Sunrise painted the eastern skyline crimson the next morning. Among the few crew members who had risen early was Rey, shirking her morning duties on the lower decks for the warm, ocean breeze on top. A small pod of dolphins running alongside the Silencer as she propped her forearms on the ledge provided a welcoming distraction from her thoughts about Kylo and the compass; which she had tucked inside the pocket of her slacks the previous night.
She hadn't removed it since.
It was easier to ignore the gadget burning a hole in her pocket than the captain. Maybe it was the hurt Rey had heard within Kylo's voice as he surrendered the compass that made him impossibly harder to forget. How she had allowed herself to get in so deep when it was mere days ago that she couldn't stand him, she didn't know. But it was obvious to her now, somehow, she needed him as badly as he needed her.
If only the captain would stop brooding in his chambers so she could talk to him...Ren was stubborn. So, so very stubborn.
And yet, so was Rey. Being headstrong was what kept her alive for all those years living alone on Jakku. It was a quality of hers that counted as both her strong suit and her biggest weakness. She wasn't going to give up so quickly on Han Solo's son though. There were miles upon miles between them and the closest island, currently. She still had plenty of time.
Heavy footsteps grasped her attention. Without looking to see who was approaching, at first, she thought it was Kylo joining her. But, no. Peering over her shoulder, she saw her company was definitely not the captain.
The newcomer was literally a foot taller than Kylo Ren. With the number of pistols that the pirate had holstered over his black attire, crosswise, he resembled a tree ent marching into war. She had seen him mingling with the crew before at a distance, but never had she been this close to him. He was—enormous. Intimidating.
And he was marching directly towards her.
Rey had been on the Silencer for nearly a week now; ample time for her to have become well acquainted with the others besides Kylo and Poe. She worked alongside them daily. Dined with them. Slept in their quarters. Small talk occurred on occasion, however, the crew never went out of their way to purposely converse with her. She was utterly clueless as to what this particular pirate had to say to her.
Of course, that was if the pirate had anything to say.
For the longest period, he stood beside her, tranquilly, bearing every ounce of his upper body weight down on the ledge with his timbered fists. Pondering whatever thoughts were rolling through his head. Bridging the gap in their voiceless exchange as both continued gazing into the vast blue were the waves slapping against the Silencer's hull, and a small flock of seagulls wailing as they passed overhead.
It was awkward. Too awkward for her own comfort.
Then, he mumbled something to her from out of nowhere. Unfortunately, the words had been too garbled for her brain to compute what it was that he had said. Her head practically reclined back to her shoulder blades just to look into the stormy eyes that were already gaping down at her.
"Sorry?" she queried, feeling a little guilty for asking him to repeat himself.
He exhaled noisily, frustrated, rapping his four right knuckles on the wooden ledge. Other than muttering another incoherent strand of words, the pirate said nothing afterward. It suddenly dawned on her that he might have trouble speaking.
"You know what, never mind. It's okay," she affirmed, giving him a benevolent smile for reassurance. "I'm Rey, by the way."
Rey taking control of the conversation seemed to alleviate the pirate of his troubles, and a lax smile spread across his thin lips as he extended a large hand to Rey. She happily obliged and he bowed his head, thanking her. She was almost positive she heard him quietly mumble his name.
"Chewie?" she squinted, uncertain. His vigorous nod widening her grin. "It's a nice name," Rey added, withdrawing her hand from his and folding her arms. "That's a very impressive collection you have there, Chewie." She jutted her chin to the several flintlock pistols he carried across his sternum and the couple at his waist. Informing the pirate of this lit his face up more than the rising sun.
He removed a pistol from its sheath on his chest and handed it to her. Rey spent a solid few minutes admiring the fine details in his weapon. The richness in the wood that the gunsmith had used to construct its butt-end to the barrel. The barely visible knicks in its steel, which made the hammer and mechanisms surrounding the mainspring and atop the barrel's length. Noting it was surprisingly heavy to hold but also comfortable in her grip as she took aim at the horizon.
Chewie groaned a phrase that sounded pleasant. Grinning, Rey slid her eyes in his direction and lowered the gun. Only then did she see it was Kylo that Chewie had addressed while her vision was wholly trained on the weapon. Her stomach started performing somersaults when the captain stopped in front of her, opposite of Chewie. She hadn't expected to see him so fast after the prior evening's incident.
Now that he was here, she had absolutely no idea what she wanted to say to him.
"I—um." Gulping down the dry lump in her throat, Rey tilted her chin up at Chewie, grimacing. "C-Could you give us a few minutes?"
Chewie hummed softly as he briefly regarded his captain. What it was that he told him, she hadn't the slightest clue. Although, given the expression that developed on Kylo's face, she assumed his words were meant to be rather encouraging. Presumably for both Rey and the captain.
Attempting to hand the pistol back to its owner, her brows knitted at the palm that Chewie raised, insisting that he wanted her to keep it. Rey frowned at this. "Are you sure?" she pressed. Really she had no need for it even though Chewie seemed to think otherwise.
But insulting him by denying his generosity was the last thing she wanted to do. Defeated, she sighed, graciously accepting his gift. While she carefully tucked the weapon into the backside of her belt, Chewie turned to Kylo, gesturing his hand over his face in a circular motion and finishing with a finger lazily directed at Rey.
What was that about? she scoffed.
"I think Chewie likes you," said Kylo, responding to her question as if he had just read her thoughts. His velvety timbre filling the pause that remained in Chewie's absence. She found that ability oddly comforting about him.
"What did he say?" she asked, her attention divided between the captain and Chewie as she folded her arms.
Ren hesitated, his eyes, seeming perplexed, were set on the empty space where the pirate had been standing moments sooner. "He said you're beautiful," he whispered.
She hadn't needed to look at him to know there was a double meaning in that sentence. Her eyes darted to the ground before he caught sight of the blush staining her cheeks a vibrant pink. Attempting yet failing miserably to deny there was an exorbitant amount of adoration in his words. A peculiar softness in his tone. And it was what she discovered when she finally did let herself meet his gaze that spiked every one of her utmost inner fears. She opted to not put forth the additional effort to wonder what emotion was simmering the most under the surface of his eyes.
Too much, there was just too much that needed to be mended. Far too many poisonous words had been exchanged between them. She refused to admit that a huge part of her enjoyed he was looking at her like that before the air dividing them was cleansed of the toxicity.
"Kylo," she began, her lungs releasing a shuddered breath. "I owe you an apology."
"For?"
Wetting her lips, she summoned the courage to face him again. "For everything," she winced. "You've been nothing but honest with me since the day I arrived here. I shouldn't have been so pushy about the compass but I had promised the person who gave it to me that I wouldn't lose it and I panicked. And…" she paused in her rambling and took another breath. Ren waited patiently for her to finish. "And I thought it was the only thing that could help me find what I was looking for."
Ren shook his head. "No," he murmured contritely. "I gave you no reason to warrant such kindness from you. I should be the one apologizing."
Rey bit her bottom lip. "Last night, I checked your dice," she quickly countered. "You let me win."
He nodded. "Yes."
"Why?"
"Because," he quipped, bitterly, "eventually, you would have become a slave. A prisoner. Cursed like myself and the crew. I wasn't about to let you suffer the same ways as I have for something inanimate."
Rey scoffed. "I...don't understand?"
"No, I wasn't expecting you to," he grimaced. "What you asked of me last night, it was reckless and dangerous. I had no choice, Rey." He took two steps closer to her, forcing her neck to crane back as he now towered above her. "By submitting your soul to me you would have sentenced yourself to a lifetime of service on this ship. The Silencer would have owned you. Consumed you. Changed you in every worse physical, emotional aspect imaginable. And there's not a damn thing you or I could have done to stop it."
She was tempted to say it was his fault that she was driven this far. That he had given her no choice but to challenge him until it was those exact words that stuck out at her. And it was the precise moment she realized, somehow, she'd pressed her trembling hand flat to his muscular chest, under the wriggling curtain of appendages, grazing her sleeve-covered wrist. As if she'd tried pushing him away and lost every bit of strength her body retained to stop him.
For some reason, she didn't bother to remove it; neither did Ren.
"You did have a choice," Rey softly informed him. "You could have done what was fair and let me lose."
Ren's expression turned grim. "Forgive me if I'm wrong, but you are aware of what it's like to lose someone you love?"
Rey blinked, taken aback. She retrieved her hand and took half a step back from him, folding her arms. "Excuse me?"
"My father lost more than just his son that day," he explained. Slowly, he advanced toward the ledge, facing Rey as he rested his claw upon the flat wooden plane. "Chewie served with my father in the navy. He was his best friend. Practically a second father to me and a brother to him. I've known him my whole life." Frowning, his vision veered off to the horizon. "Sometimes, I think if it would have been better had we died that day than live an eternity as monsters."
Rey felt her heart split down the middle. "You don't mean that," she countered assertively. "All of you made sacrifices for a noble cause. You saved your father. Chewie chose to serve you because he loves you and that's what family does. You make sacrifices for one another so nobody gets left behind." Saying those words out loud struck a bit too close to home for her. Reminding her that her own parents had left her stranded on Jakku nearly a decade ago. Two people who should have done an immediate about-face and come back for her.
Ten years.
It hit her all of a sudden. A decade seemed like an awfully long time to just casually forget about someone...Especially when that person was your one and only child.
"Have—Have you considered going to them?" she sniffed, averting her eyes as she rid their bottom lashes of moisture with a knuckle. "Your parents, I mean."
Ren nodded, attentive to every move she made. "Every day," he rasped.
"So, why haven't you?"
"It's not that I don't want to: I can't. When I say you're a prisoner on this ship, I mean that in every way possible. For ten years, we are bound to the sea. Ten years. And for one day out of the 3,000 we spend at sea we're allowed on land." He paused, considering her, his head cocked. "Do you understand now why I chose to give you the compass back? You deserve that freedom."
Freedom. That was the moment she realized, for all these years, she had been as much of a prisoner on land as Kylo had been a prisoner at sea. She had been living in denial. Blinded by the aspirations that her family was coming back for her when it was obvious they were gone for good. The evidence had always been there and yet she'd consistently chosen to ignore them again and again.
At that, Rey couldn't stop herself from crying even if she had wanted to. She cried.
And cried.
And cried.
She couldn't say how long the captain stood by her in utter silence. However, it was, perhaps, the best sort of comfort she could've asked from him then. Knowing he was there, listening, was more than enough amenity she'd ever been shown in a decade from the civilians on Jakku.
"You wanna know something?" She dried her eyes as best she could with her sleeve and sniffed. "Every day, for ten years, I was so sure that my parents were coming back. I was free to come and go, but I chose to stay at this little shack along the beach where they left me because I refused to believe anyone would ever be so cruel to leave their child stranded on an island alone. I was so afraid. So afraid to leave because if I did, I thought I might miss them."
"We are our own worst enemy," he assured, his voice was almost soothing to her soul. "And sometimes, being our own prison is worse than spending a decade locked behind bars. At least being inside a cell leaves you a better chance for escape."
"Yeah…" she sighed, nodding. Jesus, they really were like two mashed peas in a pod. "I suppose you're right."
"So, you're free now." His mouth began working in that funny way it always did whenever he was diving in deep to his thoughts. She had to admit, it was kind of—adorable. "What is it that you intend to do first?"
Chewing her bottom lip, her perception flitted to the horizon. She smiled weakly at the first notion that came to mind. "I think...we should work on reclaiming yours." Turning back to him, Rey put her right hand on his claw. "Together?"
Kylo hesitated and pursed his lips, frowning at the hand she had placed on his claw. She knew in her heart that freeing him of his curse was going to be hard. Ignorant as to what it all entailed. But she had never been so sure of the fact that they were brought together by the compass for a reason: she was meant to bring him home.
Seeming to have found his resolve, Ren covered her hand with his. Despite being a captain of the undead, his touch felt so incredibly warm. His calloused fingers practically engulfing hers as he gave them a tender squeeze, his gaze as equally tender. "Alright," he said, the shadow of a smile spreading on his lips. "Together."