Just Survive

Untitled Part 9

A new life......Those were her mother's last words as she woke. Hux seemed excited going on about a plan. He had helped her around holding her firmly as she slowly moved about. With a painful sigh, she takes a seat in the chair.

"Tell me what can I do to make you more comfortable," Hux said with a voice full of concern. "Pillow? Are you thirsty?" Before she could answer he was getting her water before taking a seat on the coffee table in front of her. He wrung his hands together, clearly anxious. "I think it's time I am completely honest with you. When I first found you, we were enemies but as time passed I grow to see you as my ally and well I have come to care very much for you." He pauses here as if searching her face for a reaction to his confession. "As I was saying earlier, I have some money, I plan on heading out to the outer rim, disappearing to be blunt. I would like you to come with me." The last statement hangs in the air, and when she fails to respond he simply continues. "I know you have a son and of course we would retrieve him. I do know a few gifted bounty hunters that could do the job. I can keep you both hidden and safe." Her mouth goes dry at the mention of her boy, he clearly didn't get all his facts before this.

"Hux, I.." He holds his hand up, stopping her mid-sentence.

"I don't want you to answer now. You need time to heal, I just want you to think about the future, our future." He reaches forward giving her hand a gentle squeeze. With that he stands straightening out his shirt, "I will prepare you some food. You really need to eat my dear." With that, he heads towards the kitchenette. "There is more paste left, it was quite good, shall I prepare that?" He is looking through the leftover food from there feast the day before. "I was quite surprised you never mentioned your son but I suppose I understand why you would feel the need to keep something like that a secret," Hux said, clearly without thinking of the ramifications of his hurtful words. She looks down at her toes, finally allowing her emotional walls to crumble beneath him. The pain she now felt burning in her chest had nothing to do with her injuries the previous day.

"He's dead." She blurted out, immediately pulling Hux's attention from the kitchen. "He was killed in the Hosnian system." All the sound of food preparation stops, she can't bring herself to look over her shoulder at him, instead, she starts at the wall, well her fingers dig into the plush arms of the chair. "I lost everything that day." It was like a dam breaking under the weight of the rapid water; first, a small crack, one small confession and now the pressure was splitting the dam wide open. Everything she held inside just starts gushing out.

"I was never into politics, I could care less who was running things, hell I never even voted. I just wanted to make a good life for my son doing something I loved and I loved what I did. There was nothing that compares to the rush of going on a stage having thousands of people cheering you." Tears start leaking down her cheeks as the wonderful memories of her stage show days played in her mind; a gruesome reminder of what she once had, no completely void. "I was supposed to be with him that day, I should have been with him. I should have been there to comfort him in his last moments, to tell him I love him." Guilt eats a hole in her stomach, she chokes on her tears as he wraps her arms around herself. Her mind goes into escape mode, the bathroom she can lock herself in there until she is right again but with her wobbly legs, she only manages a few steps before falling, though she doesn't crash to the floor, instead warm arms wrap around her. Hux pulls her gently so they are both sitting on the floor, he holding her like a child, hugging her to his chest, whispering apologies as waves of tears are unleashed. How long they sat like that she didn't know but eventually the tears subsided and she was hit with a wave of exhaustion that normally following her meltdowns. Hux carefully gets her off the ground and into bed.

"Rest." was all he whispered to her before disappearing as she allowed the eyes to close.

Hux paces the floor, glancing back at her sleeping figure with an emotion he wasn't accustomed to swirling all around him. Star Killer had, of course, been his proudest moment until it fell apart. It was the fruition of years of planning, millions of credits and his machine had worked perfectly. He never thought of the casualties before, he never thought that he would one day come not only face to face with one of the survivors of his war but fall in love with someone he had wounded so deeply. He had taken from what she loved most in the universe, could she ever forgive him for this? He starts trying to plan how he will apologize to her but with every formal apology he formulated, he felt "It wasn't personal" enough. Each and every one just felt inadequate even if it were from the deepest crevices of his heart. He will just have to try and show her that he is sincerely sorry for the part he played in her loss and prove that he is no longer that man anymore.