Rey presses her bare feet into the Falcon's metal floor, letting the chill of the alloy nestle into her skin. She wills her eyes open in the dark room, and imagines what it might have been like to wake up like this everyday of her life. Who would she be if she were raised here, instead of her scorching wasteland? Who would she be if she were the one born to Leia and Han, not Ben?
She stands, careful not to shift her weight too much, her eyes fixed on Rose's peaceful face still shrouded in sleep.
Did he take his first steps where she stood? Or, more likely still, throw his first tantrum?
Carefully, she pads out into the main hallway. The thrum of the ship's engine is the only sound besides the soft beat of her feet against the grate of the floor. She is alone.
Except for the ghost of him flickering around her.
From her vantage point here in the common room, she leans her body to the side to see a series of closed doors lining the curved hallway. Everyone was still sleeping.
She closes her eyes tightly, trying to orientate herself. The brushes of his childhood skim her arms and it's as if she's tapped into something she couldn't sense before.
This place was his before it was hers.
Rey tries to push the thought out of her head. She tries to remember what day it is, counting back from Mustafar, but she's not sure how time worked in that place. If she knew what day it was, she could fall easily back into her rotation of duties, she could pretend she wasn't standing with the ghost of someone she might never see again. She could pretend there wasn't a descending black scourge upon her once everyone woke. But she doesn't know what day it is, so she stands dumbly in the center of the common room, not knowing where she belongs. It's a familiar feeling to her, surely, but one she has rarely felt in this room, where the Resistance rebuilt itself from nothing.
She feels little fingers sweep past her palm and tighten, the length of them barely covering her own small hands.
You belong here. You'll always belong here.
Her eyes fly open, but it's gone. She grabs her tingling hand, massaging out the touch with her opposite thumb.
A deep breath she wasn't aware she was holding escapes her and she steps forward. She realizes her muscle memory is leading her towards the cockpit.
It's a safe bet. She could be helpful there, despite everything. It would be Chewie on this early, which warmed the part of her left icy in the expanse of space.
Chewie would let her slip in with no questions and it would be a quiet morning until the rest of her friends awoke with their list of demands. With Chewie things would feel normal again, maybe for the last time. She would sit next to him and hear his little brays of welcome. He would let her take it off autopilot and feel the power of the Falcon in her grasp, get to have her last moments with what had become her home, a true home, and forget the sense of impending doom rising like bile in her stomach. And if she cried, Chewie would let her, without demanding a reason why, without trying to make it better. He would just let her dry her tears in his fur and that would be enough.
Something occurs to her then: Did Chewie feel him too? The spectre of what was Ben Solo?
And had it been the same for Ben? Had Chewie pressed a young Solo to his chest to quiet his sobs? To soothe his conflicted soul?
As soon as the questions enter her, she knows the answer to all of them is yes.
She can see the paneled window of the cabin up ahead and the stream of stars running alongside them, illuminating the Wookie's fur. A spark alights in her, and that small sense of wonder she still gets when she pilots alongside him courses through her. On Jakku, she had heard stories of the Jedi and Sith, of Rebel pilots, of Skywalkers, but Chewie and Han were the idols of her youth. She had imagined herself alongside them countless times on their smuggling runs as she sat in her old flight simulator, her sandy Rebel helmet askew on her small head. She had learned Shyriiwook just because of him. And now, she was here again, next to him, and for a moment, she could almost forget about everything else.
She picks up her pace to get to the Wookie more quickly, but suddenly stops midway down the hallway. Her body sways from the sudden change.
Her periphery had lit up in orange as she passed the supply room that was her former droid hospital. It was just a flash through the open door, which she had since passed, but it was there.
Curiosity forces her to walk backwards a few steps, until she is framed by the doorway to the supply room. Poe, still in his orange flight suit, is standing unnaturally still in the room, his back turned to her, his head tilted downwards. He doesn't move to face her, unaware of her presence in the hallway.
Rey fights the urge to keep walking, to pretend she hadn't seen him, and settle into something comfortable with Chewie. But there's something about the way Poe's shoulders are slumped, it's a silhouette she has never seen the confident General ever assume. She's not ready to face Poe, not after how utterly unreadable he'd been yesterday, not after his push for information that only ended at Kalonia's insistence, but she can't leave him like this. She crosses the threshold of the supply room almost noiselessly, her soft steps hidden under the thrum of the engine.
She arcs around him, giving him room, looking at his face only, trying to read him and measure out her response. She remembers how he acted the day earlier, how he couldn't really look at her, how he didn't hug her like the rest. Maybe I shouldn't be here. The thought enters her head, but something else keeps her moving forward.
Finally, his shock of messy hair gives way to his face, and she looks at him in profile. Her hand comes up automatically to reach for him once she sees his expression. It's one she has never seen on Poe, ever, not since she met him all those years ago on this ship. Tears are welling in his eyes as she touches his shoulder lightly.
His head jerks towards her suddenly. His look is haunted. Rey's eyes widen in shock. This was not what she had expected. Her heart beat picks up, and fear courses through her. She had never seen Poe in a state of disrepair. He was always steadfast in his hope, always a consummate leader, but now, there is a terror in him. Her grip tightens around his arm unconsciously. He was the rock that held this all together. Even in the darkest of days, he was a beam of fire and faith, leading them forward. And now, he looks just as scared she is, and that terrifies her more than anything.
She searches his face, and wants to pull him into a hug, but she stops herself, unsure of everything. It felt like her foundation was crumbling around her looking into his eyes.
Poe's mouth opens as if to say something, but nothing comes out. Instead, his arms come up slightly, full of something. Rey turns her head to face what is in front of him for the first time.
In his hand is R2's motherboard. On the table around him lay pieces of the droid.
Rey's face turns sharply back to him, her shock deepening. His expression is full of shame and despair, and a deep confusion surges deep into Rey's sinew and across her face.
"Poe?" her voice is cautious and soft. She almost can't eke his short name out before a tear falls down her face.
"I don't know what I'm doing," he turns away from her and back to the droid, he can't face her. His hands are shaking.
"It's okay, I can help you," her voice is tight, the lining of her throat starting to burn. She looks down at the remains of what was R2, "He was damaged in the quake?"
Poe doesn't answer, he just continues to look down at R2's pieces. She looks to him and then back to the droid. R2 was fully deconstructed, each piece almost catalogued. There were no haphazard dents or random breaks indicative of a fall. Everything was clean, every bolt was unscrewed, his motherboard cleanly popped out of its home. A realization washes over Rey and she steps back, her touch falling from Poe's arm.
"You did this." Rey's whole body is running in waves and she parts her lips as a nausea threatens to upend her.
Poe dips his head down, and his eyes squeeze shut, as if the weight of it was all too much. He breathes in, the sound of the rushing air almost painful against his lungs, before his face scrunches in agony. He nods to the ground, eyes still closed deep in guilt.
"Why? Why would you do this?" It comes out slow, bathed in the rasp of her breath.
"I thought Kylo Ren infected him. Jumbled his coding."
Rey's breathing picks up, stuttering in her chest at the mention of Kylo. She realizes she had been thinking of Ben since she woke, but not Kylo. What had he done when she was unconscious?
"Why would you think that?" Her mind is swirling with the possibilities. Had Kylo hurt them? Had he been a threat?
"R2 defended him. He said that he wasn't dangerous to us, that he wouldn't hurt us. It was a trick, like Threepio. But Threepio wasn't a trick, was he?" Poe turns his head to look at Rey directly now, and she sees just how red his eyes have become.
Rey's body stiffens when she looks at him. Her eyes sting and she blinks rapidly to waylay the pain. Her lips part and head turns from side to side in a slight no.
Poe turns back and looks at the motherboard in his hand, "I was going to erase him. I was going to wipe him after everything he's done for us, everything he's done for the galaxy. I was going to destroy him because I thought Kylo Ren got into his head."
"But you didn't."
"I realized that if I destroyed him, I would have to do something I could never do: I would have to destroy you too, because Kylo Ren is in your head, isn't he?"
Rey swallows hard enough for Poe to see the tendons in her throat flexing. He bores holes into her with his eyes and she can't move, as if affixed by his glare. They stand like that for a few moments, before Rey's chin dips into the smallest of nods.
Poe drops the motherboard, and it clamors against the rest of what was R2. His hand comes up to his forehead, clutching it loosely with his fingers, as if he hadn't expected her to answer in the affirmative. Rey can almost see Poe's brain start working again, and it's painful, the amount of uncertainty riddling him so evident.
"I thought I was protecting you from him. I thought I could protect you from him." Poe's voice starts to raise.
"It's not like that…"
"But I can't protect anything, Rey. Not you, not them." The deep timbre of his yelling bounces off the durasteel. He points to the door, still open, to the thousands of Resistance fighters he was responsible for, "Every decision that I make means death to some of them. I used to call that honor. Now I don't know what that means."
"Poe, this isn't you…"
"Isn't it? I'm a warmonger. Isn't that evident now? Look at me Rey, I'm dismembering a friend because I thought the enemy had gotten to him. I'm just like them."
Rey shakes her head. He's lost the thread. This war got to everyone, eventually. But she never thought it would ever get to Poe.
"Last night, I was going to press you, even though I knew you were hurt, even though I knew you needed rest. I wanted you to suffer. Why? Why would I want that Rey? What is happening to me?"
She closes the distance between them in an instant, "Nothing. Nothing. Look at me Poe." She takes his face in her hands, and presses into his beard until she hits the chin underneath, "You're a good person. This doesn't change that. It's this war. It's gone on too long."
"It's not going to end."
"No. It's not. But we'll keep fighting, because it's the right thing to do. Because there's still light in this galaxy, even if it's shrouded in darkness, and that's worth fighting for."
Rey's hands move from his face and settle down on his shoulders.
A beat passes between them. His eyes descend down to the ground between them, breaking their mutual stare, before he speaks, "I'm sorry."
"Don't be."
"No, Rey, I'm sorry. You don't have to explain, about Kylo Ren or anything. I have no right. I trust you, and I don't know what I was thinking. I'm sorry."
Her hands fall from his body and she steps back, giving him a sorrowful smile. Her gaze moves to R2 next to him and he turns to face the droid.
Rey slowly moves to the table, her hands moving out to skim over R2's parts, her fingers fretting over the blue and silver pieces.
"What will we do? Where do we go from here?" Poe asks, as he moves to face the droid too.
"We rebuild, just like we always do," Rey looks up at him. The student becomes the master.
Without words, they begin to mend him together, to make it right. It feels like it does when they're in the cockpit together. They work seamlessly, anticipating the other's needs. Rey knows Poe will need the sonic screwdriver before he does, and gently places it in his hands. As she does, a smile blooms across his face, the first she has seen from him since her return from Mustafar. It lets her know it will be okay, and she smiles too.
"How do you do it?" Poe asks, feeling the light return to him because of this small wonder they found so many years ago on Jakku.
"Do what?"
"See the good in people, even when they've let you down?"
"Oh, you know, years of practice," she says, breaking the weight of it all. She chuckles and he does too.
Before they settle though, she grabs Poe's hand and squeezes it. You didn't let me down. It's unspoken but it's there. He nods and picks up R2's recharge coupling.
"Where does this go?" he looks at the piece of machinery and then back to Rey.
Rey's head falls to the side, feigning playful exhaustion, "Let me show you."
They work for hours more, and Connix comes in at least a dozen times trying to pull Poe to his duties, but he stays and helps Rey until R2 is back together again. Rey shows him how to reattach the motherboard, letting him be the one to restore R2's conscious mind. When they switch him on, Rey swears she hears R2 and Poe simultaneously breathe a sigh of relief.
The next few days ease the tension on the Falcon, as they settle back into their routines. Finn and Rose don't push anymore about Kylo, and Rey knows Poe must have talked to them.
War necessitates that they move on and not dwell on things for too long. The machine needs to be stoked, and so they resume, repairing what had been damaged in their first real foray back in the arena.
The anticipation Rey feels about seeing Kylo again quickly turns to dread in her stomach, and she can't bring herself to meditate. She's thankful that the work is plentiful on the ships. Her days are filled with oil stains and problem solving, and her nights are dark and dreamless.
Kylo tries to dig through to her only once, and when he does she gently pushes him back. It feels like the Falcon door closing slowly between them again, and even though she hates that feeling, she knows she has to. She's not ready.
But she's still there. She lets him know in the strums across the thread that bind them to one another. They come randomly now, not just behind closed eyes. More often than not, it will be him to pluck first, sending vibrations deep into her soul, and she will answer it, letting him know he's not alone.
Less often it is her who touches it first, needing to know he's safe, needing him to know she hasn't left, not truly. His response is always immediate.
They play like this for a few days, soft two-tone melodies on each other's heart across the galaxy, his frequency always so much lower than hers, so much needier. She imagines it like a song, the refrain of which only the two of them would ever be able to comprehend. It was the theme of them, and filled her universe with something she had been denied so long, first by fate, then by her own hand. It was like the force was singing, something true and rich, something to be treasured.
Until Finn made it hollow.
They're squeezed between the walls of a damaged Pathfinder-class scout ship docked into an ancient MC80a Star Cruiser when he does. Most everything they have is ancient, the scraps of a Rebellion whose valiant efforts and legends threatened to be unwritten in this new order.
Rey is rewiring its blown out circuitry, repairing the scars of the most recent battle, while next to her, Finn is coiling her finished product into place. Behind them, welders are reforming the outer hull of the ship with scraps of durasteel cobbled together in haste.
Her saber weighs on her belt for the first time in days. Finn had suggested that they resume their training together after their repairs, and it all excites her. The work, the promise of training, being with Finn again, it all feels right. They work in tandem, in a comfortable silence that predicates their friendship. It feels normal to Rey and she starts to smile as she works.
"What are you smiling about?" Finn asks, looking at his work intently.
"This."
"Oh yeah, definitely. Rebuilding optical relays always puts a smile on my face," his voice is monotone, belying the sarcasm beneath it.
"You know what I mean." Rey hoffs. Finn had been spending too much time with Poe.
"I do." Finn replies, now wearing his own grin.
Suddenly, a groan erupts from behind them and they immediately stand flush against their work. The hull they had been working against starts to detach from its bindings, and the shouts of the welders to the workers below is immediate. Finn holds an arm out in front of Rey, his protective instincts not quite gone after all these years, even despite his deep knowledge of Rey's capabilities. Rey doesn't have time to roll her eyes or push his arm away, because the metal is going to fall, and she can feel the people below through the fibers now always apparent to her in the force.
Rey reaches her arm out in a second of pure instinct. The metal moans in the air, stilled above the workers, who scatter from underneath its shadow. Slowly, slowly, she uses the force to set it down gently on the ground below.
Finn's breath hitches in awe, "So you can do that, too."
Rey's head slowly turns to him,"What do you mean 'too'?"
"On Mustafar, Kylo Ren did that. He used the force to stop one of the walkways from hitting you." Rey's face scrunches as Finn talks and he realizes she doesn't know, "Poe didn't tell you?"
Rey's ears start to ring. "What do you mean, hitting me?"
"You don't know?"
Rey shakes her head.
"The reason we left him alive is because he saved you. He was going to leave, but when the walkway swung loose, he came back for you and stopped it. Just like that," Finn points to the metal below, now surrounded by disbelieving Resistance fighters.
Rey looks back and forth between Finn's eyes, then breaks the gaze and looks out to nothing, her lips parting slightly and her head shaking no. She was so stupid. "I have to go," the words rush out of her in a whisper, but Finn nods, as if he knows.
She slips off the ship easily, dashing out of the hole the metal was meant to repair. Her lithe body runs down the convex siding, pushing back to the posterior wing. It would be an impressive sight to behold, if anyone below was watching her. Instead, they were all still agape around the hull, tittering. She hits the ground softly, and at once, all their eyes are on her. She smiles weakly at them before turning to leave.
"You could have used the ramp you know!" Finn yells after her, as she wades through her appreciative comrades, her back alight in small pats of gruff gratitude.
All of it is almost static, her sense of feeling dulled by her sense of purpose. She needs to see him. She needs to. Why had she run away again? Why had she let fear keep him from her?
She finds the first empty room and slips into it, closing the door behind her.
She turns around and sees the room for what it truly is: a crew's quarters. Two bunk beds line each wall. Towels and jackets hang from the railings. As she moves toward the center of the room to sit, she sees pictures lining the walls of each bunk. She recognizes most of the pictures as funny shots from the hangars of the Black Squadron, posing extravagantly in front of their original X-Wings. Poe's face dances in the corners of some of them, next to people she doesn't recognize. She knows they must be people who died before she even joined the Resistance. Her eyes move onto more pictures, of homes she will never see, of families that she wasn't sure existed anymore. She finds them odd, pictures, having never had one of herself. Who were they for? What purpose did they serve, really?
As she thinks it, her vision sets upon a smiling young woman with Rose's eyes. Paige. She had never seen a picture of Paige, but she knew. A longing sets in her stomach and an understanding. Pictures were proof. Proof of life, proof that we had loved and were loved in returned.
She realizes she doesn't have any pictures with Rose or Finn or Poe or Chewie. She commits herself to remedy that as soon as possible.
This was the Black Squadron looking at her from the walls. This was their proof of life. She looks at her watch. Their rotation would still be out for another two hours. She had time. She remembers her purpose and settles.
She stretches her neck around and places her hands on either knee and breathes. It had only been a few weeks since she meditated, but it feels strange again, as if she were doing it for the first time. A ball of tension grows in her stomach, not knowing what to do when she sees him, what to expect. She almost loses her nerve and stands up, but she remembers the pictures. Would there ever be proof of what her and Kylo meant to each other? Could there ever be proof? The hope that maybe one day there could be stills her and keeps her steady.
She takes one long drag of breath in and her eyes drift shut. When she exhales, she feels the force bob through her and take her. She forgets all the apprehension for a moment, letting it soothe out her tired nerves, until a thick queasiness overtakes her.
She opens her eyes and she's in the plane, but everything is moving so fast, blurring around her. It feels like a vortex, like the storms that rained harsh pellets of sand in her youth. She feels like she's being dragged, and it should scare her, but it doesn't. She allows her body to be taken.
It's black now, and quick glints of light scatter around her. She closes her eyes again to try to find something secure and unmoving. She slows, but the darkness does not turn into the familiar grey static of the plane. Instead, it morphs into something more solid. She feels wetness on her face, but she's not crying, and beneath her, the ground feels soft. She's standing now and she hears thunder. The gleams around her start to make sense, it's lightning bouncing off sideways sweeping rain. She turns. She knows what comes next.
She knows she's not alone.
Because she's seen this before.
Seven figures stand before her in the undulating fabric of this place, one towering above the rest. She feels her chest heave, the vision from Maz's cellar playing out in front of her, but different, so different. They're blurs, not fully formed humans, like they had been. Just blurs. But she knows it's Kylo in the middle. She knows before she sees the red cross of his saber burn into the darkness.
It's different, because this time she takes a step forward, instead of a step back.
Suddenly, the six smaller figures spread out in a formation, but his stays in front of her.
There is movement everywhere, flanking her, and her eyes narrow in confusion before she realizes.
They're fighting.
She recognizes their positions. They're the same stances she practices with Finn, except more skillful, more explosive. She knows by the look of it that this wasn't normal training, their movements are too fluid, there's no skittering to avoid the kill, but she can't their opponent, only them. Her brain swirls.
These are his Knights.
She had only ever seen his Knights in that vision. He so rarely calls upon them she had forgotten they exist. She had never sensed them in this force plane, but she knew they were force sensitive, knew that they had been Luke's students once too. Why had she never seen them before? And why would they be here now?
As she considers them, something suddenly cracks. She looks to her left as one of the shadows stumbles. The body jerks two more times before crumbling to the ground. None of the other figures falter, no one rushes to its side. Rey watches as the body twitches, its edges turning from opaque to translucent. Her top half lurches towards it. They shouldn't die alone.
Before the rest of her body can think to move, she hears another crack from her right.
No.
His Knights are falling.
This wasn't an exercise. This wasn't practice. This was battle. But all Resistance troops were still pulled back to repair, she would feel it if they weren't. No, this was something different. But how could it be? Who was the enemy if not the Resistance?
From behind her, whispers pick up in the ether. She closes her eyes, even though she doesn't want to, to try to catch something that makes sense. It had done this before, she knows this game, she knows the force is trying to tell her something.
"He needs your help."
She whips around and it all stops, the whispers, the thunder, it all stops. The voice is gone, but its Coruscanti accent lays heavy on her ears.
Her neck prickles and she turns just her head to see Kylo's figure standing closer in her peripheral vision, his weapon stilled.
He can feel her.
Without thought, she turns to fully face him.
Run.
It's his voice in her head, its undertones laden in a fear she couldn't imagine coming from him.
Please.
She reaches her hand out to his face.
Don't.
It's the last thing she hears in the silence, before she is pulled through to him.
He tries to get through once, but she pushes. Why does she push? She was so afraid, of what he had said. Or thought. She knew love. She knew it when Rose laid next to her or Finn kissed the top of her head or Poe smiled at her from across the room.