Chapter Twenty-Nine: Relentless

Rey slumped down at the galley's prep table, exhausted. Not only had she failed to hover the glass, but she'd barely warded off a mind trick insinuating she should start calling Kylo Ren 'master', and then been unable to obscure her signature in an hour-long exercise where he'd continuously found her and made her hide over and over.

She had trudged back to the kitchen, weighted with defeat and aching from hunger. The pangs were nothing new, constant company on Jakku, but their incessant gnawing this evening was making her dizzy.

Kylo Ren was staring, as usual. Rey could feel his study through his mask. He sat down across from her, not stiffly or wary of a possible strike, but casually. Like he knew he was in no danger of retaliation. He even leaned an elbow on the table.

Ignoring the slight, she pressed her fingers to her temples, rubbing in slow circles.

If you're so confident I can't use the Force against you, how about letting me go? She grouched inwardly. It's obvious I'm not going to be an impressive protégé.

A response—quiet and dim, sounding almost like something she'd overheard rather than been sent—swam up.

You belong here with me.

Rey jerked in her seat, squeaking her stool's legs in a jarred hop.

Kylo Ren inclined his head in question, and she shot to her feet.

"I need food," she murmured, turning for a long row of cabinets.

His visor glinted as he glanced around. "I think the shuttle's astromech is scuttling somewhere nearby. I'm sure it has a domestic subroutine," he offered.

She waved him away, unlatching an overhead cupboard and sighing in relief. He didn't seem to notice she had eavesdropped. "No need. I'm not picky," she said, grabbing the very first tin she saw, cradling it to her chest like it would sprout legs and run away. The label claimed it was energy pudding.

Kylo Ren reared as she popped open its silver seal before she'd even sat back down. "That stuff is for emergencies," he said. "It's almost inedible."

Rey pried off the little spoon attached to its lid with an absent shrug. "It's packed with nutrients."

His modulator couldn't hide the counsel in his tone. "Nutrients don't often equal flavor in First Order rations," he warned.

She tested the strength of the spoon's neck with her thumb, verifying the single-use utensil was up to the task. "Flavor doesn't help my 'tissue wastage'," she returned.

A half-suppressed snick escaped his mask. "Those medical droids aren't ever going to be forgiven for that, are they?" Kylo Ren asked. "You know their diagnosis was just part of their programming."

Rey scoffed, curling herself around her pudding. "I don't let things go," she said.

His amusement faded, and his voice got flinty. "I can tell."

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, yes," she said. "Taking offense to being abducted. How dramatic."

He lifted another hand to the table and ran his gloved fingers along its edge. His austere uniform rustled as he readjusted his weight, and Rey caught his casual sit grow more alert.

"Defensive, more like," Kylo Ren grumbled. "I know you're thinking of that servodriver you had to leave behind."

Rey wanted to throttle him. He was SO out-of-touch. "It had a full charge," she snapped, unwillingly to educate him on why her freedom mattered more than rusty tools. "Anyone from Niima Outpost would be upset."

"Well, there's a measure" he mocked. "Scandalizing desert junkers."

Rey frowned. Was he the worst person she'd ever met? Rude and arrogant, violent and impulsive… he kept getting better and better. "You're the one scandalized," she criticized, shifting back. "The programming of your Order droids is too conservative. You've just made them into overbearing busybodies."

He didn't pause. "Pretty sure their base lines are universal mandates for human health," he answered.

Rey exhaled heavily and forced herself to focus on her dinner. Arguing with him was worse than negotiating with Plutt. She dug into the brown sludge, bringing a heaping scoop to her mouth. "They should be rewired to Jakku standards then. I was one of the outpost's strongest scavengers. How could I be as starved as they say?"

"Self-proclaimed strongest, I take it?"

She could hear the ribbing in his tone, and ground her teeth, crunching down on the spoon. "Plutt was stingy with his prices for everyone, but always kept his stall open for me, even if I came back late," she managed with her mouth full. "He knew I found the best gear."

Rey felt the probing touch of his mind a moment before a memory of vacuum-packed portions was plucked from her.

Kylo Ren craned forward. "You clambered around in forty-thousand-crew cruisers just to be paid in food?" The question had an odd, strangled quality to it.

Rey pulled the spoon free, wrestling with another flash of anger. "Mmhmm." She swallowed around her suddenly-thick tongue. "So emergency rations I can simply take for the price of an unwelcome mental invasion are fine with me."

He ducked his helmet down. "I wasn't invading," he asserted.

"Well, you weren't asking," she countered.

Kylo Ren looked back up, and Rey got the immediate impression he was about to do just that. Ask her more about Jakku, and the ships, and Plutt.

She tensed in her seat. She didn't want to share a real conversation with Kylo Ren; she didn't need to hear some new iteration of his plans or excuses after prying out more of her past. "Anyway…." She dove back into the tin. "I never said I would share."

Kylo Ren motioned to the cabinets with a wide palm. "You are more than welcome to them," he offered. "I won't be sampling any."

"Not a fan of rehydrated pudding?"

"No."

Rey heard his distaste and added spoiled to her descriptors. "You must go for foodstuffs that require a straw anyway." She gestured to the smooth plating of his mask.

"Because I wear this everywhere," Kylo Ren stated dryly.

She shrugged. "Everywhere around me," she said.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Wasn't it obvious? "If you only hide your face in my presence," she started. "It must mean—."

Kylo Ren stopped tracing the table's edge. "I am NOT hiding," he snapped.

Rey could admit it. She was curious to see how long he would endure her comments before descending into irate threats and abuse. His stamina seemed to be increasing. She leaned over, resting her chin atop her hand. "Oh, no?" She asked, half-waiting for the world to upend itself as she got herself flung into a wall.

To her shock, Kylo Ren merely sighed. To her greater shock, he clicked his helmet's mouthpiece open and pulled it from his head, freeing waves of unruly, black hair until they fell about his ears and neck.

"You're annoying," he proclaimed, setting the helm on the table.

Rey busied herself with retrieving her utensil and swirling out the most rounded spoonful she could, trying to hide her surprise. "Plutt often said the same," she noted. "Maybe you secretly respect me like he did?"

"If that looks like harried contempt, then perhaps so."

She felt her mouth twitch up and went quiet, unwilling to examine the ramifications of an exchange with Kylo Ren without his terrifying malice. Eating in restrained, slow-for-her strokes, Rey neared the bottom of her pudding. She glanced at the cupboards, contemplating another can, and Kylo Ren followed her gaze. He lingered on the steel row of cabinets, then tensed and fisted his hands on the table.

A foreign urge traveled through the kitchen—something about the quality of the rations—before it was quashed in a smothered note of rage.

Rey swallowed her latest mouthful. He hadn't succumbed to fury despite her purposeful jabs. Why would he be upset now?

"You're irritated," she announced. "I can sense it."

"I always am around you," Kylo Ren grunted.

"No," she refuted. "A moment ago you were…." She searched her mind. "Almost calm. At ease even."

Brown eyes she rarely saw glared over from across the counter. "I told you myself I was annoyed."

"Yes," she acknowledged. "But now you're mad." Rey watched his exposed mouth contort into a frown.

"If you can't pick up a piece of silverware, you're not one to be interpreting emotions or the inner workings of others," he growled.

"Maybe my powers are just different than yours," she ventured.

Kylo Ren broke the intensity of his gaze by pinching the bridge of his nose. "There are certain tenets all force-wielders share."

"I'm special," she joked. "The droids were way off, remember?"

He pulled his hand away, looking at her flatly. "Fine. Yes. I'm irritated."

"Why?"

He gave a long-suffering sigh. "Because you are relentless."