The pain gnawing at the lower edge of Phasma's ribcage is dull, trivial, but enough that when she reaches to hang her sweat-soaked towel over her locker door, she flinches and inhales sharply.
Of course the girl would notice.
Her locker is on the opposite side of the room, a sea of benches between them piled high with squadron helmets, flight suits, and training clothes. But in a few hurried strides she's at Phasma's side.
"You're hurt," she says, her tone somewhere between curiosity and concern.
Phasma glances down at her torso, to the spot where the pain seems to emanate from. There's a small rip in her black, short-sleeved workout top, where the curve of her ribs meets her abdomen, and now that she's paying attention she can feel warm liquid trickling down her side. But she has full use of her limbs and doesn't see any internal organs poking out, so there's no reason for alarm.
"It's nothing."
The girl—and Phasma probably ought to think of her by her name, it's what other… Resistance members would do—cocks her head, lips curled into a scowl.
"It's nothing I can't handle," Phasma amends. She doesn't need the—Rey—hovering over her. Deciding that she can finish changing in her own quarters, she plucks the towel up again, swiping some remaining sweat off her brow. She hurls the cloth at a cleaning droid as it wheels between the rows of benches, and it lands on the droid's domed head, covering its ocular socket. It chirps out a series of agitated beeps as it unfurls a utility arm and draws the dirty towel into one of its on-board compartments.
Phasma swings her locker door closed, its rust-flaked hinges creaking before it clangs shut. She turns on her heel to take her leave, but Rey darts in front of her, and she has to stutter to a stop in order not to plow her over.
Rey's hand shoots out towards Phasma's injured side, but she jerks it back just before making contact, raising her palm in supplication.
They've been over this several times, during sparring sessions and post-mission celebratory pats-on-the-back, certainly after that time Rey had seized her arm in the middle of a darkened hallway during an evacuation drill. The girl had only been trying to direct her to the base's emergency muster point—but Phasma's first instinct when hands fly at her is to knock the perpetrator to the ground.
She's fought a lot of instincts lately.
No…
Instinct is flinching away from an oncoming blow. Conditioning is expecting one in the first place. She's battling programming, indoctrination, and conditioned habits—which are far different from instincts.
And as much as Phasma isn't accustomed to being touched—at least not without permission, and not outside of combat—Rey probably isn't used to tempering her actions for others. A scavenger snatches what they want, in order to get by. A girl growing up in relative solitude rarely has to ask anyone's permission, or follow any protocol other than eat, sleep, scavenge, survive, repeat.
They're both fighting the programming woven into the fabric of their very different lives. Phasma can hardly fault her if she occasionally stumbles.
Hand still held aloft, Rey lifts an eyebrow, silently asking permission to proceed. Perhaps the sooner she indulges Rey's interest, the sooner she can extricate herself from this situation. Tensing her jaw, Phasma runs a hand through her hair, then inclines her head.
Stepping closer, Rey cautiously thumbs back the torn edges of the fabric. "You're bleeding," she says, the tip of her thumb now coated with a red, sticky sheen.
That last trainee Phasma had worked with must have done it, probably caught her with the edge of his blaster scope. He keeps it sharp—an effective melee strategy when you've depleted your weapon's power cells. She'll be sure to praise him at their next session.
"It was a good strike. Your people are getting better."
Rey breathes out a deep sigh—they've had this conversation before as well—and shakes her head. "They're your people now, too."
"Oh, yes, of course," Phasma says dryly. "How could I forget?"
While they both may have arrived as outsiders amongst these newfound Resistance comrades, Rey had waltzed in already a hero, her reputation only escalating with talk of Jedi and lightsabers and mystical destinies. But Phasma had joined their ranks as a defector, her credibility as yet unproven to her new company. Despite the blood she has now spilled for the Resistance—her own as well as others'—there are still those who doubt her loyalties, who will never think of her as anything other than an enemy agent. While this may be a new world for both of them, it is preposterous to think that these people are as much Phasma's as they are Rey's.
"You should go see Doctor Kalonia," Rey says, when her continued probing elicits a hiss from Phasma.
"Oh?" Phasma leans down, looming over her. "Is that an order?"
She's always used her towering frame to intimidate, but whenever she tries it with Rey, the girl never budges, usually just folds her arms over her chest and juts her chin out. Phasma should be furious—even General Hux had yielded to the tactic on more than one occasion—but instead Rey's defiance is rather… disarming, and it fills Phasma with something that seems an awful lot like admiration.
"No, of course not!" Rey says, wrinkling her nose like she's actually offended at the suggestion. She backs up a step, dropping her hand from Phasma's body. The air surrounding her suddenly feels cold and oddly, achingly empty. Rey plants her hands on her hips, and there's that audacious set to her jaw that Phasma has come to expect. "Would you actually listen if it were?"
Phasma tilts her head as she contemplates this. "Perhaps if it was an order from General Organa."
Rey rolls her eyes. "You don't have to put up with the pain, you know. We have people, and equipment here to help. No one will think any less of you."
Phasma swallows hard and straightens to her full height, Rey having come uncomfortably close to the crux of the problem. She is a product of the First Order—a soldier bred for combat, a leader accustomed to structure and obedience—now trying to co-exist with those she had once dutifully slaughtered on the battlefield. She is already out of place here, and the last thing she needs is to show any sign of weakness.
"As I said, I will be fine. Thank you for your concern."
Their elbows brush as she breezes past Rey and heads out the locker room door, but Rey whips around and dashes after her.
Phasma stalks through the narrow corridors, her heavy footfalls echoing against the stone-and-metal walls as Rey scrambles to keep up with her long strides. The occasional technician, pilot, or officer passes them in the hallways, openly gawking—or glaring—at the former Captain of the First Order as she strolls side-by-side with their beloved Jedi-in-training.
A diminutive Sullustan in a mechanic's jumpsuit—his head bent over a datapad—rounds a corner in front of them, and Phasma roughly clears her throat, alerting him to their impending collision. He slows and cranes his neck up, his large, mouse-like eyes gradually widening as they take in her imposing form. When his gaze finally reaches her face, he yelps, his jowls wobbling frantically as he leaps to the side and slinks along the wall to pass them.
Phasma has tucked her chromium armor away in a storage crate, unwilling to completely part with it but uncomfortable wearing it amongst these people. But they all know who she is even without it strapped to her body. Maybe, at some arbitrary point in the future when she's deemed reformed enough, attitudes towards her will change. But now, even FN-21—Finn—still clenches his fists and makes as quick an exit as possible from any room she enters. Instead of snapping to attention in her presence, the people around her—her allies—lunge away from her.
But not Rey.
Rey stays at her side, silent, randomly glancing up at her, as Phasma navigates the halls of the Resistance base. They reach the junction that divides the living area from base ops, and Phasma comes to a stop. Automatically taking the passageway to the left, Rey continues a few steps past her before she halts as well, turning back around to Phasma with her brows drawn together and lips pursed.
Phasma has a choice here—she can veer to her right and continue on to her quarters, slap a bandage on her wound and be done with it. Or, she can turn to the left, accept the aid Rey offers.
Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Phasma swivels her head back and forth a few times between her options.
She follows the girl.
Rey leads them through a few more twists and turns, until they are standing outside the medbay. The door swooshes open and Rey steps inside first, arms crossed over her chest, one foot tapping an aggravated rhythm against the floor. Phasma lingers behind, leaning against the door-frame.
Dr. Kalonia straightens from where she's bent over a microscope. "Well, what have we here?"
"It's nothing," Phasma says, also folding her arms.
The doctor quirks an eyebrow, her eyes glinting with amusement as she glances between the two of them and their mirrored postures. She huffs out a laugh. "Clearly."
"She's hurt," Rey says. "And stubborn. But I don't think you'll be able to do anything about that problem in here."
Dr. Kalonia chuckles and gestures towards a cot. "Let's see what I can at least do about the wound."
With a drawn-out sigh Phasma pushes off of the doorframe and trudges into the room. She hoists herself onto the cot, her legs long enough that, even seated, she can still plant her feet flat on the floor. Rey hops onto the edge of a table opposite her, clasping her hands in her lap. Her legs dangle in the air, and she swings them freely as the doctor gathers a few items from a medkit.
"Are you just going to sit there and watch?" A hint of irritation slips into Phasma's question, but mostly she's curious about why Rey would stick around for this rather mundane task.
"I was planning on it," Rey says, shrugging one shoulder. "But I can go, if you'd rather."
There's no logical reason for Rey to be here, but nothing necessitating her absence, either. "I suppose it's alright if you stay."
Rey grins ear-to-ear as if this is some huge triumph.
"How were you injured?" Dr. Kalonia asks, running a mediscanner over Phasma's wound.
"A sharp edge on a blaster, I believe."
"Ah, well we shouldn't have to do too much to it then." She sets the scanner down and picks up a long-handled instrument. "It's deep, though. It's a good thing you came to see me."
Rey's lips twitch into a smug smile. I told you so, she mouths.
Phasma angles her head down, glaring at her from beneath her lashes. That glare has reduced battle-hardened soldiers to whimpering, pleading fools, but Rey just laughs, and Phasma has never had a sound like that—playful and bright and buoyant—directed her way in her entire life. It's a good thing she's already sitting down, because it makes her head swim a little, her equilibrium sway.
Dr. Kalonia taps a few buttons on the laser cauterizer in her hand. "Do you want an anesthetic for this part?"
Phasma puffs her chest out a bit. "That won't be necessary."
"Suit yourself."
The doctor hikes up the hem of Phasma's shirt to better access the wound, revealing her abdomen and obliques. Rey's eyes widen slightly as they flicker down to the exposed flesh, her lips parting as her smile falls. A flush of red overtakes her lightly freckled cheeks, and she quickly turns her head to the side, her gaze flitting over medical instruments, light fixtures, the wall—anything but Phasma's body. One corner of Phasma's mouth lifts into a knowing smile.
Her smile doesn't last long, though, as the cauterizer whirs to life and Dr. Kalonia waves it over the wound. Phasma gasps and winces, her flesh pinching and twinging as it knits itself back together. Her eyes dart back towards Rey's, but thankfully the girl hasn't noticed—she's still pretending to be fixated on something over in the corner.
After a few more passes, the hum from the cauterizer winds to a halt, and the doctor sets the tool down. She reaches for a bacta patch, just as one of her assistants pops their head inside the doorway.
"Doctor? The general needs to see you for a moment."
"Can it wait? Unless… " The doctor looks at Rey and raises a questioning eyebrow.
"Oh! Uh, sure." She gestures vaguely in Phasma's direction, still not quite meeting her eyes. "If, uh, you don't mind."
"I do not. But thank you. For… asking," Phasma says. The concept remains unfamiliar.
Kalonia passes the patch to Rey before following her assistant out of the room. Hopping off of the table, Rey climbs onto the cot next to Phasma and settles cross-legged. Phasma leans back on her hands to allow Rey unobstructed access, the motion pulling at her newly stitched flesh. Her muscles tense as she flinches again.
This time Rey catches her signs of discomfort. "You ok?" she asks, peeling the backing off of the patch.
"Of course. But none of this was really necessary—I would have been perfectly alright on my own."
Rey tips her head back and groans. "'Thank you, Rey, for suggesting I get this professionally taken care of instead of pouring Corellian brandy on it or whatever we strong, stoic types do.'"
Phasma blinks at her several times. "Are you quite finished?"
"With your bandage? Or snarking at you?"
"Either," Phasma says. "Both, preferably."
Rey glowers at her out of the corner of her eye as she holds Phasma's shirt up and out of the way, preparing to place the bacta patch over the raw, pink mark where her open wound had been. Her palm rests against Phasma's stomach, sending out remarkably pronounced waves of heat for such a relatively small hand. But unlike with Dr. Kalonia's clinical touch, Phasma's abdominal muscles jump beneath this contact. She marvels at the strangely pleasing contrast of Rey's soft, warm skin and the thick, rough calluses that arc along the crest of her palm.
Rey places the patch on her skin, patting it down around its edges. "There. Now it won't even scar."
"What's one more scar? I already have plenty."
Rey absently trails her fingers down Phasma's side, over the raised, jagged lines of the old wounds streaking across her flesh. "Yes, you do," she says, voice hushed.
Phasma's brow furrows at the faraway look on the girl's face, at the blatant concern she's showing for injuries that had occurred when Phasma had been fighting against the Resistance. It's confusing—baffling, really—yet somehow soothing at the same time.
"I suppose I don't need to go out of my way to acquire any new ones," Phasma says through lightly gritted teeth, a concession to all the care the girl has shown her.
One corner of Rey's mouth quirks up, but she keeps her eyes trained on Phasma's midsection, continuing with her exploration. Pausing just above her hip, Rey traces a fingertip along a particularly angry, malformed scar. "What's this one from?"
"Shrapnel from an exploding cannon turret. I likely would have been killed if my armor hadn't taken the brunt of the blast."
Rey grimaces, exhaling heavily. "Good thing for your armor, then."
"Indeed," Phasma says, and that's a big part of why the chrome pieces are in a storage crate rather than a recycling heap—as much as that armor represents a part of her life that had been mired in destruction and the subjugation of innocents and her own lack of free will, she wouldn't be here today without it.
Rey's finger rhythmically circles the choppy edges of the scar, then strokes back and forth over its bumpy surface. Phasma's eyes drift shut, her breathing becoming audible as the rise and fall of her chest deepens.
Rey clears her throat, abruptly drawing her hand back and returning it to the bandage, smoothing it down one last time. "All finished." She begins to roll the hem of Phasma's shirt back down, covering up her bare midriff again. "See? This wasn't so bad, was it?"
Rey is of course referring to getting patched up for a minor injury, but Phasma focuses on the comforting warmth that had flowed out of Rey's hand, on the bright presence of this girl who doesn't flinch away from her, who seems to gravitate towards her instead. The concepts of affection and attachment hadn't been written into her conditioning, but every day is now an exercise in erasing the old and writing something new, replacing programming with something more like living.
Phasma reaches across her torso and helps Rey finish tugging her shirt back into place, their fingers brushing as she does so. Rey blushes again, but this time instead of a knowing, slightly smug smile, Phasma grants her a small but sincere one.
"This is… acceptable," she says, and Rey's eyes light up with joy.
Even if the rest of her newfound comrades never warm up to her, Phasma could be content with having this one person in her corner.