Chapter Text
That girl, Rey, was a kriffing menace.
When she wasn’t crying and screaming in the middle of the night, she was pouting and mocking Kylo during his lessons. And that’s if Kylo were lucky enough to know where the hells she even was. As often as she was lashing out at him or making a mess, he’d come back from missions to find no trace of the girl beyond the pitiful stashes of snacks and mechanical parts she had hidden throughout his quarters.
When he got back from his short trip to the nearby moon of Xervin-2, his search for her turned up a small jug of oil beneath the refresher sink, three protein bars taped to the underside of his right desk drawer, a box of gears, springs, and cables in a hollowed couch cushion, and a half rotten apple behind the lighting panel she’d unfastened from the wall.
But no sign of Rey.
This was utterly ridiculous. A Sith of his stature reduced to chasing around some insolent whelp around the halls of the ship he commanded, no co-commanded.
Great, now he had the insufferable image of his Co-Commander rooted firmly in the back of his mind. Just what he needed. To be assaulted by the joint headaches that were a selfish brat who had no idea the opportunity she was throwing away and a frigid general who was under the delusion that he had anything of use to offer anyone.
He stalked the corridors of the Finalizer, following the winding echo of Rey’s presence until he was, ultimately, led back to his own quarters. With a sharp rebuke for wasting his time on the tip of his tongue, Kylo opened his door and promptly choked on his words.
Sitting, at his rarely used desk, were the exact sources of his two greatest irritations. Said selfish brat had strewn her mechanical garbage across the desk surface and was proudly itemizing every piece to said frigid general sitting across from her. Upon his entrance, Rey perked her head up and fixed Kylo with a wide, eye-squinting smile that he’d never seen her display.
“Mr. Kylo! Look, it’s General Sucks!” She beamed, gesturing to the man as if Kylo could have possibly missed his presence. “You were wrong, he’s actually really nice!”
Kylo tore his gaze away from Rey’s eager grin and brought it up to General Hux. The man sat there, straight backed and regimented as ever. His stare was icy and bright, more like a glacier than eyes, and the thin smile plastered across his face was tight. You didn’t have to be a Force user to sense that it was both fake and unpracticed. How, though, he was able to fool such an innate talent such as Rey was beyond Kylo.
“That’s quite a hidden treasure you’ve got there,” Hux said, keeping his eyes firmly on Kylo. Out of the corner of his eye, Kylo could see Rey giggle from the praise, but all Kylo felt was a chill trickling down his spine.
“Rey,” Hux called, and Kylo could feel his mouth pitch down as the girl had the gall to readily respond to it. “I have to discuss some things with ‘Mr. Kylo’ here. I don’t want you to get bored though, so would you prefer to play with this?”
Hux extracted his datapad from his greatcoat and held it out for Rey to take. She stared at the device, craning her neck to examine it from every angle before –cautiously— accepting it.
Hux stood up slowly and Rey’s eyes darted up from the datapad screen.
“We’re just going into the next room,” Hux said, pointing to the bedroom. “We don’t want to distract you, but we’ll leave the door open in case you need us. Ren.”
Hux gestured him to follow with his head, and while Kylo was loathe to obey even barest suggestion from the man, he grit his teeth and stomped after him. The instant he crossed the threshold, Hux rounded to face him with a stare that could chill liquid nitrogen.
“Take that off. I’m not discussing this with you while you’re wearing that.” Hux ordered with a blithe wave of his hand.
“You have no right to-”
“Yes, yes, yes, no right to command you.” Hux sighed before affecting a severe exaggeration of his Imperial Accent. “Could you ever be so kind as to please remove your bucket, Kylo Ren?”
His mouth tasted bitter at such blatant mockery, and Kylo allowed the ire to strengthen the grip he encircled around Hux’s throat. Hux kept an admirably straight face despite the Force cutting off his airways, but even he was starting to tremble as Kylo, slowly, removed his helmet. He took his time, physically walking to the nightstand and setting it down before striding back to Hux in a careful, measured step.
His lips were turning blue, and his eyes were wider, but his back was as straight as ever. Even when on the cusp of unconsciousness, he still managed to look down at Kylo. Such unfounded pride in a completely ordinary man.
Kylo released his grip on Hux’s throat, and he sucked in a deep breath immediately. Kylo took in the slight tremble of the General’s knees and considered giving them a careful nudge, enough to make the smug man collapse at his feet. That’d be something that could probably fix his foul mood.
Before he could act on the impulse, however, Hux was stable again. Firm in his stance and glare as ever.
“Is she yours?” He finally asked, his voice only a little hoarse from the choking.
“You found her here, didn’t you?” Kylo snapped. He really had no time for the round about questioning Hux was so fond of. It was a game rooted in politics and subterfuge, neither of which had ever interested Kylo. Not even when he had been Ben.
“No,” Hux corrected. “I found her in Sector L-201 trying to remove a capacitor.”
“And what makes you think she isn’t from your little Trooper Program?”
“Pardon me for seeing a Force sensitive child destroying my ship and immediately thinking of you.”
Kylo could practically feel the dig settle in his gut, writhing like an angry beast and only serving to heighten his irritation. As usual when speaking to the general, he was already wishing he could just kill the man to save on the trouble.
“And well, saying that I couldn’t touch her because ‘Mr. Kylo bought me’ certainly clinched it.” Hux stared at him, like he was physically disgusted. “Really, Ren. At first, I thought you had some illicit affair, but buying a child? I refuse to ignore this.”
“Wait, I didn’t buy her.”
“No?”
“Well, I mean, technically I did, but not like, it’s just that, I didn’t buy her as a slave. It’s just the only way I could get her.”
“And why was it so important that you get her?”
“You said it yourself, she’s Force sensitive.”
“So? We have more than enough Force users gallivanting about in the First Order, if you ask me.”
“Well, I didn’t. Besides, she’s different. She’s,” Kylo paused, trying to find the words to tell someone who couldn’t just feel the way the girl was so utterly entwined with the Force. “Strong.”
“Unlike you, I suppose?” Hux smirked.
“Different than me,” Kylo snapped, exasperated by Hux’s unending semantics. “She, it’s, I can’t describe it to you.”
“I’m not surprised. Communication isn’t exactly a strong suit of yours.”
“Like how power isn’t one of yours.”
Kylo could feel a little thrill of victory as Hux’s frown pitched down, edging towards a snarl. “It’s more efficient to cultivate and utilize others’ power.”
“Keep telling yourself that.” Kylo hissed, closing in on the man. “Because right now, only one of us has the power to kill the other right now. And it’s not the one who hides behind an army of child soldiers brainwashed to-”
“General Sucks?” A voice pitched from the doorway. “Are you okay?”
The two turned to see Rey standing, half hidden behind the doorframe. She held some metal pieces in one hand, a makeshift knife now that Kylo looked at it, and she was trembling.
“You feel…unsteady, like you were about to fall.” She articulated carefully.
“I’m perfectly fine, Rey, thank you for asking.” Hux replied, his voice at once warm and comforting. Draping his lies across her tiny shoulders like a well-loved cardigan.
She stayed where she stood, staring. Perhaps she was able to see through this façade.
“Would you like to come in?” Hux asked with a wave of his hand. “We’ll be finished soon.”
She nodded once, slowly and delicately, and walked into the room on tiptoes. She edged towards the bed and sat on the unmade covers without pause. Her gaze flicked between him and Hux, and her grip on the knife didn’t loosen.
“Now then,” Hux said, bringing his attention back to Kylo once Rey had sat down. “You are out of your element, Ren. I’ll be taking her.”
“What?! Like hell you will!”
“Ren, you don’t know the first thing about raising a child. Admit it.”
“And you don’t know the first thing about cultivating the Force. You want to take someone with that much promise and turn her into another mindless drone? And I thought you were supposed to be a great tactician!”
“Have you placed her on the appropriate malnutrition recovery diet? Have you taken her to medical for vaccines? What about proper schooling? Can she read? Write? Where is she sleeping? How have her nightmares been?”
“H-how do you know she has nightmares?”
“Of course she has nightmares, Ren.” Hux sighed, the roll of his eyes sending a new surge of rage through Kylo’s already frayed patience. “Anyone in her situation would.”
Kylo cast his mind back to the weeks of irritation in trying to teach a little girl who refused to listen. Untrained as she was, her Force signature was a heavy, unfocused presence that percolated throughout his quarters like a thick fog. At best, it just made the hairs on the back of his neck quiver. At worst, it gave him the frantic paranoia of an enemy closing in. Until she finally learned how to properly wield it, Kylo would lose his only sanctity.
However.
However. The solution wasn’t just to cast her aside to be someone else’s problem.
He wasn’t his mother. He wasn’t his father. He wasn’t his uncle.
With his help, she was going to be so powerful.
Kylo stared down Hux, drawing his shoulders back to take advantage of his full height. Hux didn’t falter, like he’d anticipated, but he at least seemed aware of their size difference. It was a start.
“Okay, so I don’t know what I’m doing. But giving her to you isn’t the solution. She’s special, Hux. You can’t waste that in the Trooper Program.”
Hux clicked his tongue once, as though he were disappointed but utterly unsurprised at Kylo’s stance on the issue. Without acknowledging Kylo’s reasoning, he turned to face Rey. She stared up at him, focused but at ease.
“Rey,” he began, his voice impossibly gentle. “Do you like living with Mr. Kylo?”
Her eyes darted from Kylo back to Hux. Her shoulders were drawn up tight, but there was no uncertainty in her voice. “He’s okay.”
“Do you want to live somewhere else on the ship? Or would you feel safer here?” He asked and waited with surprising patience as Rey fidgeted and faltered before finally answering, in a cautious whisper: "I don’t wanna move again."
“I understand.” Hux nodded and Kylo stopped just short of laughing aloud at the general’s assumptions that he’d be preferable in any way.
“Are you okay with me coming back to see you?” Hux went on to ask.
Though to Kylo’s annoyance, Rey nodded all too quickly at his offer.
“Alright. I still have work to do, so I’ll come back in a few hours for dinner. Is that okay?”
Kylo felt the clawing urge to destroy something, anything, when Rey nodded again, all eager smiles and adoring eyes.
“Excellent. I’ll see you tonight then. You can keep the datapad to play with.”
Leaving Rey on the bed, Ren followed Hux to the door. The dark side whispered sweet fantasies of ending the wretched man right then and there in his common area, but it was purely through the orders of his Master, who somehow managed to see something of worth in this pathetic man, that stayed his hand.
“You can teach her my actual name while I’m gone.” Hux intoned as he slung his greatcoat over his shoulders in a pitiful attempt to appear larger.
“What,” Kylo jeered. “Does General Sucks bother you?”
Hux, to his disappointment, seemed thoroughly unimpressed. “No, what bothers me more is your sheer lack of creativity. Honestly, Ren, I’ve been in the military all my life. Do you really think I haven’t heard that before?”
He left without another word, and Kylo turned to see Rey hovering at the doorway to his bedroom again, this time smiling softly, hesitantly.
“I like him.” Rey declared, her voice far more certain than her expression.
Great.
