37. Fault

During the days, her parents traded. At night, they went out. "We're seeing friends, Rey."

"Can I come? Can I meet them?"

"No, child."

So Rey stayed at home and braided together her ma's headscarves and talked pointlessly at her ceiling until she fell asleep on her little pallet. Her parents would be back in the morning, looking and smelling exhausted, and they always told Rey to "be quiet, girl, can't you see we're tired?" She understood. They had work to do.

They left once for three days and didn't come back. Rey felt hungrier than she ever had, and she didn't know what to do. No one came to see her. No one came to yell at her to be quiet, and that shouldn't have been so scary. She drank the water they'd left and talked to the walls. They did not, of course, answer. When ma and da came back on the fourth morning, they were silent. They had brought bread, the real kind, not the portion kind. Rey ate too much of it. It was wonderful.

"We're taking you to meet our friends," they told her, and they bundled her into their small freighter. She was excited. Maybe now when they left at night, she could go too, if she knew their friends.

When they landed, they only introduced her to one person. He was squat and wide and had huge, ugly hands. "Rey, this is Unkar Plutt," they told her.

"Hi," Rey said, skeptically.

Unkar's tiny eyes flicked up and down her form, and she decided she did not like this friend of her parents'. She shivered; this felt wrong.

"She is not as small as you said."

"She is skinny, and she's clever. She'll do the job well." Her da sounded desperate.

"Fine. The price we agreed on, then," Unkar rumbled.

There was something passed from hand to hand, from Unkar to her da. Then Rey's ma pushed her forward and Rey skidded on the sand, falling. A big hand curled all the way around her arm and hauled her upright – then did not let go. She pulled grumpily on his grip, turned to face her ma and da. "Let go," she said petulantly, looking up at Unkar.

Her parents turned away, tucking their arms around each other's hips and laughing softly.

"Let go," she said again, with a tinge of urgency. Something in her stomach pulsed wrongness. Her parents walked away and onto their freighter. Unkar was still holding her arm. "Let go! Ma! Da!" Unkar tugged hard on her arm, keeping her close to his side. He didn't seem to feel the need to speak, just waited, like he knew what was coming. Rey's heart was pounding, hard. Was this because she ate all the bread this morning? Because she wouldn't be quiet? She had tried, she really had.

The freighter coughed to life and the wind of it struck Rey in the face. She stared. They were… leaving. Leaving? No, no, no, she'd tried so hard. She thought things were good. Where were they going?

"Ma! Da! Come back!"

The freighter kicked up more sand and then shot unsteadily into the sky, gaining speed as it climbed. No, no, no, NO. She yanked hard against Unkar's grip and tried to fling herself forward, tried to run. She wasn't staying behind!

"Be quiet, girl," Unkar growled. "You're mine now."

"No!" Rey knew that was a lie, it had to be. "No, come back!"

But they didn't come back, and however hard Rey yanked against Unkar's grip, however she screamed at him until her voice broke, he didn't move. Just waited until she slumped down, hanging from his grip like a scrap of cloth, then started walking away. Hauling her with him.

"No, no, no," she said softly. "They're coming back. I have to wait, I have to-"

"They sold you, girl."

Rey shook her head stubbornly, so Unkar just sighed and continued walking. He took her back to Niima outpost and started talking about scavenging and ship's parts and portions and Rey ran.

Back to the spot where her parents had left her. She sat down in the sand. If she went somewhere else, how could her parents find her when they came back?

Unkar came and dragged her back to his stand.

And Rey ran again. Farther this time because maybe she could run home and find her parents and surprise them. She ran through the sand and the sun and she knew she shouldn't be out here alone and her legs burned but she had to go home. The sand was gusting into the beginnings of a storm when two men caught up to her, knocked her down, and carried her back to Niima.

So she did as Unkar said. She started venturing out to scavenge in the goggles he gave her with a big net bag. And every day she only stayed out long enough to get a few things and then it was back to her spot in the sand to wait for the freighter to get back.

She had to be here so they could find her. They'd promised they were coming back. They had. She knew it. She didn't remember why, or how she'd gotten here, and she scoffed at Unkar when he told her she was stupid for waiting.

"They told me to."

Unkar didn't ever keep talking to her after that. He'd call her crazy, cuff her on the head, and stump off.

But she didn't care. She had to wait for them to come back, even if Unkar thought it was stupid.

…

Rey's chest ached. Her leg burned too - it had twisted a little wrong, and then her mad rush across the field and crawl through the tunnel had only made it worse. But the pain in her chest was a different beast entirely, something she couldn't reach. Ben's arms around her helped, as did the knowledge that she could help him, but mostly her breaths were tight and each beat of her heart slammed against an unyielding wall. She didn't remember feeling like this before, except when Kylo forced her to acknowledge what she'd long dismissed: that her parents had sold her, left her.

This was loneliness, loss, and abandonment all at once, and if it hadn't been for Ben, she knew she might do what she could not and go back to hiding from the truth.

So she kept her eyes on his eyes as she pulled back, wrapping her arms around her stomach. "Ben," she whispered, reaching instinctively for the hopeful light that he now held.

"What?" he answered, wiping his eyes.

"I feel so lost." When she'd grieved before, there had always been something to do to keep herself busy. Perhaps it was better that she didn't have anything to do just now, but she didn't know any other way to respond. She'd lost the children, and the people she'd promised to save. She wanted to help them, not cause their deaths.

"I… I know. I can tell."

"It's not fair," Rey said – and how small she felt then, how childish. But she knew Ben understood: some things just weren't right, and although she knew the universe wasn't fair, sometimes she thought it should be. Like now. How could everything keep going so wrong?

"No," and Ben almost smiled at her, although he looked deeply pained. "It's not."

And was there really anything else to say? Because none of this was right or fair, and although Rey could think of nothing but all the death, there weren't enough words to begin to say how this hurt.

It was her fault. She had no illusions about that. How could she have come here, in the Falcon of all ships, and brought Leia and expected no one to notice? How could she have endangered these people and brought them into a war they didn't want to fight just to make Ben feel better? He had needed her, but now he was worse off than he'd ever been. It was her fault his mother was dead, her fault he looked like a statue that was about to crumble to dust.

He'd needed her help, and instead she'd just caused him pain and brought hell to this entire planet.

She'd failed, horribly. The worst of it was, she'd been so sure she was doing the right thing. She'd just wanted to help him. She'd wanted to save them.

And she wasn't enough. That shouldn't hurt so much, and yet it did. All the horrible, needless loss, and that loss being her fault, her failure, was the most intense thing she'd ever felt. Worse than the Darkness in the vision she and Ben had shared. Worse than Snoke forcing his way into her mind. Worse than... worse than when her parents left.

And she feared she still wasn't strong enough to weather this. She had never been strong enough and she wasn't sure she was now. How could she keep going and keep trying when every time she did, things only became worse? It seemed to be a mistake to even try anymore and yet she stubbornly refused to believe that giving up was the answer. There was nowhere to go from here that didn't feel impossible. To give up was impossible. To continue was to risk more of this pain, this loss. Inflicted not only on herself, but others.

She didn't want this fate. She didn't want this responsibility. She was not a savior or a hero. She was a scavenger from Jakku who had always tried to do more than she could, who had always tried too hard and risked too much and been disappointed. The galaxy didn't need a failed Jedi, and yet she was all they had.

She would fail them, like she'd failed this planet.

There were echoes ringing through the Force, and when she listened, they weren't just echoes of sound, but of whole moments caught as if frozen, ghosts struggling to escape. She wondered if Ben saw these moments too, because now that all was calmer, they were hard to ignore. So much death and pain. How did anyone bear it?

A Togruta mother, clinging tight to two toddlers, running towards a shelter only to be shot two, three times by a fighter sweeping overhead. Her children lay under her, screaming and crying and tugging on her clothes.

A small group of would-be fighters, running and aiming guns at the sky even as one by one they were obliterated by shots from TIE fighters that only saw their desperate attempt as a nuisance.

A huge group of sentients crowded into a shelter, some crying, some swearing, most clinging to someone else. The air was heavy with the scents of sweat and blood. Then the ceiling buckled and fire and smoke and dust reigned and the people screamed, but they were trapped and there was nowhere to run.

A teenage Zygerian lying under a fallen wall, chest caved in, eyes staring sightlessly at the sky as she gasped a few last breaths. The ground around her was muddy from all the blood.

A human boy running through the streets by himself, calling for his mother, for his father and… and suddenly Rey knew that this was happening now, that somewhere on the surface a terrified little boy with blood drying on his arm was alone but alive.

She opened her eyes (she didn't even know when she'd closed them), and found herself sitting hunched over on the ground, and the pictures hanging in the air around her like holograms. Ben stood outside her little circle of pictures, watching them, as if he was afraid to pass through to her.

"Rey," he said softly. "I was seeing those things too. The boy… he's not far."

Rey blinked and stood, and all the images faded away, except the one of the boy, stumbling through the remains of a town, crying. Ben couldn't be suggesting they go find him, could he? They didn't have enough food or water for that, and it wasn't safe to go outside, but… but there was a boy. Alive, and alone. Someone she could help.

Ben looked at the image too, then at Rey. "I don't sense as many ships. I think they'll be gone within the hour." He winced. "Or at least, out of the atmosphere for a time. I sense… I sense there is more coming."

His last sentence was heavy with the Force, Dark and hopeless.

She nodded slowly. "So… we can go get water."

"Yes."

"Is he… Could we find him?" She wanted to go look for him. Let there be something, anything she could do to atone for this.

Ben nodded once. "Soon. Not just yet."

Rey reached out herself, and felt what he meant about the ships not having left yet – she suspected he was able to sense them better than she was. She sighed and turned away, feeling the need to move – she was tired of waiting. She didn't know how, she just… She wanted to go fix this.

"Rey." Ben grabbed her upper arm, his fingers fitting easily around her bicep. "Wait."

She stopped, but didn't look at him. There was so much she wanted to say, but how could she justify burdening him with everything she felt? He was struggling so much and she didn't want to make him worry about her.

He must have caught some of those thoughts because he let out a soft breath, almost like a laugh, and said, "You aren't alone with this. I can… I want to help."

Rey tugged on her arm, and he let go immediately. She sensed he was worried, worried about her. She'd done enough though, done enough to cause him pain.

"I just need to rest. If we sleep now, we can get up tonight and try to collect water and find him." She focused on the image of the boy, felt how the Force in her was sustaining it, and made it disappear. She sensed Ben was frustrated and scared, and she let herself soften and turn. "I'll… I can talk to you, just not now. Please."

He sighed and inclined his head. "Alright."

Rey went back to her pack and dug in it for her extra shirt to use for a pillow again, when Ben came over and tapped her on the shoulder. He was holding a large black piece of cloth, rolled up.

"What's that?"

"It's my cloak." He looked almost sheepish, and Rey didn't blame him – it was odd that he'd kept it, when it was such a bulky thing to carry around. "You should use it."

Rey knew for a fact she was more used to sleeping in uncomfortable conditions than Ben was, so she took the cloak from him with some hesitancy. It was both softer and heavier than she'd imagined. "Thank you." She forced herself to smile a little, shook out the cloak, and pulled it around her shoulders. It felt vulnerable to look away from him and lay down, but she did anyway. She heard, as well as felt, when he lay down, too.

And she felt that he wasn't at all able to rest. She was so tired she was already struggling to keep her eyes open, but she could hear him shifting around on the floor. When she peeked over her shoulder at him, she saw that although he'd put on a jacket and pillowed his head on his pack, he was adjusting his position every few minutes. And she sensed he was full of anxiety and fear and… loneliness. And she didn't blame him.

After what had happened, any time she wasn't able to feel him felt unsafe, frightening. There had been so much death that she was no longer sure when she simply didn't notice him and when she did not feel him. His closeness was safe. It meant she wasn't alone, it meant he was alive. She hoped it wouldn't stay like this for too long, but right now… She opened her mind to him, brushed his thoughts with hers. His restlessness prodded her towards wakefulness.

You can share the cloak, you know, she thought sleepily.

She felt he was surprised, and embarrassed that she'd noticed he was so anxious. I don't need it.

Ben. She rolled over and faced him, adjusting so only half the cloak covered her. Don't be stupid. She let him feel a little, but only a little, of her own fear of losing him.

He hesitated, and she found herself drifting off again, so she shoved a little exasperation at him and then gave up on keeping her eyes open. She sighed and curled up tighter, welcoming the soft waves of drowsiness as they swept over her.

Only just as she was losing awareness to her dreams did she feel Ben lift the edge of the cloak and pull it over himself where he now lay facing her. Barely awake as Rey was, she felt no alarm when she felt affection and warmth from him, only a sleepy kind of interest. It woke her up just enough to prompt her tuck herself up against his chest where it was safe before she finally fell asleep, dreams of warm sunlight and soft grass mixing with red fire and the smell of sick and blood.

A/N: I'm pretending it's still Tuesday. XD I worked so hard to have thid out today but I had a lab report due today too so obviously that was priority number one. :) I'm still having some difficulty writing but with any luck it's getting better.

I'm hoping to start spending more time on an original work! So I'm super excited about that.

Love you all for being so understanding!

Reviews are, as ever, greatly appreciated (and occasionally reread for motivation lol).