The Force Rises - Chapter 4: The Revelation Machine (Star Wars)
Title: The Force Rises [AO3] [LJ] [FF] [Tumblr]
Chapter: The Revelation Machine
Universe: Star Wars
Pairings: Reylo (Rey/Kylo Ren | Ben Solo)
Word count: 1,050
Spoilers: All Star Wars movies through The Last Jedi.
Rating: NC-17/MA (eventually)
Chapter summary: Kylo deals with his latest revelation, and Rey struggles with an alarmingly high fever.
Rey continues to grow into her powers, carving her own path with the Force, while the Resistance rebuilds and regroups, gearing up for their next battle with the First Order.
The Force Rises
Chapter #4: The Revelation Machine
Kylo Ren despised surprises. They indicated vulnerabilities: poor planning, failed strategy, blind spots, and so on. Yet he couldn't help but be pleased over his current situation. Despite the months he'd spent fuming over Rey's rejection, seeing her again inspired something akin to join.
He attributed the wayward feeling to smugness. She had abandoned him, and whatever misadventures she had pursued in the meantime had clearly left her worse for the wear. It was as if the universe was reassuring him that it had been her mistake that squandered the beautiful future they could have shared.
He dismissed that train of thought for the more pressing matter at hand: Rey was, quite inexplicably, here.
The Force Bond.
His mouth went dry with trepidation. He was furious and curious, hopeful and suspicious. He knew better than to trust anyone or anything, least of all when he was getting anything he might want.
Kylo bit his tongue. It jarred him out of his head and into the moment. It was a crude method, but he had no need for grace. Only control.
She hasn't noticed yet.
It had been several seconds since he discovered her in his bed, ample time for her to realize that the Bond had opened. That wasn't like her.
That was when he noticed that Rey was sweating and shivering. Her eyes were closed, her lids fluttering at an unnatural speed.
Kylo dismissed the possibility that this was an elaborate ruse when a wave of disorientation echoed in the back of his mind, her experience leaking through the Bond. She was in the throes of a horrible fever, and there was no sign of medical intervention.
Didn't the Resistance take care of its assets? She should be in a medbay under cooling blankets with a swarm of medics monitoring her vitals. Yet there didn't seem to be so much as a meddroid to tend to her.
She looks like she's dying.
No, that was unacceptable. Rey wasn't allowed to die. Not like this.
His decision made, he closed in on her and said, "Rey?"
She flinched at the sound of his voice, but her eyes remained closed.
"Rey?" he repeated. "Can you hear me?"
"You're not here," she replied. "You can't be."
"I could say the same for you."
Her eyes snapped open. They were red, slightly swollen, and brimming with anger. She radiated fury.
"Not dressed," she grunted, turning away.
"You don't look well," he said.
"I'm fine."
"You're not."
When she didn't reply, he took the liberty of a quick visual exam, following a phantom ache down to her right ankle. It had swollen to nearly twice its size and had a long, inflamed gash across one size that was oozing a blackish green substance.
Why hasn't she treated it?
"Tell me what happened," he said.
Rey vaguely recalled her fall and her slow but sure limp to the nearest cover, but thereafter, things became murky.
Presently, she was inside a shallow cave with a fire burning at the entrance. She couldn't remember starting it, but she must have because she was alone.
Not alone enough.
Rey wasn't a fool. She recognized the symptoms her too-high fever, though she wasn't certain when it had started. She'd experienced one before when she contracted interstellar flu. She had spent a full standard week in her AT-AT, barely able to move. The fever had been mild until the last night, when it spiked and refused to drop.
She had seen and heard things that night that haunted her for years after: her faceless parents reassuring her, only to turn on their heels and leave without a word; Unkar Plutt finding her and laughing at her; other scavengers - no doubt informed by Plutt about her condition - breaking in and stealing what little she had; everyone leaving her for dead; being swallowed by the desert sands, never to be missed or mourned.
Comparatively, hallucinating a half-naked Kylo Ren was quite tame. That didn't make the situation any more palatable.
"Your ankle," he insisted for the umpteenth time.
"Go away, Kylo," she spat.
"Tell me."
Rey remembered inspecting her leg when she first took shelter. In fact, that was the last semi-clear memory at her disposal.
"Twisted it," she replied.
"You cut it with something poisonous."
Rey's last encounter with Kylo left a very bitter taste in her mouth, the kind that clings to the tongue and fouls every bite for days after. The Force had shown her a future that she desperately wanted. She had allowed herself to want it, to hope again.
"You poisoned it all," she snapped at him, unable to keep her thoughts behind pressed lips. "Everything. All of it."
"You rejected my offer," he said, the calm in his voice more threatening than his anger. "You left me to burn."
In lieu of laughter, Rey unleashed a hissing cough.
"I did," she replied. "Healed your head wound. Returned your saber. Left you to burn. Sounds like me."
She closed her eyes as silence greeted her words. She shouldn't be wasting energy arguing with her fever-induced hallucination. She needed to break her fever or at least reduce her temperature.
She grabbed her pack and upturned it, emptying the contents. She selected a spare towel and one of her spare canteens. As she dipped the cloth in water, a handful of the odd fruits she'd wrapped up earlier that day fell out. She pressed the cool cloth to her head with one hand and gathered the spilled contents with the other until she could examine the lot in the palm of her hand.
"Dekroi berries," remarked the voice of Kylo Ren.
"Why couldn't I hallucinate Leia or Finn?" she muttered.
She proceeded to eat the berries, inelegantly slurping them out of her hand. Their flavor was a strange combination of tangy, savory, and sour, oddly refreshing in its own right. She wasn't sure that she liked it, but she also didn't really care.
She was licking the last of its juices from her hand when a searing pain shot up her right leg, causing her back to spasm. She screamed as the pain continued up to her neck, expanding like the roots of a weed, splintering her into a hundred pieces.
Then everything went black.
Author’s notes: This chapter is a bit shorter than I originally intended, but I hope you've enjoyed this latest installment.
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