4/22/1
"If I wanted to leave for two or three days, could you cover me here?" Rey asks Poe.
He looks away from the fuel conduit they're trying to get fixed on his ship. The damn thing is just not doing the job right. It's supposed to be able to move 25cc of fuel per second, and if it gets more than 23 he'd be shocked. But, as of yet, he can't find any blocks or narrowing in it.
"Yes, but on the condition that you tell me why you want to leave. You and Padme looking for a tryst?"
That's actually exactly what they're planning on doing, but it isn't exactly what she wants to tell Poe. Her blush, on the other hand, apparently speaks louder than any words she was hoping to say.
He smirks, wide and brilliant, and she can feel he's genuinely pleased for her. "About time. You know people take time off, right? Not everyone works every single day of their lives."
"Where I come from, if you don't work you don't eat."
"Well, you're not there, now. Go, I'll watch the sprogs for a few days. Bring me back some juicy stories."
Rey rolls her eyes and hands him a roll of steel tape. There are some smears of fuel along a few of the joints, so it might be leaking a bit. A little tape'll help with that. "You never tell me juicy stories from when you go away."
"It's been a while since I've had one to share. Your break should be more interesting than: I got drunk, went dancing, got tuffed, went home, took a shower, slept it off, and did it again when I sobered up," he says as he pulls a length of tape off the roll and wraps it around the conduit. "This isn't going to hold long term. I do need to get away long enough to get a replacement for it."
"That's what you do when you're not here?" Rey's not sure if she's horrified or feels sorry for him.
"Well, not all of the time." He looks a little sheepish, and she can feel the first bit was supposed to be a joke that got out of hand and leaked truth all over the place.
She puts the conduit schematics down and wraps an arm around him. "You're so lonely, aren't you?"
He sighs. "Always was." And he smiles, a little, "Maybe always will be. Having something to do," he gently knocks on the board the conduits are welded to, "helps."
She's a little uncomfortable saying it, because he's never admitted it, but, she's been able to feel it since Finn and Rose's wedding, so… "You know you could bring a… friend… or lover… here. The Empire's been gone for a long time, and… I wouldn't enforce their rules." She figures that's the safest way to say that she knows he likes boys, and that she's okay with it.
He smirks at that, too, though this time it's neither wide nor bright. "Leia told me that, too. Alderaan was always relaxed about things like that. Holdo and I apparently had only two things in common, and the Resistance was the other one." He sighs. "Turns out the Empire had an easy time enforcing that law over most of the galaxy. Apparently, it's really common to believe the only right way to have sex is whatever way you personally happen to like to have it, and everyone else is a deviant in need of prison or death. A lot of us find it just easier to keep things like this quiet."
"Okay." She's not going to push. "But if you ever don't want to…"
He shoots her a bit of side-eye. "How about this, I'll bring one of my boys' round for dinner about the time you and Padme host one?"
She nods. He's got her on that.
"So, where are you going? When?"
As of this morning, Kylo's been able to secure three days at the end of the month where he's got nothing on his schedule. Where is still the question. "End of the month, and we're not sure where, yet."
"What's your budget, and what do you want to do," Poe's eyes are mischievous, "besides each other?"
Rey shifts that arm around him to a headlock, and he laughs.
"There are good places for that, too, you know?" Again, he's joking, but there's some truth leaking out, because that's not the sort of thing she knows and he figures she might want to.
"What's Naboo like?" She kind of likes the idea of learning more about Amidala, and that would likely be easier on her home planet.
"I've only been there twice, and the human settlements, both times. The lake district is pretty. Lots of nature, rolling hills, waterfalls and lakes. Really, not all that much different than here, other than you can rent a cabin, and you're a short hop on a speeder to a town. Or you can find a little town on a lake. Theed… the capitol, I was there once. It's nice. Stuffy, big on proper dress and behavior, but pretty and the food is good.
"You could do a lot worse on a vacation."
That sounds good to Rey.
A year ago, Kylo Ren could not have envisioned this moment, though, with each passing month, it's becoming a more and more regular event.
A year ago, after he'd worked himself to tired, he'd eat, meditate, and then go to bed, assuming he could sleep. If not, he'd sit comfortably, meditate more, pulling up as many as his dark memories as he needed to keep himself going.
It's been months since he's done that.
He still meditates on nights when sleep won't come to him, though those nights are becoming fewer and further apart, and his meditations are becoming less and less useful to him, because he hasn't yet found a new pattern to focus himself. His past is dead, and his present hasn't yet found the route to the future, not on that front, anyway.
What has replaced that pattern, often, is eating with Rey, talking about what they've been doing, sex, and then slipping from the Supremacy to Lirium. Quiet time. Sometimes they just go straight to sleep. A lot of times, neither of them is sleepy yet, so they read.
He's always got more reports to go through, more information to handle, more people to order around. And tonight's another night where, sated and comfortable, but not tired, they're in her bed, with their respective datapads, reading away.
He's reclined, back against the headboard, legs stretched out across their bed, hacking his way through the nuts and bolts of a report on his manpower levels, and how his plan to get his longer-serving members out is biting him, massively, in the ass because apparently it takes years to get people like master sergeants, good mechanics, and competent mid-grade logistical officers trained properly.
She's laying on her back, head pillowed on his thigh, reading hers. Right now, she's cramming everything she can find about microfarms into her head. It'd be nice if they weren't relying solely on imports and the lake for food, and… Well, 211,000 credits coming her way as soon as she wants them, so… Time to find something to do with them.
They've been at it for an hour when Kylo puts his pad down. There's only so long he can read reports like this without feeling like he wants to go kill people. He lays his head against the wall, and closes his eyes. He breathes deeply, easily, trying to quell the desire to just destroy it all, though right now, his mental images of burning the whole thing down are quite satisfying.
She squeezes his knee, rolls to her side, and kisses his thigh. "Frustrated?"
His teeth grit. He doesn't have to say yes, she can feel it pouring off of him.
"Skills vacuum. I pull Snoke and Palpatine's men out. That lets me put more of my mark on things, and cuts down on the number of people I need to kill because they're plotting against me or behaving inappropriately, but now I'm getting low on things like mechanics, pilots, and master sergeants." He rubs his eyes. "Apparently, it takes five years to train a combat pilot if you don't start with someone Force sensitive."
Luke didn't train him how to fly. Han didn't, either. Under Snoke, he picked it up in less than a year with what he thought was a large amount of practice and effort, but he's now realizing that was a scandalously small amount of time. Apparently, how he did it, wasn't common.
"Mechanics, good ones, take longer." He strokes her hair. Apparently just being able to pick up a piece of whatever it is and just know how it works also isn't common.
"A third of my logistics officers thought retirement sounded good. Which is great in the sense that they aren't just taking whatever they need whenever they need it," Under Snoke no member of the First Order ever went hungry, because under Snoke if food ever got scarce, whoever was in charge of making sure there was enough of it just took it from whomever had it. Kylo hasn't hit the point of any of his men missing meals, yet. But if he can't get better control of this, he will. "but not so great in the sense that my men aren't getting what they need."
"Fewer weapons?" She knows he's spending a lot of money on them. Cutting back, or dropping down just to replacement levels would free up a significant part of his budget, which might get food flowing better.
He groans at that, too, shoulders slumping. That's actually another problem. He's not just got to make sure the stuff ends up in the right place, at the right time, but he does have to pay for it, too. "Probably. As soon as I stop ordering them in bulk though, I'm sure it'll get out, and I'm going to end up having to use the ones I've got." He can feel that as soon as they realize he's not the hardest target in the galaxy, someone is going to try to hit him.
"That's why you've got them, right?"
He exhales, long and low at that. "I guess." He flexes his feet, wriggling his toes, and looks at the wall, past her. "Castles or palaces…"
Her eyebrows knit together, so he explains the conversation he was having with Jon. She follows along, listening, nodding, thinking, adding bits and pieces she's been reading about the history of the Old Republic. "Jon doesn't know who you were, right?"
"If he does, he's never let on. Not a single stray thought of it in his head. Why?"
"Sounds like he wants you to rebuild Alderaan."
He sighs at that, too. "That worked out so well for them, didn't it? 'But Alderaan is peaceful!'" He mocks his mother's voice. "Boom!'" He slides down, curling onto his side, facing her, resting his cheek against her thigh, and rubs his forehead again. She strokes his face, and he feels the headache start to slide away.
"They lasted for tens of thousands of years, and it ended when the Force had gotten so far out of balance, and so concentrated that it'd narrowed down to five sets of hands. If this," she touches the Maji symbol, "works, that means we're it. The last of the great powers. Maybe… it's time to build palaces again?"
"Maybe…" He kisses her thigh, enjoying the feel of her body, and her calm, against him. "Or maybe you don't have to be a Dark-side-mad Force-monster to blow up a planet. Hux would have done it in a heartbeat, just for fun, and he had about as much Force skill as a rock. Maybe, since the plans are out there, and it's been done before, just plain, old human cussedness'll take care of it?"
She kisses his thigh, silently acknowledging that he's just as likely to be right as she is on this one.
His hand seeks out hers, and he says, voice quiet, "How do I add enough value to his universe to become untouchable, if I can't even keep my people fed?"
She squeezes his hand, no good answer for that. Then she shifts around, so they're face to face, and she kisses his lips.
She taps her datapad. "I'll read up on palaces, and the places that had them. You shift your resources. If Jakku was anything to go by, people will do a whole lot to protect the man who feeds them."
He rolls his eyes, because he can feel her image of Plutt. "That's not exactly who I want to be or where I want to go."
She winces a little. "Bad example. The base point is still true. You've got several million people who are invested in making sure you succeed at this. They'll keep you going if you hit a rough patch."
"Or slit my throat."
She shakes her head. "No." Her eyes are on his. "And you feel it, too. You're getting rid of the people who'll do that, replacing them with people who want to be with you."
He's not convinced. She lays her palm against his chest, feeling how he's stuck in his own dark, and having a hard time feeling anything else. "Feel it, love. It's there."
His eyes close, and he inhales deeply, pulling off of her own sense of the future. It's clear and sharp and in her view, glowing, bright and steady.
Her flashes of the future, the shapes and sounds, are always like this, lighter, brighter than his. Light side versus dark, he supposes. His are likely better for seeing the pitfalls, the traps in the plan. Hers are better for the grand plan, the sense of how things could work out.
She kisses him again and then says, "Naboo. We'll go there. Spend a few days, relax. You're worn to a nub and need the downtime. And we'll learn about palaces, because it was one, too, and…"
He kisses her, stopping that sentence for a moment. "And we'll just be people for a few days."
"Yeah."
When the orders for Citykillers trickle off, and when the orders for Tie fighters and Dreadnoughts drip down to just replacement rates, a susurrus of gossip begins to fly through the galaxy. No one knows what Master Ren is planning, but they all have speculations.