A/N:

Chapter 2 has arrived! I do hope you all enjoy! If you'd like to reach me outside of this site, you can find me on Tumblr at .com

I use the tag "a little unsteady fic" for things regarding this story.

Questions? Criticisms? Lay 'em on me.

Thank you for reading!

And special thanks to :

lauren kennedy 794

CharlotteCAgain

The beeping wouldn't stop. Kylo's hand shook as he struggled to reconnect the wiring but the wires were so small and his fingers kept sticking to the wires from to all the blood drying on them.

"Fuck. FUCK."

Hux kicked at a nearby wall. The sound of it, the impact of it, made Kylo jump, and he dropped the wires. The beeping continued, incessant and maddening at this point. Kylo took a deep breath, counted to six, exhaled slowly, repeated, struggled to maintain his control and keep his flight response from kicking in as Hux stomped away towards the back of the ship.

The escape had gone too smoothly, on the inside at least. Of course it had gone too smoothly. Once out of the tunnel, rocketing from beneath the prison and into the atmosphere, they ran headlong into a blockade of gunships. Laser cannons lit up the sky, bombarding the yacht's shields and setting sensors and alarms wailing. Mir had cursed a storm as he attempted to maneuver the yacht through a sky swimming with laser fire and gunships, while Hux had taken control of the yacht's single laser cannon in an attempt to cut them a path.

Kylo had stayed riveted to his seat, unable to peel his clenched hands from the arm rests. With each jolt of laser blast, each shudder of the ship, his heart threatened to leap from his chest, his mind flickering on-off-on in his head. He'd wanted to help, somehow; he could feel the ships around them, clean lined blades cutting through the atmosphere, the lasers like burning brands stinging across the sky. It all resonated within his skull, the hum of the ships and the burn of the lasers.

He'd wanted to help, focusing on the alarms, the sensors, trying to think of a way to - his mind slipped away -a way to what? The battle raged but it was above hills of sand on a planet dotted with First Order bases. New Republic gunships morphed into Resistance X-wings in his mind's eye. The laser cannons and plasma blasts fired hotter and faster above him, the sky was a maelstrom of metal and fire and falling ships. The dust and embers settled on windswept dunes as Resistance fighters poured out of freighters and Stormtroopers sped to meet them. Flamethrower troops left the sands dotted with burning bodies, white armored figures fell down dune faces spattered in blood. The screams - the roars of engines - the blast of lasers - rose in deafening cacophony around him -

By the time his senses had returned, they were in hyperspace. The jump, he'd discovered from listening to Hux argue with Mir, hadn't been by design. A concussion missile, though stopped by the ship's shields, had exploded close enough to the bridge that the shockwaves had caused extensive damage to the ship's controls. Hyperdrive had initiated when Mir had attempted to correct their dangerously list, and they'd jumped to hyperspace without preparation, with a compromised hull and damaged electronics.

And, apparently, no way of exiting the jump.

Kylo looked towards the back of the ship where Hux had disappeared to. He could feel the man back there, pacing viciously. Looking down at the wires he'd been working on, Kylo considered just how useful they could be, whether he actually needed to be repairing them. He couldn't be sure, he wasn't trained in the electrical wiring of ships.

Wiping his hands ineffectively on his pants, he rose to his feet and slunk his way to the bridge. He needed to replace his bandages, they were soaked through with fresh blood, drying in odd ways and pinching his arms. He could feel the pain, it made his hands shake fitfully, but in the aftermath of his panicked haze it barely registered in his mind.

"Is there anything I can do?" He asked as he entered the bridge. Mir was sitting on the floor in front of the control console. He'd pulled off the panel and was attempting to rewire, or fix, or do something to the control boards and chips inside. Kylo couldn't see how he was able to interpret anything in there; the whole of it looked blackened and smoked slightly.

"Doubt it," Mir said with a snort. "Unless you've got some way of pulling us out of hyperspace."

"What is the issue?" Kylo asked. Mir actually turned to give him an odd look at that, and Kylo wondered if they'd told him already.

"The inhibitor," Mir said, continuing to give him that odd look. He glanced back towards the short corridor that led off the bridge, Kylo could feel the wariness in the man's mind rise as he realized that they were alone. "It's… it's locked itself in inhibition mode, basically."

Kylo frowned.

"It thinks everywhere we're going, that there's a star there," Mir hurried to explain. Kylo realized that the man had read his expression wrong, he hadn't been frowning at him. "It won't let us come out of hyperspace if there's a star at our destination point, aye?"

"Isn't there a workaround?" Kylo asked, looking down at the former guard. Mir was getting a nervous look in his eyes, and even though he hadn't glanced back at the corridor again Kylo could sense his growing unease.

"There should be, aye," Mir said; his accent seemed to get thicker the more anxious he got. "Should be, but th'damn computer isn't responding. An'the wires are…"

Mir waved at the mass of blackened components. They might have been labeled, at some point.

A horrible screeching reached them all of a sudden, metal on metal, echoing up to them through the ship. A loud crash followed, and Mir scrambled to his feet as Kylo shot a horrified look down the corridor. Was the ship in worse shape than they'd thought? Was the stabilizer failing? Was the ship coming apart under the pressures of hyperspace travel?

Hux appeared suddenly in the corridor, his footsteps made heavier by the mass of twisted metal he was carrying. He entered the bridged and dropped it unceremoniously to the ground, a maniacally triumphant gleam in his eyes.

"What is that?" Kylo asked, wondering if Hux had lost his mind. For all his fanaticism Hux had been surprisingly stable as far as Kylo could tell. If he was losing his grasp on sanity…

"The inhibitor," Hux responded, panting from the exertion. "I've bypassed it."

"How the bloody…" Mir gaped in surprise, "I didn't think you knew a damn thing 'bout ship mechanics."

"Go on, see if this fixes our situation," Hux answered, looking only slightly irked at the negative judgment of his skill.

"Aye, Sir," Mir said with a grin, spinning back to the the control panel and tapping away at the controls.

"W… what?" Kylo asked, eyeing the hunk of metal curiously.

Hux looked at him, and after a brief moment his expression dimmed from it's exultant glow.

"Ren, are you all right?" He asked, voice low.

"I'm fine!" Kylo snapped. His head felt hazy and everything was very far away all of a sudden. His mind finished registering what Hux had done- Hux had removed the inhibitor.

"Sit down," Hux ordered, and though Kylo wanted to resist he found Hux's return to the cool tone of a commanding officer somewhat reassuring. It was familiar, at the very least, and so he settled down into one of the chairs as Hux watched.

"Good, I'm going to find a medical kit," Hux didn't wait for a response as he turned back to the corridor.

"It's fine," Kylo muttered to his back. The blood dripped from his loose fingers onto the steel floor, and only now he noticed the trail he'd left behind him.

"It's all right," Kylo said, reassuringly, to someone. To himself. He looked at Mir, and Mir spared a cautious glance his way, but said nothing in return.

Hux returned with a medical kit, and while Kylo wasn't quite thrilled with it he allowed him to rewrap his arms. Hux didn't look all that thrilled either, his expression one of obvious disgust as his hands became coated with blood. He shot Mir a dirty look at one point, as if it were his fault Hux had been put into such a situation.

"Managed to recalibrate it," Mir muttered finally. "I'm taking us back to realspace."

"Where?" His grimaced as he looked down at his hands.

"Takodana," Mir replied.

Memories tugged at Kylo's mind.

"Is it still..." He searched his brain for the appropriate word, "Functional?"

That wasn't it, but no one bothered to correct him.

"Maz got right to fixing it as soon as you all were out if there," Mir said, "Takes more than that to put Maz out of business."

He spoke of her with too much familiarity, and Kylo felt it within him as well, a nostalgic twinge round the edges of his mind.

"Is Takodana really a good idea?" Hux asked. He was attempting to clean his hands off with a length of bandage but it was doing him little good. "The amount of people there-"

"Amount of bounty hunters, you mean," Mir cut in.

"They'll be more than willing to catch us and hold us until a bounty is put out," Hux tossed the soiled bandages into the med kit and sighed. His hands looked no better than when he'd started. "If they don't kill us outright…"

"If they see us…" Kylo said, wafting his way into the conversation. They were settling back into realspace, and the front windows filled with vast deep star studded darkness.

"Exactly," Mir said with a grin.

"So we land, leave this wreck behind and steal a new ship?" Hux said, catching on to the idea. Though he didn't sound entirely convinced, but Kylo could tell his mind was already working with that idea. "We've only got the two blasters, and we can't afford to make a scene."

"I can find an empty ship," Kylo looked at Hux, eager to be helpful in some way. Focusing on the problems facing them was helping to chase away some of the haze in his mind, draw his attention away from the pulsing ache in his arms. "I can scan them, make sure no one is aboard."

Hux looked almost skeptical at Kylo's sudden eagerness.

"Aye, that would be a help," Mir said cheerfully enough, though Kylo could still feel his unease. He couldn't tell just how much the former guard knew about the Force, about how it worked - maybe just enough to be fearful and distrustful of it.

"Before that," Hux stood and leaned against the edge of the console, eyeing Takodana as it grew closer. "We should decide where we go from here."

He looked at Kylo then, wordlessly implying that their next actions would depend on what information he could supply. What could he supply? Kylo thought back to that - vision? dream? - of his father, trying to get an idea of where he could be. Closing his eyes, he struggled to bring the images back; the striped hills, the dusty purple ground. The stars in the sky, he didn't recognize any of their formations. Wherever his father was, it was a planet that was completely alien to him.

"West," He said finally, opening his eyes again. Hux eyed him suspiciously,as if he were aware that Kylo had pulled the direction out of thin air.

"How far west?" Was all he asked.

"West. Far, possibly," Kylo responded, holding Hux's gaze impassively. It was as good a direction as any, and this way at least they'd be moving away from the New Republic. Sensing Hux's continued uncertainty, he added, "You don't have to go."

"That is certainly true," Hux said, letting out an irritated breath.

"Takodana's a good place to switch ships," Mir spoke up,turning to look at them, "But it might not be a good place to go splitting off, especially since we've got no supplies to take with us."

"What do you suggest then?" Hux said, shooting a wicked yet amused look at the man.

"Bespin," Mir supplied.

"Cloud City?" Hux looked unconvinced.

"No," Mir paused, then continued hesitantly, "The White One's Citadel."

Hux looked puzzled, but Kylo recognized the name.

"Jiska," He said to Hux, "A Hutt. Her citadel is a gathering spot for the… truly immoral smugglers and bounty hunters."

"Unlike the only partially immoral smugglers and bounty hunters we'd find on Takodana?" Hux asked with a laugh.

"It's a dangerous place, unlike Maz's watering hole there's no mutual rules of respect," Mir turned back to the control panel. Their ship was entering the atmosphere and he switched the controls back to manual. "But no one looks at you twice there, aye, they'll avoid looking at you once if they can. And if we can find a ship with decent cargo on it we can get supplies. They don't pay much for anything other than spice there, but if we can find a decently large load we'll be able to get a few credits out of it."

"How, exactly, do you know all of this again?" Hux looked at Mir with an expression bordering on suspicion. Kylo shared it, such an specific knowledge of The Citadel wasn't something a prison guard would be expected to know.

"I know things," Mir said evasively, focusing instead on steering the ship low over the bright green islands below them. Kylo reached out with the Force, just to tap on Mir's mind in the hopes of gleaning some information. His control hadn't fully returned yet however, and it was still tempered by the anxious thought that he had no idea what the limit was anymore, how far he could push it before the implant would react. All he could read in the brief touch was the sense of memories, of familiarity.

He definitely knew Takodana. Rather than coming in from the front of the castle, over the lagoons, he'd steered the ship to come in from the back. The sun touched the tips of the castles towers, rays shining through in places where the walls had yet to be repaired. The shadow cast by the castle reached long arms over the forests behind it. Reaching for them. Skimming the treetops, Mir settled the yacht in an empty, swampy glade barely within sight of Maz Kanata's castle.

Kylo hadn't seen the castle since… All his brain registered was that it was a while ago, back when they were still searching for the map to Skywalker. His father had come here with the traitor and the girl - his mind fluttered with the memories, the attack in the castle, facing Rey in the woods. He hadn't expected her. He hadn't expected her…

"Bit of a walk," Mir said as he rose from the control seat, grinning at Hux apologetically. The other man didn't seem to notice. Eyes hard, face set stony, he looked very nearly the General once again, drab prison clothes and all. He nodded, once.

"Let's go."

They reached the first ship as the sun reached zenith overhead. It was a freighter, an old one, scarred and dirty. The trees around it bore signs of a haphazard landing. Kylo didn't bother with scanning the hunk of garbage, and they headed on in search of the next. The following freighter was much larger, and carrying living cargo. Kylo could feel them inside, masses of writhing bodies falling over and around each other.

The third ship was a small cruiser, the fourth a bulky and heavily damaged gunship. The fourth, however, was in relatively good shape. It looked like it had started out as a rather small courier freighter, but the modifications it's owners had added made it almost unrecognizable as one. Laser cannons, additional plating attached at key points, massive engines that must, at one point, have belonged to a different ship. All in all, while it was pieced together somewhat oddly it looked to be a well maintained craft.

"Aye," Mir said appreciatively, "That'll do."

Kylo agreed, the ship seemed more than enough for their needs. He looked at Hux to see if the agreement was unanimous, but found the man eyeing Mir with an uneasy look in his eyes. Kylo had noticed Hux watching Mir before that, but now he could sense his growing suspicion as well, an unease that had began gnawing at him in the back of his mind. Kylo probed deeper, slowly, feeling how Hux had grown wary of the former guard; this wasn't the person he'd expected the man to be. This wasn't the person he was, back at the prison. This revelation was shocking to Hux for some reason.

"Right," Hux said finally, eyeing the hulking ship before them, then turned his gaze on Kylo. "Scan it."

Kylo had the feeling that Hux had felt him touching on his thoughts. An instinctual feeling; he knew how well the former General could maintain that well practiced look, and the man showed no outward signs of noticing the intrusion. Still, Hux's eyes pierced him, and Kylo found himself looking away, towards the ship instead.

Hesitantly, he reached out further with his senses, touching the ship's hull first, then piercing past it slowly. The further he looked, the more aware he became of the implant in his brain, silent and waiting for the threshold to be crossed. It clouded him a bit, that heavy weight in his head, the knowledge that the pain was waiting for him, hovering in anticipation. He had no idea how far he could push it, and again the thought made his will falter, his grasp on the Force weaken.

Focus, he snapped at himself, taking a steadying breath. Focus.

Past the hull, past the walls, he felt through the space of the corridors. The rooms lining the main corridor were empty, the bridge was as well. The cargo hull in back was relatively full, he could possibly find out with what if he focused on it. His inclination to do so wavered as he felt an odd sensation start up at the front of his skull, an all too familiar sting prickling within him. Not pain, not yet, but the foreboding discomfort that preceded it. The implant always had a time delay; it was so much more potent a disciplinary device than the manacles that they'd granted him that one thing, that slight opportunity to back off before the implant fully initiated.

But how long did he have? The panicked beast in his mind was growling, clawing at him, but he needed to know. The manacles had hindered his ability to feel for the limit, the pain from their shocks distracting from the growing pressure in his brain, but now that he was without them... he could learn to feel for it, now, learn to toe the line without crossing into that chasm of pain.

Someone was behind them.

The figure pinged his mind like a blip on a radar screen, standing out suddenly, starkly, from the still trees behind them. He'd been slow to notice, his senses felt sluggish, limited - had he truly grown so weak? - but his physical reflexives made up for the their shortcoming. He spun around, thrusting a hand out toward the figure behind him, and felt the Force solidify around him, bursting out along the trajectory his arm pushed it on. The sting in his brain turned into a low ache, but no pain followed, not yet, and he reveled in the return of his strength, return of his control. The Force pulsed within him, coiling like a serpent around him, striking out with vicious and heavy hand at the Rodian standing at the tree line. Between them, hanging in the Force-thickened air, was a foot long blaster beam. It trembled and spat, stopped in mid-flight, caught much too close to him, so close it's light nearly blotted his vision, but caught all the same. Kylo could feel it, the edges of it crackling within the cage of Force power he had molded around it. Behind, the Rodian attempted to struggle against the unseen bonds holding them, and Kylo could feel their fear as it was amplified through the Force hold. He could feel their body, feel the muscles spasm, the nerves fire, the organs writhe as the Rodian's entire body gave way to panic. It had never felt this sort of power before, it couldn't understand what it was.

This - THIS - he'd missed this, missed the way the Force bent under his control missed the way it conformed itself to his will. He could do anything, with the energy coursing through him like this. He could feel anything, everything, the whole of the world laid out in front of him, he could read it if he just focused, almost see the fractal intricacies of it expanding around him. The return of this awareness was almost too much for him to contain, but he drew it in eagerly, reveled in the feeling.

What should he do with the Rodian? He mused on the thought, his mind reeling drunkenly through various options. He could throw them back through the tree trunks behind them, yes, or he could just launch them into the sky. He could crush their throat where he held them and feel the life snuff out of them as they strangled. He could crush their heart. He could…

He could-

The panic roared to life in the back of his mind. His ears were ringing, the stinging at the front of his skull had rapidly rose into a burning ache, was worsening monumentally each passing second. His concentration faltered, both the Rodian and the blaster bolt before him shuddered in the air as he struggled to maintain control. The pain was coming the pain was coming and he was unable to see he couldn't see his breath coming fast he tried to focus but his focus was gone-gone-gone-

With a strangled cry he forced out and away, the blaster bolt streaking back away from him on a direct trajectory that caught the Rodian square in the chest a moment before they impacted with a tree trunk. The tree shuddered, bark cracking loudly with the force of it, and teh Rodian's body fell heavily to the ground beneath it.

Kylo shuddered, slumping slightly he struggled to breathe, the ache in his brain thundering but stopping short of that explosive raw pain that he'd feared would come. He'd found his threshold, it seemed. Or it had found him. The outcome was the same.

"Now that is more like it," Hux said, and Kylo glanced over to find the man giving him an appraising look. "Not quite as… impressive as you used to be able to do, but good enough. Come on then."

Not as impressive, Hux said, as if Kylo hadn't just caught a blaster bolt and a person in the same instant, hadn't held both trapped, hadn't thrown them away as easily as he'd once done. His aching head, the panicked beat of his heart, reminded him that it hadn't been quite as easy as before, however, and Hux's dig at his abilities only aggravated him further. Hux was right, it wasn't quite what he'd been able to do before. He glared at Hux''s back as he headed towards the ship, limping slightly.

Straightening, he turned towards the ship and caught sight of Mir. The man stood stockstill, eyes widened, staring at him in open fear and shock. He jerked as Kylo's eyes landed on him, took a step back, and then realizing that Hux was rapidly leaving them behind, hurried off to follow him. Kylo watched him go, an odd discomfort coming upon him. He used to revel in the fear he'd inspired in others as they watched him manipulate the Force, as they'd been touched by the Force he wielded - he'd just reveled in doing so to the Rodian - but now, with the awareness of the Force dampened, no longer high on the feeling of controlling it, he was hit by a sudden unease. The realization came to him that he may never feel that way again, that he might never revel in the power to bring fear the way he used to. They feared because they were powerless in the face of the Force, and the thought chilled him deeply. To be controlled by another, to be at defenceless to the whims of another, to never know what to expect, pain or mercy, to be helpless - his head pulsed, his arms were heavy with pain, both current and remembered...

The bandages had bled through again. He eyed them, a sickening twist in his gut.

Helpless.

For a moment he considered reaching his senses out to the Rodian, but forced himself not to. He didn't need to touch on them to know they were dead. Still he wavered, feeling as he were teetering on the edge of some deep ravine, his balance gone and his vision blurred. It was the blood loss, no doubt. The shock of it all. Steadying himself, mentally and maybe physically as well, he made his weary way to the ship and climbed the ramp inside.

He didn't see either Hux or Mir as he entered and closed the airlock behind him. Their voices reached him from further in the ship, towards the bridge, but he didn't feel the need to move closer. They knew their next destination, they had no need of him at the moment. Onwards to Bespin and The White One's Citadel. Kylo found himself grateful that they were not planning to split up on Takodana. His body ached, his head burned, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten. The day before, maybe; he'd never quite liked eating the breakfast the guards brought him in the mornings. He could never trust them, would've rather waited for his daily allowed lunch break than to risk eating what they'd brought.

For a long moment he stood in the corridor, eyeing his surroundings and feeling out with his senses. The corridor itself was narrow with several doors set in it; two rooms for crew with bunks set into the walls, and a relatively well-sized refresher. A larger area opened towards the back of the ship, right before the cargo doors. He thought for a moment on where he might find a medpac, but thankfully did not have far to look. A few paces down the corridor a panel on the wall was marked with a worn medical symbol. Pulling it open, he found a couple battered medpacs stowed there with space to spare. The Rodian and their crew members either used up the rest, or never bothered with restocking. Taking the medpacs with him he headed to the refresher, entering and locking the door behind him. He had the odd feeling that Hux would appear out of nowhere if he didn't lock it, offer to help with his arms again. It wouldn't have been unwelcome, exactly, but Kylo wasn't in the mood just then for Hux's callous sympathy. It had always felt more like pity, the kind given to a stupid animal that had tripped over the same stone one too many times.

Placing the medpacs on the edge of the sink, he opened the top one and looked through it. Plenty of bandages and gauze packed in sterile bags, a handful of cracked vials of unknown liquid that had leaked all over the bottom of the pack, and a pair of scissors. The second medpac was slightly better stocked; there were three vials of pain relievers along with a functional pneumatic dispenser, a pack of suture tape, a medisensor, and a nearly dry vial of bacta. Setting the items along the edge of the sink closest to the wall, Kylo set to work on the bandages on his arms.

The wounds had begun to scab up under them, sticking to the gauze. He'd thought he could wind them off but ended up needing to use the scissors instead, cutting slowly. The bandages were stuck on tightlyl with dried blood, however, and even after cutting them in several places he had to resort to running his wrists under water to loosen them off. It saved him some trouble with getting the wounds clean, at least. Once he'd gotten the last of the dirty gauze off he found himself wishing he'd left it all on. He hadn't looked too closely when Mir had first bandaged the wounds, nor when Hux had re-dressed them. Now they glared at him, red and angry and inflamed, circling his wrists, edged in tatters of loose skin, leaking blood all over the dirty steel sink. The manacles were gone at least, he reminded himself, forcing himself to look at them. His hands shaking badly, he patted the wounds as dry as he could with a pad of gauze, then poured the remaining bacta over them. There wasn't much but even that small amount should help them heal faster. His wrapping was clumsy, lumpy and uneven when he finished, but at least he wouldn't end up bleeding everywhere. He found a trash bin set into the wall, and he pushed the soiled bandages inside. The medpacs he left where they were, he hadn't the energy to put them away.

Stepping into the corridor, he considered heading to the back and seeing if there was any food in the conservator. He reconsidered when his head began swimming as he turned towards the back, setting him swaying on his feet. He was tired, he ached, and he couldn't get his head to stop spinning. The door next to the refresher was a sleeper berth, and he entered that instead. The bed creaked as he collapsed onto it, the mattress thin over the steel frame. He'd gotten quite used to sleeping on thin mattresses, however, and soon enough fell into a fitful sleep.

They leave at night, His father reminded him.

"Who does?" He yelled into the star studded sky above. He was alone on a cold planet. Metal cylinders rose around him, some short and squat, some tall and thin. They glinted in the starlight, a stark dark against the dusty violet of the ground. Beyond them the striated hills rose and fell and rose and fell like waves on an ocean.

"Where are you?" He whispered, undulating in time with the hills.

His father did not answer.