It feels… odd, to be among people after so long in the wilderness. She is used to the quiet sands and whipping winds, the sun's merciless heat and the odd tiny lizard scurrying past her feet in search of food or shelter.
She has never felt comfortable around people, not really, and so she does her best to pack away her purchases of rations and climbing gear as quickly as she can, tries to ignore the prickle of unease on her neck as her hand leaves her blaster-staff for a moment too long for her liking.
She can feel Maz Kanata's perceptive gaze on her, looking her up and down as if she were an interesting bounty set to be delivered, and she tries not to bristle as the woman hums in thought.
"Who are you?" the other asks, and she stills. It is an old question, one she never feels quite ready to answer, yet Maz asks it often all the same. Her hands nearly brush against something hidden deep within her pack, and she resists the urge to take hold of it in her agitation.
She hasn't held it in years; there is no need to do so now, she reminds herself.
Squaring her jaw, she looks up at the pirate with durasteel in her eyes and frost in her voice. "I'm no one."
The spherical droid she found in the middle of the desert is named BB-8 according to his serial number, and he is far better company than those thieves back at the settlement could ever be.
He is an odd little thing, curious and clever, and constantly rolls off into deeper sections of the Star Destroyer, inspecting the worn-out husk of machinery as if it is the most interesting thing in the world, and she can't stop herself from smiling at him as he does so.
She watches him spin about, content to lounge in the light of the small fire she'd managed to get going. Shadows flicker over rusted gray walls, and her eyes track the droid's movement even as she relaxes.
She knows there is nothing out there to hurt him, to hurt them.
She knows this, though she is loath to think about how she knows, and so she doesn't.
She just sits, lets BB-8 explore the familiar ruins, and looks upward, at the stars, and tries to guess which one is hers.
"Where do you come from?" the question is unexpected; she only realizes she's asking when the words are halfway out of her mouth, and by then it's too late to stop them.
Her gaze drops back to BB-8 as he whirs to a stop, beeping at her in that silly way she almost understands, his head tilted as if in confusion. She doesn't know what he's saying, but she can guess by his tone somehow: "Why do you want to know?"
"I'd like to know, is all," she says, shrugging as nonchalantly as she can manage, even though curiosity burns deeper in her heart; she hasn't left Jakku anytime in her memory, and the occasional dream of living amongst the stars and flying to different worlds made her terribly curious about what it was like out there. "You got here, and now you're stuck here, but you came from somewhere else. Do you know where?"
BB rolls toward her a bit, beeping at her again, and she gets the impression that he isn't mad about the questioning. "Somewhere, somewhere." He was purposefully being cryptic, she knew.
"Everyone comes from somewhere," she agrees with a nod, smiles kindly at the droid as he spins up to her, allows her to pat a tentative hand on top of his head. "Me, I come from here. Jakku, the most boring planet in this quadrant and the surrounding five systems. And you…"
She trails off, and his eye sensor seems to focus more intently on her when she pauses to think about it, really think about it.
She blinks.
"You're waiting for someone," she guesses, and the surprised, indignant chirp she gets in return makes her grin. "You're waiting for someone from wherever you're from to come and get you. Because you're important to them."
BB-8 neither confirms nor denies this, only offering a low grumble at his cover being blown wide open. Who knew droids could pout? She thinks it's pretty funny.
She gives him another sympathetic pat before climbing to her feet easily. "Well, you chose the right stranger to follow around," she says, trudging over to the other side of their tiny camp as he follows after her. "I'm the perfect person to understand your problem, BB."
He stops behind her, makes a confused whirring sound as she crouches next to her pack, opening it to dig out a ration bar.
"The thing is, BB, I know all about waiting," she admits quietly. Her hand slips further into her pack to brush against smooth metal, before she snatches it back out with food gripped tightly in her fist. She sends the droid another smile, this one a bit shakier than the last, and tries to ignore the pulse of foreign-familiar something in her fingers that comes with touching the cold thing so errantly.
She's had a long day, she's (lonely) tired; that's why she feels the need to go on and add: "Truth be told, I've been waiting for half my life."
There's a second where she's a bit stunned at herself – why would she go and just say that out of the blue? – before something bounces against her leg, and she looks down to find BB staring up at her mournfully. He beeps, and she (wants to believe) thinks he asks, "Waiting for what?"
Her eyebrows furrow, and she glances back up at the sky, finds one star in particular. It doesn't stand out, doesn't twinkle more than the others, isn't terribly bright.
But it feels right, and for a moment the squeezing around her heart lessens. "For my family."
She doesn't like people, doesn't trust them, especially when they fall out of the sky in a flaming TIE fighter and are wearing an Imperial flight suit. Word of the First Order had reached Jakku years ago, and though it seemed they had no interest in this barren planet, she had always been wary enough to gather word of the fanatics whenever she could. Just in case.
She doesn't like or trust this man, this pilot who stumbled from the wreckage looking half-dead on his feet, but he is injured, dehydrated, alone; she cannot in good conscience turn him away, even when the thieves' settlement isn't too far away.
BB-8 seems to like him in any case, rolls right up to him to inspect his injured leg clumsily, and that is enough to make her decide to help.
"Don't down it all at once," she cautions him as she reluctantly hands over one of her canteens, his hands shaking as he takes the gift slowly. "If you cough it back up, it'll be a huge waste out here."
He does his best to follow her advice, yet still manages to dribble a few drops of the precious liquid down his chin. "Sorry," he gasps when he can, but she decides to let it slide; he hasn't tried to shoot her yet, hasn't made any move to grab her supplies and make a run for it, and for this he earns just a few grace points from her.
Once he is no longer dying of thirst in the desert heat, they move on to the next problem, but there's not much either of them can do about his leg; he is a soldier, and she has never been much of a Healer. She does manage to wrap it rather skillfully, but with no bacta on hand, there's no telling if it will get infected out here.
He stutters in gratitude when she ties off the makeshift bandage, but she waves off his thanks with a hand. "It's nothing," she says, though it really, really is; you can't afford to be kind out here. The terrain and the predators and the people are always willing to kill you. Kindness is always rewarded with a blaster bolt in the back.
But she cannot turn away from this man.
He is lost, like BB is, like she is; she much prefers the company of the droid, doesn't like getting involved, and yet…
She already is involved; if nothing else, she feels she must see this good Samaritan act through and help him get somewhere relatively safe.
The settlement is full of thieves and smugglers; they will not take kindly to First Order Stormtroopers in their camp. Even so…
"Come on," she says, rising to her feet, slinging her blaster-staff and pack over her shoulders and offering a hand to the pilot. "I know a place."
She manages to steal a new outfit for him before they enter the camp, so he won't be shot as soon as he comes within range of the sentries' rifles.
With no other idea what she can do, she takes him to Maz Kanata; there is no real trust between them, merely the occasional bartering of goods and discussion of weapon upgrades, but the other is the only being she knows in this camp that won't immediately snatch their belongings and hold them at blaster point once the pilot's injury becomes clear.
Kanata stares between the two of them, her with her uncharacteristically worn, sweaty face, and him with his uncomfortably stiff leg and uncertain stance in his new outfit, and Maz almost seems amused.
"Come on, you fools," Kanata says, waving them into her tent, and the crowd of hungry spectators scatters in frustration when their prey enters a safe haven.
The pilot shoots her an uncertain glance. She shrugs, motions to the door with one hand.
"After you."
Kanata gives the pilot a fresh, bacta-laced bandage and tells him in no uncertain terms that he is not to remove it until it stops stinging. He looks properly terrified of the glaring eyes, and hastily agrees not to touch it.
BB-8 knocks against her leg, and she offers her tiny companion a fresh charge from a power cell; he chirps happily in an affirmative, and she leaves him to his nap, approaching her other responsibility as Maz leaves with the medical supplies.
"How you feeling?" she asks, quirking an eyebrow when he sighs in obvious relief.
"Much better, thanks to your friend, ma'am." His face slips between a smile and a neutral expression. He clearly has no idea what expression he should be making; spending most of his time wearing a helmet that covered his whole head would do that.
She shifts a little uncomfortably, thinks of her bag and cool metal hidden within it, thinks of grabbing hold of it for a fight when Maz had only asked her a simple question. "Maz and I go back, but we're not really… friends."
He blinks in surprise, as if it had not occurred to him that coming here had been a risk for his guide as well, and looks ready to spout a whole new litany of apologies; she heads him off by saying, "This place isn't very friendly with strangers. I suggest you figure out where you're going from here before too long."
"Wait," he says, watching her stand and move across the tent in confusion, "You're not staying here?"
"I'll wait till BB is done charging," she says with a shrug, sticks a few more pilfered items into her pack and does her best to ignore the metal cylinder hiding under her change of shirt, "But after that, I'll be heading out again."
"Can I at least know who rescued me before you leave?" he asks, a bit desperately; she's the only one he knows on this planet, even if they've only just met. He doesn't want to see her leave.
She mulls over that question for a bit. How to answer? She glances at him from the corner of her eye. She doesn't trust him. She saved his life. She doesn't like people. He'd been nothing but polite to her from the moment he stumbled out of his crashed ship.
She decides on, "I'm a friend."
Well. Today is not going according to plan.
TIE fighters appearing with the sunset, silhouetted against the bright stars' light, was the only warning they received before everything went to hell. Blaster fire ripped through the camp, killing more than a few unlucky denizens and setting fire to several tents, blowing up when it came into contact with fuel tanks or other flammable merchandise the smugglers had hidden away.
She ducks into the entrance of Maz Kanata's already scorched tent, grabbing her things and darting glances outside. Staying is out of the question; running out into the TIE's line of sight is suicide.
She needs a plan.
She doesn't have one.
BB-8 squeaks in terror, rolling beside her as if seeking protection from the explosions ripping through the settlement. She settles a comforting hand on top of his head, cringing as one ship cruised dangerously close to their hideout. "We'll be okay," she assures him, but her tone isn't especially convincing.
A hint of movement has her spinning, blaster-staff rising to point directly at the TIE pilot as he tried to make his way to her side. He freezes, wide-eyed, holds his hands up as she glares at him icily.
"You brought them here," she accuses, furious and shaking. "They followed you!"
"No!" he protests, backing up a step when her staff whines warningly as it charges up. "I swear this isn't me! We were on a mission to scout out this quadrant, but we had no orders to attack it! Something must have changed after I crashed!"
"You really think I'm going to believe you?!" she demands, jerking her head at the destruction raining down around them just outside.
"Think about it! What use would the First Order have for destroying a smuggler's den?! They must be looking for something!" he points out desperately, because the sound of the explosions is getting closer and the whine from her staff means it's fully loaded, but suddenly she goes deaf to all of this as one phrase in particular stands out in her head:
"They must be looking for something!"
A chill goes down her spine as her eyes dart to her pack, where smooth metal awaits her touch as it always has.
There's no way, she thinks. No way they could possibly know.
But perhaps they do. Perhaps that's why they're here.
Perhaps it's her fault after all.
With a frustrated grunt, she lowers her staff, glowering darkly at her companion, but before she can say something – anything other than the truth – another shot goes off dangerously close to their position, and they both go diving to the side for cover.
BB-8 makes a shrill noise as he swerves, quickly approaching his tall companion as she pushes herself out of the sand, shakes her head to try and clear the ringing from her ears.
They don't have time for this. They need to get moving.
She glances toward the pilot, levering himself up painfully, trying to keep weight off his probably bleeding leg, and she makes a decision.
Perhaps it's his fault. Perhaps it's her fault.
Whosever fault it is, nobody deserved to die here like a womprat in a trap.
Shooting to her feet in the shifting sands with the expertise she'd gained from a lifetime of living on this planet, she darts to the pilot and offers him a hand, which he stares at blankly for a moment; she did just threaten him at blaster point, after all.
"Get up!" she snaps. "We've got to go!"
She can't quite believe their stroke of luck on having gotten here.
There were explosions, a lot of them.
The TIEs suddenly began blowing up in midair as a ship she'd never seen before but knew instantly to be the Millennium Falcon swooped overhead, picking off the vultures one by one with the marksmanship of a master.
She and the pilot had gaped at the abrupt rescue only for a moment before the Falcon swung low, landing ramp lowering while it hovered above the ground, a Wookie appearing to growl loudly at them.
She'd shared a glance with her companion, shrugged, then took off toward their rescuer, pilot just a step behind her as the camp continued to blow up around them.
They climbed aboard with aid from the Wookie – he had to stoop and haul BB directly onboard, since the droid couldn't climb aboard like his Human companions could.
After they all ducked inside, the large, wooly creature had thundered away toward the cockpit, and the three remaining were suddenly thrown about as the ship turned sharply and blasted away, rocking slightly as the remaining TIE fighters gave chase.
The pilot slipped away at some point to help man the guns, leaving her to hold onto the wall for dear life and try to wrap her legs around BB's round metal body to keep him from being rolled away; a spherical design gave him great versatility in different environments, but it also meant he couldn't get a good grip on smooth flooring when they were being tossed through space.
After a long while, the bumps caused by enemy fire fizzling against their shields and the abrupt jerking that came with dodging came to an end, their flight smoothing out so easily that she thought perhaps they'd gone into hyperspace.
Which meant they were in space. Which meant they weren't on Jakku anymore.
She slumped to the ground, letting BB roll closer as she brought a hand to her head, trying to stave off a headache. This ship, the Falcon that she didn't know but recognized instantly, was too much like the foreign-familiar feeling of the metal cylinder in her pack; it made her nostalgic for things she'd never known, and she didn't like it.
The pilot reappeared along with their rescuers, the Wookie and a grizzled older man with light skin and grey hair that most certainly looked like he didn't belong in deep space piloting a Starfighter.
He introduced himself as Han Solo, and his partner as Chewbacca, and they were the co-captains of the Millennium Falcon; all things she knew, though she did not mention this, just bit her lip as BB hummed questioningly beside her and the ex-Stormtrooper stared at their saviors suspiciously.
It had been several hours since then, and she was getting antsy.
Han Solo, whatever his intentions were when he rescued them, didn't seem to be up for a chat; he'd disappeared back to the cockpit while Chewbacca went to the back of the ship for something or other, leaving their three new passengers in the galley.
She feels uneasy, but does her best to hide it; clearing BB of the sand stuck in his gears is a good way to distract herself.
The ex-Stormtrooper has no such luxury, instead left to pace restlessly across the floor like a senator in a meeting.
It is silent for a time, broken only by BB's occasional beep and the pilot's boots thumping against the floor.
Finally, he decides enough is enough and comes to stand next to her seat.
"What do you think they want with us?" he asks, glancing behind him as if to catch eavesdroppers.
She has no doubt the Wookie can probably hear him with his species' keen ears, or perhaps they are being kept under camera surveillance, but it is of no consequence. The captains of the Millennium Falcon mean them no harm, and she tells him so.
"How do you know?" he demands suspiciously, as if this were all her doing.
It might be, unintentionally, and she tries to ignore the sting of guilt this fact brings with it.
With a sigh, she stands to face him, looking him straight in the eye for the first time since she nearly killed him. "I just do. I don't know how, or why. It's just a feeling," she admits, and it's not much in the way of convincing, but he seems to believe her for the moment.
"Still… we need to be ready to act if things go south here," he points out, and she can't argue with that when she'd been thinking the same thing herself.
She nods to him. "Alright, but if this is going to work we'll have to work together."
He raises an eyebrow. "There will have to be some trust between us for that happen."
She narrows her eyes. He forces something of a smile.
Taking a breath, she shrugs. "I have an idea how we can get started on that front. I don't know your name."
His eyebrows furrow, as if he actually has to think of it for a second. She thinks perhaps he will give her an alias, but when he says "Finn," his voice suggests nothing but truth.
She'll accept it for now.
"I'm Rey."
The stories from her distant childhood are all true – the Jedi and the Sith and the battle between good and evil – and she is half tempted to go find a private room only so that she might sit down and cry as words half remembered from a dream filter through her head:
You have that power too.
But they don't have time for her emotions, which unfortunately means they don't have time for more questions either; Solo is most adamant on finding BB-8's original owner, a Resistance pilot called Poe Dameron, who evidently went missing after crash landing on Jakku.
Solo won't say why Dameron's so important – the Falcon's mission to find him is already restricted Resistance information he probably shouldn't have told them – but it's their top priority now.
She cannot stop herself from asking, "Why bother stopping to save a couple of strangers if this mission is so important to your Resistance?"
Chewbacca bristles, and Finn stares at her in shock at her boldness, but Solo's eyes don't waver; there's a look in them she can almost recognize, a spark of something even stronger than curiosity; he looks at her almost knowingly, but that can't be right. As odd as this place is, she knows she's never seen him in her life.
"We tracked BB-8's homing signal," he gestures to the spherical droid, who beeps an affirmative when she sends him a questioning glance before refocusing on Solo and his foreign-familiar eyes that won't leave her face. "Picking up stragglers wasn't part of the plan, but…"
He pauses and shrugs, clueless. "Just… had a gut feeling, I guess."
Gut feeling. Yeah, right.
She shares a look with Finn for a long moment, unsure of their role now that they've been shoved into the middle of a much bigger picture. Though, she supposes he was already in the middle of it; if he hadn't been shot down, he might as well have been firing at the Falcon as it left Jakku behind.
As for her, well… for all her (running) wandering, it seems she's never really left the spotlight at the center of the galaxy.
They share a nod, and she looks back to Solo's appraising eyes.
"How can we help you?"
Boarding an Imperial Star Destroyer in the middle of a fleet undetected is impossible, improbable, suicidal.
But that's where Dameron's tracking beacon is coming from, where a trap is most assuredly awaiting them, and for whatever reason, this pilot is important enough that Solo actually deems this death sentence as a viable option.
She charges her blaster-staff and tries to ignore the fear in her heart.
It is as they are nearing the coordinates of the First Order fleet that she finally notices Finn fidgeting awkwardly in the back of the cockpit, glancing at Chewbacca's huge rifle and Solo's own personal blaster with trepidation, when she realizes rather suddenly that he has no weapon of his own; his blaster, if ever he had one, was most likely destroyed when his ship crashed, and he'd taken none with him from the settlement.
A cold uncertainty settles in her gut, wondering what she should do – what she could do.
She knows full well she has a weapon to spare, but-
That was.
Hers.
Her family's.
Her most precious, accursed possession.
She can't simply give it away to some First Order fanatic when they were about to enter his territory.
But she cannot possibly bear to wield it herself, not when-
dark skies, cold winds, fires licking at the horizon and cool metal gripped in both hands, one a well-known hand to hold and the other a final gift as a goodbye
-she couldn't do it.
She can't.
But Finn cannot be left defenseless.
He has made absolutely no move to betray her so far, even after she threatened his life. He could almost be a friend, for all that they've known each other less than three days.
As the ship slides out of hyperspace and huge battleships loom menacingly in front of them, she makes up her mind.
She reaches into her pack, grabs hold of a foreign-familiar metal cylinder that seems to hum at her touch, and pulls it out with no small amount of trepidation.
Her Grandfather's last possession; her Father's last gift to her.
It is not right to give it away.
But only holding it makes her feel like her soul is caving in, her heart climbing into her throat to choke her, so she turns quickly to Finn and gains his attention by clearing her throat.
He looks over, and she holds the cylinder out for him to take, which he does, after a moment of surprise; the stories of the Old Republic are clear. He knows what this is.
She stares at him with the weight of half-buried memories of green light dancing across her vision and Han Solo's calculating gaze on her back.
"Don't lose that," she manages to croak.
"It is more precious than my life."
They pull it off, miraculously.
They are onboard the Star Destroyer and only a few hallways away from Dameron's apparent cell before anyone realizes what has happened, and then things start escalating far too quickly from there.
Solo and Chewbacca draw the fire of the Stormtroopers, apparently gaining the attention of one called Captain Phasma, and proceed to lead them on a merry chase across the ship.
Finn had valiantly offered to draw the attention of Dameron's captor, some high-ranking Order officer, away from the man's prison, and really he has more courage than any Stormtrooper she's ever heard of; it would have been a waste if he'd died on some waste like Jakku.
It is only her and BB-8 that manage to make it to Dameron's cell, winded and a bit panicked, but none the worse for wear.
Poe Dameron is a bloody, sweaty mess of a human being, and even her aversion to people is not strong enough to keep her from trying to help him, offer comfort somehow.
He's hazy when she pulls him up, dizzy and confused, and he tries to draw away from her helping hand until BB rolls up to nudge him, beeping at him in concern, and the realization of a rescue dawns on him.
"You're safe now," she says, and she might just be convincing, because he smiles so widely it looks like it physically hurts him.
"Thanks. But," he stutters, taking in her raggedy desert garb and nonstandard blaster-staff. "Who exactly are you?"
All the answers to that question-
no one, lost daughter, a stranger, a helper, a friend, a target, a rebel, a lost relic, Rey
-flash through her head, but for once, with a half dead man and a curious little droid as the only witnesses, she decides to admit the truth.
"I'm Rey Skywalker," she says with a smile, "I'm here to rescue you."
A/N: DONE. YES. VICTORY IS MINE. This started as a thing but then it became a THING and a whole lot of headcanons and speculations and hopes got thrown into the mix and now I want to lie down and cry because of Skywalker family feels.
~Persephone