.
But she carried on as if she hadn't heard him, "Mara mentioned it had been very neatly cleaned and bound, I remember you being rather ham-fisted in your past attempts at dealing with wounds."
Kylo ground his teeth together, bloody Mara. "Ben, this is a serious wound, I cannot let this go."
"It was an accident, I can promise you that." He finally grated out.
She sighed, "You are so like your father." He finally looked at her, glaring, her eyes met his easily, unflinchingly and he was the first to break the contact.
"I could place you in detention till you are ready to tell me the truth." She said in a musing voice. Kylo really was going to punch something any second now. "I am telling you the truth when I say it was an accident."
He caught the movement of her head as she tilted it to regard him, rather like a bird sizing up a worm.
"Okay." She conceded graciously, "I believe you. But you need to tell me the rest. The implication is that someone in the dorm has a knife, a weapon and that cannot be allowed. And I have yet to see how such a wound could be an accident, though I do believe you when you say it was."
Kylo snorted, "There are knives in the kitchen. Anyone can take one."
"Not the sort of knife that would have done that." She gestured at his face. "You will have a scar, a large one for the rest of your life. I don't think you understand the implications of that, Ben."
He closed his eyes briefly, "My name, is Kylo, not Ben."
Her lips thinned, "I named you Ben when I gave birth to you. You are my son and I will call you what I please."
Kylo stood up angrily and paced the few feet from wall to wall, an idea trickled into his mind and he almost slapped his forehead, not believing he could have been so dense.
"Fine." He said keeping his angry tone. "It was fucking Hux. He's… He's interested in my girlfriend and was trying to warn me off, he was only trying to scare me but got carried away. Are you happy now?"
He had the pleasure of his Mother looking surprised, then was shocked as she gave him a small smile, "You have a girlfriend?"
Really? That's what she was going to focus on? For fuck's sake. He shifted his feet, realising he may have jumped the gun a little, "Yeah. Sort of, it's not official yet." He muttered, cheeks flushing.
If anything she looked amused now, "Who is it?" He gave her a horrified look, "I am not telling you that and you can't make me."
She smirked at him, "Fine. I will speak to Armitage and get Mara to search his room. But this is still serious Ben. Are there any witnesses?"
"Yes, Ingalan and Javiell saw, Ingalan taped me up, Zainmar and Leonmar saw me afterwards." He needed to get to them soon, or this would all go to shit. His mother nodded, making a few notes on a pad in a neat flowing script.
He hoped that would be it but she wasn't done with him yet. "Luke tells me you pulled a girl out of the swimming pool last week and gave her CPR, that you saved her life."
Kylo shrugged as casually as he could, "So?" This was uncomfortably close to talking about Rey.
"She was lucky you were there." She said in a voice so neutral that he had no idea what she was thinking, then again, he seldom did, but it was rarely anything good.
He shrugged again, "If I hadn't been there someone else would have done it."
She just responded with a loaded, "Hmmm." And tapped her lips thoughtfully.
"Can I go now?" He asked irritably. "No, Ben. We need to talk about your grades..." She said, pointing at the bloody chair again, Kylo sighed and sat, this was going to be a long morning.
His mother finally let him go towards the end of lunch, he was sure she had done that on purpose just to spite him. He made it to the refectory in time to grab a sandwich and fill the Knights in, all of whom agreed that they were all idiots for not thinking of blaming Hux earlier. Sadly there would be no opportunity to plant a knife in Hux's room, but it seemed plausible that he would get rid of it after using it to slice someone's face. At least his rivalry with Kylo and the Knights was well documented.
Apparently Rey had just left when Kylo arrived and he didn't have time to go after her, fill in the Knights and eat something.
It was annoying, but he had to wait. Then he was kept behind for some minor infraction during Maths and he got back to the dorm later than he'd hoped.
He'd got to about fifty feet from the dorm when he suddenly felt nervous, how was this going to go? What if she had changed her mind? He pushed the thoughts down, took a deep breath and pulled open the door, of course he'd have to find her first, hopefully she was downstairs. He'd only got halfway through the common area when Hux was suddenly in his face.
Kylo couldn't help smirking, Hux was absolutely furious, it was beautiful. "What the fuck do you think you are playing at telling that stupid counsellor woman I cut your face? If I was going to cut you, I'd do so much more than that." Hux stabbed a finger in Kylo's face, almost spitting in rage, his pale eyes burning and spots of colour high in his cheeks, "You are so fucking dead, Ren."
Kylo almost laughed, this was too good, he noticed Mara was walking towards them purposely, and she must of heard Hux's last sentence.
"Armitage, you were told to stay away from Kylo. Unless you want to spend your evening in the lobby with me watching you, I suggest you disappear. Now."
Kylo kept his face as unexpressive as possible as Mara turned to him, with a level look, "If he causes you any problems, tell me, do not use your fists. Is that understood?"
Kylo nodded his head and she accepted it with one of her own, then waddled back out, following Hux.
Kylo didn't know where the Knights currently were, but he needed to see Han, it would probably be a good idea to get some locks from him for their rooms, just in case. He turned on his heel and went straight out again, heading for the workshop.
It was like the universe was trying to keep him and Rey apart. He snorted disgustedly at himself, he'd seen her less than twenty four hours ago, and he'd see her tonight, before of after lights out, he would see her.
A/N: For some reason, Leia ended up like an Aes Sedai (Wheel of Time) without the channeling. *Shrugs* ...Also this is rather a 'filler' chapter, sorry!