Chapter Text
Kylo Ren’s hands itched. He curled his fingers in his gloves as if he could grasp the dark Force that roiled through the shadowy conference room. The leather gave a satisfying creak. If he had to endure even one more inane idea from his Supreme Council—
“Leader Ren,” Colonel Hamne was saying, “Pasaana has petitioned for five-hundred thousand credits to provide relief to Hosnian refugees who were out-system during the cataclysm and have sought sanctuary on their planet. In light of—”
“They want what?” Half a million credits? Who did they think they were? If he hadn’t destroyed his mask, Kylo could hide the fact that every facial muscle was contracting with rage.
“Funding,” the colonel repeated, “for refugee relief?”
“Is there no work?”
“The Aki-Aki are renowned for their hospitality, but their farms barely attain subsistence levels.”
“Then the refugees had better find a more accommodating planet or else find themselves starving.”
“But, sir, Pasaana had no part in the Hosnian incident—”
Indulging this type of weak sentimentality would cripple the First Order and the galaxy. Kylo telekinetically slammed the colonel’s face into the table. Once. Hard. Hamne slumped down in his tall-backed seat, unconscious. Blood trickled from his nose.
“Does Pasaana contribute anything to the First Order that would justify this demand?” Kylo glared at the colonel’s superior, though she maintained rigid control of her dark features, less so the horror and irritation writhing in her emotions.
“Silicite, sir,” General Parnadee said with a quick glance at her insensate aide, “which is a minor ingredient in transparisteel. Pasaana harvests a modest amount from their dust farms each year.”
“Double it,” Kylo said. “Payable on the standard new year.”
“Sir, that’s only weeks away and it’s—” General Parnadee surveyed the length of the gleaming black conference table where the First Order’s five other senior leaders and their aides sat is stone-faced silence. She was not normally one to contradict. Her voice dropped to a whisper, as well it should. “It’s Christmas.”
“Such antiquated and pointless observances are of no concern to the First Order.” Christmas was a holiday for children and naïve optimists. Christmas was a crutch and a waste of precious resources. It belonged in the past, destined for a dusty corner of galactic history best forgotten. Kylo cast a scathing glance around the room. “Any last comments before we adjourn?”
General Hux cleared his throat. “If I may, Supreme Leader?”
Kylo only nodded his permission. The little ginger-haired weasel. What was he up to now?
“I would like to remind the Supreme Council that their presence is required at the annual Stormtrooper Gala, which will be held in Hangar 8 at 1900 hours on—” He mumbled something unintelligible.
“What was that, Hux? Speak up.”
“The Stormtrooper Gala”—he lifted his chin as if his coat were buttoned too tight—“on Christmas day, sir.”
“I thought I heard you mention Christmas.” Kylo extended his hand and closed the Force on Hux’s throat. “Surely I was mistaken.” Oh, but it felt good how the dark energies curled through him and coiled around the general’s pasty neck.
“Such events are purported to be excellent for increasing morale,” Hux managed to choke out before his lips began turning purple.
Knowing Hux would chafe at serving as glorified event planner was precisely why Kylo had assigned him the task. But the only reason Hux would have planned the Gala for Christmas instead of the usual New Year’s Eve was to curry favor with the troops at Kylo’s expense. The conniving passive-aggressive little gutter snipe.
“Reschedule the Gala. There will be no Christmas. Not on the Steadfast. Not in the First Order.” He released Hux, who fell back into his chair gasping. Kylo glowered at his senior advisors. “Have I made myself clear?”
“Yes, Supreme Leader,” Hux rasped as the others murmured their concurrence.
“Dismissed.” Kylo spun on his heel. The doors barely hissed open before he swept through and barreled down the hall. The command section was still staggering to attention when he halted before Lieutenant Mitaka’s desk.
“Lieutenant, what,” he pointed to a spiral of green wire, “is that?”
“A, um, that’s a—well—” Mitaka’s head shrank into his shoulders. “That, sir, is a type of, um, shall we say, holiday tree, which in some cultures—”
“I know what a Christmas tree is,” Kylo snapped, cutting him off. “But what is it doing on your desk?”
Mitaka looked around the command section, clearly in hopes a colleague would come to his rescue. Everyone was preoccupied with their terminals. He answered tentatively, “In keeping with the holiday spirit, sir?”
Holiday spirit? If the lieutenant wanted to see some spirit, Kylo would be glad to show him. He flicked on his lightsaber in the same smooth motion he drew it from his belt.
Mitaka leaped back and cowered.
“There”—hack—“will”—swipe—“be”—stab—“no”—slice—“Christmas!” Kylo stood throbbing with dark power and heaving over the melted rubble of Mitaka’s desk, the little tree a green blob of molten metal.
“Yes, sir,” Mitaka said with a shudder. “Right away, sir.”
***
The door to the Supreme Leader’s quarters swished closed behind him. Blessed privacy, at last. Kylo jogged down the stairs, intent on his bedroom. What an aggravating day. It was late and he was tired. A good sonic scrub, he’d try to sleep and face it all again next cycle. Not that a shower could wash away the frustration and anger shrouding his spirit in its murky miasma. Snoke had touted only the dark side’s power; he never warned how brutally exhausting it was. He would never have admitted such weakness. Neither would Kylo.
He was halfway across the antechamber that housed Darth Vader’s twisted mask when sound shifted as if air had been sucked into vacuum. Not Rey. Not now.
Kylo halted but didn’t turn around.
He could feel her there behind him, her signature in the Force unbearably bright and pulsing with warmth.
“Go away,” he said, still not turning around. “I’m in no mood for this.”
It sounded like she muttered, Are you ever? But it might have been entirely in his head.
What if he just walked away? What if he went to the ‘fresher and stripped for his shower? What would she do then? He had half a mind to try it.
“Ben?” Her voice was quiet, hesitant even.
The way her lips caressed his old name might as well have been a Force-command. He heaved a sigh and rotated to face her. He didn’t know where to look first: at the uncommon rosiness brightening her cheeks. Or the shiny filaments glimmering in her hair and trailing from her shoulders. Tinsel, maybe? Or the obnoxious loop of red and green lights blinking around her neck. Or the candy cane dangling from her lips like a cigarra.
“What,” he said, “are you doing?”
She popped the candy cane from her mouth and grinned. “Decorating for Christmas!”
Of course she was. Asking such a blatant question could only testify to the weariness of his mind.
She set the candy aside and it disappeared on her side of the connection. A few steps forward and she stood close enough to touch him, close enough for the dark side to withdraw its shadowed talons, as if it couldn’t abide her light. “It’s so wonderful, Ben! I had no idea. We never celebrated Christmas on Jakku.”
“Rey,” he spat, “I don’t do Christmas.”
Her cherry-stained lips turned down. “You don’t have to be such a scrooge about it.”
He’d have to ask Mitaka what a scrooge was. Kylo flicked a hand in dismissal. “You keep Christmas your way and I’ll keep it mine, which is to say I have more important things to do than indulge in an obsolete festival.” That shower, for starters.
Rey cast a furtive glance over her shoulder, stood on tiptoe, and addressed his ear in a conspiratorial whisper. “You should come. We’re having a party tomorrow. It would mean the world to your mother. It’d be the best Christmas present ever. Will you at least consider it?”
Was she serious? Did she have too much spiked eggnog or mulled wine? “You think General Organa of the Resistance will welcome a visit from the Supreme Leader of the First Order, hmm?”
“Well, no, not when you put it that way, but she’d love to see Ben Solo.” She settled back onto her feet and held his gaze with that soft smile and those rosy cheeks. “For that matter, so would I.”
Oh, the heat that unfurled below his waist at her implication— Never mind that she insisted on calling him Ben. This girl would surely be his undoing. He harrumphed.
She glanced above his head. “I don’t know if I’ll have a chance to see you tomorrow, so—”
She stepped closer, so near the heat shimmering from her body breached his many layers. She flipped the ridiculous necklace over her head and around his neck. He would have ripped it off, but all his attention was on her hands— Why were her hands still gripping his shoulders, clenched in the quilted fabric of his doublet?
She dimpled up at him, a smile more dazzling than any he had yet to behold.
He was mesmerized.
She glanced again above his head, levered him down and herself up, and pressed her lips to his. Quick as lightning and just as electrifying.
His heart stopped.
“Merry Christmas, Ben.” She dimpled at him again.
And the Force-connection closed. Naturally.
He stood dumbfounded. If he weren’t a kriffing nerfherder, he could have grabbed her waist or plundered that pretty mouth or said something. Anything. But he froze like a wide-eyed schoolboy on the receiving end of his first kiss.
He ran his tongue across his lips. She tasted like peppermint.
***
Kylo paused before the remains of Darth Vader’s helmet, where it rested on an obsidian pedestal. It seemed to melt and morph, glowing with green light as it reformed to its original appearance. Goosebumps prickled on his arms, and he took a long step backwards. He didn’t sense the dark side at work, but if he was seeing things, then clearly he was too tired to meditate. And clearly this was not the night to seek his grandfather’s voice.
He squinted at the mask, which had resumed its usual mangled form, and shook his head. Definitely seeing things. “I bet you never had to put up with this kind of inanity.”
“You’d be surprised,” a male voice said from behind him.
Kylo jumped but had his lightsaber ignited in hand before his boots settled back to the floor. He spun with ferocious swiftness and the blade struck true, slicing clean through the intruder.
“Nice saber,” the man said, “if a bit unstable. Though to be honest, I haven’t given up hope you’ll carry mine.”
Kylo blinked at the figure haloed in translucent blue light. A Force ghost. “Grandfather?”
The shorter man stood with arms folded across brown Jedi robes and quirked an eyebrow. He was younger than expected and didn’t look at all like Kylo imagined. He didn’t see any resemblance to himself, except perhaps in the length of his sandy brown hair and the prominent bob of his throat.
“At your service, Benny, my boy.” He cycled his forearm in a silly little bow.
Benny?
“‘Grandfather’ sounds a bit stuffy, don’t you think? Maybe ‘Granddad’ or ‘Grand-Ani’ or even just ‘Anakin.’ I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want to acknowledge our relationship.”
A thousand thoughts and emotions collided in Kylo’s head and resolved into a single question: “Why?”
Why had Anakin abandoned the dark side? Why hadn’t he answered on all those occasions Kylo pleaded with him to speak? Why did he choose now? Why was he here?
“Right. You want to come straight to the point.” Anakin steepled his hands. “Prudent, really, given the time limitations. I’ve come to warn you that if you continue on your current path, you will face a lifetime of heartache and suffering. I know this because it’s what I endured. I would spare you that fate. As long as there’s breath in your lungs, it’s never too late, but do not wait until the end of your life like I did to return to the light.
“I have procured this opportunity for you, Ben. Consider it my Christmas gift. When the chrono marks 0100 hours tomorrow, you will be visited by the spirit of Christmas past. On the next night at the same hour, you will receive the spirit of Christmas present. And on the third night, at the last stroke of midnight, you will meet the spirit of Christmas yet to come. Be ready. Listen well and choose wisely.”
The words hardly registered there was so much Kylo wanted to ask and discuss. “But, Granddad—”
“I must admit some surprise that you’ve already gotten into the spirit.” Anakin flicked at Kylo’s chest and winked. “Astonishing, the things love will make you do.”
Kylo looked down at Rey’s red and green lights still blinking around his neck and flushed. He yanked the necklace over his head, located the tiny switch, and powered it off.
When he lifted his gaze, Anakin was gone.