This time, they took Kylo directly to a high-security cell, and he spent the first two sun-cycles in a dead zone: no cameras, no microphones, no droids, only him and his mother, alone behind a heavy durasteel door.

She summoned Finn to her office before the rumor mill had a chance to tell him she'd finished. He sat down across from her, and she stared at him with exhaustion in her eyes.

"General —"

"Finn," she said quickly. "I'm so sorry."

Finn blinked.

"You should never have been put through that. The fact that you were a prisoner of war, captured on my watch, held by my son — you have every right to walk away from us, and if you choose to, you'll be provided with everything you need to start a new life. You have my word."

She wasn't wrong, but something about how she said it — the way her hands were clenched on the desk, maybe, or the genuine upset in her gaze — made Finn feel awful. "I hadn't meant to join the Resistance," he said, and watched as the General flinched. Okay, that hadn't been the best thing to say. But it was true, so he forged on. "I just wanted to be free. I wanted to — be a person, one who didn't have to kill anyone."

"I have contacts on several Inner Rim planets, and Core planets as well. We can set you up with a farm, or a city apartment if you'd prefer."

"Hang on." Way to go, Finn, order a legendary general around like it's nothing. "Sorry. I just meant —"

It felt like the world was wobbling all around him. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and then opened them again. "I didn't mean to be a rebel. At first. But I am, now. And I'm going to keep being that. I escaped, and it's not — I mean, it's not fine, it was terrible. But I'm still a member of the Resistance, and I don't think you'd be offering Poe Dameron hush money if he'd escaped a First Order prison."

Her expression didn't change much, but Finn had learned how to read people when they had no expressions at all, so he could tell she was surprised and a little embarrassed. Well, good, he thought, and waited.

"That's true," she said. "I apologize. Again. I suppose I'd better debrief you."

"I was debriefed, actually. They should've sent you the file."

"Indeed. I'd like to ask you a few more questions about particular parts of your account."

It occurred to Finn, way too late to be useful, that she'd probably spent the last couple days seeing the worst and most private parts of his time as Kylo's — whatever he'd been. Or how Kylo had seen it, anyway. "I tried to be — appropriate. I didn't always succeed."

"Being a prisoner of war isn't easy even when you're not being required to uphold another's subterfuge." She sighed. "Honestly, Finn, I could see that you didn't want to play along even through my son's eyes. And I'm not worried about that; you did what you needed to survive. But we've got Ben locked up and have tried every method of getting the truth out of him that we have, and he's still spent the past forty-eight hours swearing that he's defected."

"He's defective, all right," Finn said, and then the substance of what she was telling him caught up with him. "Um, that's not what he told me."

"No. He appears to have had a...change of heart."

Yeah, right. "General, with all due respect, that seems really unlikely to me."

"You're not the only one. Finn, I was in there for three days. I barely slept. When I left the room, he was observed by the best med-droids we have. No heart rate increases, no signs of Force activity that indicated contact with his master."

"Snoke's dead," Finn said without thinking.

"He told me." She narrowed her eyes. "He managed to conceal from me that he told you, too."

"So, that's that, right? He could be lying to you. You just admitted. He probably is lying, he probably has another tracker stashed somewhere —"

"Finn." Chagrin crept through the General's voice. "I didn't explore my son's thoughts about you because they're obsessive and unpleasant, and unlikely to contain anything of value from a military intelligence standpoint. Please don't make me elaborate beyond that."

Finn thought of Kylo's shoulders, then, the broad bare expanse of them, and how red he'd turned when he'd sensed Finn's thoughts.

Right. Ew. "Sorry."

"It's fine. Things happen when you're a prisoner of war; I'd have gone half-crazy, myself. But the fact remains that absent strong evidence that he is, in fact, lying, I have to treat his claim of defection as true."

"He's still a criminal, though." Right? He'd overseen the destruction of entire planets.

"That's not for me to decide. I'm still his mother." For a moment, the facade cracked. She was exhausted, Finn realized, and so, so sad.

"General, you called me here for a reason." He squared his shoulders. "Tell me what I can do."

She grimaced. "You're going to regret your good heart, Finn."

It only took Finn two hours to decide she'd been right.

The thing was, the General had explained, Kylo was fascinated with Finn. His intention to defect warped around Finn like light curved around a star. "He barely feels anything for me," the General had said wryly, "but you're provoking, apparently. He's fascinated."

Finn had expressed his horror, and to his relief, the General had agreed. Then she'd delivered the bad news: Kylo's regard, or obsession, might be inconvenient and frankly gross. It was also the best way to ensure he —

"Listens," the General had said, grim-faced. "Behaves. Doesn't fly off the handle at the first provocation and try to kill someone."

Finn hadn't said no, even though the General had encouraged him to. He'd agreed to be the resident evil-Sith babysitter. But then he'd had to actually go and find Kylo, which led him to his current situation: staring at Kylo as he refused to enter the cafeteria, wondering how long he could realistically go without eating before he turned Kylo in to the guards himself.

"Seriously, what do you think is going to happen?" Finn said. "They all see you and shoot you at once?"

"That's the more optimistic version of my concerns," Kylo said, somehow managing to sound both stuck-up and constipated.

"Okay, well," Finn said, and then his mind went blank. "— well, I'm hungry."

"How persuasive. I shall abandon my concerns for my own bodily safety immediately."

"No one's going to shoot you, you baby."

Kylo's lips tightened, whitening around the edges. He didn't respond.

This was ridiculous. "Okay, well, I'm going inside. That tracker they put in you will zap you if you try to leave the grounds without me, so. You can sulk out here if you want." Finn threw up his hands — just to make his point, which was that Kylo was ridiculous, had always been so, and was now being extra ridiculous — and went to join the line for food.

Kylo followed. He probably wasn't willing to go hungry; he liked to pretend he'd had it hard, Finn thought a bit spitefully, but skipping a meal was probably totally foreign to him. No one shot at him, as Finn had promised. In fact, no one looked at him at all, in that really specific way that meant the gossip about his release had already flown through the base. Finn did what he always did, setting his jaw and doing his best to look uncaring, even as he led Kylo over to one of the few completely empty tables.

It was only when he sat down, and Kylo sat down uncomfortably close, putting his tray down and wrapping an arm around Finn's waist, that Finn finally understood exactly why he was so nervous.

"Are you kidding me."

Kylo flinched. "Why can't you just go along with it?"

"Why can't I just go along with my friends thinking I'm dating a dangerous war criminal? Huh. Not sure. I'll think about it later, alone, in my room, which I don't share with you, because we were never anything and you're a ridiculous liar."

"You're embarrassed," Kylo said softly, his eyes searching Finn's.

"You don't need to use your Force powers to figure that out."

"But if it's not true, why be embarrassed?"

Because for a second back on the ship it had sort of felt true. "Having you this close to me is inherently embarrassing. Go around the table or I'll leave. Then everyone will really know the truth."

Annoyance emanated off him in waves, but he stood and moved to the other bench, stiff-shouldered. Gazes flickered over to them, then moved away. Great, Finn thought. Well, at least Rey would protect his reputation. "Are you lying about defecting? Your mother doesn't think you are."

"Why, in the name of a thousand star destroyers, do you think I'd tell you, if I were lying?"

"That's a dumb swear. And I don't know. I figured there was no harm in asking."

"You can tell when people lie."

"I can read faces, yeah. You know they quiz us on that kind of thing, right? They'll beat you if you're wrong too often."

"When you're in your second year of training, yes, I'm aware."

It was kind of — not interesting, Finn thought fiercely; nothing this asshole did could possibly be considered interesting. But it was kind of remarkable, how still he held himself, how carefully he watched Finn.

"I'm glad stormtroopers being science projects is interesting to you," Finn said. "It sucked for me. So tell me if you're lying."

"I defected," Kylo said. "I no longer wish to serve the First Order. My loyalty lies...here."

He'd been about to say something else. Finn knew it; he could feel it, the same way he'd feel a breeze on his face. But whatever he'd been about to say — it wasn't a lie, he thought. Not quite. Phrasing, maybe.

But he really had defected. That part was true.

"I can't believe this," he muttered.

Kylo raised a single brow, a maneuver he'd almost certainly practiced an embarrassing amount. "Can't you?"

"No, I can, and that's the problem. You know what your mom told me?"

"If I wanted my mother's opinion on my every movement, I'd talk to her directly."

"Well, I'm your babysitter now." Finn stabbed his meat with a little too much force. "That's what she told me. At length."

"I'm aware."

"Then why —"

"Finn, buddy! What's up?"

Finn blinked up at Poe as he and Rose sat their trays down on either side of him. "Um, hi?"

"Ben," Poe said, not even looking at him. It was a good choice on his part. Kylo didn't look good when he blushed.

"How's life?" Poe jostled Finn collegiately as he sat down. "Now that you're back, you'll be flying shifts with us, right?"

"Oh. I hadn't thought about it."

"We always need an extra hand in the maintenance room," Rose said. "Especially since I was out for so long, the backlog's huge."

Finn glanced at her, barely managing to stop himself from falling out of his chair when he saw how hard she was glaring at Kylo. He'd never seen her look that mad before, not even back when DJ had betrayed them.

He shoved the thoughts of fire and screaming out of his mind. "I'll keep busy, I'm sure."

"Of course you will," Kylo said, his usual snotty voice somehow worse than ever. "You were just talking about all the extensive babysitting duties General Organa has laid out for you. How exciting for us both."

"Nursery shifts, really? Wouldn't have pegged you for the — oh," Poe said, "Oh, no, really? Couldn't they have gotten Chewie, or, I don't know, a droid?"

"Or a cell block camera," Rose said tightly.

Finn really wondered how Kylo didn't react to her glare. He wanted to run away from it and it wasn't even directed at him.

I have long practice with ignoring the anger of lesser beings, Kylo whispered in his mind.

"Hey." Finn kicked him. "Stop that."

"The psychic trick, Ben, seriously? I figured you'd grown up since that camping trip we took with Chewie."

Why would that make him blush even harder? Finn hated this. At least if Rey were here she'd smack Poe and make him stop being cryptic. "Anyway," Finn said loudly, "I'm not sure how much time I'll have, but if I do have time, Rose, can you show me how the new compressor tech's coming along?"

"Oh. Yes." Her expression thawed as she looked at him. "I figured out how to do the proton recycling. You should see it — we're coming close to full energy recycling."

Kylo snorted.

"Excuse you," Rose said.

And that definitely wasn't an invitation to give his opinion, but of course Kylo didn't pick up on that part. "I'm not surprised you want to flirt, but surely you don't expect anyone at this table to believe you've invented a perpetual motion machine in your downtime?"

Bad move, Finn thought as Rose's jaw clenched. "'Close to' is not 'have achieved', which you'd know if your creepy death cult taught you basic science. We're at six nines right now, close to seven."

"Very impressive," Poe said. "Probably classified too, though."

"I've defected." Kylo said it the way Senator Mothma might've said 'I killed him'. "You can say whatever you want in front of me."

"Not quite whatever I want," Poe said with another unpleasant smile.

Kylo huffed a breath, sounding like nothing quite as much as an angry bantha pup. "You can find me when you're done here," he told Finn, and stomped off.

It didn't escape Finn's notice, the way everyone in the cafeteria followed his swirling tan robes and looked right back at Finn. Really, they should just let him wear his evil-guy gear. He was doing everything short of using the Force to look Kylo Ren-y anyway. And the tan robes looked kind of weird on him; they emphasized his gangliness and blotchy complexion, and made him look big in a weird way, almost too wide.

Kylo exited the cafeteria, and Finn realized all at once that he'd been staring after Kylo like —

Like —

"He was lying the whole time," he blurted out. "We weren't dating — or whatever. We never were. Obviously."

"Obviously," Poe said lightly. "What's going on with you, buddy?"

"I wish I knew." He gave into temptation and buried his face in his hands. "Everything's just gotten really complicated."

"There there." Rose patted his back. "You're not the first person to have to deal with all his weirdness."

"He and I used to be friends," Poe said. "There's at least as many rumors about that, I promise you. Rebels just don't have enough to do."

"The First Order's known for giving us downtime," Rose added.

"Plus, if he keeps giving you a hard time, we can get Rey to come back from New Alderaan and wallop some sense into him. I have it on good authority that she'd love to."

Which meant that Poe'd been holo-calling her. "Uh huh. She's back soon anyway, right?"

"Couple days," Poe said. "With the information we need to hunt Hux down, hopefully."

Finn felt ice creep down his spine. "He's gotten really powerful. Somehow."

"He doesn't seem like the type, but then the First Order loves their spittle-flecked jackasses." Poe leaned in and hugged Finn, tight and hard, until Finn felt a little less like he was staring down the barrel of a blaster. "Seriously, this assignment sucks, but it'll probably be short-term. The General would never keep someone she likes on babysitting detail for long, much less a Resistance hero."

"I'm not —"

"You are," Rose said firmly.

"Well, now you are, too," Finn said, and watched her blush.

This was nice. This was so nice, and normal, because no one was talking in his head or slamming him against walls and threatening to sexually kill him.

It just would've been nicer if he'd been able to stop thinking about Kylo for more than a few minutes at a time, that was all.

His life was very boring for a few days. He got to see Rose's system, which was as brilliant as promised. He did a few sentry shifts and a few fighter repair shifts. Throughout all of it, Kylo hovered in the background, a scowling testament to the Resistance's generosity.

Or stupidity. One of the two for sure.

He expected the summons for himself before it came, but when the protocol droid said, "The General asks me to remind you to bring Kylo Ren with you," he couldn't hide his shock.

"What, did you think they'd let their best new weapon moulder to dust?" Kylo said.

"I had kind of hoped so, yeah." This was a terrible idea. But it was also an order, and while the Resistance might be shockingly lackadaisical about military structures, you still had to do what General Organa told you to.

"Come in, shut the door behind you," the General said when they arrived. She was paging through a holopad and looked —

"What's wrong?" Kylo said sharply.

For a moment, the line of the General's shoulders tensed. Finn readied himself to defend her — or maybe just shove Kylo out of the room — but she looked up with a neutral expression and said, "Sit down for your mission briefing and you'll find out."

It turned out Rey was having trouble in New Alderaan. "You sent her by herself?" Finn said. "Seriously?"

"She's well versed in Jedi mind-influence, and —"

"Has a temper," Kylo said. "As I recall."

"New Alderaan is relatively free of people as irritating as you," the General told her son. "But, well, she appears to have had some trouble with a First Order loyalist."

"And now she's in prison," Finn said. They'd gone over it once already, but he was having trouble imagining — or accepting — what she told them.

"New Alderaan is not technically a First Order controlled territory, nor is it a collaborator planet. Not yet. But the First Order whisked her off before my contacts could retrieve her. They have money and power, and they framed her very well."

Kylo sniffed. "I hardly think a brand new Jedi apprentice ranks enough for them to bother."

"I didn't bring you in here to coddle your pride. She ranks."

"So, how can we break her out?" Finn said into the awkward silence. "I'm guessing New Alderaan's got pretty good, um, security."

Three hours of going over prison schematics followed. The Resistance had a wide variety of gambits they used for this kind of problem, but New Alderaan posed some special challenges: Rey was in the Underground, a high-security prison almost a mile beneath the planet's surface, at the center of the continent's biggest, and most heavily surveilled, city. The First Order had eyes pretty much everywhere, and while Finn and Kylo could try disguising themselves, they couldn't possibly get into the Underground without revealing themselves.

"Ah," Kylo had said. "This is where I come in."

Kylo could misdirect attention for the crucial time it would take them to get into the Underground disguised as guards. One of the General's contacts would get them the jobs — the actual jobs, the General had explained, were much easier to come by than fake ident cards. The First Order was filling up the Underground with alacrity.

"We're expecting you back, with Rey, within three weeks or so. Any objections?"

And Finn hadn't been able to think of any. Which was why, barely two hours later, he was sitting in a transport shuttle with Kylo, trying to pretend he wasn't freaking out.

"Calm down," Kylo said as they launched into hyperspace.

"Why should I?" Finn said. "This is crazy."

"This is what you joined the Resistance to do."

"First of all, don't sneer like that. I'm talking about the fact that I'm doing a mission with you. The mission is fine. It's great. I love it."

"You love your Rey being in prison?"

"That's not what I meant! And she's not mine, so stop looking — like that." He'd known Kylo had a thing for her, but the way he was scowling just now made it really, painfully obvious.

"Mmm." Kylo looked him up and down in that judgmental way that Finn was convinced he'd practiced, and disappeared into the cargo hold for the rest of the trip.

They had an apartment all set up for them already. The General had waved aside all of Finn's concerns about the believability of their cover story: best friends and roommates, looking for gainful employment while they tried to make it in the red-hot New Alderaanian holodrama business. On the bright side, every time Finn thought about Kylo portraying Rizi the smuggler-turned-prince, or F930 the droid in a human body, he had a good laugh.

On the not-so-bright side, he had to share a tiny, ultra-secure, one room apartment with Kylo for as long as this operation took.

Kylo clearly didn't love it either. Finn could practically feel the discomfort radiating off of him. "Look," he tried, "I could sleep in the building atrium."

"Oh, yes, where everyone can watch you, and observe any inconsistencies in your behavior. What a brilliant idea. You're truly the best soldier they could possibly have sent with me."

"What exactly are you trying to imply? You're here with me. I'm the one rescuing Rey, not you."

He'd thought Kylo was sneering before, but that was clearly way too optimistic: now, his face twisted hideously, expressing exactly what he thought of being here with Finn. "Your hero complex won't help in your efforts to woo her, FN-2187."

Hearing the designation felt like a slap. It always did, and Kylo knew it — Finn could feel his satisfaction, that vicious desire to be cruel. Somehow, knowing Kylo was acting on his own pettiness made it worse.

"You know what, you're right. I'll take the floor. Nothing I'm not used to."

The room really was tiny, but Finn managed to avoid looking at or talking to Kylo for the rest of the night. He was so tired, and so — stressed, maybe, was the word for it. He had forgotten what this felt like, the element of danger and exhaustion that came from doing something dangerous, or being under someone else's control. He had signed up for this — he was a rebel — he wasn't a prisoner, the way he had been before. He kept reminding himself of that, even as he bunked down and tried to sleep, drawing on the old mental techniques he'd used back with the other FNs.

He wasn't a prisoner. He wasn't a prisoner. If only he could convince his brain to agree.

They'd need a few days to establish a cover before going out and looking for work. Finn did his best not to think about what those few days might mean to Rey — how cruel the prison might be, how well she was keeping her spirits up.

Kylo, unbearable though he might be, was also a good distraction. Whenever he got worked up about something, or thought he was being overlooked, he practically vibrated with it. He had plenty of opinions on his mother's new home planet, the food, the entertainment, the culture.

"Holodramas," he sniffed one afternoon as they went over the prison schematics again. "I can't believe my mother thought that would be a good cover for us. Can you imagine me catering to some shopkeeper's idea of entertainment?"

"Yes," said Finn, who had in fact repeatedly imagined just that. "It's funny. Also, I'm hungry, so put your snobbery aside for a second and help me figure out what to order."

"I have no preference."

"Humor me." Finn had mostly only eaten rations, or whatever unlabeled protein-and-vegetable combination they served up in the Resistance canteen. He couldn't hop on the 'net to look up what the items on the available menus were, given the safe house's security.

"Oh, fine." Kylo moved to sit next to him, scowling down at the holopad. "What kind of food do you like?"

"You know," Finn said. "Stuff?"

Kylo stared at him. For once, Finn had no idea what he might be thinking or feeling. "Try this." He tapped an item without looking away from Finn. "Yellow meal, soaked and steamed around seasoned meat. You'll like it."

There was on reason to feel embarrassed about that, Finn told himself sternly. But he had to look away. He felt exposed in new, weird, awful way. "Well, okay then," he said, and placed their order.

The delivery came only a few minutes later. Finn checked the comm and saw domed metal: a droid. He opened the door.

The codebreaker who'd sold him and Rose out strolled into the room, tossing his weirdly-shaped hat in the hallway and saying, "Hey, kid."

For a moment, Finn felt so angry that he couldn't breathe, his whole body felt frozen in amber. Then he heard Kylo snarl, "You," and watched in disbelief as the codebreaker slammed against the wall and began clawing at his chest, his face going mottled purple.

"Kylo! Stop!"

"He sold you out."

"Yeah. To you, because you were evil," Finn said, "so maybe don't call the kettle black and also don't kill someone, we have a mission and it's not killing the codebreaker!"

"DJ," the codebreaker coughed as Kylo dropped him to the floor. "You can call me DJ."

"Yeah, that's not going to happen," Finn said, even as Kylo snarled, "Get out before I rip you throat to belly."

"Big words, big threats," DJ said. "Hmm, not too scary though. Not you." He adjusted his collar. "Relax...I'm here on. Official business."

"Whose official business?" Finn said before Kylo could snarl more threats.

"The Queen's," DJ said, then snorted. "Not quite. Leia. Princess...Leia. She sent me." He produced an ident-chip before Finn had time to ask for it; Finn fitted it in his wristband and felt his heart sink when the hologram flashed, confirming the General's own signature and thus DJ's veracity.

Well. Possibly. "Tell me why I should believe you didn't just con her into sending you here."

For a second, so brief Finn nearly missed it, DJ looked absolutely, bizarrely serious. "Kid, tell me straight. Ever seen someone con Leia Organa?"

Kylo sighed. "My mother is not known for gullibility."

It was true. Or at least — according to the books Finn had read — not since she was very young, at least, one and a half wars ago. "Fine. Why did she send you?"

DJ shrugged. "Breaking into a prison with a Force junkie and an idealist. Maybe she thinks you need — backup."

Backup in the form of a career criminal really didn't seem like the kind of thing the General would do. Finn was about to tell DJ exactly that when Kylo hissed, "This is exactly like her."

He couldn't hide his disbelief. "The General? Seriously?"

"Deceit, lies, rash actions, allying with fools, all in the name of the Light, as if the Dark doesn't crave such actions —"

"Okay, okay, calm down." Kylo was bright red, and Finn knew from experience — way too much experience, actually — that he wouldn't stop if he wound himself up into a good rant. "Fine, your mother sent him. What exactly can you help us with?" he asked DJ.

"You think the prison here is — bars, underground. Easy to get into." DJ tapped two ringed fingers together. Click, click, click. "Not true."

Finn thought again of Rey underground, alone, thinking no one would come for her. "Fine." He sat down at the desk, pulled out a recorder. "Talk."

Two hours later, he understood just how close they'd come to being set up.

The General had gotten extra intelligence after they'd gone dark. The security measures that she'd planned for had trebled over the last two months, and the guards themselves were —

"Bribed," DJ said after his third drink, "to look the other way when some so-and-so high up in the ranks decides to have some fun — see?"

Finn did. He wish he didn't; he wished he could sit there in concerned ignorance, instead of having a vivid image of all the horrible ways that they could be hurting Rey, right now, with Finn being totally incapable of doing anything about it.

Yet. Because DJ had more intel about the hiring process, the fact that it excluded anyone who wasn't a dedicated First Order loyalist — but he also had an in.

"You can't just hire all the thugs who roll in ready to salute to General Hux. You need paperwork, meaning — contractors. And yours truly has a contract."

Finn was about to agree to work with him, because what else could they do? The General had confirmed DJ wasn't lying, and they had no other contacts that could get them into the jail as quickly as DJ claimed he could. It was worth a try, at least, he told himself.

"What's in it for you?" Kylo said in a tone that could have frozen Mustafar.

"The Resistance will pay for the return of their pet Jedi." DJ smiled, all teeth. "That's the goal. Partner."

Kylo turned to Finn like DJ wasn't there anymore. "We can't trust him."

"I know that better than you do." He managed not to flinch, barely, as his mind put him back on the bridge of the ship, Hux glaring at him with contempt. "But unless you're hiding some major tricks up your sleeve, he's our best shot."

"Oh, he's got — tricks, all right," DJ said.

"Shut up," Kylo snapped. "You're really that desperate to get her out?" The last directed at Finn, half incredulous and half angry.

"She's valuable. You know she is. I don't care if you hate her —"

"She tried to kill me —"

"You deserved it!" Breathe, Finn told himself. "Anyway. However you feel, however I feel, we have to get her out. She's too powerful for the First Order to leave alone for long."

Finally, an argument that sank in. He saw it as it happened: Kylo's nostrils flared, and he glared at Finn like Finn had personally attacked him, but he knew Finn was right. After a long moment, he nodded and turned to DJ. "Fine. Explain the plan."

"You're not the logistics guy. The Princess told me." DJ stabbed a finger at Finn. "You're the guy. Let's talk uniforms, huh?"

It all fell into place quickly after that. DJ got them uniforms, and Finn got himself hired.

("You got that face", DJ had said. "That trust-me face. This one doesn't." Finn hadn't bothered defending Kylo's honor.)

But they couldn't break in simply by both of them posing as guards. No, DJ had been very clear on that point. "You, they don't care about," he'd said, stabbing a shaking finger at Finn. "But you, little Organa, they'll recognize. Unless you rearrange the bones in your face a little more. Or unless you're going in where no one will check."

It turned out, prisoners were useful: their labor produced all the smaller parts of a First Order ship that were prone to breaking, and their presence kept the tentatively held city afraid. And so, guards could just take prisoners in, without much explanation at all. Without a facial scan, or a blood check, or anything.

He could just toss Kylo in among all the murderers and prisoners of war and leave him to fend for himself.

The thought had definitely occurred to Kylo. He'd agreed to the plan — he didn't have much of a choice — but he was practically rattling out of his robe on the way to the prison. They'd hired a speeder for this little outing, leaving DJ in the tiny apartment under the Resistance base's surveillance. Finn put Kylo on the floor, cuffed, and left him there, avoiding looking at him even as Kylo's frustration and nervousness wormed its way under Finn's collar.

He was just so — present. All the time. It drove Finn crazy. And it was especially bad now, as they parked in front of the prison and Finn took hold of the shock cord attached to Kylo's cuffs.

"Keep your cool," he muttered to himself. He'd done this kind of thing before. And, okay, he'd been captured doing it recently; but that didn't mean he wasn't generally competent. They'd be fine. They would be.

If only Kylo would stop projecting his nervousness, and making Finn even more nervous by extension.

"Calm down," Kylo muttered through gritted teeth. "You're practically sending a dark-wave signal to Coruscant. They'll see right through you."

"You calm down," Finn shot back, and then they were standing at the entrance to the prison, and Finn had to focus on the lie.

The prison was somehow more awful than Finn had prepared himself for, and he'd done his homework.

The First Order wasn't messy. The hallways were as clean as anywhere else; no agonized wails cut through the duracrete walls. But behind every clear cell wall sat another pair of hollow eyes. They were in solitary, all of them, cut off from the outside world. It was torture, and some of them had been there since the very beginning of the First Order's resurgence, almost a decade ago.

Every pair of hollow eyes could have been Rey's. Finn stayed focused because he had to, but he felt like every single cell in his body was screaming to be free.

They let him pick a cell for Kylo, laughed about it. It was terrible security, Finn reminded himself as his stomach curdled in horror, to trust the uniform and his ident-card over longer-term protocol.

And it was just inhumane and terrible. That too. But it gave him a chance to look for Rey, and watch Kylo, until Kylo gave the nod-and-tap that signaled he'd managed to locate her. Finn chose the next empty cell and shoved Kylo in it.

"Stay there for awhile," he spat. "Think about what you've done."

Kylo looked up at him with huge, dark eyes, and didn't respond.

Finn looked for the fear. It should be there, somewhere; there was no way, no matter what he told Finn, that he trusted him completely. He had to have a lurking suspicion that Finn might take hold of an opportunity and just leave him. Hell, Finn had thought about it more than once, for all that he'd never, ever do it. All Kylo knew was that Finn had been a stormtrooper, and now he hated the First Order. He really should be afraid.

Finn couldn't find even a speck of fear. Kylo gave off an impression of placid annoyance, like Finn had interrupted his vacation to try to solicit funds for an orphanage.

He must just be really good at hiding it. Finn took a note of his cell number one last time and then stalked away.

He didn't see Rey on his way back out, even though he wandered as much as he could without looking suspicious. It was hopeless and he knew it; that was why they'd brought Kylo, after all. He could find her in the Force. Finn was there to be the brains, not the Force-muscle. He knew that, and he wasn't jealous.

But he was — he had hoped —

Don't be stupid, Finn told himself viciously.

He expected the guards' break room to be like a scene from a holodrama, full of vicious bullies and cruel laughter about the plight of the victims. Instead, it had a funeral atmosphere. Even the people their intel had identified as First Order loyalists didn't look happy to be here, and they were only twenty, maybe thirty percent of the workforce overall. Everyone else...

New Alderaan, Finn thought as he ate his rations. It was a weird place for the First Order to try to control. The General had dismissed it as pure delusional hubris, and having met Hux, Finn couldn't blame her. But —

But, if Finn were going to take over a prison on a planet with lots of resources, he'd choose somewhere on the Outer Rim. A rich mining planet that was already under oligarchy, say, or one of the many resort moons. He wouldn't pick a planet populated by refugees from the last war, who'd hate everything the First Order stood for.

Two-thirds. At least. Two-thirds of this prison would liberate the people put in by the First Order. Looking around, Finn felt more and more sure of it; the evidence was all around, in the way the First Order loyalists sat together, in the scowls the other guards wore as they maneuvered around that table. This whole place was a pile of tinder, ready to blow.

Even two months ago, Finn would've had a different outlook. He'd have been planning how best to grab Rey and run, before things got really dangerous. Now, he could only think of how the Resistance could leverage this to their advantage.

He didn't get a chance to talk to Kylo until late the second day. He had a phony list of things Kylo needed to be questioned about, and he pulled out the first item — intel about a mine near the Western Reaches — to get Kylo alone, in an unmonitored interrogation room.

"How's the job?" Kylo said lightly.

"Wouldn't you like to know." Awful. Depressing. But judging by the look on Kylo's face, he guessed those missing adjectives.

"Not particularly," Kylo said. "I've found her."

Finn's heart thumped in double time. "Where is she? Is she safe? Did you talk to her?"

"Two floors up and eighteen cells down, yes, only through the Force, briefly, before she told me to kriff off." Kylo looked annoyed again. "Really, she ought to be more grateful for rescuers."

Finn wanted to say she will be, when it's me, but he didn't even want Rey to be grateful; he didn't want her to think she owed him for the simple act of bailing her out of a tough spot. He just wanted to wipe that look off Kylo's face.

Super healthy, that impulse. "I doubt she's had an easy time of it."

"No." Kylo didn't look like the prospect bothered him. "However, she is hale and healthy and hasn't been beaten or otherwise harmed. She's learned to control others' actions more predictably, she tells me."

His tone made Finn think that Rey might've communicated that fact via some choice threats. He had to fight down a laugh at the thought. "Well. That's good."

"I'm sure you've had time to work out the logistics of organizing an evac."

They'd talked about this, too. Kylo and Rey could use the Force if they had to; the prison had Force-dampening tech in place, but it wouldn't be enough against the two of them. Of course, that would also blow the 'stealth' part of the op.

Finn had gone into this assuming they'd have to do it anyway. He felt Kylo's shock like a wave crashing into him when he said, "I have, actually."

He went over the prison's issues: the seething resentment, the lack of crowd control. Kylo's gaze sharpened with every sentence. "You're talking about a riot."

"Yep."

"We've quelled riots before, you know."

"The First Order has only been able to put down riots when they're in small, controlled areas. If you riot in a prison on Jakku, where will you run to? But New Alderaan is densely populated —"

"And full of Resistance supporters. Yes. I see your point." He frowned into the distance. "It makes me wonder why they put the prison here to begin with."

"To try to trap the General," said Finn, who'd been putting himself in Hux's shoes as much as he could stand. "It's her home world — well, sort of. But she's pretty much guaranteed to have stronger feelings for it. And Vader destroyed Alderaan, so this probably acts of a reminder of that, too." When he thought about it, all laid out like that, it made a horrible amount of sense. "They were probably hoping she'd overreact to Rey being captured. It's not exactly a secret that she's got the General's favor."

"My mother was never very skilled at deception."

Finn thought that was a little unfair; she was just so good at other things that her slight imperfections were sometimes overly obvious. "Right. Well, that's probably why, and if we can get Rey out and make a mess for the First Order without them realizing we've done it, that's a win for us."

"For us." More staring with exhausted, dark eyes. "Yes."

"If you want to re-defect, now would be a great time," Finn said. "Throw off your prisoner's rags, yell, 'I'm Kylo Ren and I'm here to save the day!'. Beat me up, maybe."

For a moment, the air in the room chilled, and Finn regretted even trying to clown around. "I would never leave you," Kylo said, staring holes in Finn's forehead.

The creepiest part about it was, Finn actually kind of believed him.

"Well," he managed to say. "Same. Not generally, but right now, anyway." He grabbed the cuffs Kylo'd worn to the interrogation room and offered them to Kylo. "We should get back, though, before anyone notices. Anything."

Get it together, Finn told himself, then almost swallowed his tongue Kylo held his wrists out.

"It's a bit difficult to fasten them myself," Kylo said, looking up at Finn.

Finn needed to talk to someone, a doctor, maybe several doctors, about the way his heart tripped in his chest then, how hard it became to breathe. This was ridiculous. Five minutes ago, Kylo had been forcibly cuddling him while scheming with his evil buddies, who were the reason they had to rescue Rey to begin with. He didn't like Kylo, and Kylo didn't like him, regardless of what had happened back on the Starbane.

But right now, as Kylo gazed at him, he saw only trust. Well, and annoyance. But mostly trust, deep in Kylo's eyes, as he watched Finn like he'd never think to look anywhere else.

Maybe they should stay on New Alderaan; Kylo was a better actor than Finn had realized before. Keeping that fact firmly in mind, he re-cuffed Kylo and led him back to his cell.

They'd start the riot the next day — or at least they were going to try. Finn had a whole evening to himself, and while he normally would've been glad about it, tonight he felt restless. Not quite afraid, but not excited either.

This could be a massive blow to the First Order. They kept quite a few valuable prisoners here, and the prison-duty loyalists were just that: loyalists. The First Order wasn't exactly known for its recruiting prowess; the reliance on stormtroopers alone made that obvious. It could be a huge win, more than a recon-and-rescue mission. They could get Rey out and grab a military victory for the Resistance. All Finn had to do was stay focused and execute his part of the plan.

He dreamed of Kylo in those cuffs.

This time, Kylo lay naked on a massive, plush bed, his arms above his head. He strained against the cuffs, muscles stark under his skin. It must have been for show, though, because he looked at Finn with lazy satisfaction, as though he'd been the one to plan this.

"Come here," Kylo said. "Please."

Finn felt rooted to the spot. Kylo's chest was broad, his hips oddly bony, and his cock — it was right there, flushed as much as the rest of him, hard and obviously wanting. Wanting Finn.

"I'll beg if I have to," Kylo said. He hesitated, then, licking his lips like —

Like he wanted to, Finn thought, and his half-awareness that this was all a messed-up dream faded away.

In the dream, Kylo held him tight, looping his restrained arms around Finn's waist like he couldn't imagine doing anything else. In the dream, light filtered through gauzy curtains as they kissed, much more tenderly and carefully than Finn had ever kissed anyone while awake. In the dream, Kylo went down on him and was glad for it; he stared at Finn with that intense look of his, made Finn promise he wasn't touching anyone else, didn't want anyone else.

In the dream, Finn sobbed, "No, just you, just you," as he came down Kylo's throat, and when he woke with his heart pounding, so hard he could scream from it, he worried it might be true.

So Finn had barely slept. But on the bright side, he was in a bad enough mood to single-handedly start a riot, if he needed to.

DJ had gotten the message Finn had sent him before bed. He'd deliver the exploit thirty minutes after Finn's lunch break. The code was tiny, but nasty: it would unlock exactly one cell door. Kylo had said it should be his; Finn had picked one of his neighbors, a man named Corin Velspar, jailed for six counts of aggression and terrorism against the First Order.

"They'll find a way to get footage of the first person out. The exploit will leave a trail," Finn had said. "But a revolutionary will free everyone on his block, and then we can go get Rey."

Kylo had agreed, probably because he had no choice, and so Finn sat playing cards down the hallway from Corin and waited for his signal.

The blaster bolt through the other guard's head hadn't been the agreed-upon signal. But the other guard was a First Order loyalist, and Kylo held the blaster, looking at Finn with another one of his deliberately-unreadable expressions.

"Let's go, then."

They barely made it down the first corridor when they heard the shout. It reverberated through Finn's skull, incorporeally universal in the way only the Force could be. Rebels, to me! For the Resistance! Fight!

"Hey, I think Rey got herself free."

"You think?" Kylo snarled, and they raced off together to find her.

When she saw Finn, delight suffused her expression — followed immediately by rage when Kylo followed up behind him. "Kidnapper! Scum —"

"Later," Finn said, "No, I agree, but — later. We're here with the Resistance. Again." He passed the General's token over.

For a second he thought Rey might ignore his assurances and try to kill Kylo anyway. She looked half-gone — like she'd looked in Jakku, actually, rail-thin and on the grim edge of panic, furiously frightened.

"Finn," she said, a thin line of awareness breaking through her terror.

"Yep, that's me." He reached out a hand, feeling his heart flip in his chest when she took it. "We're here for you, Rey. To bring you back."

"He's —"

"It's a long story. But he's on our side, I swear."

Her eyes searched his. "You'd know if he wasn't."

Finn felt profoundly unprepared to make promises like that, but he knew better than to explain that to Rey in her current condition. "Yeah, of course."

"We have to go," Kylo snarled. "Now."

She didn't hit him or try to kill him. She followed Finn silently, radiating menace, as they left the prison. Finn had expected more of a fight, but most of the prisoners were in the same boat they were. They didn't even see a guard until they hit the last set of doors.

Kylo dispatched of the guard as Finn stepped outside the signal exclusion zone and called DJ. "We're ready for evac."

"Good thing, too, I was getting bored." A roar of engines and the shuttle lowered in front of them. Rey hopped on without a backward glance; Finn yelled, "Kylo, come on!" and waited to bring up the rear.

And then they were off: mission accomplished. Finn's heart was pounding, his jacket drying stiff with sweat. He hated going undercover, he hated worrying that Rey had — that she'd —

"Are you okay?" he said quietly as they jumped into hyperspace.

"He feels like a liar," she said, staring at the back of DJ's head.

"I am — a liar, sweetheart," DJ called back.

"He helped us," Finn said. "I mean, we're paying him to, or so I hear."

"He betrayed you."

Finn had been thinking about that; of course he had. But normally Rey had more restraint than to pluck memories out of his head. What exactly had happened to her?

"Nothing," she said. She turned to look at him, effectively shutting Kylo out. "Only — almost. That's all."

"That's not 'only'." Finn leaned forward and hugged her, feeling her slump against him. It was so good, comforting, the kind of gesture of friendship that Finn hadn't even realized he desperately needed until he'd defected.

When he opened his eyes and moved away, he saw Kylo glaring poison. Kriffing hell, Finn thought, doing his best not to scowl. "That guard, did he get any eyes on us?"

"He did. I removed them."

"The datachip, or —"

"His head."

Finn should have known better than to ask, really. "Right."

"Did you have to bring him?" Rey said.

"Kind of yes," Finn said. "But, you know, soon we'll be back with the Resistance."

She perked up. "And then he'll be gone?"

"Um."

"You know, I like the Resistance," DJ said. "I saw this great holovid, had the Princess in it, she looked fine as a midsummer's rain."

"That's my mother!" Kylo howled.

If you'd told him two months ago that he'd be grateful for DJ's interference, Finn would've told you what sewage to go swim in. Now, he slumped back and let the argument wash over him.

Because: he had known that Kylo wouldn't be gone. Literally, of course, but also for Finn specifically.

After the mission, Kylo was no longer officially in need of a babysitter, but Finn found him turning up everywhere anyway. It was embarrassing, really, for both of them. Finn wanted to shoo him off, like you might with a cat that had bad manners. Kylo hung around Finn while they submitted their mission reports; he followed Finn to meals and to flying drills and even managed to get himself attached to Finn for his shifts on watch. Rey had calmed down after a few days out of the prison — "meditation and lots of food, mostly", she'd told Finn — but when she saw Kylo hovering behind Finn, she scowled like he'd just told her he'd be joining the Coruscant Centrists.

"I can't help it," he told her one night, after her glares had led Kylo to announce he'd be going to bed early. "Or, I mean, I could. But I don't want to? I'm sorry."

"You want him to hang round you like mold on a Hutt?"

"Well. No. But when he's around me, he's not off being evil." And Finn could keep an eye on him, which he did feel weirdly responsible for doing.

Rey's face went through a series of very upset expressions. "Finn. You must know that's not your job."

"You're the one who said you think he's the key to the Resistance. You told me —"

"I know what I said." She snapped it, a bit, her cheeks going red. "And I know you're an incredibly good person who cares about the cause. But that doesn't mean you have to be the only person standing between Kylo and the Dark Side. You don't have to let him harass you. We've all seen how he acts, how he pretends that he — that you two dated."

"That he cares," Finn said. "Is that what you were going to say?"

"That he wants you." Rey made a face. "Honestly, Finn. I'm not sure he's capable of real feeling, aside from anger. The Dark Side warps you like that."

Finn knew he was, but none of what he'd learned would be very good evidence. Kylo's care, his regard, whatever you wanted to call it, only arrived wrapped in anger and selfish fury. He felt so cheated by the world, so determined to keep on being wrong and shitty, and Finn —

Finn couldn't blame Rey, really, for briefly thinking he could be the Resistance's salvation. He wasn't thinking on that kind of scale, but he still wanted Kylo to be better than he was, kept having to remind himself that he was only dreaming.

What Finn really wanted was a guy who pulled him close in the night, like Kylo had done, but not under threat of death, and without immediately doing something awful afterwards. He'd never get that from Kylo. But he could, at least, prevent him from being worse; when he did that, he was also helping the Resistance in a very real way. So it was a win-win.

But when he tried to explain that to Rey, she only shook her head, looking sad and worn-down and way too wise. "That shouldn't be your lookout. You deserve so much more than that."

"Well, yeah, I know. But who in this galaxy gets what they deserve, right?"

She snorted. "Oh, I can think of a few people I'd like to deliver just desserts to."

Finn nearly cheered at the chance to change the conversation. "Hey, yeah, speaking of. Let's talk Hux."

So, it wasn't as bad as it could've been. Rey didn't think he'd been replaced by an infiltration droid, and Poe seemed almost to enjoy having Kylo around. They'd been friends once, or Poe and Ben had; Kylo had stiffly informed him that Ben was dead and not coming back, and Poe had only said, "Sure thing, pal," and then made fun of his hair for twenty minutes.

Finn had expected Kylo to break the whole cafeteria but he'd just sat there and taken it. Like that was something he liked, being ribbed by the Resistance's — and his mom's — favorite pilot. But then, Finn thought late one night, when he should've been doing anything but lying awake and thinking about Kylo — but then, no one in the First Order would have dared to treat Kylo like he could be teased. Like he was a person.

He never, ever let Finn treat him like that. Just as a random example.

So, Finn was maybe in too deep, maybe had a weird fixation that he wasn't quite able to shake. But he thought Kylo might be getting better, that he might be ready to stop being Finn's shadow, right up until some jackasses from Corellia cornered Finn in a hallway and put a blaster against his throat.

They managed to say, "Infiltrating 'trooper scum," before they were both thrown against the opposite wall with a sickening crunch. Finn snatched the blaster before it hit the floor.

Charged and ready to kill. Great.

"Kylo," he said, not bothering to try to find the shadowed alcove he'd be hiding in. "Let them go."

"They were going to kill you."

It might help, Finn thought, if Kylo sounded upset when he said it, or worried. Instead he just sounded cold, possessive, like he had back on the Starbane. This wasn't about Finn or his safety at all; it was about Kylo and his imagined sense of possession.

Sickening. "You can't go around killing people just because they almost did something stupid. That's not how it works. Let them go."

"Rather die than lick 'trooper boot," one of them snarled.

Finn felt a flash of pure rage, as all-encompassing as the center of a black hole. It wasn't his anger. "Kylo. No."

He didn't think it would work, especially not when the other guy said, "You think he'd let a 'trooper order him around like a dog?"

But then they both dropped to the floor. Kylo stepped out of the shadows, closer than Finn had realized he'd been, and said, "Finn, I apologize for my behavior. You two: leave. Never touch him again."

They'd barely had a chance to scurry away when Kylo turned on his heel and marched in the opposite direction. His cloak billowed wildly; Finn could feel the snarl he didn't let out, the blows he didn't deal to a wall. He was furious.

At who? Finn?

"Hey, wait." Finn jogged to catch up. "Thank you? I guess? For not killing them."

"I want to. I might, when you're not paying attention."

"But I'm paying attention now."

"Semantics." Kylo stopped dead in the hallway, whirling to face Finn. "You're just like her."

"What?"

"She thought she could...fix this. Fix me. Make me a better man." Kylo's lip curled in a sneer. "I'd expected you of all people to know differently."

For a second all Finn could do was stare. But Kylo seemed to be expecting an answer, and Finn wanted to set a few things straight. "Yeah, I don't think you're going to be a better man. I grew up with the First Order, remember? Rey wants things to be better — she needs them to be. I can see things as they are. People, too. You're a crazy, evil, bad dude. For some reason, I can maybe keep you from being the worst possible version of yourself. So that's what I'm trying to do. You're not going to stop me with the whole holodrama shouting routine."

For a moment the hallway rang with silence. Kylo didn't move, didn't sway forward or back up, so they were almost — but not quite — chest to chest as he took a deep breath, nostrils flaring, hands twitching at his side.

Move, Finn told himself. But he couldn't.

"For some reason," Kylo said finally. His voice was too quiet, too steady.

Move! Finn shouted at himself again. His heart hammered against his ribcage and his breath came in double-time and he didn't, couldn't, move. If he shifted so much as a toe, it wouldn't be away from Kylo; he'd move forward, inevitably, horribly, and learn for himself what Kylo's furiously flexing hands felt like.

"Go kriff yourself," he finally managed to say.

Kylo's eyes widened. He looked at Finn — really looked, like he could see down to Finn's guts — and then stepped away. The bizarre tension between them eased, and Finn took a step back, too, feeling like he hadn't been able to breathe since his would-be killers had run off.

"Tell the General about this attack," Kylo said.

"You tell her," Finn said.

He didn't turn; he didn't run. Kylo, though, stiffened, his shoulders braced like someone might tackle him. He brushed past Finn, marching down the hallway in double time.

Finn knew that march, that posture. He knew it all. He should be sickened by it. Instead he wanted to follow Kylo, push him against the wall, take him apart. Understand him through his heartbeat and the trembling of his hands, if he couldn't do it the normal way.

He didn't sleep that night.

"What's he done to you?" Rey said at breakfast.

"Nothing," Finn said, too quickly. Then he remembered himself: "Who? I have no idea what you're talking about."

She raised her eyebrows in that Jedi-y way she'd been practicing. "I don't," Finn said, but even he could hear how defensive he sounded.

"Sure," Rey said. "But, while we're on the topic: what has Kylo Ren done to you, Finn?"

Finn had learned to recognize when Rey had absolutely no plans to give up. So he told her, trying to downplay the weirdest parts of the night: the moment when he'd almost kissed Kylo, the bizarre tension between them. But that made it worse, because when he finished, he realized he'd just told a mostly boring story about Kylo defending him from some assholes.

Not really the impression he'd wanted to give.

"That's not all," Rey said as soon as he stopped.

"Well. I mean. It's all I want to talk about."

Rey's eyes narrowed. "Did he hurt you?"

"No!" Oh, kriff, was she assuming -

"He didn't exactly seem like he'd be gentle, you know, in bed."

"Rey! That's not funny!"

"Who's joking? It took me weeks to get used to the idea even of you letting him hang round. Poe had to give me all these audio courses about boundaries and respecting your friends' terrible choices. But I still sort of thought maybe he was just mind controlling you." She looked hopeful at the idea, which -

"That wouldn't actually be preferable."

"Ugh, I know."

Finn couldn't really blame her, because he'd thought something similar when he'd found out about Rey and Kylo's Snoke-fuelled Force bond. "Anyway. He's not mind controlling me, and he's not my — whatever." He couldn't even make himself think it. "But things are still kind of weird."

"Understatement of the era," Rey muttered.

Finn had no way to defend himself against that, so he didn't. He ate his breakfast and went on his perimeter shift, and when Kylo joined him halfway through, neither of them brought last night up.

For awhile, Finn thought they could just go on like that, carefully stepping around the many, many things they might fight over or mutually freak out about. His days went back to normal — mostly, almost.

Then Victory Night happened.

No one knew who'd named Victory Night. The Senator who'd introduced the bill to commemorate the destruction of the Death Star had said the date was 'popularly known as Victory Night', which didn't make any sense to Finn, because the Rebellion hadn't won then, and weren't they still fighting now? But popular terms apparently didn't care about logic; the Senate had declared Victory Night a holiday, and everyone, even the General, called it that.

It was a day marked like any other holiday, with feasting and drinking and dancing. The engineers had brewed up some kind of alcohol that tasted a bit like Tatooine grain liquor mixed with Lomin ale. Meaning, a little sweet and a lot like the inside of a speeder fuel cell. Finn had two drinks before his throat stopped hurting from it.

They were celebrating, though, and for once Finn felt light, happy. Optimistic, even. The Resistance had opened up the camp for the festival; what had once been practice grounds or tactical outposts became the site of huge bonfires, and service droids moved between clusters of people, passing out snacks that almost didn't look like they'd started out as ration packs. People played dice and flew kites; a couple droids projected a lightshow onto the cloud cover. It was nothing like the First Order's militaristic marches, and Finn loved it, found himself giddy with the messy spectacle of it all.

He started the night with Poe, but before long he found himself sitting next to Rose. "Be honest," he said, lifting his glass of whatever-it-was. "Did you have anything to do with this?"

"Me?" Rose widened her eyes as the other engineers laughed. "Of course not! Do I look like a moonshiner to you?"

"I'm pretty sure you're whoever you want to be. And I know you're creative." Finn smiled at her.

It made her stutter a little, get a bit more flushed, which was fun. Funny. Finn knew so many good, nice, attractive, brave, heroic, normal people.

He didn't want to kiss any of them at all.

"Maybe I had a little to do with it," Rose finally admitted, setting off another round of drunken laughter.

Finn wanted to stay longer, get a recipe out of her, but he found himself distracted by — a fly? No. An animal? Off at the perimeter — he could feel it, bright as a bonfire. It could be a security problem, he reminded himself, and pushed himself up on not-quite-steady legs. "Be right back," he told Rose — but she wasn't looking at him anymore. She was giving off affection in waves, looking at -

DJ? Seriously? Finn looked around, trying to see if anyone else was picking up on what that starry-eyed cross-camp gaze meant -

Then another wave of not-quite-right hit him, and he remembered his original mission. Security! Perimeter. Right. He walked off into the darkness, towards whatever it was.

The weird feeling moved away as he walked towards it. Frowning, Finn changed his tack, trying to circle around instead. But then the thing just moved in the opposite direction. It knew Finn was there and it was avoiding him. Why?

By now he'd ventured far into the weeds, on the edge of the forest that surrounded the Resistance base in all directions. "Hello?" he called out. "Who's out there? I know you're there. Show yourself!"

"You ran into the woods, unarmed, to what purpose, exactly?"

Of course it was him. Of course. "Trying to hunt down a creep. But hey, surprise: I found him."

Kylo stepped out of the shadow he'd been lurking in. Multicolored moonlight played over his face. "What did you see?"

"Excuse me?"

"I should have been entirely invisible. What did you see?"

For a moment, Finn wanted to lie. The truth wasn't worth the tantrum he was pretty sure Kylo would throw. But if Kylo had been invisible, through technology or the Force, then he might realize Finn was lying anyway. He had a lot of powers. Sneaky powers. "I felt you. Didn't see you. I could feel something weird, I thought it might be a threat, and I came out to investigate."

"Without a weapon."

"Well. I'm drunk, too."

"And tell me, FN-2187, what can you feel now?"

Anger, warm and comforting, sparked along his spine. "Don't call me that."

"Why not? It's the first name you were ever given."

Brown eyes, gentle hands. Scraps of memory Finn wasn't even sure were really memory, impressions of impressions that he might have invented as a lonely, frightened captive.

"It wasn't. Don't you dare say that. You of all people should know better."

"Me of all people? Ben Solo grew up with parents who loved him. A home and a family."

"And you still ended up like this." Finn waved a hand to encompass Kylo's whole — deal. "Big jerk. Wonder what that says about you."

Fury, fresh and clean, broke like a wave around him. He blinked and found himself pressed back against a tree, Kylo looming in front of him.

"You can feel that," Kylo hissed. "You felt me. Surely you must know what that means."

Finn blinked, heart pounding, and didn't reply.

"You're a fool," Kylo said, and Finn —

Fell.

Distantly, he knew he still stood upright, fingers curling against bark. But that knowledge played a distant second fiddle to the maelstrom Kylo had pulled him into. Fear, rage, pain, anger, every possible dark emotion, rushing over him in a torrent. He didn't realize he'd cried out until someone came running — until Rey shoved Kylo away from him, snarling, "Touch him again and I'll kill you myself!"

"I didn't hurt him." Kylo didn't just sound calm. He sounded distant, uncaring.

"I can feel his pain, you absolute —"

"It's only an echo." Now he sounded amused, but still in that awful distant way. "I thought you knew, and were just ignoring it. Silly me, expecting so much of a rank newcomer to the ways of the Force."

And Rey — who, in Finn's opinion, definitely should be immune to stupid Kylo's stupid bait by now — faltered and said, "Knew what? What do you think I'm ignoring?"

Kylo turned and looked at Finn.

Small. Smaller than he'd been when they took him, so small he didn't think in words, only vague impressions of sound and light. "Our son," said a woman, her voice far away. "My precious star in the sky. I will always love you."

"Stop it! Stop it!" Finn swung, barely missing Kylo. "Why would you — stop!" He scrubbed the tears off his face, restraining a sob. That couldn't be a memory. There was no way. But —

But it felt like it had been, and he couldn't stop himself from falling to his knees and gasping in huge breaths of night air, fingers curling into the dirt.

"I barely had to push." Again the sneering voice, the deliberate indifference. "He's drunk and he's wide open for anyone who might decide they'd like to have some fun."

"And that's what you call making him cry? Fun? You piece of Jakku scrap." A hum: Rey had ignited her saber.

No, Finn had to stop this. He pushed himself to his feet, wiping shaking hands on his thighs. "Rey. Wait."

"Why should I?"

"He's not —" That bad? No, he was, at least right now. "- wrong. About the, about what I can feel. I'm sorry. I should've said something earlier."

She turned to look at him in disbelief, flushed, eyes wide. She was drunk, too. And Kylo — Finn would eat his boots if Kylo was sober. Great. They were all about to do really dangerous stuff, completely trashed on some engineer's ultra-fortified droid-cooked hooch.

"We need help," Finn said. "All of us. But me, obviously. And..."

Brown eyes, staring at him. A language he thought he remembered. They needed someone who understood the Force, but Luke Skywalker was dead and Finn really didn't want either of the hotheads in front of him teaching him basic hyperdrive physics, much less anything to do with the Force.

Eyes. If you live long enough, you see the same eyes in different people.

He was drunk and terrified, out of his mind with soul-numbing fear, and maybe that was why he said it. "Maz. The person Han took us to. She can help."

"The bartender?" Kylo said.

"Oh, Finn, that's a wonderful idea!" Rey said, and threw herself at him for a hug.

She was so drunk. They both were. But she'd also turned on a dime emotionally, and now radiated love and joy and calm, all the things he'd never felt from Kylo. He suspected she was doing it on purpose. So he hugged back, held onto her until he felt Kylo leave.

He didn't think they'd actually do it, of course. When he sobered up the next day, he thought he'd had a really weird night, with some uncomfortable revelations that may or may not be true — because they were drunk! Who knew what being drunk could do to a guy or his weird sixth sense?

That delusion lasted as long as it took for the General to issue him a summons.

"Whew, what'd you do?" Poe said.

"Nothing! Or, well." He paused for a second to gather his thoughts, and the pilots — famous for basically requiring you to have a disciplinary record to join up — ohhhh'd as one.

"Good luck, tiger," Poe said, and laughed as Finn flipped him off and headed for the General's office.

He wasn't particularly surprised to see Kylo there, slumped in a chair and glaring at his mother. But Rey standing in the opposite corner, glaring at everyone, could only mean one thing.

"It was a mistake," he said. "We were all drunk and really stupid."

"So I've been told." The General waved at the empty seat in front of her desk. "Please, sit. I get the feeling you're not going to like this."

"Finn," Rey said, low and urgent. "I didn't tell her. I would never betray a confidence like that."

"I know. Don't worry."

"Well, I didn't say anything," Kylo said. "I never think about you. Why would I?"

"Really?" the General said. "That's your gambit?"

Finn watched in horrified fascination as Kylo turned redder than his old saber.

"At any rate, my son isn't completely lying: he didn't tell me. Nor did Rey, and no, Finn, I didn't question you and then make you forget about it." She said that gently, like the Resistance's intel was better than Finn had realized. "Maz called me. She wanted me to put you and Ben on the next ship out to Takodana."

Finn's mouth went dry. "What did you tell her?"

"There aren't Resistance ships going out to Takodana. They're officially neutral, unofficially treacherous." The General cocked an eyebrow. "And this is where it gets interesting: she told me Takodana might suddenly take an interest in the Resistance, if they had a liaison."

"You're going to make me a liaison." Not really a question, because the General was right: Finn did need the chair he currently sat in. He felt dizzy with the whole idea. "And I'm going to — what am I going to do?"

"Learn some control, so my son doesn't treat your brain like his teenage diary anymore."

"Finn can travel with Rey, then," Kylo said.

"Yes, that sounds wonderful," Rey said. "Great idea. I agree with Kylo. For once."

"Maz insists on the two of you. According to her, understanding how you read my son so easily is key to helping you."

"Stop saying that!" Kylo burst out.

The General looked over at Kylo, making it obvious: turning her whole body, placing all her attention on him. If she'd done that to Finn, he'd've been terrified, but Kylo only scowled harder.

"Are you not my son?" the General said. "I'm aware you'd have me believe you killed Ben Solo, but a parasite doesn't live in you, and Snoke's influence is gone. I'm inclined to think you're still my son, misguided and rotten as you may be."

For one horrible moment, Finn had the urge to defend Kylo. That more than anything else made him say, "Okay, okay, enough. I — we'll go. Won't we?" he said to Kylo.

Kylo didn't hesitate. "Of course."

"I'll learn about the Force. Whatever Maz has to teach me." He ignored Kylo's snort. "Did she say how long it would take?"

"She told me 'not long', but she's 1000 years old; that could mean almost anything." The General leveled Finn with one of her I'm-not-kidding looks. "She knows her stuff, and she told me enough detail to make me think you'll be a liability if you don't learn some control."

"I could teach him," Rey said. "He doesn't need to go off with this — this —"

"Cat got your tongue?" Kylo said.

"Traitor," Rey spat, looking briefly murderous before her expression collapsed in on itself.

And Finn must really be losing it, because he thought of Kylo, masked and evil as could be, saying the same thing to him. Rey was nothing like that, of course. But -

"You'll stay here," the General said to Rey, sounding almost gentle. "Luke left you in a lurch, didn't he? But he left you here with me. I can help you."

Why can't you also help me, Finn knew better than to ask. Out loud, he said, "So, General, what's our timeline for getting to Takodana?"

The General's smile was all sharp edges. "Why, Finn, I thought you'd never ask."