A/N: This fic contains references to past food insecurity. Hope you enjoy!
Rey padded softly through the corridors of the Millennium Falcon, on her way to the caf maker.
It was late at night, and the lights were dimmed-not so much that you couldn't see, but enough to facilitate sleep. Which Rey had (mostly) been doing, before Chewbacca had woken her and informed her that it was her turn to fly the Falcon. She'd nodded, but asked for five minutes to get caf before she had to spend six hours in the middle of the night alert for the possibility of anything going wrong. Rey had never had caf before leaving Jakku, but had discovered on the way to find Luke Skywalker that it was useful for late-night or early-morning flying shifts. In time, she thought, she might even stop hating the taste.
Just before she turned the last corner, Rey stopped. Listening, she could hear footsteps coming towards her from the direction of the caf maker. The dimmed lights cast an eerie glow over the corridor, and in another life Rey might have been nervous. Instead, she shut her eyes and reached out with her feelings.
Rey's eyes shot open in fear that quickly turned to confusion. She sensed the Dark Side of the Force. For a moment, she prepared to hide, run, or fight. But she and General Leia were the only Force users on the ship, as far as Rey knew, and neither of them were strong with the Dark Side. Besides, this didn't feel like someone was using the Dark Side. It felt more like a...trace.
Oh.
Oh.
To confirm her suspicion, Rey looked inside herself, and found the same trace-darkness dusted over the light that shone within her.
You know I can take whatever I want.
She knew who was coming around the corner before he appeared.
"Hello, Poe," said Rey as soon as he'd come fully into view. "What are you doing up?"
"Same as you, I'd imagine," said Poe with a tired half-smile. He looked relaxed enough, but Rey noticed he was clutching a cup of caf like his life depended on it.
"You're up because it's your turn to fly the Falcon?" Rey responded.
Poe's brow wrinkled, but only for an instant. Then he gave her an exaggerated smile. "I mean," he said, "if you'd let me."
Part of Rey wanted to say no. But she remembered Finn telling her about this man and what he did for him (he gave me a name), and she remembered what she'd felt a moment before, and she said, "follow me".
When they got back to the cockpit, Chewbacca took one look at Poe and said something that Poe could tell was not pleased.
"I won't," Rey replied, sliding into the pilot's chair.
At which assurance Chewbacca went to find a place to sleep.
"What did he say?" asked Poe as soon as Chewbacca was out of earshot.
"He told me not to let you mess anything up," Rey replied.
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Poe muttered. Then he looked around. "Wow," he said. "Wow. This is amazing!" He walked from side to side, eyes soaking in every detail. Then, he stopped. "I noticed on the way in, did you..."
"Bypass the compressor?" said Rey. "Yes, and I rerouted the hyperdrive power system to make up for the porg nests in the engines".
"Wow," said Poe. "And adjusting the steering controls like this, I've never seen anything like this before-was that you?"
Rey's face fell. "No," she said. "That was...not me."
Poe nodded. They sat silently for a moment. Then he spoke. "What you've done-it's incredible. I mean, I grew up hearing stories about this ship, but I never thought I'd get to see the inside, much less-hey, could I fly her?"
"That's what I brought you here for, isn't it?" replied Rey, and scooted into the copilot seat as Poe sat down in the pilot's chair. "We're in hyperspace, mostly on autopilot, so it's not very interesting flying, but..."
Poe was grinning. "No, this is good," he said. "Although, if you wanted to let me fly her sometime when we weren't in hyperspace, I wouldn't say no..."
"You're pushing your luck as it is," Rey told him, but not before smiling, small and quick.
I'm good at that, Poe started to say, but the words died unformed. Instead, he said "sixty portions, huh?"
Rey looked startled. "Where did you hear-oh, Beebee-Ate must have told you."
"Yup," said Poe. "When we landed after Starkiller, Beebee filled me in on everything that had happened while we'd been apart, including how you, a 'very hungry organic', refused to sell them for probably more food than you'd seen in one place in your entire life. That true?"
Rey nodded. "I won't pretend I wasn't tempted, but-it was wrong. I wasn't about to sell someone into slavery to that blobfish Unkar Plutt just to feed myself, even if they're a droid."
"They also told me you flew this ship almost as well as I could, which coming from Beebee is really saying something."
"Almost?" said Rey with a mock offended expression.
"Their words, not mine," said Poe.
"I suppose I'm not surprised-I heard you were the one to take out Starkiller?"
"All the pilots did that," said Poe with a distant look that quickly snapped back to the present. "But, yeah, I did fire the shot that took the thing out. You, though-at Crait, you were awesome, you saved us-"
"I wasn't flying at Crait," said Rey. "Chewbacca was. I was on guns."
"Still awesome," said Poe. "And that thing with the rockslide-wow."
Rey looked steadily out the transparisteel viewport. For a moment, there was quiet. Then: "What languages do you speak?"
"I'm fluent in Basic and Binary-well, auditorily fluent in Binary, I've tried speaking it but Beebee tells me I sound like an idiot-and semi-competent in Sullustese and Abednedish. Why?" said Poe.
"I just-I like languages. When I was on Jakku, whenever someone came by who spoke a language I didn't, I'd go up to them and I'd offer to trade food for language lessons," said Rey. "Sometimes I wouldn't eat for days, but it was worth it. Of course, I didn't speak their language, so I had to mime it. Like this-" Rey swiveled in her seat, then held up an imaginary portion, pretended to eat it, and held it out to Poe. Then she pointed at Poe, made a talking gesture with her hand and mouth, and pointed to herself. She then held out both hands, palms up, in a question-gesture.
Poe nodded. "I understood that."
Rey paused for a moment, looking away. "Hey-you can read, right?" she finally blurted out.
"Yeah," said Poe a bit cautiously. "Can you?"
Rey shook her head. "Never got the chance to learn." She took a deep breath. "Do you think you could teach me, sometime? I know you're busy, but..."
"Sure! I mean, I am pretty busy, but I'll come here when I have some time off," said Poe.
"Is there something you want in exchange?" asked Rey, looking a bit worried. "I don't have much... I mean, you can have some of my food if you want it, I've gotten by on much less than this..."
"Hey, no way! It doesn't have to be a trade. I'm happy to help you just because. Although," said Poe, "if you wanted it to be a trade-if that would make you feel better-you could teach me one of the languages you know."
"Which one?" asked Rey.
"Which ones do you know-wait, you know what? I'll wait for Beebee to wake up and we can pick together. Hey, you know what we should do? We should teach Finn to speak Binary. You, me, and Beebee-what do you think?"
Rey smiled. "I think that's a great idea," she said. "Finn was right about you."
"He was? What's he been saying?" Poe looked around in mock paranoia.
"He's been saying that you're the sort of person who would take time in the middle of a firefight to give an ex-stormtrooper a name, just because you didn't think it was right that he didn't have one. You are like that, I can tell-and not just because I know you did," said Rey. She paused. "Beebee-Ate doesn't call you 'Master'."
Poe smiled slightly. "That's Beebee, not me..."
"But it doesn't seem like you'd want them to," Rey continued. "You treat people like they're worth something, no matter who they are."
Unless they're my superior officers, apparently, Poe almost said, but the words fell apart on his tongue. Instead he said, "Is that your Jedi assessment?"
"No," said Rey. "It's my scavenger's assessment."
"Good enough for me, then," Poe replied. "But it doesn't take anyone special to see that Finn's amazing."
"No," Rey agreed. "It doesn't."
"I mean, he'd spent his whole life being brainwashed and conditioned and whatever, his whole life in this system that, as far as we know, no one's ever gotten out of, and what did Finn do? The first time they tried to make him kill, he went, nope, and came up with a plan to get himself out of there that actually worked! I mean, wow," said Poe.
"And he didn't stop there," said Rey. "He joined the Resistance even though he was terrified, and when I was in danger he went back to Starkiller to help even though he knew if he was caught he'd be killed or worse. And then," Rey continued, "he picked up a kriffing lightsaber and fought Kylo Ren! And he got a hit in! It was amazing! I thought only Jedi could use lightsabers," said Rey with some confusion. "And-I mean-bad people with the Force."
"So did I," said Poe. "Guess we were both wrong."
"I hope Rose is all right," said Rey. "I think we both owe her."
"Yeah," said Poe. "We do."
They sat for a while in a companionable sort of silence. "Hey," Poe said eventually. "You can have the controls back, if you'd like." Looking down, Rey noticed his hands were shaking.
"Are you all right?" asked Rey in a cautious tone.
"Yeah. It's been a hell of a couple weeks, is all," Poe replied.
"Understatement," said Rey, seamlessly switching places with Poe. "You should get some sleep, if you can."
"I'll try," said Poe. "I've just... been busy."
At this hour? Rey thought about saying but didn't. Instead she said, "that makes sense." Then, considering for a moment, she said, "you're not busy now, are you?"
"Well...no..."
"Then go. Lie down," said Rey. "You can sleep in here if you want, or I don't think anyone's discovered the maintenance crawlway yet, if you want to be alone."
"Sounds good," said Poe. "Where is that crawlway?"
"Walk out through the hallway, slight right, step down into the lounge, turn right, walk through the lounge, across the hallway, behind the panel in the wall," Rey replied.
"Good to know," said Poe, starting to leave.
"And Poe," called Rey. Poe froze by the entrance to the cockpit and turned to face Rey. "Why were you up?"
"Good night, Rey," said Poe as he turned once more and left.
Once again, the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon was quiet.