"What happened?" Poe yells over his shoulder as he flies them low against the surface of the moon. Finn's shouting something incoherent from the gunner's position, and all Kylo can do is gasp out strangled cries as he kneels on the floor, shaking Rey.
"Is she hit?" Poe finally bellows.
"Yes!"
"How bad?"
Kylo's hands hover over Rey's face, her skin now ashen. He feels a puff of warmth. "She's breathing!" He gets to his knees, slinging his arms under Rey like he did that time back on Takodana, and carries her to a bunk. He tugs at her gray sweater, lifting it just enough to expose the wound to her lower right side. He can't tell if it hit any internal organs, or if she was lucky.
The ship bucks, and Kylo falls to the floor. He struggles back up, scrambling to see if the bandages, the bacta his father always kept are still on board. His hands shake. His head pounds, and his mind is so, so silent without her. "Rey, I'm sorry," he pleads as he drops to the floor beside her, white bandages in hand. "I'm sorry. Please be okay. Please."
If he'd just thought to take off the tracker… Kylo wants to hit himself, but he can't, not yet, Rey needs someone who's fucking sane…
"We're home free!" Poe shouts, and Kylo realizes he can't hear the cannons anymore.
Here! Kylo's fist closes around a wad of bandages and a small, almost completely used container of bacta. Hatred towards Han Solo boils inside of him.
Poe bursts out from the cockpit, and Finn launches himself up from the gunner position. Tears run down Kylo's face as he gulps and wraps bandages around Rey's torso.
"Let me do it!" Finn shoves him out of the way. Kylo crawls back, hitting himself and hating himself.
"Knock it off! This isn't about you!" Poe orders, lunging to grab Kylo's arms. He glares down at Kylo.
"She saved my life," Kylo chokes out. If Rey hadn't saved him with her lightsaber.. she could have gotten up the ramp in time. Maybe.
Poe gapes at him, and this time it's Kylo on his hands and knees, at Poe's mercy, and Poe could spit at him, tell him what Kylo already knows—that he's not worth her life—or, he could nod with tears in his eyes and turn away, as he does.
Poe's nod reminds Kylo of the memory that haunts him most: his father, caressing him even after he knew his son was his own murderer, couldn't have believed his son still loved him, but still loved his son.
Finn smears the little bacta they have on Rey's torso as Kylo watches, his mind soldering like a field alight with fire that shouldn't be there, a fire that's gotten out of control, and there's no rain to temper it.
Phasma marches through the Finalizer's hallways, every stormtrooper scattering at the sight of her—for all intents and purposes, the highest official on board this Star Destroyer. She strides through into the prisoner area, punches in the code, and enters a cell she never thought she'd enter.
Hux sits against the wall, hair matted with grease and a deep scowl set in his thin face. "What do you want?"
"Ren betrayed us. He took the traitor, and they fled together."
Hux leaps to his feet, his face flushing the same color as his vivid hair. "I knew it!"
Phasma aims her blaster. Hux freezes.
"All I'm saying," Hux insists. "Is that Ren came from the Light. No matter how hard Snoke tried to change him, he failed. Ren is too weak to ever truly change. The Supreme Leader should have known from the moment Ren still showed sparks of compassion after slaughtering the padawans."
"You, on the other hand, never looked back after killing another cadet," Phasma infers.
Hux narrows his eyes at the judgment in her tone. "It was required that we kill the weak among us. It makes us strong."
Phasma isn't sure Hux is her idea of strong, but she doesn't voice her concerns. She's let the weak die out, although she'd never simply killed one of them. There's a difference. She thinks.
"What has the Supreme Leader said?"
"He wishes to speak with you. Alone."
Hux straightens, lips twitching in as close to a smile as he can possibly get.
"He trusted Ren," Phasma says as she beckons, showing him he's free to go.
"So, apparently, did you," Hux sneers as he strides for the door.
"I trust in no one and nothing except the First Order, but yes, he did seem devoted to us," Phasma calls after him.
"Ren was always after his own interests," Hux says, facing her.
"So are you, General," Phasma replies.
"My interests are in furthering the First Order alone," Hux informs her, and as tight and strained as his voice is, she believes him. Mostly.
"The First Order, with you as head," she adds.
Hux scoffs, but Phasma knows what she's said is true, and she hopes her seed takes root.
It might be the First Order's only hope.
Kylo keeps looking over at Poe like he wants to say something, but every time Poe catches his eye, he goes back to studying his boots like they're the most fascinating black boots in the world. Which, since Poe wears a pair of black boots himself, he knows for a fact they are not.
"Come on, Rey," Finn encourages her, his hand resting on hers. Poe tries to pretend it doesn't sear his own heart.
"She's strong. She'll pull through."
Finn meets his gaze. "You don't know that."
Poe wishes he could assure his friend, the man he loves, but he can't. Even if it meant losing Finn forever, he wants Finn to be happy.
BB-8 whimpers.
"There's not enough bacta," Finn laments.
"I know. But that little bit—it's helped. A bit."
"How long until we get back to D'Qar?" Finn questions. "Dr. Kalonia fixed me up after I got slashed with a lightsaber."
Kylo glances at Finn with the same desperation he's been glancing at Poe with, and lowers his head the moment Poe catches him. What Poe would give to punch him in that nose for getting Rey into this.
Without him, Finn would be dead.
"Too long," Poe answers.
"So there's no hope?" Finn demands.
Poe crosses his arms. "There's a different place. We're close to Yavin 4. There might be someone in the colony who can help us."
"Where's that?"
"Yavin 4's a moon. It's where I grew up." Poe works his jaw, watching as Finn turns back to Rey, smoothes her rumpled hair. The buns she usually winds her dark strands in have almost completely fallen apart.
The Resistance will not be intimidated—
Where is it?
A scream rips apart Poe's memories, but the room is silent.
Kylo glances at Finn again, then Poe.
Oh, for pity's sake. "Why don't you just say you're sorry?" Poe erupts.
Finn spins to look at him. Kylo turns paler than Poe's ever seen him.
"I can tell that's what you want to say, okay? Just say it!"
"I am sorry!" Kylo bursts out. "I'm just—afraid to say it, because I'm a coward!"
"I'm impressed," Poe sneers, taking the memories and throwing them back at Kylo. I'm impressed. No one has been able to get out of you what you did with the map.
"Not that. I mean, I am sorry for that, but—" Kylo wraps his arms around himself and stares at Poe beseechingly. "For that time on Jakku. When we captured you. When I—"
"Tortured me?" Poe arches an eyebrow.
"I'm sorry," Kylo insists. "You don't have to believe me. I wouldn't. But I am truly sorry. And, Finn—"
"You're sorry for slow-burning my shoulder with your lightsaber? And trying to sever my spine? For throwing Rey into a tree? Or for stabbing your father and throwing him into a pit?" Finn's furious, and Poe's own anger accelerates. He curls his fists.
"All of it."
"I'll think about this," Finn informs Kylo, before turning back to Rey.
"Me too," says Poe, heading back to the cockpit. Kylo's father's cockpit. He settles in to the chair. He really could use a copilot.
Shit. "Okay," Poe calls, striding back out. "I need a copilot. So we're gonna do shifts. Finn, you stay with Rey, okay? You—Kylo, Ren, Ben, whoever you are—you're going to help me. Right now."
He climbs to his feet, following Poe immediately.
"I'm guessing you're familiar with this ship."
He nods and slides into the copilot's chair. "Ben."
"What?"
"You can call me Ben. Or Kylo. Or Ren. Whatever you want."
"Okay, Ben, cool." Poe's hands feel sweaty. The words come out choked. "You can call me Poe. I guess."
"How did it go?" Captain Phasma assails Hux as he exits the conference room.
"Snoke is livid. He did, however, apologize for mistrusting me." Hux keeps his chin tall. Apologize might be stretching the truth, but he won't give Phasma the satisfaction of displaying any weakness.
"I'm sure he did, sir." Her tone is scathing. "Did he have any suggestions?"
"We need to get Ren back. Make him pay."
"Is that Snoke's suggestion or yours?"
"I believe his precise words were 'if he will not work with us, we must exterminate him.'" Hux smirks.
"So the Supreme Leader cannot abide a Force user allied with the other side."
The full implication of Phasma's words hit Hux in the gut. "Are you saying that you think the Supreme Leader is afraid?"
"Fear is a part of the Dark Side," Phasma returns.
Hux snorts. "Clever." He peers at that helmet, wishing he could see her eyes. "Careful, Phasma." Unlike Ren, she cannot hurt him. "Your words are teetering on treason."
"Don't be ridiculous."
Hux pauses in the hallway, making sure no stormtroopers are around. "He suggested halting the construction of the new Starkiller base," he admits. "Until Ren is gone."
"You disagree."
Snoke is afraid. "I see no reason the two goals cannot coexist."
"Indeed."
"For all his wisdom, the Supreme Leader relies too much on the Force," Hux says, his voice barely above a whisper.
Phasma doesn't contradict him.
Things would be different if he was in charge. If Hux were the Supreme Leader, he wouldn't rely on mumbo-jumbo. Ren's powers were helpful, but not necessary towards running the galactic order.
"Wouldn't it be better," Hux wonders aloud. "To wipe out Force users all together?"
"Or else, conversely, work with the Jedi, sway them to at least coexist with the First Order?" Phasma suggests. Hux wrinkles his nose.
"If you repeat this conversation to anyone," Hux says. "I will see to it that you die the most hideous death possible."
"Consider the same threat repeated to you, sir," Phasma replies.
Hux watches her go, the wheels in his brain turning and twisting as ideas begin to form.
When Ben takes his shift by Rey, leaving a bag-eyed Poe and a still desperate Finn in the cockpit, he studies Rey.
No change, Finn reported.
Ben hesitates, then reaches out, covering her hand with his own. He rubs his thumb over the chapped knuckles. He never realized how quiet his mind was, without her in it.
"Come back, Rey," he whispers. "I miss you."
Come home. We miss you.
Don't be afraid. I feel it too.
He saw her, too, in a vision long ago. The night before they landed on Jakku, after praying to his grandfather's helmet, he saw a girl and chalked it up to a dream, until Commander Mitaka came to tell him the rogue stormtrooper and the droid had escaped with the help of a girl.
You know I can take whatever I want.
Now, Ben doesn't want to take. He wants to give. If there were a way through the Force, through any means, to pour his life into her veins, trade his breath for hers, he would.
If the bacta were working, they should know soon. Or already.
"You deserve to live," he tells her. "You're the galaxy's hope."
This could be the galaxy's hope, Ben, gushed Uncle Luke when Ben reported about his gray Jedi studies.
The Skywalker lineage contains the galaxy's hope, Lor San Tekka imposed upon him.
"You are," he says to her. Rey is faithful and Ben, he can't pick a side. Rey is loved and loves, and for all Ben's talk about how he eschews sentiment, he craves it.
She's so still, her eyes closed as if she's asleep, but unconsciousness is not sleep. Ben reaches out to brush a tendril of dark hair from her forehead. "Wake up. Please wake up."
His mind feels like there's a gaping wound festering inside of it.
"I'm so sorry, Rey. For capturing you. For torturing you. It was so wrong, and I knew it, and I did it anyways." He knows she can't hear him, out loud or in her head, but he needs to say it anyways. "For killing my father. You were right when you called me a monster. You're—I'm—you're so—you're everything my father deserved in a child. Your parents really lost out." He swallows. "I'm sorry you suffered so much. I'm sorry for my role in that. I'm going to change, Rey. Even if you don't come back, I won't be Kylo Ren anymore. I promise." He doesn't know that he can join the Resistance, doesn't know that he entirely disagrees with everything the First Order stands for, but he's going to try to be someone, anyone else. Anyone who's not Kylo Ren.
Ben lowers his head to his knees, hand still covering Rey's.
His mind sizzles.
Her fingers squeeze his.
Ben's head snaps up, and he sees her staring at him, blinking and with a slight smile. "Hey, Ben," she croaks.
His hand flies towards her face. "Are you in pain?"
She grimaces. "My side hurts." Her hand travels up the ridged cloth covering his arm, clenching around his shoulder and pulling him closer. "You're on your father's ship. You didn't run."
Ben leans closer, tears filling his eyes as he looks into hers, sees depths of feeling he hasn't even imagined.
He brushes his lips against hers before pulling back. "I'm sorry," he stammers, backing away and calling for her friends, her real friends. "Finn? Poe?"