General Organa- Leia- Kylo's mother- she doesn't say anything for a few solid moments. Her mouth opens and closes once, then she turned to her side and messes with some on the table beside her bed. Rey hears a door swish close somewhere offscreen, and only then does Leia turn back to face her son.

"Ben."

Kylo flinches, just for a moment. Rey sees pain ripple through his expression, and she doesn't know if it is from hearing that name, hearing her voice, or for meeting his mother's eyes for the first time since he was a child. She concentrates on him, the clenching of his fists at his side, the barely contained panic bubbling right beneath his surface. I'm here for you, she thinks, trying to send some comfort his way. You're not alone. I love you.

He relaxes, slightly. His hands unclench and his eyes close for a brief moment before they open again, his face set with a renewed confidence.

"Hello, mother."

Leia's face, which Rey had imagined more than once in this exact situation, is unexpectedly blank. There is no trace of fear, or joy, or anger, or relief. She looks at Kylo like she is looking through him, as if he isn't there, shaking, hard face set in that intense, determined expression he takes shelter behind so often. Rey is not sure if this is better or worse for him, this non-reaction, this emptiness in the place of too much.

Her eyes close, and her hand goes to rub between her eyes. "I had things to say," she says finally. "I had things to say for this moment, but so much has happened in the past two days. I'm used to taking on a lot, but this all is a little overwhelming, even for me." Her eyes open, and this time she looks at Kylo like he is all she can see, a single, blinding light far off in the sky. "You're there. You're there with Rey, and Luke, and Finn."

"I am." He looks over at Rey with desperate eyes, longing and warm. With understanding, she steps closer. She passes daughter to father, who visibily relaxes with the child in his arms. He holds the baby tight, like an anchor.

"I understand now. More than I ever have. My mind, before it was- it was a mess. It still is, most of the time." He closes his own eyes. Ash, unaware of her father's distress, has her hands on her favorite face, tugging at his black hair with small hands. "I am sorry it took me to this point to receive some clarity of mind. I'm sorry this didn't happen before- that-"

"We can't talk about that right now," Leia says. She speaks slowly, as if in pain, but Rey cannot tell if it is emotional or physical. "Not like this, Ben. We're too far away from each other and I am on... too many drugs to have this discussion."

"Okay."

"I am going to come to you. Not now, because I am...I sustained some injuries during the attack, and I am currently incapacitated. But I am going to give you coordinates, and I need you to go there, and I need you to just stay there."

"Okay."

"Where are you going to be based now, General?" Rey asks. She wonders if she should ask exactly what kind of injuries she had sustained, but did not want to be prying.

"We are relocating to a smaller base on Melzine," Leia says. "But you are not going there. A child has no place on base, especially at a time like this. Imagine if you had been here for the attack. Anything could have happened. I want you safe." Her eyes flicker over to Kylo. "All of you."

Rey had been so busy worrying, she had not even considered the possibility of what could have happened to them all if they had been on D'Qar at the time of the attack. If Luke and Finn had arrived a week earlier, they might have been in the midst of fire and bloodshed with Ash. Rey has only really feared for the life of her daughter one time- that night with Kylo in her room, the night they left.

Leia seems to busy herself with forming a plan on the spot; Rey and Kylo do little more than stand and pay attention. She taps away at a datapad, talking consistently and casting only furtive glances at them every once in a while. Rey catches these; Kylo does not, as even though he looks forward, she can tell that his gaze is directed anywhere but at his mother. There is something similar in their avoidance, though their techniques may be different.

Luke and Finn join them in time. "I would actually like to speak to my brother privately," Leia says. "Just for a moment." There is something tense in her voice, something hidden, but Rey does not want to question her. It isn't her place.

"Of course," Kylo says, and Rey can tell that he is eager to take this chance to leave. He begins to turn, but Leia's voice, softer still, calls out to him again.

"Ben," she says, and he doesn't turn, though he does stop. "To see you like this...it is more than I have dared to hope for in some time."

After a beat, Kylo nods, then exits the room.

"You're a pretty picky eater," Rey says, grinning over her sandwich. Kylo sits across from her, politely turning away and depositing his bite into a napkin.

"I am not," Kylo says, making another face before washing the last bits down with some water. "I ate the food you made. And I ate First Order rations. That meat just tastes weird. Are you sure it hasn't turned?"

"Tastes fine to me!"

"You would eat anything,"

"You ate rations?" Finn asks, still eating his sandwich, but with smaller, less enthusiastic bites than Rey. "I always assumed there was some special dining area with real food for the top brass."

"There is," Kylo says. "I just never ate it. I believed in more...discipline. When it came to my diet." He picks at the bread, avoiding the interior of the sandwich. "Where is my discipline now?"

"I don't mind if you left it behind, as long as you left some of your scarier personal habits along with it."

Rey stares between the two guys sitting across from her, and attempts to hide the smile she can't help behind her food. It is nice, seeing them together. Actually holding a conversation. Finn lightly teasing Kylo, and Kylo doing nothing but rolling his eyes. It is not anything she had ever imagined possible, but somehow they seem to click easily.

Well, comparatively easy, when she compares it to what could have been.

Kylo notices her smile first, and Finn follows his gaze.

Finn is smiling at her smile, grin growing by the second, when suddenly the expression drops and he hits his own forehead. "Rey! I forgot, I can't believe it." He is shaking his head and scrambling out of his chair. Rey gets up and follows him, Kylo rising after.

"What?"

"There is something we brought- I can't believe I forgot, Rey. A lot has just gone on." Finn heads for a bag sitting in the corner of the room, and digs through it until he pulls out something silver and cylindrical. Her heart speeds up, happiness flooding through her as she reaches out and takes it.

"Talking about things left behind," Finn says. "I thought you might want this."

She powers it on. Finn takes a step back. "Watch it there!" he says, but his voice is playful. She turns as she swipes it through the air once, softly.

Rey looks up and down the saber with glee, glancing across the light to see Kylo's face beyond it. Smiling. More than a smile- he is radiating with something like pride. She recalled the last time she had looked at him through this haze of blue, his expression wildly different, rage and sadness and fear. Desperation. Now he crosses over to her, sweeps an arm around her waist. Rey turns off the saber, hooks it to her belt, where it belongs.

"It makes me very happy to see you with that," Kylo says, close to her, foreheads barely touching. "I'm happy it chose you. It belongs in the family." He kisses her, soft, first on the top of her nose, then her lips.

Family.

The concept is so foreign to Rey that she has never particularly thought of them that way, but they are, after all, a mother, a father and a child. That is a sort of family under almost anyone's definition. She pulls away from Kylo and wraps her arms around Finn, pressing her face into his shoulder.

"Thank you so much for remembering this," she says. "Thank you for everything."

She stands back and is beaming, unable to control her happiness at how good it feels to have her lightaber back at her side. It does feel like hers now, more than it ever did. Finn's look is blank for just a moment, then resets into a standard smile. "Of course," he says. "Anything for you."

When Rey wakes up the next morning, Ash is not there. Rey sits straight up in bed, momentarily panicked, until a strong hand sets on her forearm and pulls her back down.

"My uncle has her," Kylo mumbles, enveloping a large arm completely around her to pull Rey against his bare chest. "Said he would feed her. I hope he likes having a beard full of mushed Tansa root."

Rey sighs, cuddling happily into Kylo's side. She cannot remember the last time she had woken up without a hungry, wet, crying or just gleefully babbling baby beside her. Never with Kylo, she realizes.

"We should be taking advantage of this."

"I thought that was what we were doing." Kylo's eyes are already closed again.

Rey rolls, and she hooks a leg over his hip, straddling him. "You know that's not what I mean." She leans down, brushing messy bedhair from his face, and kisses him. Kylo rests his hands on her waist as she does, kissing back only slightly, and uses his grip on her to pull Rey back gently as she tries to deepen the kiss.

"I love you," he says, kissing the tip of her nose, but sending out the obvious vibe that he wants to progress no further. Rey slumps to the side of him.

"You're upset," she says.

"I'm anxious," he admits, pulling himself up to sit instead of lie. "I think now I am at the point where I am ready to see my mother, but I don't know if I'm ready to assume my place in a cage she creates." He covers his face with large hands and tilts his head back. "I know I'm being difficult. I should be grateful for what I'm getting. I just want our lives to be our own. I don't want you to have to live some half-hidden existence because of me."

Rey feels guilt come off Kylo in waves, a constant presence. She knows that the possibility of his mother's forgiveness strikes conflicting emotions in him, none positive. He is feels at the same time incredibly undeserving and incredibly resentful.

"We don't have to stay, after we meet with your mother," Rey says. "She's right, there is really no place for a child in the middle of a war like this. We need to keep her safe. We could find somewhere to disappear, if that's what you need."

He stares at her. "You don't mean that."

"Don't tell me what I mean." He has an awful habit of doing that sometimes. "I want to do the right thing, but the most important thing is to do the right thing for her. It might be the only way to give her a normal life." She closes her eyes, rolling over to face the wall. "It's just a random thought, not a serious plan."

She feels a touch on her shoulder, lets him turn her body back towards his. "You would leave them? I don't want to feel like I'm being selfish again. I often want to keep you for myself, and I need you to draw the line as what is appropriate and not."

"They are not my family," Rey says. "You are. Ash is."

"What about Finn?"

Rey's expression falters a bit, and she moves in close to Kylo's chest, kisses him just above the collarbone. "I don't know," she says. "I...that would be more difficult." Rey tries to imagine leaving him, saying goodbye for a long time. For forever. Last time, their separation had not been her choice. Choosing to leave Finn behind- the idea pushed a soft pain into the side of her heart. "Maybe he would come with us."

"I'm sure he would," Kylo says. He pauses for a moment, as if mulling something over. "You need to be careful with him, Rey."

"Careful?"

"That you don't- he is in love with you. It is obvious."

He says the words so plainly, as if they are something she should know, something that anyone would know. Rey, however, had not known this. She sits up, pulling away Kylo slightly. The soft pain in her heart seems to ache more, a sickness she doesn't want to address. "He is not," she says, and it is only as she says it that she realizes how unconvincing the words are.

"He is. It's almost cruel to ignore."

"I'm not being cruel," she says swiftly, touched with anger. "I care about Finn very much. You're the one being cruel right now." She knows that she sounds defensive.

There is a pause. "I'm not attempting to be cruel," Kylo says. He curls a hand around her waist and pulls at her slightly- Rey relents, allowing him to bring her up against his body. "I like him. I do. I'm not jealous; I just don't want him to be hurt. I know how much he means to you. I-" His sentence cuts off, left abandoned.

They lay in silence for a minute, Kylo combing through her hair, Rey relaxing into the sensations. He's in thought, she knows, but doesn't want to disturb the cozy peace. Waiting is easier than dragging something out of him.

"Have you ever thought of him that way?" Kylo asks finally, separating her hair into three sections before attempting to braid them. He plaits her hair slowly, laying soft kisses down on her neck every moment or so. Rey leans back into the warm touch of his lips, blissfully comfortable, loving nothing more than the feel of his arm body against her bare back.

"That way?" Rey feels her cheeks warm slightly. "No, Finn's my best friend." The answer comes too quickly. She feels as if she is being dishonest, a twisting inside of her that she has tried desperately to overlook. She loves Finn, though the distinction of what kind of love has fluctuated. There was a time, when they had first met...and there is, of course, the other thing. It hardly counts, though she had thought back to it, once or twice, when touching herself at night. She supposes it possibly counts, if Kylo wants her to be truly open. "It's not like- well, I mean...there was one dream."

"A dream?"

Rey turns to face him, her unfastened plait swinging to the side and loosening slightly as she does. His face is difficult to read, though it doesn't seem upset or possessive. It is rather blank, just waiting for her to continue. "It was just a dream. It was while I was pregnant. That's totally normal; I read so. Having weird sex dreams while pregnant."

"So it was a sex dream." Now his expression is changing, the edges of his solemn mouth curving up in a deviant way.

"Kylo!" She turns back, smiling but red-faced, and leans into him again. "Yes, it was a sex dream. Haven't you embarrassed me enough already?" She doesn't actually mind, not to the extent she pretends with her words, but this is part of the game, being teased.

"It's just us," he says softly, laying a kiss on her shoulder. "Tell me about it." His voice is low, now, not teasing at all in the way she expected. He strokes one arm down her shoulder, and then Rey feels him move from behind her. He lays her gently against the pillows, and kisses her neck from the front.

Rey opens her mouth to question, but closes it again when Kylo brushes a thumb over her clit through the cloth.

"Well, it wasn't just Finn. It was-" Kylo nipped at the waistband of her underwear, and Rey practically purrs, rolling her hips up toward him. "It was both of you, actually. You were both there." She sucks in a breath after this, because Kylo suspends his movement, fingers just about to peel the undergarments down her thighs. Maybe it is too much, what she had shared, and Rey gives a nervous glance down to the lower half of her body. She expects to find him looking at her with confusion, or amusement, or, the worst, disgust.

He isn't, though. Not at all.

Kylo is looking up at Rey with hunger. She has never never seen his eyes rimmed with such longing and feral intensity.

All because- Rey takes a shuddering breath as he rubs his cheek over the warm fabric covering her.

Kylo mouths her through the cloth, dampening it. He grips her thighs in a desperate way, one that might leave a mark later, and he pushes past the garment to slide two fingers deep inside of her. "And what were we doing to you?" he asks, and it is more of a growl.

Oh. Oh. This is new.