Illumination
In which understanding a come to and the hassash engages in a devious conspiracy.
The door whisked shut behind Rey and the hassash—Kylo had silently urged the creature to stay with her.
He dropped his gaze to the broken glass scattered across the table, on the chairs and floor. He thought of the fear in her eyes the instant before she tore away from him. Then the look from the forest, when she’d been fighting a monster for her life.
Fighting him. For her life.
She’d watched him murder his own father in cold blood. That was bad enough. Now she knew that was only the last and most heinous act of a lifetime of heinous acts.
Rage and shame swept over him, a strangling burn in his chest. He jerked his lightsaber from his belt. It ignited with a snarl of red sparks. He swept it up, hissing and crackling—
The vision she’d unearthed from the deepest places in his heart rolled over him, flooding him with unexpected warmth, hope, possibility. The rage shimmering across his sight faded. He blinked, found his lightsaber still poised over his head for a vicious swing. Many vicious swings.
He slowly lowered the weapon. It would be incredibly foolish to give Rey concrete evidence of what she’d seen in visions. Nor would the Precursor’s crew find encouraging a meeting room reduced to shambles.
He shifted his thumb to deactivate the lightsaber, then paused. Why did it feel different?
It was as unstable as ever, but it felt…what? Less angry. More focused. A consequence of Rey carrying it for those days, wielding it more than once? He shook his head slightly. No, it had seemed just as it had always been when he carried it through the warrens of the Nightfolk. This was new.
He narrowed his eyes, studying the ragged red blade. Did it look different, too? The red not quite as bloody? With a gesture, he turned off the room’s lights. The blade’s glow struck red sparks from the shards of broken glass, etched the table and chairs in red lines out of darkness.
There, something… He looked directly at the blade. No. No different. He looked away—
Wait. There it was again. A ghost of blue light. He fixed his gaze on the blade and it vanished again.
Blue? His weapon had been blue before he bled the crystal.
No. Impossible. It must be a trick of the eyes. Or some aftereffect of Rey’s peculiar form of battle meditation.
Rey—
He waved the lights back on, thumbed off his lightsaber and clipped it to his belt. Cautiously, he opened himself to the bond. He sensed upset, and like a mutter of distant thunder, fear.
Bracing his hands on the edge of the glass-sprinkled table, he hung his head.
He should’ve stopped her. He shouldn’t have let her see any more than she had at first. Why had he let her continue?
He knew perfectly well why: because he couldn’t bear to have her look at him again the way she had in the forest. He had to do something to mend her trust, to show her that she could do what she liked and he wouldn’t turn on her.
Stupid. Stupid, stupid.
He gusted a breath and tapped the comm, connecting through to the Precursor’s captain. “This is Kylo Ren. Lock down all hangars. Flight clearances are to go through me until we go to hyperspace.”
“Yes, sir,” Captain Seddik acknowledged, surprise and curiosity tinging his voice.
Kylo shut off the comm and straightened, hoping he’d be able to calm things before she discovered she couldn’t get off the ship.
* * *
Rey couldn’t get rid of the hassash. She’d stopped in the corridor outside the meeting room and tried pushing the idea at it that it needed to go back to Kylo. It only chirped and blinked inquisitively at her. She would not go into its mind. She’d had enough of darkside minds over the last day or so.
Now in another corridor, she stopped again and turned her head to look it in the eyes. “It’s time to go,” she said, using the Force. “You have to get off me.”
One of its hands crossed her collarbone, two more clutched her sleeve. She took hold of the first, peeled it away, then reached across to untangle the other two. Two of the hands behind her shoulders clung more tightly. The fingers of the third wound into her hair. She pulled. The hassash hung on, making strange meeping sounds as if pleading.
She stopped pulling, fighting a rising fear that chanted, get out, get out, get away…
The visions came rushing back. She breathed, wrestling them down. It was hard. She couldn’t tell herself they weren’t real, because they were.
She knew Kylo had done terrible things. She’d seen the worst one with her own eyes. But to see it all laid out like that, killing after killing, brutality after brutality, a pit of darkness she’d almost despaired of finding the bottom of—that was harder than being subjected to the darkness of every crew member on the Precursor.
Because it was Kylo, who cared for her, who understood her, who respected her, taught her…
And had been ruthlessly honest with her from the very beginning. This—letting her see how deep his darkness went—was only more of the same. She shouldn’t—shouldn’t—
Rey realized she still stood in the corridor. The hassash stroked her hair, crooning softly in her ear. The clash of boots on steel came from behind her—four stormtroopers. She could feel their attention on her, a curl of uneasiness and suspicion. She pushed reassurance through the Force, the sense that she was no threat, that she had a right to be here. One or two of them nodded at her as they passed.
She began moving again with no real idea of where she was going. She turned a corner. Coming the opposite direction were two TIE pilots in their black flight suits, their insectoid helmets under their arms. Their eyes flicked to her. She nodded as she passed, waited until they turned the corner she just had and turned and followed.
They led her, of course, to a hangar, noisy with equipment and voices as techs worked on the ships, busy with pilots coming on or off duty. Rey scanned the docked ships, ticking off their capabilities in her mind. Troop transports and line TIEs—neither had hyperdrive. The command shuttle would. The light shuttles—they were a newer ship. She wasn’t sure about them. The Special Forces TIEs did, but everything she’d read said TIE fighters weren’t easy to fly.
The command shuttle, then. That would be best.
The hassash burrowed its face into her hair and gave a broken whine. She glanced at it. For some reason, an image of Kylo came when he’d pleaded with her: What do you want me to do? Tell me what to do. That look of desperate, naked vulnerability. The same look after she’d seen…everything.
She clenched her jaw and rubbed her forehead. After a long moment, she turned and left the hangar. She needed to think about this.
* * *
The ship gave a slight lurch, then the pulse of the hyperdrive vibrated through the deck.
Good, Rey thought, relief unspooling through her. She didn’t want to question why it was good.
She eyed the hassash where it sat on her bed. She’d thought about finding Kylo and asking him to please take it away, but didn’t think she was up to a conversation with him yet. So she’d changed into her sleep shirt and shorts in the ‘fresher. It was just a little Night creature, but absolute refusal had shot through her at the thought of letting it see her undressed.
“You are not sleeping on my bed,” she said.
It kneaded a spot at the foot of the bed then folded itself into a neat bundle topped with three purple eyes.
“No. Off.”
It blinked and made a questioning burble.
She grabbed the edge of the blanket and shook it. “Off. Now.”
Its little hands slid out from under it and gripped the blanket.
Rey closed her eyes. “If you’re going to stay there, I’ll sleep on the floor. I swear I will. It won’t be the first time.”
The hassash scuttled off the bed.
“Good. Thank you.” She waited until it settled on her clothes chest, then slid under the covers.
She was just trying to decide whether or not to turn down the lights with the creature there when the Force gathered, a pressure against her nerves, pushing away and silencing the room around her. Rey sighed and folded an arm over her eyes, delaying the moment she had to acknowledge his presence. She finally lowered her arm to find Kylo, wearing a sleeveless shirt and loose pants, sitting on the edge of her bed.
He regarded her with a dark, somber gaze. She studied him back then curled on her side. Somehow, their positions—her lying down, him sitting so close—reminded her how big he was.
“I don’t understand how this works,” she finally said conversationally. “The mattress is squashed and the blanket is bunched tight like you’re really sitting on it. What’s it like on your end?”
He reached out a hand, laid it on the point of her hip. His fingers tightened, testing through the blanket. She caught a breath she hoped he didn’t notice.
“Like you’re lying under my covers.” He removed his hand, placing it on one bulky thigh.
Yes, he noticed.
“It’s getting stronger, isn’t it?” she said. “The bond. It must be, for it to seem like you’re really here.”
“Yes,” he said.
She wasn’t sure what to think about that.
“Where did you go?” he said. “After you left me.”
“I just…wandered around.”
He didn’t say anything.
“I went to one of the hangars and looked at the ships,” she admitted.
His mouth tightened.
“Don’t look at me like that! I’m still here, aren’t I?”
“I don’t want you to feel that way, Rey.”
“I don’t.” She bit her lip and added, “Usually. I think it was mostly habit.”
“It isn’t a habit you need to have with me.”
I hope not. She didn’t say it. It felt too much like admitting weakness.
“I want to show you something.” He held out his hand.
Oh. A vision, then. She hesitated.
“It isn’t terrible,” he promised.
“Okay.” She rolled up onto an elbow and took his hand.
Rey was back in the woods from the first vision. She caught her breath. A twenty-years-younger Han Solo knelt in front of her—no, in front of Ben. She wasn’t witnessing now but seeing through his eyes. Leia stood nearby, talking to an official-looking woman. A cluster of medics worked busily under the tree where Ben had thrown the cruel boy. Chewie stood guard, bright blue eyes watching everything. The official-looking woman kept nervously eyeing the Wookie.
“Listen, kid,” Han said, “if you break the back of every sadistic little bastard you run into, half the galaxy’ll be in repulsor chairs.”
“I’d’ve ripped his arms off,” Chewie roared. “He wouldn’t do any tormenting after that.”
“Uncle Chewie thinks I did the right thing,” Ben said defensively.
Han glared up at Chewie. “You’re not helping, fuzzball.”
“Too bad,” Chewie grunted. “Sadistic bastards need to be in repulsor chairs—or have their arms torn off.”
The vision winked out and she was back in her quarters. Having seen Han so unexpectedly, the backs of her eyes ached with tears even as she wanted to laugh at Han being…Han. Just as suddenly, she realized how hard it had to’ve been on Kylo. Yet he was willing to give her this.
He let go of her hand. “I’d called emergency services and told my parents what happened,” he explained. “There were still difficulties.”
Rey wondered what difficulties. A fight was a fight. If someone got hurt…well, that was what happened in fights.
He watched her. “You must have questions.”
“Yes,” she said, trying to regain her balance. “But—”
“Ask.”
She hesitated a moment, then plunged in. She wasn’t sure she’d’ve been able to if he hadn’t shown her the scene with Han—with his father.
“Snoke was…with you…since you were a kid?”
“Since I remember,” he said. “It was a long time before I realized that he—his voice—wasn’t part of me.”
She stared at him, horrified. “What did he tell you?”
“You heard some of it. There was more. I’d rather not think about it.” He gave her an uneasy glance. “Unless you need to know.”
She shook her head. She wouldn’t inflict that on him. “All the time? Until you killed him?”
“Most of the time. Whenever his attention was on me. My parents feared—” He stumbled almost imperceptibly. “–I wasn’t sane.”
Her hand shot out to take his before she thought about it. She snatched it back just as quickly.
“No.” He caught her hand, folded it in his. “Don’t do that. It’s all right.”
“They—” She hesitated. She knew she was on perilous ground here. “Kylo, they didn’t say that. Did they?”
“They didn’t have to. You know how much the Force allows you to perceive.” After a moment, he said, “That was one favor Luke did me, clearing up that misapprehension.”
She touched the bond to see what thinking about Luke did, but sensed only determined calm.
He went on, “I can’t remember how old I was before I understood that not everyone could hear thoughts and sense emotions.” Something that might’ve been distant cousin to humor glinted in his eyes. “I must’ve been a terrifying child.”
Rey thought of him, nine or ten, wielding the Force like he had. Like he’d already been using it a long time.
There was one question she really didn’t want to ask. She considered a moment, then asked it anyway. “Did you ever try to get away? From Snoke.”
“Did you ever try to get away from Unkar Plutt?”
“Where would I go?”
“Exactly.”
“But…” She trailed off, not sure how far she should push.
“He was the voice in my mind. The one who understood me.” Kylo snarled the word. His grip tightened and he rubbed his thumb back and forth across her knuckles, as if for comfort. “I went to him thinking I’d finally found where I belonged. He taught me to actually use my powers, taught me how to harness the dark side. It was liberating. But things changed. What he told me, what he commanded me to do in service of the dark side.”
“I saw,” she said. “You didn’t like what he made you do.”
He looked away, but his grip on her hand didn’t loosen. Turmoil churned through the bond. She thought about pushing calm through to him but decided it wouldn’t help.
She’d sensed Kylo’s conflict, but before she saw what he’d done, she had no idea how savage and how agonizing that conflict was. To have that evil parasite in your mind, always whispering, always goading, always tormenting. For years. Decades. The fact that he wasn’t completely mad was incredible. How could any man—any child—have so much strength?
Compared to what Kylo had gone through, Rey’s life had been easy.
She was suddenly very, very glad she hadn’t taken a ship.
“This is hard, Rey,” he finally said. “I don’t know if I can explain in any way you’ll understand.”
“A little, maybe,” she said. “Like scavenging a component that pays good portions this week. Next week the portions aren’t so good. The week after that, it takes five of the same thing for just a quarter portion. Like that?”
“Yes,” he said. “A little like that. Only instead of selling salvage, I was selling pieces of my soul. The only way I could survive—”
His breathing had picked up. He glared across the room at nothing. Or maybe there was something to look at like that in his quarters—but probably not. Rey just lay quiet, holding his hand and trying not to be glad they were actually in separate spaces.
“You don’t have to talk about it anymore,” she said quietly.
“I said I’d answer your questions.” He steadied his breathing with an obvious effort. “By the time I found you, I’d taught myself not to feel anything.” His mouth tightened. “I convinced myself I didn’t feel anything.” He finally looked at her again. “You know I did.”
She thought of the vision the Nightfolk had plunged her into, of the moment he’d killed Han. His horror as he watched with her in the vision, the way he clutched her to him.
Even on Starkiller, after it had really happened and Kylo caught up to her and Finn in the forest—
The scene replayed itself in her mind: his wild eyes as he stood facing them in the snow. The strained, half-crazed edge to his voice. The way he’d beaten his own wound as if to make himself suffer as much as he possibly could.
Maybe she hadn’t bested him because he was wounded and the bond had given her access to his training and strength. Maybe she had because he wanted to be beaten. Punished. Maybe he even hoped he’d never again be able to do the terrible things Snoke made him do.
No wonder he wanted the past to die.
His voice broke into her thoughts. “I need you to know I’ll never hurt you. You have to believe that.”
She thought about it. “I know you don’t want to hurt me.”
“No. I won’t.”
“It felt like you were about to today, Kylo. It felt very much like it.”
He got that intense expression when he was putting his whole being into trying to convince her of something.
“If I were able to hurt you, it would’ve been on Jannessi. When I was unconscious, vulnerable, in tremendous pain, without the ability to control myself. If I could hurt you, it would’ve been then. I didn’t. That tells me I can’t.”
She thought back to the mindless darkness she’d touched in him then, its crushing awareness, the way it had gripped her—but not threatened. Never threatened.
“I don’t think you can hurt me, either,” he added.
“I didn’t like feeling like I might have to. But you scared me—”
His mouth ticked up on one side. “Never scare Rey. She will try to kill you. Every time.”
“Shut up,” she muttered.
“It’s true.”
“It kept me alive!” she flared, sitting up to face him, fists bunched on the blankets.
“Do you know how I know you can’t hurt me?” he said. “You could’ve used the Force against me. I even told you to. You only stood behind that chair and waved a broken bottle at me. And Rey? I could easily have disarmed you if I chose.”
“Is this supposed to make me feel better?”
“Yes,” he said in that grave way of his.
“You would.” She gave him a shove with her foot under the blankets. He looked surprised. “Go to bed, Kylo,” she said.
“If I get into my bed, it will be there, with you.”
She pressed her lips together then mumbled, “That…might be okay.”
He looked a lot more than surprised now.
“Your creature is still here,” she explained. She flapped a hand toward the foot of the bed, ignoring the heat rising into her face. “I can’t get it to go away.”
He cocked his head, laced his fingers between his knees. “Should I come get him?”
She gusted a breath, flopped back on the bed and covered her eyes with her arm again. “Yes. Please.”
There on her clothes chest, the hassash gave a trilling purr of pure satisfaction.
* * *
The connection winked out.
Kylo jumped off his bed, dove for his boots and pulled them on over bare feet. Grabbing his uniform jacket, he shrugged into it on his way out the door.
He made himself stop before he reached Rey’s door. She’d given him an invitation, yes. But he’d have to be very careful how he accepted it. He drew a long breath, pushed it out again, took the last few steps to her door and pressed the call button.
The door opened to show Rey in her own jacket over shorts that showed a dazzling length of trim, muscular leg, tanned around the calf where the Jakku sun had reached. Despite himself, he swallowed on a suddenly dry throat, then managed to look past her, into the room.
She stepped to the side in silent invitation. “There.” She pointed to the clothes chest at the foot of her bed where the hassash crouched, its three purple eyes blinking at him. “It was on the bed, before,” she said. “I’m afraid as soon as I turn out the lights…” She trailed off.
Yes, be very careful, he reminded himself and stepped inside.
The hassash watched him but didn’t move to come to him. It occurred to him that he wouldn’t be sorry if it didn’t. But no, he’d promised to come get it. He’d do what he said.
The creature gave a questioning whistle, then showed its sharp teeth in a grin. He felt Rey shudder beside him.
Kylo took a step toward it. “Come on.”
The hassash stretched out two forelimbs, still grinning.
He stretched out a hand. “Now.”
The other four limbs unfolded. Kylo took another step toward it, reaching. As his hand approached, the hassash eased back just enough to keep him from touching. Surprise and a certain amount of unexpected gratification ran through him.
“Can’t you go into its mind?” Rey said.
He did and met…hilarity. It was enjoying this.
He lunged for it. It leapt backward with a defiant screech.
“What is it doing?” she yelped.
Kylo moved around the foot of the bed. The hassash spidered across the rumpled blanket, well out of reach. Arms outstretched, he flung himself at it. It yelped too, jumped straight up in the air, came down on his back. He flipped over on the bed, grappling for it but it launched itself for the ‘fresher door.
“Oh, for pity’s sake!” Rey said.
Kylo jackknifed to his feet and lunged for the ‘fresher. The hassash crouched on the sink, making a taunting noise.
“I will catch you,” he growled.
It leapt to the top of the shower enclosure then with a clicking trill, dropped inside. Kylo wrenched open the door. The creature flew at him and gripped the front of his shirt and jacket. Just as he closed his arms, it scuttled up to his shoulder and launched itself again. Kylo only realized where it landed when Rey shrieked.
He spun in time to see it scrambling over the top of her head as she flailed at it. Then it was out the door.
He caught her by the shoulders. “Are you all right?”
Her hair was everywhere, hanging half in her face. She slashed her fingers through it as if the hassash was still there. “Use the Force!”
She didn’t wait for him but reached out her own hand. Over her shoulder, Kylo saw the hassash rise from the bed, all six limbs thrashing. A Force block broke her hold on it. It dropped with a squeak onto the bed, scampered off and wedged itself into the space between the bed and the wall.
He stood breathing heavily, his own hair hanging in his face, his jacket askew.
“How did it do that?” Rey said, outraged.
“I don’t know. I didn’t know it could control the Force.”
“Oh, no, no, no!” She waved her arms. “I can’t sleep with that thing in here, waiting to…to… pounce on me!”
He got down on hands and knees by the bed and reached for it. The hassash shrank into itself until all he could see were its eyes and toothy grin.
He stood again, torn between frustration and satisfaction he really shouldn’t be feeling. “What do you want to do? I can’t catch him.”
She put her hands over her face.
“Rey?” He put a concerned hand on her back.
It took a moment before he realized she was laughing. She turned away, her shoulders still shaking.
No one—no one laughed at Kylo Ren. Not if they wanted to avoid a painful death. Outrage boiled up in him…
The brilliant effervescence of her laughter came through the bond, an almost ticklish sensation that made him angrier as he tried to resist. That buoyant light swept over him and he thought of his only half-hearted wish to catch the hassash, the way it conspired with him to put on a good show. Suddenly it was funny, a sensation so foreign it was almost painful.
He felt her wrestle herself back under control before she turned back, struggling with her face while her eyes danced.
“Sorry,” she said.
He gave her a reproachful look. “He doesn’t want to leave you.”
“That’s what I was telling you.” Rey stepped past him, bent and peered behind the bed. The hassash whistled and she straightened quickly. “That evil little thing didn’t bother me when you were with me.” She looked up now, not sharply, but with meaning. “On Jannessi.”
“No. He didn’t.” His heart beat hard, and it wasn’t from chasing the hassash.
She didn’t say anything for a long moment, still gazing expectantly at him. “Um…” she said at last in a small voice. “Maybe you could…stay?”
If Snoke had served any purpose at all, it was to give him durasteel control. “If that will help.”
From behind the bed, the hassash made a noise like rowwWWWRrrr.
Shh, Kylo thought at it.
Rey searched his face a moment longer, then her jaw set. “Okay then.”
With an air of determination, she slipped out of her jacket, laid it across the clothes chest and marched to the bed. Kylo tried not to hyper-focus on her exposed neck and the freckles that dusted her shoulder as she bent over the bed, straightening the covers. She flipped them back and slid into bed without looking at him.
Her obvious shyness was the only thing that kept him from a pounce that would put the hassash to shame. Instead, he sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled off his boots, shrugged out of his jacket and laid it over hers.
He watched a spidery little hand extend from behind the bed, then another, then the hassash pulled the rest of itself out. Raising itself high enough to peer at the bed, it gave a satisfied hum. It tiptoed to the foot of the bed and disappeared behind the clothes chest.
Kylo climbed into bed behind her and waved off the lights. It wasn’t meant for two people, certainly not when one of them was his size, so he had good reason to lie close. He didn’t bother making excuses to himself as he slid an arm under her head and one around her waist. Rey lay quietly but didn’t relax.
“You’re not half-dead from blood loss,” she said eventually.
“No,” he said, confused, then remembered last night’s Force-mediated conversation.
“The only thing terrorizing me is your horrible little monster.”
“Yes.”
She fell quiet again, her breathing a little too fast. Unease trickled through the bond. Kylo held in a sigh.
After a while, she said, “I could just sleep in the ‘fresher.”
He tried to decide if he was insulted or amused. “Rey?”
“What?”
“Go to sleep.”
Slowly, her discomfort faded and she softened against him. His body began to react. He breathed deep, but only drew in more of her scent.
Stop, he told himself. Meditate. Control yourself.
Eventually the thick, hard beat of his pulse slowed and the ache in his balls eased. He was beginning to doze off when her voice came, a comfortable sigh in the darkness.
“You’re warm. I get cold here.” She nestled more snugly against him.
Sleep was suddenly the furthest thing from his mind. Swallowing hard, he started his meditation once more.
I wish I knew who to credit for the artwork, but I couldn’t find the artist.
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