Around town to the Arms- Friday night

[notconflicted]

It was weird. It was very weird.

Sia was beyond glad to see her father again, as she remembered him. It had been a sudden loss, and it had essentially wrecked her life ever since. It'd also been a sudden loss under horrible circumstances, which had included him turning to the dark side, turning on her, and her needing to beg her ex/his student to kill him. Her first order as Empress was to order an execution to cover up his death, and she'd never really had a chance to process it all, because she'd been too busy taking over his job, which she had never felt equipped to do. And now he was here, and she was trying to figure out how to process it.

She'd taken Roan around the island. He'd been unable to visit in the years that Sia had been a student here, and it really was nice to be able to show him where she'd lived. (She'd left out Caritas and how much time she'd spent there with an older former Sith. Dead or not, there were certain things he did not need to know.) She could actually pretend for a while that there wasn't something incredibly heavy hanging over them.

Sort of.


[For Pops, though can be open on the way! Topic of conversation NFB, please!]

Comments

[fel3]

Of course one of them had to be the one to begin to broach the topic, and Roan decided it would be him. "You're stalling, my dear."

[notconflicted]

Correct.

"I'm not sure where to begin," she admitted. "Our last meeting was… complicated."

[fel3]

"Complicated," he repeated, almost- almost- amused. "I did raise a diplomat."

[notconflicted]

She took her time with the words, because she was a diplomat, and this was tricky.

"You've been gone for nine months," Sia told him. "I didn't expect anything that happened. I saw absolutely none of it coming. I don't know that I've reconciled it yet. I've run it over a thousand times in my head, and I don't know what happened."

[fel3]

"What happened is that we had a chance to destroy the Sith, and you stood against me."

He hadn't forgotten that.

[notconflicted]

Startled, Sia stopped in her tracks. "I think you and I have very different recollections of that day, if that's what comes to mind first."

And she had to wonder… if someone fell to the dark side before they turned, how would they come back? Was she dealing with her father as she knew him?

And yet, she said, "We shouldn't do this here."

It'd been stalling, yes. Once they got somewhere private, they'd have to have it out.

[fel3]

"Very well. Where would you have us go?" Because Roan had known this was coming, too.

[notconflicted]

"Follow me."

The rest of the way through town was silent and tense, since it wasn't like they had small talk. Even asking how she or anyone else was doing involved dealing with this first. At least right now, it was only big talk.

When they got to her suite, she let him in first, and closed the door, and then turned to ask him, "Father... what do you think happened that day?"

[fel3]

That phrasing earned an eyebrow raise. "There was a battle, to end the Sith once and for all. I had a guaranteed way to destroy them, and I was betrayed by the people I trusted most."

He hadn't come here to argue. But they had things to work out.

[notconflicted]

That did sting, considering what had actually happened, what it actually did to a person to have to essentially give the okay to have your father killed to save a planet. She let those words hang in the air for a moment, and asked, "If that's your perspective, then why are you here?"

[fel3]

"Because you're still my daughter," he replied.

[notconflicted]

That did help. She hadn't known how much she'd needed to hear that for all this time until right now.

So she was gentle when she said, "The contagion wasn't designed to work."

[fel3]

Roan stared at her, not having expected that. "That's ridiculous. I know that it was tested."

[notconflicted]

Sia took a deep breath, and said, "You were betrayed, Father, but not by us. Tell me, who else were you working with? Besides Darth Maladi?"

[fel3]

"You know I won't answer that. Even to you," he said, almost automatically.

[notconflicted]

"It would help me if you did. Uncle Hogrum was working with the Sith against you."

She didn't want to say it. But she was also glad she knew that so she could say it.

[fel3]

Roan didn't believe it.

But Sia had been close with Hogrum. If she would say that, then she knew more.

"He's family."

[notconflicted]

"He's Mother's family," she said pointedly. "Hapes holds you responsible for her death. Him most of all. He was working with the Sith to ensure your downfall, I'm not sure how long. Possibly since she was killed. Maladi's contagion was engineered to affect everyone but the Sith. If Antares had allowed you to deploy the agent, every person on Coruscant would have been killed, including our allies, and the Sith would have won."

[fel3]

He didn't sense any deception from her, but she'd also stood against him when it mattered most.

"Where did you learn this?"

[notconflicted]

"From him," she said.

[fel3]

There went the eyebrow again. "He admitted this to you."

[notconflicted]

"Parts of it. Much of the truth was in what he didn't deny." It had been the worst conversation of her life.

[fel3]

Interestingly, she wasn't blocking him at all, so Roan knew that at the very least, she believed this to be the truth. "What became of him?"

[notconflicted]

"None of this is a problem anymore," she said.

[fel3]

Roan watched his daughter, taking that in, and noting her reaction. Which wasn't much of a reaction at all.

"I wouldn't have figured that of you."

He didn't disapprove.

[notconflicted]

"I did what needed to be done to protect the Empire," Sia told him. "My personal feelings had nothing to do with it."

[fel3]

"Then surely you can understand that I did what needed to be done," Roan countered.

[notconflicted]

"It is not the same thing," she said, sternly. Maybe more forcefully than intended. "What you did was dark side. We told you that at the time. You serve the Force before all else- or you're supposed to. Your actions would have destroyed billions of lives. We would have lost the capital, our forces, all our allies, leaving us with nothing. That says nothing about the lives of all the innocent citizens on the planet. The Empire would be dead, not because you were protecting it, but because you wanted revenge on the Sith."

[fel3]

"There's a reason I didn't involve you in this," he snapped.

Sia was good. She was the one who'd insist on running into battle herself rather than letting others die for her. She didn't know how to let others take the fall when needed.

[notconflicted]

"I'm involved because you died! I'm involved because you kept me aboard that ship and expected me to just go along with genocide!"

You know. That.

[fel3]

"No, I kept you on board to protect you." She wasn't supposed to know what happened until after it happened.

[notconflicted]

"Right," she remembered, nodding. "It was Antares you expected to go along with it."

[fel3]

"Antares was supposed to be loyal." It still stung that he wasn't. He hadn't expected that, post-death. "I should have known he would follow you."

[notconflicted]

Sia knew what she was supposed to read into that, and she didn't like it. She'd had ideas about why Roan had tried to interfere in that relationship, doomed as it was: Antares put her over the mission, had gotten his judgement clouded, and she'd gotten killed hurt. She hadn't really considered that Roan might have instead thought of it as a competition. Maybe it wasn't about Antares' loyalty to the Empire, but his loyalty to him.

"We won't accomplish anything this way, so I'm going to leave," she said simply, in that kind of calm way that was more of a warning sign than yelling. "I assume I'll see you tomorrow. And I need you to think about the fact that you won't believe the word of the person who is actually alive to see the consequences of your actions, who is stuck dealing with them."

These were her quarters for the weekend. She didn't care. She'd find someplace to go, and he likely wouldn't be there when she got back.