A/N: Happy Valentine's Day! As a gift to you all, here is the next chapter. Thank you so much for sticking with this fic and for all the lovely comments. Hope you enjoy! 3
"Midnight brought on the dusky hour
Friendliest to sleep and silence."
- John Milton, Paradise Lost
CHAPTER 25
Kylo watches his mother put his lover to bed.
He sensed her arrival before her ship broke atmosphere. It was entirely predictable that she would be the one to head negotiations for the Core system. Most of the court still holds nostalgia for the useless days of the Galactic Senate and it has twisted into unspoken sympathy for the cause of the Resistance now too. Kylo did not greet her. He did not arrest her either. Nor the obnoxious pilot who fills the role of a dutiful son.
Kylo feels no duty. He feels tired. He has felt Rey getting intoxicated for the last three hours.
She lies in the servant bed he has sat beside as she struggled through nightmares and he kept the fire strong. His mother pulls the blanket over her shoulders and close to her chin. He thinks it will make her uncomfortable. He thinks she needs to lie more on her side should she be sick in the night and risk aspirating—she makes him worry too much. He is annoyed she got drunk to the point of losing consciousness. He is frustrated she is not lying in his bed passed out due to more pleasurable reasons.
His mother sits by Rey's side and brushes a strand of hair away from her face. It is an empty gesture, Kylo thinks. He does not know why their bond chose to connect them like this, when Rey is unaware and Kylo is already agitated. The Force is vindictive when it is displeased. There are too many fluctuations, too much uncontrolled Light and concentrated Darkness. Kylo senses the disturbance as constant white noise. He is tired but he will not sleep tonight.
His mother stands. She stands three feet away from him. She stares right through him and for a moment she stares at him. Kylo stares back. Then she moves. Unlike Rey, who is tangible to him (and so close he could touch her—he should if only his mother would leave), his mother passes through the place where he stands. He feels her Force signature as he did as a child, a caress of his hair as she put him to bed, the hum of a song; all empty gestures but he stills. His mother stills too.
She does not say his name out loud but he hears it. Rey is the only person he knows to call him by that name now.
He turns and his mother is busy tidying Rey's things. She hangs up the dress Rey was wearing for the engagement announcement. Folds the white silk nightgown (oh Gods how he cringes seeing his mother's hands all over that). Picks up a box from a dresser and opens it. His grandmother's necklace. She stares and touches the colourful jewels set like flowers. He knows she feels her mother's presence as strong as he did. He wonders what she thinks of his gift but he cannot bring himself to pry.
The Force is bored of this game. The image of Rey's room begins to blur and he allows himself a final glimpse of her sleeping (and thankfully breathing) form before he returns to the dark walls of his own chambers.
He will not sleep tonight. Tomorrow will be the first day of negotiations. He has already sent for the other knights. He knows Malaak is returning the princess to her rooms (he knows because the strength of his heartbeat sounds through the palace like a Wookiee war drum). There is only one person Kylo cannot sense. It is an anomaly that strikes a great curiosity inside him, as much as it triggers rage and inconsolable fear.
He puts on his belt and attaches his saber. He leaves his rooms and silently requests for the Imperial Guards to remain where they are.
The journey is not far.
He presses the buzzer to announce his presence. The last time he was here he had let himself in like a thief and somehow squashed the urge to revert to a murderer. He could feel everything; there is only silence here now, like the soundless echo of the library. He does not do well with such a disconnect. It is only when he hears the deliberate sound of footsteps approach several moments later that he knows for sure the room is not vacant.
"Sorry I kept you waiting," Alec says. He leans against the open doorway in nothing but loose black pants and the most infuriatingly smug smirk. Kylo's hands are balled into fists; he breathes through his nose. "Can I help you, brother?"
"We need to talk."
Alec leads him inside. There is a heightened arrogance in the way he allows Kylo to walk behind him, saber at his side yet not perceived as a threat.
"You look like you could use a drink," Alec says, his back still to him. There are marks all across his tanned skin, faint pink lines that were not there before. Alec was always remarkably scarless despite their many sparring matches and numerous other battles (markedly unlike Kylo, who took the brunt of punishment from Snoke).
"You look different," Kylo says. He is still not used to Alec's new eyes. They glow in the dim light of the room as Alec turns to face him. "I remain undecided if it is an improvement."
"Is that why you're here?"
"Like I said, we have a lot to talk about." Kylo reaches out to graze Alec's mind with the Force. All he senses is a black cloud, an empty void. "Nice trick," Kylo says. "How's it work?"
Alec smiles; he is unfazed by the intrusion. "If you're going to make me endure one of your academic inquisitions, I insist you take a drink."
Kylo does not drink. He accepts Alec's offer. They sit in the gaudy living area Alec decorated himself. Kylo does not sit on the large green sofa; he remembers what he saw there. The two men end up either side of the fireplace in high-backed chairs sipping Corellian whiskey (the favored brand of his father).
"Your taste is awful," Kylo says.
"Any taste at all always offended your senses." Alec's golden eyes glance briefly to the unoccupied sofa. "Of course, now your tastes have changed."
"So have yours. It is unusual that they would become so particular."
"Say what you have come here to say."
"Say her name; I will allow it."
"Rey."
"You have reached your quota."
Alec laughs. "I never would have predicted but I should have known—you would always be like this. You cannot share. You cannot lose. You cannot abide anyone else having the things you covet."
"Tell me what I covet from you."
"The ability to save her."
The glass is crushed in Kylo's hand. He does not perceive the shards that pierce his skin. There are sharp fragments that stab everywhere else. He closes his eyes. He squeezes his hand tighter until the pain registers.
"You need me," Alec says.
"Yes." Kylo looks at him. "Why else would I let you live?"
"Sentimentality? A sense of honor?" Alec takes a large swallow of his drink until the glass is empty. "I am no threat to you."
"Why not?"
"You have the bond." Alec laughs again but it is a brief, humorless sound. "I cannot compete. I will do this for her as you asked of me. I will explain all I have learned. I will rid you of Plagueis. And she will still choose you for the Force wills it so."
"She loves me," Kylo says. It sounds pitiful. It sounds so pathetic. To hear those words spoken out loud, the unfathomable secret he has carried like a sore, like a lie. Yet he believes them.
"How does she know? How do either of you know how you feel?"
"You do not understand."
"You think I am incapable of love?"
"I do not know," Kylo says. "Perhaps you love her as well. It is easy to, I know. But you are seeped in the Dark, and she is a child of the Light. You would not accept—"
"I do not accept being lectured on protecting the Light by the grandson of Darth Vader."
"Luke's father as well," Kylo says. "You never did grasp what I was trying to tell you."
"You fed us all lies."
"You chose not to listen. You were always enamored by the Dark. You wanted a mythology, a philosophy that fitted your preconceived views. The Jedi were useless, ineffectual and cruel in their inaction. But there are faults to the Sith too. What did they do to you?"
Alec leans forwards; he smiles. His gaze shines brighter than the flames of the fire. "They opened my eyes."
"They mutilated you."
"Pain is the path to enlightenment. You taught me that, Master Solo. I saw you sacrifice yourself to that crooked, manipulative charlatan and it took you years before you understood. I saw it all in two weeks. I had the guidance of twelve true masters. You let yourself be abused by a mad man."
Kylo holds up his bleeding palm. "I know this is my legacy. I am covered in scars. I forget what physical pain feels like. I barely sleep. I have barely slept since I was a child. But it was not the power of the Sith that allowed me to kill to Snoke. There was no rule of two. There was only her."
"You are denying your true power. The bond weakens you. It is as I said when you brought her here and I saw her almost bring you to your knees. You have never fully embraced the Dark side. You cannot embrace the Light. You are fractured. You have always been fractured and killing your father and fucking a Jedi will not fix who you are."
"Fucking a Jedi?" Kylo says.
"You finally got laid, didn't you?"
Kylo stands. He raises his bloody hand. He imagines the Force squeezing around Alec's throat. Nothing happens. Alec rises too.
"There is so much I could show you, brother," he says.
Kylo lowers his hand. He presses his mouth together as he thinks and remembers. "It worked the night we fought, when I Force choked you then. What is different now?"
"I had to play to my audience. Not that it was hard to garner sympathy."
"Do not manipulate her. I swear on her life I will end you if you twist her will in any way."
"Hypocrite."
"Fool. You have let the Lords destroy you. You say I am fractured? You are poisoned. You are not the same."
"I am stronger. Is it that now I may be stronger than you?"
"We will test that theory one day. But this is not that day. Do you love her?" Kylo thinks of Rey's memory of Alec's kiss, of the conviction of his words. She is naïve and she is a passionate creature, tactile and impulsive. Her body responded out of an instinct Kylo had honed, and Kylo imploded at the image with the force of a dying star.
"You know it to be true," Alec says.
"Then show me this newfound power of yours." Shards of glass drift out of Kylo's palm, disperse and coalesce in the air then hover like waiting darts. "Show me how we beat Plagueis."
Leia always wanted a daughter.
There was never time before, when Ben was young and Han was travelling and she was too busy trying to build a brave new world, but there were moments, bits of time, thoughts held together like flaking bundles of straw—that in another life she would have liked to have a daughter.
She hated growing up by herself, and she hated it for Ben too, though she spent every spare minute she could with him. She hated the feeling that she would never feel a baby kicking inside her womb again, or witness first steps or first words or a first smile. Never experience the soft weight in her arms of someone who is wholly dependent upon you for life itself. The awesome responsibility and suffocating love of being needed. Every milestone with her son also held within it a tiny tragedy, and the pragmatic part of her brain would remind her this is the last and this is the last and so on. She always thought too much about the future, and Han was never shy to point it out. It seems like the future is all she thinks about now.
But she would have liked another child. Maybe a whole houseful, in a world where she wasn't who she was and Han wasn't who he was and they could have made a different life together. A smaller life. (A happier one? The question is no longer painful to endure. So little of happiness is our own choice, she thinks.)
But the thought strayed from time to time and still does even now, though Han is gone and she is long past the age of child-bearing. She would have liked to have had another child. A dark-haired girl, full of brightness, with a quick wit and a ready smile like her scoundrel father. With her mother's courage and resolve. Leia stares at the young woman lying in bed now and thinks this might have been her, all grown up, with a loving family and none of the sorrows a little orphan girl from Jakku would have had to endure.
Would she have messed this one up too? Leia wonders in her daydream. Probably. There is a part of her that believes their line is cursed, that she and Luke were products of a union that never should have happened and the universe is still trying to recover from it. She doesn't voice these thoughts but she knows Luke wondered too. He wondered since the first day she brought her son to him, asking for his help.
Rey sleeps peacefully. Aside from the stench of rum there is a peacefulness in the air, and Leia longs to stay and be comforted by it. She rises from the bed and crosses the room. The peacefulness is replaced by coldness, a dark presence she can feel, though nothing appears. She takes another step and it is if she has slipped into a pool of ice water. She knows who it is. She thinks to call out but what is the use? There is no welcome in this embrace.
She starts what she intended to do, picking up Rey's things as a mother would, tidying up after a long day, and the ritual soothes her. She finds the necklace of her mother in a velvet box on the dressing table. She knows this only by the Force but she can see her mother's face. She can see the face of the one who gave Rey this gift. All her mother's dresses Leia has in storage at the palace on Naboo. She never had someone she could share them with. And now he gives you this?
She turns off the lights, leaving only the glow of the fire. She goes downstairs. She is restless. The night is warm and draws her outside to the small garden at the back of kitchen. Leia is not the only one. A tiny creature stares down at a wealth of needle blossoms straining up toward the moonlight.
"They were planted this afternoon," Maz says.
She stops beside her. "Green thumbs."
"It is not I who planted them."
"I figured you'd be passed out."
"For teaching children how to drink? Salah, you know me better than that."
Leia smiles at the use of her bride-name. It is the only word Maz has ever called her, bestowed upon her at their first meeting, when Han brought her to Takodana. "I heard you were out of commission two nights ago."
"Bah! That one was a worthy competitor."
"The bullish knight? I met him."
"He will be trouble for the pale one."
"I have trouble enough without your help. Feel that I've missed too much as it is."
"You have," Maz says cheerfully. "It is good to see you."
Leis takes her hand. "You too, old friend."
They sit on an iron bench. The air is sweet down here, and Leia feels no desire to go back inside. "I've been away too long," she says.
"You have," Maz agrees.
"You think me on a fool's errand."
"I think you do what you feel you must.
"I make the best of what I can."
"And for those you affect?" Maz's large goggles reflect the moons, making them look as if her eyes are lit with light. It is a strange effect and Leia tries hard to ignore it.
"Sacrifices must be made. It is the way of politics. If we do not make the hard decisions, then billions—trillions more will suffer for our mistakes." She has seen this firsthand. Seen her father's passion and anger rewrite history; it is only fair that she try to make amends.
"That is why I was never a politician," Maz says.
"Just a pirate."
"You have some softness for them as I recall." She places her hand on Leia's. "I am sorry, Salah. I miss him too."
The mention of Han is a blade to her heart. Like a thousand blades; she does not ever think she can get over it. "I want vengeance," she says. "I want to grieve. Part of me wishes I had gone with him."
"Do you think it would have been easier?"
"Easier than seeing what is left of our son."
"You have not seen much."
Leia looks at her sharply, a harsh retort on her tongue. Maz corrects herself. "I only mean that you have not seen from up close. You once held out hope. Do you still not feel it?"
Leia's face hardens. "I try to give my hope to those who deserve it."
"And love? What of that?"
It is a poison, she thinks. "It is pain," she says out loud.
"For that girl upstairs, I think you are right."
Leia looks to Rey's window. She can still see the faint glow of firelight from within. "I never wanted her to get mixed up in all this."
"It was not for you to decide, Salah. You think you can control these things, that you can control people. You think you can control the Force—"
"We cannot all be passive and stand aside." She and Luke never saw eye to eye on this.
"Yes, but let yourself receive help. What if she is his path to the Light?"
Is it possible? Leia cannot let herself dare hope. It would be a foolish dream; a fairytale. Life does not work that way. "I know his nature," she says, and saying the words feels like defeat. "He is driven by obsession and control. I would not see her a slave to that."
"They are bonded," Maz says. "The Force has brought them together."
"But what of her?"
Maz sighs sadly. "She loves him. It is an aching sickness for that one. If they were to be separated…" She shakes her head.
"She cannot change him," Leia says.
"Can she not? I am still here. You are still here."
"Han is not." There are tears that want to come, but Leia will not let them.
"No. Nor is he coming back. And Ben Solo alone must bear that."
"You use his old name."
"I am not the only one."
"She cannot handle him. She cannot handle the Darkness—"
"That is not for you to say. Your world is politics."
"She cannot handle that either. There are more voices than just mine. They won't rest until there is a true alliance—"
"That is why I leave it to you."
Leia's laugh is hollow.
"You are young," Maz says. "Not like me. My time is coming to an end. Your time too, Salah. We shall not live forever. There must be others to take our place."
"You think Rey is that person?"
Maz inclines her head. "I think there are many possibilities. Some seen, and some yet to be imagined. I think the Force will show us."
"You sound like Luke."
"I think the Force already has." Maz lowers herself off the bench, looking suddenly very frail. "And now I am off to bed. I leave you to commune with the ghosts and learn their secrets."
"I'd rather commune with some rum," Leia says.
"That too."
Maz pauses. "The night will not last forever, Salah. Do not let it rule your heart."
Maz goes and Leia looks at the garden. She has seen these flowers before on Kashyyyk. Chewbacca's wife, Mallatobuck, would dry them and make them into tea. For sleep, she said. And fertility. Leia still isn't sure how those two things could work together. But she drank the tea (bitter if not sweetened by a hive's worth of honey), and three months later she discovered she was with child. She rests a hand on her belly and she thinks of her son. You started here. Under the influence of needle blossoms.
She looks at the flowers and, under the light of four moons, it seems as if they rise up to greet her.