2/7/2

Rey wakes up, just wakes up, because she's not tired any more, for the first time in… Too damn long. It's been too damn long.

She wakes up with Kylo curled into her arms, which is not exactly their normal routine, neither is him clammy with sweat and fever hot, but… He's here, she's here, and the Lady Ren thing is done, so…

It's a good morning.

Well, a better one.

And that's good for a solid five minutes, just laying there, holding him, floating around on her Force and his. She's not trying to mess with his system too much, just ease him into a somewhat more comfortable, deeper sleep when it hits her that—

She's sitting up fast, wincing, grabbing her robe, and getting into the office, fast.

"There was a goodbye meeting for the K'Aran delegation, wasn't there?" she says all in one rushed breath to C8.

"Lady Ren. Yes. There was. But after the appalling behavior K'Oanan showed, and his unlikeliness to behave well in your presence after you broke his wrist, it was decided that being sent off by General Threepio and Colonel Jefferies would suffice."

Rey's shoulders slump. "Oh."

"That's why I didn't remind you of it last night. Would you like breakfast?"

"Uh…" She blinks.

"I ordered it for second shift, and it's still a few moments out. If you'd like to wait, it will be here, soon."

"Oh… Uh… Right." She's feeling out of sorts. This isn't, normally, how breakfast works. "Uh…" She looks to Kylo's desk, where she knows a billion datapads are stuffed. "Do I… need to do anything else?"

"Not if you don't want to. Everything else either can and will hold for Master Ren to get better, or I've shunted over to the Grand Admiral or Grand Marshall, and they are delegating it to whomever can best handle it."

"Oh. Good." She's quiet for a moment, looking around at the office. "So… I can just, eat and head home?"

"If you so desire. Or you may stay here. I certainly doubt Master Ren would mind if you were to go through his datapads, or just keep him company. He did ask for you frequently yesterday."

Rey winces. She intentionally shut down her sense of Kylo as much as she could yesterday, so she wouldn't get distracted, but she hates the idea of him alone… well, with C8, in that room, looking for her, and she wasn't there.

They hear the main door to the office open, and a small food droid wheels its way in. It scoots over to C8, who lifts the lid, removes the tray, hands it to Rey, and says, "KI-6O4 will stay here until you are done with your plates, then it'll return them to the kitchens. Take as long as you like to eat."

Rey nods, and then ports back to their room, to have a little breakfast.

She's being quiet, but it doesn't matter. The smell of coffee and real food: hash, eggs, toast has him coming, slowly, awake. That's not the only thing on the tray. There's a small bowl of some sort of broth, which she assumes has to be for Kylo, along with a few crackers.

They don't normally eat in bed, neither being a fan of crumbs among the sheets, but she's fairly sure that right now, he won't really notice, and trying to get him over to the table, assuming he's going to attempt to eat anything, is likely too much to ask right now.

"Good morning."

His eyes don't quite manage to open, though she sees his nostrils flare. "It's morning?"

"It's morning, and I've got some food with your name on it if you want to try some."

He takes a deep breath, makes a small, mmmm sound, and one eye slowly cracks open to see her, sitting on the bed next to him plate of food in front of her, and cup of coffee in hand.

That eye cracks open a lot faster when the food next to him registers. "I don't think—"

"This is my breakfast. I've got some broth and crackers for you. If you want them."

She feels him tense, and just about get ready to sprint for the refresher, but the rumbly sensation in his guts is just his stomach growling at the idea of him maybe putting some real food into it.

Rey smiles at Kylo. "I think your body wants to try some food."

"Yeah." He slowly starts to lever himself into a sitting position. It takes a few seconds, but he gets himself up, and then reaches for the bowl and spoon. As soon as he sees how shaky his hands are, the idea of attempting to get any sort of liquid into his body without the help of a straw goes running away.

Fortunately, he doesn't need to say that to Rey. She's holding the bowl, and a moment later, the straw from his hydration solution glass hovers over. "That'll do it," she say to him.

He takes a sip and moans at it.

Rey's grinning. "Good, I take it?"

Kylo shrugs. "Probably not, but it's got actual flavor, and right now, that's amazing."

Rey takes a sip. It's mostly hot and salty, a little cooked onion flavor. If it's some sort of animal broth, she can't identify which animal it came from.

She holds out a cracker for him to nibble from her fingers. "If flavor's amazing, let's see how texture works."

He moans again. "You take food that needs to be chewed for granted, until you don't get to do it for… What day is it?"

Rey laughs. "You know, I don't know." She has a bite of her breakfast, and Kylo reaches for another cracker, enjoying crushing it between his teeth.

"Did C8 tell me you and Jon set up a healing center on Lirium?"

"Sort of. Poe delivered it, and Artoo oversaw setting it up."

Kylo can feel there's a piece missing between what C8 said, and what she just said. He just can't figure out what it is.

And really, he's here, and awake, and Rey's with him, and there's soup and crackers, and… Nothing else matters right now.

Rey heads home not all that much later. Kylo spent a good ten minutes enthusiastically munching on crackers and sipping broth, and then hit a wall of exhaustion, and fell back to sleep.

She understands that's pretty normal. His body's working hard, killing off the virus, and it's not getting much (any) energy in the form of food, so it needs a lot of sleep.

Still, it's disconcerting to see him drop off to sleep mid-sentence.

She spends a moment holding onto him, threading her Force through his. He's… fine… normal… given what's happening. He needs this sort of rest and time to heal. He's getting better. She tries to make herself not worry.

And… it… sort of… works.

Maybe.

Home. First thing first, she opens all of the doors and windows to their home. It's not like she's got to live there between now and when Kylo's up to moving around again, so she might as well make sure that every speck of Hiffa is dead.

Plus, it really needs an airing out.

That said, it's possible that in the middle of a blizzard isn't the ideal time to do this, but she's also sure that if she waits for a nice clear day for it, it might be spring before they get the place aired out.

After all, it's not like closing everything back up and turning the heat on won't take care of any snow that blows in.

Not like anything in there can't take getting a little wet and a lot cold. (Though she does quickly port her copy of Orlac's library back to their room on the Supremacy. That's likely better off not getting frozen and then wet.)

Medbay.

Once again, everything is quiet. No one is throwing up. The smell is… bad but tolerable. And the general vibe of the place is a lot of sick people mostly sleeping or staring out at the ceiling wishing they weren't sick.

Rey assumes this has to be what a medbay generally feels like.

Though she really wouldn't mind not having to know that.

She sees Xanth sitting on the side of Rose's bed, with Critt standing next to him, and can feel that she's not a natural born healer. Xanth is, though. He's gleaming with opportunity right now.

Critt notices her watching them. "Hey. Perfect timing."

Xanth and Rose look over to her as she crosses the ward to them.

"You've signed up to try this?" she asks Rose.

Rose looks just as tired and out of it as Kylo did, but she nods. "I just want to be done with this."

"I understand that."

"Miss Paige, too."

She nods at that, too. Then she glances around. "Finn?"

"Said that if Rose was coming home today, he needed to do a lot of cleaning up first," Xanth says.

"Ahhh… How's…"

"Still tired, and not up to 100 percent, but much better," Critt says.

"So, a lot like you right now?"

"Yeah. What you did, it worked." He's up, standing, eyes tracking, fever gone, better. Maybe not healed. Not all the way. But he's functional, and that's worth a lot. "Not saying I'd ever do that again, but…"

Rey nods. "Yeah, the idea is to figure out a way to fix the problem without making the cure worse than the disease."

Xanth is grinning at all three of them. "Which we're going to try now. You ready, Rose?"

She nods, looking pale and tired.

"Critt?"

He nods, too. He's holding one of Rose's hands, and Xanth has the other, and Rey settles back at the foot of Rose's bed, and just feels what they're doing.

It's… supple with a sharp jagged edge. That's the best way she can describe it. Xanth's Force is slipping through Rose's system like velvet. A nudge here, a nudge there, a tweak to this system, and another there. It's subtle and elegant, buffing something to a shine with silk velvet.

Critt's Force is electric. It's zipping through, stampeding in chain lightning through the virus, zapping from one cell to the next. Fast, deadly. Killing off the virus was too much for Rey. She could do it, but it was exhausting. For Critt, this is the sort of thing he was born for. He's crippling the virus, killing some of it, sterilizing more. This is glowing off of Critt, glowing black triumph… She's seen that on Kylo, too.

Dark used well. Destruction in the service of good.

And right here, right now, she can feel the two of them balancing together, using each other's strength to create something neither of them could do for themselves.

And it's good.

It takes a while. And by the time they're done, Rose, Critt, and Xanth all need a nap.

But it's a good, clean tired. The kind of tired that goes with hard work that made something important.

She's pretty sure that the next time they do it, for Kylo, that it'll go faster and easier.

And she's also pretty sure that before they work on Kylo, she's going to bring them to the F-Deck and see what sort of little treat they'd like, because this sort of work seems like the kind of thing one should get a treat for.

But until then…

She ports over to the front door of Finn's house. If he was still sick, she'd have just ported straight into his place, but with him up and active, that feels rude.

So she knocks, and a moment later, Finn's at the door. And, for a heartbeat, he looks really scared, and she understands he's afraid that while he was getting everything cleaned up and ready for Rose to come home, something went wrong.

So, Rey grins at him. And he relaxes.

"It worked?"

"Yeah. She's getting a nap right now. If you want, I'll port you over, and then wrap up the cleaning here."

He's grinning. "Get to snuggle my sweetie, and you clean? Of course I WANT!"

Rey chuckles at that, and then ports Finn back to Rose.

In the medbay, she glances around again. Xanth, and Critt are napping. Finn's snuggling up to Rose. Where's her third experiment in healing?

Jacen?

Yeah. His Force feels fine.

Where are you?

You wanna guess what we forgot to do while all of us were sick?

Rey feels him amid the Faviers. Oh.

Yeah, they got fed and watered every day, but no one mucked them, or the other critters, out.

Rey winces. Seven Faviers, twelve rabbits, sixteen chickens. You're literally up to your knees in dung, aren't you?

Just about. Cassie's helping, too.

Once I get finished with the Ticcos' place, I'll join you.

Thanks.

By late-morning, Rey is very much coming to the conclusion that, in addition to not being a natural born healer, she is not a natural born farmer, either. She might be good at plants and people and critters, but she doesn't enjoy it.

Granted, she generally doesn't take care of the critters. The Canto Bight kids do that, and she would have very happily remained ignorant of what's involved in taking care of critters.

But she's not. And remembering the critters also reminded her of the plants, and… SO MANY WEEDS.

How they could possibly have that many weeds in a sealed microfarm she doesn't know. Weeds don't spontaneously generate, but…

Oh, right. They use that dung as fertilizer and the critters eat straw and grain…

Weeds.

She's glaring at the potato troughs, pulling out weeds, thinking that she really doesn't ever want to be a full time farmer.

By late morning, she's hot, sweaty, tired, messy, but feeling like she's actually accomplished something tangible and solid.

Looking at a pile of muck isn't exactly appealing, but she's also got no ambiguity about it. It's a job. It's done. It's done well. She doesn't have to worry about any long-term ramifications of the muck pile. There are no trade-offs for the muck pile. It's either cleaned up or it isn't, and there's no reason for her to worry about it coming back to bite her when she's done with it. (Assuming she's done a half way competent job with it.)

It's satisfying. Look at issue. Identify what needs to happen to fix it. Fix it. Go home and have lunch.

But… and she wasn't expecting this, it's also… boring. This is messy and sweaty and kind of gross, but it's also just done. She could certainly use her ability with technical things to make cleaning it up easier (which she did) but it's kind of flat.

It's not scary. It certainly wasn't difficult. (Beyond the physical level of moving shit around.)

Jacen's watching her ponder the pile of weeds on top of the pile of muck, (which, if it were a tad less cold, would be a compost pile, but right now it's just frozen trash) as the winds howl around them. "Rey?"

"Yeah."

"You're thinking really loudly."

She nods.

"You want to talk about it?"

"Not sure. I feel like I'm looking at a picture that won't come into focus."

Jacen cocks his head. "Probably because you're not sure if you want to see what the picture is."

Rey exhales long and deep. "Yeah. Probably. Let's go get cleaned up. Then I'm taking everyone who's up to walking on their own two feet for lunch on the Supremacy."

Jacen's brows shoot up. "Really?"

"I'm not moving anyone who's sick a centimeter more than absolutely necessary. Which means Kylo's staying in bed, and he's on the Supremacy. I'm bringing Critt and Xanth to him, and the rest of you who've been up and keeping everyone going could use a treat, so…"

"The F-Deck," he sounds like he's talking about a mythical place.

And then Rey gets it, and nods. "Right. You and Cassie and Xanth had all heard about it, right?"

"I was stationed there."

"You're an officer?"

"I would have been. Ensign McGy. Don't get me wrong, Ensigns have to salute pretty much everything, including the mech droids, but I did well enough in basic flight training that they'd put me in the officer track."

"Oh."

"Ren found me on my second day on the Supremacy so I pretty much only got to see my dorm and the sim deck we were going to be training on."

"I thought officers got flats."

"Real ones do. Like I said, Ensigns are the bottom of the heap. Ensigns-in-training are the floor below the heap. I might have technically outranked Finn, but if the two of us gave conflicting orders, no one would have listened to mine." Jacen smirks. "Okay, they would have listened to mine, but if it had been any other Ensign..."

Rey rolls her eyes a bit.

"Our dorms are three to a room, instead of the six the enlisted get, and that first pip means we got access to the F-Deck, which I had been intending to get to know a lot better, but then Ren gave me a better deal, so I took it."

"Come on. It's cold. Let's get cleaned up and eat."

Jacen looks pretty enthusiastic about that.

On the F-Deck, with the kids staring around, mostly in wonder (Jacen's looking pleased, but also unimpressed, unlike the rest of them, he genuinely had been in a city larger than this, well, at least the part they can see from where they're standing) it occurs to Rey, that of her lightlings, two of the three of them came to them from the Supremacy.

Xanth and Cassie have never been up here (down here? Rey's not sure where they started off, other than not here) before, but like Jacen, they both got out of a situation that wasn't working for them, on the hope of something better with the Order.

Critt's staring around in amazement. For so long, this was the heart of every bad thing to ever be a bad thing, synonymous with evil and… It's just… a really busy market. He and his parents would sell produce and advertise their microfarms, at places like this.

Savarah's staring around, eyes wide. "My whole town would fit in here."

Jacen grins at her. "It's sixty klicks across. Twenty wide. Most cities would fit in here, and this is one of fifty-five decks."

"How many people are on here?" Cassie asks.

Rey shrugs. That's the kind of thing the Mistress of the Order should know, but she doesn't. "It was more than six million two months ago. Not sure, now."

Jacen grabs Critt's wrist, flourishing a small gray cylinder. "Come on, I want to see if this works."

Rey raises an eyebrow.

"Like I said, technically, I'm an officer. According to Kylo, my time with you counts for my time here, which means my," he holds up his ID chit, "should still access my account, and if it does, that means I've got almost half a year of wages that I've done nothing with."

Cassie's eyes go wide. "He said that to me, too." She's gazing up at Rey. "Please, can we go back for a second, my chit's…"

"Not going to work up here. You and Xanth are enlisted. This is no-man's land for you two."

Rey raises an eyebrow.

Jacen shrugs. "Something about maintaining an appropriate image, and no fraternizing between the ranks, and… I didn't much listen. Rules… don't generally apply to me, unless I want them to, you know?"

Rey shoots him a bit of stink eye on that. "Yeah, I know. Anyway, I've got a chit. Jacen's got one. Let's split up, buy some lunch and treats, uh…" She's never really had to budget for this sort of thing, and isn't sure how much is good.

Jacen thinks to her Twenty credits. That's a nice treat, but not exorbitant.

"Keep it under twenty credits, and we'll meet back here in two hours, okay?"

Savarah takes Critt's other hand, narrows her eyes at Jacen, who lets Critt go, and then says, "Sounds great. See you in a bit."

And then she and Critt and Jacen head off to enjoy the F-Deck.

"So, you two were…" Rey leads.

"D-Deck," Cassie says. "I wasn't there for long, but I did get my stuff unpacked and a bunk set up. This was my first station."

Xanth looks around. "My first, too. I'd been on E-Deck for a week when he found me."

"What were you training for?" Cassie asks.

"I was still testing. I was hoping they'd put me in engineering, but…" They all get hit with a clear memory of him staring at the testing screen, utterly clueless at the more complicated mechanical questions. "You?"

Cassie shrugs. "Anywhere was better than where I came from. It didn't matter what I tested into."

Kylo told Rey a bit about where Cassie came from. Mostly about that flash of fear he got off of her when she first came to see him. Beyond that, Cassie hasn't said, and Rey, other than her blanket, 'If you want to talk to me, I'll always listen,' hasn't asked.

And it's clear from the way Cassie said that, she's got no interest in saying anything else.

"Why did you enlist?" Rey asks Xanth as they wander through the crowd, looking at food carts and resturants.

His eyes narrow a bit. It's also clear he doesn't love talking about this, but he's not as guarded as Cassie is about it. "Mum died when I was little. On Ordano, the orphanages will take care of you for ten years. If you don't get adopted by then, the guilds and slavers can buy you. Make up for the costs of raising you. I was nine and a half, and… Maybe I would have gone to a guild, spent ten years learning a trade, and left a free man. But maybe not, once you're a slave, they brand you. Like Jacen's tattoo. And if you've got one of those marks, anyone and everyone can ask for your papers, stop you from going somewhere. I figured that if I hadn't gotten adopted in five years, that it wasn't going to happen in the next six months, and decided I didn't want to risk not getting bought by one of the guilds, so I joined up."

"Did you know anything about the Order when you did it?" Rey asks.

"Just that they took anyone, and they pissed a lot of people off. Not the lady who ran our orphanage, though. She got a 'finder's fee' for each one of us who went to a guild or slaver, and with more and more adult slaves running away, that fee was getting bigger and bigger for each kid who she could place with them."

"Did they talk about that?" Cassie asks.

"Nah. Thought about it, hard. The slavers and guild merchants would show up every month for new kids, so… Not like I didn't see them watching all of us. For the little kids, it wasn't much of a thing, but the closer to ten you got… She was thinking about losing some adoption applications. Hadn't decided on it by the time I'd run off, but she was thinking about it."

"The Bishops hated the Order. Preached against them in their sermons. Said they existed to spread division and tempt the holy from their true path," Cassie's looking at the floor as she says that, but she looks up, eyes blazing as she says, "I decided anything the Bishops hated was going to be good for me."

"Who were the Bishops?" Rey asks, gently.

"Holy Concordia of the Stars, Pure Light of the Soul, Magisters of the Blessed, they ran the orphanages. The Bishops were… the holy men. The… They'd give speeches, and claimed the spirit would fill them, tell them how we were supposed to live." She blinks. "They were lying about that. It was always just them."

"Oh." Rey says.

Cassie looks away from them. Then she points to one of the carts. "What's a donut?"

Rey knows that's Cassie saying, no more of this and decides not to push it. "You know, I don't know. Let's find out."

In the months since the Supremacy learned of Master Ren's "beloved companion," there has been a lot of rumors about who she is, and what exactly, they are to each other.

Rey strolling around the F-Deck with two children, a girl with black hair and almost black eyes, and a boy with brown hair and hazel eyes makes those rumors go wild.

The girl looks to be a young adolescent, and the boy is an older child. And Mistress Ren… she doesn't look old enough to be their mother. But maybe she looks young for her age. Maybe she and Master Ren have been together for a long time. A decade at least. The younger of the children is maybe eight or nine, maybe a little older, but not more than that.

Maybe Master Ren got a child on… a… child? Could Mistress Ren have been twelve when she had their first child?

Is the girl Ren's but not hers? The girl's skin is darker than Rey's, much darker than Kylo's. The boy's coloring more closely matches Rey's…

Does the Master have not just one child, but two of them?

Or is this the Maji they've heard about, but don't know much about?

In a week, when the first of the rumors gets to Kylo, he'll be amused by them for a moment or two, until he does the math between his age, Rey's age, and Cassie's, and realizes that his people are now speculating if he got a twelve-year-old pregnant back when he was nineteen.

Jon, meanwhile, will be quite amused when he glares at the universe at large and mutters that the only thing he was in any danger of impregnating at the age of nineteen was his right hand.

Voices. Kylo's seriously debating cracking an eye open, but that feels like work.

Still… voices… plural…

One is Rey. That's good. She's here and he feels her warmth and his body relaxes as she sits on the bed next to him. Whoever else is here is apparently the kind of person she's not afraid to snuggle him in front of.

Person… The other voices… There are two of them. People. Definitely people. People who aren't afraid of catching Hiffa.

After another minute, and the touch of two other hands… Critt. Critt is touching his foot. That seems really bizarre to him, until he remembers Rey saying something about Dark Healing.

And… Critt and Xanth? Right… Xanth is the healer.

And they're here, so…

"Figured it out?" croaks out of him.

"I told you he was alive," Xanth's (?) voice.

The next voice is definitely Critt. "I'm just saying, you smell that bad, you should be dead." A pause. "No offense, Rey."

"You didn't smell too sweet when you were sick, either."

"I'm sure."

Kylo's got the sense of them paying attention to him again.

Rey's hand on his brow. "They figured it out. You just rest easy, okay. Tomorrow or the next day, you'll be feeling better."

He smiles a little, rather liking that idea. Then… Hands… Force that isn't his and isn't Rey's, and… doesn't hurt. Normally, Force signatures that he's not used to aren't about to do him any good, but this… Like Rey, Xanth has a nice, soothing warmth, and Critt… there's a sort of jagged electric feel to him, but Kylo's somewhat used to that.

Or at least aware of it. When they've worked together he's noticed Critt's edges. He'll likely be good at Force lightning if he puts his mind to it. Kylo's not sure if that's a good thing or not.

It probably doesn't matter.

It definitely doesn't matter now.

He's tired.

And asleep.

"That'll do it," Critt says to Rey as he and Xanth finish with Kylo.

Rey's nodding, holding Kylo close, lips to his forehead. "Yeah. I can feel that."

"Tomorrow or the next day, he'll be up and about again," Xanth adds.

"And you two both look like you could use a nap again."

Critt shakes his head. "Tired. Not sleepy."

"There's a difference," Xanth asks.

"Can't you feel it?" Critt shoots back.

"I want a huge meal and sleep."

"Food," Critt's looking at Rey. "I could definitely use some food." Can we go back to the F-Deck is unspoken but clear.

"I'll order food, but right now, both of you smell like Hiffa, so, no F-Deck time."

That gets a bit of moping, but they're both tired, so not having to go anywhere does have some appeal. Food they don't have to cook for themselves has more.

2/8/2

Kylo wakes again, later… He's still got no idea of when it is. The down side of being on a ship is that the light never changes, so… Day, night, first shift, third, sleep for an hour, sleep for a day… There's just no way to tell.

Almost.

Rey's in bed, behind him, cuddled against his back, breathing deep and easy.

That's new.

It's not the first ever time she's spooned him, but it's not common, either. They usually fall asleep with him spooning her, and sometime during their rest (often when Kylo wakes for the first time) roll into sleeping on their backs next to each other, and as they start to wake, he rolls into spooning her.

But now she's against his back, her lips on his shoulder, her arm around his waist, her Force thrumming along warm and bright.

So, if she's against his back, breathing soft and slow… Night time. Everyone else must be sleeping now.

He doesn't want to move. This feels good, here, now with her, under the blankets. But he also has to pee and really wants a drink.

That's when it hits. This feels good. He's… tired, Force, so damn tired. Sore. Yeah, everything feels like he spent the last month training hard. Hungry… That's new. Thirsty… Not new, but welcome. His guts feel empty and achy, but not on fire any more. He's not shivering.

He's not cold, but there's no sense of urgency, or impending urgency.

So… fever broke.

He slowly starts to roll away from Rey, disentangle himself, gets himself to the glass with the hydration solution, and the refresher eventually.

Weak. He adds that to the list of how he's feeling when he notices that his arm is shaking with the strain of reaching for the cup. The cup he hasn't managed to pick up, yet.

He does, and it's good that it's not full, or near full, because his arm is shaking hard now. He puts the cup on his lap, and bends his head to the straw. Not terribly comfortable, but better then slopping liquid all over the place.

He does manage to successfully walk all the way to the refresher, though, again he doesn't stand for a second longer than necessary, and, okay, he'd likely deny it if asked, but he crawls back to bed, pulling himself into the curl of her body, and lets himself drift on the brush of her breath against his shoulder and her arms around his waist.

"How's he doing?" Rey's voice talking to… Kylo doesn't have a sense of anyone else in the room with them, so she must be talking to the med droid.

He hears a… he's not sure. It's a mechanical sound. He opens his eyes. Rey's reaching over him… taking report from the med droid. She reads it for a moment, and then kneels down on the bed next to him, and kisses his temple. "Congratulations, you're no longer contagious."

"Yay?" he asks, not exactly feeling like hopping up to celebrate.

"Yay!"

"I'm going to celebrate by going back to sleep."

She strokes his face. "Good plan."

Rey looks at the report in her hand. No viral load. Hiffa levels are undetectable. That's the second straight test in a row that's showing that, so, officially Kylo is "better."

Better in the sense of still sleeping twenty-two hours a day and having the strength and energy of a newborn maomao. But regular food will help with that.

Rose is also "better."

And each time Critt and Xanth try their trick, it's easier to do. Which means today they'll likely get five or six of the rest of the Maji done.

Granted, tomorrow or the next day everyone else should be pretty much to the end of this naturally, but Xanth thinks working on this is worth it, and Critt's over the moon at the idea that he can use his dark for something 'good.'

He's not saying it, but Rey can feel how much he wants to tell his parents, show them that he's not a waste of Force.

She thinks he's written them. Though he hasn't specifically said, and she's not sure if she should ask. She's not sure how to balance her own history of being a light child, waiting, patiently for her parents to come back. Lying to herself, over and over, about how they didn't really want to leave, or couldn't avoid it, with his lived experience of being a dark child, abandoned for his dark, and the way that spirals into deep cuts of unworthiness and loathing. She's always been more honest with herself of her own worth. And he's more honest with himself about his parents.

She hopes they've had enough time to see the child they've got, and decide that they want him, as he is.

She hopes that they've also had the time to think about the idea of balance, and that dark doesn't mean evil.

She hopes that all of this is, as she said to Critt, a moment in time where things are difficult and those difficulties will pass.

But she wonders if all of that hope is just her own light, doing it's best to put the best possible spin on the subject.

And, in the back of her mind, she halfway wonders if spending this much time pondering Critt's home life is a way to not ponder those little niggly thoughts that are a bit too present as she moves back into regular life on Lirium, the ones that she's keeping in the back of her head, because they're just a bit, too…

Everything.

2/9/2

Every time Kylo wakes up, he feels like another one of his systems have come back online.

He stayed awake for more than twenty minutes at a go... yesterday? That was nice.

He noticed they've got a flower in his room. A flower in a vase. The flower is… coral and gold, and he's not sure if it's real or glass. The vase is white. The flower is pretty. He likes it. He doesn't like the vase. He's not sure why they've got it though. He was alert enough to wonder about it before he fell back to sleep.

Then he woke up later, and was awake enough to get bored, which wasn't nice, but he takes to mean his brain is starting to function again. After all, there's only so long you can lie on your side and watch stars zip past. That likely means he's actually staying awake as he stares at them.

He had some solid food the next time he woke up. That was better. Toast with a little butter and some jam. He really enjoyed it, but could only eat half a piece before he needed another nap.

He asked C8 to bring him some datapads, which very much hinted his brain might indeed be coming back online, but then he just looked at them and went to sleep again.

This time he wakes up, and… okay, he knows this sensation, though he hasn't felt it in a while. Back before Rey, when he'd go as long as he could without any sort of sex, he'd… get this uncomfortable, swollen sensation, inside. That… thing… Rey touches when she slips her fingers in him. After a week or so of no sex, it'd get swollen and sensitive and…

He shifts a bit, rubs his legs together, and his shaft, which was already doing its usual morning (Rey's not with his so he's not sure about morning.) stand, pulses.

Which means… Well… If it works the way it used to… that means it's got to be… six or seven days since he spurted last. He shifts again, lightly squeezes his legs together, and feels the drip of pre-spurt… Make that eight or nine. He's been sick and very dehydrated… Maybe more.

In the past, it'd get so bad that just sitting down would make him hard.

He could feel people stare at him in amazement when he'd kneel or crouch, but… The last thing he wanted was his shaft poking out of inopportune times, and keeping pressure off… he really should just get an anatomy book and figure out what it's called, made it easier to stay on task.

Part of him, a very specific part… actually a few very specific parts, beg him to call for Rey, and see if she'll… give him a hand, or mouth, or hop on him (all the images of which just make him harder) but…

Realistically, he's going to be done before she's even all the way on him.

And he feels a little bad at the idea of calling her away from… He does get a sense of what she's up to right now… working with the Maji… which is when he realizes he can get a sense for what she's up to, so there's another system starting to get back online… Though… distracted.

He rolls to his side, feels his body quiver at that, remembers why he was looking for her in the first place, and comes to the conclusion that calling her over for seven seconds of what's bound to be extremely lackluster sex for her, because, honestly, he really doesn't have the energy for much beyond lay there and let her touch him, isn't exactly doing his favorite person any favors.

That said, if he doesn't do anything about this, the next time he falls asleep, he's going to wake up with sticky sheets, and… Speaking of parts of him coming back online, the part that notices how he smells is now working, too, and Holy Mother of the 'Verse, he's disgusting right now. Critt wasn't wrong, he does smell like something that died. And not recently. Wrecking his bedding with even more fluids is just going to make things worse. He almost runs a hand through his hair, but his fingertips just touch it, matted, greasy, and somehow crusty with dried sweat, and he decides that not doing that is a really good plan.

"C8?"

Clicking sounds of feet on metal floor. A moment later. "I'm here, sir."

"I'm going to attempt to get a shower. Clean bedding by the time I'm done would be deeply appreciated."

"I can take care of that, sir."

"Thank you."

C8 waits next to the bed. And Kylo waits in the bed. He doesn't exactly feel comfortable strolling across his room, naked, hard, with C8 next to him, but… They both wait, and wait.

"I have orders from Lady Ren to make sure that if you attempt to walk anywhere, that I keep an eye on you."

That makes a lot of sense. For a moment, he attempt to will his shaft to go down, but between the state of his bladder, and the state of the rest of him, that's just not going to happen.

Fortunately, it's not like he can embarrass the droid, and… It's not like Rey gave him an unreasonable order. He wasn't anything approaching stable on his feet the last time he got up.

So he very slowly gets up, (notices that at some point they untethered him. His IV is gone, and apparently Rey took care of the wound because he can't even tell where it was) and shuffles his way toward the shower, wobbling a bit, but he doesn't need to grab C8 to stay up, and once he's in there, C8 allows him to shut the door without following him. (Though Kylo's sure he's waiting outside the door to make sure he doesn't fall or hurt himself in there.)

As previously mentioned there are only two situations in which Kylo prefers the sonic to a real hot water shower.

This is the other one.

When he's genuinely, awfully, smells-so-bad-he-can-stun-a-taunton-at-fifty-meters, dirty.

The sonic is beyond good for that.

He grits his teeth through the high pitched whine, stands arms and legs akimbo, (Droopy akimbo, he's not really feeling up to keeping his arm out for several minutes at a go.) and lets the vibrations and tiny puffs of air pull the at least a week since he showered last crud off of him.

The little puffs of air are torture right now. They're almost enough to get him to spurt. He's so close he can just about feel it, and if he could will himself to spurt… Well, he literally can, right now just by thinking about something sexy or giving himself a Force hand, but…

But, in a minute this will be done, and then he's going to turn on the hot water and…

And he realizes he's never touched himself to feel good. In the past, it's always been about taking care of some perverse weakness, something he did fast and shameful, a part of him he tried to burn to ash.

And he certainly doesn't mind the fact that he hasn't been handling his own shaft for almost three years now.

Really hasn't minded the bit more than a year and a half it's been exclusively Rey's domain.

Still…

The high-pitched whine ends, and Kylo turns the water on, letting it stream down him.

He moans at that. Loud. Speaking of things that feel good. Warm water streaming over his still sore and very tired body feels like heaven. He sinks down against the side of the shower, sitting on the base, letting the water just stream over him.

This is good. He's warm, and resting comfortably, and water streaming over him is soothing and…

His hand settles onto his shaft, and he shivers just at the feel of that.

For a moment, he's not entirely sure what to do next. Normally, he'd just yank at it until he spurted. Do it hard and fast and… Okay, the peaches… He genuinely enjoyed that. At least as a set of physical sensations. He was also steaming in guilt when he did it. Not so good of a headspace.

He's not sure he ever actually enjoyed it. He certainly relieved a need, but he's fairly sure he never just… made himself feel good.

He gently trails his fingers up and down the length, thinking of how Rey'd handle him.

Enjoy it, Kylo. Their first time. She'd thought that at him and… He spurted so hard he felt like his whole soul was going to pulse out of his body.

Enjoy it. He keeps his hand loose, gentle, and just lightly strokes. His head falls back and his teeth grit. Fuck… That's… good.

Slow, up and down, and just a bit tighter, move the skin over the shaft as well as his hand.

He inhales, long and slow, trying to keep himself here, just… enjoying it… But… He's so hard, and it's been so long, and he can just feel the tension, and urge, and need… it's inside him, deep and throbbing, and under his fingers, begging for a bit more, a little harder, and…

He reaches between his legs, and palms his stones. For a moment, he's just holding them, rubbing lightly with his hand, feeling it. What had he told Rey? Because touching them feels good? Shit, it does. Then further back, under them, where that deep ache is, and presses into it, gently… He's not rushing, not hurting himself or hating himself, just… enjoying it.

Pressure, "Oh… fuck…" deep and round, needy, and it's right there… Just… he speeds the hand on his shaft just a hair, tightens just a bit, and…

"FUCK!" his head hits the back of the shower and it's on him, deep, pulsing, in his hand and through his body, and everything is spasming, muscles tightening and releasing, and the tingle/pleasure wave is going on and on and, and he looks down, watching, spurt after spurt after spurt… It's always like that when he goes this long, over and over and…

Eventually his body stops. Soft and glowy and warm. He's wet and quiet and… tired. So fucking tired.

He'd fall asleep here in the shower but… that's probably a bad idea.

Slowly, Kylo pulls himself up, and turns off the water, and wraps a towel around his waist. He eyes the toothbrush, but right now that seems like too much effort. Anything beyond going back to bed is too much effort.

He opens the door to his bedroom, and…

Well, he did request new bedding, but…

The laundry service droids aren't just changing out his sheets, they're putting new pillows on his bed, and he's got the sense that there's a new mattress on there, and… Honestly, given how bad he smelled, he's not minding that at all.

He inhales, deeply, coughs a little, and comes to the conclusion that they spaced the atmo in here, too.

Likely all for the better.

He watches droids smoothing new sheets on his bed. They're doing a very neat, very tidy job, and all he wants to do is flop into the bed and collapse.

But, it doesn't take them that long.

And eventually, he's back in bed, on a very comfortable mattress, on sheets that smell like… nothing much really, and he stretches out a bit, feeling good, and…

Kylo sleeps again.