WHO: Leia Organa Solo (Legends) & Kylo Ren WHEN: Backdated to before the jump, Friday night, Jan. 5 WHERE: Leia's apartment, where Kylo is staying SUMMARY: Coffee & conversation WARNINGS: None.
Perhaps it was time that Kylo admit to himself that the reality of Leia - not his Leia, but the other one - coming to her senses and realizing that he was a monster that she wanted nothing to do with wasn't going to happen. He couldn't begin to explain that any more than he could begin to explain why she'd wanted anything to do with him in the first place. She wasn't his mother - she hadn't given birth to him - she had three other children, and they were all currently here so why on earth would she need another one from a timeline different than her own, particularly one who she knew killed Han Solo? He didn't understand it, but perhaps at this moment in his life he wasn't going to look that gift horse in the mouth.
And when she'd responded to his statement that he kept thinking she would come to her senses, that maybe she kept hoping he would he hadn't been able to keep the smirk from his lips. It had been small and short lived, but it had been there. Perhaps there was a stubbornness from Leia that he didn't mind. And while he might not have any clue what to do with his own mother, and every time she didn't reach out to him, it might hurt more than it had any right to under the circumstances, maybe he could just sit down and believe that in another lifetime - in another timeline - maybe he would have felt less alone.
Millicent was standing right next to his feet, he could sense her, even if he couldn't feel her precisely. She was clearly in the mental space where she would try to kill him when he moved as punishment for having left her alone for a week while he was away with Eliot.
"I know you're there," he told Millicent, voice low, as he ground up decaf espresso beans so he could make Leia a latte when she arrived.
Leia let herself into the apartment quietly, a small smile on her face. It had been a while since she was here, in this place, and a flood of memories pressed into her. She pushed them aside and removed her cloak, hanging it by the door as she walked into the adjustment. "Kylo?" she called out, though she assumed that he knew that she had arrived. Unless of course her presence had been masked or removed when his mother arrived.
She brushed her hand over the back of a chair as she found him, making a drink on some sort of contraption, similar to what she'd seen him use at the cafe. "That smells heavenly."
Kylo turned around just long enough to offer her the smallest of smiles. It was almost welcoming from him considering the coolness and avoidance he had given her when they had shared the apartment together. Back when they'd first shown up here after the cruise and his room in the Finalizer had been here in the midst of Han and Leia's apartment. He'd hated that, but it had been the way of it, and looking back on it, he wasn't certain it had been the worst thing to happen to him ever. It had meant that he'd ended up with his Grandmother as a roommate for the past few weeks as well, and that had been something he was even glad for.
"It's decaf, so it won't keep you up all night," he told her, reaching for milk to pour in and steam up. He paused and turned around. "I can put it in a paper cup if you don't want to stay."
Her smile grew. "No, a mug is fine. I'll stay for a while. Thank you." She liked that he thought enough about her to make it decaf. "Is this new? This - elaborate caf maker?"
As he worked, she watched him, while also mentally cataloging what she ought to pack up to take with her to the new apartment. It wasn't like she had that many possessions here, and that was fine, something she was used to, really.
"All right," he said quietly, turning his attention back to the espresso machine. If you would have told him a year ago that he would enjoy the process and wouldn't even mind the work of it on a day to day basis, he would have said that you were completely mad, but the truth was there was something almost calming about it, and it was something simple he could do for people and it was easier than trying to figure out what to say a lot of the time. But the question was easily enough answered.
He steamed the milk and nodded, turning around. "I asked for one for Christmas. It's one of the nicest non-commercial ones, and I liked the color," he shrugged, referencing the bright red color of the machine. "It seems to work fairly well anyway. You can be the judge of whether its as good as the shop or not."
"I would imagine that might have something to do with the person making it too," Leia said. She fingered the ends of one of her braids and smiled at him. "Have you started experimenting with it at all? I've seen online that some baristas do artwork with the steamed milk." While she had certainly studied art when she was young, it really hadn't been one of her stronger suits. She could paint a half-decent watercolor, but there wasn't anything special about it.
More questions, especially about the arrival of his mother - his actual mother, Leia reminded herself - were on the tip of her tongue. She held back though, telling herself she could ask him later.
The person making it. It seemed ludicrous on one hand to think that Kylo had any particular talent, but on the other hand, he had picked it up quickly, quickly enough that he’d had no difficulty keeping his job despite the fact that he wasn’t as smiley or friendly as most of the baristas and he’d left several times, not through his own fault - but still. He could feel the annoyance of the manager when he came back. But her question brought his head up, startled.
“I -“ he looked at her. He had been thinking about it. That was the startling thing, because it felt like such a random thing to be asked. He shook his head, his face softening into almost a smile. “I can just do a heart really. But I saw some things others had done and I was thinking of trying to learn more. It’s silly, but it could be amusing.”
That pleased Leia, that he had already given thought to it. "I don't think it's silly. I think it puts an interesting touch to what you're giving to other people, what you're delivering to them. Who knows, maybe you can bring a smile to your customer's face with some art like that." She shrugged a little bit. Maybe that wasn't something that he wanted to bring to his job - it certainly didn't one hundred percent fit him - but it could be a nice surprise.
"Can I have a heart on mine then?"
Kylo wasn't really that worried about making people smile. He made them good coffee and so far as he was concerned that was enough, but at the same time, there was an appeal to the idea if for no other reason than none of the other barista's did it. It would set him apart, and he did like that notion.
He brought up the milk over the espresso he'd poured in the cup before. There was a moment's hesitation as he considered a heart, but while he also considered something else. It was something that he'd seen done on the web and he was both not certain he could do it, nor was he certain that he really wanted to do it. On the other hand, he suspected Leia would like it, and while a heart was fine, it was also something he'd done a hundred times before.
He considered it, moving through the motions in his mind of what might be able to make it happen for them, and then he poured milk and espresso together. What came out was not as defined as he would have preferred, but it was recognizable enough. He could do better, but it would require more practice. He sat the empty milk warmer down, and turned around to hand the cup to Leia, watching her carefully as he did so.
"Thank you," she said, taking the mug from him. When she looked down at it, she expected one of two things. A heart, as she had teasingly requested, or nothing artistic at all. What she didn't expect at all was something else entirely, and that was what she was looking at in her latte. It wasn't perfect by any means, but it was definitely the Rebel Alliance symbol, the symbol that she was pretty sure also represented his mother's Resistance.
She smiled, touched, and leaned up to kiss his cheek. "Even better than a heart," she said.
Kylo turned away quickly so he could pour a latte of his own, but it wasn't quite so quick that a flash of a lopsided grin and a flush on his cheeks couldn't be caught if Leia were looking. He might still hate the Resistance, and be uncertain where he stood with his own mother, and think the Republic was destined to fall apart with or without the First Order, and find his opinions on what should replace it to be something he had a difficult time really logically arguing through, but recently he found himself wondering if he would have had a different life if things could have been different. Maybe another him wouldn't have thought twice about putting such a symbol in a latte. Maybe if he'd known about his grandfather a long time prior he wouldn't have felt all that weight so intensely. Maybe… maybe… maybe. What were the unchangeable pieces of who he was? What was he destined to be so intensely that he couldn't get around it? Because wouldn't that determine who he could manage to become here even if he couldn't change his past? And if he wasn't certain how to forge a future with his own mother maybe he was unwilling to look the offering of friendship from a different Leia in the face and turn it away. Maybe somewhere in there he could figure out how to deal with his Leia.
"It's not statement of support for the Rebellion or the Republic," he threw over his shoulder. "I've not switched sides or anything. I just wanted to see if I could do it." He poured his own, not really trying for anything in the foam, and turned around.
"Anyway, you said there was stuff you needed to move. Do you need help?"
Leia did catch the flash of a grin and and a flush and she hid her own smile behind the mug as she lifted it to her lips to sip it. "I wouldn't presume to think that you've switched sides at all," she said simply. "Even though neither of those sides exist here to support." She sipped the coffee again and then glanced over at the rest of the apartment.
"Oh - I think just a few books and clothes and the like," she said. "I don't really think I have much here anymore, so I just want to check."
He took a sip of his own coffee and nodded. She'd mostly moved out back when Han had left - something that he couldn't entirely blame her for. He didn't know what he'd do if Eliot left, but he wouldn't want to be somewhere he'd been with Eliot. Maybe he'd want to be with his grandmother still though. He had begun to get used to her presence, and while he didn't want to say he'd be lost without it, exactly, he was going to miss her if she ever moved out.
"We can look around after we finish these then," he offered, swallowing and considering if he'd seen anything that stood out to him. Small gestures aside, he didn't entirely know what to say to her any more than he knew what to say to his own mom, but he wasn't as terrified as saying the wrong thing with her as he was with his mom. "I don't remember much, but I've not really been looking," he added.
"Maybe I was just looking for an excuse to see you then," Leia said after spending a moment enjoying her coffee. She shrugged at him and then turned to return to the living room, where she dropped onto the couch, one leg tucked under her, her mug in both hands.
"Tell me about your trip," she suggested.
Why? hung on the tip of his tongue at this revelation, but he swallowed it along with a sip of the coffee and after a moments hesitation he followed, brow serious as he glanced over at her and sat down across from her. Maybe he needed to stop trying to understand whatever this was or wasn’t. After nearly a year he didn’t have any reason to disbelieve her sincerity. He could push her away, but to what end? That was the same question he’d had after he’d confronted her about knowing about Han’s death. She knew, it would have made sense to him if she wished to avoid him, but she didn’t. Fine. Deal with the thing in front of him.
He watched her quietly, even as he realized he did want to talk about the trip to someone, maybe. And he hadn’t really done so.
“It was good to get away,” he finally offered quietly, his gaze not leaving her face as if he were maybe daring her to change her mind about all of this. “I think we had an invitation to the wedding, but we just stayed in - the two of us. It was…” he hesitated to find the right word. Nice felt too blasé for how it had been. “Needed.” He finally settled on that even though it wasn’t quite right either.
Leia rubbed the edge of her mug with her thumb and nodded. "Sometimes that's better than going out, even if it's somewhere you want to go. I feel like I've had many, many more quiet nights here than I ever did before, probably since - well, since I was very young. Sometimes I don't even know what to do with myself anymore."
She smiled. "I'm glad you have Eliot, if I haven't said that before."
"Quiet nights aren't really something you get in our family," Kylo said, and he was certain of that. Even if her timeline was not his, quiet nights seemed likely to be rare. She was not so different from his own mother in that respect. And certainly he hadn't had them since joining the First Order.
His gaze dropped to his coffee, and he couldn't quite keep the corners of his lips from turning up. He could say something snarky, or deflect the sentiment, but he couldn't find it in his heart to do so when it was a sentiment that he shared so profoundly. "Me too," he responded simply before lifting the coffee to his lips. Everything felt as if it would have been different if he and Eliot hadn't become friends.
"Honestly, I don't really know what to do with myself these days, with the quiet nights." Maybe it'll get better, she thought, once she moved in with the twins and Anakin. The ranch had been full of life and energy, but there was always something missing. She suspected that was Han, of course, and though that wasn't going to be changing, something was.
Leia smiled again. "Well, I don't want to take up too much of your time. I can give a quick glance back in the bedroom and see if there's anything I need to take. Thank you for the coffee."
Kylo took a drink from the mug before setting it down on his lips, deciding to act without really thinking it through because most of the time it felt like when he over-thought things that ended up poorly (even if he did overthink things more often than not). "Maybe one of those nights you should come over and El and I will cook for you and Grandmother. You two could talk and we'll fix food." He stopped, glanced up at her quickly as if uncertain of her response. "If you want, I mean. Eliot enjoys your company too."
His invitation, quite frankly, delighted her. And it showed on her face as she nodded. "I'd like that very much. I know Padmé and I have been saying we need to get together more and there's nothing like a home cooked meal. And I like Eliot too, of course."
Somewhere something screamed that sooner or later she was going to disappoint him, and that if he were smart he would keep his distance so it couldn't happen. But he was also kind of tired of doing that, and maybe he was realizing he didn't even want to. "I'll talk to El," he said quietly. "Fix a date that will work."
He stood up, putting the cup of coffee to the side. "I'll go back with you if there's anything you need carried."