They’d gone into hyperspace before Finn was able to push through the shock enough to say, “Tell me what weapon could do this.”

“Several different ones,” Ren said, which of course was no help at all. “But -”

Finn waited patiently, or at least he tried. When Ren stared into space instead of continuing, he said, “But what? Tell me what you’re thinking.”

Ren gave him a look, easily identifiable as Ren thinking Finn was stupid and naive. Fuck that. “Tell me what you’re thinking, or I’ll make assumptions you won’t like.”

“Threats don’t become you,” Ren said. “I’m thinking that the number of weapons that could cause a moon to slowly disintegrate are, for the First Order, numerous, but only a few could be manned and used with the organization’s diminished capacity. One of them is a favorite of Jurtel Hux, the deceased General Hux’s uncle, who retains a large fortune and Imperialist sympathies.”

“Right. So if it’s the weapon you’re thinking of - what’s it called?”

“A class six death star.”

For a moment, in spite of the careful detachment Finn had learned to cultivate when talking about the First Order’s dirty work, Finn could only stare. “How many classes were there? Never mind. Fuck. Okay, so if it’s a class six death star, how long do we have?”

“Weeks, perhaps months. We’d need to analyze the moon to be sure.” When Ren noticed Finn’s disbelieving look, he said, “Look, think of it from the perspective of Jurtel. Death stars take power to use, which means money. If he can destroy a moon for a bargain, he’ll do it. He likely means to send a message of cruelty, forcing stormtroopers to be refugees again. He assumes the Senate will turn its back on you, and you’ll die without him having to spend the extra to ensure it happens right away.”

Finn hated, hated how likely that seemed. “We’ll evacuate. But he might be right. The political will -”

“Will be there, if you make it,” Ren snapped. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re a hero of the Resistance, with goodwill in many quarters, and if you wanted to you could bend them all to your will without even trying.”

From the back of the cockpit, Finn heard a snort. He sighed as Rey said, “You’ll tell him that till you’re blue in the face, but he won’t do it. It’s not right, and Finn actually cares about what’s right.”

Ren glared at the ceiling. “What’s worse: bending the nonexistent Jedi’s rules, or allowing your people to perish?”

“I can’t have this argument right now.” Or ever. “And I’m not going to, Rey.”

Her voice turned to concern immediately. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Weak,” Ren muttered.

“I’m not going to have this argument right now,” Finn said. “Which means I’ll gag you and send you to the cargo hold if I have to, got it?”

Ren actually rolled his eyes, like a sulking teenager. But, thank the Force, he subsided after that and let Finn talk over potential plans with Rey.

The problem was there were no good alternatives. Whoever had attacked them had picked their target well. People did like Finn, that was true enough, but Ren was himself evidence that public opinion had shifted. Billions of people had survived the First Order, and many of them were coming to believe that the First Order had never been that much of a threat - or, if it had, that its defeat had been preordained. “The Jedi don’t help with that,” Rey said. “I mean, we do try, obviously. But it’s all got that veneer of fate over it, which lets people pretend things were never all that dire.”

“And people hate us.”

“It’s not your fault!”

“But -”

“I know.” Rey sighed. “They do. I hate - I wish - never mind. Solutions, solutions. You know, Poe’s got some connections in the Senate, being a hero who knew the General and all. So does Rose, since her dad’s been elected mayor, and of course there’s always Maz.”

“Maz Kanata? You really think she’d help us?”

“Of course she would!”

“But are any of her connections, you know. Legal?”

“Smugglers are always connected to the government,” Ren said.

“I hate to admit it, but he’s right. And you’d know, eh?” This last was directed at Ren, who grunted like a bantha and didn’t otherwise respond.

He would know because of his father, who he’d murdered. Not the strongest recommendation. “It’s worth a try, I guess. But I don’t know where I could ask us to go. Kef Bir was uninhabited, and Jannah established squatter’s rights with barely three hundred people. With a couple hundred thousand, there’s nowhere in the galaxy we could go that’s not already inhabited.”

“Your political argument will obviously center around your status as child soldiers,” Ren said. “Now is not the time to pretend you’re anything but refugees.”

Finn did his best not to give in to the anger that sparked in him at Ren’s words. “We’re a hell of a lot more than refugees.”

Ren had the nerve to roll his eyes. “I’m aware. But for the purposes of convincing others to give you shelter -”

“No one’s going to give us anything!”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Rey said. “Finn, we’re in hyperspace, yeah? That means you can stop piloting and come grab some food with me. You should go to your room.” She directed this last at Ren, who obeyed even as Finn made an undignified noise of disbelief.

“What just happened?” Finn said, at the same time Rey said, “You really do just have to ignore him. You’ve got enough on your plate without taking his bait.”

“He’s not baiting me.”

“He is.”

Finn shook his head. “He honestly believes that crap. That’s not bait.”

“He’s trying to get a reaction from you.” Rey grabbed two plates while Finn rummaged around for snacks. “That counts as bait.”

“Ugh. He’s just so -”

“Unbearable?”

“Right,” Finn said, the realization of what he meant cascading so strongly that it felt like a physical blow. “He doesn’t really care about ’troopers, definitely not about me, and he sees us the way most of the galaxy sees us.”

“Hey now. He was worse than most of them.”

“But a lot of people did agree with the First Order, at least a little,” Finn said.

Rey frowned and bit her lip. “I wish I could say I don’t agree. If I were you I’d be turning to the dark side so I could pursue justice, you know.”

“You would not.”

“I might! I came a lot closer than you ever have. But you wouldn’t, because that’s not who you are. And you have a duty to the other ’troopers, and a duty to the Republic, to fight back against what other people are, and to change things for the good. To make sure that no one will ever steal kids away again.”

“Ugh. I hate it when you repeat my own thoughts back at me.”

She thumped him on the shoulder, very gently. “But I’m right.”

He leaned his head against her shoulder. “You are. I hate it, but you are.”

“Crisp?”

Finn took the proffered bag, and as they ate in silence, started to plan out his strategy.

It started with Naboo.

Politically, Naboo had been a mess for a long time. They had a beloved, now-dead Senator who’d led the original Rebellion, and a Senator who’d been the first Emperor. Behind both symbols were centuries of factionalism and a ton of money, among other problems. It was no wonder, then, that they extended an offer of resources to the ’troopers to help them evacuate, then rescinded the offer, then extended it again - as a contract this time, so the invitation would stick.

Jannah wasn’t sure. “We can’t trust them,” she’d said.

“We can’t really trust anyone,” Finn had pointed out. “But Naboo signed a contract. That means something. It’s enforceable in the Galactic courts.”

“Ugh,” Jannah had said, but Finn was right and she knew it. Furthermore, in the end it wasn’t really their choice. The ’troopers all voted, and they agreed to take Naboo’s aid.

But evacuation was only the first piece of the puzzle. The second was finding somewhere ex-troopers could live. Finn was all too familiar with arguments that arose when he mentioned that issue. Most Senators only had one opinion, and that opinion was: why couldn’t ’troopers simply find employment across the galaxy? Jannah had already led three votes on that question, and would lead another when the newest batch of freed ’troopers joined them on -

Well. Not on Kef Bir. But there’d be a vote regardless. The tally was always the same: they wanted to stay together. What did an ex-’trooper have in common with a moisture farmer or a Jakku pilot? They’d been forced to become siblings by violent fascists. They were going to stay together to ensure no one could do that again.

Hopefully he could turn that rationale into a stirring speech. Otherwise, their options were remarkably straightforward. They’d have to buy housing, somehow, or they’d be forced to split up. Even thinking about it made a low thrum of panic start up in his chest.

They landed on Kef Bir expecting chaos. In retrospect, Finn should’ve known better. They’d all experienced chaos before, and Jannah was the kind of person who could hold a squadron together through a blown hull.

The blast had landed just outside a settlement. One person had been killed in the resulting conflagration. “Zeri was a hero,” Jannah said. “She got everyone else out of the auditorium, but the fire got her.”

“One dead from a planet-killing weapon isn’t that bad,” Ren said. “If you keep it that way, it’ll be impressive.”

Jannah stared at him. Finn resisted the urge to smack him - a reasonable thing to do if he hadn’t been Ren’s actual employer. “Are you serious?” Jannah finally said.

“Of course,” Ren said. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Finn watched Jannah’s hand flex and decided his ethical obligation didn’t extend to preventing Jannah from hitting him. “Zeri was a friend, in addition to a hero. She was a sister. A human life was lost. This isn’t something that will go on some employment evaluation. No one gets a medal, either. It was a senseless, stupid waste of life that a bunch of monsters caused.”

Ren tilted his head. For a moment Finn felt breathless from fear of the stupid shit he was certain was about to come out of his mouth.

“I agree,” Ren said. “How many working transports do you have?”

Jannah’s hand relaxed. She turned to Finn. “How far are we going?”

“Great question,” Finn said, and began to explain his plan.

They couldn’t stay on Takodana forever. (“For starters, it’ll be lava season at some point in a human lifespan, and I can’t protect more than the people already living there,” Maz had said.) The Resistance had maintained barracks there, though, and so they had shelter for at least a month or two, long enough to come up with another solution.

“Long enough for you to talk the Senate into helping its most vulnerable population,” Jannah had said encouragingly.

“Or die trying,” was Finn’s not-at-all-joking response.

They got over half of Kef Bir evacuated before the first collapsing sandstorm. No one died, but it was a grim reminder of how little time they had. Worse, Finn didn’t have more time to help with evac efforts after that. The Senate was back in session, and he had to go and argue their case.

“You realize their timing was deliberate,” Ren said the night before the Senate was set to re-open.

Finn had never used his bodyguard quarters before being assigned Ren; it turned out that a palatial apartment when it was just him turned into a cramped series of insufficient rooms when he had to deal with Kylo Ren glowering at him all the time. It was that irritation that had him snapping, “Whose timing? The Senate’s? It opens this time every year.”

Ren rolled his eyes, looking more than ever like an angry horse. “The First Order’s. Whoever it was. They knew you’d move people, and now they’re waiting for you to make some argument that will allow them to advocate for your people to be forced to stay at the evac point.”

“Doesn’t matter. They can’t stay on Takodana, we already know that.”

“Maz Kanata’s objections won’t overrule a Senate decree.”

“So the Senate will just endanger tens of thousands of people out of convenience?” Ugh, of course they would. “Don’t answer that. I already know the answer. Damn it.”

“There is, of course, your second option.”

“There is no second option.”

“You could persuade them.”

He blamed exhaustion for how slow he was on the uptake just then. “I’m going to try, but if it doesn’t work - no. No! I’m not going to use Force compulsion on the Senate, you know I’m not, why do you keep trying to get me to - what are you doing?”

His skin was zinging again. Ren was touching him again, one huge hand pressed against his forearm. He felt dizzy and off. “You’re shouting,” Ren said. “Ironic, don’t you think, that you shouted at me that you wouldn’t use the Force, and it was the Force itself that amplified you.” His nostrils flared as he took a deep breath.

For one crazy moment, Finn thought about just going for it. This whole touching-and-smelling thing was clearly some creepy dark-side variety of a come-on, and Finn felt more desperate than he had since those early days when he’d thought he could just run away from the Resistance. He thought about it, then he decided maybe he should go for it. Maybe he should just lean forward, kiss Ren the way Ren so clearly wanted him to, and see what happened.

“Don’t,” Ren said in a tight voice.

Finn blinked. “Don’t what?”

The air seemed very still when Ren let go of his arm and took a step back. “Don’t…reject out of hand a plan which might be effective. Even if it seems to use unsavory tactics.”

He felt so strange, like he’d just stepped from a blizzard into a too-warm room. He turned away from Ren, walking over to where he’d left his holopad and opening up the latest message from Jannah again. “That sounds like First Order logic to me.”

He could practically feel Ren biting back some shitty comment about how successful the First Order had been. “You represent Kef Bir, supposedly, and your…citizens…seem very devoted to the concept of direct democracy. More devoted than the Senate, you’re aware.”

“I’m the one who was actually in the Senate while you were sulking about not getting to finish your evil plan. Yes, I’m aware.”

“Ask them what they’d like you to do. I’ll be in my room; please shout if you’re being murdered. I’ll come running.”

Finn stood there like an idiot for long minutes after Ren had left, replaying the conversation and his own shitty options and coming up with absolutely nothing worth thinking about.

Would the dark side feed on his arousal, knowing as he did that it was sparked by a man who was grieving, furious, and blazingly bright within the light? Kylo would know the answer to his question if he dug into his skin and pulled out the dampener he’d been saddled with. But of course, then he’d be hauled off to solitary confinement again - if he wasn’t simply shot on sight.

He’d never know for sure what precisely moved around him just then, but he didn’t care, either. It took the barest touch of his hand on his cock to set him on fire.

This time, touching the Force through Finn hadn’t simply been good; it had been transcendent. He had moved within Finn’s connection to the Force as though it were his own. It had filled his body with vicious triumph, and for a moment, despite Finn’s pathetic protests about the ethics of stormtrooper resettlement, Kylo had felt like he could win a whole war on his own.

He clenched a hand around his cock, thrusting frantically, panting as he thought of it. What would Finn ha done if he’d used the power? Would he have fought it? Could he fight it? He was plenty powerful, but untrained, and seemingly reluctant to embrace who he was. Kylo could likely overpower him, then. He’d savor the moment Finn realized his error: the widening of his eyes, the quickening of his breath. The hardening of his cock.

Kylo came like that, thinking of power, of the Force. Of Finn, his window to the only part of the world that had ever mattered to him.

Keeping secrets had been second nature to Kylo before he’d learned to talk. Consequently, he had no problem looking Finn in the eye the next morning, even after spending the night fucking his own hand, thinking of fucking Finn instead, of taking the Force from him. “What’s your agenda for today?”

It was a perfectly standard question for a bodyguard to ask, but of course Finn shot him a suspicious look. “Why?”

“We’re on Coruscant. This is where your last assassination attempt occurred. If I’m going to protect you, I need to know your day to day plans.”

He watched Finn process a series of emotions very visibly. Incredible to think that he was a politician by choice; even more incredible to think that by some metrics, he was actually good at it. “The Refugee Committee is presenting their findings about stormtroopers today. I’m probably going to end up giving a speech.”

Kylo pictured Finn rising to his feet, reluctant, heroism etched in the slope of his shoulders as he took a deep breath in preparation to say some saccharine nonsense about ‘rights’ and ‘justice’. “Probably.”

“Definitely, okay? I’d really rather you stayed here. I’m pretty unlikely to be assassinated today.”

“I’m sure you realize political assassinations succeed based on exactly that kind of reasoning.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“But you won’t.” Kylo watched with grim satisfaction as Finn did a double take, frowning and crossing his arms.

“Using the Force to compel people isn’t taking care of myself.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No! You don’t even - the Force isn’t meant to be used for personal gain!”

It was so hard not to roll his eyes and ridicule Finn’s ignorance. Had he ever been so naive? He couldn’t possibly have been. “The Force isn’t meant for anything, if you’d like to be pedantic about it.”

“Everything’s meant for something. Even you, if you cared.” Finn crossed his arms. Kylo ignored the way his stomach tightened at the sight; he wanted so badly to touch Finn, to feel the Force running through him again. “You can come to the Senate if you want, but I swear, if you make fun of my speech, or interrupt it, or -”

“It’s forbidden by the bodyguard rulebook to interrupt your client’s Senatorial duties unless absolutely necessary for preservation of safety.”

“Sure, but you’re an asshole.”

Kylo just barely managed not to roll his eyes. Why bother demanding a promise from someone you didn’t trust to keep it? “I won’t interrupt your speech, or otherwise impeded your pathetic attempts to convince avaricious Senators to help you. Which they won’t do, by the way.”

“We’ll see,” Finn said, and that was that.

Still, Kylo hadn’t expected quite so many speeches to sit through. Finn hadn’t spoken after three solid hours of debate and testifying and other useless bloviating. Kylo had already known the Senate held Finn in contempt: why else would Kylo be assigned to him? But that knowledge hadn’t prepared him for the petty indignities of the mannered Senators. It brought him right back to his early memories of his mother belligerently breaking with the Senate. If Finn ended his own life in a similar way, Kylo wouldn’t be surprised.

He was so busy ruminating on the various ways in which the Senate had failed in his lifetime that he almost didn’t notice when it finally was Finn’s chance to speak.

Empirically speaking, he couldn’t feel the Force. During his training, however, he had been trained to be attuned to the Force: to watch for signs of it, to observe its work in others. All that old knowledge came rushing back to him as he watched Finn draw his audience in.

There was something painfully erotic about the way he used the Force. He had no knowledge, no training, no dyad, no ancient familial history, no latent well of inherited power to draw on. He should have been clumsier than Kylo had ever been, yet he wasn’t. His touch was light yet deft, the persuasion cast so gently that Kylo doubted even those sensitive to the Force could feel it. It couldn’t even properly be called persuasion; Finn would never deliberately use his power in that way, but he couldn’t help but be who he was, strong in the Force and inherently charismatic. Like the old holovids of Padme Amidala, Finn was simply too compelling to look away from. Kylo watched; as he watched, he wanted and hated in equal measure.

He had to figure out a way to get access to the Force again. To get access to Finn. It wasn’t a matter of preference or avarice; he simply had to have it. Failure was not an option.

Finn had never given a speech, in front of three people or three thousand, without feeling exhausted afterwards. It was so hard to focus on people. Drawing them out of their skepticism was bad enough when it was about something relatively minor, but no one in the galaxy felt neutral about the question of whether or not ’troopers should have resources and homes. Dealing with the conflicting feelings, the hostility, the indifference -

“I think that hurt worst of all,” he said glumly into his rabbit stew. “Imagine hearing Jannah’s story and just thinking, who cares. I’d almost rather deal with a whole Senate full of people who think we’re criminals or worthless leeches.”

Rose and Poe had both heard it before, but in the grand tradition of Resistance vets, they were ready for another go-around. Rose grimaced in sympathy and patted his hand as she said, “People trained themselves to be indifferent. We’ll get through to them. You will. You were on the news, you know. People care what you have to say.”

“And if they don’t care enough, we’ll make them,” Poe said.

“I hardly think bringing an X-Wing into the Senate would help the stormtroopers’ case,” Ren said from behind Finn’s shoulder.

Poe ignored him, just as he always did. “The General taught me all I need to know about getting a message across, isn’t that right, buddy?” BB-8’s antenna twitched as it beeped agreement.

“That reminds me, I was going to ask if you’re looking for a propagandist.” Rose waved her fork in Finn’s face when his mouth dropped open. “Not in a bad way!”

“How can you be a propagandist in a good way?”

“You know, pitch articles about ’trooper rights, do some lobbying, maybe make a few well-placed threats or call in a few favors.”

“In the Old Republic, they called that being a chief of staff, rather than a propagandist.”

Finn felt oddly sad to see Rose’s expression harden when she looked back at Ren. “Hey, Finn, your bodyguard’s not very well trained.”

“He’s a person, not a dog,” Finn said quietly. “And I know he’s awful, but can we just…the Senate assigned him to me.” I’m stuck with him, he didn’t say, but he could tell from the waves of emotion roiling off Rose and Poe both that they understood.

“Sketchy advice aside, he’s right,” Poe said. He still didn’t look at Ren as he leaned back and steepled his fingers. “I know the Senate’s hamstringing you wherever they can, but you do have a budget.”

“And I work for cheap!” Rose said.

He returned her smile in spite of himself - which she’d obviously intended, based on the way she beamed back at him. For a moment he felt, if not happy, then at least better: more sure that things would end up okay, happier with his presence in the Senate.

His, Rose’s, and Poe’s comms all lit up in unison. Finn answered his first: “What’s going on?”

“Kef Bir is collapsing ahead of schedule,” Rey said.

He knew right away that something besides that was wrong; she normally never sounded this calm. “Who’s still on there? Is Jannah okay? How long does it have?”

“Jannah’s fine. She’s here with me and nine other people. We supervised the last evac an hour ago. They took the Falcon. It’s too dangerous to fly her back to pick us up. Jannah says we likely have a few days at most before we’re lost.”

Finn felt his heart freeze, his chest collapse, his throat close.

Eleven people. Rey and Jannah. Fuck, fuck -

“Stay where you are and make sure your communicator doesn’t run out of juice. We’re coming to get you.”

“Finn, I called to say goodbye. It’s too dangerous. If I can’t get us off - I wanted to talk to you before -”

“We’re coming to get you,” Finn said again, and cut the connection.

Kylo had already considered it at length: there was no effective way to communicate to Finn that his chances of success were currently compromised by his emotional investment in his goal. He would interpret any comment as criticism, and given the traditional sentimentality of the Republic, would likely take Kylo’s comments as a signal to get even worse. Consequently, Kylo simply had to observe Finn in silence, keeping his (correct) thoughts on Finn’s strategy to himself, waiting to reach the collapsing planet so that they could perform the futile-yet-vital motions of failing to rescue Jannah and Rey.

They were, effectively, already dead. Kylo knew that, even as he tried not to dwell on it. His and Rey’s dyad hardly mattered anymore, crippled as he was, so what did he care? A straightforward, simple answer: he didn’t. But of course in the back of his mind, he continued thinking about her. If she was in pain, if she - and Jannah, and the other stormtroopers - would be crushed by rocks or slowly suffocate. Or burn to death in the magma exposed by the moon’s collapse, though that option seemed less likely than others.

Still. There were so many options and precious few answers. Kylo couldn’t feel Rey, of course. He couldn’t even feel Finn, though he didn’t feel that he really needed to. Finn’s emotions were pathetically obvious: his anxiety, his anger, his frustration, were all on display for Kylo. He had no sense of subtlety at the best of times.

His general demeanor - tense, distant, angry - made Kylo think, for interminable stretches of time, about touching him. Kissing him, fucking him. Not just to access the Force, though admittedly that idea held considerable allure. Beyond that, though, lived the obvious benefits of fucking Finn: his strong arms and steady gaze, his clever hands, his quick mind. Finn spent their trip to Kef Bir panicking about his friends dying, and Kylo spent that same trip fantasizing about making Finn come so hard he thought he was dying.

That juxtaposition alone demonstrated cleanly why they’d never be together. But…

The Force had flowed so powerfully through Finn. Why bother with anyone else? Why think of anything else, when that memory was easily accessible, sharp for how new it was, alluring like no other memory had ever been?

The ship hurtled through hyperspace. Finn took ragged breaths and visibly tried not to cry. Kylo, long since given over to the dark, thought of teeth and tongue and Finn’s cock, hard and begging for him, yielding at last.

The First Order, and the Empire before it, had invented a number of ways to destroy a planet. The Death Star’s lack of subtlety had led directly to Vader’s defeat, and Kylo had spent years dreaming of ways to improve upon his grandfather’s innovation in ways that wouldn’t be subverted by rebels. One of those dreams had become the weapon that would kill Kef Bir: a Class Six mining vessel with a proton-scattering beam capable of inducing gravitational collapse on planetary objects as small as asteroids and as large as midsize moons.

Kef Bir was a midsize moon. Its survival for several weeks after the attack spoke to the weapon’s limits as well as to sheer, dumb luck - but the First Order’s engineering wasn’t completely useless. The collapse might be late in coming, but when he and Finn exited hyperspace, it had come. Kef Bir was so near total annihilation that it didn’t have an orbit anymore.

“How are they still alive?” Finn said in a low, tense voice.

“Luck,” Kylo said. Rey’s power, his jealousy whispered.

“Well - not for long. Are you ready to land?”

“Are you asking me, or are you telling me I should be?”

“I’m - just answer the question.”

What did it say about him that even here, now, he found Finn’s frustration and visible impatience alluring? “As your bodyguard, I need to know what you anticipate if I’m going to protect you. I advise against allowing Dameron to persuade you to adopt his methods.”

“It’s not like ’troopers never improvise.”

’Troopers hadn’t been programmed with the intellectual capacity to even approach Dameron’s chaotic habits, but Kylo knew better than to tell Finn that. He said, “The plan?”

“We’ll be evacuating Rey and Jannah. Poe’ll provide air support. Rose is on her way with a medbay-equipped ship now.”

“And how exactly do you propose to complete the evac?”

“Oh, you know,” said Finn, the galaxy’s biggest idiot, “I figured we’d improvise. Buckle in, we’re landing.”

Kylo didn’t have time to respond. As their ship approached the planet’s surface, Finn’s comm crackled to life. “Remember what we discussed before,” Poe said in lieu of a formal greeting or callsign. “If anyone’s going to fall into a ravine during this little field trip, it’ll be the convicted war criminal, not you.”

“Don’t worry, I got this.” Finn took the controls and guided the ship to landing. Kef Bir’s frequently stormy atmosphere was worse now that the moon was nearly dead; wind howled all around them, and rocks hit the hull of their ship. Nevertheless, when they touched down, it was as light a landing as Kylo had ever experienced. Finn wasn’t lying about his skill.

As they descended on Kef Bir, Finn turned to Kylo. “We won’t have any time to debate once we’re down there. You’ll do what I say.”

Kylo barely even glanced at him. “Yes.”

Finn wasn’t sure he believed him, but they didn’t have time to discuss it further. They were landing on Kef Bir, and everything was very obviously going to shit.

Finn had experienced earthquakes before, but nothing close to this: the end of a world. The ground beneath their speeder roiled and cracked open. The air roared with unnatural wind; the atmosphere changed so rapidly he had to turn off his breather’s sensor warnings. His lungs felt like they might attempt to evacuate his chest cavity. Behind him, chest pressed to Finn’s back, Ren breathed heavily and grunted and said, “How much further?”

“Ten minutes at max speed, twenty if we’re slower, which we should be - we want the speeder for backup in case Poe can’t get evac.”

“Twenty minutes is too long. Unless -”

“What?” Finn could feel Ren’s contempt, his anger. He wondered if there was enough pain and ill will on this planet, enough dark side stuff to break through the Republic’s dampener. Hopefully not. “What aren’t you saying?”

This close, he felt and heard Ren grit his teeth. “Nothing.”

“Ren.”

“I doubt even a Resistance general thinks now is the time to press me.”

He had a point, so Finn just kicked the speed up a bit and leaned into the wind. Fifteen minutes would be better than twenty.

He could feel Rey and Jannah like a beacon, and for once that knowledge didn’t give him a bit of angst. They’d get there, they’d save them. All eleven of them. They had to. They had to. They had to.

The ground had caved in at the epicenter of the attack; Rey had sent pictures of their prison, several tons of heavy rock slowly filling with water. It would be a horrific way to die. Finn got to work right away, throwing rocks away as quickly as he could.

“Why can’t Rey move them?” Ren said.

Finn had wondered too, but the answer appeared in his mind before he even asked. “She can’t feel the Force. Something’s wrong. I can feel them, but they can’t feel me.”

“The weapon is working as intended,” Ren said. He sighed, sounding as put-upon as an officer asked to clear the table - and then he started moving rocks, too.

But it wasn’t enough. Of course not. The rain started as he and Ren began trying to push a boulder away from the mouth of the tunnel. The earth beneath them turned to mud, and the rock started to sink, directly over where Jannah and the others were trapped.

“This isn’t working,” Finn said. He felt insane, desperate, like his chest was cracking open. He fumbled for his comm - dropped it in the mud - grabbed it, flipping it open. “Poe, they’re trapped in a tunnel. We need manpower to get them out.”

“I can’t land,” Poe said. “I’ll try, but there’s nowhere steady enough. It looks like a planet made of quicksand, Finn. Scans say you have maybe half an hour, probably less.”

The trapped ’troopers definitely didn’t have half an hour. “I’ll figure something out,” Finn said, and shoved his comm in his pocket.

“Finn.”

“What?” Ren was standing there in the rain, hair plastered to his head, looking stupid and evil and useless. For one crazy moment, Finn thought: the implant was in his arm. What if Finn dug it out? Would he save them then?

Of course not. He’d kill them. But -

“Finn.”

It happened too quickly for Finn to track. One minute Ren stood a few feet from him, staring at him with water dripping off his weird-shaped face; the next, he had Finn pressed against the boulder they’d been trying to move. He placed his fingers against Finn’s temples, his enormous hands holding Finn’s head still.

His palms, Finn noted distantly, smelled oddly like herbs. “Get off me. What are you doing?”

“Shut up,” Ren said, and the world spun out of control.

He stood on the deck of a First Order ship -

No no no no. He stood in a meadow on Naboo -

He stood in the jungles of D’Qar, feeling the Force moving around him -

He stood on a screaming moon, and Kylo Ren stood in front of him and also, impossibly, inside his brain.

He licked his lips and Ren noticed, and Finn felt him notice, and -

“The Force,” Finn said. “You can - I can -”

“If I touch you.”

“Yeah, okay, speaking of: ow.”

Ren winced, but he didn’t let go of Finn. He did something much, much worse: he slid a hand down to Finn’s wrist while still holding on to the side of his head, and then he linked their fingers together and held his other arm out. A single curl of his fingers was all it took to send the boulders flying.

Boulders, plural, because the cave-in hiding Rey and Jannah and the ’troopers was really bad. They’d never have gotten through in time. Finn knew that, and he felt Ren’s certainty too - and he felt Rey, brilliant in his mind like she’d never been before.

“The dyad,” Ren said. “She’s angry with me.”

“Yeah, I am too.” But he’d deal with that later - and there would be a later, now.

After that everything happened very quickly. Poe flew in for evac; they got the ’troopers out first, then Rey and Jannah. It wasn’t until the hull of the ship was sealed and they were leaving Kef Bir’s atmosphere that Finn realized exactly what he’d done: nine ’troopers and Jannah stared at him in disgust, Rey in furrowed-brow concern, as he continued to hold Kylo Ren’s hand.

He dropped it immediately, of course. Then it occurred to him that Ren might not let him, and he took a quick step away - and another.

Ren just looked at him, mulish as ever. “You’re welcome.” He glanced over at Jannah with obvious disdain. “All of you are.”

“Fuck you, Kylo Ren,” Jannah said.

“Let’s - go up and see how Poe is doing. Shall we?” Rey didn’t wait for an answer, grabbing Ren by the arm and yanking him up the stairs.

“He can feel the Force through me,” Finn said as soon as the doors slid shut behind them, quiet enough that the other ’troopers couldn’t hear him.

“So Rey said,” Jannah said. “It’s disconcerting, but…you saved us, Finn.” She pulled him into a hug. He felt himself start to shake. Great, shock was always fun to live through. “Thank you.”

“No need to thank me. Just doing my job. Kind of literally, actually; the Senate charter has all kinds of weird allowances for emergency.” He stepped back, taking a deep breath and doing his best to be his job, to be a Senator. “I don’t think I know you guys by name. Hi, I’m Finn. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Rax.” “Klio.” “Feuli.” “What the bantha’s tits do you think you’re doing, cozying up to Kylo Ren like the Force is some kind of cure-all for murdering our people?”

Finn blinked at the short ’trooper with her arms crossed, glaring at him like she was about to gut him. He couldn’t help but think of Rose, even as she said, “Pia.”

“Pia?”

“That’s my name. Answer the question, Senator.”

The tension in the air was very nearly painful. Finn had had plenty of practice mediating awkward situations, but not like this, the burning strangeness of Ren’s touch still fizzing through his veins.

Jannah wasn’t going to help him, but she wasn’t going to stop him, either. So he decided upon selfishness. “He was freaking out. I can - I can feel the Force, so I held on to him to keep him steady. Even micro-chipped, we couldn’t deal with Kylo Ren having a panic attack just then.”

Pia’s eyes narrowed. For a moment Finn thought he might have to be his own bodyguard, but then Feuli touched her shoulder. They looked at each other, and Pia sighed, rolling her eyes and uncrossing her arms. “Fine. Where are we going, then?”

“We’re still figuring that out. Somewhere safe, I promise.”

“Fuel?”

“Plenty of it, and we can stop in Coruscant if needed.”

“Where are the others?”

“Naboo. For now.”

“we’ve been dealt a horrible crime,” Jannah said. “Finn is seeking justice through the Senate.”

“Right. Because they’re so pro-trooper.”

“We’re doing what we can,” Finn said, quietly, firmly. “Let me know if there’s any way you think you can offer help.”

“We’re all hands on deck these days,” Jannah added. “Speaking of - Finn, why don’t you go and let Poe know the interim plan?”

Meaning, take his weird Kylo Ren-related ambiguities and let Jannah talk the others down from their current cliff. Finn nodded, hugging her once last time before heading out.

When he reached the cockpit, he found Rey and Ren sitting across from one another, locked in some weird, nonverbal communication. He knew the dyad was muffled, or not working at all, with Ren’s implant - but apparently Rey had enough freaky Jedi skills to do some kind of communication anyway. That, or she’d just decided to stare at Ren’s face for the hell of it, but that was too disturbing to think about for long. “They’re okay now. No mutiny. Rey, I’m so glad you’re all right.”

“I’m glad you’re all right. What did you tell them about, you know.” She gestured between him and Ren.

“Nothing,” Finn said.

“So you lied,” Ren said.

“No fighting in the cockpit,” Poe said. “Finn, buddy, good to see you survived your hand-holding adventure.”

“He can’t feel the Force through me,” Rey said before Finn could bristle about mission-critical hand-holding.

“You tried? Rey -”

“It’s no more dangerous than you trying.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “And if you try and spout anything about Jedi training at me, I’ll dunk you in the nearest lake once we land.”

Finn thought growing up in a desert had given Rey some damaging ideas about when it was appropriate to punish people with water. “Fine. How do you know he’s not lying?”

“The dyad,” Rey and Ren said at the same time.

Force give him strength. “I need to trade him in for a different bodyguard.”

“You think the Senate’ll buy that?” Poe said. “Personally, I wouldn’t bet a credit.”

“I can try!”

“Hm,” Poe said. “Obviously I’m in favor, but I guess we’ll see.”

Poe sounded exactly the kind of smug that used to get him smacked during training exercises, but Finn currently had bigger fish to fry. He scowled at Ren. “You can’t just grab me every time you want to feel the Force.”

“But I suppose you think you can just grab me every time you have friends to save.”

“Child soldiers! Citizens, people I represent -”

“Most Senators are happy to take a salary and occasionally entertain a special interest. Your idealism will gain you absolutely nothing when ’trooper rights go to vote.”

“I’m sure a Sith acolyte can teach me plenty about politics, but -”

“The Knights of Ren weren’t Sith.” Ren folded his hands, giving the impossible impression of a pissed-off nanny. “Nor was Snoke.”

“I don’t care, evil is evil! Why didn’t you -”

“Tell you?”

For a moment it felt like all the air had been sucked out of the ship. Finn couldn’t think of anyone or anything else; Ren’s gaze pinned him, made him furious and somehow sent him back to Kef Bir, terrified and feeling the Force flow through him.

He made himself push through the haze. “I know why you didn’t tell me. I’m mad you didn’t, but I get it. But how do you think - you kept sniffing me.”

“Oh my,” Rey said.

Ren glared. “I wasn’t sniffing. I was trying to -”

“Access the Force through your nose on my neck?”

“Understand,” Ren gritted out, “what was happening. You must grasp that this situation is unusual.”

“I’m the victim of messed-up, faulty, technologically advanced brainwashing. You should grasp that it’s not that shocking to me that the Republic’s technology is failing.”

“The First Order’s conditioning -”

Finn held up a hand, an illicit thrill shooting through him when Ren immediately went silent. “We’re not going into that right now. We’re just not.”

Ren gave Rey a dirty look; she only raised an eyebrow in response, crossing her arms. Finn was ready to snap and ask what exactly their deal was when Ren said, “Finn, let’s go talk in the hallway, where it’s private.”

“You have all the subtlety of a poorly crafted saber,” Rey said.

“You’d know,” Ren shot back.

Finn was so, so tired, of cryptic argumentative bullshit. “Fine, come on.”

When they were alone - truly alone; Finn couldn’t feel the hum in the Force he always felt when surveillance cameras were pointed at him - Ren said, “The truth is I thought I might kill you.”

Finn blinked, then blinked again. “Excuse me?”

“You have to see it from my point of view.”

“I really, definitely do not.”

“Please.”

Once again, Finn felt the weird, vertigo-ish rush of shock. He shifted uncomfortably. “What’s your point of view, then?”

Ren held out a hand. Finn almost jerked away, but before he did, Ren stopped moving, his fingertips hovering inches from Finn’s forearm.

No, not hovering. Ren’s hands were shaking, a fine tremor that Finn could feel, the tiniest air current accompanied by terror in the Force.

He understood what it meant, of course. Ren wanted the Force more than anything; the thought that Finn might prevent him from accessing it terrified him. Finn couldn’t imagine what it was like, to go from someone who could casually order the deaths of millions to someone who had to beg for the smallest crumb of power.

Deep in him, the petty, furious part of him that he tried not to feed said, Good.

“I’m not going to let you pull the Force through me when you just said you think about killing me.”

“I didn’t say that. I said I thought I might.”

“Uh-huh.” Finn stepped away, back to the wall, and crossed his arms. “Words. Not Force mind-sharing.”

“Really? So you can project whatever nefarious intentions upon me that you want?”

“Project? You’re a war criminal! You just told me you want to kill me!”

“I said I thought I might. I said -” Ren made a frustrated noise, a weird kind of yowl that reminded Finn of a droid falling down some stairs. “Can’t you just -”

Finn couldn’t dodge this time. Ren grabbed his upper arm and pressed their foreheads together, his shoulders hunched in a way Finn distantly noted was really uncomfortable for him - and then he was swimming in a maze of vague impressions that he knew weren’t his.

I’m not that tall, he thought, and Ren snorted.

It only took a moment, after which Ren stepped back. But when it was over, Finn’s whole body felt -

Well. Hopefully Kylo Ren, convicted mass murderer, hadn’t picked up on the wave of arousal their connection had apparently triggered.

“You won’t report me.”

It wasn’t really a question, but Finn shook his head anyway. “It wouldn’t exactly be good for me either, you know, politically.”

“They’re legally required to give you a bodyguard.”

“The next one would be worse, somehow. Like, maybe they’d put BB-8 on my case.”

Ren’s lips pursed; belatedly, Finn remembered their mutual hatred. “Anyway. No, I won’t report you.”

“Until it will benefit you.”

“I won’t. I said so, okay? You can -”

“Trust you?” Ren raised a single eyebrow. It looked like it strained him a bit. “Why?”

“You saw in my head. You know I’m telling the truth.”

“And what do you know, Finn?”

It was an impossible question. Finn had seen penitence and admiration and pain in Ren’s mind. He was pretty much a hundred percent sure Ren could lie in there, too. “Not a lot, apparently.”

“Fine,” Ren said. He flared his nostrils and looked away.

Because of all the panic, it took Finn an embarrassingly long period of time to realize that Ren didn’t know Finn was waiting for him to leave. “Oh. Okay. Um. So, we’re going to Naboo.”

“I own a retreat on Naboo.”

“…congratulations?”

“It was my grandmother’s.” Ren frowned. “I’m not sure how many people it can accommodate, but it’s lain empty for fifty years now.”

“Are you -”

“The stormtroopers can stay there. For now.”

Ren turned and stomped away before Finn could even start to formulate a response.

“Oh hey, see? Told you he was alive,” Poe said when Finn returned to the cockpit.

“What happened?” Rey said. “I felt -”

“Anger? Yeah.” Finn rubbed his temples. “Ren said we could use his grandmother’s retreat.”

“Padme Naberrie?” Poe said. “We’re going to Naboo to hang out on Padme Naberrie’s old land?”

“I don’t know who that is,” Finn said. “But if it’s Ren’s grandmother, then, yes?”

“This is going to be a disaster,” Poe said. “Can’t wait.”

Rey patted Finn’s hand. “I’m sure it will be lovely,” she said, wholly unconvincingly.

Finn pulled out his holopad and sent Jannah a message: So, what do you know about Naboo? And Padme Naberrie?

It would be fine, he told himself as they hurtled through hyperspace. No, better than fine: everything was going to be great, probably. All he had to do was be a faithful representative of the ’troopers, and not let Ren kill him in pursuit of the dark side, and ensure no one killed Ren for deeply justifiable reasons, and get the ’troopers a new homeworld. Easy peasy.