Let Yourself Be Carried

Chapter 3: Tempted

The bridge!

Rey looks up, and there is a young girl-Jamella Moekno-perhaps only six or seven years old, holding onto the thin wisps of the bridge's rope, attempting to cross it, the roaring rapids below. She giggles when she sees Rey is watching her.

How in the world did she get up there?

She must have followed me.

Rey silently curses herself for not picking up the sounds of the child following her before this point and jumps to her feet.

You're too tired, she chides herself. You're losing your senses if you didn't hear her by now. She's not the one training to be a Jedi!

"Jamella!" Rey calls, cupping her hands around her mouth. She's unsure whether the child has heard her over the sound of the fast-moving river. "Come down!"

The little girl shouts, "Rey, catch me!"

Rey blanches when she fears that the girl is going to jump but then realizes that, instead, she wants to play. Jamella, fearless because of her age, swings the rickety bridge back and forth, causing it to sway drunkenly. Rey swallows, her fear almost controlling her actions. She forces herself to take a breath.

She screams, "The bridge isn't safe! Come down at once!"

Jamella swings onto the frayed ropes, giggling, twirling in a bright red coat. And Rey wishes she could control her mind, but children are nearly impossible to convince with the Force. Instead, Rey begins to climb the tree on her side of the river to get to the child.

"Just stay right where you are!" Rey yells. "I'll get you!"

Rey is halfway up the tree, grasping to find handholds suitable to hold her as she moves from branch to branch, when the unthinkable happens: One of the planks the child is standing on cracks in two. Jamella rapidly fumbles to grab hold of the remaining rope, but it frays and slips through her fingers. She shrieks as the board collapses from underneath her and she falls into the whirling water below.

"No!" screams Rey, her voice echoing through the jungle. Her heart is in her throat, fluttering wildly, as Rey jumps halfway down the tree, somersaulting into a lunge, and races to the riverbank. She doesn't even hesitate before diving into the swirling rapids.

There is, for a split second, a moment when Rey believes she will lose control, that the roaring slap of cold water in her ears, eyes, and nose will overwhelm her senses and pummel her deeper under water, into inky blackness. But then she remembers why she jumped in the river in the first place, and she knows she will not let Jamella succumb to that fate as well.

Rey kicks against the water pushing her down, and her head breaks the surface. Her lungs burn as she gulps in humid air, and she forces herself to THINK, THINK, SLOW DOWN.

Listen for the girl.

Shrieks, like a bird in a cage, burst above the river's pounding. A flash of a crimson coat.

"Jamella!" Rey splutters, swallowing river water in the process. She cuts through the choppy waves with her arms, plotting a course, using the current to her advantage to reach the struggling child. The river winds and loops in lazy Ss, sometimes slowing down deceptively, sometimes speeding up and dragging Rey back under to where she has to fight to break the surface again, her vision blurred and fragmented.

There is only the cold damp, the coursing, the rushing, the swirling vortex. Her eyes sting, her arms scramble for purchase, her legs kick to gain stability, and her throat works to cough up water as she chokes.

Let the Force guide you.

"Rey!"

The shriek pierces through her water-logged ears, and then Rey plunges back under, opening her eyes through the bubbles and spray to catch a flash of red further downstream.

There.

Rey surfaces to gasp air, her lungs ragged, and she uses her arms to propel forward, suppressing her fear until she remembers to let it guide her, channeling the strength and persistence of the Force.

The child is less than three feet away from her, and Rey stretches out her arms until her shoulders burn, threatening dislocation.

Jamella! she calls with her mind.

The youngling wriggles around, wide-eyed and mercifully alive. Rey can feel the roughness of the red coat on her fingertips when an unseen current suddenly pulls Jamella under the surface.

"NO!"

Rey immediately dives under the roiling water, her legs and arms moving robotically towards the bottom of the river. Luckily, she doesn't have to swim that far because she spots Jamella's body, floating motionlessly in front of her.

The Jedi in training grabs the child, fighting against lack of oxygen and fatigue. She longs to be motivated by love and compassion and all the peaceful platitudes that Skywalker rattles off to her on a daily basis. Instead, terror compels Rey to keep going, her legs kicking ferociously, her sights set on the streams of light filtering from above.

Please let her be alive please let her be alive please let her be alive please

They break the surface with a gasp. Rey's arms ache with the effort of keeping both of their heads above water. The Jakkunian rattles her limp charge, water like tears streaming down her face, obscuring her sight.

"Jamella!"

And then—a high-pitched cough, a wheeze, and a wave of relief spreads through Rey's body. The girl's large brown eyes swivel up to meet hers.

"R-Rey?"

Her jaw clenches firmly. "Hold on."

Gripping the girl's arms tightly, Rey twirls sideways, cutting through choppier waves and riding cross currents that pull them naturally closer to the riverbank.

Heaving for air, Rey's heart flutters. The youngling's dread is nearly tangible, a frenetic dark cloud that surrounds her small and trembling form.

"It's all right," Rey murmurs, even though she knows Jamella can't hear her over the gushing water. "I won't let you go."

Her muscles are weakening, and exhaustion catches up with her. Even through the haze of weariness, Rey finds one more burst of energy to propel forward and push Jamella onto the sandy bank, safe from the pull of the river. Unfortunately, Rey does not have enough power to pull herself onto dry land before a surprise surge from the river sweeps her away, and like a potent drug, pulls her back under.

Rey hears Jamella screaming, crying, but she has no strength to respond or fight back as the water tosses her like a rag doll into a new section of the river. And, to the Jakkunian's horror, she now finds herself crushed between churning white-tipped waves and treacherous boulders that frame the river.

The Jedi in training is vaguely aware that this should terrify her, but in reality she sinks further into a state of dreamy apathy. The water that forces itself up her nose and down her throat becomes comforting rather than claustrophobic. The rushing of water in her ears is a pleasant drone rather than a death chant.

Even when the oppressive current causes her to collide with a boulder, her head cracking into it painfully, a seam of red appearing across her left side from one of its jagged edges, she barely moans with pain. Everything is dull, distant, and dream-like.

Just like memories of home.

It is ironic, Rey thinks, that she should meet her end in water rather than sand. These rapids are so unlike the dessert, after all.

Rapids! That is the correct word for them… Where did I learn that?

Rey's muddled brain struggles to remember. And then she recalls a moment when she had been working on BB-8's circuits and Poe had taught her the term. Because one day they would all have to go swimming and Rey had to know the correct terminology. The Jakkunian had thought at the time that she had only partly paid attention to Dameron's rambling on aquatic lexicon, but now she realizes she listened more than she thought.

"And where do you propose to take the desert-dweller on her first swim?" she had asked him teasingly. "An ocean?"

Poe fluttered his hands like a frantic bird. "Oh, no! Not the ocean! No, that wouldn't work. Best to start small. Maybe a lake."

Or a river.

She would chuckle at the irony if her lungs weren't already inundated by spray that stings her throat and threads through the wound in her side, tendrils of pain enticing her to close your eyes close your eyes just for a minute—

Rey barely hears sporadic bursts of sound, voices shouting, but she can't identify them. She feels weightless, floating upwards.

Just like flying.

And her eyes flash open.

Finn.

She is supposed to meet him after her session with Master Luke to complete more training on the airspeeder simulator. It's a brand new training method the ex-stormtrooper invented, one that Finn had hoped to get feedback on that afternoon. And then there was the promise of dinner afterward that Dameron had been so adamant that she attend.

I'm not ready to die.

Rey kicks, flounders weakly, kicks again, and finds a swift current to ride that will propel her back to shore. Her head spins, her arms burning as they bend and flex against the water, chopping through, legs kicking in sync with them.

"I'm… not… ready!" she sputters to herself, her teeth bared, and her focus expands and contracts, until all she can visualize is the shore.

"REY!"

"Not…ready," the Jakkunian gasps, and with a final spurt of strength, the water surrounding her suddenly falls away, held back by an invisible arm that she controls. Immediately, she sinks into the mud of the riverbed and hoists herself onto sandy grit of the shore. Rey collapses and the invisible dam is broken. Only the tips of her toes dip into the river as the water immediately fills in the giant gap Rey leaves behind and continues on its normal path.

She is overwhelmed by how quiet it is. Gone is the roaring water. In its place is the sound of uncontrollable coughing and the thrumming of her own heart.

Rey manages to dispel excess water from her lungs along with (she suspects) most of what she ate for lunch. And suddenly someone is pounding her on the back, muttering something that sounds like "meditation indeed," but she can't hear very clearly, what with all of the choking and spluttering and learning how to breathe air again.

The Jedi in training supposes she shouldn't have been surprised when she squints into the light above her and sees Luke Skywalker, all crinkly eyes of concern juxtaposed with a relieved smile.

Rey is dazed, hunched over, but her alarm finally catch up to her. Her throat manages to form raspy words.

"Jamella?!"

She attempts to move her legs into a sitting position, but her knees are shaking too badly, and she simply falls back on her side in the sand. Luke reaches down his metal hand for support.

"She's fine," he assures her in a soothing tone, one that is unfamiliar to Rey.

She fleetingly thinks, Who are you and where is my master?

"I sensed what had happened when her mother told me she was missing," Luke continues. "We came immediately. Jamella's mother is taking her back to the base to be checked out. Are you all right?"

Rey waves her hand, feigning nonchalance despite the fact that she is still sprawled on the ground, unsure if she will be able to stand.

One step at a time.

"That bridge needs some work," Rey says thickly, not sure if she's making any sense, because her heart is having a difficult time not hammering in her chest, and the muscles in her legs and arms keep twitching, as if they don't know they aren't trying to stay afloat any longer.

Skywalker seems to ignore her, glancing around them. "Jamella told us what happened. It was fortunate that you were here."

Rey scoffs, looking down at her torn and waterlogged clothes. Like a drowned nexu.

Luke's head tilts quizzically, eyes puzzled. "I didn't know you could swim."

"I can't."

A twinge of pain doubles her over, and Rey is reminded of the gash in her side, seeping red through her soaked robes.

"You're injured," comes Skywalker's gravely voice, but it's muted and tinny.

She feels a palm on her forehead, soothing, and her shivers melt away, but the ache in her side continues to radiate agony.

"I knew I was having a bad day," she slurs, rambling. The trees that surround them are wavering in a highly comical manner. "But it can't get any worse. Right?"

And then it does. Because Rey's senses desert her, darkness closing in, and she swoons. Instantly, Luke's surprisingly strong arms grasp her shoulders, scooping her up. Her eyelids flutter shut and Rey's head falls back on the shoulder of her mentor, settling into the rhythm of his quick pace. Branches and leaf fronds kiss her limbs and cheeks gently in his hurry. If Rey didn't know her mentor better, she would have assumed that he was scared.

Her face burns after a few silent moments pass, and Rey's wits return. Her eyelids flick open, and she sees Master Luke's care-worn face, head up, eyes completely focused on moving quickly through the jungle.

Rey takes a shallow breath because her side still burns like fire, but her mind clears even more. She wonders if Skywalker has noticed that she is awake. A part of her—the exhausted, the abandoned, the hurting part of her—is tempted to stay silent and let Luke carry her all the way back to the base, reveling in a delicious half-consciousness, the rocking motion of the jungle lulling her into passivity. But the other half—the stubborn, take charge, independent half—cannot give into this weakness-will not give in.

Because the day Rey lets herself give in is the day she admits she has to give up… something. She's not quite sure what that thing is.

Rey is feisty, and Rey is awake. Thus, Rey will not be tempted.

"Stop," she whispers.

Skywalker pauses, looks down, eyes flashing worry. And there's something different about him—he looks older, and he's out of breath. The thought that her mentor is over-exerting himself because she nearly got herself killed gives her an extra boost of energy.

Rey gingerly steps down from his arms, using his shoulder as a crutch until she is convinced her legs will hold her. She presses a palm to her left side and sighs shakily, because the wound has stopped bleeding.

Luke takes her arm, steering her forward. "You're going to the medbay."

But the apprentice holds her ground. "Go on and look after Jamella and her mother. I can find my own way back to the base."

Skywalker shoots her a dubious look, one bushy eyebrow arching. It's a look that Han Solo used to give her, one that screams: All right, kid. I know you're a hotshot pilot, and I know you're Force-sensitive, but do you really think you know what you're doing?

Reluctantly, Master Luke releases her, nodding. There is a brief millisecond where he reaches out his flesh-and-blood hand, as if to say something else to her, but thinks better of it. Then Luke steps away, walking briskly through the forest. In a few seconds, he is gone, and Rey is alone again.

She leans against the rough bark of a tree trunk to rest once Skywalker is out of sight. Concentrating, Rey takes a few sips of air, gradually releasing the breaths to stem the dizziness that threatens to take over. And then she continues. The trek is slow-going. Her head and side throb painfully. But she has a commitment that she will not break, injured or no.

After what seems like hours (but is likely only ten minutes) Rey breaks through the dense growth of trees and into the landing field. It is late afternoon by now, and the dazzling light has been replaced by a brisk wind and dappled clouds which send sporadic bursts of sunshine to highlight patches of grass and ships and people as they scurry about, many working their last shift before supper.

Rey practices standing straight and walking with an overt sense of decorum, so as not to attract attention. Her clothes have mostly dried, but she still feels cold, and her body is damp with sweat from plodding through the forest. Rey presses a hand to her left side to add support as well as hide the stain of blood. Still lightheaded, she almost makes the mistake of walking straight through the hangar bay, where she most certainly would have run into a dozen colleagues, among them Poe Dameron. And she most definitely wants to avoid that happening.

She chews on her lip and comes up with a plan.

Step 1: Get to the airspeeder simulator without encountering anyone.

Step 2: Finish the simulation and slink back to her quarters without encountering anyone.

Step 3: Take a quick shower and get the message to Poe somehow (perhaps send for BB-8?) that she's very sorry, but she can't make it to dinner tonight.

Three steps. You can do this.

Rey slinks past the hangar bay and enters the base through an alternate entrance. She panics when she thinks she hears the musical beeps of her favorite astromech and its human companion's laughter. Rey freezes and listens, her heart thudding in her chest. But after a while, the voices diminish, and the Jakkunian lets out a huff of air she didn't realize she had been holding.

So far, so good.

She picks a circuitous route to the simulator, choosing corridors that are usually unoccupied during the day. Rey tries not to think about how many times she has to pause, leaning against the wall for support, her side awash with pain. She is afraid that the gash has started bleeding again. But Rey perseveres, following the plan, focusing on reaching the simulator. Checking a hall clock, she sees that she is only running a few minutes late. This is ideal because it means that Finn will most likely already be inside the darkened simulator and will not be able to view Rey in full daylight.

The Jedi in training is about to declare Step 1 accomplished when she sees the red door to the simulator, marked AIRSPEEDER PROTOTYPE 1.3.

"Hey—Rey!"

She immediately freezes at the warm voice directly behind her.

"I was going to apologize for being late, but it looks like you are too. Did Skywalker lose track of time?"

Any other time, Rey would have found his voice, seasoned with humor, to be a soothing balm to any troubles or difficulties in her life. But not now. Not when Step 1 was going so well. Not when she is desperately trying to hide the fact that she's exhausted and banged up and bleeding towards the end of one of the longest and worst days imaginable.

So Rey straightens ever so slightly and disguises her voice with faux-cheerfulness.

"Hi, Finn!"

TBC

A/N: What do you think? One more chapter left.