5/25/2

Technically speaking, today is one of Kylo's "days off."

Technically speaking. He's got… stuff… to do.

There's a formal gathering in a few days, and he's supposed to be getting fitted for his suit for that. He doesn't know why he needs to be fitted for this. By this point, he's under the impression that Jon knows his body, style, and what looks good on him better than he knows himself, but…

Fitting, sure. Jon says show up and do clothing stuff, he shows up and does clothing stuff.

Training with Jacen in the late afternoon.

He does have a few hours in the middle of the day that are his own, and… He has this… need. And it feels stupid and weird and…

He calls Mitaka, Captain of the Finalizer now, and he can feel the terror on the other side of the comm.

"You want to know… Sir… I…" He's completely flustered the man.

"Captain Phasma's rooms. Do you know where they are, and what happened to them?"

Dead silence on the other side of the comm. It stretches on and then snaps with a quick. "I… Am finding out, Sup—Master Ren."

He figures this makes sense. He hasn't had anything to do with the man personally since the Last Night party, and he thinks he said three words to him, along the lines of, "Good job, Mitaka." He thinks the time before that, he was Force choking the man, so…

"Her quarters are on the Finalizer, and are, as best I can tell, untouched. Do you… Why did you want to know, sir?"

"Morbid curiosity." He can't begin to explain why he feels the need to go there. "Which room?"

Mitaka answers quickly, and that's one question down. Hux's quarters, too. He'd been in it twice, and somehow never thought or noticed, that anyone else lived there.

Granted, it's been… six years. Longer? Must have been longer. He was still new enough he didn't completely loathe Hux. Maybe Phasma didn't live there, then.

There's a second where he's feeling a little nervous at seeing Jon, but it melts fast. Poe's right, this is a thing, that happens, and if you let it fade, it will.

It doesn't take long before they're back to their normal interactions. Though, in the case normal means Kylo standing around while Jon watches him carefully.

"Jon, this is a black suit."

Jon's nodding, looking him up and down, making notes.

"With red detailing?" He's fairly sure he mentioned not exactly wanting to work red into his color scheme. Red has too many memories of Snoke attached to it. His saber is all the red he needs these days.

Jon waves that off and keeps making notes.

"It looks a lot like your first version of Emperor Ren."

Jon nods. It does, though this look has a "tie" (which Kylo not only doesn't understand, but didn't know how to tie) and no vest.

"Are the buttons on the jacket purple."

That gets Jon to look up. "Remind me to have C8 test you for colorblindness."

"I'm not colorblind."

"You are if you think those buttons are purple."

Kylo rolls his eyes at that. "They're some sort of gem. I'm calling it purple."

"It's midnight ruby, and that's red." Jon moves closer, eyes the tie, and the pockets on the jacket, and then shakes his head. A moment later he's holding another piece of red fabric against Kylo's skin. "Better…"

"I can see that's a different color red than the first one, but not by much."

"Uh huh." Jon looks satisfied by that. The first red has a warm, orangy base that he knew was going to be borderline on Kylo, and he was right, it's not working. The second one is a deeper, bluer color. "Okay, maybe you aren't colorblind, but you're at least color myopic. What color do you think the shirt is?"

"It's black, with a slightly different sheen than the jacket and trousers."

Jon just shakes his head. "Do you like it?"

"It feels comfortable. I think I like the styling on my formal blacks, better."

"Your formal blacks look military. This doesn't."

"That's probably why I like them better."

"Yes, well this is for spaces you don't want or need to look military."

"Okay." A pause as he looks at the notes Jon's making. "Why red?"

"Because the gems on Rey's necklace are rubies, and that's the one thing on the outfit I can't shift."

Kylo decides that he'll wear some damn red if it's to match Rey. "Okay."

Kylo knows where he is, though he hadn't known that Phasma lived here. He presses his palm to the hand lock on the door, and like when he tested it with Rey on the I-Deck, his hand does open the door to what used to be Hux and Phasma's quarters.

He's been here a few times. Years and years ago. Back when he was new, and he and Hux didn't completely hate each other on every level they could hate each other. That didn't last though.

However many years it's been… nothing's changed. It's a gray, sterile space, though everything has the stale, slightly dusty feel of an unused space. Bed, still impeccably made, desk, table to eat at, two chairs, no art on the walls, no personal touches. There isn't even a sofa.

His first room on the Finalizer looked like this the first time he set foot into it.

He steps in and looks around. There's literally nothing in his view to indicate anyone or thing ever lived here.

It feels… wrong, to open the wardrobe, but… Maybe the room has been cleaned out, and that didn't make it to the report Mitaka saw. Cleaned out, but not yet reassigned.

He opens the door. Clothing, Hux's uniforms, meet his gaze. So much for cleaned out, then. Hux apparently got dressed here, at least on occasion. Again, old, stale, slightly dusty, but nothing personal. Everything in there, from the perfectly pressed jackets, to the hanging trousers, and the gleaming boots looks like clothing in a store waiting for someone to come buy it.

He glances around. No socks, no underthings… Maybe in the table next to the bed… Maybe… Doesn't matter.

He doesn't know what he expected to find. Not like her armor would be in there. Not like the helmet would be sitting next to Hux's service caps. They just… lost Phasma. One day she was on the rolls, and then the Supremacy was cut in half, and they never found her again.

There's no reason her armor would be sitting in here, waiting.

But he feels like there should be… something. You take Rey out of his life and there would be signs of her all over his home.

For how long? He sighs, that's a point. It was months between when they lost Phasma and when he killed Hux. Half a year, ten months? Something like that. How long would he keep things that reminded him of what he used to have… The only thing he took from Luke's, and kept, was the crystal from his saber. Everything else he burned…

But that was then… Now?

But was there anything about Hux that's like him… now?

He's reaching for one of the drawers, and feels his back prickle as, "No. You don't get to see that," hits his ears.

Kylo pulls his hands back as Hux steps into his view.

"Just because you've developed some sort of perverse interest in me doesn't mean I don't get a private life."

"You're dead. How much privacy can you need?"

Hux glares at him. "Why are you here?"

"I honestly don't really know." Kylo sits on the bed, and thinks about it. Hux paces, glancing at him from time to time. "You look nervous."

"You're in my quarters, Ren. You were going to go rifling through my personal things."

"Again, you're dead. What secrets do you need to keep? What reputation do you have to keep safe from me? I've already killed you, it's not like I can add blackmail to the list, now."

"Whatever secrets I have, they're mine. Not yours to be rifled through."

Kylo nods. "Sure, fine. Keep your secrets." He keeps looking around. "You didn't live here." He glances to the drawer. "That's what I'll find if I open that. Nothing. This is… on the books, on the records, so that if anyone traced you through the computers. Or, you'd meet people here because sometimes you needed a place to meet them, but… This isn't your home."

Hux snorts at that. "Sleep and food means your brain starts to work."

"But you're smart. Smart and careful. You're a survivor, above and beyond, until you ran into someone who just didn't give a shit any more. Can't adequately defend against the man who doesn't care if he comes out of the fight alive."

"I would have if I'd found your girl."

Kylo inclines his head. "Didn't work for Snoke…"

Hux's face is mild, but Kylo understands the hate in his eyes. He gets all the layers of Snoke was an idiot, and I'm not.

Kylo nods, starting to understand. Snoke didn't know how attachment could motivate someone. He gets a deeper layer of it, feeling it off the shade, and it shocks him. Hux did. Hux knew what a man might do for love. (Or obsession, or… Kylo's not sure he's comfortable with Hux and love in the same thought, but he doesn't have a better signifier for it.)

Hux nods back at him.

Kylo keeps looking around. "You know people watch where you go at night. So… There's a passage or something in here. This isn't home. This is for show. This is a place where an assassin can come and be disappointed. But you don't have ship access from here, so…" He's thinking his way through the specs of this part of the ship. Then he looks at the drawer. "There is something in there. It's something someone wouldn't touch. Not if they were rummaging through your stuff. But you're good with tech. It's not what it looks like." Kylo winces a bit. "You've got some sort of off-putting sex toy in there that opens a door to your actual rooms, don't you?"

Hux's face is disdainful. "The monk actually knows what a sex toy is. I see she's expanded your horizons. You're also wrong."

Kylo's eyes narrow as he really looks at Hux. "I'm not wrong about the passage. I'm not wrong about you not living here. If I'm wrong about the thing, it's… what it is or where it is."

Hux rolls his eyes, crosses to his wardrobe, opens it, rifles around, on the top shelf, behind the service caps, and tosses him a ball gag. "You're not wrong about the device or what it is. You are wrong about what's in the drawer."

Kylo's staring at the gag in his lap.

He's… distracted… to say the least, when he feels Rey's mind on his, and sees Padme through her eyes.

There's a message here. Meaning. Padme, Hux's shade, this room, power… His own thoughts about… How much of it wasn't really him. He can feel that sooner or later these things will connect. The threads will become a tapestry. But he doesn't have them, not yet.

He thinks of Padme. Of how Anakin warped and shaped her. And he thinks of Snoke, and the way Hux is looking at him, and who the Jedi Killer was. "You ever wonder how much of yourself was actually Snoke?"

Hux looks appalled that he'd even ask.

"Seriously. I… guess that's why I'm here. Who were you when the monster wasn't pulling the strings? Who was she? We worked together for almost a decade and… Besides the fact that you or she liked stuff like this," and he holds up the gag, "I knew basically nothing about you."

Hux shakes his head. "You never knew, Ren. Not—"

"I saw the bite marks, Hux. Saw the bruises. I trained with her, remember?"

Hux is staring him in the eyes, leaning over him. "You never knew, Ren. You cut him in half to safeguard your lady. I didn't ha—" He stops dead.

Kylo keeps watching the shade, maybe the start of something like understanding dawning. Poison tubes all throughout the ships ventilation systems… Would he do that for power? Yes. But why did Hux want power? Who would be at his right hand? Who was he protecting?

Kylo swallows, so much for his great empathy. "I didn't know."

"You fucking well should have. He sent you in to do it often enough. Anything you'd love would die. Hate, anger, rage, passion, we were allowed those. Nothing soft, nothing kind, nothing sane. Mind readers," Hux scoffs at that. "Keep the right thoughts at the top of your head, keep the right images in front of their eyes. They'll only see what you want them to." He nods to the gag. "Magic makes you weak. It feeds you easy answers and lets your brain shut down. He was oh, so powerful, so secure, so… magic, and you just cut the fucker in half one day. There was video of it. Did you know that?"

Kylo blinks. He didn't know that.

"I sat there, later, and watched him go on and on and on. I could see the second you saw the opening, it was all over your face, but he couldn't feel it, so he just let you kill him. Idiot." He looks at Kylo for a moment. "I was a little surprised to see you mastered the control to keep it out of your thoughts, though. Your body language was shit, but your brain must have been in the right place."

Kylo shrugs a bit at that. "He had shit vision. Probably didn't need it, could feel his way around, but… He let me see through his eyes once, wanted me to… Doesn't matter. He needed corrective lenses."

Hux barks a laugh at that. Kylo thinks it's possible that's the first time he's ever heard Hux laugh. "Oh… Fucker! I spent hours showing him graphs and plans, explaining in detail how… He couldn't read the damn things, could he?"

Kylo shakes his head. "Not unless they were right under his nose."

They share a look.

Hux shakes his head. "Don't give into nostalgia, Ren. You're better off hating me."

"I'm tired of it." And that's probably part of being here, too. The more and more he balances, the more his hate is draining away. It's not bubbling there, under the surface, all the time anymore.

Of course, that begs the question, was it ever really his in the first place?

"I killed billions of people and got off on it. You should hate me."

"It's not about you. It's about me."

"It always was." And the hate in those three words is staggering. "Billions of people." He snaps. "But it was always about you. Always about the magic."

"It wasn't even about me, not really. Or Rey. He had some sort of magic hard-on for Luke. I was the closest he could get, so that was that. It was always all about Luke and crushing what was left of the Jedi. I was… a trophy, I guess. The biggest fuck you he could muster against Skywalker and the New Republic. He stole the golden child of the New Republic and the New Jedi. I was just..." He stops, watching Hux react.

Hux is angry. Kylo has the sense of a last piece sliding into place, one Hux doesn't like. Hux looks at the shade of himself, and like always, he's in his perfect uniform. He looks at the open wardrobe, and the collection of other uniforms. He's thinking, balancing on his own, hate and rage on one side, the futility of what he can do as a ghost on another, and how little he likes Ren on the third.

Kylo sees the moment hate wins. "You know he was a clone of some sort."

Kylo blinks, flatfooted. "A… no? He… What?"

"The facial asymmetry, the size, the…" Hux gestures to his face and neck, but he means the aberrations on Snoke. "Before you joined us, I programmed the laundry droids to bring me his dirty clothing, got a hold of some of his DNA and ran some tests…" Kylo's about to ask why, but then he remembers what happened to Brendol and the poison canisters, and how much easier it is to kill someone if you know literally everything about them. "I don't know how old the mind or spirit or whatever was. The body was thirty-two years old, and whoever made it had done a bad job of it. Probably, didn't expect to need it when he did, and tried to get it to grow up too fast. The chemicals they used to speed maturation caused the deformities. That's what my DNA guys said."

Kylo winces. "He was… a meat puppet?"

"Colorful imagery. But, yes. A badly made meat puppet for…" Hux lets it hang, testing Kylo to see if he'll fill in the blanks.

Kylo's eyes narrow. He feels cold, and it would take exactly no effort on his part at all to get the idea right out of Hux, but that feels… not wrong, but… counter-productive. Hux likes being smarter than Kylo. He likes the idea that intellect beats magic. A deep quiver in the back of his mind says, let him.

"What aren't you saying, Hux?"

"Hard-on for Luke Skywalker. All about crushing the Jedi." He gestures to the uniforms, to the ship they're in. "Barely restyled Imperial garb. Clone body. Massively powerful dark Force user. Tactical skills of a turnip, wasting time and energy settling scores that didn't need to be settled, again Luke Skywalker. He called it the Rebellion and the Republic, not the Resistance, not the New Republic, a few times in my hearing. I'm sure he did it in yours, too."

Kylo now knows what Hux isn't saying. And suddenly it's making a lot of sense. And a lot of moments, of the voice in his head, of the scores Kylo was sent to settle, of… He doesn't think Hux is wrong. He doesn't want Hux to be right, either. "There are rumors of him being thousands of years old."

"Rumors. From the uncharted regions. How hard would they be to start? Who did we have there to tell us any differently? All old, loyal Imperials."

Kylo hates that. He hates what comes next even more. Hux looks much too satisfied.

"You aren't scared enough, Ren. If his spirit could survive being tossed into the reactor of a Death Star, followed by the explosion of that Death Star, there's no reason to think you just cutting his body in half would have done it the second time. No reason to think there's not another, better clone, off somewhere, waiting, or maybe filled."

Kylo feels cold at that. And then colder, yet. "You aren't Force sensitive."

"Oh, please. Don't be an idiot, Ren. If he was the Emperor, he never saw the need to tell you then, he certainly wouldn't be pretending to be me to tell you now. He certainly wouldn't be doing anything to sow seeds of doubt. Or set you on guard."

Kylo's eyes narrow. "How are you here?"

"The same as any ghost, I suppose. Someone who can," he gives Kylo a long look, "needs me enough to conjure me."

Kylo doesn't like that answer, at all. And it doesn't matter much, because Hux fades away. For several moments, Kylo sits on Hux's bed, looking at the sterile shell of a room.

Holding the gag, he can feel the spot where a thumb should go. He can sense how a simple press will open a door somewhere in here. He puts the gag back, and closes the wardrobe door.

He looks at the drawer, debates, and then turns, and leaves.

A moment later, when the lock on the door has fully shifted into place, Hux reappears. He opens the drawer and looks at the two things in it. A lock of red hair, tied in a white ribbon, and a picture.

The picture is old. Yellowing around the edges, wrinkled in one corner, colors fading, a stain on the bottom third. It's not his. He'd never let anything of his get that worn.

The lock of hair… It's fifteen years old, maybe sixteen now. He's not entirely sure when 'now' is. (Of all the things that irk him about being dead, the inability to track time is the most annoying. He either is or he's not. And when he is time moves normally, and when he's not it doesn't move at all. Unfortunately, months can go by with him in the not stage. That bothers Stjerne, too. He'll ask about something that was very important the last time they talked, just to find that it was months ago and she's beyond bored with it, now.)

He wishes he could touch them. He can lift and move things. It took time and effort to figure that out, but as someone who already had almost full mastery of his mind, it wasn't that difficult. But he can't feel. No body to feel with, and most of the time, no desire. He knows what the hair feels like, though. He held it, once, when it was new. And again when he found it after Phasma died and moved it, along with the picture, from their home to this room.

As best he knows, it's the softest thing he's ever touched. He snorts. Sentiment. Sentiment gets people killed, and he may be dead, but he's not all of the issue now, is he?

The photo… It's him and Phasma. Sixteen years ago? Seventeen? They'd killed his father earlier that week, and took the time to just… exist for a few days. They're lounging in a warm, shady place, the name of which he made himself forget. She's in a loose top, short sleeves, hair wild, head leaning against his shoulder. He's not wearing a shirt, or pants for that matter, cigarra between his fingers, no pomade in his hair, a day or two of stubble on his face. She's smiling; he's not glaring. It's possible that he looks slightly amused. Maybe content, even. If he was ever content, that week was it.

They aren't wearing their First Order regulation clothing, let alone tags. Nothing to mark who they were, beside a man and a woman keeping company together.

They're young. Early twenties. No bruises. No scratches. She's plump in that picture. Not quite as round as she'd get eventually, (or so she told him, once) but the soft curves of their child were on her by then. Mostly visible on her face, and the curve of breast and belly, though the way she's sitting, and the shirt, means they can't be seen in the photo. She'd leave soon. A month after that, she'd go on five-month-long extended mission. When she came back, she wasn't plump, and she had the small curl of hair. He touched it once, closed his eyes, held the lie close, and told her she should burn it.

She didn't.

She'd taken, and then kept, the picture, too. Had a droid that could do it. He still doesn't know why he agreed to it. Anyone finding it… It'd be ruin if anyone found it. They were allowed sex. Allowed pain and rage and…

But this picture isn't that. He could, and for a while, did, keep a library of rough, pornographic shots. Anyone finding them would just shrug. Men have needs, and General Hux was allowed his… proclivities.

But this is the only shot of its kind. He was able to convince her to put the shirt on, but that was as far as it went.

She'd set it up, and he didn't stop it, and… He looks at it again, remembering. A few long days of warm sunshine, cool shade, and nothing pressing from the outside world. He told her it was insane. Someone would find it, eventually. Use it against them. Her taking the time for the child was pushing the edge to the breaking point, and this on top of it…

She shoved his shoulder and told him to relax for ten fucking minutes. Reconditioning worked, and if needs be, they could remove the memories, shift them, and that was that. She'd looked down at him, and told him that if he could sell the lie of what happened to Brendol, he could bloody well keep the rest of this week a secret, too.

So, he did.

He told Snoke they were on… Hell, some bantha shit, and as long as he kept the right story in mind, the right details, made sure the reports were on the up and up… Snoke could only feel the lie if you allowed yourself to feel it.

"Magic users." Ren couldn't lie to Snoke until the bitter end, until he was pushed beyond his breaking point. All Hux had to do was believe his lies, put up a good face, make sure the people around them believed the lies, and keep the bastard distracted. Compared to his father, Snoke was distressingly easy to lie to.

In the end, the bitter end, the aching, bitter, hollow end, it didn't matter, because it was always about Ren, or Luke, or the Force, or the Magic, or some shit beyond Hux. He built the weapon that killed billions, fired it, destroyed their entire 'enemy' in one go, and it wasn't enough. He was still a slip of a boy, worthless, never amounting to anything.

He would have danced with her through the embers, because she was the universe that mattered, and when she was gone… All that was left was revenge on the man who fucked his chances of murdering every single person who killed her, every person who ever did him wrong, and everyone else because the universe didn't deserve them.

Nothing as cold and cruel and twisted as these worlds they dwelled in deserved them.

He replaces the photo and hair. She'll come. Eventually. Last they spoke, Calrissian was still faffing about with possibly adding a branch of the school on the Supremacy and from there… The likelihood that his codes won't work are non-existent. There's no way Ren thought to scrub them.

She'll come. And she'll likely want to see what's in that drawer. That's why it's there, so she can see it. Not Ren.

He curses quietly under his breath, hoping that somehow she'll be able to get here, see this, without Ren knowing about it. He's become such a sentimental sop, he'll… Try something stupid if he finds her.

Fuck it all up again.

"Sooo…" Magiit says, as soon as Rey, and the rest of the girls are back in the communal kitchen and away from the prying eyes of the rest of the Order.

"Sooo… what?" Elias asks as he's eyeing the huge pile of snacks they brought home. High Tea involved a LOT of pastries. (Apparently Neenee may have been under the impression that twenty-five or so kids were going to be coming to this, or maybe Mirina hinted that so that there'd be lots of extras to bring home. However it worked out, the children of the Magi are enthusiastically eyeballing the treats as Rey and Rose unpack them.)

"We saw Kylo's gran," Cassie says.

"Wait, what?" Critt asks. "His family's dead, right?"

Cassie keeps talking. "Well, yeah, she's dead, but she's one of the queens. Padme" Everyone lights up at that, remembering that's the name Kylo used to go by. "Amidala. She was so pretty, and pretty kick ass, too. Did you know she rescued two Jedi? There was a display about the time Obi Wan Kenobi," They all know who Obi Wan is and they look deeply impressed, "And his Padawan…" And that's where the name catches up to what Cassie knows, and suddenly things click. Her jaw drops.

"Come on, Cass," Opal says nudging her.

"His Padawan, Anakin Skywalker."

Everyone is suddenly very interested in the story.

Rey nods to all of them, and the pile of pastries. "Grab your treats and settle in, okay? Then we'll do story time."

Critt smirks a little to himself, as he snags a brownie in one hand and a savory scone in the other. Okay, sure Jacen's off doing whatever with Chewie and Kylo, but he's getting the dirt on Padme, the real Padme, and Darth FUCKING VADER! This is going to be excellent!

"Okay, so, first off," Rey says, "I do not have the whole story. The only people who had the whole story are de-." And she stops there. "Wait."

She blips out of the kitchen to the Supremacy and calls Threepio. He sounds startled when she, out of nowhere, asks, "Do you know where Artoo is?"

"Certainly Mistress. He's a meter and a half away."

"Good. Can he hear this?"

She hears an affirmative beep.

"Okay, great. I'm telling the kids the story of Anakin and Padme, and… I just said that everyone who knew the story is dead, but that's not true. Would you two be willing to come and tell it?"

There's probably a pause, but it's not in the sort of time frame a human can track. Then she hears a pleased beep that she translates into, "It's about fucking time one of you boogers asked," along with a "Hush, Artoo. Yes, Lady, we'd be thrilled. Will you come and fetch us?"

Rey's suddenly in Threepio's office. "Yes, I think that will work best."

And a moment later, she's back in the kitchen with the droids. "I was wrong. Everyone isn't dead. And I realized I don't know much of the story, but they do. I'll kick in the bits Kylo told me, because Anakin told him."

Threepio looks as startled as he can. "Anakin… told Kylo…"

"Some. Not a whole lot. Not… what you know."

"No, I'd think not," Threepio says. He looks to Artoo. "They're your memories. Shall I translate?"

Probably, Artoo beeps back. Just don't kill my voice. You always leave the good parts out.

"I do not!" Threepio looks horrified that his honor as a storyteller might be besmirched.

Uh huh… We'll see… Where to begin…

"The beginning?" Magiit asks, as she snuggles back against Elias.

Sure, why the fuck not.

"That's not appropriate language for children," Threepio tells Artoo.

Told you you wouldn't translate it even.

"Well, tell it so that I don't have to."

Fine.

And so the story begins, as beeps and then the cultured, High Core/Imperial accent of Threepio's, and everyone munches and listens.

Droids don't remember the way humans do. So, some of the story is narrative. Artoo beeping and Threepio translating. Some of it is recorded sounds. She wishes Kylo were here for this, he'd probably like hearing Padme's voice. Some of it is recorded images.

She can feel the story hits her kids differently. The older girls especially.

Cassie's looking like if there was ever a man who was going to get a dram he'd not get up from, Anakin Skywalker would. (Granted, Artoo's occasional… editorial comments... about Anakin being something of a twerp, and Threepio being caught between being appalled by that, because Anakin made him, but Anakin also became Vader, add a certain less than appealing flavor to the story of the man.)

There's footage of the wedding, and Savarah's sighing at it. She's taken by the beauty, and by Anakin. But she has a darkling of her own she fancies, and his 'twerpishness' as Threepio says in his perfect core accent, doesn't seem to bother her. (Or maybe she just… empathizes with someone who doesn't really know how to handle all the whirl around him, never having been shown even the possibility of useful tools for it by the Jedi, and… Right… In a different life, Critt would have likely been very similar to Anakin.)

Magiit and Rose, and to an extent Rey, can't understand why she's given Anakin a second look with Obi Wan right over there. Rey knows why she gave him that second look, but Magiit and Rose don't, and even with Artoo and Threepio telling the story, the bits they can see played out as images or hear as recordings there's just… Well, according to Kylo, Anakin said Obi Wan was effortlessly charming, and he is.

The boys are… learning. A lot of them think Anakin is pretty cool. They're at the points in their lives where frustrations with people more powerful, who just don't get it all sort of resonate. And they also all understand the idea of being an orphan left to the whims of fate.

(They all think Obi Wan is awesome and a lot of them want to be him. Rey understands that, too. It'd be… well, not easy, but satisfying to be Obi Wan.)

Yoda makes them laugh.

And the first hour of the story is just… interesting. It's a fairly standard forbidden romance. Rey has her own question, but she knows the answer, 'Why didn't Anakin leave the Jedi?' Most of the kids are too young, or too deep into the tale to ask that question, though.

And then things get dark. And not in the sense of active, passionate, rash and wild. In the sense of that gnawing, awful feeling in the pit of the stomach, and the desire to end it here, leave now. Back away. Don't watch, don't see, don't be a witness to how this ends, because if you witness it, it becomes real. Go back to the lake, back to the wedding, back to the happy people and droids...

When Padme drops, choked near to death… No one thinks Anakin is cool anymore.

And Rey knows she's going to make it worse. Because the story doesn't end there. It does for Padme, at least as well as Artoo knows the story. Obviously she lived long enough to give birth… But…

Padme crying and Anakin screaming, that's where they end. That's where the pretty wedding by the lake, and the secret vows, and the romance Savarah was so entranced by, ends.

They're all quiet when Artoo beeps his last piece of the story. Threepio translates it as, "And that's when Bail said he'd been looking to adopt a child. He remembered Three… well me, because he could see me. Artoo was behind something, blocking his view, and he must have been distracted. He told them to wipe my memory, and he took Leia. Obi Wan must have taken Luke…"

No one's eating. Or moving really. They're all just thinking.

Finally, Rey says, "He... Anakin... came to Kylo last year. The first time we went to Naboo. We didn't know… Well, most of it. Didn't know about the hall of Queens or… Anything but the fact that she'd been a Queen of Naboo, so we went to Theed and looked her up in the library."

Threepio looks ready to die at that. The idea that Rey wouldn't just ask, but… What would he have known to answer back then? She nods at him. "Yeah, we didn't know to ask either of you. Our library only had a few paragraphs about her."

"What did he say?" Savarah asks, hoping for something… better… than how the story actually ended.

"He told Kylo about the part of the puzzle you can't see from the memories, or in the stories, though, you can almost, if you really look, feel some of the shape of what must be there."

"Like how gravity from stars and planets we can't see shift the movements of the planets and stars we can?" Marrok asks.

"Good comparison, Marrok." Rey replies. "Kylo asked if he loved her…" That's not true. "He asked if Vader had raped her. Like I said, we knew none of this then, and… Well, there was nothing about Vader to suggest a romance or a wife."

The kids think about that.

"But he… didn't…" Xanth, who's a sharp enough empath, if not exactly old enough to understand precisely what Rey's talking about, other than it's bad, asks because he can feel… levels.

She shares a look with Rose.

"He wanted her. And he was madly Force powerful, more than Kylo and I combined likely. Certainly, more than either of us separately. And he was dark… You know how it works, how easy it is for darklings to set sights on things and just need them."

That gets nodding. They know. Critt and Ostrae get set on things in ways they don't. It almost looks light, or would if it weren't for the fact that it's so easy to get them off of that thing as soon as they lose interest, but while they're on it, they're on it.

"He says he wasn't doing it intentionally. He didn't set out to do anything, and was likely too young to even really know it was possible when they first met. Probably, given the Jedi education, didn't know what he could do with it the second. But he wanted and his magic was so strong, his power, his passion so intense that he started to warp her just by being near.

"The more time they spent together, the more she'd match his feelings.

"He made her want, too."

Artoo beeps, and Threepio translates, "They were together, all day, all night, for close to a week in the lake country…"

"That makes sense. Close proximity. She likely never even knew what was happening. He was… a black hole sitting next to her, and she began to change from his gravity," Rey says.

"But… he loved her, then?" Savarah asks.

"No. And that was his message for Kylo. He wanted her more than any man had ever wanted. Wanted her so badly he warped her. But he didn't love her. I was thinking about that as we watched the story. Why not leave the Jedi? Leaving obviously didn't do Palpatine any harm. Why not join her and make a life together? Why not use his powers along with hers and become a team with the power and politics to actually beat Palpatine?"

They all look at Rey, suddenly very aware of what she's doing with Kylo, and what love, active, attached love, looks like to her.

She doesn't blush, but she feels very open right now, as she says, "He knew the galaxy she wanted. He knew he was breaking her heart. He knew how love behaves, and what it does, because his mother did it for him, and he didn't do it for Padme or his children.

"He could have seen her on Mustafar, dropped his saber, and run off with her, hidden, and raised their children together. Palpatine never found Obi Wan or Yoda, one more Jedi, even a fallen one, especially at Vader's power level, could have hidden.

"He could have left the council long before Mustafar was even on the horizon.

"He had choices and options, other paths to take…

"But he didn't."

More quiet.

Then it's Rose who says, "He… told Kylo that?"

Rey nods. "Yeah. He's showed up a few times to talk."

"Did he… know that then?" Rose asks. "Or do you think that's years of regret putting things into place?"

"He absolutely claimed he loved her at the time. And… well, until the end, we didn't…" Threepio goes quiet. "I was going to say, we didn't see any reason to know differently, but… He was working with Palpatine the whole time, and she was working against him, and… You can talk about love all you want, but you can't be going out and trying to destroy everything your beloved is working for and still love them, can you?"

"I don't think that's love," Rey says. "Mirina and Ellie have… not exactly outright stated, but they've certainly hinted, that between the two of them and the Emperor's second mistress that, they were very aware of the fact that the Emperor had no heir and was not, in fact, immortal.

"They were working the angle that the eventual Empress Amidala, and her former Jedi Knight husband, they were imagining him looking like Anakin, and not Vader, would have made a wonderful second generation of Imperial rule.

"They thought that Padme would be… a lot of things. My guess is, that if they could have secured that position for Padme, a well-seasoned cocktail would have shown up at one of the Emperor's suppers. But they couldn't secure that place, and at the time, they were less than thrilled that when it all fell apart and everyone ended up dead."

"But she didn't want that," Magiit says.

"Not on her own. Mirina says that about her. Sometimes, and we assume that's when Anakin was near, she seemed to be going along, but then they'd be separated, and her own will would come out, and she'd be horrified by the way the Republic was dying." Rey feels cold as she says it. She knows that Kylo feels a kinship to Padme that's beyond blood. The bond of the abused and manipulated. But she's feeling… revolted. Snoke always claimed to be Vader in Kylo's mind, knew enough about Vader to make sure Kylo believed the lie, granted his family never talked about Vader, so how much did he need to know?

Enough. He knew enough to make sure that Kylo was never really alone.

Somehow that bastard knew enough about what happened with Anakin and Padme not to let it happen again.

She almost says something about that. About how Kylo loved and Vader wanted and that difference changed the entire story, but… That's private, at least for now. She'll talk to him, see if he wants that kind of intimacy exposed to a wider audience, and if the answer's yes, they'll talk more.