Chapter Text
Leia had said goodbye.
For some reason, that bothered Rey.
She didn’t have much hope for her chances in the immediate aftermath of the First Order's offer. But even after Leia had excused herself and disappeared into her office, Rey found herself fighting the incessant little hope in her head that everything was going to be okay.
Rey sighed. She peered at the metal grates beneath her boots, watching them rattle as the First Order shuttle made its approach to the Supremacy.
Despite her sour mood, Rey had nearly scoffed when one of the troopers revealed the name of the Mega-class Star-Dreadnought she assumed would act as her final resting place. The Supremacy.
Rey didn’t know much, but she knew power didn’t need to announce itself to be considered as such. It all seemed so very…theatrical.
Rey shook her head, fiddling with the seatbelt in her hands. They were trembling, no matter how hard she clenched her fists and took a calming breath. Just like she always did when she climbed wreckages that were just a bit too high, the ones that creaked beneath the precarious handholds she found in the divots of metal and rust.
She breathed again, but it was shaky. Not just scared, but angry too.
There was so much anger in her that she didn’t quite know where all of it belonged. Most of it was for Kylo Ren and the First Order at large, obviously, but there was some for the Resistance, too. She could hardly blame Leia, who was faced with an impossible decision. But she couldn’t help her heart from sinking when, after hearing the news, Poe simply nodded and pulled her into a too-tight hug. He’d called her brave. Called her a savior of sorts. Rey just grimaced and nodded, plastering on an empty smile.
Chewie at least had the decency to look upset, but he said nothing. Did nothing. They trusted Leia too much to do anything but watch.
Maybe it was Rey’s fault for not fighting harder, but the truth of the matter was that Rey was a child of masters. The kind of child that only fights if the other option is dying. She’s a child of the trade; of people threatening to sell her any time she so much as made a funny face at the dinner she should've been so grateful to receive.
And she was so grateful to the Resistance for taking her in. For feeding her, clothing her, saving her. How could she not sacrifice her life for them?
At the same time, how dare they make her?
The shuttle jolted to a stop. Two troopers busied themselves with lowering the ramp, while the other two fixed their blasters on her.
“Get up,” they ordered. Rey figured she couldn’t be too difficult. Though by all accounts she was here willingly, Rey had the feeling that causing too much trouble would get her body sent back to the resistance in a box with a hand-scribbled note from Hux himself that read ‘ sorry this didn’t work out, prepare for death. ’ Phrased slightly more elegantly, she’d hope.
Obediently, she stood. The barrel of the Stormtrooper’s blasters were fixed on her as she moved to the ramp.
Rey stumbled down the gangway, scanning her surroundings as she moved.
The Supremacy’s hangar was colossal and nearly entirely empty, save for the dozen Stormtroopers flanking General Hux. The sparseness of it all made this welcome appear far less intimidating than Hux probably intended. Pointedly, she noticed the absence of Kylo Ren, which struck her as odd, given the prickling feeling in the back of her head that she had felt upon landing.
One she had felt only once before.
She shuddered at the memory of the interrogation. The intrusion. Rey surveyed the hangar once more, this time paying close attention to the dark corners; the pull to a certain shadowed doorway that seemed to catch her attention. She was new to the force, she knew this. But she had the odd feeling that even though she couldn’t see him, he was here.
She narrowed her eyes. Before she could do much of anything, the stormtroopers ushered her to a stop directly in front of General Hux, who didn’t even have the decency to attempt hiding the way his eyes raked over her body.
“You’re smaller than I expected.”
Though Rey wasn’t expecting a pleasant greeting, she certainly wasn’t expecting that.
“Funny,” she replied, looking him over much in the same way. “I was thinking the same.”
A sardonic amusement erupted in her mind, one that was far darker than she’d ever experienced before. It made Rey grimace. Just a bit. This place was already affecting her, it seemed.
Hux’s smirk had faded, replaced with a scowl that seemed to suit him nicely.
“Cute,” he spat. “You and Ren will get along swimmingly.”
At that, he turned on his heel and gestured for her to follow.
“I seriously doubt that,” Rey muttered under her breath. The stormtroopers grabbed both of her arms and tugged her forward, a gesture Rey didn’t take kindly to. She ripped both arms out of their grasps and shot them a glare. “Don’t touch me.”
One of them flinched, so to Rey, the interaction was a win.
The crew of men before her halted, and Hux turned around, gesturing to the stormtrooper on his left. He revealed a pair of cuffs from behind his back and stepped forward.
She glanced at the cuffs. “I thought I wasn’t a prisoner.”
“For appearances sake,” Hux said through his scowl. “We can’t exactly have the light of the Resistance running freely around the Supremacy. I’m sure you understand. ”
The stormtrooper secured the cuffs around her wrists. She sent one last glare to the dark little corner she knew Kylo Ren was hiding in and spun around, following Hux’s ridiculously red hair.
Steel surrounded her. Suffocated her. A chorus of far too many footsteps signaled their journey through the ship, causing more than a few First Order officers to crane their necks as they walked by. Rey swore she could hear the whispers. “Scavenger,” “Resistance,” “Prisoner.” They all followed her until they reached a set of large double doors.
Thankfully, most of the stormtroopers peeled away, leaving just Hux and four others.
The doors slid open to reveal a turbolift. Hux stepped in. Reluctantly, she followed.
“You’ll be restricted to the lower two levels of the combat personnel's living quarters. If you wish to leave, you must be escorted by an officer,” Hux recited as if he was bored. “You will follow the strict schedule Kylo Ren will give you and eat only the meals prepared for you. You may only talk to me, Ren, and whichever stormtroopers are assigned to your floor. If you would like to speak to anyone outside of that, you will need permission. Oh and obviously,” Hux threw her a backwards glance, from her messy lower bun to her brown cargo pants, “you will be provided with a new wardrobe.”
The turbolift jolted to a stop.
“Any questions?”
Rey tilted her head. “Do I need your permission to breathe then, too?”
The doors slid open, but Hux didn’t move. “You can drop the act. We both know you’re not here willingly, which means I know you’ll do everything in your power to make your stay here miserable for us. Keeping you contained is merely a precaution. Again,” he glanced at her over his shoulder, “I’m sure you understand.”
He blinked at her, waiting for a response.
Rey refused to give him one.
Hux didn’t seem to mind, striding forward all the same. This hallway differed from the other by being draped entirely in black. White light lined the floor on either end, almost as if sunlight was slipping through the cracks.
They walked in a straight line for a while before Hux abruptly turned, causing the four stormtroopers to turn with him and stop at a metal door.
“You’ll wait in there.”
Suddenly, all Rey could picture was a dark metal cell. Empty. Cold. Hours of isolation. She shuddered,
“What if I don’t want to?” She asked, sounding far less forceful than intended.
Hux all but sighed before pressing a button, letting the door slide away. Two of the stormtroopers grabbed her arms and hauled her forward, pushing her until she stumbled into the room.
“Hey–” she whirled around to shout at the general, but the steel door slammed in her face.
Rey gave the door a resentful kick before huffing and turning around to survey her cell.
Except, it wasn’t a cell at all.
It was…a lounge? The room was huge, and dare she say, almost…cozy. A large white leather couch sat in the center of the room, which itself was sunken down with two stairs surrounding it on all sides. She hopped down the stairs to stroke the couch.
Perfectly smooth. Not even a single scratch.
She shook her head, petting a black pillow as she passed it by.
Separate but seemingly comfortable chairs accompanied three sets of white tables scattered around the room, complete with a kitchen and bar in the far corner. Short columns lined the outer walls as well, each with a different item on top. The last thing to catch Rey’s eye, as it at first was just as black as the rest of the Supremacy , was the floor to ceiling window that consisted of the far wall, and the expanse of space that lay beyond it.
Rey nearly stopped in her tracks. Pressing her face so close to the glass she was nearly touching it.
Three weeks ago, Rey had never even stepped foot off Jakku. And now…
Her throat felt tight at the thought of it, so she dismissed it straight away in favor of investigating the odd object on the column next to her.
It was a box. Jet black, nearly onyx. Rey bent down to peer at it, noticing it was seemingly etched out of some type of marble. Or perhaps, a crystal.
Her bound hands reached out, and—
His presence stopped her.
Rey hadn’t heard him approach. Which bothered her, because she’d been listening. Very intently.
He was standing behind her. Just a few paces away. How long he’d been there, Rey had no idea. With a discomfort that Rey wasn’t expecting, she picked up the box and pretended to study it. Pretended to not notice him. Maybe he’d simply leave her be; see she was delivered as promised and go back to slicing through the spines of innocent men or murdering loving fathers. Or whatever it was that he did in his free time.
But no, he seemed to just be…watching her. Studying her.
Rey bristled. Tilted the odd artifact to catch the light, hoping to whatever star had its sights on her that he would stop. kriffing. staring.
Battling lightsabers under the impending destruction of a blizzard planet was easier than being under the scrutiny of this man’s stare.
After a tense few moments, Rey figured she’d do anything to stop him from watching her in that stiff, bordering on awkward, silence.
Even if that meant talking to him.
“How’s your face?” she asked, venom lacing her tone. The last she’d seen him he was flat on his back, panting up at her in a bed of bloodstained snow. For a brief moment, she was certain she’d delivered a dying blow.
Apparently not.
“How’s your friend?” he bit back. The modulator made his voice sound inhuman. Stunted, like a malfunctioning droid with broken inflection indicators.
Rey kept her head straight forward.
“Still breathing,” she said with a detectable amount of distaste. “Despite your best efforts.”
Kylo Ren scoffed.
“You have a rough few months ahead of you if you think that our little spar was my best effort, scavenger.”
She dropped the box, perhaps a bit too forcefully, and moved on to the next column. Sitting atop this one seemed to be a sword split in two. She grabbed the hilt.
“Oh, I must be mistaken, then,” Rey said, picking up the sword. “I didn’t realize letting your enemy nearly slice you in half met victory conditions for the sith.”
“I’m not a sith."
Sword in hand, Rey turned around to finally face him.
Kylo Ren looked the same as he did the day they’d met. Him, with that ridiculous mask and cloak, jet black from the top of his helm to the dirt beneath his steel toe boots. Rey suddenly found herself feeling wholly unprepared when she spied the lightsaber dangling from his hip.
Leia had forbidden her from bringing Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber, insisting the First Order would confiscate it and it’d be lost forever. Rey had understood then, back when she was boarding the First Order shuttle with a measly four Stormtroopers that couldn’t even shoot straight.
But now?
Rey tightened her grip on the shattered sword. Even cuffed, it was better than nothing.
“And,” Kylo said to the silence, “you’re not my enemy.”
Rey raised a brow. Bit out her reply like it was rotten meat on her tongue. “You and I have a very different outlook on where we stand.”
“Where I stand you’re simply a rogue fool. And a fraud.” Kylo spat. “But you’re no enemy of mine. Just a foolish girl pretending to be loyal to a cause that she doesn't truly believe in. Not that I necessarily blame you, when all they've done is fatten you up just to throw you to the wolves.”
“Don’t you dare lecture me about loyalty, Kylo Ren,” Rey snapped. “You’ve never been loyal to anything.”
He surged forward, making her jerk back. Suddenly, almost unconsciously, the tip of the sword in her hand was pressed against his gut. It didn’t deter him; he didn’t even flinch.
“Tell me, scavenger,” he said, the mask making every last syllable sound like a curse. “What has being loyal ever done for you ?”
She couldn’t see behind his mask, but she could tell he was meeting her glare with one of his own. Rey hated him; she hated him, because yes, loyalty had given her friends, food, and a place to sleep for the first time in her stupid little life.
But loyalty was also the only reason she was currently standing in cuffs, staring furiously into the helm of the monstrous, head invading, father-killing, hostage taking, Kylo Ren.
So she just kept glaring.
His head seemed to tilt, and curse the man for being so kriffing tall, because Rey’s neck was starting to hurt from craning so far up to look at him.
“Will you please put that down?”
Rey looked at where the sword pierced his gut armor. She shot him one last glare before stepping back, releasing her hold on it and letting it fall. It crashed onto the floor between them.
Kylo Ren’s helm stared blankly at where the artifact fell.
“That blade belonged to the great former Jedi Knight Allya, the creator of the Nightsisters of Dathomir. Many credit her with the origin of the society’s great power,” Kylo explained. He stared at it for a moment longer before looking up at Rey. “It is nearly seven centuries old. Practically priceless.”
Rey looked down. The blade was slightly more cracked than when she’d first held it, and the heavily engraved hand guard was now, effectively, split in two.
“I…” she began to apologize, but stopped herself when she remembered who, exactly, she was speaking to. “I knew that.”
The helm tilted again, and Rey didn’t bother trying to decipher what it meant. She tugged once on her cuffs for good measure before turning around, pacing along the window.
“I’m sure you’re aware of the conditions,” Kylo spoke after a moment.
Rey grit her teeth, speaking with as much bite as she could manage without the threat of facing Kylo Ren’s temper for the second time in as many minutes. “Yes, Hux was very clear I’m to do nothing without his or your explicit permission.”
“I meant the conditions of the ceasefire.”
Rey’s feet stumbled a bit. She continued to pace nonetheless. “I stay here and you don’t kill millions of people.”
“You merely existing here is not what I expect from you,” Kylo corrected her. “But you know that.”
This time, Rey stopped. She faced the window, counting the stars as she spoke blankly. “You wish to train me.”
He nodded. Rey closed her eyes. Inhaled. Exhaled.
“And if I disagree?"
“The truce is over,” Kylo explained. Not even the slightest hint of remorse lined his words. “We will fire on the Resistance affiliated systems, as promised.”
Rey opened her eyes. “And me?”
A long beat. A hesitation, almost. It was odd enough for Rey to turn and look at him.
“I’ll return you personally,” he said. “So you can die alongside your precious Resistance.”
“How honorable.” She knew he was goading her, but Rey suddenly found herself too tired to bite. She settled on a snide comment instead. “Maybe there still is some of your mother left in you.”
The barb seemed to hit, for Kylo’s tone was murderous when he spoke. “In my experience, honorable people don’t force others to trade their own lives. Even if it’s just one for millions.”
Rey scoffed. Her breath fogged the window.
“What?” he asked.
“Just you,” Rey spoke quietly to the glass, no longer bothering to add bitterness to her tone. “Speaking of honor as if you’d ever know what it meant.”
Now it was Kylo Ren’s turn to scoff. “And look at you,” he said, “doing the same.”
She let her reply sink back into her tongue. They were too similar. At this point, Rey was starting to think the two of them had such a talent for arguing back and forth that they could do it forever and ever, until every last line that divided them was dust and they were the only two people left in the galaxy.
And then she figured they’d still argue, because he was about as bullheaded as they come.
Rey decided not to ponder what that said about her.
He was quiet again. She preferred him that way. And for a long while, Kylo stared at her as she stared at the stars.
Until he seemed to jolt to life. His cape flared behind him as he stalked across the lounge. He spoke to her as he passed her by.
“Follow me.”
Hesitantly, she obeyed. There were four doors on either side of the lounge, each carved into the stone walls. He stopped at the outermost one that bordered the windowed wall.
There were no handles. No buttons. No discernable way to enter. Rey stopped just over Kylo Ren’s shoulder, peering at the door.
“I assume you don’t know how to open this?” he asked.
Rey gave the back of his bicep, which was frustratingly at her eye level, a sidelong glance. “Am I supposed to?”
He didn’t reply. A moment later, the metal hissed in release, and the door slid open. Kylo entered, gesturing for her to follow.
“You’ll sleep in here,” he said.
Ironically, it was the most luxurious room she’d ever had. The walls were stone, but there were divots here and there that almost gave the room a haggard sort of charm. A small, metal frame supported a twin mattress with a single pillow and threadbare blanket.
There was a chest of drawers on the opposite wall which, upon further inspection, contained the very wardrobe Hux had promised. Every garment, down to the provided breast band, was the same shade of black.
An opaque glass door separated her room from her very own fresher, complete with soaps and towels. Best of all was the floor to ceiling window that served as the outer wall.
Rey refused to allow herself to appreciate any part of it. But secretly, she was in awe.
When she turned to face him, she found that Kylo Ren had been staring at her. He quickly looked away. “You will be contained in this room when not with me or any of the other Knights.”
“Knights?” She asked. He ignored her. Instead, her cuffs beeped before popping open and dropping to the floor. Rey had to jump back to keep them from landing on her boots.
“The door will remain locked until I decide it’s time you learn how to open it.”
What the kriff did that even mean? Rey figured he wouldn’t answer her if she asked, so she didn’t bother.
“We start your training tomorrow morning. I’ll collect you when it's time.” He made to leave before stopping near the entrance, throwing one last comment over his shoulder.
“Freshen up,” he said. “You reek of Resistance.”
The door slammed shut behind him.