Flame red hair seared the cool, moon pale, skin as it fell haphazardly over his furrowed brow. Eyes, ice cold blue, froze her where she stood behind the glass and her breath seemed to fog with the chill from them as she exhaled a lungful of air she hadn't realized she'd been holding into a clouding form on the clear panel dividing them. Rose rubbed her arms as if to warm herself from the frosty attention of the man in front of her.

The man sat rigid and coiled in practiced still energy as he scowled his face, twisting it in contempt. His hand were bound behind him and an officer stood on either side of him, Resistance issued blasters drawn, daring him to step out of turn. A bruise, the result of an earlier failed tactic, blossomed a violent violet over his temple. A ruby drop of blood fell from the split in his deceptively delicate looking lips. He let it fall, to trail a path down his chin leaving a crimson streak, and his face resembled the battle scarred surface of Crait, the mineral planet where he now sat, not facing her masked behind an AT-AT in battle but laid bare in front of her in defeat.

He spoke and another drop of blood trailed itself down into his sweat soaked shirt.

"The girl." He said hoarsely motioning his head toward Rose. His eyes bored into her own as if they were the only ones there, standing on opposite sides of the glass. "I'll only speak to the girl."

"I'll be damned." Poe blew a low whistling breath between his teeth behind her giving her shoulder a squeeze. "That's the first sentence we've gotten out of him in two days."

Rose shook her head and stepped back. "I don't like this." She curled her arms together and buried her chin in the fold of her scarf. "When you said you needed me I didn't think it would be for this."

Poe ran a hand through dark curls. "I don't like it anymore than you do but the only thing he'll say to us is that he wants to see the officer from Hays Minor. Paige is gone, Rose and seeing how you and Finn where on his ship, that has to be you."

He grinned half heartedly down at her. "And apparently it is. We've tried every trick in the book. Rey has even had a go at him and he won't crack. We know those Star Killers are out there." He sighed and gazed out at the man in front of them. "Please Rose you've got to help me out here."

Rose frowned deeper as she stared at the man that had taken so much from her. Her home, her family, her sister- he had stolen her away, banished her from the earth in a plume of fire, forced her to sacrifice everything and yet here he was, scowling at her just as disdainfully as he had on the Supremacy, determined to make her life just that much more unbearable than it already was knowing he was still alive. The war was over. She just wanted to forget it all.

She bit her lip and let a breath huff angrily out through her nose. Her nostrils flared in frustration. What would Paige have done? It made her stomach flip to think of it but even as she asked herself she knew. Her sister was fearless. Paige would have faced him. She nodded weakly towards the glass. "Fine I'll talk to him."

Poe shifted in his General's uniform, looking older suddenly in the dim light of the underground holding cell and grinned joylessly. "Thank you. We'll have eyes and ears on you the whole time. If anything happens he'll get knocked into tomorrow."

Rose nodded and closed her eyes.

—

It hadn't taken them long to fit her with a wire. Rose glanced nervously up at the ceiling as she entered the cell. Like every surface of the planet it glittered faintly under the dim fluorescent lights with a thin sheen of mineral deposit. She licked her lips, suddenly dry in the cool stale air and motioned to the two guards. They nodded and made to stand outside the door. She knew it made no difference whether or not they were in the room, they were still under surveillance but the little room felt stifling with so many people. She breathed a sigh of relief as the room cleared and dragged an uncomfortable looking metal chair from the corner to sit in front of the man.

She shifted. The back of the chair dug into the small of her back. She winced and cleared her throat. She cut right to the chase. "General Hux, where are the locations of the star destroyers?" She saw no point in wasting time on pleasantries.

He apparently did. "Ah the little Haysian. So they've finally given you up."

Rose frowned. How did one even interrogate an enemy officer? She puffed her shoulders up and tried to look official. "The locations General. I don't have time for this."

He smiled a thin grimace of a smile. His eyes roved over her and she flinched despite herself. He sneered. "Yes I'm sure you're quite busy."

She gritted her teeth. Should she threaten him? The anger bubbling in her stomach ached to. She bared her teeth at him and hissed, "Tell me or I'll-"

He interrupted her. His tone was mockingly victorious, "Or what little one? You'll bite me again?" He grinned callously, his eyes glinting flint under the dim lights, "I think I'd rather enjoy that."

Rose heard and felt rather than saw the slap as she smacked him across the face. His cheek was clammy cold, appropriate for a snake, but her palm burned from the impact anyway. She stood shaking in fury as the chair laid fallen haphazardly on the floor. The vibrations of both impacts reverberated off the cold mineral walls as the pale man sat back, reeling and stunned from the sudden impact.

"Burn in hell." She spat before turning on her heel and bursting out the door. The guards scrambled back into the cell with the prisoner behind her. A burst of manic laughter sounded from the mineral tomb and Rose's ears burned as it followed her relentlessly down the hall.

—

"T-that bad huh?"

Rose looked up wearingly at her scruffy companion. Despite his stutter or maybe because of it, DJ didn't mince words. Maybe that's why she'd sought him out after the fiasco in the holding cell. That or she just needed to vent, to do something and he was usually up for both. She poked at the instant bread on her tray and sighed. Her companion reached over and gave her ponytail a playful tug. She groaned and let her head fall onto the cool laminate of the mess hall table.

She looked back at her friend and sighed. "Oh it was awful Dee, absolutely awful."

The wiry older man leaned back and grinned. "Yeah I may have s-sneaked a little peeks at the footage...Burn in hell, t-that's a good one."

Rose shoved the tray away and groaned. "What were they even thinking sending me in there anyway? Did they really think he was going to magically give up everything just because I walked in the room. I'm not a negotiator DJ."

DJ took out one of his signature slicing chips and ran it in practiced tumbles over one hand as he thought it out. The worn slicer looked more trash heap than tactician but Rose had come to rely on him during some of the sketchier moments in her life for advice after he had tumbled back into it, quite literally, from a pirates hold they had raided. He'd been sheepish and grateful, she had been angry but they had soon learned to benefit the other.

"Hmm..." he hummed as his mind ruminated on the issue. "M-maybe you don't need to be."

She looked up over her sleeve. "Meaning?"

He grinned back at her. "A n-negotiations guy. M-maybe you c-could just wing it like you usually do."

She wrinkled her nose. "I do not 'just wing it' Dee!"

He shrugged. "You 'member how you got me to join t-the Resistance? Pretty sure y-you were w-winging it then."

How could she forget? It'd been just after the rescue. He'd been trying to skulk off base with a sizable amount of rations and credits. In her fury she'd offered him a wager. If he won she'd let him off, minus the credits of course, if she won—then he owed her big time and she'd put him to work. Rose had won but every so often she wondered of he had thrown the game. Not that he would ever admit to it.

"I am a good Skirmish player." She grinned back at him, smiling at the memory of his feigned shock at losing.

He nodded enthusiastically, "oh yeah one of the best." He reached over and stole a piece of instant bread with a wink. "It worked with me yeah?" He chewed the bread substitute with relish and swallowed with a wide grin.

"No m-man can resist a challenge Rosie, especially from a p-pretty gal."