((Last chapter!))
How Brendol contained himself on the way back to the ship, he didn't know. At least now there was no longer a hole of ignorance; a hole he only realized he had when Starkiller was destroyed. The key and the piece of paper were clutched tight in his hand and he would not be relinquishing them any time soon. These were his answers. Or at least they would be vital in gaining them.
The General sat back into the pilot's seat and stared at the piece of paper. He knew how to read coordinates; it had been one of the many things he'd excelled at in the Academy but these didn't seem real. He punched them into the computer and waited for the familiar beep to tell him the coordinates had been accepted. He got it. A rough estimate told him it would take him maybe six or seven hours. He didn't remember making the reverse journey the last time.
When he had been brought from the villa to the Academy the day his mother died. He was too young, too fragile, too heartbroken. He'd cried through it, much to the disdain of his escort. Autopilot was engaged again and almost as if his visit to his father hadn't happened, Brendol resumed his musings but with more matter now.
His mother had been a gift to his father. That sickened him. She had no choice in anything, not even him. If his mother had been gifted like a breeding mare, was the night that conceived him fully consensual on his mother's part? If his father killed her, he wouldn't have put anything else past him. He didn't want to think about it. Not for the sake of his father's honour but for the sake of his mother's memory.
If she was given no choice in him, how could he be sure she loved him? He knew she did but it niggled at him, especially the way his father spoke about her. Simpering waste of blood and guts. What if she had seen him on Starkiller? What would she have said? Was his father right? Would she have disowned him? No. She never would have let him develop that venom in the first place.
Even if she couldn't stop it; if his father had won out, she would have pleaded with him, begged him to think about what he was doing. She would have clung to him and tried to make him reconsider what he was about to do. I warned her not to coddle you. I warned her not to baby you, not to get attached to you! He was torn. His father had been right to a degree. If his mother had survived, he would not be who and what he was now. That much was certain. But if he had the right person in his life, someone to raise him rather than letting him be dragged up in the Academy; he might have chosen a different but similarly powerful path. He would probably never know.
The beeping of the autopilot made his head turn. Approaching destination. It told him, simply by the repetitive tone that reverberated off each surface of the pilot's console. With his attention firmly grabbed and his seat re-taken, he turned off the autopilot and focused on the descent and landing. The landing strip he had stood on and waited with dread for his father while his mother stood over his shoulder was wild and overgrown.
Weeds grew up through cracks in the permacrete, some were dead, and some were still living. The live ones flattened under his feet when he disembarked and the dead ones crunched. These would not be the first signs of desertion. Already, so many things were starting to bombard him. He remembered being dragged out here on that dreadful morning, screaming and struggling to get back to his mother. He remembered being hauled onto a ship on his father's order by an unnamed man, one of the advisors of the villa.
He remembered never liking him; he always felt he was sneaky, reporting everything back to the Academy. Brendol felt a weight in his stomach; nervous as if he was about to meet someone he had abandoned years ago. In a way, he was. The once brilliant white paint on the outside walls was now adorned with a dark, sprawling green ivy. It crawled up the walls and spread across, housing any manner and number of things.
Hesitantly, one foot moved in front of the other until he found himself at the door that, once opened, would unlock so many feelings and memories, be they good or bad. The key his father had given him was still held tightly in his hand; he hadn't let it go since it was given to him. Now or never. He told himself as the key was pushed in and the accompanying click made him close his eyes with a deep, shuddering breath.
There was little to no vegetation in the entrance hall but it had its own signs of dereliction. The light cast into it by the open door was the first it had seen in close to thirty years. The tiles on the floor had cracked under a coating of grime. The paint peeled from the walls and the ornaments stood under a thick layer of dust. Cobwebs decorated the corners of the ceiling and weaved eloquently in between the banisters of the marble staircase.
Parts of that too had cracked. There was utter silence only broken by his own footsteps as he slowly ventured in and took in his long forgotten surroundings. He remembered running through this hallway though he recalled always being told to stop or slow lest he hurt himself. Was it her? Had she told him that? Who else cared enough? There were only two rooms he was interested in seeing; his own and his mother's.
He avoided the cracks in the steps as he made his way up; careful in case there was a sudden collapse but it appeared to still hold firm even after all these years. A gloved hand caressed the banister as he climbed, gathering a significant amount of grit under his fingers, being pushed along to reveal a streak of the white marble in its wake.
To his surprise, his feet knew exactly where to go. Third room on the right just off the stairs. It was as if he was unsure if he wanted to go in there though he knew he did. It was almost as if he was afraid of what he would find but Brendol had to remember, this place (bar a few memories and ninety nine percent of them involved his father's visits) had been the setting of a happy childhood. A loved childhood.
As before, a long breath was taken before the door was pushed in. He didn't inhale as much dust as he thought he would. There it was. The bedroom he hadn't seen in twenty seven years, frozen in time as he had left it the morning his mother died. The carpet under his boots had worn and faded after being left untrodden on for such a long period of time. He looked around in awe at the pictures drawn by his own hand that he didn't remember stuck to the wall.
The shelves lined neatly with storybook after storybook (his mother went to great lengths to get them, actual printed versions rather than holopages), a toy chest lay at the foot of his bed but there were still toys on display on other shelves, on the sill of the large window and on a desk in the corner where he had drawn feverishly before and after she had taken ill. Brendol removed his gloves and tucked them into his pocket before reaching out a hand to touch the duvet and warm, colourful blankets he had yearned for at the Academy.
This room, everything in it and about it had made his first few months at the Academy very difficult. It was the kind of room he would have been happy for his own son to have. Even if his mother had been with him, the quarters he had been given had none of the comforts, none of the loving touches that this room had. It had been cold and sterile, no place for a young child.
Brendol looked to the light source; a large bay window with a seat built into the sill overlooking the gardens. Well, it was more like a jungle now. He moved from the bed and reached out to touch the glass, almost flinching at the cold that cut into his bare skin. Even when you're big and strong and I'm no longer here, as long as there are stars in the sky, you'll know I love you. Every night. He had heard this every night in this very spot, by this very window before she set him down to sleep. And there are billions of stars in the sky, my little fox cub. His mouth dried at the memory of the phrase.
If anyone had dared call him anything remotely similar, they would have been faced with the barrel of his blaster more quickly than they could realize but….. My little fox cub. The rush of love he felt when he heard it now was the same rush of love he felt every time she had used it then. Every time they had curled up in bed together, every time he cuddled in close when he was ill. It seemed he was remembering things long since buried without even realizing it. Maybe he hadn't forgotten after all. Still, he needed to remember her.
He left his bedroom. To see all his old toys and drawings, to stand at that windowsill and to touch his blankets had been difficult. His mother's room was next and that was going to be several times more problematic. It was impossible to know what she might have kept that might have given him answers. Again, he knew exactly where to go. Sixth door on the right. He stopped at the entrance and braced himself. With his head resting against the door, he almost didn't go in.
He almost turned and walked away, never to know what he could have. But that would have been to admit defeat. Brendol Hux Junior didn't admit defeat. Not to the Republic, not to the Resistance, not to his father and certainly not out of fear of what he'd find beyond the door. With a hand on the handle, he paused to gather himself then pushed it down and in. Slowly and as if it had a mind of its own, the door swung in completely, stopping when it gently banged off the wall behind it.
This was overwhelming. This room would always hold the most beautiful memories but also the most tragic ones. Her room was in no better state than any of the rest of the house. Dust, cobwebs, cracks, grime; her quarters were not immune. Like when he first stepped into his own room; he took it in with disbelief. He was home.
The bed where he had lay sleeping when his mother took her last breath was probably untouched since then. He approached it cautiously as if it were a human rather than a setting of blankets and pillows. To him, it was so much more. He sat down on it; the mattress had been softened over time. It sagged listlessly under his weight rather than the firm comfort he recalled, then again he had been a lot smaller and lighter back then.
He touched the blankets as he had touched his own. The familiar warmth was still there but her scent had long since evaporated. She had died here. In this very bed, on this side. He had crept from his room for years in the early hours of the morning and into this one where he was cuddled and held while he drifted back to sleep. He jumped up as though electrocuted. He couldn't deal with that.
The thought of it, reliving it; he couldn't do it. His feet carried him to the wardrobe. Inside, a selection of dresses hung; their colour fading and the material crumbling. He wouldn't touch them but to look at them, he could conclude that she had been a creature of small, delicate stature; certainly a lot shorter than he was now.
A closet door caught his eye; one he had never noticed as a child. It drew him, he couldn't ignore it. Box upon box sat inside. The goldmine he had been hoping for. These were not ordinary, generic brown, cardboard boxes. They were like hat boxes; round with different designs and colours. Attractive and playful. Spoiled for choice, the male sat on the floor and pulled one of the closest boxes to him but stopped when his father's cruel words rang in his mind.
She had a say in nothing, not even you. She carried you because she had no choice, she birthed you because she had no choice and she reared you because she had no choice! He hesitated over a box with the letters A.V.H printed in pink which stood out on the white lid. What did that mean? It stung him when he realized those were her initials but he only knew what one of them meant, he had only ever known her as mummy. The H obviously referred to Hux. Her name had to be in here somewhere.
Nothing could prepare him though for the first thing that he would pull out of the box. With his father's words fresh in his mind, Brendol's breath caught in his throat when he picked up a small, thin bundle of flat-holos all wrapped up together in a white ribbon. With pale, trembling hands, he untied it. In the top right corner above the black and white, he found the first thing he was looking for. Alaria Hux.
Alaria. Her name was Alaria. Her birth date was also on it. She was barely twenty six when she had looked closely; he'd never seen an ultrasound before. X-rays, yes but never an ultrasound. There he was. That tiny little peanut like blip was him. He turned it over and every ounce of doubt his father had ever instilled about her was gone. His free hand lay against his cheek, urging himself towards composure as he looked down at the gold, curly handwriting on the back of holo.
9 weeks. Beside it, was a small love heart of the same colour. He went through the bundle. They were all the same but he seemed to grow with each one and the number of weeks on the back seemed to increase. In the last one; he was fully formed, more like a baby than a peanut. One the back it stated: 38 weeks. Almost there! The same heart was there in consistency with the rest of the holos.
The MD-0 Medical Droid that her husband sent periodically from the Academy had provided her with those precious prints. She had been apprehensive about radiation but the droid had assured her there was nothing to worry about. So many nights she had sat up and stared at it lovingly with her free hand guarding her growing belly as always. She would do this every night until it was time to get the next one. He willed himself not to cry but it clawed at him and the urge to punch his father rose again.
In time. He promised himself. The rest of the boxes contained drawings he had done of various things, pieces of jewellery, letters from her family... Extended family hadn't occurred to him. On one of these letters, the name Velont was mentioned a lot. He realized it was his grandmother writing most of the time in worry for her (seemingly) only daughter. Velont. That was her maiden name.
He decided he was going to take these things with him. These boxes that no one had wanted in twenty seven years, why would they want them now? The last thing he found in the box was a small cartridge; the type one would insert into a droid. He had nothing to play it on. It would have to wait until he got back to the ship. With the boxes gathered, he bade goodbye to the room. This would not be his last visit. At least, he hoped it wouldn't be.
With the boxes safely secured and stowed away, he sat at the small desk in the sleeping quarters, having located the portable hologram platform. He palmed his pockets for the cartridge, found it then placed it into the appropriate compartment. He didn't dare think it would be anything special or important. He was wrong. So wrong. When the image appeared, Brendol's face dropped and a hand knotted into his usually pristine red hair. The recording was of mediocre quality, the colour was a little off, not unlike the one Princess Leia had sent to Obi Wan Kenobi thirty years previously.
The hologram took the form of a woman. Quite a young woman. She was sitting on a cushion on the ground with her back resting against the wall. The colour may have been distorted but it was plain to see her hair was blonde; long and curly. Her face was hidden in a book, she evidently preferred physically turning pages, no matter how much more expensive it turned out to be.
He stared. How could he not? And this was only the beginning. A noise behind the recorder made her look up and towards him. And she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. A hand covered his mouth as he watched in astonishment. That was her. That was his mother. For the first time in twenty seven years, he saw her.
"What are you doing?" It was sweet, gentle, and playful; like a cool breeze on a hot day. Her accent was not unlike his own but naturally, it was softer. He hadn't expected her to speak. Now that she had, he felt himself unravelling. "Come here." From beyond the frame; behind the recorder, a small boy ran towards her. The colour in the projection may have been off but the darker tone to his hair was enough for him to know who that boy was.
In the time it took for him to run to her, she had closed her book without care to mark the page and set it aside. How could he have believed that she wanted to hinder him? That she had him because she had to? He watched with a heavy heart as the small boy clambered into her lap where he was immediately enveloped into her waiting arms. He relaxed into her chest and wrapped his arms securely around his neck; they didn't move from that position for a while. When it was broken, it was by her placing a light kiss to her son's cheek.
Tears had begun to trickle though he didn't notice. They leaked down onto his hand and cascaded past it onto the floor. Everything pent up from his father's office and since had just come loose and he knew it was pointless to stop it. A harsh breath was drawn and choked out again as she nuzzled the toddler with such affection and closeness, tears flowing freely now. He wanted this back so badly, it killed him. To be held like that little boy was being held on the hologram, to be told that it was alright, that he was going to be forgiven.
"I love you so much. You know that, darling, don't you?"
"I know, mummy." Brendol cracked a weak, watery smile at his former self; he'd forgotten how adorable he'd been but he'd also forgotten how precious and cherished he'd been.
"And no matter what happens, I'll always love you. More than anything on any planet in any galaxy. You know that, don't you, my little fox cub?"
"I know, mummy." They stayed wordlessly cuddled together for a while until Alaria got to her feet and brought her only child with her. He had fallen asleep on his mother's chest as he always had.
When the projection died away, Brendol stared at nothing. His eyes were bloodshot, his breathing was shallow and his cheeks were stained. His chest moved with discomfort and the priceless recording was stowed away in the pocket of his greatcoat. It would never leave his person. Never. Not as long as he was a free man. His hands covered his face again and a fresh wave of heavy sobs took over. This time, they were born of relief joined by a little stab of grief.
Brendol decided there and then that he would not leave. If it meant sleeping and living in the ship, he would do so but he would not be leaving here again until he was summoned. If he was summoned. He had gotten what he came for and more. He had come looking for answers, looking for confirmation that his mother did indeed love him. The ultrasounds had been confirmation enough but the hologram…..
And no matter what happens, I'll always love you. More than anything on any planet in any galaxy. You know that, don't you, my little fox cub?
He did now. No doubts. Ever again. Despite what happened.