Author's Note: So yeah, a TLJ AU. This is obviously NOT related to my Connections series (yes, still working on Defining Balance too) – just something fun (with some angst etc). What can I say, I've been flying a lot for a trip this week, and planes sort of got in my head… POV does change between them.

Disclaimer per usual – I do not own Star Wars or any aspect of the SW universe; just a fan with an idea. No profit here, just fun for me.

As the young woman packs up her small apartment in a northern Los Angeles suburb, her thoughts wander. In the grand scheme of things, Rey Kenobi knows that the change she is making is for the best. After losing both her parents and then her guardian and being sent to live with his friends Han and Leia Solo at the age of five, she'd made the transition from Londoner to New Englander in a heartbeat.

Despite the physical distance it created between her and her adopted family, almost five years ago she'd left for California, where she has spent her time finishing her Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering after completing her Bachelor's degree in the northeast. The tightness of her schedule and the demanding nature of her degree program mean that she has spent precious little time back east since coming to California.

But she's moving home now, back to the small Connecticut town where she grew up. Only an hour and change from New York City, there is a small technology-driven university where they are in need of a new professor to teach Aeronautics while also working on getting papers and research published. They offered Rey the job last month, and she plans to be there in coastal Connecticut in a few days to work up the course outlines for the classes she'll be teaching and to get re-acquainted with the school where she spent summers and holidays following her Uncle Luke around as he ran the library on campus.

She isn't exactly thrilled to be heading back to the northeast, but she misses her family and, unbelievably, the turn of the seasons, even winter. She has a new Jeep waiting for her, one bought for her by Leia, who is happy to have her coming home. Her adopted brother, Leia and Han's only biological child, is also in the area, but he is centered in New York where he works as an investment banker.

Rey shakes her head when she thinks of Ben Solo. He never understood her interest in flying and science. He tried repeatedly to convince her to put her facility with numbers "to good use" by studying Finance, but she had been wholly uninterested. He has been somewhat surly with her since she declined to follow his advice and direction, so much so that even Han and Leia had to shout him down about it. She feels bad that she somehow caused a rift in the family, but her Han and Leia tell her that it's not her fault that, in Leia's words, "My son can be a real jackass when he wants to."

One thing she's truly happy about is that her childhood best friend, Finn Storm, who she'd bonded with over their shared status as an orphan, is back in Connecticut after a stint in the Air Force. He and his girlfriend Rose both live in a nearby town where they operate a small airfield that Rose inherited. It's where her new employer does a lot of test flights, so the fact that she'll see her friends often is highly appealing.

She isn't leaving anyone behind here – of the two boyfriends she had here, both turned out to be real jerks, one cheating on her with not one but two of his colleagues in the Physics program at her grad school and the other who thought it was a good idea to hit her now and then. It had taken more nows and thens than she likes to acknowledge for the latter relationship to end, and she'd had to punctuate it with a restraining order. It had taken a fair amount of effort to convince Han that killing the guy wasn't worth the jail time.

She tapes up the last box and looks around. She'll miss her little studio apartment. For now, she's moving back to Han and Leia's house that sits close to the water on the Connecticut shore, and she looks forward to mornings on the beach or paddle boarding the river near their home. Specifically, she's moving into the garage apartment that Han and Leia built a few years ago, a studio space not entirely unlike this one. It has a view of the Sound and the woods, and she looks forward to spending hours reading in the window seat in the living area.

The movers will be here soon, taking the few things she's accumulated to ship back home. All she's carrying on to the plane is a mailing tube with some schematics she has been working on and her backpack with her tablet and laptop. Other than that, her suitcase that she'll check waits in her bedroom, ready for the flight that will take her from LAX to JFK, a red-eye that will bring her back home to a new challenge that is daunting but something she also relishes.

X X X X

Adjusting the flaps, retired Air Force Captain Poe Dameron brings the jet prototype in for a landing at the small airfield in south central Connecticut. He's talking to the small tower on the headset he wears, giving them a quick report on how the jet handled in some low maneuvers out over the eastern end of the Long Island Sound to the edges of the open Atlantic. The plane is solid but a little sluggish, and he's trying to make some mental notes about its performance.

He has done a lot of test flights here, and he knows the airport approach like the back of his hand. In seconds, he's safely on the ground and taxiing to the hangar. He'll meet with the plane's designer, Dr. Gial Ackbar, later this evening in order to run through the issues.

As Poe goes through the small fighter's shutdown sequence, he thinks back to his days as an active duty pilot running missions over Afghanistan, and he can't help but twitch his right leg a little. He feels a twinge in his knee, and he once again curses the injury that earned him a Purple Heart and an Air Medal but also forced his retirement. On a good day, it's like nothing ever happened. On a bad day, he can barely bend his leg. At least the good days significantly outnumber the bad most of the time.

He shakes his head. He'd sustained his injury when he was hit with anti-aircraft fire while his squadron was escorting a group of U.S. Senators and their senior staff on a visit to the war-torn country. Even after being hit, he'd taken out three of the guns, allowing the plane carrying the dignitaries to escape. Unfortunately, when he punched out as his jet went down, he'd been hit with sniper fire that shattered his right knee, ending his military career at the age of thirty-two.

He'd passed out from pain in the Medevac chopper and woken up in a field hospital the next day. He'd been shocked to see Leia Organa-Solo, Senator from Connecticut and someone he'd known his entire life, sitting next to his bed. He remembers blinking in confusion, his head still muddled by pain meds. "Senator?"

At his scratchy voice, she'd stood and offered him some water through a straw. After he'd had a drink, she'd put the cup aside and reached up to run a hand through his decidedly longer-than-regulation hair. "I was a late add to the contingent. Your mom would be proud. You Damerons, always looking after my ass." She'd looked more sympathetic than he'd cared for, and he'd figured out quickly that it wasn't good news.

"My knee is toast, isn't it?" That question had brought hesitant, ominous silence. He still cringes at the memory as he sits on the tarmac here four years later. He was offered a desk job, which he knew would've killed him emotionally – he's only taken advantage of his history with the Senator one time, and that was to ask her to help him get a medical retirement from the Air Force. She had, and here he is. He only lives a few miles from the Organa-Solo house, the Senator retiring herself last year.

Poe climbs out of the cockpit a moment later, and he hears a loud bark. He grins to see his large rescue dog, an orange and white Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever. People usually blink when he tells them the breed – he'd ended up with him when old family friends called him about the well-loved dog needing a home after his previous owner passed away a year ago. The dog is only three, and he's still quite rambunctious. It's good that Poe has to run every day to keep his rebuilt knee loose. Bee keeps up with him and then some.

"Hey, Bee." The dog's name was courtesy of his previous owner. Per his friends, apparently he was a huge puppy, earning the nickname "Big Boy," which quickly became BeeBee. He lives up to his name, being slightly oversized for his breed. The dog bounds up to him, bumping his legs. Poe reaches down and scratches his ears, and he feels Bee's tail whack against his leg.

"Captain Dameron, how did she do?" One of the airfield's operators comes up to him.

"Airman, I've told you to call me Poe. I'm retired, remember?" Poe grins. He and Finn hit it off the moment they met, once they figured out their shared history. Finn went in to the Air Force to sort himself out personally, though, never intending it to be a permanent career. He's now just out of the Reserves, helping his girlfriend run this airfield and going to school part-time.

Finn returns the grin. "Yes, sir!" Poe rolls his eyes at their usual banter, and Finn goes on, "Anyway, how did she handle?"

Poe shrugs. "Pretty good, but the turns got sluggish at higher speeds. I'll give the doc some notes."

Turning serious, Finn nods. "Sounds good. Anything I need to check on her?" Finn had been a mechanic in the Air Force. Between him and his girlfriend, this airfield is known as a place for planes that need work. They can fix almost anything. They certainly help him keep his old Cessna, inherited from his mom and in the hangar here, flying.

Poe nods. "Yes. The flaps were grinding a bit. May have been just that it's new, but worth a look."

"OK, will do. Thanks, Poe." Finn grins again. "See you on campus next week?"

Interestingly, this airfield isn't where Poe met Finn. He actually met him when Finn took one of Poe's classes at the university where Poe is a professor. Many are surprised when they find out that he's not just retired military; he also has a Ph.D. in History. His focus, of course, was military history, but in addition to teaching upperclass and graduate courses in the subject, he also picks up at least one section of freshman history every term. He met Finn in an upperclass seminar on WWII military tactics, and he'd been impressed from the start at Finn's grasp of the material, particularly the ground tactics.

"You will. Home stretch, right?" He grips the younger man's shoulder.

"It is." Finn's expression is pride this time. "Two semesters to go, and I'll have my B.A."

"That's great, Finn."

The two men walk towards the small building outside of the hangar where the university has some test planes. The small building houses the office for the airfield and has a small tower for Air Traffic Control. Finn's girlfriend Rose waits for them at the office. "Dameron, Dr. Ackbar called and told me that he was called away to consult on a design issue for a friend in Seattle. He'll be back next week, and he asked that you meet him at his office on campus on Monday. There's a new prof joining his department, and he said you should meet her."

Rose waggles her eyebrows in an exaggerated leering manner, and Poe rolls his eyes. Rose and Finn have been trying to set him up since he met them. "Got it. As you were, you two."

He waves at them and heads to the parking lot. He climbs into his car, his singular financial indulgence, a fifteen-year-old black Porsche 911 convertible. The one mercy of his injury is that it was to his right leg, so he can still drive a manual transmission easily. He also likes to tinker with it, so he can keep it up and running himself. He keeps a four-wheel drive SUV too, as he doesn't always want to drive his Porsche in the snow and on the heavily treated roads of the Connecticut winters.

Slipping on his sunglasses – aviators, of course – he whistles for Bee, and the dog jumps into the car effortlessly, over the door frame and into the passenger seat. He slips a safety harness on the dog and attaches it to the seat belt, and they zip out of the parking area, him still shaking his head. He appreciates the fact that Finn and Rose want to find him someone, but he isn't looking.

After losing the only serious girlfriend he ever had to an RPG in Afghanistan five years ago, he is more than a little hesitant to enter the dating fray. Also, at thirty-six, he finds himself feeling less and less interested in the whole singles scene. Unless a woman slams into him out of nowhere, this may be it for him.

His hand automatically goes to the ring on the chain around his neck, his mother's wedding ring. Oddly, as much as he'd cared for Jess, he'd never really thought about giving it to her. That in and of itself tells him that the relationship was more of a wartime thing than a forever thing, but that realization, which hit him about a month after her death, actually made him feel worse about it. She should still be here, and with someone who truly loves her.

He sighs and rakes a hand through his hair as he flies up the coastline. Twenty minutes later, he pulls his Porsche into the garage of his house in Madison. The house is contemporary, slightly out of place in this world of colonials, saltboxes, and capes, but he loves the large windows and high ceilings (even if he is less fond of the heating costs they drive in the winter). It's also isolated, on an acre of land with river access and less than half a mile from the beach.

He thinks about taking his kayak down to the river, but another twinge in his knee tells him it needs to move. "Run, Bee?" The dog barks in approval, and Poe grins. He goes into the house and, after jotting down his notes for Dr. Ackbar, changes into running clothes and shoes. Grabbing Bee's leash (which he usually doesn't need to use – the dog sticks to him like glue) and a bottle of water, they head out, running towards the beach and enjoying the waning days of this New England summer.

X X X X

Two days later, Poe mounts his kayak on top of his SUV. Usually, he just drags it down to the river near his house, Bee right at his heels. Today, though, he was invited for brunch at Leia and her husband Han's house in Guilford with a promise that he can clean up there. So, he's heading that way, planning to kayak the West River in the morning, then head to the Organa-Solo house, where he'll be well-fed and Bee can play with their giant, brown Newfoundland, Chewie.

When he gets to the river, he sets his kayak in, and Bee hops up front. The dog, great swimmer or not, has a dog-sized lifejacket on. The kayak is designed for two, but it doubles perfectly for him and Bee. Poe chuckles, and he scrambles on far less gracefully than Bee did, pushing off from the shore.

The river is mostly empty this morning, given that it's a Thursday. Poe had chuckled at the invitation from Leia, who emphasized that one of the gifts of being retired is that "one can brunch whenever one damn well pleases." Since he's still on break from one job and fully retired from the other, he was game. That thought aside, he plans to spend this afternoon and evening finishing up his course plans for the semester and the notes on his first week of lectures, which start in about ten days. Due to a bet he won against a Poli Sci prof, Temmin "Snap" Wexley, he doesn't have any duties during Freshman week this year.

Paddling at an easy pace, he notices a young woman on a paddleboard about fifty feet in front of him. Even if he isn't looking for a girlfriend, he can't help but admire the woman's strong build. She's slight and tall, but he can see the definition in her arms and legs due to her sleeveless, short wetsuit (a look he will admit he finds far sexier than any bikini out there), which is covered by a tight-fitting life jacket. He turns his attention back to the river quickly, mostly owing to not wanting to sit there ogling her.

Both he and the lone woman are nearing where the river opens into the Sound when two teenage kids on large jet skis come flying down the river way too fast. They shoot past Poe, kicking up a mean wake. He has to grip Bee's jacket tight to keep him on their small boat. He yells, "Look out!" to the young woman ahead of him, but he's too late. He watches in dismay as the kids' wake topples her into the river, and he can see that she gets a little wrapped up in the tether she has to her board, and her paddle also kicks up, looking like it hit her in the head.

When the woman doesn't surface, he curses softly. "Stay, Bee!" he commands the dog in a no-nonsense voice as he strips off his own life jacket. He's right by the shore, so he's able to quickly bank his kayak. He knows he should keep his vest on, but he also knows he needs to get to her fast. His high school days as a life guard come back to him, and he does a shallow surface dive before hitting a fast crawl stroke towards her, keeping an eye on the tether and the tension still in it.

When he gets to her board, he dives under, finding her unconscious, her leg wrapped tight in the tether. He grabs the knife he carries on his ankle when he's on the river, and he slices through the tether. He gets his arm around her in a rescue position, and he has her up on the river bank in seconds. She's not breathing, but she does have a heartbeat, so he gives her a few quick rescue breaths. She gags softly, and he turns her to her side to help her cough up the water in her lungs.

She blinks and tries to sit up, pulling away from him. He immediately releases her, saying, "Easy, easy. Are you all right?"

She coughs a few more times, and then she looks at him, a slight amount of fear in her eyes. He holds both hands up where she can see them. "I'm not going to hurt you. Two idiot kids kicked up a wake that knocked you off your board. You didn't come up, so I came for you. I'm the guy who yelled 'look out' far too late."

She nods and chokes out, "Where's my board?" He must look surprised by the fact that the board is her big concern, but she adds, "My uncle gave it to me, it's special to me." He notices a light lilt to her voice, the bare traces of an English accent.

He turns to look for the board, and he laughs out loud. Even as the woman asks him what's funny, he moves and points at what made him laugh. "I told him to stay."

The woman furrows her brow and peers around Poe, her eyes landing on a medium-sized orange and white dog, swimming towards them and dragging her board by the severed tether. Poe helps Bee pull the board onto the riverbank, and then he turns back to her. "That's Bee – as you can see both a good swimmer and a retriever. I'm Poe. And now I'll ask again. Are you all right?" Bee chooses that moment to shake himself, flinging water all over them both.

"Seriously, Bee?" Poe glares at the dog, and the woman giggles, making Poe grin. But his smile turns serious when he notices the nasty bump swelling on her head near her temple. He reaches for her, hesitating when she flinches. He pulls back as if burned, his hands going up again. "I'm sorry, I just was going to check the bump?" He says it like a question, his mind racing and his hackles rising at the notion of anyone hurting this woman, or any woman for that matter, such that she'd flinch like that.

X X X X

Rey is mortified. Not only did get knocked from her board by two dumbass kids, this (she'll admit it, entirely gorgeous) man had to save her like she was some sort of Disney damsel in distress. Then, she's sure she offended him by flinching away from his hands when she can tell from his entire demeanor were only going to try to help her, as he'd just told her. He's dressed in a short wetsuit just like her, and she definitely did hear his voice shout a warning before the wake came.

"I'm sorry," she shakes her head and winces at the small motion, "I think I'm OK. I just want to go home. My mother is going to lose her shit over this. And thank you for at least trying to warn me and for saving me."

Poe gives her a half-smile. "OK, let me tie your board to my kayak, and we can take you to my SUV and home from there. I can fit your board in my roof-rack."

"No, that's all right, I can just call," she pauses, reaching for her phone, which is usually in a waterproof case on her hip, "Shit." Her phone is gone along with the case. It's probably out in the Sound by now. At his raised eyebrow, she explains, "I lost my phone."

He nods. "Stay here. Mine is on my kayak, only about fifty feet upriver. Be right back. Bee, stay this time! Miss, I'll bring my boat here. Will only take a moment."

Before she can argue, he jogs away. Her keen eye notes that he moves with a very slight limp, favoring his right leg. His dog flops against her, and she scratches the dog's chin. In moments, he's sprawled across her lap as she scritches his ears and rubs his tummy. Her head is a little fuzzy, but she thinks about the man's name. Poe. It's a name she's heard before, but she also can't help but think that's it's a little unusual, at least as a first name. "As if Rey isn't," she mutters to herself.

A couple of minutes later, he is back, pulling his kayak up onto the bank. He opens a case similar to the one she lost, and he hands her his phone after unlocking it. "Call whoever you need to. I promise you're safe with me, though." He holds out his hand to shake her free one. "Captain Poe Dameron, US Air Force, retired."

"Dameron?" She furrows her brow. "Like as in Kes Dameron and Shara Bey?"

His expression suddenly mirrors hers. "Exactly as in them. Those are my parents." His face clouds and his hand comes up, seemingly unconsciously, and grips a ring that he has on a chain around his neck. "Who are you?"

"Rey Kenobi." She doesn't say anything else, wanting to see if he knows her.

"Wait, you're Rey? Rey-is-coming-home-from-California Rey? Leia and Han's daughter?" The man clearly knows who she is, and she relaxes slightly.

"Yes. That Rey. Is it OK if I call them now?" She waves his phone around.

He nods. "Of course. Leia is in there under 'The Senator.'"

Rey looks at the phone and finds the name. She calls the number. Her adoptive mother answers on the third ring. "Goddamnit, Dameron, you better not be calling to tell me you're running late."

"Mum?"

"What the hell? Rey? How do you know Poe?" Her mother is completely thrown, not something that can often be said.

"Well, that's a bit of a story. I can give you the long version later, but the short version is that I got knocked off my board, and he, well, he," she struggles for the right word.

Helpfully, Poe supplies in a voice loud enough for Leia to hear too, "Rescued you. I rescued you."

Rey glares at him, but he just shrugs, obviously unrepentant. "I have a bump on my head, and I think I lost my paddle." She sees Poe glance over at her board and then at the water beyond, and he nods in confirmation.

"Well, Han's out at the beach running the dog, and I have brunch cooking. Can Poe bring you here? He was due for brunch anyway." Leia sounds a little worried, but not about her being alone with Poe. She relaxes further.

"OK, Mum. I can let him bring me home."

"How long will you be?" Leia asks.

Rey isn't sure, so she passes the phone to Poe, saying, "Mum wants to know how long we'll be."

Poe takes it. "Maybe forty-five minutes, Senator. I have to get us back to my car, and then we need to get there."

Leia must say something back, because he grins sheepishly and rubs the back of his neck with his free hand. "Yes ma'am. Time to being presentable is more like an hour or hour and fifteen."

Unbidden, the thought that as far as she's concerned, he's perfectly presentable right now, springs into her head. She scowls a bit, but she also can't ignore his huge, thickly-lashed eyes; the damn-near perfect face; the floppy, soft-looking black hair; and, well, most everything about him.

Her usual type is tall, dark, and broody. He doesn't fit the mold, even when it comes to dark – he may have olive skin and dark hair and eyes, but he seems to radiate something positive and good. Even after only knowing him five minutes, she guesses that he's far more prone to mischief than evil. He's decidedly not broody, and while he's not small, he is far closer to her height than to the height of her two exes, both probably having five or six inches on him.

"Rey? Dr. Kenobi?" Poe is looking at her, worried. "Are you OK?"

She can see that he has hung up with her mother, and she blushes crimson as if he can tell what she was thinking about. "Sorry, yes. I'm fine. Just a small headache." She also notes that he switched to her title. Her parents must brag about her, and that makes her blush deepen even more.

He nods and helps her onto his kayak. He already has her board tethered to it in order to tow it back to his car. "Can you hold Bee for the ride? He'll probably sit happily in your lap, given the shine he seems to have taken to you."

"Of course," she answers quietly. He places the dog in front of her. True to his word, Bee curls up in her lap almost immediately, his hind end not quite fitting and resting on the small amount of available deck. Poe carefully climbs up behind her and gets his paddle. They start moving, and Rey considers asking him to let her take a turn, but she guesses that notion would be met with stony disapproval. Actually, other than his request that she take Bee, he's gone mostly silent.

They get to his SUV quickly, and she sees that it's a fairly simple, probably five-year-old Explorer. He gets the doors open and motions her towards it. She's shivering slightly, and he must notice, because he wordlessly hands her an old Air Force Academy hoodie.

She nods gratefully, climbing into the passenger seat and slipping the sweatshirt on as he puts Bee in the backseat and then loads his kayak and her board in the rack on top of the car. By the time they get to her parents' house, she doesn't know what to make of his sudden silence. Maybe he's broody after all.

She quietly directs him to drop her at the garage, noting the apartment over it. He agrees, pulling up to it, where she's completely unsurprised to see Leia waiting. Poe asks, "Is this where you store your board?"

Rey says yes, and she watches as Poe climbs up to fetch her board and carry it easily to the rack Leia points out in the garage. Once the board is hung on the wall, she is surprised to see Leia hug Poe tight to her. He also looks surprised, but he hugs Leia back without hesitation.

Getting out, Rey carefully lowers herself to the ground. As she closes the door, Leia says, "Go to the house, kid. Use the guest room you usually borrow and get cleaned up. Brunch is in half an hour."

He smiles. "Sure, Senator."

Leia just rolls her eyes and shoos him away. Rey watches as the SUV rolls over to the main house, maybe one hundred feet away, and her eyes follow him as he collects a bag from the back of his SUV and calls Bee, who dutifully follows him inside. She turns to see Leia observing her. "Let's get you upstairs. I'll help you change for brunch." Rey knows it's an order, so she complies.

X X X X

Brunch turns into an unmitigated disaster, at least in Poe's opinion. Rey got irritated when Han asked Poe to go with him to fetch Rey's Jeep. Poe had cringed at her face, but he agreed with Han. Head injuries are no joke, and she didn't need to drive. She was pissed, though, and it seemed like it was all pointed at him.

She'd been sniping at him since he and Han came back from their quick errand. He doesn't understand it. Maybe she doesn't like military men. He's wearing an old USAF t-shirt with his jeans, so maybe that annoyed her. If that's the case, he'll be disappointed, but he'd also be surprised, given Leia and Han and their stance on the military. Then, when asked about finishing up her degree, he'd been about to engage her in conversation, but she made a crack about Liberal Arts "joke majors," and he'd stood up, rolling his eyes and carrying the plates to the kitchen.

After he'd helped clean up, Leia walked him and Bee out. "I'm sorry, Poe. I'm not sure where that came from. She's usually quite pleasant to be around."

He shakes his head. "Don't worry about it. You know my skin is thicker than that. But honestly, I just don't have the energy for the science vs. liberal arts debate right now."

"No, she was out of line – it doesn't matter that she doesn't know what your job is. It matters that she was being a grumpy pain in the ass." Leia looks pissed, and Poe has the fleeting thought that he's glad that it's not at him.

He leans down and hugs her. "Leia, take it easy on her. She took quite a tumble, and I'm sure her head is killing her."

"You're way too nice, Dameron." She lifts an eyebrow at him.

He just shrugs as he lets Bee into the car. "Tell her I hope she feels better soon, OK?" Leia agrees, and moments later, he's heading down the long driveway. He's honestly not sure what just happened. Rey's mood was so dark that they hadn't talked about why they didn't really know each other, what her job was out here, anything. He mutters, "Not my problem."

X X X X

Rey watches as her mother bids her apparent savior good-bye, still fuming – both over him agreeing with Han that they should go get her Jeep, and then over his leaving in a huff about the college majors crack. She gets lost in thought again, and she doesn't know when Leia comes back inside. "What the hell was that, Rey?" Leia sounds outraged.

"He agreed with Dad and got all huffy that I joked about liberal arts majors!"

Leia half-expects Rey to stomp her foot. She rolls her eyes. "Rey, you really need to know your audience. On the second part, he might've gotten huffy because he has a Ph.D. in History and teaches at the same school where you're about to start," Rey's jaw drops, but Leia isn't done. "And as for agreeing with Han, he's a retired combat pilot. He knows from head injuries. No way would he be on board with you driving just hours after dragging you out of the water unconscious."

Rey flushes in shame. "Damn it. I'm sorry, Mum."

"Your mom's not the one who you need to apologize to, Little One." Rey turns to see Han standing there. "Everything else aside, by your own admission, that man saved your life today."

Han shakes his head and goes to his garage, where he tinkers with an old '57 Chevrolet convertible he calls the "Falcon." Leia just says, "I'm going to clean the kitchen," and leaves.

After a moment silently berating herself, Rey follows Leia. She tries to help her mom, but Leia waves her towards the stools at the breakfast bar. Rey perches on one, watching Leia work. They have more than enough money from Leia's father's legacy to pay people to do this kind of work, but Leia says that she likes to do it. After a while, Rey finally asks, "Mum, how long have you known Poe? I've never met him, but you act very comfortable and familiar with him."

Leia dries a large pan and lifts an eyebrow at Rey. "Longer than I've known you." Rey blinks in surprise, Leia puts the dish down. "I'm his Godmother, Rey. His mother was a pilot, too. She was a civilian contractor in Europe back when I was brand new in the Diplomatic Corps. She saved my life, flew me and ten others from the site of an Embassy bombing. We became fast friends."

"Wait, you're Poe's Godmother? How is it that we never met?" Rey is stunned.

Leia's expression turns sad. She walks over and pours herself a glass of wine from the open bottle on the counter. When she returns, she looks more composed. "At nearly the same time you were being born, Shara died. Ovarian cancer. Poe was barely eight. They'd been living near here, Shara working as my private pilot. Her husband, Kes, who used to work with your dad, fell apart. He was from central Texas, near San Antonio, so he took Poe and went home."

"The ring on the chain around his neck?" Rey asks quietly, knowing the answer.

Leia sighs. "Shara's. I kept up with them, of course. Poe had his pilot's license at seventeen, went to the Air Force Academy. His grades were top of his class, both in high school and college. He's far smarter than his flyboy persona makes him appear. I helped him work out a deal to do graduate work while on active duty. When he was shot down in Afghanistan four years ago, it was protecting me and the rest of the Senators and their staff on that trip. All he had left was to finish his dissertation then, and he did that while rehabbing his knee."

Leia motions to Rey to follow her. Rey does, asking, "It was his right one, right? He has a slight limp."

Leia nods, and they walk to the library, where Leia goes straight to one book among the hundreds here, handing it to Rey. The cover tells her that it's about air combat tactics of the second World War. It also tells her that Poe wrote it. "Would you believe that book made the top five on the New York Times Non-Fiction bestseller list and was briefly #1 on Amazon's Non-Fiction list? It was his dissertation. I made him submit it for commercial publication. I'm pretty sure the royalties from that paid for his house."

Rey hugs the book to her chest. "How is it that I never met him until today?"

Leia shrugs. "Just bad timing, sweetheart. By the time Han and I adopted you, he was in Texas, then Colorado for school, then active duty. He didn't move back here until you'd been in California for a year, and you know you've been scarce the last few years."

"I know you said his plane went down. What happened to his knee?"

That draws a frown from Leia. "He lost almost all of his squadron and his fighter was already hit, but he kept it in the air long enough to take out all of the anti-aircraft guns on the ground. Our transport plane escaped with the last fighter as cover, but Poe had to punch out. A sniper got him, shattered his right knee with a shot as he was coming down." Rey cringes, and Leia reaches out and squeezes her arm. "I sat with him for four days – two in the field hospital, then in the Medevac and in the military hospital in Germany. The pain was apparently excruciating. I'm also the one who had to tell him that his air combat days were over."

Leia has to wipe uncharacteristic tears from her eyes. "It killed him. I could see it in his eyes. I helped him get a medical retirement instead of the desk job they'd have put him on." Rey tries to say something, but Leia stops her. "He was the best natural pilot I'd ever seen. What he could do in a fighter jet was nothing short of amazing."

"I need to go to his house and apologize, don't I?" Rey looks at the floor.

"Give him a few days, sweetheart. He's going to Texas for the weekend to check on his dad, leaving tomorrow. Catch up with him next week." Leia squeezes her arm again.

Rey heads back to her apartment, book in hand. She goes to her small kitchen and makes a cup of tea, and then she goes to settle in on the window seat. She puts down the book and her tea to go get a sweater. On her bed, she spots his sweatshirt. On impulse, she picks it up and smells it. She's struck by the fact that it smells like the ocean and something outdoorsy and clean. She chides herself for wondering if his hair smells the same way.

She shrugs into the hoodie that is about two or three sizes too big for her and settles down in the window seat to read. The picture on the back of the book is him in his flight suit. According to the caption, it was probably taken only months before he was shot. She thinks to herself that the picture alone probably sold a lot of books to otherwise uninterested young women in particular.

As she begins to read, she can almost hear his voice in her head reading the words aloud. It doesn't take long to be engrossed, her highly technical and mechanical brain absorbing the material like a sponge. She also feels a lot worse about her behavior earlier when it occurs to her just how much more to him there is than meets the eye.

Note, while the allusions to where Rey went to school are intentional, the university where she and Poe teach is not – it's a made-up school, set in an area I have some familiarity with. So, no – they don't teach at Yale. But yeah, meet cute here, more to come.