A Star Wars Reylo AU: The Taming of the Professor

Ten

Rey had gone to bed after the dinner party and slept for what felt like the first time in weeks. Lor had coffee waiting for her, and she settled into the back of the freshman lecture hall a full five minutes before class began. She was calm, and happy, and on track with her coursework and reading schedule. 

And then Dr. Solo stormed into the auditorium, and her stomach dropped. He almost crackled with angry energy. Rey resisted the urge to get up and slip out the back when he wasn't looking. He would see, of course, because he noticed everything. The worst of it was that he never met her eye. 

Her mind raced back over the past few weeks, wondering what she could have done. It seemed foolish to assume it was her, and yet she had a creeping feeling of dread that she had precipitated this reaction in him.

After a tense lecture, and before dismissing the students, he looked straight at her and pointed toward his office. Well then. Her heart pounded in her ears, and she scurried up to his office and let herself in. She waited, perched on the deep, round windowsill. She pulled out a book and folded her legs beneath her. Reducing her size was a basic survival skill she had learned as a child. 

He stormed into his office, no less angry than he was when she first saw him an hour before. He closed the door with careful precision, and lifted her paper off of his desk.

"Explain yourself." Deadly calm, venom-laced voice. 

Rey shivered, an involuntary reaction to so much aggression. Of course her paper had been so awful it offended him. But how? She had worked hard on her analysis, and she felt confident that she understood the texts. She couldn't do this program. It was too much for her, too demanding. She receded deep inside of herself, to the place where she was always safe, no matter what other people around her did. 

No expression, no emotion, no nothing. Just endless numbness. She was sure he wouldn't strike her. He'd barely touched her in polite, acceptable interactions. And besides, he was a professional. But there were other ways to vent anger that caused damage. Would he yell? Rage and curse and insult? Belittle? The empty place helped her distance herself from everything else. The problem with the empty place was that it blocked her ability to respond. She was like a tiny shelled creature, hidden inside of herself; safe, but unable to move or interact.

"Rey." Pure demand in that tone, laced with livid anger. 

She had to get out of his office, to escape before he lost the final shreds of control. 

"What.is.this." He shoved the paper toward her, and she pressed her eyes closed. 

So much for thinking she would escape. Plan B was always to curl in, to wait it out, and to survive. Her body had already made the decision for her. She couldn't hear anything when this happened, this panic. All she could do was focus on her breathing, to keep herself from hyperventilating and passing out. Simple. She couldn't control anything else her body did, but she had some marginal effect on her respiration. 

This hadn't happened in a while. She had been doing better. It was common when she was younger, and had less control of her life. But she'd been on edge since she arrived here, and didn't feel stable with any aspect of her life. She owed this particular demon's creation to an awful foster home, and an angry drunken "father." She'd had plenty of therapy as an adult, and she understood what was happening. 

This professor was not going to strike her - she was fairly sure of that, at least. He wouldn't hurt her body. But it didn't matter, because he had triggered this reaction and she had to wait until it passed. No one understood it, not even her therapist. Not really. Only survivors understood this primal response to threat. 

The thick silence eventually receded. She had focused on her lungs, on keeping the dizzying burn from overwhelming her. She listened for him, wondering what he had done while she crumbled to pieces. Left her there, she hoped. She would flee now, work at Shots until she had enough money to get a bus ticket out of this wretched place. It didn't matter where she went. Away. She had to get away. 

At some point during her panic, she had pressed fully against the window, her head folded into her chest and protected by her arms. The cool brick of the windowsill was the first thing she noticed, followed by the sharp stab of the edge of the stone into her arm. There was a buzzing sound in the room, and she turned her attention away from her strained lungs toward it. 

"Rey?" His voice, still. But no longer angry. He sounded so far away. 

She swallowed hard, willing her body to calm. Time fixed this. It always did. 

"Rey. I'm sorry." 

His voice was nice when he wasn't angry. The lower tones in it seemed to vibrate in her bones, bouncing around inside of her and settling in her stomach. 

She was dizzy. Too dizzy. She hadn't done as good a job with her breathing as she thought. 

"Should I call an ambulance?"

'No,' she screamed in her head. Not them! They weren't helpful. Not with this. She managed to shake her head a bit. 

"What do you need from me?"

The burning tears welled in her eyes, stinging and trying hard to escape. They succeeded, as always. 

I need nothing. I need to be left alone. I need to banish these demons who control my life. I need to be able to face another person's threat and not collapse. I need, I need, I need. I need to not live in fear. I need to breathe. 

She was cold, her body having diverted all of her blood to her core to keep her alive. The new shivering hurt, the release of chemicals triggered by sheer panic. 

She unfurled, placing her feet on the floor, though it shifted as she pressed down. 

"I'm going home," she whispered. She was unsuccessful in standing. 

"Wait." 

Minutes later, she glimpsed rich brown hands on her arms, tugging her up and guiding her out of the room. She focused on not vomiting, and allowed Finn's familiar presence to guide her away from her professor's office.