Chapter Eleven

Rey takes one deep breath in to focus herself. Alone in the forest, the wind rushing past her, she can feel the Force rustling in the leaves. It's calling to her, calling her away.

With a burst of determination, she surges forward, darting back towards the village, each step matching the pounding her heart, the pound of resolve sending her on a rescue mission to save her enemy.

#

One glance at Hux is all Kylo needs to know something is wrong. His eyes are red. His face too devoid of the normal weaselly scowl he's gotten used to hating. The contempt in them might actually kill him.

"Why did you shoot me?" Kylo demands. He raises his lightsaber, prepared to block whatever shot might come next. He focuses on the anger bubbling in him to distract him from the pain burning in his shoulder.

"... i was trying to kill you ..."

The hiss in Hux's voice is wrong too. Too sinister for such a snivelling toothpick of a man. "You?" Kylo spits. "You are nothing! I will cut you down as I should have long ago."

He lunges for Hux. The troopers surge forward, building a blockade before their commander. Kylo deflects their blaster shots. Half of those blasts rebound, taking down the troopers that shot them. The rest fall beneath his furiously flying lightsaber. Even with his injured shoulder, it's an easy victory for him.

Panting, adrenaline pulsing through him, a Force of his own, he sneers at Hux. The man is completely unmoved, those red eyes blankly surveying him. It is that which sets infuriated nerves rippling through Kylo. "It's just you and me now. Still think you can kill me."

"... oh, yes ..."

With a guttural cry, Kylo charges, leaping through the air, lightsaber carving on an arc to bring death.

Hux calmly raises a hand. Red lightning shoots from his fingers.

Struck in the chest by the unexpected blast, Kylo is sent flying backwards.

#

Rey bursts from the forest, and veers left towards the landing plot and one very specific ship. With her mind so focused on this one task, she doesn't see Rose darting to intercept her until she's right in her path.

"What's wrong, Rey? What is it?"

Rey stumbles to a halt, nearly falls to the ground. Rose reaches out her arms, catches her before she can hit the ground.

"He's in trouble," she manages to say, feeling every slipping second as a precious stone of time she doesn't have. "I have to help him."

"Who? Rey? Wait!"

But Rey is already racing away from her.

"I'm coming with you!"

Rey slows again, to face Rose and her shining eyes of resolve. "No. It's too dangerous."

"That's fine with me," Rose says, undaunted. "I'm here for you."

If time was on her side, Rey might have wasted it on arguing Rose out of it. But she can't deny the feeling of relief she knows to not have to face this alone. "Okay. Come on. I'll explain on the way."

#

Hux examines his hands, laughing manically.

"... did you see that? ..."

As if he can't believe it himself, he sends a second jet of lightning towards Kylo who spasms on the ground.

It's gone again and Kylo is left breathing heavily, swallowing down the cry that's close to ripping from his throat. He forces himself to rise, shaking as he does. "How are you doing that?"

"... he is our chosen one. he is one of our own. you should not have refused us ..."

Hux digs into his pocket and retrieves the deeply pulsing ruby gem. It casts Kylo in a reddish hue, as if washing him with blood. He's prepared this time when the lightning crackles at Hux's fingers and deflects the attack with his lightsaber.

"But he is nothing. No one. He understands nothing of the Force."

"... he understands propose, potential. we will train him. he will restore us. once you are dead ..."

Kylo lunges forward again. Hux extends a hand, a charged spear leaps into his hands and meets Kylo's slashing blade with a fiery clash.

#

Rey and Rose slide into the cockpit. Behind them, Chewbacca growls and grumbles insistently.

"I know, I know, Chewie. I'll explain later. We have to go," Rey says quickly, waving a dismissive hand.

"And where are we going?" Rose asks her as she settles into the co-pilot seat.

"Just get us out of the atmosphere. I'll know in a second." I hope, she thinks to herself, before closing her eyes, and reaching out for Kylo.

She brushes his mind.

#

Kylo staggers in the hangar as he feels her lightest touch. Rey flickers into sight at his side.

"Ben, where are you?" she asks him urgently. "Tell me."

Kylo dances back from Hux and his swinging spear. "I thought I told you to stay out of this."

"Don't be stubborn."

Kylo laughs, a bitter croak. He has no time for this, for her. He dashes forward again, clashing with Hux. He'll have time for her once he's killed this threat.

#

Rey has no time for this. She turns her head. She can see Rose there beside her, staring at her like she's gone mad. If she focuses on Kylo, the contours of the Millennium Falcon start to fade, coloured now with the dark threat of the hangar. At once she can better see Kylo clashing with a red head man she knows to be Hux. And in the corner, not far from where she's standing, a screen flickers. She hurries to it.

#

Kylo falters as the walls of the Millennium Falcon take shape around him. It distracts him, and he stumbles back, keeping back from Hux, trying to centre on where he is.

"... what is this power? ..."

Hux hesitates too, eyes slits. Glancing around, his eyes fall towards the screen.

Kylo darts in his path, blocking his view of Rey.

It's enough to pull Hux away from discovering the truth.

#

And enough for Rey to pull their coordinates from the Leviathan's system. She relinquishes her hold on Kylo and slips away back into the Millennium Falcon. She's standing in the corridor now.

Rose and Chewie are just behind her, ogling her with a curious confusion.

"I got it," she tells them, passing Rose the coordinates. "Hurry, please."

#

Kylo feels Rey slip away, knows that she's gone, knows too that she's coming. He has to be done with this, stop her. But everything seems to be slipping from his control now.

The ache in his shoulder is growing harder to ignore. It slows him, but he pushes on against it. There is no choice for him. With every parry, he knows his window of time to stopping Hux is growing ever narrower.

"Why did you choose him?" he asks, hoping to distract hid enemy, to find a weakness. "Were you that desperate?"

"... he has the drive, the will the urge. he wanted the power we offered. the power we would have given you. it leaves us no choice but to kill you. and then her ..."

Kylo releases a strangled cry, fury bubbling through him like a raging volcano. It propels him through the air, his lightsaber slashing down with a vengeful swing.

Hux deftly side steps him. Kylo lurches past him. With one swift move, Hux shoots his hand forward. Lightning crackles at his fingertips, blasts Kylo in the back.

Kylo slams against the ground, his lightsaber flung out of reach. He reaches for it. Too slow. It flies past him, into the hands of another.

More fiery blasts of lightning ripple through him, force a scream from him as it tears through him, inside out.

It ends, but he can still feel it, ice and fire, killing him.

He pushes himself onto his knees, panting.

"... beg for your life ..."

Kylo clenches a fist, grits his teeth, pushes himself onto his feet.

He's too slow to turn and in that second when his back is too his enemy, Hux slices up with the lightsaber and carves through his back.

#

Rey gasps in pain, doubles over in the copilot seat. She bites back a scream, but she hears another's. It wrenches her from the Millennium Falcon, into the Leviathan's hangar. Looking down, she sees Kylo's limp form at her feet.

"Ben?" she crouches down beside him.

"... who are you? ..."

Rey glances up into Hux's fire red eyes. "You can see me?"

"... yes, and now we know. rey. daughter of no one. the last of the jedi. but how are you here? ..."

Rey rises, ignites her lightsaber. Hux sends a jet of lightning at her. She easily deflects it, her stance assured.

"... here, but not here. we wonder if you will die for real if we kill you now ..."

"Guess you'll have to kill me to find out," Rey says, defiant. Her mind is far away, trying to latch onto a plan. She needs time.

"... make no mistake. we will ..." Hux leaps at her, Kylo's lightsaber cleaving the air. Rey meets it, and the illusion flickers.

"Rey? What's going on?"

Rose's voice calls her away from them hangar, pulls her back into the Millennium Falcon's cockpit. Her lightsaber hovers an inch from Rose's face.

"Rose, I'm so sorry. I just... I'm going in the back. Come and get me the second we arrive. Please."

"Okay." Rose nods. Her eyes swim with her bafflement, but she doesn't voice it, chooses trust over doubt.

Rey feels a deep surge of gratitude for her. "Thank you."

Racing past Chewie, she brings herself to the open lounge area and throws her conscious far from her, through hyperspace.

The hangar welcomes her back. Hux leers at her. He towers over Kylo's form. She's back a ways from them. She takes her stance. "Still curious about that death thing?"

"... let us finish him. then we'll deal with you ..." Hux kicks him in the stomach. "... the prince of darkness. such a waste ..."

The burst of revulsion that ignites in Rey is only tempered at the slightest shift in Kylo's prone form. Hope rears through her in its place, a plan beginning to form.

Sliding her lightsaber away, she reaches for the Force and finds its tendrils weaving around Kylo. She focuses on those, focuses on him. On his living body, weak as it is. She latches onto it and thinks one thought, come.

And he does, sliding across the floor, to rest at her feet.

Hux's eyes burn at once with frustration and admiration. "... what are you ..."

Rey is barely aware of the question that's been asked of her. Her eyes have caught on the chimes lying a few paces away, having fallen from Kylo's pocket. Her chest rattles, overcome with a singular thought.

She pulls away from the hangar, present enough to see Kylo, but far enough removed to see the interior of the Millennium Falcon and Chewbacca just a few feet in front of her.

"Chewie, perfect," she says it in a whisper, to avoid being overheard by Hux. "I need your help. The second we're out of hyperspace, tap me or push me. Something. Okay?"

Chewbacca growls.

"No time. Just promise."

He shrugs, hesitant, but nods.

"Thank you."

Rey pushes herself as far into Kylo's world as she can, to the point where she can almost believe that she has always and only been standing in the hangar of the First Order's ship.

"... who were you talking to? ..."

Rey doesn't respond. She crouches low, gathers Kylo in her arms and steps back from him.

If fate is kind, it won't be much longer.

"... do you think holding him will protect you? ..."

"No," she says calmly.

"... there is raw talent in you. it would be a shame to waste it ..."

"Don't worry. I plan to destroy you with it."

Hux laughs, full of spite. "... we know what you are doing. stalling ..."

"Well, you're enabling me, so..."

"... you should join us, rey. we would make an indestructible team. the war would end. you would rule the galaxies. your friends could be spared ..."

"Who's stalling now?" Her arms are heavy with the weight of Kylo in them, but this talking is diverting her from the physical strain of holding him, and the emotional toll of feeling his life slipping from him.

Please, please. Rose. I need you now.

As if her thoughts have powers, a paw lands on her shoulder.

She starts, but at the rumbling growl of Chewbacca's reassurance in her ear, her heart and mind go very steady.

Her fingers dig tighter, her grasp on Kylo strengthening. She needs to be resolved in this, needs to feel him as if he's real with her, but not real with her here.

Somewhere else.

"There's a ship approaching," a voice calls over a crackling speaker.

Hux narrows his eyes. "... what? ..."

"Sorry, but this is where I leave you." With a nod, she throws all her focus back, to the Millennium Falcon, to the pressure of Chewbacca's paw on her shoulder. And focuses harder still on the body wrapped in her arms.

When she pulls back, she pulls him with her. And as he took the chimes into his world, she takes him into hers.

A.N. Phew, that's a long one. But things are getting somewhere, I hope