Whoever had the idea to make Resistance base on a mobile ship had been one smart person. Unlike the Hosnian System, that collection of moons and planets that the First Order had completely annihilated, the Resistance would survive, so long as not all of its ships were shot completely out of the air, and not a single person in the galaxy who dared to stand up for freedom and democracy remained.
The Resistance was, at the moment, sharing a rare moment of celebration. Too often, the Resistance was a somber place where talk of leads was more often overshadowed by reports of dead members, of destroyed communities, of a growing First Order presence across the galaxy, evidenced by the death and destruction they wrought wherever they passed. But today was different. A week ago, the Resistance had made a great stride, perhaps a great turning point, and one that would surely prove pivotal in the upcoming weeks and years. Within just hours of discovering the First Order's secret, humongous Starkiller Base, the Resistance had released members both by air and on the ground to take Starkiller Base down. Miraculously, their small fleet had proved victorious against the First Order's legions of troops and terrifying weapon power. If only temporarily, they had restored peace and justice in the galaxy.
The celebrations were non-stop. Though by this point, commanding officers had officially released positions against the partying that continued well into the night, they were often the same ones who joined their soldiers in the festivities later that day.
For sure, lives had been lost. The celebration of the destruction of Starkiller was dampened those first few days by the funerals. They had mostly been ceremonial in nature; very few bodies had actually been recovered. The families and close friends of those who had given up their lives certainly looked more grave than the others, but still, they could console themselves - their sister, brother, girlfriend, friend had died for a cause she had believed in, for the good of the galaxy. That was a consoling thought as any, and one that many of the bereaved took to heart when they found themselves, later that night, drunk out of their mind and dancing and screaming in total joy and camaraderie with their fellow Resistance member, soldier, pilot, commander, friend.
To General Leia Organa, it sometimes seemed as if there were just two who did not share this view.
The General had not been the only one to lose a husband, she knew. She sometimes passed other new widows; they would look at each other, briefly, before turning away. The General, renowned and praised for her leadership, simply never knew what to say.
And yet, there was some part of her…
For thirty years, she and Han had been married. She had met him at nineteen and though it hadn't been romantic immediately, she had essentially been involved with him ever since. Despite his too-frequent absences, she had spent her entire adult life with that man. Even when he had left six years before, and she had thought that it might be for good, she could always sense him, through the Force. Though he hadn't been with her physically, in truth, she had never truly been alone.
And now, now she was alone in a way as she had never in her life been before. Her son had turned to the Dark Side six years ago; she had accepted that, somewhere in her heart. But for that son, her only child, to kill his own father, her husband, her Han?
She remembered patricide as a word she had learned when studying mythology and literature back at Alderaan Select Academy for Young Ladies. She had definitely considered it for herself, many times, though that had been before she had known that Darth Vader was her father. But she could never have imagined that it would be a word that could describe her own immediate family, the one that she chose to have rather than having been born into, about her own son's actions with his father.
A patricide in the family. She almost laughed at the ludicrousness.
It was times like this when she longed, more than anything, for her own father. No, not Darth Vader. Anakin Skywalker had never been Leia's father; the accidental donation of genetic material did not make a man one's father. No, it was Bail Organa she longed for, whose name she still bore, she, the last of his legacy…
Lost her musings, she found herself wandering towards a lonely door. She blinked, bringing herself back to awareness, looking around about her.
Of course. She was standing outside the infirmary. Somehow, her recent wanderings always brought her here. Sometimes she felt as though it was the only place that matched her funereal mood; this observation was always shattered when a patient's too loud family or friends came bursting in with news and good wishes.
There was still happiness in the world, Leia knew, as a matter of principle. But for her, such outright displays of unadulterated joy were simply too soon. She needed to mourn, but she had no one to mourn with. Her family was dead, or missing, or...fallen to the Dark Side, and perhaps irrevocably.
Still, Leia pushed open the doors to the infirmary. Perhaps here she could find some patients' hands to clasp, hearts to instill some hope in her soldiers where she felt none. Perhaps here she could find some use for herself, instead of wandering the halls like some hapless ghost.
She was a general now. She was a public figure, as she had always been, a role that she had always believed she thrived in. For the sake of her people, she needed to push away her pains and desires, and seek to lead them instead.
Leia stepped into the infirmary and sized it up. It was not the most well-lit or well-stocked room, which was truly a pity; the doctors told her that it was possible mistakes could be made in such conditions that could otherwise be averted. But there were always only so many funds; she felt as though she was in a constant, many-sided tug-of-war between the treasurer, the doctors, the pilots, the engineers, the janitors, the ground troops, and every other division the Resistance ever tacked on. As hard as they worked and recruited and fundraised in secret, there was simply never enough man power, never enough funds.
There were a decent number of people still inside the infirmary. Many of the injured had already been cleared out by now, so it was only those who had been more seriously injured who remained. This suited Leia perfectly, who had no desire to be with anyone in high spirits at all.
Leia started her rounds of holding hands and offering words of encouragement. She wondered, suddenly, perversely, if this grand, sweeping act of nurturing to the masses was her atonement to herself. She had been such a bad mother that her own son had felt motivated to kill his father: was she now mothering all of these injured soldiers like she hadn't mothered Ben? She shook her head, as if batting away flies. She couldn't dwell on such thoughts, or it would drive her mad.
Leia sensed rather than saw the girl come in. It was the girl she had noticed instantly when she had stepped off the Falcon, her face one of the only drawn ones among a crowd of cheering and whooping. They had made eye contact then: this girl was powerful in the Force, like her son, like her brother, like her...like Darth Vader, like - herself. In fact, this girl seemed to be absolutely drenched in the Force, in a way Leia had seen in only one other person in the galaxy. Leia had known instantly who the girl must be: Rey, the girl Han, and the former stormtrooper, Finn, had left to save. Rey, the girl who now carried Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber around her belt.
She had seen her a few times since in the hallways, sometimes with that incredible pilot of hers, Poe. There was so much she found herself wanting to tell her, and ask her. They had spoken a few times since, but there was never enough time. Despite what her troops, and what she had once herself naively believed, the Dark Side never rested. This was a fight that would never end.
Leia could tell from the way Rey stole into the infirmary and immediately beelined to the side of one particular bed that she came here often. Leia had come here enough to know the overall layout of the infirmary beds, so she knew at once which one Rey settled by, but even she hadn't, she supposed she would have been able to guess.
Rey pulled up a chair from the side of the room, and sat down upon it with a thump. She immediately hunched over in the seat, cupping her face with her hands. Loose curls hung down into her eyes as she stared down at Finn's immobile form with an inscrutable expression on her face.
She had exchanged her desert rags for new, sturdy clothes. Leia had personally made sure of that, although she knew that the girl had no idea of her involvement. The clothes she wore now were Resistance-issue, and more suitable for their current climate. Yet somehow, on her, she made them look like something befitting not a Resistance member, but an adventurer. In fact, she didn't look like a member of anything - no, in a place where everyone wore similar clothes for the purposes of belonging, Rey looked like utterly her own person.
As her feet had brought her to the infirmary door, it was with surprise that Leia realized she had wandered to just meters now from Finn's bed, and the girl.
Rey looked up at once, tensing, but relaxed her shoulders when she saw the General standing there. "General Organa," she greeted, if somewhat cautiously.
"Rey." Leia considered the girl for a moment longer before making a decision. "Do you mind if I join you?"
Rey blinked but seemed to recover herself. "Please," she said, extending a hand in a clumsy attempt at social niceties.
Leia smiled inwardly to herself. Her Alderaanian family would have gaped at this girl's manners, as she suspected they would have towards Han, and perhaps even to Luke. It was true that Leia had favorites among her soldiers, as all generals did. Rey was not an official Resistance member, yet somehow, this uncouth desert scavenger seemed to have already carved her own space into Leia's already battered, hole-ridden heart.
"The doctors say he will recover well," Leia told Rey, though she was sure that she already knew this. "They induced his coma so he'll heal faster."
Rey nodded minutely. She turned her head back to Finn, and it was facing him that she responded to Leia. "I know. But it's still hard to see."
Leia looked between them. Had she once been so young as they were? "You love him," she surmised.
With clear eyes, Rey turned back to the General. "He was my friend."
Leia nodded seriously. That was obvious. "I know."
Rey gave her a piercing look that managed to look innocent at the same. "I've never had a friend before."
At Rey's pronouncement, Leia's heart, already shattered, broke into a few more pieces, as if only to prove that it still could, that there was enough that was still whole that yet more could still break.
Leia didn't know what to say, so instead she asked, "How are you doing, Rey?"
Rey shrugged, almost insouciantly. "Confused, mostly. I still don't know what this means to have power in the Force. And I'm feeling a bit useless, like I'm just sitting around here. Of course I want to be here when Finn wakes up, but…"
Like a half-recalled dream, Leia remembered a similar conversation with another nineteen-year-old from a desert planet, so long ago. "Do you miss Jakku?" she asked, the same way she had once asked, Do you miss Tatooine?
Rey inhaled sharply. "Yes. I suppose I do. Even though I now know everything I was living for was a lie."
Leia had missed the jump in Rey's train of thought; she didn't follow. Genuinely confused, she asked, "What do you mean?"
Rey gave her that piercing look again. Again, Leia was reminded, as though a shock had run through her, at how young this girl truly was. "I was waiting for a family that was never coming back for me," Rey said simply. "But it gave me something to hold on to. If I hadn't had that, I would have died. If it wasn't a sand storm, it would have been other smugglers, or an animal. I survived only because I had something to live for. Now I don't have to worry about getting water or heat stroke, I don't have to scavenge for food, and I even have a friend. But I don't know what I'm living for anymore. I just feel…" she trailed off.
"Lost?" Leia supplied, despite herself. The girl nodded in response, thoughtfully.
It was the longest speech Leia had ever heard the girl make. She was shocked that the girl sounded so self-possessed, so aware of herself and where she stood. Although, she supposed, if Rey had spent as much time by Finn's bed as Leia suspected she had, she now supposed that the girl had had an awful lot of time to herself to think. Leia realized that she must be the first person with whom Rey was sharing her reflections, and only because she had taken the time to sit by her.
"And I guess it's funny," Rey continued, as if now she had started she couldn't help but soldier on, spilling out her thoughts and her heart. "But if I had become friends with Finn on Jakku and he had become injured, he probably would have died."
Leia shook her head. "I'm not following you."
Rey smiled in almost-earnestness. "I wouldn't have been able to take care of him and myself too. I would have had to leave him. He would have died. But because we're here, thanks to you, and the Resistance, he can get medical attention, and he's going to live."
If Leia's heart been beyond repair before, now she was sure it had been reduced to dust. It must have been: there was a strangely leaden feeling in her heart and chest.
It was then that she found herself saying what she had known she was going to say this girl since she first saw the projection, not two hours before.
"This morning," Leia said, her voice regaining its commanding inflection. "Artoo, Luke's old droid, suddenly turned on. Apparently BB-8, speaking to him in droid, he was able to reach him where nothing else could. It happened to be that Artoo had a section of a star map in his backup drive. He projected it out, and then BB-8 joined him, projecting his own section of a map. Together, the two images made one whole image of a star map. We believe the map contains directions to the First Jedi Temple."
Rey turned to Leia in shock. "Artoo had the missing piece of map?"
Leia nodded and smiled. "So it would seem."
Rey suddenly grinned, luminously. "That's amazing. That means…"
"Yes?" Leia prodded. She was curious what the girl might say.
The girl's brown eyes suddenly had a new light to them. "That maybe, maybe this was worth it after all." She glanced down at Finn again, but where there had been what Leia now recognized as fear and remorse, there was now hope.
"Rey," Leia continued. "I want you to be the one to follow the map to Luke."
Rey's eyes widened, almost in fear. "Sorry?"
Leia leaned forward seriously. "I want you to find Luke."
Rey looked as though the breath had been knocked out of her. "But…" she said. "Why me?"
Unbefitting of her rank or upbringing, Leia gave a very Han-like shrug. "Because I like you."
Rey looked like she thought the General might have lost her mind. "But he's your brother," she protested.
Now that she had said it out loud, Leia wasn't backing down now. "Didn't you just say you were getting bored here?"
Rey looked beside herself. "Not - not bored, General. Just...maybe lost, like you said. But I can't accept this mission."
Leia pressed her lips into a hard line. "You can and you will." She checked her watch, and her heart almost flew into her throat; she had a meeting to get to. Abruptly, she stood up. "When do you think you'll be ready to go?" she asked, clipped.
Rey seemed to finally accept the rapid change of topic, and the conviction behind Leia's words. "I- I suppose I could leave as soon as possible. I'm not doing anything else."
Leia nodded. "Good. You'll go tomorrow." She turned to leave, but then stopped. She turned around again. "And Rey? I want you to take the Falcon. And take Chewy and Artoo."
Rey's mouth had now fallen open. "But General...this is too much-"
Leia shook her head resolutely. "No, it's not. I wish I could give you more. You need a co-pilot, and Chewy is one of the best. You need a droid for the journey, and Artoo already has the map inside his backup data, and no one will miss him here, not since he's been non-functional for the past six years, anyway. The Falcon is an old ship, but she'll do, she'll hold up in anything, and you already know how to fly her." She smiled. "Plus, it's a long journey. I don't want you losing your mind from isolation. You're not worth much to the Resistance without your sanity. And after that last battle, it's not as though we have soldiers to spare to go with you. So, this only makes the most sense."
Leia was almost out the door when Rey called her again. "Wait! General! I'm sorry to hold you up. But you didn't answer my question. Why me?"
The General flashed her an enigmatic smile. "Didn't I already tell you? It's because I like you."
The next day, the light shown down clear and bright over Takodana, filtering down through the trees and sparkling across the lakes. Rey counted her belongings where they fit in two bags; a pilot named Jessika Pava had insisted on helping her pack for the journey, as though Rey wouldn't have been able to manage otherwise. She was wholly unused to the idea of letting other people help take care of her.
One bag was devoted to nothing else but ration packs. Since she had arrived on the Resistance base, Rey had promised to herself that she would never eat a ration pack ever again. However, as Pava had convinced her, it was simply the most sensible choice until she arrived at her destination. They were banking on the idea that the self-exiled Jedi master had some access to food.
The other bag was filled mainly with clothes. Rey still luxuriated in the idea of having so many clothes that one could change them everyday, perhaps twice a day, if one wished to. They were all Resistance-issue, which suited her just fine.
She had no trinkets, no knick-knacks, no good-luck charms to bring. Her rebel doll and her pilot's helmet had been left behind on Jakku, with the rest of her belongings. By this time, her shelter had been almost certainly been looted by other scavengers, desperate for anything of value to sell for food or, if they were smart, to save up for a ship, in order to leave.
She turned to look at the Falcon behind her, bathed in that same golden light. "Garbage," she had once called it. If she and Finn had, in their panic, stolen a different ship, she probably would have never met Han, never met Maz Kanata, never would have encountered the lightsaber that she now stowed in her bag. She might not have ever been kidnapped by Kylo Ren, or if she had, she may not have been able to escape. She owed her entire journey to the Falcon, and now it would carry her on the next one.
She sensed a presence and looked up. The General stood before her, some meters away. She was beautiful, Rey thought to herself. She remembered the old woman she had seen in Niima market the day she had left Jakku. She had looked utterly withered, as though she had spent the entirety of her life under the desert sun, every day a challenge to find parts to sell, to survive. On that day, Rey had looked into that old woman's face, and had believed she was looking into her own future.
Leia Organa might have been the same age as that old woman from Jakku, the latter of whom had been aged by sun and sickness. While Rey saw strength and beauty in both women, she didn't doubt for a second which one she would rather emulate.
The General now offered her a secret sort of smile. "Rey," she called. "May the Force be with you."
Rey nodded in acknowledgement and thanks, and turned, Chewy and Artoo by her side, towards the Falcon.