The Patron Saint of Lost Causes

Chapter 6


Hux could feel his pulse in his throat. Rose had set the datapad back down, but she still hadn't uttered a word in some long, agonizing minutes.

Was the silence between them tense? Or was he just making it tense by thinking it was tense?

Hell.

"Wait a minute," Rose said, so suddenly that he twitched in surprise.

Sitting up from where they worked, prying off old connecting ports, he saw her vaguely annoyed expression. "I forgot the damn soldering spanner, didn't I?" She checked the pockets of her uniform and turned up empty. A frustrated sound growled in the back of throat. "Guess I'll go grab it. Hang on a sec."

Hux watched her stand and unlock the cell door.

"Do find your way back," he said in a faux-flat tone, gesturing to his ankle, "before I get bored and wander off."

Rose glanced in his direction through the bars, but she didn't take his invitation for banter. In fact, she was looking at him with wary eyes. Hux pressed his lips together and ducked his gaze back to the task at hand, listening to her retreating steps.

Once she was far enough, Hux let out a long, deep breathe he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Laying down his multitool, he ran both hands through his hair, trying to coax it back into a somewhat regulated shape.

"The company is… the only highlight of my day."

He'd walked right into that. It had been so obvious. What could have possessed him to open his stupid mouth and say that? Weak-will, of course. Of course.

She was obviously testing his reactions. Probably seeing if she'd made any inroads in so far as gaining his confidence for the Resistance. Wrap him around her finger. Yes, that was it.

Then… why had she turned such a delightful shade of pink?

More troubling; why did he find her turning pink even remotely delightful?

She was playing him. On purpose. She thought it was funny.

No. As quickly as the thought came, he dismissed it. She wore her heart on her sleeve, even as he wanted to shake her, scream at her that it was ill-advised. He was her enemy and she'd stayed with him that first night. Came back, even when he rebuffed her and was cruel. Brought him tea and blankets. Spoke with him about her loss, and his, even though he deserved none of her compassion and kindness.

The most cynical explanation was that it was all for the Resistance. And maybe part of that were true—

But… he was already cooperating. What more did they want from him? It was obvious that being in their good graces would provide him the only chance of avoiding a firing squad. Even so, he was dubious as to the Resistance's ability, and willingness, to provide him protection indefinitely.

So why.

Whatever the reason, she had quite the annoying talent of needling her way past his defenses. He'd said more words to her in the time he'd been with the Resistance than he'd probably spoken to anyone in during all the formative years of his life.

Hux glared down at the partially disassembled TIE computer as if it were the source of all his anguish.


Outside, Rose tried to resist the urge to bash her head against the wall. Repeatedly.

He was so— so… ugh!

It's was like he couldn't decide which box where to put her in. One day he's ranting about the First Order, lamenting his fate for having to even talk to her, and then the other he's opening up about his grief, working with her, complimenting her and being, from what she could tell, quite sincere about it.

Her fingers touched the pendant around her neck and felt a wave of nausea.

Hux was there when Paige died. He'd played a part in the destruction of her home planet; in the death of her parents, her allies, her friends. How could she be so chummy with him? Wasn't that treason or something? Wasn't she spitting on her family's grave by just being kind to the man?

But—

"—the only highlight of my day."

He didn't know. Visiting him, questioning him, the bickering, fixing servos amid witty tête-à-têtes… that's what at she'd begun to look forward to.

It was challenging, maybe a little bit dangerous, and—and fun.

A welcome reprieve from her other duties.

Something new and interesting.

And the parts of him that she'd seen, the real, human Armitage Hux, had surprised her. He'd done terrible, evil things, but he was still capable of sadness, humor, embarrassment—

How flustered he got sometimes; how he seemed to choose his words with fastidious practice. The way his Imperial accent thickened when he was agitated. His finicky quirks, that challenging look in his eyes that drove her to rise above his expectations. His sharp tongue, the gallows humor—

He was… oh god, she thought he was charming!

Rose had to stop in her tracks, suddenly sick with nervous adrenaline. This wasn't supposed to happen! She was just supposed to be gathering intel! She wasn't supposed to feel pity or compassion, or— or— affinity was she?!

She'd just shelved the bitterness and tried being herself about the whole thing! And that was it, wasn't it? That's just where the fault lay. She didn't have it in her to be some cold, unfeeling interrogator. She was just naturally friendly and he'd started to respond to that, because she was probably the only kind person he's met in his whole miserable life. She'd heard his silent cry for companionship, and now she was hooked in his orbit.

The accusing eyes of her friends filled her imagination. Finn being furious, Poe being disappointed, Connix's horror, Rey's…

Maybe Rey would understand but still.

Wandering back to the stockade with the soldering tool, she paused just outside the entrance.

Green eyes so light they were almost a pale blue, peeking up through errant strands of ginger hair. She wondered, if she reached out to tuck back the loose bits, would it be as soft as the look he'd been giving her?

Her heart hammered in her chest.

Charming or not, he was still dangerous. Did she really think he wouldn't take the first opportunity to escape? He'd slated her for death before, so why would he hesitate to hurt her again if he had the chance? Maybe she could test that theory…

Whatever she decided, she couldn't call it quits now; she knew that. That would be admitting defeat. He'd only begun opening up to her, hadn't he? Wasn't that the very definition of progress?

Leia's knowing smile swam in the back of her mind.

She was helping him as much as he was helping them, that was the reason.


"I finished disconnecting the cables," Hux said, watching Rose return with the tool she'd stepped out for. Was it his imagination, or did she look upset about something? Warily, he asked, "Something wrong?"

She sat heavily back into her chair. "No, it's fine…"

"Clearly not."

She shook her head, squeezing her temples between her thumb and ring finger. "I'm just… I was just thinking about my family." It wasn't a lie, per-say, she thought.

They'd hate the idea of me working with you like this, she wanted to tell him, but held it back. She knew such a statement would hurt him, wound him, make him lash out, and… and she didn't want that.

"Oh." He fiddled with the spanner in his hand, looking elsewhere.

"Do you have any siblings?"

"No."

Only child? That explains a lot, she thought.

"You're from Arkanis, right? You mentioned it once during our communiques."

"I was born there," he said with little emotion, bending to strip the disconnected wires of their protective coating so they could be reattached. "I remember that it rained quite a lot… but I left when I was five, when the New Republic bombed the Academy."

"The… what?"

He looked up at her, puzzled at her reaction. He didn't think he'd said anything outlandish.

She gave him a peculiar look. "The New Republic… bombed a school?"

At her tone of disbelief, a wave of rage flooded into his chest. "Of course they did!" She flinched at his tone, but he didn't care. "Doesn't the Resistance tell you people anything? The Republic besieged the entire planet! Tore it apart! We were trapped there!"

Rose remembered the wide-eyed terror of watching First Order ships descending onto Hays Minor.

"You made it out," she said in a small voice.

"Some of us weren't so lucky," he countered stiffly, ripping the coating off another wire with more force than was probably necessary. "My father was Commandant at the time. I suppose that afforded the two of us a bit of special treatment."

The two of us.

Rose could feel the bitterness in his words, and decided to leave the question of who exactly had been left behind for another time. "Your father helped found the Order, didn't he? I think I remember reading something about him one time…" He went very still, looking even more pale than usual. Uh-oh. "Hux?"

"He was… I believe the Grand Admiral once called him an 'ego-fed pig'."

Rose laughed openly, but quickly covered her mouth with a hand.

He held her gaze, lips drawn into a tight line. "He was the one who founded the Order's stormtrooper program."

"Oh, I see," her mouth twisted into a pursed frown. Yikes. She'd wanted to facilitate his opening up, but the vibe she was getting at the moment was decidedly not good.

Bad idea! Super sensitive topic! What were you thinking?! Her mind raced, unsure of what to say next.

Hux went back to work. "He was a ruthless brute, but I had him killed, in the end. Poison. I believe he eventually dissolved in a bacta tank." He felt a shadow of an emotion. Satisfaction? He couldn't even bother to identify it.

Rose stared at him, slack-jawed.

"It's in the past," he muttered, trying to avoid her gaze. He didn't want to know what kind of look she was giving him. Pity? Horror? Was he a wretch she felt sorry for? Or a monster that disgusted her?

Probably both, he reasoned.

He was as his father made him, after all.

"I'm… sorry," she said eventually.

"Don't be. I'm not."

"Armitage…"

The care with which she said his name, precious and breakable, made him shiver. The silence that came next however, made him want to scream at her.

"Talk about something," he said suddenly, trying to ignore the loud ringing in his ears.

"Huh?"

"Anything. Just— anything. Something not—something else."

"I don't— ah, uh, my—my grandmother had a… tooka? Its name was Südko. He was kind of like this mauve color with little stripes. Really blended into the landscape, so a couple times we thought we'd lost him but turns out he was just really good at sneaking around. This one time, he jumped into my lap when I was practicing on my grandma's Headhunter sim and that's why I crashed. Only Paige didn't believe me. She said—"

He looked at her, one brow raised incredulously. "You had a Headhunter sim?"

"Uh, yeah. A Z-95."

He took a shaky breath, and Rose was pleased to see the red-faced anger slowly draining from him. "You just… took a few turns on the family snub-fighter before breakfast?" He sounded taken aback; amused, impressed.

She grinned, looking at her hands. "It's not that big a deal. It was just a simulation. What did you do at a kid?"

"Tinkered, when I was allowed. And sometimes when I wasn't." He stripped another of the wires, more at ease then before. He had to admit, her voice was soothing.

"Yeah? Me too. Although… I mainly destroyed things."

"The flight simulator?"

"Nope," she popped. "More like… twelve OreDiggers?"

He was shocked for a moment, but then shook his head, like he should have known. "Terrorist."

"Freedom fighter."

He supposed that would be true, in light of recent events. History was written by the victor, after all.

"Troublemaker," he muttered out the side of his mouth, clearly tooling with her.

"Aren't all kids?"

"Some of us were quite well behaved."

"Boring." She smiled at his quirked brow. "Although… I'm pretty sure neither of us have led boring lives when it comes right down to it, huh?"

He shrugged one shoulder. Maybe boring would have been better, in the end.

"Do you want me to start on reattaching the cables?" Rose asked, tone much more lighthearted than before.

"Yes, that's fine," he said, holding the wires in their new positions as she worked to solder them into place.

A few hours later, they had the TIE's intel uploaded onto the datapad. Rose was in the process of translating a bit of the selection screen.

"It would be better if we had a First Order maps' display. Names of buildings aren't going to help much if there're aren't corresponding visuals."

"Do you have a First Order maps' display?" Hux asked blandly, watching Rose work.

She shot him a look.

"I thought that was the genesis of our entire problem," he continued.

"Yes, okay! You don't have to keep reminding me."

"If only we had a First Order ship. Something that…" he trailed off, brows knit with a sudden thought. Rose looked at him, and his expression clicked something in her mind.

"The escape pod," she supplied, ecstatic. "It'll save us so much time! You're a genius!"

But he didn't— she'd been the one to— "The pod's abilities are quite basic. It doesn't contain the same authorization chaincode the TIE does," he reminded her.

"We can take the datapad with us!" She was already on her feet. "That way we can integrate the TIE's info!"

He'd heard her, but his brain had become stuck on the word—

"Us?" He asked, incredulous.

She pointed at his ankle. "We have the cuffs. It'll be fine! I need you to access the pod's computer anyway." Even from a prisoner's perspective, he had to concede that taking him out into the jungle was breathlessly reckless. "Plus, it's outside. That'll be nice, right?"

He stared at her. Was she… was she trying to convince him?


"Okay, looks like most people are at lunch. Coast should be relatively clear." Rose said as she unlocked the cell's door, swinging it open. This would be it, she thought with a thrill; now she'd really see if he wanted to run. The danger of it might have been just a little bit indulgent.

Hux's stomach did a backflip. This was such an immensely terrible idea.

"You haven't cleared this with your commanding officer, have you?"

She snorted. "What, Finn and Poe?" She rolled her eyes. "I guess I could have told D'Acy…"

He shifted uncomfortably. Such disregard for regulation. It's why the Resistance was such a slippery thing to bring to heel. They had no respect for real military organization; just a ragtag group of self-trained pilots and reckless gun smugglers. If they had even an ounce of consideration for the rules of war they'd—

"Are you coming? Or are you just going to stand there overanalyzing everything?"

Hux realized he'd been staring at the wall over her shoulder. He refocused.

Rose was holding up both arms up in a wide shrug. "Can we go?"

He stepped toward her, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

She didn't make him walk ahead of her this time. Instead, they strode side-by-side. Her blaster was holstered, but unclipped for easy draw. Hux was just thankful she wasn't jabbing him between the shoulder blades again. She insisted on keeping a grip on his arm above the elbow though, steering him wherever she wanted. He'd balked at that, tried to pull away, but she'd won out. Anyway, her hand was warm through the fabric of his shirt. She'd stuck the datapad into her back pocket.

Stepping outside, he squinted in the sunshine, cuffed hands coming up to shield his eyes. Blinking, he was finally able to see the bright green all around him. It smelled… warm. Grass and dirt and fresh air; so pungent it tingled.

He noticed that as they went, she endeavored to keep herself between him and the greater area of the camp, which lay some yards to their left. Was she trying to hide him? He was quite a bit taller than she was. Anyone who cared to look would no doubt notice him.

What a ridiculous precaution. Still, it made a corner of his mouth quirk up.

"Do you remember anything from after the crash?"

They skirted around what appeared to be the Resistance's dump pile for old storage crates and small shipping containers.

Pain mostly, he thought. But when he really thought about it… He did have a vague memory of being hoisted between two people, most likely the traitor and his pilot, and… She'd been walking ahead of them, hadn't she? She'd kept looking over her shoulder at him, framed in darkness, worry in her gaze.

"Not really," he said, trying to get a good look at the camp before they were swallowed up by the tree line.

Rose snorted. "Poe and I got into this huge argument about what to do with you. Sometimes I don't think he trusts me with big decisions," she muttered. "Finn does, but he usually defers to Poe since they're like, you know." He gave her a quizzical look. "Together?" She supplied, as if it were obvious. "Not officially. I don't think Finn realizes how serious Poe is about it. Those two really need to get on the same page."

Hux didn't know what to do with any of this information. "I… see."

The humidity, once under the thick canopy of trees, was palpable. It almost made Hux wish he were wearing a shirt made of lighter material. He looked down, watching his boots move over the dead leaves and detritus with a strange sense of detachment, like he was still aboard the Finalizer and this was all some amazingly realistic holo.

Without realizing it, he'd slowed to a stop. Rose turned to look at him.

"What's wrong?"

"It's been a while since I've been planetside." And the last one had been buried under so much snow. "I suppose I must have… forgotten what it's like."

Rose took a deep breath, sweeping her arms out. "This is pretty nice, isn't it?"

"I've lived much of my life in space."

"Recirculated air just can't compare to a good 'ol biome. But that's just me."

He didn't know if he agreed just yet or not. Ships were less… messy, compared to what wilderness a planet could hold.

They walked in silence the rest of the way, and he was glad for it. Not that he didn't enjoy their banter, but this way he could hear alien birdcalls in the treetops; the sound of leaves shifting with the breeze.

It was pleasant in a way he didn't think he was capable of enjoying anymore, so the easy contentment surprised him. How long had it been since he'd looked at a planet, or whole star system, without mentally calculating what about it could be useful to the Order?

It wasn't until they reached the escape pod's crash site, Rose bounding out into the sunlight before him, that he noticed she'd dropped hold of his arm quite some time ago.

"This is so fancy!" Rose said, standing before the little spacecraft with her hands on her hips. "I didn't get a good look at it the first time."

"It's an Officers' class."

She whistled. "Oh man! I can't wait to tear this thing apart!"

He was affronted by the mere suggestion of disassembling such fine First Order machinery, but then he saw how eager she was, and imagined her rifling through the engine compartment, streaked with oil and grinning like a fool.

"Let's get on with it then," he said, moving around her towards the cockpit. "I can feel myself getting sunburnt." Hux glanced toward the still open hatch, which sported quite an obvious streak of old, dried blood. He glared at it.

"Wow, this is nice." She'd slipped past him and had already situated herself in the cockpit. "It's so compact. Adorable!"

"Do you even know how to turn it—"

The escape pod's computer blinked to life under her nimble fingers.

His shoulders drooped.

"Oh don't look so gloomy. Come help me with this."

He glanced at the upturned dirt and grass where the pod had sunk itself into the ground. Wrinkling his nose, he took a knee next to the open hatch, bracing his bound wrists on the side of the cockpit's seat, and leaned inside.

Rose was keenly aware of his presence then; him looking over her shoulder.

Balancing the datapad on her knee, she extended the connecting cable, plugging it up and in under the control panel. Damn, she thought, looking over the controls. There were a lot of dials and switches on this thing.

"I'd advise you to disengage the emergency beacon. It's an auto-on when impact is detected."

"Okay…" Rose poised her finger over the dash, hovering from blinking light to flipped toggle.

"There," Hux said.

"Where?"

"There."

"I don't—"

"Over there!"

Rose threw up her arms. "I don't know where you're talking about! There's like a million buttons in this stupid, overengineered mess!"

"I'd be able to point it out to you, but in case you haven't noticed, my hands are currently shackled together!"

Rose snorted.

Hux flushed to the tips of his ears, jaw tight. Hadn't it only been a week ago that his fury could reduce men under his command into simpering messes?

This woman was practically unflappable.

He glared at her as she leaned back in the bucket seat, still puffing with laughter.

"Alright, Mr. Hux General Sir," she said with a slanted smile. "Which one is it?"

He wrinkled his nose at her tone, but nevertheless leaned forward to reach the command panel.

Rose's smile faltered as he blocked her view of the controls; she suddenly had a very good view of the back of his stupid ginger head. A hysterical voice told her to reach out and touch his hair. Just once! Just to see if it was soft. Couldn't hurt anybody, could it?

This close, Hux smelled like the shampoo in the barrack's fresher, a light cotton scent, mixed with something a bit like spice; heady from their jaunt through the forest. Rose could feel a sheen of sweat on the back of her neck. She tried not to breathe, but not because she found the smell unpleasant.

When he pulled back, beacon disengaged, he noticed that Rose was covering her mouth, a slightly stricken look on her face.

He quirked an eyebrow at her. "Are you having some sort of fit or something?"

She let out a dwindling breath. "It's just… very, um, stupid."

"The ship?" He frowned, incredulous. The hell was she on about? What about the ship was stupid? Yes, there were an abundance of, admittedly, perhaps redundant controls, but that was simply because there were so many systems on board the First Order Destroyers that had to be integrated into—

He suddenly felt very… tired, rather than offended.

"It is overengineered, as you said," he admitted, feeling like he'd run in a useless circle just to end up back at the same point. Why did he always do that?

"See, at least we can agree on some things," she replied, curt, once again busying herself in taking the pod online. "I hope you realize how much trust I have in you right now not to screw me over," she said, going through the motions of getting the datapad and the onboard computer to talk to each other.

"Excuse me?"

"You know, coming out here, letting you get a hand on this tech. If you wanted to, you could probably bash me over the head and sprint your way to freedom. I'd feel pretty insulted, but still. So… thanks. For coming out here with me and helping with this. And not being a dick about it. You didn't have to. I didn't have a blaster on you."

He stated at her, mouth open slightly. She was right. He'd just… gone with her. For no other reason than it was simply something to do. For no other reason than he'd been enjoying their conversation and didn't want it to end just yet.

He'd wanted to.

Without having to rationalize it in his mind first; prove to himself that the tradeoff would be worth it.

He tried to shake off the uneasy feeling this realization gave him.

He could run, he thought. If, by some miracle, he made it off the planet, he could contact whichever First Order fragment had scrambled its way to the top of the trash heap. He could restore some sense of decorum, cannibalize the smaller juntas, crush the pirating renegades.

It had been, for a fleeting moment, his original plan after all.

Hux had no taste for guerrilla tactics, and yet that would be his only method of striking. Especially if the rumors were true and individual systems were taking up arms against the splinter groups.

They would need financial backing to build up their forces, and he suspected their previous benefactors would be unwilling to pump credits into so much in-fighting.

"We're in the middle of nowhere," he settled on; safer than his thoughts. "Where would I go?"

"Don't you have some secret lair or something somewhere?" Rose went on, not really paying attention.

"Lair?"

"Exogol or wherever?"

"The Order was never supposed to go to Exogol."

"Palpatine was there, though. I thought you guys wanted to be like the Empire?"

"We were supposed to be better than the Empire!" He shot back; reflexive, like muscle memory, ire spiking.

Rose scoffed. "I mean, it basically turned out the same." He stared at her, trying to process her words. "What? I'm not trying to be snarky; I'm being serious. Like, look." She pivoted toward him another degree, gesticulating. "Name one difference between the Empire and the Order. And not, 'oh they used clones,' because that's a cop-out. I'm talking about real differences. They were both even taken down by Jedi!"

She was right.

He stared at her, mouth agape.

They'd all run in a useless circle just to end up back at the same point.

She was right.

Suddenly, he stood up, heart pounding fast.

Panic flashed over Rose's face.

Back when he'd stripped himself of his uniform, Hux knew it meant the end of the meticulously crafted machine he'd help build. But that wasn't all that was gone now, was it?

All his work, all his efforts.

"I've yet to find anything Armitage isn't utterly useless at."

And it hadn't even mattered.

It hadn't changed a thing.

Now, without that machine around him, grinding the galaxy into submission, how could he even know himself? How did he understand what made him, what had been taken from him, or what was left?

What was left?

Hux didn't realize Rose was speaking his name until, in quite a ferocious tone, she yelled—

"Armitage!"

He jumped, eyes refocusing on her. She was standing barely a pace away, face full of worry. She'd exited the pod and grabbed both his arms above the cuffs, her grip strong and anchoring, without him even noticing.

Don't touch me.

But he didn't say it; couldn't. He just stared at her, breathing hard like he'd run for miles.

"Here, sit down." Her face was etched with worry. She'd thought initially he was going to bolt, but it looked like he was having some sort of panic attack. She guided him over to the side of the escape pod.

He sat at her direction, drawing up his legs and resting his bound hands over his knees. He bowed his head between his arms, unable to get enough air into his lungs; heartbeat loud in his ears.

Rose kneeled beside him. Tentatively, she reached out and touched his back, just barely with the tips of her fingers. Hux twitched hard at the contact, and she heard a particularly shrill inhale of air. He didn't move though, so she rested the whole flat of her hand between his shoulder blades. He was so warm.

Like her mother use to do, Rose began making small circles with a gentle pressure. The repetition of it seemed to help; he was still breathing hard, but no longer gasping, head still bowed between his arms.

"What happened?" Rose asked in a quiet voice, when she felt as if the danger had passed.

Hux shook his head

He couldn't speak.

All he could do was focus on the way she was moving her hand upon his back; slow soothing circles that dulled his panic and uncorked the strain that pulled his shoulders tight, like a warm nostalgia he couldn't quite remember but was drawn to all the same.

Rose eventually stilled her hand when he seemed mollified, no longer struggling for breath.

"Are you alright?"

When Hux did lift his head, Rose though he looked as haggard as ever, eyes hollow from lack of sleep, pale and pinched-mouthed.

He barely heard her question.

The pain and the sacrifice. It was all… for nothing?

Even now, he could see Pryde's face as he turned his blaster toward him.

It had all meant something, surely.

Until… it hadn't.

Because what was death, if not in service for a greater purpose?

Senseless.

He laughed, a short, hollow sound that hurt.

Rose took a deep breath. "It's okay, you know, to feel overwhelmed sometimes. I do too. We all do. We've all been through so much." Maybe the guilt was finally getting to him. This could be it, she thought, his first steps in a long and endless penance.

"When we're finished here, you should shoot me."

Everything grounded to a halt.

Rose stilled. "What?"

He shook his head. What he'd done, it didn't matter if he thought it had been justified or not. In the eyes of history, he'd murdered billions all for nothing. There was no going back. He'd always been a survivor, but he was also a realist. "It's the only real kindness I deserve; being put out of my misery before the New Republic drags me out for a show trial and a public execution."

Rose's hand slipped from his back. "Are you kidding?"

The tone of her voice had changed, swung from confusion to fury; she was looking at him with a mixture of disbelief and teeth-clenching anger.

"You want to be put out of your misery?" She was so upset she was nearly shaking. He stared at her, both in awe of her and cowed by her at the same time. She was a force. "You don't get that," she said. "Not you. You don't get a blaster bolt to the brain so you don't have to live with all the terror and anguish you've unleashed upon this galaxy. That's not what's going on here. Helping the Resistance isn't some free pass into guiltless oblivion, you pompous jerk. You better get it through the brilliantly pigheaded brain of yours. This is only be the beginning."

The galaxy wasn't the way the First Order said it was. And even if it were, it didn't have to be.

"Rose—"

The way he said her name, the first time he'd said her name, rife with anguish and such confusion, it stirred something deep within her. This man, she thought, who's nimble fingers she'd watched rewiring circuitry, who's sharp wit kept her on her toes and challenged her ability to forgive, who'd looked down at her with detached distain moments before her execution and shattered entire star systems, sitting in the grass and re-faced from a fit of terror—

She took a shuttering breath

"Death won't take you, Armitage. I won't let it." Leia had entrusted the spy to her, and he was going to confront what he'd done. "You're mine."

She was towering above him now, pitched forward on her knees and braced against the side of the small spacecraft, and as she said those words, something hot and reverent flickered in his gaze. It filled her with a strange kind of power.

This man, whom she had the authority to condemn with just one word, was staring at her like she'd forgone the blaster altogether and just ripped out his heart to hold in her hands.

"You're going to help rebuild what you tore apart. Do we understand each other?" She said, drawing away, wary of the command she had on him, even as it skittered electricity deep down into the pit of her stomach. There was as much warning there as there was pleasure, like drawing too close to a flame when cold.

"Yes," he replied softly, watching her with his beach-glass green eyes, heavy-lidded as he looked up at her through his lashes, so fine they glinted like filament.


A/N: This chapter was such a bear to write lol
I really hope it landed well for you guys.