12/1/1
"Rafe!" Millie yells as soon as she sees it. That… thing is eating the Favier.
He's fumbling for his blaster, running toward the sound, fear choking his throat and narrowing his vision.
Rey shoots him an angry glare, makes him go back. He hates the worthless feeling that goes with that push. He's not good enough to help her protect what's theirs.
But she's also not wrong. He's better with the blaster than when he started, but he's not good with it, and really, he only carries it because all the other men do. If that turtle, or whatever, can't be scared off by shooting near it, there's not much he can do without risking anyone near his target.
In the microfarm, with his wife, son, and Jacen, he stands there, watching, feeling useless and helpless as Rey strikes at the giant turtle, doing very little damage, if any, to it, and… His blood goes cold, colder than at the sight of the poor, mutilated Favier.
The Jedi Killer's found them.
He clutches his wife's hand and both of them freeze for a second before everything around them shatters in memories of members of their church, whispering reports of different Force sensitive members being executed by a flickering red blade.
Millie leaps when her mind starts working again, she grabs Critt and Jacen, pulling them, fast, through the greenhouse, "Run, we've got to run. Straight to the craft. Don't bother with going to your cottage. Just run!"
"MOM!" Critt's yelling at her, they can't run. Rey's out there and all of his friends are out there and-
"That's the Jedi Killer! He's found us; we've got to run!" Rafe's pushing the boys out, planning out a path that will keep buildings between them and any line of sight the Jedi Killer may have.
Critt's trying not to get yanked away by his parents, and he may be getting tall, but he's still thin and they're jostling along, fear overshadowing everything else.
Critt's eyeing Jacen, begging him with his mind, Please
I'm not supposed to…
Please! They'll take me away.
Jacen sighs, and says, "Stop," he even uses his fingers, sliding them forward and stopping them as soon as he get to the p sound. (Kylo's not nearly as good at hiding that move as he thinks he is.)
The Kennas stop dead, and they are angry.
"That's the Jedi Killer! We have to run!" Millie shouts, furious that her legs do not appear to be taking orders from her brain right now.
Jacen doesn't roll his eyes, but he does say, "He didn't kill me, or Cassie, or Xanth, or Kven. All of us with Order gear. He brought all of us here."
"He…" Rafe is staring at Jacen, and then shakes his head. "No."
Jacen releases Critt's parents from his hold on their legs. "Padme's with the Order. He brings us here. He's got status enough to get us stationed away from our original posts, but this still counts for our service years. He got Chewie and Finn off the Order's wanted lists. He's got a private spot for Rey to go visit him. He's been with the Order for years. No one's allowed to see him up close. And he's Force sensitive. Who the hell else could he have been?"
Millie staggers at it, feeling gut punched. A small, hurt "No," eases out of Rafe's mouth.
"Do you listen when Rey talks? She's not just filling the air with words. The Force balances. Who else is going to balance her? You can feel how powerful she is, right? Even without Force talent, you have to feel it!" Jacen touches his Maji stone. It's under his clothing, but everyone understands the gesture. "Light gray and dark gray. He's her dark gray."
"He murdered—" Millie starts.
"Yeah. I know." Jacen blows that off. At this point, he considers the whole Jedi Killer thing supremely overrated. "But he didn't murder me, and he didn't murder your son, and he's been here every damn night and done nothing more threatening than meditate. You've seen him in the chapel, haven't you?"
They don't answer. They do grab Critt, and continue trying to pull him out.
Jacen sighs. You so owe me for this.
Yes, just do it.
"Mr. Kenna, Mrs. Kenna…" They look over to him. He focuses on them, focuses his Force into his voice, shapes it, feeling what he needs it to do. If he's ever needed this spell to work, it's now. "You saw Padme come to Rey's aid. Padme. She tossed him her staff and used the short sword herself. They killed the turtle and left."
The Kennas go blank at that.
"Let's get back to thinning out the carrots," Jacen says, pointing to the tiny sprouts coming up.
And, with a slightly glazed look in their eyes, the Kennas go back to thinning out the carrots.
You know this isn't going to hold. Jacen thinks to Critt as they help to thin out the plants.
I know. It's just got to hold long enough for me to get my stuff out of their place and into yours.
Jacen smiles. You're staying.
I'm staying. Nothing's ever pulling me away from here.
Even the Jedi Killer?
Critt rolls his eyes, it's been a while since Jacen told him that, and he didn't exactly take it well, but… Like you said, he didn't kill you, and he hasn't killed me, so…
"Mr. Kenna, it's lesson time. We've got to get going," Jacen says.
Rafe Kenna nods absently, and both boys leave the greenhouse.
"That was Kylo Ren. I saw it," Opal says.
"You did not!" her twin, Tourine replies.
"Yes, I did. Rose was paying attention to the little ones, so I ran to see if I could help!"
"Why would you do that?" Neither Opal nor Tourine has any useful training for this sort of thing, yet.
"Rey might have needed help."
"From you?" Tourine looks appalled at that idea.
"I've got more to offer than you do. And I saw him! It was Kylo Ren, black clothing, black hair, red lightsaber. He leapt up on the tortoise, and shoved his saber though it's back while Rey cut off its face," Opal shoots back. Granted, she didn't actually have anything that could be called a plan for ways to help Rey, but if Rey needed help… maybe a well-thrown rock would have distracted the thing at the right moment, Opal was ready and willing to be the person throwing that rock.
"Why would Kylo Ren come here? Master Padme has black hair, and we know he works with the Order. They've all got those black uniforms," Tourine replies.
"Master Padme has a blaster, not a lightsaber. Master Padme wears normal clothes. And how would Master Padme know to be here?" Opal says, annoyed. It's obvious who just visited.
But not to Tourine. "He's Maji! Force sensitive Maji! Of course he'd know to come here. He's Rey's sweetie. He'd come for her. Besides, why would Kylo Ren come here?"
That doesn't shake Opal at all, though she does have to take a minute to come up with a reason for why Kylo Ren would come here. But once she does… "Remember, dark, light balancing, if things get out of balance there's trouble. Kylo felt the balance slipping, and he showed up to keep it straight. He doesn't want some new light power showing up trying to knock him off his throne."
Cassie Andor stretches on her bunk, bored with her hutmate's squabbling. She's a few years older than the twins. And like Opal, she ducked away from Rose to try and offer some 'help.' She didn't get very far in that endeavor, because watching the man she knows as Padme leap, red saber glowing, onto the back of the tortoise, she felt something shift.
Like… a memory rippled and changed and… And she's realizing that since she knows she's had a face to face conversation with Padme, at least one of them, that she should know what he looks like, but until she saw Padme leap onto the tortoise, she didn't have a clear image of his face.
And she does now.
"Kylo Ren is Master Padme."
Her hutmates stare at her like this is the single silliest thing they've ever heard.
"Cassie?" Opal says, her voice making it clear that she's sure Cassie's gone bonkers.
She's thinking back, staring into the image of a memory grown sharp. "I was transferred to the Supremacy. A day later, I was summoned to a meeting with Kylo Ren, his personal chambers… He… knelt down, so we could talk face to face, and… He showed me he could use the Force and asked if I wanted to learn. He brought me here." She looks over to her hutmates. "He's the one who brings us here. He… hides his face and name because he knows not everyone trusts him, but…
"Kylo Ren is Master Padme."
Finn and Poe missed the fight by, at most, forty-five seconds. They'd been on the lake, cutting ice, getting ready to sink their water intake deeper, hopefully deeper than the ice is going to go. They heard it start, and ran, fast, clearing the buildings just in time to see a very dead giant tortoise. From there, they run to the chapel, where most of the children and Rose are.
"Where's Rey?" Finn asks Rose as soon as he can see that she and Paige are safe.
"Gone."
"Gone?" Poe asks.
Rose is staring at the corpse of the tortoise. "Gone. She was… there… and then she wasn't."
"Maji stuff?" Poe asks.
Rose nods slowly. She looks around at the children who are still with her. The older ones have returned to their cottages, but the younger ones want to stay close to her. None of them want to get too close to the dead Favier or the tortoise.
Finn knows that nod. He gets across to Poe, by a look, that now would be a really good time for him to come up with something fun and stupid to distract the kids.
Poe glares at both of them, because right now he's not exactly a font of fun and stupid. Well, if fun and stupid isn't on the menu… "Come on, kids, lets get some shovels."
They're all staring at him like he's insane.
"It's cold out there, and Bonnet needs a good place to rest. We'll dig her a nice grave, okay?"
They're all solemn, but it does buy Rose and Finn some time.
Once they've shuffled off, Rose says to him, "You've seen Kylo Ren up close, right?"
"You know that story." He doesn't much like telling it.
"I do." She swallows hard. "All black clothing, black hair, red lightsaber with a red cross guard."
Finn nods slowly, feeling ice trace down the scar on his back.
"He's Padme. That's why he mind wiped us rather than let us see him. That's why the Falcon got boarded and you were fine. That's where the money's coming from. Kylo Fucking Ren is Master Padme!"
"Rose?"
She sits down on the cold floor of the chapel, holding Paige close, voice shaking. "The tortoise was eating Bonnet. It was screaming. Rey ran for it, lightstaff glowing, and she got two hits in and then… He was there, next to her. They fought it together. She took most of its head off and he stabbed it through the back."
From where they are, Finn can see the tortoise, but he can imagine the view of any person out there would be less than perfect.
"No." He's shaking his head. "Padme has dark hair, and we know he works for the Order. Officers wear dark uniforms, and…"
"Red lightsabers with a cross-guard? I don't remember that being standard issue. Neither you nor I found one of them lurking about in the laundry system. There's one man in the fucking galaxy who carries one of them, and he came, for her. And they're both gone now. They finished killing that thing, and she turned to him, staff still up."
"Wait, is she in danger?" Fear prickles through Finn's body. If Rey's in trouble, they've got to get going.
Rose is shaking her head. "I… don't think so. He extinguished his blade. He was…" She rolls her eyes. "He was trying to get close enough to make sure she was okay. I think… she was mad."
"I'd be mad, too, if that maniac showed up out of the blue!" He's looking out at the tortoise, trying to wrap his mind around this. Trying to find an out.
Rose cups his face and brings his gaze back to her. "Finn… He's been showing up the whole time we've been here. This isn't the first time. She wasn't surprised."
"You couldn't tell that, not from back here."
She gives him the, do you really want to argue this with me look.
He sighs. "No. But… Just… No… No!" He's looking off at the tortoise, looking for a way out of this. "Just… No."
"Poe says Chewie's met Padme."
"Fine. He… It… Just… It's not him. She wouldn't do that to us."
Rose raises an eyebrow and delicately looks down at the symbol at their feet.
Chewie's in the Falcon, working on yet another repair. He's hating to say it, but… After close to fifty years, it might be time to lay his baby to rest. It wasn't the greatest ship to begin with, sacrificing basically everything for speed, and now… She's just old, and a few decades sitting in a desert in the middle of nowhere certainly didn't help anything, and a lot of the parts Han jiggered up in the first place to keep her moving are breaking, and no one knows how to fix the damn things. Finn's turning out to be a great trader, and he's got amazing instincts on which cargo to get, he can feel a good deal from a lightyear away, but he's worth fuck all as a mechanic.
And Rose, who is a good mechanic, can't fix something if she doesn't have the parts.
And no one makes the parts anymore.
He smells Finn, and his anger, and confusion, long before he gets onto the ship.
Apparently that dust up earlier today has resulted in some interesting fallout. He'd heard the shrieking, glanced out, saw the turtle, but Rey had it in hand, so he went back to fixing the Falcon.
Finn's really shaken, thought, and Chewie thinks this is way too much emotion for a dead Favier. So, something else must have happened.
What? he asks, not looking down from the tangle of cords and decaying parts he's fixing over his head.
"Chewie…" Finn's looking up at his partner, anger sparking in his eyes. "You tell me. You're the only one who knows and… None of this, 'It's her secret to keep' shit. You tell me it's not true." He yanks off his coat, jacket, sweater, and then shirt, and turns, showing the long, jagged scar down his back. "Tell me the man who did this isn't… Padme."
Chewie doesn't say anything. That's not a direction he was expecting today to take.
What's got you asking about that? Chewie says, putting down his tools.
Finn's looking up at him like he's been stabbed. They both know an evasion when they hear one.
"He killed Han!"
Chewie's long wail indicates he's aware of that on about thirty more levels than Finn could possibly imagine.
"You let me leave my wife and daughter on a planet he—You—"
It's been more than a year, has anything happened to them?
"It's a spell. He's using the Force to—"
That's not how the Force works.
"Like fuck it's not! That's exactly how the Force works, or do you not listen when you tell the damn story about Obi Wan Kenobi or Luke waving a hand at someone and making them think what they wanted to. There's no possible way this is happening unless he's using the Force to twist people's minds. He's the enemy!"
He's family. My family. Rey's husband.
"You murder your dad, and you don't get to claim his best friend as your uncle any longer."
I don't think he does. And for a while there, I wasn't claiming him as mine, but… even when you want it to, it doesn't go away. Even when it's better dead; it won't die. He's still mine. Just like Paige will always be yours. It's not a binary system with an on/off switch. He'll always be mine. I'm angrier at him than anyone in the history of angry has ever been, but he's still mine.
Chewie lays a hand on Finn's shoulder, and Finn shakes him off.
Why do you think we're alive to even be back here after we got boarded by the Order? He's the one who took us off the list. If the gossip I'm getting is right, no one in the Resistance is still on it. He's the reason your daughter still has her father.
"He's the reason she's got no aunt, and her mother's planet was a weapons testing facility, killing off one set of grandparents, and kidnapped me as a baby, so she's got no grandparents on the other side."
He was six when you were a baby.
"He joined up! I was dragged into it, and he joined!" Finn yells.
I know. And he ended the kidnappings. And he's only tested weapons on barren planets. And the Resistance is dead because he stopped most of the things they were rebelling against, remember?
Finn growls at that.
Chewie's eyebrows raise because he's never heard a human master that word.
Finn nods at him, slowly, sometimes Shariwook is the best language to get an idea across. Human cursing just doesn't have the necessary heat for the right flavor. "How long?"
Crait
Finn groans. "She rescued us from him that day."
She rescued him from him that day, too. Just took a while to kick in.
Finn glares. "She's been lying to us for years."
Chewie nods. What's your wife say? We win by protecting the things we love?
Finn winces at that. "She loves him?"
How many years would you put up with a mentally unstable rage puppy if you were only fond of him?
"None. But I wouldn't fall in love with one in the first place."
I know. Humans are weird when it comes to sex.
"Oh, God! I didn't need to think about that," Finn says, wincing, a whole slew of images stampeding through his mind that he never, ever wanted to get within a light year of contemplating.
Chewie laughs at him.
Finn puts his shirt back on. "So you're just… fine with this?"
Chewie lets him see the flash of anger, there's still a lot between him and Kylo who was Ben. No, we're not fine. We will never be fine. But he's still mine. I was the first person to hold him who wasn't Han or Leia. They… Han and I didn't think giving him to Luke was a good idea. But Leia won that argument, and for a long time he seemed better… and then he wasn't."
Chewie hands Finn a tool. If he's here, he might as well be working.
Paige is perfect. She's everything you want a little girl to be. Ben wasn't. We could all feel the dark in him. I could feel it. Han could feel it. Even as a baby, it was always there. He's actually better now than he used to be. Used to be you couldn't get within a hundred meters of him without feeling a shiver down your spine and depressed.
"Maybe you can do that." Finn glares at Chewie, certain he's never going to be able to be in the same room with Ren and not immediately flash back to the fight on Starkiller.
Chewie gives him a look that indicates he thinks that's a fair point. He keeps talking though. Han and I thought maybe… we could shape that dark, use it… Chewie looks around at the Falcon, and looks to Finn. There's a lot a man with a good head and a not too stringent respect for the law can do with his life. And, it's not like an intimidating presence is a drawback in this line of work. Not like either of us were strangers to the dark. Not like we didn't live and thrive in it for decades. Leia and Luke could feel the dark, too, and they wanted to banish it. They were afraid that if it was just let to grow, we'd have another Vader on our hands.
"So he went off to Luke and turned into Vader mark II."
Chewie howls his agreement at that. Han and I talk about that sometimes.
"Talked?"
Chewie gives Finn the side eye. Did I stutter? Talk. Just because you don't see him, doesn't mean I don't. He's dead, not gone. No one's ever truly gone.
Finn's not convinced about that, but decides that right now is a good time to not argue about it. If Chewie's having hallucinations about his best friend dropping by to chat, he's not going to poke it.
Chewie sees the way Finn's staring past everything around him, stuck in memories and plans. Don't do something stupid.
"I…"
Want to do something stupid. Don't. For Rose and Paige's sake if for no one else's.
Finn glares at him.
He and Poe meet in the center of the town. The tortoise is too big and heavy for them to move without equipment, or Rey, so it'll just… stay there… for the time being.
Bonnet on the other hand…
Poe's moving the remaining pieces. The kids are digging… chipping… frozen dirt out of the ground for her grave, but he doesn't think they need to see… This. "There's a reason I prefer fighters. No bodies to deal with after."
That doesn't sound bad to Finn. He stares at what's left of the Favier. Then he looks at the tortoise. "We're going to need to start corralling the Faviers."
Poe nods. "You find what you needed."
"Yeah." He scowls. "What'd the kids say?"
"Apparently, Master Padme has a red lightsaber, with a cross guard," Poe says, voice dry as the vacuum of space.
"Uh huh."
Poe adds, "And Jacen, that little quanrunk, knew it was Ren the whole time, and just didn't say."
"He what?"
"Ren does some sort of trick on them, so they remember Padme, not him. He couldn't work the trick on Jacen."
Finn's practically got a view of his brain, his eyes have rolled so far back. "Oh, that's just fucking lovely. What kind of trick do you think he's working on Rey?"
Poe looks at the severed head of the Favier. "That's the question now, isn't it?"
"It's got to be a trick."
Poe half-inclines his head, and nods to the Favier's head. Finn helps him load it into the cart. "Ugh… They're heavy."
Poe looks at the parts that are already in the cart. "You think?"
Finn rolls his eyes, again.
"If it's a trick, what's the upside?" Poe asks.
"Okay, I know it's been a while since you got your tool serviced, but you remember what sex feels like, right?"
Poe shoves Finn's shoulder and shakes his head. "Beyond that. He's the Master of the Order, he's practically swimming in sex if that's all he wants. If it's a trick, he's got to get something out of it besides sex."
"He gets Rey!" Finn says.
"And we love Rey, and she's great, but…"
"What do you mean, but?" Finn's deeply insulted by the idea that Rey's not enough.
"But… I mean… If you were going to run it as a trick, and all you got was Rey… Wouldn't you… I don't know… Keep her close? What's he get out of…" Poe gestures to the settlement around him.
"Us building it instead of trying to take out the Order."
Poe thinks about it, and decides that's actually a really good point. Ren's got a decent number of his enemies here… Okay, no he doesn't. He's got new enemies these days, and what's left of the Resistance aren't even on the list of dangers for him. But, Rey's a different story. She's the only one who can likely even start an attack against him that might matter, so she's the only one he needs to keep distracted. And… well… this is distracted, right? "Okay. Say it's a trick..."
"It's a trick. It's got to be a trick."
"Fine, it's a trick. It's a trick so tricky Rey's falling for it. Last I checked, I've got no Force skills and you're not exactly covered in them, either. How do we fix this?"
That stumps both of them for a moment. And it stumps them for just a moment because that's when Jacen decides to quit listening in and let them see him.
There's a certain tone that too-smart-for-their-own-good adolescents use with adults when they're feeling cocky and safe, and on top of that, know more than said adults do. Jacen's using that tone and has it amped to the max. "It's a Force bond. You can see it on both of them if you've got the talent for it. Kind of glowy, blue red, like Rey's lightstaff. It threads through them, ties them to each other. It's brighter when they're close to each other, hums a bit when they're happy, and sometimes, during the day, I'll see it spike a bit, and Rey looks far away. I assume that's when they're thinking of each other. You might be able to damp it down some with enough distance, but I don't think you can break it."
Finn turns to him. "You knew the whole time you were here who he is."
"Of course." He offers a little shrug that indicates it was blatantly obvious to anyone who just looked.
"Why didn't you say anything?"
Jacen looks up at both of them, and says, "My master kept me as a side-show freak for a carnival. The magical levitating boy who tells fortunes. And if I don't whisper something about a generous donation to his coffers during each fortune, I'm going to be whipped into the next week." He points to the brand on his face. "That's the least of them. Don't ever look at my back if you don't want to get sick to your stomach.
"Try to escape your bond, and you wouldn't make it. Everywhere on planet knew that mark. Anyone with my face was barred from the space ports. We rolled into a city with one of his recruiting stations, and mutinied en masse. One night all fifty of us turned on our master. He was a droid, so I can't say we killed him, but I will say no one's ever going to find all of the parts, and then we burned down his carnival. We got free. Eighteen of us made it to the recruiting station without being killed or recaptured. They took us all. Three years, eleven months, and nineteen days, and I'm a citizen. I finish my training here, and I can go back to the Order and train as an officer. Master Jacen of the Maji. Commander McGy of the Order. People will call me, sir instead of freak. They'll take my orders, instead of staring at me like an animal. Kylo Ren, the man who gave me the opportunity to be more than a sideshow attraction, tells me he's not that popular here, and I'm better off not mentioning his name, I can do that. He and I are just fine, so why would I go against that simple of a request?"
"Then why tell us about the bond?" Finn asks.
Jacen smiles, a little. "Like I said, he sold my skills of fortune telling. I can see the future, glimpses of it, and that's the information you need to make the least stupid decision here." Jacen looks behind him, toward Rey's house. "She's back. Take her away, stretch it out, see what happens."
Poe's halfway to turning toward Rey's when he stops, realizing Jacen used his voice to make him go. "Okay, you little… You don't ever do that to either of us again."
"Do what?" Jacen looks really innocent.
"You know what you just did," Poe says.
Jacen winks at them, and then levitates the torso of the Favier into the cart. "I've got this. Go take care of that."
They turn again, toward Rey, and Poe says, quietly. "If we're trying this, we've got one shot at it. We don't know anything but Padme showed up. My ship's acting up, Rose poked at it a bit, but couldn't get it working, so we want her to see it. You get in there and make the transipositor look broken, without breaking it, and then put in coordinates for the farthest chunk of the galaxy you can think of. I'll get her to come to the ship. Once she's in there, punch it, and we'll spin the damn thing out as far as we can get before she kicks both of our asses."
"That's a desperate and not particularly well-thought-out plan!" Finn smiles. "I like it."
Poe rolls his eyes. "You're lucky you're so damn cute."
Finn smiles a little back at him.
Poe is an excellent liar. He has to be. Especially right now while he's balancing Finn's need for the universe to make sense with the fact that Rey's… she'd be horrified if she knew he could tell, but he's not exactly unfamiliar with the smell of male sexual arousal and release, and she's been rolling in it, male musk, cum, he assumes one of the very organic scents he's picking up is turned-on Rey, plus, it's not like he's never seen a hickey before, and okay, women may not exactly be his thing, but between the smell and the hickies, he's gonna assume the pink in her cheeks is a sex flush, not the cold.
Obviously, if Rey didn't like Pad-Ren showing up out of the blue, they've made up, and Poe knows how.
Looking at her, he just knows this isn't a trick. Maybe it's not good or healthy or what they'd want for her, but it's real.
He's got the advantage of Rey's expecting to be hit with a million questions about Ren, so him grousing about how his ship's going to shit and the transipositor's not working right takes her completely off guard.
"The transipositor?" she asks, looking stunned.
He's sitting at her table, looking relaxed. "The transipositor. I mean, I suppose if you want to wait and get the tortoise out of the way, we can do that, and then go work on it, but… It's bugging me."
"Deal with a huge, nasty corpse or take care of a transipositor … Okay, yeah. I'll take the transipositor." He can see the relief pouring off of her right now. Coming back here after Padme was outed wasn't anything she was expecting to enjoy. And she's grabbing for an out with both hands, intentionally not examining it closely.
"Good. Then we can get the tortoise together. If you lift it up, we'll get chains under it, and I'll pull it out of town with my ship."
"That sounds good. Why do you think it was even here?"
"The Kennas say they hibernate underwater, so... Maybe that one got a late move on?" He thinks about the size of that tortoise. "Or maybe it's big enough that twenty centimeter thick ice is like centimeter thick ice for me."
"I guess." She's eyeing him, expecting to get hit with a lot of comments about Kylo, but he's spinning a story about the ship. "Has Rose taken a look at your ship?"
"She's still got the sprogs, remember? They're planning a funeral for Bonnet. Heating up the dirt so they can shovel it out of the way faster than a teaspoon at a time."
She sighs. "That'll be fun."
He sighs, too. "It's got to be done. We can't just leave her out there. Even this cold, scavengers will come for her."
"I know…" She pulls her jacket back on, and her coat on top of it, looks at the rips, holds up one finger, goes to her workbench, tapes the rip in the coat shut, and follows Poe to his ship.
They get to Poe's ship, and Rey heads in. And in. And in. The transipositor's awfully deep in the gizzards of the ship, and a second after seeing what appears to be a case popped open and three wires pulled out of the bunch, she knows they're in the air.
As soon as she knows the transipositor is in perfect condition, she wriggles her way out of there, and finds her "friends."
"Broken transipositor?" she asks Poe, voice dry.
Poe shakes his head. His job was getting her onto the ship; it's Finn's show now.
"Of course not. Just… let's go. Jacen said that if we got enough space—" Finn's saying, slowly.
"What?" Rey's staring at both of them like they've gone mad.
Finn pauses, thinks, but she's fairly sure part of him answering slowly is that every second he's not answering is another second with the hyperdrive going at full speed. Finally, though, he's got to say something. "There's a Force bond, and if we get you far enough away, it might get dim enough that you can think, without it clouding you up."
If it weren't for the fact that Finn's so painfully earnest right now, she'd smack him. Not trying to damage him or anything, just hard enough to put a little sense into his head.
She'd expected them to be angry about her lying to them. The idea that it's out of her hands, that's she's been… "You think I've been… what… magicked?"
Finn nods. "It's the only thing that makes sense. He's Kylo Ren, Rey. Without him abusing you with the Force, why would you have anything to do with him?"
Rey sighs. It's going to be a long afternoon.
Kylo often senses Rey during the day, a general feel for how she's doing. And she often has a similar feel for him.
And he's been… keeping an eye on her, is probably the best way to put it, since she's expecting some excitement upon getting back.
That said, he's surprised when he feels her think at him, Come to me, calm and wary. It's the calm and wary part that's surprising him. Come to me ready to fight, that's what he was expecting.
Is it all falling apart?
I don't know. He feels both fear and hope to go with that.
Armed?
You're likely better off not.
He's not sure that's a great plan, but… Like Kinear said, if you're going for peace, it helps to show up unarmed, and… It's not like he can't break a man's neck with a gesture of his hand. Where are you?
She focuses on what she's seeing, and he can see it. He doesn't know where she is, a ship, but not the Falcon. Poe's transport.
They kidnapped you?
He feels her frustration. They think that if they get me far enough away from you, the spell will break.
I've ensorcelled you?
I think that's the idea. Remember, calm. I don't want anyone dying today.
Do they know I'm coming?
They will when you get here.
"You're not hurt, are you?" Kylo Ren asks, materializing in the hold of Poe's ship, right next to Rey, paying attention to her, as both Poe and Finn stare at him in shock.
"I'm not hurt. They asked me to check the transipositor, and then we were in the air." She's glaring at them, and he deigns to look at them for a second before focusing back on her. "And then they were convincing me that I had to get away, fast, before you found me again."
Kylo can feel the rage building, and he can see that Poe's reaching for his blaster and… No one's dying today, so… He steps over, fast, making sure he's between any possible weapons fire and Rey, and then says, "That'd be like trying to keep me away from my heart. As long as it beats, I'll always be able to feel it."
He can feel Rey's I told you so look aimed at Finn from behind his back, and he's appreciating her letting him stand before her. She can read that he's intentionally offering a protective gesture because it's something the other two men will respect.
And, for all Poe and Finn had an idea of this moment, it didn't look like this. Not standing here, in Poe's ship, with Ren right in front of them, standing between them and Rey, protecting her from them, holding her hand, spouting stupid romantic shit about his heart. They don't know what to do, and there's a good moment of the four of them just staring.
And then Finn does.
He's up, hot, angry, enraged, and Kylo lets the first hit land, a hard, tooth cracking punch, and then he freezes Finn where he stands.
He rubs his jaw, wiggling it from side to side. At least one tooth is cracked, but his jaw, thankfully, isn't. He had just enough time to brace for the hit. "You've already marked me once. That was enough." He glances to Poe. "And you saw what happened the last time you turned a blaster on me. I can stop it, but I can't change its course or dissipate the blast. I'll let him hit me, but I'm not going to let you shoot me. Unless you want to blow a hole in the ship I will teleport her and I, but not you, out of, don't try it."
There's an alcove with benches on both sides, and Kylo turns to it, offering his back to Poe, daring him to try, but he doesn't. Then he sits, and Rey goes to him, sitting on his lap. She strokes his face, paying attention to the cracked tooth, and he feels her light mending it.
He rests his forehead against hers for a moment, offering a silent bit of thanks. The last thing he needs is a throbbing tooth to go along with the rest of this. He can use pain to fuel his fight. He doesn't think it'll be good for trying to smooth things over and calm them down.
Poe looks hurt, and if Finn could move, he'd likely moan in pain at this little bit of domestic comfort. Or maybe at the throb from his broken fist. Either way, he's hurting.
Kylo releases him. And this time Finn doesn't charge. He stays back, wary, cradling his hand. He could have punched a rock and done less damage to himself, at least two of his fingers are broken. Rey sees him, starts to rise, to offer to heal him, and he shakes his head, no.
Kylo says to both of them, "You weren't there, and you weren't conscious." He peels off his gloves, and neither of them miss the ring that matches Rey's. It's not identical, but similar, and on the same finger. He undoes his belt and tunic, and then pulls his shirt over his head. Then he touches the scar that trails from his face to his chest, and the other one in his shoulder. "Both of those marks are hers. You seek to protect her from me? She's the only person here who's ever beaten me. Neither of you managed to do it, and you've both had a chance."
All four of them stare quietly, waiting to see what happens next.
Poe sits down, keeping just as much distance as he can from Kylo, hand hovering over his blaster, but he notices Kylo doesn't have his lightsaber, so he fists his hands on his thighs. After a beat, Finn follows his lead.
"You said you didn't turn him," Poe says to Rey.
"I didn't."
Kylo nods at that. "We're all better off if I don't suddenly become a Light-worshiping Jedi." He shudders a little at the idea. "The thing that would rise up to balance the two of us would make Snoke look like an infant."
Poe looks Kylo over, really seeing him, sitting there, half naked, Rey across his lap, and his eyes land on his chest. "You're wearing a… the… myMaji disk!" Poe says, startled to see it there.
"Because I am Maji. I know she's told you that about me. Nothing you've heard about Padme is a lie, just misleading. Yes, I have money. Yes, I have access to our records. Yes, I can get Force sensitive children 'transferred.' Amazing how I can pull that off. And yes, I am Maji. As long as there's been a Maji, I've been one. I was there when she started to see how this was supposed to work."
"I saw how it was supposed to work because of my relationship with him."
"She lightens my black and I darken her white and together we find gray and the Force actually, finally balances and the galaxy is more or less at peace. Wasn't that the goal?" Kylo says, deadpan.
"You're evil." Finn's glaring at him. "That's not… darkening or lightening or… we're not talking about passion verses calm, or Critt being in a pissy mood, we're talking murder."
Kylo's beyond over that. He rolls his eyes, points to Finn and Poe, and says, "Of the three of us, I'm the only one with a kill count of fewer than a million people, let alone more than a hundred thousand children, so, tread lightly if you're going to call anything I've done evil and not brand yourself with it."
"I didn't kill my father!" Finn shoots back.
Kylo's lip curls, and he takes a few seconds to sort through Finn's mind. It takes him less than a minute to find what he's looking for. "Can you see the memories? They're in there, impressions mostly, images. No words, so I guess you weren't talking, yet. Your father…" His voice is harsh, tense, jealous as he continues, "lived for you and died for you. The last thing he ever did was put his physical body between you and three Stormtroopers. They had to pry you out of his dead hands. Of course you didn't kill him. There would have been no point. Everything you ever wanted and needed he gave you, until he literally could not give any more. You were his complete world, and he adored you to his end."
Poe's staring at Kylo, not terribly interested in Solo family drama. That bit about a hundred thousand children though...
Kylo catches it and says to Finn, "He didn't know. But you did. You, of all people, should know what you did when you took out Starkiller, and if that doesn't make you evil, then nothing I did makes me evil."
Finn blinks, this is obviously a level of this argument that he's ever thought of.
Kylo's watching Poe, who he can feel is honestly confused by this.
And Rey's already on top of where the disconnect is. "Snoke recruited by kidnapping children and toddlers. You knew that, right?"
Poe nods. He knew that, in the sense that if asked, that was part of why he was trying to overthrow the guy.
The "Oh shit," that goes falling out of his mouth a moment later makes it abundantly clear that he never managed to put together the idea that they were rebelling to free those children, and he, personally, led the attack that blew up a station with more than a hundred thousand of them.
"More than twenty thousand more of them on the Fulminatrix," Kylo adds, just because he's feeling like hammering the point home.
Poe inhales, shaky, and then bolts for the head, to be sick.
Finn watches Poe sprint away, and says, voice low and hot, "It's not his fault Snoke put children on weapons."
"Of course not. And it's not his fault that close to 800,000 of the more than a million people on Starkiller were basically brainwashed slaves who had the will beaten out of them, either. But it's entirely your fault that you blew up the entire planet instead of destroying the trigger mechanism, or the targeting mechanism, or the energy gathering field, or something similar. A blaster is just as useless unpowered as it is destroyed."
"You would have fixed it and fired it later," Finn shoots back. "Delaying a few days for your techs to get it running again wouldn't have mattered."
"You don't know that. I killed Snoke less than four days after you blew it up. If you'd disabled it, it would have given me long enough to take care of Snoke."
"And then you'd have had Starkiller and…" Finn runs out of steam on that one. Kylo's provided him with no good examples of why he shouldn't have something like Starkiller.
Kylo's honest enough that he's not going to let Finn think he's a better man than he is. "And I would have destroyed Jakku with it. I've had the ability to destroy planets the entire time I've been in charge. With the exception of Jakku and one uninhabited moon, I've chosen not to."
Poe's back, looking green, shaky, wiping his mouth. "Why Jakku?"
Rey shakes her head, and Kylo doesn't answer.
Finn's still staring at Kylo, glaring at him, eyes and thoughts hot.
"That's revenge, not peace," Rey says to his unspoken thoughts.
"And revenge is only sweet in the getting," Kylo says. "It's disappointing, once you have it."
"And you would know," Finn shoots back at him.
"I would know."
"Is that… what you did to Han? Revenge? What, he forget your birthday one year?" Finn asks.
"Among other things."
Finn's ready to hit Kylo again, but he doesn't move, not wanting to get stuck again.
Poe gets it. "It's a stalemate. We don't have the power to stop you. Can't even muster a decent attack. And you can't do anything to us, because everyone saw Rey leave with us."
Kylo sighs. "You do not understand the power differential. I can do whatever I like to you. In twenty seconds, the entirety of my fleet can be here." He taps the comm on his wrist. "We could be in the hold of the Supremacy before I finish this sentence. Dark of night, your ship, her, everything can go back to Lirium, and no one will ever know what happened to you, but they'll remember you going off on a scouting mission. Maybe you two got eaten by one of those turtles, too. I choose not to do this." He strokes Rey's back. "It would displease her." Then he turns to Finn and Poe. "We are no longer at war. You won. You got the Republic you wanted, or at least the start of it, correct? Snoke is dead. Hux is dead. The First Order is dead. That was the point of it, right? Or did you only win if my mother ended up running things?"
None of the four of them touch that. But it's clear that the idea that they may have won the war has never even threatened to occur to Poe or Finn.
"For more than a year, I've been doing nothing to you. For months, I've been actively funding you. I bring you new Maji. I wiped your ID from our files." He touches the token, and then notices he hasn't put his shirt back on, so he does. "I do not wear this on a whim. Balance, keeping it, supporting it, giving it a place to grow matters. So, I was evil. I've been actively avoiding that for more than two years now. I am dark. That will always be true, and I do not intend to try and hide or change that. I wouldn't do it for my parents, I'm not about to do it for you." He pauses there, collecting his thoughts, deciding where to go from here.
Kylo continues after a moment. "There is exactly one thing you can do to me, and that's use her affection for you, and her attachment to Lirium as a weapon. So, no, we are not at a stalemate. The question is, how badly are you willing to hurt her to get to me? And how badly do you think I'll hurt you if you hurt her?"
He stares directly at Finn. Look to your left and right. Who's not sitting next to you? Do you really think you've got a better claim to revenge than his partner of more than fifty years?
Finn's eyes narrow.
Kylo turns his attention to Poe, and he knows he's got Poe. He's been wearing a Maji token almost as long as he has, and he's got just as much invested in Lirium as Rey does. He may not be there for the sprogs every day, but finding them, rescuing them, that matters to him. Balancematters to him. It gives him a place and a sense of belonging and forgiveness for his missteps in the war.
It's the only meaning he's got right now.
Kylo nods at him. "It doesn't balance if there's nothing on the dark side."
Poe nods back. "I thought dark was supposed to be me. Rash, impatient, bad at following orders, thinking you know better than everyone else."
"Who says it's not?" Kylo responds.
"I can't believe this! I just…" Finn stalks away from them, heading to the cockpit. They feel the ship stop, and turn around.
Rey's stroking her fingers up and down the back of Kylo's neck. That went better than I'd hoped.
Good? He thinks to her.
I think so.
Thanks for letting me take the lead on this.
I have a feeling this works better if they deal with you, than with me protecting you.
He flashes her an image of him standing behind her, her in full armor, lightstaff extended, yelling her battle challenge.
I really hope it doesn't come to that. Rey replies.
"Okay, stop that. I'm sitting right in front of you. No talking without talking when other people are around," Poe says.
"How do you know we're doing that?" Rey asks.
"Because you're talking. Just because your lips aren't moving doesn't mean you've stopped all the facial expressions that go with a conversation."
"Oh." She says, looking a bit surprised.
Poe settles back on his bench… "So… no Maji gambling?"
"Not the first time," Kylo responds. "That was just my personal money."
"But once you lit up at the idea and started talking about what we could do with it," Rey says, "we decided to try it out for real."
Poe eyes Kylo. "How do you walk into a casino without getting booted out? Everyone knows who you are, and if they thought about it, they'd know what you can do."
"If they thought about it. And if they knew. People don't recognize Ben Amidala."
"Same as us not recognizing Master Padme?"
"More or less," Rey says.
Poe stares at Kylo, who stares back. After a moment, Kylo knows what Poe's looking for. After another moment, he says, "I don't think you'll see much of her in me."
Poe's eyes narrow, not sure about that. "I joined her security squadron when I was seventeen. Followed her to the Resistance when she left the senate. Fought at her side, went on missions for her, and mutinied when I thought Holdo was taking us in a direction she wouldn't have approved of. I knew her as well as anyone could. I was the one who noticed her get onto the Falcon and never get off. And I'll decide if I see her in you."
Kylo shrugs. "Fair enough. I never knew her well enough to judge."
"That was your loss."
Kylo smirks, but Rey can feel it's a defensive gesture. "But not my choice."
Another silent moment stretches between the three of them, before Rey finally says, "Now what?"
Poe shrugs again. "Now… I don't know… We teach balance. You're, for better or worse, part of that balance. Okay… so… We keep teaching balance. And if some of them want to leave, I'll give 'em a lift to wherever they want to go and enough credits that they won't starve until they find something to do."
"I brought almost half of the Force sensitive children. I don't think they're the ones who will want to leave."
"Maybe. We'll see. The Kennas weren't thrilled by the balance idea in the first place, hate the Jedi Killer, and this is probably the step too far," Poe replies.
"Trouble there. Critt's not going to want to leave," Kylo says, and Poe's mildly surprised to see he knows who the Kennas are. Kylo reads the surprise. "Yes, I pay attention. She tells me about her day, and I tell her about mine and… It's a marriage, that's part of how they work."
Poe snorts at that. "Until I've told half a dozen dirty stories at your wedding and gotten drunk enough to get a hand down your honor guard's pants, you can call it whatever you like, but it's not a marriage. Got to have a wedding first."
"Does that mean Finn and Rose aren't married?" Kylo asks, and Poe just stares at him. "You were the honor guard, right? Or did you take care of that task single-handedly?"
Poe blinks slowly, unable to comprehend the idea that Kylo Ren just hit him with a really dirty joke. And then he laughs, hard.
Kylo doesn't let it show on his face, but Rey does feel how amused he is. She mentally pokes him, so he does smile, just a little.
"Good gods, is that a crack of humanity shining through there?"
Kylo rolls his eyes at that.
"He liked your joke about shaft head size."
Kylo's eyes roll even further, and Poe looks startled. "You told him that?"
She nods.
Poe sniggers. "That was Leia's joke. We were on Tremereed, pinned down, taking fire on three sides, waiting for a comet, of all things, to come streaming through because we could use it for cover, and everyone's so damn tense, we're all about to jump out of our skins, but there was nothing to do but wait and pray that the next bombardment won't hit. So, she starts to tell this joke, and it's not a very good one, and her version that night had like… I don't know, twenty systems, because we had hours to kill, but it was so fucking ridiculous. I think we were mostly laughing just because we were still alive, you know…" Poe looks across the ship, to the sky beyond... "She was always so good at that. Everything could be falling to complete shit, we'd be outnumbered a gazillion to one, and… She'd just whip out something sharp and sarcastic and funny." Then he looks at Kylo and Rey, and it's suddenly very clear to him that no, they don't know. Rey only had a few days with Leia, and Kylo… whenever it was things fell apart with them, was well before he got to see his mom as anything other than his mom. "Oh."
Kylo nods at that.
Rey eyes both of them, and it's clear she's come to the decision that they can be here, in the same space, together, without her, without it coming to blows. She stands up, and nods to the cockpit, where Finn is.
Kylo nods at her and so does Poe, both of them understanding that she's got another friend to take care of.
Kylo stands when she does. "Still have a few hours of work."
"Okay," she reaches up on her tiptoes and kisses him. And for a second they're both a little stiff, this being the first time they've done something like this with an audience who knows who they are, but… Only for a second.
He pulls back and strokes her face. All is as the Force wills it? No?
You think the Force had enough of hiding and outed you?
Just thinking…
Uh huh…
He smiles at her, and gives her another quick kiss. "Tonight."
She squeezes his hand, and he vanishes.
Poe watches, nodding slowly, "That's a trick all right."
Finn's sitting in the cockpit, looking in the direction of the stars streaming by them, but not seeing them. Not seeing much of anything, besides Ren with his red lightsaber trying to kill him and all but succeeding.
He woke up from his coma, immediately hit the ground running, they just about all died again, at Ren's hands, on Crait, and then they were back on the Falcon, which wasn't designed for thirty-six people, and Rose was hurt, and… And they had one Psy Ops officer left, and he wanted to just about dissect Finn, so off they went, and it was probably a good five days before things calmed down enough for him to get a real shower, and that's when he saw his back, and the huge, deep, gnarled scar tracing down it.
He was able to hunt down a copy of his medical records and see that if it weren't for the fact that the Force smiled on him enough to get him to a good medical cruiser, that would have been the end of any function below his ribs. They replaced three of his vertebrae, and were able to regrow the nerves, grafting a few from his thighs in the places where the damage was too bad to for a regrow.
He can walk, run, jump… anything he's wanted to do. He's got enough sensation below his waist that he didn't notice the difference until months later, when Rose was running her fingers up the inside of his thighs and found the two numb spots just above his knees, one on each leg, apparently that's where they took the nerves from.
Supposedly, if he'd spent longer in the bacta suit, he'd have a scar like Ren's, just a thin line down his back, but he got out twelve hours too soon, and instead of a tidy, tight line, he's got a thumb wide mark from his shoulder to his hip.
He feels Rey, but doesn't look away from the stars to her. "He would have killed me without a thought. Maybe not you, but if I'd been more of a threat, or gotten in his way…" He snaps his fingers. "And that'd have been it. I watched him gut a man, an old, unarmed man. I was there when he ordered the death of everyone on Tuanal, and apparently after that he blew the whole damn planet up. Gods alone know why. And you're still with him. You can claim the Hosnian system's not on him. And he can pretend that blowing up Starkiller is the same as murdering trillions of people, but… Jakku? What, he stub a toe there on one of the corpses he left behind?"
"No."
"Have a bad day and need something to beat?" Finn's lip curls. "An entire planet."
Rey's eyes close, and she inhales, deeply. Unlike Kylo, who could feel it off of her, if she's going to tell Finn, she's got to tell him. "The first time we met, you tried to take my hand and run away with me. I kept trying to yank away. Did you ever wonder why?"
He thinks back… "No. I just figured you didn't like being touched."
"I didn't… Don't like being touched by strangers. Male strangers. But there was a reason for it."
Finn knows enough of the world to have an idea where this story goes. He winces. "Oh."
She offers him a tight half-smile. "The men who grabbed me before didn't have my best interests in mind, and they weren't trying to run me to safety."
"Oh…" He bites his lip at that, and is about to say, "I'm sorry," when he realizes what and why she's telling him. "He had an entire planet destroyed because you were raped."
She nods. "That wouldn't happen now. But… It was days after Crait, and he hadn't moved lightward yet. And maybe this is me moving darkward, but… I can't hate him for that. Maybe I should, but… I can't. I wanted to. I've certainly tried, but I can't hate him. I never did. I've been so angry at him I couldn't see or think straight, but I can't hate him."
Finn doesn't like the feel of this. He rationally knows blowing up a planet because someone you care for was raped there is beyond overkill, but he's got enough dark that he can feel the desire for it, and he honestly doesn't know what he'd do if he had that sort of power and someone did that to Rose or Paige. He's pretty sure he wouldn't do that, but… he doesn't know that he wouldn't.
"He's Kylo Ren, Rey."
"I know. I really do." She smiles a little at that, too. Sitting in the co-pilot seat. "It wouldn't work if I didn't. He's dark. And I can live with the dark, and I can love it, but I told him when we started, that he'd do what he does, and I'll do what I do, and we'll abide or not as we can."
"So, he just blows up planets and you turn a blind eye."
"No. He knows that's not something I can abide. Forgive, maybe, but, no, not abide. But Qualeen… where he took everyone who wanted to go out, and gave everyone else enough notice for them to run, and then blew those cities off the face of the planet… I can live with that."
Finn looks disappointed. "You wouldn't have two years ago."
"And two years ago he would have blown the entire planet to pieces. Like I said, we're moving to gray. And if we're right about how the Force works, this is important. This is where we have to go to get the universe back in balance so the next Snoke doesn't pop up."
Finn scoffs in derision. "He tell you that? As lines go, that's a pretty good one. Sleep with me or unspeakable evil will ruin the universe."
Rey almost gives him a little shove, but he's giving off a very clear don't touch me vibe. "I told him that, and no, it's not a line. You didn't have to sweet talk Rose into your bed, and I didn't need to seduce him into mine. You don't need lines when it's real."
He sighs. "Real…" His eyes roll. "You and him is real. So… what does that mean for us? You've lied to us for years."
"I know. I wanted him, and I wanted you, and I wanted Lirium, and I couldn't figure out how to have it all without lying about it. I'm sorry for that."
His eyes are earnest, and she can feel this is his last ditch trying to save her from Kylo if not herself argument. "Jacen says there's a Force bond between you two. How can you know it's real if that's true? Would you have chosen him if you weren't, literally, bound to him?"
Rey closes her eyes and lets herself feel it. It's been months since she's thought about this. More than two years since it annoyed her. These days she takes it for granted. It's like an arm or leg, a part of her.
Finn appreciates her taking his question seriously, and he waits, letting her feel her way through it.
"A while ago, Luke and I were talking about if everything is as the Force wills it. And I don't know if it is or not. It probably is. That's how it feels to me. But if it is, then what's the point? We're all puppets to fate and magic. I'd said that to him, and he told me that maybe in the cosmic scale of things our choices don't matter. But we don't live in the cosmic scale. We live minute by minute and day by day. Our choices matter to us. They build our lives as well as we can build. So maybe this is ordained, but it being ordained doesn't mean I didn't chose it and him.
"I chose him as much as I chose to leave my hand in yours and run for the Falcon. That was probably fate, too. And you chose to take your mask off, and not shoot, that was probably the Force, but it was also a choice.
"And I think all of this matters. I think our choices define us and where we're going. And maybe the Force is messing with us, maybe I am bound and have no alternative path, but… I feel like the choice is real, and that it matters, and that I'm going into this with my eyes open, hoping it will work, fearing it won't, and ready to bear whatever consequences come out of these actions.
"And if that's any different from what you have with Rose, I can't see how."
Finn's eyes narrow. He can't find a fault with that, but he doesn't like it. "And if I feel like I want to hit him every time I see him?"
"I'll understand why, and really appreciate it if you didn't. Rose and Paige likely would, too." Left unspoken is her tacit agreement with what Kylo said. Finn got his one free hit, and that's it. Another one, and Kylo will hit back. And they both know Kylo's going to hit a lot harder than Finn will.
That gets a glare.
"Can you abide this, or am I going to lose you over it?"
He closes his eyes, thinking of… everything. Of their home on Lirium, of everything he's worked for here, of the streaming hate and fear of the fight in the snow, the heartbeat of scalding cold pain when he hit the snow, followed by black so deep he thought he'd never get out of it. He thinks of watching a man in black order the murder of an entire town. He smells blood and feels fear, tastes the cold sweat on his lip inside his mask…
"I… don't know. Would you ever trust me again if I suddenly brought Captain Phasma home, and promised that she wasn't nearly as dangerous as she used to be, but… okay… yes, sometimes she still blows up entire cities for kicks and giggles, but it used to be planets, so really this is much better?"
"That's not fair. He's not blowing up cities for kicks."
He shrugs. "I don't have to be fair. Not about him."
Rey nods. "No, you don't." It's a statement of fact, not agreement. She tentatively reaches a hand out for him, and he lets her heal the broken fingers, not shaking her off, or denying the touch, but he doesn't touch back, either.
"I'm not going!" Critt says as his parents keep trying to pull him to their ship.
"Yes, you are! We are leaving, now!"
Jacen wasn't wrong about his spell not holding. Critt got an hour and a half, or exactly as long as it took for Savarah, Opal, Magiit, and Xanth to come in to join his parents in the greenhouse and start excitedly talking about the great Padme/Kylo Ren debate and if it really was Kylo Ren and if so, what are they supposed to do about it.
But an hour and a half was long enough to get his things cleared out of his parents' place, and moved into Jacen's. It was long enough to meditate, and pull up every bit of calm he could find. It was long enough to rally his dark to defend himself and his life here, long enough to call his light and get into a mindset of victory.
He's staying. That's that. This is the first place he's ever been with anyone like him, the first place he's had friends, and people who didn't stare at him, whispering about his future, and he's not about to get ripped out of here, and… And everything Rey's said about her friend. Her darkfriend. He knows suddenly that she's talking about Kylo, and all of those bits about how you can use your dark for great things, and how you can use it for terrible things if you let it get out of balance.
He's not about to leave the best damn chance he's got of becoming a master. A dark master. He doesn't have to be a Jedi. And he doesn't want to be a Sith. But there's room here for a dark Maji, and he wants that.
But he's not going to get where he wants to go, needs to go, if he gives in and lets his parents take him away.
"I'm not going. You and Dad can, but I'm not."
"If we had known—" Millie says, frantic.
"I know. But I'm still not going."
"You have to. This is not a debate. We are leaving!" Rafe says, voice loud.
"No."
Rafe rushes his son, hoisting him over his shoulder. "You are coming with us. We are not just giving you to—"
They pause for a second, hearing a ship landing, and Critt feels relief washing over him. He's been begging the Force for backup to come and save him, and it looks like the Force is being kind today. He knows Jacen's doing… something… at his parent's ship, ready as the last line of defense, but he really hopes it won't have to come to that.
Poe and Finn and Rey are back, and they're not going to let them take him.
He sends out a plea to Rey, Help! and a heartbeat later, she's rushing out of Poe's ship. "Whoa! Put him down!" Rey's voice. She could feel things were getting troubled. She didn't expect to see Rafe Kenna manhandling Critt toward their ship.
"NO! YOU LIED TO US!" Millie's striking out, trying to punch Rey, putting herself between Rey and Critt, so her husband has more space to get them out of here, but Rey stops her hand.
"We are taking our son and leaving, now!" Rafe yells, still moving toward his ship, struggling against Critt who's trying to flail his way out of his father's arms.
Critt's looking to Rey, begging her with his eyes. Save me.
Rey closes her eyes, relaxes, and then opens them, slowly. "Put him down."
Rafe does, and Critt sprints over to Rey, standing right next to her.
"You can leave or stay as you like. Poe will make sure you get paid for your time and the microfarms if you leave, but Critt's staying with us until he wants to go."
Poe's behind her now, arm around Critt, blaster still in its holster, but the catch has been loosed.
There's wild, vivid fear in the eyes of both of the adult Kennas. Millie's crying. Rafe says, voice shaking, "He'll come back and…" his eyes are begging his son to come with them, "He killed all of them he could find. We moved nine times to keep you hidden. If… Three years ago, he would have murdered you as soon as look at you. Please, Critt, please, come with us. We have to run!"
Fear is pouring off of him, hot and throbbing, calling everyone here. This level of emotional pain can't go unnoticed in Lirium.
"Dad…" Critt's voice is soft, but not shaking. "No. I'm not hiding. It's not six years ago. He's not the Jedi Killer, not anymore, and we're not Jedi waiting to be killed."
"Then you'll become him. Another dark terror," Millie says, voice breaking. "We buried your brother less than two years ago, don't… make us bury you."
"I'm not dying!"
"You might as well be if you take this path," spits out of Rafe. Rey can feel he's debating a bull rush. He's bigger than she is, and hoping that if he runs fast enough he can just plow over her and grab his son.
Poe's blaster is out of the holster, now. Still pointed down, but he's ready to shoot.
"Dad…" Rey reaches out and gently strokes the back of Critt's hand, feeling he needs help with this. "It's just who I am."
"No! You are not evil. You won't just… give into this!" Mille shouts, edging left, thinking that maybe if she's on one side and Rafe's on the other they can sort of flank Rey and Poe, and grab Critt.
That plan's dying fast as Chewie comes out of the Falcon, bowcaster in hand. No one's taking a kid out of here who doesn't want to go. Not if he has anything to say about it.
And then it's dead. All of the blood drains out of her face as she sees who's standing behind her son, in his full command blacks, wind whipping his cloak, saber unlit, in his hand, waiting. She sags against her husband, all will to fight draining out of her.
Critt doesn't know who's behind him; he's talking to his parents, seeing them go stiff and pale, then sag, thinking it's them responding to him. "I'm not evil." His voice cracks. "Just dark. And it's not the same thing."
"We shouldn't have come. You've brainwashed him!" Millie spits at Rey, voice and eyes hot, body limp with fear and grief. "You let… him… take them!"
Rey doesn't respond to that. She knows who's behind her. She knows what she teaches, and she knows who Critt is. "Stay or go. You're welcome here as long as you wish to remain. If you want to go, we'll pay you for your time here. But stop trying to torture your son for being who he is."
Millie and Rafe look at each other, and for a heartbeat, Rey almost thinks they'll stay. That they'll try. Then with a shuddering sob, Millie turns toward her ship, and Rafe follows. Poe follows them, to settle up accounts before they leave.
Rey squeezes Critt's hand as they watch them go.
I'm sorry.
He sniffs, hard. It's probably better this way.
Doesn't mean it doesn't hurt.
He sniffs again.
I'll make sure Poe keeps track of them. In a few weeks, write them a letter, let them know you're okay.
They're not going to want to know I'm okay.
Yes, they are. Clear your mind, and feel them, Critt. They're shattered right now, terrified. Give it some time, and things can come back together.
What if I don't want it to?
Give that some time, too.
They watch the Kennas get onto their ship. And Jacen hop out of it, running to join them.
"They're really leaving," Critt's voice is trembling, and right now, the rest of the Force sensitive students can feel he doesn't want an audience for this. They start to back away, until they notice who else has joined their group. Giving Critt privacy drops in importance as the chance to gawk at Kylo Ren, in his full blacks, standing behind Critt, as part of the show of force and Force to defend one of their own, takes full attention.
Rey nods. "They'll be back." She puts her arm around him. "This is a moment in time, when you and they are having a hard time. Fear is winning out over love right now, but time will pass and what they fear won't happen, and love will win."
She feels Critt roll his eyes.
"None of that. That's why it's good to have a balance around. I can see the light side of it easier than you can. And you can see the dark easier than I do. And together we get a good picture of what's coming."
"Uh huh." Critt is just seeing his parents flying away, feeling the simultaneous sick betrayal of them leaving and the sharp jab of joy at freedom.
She nods.
He sounds very young when he says, "How long?"
Rey hugs him a little tighter. "I don't know," she can feel Kylo's words, which feel like they're much more than a few hours old, "but as long as you're alive, it can happen."
"What happens now?" Critt asks.
Rey looks around, the whole crew is here, even Threepio left his cottage to see this, and, well… She takes a step back, and takes Kylo's hand. "Introductions. Everyone, Padme, better known as Kylo Ren." And then she's on her toes, kissing him, in front of all of them, just like she said she would.
For a heartbeat, he's a little stiff, not sure this is really happening, but he feels it shift, feels her in his arms, feels all of the eyes on him and her, feels how much he's wanted to do this, so he pulls her up into his embrace, one arm around her waist, the other tangling in her hair, and he utterly floods her with a sensation of love and approval and knowing she's been so damn afraid of doing this and appreciating it, and eventually he notices that Jacen's sort of hooting at them in approval and a few of the other kids, Order kids, are also giggling, and…
Kylo blinks, amused, when she wriggles a bit, letting him know to lower her to her heels. Direct, he thinks at her.
Didn't want to leave room for misunderstanding.
She steps back a little from him, enough so she can turn to face everyone, but keeps her hand in his. "The Force balances. Light, dark, it's always whirling around us, in and of all things." She strokes his face. "My balance. My love. My man. The second Maji." She notices that he's changed a little since when he left Poe's ship. His token is outside his clothing. "If this is a problem for any of the rest of you," she's looking at the Ticos, "we'll pay you for your time, and Poe will make sure you've got a ride wherever you need to go.
"And for those of you who can abide this, we've got a huge dead turtle that needs taking care of, a grave to dig, ice to cut, an evening meal cooked, and… and just because things are exciting today, doesn't mean the work went away." She looks to Critt. "Light, dark, in between, the work still has to get done."
Critt tries a little laugh to go with that, and it doesn't fall completely flat.
Jacen heads over to him, wraps an arm around him. "Come on. Let's go finish up with the carrots."
Everyone who can feel knows Jacen's giving Critt some time away from too many eyes, and no one challenges it. Though Rey is very pleased to see Elias, Savarah, and Magiit all follow behind, ready to offer comfort to their friend.
Rose is slowly walking through the settlement. To her left, there's the comm array she helped to build. On the right, there's Threepio's cottage. She helped to build that, too. The road under her feet, she laid a good chunk of it. The aerial array that allows them to communicate with the wider galaxy, she helped put that up, too. The last thing she built with her own hands before her labor pains started. That workshop… she's taught children how to build small mechanical devices in there. The greenhouses are behind her. In another two months the blahs and blahs, two rows of each, planted for her, will be ripe. Further down the street, there's the first home she shared with Finn, the home their daughter was born in.
For the longest time, the Resistance was her home. But that was a feeling, not a place.
And here she's got a place, and a feeling, and a huge, dark cloud with a red lightsaber just marched through her home in muddy boots, pissing all over the place, making it feel hollow and dirty.
Everything she loves about Lirium is real. Built with her own hands, put together with her love and friendship and duty and…
And he's been lurking here, hiding behind…
A name and her own unwillingness to poke it.
Thinking about it, who Padme is was bleeding obvious. There was literally no one else he could have been. She didn't want to see it. And as she thinks of all the times she told Finn to lay off, not poke deeper, she thinks she knew, on some level, and didn't want to get here a moment faster than she had to.
Because now, seeing Poe's ship land, and Finn come out, dark cloud hovering over him, and then the standoff, and kiss, now they've got to deal with this.
Finn nods to her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders, kissing the top of her head, and gently stroking the top of Paige's.
Then he winces, remembering getting Paige back from Rey's a few times, noticing she smelled like she'd been snuggling with a man. He looks in the direction of the black menace, standing next to Rey, looking really awkward as a collection of children all stare at him. "He's babysat out daughter."
Rose sighs at that. "Yeah, cuddled her. And saved your life."
Finn glares hot at that, hot enough Ren jerks, reaching for his saber, looking at him, notices he's not about to be attacked, and then relaxes. Finn shakes his head, hard, looks at his wife, teeth gritted, and says, "He doesn't get credit for that. He's the one who put my damn name on the list in the first place."
Rose isn't entirely sure of that, but she's not going to argue with it, either.
Finn's warming up though. "That's like saying he saved my life because he didn't cut my head off when he had the chance. That's not saving someone's life."
"Okay."
"I owe that man nothing."
"No one's saying you do."
"Someone saves your life, you owe them. Poe saved my life. Rey saved my life. You saved my life. He didn't."
"Okay." She leans her head against his shoulder, and they walk to their cottage. Once inside, she says to him, "What do you want to do?"
"Go back to yesterday?" he says, pulling his coat off, annoyed, because he can pull his coat off, because they've got a new heater, and more insulation, so their cottage actually stays warm now, and, apparently that's on Ren, too.
She smiles limply at that, taking Paige out of her snuggli, and placing her on the rug on the floor so she can get some tummy time. He sits on the floor, next to his daughter, his hand on her back, and looks up at Rose. "We don't have to be here."
"I know."
"We could go with Chewie. Go back to trading. Call the Falcon home."
"I know that, too."
He's staring up at her as she moves over to their kitchen, getting ready to make some chai. Every important decision of their life has been permeated by the smell of warm, spicy chai. She doesn't say anything as she heats the water and pours it over the blend of tea and spice, allowing it to steep for two minutes, and then mixing it with milk and syrup.
She sits next to both of them, handing Finn a steaming cup.
"I'll leave if you can't stay, but… I like it here."
He sighs, annoyed. "It's not that I don't like it here, it's…. How do either of us ever sleep knowing he's a few hundred meters away? How do we… live with him being," he winces again, disgust pouring off of him, "Uncle Kylo to Paige? His kids running around and playing with ours. He'll be there, teaching… lightsaber or whatever… Siphoning the kids off into the Order when they get older, turning them into little soldiers and citizens."
She can feel what he's not saying. So she says it, "How do we live with him being a person?"
That's part of it, but not, by any extent, all. "How do we teach, these things are bad, evil, horrible, you don't ever, ever, ever do them, except for you know, that guy over there," he gestures toward Rey's cottage… Rey and Kylo's cottage, "who did them all before he hit thirty, and half of them he did to us, personally? Oh, and… your Aunt Rey loves him and keeps telling us he's not that bad, and yeah, he's got a bit of a temper and occasionally blows planets up, but… you know… balance." The sarcasm in his voice on that last sentence is withering. "How do we do that?"
Rose exhales, deeply. She takes a sip of the chai, and nods. There's a reason neither of them wear a Maji token. They're here for the people, not the philosophy. "I don't know."
They both sit, sipping their drink. Paige rolls over, looking up at them.
"Maybe we don't have to decide anything right now," Rose says.
He half inclines his head. "I suppose not." He leans back against the chair behind him. "It'll be even harder to leave later."
Rose nods.
"And he'll just get… more human." Finn rolls his eyes. "We took Rey out, trying to weaken their bond, and then he was there, holding Rey's hand, said some stupid, sappy shit about her being like his heart, he can always feel it."
"He loves her?"
Finn's beyond skeptical on the idea of Kylo Ren loving anything. He'll completely buy the idea that Kylo Ren can be possessive and obsessed about things, but love? Please, the man wouldn't know love if it walked up, bit him in the ass, and took his leg off at the hip. "Rey thinks he does." He's also reserving judgement on the idea that the little girl abandoned by her parents and sold into slavery for a few bottles of gin and swept up in a Force bond knows what love is, too.
Rose doesn't have those reservations. She lifts the cup to her lips, taking a deep sip, and spends another moment thinking about it. "Then we explain it like that. A man can do horrible things. And he can stop doing them for love. And we don't forget the horrible things, and we don't pretend they didn't happen, but we recognize a man can change, and that change is to be encouraged." She gently squeezes his hand. "And maybe we work on the idea that forgiveness lives in love. And we hold each other to a high standard, and we don't ignore the bad stuff, or allow it now, in the present, but we forgive it, the past it, for the sake of our current love."
"You're a better person than I am."
She smiles at that. "That's why you love me."
"It is. You know that, right? You're so… lovely… it just lights me up inside." He leans over and kisses her. She kisses back, warm and gentle. "Forgiveness doesn't come easy."
She half smiles at Finn, giving him another kiss. "No one is expecting you to love him."
"Thank the Force, no!"
"But you do love Rey."
He nods. And he does. Even with this. Because… shit, he'd do exactly the same thing in her position. Hell, he's told a lot of lies for significantly worse reasons. Pretty much the first thing he ever said to Rey was a lie. Then he rolls his eyes. The first things he said to Rose were lies, too. Lies told to try and protect one of his loves. "And this. And our home. And… knowing there's a safe place where we're doing something good and…"
"Then you'll tolerate him, for your loves."
"And if I can't?"
"Then we'll move on. It's a place, Finn. A good place. But it's just a place. Anywhere with you and Paige is home, and if it needs to be somewhere else, it needs to be somewhere else."
He kisses her again. "I love you."
"Well…" Kylo leads when they're together at the end of the day, getting ready for dinner. He's laying food on the table and she's pouring drinks.
He decided that, yes, getting ogled by a herd of curious children all asking about him, while moving a dead and increasingly smelly turtle was something he could do, but it also wasn't anything he had to do, and that maybe another draft of his first year speech would be in order, and skedaddled away as fast as he could port of out there.
And he is not, at all, for a moment, bothered by leaving Rey to answer questions all on her own.
But, the day's done, they're back at home, sitting at their table, ready for supper. Just like pretty much every other night since the cottage has been set. Except it's also, not.
"I guess you don't have to hide anymore," Rey says, sitting down, putting cups of water in front of them.
"I… guess not." Kylo spoons a veggie, rice, bean curd mix onto their plates. Though, with all of this openness now, he's not entirely sure what to do with it. Skipping about in the snow with Rey may be a nice fantasy, but now that he can do it, he's actually feeling a little shy.
Rey catches that and adds more on top of it. "They're all going to stare." They were really staring at her as soon as Kylo left, and all seven thousand versions of 'How did you meet?,' 'Really, Kylo Ren?,' 'He's not going to kill us, right?' 'Kylo Ren?,' 'Wait, how did you meet, again?' (She swears Poe alone asked that one four times.), 'You sure about this balance thing?' 'Ren?' 'If Padme is Kylo Ren, why are we here freezing our butts off and not swooping around on a fancy ship?' (Fortunately that's the question that got them off of Kylo Ren and onto why they were actually building this place instead of being Order adjacent. And she honestly doesn't know if Jacen asked that to save her, or if he's genuinely curious about it.)
He rubs his lips together, and feels his way through how that works, but… "Everyone stares at me anyway. It's part of the job. I walk into a room. They stare at me."
"I never got the sense that was a part of the job you like."
He thinks about that for a moment. "Depends on how they're staring at me."
"Like they're not sure if you've saved them or you're about to kill them."
He smirks a little, takes a bite of dinner, and then says, "That's actually pretty normal for a lot of my meetings."
She laughs, a little, at that. Half-tired, half-amused. "Okay… Well… get your brush warmed up, none of them know how to write."
He rolls his eyes a little at that. Yeah, he had said it, but… "I suppose, until you've got enough training sabers, that makes sense."
"You want to teach them sabers?"
He spreads his hands wide. This is fairly obvious to him. "You've told me that's what they want to learn, and I'm the best living lightsaber wielder in the universe, I might be a good choice for it."
She raises an eyebrow at him.
"You've got a staff," he says, pointedly, not looking behind him to where it's propped against the wall, right next to the door. "I would never seek to challenge you on that."
That eyebrow goes nowhere as she says, "Uh huh."
He gently strokes his fingers over her thigh. "How do you feel about people staring at you?"
She blinks. That's not a question she was expecting.
"We're… not hiding anymore. And, in a month the first year celebrations begin, so… Let me dress you in satins and silks and stand by my side, Lady Ren?" He kisses her gently. "Be mine in my space, and I'll be yours in yours and… Let's see where it goes."
She licks her lips, feels a very similar flush of suddenly shy and a bit nervous.
"What would we do? I mean… at your celebration?" She remembers his image of her by his side at the speech, him saying that if she'd fight with him that he'd have here there at things like executions, too, and… But she still doesn't really know what she'd do there.
"It'll probably be horrifically boring. I'll give a speech about what a great year it's been and how next year will better. Then we meet and mingle, and I sit there and look imposing as various peacocks strut about feeling important because they're near me."
Her voice is dry as she says, "Sounds delightful. Why do I want to do this?"
He takes her hand in his. "Because you want to hold my hand in front of someone else just as much as I want to hold yours." He scoots closer to her, wrapping his arm around her. "Because you are my queen, and it's time the galaxy knows I don't rule alone." He kisses her, soft, gentle, his lips just gliding over hers. "And, even if it's scary and new, you like the idea of being draped in silks and satins, and, for a night, at least, being Lady Ren."
She gives him a kiss, and then a quick shove, for naming one of her darker secrets.
"I don't have a dress." She knows about his adventures with formal wear, and knows that she doesn't have anything like that. Her sarees are pretty, but she's fairly sure they're nothing that qualifies as appropriate for a formal state dinner.
"I have someone who can fix that."
Notes:
There's a post going around twitter, about how to write a novel. And it goes something like this: Think of a joke. Write 60,000 words to get your characters to tell the joke. Boom! Novel!
Yeah, so, there are a few of those jokes in this story, two in this chapter, and maybe I needed a tad more than 60,000 words to get to the point where I could have Chewie say, "Did I stutter?" but... oh, it was worth it!
Anyway, I had a blast writing this, and I hope you loved it, too. More on Wednesday.
Hugs and kisses, Keryl