The Duros caught her eye almost immediately and it wasn't his startlingly blue coloring or his bug like face, but rather it was the token he flipped through his fingers. It was pristine and shiny, the only thing like it that existed in this dim dirty place. And when he saw her notice him he smirked before slinking to the back hall.
Letting Poe know where their source was she made her way to the back. "Stay here," she told Cal before falling into what was obviously going to be a trap. And if it was, and she without a doubt thought it was, she needed to know what they were up against. At the very least she'd buy them time to run.
"I've heard how good you are," the Duros told her as she shut the door behind her. He eyed her warily from the distance she kept between them. "Heard you travel alone."
She caught the Imperial branded medallion he tossed her and waited as he pulled a small holo out of his pocket. With a hand on the blaster hooked to her belt she waited.
The projection flickered in and out, his features small and grainy. But Eris would know that anal-retententive pinched face anywhere, it set her blood several degrees higher. "Armie," she greeted in a voice deepened by her loathing.
He sneered at the name only she called him, his hands folded behind his back clenched too tight. "501," he told her in kind. He glanced at the hired man before looking to her. "I have delicate matters we need to discuss."
Without hesitation she pulled the blaster from her belt and shot the Duros where he stood. She moved to his lump of a corpse sprawled on the floor and kicked him once before stepping over him. "You're not on your ship," she commented as she stood in front of the holo. The wall behind him was wooden, the lines on his face etched deeper from constant strain.
He hated her, he always had. For years he'd questioned her purpose, Ren's fondness of her, why she still wasn't dead. Yet he stood huddled in his quarters on a seedy planet having spent weeks looking only for her. Because no one else would have him. "You must come at once," he told her, his chin raised in a show of superiority.
But she stared him down hooking the gun to her belt, her hackles settling at realizing this wasn't a trap. Even through the lighted display she could see his discomfort, the shift of his eyes as though waiting to be caught, the tremor in his spine. He was asking for help, and he was afraid. And for what might've been the first time her chest swelled, her lungs filling with purpose that had her standing straighter - of knowing with absolute certainty this was right.
...
"You can't leave," Rey demanded closing the door to the sleeping quarters on the ship so neither Poe nor Finn overheard. Yet, because she planned to go to Poe the moment she figured out what Eris was up to. Cal knew, Eris wouldn't leave him. "You're part of this, we're a team." A family but Rey could barely hold back the flood of desperate furious tears as it were.
Eris sighed turning to her, at the hurt etched in her wide brown eyes, the pucker of her chin. "It's temporary," Eris told her knowing it didn't matter. This girl who'd lost everything, who was doing everything she could so she wouldn't lose what she had now.
Rey shook her head. "You're going back to him."
"You know I'm not," Eris told her gently. Eris knew Rey still saw him, felt him constantly, spoke to him on unhappy occasion; Eris understood the inability to hate him well. "Someone came to me for help, I'm helping." It was as simple as that, even though the woman herself was not.
But Rey blinked hearing what she hadn't said, she could feel it fluttering in Eris' heart. "You're doing the right thing," she said knowing Eris didn't believe in such subjective things.
She raised a shoulder offhanded and slightly melancholy. Their speed was slowing, they were almost there. "This is your fault," Eris told her seriously as they stepped out of the room. "You made me soft."
Rey's smile was small, not ready to miss her. To do this without her. None of them were. They were pieces of each other, she was theirs. "You'll come back?" she asked, her voice small and desperate.
Her feet stilled at Rey's quiet plea, her uncertainty that came with being too young for having to lead something this big. It was suffocating her. Taking a breath Eris moved to where Rey had stopped and stood in front of her. "I'm gonna tell you something that's not gonna be easy to hear." She met Rey's sad wet eyes and waited for her to nod. "You're never going to be enough," Eris told her hearing the breath Rey took. "You're not good or strong enough." Rey stepped back as though Eris had struck her, her face crumbling at hearing her fears aloud. "You're going to make mistakes, you're gonna do the wrong thing," Eris continued looking down at her broken expression, the tears that slipped down her freckled cheeks. It was clear how hard she was on herself, how tired she was living up to an impossible standard. Reaching a gentle hand to wipe her tears Eris told her, "and that's okay. We're still gonna be here."
No one was gonna leave her. She didn't have to be anything more than herself. They were things Rey couldn't believe herself, but to hear it stated so plainly, with such love. "I don't want you to go," she said knowing it was selfish. She didn't care.
"I know," Eris agreed, still mourning the life they could've had together. Just the two of them. She sighed feeling Poe land them, saw Cal in her peripheral waiting to follow her, heard Finn's footsteps coming. Lowering her forehead to Rey's they held each other's regretful gaze, trying to make a second last forever.
But the ramp lowered and Eris wouldn't be able to do this if she didn't do it all at once. She let Rey go and stepped back, her eyes finding Poe, and she headed down the ramp. Back to the room she'd been given, this place and these people who'd let her stay, who let her make this her home. She shouldn't have gotten attached, now she needed them and if not need then wanted them. Either way leaving wasn't supposed to be this hard.
She stood with Cal on the small ship she'd commandeered months before looking from Poe to Rey to Finn, who gave a small wave. They were hers, and she loved them. Taking a breath she turned to Cal and nodded. "Alright," she told him, ready now. He followed her up the ramp and she stood behind the pilot's chair as he flew them what felt like a Galaxy away.
They met Hux on a planet too far for Kylo to know she was near. Cal stood behind her, one hand on his blaster and the other clenched around her shirt ready to pull her back the moment Hux looked at her wrong. He recognized the uniform if not the man himself, Eris had left out the part that they were helping a First Order man.
She'd quietly listened to Hux's plan of them going after Kylo not trusting he was telling her everything. He was too nervous, his hand kept raising and lowering to his waist where she knew a blaster was holstered. "You know I won't go against him."
His nose curled as though something had soured. "Your fondness of him is as infuriating as his care of you," Hux seethed as he turned away from her, forgetting in his frustrations to watch her. But he was thinking now of a different approach, one he'd been avoiding but had known was inevitable if he wanted to rid the First Order of the Jedi and Sith stain. Decided he turned back to Eris seeing her waiting patiently, not poised to attack or suspicious, she was here and she was staying. Loyalty like that was rare, reckless, and in this moment it was his.
"Perhaps we can come to an agreement," he offered allowing himself to show the same good faith she had in coming here, "one that would benefit us both, now that you're with the enemy," he couldn't help adding.
Her eyes narrowed as she studied his pinched face and shifty eyes, but his hands were folded behind his back. He was trusting her. "I'm listening," she told him and reached behind her grabbing Cal's hand away from his weapon.
Hux saw this and she watched the breath go out of him as his face momentarily opened enough to show his vulnerability. But he cleared his throat and straightened. "Very well then," he agreed, as they resigned themselves to each other.
.^.
They were surrounded, Poe Finn and Chewy stood with their faces to the wall, a stormtrooper at their backs, as they were lined up to be shot. They'd come all this way for Chewy, Rey was somewhere in this ship trying to get the dagger so they could put an end the the First Order and what was left of the Empire. This wasn't how it was supposed to end.
The shrill whine of the blaster had them flinching waiting for death. Bodies thumped to the ground behind them and the three turned to see Hux standing over the stormtroopers.
"I'm the spy," he told them, enjoying their dubious expressions and pitifully stupid exclamations. No one had suspected it, not Hux with his Empiric lineage and clear standings.
"I knew it," Poe said and Finn immediately shot back with, "no you did not."
Hux sighed no longer enjoying this, the hair on the back of his neck once more standing on end. "We don't have much time," he told the two men before they could start bickering again. He turned and swallowed heavily at the youthful uniformed man that stood mouth agape as he raised his blaster at his traitorous general.
The younger man's body jolted and he fell on his stomach, his eyes wide and forever unblinking. Seeing her violet coloring Hux released a breath and stood taller.
She charged toward their group casting her eyes around. But as she passed Hux she turned glaring at him. "Why don't you get on the comms and announce it to the whole damn ship?" she demanded before stalking past and moving around Poe and Chewy as she checked that hall for anyone else that might've overheard.
Hux sneered turning with her. "You don't have the authority to speak to me that way," he told her as though she were an irritating child.
"After everything I've done for you," she seethed whirling around to face him. "I am the only one who has the authority."
Poe got his hands around her waist stopping her, and when her eyes were on his he told her with a wide grin, "hey." After months he wanted to say more, had planned what he'd say that would make her smile, but his mind was blank now. He blamed it on circumstance rather than his fluttering joy at seeing her again. "You look great," he said letting his eyes trail her long form. She was all in black, blending in, but the cloth was stitched around her chest like a plate of armor and the jacket that fit around her wide hips hung to her knees.
"We don't have time for this," she said stepping away from.
He smirked looking after her. "There's my girl," he mumbled making to go after her, but Finn brushed past him.
"Good to see you," Finn told her quickly, as more of an afterthought. "D'you know he was a spicerunner?"
She looked from Finn to Poe's now gaping expression and shook her head. "Not the time."
She walked after Hux and Poe stood beside Finn with his hands on his hips. "You couldn't wait to tell her." Finn had been giving him crap since he found out an hour ago, he was surprised Finn hadn't thrown Zorii in too.
But Finn was looking after Eris and Hux instead of looking at Poe. "It's not the time," he said following her, hearing Poe scoff behind him.
Eris fell into step beside Hux, that he didn't pull away when his arm brushed hers meant he was scared again. Kylo would feel Rey here, and when he came back Eris would already have to be gone so he wouldn't feel her too. Hux would be alone with this, again. "You going with us or am I going with you?"
Hux turned to her with open surprise he quickly masked with a sour expression. "Your use ran out the moment they came on board," he told her harshly as he led them through the ship so she could get them to the escape pods. "I'll say you were the spy, under Ren's nose for years. We know his particular fondness for you."
She stared him down seeing through his show of determination, he wasn't ready to openly side against the First Order yet. "Okay," she told him letting him make his mind. But it'd been over five months of this, of being his confidante, shuttling his information around the galaxy for the Resistance to find it. She'd seen the face he wore when he thought no one was there to see it. She pulled the scrambler out of her pocket weighing the practicality of this decision, of how many ways this could go wrong.
Killing this specific ship that would head the battle against whatever fleet the Resistance had scrounged up was the last part of her and Hux's plan, arguably the most important because this ship would act as the control and once it was gone the Resistance might stand a chance. But her heart won out. She unhooked the proximity beacon and held it out to him.
The steeled edge in his eye softened as he took it from her. The scrambler wouldn't work without it, she was coming back for him. "You're unforgivably weak," he told her.
She scoffed a laugh as she stepped past where he stood in the doorway. "You're telling me," she muttered feeling Poe close at her back.
He didn't like their familiarity, at the reminder of how close she'd been to all of this. But his chest burned with the shame of knowing he had no place to judge. "Rey went after a dagger," he told Eris deciding on something easier. She turned to him with furrowed brows and he raised a shoulder as if to say he'd tell her later.
"We saw you come in, Cal's getting her."
Poe nodded guessing it made sense, Hux was here or else Cal would've been the one to get them. Poe knew this, he'd accepted it. But now it left him with explaining what Finn had carelessly told her, because Poe had had that conversation planned too. "I was gonna tell you."
A sly grin lifted the corner of one side of her mouth. "That you used to be a criminal too?" she asked not letting this be easy on him.
"Eris," he exclaimed softly. He needed her to know that as hard as he'd been when they first met it's why he'd been so quick to change his mind, that he was trying not to hold her ties to the Imperials against her.
She looked at him out of the corner of her eye and took pity on him. "I have a dead husband that's not actually dead, and my closest friend before I met you is a mass murderer," she said with a shrug. "You're allowed to have a past." She looked from him to Finn who trailed behind with Hux, who was frowning deeply still upset by the new found knowledge. It was always hard realizing the people they idolized were just as bad as everyone else. "Would I be right to assume there's an ex tied to this?"
He sighed always forgetting how easily she read a room. "You would be," he admitted having thought this would go a lot worse. He expected yelling, accusations, demands of why he ever thought he could question her when he'd been just as bad. But she smiled in that little way of hers, the smile that often spread to his own mouth.
No one wonder he'd been so quick to like her, she mused to herself as she picked up her pace. "I figured we'd get there," she told him feeling his hand brush hers. "Knock it off."
"Who's the softie now?" he teased following her around the corner. They passed the room with the escape pods which meant Eris was looking for Rey. The sound of a blaster had them both turning to look behind them, Chewy gave a soft bellow and Poe reached a hand to Eris' arm. "I'll check Finn you get Rey and Cal."
She didn't like leaving him but she headed into another hall hearing footsteps coming from around the corner at the end. Pulling her blaster she held it against her leg as she pressed her back to the wall, waiting as they came around the corner.
"Easy," Rey told her from behind the arm Cal had thrown across her when he first heard Eris down the hall. She'd felt the weight on the trigger, knew how close Eris was to shooting, and she felt that leave her.
Eris caught Rey in her arms and held her close, her hand over her faintly trembling spine. Something happened. "Come on, the boys are waiting," Eris said getting a hand around Rey's waist and pulling her back the way she'd come with Cal close at their heels. Reconnecting the six cramped into two escape pods they ejected the same time Kylo returned looking for Rey. They snuck into the night back to the Falcon, Finn hung back with Rey who wasn't acting like herself, Cal checked out Chewy who was battered and exhausted, and Eris sat beside Poe acting as his co-pilot.
He filled her in on what she'd missed those past handful of months, and he sat listening to her short tale of following Hux always staying just far enough back to avoid being detected before taking the information to a Resistance sympathizer so it would find its way back home. "It's good to have you back," he said removing the cuff he'd been wearing and handing it to her. The shackle was smaller now, cut so it was barely wider than an inch. But the sentiment remained, of her time with Rey, with Poe. "D'you miss us?"
"A little," she answered in a bland tone, as if she didn't care. Glancing at him she saw he didn't believe her. "You think I got that close and didn't stay long enough to check you out?" she asked letting her eyes fall to his brown jacket and tan shirt before she turned away.
A sudden rush of heat crept up his neck as he turned back to the course he'd charted to get them to Kef Bir. "You're getting cheeky." He wasn't used to that, but he wouldn't mind getting used to it.
They settled together in a comfortable quiet, hearing Chewy holler loudly as the spray Cal used for his wounds stung. For a few short moments they could almost imagine life like this, their ragtag group, each other. As if sharing the same thought their warm eyes met, he didn't remember her looking this inviting – she'd missed him. Still sharing that thought they leaned each other, the tip of his nose grazing hers.
"Hey." They pulled apart with Poe muttering curses under his breath as Eris turned to Finn. "You need to talk some sense to Rey, she'll listen to you." He was worried, she wasn't acting like herself and quite frankly she hadn't been for a while.
Eris nodded and turned to Poe, who was still grumbling to himself about everyone's bad timing. "You're not gonna like what I have to say."
"I'm not leaving you," he said without hesitation. "You don't believe Ren won't kill you, you told me so yourself, so if that's your argument you need to find a better one." They'd had almost six months together before she left, he was stupid for half of them but they spent so much time talking. He knew her, inside and out, the way she knew him.
She didn't know what was coming only that everything felt so fragile, already half broken just waiting to shatter. If they needed to go and she wasn't there, he needed to leave her. "Because waiting for me might mean losing," she told him and he turned with honest surprise. Eris wasn't saying that if Kylo found them again she was the only one besides Rey he'd let live, she was saying she had the best shot at holding him off so they could run.
The amount of love needed to reach that decision, to be willing to die for someone else. He could see it shining in her technicolored eyes, could feel it widening his own as he looked at her. "Okay," he agreed. Not knowing that might be the last thing he said to her.
I'm in movie territory now, and I've only seen it once so I'm likely to get several details wrong. I'll eventually come back and fix some of it, when the movie comes out on Redbox and I see it again. As you've probably noticed I'm changing Hux's death, I was very unimpressed with how they did him so I'm giving him a smidge more respect.
I'm sure ya'll have caught onto my not so subtle foreshadowing, and it's all coming to a head next chapter. And I will see you there next week.