•LEGACY - A Reylo Story•

EPISODE V - COMPASSION

"Sir, are you sure diverting from the planned course is a good idea?" asks the stormtrooper.

Why can't Supreme Leader see the benefits of clones? Kylo asks himself for the umpteenth time. "She needs medicine."

It's been three days, and Rey's still drifting in and out of fever-induced dreams, unable to eat any of the food that they have on board, at times calling out what sounds like a memory Kylo knows he caused: "Don't leave me! Come back!"

Snoke would be furious if she dies, Kylo tells himself. Beyond that, he also knows that he doesn't want her to die. Because she feels like, maybe, his last link to something he craves. He doesn't even know what that something is-a partner in the Force? A friend? Never, never compassion for an enemy of the First Order-but he feels it and he wants whatever it is this girl has.

"What have you got?" Kylo asks the trooper, who reports that they are about an hour away from the nearest planet with a decent town.

"But sir, it's notorious for being an unsavory place-lots of criminals, a maniacal king-I doubt the First Order will be terribly welcome."

"I'm sure you'll do your duty and keep us all safe," Kylo says.

The stormtrooper capitulates under the subtle threat. "Yes, sir."

"Hadn't we better inform General Hux?" asks another stormtrooper.

"No," Kylo says shortly. "None of you will mention this." Because as enraged as Snoke would be if Kylo fails to deliver Rey alive, Snoke would be even more enraged to discover that compassion still lurks within his apprentice.

I can't let her die.

Kylo ducks back inside the cramped room. Rey's kicked all her blankets off and lies on her side, muttering.

"Rey?"

"Can I go back?" she rasps, turning her face against the bed and hacking. It sounds as if glue is stuck to her lungs. "Please will you let me go?"

Hands shaking, Kylo pours her some water. He remembers pleading with his uncle when he was ill and, as a padawan, his mother was not allowed to visit. I want to go home.

But Rey doesn't have a home. And that's his fault.

"Here's some water," Kylo offers, crouching beside her and helping her sit up to drink it.

She leans back against his arm, water dribbling down her chin, eyes glassy, hair plastered to her temples. "What happened to you?"

Kylo blinks. "What?"

"You. What happened? Weren't you-weren't you supposed to be better than this?"

Kylo can't breathe. He wants to take his lightsaber to the entire building, because in her words he hears Luke, he hears his mother, he hears his father and Lor San Tekka and everyone, all the people he's let down. He hears Snoke, and Hux with the derision slicing through his voice, the stormtroopers.

They all know how weak you are.

You're afraid that you will never be as strong as Darth Vader!

Kylo lowers Rey back onto the bed and rushes out of the room. He powers up his lightsaber-not Rey's, because it's better than his and more stable and she's more deserving and he hates himself so much he considers stabbing it through himself. But then Rey will die. And he can't slash the computers-they're all they have. And the stormtroopers, who cower away...

Furious, Kylo storms into another private room and does the only thing he can: he tears off his mask and punches himself, again and again, over the scar from Chewie's bowcaster. But label still cackles in his head: Failure. Failure, failure, failure!

Kylo drops to the ground. Pressing his face against his knees, he cries.

"Sir?" An unlucky stormtrooper bangs on the door. "Sir, we've arrived."

"Good." Kylo stands and replaces his helmet. "Let's go. And if anything happens to her while I'm gone..."

"Nothing will happen, sir," squeaks the stormtrooper.

I'm not weak. Hux is weak, Kylo consoles himself. Look at the troops he creates.

Hux isn't deviating from the mission for compassion, though, is he?