A/N: Soooo. I'm back…. 18 months later. In short my excuses are, the spring 2016 semester, an internship in summer 2016, the fall 2016 semester, and then the spring 2017 semester. But now I'm back, and don't have an internship, and have all summer to continue this story, which I will endeavor to do so. I reread my story to try and remember where I was going with this, as I lost the original chapter 6 I was working on. But I'm relatively pleased with where this went.

So, cheers! Onward and forward!

Chapter 6: A Common Enemy

Poe Dameron wasn't the simplest of men, but he wasn't what one would call overly complicated either. This would be extremely evident to any passerby observing him in his current state, lying in the shade of his X-wing, his trusty droid BB-8 whirring nearby, and enjoying a ham and cheese sandwich as if it was a succulent and juicy bantha steak.

He didn't have the easiest of lives at the moment, what with being a squadron leader of the Resistance during a time when the First Order had a weapon of mass destruction capable of putting an end to entire systems with a single use. But here, outside in the sunlight, lying on soft grass, his ship overhead, droid by his side, and an amazing sandwich – well he was content to live in this peaceful moment for as long as it would last him.

"Dameron!" A voice shouted from somewhere not too far away, bringing the young pilot out of his peaceful moment. Recognizing the voice as the one belonging to the former Stormtrooper turned Resistance ally, Finn, he sat up and took another bite of his sandwich as he watched his friend stride up to him. "Poe, you gotta help me convince them that we need to act now, before its too late, and she's lost forever – I mean, I can't even imagine what he's doing to her – she could already be dead! But we have to try, we can't just leave her there after she was basically forced into this – I mean it's not even her fault and what - "

"What are you – hold up there Finn, what in blazes are you talking about?!" Poe asked incredulously, wondering what in the world was happening in front of him right now as the solider paced back and forth, waving his hands wildly while talking non-stop.

"Rey!" he replied forcefully, suddenly coming down to sit cross-legged and be on eye-level with the pilot. "We have to save her, Poe. She's in the hands of Kylo Ren, and you've met him before, you know exactly how much danger she's in!"

Poe grimaced to himself remembering his encounter with the Force user on Jakku, and his subsequent unpleasant interrogation aboard the Finalizer before Finn sprung him free. This girl however, Rey, he wasn't familiar with outside of what Finn had told him and General Organa after they first arrived back on D'Qar. This woman, Rey, had found his droid and helped BB-8 and Finn escape Jakku when the First Order started their search for himself and the droid. But she had been kidnapped during the attack on Takodana. If only he had known her then, he might have been able to direct his squadron to protect her from the feared leader of the Knights of Ren. The pilot couldn't help but feel guilty for her capture. It was his droid who drew attention to her in the first place.

"This girl – Rey?" Poe probed inquisitively. Finn nodded. "What does she look like?"

"What does – what? Why? Why does it, uh, why does it matter what she looks like?" Finn replied hesitantly.

"I'm just wondering what I'm looking for here?" Poe replied sincerely, before his face broke into a mischievous grin. "She cute?" He asked, fairly confident that he already knew the answer.

"What – uh, well" the soldier was taken-aback by the question, "I mean, I don't really have a lot of experience – I mean I just haven't met a lot of different, you know, women, who didn't have masks on, and so I can't really say. Not that, it's not that she's not, not cute, you know what I mean?" He replied trying to figure out what he had even just said.

"No. I absolutely don't know what you mean." Poe replied succinctly, his smirk broadening at Finn's inability to explain himself. "Which brings me back to my first question: What does she look like?"

"She's, well, she has brown hair, and, uh, brown eyes. Well probably, I think, I can't really remember." Finn attempted to explain, trying to think about the last time he was close to her, when she was trying to convince him to stay on Takodana.

"You don't even remember what her eyes look like?" Poe asked mockingly. "Are you even sure we're talking about a woman? Or did you get that messed up too?"

"They were green!" He replied, suddenly remembering. "Well green… ish-brown? Hazel, I guess? Yeah, hazel! And yes, she's definitely a woman!" Finn shot back.

"Ok, so, brown hair, hazel eyes, woman. Hey, we're down to three, maybe only two trillion different women that could describe in the galaxy. Keep it coming. How tall, what kind of hairstyle, what did she wear, any other defining features you're leaving out?" Poe pressed, hoping to get past this so they could get to an actual plan.

Finn thought for a second before replying. "She's shorter than I am, but about the same height as you I think? Maybe a touch shorter, I'd have to see you side by side. Her hair was pulled back into some sort of knot-style. Split into three knots down the back of her head. It's probably very long when its loose. Her clothes were tan, and she had arm guards. She carried around a staff about the size of her! She was very good with it, knocked me to the ground when BB-8 had her chase me down. She had light skin, but her voice wasn't very high. It was a bit deeper than would probably be usual, I guess? She looks like she's all skin and bones, but she's pretty strong and -" Finn rambled on about what little he could actually remember of her.

"That's enough! OK…" Poe cut him off and mulled over the information for a second. "So, you want us to, what? Fly to First Order territory and aimlessly look around for her by sneaking either onto their planet or one of their star destroyers, of which we have no idea which she'll be on?"

"Well, I mean, we can't just sit here and do nothing while she's imprisoned!" Finn argued.

Poe looked away from Finn and into the sky, attempting to work out a plan. After a long moment, he looked back to Finn and shrugged, "Alright. Come with me." Poe stood up and started walking towards one of the less used hangars.

"Wait – What?" Finn questioned the pilot's back as he walked away from him.

"We're gonna go sneak into First Order space, let's go." Poe replied without looking back.

The soldier sat slack-jawed for a moment, then stood up and ran after him into the hangar.

Rey had been pacing worryingly around her quarters for only a few minutes, uselessly attempting to feel for Kylo's mind and get some sense of what was happening, before she heard the locks unclick in her door. She rushed to her front room wondering what the Supreme Leader could have said in such a brief time that her master would be back so quickly, before letting out a surprised gasp as someone who was decidedly not Kylo Ren stepped in.

The man that Kylo had referred to as General Hux in the training room stood before her, with a disapproving scowl on his face. "You'll have to forgive my manners, Miss, for having intruded on your quarters." His slimy voice didn't sound the least bit apologetic despite his words, and it sent an involuntary shiver down her spine. He motioned for her to sit down at the metal table, and not seeing what else she could do as the guards closed the door, locking the two of them inside, she took a seat. The general took the other seat opposite her, and spent a few moments more studying her before speaking again. "So, you're Ren's new protégé." He asked, disdain dripping from his voice, making clear his disapproval for both her and her master. "Impolite as he is, he failed to introduce us properly. What is your name?" He asked, smirking at her discomfort.

She stared at him, not knowing what to do, and hoping that Kylo would somehow show up and save her from whatever this was. Luckily, the moment she found herself wishing for that, she became annoyed with herself and found her voice. "It's Rey." She replied haughtily.

The general's smirk grew wider at her change in body language, as it went from concerned to rebellious. "Rey? Now that is a very pretty name. From an unexpectedly pretty scavenger." He leered at her from across the table, taking a moment to think to himself and unsettle her further.

"I have a wonder." He said, not directly to her she thought, but more to the room, as if he thought he was giving a speech to many others. "I wonder if your pretty name, pretty face, your pretty voice has seduced our Lord of the Knights of Ren into protecting you from the First Order." General Hux said, picking his words deliberately. "I wonder, and doubt, that you have ever seen this map to Skywalker, as Lord Ren claimed when he abandoned his search for the droid, and brought you alone onboard." Turning his gaze back to her, his smirk disappeared, and his eyes became serious, "How else could it be, that after a week of being here, he still has not pried the map from you? It must be that you have never seen it, and have tricked him into protecting you!" He finished, glaring accusingly at her.

Rey found that her annoyance quickly turned into fear as the General became angrier and the color of his face turned closer to the color of his hair. "I have seen the map, it's just -" She started to explain, before she was cut off.

"Is that so?" He sneered at her, before pulling out a datapad he had with him, and a stylus. "Then draw it. Now." Hux commanded. "I won't have Ren's inability to get information from you tarnish my reputation in the eyes of the Supreme Leader."

Rey hopelessly stared at the datapad on the table. Thinking to when BB-8 had shown them the map on the Millennium Falcon, she knew she didn't perfectly remember what it looked like. Even if she could remember it in perfect detail, she still wouldn't have been able to give up the location of the last Jedi, and ruin the efforts of the Resistance forever. She wouldn't have been able to live with herself.

"I'm sorry." She said pleadingly. "I've seen it, but I can't remember it in perfect detail. I'm not able to draw it."

Quicker than she could react or notice what was happening, Hux stood from his seat and swung his arm at her. His hand hit its mark, and with enough force that Rey fell sideways out of the chair she was in and hit the floor, hard. Rey gasped for breath as she raised her hand to touch the right side of her face, now burning where Hux had hit her. She had fallen too fast to brace herself, and her weight had ground her left hip into the floor. Her thoughts immediately went to the staff leaning against the wall near her bed in the next room. Cursing herself for putting it down, she began to move to dash to her room for it.

She looked up just in time to see Hux throw the light metal table and chairs aside, before tackling her and putting one hand around her neck, while his other hand grabbed her hands and nearly wrenched her arms out of her sockets to pin them to the ground above her head. "You will not trick me like you tricked that arrogant fool!" He screamed at her, before grinding one of his knees first under and then up into her ribs, causing her to scream out in pain, as she felt her ribs begin to bend in ways that bones should not. "You cannot hide your ignorance from me! I will not tolerate your uselessness as he does! You will die before you can lead us further astray!"

Kylo Ren, now in his full mask and robes, paced up and down the communication chamber, waiting for the Supreme Leader to show himself. He internally practiced putting up barriers around his mind, hoping it would be enough to keep the Supreme Leader out, should he begin to pry. He found himself unable to focus though, his thoughts drifting to what would happen to his apprentice, to Rey, should the Supreme Leader find his progress unsatisfactory. Or should the Supreme Leader find him out of line for attempting to keep him out of his mind.

As the minutes ticked by, he found his emotions to be uncharacteristic. He tried to clear his mind, but he found himself concerned. Rapidly, and seemingly without any trigger, his concern turned to fear and then very quickly to annoyance. Before he could pin down what was causing the annoyance, the fear had returned. He found himself feeling very apologetic soon after, but couldn't figure out what for.

He grimly realized that its source could be his own disappointment in himself, for not staying true to his grandfather's vision, for having somehow strayed away from his path. He pondered the possibility for only a moment, before being hit with a blinding pain, that left him doubled over. Echoing in his head, he heard a scream. Her scream, he knew instinctively, immediately.

Realizing that the Supreme Leader had never summoned him, Ren stood, embracing the waves of anger that rushed over him as he unclipped his lightsaber from his belt, and yelled. Harnessing his rage, he stomped towards the other end of the ship, to his apprentice.

Rey screamed out again as she was thrown against the discarded metal table. She could taste blood, and had heard a second one of her ribs crack, to go with the one Hux had broken pushing his knee into her. She tried to stand but fell over, her vision distorted and blurring with the pain. She tried to keep her gaze on the general. She could hear his laughing, thoroughly enjoying the pain he was inflicting before he ended her life.

Suddenly, her vision cleared, and the pain all but disappeared into the background, as an intense shudder of anger racked her body. She hissed as the anger intensified and grew closer, before attempting to stand again.

Not sensing the change in her, Hux lifted one of his legs high before kicking her in the chest as she tried to stand, thrusting her back over the metal table which wrenched another scream from her as she crumpled against it.

Hux moved towards her, ready to kick her again and probably collapse a lung, when the door blew open off its hinges, hitting him and knocking him against the wall. Catching his breath, Hux pushed the door off him, and pulled out his blaster ready to shoot whichever of the guards was stupid enough to intervene. However, he found himself facing Kylo Ren instead, who threw up his hand, and Hux's blaster flew from him and clattered uselessly against the wall.

The last things Rey heard and saw as blood filled her mouth, and unconsciousness pulled her down, was the sight of General Hux being lifted off the ground by nothing, and being thrown against the opposite wall multiple times, and the domineering figure of Kylo Ren, his lightsaber tinting the room red and crackling loudly.

A/N: There we go. Now we're back on track!

Reuploaded: added line breaks that didn't between pov shifts. Sorry!