How could you do this to us?
I'm sorry.
You used me! For twelve years, you used me to hide!
I'm so sorry.
I don't even know who you are!
The confrontation with Cade is even worse than Rey fears. After initially looking her over and asking about her welfare, her mild mannered, cool headed husband proceeds to lose it in the stress of the moment. Rey sees that her dependable husband is utterly betrayed, feeling powerless, and despondent as he watches his family crumble. Cade Biggs is a patient man who solves problems for a living, who makes pragmatic business decisions all day long. But he knows that no amount of credits will make this problem go away and that he cannot think his way out of this situation. And he is fucking pissed about it. Like most big business CEOs, he's a man used to getting his way. But not this time.
You have ruined our family!
I'm sorry.
I trusted you. Like a fool, I trusted you.
I'm sorry.
I will not let you take the rest of us down with you, Rey.
Her fight with Cade occurs only hours after Kylo has ransacked her mind and left her unconscious. Rey wakes in her cell disoriented from a stim shot. There is a brief tussle with some female guards before she is stripped of her garments and dressed in a prisoner's uniform. More guards appear and with them the old caretaker of Vader's castle, the longtime Sith servant Vanee. He, at least, is kind. Vanee quietly orders everyone from the room. Then, he hands her a damp cloth to wipe the blood from her face, neck and hands. Vanee tells her that she is going to see her husband now and he gives her a few minutes alone to collect herself.
Rey rallies as they march her through long corridors to a conference room. Cade stands out front waiting but Kylo does too. And now Rey has a bitter and humiliating confrontation with the Sith before she has to face Cade. By the time she sits down in a chair, her adrenaline is spent and her head pounding from the aftereffects of last night. Rey simply listens with tears flowing down her face. She has no defense and so she offers none. And truthfully, she feels a bit numb to it all. And maybe it's her quiet, guilty demeanor that frustrates her husband. Because when Rey doesn't much engage, Cade's stern demand for an explanation becomes a frustrated vent session and then devolves into an all-out tirade. It's very out of character and that is very telling for how hurt he is.
I would rather you cheated on me than you lied to me like this.
I know. But I would never do that to you. Oh, Cade, I'm sorry.
Did you ever love me? Or did you just love what I could do for you and Titus?
Of course, I love you. Cade, I'm so sorry.
Were you ever going to tell me the truth?
This last question is the only question Rey truly debates. She looks Cade in the eye and tells him that if he knew the truth, he would be dead by Kylo's sword by now. Be grateful I did not tell you. Because knowing the truth wouldn't change anything except you would be dead and the girls would be losing a father too. That point gets through to Cade and now he too is subdued. Tell me everything, he says wearily. In your own words, tell me the story of how you came to be on my stolen prototype by the shipyards years ago. I want the whole, complete truth out of you, Rey.
Rey takes a deep breath and begins on Jakku. She speaks of meeting a stranger in a wreck who turned out to be Kylo Ren, of a Jedi Master come to collect her for his sister the enemy general, and of Supreme Leader Snoke with his blue lightning he used on Army Hux. She speaks of life with Milo and Snoke at the bunker, of life with the Flick family on a refugee compound, and of life with Kylo on a star destroyer amid a war. She talks of peace negotiations that failed, of executions she witnessed, and of mercy missions to hand out toys at detainment camps. Rey tells Cade that she sat on Snoke's throne and she lived at Darth Vader's castle but she also ran supplies for the Resistance. It comes out in a jumbled stream of consciousness babble, a sort of monologue of regrets.
Cade Biggs listens silently through it all. When her improbable tale trails off, he gives Rey a long and searching look. He asks a few questions.
Did you love him?
I wasn't sure at the time. But looking back, yes, I did. A little. And it scared me. Like the war scared me.
Did you know you were pregnant when you left him?
No. Truthfully, I probably wouldn't have left had I known.
What was all that talk between you and him in the hallway just now about being his Light?
Nothing.I t was nothing.
Really?I t didn't look like nothing. And he didn't react like it was nothing.
It was nothing. Just some Force stuff he used to like.
Cade is quiet a long time after that. Then, he tells Rey that he doesn't know whether to believe her story. But he believes that she believes her story. And that helps, he says. Cade doesn't agree with what she did, but he understands better what she believed happened. And Emperor Ren has assured him repeatedly that Rey will get the help she needs while she is in custody.
Rey's eyes widen at this last bit. She starts demanding to know what Cade has been told. But her husband brushes her off. Cade Biggs doesn't know the truth and he's not in a position to debate it. And, from his perspective, it doesn't matter. Whatever the truth may be, he is losing her and losing Titus and there is nothing he can do to change that. Cade doesn't know if he will get a chance to see her again, but he hopes so. And he hopes that he will be allowed to bring the girls by to visit her and Titus. What are you saying? Rey is confused. Cade looks away, weary as he rubs at his forehead. He's saying that this is goodbye. He gives Rey a light kiss on the cheek before she is marched back to her cell.
Her new home is a small, sterile room with four grey walls and bright lights that are kept on all the time. After some experimentation, Rey learns that if she scratches hard enough with the corner of her food tray, she can make a small hash mark on the wall. Each day, she adds another mark in a neat row just above the built-in bench that serves as her bed and her chair. It is at once comforting and upsetting. Because this is what has become of her . . . again. She's alone stuck in harsh circumstances she is powerless to change. At least on Jakku, Rey thinks sourly, she had been free.
No one lays a hand on her. But Kylo knows her well enough to make his punishment hurt in ways daily beatings never could. For Rey had left him for the freedom he now takes away. And all the years she has spent moving past the pain of Jakku are for nothing now that she is back to an isolated existence. Reduced to marking time with scratches on the wall. Twice a day, her jailers bring her water and a ration muffin. She hasn't eaten anything remotely like that in years. It's almost like he's mocking her.
The days go by slowly and the nights take forever. Rey worries and worries. It's mostly about Titus, but it's also about Cade and the girls. And about herself too.
A week later, Rey is marched from her cell and back to a conference room. Cade Biggs is waiting there looking miserable. Standing beside him is a hardnosed woman Rey recognizes as the Kuat general counsel and a nervous man who is introduced as Cade's personal attorney.
Cade looks her up and down. He wears an expression of concern. "Geez, Rey, are they feeding you?" And that comment before witnesses has Rey feeling suddenly self-conscious. In the week she's been in captivity, she hasn't felt much like eating. Does it show? There is no mirror in her cell for Rey to know. And unlike other women, she hates looking skinny.
Rey is about to answer when the door whooshes open and in marches Kylo Ren. Behind him follows a quartet of slick looking lawyers who could only be from some centuries-old white shoe Coruscant law firm that has multiple names in the title. Everyone scrambles to their feet to stand in respect for the Emperor except Rey whose wrists are handcuffed to her chair.
Kylo plunks his heavy helmet down and seats himself at the head of the table. He looks bored as he waves the group back into their chairs and nods to his lead lawyer to begin. But when the man launches into introductions of who's who and whose interest they represent, Kylo interrupts to complain, "You can dispense with the pleasantries. Get on with it."
And now, the youngest looking lawyer crosses to place a datapad on the table in front of Rey. "What is this?" Rey asks the woman blankly. Her question appears to catch everyone by surprise. The lawyers all turn to confer with one another.
Kylo just smirks.
While the attorneys all huddle and mumble, Cade Biggs speaks up. "Rey, I thought you knew. These are our divorce papers. Well, actually it's something like an annulment. That's how the lawyers think it should be written up. It will be like we were never legally married."
Oh. "You're divorcing me?" she whispers aloud. She hadn't seen this coming. She probably should have, but she didn't.
"The papers also rescind the adoption," the nervous man at Cade's side chimes in.
"An annulment?" Rey only has a vague idea of what that means. "But we were married for over a decade. Cade, your mother was at our wedding . . ." Rey thinks a moment. "And I signed that premarital agreement thing you wanted."
"The papers also rescind the pre-nup," Cade's personal lawyer speaks up again. "It is rendered moot by today's settlement."
"Oh." After a moment, Rey repeats herself. "Oh." She looks across the table at Cade. "We're doing this right now?" she asks in a small voice.
"Yes." This comes from one of the tribe of palace lawyers. "We have a judge waiting down the hall who will accept this settlement and enter it into the record. The documents will be sealed, of course. None of this will ever be public."
"Oh," Rey says a third time.
Cade Biggs looks like he has aged five years in the week since Rey last saw him. He speaks up to urge, "Rey, this is for the best. A man in my position can't have a wife who was the subject of a wartime bounty. The lawyers tell me that your Resistance activities are covered by the post-war amnesty. But it's completely inappropriate for a man in my position to be married to you. You knew that."
The Kuat general counsel woman nods along at this summation. Then Cade's lawyer speaks up again. "The larger issue is your current arrest. My client is a loyal servant of the Empire and a respected business leader. He cannot remain married to a woman in your predicament."
The lead palace lawyer now takes issue with his phrasing. "We've been over this before. There is no valid marriage to be dissolved. The princess was never legally free to marry. Today's settlement makes that clear."
"I am trying to put this in terms Mrs. Biggs will understand," Cade's lawyer protests and now the two sets of lawyers begin to bicker vociferously over semantics and about what to call her.
Rey interrupts. "I need a lawyer." She doesn't trust any of these men and women to have her best interests at heart. "Can I get my own lawyer?" she asks Cade.
"No," Kylo decrees from the head of the table.
"It wouldn't matter, Rey," Cade tells her softly.
"Well, do I at least get a chance to read this settlement myself?" Rey demands.
"This is your opportunity," the lead palace lawyer gestures to the datapad on the table before her.
"I can't pick it up," Rey informs him with resentment. Not with her wrists handcuffed to the arms of the chair she sits in.
Kylo smirks, "Oh, well." He's clearly enjoying himself.
And that gets under her skin. "Fine," Rey tells him. Then she concentrates a moment. A long moment since she's very out of practice. But slowly—shakily at first—the datapad rises off the table with the help of the Force to hang suspended in the air before Rey. Rey starts to read while everyone stares.
Everyone except Kylo, who grins.
Rey doesn't get very far before she complains, "I can't read this stuff. I don't know what this jargon means. And it's sixty-eight pages of 'whereas' and 'hereinafter' and 'marital estate' words I don't understand. I want a lawyer. I'm not signing anything without a lawyer."
"You can't negotiate this," Cade tells her softly. "It's not worth trying."
Rey of Jakku is undeterred. "I can negotiate anything!"
"Not this," Kylo informs her. "You need leverage to negotiate. And you have none."
"So you want me to sign this now?" Rey demands. "Without reading it? Without understanding it?"
"It would be easiest." This comes from the lead palace lawyer. All the other attorneys present nod and concur.
"Don't make me be persuasive, Rey," Kylo intones a warning. "It will only be hard on you both."
Rey ignores this threat as she peers again at the text of the agreement. "This isn't even my real name. I was born Renata Pam. Not Renata Palpatine. Snoke just made that Palpatine surname up."
"I believe that all of your current and former aliases are captured in Annex A to the agreement." It's the lead palace lawyer guy speaking up again. "Just sign with your finger on the datapad in the indicated places and we can be done with this."
"Do you know how to sign your name, Rey?" Kylo looks smug as he drawls out his sarcasm. "Because if not, I'm sure you can just make an 'X'"
Rey ignores him. She's focused on Cade. "What did he give you for this? Huh?" Her expression is hard. "Was it a new contract? Credits? What did he give you? Because I smell a deal, Cade Biggs," she accuses.
Her husband shakes his head. "Rey, you are looking at this all wrong—"
"Oh, I don't think so! I know how things operate with the Sith-"
Her husband looks uncomfortable and defensive now. "Look, I have two other kids and an ex-wife to provide for and to protect. And I have a business to run and shareholders to please. The First Order is our best customer." Cade Biggs leans forward in his chair. "Rey, please don't make this any worse for me than you already have."
"So this is about credits? You have more credits than you could ever spend," Rey complains.
"It's not just about me," her husband hisses. "We employ hundreds of thousands of people! We are the main industry for our entire world and our economy supports our whole sector. Rey, the damage here could be very ugly. Please don't be stubborn about this."
"You're a coward!" she accuses.
And Cade Biggs refuses to accept that label. "No, I'm not. I'm a realist. I know when a deal has gone bad and when it can be salvaged. This can't be salvaged. Rey, this isn't the first time I have ended a marriage. Sometimes it's best just to call it quits and move on."
"So you're leaving me? With him? What about Titus? You're the only father he's ever known."
"He has his real father now. And that's hard to compete with. Especially when his real father is an Emperor." Cade sighs and makes a face. "Look Rey, it's time for me to step aside."
"But you're a good man, a great role model, someone he can look up to. Titus needs that in his life—"
"I'm not the Emperor, Rey. And I never will be. No matter how much you don't like it, he's his father. And boys need fathers. Rey, as I've thought more about this, I think it might actually explain a lot for Titus. Maybe Emperor Ren can understand him better than I can."
"And what about me?" Rey asks in a small voice.
"This is for the best." Cade isn't meeting her eyes. And he is clearly uncomfortable having this prolonged personal conversation with the six lawyers and Emperor Ren as onlookers in the room. "I will always love you," he tells her in a half-choked voice. "You know that."
"Get on with it," Kylo interjects sharply from the head of the table, looking especially annoyed now.
"Cade, I don't know that," Rey responds without sparing Kylo a glance. "All is see is someone saying they love me and walking away . . . again." She feels abandoned now and it is a soul-crushing feeling that brings up nightmares from her youth. These are the hazy half-dream memories of a little girl who hollered back at a ship while someone clamped down on her arm and told her to be quiet. Rey looks away, biting her bottom lip hard to keep it from trembling as tears threaten. She loses her concentration now and the suspended datapad falls to bounce hard on the tabletop.
"Biggs, you've signed. You're done. Leave us." Kylo barks a dismissal at Cade.
Instantly, her husband complies. Cade and his two lawyers stand to withdraw. They look like they can't wait to leave. But on the way to the door, Cade lingers for a brief moment by her chair. "Good luck, Rey." He bends as if to kiss her but thinks better of it when Kylo glares at him. He settles instead for an awkward pat on the arm. "Goodbye. I wish things were different. But this is for the best. I signed already. You should sign it too."
And then Cade Biggs is gone. It's just Kylo and his lawyers now plus the stormtroopers who stand guard at the corners of the room. And though they still have witnesses, neither she nor Kylo seems to care. Because that's how raw this moment is. "How does it feel to have someone you love walk out on you?" Kylo hisses at her. "I can tell you how it feels. It hurts, Rey! Oh, how it hurts. Feel how it hurts!"
She scowls back. "The difference between you and me is that I'm not going to kill Cade. Because I know this was not his idea. This is all you, you fucking asshole Sith!"
The fancy lawyers all startle at her blunt, profane words and, sensing a threat, the troopers now shift their guns.
"Start signing, Rey." Kylo gestures impatiently to his team and one guy leaps from his chair to place the fallen datapad within reach of her fingertip.
Rey ignores it. "I'm not signing unless you let me see my son first."
"I'm not going to make a deal, Rey. Start signing."
"Why bother? What does it matter?" she scoffs at Kylo. "You're going to do what you want anyway. Why should I paper over your abuse of power?"
Kylo sits back in his chair and crosses his arms. "Because if you don't start signing now I will have the shuttle carrying Cade Biggs shot out of the sky."
Oh.
"It's your choice, Rey. You sign and he lives. Or you don't and he dies."
Rey quickly turns her attention to the datapad now. She begins to awkwardly scrawl a messy signature over and over as the lawyer at her side directs her where. "You're a monster," she mutters.
"I'll take that in the best way," Kylo sneers back. "Keep signing. Did she get them all?"
"Yes. She did, Excellency," confirms the lawyer at her side who scrolls through the document to doublecheck.
"Well done, wife," Kylo approves with a tight smile. "I like it when you are cooperative. I am not a forgiving man, but I now forgive you for twelve years of adultery. Let your conscience trouble you no more, my dear."
"What?" Huh? Rey isn't following.
"You strayed during our long estrangement. I am not happy about it, but now that my family is returned to me I'm in a forgiving mood."
"What are you saying?"
"The last signature there is for our duplicate marriage license. We were married on Starkiller Base but . . . well, you know. Your signature today just confirms the legal civil marriage that took place years ago. It's just a formality, really. To replace those lost records."
"I'm not married to you!" Rey complains. "We talked about it, but we never actually got married, Kylo. I never agreed to marry you."
"Nonsense. We were married by our good friend General Armitage Hux, acting with the blessing of then Leader Snoke."
"That never happened!" Rey objects now with real heat.
"Of course, it did. And what you signed just proves it. We were married years before our son was born. Titus is a Skywalker by blood. This confirms that he is a Skywalker in name. It's what our old Master would have wanted."
"You're saying we are m-married?" Rey is still processing what she's heard. At least she has no fears that Kylo will expect them to live as husband and wife. That humiliating moment when he had turned down the offer of her Light had made that much clear.
"Yes, my dear. It's been almost fifteen happy years now."
Rey's eyes narrow. "This is a civil marriage only, right?" she asks, thinking of the Sith ceremony in the temple Kylo had described long ago. The scary forever commitment she had run from. Remembering all the details, Rey starts fisting her left hand reflexively.
One of the lawyers answers for Emperor Ren now with a statement of the law. "The Empire does not recognize the legality of religious ceremonies. There is no marriage other than civil marriage."
"I don't care what you put on paper," Rey snaps back. "Aside from the optics, he doesn't really either." She stares Kylo down. "How soon can we divorce? Because I refuse to be married to you!"
Kylo shrugs and looks to his lawyers questioningly.
The lead guy considers a moment before he answers. "Under the circumstances, with the long estrangement and the intervening sham marriage to Biggs, it would be best if this settlement confirming the original marriage were in place at least several months before the union is dissolved. Dissolution of the marriage will not endanger the child's legitimacy. He remains born in wedlock."
"Legitimacy? Who cares about that?" Rey finds this whole topic to be unnecessary. And kind of archaic. "Is that what's driving this?"
Kylo answers, "Titus is the true heir by blood and the Force to the Empire. I want our son to be a legitimate heir as well. There are many traditional worlds in my realm where these things matter. Not all societies are trashy easy-come, easy-go Jakku," Kylo informs her smugly. "Besides, I value legalities and transparency. I believe in strong family values." And in a weird way, this last statement is sort of true.
"Whatever." Rey looks away in bitter frustration.
"There's more, if you want to hear it." Kylo is sporting a sly grin now.
"Not really."
But the Sith is undeterred. "The second to the last signature there was for your confession. Rey, you admit to treasonous activities, including an attempt on my life resulting in permanent bodily injury. You admit to everything sufficient to justify your immediate execution."
"Great," she sighs. "Do you have any other good news, Kylo? Because if not, then I'd like to go back to my cell."
Kylo laughs at this remark as he waves a permissive hand at the guards. "Our work here is done. By all means, take her away."
As the guards usher Rey from the room, a thought belatedly occurs to her. And now she can't resist throwing a wrench in Kylo's legal lies. Rey looks over at the lead palace lawyer and innocently asks, "You're quite sure this is all legal? Kylo did tell you that we are brother and sister, right?"
The man blinks and turns wide-eyed to Emperor Ren. "E-Excellency?"
She is marched from the room before she hears Kylo's response.
After that, it's five more days until Rey sees anyone other than her jailers. One morning, the cell door unexpectedly opens and it's Vanee. Rey looks past him expecting to find a squad of troopers who will march her in chains to another conference room or maybe to her execution. But he's alone.
Vanee sees her surprise and smiles. "It's just me. I thought you might enjoy a visit, Princess. May I?" He looks over to the bench built into the wall that constitutes both her bed and her chair.
"Of course."
As usual, Vader's old castle caretaker wears his dramatic full Sith regalia. With great dignity, he settles himself down and pats the bench beside him for her to do the same. "I had to wait for the hullabaloo to die down," he confides. "But I think it's safe now."
"Oh. Does that mean I am forgotten?" Rey asks, her eyes narrowing. She's still not sure what to make of Kylo's news about a confession for treason.
"I wouldn't put it that way," Vanee equivocates. "It's just that the newness of your arrival has abated. And since Lord Ren has delegated your needs to me, I felt it appropriate to look in on you." He leans forward now to ask, "If you are amendable, I will feel it appropriate to look in on you daily about this time. If you can stand my company, that is."
"Oh, yes, please!" Rey is bored out of her mind. She's terribly relieved to see someone other than her jailers.
Vanee reaches now into his heavy robes and produces a muffin wrapped in a napkin. "I saved it for you, Princess. The detention officer reports that you eat very little these days."
"Thank you," Rey manages between bites as she gobbles the delicious muffin. It's much better than the ration muffins she is fed. "What else do you have under there?" Rey asks looking speculatively at his spooky getup.
"Not a lightsaber or a blaster, I'm afraid." Vanee looks a bit apologetic.
"Are you going to get in trouble for this?" she whispers furtively as she licks her fingers with relish. Her eyes find the camera in the corner of the ceiling.
The old man shrugs. "Not if you don't try to escape. Rey, you are to be held here indefinitely. That is unfortunate. So let's you and I make the best of it."
"I-Indefinitely?" She meets old Vanee's eyes and he nods sadly. Rey sighs and looks away. Once she was to be Kylo's forever wife, but now apparently, she is to be his forever prisoner. But at least that's marginally better than execution for treason. Rey takes a deep breath now and rallies. "Tell me about Titus. Please tell me about my son. Is he in a cell too?"
"Oh, no. The young master lives as one of the family. Like you once did with Lord Plagueis at the bunker."
"Tell me more-what is he doing? How is he?" Rey is desperate for reassurance about her son.
"The young master spends his days at school now that the new term has begun. Most evenings, he has dinner with Lord Ren. Sometimes the Master puts him to work in the library. Kittat, you know. Milo knows a bit of it, so he began the instruction. But I believe the young Master has shown himself to be a quick study at languages. He has surpassed Milo's knowledge and now Lord Ren teaches him his Kittat."
"Kylo is training him to be a Sith," she realizes, remembering her own nightly dinners with Snoke full of wine soaked soliloquies about the Force.
"Yes. The Master spends quite a bit of time with young Titus."
Rey's brow furrows. "Is he hurting him?"
"I don't think so." Vanee is candid. "I think they enjoy one another's company for the most part."
"Oh." Rey doesn't know whether that is a good thing or a bad thing. "Is Titus happy?"
"The boy seems to be making the best of the situation. And Lord Ren is trying. He is new to parenting, remember, and not known for his patience. Now, Princess, tell me about your son. How he amuses himself. What he likes. This is his home now. I would like to make it familiar and comfortable for him. He has had much change in his life of late."
And that's how Vanee under his guise as head of the Sith's private household comes to quietly subvert his Master. Passing news and anecdotes and a daily smuggled muffin on to Rey to keep her spirits up. And finding the right video games and assorted other tech toys to quietly show up in Titus' room. Vanee is not exactly a go-between, for he declines to pass messages between mother and child. But he manages to pass quite a bit of information all the same. It's the comfort and assurance Rey needs to hear.
"Kylo is going to bust us. It's only a matter of time," the worried Rey says one day as Vanee presents her with a much-desired pillow that he produces from under his voluminous robes. She's not supposed to have any personal effects beyond basic hygiene, but Vanee seems increasingly determined to interpret that category broadly. "Vanee, you're going to get busted."
"Perhaps. But perhaps not. I suspect that the Master will tolerate this. In my experience, the Sith are rarely as fearsome as they pretend to be where their personal affairs are concerned."
"There's a camera in here," she points out to Vanee for the umpteenth time.
And Vanee says what he always says when Rey talks about the camera. "The camera feed only goes to the Master, and he never bothers to look. Plus, the person who will be busted is me, Princess. Not you. I shall assume the full risk."
"It's not wise to upset a Sith," Rey warns from her own experience.
"Yes, yes, I know. Never cross a Sith, never trust a Sith, Sith do not lie, Sith do not love, Sith do not forgive. Rey, I've heard it all. And I've known four Sith in my time. Trust me, there are always exceptions where family is concerned."
Still, Rey looks over at Vanee with real concern. For, like Milo, Vanee has been a scrupulously loyal and discrete servant of the Sith for decades. Snoke had rewarded this wizened old man with immortality for his righteously heroic defense of Vader's castle after Endor. Old Vanee had stood his ground to refuse admittance to Rebellion invaders, informing them that the Jedi Skywalker was welcome to come claim his inheritance but no other Rebel scum would set foot in Lord Vader's home.
"Rey, you may be in a cell, but you are still a part of this family and I am charged with looking after the family." Vanee gives her a thoughtful look now. "Family is why you are here. Lord Ren did not want another generation of Sith to grow up estranged. That is the real reason why you are imprisoned, Rey. For separating the Skywalkers yet again."
"I don't like you taking these risks for me." Rey has dragged enough people into the mess of her and Kylo already.
But the unrepentant old caretaker just grins conspiratorially. He might look and act like the grim reaper, but Vanee can be charming when he wants to be. And with Rey, he is ruthlessly cheerful most days. "If Lord Ren will not tolerate my mischief, perhaps we can a share a cell," he decides. "And then Milo will be the one to bring us muffins."
Rey shoots him a sideways glance. "Does Milo know what you're up to?"
"That old goat suspects I'm sure. It's a good thing you were not assigned to him, Rey. Lord Plagueis found the perfect unquestioning stooge in Milo."
"I like Milo. A lot."
"Don't tell anyone-least of all him-but I do too, Princess. Still, he is insufferably pompous these days now that he represents a Sith Emperor and not just a Sith." Vanee sniffs and makes a face that contorts his leonine features comically. "That old goody two shoes is awfully straitlaced for a man who serves the Sith. I myself am a little less strictly obedient."
Rey raises an eyebrow. "However did Vader let you get away with that?" she wonders aloud.
Vanee chuckles softly. "Let's just say that Lord Vader could be a little less than obedient himself at times." The old man has that faraway look in his eye now that he gets when he remembers fondly his former Master. "Princess, Lord Vader would have given anything to have the second chance Lord Ren gets now. To have his wife back alive and his family reunited. The Master is very lucky. He does not realize yet how lucky he is."
"Am I supposed to feel lucky, Vanee? Because I don't feel very lucky."
"The Force is not fair," the old man observes sagely. "I may not have the Force but I've seen a few things in my long years, Princess."
"I'm never getting out of here, am I?"
"Never say never, my dear. Aren't you the Light? Aren't you hope? If you're discouraged, then we are all in trouble."
"I don't feel very hopeful," Rey says glumly. "Will you come back tomorrow?" She asks this each day at the conclusion of his visit.
"But of course. I will need to retrieve the datapad I plan to accidentally on purpose leave here," he tells her with a roguish wink. "Don't worry. I made sure it's fully charged. Ready for some binge-watching, Princess?"