4/13/2
Threepio waits.
Rey wasn't expecting that, but he waits.
He doesn't want to, that's clear. It's also clear that the ship they are in spent the night in a hanger in Alderaanian territory, and it has not been scanned for bugs or listening devices.
It's only once they are back on the Supremacy, which was exactly at the edge of New Alderaan's sensor range, that he no longer wishes to wait.
Which is beyond annoying to Kylo and Rey who are currently holding each other and saying hello like they last saw each other four years ago, not four hours ago.
And Threepio has had enough of these lovesick twits who are doing gods alone knows what with his carefully concocted plans.
"This is touching. Stop it. Now tell me, and him, I guess, about the new wife you're fetching him."
Kylo pulls back from Rey, a stunned expression on his face, and blinks. But he can feel nothing bad is about to happen, so he says, "You're gone for one night and you're swapping me for someone new?"
She laughs at that. "I didn't say I was getting a new wife."
"If I get one, you do, too. That's how it works, right?"
Rey laughs even louder at that, and then stops because Threepio is, metal face be damned, glaring at her in the middle of the landing bay, and not pleased at all about what's going on.
"Okay, here's the short version."
"About to be shorter, yet," Ellie says, looking around meaningfully. There are a lot of people walking around here, and they do not know all of them.
So, they wait, more. In the elevator, on the way down, down, down, down, to Kylo's rooms, which are secure, but also almost thirty minutes away, which is a long time to stand in silence with several tense people who really want to talk, but not here.
As they're descending, Rey says to Kylo, "You look tired."
He shrugs a bit, holding her close to him. "I am."
"Yes, well, that's a natural consequence of not staying in your own damn bed last night," Threepio bites out.
Ellie shushes him. "Hush, Threepio. Things like this are… normal." And it's clear from the way she's looking that Kylo may have actually acted exactly according to her script, even if she hadn't deigned to let him read it.
"Did you… set that up?" Rey asks.
Ellie smiles a little. "No, it just worked out nicely. There's apparently quite a buzz about how Kylo Ren somehow got himself on-world to Alderaan, just for the pleasure of a few hours of the company of his wife."
Kylo mutters, "Handsome princing the shit out of it."
Threepio's voice is Tatooine dry as he says, "At least there was some upside to it."
Another long, quiet moment as they continue to descend.
"Isn't there supposed to be a landing bay two floors above my rooms?" Kylo asks.
"There is," Threepio replies, voice curt.
"And we didn't do this, there because…"
"Because Rey getting home and your warm greeting is part of the Handsome Prince routine," Ellie says. "And, last I heard the diplomatic hangar is not yet ready."
Threepio sounds annoyed as he says, "It's ready enough. In the sense that you can, in fact, land ships there."
"That's true of any mostly flat surface," Rey adds.
Threepio nods. "It's not true in the sense that we are attempting to create a landing bay that is inviting and looks like the sort of place valued guests are welcomed, not just a huge expanse of black metal. Unfortunately," and now he's mentally glaring at something else all together, "Colonel Suth is already ten days behind schedule, which is beyond appalling seeing that he is only on day forty-three of the schedule, and… Last we spoke, Jon had had a talking to with him. We have an appointment the day after tomorrow where, supposedly, he will inform me of the plan to get back on schedule."
Kylo feels like he's heard mentions of things involving the diplomacy wing going more slowly than desired a few times now. "Is this something… Do I need to be having talking to with them?"
"That will entirely depend on if that plan actually gets them back on schedule. I do know part of the problem is that for thirty-five of those forty-three days Captain RT-4590 was in charge of rerouting the ships that used to be stored in that bay, and he appeared to have been in deeply over his head when it came to finding new places for them, and getting the orders in place to let them know not to land there. I understand he is no longer with the project, which should help with getting things back up to speed."
"Can't build anew before you clean out," Ellie says.
"Exactly," Threepio replies. "As soon as it's feasible we'll move the Order of the Maji ships to the diplomatic wing, but as of yet, it is not."
They continue to stand there, waiting. Finally, Kylo looks over at the boxes that Rey set on the floor behind them.
"They sent presents?"
She smiles at him. "Yes, actually. I think one of them is all the flowers from the dinner. One is the Alderaan coffee course. And three of them are gifts from your Uncle Almath, who seems to remember you fondly."
"Even though we've never met."
"He's offered an explicit invitation to change that, and claims that one of the goodies in there is your favorite."
Kylo shrugs, maybe he's just tired, but he doesn't remember stories of an Uncle Almath. "I know he can't be my mother's brother… Who…?"
"Your grandfather's youngest brother's son," Threepio supplies.
"Oh." Kylo blinks, feeling like he should come up with something to say about that, but right here, standing quietly, just feeling the elevator move, and Rey in his arms… He's too damn content to come up with anything.
Rey's quite a bit more awake though, "What happened to him? Samanth said he was in an Imperial prison."
Threepio sighs. "He was in one for eight years." Threepio's glaring now at Ellie. "When Leia was arrested, warrants for the entire rest of the Alderaanian senate delegation went live. Bail was already en route to Alderaan. Leia, of course, was on the Death Star. Almath had just begun a political training internship. Junior Senate. Leia had finished the program two years earlier, and became a full senator for Alderaan, and Almath was planning on following in her footsteps. Unfortunately, our people didn't get news of the warrant before it went live, and the Imperials captured him before we could hide him." He's staring at Ellie. "He was sent to Celjonia."
Ellie winces. "Junior senate program. He was…"
"Fifteen."
"Too young to execute, so put to hard labor?"
"Yes." Threepio turns away from Ellie to Rey. "The rest of the Alderaanian senate delegation was executed for spying. Almath was 'too young.' Hard labor was slow execution. Maybe one out of fifty survived a sentence longer than two years. When we liberated the camps, the people in there were walking skeletons."
No one has anything to say about that for a moment, but then Kylo's brain flails around for a moment, and he almost doesn't say it, because he's afraid he's got the wrong answer, but he feels Rey encourage him, he's done the math right.
"Five years. From when Mom was captured to the end of the war was five years. Why was he in a prison camp for eight?"
Ellie's turn to look at Threepio. She's the one who says, "Not everyone in those camps was a political prisoner. In fact, most of them weren't. The Emperor rarely offered the mercy of prison to political enemies. And some of the ones who were in there for political crimes were in there for the sorts of political crimes that involved killing thousands of bystanders."
"Terrorists?" Rey asks.
Threepio nods. "Not everyone interested in ending the Empire agreed on who the Empire was. Leia's faction of the Rebellion… The Alliance to Restore the Republic… didn't want to be seen to deal with several of the others."
"Why didn't he execute them?" Rey asks.
"Because trying them, with a whole lot of people watching, and parading around images of bombed theaters and schools, or maimed children, made for good press. Made people think ill of the Rebellion," Ellie says. "Even Imperials had mothers, and they tended to get irate when primary schools were bombed."
"So, he kept the worst of the worst alive," Kylo says.
"Along with those too famous or young to easily execute. Almath was both. And the rapists, and thieves, and smugglers. Murderers and torturers. All of them were dumped onto Celjonia," Ellie says. "And then, as they began to come in, Imperial officers found guilty of war crimes, and… Well, the local populations weren't kind to them. Less than one out of fifty of them left if they had a more than two year sentence, especially in the early years while the Imperial prisoners were still being processed."
Threepio continues, "The New Republic, obviously, did not want to release the murders, rapists, and terrorists. The thieves and smugglers… They'd more than served their time. But, to make matters worse, the database that kept track of all of those things had been primarily hosted on Scarif and destroyed right before the battle of Yavin; secondarily hosted on the Emperor's personal data hub, which went wherever he was, and thus destroyed at the Battle of Endor; and a tertiary system was on Celjonia, but it was destroyed by the Imperials on the ground when they got orders to evacuate. It took years to figure out who everyone was.
"And that was made more complicated by a steady influx of new prisoners.
"We put a stop to the hard labor and the starvation rations, installed functional plumbing and water treatment to cut down on dysentery, and processed people as quickly as we could, but there were seventy-eight point seven three million people on that planet, when it was liberated, all of them claiming to be innocent political bystanders, and it took time to process them all.
"Almath was lucky enough that Leia remembered him, and that he'd been captured by the Empire, so we knew where he was likely to be, but… Unlike many other prisoners with family who could do a quick DNA match in order to prove their identity, at the end of the war Leia and Almath were the only kin of Bail Organa left."
"The only two who could have matched, couldn't, because she was adopted," Kylo says.
"And it took a long time to find him through less scientific means," Threepio replies.
"Didn't they just… ask?" Rey asks.
"When they began to liberate the camps, they queued everyone up, asked everyone who they were, came up with files on them, and started trying to match people to histories. If they had said, 'Is Almath Organa here?' fifty thousand people would have claimed to be him. As it was, it took years before Almath got processed."
Rey looks tired by that, and Kylo's thinking of his mother, and last night/this morning's conversation. There was a war on and… important things had to happen. So, many more of them than he ever had any idea of before he got here, and began trying to run this.
Rey squeezes his hand. "More details than any one mind can hold onto."
He nods.
Finally, they're in his office. Rey's put most of the boxes away, to take to Lirium later, though she's set the coffee in front of Kylo, along with one of the tarts. She hopes caffeine and calories will make up for lost sleep.
He does take a moment to just feel and smell the memories that go along with this drink, and there's another moment of empathy.
It's clearly coffee. There's no way to mistake it for anything else.
And it's very much not anything he's ever drunk before.
And other coffees are fine. They taste good. They're similar.
But they aren't this. And if this is what you wanted, they'd be so disappointing. Shadows when one craves the thing casting the shadow.
It's also got a kick. He's drunk about a third of it, and is awake now. "How did you sleep after this?" he asks.
Ellie smiles at him. "Have you ever heard the term, food coma?"
He shakes his head.
"You eat so much you feel like you're going to slip into a stupor. We were all on the verge of it by the end of the meal. Well, except for the General."
"Occasionally, there are advantages of not being human." Irritated impatience is radiating off of Threepio, as the humans around him keep dawdling by doing human things. "Sometimes, not."
"Okay, we've tried your patience enough," Kylo says, "So… A new wife? That doesn't sound like the Non-aggression treaty I was expecting you to come home with."
Rey smiles at that. "I imagine. It's likely part of it, though. Okay, so, like I said last night, everything on the bloody planet is wired for sound. So, Heloise and I have 'a bit of unsupervised time' to wander about one of the gardens and 'get to know each other.'"
"Helene did not like that," Ellie adds.
Threepio nods. "There was a lot of clear subtext that the queen was going off script in a way her elders did not like."
"Well, she intends to do a lot more of it. The garden is wired for sound, and given some of the comments I've gotten it's clear you heard more than enough."
"Of course," Ellie replies. "Once we found out that the feeds were open to the public, I put a few of our 'entourage' onto just keeping an eye on what everyone was up to last night, which was… interesting, but we'll get to that later. You and her are on your stroll, and she makes you a proposition in the long-standing tradition of wives and mistresses managing their men through all time."
Kylo's eyebrows raise.
Rey inclines her head. "Apparently, this is the sort of thing that's settled between the ladies, and the man in question just goes along and thanks his lucky stars for so much sex? Or something? I know I missed a lot of the depth behind how this works."
"We'll go over that later, too," Ellie says.
"So, you're having a bit of a walk, and suddenly she's… attempting to arrange… A triad?" Kylo asks. So much for that unlikely threesome.
Rey just stares at him.
Later.
She nods. "Not precisely. The part everyone can hear is about how her branch has been looking to match all three of the royal houses of New Alderaan. Heloise is already a Talmaash and Antillies, so all they need is an Organa, and boom, trifecta."
"Samanth is right there, no?" Kylo asks.
"Samanth is right there. Apparently, you're a 'better' catch."
Ellie nods at that. "I certainly wasn't surprised to hear the offer, other than I didn't expect to see it in addition to giving Rey full formal recognition as your spouse, but… Apparently, though it's rare, polygamy is legal on New Alderaan. Helene just about passed out when we heard Heloise say that."
Kylo's rubbing his forehead. "I'm tired. Which one is Helene and which one is Heloise?"
"Helene is the Viceroy, and one of the architects of getting you and your mom out of the succession," Rey says. "Heloise is the Queen."
He nods, and takes another sip of the coffee. "My body couldn't sleep now if I wanted it to, but my brain still feels tired. This stuff is…" He takes another contemplative sip, and then nibbles the tart, and… "Oh…" Almath is right; one bite and he knows exactly what this is. Chocolate short pastry crust, a sweet-sour creamy cheese, and plump, ripe gryttha berries, drizzled in a sugar syrup. Memories of being small, and waiting for Mama, because she was still Mama then, and she'd come home with goodies, because back then her coming home, and treats, could make him smile. So, she came home with treats. And he remembers when that didn't work anymore, and how sad she's been. She stopped bringing the treats home, then.
He takes a deep breath, and another bite, and feels Threepio still glaring, because they're stopping again for what he's got mentally characterized as stupid human stuff.
"Threepio, this is a direct order, from one of the few people on this ship who can give you orders. Quiet your fucking mind or leave. I am not about to be scolded for having a snack, especially not by you, and especially not a snack that's actually helping me to think somewhat fondly of my mother, which is something I assume you'd approve of."
Threepio, for a second, resents the hell out of that, but he's also curious so he makes himself not be angry at the delays. "Noted."
"Thank you. I tried thinking at you earlier today, and apparently you can't or don't or whatever, receive information, but especially when you're intently focusing on something, instead of whirling through a billion bits of data a second, you're very easy to read." He sighs, and takes another bite, and gives himself another thirty seconds to feel those memories of being small, and happy because his Mama had come home and brought him snuggles and treats. "Okay, so… The ladies are… doing husband sharing things, which is apparently being done for the sake of everyone listening."
Rey nods. "Exactly. Everything in the palace is wired for sound. And it seems extremely likely that even off world, anything He—The Queen does, is also supposed to be wired for sound. I got the sense, that a big chunk of that comes from the fact that, everyone may adore the storybook version of Bail and Breha, but a good-sized chunk of the people who survived the genocide, blame them for turning Alderaan into a target. If they'd lived up to the whole 'Alderaan is peaceful' ideal and actually been peaceful, instead or more or less bankrolling and spying for the Rebellion, they and their home would likely still be alive."
Kylo takes another sip of the coffee, and nudges the tart to Rey, so she has a bite, too. "It's good."
She nods.
"Okay, so… I should probably have figured this out by now, but…"
"You're tired. It's okay. We're strolling about, I've flat out told her that she can pry you out of my cold, dead hands if she thinks she can, on the whole husband sharing thing, and she seems to understand that, then she starts telling me about the flowers, because obviously, I found the sharing thing distressing. We kneel down to look at one of them more closely, she hits the sound dampening field, and we get thirty seconds to actually talk. So, here's what's really going on. 'Courting couples' are allowed a certain amount of privacy that the Queen of Alderaan can't readily get. She needs that privacy so she can talk to us about actually ruling the damn planet and seeing what she can do to drag it, kicking and screaming, out of the past and into the future. For some reason," and here she flashes Kylo a certain look, "she thinks you might be sympathetic to something like that. Then she flicks off the sound blocker, continues telling me about the flowers, and once again, gently, broaches the subject of at least getting your DNA into the local population mix, and I agree that at the very least, she and Samanth, who was, as of yesterday, the other part of her 'courting couple' should return here when they've got their version of the treaty done, so we can talk more."
And that's when Threepio relaxes.
Rey takes another bite of the tart. It's stupidly yummy. "Samanth took me down to his father's bakery. Can't really talk much on a scooter, but we could chat a little, outside of the palace. He gives me a bit more context for some of what I'd been hearing all night, praised as a strength, but seen from a different point of view.
"New Alderaan is desperately attempting to become Old Alderaan. To a… well, I'm going to say, stupid degree. The planet is covered with things that are already suited for human populations, but instead of using them and adapting, they're spending piles and piles and piles of credits into recreating what they used to have."
"It's not entirely a waste," Threepio says. "New Alderaan has come up with some major advances in botanical genomic studies, and the propagation of rare species, and…"
Ellie breaks in with, "They do have to come up with the credits to pay for all of this, and so far they've been able to take what they've learned in attempting to recreate extinct species and apply that to farming and crop propagation in general. They make a lot tailoring seeds for local biomes, and are one of the cutting edge botanical science centers for terraforming. We weren't there long enough to visit, but there's exactly one University on Alderaan right now, and all it does is botanical sciences. Anything you need to grow; they know how to grow it."
Kylo vaguely feels like that's important for something, enough so that he pulls one of his data pads to him and types it in, but he's not immediately connecting the dots.
"Why is the Queen unhappy with this?" Kylo asks.
Rey doesn't exactly shrug, but she does indicate that she doesn't precisely know all the ins and outs. "Okay, first of all, and you'll feel it when you meet her, this is someone who's been trained to keep their thoughts deep underground. It took me quite a while to even get a feel for the shape of what she's thinking. Second of all, I stumbled into mentioning allowing people into Alderaan who aren't Alderaanian. Just… the Order being the Order, you know?"
Kylo nods.
"That must have hit a nerve for her, or maybe she already hoped we'd go there, and that's part of why Samanth didn't come back from the Supremacy proclaiming you as Kylo Ren, not now, not ever, Ben Solo. Samanth mentioned that in two generations they were going to start running into problems with genetic diversity. In fifty years, everyone on the planet will be a cousin of everyone else.
"And I know she feels like they're running a memorial park or a museum, instead of a society. They're frozen in time, and apparently that's intentional. That was very clear from The Viceroy. She, and at least a few of the others in power are actively trying to make sure that New Alderaan is, or stays, or becomes Alderaan.
"That's part of getting rid of your mom. She wasn't Alderaan enough. Blood matters to the Viceroy, which is another reason she's not thrilled with you. Even if you are Ben Solo, you're Ben Solo, Anakin Skywalker's grandson, not Bail Organa's." That gets Rey to something else she's been wondering about. "What happened to Heloise's mother? We met the Queen Father, but… Obviously, if Heloise is Queen, her mother is no longer around, and… She wasn't that old, was she?"
Ellie seems very interested in that line of questioning. "What's got you thinking in that direction, Rey?"
"The way Heloise spoke about what would happen if someone attempted to gain the throne improperly."
Ellie smiles. "The old bat is a killer. It takes one to know one, and that's a woman who's got no scruples about doing what needs to be done to serve the 'greater good.' And she's smart. Enough to know to not put herself on the throne. She didn't do it when she took Leia down, and then her sister-in-law… People get sick. They die. That's true.
"It's also true that Ania Talmaash, who was an Antillies at the time, was not part of 'peaceful Alderaan.' She was part of the Rebellion. She refused to take a combat position, which many of the Alderaanians who joined the Rebellion did. But she was a med tech on Yavin," Threepio says. He tilts his head a bit. "Radiation is poison to humans. The explosion of the Death Star showered everything near it in radiation. And unlike the ships, the base on Yavin was not hardened with shields to prevent radiation poisoning.
"Cancer deaths among the people on the ground were fewer than the ones closer to the Death Star, but it wasn't rare.
"And med techs, who got a dose from the explosion, and then more when they dealt with anyone who survived the fight and got out of the ships, ended up somewhere in between."
"Did she die of cancer?" Rey asks.
Ellie nods. "That said, it is my understanding that in many of the cases where the cancer proved fatal, it involved people who didn't get it seen to soon enough. And unlike the average Rebellion pilot who retired to private life, Ania had top of the line medical care who would have swooped down to serve her the moment she so much as sniffled."
"That wasn't always enough. Lando died," Kylo says. "Even with Luke helping…" He shakes his head.
"Lando was located literally inside the second Death Star when it exploded," Threepio says. "The Force and the Force alone got him out of there. The Falcon had burn marks on it from the explosion. The fact that he survived for twenty-eight years after the explosion is a testament to what good medical care attentively provided could do. Your father was hundreds of kilometers away the first time, thousands the second, and he got sick—" Kylo's expression stops Threepio dead. "You did not know."
"He was sick?"
"According to Chewie, his right leg started to ache about six years ago. Bone cancer. He let them take it, and that bought time. He left one went four years ago. He let them take that one to buy more time. When his hip started to ache three years ago, he refused to seek further treatment."
Kylo quietly says, "I didn't know." This time he doesn't know what Threepio's thinking because he's still keeping his mind quiet, and for once, that's a relief. Rey's holding his hand, stroking the back of it with her thumb.
Ellie turns attention away from Kylo. "Ania may have been not what Helene wanted in a monarch. Especially if your read on her is right, Rey. She did seem to be interested in modernizing and loosening things up a bit. But she got sick. The question is, did she get sick and die, like people do? Did she get sick, and did her sister encourage her to just 'tough it out?' Tell her it was 'just a cold?'"
"Poe's mom thought that, and that was it for her," Rey says.
"A lot of people who survived the war have stories like that," Ellie says. "So, that's one way she could have nudged things. As the Viceroy, and as the sister of the Queen, she would have had close personal access to her while she was receiving treatment, and the right chemical in the right dose… Hell, Pat's been through that wringer before, and many of the drugs they use to treat it are poison, just up the dose a bit too high and you'll kill the person and the cancer."
"So, you're saying, short of getting her to say it," she looks to Kylo, "Remind me to tell you about that later. It's important, but Maji stuff." He writes that on his pad, too. "There's no way to really know what happened to Ania."
"Exactly."
"But you think Queen Heloise may have at least the start of an inkling that her Aunt is in some way involved in her mother's death?" Threepio asks.
"Enough that she was willing to draw my attention to what would happen if someone got their throne through poison. I assume there had to be more than just the surface there, but… Like I said, she's good at keeping her thoughts to herself, and…"
Kylo's the one who says it, "You don't learn to do that in a place where you don't have to learn it."
Rey nods. "Keeping her secrets matters to her."
"Enough to attempt to set up a sham conversation with me, about a marriage that will never happen, just to get some privacy for a real conversations about what might?" Kylo says.
"Yeah."
They're all quiet for a few moments. Finally, it's Kylo who says, "Can she? Drag them into the future? Is this something that just she and Samanth want, or… If we back her, can we do some real good here?"
Ellie and Threepio look at each other.
Finally, Ellie says, "Uncertain. I'll need to do some more research and set some more people on it, but my knee jerk, and possibly wrong reaction is that this is a fairly common generational issue. The younger people want new, the older ones want what they used to have, and the older ones are starting to lose their grip on power and do not like it, while the younger ones are just getting a taste of it, and want more."
Threepio is still thinking. Finally, he says, "To a certain degree, the Queen is facing two issues. The first one is this, she does not, actually, have any real political power of her own. Her position is ceremonial and diplomatic. Which means, in order to affect any real change, she either has to radically redefine her position or she needs to use persuasion to shift the attitudes of the people in the legislature.
"Now, it is true that Alderaan prefers the ideals of youth and innocence in it's monarchy, while at the same time, the legislature tends to be filled with old people who are stubbornly clinging to life long past the point where many people, especially the younger ones, would prefer they shuffled off the mortal coil and got around to rejoining their ancestors in the Force."
"Why do I have the feeling that you listened to my mother talk about that, a lot?"
"Because you are not stupid. I'm at least a decade out of date, but if more than a tenth of the legislature is new in that time, I'd be stunned. Your grandmother used to complain that the moment someone got elected to the legislature their lifespan effectively doubled. And, at least ten years ago, both members who were off world when Alderaan was destroyed, were still in the legislature," Threepio says.
"Don't they vote for the legislature?" Rey asks. "Or... Is it a vote once and stay on for the rest of your life sort of thing?"
"It's up for a vote every five years," Threepio says, "but once you've been elected, short of being caught doing something completely illegal, almost no one is ever voted out. In many cases, no one even bothers to run against the incumbent. Generally, there are only competitive elections when a legislator retires or dies."
"So, you're saying that this is a cultural clash putting the young against the old, and there may not be much we can do about it, beyond what we currently do, offering up a place for people unsatisfied with what is where they can chase what can be?" Rey says.
"Yes. Though I'm sure when you have more than thirty seconds of unmonitored time to talk, we can get a better feel for what Queen Heloise is hoping to see come out of this," Threepio replies. He turns his attention to Kylo, "I was hoping to have a few moments of private conversation with you. And we appear to be done with the main debriefing."
Kylo glances to Rey, and she nods to him. "I've got some goodies to take to the kids, and I'm sure they'll want to hear all about New Alderaan. We've got an invite to take them for a trip at some point, and I'm thinking that might be a good idea, if for no other reason than to get them to see more of what the outside galaxy looks like."
Kylo nods along with that, as Rey stands up, kisses him, and then gathers the rest of the boxes and ports out.
Ellie also stands and leaves, but before she's out the door, she does say, "Remember General, nothing that happened last night or this morning damaged us in any way, and will likely, in the long run, work out to our benefit."
"Perhaps, Madam, perhaps." He waits for her to leave. Then he says to Kylo, "I'll admit, going into this I was a bit nervous as to how it'd work out. Fortunately, the answer appears to be, at least for us and our interests, quite well, except for an unexpected and unwelcome snag in the plan, during which someone couldn't ignore the wants of his shaft long enough to let his wife rest by herself for one full night—"
Kylo rolls his eyes magnificently. "The room was wired for sound, no?"
"It was."
"And you were monitoring all the feeds? No, not all of them, otherwise you wouldn't have been surprised this morning."
"I was in the living room watching and listening to the feeds on the other members of the Talmaash house. When the Viceroy's personal security person told her that you were in the garden, I went in to visit Rey."
"Close enough then. Did you hear fucking?"
Threepio looks shocked. And it takes Kylo a moment to realize he was unaware there were particular sounds that went along with that endeavor.
"You don't actually know what it sounds like, do you?"
And embarrassed.
"There's no reason why you should. You're not human. You've obviously got no interest in doing it, and don't appear to be equipped to even attempt it. That said, even you would have likely figured out what was happening if you'd heard it. But you didn't, because I didn't put your carefully balanced plan in jeopardy just to get my stones polished." He pauses and sips his coffee.
"Then you decided to completely upend a very carefully balanced bit of diplomatic work… why? Just to spite me?"
Kylo sighs. "I can take care of my shaft myself. I can't snuggle myself."
"You… possibly destroyed a carefully balanced plan because you wanted a… snuggle."
Kylo can feel Threepio's metal brain melt in stupefaction at that. Kylo rolls his eyes at that, too. "I told… Hux? Probably Hux, it's the sort of thing I'd say to him. The only thing I ever showed any great promise at was disappointing people. So, yes, I wanted a few hours to hold my wife and maybe sleep. Are you madly disappointed?"
Threepio doesn't have a response to that, let alone the capacity to begin to form a response to that. No one's ever so nakedly laid out a desire for simple affection to him.
So, Kylo just barrels on, "Ellie tells me that doing things where it's easy to see that I'm madly in love with my wife is humanizing, and makes people more interested in being with and near us, so… Romance is an ingredient in the fantasy version of this… thing… we're building. If you'd like, you can file me popping in to get my nightly snuggles under 'Handsome Princing The Shit Out of It.'"
Threepio continues to stand there, staring at Kylo, eyes wide and empty.
That makes Kylo feel like he's got to do more explaining. "I'm not a good sleeper to begin with, and I'm much better at it if Rey is near, so… Yes, I sought her out for some cuddles, and then got called to the garden to chat with Mom. It was a hell of a night. Poe and Jon decided I needed to go out for boys time, too."
Threepio just stands there for a moment, and Kylo feels a surge of jealousy that he got a chat with Leia and Threepio hasn't. Kylo's not sure what to do with that, but he does decide to mention it to his mother if or when he sees her again.
"Were you drunk?"
"Not by the time I ported to Rey."
"And are you intending to engage in unscheduled acts of Handsome Princing in the future?"
"Are you planning on dragging Rey away overnight with no warning ahead of time?"
"I'll see what I can do about that."
"And I'll work on reining in my Handsome Princing."
Threepio sighs, tired and edgy. "The biggest problem with your 'Handsome Princing' is that it was noticed. On the positive side, apparently your mother was visible in the video feed, so any questions as to who you may actually be are effectively gone."
"That's good. What's the downside?"
"You were seen, but you were not seen to get onto the planet. Thank the Force, there are whispers that a ship exists that is small, fast, and well-enough shielded that it can slip the scanners. They are under the impression that you are in possession of one, and that, I, of course, can read the electronic signatures of the palace well enough to know where the cameras were, thus you could slip in."
"People will bend over backwards to not have to contemplate the idea that I can teleport, won't they?"
"It's an idea so far removed from most people's concept of how reality works that it cannot even begin to form in the mind."
"Ah. Can you read the electronics that well?"
"Of course. They shift the angles, but I visited frequently when the palace was built, so I know the security layout, and the code that runs it. Finding out what each room was wired for, how, and where required very little effort. Likewise, ascertaining where the cameras were and what they could see would have taken me no more than a minute and a good port into the security feed."
"But you can't do that everywhere?"
"Not everywhere. I know what to look for in the palace of New Alderaan. And, as you've heard over and over, I am fluent in more than six million forms of communication, so I can interface with many, but not all, and possibly not most forms of security systems."
Kylo thinks for a moment. "Does a ship like that exist?"
"And that would be the downside. Colonel Jeffries, who actually writes the treaties is already being hinted at in a very not-subtle sort of way, that the price of us getting both recruiting stations and an embassy, will be at least the beginning of the notes for how to build such a ship."
Kylo slumps. "You're saying they're going to want the specs to at least start to figure out how to build a ship that does not, in fact, exist."
"Because, somehow, you got on the planet. Yes."
Every time he feels like he's starting to get a handle on all the angles of these things, something else pops up and rips the rug out from under his feet. "What else might we buy them off with?"
"Now that is going to be a real question, isn't it? They are, of course, not particularly interested in the kind of beyond cutting-edge technology we do have, because it's all centered around ways to kill the most people the most efficiently."
Kylo grits his teeth. "Explicit support for whatever it is the Queen wants to do?"
"Is both the wrong time frame, and it's the legislature that affirms treaties. And since what the Queen wants will neuter the power of the legislature, or at least trim it, they will not be pleased by that angle."
He slumps back and stares at the ceiling. "And if we just go straight, balls-out, Dad telling the Empire, 'We're all fine here,' we have no idea what you're talking about? That I'm just that good of a pilot?"
"I imagine it will work exactly as well as that did for your father. Even the best pilot in the galaxy cannot fly through a planet encircling web of sensors without triggering the sensors. Nothing larger than that tart you're putting on your plate," Kylo is grabbing a second one, "can get through without setting it off. And before you ask, there were cameras on our ship all night and from all angles. There is no possible way you got off of it. Likewise the largest of the 'entourage' who came along for the ride has only 90% of your body mass, and was standing watch, on camera, outside of our door, when you were also on camera, in the garden."
"Fuck," he mutters it.
"There is a reason, why, when I tell you to do something, you should do it! And not fuck it up just for a few hours of snuggles. Rey isn't going anywhere. She will come home to you. I'd think you're aware of that, so next time, shift your schedule around, take your meetings in the evening when Rey will be away, and free up your schedule for when she gets back and get your snuggles then!"
"Noted," Kylo says, voice dry.
Threepio is quiet again, and Kylo's got the sense of him working himself up to saying something. Something he was going to ask about even before this scolding got on his to-do list. "Lady Kinear tells me that your… under the scanners name… is Amidala."
That surprises Kylo. "You knew that, didn't you? Master Padme?"
If he could, Threepio would be taken aback. "I had known that, but didn't connect it."
Kylo's looking at him, eagerly. "Did you… know her? Wait… If you knew, Padme wouldn't have flown under your scanners? Something changed, didn't it?"
"Something did. You were very fond of your grandfather when you were little."
"Is there a question in there?"
"Yes. One I don't particularly want to ask, but am curious about." He looks at the cup of coffee and the tart in front of Kylo. "Returning to New Alderaan has me thinking much of the past, I fear."
"Ah… You want to know more about the monster, but feel like it's a sin to ask?"
"Interesting way of putting it, but… yes."
Kylo sighs, and takes another bite of his tart, before saying, "I was very fond of a voice in my head that claimed to be my grandfather. That voice praised me and told me I was good at things, and that I was meant for great things, and that I was powerful and could do anything I wanted to. It told me the things I was bad at were beneath me, and that the people who tried to make me be good at them were afraid of me, and my power, and didn't want what was good for me. But the voice did. He wanted me to be powerful and strong, like he was. And unlike everyone else around me, he believed I could do it." He rolls his eyes a little. "Who wouldn't like a voice like that?
"I would later find out that that voice wasn't Vader, or Anakin, or however you think of him. So, in truth, no, I wasn't. I was very fond of a carefully constructed image of Vader, designed to manipulate me into…" He doesn't finish that sentence. "Why?"
"How… did you find out about Padme, then? If it wasn't him?"
"It was him, eventually, much, much too late. We've spoken, for real, a few times."
"You don't look pleased by that."
Kylo shrugs. "Why do you want to know more about the monster?"
"When your mother was born, I'd been in the service of your grandparents. Your biological grandparents. Bail took custody of both Leia and I. He had my memory wiped. I know that Vader, who was Anakin then, built me. I have… R2 had… memories of some of our interactions. Not many of them. And I am in the bizarre situation of now having memories that I am not, in fact, present for.
"But… I know he built me."
"Uncle… You're thinking that, hard."
"I'm pondering it."
"You've never tried to cut me in half, so that's already a step above Luke. And you didn't shoot me in the abdomen, so you've got that over Chewie. I'm afraid you can't compete with Lando, though." He tries it as a joke, but it falls flat.
Threepio's mentally glaring at Kylo, and it's clear that if Master Luke wanted to cut Kylo in half, he must have bloody well deserved it. And he knows why Chewie shot him, and he certainly deserved that.
Kylo rolls his eyes. "You wanted… what… happy memories? Redeeming qualities? Some sort of encouraging ghost who understood a lost little darkling and cared."
"I was hoping, yes."
Kylo shakes his head. "I'm sorry. I can't give you that." He settles back in his chair. Then glances around his office. "I know you sit sometimes, is it… more comfortable?"
"Honestly, no. It's easier to stand. But when people are accustomed to sitting and having people stand and recite to them, they automatically see the standing person as of a lesser level. So, I sit for meetings with anyone I wish to impress with my status as equal or better."
Kylo nods. "However you like with me." Threepio continues to stand there. "At first, Padme, and Amidala, were names picked because they were the only names I had a claim to that didn't make me angry. That they wouldn't immediately identify me to anyone paying attention helped, too. Now, they're more about hope, and about… doing as well as you can with what you've got, even if what you've got isn't enough."
He can feel Threepio would blink if he could. "She… In my memories… Artoo's memories... She's a formidable woman."
Kylo smiles at that. "I imagine she was. And… if you'd like to share those memories, I'd be interested in them. What I have… She didn't love him. She was vastly overpowered by a Force user who cared more for himself and his plans than her. There's… resonance… there these days." He's rolling his wedding band between his fingers. "Rey's band is shiny black metal. Some of that is just… me. I do genuinely like black. Some of it is a promise…
"I spoke to him, the real him, only a few times, and one of the things he said was that he never loved her. He wasn't intentionally warping her. That was just… his power and desires and the strength of his Force, but… He never loved her, because if he had loved her, he would have molded himself into a version of himself worthy of being her love. And maybe, on her own, she might not have loved that version of him, either, but he didn't do it. He knew the universe she wanted, and he didn't go and get it, or make it, or use his power to get them closer to it.
"There was a time, a very long time, when I wanted to be Vader. When I wanted the family name of Skywalker, so I could claim his name, his title, him…
"These days, when I'm on my own, with Rey, when it's us, out of the attention of the galaxy, we go by Amidala. And that's likely all you need to know about good memories of Vader."
Threepio nods. "It is."
"We don't know much about her, though. We went to Naboo, and spent a day reading one of the history books about her, and visited her tomb. If you'd be willing to share those memories. I'd like to know more, and I'm sure Rey would, too."
Threepio nods. "Not today. You're tired, and honestly, I'm not sure how much more dwelling in memory I can take for one day. But soon. I know that Ellie intends to take Rey to Naboo in the next few months, so before then. Artoo has memories I don't, so I'll bring him along, too."
Kylo nods. "Thank you. I appreciate it."
Threepio offers him a brief nod.
It's not late when Kylo gets home. It's actually fairly early for him. He sets dinner on the table, and finds Rey, in the comfy chair, eyes at half mast, looking, vaguely, in the direction of a data pad that she clearly isn't reading.
He steps over, sits on the floor, and leans his head against her thigh.
Their home is still fairly cold. And it's still mostly hers. But right now, it's not empty. It's alive, and he belongs here, because here is where she is.
So, he sits next to her, and lets her feel that, as she gives up on pretending to read, relaxes back with her eyes closed, and strokes his hair. "You're tired."
She nods slowly. "I really shouldn't be. I got a full night's sleep."
"Yeah, but you've been up a lot longer than usual, right?"
She wriggles a bit. "Probably." Another quiet beat. "Food smells good."
"Just easy stuff tonight, noddles, veg, and broth." He stands up and gives her a hand up, and they both wander companionably toward the table. She uses her Force to open the cooker, and float one of the loaves of bread to the table. "I kept one for us. Ostrae is more or less demanding I take her to Almath and set up an apprenticeship as soon as humanly possible."
Kylo's eyebrows raise a bit, as he gets them a spoon and fork each, as well as the butter and jam. "That… could be a solution, I guess."
"Oh, she still wants to be here, too, and do more punching lessons with you, and learn to use a lightsaber, and work on cookies, and now she's got some idea about lots of math, and…"
"Your little darkling is a buzz with options?"
"Yeah. I was looking for Alderaanian cookbooks when you got here, and there are several on baking. I'm hoping one will have what she wants."
He smiles at that. Then rips off a chunk of bread, and tries it. Unlike the tart, it triggers no memories. Like the tart, it's stupidly good, though. He chews thoughtfully, sitting hip to hip with Rey while she swallows a bite of her soup. It's just… dinner at home.
"I talked to Mom last night, or this morning, or whatever."
She nods at that. Not much to say, but happy to listen.
"It was… different. I… was less angry, or more able to pull my empathy into play."
"More able to see the person under the image?"
"Yeah, I guess." More quiet eating.
"Do you think that's a good thing?" Rey asks.
He shrugs. "It's probably not a bad one." He takes another bite of the bread, tasting, and trying to feel the weight of a planet gone, and a culture trying to come back. He decides to stop that, fast. It's overwhelming. Instead he says, "I want to get a camera."
Rey, even flowing along with his thought process, still thinks that's something of a leap.
"I was looking at the pictures of Bail and Breha, and… I want pictures of us. I want… something of us that'll last. I want solid memories and the ability to show our kids and whomever comes next who we were and when."
Rey more feels what he's saying than listens, feels his light calling for stable permanence. She rests her head on his shoulder. "You want me to read up on technical specs and whatnot?"
He smiles a little. He's not a mechanical wizard by a long shot, and even in this strong suit, ships, he's still a pilot vastly more than a mechanic. Like his dad, he can poke around and whack things that obviously need whacking, but unlike his dad, he can afford to have someone who actually knows how to fix things, fix them. "Yes, please."
"Will you smile for pictures?"
"If you take them, I probably will. No promises for anyone else."
Rey smirks a little at that. There's another quiet moment, more chewing, both of them content in each other.
"Unlikely threesome?" Rey asks.
Kylo sighs, and starts to explain about Jon and Poe and that moment of not knowing how to break the tension, but knowing that it likely needed to break, so asking about how threesomes work, "And then, all of a sudden, Threepio's telling me you're bringing me a new wife, and… well… Force works in mysterious ways, yes?"
Rey laughs at that. "She tells me, and for as well as I can feel, this is true, that she's honestly not interested in you on that level."
"Oh shucks," he says completely deadpan.
"Yes, I know, all your dearest hopes and dreams just crashed. You're stuck with me."
"Where I very much enjoy being."
"That said, they…"
"They?"
"Samanth and Heloise, and likely anyone else who is concerned about this, do seem to want to add your DNA to the mix, so…"
"Our children can visit and chose to live there if they so desire, and that's as much of my DNA as New Alderaan gets to lay claim to."
Rey smiles at that.
After one more moment, Kylo remembers, "What was the Force stuff you wanted to tell me about?"
Rey's eyes brighten, and a wide smile spreads across her face as she begins to tell him about non-voice compulsion.