Rey was taken aback by the lecturing tone of Kylo Ren. She'd known from the start that she'd need to defend her past cowardice around dental visits. However, for him to ask about it so bluntly; and then also throwing the figure of fifteen years in her face! It made her want to sink into the ground with embarrassment.

"I would certainly like to have met you before now, but better late than never I suppose," he added. This remark inexplicably made her blush like a beetroot! He noticed and gave her an unapologetic wolfish grin.

"God's why does he have to look so hot when he does that," she thought.

She'd rehearsed her response to that inevitable question, but it now blurted out in a hurried stutter.

"I um… haven't had anything wrong with my teeth since childhood and I just keep forgetting to make regular appointments. When I was younger I'd always be busy with studies and of course these days I'm so caught up with my career..." She trailed off with a shrug of her shoulders, hoping this explanation would be enough to fob him off.

He'd laughed quietly to himself while listening to her excuses.

"That's not the whole truth is it Rey?" he said in a chiding tone.

She looked away guiltily, no longer able to meet his gaze.

"When you booked this appointment I was told that you had a fear of dentists; or did Phasma misinform me? Somehow I doubt it, she's normally very diligent when collecting patient information."

Rey wanted to kick herself. She'd been so agitated on the phone with the receptionist and was now doubly nervous in the presence of an actual dentist. Her brain was so scrambled with anxiety that she was failing to be consistent with her white lies.

Biting her lip, Rey analysed what she should say next. She could hear Mitaka rattling around with something unseen behind her, it sounded metallic and sharp. Squirming in the dental chair she decided there was no point in denying it.

"Yes, it's true…" she admitted to Kylo, still averting her eyes from him.

The sound of a pen scratching was now audible. Kylo was obviously writing notes on the clipboard.

"Don't feel ashamed Rey, dental phobia is very common. Many of my regular patients both young and old, were once afraid of sitting in that chair. I'd Iike to think that under my expert care I've helped them overcome those fears. I'm sure I can do the same for you too… if you'll let me."

Kylo Ren's rich baritone voice now actually sounded quite soothing.

"He is really confident he can win me over," she thought.

Rey cautiously turned her head to look back in his direction. He was smiling again and giving her a friendly nod, but his strange dark eyes did not convey quite the same sentiment. She noticed they were appreciatively roaming up and down her reclining figure… or was it just the blinding pain of her toothache and an irrational fear of dentists causing her to imagine dangers that didn't exist?!

"It might help if you told me about the cause of your phobias… I'm guessing it was a bad childhood experience?" he queried.

Rey wondered if Kylo could read minds, because he'd hit the nail right on the head.

"Yes, that's true again" confirmed Rey.

"Can you elaborate?" he asked gently.

Rey hesitated, she'd never spoken about this to anyone before.

She felt her bad tooth throb suddenly and gasped. Kylo said nothing but tilted his head, encouraging her to tell him what he wanted to know.

"I can take the pain away, I promise, but you're going to have to open up to me Rey. I need to know what happened, how you reacted… what your triggers are," he insisted.

Rey sighed and decided she'd better just tell him and be done with it.

"I was about eleven I think… and I felt this tiny hole in one of my teeth," she instinctively puts her hand to her jaw as she remembers. "So I arranged a dental appointment with this dodgy Jakku surgery located down the road from where I lived at the time."

"You arranged your own medical appointments at such a young age?" he asked with a look of surprise gracing those princely features of his.

"I've always looked after myself," stated Rey matter-of-factly. She didn't particularly want to discuss the details of anything else that didn't relate to his original question. Frankly, that was none of his business!

"To cut a long story short," she continued, "the dentist who saw me… he well… he drilled my tooth without any anaesthetic before roughly pushing the filling in, then he just exited the room! I was left all alone, perched on his chair in agony; yelling for him to come back over and over again until my voice was hoarse. I must have waited there at least an hour because I was sure that someone would help, but nobody came for me. Eventually I just wandered out of the building in a daze with no real understanding of what had happened, but I remember the pain lasted for days afterward. The dentist's name was Plutt and later I found out that the guy had been practicing without a licence! The clinic was shut down by the government a few years later. Since then, I haven't been able to bring myself to step into a dental surgery again."

"Until today" said Kylo. "I wonder, what hurt more, the dentist's negligence or the fact that you were suffering alone."

She wrung her hands together and looked away from him again.

"Is Kylo Ren a dentist or does he fancy himself a psychiatrist as well?" she wondered.

She then flinched as he suddenly covered her restless hands with his own and pressed them together. His touch was so warm that she concluded she herself must be unusually cold for her to feel it so much.

"I want you to know that I think you've been really brave in coming here today Rey. I'll make sure our appointment is a pleasant experience and then you'll never be afraid of dentistry again. You won't have cause to worry about these things any longer."

Rey wasn't so sure about that but nodded.

She felt strangely grateful that she'd unloaded this long-guarded secret from her past. He'd actually listened to her and understood her fears rather than dismissing them. She had expected to be branded a coward for letting childhood memories stop her from seeing a dentist, but instead he'd told her not to be ashamed.

Granted, this guy was a bit intense… but he did seem to genuinely care how she was feeling. He didn't want her to be afraid of him.

Kylo flipped through a few more pages on the clipboard. "OK Rey, there doesn't seem to be anything to flag up on your registration form, so I think we can start. I'm just going to adjust the chair now so I can examine your teeth more easily. Just lay still and try to relax."

Kylo pulled on a medical mask which covered his mouth and part of his large nose. The mask was black and blended with his long raven hair. He also pulled on some latex gloves… these were black too and almost looked like leather.

He flipped some switches on a remote controller and Rey felt the dental chair shudder and whir as the headpiece started moving backwards and the footrest moved higher. She remained still as instructed, but gripped the armrests as a way of releasing her tension.

Rey was immediately bathed in harsh, bright light as Mitaka activated the lamp that arched over the chair. She squinted as the glare of the lamp made the edges of her eyes weep slightly. She prayed it would not be mistaken for crying.

"You can close your eyes if it's easier," said Kylo.

"Yeah, I think I will," agreed Rey and she squeezed her eyelids shut tightly.

She could sense Kylo leaning in close to her face. "Open your mouth as wide as you can sweetheart," he whispered. Rey could feel his large fingers on her lips and even through the latex they were still warm. Metal started to touch her gums and tongue and she inhaled sharply at the sensation.

"I'm just using a small mirror to take a look," he explained.

One by one he probed around each tooth in turn, whilst barking numbers to Mitaka, whom she could hear typing away on a keyboard. Rey didn't understand what those instructions meant, but she assumed it was assessing how rotten her teeth were.

"After all, there is fifteen years' worth of decay saved up in there. Shit.. just how much treatment am I going to need!?" she thought with alarm.

Kylo left her problem tooth until the end and like the others before it gave it a slight tap with his mirror after he had examined it. She yelped and closed her mouth instinctively, trapping a couple of his fingers and the mirror at the same time.

"Hmmm that's the sore one isn't it Rey? Don't worry, I'll make it better for you soon."

He carefully allowed his fingers to slide out of her mouth and extracted the mirror, but as he did so, she felt one finger brush along her lower lip, almost like a caress.

"Was that deliberate or just my imagination!?" she thought. She sincerely hoped she was not still blushing under that hot florescent light.

As she sensed him moving away, Rey opened her eyes a crack to spy him back on his stool and setting up some equipment.

"Well done sweetheart, now I just have to take an x-ray. I'll need to put this sensor in your mouth. You're a petite little thing, so I'm going to need to use the child-size one, I think you might struggle fitting my larger one in" he stated in an amused tone.

"He has a strange sense of humour," she thought. "Also, why is he calling me sweetheart? it's pretty unprofessional!"

Rey watched as Kylo returned to her side and carefully slid the sensor between her left jaw and cheek.

"I'll come back for you," Kylo assured her before he and Mitaka left the room. She knew this was standard practice for people who worked regularly with x-rays.

The machine clicked away for about thirty seconds. After the noise had ceased, both men returned and resumed their positions. Mitaka gave her another quick glance; the young man really did seem to have something on his mind. It made her feel uneasy that he was not as cheerful as his boss.

Kylo lowered his mask to reveal that charming crooked smile once more.

"OK Rey, it'll take a minute for the x-rays to develop, which provides time to give you a quick summary of what I've found during the examination. You'll be happy to know that most of your teeth are fine, however there are a couple at the back which are in the early stages of decay, so you should try and reduce your sugar intake if possible. Also, your gums are receding a bit more than I would expect for someone of your age. Do you floss regularly?

Rey hesitated, "um yeah…"

She knew she rarely flossed, it made her gums bleed and the sensation of rubbing those white ribbons around the roots of her teeth made her want to faint. It brought up those childhood memories of the dental procedures she feared so much. This of course was not conducive to good oral hygiene and Rey often suffered from acute gingivitis. It was all a vicious circle of fear and denial.

"You can be totally honest with me Rey, I won't judge," he reassured her.

"Well… actually maybe I don't floss enough," she conceded.

Kylo smirked. He seemed pleased that he could draw out the truth from her. "What kind of toothbrush do you use?" he asked.

"An electric one," she tentatively replied.

"Good, make sure you change the head regularly for the best results…"

The pain in Rey's jaw suddenly flared up again and she jerked in alarm. Kylo quickly set down his clipboard and before she knew what was happening, he was leaning over her and taking her hand again… and was his other hand on her thigh?! She could feel his fingertips through her jeans. She wanted to protest, but it seemed unimportant compared to the toothache which was now making her head spin and even causing a few tears to be shed... Instead she could do nothing but grip his hand in return and he seemed quite content to let her sink her fingernails into his palm until the throbbing had died back down to a dull ache.

Her breathing was starting to become fast and hard.

"Rey, try to calm down, I'll sort this out for you sweetheart, but I need you to listen to me explain what I need to do first."

It was difficult, but she tried to block out all the anxiety which was now hitting her in huge crashing waves.

"You can do this, you can do this, you are Rey of Jakku and you can achieve anything once you set your mind to it girl!" She chanted this litany in her mind repeatedly, trying to block out her fear and thankfully this seemed to work because she began to take regular, longer breaths.

"What's going to happen?" she croaked. "You want to take the tooth out, don't you?!" It was as much an accusation as a question. Rey clenched her hands and feet in anticipation of an affirmative response.

"Oh maker no! First Order Dental isn't like the New Republic Health Service, we don't just pull teeth and send people on their way," he replied. He sounded scandalised that she would even think such a thing. He patted her leg as if to reassure her of this fact… and maybe it sort of did… but it was a bit weird that he still had his hand on her lap.

"I'm going to recommend we do a root canal Rey," he said seriously. "You have a large cavity in that molar and it goes too far down to just fill it. There's also some existing decay which is starting to form an abscess, that's part of the reason why it hurts so badly. The good news is, I'm very confident I can save that tooth for you."

Rey's heart thumped in her chest and her stomach churned as Kylo's diagnosis sank in. She knew all too well that a root canal was one of the most invasive dental procedures a person could have. There would be deep drilling and she'd read some horror stories on the Internet about patients having files stuck in their teeth and kriff knows what else. She could feel herself breaking out in cold sweats around her neck and armpits, yet she was now determined to see this through to the end.

"Alright, l-lets fuh-f-fix it then," she stammered.

Kylo nodded happily.

"That's great Rey! I'm very pleased you're going to do this. In fact, I've decided I'm going to cancel my next patient's appointment so I can take extra time with your treatment and give you the best possible service… That way I can be sure that you'll start seeing me regularly in the future."

Rey was not sure how to respond to this declaration.

"Should I thank him for that?"

She decided to remain silent which in the end seemed to disappoint him.

He pressed gloved fingers to her cheek and stared at her face for a few seconds before once more donning his facemask. Although it modulated his voice somewhat, it didn't impede his speech.

"Mitaka, call through to Phasma to rearrange Mr Darklighter's 5pm slot and hurry up with those x-rays man," he curtly ordered.

The assistant rushed to comply and started talking into a headset.

Although Kylo was being extremely courteous with Rey, it appeared that he also enjoyed being rude to his junior staff. She wondered if he believed this show of authority would impress her… because actually that sort of behaviour really annoyed her. At her own office she was often on the receiving end of a lot of condescending and elitist bullshit. Ren spoke and acted like he might be one of those privileged types… No wonder Mitaka looks miserable.

Mitaka started to tie a gown around her neck. Kylo had snatched her x-rays and now held them up against a lit screen, looking at them closely. While the dentist's back was turned, she gave his assistant a sympathetic glance, but the young man did not acknowledge her and instead hurriedly left the room, shutting the door behind him.

"Won't he need to stay here to help out?" she thought.

Kylo promptly switched his attentions back to her, once again seemingly within her mind and hearing her unspoken question.

"It's just us now," he said through the mask. "As you are a somewhat nervous patient Rey, I think you might benefit from nitrous oxide during this procedure. Have you experienced gas before?"

She struggled to recollect her memories, it was difficult to think about anything other than the activities within this room right now. "I've had some in hospital before an operation… and um… once in an ambulance."

"The gas here is slightly different," explained Kylo. "My colleague Armitage and I have developed a formula which is especially soothing for our patients. It will make you light-headed, but it will also help you relax and that in turn will make it easier for me to work on you and keep you comfortable. Do you consent to me using it?"

He was staring at her again with those predatory dark eyes, beseeching her to accept his offer.

"He's probably doesn't want to deal with a difficult fidgeting patient this late in the day and just wants to clock off on time," she convinced herself. Also, the mercy of being half-asleep during the procedure appealed to her as well. She'd welcome with open arms anything that could get her through this nightmare without vomiting.

"Yes, I'd like the gas please."