Before the ramp of the Millennium Falcon even sets down all the way, Chewbacca emerges onto the tarmac with Finn cradled in his arms, Rey only a few steps behind him. Two people dressed in brown take Finn from Chewbacca's arms and place him onto some sort of transport vehicle that drives away with a screech of tire on asphalt. Chewbacca sets off after them, followed by a sizable number of people including a man in an orange jumpsuit that gives her a sympathetic look, and then Rey is alone.

Hundreds of people are on the tarmac, enough people to fill Niima Outpost ten times over, and they're all cheering and celebrating the downfall of Starkiller Base: their first real victory against the First Order. She wonders how many people they'd lost that night. If any of them are clinging to life the same way that Finn is now.

Movement catches her eye and she looks up to see an older woman approaching her. She looks to be about fifty years old, maybe a little older, and she has two droids by her side: BB-8 and a golden protocol droid. She wears simple clothing with her hair braided out of her face, and her eyes flicker between Rey and the Falcon like she's searching for someone that she knows is no longer with them.

Her chest tightens in sorrow. This must be General Organa, who had lost her planet, her brother, her son. And now her husband is gone too. From the barely-concealed heartbreak on the general's face, she must know already. She had probably sensed it through the Force.

The general finally speaks when they're a few feet from each other. "You must be Rey." Despite the quiver in her words, the strength in the other woman's bearing is the kind that neither time nor sand can erode. "I'm Leia. I'm glad to see that you're alright."

"I—thank you." She swallows hard. "And I…I'm sorry about Han."

In response, Leia embraces her. Rey has no memory of ever being held like this, as though by a mother. The full weight of everything she had seen and done that day—escaping the only home she had ever known, finding Luke Skywalker's lightsaber, being kidnapped and tortured, watching Han Solo die, fighting Kylo Ren in the forest, watching Finn fight for his life on the ride to D'Qar—collapses on her, and she grits her teeth hard to prevent the howl of grief welling up in her soul from escaping.

After what seems like no time at all, Leia pulls away. "Come on," she says. "Let's go check on your friend."

Tears trickling down both of their faces, Rey and Leia move inside.

"How's Finn?"

It takes her an embarrassingly long time to realize that she's being spoken to, and she looks up. The speaker is a man with curly dark hair and stubble dotted on his face, and from the orange jumpsuit he's wearing he must be a pilot. He's flanked by two others, a young woman with dark skin and short blond hair, and a bearded man who looks like he's never missed a meal in his life, and they're all staring at her. Rey sits up straighter, her stiff muscles aching in protest as she does so. "I don't know," she says honestly. "No one's told me anything yet."

The dark-haired man curses under his breath. "That figures." He plops down in the chair beside her, the woman beside him following suit while the other man keeps standing. He turns to her, hand outstretched. "I'm Poe, by the way. Poe Dameron. Finn's told me a lot about you."

Rey stares uncomprehendingly. Surely she's misheard. "Finn told me that you were shot down with him on Jakku," she says cautiously. If she really is sitting here and talking to a Force ghost—well, stranger things have happened. "I—he told me you were dead."

A quicksilver grin. "How's the saying go? Rumors of my death were greatly exaggerated."

The corners of her mouth quirk upward into a genuine smile, her first one in what feels like ages. "Fair enough." She shakes his hand. "I'm Rey."

"I know. It's nice to meet you." She's quickly introduced to Poe's friends—the woman is Karé Kun and the man is Snap Wexley—and for the next several minutes, the four of them exchange stories about Jakku and the Resistance. Finn is prominent in most of them, and it's clear that these three care about him a lot.

Halfway through Karé's story about her first time in an X-Wing, the doors to the intensive care section open and the head Resistance medic—Dr. Kalonia, Leia had said her name is—emerges. Her smile nearly makes Rey faint. "Your friend's going to be just fine."

Poe whoops, picking Karé up and twirling her around while she laughs and tells him to knock it off. Snap is beaming brightly enough to power D'Qar for a year, and Rey's relief threatens to bring her to her knees. "Thank you," she whispers. It's all she can think of to say. "I—can I see him?"

"You can, but he won't be conscious for at least a few more days. We've chosen to place him in a medically-induced coma as a precaution." That erases most of her joy, and even Poe stops smiling, but Dr. Kalonia raises her hands in a gesture of reassurance. "Lightsaber wounds are often difficult to treat, but I promise that death is not coming for your friend. Not this time."

It is always difficult to sort through the aftermath of a battle, especially one that had come at so high of a cost. The Hosnian System has been destroyed in the same manner that Alderaan had been so long ago, and groups of refugees have been pouring in all day. The New Republic Senate is in chaos, and emergency elections for a new Chancellor after Lanever Villecham's sudden death are already in full swing. Fourteen pilots had been lost during the raid on Starkiller Base, ten more injured, and several prominent First Order officers have gone missing. And Han—

Han is gone. Leia had felt him die, felt the presence that she'd grown so accustomed to over the years flicker out and vanish. No matter how much she wants to deny it, she can sense the truth deep down in her bones.

"I see that you have neglected to take part in the celebrations outside, General."

Leia turns around so quickly that her hair almost comes undone from her braid. Standing before her in the empty war room is Maz Kanata, whom she had not expected to see so soon after the destruction of her castle on Takodana. And while Maz can be a nuisance at times—and reminds Leia all too strongly of Luke's stories of his time with Master Yoda on Dagobah—she is an ally, and a friend at that. "Yes, well…" She shrugs halfheartedly. The others from high command had invited her, but she had decided to stay behind and continue sorting through the damage. "It…wasn't quite my scene."

"Pity," Maz says. "I saw Admiral Ackbar leading most of your pilots in a very rousing rendition of 'Battle Hymn of the New Republic' on the tarmac. A bit off-key, but rather entertaining."

Leia snorts, a smile tugging at her lips for a brief moment before she decides to get down to business. After all, Maz wouldn't have come all the way to D'Qar just to exchange small talk. "How are you, Maz? How is Takodana?"

"We've both seen better days. But I have a good crew in charge of rebuilding what was destroyed, and we should be back up and running within the month." She clasps her hands together, sorrow twisting her expression for the first time in their conversation. "I was sorry to hear about Han. He was a good man."

Hearing Han referred to in the past tense brings her back to the aftermath of her and Luke and Lando's escape from Cloud City. Someone in the Rebellion had dared to insinuate that rescuing Han was a lost cause, and she had snapped at him, Han isn't dead, and if you keep suggesting otherwise I'll see to it that you're placed on sanitation duty for the next month. But now there's no one to be snippy with. Han is gone, and there is no bringing him back. Nor is there a chance of bringing Ben back. She had been so foolish to assume that there was still Light in her son. "Thank you," she says at last. "I…appreciate that."

Maz nods. "Han told me about the map that you were searching for. The map to Luke. Have you had any luck piecing it together?"

"No." It nearly kills her to force out that word. "The bit recovered from BB-8 was helpful, but Threepio said it didn't match any charted system on record." She chuckles humorlessly. "Sometimes I forget that Luke can be just as stubborn as I am. After what happened to Mara and his daughter and his students, it doesn't surprise me that he doesn't want to be found."

"So why search?"

The question takes her off guard for a moment. "The First Order was rising, growing in strength," she says. "The odds were against us, and the Republic wasn't offering its support, and...I assumed Luke could help me restore peace and justice to the galaxy." Not to mention that I missed my brother. "He's always been good at that."

Maz laughs. "That he has." She reaches forward, placing a hand on Leia's. "Yet you dealt the First Order a great setback without his help. The Resistance lives to see another day." She adjusts her spectacles so that her eyes aren't quite as magnified. "And some of your members are truly…extraordinary."

Leia understands who Maz is referring to at once. "You mean Rey and Finn," she says, not really seeking an answer. Chewbacca had told her that both Finn and Rey had wielded Luke's lightsaber, but she had not considered the meaning of such an action until now. "Are they strong with the Force?"

"As strong as I have seen in a long time," Maz confirms. "And I sense that they have more to learn from Luke than you could imagine."

Before Leia can ask Maz to clarify, a familiar voice cuts her off. "General? Excuse me, General?" Leia and Maz both turn around, and she can barely keep her composure when she sees Artoo beside Threepio and BB-8. The droid who had delivered her message to Obi-Wan Kenobi, helped Luke blow up the Death Star, is active for the first time since Luke had disappeared. Force, it's a miracle. "R2-D2 may contain some much needed good news."

Hope, vast and sweeping, swells up within her. "Tell me," she demands. "Tell me everything."

Rey's surprised that she had been invited to this meeting at all—but then again, she had played a role in delivering BB-8 to the Resistance, so maybe this is Leia's way of thanking her. There's about ten people there altogether including her: General Organa, Poe, BB-8, the golden protocol droid named C-3PO, Maz Kanata, and a handful of pilots and members of high command.

A communications officer with blonde hair in two buns is currently giving a debrief about the recent influx of refugees from the Hosnian System and if the base has enough room to house them. Rey remembers seeing a pair of sisters tearfully reuniting on her way from the infirmary to the meeting, and she hopes that they (and the others) will be allowed to stay. Any home is better than no home at all.

"Thank you, Lieutenant Connix," Leia is saying, and Rey makes an effort to tune back in. "Now onto the main point of order." She gestures to C-3PO, who steps aside to reveal another droid, a R2 unit that looks older than anything Rey has ever seen and yet somewhat familiar at the same time. Where had she seen it before? "You are all aware of the recent expedition I ordered—the one with the intention of retrieving the map that leads to Luke Skywalker. Unfortunately, the piece recovered from Lor San Tekka was only that. A piece." She pauses. "And now we have acquired the remaining sections."

Suddenly Rey remembers where she'd seen this droid before. She had seen it during the vision she had experienced after touching Luke Skywalker's lightsaber for the first time in Maz's castle. This is R2-D2, the droid that had helped blow up the Death Star. And he knows something about the map.

Suddenly, R2-D2 projects a full three-dimensional holographic image of a navigational star chart, filling up most of the room. Rey notices at once that it's missing a substantial fragment—a fragment the same size as the piece that BB-8 had shown her, Finn and Han on the Millennium Falcon yesterday.

BB-8 begins beeping excitedly and Poe says, "Yeah, alright buddy, hold on," before running over to the table that houses the base computer. He plucks the ancient data device from the side and kneels down and inserts it into BB-8. "Do your stuff, buddy."

Wheeling forward to be next to R2-D2, BB-8 then projects his map, which he shrinks down significantly. Moving in tandem, both droids unite their respective holograms, BB-8's piece filling in R2-D2's perfectly.

"Oh!" C-3PO exclaims, looking about ready to break into song. "The map! It's complete!"

Cheers and spontaneous embraces fill the room. Rey's grinning so hard that it hurts as Poe pulls her into a brief but friendly hug before rushing off to do the same to Lieutenant Connix and some of the other pilots, and her joy is only dampened by the thought that Finn ought to be here to see this too.

Someone—one of the members of high command, she thinks—calls to adjourn the meeting and continue the celebration that had been going on since Starkiller Base had been destroyed, and Leia acquiesces. The room empties quickly, and Rey follows the crowd with the intention of returning to Finn's side in the infirmary, but Leia's voice stops her. "One moment, Rey," she says, and Rey turns around. Maz stands by Leia's side, both of their expressions unreadable. "I'd like to ask you something."

Fifteen minutes later, Rey has a lot to think about.

Whatever alarm is going off in the background definitely wins the award for Most Annoying Noise This Side of the Western Reaches, and although Finn would rather stay in bed more than anything he knows that he has to start getting up soon because the last time he'd dwelled in bed Captain Phasma had made him take both Nines' and Slip's shifts and—

Wait.

He can't move. Why can't he move? His eyelids feel like they're stuck together and Force help him, even his face feels heavy. The world around him is getting louder and that stupid beeping noise is getting faster and faster. He feels like he's in combat training all over again, when he'd had to swim upwards from the bottom of a very deep pool with weights tied around his ankles. Light filters through his eyelids and he knows it's too bright to be his quarters back on base.

Where is he?

"Shit. Are you awake?"

The voice sounds familiar but Finn can't put the pieces together. What's wrong with me? His eyes slowly open and the ceiling swims around in his line of vision. Yep, it's definitely not his ceiling. Where is he?

"BB-8, go and get Dr. Kalonia! Hey, can you hear me, buddy?"

Finn can't tell whether the voice is louder or if his ears are just working better. His head feels like someone smacked him upside the helmet with a hammer.

A new voice drowns out the old one. "Can you hear me, Finn?" The owner of the voice shines an impossibly bright light in his eyes, and he flinches away from whoever it is, his eyes squeezing shut even more so than before. Now he feels like a bunch of Ewoks have just stampeded over his skull. "Can you hear me?"

"Yeah," he grunts, which comes out as 'ymph'. The light clicks off again. Thankful, he sluggishly struggles to sit up but then two sets of hands are pushing him down again. He hears a droid beeping in the background—had that been the source of the beeping from earlier?

The voice that belongs to the owner of the bright light doesn't leave him alone. "Can you open your eyes?"

Not one to refuse an order—even if it is phrased like a question—his eyes blink open slowly. Everything's a blur, and there's at least ten people surrounding him and peppering him with questions. Looking around somehow triggers a second coughing attack, this one nearly jolting him off whatever he's lying on.

"Water?" he croaks, squeezing his eyes shut to ward off the coughing attack, and it's barely a second later that he hears someone or something pouring water and then someone is holding a cup to his lips. He sputters at the cool liquid in his mouth, swallowing carefully until the glass is empty. When he opens his eyes again, his vision has improved a little but everything is mostly fuzzy. On the bright side he's managed to regain the ability to connect names with faces: Poe is here, along with Karé, Snap, Dr. Kalonia, BB-8 and General Organa.

"How are you feeling, Finn?" General Organa asks. "You woke up so suddenly that you gave all the healers a scare."

Wait, healers? Is he in the infirmary? Why does he need a healer?

"What's the last thing that you remember?"

Good question. He comes up startlingly empty as his brain starts to throb within his skull. Whatever he remembers doesn't make sense. Snow and lightsabers, and Rey throwing her arms around him after—

Rey?

Kylo Ren raises his hand and then Rey is flying backward, a scream tearing from her throat as she hits a tree, sliding down into the snow with a thud. He yells her name and tosses aside the lightsaber and he's running to her like he's never run before because no no no Rey, please, Rey, wake up Rey, come on, come on…

A bolt of panic shoots through him and the annoying beeping noise in the background spikes and then fades out again once he looks to his right and sees Rey sitting beside him, a combination of relief and terror in her eyes. She's alive. Thank the Force.

The rest of his memories come back slowly and then all at once. Fleeing Jakku in the Millennium Falcon. Defecting from the First Order. Reuniting with Poe and the rest of Black Squadron. Throwing Captain Phasma down a garbage chute. Fighting Kylo Ren. Watching Solo die.

Finn swallows hard. "What happened?" He's pleased to see that he can talk again, even if he sounds like he's wandered Jakku for a thousand years without drinking any water. "Did—what happened to Starkiller Base? H-how long have I been here?"

"It blew up," Poe says. "You—you've been in here for five days, buddy."

Five days. Kriffing hell.

Dr. Kalonia clears her throat after Karé and Snap have pushed their way through the crowd to greet him as well. "He needs rest," she demands. "Yes, Commander Dameron, I'm serious—you can visit him later tonight. General Organa—"

"Dr. Kalonia's right," General Organa says. Her voice is a little more hoarse than normal, and Finn wonders if she already knows about Solo's death. Most likely she had sensed it through the Force—their connection had seemed especially strong—but he doesn't want to be the bearer of bad news if otherwise. "Everyone move out, go on. Commander Dameron, Lieutenant Kun, Captain Wexley, I've been meaning to talk to you; if the three of you would join me in my office…"

Slowly but surely the room empties—Poe promising to stop by again as soon as possible so they can catch up further—until the only ones around are him and Rey. Now that he's caught his breath, he takes a few moments to study the girl at his side. She looks alive and well, which is all that really matters to him, but he notices that she's gotten a new outfit, a grey vest and green pants and new boots. Her hair is still in her usual three buns, which makes him smile. Some things never change. "Hey," he greets.

"Hey." Rey's smile wavers slightly and she presses her lips together. "I—it's good to see you awake."

"Good to be awake." He hadn't meant to make her laugh but it's a welcome sound nonetheless. "I'm glad you're alright. I didn't…I didn't know if…"

"I'm okay." As if to prove it, Rey reaches forward and takes his hand in hers, squeezing it reassuringly. Her eyes are rimmed with red but he chooses not to comment on it. "I—I didn't know if you were going to make it either. After Kylo Ren hurt you you were so still and I thought…" She swallows hard. "But you're okay. You're okay." She sounds like she's reassuring herself more than she's reassuring him, and he squeezes her hand in a show of support.

"Rey, what happened after…" After I almost died. "What happened to Kylo Ren?"

"I don't know. After—after you fell I took up the lightsaber and fought him. Even managed to scar his face a little." Finn grins, sitting up slightly in his cot because that's impressive even by Rey's standards but not at all unexpected. "But then the planet started splitting apart, and I was more worried about you to even think about him." She sighs, her remaining hand fiddling with the holster at her side—the holster where Luke Skywalker's lightsaber rests. "How are you feeling?"

"Tired. Sore. Not that bad though." It's surprisingly true. The medics here are much better than in the First Order.

"Good." She retracts her hand from his and clasps both of hers together. "Listen, I have to tell you something. Something important." He nods, gesturing her for her to continue, and she exhales. "The Resistance managed to assemble the map to Skywalker, and he's apparently on this planet called Ahch-To. And General Organa—Leia—she told me who she wants to go there and bring him back." She raises her head, meeting his eyes firmly. "Finn, she wants us to go and find Luke Skywalker."

Something must be wrong with his hearing. "She wants us to go and find him?" he repeats incredulously. "Both of us?"

Rey nods. "She and Maz—" Kriffing hell, Maz is here too? What else has he missed over the last five days? "—say that you and I are strong with the Force, and because of that we should be the ones to find him. That we have a lot to learn from him."

He feels like he's been struck in the face with something heavy. Force-sensitive? Him? It can't be true. This must be a prank or some sort of cosmic misunderstanding. He's a former Stormtrooper; he can't be Force-sensitive.

And yet he had wielded Luke Skywalker's lightsaber, hadn't he? In fact, he'd done so twice and had fared decently well, and he knows that not just anyone can do that. Not to mention that he'd sworn he'd heard voices crying out just as Starkiller Base had destroyed the Hosnian System…

I'll be damned. Maybe it is true.

He looks up at Rey, who has moved her chair so that she can face him head-on. She leans forward, her eyes intense, and she looks more determined than he's ever seen her. "I went on an adventure with you across the galaxy. Left everything I could remember behind. But I don't regret it." She pauses, and he wonders if she's thinking of the deal they'd made the night before they'd left Jakku. How he had promised to bring her back if she wanted. I have a feeling that that's not in the cards anymore. Her smile is sly and shy all at once as she says, "I feel like I owe you a life-changing adventure too."

That makes him laugh. "Well," Finn replies with a smile of his own, "how can I say no to that?"

They depart for Ahch-To three days later in the early hours of the morning. The celebrations have largely stopped and almost everyone has gone back to work, but Poe and General Organa are still there to see them off. Poe hugs both of them and wishes them good luck before presenting Finn with a wrapped bundle: his jacket. "I'm not much of a sewer," he says, grinning sheepishly, "but I hope it'll do."

Then it's just them and General Organa, whose smile wavers ever so slightly like she's about to cry. She's changed her hair recently to a style that Karé calls an Alderaanian mourning braid, presumably for Han Solo, and she takes both of their hands in hers. "Rey, Finn," she says. "May the Force be with you."

Once they're inside the cockpit, Rey plops down into the pilot's seat and Finn sits down beside her in the copilot's seat. They check the console one last time, R2-D2 (who had insisted on accompanying them) beeping occasional bits of advice from behind them, and Rey turns to Finn. "Ready to go?"

Finn nods decisively. "Ready."

And the Millennium Falcon rises once more.

The planet is mostly endless blue ocean, dotted with beautiful, mountainous black rock islands and countless trees, each one greener than the last. Water sprays up as the Millennium Falcon coasts toward the mainland, banking in a clearing near the shore.

R2-D2 elects to stay back with the ship, promising to watch their bags. They had brought along some food, water, Rey's doll, and the music player from Jakku, which they had turned on during the beginning of their journey and listened to the song that they had danced to all those days ago. Finn busies himself with strapping his blaster to his back while Rey does the same with her staff, and, without a word, both of them set off.

Stone stairs have been built within the rock and foliage of this island, and lead up to the top of a seemingly endless hill, and Finn is determined to climb them despite his fatigue. He may not be a hundred percent recovered from his wound yet, but he's not going to give up now.

After what feels like hours, the stairs stop in the middle of a valley. The grass is even greener here than it had been near the shore. The land is dotted with small, modest, primitive stone structures, and standing forty feet away with his back to them is a man in a cloak and a robe.

It's Luke Skywalker.

He is no longer the young man with blond hair and a confident smile from the holofilms and old Rebellion posters. He's older now. Gray hair, bearded. His prosthetic hand glints in the light as he pushes his hood away from his face. There's a kindness in his eyes, but there's something tortured, too. He doesn't ask them who they are, or what they are doing here, or how they had found him. His look says it all.

In response, Rey reaches into her pack and pulls out the lightsaber, holding it out to him. The simple action has a thousand meanings at once, each one more significant than the last. An offer. A plea. The galaxy's only hope.

Cracks form in Skywalker's stoic expression, hints of conflicted amazement shining through like light breaking through storm clouds, and Finn has a feeling that his and Rey's journey has only just begun.

Two years, thirteen chapters, and over sixty thousand words later, Warped Stars is finally complete.

Honestly, I'm a little overwhelmed with emotion right now—I can't believe it's done! This started out as an interesting scenario that I thought up immediately after seeing The Force Awakens for the first time, but it's evolved so much since then and, much like most of my ideas, ended up lasting a lot longer than I anticipated it would.

I don't have much else to say except thanks to all of my readers. Whether it was through reviews, favorites, follows, or even just raising my traffic stats through the roof, your encouragement was amazing and made me feel like I wasn't just sending my writing into the void. Thank you, thank you, thank you, from the bottom of my heart: I couldn't have done this without you.

Luckily, this isn't goodbye. A few of my friends over on tumblr already know this, but here's the big announcement:

Warped Stars is getting a sequel.

The Stars Walk Backward

While training with Luke Skywalker, Finn discovers a clue regarding his mother's whereabouts, and Rey struggles to accept recently revealed secrets. Meanwhile, a Stormtrooper rebellion is on the rise, Poe plans a rescue mission, and Kylo Ren's plans for the fate of the galaxy turn sinister...

I plan on releasing The Stars Walk Backward around mid-December, if not much, much sooner. I would also like to preface (if it's not clear by the summary) that it will not follow the plot of The Last Jedi at all. If you have any questions or comments about this fic or the series as a whole, I'm on tumblr at thescavengerandthestormtrooper and am available to be ranted at at any time.

Until next time, this has been boasamishipper, signing out.