The words looked out of place on the dirty scrap of paper they were written on.

'Ben. Please. Bring her to Rey'. Leia Organa's signature was legible and elegant underneath.

He felt a flash of irritation at the use of his childhood name. He regarded the paper for another moment. He would have recognized the regal penmanship of his mother even without the signature. Fleeting memories of notes tucked into childhood lunch kits came to mind before he had a chance to suppress them. His hand closed, crumpling the fragile paper.

He pocketed the note and peered into the woven basket set on the floor in front of him. He tried to mask his surprise. It was a child. Or more accurately, a very young infant. Only a tiny sleeping face and a few wisps of dark hair were visible underneath the layers of swaddling.

What in the galaxy would possess his mother to send an infant to the flagship of the First Order?

—

He paused outside the room where they were holding Rey. He reached out lightly with the Force and tried to brush up against where he knew her mind to be. Nothing. He wasn't really surprised. She had become very effective at blocking him for the last year or so.

He was convinced that something had happened to her one day twelve months earlier when he felt the sudden loss of her Force signature. The bond between them became silent for the first time since it had begun. He scoured all of the channels he had available to him for information on her and her allies with little success. She was gone. The next few weeks were dark.

Reports of her filtered back to him slowly. He could see her clearly in the minds of rebel prisoners that were brought to him for interrogation. Through their memories he learned that she was indeed alive. She was still the active face of the Resistance. The new Jedi that had come to bring them hope. Even using all of his formidable skills, he could no longer feel any vestige of her remaining within the Force. He assumed it was temporary. She would not have the strength to hide herself from him for very long. It turns out he was mistaken. Not his first mistake when it came to her.

He put out a galaxy wide bounty to be paid if she was returned to him alive. Many assumed it was in response to the death of the former Supreme Leader Snoke. He didn't care what anyone thought. He just needed to find her.

She has been his prisoner on the Regency for three days now. He knew that the substantial reward on her capture would have paid off eventually. Greed is a strong motivator no matter what side you fought for. She was finally recognized at the Janis 4 outpost. While she didn't surrender peacefully, she didn't even attempt to use the Force when he arrived to collect her. She wasn't even carrying her lightsaber.

He nodded at the two knights of Ren stationed at her door and entered the sparsely furnished room. It was a dramatic step up from their usual prisoner accommodations. While it was heavily guarded and secure, it was clean and included a small ensuite for personal hygiene. He had it converted from an officer's residence, taking care to remove anything that could be used as a weapon or aid her in an escape.

She was on the small bed hugging her knees towards her chest. She looked very young sitting in her green leggings and cream-colored tunic. More like the frightened girl he remembered when he first met her. You wouldn't be able to tell by looking at her that she was one of the strongest Force wielders in the galaxy. Snoke had called her the light rising to meet his darkness.

She flicked her eyes towards him briefly, not hiding her contempt. She said nothing. He tried again to brush up against her mind using the Force. Nothing. Not even a glimmer of response. She was simultaneously blocking him from her mind and shutting herself completely off from the Force. Either option would require such an immense effort on her part that he was still surprised that she has had the power to do both so effectively for such a prolonged period of time. Frustratingly, she has also refused to speak to him at all since she arrived. He hasn't forced the issue. Yet.

"Rey." He said, moving to the centre of the room his black robes sweeping behind him. "I had an interesting communication from my mother today."

Her chin lifted so that she was looking at him directly. Rey knew that he rarely referred to General Organa as his mother.

He looked over his shoulder. "Bring it inside." He spoke in an authoritative tone befitting of the title he held.

His two knights brought in the basket and set it down beside him. Rey was up and off the bed before they even had a chance to take a step backwards. She moved so quickly that his guards reached for their weapons. Kylo waved them off and they reluctantly moved back into position just outside the doorway.

Rey pulled the infant up from its swaddling and cradled it against her chest. He could see tears running silently down her face as she appeared to breathe in the scent of the child. The sudden movement must have woken the baby up from her slumber. She looked up at Rey with an expression of confusion that quickly changed to recognition. The baby buried her face in Rey's neck.

And then suddenly he felt it. Although it was rudimentary and unrefined, the infant very clearly reacted to Rey within the Force. It was nothing more than a fleeting flicker of raw emotion, but it was there.

Shock radiated off his body. Rey had a child. He hadn't even considered that possibility when he first saw the infant sent by his mother. The thought of Rey allowing some rebel scum to touch her caused anger to boil inside of him. Tendrils or darkness of swirled within the Force. He clenched his fists and tried to maintain some sort of control.

—

Kylo Ren watched as the young woman moved the infant to the bed and removed her outer layer of clothing. The baby gurgled contentedly as her mother ran her hands down each of her limbs, examining them one by one. He had to admit she was a beautiful baby. As far as babies go he guessed. She had Rey's delicate features with wisps of dark hair that were just becoming long enough to curl slightly. Finally, content that the child seemed to be in one piece and in good health, Rey picked her up and held her against her chest once again. Rey kissed the top of her head and murmured comforting nonsense syllables, her relief evident.

Rey looked at Kylo over the top of her baby's head. "What is she doing here? How did you find her?" She said, her voice low and rough from days without use.

Kylo reached in his pocket and handed Rey the note his mother had written. "I didn't find her. She arrived much like you did that day on the Supremacy."

Kylo didn't need to use the Force to see the fury build inside the young woman.

"Leia sent her alone, in a transport pod, to the First Order?" Rey responded incredulously, her anger apparent. No, not anger, fury. He hasn't seen that kind of raw fury from her except the day they confronted Snoke and the praetorian guards. Together.

"She wasn't alone. She had a protocol droid with her."

"C-3PO? Where is he? I want to speak with him."

"He's been uncooperative. And just as annoying as I remember him. I've had him taken down to our programmers to see if they can obtain any useful information from him."

The baby, who had been fairly content until then, started fussing and rubbing her face up against her mother's tunic.

Rey made a shushing sound and started bouncing her gently. She looked at Kylo. "She needs to eat."

"I'm not sure what we have on hand for small infants. Women who have children are not allowed to serve on the Regency." He was completely out of his element. And still reeling from the fact that Rey had a child.

"I should be able to feed her myself. I've been trying to keep up my milk supply. Just in case..." Rey let her voice trail off. Obviously she had been hoping for a rescue by now.

Kylo looked at Rey and he couldn't help his eyes from slowly traveling down towards where the baby fussed against her chest. He knew he should offer to leave but he couldn't seem to tear himself away. After months of silence, she was finally talking to him again.

Color spread to Rey's cheeks as she reached down for one of the swaddling blankets in the basket. With a practiced maneuver she sat cross-legged on the bed and put the blanket over her shoulder. With the modicum of privacy in place, she loosened her tunic and allowed the infant access to nurse.

The baby stopped fussing immediately under the blanket. Rey smiled gently as the baby made small contented noises. The intimacy of the moment was not lost on him.

Once again Kylo could feel a tiny fluttering of emotion through the Force coming from the baby. He immediately reached out towards Rey to see her response but she was as closed off to the Force as ever.

He looked at her questionably. "She reaches out to you in the Force. Are you aware of it? Can you feel her?" He was curious to find out how detached from the Force Rey had actually become.

Rey's eyes welled up with tears. She shook her head once. "No. Leia told me she was Force sensitive though."

Kylo could see that it pained her to be cut off from her child this way. "Why did you do it? Why have you purposefully chosen to close yourself off from the Force?" It was unfathomable to him. To deny herself access to that amount of power.

Rey met and held his gaze. "You know why I did it." Emotion seeped into her words as she said them. The seconds stretched on as they stared at one another.

The events leading up to the loss of the Force bond replayed in his mind, as they had done for so many nights now.

He was the first to break eye contact. He took a step back from her. "She can stay with you... for now." He spun and exited the room closing the door behind him.

—