Rey wakes up the next morning to a thudding sound. Where am I?
Oh. Decaf boy. Kylo Ren.
She feels as if she's lying on a pile of clouds, but she pries herself out of bed and shimmies into her torn jeans and baggy v-neck t-shirt. Rey doesn't want to stay sleeping while he's awake, presumably downstairs. She doesn't want to presume anything. Rey pulls her hair back in its signature style, the style she's always worn, the style she likes to imagine her father putting her hair in before he left.
Rey bounds down the stairs, phone secured in her pocket. "Good morning!" she calls.
"Morning," Kylo greets her.
"Oh shit," Rey says as she notices the time. "Good… noon?" It's exactly 12:00. "Are you late for work?"
Kylo shakes his head. "I set my own hours. More or less, anyways. Do you like eggs?"
"Uh—yeah." She likes food. If it's food, it's good.
"You know," Kylo begins as he cracks several eggs in a pan. "I could talk to some people, see if I can get you an interview at FO Tech. If you don't have a degree it might not be much, but I'm sure they can find—"
"Wasn't that company on the news last week for like selling to cartels? Or at least rumored to be?" Rey asks as she hops onto a stool by a breakfast bar that looks like it's never been used. Or else Kylo just cleans everything immaculately. There aren't even any scuffmarks on the black tiles covering the bar. No, wait. She peers closer at the tiles. They aren't black. They're midnight blue. She likes it. She likes colors.
"Rumors. That's all." Kylo hands her a plate of scrambled eggs and watches with his eyes wide as Rey scarfs it down.
"Maybe," Rey allows around a mouthful of eggs. "I guess beggars can't be choosers." Although she feels squicky at the thought of working for a company like FO Tech. "How'd you get involved with them? Childhood dream, working for a weapons company?"
Kylo scowls, and his eyes dart away from her. "Long story. It's not—I mean, I can show you. It's a good company to work for. Great benefits—"
"Does that outweigh the moral cost, though?" Rey inquires. Not smart. She should shut her mouth right now, before this man kicks her out.
He bites his lip. "I've got to get to work. You're… welcome to stay. If you want. I'll talk to some people and see what they might have for you."
"I can stay for today?"
"Yeah."
"You aren't worried about me stealing from you or anything?"
His lips rise in a smirk. "You didn't murder me in my sleep, so not really."
"Thank you," Rey says as he nods and turns to head up the stairs.
"Can I use your pool?" she calls as she notices the sparkling aqua water glinting through the kitchen windows.
His eyebrows quirk upward. He nods. "You're my guest."
He leaves, and Rey wanders to her room and grabs the black bikini she got from Walmart last year. She really doesn't want to have to work for FO Tech. But she can't stay with Kylo forever, and to move out, she needs a job.
Rey swims lazily back and forth, diving underwater when she thinks of what could happen if she stays here. Kylo's attractive. She'll give him that. He's built, clearly, and his face is angular and unusual and draws her in. But he works for FO Tech, and she hates them. Everyone hates them.
Rey's lungs ache, and she comes up for air and hears her phone ringing. "Oh, shit!" She hauls herself out of the pool and grabs it. Unrecognized number. Hope stabs her like the sun's rays—painful and exhilarating. "Hello?"
"Hello, is this Rey Jakku?" asks a sweet lady's voice.
"Uh—yes, this is. Who—"
"My name is Leia Organa, and I run—"
"Alderaan House," Rey breathes, dropping onto a lounge chair, sopping wet. She forgot a towel. Oops.
"Yes, exactly. I'm terribly sorry, but I was away from the office for the past week and just got your message. We're always looking for new people to hire. Would you like to come in for an interview tomorrow?"
"Yes!" Rey exclaims. "Yes, I would love that." She tempers her voice to sound less enthusiastic. It's not an offer, she reminds herself. Not yet. "I should tell you I don't have a degree."
"That's all right. We'll talk tomorrow. Does three work for a time?"
"Yes, that works." Rey punches her fist in the air. She won't have to work for FO Tech after all! Well, hopefully not.
"So how are things going with that FO Tech roommate?" Snap Wexley, one of Poe's friends who works at Alderaan House, asks as he comes in with a venti iced chai from Starbucks.
"Finn's awesome," Poe says. Really the only concerns he has is that he's pretty sure his roommate has some kind of anxiety disorder. And that's concern for Finn, not of him.
"He a roommate with benefits yet?" teases Jess Pava.
"That's not it at all," Poe retorts.
"Ooh, you're blushing," Jess crows, grabbing Poe's face and pinching it. He bats her away, laughing.
"Well, a lot of us think you should be careful," Snap warns. "I mean, it's a pretty big coincidence that you meet with Lor San Tekka, get run over by a car—"
Poe rolls a pen between his fingers. "Hit by a car, Snap. There is a difference. I was not squashed like a pancake."
Snap shrugs. "Semantics. Anyways, then he rescues you, he gives you your dog back and has just left FO Tech and needs a roommate—I mean, when the whole—well, a major part of—the purpose of you finding Luke Skywalker is to take down FO Tech, then—"
"If you're trying to suggest Finn is some sort of spy," Poe drawls. "You should meet the guy. He's not." He grabs his phone, to text Finn and ask if he wants to meet them for lunch.
He won't, though, Poe realizes. Finn's too scared. He scowls and places the phone back down.
"That's paranoid," Jess rebukes Snap as she perches on Poe's desk, swinging her legs.
"Considering all that we're uncovering about Snoke, I don't think it is," Snap answers.
Maybe not, but Poe doubts Finn would have anything to do with it.
"He doesn't want to work for Alderaan House," Snap points out.
Poe laughs. "Because he wants to find his own job. You know FO Tech's employees are basically treated like slaves. I think it's a good thing. For Finn. Branch out on his own."
"Agreed," Jess says, braiding her black hair. "Although if he wants something temporary with us, that could work. Something else for his resume."
When Leia Organa recruited Poe, he was disillusioned with his job, with the agency he worked for, with everything. Anything could be bought—lives, weapons, protection—and anything could be sold—lives, weapons, protection. The only thing that kept him from quitting was the fear of letting his parents down. Even though they're dead. Poe was twenty when he buried his father, and eight when his mother died in a mission with Luke Skywalker.
"We've heard of you," Leia told him then, with a smile. And they had—of his missions, of his exploits, and of his party-hard after work life. A hotshot in every sense of the term. They don't hold it against him, but Poe holds it against himself.
"We'll see. Let's get back to work," Poe says, straightening in his chair. He can't hit on his much younger, and much sweeter, roommate.
"I need to see Snoke."
Kylo pauses in the hallway at the sight of Phasma, one of the head engineers, arguing with Hux. "What's going on?"
"I want to see Snoke," Phasma repeats.
"Can you tell me what it's about?" Hux snaps, crossing his arms. His cheeks tinge pink, and Kylo frowns.
"That stupid kid. The one who quit on us."
"The one you should have managed better?" Hux retorts.
"Or the one you should have examined better to make sure that he wasn't going to fall apart before you gave him a scholarship?" Kylo demands, glaring at Hux.
"She's the one who recommended—"
"And you're the one who approved it and renewed it every year," Kylo snaps. "Our losses are on you here, Hux. I've said it before and I'll say it again: it'd be better to recruit people who actually want to be here—meaning, after college, not have teenagers sign some contract they barely understand."
"You son of a bitch," Hux snarls. "We've had absolutely no problems with my program—"
"He never showed any signs of questioning our work," Phasma puts in, as if she's the adult trying to placate two angry children. "Until that video leaked."
"Maybe we should focus on selling only to straight up—"
"You know as well as I do that our revenue comes from these types of deals, Ren," Hux snaps, crossing his arms. "Careful Snoke doesn't start to wonder about you."
He knows who my family is, Kylo realizes. He clenches his fists, shoulders aching. "I would be careful not to imply things you know nothing about."
"I'm talking to Snoke. See ya." Phasma soldiers past them. Hux is too preoccupied with glowering at Kylo to stop her.
"If you let that father of yours get anything on us at that conference," Hux says softly. "I will make sure Snoke finds out all about it." He spins on his heel and flounces away. Kylo hates him.
But Phasma has a point. If this engineer—what's his name again—Finn—spills anything to the press… they're finished. They'll all go down. And Kylo's parents will find out exactly who he is and what he's been doing all these years, and they'll rub it in his face.
"Be careful, Ben," his uncle once said to him. "Is this really the path you want to go down?"
Kylo closes his eyes. He has to find Lor San Tekka. He has to find his uncle, or else everything will slip through his fingers.
The door slams, and Phasma stalks by with a scowl. She shakes her head at him.
"So tell me," Kylo begins. "How much did you pay the mechanic to fix your car and cover up your hit-and-run?"
Phasma stiffens. "It was an accident. And the man's all right. If he'd died we would have heard about it on the news."
"Did Hux comfort you?" Kylo mocks as her face turns red.
"There is nothing between Hux and me, sir," she informs him as she brushes past.
Sure, if that's what you call a one-night stand.
But Hux's threats coupled with Snoke's wriggle into Kylo's brain and won't stop repeating themselves over and over and over. If his father does show up—what will he do? Will he run into his father's arms? Spit at the old man who never bothered to try and find out where Ben Solo ran away to? Demand to know why now? Or teach him a lesson, as Snoke no doubt expects him to do, wants him to do?
Kylo marches into his office and sweeps a pile of binders off the desk, watching them flutter like birds and crash onto the floor. He buries his face against the desk.
If he does that, he'll become exactly what Rey thinks of FO Tech people.
If he doesn't, everyone will see him as an utter failure. Snoke could fire him. Or worse.
There's no way out even if you want one.
The conference is tomorrow. He needs to pull himself together. You're a useless piece of shit, whether you're Kylo Ren, or who you were before.
What will his mother think, if she knows who he works for? If his father knows, has he told her? Are they even speaking?
Their divorce is his fault, and Kylo hates himself for it. Although his mother's probably better off. Or so he tells himself every night he's sitting by the pool he never swims in, rum swimming through his brain and as he contemplates about diving in, just once, and never coming up.
"Sir?" Mitaka, that stupid plant of Snoke's that works as Kylo's secretary, knocks on the door.
"Come in." Kylo straightens, but he makes no apology for the mess on the floor.
Mitaka enters, sweat shining on his forehead. "You asked me to find a list of potential jobs for a girl with no degree?"
"Yes." Kylo relaxes. "What did you find?"
"Nothing."
Kylo crosses the room in one stride. He can't fail Rey. She's sweet and innocent, and she's spunky in a way he's never been. "Find something."
"Yes, sir," Mitaka squeaks. "I'll—uh, I'll—keep looking."
"Good." Kylo steps back, and Mitaka scurries away.
He catches a glimpse of his reflection in the windows. He looks like a ghost clad in black, someone pretending to be alive, pretending to breathe, pretending to be a bully and a nice guy when he's not really either.
Your subordinates need to fear you, Snoke would tell him. If you ever really want to run this company.
He never figured it would leave him so goddamn lonely he plays movies he doesn't even watch just to hear someone talking, to let strangers' voices lull him to sleep.
Finn hears Poe come in. Four in the afternoon this time, instead of one in the morning like yesterday. His roommate definitely works the strangest hours.
"Hey," Poe says as he hobbles in and nods at Finn's open laptop. "How's job searching going?"
"I've written twenty-two cover letters today," Finn reports.
"God, can you even move your fingers after that?" Poe wrinkles his nose as he drops onto the couch. "Heard from anyone?"
"Not yet."
"You will." Poe grins, and Finn's stomach turns.
What if he doesn't? He hates sending out resumes with FO Tech Industries on it like a big red NO stamp to employers. He can't stand sitting at his new apartment and have panic attacks all day.
Speaking of which… Finn rises and heads to his room. Focus on breathing. Breath in. Breath out. Inhale. Exhale. Which sounds a lot simpler than it actually is when his thoughts are racing and colliding with each other, exploding and searing his mind. Fuck!
Beebee-Ate peers into the room and darts away.
What if I never find anything? What if I let Poe down like I've let everyone down? What if Phasma's right, and the reason I quit has to do with me and not with doing the right thing, and I'm just a loser who can't do anything right and a coward who just wants to run and—
"You okay?" Poe asks, peering around the doorway, Beebee-Ate peeking our behind his knees.
Dammit. "I'm fine," Finn ekes out. No. He's not fine. He's losing his mind.
Poe disappears and Finn can't tell whether he's relieved or wants to scream. And then Poe reappears with a glass of water that he valiantly manages not to drop, even while hobbling on crutches. "Drink it," Poe orders, sitting down next to Finn and wincing.
Finn obeys. He always obeys. Although, this time someone's trying to help him, not wring more out of him.
Finn's breathing slows down. His heart rate drops. I'm not going to die.
"You get these attacks often?" Poe asks.
Finn shrugs and sips the water. "Sometimes." All the time. "At first I thought that if I quit FO Tech, that would fix everything, but it's really—it's like my brain has all this free time now, and it's going haywire." Finn finishes the water. "Sorry."
"Don't be sorry," Poe insists, gazing at him with his brow creased. "It happens."
"It's just weird," Finn mutters. "At FO Tech… from the time I graduated high school, it was like someone was managing my life, and I hated it. And now that no one is, I hate that too. I want to do something with my life that isn't hurting anybody, but I feel like I already blew that chance."
"You didn't," Poe states. "You definitely didn't." He cocks his head and studies Finn. "If being busy would help you… I can get you an interview with Leia Organa. At Alderaan House. You can work there for a time, while you're applying for other jobs. I mean, you'd be working for a fucking nonprofit. That's as far from hurting people as you get."
Finn laughs. "Maybe."
But really, what has he got to lose?
"You're not a bad person, Finn," Poe says quietly. "You wouldn't have left that place if you were."
Maybe not. Or maybe the others are good people, too, just trapped. "How would you even know?"
"Well, you're my roommate, and Beebee-Ate likes you. And I think you've already seen what he does to people he doesn't like." Poe rakes his hand through his thick hair. "And I can kinda relate. I used to work for a—an organization that wasn't bad in terms of its mission, but wasn't great either. That's why I left."
"Where'd you work?" Finn queries.
Poe waves his hand. "Doesn't matter." He wraps an arm around Finn, and Finn's shoulders tingle. "Still wearing my jacket, I see."
Finn snorts.
"It suits you," Poe tells him.
"Are you sure you want to do this, Han?" Chewie asks as he pops open a beer.
"I have to. Or else Leia will kill me." And it's more than that. Han will hate himself.
He's spent too many years doing nothing. Well, not nothing. He threw himself into projects, won prizes for his reporting, and it's all meaningless because every night he comes home to a lousy apartment he shares with his best friend instead of his wife. Every day he fielded texts and calls from other reporters, sources, and never from his son.
We lost our son! Han said to Leia once, tearing the words from his subconscious and throwing them out into the air. He's gone. Forever.
What if he's not?
It started innocuously enough. Another reporter mentioned being thrown out and beat up by FO Tech's security team. When he tried to go public, threats appeared from everywhere. The reporter submerged himself back into silence, but not before giving Han a call.
His work with FO Tech brought him back to Leia. He never imagined it would bring him back to his son, but the more he dug into the company, the more he tried to trace contacts. Brendol Hux, Jr.—his backstory was easy to find. Snoke's, Han knows personally. But Kylo Ren—who was he?
Chewie figured it out first. Chewie broke the news, and Han still can't wrap his head around him. How the hell did Ben get there?
"I still don't understand," Han says aloud, to Chewie. How his son, always overly sensitive to everyone and everything, the boy who cried when his father accidentally hit a bird while driving, could work for such a cold-blooded company.
"It's not your fault," Chewie says lamely.
Han snorts. "Maybe it is and maybe it isn't."
"Everything's converging," Chewie observes. "This FO Tech investigation, your son, finding Luke. Maybe."
The first few days Ben was missing, thirteen years ago, Han assumed he'd show up. He'd come home. Leia worried more than Han did.
But a phone call never came, the doorbell never rang, and Han couldn't fathom what might have happened. Nightmares came, dreams Han's only told Chewie about. Fears that Ben was murdered randomly, and they'd never find him.
Three years of searching, and Han took down all the photos and Leia pitched a fit and threw him out.
Han left without a single photo. All he has is his memories of his son, and some days, he's not sure he can picture him clearly. What does Ben look like, as a man?
"If it doesn't go well…" Chewie ventures.
"I'll have tried." Han chugs the pungent liquid. "I owe it to Leia to try."
And he owes it to himself.
And to his son.