Rose ate one of the rolls and sighed at the frown on her mother's face. "What now?"
"You only ate one!"
She put the lid back on the rolls. "Okay, I'm really not in the mood for this right now. I had a nice day and I don't want to ruin it by arguing with you about the same kriffing thing over and over again."
Her mother sighed and sat down in Hux's chair. "I love you Ro-Ro. Of course I don't want to spoil your day. I just worry about you - you work so much and you hardly take any breaks."
"What are you talking about? Hux and I go on regular breaks." Rose threw her hands in the air. "Come on, you're just overbearing."
Her mother blanched. "Overbearing? How is caring for my daughter overbearing?"
Rose exhaled. Why didn't she just eat the damn rolls? "Forget it." She got up and left. She knew that it wasn't the smoothest exit but she really didn't want to go into this discussion again.
The last time they were both hurt by the things said and done. She felt tears sting her eyes when she recalled their argument. It had been about the way her mother thought she should behave, how she should act... Her mother never mentioned Paige, but she didn't have to. Rose knew she wasn't living up to the standard her sister had set.
Kriff! She was a grown woman, why was she still stuck with arguing with her mother like a teenager? And why was it making her so damn angry and sad at the same time?
Perhaps she should go to the Cantina and look if some of her friends were there? They would take her mind of this stupid old argument.
She wiped over her eyes and headed towards the Cantina. It was quite crowded like always when a fresh shipment of goods had arrived. The smell of chocolate was overwhelming - she remembered that chocolate powder had been on the provisions list. Better hurry up and get a hot choc before the powder ran out.
As she stood in line she scanned the room to see if her friends were here. Her sight stopped at a table with Aish, Ebrima and … Hux? She hadn't been aware that he was this social. Well, good for him. It seemed that Poe's idea was working- she remembered his soft lips on hers and she blushed - it really had worked. Stars, just thinking about it made her excited.
Her sight fell on Mircah marching towards Hux. Kriff! She'd known that they would encounter each other eventually but not today, please not today! To her amazement she observed that Mircah sat down at the same table as Hux, without as much as giving him a glare. Perhaps he hadn't noticed yet.
She had to keep her calm and act casual and bring Hux away from there before Mircah knocked his teeth out. She grabbed her hot choc and forced herself to walk slowly over.
"Hey guys!"
"Rose - I thought you were with your mother," said Aish.
She smiled nervously. "I was, but she almost drove me crazy so here I am."
"Grab a free chair from another table," said Mircah, "we'll just scoot together so you'll fit in."
"Yeah, Hux - scoot over," said Ebrima.
Rose pressed her lips together - kriff.
Mircah turned his attention to Hux. "Hux? As in General Hux?"
Hux seemed to register the undertone and became very still. "Yes."
"Didn't recognize you out of uniform and with that beard," Mircah said in a low, pressed voice.
Ebrima seemed to notice the change in Mircah's mood. "Come on, you know he's the spy-"
"Him being a spy doesn't change the fact that Starkiller kriffing obliterated planets!" Mircah grabbed his mug and got up. "I know that we need you, Hux. I'm not an idiot, so I won't beat your ass - but that doesn't mean that I have to sit at the same table as you."
With that he left. Ebrima looked dejected. "I forgot about his sister. She and her family were on Hosnian Prime."
Hux was sitting very still, Rose could almost hear his mind work.
Finally he got up and took the last gulp of his caf. "I didn't mean to impose, if you'll excuse me." He left too.
Rose sighed and sat down. "This was bound to happen."
Ebrima grimaced. "Sure, I mean it's not like he was some low-level Stormtrooper… kriff. I mean what are we supposed to do? Hate Hux for his crimes or accept him as our spy to bring the Order down?"
Aish shrugged. "That's not an 'or' question. We can work with him without forgetting about his crimes."
Rose gulped. She hadn't forgotten about what he had done but- he was different, right? He tried to do the right thing, didn't he? Her heart became heavy. And still - he had given the order to fire the Starkiller weapon.
Of course she knew who he was and what he had done. And still she felt attracted to him, liked working with him.
"Hey, Rose, you alright?" asked Aish.
She crossed her arms. "Yeah, I just- I guess I feel bad because I don't … hate him." She couldn't say it, not even to her friends. What would they think of her?
"Yeah well, it's odd to see him here like that, isn't it?" Ebrima said in a low voice. "I mean it's easy to look at these larger-than-life holos of Ren and his goonies and wish they would just drop dead. But seeing him sitting here at this table with his too-large shirts, looking tired and pale… Knowing that he supplied us with intel… I don't know."
Aish frowned. "Commander Dameron seems to think he's okay - why else would he make a show of it back when Hux came here?"
Rose knew that Poe had only done it to make sure that Hux kept helping them. Wait, he had said to Hux that he felt that he hadn't lost his humanity, right? That he thought that Hux was the spy because he felt that there was still something beside cold indifference underneath his uniform.
"Because he thought that Hux still cared," Rose said.
Aish blinked. "What?"
"He said that Ren was empty, like he didn't even care about people. Hux still seems to care."
Aish leaned back. "Well, it's true that Hux turned on the Order when they were about to finish us off. He couldn't possibly gain something from it besides helping us, right? Perhaps Commander Dameron is right."
Rose gulped. Stars, she wanted it to be true. She needed it to be true. She hadn't fallen for a monster, she had fallen for a man trying to do the right thing. A man who had done unspeakable things... She gulped again.
"Sorry, I'm tired," she mumbled and got up.
Aish nodded. "Okay, take care, Rose."
She sniffled on her way outside. She needed to think about everything. She hesitated shortly before she headed into the lab. First she needed to distract herself then she could calmly think about everything.
Just when she was about to reach the lab she encountered Leia on the hallway. The older woman looked tired and she seemed to lean more on her crane than usual.
"Oh, Gen- Leia," said Rose dumbfounded.
"Rose, good evening to you." She smiled warmly at her. "Are you alright?"
The simple question pierced through Rose's heart. Of course, Leia would have an answer. "I- I'm wondering about something."
"What is it?"
"How do you know if something is right?"
Leia came closer and took Rose's hand. "I wish I had the answer to this. If I had I wouldn't have made so many mistakes."
Rose smiled sadly. "I hoped for a more conclusive answer."
"All I can tell you is that my biggest regret is not doing what I thought was right." Her hands seemed to become warmer. "I didn't listen to my heart and I regret it to this very day."
Rose's heartbeat became calmer. "So you basically say I should listen to my gut?"
Leia patted her hand before letting it go. "Luke would have told you a nice parable, probably something with kind sages and evil Sith, but I'm not a good storyteller so: yes, that's exactly what I'm saying."
"Thank you."
Leia chuckled. "Good night, Rose."
Rose watched her leave; Leia was right of course. This wasn't something she could solve by thinking about it. She needed to trust herself to do the right thing.
.
-o-
.
Hux stumbled through the snow, he could feel the rumbling of Starkiller base beneath his feet. He had to go, but he had to find Ren. Suddenly he heard Rose crying out and he froze.
"Rose? Rose, where are you?"
The snowfall became stronger until he couldn't see anything, not even the tall trees.
Finally he found her, she was lying on the ground, holding something small in her hands. It was the ginger loth-cat.
"What happened?" he asked and knelt down.
"You killed it," she said with tears in her eyes.
"No, no I didn't!" Why would he kill such a tiny creature? It made no sense.
Suddenly the snow melted away and the trees weren't trees but piles of contorted burned bodies.
"You killed them all," said Rose.
Hux jerked up from the dream. He was panting and wiped over his sweat-covered face with trembling hands. He really should ask Dr. Kalonia for sleeping pills or stims. He checked the chronometer: 3:04.
He got up and changed into dry pyjamas and folded the sweat-drenched ones into a neat pile. Then he crawled back into the bed. After a few minutes he fell asleep.
When Rose appeared in the lab he handed her the mug of caf like always. She looked at him and her touch lingered on his fingers, stroking them softly. He smiled at her, his heart beat a little faster and warmth spreading out in his chest.
They checked the data from Commander Dameron's flight, it turned out that the tracker was currently operating at 84% accuracy.
Rose frowned. "We need to work on the programming, we need to reach at least 97% before we can really use it."
"I agree, but I'm not sure that the programming is the problem. Perhaps it's the signal of the tracker."
"Why do you think that?"
"Because the programming should be working even when the jumps increase - but according to the data, there are missing coordinates whenever Dameron jumped more than two times within 10 seconds."
"I see, so let's increase the signals range first."
Hux noted with satisfaction that they were still working together as professionally as before. He had to admit that he was getting distracted from time to time when he looked at her. His thoughts wandered back to the forest and the way she had looked at him with her beautiful dark-brown eyes.
During their break outside they kept talking about the project but sat slightly closer together, allowing them both to casually brush each other's arms. Most of the snow had melted again but there was still a layer covering the ground.
Suddenly Rose sat up straighter and narrowed her eyes.
He hastily scooted farther away from her and tried to see what she was looking at. There was something orange moving between the trees.
He got up and closed in on the loth-cat that was peeking out from behind of a bush. When he was closer it exited the underwood and lifted its bushy tail, sniffling.
It looked at Hux with its black eyes. "Mrrrrau."
Hux went down on his knees and the loth-cat scurried towards him, smelling his hands and pushing its round face against his fingers. Only now Hux realised that it looked rather skinny for an animal that was supposed to have winter fat.
Then it fell like krayt scales from his eyes. A loth-cat with such bright fur couldn't hunt as well as the ones with darker fur - especially when there was snow.
He got up and went back to Rose. "I'm going to get some meat - I think it's starving."
"Stars! You're right - that's why it followed us here all the way."
It took some convincing but finally Hux managed to get half a sausage from Sergeant Suta. He hurried back outside, Rose was still sitting on the trunk, closely watched by the loth-cat who had crept even closer. Hux put the sausage on the ground and stepped back, the tiny animal lunged at the food and began to chew on it, purring loudly.
"I hate to say it but we need to get back to work, I'm sure the little one will be fine."
Hux kept staring at it. "Yes, of course."
They headed back inside, Hux thought he could hear a quiet "Mrrrrau" behind him.
For dinner there was soup and dark bread on the menu much to Hux's chagrin. He had hoped for meat so that he could put some aside for the loth-cat.
"You think the little guy will be alright?" Rose asked.
"Well, it's a wild animal so I think it will be." He shifted in his seat. "But perhaps it's sensible to check if it's still outside."
"Yeah, I mean - it can't hurt, right?"
There was something in her voice that made him look up from his soup. There was a warm gleam in her dark-brown eyes - like an antimatter… no like a star in the night sky. He gulped. "Do you want to join me?"
She smiled and the way it reached her eyes, made them twinkle, made his breath falter.
They finished their soup a tad more quickly than they would have and Hux went again to the cook to get some extra meat.
"Don't you like soup?" asked Sergeant Suta with a frown.
"I do, but er - Sergeant Tico and I found a starving loth-cat and-"
"Why didn't you say so? I'll put some old left-overs in a box," replied the man as if he was asked every other day about sparing food for forest animals.
Hux felt a little silly when he put the small box in his bag, but people didn't seem to notice.
Silly, soft boy! Don't you have a backbone?
He steadied himself, he wasn't weak. He was just doing it because Rose wanted to.
She waited for him at the exit of the Cantina and together they went out. It was already dark, for security reasons there were only very dim lights around the base, barely enough to see the ground.
Hux crouched down where he had last seen the loth-cat and lifted the lid off the box. He could hear tiny, crunching steps on the snow and a loud "Mrrrrau". The animal's head was in the box before Hux could even put it on the floor. Smacking sounds and purring could be heard.
He petted it gently. It was really hungry.
"We should name it," said Rose from behind.
"Judging from its size I think it's a female."
"Then how about Ginger?"
Hux thought about it. "How about Millicent?"
Rose chuckled. "Sounds like an old lady but I like the sound of it."
He got up and sat down next to Rose on the snow-covered tree trunk. It was cold. He really should ask the quartermaster for a parka.
Rose scooted closer. "Come here, just looking at you makes me cold."
She really was warm, and when she touched his arm it felt like it was on fire. She reached up to his face and cupped his cheek. Her hand wandered up to the nape of his neck and then she pulled him down, giving him a soft kiss.
Her lips lingered for a while on his before he slowly pulled back, craning his neck to get a view of the base's entrance. Then he pulled her closer, kissing her cheek, the corner of her mouth and finally giving her a proper passionate kiss.
She pressed herself against him as their kiss deepened. He was getting hot despite the cold weather - suddenly an unidentifiable noise rang out and they both jumped up. His heart was pounding and he tried to compose himself before his sights fell on the box that had been knocked over by Millicent.
"Damn it," said Rose.
Hux went and got the now empty box and scratched the loth-cat behind her ears. "We should go back inside."
"Alright," she was a little out of breath.
They walked back in in silence and stopped in the hallway where Hux had to turn left to get to his quarters. "I-" he cleared his throat. "Good night, Sergeant Tico."
"Good night, Hux."