Familiarity.
It can do wonderful things. Be it familiar people or a familiar place or both, it can undo all sorts of things and prevent even more.
Sometimes, unfortunately, there are some things that even secure familiarity cannot fix.
"What happened…?"
No answer. A shuddering breath of lasting and active trauma rattled in oxygen-starved lungs; the breaths that were supposed to quench them were shallow, quaking and hurried.
"Talk to me. I can't help you if you don't. None of us can." With that, a ringed hand reached out and gently took the tremoring one; giving it a benign, solidarity-assuring squeeze. How did he even get back here in this condition? Then, with a crushing whack, realization hit the one who was well acquainted with taking chances. Leaning in further, there was dread weaved through the benevolence; a subtle but noticeable plea to be proven wrong. "Did you do what I told you not to do?"
Again, nothing. Whether that was shame and embarrassment or just plain, fresh anguish, was anyone's guess. But, despite the utter despair, there had to be ownership and responsibility. Those actions, those foolish, ill-considered actions, would have consequences for them all.
"Yeah…" Came the wispy, sorrowful breath that caused a ripple of discomfort through the silent gathering at the door. One hand still clasped the other, but it tightened at the confession. "Yeah, Leia, I did." Keir hiccuped, wallowing in the failure and the blame of pushing his daughter further away rather than pulling her back to him; not to mention ushering destruction closer for his comrades, his own nephew included. "I've pushed her further away, further than the First Order could drag her. I put my trust in the wrong people. They offered quick results when you told me to wait and be patient. I've doomed us all. And I'm so sorry."
"DO YOU REALIZE WHAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED TODAY?!"
Lucilla, in her guilt, did not answer. Her husband's shadow passed her at regular, storming intervals as he furiously paced before her like a caged beast in the Coronet City Zoo. It was bad enough being ripped from the bridge with an urgent message from a white-faced Lieutenant Mitaka, but the message itself rubbed vehemence the like he hadn't felt in quite some time.
Shamefaced, Lucilla's bloodshot sapphires sunk to the bottom of her token cup of tea; the weight of it had stopped the shake in her hands when Mitaka concernedly pressed it to her. The blanket warming her shoulders and the cool of the bactaserum on the minor lacerations on her hands and face proved that the medic had already seen her and was confident that she would recover with rest and recuperation.
Orion, however, was not so gentle. And the usual tremble of the lip or water of her eyes did nothing to soften him; not that the little dove would even consider such a tactic at a time like this.
"YOU COULD HAVE BEEN ABDUCTED! OR WORSE! KILLED! AND YOU PUT LILIA IN THAT SITUATION! WERE YOU EVEN THINKING?! DID IT NOT ONCE CROSS YOUR MIND THAT IT COULD BE A TRAP?!"
Despite bounding without hesitation to her physical aid in Unity Green Park, Kylo Ren remained silent in the corner during her husband's brand of verbal thrashing; stood tall and rigid with a restful Lilia carefully gathered to his shoulder. How she could be so tranquil with her father bawling like an injured Wampa was anyone's guess, but one could assume it had something to do with the intangible power that her Holdfather possessed. He listened and absorbed but said nothing in her defence during the General's barrage. Did he agree?
"I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT YOU WERE SO NAIIVE! SO UTTERLY RECKLESS AND NEGLIGENT! WITH OUR CHILD, NO LESS!"
"Orion…" The wounded whimper begged for a reprieve from the bombardment that she knew she deserved but was struggling to stomach all the same. "I didn't mean to-"
"BUT YOU DID! REGARDLESS!" The redhead (whose hair matched his usually pasty face by now) exploded all over again and Lucilla felt herself crawl closer to the verge of humiliated tears for the umpteenth time. "I CANNOT FATHOM HOW YOU JUSTIFY TRUSTING HIM! IT BEGGARS BELIEF-!"
"Why wouldn't I trust my father?" The broken sniffle inquired somewhat rhetorically, but it would only enflame things further.
"AND LOOK AT WHERE IT GOT YOU!" Orion bellowed from above the bowed ebony crown, stinging her eardrum. "ALMOST KIDNAPPED! AND MAKER ONLY KNOWS WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED TO YOU THEN! AND LILIA! WHAT WOULD THEY HAVE DONE TO LILIA?!"
Orion tended to hark back to Lilia, as any father should and would have. She, the baby in the hoverpram, had no means of defending herself, whereas her mother had given it plenty when she had been apprehended; she had the cuts and bruises to prove it. And he was ultimately correct: What would have happened to Lilia? She could gather that her father had been betrayed for a more handsome bounty than what he could have paid (for the second time where Lucilla was concerned), what would become of them once they were handed over? Lucilla might have been sold back into slavery, but Lilia… her mother couldn't bear to think of it. In that sense, Orion successfully wounded her every time he dragged their daughter back into his rants. The desired effect? Probably.
The General pivoted neatly on the toe of his military-issue, calf-high boots of the most pristine black and turned his simmering gaze on his darker counterpart in the corner. He had not spoken to Ren since he escorted a near-hysterical Lucilla back to their quarters earlier that evening and that half-conversation had been sparse at best; a grudging filling in of details, perhaps. The Knight calmly held that furious gaze, taking the fact that he had not been removed from Lilia and ejected from the apartment as of yet as something of a token of appreciation; the closest he would get to it from the General. Until now, at least.
"Give me my daughter, Ren." Hux seethed, even if it was a touch misplaced; but Ren did not move whether it was or not. Expectant silence hung between the biological father and Hold-father; a silent standoff of one exerting his blood connection with the child over the other. Again, Ren did not move. "I think you have had quite the monopoly of her for one day."
"You're going to upset her." And with the redhead fuming the way he was, such an observation had to be made and it concerned her Hold-father a great deal. "She's been through enough today."
"Yes, and she has her mother to thank for that!" Orion could not resist another dig and Lucilla felt it as if it was a physical jab; Ren's lips pursed. That said, he reluctantly trudged from his corner and lay his Hold-daughter into her basket before attentively covering her glass-like form over with the blanket inside; directly disobeying her father's request. With that, the solid shadow swept from the apartment, heeding a call from another cornerstone of his life.
"I am returning to the bridge!" Orion spat in his wife's direction (that she flinched away from), once the door slid closed behind Kylo Ren; another devastated sniffle responded to the cruelty. "Before I say something I utterly regret!" The General went to leave too, following almost directly in Ren's footprints. Until something stopped him: a tormented squeak.
"He didn't mean for this to happen…" It was enough for Orion to stop in his tracks, but only out of sheer disbelief that she had the nerve to try and justify this. "Those men he was with… They betrayed him. He only meant to bring us back to the Resistance…" Without looking up, Lucilla felt her stomach lurch at the tracing footsteps returning in her direction.
"My darling wife." The snarl, the warning, carried enough poison for Lucilla not to look up but she didn't need to, not when the still-red face of her husband appeared in front of her tear-stained one; his haunches stretched to a crouch. "Let me be remarkably clear about something. And for once, Lucilla, I do not care if you like it or not." A leather-bound hand slid under Lucilla's chin; rough but gentle in its insistent hold to force her watering gaze under his steelier one. "Your father does not care about you or Lilia, little dove. Only I do."
The dark-haired darling's bottom lip trembled again; she had lost count of how many times it had happened already that night. Orion ploughed on regardless.
"He didn't care when you were taken, or he would have torn the Undercity apart to find you. He didn't care about you when the Resistance used you and tossed you aside, the same Resistance he wanted to bring you back to tonight, the same Resistance who would have blacklisted and shunned you. If he valued you, if he loved you, he would have severed ties with them there and then. But he didn't, little dove, and do you know why?"
Lucilla was not the only one dealing in rhetorical questions that night; so, she retained as close as she could get to a silent dignity while her husband paused to rub salt into the emotional wounds.
"Because he doesn't care, my angel." That stung and Orion could see it twitch in those magnificent features. "He put you and Lilia in danger tonight and that should have been enough to prove it to you. I hope that your lesson of who you can and cannot trust has been well learned." Orion relinquished his wife's freshly wet chin; her tears free flowing once more and dripping off her face, unchecked. Flawlessly, the General rose and retraced his brief journey to the door, opened it as Ren had done but of course, delayed another marinating moment at the door.
"That ends tonight, my darling. Every effort is going to be made to ensure it. I promise you that."
Instead of husband berating wife, it was master berating apprentice.
"YOU INSOLENT FOOL!"
Ren's lips folded into each other and his scarred face contorted with restrained fury, but he would not retaliate or even reply; ever the good student.
"WHY DID YOU INTERFERE?!" The flesh and bone of Supreme Leader Snoke bawled from the throne-raising platform; on his feet, fists coiled in rage and glowering down at his kneeling apprentice. Again, Ren uttered nothing. "THEY COULD HAVE LED US TO THE RESISTANCE!"
"Supreme Leader, they had no affiliation-"
"SILENCE!" Cut off and frustrated, Ren glowered back. "SHE COULD HAVE BEEN THE KEY! IF THEY HAD TAKEN HER, DEMANDS WOULD HAVE BEEN MADE! DEMANDS WE COULD HAVE FOLLOWED AND WIPED OUT!"
"Master, they were not of the Resistance." He'd gotten that sentence out, time to try another. Levelly, the Knight watched his master and gauged his reactions. I cannot let him sense weakness. "If they had taken her, we know not what they might have done… And the child-"
"Ah, the child." Snoke repeated with swirling undercurrents of snide mockery that made Ren's lip quirk involuntarily. "Yes, the child. The one you swore, up and down, was yours via an insemination process that you knew little to nothing of; let alone how to perform before I taught you how." The black-clad one did not move or display any sign of intimidation as his master began to roam; a casual and menacing saunter.
"She's a sweet little thing, no one can deny that." The Supreme Leader went on with more fervour and Ren felt his skin begin to crawl as his true feelings came closer to being weaselled out. "Meek, timid, servile, impressively beautiful; the entire galaxy seems to think so. I can understand why Hux would want her, no doubt she plays to his ego and lets him believe he is more of a man than he actually is. In that, I can understand why he would want to breed her but…" Before the Knight knew it, his master stood over him, head cocked accusingly and more than his eyes boring into Ren's submissively hunched form. "What would you want with her?"
"Supreme Leader, I assure you-"
"DON'T LIE TO ME, BOY!" The sudden eruption caused Ren to flinch; a microsecond later, he scolded himself for it, but his master was not finished and gorged himself on his pupil's internal cringing. "I SEE EVERYTHING! I SEE YOUR DISTRACTION! I SEE YOUR WEAKNESS! AND SHE IS THE COMMON CAUSE IN ALL! I INDULGED YOU BEFORE BUT THIS SLIP OF YOUR FOCUS WILL NOT BE FORGIVEN SO LIGHTLY! NOT WHEN THE RESISTANCE CONTINUES TO EVADE US AND YOU FELT IT WISE TO CIRCUMVENT OUR EFFORTS! SACRIFICES MUST BE MADE IF WE ARE TO SNUFF OUT THE RESISTANCE, AND IF THEY MUST BE AT THE EXPENSE OF THAT SNIVELLING EXCUSE FOR A WOMAN, SO BE IT! TODAY WAS A GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY THAT MAY NEVER PRESENT ITSELF AGAIN!"
"Not if I have anything to do with it."
He couldn't have heard that right, surely? No, but still, that dented, misshapen head tilted, and those soulless blue eyes narrowed as if to reassure himself. However, his student glared up at him, brazen and bold and Snoke was not so sure anymore.
"What did you say?"
Ren no longer cowered on his knees. Instead, he had risen to a similar height of his master and bravely stared down the mangled mess of scar tissue that he had come to associate with fear and merciless reprimand for as long as he could remember; even the stirrings in his dreams as a child. Enough. No more. Threats and malice towards her would not be tolerated, by anyone.
"I said…" Covert and adept as always, Ren had the handling of his weapon down to a fine art; one even his master could not match. Wickedly quick and with a closed mind to betray nothing, the unstable humming chimed at the last second, not enough to give the Supreme Leader warning or Ren time to change his mind. That choking croak was glorious, that sound of finality as Ren's sparking blade sank into the depths of his (former) teacher's stomach and breathed when it bled out the other side. Naturally, to indulge in the sadism of the impulsive but justified act, the forceful successor leaned forward over Snoke's slumped form and drank in the delicious dying gasps of his tyrannical overlord. "Not if I have anything to do with it."