Chapter 2
"OK:" And Poe slapped his hands down on the table as he faced his two companions. "What do we know?"
He and Rose Tico and Finn were sitting in the mess hall, after the dinner rush; the cafeteria service had long since closed for the night. But it seemed like the perfectly casual and innocuous place in which to talk. As soon as Poe had notified Finn that something was off with Rey, the former Stormtrooper had sprung into action, demanding intelligence on anything and everything regarding his best friend's emotional state. Rose had been roped in because, ever since her recovery after the Battle of Crait, she and Finn had been joined at the hip, and anything concerning her ally, no matter how many degrees removed, naturally required her involvement.
But now, Rose did not seem so sure, as she flitted her eyes in between Finn and Poe nervously. "I'm not in favor of this," she voiced. "It feels like we're spying on Rey's personal life... Maybe she doesn't want us to know..."
"Or maybe she doesn't want us to know because she is in some kind of trouble," Finn pointed out. "Poe's right, Rose. Rey has seemed increasingly not herself since Crait. Shutting herself up in her room more and more, mentally detached on occasion, crying to herself... You haven't noticed?" he frowned when Rose did not immediately seem on the uptake with Poe's observations.
Rose sighed. In truth, she had begun to notice some of the very signs Finn had just described, but had always wanted to believe the best of them, that there was some innocent explanations for them. Reluctantly, she began to review all the evidence that Poe had finished laying out for them. "We know that Rey is in love with somebody who she cannot physically be with at the present time."
"We also know," Finn added. "That it is someone whom none of us know personally."
"Very good," Poe nodded. "Now: let's take two pieces of evidence and try to put them together. If Rey is in love with someone totally anonymous to us, and whom the war is physically keeping her from, I can think of only one explanation: I think she is in love with a Resistance double agent."
Finn's eyebrow quirked with interest. "How do you figure that?"
"Because she said her mystery lover knows how lucky he is to be with her 'as much as he is able.'" Poe quoted. "Sounds to me like being with her garners some risk, puts him in some kind of danger. And right now, what's more dangerous than trying to play both sides of a conflict off of one another? Working for one while secretly feeding intelligence to the other?"
"Hang on a minute," Rose jumped in. "Rey made it clear that we don't know this person. How can we not, then, if we think he is a double agent working for the Resistance?"
"Yeah," Finn nodded. "Surely we would know who's working for us behind First Order lines?"
"Actually, we don't," Poe admitted honestly. "At least, not in the way you guys are thinking. The names of our double agents are not placed into the written record, and for good reason. If those names fell into the wrong hands..." and Poe shuddered to think of that possibility, "it would put countless lives in danger. Including that of Rey's lover."
"Then how do we know one of our guys when we see them? What if we captured them by accident?" Finn frowned.
"Every double agent of the Resistance carries a secret, hidden token that they present upon capture. Then, higher command interrogates them for any intelligence they might have gathered," Poe explains. "Encryption, as it were. It's standard procedure." He made a mental note to have Finn participate in one of these interrogations, the next time such an opportunity presented itself.
"OK," Rose nodded. "But there's another flaw in your theory. I know it feels way longer, but Rey has only been caught up in this war for a very short time. If she did meet up and fall in love with a Resistance double agent, then: how? And where? And when?"
"Starkiller Base, when she was captured off Takodana," Finn readily supplied. "There's no other explanation." And his eyes seemed to light up as he ran away with this new thread to the theory. "I bet you anything one of our guys was assigned to guard her. He pitied her, fell in love with her, and then probably set her free out of a sense of duty or conscience. Now that would explain when Han and I came across her, she was running around all over the place, out of her cell!"
Poe nodded, accepting the explanation.
"You should be a galactic attorney," Rose noted to Finn dryly. "One more question:" and she looked Poe square in the eye. "How did you come about this information?"
At this, Poe turned beet red - a very unusual reaction for him. "I... kind of asked her out on a date. And she turned me down."
"You asked her out? While she's been moping around? You insensitive ass!" Finn gawped at his best friend. And his passionate reaction couldn't help but make Poe wonder if he knew more about Rey's love life than the former Stormtrooper was letting on.
"Regardless," Poe quickly changed the subject, trying to move on. "We still don't have all the answers. But, if our hunch is correct, than Rey and her sweetheart are both in trouble. And if Rey is to be on her best game in helping the Resistance - and she's already helped us so much - I think it's only fair that we try and make her happy. Help her, if we can."
"Well, then, what in Maker's name are we waiting for?" Finn rhetorically barked. "Let's go talk to her!"
"Hear, hear!" Rose concurred, starting to feel a little bit better about dealing in sensitive information. It shouldn't bother her so much, as long as it might help a friend. Right?
Rey's door was open, and her room empty, when the trio arrived. Poe resolved to just wait for her, which Rose objected to. "We don't want to spring anything on her and make her clam up," she reasoned. She voted that they wait and come back later. Finn didn't really have a firm opinion one way or the other, as long as whatever they did helped them get answers that might ultimately help Rey.
Before they could come to an agreement on what to do, they heard Rey's voice and footsteps coming up the hall. Poe thought fast. "Quick! Hide!" And he shoved Finn and Rose, none too gently, right into Rey's closet, pulling the door to. Moments later, Rey appeared.
"It's too dangerous, Ben," she was chiding, yet her voice was gentle in its admonishment. Inside the closet, Rose looked back and forth between the men.
"Who's Ben?" she whispered. Finn shushed her.
Poe quietly peered through the slit in the door, the sliver of light illuminating his narrowing irises. Who was she talking to...?
Just then, a voice seemed to emanate from everywhere and nowhere at once. But it didn't echo. In fact, its volume made it seem as though the voice's owner was right there in the room, even if the trio could not see them. "I don't care. I'm lost without you. Coming to you like this isn't enough, Rey. I'm in agony. You're miserable, I can see it! Let me come and sweep you away. My offer still stands..."
Finn felt a strange sense of foreboding grip his heart, like a tightening noose. "I know that voice..." he murmured to himself. But where?
Rey shook her head. "Neither of us are ready, Ben. I can see it. But oh, how I want to be with you!" She seemed to be talking in a certain direction, as if she could see whomever she was speaking with, even if the others couldn't.
Suddenly, Finn and Poe and Rose could see him. And his identity made each person's blood run cold.
It was Kylo Ren who seemed to appear out of thin air. It was Kylo Ren smiling down at Rey as he ran a gentle hand along her cheek, and it was Kylo Ren to whom Rey was smiling back. And... it was Kylo Ren who now kissed Rey on the lips, and who she now kissed back...
Poe felt his blood boil. Multiple trains of thought ran through his brain before he could properly organize them, and a burning fire of jealousy, largely lit by his lingering feelings for the Jedi girl, made him want to jump out of this damn closet and tear the Supreme Leader of the First Order limb from sorry limb. To protect Rey. He was manipulating her! Or... she was a traitor! He didn't know what the right answer was. All he knew was that she certainly wasn't in love with a Resistance double agent. All he knew was that he had to stop this.
"Re..." His voice was suddenly cut off by Finn clapping a hand over his mouth. The stormtrooper's arms trapped his body in a vice like grip and Poe struggled, confused. Again, he wondered if Finn had somehow known about this scandalous truth all along, or at least, known about part of it. In any event, Finn kept the Resistance commander in place until Kylo and Rey broke apart, smiling into each other's eyes.
"I have to go, sweetheart," Kylo murmured quietly. Poe jerked sharply, but Finn's grip did not loosen. How dare that monster call Rey sweetheart!
Rey's eyes now filled with tears, feeling their imminent departure deeply. "I can't live like this much longer, Ben," she expressed forlornly. And she wrapped him in a tight embrace. "Be careful," she implored.
Ben smiled. "I will." And his entire form disappeared, just like that. Rey stood there for a moment more, and she gave a pining sigh. Then she left the room.
As soon as the door closed behind her, Poe and Finn and Rose tumbled out of the closet.
"How did he even get in here?" Poe fumed. "Rey's been bewitched! He's using her to get to the Resistance! We..."
"Poe!" Finn suddenly barked. "Don't let your personal feelings get in the way!"
Poe rounded on his friend, eyes burning. "But you saw her! With... him," he snarled in disgust. "She could be in grave danger, and worse still, she doesn't know it!"
"We still don't know everything!" Finn reminded the Commander. "Rey's always seemed to know what she's doing; I've known her longer than you. What would Rey do, if she were in your position?"
Poe ground his teeth in frustration. He didn't answer the hypothetical question, instead going for the answer Finn was expecting of him. "We wait. See if we can find out more. And then... we approach her."