40. Chapter 40

Admiral Statura and Major Ematt wring him out over the next six days, exploring the full depth and breadth of his knowledge into the First Order’s staggering complexity. Some of the questions make sense: they want personal details on the officers, the locations of military installations, purpose and hierarchies within the Knights of Ren, alliances, strategy, preferred negotiation tactics, and so on. Some of it is beyond his knowledge, and though he answers what he can, a lot of it was never his focus. No, he doesn’t know anything about a scouting expedition to Lasan or the construction of a new outpost on Umgul. No, recruiting’s not his area of expertise. No, he’s never heard of that ship.

Some of the questions on the last day seem almost absurd and, for a moment, he wonders if Statura’s making jokes just to see him squirm. What other reason would the Admiral have for asking about the plumbing facilities on Capza? Or the preferred leisure activities of rank and file Stormtroopers? Kylo tells what he knows, which isn’t much.

Then there’s silence in the room, Statura’s voice cracking through the speakers one last time. “This brings the deposition to a close. The informant is dismissed.”

Kylo scoots back, plunks his heels on the table before him, and tilts to balance on the chair’s back legs. He’s about to close his eyes and try to nap before the guards arrive and escort him out, but the bolt scrapes on the door and Admiral Statura himself walks into the room. He is trailed by a Togruta woman in a grey captain’s uniform who holds a shiny black case under her arm. “Admiral!” He gives a little mock salute. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Statura is taller than his soft voice had led Kylo to believe. He shuts the door behind the Captain, narrowing his eyes at Kylo’s insolence. The Captain crosses the room with long, purposeful strides and shoves his crossed ankles off the table before he can move. “Don’t get up on my account, Ren.” Statura drawls, a grin crooking the corner of his mouth as he looks down at Kylo, who tries to glower while his stomach resettles from the vertigo. “Cheer up. Captain Kess brought you a present.” On cue the Captain sets the case down with a thump before him.

Kylo leans forward and flips open the case with a suspicious side-glance at Statura. “What’s this?”

“Resistance procedures for strategic consultants.” The Captain’s smile is pointy in a way that human smiles aren’t. “Congratulations on your promotion.”

“To consultant?” Kylo tries the word out and grimaces as he thumbs through what looks like at least a thousand pages of rules and regulations bound in volumes with colored covers. “Sounds like a step down, if you ask me.”

“I didn’t.” Statura holds out his hand. Kess drops a small cuff into his palm and he lays it on the topmost document. “The position grants you the use of a wrist-comm. Don’t get too excited, it’s tuned only to my and Captain Kess’s frequencies.” He nods to the Captain who does not waver from her perfect posture. “Captain Zesha Kess will be your primary contact going forward. She or I will notify you when your input or advice is required. While I am certain it is within your myriad capabilities to unlock the comm, all transmissions will be monitored around the clock starting,” he checks the display on his wrist, “fifteen minutes ago, so please refrain from attempting any off-world contact. I don’t want to waste my time thinking up an adequate penalty for such an infraction.” Captain Kess smiles again, the markings above her eyes raising as though she has some ideas about prospective punishments.

Kylo studies the comm’s latch and slides it over his hand to secure it around his wrist. "Where's the trust, Admiral? We got on so well when you were on the other side of that mirror."

Statura rolls his eyes, thoroughly unamused.  "Shut up and keep your head down, Ren.  I do not want to think about you until I call for you again. You’re dismissed. Get out of my conference room."

Kylo stands and stretches until his back clicks, then tucks the case under his arm. “Whatever you say, Admiral.”

The Captain’s face is impassive as she escorts him to the door but she curls her lip, showing those sharp, pointed teeth again as it slides open. “Don’t screw this up. You put one toe out of line...” She licks her tongue across her canines and lets the threat hang.

The woman knows how to intimidate. He gives her his best, most serious salute and glances around as the Captain turns on her heel and disappears back into the conference room. There are no guards, but Rey is walking down the hall towards him. He hasn’t seen her in two days and part of him wonders if Skywalker is scheduling her training to separate them.

The door shuts behind him and her hands are on him, pulling him down by his shoulders and her lips crash into his. Her tongue flicks against his lower lip and he almost drops the damn case as he wraps his arms around her. The bond ignites and he wants , but he remembers Statura, Kess’s teeth, right behind the door. He collects enough of his wits to end the kiss, soft and sweet. Sighing against her mouth, he holds her a moment longer and then lets her go. “So… no honor guard today?” His voice is almost steady.

Rey shivers, touching her lower lip. It tingles where her fingers brush. Then she blinks, swallows and nods. “You’re done with the leaders.” Her voice is a little rough. “They’re still working through the court martial for the people who attacked you, but it’s old news now.” Her eyes crinkle as she smiles. “You get to move out of your cell. No more guards.” She takes his hand, drags her thumb over his knuckles and the bond pulses with her quiet exaltation in having gotten them both this far.

Kylo nods in acknowledgement, warm and grateful. “Where are they moving me?”

Dropping his hand, Rey walks with him. They make a quick detour to his cell, now unguarded, where she helps gather up the few items he’s accumulated in his stay: two sets of clothes, a small stack of worn books she had slipped him during her brief visits. It fits into a small laundry bag and she carries it under her arm, happiness flaring under her skin as he closes the door behind them. The click of the lock stirs something in his gut as Kylo walks away from imprisonment. He wishes he wasn’t nervous. Being a captive had been intolerable, but the cell had been a haven of a sort. Uncle Chewie sang the sleeping song there. He had books. It almost felt comfortable.  He can just imagine how well he’ll fit in the common barracks.

“Like they’d let you loose on all the good little worker-bees.” Rey snorts at his thought and jabs a finger into his ribs, voice dropping as they climb a flight of stairs.

A cluster of pilots in garish uniforms clatter down in the opposite direction, dropping their eyes at the sight of him. They remain silent until he and Rey are out of earshot. Kylo raises an eyebrow at Rey. “My reputation precedes me, I see.”

Rey shrugs and speeds her pace to a door at the end of the wing. She balances the bag in her arms and nudges it open with her hip, standing back and letting Kylo enter the new space first.

The room is tiny, smaller than the storage locker he’d been shoved into when they first arrived. There’s just enough space between the two tall bunk beds for one person to walk through to the small square window at the end, looking out on a treelined path. Four lockers are wedged in between the door to the hall and the door to a minuscule ‘fresher. Kylo grimaces, eyeing the four bunks. Roommates. They’re going to give him roommates, and that will end in an inevitable catastrophe. Maybe he can petition the leaders to put him back in the locker. He drops the case by one of the beds as Rey sets his bag of clothes on top of one of the lockers.

“Welcome home.” Excitement and warm satisfied, roll off her as she shuts the door with a click and eases back into his personal space, cupping his cheek in her palm when he turns to her.

Kylo buries the part of him that wants to snap at that, insist that he’s still a prisoner, declare that he has no home. Instead, he takes her chin between his fingers, tilts her face up and kisses her. He kisses her for all the times they’ve been interrupted or scared, for all the times one of them tasted like blood or terror.  Rey opens to him with a happy sigh and digs her fingers into his shoulders to close the distance between their heights.

He delves into her mouth, shivering as she responds, the bond thrumming with their combined arousal. Kylo gropes behind him for the bunk, sits hard on the mattress, tangles his hands in her hair as he guides her under the ledge of the overhead bunk. A flashed worry about bumped heads filters into his mind as she hooks a leg around his hip to roll them so she’s pressed between him and the wall, tiny and sheltered in his arms with her eyes shining like stars.

Kylo raises himself on an elbow, his other hand carding through her hair as he drags his mouth down her neck. Rey whimpers and her excitement floods his veins with adrenaline and so much need he’s going to drown. Her nails rake up his back through his shirt, fingers fisting in his hair as she pulls him back up into another kiss. He’s not drowning, he’s flying. The thrill that surges through him when he looks down at her nest of hair, swollen lips, his doing , is profound and unrestrained. He slips his hand under her shirt, clenching his fingers into her skin as she rolls her hips against his erection.

Then slow heavy footfalls echo outside the door. Kylo wants to scream, to tear chunks from the walls and barricade the door. The steps draw closer as Rey scrambles off of him. Kylo can’t look away from the curve of her ass. He chews on the inside of his cheek to keep himself from yelling at whoever is jangling keys outside to fuck directly off .

There’s a muffled curse from the door and Kylo tries to arrange his clothes to hide his erection. Rey shoves her hair up into a single knot on top of her head, grabs a handful of papers from the black case on the floor, then returns to the foot of the bed, flings a manual at him, and pretends to read. Look like you’re doing something!

Poe Dameron backs into the room, holding the door ajar with his back, arms full of boxes. That stupid, troublesome astromech rolls at his heels, chirping a wary greeting.

Rey scrambles over Kylo’s lap to take some of the boxes from Dameron and Kylo stands, not out of respect but because it would be moderately harder to kill the pilot while seated. “Oh, hey, Poe! Hi BB-8!” Be nice! Rey whispers in his mind. He pushes the murderous intent down.

Kylo grinds his teeth. Their conversation swims, meaningless, between his ears, and instincts rage against each other in his head. I hate your friends so much.

Poe dumps his stuff on the bunk across from him and turns to Kylo, gives him a gruff nod of acknowledgement. Narrowing his eyes, Kylo waits a beat and then returns the nod with one of his own.

Her voice, colored with her own frustration at the interruption echoes in his head as she chatters with the pilot and leaves with a hasty wave to them both. Kylo looks around the room as she trots off, leaving him in silence with Dameron, his new roommate. Even the word grates at him. He hasn’t had a roommate in years.

Deciding that the pilot poses no immediate threat, he sits back on the bed, skimming the manual  Rey threw at him, Policies and Procedures for Generating Strategic Advisory Reports, as Dameron moves around the room, unpacking his belongings.

Kylo is about twenty pages into the dense manual when more footsteps sound in the hall. Kylo looks up  as Dameron hops up from where loading things from a crate into one of the lockers, holding the door open as FN-2187 walks in.

“Whoa,” FN-2187 marvels at the space. “This is so nice!”

Kylo wants to think of him as a traitor, but that thought sticks like a bone between his teeth. They’re both traitors now.

The man narrows his eyes when he glances at Kylo, then he shoves past him, dropping a crate on the bunk above Dameron’s. He crosses to the window, feels around the frame for a latch. “Oh, man, look! There’s a nest out there!” The pilot joins him by the window for a minute and smiles, and then flops back onto his bunk. Dameron pulls out some flyboy data-mag and immerses himself in that as FN - Finn , Kylo corrects himself - bustles around unpacking and settling in.

An hour passes in relative quiet. Kylo reads the manual. It beats sitting there staring up at the scratched underside of the bunk. He’s starting to think that maybe they’ll all survive the night if they can each keep their mouths shut when Dameron pipes up.

“So, uh,” he glances at Kylo from over his data-mag, “That Upsilon-class transport, man.” Dameron purses his lips and nods, approving, and looks back to his mag.  “Pretty sweet.” BB-8 whistles an agreement, rolling past Kylo to settle by the pilot’s head.

Kylo freezes. Neither of the other men is looking at him. The room is silent beyond the sound of sketching and the rustle of Dameron shifting onto his side, but he can feel that the remark is pointed at him, and that something is expected in return. “Uh. Yeah. It’s… it’s nice.” He hadn’t thought of his shuttle since it landed on the Resistance air strip. He doubts he’ll get to take it out again. Just like that, the magnitude of being shackled planetside for the rest of his life, stuck in this stupid compound with no way out hits, him like a landslide.

Rey’s thoughts brush against his, steady and present, alerted by his rapid descent into self-pity. We’ll make this work . She promises him. This is only the first day.

He leans against that hope, her stupid relentless optimism, opens himself to it so she can weave through his thoughts, a protective lattice that holds strong against the gloom.

Kylo rolls onto his back and drops the manual. He stares at the scarred underside of the bunk above him, still and silent, as the light coming in from the window fades.

It’s late when Dameron tosses his mag aside and stands, stretching and yawning, smiling up to where Finn reclines on the top bunk still sketching. “Want to grab some dinner?”

“Yeah!” Finn closes his notebook and wedges the pencil between the pages, places it under his pillow and slides down to the floor. His eyes flick to Kylo, then back to Dameron, who nods and smiles. Finn sits on the lower bunk to pull on his boots and then stands, looming over Kylo. “We’re going to the cafeteria now.”

His eyes flick up to the quiet, serious expression before Kylo can control the glance. “...Okay.” Does he think Kylo cares?

“Come with us.” The smile is tight around Finn’s eyes, but otherwise Kylo has to admit it looks convincing.

Dameron grins, bright and unrepentant, around Finn’s shoulder. “We’re meeting Rey there.”

Kylo grunts at that. “Oh.” He sits up, fishing his own boots on from where he had stowed them under his bunk. “Alright.” He ignores the way Finn’s smile eases and Dameron’s shines at his acquiescence. They are not his friends. They are here to keep an eye on him. These two are a great choice for surveillance duty; the leaders know he won’t hurt them because they matter to Rey. They are her friends, and he hates them.

Finn and Dameron keep the conversation flowing around him during the walk to the almost empty cafeteria, joking and teasing each other as they pick through the remains of the night’s dinner. Finn assures Kylo that the food here is “way better” than the food on Starkiller, and Kylo nods in noncommittal agreement. Kylo grabs a little bit of everything and the duo leads him over to a small table in the back where Rey sits, waiting.

Her eyes find his as he approaches and her smile is so bright, so pleased to see them together that even listening to these two idiots chatter is almost tolerable.