apparare | i found something in the woods somewhere.

i found something in the woods somewhere.

open post.
▬ action
▬ prompts
▬ continuing threads
▬ force shenanigans

( Deep down, he knows that it won't be that easy, and he has the distinct impression that Rey knows as well. Kylo stares into the abyss, the point where he feels Snoke's presence converging with the most strength. It is like glaring into a black hole, being pulled endlessly toward it and then through it, stretching and stretching into infinity with the darkness spiraling down and down and down. He imagines it as the gaping maw of Snoke's holographic representations on Starkiller, the wide slash of his mouth drawing breath to devour them both. His body, physically and otherwise, presents no barrier by which he might shield any of them, including himself, and is if to demonstrate this failing characteristic of Kylo's power, the wind of Ilum turns damp and strong, blowing snow and ice into their open mouths and eyes.

Rey's voice comes from behind him, and her arm does not withdraw from where he has gripped it, as if she might be blown away, as if keeping her secured in such a manner might prevent or predict her lashing out toward him. He can't be sure whether or not who he should be prepared to defend himself against in this situation, though given her encouragement and corporeal state, the fact that she is not slowly, slowly building pressure behind his eyes and ears, against his Adam's apple, lends credence to his theory that the faith - if it could be called that - he has put in her has not yet been misplaced. )

Your resistance and reluctance to utilize and explore the potential for power you posses so innately has only intensified since the last time I felt your presence in the dark. ( He speaks to Rey again, ignoring Kylo's surge forward for the time being. Indignation flares to life inside of him once more, melting the chill of scattered ice and snow as it dries and stings his eyes to the point of watering. His throat is arid, every gulp of air that he takes sharp as knives. He presses his mouth into a thin line and lets every muscle in his body stand at attention. The thick band of his fingers where they have wrapped around Rey's forearm tighten abruptly, and he recalls without having to hunt too deeply the look on her face as she bested him on Starkiller: teeth bared, higher ground won. ) You don't need it. You will want it. You can take it.

( It's a tone that Kylo recognizes, a voice that spoke to him even while sleeping, even before he could speak himself. Slipping in with untold knowledge, a deeply rooted with personal understanding of character. Snoke knew what Kylo Ren was before he was Kylo Ren. He knew what Ben Solo was. He knew what Ben Solo would become. Now, he looks to instill that same reality in Rey. It drips from his voice like molten sugar, but it can't last, not in the wake of the both of them still standing. As such, his attention leaves Rey for the brief moment to fix solely on Kylo, and he feels it like having a bucket of ice water dumped on hypothermic skin. )

Kneel. ( The compulsion is there. He feels his knees and calves strain under the weight of that absent gaze. Rey will have bruises on her arm when his fingers finally unfurl from where he has grasped her, whether in a malformed idea of defending her or as an actual, physical anchor or as something else, he doesn't know. But he doesn't kneel. Snoke is furious. ) Kylo Ren, you will kneel.

( The cave trembles. The sound of crystals shaking free of the rock bed fills the silence, hundreds of delicate, soft noises that seem out of place. In the real world, Leia Organa sits down, and her twin places one hand on her shoulder, the pad of his thumb ghosting the knob of her spine. His fingertips press white into the starchy fabric of her uniform, and her hands curl so tightly around the seat she folds herself into that her grip mirrors that of her son's where it has yet to release Rey's arm. They sweat.

Kylo answers the Supreme Leader - ) No.

( Ilum explodes.

He's felt his master's hand wrap around his throat and squeeze until he thought that he was dead; he's watched General Hux fall to his knees and beat a fist into the floor as his face turned purple. Kylo himself has dragged deck officers across the bridge into his waiting grasp just to see how frightened they were of him and what he might do. He has watched two of his Knights crumble and collapse under the weight of Snoke's discipline, and his own. He has never seen anything like what unravels in front of them. The inherent power and enormity of Snoke's ability and cohesion with the Dark Side in affecting Kylo Ren's construct is horrifying, and his anger begins to pull it down piece by piece. Never having faced anything of this magnitude in his training or in the field, he has no preparation, has no idea what to do. He looks back over his shoulder at Rey, as if expecting her to have some answer, as if because this was her idea she knows all the rules, and thinks of the only thing that he can: the last place the light touched everything.

It does not happen immediately, they linger in this collapsing world with Snoke's voice and presence filling the air, trying to hook fingers into the both of them, but eventually the world will right itself, and eventually the smell of powder, of engine grease, of fresh flowers, will fill the air, and everything will quiet and warm. The Supreme Leader can neither find them nor chase them to Ben Solo's home on Yavin IV. He is gone. )

[ Pain, real enough by the feel of it, howls through the bones of her arm, chasing from her forearm through her wrist, his fingers seeming to depress muscle as they squeeze. It chokes her out of the lilt of Snoke's voice, leaves her blinking hard and gasping through the strange heat it brings that chases away the cold around his grip, radiating upward.

But she doesn't draw back, sees the tension in his joints, feels that his hold on her is as much to keep himself standing as to keep her close, a desperate grab for control and certainty in a sea of chaos as he pushes away from the shores of the First Order.

She hears his refusal, then nothing but ringing. Around them, ice turns to powder and sprays, a geyser bursting from the cracks in the ground, showering them in frost and thick chunks of combusted ice showering like volcanic rock.

Rey throws her free arm over Kylo Ren's shoulders, pushing him to the ground in a vain effort to hurl her body across his to protect him from the collapse. Panic and dread press her eyelids shut, holding her tense there while the world comes apart in a flurry, black stone blending with clumps of frozen wasteland to swirl around them in a destructive whirlwind.

Seconds stretch into hours, with no idea how long she holds there, the crumbling landscape never properly thrashing them in any true threat, but her muscles remain tight and sprawled over Ren until the din dies down, the roar retreating into a comforting silence.

For a few moments, she refuses to accept the shift, but the warmth of a sun beats on her back, stirring melt in the ice that rained down over her, and only that familiarity convinces her that it's not some kind of deception. Slowly, Rey lifts her head, hands still pushing Kylo Ren to the ground, barely even covering his size with even the greatest effort.

Sunlight winks at them through rustling branches over the forests of Yavin IV. She can smell the familiar burn of engines, oil and grease and fuel, sticky on the perfumed forest air. Withdrawing the rest of the way, disentangling herself from him, she raises to her feet, treading in a short series of cautious steps across the forest floor as she looks up. Uncertainty colors the brief flicker of a smile that strikes next, but she dare not be the one to give voice to the victory, however small on the galactic scale.

The wonder of the forest doesn't hold her attention for long, and her eyes trace back over to her one-time enemy, now something else, a few steps away. She searches him with some form of empathy mingled with affirmation; in the same instant she came to finally understand the pressure of Snoke's insistence over the ages, she watched him push it back, stand firm against it. Instead of offering him words that would fail to measure against the weight of the steps he takes here, Rey waits to hold his gaze and incline her head, a steady nod. ]

( Kylo tastes ice and crunches grit between his teeth as Rey's sudden full body weight is thrown into his back like an oncoming speeder, one of her ankles catching the trunk of his calf in the process and sending them both to the ground underneath the blind force of her intent. He's in the middle of flinching back from the explosion of something pressurized underneath the cave's surface when she wrestles him to the ground, shaved ice pricking the exposed skin along the back of his neck, Snoke's fingers intent on snuffing the life from him, from them, bringing them to heel. He can see it all written clearly in the spray of debris as he keeps his eyes wide open and then -

It's all gone.

He sits up in the tall grass once she's moved off of him, nose assaulted by the perfume of dense forest, of pine and dirt. His mother's perfume, personalized by Han Solo's permanently dirty hands moving over her skin every time he was planet-side. Through the trees behind them, a home is half-visible, open windows white with curtains. Melting ice has turned the earth underneath of him to damp topsoil, and it smears down the front of him where Rey had pushed his shoulders down, covered him, exposed the back of her neck and the knots of her spine to whatever onslaught could have fallen on them. The band of her arm pressing into the long line of his shoulders is still a buzzing memory of pressure as he digs one palm into the ground and pushes himself up and to his knees. Snoke's voice, his presence, is a sharper one, and Kylo turns his scarred face up to the treetops as if expecting the Supreme Leader to be baring down on them through the canopy branches, but there is nothing, just the warm wash of sunshine.

The first real breath that he takes is deep, a steady inhale through his nose and out through his mouth. He bows his head, letting sweat and melted ice collect on his forehead before he swipes it away with the back of a hand that shakes, despite his best efforts to keep it still. There is dirt on his face, and he wipes at it. His stomach is in knots, a nausea rises and bile burns the back of his throat as it becomes more and more clear what he has done. Repercussions have not set in yet, not quite, and he isn't even sure if what they have accomplished here, now, will be enough to keep Snoke from possessing him at a later time, once they return from this, but he has never before shut his master out with such finality before. Kylo feels sick with power, and he has to look away from the trees in order to make the world stop spinning.

Rey meets his eyes over the long grass, and neither of them say a thing. Whatever has built between them in the past now hangs in the balance like a weighted band. He doesn't know what that means, what it will mean, and is loathe to examine it following this last encounter but it doesn't go away. It doesn't lessen or abate. It stretches warm between them, an open hand, and he returns the nod that she affords him, offering some semblance of the affirmation that she seeks in looking to him. Even though he can't be sure of their success with absolute certainty, Kylo trusts the churning in his gut and the strange, static emptiness that fills his mind where before there was the reassuring presence of a voice that had always been there.

Silence stretches, just the wind wandering softly through the trees, the sunlight warming the exposed skin that's dirty with sweat and dirt and, inexplicably, sand. Finally, he finds his voice somewhere in the back of his throat. )

You didn't have to tackle me.

( Then he turns and dry heaves into the grass. )

[ Small hands wipe slush off her half-bared arms while she sizes him up out of the corner of her eyes, turning half away to offer him some dignity as he hacks over the grass. Huffing out a breath, she allows sarcasm to drip into her voice. ]

Don't hurry to thank me. I was only trying to save your life. [ Despite her sour tone, the scowl fades quickly as she studies him with concern where he leans over to lose his guts over the toll the task took on him. She doesn't want to crowd him, but there's really no certainty that it was permanent without Kylo Ren being the one to offer it, and he hasn't still.

Casting aside courtesy for his dignity, she strides up beside him. Not so long ago, their positions were reversed, the Force overwhelming her and leaving her staggered and heaving. He had mocked her. Rey keeps a safe distance between them, keenly aware that they've had enough contact for one day.

Instead of reaching for him, she pulls up the bands of her arm wraps, examining the red welts left in her forearm with the cursory inspection of a woman too experienced with minor injuries to give much thought to it. The assessment is over quickly, and only then does she confront him. ] Is this for now, or for good?

[ It doesn't occur to her that he might be equally clueless, that they're hand-in-hand staggering blindly into the dim light of some muddy middle gray area that neither of them has explored or understood, one that has not historically proven effective for any Jedi or Sith to walk, to the understanding of those who still live. Eventually, the scales always tip. Eventually. She's too used to thinking of Kylo Ren as the one who seems to have all the answers that he may or may not choose to impart about the Force, regardless of the bias carried in those answers. ]

( Nothing but acid fills his stomach, so when he retches it's with a chemical burn clouding his sinuses and making his eyes water, as much as the debris and crystallized rock had when Ilum shattered around them like glass. His throat is raw when he's confident enough to bring his face and shoulders out of the grass without the threat of a second round taking him unexpectedly. Kylo hears her approach behind him, grass whispering as it parts to let her sift through it, but he doesn't immediately turn to face her, taking a moment instead to peer through the trees at the structure there while he wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand and catches his breath. Snoke would be disgusted with him. As Kylo looks over his shoulder to find Rey standing next to him, he finds that he doesn't care. )

Thank you. ( A pregnant pause fills the space between his words, and he looks up at her with a heavy look that tries to masquerade itself as a smirk, though like the lopsided smile he had attempted to quirk earlier, it looks unpleasant and out of practice. ) For knocking the wind out of me in a completely unnecessary and delusional moment of grandeur.

( The rest of his body follows the turn of his head, and rather than getting to his feet or even to his knees, he allows himself this moment of gravity and stays seated, letting his stomach settle and the restructuring of his mind take precedence over immediately standing in order to look capable in every possible way. Something in him feels significantly emptier than it had previously, as if a light has gone out and left him scraped to the bottom and cold. Where a void had once been filled, it now hangs open like a healed but hollow wound or like the scar tissue that pockmarks his face in a crooked reminder of the agony that had once been there. Almost disconnectedly, as if he's observing from far away, he watches Rey unravel the scraps of fabric that envelop her arms and examine the angry red shapes his fingers had left across her skin.

In conjunction with the sharp smell of acidic vomit next to him and the overwhelming perfume of Yavin IV, the welts that she reveals layer by layer make this all seem too real. He looks away when she questions him, wondering more than anything whether or not those bruises will appear on her arms once they emerge from this place, and, if they do, what scars he might also bear as a result of his own efforts. In direct response to her inquiry, Kylo finally pushes himself to his feet. The muscles in his calves and thighs feel weak, as if he's just pushed his body beyond the brink of its physical capacity. His head swims, but he remains steady. )

I don't know. ( He tells her plainly because there is no point in lying to her. In one way or another, he's been honest with her from the get-go. Knowing what she does now, having facilitated what she has, what they both have, it would be pointless to pretend like he knows better than she does. ) I hardly have experience in breaking a bond in this way. I don't think anyone has experience in breaking a bond this way. But you saw his power. He found us here as if it were no different than finding us outside of this place. Knowing how to block him or push him out when he finds us again does not change the inevitability of it. He will find us, if he hasn't already. What happens then - ( He spares a brief glance back at the fabric that covers her arms. ) - I don't know. ( A pause, and then he opens his mouth as if to say something before thinking better of it, considers a different angle and then proceeds however ill-advisedly. ) I wasn't sure if you were strong enough to withstand him.

( It's not an apology for the way he twisted her arm in his grasp, but it's about as close as he comes. )

[ Thawing limbs prickle against the warmth that steadily sinks deeper into her skin, rippling steadily in a way that briefly causes the persisting chill to ache in her joints. The last of it fades while he pushes to his feet, and she searches his face for some sense of how he feels in the wake of it.

Tired, she decides. Mostly tired. But maybe that's her. The bleed might never stop muddying the waters between their hearts and minds, but she doesn't have the wherewithal to fuss about the possibilities there in this moment. If anything, it's an absent, fleeting thought.

The intonation of apology, on the other hand, really grabs her attention. Her eyes briefly stretch wider, but she tempers the reaction as if she knows in the wake of his sarcastic gratitude (really, why did he keep doing that with his face? Was he in actual pain, thanking her?) that the act of apologizing makes him akin to a frightened animal, ready to retreat at a moment's notice.

For a moment, she's sure he has insulted her in the same breath, saying she wasn't strong enough, but she recalls the hoarse wind of Snoke's influence and the quite palpable sensation of his darkness crashing in around her, crushing her. And that was only a glimpse of what Kylo Ren had suffered for years before he'd relented. Not an insult, then, but a confession of sorts. He'd endeavored to shelter her from that, whether she needed it or not, and it was still impossible for her to imagine anyone's first instinct to be to help her. ]

I wasn't sure if I could either. [ Her dignity grants him a pass despite itself, one quick shake of her head dismissing it. She lowers her arm, quick to dismiss the injury as nothing now that he's at full height. ] But I'll find out sooner or later.

[ Unfortunately, there is no believing that this was their last encounter with Snoke. The first of many, in all likelihood, both internal and external. For all the limitations faced by the Dark Side, it certainly hasn't done anything to temper his reach. ]

We need to warn your mother. If he can find us here, he's likely already sent soldiers to find the rest of the Resistance as well.

( Her face runs through a series of transparent emotions, but Rey is quick to tuck each of them away, never giving more than she offers and taking as much as she receives. He's as confused about his own comment as she appears to be, or at least as startled by it as she momentarily is. Regret is not something that he often feels, but when it hits, it hits with the full force of a Star Destroyer breaking atmosphere. The physical repercussions of his grip on her arm hold little weight where he's concerned, where violence was a means of trade and respect and coddling pain wasn't tolerated, but the implications inherent in the act on its own are things he feels bad about, in his own way.

That he brought Snoke to her after she entrusted this task to him, after she took a risk in letting him out of the command shuttle to offer him this balm; that she looked into him and took a chance on what might not have been there after seeing Kylo cut down Han Solo for daring to suggest the same; that he doubted her ability to reject the darkness, filtered through time and space and the heavy veil of their joined minds or otherwise, and couldn't be sure whether or not he needed to hold her at bay in an effort to evade off a potential attack. The trust between them is tumultuous and practically non-existent, stands on ground rockier than the explosions had no doubt left their construct of Ilum, but for some reason it exists all the same. Inherently, standing across from her with dried sweat on his brow and the taste of vomit still in his mouth, with dirt smeared high on her forehead and the red rush of warm blood back to the surface of her skin, he knows that this is just the beginning.

Exhaustion pours into his veins and stretches long limbs behind his eyelids, bringing a burn not unlike the one that had worked its way up the back of his throat when he closes his eyes briefly against the sunlight. Thumb and forefinger press into the paper thin skin that creases there, and colors explode like fireworks in the darkness of his vision as attempts to work the ache beginning deep in his skull out that way. It isn't clear to him whether or not he's the source of the dull sensations of a blooming headache or if it's Rey - likewise with the imminent threat of exhaustion. He opens his eyes again and she fills his view of the world. )

He knows where to look. Hux will have informed him by now. The First Order won't risk attacking again until the rest of our fleet is ready to mobilize. With the Corellians withdrawing their support by going back on the arrangement made regarding the militarized ships, not to mention attacking us alongside Resistance forces, and with the winds still as strong as they are, the Supreme Leader - and Hux - will advise against immediate retaliation, at least until they're sure they'll win the fight. ( It feels inherently wrong to be speaking against the Order, and it's something he will have to examine at length for himself once he has the benefit of being alone, should that occasion arise. In the Resistance camp, he seriously doubts it. The fact remains that his assistance to the Resistance in any capacity is now beneficial to him as well: Kylo Ren is a fugitive, regardless of his end game, whatever he determines that to be, and if they leave the planet and escape the First Order with him in their possession, he escapes judgment as well. For now. ) They may blockade the planet. Whatever ships are left following the assault will likely remain close by to either wait for reinforcements to arrive and lay siege or relay information to Hux regarding the direction the Resistance goes once they leave Corellia. Everything the Resistance does needs to be done quickly and quietly.

( He has a distinct distaste for military strategy. That's always been Hux's area of both expertise and arousal. But the benefit of having had to listen to the man for years following his appointment from the naval academy means that Kylo has a unique perspective on his strategies and ways of thinking. It's clear what use he could be to the Resistance, and he gets the impression that it's as he mentioned to Rey once before: trading one leash for another. He starts to sweat where his hair crowds the column of his throat and the nape of his neck, and he passes his hand underneath it to wipe some of it away. )

How do we get out of here?

[ Conflict burns in his eyes, the kind that Rey reads with familiar understanding not because of her ability to tap into his mind, but because she's felt it firsthand. The pull to a calling that feels forced onto her and the wandering uncertainty that she is prepared to accept it, that she even wants to. Then, she had been dragged in by force, and seeing what the fight had done to Han and Finn made her decision for her, but Kylo Ren has no such investments. If anything, Leia and Luke would be just as likely to put him off the Resistance's efforts.

But that's not the question he's asking her, at least not out loud, where he should go when they do return. Dropping her gaze briefly, she accepts the simplicity of his request and turns to glance back the way they had come, where the would-be Jedi school had been replaced with endless stretches of forest. ]

We can't go back. [ There's no place to return to, no journey to retread the ground they walked before the encounter with Snoke had thrust the landscape out of the sinking dark. Only forward. ] Whatever way we find, when we do get out, everything will be different.

[ Not because the physical landscape will have changed, not because of any overt differences, but because Kylo Ren has. Because in experiencing and understanding how the darkness took its hold in him, so too has Rey. If balance is ultimately the goal, and based on Luke's teachings, she has concluded that it is—even if not by his definition—then she must accept that balancing those scales of the Force also means seeing through this complementary connection she has with Kylo Ren; every time the scales tip for one of them, the other experiences a mirror. ]

What is it about this place that calms you? Focus on that, re-center yourself, and the path will reveal itself. [ She hopes. ]

( It's easy to think of the next step and the one after that as just extensions of what has transpired here, never looking too far beyond the immediate into the sun of what's to come further down the path. They are only two steps forward and seem so small and insignificant in their own immediacy. But that's the inherent problem with only looking two steps ahead and never further: the two steps become four, and then four become eight, and so on and so on until you are miles from where you started with no conceivable way to look back, only around you and ahead at a distant horizon that is blurred by the unknown. Kylo has made it a personal mission to never glance back at the path that has brought him to where he is now, to never retread old ground both because it was forbidden and because he knew it was stupid. In the last several months, he's betrayed that mission a number of times, and now faces the forward path of two steps becoming four becoming eight becoming infinite, no promised end in sight.

Where will he go? What will he do? It seems an impossibility to consider that far ahead now, with the trees overhead and the sharp tang of acid still on his tongue, the bones in his fingers beginning to ache where he gripped Rey tight enough to mark. He knows that when she says they can't go back there's more to it than just surface value, than just the echo of a ruined future on the steps of Skywalker's academy lost through the branches and thorn bushes, more than just the seared image of a Corellian smuggler touching calloused fingertips to his cheek before slipping away, but like the four and eight and sixteen steps that he will have to take to bring him, to bring them, to whatever the next landmark might be, it's all uncertain after this forest.

Whatever exists and remains between them, growing and changing and spanning galaxies and star systems, it leaves them staring in the same direction, as much as it leaves them staring at each other, underneath the canopy of Yavin IV's treetops. It's like a constant nudge in the back of his mind, a physical presence that would slip through his hands like fine silk, like sand, if he were to reach out and grab for it. Thoughts of the Order and Hux's military tactics fall away in the wake of it, the entirety of his perception making room for the notion that presents to him. Calm himself, refocus, as if those things are now easier to do than when he had initially settled himself on the floor across from her. )

It's quiet. ( It's the first thing that comes to his mind, removing his hand from the back of his neck and pushing his hair off of his forehead. It sticks up in strange cowlicks in some places and plasters to his skull in others. Kylo can't say with absolute honesty that this is the first time that he's experienced actual silence in his life, because it isn't silence, not with her in his mind as well, not to mention the two sides that have always pulled at him waiting in the shadows for their chance to surge. But there's no Snoke. Not even an echo. And that is silence. ) We were never here together for long stretches of time, but when we were, it was quiet.

( He remembers running and screaming through the courtyard - or maybe he doesn't; maybe it's one of those imagined memories to substitute the forgotten reality that was less idealistic and kind - through the forest. His mother's strong arms underneath him as knees and elbows twined around her when she picked him up. Solo's steady shoulders rising him heads above the crowd when all he could see were the backs of legs and holsters, taller even than Chewbacca, who slipped chocolate into his hand when his mother's back was turned. It wasn't silent then, it's never been silent, but it was better, as better as it is in this moment, and he knows where to go without having to even look up from his boots in the grass. Rey's elbow is suddenly under the tap of his palm and then gone as he draws his hand back and leads them through the underbrush, through miles of forest floor until the dirt turns to pebbles turns to sand.

Back at the beginning. )

[ Quiet.

Rey shuts her eyes and listens to the breathing of the forest while he reflects, focusing on that word. The forest has never felt quiet to Rey, not compared to Jakku; she grew up understanding quiet, looking to it as a friend and constant companion, the only sounds were those that she made and the unpredictable, inconsistent dust storms that buffeted the hollow shell of her shelter (for it was only ever shelter, never a home).

But here, where it's green, and the planet is alive with sounds, she cannot imagine calling it quiet. The trees rustle together. The soil sighs and crunches with branches and leaves under her feet. Small animals—birds, insects, rodents—all scurry in the brush where comfort and food can be found, and none of it is quiet. But it is peaceful, which Rey thinks is a much better alternative.

His hand on her elbow opens her eyes, and she follows his guidance without complaint through the winding path, quiet in her hike and never letting her breath turn uneven or hitched until she sees the first sloping pile of sand stretching out before their eyes.

She wonders if it's a sign that he wishes he could go back, or if it's simply what Jakku has always been—a liminal space. People coming and going, traders and scavengers. Full of waiting and transitioning and not much else. Sometimes, she thinks she hates this place, that she'd be glad to never go there again now that she's freed herself of its weight, but she keeps coming back, one way or the other. ]

Wake up, Ren. [ Rey's mouth moves around the words, but when they are repeated, it seems like they're poorly subtitled over her lips. ] Ben, it's time to wake up.

[ Leia's voice. Not Rey's.

Rey's eyes open and Luke stands back as Leia stirs them, the valley between her and Kylo Ren in that tiny room suddenly enormous compared to the closeness they'd had throughout the journey in his mind, her mind, their minds. She unfolds her legs quickly and pushes to her feet. They do not have time for reflection. ]

Snoke knows. But Kylo Ren believes we have time on our side. [ She turns to him, waits for him to be the one to offer that guidance, to make the choice to help not just Rey, but the Resistance. ]

( Coming back into himself does not happen gradually but hits all at once. One moment he is trekking through the dense forestry and then beaches where the sand is black and pebbly and hard-packed like dirt and then gives way to the puncture of his boots in Jakku's sand. And then the next his pupils are contracting sharply in the overhead light as he watches Rey's mouth move and then hears Organa's voice superimpose itself over the lilt he's come to expect from the girl across from him.. He's almost tempted to check his fingernails for traces of grit and sand but knows that all he will find there is the dried Corellian mud. His gloves are next to him on the floor, and there are streaks of caked dirt on his knees where his boots have rubbed up against his trousers, and the word, that word - Ben - on the air is heavy in Organa's sandpaper voice as he watches Rey scramble to her feet in front of him.

He is slower to move, slower to unwind himself and rise. Sweat has cooled down the length of his spine and soaked into the flight suit that he wears underneath the armor. It has seeped into the line of his hair at the back of his neck and crowded the high cowl so that it sticks unpleasantly to him when he turns his head to follow Rey's trajectory. His mouth is dry, and the conditioned, lingering anger of hearing his name spoken aloud coils low in his belly like a simmering flame even though it does not ignite. Kylo gets the impression that he'll hear it a great deal whether he wants to or not, despite the fact that Ben Solo really is gone. Organa touches his arm to encourage him to stand, and he feels it all the way down to the bone as he shrugs her off and twists himself out of the pretzel he's made of his legs to stand.

Everyone is staring at him. It isn't a foreign feeling, although he is more familiar with people pointedly avoiding looking at him directly for the most part. Hux makes it a point to maintain eye contact as if it will prove something, and Snoke has never had any scruples regarding direct eye contact with anyone. This is different, though. There is a level of expectation that he is unused to for its purpose alone and his role in that purpose. Divulging information to Rey under the umbrella of their joined minds had been easier than this, but a chasm has opened between them to allow everyone else to fill it, and now he finds himself tense and feeling caged. A prisoner again. )

If you want to stand a chance against retaliation, which will come as soon as the winds die down and make travel possible without being suicidal, then you need to mobilize your forces and find a way off of the planet without drawing too much attention. ( His voice fills the room with a certain amount of derision. Whatever conclusions he came to during their walk, there is still a long way to go out here in reality. ) Your military tactics have not afforded you a great many victories in the past, so I suggest doing something outside of your normal routine. ( He can feel Skywalker circling him like a hawk from the outer ring of the group, but Kylo mostly keeps his attention divided between Rey's face and the General's, equally split between looking her in the eye directly as if challenging her to argue with him and at a point on the wall behind her. ) Decoys, maybe. Some deception.

( Organa asks the questions that they're all probably thinking, and he's not at all surprised to receive it. She doesn't look at him with kindness or any lingering affection the way that he could so easily recall within his own head, no softness around the mouth or eyes the way she had afforded it to him when he was brought to her. Somewhere deep down, in a way that he is not expecting, it stings him. They are enemies, though, and she wants to know, as she voices aloud: Why should we trust you? Kylo answers her faster than even he is expecting. )

The Supreme Leader knows what's happened here. Regardless of what happens in the future, I've betrayed him now. I've betrayed the Order. Lying to you, leading you into a trap by encouraging you to leave the planet before Order forces have time to reassemble and blockade Corellia, it would only bring the logical response to that betrayal down on me sooner. ( Dark eyes catch Skywalker moving forward and hold on him. ) We can benefit each other.

[ As he watches Skywalker—no, Luke slowly pace in consideration of what he hears, Rey can feel Kylo Ren hunker down behind the defenses of apathy and disconnect himself from the physical reality, cooling off to the whole notion of helping the Resistance. The realization leaves her with an aching emptiness in her chest, worsened by Leia's abrupt if understandable question; had Rey not been in his mind, she would wonder the same. A part of her still does wonder, even knowing what she does.

It makes sense, then, when Kylo Ren couches it as merely transactional, tactical aid for protection, his own self preservation reasoning his way onto their side for the time being, but Rey steps up beside him all the same, one hand briefly touching his elbow as if to make an offer of guidance on her own part now. ]

I believe him. [ She interjects with heartfelt naiveté, and the faith thick in her voice sings like a distant cousin of trust. ] Snoke was there; I saw him. Which means he's seen us. You only have a short time to act on the intelligence we've been able to gather and anticipate the blockade. Because a blockade will come—it is only a matter of when.

[ For the most part, Luke sequesters himself from the discussion, listening rather than weighing in. This is General Organa's place, at the helm of an army; Luke is of a different breed, not born or bred for the tides of war. Rey knows because she is the same.

But with Rey's opinion registered, he joins in, stopping his tracks and facing down both fledgling Force-users to ask, And for your part? Will you join us in evacuating, or remain to face the wrath of the leader you betrayed?

A scoff was out of Rey's mouth before she could help it. Registering it, she flushed with brief apology, but never let 'sorry' move past her lips, knowing it would be disingenuous. ]

You can't be serious.

[ Leia offers a strained look of sympathy to Rey, one that claims to understand her position all too well, though Rey isn't convinced of it. Instead of agreeing with her indignation, she chides, We need to be sure. Even if we assume the bond is severed … ]

You think Snoke will use him as a spy?

( He and Skywalker look at each other for a long time without breaking, thoughts passing between them and skimming the surface with the barest brush of contact. Did you let him in? Skywalker projects toward him, the angle of his chin betraying his line of thought without his uncle even having to open himself up to him. You were too weak to keep him out, Kylo responds, showing his profile to the man who joins them in the throng of debate as he glances down at the touch Rey delivers to his elbow. The pressure of her palm and fingers is a strange thing now, compared to what it was moments ago on the planes of their joined consciousness. Not unwelcome, he is quick to realize, but oddly solid and tangible. It's a brief moment of contact but noticeable all the same.

The suggestion of Skywalker's presence approaches his mind yet again but Rey is speaking before Kylo has the option of pushing the argument further, drawing him into the conversation in a way that he cannot simply just be absent from. The feeling of him at the edge of Kylo's mind falls away as he turns all his focus and attention on the girl at his side. Even so, his uncle's power burns like a roaring fire out of all of them, next to the candle of his own ability. Rey roars bright as well, like a supernova, and Kylo has the decency to feel embarrassed under the encroaching heat of her faith in him, whether unknowingly misplaced or otherwise, though for the most part his face remains impassive, neutral, until Skywalker accuses him of exactly everything he deserves to be accused of. His lip curls in half a snarl, ready to flay the older man, but Rey beats him to the punch in a way he is decidedly not expecting.

He refuses to look at her as she staunchly defends him to the two people in the galaxy who have the supreme right to have him drawn and quartered, and he doesn't know how he feels about that so he looks at Organa and settles into a comfortable simmer while he investigates the lines on her face, how old she's become in the last twenty years. It's only when Rey begins speaking about him as if he isn't standing a foot away from her that he pushes his way back into the conversation with all the subtlety and grace of a battering ram. )

I wouldn't have agreed to your experiment if that were the case.

( The tone he uses finds no home for or comfort in the sympathetic look that Organa doles out for Rey's sake. If anything, it feeds off of it and clips his words short, agitated. He wants to yell. He wants to call his saber back to his side and lash out at everything around him with the weight of all that has transpired in this tiny little room. Kylo feels it prickling under his skin and knows, in that moment, that no matter how far and distant he is from the Supreme Leader's reach or influence, these trends toward dark violence will always be there, will always be a part of him no matter where he goes or who he fights for. But when Organa diverts her attention from the girl next to him to settle on him once more, there is something underneath the steel and mettle in her gaze that gives her all away and makes him feel about eight-years-old.

It's being on the bridge with his father twenty times, each with increased violence and desperation, that clawing, aching despair that had gutted him unexpectedly. Coupled with Rey's steadfast, determined need to defend him, her admittedly naive but not unfounded or incorrect faith that what they had done hadn't been in vain, and the distinct disbelief that she not only expresses but floods their connection with in the most precise way that he has felt since they returned - he calms himself. )

Snoke wouldn't suffer such an act of betrayal just for the benefit of having a spy within your ranks. He would never want me so close to the two of you without being able to have his own direct channel of influence. And as Rey can attest, whatever connection there was between myself and the Supreme Leader has been eliminated. No more direct channels. If you don't want to hinge your evacuation on me, then hinge it on someone you've already established you can trust. I have no intention of dying today. ( He answers Skywalker's question without looking at the man. ) Just as I'm sure you have no intention of losing the meat and potatoes of your fleet to Snoke's inevitable retaliation.

Edited 2016-02-01 18:09 (UTC)

[ Rey looks up at him, falling silent as his snapped words fill the heavy air between the mismatched group of sinners and lost dogs searching for a way home. She can’t help but wonder if he’s among them, regardless of his outward resistance, if he’s really looking for a way home too. The pine smell of Yavin IV fills her head like cotton and ice, clouding it from judgment and perception, so much so that she misses Leia’s tired sigh, the one that says that they don’t have a choice but to trust the intelligence they’ve been given.

He must, she decides. It must be that desire that led him to allow their experiment in the first place, and he must be relieved that it worked. Regardless of whatever other emotions cloud and conflict the reaction. ]

Doubt and paranoia are the weapons of the Dark Side, Master. [ Her soft appeal comes after they all take a handful of quiet moments to process and weigh Ren’s claims. ] They might plague us, but we can’t court them or they’ll take root.

[ That lesson, she learned well in the tar pits of Kylo Ren’s mind, if not from the lecturing of her teacher. Were the circumstances less dire, she might be able to find humor in the notion that he had been the one to instruct her in the ways of the Force after all, in a roundabout sense. ]

If we ignore his warning, the First Order could see that we never leave this planet. The Resistance could die here.

[ Her appeal smoothes the rough edges of Kylo Ren’s pragmatism into an unfortunate truth that they all need to swallow if they are to survive. Leia raises a hand from her hip to stay her insistence, processing the heavy weight, then waves it to dismiss them and paces to the wall where she folds her arms and waits for Luke to join her in quiet discussion. Luke’s voice is tense as he thanks Rey, a deliberate omission of his nephew’s part given the way he then holds Kylo Ren’s hard stare with something muddled with sore guilt. Like Leia, he turns away in kind and joins her in whispering.

Turning to her counterpart, Rey nods for him to move with her for the exit. ]

( Rey might miss that drawn exhale from the general's lips, but Kylo doesn't. Even when he isn't looking at her, when he's trying to split his attention and focus equally between the three other people in the room and anything that might prick his interest beyond the walls of the bunker, Organa dominates his field of perception like a bomb going off in the distance. She crowds his vision even when he isn't looking at her and floods his sinuses with the scent of her perfume, her shampoo. He could make an active effort to ignore her and still her presence would supersede everyone else around her without having to try very hard, even with how hesitant she is toward him, maintaining a professional distance now despite her reluctant affection toward him prior to this part of their meeting.

The only thing that competes with it is the sound of Rey's voice cutting the weighted stillness in the room, filling it up to the walls and ceiling and washing away some of the misgiving that had settled in following the sound of his own low tones and the harsh sharpness of his tongue. She soothes the sting of the balm that he tries to apply to the wounds that have been raised as best she can, trying to appease and impart with the knowledge that she has gleaned in ways that he can't. It leaves him dumbfounded, in a way, which is not a feeling he's overly familiar with, enough that he has to stare hard at the back of her head when she steps in front of him a little.

Or, rooted more firmly in reality, when he steps back once Organa raises a hand toward the both of them, shifting from the balls of his feet to his heels and rearranging long limbs in a way that makes him both shrink away while managing to loom large at the same time. Kylo only finishes extending himself to his full height - so considerable in such a small room, surrounded by such small people - when Organa signals their dismissal, which leaves him both relieved that he won't be subject to her scrutiny and irritated that she feels he's dismissible at all. His uncle catches him mid-motion and Kylo arrests himself in the act of bringing his arms behind his back to grip one wrist with the flat, wide palm of another, so much so that he straightens to military attention as if daring the other man to say anything about anything in the process.

He thanks Rey, but not Kylo, and it does not go unnoticed, Kylo's fingers tightening around the bones in his wrist and his jaw tensing as he chooses to ignore the alleged guilt in Skywalker's eyes and see instead cautious reproach. Wasted potential. That stings, too, but not perceptibly enough for it to be noticeable. He's glad for it when Rey looks up at him and nods, and he begins stuffing his gloves into a pocket as she motions him to follow her out of the room, never more glad than he is in that moment to be away from two people. His hand finds his hair when they exit the room, and he scrubs through it hard enough to tangle. )

Now what? ( There's a certain amount of derision in his voice that is perhaps unfairly directed at her, but his muscles are jumping off of his bones and twitchy, crackling energy rolls off of him in waves. Something in the atrium they step into makes a distinct crunching sound as metal collapses in on itself, and he tosses a glance back over his shoulder at the rusting door to a fuse box, which has crumbled like a tin can. The look he levels at Rey tries to be apologetic, but it gets lost halfway there and leaves him looking sour instead. ) After such a charming reunion, I assume you'll lock me back in the shuttle.

( Certainly not for the first time and definitely not for the last, he wonders where his saber has gone to. Not with any intention of using it in the present moment, but with the sort of longing that children miss lights when they are finally turned off in the night. )

[ He's nervous. Even if it weren't coming off him in waves, she catches him thread his hands through his hair out of the corner of her eye, and she finally picks up on what that particular neuroses means in him: nervousness. Not the frantic, trepidatious discomfort of something young and feeble, but the restless stirring of a great animal, a carnivore, trying to decide if it should remain docile for its captors or strike.

She knows he is already bracing himself for the confines of the makeshift airlock cell before he asks, just like she knows that's sweat he's shaking out of his hair, and she finds herself oddly calm in how she feels just as aware of his movements and particularities as she is of her own.

Rey stops in front of him with his question, glancing pointedly at the metal he has crushed in an uncontrolled fit with careful assessment before she takes the time to answer. Skywalker's measured patience counts in her silent beats. Then, she looks back at him, eyes muddled with two parts confusion and one part understanding. ]

It wasn't my idea to put you there in the first place. [ For some reason, that seems like the most important thing to establish—she wants him to understand that if she had her way, it would have been a different conversation. She can't be sure how. Maybe that's why it wasn't her decision. But it seemed just as inhumane as how the First Order had held her, and vengeance tasted bitter and turned to ash in her mouth, unsatisfying and short-lived. ] And no one has ordered me to return you to it, so unless you know something I don't, and have reason to believe that I need to…

[ Which is to say, she wants him to make that call. As far as Rey is concerned, he's free to walk out of this camp now. All said and done, he offered them precisely what they needed, and he submitted himself to make sure he would no longer be a weapon for Snoke to wield. If he found his path in the middle, away from this war, it would be for him to decide; she hopes he won't, of course, hopes that he sees in their future the same vision that he'd shared with her on Yaga Minor, but changed now, guided by their own minds and no one else's. But she can't force him to. ]

I told you that you would need to decide your path forward for yourself. If you ask me, the best place to find that path is here, with the Resistance, and I believe you owe it to the people you've hurt to help them clean up this mess. But what I believe doesn't really matter. The question is what do you believe? Do you believe you belong in a cage?

[ It's hard to tell if she means it. If when he makes his choice, she would truly honor it and let him walk away, or if this is some elaborate scheme to manipulate him into the choice she wants and to make it feel like his choice. However, it's hard to imagine the open gentleness of her eyes could be anything but real, and she does have the keen advantage of a Force bond equipped to (hopefully) warn her if he would truly try to decimate the camp now. Perhaps, against all odds, she really is that willing to exercise her understanding as forgiveness. ]

( For a moment, that possibility of being left behind occurs to him in such a way as it never has before. It stretches between them in the seconds that it takes for Rey to come up with something else to say, and he wonders if she's daring him to disagree with her assessment of his character. Kylo realizes that the power to make a decision as to his fate within the next day cycle rests solely on his hands, and he can either turn and ravage the camp the way that, he's sure, the vast majority of the Resistance expects him to, or he can turn tail and run into the Corellian underbrush, return either to his master as Skywalker and Organa were right to consider a possibility or vanish into nothing, a fate that he's well aware they all know does not suit him.

Or. Plan C.

Rey opens her mouth and some sound comes out of it, leveling questions at him that he feels ill-equipped to answer and even less prepared for, despite the fact that these are conversations that he knew were coming, even back on the command shuttle, when he paced the opposite side of the glass like a caged animal. They remain much the same now, separate and apart but still connected, joined. The less people are around to distract him from it, the more keenly Kylo feels it just existing. It eerily and soundly covers the wound that Snoke's presence had left in him when it was torn away like pouring cool water over a burn, and it buzzes with a potential that he had not recognized or felt in conjunction with the Supreme Leader or any of the other Knights who were Force sensitive.

He tries to use it, to suss out her intentions, unable to trust her completely the same way that she finds reason to doubt her faith in him. Despite their ability to look into one another and see what's there beyond the scope of an outsider's reach, Kylo gets the impression that these hesitations will never evaporate between them, that they will just continue to change and evolve until they are old habits, dying hard and noisily in the wake of the choices that they make. For her part - and his - Kylo likes to think that he can see a little of who she is without having to dip both feet and wade into the high tower of her mind to figure it out; he likes to think that the bare, open look of her eyes is authentic. It matches her defense of him and rides high with what he already knows of her: steadfast, true, too brave and stubborn for her own good.

They know one another; it would be imprudent to lie to her when he never has. It would be just as rash to betray her. What that means for him, he doesn't know, and it doesn't matter anyway. )

You and I have serious differences in perspectives on what the Resistance means and what it can achieve. ( Kylo keeps the confrontational qualities of his tone at bay. Not an easy task but with the door to the fuse box hanging by a single hinge, he feels a measure more calm than he had moments prior. He has no response for the lives that he has taken and the people that he has hurt, which she levels against him without slinging mud but that doesn't mean that he can't feel the weight behind the very justified charge against him. It also doesn't mean that he feels remorse for it. Not now. Not yet. ) I think there are more than enough people in your camp that would say I should stay behind bars, who won't exactly be comfortable with the idea of me walking around among them. It might not have been your idea to imprison me in the first place, but all that means is that it won't be you who decides to keep it from happening again. Whatever path I choose or don't choose, it doesn't matter right now. ( He smirks at her. ) Creature in a mask, remember?

( Where will he even go? What will he even do? In the company of the First Order, he commanded a guard; he wasn't assigned to one. It's ludicrous to think that he will be afforded an even slightly similar luxury among the ranks of the Resistance, but he can't adequately picture himself anywhere else either. Whether that's a bid in desperation and self-preservation or an actual inclination and desire, he can't be sure. Not this early in the game. Not this close to the end of all that he knew. It plagues him with doubt, with uncertainty, an island battered by storms that have worn it down over years and decades. Kylo knows better than anyone where that goes, and he knows better than anyone that it will take him nowhere he wants to be right now. As conflicted as he constantly is, he knows that he doesn't want to die. So he casts out a line and takes a step toward her, brushing up against her presences at the very edges even though enough distance remains between them physically to be cordial. He finds a grip there and holds. )

I know I believe that Snoke needs to die. ( His voice stays low. A couple of techs chatter close by, giving them a wide berth but keeping their heads down, eager not to miss anything to gossip about. ) I don't believe that the Resistance can do it on its own merit, just as I don't believe they can take back the ground they've lost with him still at the helm of the Order. I don't believe that I can kill him myself. I don't believe that you or Skywalker can. I don't know if I believe any of us will succeed, but I think I have a better chance straddling the line than being a slave to either side. I can't walk the path that you walk or the one that you want me to walk, but I think it would be unwise to walk away.

( So, plan C. )

[ It's almost funny, how he even declares that he will stay in a manner of roundabout reluctance, and Rey finds herself start to smile despite herself. Only through breaking his gaze briefly does she restrain it, but that levity and warmth still permeates through the membrane of their bond like heat, transferring readily to him even in its infancy.

It's unnerving, to see and process the vast and appropriate physical space between them but to feel as if they are wrapped up in one another all the same, the link humming and active like a live wire shedding active sparks. She can sense his conflict, his resolve, but most of all, she can register and respect his pragmatism, which speaks to a primal survival urge that kept her going on Jakku for so long. ]

Cut off the head. [ She nods briefly, a clear approval of the method, however undeveloped the plan is for now. And for a moment, even as he decries their chances, Rey firmly believes them to be capable. If they have hope for even half of what that vision on Yaga Minor had shown, then she must believe it.

That moment, the resolve with which she accepts that one way or another, they will have to kill Snoke—there is no strained but heartfelt way to reach out and find the humanity inside of him. What she felt in Kylo Ren's mind is no longer human—grows and springs into another sort of resolve, that of a decision finally settled. ]

We can't kill anyone if they put an embargo on the planet. And you're right, no one on this base would want you to bunk with them, even if you hadn't personally tortured at least two in immediate memory. [ She turns quickly and begins to lead him out of the atrium, her movements lifting the heads of nearby observers only for a moment before she breezes out into the camp proper, leading him for the treeline. ] But there is a place you can stay, one that should be able to get us out of here no matter what they surround the planet with.

[ After all, the kessel run wasn't a matter of speed and earnest, but a matter of cutting close corners and dodging obstacles to shorten the distance of it. What better ship to sneak past an armada than a smuggler's? Through the trees, they move past the camp, where a clearing has obviously been created by the unceremonious landing of the Millennium Falcon. ]

( For a moment, his ears and the back of his neck feel warm, and he can't determine whether or not it's his own reaction or hers or some combination of the two as she ducks her head away from him in order to break eye contact. Either way, it's a strange feeling, not the strangest that he has encountered today but top ten, easily. Her pleasure in his response is tinged with nothing more than her conviction that they will see this done. There are no ulterior motives or greater purposes threaded throughout the sentiment, and it's frank and blunt in its supreme honesty when he acknowledges it for what it is. It fills him like a cup of warm water, the thrashing and broiling calamity so often a part of him calming in the presence of both her relief and in his own.

Before he has a chance to reply, she is turning on her foot and leading him away from the area, so that he has to lengthen his strides in order to rejoin her and then shorten them again in order not to lumber past her. Her comment doesn't sting, even as the warmth the flexes through their connection wanes on his end to be replaced with something more natural, an apex predator calm and weary but still on the lookout as they step into the burning gray of the Corellian sky. He never lets his guard down in the company of wolves, especially wolves that he has systematically hunted down and destroyed over the years. Not for the last time, he knows, Kylo wonders where that traitor stormtrooper is, where Dameron is, the lot of them moving in circular patterns, weaving in and out of each other's lives. )

Where are we going?

( Kylo asks her once they are beyond the belly of the camp and moving quickly to its outer limbs, winding under grounded ships and hastily assembled camps that will have to be cleared by afternoon if the general hopes to get her people out alive. Corellian high winds have no set pattern and deviate from prediction quite often. The first chance they get to break atmosphere should be taken, but he's only thinking of that vaguely as he catches sight of a pilot emerging from her tent as Rey strides past only to fix him with a scowl that he returns with a dark but blank look on his way to the treeline. No bunks here or anywhere, he assumes, wondering what retaliation Rey will endure for her part in all of this and finding himself somewhat surprised to be considering it at all.

As for his question, he doesn't have to wait long for a response. The trees thin abruptly, having been crushed by the underside of a very familiar YT model freighter, side cockpit looking as scarred and battered as it always has, scorch marks and carbon scoring painting the thing different shades of white, gray, and black. Kylo stands so still at the edge of the clearing that his boots begin to sink into the mud under the heavy weight that seems to press down on his shoulders, all the way into his heels. He knows every corridor and compartment on that ship, knows the frequency by heart and speaks smuggler's cant like a second language. Every hair on the back of his neck stands on end, and he holds himself unnecessarily rigid. )

Still a piece of garbage.

[ Despite making a similar assessment the first time she’d seen it, Rey bristles protectively at Kylo Ren’s comments. That ship was the last thing she had of Han Solo after he’d taken the would-be father figure who’d been its pilot from her. Chagrined, she scowls sidelong at him, then hikes up towards the base of the ship, where the ramp descends to steady it on the surface of its late owner’s home planet. ]

This piece of garbage might save your life. Watch it. [ Her grousing sings in the wake of her moody hike up the ramp, the thud of her boots echoing through the rickety metal frame.

It’s impossible to ignore the bitter metal taste in her mouth that tells her inviting him into this space is a bad decision, is wrong. This was Han Solo’s space, and Kylo Ren killed him. He didn’t deserve to walk the halls of his father’s ship. But if any of this were about deserving, then they wouldn’t have made the strides they already have, and pulling him back from the dark would have been impossible.

He did not have to deserve mercy for it to be given. In fact, if he did, it would not be mercy at all.

She didn’t pause to wait for him, though. Allowing him in here didn’t have to mean welcoming him. Instead, she blazed around the corner of one of the tube-like hallways circling the freighter, looping around to the cramped crew quarters with functional, weak-framed bunks of narrow width tucked into individual closets that sprawled like honeycombs off a central pod on the ship’s port side.

Fur litters the disheveled sheets of one bunk, caught also in the thin joint of panels in the walls identifying the room as Chewbacca’s. Across from it, a small, crudely made doll imitates an X-wing pilot in an orange jumpsuit with a helmet, fashioned wholly of cotton and linen packed together, held together at the joints with thick twine.

She stops in front of the third, lingering near the narrow frame of the door in silent offering. Finn stayed in it last, but it’s not precisely his. To the contrary, he found his place among the other Resistance troops. ]

If General Organa doesn’t move the troops in time, we can load the Falcon up and get past their barricades. [ She doesn’t let the disclaimer I hope come out aloud. Better to sound sure that she can do it. ] In the meantime, you can rest here.

( For Kylo's part, he remains at the edge of the gangplank for a moment longer than is strictly necessary, wondering if Rey is the only one now on board or if he's going to turn a corner and come face-to-chest with nearly eight feet of still-sore Wookie. He knows if the ship is here, then Rey's co-pilot - Han Solo's co-pilot - can't be far off. Kylo doesn't bother casting out in search of his presence but instead presses the bare width of his palm to his flank. Even though the pain has long since faded and the scar is little more than a pucker between his ribs and hipbone, he has traced over it with cool fingertips enough in the last however many months to know its location without needing it to twinge or needing to see it in the reflection of the mirror. )

Doubtful.

( He answers her long after she's left the area, considering the incline in front of him. Going up the ramp is less a test than any of the others that he's faced in the past, so he doesn't dawdle long with the toes of his boots on the foot of the plank and his heels in the mud. Once Rey's footsteps have stopped echoing back at him from inside as if to establish absolute ownership of the ship he is about to set foot on for the first time in over twenty years, Kylo takes the steps necessary to bring him into the ship proper, ducking his head even though he's not in any immediate danger of hitting it on anything.

The smell that hits his nose is so familiar it works at a muscle in his memory like fingertips and knuckles digging into a sore knot to relieve the tension there. Oil, that burnt smell of cooking copper and plastic encasing split wire. Sparks and wet Wookie hair underneath leather. He knows the layout of this ship almost as well as he does the Finalizer, having spent enough time trying to sneak around in it when he was a child and his father was making preparation to leave the planet on some errand yet again. If he turns to the right and goes down the hall leading away from the ramp, he'll be in the cockpit, and he's resolutely and decidedly pleased that Rey's footsteps lead him away from that area, and he catches up with her quickly, making little effort to note what's changed since the last time he was on board this ship.

When he catches up to her, his arms are crossed. He doesn't deny how bizarre this all is, as if under the impression that he's living a very vivid dream that he will describe in detail to someone later only to laugh about the absurdity of it all. The smell of the Wookie's bunk is enough to deter him from the thought and ground him more sharply in the very distinct realness of it all, and he steps away from it, turning his back to bring him more completely into the galley and affording him a better view of the bunk that must be Rey's. There is a poorly made doll fashioned in the likeness of a pilot that catches his attention over everything else, before he looks over his shoulder to find her indicating a remaining bunk that looks like it hasn't been used in some time. He makes no move to approach it. )

Very cozy. You put a great deal of faith in something that's been limping its way to lightspeed since before I was born. ( Kylo leans against the wall across from her, looking completely out of place and alien to this jumble of paneling and wires held together with a bit of chewing gum and old string. He's heard all the stories, been told all the tales. They were never myths but they were stories and that's all they were. Just stories. Now they're stories with ghosts. He looks at the dull shine of his boots in the overhead light and wonders how much less comfortable the command shuttle with the airlock would be compared to this. ) I'll concede a point: this piece of junk has held up the test of time much better than I'd ever assumed it would, and it might be able to make the jump beyond the barricade better than the slower Resistance models, as it has in the past. But there's no way in hell that you're leaving the Resistance behind if Organa can't scramble her troops in time. We both know that.

( There's this word he's gotten hinged on the more it comes out of her mouth. We. )

[ The raw honesty of his assessment, the unfortunate truth, draws some of the energy from Rey. Lowering her eyes, she accepts his assessment, but she doesn’t dim her enthusiasm. Instead, she refocuses it. ]

I’m not suggesting we abandon anyone. But we won't be if the First Order redirects its fleet to pursue the YT light freighter that was last known to be carrying Luke Skywalker, the ship that belonged to your father.. If they're truly sent by Snoke to punish you, their priority will be to pursue us in the Falcon.

[ It’s reckless, crazy, even stupid—in other words, the perfect gambit for the Resistance. ]

With the X-wings to defend the rest of the fleet, they should be able to escape.

[ She’s seen Poe fly. That much, she knows he could do. The real question is whether or not she could draw the attention of enough to make a difference once they knew it was Rey and Kylo Ren on board, and whether she would then be able to shake the tail after or if they’d simply be obliterated.

Battle plans don't become her, for she wears an enthusiasm that's young and bright-eyed and ill-fitting for a war, that is too easy to imagine being drained by it in stages. ]

( Kylo makes a face at that, something between a grimace and a wince. He dislikes the idea of being used as bait in any capacity but can't find fault in its practicality, doubly so if Snoke and Hux, as a matter of general proximity and chain of command, are both aware of what he's done. They'll want to drag him back kicking and screaming in the opposite direction that Rey - and Skywalker and Organa, if he's being honest with himself; he's not - has pulled him toward. Though he very seriously doubts that the First Order's accommodations in the wake of such an upset would match the kindness in Rey's offer. If a bunk on the ship that belonged to a man he murdered could be called a kindness. )

I'm starting to get a clearer picture of what's going on here.

( One step off of the wall that he has chosen to recline against brings him nearly level with her. A second sees him directly across from her, as he braces the palm of his hand flat on the bulkhead under the pretense of checking the specs of the bunk. Kindness, indeed: he's fairly positive that he'll have to curl his legs when (and if) he lies down to simply fit inside this matchbox of a cabin. He's not even sure his head will clear the top of it while sitting and doesn't bother straightening back up in the interest of testing his theory before resigning himself completely to his fate.

He has to duck to do it, but the top of his head does clear the bulkhead with the barest skim along the ridge of his scalp. It will be easy to bang his head into the ceiling if he's not mindful of what he's doing, and the bunk itself is positively claustrophobic compared to the space he had been offered on the Finalizer. Back against the wall, staring down the length of his thighs to his knees, he is reminded of a time when his legs were still overly long but not this long, and he had tucked himself into one of these bunks with ease. Kylo looks up at her from this angle, legs crowded awkwardly in front of him, knees uncomfortable, and finishes his line of thought from before he had decided to sit down. )

You're a crazy person.

( There's little seriousness to be found in his tone. Comparisons could be drawn and quickly discarded as to the people she reminds him of in that instant. He sees a better strategy in deciding to make no comparisons at all, as much as he lets no real accusation bleed into his voice. Truth be told, they're all a little crazy, to be doing anything that they believe in. He admires her tenacity, though, the ferocity and resilience of her spirit, her strength. That hasn't changed in the months and moments following Starkiller. Even if she is trapping him with ghosts and faulty wiring. )

[ If her incorrigible optimism hadn't already thrust straight past the threshold of intolerability, the fact that he begins to settle in and make himself at home on the ship worsens it. The light in her eyes brightens in a flash, excitement leading her away from the wall to stand in front of him at the doorway of his bunk.

Her hands press against the frame, leaning over somewhat even though sitting down really only brings him closer to her height. The frame creaks and sighs with the weight against it, like the whole ship does. Each sigh whispers history to her, helps her feel connected to Han Solo in ways that she can't anymore.

Truth be told, even if he were being serious, the comments would roll off her back: Rey has long since accepted that only a crazy person would try to stand against the First Order. It's the reason the Resistance encampments are always full of the eclectic and strong-willed. That she feels at home among them says nothing for her own sanity, but she's never felt particularly compelled to prize that. ]

So you think it'll work. [ She's choosing to interpret his comments that way, at least. Particularly in concert with the resigned way he crowds himself into the bunk. She won't get hung up on his sour attitude—can't, if they're to make any progress here, and Rey is far more desperate for that, for a victory that means the continued survival of the Resistance, than she is to salvage her pride. ]

( He shrugs one shoulder, and there is honesty in that. If he were to weigh the Resistance's chances against the First Order's, Kylo would pick the latter every time. More firepower, more manpower, the Supreme Leader himself, although Snoke's approach has always been to rule from afar without exerting too much of his direct control. That has always been Kylo's responsibility, and the other Knights of Ren. Even without his own assistance and power backing the Order's military prowess, and as loathe as he is to laud Hux's accomplishments in any way, shape, or form, he must concede the point that the First Order simply has every odd stacked in its favor.

Of course, that hasn't stopped the Resistance from toppling them before.

It's a sour memory for more than just the reason of his own defeat and disfigurement at the hands of the girl currently blocking his path out of the bunk. There are a million memories of Han Solo waiting here, pressed into the cracks and eddies of this trash heap of a ship, and all of them recall with perfectly clarity every line and detail of his face as it was bathed in red light before falling away. Kylo lets Rey become the center point of his focus, grounding himself firmly in the present and future in a desperate attempt not to get pulled under the current of the past.

He wishes she would stop making that face every time he says something that isn't an actual affront to her character or anyone else's just by virtue of having come out of his mouth. He'll stand up again, if that means she'll stop doing it. She looks far too pleased for it to mean anything good, especially when he's nearly eye level with her while sitting down and as such more or less has to maintain direct eye contact or look away. Less easy to do when she crowds and dominates the field of his vision the way that she does, leaning against the bunk. )

I've seen worse plans put into action and achieve more success than was expected. ( It's as close to praise as he gets when he isn't trying to bait her into abandoning her crusade for the Resistance and join him among the ranks of the First Order. Funny how that one worked out. ) They won't send the entire fleet after us, if it comes down to what you're posing as an optional solution, but at least it might afford your pilots some measure of time to improvise and clear a path.

( Again, and he knows not for the last time, the words that come out of his mouth strike him as intrinsically odd. And yet the more he says them the more natural they begin to feel. It isn't the way that he would have things done, not the way that he would go about any of this had he any say at all in it, but his options are limited, and Kylo works with what he has. Speaking of which - )

Where's my lightsaber?

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