Rey woke up groggy and confused. She lay frowning at the ceiling, unable to figure out why she felt such foreboding over not having been jolted awake in tears. It wasn't that she wanted to have the dream, she definitely did not, she just couldn't understand why she hadn't.

She sat up and cast a nervous glance around, the fine hairs on the back of her neck prickled with the eerie feeling of being hunted. She couldn't shake the feeling even when a quick scan of the area with her feelings confirmed that she was alone in the tiny room.

Shouts echoed down the corridor outside of her room followed by the pounding boots of several people running past her door. Just as she reached her feet her door burst open and Finn stuck his head in. "Rey! Grab your stuff! We're evacuating the base!" He said hurriedly, barely looking at her, his attention more fully focused in the corridor as people jostled past him.

"Evacuating the base?" She repeated as a really bad feeling twisted through her guts.

"They found us!" He rushed off, slamming the low-tech door behind him.

Rey didn't have to ask who 'they' were... there was only one 'they' that could cause this amount of panic in such a fortified base. Guilt slipped through her veins, she knew without a doubt that their rekindled connection had lead him straight to her.

She had been training for this day all year long, but now that it was here she felt completely unprepared. She dressed hastily without even bothering to look at what she was putting on, then threw her meager belongings into a large dufflebag and sprinted to the main control room.

In the large cave that served as central command for the entire Resistance, the scene that greeted her eyes was one of total chaos. Rebels of all ranks were rushing to and fro, packing or destroying equipment left, right, and center. In the midst of the maelstrom stood Poe Dameron barking orders like the General he had recently become.

"Poe!" She called and hurried over to speak with him with Finn hot on her heels. "What's going on?"

He glanced at her then at Finn, frowned and in a low voice he said, "A routine patrol just spotted about half of the First Order fleet assembled less than a parsec from here. Over three hundred ships practically on our doorstep."

She gaped at him. "Three hundred ships? Where did they come from? How long have they been here?" Her mind swirled dizzily, throwing questions at her too fast to ask them all verbally.

"Unknown," He growled his frustration. "It's been twelve hours since anyone's been by that way." Poe's frown deepened mightily.

Her brain could barely process the idea of a fleet that size. "Has he tried to contact you? Sent any demands?"

Poe didn't need to ask who, only one person could be at the head of that fleet. "No, but he brought enough firepower to turn this whole rock into dust. I doubt he's come to negotiate our surrender." He said grimly.

"Where is he?" She asked, formulating a plan in the back of her mind. It wasn't a good plan, but it was all she could come up with on such short notice.

Poe pointed to a section of space on the miniholo map that was open above the huge table in the center of the room. "This flashing red dot is his fleet. This blue dot is us." The dots were frighteningly close together. "When he makes his move we'll either be gone already or dead very quickly."

"I have to go to him." She was absolutely certain about that, whether or not she'd be alive long enough to actually talk to him she was less certain of.

"What? No! That's suicide!" Poe said sharply. "Finn! Help me out here, buddy!"

Finn pleaded with her. "You can't go! We need you! The Resistance needs you!"

"How long until the evacuation is complete?" She asked, ignoring the plea in her friend's eyes and voice.

"About an hour." Poe responded. "If we don't bother with the small stuff."

"And how long will it take him to get here when he decides to move?" She arched a brow at him.

"About ten minutes." He said as quietly as the chaos would allow.

"I'm going." She insisted. "I'll buy you an hour."

"No way, you're too important." Poe argued. "You're the last Jedi, besides him, the Resistance doesn't stand a chance without you!"

"If I don't go, there wont be a Resistance." She said stepping a little closer. "This is about me. He found us because of me. He'll keep finding us because of me." She took a breath to steady herself before continuing earnestly, "If I don't go to him, he'll kill every one of you just to get to me. If it's my destiny to die today I can face that but I refuse to take all of you down with me."

Poe looked at her as if seeing her for the first time… it made her uncomfortable.

Finn placed his hands on her shoulders and said seriously, "Rey, if you go to him, he will kill you! You don't even have a weapon!"

She gave him a weak attempt at a comforting smile. "He'll want to talk to me before he kills me." She said confidently, then added, "And I don't think he'll be able to kill me face to face."

"What makes you think that?" Finn shook her sharply by the shoulders. "What in your entire history of knowing him makes you think he wouldn't carve you up and blast the pieces into space just for the fun of it?"

She was slightly ashamed to admit, "He's in love with me."

Both men and several bystanders gaped at her like she'd lost her mind.

"That's crazy talk!" Finn yelped. "Kylo Ren doesn't care about anybody!"

"It really is." Poe said, dropping a hand onto Finn's shoulder and moving to stand next him in solidarity. "He's a madman, Rey. A horrible, evil nightmare of a person."

Finn nodded at Poe enthusiastically then asked Rey, "Why would you even think something that crazy?"

"Because he told me so." She said with a touch of bitterness in her tone.

"Think about it! Even if that was true, how long has it been since you've talked to him? He might not love you now!" The handsome former stormtrooper said in a mildly patronizing tone.

"It's been less than three days." She confessed quietly.

"What?" Finn's mouth hung open nearly as wide as his eyes.

"Look, it's hard to explain," Shrugging out from under his hands, she said firmly, "And we don't have the time to get into it right now." She looked at Poe and barked, "I'm going. Get everybody out of here as fast as you can." She left them both standing there gaping and hurried off to the hangar bay to board the Millenium Falcon for what she hoped would not be the last time.

"Supreme Leader, the coordinants have been sent out, the fleet is awaiting your orders, Sir." The communications officer, Perez, informed him in a ringing tone.

"My Lord! A ship has just dropped out of hyperspace directly ahead!" The helmsman, who's name Kylo Ren did not know, cried.

"On screen!" He ordered, jumping out of his seat. "Magnify!"

He knew that ship! His heartbeat doubled it's pace. "Lock it down! Forward tractor beam! Bring it to bay 94!" He shouted and rushed off deck to go and meet her.

He had a moment to catch his breath as the Falcon was pulled into the bay. The feel of her jangled nerves, when he reached his mind out to make sure she was there, was the sweetest thing he had felt in a very long time. He steadied himself with a deep breath and purposefully wiped both his mind and face free of all emotions with a trick he'd picked up to help him hide his most private thoughts from Snoke. It wouldn't do to reveal too much too soon.

The Millenium Falcon came to rest on it's landing gear with a soft thud and the door hissed open. Rey strode down the ramp, walked right up to him - stopping just out of arms reach - and hissed, "You really are a murderous snake, you know that, right?"

His eyes skimmed over her, taking in every detail. Her hair was a tangled mess, her face tired and drawn. She had dark circles under her -thankfully- soft brown eyes. He was disappointed to see that she wasn't wearing her usual desert garb but had opted instead to wear what appeared to be a mismatched collection of clothing from the Resistance's rubbish bin. Her faded grey undershirt was at the same time too wide and too short, the shoulder seams fell halfway down her arms while the bottom hem was a good two inches above her navel in the middle. Her beat up brown leather vest, on the other hand, was a little too small, he doubted it would even fasten over her breasts. The soft blue wool of her britches bagged at the waist and calves but clung like second skin to her hips and thighs. He'd never seen anyone looking so rumpled and so beautiful at the same time.

"Say something!" She barked. She had to tamp down the urge to punch him in the mouth. An entire battalion of stormtroopers had their blasters pointed at her, hitting him now would be suicide.

"You look terrible." He said, blandly.

She gaped at him, clearly incredulous. "Why did you come here, Kylo?" She demanded, making sure to inject as much venom into that name as possible.

He ignored the question and turned on his heel, "Come." He ordered and strolled away, leaving her no choice but to obey. "Let's talk privately."

She followed him as far as the doorway of a tiny room with an interogation table in it before refusing to go further. "You've got to be kidding me!" She glared at him.

"Inside." He motioned with his hand and she slid across the polished floor, all the way to the table. Once the restraints had clicked closed around her arms and ankles he dismissed the half dozen stormtroopers that had escorted her here at blasterpoint. The door swooshed shut and he turned his full attention to her.

Facetiously he asked, "Comfortable?"

"Do you honestly believe this going to work?" She glared.

"What 'this' would that be?" He asked in such a cooly obtuse tone that it made her teeth ache with the desire to rip his throat out.

"This! It wont work!" She snapped. "You can Destroy everyone and everything I care about and I'll still never turn to you!" She fumed, jerking against the restraints that bound her arms to the table. "I want nothing to do with you!"

He said mildly, "You have such a low opinion of me."

"You are low! And treacherous!" Her eyes and voice were brimming with a fury that bordered on madness when she added for good measure, "And evil!"

He paced back and forth in front of her twice more, never taking his eyes off of her, then clicked his tongue in a tsk tsk. "Tell me, what low, treacherous, evil things do I have planned for you now that I have you here?" He really wasn't sure of the answer to that question, himself. Though talking to her had been on his list of things to do, he had assumed she'd be slightly less rabidly hateful toward him when he got that chance. In the mood she was in he was pretty sure he couldn't possibly say anything to her that she would even bother to listen to at this point.

"Whatever it is, you might as well get on with it." She said belligerantly. "I'm not afraid of you."

"Good." He said dismissively. He paced a few more laps back and forth in front of her as she grew more restless and fretful.

Feeling her agitation gave him an idea.

"Let's begin, shall we?" He said almost pleasantly as he stopped and turned to face her.