More Rey POV with Kylo at the end. I'm writing her more than I thought I would, but it will get Kylo heavy again until it's *just* him.
Triggers: references to gang rape.
I did my best to proofread after a long day of flying with my toddler x.x
Rey is unable to sit still as she and Rose toss ideas back and forth.
Each one seems worse than the last.
They spend weeks trying to weave together a believable story. Eight weeks to be exact, because Rey tracks her pregnancy meticulously. She must be around twelve weeks total by now, maybe thirteen - almost three months. They swap cover story ideas when they can: between briefings and when their unpredictable schedules allow them to meet.
Living together is no guarantee that they will spend hours on end in conversation. They are, after all, in the middle of not only the on-going war with Kylo Ren, but now his Knights in the outer rim.
They find themselves caught in the First Order's civil war.
Rey does not completely bury her head into the ground - she hears the rumors about her abduction swirl through the resistance. To her face everyone welcomes her back with tight hugs and sympathetic smiles. They tell her she is strong to survive Kylo Ren, that they never doubted her.
Rey learns not everyone is as genuine as they seem.
She catches whispers and averted eyes as people question why Kylo held her for a month and kept her alive. How she escaped unharmed. They bring up how the Supreme Leader contacted the resistance to brag that she was staying in his private chambers. This is the first Rey hears of it, and it makes her skin crawl.
Finn crushes a particularly nasty rumor that Kylo Ren reduced her his concubine out of revenge, just to humiliate her.
Rey does not have the heart to tell him how close the rumor is to the truth.
It is human nature, this need to drag others down, Rey thinks as she scrolls through her tablet. She actively works to cloak her unborn child's presence in the force and it is exhausting.
Kylo Ren is not going to be the only one motivated to take her child, to want to use her child as a pawn.
If she thinks too much she freezes with fear at the thought of Kylo channeling his darkness into the baby. He could. He sensed the baby first, the baby in her own body. To her relief, Rey does not feel Kylo through their link. The connection is there, but it is as if a door closed firmly shut and neither of them opens it.
The only place he appears are in her nightmares. His eyes, dark and glittering, lustful, staring at her.
Rey does not know why she did not come to this realization sooner. Why she thought she could be open about who the father of her child is in the first place.
Father - Rey wrinkles her nose - she needs to use a different word. She idly wonders if her mother, whoever she was, made equally bad choices when it came to men.
"I've got it. I know what you can tell people, Rey," Rose sits up quickly on the top bunk of her bed, almost hitting the ceiling.
"Mmm?" Rey does not look up from her tablet. The last idea was so ridiculous that they decided to take a break from brainstorming.
"Okay," Rose sighs and jumps. She lands on her feet. "You're not going to like it."
Rey looks at her expectantly.
"Tell them you don't know who the father is."
Rey's eyes narrow.
"That you were unconscious and he let his stormtroopers have you. Or his Knights."
"That is so…"
Unspeakably vile, Rey wants to say. Unspeakably insulting to those who have been subjected to such an ordeal. And to lie about it?
Rey shakes her head.
"I know." Rose agrees, not needing the force to read her mind, "I know it's awful. But you need to say something. Before people come up with their own theories. And promise me you'll go to medic - if not for the baby, then for yourself."
Rey knows she is right. The part of her that lives in a bubble where this pregnancy does not exist is coming to an end. She isn't quite showing yet, but her symptoms of nausea and heartburn grow worse.
Rey is irked by this development - she thought the beginning was supposed to be the worst for symptoms. She wants one last distraction before she outs herself, outs her baby, and becomes the subject of vicious gossip...again.
"Rose? Are you going on the humanitarian mission to Masix next week?"
Rose nods slowly - she knows Rey too well and can tell where this is leading.
"Good. I'm coming too."
Rose swears under her breath.
"You know Masix is in the outer rim - where the Knights are. It will be dangerous Rey, even if our mission is to deliver aid."
Rey does not tell Rose that safety during war is an illusion. Sitting at the resistance base and twiddling her thumbs will not protect her or the baby.
She needs to be on the offensive, she needs to stay sharp.
Rose can see the resolution on Rey's face as she goes back to swiping the tablet. Her shoulders slump.
"Promise me you'll go to medic first. They can tell you if it's okay to...you know, travel and stuff."
Rey drops the attitude, the annoyance she feels towards Rose. For caring so much - for caring when she does not have to. Rey's eyes prickle.
Kriffing hormones.
"Okay," she agrees, "I'll go."
And she will. Rey will take advantage of the recent effort the resistance puts into women's healthcare. She feels the tiny life flicker inside her again and knows she needs to make sure he is healthy.
He.
Rey finds herself stunned at the realization that the tiny life is male. Her son.
Kylo Ren's son.
Nausea floods her system and she fights it down. It never occured to Rey her connection with the baby could be this intense - that as he grows she will get to know him intimately before he is born.
She fears more than ever that Kylo will come for him.
Kylo runs his hands over her clothes. The ones she left behind on his ship.
The rags she prefers to wear.
He thinks dirty little scavengers shouldn't be allowed to be so beautiful. So fuckable.
The galaxy plays a cruel trick by binding him to a nobody, a nobody who drives him to the brink of insanity.
She is insolent and rude to him, she always has been since he first interrogated her.
It was the first time he couldn't help himself.
The longer he looked at her, the more he liked what he saw. He knows he didn't have to carry her onto the ship, but he wanted to.
Strapped to the chair he told her it gave him no pleasure to tear through her mind. He did it anyway.
She terrified him when she broke into his mind.
In his panic he ran to Snoke, a mistake. Snoke would use her as an example. He would slowly kill her to demonstrate Kylo's failings as an apprentice. The grandson of Darth Vader should have been able to extract information from her.
Why wouldn't Snoke shred her to pieces? No one cares about dusty little orphan scavengers.
Except Kylo - he cared, and he still does.
Just, fuck.
Kylo rubs his temples.
All he does is brood. He broods about Rey between the attacks, the invasions, the bombings. He is mildly surprised the rumor mill that runs between the First Order and the Resistance does not reek of her pregnancy yet.
His insider tells him she keeps it a secret.
It is deeply disappointing.
It took him weeks to unobtrusively peer into her mind, into her dreams, trying to distinguish which base she hides at. He was unsuccessful.
The key was Rose.
Kylo knows how women are, he knows Rey would reach out to her.
Rose Tico.
She works in maintenance and is shuttled from base to base. When she is seen with Rey on Base Z-131, the main base, he knows within a matter of minutes. His informants are everywhere.
It is the best outcome he could hope for.
The next part is a delicate sequence of events. With the right balance of bribes and threats Kylo has learned almost anything is possible.
And so he waits.
He waits for Rey to go to the fucking doctor.
He waits for Rey to go to the fucking women's clinic on Z-131 that he worked so hard to get his infiltrate his agent into.
Three months - it takes Rey three months to finally go. He starts to wonder if she even cares about the health of the baby. His confidence that she will keep the baby is slightly shaken until he receives a shrouded message from Z-131.
Kylo sits on his throne in the middle of the night waiting for the hologram of his agent, Raisa, to make contact.
Another minute ticks by and her translucent figure appears.
Kylo's features remain cold and firm as he listens. His knuckles turn white from clenching his fists, his gritted teeth sore from the effort to remain silent as he takes in Raisa's report.
Rey is 14 weeks. She is healthy, the baby is healthy. She declines most testing and the baby's sex cannot be seen physically until she is twenty weeks.
It is when Raisa tells him Rey's fabrication of the baby's paternity that his hunched form exudes an animosity like acid - burning, slicing, potent. Kylo's face is red with suppressed rage by the time Raisa finished.
The hologram disappears.
No one knows he is the father.
They think he runs things like an uncivilized thug. They think he would let just anyone touch her.
He is furious that Rey will let society think his child is the result of a gang rape. That such a lie is preferable over admitting he is the father. It is like swallowing fire, having to face that she is so repulsed by him.
Kylo's child is not going to be a fucking nobody. His child does not descend from nobodies.
He needs a distraction before he blows through the force to rage at her.
He does not want to oversee the First Order's mission to abduct children. He does not want to see children right now.
Kylo resolves to entertain himself by disposing of the last of the Knights. By razzing and terrorizing the helpless planets on the outer rim.
He will start with Masix, a planet rich in rare minerals and sympathetic to the resistance.
Kylo realizes he is still gripping Rey's clothes and he throws them to the floor.