Ren was much more relaxed as he continued his rummage through her memories, concentrating instead on the girl's connection to Solo. Solo's signature was unmistakeable to him, and he'd felt it on Takodana as soon as they'd touched down, before even clearing the gangway to see the Millennium Falcon docked squalidly in plain sight. Even after all this time, it was hard for him to partition off his own memories and feelings about the man from hers, and reliving her memories of the last day was like picking at a scab to see if it still bled when the edge came up from the new skin beneath.

It bled alright.

The sensation that accompanied Rey's bright estimation of the man he so loathed sank him swiftly into a black mood. He could feel the Force thickening around him, bunching into hot coils, ready for his command. It was maddening to feel her pleasure at Solo's cautious praise and even… his approval of her handling of their situation, at how she'd hijacked, repaired and piloted his precious rustbucket. Solo trusted her, a perfect stranger, more than he'd ever trusted his own son with the Falcon. He allowed his sense of unfairness, of the indignity of it all, to take over his emotions and when he couldn't stand it any more, he reached out with his hand and sent the lone chair in the room flying into the opposite wall.

It wasn't fair, their easy, joccular camaraderie after being acquainted mere hours. As long as Solo continued to exist in the galaxy, the unfairness of it would continue to burn like an ember at the core of his being. He had characterized it to Master Snoke as a call to the Light, but that wasn't right, not at all.

This had to end, and he needed to bring it to resolution himself. Finding Skywalker would remain a long-range objective for the moment, as it had been for the past 10 years. A few more days, or weeks, or planetary cycles would not change that fact. For now, though, he had to end Solo. As long as Solo continued to live and breathe, Kylo knew he would feel the temptation to try to impress his father, to make him notice and believe in the power of the Force that Solo so casually dismissed. There was nothing for them now.

If the girl meant so much to Solo, her presence here on Starkiller would draw the old fool out. No sense in letting Rey languish in her cell.

He stood and began dressing to go visit her once more.

Rey stood silently for a long while, pressing her forehead and then her cheek to the blast door, feeling for one of the Troopers' minds. Their presence was curiously flat, particularly in contrast to his, which had almost been been a tangible thing, a hot ember lurking under a light coating of ash, waiting to flare again if the smallest bit of kindling touched it.

Most curiously, she would swear she could still feel him after he'd disappeared. For a long while, there had been a dull ache in her middle that had finally subsided, a heated, almost throbbing sensation that might've driven her to touch herself, had she been alone. A few minutes earlier she had felt a dark wave of emotion weighing her down, just as she'd been reliving his memories of Han Solo, but it had crested to a sharp spike, then nothingness.

"Hello?" she finally raised her voice to the door, hoping that speaking with them would excite their dull minds enough for her to pick them up. "Is anyone out there?"

She heard them shuffle outside in confusion, but no one responded. She supposed they weren't authorized to respond to her.

"I hate to bother you," she tried, "You're probably busy, but… I've really got to use the 'fresher."

Their armor made small sounds and she supposed they were looking at each other, deciding. She waited several more seconds before trying again, "Look, I'm really sorry, but I'm feeling a bit ill. I don't usually eat that much and I don't want to make a mess in here."

"Ma'am, we don't have proper clearance to release you, even in emergency situations," one of the Troopers replied by wrote.

Kriffing bureaucrats, she thought. Then suddenly the thought came to her. She'd once read a technical manual she'd nicked from one of the scuttled destroyers she'd scrapped in, one that described how the patterns to the door access codes had been standardized across fleets and facilities. What had the door code pattern been?

She drew back from the door for a moment, biting her lip and wracking her tired brain to remember. It was something like the hallway or wing number, plus the last two digits of the room number, plus another digits- a standard, 5-digit code. But where was she?

"Hello?" she called out, "I was asleep when I arrived… where are we here, anyway?" Tell me, tell me, tell me, she willed silently.

"This is detention block 421, cell number 1114 of Starkiller Base, ma'am."

She gasped at this. What the sinking sands was Starkiller Base? No matter now. So the code was most likely 4214…. and then what? Rey wracked her brain, thinking over and over the manual that she could picture, but not read in her memory. What had the final digit represented?

She turned tight circles again, hugging her elbows against herself. A door was on a circuit, a circuit was a system, systems were decomposable…. circuits had switches, switches had settings, settings like… on and off. Wait, that was it - on, and off! Binary, she sighed, so simple, but so effective. 0 was off, 1 was on. 4-2-1-4-1. That was the code, she was sure of it.

Now Rey felt hot with excitement, her triumph returning and flushing her cheeks as she moved near the door again. She closed her eyes and settled herself, picturing the guards outside, envisioning exactly what she wanted them to do several times in as precise of detail as she could manage. It was difficult, she found, like her brain wanted to skip over certain details and she had to slow it down, run it back a bit and fill in the gaps. She would tell them to open the door, give them the code, and pictured them turning and entering it. Then they'd leave her alone. Once she was confident she could play the entire loop of action through without losing the thread, she said:

"You will open this door, and leave this cell unguarded. The access code is 4-2-1-4-1."

"Ma'am, we don't have proper clearance to release you," the lead Trooper droned again, but she would not be deterred.

This time, she pushed, the same way she had pushed against her captor, and she repeated more forcefully, "You will open this door, and leave this cell unguarded. The access code is 4-2-1-4-1."

"I will open this door, and leave this cell unguarded," she heard to her astonishment, "The access code is 4-2-1-4-1."

"And you'll drop your weapons," she added for good measure, hoping against hope.

The door slide open between them, and the Troopers stood facing her, their blasters raised. Her heart leapt into her throat.

"And we'll drop our weapons."

She was free, and armed.

As Ren rounded the corner of the cellblock hallway, his stomach dropped to see the door to her cell open and unmanned. A lone blaster lay on the metal grating outside the door. He came to a stop outside the door and stared in, half expecting her to leap out him, but suddenly unsurprised at what he knew had to have happened: she'd mind-tricked the guards into releasing her.

He entered the cell and stooped, staring at the half-eaten meal, and he simply laughed. Clever girl, he thought. He stood for a moment with his hands pressed against the sloping walls of the cell, chuckling at the ridiculousness of the day's events. This was even better than he could've dreamed, far more potentially crushing than what he'd planned.

She had actually managed to escape, and he could feel her energy again, glowing brightly from fairly nearby on the base. She was looking for a way out.

Just then, he felt his father's presence quite nearby as well.

"Han Solo," he breathed.

With that, he whirled and took off down the hallway. It was time.