They arrive on the Finalizer, Aleck taking Jeyna straight to her quarters. It is late into the night cycle of the ship, which suits her fine. She immediately falls into an exhausted sleep, though it is riddled with nightmares.

Aleck brings her a replacement datapad in the morning, since her old one was left on the jungle moon. Her work is already reloaded, backed up through Ren's device. She spends most of her day researching Nar Shaddaa from the time of the Old Republic, hoping to find a connection to Revan that will inform a search area.

She fails to make any headway, and it is quickly turning late at night when she gives in to the protesting grumbles of her stomach. She considers ordering food to be brought to her quarters, reluctant to spend time anywhere else on the Finalizer. But she also feels stir crazy from being in the same space for so long.

Jeyna uses the comm panel to call for Aleck, apologizing for the late hour. He waves it off with a small smile, appearing outside her door a few minutes later.

The walk to the dining hall is silent, neither of them speaking. Jeyna doesn't mind, somehow the silence feels amicable instead of awkward. When they arrive, the large space is mostly deserted, save for a table of technicians. They stare at her as she passes, and she dares to glare back.

When they sit at the table farthest from them, Aleck is grinning. "What?" she asks.

"They anger you," he remarks simply, before adding, "They can't help themselves, the rumors are bound to spread."

"Rumors?" She takes a bite of food, to stop the persistent growling of her stomach.

"There are very few women on board this ship," Aleck says. "Apologies if this is bold of me, but you are beautiful. And the Commander moved you into an executive suite, and made it known you are off limits."

"So they assume I'm his whore," she spits out the word, anger spiking at Aleck's words.

He winces. "Mistress, would be the more appropriate conclusion."

Jeyna narrows her eyes at him. "Same difference." The food tastes bland, or perhaps that is her sudden poor attitude coloring it.

"Most of them think Commander Ren is not even human. That he is in some way supernatural. One entertaining rumor was that the helmet was the only thing keeping him alive," Aleck shares quietly. "You are proof he is very much a man."

She swallows down a sarcastic reply. "Surely a few of them have seen him without his mask, over the years?"

"A few, perhaps. Strangely the ones who do always seem to forget." Aleck's tone suggests it is not a simple matter of forgetting.

"But you've seen him without the mask, haven't you?" Jeyna presses. He hadn't been wearing it for part of the flight back from Dxun.

"Only because I've known him a long time," he concedes. "I remember when he first came to the First Order. It wasn't long after that he started hiding his face."

Her curiosity is peaked, and she sits her fork down. "Why? Did he start hiding it, I mean?"

He hesitates, seeming to consider his words carefully, before he answers. "He was very young. It was necessary, for his orders to be followed."

"How young?"

"Young enough to not be a man, yet," Aleck says dismissively, his gaze wandering the room. The technicians have left, leaving the two of them alone.

She tries to imagine Ren's life in this place, before he was an adult. How isolated he must have felt, a teenager trying to play at being mature enough to handle whatever they asked of him. Why had they even allowed him to join so young? Because of his abilities with the force? Had he joined willingly, or had no choice?

Jeyna doesn't venture to ask any of those questions, unwilling to push further in case Ren is listening. She flinches as she realizes he might not have liked what Aleck's already told her. "Will this get you in trouble?" she asks suddenly. "Telling me about him, I mean."

The older man smiles slowly. "You don't need to worry about that right now. The Commander is far from the ship, which will make it harder for him to hear your thoughts. He's also likely too focused to bother."

She frowns. "Where is he? I didn't realize he'd left."

"He is meeting with the Supreme Leader, aboard the Supremacy."

Her heart thuds in her chest at the mention of their leader. Jeyna tries to reassure herself. If the touch of the force Nadd managed to awaken inside her is as weak as Kylo said, surely it won't be enough to attract his attention.

She attempts to return her attention to her food, to distract herself from the anxiety. Aleck is silent while she eats, waiting until she is done to speak again.

"What would you be doing, Miss Torre, if not serving the First Order?" he asks.

She is surprised by his question, searching his eyes for his intention. They give away nothing. "Why does it matter? I'm here."

"But if you weren't?" he presses. She feels suspicion, though she can't place what it's regarding.

"I'm not sure…" Truly, Jeyna can't answer the question. Doubtless, she would've pursued the leads on Revan on her own, and perhaps she wouldn't have made it this far. She might have been forced to give up, or been delayed getting assistance with an expedition to Kashyyyk. If she'd tried to foolishly go it alone, like she'd been known to in the past when support fell through, she might have even ended up dead.

The line of thinking only serves to make her feel bitter. Ren's helped her with her own goals, even while that wasn't his intention.

"Sometimes I like to think about if I had a different life. Where would I go? What would I do?" Aleck muses, his voice turning self-deprecating. "If I weren't who I am, what would I want to be?"

"And what do you come up with?" she asks.

"Nothing." He looks peaceful in his answer. "I have been what I am for so long, I can't seriously imagine anything different. I know my course."

Jeyna swallows, feeling a strange emotion she can't identify. She realizes even before she was apprehended on Dantooine, she hadn't known her course. Her next step was always to follow a question, pursue a lead. She'd dedicated her time to studying, not taking action.

"If I weren't here, I'd just be doing what I've always done," she admits. He nods.

"Would you like that better?"

His questions have a way of shaking her, making her scramble to form a sensible answer. She dislikes the direction the conversation has taken, even as she admits to herself she wouldn't like it better. The thought of returning to her former life suddenly seems pale, even though she doesn't prefer the current situation either.

"No. I…" she trails off, unable to bring herself to say the words. Her life had been spent barely even existing, by her own choice. She'd avoided settling in any one place, avoided lasting relationships. She'd never done anything to make an impact, to affect anyone. Even what she published of her research, it was from such a long ago time that only the most scattered of her fellow scholars took notice. It mattered only to her, in an obsessive way, to learn about Revan. She clung to it in the absence of anything else. "I don't think anything I've done has mattered. I don't think I have mattered."

Aleck's calm expression studies her, letting her words linger too long for her comfort. Finally, he says, "You are searching for a cause."

A chilling feeling settles over her, at his astute observation. He's pinpointed something she's been running from since childhood. That, alone in the galaxy, she's felt the absolute lack of a real purpose to her life. She fights the tears that spring to her eyes, chewing her lip as she looks away from him.

"I'm sorry to have upset you, Miss Torre," he apologizes, sounding genuine. She shakes her head.

"Can we drop it?" she asks, fighting to regain control of her emotions. She dislikes how scattered and intense they've been lately, more emotion crammed into a few weeks of her life than the last decade.

"Of course." She can feel him still watching her, studying her. The suspicion returns.

The Next Day

It's the middle of the day on the Finalizer, and Jeyna is frustrated at her lack of progress. She has not found a single lead regarding Nar Shaddaa, and has already exhausted her back up plan. She searched through the list of known allies of Revan's, seeing if any of them were tied to the planet. She had turned up nothing.

She's sprawled on the couch, the datapad settled uselessly on her lap, when her door slides open. It surprises her, and she jumps up to see Ren storm in.

He's in full combat gear, helmet on, the dramatic cloak sweeping the tops of his boots. She can feel the energy rolling off of him, turbulent waves of something negative and barely repressed. His hands are clenched tightly into fists.

Jeyna stands hesitantly, unsure what to say. The metal and black void of a face stares at her, giving no clues. The silence stretches on until she can't stand it any longer. "I haven't been able to narrow down where we should look on Nar Shaddaa-"

"Your sole purpose here, and you are failing at it."

Her mouth falls open at the cruelty of his tone, twisted deeper by the mask. "I'll keep trying, but I don't know what you want from me if I can't find anything," she says, voice coming out weak. She hates herself for it, wishes she could stand up to his anger instead of always shrinking from it.

"If you can't do your job, then I shouldn't bother keeping you."

The logical part of her wants to argue with him. He might still need her, to unlock the holocrons. He is overlooking the facts to threaten her. But there is also a part of her that is hurt by his comment, by what it implies. The way it ignores everything else that has happened between them.

Jeyna steps back, as if physical distance can prevent the hurt he's causing her. She hears the hiss of anger from the helmet at her motion.

"Is that what you want? To flee?" Ren stalks forward, ranting, "Do you think if you fail to provide information, I'll let you go? That you can escape me?"

He reaches her as she runs out of space to escape backward, and she is pinned into the wall by the size of him, the barrier that is his rage. "I can't find anything, I'm trying!" she insists.

He's breathing heavily, the mask filtering the pants into static. She remembers what Aleck had said, that he had been meeting with Snoke. She clings onto understanding, and ventures, "Is that what's wrong with you? What happened, with the Supreme Leader?"

Ren growls, the sound reverberating mechanically. "That is none of your business."

"Is that why you're being so cruel to me? Did he upset you?" Jeyna asks, searching the blackness that hides his eyes from hers. He recoils at her words, stepping back. The action gives her courage, it fuels her as she realizes she is on the right track.

"Take off your mask," she says, surprisingly bold.

"You don't give me orders," Kylo snarls back. But she notices as he takes another step away from her.

"Take off your mask!" she demands, loudly. Her heart is beating wildly, panicking at the danger of shouting at him. But she doesn't care, recklessness taking over.

He steps back again, and again. When he rips the helmet from his head, he hurls it into the wall. The crack of its impact implies he might have broken the horrible thing again. His eyes are wild, his hair hanging into them, as he glares at her. His face is newly marked with a horrible, red welt. It crisscrosses over his cheek and onto his forehead, resembling a burn.

Jeyna stares at his eyes, and they remind her of a trapped animal. She dares to take a step forward.

"Don't," he warns, his chest heaving as he contains himself.

She ignores him, taking another small step. "What happened? He hurt you?"

"It's his way," he says tonelessly.

Her eyes sting, welling with tears as she understands. Another step brings her in front of him as she asks, "Why?"

His face breaks, the muscles twitching at the release of his hold over them. She sees pain fill his eyes. "You."

Jeyna can't stop herself, her hand rising to his jawline. She is careful to avoid the injury, stroking along his other cheek, pausing to rest her hand against his skin. His eyes search hers desperately. "You make me weak. When this is done…"

Ren's voice is more timid than she's ever heard it. She understands what he means, and despite the self-preservation that surges in her, she is oddly calm. She realizes she does trust him. And she trusts herself, passionately, in a way she never has before.

She doesn't overthink it, or obsess over it in her brain like she always has. She listens to the advice she's been given, lets the intention lie in her heart.

"It's okay," she tells him, resting her other hand on his shoulder.

The last trace of anger dies from his eyes, even as he searches her face in disbelief. She stands on her tiptoes, reaching up to press her lips to his softly. It's a chaste, gentle kiss. When she breaks away, she strokes his cheek once more. "It's okay, Kylo."