What started out as a conversational joke begins to crystallize in Hux’s mind, gaining shape and possibility as it transforms from hazy, vindictive idea to a conviction that demands further examination and serious deliberation.
To have the girl as an eventual partner, standing alongside him on the command deck and supplanting Ren. Well, why not? Hadn’t Snoke expressed repeated disappointment in Kylo Ren, even while voicing lofty appreciation of the scavenger girl’s burgeoning capabilities? Moreover, Hux considers, if Rey truly harbored remnant, lasting loyalties to the Resistance, wouldn’t Snoke have identified her as a traitor by now?
Via the surveillance cameras installed around the chamber where Snoke communicates through holo transmissions, Hux has observed Ren and the girl leave the room in one piece on the occasions they were summoned. Rey, trembling and pale in the aftermath but physically unscathed as far as he could see. Only twice had she needed the buttress of Ren’s frame to steady herself while walking out.
Hux takes care to save these thoughts and machinations for the privacy of his own quarters.
Nevertheless, the tilt of Ren’s masked snout sends a chill through him whenever it’s directed in his direction now.
-----
He sent the invitation to her a week ago. Affirmed that she could come by whenever she liked. Still, it catches him by surprise to see her lithe form emerging on the bridge, her torso neatly buttoned into the charcoal and burgundy-pocketed jacket he sent along with the invite and her legs in the flared trousers that match the uniform of several ranking officers. She looks good, he assesses before nodding in acknowledgement. Clean and polished. Nothing like the rag-wrapped scavenger captured on Takodana, and the uniform was undeniably better than whatever antiquated costume Ren had dumped on her.
In spite of not being able to see Ren’s expression, Hux can practically feel the dangerous aura of the man’s rising temper.
“What are you doing here?” the Knight demands icily of his seemingly unperturbed apprentice.
“General Hux authorized my attendance. He suggested that acquiring some familiarity with the bridge’s command and control stations could prove useful in the future, and I thought it was a worthy proposal so I came.”
That damned tilt of Ren’s helmet again. Hux resists the urge to roll his eyes. He’s not about to play a child’s staring game with headgear that doesn’t even incorporate fully-functioning eyeholes.
To Ren’s left, an admiral and a lieutenant quietly excuse themselves from the standoff occurring around the astronavigation computers. Breaking early for lunch, Hux hears distantly. He pays them no mind and raises an unimpressed brow at how Ren is twisting a control panel’s knob hard enough to emit a crackle of sputtering, protesting wire.
“It really isn’t a big deal,” Rey cuts in, her voice crisp and all-business. She tilts her head right back at Ren. Hux doesn’t possess a wealth of knowledge on how master-and-apprentice relationships work, but he would bet that the majority do not function like this.
“Learning the ropes here will be useful,” she says to Ren, rephrasing with a softer timbre. Hux wonders if this careful modulation of voice is something she picked up from the politicians-turned-Resistance leaders. From people like Ren’s rumored birth mother.
Rey’s voice dips even lower. “I’ll prove it to you later.” Hux reconsiders. Perhaps, he’s witnessing the apprentice attempt one of those mind tricks on her master.
Whatever silent communication is going on between them, it does indeed fizzle out Ren’s displeasure, and Rey passes the next several hours with them in the ship’s central hub of activity as if she belongs there.
-----
Before, their interactions had been isolated to the mess hall, to half hours of free time they could fit in here and there.
Now, her presence begins to seep elsewhere into his life. A holobook on the history of the Galactic Civil War that Hux lends to her on the bridge one day and that Rey returns with a wry, “Is Kylo Ren the secret narrator? I’ll be glad to never hear another word of Darth Vader’s exploits ever again.”
A week after that, she is present in the briefing room when Squad Leader Riddell gives his presentation on the new training simulation designed for desert terrains. Across the table, Hux can see Rey opening and closing her mouth several times during Riddell’s speech. She doesn’t interrupt though, and he notices that she lingers afterwards to converse with one of the project engineers.
It is late into the evening when Hux receives her message on his comm. “Want to see where Riddell was wrong?” is all she says.
With a frown, he finds himself pulling on his discarded jacket and heading towards her room. She’s at her desk as he enters, her hands spread to magnify portions of the holoprojection hovering above her computer screens.
“I don’t think Riddell’s ever set foot on a real desert planet in his life,” she says by way of greeting.
The awkwardness of being in her bedroom so late fades away as he follows her gesturing hands that point out every feature of the simulation training program that she finds laughably misguided and poorly designed.
“I didn’t realize the Dark Side apprenticeship program included a crash course on programming simulations,” Hux dryly remarks, running a hand through his hair as he looks over her work.
“It doesn’t. I learned about this before I met Kylo.”
“On Jakku?” he asks incredulously, bending slightly to better examine the atmospheric correction algorithm she plugged in. Did they even have schools on that backwater planet?
“I taught myself, okay?” Rey snaps back, tone prickly and defensive now. “If you think I’m wrong about this, just tell me. The esteemed Empire you all regard so highly? Utterly wasteful with their ships by the end of the war. If you looked hard enough through the wreck of the Inflictor, you could still find whole functioning systems to salvage and repair.”
The reminder of how different her poor excuse of an upbringing had been relative to his elicits a streak of recollections. He closes his eyes. Eight, twelve, sixteen again. Steeling himself in preparation for the whistle of that one tutor’s cane to end with its landing on his knuckles. A coterie of older boys rubbing the heels of their mud-smeared boots on his exam results. That unpredictable pause of a moment when he wouldn’t dare to breathe as his father’s voice shifted from good-humored to relentlessly caustic.
He straightens, bringing himself back to this moment, this simulation he’ll instruct Riddell to overhaul in the morning.
“No, doesn’t look like your calculations are wrong. I’ll submit your corrections to the project team tomorrow. Unless, of course, you want to take part in the redesign yourself?”
She hesitates, tossing a look over her shoulder at that wall. That door. “Maybe. If my training allows for it.”
“Right. Where is Ren anyway?”
“Off-ship. Independent assignment from Snoke.”
Hux lets out a sigh and adds another task to his mental list for tomorrow. He’ll need to have that tracker on Ren re-processed to figure out if it’s still working or if Ren’s disabled it. Groaning, he rubs at his temples, willing away the niggling irritation that always arises when the Knights’ objectives, when Snoke’s objectives whispers that voice again, don’t perfectly align with the military’s.
“You should go to bed,” Rey says, shutting off the projection and watching him with a wrinkle in her brow.
“Yes, well, thank you for showing me that.”
She nods before moving to draw back the covers on her bed, and he feels his feet rooted there, compelling him to make this moment of being alone with her last just a bit longer. He shakes his head. What ridiculous, frivolous thoughts. Whims that belonged to an adolescent boy. Absolutely no room for such notions on this ship, in this life.
“Good night,” he bids her and heads back alone.
-----
Ren’s next off-ship mission requires her. Apparently. They are to take the Knight’s Upsilon-class shuttle to the planet where Snoke wants them to hunt down some artifact dating back from the dawn of the Old Republic. An absurd and distracting quest in Hux’s opinion, but he squashes down the feeling and signs off on the authorization for a small unit of stormtroopers to accompany them. Tries to ignore how increasingly cryptic the Supreme Leader’s communications have become lately.
Only Ren and Rey return, the shuttle cruising so sloppily into the Finalizer’s landing bay that it grinds into the wings of two TIE fighters.
Both are wounded and staggering fast towards unconsciousness as they climb out of the shuttle.
They spend most of the subsequent day in the medical wing. Rey awakens long enough to launch into a screaming match with Ren that only halts with them being wheeled off to separate ends of the ward.
She is hoarse and reluctant to speak when Hux shows up.
“Well, you’re both alive at least.”
A sound that approaches laughter bubbles out of her. “On the surface, we are. Underneath --” She thumps a small fist at her breastbone, crinkling her white medical gown. “Snoke has already hollowed out both of us.”
Her eyes peer past him, through the transparent glass to where the doctors are huddled over discussion of her blood samples.
“All these people of science,” she muses in a dazed voice. “I wonder if they believe in the Force.” Her vision swings back to focus on him, in his full uniform and rigid posture. “And you, General. You acknowledge the Force exists, but have no fondness or care for it. Yet, we’re all here, devoted to carrying out the designs of the Supreme Leader and his cult --”
“The Knights of Ren do not take precedence over the military --”
“Oh please stop. Stop deluding yourself. You know it. You’ve always known it. Snoke’s objectives when it comes to anything relating to the Force will always take precedence. Everything else is just a sideshow.”
Traitorous words, traitorous mouth. He spins on his heel and goes to the table where the doctor left a tray with water and sedatives. “The infection from your leg wound induced a fever, and you’re not well. You should take these pills. I’ll come back when you’re more stable.”
With a slow, shuddery exhale, she reclines back on the narrow cot of the medbay bed, closing her eyes and effectively dismissing him from her attention. “Go then. I don’t need anyone to feed me medicine.”
The last thing he hears from her as he departs the room is faintly spoken. Barely audible at all amidst the humming of the medical machinery.
“I just wonder what it will take for you to lose faith.”
-----
He no longer keeps track of how many times they’ve had tea together, but Hux stops by her door one afternoon, and she sends him away for the first time.
“Not right now,” she says, and Hux wonders if Ren’s back and enshrouded somewhere in the shadows behind her.
He’s about to turn and shoulder back to the bridge when she asks in an almost-whisper, “You have anything stronger than tea on board?”
“Stronger?”
“As in something with alcohol.”
“Yes -- I have a bottle of malt and some other liquor in my quarters.”
“Okay, let’s do that then. Later. Tonight.” She says this quickly, and as if realizing the implication of her words seconds too late, she amends, “I mean, we could meet in the recreational facility. You know that area with the couches where the officers play dejarik?”
He’s never permitted himself to participate in such pastimes with his inferiors, but he does in fact know what area to which she’s referring and nods in response.
“Alright, I’ll see you there then.” With that, her door slides firmly shut.
-----
A succession of long sips into his second glass, and Hux feels finally relaxed enough to appreciate her choosing of this spot. The viewport here supplies a panorama almost as generously expansive as the one on the bridge. Head falling back against the cushioned couch, he squints at how the stars of the Outer Rim seem to winking at them. They’re well on their way to deliver both Ren and her to Snoke, ostensibly for the final trials of their training.
“I never thought I’d say this, but I miss the sun on Jakku.” Rey’s still on her first glass, swirling the liquor around and staring into it as if all the secrets of the universe swim just beneath the fluid surface.
A snort of derision from him. “Why?”
“I miss feeling the sun on my skin.” She directs her own little snide jab at him. “Not something you’d understand, I guess.”
He feels oddly tolerant of her brassy attitude tonight and lets the comment slide. It occurs to him that his opportunities to speak with her and share drink are numbered. He can’t even be sure that she’ll survive the training with Snoke.
As if she could sense where his thoughts are leading, Rey breathes out, “All I can think about is death recently. It’s not like I even have family that would miss me, and the...acquaintances I left behind, they’d be glad to hear that my traitor self died.” A bitter, mirthless smile on her lips. “Kylo on the other hand...even now, his family would still mourn him. His mother undeniably would. She wanted so much for him to come home.”
Rey winces, as if physically stung by the memory, and the ensuing words flow like a confession. “I promised once. That I’d bring him home.”
Of all the topics that could come up in conversation, Hux would’ve least expected Ren’s mother to arise as a subject. He sits up and pulls the drink gently away from Rey’s loose grip. To see her so unraveled after weeks of her crafted, perfected persona is worrying.
Yet, he cannot deny that he’s not wholly opposed to perceiving the tinge in her cheeks, her skin so bloomed with roses compared to his, though he supposes that the ruddiness will appear on him too if he keeps drinking. His fingers itch to find out how her hair would look if unbound from the tight, glossy buns she’s been wearing as of late, and Hux doesn’t remember the last time he reached for someone, but he reaches for her, slanting his mouth over hers and tasting the last traces of malt there. And it’s like the kiss turns her to stone because she doesn’t soften into his arms like she did for Ren, doesn’t entangle her fingers into his hair like she did on the cam screen. Here’s another thing he can curse and hate Ren for.
He shouldn’t feel disappointed. Why were they both sitting around, as gloomy as if her death were already preordained? She’d survived everything life had barraged her with thus far, and she would continue to survive. She would come back, he was certain of it. She would come back from Snoke’s training, more worthy than ever to lead the Order by his side.
Withdrawing, Hux looks her in the eye, green irises meeting hazel, and tells her with full severity, “You think that no one would care if you were gone, but I --” His hand follows the smooth slope of her hair, the curve of the back of her neck, and everywhere, the skin is warm to his touch, the warmest thing on this cold, barren ship. “I think you could make anyone want you. And mourn for the loss of you.”
“Ever the orator,” she says softly.
And he has to kiss her again for that.
-----
The last time he rings at her door for tea, it’s Ren looming behind the portal as it glides open. Dark curls dusting bare shoulders. No shirt and pants dragged low on his hips. Even from the threshold where he stands, Hux can smell the musk of the dimmed room.
“Oh, General,” Ren remarks, one arm lazily lifting a glass of water to his mouth. “Would you like to come in? I’ll get you something to drink. Water? Or would you prefer it to be tea?”
Re: Fill pt. 3/?
To have the girl as an eventual partner, standing alongside him on the command deck and supplanting Ren. Well, why not? Hadn’t Snoke expressed repeated disappointment in Kylo Ren, even while voicing lofty appreciation of the scavenger girl’s burgeoning capabilities? Moreover, Hux considers, if Rey truly harbored remnant, lasting loyalties to the Resistance, wouldn’t Snoke have identified her as a traitor by now?
Via the surveillance cameras installed around the chamber where Snoke communicates through holo transmissions, Hux has observed Ren and the girl leave the room in one piece on the occasions they were summoned. Rey, trembling and pale in the aftermath but physically unscathed as far as he could see. Only twice had she needed the buttress of Ren’s frame to steady herself while walking out.
Hux takes care to save these thoughts and machinations for the privacy of his own quarters.
Nevertheless, the tilt of Ren’s masked snout sends a chill through him whenever it’s directed in his direction now.
-----
He sent the invitation to her a week ago. Affirmed that she could come by whenever she liked. Still, it catches him by surprise to see her lithe form emerging on the bridge, her torso neatly buttoned into the charcoal and burgundy-pocketed jacket he sent along with the invite and her legs in the flared trousers that match the uniform of several ranking officers. She looks good, he assesses before nodding in acknowledgement. Clean and polished. Nothing like the rag-wrapped scavenger captured on Takodana, and the uniform was undeniably better than whatever antiquated costume Ren had dumped on her.
In spite of not being able to see Ren’s expression, Hux can practically feel the dangerous aura of the man’s rising temper.
“What are you doing here?” the Knight demands icily of his seemingly unperturbed apprentice.
“General Hux authorized my attendance. He suggested that acquiring some familiarity with the bridge’s command and control stations could prove useful in the future, and I thought it was a worthy proposal so I came.”
That damned tilt of Ren’s helmet again. Hux resists the urge to roll his eyes. He’s not about to play a child’s staring game with headgear that doesn’t even incorporate fully-functioning eyeholes.
To Ren’s left, an admiral and a lieutenant quietly excuse themselves from the standoff occurring around the astronavigation computers. Breaking early for lunch, Hux hears distantly. He pays them no mind and raises an unimpressed brow at how Ren is twisting a control panel’s knob hard enough to emit a crackle of sputtering, protesting wire.
“It really isn’t a big deal,” Rey cuts in, her voice crisp and all-business. She tilts her head right back at Ren. Hux doesn’t possess a wealth of knowledge on how master-and-apprentice relationships work, but he would bet that the majority do not function like this.
“Learning the ropes here will be useful,” she says to Ren, rephrasing with a softer timbre. Hux wonders if this careful modulation of voice is something she picked up from the politicians-turned-Resistance leaders. From people like Ren’s rumored birth mother.
Rey’s voice dips even lower. “I’ll prove it to you later.” Hux reconsiders. Perhaps, he’s witnessing the apprentice attempt one of those mind tricks on her master.
Whatever silent communication is going on between them, it does indeed fizzle out Ren’s displeasure, and Rey passes the next several hours with them in the ship’s central hub of activity as if she belongs there.
-----
Before, their interactions had been isolated to the mess hall, to half hours of free time they could fit in here and there.
Now, her presence begins to seep elsewhere into his life. A holobook on the history of the Galactic Civil War that Hux lends to her on the bridge one day and that Rey returns with a wry, “Is Kylo Ren the secret narrator? I’ll be glad to never hear another word of Darth Vader’s exploits ever again.”
A week after that, she is present in the briefing room when Squad Leader Riddell gives his presentation on the new training simulation designed for desert terrains. Across the table, Hux can see Rey opening and closing her mouth several times during Riddell’s speech. She doesn’t interrupt though, and he notices that she lingers afterwards to converse with one of the project engineers.
It is late into the evening when Hux receives her message on his comm. “Want to see where Riddell was wrong?” is all she says.
With a frown, he finds himself pulling on his discarded jacket and heading towards her room. She’s at her desk as he enters, her hands spread to magnify portions of the holoprojection hovering above her computer screens.
“I don’t think Riddell’s ever set foot on a real desert planet in his life,” she says by way of greeting.
The awkwardness of being in her bedroom so late fades away as he follows her gesturing hands that point out every feature of the simulation training program that she finds laughably misguided and poorly designed.
“I didn’t realize the Dark Side apprenticeship program included a crash course on programming simulations,” Hux dryly remarks, running a hand through his hair as he looks over her work.
“It doesn’t. I learned about this before I met Kylo.”
“On Jakku?” he asks incredulously, bending slightly to better examine the atmospheric correction algorithm she plugged in. Did they even have schools on that backwater planet?
“I taught myself, okay?” Rey snaps back, tone prickly and defensive now. “If you think I’m wrong about this, just tell me. The esteemed Empire you all regard so highly? Utterly wasteful with their ships by the end of the war. If you looked hard enough through the wreck of the Inflictor, you could still find whole functioning systems to salvage and repair.”
The reminder of how different her poor excuse of an upbringing had been relative to his elicits a streak of recollections. He closes his eyes. Eight, twelve, sixteen again. Steeling himself in preparation for the whistle of that one tutor’s cane to end with its landing on his knuckles. A coterie of older boys rubbing the heels of their mud-smeared boots on his exam results. That unpredictable pause of a moment when he wouldn’t dare to breathe as his father’s voice shifted from good-humored to relentlessly caustic.
He straightens, bringing himself back to this moment, this simulation he’ll instruct Riddell to overhaul in the morning.
“No, doesn’t look like your calculations are wrong. I’ll submit your corrections to the project team tomorrow. Unless, of course, you want to take part in the redesign yourself?”
She hesitates, tossing a look over her shoulder at that wall. That door. “Maybe. If my training allows for it.”
“Right. Where is Ren anyway?”
“Off-ship. Independent assignment from Snoke.”
Hux lets out a sigh and adds another task to his mental list for tomorrow. He’ll need to have that tracker on Ren re-processed to figure out if it’s still working or if Ren’s disabled it. Groaning, he rubs at his temples, willing away the niggling irritation that always arises when the Knights’ objectives, when Snoke’s objectives whispers that voice again, don’t perfectly align with the military’s.
“You should go to bed,” Rey says, shutting off the projection and watching him with a wrinkle in her brow.
“Yes, well, thank you for showing me that.”
She nods before moving to draw back the covers on her bed, and he feels his feet rooted there, compelling him to make this moment of being alone with her last just a bit longer. He shakes his head. What ridiculous, frivolous thoughts. Whims that belonged to an adolescent boy. Absolutely no room for such notions on this ship, in this life.
“Good night,” he bids her and heads back alone.
-----
Ren’s next off-ship mission requires her. Apparently. They are to take the Knight’s Upsilon-class shuttle to the planet where Snoke wants them to hunt down some artifact dating back from the dawn of the Old Republic. An absurd and distracting quest in Hux’s opinion, but he squashes down the feeling and signs off on the authorization for a small unit of stormtroopers to accompany them. Tries to ignore how increasingly cryptic the Supreme Leader’s communications have become lately.
Only Ren and Rey return, the shuttle cruising so sloppily into the Finalizer’s landing bay that it grinds into the wings of two TIE fighters.
Both are wounded and staggering fast towards unconsciousness as they climb out of the shuttle.
They spend most of the subsequent day in the medical wing. Rey awakens long enough to launch into a screaming match with Ren that only halts with them being wheeled off to separate ends of the ward.
She is hoarse and reluctant to speak when Hux shows up.
“Well, you’re both alive at least.”
A sound that approaches laughter bubbles out of her. “On the surface, we are. Underneath --” She thumps a small fist at her breastbone, crinkling her white medical gown. “Snoke has already hollowed out both of us.”
Her eyes peer past him, through the transparent glass to where the doctors are huddled over discussion of her blood samples.
“All these people of science,” she muses in a dazed voice. “I wonder if they believe in the Force.” Her vision swings back to focus on him, in his full uniform and rigid posture. “And you, General. You acknowledge the Force exists, but have no fondness or care for it. Yet, we’re all here, devoted to carrying out the designs of the Supreme Leader and his cult --”
“The Knights of Ren do not take precedence over the military --”
“Oh please stop. Stop deluding yourself. You know it. You’ve always known it. Snoke’s objectives when it comes to anything relating to the Force will always take precedence. Everything else is just a sideshow.”
Traitorous words, traitorous mouth. He spins on his heel and goes to the table where the doctor left a tray with water and sedatives. “The infection from your leg wound induced a fever, and you’re not well. You should take these pills. I’ll come back when you’re more stable.”
With a slow, shuddery exhale, she reclines back on the narrow cot of the medbay bed, closing her eyes and effectively dismissing him from her attention. “Go then. I don’t need anyone to feed me medicine.”
The last thing he hears from her as he departs the room is faintly spoken. Barely audible at all amidst the humming of the medical machinery.
“I just wonder what it will take for you to lose faith.”
-----
He no longer keeps track of how many times they’ve had tea together, but Hux stops by her door one afternoon, and she sends him away for the first time.
“Not right now,” she says, and Hux wonders if Ren’s back and enshrouded somewhere in the shadows behind her.
He’s about to turn and shoulder back to the bridge when she asks in an almost-whisper, “You have anything stronger than tea on board?”
“Stronger?”
“As in something with alcohol.”
“Yes -- I have a bottle of malt and some other liquor in my quarters.”
“Okay, let’s do that then. Later. Tonight.” She says this quickly, and as if realizing the implication of her words seconds too late, she amends, “I mean, we could meet in the recreational facility. You know that area with the couches where the officers play dejarik?”
He’s never permitted himself to participate in such pastimes with his inferiors, but he does in fact know what area to which she’s referring and nods in response.
“Alright, I’ll see you there then.” With that, her door slides firmly shut.
-----
A succession of long sips into his second glass, and Hux feels finally relaxed enough to appreciate her choosing of this spot. The viewport here supplies a panorama almost as generously expansive as the one on the bridge. Head falling back against the cushioned couch, he squints at how the stars of the Outer Rim seem to winking at them. They’re well on their way to deliver both Ren and her to Snoke, ostensibly for the final trials of their training.
“I never thought I’d say this, but I miss the sun on Jakku.” Rey’s still on her first glass, swirling the liquor around and staring into it as if all the secrets of the universe swim just beneath the fluid surface.
A snort of derision from him. “Why?”
“I miss feeling the sun on my skin.” She directs her own little snide jab at him. “Not something you’d understand, I guess.”
He feels oddly tolerant of her brassy attitude tonight and lets the comment slide. It occurs to him that his opportunities to speak with her and share drink are numbered. He can’t even be sure that she’ll survive the training with Snoke.
As if she could sense where his thoughts are leading, Rey breathes out, “All I can think about is death recently. It’s not like I even have family that would miss me, and the...acquaintances I left behind, they’d be glad to hear that my traitor self died.” A bitter, mirthless smile on her lips. “Kylo on the other hand...even now, his family would still mourn him. His mother undeniably would. She wanted so much for him to come home.”
Rey winces, as if physically stung by the memory, and the ensuing words flow like a confession. “I promised once. That I’d bring him home.”
Of all the topics that could come up in conversation, Hux would’ve least expected Ren’s mother to arise as a subject. He sits up and pulls the drink gently away from Rey’s loose grip. To see her so unraveled after weeks of her crafted, perfected persona is worrying.
Yet, he cannot deny that he’s not wholly opposed to perceiving the tinge in her cheeks, her skin so bloomed with roses compared to his, though he supposes that the ruddiness will appear on him too if he keeps drinking. His fingers itch to find out how her hair would look if unbound from the tight, glossy buns she’s been wearing as of late, and Hux doesn’t remember the last time he reached for someone, but he reaches for her, slanting his mouth over hers and tasting the last traces of malt there. And it’s like the kiss turns her to stone because she doesn’t soften into his arms like she did for Ren, doesn’t entangle her fingers into his hair like she did on the cam screen. Here’s another thing he can curse and hate Ren for.
He shouldn’t feel disappointed. Why were they both sitting around, as gloomy as if her death were already preordained? She’d survived everything life had barraged her with thus far, and she would continue to survive. She would come back, he was certain of it. She would come back from Snoke’s training, more worthy than ever to lead the Order by his side.
Withdrawing, Hux looks her in the eye, green irises meeting hazel, and tells her with full severity, “You think that no one would care if you were gone, but I --” His hand follows the smooth slope of her hair, the curve of the back of her neck, and everywhere, the skin is warm to his touch, the warmest thing on this cold, barren ship. “I think you could make anyone want you. And mourn for the loss of you.”
“Ever the orator,” she says softly.
And he has to kiss her again for that.
-----
The last time he rings at her door for tea, it’s Ren looming behind the portal as it glides open. Dark curls dusting bare shoulders. No shirt and pants dragged low on his hips. Even from the threshold where he stands, Hux can smell the musk of the dimmed room.
“Oh, General,” Ren remarks, one arm lazily lifting a glass of water to his mouth. “Would you like to come in? I’ll get you something to drink. Water? Or would you prefer it to be tea?”