Rey spent her life finding value in the things that other people threw away.

She learned earlier that the greater the risk, the higher the reward. She was too alone, too small, too weak, to scavenge in the safe places. If she did find something of value, others would take it from her. If she were to eat- if she were to survive- she had to go where the others wouldn't.

And those were dangerous places. Places where death came easy- more than once she found the bodies of those who had gone before her. One misstep, one miscalculation, and her rotting corpse would be found by someone else some other day.

Over time, she came to crave the danger. It made what she found so much more valuable to her. She had to give up her treasures once she found them- otherwise she would die- but each piece of scrap she found was proof that she was stronger than Jakku, stronger than that what tried to kill her.

Kylo Ren is the most beautiful, most dangerous wreck, she has ever seen.

There are endless chasms of self-loathing. Jagged peaks of rage. Dead falls of unpredictability.

To journey into that wreckage is to risk certain death.

It killed Han Solo.

But Rey … Rey persists.

The rewards seem so meager at first. The bronze wire of his true name that he accepts from no one else but her. The silver fragment of loneliness. But it's when she finds that gold pebble of empathy- tiny, so tiny that even on Jakku it would be considered worthless- that she feels the flush of success.

He promised her that she was not alone. He cared. He cared for her.

Bit by bit, piece by piece, she is extracting Ben Solo from the wreckage of Kylo Ren. It will take time- and there will be times when she will lose something of what she has gained so far- but she's certain that she will succeed.

Rey was always the best scavenger on Jakku.

And Ben Solo is the treasure she will get to keep.