This is part 2 of 2 of a Reylo AU I've written for justrandome for More Than Love: RFFA Valentine's Exchange 2018.

The prompt was an AU set in modern time.

Chapter 2

Of Endless Layers

Sleep was a miracle worker.

When she woke up, something had clicked in her brain. She slapped the ground of her camp so hard it hurt in the excitement of the moment before dashing to her car for her computer. Her fingers danced madly across the keyboard doing its best to catch up to her spinning thoughts. Her surrounding faded away in the peripherals, as she lost herself in the code, when she looked up again, it was an hour later and Luke was standing next to her.

"Still at the problem?"

"I think I've solved part of it," she replied with a triumphant smile. Pride coursed through her veins at the thought of how she had done this without Luke's help. "It's not quite there, but I'm hopeful I will sooner or later have a working neural network that fits right on any embedded devices."

"Do you really think creating something with such wide application is a good thing?"

The question had taken Rey aback. "Of course it is. Technology advancements infinitely improved everyone's life."

"Technology is romanticized, worshiped in Silicon Valley, but if you strip away all the feel good start-up stories and really think about the effect of technology on everyone's life, you will see that it is dangerous, destructive."

She began to protest but Luke silent her. "Technology creates robots and self driving cars that take away people's jobs. It's nuclear bombs and chemical weapons that allowed so many people to be killed in the World Wars. Neural networks will one day make machine smarter than any of us and who knows whose side they would be on."

"But technology like heart pacers and CT scans extend people's lives," Rey, always the optimist, cut in. "It was your early neural network research that allowed us to find patterns and take preventative measures before catastrophic failures happen in planes."

"And I became an pompous poster boy for machine learning because of that," Luke said bitterly. "I saw Ben, my nephew with that bright Skywalker mind. And in my arrogance, I thought I could reign in his talent and ambitions, that I could make him the next big machine learning researcher."

Luke was right there, but suddenly he seemed so far away. "Han was… Han about it, he never believed in formal education, but… Leia, she trusted me with her son. I took him in as my PhD student and I taught him. But by the time I realized where his dissertation was going and the extent of his moral ambivalence, it was too late."

"What was he researching?" Rey asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

"A generative system to come up with new molecules," replied Luke grimly. "My nephew always liked to play with fire."

It took a moment for Rey to process what Luke was implying. In the wrong hands, that research could lead to chemical weapons that affects millions. Rey sucked in a heavy breath at the implication. No wonder, Luke was concerned.

"Snoke was knocking at his door with grant money, and when I confronted Ben about it, he turned on me. He uploaded our private correspondences on social media, destroyed my relationship with the school's president, quit MIT, changed his name, and joined First Order. Leia blamed Snoke, the First Order CEO, for tempting her boy, but it was me. I failed. Because I was Luke Skywalker. Professor extraordinaire. Machine learning poster boy."

The revelations further cemented Rey's opinion that Ren was a sociopath and Luke's innocence. Rey shook her head. "You didn't fail Kylo Ren," she told him firmly. "He failed you."

Luke looked away and Rey sighed.

She pulled a business card from her wallet, and handed it to Luke. "I'm flying back to San Francisco tonight. If you change your mind about helping us, contact me.

She had the distinct feeling that the universe hated her when she found Ren in the seat next to hers in her connecting flight from Las Vegas to San Francisco. At the sight of him, her mind instantly jumped to everything Luke had told her earlier in the day, leaving her seething.

"I'd rather not sit next to you," she muttered under her breath as she took her seat, not caring that he had heard her.

His gave her a weary glance. "Yeah, me too," he returned in his low voice and turned back to his phone.

She hmphed and pulled out her laptop and put on her privacy screen, determined to ignore him for the rest of the flight by focusing on her work, but it was too hard with her conversation with Luke so fresh in her mind.

"Luke told me about what happened," she said when she couldn't hold in her righteous anger any longer.

Ren lifted his head and regarded her carefully. "Did he?"

His gaze was so intense she couldn't look away even though she wanted to.

"No, he didn't," Ren answered his own question in a slow and deliberate way. "I spent four years of my life creating a generative system to come up with molecules that could change the world, and Luke let his fears get the better of him."

She glared at him. "You were sharing your research with the wrong people, he tried to stop you, and you destroyed him."

His lips twisted into an embitter sneer. "Of course, that's what he would tell you," he said, hot rage shone through his features though his voice remained subdued. "I was only weighing my options. I was considering Snoke's grant offer just as I was considering the other fifteen grant offers opened to me back then."

"The fact you would even consider taking Snoke's money, knowing the type of application he was interested in, was irresponsible."

Ren sucked in a resentful breath. She looked him in the eyes, daring him to contradict her, but he didn't. Instead, he turned away and changed the subject. "I caught Skywalker sabotaging my lab results one night."

It took a few moments for Rey to fully process what he had alleged, and when she did, she felt like the air had been knocked out of her lungs.

"He had tampered with data to throw me off the right path when he thought I was close to a real finding. The integrity of the research was compromised. I couldn't trust any of my data points, who knew what else he had done while I was not looking, I threw away four years worth of post-graduate research," he explained with quiet intensity.

She stayed silent. Her mind was too full for words.

"He was supposed to be my dissertation advisor, my own family," Ren proclaimed, and as much as Rey didn't want to, she could hear the raw betrayal in his voice. "I let the past die, killed it if I had to. Tell me, what's wrong with that?"

Rey groaned out loud in despair. Her day was rapidly going from bad to worse.

There were electronic issues with the engine and the plane sat at the gate for nearly two and a half hours before the pilot announced the problem couldn't be fixed and everyone had to de-board. De-boarding was slow and painful as usual, made infinitely worse when the flight attendant at the gate announced there would be another three hours wait before the replacement plane would arrive.

Resigned to her fate, she begrudgingly looked for a seat. She as on her way to a free spot with strategic access to an outlet when someone tapped her shoulder.

It was Ren. "Want me to bring you into the lounge?"

Rey blinked at him dumbly. It took her a full second before she finally comprehended what he was offering and another for her to formulate a broken response. "Uh… You can do that?"

He shrugged nonchalantly. "I have platinum status, I can bring someone in for free."

If he was anyone else, Rey would jump at the offer. Free food had always been, as Finn would say, her one weakness. But the man in front of her was Kylo Ren and, exhausted and hungry as she was, she couldn't help but wonder if there were strings attached. Random acts of kindness didn't seem like something a sociopath would do.

Ren noted her hesitation. "Take it or leave it. I don't care," he said with an impatient eye roll and began to walk away.

Rey made a spur of the moment decision to follow.

They walked in silence to the lounge and Ren checked them both in as promised. Rey wasn't sure what was the social protocol when your sworn enemy helped you in an airline lounge in the middle of a long flight delay, but somehow it didn't feel right to just go her separate ways without another word. "Thanks for bringing me in. This is much nicer than the terminal," she said lamely.

"It's nothing," Ren replied dismissively. They stood together in awkward silence for few seconds before he nodded toward an empty table. "I'm going to sit down. Feel free to do whatever you'd like to do."

She recognized that was Ren's way of letting her know she was under no obligation to further interact with him. The most logical course of action was for her to find a table of her own and forget all about him. Yet, a quick peruse of the buffet later, her legs somehow brought her to his table.

"Can I sit here?" she asked and motioned at the empty seat across from him.

Ren looked up from his laptop, clearly surprised, but nodded.

She sat her ham sandwich and iced tea down as he turned his head back to his laptop in a sharp, decisive move. She pulled her own laptop out onto the table like a shield and let silence stretch between them.

She found her eyes trailing to him as she bit into her sandwich. She had never took time to study his face before, but now that she did, it was impossible not to see his resemblance to Han with his wavy hair, sharp features, and dark eyes. Her heart clenched as memories of Han's trial surfaced in her mind. "Why do you hate your father?" she asked without realizing she had spoken the question out loud.

His eyes snapped instantly to hers at her question, but he said nothing.

It was too late to stop now, so Rey continued: "You had a father who loved you. He gave a damn about you."

"I don't hate him."

His answer surprised her, she hadn't expected Ren to actually respond, let alone so honestly. She shifted in her seat and pressed on. "Then why?"

"Why what?" he demanded. "Say it."

She swallowed as the question she had wondered but left unspoken formed into words. "Why testify against him? Why have a hand in putting your father in jail? I don't understand."

His eyes darkened. "You sure are defensive of him," he observed impassively.

The coldness of his voice fed the turmoil within her. She was glad it was late and there were very few people in the lounge, because she suspected she was about to make a scene. "Han was supportive of me. My parents abandoned me when I was three," she blurted. It wasn't the most eloquent explanation but it was the only one she had.

"So, your parents threw you away like garbage and you were so desperate for a father figure you clung on to Han Solo?" he questioned harshly, cruelly. "How did that work out for you?"

He wasn't playing fair. She was aware he was being deliberately callous to deflect her question, but that didn't make what he said any less hurtful. She felt tears at the corner of her eyes. Her voice trembled without her permission. "Han was there for you!"

Ren laughed, the same hollow laugh he gave the other night on the phone, but not at her. "What exactly was he there for?" he asked, his caustic voice finally rising, "I saw him once a year after he and my mother divorced when I was eight. But even before then, I was always second place to his adventures, just like how I was second place to my mother's start-ups. If I don't hate him, it's because I don't know him well enough to hate him."

It was impossible to reconcile the neglectful father Ren was describing with the caring man she knew. "Liar," she said.

But Ren looked at her with melancholy, solemn eyes and her conviction wavered.

Han mentioned Ben Solo once.

It was summer, Leia was hosting a mid-summer Resistance BBQ party at her beach front home, and Han surprised everyone by showing up.

Rey was on her way to meet Finn and Rose at the roof top when a model of a black jet plane caught her attention because it didn't quite fit with the rest of the décor in Leia's home. She walked over to take a closer look out of curiosity. She had thought it was one of those plastic model kit, but on closure inspection she noticed this was one made of metal.

"That's a SR-71 Blackbird."

She turned around and saw Han standing behind her.

"It's very nice," Rey commented. She had taken metalwork as an elective in high school and she could tell by the workmanship that the plane was a labor of love. "How long did it take to make?"

"Two years, on and off."

"Did you make it alone?"

His eyes drifted far away as a fond but wistful smile graced his usually harden lips. "No, I made it with Ben."

Rey buried himself with work, first with a debrief meeting with Poe, then with a knowledge transfer meeting with Finn and Rose on what she had learned from Luke, and finally with catching up on the two hundred plus e-mails she had missed while she was at Colorado. Somehow, none of that was enough to shake Kylo (she had started calling him Kylo) out of her mind.

Leia stopped her on her way to the lunchroom and asked about her trip. She looked as in control and dignified as usual, but Rey saw the weariness and worry at the corner of her eyes. She was desperate for some good news, Rey realized, just like everyone else, so she focused her report on the ideas she had gotten since her meeting with Luke.

That earned her a smile from Leia, but the smile never reached the older woman's eyes. "How was Luke?"

The question made Rey wonder when Leia last saw her brother. She suspected the timing coincided with Luke's fallout with his nephew. "He seemed well enough, but alone."

Leia nodded slowly.

Rey had so many questions she wanted to ask, but she wasn't sure where to start, nor how to bring up an estranged son, so she excused herself and Leia let her go.

Rey ran into Kylo Ren the day First Order's plans to acquire Resistance came to light three months ago. He was alone and on his way out after a meeting with investors. She wasn't planning to go anywhere, but when she saw him enter an elevator, she followed him in.

"You!" she cried, the moment the elevator door slammed shut. She was so furious at the news, she hit the elevator wall hard enough to hurt her hand. "You just couldn't leave Leia's work alone, could you?"

He stood where he was and watched her, with a hint of mild curiosity. When he spoke, his voice was even and a little detached. "This is business not personal. The strategy team did cost benefits analysis on startups with IPs I was interested in, and Resistance just happened to come out on top."

She had readied herself to be, as Finn called it, "Renned". She knew Kylo's temper and she had seen with her own eyes how he took down critics of his work. His calm response shocked her but it only took a moment for her rage to return.

She narrowed her eyes. "You made sure it would come out on top by pushing for Han's conviction."

"The analysis was done before Han was arrested. The acquisition plan would have moved forward regardless."

Rey knew better than to buy the explanation. "No. This is part of your twisted mission to destroy your parents' legacy! First Han, and now Leia!"

He flinched, ever so slightly, at Leia's name, and looked away. And for a moment, Rey wondered if she had crossed a line. Then, his features hardened, and finally, the expected backlash came: "Maybe if Resistance was better managed and actually made money for the investors, First Order wouldn't have the opportunity to acquire it. It's not my issue it's run by a bunch of amateurs like you."

"Amateurs? I'm not the one who has to steal IP from other companies because you can't develop your own."

Frustration flashed across his features, but oddly, he didn't rise to anger.

His lips twist into something not quite a smile. "No, but you're the one who convinced me Resistance has something worthwhile to take."

The words felt too uncomfortably close to a compliment.

They fell silent.

It was her mid-afternoon coffee break, her conversation with Kylo was looping in her head even as she listened to Finn talk about his weekend plans with Poe.

She wished she could just brush his words off as untruths, but the more she thought about what he had said, the less she was sure of anything. It was driving her mad.

While Finn ordered his coffee, a sudden realization hit her: She still had Luke's e-mail address.

She pulled out her phone and typed a message out of self-preservation:

Luke, Kylo told me about what you did to his research. Did you create Kylo Ren? Tell me the truth.

Impulsively, always impulsively, she pressed send.

She didn't receive a response from Luke, but she did receive a text from his nephew two days later.

How's your neural network problem coming along? [7:37pm]

His message should probably shock her more than it did, but the past week had prepared her for stranger things.

Well. Sorry to disappoint you. [7:40pm]

Why do you care? [7:41pm]

I don't. [7:43pm]

But, if you need help, let me know. [7:45pm]

She put down her phone, but when Kylo's messages popped up in her alert, her phone was instantly back in her hands again. Truth to be told, she could use some help, not step-by-step instructions, but workable ideas. She had made progress since her visit with Luke but not nearly enough to make her feel comfortable. Sometime between the delayed flight and the present, Kylo had graduated in her mind from an evil overlord to an actual human being, and that made the thought of receiving his help much less repulsive.

Still, she didn't understand why he was offering to help her at all—It was counterproductive to the First Order, to his, cause—it made no sense.

Why would you do that? [7:46pm]

It was a good ten minutes later before Kylo supplied a response:

I wonder why myself. [7:56pm]

It wasn't an answer, but Rey decided to stop speculating his motives. She sent him the link to her Stack Overflow question. The question was generalized enough to not give away any trade secrets, but directed enough that if Kylo really wanted to, he could take the answer deep enough to solve a big piece of her remaining problem. It felt like the right thing to do, even if her friends at Resistance may protest if they realized what she had just done.

That night, she added 'Kylo' to her contact list.

It felt like fate when she saw Kylo at a coffee shop on Saturday.

He was facing away, waiting for his coffee when she arrived. She hesitated, but she approached him after she had placed her order.

"Kylo."

He spun around, and when his eyes met hers, his lips tilted into a small smile. It dawned on her how she had never seen him smile before, and she found herself thinking how nice it looked on him. "Rey."

"Do you frequent this coffee shop?"

He nodded. "I live close by. You?"

"First time, actually. I had an appointment at my old orphanage and I just happened to pass by."

It was meant to be an off-handed comment, but Kylo inexplicably froze at her words. When she looked at him to try to figure out what was wrong, he looked away. "The other day, I shouldn't have said what I did." When he saw Rey's confusion, he clarified: "I'd made a cruel comment about your parents."

Your parents threw you away like garbage.

It was a cruel comment, but it was also true, and she had almost forgotten about it before he had brought it up. The throb she had suppressed since her visit at the orphanage throbbed anew. She was glad when the barista interrupted the moment by calling her name. She stepped away to get her coffee.

"It's alright," she managed to say levelly when she returned.

He shook his head. "It wasn't. I acted out. I wasn't used to anyone digging at my past," he admitted quietly. "And if I'm honest with myself, I was envious."

She stared at him. "Envious?"

Kylo closed his eyes and let out a long sigh.

"That you have a better relationship with my father than I ever had."

Beneath his fatigue resignation, she recognized loneliness and longing for a family that was akin to her own. She felt her chest tightened. Looking at him felt too much like looking within herself.

She suddenly felt the compulsion to make a confession of her own: "I made my appointment with the orphanage today hoping they would have records on my parents. I thought I'd find answers there, but I was wrong. And I never felt more alone."

He took a slow and measured step toward her and caught her eyes.

"You're not alone."

She held his gaze and told him: "Neither are you."

She found a message from Kylo on her phone when she woke on Monday morning telling her he had left an answer on Stack Overflow for her. The message was sent at 4:14am. She wondered if he was overseas again or he had actually lost sleep working through her question. Either way, she was grateful.

She sipped her morning coffee as she logged into her Stack Exchange account on her phone. A single response to her question was waiting for her as he had promised. It was so long and detailed and logically laid out, it was more than she had expected and yet everything she had expected all at the same time. It took her nearly thirty minutes to read-through all the text and code snippets, and by the end of it all, her mind was racing with so many new ideas she was shaking in excitement.

She was about to get her laptop when she noticed, at the bottom of his answer, his username: SoloCodeTechnican

Her coffee mug fell out of her hand.

There was a time in her life when she was less sure about her place in the universe, when she was a confused and scared undergrad meandering her way through her general science degree.

Then, one day, she received a rude but lengthy response to an answer she left on Stack Overflow. The comment infuriated her so much, she spent hours researching machine learning techniques just so she so she could nit pick at his response. The resulting back and forth (first public, and then private when the moderators locked their thread) with SoloCodeTechnician forwarded her understanding of neural network, deep learning, and general computer science concepts so much, she decided to switch her major to computer science at the end of her third semester.

She didn't know who this person was, they never shared personal information, even though for a year and three months he always at the forefront of her mind. Then, as suddenly as he came into her life, he disappeared.

It was only 7:45am, but she called him anyway because she couldn't wait another moment.

"I didn't know you were SoloCodeTechnician," she let out the moment the call connected.

"I didn't know you were lone_scavenger either," he replied. There was sleep in his voice, but he didn't sound too unhappy about being woken up.

"I hope you found the answer helpful."

She didn't know if she wanted to cry or laugh or something in between. He was still the chief of RD at First Order responsible for the Resistance acquisition, and she was still the lead developer at Resistance working overtime to create a prototype that would starve the investors' appetite for the said acquisition. But now, illogically, maddeningly, it was clear to her that they were also becoming friends.

"It was very helpful," she assured him.

When she called his name, the name that left her lips was: Ben.

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A/N: Yay I wrote a Star Wars / modern AU fic!

Big thanks to Viv for beta-ing the story and my nerdy darling for feeding me machine learning terms. I am half considering expanding this one day. But for now, this is complete.

Hope you got some small enjoyment out of this weird little AU.