"I knew I'd find you."
The softness of Rey's words takes Kylo by surprise - though perhaps not as much as it does her if the pink spots that bloom across her cheeks are any kind of tell.
He works his jaw in silence as he strives to form a response. This confrontation has already played out inside his head from every potential angle, from the moment he discovered the girl had returned to Jakku. He fights her. She fights him... Over what, he can't quite figure. But surely there has to be a fight in there somewhere.
Though that's not to say his mind hasn't entertained other less-likely causes for her to track him down. Brief, explorative fantasies that stem from the ghost of her fingertips upon his skin when he stood within a sandstorm…
Swallowing hard, Kylo pushes those thoughts aside.
"Why are you here? Did my mother send you? Who did you come here wi -"
"No one." Rey intercepts quickly, stepping forward to appease him. "I came here alone. No one knows why - I left my crew on Bardotta and then I jammed the Falcon's tracking -" she stops, no doubt realising she's revealed far too much to someone who's still technically her enemy.
"My crew know I'm here and if they don't hear from me, they know where to look," her eyes blaze with sudden fury, "so unless you want the Resistance swarming through this place, I suggest you let me go."
"Let you go?" Kylo laughs then. A short sharp sound that actually holds a trace of genuine amusement. "Rey… You're the one who came to me."
Her mouth snaps shut on her tirade. "Right. Of course. I did, didn't I?"
"So, why are you -"
"I can fix that." She waves obscurely towards his face before shrugging off her backpack.
He stares at the girl for a long minute, frustrated by her dogged attempts to avoid his question, and confused as to what exactly she's offering to fix. Ignoring his stare, she digs through her pack with a nervous gusto and when she finally pulls free a medpac amidst the furore of ration bars that tumble from the bag, he understands.
"Why would you let such an injury go unhealed?" Stepping closer, her hand snakes out to hover near the badly-healing wound above his left eye. "Are you trying to collect scars?"
At least she has the decency to look guilty, he thinks, as her eyes dart to the saber strike that bisects the opposite side of his face.
"Rey, why are you here?" Catching her arm at the wrist, Kylo holds her firm so she can't avoid his question any longer, "surely you weren't sent for recon because you're a terrible spy..."
"I told you, I came alone."
"That's not what I asked." Pulling her closer, Kylo hisses through his teeth as his patience wears thin, "why are you here?"
She's not used to this. Not used to speaking to Kylo Ren without a galaxy of stars between them. Not used to feeling tongue-tied and awkward; unsure if he remembers how she reached for him in the sandstorm or if he's compartmentalised it like she wishes she could. How do you even go about finding out the answer to that?
Simple solution. You don't.
"Fine." She shrugs. "You've got me. The Resistance sent me."
"The Resistance sent you."
"Uh-huh." She blinks away, grimacing at the deadpan disbelief in his voice. This was all a terrible idea -she realises that now. Ridiculous. Disentangling herself, Rey retrieves a bacta patch and sanitation swab from the medpac. "You're too tall. Take a seat."
Surprisingly, Kylo complies, sinking to the edge of the bunk as if bone-weariness has won out over maintaining any kind of stoic facade. And it has, she realises, watching the way his shoulders sag as a long breath escapes him.
He doesn't look menacing. He doesn't look like a leader of anything. He just looks… Lost. And it's jarring for Rey to realise she's once again thinking this way about Kylo Ren. Because lost and vulnerable and overwhelmed are all the things he's most certainly not.
What the hell am I doing? She wonders as she scoots closer and tentatively sweeps a tangle of hair from his brow to expose the wound. What the hell am I doing? She frets as she cards her fingers through his dishevelled mop to hold back the locks before cautiously cleaning away old blood.
"Rey, why have you come to Jakku? Is it because of the last time the Force brought us togeth -"
"Stop," the word snaps from her mouth as sharp and frantic as her thoughts. "Please. Don't ask me right now. Just hold still."
Kylo presses his lips in a firm line but holds his tongue. Instead, opting to close his eyes in a flurry of dark lashes so that she's not sure if he's trying to block her out, or sink into the feeling of being cared for.
That last thought causes her to freeze in the midst of her ministrations. It's traitorous enough that she's here with the man who has, through the process of brute force and extermination, come to rule the galaxy. The fact that she's fussing over a stupid injury rather than taking the opportunity to grab a stim-shot from her medpac and ram it through his eye...
A smile twitches the corner of Kylo's mouth and for a moment she panics; wondering if he's tapped into her thoughts. "What are you smiling about?"
"I'm thinking if you're so concerned about this scratch, what will you think if you see the bite a ripper-raptor took out of my backside?" He cracks open an eye, "you should probably take a look at that one, too."
"Really?" Fingers fumble as she presses the bacta patch to his brow. A wave of red hot embarrassment floods her body like a rupturing aneurysm.
"No, I'm just kidding." This time when he smiles, it's a genuine thing that softens his face and presses dimples in his cheeks.
Rey stares, momentarily disarmed by the transformation.
"Hmph." Kylo Ren, she reminds herself. Ben Solo is long gone. A shell of someone else's memory. A ghost.
So if you believe that, why are you here?
Tight-lipped, Rey spins away and shoves the medpac into her bag before slinging it over her shoulder.
But it's hard to field a question when it's presented by your own brain.
She's like a half-tamed wild thing, Kylo thinks. Never quite trusting enough to step in close, but always gazing as if she longs to.
He watches the quick bird-like way in which the girl packs herself ready to move on. One hand near her staff, ready to wield it in an instant. The stance of her body fierce and challenging, even as her eyes drag over him with a kind of hopeless hopefulness that makes him wonder if she's perpetually at the edge of waiting for him to magically transform into someone more than what he is.
Someone he may have once been.
Scorn rises to his throat. Ben Solo is dead. Hasn't he told her this already? The words are at the tip of Kylo's tongue to remind her again. But he holds them in his mouth. Perhaps there's an advantage to letting her think he'll transform into the gleaming beacon of light she hopes him to be.
"So the Resistance sent you. To bring me to them?" He holds her gaze as she nods in wordless silence.
"Fine, we'll go with that for now. Because my next guess was that you thought me lost in a sandstorm and figured on rescuing me." Rising from the bunk, he starts towards the door. "And you'd never betray your new rebel family by doing that, would you?"
"Where are you going?" Rey tenses, ignoring the remark as her eyes flit to the door.
"I didn't come to this place by accident, Rey. And I don't need rescuing." Kylo waves a hand towards the bunk. "Make yourself comfortable. The troopers out there expect you'll remain in this cell until I've tortured every last morsel of truth from you."
He watches as her eyes narrow and her hand reaches for her staff. "So I'm going to find you something else to wear. And then I'm going to escort you back to your ship," the twist of a smile escapes him as the door slides open, "before you start hitting me with a stick."
Rey sits cross-legged on the bunk and breathes slowly through her nose. She's trying not to feel foolish. She's trying to box up the deep dark rage she can feel slowly unfurling through her body despite how dearly she wants to succumb to it. And she's trying to trouble-shoot this stupid mess she's gotten herself into…
Because she was idiotic enough to think she needed to save Leia's son, and she'll be a bigger idiot to believe he'll just let her leave here.
The soft hiss of the door sliding open causes her to tense; all semblance of calm - not that she managed to find any - evaporating as the stormtrooper enters. Rising slowly to her feet, Rey eyes the way the brittle armour hangs off the trooper's black body-glove that, in retrospect, is far too short for his limbs.
"I'm not sure how I didn't realise it was you under all that," she snorts, "when it was clearly made for a smaller man."
"You're absolutely right."
The modulated voice lifts in mock surprise and, as if her words are a prompt, Kylo removes the white combat helmet and begins unclipping the plastoid casing from the body-glove and dropping it carelessly to the floor. The man has no sense of modesty, Rey thinks as the moulded codpiece falls to the ground next, and she shifts her gaze quickly towards the opposite wall. That skin-tight suit holds no secrets.
"Here."
A bundle of rolled-up cloth hits her in the chest. The smell of someone else's body wafts from the ragged black fabric that drops to her feet. Her nose crinkles as she jerks her head back, "What is this supposed to be?"
"An escape plan."
When she looks up, he's holding a black helmet in his outstretched hand. Battered and ancient and cruel in design.
Rey shakes her head. "There's no way I'm wearing that thing." She toes the clothing at her feet. "And no way I'm wearing these - if that's what you're angling towards."
"You have no choice."
"No."
"It's the only way."
"No."
"You've intruded into a place where you have no right to be!" Kylo steps forward then, half-undressed and still entirely shameless, "can't you see that I'm trying to help you?"
"I can see a lot of you right now," Rey retorts, "and none of it is helping me."
Undeterred, he holds his ground and glares with a ferocity that she can feel until finally she shifts her gaze to meet his own; only to be caught by the churn of emotions that blaze across his face.
"Why , Kylo?" His adopted name feels strange upon Rey's tongue. An odd look of surprise crosses his face as she uses it. "Why would you help me?"
The muscle beneath his eye breaks into a flurry of spasms. He's trying to hold it all in - the rage. The frustration. Whatever else he feels and yet keeps tightly locked away. It's disconcerting to know that she can read him better than those damn Jedi texts she's spent months trying to figure out.
"I need you." He says finally.
"What?"
"I need you to complete a task for me. With me..." a pained expression crosses his face, "look, this isn't easy for me to explain - "
"Clearly," she snorts.
"My Knights have returned recently from the Unknown Region," he pauses as if expecting another interruption. Rey holds her tongue despite the urge to do just that. "They brought news of a new threat. To all of us."
"Uh-huh." She makes no effort to hide the scepticism. A threat to the First Order? Well, perhaps the enemy of her enemy could be a friend...
"This newcomer is an enemy to all of us, Rey," he snaps, "and I didn't need to read that in your thoughts. I could see it on your face."
"So, what do you want from me?"
Kylo hesitates. Jaw working as if pre-chewing his words. "Do you know what a Holocron is?"
Holocron. Closing her eyes, Rey turns the word over in her mind. A page from a Jedi text comes to mind. A sketch of a cube; its purpose meaningless to her.
"Of course I do." She says finally, meeting Kylo's doubtful stare.
"No," he shakes his head, "you don't. But I'll show you once we leave here."
Crossing her arms, Rey's eyes flicker to the savage-looking helmet in Kylo's hand. "And what happened to the last poor fool to wear that thing?"
"The wearer was one of my Knights," his grip tightens on the helmet as if he might crush it with his fingers, "who betrayed me. So I killed her." He glares as if holding her to blame for his actions.
Closing her mouth on a half-formed retort, Rey opts for silence. She can see where he's going with this escape plan. And she's not a fan.
Ignoring her reaction, or lack thereof, Kylo bends down to pick up the bundle of clothing and shoves them in her hands. "You're going to wear these rags because you and I are the only ones so far to know of Shira's death -"
"So, why did you kill her?" Rey interrupts; tone infuriatingly conversational.
Kylo stares. Face contorting with half a dozen potential reactions - three of which are probably violent - before finally grinding out, "she was going to kill you."
It seems forever that Rey gapes; not quite believing her ears, "is that why she betrayed you?"
"Don't be ridiculous," he scoffs, "she was hoping to kill me next. Look, it doesn't matter..."
"Fine." Snatching the helmet from his grasp, Rey throws it on the bunk before picking up a scrap of clothing from the floor. A gown of sorts. Slit to the hips for ease of movement. Satisfied by her compliance, Kylo turns away to sort his own bundle of clothing.
"Don't turn around," she warns, noting how he freezes for a moment as if realising the implications of why he should not.
"Uh-huh." It's a quick response. A beat too fast for his normal measured speech.
Rey bites her lip against a smile. Kylo Ren, rendered awkward and embarrassed. It intrigues her to think he does perhaps have human feelings buried somewhere beyond that stoic facade
"Well, I hope there's something I can wear under this," she murmurs softly, "otherwise you're going to see a whole lot more of me than you've bargained for..."
A sharp inhalation is his only measure of response this time. And a shift of tension so ferocious she can all but feel her blood thrum.
Satisfied, she shimmies out of her desert-worn garb and throws the dead Knight's gown over her head in a flurry of awkward movements; suddenly self-conscious that Kylo might, in fact, turn at any moment to catch her half-naked before him. But he's cautiously holding his own position with his back to her, and as he clips his belt around his floor-length robe, she adjusts the gown and begins sifting through the remaining mountain of black cloth at her feet.
Thank the stars, she mutters inwardly as she pulls thick black leggings from the pile and wriggles into them. Mid-calf boots in supple black leather follow. Then there's a battle-worn cape - just in case the rest of the gear isn't quite ominous enough.
Kylo is dressed and still now. Waiting for her to give the word that she's ready for him to turn around.
"It's safe to look," she mutters before throwing her attention into unwrapping her once-white armbands.
"Your um…" He crosses the cell, an apologetic smile briefly alighting his face as he points towards her chest. Rey looks down to see a good inch or so of breastband showing beneath the deep V of the gown.
"Kriff." Evidently, Darksiders favour a more revealing cleavage. "I suppose I'll have to…"
Biting her lip, Rey tries to tuck the breastband out of sight. No luck. Adjusting the front of the gown makes no difference either. She shifts her attention back to Kylo, whose gaze has become fixated on her efforts. Rolling her eyes, she makes a spinning motion with her fingers. "Do you mind…"
Slowly he draws his eyes up to meet her own, and she sucks in a steadying breath at the hunger she reads in them. Her skin flushes warm and strange and not entirely unpleasant. Does he remember how she cupped his cheek in the sandstorm? Does he remember that she laid her fingers upon his lips…
Does she too have this half-starved look upon her face?
She closes her eyes. "Please turn around." There's an unsteadiness to her voice that she just can't get under control.
The sound of a boot scuff indicates he's complied, and she opens her eyes to find herself once again staring at Kylo Ren's back. And while the ragged edges of his cowl hides his form, she can still see every bit of tension in his stance.
"Are you actually going to finish getting dressed," he asks quietly, "or are you just going to stare?"
"Shut up." Heat flames Rey's cheeks as she fumbles to remove the stupid breastband and rearrange the gown. The plunging neckline is probably better suited for its former wearer, she thinks miserably as her small breasts disappear into obscurity. Its former wearer probably didn't grow up on the knife's edge of malnourishment, she tells herself defensively.
"I'm ready." Taking a moment to stuff her own clothing into her bag, she rises to find Kylo eyeing her sceptically. "Here we go. What am I doing wrong?"
"One last thing," he mutters, crouching down to pick up one final item from the ground. It's a wide belt, not unlike the one he wears.
Stepping closer, Kylo slips his hands behind her back to fix the belt around her torso. Rey startles at his sudden proximity as she finds her nose almost colliding with the wall that is his chest. His breath skims the crown of her head as he moves closer still, peering over her shoulder so that he can clip the belt together.
For a moment, Rey barely dares to breathe as his hands rest against the small of her back; palms radiating heat through the light fabric weave. Her own limbs hang loose at her sides like spare components she suddenly can't find a place for, and she shifts her head, angling up towards the hollow of his throat so she can take a breath without smothering herself in the cowl that drapes his shoulders.
It's a mistake. The warm soft scent of his skin causes her stomach to flush like a bundle of shifting nerves. She watches his pulse flutter at his throat as he tightens his grip possessively, pulling her closer still. His mouth moves against the top of her head as he murmurs, "now you look like my counterpart."
And then he's releasing her. Stepping neatly back into his own space. Leaving her teetering.
"Well, that's really disconcerting," she mutters, aiming for a derogatory tone like she hadn't just been on the verge of leaning in and doing something stupidly dumb she'd no doubt feel shame and regret for, forever.
Kylo jerks his head to one side, but not before she catches something shift in the set of his jaw. A clenching down of whatever stark emotion had just been emblazoned across his face if she'd just looked up in time to catch it.
There's something slightly incredible about watching the way he packs his emotions away. Folding them neatly into secret compartments within himself so that the only thing that remains is the neatly pressed remnants of cool civility.
Sighing, Rey hitches her bag onto her shoulder and grabs up her staff. Then stops in her tracks when she swings around to face his blank frowning disapproval.
"For crying out loud, now wha-"
"You can't take your bag and staff. You'll have to leave them with me." Stepping towards the bunk, Kylo scoops up the damned helmet she'd hoped so hard he'd forget. "And you have to wear this."
"Leave them with you?" She repeats. "Do you actually perceive some kind of future where you'll be in a position to give them back to me? Because I am not leaving my staff here."
"We can't be doing this right now, Rey -"
"Yeah, we can."
"No, we can't." Kylo thrusts the helmet towards her and winces as if the whole conversation is on par with a tooth extraction. "The guard is about to change and now is my best chance to walk you out of here before something else goes wrong. Now put on the mask, and put down your stuff. How do you expect anyone to believe you're a Knight of Ren if you're carrying…"
He trails off as Rey pulls the cape from her shoulders and uses it to wrap around her bag. Then tucking the parcel in the crook of her arm, she slings her staff across her back and meets his eye with a ferocity to match his own before snatching the helmet from his hand and jamming it on her head.
"If anyone asks, find something to tell them." Through the modulator, her voice is harsh and alien. "Or maybe try reminding them of who you are."
"Perhaps I should remind you of who I am." Kylo counters darkly. But he slips his own recently repaired helmet over his head and turns to the door. "Don't say a word. You sound nothing like Shira."
Then the door is opening with a pneumatic whoosh. And Kylo Ren is striding into the corridor with the cool arrogance of Supreme Leader firmly in place. Leaving Shira Ren to follow suit.
Notes:
Shira - I decided this would be a fitting name for a female KOR as it's associated with one of my favourite darksiders, Lumiya (born Shira Brie), a badass Lady of the Sith from Legends continuity. If there were to be a female KOR in TROS, I'd love to see influences of Lumiya/Shira in her characterisation.