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Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars.


Trouble finds them through an oblique avenue. Sometimes the pilots which Ben works with, take outside contracts, carrying passengers from one camp to another. One of the guys got a contract but was actually unable to carry it out himself so he offered it to the others. Being that they were planning on getting a ship someday Ben volunteered for it.

On the morning of the job, Ben and Rey are in camp, Ben waiting for the passengers and Rey gathering the things she needs for her scavenger trip. She is almost finished when the passengers come in, talking loudly to some of the locals.

It only takes a few comments for them to realize that they are ex-republic fighters, striking out for something new. Rey exchanges a startled look with Ben who warns her to calm with a twitch of his fingers. She does, knowing that they will not recognize him anymore and continues to get her gear. She has just stowed the last piece when one of the ex-rebels bursts out:

"I don't care! If I ever find him I'll kill him. I know he must be hiding pretty well, or the republic would have found him, but I'll never get his voice out of my mind. I know how he sounds and if I hear him I'll know him."

Rey and Ben exchange a look. Neither of them doubts that the ex-rebel can do just that, Rey still has Snoke's voice embedded in her mind.

"Go," she says under her breath, "I'll carry them."

"Won't they know you?" he murmurs back.

"No," says Rey, "I have some tricks up my sleeve and I don't know them either. Go. Now. I'll make up something."

He struggles, clearly not wanting to leave her in a situation that might pose dangerous but she sears him a look. "I can take care of myself," she hisses.

His eyes lighten. "I know." He turns and strides off and Rey makes her way over to her group coordinator to tell her the change of plans.

"What happened?" she asks and listens sympathetically as Rey explains that Ben had come down with a sudden illness and had to return home.

Rey picks up her load of passengers and flies them to the next camp taking care not to look at them too much or speak much either. When she does speak, she has deepened her voice and added a guttural edge to it, while speaking in the local cant.

The job is pulled off without a hitch but when she returns home it's to find Ben putting the finishing touches on his packing.

"What?" she says.

"Someone is going to put together what they said to the fact that I left. If I had never come to camp, maybe we'd have gotten away with it," he says. "But I'm not willing to take that chance. We have to leave. I've already transferred our credits to another account."

Rey wants to tell him he's being paranoid but also knows she's not going to stop him from leaving. She breathes out slowly and then says, "You need to transfer the credits from the job then." He nods slowly and Rey could see something in his shoulders relax. He'd been prepared for a fight.

Rey moves to pack her meager belongings while he transfers the credits. She finishes by the time Ben has managed to catch Porg1 who apparently didn't want to leave. Ben soothes the tiny creature by running his hand over it's head a couple times and Rey finds a little tidbit to feed him. Porg1 settles down and when night falls they both sneak their way out to the spaceport.

They left a note at camp to tell them where the missing ship they had borrowed, was and parked the ship in an actual hanger to ensure no one steals it. Then they set about finding a ship to get off world. They find a cargo ship getting ready to ship of and with their combined skills and a little help from both sides of the force, they find themselves tucked in the underbelly of the ship in a rarely used maintenance tunnel that existed for engineers to fix their ships in the event something went wrong. Rey dearly hoped nothing went wrong in this part of the ship or that if it did, she could fix it fast enough so that no one came down to investigate.

As the ship lifts off Kreat, Rey feels a little pang. They'd been happy there. She and Ben were sitting, hunched a little bit in the small space, shoulders pressed together because Porg1 was stretched across their laps. Their bags lay to either side of them. They sat in near silence for hours until Ben says, "I can't feel my back anymore."

Rey shifts slightly and then admits. "I can't feel mine either."

They relapse back into silence until Porg1 gets up and demands food. Rey takes out a tiny bit of ration and feeds it to him. Porg1 looks at her with wide eyes but Rey resists. They're going to be stuck here for a week at least. They have to ration their rations.

When down cycle arrives again Rey and Ben stretch out in the tunnel, heads together feet stretching in opposite directions in the tunnel while Porg1 flutters around trying to decide who should have the pleasure of his company. He finally settles down on Ben's chest and then spends the next few hours ensuring Ben doesn't get any sleep by pecking at him in random intervals.

It is, to say the least, a long week.


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