Chapter 1:
The Falcon hummed as it traversed through it's hyperspace pathway. It's blue lights streaked all around, forming a continuous tunnel. Everyone on board (it's scarce number of nineteen) slumbered in various spots. General Leia, Commander D'acy, Nien Nub, and Chewbacca got the only bunks available on the ship while the others hunted for comfy enough corners or seats. A self-sacrificing few grabbed packs and wadded up jackets and hunkered down on the cool floor. Thankfully, they were all so worn out and drained from the day's catastrophic, mind-blowing, events that it didn't matter where they laid their head. They were passed out within seconds.
All but one restless scavenger who couldn't seem to quiet her thoughts. She'd long ago tip-toed into the ship's cockpit and now sat hugging her knees to her chest in the co-pilot seat. The ship was now as familiar as her converted AT-AT dwelling and the only other place she felt truly at home. She'd grown to be comfortable anywhere in it. The fresher, the quarters, the storage, the bowels beneath the floorboards...but the small alcove she now occupied, that was where she felt safest. Next to the seat that belonged to Han Solo. There, she could aimlessly watch his golden dice swing and sway with the movements of the Falcon and be distracted. Distracted from the recent feeling of an ancient figure clawing through her mind. From the memory of watching in terror as ship after ship of the Resistance burst into sparks and flames. Most of all, to be distracted from slipping into an exhausted slumber and having to dream. In her dreams, she often found herself as a child again: Reliving those days of confusion and nights of fear, stitching together a pilot doll so she wouldn't feel so alone, clinging to a helmet that belonged to Dosmitt Raeh. Her dreams always abandoned her back on Jakku, her newfound family lost. It had always been hard to get through until morning but tonight, rest was impossible. Whether asleep or awake, she couldn't escape the despair.
"They were filthy junk traders. Sold you off for drinking money." It couldn't be true...could it? Yet that sharp feeling whirling in her gut felt like evidence. The fragments of memory surrounding her origin and desertion were clouded in darkness, pain, and fear. She knew without a doubt, with old emotions surfacing, that her parents would never come back for her. She'd always known. She made up their destined return to survive the anguish. But why couldn't they? Wouldn't they? She refused to consider those aching questions her entire life. And now because of Kylo, those questions were bursting from the tiny spaces she'd buried them in at six years old: Had her parents even loved her? Had she ever been important to them? To anyone? What if her parents really were selfish cowards from Jakku who sold her for drink and never looked back? Why her? Why couldn't she have been raised by loving parents? Or...Why couldn't her parents have been Han and—
"Can't sleep?" came a familiar raspy voice. Worn by years of battle speeches but gentle.
Rey lifted her eyes from the empty chair towards the entry. There stood General Leia Organa in all her glory. Eyebrow quirked in curiosity. She obviously was not expecting anyone else in the cockpit. Rey answered a simple, "No," while she wiped the indication of tears from her cheeks. Even as new ones started to form.
Han would've chided, "Suck it up, Kid," without meaning the roughness that came out with it. He would've been uneasy from the emotion he'd stumbled upon but his eyes would've been soft and empathetic. They would've squinted and the corner of his mouth would've tilted upwards with the intention of saying something soothing but he wouldn't have known exactly what and ended up not saying anything at all. With Han, it was easy for Rey to sense his intentions, where his delivery failed. Rey found a fatherly kind of comfort in his clumsy displays of "reluctant" sweetness and it meant more than words (probably more than it should have) that he tried at all. He was awkward in his goodness but he was good. He'd have collapsed into the pilot's seat, maybe gracelessly patted her head, and pretended to ignore her to check the navi-computers but he would've stayed with her until he knew she was okay.
Leia was more in-tune with her ability to reassure. The older woman replied with a melancholy smile, a sad sort of understanding that Han would've been unable to portray as easily, "No, I imagine not. Eventful day, lots to process." Rey thought Leia would find something else to attend to or that the General might request to have a moment alone in her husband's space. Instead, Leia tilted her head towards the pilot seat, "Mind if I sit too?"
Rey shook her head in answer, "Of course not."
The younger woman observed as Leia sunk down. As she ran her hands along the arm rests and looked about the console, her gaze finally catching the movement of Han's dice and then lingering there. Rey hadn't seen the breakdown the General had right after they'd skated away from Crait; how she all but collapsed in grief and how Chewbacca struggled to soothe her. Leia never let anyone witness an absence of strength or resilience...but Rey felt the tumult surrounding the woman in the Force. The Princess had known Han and Luke—loved them— much deeper and for far longer than the Scavenger had. Rey's heartbreak could be of no comparison to Leia's. She couldn't imagine how it would feel to have her own sorrow compounded to the degree of the woman before her. The more the Scavenger mulled it over, small ribbons of that sorrow mixed with ribbons of guilt. Han, Luke, Ben...Leia's whole world, whole family, gone. And Rey had been sitting here crying tears over parents she didn't remember and the smuggler she only briefly and barely knew. Pitying herself. She offered what she could, "I'm sorry I didn't save him. I could've...I should've."
"It was brave of you to go alone. I appreciate your efforts more than I can express, but I don't think there was anything you could've done," stated The General, matter of fact but still despondent. "My son doesn't want to be saved." And mistaken.
"No, not him." Rey bristled at the mention of Kylo. Her disappointment at his refusal to fight for the light was still fresh. But her eyes softened with her correction, "Han." There and then, she saw it all over again, despite herself. The image of the scruffiest, kindest, man she'd ever met with the end of a red lightsaber piercing through his back. The only father figure she'd ever had (or could remember) tumbling off the walkway limp and lifeless. And all she'd done was watch and scream. "If I'd just known what to do with this, this power, inside me, I-—" If she had known then what she knew now, she could've stepped in. Saved him. Or at least bought some time.
"It might've happened either way," Leia offered. Face as grateful for the sentiment as it was pained about the reminder. She reached over and took one of Rey's hands, "His death is not your burden to bear, Rey. It's Ben's." Generous as though that statement was, the truth of it hurt. Rey would've gladly carried the burden of protecting Han's life, especially if it came with the privilege of calling him her father. The love that Kylo so vehemently rejected was enviable. Even as Han's life-force sifted from his body like sand, there was this immense, unconditional, love exuding from him. His son was a murderer—his own murderer—and yet his love for him never wavered. Rey never received any love as far back as she could remember, and all she was was a little girl who yearned to please.
She dropped her gaze from Leia just as Leia released her hand. A few moments passed with the two women giving way to silence.
Leia had not been able to shake the horrors of late either. The feelings that came with death, betrayal, loss, and war. She was yet to fully process the peace with which her twin had left the living world much less the cruelty with which her husband had. Leia hadn't seen Han tumbling off into the abyss but she'd felt the instant his flame was so callously snuffed out. Felt her whole body freeze from the loss of his warmth and the very core of her ripped from her body as the truth of his murder rang out through the force. The truth that the monster Kylo Ren had destroyed the final fragments of her son along with his father. With weakness in her knees, she sought solace from Luke, reached out into the threads of the galaxy for someone to share her pain. Where she hadn't been able to connect with her brother, Leia had found another source of light, throbbing with righteous anger and insurmountable grief... Rey.
Rey, who felt the peculiar pain of losing a parent that was never hers. Who felt the pain Ben should've.
"What was he like? As a father, I mean?" came from Rey.
Leia's mouth automatically spread into a smile. Her eyes focused downward as if seeing the memories in a holo in front of her very eyes. "Clumsy with his affection but attentive. Not entirely patient but loyal, proud. He was the fun one, I think." Leia snickered, "Han used to hike Ben up on his shoulders and let him steer him around like a starship. Anywhere they were...through the senatorial building, the space port. They'd have pretend blaster fights and races." Rey could almost envision the memories too. A clean and pristine living quarters high up in a starscraper on a fancy planet like Coruscant or Hosnian Prime. A family protocol droid zipping about trying to keep things tidy. And a younger, happier, Han Solo, free of worry lines...hiding from his giggling son, his hands held together and fingers pointed like a blaster. "Broke a bunch of things while they played...knocked Threepio off a balcony sixty-something levels high on one of our vacations to Harloff Minor," commented Leia, "But the laughter was enough to make up for it. And as you can see, Threepio is just fine." She finished with a confident and fond assessment, "He was a good father."
Seeing Rey's wistful smile as she imagined the scene described stirred up sympathy in Leia. Han mentioned that this young woman reminded him of himself at that age. Discarded, forgotten, lonely, searching for somewhere to belong. But he saw a spark in her too. A determination and a brightness. A hope. A similarity to Leia as well. The more time Leia spent with Rey, the more she noticed these qualities too. The more she felt the same endearment towards the girl that her husband had. And the more she thought of what might've been if they never lost that other baby. Rey's obvious attachment to the smuggler made imagining that much easier. "He always wanted a little girl..." Leia stated, without realizing she'd done so aloud. That is, until Rey's eyes cut up to hers with a renewed fire of curiosity. Hope. Maybe there was a different truth hidden in between Kylo's heartless accusations. Maybe Ben had lied to keep their parents to himself...as silly as that sounded. Every piece of evidence pointed to otherwise. Pointed to nobodies. But Rey felt so connected to the Solos—The Skywalkers— sensed such a strong bond from the start with all of them...maybe, just maybe, it was the force nudging her towards her true family. Somehow there was an explanation. Somehow she was theirs. Could it be?
Kylo was right...she couldn't let go. Not completely.
"We both did," explained the Princess, "We tried and tried to have another child but it just wasn't meant to be..." Rey swallowed hard as her heart cracked further, dissolving into that same state she'd been before Leia came in. She hoped the General couldn't discern what was going through her head: Why couldn't it have been that way? Why couldn't they have been mine? And I have been theirs?
"I think that's why he liked you so much. Or partly, at least."
The young woman believed he might. Or hoped. And she clung to the confirmation of their connection eagerly. At least it was something..."He did?"
Princess Leia then gave her that infamous smirk and quipped, "Well Han wasn't one to offer just anyone a job on the Falcon. Or anyone at all, for that matter." Leaning forward, she added, "Not that there was a crowd lining up to work in this piece of garbage in the first place but you know what I mean." Her sentence was punctuated with a wink and Rey couldn't help but laugh.
"I don't think it's garbage," Rey commented, to which Leia gave her a disbelieving look and gestured to the mound of twigs at the base of the console: A porg's nest invited by Chewbacca's guilty conscience. Rey then amended, "It's charming garbage."
"That it is." Leia stood and ran her hand along the back of her usual seat, "This garbage is home."
Rey understood the General's nod as a goodnight and smiled at her as she left.
That night (or early morning) when sleep finally took over The Jedi...instead of finding herself in a dilapidated AT-AT, Rey dreamed of somewhere high in the clouds. Instead of rust and stale air, the scent of Corellian sausage and peppers sitting hot on the Alderaanian-decorated dinner table. Instead of a random rebel helmet, the tiny little girl with three buns donned the helmet of her trusty Uncle Luke and was lifted into the air and onto a playful smuggler's shoulders. All night, the two bounced and spun and lobbed about the room...the sound of Princess Leia's laughter bubbling behind them.