Tales From the Finalizer

By: Lena (Airelle Vilka)

TALE TWO: Bacta

In which Hux and Ren deal with the destruction of Starkiller Base.

"General! Look!"

She turned to where the trooper was pointing. A Corellian YT-model freighter, doubtlessly the Millennium Falcon, was landing not far from their location, its engine lights shining against the burning sky. They were also searching, Hux knew; for the traitor and the girl.

"Should we engage, General?"

The ground beneath her trembled. Going after the Falcon was tempting, but she had her orders, and precious little time to fulfill them. Snoke's final command rang in her ears, and she didn't have to be told what would happen if she failed to retrieve his star student.

"No. Fan out," she said, pulling her winter cloak closer to her face. "Your orders are to locate Kylo Ren and evacuate. Do not pursue any other task on pain of death."

The trooper captain nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

As they dispersed, Hux looked around, straining to see in the growing darkness. The forest was eerily silent, as if accepting its imminent demise. The trees pressed in heavily, black sentinels wreathed in white, branches reaching out like fingers. And no sign of life, anywhere.

She turned in a slow circle, her cloak dragging a track in the snow. The chances of finding Ren before the planet crumbled were slim. His tracker had disappeared from their radars while they were in flight, giving them a two-mile radius to search on foot, as the forest was too thick for speeder bikes. At best, they had an hour.

Hux started walking in a direction where the others had not gone. The remaining troopers made to follow her, but she waved them off.

"Stay with the ship and prepare for immediate evacuation," she commanded. Her gloved hand drifted to the blaster at her hip. "I can defend myself."

Not waiting for an answer, she took off into the trees. As the canopy enveloped her, she lit a search lamp, illuminating her path through fallen trunks and snowdrifts. Her blue eyes darted back and forth, looking for any signs of movement, her light slicing through the pines, bathing them in a ghostly glow. But there was nothing, not even a hint of where Ren may have gone.

Hux cursed under her breath as the ground shuddered again. Her life was not going to end here, not in such an idiotic way. If that fool wasn't dead already, she would be sorely tempted to finish the job when she found him, and not even his stupid Force would save him.

She paused, blinking away the falling snow. The Force. She'd never listened to much of Ren's rantings about the Dark Side, though she knew firsthand how powerful it made him. Her paradise, her dominion lay in blueprints, and facts, and the hard, unyielding hull of the Finalizer. These were things that could be understood, measured. Ren's domain was full of uncertainty and shadow, and Hux had never felt desire to venture there.

But perhaps it could help her now.

She forced herself to stop, her boots sinking into the snow, her breath a thick fog before her. Her clothes felt hot, her heart pounding as she felt the deep vibrations of the dying planet under her feet. Sweat beaded on her forehead and evaporated in the cold.

Breathing hard, Hux closed her eyes and tried to swallow her fear, to remove every thought from her mind except the one she wanted. Her fists were clenched, leather gloves creaking with effort. The air around her stilled, the silence now a roar in her ears.

Through the darkness, her mind threw out a wordless scream.

REN!

A beat, and then... nothing, except the hammering of her heart.

Her jaw squeezed shut, so hard that it hurt. It wasn't working. Her thoughts were too jumbled. She was scared, too scared of the death she knew was around the corner. She would never find him, and if she didn't perish here, Snoke would kill her.

Hux collapsed to her knees, doubling over, the cold seeping through her bones, urging her to lie down and just die quietly. Her blaster felt heavy at her side. She could get it over with now, pull the trigger and make it easy on herself.

"No," she whispered through her clamped teeth. "Not today."

Straightening up but still kneeling, she opened her eyes and looked up into the canopy. Far above, X-wings and TIE fighters were engaged in battle, dodging and weaving like mayflies in summer. The snow continued to fall softly on her face, tickling her eyelashes.

She let out a slow, deep breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. The lamp beside her flickered and died, but Hux paid it no mind. The TIEs roared above her, beautiful in their terrible war, the chaotic agents of order. Her Order. And it would go on, even without her. For some reason, the thought brought her comfort.

She smiled, and thought, Is this how we die, Kylo Ren? I expected better.

In the dark, the sky began to glow. Something told Hux it wasn't just an explosion, and before she knew it, she was on her feet and running, stumbling in the snow, doggedly scaling the tallest hill in the vicinity. It didn't put her much above ground, but it was enough.

Panting and coughing in the cold, she looked out over the forest and immediately saw it. A beacon hovered not far from her, fifteen feet above the tallest of the trees. Even from this distance, Hux knew what it was.

Ren's lightsaber. Its crimson blade was ignited, trembling like a torch in the orange, angry sky.

Exhilaration flooded her body as she spoke into her comlink. "I'm on the move. All units, return to the ship and prepare for immediate aerial extraction at my location."

The staticky reply came when she was already halfway down the hill. "Copy that, General. On our way."

She kept the saber in sight as she ran, glimpsing it through the trees occasionally. When she was close, Hux paused behind a fallen log and drew her blaster. If Ren was injured, the girl could still be nearby, and she didn't need to run headfirst into enemy fire.

But nothing greeted her as she peered out cautiously into the gloom. She straightened, watching as just ahead of her, the saber suddenly vanished. Ren must have become too weak to keep it afloat, which meant serious danger.

Hux ran freely now. She heard him before she saw him, muffled groans and curses spilling from a pile of dark clothes at the edge of a chasm where the ground had split. His arms and legs jerked like a beetle trying to right itself, and failing. His face sported a gruesome gash, and a wide dark spot in the snow was spreading where he'd fallen. Upon seeing her, he moaned, eyes flashing under black curls sodden in snow. One gloved hand was clawing at the ground to reach the lightsaber, which was now in several pieces on the ground.

"You... give me..."

Hux bent over the weapon, realizing it had been shattered during the fight. Ren must have used the Force to reconstruct it so he could make the signal, draining the rest of his strength in the process. Now, it looked to be beyond repair, the cracked crystal sizzling a hole in the snow. She pocketed the pieces carefully, and stared at him. "It's broken. I'm keeping it until you come to your senses."

Ren apparently had more sense than she'd thought, because his arm lashed out, and Hux was hurled backwards by an invisible wall, hitting a tree and falling into a snowbank. The pressure receded almost immediately, however, and she sat up, glaring at him through a face-full of snow.

"You damn imbecile, I'm trying to help you!"

"Don't need... help from... you," he growled, crawling on his elbows in an attempt to stand. He got about two feet before collapsing, and Hux winced as she heard him screaming into the ground, a howl of rage and frustration mingling with pain. However much he'd put into the fight, he had lost, really and truly. She needed to tread carefully with him while he was hurt and clearly dangerous. Ignoring the soreness from her own impact, Hux stood up and approached him, trading her usual authoritative tone for a milder one.

"Ren," she said gently, stopping just out of arm's reach. "You're bleeding. Let me help you."

"I didn't lose, I didn't," he said suddenly but very clearly, his voice still muffled by the ground. "She would not have beaten me if the Wookiee hadn't...shot..." He coughed, spraying flecks of blood on the white snow.

"It doesn't matter now," she tried again. Above them, her ship had finally approached, its search lights flooding the area. "We need to get off this planet."

He grimaced. "Snoke needs to know... was not...not fair fight."

Hux's patience, already strained, reached its end. "I don't give a damn if it was fair," she snapped, stomping to his side and kneeling beside him, pulling out a syringe. Without hesitation, she shoved the needle into his thigh, the automatic depressor going off before he could retaliate.

"I'm not dying on this rock because you feel like explaining yourself," she said as the anger in his eyes faded to a glassy stare. "And by the way, Snoke knows. He told me to get you."

The tranquilizer took hold instantly, and Ren's body slackened in her arms. Several troopers descended from the hovering shuttle with a harness, and Hux stood aside as they strapped him into it. One soldier motioned to her.

"Hurry, General! The ground is very unstable!"

"No kidding," she muttered, climbing up a drop-ladder ahead of the troopers, the harness following close behind. She was winded by the time she reached the top; Ren's Force shove had battered her quite thoroughly. Once Ren was secured, Hux discarded her cloak and turned to the captain.

"Are there any medics on board?"

He paused before speaking, as if in thought. "None in official capacity, but we all have some training."

"Get him on a bed and bring the medical bag," she ordered the troopers, who hauled Ren to the back of the ship. She turned back to the captain, rolling up her sleeves. "He is bleeding to death. Communicate with the trauma bay on the Finalizer, I want a team standing by for immediate bacta immersion and possible surgical intervention. Move!"

The captain, clearly shocked by the urgency in her tone, came to his senses. "Yes, General."

"And someone get me a godsdamned warming blanket!" she yelled, following the troopers to the makeshift sick bay.

In the cold artificial lights, Ren's blood looked redder.

Hux tore through the meager contents of the medical bag, tossing unwanted supplies to the floor. Normally, each unit had a medic, but she'd gathered as many people as she could in her hasty evacuation, ignoring the regular protocol. Thus, she was reasonably certain she was the most competent to administer first aid, having taken official lessons at the Academy. Still, her knowledge was rudimentary at best, and she knew Ren would die if they didn't reach the Finalizer in time.

The ship shook violently as it tore through the dying planet's atmosphere, the pilot going as fast as possible while still avoiding debris from the massive explosions as Starkiller tore itself apart. The room Hux was in had no viewports, and only adrenaline kept her from vomiting in the turbulence.

Ren was pale and breathing hard, still semi-paralyzed from the tranquilizer she'd administered. Unceremoniously, Hux tore off as much of his clothes as she could manage, for they were wet from snow and leeching heat from his body. The rest she removed with a knife, taking note of the huge, black wound in his side where he'd been struck. Dousing a cloth in antiseptic, she shoved it into the oozing gap, as deep as she managed. Ren's lips twitched, as if he'd wanted to scream and couldn't.

"It's necessary," she said, tearing a wide piece of tape and securing the bandage tightly in place. "Pressure dressing. Just stay awake. I'm going to give you some fluids."

Ren remained still, though his eyes were fixed on her face, the brown pooling into black with some emotion she couldn't recognize. Hux covered him with the warming blanket, her palms sweating as she reached into the bag and removed an IV needle, the biggest she could find. She did not know how to properly put it into a blood vessel without rupturing it (not that the ship's tremors would allow for it anyway); but in her classes at the Academy, the instructor had demonstrated another technique.

She held the needle aloft, and pressed her fingers to Ren's neck. The pulse there was thready and fast. She remembered something about shock, how the heart rate sped up as the body tried to keep death away. Until it couldn't.

If he dies, Snoke will not spare you, said a voice in her head. Hux wasn't sure of that; she'd have liked to think that she had proven her usefulness to the Order separately from Ren. Still, she would not take any chances.

She looked down at him. Under the blanket, he had stopped shivering, but it was not a good sign.

"Sorry about this," she murmured, lifting the blanket off his body and burying the needle to the hilt in the bone of his lower leg.

Ren's back all but rose off the cot, his muscles straining against the receding tranquilizer. His eyes rolled in the back of his head, and Hux felt a pressure that threatened to crack her skull in two. She clutched her head, silently screaming at him to stop, that she was trying to help.

Their eyes locked, and the pain receded. Ren fell back onto the cot, and Hux recovered enough to shakily attach a fluid bag to the needle's port. Opening the stopper, she watched the fluid enter his leg, hopefully dissipating into his veins as the Academy instructor had described.

She sat at his bedside for the rest of the trip, getting regular progress reports from the pilot. Gradually, his pulse decreased to normal, and his skin turned from white to pink. By the time they reached the Finalizer, he was almost awake. He said nothing, though, and Hux didn't mind. He was alive. That's all that mattered.

As the trauma team wheeled him off the ship and into the bacta tank, Hux lingered by the ramp, the front of her uniform still covered in blood. She crossed her arms to keep them from shaking. Later on, she thought, she would sit down and determine why she spent so much effort on saving him.

Obviously, she decided as she watched them go, it's because Snoke wanted it.

Obviously.

Six days later, Hux's comlink beeped urgently.

She looked up from the data readouts scattered across her desk. She'd been staring at them for the last hour, almost unseeing in her concentration, her pen twirling over and over between her fingers in habit. She'd been awake for more than thirty hours, and would be for at least another six.

The Finalizer limped through the stars, painfully slowly, the culprit a malfunctioning auxiliary hyperdrive that kept sucking power from the main one. Teams were working around the clock to restore what passed for normalcy on the flagship. Morale was low; many had been lost on Starkiller, and Hux had to broadcast several impassioned speeches to keep the focus on crushing the Resistance and the recent victory against Hosnian Prime. Her heart, however, was a lead weight in her chest. The destruction of the base was a huge blow, the loss of years of work. Order in the galaxy had been at her fingertips, and now was again just a remote dream.

She sighed. Reports from the rest of the fleet flooded her desk. She had given the order to regroup the core Destroyers at the edge of the Outer Rim, so she could meet with Snoke and the Lieutenant Generals to plan their next move. Everyone was on their way, and hopefully, Snoke had something in mind.

The comlink beeped again. With an irritated huff, Hux pressed the button.

"Yes?"

The voice on the other end was her assistant, Selvan. He sounded apologetic. "Captain Phasma is outside your quarters, General. I told her you were busy, but she requests an urgent audience."

"Send her in. And get me the latest progress report from Engineering on the hyperdrive. I'm tired of their inane excuses."

"Yes, General."

Severing the connection, Hux stood up, her back protesting painfully from being bent over the desk. In the shower the previous night, she'd noticed her bruises turning green. Ren really had done a number on her in the forest. But it was nothing compared to what had been done to him.

When Phasma entered, Hux was facing away from the door, hands clasped behind her back, watching the stars pass by through the floor-to-ceiling viewport on the far side of the room. She heard the heavy footsteps of the captain reach the middle of the office and pause, followed by a respectful silence.

She did not turn her head. "Well?"

Phasma's voice was clipped. "There is an issue in the sick bay with Commander Ren."

Hux's heart sped up, but she kept her voice level. "Define 'issue.'"

"He is awake and refusing all intervention." Phasma spoke carefully. "And... he broke the bacta tank. And destroyed several droids. And a control panel."

Hux sighed. At least he wasn't dead. "Any personnel injured?"

"Not yet, ma'am. But I would prefer if it doesn't come to that."

"Indeed." Hux turned, staring into the blank helmet of the captain. Her chrome armor gleamed in the overhead lights, impeccably polished as usual. "And what do you expect me to do, Captain? Because clearly, I don't have enough work already."

"I would like you to accompany me to the sick bay," Phasma said, unfazed by the verbal barb. "With all due respect, ma'am, he may actually listen to you, and I won't have to shoot him to keep him from killing my men."

Hux turned back to the window, feeling a headache coming on. She rubbed her temples; the last thing she needed was to babysit an unhinged Force user. But it couldn't be helped. She sighed again. Snoke had better have a medal ready for me if I get Ren back in one piece.

"I will be there shortly," she finally replied, staring out at the glimmering stars. "Walk ahead of me and tell the troopers to avoid any direct confrontation."

"Yes, General."

Phasma had started to leave when Hux spoke again.

"Captain."

The footsteps paused. Hux kept her voice devoid of any emotion, a move she'd learned from her father. She'd never been able to master her gaze, for her emotions blazed through it unchecked. However, if she were facing away from her target, it worked quite well, and was a skill that unnerved any subordinate she'd tried it on.

In the reflection from the window, Hux kept her eyes on Phasma's retreating back as she spoke. "During the aerial attack by the Resistance on the oscillator, the shields surrounding it were initially functional. At some point, they were deactivated from within the base, despite regular and heavy patrols. Keeping that oscillator protected was your purview, was it not?"

Phasma stood rigidly, a tell in itself. Hux knew the captain was fiercely loyal to the Order, and her body language spoke of discomfort. "Yes," she replied, her voice clear through the helmet. "It was, General."

Hux continued in an impassive tone. "So is it fair to say that if the shields had not been deactivated, the intruders would not have been able to destroy the oscillator despite having infiltrated the base, and therefore, the destruction of Starkiller would have been prevented?"

Phasma's huge frame stiffened even more, if possible. "That is correct, General. The responsibility for the failure falls on my unit, and therefore me. I am ready to accept any consequence you feel is warranted."

"I see," Hux said. "You know, Captain, it's a shame the surveillance data from the base has been lost. Surely the cameras would have picked up whoever deactivated the shields. The individual must have had a high security clearance."

"Yes. Their cooperation was probably secured by force," said Phasma, and Hux turned to face her, allowing the full force of her icy gaze to spear the captain's helmet.

"Probably," she echoed, voice still calm and belying her blazing eyes. "But such details don't interest me. I would expect that any officer of the First Order would rather die a noble death than jeopardize an entire base, let alone an entire planet. Wouldn't you die for our cause, Captain?"

Silence descended, with only the hum of the air filtration system between them. Finally, Phasma dropped to one knee, her armor clanging on the durasteel floor. She reached up and removed her helmet, meeting Hux's gaze. She was paler than usual, with spots of pink high in her cheeks. Beneath her short blonde hair, her eyes were fervent with passion and not a trace of fear.

"Serving the First Order is my sole purpose, General. My life belongs to you... as does my death."

Hux narrowed her eyes. It was no confession, but she was reasonably sure Phasma knew more about the deactivation of the shields than she let on. Still, the woman's loyalty was undeniable; and if she was not a traitor, killing her would be useless. Nevertheless, Hux let her unblinking gaze linger on Phasma well past the point of comfort.

"See that you don't forget it, Captain," she finally said, turning back to the window. "We all have a role to play, in something far greater than ourselves. You're dismissed."

When the heavy footsteps receded and the door slid shut, Hux relaxed her posture and leaned her forehead against the cool transparisteel. Her headache, she knew, would only get worse today.

Captain Phasma's day was deteriorating at an alarming rate. She looked down at the river of bacta at her feet, then at the destroyed medical droid slumped in the far corner, and then at the medics and nurses, who were keeping a very prudent distance from her current object of interest.

"Commander," she tried again, taking a step forward. "Your wound has opened. I would advise-"

"You have the authority to advise me?" Kylo Ren seethed, ripping out the last of the IVs that the nurses had tried to place all morning. Around him, large pieces of debris floated in the air, ready to be hurled at the slightest provocation. "No? Then be silent before I lose the rest of my patience."

The few people still brave enough to be in the room (including other patients, who couldn't leave of their own volition) backpedaled. Phasma stood her ground, calculating how many shots she would be able to make before he killed her.

"Sir-"

The big doors slid open, and in walked General Hux. Tall and poised as ever, she nonetheless looked to Phasma a bit worse for wear in this bright light, with lines in her face and more wrinkles in her uniform than usual, as if she'd been in it for a long time. Phasma let her pass, and Hux paused just inside the room, taking in the carnage. A moment later, she crossed her arms, and slowly locked eyes with the enraged Knight of Ren.

"I see you're awake. Why are you so intent on destroying my ship?"

He scowled, dark curls wild around his pale face, his gray medical gown hanging loosely around his bruised body. The raw scar on his cheek had only partially healed, and was still quite ghastly. "This facility is no longer of use to me, and I will not be kept here against my will."

"Indeed," Hux replied coolly, gesturing to the blood now freely dripping out of his bandage and onto the floor. "I see you've recovered quite well."

"I'm leaving," he said, and the airborne debris trembled in warning. "Do not try to stop me."

In Phasma's peripheral vision, the nurses were putting as much distance between themselves and the pair as possible. Hux, however, stepped forward, closer to Ren, and something in her body language made Phasma follow.

"Oh, I'm not going to try," she answered, pulling her modified blaster from her side, a wicked-looking thing that gleamed in the broken shards of the bacta tank. "If you continue to threaten my personnel, I will shoot you."

He sneered, "You wouldn't dare-"

Hux raised the blaster and fired. People screamed, and Phasma stared in shock as Ren raised a hand, barely deflecting the bolt to the side. The ricochet hit a computer panel, sparks flying as Hux walked forward, calmly squeezing the trigger again and again, with Ren blocking each time. She gave him no time to do anything but parry, shooting continuously and driving him back toward a corner. Around them, the debris came crashing to the floor, and Phasma realized that Ren's power was limited by his injuries, letting him focus on only one thing at a time. She palmed her own weapon as Hux finally got a shot in, striking Ren's shoulder. He fell to his knees with a curse, his back hitting the wall.

The General stopped a few feet away, blaster still trained on him as he glared daggers at her. "That was set to stun," she said. "I imagine it's still quite painful. The Supreme Leader ordered me to bring you back alive, but he never specified what condition you needed to be in when you showed up."

Phasma was impressed despite herself. Ren was fearless in battle; she'd seen him walk into blaster fire without the slightest pause. And yet, he looked nervous when Hux's voice, short and sharp, stabbed through the room. Phasma had to agree with him when she saw the look on the General's face.

"And if my saving your life on Starkiller isn't enough for you, and Leader Snoke's plan isn't enough for you, then remember that the Finalizer is under my command. And as such, during times of martial law, I have the authority to blast you into six different fucking knights of Ren if you give me a reason. So go ahead. Try me, Commander."

Silence followed, the air thick, Hux's slim body shaking in anger. All, that is, except the arm that held the blaster aloft and firmly fixed on Ren. The drip, drip of the remaining bacta punctuated the hissing of the destroyed control panels. Phasma held her breath. No matter what happened, she was a First Order soldier and would side with Hux; but if Ren truly retaliated with the Force, this would get ugly very fast.

But after a few seconds, Kylo Ren chuckled, his deep voice rumbling, dark eyes glittering with amusement and exhaustion. "You're angry, General. I didn't think you had it in you."

Hux's lips were pinched in a tight line. "I've had a rough day."

Ren raised an eyebrow, and lifted his hands up in mock surrender. Hux lowered the blaster, and Phasma breathed again as the tension in the room lifted. Hux turned to a terrified but hopeful-looking nurse.

"Stop the bleeding, and administer any medications you need. He will not hinder you," she looked pointedly at Ren, "in any way. After he is stable, he may be transferred to his quarters to continue recuperation. And destroy his own damn furniture."

The nurse eyed Ren, who still sat on the floor, looking like a feral animal. "Yes... ma'am."

Hux nodded. "Very good. Captain, accompany me to Engineering. We need to see about that hyperdrive."

After the incident in the General's quarters, Phasma wanted very much to be as far away from her as possible. Still, she obeyed as Hux made her way to the door, navigating the mess of broken equipment. Ren's voice followed them.

"General."

Hux did not turn around, but Phasma did. Ren's smile, she saw, had widened, and had a disturbing gleam in it.

"Your rage," he said, "is delicious."

If she didn't know any better, Phasma would have said Hux looked pale when she left the room.

Several nights later, Hux awoke with a start to the sound of her shower running.

She lay in the darkness, heart pounding. Through the small hallway leading to the fresher, she could see that the light underneath the door was on.

It could be a technical malfunction, she thought. But for both the water and the light to be on was unusual. Of course, if she had an intruder, why would they be taking a shower?

Feeling a bit ridiculous, she quietly rose from the bed and slipped into pants and a loose shirt. A long-standing habit ensured her blaster was always in close reach, and she retrieved it from the bedside table. Keeping the lights off, she crept toward the hallway, her form a dark spot in the lights of stars in the viewport. The sound of running water masked any movement inside the fresher, and she wondered if she was daft, sneaking around her own quarters, on her extremely secure flagship, in pajamas. She could summon assistance, but she'd look pretty stupid if she called a strike team to attack a shower.

She hesitated outside the door, trying to calm her nerves. If it were an intruder, they had bypassed strong security systems to get in, and were quiet enough to keep her from waking.

Yet they didn't incapacitate me when they had the chance.

Hux raised her blaster. It was a decision they'd regret, in the last few seconds of their life.

She hit the button on the door, and was immediately engulfed in a cloud of steam and heat. She pointed her weapon across the room, where a figure was outlined in the fog of the shower stall. She almost squeezed the trigger, but a sight in her peripheral vision made her stop. A pile of clothes was neatly folded on the sink, and she knew exactly whom they belonged to.

She fought to keep control of her voice, utterly failing. The words came out in a strangled croak.

"What the hell are you doing?"

From behind the opaque transparisteel, the figure shifted. It looked like a shrug. "My shower is broken."

Hux shook her head, not believing her eyes or ears. Kylo Ren. In my fucking fresher.

"For the love of...There are communal showers!"

"Not risking the cameras. Or the eyes of stormtroopers," he replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, and she was an idiot for suggesting it.

"SICK BAY," Hux growled. "Or literally any other officer's quarters."

More splashing. "They don't know my face, and I'd like to keep it that way."

She had an extremely strong urge to shoot him. "I don't know what your game is, but you have three seconds to get out of there. One-"

On cue, the door began to open. "Very well."

Hux suddenly saw an obvious problem with her demand, and yelled, "Hold it!"

The door stopped.

"I'll turn around," she said, still not entirely understanding how she got into this situation, or if she was in the middle of a very strange dream. "Make yourself decent."

His voice remained nonplussed. "I'd like to finish my shower, if it's all the same to you."

Hux's mouth opened in shock, and it took a few seconds to get the words out. "It's NOT all the same to me, you uncouth-"

"How did you do it, General?"

Her anger ground to a halt at his sudden change in tone. "What?"

A few moments passed in silence, and then Ren spoke. His voice was now serious, thoughtful. "On Starkiller Base, you called me through the Force. I heard your voice, and levitated my saber. Yet you possess no knowledge of what you did. I doubt you could do it again, even if you wanted. So... how did you call me?"

Hux's mind reeled, and she lowered her blaster. He had heard her that night. The beacon was a response to her search for him.

"Your interrogation tactics," she finally said, recovering. "I know you can hear people's thoughts. I just had to make sure mine were the loudest."

"Hmm," Ren said, and the deep thrum of his voice bypassed her ears and vibrated through her body. "Do you know how difficult that is, in a cacophony of voices on a dying planet?"

Hux didn't like where this was going; not seeing his expression wasn't helping. "I was close to you," she snapped. "Two hundred yards at most."

"Not that close," he replied smoothly. "The Jedi and the Sith can reach across planets, galaxies, even across the veil of death, to speak to one another. But those ignorant of the Force... cannot, even when looking at a person directly."

"I'm no different from the prisoners you interrogate," she argued. "You could hear anyone you want."

"True. But only if I'm trying to listen. That night, I wasn't searching for you. Yet I heard you nonetheless."

Hux said nothing. This visit of his was looking more and more calculated by the minute. But what was the purpose?

"I've been thinking," he continued from behind the stall. "Do you know what the other prerequisite is, for a non-Force user to be able to achieve this?"

She did not respond, but she knew it wasn't going to be good.

"A connection," he said. "A strong one, physical... or emotional."

Her thoughts clicked into place. Ah. So that's it.

"We're not friends, Ren," she replied, injecting as much venom into her voice as possible. This wasn't difficult, given that he'd been a thorn in her side since the attack on Starkiller. "The Supreme Leader gave me an order. I found you because of that, and I saved you because of that. Nothing more."

His response to this fierce proclamation was a chuckle. "In the shuttle that night, you were afraid for me. Do you deny it?"

Hux suspected he was putting images in her head. She suddenly smelled the acrid smoke of his charred wound, saw the glare of the white lights, felt the bone-chilling fear as his life had slipped out of her reach. Were they her images, or his?

She fought the onslaught, scowling at his blurred figure in the steam. "Because if you died, so would I! Why does it matter?"

Ren went on as if he hadn't heard her. "You were sorry to cause me pain. You apologized."

Hux grimaced, remembering the needle she'd stuck into his leg. Sorry about this, she'd said. The bastard had heard everything.

His tone held a trace of mockery and amusement. "Weakness doesn't look good on you, General."

She narrowed her eyes. Emmeline Hux was many things, but 'weak' was an insult she wouldn't tolerate, Force-wielding lunatic or not.

"If you think," she ground out, "for a second, that I have any feelings for you other than significant distaste, you are out of your mind."

She heard a smile in his voice, though she could not see it. "Perhaps distaste is enough to achieve a Force connection. Perhaps not."

The shower door opened, and Hux just managed to avert her eyes as he stepped out. A fresh wave of heat assaulted her senses, and she was suddenly acutely aware of her thin clothing, the sweat on her neck, and the intense gaze she could not see but feel, burning into her skin. He was searching her for something, digging deeply, and she shivered despite the warmth in the room.

Not three feet away from her, his voice floated into her head. "Yet you hide your face. What would I see if I looked inside your head now?"

Hux wasn't sure. Her mind was blank, but she remembered a dream she'd had after the incident in the sick bay. It had been short, but extremely clear in its intention. Large, warm hands. Eyes, black with passion. Fury, blood, and fire. When she awakened, she'd vomited, and then scrubbed herself in the shower until her skin was raw.

"Are you afraid, Emmeline?" he asked softly. "Are you... flustered?"

She saw her reflection in the mirror, curls mussed from sleep, eyes dilated. She took several breaths, in and out. Then, she turned and looked straight at him, letting her eyes rake him slowly, top to bottom.

His side had mostly healed. His hair was longer than she remembered, curling past his cheeks. Droplets ran in little rivulets from the dark strands, onto his shoulders and down his broad, muscular chest, a canvas of scorch marks and scars. Her eyes followed the water to his flat stomach, down the thin line of hair leading down to the center of his masculine power. He was large, she noted, even unaroused, and very well matched to his tall frame. How different he looked when she'd cut off his clothes as he lay dying that night...and now, just as bare, standing easily in her bathroom, water dripping down his pale skin, a predator in human form.

Hux let her gaze linger on him for several long, lazy seconds. Then, she dragged it up to his burning, black eyes, and smirked.

"Don't kid yourself, Ren," she said. "It takes much more than you to fluster me."

Taking a fresh towel from the wall panel, she threw it at his surprised face, turned on her heel, and marched back to bed.

"Lock the door on your way out."

By the time Kylo Ren had recovered enough to exit the fresher, Hux was already deeply asleep. And, as expected, she slept dreamlessly that night, and every night for weeks after that.

Author's Note: Thank you for reviewing! Hopefully you guys love Emmeline as much as I love writing her and Ren. There is no "romance" in the true sense; I truly believe the Hux/Ren relationship is one of grudging respect and envy, but there is also a moderate amount of attraction, as these things tend to go when opposite sexes work together. So we will see where it takes me, lol. This whole tale grew out of the shower scene, which I thought of in...you guessed it, the shower. Anyway, enjoy and review if you like it!