It only took a second for Finn to realize he wasn't the target of Kylo's wrath, for once. "Kylo, no!" he shouted, even as Kylo lashed out at Calrissian.

"Traitor. Fool. My family haunts me at every turn, and this is the last time I will tolerate it."

Finn felt the Force leaving Kylo, roiling with darkness — and he felt the Force part around Calrissian, dissipating like mist against the wind.

"Party tricks," Kylo snarled. "Who taught you that? Skywalker?"

"Your uncle's got a lot of talents, but subtlety was never his thing." Calrissian didn't appear particularly upset, but they were all alone on this platform — deliberately, Finn realized, because Calrissian didn't want any witnesses for what might happen.

He had to stop this. "Kylo," he said again. He put a hand on Kylo's arm, tightening his grip when Kylo didn't try to throw him off. "Think, come on, don't kill him. I really do not want to become a fugitive right now and I doubt you do either."

It wasn't exactly his most persuasive speech, but Kylo faltered immediately, glancing over at Finn with something like bafflement. "He's the reason you're here. Can't you feel it?"

"I can feel it, all right," Calrissian muttered.

"Shut up, old man."

"Kylo!"

"What? Does my disrespect for elders shock you? I nearly killed one, just now."

"Keep dreaming," Calrissian said.

"You're not helping!" Finn said. "Kylo. Don't."

Kylo slowly lowered his arm. Finn felt it tremble under his grip. "Do we have rooms?" Kylo said, not looking away from Finn.

"Really nice ones. There's a droid on Floor 25 ready to show you to 'em."

"Wonderful." Kylo broke away from Finn's grip, shaking his hand as if in disgust. He stomped past Calrissian without another look.

Calrissian waited until Kylo had gotten into a transport pod to say, "Just out of curiosity, how many times has someone said 'you've got a lot of explaining to do' to you lately? Ballpark figure."

"Um." Any time he was with Kylo, so -

"How often are you with Ben? Ah, don't answer that, I'm not sure I want to know. Maz loves to leave the important stuff out." Calrissian shook his head. "Let's start over: I'm Lando, the mayor around here. Nice to meet you."

"I'm Finn, and I think the Force told me to come here."

"Better advice than having you hang around Ben."

"Kylo's, um, well." Any excuse Finn might have made died just then. Kylo had already attempted murder; it was a little too late. "Sorry about him."

"Don't worry. I know him from when he was little."

"I'd guessed."

Finn didn't need to elaborate; Lando offered him a sympathetic smile and said, "It's hard to disappear into the dark when you're always running into people who knew you as a snot-nosed brat who couldn't mind-trick a slug."

"I guess. But he could have killed you."

"Hmm, not so much." Lando winked. "You think Maz would send you to someone who goes down that easy?"

"But —" Finn knew what he'd felt. So much power, crushing everything in its path. Lando would have been worn down eventually.

"You look tired," Lando said. "Why don't you go down to your room? I'll have someone get you for breakfast in around ten hours, local time, and then we can talk."

"About what, exactly? Sorry, I just — I'm here because I had a vision, it's all a little vague, and I'd really like for it to not be. As vague."

"Of course. And it won't be." Another smile from Lando, calm and charismatic and totally unmovable. "After breakfast."

Right, Finn thought, and resigned himself to another night of confusing dreams.

He slept like a rock in his spacious room. The bed was huge and there was no Kylo to elbow him or make weird, intimate sleeping noises; he didn't see a broad back in the morning that made him want to reach out and touch. Consequently, when he showed up in Lando's dining room, he felt both awake and obscurely grouchy in a way he didn't want to even think about.

Lando, sitting at the head of the table, smiled upon seeing him. "Finn. Come, sit down. What's your favorite kind of jam?"

"Whatever's available, mostly."

"Try this one." Lando passed him a dark orange preserve. "How'd you sleep?"

Alone, was Finn's first thought. Kriff, he needed to get a grip. "Great, thanks."

"My nephew didn't sleep so well."

Finn blinked. "Wait. Your —"

"Not by blood." Lando snorted. "Han and I weren't brothers. We had a different sort of relationship."

He couldn't mean that the way it sounded. He just had a natural charisma, Finn supposed. He took some bread and spread jam on it. The flavor of the jam exploded in his mouth, sweet and tart at the same time — shockingly tasty, really. "This is really good."

"Isn't it? We make it here. You can't find it anywhere else in the galaxy." Lando winked. "Kind of like me."

"Stop flirting with Finn," Kylo said from the doorway.

"Flirting? You've been with the First Order too long. They call this making polite conversation, in the civilized world."

"Polite conversation doesn't involve winking." Kylo moved to stand next to Finn — well, next to and slightly behind, like a squad leader would stand by their commander. Finn didn't know what to do, so he just sat there, stupidly, while Lando looked between the two of them.

Finally, he said, "Maz sent you both here so Finn could learn."

"Learn what?" Finn blurted out before he thought better of it. "I'm sorry, I just — I don't even know why I'm here, really. And all the mysterious way-of-the-Force stuff is really not what I want."

"Sit down, Ben." Lando waited until Kylo had sullenly taken the chair next to Finn to continue. "What do you want?"

"I want you to leave Finn alone and let us go," Kylo snapped.

"That's nice. I wasn't talking to you, though." Lando looked back to Finn. "Tell me what you want, Finn."

He'd have been much more ready to explain what he didn't want. He didn't want to deal with Jedi anymore unless he had to, but his best friend was sort of one and he kept getting into Jedi-adjacent trouble. He didn't really want to fight the First Order, but he would, of course; he planned to. He didn't want to be around Kylo, but they were stuck together until this trip was done.

"A bunch of things I can't have," he said finally.

Lando took that in stride. "Would you like to learn to live with the Force?"

"No." Oops, too vehement. "I mean — no, thank you. The Jedi way of life seems, um, stressful."

"The Jedi are fools, who play with forces they can't hope to control," Kylo said coolly, glancing at Lando like he expected to see him flinch.

"And those who go dark side think they control the Force, when in fact it's just their own tempers making them morons," Lando said easily. "Ben, you and I can have this conversation later, if you like. I'm talking to Finn right now."

Kylo took a vicious bite of toast.

"You can't ignore the Force," Lando said. "I get why you'd want to, and believe me, it's definitely tempting to me too. But all that happens when you ignore the Force is it decides to make itself even more annoying."

Kylo huffed.

"Okay," Finn said. It wasn't like this was the first time he'd encountered the whole, the Force is everywhere all the time thing. "But plenty of people never interact with it at all. I'm saying I'd like to be one of those people."

"We all would," Lando said. "But according to Maz, and Leia, and a bunch of other important people, you're not."

"I knew it first," Kylo said.

Finn blinked.

"No one asked you," Lando said, but he didn't sound particularly mad.

"He broke free of the conditioning. We use the Empire's methods, refined past even what Vader could do. It should be impossible —"

"You really think your order of clowns can stop the human mind from seeking freedom? You should know better, Ben."

"I am the one who found him," Kylo snarled. "It should be impossible, but he did it anyway. I noticed, when he hesitated on Jakku. I saw his pain, his determination, his personality, when he stole the pilot from me. I knew! Me!"

Lando frowned and opened his mouth to object, but Finn beat him to the punch, irritation completely overriding the keep-your-head-down instinct he normally felt around an angry Kylo. "Seriously? You didn't find me. I'm not a new vein of kyber. I know they warp you in the First Order, but that's not how any of this works."

Kylo's mouth flattened in a surly line. "Snoke found me. I found you. Just because your stupid band of —"

"Our band of resistance fighters, who only exist because the First Order is evil," Finn said, "which I know you know, or at least you kind of agree with me, or I'd be dead and you'd be off sucking Hux's toes."

Kylo scowled at him. Finn just looked back. He didn't have it in him to imitate the wounded-bulldog expression that Kylo thought was intimidating. But he wasn't scared anymore — or he wasn't as scared, anyway. Kylo didn't want to hurt him. He felt that very clearly, just like he felt the mix of annoyance and love Lando couldn't help but feel for Kylo. The whole room was lit up with people's feelings and personalities, and Finn —

Finn just wanted Kylo to admit it, really. If he were as evil as he was trying to pretend, he'd have gone already. He was strong enough and scary enough to break free of the Resistance, no matter who they got to hold him. On some level he'd chosen to be here — with the Resistance generally, and with Finn specifically.

Finn just wasn't sure why he couldn't admit it, that was all.

"Ah, to be young," Lando said. Finn jumped, looking over at him, feeling caught out.

"Now, as I was saying." Lando took a sip of his tea. "You can't avoid the Force. We can quibble on the specifics, but the fact remains that if it seeks you out — and it has sought you out — eventually it'll want to do something with you. Jedi training is all about pretentious meditation and thinking you know best, and also lightsabers. I'm telling you there's other stuff out there, and I can show you a different way to live."

Finn thought of Rey alone on the island with Luke, of his own need to get back and help and fight. "I don't think I can do months of training."

"This won't take more than a week."

Kylo muttered something under his breath that sounded like, 'Charlatan.' But Finn didn't think Lando was. Oh, he looked tricky — and he felt tricky, too, the kind of guy who could sell you your own socks and make you feel glad for the opportunity. But he radiated sincerity, and General Organa trusted him and Maz both, at least enough to send Finn here.

It would have to be good enough. "Sure. Okay."

"Excellent," Lando said. "Ben, you're looking flushed. Try the fritters. You won't find better anywhere in the galaxy."

Finn felt Kylo's simmering rage the entire rest of the meal.

He expected to be sent off to a mysterious cave or locked in a meditation dungeon or something. Instead, Lando sent him to the hospital. He met with a woman named Larisa and spent a day helping out with patients, who were mostly victims of some kind of farming accident. They had plenty of modern treatments, but Larisa explained it was more cost effective to bandage some of the less serious injuries and let the body do its normal work. Finn dredged up his field training and did his best.

The second day, Lando sent him out again, this time to a bakery. Finn got covered in flour and learned how to proof yeast from a bossy droid who reminded him of that protocol droid General Organa kept around.

The third day, Lando gave him instruction to meet up with a fisher in the harbor. When he arrived, he found Kylo standing next to the man's boat, wearing a heavy black cloak and scowling.

"Seriously?" Finn asked Kylo, and the Force in general.

"I'm bored," Kylo said, "and someone needs to keep you out of trouble."

"I'm not in trouble. And almost all the trouble I've gotten into was your fault."

Kylo scowled and crossed his arms.

"Right, well," the fisherman said, looking between them. His green skin paled a bit and he flexed web fingers in a universal expression of dismissal. "I gotta get going, so you guys coming, or what?"

Finn spent the day hauling up nets of fish and ignoring when Kylo used the Force to raise heavier loads. The fisherman whistled when he saw Kylo do it. "Damn, that's handy. Where'd you learn it?"

"In fire and blood, in pain and sorrow, beneath the tutelage of the nightmare of the galaxy," Kylo replied.

"Whatever, man. That's like a seven hundred pound tuna. Thanks."

Kylo flushed, then scowled, like his response had surprised even him. He looked — don't think 'cute', Finn told himself, but it was too late.

He hadn't dreamed about Kylo in weeks, long enough that he'd hoped maybe that whole thing was just a weird phase he'd since gotten over. That night, his brain crushed all his hopes by presenting him with a dream of Kylo, lounging in a soft bed on a luxury yacht. Waves lapped against the low-set windows as Finn kissed him.

It would've been better, almost, if he was just having a straight-up sex dream. Instead, he only felt Kylo's hard-on against him as they kissed, drenched in sunshine, smiling wordlessly at each other.

The next day, Lando sent Finn out to work with some kids at the local school. He kept Kylo with him. When Finn got back at the end of the day, Kylo wouldn't tell him what Lando had made him do. "It wasn't illegal, was it?" Finn asked in a fit of desperation.

Kylo only sneered. "As if an associate of my mother's could be so creative."

"Then why won't you tell me?"

"Because desperation is a pathetic look on you, and I don't want to enable it."

"Dick," Finn muttered, and left to find Lando.

With two days remaining, Finn felt like maybe he'd missed important parts of his lessons. "So, should I be able to control the Force by now?" he asked Lando at breakfast.

"Do you think controlling the Force is what you were sent here to learn?"

"That's a trick question. You're going to tell me it's not about control."

"Well — kind of." Lando smiled. He probably meant it to be a gentle, benevolent smile; to Finn it looked like the smile a carnival worker gave you before he sold you bottled booze that was half rubbing alcohol. "It's not only about control. The Jedi said they had no will to power, but that was all just PR spin. They hoarded power, same as the Sith. The First Order continued that tradition. You and me, on the other hand — we're different."

"Give me a break," Kylo muttered.

"No contributions from the peanut gallery, thanks," Lando said. He turned to face Finn more fully, his usually smirky expression resolving into seriousness. "Finn, I come from a tradition of guardianship. I can't pop out of the woods to teach you how it works; you have to seek the knowledge yourself."

"Okay, well — here I am. What can I learn from all this?"

Lando held out of his hands. Finn took them, their palms pressing together. "Try to sense my emotions," Lando said.

Finn reached out, as he was accustomed to. As he'd had to, the last few days, using his extra sense to find his way around jobs and people he wasn't used to. He found, in Lando, an unending light.

Oh. Here was the empathy that Finn himself had, writ large and expanded outward. Here was the Force flowing through Lando — not changing him, but shaping him. Lando wasn't perfect; Finn saw his mistakes and trickiness and occasional horrible cruelty. But he had an unyielding power, a core of durasteel, a will to -

"Guard," Lando told him, though his lips didn't move. "I'm a guardian, Finn. And if you keep going on this path, you'll be one, too."

He saw again the children on Canto Bight, a little older now, growing into their power. The Resistance symbol was hidden all over the planet now, hanging on doors and spray-painted inside barns. Little by little, the unnoticed children siphoned away money to send their brothers and sisters to freedom. To the Resistance.

He saw a foundering moon, nearly entirely hollowed out, held together by the Force and by the spirits of those who'd called it home. He saw the moon's descendants, living on a far-flung Outer Rim planet, teaching one another the traditions they'd nearly lost. He saw people who looked like they could be his own family, baking missives from a Resistance cell into bread being shipped to the Core.

He saw so much, and not enough. When Lando dropped his hands, he was crying.

"Lando," Kylo said in a low, steady voice. "Give him a second to breathe."

Finn dimly thought that Kylo had a lot of nerve, just then, acting like he knew Finn well enough to set boundaries in his stead. But the intensity of emotion receded, and when Finn was able to look around and focus again, he saw that Kylo had moved himself to stand behind Finn again, the same way he had their first day here, at rest and waiting.

Protecting Finn, in the Force, until Finn was ready.

He swallowed. "Thanks." His voice was a little too rough, a little too revealing.

But Kylo only nodded, brusque as ever. "Let's get dinner now. Okay?"

The last was directed at Lando, who cocked his eyebrows and looked between the two of them before agreeing. Finn had the sinking feeling that General Organa was going to hear about all this later.

He followed Kylo, though, and let him buy Finn's dinner, and sat down with him in the dining hall to eat it. They knocked knees under the table as Finn took a bite of his food.

"I'm sorry."

Finn blinked, chewed his beans, and swallowed. Then he took a sip of bubbly water. Then he said, "Pardon me?"

"I said I'm sorry." Kylo stabbed his pasta and scowled at his plate. "Don't ask me to say it again, I won't."

"No, I heard you this time, and I know it wasn't just a weird hallucination." What else could he say? "Um. Thanks?"

"I thought you'd ask what for."

"I mean, there's lots you could be apologizing for."

"I'm aware."

"Like. Really a ton of things." Finn tried to think of what, in particular, Kylo might be referring to. "You were rude to me a bunch."

"Yes."

"Lied and kept me captive."

"I did."

"Oh, and perpetuated the system that made me a child soldier, so."

Kylo's nostrils flared. "Yes."

"So I guess the real question is, why are you apologizing now?"

He hadn't thought it was a particularly difficult question, but Kylo threw his fork down and stood, like Finn had asked him to recite every Republic law the First Order had broken. "This was a bad idea," he said between clenched teeth, and fled as Finn gaped after him.

He followed, mostly because he thought he might die of curiosity if he didn't. Kylo made it to their floor in the mayor's quarters before Finn completely caught up. "Why won't you tell me?"

"Why do you think?" Kylo snarled, whirling around.

He was trying to intimidate Finn, that much was obvious. But Finn had already done a lot of really dumb stuff, and he'd faced off against Kylo everywhere — on ships, planetside, even in his own dreams. He wasn't going to back down now. "I don't know what to think. You're an enigma, one who's done a lot of really shitty stuff, so —"

The Force wrapped around him, but this time it wasn't choking him. No: an achingly gentle power curled around his wrists and legs, holding him immobile, sending pulses of warmth through him. Finn opened his mouth — to object? To call for help? — and found Kylo inches from him, his lips so close that Finn could feel the heat of his skin.

"You don't understand," Kylo said. "You can't."

Finn flexed his fingers against his bonds. He could push Kylo away, he was pretty sure. If he wanted to.

"I definitely can't if you won't talk to me," he said, and Kylo kissed him.

It was nothing like in his dreams. Kylo's fingers bit into his arms and he was shaking, trembling head to toe against Finn like he was the one restrained by creepy dark power. But Finn could move, if he wanted; he pushed against the power holding him, raising his arms up to Kylo's shoulders. When he placed a palm against Kylo's cheek, Kylo flinched backwards like he'd been struck.

"I didn't. I don't." He clenched his jaw, looking away from Finn. The power around Finn's middle began to fade.

Which, okay, being able to move was nice, but — "Hang on," Finn said, and kissed him again.

The kiss said what he couldn't figure out how to articulate: this felt good, and right, and he wanted more of it. It wasn't as easy as the joy-drenched dreams he'd almost stopped having, but that didn't matter when stacked up against the reality of Kylo's hands on his hips, pulling him close, gasping into Finn's mouth when their cocks pressed together.

"I want you," Finn said. "I want this. Which is objectively insane, but —"

"I could be compelling you." The Force pressed against Finn's legs again as Kylo kissed down his neck. "This could be just what I want, what I'm making you want —"

"You said all the First Order methods failed." Finn shook his head. He didn't feel even the slightest bit fuzzy right now. He knew his own mind, his own — yeah, kriff it: he knew his own power. He knew that this was his own desire right now, and no one else's. "Are you scared?"

"Of course not." The bonds around Finn tightened. He let them; he enjoyed it, a bit, the frisson of power he felt from Kylo. Maybe this was what trust felt like. "Why on earth would I be scared?"

Finn shrugged. "You tell me."

The power pushed him back against the wall, and then Kylo kissed him again, harder and clearly angry, his teeth nipping at Finn's lips. Finn let himself go, rocking his hips against Kylo's, not bothering to hide his moan. Kylo's hands shook as he cupped Finn's face. His voice, when he spoke, sounded like it was coming from very far away. "You can still stop this."

"Yeah, maybe," he said. He closed his eyes and focused. Kylo's power might be overwhelming, but it was fragile, too. One push in the right place -

And he was free again, stepping forward to pull Kylo back. But Kylo shied away from his grip, avoiding Finn's gaze.

"Right," Finn said. Rejection really shouldn't sting this much. Kylo was a jerk, he reminded himself, and a monster, and kind of hugely dishonest on top of all of that. Who would have a crush on someone like that?

Finn. Finn would. Ugh.

"I guess I'll see you at breakfast?"

"Sure," Kylo said, and all but ran away. Finn and Lando ate alone the next morning.

"I won't tell you I've taught you all I can."

"It's been a week," Kylo said in that pedantic 'First Order drone' voice he loved so much. "If you told Finn that, I'd challenge you as a charlatan."

"Ben, you've called me much worse." Lando winked then, like he'd told a joke. Finn watched in fascination as Kylo's cheeks turned bright red. "But I did teach you what I could, and what Leia asked me to. From here, it's up to you."

Right. Focus on the mystical responsibility, not Kylo's lips. "I have to be ready for it to seek me out."

"Correct. And...?"

"And I should look for information on being a guardian." Finn sighed. "You know this is super cryptic and weird, right?"

"Wouldn't be the Force if it wasn't."

"The First Order's training methods are very straightforward," Kylo said.

"Yeah, because they're evil," Finn said. "Which I know you know, so why are you —"

"Just because the overall goals were evil doesn't mean Jedi training is —"

"This isn't Jedi training, you heard Lando explain, why can't you just —"

"Okay," Lando said loudly. Finn almost swallowed his own tongue. For a second it had been like everyone else had just — disappeared.

Maybe they had? Was that how the Force worked? Finn still wasn't an expert, clearly.

"I'll send Leia a report on your progress," Lando said. His tone said, and gossip about you, too.

"He won't be ready for a mission any time soon," Kylo said.

"Missions. Hah." Lando raised his eyebrows at Finn. "You already know what I'd say about that."

Unfortunately, Finn did. The mission wouldn't be assigned, it would find Finn, et cetera. "Yep."

"Time for you to be on your way, then. Say hello to your mother for me," he told Kylo.

"You just said you'd comm her."

"Yeah, but I like pissing you off."

"Uncle —"

"Ben."

They stood there in a weird standoff for a few seconds. Finn did his best to look uninterested. Oh, look, a bird, he told himself, studying the sky.

They found open space soon enough after that. The hyperspace route they'd used to get to Lando would have been horribly inefficient to return directly to the Resistance, so Finn had plotted them a course that saw them refueling on a nearby moon, and picking up a few items on the Resistance's shopping list, before going all the way back. He explained the whole plan to Kylo, expecting pushback. Kylo only nodded and said, "The First Order has very little presence out here. You should be safe."

"We should be safe."

"Members of the Resistance, among which I do not count myself, should be safe," Kylo said coolly.

He really was the most frustrating fake-boyfriend Finn had ever had. Or not had, as the case may be.

They got to the moon within a few hours. Finn packed the cargo hold with meal bars and climate-safe cloth, and then they were off again. He was about to jump into hyperspace when he saw the reading on the wide-range radar. A class II ship, following them at a distance.

"Kylo."

Kylo was at his shoulder in seconds. Finn kind of hated the way every nerve in his body lit up at his nearness, despite the clear and present threat on the screen. "Kriff," Kylo said. "That's an interceptor, locked on us."

"I know. Can you feel anything?"

He watched Kylo's face pale as he closed his eyes. After a moment, he shook his head. "Shielded or not carrying anyone strong in the Force. I can't tell which."

"Do you think they're here for me or you?"

"Could be anything." Kylo laughed hollowly. "They might think we're just low-level Resistance scrubs, exposing ourselves foolishly."

"But you said there wasn't a strong First Order presence out here."

"And we're well hidden. Yes. We got unlucky."

Or, Finn thought, the Force was messing with them both some more. "How do you put up with this? All the running and hiding?"

When he spoke, Kylo's voice sounded utterly hollow. "I joined the winning team."

"We'll see about that. Can you man the guns?"

Kylo sat down obediently. Finn pulled up his star charts and flipped the hyperdrive toggle.

The chase was on.

Five minutes later, Finn was certain they'd been caught. The pilot couldn't be a trooper or even a low-level commander, not with the way they evaded Kylo's fire and stuck to Finn's tail. Finn had been trained by the best the First Order had to offer and then again by Poe Dameron. Whoever sat in the pilot's seat of that interceptor was a dangerous foe.

And Finn couldn't shake them. "We only have so much fuel," he told Kylo. "What do you think I should do?"

"What does the Force tell you to do?"

"This isn't the time for a weird Force lesson!"

"I know." And Kylo did sound deadly serious, as well as just plain deadly. "Tell me what you feel."

He had to stop evasive measures for a moment, close his eyes and reach out to the universe. He saw — solitude, peace. A battle waged on earth. "There's a moon nearby. With forests, arable land. Habitable —"

"But remote." Kylo's grim tone made it clear: he knew what Finn was suggesting. Being marooned together indefinitely, on a remote moon, with no guarantee of rescue. "I can dispatch the pilot once we land."

"Trust me, after all this, I'm happy to help." Finn guided them towards the moon, set the ship on autopilot, and went back to get ready.

He had no armor. The Resistance had uniforms, but Finn's was dirty; he'd figured he'd swap out when they got back to base. And they were light-years behind 'trooper tech anyway. Instead, here he was, in loose pants and an undershirt, about to face a foe strong enough to outwit Kylo Ren.

Yeah, he wasn't exactly feeling good about their chances. Especially not since the interceptor followed them down to land, not firing a single shot. Whoever was in there was confident in their ability to win a ground-level fight.

Finn and Kylo scrambled for higher ground, crouching behind their ship. They watched as the interceptor landed and a hooded figure stepped out.

Carrying a lightsaber. Great. "Great," Finn muttered to himself, fighting down hysteria.

"When I kill her," Kylo said, "I want you to run."

Finn blinked. "Excuse me?"

"This won't be a clean fight. You haven't seen me embrace the dark."

"I was living with you on the Starbane. Does being evil give you memory problems or something?"

Kylo put a hand on his arm. The contact burned. "Just be ready to run."

Before Finn could tell him there was no way in hell he'd do that just because Kylo got it in his head to give orders, Kylo stood and stalked towards the hooded woman. He waited for her to ignite her saber; red, Finn saw, like Kylo's own.

Kylo's saber glowed more steadily than Finn remembered. It sent half-remembered panic through him. His side ached where he'd almost been gutted, despite the bacta tank's near-perfect work. That Kylo, the one in his memories, was usually just a faded image, one that bore little resemblance to the person he put up with every day.

Put up with, right. Wanted. At least, normally he did. Right now...

The Kylo whose saber nearly took his opponent's head off looked nothing like the one who'd just left Finn's side.

It wasn't just all the fucked-up memories, either. Finn squinted and marshaled what he'd learned from Lando, using the Force to examine the fight. Kylo had gathered darkness around him — and Finn realized a little too late that the sickness he felt wasn't only his. It was Kylo's, a side effect of the power he was using to drive the woman back.

This was the Dark Side, then. Pain, hatred, anger. It twisted Kylo's features and yowled around him, an aura of fury that only grew with each almost-landed blow. Finn wasn't familiar enough with lightsaber duels to say how good either of them were, but he'd guess the answer was 'very': Kylo was Vader's grandson, after all, and for the moment the woman was meeting him blow for blow.

The fight wore on. Finn watched as closely as he could. The woman kept trying to circle around — she was trying to get past Kylo, Finn finally realized, and get at Finn himself. Why? Was he the target? How in the hell had she even known he was there?

"Give me the traitor," he heard her snarl, "and perhaps the Grand Admiral will let you live."

"Never." And for all that Kylo was wreathed in evil and hatred, Finn heard the sincerity in his voice. "I will die before you lay a finger on him, and I'll bring you with me." He twisted his saber, just a few feet from Finn now. The woman just barely dodged the blow. "Finn, what are you doing? Run!"

Finn would have liked to say he wasn't afraid, but of course he was. He was pants-pissingly terrified. He'd just had a lot of practice being scared, and so instead of following Kylo's instructions, he dug his heels in. "I'm not leaving you!"

The woman smiled, sharp and cruel. "Oh, how touching." She reared back for a body blow, stomping on Kylo's foot. She didn't have the reach: Kylo's saber came down on her arm, severing it cleanly at the shoulder. Finn flinched in anticipation of her scream -

And then she laughed, bringing her lightsaber down onto Kylo's hilt, sending his saber flying.

"Kylo!"

Time seemed to freeze. The malevolent forces surrounding Kylo sank into his skin. His expression was twisted, frantic, a cornered animal about to die, saturated with hatred and fury. Finn could feel it coming off him in waves, met by a hollow void where the woman's feelings should be. He could feel so much pain and anger and darkness.

"No," he whispered. Time restarted itself, and he understood what he needed to do. He stepped forward, dodged the woman's blow, scooped up Kylo's saber, and beheaded her.

It took only the time required for Kylo to shout his name.

He eventually became aware of Kylo talking, but nothing he said made sense: "Get away, get away, come here," hands all over him, pushing him away from the ship. They'd burned too much fuel; they were stuck here. Finn tried to tell Kylo, but his ears were ringing and something odd had come over him; he couldn't get the words past a suddenly-clumsy tongue. He could only follow as Kylo led him into the woods, both supply packs on his back.

Words came back to him as Kylo built up a fire. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me." Kylo's voice was low, brittle. He sounded furious, but Finn could feel his emotions, as clear as they'd ever been. Clearer, he realized, than they'd been in weeks.

He was scared.

"I don't know how you did that," Kylo said. "I wrote it down. For the Resistance."

"In case I go evil?"

"Of course not." Yes, whispered Kylo's fear. "You disarmed a Sith Lord and warped reality around yourself. We need to try to understand how you did it. And what sort of discipline leads to that power."

More Force mumbo-jumbo. Finn reached inside himself and found he couldn't currently care. "I'm really tired."

"I know." More fear. It stank, Finn thought, and leaned against the tree at his back.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Finn said. He couldn't imagine Kylo being afraid for any reason other than his own safety. Being selfish was kind of a prerequisite of being evil, wasn't it?

"That's not — I know. Here. Eat this."

Kylo handed him a ration bar. Finn took a few bites, then said, "Shouldn't we be eating as little as possible? We might be stuck here for awhile."

Kylo stared at him.

Finn was too tired to try to solve the mystery of Kylo's behavior. "What."

"You need to eat. You just — your hands are shaking."

They were. Finn had noticed, kind of, the way you'd notice you were tired midway through a day's march. It hadn't occurred to him to do anything in particular to fix it. "I'm fine."

"Just eat the kriffing ration bar." Kylo stood and walked away. Finn thought for a minute that he was going to go do recon, check out the terrain, but instead he just paced in a broad circle, looping around trees and occasionally glaring at Finn.

Finn missed the Resistance more than ever. Rey at least would've been fun to be stranded with.

"There's wildlife," he said when he'd finished the ration bar. "And I saw a tree with what looked like berries. We still have a toxin test kit, don't we?"

Kylo nodded stiffly.

"So we'll be okay. Probably."

"Provided this isn't a moon with vicious storms, or a sudden winter, or massive man-eating fauna."

"I think we could run from big animals," Finn said. "You've got those long legs."

He knew it was a mistake as soon as the words left his mouth. Kylo turned bright red, and Finn found himself staring at the legs in question. They weren't that long.

"Let's just work on survival," Kylo said, staring at a spot over Finn's shoulder.

"Trust me, I'm good at that." Finn looked around. He could see the Force more easily now, or rather more deliberately; instead of it just showing up, he could choose to focus. That was good, except that when he chose to focus just then, he saw fury and darkness swirling around Kylo, almost as bad as it had been during the duel.

The duel where Finn himself had killed someone. Finn closed his eyes and swallowed hard. "Shelter. We can't stay on the ship; one of our packs has an emergency tent, doesn't it?"

"You're not worried about sharing?"

"We don't have much of a choice. And at least you won't be making me pretend to date you. There's no one around here to impress."

"That's not what that was about."

"Uh-huh." Finn didn't see the point in pretending he cared why Kylo'd done it. "Well, it was still really weird, and there's still no one here. So."

"Plenty of people would be happy to be romantically linked to me."

"Romantically linked? Please. You're a terrorist, not a holodrama star."

"I'm very powerful. I have — had — the ear of the Supreme Leader." Kylo scowled. "I have the ear of Grand Admiral Hux, too."

"I kind of doubt it, since you've defected. Anyway, I have the ear of General Organa."

"She's my mother! I have her ear more than you do!"

Finn crossed his arms and raised his eyebrows. "You don't really believe that."

He could tell from the way Kylo sputtered that he didn't — though Finn didn't really care. It was true enough that Kylo was powerful, and it was also true that Finn didn't much care. It turned out that killing someone wasn't too hard after all. It certainly didn't indicate power.

It had been easy to kill the Sith Lord. Terrifyingly so. Finn thought about the light fading from her eyes. He wanted to shy away from the memory, but for a second it was like she was right in front of him again, only this time her stare was empty and dead and it was his fault and —

"Finn," Kylo said quietly, patiently. Like he'd said it more than a few times already.

"Sorry. What?"

"I said we should see what supplies we have." And, oh kriff, Kylo was looking at him with worry. "She deserved to die."

Finn wanted to tell Kylo to leave it alone. It wasn't his business; he had no right to comment; he was evil anyway, so why would Finn care about his reassurance? Instead Finn said the stupidest thing possible. "The people you've killed didn't."

Kylo didn't flinch. He didn't even blink. He wasn't human, Finn thought half-frantically. "Probably not."

"Probably?!"

"Some of them were likely murderers. People who hurt children, or animals, or —"

Suddenly Finn couldn't take it anymore. He leaped to his feet, hands curling into fists. "I'm tired of hearing this. Stay away from me."

He expected Kylo to storm after him, like he always did. Apparently Kylo had learned some kind of lesson: this time, he didn't follow.