49. Chapter 49

Kylo hails them after one of the worst, most terrified hours of her life from a stolen Upsilon-class shuttle that he picked out “just for Dameron,” crammed to the brim with Gun’s crew and First Order defectors. Rey yells at him through the comms and in her mind, lightheaded with relief and furious that he left her , that he’d do something so stupid . Hyperspace and her lingering headache from the electrostaff makes their mental communication shaky and reduces it to mostly senses and images, but she feels the distance between them just as acutely as the ache in her head.

They speak twice more during the trip back to D’Qar, and each time he sounds happier than the last. He tells her about the men and the women on the shuttle, their new names and their specialties. Gun has taken them all under his wing and they seem to look up to Kylo with the reverence the other Exes save for Finn. He apologizes for scaring her and for leaving her with Kess, and she doesn’t forgive him. She’s so angry, so hurt, that she wants to explode, but she pushes all her confused emotions into one of the boxes in her head and lets them wait. The next two days are their own kind of agony. They haven’t been apart this long since they first arrived on D’Qar, and she hasn’t been this physically distant from him since she left Master Luke’s island. That distance resonates as a dull pain in her chest, tearing her between missing him and being furious .

Rey spends most of her time in the med bay, first as a patient, then visiting with and tending to the ‘Troopers they rescued from the torture chairs. Veeten, the medical officer from Finalizer , says that there’s nothing medically wrong with them, but they are skittish, twitchy, and they barely sleep. The other Exes and the Resistance personnel all spend time with them, sometimes talking and listening, other times just sitting quietly within arms reach. There are no squabbles, no conflicts, just a shared sense of loss and relief. They’re lucky that the General had the foresight to send Veeten, two med-droids and a plentiful supply of bacta on the transport.

The rescues talk about the reconditioning as if it happened to other people, in vagueries and whispers. It is supposed to make a soldier more efficient, better at taking orders, a more perfect vessel for the First Order’s will. When Rey probes at their minds, soft and delicate touches taken only after receiving permission, she finds them pliable, defenseless, stripped bare. That, at least, explains some of the terrifying ease with which Ajani was able to shackle those ‘Troopers to her will. As time passes, as the rescues talk more with Rey and Finn and Kess and the other people aboard the overstuffed transport, their personalities begin to reemerge, and their minds begin to heal. Rey hopes the psychologists back on the base can help more.

Finn is by her side, constant and strong, during their return trip. Neither sleeps well, too disturbed by what they’ve seen. Rey misses Kylo most during the nights, and even though he doesn’t say it, she knows Finn is longing for Poe. They pile all of the blankets onto the floor and make a new nest, huddling together to watch whatever they can find on the holo-screen until they doze off. On the second day, Rey works with Finn and Kess to properly document the new Exes. It takes hours, and she’s surprised at the respect and trust she’s given, even without Leia’s presence. When she mentions this to Kess, the Captain puts her hand on Rey’s arm and says that she is a hero, a worthy ally and friend, and is deserving of respect independent of her position as the General’s aide. No one has ever said anything so kind to her, and when Rey bursts into tears, the Captain’s face transforms from an expression of pride and comfort to one of utter shock before the woman opens her arms and enfolds Rey in a warm embrace.

General Organa is overjoyed to see them when they land, meeting their shuttle on the tarmac with Statura, Ackbar, and Master Skywalker. Kess reports on their activities and the mission’s success and Rey gives them an overview of the reconditioning facility, the fight with Ajani. Everyone’s faces fall when Kess explains Kylo’s absence, looks of dismay folding into confusion as the story unfolds.

“He went back to rescue more people?” Leia asks, her eyes bright on Rey’s.

Rey nods, and Kess speaks for her. “He saved twenty one First Order soldiers, as well as the entirety of Gun’s crew. While he did not clear the action with me beforehand, he has been consistent and proactive in giving us updates ever since.” She shakes her head. “There must have been ten First Order ‘Troopers to each of his people. We barely got out. I wish I’d been able to see how he did it. It is one of the most stupidly heroic things I’ve ever heard of in my career. He’s about an hour to an hour and a half behind us. General, if you’d oversee our new friends, I’ll wait and escort him to the Admirals when he arrives for a debriefing.”

Rey knows the moment Kylo drops out of hyperspace. He’s close again, present in her mind, and as his ship touches dirt, the ache of their separation lessens. As if on cue, the boxes in her head burst open and she is all at once furious with him again. She wants to sprint from the room, but the General, undoubtedly also sensing her son’s arrival, lays a hand on Rey’s wrist. “Do you have those enlistment papers?”

They spend the next hour organizing the hundreds of new Exes who came back with her and Finn, officially enlisting them in the Resistance. Throughout the meeting, Kylo probes at her mind and only her continued anger with with him keeps her from succumbing to his renewed closeness.  He’s excited, as happy as she’s ever felt him, and part of her wants to give in to that delight, to throw herself into his arms and tell him straight off how much she missed him, how much she had worried. Eventually, he pulls back, his joy undiminished.

As soon as she is released from the meeting, she follows the bond to him.  Through the window in the door, she can see him sitting, relaxed, talking to Kess, Statura, and Ackbar in a briefing room. His feet are up on another chair, his hands behind his head. Kess chuckles at something he says, though Statura and Ackbar are stony.  She’s never seen him look more like his father than in this moment, when he tilts his head back and laughs with Kess, his eyes sparking when he sees her through the door. Rey! The connection, lazy and warm, ignites, and his delight at seeing her, his absolute joy, fills her for a moment. Kess follows his gaze, lifting her chin when she notes Rey. Kylo drops his feet and stands, and she can almost hear him asking to be dismissed.  Ackbar rolls his eyes and Statura looks bored, but he waves his hand and Kylo bursts out the door to her.

He scoops her up in his arms, lifting her so she looks down on him, and kisses her. For just a moment, she lets herself fall into his bliss, returns the longing he’d felt for her while they were apart, his pleasure at seeing her again. Then she catches her breath, pulls her mind back, and pushes away from him.

“How dare you, Kylo!” She wriggles, trying to dislodge herself from his grasp.

He turns the corner so they’re standing in an empty hallway.  Setting her down, he looks puzzled and laughs again. Their emotions run together, happiness and anger, fear and relief, overwhelming, confusing. “How dare I what? Kiss you? Rey, everyone knows that we-”

She punches him straight in the jaw, hard enough to make her fist ache. “How dare you leave me like that!” He’s right. Sometimes it does feel good to hit someone.

“What?” Kylo is more surprised than hurt, his happiness flickering as he lifts a hand to his face. “We talked about-”

She swings her arms up, breaks his hold on her, and grabs his face, kissing him, hard and vicious. The connection crackles like the blade of his saber and into it she pours all the fear, all the worry, all the yearning she had felt over the past two days.

Kylo seizes her again, kisses her back with equal voracity before pulling away with a gasp. “What the hell is going on right now?!”

“You threw me onto the transport and you left! I screamed for you to come back! ” She punctuates each word with a thump to his chest. “You could have died!”

“I was keeping-” he shoves his hands into her hair, holding her face still so she has to look at him. “I was keeping you safe . I was going back to save - I was trying to do the right thing! I was always going to come back to you. You know that.”

“You left me behind and you could have been killed, and I couldn’t have done anything about it because you were too-” She’s blathering.

“I was protecting you, Rey.” Kylo’s voice is a rumble in his chest.

“I didn’t ask you to-! I’m just as capable of-! How dare -”

He cuts her off with another kiss, longer than the last, more demanding. Arousal ripples over her, streaming through their connection from both directions, and when he releases her he’s grinning and his eyes are almost black. “I’m here.” He kisses her between every word, mimicking her strikes. “I came back.” He moves his mouth over her eyelids, her nose, her cheeks. “I won’t leave you again.” He plants a lingering kiss on her lips and then stands up straight.

His kisses, his words, and his very presence mollify her, but she keeps her scowl. “That was so stupid, Kylo.”

“Yeah, but it worked.” His grin turns cocky. She wants to tear his clothes off. She wants to punch him again. “Those guys weren’t going to fit on the transport we brought, and now they’re free.”

“They’re calling you a hero.” The last of her anger transforms into a full throttled need to touch him, to hold him, to feel him move inside her. She runs her hands up his chest to his neck, cradling his jaw. “I missed you so much.”

“I know.” He kisses her again, long and languid, sharing memories of his sleepless nights spent thinking of her, and the heat of it is almost too much to bear. She makes up her mind and can see the spark in his eyes, feel the twitch of his cock in his pants, when the thought crosses their bond. He bites his lip as she looks over her shoulder.

Grabbing a fistfull of his shirt, she pulls him backwards, deeper into the darkened hall. “The next time you even think about doing something like that,” she kicks open the door to a storage locker, “I will personally feed you to Kess.”  

There’s a crate in her path and he tosses it away with the Force before her heels can bump against it, breathing hard against her mouth as he follows her, no longer grinning. “I’ve been waiting to fuck you for days . Let’s not talk about Kess right now.”

Her back hits the wall far wall as the door clangs shut behind them. Rey toes off her boots, Kylo follows suit as she shuffles out of her pants, kicking at his boots when they tangle with his trousers. A quirked smile stretches his lips as he kisses her again, one hand palming a breast under the band. She slips her hand down to cup him through his underwear, and he groans into her neck, biting down where it meets her shoulder as she pushes the cloth down his thighs.

Kylo leaves her shirt and breastband in place, too impatient to fully disrobe, sliding a hand from her chest down her stomach, beneath her underwear to circle her clit. Her breath catches as he trails wet kisses down her neck. The exhilaration of having him back, of being so close after the time apart, makes her lightheaded. She rolls her hips into his hand, knotting a hand into his hair to pull his lips back to hers, and his fingers slide inside her as she delves into his mouth. She keens, hot and wet and ready. They’ve done this so often over the past few months that he knows exactly what she likes and so does she, stroking his cock until he growls.

Breaking the kiss, he removes his fingers and she clenches at the loss. He flicks her underwear down and she steps out of them, reaches up to hold onto his shoulders, leaping to wrap her legs around his waist. As he catches her thighs in his palms and hisses into her mouth as the combined pleasure of her heat on his skin and pain of the pressure on his burnt shoulder flares across her mind.

Rey pulls at the collar of his shirt, leaning to inspect the burn from her new vantage point. “This is days old.” She gasps as he bucks his hips, the hair above his groin grinding against her clit. “Why haven’t you gotten a bacta patch on it?”

“Limited medical supplies on the transport,” he gasps. “It was unimportant then and it is even less important now.” He crushes her to the wall with feral impatience, teeth nipping at her neck as he growls, “I swear, if Dameron or someone walks in before we finish this, Rey, I will kill them. I don’t care who it is.”

Bracing against the wall, Rey reaches between her thighs and positions him at her entrance. She looks up at him and nods, biting her lip as he lowers her and tilts his hips, groaning as he moves. The feeling of him stretching, filling, sliding into her is exquisite, mirrored in her mind by the secondary sensation of being engulfed, surrounded, welcomed by her body. The Force contracts around them, narrowing their focuses as their minds slide together, once sharp edges now rounded and comfortable from experience and practice, before separating again. The now familiar thrill  of connection, of wholeness, of togetherness, is always as good as it was the first time. His eyes flutter closed as she bottoms out, wringing a groan up from the depths of his lungs.

She doesn’t let him get comfortable, chooses the pace herself, using her thighs and her hands on his shoulders to lift herself up and slide back down. The rasping of the wall against her back through her shirt is a small price to pay for the look on his face as his eyes fly open and his jaw drops.  He adjusts his grip on her, sliding a hand from her thigh to curl his fingers around the curve of her ass. He lifts her chin with his other hand, grip firm and unyielding as he sucks hard on her neck, tongue licking over the burn left by Ajani’s staff, slowing her hips to fuck up into her himself.

He drives into her without grace or finesse, which is just what she wants.  He came back, he’s alive, and with each pounding thrust he repeats in her mind that she is his and he is hers and he will never leave her, breathing the words in short gasps against her ear. Rey grabs his hand from her jaw, kisses the new pink scar on his palm before tangling her fingers in his. He slams her hand back into the wall above them, uses it to anchor himself before increasing his pace. Rey rolls her hips forward and the friction of her clit on his skin is perfect, his tongue and teeth on her ear making the hair on the back of her neck stand up, shooting electricity down her spine.

They don’t waste time. She wants to come, wants to feel him ignite inside her, and that spurs him to fuck her harder, faster. The wet sliding of their bodies are loud in the silent, empty room, and his breathy grunts against her mouth, her neck, tighten something low in her belly until she feels like she might burst free from her body. The scrape of her back against the wall is a harmonic counterpoint to the lines of fire she’s raking into his uninjured shoulder. He’s so close, so ready to break. She thinks of his the way his eyes gleamed as he tipped his head back to laugh, feet up on the chair, the spike of delight he felt when he’d seen her through the door. He came back . “Kylo-” She sighs, clawing with her nails to try to get some purchase on him, on the world that’s shifting behind her eyes.

At the word, he comes undone, hammering his hips into hers over and over as his orgasm overtakes him. He stutters over the syllable of her name as he empties himself into her, and the feeling of his pleasure mixes with her own to push her over into her own orgasm. Her eyes fall shut as her jaw drops, but the only sound she can make is a strangled gasp as she shatters. The muscles of her cunt grip and clench around him, drawing him further inside her as she sobs with the pleasure and they both tumble into their shared headspace, the stars bright and singing above them. He holds her, fucks her through it with shallow motions, kisses up her neck, to her mouth, squeezing the hand above her head as she clings to him with her body and her mind.

The aftershocks last longer than she expects and they come back into their bodies with tiny shudders. He laughs as she twitches and squirms against him, and she kisses him with a soft open mouth that makes him sigh. Her thighs tremble when Kylo pulls out and sets her on the feet with care. She wants to hold him, press her whole body against his, naked skin to naked skin. Then she remembers that they’re in a storage closet, which takes some of the romance out of the notion.

Rey is retying her boots when they hear footfalls passing outside the door. “Rey?” a voice calls. “The General has been looking for you for the past half hour.” It’s Poe.

“I told you,” Kylo hisses, pointing a finger straight at her nose. “It’s like he has some sort of sex radar. He knows .”

Rolling her eyes and frowning in her best imitation of his favorite expression, she smacks his hand away without rancor. “You said it yourself. We’re not exactly subtle.” She raises her voice, calls out to Poe. “We’ll be right out!”

She stands and takes Kylo’s hand in hers as she pushes open the door. She squeezes his hand, pours her affection and admiration into their connection until he all but glows. “Don’t you ever scare me like that again. No more brave last stands. No more heroics without me. Okay?”

Kylo nudges the pilot’s shoulder as the three of them walk down the hall. “Hear that, Dameron? I was heroic. Maybe people will shut up about your pretty face and start talking about me now.”

Laughing, Poe just grins. “They were already talking about you! And you can have the heroics, man. I just want to get inside that beautiful ship you brought me.”

They chat together as they head back to the main compound, and Rey can't remember a time she was this content.