A/N: All the wholesomeness that you could ever need ahead! Enjoy!

Chapter 6: Protect and Serve

Kylo Ren


Ironic, on a ship this large, how hard it is to find help when you need it. After I sent the rebel prisoner with the troopers, I stormed onto the bridge in search of Hux.

"He's not here, sir," a measly boy in uniform stammered while avoiding eye contact with me.

I narrowed my eyes. Hux had one job with one place to be. "Where is he?"

The boy glanced nearby to the other workers on the bridge. They shook their heads to indicate they didn't know. "N- no one has seen him, sir."

"Find him,"I huffed and turned on my heels while my hands clenched into tight fists. Snoke will hear about this.

I was exhausted after Jakku. It had gone just as well as I expected it to, though I would have preferred to have the map to Skywalker in-hand than beginning preparations to chase it down. Still, it was refreshing to have one of my mother's scum on board to toy with.

Send in Hux's men for a while, let them convince him this will be easy, I plotted. Once he lets his guard is down, the real fun begins. They were always more satisfying when their sense of heroism crumbled into nothing but a sniveling heap.

Hux's untimely disappearance did not help my patience that had already grown thin since this morning. I devised my schedule for the foreseeable future as I stormed through the halls: find Hux, remind him of his ineptitude, send in his men, get some sleep. Should be manageable.

I rounded the corner with my glare fixed on his office door. A woman's scream pierced the air and stopped me in my warpath. There were sounds of a struggle, punches thrown, and moans of pain.

Just what I needed, I groaned. Though, it could be interesting.

'Interesting' didn't quite seem to cover it. Hux's office doors granted entry and my eyebrows furrowed while I struggled to register the havoc before me. Even behind my helmet, I couldn't quite understand what was transpiring. A woman, naked and visibly beaten, was held between two men over Hux's desk. Hux was doubled over and groaning while a sergeant across the room attempted to stop his nose from bleeding. The culprit, in the middle of it all, was another one of Hux's sergeants who resembled every other boy that ever wore a uniform.

"General," I began but was promptly disrupted as the offender continued his assault on Hux. Exasperated, I reached out and seized him. The power flowed through my core and into my fingertips as I felt his heartbeat in my outstretched hand. His body trembled as I withheld oxygen to his lungs, my eyes fixed on Hux as I approached.

"Sir- I-" the offender croaked.

If it had been a different day when the map to my not-so-familial uncle hadn't slipped through my fingers, or perhaps if Hux had not forced me to hunt him down, I might have spared the boy. Hux favored his little team, hand-picked and trusted to do his bidding. I speculated it was time for him to find another one.

With a swift clasp of my fist, his spine shattered and the body crumpled on the ground. Hux winced and groaned from the damage sustained to his face, but I suspected it was partially from witnessing one of his associates be so easily discarded.

"Explain to me why you are not at your post on the bridge," I demanded.

Hux stood and palpated his face with his fingers. "Just- delivering necessary disciplines." I noticed a glass object in his hand that caught my eye.

"Disciplines?" I repeated and seized the article from him to examine. I held it, feeling its icy chill even from within my glove. I raised my eyebrows, intrigued, as I recognized its phallic shape. "I doubt this is what they taught in that fancy imperial academy, General."

Hux stretched across to take it back but I refused to give the toy back to the spoilt child. Instead, I impounded it into my belt for later torment. "We have a prisoner on board from Jakku that is awaiting entertainment."

Hux's face crumpled when I confiscated his plaything. "I will send my men to handle him shortly."

I snorted at this and turned to look at the men he claimed were prepared to interrogate the rebel pilot. "They appear to be—" As I observed them, the woman caught my eye again. Closer now, I could see how battered she was. Her left eye was partially swollen, bruises around her jaw and intricate tattoos lacing up between her breasts that rose and fell with her distressed breathing. "Occupied."

"I assure you, my men are available to assist with an interrogation," Hux rushed behind me and motioned for the men to release the girl. She didn't resemble any girl I had seen on the bridge before. Though, I never memorized the names or faces of the lower hanging fruit. She didn't match a description of any woman ever to work for the First Order, many of whom shared similar personality traits such as withdrawn, polite, and dully conservative.

"Phasma requests a presence with you, as well," I continued, determined to move things along so I could retire to my chambers as planned.

Before Hux could reply, the girl lept off the table and sprinted for the doors. I spontaneously reached out to catch her, the energy flowing through me as she halted in place, twitching. I narrowed my eyes inquisitively and inspected her pulse that hammered like a tiny rabbit's.

Intrigue got the best of me. My head cocked to the side as I stepped toward her, unable to not stare at the intricate tattoos running up her hips and back. I stood in front of her and continued my investigation. Her long, brown hair that framed her face was frizzed and tangled as it draped down her shoulders. Her green eyes pierced through my helmet as tears formed, a faint blush spread across her face. While her lungs convulsed, deprived of air, her gasps were broken by the faintest of words.

"P- please," I barely heard her stammer as the tears trickled down her puffy cheeks. "N- not— H- H- Hux."

I had my suspicions, but I became absolutely resolved at that moment. I released my grip and draped her across my arms, cradling her against my chest. Her eyes rolled back into her head as she fell unconscious, her heartbeat thudding faintly.

"Ren!" Hux roared.

She flinched in my arms, further validating my theory. "That's mine," he fumed as he grit his teeth.

I focused on her and gently prodded into her mind.

Please, don't make me go back to him, her thoughts verbalized intensely in my head.

I secured her in my arms before I exited the room, unable to bring myself to look at Hux.

"Not anymore."


She didn't stir once while I carried her to my chambers. My first instinct was to take her to the MedBay for proper care. But upon further contemplation, I knew it would be the first place Hux would look; I couldn't risk him spotting an opportunity to be alone with her. I paused a few times along the way to ensure she was still breathing. Her lungs wheezed softly as she lay in my arms.

Stay with me, I urged. I've got you.

Once we arrived, I carefully rushed her to my bed and set her down as delicately as I could. I dug hastily in my pocket for the comlink and brought it to my helmet.

"I need medical assistance in my personal chambers, now," I ordered, never shifting my eyes away from her in fear that she might give out.

"Right away, sir."

I shoved the comlink back into my pouch and knelt beside her.

"Help is coming," I announced, unsure if she could hear or even register what I was saying. "You're going to be ok."

She was far worse than I first assessed. I hadn't even noticed the collar that Hux fastened around her throat. Once removed, it revealed blue and purple blemishes from where it once was. Her skin was pale and her lips were painfully chapped. Bags swelled under her eyes as if she hadn't slept in days or fell under his fists. Her knees were nearly black from bruising, her thighs covered in a tangle of tattoos and welts.

What the fuck did he do to you? Even I, who was quick to snap the neck of a boy just moments ago, was disturbed at thecruelty she endured.

I reached into my belt and retrieved the glass dildo I stole from Hux. If I had been moments later— I flinched at the thought of what he intended for her.

My upper lip curled while I marched across the room and bitterly flung the toy and leather collar into one of my drawers.

A doctor and meddroid arrived and quickly fell onto her to begin evaluating their patient. They established her pulse, checked her vitals, and organized a list of the various wounds that mutilated her body. I hovered at the foot of the bed, watching vigilantly as they assessed her.

"She's going to need an IV for fluids," he noted while scribbling on a clipboard. "We might be looking at a dislocated jaw, here, I'm not quite sure yet."

I clenched my teeth as Hux's smug face plastered in my mind.

The doctor turned to me with his clipboard. "We're going to need her name, rank, and supervisor before we can—"

"You don't need to know who she is," I waved my hand over him. "Just take care of her."

He stared at me for a moment as it sunk in. He blinked and continued, "We don't need to know who she is, but don't worry. We will take care of her."

The doctor returned to her chart while the droid analyzed her bloodwork and ran its procedures. "Her glucose levels are abnormally low. She's most likely entered gluconeogenesis," it reported automatically.

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"She's malnourished," the doctor explained and stood up from the bed, leaving the droid to continue its work. He accompanied me at the end of the bed as we turned away to allow her privacy. "She's obviously depleted of nutriment and water, which also explains the excessive bruising."

I can explain the excessive bruising, I huffed. "What about her knees?"

"From what I can tell they haven't shattered, though I haven't seen bruising like this on kneecaps before," I recognized that he was just as troubled as I was. "With similar marks on her palms, one plausible explanation could be that she crawled on her hands and knees for a few days."

Agitated, I folded my arms over my chest and imagined what Hux's throat would look like with a collar around his neck made of my hands.

"She needs sleep, lots of it, and fluids. Her body is struggling to heal itself without those resources. We can clean out some of the welts on her thighs and back—"

"Her back?" I repeated in bewilderment. How did I not notice them?

A red tone flushed his cheeks. "Well, I mean— it appears she sustained similar welts to her back and buttocks regions that need to be cleaned and dressed."

I winced and turned my attention back to the droid as it rubbed ointment on her thighs.

"She might be better off if we move her to the MedBay—"

"No," I opposed. "She stays here."

The doctor wanted to retaliate, but he knew better than to oppose me. He formed a schedule of rotations, fluids, and systems that would need to be followed for the next few days while she rested.

"We will bring over what supplies we can provide. I will have nurses visit every few hours to check on her. In the meantime, she needs undisturbed sleep. I'll have the first nurse on rotation bring her a medical gown as well," he concluded as the meddroid finished applying the layer of bandages to her legs.

I nodded my gratitude as they departed, and the room fell silent as we were left alone once more. There was more to do. I needed to check the state of the prisoner excavated from Jakku, but I was hesitant to leave her alone.

Hux wouldn't dare, I reassured. She's perfectly safe.

I approached her bedside before I left, careful not to disturb her or the IV stand she was connected to. She seemed peaceful as if she could finally relish her sleep without fear or agony keeping her on edge. Satisfied for now, I sauntered out of my chambers to the holding cells, preparing to imagine Hux's face on the prisoner's.


The prisoner lay unconscious behind me as I exited the cell, the automatic doors closed with a loud hiss. Hux waited outside in the hall for the report, eyeing me cautiously as I neared him.

"It's in a droid," I announced without much attention to him. "A BB-unit."

"Well then, if it's on Jakku, you shall soon have it," he claimed, his body tense as he anticipated my advance.

I very much wanted to. I had pictured what Hux would look like if I slowly depleted the oxygen in his lungs while I choked the prisoner, but I wasn't content. Hux deserved something far worse, and that would have to wait for the precise moment. If I killed him now, Master Snoke would be extremely displeased for executing his precious general without cause. With his assassination off the table, that left my favored option of tormenting him in a mental game of cat and rat.

"I leave that to you," I dismissed. Out of the corner of my helmet, I saw him flinch as I trudged by, causing a smirk to fill the corner of my mouth as I left the cells. The game had begun.

Envy flooded my veins as my thoughts drifted to my new roommate. What I would give— who I would kill— to lay in bed blithely unaware of the happenings around me. But I couldn't let myself rest care-free until I was certain she was out of harm's way.

I couldn't pinpoint why I was so intent on watching over her. I had heard the howls of initiation from Hux's goons before and hardly blinked. However, this was not an induction into his good-old-boys club. Hux had intentionally and meticulously conducted her torment far beyond anything I'd seen him come up with for our prisoners.

The nurses must have visited while I was away, as my guest now dawned a blue medical gown, the sheets pulled back around her like ripples on a lake.

Idiots, I grumbled and leaned over cautiously to grab the blankets. As I dragged them over her body I couldn't help but stare, each wound etching in my mind. Her skin already began to turn a more fleshy tone instead of the cool, pale hue that I brought her in with.

In the refuge of my chambers, I removed my helmet for the first time in what felt like days. The pressurized hisses tickled my neck as beads of sweat skimmed down my jaw. I set it on a table with a dull thud and glanced to see if she stirred from the noise, but she remained immobile. Nothing moved except for her chest, softly rising and falling beneath the sheets.

You could find out everything you need to know about her, I prompted as curiosity lingered mercilessly on my tongue. She wouldn't know.

I shook the thought from my head with a huff. I refused to stoop so low as to pry into her mind while she was in this state. It was late, anyway, and I preferred to get some sleep instead. I dragged one of the leather chairs from the seating area near the foot of the bed, its metal legs groaning as they skidded against the polished floor. I took a seat, allowing my weight to sink into the plush furniture as my bones imitated my audible sigh of relief. With my arms folded over my chest, I settled in for a long night of much-needed rest.

It was the middle of the night when she began to scream. The automated lights were dimmed from lack of movement until I abruptly jolted awake in my seat, her cries causing my hair to stand on end. I lunged out of the seat, my hand clutching my lightsaber as I scanned the room, but there was no sign of Hux.

Another wail, fainter this time, arose from the head of the bed. I holstered my saber and squatted down to inspect her. Nothing about her posture had changed, but her eyes wildly darted back and forth behind her eyelids, her breath quick and erratic.

"What's going on in there?" I pondered aloud. The notion to peek inside her mind tingled in my fingertips again. I swiftly stood and retreated from the bedside, away from temptation. Her scattered cries softened behind me while I debated in my head.

You're better than this, I criticized, my fists clenched tightly. Though, you deserve some answers. A deep sigh rumbled through my chest as I made up my mind. Though I was conflicted, I felt it was an excusable offense.

"I'm sorry," I apologized and knelt again as another whine tore through her throat. "But I can't help if I don't know what's happened to you."

I closed my eyes and cleared my mind to focus on hers, shaking off the weariness that crept back into my chest. Reaching out with my hand I extended my energy and prodded carefully. There was no resistance as I entered her mind, her visions becoming my own.

Compared to what she showed me, I preferred my nightmares. There was pain, and from what I observed, lots of it. The dreams flashed like lightning leaping across the void accompanied by screams that served as the thunder. A girl, no more than four or five, drove her feet into the ground as massive arms tugged on her. No matter how she tried, her feet could not grip the floor as they dragged her along. The echoes distorted as a bright flash changed the vision. Two men held a woman down by her wrists and ankles on a medical table as she cried out. I isolated this scene in her mind and stepped deeper into it before the image could shift.

I was blinded by the bright, white walls before I could decipher the scene. A high-pitched buzz reverberated around the room that made my teeth ache. I recognized her, sprawled out on a metal medical table, her eyes tightly closed while her lip trembled. She was completely naked, just as she was when I first laid eyes on her, but she lacked the bruises and swelling she received from Hux. One man loomed over her top half and held her shoulders down against the metal table while another's back was turned to me as he hunched over her torso.

"I can't," she burst as her concentration disappeared. "Please, I can't do it anymore."

The men simply ignored her while the buzzing continued to fill the stillness. I wandered to the other side of the room to get a better look. The larger man had a tool in his hand that he dug into her sternum; her lip would tremble each time it was pressed down while the needles injected the black ink deep under her skin.

So that's where those came from, I concluded.

"Please!" I noticed tears began to well in her eyes now. "Please, it hurts too much."

My eyes fell on her lower half to study the fresh marks on her hips. They must have worked on this for several hours now. It was clear that she tried to sit still through it all, but I couldn't blame her for reaching her breaking point.

"That's it," the larger man barked and tossed the gun onto the tray beside him. He proceeded to grab her ankles at the end of the table and secure restraints around them, her cries becoming more frantic.

"No, no! Stop it! I can't do anymore, please!" They restrained her wrists at her sides before the man returned to his work between her exposed breasts.

This act of brutality didn't make sense to me. While I didn't have personal experience with tattoos or procedures to obtain them, I had seen plenty of creatures with all kinds of designs and markings in our prison cells. But from my understanding, it was a ritual of self-expression or culture; on occasion, marked in slavery, but even those were more subtle, such as a barcode or name of ownership. This was entirely different. This was forced modification. But why?

"We're losing her," the man announced and slapped her cheek. I watched as her eyelids began to droop, her pupils rolling back into her head as she drifted into unconsciousness.

"Good— it's easier when they do," the large man grinned, relieved. My upper lip curled at him before her subconscious echoed to me.

Pheme, please, help me, she moaned before slipping under.

Pheme? I surveyed the room, searching for who she may have tried to contact, but she promptly fell still against the table as she gave in to the pain.

I opened my eyes and sucked air into my lungs, grounding my feet as I assessed my surroundings. Her motionless body still resided in my bed, quieter than before. I stood up while reflecting on what I witnessed.

"I'm sorry to have forced you to relive that," I whispered to her without response.

As I trudged back to my watch post in the chair I rolled through the events in my head. There were still so many questions.

What was her name? Where did she come from if not the First Order? How did Hux get ahold of her? Who is Pheme?

I retired to my chair as the puzzles pestered my mind. I resided to wait until she awoke before collecting the answers. She obviously relived these encounters frequently and didn't need me poking around in there to stir them up even more.

In the meantime, she needed to rest in peace, the one comfort that I could provide her. The glimpse into her mind awakened something in me that I hadn't been able to identify until then. As I gazed upon her in a state of stillness, I meditated on my sense of duty and responsibility for her and her protection. Driven by the hatred that boiled inside me for Hux and the men that marked her body, I bestowed a silent vow to her.

Until you can survive on your own, I will provide for you. Until you are healed, I will see to it that you receive the care you need. When the time comes that you are ready and able to depart on your own accord, I will assist with arranging your escape. I will defend and protect you until you do not need me, and I will guard and shield you even when you cannot see me. By my title as Master of the Knights of Ren, I, Kylo Ren, vow to protect you from any and all dangers that threaten you.

When I finished, she stirred for the first time. She mumbled in her sleep and rolled onto her side, curled her legs up to her chest, and tucked her hands under her chin in a more comfortable position. Perhaps she felt safer already.