Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Slash! Grind!

Luke’s foot leaves no footprints on the salted surface, Kylo doesn’t notice, his rage flooding his blood, flooding his brain. He will kill this man, he will kill them all, he is the Supreme Leader, and no-one holds his leash.

Nothing else matters anymore, only death and victory.

Aboard the Freighter Ship Alcona.

“Sir, it’s been confirmed, Snoke was murdered an estimate forty minutes ago, and 90% of their military power has unloaded on the mining system Crait.”

Crudely scanned images are slapped on the table, Ellor’s black eyes survey the photos. This is what they’re defeating the First Order with: printed photos on paper, uploaded by a spy buried in First Order upper middle management.

He sees Snoke’s body, rendered in half at the waist, his decaying flesh already sinking in on itself. Another image displays the red guard, dismembered and scattered about the room. The last print takes him longer to process exactly what he’s looking at, he sees the low-quality scanned scribbled note at the bottom of the page.

“Have we absolutely confirmed this final image? The splintered ship?” He picks up the page with his good hand and looks to Cyril, she’s sweating and still panting from the haste she’d taken in bringing these to him, black non-descript coat perfectly in place, brown locks as they always are in a slicked-back bun, there’s a single strand fallen out of place resting on her pale cheek. Her brown eyes are wide, pupils blown likely from adrenaline.

“Confirmed by multiple sources, Sir. One of the resistance ships tore into it at lightspeed, while their remaining armada escaped to the surface.”

His eyes widen, she sees the desperation on his face and can’t help the gasp that comes from her chest as he roughly grasps her hand and tears his way to the bridge, pulling her behind him. Before Ellor speaks into the microphone, he locks eyes with Cyril and squeezes her hand, then letting go, relays his orders. Cyril gestures to the tech to transmit him on all comms.

“All agents, this is the moment we’ve been waiting for. The bulk of the enemy forces are unloaded on a single system surface, and their supreme leader lies dead in a destroyed ship. I repeat, Snoke is dead, and they are vulnerable. All teams to carry out final stage mission, no exemptions. Team Delta 9 is with me, we will join and assist teams Alpha 6 & 7 in meeting the Supremacy at their next berth. Be prepared to meet them on Crait as their flagship can no longer travel at light speed, however, as always be prepared for surprises. Take all precautions necessary, all teams are ordered to keep comms open for the next three days without fail.”

Ellor Candine looks at his bridge of officers, smugglers, spies, combatants and support staff. They are watching him with wide eyes and dry mouths, he can practically hear hearts beating out of chests from every warm body in the room. The sheen of lightspeed dances outside the bridge window, and he steels himself in the pause. Cyril sees her leader like she never has before, the burgundy and blue of his Nabooian cloak are just as bright as they’d always been, one hand missing a finger and a chunk out of his wrist rests on his thigh while he speaks into the comm microphone, maintaining eye contact with those about the bridge. His shoulders are steady, but his legs are jittery. She sees a bead of sweat drip down his neck under cropped black hair. She brushes away the fear at seeing him this way.

“This is the moment we take it back.” His voice carries out through all levels of the ship, slowly those seated find themselves standing to attention at his voice’s call. “These people destroyed four planets in the blink of an eye, cultures and histories and peoples that can never be healed. Today, right now, is the time, and we will win. We will win quietly, we will win while screams of fear ring out from the enemy, we will win as blood stains our clothes and faces. We will win as they gnash their teeth and spew hatred and decay. We will win while any number of our brethren in this fight fall today, or tomorrow, or the next day. We will win while our bodies scream for reprieve, and tears fall from our eyes. Today is the day we take back the law, and their precious seats of power and resource. Do not hold back. Think of your families, of your loved ones, of the ones who owe you money and feel empowered not to pay you back while tyranny rules!” He hears a whisper of sniffled laughter from somewhere behind him, and a wretched, manic smile stretches across his face. He’s been anxious for this, for the long-awaited moment of blessed unashamed action. Years of patience and preparation fuel his words, he feels everything in him swell with desperate pride and fury as he proclaims:

“We will win for all of those who have given their lives to this fight, for those who paid the ultimate price to never see the brighter day. If we can’t do this now, we may as well have never tried. Now is the time! We. Will. Win!”

Voices ring out on the bridge and across the galaxy, as pilots in cockpits vibrate with nerves; agents with shaking hands listen on factory floors; local government officers and spies with comms in their ears smile serenely at the complacent and passive enemy; men and women and children with baited breath and hands on pistols and daggers, they all listen to his words and feel power surging through them.

“We! Will! Win!!!!” Ellor hears the shout and exclaims with a roar, the rage of the moment. When the voices die down he takes a deep breath, and returns a final time to the microphone.

“All agents, good luck.”

*

Rey catches her breath as she helps those with injuries onto the Falcon. Having felt the moment of Luke’s death, and seen Leia’s reaction to it, she feels a tear gather in her eye, both her hands too busy to do anything about it, she twists her face angrily as it tracks down her cheek. Her entire body is shaking with the adrenaline of the insanity that has been the last 24 hours.

Kylo Ren.

Ben.

She can’t reconcile what she feels to be true with what has happened before her eyes. He helped her, they helped each other, they fought together. But it turns out escaping a life and death situation together does not equal unanimous agreement on the paths of their lives.

She’s not heartbroken.

She’s not.

Damnit.

It’s not even been two hours since she picked herself off the bloodied floor of Snoke’s chamber in tears with near-burst eardrums and a bleeding nose; found the broken pieces of her lightsabre before a frenzied escape. She honestly didn’t even know if he was alive. She didn’t check.

What she did know was that he had every opportunity to start something new with her, but instead, focused on something to divide them yet again.

The dark side and the light.

The first order and the resistance.

Who owns a fucking lightsabre.

It’s enough to drive a girl mad.

*

Kylo watches from aside the command ATAT as the last piece of the Supremacy crashes pathetically to the surface. He feels the ground under his feet rumble with the impact, and what must have been a blast of salt and energy over four hundred meters away is but a slight wind in his hair when it reaches him.

He lets out an angry breath and tilts his head back, closing his eyes, telling himself today was not a complete and utter failure; he’s got Snoke off his back now. Even if it cost him the only woman who was worthy of his love. His face scrunches up, as do his fists, and he opens his mouth and screams for what feels like the tenth time today. He wrenches his sabre off of his belt and ignites it purely for the satisfaction of feeling the vibration in his arm ground him, and the audible pulse and growl of the blade join his scream.

Are those, Ties fighters he hears?

He opens his eyes in the split second before he is forced to the ground by something large and sharp, but not sharp enough to break skin. Another, more pitiful scream is torn from his throat as his lightsabre is ripped from his hand. He tries with all his might, but he cannot bring it back. Something more powerful than his connection to the force is overpowering him, and he sees red. As he scrambles and thrashes, trying harder than he’s ever tried before to reach out with the force, he feels an increasing pressure on his temples.

Like an animal, he snarls, snaps, shouts insults and slurs and uses all his limbs, his core, his jaw even, to try overpower whatever is on his back with his command of the force. He hears footsteps, voices sound muffled as impossible fury and effort clouds every sense.

“Let him keep trying. The harder he tries, the more effective the drain.”

His vision is limited as a rough hand grabs the back of his head and pushes it into the salt. He feels his nose break at the impact, feels the dribble of blood wet his teeth. A bind covers his eyes then, and he hears the telltale sound of machinery powering down before something covers his ears, and all he can do is soundlessly rebel against his captors.

“I am the supreme Leader!”

“Bow before me, and I will consider sparing you!”

“I will kill you slowly, then I will find all those that you love, and torture them until they thank me as life leaves their bodies!”

He can’t even hear himself screaming, knowing that it will be unpleasant for whoever in the universe has the unmitigated gall to do this to him. He knows, that as soon as his command of the force returns to him, he will escape, and he will kill these dogs. They will feel his rage, and nothing else.

Ellor Candine watches as helmeted officers in team Alpha 7 display their mastery over the ancient machinery forgotten by all but the resolute and staunch Mandalorian people. Kylo Ren is forced to the ground and his eyes and ears are covered, he continues bleating his threats, until suddenly falling silent, and limply his limbs sprawl at uncomfortable angles atop the ruined salt surface. His quilted black cloak looks ridiculous as it lays on his legs, the fixed shape of the tailoring is obvious, billowing up from the ground unnaturally.

“Keep him contained, he will travel on my ship, ensure that he remains unconscious for the entire journey.”

The officer in command of this team nods, and they continue with the giant machine sticking out of the bottom of their ship a few tens of feet in the air. Truly opportune that the Supreme Leader was outside with his eyes shut for their entire descent to the surface, and his team were able to efficiently sneak up on him much easier than he’d anticipated.

It was all going much too well. Ellor felt the shiver of heightened awareness run through him, and mentally recounted the teams and their locations, trusting, hoping, that they would all be as successful as he.

He strode to the powered-down command ATAT and gestured for those un-occupied with restraining Kylo Ren from Alpha 7 to accompany himself and Delta 9 into the command centre.

He looked to the horizon before ascending the ramp into the walker, and watched with a grim expression as multiple legions of armed combatants landed around the remains of the decimated grounded Supremacy, funnelling into the ship with incredible speed. The distant sound of blaster fire carried over the wind, sounding so very small and far away.

Ellor heard the contents of the command cockpit before he saw it, and paused in the hallway, listening to his officers report their findings on comms and sweep the man-able areas.

“All first order operatives in the cockpit are deceased. Commander Armitage Hux identified, confirmed suicide, over.”

When he steps into the command floor, his eyes wash over Hux’s crumpled body, his back leaning against the wall, head rolled back at a shocking angle over his shoulder, eyes staring emptily through the window to the blue sky above. Ellor steps in the growing pool of Hux’s blood on the cold steel floor, as he watches a bound unconscious Kylo Ren be carried into his ship. He can’t help but smile as the doors shut behind the Supreme Leader.

*

Rey paces through the halls of the Falcon. Unable to sleep, unable to sit still. Exhausted, but her mind blindingly awake. She isn’t even solidly thinking about anything, but the last weeks events are swimming through her mind like fog and slicing rain. It hurts, and it’s completely unnavigable right now. She tries lying down. Nope. Sitting isn’t right either. Pacing it is then. Eventually she’ll fall tired enough to stop moving. She hopes.

Thudding footfalls sound behind her, and she recognises Finn’s heavy breathing, and stays facing the other way, awaiting whatever bad news is sure to be heard at this late hour.

“I know you’re tired, but you’ll regret not coming and listening to this right now.”

She turns, only slightly, it’s the first time in a few hours that she’s heard him speak without hearing her own name.

“Good news?” She’s still facing the other end of the passage, and she feels his hand at her elbow, pulling her gently.

“Very.”

The voice coming through the com is staticky, as if it’s being broadcast using tech from over a century ago. It makes the voice sound tinny. It’s completely surreal.

“All Resistance fighters and bases: the First Order has fallen. The Supreme Leader is dead, and Kylo Ren has been arrested. Surface bases on Coruscant, Naboo, Kuat, Fondor, Corellia, Sulllust, Mon Calamari, Borleyas and Thyferra have been re-taken, all high ranking First Order officers have been captured and arrested. You are safe. Make next berth on Coruscant, the first meeting to rebuild the intergalactic seats of government will be held on 13:03:34. Return contact on this channel to confirm you have received this message.”

Rey shakes her head, Finn and Poe are staring grimly at the instrument panel. Leia’s gaze is trained on her hands, Rey watches as a tremor pass through her.

When Leia stands and responds into the microphone, Rey leaves the room and goes to bed.

She sleeps through the night.

Chapter Text

Kylo’s eyes open. He lies on a cot, in light, thin linen clothing. The air is cool, and his head feels like he’s been deprived of oxygen for too long. With swimming eyes he surveys the room, two sides of the square space are a shimmering wall of thrumming red lasers, and solid concrete the other two. Actually, he’s not sure if it’s concrete. Definitely dense ore of some kind. It’s very bright, for something so solid, a pale grey that seems to be emanating a light of its own. A lack-lustre toilet bowl is fixed to the floor next to the cot, which he turns to inspect, and it’s a thick slab of the same stone as the walls, just an extended part of the floor with a straw mat between the cold surface and his back.

His head pounds, a deep ache behind his eyes and every muscle in his face screams with discomfort and swelling. He closes his eyes.

This achieves nothing.

Trying to recall how he came to be here, the last memories he has are blinking hazily at the sensation of entering lightspeed, before the pressure on his brain that knocked him out in the first place returned in full force, and it was all he could do not to shit himself by trying to withstand it, before slipping into nothingness once again.

I’ve been captured. I’m a prisoner.

The realisation is quiet, it doesn’t slam into him the way he feels it ought to. He’s already accepted it, physiologically, he can tell. There’s something in him that is greedy for this new reality. But a bigger, louder part of him pushes that down, until the comfortable, familiar rigidness of rage is all he can feel.

No. I don’t accept it. I have to fight.

He lifts his legs to swing them down to the floor, and lets out an involuntary groan, the weight is insane. Every movement is heavier than it’s ever been. He wonders what godforsaken planet he’s on, that gravity is this intense on his body. His stomach swoops as he tries to stand and instead falls to one knee. He catches his face in his hand as he crumples on the stone floor and feels tacky dried blood around his mouth and nose. Lacking a mirror, he uses spit and his sleeve to try and clean the brown-red flakes from his face, and feels around his nose, hissing and cringing as he touches a stinging break in the skin, feeling the telltale bump of a messy break.

Re-arranging long bone-heavy legs to sit cross-legged, slow breaths assist his control, fingertips steady on the break, and a soft pop sounds as he feels his airway return to normal.

The toilet bowl gleams red and grey in the pale light of the room as he flushes vomit and bile down the chute.

He thinks a day passes. Maybe more, he can’t even scratch a count on the wall. He doesn’t see or hear another sentient being or droid, or even speck of dust, as he sits and sleeps and tries to differentiate between the minutes and the hours.

It’s hard, maintaining anger and hatred in the face of total uncertainty and isolation.

It starts to feel like nothing but a useless way to drain his energy. But this thought is very quiet of course. Rage is loud, which makes it useful; it’s distracting.

 Things to be angry about:

Rey.

I’m trapped in a cage.

Connection to the force is silent.

Can’t jump, or even stand for too long, get too tired.

No food.

No water.

Rey leaving me to die, stealing my grandfather’s lightsabre.

Mom almost dying.

It’s so fucking heavy on this planet.

And lonely.

No water.

Everything hurts, I think my ribs are broken.

Rey.

No water.

No water.

No water.

On the third day (he thinks,) he hears a change in the air, the hiss of powered doors sound and he almost cries with relief, before his mind shuts tight and a blank mask covers his face. He feels ridiculous in these loose clothes, they haven’t even granted him the dignity of shoes. Not that he needs them, the temperature in here is perfectly comfortable - about the only thing that is. At least it’s not too hot, with the amount he sweats he might have already passed out for dehydration.

The clack of shoes on the floor is sharp, and heavy, and Kylo brings himself to stand. He ignores the screaming pain in his neck and shoulders at keeping his head upright, and he lifts his eyes to meet his captor’s.

Cyril looks at Kylo Ren, stripped of his leather and armour. After two days of isolation and no food or water, he looks utterly pathetic. She surveys his face, he’s fixed his own nose, which doesn’t surprise her. He looks wan and exhausted, and she wonders if the soft light and red glow of the walls allows him any sleep at all. She honestly doesn’t care, but humane conditions remain the bare minimum of expectations during his time in this facility, so she moves to the stand protruding from the floor and presses a few buttons on the cell keypad. The hiss of an opening door sounds again, and a helmeted guard steps through holding a tray.

Pressing another combination of keys that Kylo can’t see, a thin slot opens in the laser wall. The guard bends to slide the tray through. It takes everything in Kylo’s body not to fall to the floor and drink like a dog before them, but he will not be cowed.

The slot fizzes shut without any further command from Cyril, and she gestures that the guard may leave. She is a decent foot shorter than Kylo, deep brown hair, broad shoulders underneath a uniform jacket with regalia that Kylo doesn’t recognise adorning the lapel. What he can discern is that she is very highly decorated.

“How are you handling the weight?”

She tilts her head, and her voice is flat, Kylo receives the clearly projected apathy, and condescension. Her easy posture, the unaffected tone of voice, this hits Kylo harder than anything has in the last 36 hours.

It’s just him. It’s not increased gravity of the planet, it’s only in his cell that he is unable to comfortably rest at his full stature.

Cyril watches a vein in his forehead swell dangerously, and says nothing. The water sparkles in the light in a large cup on the floor. Kylo makes himself look her in the eye, forcing his stature to bolster in spite of the manufactured pressure.

“I’m here to advise you of your charges, and sentencing.”

He can’t breathe. The effort of standing is making him dizzy, it’s taking everything to try to appear unfazed.

“You’ve been charged with aiding and abetting the illegal and overt takeover of the free intergalactic and planetary government houses on Hosnian Prime, Coruscant, Chandrilla, Naboo and Corellia by the fascist regime known as The First Order.  More than five counts of genocide in aiding and abetting the destruction of The Hosnian System including Hosnian Prime, Cardota, Courtsilius and Raysho, and the weapon-planet Ilum, also known as Starkiller. Most significant charges that informed your sentence also include multiple counts of murder in the first degree, multiple counts of murder and ill treatment of prisoners of war; multiple counts of murdering hostages, multiple counts of torture; multiple counts of unlawful abuse of advantageous abilities by a force-user.”

She pauses and takes a deep breath, flipping a page. Kylo realises for the first time that she is reading from paper. His confusion and disgust are interrupted by the sharp cough that echoes against solid stone walls as Cyril clears her throat.

“Those who charge you on behalf of the restored People’s Intergalactic Republic include Senator of Naboo: Ellor Candine, Senator of Chandrilla: Teliqa Mure, Senator of Corellia: Seline Gaz, Senator General Leia Organa, Senator of Coruscant Michus Dean, and other seated members of the People’s Intergalactic Republic who have requested they not be named in this reading.”

Kylo doesn’t even realise he was looking at the floor until she addresses him directly.

“Have a drink. Sit down, before you faint.”

He slumps to his knees, his hands splayed on the smooth surface under him. When he rests on his legs, it’s the first time he’s realised the weight releases when he’s on the floor. When sitting or lying down the pressure dissipates, as if it were never there. Reaching out with a shaking hand that infuriates him to no end, he drinks. Water dribbles onto his clothing as his audible gulps fill the room. The vessel is large, and when he’s finished there is still more than a quarter left.

“I will continue now.”

“When.” He croaks out. It’s the first word he’s spoken aloud since his capture.

Cyril shifts to widen her stance. As Kylo is forced to look up, her silhouette directly blocks an overhead light, and she cuts an impressive figure, even looking through the laser wall.

“When what?”

“When was I charged? Why was I not present at my own hearing?”

“Under normal circumstances you would have been conscious, the conditions necessary to keep you under control were not possible in the location of your hearing, so you were heavily sedated. I have brought a holo-recording of the trial hearing sessions, should you wish to see them. As is your right.”

It’s a subtle bitterness that laces her tone, the ‘t’ ending her statement a bit harsher than would be expected from her calm demeanour. Her jaw visibly twinges.

“You hate me, don’t you.”

She rolls her shoulder while inputting a new command on the keypad. The holorecording projection appears in the middle of his cell.

Something in him shifts.

“You haven’t told me the sentence yet.”

“You wouldn’t like to hear it from your judges?”

He considers, learning his fate through a holorecording of a trial he slept through. In the still projection rotating in the centre of the room (clearly taken from security footage), he can just make out his figure; strapped to a chair, his head lolling forward, greasy hair falling across his slack face. The only other figure included in the image is his mother, decked out in full senatorial garb. He clenches his teeth.

“No. Not with you here.”

“You are watched every second of every day by a round-the-clock team. I’ll be observing when you watch it, regardless of whether you wait for me to leave this cell.”

He pulls himself to sit on the cot. Going from the floor to the cot is just as hard as standing, but sitting or lying on the cot seems to be the same as being on the floor. No pressure. It’s easier to look her in the eye now that he’s not sitting on the floor like a child. But something about being forced into a childish posture brings out the very worst of his instincts.

“I wonder why you hate me. What did I do to you, specifically? Or does your heart bleed solely for the sake of others.”

She smiles at him. Her teeth are so white, and her smile lights up all the corners of her face. If he weren’t vibrating with an insane cocktail of unhinged emotion, he would think her beautiful.

“Your sentence is life imprisonment, and monitored cessation of accessing your force abilities. No opportunity for parole. You will be watched for the rest of your life, you will never leave this room again, unless to be delivered to another room just like it for some banal reason that has nothing to do with you or your actions. You will eat the same food, breathe the same filtered air, and be completely alone, until you die.”

“So you say.” He brings himself to utter, the timbre of his voice somehow projecting the air of confident condescension he can only thank his father for, and her eyebrow lifts, just so.

Before he can say anything else, she presses a button on the keypad, the trial recording begins to play, the volume quiet enough that her steps still echo against the stone.

“When you want the holorecording turned off, just ask.”

The door closes behind her, and he watches the senate decide his fate.

*

“Happy one-year, Ren. You’ve a visitor.” The voice rings out over the PA system, Kylo sits with his back to the cot, legs crossed. The intercom announcement interrupts his meditation, and he audibly growls in response.

He spends most of his time these days meditating. It didn’t take him long to realise that the full course of ramifications for his actions would be an incredibly unique prison experience. At hearing the announcement, he feels a little bit more of what precious sanity he has been holding tightly to, slip out of his grasp.

A whole year? I haven’t seen another face in a whole year.

In truth it hasn’t felt like a year at all. He hasn’t been afforded any basic tools to keep track of the time passing, or any regular changes to keep in routine with. The stone walls are always emanating a soft glow, combating the harsh red pulsing of the opposite walls – but neither are sources of bright light. It is both bright enough in the cell to see with perfect clarity, and to sleep comfortably. The torture of it all is the mundanity. Forced to remain living, disallowed from experiencing life. He still remembers when he had asked a guard when he would be allowed to bathe. He wished he hadn’t asked. He could hear the grimace in the guard’s voice when he explained that the sensors in his cell would alert the guards when he entered deep sleep, and after pumping sedatives in through the air-vents a nursing team accompanied by armed guard would enter his cell to bathe him, and tend to any injuries.

He tried as hard as he could not to fall asleep for what he thought were days on end. Only to be driven half mad by sleep deprivation before his body succumbed to its needs, and when he awoke, he could not enjoy the freshly laundered smell on his clothing.

It was definitely a top up to his low-running tank of rage fuel. Being stripped of his dignity and agency, treated like an insane child. Meditation was the only escape, and it was barely one.

A thought was running on loop in his mind, and it had filled his waking thoughts so often that he barely even considered its meaning anymore:

The punishment fits the crime.

Footsteps, not of rubber on stone, but the telltale echo of a short heel sounded, and he heard his mother dismiss the guard, and enter the hallway alone.

“Ben.”

She looks so much older than she should.

“Hello, mother.”

Leia feels a disobedient tear trail down her cheek. His hair has been shaved, when he rises off the floor with what looks like an astounding amount of effort for such a simple task, to rest on the raised cot, she sees his clothing hang loosely off his frame. He has rough scars on one side of his forehead, she can clearly tell where stitches were ripped out too early, brutalising scar tissue and making the healed lines messy and upsetting to see. His eyes gazing at her have lost their brilliance, and his skin is sallow from lack of sunlight. The minerals in the walls emit all the vitamin D he could ever need, but she knows it couldn’t possibly compare to the real thing.

This can’t be right, she wants to say, you’ve brought me to the wrong cell! The last dregs of denial, at seeing the reality of what she has damned him to. All she sees is the shell of the man who was her son.

“I’d like someplace to sit down, please.” She speaks aloud, and after a moment a guard walks back through the door holding a bench. When he’s gone, Leia shifts her skirts and sits, releasing a deep breath. She just, looks at him, and Kylo can’t stop looking at her. Drinking in her features, not knowing if he’ll ever get the chance again. He realises it doesn’t actually matter that it’s Leia. His soul is lightened by seeing a face of any kind – whether it’s Leia or someone else, he can’t help the paralysing fear that this may truly be the last time he sees anyone.

“So, I’ve come to see you.”

“I can see that.” He can count on two hands the number of words he’s spoken aloud since he heard his sentence. His voice doesn’t sound like his own, ragged from disuse.

“I’ve been told you know nothing of the events of the past year. What would you like to know?” She watches the surprise on his face as he processes the question. She’s sitting on one of her hands, the other folded neatly in her lap. She also sees the moment he has a question on the tip of his tongue, and then holds back from letting it out of his mouth. It almost makes her smile. “Out with it.”

His eyebrows raise at her sharpness, and as if compelled to, he blurts out “Will you come back?”

“It depends on whether or not you’ve changed.”

“Changed?”

“I want to know if you feel remorse. If you’ve put any effort into healing.”

Bitterness. “Why should I try? I’ll die in this cell, healed or not.”

Leia has been preparing to see her son, and she’s glad that she put in the time now. It helps her steel herself as the words pass from her lips. “You’re a young man, it will be decades. Look at yourself, you’re so brittle with desperate anger your body is killing itself.”

“They won’t let me.”

“They won’t let you what?”

“Die.” Leia doesn’t know what to say. A rush of breath is stopped in her throat, and forces its way out, along with a fresh wave of moisture in her eyes.

He doesn’t look at his mother as he recounts the attempts. “I starve myself, they sedate me and feed me through a tube. I tried to strangle myself, suffocate myself, smash my head into the wall, break my own neck. They electrocute the floors until I pass out before I can do enough damage. They won’t. Let me. Die.”

Her entire body is rigid. Sentence her only child to a life in the most cruel environment imaginable for his crimes? Okay. Ignore the pain of not visiting him for a year? Worse, but she did it. Look at his face while he describes his multiple suicide attempts, with disappointment lacing his every word at his lack of success. Torture. She can’t help but think, what has she done? To deserve this? But the pitiful thought is washed away as she sees the tremor in his hand. The bloodshot eyes.

He’s lifeless, not a single shred of hope or will for the future is left in him. She did this. He did this. Together, they are the sorry remains of a broken family. She shakes her head. Furious.

“What’s your name?”

“I don’t think I have one anymore.” He doesn’t even need to think about the words. He hasn’t considered his own identity in at least months. He was never the supreme leader, really, no wonder the ego of it never stuck. But whoever Ben was is dead and buried, under the blood and dirt and shit of Kylo Ren’s crimes.

And nobody ever loved Kylo Ren, so he may as well have never existed.

Leia’s eyes are opened when she hears his words. The self-pity is insurmountable. She wonders if he’ll ever defeat it.

“When you change your mind, tell the guards what your name is. I’ll come.”

She makes it to the door before he raises his voice.

“Wait! Mom, is Rey alive?”

There it is. Something good. He’s still in there. Somewhere. I know it.

“Yes. She’s thriving. Training under your grandfather’s padawan. Although I’m sure Ahsoka would resent being referred to per se.”

He pauses before letting out a burst of laughter. It’s foreign coming out of his throat, but it feels right.

“Grandfather had a padawan??”

“Yes.” Leia hovers by the door, refusing to let her son see the fresh tears that fell at the sound of his laughter. “May I tell Rey you asked about her?”

“No. Don’t do that.”

Leia lets out a long breath as she steps back into the control room. Leif keeps a weary eye on her as she raises her head and blinks back tears. He doesn’t know what to say, so keeps silent.

Leia turns to the light-haired man, squares up his narrow frame, his helmet is sitting in a cubby on the wall, only needed when entering the cell block. Her dark gaze pierces his grey eyes, and though he doesn’t visibly cow before her, he sure does mentally. Even with a hunch in her back and more grey hairs than not, there’s something about her command over the air itself that inspires more fear and respect than any high-security prisoner he’s ever guarded.

“I would like a hug, please.” The waver in her voice surprises him, and he stands and strides to her without a second thought, his tall frame engulfing hers, and for a second Leif wonders what kind of hug she meant, but oh well. Too late now. It’s huggin’ time.

“Oomf!” Leia grunts as the guard who she’s never met before in her life takes the request for comfort more seriously than she anticipated. But she can’t help leaning into it, and before she knows it more tears are trickling down her face. Leia’s never been one to be ashamed, and she’s not starting now. She pushes her face into his chest and feels her deep breaths becomes slower and easier wrapped in a firm embrace.

“Thank you, uh,”

Her gratitude is muffled into his armoured uniform, and after a moment he pulls back and stands to attention before her.

“Security Officer Leif, ma’am.” His crisp voice speaks to an upbringing in high society, her gaze narrows, and she looks him over more properly this time.

“Were you stationed on Chandrilla, Officer?”

The corner of his mouth quirks up, and he nods. “Yes, ma’am. I was part of the revolt team on Chandrilla last year, we re-took the parliamentary houses in under half an hour the day the First Order Fell.”

Leia’s eyes widen. “What in the world are you doing here then? I’d say your contributions have earned you more than a security position.”

Leif finds speaking with Leia is very much like speaking with his own mother. He likes her.

“I was recruited, ma’am. All the guards on this level of the Descent are force-users. I’ve never been formally trained of course, no-one has, but I was top of my class in hand-to-hand, and I have a knack for jumping.”

Leia looks impressed, but he spots a little bittersweet grief in her eyes as well. She’s not trying to hide it. “Jumping, hmm?” She holds back a chuckle when a blush warms up the sharp angles of his face. “I’m sure you’re a fine asset to the team. If you ever want a promotion, contact me.”

“Will do, ma’am - Th-thank you ma’am.” They share a smile before she steps into the elevator, but moving faster than Leif expected she could move, she halts the door and turns back.

“Officer Leif, I have a favour to ask.”

*

Leif doesn’t know how he feels about this, consorting with the prisoner at the behest of his mother, who also happens be the legendary Princess-Senator-General-new friend-fanTAStic career connection Leia Organa. It’s a tricky thing.

Maybe consorting is too risqué a word here.

She only asked him to talk to him, damnit. It’s quiet literally not a crime. But Kylo Ren is unstable, and putting himself through an interaction longer than the 15 seconds it takes to deliver food each day sounds terribly unpleasant.

But he’ll do it. For the sake of making good on his promise to a living legend, he’ll do it.

He secures his helmet, connects the breathing tube under his nostrils, and straightens out the straps on his armour. Leif is the least physically intimidating member of the security team on this level of the Descent: the highest security prison in the developed systems. A floating coffin full of those waiting to die, anchored 1,500 feet below the surface on the drowned planet Castilon. The final place of the galaxies most heinous. Kylo may think highly of himself (or he certainly had, at the beginning), but there’s 15 whole levels below his floor, each one containing a single cell, and a single occupant, sentenced to isolation and magnetic-pressure-security until their dying breath.

Leif isn’t delusional, if he were in Kylo Ren’s shoes, he’d be making attempts on his own life every day, electro-shock floors be damned. This place, the conditions (‘technically humane’ as the higher ups say they are) are nothing short of torture, and Kylo Ren remains the only inhabitant to make it past a year with a shred of his sanity intact, ever.

It’s no small thing, he recognises. That Kylo, fucked up in the head as he obviously is, is so incredibly determined not to lose himself. He has a teeny tiny bit of Leif’s respect. A teeny bit.

Leif is glad the bench outside Kylo’s cell was never removed after Leia’s visit, he chooses to sit and crosses his feet at the ankles.

Kylo has been in a meditative pose since he woke up. Since his last attempt to take his own life about four months ago, he spends most waking hours with crossed legs and closed eyes. The skin around his eyes sometimes seems to grow black when he stays in the pose for more than six or seven hours at a time – although it’s not always easy to tell through the security cameras. Leia visited the week prior, and Leif has noticed that Kylo seems calmer, after seeing his mother. Even if their visit was shockingly brief.

Leif clears his throat, and Kylo comes to immediately, eyes snapping to the black tinted lenses of Leif’s helmet. Kylo, as always, says nothing.

“I’ll keep it honest with you, Ren. Your mother asked me to talk with you. Or, at least talk at you. And what the General wants the General gets. So here I am.”

More silence.

“What should we talk about? I’m taking requests.”

“You’re wasting your time.” The man in the cell rasps out. He lifts a hand and scratches at his shaved head.

“Aha, well you see – I’m with you for the duration of my shifts either way – today I happen to be on this side of the door. Time’s arrow marches ever onward, I think my gran used to say.”

Kylo looks at the wall, Leif has a view of his profile, and can see just how much weight and muscle the man has lost in the past year. He’s skin and bone.

“Ooooh-kay. You know, you’re the last person alive to be trained as a jedi? Pretty big deal I’d say.” Leif feels his stomach grumble, and regrets not eating lunch before coming out for a chat.

Kylo scoffs.

“Ooh. Thoughts?” Leif crosses his arms over his chest, leans back against the wall.

“Like you would know anything about it.” Kylo grumbles.

“Rude. I happen to know a fair bit. Not that I think being trained in the Jedi way is all it’s cracked up to be, mind you. I just prefer to live, thank you very much.” Leif plays with the thin braided band he keeps around his wrist, and pulls it off, demonstrating to a gobsmacked Kylo as he levitates it a few inches above his palm, and then slides it back onto his wrist under his glove. If only Kylo could see the shit-eating grin under his helmet, but it falls quickly enough.

“Not that I need to lecture you about their shortcomings, Mr Sith Cult Maniac.”

Kylo can’t help but let his jaw drop to the ground, he watches full of envy, and furiously tries to push down the spark of wonder that always rises in him when seeing the wonders of the force. It’s just been so long.

He misses it. Desperately. Leif freezes as he sees tears gather in Kylo’s eyes, and is even more shocked when he lets them fall freely. His face is a mixture of grief and acidic anger.

“I’ll forgive you for rejecting the Jedi way. The core of their belief system is rotten. But without my anger, and my hatred sharpened by the hurt I should never have faced, I would have nothing. I’d like to see you go a whole year in isolation and not lose your mind.”

Leif can’t deny being impressed by his mental fortitude. He was lucky enough to never meet Kylo or his knights while the First Order was running rampant through the galaxy, but he heard stories of the fear they instilled. The complete and utter terror they wreaked upon their victims. Seeing him now, beaten down and beyond hopeless, he can still see the shadow of the man who put fear in the hearts of everyone he met.

“You have an incredibly strong will. And I can understand more than most why depending on a flame of hope in this place may not feel sustainable.”

“Do you expect me to thank you?”

“No, you misunderstand me, Ren. You’re a bastard. Many of my relatives were murdered by you and your cronies in the Chandrillan takeover. I have no love for you or your misery, and I wasn’t trying to be kind to you. However, I’m not a monster. I don’t like you, but I still have empathetic bones in my body.”

Kylo looks unimpressed. He reminds Leif of a gangster when his face sets that way – his facial structure is so prominent without hair and extra fat to hide it.

Leif is bored, damnit, and the back and forth is more entertaining than he had originally thought it could be. He breathes out a long sigh.

“How do you meditate then.”

“What do you mean?”

“Teach me. You’re clearly very good at it.”

Kylo bristles again. As if he would ever share the ancient practice with this untrained lump of flesh.

But then again, without his connection to the force, blocked by whatever advanced technology is built into his cell, his meditation is but an imitation of what it should be. It would be another way to pass the time for sure, if this guard would keep talking to him.

“Okay.”

“Really? Grand! Where do I start?”

Kylo is baffled. He can’t decide if the guard is a fool or not.

“What’s your name?”

“No names, big guy, you know that.”

“What should I call you? This is a vulnerable thing you’re asking of me.” It’s really not, but he’ll give as good as he gets.

Leif considers, and in an artificial deep tone, emits “Call me Master.”

Kylo deadpans him.

“It was funny, admit it. But fair enough, call me … Kik.”

“Okay Kik, you’ll need to sit on the floor.”

Leif rearranges himself on the bench, similar to how Kylo is on the raised cot. He’s slim and flexible enough, and the bench is deep enough that it’s manageable. Even with the thick rubber boots jutting into the bottom of his calves, he can handle it for a little while at least.

Kylo hmphs, rearranges himself to be more comfortable, not sure how far they’ll get if the man can’t follow the first instruction.

“Put your hands together. In whatever pose they won’t cramp in, and you won’t feel compelled to move them. The key is staying still. Do you fidget?”

Leif nods, his leg already shaking, bent under him on the bench.

Kylo sighs.

“You’re not going to be a natural at this.”

“I don’t care, as riveting as it is, watching you all day, I’m curious. And there’s literally no one to teach me this.”

A pause, and the air is weird, Kylo sees the moment that Leif remembers himself, and stands from the bench.

“But if I catch even a whiff of your Sith cult shit, I’m out, and I’ll never speak to you again. You hear me Ren?”

The helmet is an effective intimidation tool, Kylo has always known this. He’s never felt it as poignantly as he does now – Leif’s posture looming over his own on the other side of the wall, his aura radiates hostility and physical threat. Kylo gulps dryly.

“Okay.”

*

The punishment fits the crime.

The punishment fits the crime.

The punishment fits the crime.

“Hey! Base to Ren, you still with me?”

Kylo didn’t remember how ended up on the floor.

“You had me worried there. I was finally getting somewhere with it too, where’d you go?”

Ah, now he remembers. They were finally breaking ground with Kik’s breathing technique, he was feeling it too, actually.

“I never interrupt you when you’re meditating, Kik.”

Kylo is certain he knows the exact expression behind Leif’s helmet, as it tilts disbelievingly.

“I don’t know what that was, but it wasn’t meditation. Normally I’d leave you to it, but we were talking five minutes ago, so yeah I interrupted you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Lying on the floor sobbing has never been synonymous with meditation. Even I know that.”

“I wasn’t crying.” He lifts his fingers to his face, wet checks, puffy under eyes, he registers the physical sensation on his eyes, they sting and ache as if he’s been weeping. Even his jaw is stiff, he feels the remnants of a hiccupping sob in his chest.

“What…”

Leif watches with discomfort. One minute, Kylo had been calmly leading him through the breathing steps, same as they have done every day for the past six months. And Leif closed his eyes, finding himself sitting perfectly still for the first time in his entire life, letting the calm wash over him. Before it was shattered by Kylo slumping down, sucking in panicked breaths and falling off the cot, collapsing on the floor in a sobbing heap.

This is new territory. He’s aware that Kylo frequently cries in his sleep, often calling out for either of his parents, and on rare occasion after particularly bad days, he’ll call out for Ben. Whether he’s calling for himself or someone else with that name, none of the security team are sure. But they are taking bets and relying on Leif to let them know of any new developments that come to light during their talks.

“I think you swerved out of meditation and exited into panic attack.”

The frown on Kylo’s face says everything Leif needs to know about his comfort discussing mental health. Oh well, here I go playing therapist. Fuck. He releases a deep beleaguered sigh, that luckily his helmet mostly mutes.

“You never told me your mantra.” He’s had enough mental health inquiries disguised as casual conversations with stiff-upper-lip family members to feel confident in his approach. Kylo is still frowning.

“It’s private.”

“I told you mine.”

“Because you wanted to.”

“Never took you for a coward. Don’t want the big bad prison guard to have one over you, do you?”

Kylo sighs. He doesn’t initially care if Kik knows, just that it feels weird as the words form in his mouth. Before he thinks too hard about it, they escape his lips, and immediately he wishes more than anything to snatch back time and change everything.

“The punishment fits the crime.”

Leif watches in horror as pure misery claims Kylo’s stretched thin face. He hides his face in his hands as gasping sobs exit his body. This is much worse than the episode a few minutes ago. Leif waits for it to subside, then registers that it’s simply not going to. The seconds pass and he sees Kylo’s body swaying as his brain probably screams for proper oxygen flow.

“Ren. Ren!”

Nothing.

Fuck this.

“Ben! Look at me BEN!”

His head snaps up, and he is still breathing erratically as he flinches from the sudden burst of volume.

“Breathe, man. Like this.” He leads Kylo’s breathing to slow, counting in for four, and out for four. His shoulders relax again, and he hiccups softly once or twice.

“Have some water.”

Kylo is grateful once again for this guard’s kindness. He doesn’t understand it, but knows he depends on it.

“I don’t know, I don’t know what happened. That’s never happened to me b-before.”

“Glad you got it out.” He gives him another moment, he feels like they are both balanced on the edge of a cliff, ready to topple forward or backward.

“So, why’s that your mantra? It’s pretty intense. You told me it should be calming, reassuring.”

Kylo is still working on keeping his breathing slow, Leif waits patiently.

“I don’t know. I don’t actually remember when I started using it. It was just, a thought … that kept coming up.”

“Hmm. If that’s the case then you probably believe it, right?”

Leif watches the gears turn in Kylo’s head. He flows down the river from shock to disbelief, to grief and acceptance in a matter of seconds.

“I, I do.”

Leif does everything he can to keep the hope out of his voice. “Do you believe you deserve to be here?”

“Yes.”

The prisoner’s mind swims. He reaches out for something solid to grab, dependable anger? Gone. Denial? Nowhere to be found. Hatred? There’s some left, but it’s facing the wrong way. Of all the things he has left, he doesn’t want this. He needs it gone. This is terrible.

“Can you tell Leia, that Ben asked to see her?”

“I sure can.”

Chapter Text

When the Falcon landed on Coruscant, Leia introduced the officers of the Resistance to Ellor Candine; a stone-faced senator from Naboo, and the leader of the totally secret movement that overthrew the First Order while the Resistance ran for their lives. The General and her officers met with their mysterious allies in a penthouse suite apartment of a heavily guarded hotel. Ellor and Leia embraced and spoke as if they were old friends, and Rey tucked her questions away for later. As she looked around the room, she watched as the same question was evident on every Resistance face.

Why were we never told about this?

A million hows and whys and whens and whats ran amuck in her mind, interrupted in an instant as Ellor’s black-on-black gaze pierced hers in the middle of the seemingly friendly conversation. He was suddenly all business, strong square features set in determination. She could not deny she was intimidated by him. His voice was a mixture of gravel and the rounded tones typical of Nabooian nobility.

“General, I have a favour to ask. We’ve lost a significant amount of men on the ground here in Coruscant, and I’m aware your numbers took a hit on Crait, so I’ll not insult you by presuming what your answer will be. There are a number of senators arriving in the next three days for the trials and treaty discussions, and twelve of them come without personal guard of any kind. I can arrange full bodyguard personnel for ten of them, do you think any of your subordinates might volunteer to fill out the ranks for the remaining two?”

Rey lifts her hand and places it on Leia’s shoulder, knowing the General catches her nod from the corner of her eye. Leia is the picture of poise, as she always is.

“Of course, Ellor. I’m certain we can make up the difference. How many do you need per unit?”

“I’ve selected two of my most capable officers as the team leads, so an additional two per unit should be enough, provided you would trust each of them with your own life, General. I have utmost faith in your judgement.”

The volunteers made themselves known to Leia, and Ellor turned to speak quietly with a uniformed woman at his side with straight brown hair and a severe face. She left a moment later, presumably to go stare someone to death.

The rest of the formal exchange was swift, and full of jargon that Rey honestly didn’t understand, names and titles she’d never heard, and gestures of etiquette that she fumbled her way through, hoping no one too important would notice she didn’t know what she was doing. In addition to this, Rey was completely overwhelmed in Coruscant. The lights, the sheer number of people, and the unspoken rules of societal behaviour in a place so established, and always in motion. She was fine on any ship, and with all the traveling the Resistance treated as standard procedure, she was used to being surrounded by newness, but this was a lot.

“Are you all right, Rey?” She and Rose were sharing a room across the district, but they were in charge of finding their own way there and Rey was visibly nervous about navigating the highways buzzing with activity outside the terminal window.

“I’m okay. Have you been here before?”

“A few times, it’s intense, right?”

“Yes, very intense. I’m adjusting, I promise. I have to be on my top game if I’ll be in a team with Candine’s people. I volunteered without thinking about it, and now I don’t know if I have what it takes… they’re on another level.”

Rose nodded, linking her arm through Rey’s as she led them into an elevator, pressing a button that was surrounded by seven different symbols, five of which Rey couldn’t read.

“I’ve been battling with my own feelings of irrelevance, imposter syndrome, in comparison to the operation they’ve apparently been running for years. It’s a lot to take in. But I keep reminding myself, we- well, Holdo, but collectively the Resistance- were responsible for creating the opportunity that they needed. The Supremacy being taken out, all of those troops following us onto one planet like lemmings, you killing Snoke for goodness’ sake! We needed them, and they needed us, and even though I’m still coming to terms with it, we did it. Together.” Rose’s smile was infectious, but Rey was incredibly glad that they were alone.

“You’re right. But I didn’t kill him, Rose. Be-- Kylo Ren did. And it was for selfish reasons too. Snoke essentially died for nothing, killed by his own power-obsessed underling.”

“Pssh. You were there, and Kylo Ren has been arrested as a war criminal, he’ll probably never taste fresh air again. If you were a worse person you’d be screaming it from the scraper-tops that you killed the Supreme Leader, and getting a million accolades for it, and we’d all be none the wiser.”

“Yes, well. I’m not. So I won’t.”

“Too good for this galaxy.” Rose smiles and sighs with good humour, and releases Rey’s arm as the doors open. They are met with an officer wearing the same style of uniform and armour as Candine’s guards, black with matte details, and lots of layers.

“Which one of you is Rey?”

“Me. I am.” They step out of the elevator and Rey holds her head high, feeling the encouragement from Rose bolster her in real time.

“You’ve been assigned to my team,” She has a kind, raspy voice, looms above Rey at an impressive height of at least 6”4, and has the heaviest female build Rey’s ever seen. Her dark green microbraids are locked into a thick chunky plait from the top to the back of her head, imitating a mohawk. Her deep brown eyes are assessing, and Rey likes her immediately.

“I’m Magna, but most people call me Bulla.” Their handshake is brief, and Rey is filled with a new excitement. Her team lead is a woman(!) and for some reason she’s certain everything will be fine.

Magna introduces herself to Rose, and hands Rey a key card and a duffle bag. “Everything you need is in there, take a look when you get to your acom, the uniform should fit, but call me if it doesn’t and I’ll arrange a replacement. You’ll be assigned a weapon tomorrow, if you have your own bring them with you to be cleared, depending on their quality the armourer may choose to hold on to them for you instead of allowing them in the field, I assume this will be okay with you?”

“Yes, I don’t carry my own weapon at the moment, it’s been damaged.”

“What do you carry?” She folds her arms over her chest and leans back on one leg, popping a hip. The fabric of her uniform stretches around the bulk of her arms, and Rey has to remind herself to look at her eyes while she speaks.

“I’ve been using a lightsabre, but I don’t know if the damage is repairable.”

Magna throws her head and laughs with her whole chest, looking back down at Rey, “Ha! Oh she’s funny! You out here talking about lightsabres…”

Rey laughs nervously, worrying if sharing that tidbit with the first person she met was wise. Stupid.

“Oh my goodness, are you being serious? Where did you even get one??”

Rey ponders on what to say, but Magna throws up a hand, shaking her head.

“Nope, actually I changed my mind, I don’t want to know. Trust Leia Organa to be hiding a fighter with a lightsabre in the motherfucken resistance. Hey, I’ll tell you what, if the job goes well, and you don’t hate me at the end of it, let’s get a drink, and I want to hear all about you.”

Rey agrees, heart aflutter at making a new friend so easily, and they part after Magna reminds her that the details of their principle and call time the next morning are on the key card, and to keep it secure. Rey and Rose make it to their hotel with greasy bags filled with street food, and a mild headache building behind her eyes.

She reads the dossier and memorizes the route information, doing her best with the foreign lingo and acronyms. When Rose exits the fresher, face pink and hair frizzy, Rey enters and marvels at the luxury of endless clean hot wate. She washes her hair twice.

“What time do you have to be there tomorrow?” Rose asks when they slide into their beds, Rey is still vibrating with excitement.

“I have to be at the landing terminal at 0400.”

“Okay, please try not to wake me up when you go. I don’t know how many nights they’ll pay for us to sleep in such a nice room, I don’t want to waste it.” Rose yawns and pulls the blanket up to her chin, Rey smiles sleepily, feeling some of the tension in her neck fade away in the comfort of high thread count sheets.

When sleep finally comes, she dreams of an underwater planet, and a silent faceless man in a room all alone.

*

Rey arrived the next morning to the lobby of the 3rd basement level of the Turquet Building at 0350 hours, and paced the floor, taking the opportunity to make herself familiar with the space while she waited for Magna. She wasn’t sure which of her fellows from the resistance would be joining her, having noticed a couple of volunteers that she hoped she would be paired with, and a couple that she didn’t. She sat on a long bench and bounced her leg, trying to dispel nerves. Two armoured doors were at the opposite end of the room, there was no droid link socket anywhere, which struck Rey as unusual.

She’d tried on the uniform to make sure it fit the night before, and after walking through the sleepy early morning Coruscant streets in it, she can’t help but acknowledge the severe-faced lady has a good eye. She likes the way it sits on her; not at all showing off her figure, it makes her look and feel bigger in a way she almost can’t believe. Tall, strong, intimidating. The black leather boots strap over the cuff of the trousers, and a blaster-resistant vest sits over a breathable black long sleeve, which all fits comfortably under a thigh-length coat. It’s a lot of layers, but she feels secure, everything in a sensible place. A holster rests on her hip under the coat, and an earpiece that she doesn’t super know what to do with is the only piece of the gear that remains in the bag, she hopes Magna will be happy to help her.

 At 0400 on the dot the elevator door opens just as Magna reaches the crest of a yawn, and covers her mouth, laughing lightly as she greets Rey.

“Glad to see the directions were good, or maybe you’re just a natural – I’m surprised you didn’t come with your friend?”

“Oh, I studied the route last night, and Rose helped me with the layout on this city level, and the landing terminal level as well. I have a better understanding of the patterns here now. And I don’t know who’s been assigned with me, I assumed you did?”

“Captain Poe Dameron is our third this morning.”

Rey deflates, just a tad. He was the only one she was actively hoping wouldn’t be with her unit. She rolls her shoulders and tells herself to get over it. Poe’s capable, even if extremely annoying and difficult.

“Did you meet him yesterday?” Rey asks, hesitant to get Magna’s first impression of him.

“No, no Cyril met with him directly, gave him his gear. Speaking of which, he’s late. Is this typical?”

Rey ponders, she truly doesn’t know him well enough to say, but from what she does know, it doesn’t surprise her really.

She shrugs, scratching her arm, apologetic. Magna frowns slightly, humming, and pulls out a datapad, zeroing in on her next task.

“Okay, no matter, I gave us an early start time so we could meet with the armourer, it was in the plan for this morning so Dameron should know to join us. It’s just through here.” Magna gestures for Rey to follow her through the heavy doors. (She silently congratulates herself on her correct estimation of heightened security, as not three but four separate layers slide back one at a time on each side).

A dingy office that Rey is not at all expecting to house lethal weapons is where they find themselves. A slim Togrutan mans the desk, well, is lying asleep on the desk. Thick spectacles are held in place with braided strands of ribbon that disappear under his montrals, and his sleep-rumpled clothing is casual. His breaths are deep and slow.

“Melio!”

Magna lets out a short shout, and the armourer wakes instantly.

“What! Where? Who! Huh?” A flurry of limbs and different fighting poses make Rey take a step back as Melio gathers himself, finally rearranging himself into a sensible stance, standing from his stool behind the desk and smiling as if nothing was unusual.

“Oh! Good morning to you too, Bulla. And who have we here?”

He doesn’t sound at all like he’s just been fast asleep, Rey is bemused at the way he leans forward on the desk, the lenses on his glasses are so thick his eyes appear massive. For this reason, he reminds her of Maz, but that’s where the similarities stop.

“I’m Rey, I’ve been assigned to Bulla’s unit.”

“Oho! You’re one of the resistance volunteers I see, I’ve been fascinated to see what I’d be dealing with. Please, Rey. Step into my office.” Melio presses a button that Rey can’t see underneath the desk, and a harsh clanging buzz sounds just before the door to her left unseals and slides open. Melio stands behind the desk and moves further back into his office, disappearing behind multiple high shelves, which are all locked in ceiling to floor cages. Rey recognises the shapes of different assortments of heavy artillery, pistols and rifles hanging on stokes through the mesh. The lights in the ceiling are very dim and have an unflattering blue-ish green-ish hue, everything they touch reflects a sickening glow.

Melio returns before she can delve further into the maze of shelves, and gestures she put down her bag, handing her a small blaster, with an unusually long barrel.

“This is an imperial navy standard DL-78 blaster pistol. It’s also technically not, as all the weapons that pass through my shop are – modified. However, the serial number is unchanged, so for legal reasons please refer to it as the DL-78.” The spiel feels practiced rolling out of his mouth, and not without a significant amount of pride. “See how it feels.”

Rey holds the pistol, it’s not as heavy as the weapon Han leant to her, she marvels at the balance in her grip as she turns to the only blank wall in the space, checking the safety is on before lifting it in line with her gaze, shifting her stance slightly. It feels better in her hand than any blaster she’d used before.

“Why the barrel modification?”

“Silencer. They’re not standard issue. You’d think with the near-constant state of war the galaxy is in, we’d have advanced our weaponry accordingly. But apparently the Republic felt it unsportsmanlike to integrate silencing tech into military issue weaponry.”

“You said this is imperial navy issue?”

“That I did, my young friend.” Melio’s gaze darts to Bulla’s for a fleeting moment, Rey tries to ignore it. “The DL-44 and the DL-78 are some of the finest pistols that were ever mass produced by a governing body. And you’ll be shocked at how little actually changed when the empire fell to the Republic all those years ago. The DL series continued as the navy standard for fifteen years before the republic privatised their weaponry manufacturers. As much as they’re considered by the uneducated masses and trigger-happy cowboys to be outdated, you’ll find I have impeccable taste.”

Magna chuckles and turns to lean her hip against the edge of the desk that sticks out on her side of the wall. Rey’s eyes widen. She feels out of her depth, but strangely also right where she belongs. She takes a moment to consider everything.

“I have two questions.”

“Ask away.”

“This is too long for my holster.” Rey points to the leather piece strapped to her hip, and demonstrates the barrel stopping before the whole weapon can slide in properly.

Melio tsks and rifles in a cupboard behind him, turning quickly to glance at Rey with empty eyes a couple of times, frowning and muttering, before finally letting out a victorious “There!”

Rey lets Melio get handsy-er than anybody else technically ever has, but doesn’t once feel that he is being inappropriate as he explains why she will ‘certainly find this new holster a better fit’, and wonders aloud ‘whyever were you given such a shitty one in the first place?’ He deftly tightens three new straps that wind underneath her protective vest, and the holster settles horizontally on her tailbone. Rey slides the pistol into it, and feels it settle securely, she agrees with him instantly, taking the unneeded one off herself.

“You have a second question?”

“I do, but I’m not sure how you’ll take it,” Rey looks over to Bulla, who is watching with a glint in her eye. “I’ve been trained to use a pistol, and I’m okay with them, but my primary weapon is a staff. Is that, too unusual for a protection assignment?” She speaks the final part of her question to Bulla, who doesn’t even bother opening her mouth.

“Too unusual! My girl! Never say such words again. You shall have one. Bō staff, I presume? What a magnificent choice of weapon, I knew when I first set eyes on you that you were more interesting than you looked. A staff! Glorious!” Melio continues praising her with words she can’t make out and hyperbolic gesticulation, as he moves back into the maze and completely out of her sight.

Behind Rey’s view, Magna disappears down the hall, and Rey turns when she hears the retreating steps of her team lead, and the door hissing shut behind her at the end of the hallway. Rey can just make out Magna’s rasping voice, it sounds annoyed.

“Here it is!” Melio emerges covered in cobwebs and dust, totally unbothered by it. He holds an ashen grey staff and stands the end on the floor at the toe of her boot. It comes to just under the top of Rey’s head, and Melio’s smile widens.

“It’s the perfect height, now see if the weight is right.”

Rey grasps it and can’t help the instant grin as she tests the weight, stepping away from the shelves and turning it in her grip, swinging it out and feeling the balance. Melio watches thoughtfully. It is nothing like her old one she used on Jakku. Homemade, cobbled together from different pieces of tubing that she glued sand into to make it heavier; totally unbalanced, and the same thickness all the way along. This, she is almost certain, is made of wood. It’s smooth, but not finished, her grip on it is solid. The ends are slim, widening in the middle. When she spins it between her hands, it gains and loses momentum just as she expects it to. She wonders what it would take for Melio to let her keep it.

Rey is just about to exclaim her gratitude when the door at the end of the hall opens, and argument echoes into the poorly-lit space.

“You can’t rush me, lady! I was on my way, but I received an important call and had to delay. I value your time, please value mine, I’ve apologised for being late, oh- Rey!”

Rey places the end of the staff on the floor again, and maintains a pleasant tone.

“Hello, Poe. This Melio, Melio this is Captain Dameron, also resistance.”

“Aha.” Melio surveys him. Poe stands casually, he wears the same uniform as Rey, except she notices he’s forgone the vest, and wears his own holsters and weapons strapped to both hips.

Melio zeroes in on the blasters, and slowly turning his face up, smiles at Rey, and gestures she exit the office. Once the door seals shut behind her again, the bassy thump and echo of thick rods locking into place in the wall, Melio turns to Poe.

“May I see your weapons?”

“Be careful with them, these are my babies, okay?” He pulls out the twin blasters and flips them around his fingers before placing them on the desk, with a comical amount of care. “I don’t hand these over to just anyone you know? Heh, ahh…” He looks to Rey with laughter in his voice, and she doesn’t join him.

Melio says nothing as he presses a tiny button on the lens of his glasses, and both eyes seems to almost double in size as one by one he brings Poe’s blasters close to his face, inspecting and turning them around in his hands, before returning his glasses to their normal setting and breaking down the pistols on the bench, meticulously placing each piece on the mat in the centre of the desk in order of removal. Every now and again a cloth gets whisked from a pocket and Melio’s fingers fly as a component is cleaned, before being placed with the others.

Poe’s jaw clenches as he watches silently. Rey in turn keeps flicking her gaze between Melio’s work and Magna, who stares with subtle disapproval at Poe. The rubber toe of her boot mutedly taps the floor, and Rey is anxious to know what happened behind the door at the end of the hall.

“Okay,” Melio takes a deep breath, his eyes widen and relax slightly, and his shoulders unhunch. He turns his attention to the three of them, the giddiness of his earlier encounter with Rey completely washed away by his focus on Poe’s blasters.

“Both Glie-44 with amateur modifications. Serial numbers filed off, standard practice with resistance weaponry so I’ll not comment there. You’re using the wrong projectile fuel, it’s a common mistake as it makes a louder firing sound, but you’re wasting about 5% more than you should be with each round, and your shots have less power, pack less of a punch on landing.”

“I-”

“Whoever is responsible for the mods should be fired, or at the very least given more resources. Even a hobby-weapons enthusiast would recognise that the grip-fitting is actively hindering stability. The hair-trigger I would describe as a danger to yourself let alone others, do you have holes in the bottom of your holsters from accidental firing?”

Poe blushes fiercely. “We- I- … Tha--”

“I’m not surprised. All of this and I haven’t even mentioned the fact that the safety on this piece,” Melio gestures to the dismantled collection of blaster pieces on his left side, “Is non-functional. If it’s ever even used, as you gave both of these to me with the safety off.”

Rey is facing the wall at this point, and is tempted to start whistling, simply so she doesn’t have to listen to this. She looks pleadingly at Magna, and juts her head towards the door, Magna silently huffs a breath of chuckle, and nods.

Rey exits as Poe is strapping on a new set of holsters, and just catches Melio asking if Poe will want his weapons returned to him, repaired, or broken down for parts. Rey doesn’t hear the response.

Magna follows her a few minutes later, with the captain in tow, looking moderately humbled. But Rey recognises a kicked-dog presence in him that makes her nervous. She tries to put it away.

Magna is either an expert at compartmentalisation, or she’s put the morning’s antics behind her. Rey can’t decide which one she hopes is the case.

“You’ve both read the packet, the principle arrives at 0530 on landing pad 13490-FA, Senator Tiburón will be working with us as much as we will have to work with him. It is both your individual and collective responsibility to follow my lead. We’ll be a team for the next six days, so I expect open communication and respectful co-operation from you both.”

Magna’s eyes moved back and forth between Poe and Rey as she spoke, her voice easy and polite.

“We are obviously used to different standards of operation. I don’t know what it’s like to be a resistance fighter, and you don’t know anything about me or where I come from, and unfortunately we don’t have the time to bridge that gap right now. But what matters is that we are a united team, and there’s no reason this can’t go smoothly if we remember to keep focused, and stay on route and on coms at all times.”

Rey nods, letting the words sink in, she glances at Poe who is staring at the wall. Pre-mission pep-talk seemingly complete, they take a moment to put in coms, Magna demonstrates how to use the earpieces, and they test the channel.

“We’ll drop your bags off at the protection unit acom on our way to the landing terminal. And before I forget, Poe please put on your vest.” Magna gestures to Poe’s unprotected torso, and her instruction is clear, leaving no room for argument.

And yet.

“I’d rather not.” Poe looks her in the face now, speaking casually.

“Even Tiburón will wear one of these until he is safely in his guarded room. You want to be less prepared for this environment than the man we’re protecting?”

“It’s too restrictive.”

Magna sighs, “Why didn’t you contact Cyril? She would have supplied you with a replacement. But we don’t have the time, I need you to be uncomfortable for now and we can replace it tonight.”

“It fits, I don’t need a replacement. I’m not going to wear it.”

Bulla is silent. Rey doesn’t know how she looks so calm. Poe is infuriating, and her body is vibrating with embarrassment.

“Okay. Give me your bag, and your com.”

“What?”

“Tell General Organa you’ve been dismissed. I’ll relay it to Cyril, no need to bother her.”

Poe’s jaw sets, any pretence of nonchalance eviscerated.

“No, I’m on this mission.”

“I need you to use your ears, Dameron.” The tiniest bit of condescending bite seeps into Bulla’s voice. “I am dismissing you from this assignment, because you are clearly nothing but a liability. Give me your bag and your com, and go return the weapons to Melio.”

Poe’s frown and disgust are almost audible. Rey stands perfectly still.

“You don’t-”

“I do.”

“You can’t jus-”

“I am.” Magna cuts him off a final time, and Rey watches as Poe’s attitude deflates like a sad balloon, the last of his defiant energy destroyed by the diamond-hard tone coming out of the leader’s mouth, and her stoic presence sucking up all the air in the room.

He doesn’t protest further as he pulls off the earpiece and unstraps Melio’s holsters. Magna graciously doesn’t comment or roll her eyes as she accepts them, and when the elevator door closes behind Poe’s back, she releases a sigh. Rey has no idea what to say.

“So, we’re on our own. The next six days just got at least 40% more difficult, but for some reason I trust you to be more than competent enough for the both of you.” She loosely gestures to the place in the room that Poe had just vacated. “Please don’t let me down.”

Rey huffs a laugh, and reaches out for the holstered blasters in Bulla’s hands, tipping her head towards the door behind them.

“Let me run those to Melio for you, then we can go.”

*

“Senator- get down!” Rey hears Bulla yell, and jumps from the ramp linking the tri-terranean Mon Calamari ship to the platform below, shielding herself behind it. Bulla is with the senator behind the ship entrance, and Rey feels her instincts kick into high gear.

“I’m under the ramp, can you cover me while I approach?”

“Affirmative, hold.” Bulla pauses, and Rey knows she’s instructing Senator Tiburón on how to act while they are under fire, “Rey, prepare to approach in 3, 2, 1.”

Rey doesn’t wait for the sound of Bulla’s rifle firing to burst into a sprint, and she leaps and jumps the 8-foot gap between the landing terminal and the arrested cargo flier. Two 30 tonne containers creak and groan as the industrial platform is buffeted by the wind, Rey glimpses the lights of the thrumming highway tens of meters below her feet as she soars through the air, and lands badly, almost missing the ledge. She paints herself against the container, surveying for any assailants with eyes on her position that she didn’t notice before, and she thanks the force for her luck upon finding none.

“Number one is on the southwest side of that container. Approach from the opposite corner, You’ve got cover in 3.”

“Copy.” Rey shoots back, and hears the crack of rifle fire start once again. She sticks to the side of the container like glue, running in a crouch, staff held low at her side. Whisps of hair come loose and whip her face in the icy wind.

“Get down.” Rey flattens, smacking her cheek against the cold grooves as blaster fire zings just above her body. She tries to prep for an upward spring as fast as she can, knowing the shooter has caught onto them and is now waiting behind the corner that she is nearest to reaching, only prevented from shooting her down by Magna’s tactical aim.

“I’ll pull to your left in four shots, keep right.”

“Copy.” Rey grunts as she counts the fourth shot and launches up, using as much control of the force as she can to get up without straining her muscles. She overdoes it just a little, and stumbles into the run, but makes it work as she rounds the corner on a leap, entering the shooters field of vision much higher than he was expecting her to. She’s shocked to see that he’s Mon Calamari himself, wearing a dirty First Order uniform under a thin worn hooded cloak. She swings the staff around and hooks his neck, and he startles, dropping his weapon and bringing his hands up to defend himself. Swivelling mid leap, she buts him twice in the side of the head, and lands her knees on his chest, forcing him down. The rifle spins as she kicks it away, breathing heavily.

“I’ve lost visual. Is number one down?”

“Yes, I’ve got him pinned.”

“Take him out.”

Rey grasps her pistol, and blinks once before firing twice at his head. His glassy eyes are wide and a scream starts in his throat, before his head smacks against the dirty metal beneath them, and a black-red halo begins to grow.

“Done.”

“I can’t tell if number two has moved from first location. I can’t leave Tiburón alone to come help you. Tell me which way you’ll go, and I’ll give you as much cover as I can.”

Rey breathes, standing up from the body and pushing it on its side to wrestle the cloak out from under its dead weight.

“I’ll be wearing his cloak, please don’t shoot me.”

“Copy.” Rey thinks she hears a smile in Bulla’s voice, and peeks her covered head out from behind the edge of the container facing the next cargo platform. Fifteen meters away at least, and above her at a 45° angle. She counts her breaths, reaching out with the force, and sensing the vehemence and worry of the second attacker coming from the platform above, confirming her fears. There’s a control panel on this level, but it’s completely exposed. Even if Magna were to lay down cover fire while she moved the platform, it would take too long. She’s certain there’s no way the shooter would let the opportunity slide.

“I have to jump, cover would be appreciated, I’ve never made a leap like that before.”

“If you think you can do it then try, if you know you’ll fail don’t even think about it. Come back to the ship and we’ll emergency land at a different terminal.”

“Is that an order?” Rey asks, already psyching herself up to make the jump, she feels lightness surging through her, and she re-holsters her pistol, preparing to run.

“No, do what feels right.”

“Copy. Jumping in 3, 2, 1.”

Rey moves like liquid, letting her body adapt to the wind as she pushes energy and feeling to fill every inch of space her body occupies. There’s something new in her soul when her feet leave solid ground, body stretching and reaching to make the distance and then some.

When she reflects on it days later, all she can determine is absence. Absence of light, absence of darkness, the push and pull of conflict was both everywhere and nowhere, and she longed to feel that way again.

 While she rose through the night on the energy of everything and nothing, she revelled in the balance between. Endless space, it was like the wind felt her effort and paused to watch in awe as she soared, even the very air obeyed her command –

 But it wasn’t enough.

“Not on my watch.”

Magna’s voice whispered into her ear, and Rey felt her momentum extended by something else, and threw herself forward over the edge, rolling to a stop completely in the open. Now elevated, Bulla’s cover fire returned.

“Move.”

Rey rolled sideways until shielded by the container stack on this level. Mind reeling, shock and emotion on full blast.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I can’t depend on it, my control is shoddy at best, be glad it worked this time.”

“Thank you.”

Rey sees the sparks of blaster fire on the grooved surface near her feet. She scrambles and shakes out her body,

“Okay, I see him. He’s distracted by you, go around the other side and try to draw his focus and keep him there.”

The second shooter is no better than his fellow, and Rey is almost all the way around when she hears a final rifle shot from behind her, and the slump of dead weight thuds onto the platform.

“He came around the front to find you. The fool. Check his body.”

Rey kept her pistol trained on the folded body of the shooter in her approach, stepping carefully. In an instant she saw his torso jump with movement and fired twice at his head, before he fell back a final time.

“Keep your guard up, there may be more.”

She found no identification in his clothing, nor on the other when she made her way back down. When on the lower of the two platforms, she used the exposed control panel to restart the cargo escalator system, and the hover belt lurched to life once more, machinery whirring and metal creaking. She stepped onto the landing terminal when she passed within an inch of it, keeping her awareness heightened, and turning to keep cover with Bulla as they exited the ramp, Tiburón directly behind her body, protective vest on over his traditional robe, and head down.

“Thank you, officers. I’m glad you’re with me.” Tiburón bows to them both when the entrance to the tunnel is safely locked behind them.

“We’re glad too, Senator.” Magna smiles and grasps his shoulder, and he finally stops shaking.

*

The hearings are swift and unforgiving. High ranking first order officers are brought in, some in groups that range from 5 individuals to 150 at the most chaotic hearing, and the rest are tried and sentenced individually. Whole legions of storm troopers are tried according to the actions of the unit. Spies on the witness stand tell of the programming camps that almost every trooper spent their life in before being uniformed, armed and assigned. Rey is surprised that Finn is called as a witness, and he speaks on the behalf of stormtroopers who never entered combat and are also victims of the First Order’s regime, in desperate need of rehabilitation, re-connection with the families they were stolen from, and in many cases de-conditioning.

Rey hears it all, and at first has more questions than ever before, but in between the moments when she can’t listen for focus on her mission, she starts to see the big picture coming together.

Rey listens to the severe woman, (Cyril, she discovers) recount her duties under Senator Candine, and the triple life she watched him lead. As a pathetic first order sympathiser to the public; ruthless leader of a meticulous web of espionage and information warfare to his men; and to the very few who know him well, a grieving father and widower.

Spies buried deep in the first order plead guilty under oath to aiding and abetting the enemy in their atrocities, so that the ultimate mission could continue, uninhibited. Mercenary smugglers are brought to the stand and detail to the senate judges how many lives were saved before the destruction of the Hosnian system. Rey had to battle her amazement and disbelief at learning that most of the spies, mercenaries and contractors didn’t even know the names of their handlers.

Senators who bowed their head without a fight when first challenged by the fascist regime were tried too. It was hard to watch. Some were pardoned, providing undeniable evidence that they saved lives through their pacifist action, and of doing all they could to undermine first order business without seeming disloyal on the surface. Others were not so lucky. Those who took the stand full of confidence, only to wilt under a barrage of evidence that they directly profited by submitting early, betrayed their fellows in return for a rank and a steady pay check, and took extra measures to make sure the subjugation of their systems was merciless, in the name of greed.

Her eyes were opened. The secrets and lies, the half truths and need-to-know bases. The picture of the Anti-First Order Allies began to look incredibly familiar yet shockingly different. It dawned on Rey that the Resistance and the secret operation that was only revealed at the moment of their victory, were two sides of the same coin.

One side, drawing attention from the enemy and the public, drawing it away from the other side, so it could operate freely and without fear of being actively sought out. The Enemy knew the resistance, was familiar with it, and underestimated them at every turn. This was the beauty of Candine’s plan. To function on a level that the resistance could not. To break any rule necessary to win.

She found herself filled with a complicated gratitude, and an entirely new type of heartbreak.

Then Leia testified. Rey couldn’t bare to take her words to heart, as she took responsibility along with Luke and Han for allowing Kylo Ren to wreak havoc, for essentially creating the enemy’s strongest combat weapon through neglect, and enabling his entitlement and the seeds of extremism in his youth.

Leia was heard by the senate, and pardoned from her unsolicited guilty plea unanimously by the entire court.

“General, Kylo Ren has renounced his family, his actions are those of a grown man, and although we recognise the sorrow and regret only a parent can feel in these times, you cannot bear his sentence for him.” Tiburón spoke on behalf of the hall, and Rey watched a tear trail down Leia’s face, as she removed herself from the witness stand, and took her seat at the highest level once more.

It was a true kaleidoscope of excitement and surreal moments, and Rey was constantly being reminded that she was witnessing history.

It was also repetitive and mind-numbing.

Rey found herself thankful that the Senate guards were operating as a joint unit during the hearings, and she was relieved from her post every few hours to rest and eat. De-brief was at 2130 every day, Cyril listened dutifully to the day’s report from all team leads, and they received new orders for the following day. To Rey, these meetings were utterly boring. Listening to Cyril, who always worded things in a way she found confusing and vague (but everyone else seemed to understand easily,) was exhausting. She was like a statue, nothing seemed to escape her steely-eyed notice, and yet, nothing seemed worthy of her notice either.

On the last day of hearings, Rey relieved the guard on duty in her zone of the hall, and took her stance, relaying quietly to Magna on coms that she was in position, and receiving a clipped “Copy.” From the other end. Magna seemed to have slept badly the night before, and Rey wondered if they would still go into the city when Tiburón was safely on his way back to Mon Calamari, and the mission was complete. She hoped they would. Her eyes scanned the Senate Hall, following the advice from Magna a few days earlier. You have a bad view of the seats directly under you, but a great one of those right under me. We’ll watch each other’s sections with ease, and have good peripheral of the area beneath us. Keep your eyes relaxed, and we’ll keep each-other posted. This way you won’t have to keep your eyes in too many places, and your mental stamina won’t be as drained.

Magna was tired. She had been going non-stop for the past two years, hoping the long-awaited Victory would herald in an equally long-awaited Holiday, but no. More work. And to top it off her unit was a man down. She initially planned to split the extra shifts that would have been covered by Dameron evenly between herself and Rey, but quickly realised that while the girl was good on her feet, and learned quickly, she was still green. Total lack of professional know-how, and not to mention her complete ignorance of Coruscant society and city layout. She was grateful for the extra hands and eyes no matter where they came from, but couldn’t help the slightest bitter resentment at being utterly shafted. Selected as the unit leader dealing with both untrained members and a man down. Sure, the latter was her choice, technically, but she stood by it. Better a man down than a man unreliable. It was the way she’d always been, and she was still alive because of it. Her lack of sentient resources was not her fault, and Cyril agreed with her. Which wasn’t helpful, or what she needed, but at least it was nice to have her correct decision acknowledged by her superiors.

Finally on the sixth day, the herald announced the final hearing. The last accused member of the First Order Upper ranks entered the hall and Magna fought back a yawn.

Oh. It was him. Magna watched the room as Kylo Ren was ushered in, surrounded by ten of Cyril’s best, armed and on high alert. Kylo was unconscious and strapped to a hovering seat in the middle of the formation of security officers. They had been prepared for this as the most dangerous moment of the hearings. Two of Kylo’s knights were still unaccounted for, and although they posed no major threat compared to their master, they were still force users, and trained ones at that. Dangerous didn’t even begin to cut it.

She let out a slow breath as the seconds passed and all was still, and remembered to check in with Rey.

“Keep focused, this is why we’re here. Keep watching your quadrant, report if anything is remotely suspicious.”

Silence. Magna frowned, Rey always responded. She glanced up to where Rey was standing across the wide expanse of the senate hall from her. What the hell?

“Rey. Do you copy?”

She watched as Rey jumped and tore her eyes from the unconscious war criminal in the centre of the grand hall, and squared her shoulders, looking back at her zone under Magna’s feet.

“Yes. Copy. Sorry.”

“Stay focused. Not the time to lose your nerve.”

Magna kept an eye on Rey for a few minutes more, and spying no more unusual behaviour, decided to think about it later.

His hearing was surreal to witness. Seeing a force user brought to his knees and sentenced to life in the submerged prison on Castilon by the entire Senate and his own mother, all while unconscious. General Organa was stone faced through his charges, the senate discussion of his fate, and sentence delivery. Magna could not help but watch in awe at the strength of the mother in the highest ring of seats, as she looked down at her last living family member and let justice prevail over her own visible heartbreak.

The balls on this woman.

*

“You haff-- to tell me what it whas like.”

“Whadd’yu mean? You have to tell me what it was—what it was like!”

They shouted at each other in the crowded bar, thumping synth blasting in their ears and beings in all states of dress drinking like the world was ending. Which was ironic, because it was just beginning! The message of Freedom! rang out clear and ecstatic from every bar and club on Coruscant. The trials were over, the first order was finished, and the galaxy was free from tyranny.

Party!

Rey and Magna were seeing each other in civilian clothing for the first time, and Rey was getting her first taste of top shelf alcohol ever, paid for by her first ever pay check not consisting of dehydrated food.

They were utterly sloshed.

“I wanna know, what it was like to serve under THE General Leia Organa, duh!”

Magna managed to get out between being tousled by bouncing dancers who were spilling over the border of the dancefloor and into the bar more and more each moment.

“Oh, well I was only in the resistance for a couple of weeks before it all ended. Funnily enough Poe is the one you want right now, he was in it from the beginning!”

“Ugh! Don’t talk to me about that piece of Bantha shit. What a pompous son of a bitch.”

“You’re telling me! I hate him! Well. I don’t hate him. He’s just so annoying!”

“I’ll cheers to that!” Magna lifts her (sixth?) shot glass, some spills over the lip as an elbow lands in her shoulder blade. Rey lifts her own glass, (totally unaware that counting was necessary or recommended,) and can’t hear her own laughter over the music.

“Let’s go upstairs, it’ll be quieter!”

“What?” Rey can’t hear herself shout back, let alone whatever Magna just said.

“Jus- Come on!” Magna grabs their drinks and hooks Rey’s arm around her neck, and walks them around the corner from the bar and up the neon-lit stairs. It’s still loud, but they can hear their own thoughts now. A cushy shiny leather booth is freed up just as they clear the upper floor, and Magna falls into it, Rey just behind her. They laugh while righting themselves, Magna pulling her skirt lower on her thighs, and Rey straightening the belt around her light robes that she always wears. It’s hot on this level of Coruscant, where a thousand bars and clubs and houses of entertainment are trapped in artificial night, and the drinking and dancing never stops.

Magna can’t help but giggle to herself at Rey’s revelation, and reaches up a hand to poke Rey in the meat of her revealed bicep, a cheeky look on her face.

“So, I was right about you. A newbie through and through.”

“Oh no!” Rey covers her face, laughing without knowing why. “It’s embarrassing that it was so obvious, I was hic!- trying my hardest to look as polished as the rest of you.”

“It’s the trying that did you in, girl. Where have you been this whole time then? The resistance clearly didn’t teach you everything you know.”

Rey finishes her drink, and a waiter droid appears from a service elevator at table height in the wall, collecting their empty glasses and repopulating the table with six more shots of their drink of choice. Rey watches, hazy-eyed, and tells the story with slightly manic and flailing hand gestures.

“I found a droid on my home planet, Jakku, and it turned out to be an asset to the resistance, and the enemy were searching for him, so I helped him. Finn, the turned storm trooper who testified on the first day – was there too, and we ran into Han Solo escaping from Tie Fighters, and he brought us to Maz Kenada’s, and from there I was …” she pauses, Magna waits, not knowing what to expect, Rey burps and smacks her own chest with her fist, continuing in the next breath. “Captured, and Finn and Han rescued me on Ilum a few days later. I fought with B- Kylo Ren on Ilum, and the General gave me the mission of finding Master Skywalker and bringing him to help.” She nods, putting a hand on the table, swaying slightly.

Magna wishes she were surprised. She can hold her liquor fine, and watching Rey is funnier than she thought it would be. “No such thing as slow and steady in the resistance is there?”

“No, I don’t think so. But also! These past few days have helped me understand, that was really the point of it all, wasn’t it? We were the infantry, holding the banners and playing our trumpets, so you could be the sniper in the dark.” Rey is proud of herself for coming up with such an eloquent observation while totally off her rocker, she mimes holding a rifle with one eye shut, aiming the imaginary weapon at an empty glass on the table.

“Yeah. There’s a lot of folks who don’t understand why the secrets needed to stay secret these past few years. I already respect you, but I respect you even more for seeing that.”

A few moments pass as new patrons enter the upper level, dancing and spilling their drinks on the floor. It quietens down again after a while, and Magna gently turns down a string-bean of a being who asks her to dance. Something about him reminds her of the Supreme Leader. His ears? She’s not sure. Then she remembers.

 “So, you fought the Kylo Ren? One on one, in hand to hand combat?”

“…Yeah.” Rey slurs.

“And you’re not dead.”

“Not that I know of.” She pats her torso, and brings her clean hand up to show Magna, smiling dreamily.

“How?”

“I guess, he underestimated me? But really it comes down to the fact that he was super wounded that time, took two rifle shots right here,” she gestures at her own hip, “and multiple light sabre wounds. And the environment was on my side, I think. The planet was um… imploding, and so it was insanely hot! And well. I’m used to heat.” A blushing grin lights up her face.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice you brushing over that time? There were other times???”

Rey ponders, looking at the ceiling. “We weren’t fighting against each other the second time.”

“…excuse me?”

“Can you keep a secret?”

Magna’s gaze washes over Rey. Everything she has learnt about this girl so far is that she is earnest and trustworthy. Rey is leaning forward, index finger over her open mouth, awaiting Magna’s agreement. She waits on the edge of her seat, anxious to hear what in the worlds Rey might possibly mean.

“Yeah.”

Rey goes to speak, then snaps her mouth shut.

That was close. Think. Think!

“I was, undercover.”

“Undercover?”

“Yep.”

“Doing?”

“Well. My mission was to manipulate B- him. Yeah. I manipulated him into thinking I would join him, be his, dark bride or whatever twisted thing he thought was happening.” She flails her hands in disgust just thinking about it, like flapping away a bad smell. “But really, I was just trying to push him into betraying his commander. Snoke ordered Kylo Ren to kill me, but he killed Snoke instead, to save my life.”

A single second passes where she feels proud of herself. And then it passes like a blaster shot, as a ball of vomit rises in her throat, and she forces it back down, trying and failing to appear unaffected. She feels like nothing but a big fat liar. The story fits, technically. Leia pulled her aside before they landed on Coruscant and told her to be careful whom she shared her story with, and what version she told. She’s just obeying orders she tells herself, and lets the panic fade into some kind of normalcy. As much as is possible, while she’s so drunk she can’t read the exit sign above the door.

Magna blinks at Rey, watching her go through a storm of unidentifiable emotions that she can’t truly separate from drunken behaviour.

“Are you telling me that Kylo Ren fell in love with you, and killed his master to be with you?”

“… Love is strong word.”

Magna folds her arms over her chest.

“Girl.”

Rey crumbles like a house of cards. “That, might be what happened, yeah.”

The vibe is determinably weird. Magna sinks her final shot of the night, and pushes past the topic with finality, deciding (much too late) that this is not a safe conversation to have while drunk.

“You still haven’t told me how you got a fucking lightsabre. Or did Leia give it to you?”

“I don’t actually know how to explain that one.” The nausea isn’t going nearly as far away as she wants it to.

“Try girl.”

“Okay, okay. I’m not crazy, so remember that you asked.” She breathes a short sigh. “I heard a voice calling my name. I walked down a hallway for no reason, didn’t understand what was going on, just that I needed to follow the feeling. And I found a room full of junk, and inside a chest was the lightsabre.”

Magna slaps the table, mouth agape. “That’s it?? It was just in a room full of random shit?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“… yeah it is.”

“So? Did anything happen? A bolt of lightning?” Magna laughs through her genuine curiosity.

“I guess I had a vision. Or, a bunch of visions. Some of them make sense to me now, and some of them don’t. A voice I’d never heard before but sounded and felt like, well it felt like home, told me …”

“Told you???”

“It said, these are your first steps.”

“Crazy. Craziness.”

Rey flaps her hands, looking affronted. “You asked!”

“Okay, whatever. You were led by the force to a room full of nonsense and some whodacky jedi ghost spoke to you and gave you a lightsabre vision, and you’ve just been hiding on Jakku until a few days ago?? And then you sEDUCED Kylo fucking Ren into killing his master?!?”

“SHHH!! It’s not open information, and I don’t want it to be.” Magna schools her expression, but gestures around to the completely empty upper level they inhabit. Rey blushes, feeling awfully stupid.

“Whatever, basically. And it’s actually been three weeks since I left Jakku, but yeah.”

“We have opposite experiences.”

“Tell me!” She stretches out her leg under the table and jostles Magna, breaking out into a grin, sinking into a comfy slump in her side of the booth.

“I’m military, born and bred. Parents were major and sergeant, I went through the ranks the right way, from the bottom. Started real young, but when you’ve been around military forever, nobody bats an eye when you start young.” The waiter droid deposits water on the table between them and Magna pours glasses for them both. “Became an officer when I was seventeen. It’s been ten years, and I don’t regret the way I did it.”

“When did you know that you could, feel the force?”

“I think I knew something was goin on when I was like, twelve. My parents thought I just had really good intuition, but then one day I stopped myself in mid-air right before falling down a ledge. And I told you on Tiburón’s ship, I have almost no control over it. Can’t do it on command, but sometimes the stars align, and it comes when I need it to.”

“I know how you feel, a little bit. I’ve only had a very brief intro to the jedi and their history, and no real training over my abilities at all. But my control so far has just been a matter of my emotion, not so much thinking about the force itself.”

“Emotion has never been an issue for me, in terms of control. Which I’m grateful for. But maybe that’s why I struggle? I just don’t know.”

“Maybe. I hope you make some headway. It’s been incredible, increased mobility, the advantage in hand to hand is insane.” Rey remembers the feeling of re-aligning her core in mid-air while fighting their attackers on the landing terminal, feeling the force flow around her and through her, manipulating her body like clay. It was incredible.

“I’ll see how I go. Now that I’m not on the clock every second of every day, I might see how far I can get when I’m focusing on myself.” They smile at each other, and just as Magna thinks this is the perfect end to a successful mission, Rey blanches and folds over, before vomiting nine shots worth of Corellian Tequilla on her shoes. She sighs and gets up to ask a droid to bring a mop and a towel, but blinks and finds herself sitting back in the booth heavily.

“Rey.”

Magna’s never seen someone quite so… blue, or translucent before.

Is this… no. It couldn’t be.

Not in a club when Rey’s about to pass out in a pool of her own vomit!

“Huhh?” Rey mumbles, flopping back on the bench seat, a line of thick drool dripping from her mouth. “L- Luke?”

“Rey. Go to the Shili system, there you will find one who will train you in the ways of the Jedi.”

“Mmf, Luuuke..”

“Find Ahsoka, Rey.”

Magna watches in bafflement. Luke’s ghost disappears, and Rey utters a final pathetic moan, and passes out.

Chapter Text

“I’ve already said goodbye to everyone, you’re a twice-goodbyer is what you are. Let me leave!”

Rey isn’t as annoyed as she makes herself out to be, but Finn is behaving like a kicked puppy. Behind the good humour as she bats away his third ‘final hug’, there’s more than a bit of truth. Finn appears none the wiser, and hugs her just as tightly as he has the past two goodbyes.

“I know, I know. You go, big impressive Jedi girl. Have fun with your blue ghosts.”

“Thanks, Finn. I will. Have fun with Poe, I mean it!” He blushes as she walks up the ramp. Rey has no idea how or why Finn and Poe are suddenly glued at the hip, but she’s happy for them both, and that it means neither of them is focusing on her anymore.

She sees tiny figures waving on the tarmac as she flies away. Chewie is gracious enough to offer her a ride to the System that Luke has directed she travel to next, but not quite gracious enough to help her find the one of an unknown number of tiny villages that houses the fabled Ahsoka.

One thing she doesn’t enjoy about Luke being gone-not-gone is his dramatics and mysterious demeaner have kicked up ten notches, at least. Sending her to a system she’s never heard of or been to before, with no other direction than a name? It’s like Luke has forgotten that millions of beings inhabit every system in the galaxy, and she needs a bit more than just the name of the planet. But he hasn’t been back since that first embarrassing moment: Passing out covered in her own sick, with Magna as a witness that Luke did in fact appear in full force ghost regalia, only to deliver a brief message and disappear like he had somewhere pressing to be.

The bastard.

Rey sighs as she settles into the bunk, and tries to let her worries wash away. In a few days they’ll land, and when she finds the right village she will meet her new master, and everything will change. She hopes it won’t take too long to find them.

*

“No. Go away.”

Rey stands her ground, smile withering as the old Togrutan woman continues rocking in her chair. A blanket covering her legs is beautifully woven, the white and burnt orange pattern echoes the face markings of the elder before her.

This can’t be happening to me again.

She’s spent 92 days walking through swamp, forest, over mountain, and six other villages that all look the same, to finally get here after Chewie dropped her off with a months’ worth of supplies and growled her good luck. Figuring out how to hunt and forage on this system where everything was new and her every instinct was wrong took precious time and energy, not to mention the fact that she nearly died four separate times.

Standing under the shade of the awning on the village elder’s front step, sunburnt, half-eaten alive by mosquitos, and sweatier than she’s ever been before, she needs this.

“But Master Luke sent me to meet you. You’re Ahsoka? The girls at the river told me this was the right house.”

“I am. This is Wonne Village. But your master was wrong.”

“There’s another Ahsoka?” Rey ignores the eye roll she receives, hopes dashed.

“I’m not a Jedi, and I have nothing to teach you.”

“Why would he tell me to come here then?”

“Because he’s a Skywalker.” A wry grin stretches Ahsoka’s face as she hears the echo of a crisp chuckle on the wind, Rey doesn’t notice it.

What is it with this generation of force wielders and being grumpy arseholes? She feels the end of her rope drawing nearer.

“Your master was a Skywalker.”

“Your point?”

A pause.

“Leia sent me here.”

“Lovely. Tell her hello from me when you get back.” Ahsoka tilts her head slightly, then continues. “I was sorry to hear about her son. That’s a shame.” She folds her hands over her lap, leaning back in the chair as it rolls gently on its base, the ghost of a frown on her face. She looks tired.

Something snaps, and never before has Rey felt so compelled to unincited violence.

“Why must every jedi I meet be so-- so bitter and indifferent?!” Ahsoka’s eye hardens, and any scrutable expression is wiped from her lined face. She stands, and the blanket falls to the floor, Rey’s eyes widen, she takes a step back, not expecting Ahsoka to be so tall in her old age.

“I. Am not. A Jedi. Now leave.” Rey releases a yelp as she is bodily removed from the wooden steps and thrown as if by the wind over roofs and the dirt path she walked up not minutes before. The invisible grip on her body is released and she drops unceremoniously into the river, falling a couple of feet before hitting the water. She comes back up splashing and coughing, red in the face, soaked through. Infuriated.

Ahsoka watches from the elevated balcony of her home, a single eyebrow raised as the latest of Luke’s projects appears to give in to the temptation to have a tantrum in the low-level of the river’s trickling current. And then cannot help but huff a surprised chuckle as the girl stands, pausing shin deep in the water, before gathering herself and striding back up the path towards the house. A trail of wet footprints is left in the red dirt behind her.

Rey keeps herself further back than last time, feet and clothes dripping on the grass instead of trespassing on the stairs.

“Why won’t you even talk with me?”

Ahsoka’s voice is firm as an ancient tree.

“I don’t know you, and I don’t owe you my story.”

“Of course you don’t owe me, but I came all the way here just to see you, so it would be the polite thing to do, to not kick me out without so much as a nice-to-meet-you-what’s-your-name.”

A blow fly swoops around the girl’s face, landing on her hair still slick and heavy with water. Ahsoka watches the fly slide off and land upside down on her shoulder, legs flailing in the air.

“Nice to meet you. What’s your name?” Her voice a perfect monotone, the texture of age only adding to the insult of apathy.

“Thank you, it’s lovely to meet you too. I’m Rey.” She puts everything into the smile, it’s wasted.

“Rey.” Ahsoka takes a step down, the wood creaking under her weight. She’d never admit to it, but she’s slightly impressed when Rey doesn’t flinch.

“What makes you think that I want anything to do with the world you are so desperate to escape into?”

Her sunburnt ears turn even redder. Han wanted to get out, Luke wanted to get out, Leia is tired and grieving, Ahsoka apparently already hates her for no reason other than existing, and there’s nowhere else to turn.

But it’s simple really. She wants it. For herself. She’s not in it to help other people anymore. Dripping dirty water all over the lush grass, feeling the beating sun already drying the hairs on the top of her head, wet linen chafing in all the places she wishes it wouldn’t; she realizes. Maybe she never really was.

“I don’t have anything to offer you. Hah! I’m just happy to not be on Jakku anymore! And also, sort of just doing what Luke tells me at this point.” A deep frustrated breath bursts from her chest, and she barrels forward.

“Everything that I’ve learned about the force, is so right. It feels like where I’m meant to be.”

Ahsoka turns to retreat inside the house.

“But-” Rey’s head is tipped at the ground, eyes screwed shut, “every moment that I’ve settled on a side are the only times it’s felt, wrong. And I want to know more, so I can figure out what I’m meant to be doing, where I’m missing the mark.”

Ahsoka wants to walk into the house. She really wants to. This girl is just. So. Annoying. She almost can’t bare how bright-eyed and bushy tailed she is. She knows it will be exhausting. Infuriating. Impossible to put up with her yammering and blah blah nbpojevpinorifwouiweofweonwefri aaaarghhhhhhhhhhh

Rey looks up, and watches as nothing changes on Ahsoka’s face, the same stoic calmness that she wore before throwing her the first time. She prays that she won’t take another unexpected dip in the river. It feels like an age passes until the older woman lets out a clipped sigh and sits back in her chair. Picking up the flax weave she abandoned when first Rey entered the village.

“Okay. There’s an empty hut at the end of the path, facing our mountain. Aunty Fenna died a year ago and no one wants to live in it. If you do your part, and help with the village, you can stay.”

“I will.”

*

“I was wondering if you might have some time to train me today-Ahh-Hey!”

Splash!

“So, I have these books that I… technically stole from Luke, the jedi books-”

Rey spends all night rotating her clothes around the fire so they dry evenly. There’s mold on her favourite undershirt after the last time and she’ll never forgive herself for it.

“Hi Ahsoka! Another beautiful day huh?”

Rey hears the laughter of children this time as she soars above the roofs of the village homes.

It’s been almost two weeks and eight involuntary baptisms since her arrival to the village of Wonne. Rey hasn’t been idle, despite her lack of progress; she’s noticed Ahsoka’s patterns. It’s very regular, very predictable - unlike Luke - who was enacting the most extreme version of his routine to put her off. Ahsoka is unshakable, and hates being interrupted. But there’s a single exception: her granddaughters, Rey surmises, (maybe even great granddaughters?) are the obvious delight of Ahsoka’s heart. Rey finds herself endeared to the old grouch when Kami, the youngest of the trio, begs ‘Mama Soka’ to play.

Ahsoka sits barefoot cross-legged in long grass, the scorching afternoon sun doesn’t seem to affect them as much as it does Rey, and she’s envious. Rey watches from just outside her hut, doing her best to beat dust out of a rug. The girls squeal and laugh as they climb onto Ahsoka’s legs and shoulders, and roll around in the long flax strands she is always working on. Rey can only just hear the old woman laugh and hush them lightly, her voice all softness and affection.

“Do you remember the lyrics?”

“Yes!”

“Kind of?”

“No!”

Rey chuckles, listening closer. Ahsoka hums and tweaks the nose of the youngest. The giant grin on her little face only growing.

“Okay, ready? 1, 2, 3.”

The song is lilting and sweet. Every couple of beats the girls clap, and the youngest two giggle every time.

After a few moments, Rey finds herself patchily humming along, a subconscious smile on her face as she works in time with the clapping. Then she realises other voices are singing too. Coming from the huts and workshops that make up the village, the shadowy trees on the other side of the river seem to come alive as those just behind the treeline join the song. Harmonies, loud clear voices, some just humming along. Other children playing in the water or helping their parents in the shade start singing too, and soon the whole community is swaying. The lilt and rise of the melody snakes through the air like a living thing, even the wind seems to join the song as it rustles through the grass, and wooden chimes dance in its wake.

The last verse ends, and the lull dissipates as normal activity returns in the village, Ahsoka leans down to whisper something Rey can’t make out to the eldest, Ava Tii. She nods and scrambles as fast as her little seven-year-old legs can carry her, straight towards Rey’s hut.

“Mama ‘Soka says you’re doing it wrong.” Her innocent face scrunches up as she points to the dusty rug draped over the stair banister, and looks back up at Rey’s face expectantly.

Rey is taken aback, but offers the beater to Ava Tii, handle facing outward, “Can you show me how I can do it better?”

The white marks on her bright face curve as she smiles and nods eagerly, taking the beater and showing Rey how it’s done. Feeling the tickly sense of being watched, Rey glances up, but Ahsoka is busy with her flax again, alone once more in the swaying grass.

On the fifteenth day, Rey has had enough. She is much too familiar with the river and its very friendly fish, and is determined to go at least a week before being acquainted with them once more. It’s time for a new tactic.

In the early morning, as the first rays of pinkish yellow light come arcing over the mountain range, hitting the rooftops, Rey waits inside her dark hut. She slows her breathing and looks through the cracks of the shrunken wooden door. Exactly on time, Ahsoka softly closes the door of the home at the end of the path and begins her morning walk, as she always does. Rey watches as she steps out with one foot and arcs cleanly over the river, landing on the other side, bare feet dry and clean. When the elder disappears past the tree line, Rey pushes open the door and sneaks in the shadows towards the empty home.

She’s seen the interior of Ahsoka’s hut only in passing glance. Other elders in the village come and go as they please, Rey wonders if it is a communal space that Ahsoka happens to live in, or if she has an open-door policy on her home. As she finally makes it cleanly up the stairs, not a single soul in the village stirring, she silently opens the door and slips inside.

She tells herself that she’s drawn here, but it’s a lie. She was drawn to the ancient tree on the Island. The single shaft of light landing on the books she still has, now on the bottom shelf of her own hut. Written in a language she can’t read. She was drawn there like she was drawn to Ben. But once the door closes behind her and she sees Ahsoka’s home, there’s nothing drawing-in about this place.

It’s just like her own little house. Walls made of bound reeds packed with hardened mud and moss, a window on each side, and a ladder propped against the loft holding an elevated bed. The only real difference is Ahsoka’s home feels lived in. Flax tapestries line the walls, and numerous fans hang on one side, overlapping each other in a beautiful natural mosaic. Rey can feel the generations of families who have lived in this structure, the hands that have repaired it over the decades, the laughter and the tears. She can feel it all, and it feels distinctly other from her.

Other. She almost sways on her feet as it all comes rushing to her. This village at the base of a mountain, with an energy that speaks of generations upholding tradition and love from parent to child. Children laughing in the shadow of constant safety and trust, parents and caregivers trusting each other implicitly, even the ground loves the feet that stomp on it day after day. Rey wishes she knew what that felt like, her own childhood memories are all but washed bare by the shifting sands of loneliness on Jakku.

She doesn’t cry. And she tries even harder not to let her envy make her angry, so she starts searching. Her instincts telling her she’s looking for a chest, or a book, or a holy symbol of some kind. But she finds none of those things. It’s all so mundane and sensible, and deeply un-jedi-y. Just when she’s about to call it a loss and climb down the ladder and attempt to sneak back to her own hut, her gaze snags on something sleek and smooth, just the corner peeking out from behind the bed. She crouches down and hefts it out, smiling.

It’s a pack. Black and slim, and definitely not of Shili. It looks similar to the bag of gear she received from Magna all those months ago, but even Rey can tell it looks expensive, well made, and old. Fitting her fingers under the dust-repelling-material flaps, she finds the binds and unseals it. A datapad. A slim outdated looking holoprojector. Different smaller cases with labels and symbols on them, one indicating it contains a very retro commlink set. (She remembers finding one in a star destroyer years ago and presenting it to Plutt, and watching him crush it under a sweaty fist, laughing in her face. Worthless, girl. No-one will pay for those parts anymore, they’re garbage.) In another she discovers fighting sticks, armoured padding and long strips of fabric. She recognises them as fighting wraps before closing the case again. She flips through the different holorecording cards, most of them are unlabelled, and she lets her fingers move through the collection on autopilot until a label grabs her attention.

Master Kenobi, P.T. #4

Slipping it into the projector, Rey shuffles backwards as the hologram bursts to life. Mites of dust in the air reflect the pixelated light as the life-size projection takes shape, taking up most of the space in the loft. A bearded man with short brown hair in long soft looking robes stands in a confident stance, his gaze lands where Rey is sitting, like he was expecting someone of little stature would be watching. She presses play and sits back as it comes to life.

“Good morning younglings.” Rey freezes in her seat, he goes on despite her shock. “Unfortunately, I am unable to attend to your class personally today, in my absence, I am assigning form practice.” The man ignites a blue lightsabre, the glow highlighting the sharp angles of his face. He swoops one leg out, his weight dropping low to the ground, then he suddenly switches to the opposite foot, his new stance the same in reverse. He moves like a hunting-animal, billowing sleeves flowing like they’re painting the air around him. His control of movement is effortless, his strength and precision undeniable, and Rey feels adrenaline flow into her chest.

“In pairs, you will help each other perfect a quick stance change from your right foot to your left, and back again. Keep your weight centred, and keep your practice sword up in the third defensive position. Those who master this quickly, proceed to add the fourth and fifth defensive positions in quick succession as your stance changes.” He performs the move thrice more; twice slowly, and once again at his original speed.

“The commander will help you, remember to heed her advice in my absence. The room is yours, Ahsoka.”

The recording stops on his final pose, an arm out to the left where Rey imagines a younger Commander Ahsoka would have stepped in and taken over teaching the class. Rey gets to her feet, staring at his face, his kind eyes framed with crows feet, the way his hair flops over his forehead.

His voice. She knows it was his voice. Her memory is crystal clear, she is absolutely undeniably certain that this Jedi spoke to her when she touched her sabre for the first time, in Maz’s basement full of junk. She reaches out a hand towards his face, and it falls through the projection, distorting the image.

“Who are you?”

“I think the pertinent question-” Rey jumps out of her skin at Ahsoka’s voice at the bottom of the ladder, looking up at her tiredly, disappointment and affront written all over her face “-is what do you think you are doing?” Her voice lacks the usual bite, but her invisible grip is just the same as Rey is bodily removed from her place for what must be the tenth time since she arrived in the village, and dumped on her arse in the middle of the room. She winces as Ahsoka butts her staff into her thigh, she knows it will bruise.

“This is how you repay our hospitality? Snooping into my home? Going through my belongings? Are you a thief or just an idiot?” Rey has bigger things on her mind. She stands, shucking off the shame of being caught.

“Who is that?”

Ahsoka sighs, rolling her eyes and bringing a hand to her forehead. “Why do you care? He died before you were born.”

“I think he’s important, I’ve heard his voice before. I know I have!” The elder’s eyes harden and set before Rey can blink.

“When will you finally see that you know nothing?!!”

It’s the first time Ahsoka’s raised her voice, and the power of it, the anger radiating off of her body in waves makes Rey take a step back. The back of her knees bump into a chair and she falls into it hard. Her breaths come out in pants, and she tries to even out her adrenaline. Ahsoka’s passionate state seems to return to a simmer almost immediately, but there’s no regret on her face.

“You are a guest in this village, on this planet, and you have trespassed into my home. Give me one reason why I shouldn’t call Chewbacca right now and tell him to come get you. Just one.”

Rey’s jaw hits the floor. “You know Chewie? Wait… how do you know he brought me to Shili?”

Her volume rises.

“Did you know I was coming here? I can’t believe you! I almost died!!”

Ahsoka doesn’t look schooled in the slightest.

“Chewbacca is an old friend, and you aren’t the first difficult student Luke has sent me. But you are the first who has ever been allowed to stay. And you repay the kindness of my people with complete disregard and selfishness.”

Rey’s voice is quiet. Her rebellious energy is sapped, but the hole where her shame used to be is still vacant, something else is gearing up to take its place.

“I’ve heard his voice before. That jedi in the recording. I touched a lightsabre on Takodana, and I heard his voice speak to me. I just want to know why. I have no idea why you’re so angry at me all the time, or why you let me stay if you clearly hate me so much.” She stands from the seat. “But if you’re going to throw me in the river every time I open my mouth around you, then this is the version of me you’re going to get. I need you to give me something. Anything.”

Ahsoka wants to let every petty instinct she’s been holding back take over. No more holding back. She’s so much more than what Luke ever wanted her to be for his wayward students. She wants to make this stupid girl see damnit. But the hurt, pleading expression on Rey’s face, those eyes…

Her hand closes over his, the beaded braid they’d made together stays in his palm.

“I’m sorry master, but I’m not coming back.”

She doesn’t appreciate that memory returning to her in this moment. Anakin’s eyes filled with heartbreak staring into her soul, begging her to stay, it’s the same way Rey is looking at her now.

Ahsoka pulls off her cloak and sets the staff against the wall. She turns to face it and plants a hand against the woven flax hanging. A deep sigh fills the room like a blanket. She stands in place for a few seconds.

Breath fills her lungs, she feels the aches of her body fade away as she leans into the crisp morning air, seeping in through the cracks of the ancient hut. Her eyes are closed, and she hums slightly, feeling her body tune with the aura of the mountain and the river around them, with the dried weaves under her fingertips that her ancestors spent countless hours poring over, just as she does now. She steels herself, and decides.

Fine.

“Okay, Obi-Wan. Help us out here.”

Rey waits, and can’t help but wonder if the old woman has forgotten her name, before she senses someone else is in the room with them.

“Ahsoka, I never imagined the day would come that you would seek me out.”

An older version of the frozen hologram jedi in the loft steps into Rey’s view. Both real, and completely unreal. Like Luke. White hair, white beard, deep brown cloak with the hood down. He has the same kind eyes, but his steps are stiff, even in his translucent ghost-like form. His voice is older, but she recognises it. Her eyes are wide as saucers, and she can’t tear them away.

Behind Rey, Ahsoka leans back against the wall, folding her arms across her chest. Despite feeling his presence around her regularly, hearing the echo of his advice and opinionated laughter on the wind on occasion, she hasn’t spoken with her old master in decades. The sight of his tired face fills her with a bittersweet feeling, she can’t help the wry grin that seeps into her voice.

“Yes, well. Rey here says she knows you. Care to elaborate?”

Obi-Wan’s eyes sweep over Rey, and a bashful smile, not without its cheek covers his face. His hands fold in front of his body.

“Hello there, Rey, I’m pleased to finally meet you, although, I know you better than you know me, I’m afraid.”

Rey feels stupidly small again, the way she did when Luke condescended to train her.

“Have you been – leading me?”

“I wouldn’t say leading. Far be it from me to insert myself into your path.” Obi-Wan brushes non-existent dust off a low carved stool before sitting, and lets out a sigh of age, maintaining eye contact with Rey, she sits as well, leaning in.

“But, I heard your voice that day, you called me to the basement, and the sabre.”

“The force called you to the kyber crystal resting inside the sabre on Takodana. A number of powerful Jedi have held that weapon. Myself included. And I must admit I have a soft spot for its past owners, I was mentor to them both. It seems you experienced… an echo of that connection.” He gestures loosely.

“An echo? Does that mean- - am I connected to them as well? The previous owners?” She’s embarrassed by how hopeful she sounds.

“No, you are unique.”

Rey’s mind swims. Never in her life has she longed to be unique. In fact, she’s been nothing but unique ever since she can remember, against everything her heart has ever desired. How incredibly disappointing. To her amazement, Obi-Wan chuckles lightly, not unkindly.

“I know, not what you wanted to hear. I’m sorry, young Rey. I’m sure coming from an old man like me it won’t be much of a comfort, but be glad that you aren’t connected to those who’s paths were set before they could choose.”

Everything in his body language and expression is a baffling combination of earnestness and apparent apathy, but she’s not sure if it’s just his upper-class way of speaking that projects a lack of care. She’s full of surprise and uncertainty, and a tear gathers before she can stop it. Behind her, Ahsoka breathes a silent sigh, and tries to let the wave of grief pass through her peacefully.

 “Thank you for telling me. That memory has been burning a hole in my mind… but I still have so many questions. I want to hone my power, and I need a master who is willing to train me.”

Obi-Wan’s head bows and tilts, one hand rising, gesturing to the distance between Ahsoka and Rey.

“Ahsoka doesn’t want to train a Jedi. And if I may be so bold, I highly doubt you’d want her to, if you knew what it meant to be one.”

The excitement of engaging with this mysterious figure evaporates in a moment, her arms throw out and her sudden volume startles even her, the words pouring from her before she approves her tongue loosing them.

“I don’t know what I want to be! I just want someone to explain what’s happening to me. Luke did a terrible job, and he only really talked about himself!” She calms in a contained breath, and pushes forward, finally blessed with eloquence as what she really wants to say comes to her mind after weeks of searching.

“Am I not allowed to make an informed choice? Why is it that I’m limited to exclusively either becoming a jedi or knowing nothing about the connection that lives inside me?”

Ahsoka pushes off from the wall, her brow furrows.

“You, you don’t care?”

“I don’t know!” Rey sits back in the seat in a huff. The constant ups and downs of her morning have all but exhausted her emotional battery. “I don’t know what I don’t know, and I just want to learn. Anything you’ll teach me I‘ll be glad for. Stop assuming that I only want what you won’t give me, and just talk to me.”

Ahsoka watches the girl, and it’s like a veil has been lifted. The unwelcome and completely unappreciated thought strikes like a bell in her mind: she’s like me.

Before she speaks, she notices that Obi-Wan is nowhere to be seen, the only remnant of his presence the flickering holoprojection in the loft. She smiles, but it vanishes before she makes eye contact with Rey again.

“Walk up the mountain with me tomorrow, and we’ll talk.”

*

One Year Later

Only a few more meters. Sweat is pouring down Rey’s neck, the wrap fabric under her armpits and in the middle of her back is drenched. Which is bizarre, because she isn’t physically tired, but the immense drawn-out focus of her task combined with the heat of the day has sapped her body of sweat like an open tap. The odd sensation of rock crumbling under her fingertips immediately precedes the expected fall, but she closes her eyes, tenses her core, and trusts. The rock ledge falls away under the invisible grip one foot away from her body and outstretched hands.

You were never holding onto the cliff in the first place, the mountain is holding onto you with its energy in the force. When you reach, it reaches back, and it’s so much bigger than you! Have some faith, let it hold you.

Ahsoka’s words come back from all those months ago when she started the journey of climbing the mountain without using her body, and she lets them go around and around in her mind, not leaving any room for the fear that so badly wants her to look down, down, down! She wonders, how many feet has she come? Some 2,000 she guesses, she can see the lip of the top ledge is just there! But this is about patience. Too much effort at one time is the downfall, it’s all in the steady climb, the repeated motions, and trusting the damn force.

Feeling her invisible grip take hold once more, a breeze lifts a strand of hair onto her nose as she steadily rises, as if pulled up by her own effort, another foot.

Ahsoka waits, one eye cracking open as she sits cross legged on the mountaintop and hears the scrabble of loose pebbles. Rey’s bare foot lands gently, and she slowly releases the hold she has been sustaining for the last few hours.

Ahsoka has been dreading this day. While proud that her student has mastered something genuinely challenging, she regrets the promise she made when in doubt that Rey could actually do it.

“I will train you, not to be anything, but to understand the force, and your place in it. If you can accept that what you get is what you get, you may call me Master. But the moment you start demanding things, Chewie will come back and take you away.”

“Okay. I’ve lived with worse. But I have one request.”

“Careful.”

“Do your worst for a year. Throw whatever you’ve got at me. If I make it through the year without quitting or dying, you owe me an hour of complete honesty to all my questions.”

“You aren’t in a bargaining position here.”

“If I haven’t got what it takes, then you have nothing to lose.”

Rey is shaking as she finally lets it all go and flops onto the craggy rock. Tufts of grass tickling the back of her knees go ignored as she breathes heavily and lets blessed rest flood her system. Over four hours of complete and total reliance on the force to literally fly at a snail’s pace up the mountain, has drained her. But the smile is on her face is like concrete.

“I- I did it, Master.”

“Hmm.”

“You proud?”

Ahsoka stands and turns to consider the view she has yet to enjoy today. The mountain range to the south of them stretches in its majesty, coated by the pink and orange sun, splashes of grassland, lake, forest and snow-capped peaks are painted stunning blues, purple, pink and red in the sparkling light. It’s glorious. As the winter solstice always is. One whole year of putting up with this annoying yet studious, powerful and somewhat charming menace of a student, and now she can’t help but feel a twinge of fear as sweat lines her brow. Complete honesty huh?

Rey pulls herself up, resting on her elbows, knees propped up.

“I’ve been waiting for this. Anything you want to get off your chest before I get started?”

“Congratulations. This was an intense challenge, and you’ve shown real growth in the first year of your journey. You should be, proud of yourself so far.”

“Thank you.” Rey lets her breathing settle and rolls up to sit on her crossed feet. “Okay, with that out of the way: Tell me about your master.”

Ahsoka breathes in, she’s spent all morning on the mountaintop meditating and calming herself in preparation for what she was sure would be an incredibly frustrating conversation.

Way to start out strong, kid.

“Anakin was one thing first: powerful. With that came arrogance. He was one of the most irritatingly passionate and hypocritical people I’ve ever met. He was born into slavery, and at the age of nine he was bought by the Jedi, and they left his mother behind. So, his introduction to life was – hard – in many ways.”

Rey watches, letting her words soak in, Ahsoka is standing at the edge of the cliff, looking out over the view. The vibrant light makes her look years younger, and to Rey’s surprise she continues without encouragement.

“He was a good friend, and felt like the big brother I never had. Sometimes he was my master, stern and sure of himself, and other times we were like siblings; hellbent on making as much trouble and fun as we could. He trained me the way he wished he had been trained: I was subject to many rants about the Jedi council, the war, life.”

A breeze moves through Rey’s hair, she can hear the distant sound of chimes dancing in the same wind hundreds of meters below them. Ahsoka wears something between a grimace and a nostalgic smile as she speaks.

“He led me into a war, with command over multiple units before I was fifteen years old, and he wasn’t even twenty himself when he became my master. We both had Obi-Wan of course, but he was often distracted. I had to fumble my own way out of the warped perception of life Anakin gave me, on top of how the Jedi Temple raised me as well.” A twinge of bitterness seeps into Ahsoka’s voice, and she breathes a sigh before sitting and letting her feet hang off the precipice, leaning back on her hands.

“I would have wanted to know him better, the way he truly was, to see him become a father and leave the order, live a happy life with his family.” Her voice grows minutely quieter. “Instead, he went insane with his power and grief and burned it all down, because he couldn’t have it all.”

Rey rests her elbows on her knees, rapt.

“Why couldn’t he have it all? What was stopping him?”

Ahsoka tips her head back and surveys the sky. In the shortness of the day, she can already see the early traces of star-sign peaking through the blue of Shili’s atmosphere.

“The core ideals of the Jedi Code, as it was held by the council for centuries, is as follows: There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no passion, there is serenity. There is no chaos, there is harmony.”

“That’s… but that’s so…” Rey wavers, and Ahsoka turns and tips her head as they make eye contact, and Rey feels emboldened by the silent urging of her master to speak her mind.

 “That’s so stupid.”

A soft snorted chuckle escapes Ahsoka’s throat, Rey watched her flex and unflex her fingers.

“Isn’t it? Anakin definitely thought so, even if he never said it out loud. Obviously with this dogma at the heart of it all, romantic attachments were strictly prohibited, and Anakin fell in love, and got married in secret.”

“So, to be a jedi you have to reject love?” The disbelief is clear both in her voice and face.

“It’s convoluted. I once heard a council member say: love of all beings in the galaxy is the catalyst for mastering the code. But love is at the core of all our emotion, so it was all just bantha shit.” Her hand waves through the air like clearing a bad smell. “They wanted to believe they were good people, even though the pillars of their religion demanded total detachment from any society.”

Rey ponders, watchful eyes drinking in Ahsoka’s carefully crafted performance of calm. She feels a shiver in her fingers as the shameless question passes through her lips.

“Were you in love? Is that why you left the order?”

The Master laughs properly, and feels her body rejoice at letting go of something needless. “Of course I was in love, not romantically, but I loved Anakin and Obi-Wan deeply, and other members of the council who helped raise me from a youngling.”

Plo Kloon. Yoda. Shaak Ti. Professor Huyang. Master Fisto. Their faces pass through her mind and leave an emptiness behind. She clenches her fist again.

“No, I left because my eyes were opened to the charade of it all. I was framed for a crime against the Temple, and they stripped me of my rank. When the truth and the proof of my innocence came to light, it was expected that I would be grateful for their re-acceptance. Master Windu described it as my great trial, and they granted me the rank of Knight. But it was too late. I finally understood the big picture, and it all came crumbling down. The council overseeing more than ten thousand Jedi Knights were so utterly fallible.”

Rey can’t help but remember the atmosphere in the Senate Chamber as the new republic cast their judgement on First Order high ranks. The complete and total focus, the refusal to dismiss details when considering charges and sentencing. She can very easily imagine how exhausting it would be to continuously perform the same duty day in and day out. The corners that would be cut. The eventual dis-interest in attention to detail. The avoidable mistakes. Ahsoka’s voice doesn’t break as she continues, but Rey is almost convinced that it does.

 “They had taken me from my home, forged me into a child-soldier, I led men who trusted my command to their deaths. I killed people in the name of my belief.”

Underneath her blink, Rey sees a flash of black-red blood pooling on grooved metal. She shakes her head, Ahsoka notices the shiver that runs down Rey’s back and continues, curiosity set aside for the moment.

“When I learned what it meant to be free from my reverence of the order, I started to learn what it meant to live. To appreciate life for everything it can give us. But then Anakin became Darth Vader, and you know what happened next.”

Rey pauses, slotting all the pieces together with the tidbits she’s gleaned in the past year.

“I think I’m starting to understand now… I think. They betrayed you.”

Ahsoka chuckles lightly, playing with a blade of grass under her fingertips.

“I could handle being betrayed. I couldn’t handle blindly accepting the hypocrisy that had rotted them to the core, and knowing it meant that the foundation of their belief - of the belief they instilled in me - was all a lie.” She rips the grass from the tiny patch of soil between the crag, and throws it. It flitters back down to the rock, swooping in air currents that nobody can see.

Rey tilts her head in amazement. “If being a Jedi means rejection of emotional attachment, of passion, of feeling anything, why did anyone ever do it?”

Ahsoka grimaces, and lets the internal debate war for a moment. Complete honesty.

She speaks slightly through her teeth, and stands again, giving her nervous energy some place to go.

“Because force sensitive children were scouted and bought, and raised as younglings in the temple. Of course it wasn’t worded that way at the time. Their reach and influence were so vast, it was seen as an honour to give your child to the Jedi religion, and to be rewarded for it with republican credits. But there’s no other word for it.”

She’s paced in a circle around the small flat of the summit, she stops and her long shadow extends to cover Rey from the sharp light. Rey is thankful for the brief respite from the sun in her eyes, able to relax her face in the shadow of her master.

“Every Jedi who passed through the temple with the sole exception of Anakin was raised this way.”

“And Anakin Skywalker was the most dangerous Sith Lord in the galaxy. I’m shocked there aren’t more Sith, pouring out of every nook and cranny! How was he the only one to turn?”

How Ahsoka wishes it were true.

“He wasn’t. And you’re right. The Sith are a direct creation of the Jedi, in their ignorance. One only turns to such an extreme when they feel they have no other choice. The Jedi were heralds of extremism in seeking perfection in the light side of the force. The Sith embrace a total rejection of it, and cling to the dark.”

Ahsoka comes back around to Rey, and bends down, extending a hand. A glint in her eye, a slight turn in her weathered face.

“But what are the light and dark, Rey?”

The corner of Rey’s mouth quirks up as the familiar words pass through her lips. Words she never expected Ahsoka would demand of her with regularity. Rey takes her hand and stands, Ahsoka doesn’t let go.

“Bantha Shit.”

Ahsoka smiles with her, and they look over the view below them together, hands clasped.

“That’s right. The force is in everything, and it is already in harmony. We don’t have to try to be included in its song.”

*

Keehsa watches Rey wipe her greasy hands on the grass, and shakes their head. No respect.

“When will you learn, human girl?”

Rey twists around to spy the source of the snarky voice in the hubbub of the solstice celebrations. Children are giggling, alcohol is flowing, the constant stream of food has been never ending, the stars are shining knowingly, and Rey is only slightly tipsy.

“I’m sorry, are you talking to me?” She’s proud of how casual she sounds, when Keehsa looks good enough to eat, and she would know. Her eyes land on Keehsa’s wiry frame, backlit by a roaring bonfire. They lounge on one elbow, unlaced shirt dropping open to reveal toned muscle, and they’re smiling like they know exactly what Rey is thinking.

“Watch where you’re going human girl!” Keehsa shoves into Rey’s shoulder hard, knocking her and the buckets full of clean water into the dirt. Rey stares up in shock, and they lock eyes. Amber irises shot with black stare down at her.

Keehsa is tall, with a bold greenish orange face, and thin white marks that imitate crows feet around their eyes. Right now, they are curved and almost disappearing under a gleeful meanness on their face. Rey is speechless, it’s the first time anyone in the village (other than Ahsoka) has been anything but kind to her. To Rey’s further astonishment, Keehsa winks, turns, and swaggers down the path, disappearing around a far corner.

“Looking good human girl, got Mama ‘Soka to train you, huh? Must be something special underneath that dull veneer.”

Rey isn’t surprised this time. She’s covered in mud and weeds from a rough day of drills, blindfolded in a swamp. Ahsoka seemed to find it hilarious every time she fell, and Rey was feeling a twinge of regret at telling her master to do her worst.

“My name is Rey. Want a hug?” She holds out her arms, taking steps forward before invited. Keehsa’s eyes widen, and when Rey keeps up the advance they back up clumsily, tripping on a rock in the grass in their haste, and land dumbly on their ass with an ‘oof’.

Rey bends down, and wraps her arms around Keehsa’s curling back, uninhibited by the slaps and muffled outcry. When satisfied, she stands and admires her handywork: Her opponent sits, incensed, covered in stinking mud, a limp weed hanging on their collar.

“There now, don’t you feel better?”

Keehsa wraps their fingers in Rey’s hair, loose and damp with sweat from the heat of the summer night. They pull sharply, it hurts. Rey ignores how much it annoys her.

“Fuck, you’re so good at that, are all human girls this good at giving head?”

Rey nips their thigh, and trails a hand up, pressing two fingers on Keehsa’s tongue, holding it down.

“Shut up, you’re ruining it.”

Rey shivers under Keehsa’s gaze, knowing they’re always most eager after Rey’s been away for a while. It’s been a week of steady repetitive force-climbing, tackling the mountains and valleys closest to the village. Keehsa may as well be a mind reader for their constant insight into Rey’s mood, and for once, watching their smug face as the bonfire shadows dance on their montrals, she knows exactly what Keehsa is thinking too. And she couldn’t be more excited.

Keehsa looks unimpressed by her coy response.

“You’re the only human girl I see, so yeah. I’m talking to you.”

She breathes heavily as she lands on Keehsa’s bed, the handcrafted wooden frame creaking under her weight. Their kiss tastes of honey and salt, and Rey hums as she feels firm hands behind her head, on her arms. Keehsa’s legs intertwine with her own, and suddenly their head shifts back, a hand cupping Rey’s cheek.

“How did it go today? I forgot to ask. Tell me, before I’m too distracted.”

They resume biting kisses onto Rey’s neck, and she enjoys exploring Keehsa’s bare back, pulling off the loose shirt as she ruminates on the illuminating talk with her master.

“Hmm, it was productive. If I didn’t already know before, I certainly know now.”

“Know what?” They ask between leaving a mark on Rey’s neck and moving clever fingers to undo the binding on her chest.

“That I’ll never be a jedi.”

“And why’s that?”

Rey nudges her head lower, teasing her tongue on the soft skin of their flat chest, they gasp when Rey circles a nipple.

“The celibate life isn’t for me.”

Keehsa’s eyes widen, and they roughly grab Rey’s face to meet her gaze again.

“You’ve got that right.”

When the birds start to sing, Keehsa rolls over in their cot, and gently shoves Rey to the edge. She wakes and catches herself just before teetering off the one-foot drop.

“Hey… What?” Rey’s head is fuzzy, she searches for the source of her near-topple with half lidded eyes. Keehsa responds in sleepy bullet-point form.

“Get out. Bed too small.”

Rey scoffs and chuckles, waking up a little more, and presses a brief kiss to Keehsa’s temple, gently stroking their lekku before avoiding sleepy swats and grunts of displeasure, and rolling off the cot.

“Okay, enjoy your lie in, lazy thing.”

“Hmm, mmpph.”

Rey makes it into the open air just as the first beam of sunlight touches the grass, and she breathes in the smell of evergreen. She takes a few paces before pausing just as she reaches the head of the red dirt path. It’s unmistakeable.

Burnt hypermatter.

Both knowing and not knowing what to expect, she turns and lets out a joyful cry as three familiar faces turn the corner of the treeline, and a telltale line of dirty smoke trails into the sky from where the Falcon undoubtedly sits beyond. Finn, Poe and Rose jog up to her and embrace their friend, and the four of them are bathed in dawn light. Rey laughs and grips them tight. When they break away, Rose beats her to it with a sparkle in her eye.

“Big night?”

Rey can’t see the many love bites on her neck, but she is reminded when she looks down that she only saw fit to pull on her binding and briefs, which - when she planned on going straight back to bed in her own hut - was completely acceptable. Her clothes hang limply from her hands, and she shrugs, a bashful smile on her face.

“Not that big, really.”

Chapter Text

Leia wants grandchildren. She longs for it, in fact. Bouncing a little one on her hip while family laugh all around, and share food and company is what she’s wanted most for too long. Regardless of this, she knows it will likely never come to pass through her own blood-related kin. Han has been gone these past ten years, the man was impossible: desperate to have children of their own, and then completely useless in the actual raising of their son. The important part. Ben will be in prison until the day he dies - although she tries not to think about that too often - and Luke, the selfish bastard, never had any babies of his own, so even grand-nephews or nieces are off the table. She’s grateful though, for the ones who are kin in spirit and keep her close in their lives. But damn these kids, they’re all so infuriatingly gay! Poe and Finn are happy, bless them, but also blissfully, irritatingly childless. So, when she emerges from her ship into the bright Shili light and spies Rey, strapped with muscle and a binding wrapped around her flat chest, a wavy bob bouncing at her jawline, nails blunt, short and clean, a squareness in her face and a certain flinty light in her eyes, Leia is certain, and laments. She will never have grandchildren.

“Leia!” Rey runs across the grass and greets the woman who gets closer to old-crone with every passing day. She uses a cane daily now, and cranes her neck up to look at Rey who somehow seems taller than before. Rey grips her tightly in a warm hug, and the retired senator smiles and laughs, her voice a bit croaky, a bit tired.

“It’s been too long, Rey. Tell me how you’re doing, tell me everything.” She brushes a lock of hair behind the young woman’s ear, and notes the new creases in her face, the crow’s feet beginning to take hold around her eyes, and a long thin scar on the left side of her jaw, barely visible through the thorough tan gracing her freckled skin.

“I’d love to, and I want to hear your everything as well.”

Inside Ahsoka’s home, they share. The Village elder herself joins them in the middle of the day as the heat forces even her into the shade. Leia and Ahsoka talk and laugh like sisters, and even though Ahsoka has about twenty years on the younger, they seem of an age as they gossip and the light becomes low, slitting through the gaps in the walls and painting the room in warm tones.

When the moon is high and the candles are flickering, making shadows dance on the walls like puppets, Rey yawns and makes to stand, face sore from smiling. As she bids her elders goodnight, Leia begs her pause, pressing a slim case into her hands. At the curious look on Rey’s face, she responds with a brief explanation that only leaves Rey more baffled.

“It’s a job offer that a friend happened to tell me about, I think you’d be a perfect fit, but there’s no pressure. I would never think to disturb your life here; you must have a special someone waiting for you to come home? It’s late.” Leia – as she has done many times in her life – chooses to ignore what she can plainly see, in light of what she would prefer to be the case, and continues, nosily.

“Making any plans? I know I’ve said it before but I hope you know any children you have will be family, and I would insist on spoiling them accordingly.”

She sighs. Thoughts of Keehsa flit through her mind, of their past on-again-mostly-off-again arrangement, permanently off now that Keehsa is married and pregnant. And bittersweet thoughts, of the children of Wonne she has helped to raise, who love her the way they love their grandmothers and aunts, but aren’t really her own. Her voice is a bit lower than it’s been, the cicadas in the grass outside chirp, and she sits in the feeling growing in her stomach, she feels small.

“No. Definitely not. I live alone, and I’m sort of a perpetual aunty here, which is really great. No grandkids yet sorry, haha…”

Leia spies the look of abject yearning in Rey’s eyes and cannot help but consider if she was wrong… but keeps it to herself. Ahsoka, who has been silently observing the conversation since Rey first stood to leave, openly laughs, and Rey smiles wanly, knowing, unappreciative eyes flicking to meet her mentor’s. But Ahsoka says nothing, she doesn’t need to.

“Anyway, job offer. Okay.” Rey shakes her head, trying to change the focus and make her exit, certain there’ll be nothing of interest in the description, but a question lingers.

“Where?”

Leia raises a single brow. “Coruscant.”

*

A shrouded woman sits across from him in the small, dark room. He’s almost in shock, it’s been ten years since another being shared his breathing space, it’s strange. He can smell her perfume, conscious of the steaming beverage on the table between them, the surface of the liquid vibrating with the movement of her breath. It’s all so sudden. He’s frightfully uncomfortable, sweat gathers on his neck.

“So. Ben Solo.” Her smooth low voice stretches out the ‘o’ at the end of his surname, swiping endlessly on a data pad that rests on the table. The chair under his legs is too small, and he shuffles uncomfortably. A bright purple eye almost entirely hidden behind a draping weave of black hair darts to the motion, and then whips back to meet his gaze. She snaps her fingers compulsively and considers him the way a spider might inspect a trapped fly.

“Thank you for meeting with me today. As I’m sure you’ve been made aware, we just have some administerial matters to cover, and then you’ll be sedated and prepped for transport.”

His eyes widen, transport? His heart skips a beat in his chest, and he makes a conscious effort to appear unphased.

This can’t be it. They wouldn’t execute you out of the blue like this. Stay. Calm.

“I’m not aware.” The rumble of his voice would reveal almost nothing to an ordinary person, but he isn’t being observed by anyone anywhere close to ordinary.

The leading criminal psychoanalysis expert in the known galaxy releases a deep unimpressed sigh, and rakes a webbed hand through the dreadlocks on her head. She catalogues her observation of his behaviour and psyche faster than she was expecting to. Sociopathic homicidal egomaniac indeed.

“Mr Solo, you’ve been assigned as a consultant for a criminal-response division specialising in force-abled activity. Any of this, ringin’ a bell?”

She flicks the fingers of one hand up, and as she tilts her head the weave hanging over her face sways slightly. Ben watches the movement of the locks with empty eyes as her words dawn on him.

Assigned.

Consultant.

Criminal Response.

He opens his mouth, and shuts it again, three times. She blinks the visible eye.

“Okay. No matter Mr Solo. Don’t worry, please relax as much as you can and hum a little for me.”

Ben can’t help but squint, his brow jumping and the sweat only increasing. He’s no stranger to unique and interesting beings, but even he can’t deny she is so weird, every single thing she does surprises him.

Consultant.

Criminal Response.

“Hum?”

“Yes, anything you’d like.”

He wracks his brain for a tune and upon finding nothing, lets go of a short breath and his pride; a staccato nothing-melody pulsing through his nose and closed lips. His eyes fall shut, his last defence against humiliation, and it’s a good thing too, for his observer is vibrating on the other end of the table. Her eye glows pulsating between bright indigo and a purple so dark it’s almost black, as she watches the colours invisible to all but her kind dance around him. Humming is a fascinating tool in her line of work; she relies on it often. In Benjamin Solo’s case, she observes the blackness of shadow, locked in an endless embrace with something green, clean, crisp. Growing! That’s it. Breathing, flourishing, providing its own light. There are others, the kaleidoscope of a soul and ego thrumming as he pushes sound through his closed lips, that becomes gentler as he forgets his embarrassment, it turns into a repetitive melody, probably a lingering memory from childhood, the way most hums are.

She has all she needs, really, but continues to watch; curious about his posture that relaxes with every breath. Recalling the details of the file she was briefed on before entering the dark windowless room, it’s obvious to her that the last few years have been kinder to Ben, since someone more terrible than he needed his original cell, and he was moved to a higher floor. Afforded luxuries like being able to stand without losing his breath, reading and writing tools, and a simulated light cycle system have made him a new man: more appreciative of the basic aspects of life. His hair is shoulder length and thick, the silvered raised scar on the right side of his forehead and temple is mostly covered by hair, but the messy ends trail near his eye, warping the softness of his cheekbone into a guttered canyon of skin. his body is healthy, the way his arms fill out the shirt sleeves clearly indicating regained strength.

He opens his eyes and ceases on a final note, raising his hands to rest on the table. A deep breath escapes his chest and he looks to her with a question on his face. She takes pity on him.

Criminal Response.

“Let me deliver the good news. I’ve got everything I need to know to clear you for co-operation with Captain Leif’s team, your rehabilitation and clarity of spirit are evident to me.”

She ignores the questioning look on his face.

“You are being moved today to a new system, although the high-risk nature of your imprisonment prevents me from telling you where exactly. However – I am glad to inform you – that you can finally say goodbye to solitary confinement.”

The guard – it’s his first day, and he’s very nervous - can hear Ben’s sobs when Calypso leaves, she appears to float under the shimmering grey floor length shroud, the pale green skin of her webbed hands the only thing not covered by fabric or hair. Catching a glimpse behind her before the doors slide shut, he doesn’t blame the pathetic sod; shoulders shaking, holding his face in his hands inside the small windowless room. This woman, the psychoanalyst Calypso, who everyone seems to revere and fear simultaneously, is terrifying to behold. Her one revealed eye catches the guard’s gaze as the door slides shut behind her, and she winks, (or blinks?) before floating down the hall.

*

The man she sees in almost every dream: He has no face. She speaks, but doesn’t hear a voice. Her thoughts aren’t her own, feelings and sensations flow like a script her body has memorised. Can he see her, or hear her? Does he know who she is? Do they know each other in some life she doesn’t remember?

Tonight, in a dream she won’t remember just like all the others, she gets closer than she’s ever been. This is new, the script stops, her senses blind with fear of the unknown. His breath on her face feels nice, she tries to distinguish features that are hidden by an invisible fog. A bold hand cups his cheek, he startles and gasps, the words he says pass through air and space, they’re muffled, he sounds scared and confused, repeats words she can’t make out, but knows what they are anyway, she would know even if she couldn’t hear him at all.

‘Who’s there? Hello?’

She watches calmly as blood dribbles out of her mouth and onto her bare chest, onto her feet, onto a cold white floor. She stands so close to the man, some of it gets on his clothing. He doesn’t seem to notice. Eventually, when the white of the floor is covered in red, and her clothes and feet and his clothes are all red too, she can scrape out fragments of words.

“-’m b--eding? T--re’s so -uch. I’- -cared”

Again, and again and again, she repeats useless pieces of broken sentences until she has no voice. Her ragged breathing mingles with the dripping sound of blood on the floor being disturbed with every tiny movement.

When Rey wakes, sweat covering every inch of her skin, and a deep resolve to leave the village of Wonne taking up all the space in her spirit, she wonders why she feels she’s forgotten something terribly important.

*

The phantom sensation of strong lithe arms wrapping around her waist hasn’t gone away. Even Chewie’s stone grip hug when he picked her up, lone bag packed with clothing she knows she’ll be lucky to wear in public at her new destination, wasn’t as life giving nor soul crushing as that of Rey’s many nieces and nephews, wishing farewell.

“Promise to visit?”

“You know I will as soon as I can,”

“We’ll miss you so much!”

“I’ll miss you too honey,”

“Don’t forget about us!”

“As if I ever could.”

Kami and Ava Tii, somehow mysteriously teenagers despite the fact that they were three and seven yesterday, she still remembers them trailing her every step and running away as soon as she turned around, endless games of tag and hide and seek, helping them with their letters, and watching over them when their parents needed a night off. Now leaning against a stained and scrub-scratched wall in the Falcon, she can’t help but feel the aching burn of leaving. Leaving the green, the living land and water, the people she loves and who adore her in return. On the fifth day of spaceflight, when it all seems too hard and she’s all but decided to tell Chewie to turn around and take her home, the waving illusion of lightspeed outside the cockpit window pulls to a point, and with a lurch and a roll of her stomach that she hasn’t missed, her eyes widen and her jaw drops.

Coruscant. The city planet. Chewie doesn’t register her gasp as rays of light pierce into space, and the planet seems to eclipse the nearest star. The Falcon begins its descent, and Rey is unmoored as memories coming flooding back. They land, and Rey doesn’t hear what Chewie says, the sound of the ramp extending onto the landing terminal, and the smell rushing in make her deaf to the luck her pilot and friend is wishing her.

An iron grip on her shoulder jolts her back, and she blinks emptily before finding herself again, smiling back at Chewie and launching a grateful hug at him.

“You know, I haven’t forgotten that you dropped me in the middle of nowhere on Shili all those years ago.” She mumbles into his fluffy chest, the bandolier smelling of smoke and sweat digging into the side of her forehead.

“You’re alright, kid. But a promise is a promise, and Ahsoka is family to me too.”

“Yeah, yeah. You big softie.”

He growls goodbye as she exits the ship, bag hefted over one shoulder, shoes feeling ridiculous and uncomfortable on her feet that have forgotten what it feels like to be covered.

Leif waits just outside the exit on the landing pad, his hair, which he’s letting grow a bit now that he doesn’t wear a helmet every day, blowing in the inescapable wind at this level. He can feel it growing heavy and sticky with the air pollution, and taps his foot on the surface, eager to get inside.

The woman Leia recommended accepted the offer six days ago, and he’s spent a minute fraction of that time reading up on the almost non-existent information that could be scraped together on her background. Leia declined to give a character reference except for she’s a force to be reckoned with, and stubborn to boot. You’ll like her. Which was not assuaging his fear that she might be slightly crazy, and he would officially be outnumbered as one of three sane people currently recruited to his new division unit. He recalled the scant details of her write-up, the single paragraph making up the entirety of her government-recognised history.

Birth system : Hyperkarn
Birth year: 15 ABY
Race: Human
Mother: Miramir [no last name on record]
Father: [no data on record]
Education History: [no data on record]
Employment History: [no data on record]
Known Places of Residence: Hyperkarn, Jakku, Shili - CURRENT
Known Affiliations: Resistance Melee Fighter, Civil War of 34 ABY
New Galactic Republic Criminal Record: [no data on record]
*Other Records:
     - TRAITOR: Wanted Alive, needed for interrogation
    - Wanted Dead or Alive: Escaped prisoner and known resistance member
    - Wanted Alive Renewal: High level melee combatant, engage with caution.
    - DO NOT ENGAGE: report sightings to Knights of Ren immediately, Wanted Alive.

If you were asking Leif’s opinion, she seemed more likely to be arrested, than to do the arresting herself. Aside from the end notes collated from old First Order bulletins that still made him cringe to read, this was the type of file that screamed illegal activity, all the red flags were there. But Leif isn’t completely ignorant, that’s just life in the outer rim. A place like Jakku that yielded no valuable resource resulted in the swaths of people stuck there living a life unplagued by things like galactic tax, represented rights or satisfaction of basic needs. Of course, Jakku isn’t the worst example that Leif can think of. The geographical hardship and total lack of reward is as much a boon to the layman as it is a bane: nobody big enough to crush you will waste the effort trying to, in a place like that. The Hutts never extended their slimy reach to Jakku nor its similarly useless moons, and that made it liveable in a sense. Thoughts of Rey occupied Leif’s mind for the following days, and he couldn’t help but wonder, what kind of person thrives in place like that?

When he spies his newest senior officer stepping off the ramp of the ugliest, dirtiest retro freighter he’s seen in years, he is filled with surprise.

Nobody ever stands out in Coruscant, it’s a melting pot in the truest of ways. Every race, colour, creed, devotion and vice have their place, even those with no place still carve out a corner for themselves somewhere in the lowest levels where the security force never venture. Leif knows exactly where Rey would fit if she were living on this planet, he surveys her loose handmade clothing, her hair arranged in a complicated braid that circles her head like a crown. He’s momentarily struck by the defined muscle on her arms and shoulders. The striking red tinted light does favours to her silhouette as she comes nearer, a breath is punched from his chest, and he tries not to appear as if he’s staring (he is).  Maybe two or three inches shorter than him, holding one bag that doesn’t appear nearly heavy enough to contain her whole life, and a wooden staff strapped to her back bobs above her head as she makes her way toward him, making unabashed, unsmiling eye contact with him.

“I can’t tell if you’re here for me or not.” He’s surprised at her voice, her accent doesn’t speak of a life in the outer rim, he feels his response reforming in his mouth without conscious effort.

“Captain Gellard Leif, I’m glad to finally meet you, Rey.”

The sun has finally set when they arrive to her accommodation, there will only be about three to four hours of true darkened night in this sector near the northern pole at this time of year, Leif parks the craft at the lobby terminal and wishes he knew her better, curious if the new division budget allowed for her room to have black-out curtains.

“Here is your access card, it’s been loaded with all the assigned locations for a senior officer in Unit One, and this-” He reaches into the backseat and leans awkwardly searching around, feeling the edge of the case with his fingertips and willing it into his hand to save straining his shoulder trying to yank it out of the wedged spot manually.

“- is your datapad. It’s coded for you, so no one else should be able to open it, there’s a significant amount of confidential information on here, but as a rule the New Republic uses paper-only originals for the highest level of confidentiality, which we will get a taste of every now and again I’m sure of.” He hands her the black case, it’s thick and heavy, Rey hefts the weight in her hands and is certain it contains more than the modern standard issue slim datapad.

Leif notices the question on her face and flips open the end of the case in her hands, lifting the cover with a finger and leaning his head down, lowering his voice significantly.

“This is the brief for our first meeting tomorrow morning, it is a printed original and I’ll be collecting it from you again when I arrive tomorrow at 0900 hours.”

Rey watches his eyes closely, he appears completely calm, yet she is being handed high level confidential information with no failsafe should she decide to leak or destroy it. She can’t make up her mind about the captain. Her leg starts bouncing silently in the floor well, and she nods, doing her best to appear solemn.

“The consultant I’ll be introducing you to is a lifer currently in J-DeC, their presence in Coruscant is beyond a state secret, and yet the government and our division head have agreed to his in-person engagement with our unit, as we are deeply in need of an expert with his background.” Rey doesn’t understand why the corner of his mouth is turning up as he speaks, she feels goosebumps rise on the back of her neck at the prospect of meeting a high security prisoner face to face. Her body is alive with adrenaline, it’s as if a siren is screaming DANGER DANGER inside her ears - and God has she missed it. There’s only so many times you can hike around the hills in Shili before nothing scares you anymore. Leif watches her carefully, and judging by her nervous nature, he isn’t sure if she’ll be able to handle Ben and his recent penchant for stubborn smarmy sarcasm.

“I’m treating this as a litmus test of sorts, he’s already met the other two senior officers and all seems to be going well so far, you’re the last one. Review the brief, sleep well, and I’ll see you in the morning.”

Rey says her goodbyes to the captain with a distinct feeling of giddy excitement, and as the glass elevator climbs up the exterior wall, she fiddles with the access card.

Chapter Text

The sound of fingernails being pulled from their beds is a quiet one. The sound a person makes during this process however, is anything but quiet.

“Eeaaaaarrgghhhhhh!!”

“Tsk. His wrist is loose, tighten this cord, here.”

Staton looked desperately to the two cloaked and hooded figures, standing still as statues at the back of the room. The third of the group moved forward, crouched down like a servant and fiddled with the smooth binding, keeping his broken wrist strapped at a painful angle to the arm of the chair. His jaw hung from the top half of his face, smashed and numb. His voice blathered out from his throat in meaningless noise between the sobbing and the screams.

Up until now the three figures hadn’t moved a muscle since the shirtless bloodied maniac entered nearly two hours ago; waving around plyers, sarcastically demanding answers to questions the poor man didn’t understand, and overall posturing. The maniac was still waving them around, the plyers, but they were covered in Staton’s blood now, and he regretted everything.

His lack of caution, of respect for the real danger he’d underestimated. His daughter was somewhere in this maze of tunnels and caves beneath his home on the ground level of Coruscant. She was taken only two days ago, suffering through who knew what kinds of treatment, needing her medicine these people couldn’t possibly have, or know to give her, and he was stuck in this chair, helpless. No-one knew he was here, no-one knew where or how to look for him, and even if they did he hoped they would fail, rather than meet his fate. Staton was certain of two things: he was going to die in this place, and he was completely and utterly pathetic.

The faces of his children flashed in his mind, laughing and smiling, a stinging tear ran down his cheek, and his plyer-wielding captor noticed. The man he knew not a single thing about but hated with every fibre of his being, sneered. Running a hand through light hair, he leant back and puffed his chest out, pushing the short ends of his fringe off his tall forehead. It left a line of Staton’s blood streaking through the strands.

“If you don’t tell me how you discovered our location, I’ll be forced to continue, Mister … what was his name again?” He turned to the left-most shrouded figure at the back wall, his arm still up in an arc with one hand resting on the crown of his head. A single finger no one could see twitched before his target was pressed back against the wall, arms flailing out at awkward angles, hacking breaths raking in. Staton watched in horror as the indent of an invisible grip closed around the loose hanging hood, clamping it against the sides of their neck. A surprisingly soft and calm – yet undeniably strangled voice responded from the body of the person being held by their neck against the wall.

“Mr Staton, my Lord.”

“Hah! Yes, of course. Mister Staton. And I’ve told you before, darling, my Lord is the Father.” The man crouched until he was level with Staton’s eyeline, one brown eye sparkled in the low light, the other was stitched shut down the middle, closed forever with a melted-looking scar that went all the way to his mouth. They way it warped the left side of his top lip made him look like an invisible fishhook was yanking his smile wide as he laughed, a horrible clacking thing. The shrouded figure fell to the ground without making a sound, readjusted their hood and stood straight again, heaving shoulders the only sign they had experienced distress. Without warning the one-eyed man messily clamped down on the last remaining fingernail on Staton’s right hand, and pulled.

“Call me God, darling.”

*

Knock- knock.

“I’m coming! Hold on-” Rey swipes up the satchel she had packed before brushing her teeth and pulling on her shoes. Checking one last time in a mirror, finalises the decision that the braid she slept in – that Ahsoka had spent three hours twisting her hair into – still looks tidy enough to keep in for another day.

Pulling open the door, the captain immediately looks to the back of the room, a curious light in his eyes. She follows his gaze to where the light blue, gauzy and slightly useless curtains hang against the wall.

“Hmm. I see practical sleeping arrangements weren’t prioritised in the budget plan, then.”

Rey’s head tilts, a frown on her face as she closes the door behind her, the lock sounding as they step down the hall together.

“I didn’t find anything impractical about it, is the budget really that tight?”

The captain nods as he gestures for her to enter the elevator first, and a question enters Rey’s mind as she looks down at the obviously expensive clothing she had found in her wardrobe the evening before, (that she was delighted to find was comfortable and made her look fantastic,) and wonders whether she ought to have asked before assuming it was for her. Leif doesn’t appear to notice though, hands gesturing rapidly as he speaks.

“Oh, yes. We are direly needed, but also unexpected - it’s very strange that our division is being put in action in the middle of the system cycle like this. Coruscant Security are not known for their timely nature, nor to have anything but stingy pockets.”

“Is the situation so desperate, then?” Rey asks quietly, they exit the building at the bottom of the elevator and climb into the same speeder that Leif had driven the night before.

“Very. Speaking of which, we’ll report to headquarters after this first appointment at J-DeC, I’ll collect the confidential packet from you there. What did you make of it?”

Rey snorts, and the corner of Leif’s lip turns up as he deftly navigates them into a rushing mid-air highway.

“Not much to make anything from, was there? You weren’t kidding when you said ‘beyond state secret’.”

The 30 double sided pages of the CONFIDENTIAL document she’d been granted may as well have been blank. Almost every line that could possibly have contained relevant and informative content was redacted, hidden beneath a thick black opaque line. She’d learned that the consultant had a history in ‘dark side fanatic communities’, was a combat expert, and a rehabilitated war criminal with a record of excellent behaviour while incarcerated.

All she’d gained by stupidly flipping every page was irritation at being told to read something with little-to-no information in it.

Leif nods sagely at her words, the little smile not going anywhere.

“Yeah, they take his containment very seriously, I imagine you’ll understand why, when we get to J-DeC.”

“You’ve said that a couple of times now, how do I tell you I have no idea what jay deck is?”

The Republic Central Judiciary Detention Centre, (affectionately referred to by those in public service on Coruscant as J-DeC,) shines bronze in the near-constant sunset light. Justice and Order in a heavy imposing font is set into the frieze-strip above the door in only one language. Rey follows Captain Leif into the lobby, through a vigorous security screening, and then into an incredibly narrow elevator. Squinting under the bright light source in the centre of the ceiling, she can’t help but notice the tap-tap-tapping of her superior’s finger against the side of his thigh. After their discussion in the speeder, and realising her brief is essentially to interrogate this mysterious person, Rey’s nervous adrenaline is set to eleven. With a slightly manic smile on her face, she tilts her head to the side.

“You alright, Captain?”

“Me? Yes, yes. I’m fine. Nothing to be worried about.” He stuffs his hands in his pockets, and continues, absently. “He genuinely is harmless, I’m just hoping he’s on his best behaviour today.”

His eyes reveal in thin slits as he turns to meet her gaze, a drawn smile stretching his lips.

Liar.

Rey’s eyebrow arcs, and she realises with a pang that his worry is for her.

Ahsoka could never.

“Captain, we don’t know each other very well yet, but I hope in time you come to trust me.” She raises a hand to him, it goes over her head completely that she is initiating the first physical contact between them, but straight-laced, noble-raised, etiquette-trained Leif is keenly aware, and considers the confident assuring smile on her face.

Just as the doors open with a whooshing sound, Leif nods, accepting her hand with a firm shake.

“I have no doubt, officer.”

*

Ben leans back in the steel chair, fingers drumming a beat into the table in the middle of the small room. There’s a mirror in the same wall as the door that he has no doubt is double sided. The standard clothing at this facility is almost no different than at the old one, thin breathable linen fabric, (which he thinks is recycled judging by the fibre quality,) and he wears shoes now! Which give him some security that he need not fear electrical surprises from the floor. Included in his clothing pack were hair ties, one sits snuggly around his wrist but the other broke in his hands the moment he tested the stretch.

A tight belt that at first he thought might have been a strange type of male corset, fits under the shirt around his waist. It’s black and heavy and is so tight that he had some trouble breathing at first. When he sat stiffly in the bottom bunk, listening to the ridiculously loud snoring of his cell mate in the top bunk – in their shared cell that appeared completely unremarkable – and with shaking hands tested his mind’s connection with the force, he understood the mysterious band squeezing his organs uncomfortably. The relief that filled him when the cold hard empty nothing echoed back, had been bittersweet to say the least.

So this is how they’re doing it.

He hears movement outside the brightly lit room, the door whooshes open and in enters the man he has come to know as Captain Gellard Leif. Ben is still not used to seeing his face, it puts his body in an entirely new light with the addition of expressive features and a natural voice. The captain has a slim build, his posture as always is excellent; military stances define his every movement, and every hair rests perfectly in place. Dressed formally in a black suit jacket, cropped blonde hair brushed back and a tiny shining earing in one ear, he may as well be a walking piece of government propaganda. Except for the non-conformant braided band around his left wrist.

Ben moves to stand, an easy smile stretching his face.

“Kik-”

“Mr Solo, I’d like you to meet Senior Officer Rey Miramir.”

Awkwardly hovering between sitting and standing Ben’s eyes travel to the person behind Kik- behind Gellard Leif – and he sits back down in his chair with a hard thump. Her eyes are on his, and she snaps her mouth shut as the Captain looks between them. She meets her superior’s gaze, a glaze covering her eyes, and smiles benignly.

Leif is stunted for a moment by their reaction to each other, but continues with the regulation spiel he has rattled off every time.

“Ben, now is a pertinent time to remember that you are learning the names of officers in this division as a courtesy, and the contract you signed mandates that you keep everything that is discussed in this room to yourself, or you will be relocated back to your original sentenced dwelling place without pause.”

Leif’s voice is steady, Ben can’t decide who to stare at bewilderingly. The man he’s known and spoken to every day for a decade, who’s brought her to see him. Wait. Does this mean.

What did he call her?

What?

What?!!

Or if he should be looking at Rey. Rey Miramir. She’s older, of course. Her skin is a few shades darker than he remembers, her face more taught, a thin scar tracing her jawline that looks suspiciously familiar to him. Her shoulders have filled out some, doesn’t look nearly as starved as she used to. She wears a long coat, the cut makes her look taller, draping high waisted tailored trousers, heeled boots.

He realises they have been waiting for him to reply, and stutters his way through it.

“Yeah. Yes! Yes. I remember.”

Son of a bitch reminding me about the details of a contract that he didn’t even let me read.

“Mum’s the word.” He swipes his hand in front of his face and throws away an imaginary key, before cringing, unable to disguise the reaction, regretting doing something so casual in front of her.

Why is she here??

Leif raises a brow, before deciding to ask them both about it later, if - what he thinks is going on - is going on.

“Good, you know the drill. Officer Miramir is here to go over some initial questions with you…”

Leif repeats the same opening paragraph he gave for the other officers’ meetings, and Ben watches Rey. Leif watches Ben watching Rey. Rey stares at the wall, dissociating.

“… your utmost co-operation and best attitude will be highly appreciated.” Leif pulls the only chair on their side of the room out, and gestures Rey to sit, before thanking them both and closing the door gently behind him. On the other side of the door Leif brings his hand to his forehead, and sighs.

And I thought the first two were bad with him. This is going to go badly; I can feel it.

Ben’s eyes drift to the mirror in the wall to his right. Knowing the Captain stands outside, wondering who’s being tested. Rey seems to be doing everything possible not to look at him, and Ben can’t say he blames her.

The light shining though the slots in the walls flickers, he swallows dryly.

“Uh, Re-”

“It’s Officer Miramir.”

Her voice is curt, the braided crown of hair around her hairline loosens just slightly as she twists her head roughly, a single strand draping over her cheek. She appears to brusquely read the datapad her hands are gripping so tightly he’s afraid she’ll break it, Ben leans back in the chair once more, a careful mask of polite blankness lining his face. He is filled with questions. Her clothing for one, is the most glaring; the quality of the fabric – clearly thousands of credits per meter at least – Ben can’t help but wonder what kind of life Rey is living now. But it fills him with a certain calm, an unearned pride as he considers the thought of her going shopping with friends, picking fancy items and being measured for bespoke garments, being adored everywhere she goes as an honorary princess for saving the galaxy from the big bad Kylo Ren.

But sitting in front of him now, she looks frustrated and full of alarm. He’s shocked really that she looks as surprised to see him as he is to see her!

Though his excellent opinion of Kik clouds, as he tries to imagine why.

She clears her throat. “So. Mr Solo. Are you ready?”

He nods, his chin staying low, his eyes catching hers briefly before she looks down again at once. She reads aloud from the pad with a clipped monotone, he wonders if she’s even listening to her own voice, let alone his.

“To the best of your knowledge, what is the relationship between the light and the dark side of the force?”

He’s heard the question already twice before, but this is the first time he’s actually cared to think carefully about his answer.

“How long do we have?”

Rey’s eyes meet his again, and something in her posture relaxes, she lets one hand rest on the table and considers him again. The loud white noise that was taking up all the space in her brain ever since laying eyes on Ben quiets, finally, and some of her nerve returns to her.

What the fuck is happening.

“An hour.”

Ben raises one hand and scratches the side of his face absently, he speaks quietly.

“I wouldn’t describe there as being a relationship between.”

Her eyes are just as beautiful as they were ten years ago. Her pupils are tiny pricks of black in hazel irises, her gaze holds the same accusing ferocity. None of the blatant fear of the first officer Leif brought to him, the scrawny scarred tattooed being that Ben had honestly thought was tweaking the entire time; and none of the disgust in the other - clearly military bred - the heaviest heavy he’d ever seen in his life. Rey looks at him like she wishes she wasn’t, but can’t bring herself to look away despite herself. He understands, he purposefully avoids his own gaze in the mirror too.

This is insane. For the first time in a decade, Ben forgets that he is being watched by those he cannot see.

“Nature is a cycle, an endless stream of beginnings and endings that are found at every point. The force both is - and is in that cycle.”

“Go on.” Rey urges, a calmness settling in her physicality. Ben blinks at her, and his hand flexes on his thigh under the table.

“If a lake of fresh water gets polluted with a toxin, it’s still a freshwater lake, but now poisonous and undrinkable. If the source of the toxin ceases, one day the water won’t be foul anymore. Pouring more water into the lake, and letting some leave too will speed up the process, but it’s still a process, and it still takes time.”

Rey watches, one eyebrow rising, her mouth hangs open just a little bit, she snaps it shut and leans in, the datapad in her hand all but forgotten.

“Do you miss it? Your connection to that cycle? … Your place in it?”

Behind the glass, watching with the eye of a hawk, Leif raises his brow, a shocked smile revealing dimples in his cheeks.

She did it. Frantically scrolling through his copy of the questions that he wrote himself, has already heard dictated word-for-word by Senior Officers Tierson and Bulla, and answered by Ben with as few words as humanly possible - he knows this is certainly not one of them. Finally.

Ben blinks, his face twisting a little. It doesn’t even occur to him that the meeting has gone off-book, her question floods him with familiar remorse.

“Yes.” But I can’t go back.

Rey’s eyes dart back to the screen in her hands. She spies the next question.

2) What is the life of a force-abled person worth?

Her eyes squint as she reads it, and has to physically stop herself from lifting her eyes to the mirror. She reads it, her voice carefully controlled, passive.

“Rey.” She looks up, her head jolting as he says her name with such care, his voice softer than she’s ever heard it. It occurs to her in this moment that he looks so different. Ten years after she left him on the floor of the Supremacy, bleeding and out cold. Since she watched his trial.

Since she let him go.

“The same as any other person.” The set of his mouth is relaxed, and there’s so much more hidden behind his eyes, begging to be given life through the sound of his voice - he may as well be screaming at her, but she has no idea what he would be saying if he was. Rey feels the response like a jolt of electricity through her legs: she wants to leave. She wants to be anywhere other than in this room with this man. Not looking at him, not remembering his existence, not considering whatever he’s gone through since that day when he received his fate … and she realised she wasn’t sad, not even one bit.

The words pass through her lips like concrete.

“And what is that?”

“It’s priceless.”

*

“Not to appear – disrespectful – Captain, but what do you think the correct answers to those questions were?” Rey stares a burning hole into the elevator door. Leif hasn’t said a word since she exited the room, leaving Ben to be delivered back to his cell, an opaque bag over his head and muffs over his ears. He let himself be walked roughly by the guard, his body holding no aggression that Rey could make out. She is baffled and uneasy, longing for privacy but knowing she won’t get it for some time.

Leif watches her, piercing eyes reading her body language like a book. She’s wearing efficient armour, dressed like the genuine article government official; warm maroons and deep blues in flattering draping cuts of the galaxies most expensive wool, but he was raised in it. She may as well be naked.

“It wasn’t about getting correct answers, Rey. It was about establishing a baseline rapport between you and the consultant, and I must say you did an excellent job in there.” He pauses, not surprised at all when her mouth remains closed tight, and continues in a softer voice.

“I have no idea how you got him to be so forthcoming. It’s crystal clear to me who will take on lead correspondence with Ben on behalf of the unit.”

Rey can’t help but wonder the same thing herself. It’s not as if Ben was ever a talkative person, in the week or so that they were connected. She never really thinks about that anymore anyway. It was so brief, and so surreal.

Lead correspondence. The blood in her veins freezes like ice. This will happen again. This is her job now. This is her life.

Fuck.

“Do you two know each other?” Leif’s voice cuts through the noise, and she ponders for a second. Leif watches her eyes become strangely cold when she responds.

“No. We met briefly during the war, but I wouldn’t say we know each other.”

He’s not buying it. He can’t help but shake his head and laugh under his breath at her obstinance.

“It seems like you do. In fact I’m certain of it.” The elevator door finally opens. Neither of them step out. “What are you hiding?”

Rey steps first. They make it back through the security screen, receiving their weapons back, the tension between them silently pulling and pushing against their opposing energies – it almost makes Leif laugh with how pointless it is. When they climb back into the highway speeder, Leif waits before turning the ignition. Rey looks to his hands resting on his lap when the thrum of the boosters fails to sound, and huffs a sigh. She still doesn’t meet his gaze, face carefully blank.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid! Of course it had to be him. Life sentence expert on dark side force culture and history, beyond confidential need-to-know only whereabouts. It was so obvious the captain may as well have told you point blank! Stupid!!!!

“I expect a report on my desk at the end of the day detailing the nature of the existing relationship between yourself and the consultant. Regardless of how many cobwebs line it now, brush them off. If it’s sensitive in nature, and his involvement in this project will be an issue for you, the time to tell me is now.”

He only boldly states the possibility because he’s certain it isn’t the case. Leif would bet money that the history between the two of them is not of a kind that would lead Rey to feeling unsafe in Ben’s presence.

“Don’t think I’m too afraid to ask Ben myself. I was his prison guard all these years, I’m kind of shocked he’s never told me about you before to be honest, the way he reacted to seeing you…” He shakes his head, looking out at the horizon pierced by a thousand sky scrapers, and criss-crossed highways that sounds like beehives. He hears her sigh, long and, and with a touch of hesitance.

“Wouldn’t you like to be the one with power over the narrative here?”

Rey smiles, and a breath of laughter escapes.

“Okay, Captain.”

“Good.” He ignites the boosters, and they make their way to headquarters in surprisingly comfortable silence.

Chapter Text

The Coruscant Security Headquarters for Sector 7 are black on the outside and bright white on the inside. Sandwiched between two blandly governmental buildings with at least 50 stories each, the headquarters stands out as a moment of rare personality on the skyline in this sector of the northern pole. Rey blurs her vision as they draw nearer in the thrumming line of airborne traffic, counting the levels. 90 stories give or take, she’s pretty certain. The windows are abstract and tinted. In apparent random assignment some panes of brassy-reflective metal create the illusion that the entire building is one giant stained-glass mosaic in muddy natural tones. At 1100 hours the yellow sun rests only about four fingers above the horizon line, and will continue to lazily roll at the same height for the next twelve hours, before sinking and blessing some other part of the planet with balmy warmth and blue skies for a reasonable length of day.

There are three entrance levels, Leif tells Rey as they swoop into an interior parking floor. The ground level, well, referred to for simplicity’s sake as the ground level. In actuality it is the eighth level up from true-ground, but the layer of the concrete maze that the Security headquarters considers ‘ground’ is indicative of the lowest level they will acknowledge, regarding crime and some such activity. The highest level of employee access is on the roof, and the entrance that they enjoy respite from the glaring sun in, is, according to Captain Leif:

“The most convenient way in – Welcome to the 60^th floor.”

Stepping into the interior proper, Rey squints as they make their way into a wide hallway. There is no busyness. Rey was expecting busyness. It’s a sleepy atmosphere – which she doesn’t fully understand since everything from the ceiling to the walls to the cracks in the floors is a bright reflective white. She knows exactly the noise it would make if she tapped her fingernails against it, and during a moment that the captain is speaking with a spectacled-person through a portal in the wall before the impressively armoured doors block that their path through the continuing hall, she tests it.

Knack-k-k-k-knick-knack!

She was wrong, it’s much louder than expected. Leif turns with an eyebrow raised, and she balls the offending hand into a fist, and lifts one corner of her mouth and both eyebrows up in return as if to say ‘hmm?’. He turns again and continues speaking with the guardian of the door.

“Yes, please request Division Chief Lance to this floor, she is required to okay Officer Miramir’s first access.”

These seem to be the magic words to make the spectacled-person finally agree to Leif’s request, and they begin tack-tack-tacking away with long sharp fingernails inside their little booth behind the wall.

Rey decides to try and mentally sift through the introductory brief that she was sent after submitting her signed contract. It was dense, and written in a type of language she was not at all familiar with. It was the same way the readable bits of Ben’s confidential report were written; too many words to say almost nothing, and say it five times over at least.

Of what she remembers and could clearly comprehend of the fancy-sounding wordiness, Rey is a permanent full-time employee, expected to work 30 hours per system week. She has no scheduled clock in nor out times. Her role title is Senior Security Officer, and her specialties and expertise that she is expected to bring to the unit are listed as close combat specialist, special weapon expert [light sabre, staff], culture & environment advisor [outer rim, desert & forest conditions], rebel alliance liaison, and spaceflight engineering and technical expert. She had read through the list initially and wondered how on earth she could be called an expert at anything, and who had even known to give her all those titles and accolades? She asked the same of Leia when the general departed Shili the following day. Of course, Leia was the one who provided them with the list in the first place, and Rey managed to wheedle out of her that Leia had submitted multiple official documents on her behalf before acquiring the job offer in the first place.

“This feels like fraud.”

“Oh shush.”

She was actually relieved, from the way Leia made it seem in the paperwork, Rey was an educated and masterful woman of profession – when really all she feels at the moment is trepidation. Sure, she’s confident, she’ll do whatever she needs to, to get where she’s going. But everything in this too-big-city is so shiny and smooth and cold, and the notion that everybody else knows and understands more than her looms large in the front of her mind.

She longs to touch grass, and hear wind in trees.

Shili has spoiled her.

The doors slide open almost soundlessly and out steps the person that must be Division Chief Lance. She’s not at all what Rey was expecting.

Ducking her head to clear the doorway, black knee-high boots wrap around long trousered legs. A grey suit jacket billows open revealing a pale flat chest. Piercings decorate one side of her bald head, wrapping around her left ear, brow, and some even in her jaw reflect a dull shine in the flat white light of the hallway. She is so thin Rey is convinced she’s not human, but in all the important ways she doesn’t appear to be anything other than human. Her eyes are brown and curious, a strange glint to them. In truth they appear more curious than they might’ve, if the chief was in possession of a nose. A ragged grey scar mangles the part of her face where a nose might normally be, and small carefully skin-grafted holes are all that remain of what once were nostrils. A plain silver ring rests on her right thumb, which is hooked inside one high waisted trouser pocket.

“Chief, meet Rey. Rey, meet Tamar Lance, head of Sector 7 Crime Response and Investigation.”

Leif isn’t used to looking up to speak to people, but Chief Lance is worth it. She observes Rey, eyes raking from the top of her head to the bottom of her boot, and slowly raising them again. A long arm extends, and a hand is offered.

“Welcome! I’ve been excited to meet you, Rey.” Her voice is low and smooth, but surprisingly cheerful, full of expression, and what Rey can’t decide is real or faux excitement. She grasps the chief’s hand, head forced into tilting up unnaturally to look her in the eye.

“Thank you, I’m excited to be here.”

“Well I should hope so!”

The same confusing combination of excitement and condescension, as if the Chief thought they were speaking with someone incredibly small (which in fairness of perspective, they were), or incredibly stupid (unwarranted really). Rey pulls her hand out of the still-shaking grasp, and takes five seconds to stutter out nothing, finalising it with a snap as her mouth shuts.

“Well then. Glad we cleared that up. In we go!”

Chief Lance turns and leads the way, and the spectacled-person in the cubby in the wall releases a deep beleaguered sigh, before the door closes between them.

Up they go - twenty floors in an elevator thick with confused tension only felt by one party, and the group exits into another world.

A dark floor and a dark ceiling, people and droids scurry and squabble in a flurry of activity, natural light pours in through slightly tinted windows that make up the entire west wall – there is a large projected number on the other side of the room, the side with a white wall. It is the number 6. Rey can tell that this number seems very important indeed, because everyone in the room – even the droids – make it a part of the pattern of general hubbub to glance at the big number 6 and look panicked, before continuing with their tasks.

“Welcome to the home of unit 13-F! As you can see everyone’s all a flutter today, a consequence of this unit existing in the first place is that some things have to change around here, and we at Coruscant Security hate change most terribly. Most terribly.”

The Division Chief speaks while looking out at the room, gesturing grandly to the big number 6, and to all the desks slightly askew, the sound of rubber soles shoes squeaking on a dirty floor and droids chirping worriedly. It takes Rey a second to realise the Chief is speaking to her.

“Thank you, again. Thanks.” She feels like an idiot, which is fitting because she looks a bit like one too at this particular moment.

Her eyes survey the room, and once again internally running over the introductory brief, she feels confident in betting on which names go to which faces before Captain Leif does the rounds.

There’s a human man who stands out as the most relaxed person in the room, he wears a clean white singlet, black, unpleated uniform-style trousers, which stretch as one leg rests on the top of a dark grey desk. Slick brushed back hair shines black as bird feathers. His arms, and it appears his entire torso, are covered with colourful tattoos that Rey doesn’t look closely enough at to gauge any distinct images from. He’s scrawny, and Rey knows scrawny – she was beyond scrawny for most of her life – and he is scrawny and strong. Wiry muscle seems to make up every inch of him. He looks like the type of person who could and would kill you for an offence, and Rey has a feeling that used to be true of him, as she recalls the key points in the description of Senior Officer Kels Tierson in her brief.

• Close Combat Expert,
• Background in cage fighting,
• Sector 7 Coruscant Native – Level 3,
• No prior experience in Security Forces.

Captain Leif draws Rey near to the relaxed figure, who lowers the leg from his desk and stands. Brushing one hand down a trouser leg, he then tucks both hands in his pockets. Of a height with Rey, his posture is somehow both relaxed and aggressive, thin mouth in a crooked downturned line as he eyes Rey’s expensive clothing and braided hair.

“Tierson, you Rey?” His voice is rounded, the melody of it surprises her, even though he sounds mildly hostile.

She nods, pulling herself into a posturing stance of her own without thinking about it. One heeled foot swings in front of the other and stomps lightly on the floor, she leans back just a touch, enjoying the added height of her shoes.

The corner of his mouth twitches, and he returns the upward nod of his chin at her, before sitting back down as his desk, and picking up a datapad; interaction seemingly forgotten.

Leif sighs lightly before steering her down the divide between desks and activity, and they land at the last desk in the row, the furthest from the front of the room where Rey assumes the captain’s office waits behind a closed door.

“Is that Rey? Get in here girl!”

She swivels her head and a smile bursts on her face as Magna Bulla wraps her in a tight squeezing hug.

*

Date : 21:07:44

Coruscant Security Official Report : Northern Pole Sector 7

Division : Crime Response & Investigation

Unit : 13-F

Officer Submitting Report : Senior Officer Rey Miramir

Officer Receiving Report : Captain Gellard Leif

The following recounts the full and uncensored history of Senior Officer Rey Miramir’s encounters with [and regarding] Ben Solo during the 34^th year ABO.

1) On the planet Takodana at the site of Maz’s Kantina, Ben Solo [acting as Kylo Ren] captured Rey Miramir [then only known as Rey], as a captive of the first order.

1a ) On the planet Ilum aka StarKiller Base, Ben Solo attempted unsuccessfully to interrogate Rey. Following this Rey escaped her bonds and waited in hiding for resistance rescue.

2) In the forests of Ilum, Rey alongside resistance ally Finn [formally First Order Storm Trooper FN2187] fought in defence against Ben Solo. Rey severely wounded Ben and escaped with Finn.

3) Leia Organa tasked Rey with the following undercover directive: to forge a romantic attachment with Ben Solo with the goal of resistance capture.

4) Following receiving training from Luke Skywalker, Rey surrendered herself to The Supremacy in alignment with her undercover directive. She was taken into custody by Ben Solo, and shown before First Order leader Snoke.

4a) Snoke tortured Rey in view of Ben Solo, who retaliated and mortally wounded Snoke via complete laceration through the torso. Together Ben Solo and Rey defended themselves from Snoke’s bodyguards, leaving none alive. The light-speed collision of The Raddus with The Supremacy rendered both Rey and Ben Solo unconscious.

4b) Rey awoke significantly incapacitated and escaped from The Supremacy without further interaction with Ben Solo.

This a complete recount of Senior Officer Miramir’s dealings with Ben Solo before the current year.

*

Rey breathes a nervous sigh, and leaning back in her chair falls into a shadow. Magna smiles down at her, slapping a hand down on Rey’s shoulder.

“You look like you could use a break.”

“Great idea. What’s eating around here?” Rey leans back and the top of her head bumps into Magna’s hip, a cheeky look on the brunette’s face. Magna smirks down at her, amused.

“Let me be the first to show you!”

The 80^th floor cafeteria is empty. With the exception of service droids chirping quietly behind a bar in the long interior wall. Long tables and benches that fill the floor space are tidily laid out – all a deep grey.

Magna leads Rey to the dispensary line, and after collecting slop from droids who answer no questions and tell no lies about whether or not the food is actually food, they sit near the floor to ceiling windows. The deep tinted constant-sunset light cuts the long shadows of their figures across the room.

“How long has it been then?” Magna asks with a smile. Her hair that Rey remembers as a vivid and deep forest green, micro braided and woven in a chunky mohawk plait, is now a subtle dark purple. Depending on the light it reads as blue-tinted black. The braids are thicker now, and cling tight to her scalp in waving patterns.

“Five years since your last visit I’d say – have you been in Coruscant since then?”

Rey tries the slop – it’s not terrible. She feels something tough make itself known between the crunch of her chew, and contorts her tongue trying to find it. Suddenly thinking better of it, she swallows it down with the rest.

Magna shakes her head in response,

“You remember my research?”

Rey nods.

“I found him.”

It’s spoken low, and worth it too, Rey’s eyebrows shoot up and she longs to hear more.

Looking around the room conspiratorially, Magna lowers her head and stares directly at Rey’s little finger. Rey follows her gaze, and gasps with a smile as she watches her finger raise steadily in the air as if she were willing it herself. It pulls the side of her hand up slightly, but doesn’t feel unpleasant, not too strong nor too weak.

“The precision! You really did find him!” Rey exclaims, lifting the un-interfered with hand and shoving Magna lightly in the shoulder.

The woman blushes, chuckling and leaning back in her seat, shrugging a shoulder with faux humility.

“I may or may not have levelled up a little. Which reminds me, when things settle down a little more we should take to the sparring mats, I wanna get a read on your hand-to-hand.”

Rey takes another spoonful, and tries to put the memory of fresh fruit and vegetables - and meat that looked, smelled and tasted like meat - out of her mind. Living on a city planet would take some getting used to.

“I can’t wait-” she says through a grimace. “Ahsoka stopped sparring with me about three years ago, I’m desperate to knock someone down with solid hips and knees.”

“You wish you could knock me down.”

“You wish you could knock me down.”

Magna flicks the handle of Rey’s spoon and the ting echoes in the large empty room. Rey huffs a laugh and tucks back an escaped whisp of hair from her braid.

“I would show you something of my own, but I don’t want to upset our hosts.” Rey speaks with a pinched nose, her voice sounding remarkably close to Leif’s upper-class accent. The sound of contented droid chirping rings softly through the empty mess.

“I’ve done the showing, now you tell. Since when you got a last name?” Magna asks without any fanfare.

“It turns out to get a government job in Coruscant you need two names. I was tempted to just put Rey twice, but didn’t want it to backfire.”

Magna snorts, moving the grey-brown mush around on her tray.

“How did you come up with Miramir?”

“Rose got herself a position as an archivist – they were in high demand after the war.”

Magna nods knowingly, leaning on her propped-up fist.

“She had some spare time after the first year when the worst of the fires were put out. Started using her friends as-” Rey crooks two fingers good naturedly, “example data for practice challenges.”

She remembers exactly the way Rose had worded it, very cleverly skirting around new privacy law, which the new republic took incredibly seriously after the war ended and all the dirty truths were revealed.

“When she actually succeeded in rooting out the records of my ancestral history, she sent it to me.”

Magna rests a hand on Rey’s forearm, head bent low. Rey welcomes her familiar touch – something they have bonded over in their long-distance friendship, Magna won’t say everything she feels, but she will show it.

“I know where I was born, and the name of my mother, her mother, and her mother before.” Magna’s hand on her arm tightens, and slides down to grasps her fingers, a deep smile cutting dimples into her face. The sting of tears longing to escape surprises Rey, but she keeps an easy smile on her face.

“That’s amazing.” Her friend exclaims, releasing Rey’s hand after a squeeze.

“Miramir was my mother’s name. It’s not their – I should say our - practice to pass first names down. But since I needed a second one anyway…” she shrugs, and Magna shakes her head, the light dancing on her face and in her eyes.

“It’s the same as when I saw you last, you just keep thriving. Speaking of which – I love the threads.” Magna sits back up – a military posture her normal – and thumbs the corner of a draping woollen sleeve in rich navy.

Rey grimaces.

“They were in my room when I got there.” She leans in, lowering her voice with shame, “I’m worried I stole someone else’s clothes.”

Magna frowns and considers the garments again. They fit Rey like a glove, they compliment her skin, her hair, they’re even practical for her needs, with a wide belt and discreet pockets for tucking and folding the drapery – all expertly made for the purpose of ease in mobility.

“No-one hinted to look for a gift in your room? No mystery measurement takers in the past few weeks?” Magna inquires cheekily, one condescending eyebrow raised.

Rey snorts and speaks through a new spoonful.

“Mno. F’I’m going to get in trouble f’this aren’t I?”

Before Magna can confirm or deny, a siren blares and bounces against the glass, Rey cups her hands around her ears without meaning to. Waving frantically, a junior officer – Rey thinks their name is Hebe – sprints into the mess hall. They’re young, with streaky blonde hair and wiry limbs, blue eyes wide with terror. A high thin voice shouts across the empty room, heaving in laboured breaths.

“Come-- now! Emergency on level 6! The patrol -- are overwhelmed!”

The unfinished food-not-food is left to go cold on the table. Later, in the kitchen-not-kitchen, an unphased droid pours it back into the pot.

Chapter Text

Everything stops, and all heads turn. The shriek and thrum draw all the attention on the ground as a lightsabre ignites in her hands, Illuminating the fume-heavy darkness. She moves with precision; the blades spinning before her in a slow arc. Twin trails linger behind the brilliant orange-white beams, gliding and eviscerating the dust and gas in the air, and setting aflame the highlights of her face and clothing. The blood drying and sticky on her face shines in the clashing light.

She bends low and breathes, as her opponent snarls in her direction.

Fear is forgotten, and all Rey sees is the light of her blades.

A few moments earlier…

Unit 13-F arrive at the descending ramp entrance to level 6 in a hover-bus. Their brief was rushed and scant on details, and still now Tierson looks furious, his anger mostly due to his concern going ignored.

“That’s not going to work.”

“We don’t have time to talk politics Kels,” captain Leif tried to regain order of the room, “there are two patrol guards in critical condition down there waiting for back up-”

“We’re going to need back up too if we do it your way, the organics won’t make things easy on us.”

Tierson is a whole head shorter than Leif, but the atmosphere in the room was tense as the Captain refused to back down.

The floor of the bus shudders – Tierson grasps the handle on the roof, and two of the three rookies huddle together, torn between looking to their straight-laced Captain with a plan, or Tierson with nothing but doubt for the plan.

“Don’t get stuck in a fight alone. Keep someone with you who can stay by your side. If you get stuck on your own against one of the organic mechanics, you’ll die. D’you hear me?”

Hebe looks up with wide eyes, Tierson hovering by her shoulder. She is the youngest of their unit, and Delt and Kave – her fellow junior officers – are already close friends and went through training together. Hebe feels a strange kinship with Tierson already in this way – they’re both alone. She listens to the flowing rasp of his voice – the urgency in it – and nods. Formulating in her head that he does not mean stick with him, he means be smart, she remembers that sometimes running away is the smart choice. He looks her in the face with nothing but cold demanding realism, and she nods, ice gripping her spine.

“Remember the plan everyone: Assess if the injured patrol guard can be moved, and evacuate asap.” Captain Leif orders sternly. He locks eyes with his unit as they stand in pairs in the pressurised chamber; Rey and Magna, looking ready and aware; Kave and Delt appear mostly terrified but they have the easiest job; and Tierson and Hebe. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t nervous about Tierson right now. Nobody responds to his statement, and he takes the silence as a promising lack of argument.

The seal of the door releases with a hiss and Magna is out first, leaping onto the concrete with hands around her downturned rifle and running down the ramp into thick darkness. She will find an elevated point to provide cover from. Rey steps out with Tierson and the Captain at her back – her single line of instruction to engage and de-escalate any hostiles on the ground. She feels confident with her staff on her back and her contingency plan strapped to her thigh underneath her flowing cloak.

Not surprising anyone, Tierson is the second to descend the ramp after Magna. He wears no armour or protective clothing, but he also looks the least afraid. Recalling that Tierson is the only one of their little team that can call these cold unnatural halls home, she feels he’s earned the right to do as he pleases, mostly.

As Rey and the Captain descend the ramp with the three rookies in tow their eyesight adjusts, and she is filled with understanding for her new colleague’s insistence of caution.

At least level 7 gets sunlight.

The smell of decay is potent, and she can taste the presence of crude oil in the air. Without a second thought she pulls her collar up, ties it tight behind her neck and makes a mental note to organise goggles for future mission go-bags. The air is rich and awful, and she blinks back tears from the sting in her eyes. She turns back to the younger three behind her, none of them make to cover their faces. Probably too frightened, she reasons.

“Tierson, is the air safe to breathe?” She sends down the comlink – in the darkness of the tunnel as the ramp continues its descent, she can’t make out his body the few steps ahead of her – she considers the high probability that he’s run ahead - running in this darkness is a recipe for disaster.

“No.” A muffled response, obviously coming through a mask of his own.

“Masks on everyone.” Leif speaks lowly.

Finally, they emerge at the mouth of the covered ramp.

The darkness is still prevalent, Rey can see maybe five meters around herself. There are lights bobbing around in the distance, Illuminating patches of the chemical fog. Sending her presence out and closing her eyes the layout of this level is nothing like what she’s come to expect on Coruscant. Gone are the many tiers of housing and concrete outcrops, the bustling market on the entrance floor, the smell of food, business, children, life.

There are elevated platforms scattered above their heads and faint, distant lights attached to the level ceiling, too high up to see through the fog. Many beings around them are near-death and in excruciating pain. It’s a terrible thing to welcome into her senses, and a terrible knowledge to have imparted through the unknowable force. Disturbingly, she can sense almost none of the grief that usually surrounds the absence of life. The pockets in the force where new death is present are cold and easy to be afraid of. She feels a shiver go down her spine, and she follows her instincts.

“Captain, I think I see the patrol - our two o’clock.” She brushes behind his lithe form and follows the fear and anguish like a trail in snow. Careful steps lead her to a bloodied body lying still. The captain is at her back in seconds, bending down, hands lightly brushing along the injured person, finding a neck, feeling for a pulse.

“Alive.” Leif confirms To Rey.

“Can you hear me?” He asks the rasping suddenly coughing body in a pool of blood.

Rey finds the wound between two ribs -likely piercing the liver if she were to bet on it- and cringes. She also finds an ID card, brings it close to her face and pushes it into Leif’s hand.
“Kave.”

The curly brown-haired rookie standing guard with his back to Rey responds quick smart.
“Here.”

“Swap with me, put pressure on this wound.”

As they switch places, Rey brandishing her staff and praying that Magna has a better visual than they all do, she sees Leif wrap an oxygen mask around the victim’s face.

“Stay with her Kave – this is medical officer Serra. Magna, Tierson-”

They both respond with a curt “Copy” – Tierson’s is slightly more breathless.

“A medical officer must have responded independently and beaten us here. She’s down and needs evac too. Kave is with her. Have either of you located the patrol guards?”

“Visibility is shit, captai- fuck!” Magna’s voice cuts off.

Rey looks back to Kave and Tierson huddling over the medical officer’s shuddering body and gestures with her hand in the direction she plans to go. The shadowy form of Leif’s head nods as he calls out to Magna over coms.

“How many assailants, what is your position?”

“Two.” Heavy breathing, a grunt of impact. “Catwalk- three tiers up on the eastern side.”

 Magna’s voice isn’t muffled. The air is not safe to breath, the medical officer’s racking breaths are confirmation of that. But if Magna is elevated, she might be okay.

Rey has followed glimmering bloody footsteps about ten meters, ears open, hackles up; alert. A short building front looms out of the haze, a hangover roof, an open window – the hiss of a leaking pipe.

“Tierson, can you confirm your location?” She hears the captain ask, and Kels’ response is a gasped out

“Rooftops, Looking for a better-” the grunt of landing hard “-viewpoint.”

Leif rattles off instructions to Hebe and Delt, to give Kave and the med officer cover while he searches for the patrol guard, and to extend their search after five minutes if the unit make no further progress.

Tightening the cover over her mouth Rey steps over the doorstop and blinks violently in reaction, then closes her eyes tight.

“Found the source of the air pollutant.”

She reaches out, and the room solidifies in her mind. A chamber, about the height of her knees and the same width, with pipes sticking out of both ends and disappearing behind the wall. The seal on the chamber is broken, it must have been this way for hours, if their whole area of the level is thick with it. The leak is not gentle, thick gas pours out a terrifying rate.

“Can you stop it?” Hebe’s shaky voice.

“I’ll do my best.”

The room itself is some kind of medical space. There’s a patient table with something or someone laying on it. It isn’t alive. Metal objects hang on pegs in the wall, sacks of soft dry material – rags? - rest in the corner.

Her every instinct wants her to sprint from this place. The memory of pain and anguish is soaked into the very walls of the little house. Even without the effects of the gas it makes her want to vomit. She pushes it down.

Now is not the time.

While Rey feels around on top of the table in the centre of the room, she directs the sacks to rise and holds them tight against the broken seal. They soak with the warm gas immediately. Pulling whatever – no - whomever is on the patient table into the air at her hip, the table with rubber padding on the top joins the sacks pushing against the seal. She wraps it around the curvature of the chamber, so tightly it dents inwards. When she releases the hold on it, it stays in place, no fumes leak out.

Outside, she has more light to work with. The limp body that she pulls out of the room is a twi’lek teenage girl. Her left arm is missing, a metal plate covers half of her face and her left leg below the knee has been replaced with a crude prosthetic of repurposed metal. It forms the bone structure of her shin, ankle and foot. By Rey’s guess, she has been dead for less than a day.

“Stoppered it. Keep your masks on, there’s not enough airflow down here.”
She leaves the body on the ground outside the building and continues her trek eastward, following a line of structures similarly built to the one she just left. There are no more bloody footprints, but someone is dying who doesn’t want to, somewhere to her left. Her face covering is not as effective as she wanted it to be, especially as she spent time so close to the source of the gas, Rey does all she can to delay the light-headedness trying to slow her down.

Something. Someone? No.

…

Yes.

Rey is being followed.

*

Kels Tierson is not a cowardly man and he knows that Gellard Leif is also not a cowardly man. But experience is everything in a city like this.

As he leaps from roof to roof, eyes open, mouth and nose covered, he harnesses the adrenaline firing in every muscle and tendon. It wraps around his mind like armour. Kels knows he won’t fall, so he can’t.

He can hear Magna struggling on a catwalk above him – can see the silhouettes of two confident-looking figures swing and leap about her, can hear the sound of blades hitting the barrel of a rifle. There’s one thing he appreciates about Bulla; even though she prefers the distance of a sniper’s position, she can take a hit like a motherfucker and can probably give one too. He would put money on it.

He's not worried about her. If she starts making some real noise, then he’ll worry. He’s got bigger problems.

Making a final jump, soaring further than anyone would expect him to by looking at him, he lands in a flip on light feet.

“So, the rumours are true.”

Klink’s voice is just as smooth and commanding as it was the day Kels met him, already Head Tech of the organic mechanics as just a young man, now: Grand Engineer. Kels was just a kid then, and he’s near convinced that Klink will still be here, running the Upgrade Clans with two iron fists, long after Kels is dead.

“You don’t care about rumours.”

They edge around each other in a circle; Kels barely breathless, the gas between them exacerbating the effect of the confusing mix of matte and shiny in all the wrong places on Klink’s body. Kels spies something new – he thinks one of his ears might be a different shape than it was the last time they met - but there’s always something new.

The clean grind of chain on bone has always been unnerving. Now, in the darkness, when Kels is on the side he’s on, it’s damn near terrifying.

Still. He’s not a coward.

“You’d be right, normally. Is this you?” The Grand Engineer swings an unnaturally long arm around in a wide arc – the disturbed gas swirling around it.

“No. Probably who we’re after though. They’re takers. You lose any good boys recently?”

“Not boys.”

Klink sounds angry, the slight artificial edge in his voice taking over when he speaks quietly. Kels shifts on his feet. His knuckles have been broken and reset so many times by this man and his clan. To think that someone would touch the children under his protection is insanity. Must be someone crazy. Someone crazier than Klink.

“The rumours are true. But I’m on your side.” They’ve completed a full revolution, Leif’s voice crackles in his commlink, and the dance pauses.

“Tierson,”

Kels ignores him.

“New guys are ruining it for everybody, help us clear them out, and we’ll be off your backs, just like it was.”

Klink’s face, green and mottled black, eyes a disturbing red from the chems, looks unimpressed. Worse yet – it looks disappointed.

“You think you’re the first top-sider to offer us help?”

Kels can’t hold back the scoff.
“You think I’ll ever be one of them?”

The absence of Leif’s voice in his ear speaks volumes, but he knows the captain has caught on that this conversation matters more than anyone’s pride. This is the mission that Kels signed up for.

A lumbering hulk of a body slams onto the concrete between them with a crash, thick brownish greenish gas swirling around it and billowing into a mushroom.

“Bulla, did you drop something?” Tierson speaks lowly.

Klink stares hard at the groaning body, burnt rags that maybe used to be black or brown are wrapped around critical areas, a shattered foot clearly visible. Kels sucks air through his teeth at the sight.

“Yeah,” the shooting sound of spit, and somewhere above them, the cold ring of it landing on hollow steel. “Big Boy’s all yours.” She replies, a twinge in her voice.

Before Kels expects big boy to be able to move, Klink sinks to his knees, gasping – the sound of metal hitting concrete only intensifying Kels’ internal cringe.

The body on the ground - aptly named by Magna - lets out a surprised gasp as Kels steps hard on his hand, curled into a strangling claw, weakly pointed in Klink’s direction. Tierson lets his whole weight snap fragile bones, multiples at a time. The face looking up at him is in anguish, and a whimper becomes a groan which becomes a snarl, and Kels knows that look. The look that says this was meant to go differently.

Klink rasps through heaving breath as the grip is released on his throat, he coughs, stands to his feet once more, watches in disgust at the pitiful display before him.

“Well? Kill him.” Obviously, hangs unsaid.

Kels waits, the possibilities running amok in his mind. He has maybe five more seconds before big boy overpowers him. He can’t think. He can’t decide. He doesn’t know.

He does.

This is one of the takers. He knows what to do.

Klink watches the picture they make with condescending pity on his grey face.
“Or don’t you do that anymore?”

Kels falls down hard on one knee and lands between shoulder blade and spine, he twists the ankle on top of Big Boy’s hand as he falls, feels flesh rend from bone as his ankle slides on concrete, wet with thick spurting blood.

“Aargh!! No- You, you mothe---uuccghh-” sobs wrack through big boy, locked under his knee.

Klink chuckles above him, kneeling down to inspect the bloody wrist, the man’s hand still holding on by a thread.

“You always did know how to do it just right, I guess some things never change.” He straightens, watching Kels struggle on top of the mountainous taker. “Can take the man outta the hole, can’t take the hole outta the man.”

Kels gets his face as close as he can bear. Very close. His nose brushes a filthy ear.
“Where are your people hiding? What level?”

“Tierson? Name your position, I’ll come to you.” Leif down the commlink.

“Captain, first patrol officer found. He’s down and the med tech needs urgent care right now. Delt and I are taking the bodies up. Bulla, we could really use cover.” Kave, a wet voice, but not emotional. Blood in his mouth, no tears in his eyes.

The thought hides in Kels’ mind like a shadow – where is Hebe?

Yellow eyes, muddy with brown and black-red stare at Kels, so much hate and fire in one look.

“You don’t get to kill me.” A growl more than a voice, and a new light in his eyes. A mangled bloody stump flies up in Kels’ face, he takes one hand off his neck to try and grasp it – too late. Kels lets out a yelp as big boy forces up from his knees. They both lean perilously, Kels trying to stand instead of fall on his back. It’s useless. Kels is strong, he knows how to leverage his strength, but this pile of never-ending muscle outmatches him, no contest. In a hard fall, off balance, he sprawls on his back, immediately winded as big boy follows him down, pinning him to the ground.

“You want help?” Klink muses, as if watching a cockfight that’s gone on too long. A ticking sound precedes the claw-like metal fingers of one hand splitting mechanically, and a jagged blade sliding out from his wrist.

Kels regrets that he’s wound up here.
“Yes.”

*

“I can hear you there.”

No response, Rey darts left, stepping into a heavier cloak of gas and fog than before. Spinning as she steps, the plumes swirl and mask her movement.

“Can you?”
The voice is quiet, feminine, unassuming. She can’t actually hear them, but announcing one’s ability to sense others around them is sort of a giveaway – she’s not feeling generous.

“Yes.” Turning to the right, there’s no-one there, but it’s where Rey was certain someone definitely was.

“You’re lying.” Too close. Again, to the right.

Rey closes her eyes, shifts her physical senses out of focus.

There are warm bodies scattered around her, some moving, some dying.

And just one. One is happy. They are right behind her.

Rey turns, silent.

“I like you anyway. Even though you’re a liar.”

She is small. Shorter than Rey, petite. Thick greasy hair the vivid colour of spring blossoms, eyes hidden behind a dark course binding. Bare feet, a black shift dress with what Rey presumes are a multitude of tiny pockets in random placement.

The voice makes sense now, Rey guesses she is thirteen, maybe fourteen. She tries and immediately fails not to think about little Kami, dancing and laughing and throwing tantrums on Shili.

The girl crouches down and lashes out, faster than a whip. At the same moment someone speaks through the commlink. She doesn’t catch who speaks or what is said. Rey feels the sting on her calf before realising the girl is gone, back into the fog.

“Liars can still be nice, I know. The Daughter lies sometimes, but she’s nicer than anyone, ever.”

There’s a thin, clean slice through the apparently knife-proof lining of her trousers. She presses a palm against it, feels how long it is, how deep it is.

“What’s your name?” Rey’s proud of how calm she sounds. There’s hope for this child, she has to be sure.

“I don’t want to tell you.”

Rey’s sure her guess is accurate. Only teenagers are this annoying.
“What do you want to tell me?”

“That this is my first mission, and I’m doing really good.”

The girl strikes again, this time like a bird soaring through the murk. She must have taken a running jump.

Rey swerves back and swings around, the dagger blade slashing the space her eyes occupied not a moment before. Rey finds her stance and breathes in, and the girl halts in mid-air, a foot above the ground. Her head swivels in a panic and she takes deep gasping breaths, hands clawing at nothing around her waist and hips. Red tears run down from behind the blindfold, which Rey latently realises is actually thick bandaging.

“No! No no- nooo!!!! Let me go! I hate you, let me goo!!!!”

Feet land on the concrete, obscured by the gas behind the girl’s floating figure. Amused chuckles waft towards Rey; bell like, pleasant.

“Need help, sweetie?” The newcomer sounds confident, surprisingly genuine.

Almost frothing at the mouth, the girl thrashes like a stuck bug, screaming. “Not from you! I can handle this myself, leave me alone!”

Rey moves silently, bent low as the girl grows quiet, flopping limply in her hold, and is lowered to the ground. She circles around and behind where she is certain the new voice is, and jumps. The taller figure has a strong build, Rey discovers, as she locks her knees around their hips and her hands under their armpits. Reeling with the momentum of the jump she slams her forehead into the back of theirs, forcing a stunned shout from their lips, and together they sink to the ground.

“What the…” She mutters, still trapped between Rey’s thighs. The long fringe and cropped black hair obscures her eyes from Rey, as she lays a steady hand on the concrete and huffs another laugh. “That was unexpected.”

Rey lets out a shout of her own as the woman vaults backwards, throwing her off, but she steadies herself mid-flight for the best landing she can manage, awkwardly catching herself on her feet in a crouch a good ten feet away. It doesn’t make a difference. The completely unwelcome grip around her throat tries it’s best to tighten. Rey takes her time standing up, annoyed.

“Thank you for letting her down gently, but knowing Seely she’ll only hate you more for it.” The woman presses a hand tenderly to the back of her head, grimacing, as the other hand is held aloft, in an open claw-like grip.

The filth in the air is dense. As Rey destroys the hold around her neck, the minuscule implosion creates a clearing. She breathes deep, the break from the putrid chems a relief.

Deep green eyes grow wide, the mother facing her takes a step back, and Rey watches her re-evaluate.

“How are-”

“Try that again.” The grip had been tight, there’s an edge of rasp in her voice. It helps, she thinks, Rey’s never been good at sounding intimidating when she wants to.

Squatting low, without using her hands the mother draws two versatile blades from behind her back. They hang at her eye-height, poised and steady, pointing directly at Rey.

“You should leave us alone, and we’ll get out of your… whatever your situation is.” Her confidence has waned significantly, a tremor in her voice warbling her last words.

Rey takes a step forward, the only revealing sign that she is filled with disgust a slight downturn of the corner of her mouth.

“Leave us alone. All the people on this level that have died in their homes in the last hour, do you think they were happy in their final moments, that they were left alone?”

The mother takes a step back – the blades decorating the space around her head moving with her in perfect synchronicity.

“That was Seely, but she’s a fool. I’m just trying to keep my child alive. I’m sorry they’re dead, but everyone on the lower levels knows – it is what it is.”

Another step.

“She’s responsible for their deaths, for the deaths of the colleagues we’re here to save.”

Something on the woman’s face hardens. It hasn’t escaped Rey’s notice that she’s kept herself perfectly between Rey and the unconscious girl on the ground.

“It is what it is.”

The blades shoot forward, spinning and twisting like twin fired bullets – and Rey acts without thinking. She doesn’t see the shards of the broken blades split and ricochet, but she sure does feels them.

*

Magna gasps for breath. Finally with a moment to breathe after ditching the two crazies that attacked her out of nowhere, she hears it. Rey ignites her sabre and Magna is filled with an inescapable fear. The radius around Rey on the ground is illuminated, the fighter who landed three good hits on Magna’s ribs is facing her, blades Magna hadn’t given her time to unsheathe shattered by the double-ended sabre. In pieces they lie glinting reflecting the brilliant light on the ground, some sticking up from concrete in black shards. She spies a sizeable one sticking out of the top of Rey’s shoulder and winces, hoping it’s shallow.

She kicks up the rifle knocked to the ground in the melee, and stables herself. Leaning heavily on the pillar holding the catwalk to the ceiling - meters above them in the blackness - she zeroes in on the woman’s face, drawn and terrified. She thanks the force for whatever it was that cleared the space around Rey enough to see through the scope.

CRACK!

The zing of rifle blast is heavy in this concrete environment. The impact - tucked against her shoulder - familiar and right.

There must still be some disturbance in the clarity of the air, muddying her sight and depth perception. The shot lands in between lower ribs. Magna guesses a kidney – if it’s even still there – will be on its way out shortly.

*

A single snap and ring of blaster fire – unmistakably a long-distance weapon –  is followed a second later by a sharp cry, and the cold slump of a body hitting concrete. The tension filled silence that always follows a shot that loud doesn’t help the steady beating of fear inside Hebe’s chest. Or is that her heart? She can’t differentiate them anymore. Kneeling on concrete, blood soaking through the thick fabric of her uniform trousers, she presses down on the wound of a man dressed in Security garb, or what remains of it – slashed and bloody as it is. His breaths are weak, but his heartbeat flutters against her fingertips, wrapped firm around his wrist.

Closing her eyes and breathing deep, she looks into his mind.

Fear.

Confusion.

Outrage, violent petulance.

Pain.

She wants to feel bad for him, but can’t quite bring herself to. She watches his blurry memory of antagonising a blind pink-haired girl whose entire aura screamed unstable. His attempt to physically restrain her with no just cause other than predictable teenage snark.

An idiot. His round face twists in pain even in his half-conscious state, two deep stab wounds weep thick blood within a few inches of each other in his right thigh. So much blood.

Hebe isn’t bothered by blood, or death, and she’s fairly certain this man will die. But she is bothered by failure. The captain trusts her to carry out the mission, her parents are trusting her to come home.

A quiet voice in the back of her mind reminds her that Officer Tierson is trusting her not to die – and a renewed fervour runs through her spine.

“Captain, we’re running out of time here, are you any closer to my position?”

Hebe waits. She reported finding the officer long minutes ago, and nobody responded. She’s been hearing Rey calmly speaking with someone, and Kave and Delt exiting the level with the other recovered casualties. Tierson is clearly occupied but the Captain is mysteriously quiet. 

Hebe pulls her slim torch from her belt and rearranging herself on her knees, tucks it between her shin and the torso of the bleeding patrolman, darting her hands back to the pads over his open wounds as quickly as she can. The shaft of light is bright, but doesn’t widen, she hopes it will be enough.

“Bulla, I’m west of the entrance ramp, maybe a hundred meters from our original position, look for my torch light - can you plot a path for us to get out?”

A moment passes, and she breathes through her panic.

“I see you Hebe, good thinking. Do you still need help with moving the injured?”

“Help would be ideal but I don’t think it’s going to happen. I have to drag him – he’ll lose more blood – but he might get to live.”

“Copy. Keep your light on, and tell me if anyone blocks your path, be descriptive of their positioning, and I’ll do what I can.”

Hebe responds with a stiff copy as she whips out a knife and slices through the most intact part of the injured man’s shirt. All the tourniquets were used on the recovered patrol officers that Kave and Delt left with minutes ago – and they’re almost certainly already on their way to the hospital – but she doesn’t mind improvising. First wrapping the pads over his wounds tight to his leg, then a second strip above the bleeding, he grunts, limp hands suddenly full of life shooting to the fabric, scrabbling at it. She looks down at his face with cold eyes. He looks back, affronted.

“Get up.” She locks her hands under his armpits and heaves, he breathes weakly and resists her pull.

“Conscious? Good sign.” Bulla’s voice is irritatingly full of life.

Hebe wishes she could agree. Staring hard at the man as he catches up with the program finally, eyes landing on her clothing, on the brushed steel officer number gleaming boldly on her chest through the dirty light. She longs for anything other than disgust to surge through her as he resists her pull, half lidded eyes refocusing every few seconds as the strips around his thigh turn black-red.

Hebe’s had enough.
“I refuse to leave you here. Die if you want to, but get on my back first.”

It’s whispered harshly, through her teeth – the notion that the pink haired girl will appear out of the darkness and finish the job looming large in her minds eye. Hebe pulls hard under his armpits, digging into the soft flesh at the gaps in his armoured padding, and leans down lightly on one knee. The pressure on his thigh forces a weak cry from his throat, and his expression shifts from stubbornness to fear.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry-I’ll try.”

He weakly pushes up on his good leg, Hebe hauls and he finally comes to standing. She twists and he leans heavily on her left side, his right leg hangs, dripping blood on the ground in warm splats, his knee bent as much as he can manage between them.

She locks her fingers around the torch again, hooking her thumb around his grip on her shoulder.

“Bulla, we’re on the move.”

“Copy, I see your light. Stay calm, Hebe.”

“Copy.”

A few heaving paces, a meter of vision and a pathetic groan gained with each step. She feels sweat gathering at her hairline, and the injured man’s grip on her shoulder growing loose.

“Stay awake. Fuck.”

Their joint grip wet with blood and sweat slips, she has to stop, leaning forward heavily so his weight stays up with her own.

“What’s your name? Officer – what’s your name?”
She jostles him and takes another step forward, her back screaming under his weight, he’s almost double her size.

“Verd-” They stumble and he hisses as his bad leg takes some weight before re-adjusting to his left. Hebe doesn’t listen to him as he speaks, eyes closed, desperate concentration leaking from every pore. She focuses everything into lifting just some of his weight with the force. Just twenty percent would be enough.

Ten?

She can’t do it. Sweat pours down her back and his breaths grow weaker, his body weighing her down more and more with each passing second.

One more step. Her ankle crooks under their weight and she lurches forward, torch still shining uselessly into the air above them.

“Hold on! There you go, I’ve got you.”

Leif wrests himself under Verd’s left side. Hebe looks to him with wide eyes and is so relieved she almost doesn’t notice his face is covered with blood. Where there used to be a tiny shining stud in one ear is now a brutal tear through the lobe, and the entire side of his head is torn and bloody.

“Captain! What happened to you?”

“A mechanic got the drop on me, ripped out my com.” He gestures with his shoulder to his mangled ear. “Nothing I could do - don’t know how long I was out for.”

Hebe watches his grim face for a long moment until her attention swings back to the task, and she can’t keep the shaky smile off her face as they move steadily forward.

Together they pull Verd according to Bulla’s direction, finding themselves at the mouth of the tunnel entrance. The gas has finally cleared slightly, and Hebe can clearly see Rey walking in their direction. Hebe cringes as she spies the black shard about five inches long sticking out of the top of Rey's shoulder, and the improvised tourniquet strip wrapped under her armpit.

Two bodies hover at her hip, hair limply hanging down around their heads – no. One is a human and the other a twi’lek, just a young girl. When Rey sees Hebe and the captain she meets Hebe’s gaze with a look she can’t quite decipher. Appreciation maybe? The weight of Verd on her back lifts gently, and joins the other two surrounding Rey.

Chapter Text

Ben Solo - son of Han Solo and Leia Organa, grandson of Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala - waits in the little room. Woken roughly from deep sleep in the middle of the night and brought to the mirrored room urgently, the bag on his head was fresh, the guard was not.

His cellmate appeared genuinely worried, and Ben knows he’ll have to smooth that over somehow later.

He has been waiting for over forty minutes. The steel clock on the wall silently blinks over with each passing minute. He falls asleep twice, chin resting on his chest.

What he is not expecting is the small mutely coloured droid, its dark and wide camera lenses that blink like cats-eyes staring him down apathetically. The tank rollers underneath its square body make a dull slotting sound as it travels. It rolls in through the open door, and Ben wipes drool from the corner of his mouth, blearily readjusting to the too-bright room. The armed guard who led him here muffled and blinded, stands outside in the hall and avoids eye contact.

The armoured door seals shut with a hiss.

Rumbling up to the steel table, the droid opens a panel on its metal torso. GAT-III is stamped in bold lettering into the centre of the panel. A lobstered arm bends and warps, thwacking a light brown card-stock file on the table. Ben watches it right itself, and reverse back into a stop at the wall underneath the mirror.

Ben lifts a hand, pointing to the file. Raises a brow.

“Can I look at this?”

GAT-III whirs, its head nodding up and down in response. Ben almost laughs with adoring sympathy; the character of the little guy’s movements can only be described as tired.

Mission Report S7-0006-0001-13F

He takes his time reading it, eyes catching on the names he is already familiar with and taking extra care over paragraphs detailing their actions. Leaning forward over the table, he reads twice over a couple of sections.

…assailant who identified as a member of the Organic Mechanic upgrade clan ambushed C. Leif, armed with an improvised edged weapon…sustained superficial lacerations to the head, major lacerations to the left ear, two fractures in his right arm… unconscious for four minutes. During this period the captain’s commlink was removed. Non-essential parts were discovered and collected before 13-F retreated, but the location of the main radio link device is unknown …

… approximately 14 years old, and appears to have been blinded… advanced training from an early age. Her mother Cora also appears to be talented in the force, though the extent of which is currently unknown… recommend that she undergo questioning after waking, it is my assessment that she will prove to be an asset…

Galactic Republic Index new term submission:

‘The Daughter’

Ben leans back in his chair, his heart beating a hole through his chest.

He knows he shouldn’t be so certain from such scant information, and his eyes close as he reviews what he knows so far. It’s no use, the idea has latched into his brain and now it won’t leave, no matter how hard he tries to consider another possibility, it all comes back to one thing. He shudders.

The very thought is an abhorration; that anyone could grow to the level of power necessary to satisfy the ritual, to live through it. Breathing haggardly, he sits up straight, the steel chair squealing harshly against the floor. His eyes lock with the droid’s.

“Can I send something back?”

GAT-III tilts his wide head, eyes refocusing with a mechanical whirring sound. They shift from Ben to the file still open on the table, and back to Ben. The curvature of the lenses lift like sleepy eyebrows.

There’s another one, he almost doesn’t notice it, slipped in underneath the bulk of paper that makes up the mission report, it's headered differently, an entirely separate file. He’s used to the format of these now, his eyes gliding down the lines. In his distracted state, sleepy body fizzing with nervous fear-spiked adrenalin, he doesn’t consider the words he reads straight away. It takes him a second to catch up.

Oh.

Rey submitted this report, top to bottom. He’s wide awake now.

Ben’s eyes greedily drink in the words, then he has to stop, and re-read. As he scans each line of the page with careful intention, his eyes grow wider and wider.

Undercover directive…forge a romantic attachment…with the goal of resistance capture…

Huh.

His mind rests, like a rain-soaked puppy after the splashing puddles stop being fun and start being cold and wet.

Wait a fucking minute.

Ben is certain he did not hallucinate his connection with Rey. He knows it. She acknowledged it! She came to him for the love of- - --------

But what if that was why.

Oh god.

It never really made any sense, did it? Why she would be so drawn to him after all he’d done, killing so many, genocides never before seen… all his fault.

Taking a deep breath and sitting up straighter in his chair, running a steady hand through clean hair, Ben is almost impressed.

You really are an idiot. It didn’t take much effort for a pretty young thing - who you were already obsessed with - to take control of that situation.

Snoke’s voice still rings through his head sometimes, when he’s really feeling like a piece of shit. It’s not so often these days. He’s used to tempering it, shutting it down. His knuckles whiten.

Rey was never a pretty young thing. She was rough and hard edged, stubborn, irritating, and incredible. She was powerful and mesmerising and compassionate and-

Yeah. Gotta hand it to her.

But he can’t drop it. If it’s true, why leave out the private moments? Her uncharacteristically formal words stressing the ‘uncensored’ nature of her recount, it doesn’t make sense.

He remembers them so vividly, the water left behind on the sterile hallway floor, on his glove. The feeling that he was watching something precious and secret, her innocent delight in the rain.

In the surgery, her existence popping out of nothing before his eyes, a cold room so suddenly filled with warmth and – humanness. Just after a droid finished grafting metal into his burnt skin. Her embarrassment.

Rey’s panic after the cave, discovering something so powerful about herself, yet so disappointing. Her need to share it with him. How he wishes they had gotten just one minute longer, alone in the stone hut. Finally touching, no-one else in the world but Rey and Ben. Discovering together what it meant to feel hurt, but seen.

Was it real for her too? Does she keep them locked away in her heart like he does, bright lights sparkling out of that awful time?

Did it ever even happen?!

Joint yet opposing impulses urge him to laugh and cry simultaneously.

They certainly seemed real enough, in the moment. But if not, why didn’t she finish the job? The opportunity was there. More than one…

He slides off the chair and onto the floor. Pooling off the seat like a big bear. Groaning. The bland unpainted ceiling offers no escape from this unwelcome new reality, where the one good thing he kept close to his heart is perhaps, just another delusion. GAT-III chirps, almost cooing at him, watching him flop gracelessly.

His breaths are too loud, too embarrassing. It all just sucks. Dulled is the previously shining hope. He really had thought, maybe I’ll get to do something good. He swallows and pushes down the childish impulse to be as unhelpful as he can, hinder them at every possibility. Sudden and deep resentment at being stuck in a little room – again - watched by who knows how many sets of eyes. It all surges and drops away again as fast as it came, leaving nothing behind but Ben in his body, lying on the floor, stupidly holding the piece of paper that broke his world anew. It wrinkles in his grip, and when he notices he forces his hands to relax.

The moment of indulgence passes, and he feels like the world’s biggest dickhead as he picks himself up again. Distracting himself with straightening the pages of the reports back into order, while doing the same with the loose sheafs of thought scattered chaotically in his mind.

Two possibilities solidify.

Rey’s report is entirely true, with the sole exclusion of leaving out specific moments – lacking witnesses – that would prove tricky to describe in government-sanctioned prose.

Or: There was no order from Leia. An extended period of force-fandangling with the enemy isn’t likely to be something Rey wants on the record, and so, she’s lying.

Ben truly cannot decide which it is.

He wants to speak with his mother.

*

“Are you proud of yourselves?”

Chief Lance’s voice is just shy of piercingly nasal when raised.

“Two patrol officers and one medical responder dead. All of them with families waiting at home. Verd, Serra and Leige were ordered – out of line with due process – into a red zone without proper support, and their deaths are on each of you.”

Rey has half a mind to retaliate, to argue that the officers all died at the hospital, they did everything they could. But she takes her cue from the stony look on her captain’s face, and holds back.

 “Every one of you returned significantly injured. Security relations with the upgrade clans are left somehow worse than they were before. A Security Commlink stolen by anti-government bio-engineer experts, and an unsanctioned lethal-shot fired on a lower level - - with bad visibility!”

Leif doesn’t so much as move a muscle, or as much as anyone can tell when half his face is taped under a bacta patch. Kels, Rey, Magna, Kave, Delt and Hebe sit around the oversized round table in the 80^th floor conference room, subdued.

A room normally reserved for celebrations, or emergency mass-response briefings. A room definitely not commonly appropriated for a debrief … for a single unit.

The mission report sits open in front if the division chief. She stands and the table look child-sized before her.

“Well, judging by the mood, it certainly seems evident that you all agree. I’ve half a mind to disband the unit. Cut division losses now and focus on repairing the severely damaged reputation you can all be proud to have had a bloody hand in.”

A beat passes, and just as Leif opens his mouth, she continues on with all the slowing intention of a runaway freight train.

“The incompetence of this mission brief and undertaking baffles the mind. It’s a miracle none of you were killed, but seeing as the very simple goal you sought to achieve was a record failure, maybe you shouldn’t be praised for that at all.” Tamar leans forward, one hand making sharp contact on the table, it echoes in so much empty space.
“So afraid of the big bad under-dwellers that you can’t put one foot in front of the other to save your comrades? That it?”

She rights - the back of her forearm jutting hard onto her forehead, a pathetic tone wilting her voice into something uncomfortable.
“Oh no! Vision impairing gas, whatever will we do? A BLIND CHILD ALMOST KILLED YOU ALL.”

Magna winces, crossing one leg over the other to disguise her quiet huff. Her ears still ringing from the ‘unsanctioned’ shot fired hours earlier.

“Chief, may I interject?”

In unison all heads turn to face their captain. Tamar raises an eyebrow at Leif’s boldness.

“What do you have to say for yourself, captain?”

He stands and the chief retakes her seat. Their eyes are level across the gaping maw of bizarre professionalism that is the grandiose table.

“We have much to improve on, and the tragic loss of three officers will not be forgotten by this team, I can tell you that.” He pauses, and breathes deep.
“Chief, we’ve taken custody of an individual who - when conscious - will be questioned and likely provide us with a wealth of information that will speed this unit towards our goal. You say relations with the upgrade clans are down, I say our odds of getting them on side are better than ever before.”

His hand shoots out, “With Senior Officer Tierson onside, we have an in – and by no means a superficial one – this man is crucial to our advancement in the lower levels. The further down we go, the worse it gets. The more force-abled aggressors we encounter, and the more proof of kidnapped children we discover. Tierson confirmed it with the- the grand --uh-”

“Klink, ma’am.” Kels speaks up, immediately locking his mouth shut after the word leaves his lips, the fire in his eyes never leaving the chief’s mutilated face. Leif recovers smartly.

“Yes, leader of the sixth level upgrade clans – Klink. This isn’t the same as the seventh level where we can come and go as we please, and everybody turns the other way. If we want through to the fifth, we need their permission. And we’ll need to repeat the process again with the Five Kings to make more ground.”

He stymies the rant before it can sweep him away, and releases a long breath, one hand curling into a first at his side, before relaxing again. Rey sits as still as she can, and watches unknowable decisions tick over on the chief’s face.

“As much as I hate to admit it, we are in need of co-operative combat training, as soon as can possibly be arranged.”

A beat, and Leif is suddenly filled with worry that admitting weakness was the distinctly wrong move. Chief Lance raps three dark blue fingernails on the table.

“Tell me why I’m not firing you all and promoting Senior Officer Tierson to elite operative status, to undertake this mission on his own? Seeing as he’s the only one providing any value here?”

Kels muffles a chuckle and leans back in his seat. Leif buries the impulse to stammer out stupid-nothings, refusing to wilt under the Chief’s gaze, the ire in her scrutiny is unaffected by the distance between them. Pausing to settle the panic, something swells in Leif’s chest. He looks around the room, eyes landing on those he has chosen to be his team, and finally on Rey, who sits directly to his left. She tilts her chin at him, curious eyes wide with expectation. He swings his attention back to the titan, hands sliding into his pockets. He hopes she catches the subtle disrespect.

“You know what chief, do what you will. It sounds like you’ve already made up your mind.”

The tone of the room changes so suddenly it’s almost visceral. He continues, sounding more like a prim princeling politician than anyone present has ever witnessed before, with the sole exception of the chief herself.
“But really, you have an excellent team here, uniquely procured for this exact purpose-” his eyes lock with Hebe’s for a fraction of a second while sweeping across the room, he’s certain nobody other than the girl herself notices.

“If I’m honest though, I’m sort of, morbidly curious to see what unfortunate changes to the sector-budget would occur, should a newly created unit suddenly disband … elite operative replacing it or no.”

The melody and rhythm of his little game is so jovial, the cut of it through the sober atmosphere so jagged and unpleasant, Hebe can’t help but shift in her seat, wanting to escape. To her right, Kels leans forward on an elbow, a thin smile on his lips.

Tamar narrows her eyes and the ghost of a smile graces her face; she noticed.
“Morbidly curious indeed. Okay.”

She stands so swiftly, her head almost meets the ceiling. Delt jumps in her seat at the close call.

“Meeting over, everybody back to work. Don’t forget what I said.” One final icy look around the room precedes the stern dismissal. “This was an unmitigated disaster, and I expect results.”

*

The door to Rey’s apartment closes silently behind her, and the panelling feels cold against her back as she slides to a crouch, arms coming up to wrap around her knees. Finally safe in her empty home after an insane day.

Alone.

It feels like an opportune moment to have a good cry. The awful unrest still resides in her bones, when she opened her mind to a place so filled with pain, death and dying. Despite showering and changing back into her civilian clothing at headquarters, she can still feel the memory of like a film on her skin, on her tongue, over her eyes. Not to mention the piece of super-heated shrapnel lodging in her shoulder hurt like hell. She was lucky – according to the medi-droid – to narrowly escape a nicked artery. Rey can’t help but hear Ahsoka’s voice echoing in her head.

Sure, be excited. I’m sure it will be thrilling and everything you’re missing. It’s also going to suck.

Succinct as always, her master.

Try as she might, tears just aren’t happening. Her body has already begun to heal, and with it comes a tiredness that demands her full attention. It batters against the door of her mind, which continues operating at full power, against instructions.

The junior officers need training. Yesterday. Hell, Kels and Leif could clearly use some as well, but she’ll have to address that with more tact since they’re equal in rank. It’s only been a couple of years since Rey started feeling truly confident in her martial prowess with the force. Her instincts have always been good, now they’re impeccable.

Still.

Igniting her sabre in a fight so messy - where her only task was de-escalation – and getting blasted with shrapnel for her trouble had her heart beating out of her chest for hours afterward. It was the right choice, but everything about that situation was broken, so it didn’t matter what was right. Groaning, she picks herself up and moves about the room, getting ready to sleep. Thoughts unhelpfully replaying every second of her day over and over again, so she may question every decision at her leisure.

Brushing her teeth; dissociating in front of her new boss. You can’t let Ben get to you like that again.

Washing her face; Ben was actually, kinda nice today…

Pulling on pyjamas; leaving the rookies alone in the gas. Stupid!

It’s only when she’s finally under the covers, staff leaning against the wall next to the bed, that she breathes out slow and deep. Almost as if it was waiting for her to finally relax, an idea pops into her mind.

Ben could help, if he wanted to.

Her ears pop in a giant yawn, and she snuggles deeper into the comfiness. Too tired to question why she goes over her meeting with Ben again and again, dedicating it to memory, putting particular focus on his face when he said her name.

Pale orange light shines dimly through the gauzy curtains, and just as her eyes drift shut, the last flicker of sunlight fades into darkness.

Chapter Text

Ben sits at the same table that his cellmate occupies. Tink Melloes is big and tall in every sense, filling out his mandated linen uniform with an excess of muscle and extra weight alike. His shiny bald head is a convenient beacon under the harsh fluorescent lights for Ben to follow, and for others (who know better) to avoid. The only occupants at the table that could easily seat eight, the cellmates hunch their shoulders over scratched plastic trays holding undercooked rice and questionable slop that Ben can’t bring himself to trust. Tink only slightly squints at Ben after he sits at the table without asking, but appears to lose interest upon identifying the shaggy-haired slightly mysterious newcomer.

Ben keeps managing to narrowly avoid drawing attention to himself, which is perfect. The last thing he wants is someone to recognise him. For all his regret, Ben remains ever thankful for the foresight of wearing a mask during the war. But all of this aside he’s just another asshole in prison to these guys. He would expect newcomers to be fresh meat, his height, scarred face, and dedication to keeping his strength up seem to be warding off the carrion gangs on the lookout for easy pickings.

Tink seems nice enough; leaves him alone, asks no questions. Ben keeps reminding himself to stick with him while he can.

“Woke me up last night.” Tink near-growls out, eyes on his tray. The decades of chain smoking evident in his thick rasp results in him sounding suspicious and/or angry most of the time. Ben’s getting used to it.

 Somewhere in the cafeteria an inmate trips, slop and dry crumbs fly and splatter everywhere. In the split second before Big Joe stands, a face full of slop dripping from his chin, a guard stationed at the door ignites an electric baton. The high voltage crackle draws all attention to the imminent conflict, the noisy clatter of lunchtime coming to a dead halt. Big Joe looks between the guard and the fallen man, lying still at his feet, and takes his time retaking his seat. In the seconds afterward the rooms atmosphere returns to its typical low rumble, and Tink continues eating. Ben never stopped.

“Yeah, sorry. Guard’s an asshole.” The guard Ben refers to only seems to appear when he’s due for a visit to the little mirrored room. The one that banged a baton on the bars of his cell last night, waking them both, before dragging Ben away while his cellmate watched in confused terror. It was the first time the guard collected him from the cell while Tink was present, and Ben was surprised to find the prison staff didn’t seem to care about keeping his supposedly ‘top-secret’ arrangement a secret from the other inmates whatsoever.

So he went, quietly and calmy, as he always does. Only for GAT-III to deliver a simple missive instructing him to expect another visit.

Today.

Ben was proud of himself for not showing GAT-III his frustration, he’s got a feeling the little guy wouldn’t handle disappointment well.

Tink is clearly unsatisfied with the non-explanation of his alarming disappearing act, huffing and rolling his shoulders.

“I’m surprised you came back, the bag on your head an’everything. I thought you was done for sure.”

A spoonful of the slop goes down Tink’s throat, Ben takes another mouthful of rice.

“I just get visitors. And I guess the guards don’t want me knowing my way around back there for some reason.”

“Good.”

Ben looks up and meet’s Tink’s clouded green eye that analyses him shrewdly.

“I’d hate to have to get used to another cellmate. Don’t get yourself into any trouble.” He sniffs, running a thick hairy forearm under his nose. “Anyone gives you shit, bring it to me, I’ll sort em out.”

As if summoned by their discussion, a pale veined hand lands firmly on Ben’s shoulder, and the usual stony eyed guard stares down at him, the black bag and wrist-cuffs in hand.

“Another visitor?” Tink asks, avoiding the uniform’s gaze, and Ben nods while stuffing the last of the cold rice into his mouth.

*

Rey enters the interview room to find Ben waiting for her, just like the first time. He does the awkward half-stand thing he did last time too, an instinct, she realises. Rey raises a hand, a half-smile on her face, and Ben returns to his seat. She’s been busy the past two weeks anxiously expecting Cora to wake at any moment - eager to begin the questioning process - but the coma has her in an iron grip. Getting tired of watching her demand sparring practice with her fellows, captain Leif scheduled Rey’s second meeting with Ben for her.

“Ben, hello.” Rey takes her seat and drops her datapad on the table. “I’ve got a request to make today, but I probably need to catch you up on some developments beforehand.”

He tilts his head, mild surprise on his face.

“Only if there’s any updates that’ve been held back. I got the first mission report and--” a split-second decision to not reveal his hand locks in, just in time. “And I assumed that was it.”

Rey looks surprised too, which satisfies something in his spirit. She doesn’t know.

“Yes, yes that was all of it. I’ll have to talk to the captain, he didn’t let us know you were receiving reports, although I’m certain he’s auditing what you get… anyway! Handy that we don’t need to waste any time today!” Something like relief floods her system, and her shoulders relax visibly. A tiny voice in her mind is asking annoying questions like why are you so nervous, Rey? but she moves on without giving it any attention.

“I’d like your help to train the rest of the squad.”

“Train them…how?” He looks curious, excited. That’s a good start, Rey thinks.

“We’ve got a mixed bag of skill and talent, both in instincts and in their connection with the force.” Rey’s hands begin to fly as she speaks, nervous excitement igniting her gestures. “Overall their unique skill sets have the potential to work together excellently, but at the current average talent level across the board we’re just inefficient. I have notes on what each officer needs to focus on, but I don’t have the time to train them each personally.” She takes a breath in, a hand scratching the back of her neck nervously.

“I was thinking, and the captain agreed since he has other duties, our backgrounds are so different,” She waves a hand, including the two of them in her meaning. “Between the two of us, if you’d be willing to help, we should be able to help everyone upskill to a reasonable level.”

He leans back.

“Tell me what you’re working with.”

Rey lays it all out on the table. Magna’s demonstrated her progress through the years in mastering her hand-to-hand, adding her instincts with the force into her rhythm of strikes and kicks to deadly effect. Rey still has a bruise on her ribs from an accelerated jab she couldn’t dodge in time. However, her intuition when stepping back from the melee and providing support at just the right moment is touched by something more than just good strategic thinking.

“Magna insists that she doesn’t have sight. Let’s just say we’ve agreed to disagree.”

“What an advantage,” Ben listens, amazed.

“She’s crucial.”

The junior officers are less experienced and significantly less confident in their power, but the potential is strong. Kave’s tendency to seek harmony make for an excellent de-escalator. With the natural instincts of a leader, his presence soothes like a balm, and on the sparring mat he relies on grapples and submission techniques from the more passive martial arts.

“He’s needing a more rounded skill set to contend with those who he can’t force into submission.” Ben finishes Rey’s sentence, and she picks up again fluidly.

“Yes, exactly. Delt on the other hand has a very kinetic grasp of her power, object manipulation is her go to.” Magna’s assessment of Delt’s capabilities from practice sparring read smoothly in Rey’s talking points. “Delt’s ability to adapt to new directives without question makes her a born soldier. As long as she has someone like Kave at her flank providing direction, she seems perfectly confident, but flails when plans change with no one to guide her.”

Luke’s voice echoes through the years in Ben’s mind, words spoken to a little boy too scared to go into a dark cave where he would find a crystal that gleamed a sparkling silvered grey when he touched it for the first time.

Trust your feelings, Ben. Without confidence in yourself and in the force, someone else will always be in charge of your life.

 He zones back in to Rey’s voice which has picked up in speed.

“I already have a plan to strengthen her confidence in decision making in the field,” Rey carries on excitedly, not noticing a change in Ben’s demeanour, speaking so fast she emulates a whirlwind. “I’ve got a list of exercises designed to force her to think on her feet, and change her tactics without support-”

“Don’t push her too hard, you may be disappointed if she can’t meet your expectations.” He interrupts her flow and Rey pauses, tempering her immediate urge to argue and remembering she’s come to seek his advice.

“I know, and you’re right. But consider that this is such a small team, none of us get the luxury of exclusively following orders. Our information on the lower levels is outdated in almost every way, confident decision making is a must-have.”

Ben listens. Finding no fault in her logic, he urges her to continue. Rey takes a second to find her place again, noticing that Ben keeps surprising her by being…

Reasonable?

No, it’s more than that. Rey swallows down the lump in her throat that emerges with the thought that Ben’s company is just plain enjoyable. She gets past it, stammering into her next point.

“H- Hebe will be a tough nut to crack. You read her section of the mission report?”

Ben nods, grimacing slightly.
“Talent, but lots of potential for error.”

Rey nods, leaning back in her chair and letting out a long breath. An instinct she can’t name reaches out, searching for his presence in the bright small space. It’s not, nothing. It’s definitely something, but an unknowable, unreachable something. Whatever the prison is using to keep him shut off from the force, it’s effective, but Rey would describe it more as shrouding than blocking. His presence is hidden, but not invisible.

“What’s your plan, for Hebe?”

He interrupts her musings, his steady voice bringing her back into the moment, and she looks at him for a second before checking her notes and continuing. The youngest of their unit is an enigma. Confident in her own decision making, undoubtedly. Completely unphased by the mental effort required to look into the mind of another being, scrubbing memories and seeing their thoughts and even dreams like they’re her own, yet. She cannot even lift a pebble with her mind. It’s only been two weeks, but Rey is already drained by Hebe’s absolute refusal to believe in herself. Her frustration bleeds through every pore as she’s reminded of the girl’s stubbornness.

“I don’t think I have one, to be honest. Leif may have to take point with her, my only plan is we keep her in sparring practice with Delt, and hopefully they’ll inspire each other.”

Ben wonders, and as Rey closes the open file she keeps on Hebe’s progress with an irritated flick of a finger, he stops her.

“Let me talk to her.”

Her curiosity is peaked.
“What’s your plan?”

“I understand how she feels. And if your info on her is right – from a wealthy background?”

“Very.”

“Then I should be able to get through to her.”

Rey thinks about it. She wants to see where this can go, so nods, and makes a note to book Hebe for a J-DeC visit.

“Okay. Who’s left… Leif, Tierson, and you?” Ben counts on his hand, Rey shakes her head in silent laughter at the audacity.

“Just Tierson. Here we go,” She pulls up his info and summarises it, Ben taking mental note. Rey recalls Kels’ most recent spar against Magna - who stands head and shoulders above him - his only objective was to overpower her, yet he fell back into his tendency to stall instead of strategize his way into a win.

“This in particular is where I’d like you to come in. Kels needs to learn how to funnel strength into his strikes, he’s depending too much on his mobility, but his actual fighting style is shockingly weak. I mean Magna and I have both tried to get somewhere with him but - as much as I hate to say it – he’s not suited for combat training with women.”

“Not suited?”

A small chuckle comes with the explanation.
“Probably the way he was raised, he won’t hit us. Or, won’t hit as hard as he should, which sort of defeats the purpose of the exercise.”

Ben frowns, trying to get on board with her implication.

“So, you want me to-”

“Lend us your brute strength? Yes!” Rey’s face is full of determination and she leans forward, poking him firmly in the chest as if they’re on the same page. Aside from an intrusive thought screaming about their proximity when she leans closer to him, Ben has a minor objection.

“How could I train him that way, when I’m cut off?” He panics for a microsecond, continuing before she can reply. “I just don’t understand your plan.”

She hums, folding her arms across her chest, leaning her tucked elbows against the edge of the table. 

“I don’t think you need access to the force, to evaluate and instruct.”

Rey responds to a calculative raised brow from Ben with an unladylike snort. “Come on, you get it. Do you remember how it felt, and how it should feel, channelling all that raw power?” Her words are like shining sunlight to a man lost in darkness, the glint in her eyes a flame licking up the side of dried wheat. He should tell her to stop. He can’t.

“Striking with the colour of the universe inside your palm, so vibrant and electric it can feel brittle. The impact in the space between your souls, on your skin -- in your bones?”

A shiver goes down his spine, re-igniting a desire long dormant. There’s something about the way she describes the feeling; it’s nothing at all like Luke’s doctrine. Or any doctrine he’s heard. The memory of his mother’s voice all those years ago returns to him suddenly.

…Training under your grandfather’s padawan…

A powerful desire to know everything about Rey’s life for the past decade surges in his chest, and he doesn’t realise that he’s been silently looking into her eyes for a period of time that could easily be interpreted as fucking weird.

Rey is too busy unsubtly trying to get a read on his emotional state (with no yield whatsoever) to notice the lengthy pause.

On the other side of the wall - just out of line of sight with the couple behind the mirror - the zoned-out guard looks up at the volume dial on the wall, wondering why the sound cut out. When Ben finally speaks, he jumps, and looks around the hallway to see if anybody saw.

“Of course I remember.” It’s subdued, Rey watches a cloud of emotion wash over Ben’s eyes, and his body language is so vulnerable in this moment, it shocks her. Rey leans back in her seat, not remembering when she became so invested in this conversation. But she can’t help it, revelling in the passion of her life with someone who truly knows, both how it feels and how preciously she holds it, it’s addicting.

Woah. Slow down.

Rey misses Ahsoka, that must be it. She clears her throat and leans back in her chair again, returning her focus to the other members of her unit.

“Good. I knew you would.”

*

Rey watches from the observation chamber. Ben and Tierson are the first to try the exercise, the holodeck calibrated to a confined setting to inhibit Kels’ tendency to avoid bigger opponents instead of fight them head on.

Magna sits to Rey’s side, and the captain stands to the side of them, closer to the window. Hebe is the only unit member that remains at Headquarters, instructed to hold down the fort and contact Leif should an emergency require their attention. The division Chief was kind enough to approve the commandeering of an unused wing at J-Dec for their purposes, with minor caveats that Leif was keeping quiet about for the moment.

Kels’ high-flying talents are wasted in such an environment, and Rey and Magna speak freely while the two spar. Ben frequently pauses the bouts, showing Tierson a weak point in his own defences, and then starting back up again to let him try and tackle it in motion. Ben is proving to be a good teacher, and Rey tries her hardest not to say it out loud. Already having so much contact with him to plan the exercises outside of headquarters, she doesn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea. Magna says it anyway.

“Such a shame he was turned so young. He’s great at this.”

“I knew he would be.” Leif chimes in, leaning on his hands on the control desk, peering into the holodeck with consumed interest. Rey is constantly forgetting that the captain guarded Ben before his promotion, and wonders just how much he knows and doesn’t let on. Watching her team-mate learn from Ben, she gives voice to her confusion. In all their interactions Tierson appears to be somewhere between terrified and hateful towards their consultant.

“Tierson’s responding well, too. Interesting how present he is with a tutor that scares him.”

“He’s not scared.” Magna responds almost absently, wincing lightly when Ben pins Tierson, letting him up again immediately, giving him space. “He just recognises him.”

Rey tugs on Magna’s sleeve, getting her attention, demanding elaboration. Magna explains with an exhale.

“After the trials, some of the footage was leaked to the press. There was a bit of a smear campaign for a while on General Organa. Ya know, since she admitted fault for his crimes and all that.” This is news to Rey, who tore away to Shili days after the trials ended, not around to witness the fall out and new beginning of the republic.

“His face was on a lot of posters.” Magna nods to Ben, who side steps a jab – too slow – and rears back from the strength of the impact, only to light up and praise the senior officer for the hit. “Prince of a Killed Planet, Doomed From the Start -- all that bantha-shit. Anyway. Anything that gets printed up here, eventually ends up down there,” she jabs her thumb toward the floor “the news cycle churns fast at the top, but it’s different on the low levels. Anything not used for fuel or mattress stuffing gets pasted as insulation onto someone’s wall.”

Rey watches the end of the spar between the two men with new eyes, and a better understanding of the confusing mix of aggression and unpredictably jarring reactions from her teammate.

When they re-emerge into the observation room, swapping with the two rookies, the atmosphere is strange. Ben sits with cuffs on his wrists, like he didn’t just spend half an hour in a tiny room with a man he could beat to death if he really wanted to. The bag that came in covering his head rests on a short table at the back of the room, a surreal reminder that the guard waits outside.

The projection room is re-calibrated to an almost perfect recreation of the sixth level entrance area they fought in not two weeks earlier, for Kave and Delt to tackle their first exercise. Each tasked with forcing the other to submit without any physical contact.

Despite the tension the observation room is not uncomfortable, but watching the display inside the holodeck is. Seeing Kave and Delt ‘in action’ is tough. Every few seconds Delt will rip out some part of the surrounding environment and hurl it in Kave’s direction. Kave does his level best – poorly – to be intimidating while running and ducking from the barrage. His points in the bout so far are made up of a few decent trip-attacks and shoves with about 20 meters of distance from Delt.

“Take that!” Kave yells out again, and Delt continues giving chase, nothing apparently sticking from her friend’s attempted attack. She climbs up the steel stairs and - using a flimsier control than usual, she must be tiring - rips the railing tube from its place on her way up, sending it spinning in Kave’s direction. It misses.

Behind Rey, Leif lets out a long-suffering sigh. She hears his palm slap lightly on his forehead, and can’t help but feel similarly.

“Yeah, this isn’t a good start.” Magna agrees gruffly.

Rey made a few suggestions into the microphone in the first five minutes or so, to inspire at least some creativity, but she had to let it go. The point of the exercise was to get Ben’s assessment of their skill level anyway, Rey’s only slightly embarrassed by the poor showing.

“Well, Ben? What do you think?”
She locks eyes with Ben across the room, and the others are glad to have somewhere to look other than the grunting and groaning rookies.

“They need the basics before attempting anything advanced. They’ll just hurt themselves by pushing too hard without any handle on control.”

“You’re right.” Leif mulls, turning away from the observation window, and tuning out the nonsensical sounds coming from the Holodeck. “You know what we could all use? Lunch. Followed by a demonstration. What do you say, Rey?”

Rey nods and stands, eager to end the torture. Speaking into the mic, she misses Leif saying something quietly to Ben behind her back, who proceeds to turn white as a sheet.

“Alright you two. That’s enough for today, let’s break for lunch.”

Rey expected she would spar with the captain. Or maybe Magna – who was perhaps closer to her equal in melee than the captain, just slightly. She expected they would set up the holodeck with sixth level settings, just like the juniors had, and really get stuck into a sparring demonstration all about technical control. She expected this, because that made sense.

Rey steps into the ‘deck a little before everyone finishes with lunch, except Ben who she assumes was made to wait elsewhere. She ties wraps around her knuckles, and breathes through the necessary stretches, having had a pretty sedentary morning. The door whooshes open as her surroundings are awash with pixels of light and the panels on the walls shift and blend, but the image does not return to the concrete jungle. Instead, she stands atop a lone catwalk, a dark starry night surrounds her, and looming skyscrapers made of glass and steel make up the nearest surfaces, the closest one about thirty meters to her right.

“What happened to the-” She turns to ask the captain, but stops short.

“Remember this is a demonstration,” Leif’s voice sounds through the speakers, eerily traveling through the empty night of the holodeck’s perfect illusion. “So no holding back please, either of you. We’ve got med support on standby, same as before.”

Ben’s face is a picture of panic. Having no eyes for their illusory surroundings, he stares into the middle distance, pupils wide, chest heaving, paralysed after being shoved into the room. He also sports a fresh black eye that definitely wasn’t on his face half an hour ago. Questions line up in Rey’s mind. She jogs toward him, attempting to project calm from every pore. Wind whips through her hair, if it weren’t for the hours spent watching others enjoy the wonders of the projection room she would promptly forget the reality of her situation. But she’s present, her awareness tuned to the moment and knows exactly how quietly to speak to avoid her voice being picked up by the microphones. She reaches him, her steps on the catwalk ringing out in so much empty space, and she hovers within a foot of his gasping chest.

“Talk to me Ben. What’s wrong?” He looks terrified, overwhelmed, a deer in headlights. It hits her all at once, his blocker must have been removed. Whatever it is that J-DeC is using to keep him cut off from the force, it’s gone, or turned off. She grasps his hand and tries to angle in such a way that the onlookers have a bad view of her face, but knows it won’t be a perfect obstruction.

“They’ll listen to me. If you tell me this isn’t going to happen today, we’ll go back inside, you don’t have to do this.”

Ben’s eyes flick from her grasp on his hand, back to her eyes. Sweat lines up on his forehead and he blinks hard in quick succession. Breathing out, something in him releases.

The noise quiets. With his eyes on the woman before him Ben breathes through his nose, and his panic settles faster than he thought it would. All of the rage, anguish and raw vengeful punishment that he was certain would wash over him the second he was connected to this world -- it isn’t there.

There is no retribution, no screams of nature lashing out at him. Unprotected, his old armour of hatred worn away by so many years with nowhere to go but deeper inside himself, it’s just, back. The awareness, the connection, the knowing and the mystery that feel like home. He looks into Rey’s eyes, squeezes her hand in his reflexively, and feels it. He can feel her, her spirit and mind, her worry casting at him like a protective net. Rey is about to drag him out of the holodeck, but he knows they’ll stuff him back into the corset again and never take it off. Now that he knows he can handle it, that he missed it, he needs it -- there’s no way he can’t take advantage of this moment… with her.

Ben almost laughs, feeling like an idiot for fighting the guard tasked with taking the blocker off him in the first place. Rey reacts to the stark change of mood, tilting her head questioningly.

“I’m okay. I’m good.”

She arcs an eyebrow at him, for the first time in ten years they stand facing each other, Ben at his full height, and no holds barred on his power. It surges through his veins like it never left, and he feels whole. Like hearing a language he’s always known be spoken again for the first time, it lights him up from the inside.

“Are you sure?”

Ben smiles, something like his old confidence folding back into his soul. His fingers flex, and he releases her hand, squaring up properly. He’s glad he took the time to do those extra push ups this morning.

“What, afraid to lose to me again after all these years?”

Rey gasps out her surprise, rearing back at the unearned cheek.

“Again? You’re growing forgetful in your old age.” Without thinking a million-gigawatt smile lights up her face and she winks, before sprinting down the catwalk. She’ll let him think his only job is to catch her, for now.

Finally. Leif thinks as they both spring into action, having heard nothing the two were whispering back and forth, but clearly noticing the change in atmosphere. From concern to almost, playful?

“That was weird.” Kels mumbles to his right, and Leif scrambles to cover for Rey. His instincts to keep the unit from fracturing from within kicking into high gear, despite the late start.

“Likely they were just discussing some ground rules, always advisable for new sparring partners.”

Leif feels the energy in the room turn sour as everyone except Kave shoots him a withering look – it’s not disbelief in Magna’s eyes, but condescending pity. Whatever Rey and Ben were discussing, it was not the rules of engagement.

Rey levels her breath in the sprint but can’t help the giddy laugh as she feels Ben take three heavy steps behind her and launch from the platform. She latches onto the rail, letting the momentum swing her over and around. Maintaining awareness in the particles in the air surrounding her, she soars out in a gliding arc, arms tilted up and behind her. She lands on the side of the nearest building, the pane of glass shuddering beneath her feet as she holds herself to it in a hanging crouch. Ben lands the long jump and readjusts in the moment, watching her land. An almost mad grin stretches his face as he settles himself before rearing back. A grunt pushes through his chest as he slams his hand hard against empty space, and the glass wall she rests on shatters under her fingertips. With a deep breath in, Rey lets herself fall.

Ben doesn’t hesitate to dive over the railing headfirst, arms and legs tucked to speed his free fall. He arcs like a spear in her direction, wind whipping through his hair and rushing past his ears. Just as he breaks through a burst of glass dust, shielding his face it as best he can, he opens his limbs and scrambles for control in the high speed descent, as Rey is nowhere to be seen.

“Let me refresh your memory, Ben.”

Her voice comes from above, and he manages to flip, his back bowing as it’s hit with the epic force of drag. Rey hovers, as if standing on a solid surface while they approach maximum velocity; only her hair behaves as it should at speed, pulled back from her face and whipping behind her wildly. Ben tries to make sense of what he sees as Rey draws a giant shard of the thick glass to their left towards her, it meets her fingers, which appear unaffected by the rushing air flying past them. As her fingers wrap around the thin end of the shard it fractures and reshapes in her hand, large portions break free and fly in all directions. The thinner tapered section under her palm reforms - as if sanded - becoming smooth and rounded. In seconds she crafts a stunning if not slightly rudimentary great sword: The blade itself is as tall as Rey, and almost as wide as her waist, the grip long enough for her to wield with two hands. It takes Ben a second to compute the reality of his current situation as Rey raises the blade above her head and the distance between them closes, her smile growing larger as his hair whips against his face.

With a shout of effort Rey swings the massive blade down, and Ben only just manages to manoeuvre himself out of her attack range. Her movement in the air is nowhere close to obeying the laws of physics, and he has to shove past his amazement at her advancement in skill, locking into the moment and grasping tightly onto control of his body with his senses. He flies into her body before she expects it, still mid swing with the oversized blade, glinting and reflecting the starlight. His grapple impact throws off her control, and locked together they spin gracelessly. He tries to take advantage of the position, getting one solid punch in on her side, but he changes gears as her protection fizzles out - and suddenly he’s not in charge of his movement anymore, becoming dizzier with each increasingly high-speed revolution. In his peripheral he can make out a catwalk below them, fast-approaching -- too fast. He panics, unable to slow, strength and adrenaline fading to the freeze response that takes over his body.

Red lights bounce and howling sirens scream inside the observation booth. Leif slams down on the microphone, holding one ear with his free hand, achieving nothing.

“You have to slow it down, the holodeck can’t keep up with you!”

Rey pulls her sword arm free of Ben’s iron grip, and scrambling mid-spin, manages to wrap her thighs around his chest. Getting both hands on the grip, she rears back and activates her core, the onlookers in the booth watch with mouths agape as she rains down an impossible slash. The power and speed too much combined with the vertigo, she’s forced to release the heavy blade lest she rip away from her anchor point around Ben. In the split second before releasing her grip, Rey feels lightning under her skin, in her eyes, coursing through her veins.

A shining blue-white streak sings and arcs out with a boom, slashing the catwalk clean in two, the pieces caving and falling away just before they would have landed hard on the steel platform. The glass sword spins into the distance, lightning crackling through the smoothed glass in a brilliant display.

Around them the holodeck glitches, jagged image frames popping out of place as the sound of mechanical strain grows incredibly louder, penetrating through the wall of rushing wind flooding their ears.

Rey stretches out both hands, and latching with all her might around Ben’s ribs, her determination fuels into the atoms of her being and funnels into him through all the points of contact between their bodies. She doesn’t feel it when he wraps his arms around her waist. Ben closes his eyes and pours all he has into holding her tight, securing Rey as she maintains the sheer power and harmony flooding her senses. Their feelings intertwine, her spirit is his, and his hers. Rey doesn’t pull back from it, she never has, it feels like …

…like that moment in the hut all those years ago. She had almost forgotten about that feeling.

They slow to a stop, hovering in mid-air. All around them shards and mites of fractured glass hang perfectly still, stars surrounding the centre of their universe. Rey can finally hear how loud she’s breathing, as the illusory light fizzles and flickers, before shutting down with a disjointed clang, and power inside the holodeck goes out completely. The bland grey walls reappear behind pixels fading away in messy clumps, and the giant fan under the floor takes it’s time adjusting to the forced shut down, the uneven sound of the blades spinning without power dictating the beating of their hearts, slowing, slowing, slowing.

Ben holds her steady, both of them panting, still locked together with their limbs and more, both feet on solid ground again.

“No improvised weapons next time, please, officer Miramir.”

The captain’s voice draws Rey’s attention to the jagged and ridiculous sword-shaped chunk of holotech panel, sticking out of the far wall, sparks flying from the protrusion. Following the trail of damage, Rey looks on, amazed at the clean line of burning plastic and metal along the floor and walls, tiny sparks of lightning grow and crackle before popping out of existence all along the giant fissure.

“Actually, this may be your final demonstration. We’re all feeling inspired enough, I think.”

Ben’s hands on her body flex and release, his solid grip guiding a small distance between them as she lowers, stepping foot on the floor to look up into his flushed face. He smiles shakily and gestures to a trickle of blood lining a tiny scar on his cheek, no doubt from a flying shard of glass that slipped through his defences. Rey locks eyes on it, unable to form a single thought, still dizzy and overwhelmed, and half on her way to doing something stupid. Not that everything that happened in the last two minutes wasn’t stupid enough already.

Ben somehow seems, fine? The words leave his lips a good ten seconds before they travel through her ears, into her brain, and past the flaming barrier of distracting emotion.

“You win.”

Empty eyes stare back at Ben, and he puts more distance between them, turning back to the now visible window, through which her unit stares down at them, faces partially hidden and warped behind tinted glass. He swallows, and take another few steps back, schooling his posture into something smaller, submissive and cowed.

“Ben, I’m not sure if I regret granting you the privilege or not... it was technically Rey who did the damage.”

Leif sounds tired, he looks it too, through the reflections muddying Ben and Rey’s side of the window.

“Yeah. This one’s on me, Captain.” Rey utters it under her breath, and starts walking back to the door, unwrapping her knuckles.

Ben watches her back as she leaves, recognising the antsy energy a mile away. He takes one last self-indulgent chance, unsure if he’s blown the right to experience bliss ever again. He reaches out with his feelings, and Rey’s are so loud.

He manages not to slump to his knees in the wake of the solid wall of energy that is Rey Miramir, legend unto herself, most powerful woman he’s ever seen or known.

She’s horny as fuck.

Chapter Text

A holoprojector lands, spinning and settling noisily on Rey’s desk inside security headquarters.

“Hey!” Rey juts out her chin and straightens the hunch in her shoulders, sitting up and looking up at Magna Bulla, her favourite colleague, and one of her closest friends. She swallows thickly.

“Hey yourself,” Magna tilts up the edge of a glossy brown lip, “finally gonna talk to me about the other day?” She demands, while leaning down and pressing a thumb to the device’s power button.

A silent and looping 3D projection of Rey latched onto Ben. The tiny Rey slides down tiny Ben’s body, and he places her safely on the holodeck floor. The image flickers blurrily in the sharp orange light of the room, its stark blue pixels melt and sparkle in shafts of fiery sunset beams. The little Rey and Ben – the image no bigger than Rey’s hand – repeat the dance that in the real-life moment had been chaste and unremarkable, but looped over and over and over, is completely and undeniably inappropriate for the workplace.

“Okay, enough- enough!” Rey squeaks, sliding her hand over the lens and feeling her palm heat up over the lit spot. She shuffles an empty file over it and replaces her palm, fumbling with the power button while embarrassment tints her cheeks.

Magna has always had a way of appearing smarter and more put together than everybody in a room, simply by existing. Rarely does she need to utilise it with purpose, but still, she pops a hip and tilts her head, pitying eyes boring into Rey’s.

Hers is a queenly type of condescension that Rey simply cannot handle.

“What is there to talk about?” Rey forces out, trying not to visibly grit her teeth.

“I know how it feels to face someone you’ve betrayed in combat. And I know how it feels to face someone who’s betrayed you.” She really should be speaking more quietly, this is a confidential subject matter and she really should know better-- “So. Either you’re both putting on a hell of a performance for some reason that I can’t possibly fathom. Or, there’s something you’re not telling me. Which is getting a little clearer each time we go to J-DeC.” She crosses her arms across her chest with finality, the picture of earned condescension.

Rey manages to keep a straight face for about ten seconds before it melts into the frustration that’s been steadily bubbling under the surface for the past three days. Scrubbing her hands down her face is just as unsatisfying a stalling method as trying (and failing) to avoid Magna and her near-omniscient talent for knowing where Rey is.  All. The. Time.

Magna breathes in before shattering the tension.
“Tell me honestly, did you fuck him?”

Rey is so glad the floor is empty, she lets her head slip off her hand and it lands hard on the desk, letting out an exasperated grunt.

“No!” She whisper-shouts, rearing back up and boring indignant eyes into Magna’s, begging her to be quiet.

“I’m having a hard time believing that.”

“That’s not my problem.” Rey grounds out, harsh façade already cracking under the force of Magna’s insight.

A glint of pity washes over her friend’s face, and she takes a seat, pulling one from the desk over, resting her arms atop the backrest and straddling it.
“It is, though.” Finally, her voice lowers, a smidge. “You seem to think telling me will put you in some kind of danger, but let me be clear: Tell me what’s actually behind the electricity between you, and you’ll have me on-side the next time an unlucky lightbulb bursts just because you walked past it.”

The look they share is one of understanding and… and defeat. Rey stands and Magna follows. Rey leading them to a briefing room turned storage cupboard that never gets used anymore. Piles of broken equipment clutter most of the floor and surface area. They squeeze in, resting against steady towers of outdated desk-interfaces and vaguely labelled boxes of ‘spare parts’. Rey regrets bringing them somewhere she’s unable to pace, still not believing that she’s about to do this.

“This feels really stupid. That you’re making me talk about it.” Rey says, angrily, petulantly. “Because there’s nothing to talk about.” As if she could make it so, if she believes it enough, tells herself and anyone who asks, but they just won’t stop asking.

“Out with it, Rey.” Magna replies, her endless patience for her friend not the same as her max capacity for time wasting.

“Okay! Fuck!” Maybe Rey can stall forever? She’s clever, there’s a million distracting things in this room, a discontinued R-9 droid model rests on its side in the corner, a stickynote tacked on its head that reads DO NOT TURN ME ON in messy handwritten script. She cocks her head in its direction. “You ever notice that droid?”

“Now.” Magna’s voice is a deep dark well of potential disappointment.

“Ugh. We. I. … I don’t even know, I really don’t anymore. It’s been so long… it’s not that I don’t remember because I do, I just.” Rey wants to pull out her hair. This is too hard. She was never going to tell anybody this, it’s hers. Just Rey’s. And technically Ben’s, but he’s destined to never breath fresh air again (!?don’tthinkaboutit?!) and Rey’s got her whole life to lead, which doesn’t include constantly thinking about two weeks of unscrupulous ‘force-meetings’ with the leader of the defeated forces. She crosses her arms over her stomach and looks into Magna’s eyes, and her friend sees the genuine fear in Rey’s face, and all it’s worth. “I don’t know how to explain.”

It’s a kind voice that Magna uses. One that promises true confidence.
“Explain anyway.”

Rey breathes. Every mite of dust in the room - a trillion molecules of matter in the air, on the floor, in the air vents - she can feel them, dancing in the disturbance of her presence in their space.

She speaks while staring at the floor.

“We were connected in the force, over great distance.”

Breathe.

“We saw each other, for me it was like he was with me, for him it was like… I was where he was.” The invisible brick that has weighed down her every step falls to the floor. It feels like a moment that should have meant something, been louder. It wasn’t. Magna tilts her head, slips one hand into a pocket.

“Once? A hundred times? Or, oh god don’t tell me it was constant-”

Rey dissuades her fear with a shake of the head. “A handful. Apparently Snoke was controlling it, but really he just tore open this, this chasm - a portal, I guess - between us. Even after he was dead all we had to do was look, and we’d see. Until Ben was cut off.”

“I see.” Magna says, hiding any meaningful reaction well.

“You don’t.” Rey insists, lifting her head and meting her eye. Magna frowns and skews her lips, holding out one hand.
“Then keep talking.”

Rey wants to escape. She wants to enshrine this moment in amber forever. She’s furious and relieved and it’s all coalescing into a cold panic. Sweat breaks out on her forehead, and she takes the lifeline Magna is throwing her.

“We were both trying to draw the other out, I thought he would come with me if I just, I don’t know.” She does. “Believed hard enough? And I have no idea what he thought. If he would betray me as soon as I let my guard down, or …”

“Did you fall in love with him?”

Rey twitches, her jaw jolting to one side, and she resettles herself immediately.

“No. Let me be clear. It was a matter of days.” She’s not angry, that’s what she tells herself. “Maybe two weeks, the total time the connection was open was, what—twenty minutes?” A manic harsh laugh bubbles out of her throat, Magna stands unmoving, watching. “That’s probably overestimating it, actually! But you have to get off my back because no matter what I say you won’t understand. I can’t describe it to you, we weren’t just seeing each other Magna, all of it--the surprise, the hatred, and suddenly this expectation, it was almost like we started controlling it even though it felt so big, the space between us was so heavy and we--” She stops herself, her heart pounding in her ears is enough to make her realise what she looks like, what she sounds like.

Did you fall in love with him?

She’s been certain for so long that the very notion was absurd. And it was. It is. Completely! Absurd!

Magna is worried over nothing, and Rey desperately needs to get laid, because this? This is stupid.

Rey breathes, and goes on before Magna can manifest any more unhelpful hypotheticals in the universe.

 “And now it doesn’t really matter anymore, does it? Because we’re both here, again, working together…” Rey knows how she feels, but Magna deserves her honesty at the very least. She finally looks into Magna’s eyes, her anger melting away to reveal the emotional exhaustion behind it. Her voice is nothing but a whisper as she finally admits what she can comfortably acknowledge as truth. “It’s so surreal. I feel like I’m going insane with all this energy Bulla.”

Magna squints in a sort of huh type way. Rey needs to know what it means.

“What?” She asks, breathless.

Finally, a smile appears on the sniper’s face, and some of the heat of Rey’s embarrassment cools down, leaving the room feeling a little less frantic. Magna clocks it and leans forward to clutch Rey’s bicep, voice lowering conspiratorially.

“Since we’re co-workers now, fucking would be unprofessional – plus, you’re jonesing for your man in J-DeC and I’m nobodies second fiddle – so spar with me tomorrow.” She leans back with a wink that would send most spiralling into a dizzy lust, and Rey can’t help but laugh with the release of tension, Magna joins her. “Second best thing.”

*

Out of breath, sweaty and bruised, Rey leans to dodge Magna’s jab and fails. Falling flat on her back and letting out a pathetic sound, she huffs as Magna laughs from her position of victory. Only, her face screwing up and immediately turning towards the door makes Rey’s slightly overplayed wince fade.

It’s been a couple of days since Magna pulled the truth from Rey, kicking and screaming, and Rey is embarrassed to admit to herself that she truly feels better for it. Magna was right, punching stuff is good for her. Getting punched however? Slightly less good.

“What is it?” Rey asks, breathing through the bruise that is quickly forming

“I think, it’s probably nothing…” Magna doesn’t sound convinced, eyes a million miles away. Rey stands, Magna wipes sweat from her neck with a towel, and takes a hesitant step towards the door.

“Mag--”

“Come on!” Magna doesn’t even turn to yell over her shoulder, suddenly sprinting from the dojo and perfectly evading the trip waiting to happen on the corner of an ancient, dog-eared sparring matt.

Rey has no doubt that whatever Magna’s intuition is telling her will be right on the money, as it always is. She catches up, not bothering to ask questions, and worry creases her brow as their path takes them in the direction of the holding cells. Running past the gossipy receptionist, shrill yells to sign in and check their weapons echo behind them, rebounding in the shining walls of the hallway. The unguarded door to the cells opens at the perfect time as a trio of nurses make their way out. Magna and Rey swerve on either side of them and continue the sprint at pace, leaving their surprised screams in the dust. They pass the empty and filled cells; the disgruntled, dog-whistling and slur-shouting detainees.

Rey’s no longer in doubt of where they’re going, but her worry only increases as Magna shoves her keycard into the slot, opening the doors of the medical wing. Once they whoosh open Magna doesn’t spare Rey a glance during the last few paces to Cora’s room. Sliding with a squeal against the sterile floor, Rey slumps into Magna who stops hard at the open doorway, confusion written all over her face.

“Why are you so sweaty?” Chief Tamar Lance asks in her bold and strange way, staring at the duo, their breaths uneven from the impromptu two-minute sprint. Beside her the most interesting and deeply alarming person Rey has ever seen crouches over Cora’s body. And the detained patient herself is awake, eyes open wide in seeming horror, still as a statue.

Magna steps forward, stock thoroughly taken, unimpressed manner leaking from every pore.

“Chief, who is this? What is happening here? Cora is under the protection and custody of Security Sector 7 Unit 13-F. I’m to be present for any visitation, why was I not notified when this individual applied to enter the holding wing?”

“It seems to me you were notified just fine, weren’t you?” The woman’s voice fills the room, any sound that occupied the background seems to halt at her words. Rey says nothing as the strange person leaning over Cora’s eerily still body turns to look at them both. Hunched and curled down over the bed as she is, Rey cannot help but think to herself, if there are witches in this galaxy, then I’m looking at one.

Long, thick black dreadlocks cover her head, neck and most of her face. Her skin is a pale mottled green, and one bright indigo eye peers out through the gap in her frizzy hair. A well-made but time-worn shroud covers her whole body in dark fabric, billowing out onto the floor hiding her feet. Webbed yellow and green fingers clutch the edges of long draping sleeves at the cuffs.

“Officers Bulla and Miramir, what prompt arrival! Doctor Calypso here was just performing her analysis on Cora, who happened to wake when we arrived.” The chief responds in a way that doesn’t feel like a response at all, as if Magna’s mouth never opened in the first place. When Rey opens her own, a hint of flatness twists Tamar’s face, her usual knowing and jovial smile gone without a trace, leaving a certain impression of malice behind.

“I’ll thank you to remember that as Division Chief of this sector, I have unrestricted access to all areas, regardless of your unit protocols, Bulla.”

Magna’s face sets into the hard lines of a scolded soldier, nodding at her superior and instinctually re-straightening her already impeccable military posture.

In the split second that she reaches out in the force - investigative senses on high alert - Rey is frozen. Nobody else is in the room is privy to the insane kaleidoscope of colour and sheer information that is the witchy-doctor’s presence in the room-- in Rey’s own head, in the universe. However, the Chief does spy the line of drool that begins to run from Rey’s mouth, and she turns to the old woman, jostling her casually, making a tsk sound. Calypso, expression unknowable, reaches out a thin bony hand, shining flecks of gold glitter in the swirling indigo of her eye, and she snaps her fingers. The ambient racket of the med wing and holding cells; the thrum of air conditioning, footsteps echoing down the hall, the pleasant beeping of med droids all rushes back into the private room as if released from a vacuum. Rey’s connection with the shrouded woman shuts off like a high-pressure hose, and she blinks, stunned, checking her lip and wiping the spit from her face and sweat-stained shirt.

“I’d advise against seeing me with any eyes other than the ones in your head, dear. Left another minute or two and you’d have gone quite irrevocably insane.” The quality of the doctor’s voice is smooth and pleasant, if Magna were to guess her age from this alone, she’d put her somewhere in her mid-40s in human years. But everything else about her presence is alien in a way that just doesn’t compute with Magna, who’s lived in a hundred systems and fought, slept, eaten and drunk with countless beings in wondrous combination of race, age, and number of appendages.

With a gasp turned hacking cough, Cora begins to convulse on the bed, breaking the tense atmosphere and remaking an entirely new one. One of focus and purpose for Magna and Rey, who move to her side as the Chief and her guest get out of their way. Propped up and turned on her side, Cora coughs and shakes until she vomits, water and bile pooling on the bed and dripping onto the floor, before promptly passing out in Magna’s arms.  

“She’ll wake up properly in about half an hour.” Calypso announces, Rey feels the authority in her statement and feels herself nodding along (something about the old crone reminds her starkly of Leia, but she does away with this thought promptly).

The Chief pipes up, smile firmly re-plastered, low voice asserting her natural dominance over the situation. “I’ll call Captain Leif, she should be ready for interview later today. The nurses will see to it that she gets some food in her system before then.”

Rey’s not like Magna; she doesn’t really care that the bureaucratic processes she finds slow and annoying haven’t been strictly followed. In fact, a part of her that longs for the solitude of a decrepit ruined ship - waiting for her and her alone to discover its secrets - rejoices at the abandonment of silly rules that make everything stiff and boring. But the bigger part of her, the louder part that’s spent the last decade learning what it means to care for vulnerable people in community, rears its head and screeches unholy at the audacity of the chief and her guest: the nature of whom can only be described as suspicious.

Magna watches Cora with worry in her eyes, her gaze flicking up to the Chief and Calypso once more. Quiet indignation that reads more like polite self-righteousness sets in her brow.
“I’m responsible for the prisoner’s safety, Chief Lance. She’s a resident of a sub-terranean level and thanks to the press, all of Coruscant knows she’s yet to be released to her home, while remaining uncharged with a crime. You expect better from us? Let us do our jobs.”

An impressed smile bullies its way on the chief’s face, and she nods her assent to the both of them, sweeping out of the hospital wing, her arm around the shoulders of the chuckling Doctor Calypso.

*

Rey looks Ben directly in the eyes, easy posture, hands folded on the table. The drape of her wide-sleeved coat oozes his mother’s taste in a way he can’t unsee, and he’s reminded again to see if he can get an audience with Leia.

“Do you have any thoughts?”

She watches him take stock before speaking, re-reading the header of his transcript copy.

“Yes. Her account confirms what I’ve been suspecting.” He takes a deep breath. He’s had time since reading the writeup that was delivered to him the night prior, time to calm down and settle himself. “I have an educated guess on what you’re dealing with here.” Ben says, scraping the back of his knuckles down one thigh under the table, looking at Rey directly as he waits for her to be ready.

She squares up and sets up the datapad to dictate his words, and speaks without looking at him.

“Tell me.”

“The Daughter that Cora told you about, is almost certainly one of three leaders in this ring. As far as I can see they are basing the cult hierarchy on ancient legendary figures in the ‘jedi religion’.” He indicates the sketchiness of the term with two fingers slightly razed, and returns his hand to the other, folded and leaning forward onto the table. “The myth predates the Sith and the Jedi, and they’ll have almost certainly learned of it by reading stolen texts from the Jedi archives.” Rey nods, and something inside her squeezes. She is technically the owner of stolen Jedi texts too… whoosps?

“In the myth her role is one of a peacekeeper, a nurturer. In modern teachings she represents the light side of the force.” The datapad in front of Rey dictates well, and she indents a new line as he continues speaking. “Opposite her, we have the Son. He is a figure of malice, corruption, and selfishness. Hungry for power, where the Daughter seeks to distribute power in places of imbalance.” He pauses and breathes, recounting his thoughts, and scanning over the write up in front of him again. Rey avoids looking at his face determinably, for no particular reason, she weakly declares.

“And completing the pyramid we have the Father. He unites and divides them. He simultaneously is them, and rules over them.” His hands now move in bold gestures, two closed fists that join to become one whole. “They both pester him for his sway, and the story goes that whichever side wins the Father’s love will have superior strength for the next era.”

Rey taps her lip with one finger, mind whirling with the gift of context they have been longing for for weeks now. “So, if we apply this to what Cora’s told us,” she forgets about avoiding his gaze, speaking with renewed passion, “The leader calls himself the Father, and is likely an older man, egomaniacal, manipulative, and constantly demanding to be impressed by the lower two. He probably pits them against each other, which will work in our favour.” She draws a triangle in the air with two fingers, and then punches two suddenly closed fists against each other. Ben tilts his head, humming.

“You need another interview with Cora. Specific, targeted questions circling around the myth, but not mentioning anything specific - you don’t want to make decisions on this before she can confirm it – her account of the character of the daughter should give you what you need. If they’re adhering to the structure loyally, or if they’re conveniently rewriting the legend to fit their egos, and then you have evidence-based character profiles.” Rey’s fire cools as she watches Ben’s words appear on the back-lit pad, she has to agree with his advice. “She knows more than what’s in here-” he drops a heavy finger onto the document, “but she’ll need guiding.”

Guiding. Ha.

Rey shakes the bitter thought out of her head. Try as she might to glue this Ben to her foggy memory of that Ben, it simply won’t take. Not once has he postured, showed any sign of temper or even raised his voice! If you excuse him shouting over the wind while they flew through the holodeck (damnit you’re not supposed think about that!)

“Okay.” She sighs, and begins to stand. “I think that’s good for today, this is incredible, Ben.” He smiles at her, and she smiles back, thoughts flying faster than they ought to. “Thank you, I’m-- I’m glad to have your help.”

He releases just a breath of delighted laugh, and somehow his smile gets brighter.
“You’re welcome.”

Just before she opens the armoured door, he makes his choice, and reaches out.

“I enjoyed the spar, the other day. I’m rusty, obviously, but it was,”

“It was good.” She interrupts, she knows it was good. She’s been thinking about how good it was. Magna’s little stunt not necessarily helping. She swallows, and a finger twitches, her staff is with the weapons check upstairs, she wants to know if she could take him with a real weapon, if he would beat her on equal footing.

The words leave her mouth in a rush, and she mentally reminds herself to turn off the recorder from the observation booth, first.

“Wanna go again?”