Crimson Lane - Chapter 19 - From a Certain Point of View

We are all broken, That's how the light gets in. -Ernest Hemingway

The first time Rey's heart had broken was on the evening her parents had sent her away and never looked back.

The second time was when Plutt had sold her virginity. This was a different type of tear, one that sheared through her identity, resculpting it.

And the third time was now, when she had allowed herself to be vulnerable, to trust again, and he had betrayed that trust.

Rey pushed the balcony doors open and saw the outline of the demon dressed in angel's clothing. She knew this feeling of heartbreak, the heavy pressure in her chest, metal fingers squeezing and suffocating her heart.

But this time, she was different. A new kind of fire brewed in her belly. The bitter scorch of disappointment… and anger.

She pulled the balcony door almost closed. Her right hand clutched firmly around the handle, the other pressed against the glass, as though it were the only thing to keep her steady.

All she had to do was turn around and leave. He would still be asleep. She could do that. No confrontation. Just a subtle escape.

She pulled the door softly and it clicked, at the same time a silent sob clawed its way out of her chest. She squeezed her eyes closed to push it away, but there was no time for tears, she had to leave now before he woke, before he could convince her to stay.

Sheets ruffled behind her, and…

"Rey?" That voice, so soft and unassuming. Musical and languid, warm and caressing, she felt it all the way to her toes.

But she wouldn't do this.

Don't let him speak, she told herself. Don't look him in the eye.

"Sweetheart. Are you alright?"

She heard his sheets stirring once more and she faced him down with an icy glare.

"What is it?"

Her gaze fell to his collarbone, to the delicate softness of his neck, entwined with ropes of muscle. She wished it were enough not to look into his eyes, but even in the periphery of her vision, she could see the way his face fell, silent and pale, lips stolen of colour, chest still and lifeless.

"You know," he whispered.

She edged back against the door, hating the wall of tears building in her eyes. The shape of his body shifted, rising now, coming to her…

"Stay back!"

He froze.

"I can explain…"

He edged a step closer, slow and cautious.

"Don't come any closer," she hissed. "I mean it!"

Whatever he saw in her face was enough to stop him. "Please."

Rey shook her head, cursing the tears that slithered down her cheeks in hot rivers of fire. And the gravity of the Earth pulled her to the ground, where she sat clutching her knees.

"It was you ." There was no point holding back the tears now. "It was always you ."

"Shhh." The floorboards creaked as he lowered himself next to her.

"Do you know what the worst thing is?" she cried. "I knew . I always fucking knew! I just wouldn't let myself believe it." She tried to breathe, but the air had become thin, like there wasn't enough.

Kylo's trembling hand reached out to caress her hair and she pulled away, jumping back to her feet.

"Don't touch me!"

"Rey! Please, you need to listen."

He reached for her again, but this time, his slender white fingers were replaced with leather gloves; claws reaching for her.

"No!" she gasped, and this time her voice was accompanied by the screech of metal against the lounge room floor, cockroaches scurrying at the sound, gloved hands crushing her wrists, dragging her powerlessly into the kitchen, tied to a chair. She remembered the knives, glistening in the light. The terror she had felt when he had thrown them at her, toying with her life.

The memories came rushing back and before she knew it, she was running to the front door.

He came at her again, the creature of her nightmares, moving like every motion was a command, his body consuming the space around her.

How could she have been so blind?

She ran, but his arms gripped around her waist, pulling in an iron hold.

"I can't let you go," he choked out. "You need to listen."

She kicked her feet out furiously, shoving a sharp elbow into his torso.

"Listen to me!" he roared.

He was getting angry. Good. She could work with that.

She smacked her head back into his with a bone-breaking crack.

He held her tighter and she turned her head towards his shoulder, biting hard, her fingers lashing out at his skin like a street cat. It was hardly martial arts. This fight was messy and ferocious. A fight to survive, to get her body and her heart out of her own personal nightmare. He grunted with pain at her attack, and his grip around her waist faltered enough to allow her to sprint across the room.

She smashed into the front door, looking back at him as her lungs burned.

"I didn't mean to scare you…" he stammered and she saw fear in those dark eyes. "I need you to hear what I have to say."

A cool breeze touched her bare feet from beneath the door. Freedom was behind her. All she had to do was take it...

"The blood on your hands last night…"

"It was Lor's."

"You killed him!" She couldn't stop crying now.

"Yes."

So blunt. Even in this.

Kylo didn't come any closer, his arm rubbed soothingly over his right shoulder where she had bitten him, the other hanging limp, like all his strength had left.

Without realising, she had mirrored his position. His gaze darted between her arm and her face and she quickly changed position, realising what she had done.

"The night you attacked me," she began.

"It was just a job."

"Just a job?" She gave a cruel laugh. "Do you have any idea what that did to me?!"

"Yes."

The flames were coiling up her neck, lines of red marks branded her emotions across her face and all he could say was "yes" ?

"I let myself love you… and you… you ruined my life!"

The floorboards creaked as he ventured closer.

"I said stay where you are!"

"If you would only listen…" There were tears running down his cheeks now. How strange it was to see a grown man cry. It was almost enough to make her hesitate.

Almost.

"Fuck you!" she spat. "You're a murderer and a liar, and I..." She stopped, her courage failed and there was nothing in its place. At that moment, his marble-like face shattered before her.

She had to leave now, another moment seeing him like this, so broken, so lost… it would ruin her.

So she left him there, in nothing but a sheet wrapped around his waist—and ran.

Rey ran onto the street, pushing and shoving, finding cracks in the crowd and breaking through them.

"Hey!" someone attempted to chastise her. She didn't look back.

The street before her was blurry and distant. She ploughed through it with her phone to her ear, covering the speaker each time an animalistic sob exploded from her.

"Yes, I'm crossing the road now," she shouted, the street sounds making it hard to hear the voice on the other end. "Just wait, I'll be there in a second."

Rey glanced back at her apartment. Was he watching her leave? Perhaps he was coming after her now. God, she hoped not. The way he'd looked at her… she couldn't face that again.

She stepped onto the road, peering through the steady stream of cars, searching for Finn's beat-up Honda Civic. It was pulling up on the far side of the road. Without looking, Rey leapt out to meet him.

The piercing sound of screeching tyres skidded towards her. She froze, meeting the panicked wide-eyed expression of the driver with her own, squeezing her eyes shut in the last second before impact.

She saw Kylo in fleeting visions; tender holds, gentle kisses, crooked teeth and shy smiles. A horn bellowed at her and Rey opened her eyes to see the car had stopped but a foot away.

Instinct drew her eyes back to the apartment. Kylo was leaning out a window, his face stricken with horror, and now relief.

"Wait!" She could see the words on his lips, but she shook her head.

"What the fuck are you doing?" the driver screamed at her, and she held her hand out, mouthing an apology before darting across the road.

Finn's three-door Honda was waiting for her. Rey crouched in behind Poe's front seat without a word, breathless and shaking as she pulled a loose seat belt across her waist, clumsily securing it.

They stared at her, dumbfounded, and as soon as her belt was on, she took a breath and collapsed her head into her hands and wept.

"Oh my God!" she cried, barely able to breathe.

"Peanut, what...?"

"Please drive, I need to get out of here."

Finn and Poe exchange glances.

"Please, Finn!"

The engine started, followed by the indicator, and they were off, away from him.

"What the hell happened back there?" Poe asked.

She shook her head, unable to control the heaving sobs overpowering her now.

"I just need a minute. I'll be okay." She tried to breathe, to bring herself to centre.

In. Out. In. Out. She pictured Luke's dojo, with the morning sunlight streaming onto the bamboo floorboards, the way they were cool beneath her feet and so smooth. And then she saw Kylo Ren there, infiltrating her safe space. She had to think of another place now, one that didn't remind her of him.

Finn's go-cart of a car rattled and jolted as they went. He needed new shock absorbers and the petrol indicator still didn't work, lying limply at empty. Rey looked up to the rear vision mirror, where he watched her, clearly worried.

"We're taking you to the hospital."

"I don't need a hospital," she grumbled.

"What did they do to you?" Finn pushed again, his eyes on her more than the road before him.

"Noth-ing. Wait..." Rey leaned forward, shoving Poe in the shoulder. "Did you tell him?"

"Come on, I had to! I thought they'd fucking murdered you."

A deep feeling of shame bloomed in her core. "You promised me!" She wouldn't cry again. "Finn, I'm so—"

"Don't say a word. It's okay, I only wish you would have told me sooner, so I could have helped you."

"It doesn't matter now." She slumped back into her chair, suddenly overwhelmed with tiredness.

And there it was again, that look between the two of them. A discussion she was not part of, though, by the look in Poe's face, she knew she was about to be.

"Poe..." Finn said in warning.

"I know we agreed, but this is too important. She has to have seen him."

"What are you talking about?" Rey asked warily.

Poe turned back to her, fierce and determined.

"Kylo Ren."

It was a punch to the gut. She tried to look calm, even though he had knocked the wind out of her lungs. "I told you, I haven't—"

"I can't believe you haven't seen him. He's tall, around 6"3', dark hair—"

"How many times do I have to tell you—"

"That's horse shit, Rey. I know he's been there. You may not have been with him, but you've probably seen him in the corridor or something."

"Poe!" Finn shouted. "If Rey says she hasn't seen him, then she hasn't seen him."

She nodded appreciatively in Finn's direction.

"If she can identify him, we can bring this bastard down. Shit, we can bring down the whole organisation possibly." He turned back to Rey. "Come on, you must have seen him somewhere; in Snoke's office, the break room, anywhere…"

"I-I don't know."

There was a twitch at the corner of Poe's lips, as though he'd heard a lie in her voice.

"Don't hold back on me, Rey."

"I'm not!"

"I can tell when people are holding back on me. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up and I know—"

"I told you! I don't know who he is!" She crossed her arms, glaring at him. "Do you think I would protect someone like that—a monster!?"

A secret cry tried to break through, and she quickly looked out the window, placing her palms on her face to hide what lay beneath.

"I will throw you out on the street right now," Finn said, deadly calm. "If Rey says she doesn't know who he is, then she doesn't know who he is. You're not pressing her anymore while I'm around. Can't you see she's upset enough?"

Rey flashed her gaze up at Finn in the rear vision mirror guiltily and he nodded at her. He really was the nicest person she knew. Well, maybe he and Rose tied on that.

Poe glared back at her. "Fine."

But as soon as Finn was preoccupied driving, Poe turned back again and mouthed, 'we'll talk about this later.'

Rey glared, arms folded and brows creased in a smouldering expression of irritation that was enough to push him back… for now.

The car travelled on in silence. All the while Rey thought what Kylo must be doing now, alone in her apartment. Did he feel as broken as she was? She tried not to remember the moment he realised that all was lost, that anything he tried to say would have no power over her. How, in his desperation, he'd grabbed her, as though it was the only thing he knew how to do.

Poe's phone rang and he answered it. "Poe Dameron."

Finn glanced back at her briefly. He was biting his lip. Rey wrangled her mouth into an uneven smile, even if she knew he didn't buy it.

"When did it arrive?" Poe shouted. "Are you sure it's legit?"

There was a muffled sound on the other end.

"Alright, I'll be there in a minute."

He hung up the phone. "I need to go back to the office. We may have had a major breakthrough on the story."

"What kind of breakthrough?" Finn asked.

"A recording. It was pulled from Lor San Tekka's phone the day he was killed."

"But we don't have Lor's phone?"

"It came in an anonymous package this morning. I don't know much more than that, but Kaydel said the implications are huge." He gestured over to the side of the road. "Here, pull over there. I'll catch a cab back to the office and call you when I know."

Finn's expression dropped. "But, what about the interview!?"

"Yeah, good luck with that. I'll let the Senator know there's been a change of plans and you're taking it instead."

"But I thought you were going to take the lead on this?"

Poe laughed, giving him a friendly whack on the shoulder. "Don't worry about it. She'll love you!"

The car door slammed shut, and Rey and Finn were left alone in silence. After a moment of staring into the quiet street, Finn turned back to her.

"Peanut, get in here." He gestured for her to take the front seat. As she did, Finn pulled her into his chest, so hard that she could hear his heartbeat racing. She relaxed in his hold, feeling momentarily safe and surrounded with love.

When she pulled back from him at last, he touched her cheek, wiping away a stray tear.

"We better go." She sniffed. "You've got an interview to go to."

"That's not until this afternoon. For now, I'm all yours," he said, gently pushing her hair back behind her ears. It was a familiar gesture, loving and friendly. It made her wonder how her life might have been different the night at a party, when Finn had proclaimed that he'd liked her as so much more than a friend. She'd feigned being far drunker than she was at the declaration and kissed him on the cheek, burying her face in his neck and hoping he'd wouldn't say such a thing again.

He never did. And if he still felt that way, he certainly wasn't going to bring it up, but something in the longing of his dark eyes made her suspect the hope was still there, and that made her pull back. She felt nervous and uncomfortable, for it was the first time she realised that Ben and her had a bond that she'd never felt with anyone else. Almost like she belonged to him and he belonged to her. To fall into Finn now... relying on his affection for her to soothe her broken heart, was a betrayal to both of them.

The realisation came so startingly strong that she could barely breathe, and when Finn kissed her cheek, she jumped.

"I'm sorry, I can't…" she whispered.

"It was nothing. I didn't mean anything by it."

"I know, I know," she muttered. "I know you didn't."

She stared ahead. The trees were bare here. Silver skeletons, bright and austere in the streets awash with grey community housing. Finn watched her; she could feel him hesitating in the periphery of her vision.

"It's not you," she whispered.

It's him.

She had to let Kylo go. Not just today, but every day after this. He had to be a memory.

"Where do you want to go from here then?"

Rey blinked against the glare of the sun. The world was too bright, it stung her eyes, red and tired from tears and sleeplessness.

"Rey?"

"I don't know where to go from here."

Finn pressed a hand atop her thigh and she placed her own hand on top of his as she stared into the bleak horizon before them.

"We don't have to go anywhere. We can just… talk, you know, from the beginning."

"The beginning?" Rey squinted at him, as if concentrating on a thought that was fleeing from her. "The beginning…"

"Yeah, you can tell me anything."

His hand gently rubbed her thigh and she met his eye, mouth agape. Finn pulled his hand away, as though she was about to scold him, but instead, she caught his hand within her own.

"There is somewhere you can take me."

They pulled up to a small, red-brick house with stucco chimneys and moss-covered terracotta tiles. Rey wound her window down, peering out into the front yard. Maz's Home for Disadvantaged Children hadn't changed a bit. The winter grass of the front yard was worn to the root, scattered with bald patches of soil and toys stretched across the yard like storm debris.

It was quiet; the front porch was missing its usual occupant, leaving a worn rocking chair, sitting empty besides an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts.

"What is this place?" Finn asked.

Rey smiled, checking the time of the dashboard. "Just wait."

The door burst open and dozens of children scrambled out, running and shouting, the toys now springing to life. And lastly, a slim woman with wide glasses, barely taller than the children she cared for, wandered out.

"Rudy, stop hitting your sister. Bella, make sure you share those dolls, they belong to everyone. Matthew, don't kick the ball over the…"

The soccer ball came hurtling over the fence, crashing onto Finn's windscreen.

"Hey!" Finn shouted, but Rey laughed, stepping outside and waving at the older woman.

Rey opened the small timber gate and made her way through the front yard.

Maz Kanata came to them, her wide, curious eyes fixed on Rey with a pointed perception that stripped Rey bare of every attempt to appear stoic and strong.

"Dear child." Her voice was gentle. That mish-mash of Mexican and Kenyan dialects was music to her ears.

Rey threw her arms around the woman.

"There, there, child."

"I've missed you so much." She stepped back, indicating to Finn, but Maz had already spied him, tilting her bifocals to scrutinise him.

"And who is this then?"

"Finn. He's my best friend from university. Remember? I told you about him."

Maz nodded, staring at Finn in a way that made him take a step back. Maz's perceptive gaze always made people a little uneasy, but Rey was used to it by now.

"You won't run away if I leave you to watch these children while Rey and I have a little chat, will you?"

Finn hesitated. "Watch them? Like, all of them, at once?"

Maz nodded. "There now. You are a good lad. Rey always said you were. We won't be long."

"Bye!" Rey said in a sing-song voice as she waved at Finn, but as he looked back at her in horror she added a silent, " Sorry!"

In the lounge room, Rey crouched at Maz's feet, laying a head upon her lap and losing herself to the tender memories of her old caretaker. How many nights had they sat like this, once all the children were sleeping and Maz could devote the evening to her alone?

Rey relaxed in her lap, relishing the touch of Maz's gentle fingers stroking through her hair, tucking loose strands behind her ear in the waiting silence.

"Why didn't you tell me they'd come looking for the money?" Maz asked.

"I don't know. I thought if I could just put this debt behind me, then Snoke would leave me alone. I'd be free to live my life. But, now…"

She squeezed her eyelids together, forcing back tears.

"It was dumb. I know that now. Oh, God, Maz, what am I going to do?"

"Dear child." Maz rested her palm on Rey's forehead. "You must know you're not alone in all this."

A warm wave of heat rushed from head to toe and Rey stared ahead, unable to speak.

"There's someone who can help you."

A tear slid down the side of Rey's nose and she clenched her stomach muscles tightly in a desperate bid to hold her emotions inside.

"You know about Ben," she whispered.

"I have known that family my entire life," Maz said. "He will help you."

Rey pulled back, staring frankly at Maz. "You don't know what he is."

"I know exactly what he is."

"Then you would never suggest such a thing."

Maz took a slow breath, glancing out the leadlight window to check on Finn. Satisfied, she returned her attention to Rey, tilting her glasses in a way that made her eyes seem unnaturally large.

Rey stared back at her, chin in the air and defiant, trying not to be rattled by the way Maz was slowly nodding, the whisper of a smile creeping onto her thin lips, like she'd just discovered a royal flush in her hands and Rey sensed she was about to lose the game.

"Do you think it was a coincidence I found you that day on the street?" Maz scolded.

Rey gaped, taken aback.

"That I took you in and cared for you all those years?"

"I—"

"That you were given private lessons with Master Skywalker to learn how to fight, to defend yourself against those who were after you? No one gets private lessons from him, Rey, no one. "

"What are you saying?" Rey asked, both fearing and hoping what the answer was. "You always said it was serendipity. That you just happened to be walking by at the time."

Maz laughed. "I just happened to be walking behind a dumpster two hours away from my home?"

Rey's gaze dropped to the worn Renaissance-style carpet. There was a loose strand sticking out and she tugged at it, unravelling it in a single pull. Maz cleared her throat in reprimand, and Rey tucked it away behind her, blushing.

"Are you saying Ben asked you to find me?"

"You were just a child. Snoke was going to trap you. You must have been the same age Ben was when Snoke got to him, in a vulnerable position, targeted, with no one else to help. He knew it was too late to save himself, but at least he could save you."

Maz leaned back, looking over Rey's head, out to the front yard where the children in her care played rambunctiously, and beyond, to a dark night when that fateful phone call had changed everything…

The phone had stirred her awake, ringing a full ten times before Maz opened her eyes.

She picked it up, her voice old and croaky at such a late hour.

"Maz!" an urgent voice hissed from the other end of the phone. She tried to place it; young, familiar… Ben!

"I know you're there. I need your help."

"Have you spoken to your mother yet? She's worried sick about you."

"Please, Maz... there's a girl... she needs your help." He was speaking in a fast and halting way, like a rushed whisper, each word fighting to come faster than the one before it, but stumbling on the way out.

Maz held the phone a little tighter, twisting the cord around her free hand as her gaze travelled to the closed double doors beyond the lounge, where her children slept, the disadvantaged outcasts that society had turned its back on.

"I'm listening."

"Her parents were drug addicts and they owed over a hundred grand to Snoke. She's been sleeping on a dog bed in an abandoned apartment lot in Jakku. The parents died last year, so now Snoke has come after her for the money." He stopped to catch his breath. "She has nothing. You know what he will do to her."

There were voices in the background and the phone muffled into silence.

"Ben?" Maz called. "Ben!"

After a long silence and more muffled conversations, he came back.

"I'm here. I need to be careful. They are watching me." He stopped speaking again, but this time she could hear him puffing, like he was walking quickly. "Snoke had ordered us to shake her up, but now he wants to bring her into the brothel. I've done all I can, but I need you to take her in and protect her."

For a moment, she was reminded of the little boy she knew so well. Perhaps he was still in there, somewhere.

"Where is she?"

"She escaped, but I saw her running in a laneway by the old Imperial Buildings near Niima Outpost. Her name is Kira. She has three buns in her hair. She's skinny. Maybe fifteen or sixteen, it was hard to tell."

Maz took it all in. She knew the area well. Many of her children had been found on the streets of Jakku.

She waited for Ben to continue, sensing his hesitation.

"She'll be pretty shaken up."

Maz felt the veins chill in her blood. "What did you do to her?"

"I had to scare her, they were filming me." His voice was choked, almost fearful, of what, she wasn't sure.

"What do you mean, 'scare' her?"

"Are you going to take her in or not?" he snapped.

"Do you know how dangerous this is, to bring a girl like that into my house? I look after 'little' children, some of them just babies, not teenagers. What if Snoke finds her…"

"He can't!" Ben said, an underlying sense of panic and urgency edging it higher. "She needs to change her name. Get Master Luke to teach her to fight…"

"How am I supposed to trust you?" she interrupted him. "It was your choice to work for Snoke, to do those terrible things to people—to scare this poor child, I dread to think what that means."

"Are you going to help or not?"

Maz weighed up the risks. For years, her little home of disadvantaged children had flown under the radar. She had twenty others that needed caring and loving. By all standards, she was full.

"Please, Maz," Ben's voice cracked on the other line. "She'll be prostituted out if Snoke gets his way. He'll destroy her."

"Like what he did to you?"

Silence.

"I will help you on one condition. As long as you work for Snoke, you will have nothing to do with this girl. I won't tell you who she is or what becomes of her. You are never to call up after her, do you hear me?"

After a long pause, he agreed. "I promise."

"I'm not sure your promises mean that much nowadays." Maz shook her head, forcing herself to stop the diatribe that was waiting to follow. "I'll find her, Ben. Don't you worry, I'll keep her safe."

She heard a sigh from the other end of the line. "Thank you."

"You've done a good thing here today, Solo. Let's hope it's the start of many more."

Rey stared blankly at Maz, lips parted, still clutching the red string of carpet in her hand.

"I don't know what to say."

"He didn't tell you?"

She shook her head, slowly. What did this mean for her? Her memories, the beliefs she had held onto for so long. Kylo Ren, the man in the mask; villain, not saviour. He was the vision of her nightmares, the reason behind so much of her fear and anguish…

And now, he wasn't?

"I was very hard on him, how could I not be after what he did to you? But in the end, he did the right thing. He saved you that night…"

Rey stood, wiping her hands on her jeans as she paced around the room. "It doesn't matter."

"It doesn't?" Maz raised her eyebrow at her, following her hurried pace with steel-cutting curiosity. "You don't believe me then?"

Rey stopped at the window. Through shades of red and blue stained glass, she could see Finn on the ground, each of the children were jumping on him with hysterical laughter. Finn was telling them to stop but was also laughing himself. It would have made her smile, if her thoughts weren't hanging on to the details Poe had shared on the phone this morning.

To say her heart hadn't backflipped when Maz had reshaped her memory of the night she was attacked, would be a lie, but that was in the past. And present-day Kylo Ren was still a cold-blooded murderer.

Rey hugged her stomach, gnawing away at her thumb nail. "He killed Lor San Tekka."

Silence.

Rey turned around to see Maz fumbling for a cigarette and then there was the familiar click of her age-old lighter, the one with the woolly beast on it, whatever that was supposed to be.

"When are you going to give up those cancer sticks?"

"When they pry them from my cold, dead hands."

"You're impossible. You shouldn't be smoking around the children."

"What children? They are outside, torturing your friend."

The lighter finally caught, and Maz inhaled a long drag before blowing a curling cloud of smoke at the window.

"Lor was dying," she said, rather bluntly, Rey thought. "He didn't have long left."

"That doesn't change the fact that he killed him Maz, in cold blood, shot him in the head. Ben Solo may have tried to save me," Rey's voice wavered, and she squeezed her eyes shut, straining for composure again, "but how can I look past this?"

"Who said anything about looking past it?"

Rey furrowed her brow. Maz was notorious for talking in riddles.

"Ask him."

Maz linked her fingers with her own and squeezed them warmly.

"This is what I know. Ben loved that old man. Lor was his Godfather and they were very, very close. If he was the one to pull the trigger, there was a damn good reason for it."

Maz pulled Rey to face her, those saucer eyes staring up into her knowingly. How much could she see? Rey's lip trembled, her cheeks and neck were flaming with colour and even now her hands couldn't stop shaking.

"I know he loves you, child. I heard it in his voice that night, and saw it in his eyes at the dojo."

"He didn't even know me then. He barely knows me now."

"And yet, he had compassion for you. You must know that going against Snoke on this was such a risk. It was selfless. And selflessness is love." Maz took another drag of her cigarette. "I hate to think what the repercussions were."

Rey thought of the scars on his back. How many had he earned for her, a stranger?

And was he still paying the price for disobeying orders that night? Suddenly, the pieces were all coming together, the fact that Phasma had sought Rey out, offered her this job with no experience, that just by chance she had been paired with Kylo Ren on the first night; none of it was an accident. It was all a game and Snoke was still making him pay.

She was Snoke's weapon. The card he played to make him finally vulnerable. Had he played that card to make him kill Lor? Was he playing it still?

"I don't know what he saw that night, but he found something in you and I know—I know—he will never stop protecting you."

She nodded, finally understanding. "You need to learn how to fight," he had told her that dreadful night and he had found the means to teach her. She needed a family, and he had found her one.

"And you," Maz's voice marvelled at her, " you finally found your belonging."

Rey smiled at her, despite the ache in her heart, it had slipped through, magnetic to the truth.

"I'm happy for you, child."

"Thank you, Maz." Rey clutched Maz in her arms. "Thank you for everything."

"Woah, woah, woah!" Finn shouted between belly-laughs, as each of the children rode on his back as he tried to stand up. "Can't you control them?"

Maz laughed. "When I choose to."

They pulled him down again and Maz clapped her hands. "Bajate, bajate! You've had your fun now."

One by one, the children scurried away with quiet giggles. Finn got up, brushing off dirt and grass from his trousers. "Are you done?"

Rey nodded. "Are you?"

"Get me the hell out of here," he said between gritted teeth.

Rey laughed, longingly watching as the children sat quietly beneath the maple tree, ready for their lunchtime story. A gentle pang tugged at her heart as she walked away from the only place that ever really felt like home to her.

They moved past the fence and Finn stumbled for his keys as Rey looked back.

Home.

She watched as Maz dragged a finger beneath each word, spelling them out slowly.

Home was not this red-brick federation house with its leaking taps and a cozy fire, home was Maz. For a time, she belonged there and those years were both the most challenging and the happiest of her life.

But now, home had become something different, something new. The great unknown beyond the vast horizon. She wasn't there yet, but she had a sense of it. She slipped her hand into the pocket and found her phone there. She couldn't even call him since his phone was broken, but she still clutched it like it was the star to her lost ship.

"Rey!"

She jumped. "What?"

"I just asked if you got the answers you need," Finn asked.

"Oh, right. Yeah, I did." She pulled the phone out of her pocket and glanced at it out of the corner of her eye.

There were eight missed calls from an unknown number. Did they belong to him? The number was hidden and there were no voicemails, apart from one which was just silence and breathing until it hung up.

She had no number for him.

She didn't know where he lived.

The only connection they had was the brothel.

The brothel. She gnawed on her lip, toying with the idea of going back there. Tonight was supposed to be their last night together.

With a quiet nod, she made the decision to go back, even though she knew Snoke would be there and it was probably dangerous.

She would go back.

She would go back for Ben.

Notes: You know you're late when your beta checks in to see if you're okay. And I am. Just bogged down with life. Good news for you, my hours at work have been reduced so I have more time to write when the kids are at school - luxury!. Bad news, I'm poor, but rich in spirit, hey? Special thanks and shout outs to Kath Knight and Azuwrite, who have beta-read this chapter. I encourage you to check out their amazing work. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this chapter. How you're feeling about their shared past and Maz's truth bombs. I've upped the chapter count, because this was actually half a chapter and was just getting way to big. I still might change it. I'll let you know, it will either be this or a chapter shorter. Thanks as ever for anyone still reading, you're amazing because I know how much amazing Reylo work there is out there. I am so far behind on my reading. The fact that anyone is still reading this is enough to fill my heart with joy. Till next time - happy reading.