"So, uh, do you hug each other a lot among the Resistance?" Asked Finn from the back seat of the Millennium Falcon's cockpit.

Han and Chewbacca exchanged worried glances. In the short time they had known the former soldier, they had learned that he tended to worry a lot – mostly about ridiculous things. The only reason Finn had never started the nasty habit of nibbling on his nails was that his uniform didn't permit such a thing. Instead, it had been the micro inside his helmet that had suffered the damage, requiring a total of thirty two replacements in the time where he had served the First Order. Adding to his clumsiness, the deserter made for an interesting trip companion. Not that he wasn't lovable, far from it.

"Who hugged you, Finn?" Asked Han, not even bothering to look back.

"No one," lied the former soldier.

"Poe did," howled Chewbacca.

"Oh, did he?" Asked Han, still focused on getting the ship out of the sub-atmosphere.

"What did Chewie say?"

"Oh so I heard," continued the Wookie in a series of small grunts.

"That 'no one' is short for Poe, apparently," answered Han. "If Chewie heard of it then the whole Resistance did you know."

"Did they?" The former Stormtrooper looked mortified that his little secret was in fact a public subject. "And what else are they saying?"

"Probably not much," replied Han, more to reassure his passenger then as a matter of speaking the truth. The Resistance was a group of cackling hens when they weren't preparing to a fight, and even that didn't remotely slow down the rumors to spread. "Is there anything else to say?"

"No! Not at all!"

"Poe said that he was beautiful."

"Poe says that to every second girl," replied Han.

"Says what?"

"But Finn is a guy, right?"

"Well maybe he wants to try something new?"

"Hey! What are you guys talking about?" Finn was getting worried. He knew the conversation was about him and yet he was missing half of it.

"That Poe is flirting with you."

"He was flirting? But… isn't that reserved for people of opposite genders? We're both guys!" Now the former soldier was truly puzzled.

"Don't pay attention to him, he does that to everyone." Han pushed the ship into hyper-speed and a billion stars swooshed by.

The sight was quite pretty, but Finn's mind was filled with a larger, more disturbing concern. "Does he give his jacket to everyone he… flirts with?"

Han and Chewie exchanged a glance. It was true that the pilot had still not gotten his precious jacket off his friend, as one would have expected him to. The both remembered the time where a girl – Poe's now ex-girlfriend – had tried to make a clothing exchange, swapping his jacket against one of her, that was too large for her. The thing had lead to a real scandal between the two. That bit of leather meant a lot to him, for some reason.

"No," eventually answered Han, "he only lends it to people he considers as just friends."

It was a lie, but there was no need to make the poor boy panic more then necessary before the time was right. He would learn soon enough how intense the pilot could get when it came to courtship and before that they had a full sabotage-and-rescue mission to get on.

Oblivious to it all, Finn sighted in relief and flopped back in his chair. "Thanks Sno– I mean thank the stars that it's nothing serious. It was really bothering me. That would be strange that he would be, you know… er… interested in me. We're both guys, so it would have been weird." He let out a small uncomfortable laugh.

"Do you think he know what gay means?" Asked Chewbacca.

"I would be surprised if they included that in their training program," replied Han.

"I think so too."

"What are you guys talking about?"

"Cookies," lied Han once more.

ooo

Rey had done this before. She wasn't particularly proud to admit it, but she had done it. Just not to a Stormtrooper, inside an enemy ship, far from any safe place to escape and any type of rescue.

She crawled under the chair, not letting her objective out of her view for one second but still careful not to alert anyone of the presence. Her heart was beating at a steady pace in her ears, pumping adrenaline in every single one of her vessels. Despite that, her head was cool and she was in perfect control of every single of her movements.

She waited a moment where she was sure no one was looking, to taken in the conversation or in the screen that was broadcasting the last minutes of Starkiller has talent to notice, before grabbing her prize and backing up. She promptly crawled back in the vent and delicately closed it behind her, glad that no one had noticed.

The Stromtrooper patted his empty plate, before looking down with a frown. "Where did my nachos go?"

ooo

[After crash-landing in the forest on the surface of the Starkiller base, Han, Chebacca and Finn infiltrates themselves inside the base and capture Captain Phasma, who had just walked out of the most watched Starkiller has talent episode of all time (and that was on her way to give her congrats to Kylo Ren for having found himself such a lovely little lady). After a short interrogation where Finn gets a little too exited at the idea of finally holding his own superior in his power, she gets tossed in a compactor, supposedly to her death.]

ooo

Paradoxically, it was the events that had let her inside that compactor that were to assure her survival.

It didn't look like it, but FN-2187 was in fact one of the few skilled compactor-repairman on Starkiller base, a miracle considering how clumsy he usually was. Since he was gone, there had been various, rather embarrassing garbage problems around the base and none of them were pretty to talk about, especially since the First Order had the image of an extremely clean and an almost clockwork-like organization. FN-2187's desertion had been a more severe hit then what anyone could have predicted.

But it also was why the compressor they had dumped the captain in was broken. For which she was sure to be very grateful on the moment, but that made her curse the stupid name her ex-Stromtrooper had found, that Finn thing, on the moment, because it stunk very, very badly down there.

Like, someone had tossed in a dead body bad.

(Actually, considering they did have their share of psychos on broad, that was entirely possible. But better not think about that, right?)

So here she was, climbing on a large pile of dirt (and various other things she didn't would have never imagined that she would be climbing one day) back to the opening where she had fallen herself. Luckily for her, it was large enough for her to get in it and climb it (even if she ended several times in the pile of garbage once more).

She eventually made it all the way up, her chest heaving and her armor not so shiny anymore. But she still had a mission to carry on before she could clean herself, and that was to warn the General of the intruders before they could do any further damage then what they had already done. They hadn't said anything to compromising in the time where they had held her against her will… but she was pretty sure that they were preparing the way to an attack on Starkiller's heat oscillator. Once damaged, the uncontrollable energy of a full sun would inevitably blast our and destroy the base from the inside.

That was why she had to warn the General, or, even better, get the shields back up before it was too late.

She was power walking thought the hallways (running was undignified coming from her; she was already covered in… stuff, it was best that she didn't worsen the situation already) when she encountered what would prove to be her greatest foe so far. It moved in quick, precise strides thought the hallways, but when it saw her, as it sensed her hast, it stopped, sat, tilted its head as if it could see her purpose in the universe and was mocking it… before mowing softly.

"Aww, hello kitty…" She cooed as she kneeled to stroke the pet's soft fur. It purred and started to intensively rub its face on her knee, something cat seemed to think was necessary to woo any human they thought was worthy of their volatile attention.

And then she lost track of time.

It was only when a man walked up to her that she rose her head from the furball on the floor in front of her. She realized quite quickly that she knew his face – it was one of the officer that used to follow Hux around like a shadow. She had forgotten his name.

"Uh, sorry, mister..." said the man, "but this is my cat. I lost it. It escaped from my room – again."

She rose to her feet. She was used to people thinking that she was a man, but that had been before she had been made famous by her numerous apparitions in various propaganda spots and famous shows. Surely he would recognize the shiny armor…

A used condom fell at her feet, reminding her that she wasn't that shiny anymore and that she had a mission. Her heart skipped a beat. How long had she been petting the cat?

The man caught his pet with ease, not even acknowledging the animal's hisses or scratches. He then looked up, and felt the urge to justify why his companion seemed like it was hating him. "I really don't know what has gotten into her. Sometimes, I wonder it she isn't the reincarnation of that one Resistance pilot I killed…"

But Phasma wasn't listening to him anymore. She was back on track and no amount of cat cuteness or even kitten would be able to stop her this time.

ooo

Rey almost casually walked in a vast hangar, the taste of the nachos still lingering inside her mouth. She didn't feel so sorry for the soldier she had stole it from (not since her stomach had stopped rumbling). Spotting a few Stormtroopers on fraction, she squashed herself against the wall, her heart pounding and glad she hadn't been spotted.

Since the little incident on the television set she knew that a lot of people would now recognize her and let her pass, but she wasn't that naive. Now that she had made an apparition, she was sure that the order to capture her alive was out and running now that she was a familiar face. She was glad that she had been able to walk away from Starkiller has talent without being captured, but she wished she had never appeared there in the first place.

That was why it was imperative for her to hang low for a while.

Suddenly, she heard footsteps behind her, making freeze. She sensed that it was a fully armed Stormtrooper patrol group and that they were coming her way. For now, she was hidden behind a portion of wall, but she would soon appear in their view and then...

Feeling bold, she stepped out in the hangar once more, to the very limit of a vast empty space, and looked over the edge. To her luck, there was a maintenance ladder that she quickly climbed down. Safely hidden, she was now protected from the sight of the patrol, but not from the ones that guarded a ship fifty meters away. They just needed to turn around and she was bound to attract their attention, hanging from the wall like a bag of potatoes (even if Rey was more of a carrot in her body shape).

But it was clearly her lucky day. She recognized the general structure of the hangar itself, a commonly used one under the Empire. If this was a maintenance ladder, then the technician's door to the entrails of the ship wasn't that far away…

She spotted the lever and puller it, making a piece of the wall slide out like a drawer. She quickly sneaked in the empty space and into the hidden maintenance network only technicians (and scavengers) knew about.

Unknown to her, she had been spotted by the only friendly set of eyes on the whole Starkiller base. Han smiled, Finn was astonished at the sheer level of coincidence that moment required and Chewbacca produced a joyous growl. They had found her, and apparently, she was up and about.

But she hadn't sensed them. She quickly crawled among the wires and various tubes, before arriving to the level of a footbridge lit with red lights and that seemed to snake its way thought all the technology required to run a war.

She descended metal steps and hurried to a door that she was sure would open on a hallway, but stopped and listened for a brief moment if anything was moving on the other side. The safe thing to do would be to stay here and hide a while longer, but that wouldn't get her out of that place. She needed to steal a TIE fighter at all costs and get away as fast as possible from him.

On a second thought, she stayed a while longer in the safety of the red lights, and pulled out the picture the woman in shining armor had gave her to take a look at it. It seemed so peaceful. So far from the truth of what was really happening between them. And yet, the more she was looking at it, the more it looked… sweet.

… why in the world was she smiling at a picture of Kylo Ren?

She shoved the photo down her cleavage as if she had been doing something wrong, and quickly walked out the door. On impulse, she took the way on the right. She glanced behind to see if anyone had seen her or was coming after her… and walked straight into Chewbacca.

"Rey!" He cheered, hugging her to death. She took a mouthful of fur but had never been so glad in her life for being crushed in a bear hug.

She wobbled a little upon being released but she was caught and straightened by Han, who was clearly used to Chewbacca's antics. "Hey, aren't we glad to see you alive." He had a warm smile as he gently patted her head.

"Hey, aren't you a fierce little one, following our son home like that?" The man kneeled and patted her head and she gave him a cheeky smile. Upon being discovered, she had expected to be yelled at, but the man was nice and had a warm smile. "You want to come inside for a while?"

"Han? What are you doing?" A woman walked out of the house. She had an air of grace to her, and her hair were tied up in twin buns on the side of her head. Rey liked her right away. "Oh, who is that?"

"Rey! How did you escape?" Asked Finn anxiously.

She made wide eyes upon seeing him. Last time they had met, the former Stormtrooper had been ready to leave everything and go hide at the very edge of the galaxy, as far as he could get from the First Order. She had felt hurt. Even if he had lied to her about being part of the Resistance (which she minded since she had trusted him based on this lie), she had felt even more betrayed by his cowardly move.

And now he was here.

"You're here?" She asked. It was so unbelievable that she poked his cheek.

He slightly winced at that, still not used to direct skin to skin contact, but he managed to smile to her. He was truly glad to see her alive. "Yeah, I came to the rescue."

"You mean, we came to the rescue," corrected Han. "Now let's get out of here, we don't have a lot of time." He pushed them along to make the hurry. Chewbacca followed with a small approving groan.

ooo

I love cats. But I am allergic to them.

Trust me on this one. Cats are evil. That is why they are greatly attracted to me. Not only can they make my face blow up in the most undignified way (I look up to thirty years older when that happens), but they also psychologically torture me with the idea that I can never hold them or even have a cat pet… long sight, pulls out tissue, starts crying silently.

Why do I even like evil characters so much?

Next chapter is going to be the tenth chapter! Yay! I always feel that when one of my stories enter a double digit number of chapters, it is really important, even if it doesn't mean much at the end of the day.

Beside that, I have been making some intensive research on the different candidates for Rey's father, and I have come up with a surprising conclusion – one that, to me, is not very farfetched, but that I will be keeping a secret because I want to use it in this fanfiction as Rey's backstory.

So, let's first look at the evidence we have. Upon capturing her, Kylo Ren precisely says (about Han Solo) that 'you feel that he is the father you never had', which indicates that she never knew her real father, but not only that, that it was an evidence around her that her genitor had never been around. Considering that, in the flashback where she is dropped on Jakku, we see that she is quite old (I would venture the age of five to eight years old, my memory of that part of the movie isn't that fresh), she has lived long enough to remember her life prior to her being dropped off.

A life without a father.

That points to the possibility that it was her mother that dropped her off, but I am saving that for later. And, by the way, why is everyone always wondering who is Rey's father? That makes no sense on a biological level. Did you know that mitochondria are directly inherited from the mother and the mother only? When the ovule meets the sperm cell, the latter does contain some mitochondria, but they are left out of the egg and hence the child will never have any of his father mitochondria.

And for all this time you had completely missed out on the fact that Amidala was a freaking power house. Luke and Leia, inheriting their father's powers? Please. Trust me, I am not making theses facts up. They are scientifically proven.

So, instead of fighting over Kenobi, Skywalker or Han Solo, you people better open your eyes for a possible Force-sensitive female… apart from Leia, please.

Going any further would be dipping in speculation territory (although I don't make theories without having some good evidence to back them up) but I will be continue to explain my theory as I go on with the story.

Oh, and, spoiler alert: here, Rey and Kylo won't be cousins.