Joey still couldn't get Leia to talk to him. In the few hours since Alderaan's fall, he had muttered her name through their shared ventilation system, but she had said nothing back. So his thoughts kept leading back to the movie he thought he knew so well. How long until Han, Luke, and Chewbacca showed up to rescue her? Was Rachel with them to help look for him as well or would they have thought to check that he was also a prisoner without her help? And if she wasn't here, where was she?

There were so many questions and stuck in this cell, he had no means of figuring out the answers.

He was brought out of his state when blasters sounded outside the door. This was it! They were here to rescue Leia!

"Rachel, we're gonna have company!" Joey heard the voice of Han Solo call.

He could hear the pressing of buttons outside his cell. "Son of a bitch." That was Rachel! She was here! She was alive!

The door blasted open and she was there, dressed in the gray uniform of a docking bay worker. Her jump towards him was much faster, however, as his weakened state of hunger kept his reflexes at bay as she jumped into his arms.

"You're alright! I knew you'd be okay. I knew it!" she said, her arms tight around his neck.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm alright," he said, clapping her back gently. He wasn't really a hugger and Rachel knew that, but right now, the feeling of comfort, familiarity that neither of them had experienced since getting separated on the Tantive was too much for them to just let go.

"Rachel!" a voice called out. It was Luke, his Stormtrooper helmet gone and Leia behind him. "We've got to go!"

"Right," she said, letting Joey go and pulling her blaster out of her pants, following Luke.

Han and Chewbacca were already blocking the path forward as the smaller group caught up with them. Blaster fires were being sent their way through a cloud of smoke and fire.

"Can't get out that way," Han said.

"Looks like you've managed to cut off our only escape route," Leia yelled over the blasts.

"Maybe you'd like it back in your cell, your highness," Han taunted.

Rachel had joined him in the blaster fight, her smaller form under his peeking around the wall to blast at the Stormtroopers heading their way. "Maybe try to think of a solution instead of fighting, the two of you!" she yelled.

Luke had ducked further behind the wall with Joey, yelling into a small microphone. "Threepio! Threepio! We've been cut off! Are there any other ways out of the cell bay?"

"All systems have been alerted to your presence, sir," Threepio said. "The main entrance seems to be the only way in or out. All other information on your level is restricted."

Smoke was filling the corridor, and fast. There was no way that Rachel, Han, and Chewie were going to keep the Stormtroopers at bay. "Rachel!" Joey called. "The trash compactor!"

She ducked out of the frey instantly. "Right!" she said, throwing her blaster to Joey who caught it and aimed at the grate opposite them.

"Everyone inside," Joey said, leading the way into the compactor. He fell quite a few feet before hitting the softened, wet garbage. The smell, something one could never experience through a television screen, was atrocious. He choked down a gag as Leia, Rachel and Luke fell beside him.

"A door!" Luke said, aiming his blaster at the entrance.

"No!" Rachel said, pulling his arm down. "It's magnetically sealed. You'll send the laser all over the place."

Chewie landed beside Joey, followed by Han. As soon as the space captain found his footing, he turned to Joey. "What a wonderful smell you've discovered, General Ghost! Garbage chute was a great idea."

"General...what?"

"Rachel said your name was Dresden Jay. Dresden Jay is gone."

"I said his middle name was Dresden," Rachel countered. "I never said he was this famous general!"

"So your name is Dresden!" Leia yelled. "How many more lies are the two of you going to tell me?"

"As many as we have to to keep my promise to Ben," Rachel said, leaning against the wall.

"Guys, stop yelling," Luke said. "There's something alive in here."

"There's nothing there!" Han argued.

"Something just moved past my leg!"

"It's your imagination!"

"Shut up!" Joey yelled. "Luke, get onto the trash. Get out of the water-"

But it was too late. Luke was pulled under by whatever creature inhabited the trash compactor. Joey readied himself to pounce after him, but Rachel grabbed his arm. Whatever Luke would be fine. There was no need to act. She did her best to explain this with her eyes, and Joey seemed to get the message, unclenching his body and relaxing, moving his own eyes back towards the water.

Everyone else had started to shout for Luke, but when he didn't surface immediately, the room grew quiet. When Luke eventually shot back out of the sewage, he was covered in gunk and the creature's tentacles were wrapped around his body. Leia and Han started to call for him, but Rachel and Joey kept their distance, watching the scene play out before them.

"What happened?" Leia shouted.

"I don't know," Luke said. "It just disappeared."

And then, the walls began to shake. Instinctively, Rachel grabbed Joey for a familiar comfort. In all of this action since their reunion, they hadn't once had a chance to talk, to be together in this world where everything was foreign, yet familiar.

The group began scrambling and Leia shouted at them to help barr the walls, slowly closing in around them, but Rachel and Joey weren't concerned with the walls.

"Luke," Rachel prompted, yelling over the noise of the walls and the shouting of their companions, yet staying relatively calm. "Use the com-link. Call Threepio."

"Yes!" Luke said, pulling it out of his Stormtrooper suit. "Threepio! Threepio!"

Joey watched the groups' attempts to block the closing doors and took his chance with their momentary distraction. "Rachel, what did you mean you were keeping a promise to Ben?"

Her head turned toward him. "He knew, Joey. He knew that we know the future...and the past. And...Joey, this isn't the time for this. We can talk about it when we make it to the Falcon."

"You bet your ass we're gonna talk about it. Cause what you're saying makes it sound like Ben's met us before. And Vader...he's implied the same thing."

Rachel's eyes grew wide. "You spoke to Darth Vader?"

Subconsciously, Joey rubbed at his neck. "I don't want to talk about it right now. You're right. We should save this for the Falcon."

Rachel knew Joey pretty well. They had been friends for almost five years and she knew whatever happened with him and Vader wasn't pretty. Joey also wasn't one for bottling up his feelings. He was a sharer. Almost to the point where he and Rachel had no secrets because they were eachother's vent buddies. The fact that he didn't look willing to share scared her more than her imagianings of what Vader could have done to him.

The walls grew closer and closer and the panic around them grew as Luke continued to yell "Shut down all the garbage smashers on the detention level!" into his com link. She and Joey kept their cool, climbing up the rubble whenever it grew too tight. Then, when Rachel was able to touch both sides of the closing wall, it stopped.

The cheering that ensued should have been infectious. But all the two friends from another world could feel was stoicism. They simply watched with forced smiles on their faces as their companions cheered with relief.

"They did it! Those crazy droids did it!" Luke said, making his way over to Rachel and wrapping her in a hug. She instinctively stiffened, and Luke pulled back. "Sorry," he said, his glee fading a little. "I forgot. You don't like strangers touching you."

But Rachel wasn't uncomfortable. It was the surprise at that fact that had caused her to stiffen for Luke wasn't a stranger. He had never been. She had known him through a television screen since before she was born. And now, she knew him as a companion and a friend.

She smiled and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, returning the hug. "We're not strangers anymore, Luke."

He clutched her tightly and Han and Chewie started helping Leia out through a vent they could now climb to.

Luke pulled back and looked at Joey. "Shouldn't you two be more excited? We were almost crushed!"

"Iguess this whole thing just isn't what I thought it would be," Joey said, heading toward the vent.

Luke turned to Rachel. "What did he mean by that?"

"The Rebellion," she covered. "We always dreamed of joining the Rebellion. Now that we have, it's just not what we thought it would be."

"What were you expecting?"

She let out a sigh. "I don't really know, Luke. It was a dream so far out of reach that we never even considered it until it happened. Now that it has, there's so many questions we thought we would have the answer to that we don't. So many mysteries that we couldn't have predicted."

Luke smiled. "Well, I'm glad you joined the Rebellion. WE never would have met if you hadn't. Now that we have, I can't imagine the Rebellion without you."

She returned his smile. "Thank you, Luke."

"Hey, kid! Sweetheart!" Han called from outside the vent. "We gotta get movin' before those troopers find us."