Chain Reaction

Chapter 6 - Remember?

Paige

Hux had his back turned to her, maneuvering the ship off the planet. Paige watched as he furiously tapped on buttons and pulling on levers in haste. She wondered what Poe would have done when they'd realize she'd been taken back. The Resistance had been lenient with her, well, General Leia was anyway. And there was something in her that made her want to help them somehow. They could have killed her right away, but they didn't. They listened to her story, and now here she was, going back to Starkiller base, without so much as a goodbye to anyone she met. Although when given the chance, what would she say as a goodbye anyway. Perhaps it was better this way. Maybe she was meant to be on the dark side.

"Sit down, it will be a while before we reach the base."

She quietly sat on a chair and crossed her arms, looking at Hux.

"You promised me you'd tell me about my past." Paige said, venom in her voice.

"I did, didn't I?"

The corners of his lips gave a hint of a smirk.

"Hux"

Paige's tone warned Hux she was not having any of it. He sighed and walked behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders. Paige was getting impatient now and sought to just mind probe him, but she didn't have to as he started to speak again.

"You were a stow-away from a planet we had destroyed. You were orphaned the minute you stepped foot in my quarters. I found you hiding under my bed."

As Hux continued his tale of her past, Paige felt his hands tighten around her shoulders. He told her that he had taken her to Snoke to be of use to the First Order, she was trained by Kylo Ren, they went on a mission together, and that they had succeeded. What bothered Paige was that she couldn't remember. Even though Hux was telling her everything she wanted to know from his view, she couldn't remember actually living it. The blank spot was still there. She was trying to remember when Hux started talking about Snoke's plan to embed the crystal they had retrieved from the mission.

"You sacrificed yourself for me."

There was a short pause, and a moment's hesitation before he continued.

"It was the most idiotic thing you could have ever done. It was supposed to be me. I have nothing to live for but the First Order. It is my duty to enforce it's laws. You..."

Paige felt a drop of water fall on her head, when she looked up, she noticed Hux had shed a tear.

"As much as you want to know your past, I also wish to know, why?"

She felt him search her eyes for an answer that was no longer there. She didn't know why she could have done such a thing either. Paige stood and faced the general.

"You don't know, do you."

They were miserable, the pair of them. Hux ran a hand through his hair, disheveling it in the process. He composed himself, straightening out his jacket.

"I should expect no less. Were you satisfied by my story?"

Paige then realized something in Hux's story he had wedged in before dropping the other events.

"Wait a minute, did we actually have sex?"

Kylo

The mission at Takodana was not a complete failure if he was asked. He had retrieved another Force-sensitive human. That was a success. He had so many plans for this one. But, first he'd have to master how to extract the crystal from Paige. He had less time left.

He was interrogating his captive, an insolent scavenger, when he suddenly felt her presence. Paige was back. After being resisted of his mind probe, he glared at the girl in the chair and with haste, he left the room and marched towards Paige's quarters. She was seated with crossed legs on her bed, clutching a pillow, when he found her.