"Orion, I have been on Tatooine for two weeks. I need a bath, a proper bath. I have sand in places I didn't even know I had."

"With what you have done, I would lick you clean myself, you magnificent creature."

"Be careful, my love. I might just take you up on it." Grand Marshal Orion Hux may have been a guarded, stoic individual for the duration of his duty hours but now, in his personal time, he allowed himself an adoring beam as his wife pressed her lips to his. Maybe she did need that bath… "But in the meantime, Lily needs time with her father. And a bottle." Two requirements the redhead would gladly fill.

Lucilla had heeded the call to her bath no more than two minutes before the door to the apartment slid back without duress or invitation and the frenzied form of Kylo Ren stomped over the threshold.

There were times he hated this apartment; its cosiness, its family feel, scathingly reminding him that, chances are, he would never have it or anything like it. Times like now when she was nowhere to be seen and instead, his Grand Marshal (still in uniform) was in the process of closing the conservator with his hip; bottle in one hand, the other supporting his baby daughter against his shoulder. As it happened, Hux was none too impressed to see him either.

"Something I can help you with, Ren?" Hux pried, his apparent courtesy little more than bred-in Imperial rhetoric.

"Where is she?" Already, his nerves got the better of him and that prowl, specific to him started; the jitters of this monumental shift that had struck like a hot iron on Tatooine made him need to move to disperse the energy lest he explode.

"She's having some much-deserved time to herself." The redhead replied sharply, resuming his seat and adjusting Lilia just so before offering her the bottle. "Or does she need clearance from the Supreme Leader in order to take a bath?"

"The holonet is alive!" The Knight hissed, abandoning his frantic over and back, over and back, to encroach on his subordinate; jabbing his gloved finger at the blank holovision. Hux remained unmoved. "Every channel! Like Ryloth but bigger! They've been interviewing people from the camp! Eyewitnesses to the airstrike! Every. Single. One of them is denouncing the Resistance!"

Unsurprising, Hux thought, while Lilia suckled; it seemed she too was happy to be home. Her plots on Ryloth and Tatooine were inspired. Why wouldn't there be a shift? But Ren wasn't finished. The Supreme Leader was upon him now; towering over him and Lilia, his shadow swallowing the sofa and its occupants.

"They want her on Coruscant. Today." Now that… That was different. That was more than random citizens bleating their love for the First Order's sweetheart for a few minutes of fame on the holonews. Orion could have been forgiven for forgetting he held a precious object… and Lilia… when he sat forward with fervour, stunned and speechless; the colour draining from his already pasty face. "They're lining the streets by the Imperial Palace; thousands of them. They're calling her, Hux." Ren drove home the point with low-key savagery, obsession; their months of striving finally fruitful. "They want her where we want her. It's done."

"Hold her." The redhead choked, scrambling to stand and shimmying his daughter into the dark-clad arms of her hold-father. Bewildered but concerned for the baby's safety, the Supreme Leader automatically complied. When Lilia was just about secure, her father was already gone and had cleared the distance to the refresher in two strokes of spider-like legs. Door locked? Of course. But that didn't stop the Grand Marshal.

"LUCILLA!"

Silence.

Save for the oblivious whirr of a passing droid, the beep of a scanner or the occasional breathy sob, nearly petered out with nothing to replace it… Silence boded very ill on a Resistance base indeed.

The holofeed had since been turned off; no one could bear it anymore. The ridicule, the disdain, the out and out hatred for a group who had conducted an airstrike on what was, effectively, a refugee camp. More to the point, resurrecting an old tradition unseen or unheard of for some thirty-odd years to fill a void that hundreds of squabbling senators never could; even when Leia was one of them.

"What do we do now?" Rey had hoped her days of displacement were over, now that she had found something worth belonging to and people worth hanging onto. But it was not to be, so what did she do now? It seemed she wasn't the only one asking herself that question with a numb mind.

"We go." Came the soft but authoritative answer that made every head turn. Leia, like the rest, had lapsed into devastated thoughtfulness but Rey's hopeless inquiry brought one of her most tested and durable qualities to the fore: Leadership. Paused, she waited not for protest or challenge; instead, she waited on careful wording within her own head.

"For years, the Rebel Alliance ran and scattered like rats; hiding where we could and spreading light even to the darkest corners of the galaxy. We bided our time, kept watch and when advantageous opportunities came, we took them. It led to small but meaningful victories and those victories kept building. Now, I suggest we do the same."

"You're saying we give up. Surrender." Snap Wexley, cried raw from the loss of his wife, Karé, barely had the energy to carry the note of accusation that thundered in his head. "No justice. For anyone. Not Karé, not Suralinda, not Yolo… Or anyone else the First Order's taken. Great plan, Leia. Stellar. Love it."

"I know what you've lost, Snap." Leia, understanding and diplomatic, sat forward to get a better view of one the pilots who had served her and the Resistance the longest; and his parents before him as first-class Rebels. "But your mother-"

"My mother-" Snap snarled, whipping forward to meet Leia's gaze with far more aggression, intending to scathe. "Would be in an X-Wing right now or Hell, she stole Ties too! And she'd be gunnin' for that Destroyer in one last blaze of glory and if you think she wouldn't, Leia, you didn't know her!"

That was true, Leia had to concede. Norra Wexley was something of a loose cannon where recklessness was concerned; but survival had always been key. She had a knack for not getting blown up, despite how high the odds were that she would.

"I know that, Snap. And I remember your mother's impulsive side better than anyone. But she'd be the first to tell you that if we go on a suicide run, the Resistance dies. That's it. It dies with us." Why was she only directing this at Snap? Screw it, Leia thought, hauling herself up and projecting herself as loud as the dryness of her throat would allow. "I'm not saying surrender!" She called passionately to the sunken faces looking to her for guidance. "I'm not saying call it quits and forget everything we've been through! I'm saying we go underground. We plot. We plan. Minimal contact. We bide our time like we did before. And when the time is right…" Leia's gaze flickered to Snap. Then Poe. Then Finn, to Chewie, to Rey. It was hardly one of her more stirring or rousing speeches, but apparently, it was enough; and to round it off, she simply dropped: "We'll be ready."