The fire flickered and crackled as the stew simmered, filling the garden with the heady scent of smoke and half-cooked beef. Sitting nearby, legs stretched out to get closer to the warmth, Rey could almost imagine how life must have been like for Poe as a child. Running through the trees of the jungle, jumping across dry patches amidst the swampy areas… curious, brave, free.
'And then he came trudging back, head hanging low and hands stuffed in his pockets, to tell me he'd crashed the darn thing in the swamp and couldn't get it out,' Kes said with a deep, hearty laugh.
Feeling lighter and bubblier than she ever had, Rey looked over at Poe. 'You made a toy plane out of household materials and crashed it?'
He shrugged, not looking in the least bit embarrassed. His body was relaxed, his gaze warm and content. 'I always wanted to fly.'
'Me, too,' Rey admitted. 'I found an old helmet in a wreckage on Jakku and kept it with me for years, picturing – I can get that.'
Kes had stood up, fetching another log and trying to feed it into the fire. However, his hand had quickly snapped back, the log with it. Apparently, it was too hot to keep his hand close to the heat for long enough to wedge it in there.
With a permissive wave of his hand, Kes set the log on the ground.
Tapping into the Force, focusing on the way it moved around her, Rey levitated the log over to the fire, threading it in between the other logs and the cooking pot.
'Keep doing things like that, and he'll start to prefer you over me,' Poe said.
Rey laughed, a rush of joy surging through her at the words. It wasn't true, of course, and she wouldn't want it to be. As much as Kes and Poe liked to josh each other, it was clear that they loved one another deeply. However, they were both so supportive, inviting her into their family without a moment's hesitation. Even before she had started seeing Poe, he had been welcoming, somehow able to make her feel valued from the start. Now that they were together, that was only more pronounced.
'"Start"?' Kes asked, causing Poe to dissolve into chortles.
Poe nudged Rey in the side. 'I told you he'd love you.'
'You did,' she said, although she wasn't sure she would call it love. Like, perhaps, and hospitality, certainly, but hardly love.
Then again, how long had it taken her to accept that Poe meant it when he said that he loved her?
'Jokes aside,' Kes said, 'you're welcome here anytime – Jedi powers or not.'
'I might take you up on that.'
'That's what invitations are for, isn't it?' he asked.
Maybe it was. But, more to the point, that was what family was for.
The fire shone red and orange against the darkening sky, and for a moment, the only sound she could hear was the chirping of crickets. The thought of more nights like this, cooking stew or barbecuing meat or even baking damper, doing all the things that she'd wished she could as a little girl, was a heady one.
Between her friends, her job training new padawans, and evenings like this with Poe and Kes, she had found where she belonged.
She would fight not to let any of it go.
A/N: Prompt: barbecue
