Found in a kitchen
WIP for a new Star Wars story. Everything after the first asterik is subject to change.
The time: After the siege of Crait, but not before the battle of Exegol. Not in this timeline.
The place: Yavin IV and there the Hux, formerly Dameron, farm.
The scar on Poe’s right cheek was burning. Mind you, there was always some scratch or bruise under the top layer of blood and dirt mixed together. A small injury here, a quick beating there… That was just the state of things now. But that particular scar was special. Despite the sting that went with it, Poe liked it when this scar went red and stood out. “It’s not YOU who gave me this”, the errant little patch of never fully healed skin said. “There are bigger fish out there and I, I squared off against them and live to tell the tale.”
But while the scar told its story loudly, the man bearing it said nothing. He stood in front of Brendol with his lips pressed tightly together, not because the taller man would have been imposing, but because Rose and Finn were present, two persons Poe cared about, and was afraid not to be able to protect the way he wanted to. Hux was in the kitchen, too, sitting at the servants’ table in Brendol’s back. Only that now Brendol was “Master Hux” to the droids and the slaves, while the esteemed Grand-Marshall of the First Order had gotten relegated to being “Young Master”, “Hux jnr.” or “Armitage”. And Poe was… Well, things would have been more dignified could he have labeled himself a prisoner of war instead of, what the man’s official status was, nevermind that Brendol treated him as just another part of his farm’s inventory, a souvenir of Sergeant Finn’s, that the stormtrooper had brought with him from the war. Same as he had brought Rose, BB-8, a half-tame crystal fox, a datapad chock full of novels that were outlawed in the First Order and a citation for parking violations on Cantonica. And Finn in turn was…
“Who is the father?”
“Huh?” Poe uttered, taken completely by surprise, much to the younger Hux’ amusement. “What? Er… you are. Of Hugs here. You never made a secret of that, but then again, I never fully understood yo… owww!”
“Who. Is. The. Father.” Brendol repeated, rubbing his hand after having smacked the mouthy farmhand.
“Does it matter?” Armitage’s voice, way more confident than it had sounded before the First Order’s almost complete victory at Crait. All it had taken for the General to stand up to his old man was incinerating four planets, solving the centuries old engineering problem that was trackerless hyperspace tracking and surviving an attempt on Kylo Ren’s life… “The child will provide two hands more to work on the homestead. A tiny spark of hope of bringing civilization to this dump of a moon.”
Poe’s eyes flickered from Finn standing by his side to Rose clutching her belly protectively closer to the stove with Timmain resting beneath her feet. The crystal fox’ spikes were neatly folded against her body, giving an almost cuddly impression. Poe knew for certain that he hadn’t fathered Rose’ baby and everything in Finn’s body language, no matter how hard the stormtrooper focused on not showing any, indicated that it wasn’t him either. That left only the sad reality of a different farm slave having forced himself on the former Resistance fighter. At least Brendol seemed to have ruled himself out and quite honestly, he’d probably not survived an assault on Rose, not with the “new” Armitage in the house. Armitage Hux liked Finn’s collection of former wartime enemies same as one liked favorite toys. A little wear and tear were expected, but any kind of permanent damage was inacceptable.
“Does it even matter?” Armitage tilted his head as if to indicate that he was aware of Rose Tico’s presence as an autonomously mobile part of the kitchen inventory, albeit probably not as a fellow human being. “It’s not as if anybody could do anything about it in this stage.”
“So you think”, Brendol murmured, what caused Finn to start stuttering:
“I! Me am! I mean…”
“Typical”, Brendol commented, not even questioning the claim. “No ambition at all. So unlike Cardinal…”
“Yes, really, Sergeant”, Armitage chimed in, leaning back against his chair’s backrest. “You could have taken your pick of officer cadets or NCO’s, but then you go and impregnate a kitchen waif? Where do you think that will take your career? You’ll stay a simple stormtrooper forever.”
The quip wasn’t lost on Brendol, not at all.
“I was…” Finn started, feeling uncomfortably aware of the fact that he was wearing a much lighter armor here on Yavin, with a helmet that left his face exposed behind just a thin plasteel pane, easily readable. For someone who never before had had to conceal his mimic, that was a frightening experience. For all practical purposes Finn could have been naked. He gulped and went on: “I wasn’t planning on acknowledging fatherhood. Every child is the First Order’s, after all.”
“Listen to the man, he got all the brains in this household”, Armitage said, having immense fun at seeing just how far he could push Brendol in this matter. Once a co-founder of the First Order, past hardships and advanced age had taken a toll on Brendol. Why had he, Armitage, not noticed that earlier? How come he had still seen the veritable mountain of a man that Brendol had been in his childhood in this wreck? And what had changed his perspective? Really only Armitage Hux’ new title?
With a growl, Brendol elbowed his way through Poe and Finn. He waltzed towards the door, where he turned around to toss a final verbal barrage into the room, then vanished through it.
*
After one, two deep breaths, Poe moved towards the table and sat down. He was joined by Rose, the sergeant and Timmain, who jumped onto the table, where she curled up in the middle of her humans. Finn started stroking the crystal fox’ spiky fur. He still needed to keep his gauntlets on to do so, but the day would come when the local rain would have washed out the minerals completely. Turned out the foxes’ adaption to Crait wasn’t genetic, but acquired in infancy. “You and me both”, Finn thought.
“In one aspect Armitage was correct”, Finn mused, looking Rose straight into the eyes. “Whoever did this to you, the baby will be all of ours. Those gathered in this room. But it will also give Hux snr. something new to use as leverage against us.”
“It won’t”, Armitage stated matter of factly. “Because we will leave. Watching Dameron do farmwork was fun while it lasted, but with a youngling coming we have more important things on our platters now. Besides, as Grand-Marshall of the First Order I should be mobile. This extended sick of Kylo Ren leave had to end one day anyway.”
Much to Hux’ surprise, Poe slumped forward at his words, until his arms came to rest on the table and his chin on them.
“Noooo…” the pilot moaned. “This isn’t… this farm isn’t just a house I fled from when I was sixteen. It is my home. The place I wanted to bring you all after the war. Well, not you, Hugs, but… Rose. Rey. BB-8. Finn, in the moments when he was on our side. And maybe also in those when he wasn’t.”
“At least when Finn or you start showing, we’ll know who was to blame”, Armitage quipped. “We’re leaving. It’s decided, not negotiable. I don’t need to see mine every day to be firm in my conviction to be a different kind of father.”
“Now that’s kind of a low bar to clear”, Finn chuckled. “I took you for more ambitious, Sir!”
Poe, too opened his mouth, but fell dead silent when he saw Rose’ hand move across the table towards the former enemy’s. She didn’t stop until it rested on his.
“Although so far I was real good at retracing every of his steps towards fatherhood”, Armitage admitted.
A woman found in a kitchen… not necessarily also a kitchen worker, more like a techie in charge of the droids doing the actual chores. Someone far below his own station, much younger, too. A loveless union lacking the state’s blessing. Brendol and June. And now Armitage and Rose, the same Rose who hadn’t spoken a single word that day. Not because she was shy (well, she was that, too), but because she was ashamed.
“You? YOU?! You fathered Rose’ baby?”
Poe was about to either lunge at Armitage or ram the table into him, but a firm hand in a white gauntlet kept him down.
“Poe, think!” Finn urged the pilot. “You and me… Is it so unimaginable that these two feel the same for each other?”
“Yes!” “Yes!” Two almost simultaneous utterances, one from Rose, the other from Armitage.
“Yes, it is difficult to imagine”, Armitage whispered.
“You two are in love, that’s what keeps you pulling together through whatever Finn’s conviction of the day regarding the First Order is”, Rose said.
“My conviction is that it’s shit.”
“Regarding what, if anything, you want to do against it, then”, Rose corrected herself. “Me and… I don’t even know what I want to call him! What is there between me and this man is just attraction.”
“And a faulty preservative, because I couldn’t get a proper one. Or a preventive shot or whatever else of the hundreds of ways people avoid unwanted pregnancies in this galaxy without drawing attention.”
“Not sleeping with my friends is the preferred method!” Poe hissed.
“Thank you for this observation, I’d never guessed! Really, how did I go through life before knowing you?”
“That’s… actually a very good question, Hugs.”
Armitage’s free hand shot forth, his fingers lodged into Poe’s hair with the intent of raising the man’s head and punching him into the face, but all of a sudden Rose caught his wrist, what resulted in Hux keeping Poe’s scalp in his grasp while they stared at each other, not pulling, but neither letting go.
“Don’t hurt him!” – “He started!” – “Doesn’t mean you have to play along!”
“It would be nice if you two could settle this quickly”, the pilot groaned while the dialogue unfolded around him.
Hux loosened his grip. “That wouldn’t have happened, would you cut your hair like a civilized person, Dameron. Really, man, you look almost like Ren!”
“I hear you, Grand-Marshall”, Rose said with a grim nod while Poe was rubbing his head.
“No, not you!”
Alright, there was something to be said for long hair, especially if it was so play-in-able as his rebel lover’s.
Hux could order Tico to keep her hair long. But then again he couldn’t. Their dalliance had never been about power. Rose and Armitage, moments out of time, a quick relief from being the Grand Marshall for him and, so he believed, from being a homestead’s janitor for her, a misguided, but brilliant mind, that deserved so much better. If that changed now, if Rose started to use threats pertaining to the affair in order to protect her friends, then everything would be over. But the same went for him complying in advance. One could look at it from any angle, Armitage thought, this pairing had been doomed right from the start. In taking the rebel trio and his bodyguard of shaky allegiance with him to the Finalizer, Hux would only create the setup for future heartache. But he couldn’t leave them behind, not with little Rae (or whatever Rose would name the youngling should he turn out to be a boy) in the equation. The kriff! They definitely needed to get away from this farm, if nothing else, there would be proper pre-natal care on the Finalizer. Something as basic as an ultrasonic scan. He’d just have to…
“What’s on your mind all of a sudden?” Poe asked, but Finn had already studied his superior’s mimic and he knew the First Order better than the people who only saw the face it presented to the outside, the tip of the iceberg.
“He thinks about how to hide a checkup for Rose from the Department of Procreation and Family Planning”, the stormtrooper sergeant explained. “In case the baby doesn’t meet the First Order’s quality standards.”
<em>With me for a father, even Rose’ brains might not be able to salvage this case. It’s not my genetics that enabled me to rise, but my determination and dedication to the cause. Back then the dying empire needed children, so I got a chance. In the position the First Order is now, my spawn might not be so lucky.</em>
“We have to leave”, Finn said in a low voice, as if he could read Armitage’s thoughts. “But, Sir, that doesn’t necessarily mean to your flagship.”
“Then where?”
What place was there to run to for a defect, a glitch in the system, a wanted saboteur, an independently thinking droid and the abomination that was Poe Dameron? Especially without making it painfully obvious that one was running away? The only direction Armitage had ever known was forward… upwards… in the hopes to be acknowledged for what he could do, to be seen, but also to be safe. But the flight never seemed to end, not before he ruled this galaxy with his First Order.
“Where to, Sergeant?” he whispered.
Finn shook his head, claiming he didn’t know. But then he immediately added: “As long as the First Order exists, there might not be a safe place for us in the galaxy.”
“Tell me a half safe one, then!” Armitage barked.
Now that provoked a reaction. Ever since Tuanul, maybe even earlier, FN-2187 had doubted himself, felt not to belong anywhere. But while anxiety stayed his hand and kept his mouth close far too often, in his mind Finn had always been clear about what the right thing was. He just had never found the courage to tread that path. Until now. He straightened his body and spoke it out loud:
“Opposing the First Order.”
Poe nodded. He rubbed his aching head, saying: “Yes. Yes, and it will start right here!”
“We’ll take over the homestead? And then what? Force the First Order to pay for our produce? That’s so very… Republic of you, space-rat.”
“No! Haha! Think again!” All of a sudden Rose had slung her arms around him and while she still avoided addressing Armitage Hux by any name or monicker, she held hung onto him as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Their noses rubbed against each other. “Be the General again!” Rose prompted. “What is Yavin IV known for first and foremost?”
“The Massassi ruins…” Hux’ exes widened as understanding dawned. “The old Alliance hangars and command bunkers! You think you can build them up again right under the First Order’s eyes after you moved Brendol out of the way!”
“No. "We" can't. BB-8 and me see mainly what’s in front of our eyes, Finn and Poe have some understanding of tactics, but none of us is a strategist. You are. Together we can do it!”
He blinked, not sure what to make of all of this. Getting recruited into the Resistance after he had eradicated it hadn’t been on Grand-Marshall Hux’ bucket list.
“You can join us”, Finn said, “or you can continue to stampede through the galaxy. Take it from one who is an expert in running away.”
“And there’s nothing to stop you, we all saw that”, Rose added. “If there was a star system sized wall to run against, that wouldn’t stop you; you’d tear it down and keep running. Forever. Maybe in circles.”
Armitage hugged his lover tight, knowing it was the last time he’d be able to. The very last time. Rose and Armitage were behind them, the rebel and the General had resurfaced and wouldn’t go to sleep again so easily. He buried his nose in Rose’ hair, letting her scent and word wash over him, but only the first was pleasant:
“You’d teach our child everything Brendol taught you, yes, you’d tell yourself you’re doing it for different reasons, and maybe with more candy on the side and a smile here and there, but ultimately you’d teach her to run. To hide. To be afraid. A little less afraid than the slow runners, but never free of fear.”
“We’ve been through this before…” He let go. Pressed his lips shut. Tried for a glare. When he couldn’t muster one, he spoke up regardless, his voice firm, but his heart beating up into his throat: “While such a step would be advantageous for myself, adopting your naïve ideas would criminally undermine humanity as a whole. The aliens would overrun us, the heck, even the demands of daily life would quickly destroy a society that carters to the weakest members. Like it or not, the First Order is correct in weeding out the unfit!”
“The unfit”, Finn mused. “Not everyone we call thus is born weak, though, some get crippled later into life. Physically and mentally.”
“It happens, yes. What’s your point?”
“That according to First Order creed those damaged individuals shouldn’t lord over the sane ones.” The stormtrooper sergeant drew his blaster. “In other words: Your opinion is moot, son of Btrendol.”
“Oh, yes”, the officer hissed. “Threatening the third in the First Order’s command chain on his own territory. In a kitchen. With a weapon that’s slightly longer than your “plan”. I can’t even begin to describe how very thoughtful and “sane” this is…”
Poe smirked. “Don’t fret about it, Hugs! You have us now to help!”
