A note from your humble author: Yeah, there's going to be some dark parts in this chapter. Some pretty explicit acts of violence, but please bare with me, I will get you through it. And when I do – hold onto your butts!

Kylo Ren was his pride and joy. His greatest asset. It had taken years of deceit and manipulation to finally claim his prize, but once the young man was his, he had taken care to not lose him. Not to the light, not to his family, and especially not to a woman.

True, the female would also be a great asset. She was indeed strong, but he would not have her at the risk of losing the one he already invested in for the past twenty six years. Kylo Ren had been groomed from a small child to be his servant. He was the grandson of one of the greatest Siths that had ever lived, and his power with the force was a testament to his grand lineage.

The power in those that he controlled only added to the power of himself. One does not rule the galaxy and relinquish power easily.

He knew the female would be trouble to his servant the moment he felt Kylo Ren's desire for her. She was too close to the light. Now she had turned him into a traitor. He had requested that the general plant the tracking device on his wavering servant; his suspicions proving true. He had gone to her. She had poisoned his mind, she had cracked wide the darkness and allowed more light into him. She needed to be eliminated. He would allow no one to take anything from him. He vowed the scavenger would die.

Kylo Ren would be punished for his treachery, and promised death. He would make him suffer. He would torture him within an inch of his life, poison his mind against the female, see him brought low in pain and misery, and just when he would be convinced that the end was at hand; his master would at last relent and show mercy upon him.

Kylo Ren was to be kept drugged, but just enough so that he could not draw upon his force powers, and still manage to stay somewhat lucid. He had also been fitted with special binders around his wrists and neck that sent electrical pulses into his brain, further distorting his ability to use the force.

When he opened his eyes he was strapped down to a medical table. He could see life support machines all around him. He felt an uncontrollable spike of panic. They were healing him just enough to keep him alive…to torture him. He watched as the heart and pulse monitors spiked erratically, as the worst though of all came to him – where was she? Was she alive? He tried to search for her in the force, but the room spun, and he was nearly blinded by the spots in front of his eyes, and he knew that he would not be able to reach her, that they would keep his powers subdued. He thought bitterly that he could endure anything, if only he knew that she had lived, that she was safe.

He heard a loud beeping behind him. Someone was being alerted that he was awake. "Let them come," he thought bitterly. The sooner it begins, the sooner he could die. Death would be the only thing left to hope for. He knew he would have to pay for his crimes. He knew he deserved everything that was about to be done to him. He had been a fool to believe that he could just run away, that Snoke would not come for him – for her.

Her.

For one beautiful moment she had belonged to him. He had allowed himself to imagine running away with her. Keeping her forever. No past. No future. Just live every second within the moment. With her.

He tried to choke back the tears that threatened his eyes. He would be weakened before his tormentors soon enough. There was only one thing left that he wanted, only one thing left that mattered.

He watched out of the corner of his eye as the door slid open and three men entered the room. He knew two of them: General Hux, and Aldo Ren. The third was a man with hard cold beady eyes wearing a white lab coat and long rubber gloves.

"Well, well, look whose turned traitor."

Kylo looked back at him with burning hatred. Hux had probably wished for this moment for years.

"The Supreme Leader is very disappointed in you Ren. I'm sure you know that. You're in the prison block, and as soon as your body is a little more…recovered. You'll be moved somewhere, let's say…a little less comfortable." He gave a nod to Aldo Ren.

Aldo Ren stretched out a hand and tried to pierce into his mind. Again the room spun, blinding spots clouded his vision, his head felt as if it would burst, but he would not scream. Not before the likes of Hux. He grit his teeth until he felt a tooth crack. His hands balled into fists so tightly that his knuckles turned white. The veins protruded from his neck and forehead, his skin went red all over.

At last Aldo Ren stopped. "His force powers are sufficiently subdued. You can do with him as you please," he reported, with no small sound of satisfaction in his mechanical voice.

Kylo lay there gasping for air. "Where…is…she?"

"Your whore?" replied Hux as he raised a questioning eyebrow.

"Is she alive? Tell me!" he shouted.

Hux just smiled a vicious smile. "Oh, the many years I've watched you get your way. The Supreme Leader really did spoil you so, but you're not in his good graces anymore. I don't have to give you anything."

Kylo shot an angry barrage of expletives into the general's face, but he only stood there in silence smirking back at him. When he was done calling him every terrible insult he could think of, Hux pulled back his fist and cracked a hard blow into his face.

But his smug look had faded a little. "The fate of the Jedi whore is no longer your concern. Perhaps you should just worry about yourself. Allow me to introduce the good doctor Kinz. Dr. Kinz is going to make you his very special patient. You'll make him comfortable won't you Dr. Kinz?"

"Very," the doctor replied, in a voice that sent a shiver down Kylo's spine.

Kylo watched as the doctor began filling a syringe with a dark fluid. "You seem stressed out. Allow me to help you relax," he said as he pressed the needle into the inside of his elbow, and everything faded to black.

She was nearly back to the resistance when she felt him through the bond. He was in pain. Someone was using the force on him. But it didn't hurt her the way it usually did. She felt that his pain existed, but she could not feel it within herself. When it at last stopped, she knew, they were torturing him; they were weakening his abilities in the force somehow. She remembered the dart that had pierced his chest. He was somewhere alive, undoubtedly back on the Finalizer, undoubtedly drugged into submission, but she could not reach him.

It was late when she made it back to the resistance. Master Luke must have sensed her return because she found him waiting for her on the tarmac. He could tell the moment she jumped out of the Grey Wolf, that something had gone horribly wrong.

"Rey? Are you all right? Did he hurt you?"

"I need to speak with both you and the general. We have an emergency! It's Ben…he's in danger."

He asked no more and returned with her to the fortress immediately. As they were rushing down the halls of the ancient stone structure Luke noticed Maz waiting and watching for them.

"I know she went to confront Ben Solo," she said blocking them off. "I see very clearly that something is wrong. You will let me help you," she said in a tone that suggested more of a demand than a request.

Chewbacca had been sitting at a table tinkering with a broken energy cannon mount when he looked up to see Rey return, and that Luke was with her. He was just going to greet her, as he was always happy to see her return, when Maz had approached them first and mentioned Ben. He waited and listened.

"I need all the help I can get, Maz. We're going to go talk to the general. Will you join us?" replied Rey.

Suddenly they heard Chewie roar from the corner where he had been inconspicuously sitting. He argued that if there were going to be any meetings about Ben that he wanted to be present and he wasn't going to take 'no' for an answer.

Luke just gave him a sad sort of smile. "I understand, Chewie," he said as he turned to Rey with a questioning look.

"All right, but I have to warn you all. You may not like what you hear."

Poe found Finn sitting out behind the fortress. He was dismantling blasters on a large table and giving them a thorough cleaning, then reassembling them. Some old stormtrooper habits died hard.

"Finn! Hey, good news. Rey's back. I just got word that her X-Wing landed. We should ask her to target practice tomorrow. If we have any blasters ready for tomorrow," he said regarding the mess of dismantled blasters. "You're still working on them? The sun's gone down!"

Finn just smiled and wiped his hands clean with a towel. "I could use a break. Did you see where she went?"

"I saw her run off with Luke Skywalker."

Finn sat back down again, looking a little detoured. "Oh, well, we better let her finish with him first. She was on some top secret mission; no doubt they'll want to debrief her before they let her come visit our ugly mugs."

"Hey, who you callin' ugly?" Poe replied as she popped Finn playfully with a work towel.

Leia felt a disturbance in the force. She opened her door to see Rey, Luke, Chewie and Maz waiting on the other side, Luke's hand poised just about to knock. "Come in," she said.

Once everyone had taken a seat, except Rey, who seemed to prefer to stand after having been in her X-Wing for almost eighteen hours, she asked: "What has he done?"

That was when she noticed Rey had started to cry. "Rey?" she asked, getting up again to go to the distraught young woman, her maternal instincts taking over.

"Please…I need your help. I need all of your help. They're going to kill him!"

He could tell he was being held in an interrogation room. The type of room he was all too familiar with, but this time he was on the receiving end. He couldn't help but see the irony.

Ben, I'm coming back for you!

"Where are you?" he tried asking over the bond, but again his head swam. He knew he couldn't reach her, but he couldn't help trying. He couldn't deny that tiny greedy instinct that actually hoped against hope that she could come for him, but it was wrong and he knew it. He didn't want her here – in danger, or dying. He wanted her alive. Safe. All he wanted in the world was to know that somewhere she lived. His uncertainty of her fate still the greatest torture, even though they had already begun to punish his body.

The sadistic doctor began his work with a small knife; first making a small incision, then twisting the knife around and around just beneath the skin. He had tried not to scream, but the pain was unbearable. The only comfort in knowing that at least she should not feel his pain. If his senses were so numbed that he could not reach for her through the bond, then perhaps she would be spared from his torment as well. It was all he could hope for.

He still ached for her. Wishing against all hope and logic that he could only see her face one last time. Hear her voice one last time. Feel her in his arms one last time. He knew he was still being greedy. He counted himself the luckiest man alive that he had been given as much of her as he had. It was far more than he had deserved.

When the doctor began pressing red hot steel into his skin, he forced himself to close his eyes and remember the taste of her lips. When he was being wracked with electrical jolts so fierce he could smell his own flesh burning, he forced himself to remember the beat of her heart, the fragrance of her skin. When he was hooked up to devices that sent jolts of pure agony up his spine so relentlessly that much more would have broken his own back, he remembered her words.

I don't hate you anymore, Ben.

There was an uncomfortable silence after Rey had explained what she had learned from Kylo Ren's memories. She had left out the more intimate details of her encounter on Dantooin. But she had explained how he had fought, how he had saved her life, and been captured by the other Knights of Ren, and what his inevitable fate would be. The general sat sobbing in uncontrollable grief. Luke tried to wrap a comforting arm around her, but even his head hung in shame. They had always blamed Snoke for having seduced Ben to the dark side, but they had never known just how he had done it, what he had said to turn him against his own family.

As a mother Leia was beyond consolation. She knew he had been troubled by something when he was a boy, but she had never imagined the extent of Snoke's torment, of the manipulation, of the pain he had been in throughout almost all of his youth. It explained so much, everything. She blamed herself as well. She felt that she had failed him as a mother, done everything wrong. She didn't realized that in all those years, every time she had ever been too busy, she had pushed him away, pushed him into darkness. When he had needed her and Han the most, she had sent him to Luke. At the time she was convinced that she had done the right thing. She thought she had been trying to help. Her son had been taken from her by a predator, and she had done nothing to protect him.

Luke, on the other hand, had always known exactly how he had failed Ben. He knew the moment he had turned the boy away, was when Snoke had claimed his nephew. He had lived every day since then, wishing he had done more for Ben, tried harder, anything, when he still had the chance.

Chewie only gave a sorrowful moan and stared down at his feet.

Maz sighed, and thankfully spoke first. "So, how are we going to get him back?"

"He will be on the Finalizer. I've felt him. He is still alive, but I don't know for how long. Every moment we wait to act – they're torturing him."

The general let out another loud sob.

"Look, I know what he's done, we all know, but I've felt it, the light in him, it's stronger now. He has seen how he's been deceived. He is like me, both light and dark. I can help him to understand the Grey way. I can show him the path to balance…to peace. But, I don't think I can do this alone. I'll understand if you don't want to help me," she said casting her eye over Chewie and Maz. "But I promised him I would come back for him, and even if I have to do it on my own, I will. He saved my life."

"You'll need to get into that ship. I may have a way. Tomorrow morning we will stop by my castle and pick someone up. You can use him to get in," offered Maz.

"There's no way to start sooner?" asked Rey. Every moment lost was another moment Ben was being tortured.

"He's a bounty hunter with First Order connections. He frequents the castle. He won't be by sooner than that, but it will give you time to prepare; to rest. You may need all your strength."

She hadn't slept in over thirty six hours. She was exhausted, and it pained her to remember that the last time she had slept; it had been in his arms. "I guess you're right," she relented.

"Leia and I will come up with something," offered Luke.

She knew she could count on the General and Master Luke, they, above all others, had never doubted that there wasn't still light in Ben, that he had been seduced by Snoke all along. Chewie remained silent, and she could sense the conflict within him. Han had been Chewie's best friend since long before Ben had even been born, she could not hold it against him if he wanted nothing further to do with his estranged nephew. "Thank you, all of you," she said as she stepped outside to find her quarters.

She hadn't made it very far before she heard a familiar voice.

"Rey! You're back!" called Finn, as he hobbled over to her on his cane. "I've been waiting for you to finish talking to the General and Luke Skywalker forever. I…" he suddenly stopped when he saw how tired and miserable she looked.

"Rey, what happened? Is something wrong?"

Her first impulse was to tell him everything was fine, that she was just tired, and for him not to worry, but she remembered the last time she had kept a secret from him.

I know I'm pretty useless about this force stuff, but you can tell me anything. Anything at all! You're my friend, Rey!

And suddenly she couldn't bear keeping her secrets from him any longer. "That top secret mission – I went to meet with Kylo Ren."

She watched as his eyes went wide with shock. "Are you okay?"

"No. No, I'm not, but it's not for what you think. I don't have time to explain it all again, at least not tonight, but something happened between us on Dantooin. I found out how he turned to the darkside, how Snoke had basically tormented and manipulated him for years. I was able to get through to him. I was able to feel the light in him. There is still hope, even for someone like him. I'm sure you don't believe that, and I can't explain it all right now, but it's true. And now because he's seen Snoke's lies for what they are, he's been captured. The other Knights of Ren took him. He saved my life, Finn! He didn't have to, but he fought to protect me. They're torturing him, and then they'll kill him. I was asking the General and Master Luke for help."

"Help, how?" he asked.

"I'm going back to save him."

"What? Why?" Finn knew that Kylo Ren was Ben Solo, he had been there with Rey the day they watched Han Solo die. The general had asked both him and Poe to keep their knowledge about Kylo Ren a secret from the rest of the resistance, though Finn had at least told Poe all that had happened. Out of loyalty to the general they had kept her secret, but they had always been troubled to know that one of the resistance's greatest enemies was the general's own son. On one hand he was surprised to learn that he had supposedly saved Rey's life, but he was still Kylo Ren, and he was still dangerous.

"Rey, I know he may have helped you, but a rescue mission would be dangerous. Look what he did to Han! You can't risk your life for him!" he argued.

She sighed. Maybe Finn would understand better if she could explain more of what happened on Dantooin, but it had taken her hours to explain it to the others. She knew that he had suffered personally at the hands of Kylo Ren, he still walked with a cane because of him. And even his own partner, Poe, had been mercilessly tortured for information. She didn't really expect Finn to agree with what she was about to do. She fully expected his reaction, and she didn't blame him for it. Kylo Ren had done unforgivable things to so many people, but she wanted Finn to know the truth, even if he didn't understand it. She didn't want to have to hide things from her best friend anymore, even if it meant losing him as a best friend.

"Snoke put him up to killing Han. I felt the struggle within him through the bond the moment it all happened. I know you think I'm mad, risking my neck for the likes of Kylo Ren. You're probably right. This probably is all a horrible idea, but I can't help it Finn. You're my best friend and I don't want to hide things from you anymore. You can hate him all you want to. You have every right, especially for what he's done to you, to Poe. But I've seen another side of him, a part of him that nobody else has seen, and perhaps nobody else would understand. I don't hate him anymore. I…I think I might care for him," she confessed.

Finn just stood there his mouth gaping in horror. "Rey, what? No! Come on! Why him? I mean, really? He's crazy! He's evil! You could do so much better than a guy like him. That guy looks like he weighs thirty pounds soaking wet under that little black dress. This 'bond' thing just has you confused!"

She couldn't help but think; "actually he's totally shredded," but she kept that thought to herself and waited patiently for Finn to get his opinions out of his system.

"Finn, you're my best friend. You told me once that I could tell you anything, but I understand how you feel. You have every right to be upset with me. But I can't help the way I feel. He's done terrible things, I know, but on the inside, we're actually a lot alike. We both struggle between darkness and light. The only difference is I've found the balance between. I believe he can too. I believe we both can be Grey. He's in pain, even at this moment, and I just can't stand by and do nothing. I'm sorry," she said as she gave her friend a gentle hug, through which he remained motionless, and turned to make towards her quarters.

"Rey…wait," he called.

She turned to look back at him as he hobbled after her on his cane. "I still think this is a stupid idea. I mean really. I think you're nutty!" he sighed. "But if you need help, you know, with this rescue mission, I'll still help you."

"Finn?" she cried, tears threatening her eyes.

"But I'm not doing it for him! I'm doing it for you."

"Thank you!" she said as she hugged him again, this time he returned the gesture and hugged her back.

She had just made it back to her private quarters and was beginning to pull off her boots when she heard a soft knock at her door. She could sense who it was and immediately went to open it.

"Chewie?"

He asked if he could speak with her in his chuffing Skyriiwook.

"Of course, Chewie," she said, offering him a chair, but he preferred to stand.

He told her that he was still angry with Ben. Han was his dearest friend, they had been like brothers, and he had been there since Ben was born. He had cared for the boy as if he had been his own blood nephew, and seeing him betray Han had been the worst moment of his life. But, he confessed, he had been listening when Rey had told them what Snoke had done to the boy for most of his young life growing up. How he had been in pain and torment, and that it hurt him just as much as Luke and Leia that he had not been able to do more when he had the chance. He confessed that when he watched Kylo Ren kill Han, he could have killed him, a part of him wanted to. He could have shot his head clean off with his bowcaster, but he chose instead to only hurt him, because Han would not have wanted him to die. Han's last mission had been to bring Ben home, to save his only son.

Chewie sadly sighed and continued on that even with what Ben had done, Han still would have wanted him back. His best friend would have wanted him to help save his son, and so that was what he was going to do.

"Oh, Chewie, thank you! I think Han would have wanted this too," she said after he had finished explaining himself. She was surprised when he told her that he had already notified Master Luke and the general of his intent to join the rescue mission, and best of all, he had a plan. They would all go over the plan first thing in the morning together. Then he gave her one of his big enthusiastic Wookiee hugs and excused himself for the night.

She wiped a tear from her eye as she thanked the force that she had so many wonderful friends, and that apparently even Ben had more people that cared about him than even he had realized.

Hang on Ben. I'm coming…we're coming!

She called to him through their bond, hoping he could hear.

She found him in her dream.

She was the grey beast again, running through the snowbound woods. She could hear him howling in the distance, but she could not find him, she could barely feel him. She stopped and let out a howl of her own; hoping again that he would call back to her, but the cold night air was silent.

Then she smelt it – blood. His blood. It was in the wind. She ran faster through the falling snow, it was coming down heavier now. She heard a yelp in the distance, a barking yowl of pain. She could sense that he was hurt, and she ran faster.

She tore into a small clearing and saw the devastation.

The black beast, now with a patch of white fur that covered his whole chest, was in chains. He was lying in the snow. His body pierced with many arrows, his paws torn and bloody. His white patch of fur streaked with the red of his own blood, which also pooled into the snow around him. He whimpered pitifully as some dark shadowed monster leaned over him, a hot poker in one hand.

She growled menacingly, but his tormentor didn't even seem to know that she was there. She watched in horror as he burned the black beast with the iron, and the stench of burning flesh and fur filled her nostrils as the black beast yowled in pain.

She would stop this. She would tear the throat out of his tormentor, and so she leapt upon the monster.

A note from your humble author: A rough chapter I know, but next chapter, I will make it up to you guys. I am very excited. I know I'm going to have a blast writing it!

Thank you to everyone who has been following, favoriting, reading, and most of all reviewing. I hope you guys will continue to leave reviews and let me know how I'm doing. I love all of your feedback. And to everyone who has left a comment so far – you guys rock!