Chapter Text
‘Death Spiral’: Kylo Ren’s Latest Partner is OUT
September 1, 2016 – TMZ Staff
Professional figure skating’s most notorious figure, the infamous Kylo Ren, has found himself flying solo yet again. Once known for his fluid choreography and risky jumps, often incorporating the near-impossible quadruple lutz into his programs, in recent years Ren’s off-ice antics have made headlines more than his skating.
Representatives for Ren had only weeks ago announced his new partnership with up-and-coming French skater Sophie Villeneuve, Ren’s third partner since his disastrous seventh-place finish in national competition two years ago.
Unfortunately for Ren, TMZ sources report seeing Villeneuve storm out of a practice facility in downtown Coruscant yesterday morning. Representatives for Villeneuve issued a statement this morning confirming that she and Ren will no longer skate together.
(Representatives for Ren declined to comment on this story.)
It’s been a rough ride for Kylo Ren. Once the golden boy of figure skating (competing under his birth name, Ben Solo), Ren has spent the last six years weathering scandal after scandal: a ban from singles competition, his infamous drunk-driving arrest, and an ugly public split with his first coach, legendary skater Luke Skywalker. Earlier this year, TMZ obtained documents related to alleged assault charges filed against Ren after a barroom brawl with a young unnamed Manhattan financier.
Villeneuve’s departure is only the latest entry in the saga of a spiraling skater whose best days seem long behind him.
---
Rey sniffed and rubbed her nose against the edge of her glove, hefting her equipment bag onto one shoulder as she wedged her cellphone between the other and her cheek.
“Yeah,” she said, cursing as her bag thumped against the bumper of a parked car. “Professor Ramirez cancelled classes this afternoon, so I have some extra time to practice before the game tonight.”
“Right, because you need so much practice.” Rey grinned — she could almost see Finn’s affectionate eyeroll, the crooked smile of exasperation. “How many hat tricks this season?”
“One, but only because Unkar Plutt is the worst officiant in the league and didn’t count that goal against Tatooine when we both know he should have.”
“He probably remembered you from the home game against Naboo when you called him a liar right to his face.”
“He is a liar,” Rey grumbled as she continued making her way across the parking lot. “We both know they were offsides. I saw it, you saw it, he saw it. That goal never should have counted. And it cost us the game.”
“Two points, big deal. You’re still one of the top scorers in the league.”
“One of. I want to work on gaining speed through the line.”
“Rey, if you go any faster up the wings you’re going to break the sound barrier. Calm down.”
Rey sighed as she stepped over the concrete barrier leading to the rink. There was a man pacing by the doors, clutching his cellphone to his ear, every line of his body screaming frustration. Rey frowned a little, walking towards the farthest door from him. “Hey, I’m at the rink — I’ll see you at the game tonight, okay? Benny’s afterwards?”
“To celebrate our inevitable victory with pulled pork nachos? You’re on.”
“...I’m not speaking to some intern! Get Steve Asher on the phone, now.”
Rey raised an eyebrow as the man by the front doors all but spat the words into his phone. She whispered a quick “bye” to Finn, disconnected her own call and slipped her phone into her coat pocket before tugging on the closest entry door.
Locked.
Rey cursed under her breath, ducking her head down and attempting to skirt the building as the man paced. He was tall and broad-set, dressed all in black, and might have been handsome if not for his dark scowl and narrowed eyes. He looked oddly familiar, but Rey brushed the feeling aside.
“Excuse me,” Rey muttered, ignoring his glare as she attempted the front doors.
Also locked.
She let out a sigh of frustration. She’d called the rink manager, damn it, and he’d promised he’d leave the place open for her at two.
“Fine, then just give him a fucking message, okay? The new one is gone, and I need him to get someone with a functioning brain or he can take his retainer fee and fuck off.”
Rey dropped her bag at her feet and leaned back against the front doors. She raised her eyes to the heavens in mute supplication, biting back an oath and taking a deep breath. "Hey.”
“I don’t give a shit if he has a contract. That contract requires him not to be completely incompetent at his job.”
“Hey.”
“…don’t you fucking dare, kid. She stormed out — what was I supposed to do, throw myself in front of her car and beg forgiveness? It’s not my fault she couldn’t execute. Tell her to sue.”
“Hey.”
The man leveled her with a baleful stare. “Do you always interrupt people when they’re on the phone?” he asked, annoyed.
Rey tapped on the front door with one gloved hand. “Do you have a key? Mr. Howe said I could use the rink at 2.”
“Yeah, well, I’m still practicing.” He turned his back to her and resumed a string of profanity at the recipient of his call.
Rey narrowed her eyes and stalked over to him, grabbing his arm.
The man recoiled, looking at her in a mix of annoyance and disbelief. “I’ll call you back,” he said into his phone, pressing the ‘end call’ button and staring down at Rey.
Rey sighed, crossing her arms over her chest. “Look, I have to practice, too. Can you just open the door?”
The man laughed humorlessly, slipping his phone into his pocket. “Yeah, and you can be on this side of it. I have two more hours of practice scheduled, then they’ll have to resurface. You can ‘practice’…” He curved his fingers into quotation marks. “…after that.”
Rey huffed, taking another step closer. “I’m sorry, is there a reason we can’t share an Olympic-sized rink? Just let me in the damn building and I won’t get in your way, believe me.”
The man ignored her, moving towards the front doors. Rey dashed in front of him, pressing her back up against the doors and glaring at him.
The man narrowed his eyes at her. “Move.”
“No.”
He sighed angrily, carding one hand through his hair. “You’re definitely the most stubborn paparazzo I’ve ever seen. What do you want?”
Rey stared at him, uncomprehending. “I’m sorry, the most stubborn what?”
The man rolled his eyes. “Not the brightest one, though. Look, whatever they’re giving you to follow me, I’ll double it if you get the hell out of here in the next two minutes and don’t spin whatever you heard from that phone call into your next ‘story’. Deal?”
Rey gestured inarticulately, indicating the hockey bag at her feet. “I’m sorry, do you think this is all for decoration? One, I really need to practice, and two, I don’t know who the fuck you even are.”
The man raised an eyebrow at her, darkly amused. “Kylo Ren. You’ve heard of me.” It wasn’t a question, and it dripped with arrogance.
…of course. That’s why he looked familiar. She recognized him from any number of lurid tabloid covers, involved in this scandal, involved with that young ingénue.
“What, do you want an autograph?” the man sneered, pushing past her and slipping a key into the lock before she could react.
"No, you going to hell would be gift enough.” Rey gathered up her bag, ignoring the man’s amused glance as she ducked her head down and stalked back to her truck, trembling with rage.
She extracted her phone, thumbed through her favorite contacts and blindly hit the ‘call’ button.
“Hello?”
“No practice,” she ground out, leaning back in the driver’s seat and clenching her teeth. “Apparently the rink is guarded by a complete asshole.”
“Shit, what happened?” She could hear the rush of cars in the background — Finn must have been walking home from class.
“You worked at this rink awhile back, right? Did you ever run into Kylo Ren? The figure skater?”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “I used to drive the Zamboni,” he said finally. “Passed through after a couple of his practices. That dude is certifiable, Rey. Like I know the news is always talking about him getting in trouble or whatever, but I saw him literally throw his skates halfway across the rink, scream his head off, break benches… you name it.”
Rey frowned, casting a glance towards the rink.
“You didn’t, like, talk to him or anything, did you? I read somewhere that his last partner kicked his ass to the curb and he’s acting like a moody teenager who got dumped.”
“Yeah, I definitely got that from him.”
“What else did you get?” There was a hint of concern, but also curiosity, and Rey’s frown deepened.
“That I’m really glad I’m not skating next to him,” she said.
---
“Rey, go!”
Rey grit her teeth and ducked her head, skating hard up the left wing, guiding the puck along her stick. The opposing team’s defense struggled to regroup as she split through the offensive zone, dangling and deking, the crowd cheering as she took off into a dead breakaway.
She could hear her harsh breathing, feel her blood pounding as the world narrowed to just her oncoming rush and the goalie steadying himself, preparing…
He dropped down into the butterfly just as Rey fired a hard slapshot over his right shoulder.
“Yes!” The team swarmed her, yelling and pulling her into a tight hug as the goal light flashed and the goal horn blared. The crowd was on its feet, all cheering roars and jubilant screams.
Rey grinned, flashing a thumbs-up at Finn as he cheered from the bench. God, it had felt so good to stretch her legs like that on the breakaway, especially after she’d lost out on her solo practice session earlier in the day.
Rey frowned as she skated back to the bench, the celebration continuing around her. It still rankled: her lost practice, her encounter with Kylo Ren.
Rey rolled her eyes at the memory. She’d never really met a “celebrity” before, even a disgraced one, and if that’s what they all were like, she wasn’t sure she ever wanted to again.
Really, how hard would it have been to share the ice with her? Just for an hour? Just enough time to…
Lost in her thoughts, Rey didn't notice one of the defensemen she’d blazed past skating towards her at full-tilt, his eyes narrowed and shoulders squared.
“Rey, look out!”
She registered Finn’s warning a half-second before something large and heavy barreled into her, before she went careening backwards, before her head impacted with a sickening crack along the boards, before the crowd erupted into screams and horrified gasps and everything went dark.
---
THREE MONTHS LATER
---
NYPD Headquarters – New York, NY
Email Communication
NOTICE: The following exchange contains privileged information and is intended only for the use of the intended participants. If you are not one of the intended recipients, notify the sender and delete any and all copies of the included messages. Any unauthorized disclosure, use, distribution, or reproduction of this message or any attachments is prohibited.
From: [redacted]@ny.state.us
To: [redacted]@nyc.gov
Subject: Case KR
Hey, chief — did you get that request I CC’ed you on from upstairs? Wanted to make sure you were getting on that ASAP.
From: [redacted]@nyc.gov
To: [redacted]@ny.state.us
Subject: re: Case KR
Admin assistant is still filing paperwork but file shld show charges cleared asap. Sure about this? Vic was messed up pretty bad
From: [redacted]@ny.state.us
To: [redacted]@nyc.gov
Subject: re: re: Case KR
Vic can pursue civil (if he wants — last I heard we had a whole file on the Hux family. Kid’s not clean). Official DA position is that the case is dropped, no questions asked, and this conversation never happened. Personal favor for the Senator.
From: [redacted]@nyc.gov
To: [redacted]@ny.state.us
Subject: re: re: re: case KR
10-4 but she’s going to need a lot more favors for that kid of hers to get his s*&! together
From: [redacted]@ny.state.us
To: [redacted]@nyc.gov
Subject: re: re: re: re: case KR
Favors, hell. She needs a miracle.
---
“All right, gentlemen. This is the situation.”
Rey propped her elbows on the kitchen table, glancing from the two men sitting beside her to the spread of food before them: three packs of stove-top ramen, a half-empty bag of tortilla chips, a pack of almonds, a box of instant hot chocolate mix, and a dented can of peaches.
“Can you mix almonds with ramen?” Finn asked, sighing. “Is anyone’s bank account in the positives right now?”
“Well, after paying the electric bill, I’m at $2.50,” Poe noted, leaning back in his chair. “So, I mean, if we want to go real fancy we can split two items from the dollar menu.”
“Ah, so this is what the big time feels like.” Finn crooked a grin as Poe gently elbowed him in the ribs.
“Honestly, Rey, you should just eat the ramen; coach will probably have us eat something a little more protein-heavy before…”
Poe trailed off as Finn frantically waved his hands, shooting a wary look at Rey.
Rey crooked a smile at the two of them as she stood from the table, moving towards the kitchenette. “Guys, it’s been three months. It’s okay.”
“We still miss you, for what it’s worth,” Poe offered, abashed.
Rey nodded, bracing her hands against the chipped sink. “I know. Thanks.”
“No one’s saying you can’t come back to it when you’re…” Finn gestured to his head. “…better.”
“We’ll see.” Rey pursed her lips, staring out the small window over the sink.
“Because… I mean, it was so important to you for so long that…”
“Finn.” He turned to see Poe shaking his head.
Poe glanced at Rey, half-turning his back to her. “I had a nasty concussion in high school,” he murmured. “It’s not easy.”
“Hockey meant everything to her,” Finn whispered back. “I knew her through three foster homes, Poe. It kept her going.”
“She’ll come back to it. But in her time, not ours.”
Finn huffed, crossing his arms over his chest. “Well if you insist on being reasonable about it.” He grinned despite himself as Poe looped an arm around his shoulders and kissed his temple.
A sudden knock sounded from the front entryway, hollow against the termite-weakened wood of the front door.
“If it’s Vince McMahon, remember: split into even thirds, we discussed it.”
“Ed McMahon,” Rey called back to Poe distractedly as she moved to answer the door.
“I’ll take a check from either. I’m not picky.”
Rey tossed a grin over her shoulder as she peered through the fisheye, frowning a little at the unfamiliar diminutive woman on the other side of the door. She opened it a crack, peering past the security chain. “Hi, can I help you?”
The woman was immaculately dressed in a crisp pantsuit, her hair twisted into a series of intricate braids, freshwater pearls at her ears and draped across her neck. “Rey Kenobi?” the woman asked, and her voice was far softer than the clipped tone Rey had been expecting.
“…depends,” Rey answered carefully, one hand pushing against the door.
The woman smiled, and the corners of her eyes crinkled. “I’m not here to collect on a debt, if that’s what you’re thinking. Actually, I need your help.”
Rey frowned for a long moment before closing the door, just long enough to remove the security chain. When she opened it, the woman stepped fully into the apartment, making a beeline for the kitchen table. Despite her small stature, she carried herself like a queen, and Rey found herself following despite herself.
“Gentlemen,” the woman said warmly, taking a seat at the table, “if you’ll excuse us.”
Finn and Poe looked at each other, then around the tiny apartment.
“Well,” Poe said at last, “we do have this sudden windfall of cash to help with groceries.”
“Right,” Finn agreed, retrieving his coat. “And good timing, since we just ran out of filet mignon and all.”
“Text us if you need anything, okay, Rey?” Poe called back as he moved towards the doorway. He paused. “Like… thirty cents maximum, okay?”
Rey waved as he and Finn left, their curious gazes lingering just a little too long on the mystery woman seated at their table.
After they left, neither she nor Rey spoke for a long moment.
“You don’t know who I am, do you,” the woman said first, tilting her head to the side a fraction.
“I…” Rey’s mind flashed, unbidden, to a nearly-forgotten encounter from a few months earlier, dark eyes and open disdain, you’ve heard of me. “I’m sorry.”
The woman laughed, and Rey jumped. “It’s all right. I’m Leia Organa-Solo. It’s nice to meet you, Rey.”
Leia Organa-Solo. The name dropped into place, calling up some distant, dusty memory of the notorious spitfire figure skater who’d sat out the 1980 Olympics even before the Carter boycott, even though she was the odds-on favorite for gold in the short program.
“You’re a senator now, right? Something like that?” Rey said, struggling to remember if this was the same woman she’d seen on the news from time to time, a fiery orator on the Senate floor.
“Something like that.” Leia smiled. “We’re out of session for the next week, though, which gave me time to address some… pressing problems outside of my service to the republic.” She reached into her crisp white blazer and extracted a slim file, opening it and setting it on the table before her, delicately pushing aside the crumpled bag of tortilla chips.
Rey’s eyes widened as she stared at the dossier before her: her senior yearbook picture, blown up and paperclipped to a single sheet of paper, all small type and neat lines.
“Rey Kenobi, originally from Jakku,” Leia read, tapping the file with one manicured finger. “Age 21, junior in mechanical engineering at Coruscant University. Three years all-state hockey, MVP honors with the Coruscant Ice Warriors, league highest scorer.” She raised an eyebrow. “Quite a résumé. I imagine you must skate well, as a forward.”
“I mean… I held my own, I guess.”
“More than held your own, from what I’ve heard. Leading scorer, and as the only woman in a league full of men? Very impressive.”
“Yeah… well.” Rey shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “If you know all that, you must also know that I’m retired. Got leveled with an illegal hit during a game three months ago. They gave the guy who did it a lifetime ban, but…” She sighed, tapped her temple with her forefinger. “Damage done.”
“Mm,” Leia said noncommittally, leaning back in her chair. “I suppose I should get right to the point here, Rey. I need you on the ice.”
“…but I just told you, I’m not playing anym…”
“You were cleared to skate a month ago, weren’t you? Despite what you may have told your roommates.”
Rey froze, her blood running cold as she stared at the woman in front of her. “How do you know that?" she whispered.
“I’m not asking why you haven’t gone back. Your motivations are your own. Besides, I’m not here about your hockey skills.” Leia leaned forward, leveling her with a matter-of-fact stare. “I’m here about your skating skills.”
Rey blinked at her. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Have you ever heard of Kylo Ren?”
Kylo Ren. Rey’s mind flashed back to her chance encounter with the scowling man outside the local rink three months earlier, on what had ultimately become the worst day of her life. “Unfortunately yes,” she muttered, crossing her arms over her chest.
“So you know that he’s been encountering some… difficulties lately.”
“I don’t read the tabloids.” There was a note of hope on Leia’s face, but it faded when Rey finished: “…not that you need to to know that guy always seems to be in some kind of trouble. I actually met him once. Probably the single most unpleasant human being I’ve ever encountered.”
Leia sighed. “That does sound like my son, unfortunately.”
My son. Rey stared at Leia, mouth agape, the pieces starting to come together. “You’re Kylo Ren’s mother?”
“I am, though he’s certainly gone out of his way to hide that fact for some time now, ever since he changed his name to that ridiculous pseudonym. My son is Ben Solo."
“Which makes his father Han Solo? The Han Solo? The best enforcer to ever hoist the Stanley Cup way back with the Bruins in ‘70?”
Leia closed her eyes for a moment, a flash of pain across her aristocratic features. “Yes, he was,” she said softly. “We… lost my husband in an accident two years ago. Ben…” She shook her head. “Kylo, I’m sorry, I’ll never get used to calling him that… never even came to the funeral. They were deeply estranged, my husband and my son.”
Rey grimaced. “I, uh… I’m sorry.”
Leia nodded. “My apologies. Old wounds.” She cleared her throat. “But that’s not why I’m here. The truth is the situation with Ben is dire and getting worse. He’s been banned from singles competition because of his behavior, he’s losing sponsors left and right, and his last partner refused to continue skating with him after a... disagreement during practice.”
“It’s a shame,” Rey said carefully. “But I… I’m not sure how I can help with any of this.”
Leia’s gaze sharpened, and Rey found herself unable to look away from the older woman’s pointed stare. “I’m told you’re a strong skater,” Leia said. “And, more to the point, you can go toe-to-toe with skaters twice your size and body weight. You broke the glass ceiling in college hockey, infiltrated the boys’ club. I asked around — everyone I talked to said the same thing about your skating style: grit and determination.”
Leia’s appraising gaze never left Rey. “No figure skater has been able to weather the storm of my son. But maybe a hockey player can.”
Her words seem to hang suspended between them for a long moment, as realization slowly dawned on Rey. “You…” She struggled to articulate the words. “…you’re asking me to be Kylo Ren’s skating partner?”
“Yes,” Leia responded bluntly.
Rey stared at her, visions of sequins and Spandex dancing through her mind, pearly-white smiles and dainty spins. “No.”
“Rey…”
“I wouldn’t even be one of those ‘Ice Girls’ between periods when they tried to recruit me freshman year. No.”
“Would you like time to consider? There’s considerable benefit involved for you.”
“There is no way I am putting my physical safety in the hands of a man whose primary claim to fame is being the biggest asshole to ever strap on a pair of skates!” She winced a little at the look on Leia’s face. “…sorry.”
Leia waved away the apology. “Here’s the situation. Ben needs to qualify for and compete in Nationals this year, or it’ll be nearly impossible for him and his career to recover. You don’t have to be good, you certainly don’t have to win — there just needs to be a clear message sent that he’s still a contender. After Nationals, our agreement is at an end, and you’ll be fairly compensated for your time and effort.”
Leia flipped through the file and retrieved a small slip of paper, sliding it across the table to Rey with an expectant look.
Rey took the paper gingerly, scanning its contents. She blanched as the terms written on it registered. “…full tuition, current, future, and retroactive? Two years’ rent and utilities?”
“My lawyers and I have also discussed the possibility of a discretionary spending account for incidentals,” Leia said matter-of-factly. Her features softened. “And I’d like to add in my own contribution.”
Rey’s eyes were wide as saucers as she stared at Leia.
“A lifetime of hockey equipment and fees — sticks, pads, ice time, whatever you need — if you ever decide to return to the game.” She reached across the table and patted Rey’s hand. Her own was warm. “And, from what I’ve heard, you should. One day, when you’re ready.”
It was such a motherly gesture that Rey felt the pinprick of tears at the corners of her eyes, and she could almost forget the impossible proposal the woman had just laid out in front of her. “I…” Rey hesitated. “Mrs. Organa-Solo… uh, Senator…”
“’Leia’ is fine.”
“Okay… um, Leia…” The casual use of the woman’s name felt awkward on her tongue, but Rey pressed on. “This... this is a huge ask. I mean, I’ve never really skated skated. I did some pond skating when I was little, but this is…”
Rey trailed off, her eyes straying again to the paper in front of her and the bold-faced figures laid out on it.
A fat drop of water fell from the ceiling and landed square in the middle of it, and Rey and Leia both looked up to see a trickle staining the tile.
“…been meaning to call the super about that leak,” Rey muttered, cheeks flushing in embarrassment. She cleared her throat. “When do you need a decision by?”
“Three days, please,” Leia said, standing and dusting off her jacket. “Nationals are only six months out, and I’d need time to come up with a Plan B.”
“I just…” Rey stood, scrambling to open the door as Leia made her way to the front entryway. “I don’t know if this is possible.”
Leia smiled at her and patted her cheek. “I think you’re capable of a lot more than you give yourself credit for. Let me know.”
“I’ll…” Rey opened the door for Leia, leaning hard against it. “I’ll definitely think about it.”
Leia nodded. “Think long and hard, Rey,” she said, and her voice was soft and threaded with steel all at once. She handed Rey a slip of paper with a phone number written on it in a neat hand. “Call me when you’ve decided. Day or night.”
“I will,” Rey murmured. “Goodnight… Leia.”
“Goodnight, Rey.”
---
“…so that’s the story,” Rey sighed, resting her forehead against the scarred wooden surface of the kitchen table, a cool cloth draped over the back of her neck.
Poe and Finn stared at her, a basket of fries between them.
“So… are you gonna do it?” Poe ventured.
“I don’t know.” She raised her head and looked at them, biting her lip. “I mean… two years’ rent and utilities, guys. For six months of work.”
“Yeah, but six months with Kylo Ren,” Finn pointed out. He wasn't quite looking at her.
Rey sighed. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you guys about getting cleared to skate,” she said. “I just… didn’t want to feel like I had to come back until I was ready.”
Finn and Poe both nodded. “Look, whatever you decide, we’ll support you, peanut,” Finn said, grasping her hand. “Just call us every fifteen minutes from practice so we know you’re safe, okay?”
“Finn.” Rey sighed again and reached across to steal a fry. “I honestly can’t believe I’m even considering this.”
“Well,” Poe hazarded, “it can’t be too different, right? I mean, they have skates, we have skates. They’re on ice, we’re on ice. Their jerseys are a lot tighter and you don’t get to wear pants, but apart from that…”
“Poe, stop talking,” Rey muttered.
He winced, pushing the basket of fries towards her. “I’m sorry — just trying to lighten the tension with…”
“No, I mean…” Rey extracted her phone from her pocket, taking a deep breath and dialing the number on the slip of paper in front of her.
Finn and Poe exchanged a glance as Rey closed her eyes, counting her heartbeats as the phone rang.
Leia picked up on the fourth ring. “Rey?”
Rey almost laughed.
Of course Leia knew her number.
She’d never stood a chance against this woman.
“Leia,” Rey said, opening her eyes and nodding as Finn and Poe gave her simultaneous thumbs-up, “I’m in.”
---
The next morning, the sun still rising over the treetops, Rey found herself in the backseat of a limousine with Leia and a stern-faced bespectacled man bearing a thick stack of papers.
“Sign here,” the man said in a bored voice. “And initial here, here, and here.”
“Here’s the timeline,” Leia said as Rey scrawled her name across the forms. “Nationals in six months. Qualifying in four. You’ll need to take a temporary leave of absence from your university, which we’ve included paperwork for…” She raised an eyebrow at Rey for confirmation.
Rey took a deep breath and nodded. “And…” she began awkwardly, “…you’re, um, taking care of that, right?”
“Already paid in full. Rent and utilities paid in advance both at your apartment and a fully-furnished unit just down the street from the practice rink.”
“Seriously? Finn and I looked around there back in freshman year — unless something’s changed, the rents are insane at that complex.”
Leia waved off her incredulous stare. “Not a problem. Believe me when I say these provisions are the least I can do.”
The bespectacled man handed her a bank card after Rey finished signing the last form. “Discretionary account,” he said. “Currently set at $3k a month, with negotiable increases as needed.”
Leia cast an appraising gaze at Rey’s paling form. “Rey? Are you all right?”
Rey nodded weakly.
She felt faint.
And she hadn’t even attempted her first skating jump yet.
---
Two steps into the rink, and Rey’s breath caught as a wave of nostalgia crashed over her: the smell of ice and ozone, the blue-white cast of fluorescent lights, the smooth, crisp sound of blades cutting into fresh ice.
Rey froze at rinkside even as Leia continued walking ahead. There, skating laps around the freshly-resurfaced rink, was Kylo Ren.
He seemed to have gotten even larger since she’d last seen him, staggeringly broad and towering-tall on his skates. While most figure skaters she’d known and seen skating in the Olympics seemed small and willowy, even the men, Kylo was huge, biceps bulging under the short sleeves of his shirt, broad-chested and sturdy.
His skating style seemed in line with his broadness — rather than flowing across the ice, all fluid lines and graceful movement, Kylo seemed to attack it, eyes narrowed, skates digging in, turns sharp and angry.
Rey watched in rapt fascination as he suddenly turned backwards, launching into the air and rotating, landing easily on his right foot. It was astonishing to see such a giant of a man achieve such a flawless jump, but Kylo immediately began cursing, running an impatient hand through his hair.
“Nice salchow,” Leia said primly from ahead of Rey, her voice echoing through the empty rink.
“Thanks,” Kylo growled, not looking at her as he slammed his right toe pick into the ice.
“You bent your free leg during entry,” Leia said. She crossed her arms over her chest. “You know better.”
“Thanks for the advice.” Kylo’s voice was sardonic, his gaze dark as he noticed Rey still standing awkwardly at the periphery of the rink. “Who’s that?”
Leia seemed unmoved by the harshness of her son’s tone, and signaled Rey over. “I told you I was coming to apologize, didn’t I? For whatever slights you think I caused you.”
“Nice apology so far,” Kylo bit out.
“Mm.” Leia patted Rey’s hand as the younger woman joined her on the ice, avoiding Kylo’s darkly-appraising gaze. “Meet my apology. B—Kylo, this is Rey. Your new partner.”
Kylo stared at her for a long moment before turning his attention to Rey. “I’ve seen you before,” he said finally. “Where have you competed?”
“Coruscant. The university,” Rey said, not meeting his eyes. Taking a deep breath, she said, “I was three-time all-state. Skated with the Ice Warriors.”
Kylo’s gaze seemed to burn into her, taking in the faded, oversized hockey jersey, the torn workout pants.
Suddenly, he turned sharply to his mother, skates digging into the ice. “You brought me a hockey player.”
“Ben—"
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
Leia narrowed her eyes and drew herself up to her full height, and Rey found herself suddenly more terrified of the diminutive woman beside her than the towering giant on skates. “I gave you life, son,” Leia said flatly. “And I can take it away.”
Rey’s eyes widened as Kylo's demeanor seemed to soften slightly, and he ducked his head. “You said you were coming to apologize,” he grumbled, crossing his arms.
Rey rolled her eyes, somewhere between disbelief and disgust.
“And when you apologize for not speaking to me for six years, maybe we can talk.” Leia clasped her hand around Rey’s forearm. “This is my apology: finding you a partner who agreed to put up with your petulant bullshit and get you back to Nationals.”
Kylo leveled her with an incredulous look, hair falling into his eyes. “Can she even skate?”
Rey huffed, taking a step forward. “I’m sorry, what do you think we do in hockey: teleport up the ice?”
Kylo leaned forward, eyes dark as they bored into hers. “Difference between a salchow and a lutz: go.”
“Number of syllables?” Rey asked, voice sarcastic and eyes challenging as she raised up on her toes.
“I knew I recognized you: you’re that hockey brat who was here a few months back, weren’t you?”
“You mean when your last partner ditched you?”
“That’s enough.” Leia forcibly pushed between them, giving Kylo a hard thump to the chest and guiding Rey back to her side.
“My coach will never go for it,” Kylo said, grinding his teeth. “No way is he letting a hockey player skate with me.”
Rey felt Leia stiffen beside her, the woman’s fingers tightening on Rey’s arm.
Kylo’s gaze skimmed over his mother’s tightened posture. “Don’t start.”
“I didn’t say anything about your coach.” Leia’s voice dripped with disdain, and Kylo scowled.
Rey sighed, carefully disentangling herself from Leia’s grasp. “I don’t know why you’re so down on hockey players, anyway,” she muttered. “I sure as hell wouldn’t be if I were in figure skating and my dad was Han goddamn Solo.”
The rink seemed to go silent except for the soft hum of the air conditioners, and Rey felt her blood turn to ice as Kylo’s gaze darkened and seemed to run her through.
He suddenly pivoted, head down, and started to skate off the ice.
“Ben.” Leia’s voice was soft, weary, but it carried across the rink.
"That's not my—"
“You’re out of options. There’s nothing left. You’ve lost Under Armor and Nike. You’ve lost Yuki, Erin, Sophie. You don’t have a choice anymore. Either you try skating with Rey or you can kiss what’s left of that career of yours goodbye.”
Kylo paused at the rink’s edge, hands balled into fists at his sides.
“Why are you doing this?” he managed, his back to them, voice threaded with exhaustion and desperation all at once.
"You know why."
Rey stared at her curiously before realizing that Kylo was skating back to them, slowly, eyes still narrowed in mistrust.
Mother and son stared at each other, not speaking.
Finally, Kylo sighed and nodded. Leia reached out her hand hopefully, but he shied away.
Leia closed her eyes for a fraction of a heartbeat before straightening. “Right, then,” she said, voice crisp and matter-of-fact, bearing none of the heartache that Rey had seen carved into the lines on her face. “Ideally you’ll start practicing today, but I understand if you need some time to process this and want to start tomorrow.”
Kylo sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Does she even have skates?”
Leia frowned, glancing at Rey. “I hadn’t thought about that. You do, don’t you?”
“Yeah.” Rey ducked between her and Kylo, retrieving her bag from the nearest rink side bench and looping her skates over her shoulder. Her hand lingered over the left boot, and she glanced at the ice, a heady thrill rising up in her chest. God, how she’d missed this. Even within the circumstances, even with Kylo Ren staring at her like she had two heads, she’d missed this. “I can lace up now and we can practice. A bit. You know, if you want to.”
Kylo face-palmed as Rey rejoined them on the ice. “Hockey skates,” he mumbled beneath his palm.
“Yeah, what’s the difference?”
Leia muttered a soft “oh dear” as Kylo rolled his eyes and pointed to the toes of his own skates, the jagged metal. “Toe picks,” he emphasized. “For digging in before jumps. Try to take off with those and you’ll be face-down on the ice in two microseconds, kid.”
Rey narrowed her eyes. “I’m nobody’s ‘kid’.”
“Did you really not know the difference between hockey skates and figure skates?”
“Look, I’ll buy her new skates and bring them back this afternoon, all right?” Leia said, waving her hands in concession. She cast an appraising gaze over Rey. “Size 8?”
Less than two days and she’d already stopped being unnerved by Leia’s uncanny knowledge of her. Rey nodded.
“For today, just… try to get along.” Leia narrowed her eyes at Kylo. “Especially you.”
Kylo sighed, furrowing his brow. “I have to get coach here to see if he can start putting her through her paces today, then.”
Leia glared at her son, lips drawn into a tight, thin line. “My one condition to this agreement: your ‘coach’ is not getting anywhere near Rey.”
“Mom—“
“Don’t start with me.” Leia’s voice was raised, angry, harsh, and Rey stared at her, eyes wide as Leia tugged her protectively close. “I won’t let him do to her what he’s done to you.”
“Make her successful, you mean?” Kylo bit out. “Powerful? Worthwhile?”
Leia’s shoulders were shaking, and she kept Rey close. “I’ve long since stopped trying to make you see sense,” she said quietly, voice thick with old pain. “I won’t send her to Snoke’s slaughter, too.”
Leia straightened, shooting Rey an apologetic glance. “You can keep training with him individually if you want. But I’ve hired an old friend to coach the two of you together.”
“It had better not be—“
“No, not your uncle.” Leia sighed. “I swear, Ben, you’d think I’ve taken all leave of my senses. It’s hard enough doing this without trying to repair that bridge. Maz Kanata agreed to come out of retirement, just for the next six months.”
“Maz Kanata?” Rey asked quizzically.
“Crazy old bat,” Kylo muttered.
“With more championships than you have years on this earth, so stuff the snide remarks,” Leia shot back.
Kylo rolled his eyes but remained silent.
Leia pressed her thumbs to the backs of her own eyes, sighing deeply.
Rey glanced to the exit doors to the rink, idly wondering just how binding the forms she’d signed were.
---
“All right, let’s start with the basics.”
Kylo skated out to center ice as Rey watched, her arms braced against the sideboards.
They’d stared at each other after Leia had left to track down skates for Rey, not speaking for a solid minute before Kylo had sighed, run a hand through his hair, and agreed to show Rey a few skating moves that didn’t require toe picks.
“Pay close attention,” he called over, voice gruff as he extended his arms, bent his left knee and skated slowly forward on his right foot. “Forward chasse.”
He glanced down-ice at Rey, whose arms had dropped to her sides, fists clenched.
Kylo skated into a soft curve, turning slightly before curving back. “Inside 3 turn. Do you need me to do that one again?”
Rey didn’t answer.
“And here…” Kylo moved into a two-foot glide, picking up speed before curving his skates inward to come to a slow, easy stop. “Snowplow stop.”
He pivoted, raising an eyebrow at Rey’s stock-still form by the boards.
“Are we going too fast? We can probably find something even simpler to…”
Kylo’s eyes widened as Rey suddenly shot past him, skating hard across the ice. She turned to face him, eyes burning into him and mouth drawn into a tight, angry line as she launched into backwards crossovers, a series of bracket turns, and a camel spin, arms curved tightly towards her body, one leg extended.
When she stopped, she glared at him from up the ice. “I learned 3 turns when I was three, you absolute jackass,” she yelled back.
Rey’s shoulders were heaving with exertion, and she narrowed her eyes in anticipation of the sarcastic comment she was sure would shortly arrive.
Instead, Kylo just stared at her, mouth agape, something inscrutable in his eyes.
“What?” Rey ground out.
The look in his eyes disappeared, and Kylo crossed his arms over his chest, features settling into familiar arrogance and derision. “Nice moves for a sixth-grader,” he retorted. “Now do a double axel.”
“Ahh, Leia didn’t tell me I’d be coaching children. Brings me back to the old days. Don’t think I’m taking you for ice cream after practice.”
Kylo sighed, dropping his head into his hands as a tiny, wizened old woman appeared rink-side, leaning heavily against a cane. Her glasses were huge and Coke-bottle thick, her hair thin and wispy; her large overcoat seemed to engulf the entirety of her small body.
The woman stepped onto the ice, casting an appraising glance at Kylo. “Hmph. ‘Kylo Ren’. That’s what we’re calling you now, are we?” She tsked and tapped his knee with her cane. “Didn’t remember you asking for some fancy name when you were crying for your mother in peewees, Ben Solo.”
Kylo glowered at her, but Maz seemed unconcerned, adjusting her glasses and tapping her way down the ice to Rey.
“Is it safe for you to be on the ice with that?” Rey asked carefully, gesturing to the old woman’s cane.
Maz laughed, a deep, gravelly sound. “Girl, I’ve been on this ice since before your mother was born. Probably even your grandmother. This stick isn’t going to take me down on it.” She cupped a hand to her chin, hmm-ing as she slowly circled Rey. “So you’re the poor bastard Leia suckered into this whole thing, eh?”
“I’m…”
“I was talking to myself.” Maz quirked an eyebrow at her and grinned. “But ah, she’s a good woman, that Leia. Wouldn’t do this for anyone but her.” She paused. “Maybe the husband. On a good day. If I was feeling generous.”
Rey smiled despite herself. It faded as she noticed Kylo’s dark look from down ice, and she sighed. “Look, I’ll be honest with you,” Rey said quietly. “Kylo is really not happy that I’m here.”
“And I’m sure he’s not happy that I’m here, either. He’s not happy if anyone’s here. Not happy in general, that boy. But we’ll make do.”
“I… I mean, my background’s in hockey. Not so much figure skating.”
“Mm, Leia told me.” Maz raised her glasses and cast an appraising glance over Rey’s form. “So you’ve got grit, heart, determination. All you need. Everything else is just practice. Ben!” Rey jumped as Maz suddenly yelled, pointing her cane to him and then back to the ice where she and Rey stood. “Get your sulking self down here and let’s get to work.”
---
Maz settled in on the bench Rey and Kylo hauled onto the ice for her, grumbling as she sat down. “Are these things getting more uncomfortable or am I just getting older?” she groused.
“Both,” Kylo muttered under his breath. He turned to Rey. “New skates fit okay?”
“Yeah. I'm still breaking them in, though. New skates are the worst.” Rey frowned as she gently tapped the ice with her new toe picks. Leia had stopped by long enough to hand her a pair of beautiful pure-white skates, shooting a pained glance towards her son and leaving before he could notice her. Rey had watched her go, then glanced back to Kylo, wondering just how deep the family drama in which she’d become entangled ran.
“All right,” Maz’s crisp voice cut into Rey’s reverie. “Let’s see what the two of you can do. Hand-hip hold. Go.”
Rey froze as Kylo skated to her side, curved one hand around her hip and took her hand with the other. He attempted to tug her backwards, frowning as Rey pulled violently from his grasp.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Kylo stared at her incredulously. “’Hand-hip hold,’” he repeated, pointing to Maz. “What, do you think starting with a waist hold will be easier?”
“At what point did I say you could touch me?!”
Kylo threw his hands up in the air, glaring at her. “Sorry, I forgot, I’m supposed to levitate you into your lifts.”
“Children,” Maz sighed in exasperation. She stood, leaning on her cane and assessing them with a hard stare behind her glasses. “Laps. Now. You.” She pointed at Kylo. “Basic step sequence. Hand-hip. Go slow, and don’t get cute.”
Kylo grimaced before gingerly placing his hands back to their original position, even as Rey leaned away from him and tried to touch him as little as possible.
“For fuck’s sake, Rey, I’m not going to bite you,” he ground out.
“I didn’t realize there was so much touching involved,” Rey muttered.
“Wait until we get into lifts. Are you ready?”
“No,” she said. “But go anyway.”
It was one of the most awkward things she’d ever experienced — in hockey, skating in close quarters was violent; it meant throwing checks and shoulders, hooks and trips and slashes. But Kylo kept her in as light a hold as humanly possible, barely touching her as they slowly, very slowly, skated to one end of the rink and back.
“Your timing is terrible and you look like two frightened kids at a middle school dance,” Maz said bluntly as they skated to a stop in front of her. “Never got past the whole ‘girls have cooties’ phase, Ben?”
“For fuck's sake, Maz, it's Kylo. And she’s the one who’s being a baby about it,” Kylo ground out. “I don’t know how you expect me to work with a partner who can’t seem to get her head around the fundamentals of pairs skating, namely I have to touch you,” he said to Rey, exasperated.
Maz sighed, taking off her glasses and sitting them on the bench next to her. “Side-by-side,” she said, meaningfully. “Rey, can you do a camel spin?”
“That one I can do.”
“Then go. Kylo," she said, curling her arthritic fingers into air quotes and ignoring Kylo's responding scowl, "lead.”
They skated to center ice, heads down, fists clenched. “Let me guess,” Kylo muttered to Rey as they moved side-by-side. “My mother’s paying you some exorbitant amount for this.”
“None of your business,” Rey spat at him.
“Non-disclosure agreement?”
“No. She just didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”
“More or less than 100K?” he asked evenly. Before Rey could answer, he counted off: “3, 2, 1, and…”
Rey scrambled into a spin beside him. His rotations were slow, steady, and she tried to match her timing to his.
“Better!” Maz called from down-ice. “Again!”
“Lots of moving parts,” Rey muttered back. “Hard to tell. Does it bother you?”
Kylo shot her an incredulous look, shaking his head before pivoting and skating ahead.
Rey bit her tongue and followed.
---
ONE WEEK LATER
---
“All right,” Maz said, hauling out a binder from the canvas tote at her side and opening it on the table in the rink’s back office. “Here’s the choreo I have in mind for your exhibition skate.”
“Our exhibition skate?” Kylo asked in stark disbelief. He leaned his elbows against the table, barely glancing at the list of moves in front of him. “We haven’t even gotten Rey to do a single axel yet and you’re trying to take her into exhibition? There’s no way she’s ready. When is it?”
“A month,” Maz said easily, slipping her glasses up the bridge of her nose.
“Not a chance in hell.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, partner,” Rey remarked, leaning back in her chair.
“It’s not a vote of confidence, it’s fact,” Kylo said flatly. “You’re not ready, and we’ll both look like idiots if we try it.”
“Kylo, come here.” When he leaned closer, Maz smacked him on the back of the head, unmoved as he cursed under his breath. “This is a PR move. In which, frankly, you can use all the help you can get. A week from now, we issue a press release introducing Kylo Ren’s new skating partner, generate a ton of buzz, and voila!” Maz gestured widely. “We get to prove what we’re made of, the public gets to see Rey in action, and you make headlines for something other than one of your ill-advised decisions.”
“So I make it for one of my mother’s instead.”
“Exactly. See, you’re learning.”
Kylo shot Maz an annoyed glare before turning to Rey. “Do you honestly think you’ll be ready to skate publicly in a month?” he asked her, gaze appraising and doubtful.
Rey bit the inside of her lip, looking down at the complicated-sounding list of moves in front of them. “Not really,” she admitted. “But I’ll try my best. It can’t be that hard.”
“How many axels have you landed, again? Remind me.”
“One.”
“One-half. It doesn’t count if you fall on the landing.”
Rey suddenly pushed back from the table and stood, glaring down at Kylo. “You know what,” she said in a dark voice, “I’m getting really sick of this. I came in here as a favor, and you can’t get over yourself and your ego long enough to stop belittling me every chance you get. I’d love to see you in a hockey game, you know that? So I could circle you and ask you how many goals do you have, Ben, how many turnovers…”
“…and that brings us to our choreography,” Maz said, pointedly drawing Rey and Kylo’s attention back to the paper in front of them. “Now, most pairs skating is fluid. Beautiful. You have two people who have a lovely working relationship and can translate that into lovely moves.”
Maz afforded the two of them a flat stare over her glasses. “Unfortunately,” she said in a disaffected voice, “I have the two of you. So we’re going to do something a little different.”
Kylo raised an eyebrow at her as he started to read the elements of the routine. "This isn’t a program,” he said after a long moment. “This is a battle.”
“Exactly,” Maz said. There was a glint of impish delight in her eyes. “Aggressive skating. Face-to-face holds. As many rotations as we can fit into your spin and twist lifts. Who knows? Maybe it’ll help the two of you get it out of your system. Maybe you’ll kill each other. Either way, my life gets a lot easier.”
Rey peered over Kylo’s shoulder, frowning a little. “I don’t know what half of the terms on this even mean,” she admitted, biting her lip.
“No kidding,” Kylo muttered. “We have a lot of work to do.”
---
ONE WEEK LATER
---
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Asher & Asher Representation
Kylo Ren Partners with Rey Kenobi for 2017 Competition Season
After a long search for a fitting partner suitable to his skating style, champion figure skater Kylo Ren is pleased to announce his partnership with newcomer Rey Kenobi for this year’s US Figure Skating competition season. Kenobi boasts 15 years of skating experience and brings a fresh perspective to the world of skating. Currently a junior at Coruscant University, the fiery 21-year-old Jakku native and Ren have already established extensive chemistry on the ice. Coaches have reported an intriguing rapport between the two skaters that they are confident will lead to an award-winning season.
---
“I know your hand wasn’t supposed to go that low on that hold, Kylo!”
“Please, if I wanted to feel up some skinny combative brat, I’d go back to college.”
Rey huffed and skated away from his grasp, wincing as she rolled out her shoulders. “God, I’m sore. I didn’t realize there was so much stretching involved with this stuff.” She glanced to the now-empty bench at rinkside. “Wait, where’s Maz?”
“She left about fifteen minutes ago. Said we could keep practicing or call it a night,” Kylo said distractedly, tugging on one of his gloves.
“…oh.” Rey did a few simple turns, avoiding Kylo’s gaze.
They’d never been alone before, and the rink suddenly seemed so much smaller than usual.
“What do you want to do?” he asked, skating closer to her.
Rey instinctively skated back.
Kylo frowned but remained rooted in place. “Look,” he said after a moment, “why don’t you take off? I’m scheduled for practice with my coach in an hour so I should probably rest a bit beforehand. He doesn’t go easy, even after a day of pairs practice."
His coach. Rey frowned a little, remembering Leia’s reaction to the mentions of him on their first day together. “Your mother doesn’t like him much,” she said. “Your coach, I mean.”
Kylo stared at her, something dark in his eyes. “My mother doesn’t understand his methods. Everything I am as a skater, I owe to Snoke.” He clenched his gloved hands into fists, staring into the middle distance. “They wanted me to just be a part of the family legacy,” he murmured, and Rey unconsciously skated closer to hear him. “Snoke saw more than that. He saw the power I could bring to competition, how far I could go. He encouraged that when no one else did. When they didn’t.”
Rey’s brow furrowed in confusion as she skated closer. “Who’s ‘they’? Your mother adores you. Do you think she would have found me and brought me here if she didn’t?”
Kylo whipped around to face her, and Rey stumbled back at the sheer darkness of his gaze. “You don’t understand,” he bit out. “You don’t understand it anymore than she ever did.”
Before she could even protest, Kylo stormed past her, angrily ripping his skates off rinkside and heading for the locker room.
Leaving Rey standing at the boards, utterly bewildered, staring after him.
A deep sigh suddenly sounded from the far end of the rink, and Rey turned to see a grey-haired man in a heavy coat also staring in the direction Kylo had stormed towards, shaking his head a little.
Rey frowned, skating over to the man. “Hey,” she said shortly, “this is a private practice.”
“I know.”
“If you’re here for money…”
To Rey’s surprise, the man laughed, gazing at her with soft blue eyes, deep crows feet at the corners. “I’m doing all right, but thank you.” He cocked his head towards the locker room. “Glad to see my nephew’s social skills haven’t deteriorated since I stopped coaching him.”
Rey’s eyes widened in recognition. “You’re Luke Skywalker.”
The man laughed again. “I’m afraid so.”
“You’re… I mean, you were one of the best skaters of the 1980s. Even I’ve heard of you.”
“Well, thank you.” He smiled at her. “Haven’t really done much since those days, though. Tried to keep a low profile, especially after everything that happened with Ben. Kylo,” he corrected himself.
“You were his coach, weren’t you,” Rey said quietly. “Before… the other one came in.”
A dark look crossed Luke’s face, and he nodded. “And you’re Rey Kenobi, his new partner, right? I saw the press release.”
“You mean the press release that was mostly lies? Yes, that’s me.”
“That’s all press releases, really. It didn’t mention anything about who’s training you.”
“Maz Kanata.”
“Maz is working with you in pairs. Snoke…” He frowned. “…is working with Ben. Who’s coaching you?”
Rey hesitated, glancing down at her skates, back to the rink. “Nobody, I guess.”
Luke was quiet for a long moment.
Then:
“I think we could both use a cup of coffee.”
---
“It started six years ago.”
Rey sipped carefully at her latte as Luke tore open a packet of sugar and stirred it into his mug. “We’d already been fighting a lot by then. He wanted to go faster, skate harder. I wanted him to refine the moves he’d already been close to mastering. He had so much raw talent — a frightening amount, really — but, well, it was hard for him to get out of the shadow of his parents. Of all of us.” Luke shrugged, taking a long draught from his coffee.
“Did they support him?” Rey asked. There were two croissants in front of them, untouched. Neither of them seemed to have much of an appetite.
Luke hesitated, setting his mug down with a gentle ‘clink’. “Leia did,” he said finally. “Han… wanted to. But it was hard for him. He’d never really wanted kids, but he came around to it a little once Ben was born and he got used to the idea of having a son. But when Ben went with figure skating instead of hockey like Han had wanted him to… things fractured.”
“Leia told me he didn’t even go to his father’s funeral.”
“Oh, things were long broken by that point. Once things between him and Han started fracturing — this was was Ben was 14, maybe 15 — Leia sent him to live with me. Figured I could coach him, teach him right.” Luke sighed. “I failed.”
“He won three Nationals titles in a row, didn’t he? When he was Ben Solo, he was a phenom. Two-time champion at Worlds, gold in Olympic singles back in 2010. I wouldn’t exactly call that ‘failing’.”
Luke crooked a smile at her. “Been reading up on him?”
Rey flushed a little, downing another mouthful of latte. “For better or worse, he’s my partner in this thing. I wanted to know a little more about him.”
“Yeah, well, start with the tabloids,” Luke sighed. “He’s always had poor impulse control. A streak of low self-esteem. Snoke saw that and preyed on it. That’s when we lost him. Bastard took his name, his family, probably his soul if you believe in that kind of thing. We're still struggling with the fallout from it.”
Rey worried her lower lip between her teeth. “Leia told Kylo... told Ben that I wasn’t allowed to work with Snoke under any circumstances.”
Luke nodded. “Leia’s smart. She knows Snoke’s reputation. We both do. Man has a sadistic streak a mile long. He’s only in it for the power and prestige, the money. He’ll grind his skaters into dust and bleed them dry, then toss them when they can’t compete and are of no use to him anymore. I’ve heard of him making players skate through severe injuries — calls it ‘character building’. There were rumors back in the day that one of his trainees ended up paralyzed. Only rumors, but I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Rey stared at him, aghast. “And Kylo still trains with him?”
Luke was silent, adding another packet of sugar to his coffee. “I don’t think he knows a way out anymore.”
He looked up at Rey, brow furrowed as if suddenly remembering she was there. “Anyway. I didn’t bring you here to air a bunch of family dirty laundry. I wanted to make you an offer.”
“After your sister’s, I’ve become a bit wary of offers.”
“Understandably. Leia isn’t great at taking ‘no’ for an answer once she has a plan in mind.” Luke grinned at her, and there was a youthful spark in his eye. “Here’s the deal: Maz tells me that you’re adapting well to the whole skating switch, but that you could still use some one-on-one. Leia’d hoped that she could do it, but the Senate’s back in-session and she has two bills in committee that she’s watching like a hawk.”
Luke leaned back in the booth and gestured to himself. “I’m more than a little out of practice, and I don’t know as much about women’s skating as my sister does, but we can probably get you to a place where you can skate in exhibition without too many problems.”
Rey stared at him. “Are you offering to coach me?”
“Just on a trial basis. You don’t have to say yes, you can keep working with Maz if that’s more comfortable for you.”
“Let me get this straight,” Rey repeated, shaking her head and setting down her latte. “You, Luke Skywalker, Olympic gold medalist in figure skating, are offering to coach me.”
“Well… yes.”
“Then... yes,” Rey grinned.
---
TWO WEEKS LATER
---
“Ready? Go.”
Kylo quickly skated back to center ice after queueing up their music (Maz, in keeping with the ‘battle’ theme of their choreography, had chosen Verdi’s Dies Irae. Rey, for her part, was grateful that Kylo kept the “so the world really is ending” comments to a minimum).
Rey was exhausted down to her bones but grit her teeth and moved through the routine with Kylo. She’d been practicing seven days a week — pairs sessions with Kylo in the mornings, solo practice with Luke in the evenings at a different rink two towns over. She’d started making use of the furnished apartment Leia had leased, just to be able to keep her eyes open at morning practice.
“You’re getting better,” Kylo noted as they skated side-by-side in their midline step sequence. Maz had incorporated soft, smooth turns, Chocktaws and Mohawks, but Kylo’s aggressive skating style and the bombastic backing music gave them a sharp steel and hardness that left the turns feeling more predatory than anything.
Rey thought she saw a hint of a smile cross Kylo’s features as they transitioned into a hard waist hold, skating face-to-face. “Ready?”
Rey grimaced. “I hate this part.”
“And…”
She held her breath as Kylo lifted her effortlessly over his head, one-handed, and Rey’s pulse thundered as she tried not to look down, bracing one hand in a death-grip against his shoulder.
“Hold your legs further apart next time,” he said to her as he brought her down. “They need to stay in a sharp V.”
“Noted, professor.”
Kylo did smile then, and Rey nearly tripped over her skates but recovered in time to transition into their spiral sequence. They moved into the paired Arabesque, Kylo’s hand resting over her abdomen as they spun, and it was still so awkward to be so close to someone, but it was getting easier, somehow.
“Throw jump next,” Kylo said as he moved her into position for catchfoot.
“Oh God... okay. Let’s do it.”
“Just a double, remember. We’ll work up to a triple.”
“I know.”
The music swelled, and Kylo wrapped his arms around her and threw.
Rey wasn’t sure she’d ever get used to how long jumps seemed to last in her mind, almost as if they were in slow motion, even though she knew outside they occurred in a second or less. She tucked her hands close, counted rotations — one, two, three — and landed, right foot steady, left leg extended behind her, arms out.
Kylo stared at her in open awe before cursing and rushing to get back into position.
By the time the routine was finished, Kylo was shaking his head, skating over to turn off the music, glancing back at Rey over his shoulder.
“Not bad,” he said finally. “But you still need a teacher.”
“Oh, do I?” Rey grinned at him as he skated back to her. “I seem to be doing just fine for a… what was it you called me that first week? ‘Neanderthal on skates’?”
“That was before I saw you execute a Biellmann.”
“Ah, is that what it took?”
“Apparently.” Kylo was smiling again, closer than before, and Rey felt her heart beat faster.
“Rey…” Kylo started.
His smile disappeared, replaced by a look of pure, dark fury as he looked past Rey to the rink’s entrance.
Luke was standing there, coffee in hand, raising an eyebrow at his nephew’s trembling fury. “Ben,” he said mildly, raising his coffee in salute.
“Get out.” Kylo spat between clenched teeth. “Now.”
“Kylo.” Rey said, narrowing her eyes and tugging him back as he started to stalk over to his uncle. “Look…” she started, sighing. “Luke has been training me. On my own.”
Kylo looked at her in stark disbelief, eyes dark, something that looked strangely like betrayal within their depths. “You’ve been working with him?”
“I offered,” Luke said, stepping onto the ice.
“This has nothing to do with you, you son-of-a-bitch.”
“She needed to practice. Needed to learn.” He gestured to Rey. “I watched your practice, you know. Tell me you can’t notice a difference. She’s confident. She never would have had that with you and you know it.”
Kylo was seething, hands clenched into fists, but he remained silent.
Luke stood straight, unflinching, as he stared down his nephew. “Can she execute a throw jump with you? A double axel? Can the two of you skate in-sync?”
“We can,” Rey answered when it was clear Kylo had no intention of doing so. “That’s what matters.”
She attempted to place a hand on Kylo’s arm, but he rebuffed her, not meeting her gaze.
Luke sighed, running a hand over his face. “I’ll see you tonight for practice, Rey,” he said. He glanced back to Kylo. “And it was… good seeing you, Ben.”
“Kylo,” he ground out.
Luke observed him for a long moment before shaking his head and departing the ice.
Rey watched him go, wringing her hands together and staring up at Kylo. His rage seemed to have depleted him somehow, and he seemed gray-faced, tired. “Do you want to call it a day?” she asked carefully.
Kylo turned roughly from her, skating back to rinkside and queuing up the music again. “You need all the help you can get,” he said in a gruff voice. “Go.”
Rey narrowed her eyes at him, and they glared at each other as their battle resumed.
---
ONE WEEK LATER
---
REPORT
Olivet Regional Hospital – Emergency Intake
Attending: Dr. Harter Kalonia
29-year-old male admitted with facial laceration (length: 8cm; depth: 0.25cm) incurred during figure skating incident. During a skating routine, patient’s partner made accidental contact with her skate blade to patient’s right suborbital ridge and cheek. Moderate bleeding. No other symptoms, no loss of sensation related to the injury, no symptoms of vascular compromise. Closure performed with 53 6-0 nonabsorbable sutures (removal advised in 3-5 days). Good cosmetic results. Percocet 7.5/325mg administered for pain. Local wound care discussed. Observe for signs of infection, bleeding, and follow up promptly if these symptoms occur.
---
Kylo stared blankly at the ceiling, counting the dots on the tile. He was at 77 when a soft voice sounded from the door to his room.
“Hey.”
He ignored it. 78… 79…
“I brought you coffee. Two milks, two sugars. Heard that’s how you like it.”
Rey sat the coffee down on his tray before sitting heavily in the plastic chair at his bedside, frowning a little at the beeping machine beside him. “How long has it been doing that?”
“I don’t know — how long have I been here?” The words came out harsher than he’d intended.
“Three hours and counting. Your mother called; she’s in North Dakota but sends her love.”
“What the hell is in North Dakota?”
“Pipeline protests, apparently.”
“Oh.”
There was silence between them for a long moment.
“You know,” Kylo said tersely, gesturing to the bandages on his face, “if I’d known you were going to try to kill me, I would have been a little nicer to you when this whole thing started.”
“You should have been nicer to me anyway,” Rey said in a bland voice, idly thumbing through her phone. “And you’re not dying.”
Kylo winced and pushed up onto his elbows, leveling her with a flat stare. “Thanks for the apology.”
“I’ve apologized to you at least six times now. It was an accident. We misjudged the distance and got too close for the side-by-side camel spins. Both of us.”
He huffed and flopped back onto his pillow.
“On a brighter note, apparently some blogger has already posted a review of tonight’s exhibition. Want to hear?”
“Sure.”
“Okay, here goes.” Rey pinched the screen of her phone between thumb and forefinger, enlarging the text before starting to read. “’More paso doble than waltz, Kylo Ren’s first program with new partner Rey Kenobi carried the same hard-edged aggression we’re used to seeing with Ren’s skating, but with the added treat of seeing a skater who can hold their own in pairs with him. Newcomer Kenobi is an intriguing performer: unpolished, with room for improvement (we noted a few failed rotations and step-outs), but with a hard-nosed style that seems the perfect match for Ren’s unorthodox skating. Kylo Ren is known for the way he doesn’t work with the ice so much as attack it, and in Kenobi, skating’s most infamous figure seems to have found a partner who’s more than a match for him.’”
"Hm.”
“Wow. That’s almost glowing praise, considering. Someone actually being a match for you.” Rey grinned at him, smile fading as he began to laugh, darkly, humorlessly. “What?”
“It’s just funny,” he said, picking at a stray thread on his hospital blanket, “when you think about it. My mother spent, what, thousands? Hundreds of thousands of dollars? Whatever, paying an exorbitant amount to find me a partner who could revive my career, and what happens? She gets the good press. I get a skate to the face.”
Rey sighed, tossing her phone onto the seat beside her. “Are you quite done feeling sorry for yourself, or do you need more time?”
Kylo leveled her with a dark gaze, shaking his head in disbelief. “You have no idea what it feels like," he muttered. "To struggle for everything, to feel empty all the time, to push and struggle and bleed and try for greatness only to have it slip past you every damn time.”
Rey rose to her feet and angrily grasped the bars of Kylo’s hospital bed.
"You come from sports royalty. You have more money than you know what to do with and a shelf of awards, and you're telling me I don't know what it feels like to struggle?” she hissed at him, bringing her face close to his bandaged one. “No one wanted me. You think I was never lonely? You think I never wanted for anything? My mother left me in a room like this as soon as I was born. I spent my life in foster homes until I finally aged out and worked three jobs to pay for college. Don’t you dare act like you’ve had it so much harder.”
“You think I don’t see you suffering?” Kylo bit out, raising back up onto his elbows even as Rey took a step back. “You still doubt every single move you make on the ice. You’re exhausted during morning practice. I know you don't sleep well." He drew closer to her, eyes blazing beside his bandages. "What nightmares do you have, Rey?" he said, very softly. "Maybe ours are the same."
“I know what your nightmares are,” Rey said, shoulders trembling with rage. “That you’re irrelevant, that you’re worthless, that you’ll never be as strong as the expectations that you’ve had laid upon you, and for some reason you’re too damn stupid or too damn stubborn to realize that none of them are true.”
Breathing hard, she collapsed back into her chair, avoiding Kylo’s gaze, ignoring the quickening beep of his bedside monitor.
“You have so much more than you think you do,” she said after a long moment. “If you’d just listen.”
She retrieved her phone from the seat next to her, keying in her passcode and reading, very quietly:
“’…but the most remarkable note from tonight’s program — other than a gnarly injury to Kylo Ren’s pretty boy features at the end of Kenobi’s right skate; kudos to Ren for finishing the program bloodied — was Ren himself. The off-ice scandals seemed to have gotten to him over the past few years, and the once-storied skater turned in a series of abysmal performances in exhibition and competition well into last year. Tonight, we saw glimpses of the old Ren, the combative presence who landed a quadruple salchow without breaking a sweat during the 2009 Nationals. There were a few missteps in his performance — it’s clear Ren still has some demons to fight — but this is the closest he’s come to ‘fighting shape’ in a long, long time.’”
Rey paused before finishing: “’…and all it took was a skate to the head.’”
Kylo was staring at her, something inscrutable in his eyes — not familiar darkness or rage... closer to the way he’d looked at her when she first landed a double axel, the first time they’d executed a throw jump together.
“…so really, you should be thanking me,” Rey concluded, locking her phone and setting it to the side, folding her hands over her knee.
Kylo groaned and laid his pillow over his face.
Then, very quietly, muffled:
“Thank you.”
“Careful, Ben, we don’t want you to injure yourself.”
“I’m in a hospital full of painkillers. It’s a calculated risk.”
Rey rolled her eyes and smiled, scooting her chair closer to his bedside.
She'd called him Ben, and somehow, he hadn't seemed to mind.
When their hands brushed, just a little, she didn’t pull away.
---
atwistofarabesque:
So, what do we think of Kylo Ren’s new partner? We had the press release awhile back but now that we’ve seen them in action: yea or nay?
skatesandscowls:
negl it was nice to see someone giving it back to him – his old partners were always trying to keep pace with that aggressive style. kenobi curbstomped him *hearteyes*
kylorensleftskate:
I HOPE HIS FACE IS OKAY
lutzesfordays:
did you see how worried rey looked when kylo was bleeding?? do we think there’s something there? *waggly eyebrows*
biellmannsurprise:
omg guys don’t ship real people, it’s gross
lutzesfordays:
sorry, sorry! I just think they’d be really cute together
skatesandscowls:
isn’t kylo still dating maria whatshername? They were spotted outside a nightclub in nyc a few weeks back...
kylorensleftskate:
i thought they broke up before he partnered with kenobi?
rendaily:
Mod Q here: just to be clear, we do NOT tolerate discussions or material that speculates on skaters’ personal lives. That’s not what we’re here for. Keep all comments to the actual performances.
[PM] atwistofarabesque: ...so I think I’m actually starting to ship Ren and Kenobi together… don’t hate me.
[PM] kylorensleftskate: omg im right there with you
[PM] atwistofarabesque: We are SO going to hell.