Hunted

XVIII. The Disaster

Serela was still in bed, the pregnancy leaving her more sick and exhausted today than usual, when she heard Kylo burst through the front door and rolled over.

"Serela!" he called, and her mother turned around from the stove in fright, dropping the dish she had been cooking with a smash onto the floor, scattering in pieces.

"Kylo, what is the meaning of this?" she cried, as he barreled through to open Serela's bedroom door.

She gave him a weak smile as he approached, noting his disheveled appearance and the anxious look in his eyes, "We need to leave," he told her matter-of-factly, ignoring Reha's sharp intake of breath.

His words were met with a yawn, "5 more minutes," she told him, rolling back over.

Kylo sat down on the bed and grabbed her roughly, "Serela!" he cried, almost shaking her, "You have to get up right now."

"Whyyyy..." she mumbled, still half asleep from the medicine her mother had given her to quell the nausea, after swearing to her daughter for 10 minutes on everything she held most dear that it was not something which could harm the baby.

He stifled a groan, he had flown out as early as he could manage, his forced promise to Snoke still ringing in his ears and an uneasy feeling inside him saying that it would not be so easy as retrieving her and bringing her to the ship.

Anxious to get her up and moving in the direction of his TIE fighter, which he had actually parked directly on the grass in front of the cottage this time, he bent over and slung her arm over his shoulder, lifting her bridal style and carrying her out of bed into the living room.

Reha was waiting.

"I DEMAND YOU PUT MY DAUGHTER DOWN AT ONCE!"

Kylo narrowly avoided allowing his temper to get the best of him and sending her flying into the brick wall by the hearth. This was the last thing he felt like doing right now with her.

"Listen," he told her, "I know you don't like me, trust me or appreciate my presence in your daughter's life, but believe me when I tell you that if I don't get her off my planet and onto my ship by tonight you and everyone you know in your village will likely die. Regardless of what you think or feel about me, WE NEED TO GO NOW."

Reha's face drained of colour and she slumped down to the bench at her kitchen table. This was what she had known would happen, not this moment specifically, but something like it. Her daughter's connection to this man had finally put her life and the lives of all those around her in peril.

Serela stirred in his arms when he had finished speaking. "Go? Go where? I'm not leaving Takodana," she said dismissively, nuzzling her face into the crook of his arm, the groggy effects of the medicine refusing to wear off yet.

He gave Reha a pointed look as if to say, Wait and see if you don't believe me, and as much as she didn't want to believe him in that moment, she did.

"When will they be here?" she asked, helping Kylo to open the front door leading outside.

"It could be tonight, or in an hour, or even a few minutes," his feet plodded towards the black TIE fighter marring the face of their yard, the clothesline cut in half and buried underneath one of the wings of the ship.

Reha nodded, hating this but knowing she absolutely did not want her daughter here when the First Order came.

Kylo tried to shake her awake gently and then set her on her feet, "Are you alright love? Can you walk?" he asked.

Wobbly still on her feet, Serela nodded and tried to bring her hands up to his face, "Kylo, I can't leave. My place is here, you know this."

His temper had finally reached its zenith.