Chapter Text
“Grandfather…?” Padme finds herself musing aloud, eyes moving between the dark Jedi and Ani. Ani’s hands are trembling ever the slightest bit as he re-pins her hair back the way Sabe had shown him how.
“Wait, explain that.” Ahsoka says, crossing her arms. On the outside, she looks like she’s restraining rage, but Padme knows her better. That is the look of an Ahsoka who is barely resisting bursting out into laughter. Padme shoots Ahsoka a look. She doesn’t know what she hopes the look will do, but it has the opposite effect when Ahsoka smirks at her when Kylo turns his back.
“Yes, please, do explain.” The other time-traveler drawls from where he has a book open in front of him. Padme doesn’t know his name, nor does she know what book he’s reading, but just from the way he’s sitting, and the company he keeps, Padme already doesn’t like his stupid smug face. “I’ve had to hear you insist you would finish what your grandfather started, and I have yet to figure out what it means.” The redhead drawls without looking up from his page. Kylo lets out a growl of rage, and hurls one of the other books on the table at him, but misses.
“Improper use of the force.” Ani spits at him, voice full of venom. Obi-Wan sends Anakin a look which even Padme can read as a joke about the hypocrisy in that statement, but Kylo puffs up like a varactyl about to attack.
“You sound like one of them.” Kylo spits out, gesturing rudely at towards Ahsoka and Obi-Wan. Padme could feel Ani’s outrage building as the man who is merely a blood relation of theirs makes a slight against the family he loves.
“I am one of them!” Ani finally lashes out after being quiet far longer than Padme expected him to be. “They’re my family! You can call me grandfather all you want, but to me all you are is some whining darksider who has attacked my wife and insulted the closest thing I have to a father and a daughter! So tell me, who in the nine sith hells do you think you are?” Ani storms forward but stops when Padme catches his wrist.
“It’s true then, you are deluded and confused.” Kylo drops his arms to his side as he speaks.
“Why would you think that, just because I’m not a darksider?” Ani spits back.
“I hear your voice in my head! You told me yourself that you were lost.” Kylo cries out, rage coloring his voice. So he’s totally insane, Padme muses idly. In her head, she casually disregards everything he’s said thus far.
“Wow, you are absolutely insane.” Ahsoka echoes Padme’s sentiment.
“You would say that, just because I have the emotional capacity to understand him instead of suppressing everything he is!” Everything that wasn’t bolted down around them began to shake and rattle, and a handful of items nearest to Kylo began to float. The redhead in the corner gave a long, disappointed sigh. “In fact, I am the only one who understands him! None of you will ever understand him the way I can! You will only-” Kylo is cut of with a grunt as a boot goes flying into his face. In unison, every head in the room swivels in the direction the projectile footwear came from. Padme grunts in surprise when she sees Captain Rex seething right where the boot came from.
“Don’t you dare talk about General Skywalker like that.” The captain growls out.
“I wasn’t speaking to you, clone.” Kylo spits at Rex, and a plate flies across the room at him, but misses Rex by a significant margin. Padme finds her voice joining nearly every other one present in vocal outrage at that, but Kylo continues right on as though not one of them had spoken. “Come with me, grandfather! Come with me and together we can bring order to the galaxy and clean it of this filth. Come with me and we can destroy the past and build a glorious future like you always wanted!” Kylo then dramatically extends a hand towards Padme’s husband.
“You absolute piece of sithspit.” Ani crosses the room in two steps towards Kylo, the pulls his hand back, balling it into a fist, before slamming it into Kylo’s face. As the darksider flies across the room, all of the items hovering in the air slam back onto the surfaces they usually rested on in a cacophony of unpleasant sounds.
“Well then, are you done?” The redhead looks down at where his partner is splayed out on the ground. “Because the First Order has been without its leadership for far to long as it is.”
“Hux-”
“That is Admiral Hux to you, Ren.” The redhead says, “And I will take that as a yes.” He climbs to his feet, and places the book on the side table where he was sitting. From within his pocket, he draws what looks to be a small, flat stone from the inside pocket of his jacket. On top of it, Padme sees a symbol made from carved wood which appears to be fused to the stone. Beside her, Padme heard Obi-Wan suck in a breath. Clearly, he recognizes the symbol even if no one else does.
The man – Hux, does something with the stone. Padme doesn’t see it, but it’s some quick sleight of hand movement. The air in front of them ripples as though it was a pond someone had thrown a stone into them, and Kylo let out a cry of rage.
“Not yet!” He cried, even as Hux bent over, and pulled him to his feet.
“The supreme leader has indulged you for far too long Ren. We must return before construction on Starkiller Base is complete.” The redhead takes two steps towards the ripples in the air, and Captain Rex lets out a cry of rage.
“You are not going anywhere!” Captain Rex bites out and goes to tackle Hux. Hux dodges the incoming blonde, but the stone flies from his hand and clangs against the wall of the apartment. Hux’s eyes widen ever so slightly, the first show of emotion since Padme had first met him. He practically throws Kylo throw the ripples in the air, despite the other man’s vocal protests, and, to Padme’s great disbelief, as Kylo passes through them, he vanishes into the air.
“Well, this has been terrible.” Hux comments bitingly, and even as Ani and Ahsoka both lunge to grab him, and Obi-Wan attempts to catch or hold him with the force, Hux steps through the ripples in the air, and is gone.
“Well, that was… an experience.” Padme comments, rubbing her shoulder absent-mindedly.
“Oh, I doubt it’s over yet.” Obi-Wan responds, and the small wood-and-stone pebble flies across the room, and smacks into his palm. “Not by a long shot.”