Reylo: These Violent Delights

Chapter 20: Resilience

Beep.

Rey wiggled her toes.

Beep.

Next, her fingers.

Beep.

She opened one eye, but shut it immediately. Too bright.

Beep.

She groaned. "Shut up."

There was a breathy noise of amusement. "I see you're feeling more like yourself."

Weak and loopy, she flopped her head in the direction she heard Kylo's voice. "What...what happened?"

"Cyanoxis D-570." She swallowed, bringing on a world of pain when she did. Over the moan that escaped her lips, she heard Kylo shuffle. "I have water for you," he murmured. "Open."

Dropping her bottom lip, Rey felt Kylo place a straw in her mouth. She greedily sucked down the cool liquid—her throat felt raw and cracked, as did her lips—until the entire glass was empty. As other soft voices spoke in the room, she worked on opening her eyes to look at him.

"Cyanoxis?" she tried to repeat, but her voice was barely there.

Kylo's lips pressed into a hard line. "Yes."

She blinked at him. "What the hell is that?"

"Poison. It's a crystalline powder that can cause debilitating or life-threatening consequences even in small doses."

Rey's head spun. "But how...when..."

"The tea, Kitten."

Her eyes widened. "Hux had his stewardess poison me?"

"No." He gave a curt shake of his head. "Ava acted alone, in retaliation for the fork incident."

Adrenaline knocked into her, and she tried to shimmy up in her bed. "But what, why? Wouldn't it make more sense for Hux to try and kill me, not her?" Rey asked, blood rushing to her face, her heart slamming in her chest. The machine she was hooked up to wailed with rapid beeps. "Don't you think he did it and is just lying to save his ass? What if he comes back here again? What if—"

Putting a hand on her thigh, Kylo raised his eyes to the vital signs monitor and then back to Rey. "In order to heal, you need to stay calm. I need you to breathe." Kylo pulled an exaggerated breath in through his nose and exhaled through his mouth. "Like that, okay?"

She took a few deep breaths with him until she couldn't hold his penetrative gaze any longer, her eyes dropping to his hand still situated on her leg. Even though her hospital gown, the blanket, and his robes separated their skin, the surge of electricity she felt made it very, very hard for her pulse to climb back down.

Once it finally did, a brief flash of relief shone on Kylo's face as he leaned away from her, continuing to speak in a calm, composed tone. "Hux is not a concern of mine and should not be a concern of yours. He had no idea Ava poisoned you. I would know. My knights and I took him to Sector 45B."

Sector 45B? Rey knew that meant the Supreme Leader had ripped the full account of what Hux could have known from the depths of his mind, and if he still wasn't concerned, then she wouldn't be, either. "Oh my stars," she whispered, slumping against the hospital bed. "What about Ava? Where is she?"

Kylo's eye twitched. "Her body was incinerated days ago."

"Wait, days ago?" Rey's jaw dropped when he nodded. "How long have I been out for?"

"This is your third day here."

"Wow," she muttered, the severity of what had happened sinking in. She looked down at her hands. "So, I survived, but Ava...she..."

"Ava gave you a lethal dose of cyanoxis," Kylo explained slowly. "She brought this upon herself."

She frowned. "I know, but why would you kill her, someone so loyal to Hux and the First Order, when I...I'm..."

"You are mine," he finished for her, matter-of-factly. "Therefore, Ava's actions were against me. An offense like that, against the Supreme Leader, is punishable by death."

Clearing her throat, Rey played with a loose thread on his cape, too weak to argue how she was very much not his. "How did you kill her?"

"The same thing you saw me do to Hux in the medbay after the fork attack," Kylo said casually as he filled up her water cup. "Only, I did not remove my boot."

She peeked up at him, and he extended the glass toward her. She shook her head no, and he nodded, setting it down, before pulling out his datapad that had begun ringing in his pocket. Holding a finger up at her, he stood up and began pacing, responding to the person on the other line with clipped, one-word responses.

Rey swallowed, wincing as her eyes followed his movement. He was in his usual attire—except for his robes she was currently fidgeting with—and looked completely even-tempered. A sickening feeling swam in her stomach. Ava turned out to be a psycho, and although she didn't care that the bitch was dead, there was something deeply unsettling about Kylo's casual indifference toward crushing a woman's windpipe under his boot. That, and his apparent disregard for obliterating an entire system. Again.

Finishing his call, Kylo slipped the datapad back into his pocket and strode over to Rey to stand at the edge of the bed. "You have a little more color," he muttered, reaching his hand out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. "Do you feel better?"

His fingers lingered by her jaw, and she jerked away from him, her eyes brimming with tears. "Please stop," she said, body rigid as she avoided his gaze. She was afraid that if she looked at him, she'd break into a million pieces. "I don't want to do this right now. I can't."

He hesitated. "Do what?"

"Any of this. I can't do any of this anymore," she whispered as the tears poured down her face. "I thought...I thought I was strong enough to go along with this sick game of yours, but I'm not."

After a moment of crushing silence, Kylo took a seat next to the bed again. "What sick game?"

Rey threw him an incredulous look. "Are you being serious right now, Kylo?"

"Yes."

Scoffing, she shook her head. "You're unbelievable."

"And you're ungrateful," he said, an edge to his tone. "Everything you have asked for, you have received. You, a prisoner of war, get hot meals daily, a private refresher, your own quarters, and—"

"You mean my basic human needs are being met?" she retorted. Beep, beep, beep, beep. "Wow. How generous of you. Thank you so very much."

"You're quite welcome," he said through a tight jaw. He stood up and glared down at her. "When you're done feeling sorry for yourself, we will have a conversation about what's to come."

"I don't want to have a conversation with you. I want to get the fuck out of here!" Beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbee— "I told you, I'm done playing your games!"

"What game?" he fumed, towering over her. "What are you even talking about?"

"This game where I have to pretend to be your good little pet!" Rey yelled over the panicking monitor. "I've been playing along for only ten days, and I can't stand it another minute. I'm out. I won't do it, Kylo, I can't. I can't sit here and act like this is normal when you just killed the only people I called family!"

After holding her unflinching gaze with heavy swells of his chest, Kylo leaned in, his voice low and urgent. "Listen to me. I didn't destroy your family," he said, eyes flitting to the monitor. "You need to calm down, or—"

"Don't tell me to calm down, and don't you dare lie to me," she shot back. "I saw it. It wasn't just my home base where all my friends lived...you blew up my entire system!"

"Rey, wait," Kylo said, putting his hands up to gesture slow down. "Neither your friends, nor any members of the Resistance were on D'Qar or the other two planets. They evacuated the same night you were taken."

A nurse ran into the room, frantically looking between Rey and the monitor. "Sir, she's destabilizing. If her heart rate does not come down, we will need to sedate her."

Kylo continued to look at Rey. "Can you calm down, or do you need help?"

"I don't want you to touch me," she said nastily, clutching her arms across her torso as though it would stop her heart from jumping out of her chest. "And I don't want to be sedated."

"That's not what I'm asking," he said with a strained tone. He held up his hands and framed his next question with exaggerated enunciation. "Do. You. Need. Help?"

More nurses ran in but came skidding to a stop when they saw the death glare passing between them. "Sir..." one of them started, and Rey could hear the distress in her voice.

The nurse continued to speak, but Rey couldn't understand her over the throb of her pulse and the whine of the machine. She tried to take a deep breath, but she was too shaky, too worked up. She didn't want his help, but she didn't want to be drugged either, and the nurse approaching the bed finally pulled a reluctant nod out of her.

"Good." Kylo let out a breath and sat down. Then came the three little words that cloaked her in stillness. "You are calm."

Beepbeepbeepbeep, beep, beep, beep, beep...beep...beep...beep...

She melted into the bed. The nurses hovered as this haze of pleasantness swirled around her, checking Rey's vitals and doing whatever the hell nurses do. She felt Kylo's eyes on her, but she wasn't ready to face him. Not yet. And as the minutes passed, Kylo remained by her bedside as the nurses murmured to each other and bustled about the room. She kept her face tilted away from him. It wasn't until they were alone that she could manage a whisper. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't have the chance to."

Rey dragged her empty gaze to his face. "Where are they now?"

"That's classified."

She peered at him. His expression was impassive but not cold—just blank. As though he was hiding something from her. "No, it's not classified," she said slowly, cocking her head to the side. "You don't know where they are, do you?"

"We have eyes on the Resistance at all times."

"That's not what I'm asking," she said, and Kylo turned his head to the side, rubbing his chin. She scoffed when he didn't respond. "I'm right, aren't I? You don't know where they are, or else you would have used Starkiller to target that system, not a desolate one."

Kylo looked at Rey again, and a hardness settled into his features. "I will not discuss warfare with the enemy."

She snorted. "I think what you meant to say was—you will not tell me where to find my team when I finally get the fuck out of here."

"Who said you're getting out of here?" he said lightly, leaning back and crossing his arms. As he tipped his knees open to deepen his posture in the chair, he kept his unrelenting gaze on her. "I keep what's mine close to me at all times."

"I am not yours," Rey seethed, but she could feel the Force-compulsion working overtime to extinguish her anger. "Don't mistake my playing nice as submission, Supreme Leader."

"Oh, Kitten..." he crooned, saying her nickname as though they were sharing an intimate moment, "I wouldn't dare."

Albeit gently, something erupted inside of her. "Nurse!" she called out, keeping her eyes on Kylo. The way his lip twitched up only fueled her suppressed anger. "NURSE!"

Hurried footsteps drew Rey's attention to the door. "Miss?" the nurse said, out of breath. "Do you need something?"

"Yes," she said rigidly, "I would like to take my meal now. Please and thank you."

"Yes, ma'am. Do you have a preference? We have porg soup or—"

"No soup, thanks." A tight smile touched her lips. "I prefer something solid, you know, something that needs to be eaten with a knife and fork."

She dutifully nodded and walked away, blissfully unaware that Rey had just summoned her to serve a weapon on a platter, quite literally.

Beside her, Kylo sighed. "Poor girl has no idea you just granted her a death wish."

Rey whipped her head at him. "Do not touch her."

"I must," he said gravely. "Thanks to you, she's about to be an accessory to an assassination attempt on the Supreme Leader's life. It's a law that she's punished accordingly, and I must always uphold the law."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "You're lying."

"I'm not. Article V, Section 2 of the Galactic Constitution: consequences befall not only those that wield the fork but those that supply the fork." He shrugged. "My hands are tied. Sorry."

The silence dragged on as they engaged in a stare-off. She knew he was messing with her, but she didn't trust him to not kill the nurse just for fun. She was fuming internally while Kylo looked openly amused. She hated him for it, and she was forced to stop the nurse before she entered with her food—and weapons.

Rey gave her an apologetic smile. "Thank you, but I've lost my appetite."

Nervous eyes flitted to the Supreme Leader, then back to her. "Are you positive, Miss?"

"Mhm," she hummed stiffly. "Sorry for the trouble."

She bowed her head and walked away. Letting out a dejected sigh, Rey plopped back against the bed, and Kylo chuckled. She shot him the most menacing look she could manage. "Don't you have somewhere to be? Leave me alone."

Kylo was quiet for a moment as his eyes trailed down her body. "So much pent-up aggression in you," he muttered. "If only you'd let me fix that."

"Fuck off. I don't want to be fixed."

Kylo uncrossed his arms to gesture with his hands. "Finally, something we can both agree on."

With one last glare, Rey looked forward, sulking in silence. She thought maybe if she ignored him long enough, he would leave, but the fucker didn't move from her side. He seemed perfectly content tending to his Supreme Leader duties beside her hospital bed. Meanwhile, she had nothing to do but measure the time by how often his datapad rang and the number of officers who came to speak with him. She couldn't relax with him here; all she could do was feel anger stirring in her lower belly, waiting to be released. Once it finally bubbled up her stomach, constricting her throat, she couldn't take the silence anymore.

"Why blow up the Ileenium system if they weren't even there?" Rey asked, abruptly looking at him. "What's the point?"

Kylo glanced up from his holoscreen. "Destroy their equipment, their fleet, and their morale—or what was left of it. I know you will have difficulty accepting this, but it is not my goal to kill everyone you ever loved."

"I don't think it's your goal to kill everyone I have ever loved. I think it's your goal to kill everyone, period."

"And how did you come to that conclusion?"

"Because I've been watching your moves even before you took me. A few years ago, you blew up the Hosnian system just like that," she said, snapping her fingers. "Three billion life forms gone in the blink of an eye."

"Supreme Leader Snoke gave that order," he said, giving a severe shake of his head. "I did not."

"But you didn't stop him."

Irritation blazed in his eyes. "Tell me, how does one stop the Supreme Leader of the galaxy, hm?" When Rey looked away, he followed her gaze with his face, keeping her in his line of sight. "That's right. You don't."

She folded her arms across her chest. "It doesn't matter. It's all the same. You're still doing the same horrible things he did, like blowing up entire systems for fun."

Kylo cocked a brow. "For fun? Or to target those that are actively trying to kill me?"

"We wouldn't be trying to kill you if the Order wasn't so wicked," Rey said through tight lips. "That is the only reason why the Resistance even exists—to fight evil, to fight you."

Kylo considered her for a moment. "Are you sure about that?"

"Yes."

"How confident you are," he murmured, his intense gaze boring into her, "regurgitating something you know nothing about."

"I am repeating what I have been told," she spat, cheeks burning. "General Organa has no reason to lie to me."

"My mother has many reasons to lie to you, Rey," he said, a hardness settling into his face as he leaned back again, crossing his arms over his chest. "She has lied to you since the day she took you in."

"No," she said, stubbornly shaking her head. She refused to believe him. "She wouldn't do that."

"Oh? Just like she wouldn't kill for her cause?" Rey's silence and sudden avoidance of eye contact didn't stop Kylo from continuing. "The Resistance might not have the resources to eliminate a planetary system, but they did just take out a dreadnought last week, fully staffed with over seventy-five thousand souls. To answer your question, that's why we targeted the Ileenium system. Retaliation."

Rey's eyes widened as she finally looked at him. "We took out a dreadnought?"

"We did not. The Resistance did."

"Wow," she breathed, brows raising. "Impressive."

He was silent as he regarded her, then his mouth curled into a cruel smirk. "How hypocritical of you, condemning me for being a killer while you celebrate the destruction of seventy-five thousand lives."

"I am not celebrating their deaths," Rey said, lifting her chin. "But if we hadn't done it, they would have killed us."

"Really?" he asked, leaning forward and placing his forearms on his thighs. "Custodians...instructors...doctors...sure, they swore fealty to the First Order, to me, but they're the ones that would've personally killed you and your team?"

She shifted in the bed. "Well, no, but—"

"You're right. They wouldn't have. Eighty percent of the First Order personnel Organa murdered were average people, not the so-called real enemy," he said, Rey's skin crawling under his burning gaze. "How can you justify what she did?"

"I'm not trying to justify it," she said, with less conviction than she planned. "But you can't sit here and convince me that the Resistance is evil and the First Order isn't, Kylo."

"I'm not trying to weigh who is more evil than the other. I do not deny that the First Order or our predecessor have done evil things. I am not even trying to deny that I have done contemptible things. I am simply trying to knock the Resistance off the pedestal you have wrongly put them on."

As the last of his words rang in her ears, Rey took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She suddenly felt tired, so tired of arguing, of fighting. She just wanted to sit here in peace.

Kylo tsked. "Tuning me out does not change reality, Kitten."

"No, but at least I don't have to look at you if my eyes are closed," she muttered.

A beat of silence, then she heard him tear away from the bed. "Fine. Live in denial," he said, and her eyes peeled open at the harshness in his voice. "About this and about General Organa. Do whatever you want. I don't care."

Rey bit her lip as she watched him walk away from her. She did want to rest, to forget all of this, but she felt her curiosity creep up her throat and crawl out of her mouth before she could stop herself. "Wait, what did Organa lie about?" she blurted, suddenly wishing she hadn't asked, but it was too late. He was already turning to look at her. She swallowed. "Please. I...I need to know."

Dark eyes searched her face from across the room before he shook his head. "No," he said, moving toward the door again. "You are too upset with me. You won't believe what I have to say."

Rey hurried to sit up in bed. "Wait, don't go!" she called out, hating how pathetic she sounded. "Please, I'll believe you!"

Kylo stopped, his massive frame draped in black, taking up the entire span of the doorway before turning to look at her. It felt like an eternity before he entered the room again. "The morning after Sector 45B—I warned you that what I found would distress you," he said, voice low as he kept his eyes pinned to her face. He stopped at the foot of the bed. "Are you positive you want to know?"

She didn't let herself consider his question, afraid she would change her mind. "Yes." She vigorously nodded her head. "Yes."

He gave her a minuscule nod as he walked around the bed. Just as he got to the chair beside her, he said five little words that made Rey's stomach drop. "My mother set you up."

She didn't understand. "What do you mean?"

"She set us both up, actually." Eyeing her as he sat down, he dropped his gloved hands in his lap, his boots landing with heavy thuds as he stretched out his legs in front of him. "That night at Groman's Cantina. She sent us both there at the same time on purpose."

Rey swallowed, hanging on to his every word. "What? Why?"

Kylo's eye twitched. "Why she does anything—to change me, to bring me back."

"She wants me to bring you, the Supreme Leader, back to the Resistance?" She repeated, brows scrunched in confusion. "Did you ever affiliate yourself with their cause?"

"You misunderstood, Rey," he said, softly shaking his head. "She doesn't want me to join the Resistance. She wants you to bring me back to the light side of the Force."

She gawked at him before letting out a high-pitched, sputtering chuckle. "Why would I be the one to bring you to the light side?" she asked, her voice sounding nervous and weird, even to her ears. "I'm just a criminal, a scavenger. A killer.Surely she could have found someone more qualified for that job, no?"

Kylo hesitated, and in his silence, Rey's heart rate picked up and her palms felt sweaty. The way he was looking at her...it felt as though he were looking inside of her. As though he could see something that she could not. It was unnerving.

"Kylo?" she said, unable to stop the wavering of her voice. "Why are you looking at me like that? Is there...is there something I don't know?"

Then, an abrupt shake of his head. "No," he said quickly—too quickly. "Her reasons for sending you, in particular, do not matter. What matters is she used you. She arranged for a Force-beacon to be placed inside of you. Something she knew would drive me mad so she could find me."

Rey jolted back. "She had a what placed inside of me? Where?"

"Inside of your psyche. Here," he said, leaning forward and gently prodding a finger against her temple. He dropped his hand when she veered away from him, lowering his gaze before making eye contact again. "That's why I took you to Sector 45B. To find the beacon."

It took Rey a second to understand what the fuck he was talking about. But then the confusion melted away as the pieces clicked in her mind, leaving nothing behind but incredulity. "Wait a minute, let me get this straight. Your mother, my General, sent me to Mos Eisley to kill Wor, knowing that you would be looking for him, and would therefore find me and feel some Force thing—"

"Force-beacon."

"—that would make you want to take me prisoner, because it would be driving you crazy, with the intent that you'd eventually realize the thing was inside my head?"

"Yes."

"And from there, once you dug it out, it would lead you to her?"

"Correct."

Rage. Rey's whole body vibrated with rage as she stiffened, speaking with a clenched voice. "So, she knew that you would have to torture me to find this Force-beacon?"

"She couldn't have known I would resort to torture," he clarified, the corner of his mouth pulling down. "But she had no reason to suspect that I wouldn't resort to torture."

Her heart pounded in her ears, her face felt hot. Her voice was strained with emotion. "In other words, she didn't give a shit how you found this thing. As long as you found it, right?" When he nodded, she let out a bitter scoff. "How did she put it inside me? When? I don't have any recollection of her messing with my head."

"Luke Skywalker," he said, his voice deep and laced with contempt. "He did this to you while you were asleep. Or, if you were awake, he erased your memory so I wouldn't find the instance upon capture."

Rey just stared at him for a moment, a terrible pit opening up in her stomach. "A Jedi erased my memory?"

"Potentially."

"The same Jedi that completely ignored me the last time I saw him? That didn't even say a word to me and acted like I was kriffing invisible?"

"Yes."

She couldn't believe it. "Luke Skywalker...was inside my head? And I had no idea?"

"Yes." He gave her a grim look, digging the venomous dagger of truth even deeper into her belly. "That's why Organa has asked you to go to him twice now. She had been planning on using you from day one, but to anchor a beacon inside a human mind takes dark power—a difficult query for a Jedi to swallow. We suspect that's why Luke fled Ahch-To when you arrived. But eventually, he changed his mind, and that's why you're here. He..."

Kylo's words blurred together as Rey turned her head away from him. She didn't want him to see her like this, on the edge of falling apart. She knew the Resistance wasn't perfect, but she thought they were at least good. That Organa wasn't exploiting her. That she needed Rey and wanted to help her. That she thought she was a strong candidate to go to Skywalker. That she was important. That she was family. But she knew now her General didn't see her in that light. She had only used Rey to get to her real family.

Rey clamped her eyes shut, her head hanging low as she twisted her palm against her forehead. Stupid, so stupid, she thought, as Kylo explained the technicalities of the beacon. His words went right through her. Until they struck a nerve.

"...her Force signature inside of you. It's how she found me. Your minds were linked until I destroyed the beacon in Sector 45B."

It took her a moment to wrap her head around what this meant, blinking at him with empty eyes. "Our minds were linked," she repeated, voice as flat as her expression. He nodded, and her mouth went dry. "So, she could see my every thought, my every feeling?"

"Your thoughts, no. Your general feelings, yes." Kylo paused, slinking down in the chair, watching her face closely. "Your pain and suffering? Absolutely."

Rey's voice quieted. "She...knew I was in pain?"

"Yes."

Thump, thump, thump. Her heart beat wildly in her chest, just a painful thrum as she tried to suppress the emotion rushing up her throat. "She knew?" Another nod. The tears came flooding in with a vengeance. "She knew that I was sleep deprived and tortured and brought to that fucking kitchen where her son tore my mind apart to find what she put inside of me?"

Kylo dropped his gaze, swallowing, before responding. "Yes."

A terrible, humorless laugh boiled up from Rey's gut and spewed through her lips. "Wow, just wow," she breathed, hot tears staining her cheeks. "Did she get what she wanted from me, at least? Did you?"

Impassive eyes locked on her face again. "Yes."

"Well, that's great, just kriffing great!" she blurted, angrily slapping her tears away. "I am so happy I could unknowingly be the center of your little family reunion. How very sweet!"

His fingers flexed in and out of fist as he watched her unravel at the seams, speaking with a soft, subdued voice. "You have every right to be angry."

"Angry? You think I'm angry?" she asked, brows raised and lips turned up into a vacant smile. She let out a cold, hard laugh. "Oh, Kylo, I'm not angry. I'm...I'm..." she trailed off, the words dying in her tightening throat. She turned away from him. This...this cut too deep. There would be no hiding behind her sardonic attitude or mask of spiteful indifference. No. She felt broken, defeated. And with a fractured whisper, she looked at him with tearful eyes and finally admitted that. "I'm devastated."

Kylo was quiet as he studied her. He was watching her intently, and this time, Rey watched him right back. Defiant in her vulnerability, almost, as she didn't hide her quivering bottom lip and the clumping of her lashes sticking together from tears as she sniffled and trembled from the fatigue of her sorrow. When he broke the silence, there was a gentleness to Kylo she had never seen before.

"It's not your fault for trusting her, Rey. You couldn't have known."

"No, but I should have." She thrust her head side to side in disjointed movements, fresh tears rolling down her cheeks. "I should have known I was just an asset to Organa, to Unkar...Tasu...even my parents. I meant nothing to them. I am nothing."

Kylo gave a quick shake of his head. "No, you're not."

"Yes, I am. You said so yourself. That first interrogation you put me through? I hated you for it, but you were right. About only being an asset. About being an abandoned pet, a cold-blooded killer. A nobody."

"You're not nobody," he insisted, his lips pressing together unsteadily as he leaned in from his seat. "Not to me."

Rey could only hold his penetrative gaze for an instant before dropping it to his chest. That shift between them, she felt it again. That riptide of emotions. Her connection to him, that fucking pull. She hated herself for it, but she wanted to go to him, to climb onto his lap and have him wrap his arms around her like a goddamn baby. It was embarrassing and unsettling to want to seek comfort from a man she should hate, but somehow couldn't. When her face folded in heartache, he tried to get her attention.

"Rey, look at me." All she did was cry harder, and he shifted forward, enclosing her hand in his palm. "Please, look at me."

She obeyed with great effort, as though her eyelids weighed a thousand tons. Her conflict only intensified upon linking gazes. The tightly controlled emotion in his face, his unwavering confidence. The way he felt like her anchor again, keeping her safe and securely planted on the ground...it stirred a longing inside of Rey, exacerbating the connection she felt with him. It terrified her.

"Don't be afraid," he muttered, bringing a hand to her face. He cupped it gently, then wiped a tear away with his thumb. "I feel it, too."

His words should have comforted her, should have made her feel less alone. But how could she be comforted when those words came from the mouth of a monster? Of a man that had hurt her, that continued to hurt her by holding her captive? Worst of all, why did she want to hear them from him?

Something inside of Rey shattered. Her shoulders fell, spine bowing into a curve as though the air was being let out of her. She planted her face into her palms as she cried and cried and cried. She thought she had been handling the pressure of being his prisoner, of getting the upper hand, but she wasn't. She was just a human. A fucked up human who couldn't figure out why she craved the touch and comfort of her enemy. But when he pushed off the chair, landing gently on the bed next to her, she didn't question it. She reached for him.

He kept his feet on the ground, twisting his torso toward her and opening his arms. She thrust his robes to the side and crawled to him, sobbing and shaking as he pulled her on his lap. She straddled him with her knees digging into the bed on either side of him, her arms around his neck as she buried her face into his shoulder. Her anchor.

Large, warm hands stroked her back. "Shhhhh."

His hush was so soft and so low, Rey wanted to hear it over and over again, to crawl inside of it and let the resonance of his deep voice gently rock her to sleep. She snuggled her face closer into his tunic. Even with the footsteps and soft chatter of nurses and droids coming in and out, he held her like this for what felt like hours. Until all her tears were spent and her body slumped against him, exhausted, drained, and too heavy to move.

Even as her breathing returned to normal, besides the occasional hiccup, Kylo didn't try to detach himself from her. He kept his arms wrapped around her, one hand rubbing her back and the other stroking her hair. Finally, he spoke softly, his voice faint. "Do you want me to take the pain away?"

It felt like forever before she found her voice. "You can do that?"

"Yes."

Rey stayed quiet, considering his offer. Her first instinct was no, but as her captor cradled her in the medbay of the First Order headquarters, she realized that she had finally hit rock bottom and needed all the help she could get. She nodded against him.

Kylo was silent as he detangled himself from her. He planted his hands on her waist, lifting her off his lap and pivoting to the side to situate her on the bed. As he stood up to adjust the pillows behind her, she slipped her legs back under the blankets and sunk down, pulling them under her chin. She didn't meet his eyes as he hovered above her.

"When you wake up, all of this will be a distant memory," he said, voice barely audible as he pushed her hair away from her face. She closed her eyes when his fingers lingered by her temple. "There will be no more pain, no more tears...just resilience."

Rey didn't repeat his words, but she heard them inside her mind, resounding through her until all she felt was warmth. A deep, comfortable warmth building in her bones and expanding through every fiber of her being. She took a deep breath, and on her exhale, she felt herself release all tension. Her jaw relaxed, her shoulders slumped heavily into the bed as she drifted away into a tender haze of peace and safety, the sound of his deep, sensual voice swirling around her...

"Goodnight, babygirl."