12/31/1

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Finn asks Rose for the fifth time, this hour, as she's getting ready to go join Rey on the Supremacy to 'get ready' for this party-thing.

"Finn…"

"Yeah, I know, back off, but… Really?"

"Is she our friend?"

"Yeah."

"Do we love her?"

"Yeah."

"Is she nervous about being stuck, alone, in a room full of wolves—"

He turns to face her. "See, that's the problem, right there! She shouldn't be stuck, alone, or with you, in a room full of wolves. She should be here, with us, in an entirely wolf-free environment, where she doesn't have to do things like get dressed up and mingle with snots just to make some stuck-up twit feel like a king in front of those snots."

There is a part of Rose who agrees with that. And another part that joined the Resistance to avenge her family, that's cheering that. And another part, a deeper part, that actually believes in things like making the galaxy a better place, that's uncomfortable with the first two parts. And there's the fact that this is her friend, and she is nervous, and this making things better stuff matters to her, and she should… support that, right? She condenses all of that into: "That's the least charitable read on the situation possible."

"And I'm entirely comfortable with that. She shouldn't have to be someone else to make this man happy."

Rose sighs. "She doesn't have to, she's choosing to."

"The choice shouldn't even be on the list. It's nothing she'd do for herself."

"Yeah, well, leaving Jakku wasn't anything she'd have done for herself, either." She eyes Finn. He shoots her a mild glare. "Sometimes change is good. Sometimes it's scary, but still good."

"You think this is good?" It's clear that Finn doesn't. It's also clear that there's literally nothing the Order in general or Ren in specific can do to win Finn's approval, so…

Rose sighs a bit. "I'm waiting until I actually see it, but, it might be. And if it gets us closer to a galaxy at peace for Paige and any little brothers or sisters she may have to grow up in…"

"That's a low blow." Just because Finn doesn't approve, and on any level of foreseeable future won't approve, doesn't mean he doesn't see how things are changing, and recognize that raising his kids in a galaxy a peace is vastly superior to raising them in one at war.

"It's still true. Since we found out it's him… I've been talking to the Order kids, really talking to them—"

"Jacen?" Finn raises an eyebrow at that. Jacen's all about talking up Ren. Jacen thinks the sun rises and sets on Ren's ass, and for the time being Finn's avoiding the hell out of him, because he's fairly certain that after a conversation with Jacen, he too will decide the sun rises and sets on Ren's ass, for about half an hour, until his brain comes back to his head.

Rose gives him the look. "No. I know if I talk to him I'll come away thinking Ren's the most splendid thing to ever splendid. The other kids."

"Okay."

"He's making things better."

Finn growls under this breath.

"I know. We had a saying at home, even the Devil sings a pretty tune, but, at least for them, the pretty tune is making things better."

Finn glares again, and then says, grudgingly, "That's the only reason why I haven't asked you not to go."

"And I appreciate you not asking." They hear their door chime, and Finn goes to open it. Rey's on the other side.

"Ready?" she says to Rose.

Rose hits her with a quick smile. Then she kisses Paige, who is snoozing in the crib on the far side of the room, and her husband, and says to him quietly, "Besides, it's been a million years since I got a chance to get all prettied up and let you properly appreciate it."

He kisses her again. "I always appreciate you."

She's smiling up at him. "Yeah, well, tonight, I expect a lot of appreciating."

He does smile at that, as Rey takes Rose's hand, and they both blink out of his home.

As soon as they're through to Kylo's rooms, Rose looks around, blinks a few times, looks around again, and then says, "I thought you were kidding."

"About?" Rey asks, as Kylo's standing next to her, arm around her, trying to look relaxed and comfortable with Rose in his home. (And he's almost, if you don't look closely, succeeding. Rey can feel he's a bit nervous, wanting Rose to feel comfortable here.)

"It's all black." She stops looking around and focuses on Kylo, who's in his casual blacks right now. "Why?" The door to the refresher is open, so she darts in, checks, and comes back, "Even your wiping paper is black. How…"

Kylo doesn't exactly shrug at that. "It was this way when I got here. It's possible Hux thought it was a joke."

At the mention of Hux, Rose's eyes narrow. "He set this up."

"Before I killed Snoke, I was stationed on the Finalizer. Between this being our capitol ship, and the damage to it, I needed to be here. I told him I needed a throne room, an office, and a bedroom, and that I wanted only one exit/entrance point, a week later I had new rooms. These are them. He may have handled it. He may have handed it off. I suppose it's possible they were this color already. My previous rooms had a lot of black in them, too, but there was also some white and gray."

"What happened to him?" Rose asks. "Our spies knew he died, but no intel got out on how."

"I ran him through with my lightsaber while choking the life out of him."

Rose blinks, rubs her lips together, and then nods. "Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy." Then she says, "Why?"

Kylo tilts his head a little. This is the first real conversation he's had with Rose, and he's trying to make it good. "The proximate reason was he was trying to rise a coup, and was getting to the point where he was close enough to succeeding that I needed him gone. The secondary reason was blowing things and people up got him hard, and I knew that if I left him in command much longer he'd start doing it for kicks. And the third reason was he just annoyed me as a person, and at that point in time, I didn't exactly see a problem with killing people for annoying me."

Rose can remember Hux lording over her, being… "He was a fucking cunt."

Kylo blinks at that, and Rey does, too, both of them shocked by the language.

Then Kylo says, "Yeah, that about wraps it up. He, and as many people who thought like him that I could find, have been gone for a while now, though."

None of them know what exactly to say after that.

Jon shows up with his mom and sister after a few minutes, hustling Kylo out of there. (It amuses Rose to see that Ren doesn't exactly want to go.) And then it's just her and Rey, and Mirina and Tasha, who are exactly the sort of people who set Rose's teeth on edge at Canto Bight.

Everything about them just screams rich.

It's not even that their working clothing is all that expensive or glamorous. It's the posture and manners and perfume and carefully done hair and…

Rose takes a breath. She and Rey are getting changed into their robes, so that once they're all 'made up' they can get dressed easily. She makes herself close her eyes and be calm. These women are not war profiteers. They aren't weapons designers.

She can't stop the little sarcastic voice in the back of her head that says, "No, they're the people who got rich making pretty dresses for them."

She closes her eyes, swallows, and tries to be calm and supportive of this. Rey squeezes her hand, and nods. She mouths a quick, Thank you. By then they're both in their robes, though Rose is looking at Rey's. It's big.

"Is that Kylo's?"

"Yeah."

It's old, battered, too big for Rey, and blue. She looks like she's about to be swallowed by a huge terry cloth hug.

Rose smirks at that. "So, he does own a few things that aren't black."

"A few." She glances to the bathroom door. "You ready?"

"Yeah."

It helps that Mirina appears to be genuinely disappointed that Paige didn't come along for this. "I miss babies. My girls are all out of the baby business, and it doesn't look like Jon's going to have any." She says while she starts opening the bags of "tricks of the trade" that she had Jon lug into Kylo's room.

"You don't know that, Mom," Tasha says.

"I know enough."

"He likes girls, too." Tasha shrugs a shoulder, turning to Rey and Rose to explain. "Jon's a bit of a floof, but he plays both sides of the street."

"That's not what I meant!" Mirina says, looking annoyed, but Rose isn't sure if she's annoyed by Tasha outing her brother, or by her misunderstanding her thoughts on Jon's likelihood of producing more grandbabies for her. She also doesn't know how much Rose and Rey know about Jon, so she starts with, "Jon's a widower. He loved his husband… just… beyond measure. That's a hole you don't refill quickly. By the time he might be thinking about getting married again, he'll be in his mid-thirties, with a career that demands all of his time, adding a baby on top of that is a mess. I know, I've been there and done that, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone."

"Oh," There's a level of unspoken context between Tasha and Mirina, but Rose doesn't get it, and Rey doesn't poke.

"Still, there's nothing like a baby. The way they smell and snuggle. Those amazing baby hugs where they just melt onto you," Mirina looks wistful at that.

Rose softens a bit toward her. "Paige is deliciously cuddly."

"She really is," Rey adds.

"Though right now, cuddling her is a rather drooly experience. She's cutting teeth, and…"

And Rose, Mirina, and Tasha, moms all, have more than a few things to say about the glorious joy that is teething infants, and how, yes, if said teething infant could be fobbed off on her father for an afternoon, that could go a long way towards a pleasant outing.

Rey wasn't entirely sure what exactly 'getting ready' would entail. Getting her hair done, makeup, dressed, okay, sure. That she got.

Listening to Mirina, Tasha, and Rose swap veteran mommy stories about all of the unfortunate places they've found baby-poop wasn't on the list. Listening to that, while Mirina unloads a collection of little hovering, bright orangey-copper spheres, with finger-like appendages folding out of their sides… "Are these med-droids?" Rey asks.

"Originally." Tasha says. "It took a little re-programming on Helene, my next youngest sister's, part, but they're amazingly versatile. We use them for hair and makeup."

"We used to have a team of people, but bringing a host of people around for everything just made it more complicated. R33 and R38 over here," The droids don't appear to speak, but they might be able to hear. They hover over to Mirina, who pets them, "fit in a bag, are never late, won't party too hard the night before the celebration, and won't ever 'misunderstand' your directions."

Tasha pulls out her computer, messes around on it for a moment, and then hands it to Rey, saying, "We've got you programmed in, and a collection of hair and makeup styles. You pick what you like, have a seat, and R33 gets to it."

Mirina says to Rose, "And while she's doing that," and another… this one doesn't appear to be a droid, this one is a machine, a long, rectangular box, with two round holes in the side she's setting toward Rose, is pulled out of Mirina's bag of tricks. "We'll get your nails."

"I don't…" Rose is shaking her head. "It'll be a mess in less than a day." She holds up her hands. "I work with my hands every day."

"It doesn't have to do lacquer," Tasha says. "You could just have them trimmed and shined. Give it a try, if for nothing else than the hand and foot rub. Trust me, it feels great."

Rey nods at that. "It did when I got mine done before."

Rose squints a little, not sure about this, also not sure about developing what are likely expensive tastes. Rey smiles at that. "Think of it this way, if we're going to do Canto Bight, we've got to look the part, and the ladies there have nice nails. And, I now have a bottle of the stuff that takes lacquer off, so if you want it, I've got the stuff to remove it with."

Rose rolls her eyes a little, speaking of things you do for your spouse. "That's more Finn's game than mine."

"Is your husband a gambler?" Mirina asks.

"Not generally. We were… there on business once… And he'd really like to go back. And Poe, and those two, seem to be keen on it, so…"

"A night out with your husband, playing the tables, should be an excellent time, and…" Tasha is snapping pictures of Rose, getting a feel for how she looks, and putting her into the computer. "Every couple deserves at least a day, or better yet a night or two, without their baby, and with each other."

Rose smirks at that. Between the fact that they intend to cheat like crazy, and the date night aspect of this, she doesn't exactly have to be dragged along for this plan, but… It's not exactly anything she'd chose to do for herself.

"When do you intend to go?" Mirina asks, grabbing her sketch pad, looking at Rose.

"Uh…" Rose glances to Rey, and Rey shrugs. "I understand we're still building up seed money for the trip. So…"

"Six months?" Rey says.

"Something like that. Maybe a year. Poe says it'll be expensive."

"Poe isn't wrong. Canto Bight is for people with credits to burn. It's actually a bit tacky for my tastes. I prefer Elysiam II, but everyone says I'm a snob, so…" Tasha replies, finishing up with the manicure box. "Just put your hand in here, arms up to your elbows. I know it looks and feels weird right now, but trust me, you'll like it."

Rose does, feeling a bit nervous, but… All she feels is just a soft, smooth, warm plexi-plastic that suddenly whirls to life and starts gently rubbing her hands and forearms. She jerks, a little, and then relaxes. It actually is rather pleasant, and… "Oh… I… didn't know my hands were that tense."

"Most of us don't. Mom and I work with our hands all day, too. A lot of the time, we just use it for massage and moisturizing, keep the fingers nimble and the skin happy. Back at our shop, we've got a larger one that fits over your shoulders and gets everything from your scalp to your hips."

"After ten hours on the sewing machine, Old Berthat's a lifesaver," Mirina adds.

Rey can imagine. What she can't imagine is Elysiam II because she knows nothing about it. "What's Elysiam II?"

"That's where people who like to play expensive games, but don't feel a need to engage in ostentatious displays of wealth go. It's still super lux, but less…" Tasha thinks of a way to explain it. "Okay… At Canto Bight they have drinks with gold flakes floating in them. Why? You can't taste it. It doesn't make the drink any better. It's just a way to show off how much money you've got. You can afford to literally shit gold. You can't get that at Elysiam II. You can still get the cocktail, likely a better one, but the ingredients will be in there because they actually improve the drink, not just to show off how much you can spend. I prefer the clientele there. People who use their money for things they can actually enjoy."

"It's invite only, but I'm sure the Master can get an invitation," Mirina adds. (Rey mentally winces. Their plan really won't work if The Master is going.) Then she leans over and taps Rey's computer, stopping it on a hairstyle. "That one would be simply lovely on you, dear. You've got such a pretty neck, you really should show it off."

Rose nods toward the computer and Rey shifts it so Rose can see it. It's an elegant updo, sweeping the hair up into a complicated knot at the back of Rey's head. Rose is nodding. "It'd look nice."

"Okay." Rey looks to Mirina. "I just…"

"Click on the button, sit back, peruse makeup options, and let R33 do the rest."

"Okay," so she sits on their bed, hits the button, and the droid zips over, and starts to play with her hair.

Mirina's eyeing Rose, thinking, and then begins to sketch on her pad.

They're mostly quiet. The machine whirring away. Mirina sketching. Tasha looking around at Kylo's rooms. She's been in here several times now, but the all black still gets to her. She can't imagine voluntarily living here.

But Jon likes him, really likes him. That much is clear just by the way he talks about The Master. So, there's got to be a person under all that black…

So… "So, how did you meet him?" Tasha asks.

Rose looks over to Rey, also very interested in this, because, well, she doesn't exactly know. She's got an idea, because Finn's told the story of going to Starkiller to get Rey back and the fight and whatnot, but… "You know, I've never heard your version of this story, either." Rose adds.

"My version?" Rey asks. "Whose have you heard?" She knows that Rose and Kylo haven't talked about this.

"Finn's. He was there, right?"

Rey wiggles her hand to indicate sort-of. "He was… nearby, for some of it. And it's a pretty long story."

"Well, get talking then," Mirina says, pouring a cup of tea, stretching a bit, and going back to the sketch pad. "We've only got three hours."

"It's not that long of a story, is it?" Rose asks.

"It's not that long. It's just… Uh…" She can feel the way Mirina's looking at her, without actually looking up from the dress she's sketching, telling her this will be a really common question, and if she doesn't want to get stuck in it, she needs some version of this story to tell. It doesn't have to be true, it just has to sound true.

Rey's not sure what to do with that. She decides to go for true. Enough. "He was looking for Luke Skywalker. I had seen the bit of the map he needed. He was chasing me, and I was running away—"

"Thus begins a million good romances," Mirina adds, actually looking up.

"They do seem to like it when you run away and make them chase you," Tasha adds.

Rose and Rey look at each other, not entirely sure what to do with that, or if the ladies understand that Rey means this literally, or for that matter, if the ladies are being serious or not. "Eventually he caught me, and interrogated me, which… didn't exactly work out the way either of us expected."

"How so?" Rose is the one asking. She's heard about Poe's interrogation story, and can't imagine anyone thinking that was fun, let alone a good way to start a relationship off, so…

"Uh… he… was… just sort of kneeling there in front of me… And I'd been unconscious, but dreaming, weird dreams, the sense of danger and safety, and… a boy… I'd seen him in my dreams before… And I jerk awake and there's just… him… The monster in the mask.

"And… I was… secured, so I couldn't run away or fight, but… he's just sitting there, tells me I'm his guest. I asked where Finn was, and… he set me off balance by calling Finn a traitor and thief and… Like he was personally insulted that Finn ran away. I'd never thought of it that way. Poe might have been the thief. I think he stole a ship to get away. Or maybe he was talking about Han… Kylo told me he didn't know where they were.

"I was thinking about killing him, and he got kind of snippy about it."

"Snippy? He's kidnapped you, strapped you down, you're glaring at him, thinking about killing him, and he's getting snippy?" Rose asks. She would have assumed the RageMonster would come out if Rey didn't immediately do whatever Kylo wanted.

"Well… 'You still want to kill me?' Like he couldn't believe it."

"Again, he's hunted you down, stolen you, and has you tied up in an interrogation room, and he was genuinely surprised by this?" Rose is coming to the conclusion that Kylo Ren may not be as violent as she'd heard, but is, apparently, dumber than a box of rocks.

"I told him that tended to happen when you're being hunted by a creature in a mask. Then everything goes quiet for a moment, and he reaches for the mask and takes it off." Rey bites her lip, and doesn't miss the way Tasha and Mirina smirk at each other. "He didn't have the scar yet, not across his face, and… His hair was really soft and fluffy, a lot shorter than it is now, and… I'm kind of just staring at him in amazement. Because, well… he's… uh…" She bites her lip, never having said this before, and admitting it feels really odd, but… She married the guy, so it's probably okay to admit this, "Really attractive. And I just stare at him for a moment, and then blink out of that, because again, monster, hunted me down, had me strapped to an interrogation table…"

Tasha and Mirina look at each other and that smirk just glows brighter. The chase, power, danger, knowing that your life is being held in someone else's hands, all of these things are deeply erotic, to the right person. Watching that look, Rey understands that the ladies understood she meant chase literally, and so did they.

Rose is just sort of staring at Rey in amazement. She doesn't care how good looking a man is, he grabs her without her consent and she is notgoing to find him attractive.

"Was he giving you puppy eyes?" Tasha asks. "He looks like he'd be good at puppy eyes."

Rey just stares at her. "I don't know what a puppy is."

Tasha's about to explain, and then says, "Never mind. I'll ask Jon."

Now Rose is looking at Rey, because she does know what a puppy is, and thinking for a few moments to the bits and pieces she's seen of Kylo, and Kylo with Rey, or Kylo with Paige, and… "He totally does. I don't know if he was doing it then, but he totally does now."

"When?"

Rose shakes her head. "I haven't seen it, yet, but with how he is with you, and Paige, he's got to do it." Then she flashes Rey her version of puppy eyes.

Rey just stares at her, incredulity oozing off of her. "He never looks at me like that."

"I'll kick you the next time it happens."

"Okay. We're staring at each other, and he starts rummaging around in my mind, because he can, looking for the map, seeing the oceans and the island." But of course, they don't know what the oceans or island were, either. "The joke was on him, because that's where the map was leading me, but neither of us knew it then."

"Did it hurt?" Rose asks.

Rey's eyebrows furl. "No! Why…"

"It hurt when he did it to Poe."

"It was mentally uncomfortable, because it's like… Watching a flipbook of your life, with someone else shuffling through the images, but… No, it didn't hurt. It was… hard, because there were pages of the book I didn't want him to see. And he's shuffling through, able to feel how hard I'm clamping down on some images, trying to keep him out… And, there was this moment, a sensation of something… immense… coming at us, and he said to me, 'Don't be afraid, I feel it, too,' and a moment later he was in my head, and I was in his, and I was feeling his past, his fears, his insecurities, plowing through his flipbook, and he jerked back, and broke the connection, stalked out of there.

"We've been… connected, ever since."

"That's the Force Bond the kids talk about?" Rose asks.

Rey nods. "Yeah. I'd felt it for a long time, knew there was something different about me, but that's when my Force really woke up, in response to his. I… shouldn't be this good at this stuff this fast, but… He did the fifteen years of training, and I can… and have… and did… pull from that."

"So, he's… in your head… all the time?" Tasha asks.

"Uh… No. Not… like that." Rose is also staring at Rey, and it's clear on her face that she thinks this is somewhere between creepy and amazing. "It takes focus. I can reach out and talk to him, or get a sense of what's going on with him if I want to, and he can do the same with me, but it's not always on. He isn't eavesdropping on this conversation."

"But, when you focus, you can feel what he's up to?" Mirina asks.

Rey nods.

"And he can do it for you, too?" Rose asks.

Rey nods. The other three women share a look, and then Rose and Tasha share another look, and start to smirk.

"What?" Rey asks.

Rose is giggling. "So, you've never had to have that… 'Just… a little to the left… No, my left… Yeah, right there… Harder. Yikes! No, not that hard! Yeah, okay, just, like… that… Don't stop! What do you mean your hand is tired? You just started doing it right?' conversation?"

Tasha and Mirina are full out laughing at this, and Rey's doing her best not to laugh while also dealing with the fact that she didn't know that was a thing people do. Finally, she says, "Uh… no. Especially when we're close, we can generally feel each other, so… No."

"So, he can feel… what you feel?" Rose asks. "Poe should be here for this; he'd love to know."

"Poe does not need to be here for this," Rey's blushing at the kilometer long list of jokes Poe'd come up with if he knew that, "And, yes, uh… I can feel it through him or he can feel it through me, and sometimes… it's we… and that can be a bit confusing to slide into or pull out of, but…"

"We?" Rose asks.

"The bodies get kind of… superfluous."

"He can feel what you're thinking…" Tasha says.

"Right."

"Oh…" she winces a bit.

"Why would that be a bad thing?" Rey asks.

"What about when you're not thinking about him? Can he just watch your fantasies like a holovid?" Rey just stares at Tasha. Tasha's staring back, dumbfounded, until she says, "You're always thinking about him when you…"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

Tasha looks dumbfounded. "There's literally two and a half million men on this ship alone, and…"

Rey blinks. "Oh… I mean. Yes, there are, but…" She blushes a little. "It's not that I'm never thinking about other people, but… When we're looking at pictures or whatever, we do that together, and by the time we're touching and whatnot, I'm focused on him or me, or him and me, and… It's good."

"You look at pictures, together?" This being something Rose has never thought of.

Rey nods. "Sometimes. Uh… Our library. If you put, erotic human nudes into the search bar, something like two hundred books show up, and there's a lot of fun stuff in there."

"No, I know about naughty pictures. The satellite array gets a few channels that do nothing but." Rey didn't know that, and it's clear on her face. Rose waves that off. "You look at them with him?"

"Yeah. It's fun. You and Finn don't…"

"No…" Rose grins, thinking about... probably not tonight, she's getting all done up, and putting her date night dress on, so she wants Finn thinking about no one but her, but maybe the time after. "But we might."

Rey smiles at that.

"How do you feel about light blue?" Mirina asks Rose a bit later.

Rose shrugs. "It's a color?"

"Do you have a favorite color?" Tasha asks.

Rose shakes her head. "It's uh… What color something is is never the sort of thing that's been a consideration. Mammie gets fabric, she makes a jumper for Auntie Saria. That's her youngest girl. She outgrows it in three months. Over to Auntie Clara, her oldest girl, it goes, and Auntie Clara gives it to my cousin Leilei. She outgrows it in three months. Over to Uncle Kimmo, his girl Jasmine gets it for three months… And on and on. I get it about six years after it was made, the color's entirely washed out and it's the softest fabric you've ever felt, but… I didn't have non-hand-me-down clothing until I joined the Resistance, and then I was in uniform."

It's clear from the way Tasha and Mirina look at each other, they've never even begun to imagine a situation like that.

Rey nods along, though. "I scavenged everything I wore until the year before last. It feels really bizarre to be able to say, 'Oh, I just don't like that color.' Feels really odd to even have that be a thing."

"Where are you two from?" Tasha asks.

"Hays Minor," says Rose, and both of the ladies wince. They know what happened to Hays Minor. Rey feels a surge of respect for Rose coming from Mirina. That after what happened to Hays Minor, she's here, supporting her friend nonetheless.

"Jakku," and this time they don't wince, they share a look, and then stare at Rey, and share another look.

Mirina spends a moment really looking at Rey, before saying, gently. "Unless I'm sorely misreading you, you might want to answer that question in the future with, 'From the Rim,' or something similar."

Rey almost inclines her head, but she feels R33, poke her to make sure she doesn't. "Why?"

"People know what and who happened to Jakku. If you say that's where you're from, they're going to assume you had him destroy it for you."

Rose looks at all three of them. She knew, like everyone in the Resistance, that one day Jakku was just gone. She didn't know what happened to it. And Rey is looking at her, seeing that whatever Finn's told her about the four of them on Poe's ship, he left that part out.

"He blew up Jakku," Rose says, looking really alarmed.

Rey nods. "Yeah."

"Why?"

She swallows. "I told you my parents sold me for a few bottles of rotgut there."

Rose is nodding.

"That's not where the story ends, you know?"

Rose winces. She knows what happens to girls left on their own. She knows what happens to female slaves. She knows what sorts of things she and Paige survived when the First Order troops came in. Knows what they did to get away. She hasn't told Finn those stories, because she doesn't know how he'd react, doesn't know if he could handle knowing and not being able to do anything about it, doesn't know if it's a kindness to tell him something deeply upsetting that there's beyond nothing he can do about.

Rey catches the thought and inhales fast and sharp, nods at her, and then says, "And I didn't tell him, but Kylo… uh… felt it off of me… and handled it in an incredibly calm and even-handed sort of way."

"He blew up the whole planet?" Rose says, again.

"Yeah."

"And then he started freeing slaves," Rose adds, feeling pieces slipping into place.

"Not immediately thereafter, but yes."

"Ah."

Mirina and Tasha share a look. The Great Black Urus indeed.

It's a while before anyone's got something to say after that. Mirina flips her sketch pad around, and says, "What do you think, Rose? Suitable for playing to win?"

It's a sketch of Rose, in a dress, a dress in a light, almost sparkling blue, with a neckline so low cut her belly button is practically on display, flowing into a wide, poofy skirt.

Rose is just staring at it, never, ever having imagined herself in something like that, and Rey is making herself grin, forcing herself to find some light here. "Finn'll trip over his jaw if he sees you in that."

Rose sniggers a bit, and then breaks into a full laugh. "He really would." She gestures to the deep-v neckline. "How do you… uh… stay in something like that?" Her date night dress has an awfully low neck, too, but… Well, occasionally falling out of it isn't exactly a problem. In fact, that's one of the things Finn really likes about that dress.

"Tape," Tasha says. "Between the right undergarments and tape, you won't fall out. Though every person in the room who likes women will be watching with eyes peeled, hoping to see it happen." She eyes the dress again. "With your figure, and in a dress like that, you can just claim you won the hand, and they'll all believe it because they won't be able to look away from your chest."

Rose blushes. And then laughs again. "Paige'll likely be weaned by then. They might be a tad less impressive."

Mirina shakes her head. "With the right bra, all things are possible." Then she looks over to Rey. "Speaking of which, before we get started on your face, let's get you into your dress, then we'll cover you over with a sheet, and do the makeup. It's fairly smudge proof, but I don't want to risk the gown touching it when you put it on."

Rey hadn't immediately understood why Mirina had gone from bras to her getting dressed. And then, as she's putting the outfit on, and it takes her, and Tasha, to get her into this bra which is vastly more complicated than it needs to be, from the feel of it more complicated than the damn dress is, and… Okay… She has no idea how it can possibly do that to her breasts, but… Well… She's actually got breasts now, like, visible under her clothing breasts, with… cleavage… and… It's not like she's got a big waist, but compared to her hips and chest it's pretty flat, and somehow this makes it seem like it curves in a bit, and… It feels like she shouldn't be able to breathe, but she can, so… Okay, this is magic. That's got to be it.

"How do I take this off?" she asks as Tasha's doing something behind her with this thing.

Tasha waves that off. "I'm sure Kylo can handle it."

Rey's got a mental image of him just ripping it off, which… okay… actually… that might be kind of fun. Except she's fairly sure she'll never be able to wear it again if that happens, so…

Eh… She'll see how tired and randy they are at the end of the night. It can't be more complicated than the saree, and they got that off.

While she's getting dressed, R33 is doing Rose's hair. It's putting a gentle wave into it.

"You and Finn doing something fun tonight?" Rey asks.

"I think he's got something up his sleeve. I heard Magiit and Elias talking about babysitting."

"Good," Rey says as Tasha holds open the dress, and gestures for her to kneel. She does and Tasha settles it, gently, over Rey's head, and as she stands it falls into place.

"Oh!" Rose says, just staring, eyes wide. "That's…"

"It's not stupid, right?"

"No…" She's up, standing in front of Rey, staring, eyes wide. "Stupid's not the word I was thinking."

"Ravishing," Tasha says. "Jon did good work on this one."

Mirina nods, adjusting the shoulder piece a bit. "Yes, our boy did. Do a little spin. Let's make sure it flares and settles right."

Rey does, and the almost floating layers of fabric swirl around her before falling exactly where they belong.

The Frakes ladies grin. And Rose is just staring, then she blinks, hard, and says, "Oh."

"It's all right, isn't it?" Rey asks. There's something big and complicated going on in Rose's head, but Rose doesn't quite understand it, so Rey can't either.

"It's…" Rose keeps looking, licks her lips, and tries to put the thoughts and words together. "Uh… It…looks right. I… didn't think… You look like you belong in it."

"That's good, right?"

"It's…" She blinks again. "We know Padme's Kylo, and we know, kind of, that he does this thing, and it involves big ships and lots of power and… changing things… But we only see him back on Lirium, in his blacks, maybe teaching the kids lightsaber or Elias said Critt said something about cookies, or memories of fighting and danger, but… It's fucking real. You're a queen."

Rey blushes. "I think I'd rather be a teacher."

Rose shakes her head, and then nods, and then just stares for a moment before saying, "If you can change the galaxy for the better, then you should. If you'd be a teacher, use this to teach. You can't just… put this aside. Not when you can do so much good with it."

Rey sighs. "I think I've got to be good at it, before I can do good with it."

Mirina gives her a gentle whack to the back of the head. "Stop that. I've seen girls who didn't have the sense the Force gave a fig wield power like maniacs, with new friends and new causes and new favorites every other day. Stay steady, know what your end goal is, know who your friends are, who your allies are, who wants you to succeed, who wants you to fail, and take your time to think and consult before you act, and you'll be fine."

Tasha adds, "You're pretty, and young, and new. And if you can keep quiet about the mind reading bit, you can do a good job of figuring out who your allies are, and who your enemies are, and if you're feeling like really getting into this, make sure you keep those enemies close, ask their advice frequently, find out what they want you to do, and why, and then spell that out to your friends so you can find out where the traps are, before you walk into them."

Mirina looks to Rose and Rey, and then smiles, a wide, bright grin. "They will look at women like you, and underestimate you. They'll assume because you weren't raised to fly with the falcons, that you'll be easy to manipulate. Use it. Let them try. And then, if you'd be a teacher, teach them to not underestimate you. Teach them how women who survived play this game."

Rose looks a little startled, because she might have been saying Rey's got to play, but the idea that she might…

Mirina aims that smile at her. "Like you said, if you can change it… I take it you're not attending this one, but next one, you will be here and I will dress you, and you will mix and mingle with your husband, both of you keeping your ears open, and you will help to guard your friend's back, because no one changes anything all on their lonesome, but as a team, with friends…"

Rey's eyeing both of them. Rose beats her to asking, "What do you get out of this?"

That smile doesn't falter. "My son's happiness and soaring career. A return to the promise of the Empire. A stable, suitable power-sharing arrangement between a functional senate and an executive branch with enough power to be useful. Cementing the fortunes of my girls. I won't live forever, and if our brand is all over The Order, my daughters will never want for work. A legal system where more people thrive, so more people will be seeking my girls out for the favor of their work." She glances to Rose. "I caught your discomfort at 'rich people' when I walked in. Fair enough, especially with your background, I certainly understand. But know this, under the Empire, there were tens of billions of people in my income band. Now there are hundreds of millions. The galaxy was richer, by a lot, under the Empire, and you don't have to like rich people to see the advantage of billions of people joining their ranks. But if that doesn't do it for you, when I was a girl there were hundreds of trillions of people in poverty, now there are tens of quadrillions, and the population hasn't been growing that fast. People are getting poorer, because chaos breeds poverty.

"Stable markets. Stable laws. Stable property rights. The ability to write a contract and enforce it. Those make people rich, or at least well-off, and if not that, it keeps them fed. We had those under the Empire."

"And prison planets, and slavery, and…" Rose says.

Mirina cuts her off, "Child, so did the Old Republic. It's a well-kept secret, but so did the New Republic. The Senate put their enemies in jail. The Emperor put his enemies in jail. The New Republic put their enemies in jail. None of those jails were pleasant places. Any stable system will have people trying to destabilize it, and all of them will do whatever is necessary to make sure they don't succeed. The only question is: how much collateral damage you'll cause doing it. If you're 'good,' it will be minimal. If you're not, you'll kill and maim willy-nilly as a way to discourage others from rising up.

"So, be good. Help your friend. Find out who the problems are and take them out before they become so big of a problem that taking them out causes collateral damage."

Rose and Rey share a look, neither of them sure what to do with that.

By the time Rey's makeup is done, Rose also has her hair and makeup done, and her measurements taken, and a few dresses sketched, and has possibly been drafted into the Order, which is quite a bit more than she thought she was signing up for when she said yes to 'getting ready.'

She's not sure if she wants to run away, or not.

And she's less sure, how, if she doesn't run away, she's going to explain this to Finn.

She really wants time to talk to Rey, alone. And she can feel Rey wants that, too.

As Mirina's saying, "Okay, off to the refresher with you, take a moment to look at yourself, by yourself, and then back here," Rey thinks to Rose, Soon. You and I will talk, soon.

She jerks a little at the sound of her friend's voice in her head, but then nods.

Rey's been intentionally not looking at herself in the mirror. And she can feel that's part of why Mirina's sending her into the refresher on her own, and not just poking her to look at the mirror across from the bed, is so she can take a moment on her own to see it.

So, on her own, swallowing, taking a deep breath, Rey opens her eyes in front of the mirror.

A shuddering breath goes galloping out of her lungs. She's… Rose was right. It looks… She could have never imagined this, but… Right.

It feels… too… just… She doesn't know. It's not wrong, but it's big and intense and different and… So much. So… different. And…

She takes another long, slow breath. She survived. She survived Jakku. She survived Snoke. She survived the Prateorian Guard. She… can do this…

Another deep breath. Maybe. She can do this… maybe.

"Hey, kid."

She jerks a bit, hearing Han's voice. She turns, and he's leaning back against the shower door, looking cool and comfortable. His eyes trail up and down her, and he half-grins, half-smirks. "Never let it be said the Solo men didn't pick fine women. Damn!"

She blushes, and wants to throw her arms around him in a great hug, and tears are threatening to form in her eyes and she did not just spend an hour getting her makeup done to ruin it by crying and…

"Hey," he says, holding his hands up. "None of that."

"How… why… You're here?"

"For the moment."

"Why?"

"Because I can remember sitting in the refresher in what I thought was a beyond over-the-top, stupid-as-fuck suit, with twenty garish, jingly little medals on it, I didn't even know what half of them were for, talking myself up to attending one of these things, sure I was going to fuck it up at least seventy different ways before we got through the receiving line."

She sighs at that. It feels good to have someone else really get it.

He steps closer, and if he could touch, he would. "You're not going to fuck it up." He shrugs. "Or you will. But you know what? It doesn't matter. It's so much more important in your head than it is outside of it."

She's got a really skeptical look on her face.

"Yeah, I felt that way, too. Leia told me that. Lando told me that. But… It felt huge to me because it was me. And it always looked, to me, like they knew what they were doing, and I felt like a barely-trained pony chewing the centerpieces, embarrassing the hell out of her.

"And I'd pick fights with her, in public, because it was easier to be angry than embarrassed.

"And that actually did embarrass her, because no one really cares if you use the wrong fork, or call someone Lord instead of Highness, but they sure as hell care if you get drunk and start yelling about something stupid." He offers her a lopsided half smile. "You know what the kicker was?"

She shakes her head.

"I wanted her to succeed, because it was important. And I wanted her to fail, because the more she succeeded the less important I became. I'd cling to her because I was afraid. And I'd push her away because I was afraid. And it was easier to fight with her about trivial shit than it was to be honest about what was going on. And it was easier to do what I was good at, and not really help her, than it was to do something hard and scary, and actually help her." He would hold her hand if he could. "So, you get to pick how this works out. You can't control the people out there, but you can control you, and probably 90% of succeeding will be based on that."

She sighs. "I know that. I do, really, but…"

"Yeah, but. Trust me, I've been there. So, you going to pick a fight with him?"

"No," she looks horrified at that idea.

"Yell at him or get really snippy and sarcastic?"

"Of course not!"

"Get into a snit if he talks to another woman for more than five minute and then hit him with it every time you get into a fight for the next year."

She looks appalled at that.

"Then take it from someone who knows, you're going to do fine. If you don't do those things, everyone in the room is not staring at you the whole, or even most, of the time. Most of them are there for their own reasons, and to be seen by the other people there. Yes, they'll look and talk about you and him, but… You're just part of the show, not the whole thing.

"Relax, enjoy it, enjoy him and try to remember why you're doing this, and you will be okay."

Rey nods, and smiles a little, and she wishes she could touch Han so much right now, and his little smile says he'd really like to give her a long hug, too.

"All right, kid, go get 'em." And then he's gone.

Rey straightens her shoulders, checks the mirror one more time, and then steps out into Kylo's rooms.

And a moment later, Kylo and Jon step in from the other door.