Rey was surprisingly light in his arms. She was small, yes, but he'd thought for some reason she'd be heavier.
Kylo carried her carefully through the porch, wincing at the cold draught under the front door as he passed it, then around to the stairs. When he paused to open the door to the staircase, she stirred and wrapped her arms around him, holding him tightly. It made opening the door a lot easier, as well as getting her up the stairs and into her room, although he couldn't avoid stepping on the squeaky fifth one. It was strangely soothing to be held like that, even if the closeness was alcohol-related. He pulled back the starship quilt, every lovingly-stitched section still clear and strong, and laid his charge on the sheet. Removing her shoes, he nestled her sock-clad feet under the quilt, pulling it over her and tucking it in tightly. The warmth from the fireplace downstairs had done its job, and the entire room was rather pleasant. It wouldn't last, but at least she would start the night in comfort.
Turning to leave, he saw her textbooks open on the desk with her notepad and calculator beside them. As she had mentioned, the calculator was a top-of-the-line programmable Jedi-brand C-3PO, with a colour display and the gold casing. It wasn't what he'd expect a beauty student to use, but perhaps he was being judgemental. It was too dim to see anything particular in the textbooks, although they looked large and solid enough to cause serious injury were she to use them for a weapon instead of a study aid.
Downstairs he moved the wine bottles and glasses into the kitchen, washed up and put the remains of the dinner in the fridge. It might be a stereotype of the background, but she'd certainly made enough for another meal. That suited Kylo perfectly – one less meal for him to prepare. Snaffling the last of the garlic bread, he doused the lights, banked the fire and headed for bed. He had no doubt he would be the first awake in the morning, and the more human of the two.
His prediction was partially correct. He was the only one awake in the morning. Somehow he managed to sleep until nearly nine, as the sun never made its way through the snow over the skylight. Rey's door was closed, so he knocked, and when there was no answer, he opened it quietly and noted the motionless shape under the quilt. She'd had half as much wine again than he had, and he was feeling slightly seedy, so she was probably not going to be at all well. His breakfast was coffee and toast, and he rugged up well before heading outside to check the snow situation.
It was a good thing he did. The back and front porch were well sheltered, but the sides of the house had three feet of snow easily, which meant the roof was similarly covered. He knew from experience that the snow on the roof needed to be cleared off soon, or it would partially melt and become ice, which would be too much for the shingles. Luckily, there was a simple solution.
An hour later, there was a massive thump at the back of the house, followed by a similar one at the front. The inside of the house was toasty-warm, as he had had to stoke the fire fairly high to activate the built-in roof-heater that had been part of the cabin's design. The snow at the front could stay there, although he'd need to clear a path to the car, but the pile at the back would need clearing before it refroze into an icy slush pile that would stay until spring. Kylo grabbed the snow shovel, his jacket and scarf and headed out to deal with one of the few design problems the cabin allowed. If he were going to rebuild it, he'd work out some kind of drainage system that allowed the snow to be channelled directly into the water tank built into the side of the hill.
It took him an hour to clear most of the drift. The back got practically no sun – another thing that would need changing. It was useful in summer when the kitchen became a cool oasis, but right now it was just annoying. He took the extra time to dig a path through the front drift, so that they could reach the car and get out of the house. It was past noon when he got back inside, his hands and feet freezing.
Kylo hung his coat on the back of the kitchen door to drip-dry in the warmth, and headed for the bathroom and a hot shower, pulling his sweater over his head as he did. It took the warm shirt he'd been wearing with it, and he struggled a little as he opened the bathroom door, trying to get the double layer over his ears, when he heard a shriek.
"What do you think you're doing?"
Rey. In the bathroom.
"Sorry." His voice was muffled in the fabric layers, and he could barely hear her, but he did realise that there was a lot of steamy air around him. Pulling the rest of the tops over his head, he shook his hair free then looked at where the voice had come from.
She was sitting up in the bath, her hair piled high on her head, her face white and her skin very pink. Clutching a washcloth over her breasts, she stared at him as if he had lost his mind.
"Out."
"Oh." She must have filled the bath while he was out the front, which explained why he hadn't heard the water running. He turned around, hurriedly pulling the shirt out from the jumper so he could put it on again. As he shut the door to keep the steam in, he heard her gasp.
Leaning against the door as he wrestled with the clothes to put them back on, he grinned.
"You know, I could really do with being in a lava pit right now."
"But if I tell Poppy, I'd have to get a new bodyguard. No, I'll stick with you for a bit." There was a sound of water sloshing.
"Thanks." Kylo finally managed to separate the sweater from the shirt and he soon had them both back on. "Do you feel up to lunch? Lasagne? There's plenty." There was a low groan through the door, and he shook his head at the innocence that led foolish young maidens to overindulge in red wine. "Just some hot soup and toast then? And coffee?"
"Please. Is it all right if I stay in a bit longer?"
"Take as long as you want, Principessa." There was a wet squish against the bathroom door that he knew was the washcloth she had just been using to cover herself. He laughed, and went to make lunch.
It must have been nearly an hour later that Rey appeared, looking less pale than she had in the bath. She quickly reheated the soup, and threw some bread on to toast. Her hair was neat, having been combed out and into three little buns that did the job of keeping it out of her eyes, but it was still dripping on her collar.
"Why was the house so warm before? I woke up and thought I must have caught the virus." She felt the side of the coffee press, then grimaced. "Cold."
"Heat it up in a saucepan."
"That makes sense. I've got a microwave at home. Normally I'd stick it in that." She dragged out an old green-flecked enamelled saucepan and poured the coffee in. "There's enough for two here – want some?"
"Please."
"This saucepan – Maz used to have one just like it for heating milk. She didn't believe in microwaves either." With a clunk it was on the stove and the element turned on.
"I had the heat up to get the snow off the roof."
"What happens when you're not here?"
"It piles up. There's no gutters though, so the melt doesn't tend to back under the shingles. I'll probably have to replace a few next summer, but they're pretty good at their job." Kylo held out his mug and Rey tipped half of the newly-hot coffee in. "Thanks."
She disappeared into her room for the rest of the afternoon, and Kylo went through the books faster than he thought possible. Cleaning the gun and sweeping the snow off the front porch took a bit more of the afternoon, but he was still starting to get restless by the time he heard the fifth stair creak.
In the kitchen, Rey was covering the leftover lasagne with foil and slipping it in the oven.
"What happened to the rest of the garlic bread?"
"It was delicious."
"Then you'll just have to do without today." She sat down and opened the second bottle of wine, pouring a glass for each of them.
"I'd better not have more than this if I'm going to get some serious study in tomorrow. Although I should take a break at some stage. I didn't even think of bringing books – what have you got here?"
"A full selection of Agatha Christie novels."
"Whodunnits?"
"Yeah, them." Kylo laughed. "If you see odd things in them – page numbers circled, for instance – don't panic."
"Oh! It's the Romance Code! Miss Holdo told me about it. How the ladies reading the romance novels put a secret sign in so if they can't remember if they've read it before, they check for a dot on page 87, or a line under the publishing date or something. But you can't tell the difference between these ones?"
"Not that. It's to see if you can work out who the murderer is." He grabbed the one on the bench at the side he'd left there. "See – here's my mark on page 27. I thought I had it picked."
"And now?"
"I don't think it's the sports teacher. My money's on the gardener now."
"Why not the sports teacher?"
"Can't tell you. It'd spoil it. So – do you think that lasagne's ready yet?"
Dinner was as nice as it had been the day before. Kylo thought over the supplies – it'd be frozen meals for dinner the next night, but that wouldn't kill them. "What time does your lecture finish?"
"Eleven, then we usually have a discussion after. I should be done by twelve. What were you thinking?"
"Do you want to risk lunch at the bar?"
"If you think it's safe." She scowled. "I haven't heard much of what's happening with the virus, but I don't know if a crowded room full of loud drinkers will be a good idea."
"Then I'll get takeout and we'll find somewhere nice to have it. Or back here, if the weather turns." He took a last swallow of wine, then rinsed his glass out and filled it with water. "I need to remember to get some more filters for the water tanks too."
"I'd love to have a look at your water systems later. Obviously you're not on town sewage."
"No, we've a large septic with a dual soak. The house was set up to last ten years with three people here, so with just me being here so irregularly, I've never needed to empty the tank. You know about this stuff?"
"Civil engineering? Not my ballpark, but one of my friends is into it." She grinned. "He goes on like crazy about some garden in Italy where the fountains are nearly five hundred years old, and not a single pump to make them work."
The Naberrie Gardens he thought. Part of his family's cultural heritage – and far too identifiable if he said anything. "So are you thinking of making a home water system that works the same way – endless showers and hairwashing? Excellent."
"Yeah, about that …" She paused and took another drink. "Actually, no. Never mind. Look, you might be my bodyguard, but …"
Pausing, she looked out the window, where there was a light dusting of snow blowing under the back porch eaves. Sighing, she turned back.
"I thought we were becoming friends."
"We … we are." The warmth he felt was due to the wine, no doubt, and not those words. And the smile on his face. He knew he didn't smile much, but he hadn't realised it would take so little to raise one. "Friends, yes."
"Good. Because I don't have a lot of friends. And it would be hard stuck here for four weeks if we didn't get on." Rey took the plates off the table and proceeded with the washing up, and Kylo went to check if his socks were dry.
Reading yet another Agatha Christie, Kylo cursed the lack of variety of books available. He'd read them all before, and hadn't thought to bring anything else up. Foolish, he knew – most of these sorts of jobs were sitting around for days on end, then a massive flurry of action at the end. He'd have to see if there was any reading material in the shop in town. But not the library.
The silence of the house, insulated as it was by the snow, was almost creepy, but he was used to it. It was one of the benefits of living in the Park. There might be the distant howl of a coyote, or the crash as a branch broke under the weight of snow, but that was nothing compared to living in the busy city of Naboo with its narrow streets full of traffic, sirens at every hour, and the dull hum of humanity. If he had a choice, he'd live up here for a year.
But at the moment, his only choice was to guard the young woman that he was becoming rather fond of. Banking the fire again for the night, he cleaned his teeth, turned off the downstairs lights and headed up the stairs. The light showed across the top of the wall to her room, and he checked his watch. Its old-fashioned hands showed him it was getting late, and he felt rather more like a bossy big brother than a bodyguard as he yelled that it was time for her to close her books for the night.
"You're not my guardian!"
"Yeah, but I have to cope with you being grumpy tomorrow if you don't, and I'd rather not."
"I can take responsibility for myself."
"Your call, Principessa."
There was a definitely unhappy grump, and she came out onto the landing.
"If you don't ace your test in four weeks, it won't be for lack of trying." Kylo went to move past her, but she put her hands on his hips and swung herself around on him, reversing their positions.
"You'd make a great pivot." She had her bath bag in one hand as she headed down the stairs.
"Just don't forget to turn off the lights when you come back up."
"Si, Anziano." She skipped down the stairs as he headed into the bedroom.
In moments he was stripped down to his t-shirt and briefs, and slipped under the cover. The quilt, covered in a geometric pattern his mother had made with her friends, was warm and comforting, but he kept himself awake until he heard light footsteps return to her room. Then, he slept.