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Rey doesn't understand why Luke Skywalker is so crotchety. He's snappish, prone to dry humor, and drinks that stupid green health smoothie constantly. His best advice to her is "wrong. All of that was wrong."
"Can you tell me what I'm doing right?" Rey finally manages.
"At the moment, nothing."
Rey suddenly can't blame the student—Kylo—for setting Luke's lab on fire because she wants to grab him by the shoulders and shake him. "Can you help me?"
"It's your project. You're talented. I've only seen your kind of raw talent once before in my life." A faraway look drifts into Luke's eyes.
Rey springs to her feet. "Kylo?"
Luke glances at her. He lets out a snort. "Ben. I'm not calling him by that ridiculous name Snoke told him to go by."
Rey frowns. "But I'm not Ben."
"I'm aware." Luke turns back to his computer. It's Saturday, and she still came in to work on her robot. The sun shines brightly outside, and it's the first day in a long time where the temperatures hold some hint of spring, and where the air smells like moist earth and hope.
"Are you?" Rey asks, standing up. She flexes her fingers. "Because you don't seem like you are to me. Why do you have to look at me like I'm someone I'm not? Is he that awful?
He turns to look at her, a frown creasing his face. "Yes."
"Han told me," Rey says, heart thumping. She drops back down into her chair, dropping her head to the desk surface. It's cold. "What he did to you."
"Things are more complicated than they seem, Rey."
Rey lifts her head. Luke rises from his chair, heading over to her. "He lied about you and then burned down your lab. That's psychopathic."
"Don't use that term," Luke says. "It's not a thing. The diagnosis is Antisocial Personality Disorder, which, by the way, you have to be a credentialed professional to diagnose, and the diagnosis is not often attributed to minors. My nephew is many things, but he does not meet the criteria, so do not ascribe that to him."
Rey swallows. Her face burns. "Sorry." She looks up at him, hoping he sees the earnestness in her eyes. "I wouldn't do that. I'm not a liar. I won't fail you." Please believe me.
Luke's features soften. "No one starts out intending to fail anyone, Rey." He turns back to her computer screen. "Now. Try this algorithm."
By the time Rey heads home, she's famished and exhausted, but relieved. Clouds crowd in, blocking the sun. It's not a long walk, about a mile, but she's hungry and her limbs ache and she wants to sleep. At least she made progress.
Her stomach cramps. Crap. Rey hurries into the house and thuds up the stairs, grabbing a tampon and heading into the bathroom. Han and Chewie bicker in the garage. Leia's gone, and Finn too, working with Rose.
Rey misses Finn.
She leaves the bathroom and heads a crash.
Shit!
And a scream.
Holy shit!
Rey scrambles towards Kylo's room. Of course it's him. But she's worried. She shoves it open.
To find him pummeling the wall.
Shirtless.
He whirls around, shocked. His jaw falls open. Rey backs up. "I—I had no idea you—I heard screaming and thuds! Who the hell does that?" she shouts. She tries to avert her eyes to no avail. Dude is ripped. Like it looks like he's been doing planks and pull ups for months.
Kylo blinks rapidly. He blows out his breath. "What are you doing here?"
"I just answered that. I thought you were in trouble." Rey's eyes search the room. Ah, so Kylo's room has the turret. A cute window seat lines it. The trash overflows, and the bed's rumpled and unmade.
"So you came here to help me?" His voice sounds incredulous.
"Is that so hard to believe?" Rey finally meets his eyes. "Can you please put on a shirt?"
A smirk settles on Kylo's lips. "You could always just leave my room."
"No. You're clearly not all right." She eyes his knuckles. They're mottled, purple and red and swollen.
Kylo hides them behind his—sculpted—back.
"What's going on?" Rey asks. She kicks the door shut.
Kylo's eyes widen in surprise. "It doesn't matter."
"You have bruises all over your arm. Are those from yourself? Because I think you need to talk to Leia—your mother, if that's the case. She'll help you, Ben." Fuck that Kylo name. Rey's done using it.
Kylo's eyes shift. Just like his uncle's. "Yes."
"Liar," Rey says.
Kylo glances at her in shock.
"Who?" Rey presses. "Snoke?"
"Please go away." His voice sounds small, so small. She never would have imagined this hulking man could speak like that.
"No. I don't want to. I'm worried about you?"
"And why do you care?" he lashes out, looking at her with his brows clenched. "Why does it matter to you?"
"I don't even know," Rey says.
"Because you're lonely," he says. "I see it now. You want a family. You want my parents—you can have them—and Luke, but my uncle's just as much of a failure as your own parents probably were."
Rey curls her fists. But she won't hit him again. "Sorry for hitting you."
Kylo blinks.
"When we had detention," she reminds him. Rey drops onto his bed, uninvited. Tears fill her eyes as his words burn like acid.
"Sorry," he says quietly.
She looks up at him.
"Did he tell you?" he asks. "Did he tell you? My uncle? What happened?"
"Yeah," Rey says. "You burned his—you need help, Ben—"
"Did he tell you he was actually building weapons for a company?" he interrupts. "He was. I'm not lying about that, Rey. Look in my eyes. Do you think I'm lying?"
She glares up at him. Her words falter.
"I confronted him on it," says Kylo. "I told the others—and he—he said he was going to do it anyways. So I burned the files. But the—I never meant for everything—the fire spread so fast—"
"If that's true, then—"
"I didn't tell anyone! He took the blame for the fire, it was the least he could do, but no one would believe the great Luke Skywalker would be involved in something like that for profit, because why else would you do something like that? Even to my parents he says he started the fire—it's why he got expelled—but I know they know I did it. And they wouldn't believe me as to why—I'm the bad egg, and I've always been that way." His fists clench. His arms shake. "Look at me, Rey. Look at me. Am I lying?"
Rey looks up at him. She can't—but Luke—she remembers his words from earlier. "I don't know," she whispers.
"You know."
"I still think you're an asshole." Her stomach rumbles. Rey looks at him. "Don't hurt yourself."
"So you insult me and then—"
Rey leaps to her feet, grabbing his arms. "Don't hurt yourself." His skin is soft under her palms. She gulps.
His lips fumble to form words. His eyes moisten. "Why do you care?"
You're lonely. Rey lets him go. Their eyes meet, and she doesn't understand how, how this boy who has the parents she's always wanted, can feel so alone, except for what he just told her, except for that he is.
Her stomach growls again.
"Are you hungry?" Kylo asks.
Rey shrugs.
"Do you want to get food? I've been wanting sushi."
Rey's nose wrinkles. "Raw fish?"
"You can get the cooked version if you want to wimp out."
Rey spots a pencil on his desk and hurls it at him. He ducks. A laugh emerges.
A laugh. She likes his laugh. It's deep. It rumbles.
"Let's go," he says.
A half hour later and she's sitting at the food court in the mall, staring at a salmon roll. "You dip it in soy sauce," Kylo tells her.
Rey tries it. It's not bad. Although soy sauce is too salty. She reaches for ketchup packets.
"What are you, a cavewoman?" Kylo yelps, grabbing the packets from her hand. "No!"
Rey wriggles her hands free, smirking at him. She dumps ketchup onto her plate.
"That's repulsive. I'm embarrassed to be seen with you."
She sticks a roll into her mouth. "How 'bout now?" Of course, she's talking with her mouth full.
"You're a savage."
"Hmph." Rey gulps some of her soda. "But I like it."
"All you can taste is that sugary tomato glop."
"All you can taste is salt."
Kylo tosses a strip of ginger at her face. "Try some of the green stuff."
Rey stares at it. "What is it?"
"Wasabi. It has a lot of flavor."
Rey shrugs and tries a bit. She leaps up from the table. "Ow!"
He laughs. She grabs her drink and gulps the rest of it, and then Kylo's own soda. She uses her chopsticks to pick up a roll slathered in ketchup and shoves it into his mouth. "See?"
"I'm repulsed," he mumbles.
She bonks him on the head with her chopsticks. "Chew with your mouth closed!"
When they leave, it's raining. Kylo grumbles about not having an umbrella, but Rey runs out into it. She loves rain. Especially when it's not freezing.
"You like this weather?" Kylo yelps.
"Don't you?"
"No!" But he stands with her in the parking lot, shivering, watching her twirl around, and he smiles.
"That should be enough for today," Rose says, pulling back from her screen. Finn's been over her house, working in her garage. Her father apparently works at the garage with Han Solo.
Finn nods, jotting a few notes down in his notebook. "What're you up to for the rest of the day?"
"Going to the hospital," Rose says. "Visit my sister." She turns and climbs to her feet, shaking out her legs. "Ouch."
"Oh," says Finn. He wonders what it would be like to have someone to mourn. His parents—did they ever mourn for him? Did they ever think of him?
He's never mourned for them. They just—never were. He might as well have been immaculately conceived. When he was five he tried telling the other kids in his Sunday School class that he was Jesus' younger brother. His foster mother then did not take it with a sense of humor. He remembers that slap like it was yesterday.
"What're you up to?" Rose asks, brushing her bangs away from her face. Her smile beams as if she's not going to visit a sister who may or may not ever come back to her.
Finn shrugs. "Seeing if Rey's around, I suppose." Maybe they can get a pizza or something. He checks his phone.
I'll be back late! Rey's texted. His heart falls.
"You could come with me," Rose suggests. "I know that's a weird suggestion—you didn't know Paige—but she'd like you, you know, if you were ever to meet her. And you'd like her too. She's so much cooler than me."
I think you're plenty cool. But Finn nods. Poe's texted him about a dozen pictures of Beebee-Ate the dog disrupted the creation of Beebee-Ate the robot. Finn shows Rose and she cackles.
Rose hisses under her breath as they drive past the exit with signs advertising a casino. Finn frowns. "What's up with that?"
"That's where the real money in this town comes from," Rose says. "Armitage Hux's father runs it."
"Where people go to have fun?" Finn asks.
Rose slides her eyes towards him. "If only that were it. No, all the shareholders—they work for Hux's First Order Motors. Which he's sold off to run the casino, but still. It comes from things like war."
Finn bites his lip. "That's horrible."
"I know," says Rose. "My sister's accident. It occurred here." She slows as they pass a pothole, filled in with tar darker than the asphalt of the road. "Jess Pava ran up to the casino for help, but no one came. They wouldn't let her in. All they did was call for an ambulance. I'm sure there were doctors there—they probably couldn't have done anything, but still I—I—"
"It's enraging," Finn says, glaring back at the sign as they drive by.
"It's strange to me that people can be so callous, to turn away when people need help," Rose says. "And whoever hit her just drove off. The cops never found them."
Finn glances at her. Her tone's sincere. Her jaw's soft as she takes the next exit, for the hospital. He's not surprised. But his lack of surprise doesn't make it less enraging. He's screamed for help so many times, and he learned to keep quiet, because people are more interested in what's in it for them than they are in helping a lost child.
Rose pulls into the parking lot and turns the car off. Finn follows her up the hill and into the hospital. Neither of them speak. Rose pushes the blue-gray doors open to the ward, leading Finn past a row of IVs and a nurse's desk to a room labeled Tico, Paige. She slips inside.
Machines beep and whir. A breathing tube runs out of Paige's mouth. Even pale and lying there in a sickly blue hospital down, thin white blanket over her, he can tell she's beautiful. An IV line runs into her arm, secured with tape. A necklace—Rose's necklace—lies on her chest.
"Hey Paige," Rose says. Her voice cracks. "I'm back."
There's no response, of course. The breathing machine pumps, and Paige's chest rises and falls.
"I brought a friend," Rose adds, hurrying over to her sister. She takes her limp hand, sitting on a black plastic chair. "His name's Finn."
Finn wonders what he should do, whether he should reach out and take Paige's other hand, whether he should say something. "Hey."
"He's an exchange student and we're working on that project together," Rose says. "When you wake up, I think you'll be impressed. I don't want to tell you about it before you wake up though; that'd spoil the surprise."
Finn's chest aches. He moves closer, setting his phone down on an empty tray.
"I miss you," Rose says. Her voice trembles. She wipes at her eyes with her free hand. "Sorry." She's apologizing to him.
Finn shakes his head. There's no need for Rose to apologize for loving someone this much. "Hey, Paige," he says. "I'm Finn. Rose is carrying our project, really. I'm just the support."
Rose snorts. She elbows him. "That's not true. He's the genius. I read his application. He's a big deal."
Finn rolls his eyes. His cheeks warm. "She talks about you all the time, so you have to wake up and tell me embarrassing stories about her."
"Rude," Rose informs him, but her eyes sparkle. "Hey, Paige. Finn's living with Rey, another exchange student who's freaking awesome, you'd love her, and Kylo Ren, Ben Solo, whatever he's calling himself these days. Doesn't that sound wild?"
"So far we're all still alive thanks to Han and Leia," Finn says. "Er, Mr. Solo and Ms. Organa."
"Oh to be a fly on that wall," Rose says. She delves into more discussions of Poe, Connix, Jess, and Snap. Then she rises. "I'll go now, but I'll be back, okay?" She leans over Paige, her necklace dangling down and almost touching Paige's as she kisses her sister's forehead. "Don't be afraid to come back, okay? I'll help you. I don't care what it takes."
Finn hesitates. He stretches out his hand, brushing Rose's shoulder.
"Sorry," Rose says as they leave the ward. "That probably wasn't how you wanted to spend your weekend."
"I don't think you need to be sorry," Finn says. He's almost envious, but of course, that makes him feel like scum. Imagine loving someone that much.
Rose manages a smile as they ride the elevator down. Finn pats his pockets. "Oh shit."
"What?" Rose asks.
"I left my phone upstairs." Finn swallows.
"Let's go back," Rose says. "It's fine."
Finn nods. The other man in the elevator gives them a dirty look when they reach the ground floor and immediately send it back up.
When they reach the eighth floor, one of the nurses gives them a smile. "Back so soon? I'm sorry, but someone else just went in to see Miss Tico. Only two people are allowed at one time, so—"
"Finn just needs to get his phone," says Rose. She frowns. "My parents?"
"No, a young man."
"Poe," Rose says. "It's gotta be." She blinks. "That'd be a first."
"Huh?" Finn frowns at her.
"He's too ashamed," Rose says. "To visit. He really shouldn't be, though. Paige wouldn't blame him. I don't blame him. I adore him. He's like a brother to me."
Finn nods. "Well, do you want to go get my phone?"
Rose shakes her head. "You go. I already said goodbye for today." Her eyes drop to her shoes.
Finn nods. He hurries into the ward, heading for Paige's room. He enters the room and spots a man dressed in black who, though he can only see him from the back, is definitely not Poe standing by Paige's breathing machine. "Hey," he says, grabbing his phone. "How do you know Paige?"
The man's shoulders stiffen. And then Finn sees his fingers leaving the respirator.
The fuck were you doing? "Hey!" Finn yells. "What are you—"
The man whirls around, sending the tray flying into Finn's abdomen. Finn shouts. He scrambles after the man, but a fist flies out to deck him in the nose. Blood spurts. Finn falls back on his ass. He scrambles to his feet. The man's gone. The machine's still beeping.
Nurses rush in. Finn points wildly towards the machine. "He was—doing something to that, pressing something, I don't know—dammit—" Blood runs down his face, pouring through his fingers, soaking his shirt.
"Call security!" bellows one of the nurses. Another grabs Finn, dragging him out of the room. Blood splatter stains the white tiles. She yanks him to the side.
Rose appears, her face white. "Finn!"
"Someone just tried to kill your sister!" he yells.
And then security's there, alarms and codes are blaring over the intercom, a nurse is assuring them Paige is alive, she's okay, but Finn can hardly believe this, and Rose is screaming.
Thanks to fabercastel for inspiring one of the scenes XD