A/N: silverbird22 asked me for: Rey adopts a toddler who lost their parents to the first order, so cuteness of jedistormpilot parenting? Please?
xxx
Rey's first mission as a jedi in training is to travel to the outer rim and extract an informant, who's worried his cover was busted, but when she finally arrives, it's too late. The First Order came first and now fire's burning whatever's left of the village. There are bullet holes and blood everywhere she looks, and she's almost overwhelmed by so much death, suffering, fear, and crying, and wait.There's someone crying, she can hear it. She can hear them.
There's a survivor. She tentatively reaches out to the force, as Luke instructed, and lets her feelings guide her towards a destroyed house. The fire around her crackles, but she can still hear it; the deep, heart-wrenching sobs, coming from her right. She walks to the closet and opens it, only to find a small child, curled up into a ball, crying her eyes out.
When the little girl sees her, she tries to crawl away from her and further into the wooden closet, and Rey notices that she's bleeding.
There's no emotion, there is only peace, says the jedi code, and Rey tries her hardest to let all this hatred for the First Order pass through her. She kneels down and whispers to the child. "It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you."
The child doesn't even acknowledge her words, but continues to hold her own knees, crying and calling out for her mother to come back. Before Rey can think about what she's about to do, the words come out: "Your mom and dad sent me, they sent me to take you away from this place and to take care of you."
The mention of the girl's parents makes her react. She observes Rey for half a second, then throws herself right into the former scavenger's arms, hugging her for dear life. Rey got rid of the anger and hatred she felt, but she has no idea what to do with the warm feeling that takes over her entire being when she holds the child, so she just hugs her harder, as the girl falls asleep in her arms on the way back to the Millennium Falcom.
Rey doesn't know how to sing, but she does it when she feels the girl struggle in her sleep. She tries sending her good, calming thoughts, she thinks about the sea and the island, she thinks about the mystical jedi Luke Skywalker standing right in front of her, she thinks about Finn, coming back for her, she thinks about holding his hand, she thinks about Poe holding her hand and telling Finn and her stories about his home planet, about his parents and the force sensitive tree in his backyard. She thinks about how easy it was to fall asleep, despite everything, when she had both of them sleeping by her side, a mess of limbs and blankets. She thinks about having a family, a home, and this feeling is new, and scary, but it's good, it's warm and she's happy, so she lets it grow, she lets it spread slowly to every inch of skin she has, and then lets it overflow.
"I'll find you a place to belong too." She tells the sleeping child in her arms, rocking her back and forth.
xxx
"Her name is Jara-el, she's four, and I don't think she has anyone." Rey tells the General, over a transmission, while Chewbacca tends to the little girl's wounds.
"We're still regrouping." General Leia tells her, pained over the massacre, but she doesn't let it stop her, she never did. The General wears grief like an armor and goes to war. "But we will find her a home. There will be a ship waiting as soon as you land, to take her to a temporary home, while we search for foster parents."
"No." Rey's reply is too quick, and she tries concentrating on the first line of the jedi code. There's no emotion, there's peace. There's no emotion. "I won't send her away on a ship, I won't." There's no emotion, except that there is. There are too many emotions, and she's about to explode with them.
"The base is no place for a child. We're at war." Leia says, slowly, and Rey wonders if she knows. Leia was never trained, but she's force sensitive and judging by the way her face falls, she knows Rey's failing as a jedi.
"I'll look after her! And you said we're still regrouping, so there's no need for me to go on missions now. Finn and Poe will help me, I know they will, and she..."
"Rey." Leia stops her. Leia knows."Find your peace first, then help Jara-el find hers." Leia knows, and yet her voice is gentle and caring.
"She can't stay with me, I know that." Rey closes her eyes and breathes out. "I know that you'll find her a good family, but I'd like to meet them first. I'll find my peace knowing that her childhood will be different than mine."
"That can be arranged." Leia nods and smiles. Rey thanks her and sets the coordinates to get them back home.
xxx
Chewbacca flies the ship for the two days the trip lasts so Rey can spend the entire time trying to get the kid to open up. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes Rey talks about the ship, the controls and maneuvers and Jara-el falls asleep in her arms, and then wakes up with a million questions. But there are also times in which the girl is quiet and withdrawn, and Rey's at a loss. These times make her worry that maybe this wasn't such a good idea; Jara-el deserves to be with someone who actually knows what to do. Perhaps it would be better if she was sent to a temporary home, after all.
But then they land at the base, and when general Organa and her bodyguards greet them, the girl hides behind Rey's legs, holding them dearly, and all doubts are erased from the jedi's mind. She may not know what to do, but the girl needs her. Jara-el needs her so she'll learn, she'll try her best and she'll be there for her.
xxx
The very first thing she learns is that she shouldn't let Jara-el play with the controls inside a ship, in order to teach her how to fly. Jessika Rava almost loses her mind when she finds a four year old inside her x-wing, wearing a helmet twice the size of her head, and yells at the jedi in training about how irresponsible it was.
"It's just... I like flying. And I think she likes flying too?" Rey shrugs. "I just want her to be happy."
"That's nice of you, but maybe you should start small." Jessika sighs and then lends her some toys she's kept the past years.
Jara-el loves them, especially the tiny Millennium falcon, and plays with them everyday. Finn tries playing with her, but gets way into it, and he ends up fighting with the child over which toy's in charge. Jara-el shows him the tongue, grabs all the toys, and then runs away from him, and the former stormtrooper spends almost an entire night whining because he's sure the kid hates him.
Lesson number two is don't let Jara-el abuse Finn too much, - just a little, because it's kind of entertaining.
Then Poe's back from his five-day long mission and everything gets a little easier. Out of the three of them, he's the only one who actually knows how to raise a child, since he comes from such a big family. He brings Jara-el some flowers, he smiles his biggest smile, and the poor kid doesn't stand a chance; she crushes on him hard, follows him everywhere and cries when he has to go back to his room.
"You could stay." Rey shrugs, and then turns to Finn. "You could both stay."
Her quarters are big, and so is her bed, but it has only one bed, besides Jara-el's tiny new one in the other room, and, if they stay, the three of them will have to share it. Lesson three is that she should probably do something between asking them to move in with her, and confessing she's hopelessly in love with them.
"Sure." Both Finn and Poe nod, smiling at each other and Rey sighs with relief.
xxx
That one time they sleep together in the same room becomes two and then it becomes eight nights in a row because everytime Poe and Finn drop by to say hi to Jara-el, they end up having dinner together and when they're done talking about everything and nothing,it's late, and they're too tired to go back to their rooms. Plus Jara-el's face turns so sad whenever they say anything about leaving, and they can't do that to her.
Finn brings them food from the kitchen and, when he comes back, Poe's playing with Jara-el on the floor.
"I'm gonna be a pilot, like auntie Rey." The girl says, making flying noises with her mouth, and Finn's so very proud of both his girls.
"Can I be your co-pilot?" Poe asks, and she nods, blushing, even though she doesn't really understand what a co-pilot does. Ten minutes after she accepts him, she learns that maybe a co-pilot is a person who sits next to her and cheers her on all the time. She likes it.
"And uncle Finn!" She calls out, her back turned to him, and, before the former trooper can answer, she takes another toy and pretends to shoot at Poe. "Finn's gonna help us win!"
Finn almost drops everything on the floor, and then he silently leaves the room to find Rey. When he does find her, she's on her way back from a meeting with General Organa, and he's almost bouncing up and down with excitement. "Rey, Jara-el wants me to handle weapons in her mission to destroy the First Order and take over the galaxy!"
Rey just raises an eyebrow at him, half amused, half worried. "She wants to do what?"
"We're just playing around, she's too young to do it now, but maybe in the future? And I'll be by her side because she wants me there! I thought she hated me but she doesn't!" He sounds like an excited puppy and that's part of the reason no one actually manages to hate Finn, that's also part of the reason Rey loves him so much.
She gives him a quick kiss on the cheek and they go back into the room, just to find Poe and Jara-el still on the floor, fighting over an invisible lightsaber. Poe reaches it first and then starts making weird lightsaber noises with his mouth and it's painfully clear that he's never touched such a weapon in his life.
They all laugh, Jara-el giggles and claps her hands. "I like your face." The kid tells him, and suddenly Rey and Finn are looking at each other and laughing a lot harder because same,even though they've never actually talked about it.
xxx
Later, in the middle of the night, Rey wakes up to Jara-el crying softly, and she tries getting up and moving to the kid's bed without waking the others. It doesn't go that well because Finn suddenly shifts besides her.
"Rey?" He blinks, trying to keep the sleep off of his voice.
"She's awake, be back soon." Rey says, quietly, and goes to the other room, to comfort Jara-el.
When she comes back, almost half an hour later, she finds both Finn and Poe up, sitting on her bed and discussing something in hushed whispers. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you guys up."
"Well, please do next time." Poe says and brushes the tousled hair away from his eyes. "Rey, you can't keep doing this alone, Jara-el has tons of nightmares."
"It's nothing I can't handle." Rey crosses her arms in front of her chest, defiant.
"We know you can handle it, but the thing is: you don't need to do it alone. We're here to help you, we wantto help." Finn says, carefully.
"We can work out a schedule, like, you already went to her today, so next time it's Finn turn and the other time is Finn again because he's still grounded here on base while we're both flying around on very tiring missions, so..." Poe never gets to finish, because Finn punches him in the arm, pretending to be outraged. "Fine, okay, I'll do my part, but first... I have a quick question." He stops, yawns and stretches for a moment. "Just when did we get married and adopted a kid?"
Now Rey can't stop herself from smiling, and Finn lets out a wholehearted laugh, which gets him two synchronized 'shhhhhh's because Jara-el just fell back asleep and the kid deserves to rest. "Sorry, sorry." He apologizes. "It's just funny because I was asking myself the same thing this morning, you know, we act like we're married, but I haven't even worked up the courage to tell you both how I feel yet, and..." He suddenly freezes, realizing what he's just said.
There's a beat, and then Poe's the one who's laughing really loud.
"I thought you two were dating, and didn't think of me this way, oh my god?"
"You thought... Kriffing hell, Poe, you gave me a name, and your jacket, and you're so nice and welcoming, and… Have you seen your face?" Finn babbles on, nervously. "Because your face is a huge problem."
"I like your face too." Rey finds she's having trouble trying to stop smiling. "I like you both, but maybe we should talk about this in the morning, because Jara-el is sleeping and I'm really tired?"
"Yes, sure, whatever you want." Finn's back to over excited puppy mode, eager to please. "But, just to be sure, this isn't a dream, right? This is real, isn't it?" He asks and looks so hopeless, Poe takes his face in his hand and kisses him, hard, for a second. Then he bites Finn's lower lip. "Hey, what was that for?" Finn pushes him away.
"If you feel pain, it's real." Poe says and smirks, smug, and gets another punch to the arm. "Ouch." He makes a face like he's hurt, but it fails to convince because in the next second he's grinning like he's just escaped the First Order in a stolen T.I.E. Fighter.
Rey's almost giving up on her resolution to save it for the next day, because Finn and Poe are grinning at each other and then they're grinning at her, almost bursting with so much happiness, but then a tiny cough makes her turn around, and Jara-el is standing on the door, shyly.
"Can I sleep with you?" She asks, quietly.
"Yeah, sure, come on." Rey opens her arms, inviting, and the kid immediately joins them.
"I'm so glad you're here, I missed you!" Poe plays with Jara-el's cheeks, squeezing them, which earns him a giggle.
"So... " Finn sighs, and gets in position to cuddle the little girl. "Tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow." Rey says, and, as she watches the three of them cuddling in her bed, she remembers the jedi code; there's no emotion, there is peace. And she's finally, finallyfound her peace.