•LEGACY - A Reylo Story•

EPISODE L - CHANGE OF HEART?

Look at you. Delivering food trays to a prisoner. The rank of General, reduced to servant.

Go away, Hux barks at—at himself? His father? Snoke? Who knows. Does it even matter?

The truth is that Hux doesn't have to bring Rey her meals. He opts to, for reasons he can't explain, and that pisses him off, because he can't explain it and Hux at the very least has always been able to explain his own actions.

How he'd loved ordering Phasma to do it at first. A low duty for the lofty officer whose barbs about his inadequacy always struck Hux harder than he pretended. He should have realized the woman would fall under Rey's spell, though. She cared enough to personally memorize the numbers of every individual stormtrooper. She cared, and that was dangerous.

Don't you care, now?

Hux kicks at the door as it opens. "Here," he snarls.

"What's put you in such a mood?" Rey asks. As if she cares.

Stop! Stop! Everyone stop caring!

You're losing it, teases his father. You're going mad. Soon Snoke will see...

"Nothing," Hux says. "Nothing at all, except your perpetual stubbornness and refusal to—"

"Tell Snoke I'll try to learn. After the baby. Not before."

The words are so unexpected Hux slumps. No. Strand up straight. Make me proud, boy, dammit! "You're going to learn the Dark Side?"

"I'll try," she repeats. Her eyes are rimmed with red, but she's not going to cry. Not in front of him, because she's impossibly strong and Hux hates her for it.

Why?

The Supreme Leader will be so pleased—he'll believe you've done it—

Why?

"Why?" he demands.

"I don't want to leave my child in that creature's hands," she snaps.

Hux deflates. "So you don't really believe in the First Order. You don't really want to learn the Dark Side."

"Of course not."

"But you will anyways." To save your child.

She'll come to believe in it, he reassures himself. Once Snoke's ensnared her. It will work.

But she's looking at him with such disgust Hux doesn't know if he believes that. For Hux's entire life, he's been guided by principle, by discipline—all values thrust upon him with his father's whip-like tongue and iron fist. And this girl, who believes as righteously in her cause as he does in his, is going to break her principles to save her child. Unless she's playing him, which Hux can't rule out.

How weak. How pathetic. It should confirm everything Hux believes about the Resistance—compassion will be their undoing.

Except, it doesn't.

Because Hux finds himself comparing Rey to his mother, to his father. When did they ever sacrifice anything for him?

They were devoted to their cause!

He's always thought it a strength, that they put their work above everything else, even him.

No, you didn't. You despised him for it. You still despise him for it. Him, and her.

"What if you're lying?" Hux asks, grasping at any possibility he can.

"I'll tell you the location of the first Jedi temple. That should be enough to convince Snoke." She pauses.

He folds his arms. "By all means, keep me waiting."

"Ahch-To."

Hux storms out of the room without another word. He needs to report this to Snoke. Immediately. The Supreme Leader will be pleased. And maybe reconsider how expendable he thinks Hux to be.

What if it makes you even more expendable?

He won't need you.

Yes, he will. I can turn anyone now.

But you never convinced her. Love for her child convinced her. If even, because Hux still isn't entirely sure she isn't tricking him.

Weakness.

Or not.

Because Hux realizes that he has no idea what love even is. How can he hope to understand, to control it then? Is it something he even wants to control?

Snoke thanks him for the news, but offers no praise. Hux bristles.

I am expendable. Simply because I don't have the Force. It doesn't matter what else I have. None of it will ever be enough.

"See to it that we move closer to Ahch-To," Snoke orders. "We will crush the temple, and then Luke Skywalker will know that Rey is ours."

Hux goes to the control panel and punches in the coordinates, his hands stalling over the encryption key.

What are you doing?

Go to hell, he snarls at his father's voice.

The coordinates fly out among the stars, speeding their way to the other Star Destroyers in their fleet, minus the encryption.