Disclaimer: Star Wars is the property and creation of Lucas Film and Disney. I own none of the characters and places mentioned in this story.

Special thanks to my beta-reader Chridder (from AO3) for helping me out with this.

The amber rays of twilight passed through the window, flooding the somniferous room half cascaded in shadows, with light.

The only occupants were two old women.

One was lying sound asleep in a bed, but her sleep was troubled to say the least.

The other woman, time–worn and white-haired, was sitting in a chair next to the bed watching over the other.

Winter wondered how much pain her adoptive sister, Leia, could take.

She always respected Leia for her strength, which she proved over and over again. When their planet, Alderaan, was destroyed, Leia shed a few tears for their adoptive parents and all the people that died but kept fighting. Then Leia discovered her twin brother and found a new family. Yet, tragedy struck again. Members of her newfound family began to die. But the most painful losses were when two of her sons went to the dark side, her husband died, and her brother went missing. And now her eldest son was hurt and she couldn't be there for him.

Winter still remembered, in vivid detail, how Leia fainted in the control room the previous day and began whispering her eldest son's name. After Leia was checked by a doctor and placed in a bed, Anakin and Jaina explained what happened to her.

Winter never understood the Force, but she made a promise to always support her sister no matter what. And not just her. The other members of Leia's family were there for support, too.

Back at his residence on Coruscant, Ken was pacing in the room.

"Ken, stop walking around. You need to calm down," Tao chided in a supportive voice.

"Calm down?! Calm down?! Rey is suffering because of that monster and I don't know how to help her!" Ken screamed, enraged.

"Kylo Ren saved her life, you know?" Tao added with a sigh.

"I don't care! He's a blight in this galaxy that should be eradicated. Rey should rejoice about his condition, not cry for him!" Ken replied heatedly.

"Oh, Ken, you need to learn more about the Force. Everything happens as the Force wills it and you must accept its will."

Ken raised his hands in front of his face, rolling his eyes and walking out on Tao.

Rey was cuddled up in her bed, her eyes puffy from tears, so much that she seemed to have run dry.

What happened a few days ago still haunted her nightmares.

After Kylo's weight became too much for Rey, she laid down his prone body gently, and tried to ascertain his condition.

Soon she discovered three deep gashes on his blood could be noticed even through his black tunic.

At that moment, Rey wished she was capable of Force healing. Unfortunately, she only started to learn Force healing and she wasn't sure if she could heal such deep wounds.

"Grandfather, please don't let him die!" she pleaded through hiccups.

Then she took his right hand, holding it tight in her own. She couldn't let him die. She couldn't.

Even though she was distressed, Rey's guard was still up. So when she saw a flash in the corner of her eye at the yard's entrance, her head fully turned towards it. In the distance a blurry figure was approaching. Even if the figure was blurry, Rey recognized it as Ken. With shaky legs, she got up and ran towards him. Ken caught her into his arms, hugging her fiercely. Then he noticed her distress.

"Rey, are you alright?" Ken asked with concern.

"Ken, please, you have to help me!" Rey pleaded as she began to drag Ken by his arm towards the spot where Kylo was.

"Is that Kylo Ren?" Ken asked, exacerbated, as he got to the spot where Kylo lied motionless.

"Yes, it's him. He is badly wounded. We have to help him!" Rey implored desperately.

"HELP HIM?! Are you out of your mind, Rey?! Did you forget he almost killed me on Shumari?! That he almost killed you and that he killed Force knows how many people?!" Ken added incredulously.

"If we let him die here and now, we will be doing a favor to the galaxy."

"If we let him die here, we won't be better than the First Order. We won't be better than our grandfather, Palpatine!" Rey added with fury in her voice.

Her words hurt Ken more than any lightsaber could. He always tried to be the opposite of his grandfather.

So he made his decision halfheartedly, one that he knew he would come to regret later.

"I'll help you this time, Rey. But I'm doing this for you, not for him," Ken added with a sigh.

"Now remember your training. The both of us will need to levitate him towards the entrance of the yard where my speeder is."

And so the both of them levitated Kylo's prone body until they were able to put his body in the speeder.

"Now what?" Rey asked, sweat and raindrops running over her eyebrows.

"Now we will tie Kylo's wrists around your neck to offer him stability and support and you'll take him to Vader's castle," Ken added, annoyed, as he kept Kylo's body steady on the speeder using the Force.

"What about you?" Rey asked worried.

"The speeder is not big enough for two people, Let alone three. But since you're a small person, compared to me and Kylo, it should be enough space for you and him. Don't worry about me. I will find another way to get back." Ken added with exhaustion as Rey got on the speeder.

After Ken tied Kylo's wrists around her neck, Rey started the engine and drove with the speed of light to the Vader's castle.

There, two officers from the First Order, or at least that's what Rey assumed their rank was, approached her with caution, their blasters pointed at her.

Upon realizing who the people from the speeder were and that Kylo Ren was hurt, they started barking orders left and right. Then a stretcher was brought out while the youngest of the two officers, a woman, cut the ties around Kylo's wrists and then three stormtroopers laid him down on the stretcher, taking him inside.

Then the oldest of the two officers came with a bacta patch for Rey's wound from her arm.

"Don't worry; he is in good hands," the same officer said in a soothing voice while putting his hand on Rey's shoulder for reassurance.

That was three days ago.

Since then, Rey went there every day. The following day, after the attack, her request to see or to find out more about Kylo's condition was denied by a masked figure dressed all in black, who Rey found out later on was one of the knights of Ren.

Also, she had an ugly showdown with Ken. In her haste to find help for Kylo, she had forgotten to take his lightsaber. Well, is seems Ken retrieved it and she got into a scuffle with him over it. She got it back and returned it to the knight of Ren, the one who turned her away, when she went again to Vader's castle.

Since her altercation with Ken, she'd taken all her meals in her room to avoid him.

All her thoughts, right now, were directed towards Kylo. Was he alright?

She wanted so badly to see him.

Strange how until a few days ago, she didn't want anything to do with him, but right now she was worried sick about his well being.

At Vader's castle, an old officer, whose sandy blond hair revealed some gray streaks, was drinking his Manellan Jasper tea quietly and alone while ruminating on the events of the last days.

He knew Lord Ren to be a imbattable opponent, so when Rey Kenobi brought him half dead, he was shocked. He never thought he would live to see the day when Kylo Ren fell.

Then it went downhill from there. The new faction of the Knights of Ren arrived and Uthar Ren sends Rey back home every time she came by, requesting to see Kylo.

Speaking of lady Rey, that young woman was an oddity, even for him. She clearly didn't want to marry Kylo Ren, if his temper regarding her was any indication. But she brought him back to a place where he could receive the necessary medical treatment instead of letting him die.

Jori knew the First Order weren't the good guys, but he promised his grandfather, Erv, he will look out for any descendants of Vader.

Also, he wondered if lady Rey, didn't have any feelings for Kylo Ren, buried deep beneath and she was in denial about them.

Because the look she gave Kylo as he was taken away was a look he saw many times was the look his wife used to give him when he was sick or was about to do something dangerous.

Agony. That was all that Kylo Ren felt as he drifted in and out of consciousness in his bed. His body was in pain due to his wounds, and on fire due to his fever. Memories flashes before his eyes... him murdering his father, Kira scarring and defeating him on Starkiller base and finally Rey shedding tears for him.

He was alone with no one around who could make his agony go away.

On top of all that, he didn't even have the strength to get up from his bed and fetch a glass of water for himself, or call someone out to do it for him.

He only wanted someone to show him kindness and accept him for who he was, not to be alone, feared and used by others.

"Water," he projected the thought, knowing that no one was near to hear him anyway.

But a few moments later, to his utter bewilderment, he felt the brim of a glass touching his dried lips.

"Drink" a soft feminine voice steered him in his mind. So he did. He took big gulps of the water and soon his thirst was quelled.

He didn't know who he was in the room with him or how that woman entered it in the first place, or even if she was real and not a hallucination produced by his delirious state. Nevertheless, he appreciated the company. At least, she wasn't there to kill him in his sleep.

Soon afterwards he felt a cool touch on his forehead. Followed by a wet cloth placed on his forehead.

"Why are you doing this?" Kylo projected the thought towards the woman in his room.

But no reply came to his question. Is seemed the woman wasn't in the mood to any more chit chat.

Then the woman put the glass back from whatever place it was taken and sat down on his side of the bed.

Kylo waited, a little apprehensive but curious at the same time about what this she would do next.

He didn't have to wait long because he felt the calloused skin of the woman's fingers touching his lips and start caressing them.

Kylo asked himself, as he melted under her touch, if she did have feelings for him. The gesture was too intimate. Too affectionate.

His last thought before he fell into a blissful sleep was why this woman seemed so familiar.

Author notes:

First of all I want to apologize for taking me so long to update.

I hope you all liked the direction the story have taken (I struggled with the ending part of this chapter).

So what do you think about this chapter?

Feel free to leave a review.

Until next time!