Chapter Text
You can now be.
Ben feels his limbs shake as he gasps for breath, the unfamiliar voice echoing in his head as if taking all of his thoughts away and replacing them with those words.
If that's the intent, it manages quite well - he sees everything, what he's done, what he's thought, what he's felt, and yet there's a distance to it. It feels as if there's a curtain separating him from his past, should he call it that when it's like looking into the mind of someone else. At the forefront of his mind, the words resound, quieter as they are slowly replaced with pain.
Reasonably, he knows why: he died. He's supposed to be dead, but he's alive and his body isn't taking that so well. Those thoughts don't come to him, though, too overtaken by the searing ache and a strange novelty towards everything, but a desire to cry for help makes him realize he’s completely alone.
There’s no one to help him, even just reassure him that he isn’t dead, that this isn’t the beginning of whatever death holds for him. The distant memories tell him there is a ship, pull him away , toward Rey, he assumes as the memories speak of a dyad and the companionship it’s supposed to present.
There’s no one to help him but he’s alive where he hadn’t been minutes ago.
Maybe he’d had to die to start over as himself, maybe he had been Kylo Ren this whole time and that’s what the voice in his head means, he can be , but what is he supposed to be now? Ben Solo?
His head hurts and being in what will soon be the forgotten haven of the Sith doesn’t help, so he forces himself to stand up and hobble to the old TIE that brought him here.
-
As is common among soldiers in a war, nightmares are nothing new to Armitage Hux. He goes to sleep and knows he'll wake up agitated, sour, without any perspective of improvement in his situation.
That’s nothing like and at the same time identical to waking up in a bacta tank. He never imagined himself experiencing this specific situation what with the distance he usually keeps from battle, yet here he is, just as unsettled but due to circumstances he can’t control.
It should be humiliating. Hux should want to leave as soon as possible, get rid of all evidence that he was ever here, but where the last time he’d been conscious there had only been sharp pain on his stomach, there is now nothing but pink skin. It’s as if Pryde had never discovered or shot him.
It’s hard not to fight against it but Hux knows better, rationalizing his way through the process of leaving the tank - not unaided, he discovers as he finds himself looking into the face of one Lieutenant Mitaka as soon as he’s out.
“General! I hope you don’t mind that I took action without orders from you, but circumstances were…” The man manages to look even more nervous than usual as he continues, “ atypical . Your life seems more important than chain of command, you see, especially when the Order is, well, destroyed-”
“Mitaka,” he attempts to bark, but his voice is tired, weak. In a way, he’s surprised it’s taken this long for something like that to happen. “Shut up.”
Despite having just said that the Order is no more, Mitaka obeys the command as if Hux is still his superior, a small mercy if he can say so. There’s a lot to take in and how he’s survived this far is not at all what concerns him. “Where are we?” He questions, needing to know that he’s safe before he can relax, though if he’s not, there’s nothing he can do in his current state. He’s much better, yes, but he doesn’t know how long he’s been in the tank for - longer than a few minutes, if his wobbly legs mean anything.
“One of the ships you built, General. Allegiant General Pryde refused to use them, after- ah, it’s well equipped and we are far from battle now. When we left, I set course to Ajan Kloss.” Hux makes a face at the unfamiliar name. “The Resistance base. I’ve only known for a few days, they trust me well enough by now.”
The thought that someone he thought he knew is a traitor should be too much, but Hux knows it is a high standard to hold people to when he hadn't managed as well as he'd have liked on that front. “How long?” He asks, both eager to be out of a ship for once and anxious about what awaited him upon their arrival.
After all, he'd revealed his selfish reasons for being an informant and he is still the same Hux he has always been.
“We arrived a few hours ago, but there’s no reason to leave.” Hux doesn’t have to ask why when Mitaka is blatantly staring at his chest. He can only imagine what he’d seen before putting Hux in the tank - it couldn’t have been a good sight, it certainly didn’t feel pleasant. But now there’s new skin replacing something that could have killed him and while he doesn’t think being out of the tank feels much better than being in it, this indisposition will go away eventually and leave him alive. Even now, he feels closer to physical stability with every second. There are sounds outside, stifled by the walls of the ship enough that they can’t be heard with clarity yet just on the right side of loud that a celebration is undeniable. “It seems the, uh, Sith? They were taken down. I haven’t heard of much, the others left as soon as all the noise started.”
Others? Hux doesn’t ask, aware that if he had been angry enough to betray the work of a lifetime, there had to be many others in similar situations. Like Mitaka himself. Hux supposes he would have noticed if he cared enough to - the Lieutenant is easy to read and rattle, alas being pushed aside by Kylo Ren and replaced with a man as vile as Pryde had been left him with little will to cooperate.
However, he does know he can’t pretend the galaxy will end for him in this ship and hide away forever. The future lies outside and he must face it.
“Well, are you coming?” He asks Mitaka as he looks around the ship, recognizing its model and with it knowing where he can find a uniform to make himself presentable. An undershirt and jodhpurs will do - the last thing he needs is to be seen in a brand new First Order uniform, though he knows there is more than one of those here, a habit of his to ensure officers are always appropriately dressed. A habit he’ll grow out of now, he supposes.
“Me- you- General, forgive me, but you’re in no state-” Mitaka stammers, looking as uneasy as he must feel.
“You’re no nanny droid. I say that I’m fine enough to leave so I am. And don’t call me that.” General. A simple reminder of everything he had tossed aside for one Force user whose betrayal to the very Order the two of them swore to protect felt more personal than he would ever care to admit. “So are you coming?” He repeats, now fully dressed, and raises his eyebrows at the other, who nods too many times.
The controls of the ship are familiar enough despite having been a few years since he built it and he lowers the ramp, not at all happy to leave the safety that the ship provided, temporary as it may be, for the company of those he can’t say with certainty are no longer enemies.
And he isn’t the only one to feel that way - suspicious glares and insults are thrown his way, though no one acts on what he’s sure they want to do to him. Murder, torture, things the like of which don’t get along with the Resistance’s philosophy of being morally superior, he supposes. Some simply look confused and he can’t blame them. Sloane taught him at a young age that appearance has great meaning and when it comes to confidence, it’s all one truly needs.
Hux may have no idea what will be of him tomorrow, but he looks like a man who’s sure of his freedom.
A couple of familiar faces are spotted - Unamo and Stynnix talking to someone from the Resistance, he can see Dameron far off - but nothing enough to stop him in his tracks until the one face that hadn’t crossed his mind, the one he doesn’t want to have to face ever again, yet here he is.
Kylo Ren.
Mitaka slams into his back due to the sudden halt he came to, but he doesn’t feel it or hear the younger’s apologies. His ears are ringing and he has half a mind to turn around, go back into his ship and fly away from here, anywhere, even if he runs out of fuel before he actually gets somewhere and ends up stuck in the unknown regions until he runs out of air and dies. Being chewed alive by a rathtar seems like a better option than staying and having to look at that again.
Of course, that’s when it sees him. Where the former Supreme Leader had been smiling - smiling, an actual twist of his facial features into what he can't deny is a pleased expression and can only be defined as that - there is now surprise and pallor. It makes Hux feel somewhat better to know he’s uncomfortable to see him here, but not enough so that he can claim he’s anywhere near content. No, he’s frozen despite wanting to get the kriff away, aware of how weak he looks like this, vulnerable in a way no one outside of the First Order had seen him before and is now exposed to many of the people in the galaxy who are looking for things to use against him.
A good day for the Resistance.
Not at all the same for Hux, he’s convinced of it when instead of looking away, Ren is walking in his direction, eyes never leaving him. What is he doing here? Why is no one stopping him?
Both questions would have the same answer if he asked them about himself, he guesses.
Hux has recovered enough of his composure to glare at Ren when they’re face to face. Mitaka balks and hides behind him, but he pays him no mind. He opens his mouth to say something, anything, to throw an accusation or a curse, something, but before he can do that, the other man speaks up.
“I’m sorry, Hux.”
All of his previous thoughts leave him at that.
He’s sorry? Kylo Ren, leader of the Knights of Ren, Supreme Leader of the First Order after the murder (at his hands, nothing will convince him otherwise) of Leader Snoke, who had also been his master regarding the dark side of the Force or whatever he had been studying, this man is apologizing?
Hux can’t help himself, he laughs. It can only attract more looks than those they're already getting but that doesn't cross his mind in the face of something as absurd as the apology.
It's not that Hux can't pinpoint what Ren is apologizing for - there are plenty of possibilities to choose from and he doesn't care which he's referring to - but that Hux betrayed the First Order to get rid of Kylo Ren and yet here is the man, alive even if not unharmed and with the Resistance. If that isn't exactly how Hux's luck works, he doesn't know what is.
“Of course you are, Ren. Tell me, how did you betray us? Betray yourself, rather, considering you were our leader,” Hux asks, taunts. This, at least, is easy, falling back into the habit of insults and scathing glares.
But the other doesn’t take the bait. Instead. “Ben. It's Ben.”
Funny that something as small as a word can convey so many ideas, but Hux can see it now. He’s out of his uniform, relaxed, the scar on his face is gone, and Hux doesn’t feel any more at ease around this Ben than he did around Kylo Ren.
Before he can reply, though, another familiar voice sounds from the crowd. “C’mon, everyone, today is the end of the war! It’s time to celebrate the future, we’ll start worrying about it tomorrow. Can we get more music?” Dameron, he sees, taking a position of leadership that he doesn’t at all seem ready for, but the people listen to him and leave the ex-officers of the First Order alone. Except for Dameron himself, who approaches them, looking with suspicion at Hux and Ren - Ben, now, how can he have forgotten. “Everything alright here? Talking about plans to run off?”
Hux rolls his eyes.
“Clearing the air,” Ben answers like he has to respond to Dameron. Maybe he does, now. Kylo Ren certainly wouldn’t have.
“Uh huh.” The pilot nods, glancing between them one more time. “Keep it civil. We don’t want to do anything today, but if we have to, we will.” He gives them a final look before leaving them, Hux doesn’t bother finding out what for.
All he knows is he can’t stay like this so he doesn’t, turning his back to Ben without a word to him so he can return to his ship.
“But- General- Hux- didn’t you want to be here?” Mitaka stammers as he hurries to follow Hux, something he’d be mad for but his current mental state of frustration doesn’t allow it.
“Circumstances have changed,” he replies curtly.
He doesn’t have to say it’s about Kylo Ren or Ben, he doesn’t have to say it’s preferable to be locked away if it means that man isn’t near him, he only has to go back and find a bed he can rest in.
It’s easy to find it when he knows the design of the ship as well as he knows his own mind, but it feels like a grating task. He knows comfort isn’t something he can find when he’s on the same planet as that man, regardless of the name he chooses for himself.
His face is still that of the one who insulted him constantly, who showed no basic decency toward him or any of what he had built for no reason other than petulance, who suffocated him and expected respect to come out of it.
Mitaka is quiet for once, but Hux can’t say he’s pleased when that leaves him alone with his thoughts. Where his options had already been limited, they now hold no pleasant outcomes for himself, and yet he’s relieved by the certainty that whatever it is the Resistance holds for him, Ben will be no part of his punishment.
Tomorrow, he will face the consequences of the life he’s led, a thought that never seemed as appealing as it does right now.