I winced at the pain of a needle being shoved into my arm. A medical tech explained that they would be administering intravenous fluids during the ultrasound. As the medical officer pointed out the six-week-old fetus' head and other structures, I kept glancing at the one-way mirror on the wall. I wondered if Red was standing on the other side, watching.
He had been in such a rush to get me medical attention that we hadn't spoken a word more to each other. I took this as a sign that he was more concerned with the baby's well-being than my own. I tried to set this fact aside and listen to the officer's expository on prenatal nutritional intake and symptoms.
"Doctor," I interrupted at some point. "When I was eighteen, I was told that I was infertile. They said it was...something wrong with...the lining of my uterus."
"Well, whatever it was seems to have resolved itself," he said with a shrug. "A woman's uterus can change over time. Don't worry. We will carefully monitor you and the fetus."
After a few more tests, the medical team released me. Wearing only light orange clothing, I shivered in the chilly corridor. A tech escorted me down a short hallway to a cafeteria of sorts and instructed me to eat. The room, reminiscent of the officer's mess on the Finalizer, was empty save for the chef on the prep line.
I took a moment to look around for the usual Stormtroopers or guards that one in custody might expect. Cautiously, I approached the chef's counter. He was preparing some purplish vegetables.
"Excuse me," I said. "Am I a prisoner?"
He gestured behind me with his knife. "Well, he seems to think so."
Whirling around, I found a familiar black BB unit with its one red eye fixed on me. How did I not see it before? Though most BB droids looked silly, their programming was quite complex.
"Thanks for pointing that out," I said with chagrin, grabbing a plate.
The chef went back to his work.
The BB unit followed my every move. With every step I took, I heard the electric hum of its moving sphere close behind. When I sat down to eat my small plate of food, it watched me in eerie silence.
I didn't realize just how hungry I was. I ate slowly, testing the limits of my very empty stomach. I placed a hand on the lower part of my abdomen. My greatest fear—and nagging suspicion—was a reality. I'm going to be a mother. I quickly removed my hand.
I'll think about that later.
After finishing a second plate, I finally felt some constitution returning to my body. The BB unit let out a string of garbled Droidspeak as I discarded my dishes.
"I don't understand you," I informed the bot with a shrug.
The bot opened one of its panels and extended a pincer of some kind. After a moment, I realized it was trying to point. It garbled something curtly.
"Go that way?" I asked, taking a step. The bot chirped tersely and rolled along behind me. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Since when had the First Order stopped using actual human wardens?
A couple of short corridors later, we stood before a vaguely familiar white door. The room looked the same—a bright white landscape of seemingly endless space with an oddly designed apartment in the center. I explored. There was a sitting room, a bedroom, and a refresher, only the latter of which had an actual door and walls. The interior walls were decorated with screens displaying holovids of peaceful scenes: a meadow, a beach, a cityscape, and so on. The images rotated every sixty seconds.
"Settling in?"
I jumped at the voice. Navigating my way out of the quarters, I found Ren standing behind the force field once again. Wait...force field? I shot a glare at the BB unit.
"Where is John?" I asked defiantly, crossing my arms.
"'John'?" He quirked an eyebrow. "Sergeant Vegas is safe. For now."
Relief washed over me. "Good," I hedged. "Now...please leave. I don't want to see your face."
He nodded as if that was the response he had been expecting. Suddenly, he breathed out a long sigh and closed his eyes. It was only then that I noticed the dark rings under his eyes and his messy hair. He turned around and crouched low, and then he sat on the ground completely. His black cape pooled on the floor around him, and the hilt of his lightsaber tapped on the white floor. When he leaned his back against the force field, it outlined his frame in a dark blue glow.
"Then can I just...talk to you?" he asked in a tired voice.
I raised my chin tolerantly.
"Please?" he added.
"I'm listening, Ren."
He inhaled deeply and let it all out. After a moment, I stepped back and sat on the couch awkwardly situated in the open sitting room. Ironically, a heavy tiredness came over me.
"Every moment of my life has led me to this," he began vaguely. "It's all so clear to me now. My parents didn't exactly model a 'good relationship' for me."
Without seeing his face, I could only judge the sound of his voice. "Are they alive?" I asked. "Your parents."
"My mother is."
"You're lucky," I said with a frown. "My mom died six years ago."
"I'm sorry to hear that," he said softly.
Unexpectedly, my eyes prickled with tears. I shook my head, wondering if my fluctuating hormones had something to do with it.
"You miss her," Ren murmured.
The tears brimmed, and I blinked them away rapidly. "Very much," I whispered, irritably wiping my cheek.
"You don't need your family," he continued, his voice monotone. "You don't need your Fleet."
I shook my head. "Easy for you to say."
"Better to have no family than mine," he shot back. His voice then grew quieter, and sad. "My own mother thinks I'm a monster."
I pictured an unknown woman on an unknown homeworld. In an instant, I realized I didn't know the first thing about his past. "You cannot deny the truth that is your family," Tekka had said.
"Why?" I breathed hesitantly.
"Well...among other things, I..." A pause. "I killed my father."
Shock poured through my veins like liquid ice. I stared at my hands clasped together in my lap. "Why?"
He breathed out a dark laugh. "I thought it would stop this...pull to the Light. Strengthen me. Solidify my commitment to the Dark Side. But it's...only caused me pain."
My knuckles grew progressively whiter. When I heard a noise, I watched the back of his head as he held his face in his hand. His voice was low and strangled.
"It's...tearing me apart."
My eyes searched the nothingness on the ground. "When did you do this, Ren?"
"Ten days ago." As I sat there in stunned silence, I heard a muffled sniffle. "I killed Snoke, too. That was much easier."
I was so shocked that I rose to my feet. "You killed...," I trailed off in disbelief. "So Hux is...?"
"No," he answered. "I am."
My eyes went to him. I suddenly saw him in a whole new light, even though he still sat on the ground with his shoulders hunched forward. Supreme Leader Kylo Ren.
"It's my birthright. Apprentice surpassing master. It's all happened before," he said, his words falling on deaf ears.
"Is Hux alive?"
"Yes."
"Phasma?"
"No."
"Skywalker?"
"...No."
I had to sink back into my seat to comprehend it all. Only a month had gone by, and everything had seemingly changed. No more Luke Skywalker.
"There is another, who now calls herself a Jedi. Her name is Rey," he said with an edge. "She along with General Organa are the last hope of the Resistance."
I nodded absently. If the news reports were true, the Resistance didn't have much fight left in them. A self-professed Jedi and an old general didn't seem like much of a threat.
I suddenly heard Ren shuffling to his feet. I stood and looked at him, hands folded self-consciously across my abdomen.
"You were right, Lucia," he murmured. He had the eyes of a broken man. "I am a monster."
With that, he began to leave. My eyes watched him walk to the exit with a narrow stride that I had never seen before. Before opening the door, he tapped on a rectangular control panel off to the side. Suddenly, the room began to change.
The whiteness slowly dimmed into a warm orange, then to a deep red, then to the inky hue of space. I looked around, awestruck, as distant stars and planets appeared one by one. It was breathtaking. I reached my hand out, half expecting to feel the shimmer of stardust on my fingers. My eyes then fell to the continuous glow of the force field, a harsh reminder that this room was actually a gilded cage.
Ren glanced halfway over his shoulder. "Keep our child safe," he instructed me.
I narrowed my eyes at him. "Aren't you assuming that it's yours?"
He looked me dead in the eye without a shred of doubt on his face. "Yes."
