Rey spends two days worrying that she's been discovered before she begins to relax.

Which, of course, is when she receives a datapad assignment to C deck 222, well after her normal working hours.

Fuck.

She stands outside the door and stares at the keypad for what seems like an eternity, until she works up the courage to punch in the access code, the buttons cool against her fingertips.

He's sitting comfortably at the table, facing toward the door. "Please, sit," he motions to the seat closest to her. She focuses on keeping her steps steady as she moves to sit down. His helmet is on and his hood is up, and she wishes desperately that he would take them off.

He's more monster than man like this.

It feels like an eternity before he speaks again, but realistically, it's probably only a minute or two. She's sure her nervousness is slowing her sense of time.

"I have a proposition," he starts, as he leans in, lacing his fingers together and resting his arms on the table.

He'd rehearsed this moment again and again in his head before summoning her, but once the door had opened and he'd seen her anew, all sensible thought had fled.

After the destruction of the Starkiller base, he'd spent months training with Snoke, his days a mix of rigorous physical exercise and meditation. More often than not, his thoughts had drifted toward the scavenger. He'd replayed their interactions again and again, reconstructing them continuously to try to figure out how they could have ended in his favor. It hadn't taken long for his imagination to drift into fantasies that were distinctly sexual in nature.

Snoke had noticed, of course. Surprisingly, he'd seemed indifferent to the developing obsession. Snoke hadn't punished him; he'd merely warned him not to let his fixation get in the way of his mission.

Kylo Ren had been dismissed from his training with Snoke and commanded to return to the Finalizer four days ago, and on his second day back, he'd been amazed to see Rey's lookalike hard at work, fixing the mess he'd made of his wall.

Of course, the first thing he'd done after their initial encounter was unearth every scrap of information he could find about the girl. Her official files hadn't offered much, but her background information had checked out. He'd sent a competent underling to go see what he could dig up from her boss and coworkers, and all of them had positive things to say about her. She was well-liked, she was kind, she was trustworthy and discreet.

Those last two adjectives had stood out, and what had started as a nebulous desire had coalesced over the past thirty-six hours into a definite plan.

Kylo Ren's attention is brought back to the present as Kira shifts in her seat.

He clasps his hands together and leans forward on the table. "I have a proposition."

His mouth goes dry, and he waits a moment to be sure that his voice won't fail him before continuing. His vocoder can mask most emotion fairly well, but not stuttering.

"You remind me of someone. Someone who is important to me - to my mission," he corrects, waiting for a reaction from her before he continues. She gives nothing away and he doesn't trust his control enough right now to dip into her mind, so he forges ahead. "I'm willing to make it worth your while to indulge me in whatever is necessary to prepare for my mission."

Kylo Ren watches her face, and although it had been his plan to allow her to decide, to back off if she said no, he realizes now that he probably isn't capable of taking no for an answer. He has no idea what he'll do now if she rejects his offer.

Rey feels like she must have misheard something, or that her brain had shorted out due to fear or nerves and hallucinated, because this conversation is too surreal to be happening.

She stares into his mask, unblinking, as she tries to process what he just said.

He shifts in his seat, and his voice is persuasive when he says, "You wouldn't need to work anymore-"

"I like working," she flatly interrupts without thinking, and it's true. She enjoys using her knowledge, learning the new ship, the comforting feel of a spanner in her hand. There's a perfect moment where her solder is just right when she's fixing a lousy joint, and it has the same thrill as rappelling a hundred feet down the side of a ruined ship.

But more than all of that, she loves the camaraderie and companionship she's gained with the other crew members. She doesn't think she can give that up. Just thinking about it sends a jolt of misery to the pit of her stomach.

Her mission doesn't even enter the equation. It might as well be some tiny constant, dropped entirely due to how insignificant it is compared to the other variables.

Which is incredibly lucky, because Kylo Ren immediately brushes against her mind at her protest, and the surface is nothing but the pride of a diligent worker and the loneliness of an orphan.

Kylo Ren feels a pang of envy when he realizes the level of camaraderie Kira has with her coworkers. Not just jealousy over her affection for them - although there's plenty of that - but envy that she has found a sense of place, a sense of belonging.

He has yearned for that his entire life - killed for it - yet still it eludes him.

She has been on the ship for less than three months, and already she has obtained more contentment than he has in all of his years with the First Order. A small, childish part of him loathes her for that, and he wonders how hard it would be for her to maneuver a spanner if her shoulder were covered in bite-shaped bruises.

An experiment for another time, perhaps.

"Can I have time to think about this?" Her question jostles the image of his mouth on her shoulder from his mind, and his heart leaps in his chest.

She isn't rejecting him. Not yet.

"Yes," he nods, "I'll summon you this time tomorrow for your answer."

He waits a few heartbeats before dismissing her, reluctant to let her go.

Rey is inside of her quarters and changing out of her uniform when she finally snaps out of autopilot. It's unnerving to realize that she had traversed the route from Kylo Ren's room to hers out of muscle memory, and it causes her unease to ratchet higher.

She hadn't dared to consider his offer in his presence, the risk was too high that he might dip into her mind and find incriminating information. Now that she's safely alone in her tiny quarters, her thoughts race with the possibilities and implications of his proposal.

His temper is legendary, and the whispers have already started among the crew now that he's returned to the Finalizer. She's heard more rumors about him than she can count on her fingers in the last two days alone.

One of those rumors is that he has no compunction about killing staff that annoy him, and that he gets away with it because he isn't formally in the First Order's chain of command. He's a powerful man who is prone to explosive anger, so he's used to getting his way.

What will he do if she says no? Would everything that she's worked for be flushed out the airlock; the months of work and forged paperwork be for nothing? That seems like the most likely outcome.

What does he want from her? The worst thing she can think of is sex, and she's already bartered with that before, when she was starving on Jakku.

If she accepts his offer, she might be able to gain access to new parts of the ship. Certainly Kylo Ren has clearance to much of the higher intel, and she may be able to find a way to view some of it if she can get her hands on one of his datapads.

At the very least, she can learn more about her enemy. Isn't that what she's there for?

It doesn't seem like she really has a choice, but she tosses and turns all night mulling it over, anyway.

Kylo Ren has spent all day trying to distract himself. He has very few responsibilities on the Finalizer; he's mostly left to his own devices when he isn't training or attending meetings.

He'd ended up sparring most of the day, taking out his anxiety and growing rage at feeling out of control on his knights.

Now that he's sitting across from the mechanic, he feels so impatient to hear her answer that he has to fight the urge to fidget, to get up and pace.

"Well?" His tone is biting, even through the filter of his helmet.

"Would I be expected to have sex with you?" She asks bluntly.

"Would that be a dealbreaker for you?" He wants sex, of course, but he might be able to refrain from making advances if that's what it takes to get her to acquiesce.

Maybe.

Probably not.

"...No."

He feels his blood rush to his ears and his cock at her answer, and he's thankful he wore his mask. He pointedly changes the subject.

"Any other questions?"

"Can I continue with my usual work?" She stares at him evenly.

"Yes, you can still work," he quickly responds, quietly adding for now in his thoughts.

"I feel it when you go in my mind. It gives me terrible migraines, and it makes doing my job nearly impossible," she glares at him as she speaks, "If I agree to this, you can't do that to me anymore. It hurts, and I hate it."

He leans back in his chair and considers her stipulation. If anything, entering her mind during their time together would probably reinforce the fact that she's Kira, not Rey.

And he desperately wants to be able to believe that she's Rey.

"Fine, but it's a habit. It may slip through," he concedes, and holds his hand up before she can interrupt, "If it does, I can do something to make up for it."

"Do you promise not to maim or kill me?"

He stares at her, dumbfounded for a moment. Heat floods his cheeks when he realizes that she has a point; his reputation is well-earned.

"I promise," he swears, and the sincerity is obvious even with the vocoder.

"Then I accept." Her eyes are steely as she stares into the visor of his helmet.

Behind the mask, Kylo Ren smiles the first genuine smile he's had in months.

"Wait here. I'll call you when I'm ready," he instructs as he gets up from the table.

Rey manages to keep her expression fixed until he leaves the room.

She feels like she's going to vomit. Of course he would expect to start whatever weird little game he's playing tonight. But for some reason, she hadn't expected to deal with it so soon - she'd genuinely thought that he would excuse her for the night once she agreed.

Stupid, stupid, stupid - of course he would want to get started right away, she thinks.

After a few minutes of berating herself and worrying about his plans, she hears his unmasked voice call out from the bedroom.

"Come here."

Shit. This can't possibly be good. She feels like she's walking on shrapnel as she makes her way into the room.

He's wearing a black tunic and black trousers, perched on the edge of a huge bed. "Sit," he manages to make the command sound like an offer, patting the spot next to him.

She's numb as her body moves to comply, running on autopilot.

He has a comb and a collection of hair ties piled next to him, and a stab of anxiety runs through her stomach.

He can't possibly put her hair up into three buns. It's too short, now. She knows from personal experience.

She maintains her blank expression as she sits down.

His hands are impossibly gentle as they move through her hair with the comb, swiftly and painlessly removing any knots. He carefully parts her hair, and begins braiding, starting from the top of her head at the part and moving down.

The feeling of another person's hands in her hair is startlingly foreign, but comforting nonetheless. There's a familiar warmth that fills her, and she wonders, not for the first time, which family member had done this for her in her youth.

"I used to do this for my mother when I was young," he says, so softly Rey thinks she must be imagining it, "it used to make her so happy."

The longing she hears in that simple sentence brings wetness to her eyes, but she squashes her empathy down before any tears can form.

He didn't have to see his mother's face when she realized she would never see her husband again. Rey did.

He can go fuck himself.

He ties her braid off at the bottom, and she holds her breath as he repositions himself on the bed so he can braid the other side. She can feel him pinning the braids at the back once he finishes.

His grip is firm but kind when he takes her chin in his hand, tilting her head from side to side to admire his handiwork.

"It suits you," he murmurs, the barest of smiles tugging at the corners of his full mouth as he takes her forearms in his hands and pulls her away from the bed, "here, come look."

He leads her to a mirror on one of the walls, moving to stand behind her. The reflection staring back at her looks far too much like Rey and too little like Kira for comfort.

She sees his expression reflected in the mirror as he stares down at her, and it is so open, so filled with childlike wonder and appreciation for a moment that she feels her chest constrict.

She's beautiful. He can't believe how real the illusion feels, even with her black hair and a different hairstyle.

She looks how he imagines Rey would look, if she were properly cared for. If she had enough food to eat, if she didn't have the stress and grime of Jakku written on her skin. In the months before, he'd thought of what it would be like to watch her eat, to watch her thin frame fill out while under his care. He'd imagined bathing her, the way the sand and dust would wash away as her body was revealed to him, inch by tantalizing inch.

He runs a single finger from the point behind the girl's ear to the top her uniform, and feels her shiver at the touch.

"It's late," he sighs disappointedly as he glances at the chronometer, "you should probably retire to your quarters for the night. I'll summon you tomorrow. Don't bother washing up or changing your uniform before you come."

She nods, and wordlessly slips out of the room. He's frozen in place until he hears the whoosh of the hall door closing, and then he makes his way to his bed.

Tomorrow would be interesting.