I Need a Teacher
By TheOneAndOnlySlayer
Chapter 12 complete (updated 9-18-2016)
They break for lunch and Rey returns to her friends for some much-needed company. Ben looks like he needs to brood about stuff anyways, and Rey is more than happy to part with him for now.
She finds the others outside the castle, where they've landed the stolen freighter and two X-wing fighters. Among the handful of Resistance men and women, Finn is bent over listening to R2-D2. Nearby, Chewbacca hunches his shoulders and pretends he does not see Rey.
Feeling the frosty indifference towards her through the Force, Rey pretends this does not bother her for now. At least not inwardly. Not too long ago, she used to feel as vindictive as the Wookie who lost his best friend. Rey surmised enough that the bond between Han and Chewie was more than just close comrades, especially by how he looked haunted and seemed to grey faster. This whole plan with Ben, the son who murdered his father, being allowed to share company with them, really really did not go well with him.
To his credit, Chewie had waited until he had safely landed the aircraft on the coast and waited for their backup X-wing fighters. Ben hadn't been handcuffed and treated like a prisoner of war by the two dopes who guarded his cell every night, or Leia, who was traumatized, or even Finn. Chewie had burst into the bunker where Finn dumbly watched Ben try to treat an unconscious Rey. As soon as Ben had said he expelled the series of visions storming in Rey's head, Chewie had attacked him and slapped cuffs on his wrists. Nothing too rough, like broken ribs, but no one had thought to consider the Wookie was going soft on his pseudo-nephew.
Leia had rushed in to interfere, yelling at Chewie to knock it off. She had hastened to have Ben locked away until she could think of a better plan. All Chewie had said was, "You keep him away from me or I will kill him." Rey hadn't heard him speak since.
Rey focuses on Finn. He's been learning Binary through the droid and Rey in exchange for Finn teaching Rey how to read Basic.
"What's new with the outside galaxy?" she says in greeting.
"Trying to get news on Poe. And Jess." Finn is shaking his head. "Nothing yet."
Rey pauses, an unexpected grin lifting her bad mood. Jess, huh? She can feel his intimacy of her name, the way his breath practically covets it. "Maybe I can search for…them."
She does not say Jessika. Or Jess. She leaves it neutral, just to tease him.
Finn turns to Rey in concern. "You sure it's okay to do that? Couldn't it leave you weak?"
Rey shakes her head. "I don't mind. I can try to let him know we're okay."
Finn inspects his friend's offer. She doesn't normally offer to use things like that for convenience. She's often muttered how uncomfortable she feels about using her abilities out in public with them. Poe's attributed it to how Jedi, from what he's heard, are trained in charity.
Finn personally thinks Rey doesn't like the attention and normally respects her privacy, but it's been a week since they heard from their friends. And Jess. He hasn't talked to her in a while, and doesn't feel comfortable not being able to see her X-wing return with the others in her squad. It's how he knows she's safe with the other teammates. In this isolated purgatory of a planet, the silence makes him suspicious.
"Wait. What if Snoke…?"
Rey looks tired and determined at once. "It won't be a problem."
Finn shrugs. "Okay. Everyone's in that lower-level room in the castle, so your best bet for privacy's in the freighter." He follows her up the freighter, thankful that Chewie's busy setting up an antenna's cloaking frequency device somewhere else.
They go to the bunker Ben had carried her into. She hasn't been back in here since they landed on this planet. She sits on the floor and crosses her legs, breathes in and out for a clean start.
She knows how to find Poe's signature. He was the first. Well, technically, Luke was the first, as part of her training to search for others and communicate through the Force, but on a long-scale search that spanned the galaxy like she was a damned radio, Poe is the first non-Force-sensitive Rey has reached out to. He hadn't been very keen on the idea, considering he had felt violated from Kylo Ren.
Finn's signature is decidedly more open to the search. He's bright and calm, like an even river. Poe, probably because of his lightning-quick reflexes and tireless bravado, is like a bow, strong with tension.
She breathes. In and out. She falls into a semi-conscious state, so that Finn's attentive gaze doesn't buzz around her awareness. Like snow melting, like tea flowers blooming, she expands. Beyond the atmosphere, into the vast maze of stars and planets.
It's like hearing for a fly in a room. It's tiny and almost invisible as a pinprick on skin, but it's there, and Rey can find it. She draws further, making sure it's him and not some other daring fella with perfect teeth.
There's a quick disturbance. She buckles down into the connection. It's him, all right. She feels the buzzing around of communication and reflexes matching together in a small but swerving cockpit space.
Poe. Poe, it's me, Rey.
"REY! Rey, I can't – "
Whoosh! Rey can't see the explosion, but she can feel it, as if the heat and sudden flash of the flames aren't swallowed by the cold of space.
The radio crackles urgently. "Black leader, the Dreadnought's advancing!"
"Double around and aim at their thrusters, guys!" Poe's voice rings with a forced calm.
"There's a second one spotted at our 3-2-zero-5!"
"TIE fighters on our tail, a whole fleet of 'em!"
Rey seizes at the newcomer's voice. It's Jess Pava.
"I can't – out – " Poe's voice is losing focus. Non-Force-sensitives normally can't withstand a mind connection like Rey's while in the middle of something, like piloting a fighter in battle.
Right before Rey pulls out of the connection, Poe shouts out one word. She almost can't understand it at first.
"Nabali!" he yells in a strained voice.
In an instant Rey feels Finn's dark hands support her. Breathing heavily, she braces her hands on the metal floor.
"He's – they're – "
"Easy, don't, not yet," Finn instructs, though Rey can feel his worry's piqued. He thinks she's going to calm her breathing, but Rey scrambles to her feet like a newborn and bolts on wobbly legs out of the freighter.
"Wha – Rey, Kriff!" Finn calls out as Rey searches for Leia. The General's usually inside maintaining underground communication messages. Rey finds her, hiding a wince after spraining her shin from running too awkwardly.
"Lei – General!" she corrects herself. "It's Poe and the X-wing squadron. They're engaging the Dreadnought! He said Nabali. Maybe that's a planet or a system. I've never heard of it before – !"
Leia's chestnut brown eyes shone with recognition. The Dreadnought, while not as massive or as fatal as Starkiller Base, is the flagship of a series of platform cruisers that are several sizes bigger than Star Destroyers. It's supposed to be so big it can eclipse a small province or a few major cities and block out communication frequencies. The underside of the ship is covered in magnetic receptors that can dampen energy sources from the city and cast anyone caught living below into a stone age. If fighters get caught flying underneath the Dreadnought, they fizzle out and descend to the ground due to lack of power.
Apparently Poe and his squad goons are in the middle of a fight with one.
Leia stares her down. "You didn't…how do you know this?"
Rey put her hands at her hips. "I wasn't under orders not to search through the Force to seek out a communication with our comrades."
"It was fucking implied," Leia bit out, approaching Rey. "There are a dozen of us and only three of our people know the true location of our hideout. The most powerful mind in the galaxy's just killed off the competition and we've taken off with the underling who's betrayed him. How could you think that talking to one of our guys long-distance like that wasn't a risk to our position?"
It's so unexpected to face Leia's ire like this that Rey's mind can barely comprehend what she's saying. "Leia," Rey struggles to add. "We can't be staying here any longer. We've been stuck on this rotten coast for almost a week. How long are we expected to stay grounded?"
"How's your training coming along?" Leia replies calmly.
Taken aback, Rey is unable to answer. "What?"
"Your training, with my son. What is your progress?" Her tone has changed into something deceptively soft.
What have they been working on, really? Rey and Ben have been left alone for the most part since they got here. It's all…a little strange how much freedom they've been given. For the first few days it was evident that they all needed to seriously regroup after leaving Snoke's base. But now…are they on a vacation? Taking diving lessons and fishing? Reflecting on the past?
"We've covered a lot of ground – but!" Rey plows on. "This isn't something that can't be carried on at a Resistance base that needs us. That Dreadnought cruiser is just the beginning. We don't know how many there are, or how soon they can take over other planets one by one!"
"Enough, Rey! Kriff, at least act like I'm still your superior," she muttered between clenched teeth as she grabbed Rey's elbow.
It's a little childish how the young Jedi is being led to a quieter alcove where they can't be overheard, but Rey lets it go. No one notices Finn whose been standing by the entrance, ever the forcibly patient soldier.
"Ma'am," she tries. "I've recovered. I'm gaining my strength. I can't allow the leader of the Resistance to stay here on my behalf when they need you to lead them." She's begging, just a little bit.
"We're not leaving this rock until I know you're ready to engage Snoke, Rey," Leia says firmly. "You are the best chance of cutting off the head of the First Order. You will park your ass here until I see you are ready for battle."
Something's off about the woman's stiffness. She's hiding something.
"You…you're worried about Ben." Rey should have seen it. Of course – of fucking course. Leia's in no rush to leave this sea-borne planet when she has no idea how her people will receive the redeemed Kylo Ren. Her son. Her cowardly, murderous son.
Leia looks like she's carefully navigating through a mine field. A politician's grace. "There's more to it than that," she evades.
"Your favorite pilot is in danger," Rey reminds the woman, fuming. "He's been more loyal to you than him. So are others who have risked their lives under your guidance. They need you."
Leia's temper acts quickly to disarm the younger woman. "I've known Poe since his parents served the Rebel Alliance. I've known them for longer than you've joined our cause, girl," she says sharply.
Rey bares her teeth, completely fed up. "We have to help them. People are dying!"
Leia is grave. "Poe and the others are doing what they're trained to do. Your job is to cut off the head, not get killed trying to. Go back to training, Rey."
The former princess's steely gaze does nothing for Rey as she stares off distantly into the grey-white sky. She excuses herself from Finn, making Rey turn to face him in surprise.
She opens her mouth to say something but is struck deaf at her friend's face. He's trying to remain carefully acceptable at their fearless leader's orders. But his eyes are glassy, worried.
Rey thinks of Jess Pava's voice, clamped down and trying to not shriek. Jess isn't brash like Poe. She has this remarkable ability to never sound worried, at all.
"She sounded all right when I heard them," Rey assures her friend. That's honestly all she can offer him. And Finn nods because it's all he can do, too.
sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
Rey hates him. Oh, gods, she knows it's wrong (Luke told her not to hate him, he's his own nephew, he was corrupted just like she could be), but she can't stand the idea of him. She's disgusted at how he even tried to make a joke about his murdered father… The man who raised him, whom he had killed. She hates how he has everything, everything, even still…
Within this storm of emotions, Rey feels betrayed from the secret connection she's felt mature between herself and the General, the fearless mother of a woman who exudes warmth and strength. This woman has chosen him, him above the devoted men and women who are fighting where they are all needed. Not here! Not on this saltwater rock with nothing better to do than to listen to her former enemy lecture her.
She's been reasonable and patient so far. She's tried to be the sensible Jedi adult. But this isn't right.
Why did Luke have to die? Why did he have to leave her with him like this?
She had gone from hating Kylo Ren to trying to understand the man smothered underneath him, to foolishly, stupidly, trying to let that smothered part of him inside. How could she have been so stupid? She's almost sick with having betrayed her own self.
She's marching back across the beach where he has been meditating in the same damn place she left him. All at once, the meditation, the quiet behavior of this man, who wears the same face – the long nose, the wild crown of hair, the sullen eyes – is a mask again.
No. Rey's had enough of meditation, of reliving the past and its pains.
She speaks before he opens his mouth. "I think we should do some combat training instead."
