One of the Dangerous Ones

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/24341002.

Rating: Explicit
Archive Warning: Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Category: F/M
Fandom: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Relationship: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Kylo Ren/Rey, Minor Leia
Organa/Han Solo - Relationship, Minor Finn/Rose
Character: Rey (Star Wars), Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Leia Organa, Han Solo, Finn
(Star Wars), Rose Tico, Bazine Netal, Amilyn Holdo, Dopheld Mitaka,
Poe Dameron, Jannah (Star Wars), Kaydel Ko Connix, Ren (Star Wars:
The Rise of Kylo Ren), Ushar (Star Wars), Trudgen (Star Wars), Kuruk
(Star Wars), Ap'lek (Star Wars), Phasma (Star Wars), Snoke (Star
Wars), Enric Pryde, Lor San Tekka, Ahsoka Tano
Additional Tags: Reylo - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Angst,
Angst with a Happy Ending, Happy Ending, Brief mention of Damerey,
Reylo endgame, Canon Age Difference, age gap, Depictions of Child
Abuse, Religious Extremism/Religious Cult, Major character death -
Freeform, Graphic depictions of violence - Freeform, Mental Health
Issues, Trauma, PTSD, incarceration, Unfair Justice System, Prison
Violence/Rape is mentioned and threatened, Teen prositution, Human
Trafficking, Loss of Virginity, Loss of Innocence, Loss of Trust,
Underage Smoking, Underage Drug Use, underage alcohol use,
Underage Sex, Homophobia, religious homophobia, conversion
therapy, Religious Conflict, Guilty Sexual Feelings, Oral Sex, Vaginal
Sex, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Therapy, Reconciliation, Pregnancy,
Childbirth, The main couple have a child, mention of past abortion, Slow
Burn, Epistolary, please read the tags, dark themes throughout,
Mentions of Racism, Prison racism
Stats: Published: 2020-06-21 Completed: 2021-06-13 Chapters: 35/35 Words:
117167

One of the Dangerous Ones

by Love_andbalance

Summary

Rey Johnson is a pastor's daughter. At eighteen, she is full of bright eyed optimism that
prayer and small acts of kindness can make big impacts on the world. She never dreamed
that starting a program to send letters to lonely inmates at the nearby state prison would
uproot her life and force her to reexamine everything she believed about her faith and
humanity.

Kylo Ren was a spoiled rich kid with an attitude that his parents didn't have time to tame.
When they sent him away into the care of his fanatically religious uncle, they set in motion
a chain of events that left his father dead and sixteen year old Kylo on trial for murder. The
courtroom dissolved into a media circus and the truth about what really happened was
swept under the rug. Now, twelve years later, he is still struggling with his past and the
 blood on his conscience.

When their lives collide, and a change in the law offers Kylo the possibility of another
chance at justice, will they be able to find their way into each other's arms? Or was Rey
deadly wrong to put her faith in one of the dangerous ones?

**This is now complete and it will only be up until the end of July so please make sure to
finish or download it before then**

Notes

Welcome! Please read the tags before you begin the story, there are many things that I
know are triggering for people that I plan to include and I don't want anyone to have a bad
experience. I may add more tags as I go, but if that happens I will mention it in the notes
when I update so that readers can be notified in advance about things that they may want to
avoid. I will also do my best include a brief note at the beginning of each chapter listing the
main trigger warnings, if there are any.

My plan is to update weekly, or at least as often as real life allows!

See the end of the work for more notes

 I'll Keep You in My Prayers
Chapter Summary

Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be
healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective- James 5:16

Chapter Notes

I don't think there's anything in this chapter that needs a more specific trigger warning
than what is included in the fic tags, but if you see something that you think should be
included here for future readers, please drop me a comment.
Summer 2015

“Hey, Ren, you’ve got a letter.” The words were casual, without any trace of humor or mockery,
but they sent a flood of rage through Kylo’s mind just the same.

“That’s not fucking funny, Hux. Jesus, you know I don’t get mail. You’ve been here three fucking
years already. You should know that shit.”

“I’m serious. It’s got your name on it.” His cellmate held up the envelope in his right hand and
waved it around at eye level.

“Lemme see it,” Kylo demanded, bounding up from his bunk and stretching out a hand.

Hux handed it over, and Kylo scanned the front of the envelope with a frown. It was white and
plain. Nothing suspicious about it. Just the prison address, a stamp emblazoned with a waving red,
white, and blue flag, a return address bearing a name he didn’t recognize that had been written in a
looping feminine script…but scrawled across the front were thick block letters written in black
marker. Clearly added after the original writing, the last letter of it even covering the corner of the
stamp, were two words.

His name.

Kylo Ren.

“The fuck?”

“I don’t know, man," Hux said with a shrug. "You’ve got to open it.”

“Yeah? Well, no shit, genius. I haven’t been in here so long I’ve forgotten how letters work.
Fucking moron,” Kylo snapped, but he stood for a moment tapping the letter against his thigh just
the same.

Hux said nothing else, more than used to his cellmate’s short temper after so many years and never
impressed by the quick and violent losses of self-control. Kylo had never met anyone as cold and
calculating as Hux, and he had known more than a few people who were seriously fucked up, even
before he landed himself in this hellhole.

Maybe it had been too many years of getting his ass kicked as a kid for having a skinny frame and
liquid paper white skin with garishly red hair, but Hux was hardened asshole to the bone. Kylo
knew his cellmate would have happily slit his throat if it meant a few extra bucks for commissary
or a pack of cigs, but that was just Hux.

It wasn’t personal.

He sat down on his bunk, holding the letter up to analyze it before taking out the contents. It had
been opened already, obviously, and everything inside already read and analyzed for potential
threats or clues of misconduct.

Fucking nosy pigs.

When was the time anyone had bothered to write him? Surely it hadn’t been long after the trial.
The letters of support had stopped rolling in once the verdict came down.

Maybe they couldn’t sympathize anymore, or maybe it was because the news stopped blasting his
face nonstop across every goddamned channel, but either way he had lost all contact with the
outside world a long time ago.

Even the emails and phone calls from his lawyers had mostly stopped coming over the years as he
exhausted his appeals.

He sat on the bunk, ignoring Hux’s curious stare- there was never a single moment of fucking
privacy in this place, can’t even take a shit without the whole world knowing- and tore the top off
the envelope.

The letter inside was written on a single sheet of clean lined paper, folded in even thirds and
composed in the same dark black ink and feminine handwriting that had been used to write the
addresses on the envelope.

Dear inmate of the French M. Robertson Unit,

I realize you don't know me, and I don’t know you, but I am hoping that this letter might change
that. I hope that it finds you well and you are willing to at least read it and consider the offer of
friendship that it contains.
I wish I knew your name. I am sure that receiving mail addressed to ‘inmate’ did not begin our
relationship on a very friendly note. But I can give you my name, and hope that it begins to make
amends and let you view this correspondence in a more positive light. I’m Rey.

I volunteer with my local church, specifically the women's prayer group. We call it our Biblical
Warrior's Group. We meet on Wednesday evenings to pray and organize our efforts for various
charities and such. I’m the new group leader, actually, but I suppose that's not likely to be the type
of thing to be of much interest to you.

Anyway, one of our members, her name is Rose, has a cousin that has spent the last few years in
the same facility that you're in now. He’s due to be released soon, but he mentioned that some of
you don't have anyone on the outside to write to.

That sounded like a terribly lonely way to live, so I organized a letter writing campaign through
the warden. Each member of my prayer group wrote a letter, and the prison distributed them to
those who seemed most in need of a friendly pen pal.

My letter found its way to you.

I hope that you’ll write back and let me offer you some semblance of comfort and friendship during
your stay in prison, however long that may be.

I will keep you in my prayers,

Rey

Kylo ran a hand through his hair in frustration, and the thick black waves ruffled back down,
curling over the collar of his white jumpsuit. It was one of the great ironies of his life, that he’d had
to go to prison to be able to wear his own hair the way he wanted to.

He looked around the cell, taking in the dirt and the grime and the peeling paint. The whole place
had an aura of filth. It smelled like piss and industrial strength cleaning products. He had cigarettes
stashed in his toilet, for Christ’s sake.

Whoever this lady was, she clearly had no clue about how anything fucking worked in the real
world.

She’d keep him in her prayers? Fuck that. He’d already seen how little prayer could do. At best,
God didn’t exist. At worst, he was a sadistic fuck who got off on the suffering that he let run
rampant in innocent people’s lives.

“Well?”

Kylo crumpled the letter in his hand. “Just a pity letter from some uppity religious bitch who thinks
she can save my soul,” he said bitterly.

***

The heat was brutal in the late afternoon. There was no place to hide from the Texas sun, and the
temperature had been in the triple digits for weeks already.

Rey popped out the mailbox, just a short trip to the end of the dirt driveway and back, but even that
was enough to have sweat dripping down her sides and a flush rising in her cheeks. She was
wearing a loose blue sundress, the nearest to naked that a decent woman could be while lounging
on a Sunday afternoon, and it was still clinging damply her skin as she hurried back to the house.
She’d have to make a pitcher of sweet tea this evening before her dad came home, she thought. The
air conditioning at the church wasn’t always reliable and he liked to sit outside on the shaded front
porch in the evenings, sipping on a cold drink and watching the lightening bugs dance through the
yard.

Things cooled off a touch once the sun went down. If they were lucky, they might even get a faint
breeze.

This time of year, everything smelled like honeysuckle, and even though she was a bit too old for
such things, she plucked a white blossom from the vine near the door. A quick twist at the end to
separate the petals and a downward tug pulled the stamen out, bringing with it a single drop of clear
nectar that danced sweetly across her tongue.

She let the screen door slam behind her and padded across the hardwood floor in her now dirty
bare feet.

She plopped down at the kitchen table, flipping through mail and breathing a sigh of relief as the
ceiling fan circulated cool air over her.

Junk mail. Bills. A thank you card from a parishioner that was addressed to her father.

Her hand stilled on the last item, buried at the bottom of the pile.

The envelope had her name on it. The words were all inscribed neatly in blue ink, the kind that
reminded her of cheap Bic pens like the ones they use at the bank downtown because they know
everyone steals them.

There’s no return address.

She walked slowly to the desk in her father’s office, chewing nervously on her lower lip the whole
way. There’s really only one thing this could be, and the person who wrote it might not be entirely
friendly. None of the other women in the prayer group have gotten their responses back yet, so
they’re all unsure if their attempts to communicate had been welcome by the recipients.

She quick slide of a silver letter opener under the seal and she's pulled out half a sheet of white
legal paper. Whoever tore it off must have done so quickly because the edges are ragged and
uneven.

Rey,

Your letter did find its way to me, but next time you write you should ask the warden to give it to
someone else. I'm not one of the inmates that landed himself in prison for tax fraud or stealing
some old grandma's pension. Save your prayers for someone who deserves them.

I'm one of the dangerous ones.

Kylo Ren
 I'm Not Afraid
Chapter Summary

God did not give us a spirit of fear, But of power, love, and self control- 2 Timothy 1:7

Chapter Notes

I added a few new tags, please make sure that you are being gentle with yourself and
avoiding any potentially triggering content.

Specific potential TW/CW for this chapter:

Rey's church group meeting includes a lady that behaves unkindly toward Rose and
the girls speculate about her possibly being racist and how they should handle it.

We are also going to get a little bit deeper into prison life in this chapter. There will be
violence, racially divided hatred and attitudes, and the mention of the potential of
sexual assault.

I also forgot to add the date to the first chapter when I initially posted it, so if you are
back after having read the first chapter previously, please note that the story begins in
the summer of 2015!

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Her father's church was one of Rey’s favorite places.

The linoleum in the hallways was cracked and peeling and the bright yellow paint on the nursery
walls needed to be redone soon,but none of that could diminish the comfort she felt every time she
walked through the doors. She had spent so many hours of her childhood in this small building that
it was like a second home.

Her mother had been a pastor’s wife, and that came with a certain sense of duty. She brought a
young Rey with her as devoted her days to record keeping in the office, baking up goods in the
kitchen to be delivered for elderly neighbors, teaching Sunday school in the nursery as Rey sat on
the floor and listened to fantastical tales of rainbow colored coats and boats big enough to hold two
of every animal in the whole world.

Rey had loved it all, but nothing had compared to the last one. For a lost and frightened child, the
promise of miracles and God’s love had been a profound revelation. She wanted nothing more in
life than to make the same positive impact on the lives of others as mother had made, and she
intended to start right here with this same congregation.

The first of tonight’s prayer group members had arrived and was already looking around and
nodding her head in approval at the decorations and snacks that Rey had spent several hours
preparing.
“Rey, honey, your mama would have just been so proud of you and all the work you’ve done here.
We haven’t been this organized and full of God given enthusiasm to do good in this world since
she died. God rest her soul, of course,” she finished, patting Rey’s hand a bit too hard as she
shuffled by to take her seat in the circle.

Mrs. Kanata was a sweet white-haired woman in her late seventies that wore the thickest glasses
Rey had ever seen. Firmly independent and spirited, she always smelled like nipped afternoon rum
cake and old woman.

Rey adored her.

Others followed soon after, and the room quickly filled with women, all talking and snacking on
cookies and lemonade.

It was a diverse group, for such a small town. There were young girls just graduated from high
school, like Rose and herself, recent brides still flush with the joy of new love, tired moms with
hastily wiped spit up stains on their shirts, and women that were old enough to be grandmothers
and hand off advice to the rest of them that wasn’t always entirely welcome.

It provided a sense of community, a connection that each of them had come to be profoundly
grateful for. Talk moved quickly over the latest town news- a pregnancy, a death, an amicable
divorce. Someone mentioned the often hoped for dream that they might someday get a Taco Bell
in town, and Rey couldn’t help but smile.

They’d been hearing that rumor for five years now and still had to drive all the way to Abilene for
a late-night burrito.

She let them rumble along aimlessly for a few minutes before clearing her throat and standing up
from her orange plastic chair to call the group to attention.

“We’ve got a lot to cover tonight,” she began when all eyes had landed on her. “We have the
upcoming bake sale to raise money for the food pantry, the Fourth of July celebration that still
needs volunteers to work the tables, and Rose has suggested that we might want to consider starting
now to gather donations of school supplies for the kids when classes start back up in the fall.”

Almost everyone nodded and she knew that Rose’s newest project would also be a success. She
shot her best friend a quick, beaming smile before continuing.

“The first thing on the agenda, though, is to check on those who chose to participate in writing
letters to the inmates and see if they’ve gotten a letter back? I got mine in the mail yesterday,” Rey
confirmed, holding the envelope up in front of the group.

Mrs. Nu sniffed indelicately. Middle aged and still beautiful, she had been a regular church
volunteer since her youngest child had left for college two years ago. She had been violently
opposed to Rose’s suggestion to begin with, refusing to participate and quoting fire and brimstone
punishment to everyone who would listen when the project had first been mentioned.

“Felons”, she had insisted, “will meet their justice at the hands of God. We, as a group, must be
vigilant in not allowing these criminals access to our hearts and minds. Their dark thoughts are
corruptive and have the ability to let the devil into our lives.”

Everyone had ignored her then, and Rey ignored her now, though she noticed Rose’s eyes narrow
as she reached for her own letter. She hadn’t been the only one to notice Mrs. Nu’s behavior.

One by one each of the other ladies held up a similar envelope to the one in Rey’s hand.
“That’s incredible. Did anyone have any problems? Issues?” Rey scanned the group, but everyone
shook their heads, denying any upsetting interaction with the prisoners. All had been polite in their
responses and most had seemed genuinely grateful for the chance to interact with someone outside
of the prison. “The Lord must have ensured that our letters found their way into the right hands,"
Rey concluded as she tucked her letter back in her pocket.

The rest of the meeting went smoothly, and soon the only people left were Rey, Rose, and Kaydel.
The three of them were the only members of their graduating class that attended this church.

“I can’t decide if Mrs. Nu is just a huge prude who hates me because I want us to actually help
people in trouble, or if she’s legit a racist and she hates me because my family is Vietnamese,”
Rose muttered angrily as she stacked the orange chairs neatly in the corner.

“Both,” Rey and Kaydel responded in unison.

“Mrs. Nu is sneaky about it,” Rey continued, “and gets away with a lot because she gives everyone
a bad attitude and that makes it easier to hide, but I think it’s both. She was horrible to Jannah, too,
before she went off to college.”

Rose nodded, “That was before I moved here and started dating Finn, but if she’s as much like her
little brother as she seemed to be when I met her, I’m sure Jannah didn’t put up with anything from
Mrs. Nu even back then."

“She didn’t,” Kaydel confirmed. “Jannah doesn't put up with anything from anyone and was
horrible to her right back. Anytime Mrs. Nu complained, everyone always pretended they hadn’t
heard a word of what Jannah said to her. The only one who got reprimanded was Mrs. Nu.”

“The lesson doesn’t seem to have stuck,” Rey mused. “If she makes you uncomfortable, I can ask
her not to come back. I’m in charge of the group now.”

Rose pondered that for a moment. “No, not yet. If she does anything more obnoxious than whine
about my projects then you can, but I would rather her see the success of the programs for herself.
She needs to know she was wrong, about the programs and me.”

Rey gave her a little hug, “Are you sure? This group needs you and your amazing vision more than
it needs that awful woman. You don’t to have to prove anything to her.”

“I’m sure,” Rose said, hugging her back before tossing the last of the used paper cups in the trash.
“I don’t want her to cause there to be bitterness in my heart, but I do kind of want to watch her sit in
her own misery every week, knowing she can’t stop us from doing good things and being kind to
people. Is that wrong?”

Rey shrugged. “I don’t think so, if she’s miserable because of that it’s because she brought it on
herself.”

Kaydel nodded in agreement and they went back to working in silence for a few minutes.

“So, I noticed you didn’t say anything about the guy who got your letter,” Kaydel said, looking
over her shoulder at Rey and changing the subject as she wiped down a table.

Rey reached her hand into her pocket and rubbed her fingers over the stiff paper. “Oh, yes… well I
haven’t decided yet if I should write him back or ask the warden to send my next letter to someone
else.”

“What?” Rose said in surprise. “I thought you said it seemed like our letters went to the right
people?”

“I didn’t want to worry the other ladies and put a damper on your project, Rose. It was a good idea
and I don’t want anyone to stop participating.”

“I guess that’s understandable, but did he say something mean to you?” Rose looked ready to fight,
and Rey loved her for it.

“No, he barely said anything to me at all,” Rey admitted. “Just that he thinks I should write to
someone else. He says he’s dangerous, but he didn’t give me any more information than that.”

Rose began to look skeptical at that news, but Kaydel just shook her head. “He’s in prison. We
knew they might be dangerous, right?”

Rey had to admit that was a good point. She had gone into this because she wanted to reach
someone that might otherwise have been unreachable. After all, someone had once reached out to
her, taken on a difficult challenge with no promise that things would work out in the end, and it had
made all of the difference to Rey.

“I’ll pray on it, and ask God for guidance,” Rey promised them, and the conversation turned to
Rose’s boyfriend and Kaydel’s excitement about starting college in a few months. Rey listened
with a smile as they chattered happily. These girls were a blessing in her life, and she was
convinced that God had helped them find each other, knowing that they would help guide one
another through life’s challenges.

Perhaps that's what He had planned for Kylo Ren, she realized. Maybe he needed someone in his
life to encourage him and guide him toward God.

She had gone over every inch of his letter several times since it arrived yesterday, looking for clues
to what kind of person had written it. The evidence didn’t paint much of a picture, just neat
handwriting and evidence that he lived as she imagined a prisoner would- cheap pens and scraps of
paper that smelled vaguely of cigarette smoke.

There was nothing to tell her about what kind of man he was, or how he spent his days, or what he
had done to deserve being sent to prison- but she did know that he must be lonely if no one wrote to
him.

***

3:30 am

His body didn’t need the wake-up call anymore. After so many years on the same schedule, his
brain clicked on at exactly the same time every morning, allowing him just a few seconds to orient
himself to his surroundings before the rest of the prison began to stir.

He dressed in silence, neither him nor Hux needing any chatter to start their day. There was no
need to think about what to wear, inmates were all stripped of their individuality and made as
indistinguishable from one another as possible in white jumpsuits and black shoes.

They filed together into the dining hall to be greeted by a breakfast of questionable oatmeal,
browning apple slices, and shitty black coffee- all served precisely at 4:30 and eaten elbow to
elbow on long metal tables. They ate in silence as well, though this was as much from habit as lack
of desire. Talking during mealtime was prohibited.

Hux shoveled his food down methodically, apparently well trained by the atrocious meals served in
the public-school system, but Kylo fought down a sneer. Years of living on this swill still hadn’t
been enough to get past his early years spent dining on personal chef prepped dinners and private
school lunches.

By 6:00 am they had been shuffled along with most of the other inmates to their shift in the
prison’s garment factory. The shifts were long, twelve hours a day, and the work was hot, sweaty,
and miserable- it was also mandatory.

Every able-bodied prisoner was required to work. Some worked the kitchens, or the laundry unit,
and a lucky few even got to work outdoors in the garden. The rest came here, to a large room that
was loud and busy and filled with complicated machinery and rows of sewing machines, where
they would spend their sentences making clothing and textiles that would be used in their prison
and others around the state.

They got paid nothing, Texas didn’t bother giving their inmates actual financial compensation for
their labors, but while the other inmates were hoping that they might at least earn time credits for
an earlier release date or a good behavior stamp that would increase their chances of parole, Kylo
only benefitted from having something to do, a way to kill the endless stream of time that
threatened to drive him mad.

It was a good system for the prison, profiting from the labor under the guise of giving the prisoners
job skills and a way to pay for their own room and board, but it was an obvious labor scam. At
least his work went toward the prison itself and he wasn’t sewing bras for Victoria’s Secret.

He settled in behind an industrial sized sewing machine, and the hours passed in a blur of stitching
on white fabric. There was only a short break for lunch-if two hot dogs with sauerkraut tossed on
top, a slice of white bread, and a scoop of cold canned carrots could really be qualified as a meal-to
break up the monotony until late in the afternoon.

He glanced up from his machine as the sickening sound of violent blows on flesh erupted behind
him, barely audible the roar of the machines despite the proximity of the beating that was
happening in the row behind him.

A young man was curled up on the floor, arms wrapped protectively around his head as an older
inmate with a shaved head and a swastika tattooed on his neck rained down a series of vicious
kicks.

“You think you can fucking touch me? You think you can get away with fucking bumping into me
and not paying attention to where you’re going, you dumb piece of shit? You worthless fucking n-”
The racial epithet was cut short as the guards finally reached him and wrenched him away from his
victim.

He left the room in restraints, destined for disciplinary action that likely meant nothing to a man
already serving a life sentence.

The young man he assaulted was sent to the medical ward for stitches and ibuprofen, blood
running over his dark skin and onto his white uniform.

Kylo went back to his sewing.

There was nothing he could have done to help that wouldn’t have just made things worse for the
kid and gotten himself written up, too. The kid was new, and he was going to have to get hard or do
his time with a target on his back. He was lucky that this had been a simple beating, instead of a
stabbing or worse.
Sexual assaults were the subject of almost every joke he had ever heard about prison life, but they
were a terrifying reality in here. The absence of women and the presence of rapists and sadists
made prison a living hell for anyone identified as an easy target.

There were cameras everywhere and the guards patrolled constantly, monitoring for the ever
present contraband or signs of violence that might spring from the tension that was never far from
the surface, but it wasn’t enough. It didn’t stop the assaults, or the beatings, or the drugs. Prisoners
were nothing if not inventive, and the had plenty of time for scheming, especially if they
considered the reward sufficient.

The guards didn’t run this prison, the gangs did. Though Kylo had resisted the pressure to join up
with any specific gang within the prison, having had his fill of that bullshit before getting arrested,
plenty of others hadn’t.

The gang activity was based in racial division and layered on top of a culture that hinged on
respect. The slightest misstep was enough for a man to end up dead, and sometimes just the way
you looked was enough, as the kid currently getting stitched up had just found out the hard way.

By the time they made it back to the day room, Kylo was in a bad mood. He opted, as he most
often did, to skip the limited opportunity that they had for TV time or social interaction and
withdrew to his cell.

He preferred to use his time for more artistic endeavors, and lately he had taken up calligraphy.
Paper, like everything else at the commissary, was exorbitantly expensive but at least his stone-
cold cunt of a mother kept his commissary card full every month, even if she hadn’t spoken a word
to him since he was fifteen years old.

The motion of the pen as it traced smooth lines over the paper was soothing, it helped him to block
out the world and his own seething anger and restless energy. Everyone in here had something that
helped keep them sane. Some had drugs, Hux had a surprising love for reality TV, and Kylo had
art.

He ignored his cellmate when Hux finally threw himself down on his bunk not long before lights’
out.

“Looks like I got a letter from my brother,” Hux mused, rustling the day’s mail in his hands.

“Hmm,” Kylo hummed noncommittally.

Hux said nothing, just tossed a letter onto Kylo’s bunk with a smirk.

He sighed, holding it up to find that she had written his name on the envelope herself this time. She
was obnoxiously persistent.

He knew the type. She was probably middle aged and mousy, sure that her own husband and
children were flawless and therefore convinced that she knew how to fix everyone else’s problems,
too.

One of his childhood friends, the rich kind that he had known before he was sent to Luke, had a
mom exactly like that. They used to get high in the garage together while his dad fucked the
babysitter.

After a moment’s hesitation, he pulled out the letter, curiosity getting the better of him but still
prepared to be overwhelmed by sanctimonious lecturing.
 Kylo,

I don’t know what you did to be in prison, but I do know that whatever it was, it doesn’t mean that
you have to be lonely for the rest of your life. Everyone needs someone in their life to care about
them.

I think you wrote that last letter to try and scare me, though I'm not sure why. It worked for a little
while, but I know that God commands me not to fear and to love my neighbor as I love myself. All
of my neighbors, not just the ones that go to church on Sundays or spend their free time stealing
their grandmother's pensions, (That was a joke! See, I can even be funny!) .

I think I am a pretty good friend to have, and my friends agree. I’m not afraid and I would like to
continue to write you if you don’t mind?

Rey

He didn’t know what to think about this lady and her odd determination to put herself at risk trying
to be friends with a dangerous stranger, but something about her response bothered him. He had
signed his letter with his real name, hoping to frighten her when she realized the extent of the
crimes he had been convicted for, but she hadn’t responded to that information at all.

The story of his trial had been plastered all over the TV for months. He didn’t think there was a
single person in the whole country that didn’t know his name and his face by the time it was all
over.

He ran the possibilities over in his mind. There was only one that made any sense.

He wrote a single sentence before stuffing the slightly crumpled piece of paper in an envelope.

How old are you?

Chapter End Notes

The French M. Robertson Unit is a real maximum security prison near Abilene, Texas.
Information about the prison uniforms, mandatory labor without pay, and daily
schedule is all correct according to the Texas Department of Justice website. There
really is a garment factory in this prison and they really do make clothing and textiles
to be used by the prison system.
 A Family Demolished
Chapter Summary

Fathers do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged- Colossians
3:21

Rey’s brows drew together in consternation as she sat, curled comfortably in the center of her bed,
and read Kylo’s most recent letter.

You’re a child and whoever allowed someone as young and naïve as you to write to dangerous
prisoners is a fucking idiot. You’d know that if you were even old enough to remember who the hell
I am. It’s not like what I’ve done was some sort of secret. Go back to your church group, little girl,
and save yourself the trouble. You shouldn’t be talking to monsters like me.

There was no greeting, no signature, and it was so short that it was bordering on terse, but she
seemed to be making some progress. At least it was a full paragraph, instead of one line like the
last one.

She’d been flabbergasted by that last letter.

How old are you?

Receiving a reply at all had been somewhat surprising, but if he was going to write she had
expected more than one blunt question with no context.

She’d answered in the same way, not willing to give him the satisfaction of asking for an
explanation.

I’m eighteen

She sighed and bit down gently on the end of her pen, running her tongue over the tip as she
rescanned this most recent correspondence with a frown. He seemed terribly upset about
discovering her age, if the liberal sprinkling of offensive language was any indication, though she
couldn’t begin to understand why.

She was a grown woman, perfectly capable of handling herself in the world, despite his apparent
opinion to the contrary.

Little girl

Hmph

Still, he seemed unreasonably determined to scare her off and this letter definitely seemed to be
hint that what he had done was bad enough that he might even have made the news at some point
or another. At least, it was if she was correctly interpreting the cryptic remark about his crimes not
being a secret.

Maybe…
She dropped the letter on the bed beside her, letting the paper with his neat masculine handwriting
flutter down to land on a white blanket patterned with small roses in her favorite colors of blue and
yellow, and reached for her laptop. Her jaw dropped as a simple search for the words “Kylo Ren”
brought up more than half a million results.

She scanned the top few, all of which were news stories with horrifying headlines-

“Gruesome Crime Rocks Nation”

“Shocking Violence Among America’s Elite”

“Skywalker Heir Ben Solo Legally Changes Name Before Trial Begins”

“Teen Killer Kylo Ren Faces Justice”

She placed a hand on her stomach, fighting the urge to be sick as the last headline jumped off the
screen and swam dizzyingly in front of her eyes.

“A Family Demolished- How Patricide Destroyed a Legacy”

Patricide…

Her mind flashed to the only parents she could remember- the father who loved her, the mother she
had lost. Kylo Ren really was a monster. He hadn’t even bothered to try and deny it.

She slammed the laptop closed, only to reopen it seconds later and peer intently at the small
thumbnail image next to the first article. The boy in the photo stared back at her without remorse.

He might have been handsome if she hadn’t known what he’d done. Wavy black hair framed a long
face with defined cheekbones and a nose prominent enough that it would have made his
appearance harsh if his lips hadn’t been so full. She felt like his eyes should have been dark, but
realized that though they were hard and emotionless, they were a deceptive warm amber in color.

Why would God have guided her letter someone like this?

Unable to ignore her burning curiosity, she scrolled the results, skimming past the YouTube videos
of old news reports for now, and filling her screen with still images.

Her eyes scanned the page, taking in a series of pictures. In each of them he looked young, even
childlike, but his eyes were always just as cold.

She bit her lip as she considered his mugshot- a boy with dark circles under his eyes and hair that
was cropped too close on the sides, revealing ears that were just a touch too big. There was no fear
on his face, none of the terror that she knew she would be experiencing if she was in his place.

His face was just as impassive in a newspaper photo of him wearing a blue prison jumpsuit as he
stepped out of the back of police car, flanked by officers with stern expressions. The cuffs on his
wrists and ankles were connected by a long chain that made his attempt to stand look awkward and
emphasized how he appeared to be all youthful lanky arms and legs.

She almost laughed sadly at a court drawing of him in a black suit, an obvious but failed attempt at
making him look mature and responsible for the jury. He didn’t look old enough to attend prom,
much less be on trial for committing a serious crime.

Her amusement faded when she found the only one at all that showed a smile on his face. A candid
home photo of him as child in front of a Christmas tree, arms wrapped around the waist of an older
man with an identical grin- his father she realized with a jolt.

The man he murdered.

She simply didn’t understand how anyone could do such a thing to another person. He looked so
happy in that Christmas photo- his grin so enthusiastic, his hug so pure.

The shadows on her walls grew long and the sun sank below the horizon as she sat on her bed with
its pretty floral blanket, searching the internet’s memory as though it might have answers to a
mystery that humanity itself still hadn’t solved.

What makes someone a killer?

The media had done their best to find out while he was on trial, scouring through every inch of his
personal life searching for one incident that might have explained it all. They interviewed his
friends, his acquaintances, his teachers…none of them had answers. He was a decent kid- maybe a
bit lonely, a bit wild and prone to mischief, but never violent.

That hadn’t stopped the reporters from digging, turning over every facet of his life, his family’s
lives.

She would have only been five when he was arrested, too young to remember the story, but the
whole thing seemed to have been quite the scandal. There didn’t seem to be anything about his life
that wasn’t splashed across the front page of some magazine or newspaper.

He had been born Ben Solo, the only child of a career politician and her handsome playboy
husband. His mother, Leia Organa, had been adopted into a wealthy family and Ben had been
raised in the lap of luxury, surrounded by the finest things that money could buy.

If the media’s assessment of his early years was to be believed, he was a spoiled rich kid that had
been provided with the best education, the best homes, the best expensive vacations.

His family was small- a father, a mother, an uncle- but they were reported to have been close and
happy. There was no sign of problems, despite the fact that his mother and her twin, apparently
infamous Evangelical pastor Luke Skywalker, had been adopted and raised by different families.
The pair hadn’t discovered one another until they were already adults.

Hmmm…that had apparently been its own small scandal.

Luke and Leia’s father had not been a popular man. A wealthy, powerful, but apparently corrupt
businessman turned politician in his own right, it seemed he had been sent to prison for his
connection to his wife’s death when the twins were still infants.

It didn’t seem likely that murderous tendencies could be genetically inherited, but the fact still gave
her pause.

It had done some serious damage to Leia’s political career early on when her true parentage had
been discovered by the press, but though her presidential ambitions had been permanently
destroyed she had rallied well enough to move on and become a senator.

There were photos of her, too. There didn’t seem to much of her in Kylo-he obviously got his
looks from his father- but Leia was beautiful. A petite woman with a charming smile, she appeared
determined and sophisticated as she stood beside her family at press conferences and political
events.
There was never a hair out of place or a jacket wrinkle to be seen, even if she had been dealing with
an ancestry that she was ashamed of and a husband who, by all accounts, had been less than
faithful.

That shimmering public image hadn’t helped Kylo during the trial. The press hadn’t considered his
grandfather’s crimes or his parents’ failing marriage to be enough to garner him any sympathy nor
did most of the public. His only supporters seemed to have been young women impressed by his
looks or his fortune, and they had been widely mocked for their willingness to overlook his crimes
for a pair of pretty eyes.

Every reporter, new anchor, and celebrity that had deigned to weigh in on the subject-which had
been almost all of them- had deemed him a spoiled brat with an anger problem that deserved to rot
in prison and never again see the light of day.

Rey thought he was a spoiled rich kid that obviously needed better lawyers.

His mother, understandably upset about the circumstances of his arrest, had apparently refused to
pay for his legal team, and his public defenders had done extraordinarily little defending.

There was never even an attempt made to claim that he hadn’t committed the crime of which he
had been accused. It was freely acknowledged that Ben, now Kylo Ren after he changed his name
to distance himself from his family, had stabbed his father seventeen times in a dimly lit alley in
Houston.

His reason, told through his lawyers because they didn’t allow him to take the stand, was rooted in
family problems. There had apparently been prior behavioral issues, and his parents had sent him to
live with his uncle, a decision that Kylo had not handled well.

When his father finally tracked him down after he had spent six months living on the streets with a
group of runaways, he hadn’t wanted to return. There had been an altercation and it had gotten out
of hand. They portrayed him as an impulsive child, panicking over a punishment and lashing out
without thinking.

The jury hadn’t seen it that way- it had taken them only three hours to return with a verdict.

Guilty.

He was sentenced to life, without the possibility of parole, at the age of sixteen.

There were plenty of videos from inside the courtroom since the trial itself was well televised, and
his reaction- or lack thereof- to the verdict had been the cause of speculation for weeks.

He had stood beside his lawyers, clean cut and stoic in his suit, as the rest of his life was taken
from him. There had been no tears, no sudden slumping of his too stiff shoulders, no looking
around for support or escape or even a friendly face.

Not there would have been one anyway, his mother and uncle hadn’t attended the trial. The court
had been forced to appoint a guardian for him, with one parent dead and the other still attending to
her political career several states away and refusing to even acknowledge his existence.

Rey let the video play to its end, and another to take its place.

It was even more obvious in the videos how cold and empty his eyes are were now that she could
see him move and breathe. He was unfazed as the legal teams called their witnesses and presented
their evidence and wrangled fancy words at a jury that should have been somber but looked instead
like they might secretly be enjoying the attention as they held a young man’s life in their hands.

But then, as yet another video played and the clock on her bedside table ticked relentlessly toward
2am and she felt her eyes begin to droop against her will, she saw it.

The prosecution had put up a large photo of Han in the courtroom to play on the sympathy of the
jury- to let them see the face of the man who was murdered in a dirty alley by the child he had
loved and raised- and Kylo, who had spent most of the trial staring straight ahead and ignoring the
proceedings entirely, turned his head to look at the face of his father.

She leaned forward and paused the video, staring at his face in that one brief moment when the
mask of indifference slipped. Her heart was pounded as her breath caught painfully in her throat
because there was a lost child in his eyes.

It was a look she recognized immediately- pain, anger, fear…and beneath that the kind of desperate
shock that only comes from a loss that is too deep and too profound to speak of.

The wood floor creaked beneath her feet as she padded down the stairs, skipping the loudest one
by habit and guiding herself only by the light of the moon that streamed in the windows so that she
didn’t wake her father.

It took her a few minutes of careful rummaging in the downstairs office to find what she’s looking
for, but when she did she said a quick prayer of thanksgiving and ran nimbly back up the stairs to
her room, a small photo album now tucked under her arm.

She tossed it onto her bed before she crawled back into it herself and began to skim through it in
the low light of her laptop screen. She ran her fingers over old photos of herself, most of them
unremarkable with her wide smile and normal family, but those weren’t the ones that she was
looking for.

She finally pulled out two, taken several years apart, and held them up next the screen, looking at
each of them in turn and then back again to Kylo Ren’s face, still frozen on the screen.

The first, taken when she first arrived with the Johnson’s, showed a small and sickly little girl in a
pink dress that hung limply off a body that was so thin that even in pictures her bones poked
painfully at her skin. She had been alone and frightened, traumatized from being bounced from
foster home to foster home as each deemed her unruly and difficult to discipline.

The second was taken the day of her mother’s funeral. It was a bit blurry, just a quick snapshot that
someone had taken of her and her father, both dressed in relentless black and standing helplessly in
the sea of flowers that had been sent by everyone from miles around to express their condolences.

In both of them, she had the same broken look in her eyes that Kylo did sitting in that courtroom
looking at a picture of his father.

God works in mysterious ways, perhaps he had led her to Kylo because she was the only person in
the world who would have seen that look, who would have recognized it for what it was because
she’d felt it herself.

She clicked on her beside lamp, creating a little pool of light to push back the darkness, and pulled
a sheet of paper and a pen from her desk drawer.

Kylo,

You were right. I was too young to remember it when it happened, but a little bit of time on the
internet today was enough to tell me that your trial was quite a spectacle. You got your fifteen
minutes of fame out of it, anyway.

I saw that whole show they did about you on Oprah. That was pretty impressive, and they didn’t
sugar coat anything about the crime you committed either, did they? Not that Oprah was the only
one, I think they must have splashed all the horrifying details in every newspaper in the country.

You stabbed your own father, left him lying dead in a pool of his own blood while you ran off
because you didn’t feel like going home to your nice house and your pampered life. You were
obviously spoiled, out of control, dangerous.

Is that what you wanted me to say?

God doesn’t ask me to judge you for what happened, He only asks that I treat you with kindness
and compassion, but I made a judgment anyway. I watched the trial and I know that look in your
eyes.

You’re not a monster.

Maybe it’s easier for you if you tell yourself that you are, maybe it makes it easier for you to deal
with your secrets and whatever really happened that night, but I know what it looks like when
someone’s whole world just crumbled beneath their feet.

You can fool yourself, but you can’t fool me.

Rey
 I Forgive You
Chapter Summary

For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you-
Matthew 6:14

Chapter Notes

Hello again! First I just wanted to thank all of you so much for your support and
encouragement on this story, we have a long way to go and a lot of stuff to uncover
and I am really excited about all of it!

Second thing is the TW for this chapter. There will be discussion of past child neglect
and abandonment, a child going hungry, a teen being abandoned by family, a teen
being abused.

We are seeing the very edges of some of the stuff that lies beneath the surface here,
but know that though it is glossed over pretty quickly here, we are going to be diving
into the details of it all later.

Kylo had been in a piss poor mood for three days.

Naked fury pulsed in the air around his large frame to such an extent that even Hux had wisely
kept his mouth shut and stayed as far on his own side of the cell as possible. The other inmates,
largely already intimidated by the sheer size of him and his unpredictably explosive temper, gave
him an even wider birth than usual.

Three days.

That’s how long it had been since he’d last received a letter from her. The obnoxious woman, no
child, that had shown up in his life from out of nowhere- hellbent on causing disruption and acting
like she knew one single fucking thing about him.

You’re not a monster

The words had played over and over in his mind since he had first read them. The sheer audacity of
it was still difficult for him to wrap his mind around.

She’d watched the damn shows, read the damn articles…she knew exactly what he’d done that
night in Houston. He’d never denied it.

You’re not a monster, she’d said.

Yes, I am, he thought.

Why didn’t she understand it? That it didn’t matter at all what the hell she thought she’d seen or
how he’d felt or why it had happened.

It only mattered what he’d done.

They’d made that clear to him in abundance, hadn’t they? His family, his friends, the courts…all of
them.

He’d been left to rot in a juvenile detention center for a year because his mother and uncle, the
thought of whom still sent fresh coils of rage rioting through his veins, refused to post his bail.
He’d turned sixteen in that hellhole, all alone and with no one or nothing to acknowledge him.

It was only the hope he’d clung to that had gotten him through that. Hope helpfully supplied by his
lawyers assuring him that there was enough evidence to support a defense- his open admission of
what had occurred, the psych evals that resulted in a diagnosis of severe PTSD related to events
that occurred before the stabbings, the testimonies from the other teenagers about the living
conditions that clearly fell within the definition of mental, emotional, and sexual abuse.

It painted a clear picture and it seemed like it should have been enough…until it wasn’t.

His friends had vanished, taking their support and testimony and eyewitness accounts with them,
and though he knew it was largely out of their control or due to sheer terror of the consequences of
speaking out, it still hadn’t lessened his feelings of resentment and abandonment.

In the end, though, then even that hadn’t mattered at all because he’d stood numbly in the cold and
empty courtroom during a pretrial hearing and heard the judge decide that all evidence of abuse
was inadmissible. The testimonies, the evaluations, even his own recounting of what had happened
to him had all been banned- not one word about it was to be uttered during the televised
proceedings.

He could still feel it, the weightless sensation of his body and how it had almost felt like he was
floating, how the words themselves had sounded like they had traveled a long way under the water
to reach his ears, the thick dark metallic taste of fear on his tongue when he realized what it would
mean.

It was irrelevant, the judge had said, what events occurred before his father’s murder. It only
mattered that he had, in fact, been murdered.

His lawyers had been shocked, almost as unable to understand what was happening as he had been.
It wasn’t until years later that he’s discovered that Judge San Tekka had been an old friend of his
Uncle Luke and all the pieces clicked into place.

Admitting that evidence at trial would have exposed Luke and his church, their misdeeds, to the
world. Obviously, they could never be allowed to happen. Kylo never wondered how far people
would go to cover up their sins after that. The answer was always as far as they needed to.

By the time he figured it all out, it had been too late, his appeals were exhausted, and he’d never
gotten a chance to speak, to explain, to lay out his reasons and be judged fairly for his crimes.

Not that he thought it would have mattered anyway. Society had already gotten the story they
needed, spread it out all over the TV and the newspapers for everyone else’s entertainment, and
he’d been made to understand exactly what he was. They had wanted a monster, and he had
become one, the last of the hope inside him dying as the trial progressed.

The verdict had been unsurprising, such a foregone conclusion in his mind that it hadn’t even been
able to penetrate the superficial numbness that had clung to him for a few years after his father
died. The press had gone crazy over that, his lack of reaction. It was one last thing to demonize him
for before they locked him up and threw away the key.

They all knew he was a fucking monster.

How dare she show up now, years after everything else in his life had made the point clear and it
all stopped mattering to him all, to try and tell him he wasn’t a monster?

On the third day, simmering with rage and unable to hold his emotions inside any longer, he
scribbled another hasty note on a torn scrap of paper, letting his emotions pour out of him into the
words and breathing heavily through clenched teeth as he slammed a stamp on the corner of the
envelope.

What the hell do you know about anything, kid? You think I’m a nice person even after everything
you know I’ve done? If they didn’t sugar coat anything on those shows you watched, then you
know exactly what kind of monster I am, or at least you should. Did your parents keep you so
tightly bundled up in your nice little house and your nice little church that no one ever bothered to
teach you stories about the boogey man?

That’s a serious flaw in your education, princess, so let me do you a favor and fill in the gaps. The
devil you should be worried about isn’t the kind that lives in your Bible and thinks that saying
‘fuck’ is a sin. The devil you should be worried about lives next door to your house and thinks
about peeling the skin from your bones. He’s the friendly guy at the grocery store that pays to
watch strangers fuck little kids on the internet, or the nice lady at church who goes home and beats
her own children…but just in the places where their clothes cover their bruises.

Hell is empty, sweetheart, all the devils are here.

***

Hux smirked when he turned around, a new crisp white envelope clutched in his hand.

“Fuck off,” Kylo snapped, but there was little heat to it.

It had been longer this time, long enough that he really though that maybe his last letter had been
enough to get through to her, that she’d moved on. He'd wanted to be satisfied that his vicious
words had done the trick, but each day without a response had twisted something inside him
uncomfortably.

He tore the top off the envelope and quickly scanned the letter inside, noting in surprise that there
appeared to be a few spots near the bottom where the rich black ink had blurred and the paper
looked a bit thinner, more fragile.

Tear spots.

Fuck.

He hadn’t meant to make her cry.

Kylo,

Mark Twain quotes, huh? I’m impressed.

You’re not a monster, or a devil, but that last letter was just…not nice. I’ve been nice to you, and I
honestly think you owe me an apology for being so mean all the time, but I forgive you.
I forgive you because it’s what I’m supposed to do- as a Christian it’s what God commands me to
do- but more than that, I forgive you because I think you’re a man who has a lot of hurt in his
heart. Have you seen those devils Kylo? The kind that you told me about in your letter?

I think you have, and I think they hurt you.

You asked me what I knew about anything, and I guess that’s fair. No one expects someone like me
to know about hurt or how it can dig around inside you and scoop out everything else until there’s
nothing left but the numbness and the anger that keep you safe because it means no one can get
close enough to hurt you.

No one expects me to know it, but I do.

The first time I learned about it was the day my birth parents left me alone in a run-down motel
room and never came back. I was three, and they left me behind like garbage they didn’t want
anymore. The state suspects they were probably junkies, but no one knows for sure.

I learned it again in every foster home they put me in for the next three years. They bounced me
around from place to place because no one wanted to deal with my issues. I guess my parents
hadn’t fed me very well because I was always stealing food, no matter how much the new families
gave me. I got into a lot of fights with the other kids, had a lot of anger. I bit people a lot- my
adopted dad still has a scar on his arm that I gave him the first week they took me in.

Is it foolish that I thought that was it when my last foster family adopted me? That pain would
never be able to find me again because I had a family of my own? People tell me it wasn't, but it
feels like it was because I learned it again a few years ago when my mom died.

That one probably hurt the worst because she wasn’t like me. She wasn’t abandoned or broken or
unworthy of being loved like I was. She was good, and kind, and she took me in when I was so wild
and angry that I was practically feral, and she gave me love anyway, even when I didn’t deserve it.

She didn’t deserve to die, but she did, and I couldn’t stop it and it hurt.

I don’t know why I am telling you this, I probably shouldn’t, but I said we could be friends and I
guess I think friends might talk about these things, the kind of secrets that weigh on their hearts
and leave scars.

I have other friends, but I don’t talk to them about stuff like this. They don’t understand what it’s
like to hurt this deep and they look at me with pity. I don’t know why, but I don’t think you would
pity me. I think that you’d understand, that maybe even though things look ok on the surface,
doesn’t mean that things are ok on the inside.

For some reason I think you're like me, and don’t have many friends. I hate the thought of anyone
feeling like they’re alone.

I know what it feels like to be alone and, Kylo…you’re not alone.

Rey

***

Her heart beat a little faster in her chest when she pulled the letter from the mailbox, and she bit her
bottom lip as nervous butterflies flooded her stomach.

She had no clue what she’s been thinking, sending him that last letter. She’d poured her heart out to
him, an angry and resentful stranger, on impulse and with nothing but a stray hope that maybe there
could be some connection there and the theory that God had brought them together for a reason.

Now the results of that decision were in her hands.

If he was still angry at her, still not interested, then she would have no choice but to ask the warden
for a different name.

“Hey,” her dad called loudly from the kitchen, “don’t let the screen door…slam.” He sighed good
naturedly when the door reverberated against its hinges behind her, as he done at least once a day
since she’d moved into this house.

She’d always been just a little bit careless, but he never really seemed to mind.

“Anything good in the mail today?” He was standing at the stove, sleeves of his white dress shirt
rolled up as he made dinner. There was a little salt in his paper dark hair, and a few wrinkles
around his eyes when he smiled, but he was still a handsome man. Rey attributed most of it to the
kind twinkle in his blue eyes- everyone loved her dad.

“Hmm? Oh, no…I mean, yes, there was…but it was just a letter from that pen pal program I
started for the Bible group.”

He brought a spoon of spaghetti sauce to her lips for to sample and she nodded. The flavor was
good, better than anything she could have made. Everyone knew that snacks were about the most
you expect from her in the kitchen.

“Is it going well? The program? I’ve heard so many good things about what’s happening in the
Bible group since you took over.”

She slipped the letter into the pocket of her jeans, hoping he wouldn’t ask her about her own
experiences specifically. “I think so, everyone’s pretty satisfied with it so far and most of the
inmates were very enthusiastic about the idea.”

“That’s good, honey,” he said distractedly. “Why don’t you grab us a few plates? I think this is just
about ready.”

She sighed in relief, pressed a kiss to his cheek, and set the table for dinner.

As they ate they chatted happily about her upcoming plans for the Bible group, now that the 4 th of
July picnic had come and gone, and his upcoming sermon for the week. She suggested the topic of
forgiveness, and he readily agreed, just as he had when she had suggested the topic of prejudices
after Rose’s incident with Mrs. Nu- Rey had stared her down in church that Sunday and she had
been better behaved since.

Her relationship with her father was now comfortable and easy, and she knew how lucky she was
to be so loved and unconditionally supported, even with a scar that would always linger on his arm
and a permanent ache around her heart when she looked at her mother’s empty chair.

Maybe she had been wrong in her letter, maybe she shouldn’t have dwelled on the echoes of old
pains instead of focusing on her blessings.

Kylo was just going to tell her how spoiled and ungrateful she sounded. How spoiled and
ungrateful she was… complaining about her life to a man that would spend the rest of his life
behind bars.
The guilt she felt was sudden, a sticky and unwelcome emotion that she could have easily done
without.

As a result, she left the letter sitting unopened on her desk until morning, when her curiosity finally
overrode her anxiety and she had to see his response even if it was a blistering lecture on her own
privilege.

She could apologize if he was angry, and try again, she decided- quickly and conveniently
forgetting her plan to leave him alone if he was still reluctant to write her.

She didn’t know why his opinion mattered so much to her, so only knew that it did.

Grateful tears ran unchecked down her cheeks as she pulled his letter out and began to read.

Rey,

If I’m not alone, then neither are you…

 Something That Makes You Smile
Chapter Summary

Those who sow in tears, shall reap in joy- Psalms 126:5

Chapter Notes

My readers on this fic get a bonus chapter this week, because I got my confidence a bit
shaken up on one of my others and I needed a break from that story. Hope you enjoy
this one, we are getting a bit heavy in the hints about Kylo's background so once
again- please mind the tags!

TW/CW- abuse of teens, teen alcohol and drug use, implied teen prostitution/human
trafficking, very dubious sexual consent with a teen runaway, violence and murder,
hints of Damerey (Rey has a crush)

See the end of the chapter for more notes

If I’m not alone neither are you…

It’s not that he regrets telling her that, not exactly. It’s not even that he regrets what he said after
that-

Maybe you were right, maybe I do know what it’s like to feel that kind of pain. There was a lot of
stuff that happened, stuff that weren't allowed to talk about at the trial. I was so angry, so hurt and
broken.

I killed my father.

I just don’t think I’m ready to talk about it. I might never be ready to talk about it.

Talk to me about something else, Rey. Talk about something that makes you smile.

I didn’t mean to make you cry.

-though he probably should regret it because he just knows that she’s going to write back and tell
him that it’s alright, that he can tell her about it if and when he’s ready. She’s just like that- calm
and understanding and immovable when she’s set her mind to something. He can already tell that
about her.

No, the part that he regrets is that talking to her means thinking about things.

Lots of things.

Especially now that his irritation with her had begun to fade into curiosity, maybe even a grudging
sense of connection. It was impossible not to wonder what she looked like? How she spent her
time? If she enjoyed school? If she had friends?
He reached into the envelope where he had stored her letters, rereading the first for the hundredth
time, careful not to bend or wrinkle the pages too much. The girl, Rose, from the bible study group,
she was probably a friend.

That was nice for Rey, that she had people who cared about her, even if there were some things
that she chose not to share with them…things that she had only shared with him.

That was nice for him, to know something intimate about someone, to be trusted. She’d already
shared so much, while he had shared so little. At least, nothing that the whole world didn’t already
think they knew, anyway. He hadn’t had a connection to anyone in such a long time that he’d
almost forgotten what it felt like to be curious about someone else and to have them be curious
about him in return.

His eyes drifted to Hux- the redhead was lounging in his bunk and reading some book that was
probably dumb as all fuck- and tried to imagine what would have happened if he had even bothered
to ask what it was about. Hux would have told him to piss off and that would have been the end of
that.

He'd gotten used to it, that feeling of isolation and relying on one but himself.

Now, suddenly, it bothered him.

Maybe it wouldn’t hurt, to tell her something about himself, to try and connect with another
person. She was safe on the outside, away from him and anything that could happen, any way that
he could hurt her or let her down. He went to sleep wondering what he might tell her when she
wrote him back this time. Because he was sure that she would- he was almost looking forward to it.

That night he had the dream again.

It was the first time in a long time, and it hurt even more than he remembered.

It was dark and he was lost. He was running as fast as he could because he knew something was
chasing him, though he couldn’t remember what. He stumbled, unable to see where he was going,
and suddenly there was a sea of faces rushing by, all of them familiar but moving too fast for him
to focus on any one in particular.

Then the faces faded away and he saw his Uncle Luke, face calm and his eyes devoid of sympathy,
as he stood in the darkness of a large church and delivered a sermon on the evils of sin. Familiar
fury surged in Kylo’s mind, and he balled his fists so tight his hands ached as he took a violent
swing at his uncle, but his hand passed through like Luke's dream face was made of smoke... and
Luke smiled, triumphant at his nephew’s failure.

Kylo turned- disgusted with himself as Luke continued to drone on unfazed-and spotted Mitaka and
Bazine. His heart lurched in his chest, seeing Mitaka's frightened eyes and Bazine's beautiful face.
She'd always been beautiful, and not even Luke had been able to take that from her.

They were huddled together on a wet concrete floor, heads so close that Kylo couldn't tell where
Mitaka's brown hair ended and Bazine's began. They were cold and frightened and Mitaka was
crying but Kylo knew he couldn’t help them. Mitaka was always crying, he had it the worst out of
almost anyone-except for Taylor and where the hell was she and why wasn't she here and what the
fuck had Luke done to her this time?-and anything they ever did to try and help him only made it
worse.

Kylo clenched and unclenched his fists at his sides, hating himelf for the impotence of his rage
almost as much as he hated Luke.

Luke’s sermon was interrupted by the sound of a baby crying and nausea swam in Kylo’s stomach
when Bazine looked up at him with tears of loss and rage in her eyes. “I hate you,” she spat, and he
sank to his knees in front of her, but she walked away, and she didn’t look back. He knew he’d
never see her again, that she would never forgive him for what had happened.

He turned away from them, leaving Mitaka sobbing alone on the floor, and ran as fast as he could.

“Come, child, you need a place to be safe…a place to belong.” Kylo sagged in relief at the sound
of Snoke’s voice.

There was laughter in a rundown house filled with runaways, and the acrid smell of tobacco and
weed smoke in the air. His friends were just as fucked up as he was, and they were all having a
good time. Snoke called them the Knights of Ren, but Kylo knew they were a bunch of petty,
underage criminals.

That should probably bother him, but the drugs made him feel better, and so did the alcohol.

“I know you want to stay here,” Snoke whispered in ear. “There’s just the small matter of how you
earn your place.”

“I’ve given everything I have to you already,” Kylo insisted. “I’ve done everything you’ve asked.”

“Of course, you have. You've been very loyal, Kylo, very grateful. This shouldn’t be a problem,
then. You're not a child, are you?”

His stomach flipped when the dream tipped him into a fancy hotel bed with silk sheets, and cold
dread settled over him. He wanted to run but he knew he couldn’t, he had nowhere to go.

An older blonde woman was in bed next to him and his heart was pounding in his chest. “Don’t
worry,” she said softly, placing her hand low on his stomach, “I didn’t pay Snoke that much to hurt
you. Just relax.” He felt like he was going to vomit, but there was nothing he can do to stop it now.
He closed his eyes and pretended he was somewhere else until it was over. The first time was the
worst.

The drugs made him feel better, and so did the alcohol, but he wasn’t sure anymore that it was
enough.

“I’m not going back,” he announced defiantly, trapped in a dark alley with the man who used to be
his father. He doesn’t have a father, not anymore. “You can’t make me go back to Luke’s.”

Han shook his head. "I promise, we won't make you go back to Luke's", he'd said, but Kylo
couldn’t tell if he was lying. “We love you, Ben. Come home,” Han begged, taking a step forward
and forcing Kylo to walk backwards until his back was against the wall behind him.

“I can’t. It’s too late.” He knew what his mother would say, if she found about the drugs and the
drinking, about Luke and Bazine, about the Knights and Snoke. She'd never forgive him for what
he’d done, what he had allowed others to do to him.

“It’s not too late. Snoke is just using you.”

Kylo knew that, he did, but it didn’t matter. At least Snoke knew what he was, how fucked up he
was on the inside. His family couldn’t know that, not ever.
Han took another step forward, his hand gripping Kylo’s shoulder tightly- he snapped, pure terror
rioting through his veins at the thought of Han trying to make him go back, of his mother’s face
full of condemnation when she found out everything that had happened.

He didn’t remember doing it, didn’t even know how the knife ended up in his hands, but suddenly
Han was lying on the ground beneath him and his father’s blood was hot and sticky on his fingers.

“Dad?” Kylo shook him, dropping the knife and burying both hands in the warmth of Han’s shirt as
he did so. “Dad!”

The scream was the last thing he heard in the dream, it always was, right before he bolted upright
in his bunk with sweat pouring off him and a real scream stuck painfully in his throat, but he knew
in real life that he had stayed there, holding his father’s body and staring into his lifeless eyes until
the cops found him a few hours later.

He thought he was probably still screaming when they got there.

Twelve years later, curled up on a bunk in the prison cell that he would never leave, he could still
feel the rawness of his throat and the tears on his cheeks when they’d slapped him in cold, biting,
metal handcuffs and dragged him away from his father’s body.

Maybe he’d been a little insane then.

Maybe he was a little insane now, to be thinking that someone like Rey would still want to talk to
him if he told her about all that shit. He’d killed to that shit keep hidden away, because of the guilt
and shame and fear that it had laid on his heart and soul.

The stuff she’d lived through…it was stuff that happened to her, through no fault of her own,
because life and fate were bastards to everyone.

The stuff he’d been through, though, that was his fault.

His and Luke’s and Snoke’s.

No, he couldn’t tell her about all of that. She didn’t deserve to have to be drug into that world, not
even through his memories.

He wasn’t surprised by the content of the next letter he received several days later, but it reassured
him that he’d made the right choice. His desire for connection wasn't as important as protecting
her. She was bright and happy and optimistic, and he’d be damned if that was ruined because of
him, not after everything she’d already been through and come out shining on the other side.

Kylo,

I know you killed him, and I understand that you aren’t ready to let me in and share what
happened. I’ll be here if you do ever want to talk about it. Ok?

You didn’t really make me cry, I just miss my mom sometimes, but if you really want to know what
makes me smile?

Let’s see…

Food, always and any kind. I can’t cook but I love to eat, especially sweets. Peach cobblers and
cherry pies will get a smile from me on even my worst days!
Music! I love music, but my favorite is contemporary Christian and I don’t think you’d enjoy that?
I also like poetry.

I’m starting college this fall, that makes me smile a lot these days. It's kind of like a whole new
beginning and it’s the same one as most of my friends (including Rose, the one I told you about
from Bible group?), which makes it incredibly exciting even though I’m still not exactly sure what I
want to major in. My dad thinks I’d be a good teacher, and I like kids, so maybe early childhood
education…We’ll see, I guess.

Getting letters from you…Is that weird? I know you weren’t exactly thrilled about it at first, but I
know God sent you my way for a reason and I’m always happy to find a letter from you in the
mailbox.

That bit made his stomach flutter. It settled over him, something he hadn’t realized he’d been
missing- a sense of purpose, a reason to exist. Amazing how something so profound could be
reduced to such a simple goal...to make Rey smile.

He kept reading.

I 've wanted to ask, and I know that it may be part of what you don’t want to talk about so you don't
have to answer, but why doesn’t anyone else write to you?

Rey

He sighed and tipped his head back against the pillow, debating how honest he should be when he
answered her last question.

***

Rey walked slowly back to the house, open letter already in her hand as she went. Late afternoon
sunlight dappled across the words and she smiled as she read.

OK, first of all, any food? What about liver? Haggis? My mother made me eat escargot as a kid, I
was not a fan.

A laugh bubbled up inside her. She couldn't wait to tell him how disgusting that was. Someone
obviously needed to feed him some real food. Except they couldn’t, she remembered with an
unpleasant sinking sensation in her stomach, because he was never getting out of prison.

Did they let visitors bring food to prisoners?

Hmm.

Second, no contemporary Christian is not my favorite. I like most music, but not that. Or opera.
Did your parents let you listen to normal music?

Third, who is your favorite poet? Poem?

Congrats, on college! It never really seemed that exciting to me, but it's better than being in here,
right? I think you’d be a great teacher. You seem like the kind of person to dig until you find the
best of someone and not let them give you anything less. Kids need that, someone to have faith in
them.
 Had he needed that, she wondered, as she opened the front door and let the screen slam behind her.
Why had no one helped him?

She nibbled on the jagged edge of a broken thumbnail, leaning on the inside of the doorjamb and
frowning as she read the rest.

Maybe I wasn’t the nicest person when you started writing me, and I’m sorry. You aren’t what I
thought you’d be, and you don’t make me feel like I’m not human because of the mistakes I’ve
made. Thanks for that.

And about your last question…my mother didn’t even come to the trial and my uncle died a few
years ago. So even if he wanted to, which he didn’t, now he can’t and she won’t.

It’s ok, though, I’d rather have you.

“What are you smiling about?”

She looked up in surprise, clutching the letter to her chest and meeting the kind and familiar face
of Poe Dameron.

At 30, he was quite a few years older than she was, but still incredibly handsome. Brown curls
surrounded a perfectly sculpted face- high cheekbones, firm jaw, sensual lips over even white
teeth. She’d had a bit of crush on Poe for as long as she could remember- he'd been part of her
father's congregation for years- and he’d taken it well, never making her feel small or childish. He
was always polite even with the ever-present twinkle of mischief in his brown eyes.

He was always teasing her, about one thing or another.

“Hey, Poe,” she said. “Are you here to talk to Dad?”

“Yeah, he said I could swing by tonight…have dinner. He's in his office, just asked me to come out
and grab us a couple of glasses of tea.”

She nodded politely, pointedly ignoring his initial question. His eyes were still on the letter, but she
didn’t appease his curiosity, turning instead to back slowly toward the stairs, only finally turning
her back on him when she set her foot on the first step, too far out of his reach for him to try and
take it from her. He watched her go with an amused smirk and she knew that she had just set
herself up for an endless stream of him picking on her about her secret.

“There's plenty of tea in the fridge and you know where everything is in the kitchen. Please excuse
me, I need to run upstairs and clean up before we eat.”

“Sure,” he shrugged. “See you in a bit.”

It wasn’t a complete lie, she was going to clean up for dinner…as soon as she wrote another quick
letter.

Kylo,

Liver is disgusting. You should be ashamed for suggesting that it qualifies as a food…

Chapter End Notes

Rey's favorite poem is Invictus by William Ernest Henly

Invictus-

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade.
And yet the final menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how straight the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
 Can You Miss Something You Never Had?
Chapter Summary

A sweet friendship refreshes the soul- Proverbs 27:9

Chapter Notes

This chapter has had me struggling for days. It was hard to pin down the right plot
threads and the overall mood and characterization that I needed for later. Please be
gentle on this one, I tried so hard.

“I can’t believe summer is almost over already.”

Rey hummed noncommittally at Kaydel’s comment, eyes pressed shut against the harsh glint of
the afternoon sun. Sweat was already beading on her skin and she had just laid down on her towel
after climbing out of the water. The skin of her fingers was still wrinkled, and she was already
thinking about jumping back in just to escape the heat.

It doesn’t feel over,” Finn complained, leaning back against Rose’s legs as she sat behind him,
occasionally feeding him bits of ice cream off the cone she had stolen from her sister’s freezer
when Paige wasn’t looking.

“I’m just glad Paige’s apartment complex lets her have visitors at the pool,” Jannah said, stretching
out on the lounge chair next to Rey’s. “I’m only back for two weeks and I already feel like I’m
melting.”

Finn threw a towel at his sister and she squealed when the dripping wet fabric hit her face.

“That’s what you get,” he told her, “for going to college out of state where it gets cold.”

Jannah, who had left with her full scholarship to a university in Colorado and never looked back,
shrugged. “That’s why I stayed with my roommates in our apartment, instead of coming back for
the whole summer. I do not miss this weather.”

“We are pretty lucky that Paige got married this spring and moved into her own place. This is
much better than the public pool.” Rose’s tone was wistful, and Rey knew she was trying to
pretend that she didn’t miss having Paige in the house all the time. They had fought constantly
before she moved out, but Rey knew there was nobody in the world that Rose loved more than her
sister.

Rey peaked an eye open to check on her, but Finn had noticed, too, and he was subtly rubbing his
cheek against Rose’s still wet knee and Rose was already smiling again.

They were an adorable couple, and it always sent a little frisson of jealousy through Rey to see
them curled around each other so affectionately. She didn’t begrudge them their easy intimacy, but
she did wish that just once someone might look at her with interest.

Nobody in this small town wanted to date the pastor’s daughter. It seemed like everyone knew
how she was serious about her faith, and about the virginity pact she’d signed during her freshman
year of high school.

Not that she really wanted to date any of them, either. Poe was the only person she’d ever really
had a crush on, and he certainly wasn’t interested in her like that.

Jannah shook her head at them when Finn rested his head on Rose's lap. “How could you date my
brother, Rose? He’s so annoying.”

“Not to me,” Rose giggled, leaning down and pressing a kiss to Finn’s cheek. He smirked
triumphantly at his sister and Jannah pretend to throw up into her hand.

“So gross,” she insisted.

“Yeah? What about you?” Finn leaned forward, challenge so strong on every line of his face that
Rey was once again glad she didn’t have siblings. “Have you found anyone willing to date your
ugly face?”

Jannah shrugged nonchalantly. “Who has time for dating? I’m having too much fun exploring all
my options…and letting them explore me.” She laughed at the disgusted look on Finn’s face, and
the sound of it was rich and joyful and free. It was contagious and made Rey smile even as she
turned her head away to hide her own pink cheeks.

She tried not to judge them for their choices about sex, just as she knew they would never pressure
her to go against her own determination to wait until marriage, but she was still embarrassed when
they talked about it so openly.

Her knowledge on the subject was restricted to the little she'd learned in the school’s sexual
education classes, which came down to nothing more than instilling fear of disease and pregnancy
while insisting on abstinence.

She rarely had a clue what her friends were talking about, but she was too embarrassed to admit it.

“I bet that’s a lot easier to do now that you’ve left this place behind,” Kaydel mused bitterly.
“There’s not a lot of room for exploration here.”

“I’m sorry, Kay.” Rey reached out, wrapping her fingers around Kaydel’s and giving them a small
squeeze. It always hurt her to hear the pain in her friend’s voice whenever the subject of dating
came up.

“Don’t be. It’s not your fault. Your Dad’s never made me feel bad with any of his sermons, not like
the church my parents go to.”

“It’s awful that they think God’s word is a way to hurt and condemn anyone different. Are your
parents still mad that you go to church with me now, instead of with them?”

“Kinda, I guess. It’s not exactly a secret that your church is the most liberal one in town. They
don’t agree with a lot of the stuff your dad says.” She looked uncomfortable at the admission, but
Rey only smiled reassuringly. She knew that plenty of the older people in town were not pleased
that her father chose to focus more on God’s love and forgiveness than his wrath.

Kaydel’s parents were definitely among them and Rey had never understood how two people with
such a cold lack of empathy had managed to produce such a kind and loving daughter.

“We still have plenty of people like Mrs. Nu, though, don’t we?” Rose asked. “That woman uses
her faith as a weapon on everyone around her. She’s been a total bitch to me- sorry, Rey- and I
know she’d make your life hell- and probably out you to your parents- if she got the chance.”

Kaydel winced at the thought. “They’d kick me out, you know? That’s why I don’t date.”

“You could live with me,” Rey told her, not for the first time. “My dad wouldn’t let you live on the
streets. He’s not like that, you know he isn’t.”

Kaydel smiled but shook her head. “I wouldn’t do that. I don’t want everyone in town gossiping
about me or being mean to your family because of it. And,” she said, cutting across Rey's
objection, "I'm just not ready to face my parents."

“We understand, but it’s not fair that you have to hide who you are,” Jannah assured her, wrapping
her arm around Kaydel’s slender shoulders before turning her gaze to Rose. “Mrs. Nu is seriously
still giving you a hard time? I hate that racist old raisin.”

Rose nodded, giggling at Jannah’s unabashed distain. “Pastor Johnson’s tried to deal with her, but
she’s so sneaky that it makes it hard for us to prove anything. He’s given a few pointed sermons
and that straightens her out for a while, but never for very long.”

Rey sighed. “It’s way past time for her to find some joy in her heart, or at least stay home and not
spread her misery. Imagine spending so much time at church and leaving with nothing but
bitterness and hate.”

“There’s far too much hate in the world already,” Rose agreed.

“More than I realized,” Rey admitted. “I feel so stupid because thought that people like Mrs. Nu
were really horrible, and she is, but…but some of the stuff Kylo’s told me about being in prison…”
She shuddered.

“My cousin said things were bad,” Rose agreed.

“He says they have literal Nazis in there. People get beaten, stabbed, and even raped- all because
of their color or their sexuality." Rey sighed, trying to put words to some undefined stirring that had
taken root inside her. "I really thought that I was making a difference in the world- with the Bible
group, or having my Dad lecture Mrs. Nu while I made mean judgmental faces at her during the
sermon, or offering to let Kaydel sleep in my guest room if her parents kicked her out...that stuff
seemed like it mattered. It was like I was doing some good to undo the injustices of the world, but
now...what if that stuff isn't enough? Those people in prison don’t even try to hide their hate.”

“That’s just prison,” Jannah told her confidently. “The stuff you do is helping with this small
town's bullshit, and there's nothing you can do about life in prison.”

“Yeah, prison has the worst of humanity," Finn agreed. "I guess that’s fair, though, it's meant to be
some kind of punishment, right?”

He frowned at Rose when she smacked him lightly on the arm. “My cousin got arrested for
stealing a car, being locked up with Nazis and being threatened with rape is hardly a fair
punishment,” she huffed.

“Well, yeah, everyone knows that the system is racist and that it isn’t always fair but…" He let the
sentence linger, seemingly unable to figure out what to say that wouldn't further upset Rose.
"Besides it’s not like that’s the case with Kylo. Rey said he was a murderer, remember? I’m sure
there are plenty of rapists and killers in his part of the prison. You don’t think they should be
punished?”

‘He was a kid,” Rey said, cutting in before Rose could answer. “Like a literal kid. I’ve seen the
trial footage.”

“He killed his dad,” Finn said, shaking his head a little in bewilderment. “Does it really matter
when or why he killed him?”

Rey shrugged dismissively. She already regretted ever telling them anything about Kylo or what he
had done. Every conversation about him somehow circled back around to that, and it was
frustrating.

“You two have been writing a lot, haven’t you?” Rose asked quietly.

“Yeah? He’s lonely, writing him was kinda the point...and your idea.”

“Sure, we wanted to help some people out, make their sentences a little less miserable. It’s just…
we all got car thieves or people locked up on petty drug charges and you got a murderer who is
never getting out of prison.”

“Yeah,” Kaydel agreed. “Dan got picked up for possession charges, so he’ll be out soon. They
might even parole him and move him to a halfway house before his sentence is even over.”

Rey stared at her. “So?”

“I just don’t want you to get to be too close of friends with this guy,” Rose explained. “He seems
dangerous.”

“You said yourself, he’s never getting out. He can’t hurt me. All he does is draw me pictures and
talk to me about poetry and music.”

Rose fell silent with a small shrug, and a stern look from Rey kept the rest of them from speaking
up again, either. The conversation turned to other topics as Rey leaned back in her chair and
pretended to nap.

It irritated her, how quickly they’d dismissed him once they had found out why he was in prison.
She’d tried to explain to Rose about her connection to him and her theory that God had brought
them together, but Rose had not understood- and her cautioning had quickly gotten under Rey’s
skin.

Every conversation over the past few weeks had somehow evolved to being about him, all of them
ending up much as this one had. She knew they loved her, but Rose was being far too
overprotective. Kylo didn't deserve that.

Rey let mind drift as she listened half heartedly to her friends as they talked about the last few
fleeting days of summer and their excitement over college classes and newly found freedoms.

It left her feeling strangely hollow and sad inside that Kylo had missed out on all of that over the
years, the good and the bad.

***

“Jesus Christ,” Hux snapped irritably, “You’d think keeping us in decent air conditioning would be
considered a basic fucking human need in this heat.”

His red hair was damp and dark wet spots down his spine and beneath his armpits gave silent
witness to the truth of his discomfort.

Kylo grunted, too hot and miserable to do more than that. The heat was intolerable in mid August,
leaving them all feeling like they were crammed into this hell like sardines in a tin can that
someone had ridiculously stuffed into their oven.

The whole place smelled like stale sweat and aggression.

His fingers left damp imprints in the paper as he read Rey’s most recent letter.

Kylo,

Thank you so much for the drawing you sent with your last letter. I can’t believe you remembered
my favorite colors and that daises are my favorite flower! That was so sweet of you! I have a little
wall full of your art now (I’m a bit ashamed to admit that I’ve framed every single one of them
because they’re so beautiful) but I think that one is my favorite so far.

I didn’t realize I had so many of your drawings. We have already written quite a few letters,
haven’t we? It’s almost time for my first semester of college classes to start and I can’t seem to
figure out where summer has gone this year.

It’s a bit disappointing if I’m being honest.

The first year after you finish high school, when you get to be an adult and there’s all this freedom,
that’s supposed to be something magical, right?

I didn’t feel any of that, it was just more days hiding inside for the air conditioning and hanging
out at the pool with the same friends I’ve always had. It was identical to every other summer,
though we hung out at the apartments where Rose’s sister lives now and used her pool instead of
the public one.

No magical summer adventure for me.

I really am excited about college, but overall, I wish it felt it more special. It seems like there’s
something missing and I can’t figure out what it is.

He frowned. There were two lines of text that she had scribbled through with a heavy hand,
blackening them out so that they were unreadable. What had she thought might be missing and
why had she changed her mind about telling him?

Maybe it’s because I’m not really set on a specific major? I don’t know for sure and I just feel so
restless.

I feel like I always end up rambling to you about something unhappy and I’m really sorry about
that. I hate writing to you about this stuff, especially knowing that you didn’t get to have any of this
for yourself.

You’d probably give anything to have the mundane things I take for granted and it makes me feel
awful. It’s so easy to talk to you and I forget that it makes me seem like an ungrateful brat when I
whine to you about my life.

I worry about you being in there and something bad happening to you. I know you told me that
you're used to it, but the stuff you told me sounds very frightening. I wish you could be here to
whine about normal stuff with me and out of that horrible place. I think we'd be good friends, don't
you?

Can you miss something you never had?

Rey

Hmmm...

If things had been different, if his parents hadn’t sent him to Luke’s or he hadn’t ended up running
the streets for Snoke, maybe they could have been normal friends hanging out by the pool together.
They might have met some other way in that hypothetical life, and he could have been there for
her, listened to her problems, maybe even helped her to solve them.

Maybe in that life, he would have changed his mind and even decided to go to college himself. She
would have had no reason to be ashamed to talk to him if he had. Well, she'd never actually said
she was ashamed and she’d never told him exactly what had been said, but he knew her friend
Rose had discouraged her from writing to him too often or sharing too much.

Rose was just looking out for her, he knew. Hell, she had many of the the same concerns that he’d
had when Rey had first written to him, but hearing it now from someone else... it hurt, and it made
him nervous. He just didn’t like the idea of someone trying to take Rey away from him, not when
life had already taken everything else he cared about.

His mind slipped away, drifting back to his first days in juvie after he’d been arrested and how
terrified he’d been when he realized that the inside of a prison might be all he ever knew.

He looked around, taking in the small cell where Hux was still ceaselessly bitching about the heat,
the putrid smell, and the general feeling of hopelessness. He’d been right, all those years ago, this
was all his life would never amount to. He never wanted Rey to know how much that hurt him, or
how afraid he'd become to lose something as simple as her letters.

Rey,

You should know by now that I like it when you tell me about your life. Even the boring stuff is a
welcome distraction from what happens in here. Don't feel guilty about being unhappy, nobody is
happy all the time and I bet once you figure out what your major should be, you’ll feel much better.

Do most people have magical summers?

I didn’t get to have a senior year, but I think that’s some made up TV bullshit. I bet your friends
think their summer was pretty typical, too, since they were all just hanging out at the pool with you.
Most of us in here would love to hang out by the pool all summer, our air conditioning is pretty
unreliable and it makes Hux cranky, so maybe that's enough and it doesn't need to be anything
really special.

If life has magical moments, I doubt they come on a schedule and it just happens when it’s the right
time. There’s no fucking TV show or movie on Earth that would have predicted that this summer
would be a magical one for me, but it’s the summer I found you and that felt kinda special.

Your letters have become a bright spot in my shitty life, and I think you're my friend already, even
if I am stuck in here. Don’t waste any of your time worrying about me or being sad about me being
stuck in here, ok? Promise? It's not so bad in here, not anymore.
You can miss things you never had, but you shouldn’t waste your life wishing for them.

Kylo

He stared at his last sentence and wondered if he would be able to take his own advice. There was
always a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach when he thought for too long about whether she
would keep writing to him once her classes started. What if she got too busy?

He’d gotten used to having someone to care about over the past several weeks and the thought of
loosing her now made his heart ache.
 Did You Know?
Chapter Summary

Learn to do good; Seek justice,

Rebuke the oppressor and defend the fatherless,
Plead for the widow - Isaiah 1:17

Chapter Notes

I just wanted so say thank you again to everyone that has commented and shown love
for this fic. I really love seeing your reactions and predictions to everything that is
happening! Watching you all fall in love with this particular version of the characters
and their journey is amazing!

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Fall 2015

The stack of letters from her was thick now and new ones arrived on a mostly predictable schedule
that gave rhythm and reason to his days.

The prison itself had not changed- the sights and sounds and smells of incarceration were as
unpleasant and endless as they had always been- but the sheer monotony had been broken by the
words that spilled from her mind to dance across the paper in expensive black ink. She wrote to
him at least twice a week, usually not even waiting to receive a response to one before composing
the next.

She had gushed happily about her first weeks at college, and he had smiled at her boundless
enthusiasm for new experiences. He knew she must be smart because she found the work
stimulating and enjoyable. She wasn’t like him, he loved to learn but always hated sitting in a
classroom, and he was glad that she was nothing like him.

She was all of the bright and happy things, bringing the world joy where he had only ever brought
pain.

Prison offered him pitifully few interesting things to discuss, so he answered her questions if she
asked directly, but never volunteered more than necessary about his barren existence. He preferred
to talk to her about her life, which was rich and vibrant and full.

To compensate, he continued to draw for her. Always cheerful things like flowers and sunsets and
interesting faces that he remembered from before he came to this place. Infusing her world with
beauty, meant he brought a bit of it into his own mind, which was a welcome reprieve while it
lasted.

Sometimes he wrote her poetry, the lines written in neat calligraphy that added a physical beauty to
the flow of the words. She liked it when he copied the works of famous poets, but she liked it more
when he wrote his own.

There were no sweet and honeyed words in his verse, even here his soul bled ugly stains that
dripped pain into every metered line, but she never complained that he was too bleak, too dark, too
broken. He felt guilty for the bits of ugliness that worked its way across the bond they forming
between them, but she didn't seem to mind and wondered if the words ever spoke to her own
sadness, and the parts of her that she had buried away under her gratitude and her perpetual
optimism.

Her positivity was contagious and Hux had given up on mocking him for his ‘little girl pen pal’
when he realized how much Kylo’s attitude had improved with the regular arrival of Rey’s letters.
The absence of erratic flares of his cellmate’s temper had turned the surly ginger into her biggest
fan.

“Mail from your girl,” he said now, handing it over and snorting out a laugh when Kylo extended
his middle finger flippantly.

“You know it isn’t like that. I’m stuck in here for the rest of my life, remember? Not everyone is
lucky enough to have an actual release date like you.” The words were without their previously
usual heat, so Hux just shrugged absently.

“Some women are into that. Intimacy issues or some shit, right? Or maybe they just can’t get a
man on the outside.”

“Watch your mouth,” Kylo warned. “You don’t know a damn thing about her.”

“Neither do you, really. Do you even know what she looks like?” Hux’s look was unmistakably
condescending, and he already knew the answer.

“No, I don’t,” Kylo admitted, not really looking at Hux anymore, his gaze fixed absently in a spot
of peeling paint beside his cellmate’s head, “but I know she’s smart and funny. She doesn’t have a
boyfriend, but she just started college so I’m sure she’ll have one soon.”

If anyone deserved to be loved, he was sure that it was Rey and she woudn't have any problems
finding someone. Who wouldn’t be drawn to that vibrant energy?

“Do you think he’ll try and stop her from talking to you if she does?”

“What?” Kylo’s gaze snapped back into focus on Hux’s face.

“Well, would you want your girlfriend writing to some stranger? Especially one in here?” Hux
gestured vaguely to their surroundings with a look of distaste.

“Shut up,” Kylo muttered, but he was definitely worried now and Hux just shrugged again, his
point made. Kylo hadn’t thought about the implications of her being in a relationship, figuring that
she since she had kept writing him after she started college that he was in the clear, at least for a
while. But Hux was right… If he had a girlfriend, he certainly wouldn’t want her to spend her time
writing to a murderer.

Unease settled over him as he opened her letter but he tucked the concern away. There was nothing
he could do about it now, so it was something to dwell on another day.

Kylo,

The Arthur O'Shaughnessy poem that you wrote for me was simply beautiful. I can see why
someone who creates such beautiful art would like that one.

As it turns out, your love of sending me poetry was also very convenient. We are doing a short bit
on poetry for my English class this semester and my knowledge of amazing poets certainly
impressed my professor. I told her that I had a wonderful friend that was extremely serious about
discussing (and often debating) the best works with me and she seemed suitably impressed.

Of course, I already knew how blessed I was to have you, but that was an unexpected and nice
benefit.

I am very pleased to tell you that I got an ‘A’ on my most recent math exam, which is also
unexpectedly good news because I despise math in all of its forms (as I am sure you know by now
because I think I might tell you every time I write).

His lips twitched a bit at that. She absolutely had told him that she hated it. In every single letter
since her first math class of the semester. Her current record for mentioning it was three times in a
single correspondence.

My other two classes are still going just as well, even if I will never understand why I need to take
a psychology class as part of my general education credits. The subject is tolerable enough, I
suppose, though it won’t ever be my favorite. My next exam for that class is in a week, but I think
I’m well prepared.

My humanities class has proven itself to be the most interesting so far, and luckily I was able to get
that class with Rose and Finn, which only makes it even more enjoyable.

The professor has focused the curriculum around learning about social issues and injustices. It’s
been unpleasantly educational, but fortunately I wasn’t the only one in the class that was surprised
by much of what we discovered.

We learned about the human and ecological costs of fast fashion last week, which I think will keep
me from buying anything but used clothing for at least a year. I will come have to come up with
something else to spend my little bit of pocket money on.

This week and next week we are focusing on the justice system. There are significant problems, of
course, with the structure of our laws and the way that they are implemented, but one thing in
particular caught most of my attention.

I’m doing my semester paper over the subject because it’s infuriating.

Did you know that if your conviction had come after a certain Supreme Court ruling in 2012, that
they couldn’t have given you a life sentence without parole? They decided in Miller v Alabama that
giving juvenile offenders life without parole was a violation of their 8 th amendment protections
against excessive or cruel and unusual punishments!

That's so unfair to you because you were convicted in 2003. If it is cruel to the people convicted
after 2012, then it is cruel to people convicted prior to 2012! I couldn’t believe that the ruling did
not extent to the people that were already in prison.

The more I learn about everything that happens in prison and the system that puts people there the
angrier I get. Someone needs to address the lack of consistency in the way that these things are
handled!

My professor says that it will make a good paper because I feel so strongly about it, but I wish
there were more ways that I could help people like you. The ones that have been unfairly treated in
some way. Not just that you shouldn’t be in prison for life, which I really don’t think you should,
but also the complete media frenzy around your trial.

The judge shouldn’t have allowed all of that, Kylo. You were a minor and you deserved protection
and privacy.

It’s not much to offer but I hope that you’re doing well today, and every day, and that you know
that I am always thinking of you. I try to cheer you up and let you experience as much of college
and normal life as I can through these letters.

The are a million little things that I notice every day that I probably wouldn’t notice otherwise,
because I keep track of them in my mind to share them with you later. Funny stories, or if someone
has a hairstyle that I really like, or how many times a day I find myself talking about you in
conversation….

She went on, and each word kept the smile on his face for another minute longer.

***

I know

That’s all that he had said to her about how his fate might have been changed if the date of his
conviction had been different.

He’d written back to her about poetry and college and friendships and her newest rant about how
much she loathed math, but all he had said about something that could have altered the course of
his entire life was-

I know

She was still fuming the morning after reading it, tapping her finger in irritation on her thigh as she
listened halfheartedly to the day’s lecture.

Sure, maybe she should just be glad that he’d resigned himself to the inevitable- since there was
not one single thing at all that he could do to change it- but that went against every instinct she
possessed. It wasn’t right, it wasn’t fair, and he should not be made to suffer this way, no matter
what he had done.

“Rey?”

“Hmm? Oh!” Rey looked around with dawning realization to find that most of the class had
already filed out the door, leaving only Rose and Finn who were both looking at her expectantly,
their faces alive with barely repressed humor. “I’m sorry,” said quickly, shoving her laptop and her
water bottle in her bag and jumping to her feet. “I must not have been paying attention.”

Rose rolled her eyes and laughed as they started to follow Finn out of the classroom. They each had
at least two hours until the start of their next class, and they had decided to use today’s break to get
started on writing their semester papers since it was worth a full thirty percent of their final course
grade.

They all stopped at the front of the classroom when the professor called out, “Rey, do you mind
staying behind for a moment? I’d like to talk to you about your paper.”

Dr. Fischer had always been easygoing, and they all liked her well enough, but Finn and Rose still
winced before they promised that they’d meet her in the library when she finished.

“Is something wrong with the outline I turned in?” Rey asked when the door had closed behind
them.

“Quite the opposite actually,” the professor responded, turning in her seat to face Rey with a wide
smile. “I knew from our class discussions that this topic was something you were passionate about,
but the paper that you are proposing is very in depth and already well researched. Truthfully, I’ve
had many students come through my class with law school aspirations and not one of them was
demonstrating work at this level.”

Rey shifted uncomfortably, tugging the strap of her backpack higher on her shoulder, and
tightening her grip on the phone in her hand. “Oh, well, thank you…it’s just…I’m not planning on
studying law,” she said in a rush. “I’ve never even considered being a lawyer.”

Dr Fischer nodded politely. “Yes, I remember you said your primary interest right now was early
childhood education. Is that right?” She waited for Rey’s mumbled agreement before continuing,
“That’s an admirable field and one that I’m sure you’ll excel in if that is truly where your passions
lie. I would not be doing my duty as your teacher, however, if I didn’t tell you that it would be a
waste of your potential to go that route if your heart isn’t in it.”

“My heart is in helping people,” Rey told her honestly, “in making a change in the world.”

She may have been uncertain of what exactly her future career might consist of, but that much she
had always known. After all the challenges that she gone through in her life, it wouldn’t be right to
hoard the gifts she had been given. She had been helped, and loved, and she wanted to pass that
along to others.

Dr. Fischer looked at her for a moment before setting her glasses on top of her head and leaning
back in her chair. “Not all lawyers are the bloodsucking leeches that you hear everyone making
jokes about,” she said carefully. “There are two sides to every case, two sides to every policy. My
husband is an environmental lawyer. He works for a firm that handles litigation against companies
that are engaging in pollution or destruction of habitat. There are also nonprofit organizations, pro
bono cases, and many other ways that someone with an interest in the law could have a positive
influence on the world.”

Rey tucked her bottom lip between her teeth, considering. “I’ll think about it,” she promised.

“That’s all I can ask,” Dr. Fischer said with an encouraging smile. “And don’t forget about the quiz
on Monday.” Rey recognized the dismissal when the professor turned back to her papers.

She said a hasty goodbye and slipped out the door, quickly calculating that she still had plenty of
time to catch up with Finn and Rose and get some research done.

September had not done much to cool the air, and the leaves on the trees outside were still green,
but something about being back at school always made things feel like fall. They’d be carving
pumpkins and picking costumes by this time next month, and Rose was already planning a
Christmas toy drive for the prayer group.

After all, she had insisted, you couldn’t start too soon on those types of things.

Rey was rapidly coming to realize that Rose did more to actually lead the bible group than she did.
Rey was happy to provide snacks and establish dates on the calendar, but Rose was the one that
came up with the good ideas and provided that necessary motivation.
It was something that had been tumbling around in her head for a while now, and she was
desperately worried that her father would be disappointed if he found out that she wasn’t living up
her mother’s precedent when came to church involvement.

She was also very sure that Rose deserved more credit than she was being given, and it was
difficult to resolve those two conflicts in her mind.

Maybe she could ask Rose to come early to the next meeting so they could discuss it. Rose could
have an official title, Event Coordinator or maybe even be a co-leader for the group. If that wasn’t
a thing, then Rey would just make it one…

She set the thought aside when she swung open the heavy doors that led to the blessedly air-
conditioned sanctuary of the library. She was sweating through her t-shirt from the short walk and
paused gratefully just inside the large well-lit room, letting the cool air blow over her, as she
looked around the room for her friends.

It was lined all around with shelves of books, with sections on the interior that divided the space
into further book storage, rows of computers, or the neat little rows of tables that provided
comfortable study space to a few dozen students. Rey passed several that seemed to have fallen
asleep in their books, and she chuckled as she walked by.

Next to church, Rey had always though that libraries were the most likely place to find God. There
was always feeling of quiet contemplation, an atmosphere of knowledge and wisdom and peaceful
rest. Even though every library was different, the smell of books was always comfortingly the
same.

It was like a like an infinite number of homes waiting to welcome you in with the turn of a page.

Rose and Finn were already seated at a table, talking quietly as they unpacked what they needed
from their bags. They both looked up expectantly when she dropped into a chair across from them.

“So, how’d it go?” Finn whispered.

Rey sighed and settled down lower into her chair. “It was fine, she just wanted to tell me she liked
the outline for my paper.”

“She asked you to stay behind for that?” Rose asked, peeking around to make sure no one was
looking before stuffing a piece of chocolate in her mouth.

She slapped one into Rey’s outstretched palm and Rey popped it in before answering. “I guess she
also wanted to suggest that I look into changing my major. Do something law related, instead of
teaching.”

Finn shook his head and laughed. “You’ve never wanted to be anything but a teacher.”

“My dad wants me to be a teacher,” Rey corrected carefully, deliberately keeping the edge of
frustration out of her voice.

“Oh… isn’t that what you want, too? To be a teacher like your mom and stuff?”

“I never really thought about it,” Rey said with a shrug. She pulled out her laptop and looked at
Finn with a frown. “I mean, about other options, you know? I just figured my Dad kinda knew
what was best since I didn’t know what I wanted to do.”

“Law is pretty cool, I guess,” Rose said. “Lots of years in school, though, and I’ve heard it’s very
competitive.”

“Do you think I can’t get in to law school?” Rey paused at that- she hadn’t considered the
possibility that she might not get in if she did decide to pursue it…and she bristled a little at the
thought.

“That’s not what I meant,” Rose said, oblivious to the tumult that her words had set off in Rey’s
mind. “I just wondered if the motivation for law school would still be there, once you aren’t
writing to Kylo anymore.”

“What does Kylo have to do with law school?” Rey asked the question, but Finn turned to look at
Rose, also clearly wanting an answer to explain the connection that she saw between the two.

“I just kinda figured that’s where this sudden interest came from,” Rose said, looking to Finn for
confirmation that her assumption made sense. He nodded and she sat back in her chair, appeased
that he agreed with her.

“Ok, but why would I stop writing to him? It’s not like he’s getting out of prison.” Rey knew her
tone was surly, but she had gotten tired of these talks that seemed to center around criticizing her
friendship with Kylo.

“I notice you didn’t deny that he’s the source of you interest in law,” Rose pointed out smugly,
“but I just assumed you didn’t intend to write to him forever. We never meant for this be a
permanent thing. It was a charitable gesture, not a real friendship.”

“It is a real friendship,” Rey said defensively.

“Ok, maybe it is for now, but what are you going to do when you get a boyfriend that doesn’t want
you writing to a convicted murderer that’s serving life in prison? I mean, your dad was already not
exactly thrilled about it.”

“I wouldn’t want Rose doing that,” Finn said, chiming in and shaking his head. He placed his hand
protectively over Rose’s. “It sounds dangerous.”

“I guess it’s a good thing I don’t have a boyfriend,” Rey snapped, loudly enough to have heads
turning in the quiet room.

Rose leaned forward to whisper, “Not yet, but I guarantee you that you will. Everyone dates in
college.”

“I won’t. I’m not interested,” Rey insisted stubbornly, ignoring that she had seen plenty of
attractive men on campus that she might have considered dating if they had asked prior to this very
irritating conversation.

“Yeah? What about Poe Dameron?”

She gaped at Finn for a moment before answering. “What about him?”

“Oh, come on! Surely you’ve noticed how much he’s been at your house lately?’

“Talking to my dad,” Rey began.

“And looking at you.” Finn waggled his eyebrows suggestively. “I think someone has finally
caught his attention.”
 “He would never look at me like that,” Rey sputtered, but there was a small spark of hope deep
inside her chest. “He’s too close with my dad.”

“You’re an adult now,” Rose reminded her with a pointed look. “Besides, I wouldn’t be surprised if
your dad turned out to be really supportive. He loves Poe, and he knows Poe would be a good
husband. He’s always been nice and he’s a stable guy, isn’t he? You’d have a good life.”

She absolutely would, Rey knew that. Poe wasn’t the kind of man to raise his voice or his hand,
and beyond that he was gentle with kids and was an avid lover of animals of all kinds. He
worshiped God and respected his mother and would work hard to provide her with a nice house and
a large family.

Rey had always wanted that- a home and kids of her own- and Poe was the only specific face that
had ever featured as the other half in the marriage that was at the center of her domestic
daydreams.

“You’ve always been into Poe,” Rose continued, watching as Rey nibbled uncertainly on her
bottom lip, “but we all know how he would feel about Kylo and this law school stuff. If Poe’s
going to be taking over a church of his own, he’s going to need a wife that can help with that. It’s
something to think about.”

Chapter End Notes

The poem referenced in Rey's letter is this one:

Ode

We are the music makers,

And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams; —
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties

We build up the world's great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample a kingdom down.

We, in the ages lying,

In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself in our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.

A breath of our inspiration

Is the life of each generation;
A wondrous thing of our dreaming
Unearthly, impossible seeming —
The soldier, the king, and the peasant
Are working together in one,
Till our dream shall become their present,
And their work in the world be done.

They had no vision amazing

Of the goodly house they are raising;
They had no divine foreshowing
Of the land to which they are going:
But on one man's soul it hath broken,
A light that doth not depart;
And his look, or a word he hath spoken,
Wrought flame in another man's heart.

And therefore to-day is thrilling

With a past day's late fulfilling;
And the multitudes are enlisted
In the faith that their fathers resisted,
And, scorning the dream of to-morrow,
Are bringing to pass, as they may,
In the world, for its joy or its sorrow,
The dream that was scorned yesterday.

But we, with our dreaming and singing,

Ceaseless and sorrowless we!
The glory about us clinging
Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing:
O men! it must ever be
That we dwell, in our dreaming and singing,
A little apart from ye.

For we are afar with the dawning

And the suns that are not yet high,
And out of the infinite morning
Intrepid you hear us cry —
How, spite of your human scorning,
Once more God's future draws nigh,
And already goes forth the warning
That ye of the past must die.

Great hail! we cry to the comers

From the dazzling unknown shore;
Bring us hither your sun and your summers;
And renew our world as of yore;
You shall teach us your song's new numbers,
And things that we dreamed not before:
Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers,
And a singer who sings no more.

By- Arthur O'Shaughnessy

 Follow Your Own Heart
Chapter Summary

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord.
"Plans to prosper you and not to harm you,
plans to give you hope and a future."- Jeremiah 29:11

Chapter Notes

CW-

I warned in the tags that we would have some Damerey stuff happening in the
background of this story and its been hinted at but it's going to be a bigger thing in this
chapter.

She thought about her uncertain future for weeks, in the quiet spaces between her classes when she
was alone, and late at night as she lay awake and watched the moonlight and shadows dance across
her ceiling.

There was no denying the joy that she experienced as she worked her way through the research for
her paper. She was fascinated and often horrified by the thing she discovered as she dug deeper
into the processes of the criminal justice system. It was large and lumbering and often unequal in
ways that she found incredibly frustrating.

It was clear to her that there was a desperate need for change. For that to happen there needed to be
people willing to fight for those that were being treated unfairly and did not have the means to
escape their circumstances. It would be a difficult career, and require years of investment in her
education, but it would be deeply rewarding, she was so certain that she could feel it in her bones.

The work she put into just her class paper was equally emotionally draining and mentally
stimulating. She passed hours alone in the library soaking up all of the knowledge that she could
and huffing in frustration as she encountered case after case of kids who deserved so much better
than the fate they had been dealt. Some days she wept quietly, but always she was filled with
determination that things could be changed.

But, increasingly often, she came home energized and excited from her schoolwork to find Poe’s
car parked in her driveway.

He had still not said or done anything definitive, but she watched him closer now, after her
conversation with Finn and Rose in the library, and she soon realized that the two of them may
have been picking up signs that she had not been experienced enough to see. He smiled happily at
her whenever she entered a room, made excuses to stay close to her while she was there, and
watched her closely whenever she left.

It sent a jolt of excitement through her whenever she caught him watching her with those warm
brown eyes. His face was so kind, so handsome, the idea that he might have taken an interest in her
seemed almost too good to be true.

The Wednesday before Halloween he volunteered to help carry in the church’s decorations for
their annual trick-or-treat event, something that she was nearly certain that he had done only
because he knew she would be there.

Instead of a regular meeting of their bible group, Rose had suggested that they spend their evening
working to get the decorations hung and the games set up. Halloween fell on a Saturday this year,
so they were expecting more families than usual, and they didn’t want to disappoint.

Some of the other local churches frowned on their participation in a holiday with such pagan
origins, but Rey always loved seeing the kids in their costumes- they were adorable dressed up as
superheroes and bumblebees. She’d always been grateful that her father believed in accepting the
idea that you couldn’t stop people from celebrating, so you might as well join in the fun. All he
asked was that they refrained from dressing as monsters and devils, and most were happy enough
to show up in more wholesome costumes.

Rey had already spent over an hour attaching slips of paper with encouraging bible verses to the
sticks of black and orange suckers that put temporary spider tattoos on your tongue, when Rose
showed up with several huge bags of candy herself.

“We can’t forget to pick up the apples on Saturday,” she said, her smile huge as she dropped the
bags on the table with a thump and looked around. “The kids really enjoyed bobbing for apples last
year.”

“It’s on my list of chores for that morning already,” Rey said with a reassuringly, dropping the last
sucker in a big orange bowl and opening the first bag of Rose’s candy. It was chocolate, and she
grabbed a piece for herself once she had emptied the contents into the next bowl. She was going to
end up eating her weight in candy this week, but she had no regrets.

“Any problems with set up so far?” Rose asked, grabbing her own candy, and biting into it with a
satisfied hum.

“Not really. Just the usual complaints from Mrs. Nu, same as every Halloween.”

“We told her she could stay home.”

“I wish she would have,” Rey said honestly, sincerely hoping that listening to her complain about
how they were all celebrating the devil’s birthday and corrupting children in the process wouldn’t
dampen her best friend’s enjoyment of the evening.

Rose was the new co-leader of the bible group, and Rey wanted tonight to go especially well since
she was eager and excited about the first task in her new role. Rey couldn’t help but feel a bit of
guilt that she had never been as enthusiastic about their projects, she enjoyed it but…it didn’t fill
her with the same sense of purpose that it did Rose.

Her father had been surprisingly supportive of the change once she explained how much work
Rose had put into the group, and he hadn’t questioned Rey’s own commitment as she feared he
might, but she still wondered if she had let him down. Maybe he was secretly disappointed, but he
didn’t want to hurt her feelings by telling her.

“I see you’ve brought company,” Rose said, interrupting Rey’s worries and tipping her head across
the room to where Poe was standing on a small stepstool with his arms stretched high to hang
orange and back streamers from the ceiling.

“Hmm, he offered to help carry all the decorations from the attic. He was at our house anyway, so
he said it wasn’t a problem” Rey said, a blush riding hot on her cheeks.

“Yeah, I’m sure he had nothing better to do tonight,” Rose giggled. “I told you.”

“I know you did. Now, hush, before someone else hears you,” Rey looked around to make sure no
one else was close enough to eavesdrop, but she couldn’t wipe the smile off her face. “What do I
do?” she whispered frantically.

“Smile at him,” Rose instructed. “Sit close to him whenever you can, laugh at his dumb jokes,
make eye contact, touch his arm. He’ll get the hint that you are interested in him, too.”

Rey bit her lip and peaked at Poe out the corner of her eye. Rose had gotten Finn to fall desperately
in love with her, so she must know something about how to get and keep a man’s interest. “Right. I
can do that…can’t I?”

“Yes,” Rose said firmly. “You absolutely can. Now go offer to help him hang those streamers.”

“I mean, he’s been doing it himself for ten minutes…” Rey said, glancing at him again and then
away just as quickly when she found him already looking at her.

Rose rolled her eyes. “That’s not the point! You aren’t actually helping him- you’re being
available. Just go hold the tape and streamers and don’t forget to smile!”

Rey was afraid it would be awkward, but it wasn’t so hard after all to hold the supplies and smile
every time he looked at her. His hand brushed hers every time she handed him a new piece of tape
and she blushed; his hand was soft and warm where it skimmed hers.

By the time the decorations were hung, and Poe went home, she was riding high on excitement and
success. She might actually have flirted with him, she realized, though she would have to find Rose
and ask her to make sure.

Almost everyone had already left, the rest were standing around in small groups chatting as the
evening wrapped up. It didn’t take her long to spot Rose on the other side of the room, spreading a
cheap plastic tablecloth with smiling jack-o-lanterns on it over their folding dessert table.

Rey hurried toward her but her steps faltered when she overheard Mrs. Nu whispering loudly to a
group of the other women, all of them clearly unaware that she wandered so close. “She can’t even
run the group by herself,” the older woman sniffed disdainfully. “Certainly, her mother never had
such problems. Kate Johnson was actually devoted to the church. She would have been ashamed of
that child if she had lived to see this. Did you see the way she was throwing herself at Mr.
Dameron tonight? I thought surely that he would have had more sense. He’s a good Christian man,
pity for him to get his head turned by girl like that…”

Not able to listen to another word, Rey turned and fled, tears blurring her vision as the words she
had not been meant to hear amplified her own self-doubts. Mrs. Nu was often mean, and was
always a terrible gossip, but maybe she was right, maybe she wasn’t fit to take over for her mother.

She tried to keep her eyes on God and her faith, but maybe she had let herself be led astray recently.
Rose and Finn had already pointed out how her new interests conflicted with what expected from
her, and it seemed that even Mrs. Nu had noticed that she was preoccupied and not giving her full
attention to the things that should have mattered.
She sank down in her father’s chair, hiding in his office in the dark as she let the tears flow. She
was crying so hard she didn’t hear the door open.

“You don’t have to be just like your mother for her to be proud of you.”

Rey jumped and looked up to find old Mrs. Kanata standing on the other side of her father’s desk,
watching her from behind her coke bottle glasses. She sniffled and rubbed her tears away with the
back of her hand.

“She was just so good, so perfect, and everyone loved her…”

“You’re right that we all loved her, but she wasn’t perfect, child. You just loved her so much that
you couldn’t see the flaws. Nothing wrong with that, all things considered, and she loved you just
as much. More importantly she knew you. She took you, chose you, when you were wild and mean
and she loved you anyway. She wouldn’t want you to be unhappy woman that’s trying to be
something you’re not. She would want you to be the best version of yourself, because that’s what
God created you to be.”

“But Mrs. Nu…”

“I already gave that woman a piece of my mind, and it’s not the first time. She’s upset my girls too
much already. Don’t you worry about what she said. Not about your mama, and not about Mr.
Dameron. She was the biggest flirt in this town when she was your age and she might have
forgotten that little fact, but I assure you I haven’t. I’m old enough to remember plenty of things
that she’d rather be forgotten.”

Rey giggled a little, almost as surprised by Mrs. Kanata’s fierce protectiveness as she was the idea
that Mrs. Nu had once been a flirt.

“There’s never been anyone interested in me before,” she admitted. “Maybe I was too flirtatious. I
wouldn’t want him to think poorly of me.”

“If you were being flirtatious, so was he. I don’t think there’s a thing wrong with talking to a nice
man that wants to get to know you better.” She was quiet for a moment, pensive as she looked at
Rey. Sometimes I felt like Mrs. Kanata could see right through to the heart of a person when she
looked at them that intently. “I’m going to give you one more word of unsolicited advice from an
old woman…” she said eventually. “Poe Dameron is a good man, but you need more than a good
man to have a happy life. You need the right man and that’ll be the one who fits into what God
calls you to do and sees after your happiness as much as he expects you to see to his own.”

Impossible dreams of law school flitted shamefully through her mind. “What if this isn’t what I’m
supposed to do?” she asked, waving her arm around to indicate the small office. “Would God call
me away from the church?”

“From your seat on Sunday? I don’t think so. But not everyone is meant to marry a pastor and
spend their lives worrying over a congregation. Kate was happy with that life, and I know you saw
how fulfilled it made her, but you are not your mama. Open your heart to God, really listen to Him,
and you’ll know what He has planned for you.”

***

Bolstered by her conversation with Mrs. Kanata, Rey sat down at the breakfast table the next day
with a specific goal in mind.

“Good morning,” she chirped happily, and her father looked up between sips of orange juice with a
smile.

“You seem happy,” he remarked. “Might that have something to do with Poe helping you out last
night?” She blushed, and he laughed quietly. “Poe’s a good man, the kind of man that I always
prayed would come along and take good care of my daughter.”

“Yes, he is,” Rey agreed. “Though I don’t think we’re anywhere near him thinking about that.”
The look on his face told her plainly that he felt otherwise, but she hadn’t intended to discuss her
potential relationships. “I, uh, actually wanted to talk to you about something else.”

“Oh?” He set his glass on the table and turned in his chair so that he could face her directly. He
had always been good about that, about listening with his full attention. She’d never felt like what
she had to say was less important to him than anything else he might be doing.

“I’ve been thinking about school…” she began, and her stomach rolled with nerves when his brows
drew together in concern. “I’m not dropping out! I just…thought I might change my major. Maybe
do something else besides teaching.”

“Oh,” his face relaxed into a smile. “Well, your mother was an excellent teacher, but there are
certainly other things you could do.”

“Yeah, but,” she sighed, “how do I know which thing is the right one? How do I know which way
God is calling me?”

“You were made perfectly for God’s plans for you. When you find that path, I believe you’ll know
it. You've always had a good head on your shoulders, and you make good choices. if you ask, God
will guide you.”

She hummed her agreement as she finally poured the milk into her cereal bowl. “That’s exactly
what Mrs. Kanata said last night, but I feel better knowing that you feel the same way. I’ve been
worried about a lot of things lately; afraid you’ll be disappointed in me.”

“I don’t think that’s possible, Rey. You’ve been such a bright spot in my life, especially since your
mom…well, anyway, I’m just so proud of the responsible young woman you’ve become. Do you
have an idea of what you might like to do instead, if you think teaching isn’t for you?”

Her hand stilled as she reached for her spoon, his question lodging her heart in her throat.
Memories of her conversation with Rose and Finn flashed across her mind, and she realized
suddenly that she couldn’t bear to hear it if her father had the same doubts.

He did seem awfully pleased about Poe, and nothing had been decided for sure yet. Maybe Pow
wouldn’t even like her that much once they spent more together…or maybe he would and he’d
surprise her by being completely supportive of her goals.

“Not yet,” she said, picking up the spoon and giving her cereal an absent swirl. “I’m still mulling
things over.”

“I’m sure you’ll think of just the right thing,” he said, patting her hand and turning back to his own
breakfast.

***

Halloween at the church went well. The adults had nearly as much fun as the children, and because
it was a Saturday night, many of the parishioners stayed later than they might have done otherwise.

Rey was having so much fun with her friends- they had ended up bobbing for apples themselves
after handing out candy and helping with the games- that she was reluctant to leave when her dad
decided to head home for the night.

“We can stay and clean up,” she said, indicating herself, Rose, and Finn.

“How are you going to get home?” he asked, and she remembered abruptly that they had decided to
come together in one car. “Will one of them bring you?”

“I can bring her, Ryan,” said a deep voice from behind her and Rey turned to find Poe standing
there with a smile. “It’s not a problem.”

Her father didn’t hesitate, and it occurred to Rey for the first time that the two of them must be
closer than she realized for Poe to call him by his first name- most of the congregation referred to
him as ‘Pastor Johnson’.

“Thanks, Poe,” he said, reaching out to shake the younger man’s hand. “Keep her safe, will you?”

“Of course. I’ll bring her home as soon as she’s done here.”

He was attentive and polite while they all swept up discarded candy wrappers and wiped up spilled
juice, and Rey giggled each time Finn caught her eye with a meaningful look.

He opened the door to his sensible white sedan for her when they leave, and the inside of it
smelled like new car and his cologne. She kept her hands folded nervously in her lap during the
shirt drive and shot him a wobbly smile when he pulled into the driveway and parked the car. The
lights inside the house were already out, her father had clearly already gone to bed. He obviously
trusted that Poe would bring her home quickly and safely.

Poe was watching her with an unreadable look on his face, and she felt suddenly small and
inadequate, all of her doubts resurfacing in a rush.

“Thank you,” she said, breaking the tense silence in the car as she reached for the door handle.

“Rey, wait,” he said softly, wrapping one warm hand around her wrist. She stilled under the
command, her skin tingling under the soft caress of his fingers on her arm. Her heart was pounding
in her chest so loudly that she was certain he could hear it as he leaned closer and laid his lips
gently against her own. His mouth was warm and pleasant, and she laid her hand hesitantly on his
broad chest, twisting her fingers in the soft fabric of his shirt.

He didn't linger for long, nor did he attempt to part her lips for a more thorough exploration. He
smiled at her and she thought he seemed pleased with her response though she noted that his
heartbeat beneath her hand was steady- without any sign of her own racing thoughts and frazzled
nerves. When he tucked a stray piece of her hair behind her ear and his hand stayed, cupping her
cheek as he traced the curve of her cheek with his thumb.

“You’re so pretty,” he told her, and her heart leapt with joy. No one had ever thought she was
pretty before, and this was Poe. “I’d like to spend more time with you. I don’t think your dad
would mind, and you’re…” He paused, squeezing her hand softly as he considered his words.
“You’re exactly the kind of woman I’d like to build a life and a family with.”

Something inside her shifted, her excitement dimming slightly at his words. “What kind of woman
is that exactly?” she asked quietly.
He looked at her thoughtfully, not sensing the subtle shift in her tone. “You’re kind and generous.
You put your faith in God, where it should be. I’ve never known you to be rebellious or
disrespectful. You’re a good, modest Christian woman, exactly the kind that any man would be
proud to have for a wife.”

It was a very practical assessment that left her feeling a bit cold on the inside, even though his hand
was still warm on her cheek. She couldn’t fault him for it, not really, when she herself had often
thought about the attributes that would make him a perfect husband, but…

“Can I see you again?” he asked. “Alone?”

“Alone…as in a date?”

“Yes, a date. I can talk to your dad tomorrow, ask him for his blessing.”

She smiled, concealing her sudden doubts as well as she could. She was not going to through away
the opportunity that she had always wanted when she couldn’t even put a name to her hesitation.
“That would be great,” she told him. “I’m sure he won’t mind at all. He trusts you.”

"Good,I'm really glad," he said, letting go of her wrist and watching until she was safely inside the
house before he started to leave. The sound of his tires on the gravel driveway faded as he pulled
back out onto the main road, and she slumped against the door, her thoughts racing.

He was certainly eager, and he seemed sincere in his intentions…but was he interested in her as a
person? Or was he looking for someone that checked off the boxes of what he believed would
make a good wife?

His kiss had been soft and sweet, and his hands had not wandered, but he had he felt anything at
all? Was his lack of passion due to politeness and good manners or disinterest?

She sighed as she sat down at the dining room table, a late-night bowl of self-pity ice cream in her
hand. Surely the last thing she needed after a whole evening sneaking Halloween candy, but the
flavor of sweet creamy vanilla on her tongue soothed some of her slightly wounded pride.

She flicked through the day’s stack of mail as she ate and smiled sadly as she pulled out a letter
from Kylo.

Here she was, feeling sorry for herself, when she had certainly still had a better day than he’d
experienced. She’d wanted to send him some candy for the holiday, but they weren’t allowed to
send food to the prisoners. She knew because she had looked up the rules specifically.

Rey,

I’m glad that your math exam was not as bad as you thought it would be (yes, I know, you still hate
math but you’re doing so well), and that you are still kicking ass in your other classes.

She giggled, shaking her head. Sometime over the past few months she had come to find his
irreverent attitude reassuring. It was just so uniquely Kylo, and she couldn’t imagine wanting him
to change it, though she knew that her father and her friends would have been upset about his
language and her ready acceptance of it. She really ought to be trying to discourage him and set a
good example, but she didn’t have the heart to do so.

I’m not surprised that you’re considering changing your major. You were never excited about
teaching and you’ve been excited about law since you started that paper you’re working on. Your
teacher obviously has faith in you, and I am sorry that your friends can’t see how smart and
capable you are.

You can do anything you want to do, I know you can.

I’m the last person who can give you advice about what plans God has in store for your life but
think you should follow your own heart. No one else has to live your life, and you shouldn’t be tied
down by what someone else wants for you. You have a whole life of freedom ahead of you, and you
should use it to be as happy as possible. Chase all of those dreams, and to hell with anyone who
doesn’t like it.

You're going to be such a good lawyer.

She quickly scanned the rest of the letter, shaking her head when he promised to try and have good
Halloween because she knew he had not, and then let the paper fall back onto the table.

He had such faith in her, and it felt so good to have someone on her side that actually knew how
high her ambitions had become, but there was no way that he would understand her reluctance. She
had already explained to him her concerns about her father’s disappointment and her mother’s
legacy, but she hadn’t told him anything at all about one of the biggest reasons behind her
hesitation- she hadn’t told him about Poe.

She’d told him about everything else in her life, but not that. She wasn’t sure why she had kept that
a secret, but every time she had tried to bring it up the words had refused to come, like she couldn’t
find the right way to tell him. She was sure that something so simple wouldn’t change their
friendship, and she wasn’t ashamed of her interest in Poe, but she felt uneasy at the idea of those
parts of her life connecting.

She never actually mentioned Kylo around Poe either, she realized with a frown, and her friends
had thankfully stopped asking about him when they realized that she couldn’t be swayed from her
decision to keep in touch with him. Kylo would probably have been happy for her if she had found
a way to mention Poe, but she doubted very much that Poe would feel the same way about Kylo.

Over the past few months Kylo had become something of a sanctuary for the rebellious parts of her
desires, the parts that didn’t fit into the neat boxes of everyone else’s expectations. He encouraged
her in anything at all that she wanted to do because he didn’t care about anyone else or what the
world wanted- he only cared about her and what made her happy. He knew all of her flaws and
ugly parts, the parts she kept hidden away from everyone else, and he still wanted to be friends
with her.

Somehow, she thought that if she asked Kylo what he liked about her, his answer would be very
different from Poe’s.

She picked up the letter and looked at it again.

Follow your own heart

Everyone else had told her to heed God's guidance, and God had directed her to Kylo. If he thought
that she should follow her heart, then maybe that was just what God wanted her to hear.
 Just You
Chapter Summary

Also, that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel,

With modesty and self-control,
Not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire,
But with what is proper attire for women who profess godliness- with good works – 1
Timothy 2:9-10

Chapter Notes

TW/CW- discussion of an incident where a main character experiences of sexual

harassment, victim blaming

See the end of the chapter for more notes

The letter came not long after Halloween, her words bubbling with excitement that was palpable
enough to nearly jump off the page.

Kylo,

I did it! I submitted my change of major form! I am officially now pursing a degree in political
science. I still have a lot to do if I’m going to get into law school, but I feel so good about taking
that first step.

I haven’t told my Dad what yet, not exactly, but he knows I was thinking about not being a teacher
and he seemed supportive. I just think it would be a good idea to wait until I can show him a few
semesters of good grades to prove to him that I’m serious about this.

Rose and Finn were decent about it, if not exactly excited. They think I should tell my Dad now, but
they’ve agreed not to mention it until I’ve finished a few more classes.

Thanks for encouraging in me, for believing in me. I don’t think I would have had the courage to
do it without you…”

It felt good, the idea that he had truly changed someone’s life for the better. There was someone
out there that was glad that he had been there for him and they were happy to know him. It wasn’t
pity or charity that kept her writing to him now, it was a shared connection.

Rey,

I’m so proud of you.

I don’t know if I’ve told you, but it’s my birthday coming up. I’m going to be twenty-eight and it’s
been more than twelve years since I’ve gotten anything for my birthday. This is the best present
that anyone could have gotten me…
And it was, truly, until the next letter came with a gift that he wasn't expecting.

He didn’t recognize it for what it was at first. Paper that was thicker and stiffer than the lined stuff
she usually wrote on fell out of the envelope to land by his feet. It was a white rectangle, unlined
and with a single line of script written neatly on the back in Rey’s handwriting.

“Just to let you know I was thinking about you!”

Puzzled he turned it over in his hands to find that it was a glossy photograph. Standing in a simple
kitchen and holding a cupcake with red frosting and a single lit candle was the most beautiful
woman he had ever seen.

His breath caught in his throat, his fingers trembled, his heart began to pound as he drank in the
details of her. Her hair was a deep rich brown and was pulled back from her face in a series of buns
in a style that was fun and casual enough for a day of classes. She was wearing a plain gray t shirt
and a simple gold cross hung from a chain around her neck. She was delicately built, lean and
slender, but it was her face that captivated him. A pert nose dusted with freckles. A soft mouth,
pink and turned up in a wide smile. Hazel eyes brimming with kindness and fierce intelligence.

The sounds of the prison faded away, a dull buzzing of insignificant noise as he stared at her. His
eyes roamed the photo again and again, trying to memorize every line of her as though someone
might come along and try to snatch the picture away from him.

This was Rey.

His Rey.

He held the picture in his hand for a long time, feeling more connected to her than he ever had
before, and then he hung it up on the wall beside his bed. He could see her now when he woke up
and before he drifted off to sleep.

“What’s that?”

Kylo sighed, glanced at Hux annoyance. The things he would do for just ounce of privacy.
“Nothing, it’s none of your business.”

Hux ignored him, standing up to crowd Kylo’s bunk and peer over him at the photo tacked to the
wall. “Is that her?”

Kylo shrugged. “Yeah, that’s her.”

Hux laughed, the rumble shaking his whole body so hard he had to sit back down on his own bunk
again.

“Something funny? There’s not a damn thing to laugh at, she’s perfect.”

“That’s what’s so funny. You were already half gone over this girl and now you find out she looks
like that. You’re so fucked.”

Kylo pressed his lips together and swallowed hard. “She’s just a friend. Rey’s got a whole life out
there without me.”

Hux nodded in agreement. “Uh, huh. And it kills you. Not that I blame you. It would kill me, too,
if I had a girl that looked that on the outside and I knew I was never getting out of here.” For a
moment, there was something on Hux’s face that looked like pity, but it was gone so quickly that
Kylo was certain that he had imagined it.

Kylo didn’t answer, but he didn’t take her picture down off the wall as he settled it his bunk to read
her letter.

Kylo,

That’s a poor excuse for a birthday gift. Presents are supposed to be things that make you happy,
not things that make other people happy.

If she only knew how much she made him happy. Everything that he did for her made him happy.

Is there anything I can get for you for a real present? Surely, there’s something that you want?

He glanced at the picture, pushed the thought away. He couldn’t let Hux be right about this, it
seemed disloyal to think of her that way when she was...well she wasn’t thinking of him that way,
that much for certain. She was his friend. His closest and only friend. He had nothing at all beyond
that to offer her, had no right to think the thoughts that were creeping at the edge of his mind.

I take personal exception to the prison’s rule against me sending you food. First no Halloween
candy, and now no birthday cupcakes? It’s cruel, evil, inhumane.

Unfortunately, due to this, I was forced to eat your cupcake for you. I’m sure you understand that I
could not allow it to go to waste!

He shook his head, a laugh bubbling up from deep down inside that helped push his worries out of
his mind. She loved food almost as much as she hated math. He would have given her a hundred
cupcakes, a thousand, one every day of her life if it kept that smile on her face.

I’m sorry I only have time for a short letter today. I’ll write more soon, and I may have some
exciting stories to tell when I do because I am going to a party with Rose and Finn! A real party,
for the first time ever! Ok, maybe not too real, it’s just some friends from class getting together but
I’ve never done anything like this before.

Is it silly to be so excited about this? Probably. Do I care? Absolutely not!

I promise I’ll tell you all about it in my next letter!

Rey

But the next letter didn’t come.

***

He didn’t get worried when the first few days passed, but by the end of the first week he’d grown
concerned. By the end of the second week he was terrified.

Hux avoided him as much as possible, giving him space to sit broodingly on his bunk and glare at
the picture of her on his wall.

The letters he sent her weren’t being returned to him, so she must have kept them, but he couldn’t
figure out why she wasn’t answering them. His biggest fear, though he knew he had no right to it,
was that she had abandoned him, moved on at the request of her friends or her father or some
boyfriend she hadn’t told him about.

When the next letter finally did come, he wished the explanation had been that simple. That the
cause of it had been something to cause him pain, rather than her.

He’d sagged in relief when it came but his joy turned to despair when he recognized the tears stains
that marked the words.

What could have happened, what could he have done, to cause her such pain? His stomach twisted,
and he swallowed down the bile that crawled up his throat, as he forced himself to read, to try and
make sense of what she was saying.

Kylo,

I’m sorry, so sorry, that I haven’t written. I read your letters, and I know you’ve been worried
about me, but I didn’t know how to explain.

Something happened, something bad, at the party that night.

There were more people there than we expected, and some of them were drinking. We thought that
maybe we should go home, you know? Rose wanted to go home, but I wanted to stay, just for a
little while, because I’d never been to a party before.

I wasn’t drinking, I don’t drink, I was just talking to some of my friends from class, but…

He squinted trying to make out the next few lines, tears had fallen heavily there, and it was hard to
read what she had written.

…I went to the bathroom and when I came out my friends were gone and there were some guys
from school there that I had never met before. They said, well it doesn’t matter exactly what they
said…

He knew exactly the kind of bullshit they had said and if he wasn’t already in prison, he would
have landed himself in prison for using his fists to teach every single one of them how to watch
their fucking mouths around her.

… but it was awful. They were pulling on my clothes and laughing. I told them no, but they didn’t
listen, and I just wanted to leave. I wanted to find Rose and Finn and go home, but they wouldn’t
let me. They were blocking my way out of the room and I was so scared of what they might do to
me.

They needed more than their mouths fixed and his blood bubbled with the urge. He looked around,
momentarily blind to his surroundings, chest heaving with fury and the need to do something. It
took a moment for him to realize how trapped he was, how helpless. He was no good to her in
here, couldn’t even protect her when shit like this happened.

He pushed a hand into his hair, growling as he read the rest, his fury rising with each word.

I hit one of them, it probably didn’t even hurt him, but it they weren’t expecting it and I ran out of
the room to get away. I found my friends and told them I was ready to leave, but I couldn’t tell them
what happened. I was just so embarrassed.

Rose wanted to leave, and I asked to stay, and I can’t believe I’m so stupid, this is all my fault.
 I couldn’t talk to them, and I didn’t want to tell my dad because he’d probably never let me leave
the house again, but I just couldn’t keep it bottled up inside and I ended up telling Poe. Some of it
at least, not all of it because I knew he’d tell my dad, and it didn’t go well.

I haven’t told you about Poe and I’m sorry about that, but we’ve been on a few dates. He’s going to
be a pastor and I’m a pastor’s daughter and it just all seemed so perfect on the surface. I thought
that maybe someday he might have wanted to marry me but now… maybe he won’t want to because
of this.

He asked me what I wore to the party and then said that maybe it had been a bad idea for me to go
wearing that dress. That maybe I should have worn a sweater over it, or a longer skirt. He said,
“Sometimes we have to try harder not to cause someone else to stumble." I don’t know how I can
help him run a church if I’m leading others into sin and it causes them to do such horrible things.

I mean, he might not have wanted to marry me anyway because of everything with school and my
career, he thought that it would be a good idea for me to be a teacher, but I thought I might have
had enough time to convince him that there is still so much good I could do for the church even
though I changed majors. I thought I could convince him that I could still be a good wife. This is
not going to help with that. I feel like he looks at me differently now, and I hate it.

I’m so mad at everyone right now, but especially myself.

I thought at first that I was never going to be able to talk to anyone else about it, because I couldn’t
handle anyone else looking at me the way that Poe did. It was so lonely, and I was having such
frightening nightmares, but then I realized that of all the people in my life, you were the one person
that I could say anything to and you’d never judge me.

I have you, just you.

I don’t know what I need you to do, just please don’t let me be alone in this. Please tell me it’s
going to be alright.

Rey

Kylo buried his face in his hands, rage coiled uselessly in every muscle of his body. He wanted to
hurt someone, to rip and tear at them and make them bleed for what they’d done to her. She’d been
so innocent, so full of light, and now the world had put its disgusting fingerprints on her, and she
blamed herself.

Hux walked into the cell, his brows lifting as he saw the paper in Kylo’s hands. “You finally get a
letter? I thought for sure she’d finally gotten smart…” He trailed off at the snarl of rage on Kylo’s
face. “What the hell? What happened? Did she get married and break up with you?”

Kylo’s teeth were clenched, his fist tightening and untightening reflexively.

“That son of a bitch made her feel like it was her fault.”

Chapter End Notes

Not 'leading others to stumble' is something that I have seen used as a way to
encourage women to dress more modestly and it has always bothered me. I have even
seen it used when giving out dress codes for children and I feel like the message being
sent is that the victim is to blame for inciting lust if something happens.
 Would You Like To?
Chapter Summary

Promise me, O women of Jerusalem, by the gazelles and wild deer

Not to awaken love until the time is right- Song of Solomon 2:7

Chapter Notes

I just need to say thank you very much to all of you that have commented on this fic
with your stories of how it has spoken to you or reminded you of your past
experiences. It has been so amazing to read and I appreciate all of you! I will get
caught up on comments tonight/tomorrow so please know that if I have not responded
to you yet that I will soon!

I've also increased the chapter count but only by a little. We'll see if I can stick to that
or not, but I have issues with chapter counts, so don't get too attached to that number.

I don't think that there are any specific TW for this chapter, but if you feel that I have
missed something please let me know!

She carried his letter in her purse for the first few weeks after it came, so it stayed with her
everywhere she went, and when the guilt and the shame started to creep in, she pulled it out and
read it again.

The paper was soft now, and the words faded, but it didn’t matter because she knew them all.
She’d memorized the exact phrases that had been most comforting and where she could find them
on the page.

Are you alright?

He’d asked about her first, about how she was doing, how she was feeling. It made her feel warm
and safe, to know she mattered to him more than some rule that she might have broken. He didn’t
care if her judgment had lapsed or mistakes had been made, he only cared about her.

This was not your fault.

He’d told her that so clearly, so emphatically, that the sick feeling in her chest had begun to abate
for the first time since the party. He knew what had happened, the real ugly truth of it and not the
glossed over version that she’d told Poe, and he didn’t blame her.

I don’t know what’s going on with you and Poe, but I can’t believe that dumb fuck actually tried to
blame you. I’d like to knock his teeth down his throat and blame him for not wearing a helmet.
That’s such bullshit, Rey. I need you to know that it’s bullshit.

She had laughed out loud at that, pressing a trembling hand to her mouth as she giggled. Part of her
felt a bit sorry for Poe, that he was the object of such violent fantasies, but she couldn’t feel too
sorry. It wasn’t like Kylo could actually hurt him, and even if he could she felt reasonably
confident that he wouldn’t. He just wanted her to know that he’d protect her, keep her safe, and he
wanted to make her laugh, like he always did.

Don’t ever let anyone make you feel like you’re to blame because something bad happened to you,
especially not some self-righteous Bible thumping bastard. He doesn’t deserve you if he treats you
that way.

People that hide that hide their cruelty and their judgement behind a mask of piety are the worst
kind of people, even more terrible than the ones that are openly evil, because you can’t protect
yourself from them. You don’t see it coming until it’s too late, and even then, no one believes you.

They hurt people, and then blame it on the people they hurt and it’s disgusting. You don’t deserve
that life.

She’d thought over that, worried over what he meant, until she’d given in to the urge to ask him.

Did someone hurt you that way? Did they blame you, too?

She hadn’t expected an answer, it was such an intimate and personal thing to ask, even of a friend,
but he had answered her anyway.

Yes, someone hurt me and other people I loved and cared about very much. No one believed any of
us.

It was a sad comfort to know that he’d experienced that same kind of hurt, and she wondered, not
for the first time, what had happened to him that had led to him killing his father. She was so
certain that there was pain there, that the spoiled brat the media had depicted was not who he had
really been in those moments, but she didn’t want to press too hard.

She had written only

I’m so sorry.

and

I believe you.

and then, thinking of Mrs. Nu and Kaydel’s parents

I know so many people of faith that have good hearts and love God, but I also know of people who
pretend to have faith as an excuse to hurt others. I agree that it's the worst thing. You expect
kindness and love, but they spew hatred and judgment. You deserved better than whatever
happened to you.

She wasn’t sure why she’d done it, what impulse had overtaken over, but she had scrawled her
phone number hastily on the bottom of the letter and put it the outgoing mail before she could
change her mind.

And now she waited.

“You look jumpy,” Rose told her, sitting down beside her as the other members of the Bible group
roamed around the room after their meeting, nibbling on snacks and talking about Rose’s plans for
the Christmas toy drive.
“I guess I am,” Rey admitted with a smile. “I haven’t been feeling like myself the past few weeks.”

“You know you can have the group back any time. You didn’t have to turn the whole thing over to
me.” Rose leaned into her, wrapping her arm around Rey’s waist and leaning her head
companionably on Rey’s shoulder.

“I know, but you’re doing an amazing job,” Rey told her, and she truly was. Rey enjoyed attending
the meetings and seeing her friends, but her heart wasn’t in running it anymore, not since… “I just
needed some time to think.”

Rose nodded, and though Rey couldn’t see her face she could hear the hesitant worry in her voice.
“Have you told your dad about school yet? About changing your major?”

“Not yet, but I will soon. I know it bothers you, keeping my secrets.” Rey picked at a piece of lint
on her skirt and smoothed it over her thigh. She hated keeping her own secrets, but she didn’t have
the courage to tell him yet.

“I just worry,” Rose said. “You’re not acting like yourself and I know your dad is worried, too.
You aren’t really talking to anyone and you haven’t been out with Poe at all. I think he’s starting to
wonder if you’re still interested.”

“I think I’m trying to figure out if I’m still interested,” Rey told her honestly, and Rose turned to
look at her in surprise.

“Really? Did the dates not go well?”

Rey shrugged and shot her a small smile. “They went fine, I guess. He just…I don’t know. I think
he was more interested in me for what he thought I could bring to the table than he was in me as a
person. He wanted someone that would make a good pastor’s wife, and decided I fit the role. He
wasn’t interested in finding out about who I am or what I want out of life.”

“Oh.”

Rose looked so disappointed that Rey smiled and bumped her shoulder teasingly. “I’m holding out
for my Finn,” she told her. “Someone that wants to know all of me and cares about me for
everything that I am, not what he wants me to be.”

That soothed the worry from Rose’s brow, and she smiled back dreamily. “I really did get lucky
with Finn, didn’t I?”

“You truly did. And speaking of Finn, when’s Jannah coming back into town for a visit?”

“Christmas break. He’s excited to see her again.”

“Me, too. Summer feels like such a long time ago already.”

“Maybe you’ll feel better by Christmas,” Rose said hopefully.

“Maybe,” Rey muttered. Her eyes narrowed on Mrs. Nu as she made the rounds with her usual
gossip. Heads were turning too often in their direction, and Rey had a gut feeling that they were the
subject of the night’s discussions. “Is she giving you problems?” Rey asked, jerking her chin
toward Mrs. Nu.

Rose turned to look and sighed. “No more so than usual. She’s claiming that you're incompetent
and sinful, and that I'm incompetent and useless because you’re the one that gave me the job.”
“Bitch,” Rey mumbled beneath her breath, and her cheeks flamed with embarrassment when Rose
drew in a shocked breath and looked at her in horror.

“Rey,” she hissed. “You can’t say that in here! What’s…How did…Where did you even pick up a
cursing habit?”

Rey shrugged. “Probably Kylo,” she admitted. “He curses a lot in his letters.”

“You’re supposed to be encouraging him with your good habits, not picking up his sinful ones."
Rose clucked her tongue and looked at Rey suspiciously. "How often are you still writing him,
anyway? You haven’t mentioned him in a while.”

“A few times a week.”

“Seriously? That’s a lot. Are you sure that Kylo isn’t the reason you’ve been so distracted lately?
I’d hate to see you blow things with Poe over some guy that you’re never even going to get to see,
and who is probably just as dangerous as he said he was in the beginning.”

“He isn’t,” Rey said confidently, “but we’re just friends anyway.”

Rose’s look was skeptical, but she let the subject drop.

***

It took a few back and forth letters before he called her for the first time.

There was much more to do when setting up phone calls with an inmate than she had anticipated. It
wasn’t as simple as just picking up the phone and dialing her number.

In his first letter after she had sent him her phone number, he had explained that she would need to
go to a website and register her number with the Department of Corrections before he could call.

Then, he had to put money in his telephone account- which he’d never had to do before since he
had no else to call- after they discovered her cell phone wouldn’t let her accept collect calls. Only
landlines could receive collect calls and her house didn’t have a landline. In fact, she didn’t know
anyone whose house still had a landline, and she was frustrated immensely by the inefficient
system long before they had worked out all the problems.

He made the whole process worse by asking her in every letter if she was even certain that she
wanted him to call her, which only added to her overall feeling of irritation and impatience. She had
committed to this and given him her phone number and she just wanted him to hurry up with it.

The waiting was interminable.

In the end, he told her what day he would call and that while he couldn’t give her an exact time-
inmates couldn’t use the phones during lockdowns or emergencies- that he could only call between
eight o’clock in the morning and eleven o’clock at night. That was such a broad window of time
that she skipped her classes that day, pretending a stomachache that she didn’t have so she could sit
beside her phone nibbling at her fingernails until it rang. She couldn’t miss his call after all of the
effort they had put into setting it up.

He didn’t keep her waiting her long, and her phone screen lit up, displaying an unfamiliar number,
at 10:17 that morning.

She swallowed hard, and her hands shook as she answered it. “Hello?” There was a brief silence so
loud she could hear the blood rushing in her ears. Her body felt weightless and numb and her
fingertips cold. Her breath was shallow and uneven as she waited for him to answer.

“Hi, is this…is this Rey?”

Everything inside of her slid sideways at the sound of his voice. The images that she had of him in
her mind, the ones that she had carried since she had looked up his trial, shattered. He had been a
kid, long and lanky and awkward- younger than her and fragile for all the brutality of his crime.
That was how she had pictured him in her mind when she wrote to him, when she read his letters,
when she thought of him and how he spent his days.

This… this was not the voice of a child, and the deep rumbling timbre of her name on his lips
shook her to her core. He had said he turned twenty-eight on his birthday, and she hadn’t paid
much attention, but now it was so painfully obvious that he was a grown man nearing thirty.

She pressed her thighs together against an unfamiliar sensation and cleared her throat.

“Yes, it is. It’s nice to hear your voice finally. I feel like I already know you so well.”

He chuckled and she bit down hard on her lip, terrified that he could hear the way her breath
trembled on the exhale.

“I feel the same way. I’m not interrupting your classes, am I?”

“I stayed home today. Tummy ache.”

“Rey…” His voice dropped, got impossibly lower and she stifled something that felt suspiciously
like a whimper. It would have been so embarrassing for him to have heard her make that noise. She
bit her lip, hard, and tried to focus. This was her friend, and it was obvious he didn’t approve of her
skipping classes for his sake.

She knew how much he valued her education, but she was adamant.

“Kylo,” she said firmly. “I’m not going to skip class every time you call me, but this time was
important, and I didn’t have a specific time to expect your call. I’ll send you my class schedule, so
you’ll know when I’m free for next time.”

“You’re not going to skip…you mean you want me to call you again?”

She blinked at his stupidity and scowled at the walls full of his artwork. “Of course, I do. Do you
not want to call me again?”

“No, I do,” he said, rushing to reassure her. “It’s just…well it’s not like anyone else wants to talk to
me.” His voice was suddenly sad, laced with years of rejection that hurt her fundamentally on his
behalf.

“I’m hurt that you could think so little of me,” she said, careful to keep her tone neutral. She spoke
over the stuttered start to his apology to continue with a smile, “Just because of that I’m going to
eat your birthday cupcake next year, too.”

He exhaled softly, and she could sense the tension as it flowed out of him. “That is cruel and
unusual punishment.”

“It really is, but you know you deserve it. Is it expensive?” she asked, changing the subject
abruptly.
“The cupcake?”

She sighed. “No… calling me? It is expensive?”

“Maybe, but it doesn’t really matter. I get a monthly deposit into my general account, the one thing
my mother does for me. It pays for stuff from the commissary and whatever I need, but I can spend
it on phone calls if I want to.”

“Hmmm. How often are you allowed to call?”

“I get twenty minutes per call, but for a max of 300 minutes a month.”

“I hate math,” she reminded him in a playful whine, hoping he’d take pity in her.

“That’s…uh, about twice a week.”

“You did that in your head,” she pouted. “You’re a shameless show off. But that’s good. I think I’d
like to hear your voice twice a week.”

“I’d like to hear yours but…What about Poe? Or your dad?”

“What about them?”

“Will they be mad? About me calling you? You said you might want to marry that guy.”

“I’m not going to tell my dad...and I'm not going to marry Poe,” she said quickly, having decided
right that moment that she absolutely wasn’t going to.

“You aren’t?” he sounded…surprised maybe, or relieved. She wished she could see his face, the
look in his eyes, so she could know for sure. “Why not?”

She huffed out an impatient breath. “He just…he just doesn’t make me feel. I don’t think I make
him feel, either. That’s important, don’t you think so? For when you marry someone?”

“Yeah, yeah I think it’s important. You should love them.”

“Yes, definitely. But you should feel…other stuff, too. Intimate stuff?”

He paused and she was afraid she’d said the wrong thing, made him angry maybe, but then... “You
mean, should you want to fuck the person you marry? Because if that’s what you mean then yeah,
you really should want to do that.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“You don’t, um, you don’t want to fuck Poe?”

She shook her head before she remembered that he couldn’t see her. “No. I don’t think I do. He’s
pretty to look at but…”

“But he doesn’t turn you on.”

She chewed a thumbnail absently as she considered it. “No? I don’t think I’ve ever really been
turned on, so I’m not sure.”

He made a strangled noise on the other end of the line and coughed quickly to cover it up.
She sat up in alarm. “Kylo, are you ok?"

He made another soft noise, one she interpreted to mean that he was fine, and she flopped back
down on the bed, shaking her head at him.

"I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m telling you this. It’s just that no one ever really wanted to date
me before, so I don’t know what I’m doing at all. I just needed someone who wouldn’t think I was
making a big mistake by not marrying him.”

“Well, I don’t think that, so I guess you have me, don’t you?”

“And you have me,” she promised. “For whatever you need.” She glanced at the clock on her
phone. Not much time left for today.

“I’ll send you my schedule,” she reminded him. “But maybe you could call Saturday or Sunday
next time? No classes that day.”

“Yeah, sure. You’ve got church Sunday morning, right?”

“Yes, so Saturday? Or Sunday afternoon.”

“I’ll call Saturday.”

“Promise?”

“Yes, I promise.” She could tell he was smiling, but she didn’t mind it if he thought she was funny.
She liked to make him smile.

“Kylo?”

“Hmm?”

“I know you probably can’t but…is there any way you can take pictures? Of you, I mean? I’d like
to know what you look like these days.”

“I can have some taken. It’s not unusual for friends and family to want pictures, but I’ll only send
them to you on one condition.”

She frowned and sat up straighter on the bed, prepared to fight him for that photo. “What’s the
condition?”

“You send me another one of you.”

She relaxed back against the pillows with a smile. “Oh, I can do that.”

***

He kept his promise, calling her Saturday afternoon as she was working on her math homework.
She had declared him a perfect and welcome distraction just so she could hear him laugh again,
and he spent the whole twenty minutes complaining that he hadn't gotten her picture yet and
accusing her playfully of having not mailed it.

Her picture from him came the following week and she studied it carefully before tucking it out of
sight in her bedside drawer, away from the prying eyes of any visitors.

He was nothing at all like she thought he’d be- the man in the photo was older and far more
attractive than anything in her imagination. The skinny teen she’d seen in the videos had filled out
into a large man that had grown into big his ears and his prominent nose. His skin was still pale,
and his hair was still black, now curling softly down to the collar of a white prison jumpsuit.

He looked awkward, unsure of himself, and she knew this was the first time in an awfully long
time that anyone had cared enough to ask him what he looked like. His own mother didn’t know
what her son looked like as man.

Rey couldn’t stop thinking about it.

She nibbled her lip, trying to concentrate on her homework at the dining room table, but her she
had reread the same page three times, unable to keep her traitorous thoughts from drifting to
inconsequential nonsense things- like how big Kylo’s hands were, or the thickness of his neck and
thighs, or the plump pink pout of his lips.

“Hey.”

She jumped guiltily at the sound of Poe’s voice and pasted a bright smile on her face as she turned
to face him. He was still handsome, but her pulse remained steady as she looked at him.

“Hey, haven’t seen you at the house for a while.”

He sat down in the chair beside her and picked up her math book to examine the cover. “Yeah,
well, things seemed a little awkward between us. I thought maybe, you know, that you might like
some space.”

“That was very kind of you.”

“You seemed upset,” he said, pushing gently for an explanation that she wasn’t certain she wanted
to give, “like maybe you were angry at me.”

“I was,” she admitted bluntly. It wouldn’t do her any good to pretend otherwise.

“Why?” He looked genuinely shocked.

“You blamed me for something that wasn’t my fault. It shouldn’t have mattered what I was
wearing when those boys harassed me. That’s not an excuse for men to behave badly, Poe. Their
sin was their own…and your answer was bullshit.”

He leaned back, frowning at her uncharacteristically combative tone and vulgar language. “Look,
what I said…”

“Was wrong.” She leaned over and took her book from his hands, returning it to the pile.

He bristled defensively. “You know, Rose told me about that guy you’ve been writing to. That
prisoner who’s in jail for life, for murder. She’s worried about you, thinks that he’s been a bad
influence. Maybe she was right. I didn’t want to have to go to your father, but you aren’t acting like
yourself.”

“Please, do tell my father. I’m sure he’ll think it’s a fascinating story since he’s been well aware of
my participation in that particular church program since we started it.” It wasn't exactly true, he
had no idea how much Kylo had come to mean to her or how often she communicated with him,
but she wasn't going to tell Poe that.

"I'm glad. It seems dangerous."

She made no attempt to conceal her animosity as she gathered her things. “I appreciate the concern
you and Rose have for my well-being, however, My communication with Kylo has had no
influence on me whatsoever. I’m acting exactly like myself. You’d know that if you’d actually
bothered to get to know me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m expecting a phone call.”

She swept from the room without a backward glance, but her teeth were still clenched with rage
when she answered Kylo on the first ring, blurting out the whole confrontation in terse words and
short phrases as he listened quietly.

“Want me to knock his teeth down his throat?" he asked when she had finished.

She sank onto the bed and chuckled weakly. “Maybe? How dare Rose tell Poe? This is none of his
business!”

“She’s worried about you. Maybe she thinks I’m trying to take his girl.”

There was a beat of awkward silence as they both realized what he had said.

A sudden impulse came over her, and she plunged ahead recklessly. “Are you? I mean, would you
like to?”

“What?”

She cleared her throat nervously. “I just thought that…uh…it would be kind of nice if…”

His voice on the other end of the line sounded strangled. “Damn it, we’re almost out of time. Can
you just…can you just write it out and send it to me? Just explain what you want in your next letter
and mail it me. I won’t call you back until I get it. We need to be on the same page about what
we’re talking about here.”

“Okay, I can do that.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”
 I Want You
Chapter Summary

He calls me beautiful one- Song of Solomon 2:10

“You look tired.”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah, sorry.” Rey shot her father a quick smile, but she couldn’t deny that it was
probably tired around the edges. It had been two days since she had talked to Kylo and she had
barely slept at all. “Is it alright if I go ahead and head up to bed? I’m not feeling well.”

It would have been impossible to miss the concern, or the way his eyes traveled over her, looking
for an explanation for her odd behavior lately. It caused a pang in her heart, the secrets she was
keeping from him, but she knew he would only worry more if she told him now, before she had the
words to explain it all.

“I don’t mind. Get some rest, I’ll make you pancakes in the morning.”

“You make the best pancakes.” She lingered over the hug she gave him, misty eyed with
exhaustion and uncertainty about her future. He had always loved her, but she knew his reaction to
the things she would eventually have to tell him was uncertain. Much like Rose, he wanted what
was best for her, and she was longer sure that his opinion matched her own about that was.

She had made her choice about her education, her future career, and that would be shocking
enough, but now she was on the precipice of another choice, one that had the potential to turn her
life in a very different direction than any they could have planned for.

There were crumpled papers crunched under feet as she walked across her bedroom, failed drafts of
the most important words she’d ever tried to say. Kylo was waiting, and she had never felt more
uncertain of herself.

She had spent every free minute writing and rewriting the letter that he had asked for, but she
couldn’t find the words to explain what had motivated her impulsive invitation, nor could she find
the will to take it back.

The image of him in her mind had shifted from a lost and hostile boy, one who was damaged and
broken and needed her help, to a man that had given her hope and comfort in her darkest hour of
self-doubt.

There was a connection between them, a hot and bright line that bound her to him now in ways that
she knew she would never be able to explain to anyone else. It had begun as a friendship that was
deep and pure.

She wasn’t sure what it had now become, or how they could possibly navigate it when he was
going to spend the rest of his life in prison. All she knew for certain was that she had stared at the
picture he had sent her until she had memorized every detail of his face. She knew the exact
location of every freckle and the precise shade of his eyes, could have drawn in her sleep the angle
of the slope of his lips.
If he had been able, she would have wanted him to press those lips to her own, to discover the
warmth and the taste of him. She would not be frightened with him, as she had been with the boys
at the party, not did she think that she think that she would find the experience as dull and tedious
as kissing Poe had become after that first incident in his car.

She would be safer with Kylo than she had ever been with anyone, that was true, but he knew her
deeply, all of her faults and her flaws, and he still wanted to know her more. It was a stark contrast
to Poe’s superficial interest, a distinction that she was finally able to recognize and appreciate for
what it was. Poe cared about her impact on his image and Kylo cared about her as a person.

It was easy to fantasize that his interest would carry him to wanting to know her more intimately,
that his kisses would not be polite requirements but demonstrations of passion.

But did he really want that? Did he feel that way about outside of her burgeoning fantasies? And
was it fair, considering his circumstances, for her to ask him to?

He’d never said anything to her, never even really hinted that his feelings went any further than
friendship. If she poured her heart out to him, if she told him how she truly felt, he might reject her.
He might push her away. It was possible he wasn’t attracted to her, or that he didn’t want to set
them both up for was sure to be an inevitable heartbreak, knowing that they could never really be
together.

If he had been any less stunned, any less suddenly attentive during that last phone call, she would
have lost her nerve already. But the way he had reacted, that brief shock and the sudden
breathlessness in his tone, had given her hope. Not happily ever after hopes, because that would
take kind of miracle, but hope for living in the moment, for taking the best of what they could have
while they could have it.

Maybe, even for him, what little it was possible for them to have might be better than nothing at
all.

She reached into her beside drawer for a pen and paper, determined to finish this and let him be the
one to decide how much he was willing to risk, but let it drop when her phone rang. Her brief hope
that maybe he had changed his mind about calling died away when she saw another familiar name
on the screen. She silenced the call with a swipe of her thumb and turned her back on the caller.

There was no way that she could stay mad at Rose forever for telling Poe about Kylo, but she
couldn’t devote the mental and emotional energy to dealing with her friend until she had figured
out what to say to the man that had caused this rift between them..

The bed creaked under her as she flopped down on her stomach, pen and paper in hand. She had
been trying to write this letter using her head, and that would never work because what she felt for
him wasn’t rational. It never had been. It was born from a deeper connection, the broken pieces of
lost souls that found unexpectedly that their shattered edges fit together exactly right.

He had told her to follow her heart, and there was nothing left for her to do.

***

“Are you going to open it?”

“Yeah.”

“Sometime today?”
Kylo looked at Hux, sitting on the side of his own bunk, watching. The retort died on his lips. He
had been sitting here staring at the envelope for at least five minutes, so the question wasn’t
entirely unreasonable. “Probably… Maybe.” He winced, rolling his shoulder in an uncertain shrug.
“I don’t know.”

Hux shook his head and leaned back against his own pillow. “The answer is going to be the same
no matter when you open it. You might as well stop being such a coward and get it over with.”

“Yeah. Maybe I just…won’t open it. That would be the right thing for me to do.” Kylo tapped the
envelope against his thigh, weighing his own desires against the damage that it would cause to
Rey’s life. She deserved more than the shadow of a meaningful relationship.

“That’s really fucking stupid, you that right? What if she wants to be with you?”

“How? How is she going to be with me when I’m stuck in here? Either she doesn’t want to be with
me, which is going to be the worst fucking thing for me.... Or she does want to be with me, which
would be the worst fucking thing for her. Because then what? I can’t marry her. I can’t give her a
family. She’d be wasting her fucking life.”

Hux sighed and the look on his face was so plainly condescending that it made Kylo’s fists clench.
“Yeah. That’s her decision though, isn’t it?”

“If I was decent man, I would throw that letter in the trash, and never write to her again.”

“Good thing you aren’t a decent man. You’re a murderer and a prisoner, for once use it to your
advantage and open the damn letter.”

Kylo’s fingers shook as he tore the paper, and he swallowed hard against the urge to run away from
facing what she had to say, convinced that it would kill him, no matter what she had decided.

Kylo,

These are the hardest words that I have ever needed to say. I’ve started over more times in the last
two days than I can count, searching for the perfect way to tell you how I feel about you and all of
this.

Dread settled in the pit of stomach like a stone, and he was suddenly numb and cold. She was
going to do the right thing, and free herself from him before he could ruin her life. He was so
happy for her, but the pain was already spreading through him. The loss of one more thing that he
cared about, and it might just be more than he could bear.

I know what I said to you on the phone two days ago wasn’t fair.

You’ve never acted like you wanted to be anything more than my friend, and I put you in an
uncomfortable position by asking you for more so suddenly. I realize now that I might have caused
you to feel that you could jeopardize our friendship by telling me that you don’t think of me as
anything more than that.

This was especially unkind of me, because you have come to depend on me to be your only
connection to the outside world, and I don’t want you to be concerned that I would take that from
you.

He huffed indignantly. She thought he might feel taken advantage of and she was worried about
him. Was she afraid that he didn’t want her, but he’d feel obligated to pretend otherwise? He
wanted to pick her up and hold her, to kiss her until she knew that nothing she wanted could ever
feel like an obligation to him. Not with the way he felt about her.

Some of his hope returned, fragile like the wings of a butterfly in his chest.

Our friendship is one of the most important things in my life. That will be true no matter what you
have to say to me after reading this letter. I mean that, and I hope that we can be honest with each
other about our feelings, even if you don’t feel the same way that I do, because I need to be honest
with you about something.

I lied to you.

On the phone, the last time we spoke, I told you that I wasn’t sure about my relationship with Poe,
because I had never been turned on by anyone before but that isn’t true.

I’ve been turned on by you.

Hux chuckled at the choked sound he made and Kylo glared at him before turning his attention
back to the page.

I feel something when I hear your voice, when I see your face in the picture that you sent me, when
I read the words that you have written to me over all these weeks. Friendship, yes, but it’s more
than that. It’s a heat beneath my skin, a fluttering in my stomach, an ache in my body that I’ve
never felt for anyone else and I needed you to know.

Heat courses through his own blood, a simmering desire that had building for months that he had
been trying so hard to deny. He reread her words again, sure that he must have misunderstood, but
their meaning didn’t change.

He glanced at Hux, suddenly uncomfortable that he was so close and watching with such interest.
Sharing such a small space was hard enough when it had been his vulnerable emotions on display,
but it was worse somehow when Rey was talking to him about this. She was inexperienced and
must have felt so exposed to speak to him so openly. Hux’s presence felt like a violation of her
privacy, even if he couldn’t see her words.

He hadn’t expected her to tell him this.

If there had been any hope at all in him, it would have been that Rey felt some kind of emotional
connection to him, the idea that she might feel something sexual for him simply had not occurred
to him. She had never even seen him in person.

Her pictures on the wall mocked him, a potent reminder that lust was perfectly able to flourish
from something as simple as a photo and a phone call. He would never forget the way he had felt
when she’d answered the phone for the first time. Hearing her sweet lilting voice had been one of
the best experiences of his life.

He’d been ashamed of it, had felt like a creep for the way he’d felt about her, but if she had felt the
same way…

I needed you to know that no matter how you feel about me, I have strong feelings for you. Feelings
that are a mixed-up combination of friendship and desire that I don’t quite understand but I’m
willing, if you are, to try and figure it out. I’d like to take what joy we can from it, even cannot be
together as I would like for us to be.

Because I would like for us to be together. It has become only the walls of your prison and my
uncertainty about your feelings that keep me from you. If it were possible, I would ask you to hold
me, maybe even to kiss me if you were willing. I want nothing more than to sleep in your arms and
wake to your face being the first thing I see in the morning light.

There is nothing that we can do about the walls that separate us, but they are not enough to stop
my feelings for you. Our friendship is strong, and our relationship could be stronger, if you want
me?

Rey

“If I was a decent man…” But the letter was clutched protectively in his hand. He didn’t know
how to let her go.

“You’re not,” Hux reminded him. “And she doesn’t want you to be. Seems like she had one of
those and decided she liked you better. So, whatever she said to you, say it back. Then ask her to
send nudes.”

Kylo glared at him. “You know the guards would confiscate that shit, besides she’s not like that.”

Hux snorted. “Women in love do crazy things.”

Kylo’s heart, already beating impossibly fast, somehow beat faster. “She’s not in love with me.”

“Isn’t she?” Hux’s question was dripping with doubt, and Kylo looked down at Rey’s letter again.
That small flutter of hope grew stronger. He was a selfish man, but he wanted that from her.

“She didn’t say that she was,” he clarified carefully.

“Did you? Because we both know that you are.” Hux didn’t wait for an answer because he knew
Kylo wouldn’t give him one. “It doesn’t matter if she said it, you know it’s true.”

***

She was too happy to be angry anymore. Her most recent phone call with Kylo had pasted a smile
on her face that didn’t dissipate when Rose pulled out a chair and sat down beside her in the
library.

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

Rey nodded. “I have. I’d say that I was sorry, but it would be a lie. You told Poe about Kylo, and
you did it without talking to me about it.”

Rose winced, but she didn’t deny it. “I thought I was helping you. This thing with Kylo…” she
drifted off, and her brows drew together in disapproval. “I’m worried.”

“I know, which is why I’m not avoiding you anymore. I know you meant well.”

Rose relaxed, a soft sigh escaping her as she reached into her bag. She pulled out a bar of chocolate
and split it between them. “Does this mean that you’ve worked things out with Poe?” she asked.

“No,” Rey said with a laugh. Several of the other students turned to glare at her, but she ignored
them. “It means I’ve forgiven you because I don’t care at all what Poe thinks anymore. I’m with
Kylo.”

“What?” Rose stilled, the hand holding her chocolate paused halfway to her mouth.
Rey nodded, chewing quickly as the librarian shot her a disapproving look.

“You can’t be with Kylo.” Rose leaned to forward, whispering conspiratorially. “He’s… well,
he’s…you know?”

“He’s in prison?” Rey asked, not bothering to keep her voice down. She didn’t care if people knew.
“Yes, he is.”

“He’s a murderer,” Rose hissed. “Have you lost your mind? You had a good man, Rey.”

“Poe didn’t love me. I’m not even sure he liked me, really. But I know Kylo likes me and I think
someday he might even love me.”

“Did he say that?”

The memory of his phone call flashed through her mind, how he hadn’t even bothered to say hello
when she answered.

“I want you,” he’d said breathlessly. “I want you so much and I didn’t know how to tell you and I
was so afraid that you wouldn’t feel the same. You have a whole life ahead of you and I shouldn’t
mess that up, but I can’t help it. I know its selfish of me, but I want whatever you have, whatever
you’re willing to give to me.”

His words echoed in her mind and she smiled at Rose, her heart full and happier than she could
ever remember being. “He didn’t say exactly that, not yet, but I haven’t either. Maybe I should,”
she mused.

The look of horror on Rose’s face was almost comical. “No, please, don’t do that. God, Rey, does
your dad know about all of this? I just can’t see him being what’s happening between you two. It’s
not right for you to waste your life on someone who can’t give you anything in return.”

“I haven’t told him yet, but I will soon. I think that we’re going to have to a long talk over
Christmas break- about school, and the Bible group, and Kylo. And you’re wrong about Kylo not
giving me anything. He’s given me everything. Support, encouragement, unconditional friendship.
He’s made me confident and brave and determined. Through him, it’s become truly clear to me
that God has called me in a different way than we all expected.”

“You still think God called you to Kylo?”

“Yeah, I really do.”

Rose sighed, clearly defeated. “You know if you tell everyone…”

“It will be a huge scandal. I expect it to be, but I’m going to tell my dad over Christmas break and
then after that, it won’t be a secret anymore. I’m not ashamed of him.” Her gaze was steady, she’d
already made up her mind about this.

“He can’t give you a family,” Rose told her, hitting the concern that lay closest to Rey’s heart.
“You always wanted a family.”

“I have one. My dad, you, Finn, Kaydel…and I’ll have Kylo. It might not work out,” she admitted,
laying her hand over Rose’s, “but I would never forgive myself if I didn’t try.”
 Would It Make You Happy?
Chapter Summary

How beautiful you are, my darling! Oh, how beautiful! Your eyes are doves- Song of
Solomon 1:15

Chapter Notes

I know everyone is anxious and waiting on that face to face meeting and I promise it
is coming, but I think this will still be a good chapter for all of you anyway even
though we aren't quite there yet. I am going to try to finish out the first act of the story
this week, so that everyone can get a better idea of where the story is going because I
know right now it feels really hopeless and angsty.

CW for this chapter- masturbation and religious based angst/guilt

Hux didn’t comment on his increased masturbation habits, which Kylo was extremely grateful for.
They each tried to give the other what little privacy they could, but there wasn’t much to be had
and it mostly all came down to them pretending not to be aware of the other’s activities.

There were some things that they just didn’t acknowledge, that they had learned to ignore. These
included one another’s bathroom habits and how often they each felt the need to take their sexual
needs into their own hands. It was as much a reality of prison life as the terrible food and the
inescapable smells.

For the three years that they had been trapped in this hell together, Hux had usually been the one
with the more intense needs, but that had all changed now. Rey had gotten bolder now that she
knew how interested he was in her.

She hadn’t sent nudes, and he knew her well enough to know that she’d already checked all the
rules to find out what she was not allowed to send and she wouldn’t be willing to have something
like that confiscated. The photos that she had sent him with the last letter, however, were…
suggestive.

Her dress was cut a little lower, just hint the top curve of her breast peeking out from beneath the
pretty pink lace. She was still smiling, but her lips were slightly parted, and her eyes were soft and
welcoming.

He knew that look, the one that invited a man in, and he had never thought that the need it stirred
in him could be so strong. He wanted her- to pin her beneath him and hear the throaty little moans
that he could drag from her lips and to feel her heat wrapped around him.

His hand was a poor substitute for her body, and he grit his teeth against the futility of the fantasy
that drove him as he pumped himself into his fist with the image of her in his mind. She wanted
him, she’d told him so, and if he could ever have gotten the hell out of here, she would have let
him touch her and do all the things to her that he thought of doing when he was alone with nothing
but his fantasies and his own rough stroking. He could have tasted her, felt her curves under his
hands and her legs around his waist, whispered in her ear everything that he wanted to do her and
everything that she made him feel.

He tightened his grip, his mind running over with possibilities and his heart beating a fast rhythm
that perfectly matched the punishing pace he set as his hand slid up his length and back down
again. He tried to be quiet, but when he was this close it was hard to keep his breathing even and
avoid making the sounds that were trapped behind his lips. Sounds he had to keep quiet now, but
that he wanted to give to her.

She would have known, then, how special she was, how much he wanted her, how much he loved
her. Even hadn’t found a way to tell her with his words, he could have told her with his body.

Maybe she would have even said it back.

That was the thought that drove him over the edge, that had his muscles tightening and ecstasy
shooting across his mind like the streaks of light behind his eyes as his mind went blank and hot
and sticky ropes of come splattered over his hand and up the bare skin of his stomach.

He laid on his bunk after he had cleaned himself and the mess he had made and wondered if she
ever thought about him like this. It was hard for him to ask her, when their calls were monitored,
and all of their letters were read.

He didn’t want to embarrass her, knew that women that were raised as conservatively as she was
were often hesitant to talk openly about sex. She might not even know that she could bring
pleasure to her own body.

If she didn’t, he wished he could be the one to teach her.

***

“Merry Christmas!”

Rey laughed at the bright twinkling Christmas lights on the necklace that Jannah wore and gave
her a welcoming hug. “Merry Christmas! Rose said you’d be coming back for the break, but I
didn’t think I’d see you at the Bible group meeting.”

“I’m just here to drop off Rose, she was hanging out with me and Finn today, doing some
Christmas shopping.”

“Enjoying your visit so far?”

“Yeah, I’ve missed Finn, but don’t tell him that. His ego is big enough as it is since he started
dating Rose. He seems to think that just because she loves him, that I have to.”

“You do love him,” Rey said with another laugh.

“But he’s my brother, so I’ll never admit it.”

Rey shook her head, once again perplexed by the relationships that siblings had with each other.
“So, what’s changed since the last time I saw you? Anything interesting happening in Colorado?”

“Not much. Finished off a semester and lived through finals.” Rey groaned in sympathy and
Jannah laughed. “It’s not too bad. I’ve decided to change my focus to social work, which keeps
things interesting for me.”

“I still have two more exams this week before my break starts. I’m still stuck trying to get my
general education credits out of the way, but I hope it gets better once I get to the classes that
actually focus on my major,” Rey explained. “The one class that I had where we focused on that
had a semester paper instead of an exam and I ended up with an “A” on that.”

“Finn said you changed your major. Decided not to go with teaching, after all?”

Rey looked around, then leaned in and lowered her voice. “It’s still a bit of a secret, but I’m doing
political science. I’m aiming for law school.”

Jannah whistled softly. “Good for you. I didn’t know you it in you.”

“Neither did I, but I’ve had a little help figuring that out.” She smiled then, trying to change the
subject before Jannah could ask. She didn’t want to talk about Kylo here yet, not until she had told
her father herself. “You didn’t do anything fun this semester?”

“I picked up a boyfriend.”

“Oh?” Rey peaked around, looking for an unfamiliar face. “Did he come with you?”

Jannah shook her head, reaching across Rey to grab a sugar cookie off the table behind her. “No,
he stayed in Colorado. He’s not quite ready to meet the family yet.”

Rey nodded understandingly and grabbed a cookie of her own, a fat little snowman with too much
icing. “Well, I’m sure he misses you.”

“Not much for him to miss. I keep him busy enough.” Jannah grinned at her, pure mischief/ Rey
felt like this was a joke that she should understand, but she was completely lost.

“You do?” she asked politely, hoping Jannah would explain without her being forced to reveal her
ignorance.

Jannah looked at her curiously. “I thought Finn said you a boyfriend that was locked up? Are you
two not…you know?”

“Shh, please, I’m trying to keep that whole Kylo thing a secret until I can explain it all to my dad
over Christmas break. And I really don’t know,” Rey admitted, looking around to make sure no
one could hear them.

“Sexting? Phone sex? R rated letters?” Jannah whispered, leaning in so no one else could hear her,
but she was clearly appalled when Rey didn’t seem familiar with any of those things.

“Uh, no? Do people really do that?”

“Definitely. I can’t believe you’re not doing that. Is he not hot or what?”

“He’s attractive,” Rey said, but she was blushing profusely. She was also suddenly uncertain. It
had only been a week since she and Kylo had officially become more than just friends, but what if
he did expect her to do those things. Somehow that seemed harder than actually kissing him.

“The guards read all of our letters and record all of our phone calls. There could always be
someone listening,” she muttered weakly.

“That sounds hot, Rey,” Jannah said bluntly.

Rey felt her eyes widen in surprise. That people might find it appealing for others to listen to them
talk about sexual things was something that had never occurred to her before. Now that it had, it
was an intriguing thought.

“If they want to listen to or read your sexy shit, let ‘em,” Jannah continued with a shrug, clearly
unbothered by the thought.

The last bit carried in the small room, and Mrs. Nu glared at them. “Language, please, ladies.”

Jannah sneered, unrepentant and unashamed as she had always been with Mrs. Nu. “What’s got
your panties in a twist, you cranky old bat?”

The older woman flounced away, obviously hellbent on tattling on Jannah, but Rose merely
widened her eyes in mock surprise and claimed not have heard a word of the interaction. Mrs. Nu
went to sulk in the corner and Jannah winked at Rose, who waved back from across the room.

She was busy talking to her sister, whose new marriage already begun to bless her with a growing
family. Paige was just starting to show with her first pregnancy and was glowing radiantly as she
talked animatedly to her little sister. The baby would be here by next spring, and Rey felt a quick
tug of regret that she might never know that joy for herself.

Jannah watched her carefully, eyes too knowing. “Sometimes in life we have to make choices,” she
said finally. “I don’t much about this Kylo guy, just that Rose and Finn are very worried about
you, but I do know that you have always been levelheaded and smart, so if you’ve fallen in love
with him, he must be pretty special.”

“I know they’re worried, and it’s just because they care about me so much, but he is really
special,” Rey agreed, turning away from Paige to smile at Jannah as the nerves in her stomach
settled. “And I’m ready to make those choices, even if everyone else thinks they’re the wrong
ones. There’s more than one way to make a family. I could always look into adoption or being a
foster mom. The rules aren’t so strict anymore about having to have a husband.”

Jannah nodded approvingly “You create the life you want, or as close as you can with the cards
you’re dealt. And speaking of making the best of it, you should ask your man about that phone sex
stuff. It’s good for long distance relationships.”

Rey could feel the heat in her cheeks, but she nodded anyway. She had no experience with
relationships of any kind, but especially the special circumstances that she had found herself in with
Kylo. She needed to take whatever help she could get. “Thanks, Jannah.”

“Anytime.”

***

The conversation lingered in the back of her mind as she waited for Kylo to call the next day. She
didn’t have to tell him right now about her back up plans for eventual children- it would be years
until she was done with college and had a career that was established enough for her to seriously
contemplate a family.

But the other part of what Jannah had told her…

“Kylo?” she asked, interrupting him as he asked about her day.

“Yeah?”
“Have you had sex before? I know you were young but…”

“I’ve had sex before,” he interrupted, and she knew that was one of those mysterious things
connected to what had happened to him that he would be reluctant to talk about.

“Do you…do you think it’s wrong for people who aren’t married to have sex?” she asked, pressing
on cautiously. She wanted him to know that she wasn’t demanding answers about his past, but she
didn’t want to drop the subject entirely.

There was a long pause, and she could almost feel the thoughts swirling inside his mind as he tried
to figure out how to answer that question.

“I don’t think so,” he said finally. “Especially if they care about each other.”

“I care about you,” she told him huskily

“I care about you, too,” he said, but there was a note of hesitation there, just a hint of confusion. He
obviously couldn’t see where she was going with this conversation and she was too shy to just
announce suddenly that she thought she might want to try having a long-distance sexual
relationship.

“You’re my boyfriend, right?” she asked instead.

“I think so,” he told her. “I don’t think we’ve used that word before, but I’d like to be.”

“If you were out here with me, would you want to have sex with me?”

“Of course, I would. I’d give anything for that, or just to be able to touch you or kiss you at all.”
His voice relaxed a little, like he had decided that she was just asking for him to reaffirm that he
wanted to be with her.

She grinned, feeling more confident and a bit mischievous.

“Kylo?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you know what phone sex is?”

There was a loud crash on the other end of the line, and she realized with a giggle that he had
dropped the phone.

“Rey? Are you still there?” He sounded panicked and she couldn’t quite stifle another laugh.

“I’m still here, but you didn’t answer my question.”

“I know what that is.”

“I know you probably don’t have that kind of privacy and there is a real possibility that someone
could be listening to us since the calls are monitored but…”

“You want to know if there’s some way that we could share some kind of sexual relationship?” He
was clearly shocked, he that same slightly wild tone that she remembered from when she had asked
him if he wanted to move in on Poe's girl.

“Yes, exactly. You said you wanted me, and I want you, too.” She could feel the heat of her blush
from her chest to her hairline, but she wasn’t backing down now.

His voice dropped low, clearly trying not to be overheard as he whispered. “Have you ever touched
yourself, sweetheart?”

She whimpered, pressing her thighs together as that honeyed voice flowed over her.

“No, I haven’t,” she admitted. “I was ashamed to because it’s supposed to be a sinful, but I don’t
think I’d be ashamed of it with you. God brought us together, but we can’t be physically together
like we should be so…”

“So, you think you get an exception?”

She could hear the amusement, but she set her lips stubbornly. “Maybe, or maybe I just want to
have this between us. I’m trying out a rebellious streak, you know?”

“I’ve noticed, and I like it. It makes me so proud of you when you stand up for what you want.”

She swallowed and heat bloomed in her stomach. Why did that always happen when he talked to
her like this? When he was proud of her and happy because of something she’d done?

“I want you,” she said quietly. “I want to do this with you, if you’ll tell me how.”

“Can you try touching yourself tonight? For me? Think of me when you do, and then write me a
letter to tell me if you liked it. Would you like to do that?”

“Yes, think I’d like to try that. Would it make you happy if I did?”

“Everything you do makes me happy, but this? That would be incredible, baby.”

Rey felt like her bones had gone liquid. “I like it when you call me that. Can you do it more often?”

“Baby, I’ll call you any name you like.”

***

It was harder than she thought it would be.

Without his voice in her ear to encourage her, her mind drifted to the other voices she had heard in
her life. They spoke firmly against sex outside of the marriage bed, and even touching oneself was
frowned upon. It was a sin, on offense against God and her future husband.

But she wouldn’t have a future husband, she realized, and if she ever would have married someone,
she would have wanted it to be Kylo. Since he clearly didn’t mind, that was one less thing for her
to worry about as she settled herself down on her bed.

She’d never noticed how quiet her room was at night, or how clearly sounds traveled when you
were trying to be sneaky. Her heart was beating so loud that she was afraid her father would hear it
and come to investigate, to find out what was wrong with her.

When he didn’t appear, she tried to focus on her conversation with Kylo, on his hastily whispered
instructions on what she should do with her hands. The idea of putting her fingers inside her was
intimidating, but he had assured her that if she thought of something that excited her, that her body
would be wet, and it wouldn’t hurt.

She tried to remember the exact sound of his voice when he told her what to do, how it had gotten
deep and husky with desire for her, and when she found the place he had described for her, there
was a slick wetness that eased the entrance of her finger inside.

It was strange, to feel something in a place that she had not really ever felt before, but she moved
her hand experimentally, rubbing it against the walls of that hidden place like Kylo had encouraged
her to do.

She bit her lip to silence a gasp and greedily added another finger beside the first. Kylo had been
right about the sensation being pleasurable.

There was a pang of sadness that he wouldn’t be able to see how much she liked it. He would have
wanted to touch her here, to join their bodies together and fill her up. It would have been so nice to
let him, to know what it felt like to have someone else touch her the way she was touching herself.

She’d have to do her best to describe it for him.

Her other hand searched for the second place he’d told her about. When she found the hard little
button of ecstasy with her fingers-exactly where he had told her it would be-she decided it was
worth the embarrassment she’d felt when he had been explaining what she should do.

“You’ll need to find your clit,” he’d whispered.

“Kylo,” she’d hissed back. “You can’t say that word.”

“I’m going to get you used to hearing more words than that. I want to hear you say it when you tell
me all about touching yourself.”

“I can’t say that!”

“Sure you can, but I can wait till you’re ready.”

Now she thought she’d be willing to say it a hundred times in gratitude just for him helping her to
find it.

She had never imagined it was possible to feel such pleasure, and she was soon biting down on her
lips to keep the moans quiet. Kylo had told her that it might be difficult to orgasm the first time,
since she was unfamiliar with her body.

Instead she wondered if she should be ashamed of how quickly it happened and how much she
wanted it. It washed over her like a rising tide, cresting on a peak that made her shake and tremble.
It was the closest she had ever felt to heaven, an odd thing to happen in this little slice of sin.

When it was over, she was alone, but somehow, she felt more connected to Kylo than she ever had
before.
 And You're OK With That?
Chapter Summary

Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you
will be judged
and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you- Matthew 7: 1-2

Chapter Notes

I know I am putting these out kind of quickly, but I am trying to get us to the end of
the first segment of the story before the end of this week. There is one more chapter
coming after this one, and then I will go back to my regular update schedule.

CW- this chapter includes elements that reference homophobia, religious based
homophobia, homophobic parents and accompanying mistreatment of a young adult
child

Winter 2015

Rey had expected to feel relieved when he semester and Christmas break finally arrived, but she
had things on her mind that were more unpleasant than finals.

She’d put off having this talk with her dad for as long as she could, and it was some kind of miracle
that someone else hadn’t already decided that they needed to tell him… for her own good, of
course. It had to be done now, if there was any chance of her being able to do it on her own terms.

Just the thought if it made nausea swim in her stomach.

“You can do this, baby,” Kylo told her after listening to her patiently while she hyperventilated into
the phone for the second time that week. “You don’t have to tell him about me, and I understand
why you wouldn’t, but you have to tell him about college. You said he’s paying for your tuition, so
he’s going to find out eventually. I’m sure he’s going to ask you about your class schedule every
semester and I know you don’t want to lie to him.”

“I’m going to tell him about you,” she insisted. “I’m not ashamed of this or of you and I don’t want
to have to hide it.”

“Rey, it’s alright…”

“No, it isn’t. I’m done hiding. I don’t care what anyone else thinks.”

“You care what your dad thinks. I’ll be here for you, no matter what happens, OK?”

Tears welled up in her eyes and she blinked them back rapidly. Now was not the time for her to fall
apart. “I know you will be. Thank you.”
“I’m here for anything you need.”

“Anything?” she asked, not bothering to try and hide her sudden mischievous impulse.

“You know I am,” he told her, but his voice in her ear was suspicious and she bit back a laugh.

“Tell me again how much you liked my letter.”

He chuckled, relaxing as he realized she was flirting with him. “If I do, will you write me another
one?”

She grinned. “I already did. I mailed it yesterday.”

“You’re going to kill me, and I don’t even mind. I loved every single filthy word of it. You said
'clit' five times and I was so proud of you. Say cunt next time? For me? Please?”

“What if I said it now so you can hear me? Would you be able to die in peace?”

“Yes, and it would be worth it.”

She took a deep breath and then said primly, “I wish you weren’t in prison so you could touch my
cunt.”

“That’s it. I’m dead. You’ve killed me with your dirty talk.” He was laughing at her, but she knew
he liked it.

She giggled, and bit down on the urge to tell him she loved him for what felt like the hundredth
time. The words were heavy on her tongue, desperate to get out, but she wanted it to be something
special and memorable, not something she blurted out in between worries about her father and her
awkward attempts at talking dirty to him.

It wasn’t the right time, but she hoped it would be soon. It would be impossible to hold it in for
much longer.

***

She sat with hands twisted in her lap that night, feet tucked up under a blanket as she watched the
flames dance in their small living room fireplace. The winters weren’t terribly cold here, but
tonight there was frost on the ground outside that had crunched under feet when she’d brought in
her bags from her last shopping trip before Christmas.

Christmas break seemed shorter than ever this year and she was running out of time.

“Dad?”

He looked up at her from over the top of the book he was reading, nothing more than vague
curiosity in his eyes. He had no idea how much she had kept from him, and she suddenly hated
herself for not having the courage to speak up sooner.

“I need to tell you something. A few things, actually.”

He set his book down with a frown. “You’re not pregnant, are you?”

She shook her head. “Fortunately, no, I am not pregnant. I don’t think it’s quite that bad.” She
wasn't entirely sure he would agree with her, but she had some hope that maybe he would take the
news better than everyone thought he was going to.
“Alright, what is it?” He set his book down and looked at her patiently, waiting for her to find the
right words.

“I guess it’s really two things, so I’ll just go with one thing at a time. Do you remember when I
talked to you about changing my major?” She waited for him to nod before plunging ahead
quickly, desperate to get it over with now that she’d started. “Well, I changed it.”

His brows drew together in concern. “You did? You didn’t talk to me about it?”

“I wanted to have at least one semester of my grades to show you before I told you. It’s a very
competitive and demanding field, I wanted you to know I could handle it.”

“What did you change it to?”

“Political science. I want to go to law school.”

His pursed his lips, interlacing his fingers under his chin as he contemplated her in silent surprise.
“Hmm. Law school is long and expensive, and as you said very competitive. Have you thought
about what your life would look like if you do this? How you would manage a home and a family
with that kind of schedule?”

“It would be quite difficult, of course, but that’s what makes the second thing I need to talk to you
about so fortunate.”

“Fortunate, huh? Does this have something to do with a boy?”

She steeled herself tipping her chin up in defiance. “Yes, it does. I found one I really, really like."
She hesitated, then decided that since she'd come this far she might as well be entirely honest. "I
think I might even love him.”

That really surprised him and he shook his head, looking away from her to gather his thoughts
before speaking. “Well, Poe’s stopped coming around, so I’m guessing it isn’t him.”

“No, it’s not Poe." Her bite her lip, focusing on the pain to help settle her nerves. "Do you…ah…
do you remember the program that Rose started this summer? The pen pal program?”

His eyes narrowed on her face and she squirmed uncomfortably. “I remember. Mrs. Nu threw a fit
about it. She was convinced that putting young and impressionable minds in contact with criminals
would lead to nothing but bad things. If you're about to tell me what I'm afraid you're going to, it
seems I should have listened more closely to her concerns. ”

Rey swallowed thickly. refusing to look away from his gaze. "Well, I think it’s led to something
really amazing. Kylo’s so good to me, so sweet.”

Her father shook his head. “He's in prison for murder. Rey. He's never getting out because he's
dangerous. I don't remember much about his trial, but I know it got pretty ugly and there was never
any doubt that he deserved his sentence. I don't know how he's manipulated you into thinking
you're in love with him.”

“He hasn't manipulated me! I was the one that suggested that I wanted to be more than friends!
And you're right, he's never getting out, but it doesn’t matter to me.”

She could count on one hand the number of times that her father had raised his voice to her, but he
was raising it now. “Well it should, Rey. It should matter to you. He can’t give you a life. And this
is on top of you deciding out of the blue that you want to be a lawyer? You won’t have a family or
a real home. You’d be throwing it all away, for what?”

She flinched at the anger, the disappointment in his voice. “For love, for my happiness.”

“Being alone will not make you happy. I wanted a good life for you. Not this empty shell that
you’re trying to create. Your mother…”

“Was an amazing person. But I’m not Mom.”

“No, I can see that.”

Rey recoiled, his words causing pain to twist like a vice around her heart, taking her breath away.

He sighed and rubbed the tension in his temples with his fingers. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.
I know how much you loved her and proud she was of you. I just don’t think she would support
these decisions and I don’t see how I possibly can.”

“Dad...”

Her words were cut off when the doorbell rang, and they both looked at one another in confusion.
It was late, the roads were icy, and neither of them bad been expecting company.

He rose quickly, hurrying to the door with Rey close behind him as the doorbell rang again, fast
and desperate.

“It could be someone who lost control of their car and ended up stuck in the ditch,” Rey
speculated. “The roads were getting slick when I came home earlier.”

But he opened the door to a familiar face, not a stranger.

“Kaydel? Are you ok?" He pulled her in out of the cold, her nose and cheeks red from the biting
wind and her eyes puffy and watery from the tears that were freezing on her lashes. At her feet
were two small bags, stuffed to overflowing with clothes. "Rey, honey, grab her stuff off the
porch."

Kaydel didn’t answer his questions, eyes searching wildly until she found Rey and then launching
herself forward into Rey’s arms, her thin shoulders shaking with sobs.

Rey caught her and shot her father a confused look as she [patted Kaydel's back tried to guide her
friend into the warmth of the living room. “Hey," she whispered softly, "let’s get you warm OK?"
She turned to find her father following behind them, clearly at a loss and uncertain how to help.
"Dad can you grab her a blanket? She’s freezing."

He went to fetch one from the linen closet as Rey finally Kaydel seated on the couch cushion
nearest to the fireplace. Her nose was still painfully red and her lips tinged in blue. "Jesus, Kay.
Did you walk here?”

Kaydel nodded, hiccoughing through her sobs.

“OK, it’s alright. You’re OK.” Rey pulled in for another hug, letting her cry until she was able to
compose herself.

It took them almost half an hour, several blankets, and a cup of hot cocoa to get her warmed up and
calmed down enough to answer their questions about what had happened.

“They kicked me out,” she finally said dully, staring into the fire and refusing to look at Pastor
Johnson.

“Your parents?”

Kaydel nodded, looking at Rey with fresh tears brimming in her eyes. “Someone saw me in
Abilene. I was on a date and I guess they, uh, they told my parents.”

Rey looked at her dad, at the confusion on his face. He wasn’t putting together just yet. “She was
on a date with a girl,” Rey whispered.

His brows drew together anger and Kaydel’s lip trembled. She looked desperately to Rey, clearly
expecting the worst.

“So, they kicked you out into the cold, with nothing but two bags of clothes? They made you walk
to…Did they even know where you were going? That you would have somewhere to go? Or were
they expecting you to sleep outside tonight?”

Kaydel shrugged uncertainly. “I don’t know. They took my phone so I couldn’t call anyone. Told
me they were paying for it and they wouldn’t be spending anymore money on…” she wiped her
face on her sleeve as another round of tears began. “They called me names,” she finished.

“So, you came here,” Pastor Johnson said.

Kaydel nodded. “Rey told me that if something ever happened, that I could come here. She said
that you wouldn’t let me sleep on the streets because I’m…um...because I like girls.” She looked
up at him, waiting to see if Rey was right or she was about to be kicked out into the cold for the
second time that night.

“Of course, you can come here,” he said, patting her hand reassuringly. “We have an extra
bedroom upstairs, and Rey can help you get settled. I’ll go by your parent’s place tomorrow and
see if they’ll give me the rest of your clothes and personal items.”

“Really?” The tension visibly drained out of her.

“Yes, really. Let’s get you settled. Rey can find you something to eat if you’re hungry.” His voice
was calm, but Rey knew that was a façade for Kay’s sake. She could feel the anger he was trying
not to show.

She smiled at him gratefully as she grabbed Kaydel’s bags to take them upstairs. She knew that
their own disagreement lay fresh and unhealed between them, but she also knew that he would
never do this, no matter how much he disliked her decisions.

He loved her, and they would work it out.

In the meantime, he would have some pointed words for Kaydel’s parents about their failures as
parents and as Christians. Both of which required them to love their daughter unconditionally and
not throw her out of their home into the frigid winter cold with no money and nowhere to go.

She got Kaydel settled, staying with her until she fell finally fell into an exhausted sleep, and then
crept back downstairs to find her dad still sitting in his chair, staring pensively into the fire.

“Is she alright?” he asked when he looked up and found her standing hesitantly in the doorway.

“Yes, she’s sleeping.” She sat down on the couch again, tugging the blanket over her legs, and
waited.
“I’m glad you told her to come here. I hate to think what might have happened to her otherwise. I
still don’t know that I agree with choices that you’re making. I don’t think I do, but I owe it to you
to hear you out about why you think these things will make you happy.”

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

“And even if I hear all those reasons and I still think that you’re wrong, I’m always going to love
you.”

“I know, Dad. I love you, too.”

***

He came home the following day red in the face and trembling with anger, but he had several more
trash bags stuffed full of Kaydel’s clothes and a new phone for her on their family plan.

Rey smiled at him and he hugged her, tucking her head under his chin, and giving her a quick
squeeze before she headed to the kitchen to make lunch for everyone. Kaydel smiled twice as they
ate sandwiches with chips, and Rey relaxed just a little. She was going be upset and hurt for a long
time because of what her parents had done to her, but those horrible people wouldn’t be able to
destroy her happiness forever.

She’d just finished the dishes, volunteering so that her Dad and Kaydel could sit down in the living
room and talk privately about what had happened when he'd confronted her parents, when Kylo
called.

She rushed up the stairs to her room, not missing how her dad’s eyes now followed her as she
went.

“Hello?”

“Hey, baby, how’s everything? Did you talk to your dad?”

She sighed and sat down on the edge of her bed. “Yeah, I did. I told him about everything- about
you and about school. He wasn’t happy about any of it, but I kind of expected that.”

“I’m so sorry. I hate that having me in your life is causing you problems," the guilt was thick in his
voice, and she knew they were going to have to have another conversation soon about him not
feeling bad about her choices. "Are you OK?”

“Yeah, I’m OK. Things kind of took an unexpected turn while I was talking to my dad. My friend
is here now, she's staying with us because her parents found she was dating girls."

There was a silence on the other end of the line, a cold and weighted pause that she didn’t
understand.

“They found out she was…and now she’s living with you and your dad? The pastor?”

“Yeah, she’s…”

“And you’re ok with that?” His tone was accusatory, his voice rising in anger. She felt like she was
being held responsible for some crime, but she couldn’t figure out what he thought she had done.
“She’s your friend, Rey.”

“Yes?” Rey felt her own voice rising, uncertainty making her defensive. “She’s one of my best
friends that’s why…”

There was a click and then nothing.

He’d hung up on her.

 What Happened?
Chapter Summary

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord.
"Plans to prosper you and not harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future."-
Jeremiah 29:11

Chapter Notes

Ok, we are finally reaching the end of the first part of the story. Things are changing
for them in a big way, so I think you'll understand why I was so determined to get
here. I will be going back to my regular update schedule now, which should be
weekly.

If you feel like checking out my other works to keep you busy, they can be found here-
https://archiveofourown.org/users/Love_andbalance/works

My current WIPs include two canonverse stories (a post TLJ fix-it and a post TROS
dark!Rey), a dark fic, and a cozy murder mystery, but I have quite a few stories that
are already finished, too.

I want to thank all of you again for your incredible encouragement. I know I am not
always the most eloquent when answering comments but all of you have helped give
me the courage to write this story and I appreciate each and every one of you!

See the end of the chapter for more notes

The pain had stolen the breath from her lungs and left her numb with shock.

Not once in the months that they had been communicating had Kylo ever hurt her. He hadn't even
succeeded in the beginning when it felt like that was all he wanted to do, but he had hurt her now.
It had cut her to the core for him to shut her out so summarily without a word of explanation.

It would have been better if he had shouted or cursed, yelled his explanations into the phone so that
she could understand and have a chance to defend herself against whatever offense he believed she
had committed. Instead, he had been cold and somehow, that had been worse.

He knew she had no way of calling him back or showing up to demand an explanation. A letter
was the best she could to try and coax him into explaining what her infraction had been, and she
had no way of knowing whether he would even open it. He was inaccessible to her, and her fear
that he might be willing to close her out of his life permanently and never tell her why was enough
to send to her knees.

That was where Kaydel found her, kneeling on the floor of her bedroom with the phone in her hand
and dried tears on her cheeks.
“Rey? Is everything ok? What happened?”

“He hung up on me. I don’t know what happened or what I did.” Rey tipped her head up to look at
Kaydel, her head shaking and her whole body trembling. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” she said
softly, and she couldn’t control the quiver in her voice any more than she could stop the new tears
from coming.

“Who did? Kylo?” Rey nodded helplessly and Kaydel frowned. “That doesn’t sound like
something he’d normally do. Come on, let’s get you up and see if we can figure out what
happened.”

Rey got to her feet, but she wiped at her tears and tried to smile. “No, it’s alright. You’ve been
through enough problems of your own lately, you don’t need to add my stuff to your list of
worries.”

Kay shook her head firmly and gave Rey a little shove so that she sat down hard on the edge of her
bed. “Nope, you helped me and I’m gonna help you. That’s what friends are for, right?” She didn’t
wait for Rey to answer before continuing, “Besides, it’ll help me take my mind off things. Your
dad said his visit to my parents’ house didn’t go well.”

Rey made a soft noise of sympathy and hugged her. “Are you OK?”

Kay sighed and smiled at her tiredly. “No, but I expected it to go at least this badly if they ever
found out. I have a place to be and most of my stuff so it's turned out surprisingly well. Now,” she
nudged Rey with her hip, “move over and tell me what happened with Kylo.”

They sat on the bed, arms linked together, as she explained what happened during her brief but
devastating conversation with Kylo.

“So, it was about me?” Kaydel's face said clearly that she didn't understand what had happened
either.

Rey shook her head and lifted her shoulder in a puzzled shrug. “I would say yes based on the
conversation, but looking at the big picture probably not? We’ve talked about all my friends before
and he’s never been weird about it. It seemed to be something specific to you being here. He said
you were my friend, like I had done something to you, but I don’t understand what.” She was quiet
for a moment as she thought over what he had said. “Or what my dad has to do with it.”

“He brought up your dad?”

“Yeah, he seemed upset that you were here with my dad.”

“Hmm, well a lot of churches aren’t exactly friendly to people like me, so maybe he misunderstood
something about what was going on? I mean, I know you told me he doesn’t have very positive
views about religion.”

Rey nodded slowly, trying to think back over all of the bits of information she had collected from
him about his past. Not enough for her to really make sense of it, but enough to give her hope that
maybe she could work this out with him.

She sighed and tucked her head against Kaydel’s shoulder. “That might be it. Thanks. You and
Jannah are the only ones that haven’t been absolutely hostile about me being with him.”

Kaydel smiled at her sadly. “I know what it’s like to have people tell me who to love and claim it’s
for my own good. That’s what my parents and their church always say- that they’re trying to safe
my soul. But you love who you love, there’s no changing it.”

Rey nodded. She didn't understand all of the struggles Kaydel went through, but she understood
that people had a lot of strong opinions when they thought you were in love with the wrong person,
despite it nearly always being none of their business. “So, how’d your date go the other night?” she
asked.

Kaydel’s smile was blinding. “It was great. She’s such an amazing person and she’s been out to her
family and friends for a while, so she’s really comfortable being open with her true self. I want to
feel that way someday, instead of afraid.”

“You’ll get there,” Rey said, “and if there’s anything I can do to help you feel less afraid, I’ll do it.
But for now, I’ll help you put all your stuff in drawers, and you can tell me all about this new girl.”

They spent a few hours talking and organizing the stuff that had been tossed into trash bags by
Kay’s parents. It seemed like most of her personal items were there, and they soon had the guest
room feeling more like a home. By the time Rey left, she was cuddled contentedly on the bed,
wrapped in blankets and sound asleep. Her body needed rest, now that she felt safe. She had been
carrying so much fear for so long, of people mistreating her for who and what she was.

Maybe Kylo was afraid for her, too.

Rey knew she would have to write to him later, when she’d had some time to process it all and
figure out what to say to him. Hopefully, he’d be willing to open it and actually listen to her
explanations.

***

It took almost a week for him to call her after she mailed the letter- a short simple thing that said
only

Kylo,

Kaydel is fine. Her parents kicked her out and she needed a safe place to stay. Please call me.

Rey

She suspected that meant that he’s stared at it a few days before opening it, but he had opened it so
that was something anyway. She swallowed hard before answering him, her pulse a rapid flutter in
her veins that raced ahead to keep time with the butterflies dancing in her stomach.

“Hello?”

His voice on the other end of the line was still cold and hesitant. “Hey, I…uh, I guess maybe I
should let you explain about what happened with Kaydel.”

“I guess so," she said quietly. "Her parents kicked her out of their house with no phone and
nowhere to go. She came here and we gave her a place to stay. She’s got her own room and gifts
under the Christmas tree. Dad got her a phone under our family plan. She was pretty shaken up
when she got here, but she’s safe and she can stay as long as she needs to.”

He sighed. “Your dad, he’s not…he’s treating her well?”

“I’m not sure what you think he’d be doing to her, but yeah, they get along. He isn’t going to be
mean to her or anything, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I know you’re mad at me, but are you sure, Rey? Are you sure he’s not doing anything to her?”

“You wanna ask her yourself?”

He paused, clearly wanting to trust her, but he eventually whispered, “Yeah, kinda.”

Rey knocked on the door of the room next to hers and explained to Kaydel that Kylo wanted to talk
to her. She listened patiently to the way her friend answered his questions- “No” and “He’s always
been nice to me,” and “I’m doing much better now,” -before Kaydel handed back the phone.

“Thank you,” Rey mouthed to her before turning her attention back to Kylo. “Does that help?”

“Yes, and I’m sorry. I just…”

“Yeah, well, so am I. To be honest I’m really confused about what happened here. I lo…Hmm, I
care about you and you scared me. I thought you might never talk to me again and I don’t even
understand why.”

“I know.” He sounded so sad, so broken, that it tugged at her heart.

“Can you…can you just maybe help me understand? I know I told you I wouldn’t push about your
past but it’s hard when I don’t even get what I’ve done wrong. You don’t have to tell me
everything, but I would like an explanation for this…”

“I’ll tell you,” he interrupted. “I’ll tell you everything. I should have told you sooner, before you
told your dad and everyone else about us. It wasn’t fair for me to let you do that when you might
not even want to be with me once I tell you.”

“Kylo, I am with you now and I don’t think anything could be worse than what you did to your
father. I’m with you no matter what.”

He hummed doubtfully, but he didn’t argue. “It’s a long story, so we won’t have time for me to tell
you now. Can I write it? Can I send it to you?”

“Of course, whatever you need to do.”

He sighed, a forceful exhale that held a world of fear and tension. “Rey?”

“Yeah?”

“I missed you, so much, and I’m sorry.”

“I missed you, too.”

***

The letter he sent her was ten pages long.

There were names that she recognized- Leia, Luke, Han. There were others that she didn’t -Snoke,
Bazine, Mitaka.

His past rolled out of him- with his anger and his hatred and his regret- in a story that made her
weep and rage and press her hand to her mouth as sickness clawed its way up her throat to coat her
mouth.

He blamed them, the adults that failed to protect him or harmed him directly, but mostly he blamed
himself. For not being able to stop it, for not being able to protect himself or protect others. His
parents had said he’d been wild, untamed, ungrateful. He’d internalized that to mean he was to
blame for what had followed their decision to send him away.

She was crushed, twisted, drained, by the time he described to her how hopeless he had been, how
filled with fear and panic, the night he had killed his father.

She would have given anything to go back to that moment, to hold that broken child in her arms
and tell him that it wasn’t his fault, that she would have done the same if she had been in his shoes,
but she can’t- so she sleeps with his words pressed against her chest and a heavy weight on her
heart.

***

He waited for her to write him back, instead of calling her. It took longer that way but he had told
her about happened to him and the things he had done…It might have been enough to break her, to
finally drive her away, and if she was going to reject him now, if he had to find out that she was
disgusted by him and the things he’d lived through, he knew it would be easier to see it in writing
than to hear it in her voice. If he heard it, he knew he’d never stop hearing it, that it would echo in
his mind in the dark silences for the rest of his life.

He would deserve that, but he knew he couldn’t live with it, that it would drive him mad.

Opening the letter when it came was the hardest thing he had ever done, worse even than standing
alone in that courtroom so many years ago waiting to find out his fate. Somehow this felt more like
his life hung in the balance, because without her, her wasn't sure he the strength to endure the rest
of his days in this place.

Inside the envelope was a single slip of paper, covered from top to bottom with the same phrase
repeated a hundred times over, as though she knew he wouldn’t believe her the first time and hoped
by the end he might.

I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you

I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you

I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you

I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you

He put his head in his hands, his heart breaking painfully open to let her the rest of the way inside.
She knew the worst there was to know about him and this was her response, to reach out to him
with more love than he had ever known.

It was agony to wait, but he called her as soon as he was able, and she answered on the first ring,
like she had been waiting for him.

“Hello?”

“Rey! I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

***
“Did you have a good Christmas?”

“Hmm?” Rey looked up to find Poe standing in the doorway, smiling at her hesitantly as she
arranged chairs for the Bible group meeting, the first one after the Christmas holiday.

She’d be going back to school soon, and it was nearly overwhelming how different her life felt in
those few scant weeks of break. She’d been thinking about that and had gotten so distracted
thinking about Kylo’s last letter- did people really do that with their tongues?- and hadn’t heard
Poe approaching.

“It was lovely, thank you,” she said politely, ignoring the blush on her cheeks.

She flicked her gaze quickly to check on Kaydel, who was laying out the cookies on the snack
table. Everyone had been kind when they found out that she was living with Rey and Pastor
Johnson, but Rey was still feeling protective. She’d already made up her mind to haul Mrs. Nu out
of the building herself if she even so much as looked in Kaydel’s direction tonight.

“Listen, uh, I know things didn’t exactly go well the last time we talked, but since you’ve had some
time to cool down…”

She smiled and straightened to her full height, back ramrod straight. “I’m afraid I’m still not
interested, but thanks anyway.”

He sputtered awkwardly at her quick rejection; his tone perplexed as he stammered, “You’re still
mad?”

Rey shrugged. “I’m not mad, I’m just not interested. I’m in a relationship with someone else.”

He stepped back with a frown, crossing his arms over his chest as he contemplated her like she
might be lying. “Who? I haven’t seen you hanging around with anyone. Is it someone I know?”

Rey clucked her tongue at him over his tone. “No, it isn’t. I’m romantically involved with Kylo.”
She wasn’t sure why she's said it. It certainly wasn’t any of his business who she dated, but she
wanted him to know. He needed to understand that she had made a choice and it wasn’t him.

“Kylo? The guy from prison that you’re writing to?” He wasn't bothering to keep his voice down in
the crowded room, and several people turned to look as he huffed at her in annoyance.

“Yep, that’s the one.” She went back to rearranging chairs, turning her back to him as he tried to
process her words.

“So, you won’t date me because you’re talking to some guy that won’t ever get out of prison? He’s
a murderer!”

Rey turned to face him, her defense ready on her lips, when she noticed that someone else had
come to stand behind Poe, her eyes now glittering with undisguised malice.

“How interesting,” Mrs. Nu muttered. “It seems those felons have brought sin into our midst, after
all. Exactly as I predicted.”

Rey set her teeth and smiled, pulling her lips back into what was nearly a snarl. Her eyes met
Rose’s from across the room as Mrs. Nu flounced away triumphantly and they both winced.

Rey tried to comfort herself with the knowledge that at least Kaydel wouldn’t be the subject of that
night’s gossip, but by the time they got home she was livid from listening to Mrs, Nu catastrophize
 her relationship and point a finger of blame at Rose for suggesting the program to begin with.

She was almost too tired to answer the phone when Kylo called, but it wasn’t his usual time and
she pressed the phone to her ear with a knot of worry in her stomach. “Please don’t tell me
something terrible has happened. I’ve had the worst night with Mrs. Nu and I think I might cry.”

“You can tell me all about that hateful bitch later,” he said quickly, but his voice was bubbling with
excitement. “You’re never going to fucking believe what’s happened, baby!”

“What? What happened?”

“Do you remember that Supreme Court case that you wrote to me about at the beginning of your
first semester? About juvenile offenders and life sentences?”

“Yeah, I remember. It happened after your conviction, which was such bullshit.” Rey rubbed a
hand over her face, the tension gathering there having turned into a fully developed headache.

“They made it retroactive!”

She sat bolt upright in bed, her problems with Poe and Mrs. Nu forgotten. “What?”

“The Supreme Court made the ruling retroactive. It now applies to all juvenile offenders serving
life without parole. I’ve got six months to file the paperwork requesting a resentencing hearing. If
they change my sentence, I could be eligible for parole someday.”

Chapter End Notes

I know you were probably hoping to find out exactly what happened in Kylo's past,
and we are going to get the details, but it isn't quite time yet. That will happen in the
next section of the story, which focuses on his resentencing process.
 Absolutely Nothing I Wouldn't Do
Chapter Summary

Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you- Hebrews 13:5

Chapter Notes

This chapter took a bit longer because I've redone it repeatedly, trying to make sure
that I handled everything well. In the next part of this story we are are going to get
into stuff with the justice system and the religious fanaticism that was in the tags so
there's no way for me to realistically write about that without touching on difficult
themes. I am trying my best to do so sensitively and responsibly. If you feel like my
word choice or depictions are wrong please talk to me about it, I am open to learning.

I noticed that some of you are picking up on the conversion therapy tag and Kylo's
distress about Kaydel. I want to address that upfront, so no one feels hurt or baited, and
say that Kylo is not bi in this story and he is not the one that experienced that. Kylo
was abused and witnessed others being abused. Some of those people he cared about
were subjected to conversion therapy.

One of the main that I am exploring in this story is the way that religion can be hurtful
when rules and doctrine become more important than the well-being of individuals
and conversion therapy is very harmful example of that. I had to decide if I should try
to write Kylo as bisexual and have him experience it directly and ultimately decided
that I didn't think that I would be able to properly write that from his POV. I have
never experienced it and I knew it was beyond my skills as a writer and not my story to
tell.

I do know what it feels like to see people you care about be abused and not be able to
do anything to stop and the guilt and self loathing that goes along with that, so that is
the route that I went for the story. Again, I know these are difficult themes, so if you
feel that I have made mistakes, please let me know.

CW // TW for this chapter- prison and the justice system, mention of systemic bias and
racism, mention of homophobia

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Rey bounced her foot restlessly and chewed on her lower lip as she waited, hands tucked deep into
the pockets of an oversized blue hoodie that it was already almost too warm outside to wear.

The drive hadn’t truly been far, not much beyond what she made each day for school now that it
was back in session for the spring semester, but today it felt like it had taken a lifetime.

Hopes and worries had chased themselves across her mind as she drove. After more than half a
year of knowing him, of wanting him and loving him, of fighting for him and their relationship, to
finally be taking this step seemed like unexpectedly reaching the precipice on a long climb. She’d
been so focused on each step that she hadn’t realized how far she’d come until she’d looked up and
found the ground far below her.

Suddenly, she was afraid of heights, her heart hammering away in her chest at the enormity of the
situation and the length she had to fall.

What if he didn’t like her? What if ,when faced with the reality of her, he decided it didn’t live up
to his expectations? Fear and anticipation warred in her mind and nervous nausea rolled in her
stomach, leaving a bitter taste in her mouth that she couldn’t wash away.

She’d rechecked with him countless times to make sure that he had added her to the necessary list
and she’d read all the rules and procedures- no loud music in the car, roll up your windows and
lock your doors, no cell phones or electronics allowed in the facility- and had followed the dress
code- no clothing with profanity, no skirts or shorts more than three inches above the middle of the
knee, no leggings, no open toed shoes, no bare shoulders, back, or midriff. She had opted for tennis
shoes, sweat pants, and a long sleeve shirt with a hoodie, just in case. She might not have been as
pretty as she would have liked to be, but she wasn’t going to give them any excuse to turn her
away.

She’d been scanned through a metal detector and sniffed by a drug detecting dog before she’d been
allowed to walk into the prison, have her ID inspected and then walk through door after door that
clanged shut behind her with a terrible feeling of finality.

This would be her world for only a few hours, a temporary confinement that already made her skin
crawl, she couldn’t imagine what it felt like to hear that sound and know you’d truly never be
allowed to leave. Kylo had been so young then, younger even than she was now. Just thinking
about it made her heart break for him all over again.

Then she’d found herself in a large room with small tables scattered throughout, most of them
already occupied by small groups that didn’t even turn to acknowledge her as she passed- they
were deeply focused on the person they had come to see.

She found a table of her own, scratched and battered with age and hard use, and sat tensely on the
edge of her seat with nothing to do but wait. She had nothing at all with her except twenty-five
dollars to buy snacks and drinks from the vending machine and, because there were no paper bills
allowed, that was sitting on the table in front of her in a Ziplock bag full of quarters. It was a sad
silent witness to her anxious trembling.

She looked around aimlessly as she waited, trying to calm her rioting nerves. The facility was
somehow more intimidating than she had imagined. Guards with guns and blank faces, walls and
fences topped with barbed wire. Kylo had been right about the pervasive hopelessness and the
smell. They would have only two hours, and still she wasn’t sure if she wanted time to speed up or
slow down.

There were others in the room, some were still waiting but most were already seated with their
loved one. There were older couples, parents she assumed, and young women like her, those whose
husbands or boyfriends were unfortunate enough to be on the inside.

The families broke her heart the most. Toddlers and young children, mothers with clear plastic bags
that held a few diapers, wipes, and a sippy cup. Sometimes the children strained away from the
now unfamiliar faces and she could see the pain it caused the fathers that wanted nothing more
than to spend a few precious hours with the children they barely knew. Other times they ran to
them with happy and delighted squeals that made her smile until she remembered that a few hours
was all they had.

Most of them, she knew now, were in here for nonviolent offenses, mostly drugs. They were
usually poor, unable to afford to fight the system that clung to a failed war on drugs and its
ridiculously overly punitive sentences. She hadn’t needed to see their faces to know that a
disproportionate number of them would be young black men, because a few minutes of research
was all it took to know that the war on drugs was really a war on the impoverished and the
oppressed.

It made her skin crawl.

The weight of everything that needed to be changed about this system that was unfair to so many in
a myriad of ways weighed heavily on her, but she knew that too many people looked away from
the reality. They knew it was wrong, but they felt helpless to change it in the face of the
mountainous bureaucracy. Loving Kylo had given her a glimpse into a flawed world, she couldn’t
turn away now and do nothing.

She lifted her head as the door once again opened and two guards entered with a new inmate and
her eyes widened in surprise. He was taller than either of the men that flanked him and much
broader. The pictures he’d sent her had done nothing to prepare her for his size. She was not short
for a woman, but she knew that beside him she would feel impossibly small.

Her gazed roamed shamelessly over him as he walked. He wasn’t wearing the white jumpsuit now,
but a pair of dark coveralls that stretched tightly over his chest.. He’d told her they would strip
search him before he entered the visitation room and again when he left. That he was willing to do
that, to be subjected to such an intimate violation, to see her made her heart ache.

The harsh fluorescent lighting made his skin look almost unnaturally pale, his eyes nearly black in
comparison. His dark hair was ruffled, like he’d pushed his fingers through it in agitation while he
waited.

Had he worried that she might not show up after all?

The relief that washed over his face when he spotted her was painfully obvious, as was the anxious
crease in his brow immediately afterward.

She stood up as they got closer, hands twisting restlessly in her pockets as he approached her. Her
heart was fluttering madly, each step that he took pushing it to beat faster until he stopped just
beyond arms’ reach and everything else in the room fell away. She’d dreamed of seeing him a
hundred times, but now that he was in front of her, she was lost, unable to even summon the
courage to say hello.

“Can’t believe you finally got a visitor,” the guard to his left said gruffly. “You’re allowed to hug
her when you first get here and again before you leave. Other than that, you can hold her hand and
that’s it.” Rey’s eyes swung to look at him, taking in the guard for the first time. He was a young
man, probably only a few years older than her, blonde with a scruffy beard and a tired expression.
He didn’t seem to be joking and her heart redoubled it’s efforts to beat its way out of her chest.

She hadn’t dared to hope that she’d be allowed to touch him.

Kylo turned to look at the guard to his right- an older, grumpier man with darker hair- waiting for a
nod of confirmation before he hesitantly opened his arms and waited. The confidence that he had in
calls and letters, about what he would do to her body if given the chance, fell away and suddenly
he was a broken boy again, unsure if she would allow something as simple as a hug.
She stepped forward, nearly tripping over her own feet in her haste to reassure him. She wrapped
her arms around his waist, her cheek pressed tight to his chest as he enveloped her in his warmth.
He smelled like strong laundry detergent and the fabric of his coveralls was scratchy against her
cheek but in that brief moment everything that they endured to get here was worth it.

He pulled away first, glancing anxiously at the guards before rubbing her arm reassuringly and
letting his lips subtly graze her temple when she whined in protest. He reached for her hand and
walked to the table where she had been waiting.

“Takes all kinds, I guess,” the younger guard muttered, and Rey shot him an incensed look before
wiping the tears from her cheeks and sitting back down in her hard plastic chair. It was cracked and
wobbled when she sat on it, but there was nowhere else in the world that she would rather have
been sitting than here with him.

He was staring at her reverently, his thumb tracing small circles on the back of her hand and she
dipped her head, suddenly shy and unsure what to say. “I got a form,” she said hesitantly, “from the
desk when I came in? I paid for a picture of us together. I hope that’s ok.”

He nodded quickly. “Sure, that’s…whatever makes you happy.”

“You make me happy,” she said simply and he smiled, his face relaxing into a bright grin that
made her smile in return. “Thank you for adding me to the list and letting me visit. I know you
didn’t really want to.”

“I wanted to see you,” he said softly. “I just didn’t want it to be here, like this. You don’t belong
here.”

She glanced around at the tables that had young wives and elderly parents, the bright innocent
faces of the children. “None of us do, but here we are.”

“I only changed my mind because it’s going to take so long for a new trial, if I can even find
someone who’s willing to take the case.” His voice cracked on a hopelessness that she knew he
was trying to hide.

Her tightened on his reflexively, rage bubbling in her stomach. “We’ll find someone. I can’t
believe Texas doesn’t have public defenders for appeals and resentencing cases. That’s such…”

“Hey,” he shook his head, nodding slightly at the guard that had turned to look at her as her voice
rose in agitation. “It’s alright, calm down.”

She huffed but settled back down in her seat. “It’s just bullshit,” she said quietly. “It’s already been
two months. Have you heard back from the Lone Star Justice Alliance?”

“Not yet,” he told her grimly. “They’re still reviewing my request for help. They have more cases
that they can handle, and only take on the ones that are most desperate, with the highest chance of
success.”

“I’m sure they do have more than they can handle,” she snorted, “that’s what happens when the
state doesn’t provide adequate services.”

“Did you expect them to?” he asked gently. “Someone profits off of every aspect of this place-the
prison labor, the phone calls, the fees- all of it. They have to keep the beds full.”

“Bullshit,” she muttered again, but she knew he was right. Prison was a for profit system that broke
families for the bottom line.
“Are you sure you want to be a lawyer and get mixed up in all this mess?” He looked sad, like
maybe he regretted encouraging her.

“Absolutely,” she said fiercely. Every day that she learned more about it, she was more determined
to help fix it. “What happens to people like you, people like them,” she said, waving a hand to
indicate the other tables, “if everyone gives up on you?”

“I love you,” he said softly. “You give me hope for the world and I thought I had lost that a long
time ago.”

“I love you, too,” she said, her cheeks flooding with heat under the intensity of his gaze. “You
helped give me something to fight for.”

There was a moment of quiet between them, where she wished fiercely that she could do much
more than hold his hand, her eyes dropping to the plush curve of his mouth, soft and pink and
overwhelmingly tempting. She said a quick and fervent prayer that someday she would know what
it felt like when it settled over her own.

They both laughed awkwardly when a young boy at the table next to them squealed loudly and
threw his cup which clattered across the floor to land at Rey’s feet. She handed it back to his
mother, who muttered a hasty apology, before looking at Kylo with a rueful smile.

“What happens if they do decide to take the case?” she asked, trying to smooth over the tension
and return the conversation to something more productive than her rampant sexual fantasies.

“I’m not sure. I know my chances of a reduced sentence are better if I can get all the evidence
admitted this time that that bastard Judge San Tekka wouldn’t let the jury hear the first time, but all
those witnesses…I have no idea where they are now.”

“There has to be a way to track them down,” Rey said with a frown.

He shrugged, clearly uncertain. “I guess we might be able to track them down if we had a lot of
time to spend combing the internet and social media accounts, but who knows how long that might
take.”

“We have to try,” she said. “Mail me a list of names and I’ll start looking.”

“You need to focus on your classes,” he said, brow creasing in concern. “I’m grateful that you want
to help, but you have plans that will help a lot more people than just me so you’ve got to keep your
grades up.”

“My grades are fine. I am not taking any math this semester and I have plenty of time to help. Rose
spends most of her time with Finn these days and when Kaydel isn’t with her girlfriend she just
hangs out in my room eating snacks so she can do that while I look.”

He shook his head at her, apparently recognizing the tone that he knew meant she wouldn’t be
argued with, and changed the subject. “How is she doing? Kaydel?”

“She had a bad week last week, ran into her parents at the grocery store and they wouldn’t even
acknowledge that they’d seen her, but other than that she’s been better- happier, I think, than she’s
been since I’ve known her.”

He smiled, and she stroked her thumb over his hand, a moment of silent acknowledgment that she
knew how important it was to him that Kaydel not be hurt the way that those he loved had been
hurt.
“And your dad? Was he okay with you coming here?”

She winced.

“He wasn’t thrilled,” she said honestly. “There’s been a lot going on and we haven’t really had
time to talk. He’s trying, and he understands that you deserve a fair sentence- thank you for letting
me explain to him about what happened so he understood you better and why i care about you so
much- but I don’t think he’s quite ready to support the idea of me being with you.”

“He’s afraid you’ll get hurt. I understand that, because it scares me, too. I don’t want to ever be the
reason that you’re sad.”

“That’s a big part of it but there’s also been some trouble at the church.”

“What kind of trouble?” His face screwed up an expression of troubled surprise. She hadn't
mentioned this before. He had enough to worry about and their phone time was limited.

“Just Mrs. Nu and her usual pettiness,” Rey said quickly. “She’s been telling everyone about
Kaydel and making sure that everyone knows I’m dating you ever since she overheard me talking
to Poe.”

“Okay?”

She sighed, wishing she hadn’t let the conversation wander to this but knowing she wasn’t willing
to lie. “Now there’s nasty whispers from some of the congregation about him not following the
word of God because some people just have to be homophobic bastards, and even more talking
behind his about how maybe he shouldn’t be leading a flock of God’s children if he can’t even lead
his own daughter.”

“I’m sorry,” Kylo said, squeezing her hand. He looked defeated, guilty, but not surprised. Certainly
if there was anyone in her life who would understand the extent that people were willing to use
their faith as a weapon, it would be him.

“It’s really not about you,” she assured him. “It’s about causing problems. She’s been on Rose’s
case about everything, too. Stirring up trouble over the Bible group over the Easter bunny
decorations, of all things. Using Rose’s friendship with me and Kaydel as a way to discredit her
leadership decisions.”

“There’s nothing you can do?”

Rey ran a hand over her face, puffing a frustrated breath between her teeth. “We should have
kicked her out a long time ago. If we do it now it looks like we’re just afraid of facing criticism. It
gives weight to her complaints.”

He grunted. “Sounds like the stuff my mom used to complain about. Politics.”

“It basically is,” she agreed. “My dad thinks it’s best to just acknowledge her right now. Let her run
herself out of steam while we keep our heads clear. No one had asked him about us or about
Kaydel directly and he hasn’t acknowledged it. Mrs. Kanata keeps her from being too openly
disrespectful during the meetings and we try our best to ignore her otherwise.”

“I hope that works,” he told her, watching her carefully and considering his words before he spoke.
“Most of the time I’m sure it does, but some people are more than petty and they aren’t happy till
they hurt someone. Make sure you can draw the line if you need to.”
“She’s a pain but I don’t think that she’s actually dangerous,” she assured him before peeking at
him from under her lashes and smiling at him mischievously. “Though, she did tell me three times
last week that Poe is dating someone else now- some girl from another town named Zorri. My
feelings are hurt. ”

“The one that got away,” he teased and she giggled for a moment, before standing up and reaching
for the bag of coins on the table.

“Want anything?” she asked. “I’m thirsty and I’m gonna grab a drink and a snack.”

“I’ll have whatever you want to grab,” he said. “I’m not picky.” He waited until she turned to walk
away before quietly saying her name. His face was troubled when she turned back around. “I wish I
could be taking you out, paying for things on our first date.”

She widened her eyes comically and shook her bag of coins. “I guess you’ll just have to settle for
having a sugar mama for now.”

He was still laughing when she came back a few minutes later

“You really are always hungry, aren’t you?” he asked, eyeing her overflowing armful of drinks and
treats.

“Yes, I really am,” she said, dropping her hoard on the table and tearing open a package of M&Ms
to pour a handful into her hand before handing him the package.

“This is good, right?”

She looked up at him in surprise. “What?”

“This. Us. It’s good...You didn’t take one look at me and decide I wasn’t what you wanted after
all.”

“I was afraid you wouldn’t want me, ” she confessed, squeezing his hand to soothe both of their
fears. “But I think we’re good.”

Her heart was full as he laughed with her and ate half her snacks and smiled at her when she gave
the rest of her money to the family beside them so they could buy a few of their own after they
overheard them mention how hard it was for them to afford the trip every month.

She was acutely aware of his body and her need for him to touch her as he stood beside her,
awkwardly bumping her as he tried to lean down enough to get both of their faces in the photo
she’d paid for.

When their time was up and she gripped him tightly in a hug that she knew would have to fuel her
until she could see him again, she was trembling with the pain of having to say goodbye.

“I love you,” she whispered fiercely, “and I am going to fight for our life together.”

“Me too, baby,” he promised, rubbing her back reassuringly. “There’s absolutely nothing I
wouldn’t do to be able to be with you.”

***

Kylo thought about it for exactly one day, holding one copy of the photo she had paid for of the
two of them together and imagining the way that she had looked as she sat perched on that stupid
fucking wobbly orange plastic chair as she told him she was going to spend her free time trying to
track down the witnesses he needed when he didn’t even know if he could get a lawyer in time.

Then he did the most humiliating thing that he could think of, because he had meant it when he
promised her that he would do anything in the world for her.

He picked up the phone and called his mother- whose name he had added to the list of people he
could call when he first came to this fucking place and who had never once actually tried to contact
in all the years since- prepared to beg for her to help him afford the lawyers and the private
detective that he needed to have a real chance at a life.

She didn’t answer.

***

“How was your visit,” Kaydel asked. They’d been busy for the past few days and the Bible
meeting was the first time Rey had seen much of her since she’d come home from her first meeting
with Kylo. She was leaning forward in her chair now, eyes bright with curiosity, and Rey could tell
she had just been waiting for the other Bible group members to leave so that she could finally ask.

Rey smiled, unable to hide the bubbling joy that had been tumbling around in her bloodstream, and
reached into her bag to pull out the picture of her and Kylo.

Kaydel looked at the picture in her hand and let out a low whistle. “He’s very tall,” she said,
turning the photo around so that Rose could see it.

“He’s huge,” Rey agreed, chewing happily on a cookie that was left over from that night’s
meeting. “I couldn’t believe how big he was when they brought him in.”

“Weren’t you scared?” Rose asked her, looking at the picture and shaking her head.

“No,” Rey said bluntly. “I have no reason to be scared of him.”

Rose sighed softly, and Rey felt another small twinge of annoyance. It had been months now since
she’d told them about her relationship with Kylo and Rose was still resistant to the idea, despite
having some idea now of everything that he’d been through.

Not that she was the only one. After Mrs. Nu’s gossip Mrs. Kanata and Rose’s sister Paige were
the only ones that had even said goodbye to her when the bible meeting was over.

“Well, Mrs. Nu and her buddies share your concerns about Kylo and my safety,” Rey said now,
glumly shooting what she knew was a low blow at Rose in retaliation.

“That’s not fair,” Rose said hotly.

Rey shrugged. “Isn’t it? You’re determined not to like him no matter what he does.”

“I just want you to be safe and happy,” Rose said, looking at Rey with a pleading expression.
“You know that, right?”

Rey nodded, softening at the genuine conflict that she could sense in Rose’s eyes. “I do know that,
but I can’t fight the court system of the state of Texas and Mrs. Nu and my dad and you. I need you
to be on my side.”

Rose swallowed hard and looked at Kaydel, seeking something to help her figure out what to do.
 She’d always been fiercely loyal, fiercely certain of right and wrong, and now she was floundering.

“I’ve had people telling me that my whole life,” Kaydel told her with a soft smile. “That they
couldn’t support who I wanted to be with because they love me, because they are just worried for
my soul.” She took a deep breath and gripped Rose’s hand. “It doesn’t change the fact that you
can’t tell someone who to love. It’s your job as her friend to let her know that you’re concerned,
and you’ll be there for her if she gets hurt, but you have to support what makes her happy now.”

Rey said nothing, looking at Rose patiently as she weighed the words in her mind.

“Okay,” she said finally, nodding at Rey and smiling tremulously. “I’m always going to be on your
side and if you need my support then I can’t not give it to you.”

Rey hugged her tightly, sniffling as all three of them wiped tears from their cheeks.

“Actually I’ve been thinking,” Rose said finally, “about the problem that you said Kylo was
having, and how he might not be able to afford a lawyer? I think I might have an idea about how
you can help him with that.”

***

It took a few weeks for Rey to convince Kylo. He was adamantly opposed to her being involved
but she wore him down, reminding him that he promised her that he would do anything. If he
wanted to be with her, then there had to be no chance that they weren’t willing to take.

She took a deep breath and dialed the phone number he had given her.

An unfamiliar voice answered on the third ring. “Hello?”

“Yes, hello. I would like to speak with Senator Organa.”

“This is Senator Organa, who is this?”

“My name is Rey Johnson, I’m calling…”

“If you’re lobbying for someone, this is highly inappropriate. This number is only for friends and
family.” Her tone was brisk and stern, clearly this was a woman used to having and wielding
power.

“Yes, ma’am, I know that,” Rey said quickly, the words spilling over themselves in her haste to get
them out before Kylo’s mother could hang up. “I got this number from your son.”

There was a heavy silence until Leia spoke again. “I have no son.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Rey said stubbornly, “you do. I know that there’s no way for me to understand the
pain that you must be in after everything that happened, but there is more to this story than what
was on the news. I’m sure you’ve heard that Kylo… Ben …has a chance to get a reduced sentence.
He needs your help.”

“Why would I help him?” Leia said coldly. “After what he did to our family?”

“Because he deserves for his mother to finally know the truth about what happened,” Rey said
firmly, “and you deserve to hear it.”

Chapter End Notes

Chapter End Notes

I did my best to align my depiction of her visit with the rules for the prison Kylo is in-
the French M. Robertson Unit, which is a real prison in Texas. I am not 100% sure if
that prison allows touching and hand holding but I am claiming artistic license because
I know some prisons do. Very special thanks to @Reynardo_red on Twitter for sharing
details of the visitation process with me!

The bit about Texas not providing public defenders for resentencing is true. The real
offenders in Texas that were affected by this Supreme Court ruling, Montgomery v.
Louisiana, had to pay for their own lawyers or, if they couldn't afford that, depend on
people like the Lone Star Justice Alliance who do their work for free and rely on
donations. They had six months from the date of the ruling to find representation. I
cannot stress enough how wrong this was.

Please consider supporting these kinds of organizations, or finding out what you can
do to help end mandatory minimum drug sentencing, which fuels the prison industrial
complex and keeps beds filed with nonviolent offenders who see their families ripped
apart for profit. This is devastating to poor and BIPOC communities.

In addition only 20 US states have banned conversion therapy, contact your state or
national reps to encourage them to make that a nation wide ban.
 In This Together
Chapter Summary

There is surely a future hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off- Proverbs
23:18

Chapter Notes

Thank you so much as always for your patience while I write this. I appreciate all of
you so much for your support and if you haven't done so yet leave a comment to
introduce yourself or come and say hi to me on Twitter @Love_andbalance

I don't think there are any specific TW for this chapter. Everything is stuff has that has
been touched on previously in the story so if you've made it this far, then this chapter
should be ok for you. If you feel like I missed something, please let me know!

Kylo wasn’t surprised that Leia still refused to speak directly to him- she had never been the type
of person that was able to bend easily or often- but he was surprised that she had agreed to pay for
lawyers and private investigators. And not just any lawyers- according to Rey, Leia had sparred no
expense on hiring the best.

One meeting with his new defense team was all it took for Kylo to believe it.

Amilyn Holdo, the woman who was now tasked with trying to save what was left of his life, was
tall and slim- all long limbs and graceful movements beneath a perfectly polished exterior of
pressed fabrics and expensive perfume. The impossibly high heels and expertly cut suit jackets
reminded him painfully of Leia on her way out the door to a Senate meeting.

It always quickly became apparent, however, that her fragile appearance was not an indication of
weakness. Like Leia, she was silk wrapped around a core of steel. She was not unkind, but she
offered him no false hope, no platitudes or guarantees that she knew she might not be able to
deliver on. Her familiar abrasiveness soothed his nerves.

She knew the stakes, and she knew the odds.

She had been blunt when she told him that she and her team answered directly to Rey as much as
they would to him. It was a small thing that caught painfully under his skin because it reminded
him just how much his mother didn’t trust him and, even worse, how little she wanted to be
involved herself.

She had paid for his defense, but she would rather hand control of it over to Rey, or even to him,
before she would bother listening to their reports and discussing strategy with them herself.

He had been wise enough not to mention any of that to Amilyn. She had no patience for anything
but single-minded focus on the case.
“You’re sure that you can’t think of anyone else?” she asked him for the third time, her pen tapping
restlessly on a legal pad that already had the names and dates of everyone and everything he could
remember form the day he was sent to Luke’s to the day his father died in his arms.

The small room used for lawyer’s visits was cold and cramped, with nothing but a few chairs and a
small table that was usually nearly invisible beneath heaps of printed records and hastily scribbled
notes on legal pads.

He had been in a different room when he had met with the lawyers for his first trial, still housed in
the juvenile facility back then, but this one had the same tense atmosphere of quiet desperation.

Unwanted memories dug into his mind, and he rolled his shoulders against the intrusion, trying to
focus on the task at hand.

“I’m sure,” he told her defensively. “I’ve been over it in my mind a hundred times since your last
visit, and that’s everyone.”

She sighed. “I know you’re trying, and you want out of here, but the chances of us tracking any of
these people down is slim and the odds of them being willing to testify…”

“Can’t you just fucking make them? This is my fucking life on the line here.”

“Theoretically?” she asked with a shrug, unfazed by his outburst. “But can I force them to be
honest?”

“You think they’d lie,” he said flatly, and she nodded, once again unwilling to sugarcoat her
responses.

“I think that what you’ve described to me are multiple scenarios of abuse and illegal activity of the
kind that people want to leave behind them,” she said as she flipped through the notes that she had
taken. “The more names we have, the greater the chances of finding someone willing to give
honest testimony.”

He pushed a hand through his hair, helplessness choking him. “I can’t think of anyone else.”

“That’s okay,” she said, flipping the page of the pad again. “We’ll pass what you’ve given me
along to the P.I. along with notes on who I think the most necessary candidates are. After that we’ll
just have to wait and see what we come up with.”

“But we’re still filing the paperwork, right? No matter what happens with that?”

“We don’t have much choice. You only have a six-month window to notify the court that you want
a resentencing hearing, and it’s more than half gone already. One way or the other, we have to
build you the best case we can.”

He fell silent as she wrote, the sound of pen scratching across paper the only sound as the minutes
ticked by.

“Do you have any questions for me?” she asked finally, looking up at him patiently as she started
to pack her things away. Their time was limited and nearly done for the day.

“How will this be different than the trial? The first one?” He’d avoided asking her during their first
several meetings because he wasn’t sure he could handle another trial like the last one. Not when
Rey was involved.
“Well, to begin with there won’t be a jury. Resentencing is at the discretion of a judge, so we will
be appealing to the court directly.”

He nodded, relieved. He liked the sound of that, it seemed less humiliating than begging for his life
to a group of strangers for the second time.

“Other than that, we aren’t arguing your innocence in this case. We are asking the judge to
consider the circumstances of the murder and reduce the punishment that you’ve been given. We’ll
appeal to the court’s mercy- do everything we can to make you a sympathetic figure. You’re the
victim here, and just a kid at the time of the murder. You’re someone who was overcome by the
circumstances and unlikely to offend again.”

“Do you believe that?”

“It doesn’t matter what I believe,” she said firmly. “I have a responsibility to defend you no matter
what my beliefs are, but in this case, yes, I believe that you deserve to walk out of this prison
someday.”

“Why?” He wasn’t sure why it mattered to him so much, just that it did.

“The facts of this case are very straightforward when all of the evidence of abuse and the
psychological evaluations are included.” Then she smiled at him and shook her head, obviously
bemused, “And if that wasn’t enough- which it would be- I met your girlfriend, and she was very
convincing. That kind of devotion doesn’t come from nowhere, especially not with a girl like that.
She’s going to make a great lawyer someday.”

“About Rey…Can we keep the media from prying into my personal life? Away from prison
records?” His voice spiked, fear setting in as he realized that Rey was on record at the prison for
visiting him. The idea of reporters and aggressive paparazzi swarming her house made him sick.

“We’re going to do our best to keep cameras out of the courtroom. That’s the first thing that I’m
going to ask for. Your first trial was a mishandled media circus.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” he mumbled, but she continued without acknowledging him.

“There’s always the chance that someone will be willing to leak sensitive information no matter
what the court orders,” she said, “but media interest is likely to be much more minimal if they
aren’t getting trial footage every day.”

He breathed a quick sigh of relief as she stood up.

“We’re all going to do our best for you,” she told him, “but nobody is fighting for you harder than
Rey. She’s not going to get scared off by a few reporters.”

***

The countryside had sprung into new green life since the first time she had been to the prison, the
trees bursting with the unfurling buds of leaves that marked the relentless passing of time.

The weeks that had turned winter into spring had also made Rey comfortable in her visits and the
drive to see him had become so familiar that it was almost meditative, allowing her thoughts to
roam and ponder and settle on what they might discuss or how she was feeling that particular week.
Her arrival was just as uneventful, the barbed wire and the dogs and the clanging of the doors
nothing more than background noise.
It terrified her when she stopped to think through the implications of her acclimation.

She knew the route to the prison, the names of the guards, the smell and sounds of the visitation
room so well that she had started to dream about them- her mind replaying the familiar process
until she finally made it inside and saw Kylo as an old man with his hair gray and his back bent
with age.

In the nightmare, a lifetime has passed, and she knew that he would never leave his cage- destined
to die behind the walls that kept him prisoner. He still smiled when he saw her, his face wreathed
with wrinkles, and she choked back her tears because she didn’t want him to see how badly her
heart was broken that they had been denied a life together.

She prayed with clenched fists every day that she would never have to see him like that outside the
panicked projections of her mind… and she did not tell Kylo.

He greeted her now with a happy hug and she dug her fingers into his back greedily, pressing down
hard on the guilt that she felt for keeping secrets from him and offering him nothing but reassuring
smiles.

Even if it meant keeping some things to herself, she was unwilling to burden him with her fears
when she knew he had so many of his own.

After a subtle and intimate brush of her fingers over his wrist, she twined her fingers with his and
took in his appearance as they sat down at the nearest table. His was as handsome as ever, his
smile as genuine, but his eyes were shadowed with dark circles.

She knew Amilyn had been to see him already this week and she had suspicions that having to
retell the story so many times had brought his nightmares back.

“How was the drive?” he asked, already rubbing circles on the back of her hand with his thumb. He
was always touching her, like he was trying as hard as she was to soak every bit of their visits in
through the skin where it would live forever, an indelibly etched memory.

“Uneventful,” she said with a smile. “It’s not as stressful as it used to be.” He nodded but he said
nothing else and she frowned, sensing an undercurrent of something dark that made her uneasy.
“What’s wrong?”

“I spoke to Amilyn,” he said quietly.

“She came to visit you on Wednesday, right?”

“Yeah, she did. We went over the witness list again, and she said she wanted to prioritize certain
people, make sure we got the ones that would hold the most weight with the jury.”

“That makes sense,” she said slowly. It felt like he was going somewhere with this, but she wasn’t
sure where.

“What if they don’t find anyone?” His hand tightened on hers as until it was almost painful as he
spoke a portion of her own fears aloud, and he looked at her like he needed her to inject hope
directly into his veins or he might fall apart.

“Kylo, it’s going to be okay. We’ve come so much further already than we thought would ever be
possible.”

“Yes, but now it is possible, and I can’t stop thinking about the life I want to give you. I don’t want
you to be alone for the rest of your life because I’m stuck in here and I don’t want you being
harassed by reporters or suffering through a trial listening to people talk about the fucked up shit
that happened to me.”

Rey sighed and pressed a hand to her eyes, willing back the tears there before he could see them.
She knew he loved her, that he wanted her, but right now he needed her hope more than he needed
anything else.

It had been her hope that had gotten them this far and it would be her hope that got them the rest of
the way. It had been her hope, after all, that had finally swayed his mother.

Rey’s plea had been passionate, appealing to Leia as a woman and a mother, as a politician with an
eye for justice, to give him a chance to tell his side of the story, to prove that what he had done had
not been an act of cold blooded cruelty. Leia was a hard woman, difficult to convince and clearly in
possession of a stiff moral code, but she had eventually bent enough to allow them at least an
opportunity.

It had bought them only one chance, and they couldn’t afford to waste it in fear and self-pity.

Amilyn had told her plainly, when she had arranged to meet her a little coffee shop just off campus,
that this process would be long and exhaustive, that it would push her to the limits of her emotions,
with one day bringing the highest of hopes and the next the dark certainty of failure and despair.

They would need as much support from others as they could find, but mostly they would need each
other. Rey was willing to dig into herself to find as much of it, as much strength, as she could. She
was prepared to give him everything she had.

“Hey,” she crooned, hating the guards and the rules for preventing her from pulling him into her
arms, from running her fingers through the soft waves of his hair and kissing his anxiety away.
“We can’t think like that.”

“I didn’t care so much the first time because I thought my life was over anyway, but now I have
you and I have a fucking life waiting for me.” She started to speak but his head whipped up and she
was caught in the tumult of his eyes. “Do you want to know the worst part, though? Even now she
isn’t here, and she doesn’t care.”

“Who?”

“My mother,” he said, surprising her as the words tore into her to lodge somewhere primal,
nestling into her heart. He hadn’t spoken at all about Leia since he had found out about the lawyers
and she been reluctant to bring it up, afraid of upsetting him.

“Kylo, I’m so sorry,” she said, squeezing his hand and wiping away the tears that she could no
longer hold back. “I tried to get her to talk to you, but she said she wanted to hear what the P.I.’s
had to say first.”

“Of course, she did,” he said bitterly.

“She talked about you and your father,” Rey told him softly, trying to soothe the hurt she could
hear in his voice. “She’s not a soft woman, obviously, but I think she loved you both.”

“And Luke? Did she talk about him?”

“Yes,” Rey admitted, still unsure how much she should say on the subject of Luke. “I got the
impression that they were close, and she felt very betrayed by the idea that he might have hurt
you.”

“They were really close,” Kylo said, “and my dad, too. That’s why Luke was able to get away with
so much. People trusted him. They still trust him.”

“Amilyn and my dad already told me how popular he was. It looks like he dropped out of the
public eye around the time your father died, but he was a living legend in the spiritual community.
“

“Convincing people that he wasn’t as perfect as they thought he was is going to be almost
impossible.”

We’re going to be taking on a big legacy,” she admitted, “but we can do this.”

“I just don’t want you to get hurt,” he said. “Not by any of this.”

“I know you don’t, but we are in this together, no matter what happens.”

***

“How was the visit?”

Rey sighed, pausing with her foot paused on the bottom stair. She had thought she might be able to
get by without her father seeing her, but she hadn’t been so lucky.

“It was fine,” she said, turning to smile at him as she took another step up the stairs. “Just going
over some stuff that we had talked to his lawyer about.

Pastor Johnson nodded absently, still rooted to the spot in the doorway to the dining room. He had
been waiting for her to come home, she realized. He hadn’t done that since she was in high school,
when he needed to talk to her about her mother’s illness. It was usually an indication that he had
something serious to say.

“Can you come in here, please?” he asked, confirming her suspicions, and tapping his fingers
nervously on his thigh.

“Sure,” she said, turning away from the stairs and taking a few hesitant steps to follow him into the
dining room, where he sat at the table, a cup of coffee sitting untouched in front of him.

Kaydel wouldn’t be home from class for another two hours, and the usual buffer that she come to
provide that protected them from conflict now missing. Rey had a sinking feeling that this
conversation was going to be the one that she had been specifically avoiding for the last three
months.

“We haven’t had much time to really talk since everything started with Kylo and Kaydel came to
stay with us,” he said. “Not since the unfortunate disagreement we had at Christmas.”

“No, we haven’t,” she agreed. She hugged her arms around her middle, anxiety already prickling
beneath the skin and making her thoughts buzz uncomfortably.

He swallowed and shifted his hands restlessly on the coffee cup. “I was just wondering how school
was going and everything with Kylo? I guess, if I’m being honest, I just wondered if things were
still the same as they were the last time we spoke?”

“You want to know if I’m still planning to apply to law school and if I am still in a relationship
with Kylo?” She knew her tone was blunter than he would have preferred but she didn’t think she
felt too sorry for him when sighed and looked away.

“Yes, that’s what I was wondering,” he confirmed.

“I am,” she said simply. “I love my classes this semester and I love Kylo.” Her father’s face was
tired as he nodded and she relented enough to add, “I know that Mrs. Nu has been causing
problems and starting rumors about our family because of my relationship with him and I am sorry
that you have had to deal with that.”

He waved a hand to dismiss her concerns. “I’m not blaming you for that. I’ve tried so hard to reach
her and I know she’s being extremely difficult but…”

“It’s hard to give up on one of the flock,” she said understandingly.

“Exactly,” he said approvingly. “I know there’s always hope.”

That hope had once kept him from returning a wide eyes and terrified little girl, so she patted his
hand affectionately, suddenly determined to work out the tension between them now that the
conversation had begun.

“I know that you wanted me to follow the path that God had laid for me” she told him with an
understanding smile, “and that you always thought that it would be the same path as Mom, but
isn’t. I know that hurts you, but I can’t change it. I can’t change what God created me to be.”

“Is that what you think? That I want to change you?” He dropped his head into his hands,
shoulders slumping.

“Isn’t it?” asked, bewildered when he lifted his head from his hands, eyes red rimmed and cheeks
wet.

“I want you to be happy, Rey. Happy and safe and loved. I know you have feelings for Kylo and
after everything you’ve told me, I hate what happened to him, but if he never gets out…” He took a
deep breath. “You’re going to be heartbroken. Heartbroken and alone. I never wanted you to be
alone again, not ever, but with Kylo and the job…”

“Dad…”

“It’s not that I don’t think you can do anything you want to- I know you can- but I don’t want you
to put so much of yourself into the career or into waiting for Kylo that you miss out on other things
in life.”

“I understand…”

He shook his head, his face broken and anguished. “You don’t understand. I don’t think you
remember what things were like when you first came to us. You were so touch starved, so scared
of even being in a room by yourself, that we couldn’t even leave you alone. I never wanted you to
be lonely again- I wanted you to have a family, Rey, and someone to grow old with.”

“I know,” she told him. “And I am fighting to have that. I am fighting for the person I want to be
with.”

“What if he hurts you?”

“What if someone else does? There’s never a guarantee. What if I had married Poe and had a
bunch of babies and then he left me and ran off with a stripper?”

He laughed bleakly, recalling the story she was talking about. A pastor in the next county had done
exactly that a few years before, leaving his young wife brokenhearted and alone with three children
to raise.

“I always wanted to find a man just like you and somehow I did,” she continued, patting his hand at
his shocked expression. “He’s got a difficult past, but I promise you that I know what I good man
looks like, what love looks like because you and Mama showed me that all my life. He listens to
me, he cares about me, he supports me in everything I do. He looks at me like you looked at
Mama, and that’s how I know it’s right.”

He pulled her in for a hug, and she hugged him back, her cheek resting in his shoulder.

“I trust him, Daddy, and I am asking you to trust me. Please?”

He nodded, exhaling a shaky breath. “You’re sure that you can be happy? That this is the life that
you want for yourself.”

She sat beside him, her cheek pressed to his shoulder and her hand on his.

“I’m sure.”
 A Day That Costs Us a Piece of Our Lives
Chapter Summary

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you - Isaiah 43:2

Chapter Notes

I don't think there's anything terribly specific that needs to be tagged in this chapter
but, as always, if you feel that I missed something please let me know.

I would like to give special thanks to aurorareylo here on ao3 and @DarthIravox on
Twitter for helping me get through this chapter and being amazing betas. Their
support, and all of your comments, have been essential to keeping this going.

Summer 2016

The heat of summer was inescapable and clung to Rey’s skin with the smell of sweat and
sunscreen. She tugged on the hem of the rainbow t-shirt she was wearing, desperately unsticking it
from her stomach and hoping to stir a breeze. Finn and Rose looked nearly equally as miserable,
hot and wilting as soon as they had stepped out of the car and now dodging determinedly through
the swirling press of the crowd. The morning news had predicted the high was going to be nearly
100˚, the heat index sitting at a sweltering 102˚.

“Rey,” Kaydel screamed, running up to hug first her, then Rose and Finn. She was beaming, face
vibrant and nose sunburnt as the crowd pressed in around them. “I’m so glad you all came.”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Rey assured her, looking curiously at the girl that was holding tight Kay’s
hand.

She was shorter than Rey by several inches, but she made up for it in sheer vibrancy- the glint of
silver shone from a piercing in her nose and her long hair was dyed electric pink. Her grin was
fierce, slightly on edge like she wasn’t sure what sort of welcome she might receive.

To her, Rey and the others were Kaydel’s church friends and a note of dull pain echoed in Rey’s
heart as she remembered what Kylo had taught her. Faith was not always the guarantee of
compassion that she had once thought it was.

“Or the chance to meet your girlfriend, finally,” Rey said, offering her hand and her warmest smile.
“I’m Rey, this is Rose and Finn.”

“Alison has been a little nervous about meeting everyone,” Kaydel admitted, leaning in to kiss her
girlfriend’s cheek. “But I convinced her.”

“We are so happy to meet you,” Rose said, “You have made Kay happier than I think I’ve ever
seen her.”
At that Alison smiled back at them, some of her tension draining away. “Nice to meet you, too. Is
this your first time at Pride?” she asked, voice barely carrying over the noise as she looked
curiously at all of them, including the whole group in her question.

“Yeah,” Rose acknowledged, “And it’s great!” She turned to Kay and gestured at the shirt she
wore, the rainbow flag glittering under the words ‘Love Wins’. “If someone had asked you last
summer if you’d be here like this in just a year- happy and in love- would you have believed it?”

Kaydel shook her head. “I don’t think I would have believed that I ever would have been able to do
this. My parents are so awful, and I couldn’t see a future beyond them.”

“You’re better than them,” Alison said fiercely. “They didn’t deserve you.”

“No, they didn’t and that’s why we had to come and support Kay,” Finn said with a grin. “She’s
been through a lot and it’s good to see her smiling again. I’m glad she has you.”

Alison’s face flushed with happiness as Kay leaned in for another kiss.

Rey smiled, her heart full at Kaydel’s obvious blossoming, but her gaze slid from one happy
couple to the other and the space between her own fingers felt empty.

Later, when she was alone, there were tears on her cheeks and nothing but her fingers to fill the
ache inside her. The echo of Kylo’s voice, hot with desire, echoed in her mind, but the space beside
her in the bed was as cold as always.

She was alone, lonely and the hole in her life where Kylo should have been was becoming an ache,
a constant pain that had settled deep in her chest. Each beat of her heart was a reminder of the part
of her that was missing, each breath heavy with the weight of the passage of time, but how could
she admit that to anyone, especially him?

It felt disloyal to him that she felt hollow inside when it wasn’t his fault that he couldn’t be with
her. She bit into the skin of her wrist to stifle the cries when she peaked, sobs mingling with
breathless pants that she realized afterward had been just the muffled, whimpered sound of his
name.

Her voice broke on the phone as she finally spilled out her shame and the envy she held even for
those she loved best, who deserved happiness the most. That happiness was a bitter reminder that
made her hands shake and her breath stick in her throat. Her sobs were quiet, and his words were
gentle. She wiped her tears as his promises cradled her and wrapped her in the surety of love.

He didn’t blame her for how she felt, but she blamed herself.

***

Kylo watched as Amilyn settled into the seat on the other side of the table, her face set as she
spread the papers in her arms out for him to look at. There was at least an attempt made to keep the
air condition working in this part of the prison so the suit she was wearing was only slightly wilted.

He glanced over it, familiar names jumping off the page to choke him.

“What’s this?”

The P.I. report,” she explained, pressing a perfectly manicured nail to the first page.

“He was able to make contact with Mitaka, as well as Vicrul, Ushar, and Cardo. They’ve agreed to
testify.”

He swallowed. “The others?”

She averted her eyes. “Ap’ lek died the same year you were convicted. Shooting. Kuruk committed
suicide a few years later and no one can find Trudgen. He’s simply disappeared.”

Kylo nodded, unsurprised but heartsore. “Snoke,” he said. He had little doubt that whatever
happened to Trudgen had been unpleasant and irreversible. “None of the others from Luke’s?”

“Wealthy families and all that,” she said quietly. “Most them won’t even respond to his inquiries,
or they’ve slapped him with legal orders to force him to keep his distance.”

He nodded, again unsurprised. Wasn’t keeping the family reputation intact the reason most of
them had been sent to Luke to begin with? Still…

“Bazine?” he asked, unable to shake the hope that maybe, after all these years, she had forgiven
him.

Amilyn shook her head and he looked away at the unexpected sympathy in her eyes. “She was the
first to file for him to desist his attempts to contact her. I know she was key to a lot of this, the final
straw that drove you out and into Snoke’s clutches, but we can’t get to her.”

“What now?” He sucked his bottom lip between his teeth, worrying the soft flesh with his teeth as
he rapped uneasily on the table with his knuckle. Disappointment and hurt feelings wouldn’t help
him get out of here, it wouldn’t help him get to Rey.

“We file the paperwork for the resentencing hearing, and then we wait.” Amilyn leaned back in her
chair, regarding him calmly over the expanse of the table.

He nodded wordlessly. There was nothing else he could do, nothing he had been able to do for
years.

Just wait.

In his dreams, the image of Rey’s hazel eyes, brimming with love as she held his hand in the
visitation room, bled into another, darker brown. These eyes weren’t soft, they didn’t belong to a
woman that loved him and was hungry with the urge to press her body against his- instead, the
woman they belonged to was angry and wounded. She blamed him, but not more than he blamed
himself.

His heart believed he wouldn’t let anyone hurt Rey the way he had let them hurt Bazine, but then
he opened his eyes and remembered where he was. His mind knew that he couldn’t protect Rey,
either, and he wondered if that was all he’d ever have- a lifetime of failure, doomed to hurt the
ones he loved the most.

In the morning, he called her and let the steady certainty of her voice chase away the nightmares.

***

Fall 2016

Mrs. Nu smirked over the rim of her cup of cider as she approached, and Rey set her teeth against
what she was sure was going to be another unpleasant conversation. It had been awhile, Mrs. Nu
had been mostly quiet the past few months, since she’d realized that nothing had come of her
previous gossip.

They had started to believe that maybe she’d given up and Rey had been too busy taking a full
course load of classes to pay much attention to her anyway, but the sudden glint in her eye meant
she must have found some new bit of information to torment them with.

“Rey, dear,” she said silkily, standing just a bit too close so she could lean in conspiratorially, “you
look positively exhausted. Those classes of yours sure do seem to be taking a toll on you.”

Rey opened her mouth, rage coiling at the tip of tongue, but the other woman flashed a quick smile
and plunged on without waiting for an answer.

“Have you heard the good news? Mr. Dameron is engaged. It seems he found quite a sweet and
God-fearing young woman in Zorri and I was just sure that you would want to know since the two
of you were such good friends!”

“I hadn’t heard,” Rey said coldly. “I’m sure he’ll be very happy.”

Mrs. Nu gestured across the room to where Rose was standing, talking quietly to Kaydel and the
other younger women of the Bible group. “Happy endings do seem to be going around, don’t they?
I can’t wait for wedding season in the summer, can you? Rose is going to make a stunning bride.”

“Yes, she is,” Rey agreed. “Finn loves her very much.”

“Of course, it is a shame, isn’t it? That you don’t have the same opportunities. How are things
going with you and that man you’re writing to?”

Rey glared at her, good sense and courtesy falling away in her irritation. “Kylo is fine. Better than
fine, actually, he’s just waiting now for a resentencing hearing that might let him come home
someday.”

Mrs. Nu faltered for a moment, and Rey felt a vicious wave of satisfaction settle over her- one that
was quickly followed by a deep and unshakeable dread. Nothing was more dangerous in Mrs. Nu’s
hands than information, and Re was sure that bitterness had just goaded her into admitting
something that she was sure to pay for later.

“Well, then, perhaps someday we’ll get to celebrate your engagement after all,” the older woman
said, glancing at Rey with her lip curling into the barest imitation of a smile.

With that she sauntered away, leaving Rey standing with her lips pressed together in a thin line of
regret. She’d fallen for the bait, since, of course, Mrs. Nu wasn’t actually happy for Rose and
Finn’s engagement in the first place, she had just been looking for any reason to make Rey feel
inadequate.

And it had worked.

“Is she bothering you again?” Rose asked when Rey made her way across the room to stand beside
her. Rey knew she had been surreptitiously watching the conversation and her voice was worried,
but she just wiped a tear and leaned into Rose’s shoulder; her body tucking into the solace of her
best friend’s embrace.

The gleam of the diamond on Rose’s hand was small and Rey knew they were planning on moving
into a cramped apartment just off campus after the wedding, but it was everything she wanted. It
was humiliating that she had let that push her into making such a careless mistake.
She had known that this was the cost of her choices, but she hadn’t known that it would hurt so
much.

She held Kylo extra hard at the next visit, clinging to him and soaking in the strength of his love
her for so long that the guards frowned at her in disapproval when she finally released him. When
she looked up into his face, the cherished line of his nose and the warm depth of his eyes, her smile
was fragile but determined.

If there was a price that she wasn’t willing to pay to know what his lips felt like on her own, to
know the feeling of his fingers on her skin or the way morning light would look on his sleeping
face, she had once again forgotten it.

***

“Do you ever think about what you’re going to do if you actually get out of here someday?”

The question surprised him, coming from Hux, and he sighed, looking at the wall of pictures that
held Rey’s smiling face.

“All the time,” he said honestly. “I just want to be with Rey.”

Hux nodded from his position on the bunk opposite. “More than that, though. What about jobs,
places to live? I’ve only got a few more years in this shithole and I don’t know what I’m gonna do
when it’s over.”

“You’ve got your brother waiting for you on the outside, right?” Kylo knew he did, that Hux had
landed himself here when he found his father brutally beating the kid the way he had once beaten
Hux. His cellmate had hit the old man a few times in the head with a baseball bat, then driven his
brother to the hospital and waited for the police to show up.

Not that Kylo blamed him, what else was he supposed to do?

From what he understood, Brendal Hux had never been quite the same, destined to spend the rest
of his days in a specialized care facility, and the little brother had ended up in foster care. Hux had
pled down from attempted murder to aggravated assault so he could get out before the kid was
grown.

“How am I supposed to take care of him with this on my record?”

It was the first real piece of humanity that Kylo had seen from him and shook his head. “I don’t
know, man, but I know you’ll figure it out.”

“Do you worry about Rey? Taking care of her and being normal after all this?”

Kylo blew out a hard breath. “Every day.”

Hux nodded again, his face twisted in contempt. “This place just fucks up. Worse than when we
came in, you know? Fuck this system.”

Kylo was still thinking about that when called Rey later that day, as he listened to her ramble on
excitedly about Rose’s wedding. Something small, she said, and they were making most of the
decorations themselves. Kaydel had already moved out and into a small place with Alison and they
thought they could probably get into the same apartment complex.

She was missing out on all of it, he knew. She visited him, went to school, did homework- piling
classes on, more than a full-time schedule, to keep herself busy. She was talking about getting a job
in top of that, and he sighed.

He wasn’t even out and he had already ruined her normal life, what was it going to do to her if he
actually got to be a real part of her life some day? The question kept him up at night, haunting the
edges of his dreams.

He knew he wasn’t the only one struggling. There were dark circles under her eyes every time he
saw her, and he wanted to kiss them way, to hold her so he could make sure she was sleeping at
night.

***

Winter 2016

Jannah grinned when Rey wrapped her in a tight hug.

“I can’t believe you didn’t visit for summer or fall break,” Rey said with a pout. “I think Finn was
starting to worry that you’d forgotten about him.”

Finn shook his head from his place at the table, picking aimlessly at a piece of pie. “Nope, she
couldn’t ever forget me. She loves me too much, isn’t that right?”

Jannah made a face and they all laughed. “I wanted to visit sooner but so much was going on. Next
semester is my last before graduation and there was a great internship over the summer and then
fall break, I went to meet Sean’s family for Thanksgiving.”

“Oh?” Rey smiled at Jannah’s boyfriend, trapped in conversation with Mrs. Kanata when he’d
gone to fetch Jannah her own piece of pie. They’d come to visit at the Bible group because
between school and Rey’s new job she didn’t have time for anything else. “Visiting both families
over the holidays, huh? Sounds like you two have gotten serious.”

“Not as serious as little Finny over here,” Jannah said, clucking her tongue as she eyed Rose’s
engagement ring with a teasing grin. “Engaged already.”

Finn shrugged, his hand resting on Rose’s knee. “She’s the only one I ever wanted. Why drag it
out?”

“So romantic,” Jannah said with a laugh and Rose wrinkled her nose until Finn kissed her sweetly,
soothing the irritation from her face.

Sean returned with Jannah’s pie, a neat slice of cherry that she took with a smile and a kiss of her
own. “Maybe Finn isn’t wrong,” he said, nuzzling gently into her cheek. “Why wait? Big party,
pretty dress, plus that wedding night, right?”

Jannah snorted. “How would that be different from any other night?”

“It would be official,” he said with a grin.

“I wonder if that makes it hotter?” Rose asked, shooting Finn a suggestive look that made him
blush and Rey shift uncomfortably, averting her eyes.

“Sorry, Rey,” Rose said Rey smiled tightly trying to ignore her own flaming cheeks.

“It’s fine,” she said. “I mean, I already knew you two were…well, I guess all of you are, right?”
She picked at a stray thread on the hem of her sweater, trying to avoid the pity she knew would be
in their eyes. “It’s okay, though, I don’t mind you talking about it in front of me.”

“You still have a chance,” Jannah said, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and leaning her head
against Rey’s. “He might get out someday and then you two can fuck enough to make up for all
that lost time.”

Rey laughed, breathless and wide eyed as Rose clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle her own
giggle. “I guess we could,” she said. “I want to, it’s just…”

“Just?”

“It’s just…” she hesitated, picking at her thread again. She’d never discussed this part of her
relationship with Kylo before. “We talk about it so often and there’s so much expectation. What if
he’s disappointed?”

“Rey, honey, he’s so in love with you…”

“Yeah, he is but he’s…well, he’s had sex before. He’s been with a lot of people and I don’t know
anything.” It poured out of her and she looked at them, swallowing down the vulnerability that sat
on her chest, threatening to smother her.

“He was so young when he went to prison” Finn said, “I doubt he was with that many people.”

“He was,” Rey insisted. “When he ran away- when he was living with Snoke- those women…they
paid to be with him.”

“That’s awful,” Jannah said, shaking her head, “he was so young and what they did to him was
wrong. I don’t think that’s anything like what he has with you.”

“No, I know that. Well, at least, part of me does,” Rey said, looking at Jannah with a soft plea for
understanding. “But there was a girl before that, too, when he was at Luke’s.”

“You don’t have to be the first to be the one that matters,” Jannah reassured her. “He hasn’t
complained about anything yet, had he?”

Rose looked at her curiously. “Oh? What has he had to complain about?”

Rey bit her lip hard, the slight tang of blood welling up to flood the tip of her tongue. “Just some
letters and, uh, phone calls.”

“Sexy phone calls, though, right?” Jannah asked. “Like we talked about before?”

“Wait, you’ve been having phone sex?” Finn sat forward, scanning Rey’s face for evidence, and
then whistling low at the sheer embarrassment that she knew he found there.

“Not exactly,” she hedged. “I mean, he has to sit at the phones so it’s not really private. And they’re
sort of recording the calls, so you never know if someone’s listening.”

Jannah nodded. “Hot, right? I mean even if it isn’t exactly phone sex, it’s not exactly PG-13,
either.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about this,” Rose said. “You two have been together for so long
now and you never said anything.”

Rey shrugged, keeping her eyes fixed on the bare ring finger of her left hand. “It’s embarrassing,”
she admitted. “Too intimate and not nearly intimate enough. Like it’s too desperate of a thing to be
doing, but it’s all we have.”

“And you feel guilty,” Rose said, pining the source of Rey’s discomfort in a few words. “You
know that we’re not supposed to…”

“Yes,” Rey cut in. “We aren’t supposed to and even if I do want to marry him…”

“We’re not supposed to supposed to be sleeping together right now, either,” Finn reminded her.
“You don’t judge us, and we aren’t going to judge you. We’d be doing the same thing if we were
in your place.”

Rose nodded, her hand in Finn’s. “Absolutely. You need that connection to him, maybe now more
than ever. And when he does get out, you two will do just fine. He isn’t going to be disappointed in
you.”

Rey smiled tightly, but the seed of her doubt remained.

***

Kylo got the official date on a Tuesday, his world fixing itself to a moment in the summertime that
would determine everything about his future…and Rey’s.

She was calmer when he told her than he expected, and he knew she was absolutely focused on
making sure that he stayed hopeful.

“It’s sooner than we thought,” she said. “This summer! It could have taken another year.. That’s a
whole year that we don’t have to worry about. We’ve come so far.”

“Every day I spend in here is a day we can’t get back- a day that costs us a piece of our lives,” he
said, the days between him and the hearing stretching out like an eternity. So much waiting, so
much time lost.

“It’s worth it,” she told him. “Every day that I spend waiting for you is worth it.”

He held tight to those words as he spent days staring at the notice- the date and time of the hearing
finally written down in black and white- and he thought about calling his mother.

He didn’t.

***

Spring 2017

Kylo was used to Rey’s visits.

He still counted the seconds between them, but she had come every possible weekend and he had
stopped getting nervous a long time ago. He knew she would be there; knew she would smile at
him and link her fingers with his and they would have a few hours where love mattered more than
the trials they faced.

The guards slid him knowing looks, and he knew that some of them have probably been on enough
letter reading duty that they knew exactly what kind of thoughts Rey had about him, but he’d
learned to ignore them.

It felt different when her father came.

It had taken her months to convince him, to set a day and have him sit in the seat beside her as she
made the drive.

This time the guards’ knowing grins made him clench his fists before she stepped into the first hug
that he was allowed to give her. The idea that they would embarrass her in front of the man who
had raised her infuriated him.

Rey didn’t acknowledge them, she never did, and he followed her to the table they usually sat at
and tried to turn his focus to the man who sat on the other side of her.

Pastor Johnson looked exactly the way that Kylo had expected him to- neatly dressed, hair combed
just the right way, glasses settled sensibly at the bridge of his nose. He didn’t have the edge of
cruelty in his eyes that Luke had always had, and the laugh lines at his eyes seemed genuine, but he
still frowned at the eagerness Rey displayed for Kylo’s touch, the easy and casual way that she
wrapped her hand around his, her fingers slotting comfortably between his own.

She smiled brightly, ignoring the palpable tension in the air as her father stared him down. It was
not the way he would have preferred to meet the parent of the woman he loved, but she was
insistent that she wanted them to meet before the hearing.

“So,” she said, cutting into the silence and looking from one of them to the other. “Kylo this is my
dad. Dad this is Kylo.”

He reached out a hand and Pastor Johnson took it, giving it a brief, perfunctory shake.

“Nice to meet you finally,” Kylo said, his gaze shifting from the man to the daughter. He knew this
was important to her, and his personal feelings about God and religion aside, he wanted to make
her happy.

“Rey’s quite fond of you,” her dad said in return- an explanation for his presence more than a
return of the greeting. “She’s argued very persuasively on your behalf, but I hope you understand
that her happiness, her future, is my top priority.”

Kylo pulled his eyes away from Rey, met the blunt gaze of the man who clearly didn’t approve of
him. “She’s everything,” he said flatly. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t give, nothing I wouldn’t do for
her.”

“And if you have to spend the rest of your life in here?”

“Dad,” Rey said quickly, shaking her head.

“Then I’ll be here for her until she doesn’t want me anymore, but I won’t try to stop her if she
decides she wants to move on. What’s between us…it’s for Rey, it’s always been for Rey.”

Her father didn’t speak much after that and Kylo knew he was being judged, his every action being
evaluated, but he wasn’t worried. He knew every expression that she made, every shift in her body
language. The subtle flow of unspoken communication in the flick of a glance or the caress of a
thumb came as naturally to him as breathing now.

“You really do love her, don’t you?” Pastor Johnson asked. Rey’s seat at the table was empty as
she made her customary trip to the vending machine.

“Yes, I really do.”

“You wouldn’t have been my first choice for her, but I would have been wrong.” Her dad sighed,
casting his eyes heavenward. “She’s never looked at anyone the way she looks at you and it’s
pretty clear to me that her happiness is your first priority.”

“She’s my only priority.” Kylo looked at him, his gaze unflinching. “I mean that.”

“Well, I guess you had better call me Rian.”

When Rey returned, laughing at the absurdly high mountain of snacks in her arms, there was no
tension between them, and when they left, her dad’s handshake was warm and friendly.

“I know you’re soured on God and faith” he said, “and truth be told after what you’ve been through
it’s hard to blame you, but I’ll be praying for you, for what it’s worth.”

Kylo swallowed hard. “Thanks,I guess it can’t hurt and I heard about what you did for that friend
of Rey’s. You’re a better man than my uncle ever was.”

Rey’s arms around his waist were extra tight when she hugged him goodbye, and he saw the tears
she tried to hide as she walked away.

He didn’t think he’d ever done anything more important than making it so that the two most
important men in her life were united in their understanding of how much she meant to both of
them.

***

Rey shouldn’t have been there, and she knew it.

Amilyn had made it clear that Bazine didn’t want to be contacted, that she had put legal barriers in
place that prevent them from speaking to her, from asking her to help. Rey had been obedient,
closing off the possibility that they could reach her for nearly a year.

But the date of the resentencing loomed, large and final and desperate in her mind, until she broke.
If there was a chance that she could reach Bazine, as she had reached Leia, then it would be worth
the consequences to herself for breaking the order.

Bazine’s family was old money, and Rey was surprised when she pulled up to the address in a
town several hours away from her own and found that the home she lived in was not a mansion, not
a proud and cold building that was aloof in its sheer size, but a quaint two story house not that
different from Rey’s own childhood home. The street was neat and tidy, leaves and blooms barely
blossoming in the well-tended yards.

A dog barked inside when she knocked and then the door opened, and she was standing in the
warming spring air and staring with wide eyes at the woman she had come to see. Bazine looked
not terribly unlike her, she thought. A slim brunette with soft features, but her eyes were brown,
dark pools of rich deep tones that held experiences that belied her youth.

They reminded Rey of Kylo, and the heaviness he carried.

“You’re Bazine,” she blurted, and the other woman smiled slightly in surprise. Rey rushed on
before she could speak. “I’m Rey Johnson. You don’t know me, but I was hoping I could have a
moment of your time. I’m friends with Kylo, uh, I mean Ben. You would have known him as Ben,
back then. Ben Solo?”

Bazine frowned and crossed her arms over her chest protectively. “I told that private investigator
that I don’t want anything to do with this. I have a life now- a husband and a child. I don’t need all
of this shit from my past getting pulled back out into the light and examined. I moved on.”

Rey nodded, holding one out beseechingly before Bazine could close the door. “I understand that
what I am asking is a lot, but all Ben wants is a chance at a life.”

Bazine’s eyes narrowed on her face and some of what she was feeling inside must have shown
there. “You’re his friend, huh?”

Rey blushed, heat rushing painfully over her cheeks. “I love him,” she said honestly. “So much.”

“Yeah?” Bazine flicked a glance at Rey’s face again and then shook her head. “Well, come in then
and explain to me how the hell that happened when he’s been in prison for the last twelve years.
You look like a damn baby standing out there, so I know you weren’t with him when he went in.
They’d have had your face all over the news if you had been.”

Rey stiffened. “I’m not a baby. I’m nineteen and I’m in college.”

Bazine smiled as she settled at the kitchen table, waving a hand for Rey to sit, too. “That sounds
like a baby to me, but you’re a fierce little thing. That’s the kind that always appealed to Ben so I
can see how he’d like you.”

Rey took a breath and explained how her relationship with Kylo had begun, how hopeful she had
been when they realized that they might have a chance to actually be together, how hard the past
year had been on both of them.

“You really do love him,” Bazine said when she’d finished. “I can see it all over you. I’m glad- he
deserves to be loved.”

Rey nodded, nibbling the skin of her bottom lip nervously. “Did you? Love him?”

“As much as I could at fifteen,” Bazine said, but the look in her eyes was haunted, and Rey could
see it, the ache that she kept deep inside, the place where there was a wound that still wept. “I was
emotional- out of control- as a teenager. I landed at Luke’s and that just made is worse.”

Rey nodded. “He told me about what you all went through.”

Heat flashed in Bazine’s eyes, but she shrugged. “He’s got as much right as any of us to share it, I
guess.”

“I can’t imagine what it was like,” Rey said softly, reaching out to lay her hand over the other
woman’s. Bazine’s tightened on it, seeking comfort as she confronted memories that they both
knew she would have preferred to forget. “The truth is that none of that should have happened to
you, to either of you. This is a small chance to help make it right.”

“I told him I hated him, the last time I saw him.” Bazine looked up, a single tear sliding unnoticed
down her cheek as she chewed nervously on her thumbnail. “That I would never forgive him for
what had been done to me, even though it wasn’t his fault and there was nothing he could have
done to stop it.”

They both turned as Bazine’s son clattered down the stairs, arms full of toys. He waved curiously
and smiled, one tooth missing in the front. Bazine loved him and Rey could see that in her eyes, as
she could see the sadness that years of distance could not erase.

“Ben wanted children, did you know that?” She looked at Rey, shoulders slumped. “Even then, as
young as we were, he wanted a real family. The kind where love was just given, and you knew that
they’d always be there for you.”

Rey squeezed her hand, but she didn’t interrupt.

“I love my husband,” Bazine continued, nodding slightly to herself in a silent confirmation of her
own assessment. “I love my son, too, and I wouldn’t undo the life I had to live to get here.” There
was a spark in her eyes, the rage that she’s concealed so well until now. “But someone needs to
know what that bastard did, and I guess I need to make up for blaming the wrong person all those
years ago. Ben was just a kid- it wasn’t his fault any more than it was mine and he was half mad
with grief and rage when he took off. What happened to his dad was a tragedy, but it was Luke’s
fault more than probably anybody’s.”

Bazine’s tears left scars on Rey’s heart, shallow ones that she thought must be in the same shape as
the ones that Kylo wore, though nowhere near as deep. She left with tears on her own cheeks, her
hand sore from the grip that the older woman had on it when she agreed to testify if Rey would go
with her to the courtroom.

This woman had Kylo’s heart years before she knew him, years before she was old enough to even
understand what love meant. Maybe it wouldn’t have lasted, but what they had made together
should not have been taken from them by force. The unfairness of that, the damage that it had left
behind, would never completely heal.

She understood, finally, that even if Kylo came home any happiness that they found together
afterward would still be built on the back of someone else’s pain.
 I Love You
Chapter Summary

Whoever takes a human life shall surely be put to death- Leviticus 24:17

Chapter Notes

We have finally made it to the resentencing hearing! I know everyone is excited for
the things to come but please make sure that you read the author's notes at the
beginning of each new chapter, since after this we truly begin to unpack everything
that Kylo has gone through.

TW/CW for this chapter- brief mentions of murder and graphic violence

As always, all of you and your wonderful comments are what keep me motivated and
coming back to this story so thank you so much! And special thanks to aurorareylo for
beta-ing this chapter for me!

Summer 2017

Rey’s fingers were white at the knuckle when her father parked the car in the courthouse parking
lot. It was crowded with cars, each bearing people that had come for a variety of tasks- marriage
licenses and parking tickets, jury duty and drug court. The truly unlucky ones were here for
reasons far more serious, accusations with consequences most people would find unimaginable.
Some of the people who had come to watch those proceedings would leave with their loved ones,
others with tears and empty arms.

There was no way for her to imagine what she’d feel when she left this place today. She knew
Kylo wouldn’t come home with her no matter what decision the judge made. He had already been
declared guilty in the eyes of the law- all today would tell her was whether she could ever hope to
see him out here with her. Not today, but some day. Any day. Ever.

Her dad put the car in park and then waited in supportive silence as she tried to slow her breathing
and bring her racing heart under control. He’d insisted on driving, on picking her up at her newly
leased apartment so that she wouldn’t have to face the car ride away from the courthouse alone.
She was grateful, honestly unsure if she’d be able to drive herself home if the judge resentenced
Kylo to life and left her without hope.

She flicked open the mirror in the visor, checked the minimal makeup that she’d tried to apply, and
sighed. She’d dressed carefully that morning- hair in a sophisticated twist, black skirt carefully
pressed, heels low and sensible- but after several nights without sleep there was no makeup that
could cover the dark circles exhaustion had drawn under her eyes.

Fear twisted in her stomach, a low roll of nausea that she had to swallow several times to keep from
giving in to, but she smiled at her father reassuringly as she reached the door handle.
“It’s probably Rose or Bazine checking to see if we made it,” Rey mumbled as her phone started to
vibrate in her bag, pulling out her phone and answering Rose’s call.

“We’re here,” Rey said, not bothering with her usual greeting and stepping out of the car before
straightening her skirt around her legs before closing the door.

“So are we,” Rose told her. “Did you drive by the front of the courthouse on your way in?” Her
voice was hushed, likely inside the courthouse already, but tense and worried.

Rey frowned, brow creasing in concern. “No, why?”

“There’s reporters everywhere,” Rose told her. “They swarmed us when we came in. They knew
our names and everything, screaming questions about you and your relationship with Kylo. I don’t
know what’s going on, but we had to make a run for it to get inside. Luckily, security isn’t letting
them in the building.”

Rey stopped and looked around, the stiff fabric of her suit already wilting in the summer heat as it
glinted viciously off the glass of parked cars and looming office windows. The parking lot was
around the corner of the large courthouse building, out of sight of the main doors. She assumed
they were waiting there since there was no other way for visitors to enter the premises so they
could be certain to catch her on her way in.

She would have to run through them to get inside, it simply couldn’t be avoided.

“Thanks Rose,” she said. “We’ll be inside in just a minute.” She hung up and dropped the phone
back into her bag, wiping her sweaty palms on her skirt as she explained the situation to her dad.

He stood for a second, blinking at her in the heat, and then shrugged out of his suit jacket. “Take
this,” he told her, holding it out at arm’s length. “Toss it over your head when we run by so they
can’t get a picture of your face.”

Rey reached for it, her hands trembling. “What about you?”

He lifted one shoulder dismissively. “There’s nothing they can do to an old man like me. Everyone
at the church knows we’re here so it isn’t the same as you having to go to school and deal with
unfortunate publicity.”

She rushed into his hug, quick and light to keep from wrinkling his crisp white dress shirt, and
tugged his jacket loosely over her shoulders.

The screaming began the moment they turned the corner, an eagle eyed reporter catching a quick
glimpse of her face before she pulled the jacket over her head and ducked down to focus on her
own feet as her father guided her through the crowd.

Bodies pressed in on her from all sides, shoving as they tried to get closer than the rest, and a
barrage of unfamiliar voices assaulted her senses.

“Rey, can you tell us how you became romantically involved with a killer?”

“Do you know that Kylo Ren murdered his own father? Did he lie to you to get you here today?”

“Pastor Johnson! How do you feel about your daughter being in a relationship with a brutal
murderer?”

They pushed through, neither of them speaking until the glass doors of the courthouse closed
behind them, muffling the sounds of disappointed reporters as they gradually stopped shouting
questions and settled in to wait until their prey had to leave the building. The run back to her car
would be even worse, but she had bigger issues on her mind now.

After the brief wait to pass through the building’s security, during which the security guard that
scanned her bag and asked her to step forward through the metal detector gave her a pitying look,
they passed into the large lobby and found Rose and Finn waiting for them with anxious
expressions.

Rose hurried over, pulling Rey into a tight hug. “Are you okay? Kylo’s lawyer is already here, she
went upstairs to settle some of his witnesses in and asked us to wait here for you once she saw us
get mobbed and figured out that we must know you. She isn’t surprised that the media found out
about the resentencing, but we don’t know how they found out about you and Kylo.”

“Are the reporters not going after everyone?”

Finn shook his head. “They went after Amilyn, but she’s his lawyer. The only ones besides her so
far have been us and the two of you. All the witnesses made it in without anyone paying any
attention so they must not know what they’re here for.”

Rey shrugged, it was a mystery that would have to wait, despite the nagging suspicion that planted
itself firmly in the back of her mind. She pulled her phone out of her bag, checked that it was on
silent and glanced quickly at the time. “Is Kaydel here yet? We should be heading upstairs.”

“Not yet but I can send her a message and have her meet us outside the courtroom. Amilyn said it
would be just upstairs on the left.”

They found her in the hallway with Bazine and several other people that Rey had never met before,
each of them pale and shaking but determined to see through the promise they had made to testify.
Bazine’s hand on Rey’s was cold and clammy but she smiled tremulously at Rey's friends and
family. Kaydel and Alison arrived just as Amilyn began to coach all of them through what they
were likely to experience and how to behave in the courtroom.

“No gum, no phones, so disruptions,” she said firmly. “No matter how much of an ass the state
lawyers may be. I know we’ve gone over this already with those of you who will be testifying, but
it applies as much when you’re just watching the proceedings. I don’t want anyone thrown out or
held in contempt. Any questions?”

She looked around at the small group, all that could be gathered to show support for the man she
had come to represent, and nodded. She was as well dressed and composed as always, but Rey
noticed the nervous tap of her perfectly manicured nails against her thigh as they waited for the
doors of the courtroom to be opened so they could make their way inside.

Rey waited until they were allowed to go in, until everyone else was busy settling into their seats
and looking anxiously around the quiet courtroom before she stepped close to Amilyn’s side and
whispered quietly, so no one else could hear her, “Do you think he really has a chance? Any hope
at all?”

She hadn’t asked before today because she had been afraid to hear the answer but now, with the
decision so close, she couldn’t help herself.

Amilyn sighed and shook her head slightly as though unsure for once, her eyes drifting to the
empty seat at the front of the courtroom where the judge would sit. “Judge Tano is a tough woman,
but fair. If we were ever going to have a chance, this judge and these witnesses are the best we
could have hoped for.”

Rey breathed, her lungs expelling all the breath she had been holding and some of the painful
tension. Amilyn patted her hand and moved to the front of the room, beyond the small gate that
barred the audience from approaching too close to the proceedings and began to set up her papers
on the table where she and Kylo sat.

Rey sat on the bench closest to the front, hoping that Kylo would be able to sense her presence so
close to him even though they weren’t allowed to speak to him. Her father sat on her right and
Bazine on her left, her hand once again clutching Rey’s painfully as she looked around with panic
in her eyes. Rose was on Bazine’s other side, talking to her about her son and trying to put her mind
at ease.

She had just won a hesitant smile for her efforts when the door at the side of the room opened, and
Kylo was led in. Bazine made a small noise, of shock or surprise Rey assumed, since she hadn’t
seen him in many years and the boy that she had known back then was very different from the man
now in front of her.

Rey took in his appearance quickly as he was led to his seat. He was wearing a white prison
jumpsuit this time, hands handcuffed in front of him and connected to his shackled ankles with a
long chain that also wrapped completely around his waist. Amilyn had prepared for that, and for
the painful fact that he would remain in shackles as long as he was inside the courtroom. He looked
tired and worried, a crease in his brow that faded away the moment he spotted her.

She smiled at him reassuringly and mouthed a silent, “I love you,” even though her heart was
pounding and her fingers had gone numb with fear. It took all of her concentration to keep her
breaths slow and shallow until he was seated next to Amilyn to wait for the judge’s arrival.

“This is really happening, isn’t it?” she asked quietly and of no one in particular. “Today is going to
decide everything.”

“Hey,” Bazine crooned, rubbing her hand over Rey’s arm until she turned to face her. “It’s going to
be okay. You’ve done so much to help him.”

“Let’s just pray it’s enough,” Rey said, desperately hoping and somewhat amused at how quickly
Bazine’s need for comfort had turned into the need to give it. The things that Luke had done hadn’t
driven the spirit out of her.

Rey looked down the hard courtroom bench, at the others that had come to testify, all of them
uncomfortable in their stiff courtroom appropriate outfits as they stared around anxiously at the
cheap wood paneled walls that lined the room. Some of them had been hurt by Luke, though not all
of them, a fact that she sometimes lost sight of that since he was the devil that made the most sense
to her with her upbringing. Snoke had done his own damage to the others, just as deep and
horrifying, in ways that went far beyond her imagination. And despite all of that, these people had
made it through and had chosen, at least for this moment, to fight for a better world and let this
small piece of their truths be heard.

Another door opened, this one along the wall in front of them, and a woman in black robes entered
the room as everyone scrambled to their feet. Judge Tano was straight-backed and stern faced as
she walked to her seat, and Rey felt a frisson of fear work its way down her spine. All of her hope
rested in this one woman and there was little to give any indication that she had any intention of
handing out mercy or understanding as she swept the room with a cold gaze and began the
proceedings.
The sharp snap of the gavel cut through the silence like a gunshot and Rey squeezed Bazine’s hand
as they both jumped at the noise. Rey wasn’t usually the kind to be jumpy, but every muscle in her
body was pulled tight and tense under the skin. Maybe it would be enough to keep the tears in.

They all listened with stoic faces as the state’s lawyer- a tall man that the judge referred to as Mr.
Pryde who had stiff mannerisms and a penchant for clasping his hands behind his back as he
spoke- laid out the case and the evidence.

“The facts,” he said, “are clear. There is no doubt about the guilt of this man. Kylo Ren, then a
young man named Ben Solo, stabbed his father to death in an alley. The cold-bloodedness of such
a crime, the obvious disregard for right and wrong, leaves the state no choice but to keep him in
prison where he cannot be a danger to anyone else. And make no mistake, he is absolutely one of
the dangerous ones.”

Kylo himself had believed that once, and Rey watched with a broken heart as he shrunk down
under the weight of the words, his giant shoulders twisting in and down toward the table as though
trying to hold himself together or disappear entirely.

Her free hand, the one not holding tightly to Bazine’s, balled into fist that she hid in the folds of her
skirt. She knew very well what Amilyn had said, and that it was Mr. Pryde was simply doing his
job, one that as a future lawyer she had to respect since every court proceeding relied on the ability
of the judge or jury to hear both sides…but that did nothing to quell her desire to scream and rage
and use her fists to silence him as he spoke. He didn’t know Kylo like she did, and he was wrong
about the kind of person he was.

A gentle hand came to rest over hers with a soft pat that let her breathe and relax her fist. She could
always count on her dad to know when she needed him most and she traded her rage for a litany of
prayers to repeat inside her mind.

Rey turned her face away when they put up the photos of the crime scene, but the images danced
colorfully behind her eyelids. The body lying in dirt and surrounded by trash, the pool of blood
dried to black on the ground, and Han’s hand curled where it had fallen with the glint of a gold
wedding ring still on his finger. It painted a damning picture and Rey swallowed back her tears as
the information from the autopsy was read. Seventeen stab wounds. Damage to the heart, the
stomach, the liver, the intestines…

“This was a personal attack,” Pryde said. “One born of rage and hatred. It was overkill, far beyond
what was necessary for self-defense even if there had been a need for any. Mr. Solo was a good
man, a loving father, and his life was cut short by his own child- an out of control teen, with no
regard for life. A callous and selfish young man who was throwing a temper tantrum because his
parents said it was time for him to stop running the streets causing trouble and come home.”

He turned then to look from the photos to Kylo, who was sitting perfectly still and listening
intently to some comment that Amilyn was making to him in hushed tones. His body was still tense
and even from several feet away Rey could see the effort he was using to keep an impassive face,
the muscle in his cheek that was twitching from the strain.

“He deserves to be in prison for the rest of his life,” Pryde said, turning back to address Judge Tano
directly, “and the state of Texas asks that you continue to protect the public by keeping him there.
Give him the life sentence that he has earned with his despicable actions.”

Rey’s shoulders slumped as he finally sat down, having finished giving the state’s argument for
sentencing. It was overwhelming, but even in all of that she knew that he was missing one crucial
thing that Amilyn had explained would have been invaluable to his plea.
Normally this would be the time when the victim’s family could address the court and give their
impact statements, tell the judge how deeply the loss of their loved one had affected their lives and
ask the judge to maintain the harsh sentence that had been imposed.

But Han Solo had not had a family before he had gotten married and Leia, despite the doubts and
the anger that she felt toward her son, was not here.
 I'm Here
Chapter Summary

Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the
destitute.
Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked- Psalm
82:3-4

Chapter Notes

I want to say a quick thank you once again to everyone for reading this and for your
amazing comments and support! Thanks to my amazing beta aurorareylo for helping
me have the courage to post these very difficult chapters.

This chapter and the ones immediately following it were designed to express my
feelings about certain things that were seen in canon- mainly the way that the Jedi
were treated as heroes even though we have seen many times that their actions and
their strict adherence to dogma and religious rules are harmful when they are placed
above the wellbeing of individuals in their care. This an exploration of what that kind
of thinking does in the real world and how it harms people. The fact that the actions of
the Jedi are partially responsible for the fall of Ben Solo (and thus his involvement
with Snoke and the death of Han) is a big theme of the story. As is the fact that
Snoke's relationship with Ben was predatory, harmful, and mentally
manipulative/abusive. He took advantage of the vulnerability that the Jedi created in
Ben.

TW//CW for this chapter- mentions of the following: homophobia, transphobia,

physical abuse of teenagers (sometimes based on sexuality or gender expression), food
deprivation, conversion therapy, religious based abuse, forced sexual contact between
teens, teens having a consensual sexual relationship, forced abortion in a pregnant
teenage girl, attempted suicide by a teen, a teen running away

Also some of the characters are depicted in a way that is out of character and not in
line with canon depictions! I know that is upsetting for some people so I want to make
sure that is acknowledged in advance. I am carrying through the themes of the canon
material, not the literal canon events, so I needed to bend characterization in some
places to achieve that.

*If I missed anything please let me know. Almost all of these are things that have been
tagged on the story as a whole since the beginning but I want to make sure that
everyone reading knows what they are getting into for this part specifically.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Mitaka was the first person to be called to the stand to share his story.
Amilyn was kind as he walked to the front, guiding him to the small box where he was supposed to
sit and smiling at him encouragingly as he placed his hand on a thick black Bible and swore to tell
them all nothing but the truth.

He was unnaturally pale and even from a distance Rey could see the line of sweat that beaded on
his brow. None of this would be easy for him and she prayed that he would feel some comfort,
some sense of relief once it was done. Luke was dead and this was the closest that Mitaka would
ever get to justice for what he had endured.

Amilyn approached the stand and the questioning began.

“Good morning, Mr. Mitaka,” she said pleasantly. “Thank you for agreeing to come here today.
Let’s begin by having you tell us when you first met Kylo Ren.”

Mitaka glanced at Kylo and then back at Amilyn. “I was sixteen,” he said quickly. “So, it would
have been more than a decade ago.”

“You were sixteen,” Amilyn said with an encouraging nod. “And how old was Kylo at that time?”

“He was fifteen when I first met him, but he went by Ben Solo back then. Before he changed his
name.”

“Yes, he did,” Amilyn said. “And how did you two meet?”

Mitaka swallowed and got even paler, a feat Rey wouldn’t have believed possible until she saw it
for herself. “I, uh, lived with his uncle, Luke Skywalker, when Ben was sent to live there, too.”

Amilyn began to pace slowly across the floor in front of the judge, nodding along with his answers
and looking back at him when it was time to ask another question.

“This was at Luke Skywalker’s house?” she asked.

“No, ma’am. He ran a…” Mitaka hesitated, his brow furrowing as he searched for the right word
before giving up, “well, I don’t know what it was exactly, but he called it a school. We- all the
kids, I mean- lived at the school.”

“This was a private school?” Amilyn asked, then continuing to the next question without waiting
for an answer. “Luke Skywalker was a pretty famous evangelical preacher, so I assume it was a
religious school?”

“It wasn’t a school,” Mitaka said bluntly. “He called it one, but it wasn’t. We didn’t go there to
learn academics- we went because our parents wanted him to fix us.”

“Fix you?” Amilyn shook her head, giving a small puzzled shrug that Rey knew was theatrical.
“What was wrong with you Mr. Mitaka?”

Mitaka took a deep breath, the kind that shuddered a person’s whole body and left them hollow on
the inside. “I’m gay,” he said simply. “My parents didn’t believe in that sort of thing.”

“They didn’t believe you were gay?”

“They didn’t want me to be,” he clarified. “They wanted Luke to fix it and make me straight. He
preached fire and brimstone at them and anyone else who would listen, damnation in every breath.
They were terrified that I was going to hell and they would have done just about anything to stop
it.”
“I see,” Amilyn said quietly. “Were all the kids at this ‘school’ gay?”

Mitaka shook his head. “No, some of them were trans or bi, doing drugs or sneaking out. Luke took
in pretty much any kid whose parents thought they were a problem, as long as they bought into his
version of God and had the funds to pay for his version of discipline.”

Amilyn smiled tightly. “And were you there the entire time that Kylo was?”

Mitaka nodded, shifting restlessly in his seat. Rey knew that Amilyn had practiced the questions
with him before today and she suspected that he knew the more difficult questions were coming. “I
was there for two years and Ben…Kylo…was my roommate for just over a year. He ran away a
few months before my parents finally came and picked me up.”

“So, you were there with him and saw the conditions that he was living in while he was with
Luke?”

“Yes, ma’am. We pretty much all lived the same way while we there.”

Rey flicked a glance at Kylo, at the tense line of his shoulders as he stared straight ahead at Mitaka.
His face, the eyes that were usually so expressive, were like stone as he listened.

“Can you describe what it was like? Living with Luke?” Amilyn continued.

Mitaka’s mouth moved, a single word breathed so quietly that the judge had to ask him to repeat
himself.

“Yes,” he said again, more firmly this time. “It was hell.”

“It was hell in what way, Mr. Mitaka? Can you be more specific?”

“It was hell in every way,” he said, glancing at Bazine and then away again quickly. “Different for
each of us but hell, just the same.”

“Mr. Mitaka…” Amilyn began, but he cut her off before she could finish.

“I slept on a concrete floor for two years,” he said bitterly. “Most of the time we didn’t have
blankets and we never had air conditioning. My showers consisted of being sprayed down with a
hose whenever Luke or one of his disciples decided we smelled bad enough to warrant it.”

The words settled over them all, stealing some of the air from the room. Rey breathed, slowly and
intentionally, as Bazine gripped hard onto her hand. Her father tapped his fingers on the bench
beside his thighs and when she looked up at him his mouth was set in a grim line.

Mitaka continued speaking.

“If we were lucky, we got one meal a day, and that was only if they decided we had been good. If
we hadn’t been, they just skipped our meal altogether, locked us in our rooms for days at a time so
we had to piss in the corner.”

Amilyn paused, giving him a moment to collect himself as the courtroom sat in silence. They all
watched as he paused, his lip trembling as he composed his thoughts.

“And was Kylo also treated this way?” she said once he seemed to have gathered control of his
emotions.

“He was,” Mitaka said. “But he didn’t get scared like the rest of us- he got angrier. Luke preached
to him all the time about his sin and how he was tainted, just really awful stuff, you know? But
he’d go without his food or his blankets just to spite them instead of doing what Luke told him to
do, so they got rough with him more than the rest of us.”

“What did Luke tell him to do?”

Mitaka shrugged helplessly. “Not to sneak food to people that were being punished was the first
thing. He brought me a piece of bread back from dinner that first week he was there, and Luke
split his lip wide open.”

“What else?”

Another pause, longer this time. “He was big, even back then he was big for a kid, so Luke wanted
him to help with the rest of us and he wouldn’t do it. They tried to get him…get him to hold people
down sometimes but…”

“Hold people down for what, Mr. Mitaka?”

“Well, like I said some of the kids that were there were trans and the girls…they would come in
with long hair and Luke would cut it, take their dresses and cut them all up, too, so they’d look like
boys again.”

“He wouldn’t help Luke do that?”

Mitaka shook his head, looking at Kylo before turning back to Amilyn and saying clearly, “No, he
wouldn’t do that. He would see them coming out crying, their heads shaved so their hair was all
short and he was so mad. We were all mad, we all hated Luke but Ben…Ben was stubborn. The
more Luke tried to break him the angrier he got.”

“Did Luke ask for his help with anything else?”

“Yeah, he…” a small sob broke from Mitaka, his breath catching as everyone looked away to give
him a moment. “Luke, he was a firm believer in conversion therapy. Not the kind done by doctors
that pretend to know what they’re doing, but the kind where some preacher thinks he can torture
the gay out of you. Kylo wouldn’t help with that.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Mitaka, but can you explain to us in more detail exactly what happened and what
Kylo saw when he was there with you?”

“Yeah, sorry.” He pressed his palms to his eyes, trying to stop the steady leak of tears. Beside Rey,
Bazine was stiff and tense, her nails digging painfully into Rey’s hand. “Um, Luke was…He was
convinced that having sex with a woman would fix me. He would make me…with some of the
girls at the school and if I wouldn’t then he would have them beat me.”

“And Kylo wouldn’t hit you?”

“No, he wouldn’t, not even when they hit him instead. And he wouldn’t, fuck , he wouldn’t help
Luke with the girls either.” Mitaka looked at Amilyn helplessly, hoping desperately that she would
understand his meaning and not make him say it out loud. “Luke tried to make him, told him that if
they learned to like sex with men that it would save their souls, but Ben was pissed, and he
wouldn’t do it. He came back to the room one night beat worse than any of us that I ever saw, but
he wouldn’t hurt any of us.”

“And Luke was the one who hit you?”

“Sometimes it was him, but most of the time he just liked to stand off to the side quoting
scripture,” Mitaka sneered the word, like it was contemptible in its very existence, “while his
buddies did the beating. He had a guy, Chewie, and he did most of it. That guy was huge, not even
Ben stood a chance against him.”

“Thank you, Mr. Mitaka, you can step down now,” Amilyn said and he visibly relaxed as he
walked back to his seat, his eyes never looking up from the floor. Kylo watched him go and Rey
noticed the clenched set of his jaw, the haunted regret in his eyes.

He looked at her briefly and she mouthed "It's okay, I'm here," earning a small grateful smile from
him before he turned away, glancing nervously at the guards because he wasn't supposed to
interact with them while they were in the courtroom.

Amilyn called Bazine next and she stood on legs that wobbled, holding to Rey’s hand until she
could stand on her own and make her way to the front. Her steps were slow and measured, a clear
reluctance in her stride that was made even more obvious by the pinched look on her face when
she turned to face them all.

Amilyn waited for her to be sworn in as Rey wrenched her gaze away from the small, terrified
woman to the large, hunched form of Kylo. He was staring straight ahead, his hand holding the
arm of his chair so tightly that she was surprised it hadn’t cracked under the strain.

He hadn’t seen Bazine in thirteen years and Rey swallowed her tears and her sudden insecurity as
he stared with something close to longing at another woman’s face.

“Good morning, Mrs. Nettle,” Amilyn began, and Bazine turned away from looking at Kylo to
look at her instead.

“Good morning,” Bazine repeated, her hands twisting and untwisting in her lap.

“You also lived with Kylo at Luke’s school?”

Bazine’s mouth turned down in a scowl. “I would agree that it wasn’t a school, but I did live there
with Ben and Mitaka.”

“Were you there the whole time that Kylo was there?”

“Nearly the whole time” Bazine clarified. “I think I got there a few weeks after him.”

Amilyn nodded again, continuing her pacing. “And what can you tell me about the living
conditions while you were there?”

“The same as Mitaka,” Bazine said, her face scrunching as she tried to hold back tears that slipped
down her cheeks anyway.. Rey wasn’t certain if they were born from sadness or anger- Bazine’s
tone had plenty of both. “Luke Skywalker was a bastard who cared more about the rules in some
fucking book than he ever did about any of us.”

Amilyn’s demeanor remained carefully neutral in the face of the other woman’s outburst. She
waited patiently for Bazine’s body language to relax before she proceeded with her questioning.
“Can you tell us about your experiences at Luke’s? About what brought you there?”

“My parents brought me there,” she said with a bitter laugh, swiping at her cheeks in annoyance.
“They caught me sneaking out at night, meeting my boyfriend and getting high, and they didn’t
like it. Luke told them he could settle me down so they dropped me off and didn’t even look back.”
“And did he? Settle you down?”

“He beat me and let me go without food until I was too damn tired and broken and hungry to do
anything but cry some days, so he certainly tried.”

Amilyn nodded, tapping her finger against her chin. “Mrs. Nettle, how would you describe your
relationship with Kylo during this time?”

Bazine hesitated, biting her lip. “He was protective of all of us and I gravitated to him when I
arrived. I guess I would say he was my boyfriend, or the closest that any of us could come to that
kind of relationship in a place like that.”

“And was your relationship with him sexual?” Bazine winced at the question and Amilyn hurried
to add, “ I’m sorry, I have to ask.”

Bazine looked down at her hands. “Yes, it was. He would sneak out of his room whenever he could
to come and find me. I loved him,” she said, shrugging slightly and glancing up at him before
quickly looking down at her hands.

Rey looked at Kylo, at the single tear that was sliding down his cheek, and then away. She knew
the story already, but seeing them relive it together was different and she felt like an intruder, an
interloper in their private grief.

“Can you tell us why you left Luke’s school, Mrs. Nettle?”

“I tried to kill myself so my parents finally believed me when I said I would rather die than stay
there.”

“Why would you do that, Mrs. Nettle? Did something happen at Luke’s to drive to such an extreme
method of escape?”

“I was pregnant,” Bazine said quietly, looking down so that they could barely hear her and fat tears
dropped from her face to her lap as she spoke. “Luke forced me to get an abortion. I don’t know
where he found the doctors, but I never even left the school. They came to me- a very tall man and
a very short one, bickering the whole time. I don’t think either of them ever even looked at me.
They were so cold, like a couple of robots.”

Amilyn stopped pacing, addressing Bazine directly but with great tenderness. “Was the child
Kylo’s?”

“I believe so,” Bazine said, nodding her head as she glanced up at Amilyn. “He had just found out
and he was…he was so excited to be a father, even though we were too young and living in that
awful place.”

Amilyn shook her head, resting her hand on the banister beside Bazine as she spoke. “I thought
Luke was a very religious man, why would he do that to the two of you? Something that would
have been so against his faith?”

“He didn’t think Kylo was the father,” Bazine explained.

“No?”

“He thought Mitaka might have been the father,” Bazine continued. “He made us…well, you
know? To make Mitaka like having sex with girls.”
 “So, he forced you to have sex with Mr. Mitaka to cure him of homosexuality and you believe
Luke was afraid that the baby would be proof of that abuse?”

Rey looked at Kylo in surprise. He hadn’t told her that he might not have been the father of
Bazine’s baby and she realized now how much distance Mitaka and Bazine had put between
themselves, the way that they hadn’t spoken that morning even though they had known each other
so long ago.

“Yes,” Bazine confirmed, “I believe Luke was afraid that DNA could prove the child was Mitaka’s
and that it could support our stories if we ever came forward with allegations of abuse. Although, I
suppose that even if the child had been Kylo’s, it would have looked bad for the school. If any of
the other parents found out that I got pregnant while I was staying with him, it would have
damaged his reputation.”

“What did Kylo do when he found out what Luke had done?”

“He was angry, worse than I had ever seen. I was angry, too, and hurt that Kylo had let it happen. I
know it wasn’t his fault but back then…We argued and I was so mad that he hadn’t protected me
that I told him that I would never forgive him.”

“And then what happened?”

“He confronted Luke and I think…I think he attacked him. There was a lot of shouting, things
breaking…and then Ben was gone. He never came back and the next time any of us even knew
where he was, it was when he saw him on the news…after, well, you know.”

Amilyn nodded. “After his father’s death.”

“Yes, after that.” Bazine turned to face Judge Tano, her eyes clear and earnest. “I tried to kill
myself to get away from that place and if my parents had tried to send me back there…I would be
the one sitting in a prison cell today. I would have done anything to not have to go back.”

Chapter End Notes

**Disclaimer- the type and extent of abuse that occurs during conversion therapy
varies extensively. During the later part of the 20th century it was practiced by those in
medical or mental health fields and taken somewhat seriously as a potential option for
people who were unsatisfied with their sexuality due the homophobia that was
prevalent at the time. This often involved exposure to stimulating erotic images
combined with an electric shock or vomit inducing drug to try and reprogram the
brain's response system. This practice was not successful and has been condemned as
harmful by most professionals and all major organizations in the medical and mental
health communities.

There have been allegations that other types of conversion techniques have been
practiced in certain religious communities/cults. Stories from these victims often
include inhumane living conditions, beatings, rape, and many other extreme practices,
including exorcisms.

The Ben story of living with Luke and the abuses that Mitaka and the others suffered
are a compilation of a variety of different such stories that I have heard over the years
blended with elements and themes of Star Wars canon. It is not meant to depict any
one person or experience and it is not intended to be an exact recreation of real life.

Here's a link to an overview article on the practice-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_therapy

and a link with some information on how you can help get this practice outlawed in all
50 states- https://www.nclrights.org/our-work/born-perfect/
 Silence
Chapter Summary

No one who hopes in you will ever be put to shame- Psalm 25:3

Chapter Notes

Sorry for the delay on this chapter. I wasn't able to put any time into writing during the
week of my final exams, so it took a little longer to get the chapter finished. As
always, please know that I appreciate each of you for reading along as I write this and
for every single comment and kudo that you give me. It really does keep me going
when writing this gets hard.

TW//CW for this chapter- Mentions of the following: gang activity, teen runaways,
teens committing acts of violence, teens drinking, teens smoking, teens using drugs,
teens being manipulated and used, teen prostitution (strong dubcon and noncon
elements), violence and unspecified acts of torture being committed against teens,
teens disappearing due to implied violence and foul play.

This is the chapter where we hear about Kylo's time with Snoke, so it's once again
very dark stuff. If you feel that I missed anything specific that you think should have
been mentioned here, please let me know.

Once again thanks you to my amazing Beta AuroraReylo for giving me the courage to
post this!

See the end of the chapter for more notes

The next three witnesses, the ones that had lived with Kylo after he had run from Luke and found
his way to Snoke, went by as barely more than blur in Rey’s mind. She already knew that they had
all formed up to make a small gang and that the things they had done were harmful and illegal, but
Kylo had been brief on the details.

He had described his time spent with Luke with anger, but his time with Snoke had been cloaked in
shame. She hadn’t pressed him, knowing the overall picture had been enough, but the details of it
all took her breath away when it spilled from the mouth of the witnesses in a rush that jumbled
together in her mind.

Her father and Bazine clutched her hands, grounding her as the full ugly truth left them all reeling.

Vicrul was the first on the stand, his face impassive and set, as though he wore a mask of
indifference that no one and nothing could penetrate.

Amilyn approached him with an easy smile, walked him through the pleasantries, and then began.
“Do you remember when Kylo first came to Snoke?”
“Yeah, Snoke found him living on the streets, just like the rest of us.”

“The rest of you? Who was that, exactly?”

“Snoke called us the Knights of Ren. His little street gang. We thought we were a bunch of tough
guys.”

“I see,” Amilyn said, tapping her finger on her chin as she appeared to contemplate his response.
“And did Kylo join the Knights of Ren when he came?”

“Sure, we’re the ones that gave him the new name. Kylo. He was a big guy, scary looking. Exactly
what Snoke was looking for, so he moved him in with us.”

“You shared a house?”

He shrugged, but the movement was restless. “Better than living under a bridge, lady.”

“I’m sure it was," Amilyn agreed, amused. "What was that like? Living with Snoke?”

“It was good at first. We had the run of the house, came and went when we pleased. Did whatever
we wanted.”

“And Kylo had that freedom, too?”

“We all did. All the Knights. We didn’t answer to anyone except Snoke.”

“And what happened when Kylo moved in? How did he react to that?”

Vicrul smiled, hard and bitter. “Same as any kid with a chip on his shoulder, He did whatever the
hell he wanted to- smoked, drank, fucked, whatever drugs we could get our hands on. And a whole
lot of it, too.”

Rey listened tensely, her eyes glued to Kylo’s broad shoulders as Vicrul finished his testimony.
His words were echoed nearly exactly by Ushar, who took the stand as soon as he was finished.

Ushar was smaller than Vicrul, less sure of himself on the stand, but his face was just as stoic.

“What happened once Kylo got settled into the house,” Amilyn asked him, waiting patiently as he
shifted in his seat. Vicrul had been hesitant here, too, but Amilyn’s practice once again paid off, as
both were able to answer.

“He got used to the drugs and the freedom and then Snoke yanked the chain. Nothing comes
without a price, you know? We ran the streets and did his dirty work, robbery, extortion, real
violent shit, but that part wasn’t so bad…at least, not for us, I mean.”

“Then what was bad for you?”

He laughed, humorless. “It started out with rich women. Snoke was smart and he eased you in that
way because how can you say no to getting money for having sex with a beautiful woman? Sure,
he’d sold you, but it was easy to justify it.”

“He sold you? You mean that he sold your services sexually?”

“Yeah, but like I said, it wasn’t so bad at first but…then it got worse. Once you were sort of used to
it, then he wasn’t so picky about the kind of people he sold you to or what they wanted. Nothing
you could do by then, of course, so you just take more of the drugs he’s handing out and pretend it
wasn’t happening.”

“I see,” Amilyn said sympathetically. “And were these people ever violent toward any of you?”

He tapped his face, the sliver of a thin white scar bisecting his chin. “The first time Snoke sold me
to some guy that wanted me to suck him off. I learned real quick not to say no to something they
paid for. If they didn’t hurt me, Snoke sure as hell would.”

Cardo was after Ushar and he was steely eyed on the stand, body nearly unnaturally still as he
watched Amilyn pace the floor in front of him.

“And how did Kylo react, when Snoke started requiring him to do these things?”

“Kylo was different from the rest of us, angrier and more likely to start a fight, even with Snoke.
He didn’t like it, didn’t want to do the other things that Snoke was asking. He went along with it
for a little while, because he was convinced that Snoke must know what he was doing, but
eventually he decided that he’d had enough.”

“And then what did he do?”

Cardo shuddered hard enough that it was visible even to Rey before he answered. “He tried to
leave.”

Rey’s eyes flew back to Kylo, sitting hunched and shrunken in his chair. He hadn’t told her that
he’d tried to get away.

“Snoke wasn’t having that, of course,” Cardo continued, “and when Kylo tried to leave…” He
shook his head and looked down at his feet.

“What happened?” Amilyn prompted when he had been silently staring at his shoes for several
moments.

“They drug him down into the basement,” Cardo explained. “Snoke and some of his buddies.
There was no one else in the house except for me and even the drugs I took weren’t enough to
drown out the screams. I still have nightmares about it sometimes.”

“Did Kylo ever tell you exactly what happened in the basement?”

“No, but he never tried to leave again, and he did what Snoke wanted after that. He didn’t give
Snoke any more problems and Kylo became the new leader of the Knights of Ren not long after
that.”

“What happened to the leader before Kylo?”

“A lot of things went missing around Snoke,” Cardo said simply. “You didn’t ask about it unless
you wanted to be the next thing that went missing.”

Cardo stepped down and returned to his seat. The eyewitness testimonies were over, leaving the
courtroom drained and flat. Behind the table across from Kylo and Amilyn, the state’s lawyer
fidgeted, shuffling and straightening papers that didn’t need to be straightened.

The state’s stance that Kylo had been nothing more than a typical spoiled teen, too rich and
pampered to accept it when his parents placed reasonable limits on him, had been called into
serious question.
Judge Tano was tapping a finger on the wooden stand in front of her as she looked at her watch.

“We’ll take a thirty-minute recess before the next witness is called,” she announced, tapping the
gavel so that the sound of it echoed through the room. “Everyone please be back here by then.”

Rey watched in silence as the guards led Kylo from the room, her jaw clenched anxiously when he
didn’t look at her at all.

“Where are they taking him?” she asked Amilyn, leaning forward to grip the rails that separated
the lawyers and prisoners from the audience.

“He gets a bathroom break, too,” Amilyn explained patiently, gesturing toward the front to remind
her that the judge had also left. “I suggest all of you do the same. We still have a long day ahead of
us.”

She walked out then, leading the way as the rest of them shuffled out awkwardly behind her. They
had been cordial to one another earlier in the day, all of them polite if a bit distant, but the time
during the hearing had drawn them together with a forced intimacy that made them quiet and
reluctant to meet each other’s eyes.

The witnesses had had all their wounds and secrets laid bare and Rey, with her family and friends
beside her and a life where her wounds had been laid over with nearly a lifetime of loving support,
felt like she had been an observer to something sordid and painful, intruded in a place that they
wouldn’t want others to see.

The hallway was full of people, moving about their business and speaking in hushed tones, but Rey
was distant and numb, exhausted by the emotions that had buffeted her since Mitaka had first taken
the stand.

Bazine had let go of her hand, but they all walked together to the bathroom around the corner and
Rey watched her in the mirror as they stood at the sink side-by-side. Bazine, too, looked fragile
and drained, her eyes weary and fingers shaking slightly as she dried them on cheap brown paper
towels that were too stiff and too thin to absorb the water. She tossed them in the trash, already full
almost to overflowing, and wiped her hands on the sides of her expensive black slacks. Rose and
the others had already left, the door swinging shut behind them and leaving the two women alone
as Bazine cleared her throat. “Thank you for sitting with me today. It was difficult to relive those
things and to hear about…well, everything that happened to him after.”

Rey bit her lip, her teeth digging in a little harder than they would normally have done. “You still
care about him,” she said, “and I understand that, but I love him. I love who he is now, the man he
grew into. So, it hurts a little that he still looks at you the way that he does. I just thought you
should know that before you thank me.”

Bazine smiled, perfectly even white teeth that flashed briefly in the harsh fluorescent lighting that
flickered overhead. “All the more reason for me to say it. You’ve put aside any personal feelings
or discomfort about what happened between us years ago because you love him. You’ve been
nothing but nice to me and he’s lucky to have you.”

Rey sighed, the guilt she felt for the flash of jealousy she’d felt in the courtroom easing just a bit.
“Thanks,” she said stiffly, but Bazine laid a gentle hand on her arm.

“We went through a lot together and it’s been a little overwhelming seeing him again after all this
time. It brings back a lot of memories, a lot of things we didn’t have time to process back then. If
he’s feeling anything right now, it’s probably the same kind of weird nostalgia. I loved Ben, but I
was a different person then. I love my husband and Ben loves you.”

“I’m sorry,” Rey said, shifting nervously from one foot the other and chewing on the raw spot she
was rapidly wearing into her bottom lip. “I know that you’re trying to help us, and I shouldn’t have
felt upset about it. I understand that you two have a history, something together that I can’t
understand.”

“Just a small broken piece of his past,” Bazine said, stepping forward to give Rey a gentle armed
squeeze, her arm wrapped around Rey’s waist as they walked out of the bathroom together. “You
know him better now than I ever did.”

Rose was the only one waiting in the hallway when they came back out and she stood up from the
bench she was sitting on when she saw them. “Is everything okay? It’s almost time to start so
everyone else went back in.”

“It’s fine,” Rey assured her. “We just needed a minute to talk things over. It’s been a hard day.”

Rose nodded as they walked, wiping a tear away as she laughed nervously. “It’s been hard for me
to even listen to, so I can’t imagine what it’s been like for the rest of you.”

“It has been hard, but it was a long time coming. Luke drove Ben straight into Snoke’s hands and if
that hadn’t happened…Well, it’s just time there was some acknowledgement of what he did to us
and how harmful it was.”

“I just hope all of this eventually leads to something good,” Rey said and the others nodded a silent
agreement as they walked together back into the courtroom. Everyone else was already seated,
waiting for the judge. Kylo was back in his chair beside Amilyn, his head in his hands as she
leaned over close to his ear and spoke to him in a voice that was too quiet for Rey to hear even
once she had taken her seat on the bench behind them.

She cleared her throat quietly when Amilyn finished speaking and turned to go over her notes, but
he didn’t turn to look at her as she’d hoped, and she shifted restlessly. He was slouched in his chair,
back hunched and shoulders slumped.

Why wouldn’t he look at her?

She had only a brief moment to wonder before the door at the front opened and Judge Tano
resumed her seat, bringing court back into session with another rap of her gavel.

“Your next witness, please,” she said, indicating to Amilyn to begin before the echoes had faded
from the room.

Amilyn stood, squeezing Kylo’s arm reassuringly and calling for Dr. Engell to take the stand.

The doctor, a psychologist that Rey had been told was an essential part of helping the judge to
understand the importance of the witnesses’ testimony, appeared to be several years older than
Amilyn. Though softer in the eyes and less rigid in her posture than Amilyn, she seemed equally at
ease in the courtroom, with a relaxed demeanor that Rey knew must have come with years of
testifying.

“Dr. Engell can you tell how long ago you evaluated Kylo for the first time?”

“Thirteen years ago.”

“And the results of that evaluation?”

 “His mental state was as expected for the abuse that he’d suffered and the trauma he experienced
from killing his father. His time with Luke and Snoke had given him a severe form of chronic Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder. We tend to associate this with veterans or refugees- those who have
seen combat- but this is a common occurrence after the brain experiences trauma of any kind and is
often seen in those who have abused or sexually assaulted.”

“I understand,” Amilyn said. “And what effects does Post Traumatic Stress Disorder- that’s the
correct name for what most of us know as PTSD, correct?- what effects does that have on the brain
and a person’s behavior?”

“The brain changes in structure and function when experiencing trauma at that level,” Doctor
Engell explained. “It becomes more sensitive and the neurotransmitters that are associated with
stress are produced in greater amounts when the person experiences a stressor. The person may
experience nightmares, sleep disturbances, intrusive memories, or anger and irritability. They may
react unpredictably to any stimulus that triggers the mind to remember the events that caused the
trauma.”

“So, you’re saying that people with PTSD are dangerous?”

“No, not at all,” the doctor responded calmly, and Rey knew that the question was asked to give
her more of an opportunity to explain the specifics to the judge. “Most people that experience it are
not a danger to themselves or others, but Kylo was put in a unique situation in which this condition
may have made it far more difficult for him to react rationally.”

Amilyn nodded, apparently content with the doctor’s explanation. “Dr. Engell, let’s back up for
one moment. I want to ask you about something else that you mentioned a few moments ago. You
said that the first time you evaluated Kylo, he had recently experienced the trauma of murdering
his father. Could you explain further what you meant by that statement?”

“Yes, killing his father was an extremely traumatic event for him. It was not done with any kind of
malice, but rather was triggered by the situation that he found himself in and the already existing
psychological problems that had been created by the abuse at the hands of both Luke Skywalker
and Snoke.”

“Can you explain the type of reaction that someone that had lived through those experiences might
have if they were in Kylo’s place?”

“To begin with, the prospect of going back to Luke’s would have been a very triggering event in
itself. Kylo had recently escaped from a very abusive situation that he felt he had no control over
and the idea of being returned to that environment would have been overwhelming, even without
the psychological effects of his time with Snoke.”

“I see,” Amilyn said. “And how would you characterize his time with Snoke?”

“It is evident, in my opinion, that Kylo was a victim of human trafficking. Runaway teens are
especially vulnerable to predation of this type, and Snoke used many of the tactics that traffickers
use to control and manipulate their victims.”

“Tactics such as?”

“They often begin by offering these teens a safe space, somewhere to go where they have freedom
and control- both things that would have been intensely important to Kylo after his escape from
Luke.”
“This is intentional on the part of the predator?”

“Very much,” Doctor Engell agreed. “Once the teen feels safe, they offer them drugs and other
illegal substances, both as a means of keeping them compliant and as a hook. It creates a physical
dependency and is the first of many things that they can hold over the victim’s head.”

Amilyn faced the doctor, her expression one of practiced curiosity. “Why would they need to have
leverage over the teen?”

“Each case of illegal activity or morally compromising behavior adds another layer of isolation and
embarrassment that prevents the victim from feeling that they would be able to reintegrate into
society,” Doctor Engell explained carefully. “First drugs, then, in cases such as Kylo’s, it may
include committing other crimes or acts of violence, and finally they are forced involuntarily into
sex work.”

“This gives the trafficker control over the teen?” Amilyn asked.

“It does,” the doctor agreed. “Isolating them with shame can prevent them from reaching out to
others for help. Kylo firmly believed that he couldn’t reach out, that his parents would never accept
him, and Snoke told Kylo that he would reveal those secrets if Kylo ever left.”

“But Kylo did attempt to leave,” Amilyn reminded her.

“Yes, he did. The tactics used are effective but not infallible. Kylo’s lucky that he was considered
valuable by Snoke or it’s very likely that he would have simply been killed for attempting to leave.
As it was, he was tortured by Snoke until Snoke believed that he was no longer a flight risk
because he knew the consequences.”

“And when Kylo’s father came and tried to bring him home? What would that experience have
been like for him?”

“He would have felt extremely threatened. In his mind he was trapped and he knew what Luke
would do to him if he were returned to his uncle’s care and what Snoke would do if he tried to
leave- going with his father was not an option in Kylo’s mind. Especially since he believed his
parents would never accept him back if they had learned the truth. There was nothing that he
wouldn’t have done in that moment to prevent those things from happening.”

Amilyn paused, letting the implications of the psychologist’s last statement settle over the room
before speaking again. “Doctor, have you evaluated Kylo recently?”

“Yes, we’ve spoken several times over the past few months.”

“In your professional opinion, Doctor Engell, do you believe that Kylo is likely to reoffend? Do
you believe that he’s dangerous?”

Dr. Engell looked at Kylo, taking time to consider the answer to the question, reassuring the judge
that she wasn’t rushing her words or failing to properly consider the potential harm he could cause
if she were wrong.

“No, I don’t believe that he’s a significant risk to society,” she said firmly. “The conditions
surrounding his original offense were unique- an unfortunate combination of the worst possible
circumstances, in which an abused young man with severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was put
into a situation where he felt that he had no recourse other than to resort to violence.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Amilyn said, smiling at her politely as the opposing attorney tapped his pen
 on the table irritably. “I have no further questions for you, and you may step down.”

Chapter End Notes

Human trafficking is a serious problem in the United States and around the world.
There are several ways that people are targeted. Many are women and children that are
brought to another country believing that they will be getting a better life when they
arrive but become victims of sex trafficking or forced labor instead. They may have
come without documentation or had their travel documents taken by those who are
exploiting them, which creates a distrust for law enforcement and makes it difficult for
them to seek help.

Kylo experiences a different common kind of trafficking, where predators target

runaway or vulnerable teens (often lured in from online contact) and gain their trust
before manipulating them into increasingly more criminal activity. Trafficking the
teen for sex work is usually the end goal of those manipulations. This is more
common for young girls, but any teen can be trafficked.

The Center for Missing and Exploited Children had information on how to help locate
missing teens- https://www.missingkids.org/HOME

Information for the US if you or someone you know is a victim of human trafficking-

1 (888) 373-7888
National Human Trafficking Hotline
SMS: 233733 (Text "HELP" or "INFO")
Hours: 24 hours, 7 days a week
Languages: English, Spanish and 200 more languages
Website: humantraffickinghotline.org

Kylo's story is not meant to represent any one particular person or situation. It is a
combination of many different things that I have learned about this problem over the
years.
 I'm Sorry
Chapter Summary

Repent, therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out- Acts 3:19

Chapter Notes

Thank you all so much for your continued support for this story! Every time I post a
chapter, I am blown away by the number of comments that I get and I can't begin to
tell you how much it means to me.

TW // This chapter contains brief mentions teen sex trafficking and previously
committed violence

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Judge Tano leaned back in her chair, contemplating the room as everyone sat in uneasy silence
following the testimony of Dr. Engell. She peered down at Amilyn, who waited silently as she
stood beside the table where Kylo sat. Rey thought that he seemed even more tense now than he
had before, his muscles quivering under the rough fabric of his jumpsuit.

Seeing him like this and not being able to go to him, or even whisper words of encouragement, was
harder than anything Rey had experienced since this whole thing began.

“Will your client be addressing the court,” the judge asked Amilyn, and Kylo raised his head as
Amilyn turned to look at him. She nodded, almost imperceptibly, and he returned the gesture.

Was she asking him if he would, or telling him that she thought he should? Either way, it seemed
that a final decision hadn’t been made between them until that moment.

“He will be, your honor,” Amilyn said, stepping back for Kylo to make room for him to pass. His
progress was slow and awkward, his movements artificially shortened by the chains around his
ankles. They clinked together with each step, a cheerless jingle that reminded them all of the years
of freedom he’d lost as a consequence for what had happened that night between him and his
father.

She watched him carefully as he settled in at the stand, settling his bound hands in his lap after
swearing unenthusiastically on the Bible they offered him that he would tell them all the truth.

He looked small and younger than he was as he waited for Amilyn to begin questioning him, like
the ordeal of sitting through the hearing had reduced him once again to the boy he had been the
first time he’d sat in a courtroom.

The course of his life decided for him then by a system of justice that had failed to listen to his side
of the story. They were listening to it now, but the years in between had cost him much of what he
might have been and there was still no guarantee that he’d leave with different results.
 He’d been too young the first time to fully appreciate what he had to lose, but he understood it
now and the fear of it curved his shoulders in and kept his eyes glued to the floor until Amilyn
softly spoke his name.

“Kylo, why did your parents first send you away?”

He blinked at her for a moment, considering her question. “I was a brat, I guess. Too much money
and not enough supervision, so I did what rich brats do. I got drunk and smoked weed and chased
after girls…”

“Is that all?”

“I had a temper,” he admitted. “They hadn’t told me what to do very much and by the time they
figured out what was happening and tried to reign me in, I wasn’t too happy about it.”

He looked back at the floor, exhaling on a deep breath that made him shudder and his lower lip
tremble.

“Kylo,” she said, waiting for him to look up and meet her eyes. “Can you confirm the truth of what
we’ve heard from the witnesses on the stand today? About what happened after your parents sent
you to live with your uncle?”

He nodded, clearing his throat. “Yes, I can.”

“The things that they said, that’s the way it happened to the best of your recollection?”

“Yes, ma’am, it is,” he confirmed.

“How would you describe your mental state the night that Han Solo confronted you?”

“Unstable,” he said clearly. “I wanted to go home but I didn’t believe that was possible.”

“Why is that?”

“I couldn’t go back to Luke’s after what he’d done, and I didn’t think they’d let me go home
because I was even worse than I was when they’d sent me away. I drank more, did harder drugs,
got paid for the sex and the violence.”

“Why didn’t you just lie about that? So they’d let you come home?”

“Snoke was going to tell them everything I’d done,” he said miserably. “Everyone I’d hurt,
everyone he’d whored me out to, all of it.”

“In your mind, if you went with your father that night…”

“I would have absolutely been sent back to Luke.”

“Could you have told them about what happened with Luke?”

He laughed, but it was a dry sound, humorless and cynical. “My word against Luke Skywalker? He
was a legend, the pinnacle of holiness, and I was teen with anger problems and a history of lying.”

“You’d been dishonest with them in the past?”

“Most of us had lied to our parents, in one way or another. Ever heard the story of the boy who
cried wolf? No one cares when you’re being eaten if they don’t believe it’s happening.”
“If you couldn’t go home, why didn’t you just leave? Walk away?”

“I tried,” he said, pressing his hands to his face and leaving red blotches on his skin from the
pressure. “He’d promised my mother that he’d bring me home and he wasn’t listening when I told
him I couldn’t do that.”

“So you decided to kill him?”

“I didn’t decide ,” Kylo said, looking at her pleadingly, begging her with his eyes to believe him. “I
was talking to him and he grabbed me, he was trying to pull me to the car…I don’t even remember
what happened. He was on the ground and there was blood everywhere- it was on him, on me, on
the ground…so much blood.”

“You don’t remember stabbing him?”

“No, I don’t but I know I must have because we were the only ones in the alley.”

“What did you do after you realized that you’d stabbed him? Why didn’t you call for help?”

“I…” He shifted restlessly, tears sliding unnoticed down his face. “I don’t know,” he admitted
weakly. “He was just lying there and there was so much blood and his eyes were open and just
staring at me. I screamed and screamed but no one came, not for a long time, not till the police
showed up in the morning and they arrested me.”

“How did you feel when you realized what happened? That your father was dead?”

His lips parted but no sound came out as he stared at her, swallowing reflexively over and over
again as he tried to gain control of his voice.

“Kylo?”

“I was numb,” he whispered. “I couldn’t understand it and some days I still don’t. It doesn’t feel
real, even though I can picture it in my head. It feels like a dream that I can’t get away from.”

“Do you regret what you did?”

“I would give anything to go back and change what happened,” he said, looking at the ground
again. “I didn’t just kill my father…what I did devastated my mother. I destroyed my family, and
they didn’t deserve it. They weren’t perfect, but they didn’t deserve that ,” he repeated.

“If you were given a second chance to be free in society, what would you do with it?”

He looked up, past Amilyn and the empty table to where Rey was seated on the bench between
Bazine and her father. His eyes were wet still but they were hot with purpose, determined and made
of steel.

“I would spend the rest of my life proving that I’m sorry,” he said fiercely. “I would atone, make
amends to everyone I hurt by being in prison and use every breath I took to make up for the ones I
stole from my father.”

“Thank you, Kylo,” Amilyn said, smiling at him encouragingly as she gestured to him that he
could step down. “You may return to your seat.”

“Was that your last witness?” Judge Tano asked, satisfied when Amilyn nodded. “I’ve heard a
great deal of information this morning and I have a lot to consider in the matter of appropriate
sentencing. You’ll be called back when I’ve reached a decision.”

She tapped the gavel and left the room without looking back, giving no indication of which way
her thoughts were leaning. The guards removed Kylo from the room as quickly as before, but this
time he looked over his shoulder as he went, his eyes meeting hers as he shuffled out the door and
out of sight. His lips were turned up in a hopeful smile, but his eyes reflected the same fear and
sadness that she felt inside.

“Well,” Amilyn said, turning to face them all as she gathered up her papers and slipped them into
her briefcase, “there’s nothing left to do but wait.”

“How long?” Rey asked quickly. “How long will it be until she decides?”

“It could be days,” Amilyn said, holding up a hand to silence them all before they could protest,
“but I doubt that it will be. Judge Tano is ruthless and painfully meticulous, but she doesn’t linger
over decisions. We’ll get some lunch and then come back to wait.”

“Should we leave?” Rey asked nervously, glancing back at the door that led to the judge’s
chambers.

“Her decision won’t be made that quickly,” Amilyn assured her, “and the sentencing can be very
emotional, best not to do it on an empty stomach.”

“Right,” Rey muttered, getting to her feet and following Amilyn out of the courtroom and back
down the stairs. It was only when they reached the bottom floor and turned toward the front doors
that she remembered the crowd of reports waiting for her outside.

“Oh,” she said, stopping abruptly so that Rose and Finn walked into the back of her, bumping her
forward an extra step as she swore quietly under her breath. “I can’t go out there,” she said,
wincing at the thought of dodging the questions and the pushy reporters again to leave and then to
come back. She’d already have to face them in the return to the car and didn’t think she had it in
her to do any more than that.

Amilyn sighed. “I forgot about that,” she admitted. “They won’t let us bring food back to you, no
outside food is allowed in the courthouse.”

“I understand,” Rey said, pasting a smile on her face that felt awkward and unnatural. “I think I’ll
get something out of the vending machine upstairs if I get hungry. Not really sure I feel up to
eating right now, anyway.”

They stood in the open foyer for several minutes, arguing quietly about who should stay behind
with her as the flow of people coming and going flowed around them. No one noticed their small
group or cared how pale Rey knew she must be as the anxiety of waiting stretched every minute
into an eternity.

“I’m fine to wait alone,” she repeated. “If the rest of you that the reporters recognize all huddle
behind the ones they don’t, they might not even see you. You need to eat,” she urged.

“I’ll go out first,” Amilyn said. “I’m used to dealing with them and I’ll make an announcement that
we’re waiting now for a sentence. Everyone else can slip by while they’re distracted.”

“See?” Rey said firmly. “It’ll be fine.”

In the end, everyone went except her father, who couldn’t be budged. He sat beside her on the
bench upstairs, eating a candy bar from the vending machine and sipping on a ridiculously
expensive bottle of water.

Rey held hers in her hand, the candy forgotten by her thigh on the bench as she picked at the label
on the bottle. She’d peeled it off in tiny pieces and then folded each of those into meaningless
shapes, a pile of shiny paper as a testament to her nerves, before the others came back from lunch.

They didn’t speak as they settled into the other benches in the hallway and slid into their own quiet
waiting. They stared at the floor, picked lint off their sleeves, flicked aimlessly through social
media on their phones. Each cough or sniffle carried down the long quiet hallways, echoing off the
wood paneling and down into the high-ceilinged foyer below.

They weren’t the only ones waiting, but Rey felt them with her like all of them existed in the same
place, the same small bubble that drifted along outside of time and space. It consisted of nothing
but them, the cheap carpet with its oddly creeping shadows, and waiting.

“She might not make a decision today,” Amilyn reminded them, not for the first time but, Rey
realized as she glanced at the time on her phone and saw it was after four, probably for the last
time.

She was steeling herself for that, for having to come back here again tomorrow for more waiting
after pacing the floor for all night, when Amilyn’s phone dinged in her hand. She peered down at
it, brow furrowed, then looked directly at Rey.

“It’s time,” she said gently. “The judge has made her decision.”

Rey nodded, words failing her as her legs turned to liquid and harsh buzzing filled her ears,
drowning out everyone’s words as they led her blindly into the courtroom. She couldn’t think,
couldn’t feel anything except a rising urge to vomit that she wasn’t sure she’d be able to breathe
her way through.

Would the judge hold her in contempt if she threw up all over the carpet?

She swallowed, bile and terror coloring the flavor of her tongue and her mouth as dry as her fingers
and toes were numb.

Her father had to hold her arm to steady her when Judge Tano reentered the courtroom- she
couldn’t hold her body upright on her own.

There was no air on the room when she asked Kylo to stand to receive his sentence.

Rey didn’t even remember them leading him back in. When had he gotten here? How long had she
been oblivious to the world around her as she counted her breaths- one, two, three, four - to keep
from screaming?

“This was a very serious crime,” the judge began, her gaze traveling from Kylo to the lawyers at
each table. “The magnitude of which correctly led the previous court to consider life in prison as an
appropriate sentence.”

Rey sucked in air through her nose, her body floating, untethered, as she tried to understand the
words that would give her hope or turn everything to ash.

“A murder this violent, committed by someone as close to the victim as his own son, is a terrible
tragedy, and the public must be protected.”

Rey was sobbing quietly, her knuckles pressed to her mouth to stifle the sounds until she tasted her
own blood on her tongue. Pryde was looking quite smug at his table and Amilyn was rubbing
Kylo’s arm as he stared straight ahead, unmoving. If he was crying, too, Rey couldn’t tell from her
spot on the bench behind him.

“However,” the judge continued, “circumstances in this case are extenuating and it is my
professional opinion that a blatant miscarriage of justice that occurred at this young man’s original
trial. The sitting judge’s refusal to allow the jury to hear crucial evidence about a history of abuse
and the defendant’s state of mind at the time of the murder would be enough to warrant an appeal.”

Pryde was looking a lot less smug, his self-satisfied smirk starting to droop at the corners.

“Instead, he stands before me now, seeking a reexamination of the sentencing in his case. I am to
reconsider the appropriateness of him serving a life sentence without parole, decide for myself if I
believe that there is a chance for him to safely reenter society and how much he should be punished
for his actions of that fateful night.”

She sighed and pressed her hand to the bridge of her nose. Rey stopped breathing entirely, unable
to force her lungs to work or heart to slow its frantic beat.

“My answer to the first question is that I do not believe that he would be a danger to others outside
of those particular circumstances and that keeping him in prison is not necessary to ensure the
public safety,” she said, looking at Kylo as he stood absolutely still except for the rapid rise and
fall of his chest.

His lips were tinged blue at the corners, the air passing through his panicked lungs too quickly to
provide him the oxygen he needed. His emotions were written clearly on his face, not the blank
slate stare of so many years ago, but the terrified look of a man with everything to lose.

“Which brings me to the question of punishment and what is fair in exchange for the life he stole,”
the judge continued. “Something must be given, surely, but no member of the victim’s family has
come forward to urge that this man remains imprisoned and his crime was committed while he was
a minor in considerable distress. It is for these reasons that I have chosen to alter the sentence that
he was given at his original trial.”

Rey’s mind raced, almost unable to comprehend that this meant he would walk out of that prison
someday and her thoughts forging ahead to count how old she would be if he got a forty-year
sentence… thirty… twenty-five…what if he only got fifteen when he’d already served thirteen of
those years…

“It is my decision that the petitioner in this case have his sentence reduced, and that the new
sentence of twelve years be satisfied with the time he has already served in prison.”

Amilyn was gripping Kylo’s arm so tightly that her knuckles were white as the judge wished them
all a good day and tapped her gavel to dismiss them. She began whispering to him, quick and
excited, as he looked down at her in stunned silence.

“What does that mean?” Rey demanded, leaning forward over the short barrier that separated them
to grab Amilyn by the sleeve. “ What does that mean ?” she repeated, afraid to believe what her
mind was telling her.

“It means we won and he’s coming home,” Amilyn said, hugging Kylo fiercely as the guards
moved forward to take him away.

“Then why are they taking him?” Rey asked, trying urgently so slide by the others as she followed
 Kylo toward the exit door. She came up short when Rose stepped in front of her, Amilyn’s
instructions to keep her from following more intimidating than Rey’s anger at being corralled.

“He has to go back.” Amilyn explained. “It’s normal for them to return him to the prison to collect
his belongings while they process his release. The judge’s office will file the paperwork, and he
should walk out a free man within the next twenty-four hours.”

Chapter End Notes

It's important for me to note that the chances of this resentencing hearing going this
way are basically nonexistent. It's much more likely that he would have been given a
reduced sentence that would have allowed him to seek parole at some point in the
future, possibly even still a life sentence with the possibility of parole instead of
without, but after thinking about it for a long time I decided to bend that reality a little
so that they could be together sooner. Forcing her to wait further years and having him
go through parole hearings would have been more accurate but not as satisfying in a
fictional story.
 Let's Go Home
Chapter Summary

And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free- John 8:32

Chapter Notes

I am very excited to be able to start sharing the next part of the story with you! We
aren't quite to the smuttiness yet but it is coming very soon and I know that's what
everyone is waiting for.

TW// Very brief mention of Han's death and the depiction of what could be considered
the beginnings of a mild panic attack. I don't think there's much in this one but as
always if you feel I have missed something please let me know!

Thank you once again to AuroraReylo for being my amazing Beta and cheerleader for
this story! Your help had been so vital to keeping me on track!

I did adjust the chapter count just a bit but that is always subject to change. I try to
keep it as close as I can to my current estimates and sometimes it takes me a little more
or a little less time to develop certain things than I thought so I have to change it again.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Kylo sat on his bunk, watching the sun creep in through the window and listening to the steady
monotonous drip of water in the sink. He’d listened to that drip for more years than he could
remember. It was there at night when he went to sleep and it was there in the morning when he
woke up.

When it had first started it had been a nuisance, an irritation that had only deepened when he’d
realized that the prison had no intention of fixing it unless it flooded the whole damn cell. Hux had
complained about it bitterly when he’d been moved in, about the constant repetitive noise and how
it made it impossible to sleep or think or breathe without feeling like insanity was one splash away
and stored just inside the eardrums.

He wasn’t sure at all how he would be able to sleep without it now.

Like everything else about this place, it had slowly gone from something he hated, to something he
tolerated, to something that was simply there. It was the way things were and, more often than not,
there was no sense in feeling anything about it one way or another.

They all hated it, groaned about it, wished they could be somewhere else, but they were resigned,
especially those like him who had known that this was all there’d ever be, to the inevitability of it.
He imagined it was similar to the way his parents had half-heartedly complained about traffic or
taxes- unpleasant necessities that shaped their daily lives.
What would they have done, he wondered, if one day those things had just ceased to exist? Would
they have felt like he did now? A heady mixture of excitement and trepidation, freedom and
anxiety?

He’d hoped to get out someday, but he hadn’t expected it to be today. Maybe in a year or five,
when he would have more time to prepare and think and plan for his life after prison now that there
was going to be an after.

And there was actually going to be an after .

He still wasn’t sure he believed it, wasn’t sure that it wasn’t a dream that his mind had conjured.
Would the guards come to his cell to release him in a few hours like they’d promised, or would
they come to tell him that it had been a mistake, that he had to go back and do it all again because
it had been a fantasy?

He remembered it all clearly.

Walking into the courtroom with his hands and ankles chained and the shame of having Rey and
her family, her friends see him that way. Seeing Bazine and Mitaka and the Knights as they’d all
sat in that stupid fucking witness box and paraded his sins and his failures out into the light for
everyone to see.

He’d had to hear about the abortion from Bazine’s own lips again and see the pain in her eyes. The
pain it had caused Mitaka and the others to relive their own abuses as they had explained his.

It had been agonizing to hear it all and have things he’d tried so hard not to think about for so long
pulled to the front of his mind in excruciating detail.

Bazine and the child they’d lost.

Luke.

Snoke.

Han and the blood he’d never managed to wash off his conscience.

And Rey, sitting on the bench behind him so close he could almost feel her with her hands clasped
in her laps and her eyes wide like a trapped animal’s in her pale face.

He hated that she’d been there to hear it, hated that it had all spilled out to hurt her too, but he’d
known he couldn’t keep her away. When he’d asked Amilyn to try and talk her out of it she’d
laughed in his face.

Nothing kept Rey from doing what she wanted to do, what she thought was right.

In the end, he’d been glad she’d been there. When the judge had asked him to stand and read him
the sentence that would change his life, he’d been glad that she was standing just behind him.

The first time, when he was too young to understand the cost of it as they’d taken his life away,
he’d been numb with nothing left to lose. This time, there had been Rey and he’d closed his eyes
and thought of her, her warmth and her stubbornness and her determination, her beautiful skin so
close to his that he could have reached out and caressed her cheek.

The judge had given him a chance to live, but Rey had already given him a reason.
Judge Tano had said time served, and then they’d led him away to wait, to endure a lifetime of
silence and contemplation as he stared at the walls of his prison and wondered what was going to
happen next.

He tried to silence the part of him that feared that Rey might not come today. That he might walk
out the doors to an empty parking lot and a bus that would carry him away from here and to
nothing.

Maybe she, too, had expected another year or five to prepare and she just wouldn’t be ready.

The thought kept his mind occupied, chasing itself in fearful circles as they came to get him and
his small box of personal items from his cell and escorted him to the small area where they did out-
processing. He was given a change of clothes- a plain white T-shirt and simple, inexpensive jeans,
boots- and an envelope with a fifty dollar bill- his 'gate money' that was supposed to help him get
settled- and a variety of smaller bills that the small woman behind the desk explained was the
remainder of what had been in his commissary account.

“There will be someone here to pick you up? So, you won’t need a bus ticket or a ride to the
station, right?” She was curt, not looking at him as she processed his paperwork.

He swallowed hard, hands shaking as he considered what would happen if Rey didn’t come. “She’s
supposed to be…I mean, she said she would…” He trailed off, swallowing again when the woman
pierced him with an impatient look. “Yes,” he said, more firmly. “Yes, someone is coming.”

She nodded, signing the last form in the stack with a flourish. “You’ll be escorted out the front and
you’ll need to leave the premises immediately.”

He nodded, handing over his prison garb and picking up the box contained all of the evidence of
the last thirteen years of his life- some art and letters from Rey. He was supposed to get his
personal items back, the things that he’d had on him when he was arrested, but they shrugged at
him and he knew the only thing that he’d had in his pockets that night was a knife and it would
stay locked up as evidence in a murder case in some storage unit owned by the state of Texas.

He followed the guard out and down the endless passageway, each set of doors that he passed
through clanging shut behind him with the same feeling of finality that he’d had when he’d first
come in.

It should have been liberating, but it made his knees quake.

The guard barely waited for him to be fully through the last set of doors before pulling it closed
with a click and he walked out of the prison and into the bright light of midafternoon. There were
no chains on his wrists and the jeans they’d given him felt odd and tight around his waist after so
many years of wearing nothing but loose jumpsuits.

He scanned the parking lot and pushed a hand through his hair as tried to figure out what to do
next. The erratic racing beat of his heart echoed in his ears, drowning out the sounds of birds in the
trees and the far-off bark of a dog.

There’s a rising panic, a feeling of disconnectedness that starts in his ears and spreads until it
reaches his fingers and his toes and he doesn’t know what to do or where to go and he can’t go
back inside and he can’t breathe , either…

And then she was there, standing on the other side of the small driveway between the sidewalk and
the first row of parked cars, wearing a blue sundress and a smile as she calmed his pounding heart
and soothed his ragged nerves.

He sighed, flexing his fingers at his sides as the feeling returned to them and watching her
cautiously as she shifted uneasily from foot to foot, bottom lip caught between the white of her
teeth.

There’d always been something between them- guards, handcuffs, walls- and all of the times that
he’d told her that he couldn’t wait to find out what she tasted like or see her pretty little body spread
out under his so he could finally feel her suddenly seemed like nothing more than a fantasy.

How could he do that, when he couldn’t even cross the distance between them now?

She took half a tentative step forward and he did the only thing he could think to do, the thing he
had done the first time she’d come to visit him and she'd been looking at him with eagerness and
uncertainty. He opened his arms and waited.

There was a quick flick of a glance, right then left as she looked for cars passing in the parking lot,
then she bolted, her feet crossing the space in three loose limbed bounding steps and then flinging
herself into his chest with such force that he took a step back to steady them as his arms came
around her to catch and hold.

She stayed there for several heartbeats, her face pressed against his chest as they took in each
other’s familiar warmth and comforting smells, but it was no longer enough and when she tipped
back her head and looked up at him with wide wet eyes full of joy and pink lips parted in welcome,
there was nothing he could do but press his mouth to hers.

He’d expected it to be soft and tender, when he’d imagined this moment in his mind, but she met
his kiss with an enthusiasm that surprised him. There was inexperience in the way her lips fit
against his, her hands coming up to grip his face and hold him steady as she pressed her face to his
just a little too hard, lips barely parted, but he pulled her close and wiggled his head to settle against
her mouth more comfortably.

There would be time for her to learn the finer points of kissing and for him to discover the taste of
her and the deliciously warm contours of the insides of her mouth- for now all that mattered was
that he was out where he could hold her for as long as he wanted and feel the soft shape of her in
his arms and feel the soft pliability of her lips and smell of the sweet floral fragrance of her
perfume in air that didn’t carry the faint traces of bleach and sweat.

He pulled away, rubbing his cheek on her hair as she laughed wetly and wiped the tears from her
cheeks. The trembling smile she gave him was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, and he
wanted to spend the rest of his life kissing her, but there were better places than here to do that.

“Come on,” she said, grabbing his hand and leading him across the parking lot. “Let’s go home.”

Home

Did she consider her home to be his? Would he be staying with her now that he didn’t have to stay
here?

The suddenness of it all left him with many questions that they hadn’t had time to discuss and he
waited until he’d settled into the passenger seat of her little blue sedan to ask her.

“Is that where we’re going? Your apartment?”

She looked at him quizzically, reaching for his hand as she turned out of the parking lot and onto
the open highway. It was rural and there wasn’t much to see, but he found himself looking out the
window at the sights of passing fields and cows as much as he did her perfectly freckled nose as
she answered him.

“My apartment,” she agreed, her brows drawing together with sudden uncertainty. “Unless there’s
somewhere else you’d rather go?”

“No,” he said quickly. “I just…We hadn’t talked about and I didn’t want to assume. I don’t know
how your dad would feel, you know, about me going there.”

She frowned, mouth twisting on a grimace and cheeks pinking- her father had to suspect, after all,
that their feelings for each other were far from chaste and they would likely be sharing her bed at
some point- before she shrugged. “He’s not going to be thrilled with every decision I make but if
you want to be with me then I want you there.”

He caught the hesitation, the quick uncertain glance.

“Rey...baby,” he said quietly, pressing her knuckles to his lips for a kiss that lingered. “There is
nowhere I would rather be than with you.”

“Good.” She smiled, setting back in her seat, and relaxing just a bit. “We’ll have to hide you just a
bit for a while since you aren’t on my lease but if I pick up some overtime shifts before the lease
expires, I’ll have enough saved up for us to move when it runs out.”

“Is your apartment not big enough?”

She pulled up to a stop sign, making a show of looking both ways as she subtly avoided his
question.

“Rey?”

“It’s big enough,” she said. “But we need a place where we can put you on the lease. You’re not
really supposed to have people there that aren’t because most places don’t want anyone living there
who hasn’t passed a background check. For the safety of the other residents, you know?”

“Background check,” he repeated slowly. “So, they won’t put me on the lease at your apartment,
even if I have a job by then, because…”

“Because you have a felony on your record,” she said quickly. “It doesn’t matter which kind.”

“I see,” he said quietly, watching her face as she bit her lip and then turned back to him again, her
smile overbright.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said, fiercely. “There are places that let people with felonies move in
and we’ll find one.”

“You’re going to move into an apartment complex where all the people who just got out of prison
live because they can’t live anywhere else?”

“Yes,” she said. “And, yes, it’s probably slightly more dangerous than my current complex because
most of the people that run them look the other way on pretty much anything if you can afford the
ridiculous amount that they charge for rent but eventually we’ll buy a house and then it’ll be fine.”

“It’s okay,” he agreed. “We can buy a house.”

“Exactly,” she said, giving him a vigorous and determined nod. “It may take some time on what I
make, probably not until after I finish school and get a better job, actually, but it’s not impossible.”

“Why would we be doing it only on the money you make?” he asked, forgetting momentarily what
he had been about to tell her.

She swallowed and squeezed his hand. “Probably not entirely but…Well, it’s just that it can be
hard to get a job with a felony on your record, that’s all. I don’t want you to feel pressured or think
I’m going to be mad if it takes a while for you to find something. You should take some time,
anyway, and just get used to being out. See some stuff, watch some movies, eat some ice cream
and cookies and McDonald’s.”

He sat up straighter in his seat, distracted by the endless possibilities. “Can we?”

“Can we what?”

“Eat McDonald’s? Or whatever? Just something that’s not…”

“Not prison food? Sure, there’s a bunch of places that we can stop between here and my… our …
apartment.”

Twenty minutes later he was peeling the wrapper off a cheeseburger and sipping Coke through a
cheap plastic straw. She’d gone through the drive through, deciding not to go in because she didn’t
want the first place he went as a free man to be the inside of a greasy fast-food restaurant. Instead,
she’d set the bag in his lap and handed him his cup and the straws as she’d driven down the street
to a small green park where she’d kissed him again, more softly, in the shade of a big tree at the
edge of the parking lot and then led him over to a picnic bench.

The air smelled of French fry grease, summer heat and freshly cut grass, simple luxuries that he’d
thought he’d never experience again. It took all of his restraint to not lie down on the grass at his
feet and stay there all day as the sun crept over his body.

“I can’t believe you’re actually here,” she said quietly, watching him from across the table with a
dreamy smile on her face. “It doesn’t seem possible.”

“I’m here because you gave me hope and a reason to fight for my life when I got the chance. I’m
going to take care of you,” he promised. “I’m going to give you every single thing you’ve ever
wanted and love you for the rest of your life.”

“I know,” she agreed, sighing softly.

“I mean it,” he insisted. “I’m going to buy you a house and pay for your school and anything else
you need. I don’t ever want you to have to worry about anything.”

Her brows creased and she shook her head slightly, watching a line of ants parade across the
tabletop, collecting what they could from a spilled drop of red liquid from someone else’s lunch.
“Don’t put that kind of pressure on yourself. Our future isn’t going to be easy and we’ll probably
spend more time eating cheap ramen than McDonald’s, but we’ll figure it out together.”

He reached for her hand, wrapping his fingers around hers and caressing the knuckles with his
thumb. “My mother figured it out for us.”

She looked up, teeth nipping down on the bottom lip that he still wanted to run his tongue over.
She deserved more than what he had to give, she deserved everything , but knowing that she would
have been willing to live with so much less made him all the more eager to give it to her.
 “Leia?” she asked. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that I talked to Amilyn last night and apparently my grandfather left me a trust fund that
Mom never bothered to tell me about. Now that I’m an adult and out of prison, it’s mine.”

“What? She was going to let you rot without a lawyer when you had money that was rightfully
yours?” There was bitter spark in her eyes and her mouth was pressed in a thin and hostile line.

“Amilyn was just as shocked when Leia asked her to pass along the information to me, but I’m
honestly not surprised. Mother doesn’t see the world in shades of gray. It’s either right or it’s
wrong. I’ve almost always been wrong as far as she was concerned.”

“Still,” Rey said hotly. “That’s not how a mother should behave. She should be on your side,
helping you, protecting you. If she had been, things might have been different.”

“They might,” he agreed. “But they weren’t and now I’m out and I’ve got you and my money to
take care of you.” He grinned at her and she smiled back, sighing at the happiness he couldn’t
contain when he threw back his head and laughed. “We’ve got a trust fund, baby!”

Chapter End Notes

The process for prisoner release varies by state and local laws. Most provide clothing
if the family hasn't sent any to the facility by the release date, transportation if there is
no one available to pick up the inmate (and they are going home and not to a halfway
house), and some amount of 'gate money' that is intended to be used for immediate
necessities upon release. Some states require inmates to go to halfway houses when
they are released as a way of easing their transitions back to life outside prison but
Texas is not one of them. Texas inmates go to halfway houses only if they have
nowhere else to go. Since Kylo has Rey, he was released directly from the prison and
sent to live with her. He will not have to report to a parole officer since he is
considered to have served his sentence in full, but there are many things that would be
impacted by having a felony conviction on his record with employment and housing
especially difficult to obtain.
 I Want This
Chapter Summary

Like a lily among the thorns is my darling among the young women- Song of Solomon
2:2

Chapter Notes

Thank you to my truly amazing Beta, AuroraReylo, for helping me figure all this out,
and to the Reylo Creatives Discord server for helping me brainstorm several chapters
of smut.

And thank you to all of you for reading this and leaving such amazing comments ❤❤

TW // This chapter contains sexual contact between Rey and Kylo. Many of the
chapters after this point will be NSFW. There is mention of Kylo's past sexual history
and Rey's insecurity and lack of experience. As always, please let me know if you feel
that I missed something!

It was late afternoon when she parked the car in the parking lot of an apartment complex that she
said was the best she could afford on her meager paycheck this close to campus. The paint on the
buildings was an unremarkable brown, peeling a bit at the edges of the small balconies that line the
sides of each one. Kylo counted five stories from the ground to the top windows and there were no
elevators here. She lived at the top, so he knew she’d hauled up groceries and laundry by herself,
her arms and legs working overtime in the heat of the summer, with nothing between her and the
sweltering oppression of the sun but the shade and the occasional stir of air in the breezeway.

“It’s not much,” she said, walking around the front of her car to take his hand and tug him along
the sidewalk between the buildings. “But there’s a pool and a little workout room that almost never
has anyone else in it.”

He nodded, turning his head to look through the glass at the neat little row of treadmills and then
beyond that to the pool where blue water glimmered and children splashed and squealed as their
parents watched indulgently. No one looked up, or paid them any attention at all, and it was
suddenly strange how out of place he felt in a world that continued to move along without him
when the prison doors had clanged shut.

“We can go swimming,” she said hopefully, watching the line of his gaze. “It’s too hot to do
anything else outside right now, but we could definitely go swimming tomorrow, if you want.”

The letter she’d sent him when they first started writing flicked through his mind, the one where
she’d worried that her summer had passed by without anything special. He clutches at that thought,
the idea that he can go swimming with her tomorrow if he wants to almost enough to steal the
breath from his chest.
“I’ll need to get a bathing suit,” he told her as he followed her into the breezeway of one of the
buildings nearest to the pool. He made a mental note of the large number on the side- hers was
building 2- so he wouldn't get lost if he had to go outside for anything. When was the last time he
had to worry about remembering or finding his way around someplace that wasn’t familiar?

She laughed, her voice echoing in the small space as they climbed the staircase and passed the first
landing. “You’re going to need everything. Pants and shirts, socks, underwear. We’ll go shopping.”

“Don’t you have class tomorrow? Work? Well, maybe fuck work, but class?”

She tossed a grin back over her shoulder as she dug for her keys. “I already let them know that I
would be out for the rest of the week. I’ll do the homework from right here for now, give you a
few days to get settled.”

He didn’t answer-what is there to say to her besides another whispered “I love you” and he’d said
that a thousand time already today- and she turned back to fit the key into the lock and push the
shoor open with her shoulder.

He was hesitant as he followed her inside, unsure about how she’d react to having him in a space
that was purely hers. She’d said that the apartment was theirs, but she’s been living here alone for
months and they’d no way of knowing how quickly he’d be here.

The inside was small, the door opening to a tiny living room on the left and a miniscule eat-in
kitchen on the right. There was a single hallway that he assumed led the bedroom and bathroom
and a sliding glass door that opened onto a balcony that he doubted was large enough for the two
of them to both stand on at the same time.

She hung her keys on a hook by the door, reaching around behind him to flick the locks and give
the door a tug to make sure it was closed securely as she toed off her shoes.

“Well, this is it,” she said, spreading her arms wide to encompass all of the small space as she
began to walk, chattering about the apartment and expecting him to follow.

Her living room was tidy and the furniture was tasteful- a small dark blue couch with a low coffee
table and a flat screen TV on the opposite wall- but that wasn’t what caught his attention as he
looked around the room.

“The couch is a little small for you, probably,” she said, eyeing it skeptically as he stood next to it,
“but we can get a bigger one when we move…”

“Rey,” he said, interrupting her and waiting until her voice trailed away to point at the wall behind
the couch. “You kept all of these?”

His art lined the wall, arranged neatly in rows of thin black frames. The pieces were familiar, and
he saw with a quick sweeping glance that she’d grouped each of them together with others that had
similar themes and colors so that it blended from black and white on the top right to a furious
explosion of color on the bottom left.

She nodded, tipping her head to look at her arrangement. “There’s more in the bedroom and the
hallway,” she confirmed, taking his hand and leading him through the rest of the apartment,
showing him the art that she’d hung and the places where she kept pictures of him and the two of
them together in frames on the dresser beside her bed.

If he’d been worried about invading space that belonged to her, it faded in the face of just how
much of him was already here.
“Do you like it?” she asked, standing in her bedroom with her thigh pressed against a comforter
that had blue and yellow roses on it. She was nervous, he realized, afraid that he wouldn’t like her
home or the things that were important to her.

“I love it,” he said, smiling as she relaxed with a nearly imperceptible sigh. “I’m sure you’ll be
easier to live with than Hux.”

She chuckled at that, curling her legs to sit on the end of her bed and tugging a pillow into her lap.
“Was he upset that you were getting out?”

“Not exactly,” he told her, thinking back to his cellmate’s resigned expression. “Hux is pretty cold
but even for him it can be difficult getting a new cellmate and not knowing anything about them.”

“Is it scary? Not knowing what kind of person you’ll be forced to sleep next to?”

He sighed, remembering the first nights in his bunk with a stranger sleeping a few narrow feet
away. “It can be,” he admitted. “People get stabbed or…worse. Hux was decent and minded his
business as long as I minded mine. He just wants to do his time and get out so he can take care of
his little brother.”

She nodded, a line of worry forming between her brows as her lips turned down thoughtfully at the
corners. He knew she was going to start carrying around anxiety about his former cellmate and
shook his head wonderingly at the softness of her heart.

Her cell phone rang from the living room and she smiled apologetically as she hurried back down
the hallway to answer. This was the third call since they’d left the prison and he suspected that it
was her father or her friends calling to make sure she was still alive and he hadn’t done something
horrible to her. They’d sat beside her at the hearing, but he knew they didn’t trust him completely
the way that Rey did, so he lingered in the bedroom, giving her privacy to reassure whoever was
calling without him listening at her elbow.

Her voice drifted through the small apartment, the sliver of a laugh telling him that whatever they
were talking about on the phone hadn’t upset her. He listened absently as she talked, his eyes
settling on the bed that sat beneath the room’s lone window.

She’d brought him here with the expectation that he would stay and he thought- hoped- that she
meant for him to share that bed with her. If not right away, then at some point. Her letters and the
phone calls they’d shared over the months that had passed had been heated, as explicit as they
could be under the circumstances, but he knew about Rey’s upbringing and her faith. They’d never
talked about it, another thing he’d assumed wrongly that they’d have more time to work out
between them, but he knew that she’s always intended to wait until she was married, and he
suspected that would still be true now, even if she did bring him here.

He jumped, a guilty flush spreading over his face when she said his name quietly from behind him
and turned to find her leaning against the door jamb, her bottom lip caught between her teeth as she
watched him.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, raking his hand through his hair. “I just…I was just wondering…”

“Where you’d be sleeping?”

“Yeah,” he admitted.

“Where do you want to sleep?” she countered, her eyes wide and uncertain, like she was as worried
as he was that the answer he gave would be the wrong one.
He swallowed hard, his gaze darting to the gleam of white teeth in the pink skin of her lip.
“Wherever you are,” he said, deciding that it was better to be damned for the truth than a lie.

The tension drained from her shoulders and she smiled, still uncertain but no longer as on edge as
she had been a moment before. “Yeah?”

“Did you…think I wouldn’t want to?”

She nodded. “I wasn’t sure. I mean, I know you said things …well, we both said things…but that
was before…” She trailed off, seeming to realize that she was rambling, and blushed.

“I said things ,” he repeated, his body stirring at the flush in her cheeks and the warm look in her
eyes. “Things like what?”

“ Things ,” she insisted, shaking her head slightly as he crossed the room and settled a hand on
either of her hips. She was looking up at him, her head tipped back to keep her eyes locked on his.

“Things like how I wanted to kiss you?” he asked, leaning down until he could sweep his lips over
hers, the barest brush of skin with the heaviest hint of promise.

She nodded, mouth parted in silent surprise and pupils blown wide as she trembled helplessly.

“That I wanted to taste you?” he continued, taking advantage of the part in her lips to provide
entrance for his tongue as it caressed hers. Her fingers tightened spasmodically on his arms,
gripping to hold herself steady as she leaned into him and chased his mouth with hers as he pulled
away.

“I want so much more than that,” he promised, “but I want you to be sure. We’re not married yet
and…”

“Yet?” she asked, tipping her face to look at him, her brows lifted in surprise.

“Yet,” he said firmly. He’d ask her soon, for real, with some over the top romantic gesture and the
biggest fucking diamond he could buy, but for now he wanted her to know that that’s exactly what
this was. A forever kind of thing. “I love you, Rey.”

“I love you, too,” she said, reaching up tiptoe to press her lips against his cheek as fingers rubbed
lightly at one curl of his hair. “And that’s why I don’t want to wait. You’re it for me, there’s not
going to be anyone else, and I’m not ashamed of it, of wanting you.”

He breathed, an intentionally controlled soft and slow inhale and exhale as her meaning entered his
mind and went straight to his body. Still, it hadn’t been that long ago that she’d been unable to
even speak the names of her own body parts out loud. “I’m glad you’re not ashamed of it,” he said
cautiously. “But I won’t ask you to do anything that you’re not ready for.”

“I’m ready,” she insisted. “I didn’t have time to go to the clinic for birth control yet, but I bought
condoms.”

“You did?” He tried to imagine it, how much determination it must have taken for her to overcome
her shyness and buy condoms from the store.

“Yeah,” she said, and he heard the edge of fierce determination in the statement. “I want this.”

She leaned into him eagerly when he tightened his arms around her and pulled her back up on
tiptoe to slot his mouth over hers again.
She moaned, a small soft sound that was somehow fragile, a mixture of unabashed desire and
nervous anticipation. He wanted to be slow, gentle, because he knew that she’d never been touched
and he didn’t want to rush, didn’t want to frighten her by going too fast or expecting too much, so
he kissed her slowly and gave her time to adjust to the feeling. She was a quick learner, and it
didn’t take her long to learn to soften her lips against him and match the erotic movement of his
tongue.

She shifted closer, pressing against him on instinct, and froze when the hard evidence of his
arousal unmistakably rubbed into her stomach.

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly, pulling away as she looked down at him and then back up with pink
cheeks.

“No,” she said, her hands holding fistfuls of the t-shirt the prison had given him so he couldn’t
move any further away. “It’s just…is that because of me?”

“Yes,” he breathed, watching intently as her eyes widened and then glanced back down at the
straining bulge in his jeans.

“It’s bigger than I expected,” she said timidly, startling a laugh out of him.

“I won’t hurt you,” he promised, trying to focus on her concerns and not his own stroked ego. “If
you're sure you want this, I’ll make it good for you, baby, I swear.”

“But what about you?”

“What about me?” he asked, not understanding the thoughts that had her looking suddenly
insecure.

“You’ve done this before,” she said quietly. “With Bazine and all the others. What if…what if I’m
not good at it? What if you don’t like it with me?”

Panic flooded his mind when a shimmering tear slipped from the corner of her eye to pave a wet
path down her cheek and he erased it with his thumb as she looked at his chest and refused to meet
his gaze.

“Baby, please look at me,” he beseeched, bending down and trying to peek back up at her face
until she finally sniffled and cast a quick glance in his direction. “Nothing that happened with
anyone else will ever mean as much to me as doing it with you. You’re beautiful and perfect and I
love everything about you.”

“You loved Bazine,” she said, seemingly willing to let go of the rest- or maybe reluctant to bring
up what happened with Snoke and the bitter memories of people using his body in ways he didn’t
enjoy- but stuck on this point.

“I did,” he admitted. “I know it must have been hard for you to hear all of that at the hearing and
I’m sorry, but even though I loved her back then it was nothing compared to the way I feel about
you.”

She nodded skeptically and he pulled her close to rub his nose against her temple, his voice low
and soft as he whispered in her ear. “We don’t have to wait but we don’t have to rush, either. We
can go slow and I can show you, prove it to you.”

It hit him again, the glorious feeling of having time to spend. The bed behind them wasn’t going
anywhere and neither were they. He could take as much time as he needed to show her that his
words were true, that he meant it when he said he’d never loved anyone, never wanted anyone, the
way he wanted her.

“Kylo?”

“Hmm?”

“Can you start showing me now?” She pressed against him again, eyes wide and vulnerable like
she was afraid he might reject her. He couldn’t do that, no matter what reservations he might have
that she was pushing herself to do too much, too quickly, and he resolved to use everything he had
ever learned about how to please a partner to make sure that she didn’t regret it.

He leaned down, hooking a hand around the back of each thigh and lifting her until she settled
against him, her dress pushed up around her hips and her legs wrapped around his waist.

She gasped and grabbed his shoulders, eyes widening in shocked pleasure that only intensified
when he cupped her ass in his hands, thumbs sliding under the edges of the underwear she wore to
caress the soft skin beneath.

He turned and walked to the end of the bed with her wrapped around him like a vine, nipping and
kissing his way across her jaw as he went. By the time he sat down with her on his lap, her body
was already quivering and her lips were parted, her breaths coming in soft pants of confused
arousal.

She wanted him, but she was clearly already nearly overwhelmed with the newness of what was
happening to her. One hand let go of her ass so he could run his fingernails over her thigh. He
wanted to see how she would react if he stimulated her body any further, to see how sensitive she
was, how reactive to his touch.

She whimpered and scooted closer, grinding against him hardened beneath her and kissed her neck
and then across the shadows of her collar bones before following the curve of her chest down into
the dip between her breasts. He pressed a kiss on the skin there before tugging down the bodice of
her dress to reveal the lace of her bralette. He cupped a breast, squeezing it and rubbing his thumb
over the hardened bud of her nipple.

Her back arched pushing her body into his hand as she shifted her hips restlessly.

“Kylo?” Her voice cracked, fear and desire at odds in her tone.

“It’s okay,” he soothed. “Just hold on to me.”

She tightened her fingers on his shoulders where she gripped him as he changed his hold on her,
one finger following the edge of her panties as they rounded the top of her thigh and veered back
down toward the apex of her sex. He didn’t dip beneath the fabric, but she was already hot, and the
cloth was damp against his knuckle.

Her hips bucked against him instinctively, seeking and searching for more as she tucked her face
into the curve of his neck.

“Are you embarrassed?” he asked, rubbing a hand over the curve of her back as she nodded against
his shoulder. “You don’t have anything to be embarrassed about. I like it. I fucking love it that
you’re all wet for me, baby.”

“You do?” She didn’t lift her head from his shoulder, but her voice was hopeful.
“Yes, you’re doing so good, such a good girl.”

Her whole body shook at his words.

“Do you like that? Being good for me?”

Her only response was another jerky nod against his shoulder, but her hips were slowly shifting,
trying to get some friction or relief from the arousal he knew she felt, but unable to do so because
she was spread so wide around his torso.

Struck with sudden inspiration, he nudged her right leg over his thigh until it was nestled between
his legs, leaving her straddling his left thigh. “This will help,” he told her, letting his hands resume
their exploration as he guided her hands from his shoulders to his hips and then tugged the straps of
her dress down over her shoulders, revealing new skin and the expanse of her breasts beneath white
lace.

“So pretty,” he said, lifting the bra out of the way and then holding her in place while he sucked a
bruise onto her breast. She squirmed beneath his lips as he pulled the blood up toward the surface
of her skin, and he almost felt guilty when he pulled away and examined the small purple mark that
he’d left, but there was a need to claim her that hummed in his veins with a strength that was
almost cruel.

She looked down with a crease between her brows, her fingers drifting softly over the bruise. “Is
that a hickey?”

“Yes,” he admitted.

“Hmm,” she hummed, noncommittal.

He took her lack of objection to mean she wasn’t angry, and he returned his attention to her chest,
his fingers plucking her nipples into pebble harness and then sucking one and the other into his
mouth as she gasped and whined.

She shifted eagerly against his thigh, and he knew the exact moment that she realized the new
position allowed her to rub her clit on the hard muscle of his leg because a soft and eager moan
tore from her lips.

“Yes,” he whispered, “just like that. Does that feel good?”

She nodded, her breath quickening, and he could feel the wetness soaking through her panties and
his jeans to warm the skin of his leg.

“You can come like this,” he told her. “I want you to.”

She stopped moving abruptly, mouth twisting into a frown. “What about you?”

“I’ll be fine,” he said, almost smiling at her petulant expression. “I can always handle it myself
later if I need to.”

“Can I watch?”

He jerked his head up. “What?”

She was looking down at the bulge of his cock and it jumped beneath her curious stare. “Can you
do it now? So, I can watch?”
“You want to watch me get off?” He was stunned by the eager nod of her head, the dark and
greedy desire in her eyes.

“Maybe…” She licked her lips and reached for the button on his jeans. “Maybe if you show me
how to do it, I can help.”

“Christ,” he swore, sucking in a deep breath as her fingers brushed against his stomach.

“Did I hurt you?”

“No,” he said, gripping her jaw as he pushed his lips roughly against hers. “You’re fucking perfect.
Keep going…please.”

She grinned at him, face flushed and hair tumbling down from her bun where his fingers had dug
into it. He pulled her in for another desperate kiss and as soon as he let her go she went back to
rocking her hips against his thigh as she pulled his shirt over his head and then worked to get his
zipper down and free him from his underwear. He made a mental note to buy something better
than the thin white boxers that the prison provided him.

Her breath slipped from her lips on a shuddering exhale when his cock sprang free and jutted up
toward his stomach.

“ Much bigger than I expected,” she murmured, tipping her head to look at him.

“You’ve never seen…” he began, but she shook her head.

“No, never,” she said, reaching for the tip of him with one gentle finger. “It’s wet,” she observed,
smearing precum across the head and laughing in surprise when his body jerked at her touch.

“That’s for you,” he explained. “It makes it easier for me to be inside you.”

“Like I get wet for you?”

“Yes,” he agreed, swallowing hard as her fingers continued to explore, following the ridge around
the head of his cock before trailing down the sides to discover his pulse in the veins that lined the
sides.

“I like the way it feels,” she said. “So hard but the skin is so soft.”

“Rey,” he said, dropping his head to her shoulder. He wasn’t certain if he was begging or praying.

“Show me,” she whispered, the edge of need turning it nearly into a whine. “Please.”

He urged her to lean back and dipped his fingers inside her panties until he could skim through her
folds and gather the wetness. She made a soft noise of encouragement as he pushed into her center
and then again as he began using the shiny slick he’d found to coat his hand before he started to
stroke his hardened length. She watched intently as he showed her how to work his cock,
describing the right pressure and the pace that he liked the best as she writhed on his thigh and
nodded along to his instructions.

After a few minutes of listening, she reached between her legs without prompting, rocking back to
make room for her fingers as she copied what he had done and coated her palm with her own
shimmering arousal. Her fingers wrapped hesitantly around his cock just below his own and he let
go to put his hand over hers and guide her until her caress became confident.
He pushed up against her hand, watching in awe as the head of his cock appeared and then
disappeared between the round grip of her hand with each stroke.

She ground against him harder, her thighs tightening on his and he realized that she was also
looking at her hand and watching him thrust into her palm. She liked it, what she was doing to him,
and her hips began to move in earnest as she chased her own orgasm.

He grabbed her hip with one and urged her on as she rode his thigh, his other hand coming up to
squeeze her breast. His lips found her throat again, tasting the soft flutter of her pulse and the slight
tang of her sweat on her skin.

She was breathing harder, hips jerking erratically, and he knew she was getting closer as he leaned
down and captured her nipple between his teeth. The sound that she made was nearly a scream, and
the hand that wasn’t still working his cock came up to tangle in his hair.

“Come for me,” he commanded. “Baby, please.” He was desperate, his own orgasm creeping up
and tightening his balls as she tightened her grip on him.

The words seemed to be all the encouragement that she needed, and she came with a husky shout,
her head tossed back and her body convulsing with the strength of her climax.

The sight of her coming apart in his arms was enough to snap his own restraint and he came before
he could warn her. He pulled her in close, his teeth sinking into the soft rounded slope of shoulder
as milky white come spurted over them both, spilling out over her hand and his stomach in hot
waves.

“Sorry,” he mumbled quickly, trying to shift her off of him so he could clean the mess off of her,
worried that she’d be disgusted or angry.

“It’s fine,” she said softly, clinging to him as she gathered the fabric of her skirt and used it to wipe
them clean, first her hand and then his stomach. She curled against him when she was finished, her
lips finding his for a lazy kiss.

“Are you okay?” he asked, rubbing his jaw on her hair and breathing in the floral scent of her
shampoo. He’d wanted to go slower, to focus more on her pleasure this first time, but she’d taken
him by surprise with her enthusiasm.

“Better than fine,” she said with a giggle. “But I think we’re going to have to wash your jeans
before you can wear them shopping tomorrow. I’m going to have to have to put them in the laundry
downstairs.”

“I would help you but…”

She giggled again. “I don’t think my neighbors are quite ready for the sight of you naked in the
laundry room. You could make dinner, though, while I toss them in.”

He pulled back to look down at her in a panic. “I can’t cook,” he said quickly.

“There’s ramen in the pantry,” she said confidently. “You can boil water, right?”

“Yeah,” he said skeptically. “I think so, if you show me.”

“Alright,” she agreed, kissing the side of his neck before she stood up on legs that were still visibly
shaking. “Come on, let’s clean up and then we’ll take care of all that.”
He followed her into the bathroom and then watched as she stripped off her clothes, a blush
creeping over her cheeks. The shower was barely big enough to fit them both and the meager water
pressure delivered a spray that was mostly cold, but he rubbed the soap into her skin and helped her
wash away the slickness between her legs.

“I’m sorry,” he said, running his hands over the marks his teeth had left in her shoulder.

She grinned at him, tapping the bruise he’d sucked into her breast. “Marking your territory?” she
asked, a teasing lilt in her voice that made him smile back at her.

“Maybe.”

“Hmm, maybe next time it’ll be my turn.”

He thought that she just might be bold enough to bite him. What she lacked in experience she more
than made up for in enthusiasm and instinct. He’d been with women that had much more
sophistication, but none that had ever looked at him like she did. Like he was something precious
and valuable.

Stains that he’d thought were permanently embedded in his soul seemed to fade away when she
looked at him like that.

He wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight in the shower as the cold water poured over
them.
 I Need You
Chapter Summary

For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of
life—comes not from the Father but from the world- 1 John 2:16.

Chapter Notes

I promise not every chapter from now on will be as smut heavy as this section is, but
we are still in the building intimacy phase of the story where they are learning each
other and it's important to the solidification of the relationship. I have not abandoned
the plot altogether!

CW // Sexual intimacy, less than perfectly safe sexual practices, mention of past
sexual trafficking, mention of past sexual assault, mention of past physical abuse

If you feel I missed one, please let me know!

Her hands on his body were warm and soft but not familiar.

He sighed and leaned into her touch, his eyes closed as he tried to focus on the sensations and
ignore the sick rolling twist of guilt in his stomach.

He should want this, shouldn’t he?

Or maybe he shouldn’t, but he did anyway and that’s why guilt was reaching it’s grasping claws up
his throat..

He wasn’t sure what the answers were and could barely focus on the questions as her fingers
pressed lower, crossing the distance between his chest and his cock with practiced efficiency. Her
grip was firm and sure, and he groaned, hips bucking into her.

“Doesn’t that feel good? Don’t overthink it.”

He jerked away, eyes popping open at the voice that he didn’t recognize. Something was wrong,
something that he couldn’t quite process as he blinked slowly into eyes that were the color of warm
chocolate. Nothing at all like the soft hazel of the woman whose scent still lingered in his mind.

He didn’t want this, and he pushed her hand away, watching with horror as her lips peeled back to
show bloodstained teeth.

“You don’t want me to touch you?” she asked. “We’ll see what Snoke thinks about that.”

“No,” he begged, trying to catch hold of her hand as she crawled out of the bed and disappeared,
leaving him alone.
He couldn’t be back here, not with Snoke. Where was Rey? How had he ended up here, with some
other woman, instead of in her bed where he belonged?

Had she kicked him out? Given him no place to go besides back to this?

“Foolish child,” Snoke said, standing suddenly at the end of the bed and tapping his finger
ominously against his lips as Kylo curled into himself in the bed, the sheet his only protection from
the other man’s penetrating gaze. “I gave you the easiest of jobs. Fucking beautiful women in
expensive hotel rooms is a privilege. If you’ve had your fill of that, you can start sucking dick in
dark alleys with the rest of them.”

Kylo opened his mouth to explain, to ask for forgiveness but the hotel room and the soft silk sheets
were gone, and nothing was left but the dark dank wetness of Snoke’s basement as the door closed
behind him.

These hands weren’t soft and all he could find in the dark was pain.

Even Cardo had heard him screaming, he remembered now. His shame at being raped and beaten
not his own private humiliation, after all.

He sat up quickly, his breath coming hard and fast as his heart raced in his chest. His senses were
still lost in the nightmare, the smell of mold clinging to his nose like he’d been carried out of that
basement mere seconds ago and erasing the decade since.

Desperate to clear his mind, he reached- as he always did when the nightmares came for him- for
the grounding familiarity of his surroundings. The hard cot beneath him, the steady drip of the
sink, the stink of sweat and ammonia, all usually brought the cold wave of reality to clear away the
conjurings of his sleeping mind.

He found none of those things.

Instead, there was the soft dip of a mattress, the steady tick of a bedside clock, and the scent of her.
She was curled on her side beside him, face soft and relaxed as she slept and one hand resting on
the pillow beside her face.

The clock beside the bed read 3:35 when he slipped quietly from the bed and left her alone.

***

She found him in the kitchen, standing in the dim green light of her microwave wearing nothing but
the thin white underwear the prison had issued him.

“Kylo?”

He jumped, startled to hear her voice coming out of the darkness of the hallway.

She crept closer, snaking a hand around his wrist when he didn’t answer. “It’s four in the morning,
what are you doing out here?”

“Can’t sleep,” he muttered. “It’s lights on at 3:30 in prison. I’ve been waking up this early for
thirteen years.”

“Oh,” she said, sleep clogging her mind as she pressed into his side, seeking the warmth he’d taken
with him when he’d left his side of the bed empty. “Why didn’t you wake me?”
“I…” He sighed and rubbed his jaw against her hair. “I didn’t want to disturb you. You looked so
peaceful.”

“Kylo, what’s wrong?” She pulled back to look at him, frowning when he wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“Are you cold? You’re shaking.”

He shook his head, hands tightening on her hips to keep her from moving away when she tried to
go and fetch a blanket from the bedroom.

“Just a bad dream,” he said. “It happens sometimes.”

“What were you dreaming about?” she asked, leaning back into him and offering him her body heat
anyway as she wrapped her arms around his torso.

“It’s nothing…”

“It’s something,” she insisted. “You can always tell me anything. I want to help you.”

“I know you do,” he said, kissing the top of her head. “But there’s nothing we can do about it.”

She wanted to argue, to tell him that it was normal for him to be feeling unsettled after having to
relive everything for the hearing and enduring all the changes he’d experienced in such a short
time, but he tipped her chin up with the curve of his finger and silenced her with his lips on hers.

This kiss was nothing like the ones before, none of the softness and the sweetness that she’d gotten
from him yesterday. His mouth was hot on hers, demanding as he parted her lips with his tongue
and ravaged the soft recess within.

If his earlier touches had been mostly for her, to show her his love and desire, this was purely
about him and whatever memories had haunted his nightmares. He clutched her to him as though
her skin on his was the cure for a lifetime of pain, his hands tugging up the hem of the nightgown
that barely skimmed her knees until he could reach beneath and cup the backs of her thighs.

She gasped when he lifted her, knocking aside the clutter from last night’s dinner where it rested
on the kitchen counter. Something clattered into the sink and porcelain shattered as one of her
bowls hit the floor and exploded on impact.

“Kylo,” she protested, worried about the shards and his bare feet, but he stepped into the empty
waiting space between her thighs and nipped her neck with the edges of his teeth until she
shuddered beneath the onslaught of his mouth.

“Buy you a new one,” he mumbled against her skin, unheeding to any damage he might be doing to
himself. “I just need you, need to taste you.”

He pressed a knuckle to the core of her, the pressure of his hand a new sensation against the fabric
of the underwear. She spread her knees, eagerness and nerves tightening her muscles as she
perched at the edge of kitchen countertop and wondered wildly if they were really going to do this
here and right now, caught up in some whirlwind frenzy of need with sleep still clinging stubbornly
to her mind and inescapable memories still hanging heavily on his.

It was there on the tip of tongue to say no, to ask him if they could wait for a soft bed and passion
that wasn’t driven by whatever demons dogged his dreams, but he leaned his forehead against hers,
his voice soft and desperate and hands gripping her thighs like a lifeline.

“Please,” he whispered, and she heard the need there, the aching echoes of pain that she wanted to
soothe.

She nodded, her head moving jerkily against his as he sighed his relief and curled his fingers into
the band of her underwear. She shifted as he pulled, lifting her legs one at time so that he could
guide them roughly over her thighs and down her calves to toss them aside.

There was no patience here, no gentle path traveled over the slim column of her neck or the soft
peak of her breast. He looked at her like he wanted to drown in her, to wash away whatever ghosts
still haunted him in the wet pool of her cunt.

Her hips jerked when he pressed a hand to the center of her, her fingers beginning an exploration of
her body that made her writhe and drip onto the cheap laminate countertop. She clung to him, one
hand tangled in his hair and her face pressed into the curve of his shoulder, as he circled the bud of
her clit until she was biting down on the soft skin of his neck to muffle her whimpers.

“Lean back, baby,” he instructed softly, moving his hands to her legs and smearing her own slick
wetness on the skin there as he pressed his thumbs gently into the tender flesh of her inner thighs,
urging her to spread them wider.

She hesitated, mind hazy with pleasure as she stared up at him with parted lips and panting breath.

“Rey,” he said, deep and commanding, “lean back.”

Fresh wetness rushed between her thighs at the low rumble of his voice. She’d never been able to
ignore that tone, not since the first time she’d heard him speak and he’d left her whimpering on the
phone just from the sound of her name on his lips.

She reached behind her and leaned back into her palms, reclining enough that he could jerk her
hips forward and bring the curve of her ass right up the edge of the counter, her cunt open and
bared to his gaze when he nudged her legs even further apart so that he could look down at her with
knowing and hungry eyes.

She shivered when he trailed one finger through the folds of her body, but this time he didn’t settle
on her clit but reached further into the hidden and unexplored depths until he could press
persistently against the entrance of her body.

The sudden realization that she felt acutely empty settled over her, and she pushed her hip forward,
seeking more as he gently rocked the tip of finger inside her. She clenched down on the intrusion,
chasing the unfamiliar sensation of being stroked from within.

“Do you like that?” he asked, his face serious in the odd green light.

“Yes,” she admitted, cheeks flaming at being asked to say it out loud but pleased when he grunted
in satisfaction and worked his finger deeper inside of her in response.

She squirmed against his hand, seeking more as he curved his finger, pressing against her in new
angles that helped her discover the potential of her own body and the places within that sent
shockwaves of new feelings shooting through her.

His fingers were able to reach places inside her that her own were not and the difference in length
and width was enough to make her head spin, especially when he added a second finger beside the
first. There was pressure now, a stretch that let her know how full he had made her and how
delightful it was that she was made to open and accept him, her body bending to allow him in.

It would do the same with other parts of him, much longer and thicker than his fingers, and she
arched her hips shamelessly into his hand as he stroked her, eager to take what he was giving her
and more.

Her doubts faded beneath the caress of his fingers, the odd light and the hard edge of the
countertop as it dug into her thighs suddenly seemingly like the perfect accompaniments to this life
changing experience.

“You need more,” he said, more answer than question, and she blinked down at him, ready to
remind him of the condoms that she’d stored uncertainly in her bedside drawer, but he pulled her
up to give her a quick kiss and then dropped to his knees in front of her.

She peered down at him curiously, trying to draw her knees together now that his height had been
diminished just enough to bring him to face level with her bared and glistening core.

“Shh,” he soothed, pressing a line of kisses up her thigh. “I just need to taste you, remember?”

“You’re not going to…I mean…you know?”

“Fuck you? Not right now,” he said with a soft chuckle, looking up to meet her eyes as he leaned in
to skin his lips over the lips of her cunt. His face came away wet and her cheeks burned with
embarrassment, but he never looked away from her, his eyes still hot and locked onto her face.

She bit down on her lip as he parted her folds with his tongue, a long soft swipe that ended with a
focused suck on her clit that made her whimper as she tossed back her head and lost herself in the
motions of his mouth.

She understood now why such things were meant to be sinful- how could she keep her mind
focused on the kingdom of heaven when Kylo was able to bring heaven to her on earth?

He feasted on her like a starving man suddenly invited to the king’s table, exploring each
shadowed bit of flesh and gathering up all the wetness he found there before startling her by
plunging his tongue inside her.

The sound she made was nearly a scream and something she knew she’d hear about later from her
neighbors on the other side of the thin apartment walls, but she was beyond caring about anything
but the heat of his mouth and the silken slide of his tongue.

When he replaced his tongue with his fingers inside her, filling her and stroking the spot that he’s
already discovered made her moan as he returned his attention to the sensitive bud of her clit, she
came apart beneath him. He held his mouth to her, gently guiding her through the aftershocks, as
she coated his fingers with a fresh wave of wetness.

“God, you look so beautiful,” he told her, “when you come on my fingers.”

She was still splayed across the kitchen counter, chest heaving and breasts bouncing as she tried to
catch her breath. “What about you? Do you…do you want me to do that to you?”

“Do you want to?”

She sat up, pushing the hem of her nightgown down around her thighs. “I think so. I should want
to, after all that. Don’t you think so?”

He shook his head and pressed a kiss to her knee before standing up. “That’s not how it works,
baby. It’s okay if you’re not ready for that.”
She hooked a finger into the waistband of his underwear, pulling him toward her as she reached
down to rub a finger up the length of his cock in her hand through the fabric. “I want to do
something,” she insisted. “We could, I mean, you could…” She spread her knees invitingly, unable
to say the words but determined to issue the invitation.

“Not like this,” he said, gripping her jaw and pressing a hard kiss to her mouth. “We can do
something else.”

“What else is there?” she asked, her mouth turning down in a pout.

He smiled and lifted her down, patting her hip once her feet were on the floor again. “Turn
around,” he instructed, waiting till she shot him a puzzled look and turned to face the counter to lift
her nightgown back up around her hips.

Her thighs were still wet with all of the slick arousal that had dripped from her and when he
pressed them together and she felt the press of his cock at the seam between them she understood
what he was trying to do. “Oh,” she breathed softly, leaning forward until she could rest her elbows
on the counter and pushing her backside toward him.

He was nestled in the space he’d created between her legs, thrusting softly against her, sliding back
and forth on the old wet and the new that she was creating as she watched him appear and
disappear between her thighs.

It wasn’t the same as his fingers inside her, but he was pressed against her, his chest hot where it
met her back breath ragged and desperate in her ear, and she would have lost herself in the moment
forever if she had been given the option.

He had one arm wrapped around her body, clamped to her stomach like an iron band, as his other
hand gripped the countertop beside her elbow, holding them both steady against the motion of his
hips.

“Rub your clit,” he told her huskily. “Just like you used to do for me in all the letters you wrote
when you told me what it was like to touch yourself. Do it now, let me feel you come for me while
you tell me what it feels like.”

Heat rushed through her and she clenched down on nothing as she fumbled with the fabric of her
nightgown, tugging it out of the way until she could press her fingers to the still sensitive area
between her legs. Her thighs jumped and tensed around him at the first stroke of her hands and he
swore softly.

“Sorry,” she mumbled.

“Don’t you dare apologize,” he growled. “You’re fucking perfect.”

“Kylo,” she whined, and he jerked her back against him, bouncing her off his chest and his hips.

“Talk to me,” he begged. “Please, baby.”

“Yes,” she agreed, her fingers rubbing in earnest now and her thighs shaking around him. “It feels
good, so good when I touch myself.”

“Yeah?” he grunted. “Tell me what you wanted when I was in prison.”

“You,” she said, breathless as she hurtled rapidly toward another orgasm. “I wanted you to touch
me.”
“Why?”

“Because I love you,” she said. “Because I want you and I need you and I know it will feel even
better when it’s your hands on my clit.”

He let go of the counter and pushed her hand aside, replacing her fingers with his own. “Like this?
Is this what you wanted, Rey?”

She leaned into the counter, her body tense and poised the edge. “Please,” she begged. “Please let
me come.”

“Say it,” he demanded, the movements of his fingers slowing just enough to make her whine in
protest. “Tell me this is what you wanted, that it’s better when I touch you.”

“It’s better,” she panted. “So much better. Kylo, please.”

He sped up, his fingers pressing into her just the way she liked until it ripped a second orgasm from
her. Her mouth opened on a wordless cry as she clamped her thighs together, whole body
shuddering with the strength of the pleasure that tore through her.

He pushed into her thighs, whispering words that she caught only the edges of. Things like “so
pretty” and “good girl” and then “oh fuck” as he pulled her hard against him and coated the
insides of her thighs with hot come.

She leaned into the counter, him resting against her back and his spend cooling on her thighs as she
tried to catch her breath. “Well, that was…”

“Perfect?” he asked, pressing a kiss to the back of her neck, just beneath hair that curled, damp
with sweat, against her skin.

“Yeah,” she said with a giggle, head pressed to the cold smooth surface of the countertop.
“Perfect.”

“Rey?”

“Hmm?”

“I really fucking love you.”

“I really fucking love you, too,” she said with a sigh. “But you broke my bowl.”

“Shit.”

He stood up and let go of her, so she was able to turn around and flick on the overhead kitchen
light and survey the damage. It was indeed broken, but mostly in large pieces that would be easy to
pick up and avoid stepping on.

“I’ll pick this up while you wash off,” he said to her, kissing her quickly on the nose before
crouching down to grab the first few shards of broken porcelain.

The come was already drying and sticky on her skin when she stepped into the shower and it was
bothersome enough that she was grateful for even the cold stingy spray. Still, she didn’t linger, and
it was only a few minutes before she was rushing into the bedroom to tug on a clean pair of shorts
and a soft t-shirt.

He was digging in the pantry when she came back, and she realized he was probably used to eating
breakfast this early, too.

“If we keep this up, we’re going to spend a lot of time showering,” she said with a laugh, her thighs
still shaking as she leaned into his side and pushed the hair back and away from his eyes. Whatever
sadness had been there earlier had vanished, leaving nothing but warmth as he leaned into her
palm. “Go ahead and hop in and I’ll whip up something to eat for breakfast. Pancakes or
omelettes?”

“Umm,” he stammered, suddenly unsure, and she remembered his frozen silence in the fast-food
drive through, staring at the menu full of options like a deer in the headlights of an oncoming
truck.

“I’m usually fonder of pancakes,” she added helpfully. “Especially for special occasions.”

“What’s the special occasion?” he asked, pausing on his way to the bathroom to look at her
curiously.

“You are,” she said, unable to resist the urge to stretch up on her tiptoes and press another kiss to
the warm plush curve of his mouth. Soon enough he’d taste like sugar and syrup but for now he
only tasted like Kylo and the tang of her own arousal. Her body clenched on a newly learned greed,
but she knew he needed time and they had to go shopping today. He was already going to have to
wear the same outfit as yesterday, albeit newly washed.

“But am I pancake worthy?” he asked, lifting one brow at her skeptically.

She bit her lip, pretending to think it over, before looking back at the kitchen countertop, still wet
and shiny where he’d cleaned it while she showered.

“Definitely.”

The tips of his ears were pink when he left the kitchen.

She mixed ingredients and pulled out a pan, setting it on the stove to heat as she hurried back to the
bedroom to check her phone.

She had expected the texts from her father, asking if she was alright and requesting that she check
in again this morning, but she frowned at the numerous texts that were waiting for her. From her
father, from Rose and Finn, Kaydel, even Jannah all the way in Colorado.

She walked to a living room in a daze, pancakes forgotten, and picking up the remote to turn the
TV on to the first news channel she came across. Trial footage from thirteen years ago filled the
screen- a young Kylo stoic and empty eyed as he faced down the jury.

The news anchor was talking fast, and she wasn’t able to hear him over the dull buzzing in her
ears. The headline beneath the images, however, was inescapable.

Teenage Murderer Freed After Only Thirteen Years in Stunning Court Decision

She dimly registered the sudden absence of sound in the apartment and realized that Kylo had
turned the water off in the shower. She hit the button remote as quickly as possible to turn the TV
off, tossing it back on the couch as the screen went dark.

She was in the kitchen pouring batter into a pan when he came back, one towel slung low across
his hips and using another to dry his dark curls.
“Smells good,” he said, pulling her back into his chest and nuzzling his face into her neck.

“No funny business until after breakfast and shopping,” she declared, flipping the pancake and
turning to kiss cheek. “We should head out pretty soon, before the stores get crowded.”
 Like Hell
Chapter Summary

Wrath is cruel, anger is overwhelming, but who can stand before jealousy? Proverbs-
27:4

Chapter Notes

Happy Valentine's Day! As my little gift to all of you, I am updating two chapters of
this today. It was one chapter that got way too long but instead of just cutting it and
moving the rest into a future update I fleshed it out to two standard length chapters and
decided to post them both today.

CW // self doubt and a hint of jealousy

As always, if you feel that I've missed a tag please let me know.

Shopping with Rey was both easier and much harder than Kylo had imagined that it would be.
Following around the aisles of the nearest Target as she tossed clothes in a red shopping cart held
none of the stuffiness that he remembered from his days of being dragged from one fancy boutique
to another by his mother, and none of the rush that had come with dashing out the doors with
whatever stolen item had caught his attention as he done during his days with Knights of Ren.

He was grateful for the normalcy of it—for the bright florescent lighting and the shopping cart’s
squeaky wheel and the underwear that she held up for his inspection before shrugging and adding
it to the top of the pile—but somewhere between socks and t-shirts he began to notice the looks.

First the odd glance over someone’s shoulder and then mother’s tugging their toddlers away from
him as they entered the aisles or simply turning around and leaving altogether, the next item on
their lists forgotten entirely in their rush to get away.

“Does it all have to be black?” Rey asked, peeking at him from over the top of a black hoodie that
she swore he’d need when it started to cool off in the fall.

“Yes,” he said, barely glancing her way before frowning at the old man that scowled at him over a
rack of men’s jackets. He glanced down at the white shirt he was wearing, checking for the third
time to make sure that the prison hadn’t stamped the word “felon” on the front without him
noticing.

The fabric remained stubbornly blank.

“Why does everyone keep staring at me?” he asked, running a frustrated hand through his hair and
turning his back on the old man. “Do I have something on my face or what?”

She bit her bottom lip and shrugged. “Impressed by your incredible good looks?”
“Rey,” he said, folding his arms across his chest and raising one eyebrow.

“Fine,” she said, her mood turning sour as she glared back at the old man, her expression so
ferocious that he finally huffed and disappeared into the nearby electronics section. “The news may
have done a few stories on your release.”

He uncrossed his arms and glanced over his shoulder. There were far more people subtly eyeing
him than he’d realized. “A few?”

“A lot,” she admitted. “It started out local, but it’s been picked up by the national news stations
now.”

“Didn’t they get enough sensationalist bullshit when they locked me up?” he grumbled. “It’s been
thirteen goddamn years.”

“Amilyn warned me that it might happen after the reporters showed up at the hearing. It was a
high-profile case back then and you are still a senator’s son,” she reminded him. “It ignited a
national debate on the Supreme Court’s ruling and victim’s advocate’s groups are furious that your
case might set a precedent for more lenient sentences for minor defendants in the future.”

“Jesus,” he said, grabbing the cart and steering it toward the front as she trotted along behind him,
trying to keep up with his longer strides. “We’re getting out of here before someone decides to spit
on you for being with me or something and they have to put me back in prison for kicking their
ass.”

“Hey,” she said, grabbing the back of his shirt and planting her feet until he was forced to stop. She
waited for him to turn back around and shook her head firmly. “Don’t even joke about that. You’re
not going back there. Do you hear me?”

Her eyes were bright and hard, the softness of her face gone as her brow creased and her mouth
thinned into a line that was uncrossable. She was, for all her sweetness, an unshakeable force of
will.

“I know,” he soothed. “I’m sorry.”

She sighed, her body relaxing as people turned to watch, squinting at him skeptically and waiting
to see if he’d move to hurt her in the middle of the store at 9 am on a weekday morning. More than
half of them looked like they expected her to be the first of a new line of victims, the continuation
of a pattern that he’d started all those years ago with his father.

“Let’s go,” she urged, taking back control of the cart and leading him toward the checkout line.
“We didn’t get everything you’ll need but we got enough for now and we’ll order the rest online. If
you’re uncomfortable being out then we’ll just stay in for a while, wait till it all blows over.”

“What if it doesn’t?”

“It will,” she said. “Something new will come along and it’ll push you out of the news
completely.”

“I hope so,” he said, but he hated the way that everyone’s eyes lingered on them as they walked
and the cashier’s suspicious gaze as Rey loaded everything from the basket onto the little conveyor
belt and attempted to make small talk.

They were all watching him, but doing so meant they were also watching her, too…invading her
privacy and giving pitying little shakes of their heads as they whispered behind their hands.
And he wondered, for the first time really wondered, about what their relationship looked like to
the rest of the world. He’d wondered about how it would affect Rey and how it was perceived by
people who knew her and cared about her, but he’d never given a shit about anyone else.

But the people he had worried about were people that knew Rey. They knew how stubborn she
was and how passionate, and they’d seen her and how happy she was, how loved.

These people, the rest of the world, didn’t know Rey and all they saw was a young woman barely
on the other side of adulthood that had been sucked into the life of man a decade older than she
was. A murderer. A manipulator. Someone who was taking advantage of her youth and
inexperience. He wouldn’t have to hurt her for her to be a victim in their eyes. His presence in her
life was enough.

He shifted uncomfortably under the accusatory look of the cashier, his mind flooded with images
of Rey’s early morning kitchen and the sounds she’d made when he’s driven her over the edge into
her orgasm, her thighs clamped around his cock before she’d even had a chance to clear the sleep
from her eyes.

She was a fucking virgin for Christ’s sake, and he’d been on her like an animal, lost in the
memories of his disgusting past life. He’d sank back into the filth in his nightmares and then he’d
taken her down with him.

Her cheeks were pink but her face was defiant as she slipped her bank card into the machine and
paid for his socks and new pants, the bathing suit trunks she’d said he was going to need for this
afternoon when she took him swimming. He’d have money of his own as soon as he talked to
Amilyn and found out how to access his trust fund, but what if he hadn’t been a silver spoon fed
trust fund baby?

No one knew about that, they all just saw her dropping money she’d worked for to feed him,
clothe him. Like he was a fucking parasite on her and her life. Living in the apartment she paid for,
riding around in the car she was making the payments on. He didn’t even have a fucking driver’s
license, couldn’t do a damn thing on his own right now.

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and said nothing else as they walked to the car.

“You’re brooding,” she said, closing the trunk of the car after they’d tossed all his stuff in.

He rolled a shoulder, not bothering to deny it. “I don’t like the way they were looking at you or the
things they were thinking.”

“You don’t know what they were thinking.”

“They were wondering if I was going to hurt you,” he insisted. “They were thinking that I’m a
murderer and that I’m a monster who’s taking advantage of you because you’re young and…”

“And that’s bullshit,” she said, puffing up in irritation. “What now all of a sudden you think I’m
too young for you?”

“I think I haven’t let you experience anything else,” he said carefully. “You’re a virgin and look
what I did to you this morning…”

“I liked what you did to me this morning,” she said angrily, poking him in the chest with her finger.
“I tried dating someone else and I didn’t like it, but if you’d rather that I got some experience with
someone else first…”
“Like hell,” he snapped. Rational thought and selfless impulses aside, the idea of her being with
someone else was enough to have jealousy clawing painfully at his insides. Fuck that, maybe he
didn’t deserve her after everything and maybe she would have been better off with someone else,
but it was too late for that now.

“That’s what I thought,” she said quietly. “I don’t want someone else and I don’t want you to be
with someone else, either. I don’t give a shit about what anyone else thinks or about what happened
before. It’s just us now .”

She crowded into him, pushing into his personal space and resolutely ignoring it as the occasional
passerby slowed down to stare at them. She leaned into his chest and pressed up on her toes,
curling her arms around his neck and tugging him down until he surrendered and caught her mouth
with his.

Her mouth was sweet and she parted her lips for him without coaxing, heedless of the eyes that
watched them or the judgement of those who stared as she teased him with her tongue and tangled
her fingers in his hair.

She kissed him senseless and then pulled away to place one last peck of her lips to the tip of his
nose and smirk up at him in satisfaction.

“I don’t what I could ever have done to deserve you,” he said, awed as always by the sheer
vibrancy of her, the light that she carried with her into every situation.

“You were just you,” she said, “and that was always enough. Let’s go home, okay?”

He nodded and gave her another quick kiss before letting her go. “Okay, baby, let’s go home.”

He didn’t say anything else until they were settled into the car and the radio was softly playing a
song he’d never heard before just loud enough to be heard over the continuous blast of the air
conditioner.

“I wanted to take you on a date,” he said, squeezing her hand where it rested in his on the center
console. “But with the way things went at the store…And I haven’t even tried to call Amilyn yet to
get access to my trust fund. I need money for us, a driver’s license. I want to take care of you.”

She squeezed back, her smile bright and unconcerned. “You will take care of me, and I’ll take care
of you. Things will settle down soon and then we’ll work on getting you a license. Maybe next
week if you feel comfortable? In the meantime, you can work on other things. We’ll call Amilyn’s
office this afternoon before we go swimming and tonight we can order take out.”

“Swimming and take-out isn’t a date,” he argued. “I wanted to do something special for you.”

She shook her head. “We’ve got the rest of our lives for fancy dinners, Kylo. We can go if you
want but it’ll be the same thing that happened at the store. I’m perfectly happy with a movie at
home and couch cuddling. That’s the kind of thing I imagined doing with you if you ever got out,
not eating expensive food with too much silverware.”

He thought back over the number of dinners Leia had made him attend, crammed into a stuffy suit
and shoes that pinched his feet as he listened to boring conversations that he’d have done anything
not to be a part of.

It didn’t compare in the slightest to the image of relaxing on Rey’s couch with her head in his lap as
they watched whatever movie she’d picked out for them on her TV and he played with the ends of
her hair.
“Fine,” he said. “You win. We’ll stay in and order food.”

“I always win,” she said brightly. “I’m very stubborn.”

“Yes, you are,” he agreed. “Lucky for you I like stubborn brunettes with a pretty smile.”

She grinned at him and he lifted her hand to his mouth, pressing a quick kiss to the backs of her
knuckles. The soft smell of her perfume lingered in the air and her skin was soft under his fingers.
Being able to touch her whenever he wanted to felt like some kind of miracle, the kind of thing that
made even someone as jaded and cynical as him wonder if perhaps there might be a God after all.
Or at least the beginnings of a run of good fortune that he’d be a fool to turn his back on.

It was a feeling that he carried with him through the rest of the day.

His own incredible good luck.

It hit him as he watched her make them sandwiches for lunch, stacking slices of meat on bread as
he stood beside her in the kitchen filling their plates with chips and slices of watermelon.

And again, when they snuck down to the pool before kids got out of school for the day, when the
cold blue water was still empty of everyone except the two of them. Swimming was a pleasure he
thought he’d never get to experience again, and they splashed each other like two teens just
learning how to flirt before coming up to breathe locked around each other, their mouths hot and
hungry.

She tasted of summertime, of sweat and chlorine and sunscreen with the highest SPF that they’d
been able to find. Water ran in rivulets down the slim column of her throat and he chased them
with his lips, making her shiver with anticipation before he tossed her back toward the deep end
and laughed at her indignant squeal.

When he bought her a house, he was going to make sure it had a pool.

By the time they’d made it back upstairs and changed, he’d forgotten the world outside their little
bubble of tranquility. The thoughts that had plagued him in the store earlier seemed like nothing
more than a bad dream, a brief lapse of judgement on his part.

All that mattered was her and the love he felt for her and he was sure that there was nothing outside
of them that could tarnish it.
 Don't You Dare
Chapter Summary

A tranquil heart is life to the body,

But passion is rottenness to the bones- Proverbs 14:30

Chapter Notes

Happy Valentine's Day! As my little gift to all of you, I am updating two chapters of
this today. It was one chapter that got way too long but instead of just cutting it and
moving the rest into a future update I fleshed it out to two standard length chapters and
decided to post them both today. If you've gotten here without reading chapter 25 and
seeing the results of Rey and Kylo's shopping trip then you've gone too far and need to
go back!

CW // Explicit sexual content, loss of virginity

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Rey was doing everything she could think of to make their evening together feel like a real date.

She’d put on heels and a pretty dress—a little red thing with long sleeves that clung gently to her
curves and barely skimmed the skin above her knees—and curled her hair. She’d used a heavier
hand with her makeup, the normally natural looking hues replaced by a soft smokey eye and a
bright red lip.

He was wearing the clothes she’d asked him to change into—a pair of dark slacks that she’d bought
him and a black button-down shirt that he’d rolled the sleeves up on—as he curled his toes inside a
pair of his new socks. His feet were still bare because they’d forgotten to buy him new shoes at the
store but she only giggled at that as he helped her light the candles that she’d scattered around the
apartment.

In the end it felt nice, cozy, and he was glad that she’d talked him into staying in for the night.

The apartment smelled of the takeout Chinese food in an assortment of plastic containers that lined
her coffee table as she smoothed his collar and pressed a kiss to his cheek, soft and careful so as not
to smudge her lipstick.

“Ready for our first date?” she asked, giving him a nervous look. Her heels made her taller, but she
was still peeking up at him from under her lashes.

“I’ve been ready,” he assured her. “Ever since I figured out that you weren’t old enough to be my
grandma.”

“What?”
“The first letter you sent me,” he explained. “I pictured you as a little old lady with white hair.”

She grinned up at him. “I might have still been interested, you know? You could have had yourself
a beautiful older woman.”

“I might have still taken you up on that offer,” he said. “You’ll be perfect when you’re eighty. I can
just picture you with wrinkles and big glasses.”

“Remind me to keep an eye on you around Mrs. Kanata,” she said, a teasing twinkle in her eye.

“Mrs. Kanata?”

“From the Bible group? I’m pretty sure I told you about her, but anyway I’m sure you’ll meet her
at her church and she’s adorable. She’s got to be at least ninety but still a handful.”

He mumbled something incomprehensible under his breath, but she wasn’t paying much attention
to him anymore anyway as she sat down on the couch and started digging through the takeout
containers.

Did she really expect him to go to church with her? He knew her faith was important to her, but
they hadn’t discussed the possibility of him going with her and he knew he wouldn’t feel
comfortable being in that environment, not after everything that he’d been through. He’d really
believed that she understood that, but suddenly he wasn’t so sure.

They’d have to talk about it, eventually, but he didn’t want to do it now. Not when they were still
adjusting and so happy to even be together at all, not when they had so much else to worry about.

It was their first date, and he didn’t want to do anything to take the smile off her face.

He was grateful that she let the subject drop, content to curl against him and eat her dinner as a
romcom played on the TV screen. He didn’t recognize the movie or the actors, but he hadn’t
watched much TV in prison, so it didn’t surprise him. He wasn’t really watching it now either, he
was too busy trying to watch her face and memorize the sound of her laughter and the way the skin
at her eyes crinkled when she laughed.

She snuggled in closer to him when the couple on screen kissed for the first time, her hand curving
over his knee, and he pressed a quick kiss to her temple, encouraging her hesitant exploration by
trailing the tips of his fingers down her arm and back up again across skin that had raised
goosebumps in anticipation, as though reaching up to find more of his touch.

His fingers roamed over her as she watched—caressing her jaw, outlining her throat, skimming
along the upper edge of her bodice where the tops of her breasts were only just visible. She was
trembling, her breathing shallow and heart pounding so hard that he could feel the flutter of it in the
thin skin of her wrist.

As soon as the movie was over, she sat up and reached for the remote, clicking the TV and turning
to look at him over her shoulder as she got to her feet.

“Ready for bed?” she asked, her voice full of promise and suggestion.

He grinned at her before getting to his feet and pursuing her down the hallway as she danced
playfully just out of his reach. He’d barely cleared the doorway to the bedroom when she stopped
running and launched herself into his arms, her mouth already seeking his and her arms locking
around his neck.
He was tender as he stripped her down, his mouth barely leaving hers as his fingers worked her
zipper down to leave her in nothing but scraps of black lace and her heels.

When he finally pulled his head away, he loved the way her red lipstick looked, the color on her
mouth mussed by his kiss, so he smeared it with his thumb, pulling her lip down to reveal her
perfect white teeth and drawing a line of crimson down her chin.

He’d always wanted to mess her up, just a little, to know that her sweetness and her goodness was
something that she’d be willing to set aside just for him. Maybe that did make him a monster, but
she sucked his thumb greedily into her mouth and he knew that if it did, she was a little bit of a
monster, too.

Her tongue curled around his thumb, soft and wet as she met his eyes with determined intensity.
She wasn’t shy or uncertain this time and he reached his other hand up to cup her jaw.

“Are you…”

“Don’t you dare,” she said, removing his thumb from her mouth and pressing a hard kiss to the
palm of his hand. “Don’t you dare ask me if I’m sure.”

“I don’t want you to regret being with me,” he said honestly, swallowing hard on the fear that he’d
been trying so hard to ignore. “I’m going to do every single thing that I ever told you I would, I’m
going to fuck you until you can’t breathe, and you forget your own name. But you have to be sure.”

“I’m sure,” she said, her voice breathy and trembling. “I want you… please .”

She didn’t wait for an answer, her fingers working quickly over the buttons of his shirt and then
gliding over his chest, her touch still featherlight and uncertain as she pushed the material off his
shoulders to leave him bare to her gaze.

Her heels gave her enough height to press her mouth against his throat, her lips finding the erratic
beat of his pulse and smiling against his skin.

“Kylo?”

“Hmm?”

“How do you…” She trailed off, her fingers finding the purple of the bruise he’d sucked into her
skin.

“Ah,” he said. “Just close your mouth on a piece of skin and suck slowly.”

She frowned after her first attempt, the pressure too slight and too short to get the results she
wanted, but she beamed up at him after the second try, running her finger proudly over the little
ache she’d left behind.

“Happy?” he asked her, and she nodded.

“Mine,” she said simply, repeating his own declaration back to him.

“Yours,” he agreed. “Always.”

She faltered then, her determination suddenly wavering as she realized she didn’t know what to do
next.

He felt the burden of responsibility settle over him, as she bit her lip and looked up at him with
pleading eyes. He wanted to make it good for her, to be sure that she wouldn’t ever regret what
they were about to do. There were enough bad memories haunting their bed already and he was
determined that she would never be the one with nightmares disturbing her sleep.

“Please,” she said again. “I’m sure, Kylo, show me what to do.”

She was so eager to please and he was lost in her—in her eyes and in the sweetness of her smell
and in the slight wobble of vulnerability in her voice. He wanted to drink it all down, get drunk on
her and never recover.

He scooped her up, his arms snaking around her, one around her back and the other hooking under
her knees to lift her up in his grasp. He carried her to her bed like a bride across the threshold,
except instead of a bridal gown she was wearing almost nonexistent black lace and four-inch heels.

Someday he’d do this into the home they made together. Someday he’d give her his last name and
then carry her in his arms in a glittering white dress and lace veil. That day would be perfect, but
right now, with her skin bare for him and artlessly smeared red lipstick staining her mouth, she was
a vision that he knew he’d never forget.

He laid her on the bed, her body settling against the innocent blue and yellow roses of her
bedspread. His hands were shaking as he slid the shoes from her feet and let them drop to the floor
beside the bed, and she was watching him, those sharp hazel eyes dark and wide with desire.

She let her knees fall open, an invitation that he desperately wanted to take, but he wanted her to be
ready, wanted to pull as much pleasure from her slender body as she could stand and leave her
sated and drained.

“Not yet,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to her knee and nuzzling his face into her thigh.

“You keep saying that,” she protested.

“Almost,” he soothed. “I promise. I just need you to be ready for me.”

“I am ready,” she whined, shifting her hips toward him insistently.

“ Rey ,” he said, using the deep and firm tone that he knew she liked and waiting for her to be still
before he spoke again. She needed to understand that he wanted to take things slowly and savor
each inch of her skin.

“Your body isn’t ready,” he said when her hips had stopped wiggling, and he dropped a kiss to the
lace covered mound where heat and wetness were already waiting for him. “But I’ll fix that, and
I’ll make you like it.”

He ran his finger down the lace edge of her underwear and her breath hitched in anticipation. He
skimmed them down and over her thighs, tugging them off as tossing them over his shoulder
before turning his face back to worship her cunt, his mouth settling over her greedily.

He used his lips and his tongue to ring the first orgasm out of her, barely giving her time to come
down before plunging his fingers into her, working her back into a frenzy as he stretched her out,
preparing her to take the rest of him until she was desperate and he clinging to his own self-control.

“Condoms?”

It was the last coherent thought he was capable of making as he settled himself between her thighs,
the slick wet heat of her body so tantalizingly close, but he knew it mattered. She wasn’t on birth
control yet and he was not going to ruin her, not going to risk it no matter much he wanted to feel
his bare skin slide against her cunt’s velvet grip.

Besides, it would probably help him last longer, anyway, and he didn’t want to disappoint her by
ending things too soon. He was already teetering on the edge, his cock straining and leaking
precome against the skin of her thigh.

A condom would help.

She tapped the drawer in the nightstand, and he leaned over to open it, propping himself up one
elbow to peer down inside. The soft rumble of his laughter made her frown up at him and he kissed
her forehead, unable to do anything else between the endless chuckles and the wave of love he felt
for her.

She’d bought boxes of so many different sizes, colors, and flavors that the whole drawer was
stacked full of them.Her skin was flushed pink all the way to the tops of her breasts, her face hot
with embarrassment. “I didn’t know what kind to get.”

“You are perfect,” he told her, raining kisses across her face and then lingering over her mouth,
nibbling softly on her swollen bottom lip. “You try so hard to always get everything right.”

“I wanted you,” she countered hotly. “I wasn’t going to risk not being able to do this because I
bought the wrong one, so I bought one of each.”

“That poor cashier,” he said, his forehead resting on hers as he kissed her nose.

“Self-checkout,” she said primly.

“Right,” he said, shaking his head and kissing her again, hard and possessive, before digging back
into the drawer to find something usable. He discarded the strawberry flavored and a box that
looked as though its contents were meant to glow in the dark before finding the right thing.

He tore it open, the gold packaging fluttering down to land on the floor as he rolled the condom on.
She watched him carefully, studying his motions, and he suspected that she’d be asking to try it
herself the next time.

He sucked in a deep breath when she reached her hand between them to slide her fingertips
carefully over his length, experimentally testing the feel of the latex.

“It doesn’t hurt? Or bother you?”

“No,” he said, his hips bucking against her hand, seeking her touch.

“Okay,” she breathed, leaning up to kiss him, her lips lingering on his for a long moment. “Kylo?”

“Now,” he agreed, already knowing what she was going to ask and realizing that there was nothing
to stop him anymore from sinking into her.

“Finally,” she said, arching eagerly up to meet him as he pushed forward slowly. He’d done his
best to prepare her, but he knew that his cock was bigger than anything she’d ever experienced
before, and he was afraid of hurting her if he went too quickly.

He kissed her deeply as he rocked into her, each little thrust of his hips earning him a breathy moan
from low in her throat and another inch of precious space inside her. She was ready enough that it
surprised him how easily she took him in, how encouraging and pleased her little noises were.
He wanted to be soft, but she had no patience, her legs were twined around his waist and holding
him close as she begged him for more and harder and deeper and he gave it to her because how
could he not? He’d do anything for her with her face so gloriously flushed and her hair all sweaty
and perfect little pink lips moaning his name.

There was nothing fake or polished about her, she was unashamed and greedy, and her perfect little
tits bounced just right as he fucked into her and he couldn’t believe that this was his life. That after
everything he’d done and everything he’d seen, after he’d lived through Luke and Snoke and that
hellhole of a prison for thirteen years…that now he was here, and he was with her and his cock
was buried balls deep in the hottest and most welcoming cunt he’d ever seen.

He didn’t’ think he’d ever understand how it was possible that this perfect woman loved him, that
she wanted him, that she’d given him her heart with the same eager fervor as she was now giving
him her body.

He could feel her getting closer as he drove into her, each snap of his hips pushing her nearer. She
was clenching around him, her hands scrambling for something to hold onto as she dug her nails
into his back.

“You’re so fucking pretty,” he said, watching her face as the words broke over. “So good. It’s so
good that you can take all of me like this. Did you know that?”

She tossed her head back and forth on the pillows, a silent denial.

“I love you and I love this pretty cunt and how good it feels,” he insisted, and she clenched around
him, her body getting hotter and wetter with each bit of praise. He worked himself inside her,
discovering the angles that made her arch and moan. He found all of her sensitive places and the
perfect speed, grinding into her so that each thrust pushed him in as deeply as she could take him .

“Come for me,” he urged. He wanted it, wanted to feel her as she lost control, but more than that he
knew that she wanted it. He could feel how close she was, how desperate.

She was tensing as she reached for it, trying to cross that final distance, and when he reached a
hand between them to find the sensitive bud of her clit with his fingers, she came apart almost
instantly.

The tight and rapid flutter of her cunt and the sound of her screaming his name as she came around
him was enough to push him over the edge with her, his thrusts becoming erratic as he buried his
face in the side of her neck and then drove in deep to spill himself inside her.

He held her there, both of them trembling and content as he pressed a ling of kisses across her
cheek and down her neck, until he began to soften inside her.

“Sorry,” he said, kissing her softly as he pulled out of her. “I have to take care of this.”

The confusion cleared from her face when she watched him roll out of bed and take the condom
off.

“I’ll be back,” he promised, heading out into the hallway to dispose of it in the trash can as she
waited for him, her chin propped up in her hand. There was a happy smile on her face and she
hadn’t moved at all when he came back.

“You know, we never even managed to take off my bra,” she said, reaching up to snap the thin
strap against her shoulder.
“You were in a hurry,” he reminded her. “Beautiful and greedy little minx.”

She giggled but she didn’t deny it.

He flopped back in bed beside her and gave her a little smack on the ass. “Go pee,” he instructed,
stopping her in the act of trying to curl back up against him.

“What? Why?”

“You just have to,” he explained. “It keeps you from getting UTI’s or whatever. From all the stuff
we were just doing down there. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that?”

She shook her head, shrugging as she got to her feet. “All we ever got was the abstinence talk, you
know?”

“They really didn’t teach you shit about anything, did they?”

She shook her head ruefully. “No, they really didn’t. But now I have you, so thank you for being so
patient with me.”

“Rey.” He grabbed her hand as she walked by, not letting do until she stopped to look down at him.
“There is nothing that I wouldn’t do for you. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me and I
love you.”

“I love you, too,” she said grinning down at him and kissing him quickly before disappearing into
the bathroom.

He watched her go, admiring the curve of her naked ass as she went. She hadn’t been gone long
when he heard the shower turn on and he leaned back against the pillows to wait for her.

He’d nearly dozed off, his body relaxed and his mind lost in a pleasant hum of love and post sex
glow, when her phone on the nightstand began to buzz. He glanced at the name and saw Dad
spelled out across the screen. He thought about answering it—he couldn’t avoid the man forever,
after all—but the timing couldn’t possibly have been worse.

Would her father be able to tell what he’d just be doing to her? Would he be able to detect the
subtle signs of pure masculine satisfaction in his voice?

Better not to risk it, he decided, setting the phone back down as he waited for Rey.

She would have to call him back, Kylo knew. Call him back and reassure him that she was fine,
that she hadn’t been hurt. She’d have to go back to school, maybe work if she still wanted to. She’d
want to go back to church.

Everything in their little apartment was perfect but the real world was out there, and it wouldn’t
wait for them forever, wouldn’t wait for Rey forever.

And she wouldn’t want it to.

He’d been in prison where all he had was her, but she’d been out here living a full and happy life.
She had friends, family, a faith that was important to her.

He wasn’t sure suddenly how he would fit into that life, where there would be room for him beside
all the other people that she loved.

She walked back into the room, a towel draped around her body and her wet hair brushed back
 away from her face. She looked happy and there was still a soft smile lingering at the corners of
her mouth but he felt a hard knot of dread settle into the pit of his stomach.

Chapter End Notes

If you noticed that the chapter count went up again, please know that I am terrible at
estimating chapter counts. I was trying to keep this story at about 100,000 words but
that just isn't going to happen. It would cut things off at the knee and make the end
feel rushed and terrible. So we've still got a lot to work through and I'll adjust stuff as
needed.
 Fuck You
Chapter Summary

Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper
exalts folly- Proverbs 14:29

Chapter Notes

I apologize for the delay in updates! I got a little bit obsessed with dark Reylo
canonverse story and ended up neglecting my WIPS. That story is finished now so I'm
back to working on at least somewhat regular updates.

CW // angst

The day that Rey had gone back to school had been the day Kylo found out that an apartment could
be just as much of a prison as a prison cell.

He’d languished on the couch that day and every day since, his too tall frame forcing him to leave
his legs dangling over the arm rest as he flipped through the channels. He’d never been much for
TV, that had been Hux’s distraction, and he hadn’t quite been able to face the box he’d carried out
of prison to find his art supplies. It carried too many memories in between the cardboard walls, and
he had been afraid that the smell of it alone would somehow take him back there, that he’d wake
up and find he was still locked up on the inside and everything that happened since had been
nothing but a fanciful dream.

Still, at least the prison had given him a job. A shitty one, but it had helped him pass the time.
There was nothing for him to do in Rey’s apartment, and even if he’d had a license a quick check
of the news every morning had been enough to let them know that his face was still plastered
across every channel. They weren’t exactly shy about showing Rey, either, from that day at the
courthouse, but her part in it had been rendered less important by the stunning verdict and by the
time it had hit the national news they’d spent much less time focusing on her.

The few that bothered to mention her painted her as a victim of his manipulations, so they were
relatively certain that it was safe for her to go out, that she was less likely to get swept up in an ugly
incident if she showed her face in public.

After that morning at Target, he had stayed behind while she went out to get them whatever they
needed.

Food.

Dish soap.

Condoms.
Rey’s tiny drawer in her bedside table held almost exactly a week’s supply at the rate they were
using them. A fact that made her blush furiously, but she never turned away when he reached for
her and she’d woken him up more than once with her eyes already wanting and her hand on his
cock.

That week had been good for them. Rey had refused to go to work or class, and she hadn’t let
anyone into the apartment to visit or tried to drag him out to meet her friends or have dinner with
her dad. They called, usually several times a day and at odd hours, to check on her, but she
remained stubborn about their need for privacy.

It had been a week of bliss, of late-night talks and early morning cuddles and fucking each other
senseless on every surface in the apartment.

It had kept him busy -- though not so busy that he’d forgotten to call and schedule an appointment
with Amilyn to discuss his trust fund money, and busy meant he hadn’t had time to dwell on
anything.

Then Rey had gone back to school, leaving him with nothing but his thoughts, the TV, and a cell
phone that she’d bought for him so he could call her in class if there was an emergency while she
was out. He still hadn’t figured out how to use it and his fingers were too big for the buttons.

He was bored and alone.

Lonely.

But not lonely enough to give in to the urge to see or talk to anyone but Rey. She was the only that
had been there for him while he was in, and she was the only one he wanted to see now that he was
out.

Amilyn’s assistant had passed along a message when she’d made his appointment for the next
week, giving him the contact information for some of the witnesses that had showed up for him at
the trial—Mitaka, Bazine, Vicrul . They wanted to keep in touch, now that he was out, but he
couldn’t find it in him to reach out. He was grateful that they’d come, but bitter about the years
that they’d let him suffer in isolation.

This day was no different, and by the time he heard Rey’s key slide into the lock, he was restless
and frustrated from being trapped in the small apartment.

All of that fell away when he got a good look at her tear-soaked face as she flew into his arms,
launching herself at him without bothering to close the front door behind him and nearly knocking
him back down onto the couch before he’d fully managed to get his feet under him.

“What happened?”

“They found me,” she wailed. “On campus. They were waiting for me when I got there, shoving
cameras in my face and asking me questions about you. Asking me for interviews. Asking me to
ask you for interviews. It was awful. Campus security had to chase them off the property.”

“Shit,” he said, tightening his grip on her and trying to nudge the door shut with his foot as she
wiped her nose subtly on his T-shirt. “Did they follow you back here?”

“I don’t think so,” she said with a shake of her head. “I didn’t see them when I left campus and I
left out one of the back entrances that almost no one uses.”

“How did they even find you?” He didn’t really expect for her to know the answer, but he couldn’t
think of anything else to say.

“I don’t know for sure,” she said, wiping her eyes as she dropped down heavily onto the couch.
“But whoever keeps tipping them off seems to know a lot about me. My friends, my school.”

“But they don’t know where you live,” he said, filling in the obvious gap. “So, someone who
knows you but not someone close to you.”

She nodded and pressed her face into her hands, elbows on her knees as she curled into herself and
hiccoughed softly.

“Rey…” What could he possibly say after everything she’d gone through for him? “I’m sorry. I’m
sorry that I’ve caused you nothing but trouble since the day that first letter came.”

She looked up at him, eyes red rimmed and cheeks pink with fury. “That’s not all that you’ve
brought me,” she said. “You’ve brought me happiness and love and don’t you dare think that after
everything else, one bad day with a bunch of reporters is going to make me regret it.”

He blinked at her and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “Okay, that’s fair,” he
acknowledged. “I just want you to be happy and I would do anything to make sure I wasn’t in any
way to blame for it when you’re not.”

She huffed, her pink cheeks puffing as she blew out a frustrated stream of breath. “I know,” she
agreed. “It’s just hard for me to hear you say things like that.”

“Sorry,” he said, sitting down on the couch beside her and wrapping an arm around her shoulder as
she leaned into him. “I want to protect you.”

“I don’t need protecting,” she insisted. “At least not much. I just need you to be on my side with all
this, just like always.”

“I can do that,” he said firmly. “Do you want me to make dinner while you take a nap or
something?”

She shook her head. “Can’t. We have church tonight. It’s Wednesday and I’ve already missed last
week’s Bible group and Sunday’s sermon. I can’t miss it again.”

Kylo stiffened beside her, pulling back to look down at her as she fumbled to put her keys and bag
on the coffee table. “Rey,” he said, his voice uncertain even to his own ears. “I’m…I’m not really
comfortable going to church with you. Well, not you… I’m just not comfortable with going to
church at all.”

“What?” She turned to look at him, her face puzzled. “I know you had bad experiences, but this is
just my friends, my dad. You like my dad, remember?”

“Yes,” he said. “I remember, but I still…”

She held up a hand, bringing him to a stop as she glared at him. “You don’t think my dad is like
Luke, do you? Because he isn’t. He would never do anything like that.”

“I know,” he said quickly, trying to placate her long enough to explain himself. “I just don’t think I
could stand going back into a church.”

“You knew this was important to me,” she said stiffly. “My friends…Rose, Finn…they’re waiting
to meet you.”
“I can meet them,” he said. “We can go out to lunch or meet them at the park. They can come here,
all of them. I just can’t go to church.”

She shook her head wildly, grabbing her keys and her bag off the table and pushing to her feet.
“Fine,” she said coldly. “Don’t come, then. I can go by myself. I don’t need you to come anyway.”

“Baby,” he said, reaching her arm and frowning when she shook him off and yanked the door
open.

“No,” she snapped. “Don’t you baby me right now. You wait till now? Till I’m supposed to be at
church in an hour to tell me that you’re not going to come and meet the people I care about? After
everything else today, this is the last bullshit I needed.”

He flinched at that but if she noticed it didn’t stop her from barreling on, from leveling him with
whatever feelings she was dealing with.

“Fuck you,” she said, glaring at him with her chin tipped back and tears rolling down her face.

The door closed behind her with a final click, and he stood alone in the middle of her small living
room thinking he probably shouldn’t have taught her to curse.

***

Rey fumed about it all the way to church, cruising down the small highway that led her back to the
familiar turns of her hometown probably just a little faster than was legal or wise. It brought her
into town a little earlier than she needed to be and she sat in the church parking lot alone until Rose
pulled into the spot beside her.

“Bad day?” she asked, leaning down beside Rey’s window and peering into her with a worried
frown.

“The worst,” Rey admitted, her head dropping onto the steering wheel as she groaned.

“Come on,” Rose urged, opening the door and pulling her out of her sleeve. “Let’s go inside and
I’ll get you some cookies.”

“I like cookies,” Rey sniffled, leaning on Rose as they carried in the snacks and supplies. “I could
eat a dozen of them.”

“I have enough for that,” Rose said, opening a Tupperware bowl and shoving a chocolate chip
cookie into Rey’s outstretched hand. “But you’ll make yourself sick.”

“It would be worth it,” Rey said around a mouthful of comforting crumbs.

“Yeah?” Rose asked. “What happened? And where’s Kylo?”

“He’s not coming,” Rey said, flopping down in a cracked plastic chair and gesturing aggressively
with the remains of her cookie. “He said he didn’t think he’d be comfortable in a church! I mean, I
know Luke did horrible things, but does he really think that I’d be coming here if this was anything
like that?”

Rose hummed sympathetically and handed Rey another cookie.

“My dad is nothing like Luke,” Rey said bitterly. “He liked my dad and I know he’d like you and
Finn and everyone. He isn’t even giving you a chance! He knows how much this place means to
me.”

Rey shoved the second cookie in her mouth, not even bothering to finish chewing before she
continued, gaining steam as she went.

“ And ,” she said, voice rising to emphasis how ridiculous she thought he was being, “he didn’t tell
me he wasn’t coming until I was ready to leave, right after I got done crying all over him about
getting cornered on campus by reporters.”

“Oh, sweetie” Rose said, setting down the stack of cups she was holding to pull Rey into a tight
hug. “Are you okay? That’s awful.”

Fresh tears spilled over as Rey shook her head. “No, I’m not. I’d already had the worst day and he
just…he just isn’t here,” she said. “I probably didn’t handle it very well, but I was so damn mad ,
so hurt that he’d make me come alone instead of wanting to be part of my life.”

“I don’t think that’s it at all,” Rose said, wiping at Rey’s tears with a napkin from the snack table.
“Did he say that he didn’t want to meet us?”

“No,” Rey admitted.

“He loves you,” Rose said. “Men are dumb, and he’s overwhelmed right now. Church has a lot of
bad memories for him, and he might just not want to face that. He’s just gotten his freedom and
he’s worried about you and his future and a job and where you’re going to live.”

Rey sighed, trying not to acknowledge the little twinge of guilt that they’d decided not to tell
anyone about the trust fund until they were sure that Kylo would be able to access it. “So, I’m just
supposed to forgive him? I get that he’s overwhelmed but he could have talked to me about it
sooner and not after everything that happened today.”

“You don’t have to just forgive him,” Rose said wisely. “Make him apologize for not talking to
you about it first.”

“If he apologizes then I have to apologize,” Rey said, pouting as she reached for another cookie.

“Did you do something to apologize for?”

“I may have said ‘fuck you’ as I left,” Rey mumbled.

“Then I supposed you do,” Rose agreed. “You remember my first big fight with Finn. You made
me apologize, too.”

“Does he know that it was my idea?” Rey asked, leaning companionably against Rose’s arm.

“Of course not,” Rose said with a snort. “I took all the credit for it.”

Rey laughed, some of the tension draining from her shoulders, but after a moment she looked up at
Rose with a frown. “I just...I don’t understand why we’re fighting. It’s not like us. We never fight.”

“He was in prison,” Rose said with a shrug. “You didn’t want to spend the little time you had to
talk to him arguing about stuff. Now he lives with you and that’s different. You can’t just hang up
the phone and avoid talking about the things that irritate you. You’re gonna have to deal with all
the stuff that you could sweep under the rug before and you’re gonna fight about it.”

“I don’t like it,” Rey said.

“No one does,” Rose agreed, “but do you know a single couple that doesn’t argue? Conflict is not
something you can avoid when you have to see each other every day. You’re going to fight about
big stuff, little stuff, stuff that doesn’t even really make any sense. Did I tell you about the
argument I had with Finn about what kind of toothpaste to keep in our bathroom?”

Rey giggled around a mouthful of cookie. “No, I don’t think you did. Who won that one?”

“No one did. We switched to a different kind completely. You have to learn to fight fair and how to
compromise.” She gave Rey a pointed look. “And how to make up when you’ve said mean
things.”

Rey sighed. “I don’t think either of us really knows what we’re doing here.”

“You didn’t know how to be a couple while he was in prison at first,” Rose reminded her. “But you
figured it out and you did it without any real support from us. Now that he’s out it’s almost like you
two have to start over. You have to learn each other all over again in a different way. It’s going to
be hard, but this time you’ll have all the help I can give you.”

“Thank you,” Rey said softly. “I was afraid…”

“I know,” Rose said, giving Rey a quick hug. “But you’ve sounded happy every time I’ve talked to
you since he got out. I made the mistake of not supporting you once and I’m not making that
mistake again. So, unless something changes and he really messes things up, I’ll do whatever I can
to help you two work things out.”

“I love you, Rosie,” Rey said. “I’ll take your advice and apologize as soon as I get home.”

“Good,” Rose said. “And I love you, too.”

The good feeling that Rey got from her conversation with Rose didn’t last long. The arrival of the
others meant the arrival of curious and judgmental eyes, the worst of which predictably belonged
to Mrs. Nu. Her face had been all over the news, so was there no hiding that Kylo was out and even
though she was sure that no one had told the malicious old woman where he was staying, she
would have guessed it correctly on her own.

Rose tried to keep her voice upbeat and the discussions moving as they planned the upcoming
Fourth of July picnic, sending supportive and encouraging smiles as often as she could, but it
didn’t stop Rey’s cheeks from burning.

Most of them probably assumed that Kylo was down the hall with her father, doing whatever it was
that the men did on Wednesdays while the ladies had their Bible club meeting, but they would
expect him to come and get her when the meeting was over. When he didn’t show up with the
other husbands and boyfriends, there would be no way for her to hide that he’s made her come
alone.

It shouldn’t matter to her what Mrs. Nu or the others thought. She knew that—she did— but even
knowing it and understanding why Kylo felt the way he did about coming with her, didn’t dull the
hurt or the embarrassment.

She tried to make it to Rose as quickly as she could after the meeting was over, to say her goodbyes
and leave before anyone could stop her or make any comments about Kylo that she wasn’t
prepared to deal with, but Mrs. Nu must have anticipated her reaction. Rey found her path blocked
almost before she’d had a chance to leave her seat.

“I heard on the television about your young man getting out of jail,” Mrs. Nu said silkily.
“Congratulations. Of course, the news didn’t seem to think it was all that wonderful, what with him
being a danger to the community and all.”

“He’s not dangerous,” Rey said bitterly.

Mrs. Nu nodded, her expression one of forced pity. “I hope not, dear. For your sake as well as the
rest of us. Is he here?” She looked around curiously, as though a stranger in a group this size
wouldn’t have been immediately apparent to everyone.

“No.”

“Ah,” she said, teeth flashing in a practiced smile. “I’m sure he’s probably off talking to your
father about wedding plans. Can’t live in sin forever, can you?”

Rey snapped her teeth together so hard she was sure that they were on the verge of cracking,
forcing her lips to turn up at the corners until her own smile was nearly as blinding and false as
Mrs. Nu’s. “He didn’t come tonight,” she said, surprised at how polite the words sounded. “As for
living in sin, I might just be willing to do that forever. His dick is big enough to make it worth it.”

Mrs. Nu’s jaw dropped, her mouth hanging open comically as she stared silently at Rey.

“And you can tell whoever you want to that I said that,” Rey continued in a furious whisper,
“because they’ll never believe you.”

She stepped around the still silent Mrs. Nu and gave Rose and Mrs. Kanata a quick hug before
gathering her things and dashing down the hallway and out to her car. She didn’t even stop to say
goodbye to her father.

It took her three tries to get the door unlocked and her hands were shaking as she put the key in the
ignition. She held herself together long enough to leave the parking lot and drive just down the
road to the nearest gas station.

She parked as far away from the door as she could, the night lit by nothing but the dim neon green
sign above her, put her head down on the steering wheel, and cried.
 I'll Be Fine
Chapter Summary

"Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the
path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure." Proverbs 4:25-26

Chapter Notes

Once again I'm sorry for the delay on this chapter. I needed to go over what we have
left and make sure that things were lining up right to have everything wrapped up in
the remaining chapters and it took a little bit of thinking and adjustment to make sure I
got it right! I am also extremely behind on answering my comments and I am going to
try and get caught up as soon as possible but please know that I love reading them and
they always brighten my day when I get them! You're all amazing for reading this far
and I am grateful beyond words to each and everyone of you!

All of my love and my thanks to my incredible beta and brainstorming partner

RushReylo! I've said it before and I will say it again, I could not have made it this far
without you!

TW // Not much for this chapter, just NSFW content

Kylo set his teeth and swallowed a comment that he knew would have made her cry as he watched
Rey hurry in the door after class and drop her bag on the couch.

She gave him a bright smile and it was obvious even to him that she had nothing to deserve his
temper, but it seemed that was all he had to offer her these days outside the bedroom.

The uneasy truce they’d reached the night after she’d come home from attending church the first
time without him--when she’d come home still mad and puffy eyed from crying and thrown herself
into his arms to let him soothe her with his mouth and his hands and his body--had held as the
weeks began to bleed together, but the strain that their relationship was under, that he was under,
was becoming more obvious with each passing day.

They’d gotten into another petty argument on the way to the meeting with Amilyn and then again
in her office, surrounded by piles of paperwork that needed to be signed for him to access his trust
fund money. She’d seemed nearly ashamed when she’d had to tell them that Leia hadn't sent any
personal message, just a file with his birth certificate and social security card, his immunization
and medical records up until he’d been sent to Luke’s. It was a blessing, containing all the
documents he hadn’t even realized he’d need to start an adult life until he’d held them in his hands
and been hit with all the things he didn’t know how to do.

He was a grown man, nearly thirty, and he’d never signed his own paperwork or driven his own
car.
It had become painfully obvious again at the DMV, waiting in a line for hours while people snuck
blatantly hostile glances at him over their shoulders only to discover that he would need a permit to
practice driving until he could pass the driving exam. Rey would have to sit with him in the
passenger seat, guiding him on the rules of the road and trying not wince when he cut too close to a
parked car. She was giving, patient, but he was humiliated and irritable, ashamed that he’d found
yet another way to burden her, another way to fail her.

The money he knew he would soon have to give her didn’t keep his failures from creeping into his
dreams. Rey’s face mingled with the women of his past, merging with Bazine’s and his mother’s,
with women whose names he had never known as they swam in and out of his nightmares until he
bolted upright in bed and crept silently to the kitchen to stare at the time on her microwave as it
crept toward dawn. Sometimes she followed him, urging him to come back to bed until he
complied or snapped at her, the words coming like daggers that cut them both, but that had become
less frequent as his tone became harsh and his eyes bleary from lack of sleep.

She’d gotten more guarded around him, probing his mood before settling in beside him on the
couch or telling him about her day. Far too often they ate in silence, his bubbling and impotent fury
smothering any words that might have arisen between them. Having the apartment to himself, no
matter how lonely, had almost become preferable to the sad confusion in her eyes.

“Will you be okay here by yourself?” she asked, sucking her lip between her teeth as she looked at
him.

He knew what she was really asking, the same thing she asked every time she went.

Are you sure you won’t come with me?

He answered as he always did, each new string of words always adding up to the same sentiment.

No

“I’ll be fine,” he said, hating himself as she grimaced at his tone. “Have a nice time.”

She nodded, shooting him a weak smile at the barely there attempt at civility that he’d tacked on at
the end.

He sat on the couch once she’d gone, his head buried in his hands as the anger faded away and left
him with nothing but a hollow hole in the gut carved out of him by the disappointment he’d seen on
her face. How had life been easier when he was in prison?

***

Church had not gotten easier since her last encounter with Mrs. Nu and Rey crept in late, hoping to
avoid being forced to speak to anyone and shrugging a haphazard apology at Rose as she sank into
a seat at the back.

Several heads turned to look at her, their frowns and whispers the only proof she needed that Mrs.
Nu was still spreading word as far and wide as she could about what Rey had said to her. In
hindsight, telling the biggest gossip in church that her boyfriend had a big dick might not have been
the best decision that she’d ever made but Rey tipped her chin up anyway. The remark she’d made
was regrettable but Mrs. Nu had forced her to defend herself , to defend Kylo and their relationship.

She might have made a different choice under other circumstances,but the fact was that she hadn’t
had the time to think it through and the whole thing had come at the end of a very bad day. What
she’d said couldn’t be unsaid, and she refused to let Mrs. Nu or anyone else make her feel worse
than she already did. Not just about causing yet another small scandal at church that would
inevitably cause problems for her father and Rose, but also for the way she’d failed to handle her
relationship. She was still consistently attending church functions alone, a fact that caused a few
more raised brows and suspicious whispers each week.

She always offered, but she knew he wasn’t going to come.

Kylo had been irritable and distant since their fight. He still held her when they slept and he didn’t
turn her down for intimacy but he rarely left the apartment even when she was home to help him
drive and he was often out of bed before she woke in the mornings . She wasn’t sure how much
time he spent actually sleeping at night but the dark circles under his eyes told her that it wasn’t
enough and he wasn’t willing to discuss whatever nightmares plagued him. He often looked like a
trapped animal, the thin smile he gave her almost more a baring of his teeth than a sign of genuine
happiness.

She hadn’t expected the transition from prison to be immediate or free of problems, but the longer
he was out the more there was an itch under her skin, a thought that ran through her head on an
endless loop. It was both frightening and incredibly unhelpful, but she couldn’t escape the
relentless refrain.

He wasn’t adjusting well.

She drummed her fingers on her knee, barely listening to Rose and the others as the thought chased
itself through her mind. She knew it was true, she could see it in him, but the way to help him
eluded her. It had seemed so simple when he’d been in prison, when all she’d needed to do was be
a friend to him and then a partner. Standing with him had been easy when the common enemies
had been the prison itself and the state. The bars that had kept them apart were something that Rey
could see, the law something that she could understand.

Now the enemy was something else, something far less tangible. It was Kylo’s mind, still carrying
his past and all the pain that he’d learned to bury but never learned to live with. It was the skills he
didn’t have and the life he’d missed and the bitterness that not even her love could fully erase from
his heart.

Even after everything, she’d never given up hope, never wavered on her conviction that she was on
the path that God had chosen for her—after all, why would God have given her this mountain if it
could not be moved?—but she’d believed that the hardest part was behind her. That when he’d
walked out of that prison, their lives would get better and she wouldn’t have to be so strong
anymore.

Realizing now that getting him out of prison may have actually been the easy part was enough to
make her want to scream, to cry and tear at her hair and rail at the heavens until God answered her
and told her why she was the one that had been given the burden of such an impossible love. What
had He seen in her, what had He made in her, that she would be the one fashioned to love Kylo
through all these challenges, through all his pain?

It was a question she often wondered about these days and one that inevitably lead her back to her
own parents. Had they thought that about loving a broken hearted little girl that had more bones
than skin? One that bit and yelled and hid food in every available crack of her bedroom until the
whole thing had smelled of rot? Had they ever thought about giving up when she pushed them
away or they’d had to spend yet another afternoon driving her to a doctor or a therapist or another
meeting with the caseworker as they tried to adopt a child that they weren’t sure would ever be
able to love them back?
Rey had forgotten most of that time. She’d been too young to remember most of it, but some of her
earliest memories were of curling up in her mother’s lap, surrounded by the smell of home and
sweet perfume and listening to another story of how they’d chosen her. How they’d asked for her
and fought for her and tried their best every day for her.

If they’d ever thought about giving up, she’d never heard them speak of it and she wasn’t going to
shame them by turning her back on someone who loved her, who needed her. She would not turn
her back on the path that God had chosen for her no matter how difficult it was.

If there was one thing she knew, that her family had taught her, it was the power of love to change
the life of a person and she was counting on that now.

He wasn’t adjusting well.

That was fine. She’d just just have to keep trying with him until he did. There was no other option
for her, no way for her to quit on something that mattered this much.

“You seem distracted today,” Rose said and Rey jumped, a guilt flush on her cheeks as she realized
the meeting had been dismissed and she had been too deep in her thoughts to notice. “Are you
okay?”

“I’m fine,” Rey said. “Just trying to work some things out in my mind.”

“Well, if I was you, I think I’d try and get out of here tonight before Mrs. Nu corners you again.”

“Why? What’s happened now?”

Rose jerked her chin over her shoulder, indicating a little cluster of people near the snack table.
“Poe’s come by tonight with his wife. Remember Mrs. Nu telling us about Zorri? That’s her.”

Rey had been too preoccupied to notice the new face in the crowd but she saw her now. A tall and
pretty woman that might be a few years older than Rey herself, she had brown hair that fell around
her face in soft waves and a ready smile.

“She looks nice,” Rey said with a shrug.

“ I haven’t talked to her yet and she might be, but Mrs. Nu isn’t and you know she’s going to come
running over to point out how much better she thinks Zorri is and how lucky Poe was to end up
with her instead of you.”

“I wish Mrs. Nu would understand that we were both lucky to end up with someone that was better
suited to us,” Rey said, pressing a hand to her temple where a headache was beginning to form. She
should be used to this by now, but dealing with it never seemed to get easier. “Maybe I can still
make it out without her spotting me.”

Rose shook her head. “I think it’s too late,” she said, handing Rey a consolation cookie. “She was
talking to Poe, snapped him up as soon as he came in looking for Zorri, and now she’d just send
him headed this way. I guess she thought that was better than coming over herself.”

“She’s right,” Rey groaned. and popped a bite of cookie into her mouth. It had been a long time
since she’d had to deal with Poe and it still didn’t quite feel like long enough.

“Hey, Rose, how are you doing?’

Rose gave Poe her brightest smile as he joined them and turned her body to shield Rey from his
view. “I’m doing fine,” she said sweetly. “It’s been a long time since you came around and I see
you’ve brought your wife this time. Maybe you can introduce me and tell me about the new church
you’ve got? I hear it’s just a few towns over down the highway.”

“It is,” he agreed, but he seemed determined not to let her lead him away without speaking to Rey.

“Hello,” he said, leaning around Rose until Rey was forced to smile at him, too.

“Hi,” Rey said tightly. “I’m sorry I won’t have time to meet your wife, but I was just leaving.’

“I understand,” he said, looking over at Zorri as he nodded.. “We’ll be here next week, too. I took a
bit of a vacation so we could come and stay with my mother after her surgery.”

Rey had completely forgotten about Mrs. Dameron’s heart surgery and she had to admit that
coming to stay with her during her recovery was a decent thing for Poe and his wife to do. “Well,
maybe I’ll meet her next week,” she conceded as she got to her feet and tried to shuffle toward the
door.

“It’s a shame you won’t be able to meet Rey’s…whatever do you call the man you live with?”

Rey hadn’t noticed Mrs. Nu approaching from behind Poe and she bared her teeth in something
that might almost have passed for a smile if it hadn’t been for the edge to her voice when she
answered. “He’s my boyfriend.”

“Oh,” Poe said, looking rapidly between the three women and trying to determine the source of the
sudden tension in the air. “I remember seeing something on the news about him getting out of
prison, I think. They made things seem…well…”

“Yes,” Rey said quickly, taking a few steps back toward the door. If she left now she could rob
Mrs. Nu of the opportunity to parade her sins in front of an audience again. “He’s waiting for me,
so I better go.”

“He doesn’t come,” Mrs. Nu said to Poe, leaning in to pass the information along as though they
were sharing a secret and letting her voice lilt into something sickly sweet. It was the kind of thing
that sounded like concern on the surface, but was loaded beneath with pity and condescension.

Rey didn’t wait to hear Poe’s response as she turned and hurried from the room and she didn’t give
in to the urge to sneak another glance at his wife as she passed. The woman lived the life that might
have been hers had things gone a little differently, but whatever curiosity she might have felt was
buried beneath a mound of shame and frustration.

That feeling stayed with her until she swept into the apartment, door banging roughly on the wall
as she tossed it open. She was vibrating with rage, her hands shaking as she replayed the scene at
the church over in her mind.

Kylo bolted up on the couch, his face creased with worry as she slammed the door behind her.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “What happened?”

“Poe happened,” she said, her voice pitched high and wobbling on each syllable. “Mrs. Nu
happened.”

“Did they do something? Say something to you?”

“Poe was there,” she snapped, “with his wife.”

“Okay?”

“And that was all the ammunition Mrs. Nu needed,” Rey said, choking down a sob and clinging to
the anger instead. “All she needed to hurt me, to find another opportunity to throw you in my face
again.”

“Rey…”

“No,” she said, shaking her head until the hair whipped around her face. “I know it’s not easy for
you, but coming to that prison wasn’t easy for me, either. The meetings with the lawyers, the
courtroom, the guards…all of it. All of it was hard, Kylo.”

He swallowed hard but said nothing as the first tear tipped over her lashes and onto her cheek.

“You can’t keep yourself locked in here,” she continued. “You can’t make this apartment into
another prison.”

“We’ll buy a house,” he began, but he stopped when she held up a hand.

“You can’t make the apartment a prison, or a house, or our home at all,” she said firmly. “You
can’t make me deal with all of this alone.”

“What did she say to you?” he asked.

“The same thing she says every time,” Rey said. “That if you loved me, you’d be there for me.”

“Is that what you think?”

She shook her head, huffing in frustration.

“Then what do you think?”

“I know you love me,” she said, firm and fierce so he would know that she had no doubts, “but I
need you to try. You have to do more than this, more than just sitting and stewing in your
thoughts.”

“What if I can’t go to church?” he asked. “Or learn to drive or…I don’t know what else,” he
admitted. “I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do.”

“You’re supposed to start where you are,” she said, “and you go from there to wherever life takes
you. I’ll be there, wherever you end up.”

He shuddered, his body rocking with the force of it. “What if I fail you?”

“Then you do,” she said. “You wouldn’t be the first person or the last. What if I fail you? What if
we fail each other and we keep going anyway because we’re too stubborn to quit?”

The barest ghost of a smile crossed his face. “That sounds like us.”

“It does,” she agreed. “I’m not asking you to believe the same things that I do. I’m asking you to
show up once or twice for me so they’ll leave me alone.”

He nodded and reached for her, tugging her into his arms and resting his chin on her shoulder. “I
can do that,” he said and she believed him. There was no doubt in his voice now, only unwavering
determination. “I should have done it sooner and protected you from that old bitch.”
“It would have been nice,” Rey agreed. “But I should have talked to you about it and explained
how bad things were and what I needed from you.”

“It would have been nice,” he said, repeating her words back to her and grinning when she nipped
at his shoulder. “You know I love you, don’t you?”

“I know,” she said. There was still so much that they needed to work out but the burden of having
this particular problem between them fell away and she felt lighter, more relaxed than she had in
weeks. Now that she had calmed down, her body reacted to his proximity as it always did—with
want. She could feel the gentle fan of his breath on her neck and the solid muscle of his arm
beneath her fingers.

“Kylo…”

But he had already noticed the change in her breath and the way she leaned into him and he was
lifting her before she could even tell him what she needed, carrying to the bedroom with his mouth
on hers. He’d made this walk countless times and he didn’t need to see to know where he was
going or to find the edge of the bed and lower her onto it.

They’d become practiced and efficient at shedding the layers of their clothing, both of them eager
to have the hot slide of skin on skin as quickly as possible, and Rey tugged his shirt over his head
in a single smooth motion that barely broke his concentration as he settled over her and tugged a
nipple between his teeth.

She loved his mouth and the things he did with it—his teeth on her nipple, his tongue in her cunt—
and she’d lost most of her shyness about her body. There wasn’t much that she would have
hesitated to let him see or do if he’d asked and her legs always parted easily for him, eager for his
touch, but he’d been more cautious about letting her overcome her shyness about his body.

He’d kept her a passive participant, focusing his attention on her and limiting what he was willing
to let her do in return.

She’d been grateful at first, her mind already spinning from all the new experiences, but even once
she’d started to try to reach for him, he often turned away, claiming he wanted her to be sure
before she did anything that might make her uncomfortable.

It was time, she decided, tugging on his hair until he reluctantly released his hold on her nipple and
looked up at her.

“Roll over,” she instructed. When he hesitated, she pushed against his shoulder, the pressure
insistent and uncompromising until he complied.

He was on his back, eyebrows raised in surprise as she grasped his length and ran her fingers over
him softly. This she knew how to do and he relaxed under her touch as she drifted over him, her
hand feather light as she traced the bulge of a vein and followed it down to the patch of dark hair at
the base. He sucked in a breath when she crept lower, cupping the surprising weight of his balls
and shaking her head when he started to protest.

“I’m sure,” she said. “I’ve never regretted anything that’s happened between us.”

He leaned back against the pillows, his eyes locked on her as she explored the parts of him that she
wasn’t yet familiar with. She knew what his cock felt like inside of her, but his hands fisted into
her bedsheets as she discovered the taste of it. Her tongue glided over the shaft, learning the texture
and the slightly salty tang of his skin. It filled her mouth as well as it filled the rest of her and the
sounds he made when she closed her lips around him sent heat curling though her, molten desire
turned to fire under her skin.

She lacked the skill to tease him properly and she knew her movements were probably clumsy but
he didn’t complain as she worked her mouth over him, discovering the rhythm and speed that he
seemed to enjoy the most until he shifted and tried to pull away from here.

“Rey,” he said. “I want..”

But she was already moving, rising above him with her knees planted firmly on either side of his
hips, determined to finish this on her own terms this time.

“I want,” she said, “to be on top.”

“You do?”

She nodded. “Can I?”

He swallowed, his throat jerking as he ran his eyes over her body. “Please,” he said. “You’re so
fucking beautiful like this.”

She beamed at him as he fumbled in the bedside drawer for a condom and this time she helped him
roll it on, ridiculously proud of the new things she’d already learned. It was even better when he
helped her line up their bodies so she could sink down onto him, her body opening to take him
deeper than she thought he’d ever been.

Everything was different but it was thrilling to be filled like this and a roll of her hips told her
everything she needed to know about how much he enjoyed it, too, his eyes fluttering shut and his
fingers digging into her skin.

She kept her eyes on his face as she rose and fell above him, each rocking movement met with a
thrust of his hips and a flutter of her cunt. He’d said she was beautiful but right now, with the thin
light of the moon on his skin and his dark hair curling against her pillow as she rode him, she
thought he might be the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

He’d been worth every minute of waiting, every second of worry and when she tipped over the
edge into ecstasy with him buried inside she thought she’d been right after all.

Maybe his dick really was worth the damnation that Mrs. Nu kept threatening her with.
 I'm Coming With You
Chapter Summary

Do everything in love- 1 Corinthians 16:14

Chapter Notes

I'm getting excited about finally nearing the end of this, even though I know we still
have several chapters left. There's still big stuff coming but I can finally see the light at
the end of the tunnel. Thank you all again for the love and support you've given me,
you're all amazing. Special thanks to my very incredible and supportive beta
RushReylo for letting me talk about this story endlessly and always being there when I
start to doubt myself.

I don't think we have any significant trigger warnings for this chapter, but as always,
please let me know if you think I missed something.

“You don’t have to come in,” Rey said, tapping her fingers in the steering wheel and staring out
the windshield at the doors of the church. “At least, not right now.”

“You don’t want me to come in?”

“I want you to come in after the meeting,” she clarified. “You wouldn’t be able to be with me
during the meeting. You’d have to go to the room down the hall with my dad.”

“And Poe,” he said.

“Yes, and Poe,” she agreed. “He’ll be there this week and you’ll meet his wife after.”

“Did you tell your dad that I’d be there?”

“I said you might be there, but I wasn’t sure if you’d change your mind so I didn’t make any
promises.”

He was silent for a moment as he looked out the window at the small building with it’s faded brick
and old windows. “This doesn’t look anything like the church my mother took me to as a kid, or
the place Luke preached when he wasn’t at the school with is.”

“Is that a good thing?”

He smiled, faint and ghosting across his face so quickly she almost missed it. “This place looks
comfortable. Almost like a home. Those were…big and cold and impersonal. Hundreds of people
in expensive clothes hoping to pay their way to forgiveness.”

“We don’t have any of that here,” she said with a shrug. “I’ve seen videos of Luke preaching and it
looks more like a football stadium in there.”
“It does,” he agreed and she knew he was acknowledging that on some level things were different
here than what he’d feared. “I don’t know that I’ll ever believe what you do, but I’m coming with
you, at least this time.”

“If it gets to be too much,” she began, but he leaned across the console and caught her mouth in a
quick kiss.

“I know where the car is,” he said simply. “I’ll wait here till I see people coming out and then I’ll
go back inside.”

“Okay,” she said. She tugged him in for another quick kiss before she opened the car door, trying
to show as much of gratitude and love as possible in a few fleeting seconds. There would be time
for more later, but for now that would have to do.

He was pale as he followed her inside but the hallway was empty as she led him first past the
entrance to the chapel with it’s tidy rows of pews and then the little kitchen where they did their
preparations for parties and picnics. She’d made sure they would be early enough that if he still
wanted to come in she could get him tucked away somewhere more private before people started
arriving and the look on his face told her she’d made the right decision. He was clearly fighting the
urge to bolt and his hand was cold and clammy where it gripped hers.

She paused outside her father’s office and brushed a dark curl off his brow. The strain on his face
made her heart ache uncomfortably and her hands shake. “Are you sure? I shouldn’t have pushed
you, I was being selfish and you don’t have to stay.”

“I’m sure,” he insisted. “I can do this for you.”

She pulled him in for another kiss, her lips brushing his as more of a suggestion than a caress as
guilt of kissing her boyfriend in church warred with her desire to comfort him. Somehow knowing
what they did when they were alone in their apartment seemed worse when he was with her than it
had in the all the time she’d been coming here alone.

“My dad will do his best to make sure you’re comfortable,” she promised, as she raised her hand to
knock.

He nodded and gave her a ghost of a smile but the trust she had in her father and his repeated
promises to be attentive to Kylo’s feelings wasn’t enough to alleviate her worry as she left him
behind to go find Rose.

“Did he come?” Rose asked, her hands full of cupcakes as she set out the snacks on the dessert
table.

“Hello to you, too,” Rey grumbled. “And yes, he came. He’s with my dad right now.”

“Good,” Rose said with a decisive nod. “Pastor Johnson will take care of him.”

Rey sat in the nearest chair and buried her face in her hands. “I know,” she agreed, “but you should
have seen his face. He looked sick as soon he walked into the building. I shouldn’t have asked him
to come, but I wanted him to be here so much and I hate him staying home all the time.”

“He loves you,” Rose said. “Sometimes you have to do hard things for the people you care about.”

“Well it feels awful,” Rey said, heaving a sigh.

She tried to keep her hands and mind busy helping Rose set up the room for the meeting but no
amount of busy work was enough to erase Kylo’s pale face from her mind and she was on the
verge of grabbing him and leaving in a panic by the time the next person arrived.

She hugged Mrs. Kanata and handed out snacks but the meeting passed in a blur and she found it
difficult to focus on anything that was being discussed even once the official business was over and
Poe’s wife sat down in the chair beside her and spent several long minutes talking with Rose.

Zorri was soft spoken and had a sweet, patient smile that seemed to put everyone around her at
ease immediately. Even without the ability to keep track of the details of the conversation it was
obvious to Rey that Rose liked her and that the two of them had found common ground in their
love of church and the opportunities it provided them to be helpful to others.

The soft welcoming energy that Zorri brought to a room reminded Rey of her mother and it was
obvious that she was well suited to the role she’d chosen in life. She was clearly content and
whatever his faults, Poe seemed to treat her well. Rey knew she had made the right choice in not
binding herself to a lifestyle that would never have let her be fulfilled, but she was glad that Zorri
seemed happy.

“Isn’t that right, Rey?”

“Hmm?”

Rose sighed and gestured to Zorri. “I said, it’s nice that they were able to come this week.”

“Oh,” Rey said, sitting up straighter in her chair and trying to drag her attention from the door that
Kylo would be coming through and back to the conversation. “Yes, it’s great to have visitors.”

“Poe used to come around quite a bit so it’s good to see him back,” Rose agreed.

Rey nodded but she couldn’t quite make herself say the words out loud. “How did Mrs. Dameron’s
surgery go?” she asked instead.

“It went well,” Zorri said, her face brightening as her husband came into the room. “She’s been
very sweet to me since I married Poe and I’m glad that God watched over her.”

“She’s a kind woman,” Rey agreed, but she was already distracted again as she tried to spot Kylo in
the crowd.

“Rey,” Poe said as he crossed the room to Zorri’s side. “Your dad and Kylo said they’d be coming
right behind us. Pastor Johnson wanted me to let you know it would take them a few minutes but
not to worry because they’re both fine.”

“Thanks,” Rey said, slumping back in her seat and trying not to let her anxious thoughts show on
her face.

“I see you’ve met Zorri,” he said.

“Yes,” Rey agreed. “I don’t think I ever congratulated you on the wedding. You make a lovely
couple.”

“ I suppose, in a way, I have you to thank for that,” Zorri said with a smile. “Poe told me you used
to date.”

“Briefly,” Poe said quickly. “A long time ago.”

“Things didn’t work out,” Rey said.

“Any particular reason?”

Rey knew Zorri was just asking to make conversation. She had a teasing tone and a polite smile
that said she didn’t expect the reason to be anything serious, especially since the two of them
seemed to be able to be in the same room easily enough. Rey thought about deflecting, giving her a
half answer that was enough to appease her curiosity without dragging up a painful past, but she
was overcome with a sudden memory of the hurt she’d endured, the tears she’d cried after the
things he’d said to her.

“I had an…unpleasant experience with some boys at a party,” she said carefully, “and Poe didn’t
handle it well.”

“Rey,” he said quietly, “I’m sorry, I…”

“What do you mean?” Zorri asked, looking from Rey to her husband and back again. “What did he
do?”

“He blamed me,” Rey said. Her voice shook but she understood how important this conversation
might be. It was obvious that Poe loved his wife. If she could get Zorri to see how wrong he had
been, she might be able to sway him so that he never did anything like that again. It would make
the women of his congregation safer when they came to him for solace or advice.

Zorri frowned at Poe as Rose frowned at Rey.

“Poe?”

He shrugged miserably and Zorri shook her head. “We’ll talk about this later.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Rey said to Rose, already anticipating the questions she knew Rose
was going to ask. “I didn’t want to talk about it at all and then things sort of fell apart with Poe and
Kylo was so supportive that I just leaned on him. That was when things... changed between us.”

Rose said nothing, but she squeezed Rey’s hand tightly. There would be more questions and
explanations later, but the message of solidarity and understanding was clear.

“I’m sorry,” Poe said. “For what happened to you and for the way I handled it. If someone said that
to Zorri…”

“I know,” she said. “It worked out for the best. You two are great together and Kylo is everything
to me.”

“He didn’t look happy to be here but he came anyway so I think he feels the same.”

“He does,” Rose agreed. “And he really does look miserable, doesn’t he?”

Rey turned to find Kylo standing by the door, talking to Finn and her father and looking distinctly
out of place and uncomfortable. She felt a rush of love and gratitude when he met her gaze and
tried to smile.

“I better go and save him,” she said, standing and hugging Rose. “He’s been here long enough.”

“It was nice to see you again,” Poe said.

“You too,” Rey agreed, shaking his hand before turning her attention to his wife. “And it was nice
to finally meet you, Zorri. Don’t let him off the hook in that conversation about not blaming
women when something bad happens to him.”

“I won't,” Zorri promised. “I’m going to tell his mother and I guarantee he’ll never say anything
like that again.”

Rey couldn’t imagine a more fitting consequence for his insensitivity than to be chastised by his
wife and his mother so she smiled and hugged Zorri, too, before waving at them all and crossing
the room to grab the hand of a very relieved Kylo.

He was nodding along to whatever Finn was talking about with her father but she knew he’d been
watching her closely while she talked to Rose and the others. He’d never shown any signs of
jealousy toward Poe, so she suspected that it had more to do with worrying about them upsetting
her and keeping an eye out for Mrs. Nu than anything else.

“You okay?” he asked quietly, bending down so the words were a soft caress against the shell of
her ear.

“I was going to ask you the same question.”

He shrugged but his face wasn’t as pale as it had been when she’d left him and she thought that
must be a good sign.

“We kept things simple tonight,” Finn said with a grin. “Just some relaxed conversation to help
Kylo get to know everyone.”

“And no one…Well, everyone was nice?” Kylo’s face being on the news for well over a week
meant that there was unlikely to be a single person in the state that didn’t know about him and his
story by now and Rey was suddenly worried that even the presence of their pastor might not have
been enough to keep everyone on their most polite behavior.

Some of her thoughts must have shown on her face because Kylo gave her hand a reassuring
squeeze. “Everyone was nice and Finn was right—they went easy on me today.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Rey said. “It wasn’t easy for him to be here and I appreciate you doing everything
you could to make it easier.”

“I’m just glad Kylo felt comfortable enough to come tonight.”

“Didn’t have much choice,” Kylo said. “I won’t have people saying mean things to Rey.”

Rey could feel both men’s eyes as they shifted from Kylo to her and back again.

“Who’s saying mean things?”

“It’s fine, Dad,” she said, pasting a smile on her face that she hoped was at least a little convincing.
“I was worried things would be a little tense with Poe and Zorri, that’s all. And they were both
great so…”

“That’s not all,” Kylo argued. “Which one of these women is Mrs. Nu?”

“Oh,” Finn said. “ Her . That makes sense.”

“Does it?” Her father frowned. “What’s going on?”

“Kylo,” Rey pleaded. “I can handle it.”

“You’ve been handling it,” he said stubbornly. “And she keeps coming after you, coming after your
friends. I didn’t come just to show my face and leave. She wanted me here and now she’s going to
deal with me.”

“I just want to know what’s going on,” her father said. “I thought she’d left you alone after I had
that talk with her about Rose.”

“She hasn’t but she’s just a bitter old woman.”

“It’s more than that,” Kylo said. “I’ve seen that the worst people can do with faith as a shield and
she’s done everything she can to hurt this community and these people. I know you and Rose have
tried but she’s like Luke. She’s not going to stop unless someone stops her.”

“We can’t prove she’s done anything wrong,” Rey explained, exasperated. “She doesn’t say
anything openly. It’s always thinly veiled threats and implications.”

“Why don’t you two come with me to my office?” Rey recognized the determined look on her
father’s face and knew there was no getting out of it now—he was in full pastor mode. “Finn, do
you mind keeping an eye on Rose until Mrs. Nu leaves for the evening? I don’t want her to
experience anything else unpleasant while I figure this out. If anything happens, if Mrs. Nu gives
you a hard time at all, just come and get me.”

“Sure,” Finn agreed. He gave Rey a hug as he passed and shook hands with Kylo. “I hope you
come back sometime. Rey means a lot to me and you mean a lot to her. It’d be easier if we all got
along and you seem like a surprisingly nice guy.”

“Finn,” Rey said, his name a horrified half whisper, but Kylo only laughed. “We could grab some
dinner?” she suggested instead. “The two of us, you and Rose?”

“Sounds good,” he agreed. “Just text Rose and set up a time and I’ll be there.”

“I will,” she promised.

“Come on,” Kylo said, putting his arm around her. “Let’s go talk to your dad.”

***

“I can’t believe you did that,” Rey grumbled as they walked into their apartment. She’d been silent
during the drive home, turning over everything in her mind as she tried to figure out exactly when
she’d lost control of the evening.

She flicked through the stack of mail she’d picked up from the mailbox to have an excuse not to
look at him. Bills, advertisements, a thick cream envelope addressed in looping femine script she
didn’t recognize. She frowned and pulled it from the pile to examine it more closely, but Kylo
pulled it all from her grasp and tossed it on the kitchen table before she could read the name.

He gripped her hands tightly, waiting for her to meet his eyes. “I didn’t plan to do exactly that,” he
said. “I was just going to tell Mrs. Nu to back off and leave you alone, but I don’t even know what
she looks like and your dad was there…”

“If I wanted him to know about all of that, I would have told him.”

“I know,” he said, pulling her close. “But I also know you’re wrong about her being harmless and
if I have to have you mad at me for a little while to keep her from doing any more damage to you
and your friends then that’s something I’m willing to live with.”
“She’d not like Luke, she’s just…”

“She’s exactly like Luke,” he countered. “She’s mean and spiteful to those she can hurt and a
smiling face when the world is looking. She uses people and their faith to her own advantage
because she’s cruel.”

“She’s awful but she wouldn’t do what Luke did.”

“There are other ways to hurt people and I won’t let you be hurt.”

He was immovable and she sighed, unwilling to argue with him anymore about someone she truly
didn’t like anyway. “Okay,” she said. “You win. Thank you for protecting me from the mean
lady.”

He grinned down at her, brown eyes shining with amusement, and she felt her irritation fade away.
It was so hard to stay angry when he looked at her like that.

“I’ll always protect you from mean ladies but you’re on your own with anything more threatening
than that.”

She snorted. “I suppose I should be grateful that you were here to save me.”

“Well…” He winked down at her and a rush of familiar heat rushed to her cheeks and then lower,
igniting an awareness of the hunger she had for him that never quite faded.

“Maybe you’d like to see how grateful I am?” She fluttered her lashes at him playfully and trailed a
finger down his stomach.

The amusement on his face shifted to something darker, something hotter. “Yeah? I think I’d like
to see that.”

She hooked the finger in the waistband of his slacks and tugged him closer, leaning up on her
tiptoes until her lips brushed over his. “Thank you.”

He frowned, quickly trying to hide his disappointment. “You’re welcome, baby.”

She smiled, the warmth of the name washing away the last lingering tension and guilt that she’d
carried with her from the church, and pressed another soft kiss to his chin.

“Thank you.”

She grasped his shirt by the hem and lifted, until he helped her guide it over his head, then pressed
another kiss to his chest.

“Thank you.”

She sank to her knees, pressing a lingering kiss to the skin just above his waistband, where a trail of
dark hair ran from just below his navel to disappear under the fabric of his slacks. He flinched, his
skin jumping in surprise when she followed the kiss with a small, painless bite.

“Thank you.”

“I love you.” His voice was strangled and when she found the courage to look up at him, he was
watching her with a reverent expression that she’d only ever seen before on the faces of her father’s
congregation when they were lost in the rapturous love of God.
“I love you, too,” she said, suddenly embarrassed at the intensity of his gaze as she struggled to
undo the buttons of his slacks.

“Fuck it,” he said roughly, pulling her to her feet and then up into his arms as he crushed her mouth
under his and carried her to the bedroom.

“Hey,” she protested. “I was doing something.”

“I saw that and it was hot,” he said as he laid her on the bed and began to strip the clothes from her
body as quickly and efficiently as possible. “You can do it again later.”

She laughed as he nipped softly at her shoulder and threw her bra across the room. “I didn’t even
do anything.”

“You looked incredible,” he argued. “Fucking breathtaking on your knees like that, baby.”

“Maybe next time I’ll actually get your cock in my mouth.”

He groaned and buried his face in her stomach. “You’re gonna be beautiful but that’s not what I
need right now.”

“No?” she asked and let her knees fall open, letting him see that she was already wet and ready for
him.

“Rey,” he breathed. “Have I told you how perfect you are?”

“Once or twice,” she teased. “Tell me again.”

“Fucking perfect,” he said, pushing his pants off over his hips and starting to kiss his way up her
legs. “The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

She welcomed him in as he moved over her and slid inside in one smooth thrust, wrapping her legs
around him to hold him close as he began to move. They moved together seamlessly, the
awkwardness of their first times a long forgotten thing of the past as he pushed her closer and
closer to the edge of oblivion. When she shattered, her body felt like it carried more than just
pleasure beneath the surface of her skin. It was belonging and certainty and home.

She was quiet as Kylo dozed beside her, the soft sound of his breathing in her bed now just as
essential to her wellbeing as the air in her lungs. Had she ever really doubted that this was where
she was meant to be? Worried that their story could possibly end in any other way?

“Kylo?”

“Hmm?”

“Kylo,” she said again, waiting until his eyes fluttered open and a warm smile turned up the
corners of his lips. “Will you marry me?”
 Don't Apologize
Chapter Summary

I hold you in my heart, for we have shared together God's blessing- Philippians 1:7

Chapter Notes

Hopefully we're down to having only five more chapters to go and I am so excited to
be on the edge of finishing this story. I am once again behind on comments (this is
becoming a permanent state for me and I apologize) but I am reading all of them
faithfully and I appreciate each and every one of you so much.

I think the only content warning for this chapter is discussion of potential future Reylo
children

Rey believed that there was something beautiful about weddings that always brought out the best
in people. The rows of tearful family and friends, the beaming groom, the radiant bride—all magic
that somehow made it feel like miracles were possible and maybe, just this time, love really might
be strong enough to conquer all.

It was worth every minute of the stress over cake and invitations, the hours spent on makeup and
hairstyles, the pinched feet in special occasion heels that weren’t properly broken in. She’d spent
all morning straightening ties and worrying about refreshments but after everything, it was finally
time.

She winked at Kylo when the music switched to the bridal march and dabbed at her eyes when
Rose started down the aisle in glowing wedding white. Mrs. Nu had finally been right about
something—Rose was a beautiful bride.

Rey waited near the front, her spot just behind Paige as Rose’s matron of honor and beside Kaydel
as her other bridesmaid. Across the aisle, Finn watched Rose’s progress with a wide smile on his
face and tears in his eyes. There would never be any doubt how much he loved her when he looked
at her like a gift that had been given to him directly from God.

Rey tested the weight of her own engagement ring, heavy and unfamiliar on her finger, as her
father began the wedding reminding them all of the importance of the commitment that Finn and
Rose were making. The night that she’d asked Kylo to marry her, they still hadn’t had a real dime
to their names, nothing but the two of them against the odds the way it had always been, and the
first thing he’d bought her after he’d been able to access his trust fund was a symbol of the promise
they’d made to each other as she’d clung to him in their small bed.

The pear cut stone that glinted on a platinum band was still foreign and bigger than she would have
chosen herself, but Kylo had been willing enough to buy a sapphire instead of a diamond so she
hadn’t made a fuss about the size. The deep blue color wasn’t traditional but she knew it suited her
better than a diamond would have and couldn’t stop herself from smiling every time she got a
glimpse of it.

There was no date set yet for their own ceremony but as she listened to her friends make their vows
to each other, to have and to hold for the rest of their lives and to let no man undo that which God
had joined together, Rey knew she could be as patient as she needed to be. The wedding could wait
until the right time—he was already the partner of her heart, the husband of her life.

There was hardly a dry eye in the church when Finn enthusiastically kissed the bride and everyone
laughed and cheered when he grabbed his new wife’s hand and ran back up the aisle. Rey admired
Rose’s choice of white Converse over heels beneath her wedding dress when she hiked the front of
her gown up over her knees to keep up with him.

Rey offered her arm to her assigned groomsman and blew a kiss to Kylo as she was escorted back
up the aisle and by his seat in the pews beside Mrs. Kanata. She was glad he was under the fiesty
old woman’s watchful eye, since she’d worried that he would be uncomfortable during the
ceremony if he’d had to sit among the rest of Rose and Finn’s friends and family alone.

Now that the ceremony was over and her father was done officiating, he would be able to find Kylo
at the reception and offer an added layer of companionship but it would be another hour before Rey
could join them since she had to follow the bride and groom outside for the official wedding party
photos.

Someday it would be easier for her, for both of them, to handle events like these. When he was
more stable and more accustomed to having to make small talk again, but for now she worried
about him as she posed and smiled for the camera and as soon as the photographer released her she
raced off to find him at the fastest pace that wedding heels and several layers of blue bridesmaid
dress would allow.

“Miss me?” she asked as she slid into her seat at the table in the elaborately decorated ballroom.

“Not at all,” he said with a barely concealed smile. He reached for her hand under the table and
gave it a little squeeze. “I think I’ve decided to run away with Mrs. Kanata.”

Rey pretended to wipe a tear from her eye as she leaned back in her chair to survey the old woman
sitting on the other side of the table. Her gray curls were barely visible over white and blue
centerpieces. “Are you stealing my fiance?”

“Ha,” Mrs. Kanata said loudly. “That boy is entirely too young to handle me but that hasn’t
stopped him from flirting with me the whole time you were gone.”

Rey kissed his cheek as he grinned, unrepentant, and whispered, “I think she might be right about
that.”

“Undoubtedly,” he agreed, smiling fondly as Mrs. Kanata turned to talk to the woman sitting
beside her. “I’m glad I have you as an option to fall back on now that she’s broken my heart.”

Rey laughed at that and leaned her head on his shoulder. “You were okay here?” She glanced
around at the party, waving at her dad across the room as he talked to Rose’s sister and bounced a
laughing toddler in his arms.

“I was fine,” he reassured, kissing her knuckles as he followed her gaze. “He looks happy.”

“Hmm,” she acknowledged. “He loves kids, and always wanted grandkids.”

“Has he?” Kylo asked quietly.

Rey met his eyes, heat rushing to her cheeks. “Sure, eventually. Maybe. Some day. Not right away
or anything…”

“We never really talked about that, did we?”

“No,” she agreed. “Everything seemed so far away, even after we found out it was possible and
then happened so fast.”

He nodded and drummed his fingers on the fancy white tablecloth. “Do you? Want a family?”

“Yeah,” she said, watching her dad hand back Paige’s toddler before glancing at Kylo uncertainly.
“I’ve always wanted kids.”

He didn’t flinch away from the revelation like she’d feared he might and his face was pensive as he
considered her words. “Me, too,” he said finally. “I wasn’t always sure I would—not with the way
things were with my parents and after what happened to Bazine—but I think…I think I might want
to try. Someday. I don’t know if I have what it takes to be a good dad but…”

“You’re going to be a great father,” she said. “How could you not be?”

“I’m still pretty messed up,” he said and as much as she loved him, as much as she knew he would
love his child, she knew he was right.

“I have a long time till I graduate anyway,” she said lightly, rolling her shoulder in a shrug. “Law
school takes a while so maybe by then things will be more settled. And if not…well, I was willing
to give all that up when I thought you were going to be in prison for the rest of our lives. I would
like to be a mom but not having kids isn’t a deal breaker for me.”

“Do you have a deal breaker?”

“Hmm,” she said, tapping her chin and pretending to think it over, desperate to erase the look of
sadness and self condemnation in his eyes. “Maybe if you start to snore really loudly? Or male
pattern baldness?”

He blinked at her for a moment before he cracked a small smile and ran a hand through his hair,
tugging on the thick black waves. “Hey, don’t even mention male pattern baldness.”

“You never know…”

Kylo opened his mouth but Rey was spared his retaliation as Kaydel made her way to the table and
slid into her designated seat beside Rey.

“There you are,” Rey said. “I was starting to wonder if you’d left after we finished with the
photographer.”

“I got distracted,” Kaydel said, indicating the small plate in front of her, piled high with a variety of
steaming food. “They have an appetizer buffet thing and I’m starving.”

“There’s food?” Rey asked, twisting in her seat to try and determine where Kaydel had gotten her
bounty. “Kylo, you didn’t tell me there was food.”

“Sorry,” he said. “We all grabbed something while you were with the photographer. I can grab you
a plate?”

“Would you? These heels are killing me.”

He stood up and pressed a kiss to her head. “I’ll be back,” he promised.

Rey watched him go and then plucked a stuffed mushroom from Kaydel’s plate and popped it in
her mouth. “Sorry Alison couldn’t come today. Is she feeling sick?”

Kaydel glanced over her shoulder and lowered her voice. “She’s not actually sick. We broke up
earlier this week and she moved out of the apartment.”

“What? Why didn’t you say anything? Are you okay?”

Kaydel smiled sadly and nodded. “I didn’t want to mention it so close to Finn and Rose’s big day.
Everybody should be paying attention to them right now. But, yeah, I’m okay. I’m actually the one
that ended it.”

“Really?” Rey squeezed Kay’s hand as she tried to remember if there had been any signs that
things between the two of them were strained.

“I loved her,” Kaydel explained, “but we just…we got together so fast after everything happened
with my parents. I went from living with them and not even being able to be open about who I was
to in a committed relationship. I never thought about what I wanted out of life or if we had the
same goals, wanted the same things. When I did start to think about it, I realized I couldn’t answer
that question because I didn’t know what I wanted.”

It reminded Rey of her feelings about Poe so long ago and how caught up she had been in what she
had thought she was supposed to want and how painful it had been to examine whether she might
want something else instead.

“We’re still friends,” Kaydel continued. “I don’t think she was heartbroken or anything. Maybe we
had been both slowly figuring out that we weren’t a great match for each other romantically.”

“You have plenty of time,” Rey said. “Take as much of it as you need to figure out who you are
and what you want to do.”

“That’s exactly what Jannah said,” Kaydel said with a laugh.

Rey scanned the crowd again, her eyes settling on the table where Finn’s family sat. Jannah and
her fiance were holding hands and talking animatedly with the bride and groom. “She gives the
best advice, doesn’t she? I know she’s Finn’s big sister but she’s become like a sister to all of us,
too.”

“We needed it,” Kaydel said. “All of us. We’ve all struggled in our own way this past year or two.”

“Growing up is always hard but I think we’ve done alright,” Rey said. “Better than we might have
done otherwise, at least.”

“Speaking of growing up…Any idea when your big day is gonna be?” Kaydel asked.

“Not yet,” Rey admitted. “I don’t know if Kylo’s ready to be the center of attention at a big party
like this. He’s trying but he still struggles with being around people and I want him to be
comfortable when we get married.”

“You don’t have to have all of this,” Kaydel said, waving a hand at the tables full of guests. “I
think everyone would understand if you wanted something smaller, something that was more
suitable for the two of you and the stuff you’re dealing with right now.”
Rey bit her lip as she considered that. How important was it really that they have a big event, the
kind that she had always imagined when she pictured her wedding? It was just a party, she realized.
The important part happened before, in the chapel, and there would only be a small number of
friends and family that she would want to invite…

“I’ll think about it,” she said, closing down the topic as Kylo returned with her plate of food.

The rest of the evening passed by quickly—Rey’s plate of appetizers was replaced with a real meal
of grilled chicken and steamed vegetables, the latter of which she subtly dumped onto Kylo’s plate
when she thought he wasn’t looking—and then the dance floor flooded with people as everyone
finished their dinners and dived into the party.

“Rey,” Rose said, abandoning Finn in the crowd as she approached the table, her full shirt tossed
carelessly over her arm. “Dance with me, please. Everyone else is already out there.”

Rey glanced at Kylo. The louder the music and the guests became, the more freely everyone
moved around to laugh and talk and mingle, the more withdrawn he’d become. She’d purposefully
avoided mentioning the possibility of dancing, not wanting him to feel like he’d let her down if he
didn’t want to join in with the crush of bodies moving to the beat.

“Go,” he said. “The bride always gets what she wants and you should celebrate with her.”

“You should come,” Rose said, holding out a hand to Rey as she faced Kylo with an inviting smile.
“There’s plenty of room out there for you.”

He shook his head. “I think I’ll just grab something to drink, but you two have fun.”

“Are you sure?” Rey asked.

“I’m sure.”

“Come on,” Rose urged. She tugged at Rey’s hand and took a few steps toward the other dancers.
“I promise I’ll bring you back in a few songs when you’re begging for mercy.”

Rey allowed herself to be led onto the floor, her attempt to keep an eye on Kylo fruitless as she was
swallowed in the crowd. Rose’s face was bright and joyful as they found Finn and Kaydel in the
mix, both clapping along to the music as Mrs. Kanata and Rey’s father showed off some
impressively fancy footwork.

She clapped with everyone else as the music drew to a close and didn’t protest when she was swept
into a dance by Finn, and then her father, and then Rose and Kaydel as the three of them swayed
together in a small group to a song with a great beat and lyrics that made Mrs. Kanata laugh and
blush.

When she returned from the dance floor she found Kylo’s chair empty and a glance over the room
didn’t reveal his shock of dark hair above the heads of the rest of the guests. She found him
outside, alone and isolated as he leaned on the rail of the balcony and looked out over the garden
with its late summer blooms. Undeniably handsome in his tux, he still gave every impression of a
man that was on the verge of bursting at the seams. He’d been restless since he got out,
understandably so, but it had gotten worse since the arrival of the letter from Leia.

She’d forgotten about it entirely the night it had arrived, she hadn’t had time to read the name
before Kylo had tossed it onto the table and it had been out of sight, out of mind, especially as she
got caught up in the excitement of her unplanned proposal and his laughing acceptance. He’d
rained kisses down on her face as they’d cried tears of joy together, but the euphoria hadn’t lasted
past the dawn.

His lips had been pressed into a thin line of rage when she’d found him sitting at the table the next
morning with his coffee in one hand and a letter from his mother in the other. “It’s from Leia,” he’d
said flatly, waving around the unopened envelope.

“Are you going to open it?”

He’d shaken his head and ripped the thick cream paper, filling their small kitchen with the sound of
condemnation. “Where was she?” he asked, “when I needed her most? All my life she gave me
money instead of time, instead of support or forgiveness or even love. Fuck my mother.”

Rey had only nodded and curled up in his lap, her hand resting over his pounding heart, but his
anger—already a problem for them as he tried to adjust to his new life—had only gotten worse, as
had his nightmares. A new letter had arrived each week and each one received the same treatment
from Kylo as he became further enraged that she wouldn’t simply leave him alone now that he no
longer needed her.

As much as Rey had always wanted Leia to be the mother that Kylo deserved, she had begun to
wish that the letters would stop coming. Far from being helpful, it seemed to be making everything
worse. Another challenge was the last thing that they needed right now. Kylo’s trust fund had taken
the material worries off their shoulders, but it would have been a lie to say that the money or the
engagement or indeed any of the other progress they’d made had been enough to make anything
easy for them.

Kylo was the partner of her life and the love of heart, but he was far from healed.

“Hey,” she said quietly. “Mind if I join you?”

He shook his head and made room for her at the railing, tipping back a bottle of beer to take a long
swallow. She’d never seen him drink before, wasn’t old enough to stock the apartment with alcohol
and he’d hadn’t purchased any since he’d gotten a license of his own, and she watched curiously as
his throat bobbed around the drink.

“I’m not drunk,” he said. He nearly always seemed to know what she was thinking and he had a
small smile on his face when he turned to wiggle the bottle in her direction. “This is my first beer
since I went to prison.”

“Well, you’re legal now,” she said lightly. “You don’t have to hide out here to have one.”

“I wasn’t hiding,” he said, “I was just…” He waved a hand at the party inside. The music was
pouring out through the doors and there was a crush of bodies on the dance floor. It was a scene of
love and laughter and community…one that he still didn’t feel like he was truly part of, she knew.

He’d attended church with her a few times—pretending to ignore the increasingly hostile glares
Mrs. Nu had been sending both of them ever since she’d been chastised by Rey’s father— and to
dinner or social events with Pastor Johnson or Rey’s friends but he was always quiet and withdrawn
as though he wasn’t sure what to say or how to behave. He probably wasn’t sure, truth be told,
because he’d lost so much time while the world went on without him.

She sighed and stepped closer, nudging at his arm until he opened his embrace for her to curl into.
“I know you aren’t having a good time, but it means a lot to me—and to Finn and Rose—that you
came.”

He nodded and took another long swallow from the bottle.

“Are you ready to go home?”

“I’m sorry…”

“Don’t apologize,” she said. “You tried and I can’t ask more than that.”

He stood and held her for another minute and she didn’t think that she imagined the wistfulness of
his sigh. He wanted to stay, wanted to be a part of life, but it remained stubbornly just out of his
reach.
 We Deserve Better
Chapter Summary

Let your father and mother be glad; let her who bore you rejoice- Proverbs 23:22-25

Chapter Notes

We are getting very close to the end and I'm so excited. I have the next chapter already
done so it will be coming soon. All of your comments are so appreciated and I am
always beyond touched by your support. I am trying to get caught up on responding,
but I don't have as much time right now and I prefer to spend it writing when possible.

CW- I think the only new things in this chapter is mention of pregnancy and one
moment involving the loss of temper (no physical violence directed at a person
occurs). There are also references to past events such as murder and abortion. Please
let me know if I missed anything.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Fall 2017

Six weeks after the arrival of her first letter, Leia knocked on the door of their apartment.

In the brief moment between opening the door to find her standing on their welcome mat and
hearing Kylo suck in a furious breath as he appeared at her elbow to find his mother waiting for
him, Rey had just enough time to regret her recent life choices.

Looking every inch a US senator in a cream colored suit that probably cost more than Rey’s first
car, Leia was a disaster in motion. They should have sent a letter back telling her to leave them
alone, or Rey could have called to request it personally. Anything to keep her from showing up
unexpectedly and pulling all of Kylo’s issues to the surface with no warning.

Her fingers tightened on the door knob and she wondered for one wild second if she could simply
close the door in Leia’s face and act like it hadn’t happened, simply turn to Kylo and pretend she
hadn’t recognized his mother from all the news articles and TV stories. Panicked laughter caught in
her throat at the thought of trying to convince him that it had been nothing more than an overly
dressed saleswoman.

“Hello Rey,” Leia said, and then, her gaze sliding over Rey’s shoulder, “Benjamin.”

There was a beat of unbearable silence.

“Senator Organa,” Rey said through stiff lips. Her hands were cold and her head was buzzing as
she tried to ignore how absolutely rigid and still Kylo was as he stood behind her. “What a
surprise.”
“Is it?” Leia asked. “I sent letters.”

“I didn’t open them,” Kylo said and Rey had never heard his voice this dark and dangerous. “I
have nothing to say to you.”

“No? Perhaps you might be willing to just listen,” Leia said and Rey was too stunned to stop her as
she brushed both of them aside and stepped into the living room, followed closely by two imposing
body guards that must have been standing just out of sight outside.

“Please,” Rey said dryly, “come in.”

If Leia noticed the sarcasm she didn’t give any indication as she looked around the small living
room and the dining room table piled high with Rey’s various textbooks and notebooks. She picked
an invisible piece of lint from her sleeve as she surveyed the mess but Rey refused to apologize for
the state of the apartment. The new semester was already in full swing and she had papers to write
and exams to study for—if Leia wanted to visit when things were tidy she should have waited for
an invitation.

“I was afraid you might not be here,” Leia said, turning away from her inspection of her son’s
home and facing him directly. “I assumed you’d move into something a little more appropriate
once you had access to your trust fund.”

“It’s more appropriate than a prison cell,” he said pointedly.

“You intend to stay here indefinitely then?”

“That’s none of your business,” Kylo said. He shook his head, every line of his body taut.

They weren’t planning to stay here, but Rey didn’t blame him for not wanting his mother to know
that. The more she knew about his life, the easier it would be for her to find him and that was
clearly something he wanted no part of at this point.

They’d found an old two story farmhouse just outside the city was perfect for them—close enough
to town that the commute was bearable but far enough out to give Kylo some peace and privacy—
but it had needed renovations that would likely take several months to complete. Their plan had
been to live in the apartment until everything was finished but if Leia knew where they lived now,
it might be worth moving in early just to prevent another visit like this one.

“Benjamin, please,” his mother said, her tone maternal and condescending and her grip in her purse
straps turning her knuckles white. “I don’t understand this hostility. Didn’t I pay for your lawyers?
Make sure you had access to the money your grandfather set aside for you?”

“Did you ever call? Write to me? Do anything to make sure I was okay at all? You’ve always been
this way, thinking money was enough to fix everything and it never was, not once.”

Leia took a deep breath, her smile tight. “I did not,” she admitted. “I was angry about everything…
about what happened with your father.”

“And you blamed me,” Kylo said. “I was so young…”

“You stabbed him,” Leia said, the last word catching on a cob that she struggled to swallow down.
“He was my husband and I lost him.”

“He was my father,” Kylo reminded her. “I lost him, too.”

“You didn’t lose him! You were the one that took him away from me!” Leia wiped furiously at her
cheeks as the tears began to flow. “I had to bury him knowing it was because of our own child.”

“And you never bothered to ask why ,” Kylo said. He was pacing now, his fingers digging groves
in the dark waves of his hair. “Didn’t you care? About me ? Didn’t you ever wonder what had
happened that could cause someone to do that to their own father?”

“You were always an angry child…” Leia began but Kylo’s harsh laugh cut her off.

“So you sent me to Luke,” he reminded her. “Did you read the reports, Mother? Did you see what
he did to us?”

“Yes,” she admitted. “I didn’t know about any of that.”

“How could you not have known? How could you have been so eager to blame me and so willing
to look the other way for him?”

Leia rubbed her temples, and looked at Rey beseechingly. “Luke always presented himself as a
good man, a godly man, someone that you could trust. You know what it’s like, don’t you? There
are certain people in your life that you should be able to trust. Doctors, teachers, preachers…and
Luke, he was so much more than that.”

“He was a monster,” Kylo said bitterly.

“So was our father,” Leia said wearily. “When we found out everything that Anakin Skywalker had
done, I think Luke and I both took it hard. We wanted to make up for it, though, we went about it in
different ways. I embraced the political side of things, trying to make a difference in policy, and
Luke turned to his faith.”

“That’s not real faith,” Rey said. “Real faith is about love and what Luke did…that’s not love.”

“He lost his way,” Leia admitted.

“Lost his way?” Kylo asked. “You know what he did to me, what he did to all the other kids that
were forced to stay with him.”

“Yes,” Leia said, “and instead of telling us what was happening or coming home when you ran
away, you went to Snoke. Was that any better?”

“No,” he said, his hands curling and uncurling at his sides as Leia’s bodyguards shifted restlessly.
“But you already knew that, didn’t you? You read those reports, too.”

“You should have come home,” she said. “If you had come home…”

“What? I wouldn’t have been raped and sold to the person with the most money in their pocket? I
wouldn’t have killed Han?”

“Yes,” she said. “If you had let me help you, if you had told me what Luke was doing…”

“That’s bullshit,” he snarled. “Fuck that. If I had told you what was happening, ran home to you
expecting you to save me, you would have sent me back.”

“Ben,” Leia said, shaking her head.

“Don’t lie,” he said. “For once in your life, be honest with yourself. You know how much shit I
lied about before you sent me away—the drinking and the drugs and the partying. Luke knew it,
too. If I’d come to you then and told you what was happening, if it came down to my word against
the perfect Luke Skywalker, who would you have believed?”

Leia sighed wordlessly and fresh tears sparkled on her lashes but Kylo made no move to comfort
her. She looked suddenly small and frail, much older than she’d been when she’d arrived as though
she’d lost control unexpectedly and it had aged her. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly, and Rey thought
that the admission had cost her a great deal. She didn’t seem like the kind of person to whom an
apology would come easily.

“That’s not enough,” Kylo said. “Do you think an apology is enough for everything that happened
to me?”

Leia tipped her chin up, her lips trembling. “Have you ever done even that much for killing your
father?”

“Get out,” Kylo said flatly. “Get out and don’t come back.”

For a moment Rey thought Leia might break, that the sadness in her eyes might be enough for her
to let go of her grip on her pride and beg for forgiveness, but whatever emotion had been on her
face was soon wrestled into submission. “Very well,” she said crisply. “I had hoped…Well, I
suppose it doesn’t matter what I’d hoped.”

“No,” Kylo agreed. “It doesn’t”

Leia paused in the doorway. “Have a good life, Ben. I wish you happiness and whatever peace you
can find.”

He followed her out, watching as she began to descend the stairs with her bodyguards close behind.
“My name is Kylo,” he shouted, slamming the door and turning on Rey where she still stood at the
edge of the dining room.

“I can’t believe she had the nerve to come here after everything,” he said. His eyes were wild, a
lifetime of hurt and anger suddenly pulled from the depths with nowhere to go. “What the fuck did
she expect was going to happen? That I’d just pretend all these years hadn’t happened?”

“I don’t know what she expected,” Rey said. “I’m sorry she upset you.”

“Upset doesn’t begin to cover it,” he said. “She just shows up here, pushes her way into my home,
and tells me I’m the one that needs to apologize.”

“Kylo,” Rey said, trying to get close enough to pull him into a calming embrace. “She’s gone
now.”

“She’s always been gone,” he brushed by Rey and pushed both hands through his hair. “I wanted
her to leave and now I’m pissed that she left. She can’t just do this to me god damn it,” he growled,
his fury exploding as his fist darted out and smashed through the dining room wall.

Rey jumped at the sound and took a few quick steps back, her back bumping against the front door
as she stared at him with wide eyes. He’d been on edge since Leia’s first letter had arrived and
she’d seen him lost in his nightmares before, but she’d never feared what he might do until this
moment.

He swung around to face her, knuckles scraped and bloody, and paled when he saw her face and
her hand gripping the door. He held his hands up, palms facing her in a gesture of surrender and
shook his head helplessly, as though he was trying to clear it of whatever emotions had taken him
over or deny the brief flare of fear she knew he’d been able to read in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“Damn it, Rey, I’m so sorry. I didn’t…I would never scare you, not on purpose.”

“I know,” she said and her heart broke for him when he sat down heavily on one of their kitchen
chairs and buried his head in his hands. She approached him carefully, touching with only a
tentative hand on his shoulder until he turned a tear stained face to her and pulled her into his arms.
“I love you…”

“I love you, too,” he said, peering up at her intensely as though the force of his gaze alone might
convince her. “I promise I won’t ever…”

“Wait,” she said. “I love you and because I love you, I think you might need to talk to someone
about the things you’re struggling with.”

He blinked up at her and then frowned. “You mean…Like a therapist?”

“Yes, like a therapist,” she agreed. “You’ve tried so hard and I don’t want you to feel like I’m not
grateful, but you’re still having a hard time adjusting. I know you’ve been hiding how often
nightmares still wake you up and now this…” She picked up his hand and pressed a kiss to his
battered knuckles. “I’m not saying I blame you for being upset, I’d be pissed off, too, but it’s not
good for you to have all that anger inside you all the time.”

“I don’t know if I can do that,” he said. His eyes were guarded but he didn’t withdraw his hand.
“Telling all of that to a stranger, my past, dragging it all up again. I don’t know if I’m strong
enough.”

“You’re strong enough to do anything, Kylo, and you know I won’t make you do it alone,” she
said. “Besides, we deserve better than a half life…all of us.” She guided his hand down until it
rested on the flat plane of her stomach.

His eyebrows drew together in confusion and she waited breathlessly for him to put the pieces
together. It had taken her longer than it should have to figure it out herself, the night they had
mistakenly forgotten a condom had caused them both a few days of nervous apprehension but they
had quickly forgotten about it. The storm of emotions around Leia’s first letter and then the nerves
of Finn and Rose’s wedding had overshadowed it, but most of the initial worry had faded away
because she’d simply been unable to believe that one simple mistake could actually change the
course of her life.

“What are you saying?” he asked, his hand fisting in the fabric of her loose pajama shirt. “That
you’re…?”

She nodded. “I know we said it wasn’t something we wanted right now…”

“No,” he agreed, and his eyes were running desperately over her face, his hand tight on her hip.
“Not until…you wanted to wait until you were done with school.”

“I know but…”

“And I’m still so messed up,” he continued. “Rey, are you…do you want to…”

She waited, panic rising as he struggled to find the words he needed. He looked stricken and then
she was suddenly terrified that he wouldn’t be as happy as she had been once the truth had really
settled in. She knew they hadn’t planned this, but once she’d realized she was pregnant, there had
been an immediate rush of love for the budding life inside her. The idea that he might not feel the
same stole the breath from her chest.
 “Are you going to keep it?” he asked finally.

Rey’s mouth opened and then snapped closed as she realized the fear that must have overcome him
at the thought that he would see another child lost to him as Bazine’s had been, that because she
still had years left before she graduated she might choose to end the pregnancy.

“Of course,” she said, pulling him in and holding him tight as a shudder ran through him. “I know I
said I wanted to wait but that doesn’t mean I’m not happy.

“You’ve worked so hard on your classes,” he said. “You deserve to finish and to go to law school
and have all the things you’ve ever wanted.”

“And I’ll have them,” she assured him. “We’re incredibly lucky to have your trust fund. I can take
a semester off or even a year and when I go back to school we can afford the best childcare anyone
has to offer.”

He nodded against her shoulder but she could feel the stiffness back in his muscles.

“I’m not going to be like your mother,” she said. “I know she did a terrible job at balancing her job
and parenting but I promise you we can do better.”

“I know,” he said. “ I know we can.”

“I’ll go with you to therapy,” she promised. “Every time if that’s what you want. You don’t have to
worry about failing this baby because of what you’ve been through.”

“If that’s what you think I should do,” he agreed. “I’ll do whatever I have to as long as you’re with
me.”

She curled herself into his lap and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek. “I’ll always be with you.”

“I’ll have to find a therapist,” he mused.

“And I have to tell my dad that I’m having a baby,” she said with a nervous laugh.

He kissed her head and tightened his arms around her. “You help me and I’ll help you?”

“Deal.”

Chapter End Notes

I wanted to add a few notes to this chapter because there are a couple of elements that I
felt needed to be addressed about my choices here.

The first is that the scene with Kylo hitting the wall was planned almost a year ago
and is based off the iconic scene in Marriage Story. After the Adam/chair accusations
that went around I know there are a lot of opinions about male violence and how those
things should be handled. I opted to write it this way because angry outbursts are a
real thing that happens to people with trauma and, like other symptoms, don't
automatically disqualify someone from being deserving of love and support. That
being said, Rey also made it clear that he needed to deal with it and he agreed. If he
had escalated that anger or refused to accept that he needed help then other self
protective steps would have been taken. This is not meant to be interpreted as me
supporting violence against women, or suggesting that they just passively forgive and
accept that violence.

The second thing is that while I believe that Rey should have the ability to make her
choice about an unplanned pregnancy, that sometimes keeping the baby is the right
choice. It was the right choice for me with my own unplanned pregnancy and the story
reflects that but it is not meant to be interpreted as me being against having that
choice. Also, considering everything that happened with Bazine, I think if Rey had
made the choice to end the pregnancy that Kylo would have experienced some
negative emotions around it and I don't think it's unfair to acknowledge that. Making
the choice isn't easy and both people involved have feelings about it, both good and
bad, that need to be worked through.

Life is complex and so are people and much of this story was designed to explore gray
areas and areas of imperfections even among people that have good intentions and
truly do love and want the best for each other.
 What Did She Say?
Chapter Summary

The wicked are overthrown and are no more, But the house of the righteous will
stand- Proverbs 12:7

Chapter Notes

I think it's pretty safe to say that most of my energy is going to be put into this story
until it's done. We're so close that I can't really concentrate on anything else, so there
will probably be an update every few days.

I don't think there's any specific warnings for this chapter, but please let me know if
you feel I've missed something.

Kylo found talking to his therapist for the first time almost as difficult as telling Rey’s father that
she was pregnant, but the therapist and Pastor Johnson both surprised him by far less intimidating
and confrontational than he’d feared.

Dr. Lucas' office was quiet and relaxing and there was never any pressure to talk about a particular
subject. Kylo began by talking about the easy topics, about Rey and the baby and his excitement to
be a husband and father. It seemed natural after that to talk about his fears and why he had them.
Weeks passed slowly and he began to feel calmer, more able to engage with people the world
without the panic and guilt that had always swallowed him before.

By then, Rey’s pregnancy had progressed far enough that she felt comfortable telling their friends
and family. At her request, they told her father first, with her clinging tightly to Kylo’s hand over a
Sunday dinner of fried chicken and mashed potatoes. In the space between the announcement and
Pastor Johnson’s reaction, he was absolutely sure he’d rather have been back in prison than sitting
in that chair.

“Hmm.” Pastor Johnson tapped his fingers on the table as he considered his daughter. Rey’s fingers
dug into Kylo’s arm and he knew how much her father’s approval meant to her. She’d gone against
his wishes before, but it always cost her something. “Congratulations,” he said, opening his arms
for her to run into his hug. “You’re going to be an amazing mother.”

“You’re not angry?” she asked.

“No,” he said, patting her back as she squeezed him. “I wanted you to have a family of your own
and not one of us is perfect in the eyes of God. You’re my daughter and I know the struggles the
two of you have had. You’re committed to each other and you have been for a long time. It may not
be official but God has blessed this union already as far as I’m concerned.”

“Will you do the official blessing?” Kylo asked. “Rey would like to have the wedding before she
really starts to show and can still wear the dress she’s been eying in one of her bridal magazines.”
“Of course.” Rey’s father rumpled her affectionately. “I’d love nothing more.”

“Just something small,” Rey said. “The two of us and a few of our very closest friends.”

“Kylo’s family?”

“No,” Kylo said, shaking his head. “Rey and the baby are the family that matters now.”

He expected an argument but Pastor Johnson only nodded. “If that’s what you want,” he agreed.

“It is,” Rey said.

“Is this going to affect your chances of getting into law school?”

Kylo listened attentively as Rey launched into an animated discussion of her plans to balance both
school and motherhood. She had thought it through thoroughly and it was quickly apparent that it
was a good thing she had. It was the first question asked by almost everyone they told.

While none of Rey’s friends had anything negative to say about her expecting a baby before she
was married—something Kylo had been worried would cause problems for her—they were all
tentatively concerned about the ways in which it might impact her education and career goals. He
didn’t think they fully relaxed and believed how excited she was until she invited all of them to the
new house to show them the bedroom they were remodeling to be a nursery. There was simply no
denying the glow of happiness on her face as she talked about picking out rocking chairs and
painting the room a bright buttery yellow.

“It is sweet of them to be so worried,” she said later that night, curled against his chest in their
bedroom at the apartment. The house should be finished in time for them to be settled in by the
time the baby arrived and she’d been dreaming out loud about the furniture she wanted to buy and
the possibility of getting a dog.

He blinked, halfway through constructing an argument that they might be better off getting a cat
instead to avoid having a newborn and a puppy at the same time. “Sweet of who?”

“Rose and the others,” she said. “It’s sweet of them to be worried about how all of this might affect
school for me. They weren’t exactly supportive of the idea of law school in the beginning.”

“They’re clearly very invested now,” he agreed. “You have a way of convincing people that you’re
right about pretty much everything.”

She grinned up at him, pressed a kiss to his chin. “I do, don’t I?”

Still, she worried about the reactions from the rest of her circle of acquaintances. It would be hard,
if not impossible, to keep it a secret for long since morning sickness had begun hitting her hard at
all times of the day, her face turning pale at even the smell of food as she scrambled for the
bathroom. The first few weeks of church she had brushed it off as being unwell, then the stress of a
new semester on top of adjusting to things with Kylo, but when her doctor told her that it could
sometimes last months, they decided the best thing to do was come clean.

Pastor Johnson handled it himself, including it in the announcements that he made at the end of
each sermon and asking that the congregation keep Rey and the baby in their prayers. The best way
to prevent it from being whispered about as though it was a scandal was not to treat it like one, he’d
said, and the number of well wishes and hugs she’d received as they’d left the church seemed to
prove him right.
Kylo thought that their engagement having been announced several weeks earlier might also have
had a lot to do with people accepting them as an established couple, as well as Pastor Johnson’s
approach to scripture. His preaching focused more on the power of God’s love and forgiveness
than on hellfire and brimstone, and whatever Kylo’s personal feelings toward God were, he had to
admit that it made a far safer and more accessible church than the ones he’d experienced in his
youth.

***

Rey sat in her chair after their Wednesday Bible group, hand resting over an uneasy stomach. She
was incredibly grateful that Kylo had agreed to come and drive tonight, since even the smell of
cupcakes and chocolate chip cookies was apparently enough to send her into fits of nausea these
days. The peppermint tea she was sipping was helping, but she couldn’t be sure the motion of the
car wouldn’t bring it right back.

She pressed a hand to her forehead as the last wave of sickness abated and looked around. It was
getting late and she was tired, all she wanted was to find Kylo and go home. It was easy to spot
him, his head of black hair standing out above the rest, but when she saw him, all thoughts of
illness and exhaustion were forgotten.

Kylo was ashen faced as he approached her, swallowing reflexively as he reached for her hand,
holding her with a grip that was tight and cold. The last time she’d seen him, he’d been over by the
dessert table, determined to find something that might tempt her to try and eat, even a little bit.
Mrs. Nu had been standing nearby, but she’d stopped speaking to them entirely after the last
warning and Rey hadn’t thought too much about it. An oversight that was apparently a mistake,
she realized.

“What did she say?” Rey demanded, pressing up onto the tips of her toes to scan the crowd for
Mrs. Nu. She didn’t need to be anymore specific than that—after this long, everyone knew who the
troublemaker was.

“She said…” He pushed a shaking hand through his hair. “She said I should be ashamed of myself
for taking advantage of an innocent young girl. That you were going to hell and the baby, too. That
it would all be my fault.” His voice caught on a hastily swallowed sob. “I could hear Luke’s voice
in my head and I just…”

Rey was beyond listening. She knew this was going to be another in a long line of incidents that he
was going to have to unpack with his therapist and he was nowhere near ready to handle something
like this without weeks of nightmares and withdrawn moods. The stability he’d worked so hard for
had been maliciously ripped out from under his feet and whatever patience she’d tried to cultivate
in herself toward a bitter old woman was washed away in a rising wave of protective rage.

It was time they had this confrontation and there was no better place than right here, right now.

“Wait here,” she said, only vaguely aware that she’d spoken, her body hot and vibrating with
emotion. “I’ll be right back.”

“Rey?”

Her head swiveled as she prowled toward the dessert table. Mrs. Nu had just been there a moment
before—she couldn’t have gone far. Rey had covered only half the distance between Kylo and the
table when she spotted a head of perfectly styled, bottle blonde hair. Her fingers twitched with the
urge to reach out and yank it as hard as she was able, but she knew the last thing Kylo needed right
now was to see his pregnant fiance carried out of a church in handcuffs. She took a deep breath,
prepared to keep her assault a purely verbal one, when a few words of what Mrs. Nu was saying
reached her. There was only a few steps worth of distance between them and it was clear Mrs. Nu
had no idea how close Rey was standing to her as she spoke.

“…actually thinks she’s doing a good job! If it wasn’t for her suggesting the prison program in the
first place, poor Rey wouldn’t be in this position. I’ve said all along that this was going to happen,
haven’t I? That’s what always happens when you put one of them in charge.”

The heat in Rey’s blood ran cold, the rage that had burned inside her freezing into a cold sense of
purpose. Her mind and heart stilled and her voice was almost pleasant as she asked, “One of who?”

Mrs. Nu jumped, a guilty flush on her face as she spun around to find Rey smiling at her, the grin
all teeth and no mercy. “I’m sorry?” she asked. “I’m afraid I don’t understand…”

“You’re not sorry,” Rey said. “Not yet, but you will be.”

“Are you threatening…”

“Not at all,” Rey said. “We’re well beyond the need for threats.”

The crowd around them shifted uneasily and Rey knew they were gathering a watchful audience.
Rose was approaching from across the room with a worried expression and Kylo was right behind
her, trying to pull himself together as he realized things seemed to be going badly.

“You can’t say these things to me,” Mrs. Nu sniffed. “I’m a parishioner at this church. My family
has donated…”

“Absolutely no one here gives a shit,” Rey said, interrupting her again just to watch her mouth
open and close on her silent outrage. Several onlookers covered their mouths with their hands as
though trying to smother a laugh and no one at all seemed inclined to speak up on Mrs. Nu’s
behalf.

“Rey, what is going on?” Rose asked, stepping between the two women and looking from one to
the other like a teacher on a kindergarten playground. “You two know better than to do this here.”

Mrs. Nu’s smile faltered when Rey stepped in close and whispered a few words in Rose’s ear.
She’d been able to manipulate her way around any real repercussions for so long that the cold look
that passed over Rose’s face must have come as quite a surprise.

“So,” Rose said. “Rey told me what happened and she’s clearly on the edge of doing something
very unpleasant right here in the middle of our Bible group. Fortunately for you, I don’t agree with
that.”

Mrs. Nu smirked at Rey over Rose’s shoulder. “I knew you’d realize how unreasonable she was
being. I thought she was going to attack me and you have no idea how frightened I was.”

Rose smiled back, and Rey had known her long enough to recognize the look and its implications.
“I’ve got something much better in mind for you,” she said, her voice dripping with sugar
sweetness. “Go home and don’t come back.”

“What?” Mrs. Nu looked from Rose to Rey desperately. “She can’t do that.”

“She’s in charge of the Bible group,” Rey reminded her. “She can do whatever she wants.”

“I won’t allow this,” Mrs. Nu said wildly, turning to face the group of onlookers that formed a tight
ring around the action. “You all know she’s not fit to hold that position!”

“Shut up,” Mrs. Kanata said loudly and every head turned to stare with open mouths at the small
woman as she pushed her thick glasses back up her nose. “You’ve done nothing for this church that
hasn’t been to make it worse and, if we’re all being fair and honest, we should have kicked you out
a long time ago.”

“You can’t,” Mrs. Nu repeated, her voice rising as though loudness might make them all change
their minds. Large tears spilled over her lashes and Rey barely resisted the urge to snort at how
quickly she had tried to make herself the victim. “Jesus said to turn the other cheek. You can’t
attack me like this.”

“Jesus also cleansed the temple with a whip,” Rose reminded her. “I don’t want revenge, but I
won’t have you here hurting others. I will protect the people in this church that depend on us to
keep them safe.”

“Which is what I should have done a long time ago,” Rey said, squeezing Rose’s hand in silent
apology. “Saving a lost lamb doesn’t mean we have to let you tear apart the rest of the flock. If I
had kicked you out when you were rude to Jannah, it would have saved Rose and Kaydel and Kylo
so much heartache.”

“And yourself, too,” Rose said. “She’s been nothing but a bully to all of us.”

“I am not,” Mrs. Nu screeched. “You have no proof!”

“I have no proof that you were the one leaking information about my relationship with Kylo to the
media, either, but we all know it’s true.”

“I’ll go to your father,” Mrs Nu said, her lips thin and triumphant. “I’ll tell him what you did to me
today.”

“And I’ll tell him what you said about his grandchild,” Rey retorted. “I’ll tell him that you stood in
the house of God and spoke cruelly about one of God’s children because of the color of her skin.”

“You’re nothing but a stupid little bitch.”

“And you,” Rose said, her voice brimming with authority, “are no longer welcome here.”

Mrs. Nu looked around the room for support, but was met with only disapproving frowns. Perhaps
some of them might have stood with her privately, but they were not brave enough to speak it now
in front of so many.

“Go,” Rey demanded.

Mrs. Nu grabbed her purse off one of the nearby chairs and pushed toward the door, knocking
aside anyone who was too slow to move out of her way and nearly knocking Finn over as he
entered the room with Pastor Johnson.

“What the…” Finn exclaimed. “What happened here?”

“Taking out the trash,” Mrs. Kanata said. “And it was long overdue.”

“Was that Mrs. Nu?” Pastor Johnson asked.

“It was,” Rey acknowledged. She sank down into a chair and smiled up at Kylo thinly when he
passed a bottle of water into her shaking hands. “She’s not going to be coming back.”

“I’m glad she’s gone,” Kylo said, his hand on Rey’s shoulder as he held her steady. “But what
happened? Was all of that because of what she said to me?”

“No,” Rey said, patting his hand. “I thought that was the last straw and I went over there to call her
a c…ahem, to call her names, but when I got there she was saying awful things about Rose and I
snapped.”

“It was time,” Rose said with an unapologetic shrug. “She’s made everything as difficult for us as
possible for too long. I wanted the chance to prove myself, to give her the chance to be a better
person, but that’s obviously not going to happen.”

Pastor Johnson still looked upset, his brow creased as he stared at the door where Mrs. Nu had
disappeared. “I thought she’d gotten better after that last talk we had.”

“She was just biding her time,” Rey said. “We gave her enough chances—too many probably.” She
turned to Rose, her heart aching. “I should never have asked you if you wanted me to kick her out.
I shouldn’t have put the burden of that decision on you, made you have to be the one to speak up. A
s soon as I saw her for what she was, I should have told her to leave.”

Rose’s eyes were wet with unshed tears as she pulled Rey in for a tight hug. “We all did the best
we could,” she said. “Next time our best will be better.”

“Kylo tried to warn me…”

“Maybe I didn’t try hard enough,” he said. “My best will be better next time, too.”

“Well,” Finn said, flashing them all a mischievous grin, “I think we’ve all learned a lesson here
today...Rey has clearly gone wild and is going to need constant supervision during this whole
pregnancy to keep her from getting in fist fights with strangers in grocery store parking lots.”

The tension in the room faded away as everyone laughed and Kylo snorted. “As if constant
supervision would stop her.”
 You'll Always Have It
Chapter Summary

Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see- Hebrews
11:1

Chapter Notes

No specific warnings for this chapter and the next one is already half way done so
we're really almost done!! This is a short chapter but this and the next one didn't seem
to have a way to split it where it would be even so I divided it by the passing of
time/seasons in the story and this is what we got. The next one will be longer to make
up for it.

If you're still here with me after all of this time I just want to thank you so much for
not giving up on me finishing this and I promise I will get it done soon. You're all
amazing and I'm so grateful!

Fall 2017

“Things have gotten better since you started coming here?”

Kylo shrugged, bouncing his knee to give release to some of his restless energy. The office was
comfortable enough—quiet, with soothing blue walls and plush chairs—but it wasn’t always
enough to settle his nerves. “The nightmares have gotten better, less frequent.”

“That’s good,” Dr. Lucas said. “Is there anything that hasn’t gotten better?”

“The anxiety,’ Kylo said immediately. “The guilt.”

“Anxiety about the baby?”

“Mostly about the baby,” Kylo agreed. “But also about Rey.”

“That’s right,” Dr. Lucas said, his head tipping to the side as he made a short note in Kylo’s file.
“The wedding is coming up soon, isn’t it? That might also help explain the struggle you’re having
with anxiety. What about the guilt?”

Kylo pushed a hand through his hair and puffed out a harsh breath. “What if I’m not able to be a
good husband and father? I might ruin Rey’s life, the baby’s life. I don’t fucking deserve all the
good shit that’s happened to me.”

“How so?”

“I failed so many people,” Kylo admitted. “People I left behind at Luke’s, at Snoke’s, they suffered
because I couldn’t figure out how to get them out and then, somehow, I’m the one who gets out of
prison? There are better people than me that are still in there. I couldn’t even stop what was
happening to me, to the others. They got away with it.”

“Who did?”

“Luke, Snoke, the judge that wouldn’t let me defend myself at the trial. All of them.”

“And you think you should have prevented them from getting away with it?”

Kylo stared at Dr. Lucas, at the trim gray beard and patient eyes. It made him restless and itchy
under the skin, like there was some conclusion that he was meant to reach that remained just out of
reach. “Someone should have,” he said. “Someone should have done something and they didn’t.”

“Yes, but should their failures put the burden on you? You had no power in those situations, and
the fault there does not belong to you.”

“It doesn’t change the need to do something,” Kylo insisted. “I can’t live with this helplessness, not
knowing that Rey and the baby depend on me.”

“I understand that you feel helpless and frustrated about what you couldn’t change from the past
but you have power now,” Dr. Lucas said. “You have power to take care of your family and even
the power to help others the way you should have been helped. It’s something to think about.”

Kylo nodded, his mind already hard at work figuring out what that meant for him.

“Are you still struggling with your faith?” Dr. Lucas continued. He sipped from a can of diet Coke
and peered at Kylo over the rim as he waited for an answer.

“There’s no struggle with my faith,” Kylo said. “Rey believes and I don’t but it’s not a problem for
us.”

“You don’t have any challenges supporting her in her beliefs?”

“Not anymore,” Kylo said. “I used to but now I go to church with her for events and special
occasions. It’s been more often lately since she hasn’t been feeling well because of the baby, but I
don’t have an issue with it.”

“Her father being a pastor doesn’t bother you?”

“I don’t think about it much anymore,” Kylo said, feeling a bit stunned at the realization that it was
true. “He’s nothing like Luke—he doesn’t weaponize his authority and he stands up for the
vulnerable people in his community so I like him.”

“That all sounds like significant progress for you.”

“Yes,” Kylo agreed. “It does.”

“Have you talked to any of the others?” Dr. Lucas asked.

“The others?”

“The people that were with you at Luke and Snoke’s?”

“They’ve reached out to me,” Kylo admitted, “but I never responded.”

“Why is that?”
“What if they blame me for not doing more? I don’t know if I could handle that.”

“They helped you at your trial,” Dr. Lucas reminded him. “You share a unique bond with them, a
shared history, and they may have already had a chance to walk the healing road that you’re on
now.”

“So...what? You think they might have advice for me?”

“Talking about it might help, with or without advice, but it’s possible.”

“Hmm.”

“Whatever you decide, it’s important that you remember that you are the one in a position of power
in your own life now. Not your parents, or Luke and Snoke, and not the guards at the prison. You
deserve to life a full life and reach for the things that make you happy.”

***

The smell of salt in the air was the first thing Kylo noticed as the afternoon sun finally crept in
through the window. He could hear the distant roar of the ocean and the cry of gulls, but most of
his attention was already focused on the press of Rey’s body against him. She’d been his wife for
just under a full day and the weight of his ring on his finger still felt strange.

The small bed and breakfast that she had chosen was nearly empty this time of year, something
she’d claimed was important because she’d wanted them to have privacy and access to the water
without having to put him in the middle of a crowd, and the water outside the window was clear
blue and inviting just beyond a mostly empty beach. He’d take her out to swim or build castles in
the sand once she was rested, but for now she was still asleep, her bare shoulder peeking out above
a thin layer of crisp white sheets, and he nuzzled his face into her neck, chuckling as she whined a
protest and pulled the sheet up over her head.

“Are you going to sleep the whole honeymoon?” he asked, trailing his nose against her shoulder as
she tried to snuggle down deeper into the bed. “I promised to take you down to the beach today.”

“You did,” she agreed. “And you will, but first I need sleep.”

He pulled her against him, his hands roaming freely over her curves and the barely noticeable
roundness of her stomach. “It’s already late,” he said. “Haven’t we slept enough?”

“We’ve hardly slept at all,” she said with a giggle. “You kept me up all night.”

“I couldn’t help it.” He cupped her breasts in his hands, caressing them with expert fingers until her
nipples hardened under his touch. “You were beautiful yesterday.”

“You think so?”

“You’re always beautiful,” he said, “but you were a perfect bride. All of that white lace and the
flowers in your hair, you looked like an angel. I’m glad it was only your dad and a few guests,
because I couldn’t wait to get you out of that church.”

“I looked like an angel, so you couldn’t wait to dirty me up a little?’

“I think you like it when I dirty you up a little,” he mused and she didn’t argue the point as he
skimmed his fingers down over her ribs to grip her hip. “I can dirty you up again…unless you’d
rather sleep?”
She hummed, pretending to think it over as she closed her eyes and arched into his touch. “I
suppose I could be persuaded to sleep later instead…or tomorrow…or not at all.”

“We could go to the beach?”

“We will,” she said, her legs parting for his hand . “Not now.”

“No?” He paused, his hand hovering just over her, close enough for her to feel his warmth but far
enough away that she got no satisfaction from it. He smiled as her hips lifted, seeking shamelessly,
until he gave her what she needed. She was hazy eyed with desire and he knew she’d already
forgotten about sleep and swimming.

He would take her to the beach, but this was their honeymoon and he intended to keep her in their
bed as often as possible.

Her folds were hot and slick against his fingers and he slid the first into her as she moaned. He
curved it inside her, working her open as he stroked the softness of her cunt. He didn’t add the
second until she was trembling, her fingers twisted in the sheets and her breath coming in soft
murmurs of need.

He’d learned her body well by now, had mapped each curve and memorized each small noise and
soft exhalation, and he used it to his advantage, stroking her until she was poised on the edge of
orgasm and then withdrawing his hand. He covered her protest with his mouth, swallowing the
whine with a smile against her lips as he kissed her.

She sighed when he began to work his way down her body, paying close attention to the places
that he knew were the most sensitive. He lavished her with praise when he reached the newly fuller
swell of her breasts, knowing she had been self conscious and uncertain about the change.

Her fingers tangled in his hair as he continued his leisurely exploration, pausing to kiss the slight
curve of her stomach before moving on to the curve of her hip and then the long, lean muscle of her
legs. Her breath always caught in anticipation when he kissed the soft skin of thighs and she
jumped in surprise when he nipped the flesh there and then soothed the sting with his tongue.

He glanced up at her, this woman that had become his world and then his wife. She was beautiful
with her hair spread across the pillows in sleep tousled waves and her mouth kiss-bruised and
plump. He ran his tongue slowly up the center of her, his eyes holding hers as he went, and a pretty
pink flush rose to cover her cheeks and her chest.

She closed her eyes when he licked his way deeper, parting her folds with his mouth and gripping
her thighs to hold her in place as he devoured her slowly. He built the tension slowly, circling her
clit softly until her breath quickened and then pulling away to focus his attention elsewhere just
long enough for her to begin to relax and then pushing her to the edge again.

“Kylo,” she said sharply, fisting her hands in his hair as her third orgasm faded away just out of
reach. She tugged hard, pulling him up from between her legs to bite down reprovingly on his
bottom lip once he was in reach.

He grinned at her, not the least bit repentant. “You said you didn’t want to go to the beach yet. I
was just trying to keep us entertained.”

She hooked a leg over his hip, pulling him close as her fingers dug into the muscles of his back..
“I’m entertained,” she said. “But I think you can do better.”

“Is that a challenge?” He pushed into her, stopping when he was only just inside and her muscles
clenched, fluttering around what little of his cock he’d given her.

“Maybe,” she said. “What if it was?”

He hummed in contemplation, nibbling at her bottom lip as he rocked his hips and shifted just a
fraction more inside. “I think we might not make it to the beach until after dinner.”

“Then it was a challenge,” she said. “I think the beach at sunset sounds like a better idea anyway.”

“Greedy,” he said, finally thrusting until she had taken all of him. “Shameless.”

“Yes,” she acknowledged. “I always want more of you.”

“You’ll always have it,” he promised, sealing the vow with another soft kiss. He held that thought
in his mind as he fucked into her with aching slowness and infinite patience. He pushed her to one
orgasm and then another, not giving in the urge to chase his own until he was sure she was
thoroughly satisfied and the glaring afternoon sun had softened into evening.

He lingered over the taste of her mouth, the last moan of pleasure, the feel of her sweat slick skin.
For now there were only soft words and sweet kisses and the unhurried rhythm of a man who truly
believed for the first time that they had forever and he didn’t need to rush.

***

Winter 2017

“How is Rey doing?”

“Cranky,” Kylo said with a slight smile. “Beautiful.”

“It’s getting fairly close now isn’t it?”

“A few more months.”

“Any resurgence of anxiety as it gets closer?”

Kylo shook his head. “Not about the baby,” he said. “I’ve spoken to Bazine and a few of the others
and they have families. I know my situation is unique but they’ve managed parenthood alright.”

“That must be encouraging for you,” Dr. Lucas said. “So, no anxiety about the baby, but about
something else?”

Kylo shrugged. “I just…I see Rey and the way she is about the baby already and how much I
already love a child I’ve never met.”

“You’re thinking about your father?”

Kylo nodded. “My father. My mother. I just wonder if they really loved me in the same way. I
think about all the ways I could make mistakes, the things I could say or do to mess up a
relationship and it seems so endless.”

“Parenting is a difficult job,” Dr. Lucas agreed. “You still haven’t spoken to your mother?”

“Not since she came to the apartment and we were both angry, both hurt.”

“You said before that you felt like she betrayed you. Do you still feel that way?”
“Yes,” Kylo said. “No. Sometimes I do and then I think, how would I feel if my child ever hurt
Rey? I can’t imagine it. Can’t imagine what I’d do.”

“You both have trauma,” Dr. Lucas said. “It’s different trauma and I know you would argue that
she started the cycle by sending you to Luke, but looking at your family history, it seems to me that
the cycle is generational.”

“Because of my grandfather?" Kylo asked, waiting for Dr. Lucas to nod before continuing. "Yeah,
well, I don’t think he had such a great childhood, either.”

“These things pass down,” Dr. Lucas said. “We learn from those before us and repeat their
mistakes or overcompensate, or invent whole new ways to damage the next generation.”

“That doesn’t sound very promising.”

“You’re breaking the cycle and learning to have healthy relationships and I’d say that’s very
promising."

***

“He wants me to talk to Leia.” Kylo stood at the counter in their new kitchen, staring out over the
trees as he waited for his morning coffee to brew. He wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to the quiet
here, or the peace that always settled over him as he watched the sun burn away the morning mist.
His announcement was met with silence and he turned back to Rey, unsure if she’d heard him.

She set her teacup down on the kitchen table, cradling it in her hands for warmth as she watched
him with a crease of worry between her brows. There was still toast on her plate and even though
her white nightgown hugged the rounded curve of her stomach, he knew she still had trouble eating
in the mornings. “Do you think that’s a good idea?” she asked finally.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “He thinks we might be able to work things out, especially if she
agrees to go to therapy. I don’t know if that’s true, but I wasn’t sure about reaching out to Bazine
and the others and that turned out alright.”

“It did,” she agreed. “Do you think Leia would agree to therapy? She doesn’t seem like the type
who’d be willing to pay someone to tell her when she’s wrong.”

He chuckled. “When you put it that way…”

“You’re doing so well right now and I worry about how you’d react if things with Leia don’t go
well," Rey said as she tapped a blunt fingernail nervously on the side of her cup, "but if you and
Dr. Lucas think this is the right thing to do then I’ll support you.”

“I told him I’d think about it," Kylo assured. "I didn't make any promises and I don’t have to
decide today.”
 Thank You
Chapter Summary

Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all-
Romans 12:17

Chapter Notes

This is the last full chapter! After this, all that we'll have left is the epilogue and that is
actually already done and will be coming in the next week or so. Once I post that, I'll
leave this up for about a month and then I'm going to hide it so I can work on revisions
and rework it into an original story for publication. If you want it in its current fanfic
form, then I would recommend downloading it in that month! Once again, thank you
all so much for coming on this journey with me, I appreciate all of you!

This is also an open invite for you all to let me know what you really liked about the
story or what you thought could be improved! If you think something could have been
made better or treated with more sensitivity, that's great feedback for me for editing
and if you really loved it then I know it's something to think carefully about before I
cut it (the story is too long so some stuff has to be trimmed unfortunately!)

CW for this chapter is primarily pregnancy and childbirth. If think I've missed
anything, please let me know!

And as always, my absolute heartfelt thanks to my incredible beta RushReylo for

helping me polish this story and giving me the courage to finish it!

Spring 2018

“I don’t know if I can do this,” he said into the phone. “I came all this way and I can’t seem to get
out of the damn car.”

“You can do this,” Rey reassured. “I know you can.”

“What if she won’t see me?”

“Then you come home and we’ll be your family.”

He stared at the ring on his hand, still white-knuckle gripping the steering wheel as he clung to the
truth of those words. He’d been out of prison for less than a year and already he was a husband and
well on his way to being a father. Months of work with Dr. Lucas had helped all of that feel more
real to him, more tangible. He had lost his mother years ago and whether he got her back or closed
the door on the possibility forever, nothing would ever take Rey and the baby from him.
 The large white house just visible through the trees across the street felt familiar, but it had never
been a home in the same way the house he shared with Rey now was. He stared at the windows,
counting the gleaming panes of glass on the second floor until he came to the one he’d grown up
in. He had no memories there but loneliness and raised voices and a cold pit of dread settled into
his stomach like a lead weight. It was a familiar feeling, the same one he’d always gotten when his
mother had looked at him with her characteristic stern disapproval.

He’d always been too loud, too violent, too out of control. The wedge it had driven between them
had been deep, the first seemingly irreparable crack in the foundation of his life. Had he been
surprised at all when it had come crashing down?

“You’re more of my family than anyone else has ever been,” he told Rey honestly. “I need to try
and fix this but if I can’t…”

“I know,” she said. “We’ll keep going, because that’s what we always do.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too, and don’t forget you can call me or Dr. Lucas if you need to.”

“I will,” he promised, but he knew he wouldn’t. Whatever the consequences were of this decision,
it would be between him and his mother, at least for now.

He put the car in gear and crept up the driveway, stopping at the black wrought iron gate to push
the button on the intercom. All of the time he’d spent worrying with Rey and he might not even
make it through the gate if his mother didn’t agree to let him in the house.

He didn’t have to wait long, and the woman’s voice that answered him was smooth and
professional, exactly the kind of employee he would expect to work for an unfailingly proper
politician. “Senator Organa’s residence, how may I help you?”

“I need to see the senator,” Kylo said. He tried to keep his voice brisk and authoritative, lessons
from years ago floating back through his mind, memories of his mother trying to guide him when
she still thought he might someday follow in her political footsteps.

There was a pause—checking the daily schedule he assumed—followed by, “She’s not expecting
anyone today.”

“I don’t have an appointment,” he said. “I’m her son.”

This time the pause was longer. “The senator doesn’t—”

“Tell her that Ben Solo has come to see her,” he said, the hard edge of command in his voice
apparently enough to send the guard hurrying to obey. Using his birth name was strange and
unfamiliar, but he remembered enough about living with Leia to know how to use his background
and connections to get the job done.

Several infinitely long minutes later the gate swung open without another word from the intercom
and he pulled the car up the long driveway. She was already waiting for him on the stairs in front
of the massive double front doors by the time he parked.

“Benjamin…” His name was a contemplative drawl, each syllable a fraction of a second too long as
she delayed making the choice about what to say to him. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I didn’t write,” he said with a shrug. “Or call.”

“Well.....” Another pause, longer this time. “Come inside then.”

He followed her in, his gaze wandering over the familiar lines of the furniture and peeking into
rooms that hadn’t changed in more than a decade. It was an odd feeling to be back inside his
childhood home after so long, and even stranger to find the walls in the informal living room were
still hung with old family photographs. His own face, young and thin with a crooked smile, looked
down on him as Leia ordered lemonade from the kitchen and sat stiffly on the edge of the love seat
cushion.

“Things didn’t go so well last time we tried this,” she said after a moment. “Perhaps you’d like to
speak first this time?”

“I’m sorry,” he said without preamble, for what could he possibly say to her except that? “I’m
sorry for what I did to Dad.”

She inclined her head, a silent acknowledgment, before taking a deep breath to steady herself. “I’m
sorry that we sent you to Luke’s.”

He shrugged. “So, that’s the worst of it,” he said. “The two of us, both bending our pride a bit to
apologize for our mistakes.”

“Did you mean it?” Her eyes reflected his own hesitance, his own pride. In the years that he’d
lived here, countless people had told him that he looked like his father, her eyes were nearly the
same color as his own and he had always felt it had been his mother that had marked him the
deepest.

“I’ve done a lot of things in my life that I regret, but nothing as much as that,” he said, “I didn’t
mean to do it and I’ve spent every day since wishing I could take it back. Did you?”

Leia turned her face away, searching the green expanse of the lawn outside the window for
something he thought only she could see. “I lost both of you the day I sent you away,” she said. “I
thought I was helping you, but nothing was ever right again after that.”

“I don’t know if it was right before that,” he said.

“At least before that we had hope.”

“Maybe we could have hope again.”

She looked at him, for once the steel in her spine softening. “I’d like that and I think your father
would, too. You look good, Ben.”

“I feel good,” he added. “I’ve been going to therapy.”

“Really?” There was surprise there, a note of curiosity that he could almost see in her face, though
it remained unlined and precisely neutral. Years of practice had made her a nearly unreadable book,
but he had practice of his own in deciphering her.

“My therapist thought you should probably go, too,” he said, and he let it hang between them for a
moment as he took a long swallow from his drink and watched her eyes narrow fractionally.
“Maybe a sort of family thing.”

“I can’t go all the way…”

“They could do it over video call.” He’d anticipated that protest and smiled as he outmaneuvered
her.

“Hmm.”

“Rey’s pregnant,” he said into the silence that followed.

Something flashed over her face, quickly suppressed. “That’s manipulative, Benjamin.”

“Offering you access to your grandchild?”

He held up his hands in surrender as her lips pursed and her fingers tightened on the glass she was
holding. He knew the signs of a stubborn woman about to dig her heels in for an argument.

“Fine, it’s manipulative,” he agreed. “Is it working?”

She ignored the question, as close to an admission as Kylo knew he was likely to get, and looked at
him over the rim of her lemonade glass. “When is the baby due?”

“Late spring.”

“Fine,” she sniffed. “Though I maintain that it’s unfair to use a grandchild against me.”

“You’ve never dealt in fairness, Mother, only in results. Besides, he’s a good therapist.”

“What’s he done for you?”

“I’m here,” Kylo said, looking around at a house he had never planned to come back to. “And it’s
helped with the anger and the anxiety and the nightmares.”

“I’m glad,” she said and he thought she might be. It was always hard to tell with Leia what was
real and what was a careful performance, but there was an uncharacteristic softness in her eyes. She
lifted a hand, and for a moment he was almost sure she was going to reach for him, but after a
moment of hesitation she let it fall.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said, pretending not to notice her moment of vulnerability, “and I want to
do something important. Give something back to help people like me.”

“And what would that be?” She sat up straighter, her mind seamlessly making the switch to
something tangible she could work on.

“Well, I thought I’d ask my mother to throw some of her considerable influence behind prison and
sentencing reform,” he said. “At least to begin with. Then I could move on to starting a nonprofit,
something to help with the legal complications and helping people get back on their feet once
they’re released. It’s almost impossible for them to find jobs or places to live. It’s not surprising
how many of them end up back in prison. We’ve done nothing to help them with the problems that
put them there and we’ve added new, unnecessary challenges on top of them.”

She set her glass down, her face taking on a calculating expression that he knew meant she’d
slipped into the role of a politician. “Those views aren’t exactly popular, Benjamin. Not with
donors and not with the public. Our current rules are in place to keep other people safe.”

“I know,” he said. “But does doing that and not addressing the real causes of crime actually help
anyone? Or is it just another way that we can make people miserable without having to feel guilty?
We’ve built an entire system around punishment. We handle people who break the law like they’re
cartoon criminals instead of real people with real struggles. You don’t know how many of the
people I was in with had stories like mine. Stealing to survive, killing to survive, doing drugs just to
numb the pain of living or to self medicate for some mental illness because they can’t afford to see
a real therapist.”

“What are you saying?” she asked, sounding as exasperated with him as she had been in his youth.
“You want to take on the whole judicial system?”

“More than that,” he said, leaning forward and grabbing her hand, cradling it in his as he tried to
explain. “I want to challenge the idea of punitive justice as the best way to do things in the first
place. The thought that you can lock someone up in a cage and that somehow they pay off their
debt to society through suffering…it makes no sense.”

“And what do you think we should do instead?”

“Help people before it comes to that,” he said. “Do more to keep people fed, housed, and educated.
We can break the cycles that put people in prison and help the ones that are already there get a
better chance at a future.”

“Benjamin…”

“I can handle the nonprofit,” he interrupted. “Rey can help with all the legal stuff once she has her
degree and passes the bar and I have just the person in mind to help with the reintegration part of
things—but I need your help. You don’t just have the platform and the political clout, it’s more
than that, you have the ability to speak on this as someone who’s been directly affected by a
horrible tragedy.”

“I don’t know that I can honestly say that I completely disagree with you being sent to prison,” she
said. “I can’t speak as a victim and say the things you want me to say.”

“I’m not asking you to advocate for the abolition of consequences entirely or for those who
commit violent crimes to go free without an assessment of the risk,” he said. “I’m asking that you
ask for those consequences to fit the circumstances. I’m asking you to advocate for other solutions
for nonviolent offenders, for programs to reduce violence in the first place, and for everyone to
have the chance at rehabilitation.”

“You’ve given this a lot of thought,” she said. “Is this the only reason you came?”

“I’ve been working on goals with my therapist,” he explained. “Trying to mend our relationship
was one of the goals, and the nonprofit was another. I figured since I was already here…”

She patted his arm. “You got that single-mindedness from me, I suppose, so I can’t fault you for
it.”

“Does that mean you’ll help me?”

“I’ll do what I can,” she agreed.

***

“This space would work perfectly for an office,” he said, standing with Rey in the center of a large
room with a wide expanse of windows that overlooked the city. She had asked Amilyn for
suggestions, and this building had come highly recommended for its location and price. It was a
little run down but there would be plenty of space for all of the various activities they wanted to
incorporate into the nonprofit they’d envisioned.
“More than that,” Rey said, tugging him from room to room as she showed him the full potential of
the space. “We’ve got waiting rooms, offices for the lawyers, a big room back here that we can use
for job skills training. We’ll be able to provide information about low cost mental health services,
housing options, food assistance programs…”

“Slow down,” he said, the laugh rumbling in his chest as she threw open another door to a large
conference room with peeling brown paint. “Even with all that we would still have more space
than we needed.”

She frowned, her hands on her hips as she sighed. “We don’t know yet what we’ll need once things
get going, Kylo. Room to grow is a good thing.”

“I suppose it is,” he agreed, pushing a restless hand through his hair and looking around at the
building he knew Rey was going to talk him into buying. “It’s just hard for me to imagine being
able to do this much good for so many people.”

“Well, you better get used to it,” she said. “You already went on national TV with your mom and
announced to everyone that the Better Odds Legal Defense and Prisoner Reintegration Program
was going to be ready as soon as possible.”

He groaned, the headlines spawned by that interview still burned into the dark spaces behind his
eyelids.

Senator Organa and Son, Benjamin Solo, on Criminal Justice Reform and Second Chances

“I still can’t believe I let her talk me into going on Good Morning America to talk about…well,
everything…and legally changing my name back.” The second part was something he’d already
been discussing with Rey and Dr. Lucas as a way to shed the armor he’d encased himself with
emotionally during the worst of his trauma, but he’d never admit to himself or his mother that it
hadn’t been her fault he’d publically given up his chosen identity. Rey had changed her last name
to match—muttering gratefully that Rey Solo was so much better than Rey Ren—but she still
called him Kylo more often than not when they were alone.

“I’m surprised she talked you into writing a book about it,” Rey teased, “but if there’s one thing
she knows it’s how to influence public opinion.”

“She said we should expect things to get complicated since I went public with my story,” he said.
“Luke is gone and the statute of limitations has passed on everything Snoke did to me, but with
such a public accusation…”

“Once one person speaks, it encourages others to speak up,” Rey said. “She talked to me about it
the day before you went in for the interview but I didn’t want to bring it up. I figured you’d talk
about it when you were ready.”

“Ready or not, it doesn’t seem like I’m going to have much choice.” He shrugged, but he felt
anything but calm at the thought of dealing with all the pressure that living in the public eye could
bring. It was a good thing that he’d been talking extensively to Dr. Lucas about feeling in control of
his life since it was his choice this time to interact with the media. “I spent all of my childhood
trying to get out from under her legacy and avoid public life,” he said, “and now I’m right back in
it.”

“It’s for a good cause,” Rey reminded him. She glanced at her phone, then up at him with an
encouraging smile. “Nothing changes without people willing to fight for it.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “I’m lucky to have so many people willing to help me.”

“Hux is still ready to help once he gets out?”

“He’s ready,” Kylo confirmed. “People just coming out are gonna be more comfortable with him
than they would be a fancy lawyer or someone in a suit. He speaks their language, understands
their challenges.”

She glanced at her phone again before tucking it away in her pocket. “Well, all that’s left to do
then is buy the building, hire a few lawyers and such, and wait for the rest of the details to fall into
place.”

“That sounds about right,” he agreed. “I’ll be sure to give Amilyn a call and thank her for
recommending…”

“Kylo?”

“Yeah?”

“We’re gonna need to take care of one of those details first,” she said. “You can drop me off at the
hospital before you run home to get our bags.”

“Why would I need to drop you off…” He stepped back to look at her, taking in the slight pallor of
her complexion and the tight smile on her face. “Shit,” he said. “How long have you been in
labor?”

“Not that long,” she said. “I wasn’t sure at first, but the contractions are pretty regular and getting
closer together.”

“Shit,” he repeated.

After that, everything happened in a blur.

Rey was calmer and more composed than he was, sitting up in her hospital bed and shaking her
head at him when he’d returned from picking up her hospital bag and slid across the floor of her
room in his panicked fear that he’d missed the birth.

“Not yet,” she assured him. “It takes time.”

He hadn’t really believed her, but it had taken enough time for her father to arrive and all of their
friends to call and wish her well before the contractions became unbearable enough that she asked
for the epidural, her knuckles white on the rail of her bed and her lips pressed together in a thin
line.

“I never had to go through this with her mother,” Pastor Johnson said as they took a break and
walked to the vending machine down the hall. “It’s terrifying.”

“She’s strong,” Kylo said, glancing anxiously back at their room. He hated this place, the stiff
chairs and the cold air that smelled of antiseptic and worry. “They’ll be alright…they have to be.”

Pastor Johnson nodded wordlessly and opted to remain in the waiting room as Kylo to Rey. He’d
promised to let him know as soon as anything happened, but hours passed before the doctor
announced it was time.

She gripped his hand hard enough to grind the bones together as she brought their child into the
world, the doctor’s slow count guiding her on when to push and when to wait.

“You’re doing amazing,” he said. “The best, strongest woman I know.”

“I can’t do this,” she panted. “It’s too hard.”

“Nothing is too hard for you,” he said, putting the full force of his conviction in that promise.
“There’s nothing in the world you can’t do.”

She glared at him and pushed again, laughing though the sheen of her tears when the doctor peered
up at her and said, “One more good push and you’ll be done. You’re almost a mama. Ready?
Now!”

Rey’s small scream of determination had barely faded away when the baby’s first cry rose up to
replace it, a thready wail that quickly turned strong and outraged as the doctor laid the small pink
body on her chest.

Kylo watched in awe as his wife let out a small sob of victory and pulled their child in, examining
the tiny fingers and the small nose. They had made a child, he realized.

He was a father.

“Someone has your temper,” Rey said, relaxing back on the pillows and finally letting go of his
aching hand. “If this baby doesn’t look like me…”

Kylo stood up, watching as the nurses lifted the baby away from Rey and looked them both over
to make sure everything was as it should be. There was already a tuft of soft black hair peeking out
of the little blanket, but maybe Rey would get lucky and their kids would have her nose or her soft
hazel eyes?

“I’m sure any baby of yours will be absolutely beautiful, just like you,” he said diplomatically
before pushing the sweat damp waves of her hair back from her face and pressing a tender kiss to
her brow. “I need to tell your dad that you’re both okay.”

“I’m sure he’s been worried,” she agreed. “We’ll need to let everyone else know, too. Finn and
Rose, Kaydel.”

“I’ll call Rose and she can let everyone else know,” Kylo promised.

It took a few hours for the nurses to get Rey and the baby settled into a recovery room and by then
Pastor Johnson had come and gone, his eyes misty with tears as he held his grandchild for the first
time. He’d taken dozens of pictures and held the phone while Rey video chatted with Rose and
Kaydel. They both cried and promised to come during the next available visiting hours and send
plenty of pictures to Jannah.

“We still haven’t decided on a name,” he reminded Rey when their room was empty and the video
call to his mother was over. Leia had promised to come as soon as she could and she’d walked out
of the room with her bewildered assistant not far behind. It was apparent that this was the first day
off she’d taken in quite some time, possibly ever.

“Brekker,” Rey said confidently, her fingers twining with his as she looked down at the small pink
face of their child. “Benjamin Brekker Solo, but Brekker for every day. A little piece of you to
carry but a little bit of something new.”

“That’s perfect,” Kylo agreed. “Hello, Brekker.”

“Congratulations on becoming a dad,” Rey said. “It suits you.”

“Thank you,” he said, pressing his forehead to hers and cupping her cheek in his hand. “For giving
me the chance to be a husband and a father and a better man. Thank you for never giving up on
me.”
 Epilogue
Chapter Summary

You have been set apart and chosen for his purpose- Deuteronomy

Chapter Notes

We have finally reached the end! I can't begin to tell you all how much it means to me
that you've made this journey with me. It's taken me almost exactly a year to finish
this and I'm sad to let these two go but I also think that it's wonderful to have
experienced all of this with them and I'm so proud of how far they've come. They
deserved their HEA and now they finally get to have it.

Reminder that the story is only going to be up till the end of July so if you want the
fanfic version of this please do what you need to do to save it before then.

As always all of my love and gratitude to my amazing beta RushReylo for helping me
through this! I very much doubt I would have finished without you!!

Several Years Later

It wasn’t the first time that Rey had walked across the stage at graduation, but it was the most
important. It was the culmination of years of work, of determination, of learning and compromise
and difficult prioritizing. It was the product of her rebellion and the calling of her God.

She’d passed the bar already, taking advantage of Texas’s willingness to let her sit for the exam
prior to graduation so she’d nothing left to worry about by the time they called her name. All she’d
had left to do was show up and be acknowledged for her efforts. Well, more than acknowledged.
Celebrated, really, if her husband had anything to say about it.

She scanned the crowd as she descended from the stage, searching the sea of faces for the ones
most familiar to her. Even in a crowd, Kylo was easy to spot—his dark hair and large frame always
stood out among the rest. She waved as she passed him, blowing a subtle kiss to him and the
toddler in his arms as he pointed her out to their daughter. This child, too, had Kylo’s dark curls and
her hazel eyes, and Lyra clapped excitedly and tugged on Kylo’s shoulder before leaning down to
say something to her brother.

Brekker was long and lean, the same lanky arms and legs that Kylo had always had in every picture
she’d seen of him as a child and he had the same wobbling, crooked grin as he stretched up on his
tiptoes to clap and wave to her. The three of them, the miracle family that had been given to her
through God’s grace and second chances, would have been enough. If they were the only ones that
had come to see her achieve her dreams, she would have already been happy beyond what she’d
once thought possible.
But her father was also there, Brekker’s hand in his and tears in his eyes. On Kylo’s other side was
Leia, fussing over her granddaughter and looking dignified in a pale blue suit. Beside them were
Finn and Rose and then Kaydel with her new wife, followed by Hux and the brother that he had
regained custody of as soon as he’d been able to prove to the courts that he had a job and a stable
place to live.

All of them had come to celebrate with her, Kylo overriding her objections that they didn’t all need
to come and wait through the long ceremony. They could throw a party later, she’d insisted, but
he’d only shaken his head and rounded them all up anyway, personally eliciting a promise from
each that they’d be there.

The party was still happening, but at this point she was certain the guest list had expanded to
include almost everyone she’d ever met. If anyone had ever doubted Kylo’s support for her career
goals or the pride he had in her accomplishments, they wouldn’t doubt it for long. He’d gone as
overboard as she’d been willing to allow before she finally had to put her foot down and insist he
not include a fireworks display or the release of live doves.

He’d given in on those points, but made up for it when she’d woken before dawn, anxious and full
of nerves about the day to come.

“I’m proud of you,” he’d said, voice still husky with sleep as he whispered against her neck.

She’d nodded against his chest, her breath too far gone for anything else. Her fingers were tangled
in his hair, her knees spread wide around his hips, her cunt full of him as he rocked up into her. In
the still light of morning, he’d shown her nothing but aching tenderness as he’d held her, keeping
her close as he reclined back on a stack of pillows that kept him sitting mostly upright, his mouth
close to her ear and his hands drifting over her body as she leaned into him, her breasts pressed
against his chest.

The need for him was still there, the edges unblunted with time and undaunted by the early hour
and her nerves. Her fingers had found purchase in his skin, gripping to hold him as he filled her,
and her skin had come awake under his caress.

He’d cupped her thighs, his thumbs lingering in the creases where her legs met the curve of her hip,
then reached farther to knead the round flesh of her behind before rediscovering the dimples in the
small of her back and trace the lines of her vertebrae. His mouth had moved from her lips to the
curve of her cheek, over the ridge of her brow and the line of her nose before trailing fire and
warmth down her neck and over the width of shoulders.

All of her worries had disappeared, drowned by the pleasure of his touch and the scent of his skin.
There was nothing to fear in a world where she was loved like that, where she was worshiped so
openly, with such a lack of shame. She’d broken over him with a soft cry, ecstasy and warmth
flooding her, words of love tumbling from her lips and the taste of her lover on her tongue.

The memory of it made her cheeks heat and a low flame rekindle in her blood, but it was soon
forgotten as Kylo put his fingers in his mouth and let go with a long whistle as she passed that
made heads turn all across the large auditorium and his mother to elbow him in the ribs.

Rey’s face, already pink, flamed hot and red but she couldn’t withhold a laugh as she settled back
into her seat to wait for the procession of graduates to end. Over the years since he’d been released
it had gotten easier, more normal to have him around, and sometimes she lost sight of how lucky
she was to have him beside her at all. But on occasions like these it was hard not to be reminded of
what she might have missed, that this day might have come and gone without him, without their
children. She would take his embarrassing over-enthusiasm with gratitude.
 He’d given her all of himself, made her life and the lives of so many others far better than they
would otherwise have been. The program they had started had given hope where there had been so
little.

Every day new letters crossed their desks, begging for help dealing with a system that they had no
idea how to navigate, and newly released inmates shuffled through the door, unsure of their
welcome and where they fit into the world. Kylo welcomed them all, doing his best to help as
many as he could.

He’d given purpose to Hux and healing to his mother as Leia worked through her own trauma in
therapy and used her considerable influence to push for changes in the law.

Now that Rey was finally able to practice law herself, she’d be able to contribute even more to the
legacy they were building. A legacy of hope. Of love. Of second chances and radical forgiveness
and foundational change.

She caught Kylo’s eye as the ceremony drew to a close and the graduates let out a collective sigh
of relief. He grinned down at her as she pulled the cap from her head and tossed it high with the
others. It felt like the end, carried the bittersweet flavor of a monumental task finally done, but it
also felt like a beginning, like the deep breath that the whole world takes just before the sunrise.
Even after all they’d been through, all the changes that they’d seen and the battles that they’d
fought, she could feel in her bones that the best of them was yet to come.

End Notes

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