Daylight passed quickly into early nightfall. Hues of reds and oranges tinted blue skies as the sun settled in the west. Rey hadn't seen such a breathtaking sunset since before her time on the Supremacy. Here, though, onboard the Silencer, she had the liberty to roam about freely.

She had missed watching the sunset. Missed watching the water turn to liquid fire as the sun sank lower and lower into the horizon. Even if those minutes were spent onboard a ship that was crewed by the damned.

Poe had been true to his word when he'd said that the crew wouldn't pester her. But it didn't prevent them from sliding those curious looks at her when she'd strolled past them earlier, with Bee-Bee claiming her left shoulder as his new perch. Such inquiring minds reminded her that beneath the beastly garb, they were men. Human. Bearing the very same flesh and blood as her.

Thankfully, their gawking was as far as her engagement with the crew had gone as Rey worked her way back down to the crew quarters, waiting for Poe there instead.

Waiting. Always waiting for someone, she'd surmised. She'd spent five days on the Supremacy hiding out on the bottom decks. As a man, nonetheless. So what was a few minutes more? At least Poe hadn't kept her waiting for as long as her parents had.

When the pirate returned moments later, Kylo Ren was the last person she'd expected to see tagging along with him. Poe took his leave quietly, giving the pair some privacy. That was when the bull was freed of its enclosure, hell-bent on skewering whoever was waving the crimson rag at center field. And she began hurling every insult known to the history of man-kind then at the captain. A 'pinheaded, anarchistic asshole' being one of the few choice phrases she'd let slip.

Not a word was spoken by the captain when the barrage ended. His impassiveness veiling all evidence of anger or humility. Plotting her death, perhaps. A merciful beheading or something more excruciating, like keelhauling. Or maybe, he had been contemplating her words.

Either way, she never did find out what had been going through his mind. Somehow she'd underestimated the captain's reply. Again, by a long-shot. There was no order for her execution. No reprimand for her unbridled behavior. There was only him asking her if she'd have dinner with him that evening.

Briefly, she'd forgotten she was even pissed at him. It could have been the softness in his tone that rendered her speechless for a moment, or how his voice strained when he'd proceeded to say please. His tender brown eyes begging that she spare him more minutes of her precious time. To offer him a second chance to redeem himself.

God, she hated him. Hated him down to the very last grain of fiber her body harbored inside. Hated it was she who should have apologized to him first since he'd been right about America. In fact, she couldn't say who was more stunned by her answering yes.

The word had come out unbidden. So effortlessly. As if she had actually meant for it to happen. Traitor. She felt like a god damned traitor to her own person. She had almost been too ashamed to follow through. So much she'd spent the afternoon chastising herself for having crumbled so easily. Had it not been for her stomach pangs reminding her that she hadn't eaten since the previous morning, she would have sought him out and declined his offer.

Traitor...

As dinner time approached, crew members gradually trickled downstairs to the barracks on the Silencer's third deck, a man lingering in the crow's nest to hold watch for enemy ships. Rey, however, made the short yet seemingly mile-long trek, bow to stern, toward Kylo Ren's cabin as promised.

She'd changed her attire to the clothing Poe had supplied her with that morning: an off-shaded white shirt with long sleeves, a V-neck collar, and frilled around the wrists; fitted umber brown slacks with three gold fasteners running up the front; a vest that practically reached her knees in darker rust. Foregoing the make-do breast-band so to show she was a woman beneath the masculine garb. Her shoulder-length, almond hair hanging loose in soft waves.

She'd never been so relieved to feel feminine again.

Thrice, she knocked on Ren's cabin door. As she waited, she caught the sound of a blowhole belonging to one of few gray whales traveling alongside the Silencer, releasing stale oxygen and inhaling new. It was comforting when her nerves were relentlessly churning. The temptation to turn around and dine with the crew below grew substantially the longer she was made to wait outside.

Just as she was about to cave in, the door opened.

Rey hadn't been the only one who'd undergone a wardrobe change. Ren's undershirt was a mere replica of hers, but bigger, puffier in the sleeves. A wide, leather belt furnishing a ridiculously large buckle fastened around his waist, over a navy mid-thigh length vest, and brown slacks. Less stuffy and regal, more relaxed. Not quite a captain but more of a commoner she would've run into on Jakku, minus the tentacle beard and claw obviously.

If she had to be honest, he looked...nice.

"Miss Turner," Ren greeted, low and amicably. Amused, even. She wondered then if her gaping had been that explicit for him to notice.

Although it was how he'd said her name that bothered Rey, more than his awareness of her staring. He never ceased to make her body react so shamefully. She hated how easily he made her feel that way. Hated how sleekly his voice moved inside her, through her belly, before nestling itself cozily between her legs. It was driving her mad.

God, it's just dinner, Rey. Eat his damn food, then go!

"Captain," she breathed, her reply resonated airily. Blaming her parched mouth and lips on having not consumed anything liquid in a day.

Then, she swore she saw him smile. Not the cocky kind of smile she'd witnessed that morning, but one she couldn't quite place her finger on its meaning. No sooner than she saw it, it was gone in an instant.

It could've been nothing, she supposed. She certainly wasn't going to study his mouth any longer than she already had; which was merely a pouty bottom lip below a long tentacle that served for a mustache above his top lip.

Ren stepped aside, providing a passage wide enough for Rey to enter the cabin, her shoulder narrowly grazing his vest. Little had improved within the interior since she was there last. There was, however, a lovely table, prepared for two, in the middle of the chamber. She tried focusing more on the assortment of food than dwelling on how intimate the setting looked.

Neatly arranged at the center of the table was a trio of candles: a small candle beside one of moderate height, the tallest candle behind them. Bread loaves were alongside large, cherry wood serving bowls filled with an array of colorful fruits and vegetables. On a silver platter, was a freshly broiled fowl, steam still rising from its golden skin. And twin, pewter goblets sat directly across from each other, in front of two dinner plates and high-backed wooden chairs.

Just eyeballing the food made her dry mouth salivate.

Rey couldn't remember ever seeing such fine dining like this in her life. And for once there were no biscuits, housing larvae, on the menu. "No hardtacks," she sighed. Try as she might, she couldn't resist beaming at that, claiming the closest chair as Ren took the seat opposite hers.

"Pardon?" Ren grimaced.

"Oh, it's just not what I was expecting from a mon—." She cut herself off as she realized what she had almost called him, her round eyes, tentatively, perceiving his. The term monster had always been commonly used for Ren and his immortal crew. Right now, he looked like a monster who had just been stabbed in the heart, before his expression steeled. "I mean, what I meant was from someone who's de—."

"I've been called worse things in my life, Miss Turner," Ren sneered. "I know what I am. What I don't need is your pity."

Rey pursed her lips. "I don't pity you," she countered sharply, hazels locked on brown. Here they were, fighting, and it was barely two minutes into the damn meal. "I've not been here for a full day yet and I'm still trying to process all of this. You're definitely not making it easier for me!"

Ren fell silent; the tension in the air so thick a knife was required to slice it while one intently studied the other. He'd proven to her on multiple occasions throughout the course of an entire afternoon that he was capable of granting her clemency. This time, she was pretty sure she had pushed her luck with the Silencer's captain.

Because nobody could ever be that patient, right? Not even Rey could be so kind as to tolerate that many insults.

Nope. Again, she was dead wrong.

Ren broke from her gaze, stretching a long, front tentacle for his goblet on the table and brought it to his mouth, tasting its content. She stared at him, baffled beyond speaking terms. Her words received as if she were a toddler and had simply smacked him in the face with mud pies she'd created in her backyard. She yearned for him to respond to her as a normal man should. Furious. Annoyed. But asking for either of those emotions from the captain was like extracting teeth.

Defeated, she sighed, blindly snatching an apple out of the fruit bowl before helping herself to a chicken leg and a sizeable portion of raw vegetables. Ren waited till she was finished, then served himself. Eating in the company of silence was nothing new to her. A decade of living alone had her used to having nobody to casually chit-chat with. So long as her belly was being filled she really didn't care, and the present shouldn't have deterred that mind frame of hers.

The chicken meat was so moist it practically peeled right off the bone. The fruit wasn't rotten or moldy or remotely close to expiring; the vegetables were crisp and seemed to have been freshly dug up from the garden and washed. Her brain should have been focusing on the fact she was eating all this delectable food on a cursed ship rather than pondering what made the pirate captain sitting across from her tick.

But one couldn't just simply talk with Kylo Ren.

She figured it was the perfect time to give the dark red beverage inside her own goblet a try to alleviate the urge. Keeping her mouth busy in other ways was better than igniting the spark of another skirmish. Her brain ascended to a whole different level of bliss the second her tastebuds were lathered in its fruity tartness.

It was absolutely delightful.

"Is the wine to your liking?" asked Ren. If it hadn't been for the alcohol putting her body at ease, her shoulders flinching in response to hearing him speak may have been fairly more noticeable.

Nodding, Rey hummed a yes into the goblet as she acquired a second taste. "It's delicious," she confessed, timidly. "I've never tried it before."

"That's unfortunate."

"Yeah, well, Jakku doesn't offer those who are underprivileged a lot of time to indulge when you're barely getting by," she frowned, resting her elbow on the table, glass in hand.

"I see," he mused. With his human hand, Ren reached for a grape from his plate and popped it into his mouth. "I take it you didn't work at a brothel, then?"

She scoffed at him. "I wasn't going to sell myself to get by, only to get saddled with a child like so many of the women I've seen. And the way men often treat them? Far better off to make due elsewhere. I always liked to think my self-preservation was worth much more than that."

Ren hesitated in his chewing, tentacles stilling, and he looked at her as if she'd confessed to committing treason. Swallowing, his mouth quirked slyly. "In all fairness, we all have our means for survival, Miss Turner," he drawled, his voice coming off polished and smooth as he leaned back in his chair, his clawed appendage lounging on the table while propping the other's elbow on the chair arm. "Whatever helps keep food on the table and clothing on our backs."

"Nothing is worth losing your dignity," Rey pridefully retorted, scowling. "But I suppose prostitution is a better alternative to piracy."

Ren grunted. "Ironically, there was a time I would have agreed with you."

Rey eyed him skeptically. "You?" She snorted, lifting a brow. "Captain of the Silencer against piracy?"

He nodded. Noting his browline puckering, she realized he was actually serious. "My father was an admiral in the Jakku navy," he affirmed softly, tapping his claw tip on the tabletop pensively. "And my mother—," he paused, "my mother had spent her entire life immersed in politics. Their priority clearing the Caribbean of pirates, and for a while it was peaceful. Not perfect, but—better than now."

Curiosity piqued, Rey set her goblet down and folded her arms in front of her on the table, leaning in closer, her eagerness to learn of the captain's background soaring. "So what happened?"

Ren worked his mouth. He looked at her again with the same emotion in his eyes as he'd had that morning. Grief - so much grief she may as well have been swimming in their anguish. And ultimately, laden with regret. "I had just been promoted to captain," solemnly he began to explain. "We celebrated late that morning before the Silencer came. Before he came - Snoke - the previous captain here. Long story short, he captured my father. Imprisoned him." His expression darkened. "Wanting to set an example that pirates, even if forbidden to come on land, can still hold control over the islands. I went after Snoke. I killed him. And here I fucking am."

Rey blinked, her mind reassessing the details from Finn's story about a man who'd been held captive by the Silencer's former captain, and was rescued by his son. Kylo Ren was the son who had sacrificed himself to save his father. How had she not connected the dots sooner?

"You," she gasped, an index directed at Ren, "You're Han Solo's son?"

Ren sneered. "I used to be."

She frowned. "But why Kylo Ren if your real last name is Solo?"

"Being a pirate is one thing, but a captain here?" he snarled. "It's a disgrace and I respected my father enough to not tarnish his image."

"But you also saved your father," assured Rey. "Wouldn't that make you a hero too?"

"A hero." He smirked. "Is that what they're calling me nowadays?"

Rey tucked her bottom lip beneath an incisor. "Well, no...?"

"Then I'm afraid your point is moot, isn't it." Ren shrugged.

Sighing, Rey reclined back in her seat. There had to be a way to reach him, a way to make him understand that all hope wasn't lost for him. That his honor was still worth salvaging. Maybe - just maybe - in the midst of sorrow, there was a method to end this wretched curse. "It's a curse, right? An ailment inflicted by magic, which means there has to be a counteractant. A cure."

Ren nodded. "Yes," he rasped, his timbre abysmal. "There is one."

Learning this brightened her spirit. "There is? What is it then?"

"That's none of your concern."

Rey rolled her eyes. "There's a bloody way to end this curse out there and you'd rather close yourself off and sulk?" Without thinking twice, she rolled forward on her seat and laid her hand on the bottom ledge of Ren's pincher, knowing he could very easily shatter her bones should his claw snap shut. Ren, however, was taken off-guard by the gesture and seemed too bewildered to move. "I want to help you," she whispered.

They remained in that position for some odd minutes. Her thumb pad stroking the blunt ridges lining Ren's claw absent-mindedly. His blown pupils similar to a feral tomcat experiencing touch for the first time.

"It is not your burden," said Ren assertively, shaking his head and retrieving his claw from her grasp. "Forget it. End of discussion."

Rey groaned. "Look, this is stupid." Drawing her arms to her chest, she sat back again in her chair. "If you're not willing to accept my help, or help me for that matter, then just give me my compass and I'll be gone."

"And who do you suppose will come to save you?" he snapped.

Her mouth dropped open, his words puncturing her heart like a thousand barbs had been fired from a canon all at once. It shouldn't have hurt and she tried telling herself he was wrong. Admitting that though was no different than Ren refusing to see he was still the hero who had saved his father.

She was alone, on a ship, with a man as equally lost in the same cruel world as she.

"Rey..."

Sniffing, she blinked away the unshed, hot tears prickling behind her eyes, meeting his. Within their darkness, she saw remorse for what he had done. She should've been angry with him. Hating him. And yet, she found herself pitying him.

"Rey," he winced. "I'm so—."

She raised her palm, amazed that his lips froze mid-apology. "You know," she murmured after a beat, "changing your name doesn't change who you are inside. You're still your father's son. And I think your father would be heartbroken if he knew how much of a heartless bastard his son has become."

Ren kept quiet. She knew by the way he stared her down that she'd struck a chord somewhere inside him. Had it been earlier in the night, she might have cared to ask him why before excusing herself quietly from the table. The instant she was outdoors, breathing in the salty summer breeze, the dam she'd built up behind her eyes finally broke.