Chapter Text
Alone in a long hallway, Rey stood before Kylo Ren. This wasn’t how she envisioned her morning starting, but fate appeared to be set on dealing her a blow. Silently she prayed, if she were to shut her eyes tightly enough maybe it would be possible to wake from this strange dream. Seeing how it couldn’t hurt to try, Rey did exactly that.
“Are you, alright?” asked a low voice, one that haunted her dreams almost nightly.
Trying her hardest to will him away, he would not seem to go. Rey could feel him still there, the force curling and wrapping around him, much like it did with herself. Where as the light clung to Rey, darkness was his cloak of power. Much to her own grief, she opened her eyes and Kylo Ren was still standing there, glaring. This was not a dream but a nightmare.
Wearing an awkward fitting blond wig, glasses, a workers uniform, and the awful orange safety vest all workers had to wear, Kylo Ren was by far the strangest thing she’d ever seen. To miss the black robes he had been clad in before was disturbing, they had felt to her better suited than this current wardrobe change. It was better he looked the part of a villain than this picture of normalcy before her.
Waves of power gather and moved, Kylo calling the Force to him in increasing amounts. One tendril Rey could clearly sense, as if a light had been turned upon it. It was different than the rest, it stretched out from her to him. Across it, strong emotions began to the flow and if not for the strangeness of it, Rey would have been completely gripped by fear. Touching her wrist, Rey’s fingers traced over a white bracelet. The feeling of it reminding her that she was safe, so long as it remained upon her. Kylo wouldn’t be able to sense her.
“I said, are you alright?”
His words were all that it took to snap Rey into action. With a smile forced upon her face, she stood tall and lifted her chin. “I’m fine! Sorry, I don’t think breakfast is agreeing with me.”
The waves stopped then dissipated. It made her head spin at how quickly he was able to gather so much power, then let it just fall away. “Oh,” huffed Kylo. His head turned then he looked down each hallway before coming back to stare at her.
Rey did the same, worried by the lack of foot traffic. He took a step towards her, hand held out in front of his body, open and waiting. “I’m Matt, a radar technician.”
‘Like hell you are,” she thought, a cold shiver ran down her spine. Cautiously Rey started to put her hand out but refused to be the one to take his. “Hi Matt, I’m Osira! Osira Stoma. N-Nice to meet you.”
He looked at her hand then took it, shaking it once before pulling away quickly. It was hard to tell if he’d ever done such a thing before or simply disliked being touched. Even after watching Kylo rub his own hand where they had touch, Rey still couldn’t be sure.
An uneasy silence hung in the air, Rey’s heart began to beat faster. A hot flush took over her cheeks as knots tied themselves around one another with in her stomach. It was too much for her to bare.
“I have to go!” Rey shouted. “To, you know.”
Kylo looked off put by her volume, face wincing as his eyes narrowed thinly at her. His glasses did nothing to diminish the strength of his glare. “I know what?”
“That I have to go.”
He looked confused, “Go, where?”
“To the bathroom!” she snapped, clenching her hands into tight fists.
Shock ran through Kylo visibly, he lost all his dark grimacing and looked suddenly out of his depth. “Oh, right! Yeah. You should, uh, go do that.
“I will.”
“Ok.”
“I’m going now.”
“I’ll just, wait here then. Until you get back.”
Turning on a heel, Rey was all speed. Walking to and into the nearest bathroom, she entered and found a stall to lock herself in. Sitting down on the cold seat, Rey began to rock back and forth, holding her own head and fighting to breathe.
“This isn’t happening, this isn’t happening.”
The feeling of Kylo Ren was still there, his emotions faint, but with in her ability to sense. There was fear, worry, and a twisting sense of being nervous that mirrored her own a little too closely. A laugh arose in her throat but it tasted more like bile. Shutting her eyes, Rey focused as hard as she could on closing what ever led to him, but the force wouldn’t respond to her.
Fingers touched the bracelet one more, a thought passed through her mind about just taking it off. “I can’t, he’ll know for sure then. I think he doesn’t know its me, I hope he doesn’t know.”
The tendril hung heavy in her mind, familiar but too complex of an idea for her to process at the moment. Time was running out. Leaving the stall Rey moved to a nearby sink. Water for her hot face would be good but the woman in the mirror looking back at her could only reminder Rey of her mission. There was an image looking back whom she barely recognized, not that she knew her own face overly well. Mirrors had not been something common on Jakku. Even the time Rey had spent on rebel bases, it hadn’t been long enough to deeply memorize it. Her faith had been put into the team that worked on her looks, that their reassurance was all she needed to know she was beyond recognition. The looks Finn and Poe had given her had been a huge bonus, their double takes still comical in her mind.
Gone was Rey’s brown hair, replaced with a darker color and a much shorter length that hung about her shoulders. The bangs they had insisted on took some time to get use to, from time to time it would still itch at her brow. Colored contacts had been given to wear despite the glasses already chosen for her. Rey’s brown eyes had been turned blue by them but looked grey actually from behind the thick frames. At night Rey would take them off and just rub the bridge of her nose from the pressure of wearing them all day. The worst change was temporary but had been uncomfortable. Facial injections had rounded out her face, in some angles Rey even thought she looked a touch fat. That was an image she never thought she would ever get to see.
Turning on the water she wetted a towel and stared at it as it became damp. Her hands were quick to shut off the tap, unable to waste water even now, old habits still clinging on strong. The towel cooled her face as her hands pressed it to her skin, a touch of hope was felt that she might be able to handle this drastic turn of events. That it might be ok.
“Osira?” called a voice she knew, an older woman came into the bathroom. “Are you in here?”
“I’m at the sink Del-Mara,” Rey called out.
Del-Mara was Rey’s, or rather Osira’s supervisor. She approached with a smile on her face but Rey wasn’t fooled. Her grey hair was up in a tight bun and only few wrinkles gave away Del-Mara was much older than she acted. In only the week Rey had come to know her, she was sure they could have been good friends had she not been apart of the First Order.
“I heard someone got a tummy ache.”
Shaking her head, Rey chuckled. “Its that new protein, it went right through me.”
“Sorry to hear that but I need you,” said Del-Mara, looking Rey over once.
Reaching for another towel, she began to dry her face. “Del-Mara, I’m really not…”
“I need you,” pressed the older woman. “So get over this quickly and get back to work. You know you’re quickly becoming one of the few people around here I can count on. Its why I’m giving you the new guy.”
Groaning, Rey turned around and crossed her arms. “Why?”
“You want to ask me why?”
“Yes and I would like an answer.”
Del-Mara opened her mouth then shut it, looking put off. “Normally I punish back talk but you, I’ll let this pass, just this time. The why will come but first you need to come out and be introduced. I see you two exchanged names but I need to make things clear how this is going to be, between the two of you.”
“What does that suppose to mean?” asked Rey, feeling a whole new wave of fresh fear.
With a wave of her hand, Del-Mara turned and left her alone. Fighting to breathe again, Rey fought to calm herself before she could walk back out the door.
Out in the hall stood the two, Del-Mara looking like she had much better things to do and Kylo Ren who seemed like he rather go sit on something sharp. “So, you two have met, what you don’t know here Osria is that Matt is a big fat liar,” started Del-Mara.
Rey’s head snapped up, looking to her supervisor then to Kylo who wasted no time in looking like he was seeing red. The force suddenly came to life, building and falling towards the Knight of Ren while sheer horror filled Rey. The tendril glowed white hot and she could feel wave after wave of rage.
“I’m what?” he snapped, his mouth practically snarling.
Above the lights flickered and Del-Mara glanced up at them then sighed. “If those boys are messing around again, heads will roll,” she muttered then turned her attention to the fuming Kylo.
His anger didn’t seem to affect her, “You lied on your transfer form, or who ever approved it did. It was practically glowing and no one gets one of those, so I looked into it, but honestly, I don’t care. What I do care about is the basic test given to all new transfers, the one that you failed. I doubt you have ever touched a radar or have the first idea of how to fix one.”
Placing a hand on her hip, Del-Mara met his glare with one of her own, almost equal in force. “Lucky for you Matt, I need workers, badly. Osira is the best one I have,” she said pointing at Rey. “Even if she is new as well, you’ll learn from her and become useful or so help me, I will kick you off this base so fast your head will spin. Have I made myself clear?”
The room felt like it might catch on fire at any moment. Rey looked between the two and took a slow step back. Kylo’s eyes were quick to catch her movement and she froze under the pressure of his stare. Somewhere down the hall, something explodes.
“Crystal,” Kylo snarls.
A bone tired groan comes from Del-Mara who then looks to Rey. “You can handle him, right? Right. Send me a report later, you know what I want to hear on it. I left you a light work day to break him in. I have to go knock some head’s around. I swear, this place is going to cave into its self before its done.”
Before she can utter a word, Del-Mara stormed away, muttering about what she’s going to do to someone. Who ever that is, Rey does feel bad for them because that explosion had been clearly Kylo’s handy work. Idly she wondered if this was common on First Order bases. Remembering Kylo was like ice water hitting her veins, the feeling only becoming worse when Rey recalled he was her responsibility now too. Carefully she looked, hoping his saber was nowhere near and not the least bit surprised to find him still fuming.
“You’re a new transfer too?” she asked softly.
His head snapped back in her direction, the force is still with him and as dark as the nights can be on Jakku. He felt very much like a black hole of anger but not even he could keep it up with her waiting for an answer. The heavy waves go still and he takes a slow calculated breathe before speaking. The force once more just falls away.
“I am. From Starkiller, the previous one. Before it blew up, obviously.”
“Obviously,” Rey repeats but is quick to think of a new question. One she knows the answer to but still wants to hear his answer. “Is that how,” Rey begins, her hand motioning to his face.
The scar runs from one end to the other of Kylo’s face, Rey’s handy work stares back at her. His glare forms quickly and is dark, she see’s now it just like how he gathers the force around him. It cuts through her to the core, from Kylo she can feel a strange mix of emotions trickle outward. They vibrate fiercely, anger, pride, and the strange bit of longing.
“Yes, I was injured on the job,” Kylo grinds out as if it pains him to speak. “What about you? How long have you been here?”
“A week, before that, just working from ship to ship.”
He looks to be listening but the more Rey stares back at him, the less he seems to want to blink. In the end, it only makes Rey grow angry. The whole idea of her makes the sharp feeling of rage bloom and grow. She didn’t want to be around him, she didn’t want to be in charge of him, and she most certainly didn’t want to make small talk. The mission was all that mattered to her and not even Kylo Ren, what ever he was doing, didn’t matter.
Looking at the scar on Kylo’s face, still red and sore, was sickly satisfying to Rey. She had beaten him, had done that to him, pride swelled in her chest. “So you failed the basic test? What do you know Matt? That test was pretty simple.”
Something starts to rattle, maybe a loose screw or wire, but Kylo’s rage is back. “I didn’t fail anything! I know plenty of things!”
“If you say so,” Rey said rolling her eyes. “Let’s go get our work orders and get started. Then you can show me just how much you know.”
“Fine,” he growled, his knuckles bone white. “You’ll see.”
Quickly he moved, Kylo storming off down the hall as Rey just watched. He made it only a few meters away before coming to a quick halt. There were two other halls leading off in oppsite directions and he stared down one than the other. She watched him look back and forth a few times then turn to face her. With deep pleasure she was careful not to show on her face, Rey slowly lifted her hand and pointed with her thumb to over her own shoulder. “Its this way to the dispatch desk if that is where you were heading.”
“I knew that!” echoed off the walls far too loudly. Kylo purposefully started to walk in the right direction and Rey could only watch with a mix of horror and some sick amusement as the deepest pout she’d ever seen on a face, stormed back past her.
“Its alright to be lost, it is your first day after all,” she called out.
The force twisted around him again but Rey could feel it wasn’t ready to strike out. “I’m not lost, just turned around!”
If Rey had to agree on just one thing, today would be either the longest or strangest day she’d ever get to experience. A little voice in her mind said it might just be both.