It's been several years since someone besides himself had made him feel anything resembling shame, and now he was experiencing it practically non-stop. But perhaps that was good. Perhaps the burning in his cheeks was more than embarrassment, maybe it was a burning away of anything that would tempt him back to the First Order, back to Snoke's side, the way fire purifies steel. It's a different kind of suffering, and he welcomes it.

He lets her go. He continues in the opposite direction, not because he still feels the itch to get away from himself into some oblivion, but because he's sure about the last thing she wants is for him to follow her all the way back to the compound in the dark.

He doesn't sleep that night, making a long circuit of the base's perimeter and tossing and turning for a couple more hours before deciding to give it up. He's scared to sleep, unsure of what waits for him there. It's not the first time he's driven himself to this sort of exhaustion, not by a long shot, although he's feeling it much more keenly than ever before. Maybe it's his age, maybe it's his master's rage reaching out to him across the galaxy, maybe it's a combination of the two or something else entirely.

Thankfully, it seems as though rebellions are built on hope and caf. He doesn't think he'll be able to fool his mother into thinking he got a good night's sleep, not by a long shot, but with caf in his system he might be able to convince her it's not as bad as it looks. But it's not his mother that steps into the kitchen at whatever ungodly hour it is, but the scavenger, looking every bit as suspicious and surly as she had strapped to the interrogation table.

He should probably address that at some point, if he's doing this. Going back, answering the pull to the Light that he's struggled with.

For now he wordlessly offers to pour her some caf. Maybe she's too tired to give him another well deserved tongue-lashing.