Chapter 2: One Jump Ahead

Ben didn't expect to have some idiot shout thief at him because he looked at the ruby in his hand. Nor did he expect his own guards to come running at him. And he certainly was not willing to go back to his own palace, not yet.

So he ran because that's what one did.

Most of all, he didn't expect a street rat—a mere scavenger—to bump into him mid-run. And why was she following him?

It was a very tiring, long day as it was. Ben had to exchange some cordial responses with Duchess Gwen and allowed her to talk the entire time. He wasn't one for small talk, and it was definitely small talk. The night's earlier happenings weighed upon his mind. It was depressing that he was doomed to a life with a crown on his head and no freedom at all. If he only had gotten the lamp the one-sided conversation would be over sooner, and he would not be currently in the same room as a street rat, her on top of him.

"Kylo," she said his fake name with a breathless quality that rendered him speechless. His blood pounded in his red-tipped ears. His heartbeat accelerated.

The streak of light pouring into the room illuminated her freckles with a sunshine quality. Her hazel eyes were captivating, fiery with passion. The way she was practically telling him to go throw himself into the harbor when he rather rudely grabbed her, was somehow endearing to him.

The ruby in his hand was still hot to the touch. He blinked and remembered exactly why he stopped her from leaving.

"And your name?" he asked back.

She pursed her lips. "Rey."

Rey.

His diamond in the rough.

How was he going to convince her to follow him to a cave in the desert and bring him a lamp?

She seemed to finally notice their awkward position and scrambled off of him. Sitting up, Ben tried to form coherent words, still bewitched by how illuminating this woman was.

"Do you… Have a place to go?" he asked her. "To hide from the guards? I'm afraid that accusation of thievery has put a target on my back."

Rey ran her tongue over her dry lips—practically making his breath catch in his throat. "Yes, I do." Picking up her mangos in her arms, she gestured out the door. "You know you could have just asked that instead of grabbing me," she huffed.

Ben plucked a mango into his hand from her arm. "Sorry. You need help carrying these."

She rolled her eyes. "If you insist."

Pulling his hood over his head, he followed after Rey who climbed onto the rooftops and hopped over ledge after ledge.

"Why do you need to steal?" he asked her, his curiosity shining through as they walked over the roofs. "Shouldn't you be able to eat without stealing?"

Rey looked at him with a shimmering sadness in her eyes. "If only. No one likes a street-rat scavenger dirtying their floors. I've stolen for as long as I remember."

That made him stop in his tracks. "Even as a child?"

"Yes. My parents left when I was four."

An awkward silence befell them. This curiosity to learn about Rey earned him guilt in return. How could a child be reduced to scavenging on the streets? How could this be left unchecked? They were prosperous yet Rey went day to day under the threat of arrest for simply surviving.

Why was this allowed? Vizier Snoke oversaw the city to alleviate his mother's duties with running the entire kingdom. Surely this was a mistake. A mere oversight.

"I…" What did one even say to that? "I am sorry."

Rey didn't even look at him. "It is what it is."

Rey wasn't sure what to make of Kylo, but she certainly wanted to learn about this mysterious man. How did he get his hands on that ruby? And how is it he was so effortlessly beautiful? His hair was definitely not that of a commoner's on a good day.

He needed to hide from the guards true, but she couldn't help but hate herself for being swayed so easily by a pair of pretty eyes to show her own place. Something screamed at her to just simply refuse to lead him to her hideout, but there was hardly any reason for her to do so. Her hideout wasn't much; it didn't have anything to offer to thieves.

She had to laugh at herself inwardly. The thief was scared this man with the pretty eyes was a thief. Rey had nothing worth stealing anyway.

Arriving at a half-crumbled tall building, Rey grabbed a pole and took a few steps back, lining up with a hole in the wall across a large gap in a rather empty and quiet section of town.

"What are you doing?" Kylo asked her, eying her with concern underneath his hood.

Rey gave a smug grin. "Jumping. You do that, right?"

"Yes but…" he gestured to the large gap. "I am questioning the safety of this."

"Live a little Kylo. You're not the prince inside a lavish palace with everything handed to you now are you?" she joked, nudging him in the ribs with her elbow.

A pause. Then he rolled his own eyes. "Right."

Rey made her running jump and swung herself across the gap, clutching the pole for support and landing perfectly in the hole in the wall. She pushed the pole back to him. "You jump. I jump."

She knew he could leap well. He could run. Climb. He evaded the guards well enough with his sharp sense of direction. Kylo made the running start and made a rather graceful leap across the gap to her.

For such a tall man he was very controlled in every movement he made. Towering over her with a smug, playful expression, Kylo set the pole aside.

Rey looked away from him, trying to prevent herself from getting lost in his dark eyes. "Err my friend Rose is waiting."

He followed after her down a set of stairs and found a woman with her hair pinned up in a ponytail. She wore ragged clothes like Rey but was favoring more fabric in loose skirts. "Rey! Who is this?"

Rey took a step backward and gestured to Kylo. "Uh well, Rose this is…"

He took a perfect bow to her. "Kylo."

Rose nodded. "Nice to meet you." Her eyes flickered to Rey who was trying to mouth a sentence to her.

I need to talk to you. Alone.

"A pleasure," he answered back. Rey raised an eyebrow at how formal he sounded.

Rose took Rey's cue and stepped aside. "Can you um, excuse me and Rey for a moment we need to um…?"

Rey held out her mango to her best friend.

"Deal with the mangos," Rose finished. "Rey likes to take them to the children."

Rey looked at Kylo for a moment, trying to discern his expression underneath his hood but failing. Rose grabbed her wrist and yanked her into a small room with a dusty ragged bed on the floor and streaks of light pouring in through the boarded window.

"Who is that? You never bring home a man before," Rose whispered. "Rey?"

"He followed me here," Rey said with a casual shrug, her own cheeks warm.

"He followed you?" Rose crossed her arms. "Rey, you led him here. I know you; if you were being followed you could have easily ditched him."

Rey sighed in annoyance. "There's something about him that I just… I want to figure him out."

"Is he hot?"

Rey's cheeks were burning to the touch now. "I didn't bring him here because of his pretty eyes! He's hiding from the guards like me. Someone falsely accused him of thievery."

Rose raised an eyebrow. "Pretty eyes?"

Rey groaned in exasperation. "Not the point!"

Rose patted her friend's shoulder in response. "Fine, fine, but just be careful? I know you can kick anyone's butt but I am your friend and I will always be concerned about you."

With a sigh, Rey nodded. "You're right. Thank you, Rose."

Rose turned her around. "Now go get him." She shoved Rey out of the room, Rey gawking as she spotted Kylo at the top of the stairs.

Kylo had taken off his hood and adjusted his cowl so it wasn't covering his upper neck. He stared at the window, sunlight illuminating hints of dark brown in his ruffled hair. His robes were of all black, making his figure seem even taller and more imposing. In his hand was the ruby, a glimmer of light dancing off of the reflective surface.

"You're still here," Rey found herself saying after gawking for long enough.

"Why wouldn't I be?" Kylo said.

Rey looked down at her hands. "I'm used to people leaving."

He looked at her, somehow, understanding what she truly meant. He held out his other hand to her, presenting a mango. "You forgot to take this."

She climbed up the stairs and took it. "Thank you for um, carrying it for me."

"You're welcome," Kylo said, his voice rather soft and gentle to her ears. Deep, yes, but very comforting to listen to. "I am sorry again for grabbing you like that."

She shrugged. "It's no big deal."

The two just stood there on the stairs, gazing at each other with the sun painting their cheeks.

"This is where you live?" Kylo shattered the silence.

Rey reminded herself that she brought him here to figure him out. "Yes. Just me and Rose." Brushing past him she led him up another flight of stairs to her loft. An opening in the wall covered by ragged maroon cloth swayed in a dusty breeze.

Kylo reached out with his gloved hand to brush the cloth aside. He stood in stunned silence, taking it all in.

"You have a better view," he stated, voice quieter than usual.

Rey set down her mango in her small basket of half-eaten stale bread. "It is a nice view of the palace, isn't it? It's so pretty. I envy those who live there. I wonder what it must be like to live in such splendor. Must be nice."

Kylo scoffed. "Yes if you like an overly-indulgent self-consuming large and empty house. Keep the view you have here, it's much better."

Rey crossed her arms. "Excuse me? What, do you live there?"

He stiffened in his posture. "Yes. I do."

That explained his hair. His impossibly soft and well groomed hair. "Are you some sort of servant or something then?"

"More like a prisoner, but yes, you could say I serve."

Rey stopped in her interrogation. Did he really feel like that? She would give anything to be able to work in the palace herself. A stable bed, stable meal, stable security. "Prisoner?" She took a step closer to Kylo. The sun was falling behind the horizon. "In a place like that? Did you escape from the dungeons?"

"No!" He snapped, then stopped himself from speaking more, relaxing his tense shoulders and leaning back on the wall by the open window. "Sorry. I am not an escapee from the dungeons. I am merely someone who lives in the palace and finds the entire place suffocating. All the time."

Rey reached up to brush a stray hair out of Kylo's face. "That sounds awful."

"You have more freedom than me."

She rolled her eyes. "Yes me: the scavenger who has to steal food constantly and hide from guards lest I be thrown into a dungeon to rot. It's not a free life."

"But you can go outside. You have the better vantage point. You can walk the streets without people stopping to gawk at you or treat you differently."

"You must be very out of touch, because people look at me," Rey said, gesturing to herself, "Because I'm nothing. A flea on someone's shoe. They only want me out of the way."

"You're… Nothing?" Kylo gazed at her with a dark alluring intensity. "How can they look at you and think that?"

Her eyes widened at the implied compliment. Did he just…

He cleared his throat. "I meant… That they shouldn't treat you like that. No one deserves it."

"And no one deserves to be a prisoner either," Rey said. "Is that why you're out here?"

Kylo rubbed his thumb over the ruby in his grip. "I… Yes. I want my freedom."

"Don't you already have it?"

"It's complicated." He lifted it up in front of her. The same dull jewel to her. "But this is the key. It's my only hope."

She eyed the jewel. "What does it do?"

Kylo opened his mouth to explain but was cut off by another voice not his own.

"It reveals the diamond in the rough, street rat."

Rey's eyes widened in horror as a man with sagging wrinkles in gold and grey robes stood in the main room, surrounded by guards.

"Snoke…" Kylo said, quietly. His hands reached up to grasp Rey's upper arms in a protective hold.

The old man tapped his staff twice to the floor. "You've done well, Highness. You found the diamond."

Rey stared in fear at the old man, eying up all the guards holding spears. All possible exits were blocked or out of reach.

How did she not notice these men coming into her hideout? She hoped Rose was okay or went unnoticed.

"Rey listen to me I…" Kylo was utterly speechless, trying to get his words out with strain. "You're the diamond in the rough and…"

"Arrest the girl for kidnapping."

Rey felt herself being pulled away from Kylo's grip. "Wait what? I kidnapped no one!"

"Snoke!" Kylo yelled. "She can be convinced! Let me…"

"You insolent idiotic boy. I will not let you fail me again with the jewel you covet so much is in your grasp. You cannot be trusted to deliver."

Rey couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Don't talk to him that way!" she practically screamed, struggling to shake off the iron grip of the guards.

"Oh, she is a fiery spit of hope. No wonder she is the diamond. Take her away to the knights. I must speak with the prince alone."

Rey kicked and shoved at her guards. "Let me go!" She looked up into Kylo's eyes, pleading. "Who are you?"

"I'm sorry..." His posture slackened as if released from a hold. "I promise everything will be fine. You will treat her kindly, right, Vizier?" Kylo said, sneaking a glare at Vizier Snoke.

Snoke bowed. "Of course my prince. Nothing but kindness."

Somehow Rey wasn't convinced, not with how slow and slimy Snoke spoke. "I did nothing wrong! I would never hurt anyone!"

Snoke chuckled. "Says the thief."

Rey watched as Kylo stared at her with a helpless demeanor and sagged shoulders as if he had no choice but to let her be taken away unfairly.

But worse yet, as she was shoved out of the crumbled building and towards six horses with knights in black upon them, she realized one crucial thing.

Highness.

Prince.

Kylo was the Prince of Alderaan, Ben.

A/N: Whew this took ages to get out even though it was completed several days ago. Sorry about that!

Agent N: Thank you! Hope You enjoy the rest of the story! :D

Chasethatwolf: Ask and I shall deliver ;)