Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars.

Rey sat cross-legged on the bunk in the middle of the dark room and took in a deep breath before exhaling slowly through her nose, closing her eyes in an attempt to clear her mind. She knew Chewbacca had given her this precious time to rest, but no matter how hard she tried, sleep refused to come to her, Kaiyo's words still reverberating in her mind like a curse. She refused to believe it. She had seen Snoke die with her own two eyes.

That monster was gone.

Gone.

Rey reached out with her senses just as Luke had taught her, and she searched for the Force in its natural balance as she had experienced briefly on Ahch-To. She felt the Force signatures of her companions on the ship: Leia as a powerful surge similar almost to that of Ben and a strong pulsating Light that she recognized as Kaiyo. She could feel the peaceful resonance of a few sleeping porgs that had stolen away in the engine room and the gentle buzz of Chewbacca in the cockpit. They were all here on the Millennium Falcon, safe.

Rey took another breath and reached out further. There had to be something she could find in the midst of all of this, something that would guide them.

However, only a surge of chaos greeted her in the depths of space outside, a beast of Darkness lurching out with menacing claws. She withdrew a second too late and the wave washed over her, drowning her in its blanket of haze. She tried to cry out, but the invisible veil muffled her voice, separating her from the others.

Then suddenly, all became quiet, the engines of the Millennium Falcon as silent as the space outside its hull.

Rey opened her eyes slowly, knowing that they shouldn't have left hyperspace yet, but she found that she was no longer on the Millennium Falcon. She blinked at the scene before her, the room unfamiliarly large and bright, a complete opposite of the dark bunk she had been meditating in. Rey kept her impending panic in check as her gaze stopped upon a familiar silhouette in the middle of the room standing next to the lone bed as a droid whirled past her, oblivious to her presence.

Rey deduced that it was a medbay of some sort when she spotted an empty bacta tank to the side. She opened her mouth to speak but then closed it, deciding against alerting the room's inhabitants just yet. She had never experienced a Force bond session quite like this before with Ben's surroundings so clear to her. She took a few steps forward, expecting to crash into the wall of her bunk, but empty space allowed her to continue inching closer to Ben until she was right behind him. Rey gulped, peering around the giant of a man to see exactly who he would care enough to tend to. He had not cared when he killed his father, had not batted an eye when he shot down their defenses on Crait even while knowing that his own mother was in the fortress with the remnants of the Resistance.

She had to hold in a gasp when she saw the general of the First Order lying on the medbay cot.

"Why are you here?" Ben's voice made her jump.

She scowled indignantly. "How am I supposed to know? It's not like I chose to be here." She looked back to the general, the loose fiery hair peeking through a few blood and bacta-soaked bandages wrapped around the man's head. He looked much younger like this, innocent even, his breaths soft and almost peaceful. Yet, she could sense a deep constricting Darkness looming over him, and it was a moment before she realized it was coming from Ben. She gulped, fighting off the strange pitting sensation in her stomach as the surrounding tendrils only seem to intensify when she noticed them. "What happened?"

"I attacked him," Ben replied in a toneless voice, eyes still fixated on the sleeping general, a hand curiously enclosed around the other's thin fingers. "Threw him into the wall."

"You really are a monster," she couldn't help but comment, shoving her current observations of the seemingly peaceful scene aside. To think that such a man was in charge of the largest military force in the galaxy was unfathomable to her. She had suspected that he had a temper, but to see the results of it so closely only cemented her disgust.

Ben remained indifferent despite her biting words and instead turned to look at her with sad, resigned eyes. She resented those expressive orbs, having been charmed by them once before back on Ahch-To.

Never again, she had told herself.

"Yes, I am a monster." His resignation was really starting to affect her. She quickly tried to figure out just what game he was playing this time, but he merely continued, heart seemingly exposed and raw for her to see. "I wasn't even able to protect him from Snoke."

She blinked, caught off guard. "Snoke?" she repeated the name as she recalled her cryptic conversation with the others earlier. "That doesn't make any sense. You killed Snoke, remember?"

"If only it were that easy." Ben returned his gaze back to the general. "I was too weak."

Weak? Rey didn't understand. Ben was a raging force of nature, gifted with power. Unless-

"Wait, Snoke really is alive?" She clenched her fists when he continued to give her the silent treatment, feeling her own panic begin to rise. "Answer me, Ben! I sensed his presence back on Takodana."

This seemed to stir something up in Ben as he turned back to her with wide eyes, almost akin to fear if she didn't know any better. "You feel him too, probing at your mind?"

She shook her head. "Not probing." Ben seemed relieved at this. She continued, "I sensed his presence during the battle around the time I heard your general through the Force." She glanced at the unconscious man in the bed, the reality of it all hitting her. The man had spoken clearly through the Force, had spread his words through thousands of minds. She gulped, trying not to imagine all the influence he could obtain through such means as she focused back on Ben. "It was a rather surprising turn of events."

"I see. You heard Hux too." Ben seemed to consider this revelation for a moment.

"Yes. I suppose many people heard him." Then again, she had listened to him order the evacuation of the ship called the Dominion before they shot it down. It had been an unsettlingly poignant address despite the intensity of his words. "It was rather strange," she admitted out loud as she recalled the sensation. "I didn't know the Starkiller had the ability to feel empathy."

"You don't know a lot of things," Ben told her.

She glared at him.

Ben ignored her and turned back to the bed. "He's recently awakened to the Force. It's strange; his powers are completely Light-oriented. I don't know if that is why Snoke keeps targeting him."

Rey crossed her arms, trying not to let her shock show on her face at the revelation that there was yet another Force-sensitive user in the First Order, and that it had to be the Starkiller of all people. "Is that why you became interested in him, like you did with me?"

"No!" Ben snapped with a little more emotion that Rey would have expected. She watched in fascination as he retracted uncomfortably, eyes darting back to the general. "No, I…" he countered weakly, fingers tightening around the general's limp hand.

Something in her mind clicked as she stared at the fingers intertwined against the white sheets.

"Stars, are you in love with him?"

Ben blinked at her blankly, and for a moment, Rey wondered if she had just made an absolute fool of herself. Did the man even have the capacity to love left in him? He had ignited a lightsaber straight through his own father's heart as Han begged him to return to the Light. How could such a man even begin to love?

However, the gaze that Ben gave the general, eyes soft and mouth slightly parted as if he were really considering the question, told her everything before he even answered her.

"I suppose I am," he admitted, his voice a low rumble. She watched as fire seemed to return to those eyes as vehemently as she had seen them that day in the throne room. Ben brushed a strand of the general's red hair aside almost reverently.

Rey thought of Leia, wondering what the general would make of all this. And, she knew she was falling into the same trap all over again, grasping at the hope that was left in the Light that still remained inside the man called Ben, the Light that seemed to still flicker even now in his eyes as he looked at the unconscious man on the bed, a destroyer of worlds. The Starkiller.

It was madness that threatened to take her.

"You know, it's still not too late to make things right," the words just rolled out of her tongue despite herself, and she decided to reason it out, to compromise. If it was truly Snoke behind all of this, then perhaps they still had a chance to make amends, as shaky as the grounds are currently.

"Yes, I am going to make things right," he repeated her words, straightening up and looking at her, eyes alight with determination. "Snoke has the power to take control of those predisposed to the Darkness. I need to stop him before he uses me to hurt Armitage again." He paused. "I can still hear Snoke in my mind, threatening to lash out at him."

She gulped, thinking of the implications of what those words meant. She didn't quite understand what Ben meant by Snoke taking control, but she did catch the word "I" and not "we" in the other's declaration of war against the enemy. That did not sound like a promising idea at all.

"You can't do this alone, Ben," Rey told him, trying to figure out how she could reword her offer in a way that he would understand, stopping just shy of declaring that he was not strong enough. She couldn't imagine a dumber plan when he had an entire army, but that was exactly the kind of stunt she expected the other to pull. Ben was unpredictable after all.

Ben shook his head. "I can't drag him any deeper into this. Snoke almost destroyed his mind earlier back at Takodana. He was the one who took control of the Knights of Ren and ordered the attack on the planet in search of your friend."

"They've really been targeting Force-sensitives everywhere, haven't they?" Rey recalled the other gruesome videos circulating through the holonet.

The other confirmed her suspicions. "Yes, because they sensed his awakening. They're afraid of him, like they were afraid of you." He gritted his teeth. "I need to destroy Snoke before he does any more damage, before he gains any more power over me, over Armitage."

Rey sensed the urgency in the other and held up a hand to calm Ben down. She knew he was a brash man, and this was one occasion that it did neither him nor the Resistance any good if Ben were to just suddenly storm back into Snoke's clutches. "Wait, don't do this, Ben." She gulped, forcing out the next words as she spoke them almost bitterly. "We- your mother and I can help. We'll figure out a plan. I'll convince them to help. What if he does take control of you? You can't, Ben."

He smiled, his expression forlorn. Rey's heart sank.

"You're not alone. You know that, right?" The memory was still bitter on her lips.

"I know."

There was a small pop, and Rey was back in her bunk, staring at the dark ceiling. She jumped to feet, ignoring the stiff pangs of sleep in her bones as she ran to look for Leia.

.

Kylo stared at the spot where Rey had stood for another moment before turning back to Hux, his own heart clenching as he thought his plan through once again in the quiet of the medbay. He could still feel the familiar wave of Darkness threatening to seep out, untamed now that Hux was momentarily out of the picture. It was only a matter of time before it broke free completely to consume the Finalizer and everyone on it. He had to go put a stop to this himself. If he fell to Snoke in the process, then the others would be far away enough to avoid any damage he may do.

He gave Hux's hand a final squeeze and let go reluctantly, still feeling the Darkness ebb out despite the loss of physical contact with the other Force user. He clenched his teeth.

He knew what he had to do. He had been considering it for a while now as he watched the general sleep, even before Rey had interrupted his thoughts. However, he had not expected for her to read him so clearly, for her to give a name to the one thing he had kept tucked in the recesses of his mind.

"Armitage," he whispered, but only the soft breaths of the other greeted him.

Kylo leaned over the bed and kissed those translucent eyelashes tenderly before backing away, his resolve wavering for a moment as he forced the lump down his throat.

"I will come back. I promise."

He hoped.

He turned around and left the medbay before he could change his mind, allowing the med droid to finally do its job unhindered.

No one barred his way in his journey to the hangar.

He found his TIE silencer waiting where he had left it, already refueled and ready to depart. Kylo let out the breath he had been holding and climbed inside.

He wondered briefly if this was actually a clever idea. Hux would no doubt be furious when the man awoke, but if he played his cards right, perhaps Kylo could take care of this entire mess and return in a timely manner. Skaara and the remaining Knight did not come close to him in power, and if he could take them out, he was sure Snoke would have no other place to go. The longer he waited, the more powerful the creature became, and he could not afford to stay in the shadows any longer.

His breath hitched with anticipation.

He was chaos.

He would destroy Snoke once and for all, and Hux would be safe.

He would have protected Armitage, just like he had promised that day.

He turned on the engine and prepared for takeoff.

.

"You sure eat your meals quite late," Igniv commented when Mitaka set a tray of food down in front of him.

"Ah, well," the lieutenant shuffled, eyes averted.

Igniv grinned. He could spot a faint tinge of red dusting the other's features. "I'm just playing. You can eat whenever you want."

He could sense the man relax slightly and begin eating quietly, small nervous trembles plaguing every bite as Mitaka forced the fork into his own mouth. Igniv swirled his cup of caf absentmindedly as he waited for the other to build up the courage to speak again, and he was quite pleased with the results of his patience.

"Why are you here so late yourself? You should be resting," the man finally asked him in a small voice.

"Ah," Igniv found his own words caught in his throat. He hadn't expected worry from the other. Well, he had expected it, but he realized he had not prepared an adequate response. He settled for twirling a strand of hair around his finger as he tried to put all the feelings he should have been able to control as a Force-user into something tangible.

"Just swimming in a bit of self-pity, that's all," he decided to admit. He knew that Mitaka was referring to the incident earlier with Kylo and the general. Word had gotten out relatively quickly this time that the general had been sent to the medbay after some sort of accident, but he knew better.

He had felt the surge of Darkness shortly after he had left the two alone to flirt, had sensed Snoke's presence reaching far into the depths into the ship, manifesting in Kylo. He thought his friend had been able to suppress the Darkness, but it only seemed to get worse every time it lashed out. Igniv himself had been hearing less of Snoke's whispers, attributing it to the other losing three of the Knights, but perhaps Snoke just had no interest in Igniv himself anymore. The former supreme leader must have learned about the true awakening after the battle on Takodana.

Regardless, he had run back as fast as he could, but he was already too late.

He had found Kylo groaning on the ground, still reeling from Snoke being in his mind. The general was on the other side of the room lying in a growing pool of blood from a rather gruesome cut running down the side of the man's head. Kylo had nearly lost it until Igniv had confirmed that Hux was still breathing, and after that, the supreme leader had personally carried Hux across the ship to the medbay. Needless to say, more than one set of eyes had seen the course, and the trail of blood certainly didn't help to keep any rumors at bay.

"Will the general be okay?" Mitaka asked in a small voice.

Igniv sighed. "He should be. He got a pretty bad concussion this time. He's still out cold, but the doctor said he should be waking up any moment now." He could not explain the relief he felt when she said that the general would recover promptly, for Kylo's sake as well as his. "Thank goodness he didn't crack his skull. I really thought his brains were leaking out at one point."

He realized that the lieutenant was staring at him with the widest eyes he had ever seen on a man. Igniv raised his hands up in an attempt to calm the other down. "Worry not. It was just a flesh wound."

Mitaka nodded slowly, seeming to find it hard to believe after his earlier description of the general's injuries. The man swallowed and returned to his dinner, staring disinterestedly at the food on his fork.

"It's good to hear that he will be okay."

"Yeah," Igniv agreed.

"What about…" Mitaka trailed off, finally putting the fork down. The man seemed to struggle with putting his concern into words. "What about Takodana?" the lieutenant finally asked after a moment.

"Hm." Igniv really did find it admirable that such a man would care about the general so much. He was a true subordinate indeed. "I suppose he is as alright as he could be." His own thoughts trailed back to the three Knights that had been on the Dominion. He had heard their deaths clearly through the Force, had nearly been sucked into the void left in their demise. He couldn't imagine what Hux had felt when Snoke connected the man's mind to the thousands stationed on the Dominion.

"You were close to them too, right?" Mitaka asked, the man's voice a soft rumble through his guilt-ridden memory of the exploding ship. "Ah, I mean, the Knights that were on the Dominion. It must have been hard for you too." The lieutenant looked away, flushing with embarrassment. "Sorry, I'm overstepping my bounds."

Igniv smiled, quite taken aback by the attempt to comfort him on the other's part.

"Ah well, such is life," he muttered.

Igniv suddenly froze, sensing something strange in Kylo's Force signature. The raging Darkness was starting to fade, almost as if the supreme leader had left the ship, but that didn't make any sense. The last time he had checked, Kylo was back on the medbay with the general.

"Hey, where are you going?" he found himself asking regardless, unable to ignore the sensation as the other's Force signature became fainter and fainter. He heard no response and rose from his chair. "Wait, Kylo? Kylo!"

The other's Force-signature disappeared.

"What's wrong?" Mitaka asked, eyes wide, a spoon halfway up to the man's mouth.

Igniv gulped, trying to still his trembling hands as the metal of the chair began to bend under his grasp. "I just sensed Kylo leaving. Check the hangers! He should not be going after the enemy alone!"

.

A white ceiling greeted him as he came to, the lights much too bright for the raging headache that decided to accompany him to consciousness. His involuntary groan seemed to have notified someone, or rather something in the room, and he felt a slight tingle in his arm, followed by sweet relief.

"Lights 70 percent," a female voice spoke up this time.

Hux forcefully blinked his room back into focus, ignoring the worried beeps of what he presumed to be a med droid as he heaved his body up to a sitting position on the much too firm infirmary bed. A wave of nausea took him this time, and he attempted to massage his temple to keep himself from hurling only to find something akin to a damp cloth instead of skin under his fingertips.

The med droid beeped, and he felt the tingle again, relieving him a little of the nausea.

"What happened?" Hux choked out, finally managing to make out Dr. Andrienne through the haze that was his vision.

"The bacta is for the gash you sustained from hitting your own head on a wall. I'm surprised you didn't sustain a traumatic brain injury from slamming into the durasteel that hard. Consider yourself lucky, general. Besides the wound, you only suffered a heavy concussion," she replied, her lips drawn into a stern line. "As you can see, the aftereffects are still quite prevalent. You will need a few days of rest before returning to active duty." She huffed at him, arms crossed indignantly. "And this time I must insist that-"

"I don't know if we have a few days, doctor," another voice interrupted her lecture.

Hux turned to the side, spotting Igniv leaning against one of the medicinal cabinets, a stark mass of black and slight purple in the middle of the white room. It was then he finally noticed the serious expressions on the other, the Knight's usually relaxed eyebrows drawn into a deep crease. That, and there was one other person missing, the one he had expected to see upon awakening.

His heart dropped.

"Where's Kylo?"

Igniv glanced at Dr. Andrienne, who sighed and adjusted her glasses before turning to leave. "No sudden movements, or you might make the injury worse," she reminded Hux before stepping out of the room, the door sliding shut after her and the med droid, leaving the two alone.

"Igniv?" Hux prompted the other when Igniv didn't immediately begin speaking. The man shifted uncomfortably from the spot by the wall before finally choosing to move closer. Hux could sense another wave of nausea hit him and closed his eyes, waiting for the sensation to go away as he heard the other pull up a chair. He opened them again to see Igniv thankfully at eye level so that he did not have to crane his neck.

Igniv sighed heavily. "Kylo's gone. He left in his TIE silencer without telling anyone. I noticed too late."

"Kylo left?" Hux blinked at the man, unable to process the information. Why would the supreme leader leave on a mission by himself without telling anyone?

"I didn't realize until right before he made the jump to hyperspace. Mitaka and the others are trying to track the ship now as we speak." Igniv groaned, pulling at his hair. "If only I noticed sooner, then..."

Hux didn't catch the rest of the Knight's sentence, his own hazy thoughts focused on the fact that Kylo had left, had gone ahead without consulting him. Hadn't Kylo promised him that he would be protected? How the hell was the supreme leader supposed to carry that out if he wasn't here? He fisted the sheets in frustration and what he recognized as fear, trimmed nails digging into the fabric.

"General!" Igniv's worried voice brought him back, and he relaxed only to hear a series of clashes throughout the room before noticing the medical equipment scattered on the floor.

"Did I..." he trailed off, trying to subdue the panic building in him.

On the other hand, Igniv seemed much calmer than he ought to be, surveying the disaster of a room with a hand to his chin. "You know, I sensed a massive wave of Darkness after I left you two, much stronger than back on Takodana. I rushed back, but Snoke was already cast out, and you were out cold."

"He tried to take over Kylo's body," Hux explained.

"Yes, and you were strong enough to oppose him. Your power's growing, general." Igniv motioned to the mess behind him. "Much faster than any of us anticipated. I wonder if that means that Snoke is growing in power as well. The Force tends to try to achieve balance if one side becomes too strong." He sighed. "It never lasts long though."

Hux didn't understand what Igniv was getting at, but the man merely stood up from his seat and righted the IV pole that Hux had inadvertently somehow knocked over with his outburst.

"You should get some rest for now, general. We'll try to track Kylo down in the meantime. We're going to need you at full strength."

Dr. Andrienne re-entered the room just as Igniv was about to open the door, eyes flashing as she glanced at Hux and the mess in the medbay. "Don't worry, he'll be resting for the next few days. I already told him," Igniv reassured her.

She huffed and walked over to the bed, but Hux paid her no mind, unable to settle the churning in his stomach as his thoughts whirled around and around in circles. Kylo had left to take on Snoke alone. How stupid was the man? How could he-

"General." He looked up, vision swimming with the effort and his own raging thoughts. He found the doctor's usual intensity silenced for now, her eyes almost soft as she regarded him. "Would you rest better in your own quarters? I can arrange for a droid to change the bandages and prescribe some painkillers and sedatives to help you sleep through the headaches."

He swallowed his earlier indignation at her scolding. "Yes," Hux replied a little too meekly for his own liking. "Yes, that would be appropriate."

Hux found himself staring at the ceiling of his own room a few hours later, still finding sleep hard to come by with the constant dull headache pounding in his skull. Dr. Andrienne had assured him that it would go away with a day or two of rest, but he could not stop himself from thinking about Kylo, the pangs of emptiness threatening to engulf him in his darkened room.

He groaned, rolling over and closing his eyes as he waited for the sedative he finally decided to drink to take effect. Someone had the nerve to confiscate his datapad for the rest of the cycle, citing doctor's orders, and between attempting to meditate and trying not to think about Kylo, sleep seemed to be the best alternative.

The Finalizer would be fine, he told himself. Mitaka and Igniv were running it, and when he woke up, they would have located Kylo.

Everything would be fine.

He almost laughed at his own delusions. His finished lightsaber stared back at him from atop the nightstand, and he took it gingerly in his hands, feeling the familiar hum through the cold steel of the handle.

"Everything would be fine."

He was standing on a beach, the calm waves licking at his bare feet with the soft rays of the setting sun casting an orange glow across the waters. He felt at peace here, encased in this world's silence, away from the First Order, away from war, from everything. He took a step forward into the sea's inviting depths, her arms welcoming him back into oblivion.

He was no one here, not a general, not a Force-user, not the Commandant's son.

He was just Armitage.

Armitage.

"Armitage." The voice stopped him in his tracks. He took a deep breath, unwilling to turn around. He wanted to return to the water, to where he belonged.

Kylo had left him behind. There was no longer anything for him to return to if that man wasn't there.

"Kylo," he finally mustered up the courage to reply, his voice cracking despite himself.

"Ben," the man corrected him. "I am just Ben, Armitage." He could sense the other just behind him, the man's soft breaths just shy of his neck.

Armitage whirled around, feeling the rage build inside. "Why did you leave, Ben? We were supposed to do this together!"

Familiar dark eyes stared into his, but the man who called himself Ben looked vulnerable, his features much younger with the tremors radiating from the other's bottom lip. "I promised to protect you."

Armitage shook his head. "Then why aren't you here? I don't understand." He felt his chest clench, unfamiliar with the hole he felt inside of him. It was unlike any pain that he had ever felt in his life, and he had seen his fair share. He found it ironic that Ben, Kylo, whatever his name was, would be the source of this madness when the other had promised to protect him.

"Come back to the Finalizer, Ben," he told the man. "We'll figure out how to defeat Snoke together."

"He's too strong, Armitage. I wasn't able to stop him from taking over," the other replied softly, the dying rays of the setting sun reflecting off those beautiful dark eyes.

"So, you left to fight him alone? That's pretty stupid even by your standards," he hissed.

Ben did not seem fazed by his seething words. "Yeah, I wasn't thinking. I thought that it was better to fight him on his own turf than to lose control again back where you are."

"Typical." Armitage sighed. "Come back already. I-" He paused. "I need you. Here."

Ben smiled sadly.

"What's wrong?"

"You need to run far away, Armitage. Hide where I- where Snoke cannot find you. He-" Ben stopped abruptly, his eyes glazing over momentarily before he regained control of himself. The moment was unsettling, and Armitage could feel the discomfort building up once again in his chest.

"Ben, where are you?"

Ben shook his head. "Please."

"You know I'm no coward," he told the other, still trying to prompt the other for Ben's location.

Dark eyes stared into his. Ben laughed, defeated. "True, you're not a coward." The man shuddered again, taking a step back from Armitage.

"I hear him, Armitage."

"Ben. Where are you?" he repeated one more time.

"Please, save yourself."

"No, Ben. Kylo. I-" he pleaded. He won't let Ben do this alone. He won't.

"I'm sorry. I can't let him find you here."

He was thrown backward away from the ocean's waters into the sky, his body soaring through the cosmos. Somewhere the distance he heard something crack and then shatter, glass shards disintegrating into the Darkness of space.

Then, there was nothing.

"Kylo?" he called through the Force bond.

Only silence answered him.

Thank you for reading!