"I am not-!"
"Going back to Rosunda. Yes, I know. I heard you the first thirty times." Tired and scared, Ben pulled an olive-green tunic over his head, unconcerned with what it did to his hair. What I wouldn't give for this to be just an awful fucking dream…. Cargo pants…. Where were his cargo pants….?
He felt something brush his hand; worn material and when he looked, his forlorn wife held his pants aloft to him. Her demeanour had overhauled itself from defiant haughtiness at going home to doleful cooperation when the here and now registered; now was not the time to be bratty. To that end, Normay was hesitant to let Ben's lips part with hers before he left.
There was no formality to this, not when urgency dictated action.
As soon as the door slid (even partially) open, Ben elbowed past it. And the droid that was waiting on the other side.
"This really is outrageous!" C-3PO clucked with exasperation, as he tottered from the door of General Organa's chambers in Ben's fast-paced wake. The late hour meant nothing: his mother's gold protocol droid was duty bound to assess his request and decide if it was worth waking the General or not. So far, Ben guessed the droid was leaning towards the latter.
"I need to see my mother." There was a soft whirr as C-3PO rounded on him, taken aback by the brazenness. How dare he ask to see his own mother?! The robot had been hard pushed to forgive Ben, and he wasn't the only one. But the ex-Knight was far too concerned with reporting the contact of the scout over the pettiness of a pile of nuts and bolts. "Wake her, 3PO." Ben began his ultimatum patiently but warningly; the droid bristled accordingly. "Or I'll wake her myself."
"Everything okay?" Leia asked, sleep still fresh in her system and in her features, as she took the seat opposite her son. Ben's rigid form should have been enough to tell her otherwise.
Leia had always been a minimalist when it came to décor and clothes. Her offices in the Senate, her cabin aboard any of her private vessels, like the Mirrorbright, over the years (and the vessels themselves); not to mention, the family apartment she and Han occupied during her pregnancy with Ben. The former princess even favoured plain whites and greys in her surroundings, furnishings and dress. She preferred function over frill and for a practical person like Leia, surely that just made sense?
Like now, when the banal, grey brick of her quarters was reflected in her pyjamas and the modest cardigan warming her shoulders; the same one that sealed in the heat from her bed before it could float away.
"Not really." It wasn't like Ben to be stoic, not anymore. More to the point, he loved his bed; as if to make up for the countless hours and days he went without sleeping while terrorizing the galaxy. Even more to the point: Ben had twins on the way and, as Leia could personally attest to, sleep was precious with young children around.
In that resolve, Leia should have figured that everything was not okay.
The arm of Leia's chair supported her elbow. Her elbow in turn propped up her arm and that cupped her chin while she waited for clarity and stared her son down, expectant of an answer.
"The scout commed me. 'Bout ten minutes ago." Suddenly, Leia's lax and exhausted posture straightened; like she'd gotten a strike of a bantha-prod to the rear. Fatigue forgotten and jaw halfway to the floor, the General clasped both arms of her chair and forced herself forward, projecting herself closer to her only child; as if looking for a lie or a joke. Unfortunately, more worryingly, she found neither.
"You're sure?!" She choked, as if there was any possibility that Ben wasn't. The drained but persevering expression across from her answered the unnecessary query. "Well?! What he say?!"
Ben shuffled in his seat, like it would change things. For the second time in ten minutes, he had to tell a woman he loved that war was on its way, that it was coming to tear apart all they had built, and to revive all they had tried to stifle.
"He asked me if I was ready to fly." He found the words somewhere and croaked them out, eyes on his hands that clasped each other for mutual comfort. "Told him I was. There's another meeting in the same cantina I met him in. Tomorrow night. And he wants me there."
Leia blew out her vexation slowly, exhaling it gently as if she might spot a solution in it. She didn't.
"The Falcon's outta the question." The General cemented Ben's earlier thoughts and shut down his hopes at the same time; trust Leia to take the most practical route. "It'd be the best ship for the job, no question, but it'd be too easy to recognize. An X-Wing, a Y-Wing or an A-Wing are trademarks of the Resistance and the Rebellion, you'd be weeded out in no time-"
"What're the chances my Tie Silencer is still in one piece?" The male grumbled the injection of dark humour but found himself under the sting of older and disapproving eyes.
"You can say that in front of me, but don't say it in front of Normay. I know you were joking-" She cut him sternly off before he could protest he was joking. "But that would upset her, and you know it." Scolding delivered, Leia relaxed in her chair while the options, possibilities and probable outcomes began to churn in her head; some of them causing a churning in her stomach.
"That said…." Ben's eyes heightened while his mother's drifted to nothing in particular; she immersed herself in untying the knots, to lay a followable path that could be re-twisted into a web of lies. Leia's voice gained depth, distancing herself from the safety of her quarters and hurling herself into the strategic analysis of war: her specialty. "Maybe it's not such a bad idea. It'll give credit to what we want them to believe: That Kylo Ren is back. The lightsaber and the Silencer…. You'll need a pilot droid…. And a back-up in case the Silencer is a no-go. In the Order's absence, a lot of its assets were plundered…" Yes, that presented another problem.
But…. Like he'd already assured himself…. He could fly anything. It burned in his blood like acceleration fluid.
"So…..?" His mother's calculative trance may have enlightened her, but Ben was still at a loss. "What do we do?"
"We need to act quickly." The greying female answered, partially surfacing from her tactical daze. "The more we have nailed down by the time you go into that meeting tomorrow, the better. Round up Poe, Finn and Rey. If you're going to find your Silencer, I'd rather you didn't do it alone." Ben took that as a dismissal, and he was almost at the door before his mother spoke up again. "And Ben?" Cue the curious pause as his hand hovered over the door panel. "We need to minimize Normay's involvement."
"I've tried to convince her to go home." He offered with half a shrug that his mother greeted with a tut; if anyone knew a stubborn woman, it was Leia herself. Pregnancy hadn't stopped her either. "But she won't go."
"Let me talk to her." Leia breezed, following Ben's example and getting up; whether to sleep or to plan, she couldn't be sure yet. "Maybe she just needs some gentle, female persuasion."