Halo
Disclaimer; all characters and copyright to their respective owners.
A/N-set at the beginning of The Force Awakens.
Chapter One-Scavenger
Jakku's cruel sun beat down on Rey as she sped away from the junk fields of the Starship Graveyard with her latest finds on the speeder she had built with her own two hands. The sun's one malevolent eye remained unblinking, and the sky was its co-conspirator with not even a wisp of cloud to soften the harsh rays. The lizards took shelter in the shadows of the rocks where the sand was not hot enough to roast them, but there was no shade large enough to shield Rey. The air was thick and hazy, each expelled breath was like drowning in larva.
She was halfway back to the downed imperial walker that she called home when she saw a spiral of thick black smoke rising in the dusty air. She slowed down her speeder, her curiosity piqued as she removed her protective goggles and shaded her eyes and peered away across the broken waste of desert. Despite her best efforts she struggled to see what the source of the smoke was. It wasn't unusual for equipment to explode in the dry desert heat, but she was a long way from Niima Outpost and rarely saw any other scavengers out this far. The Goazon Badlands was a barren wasteland. It was a testament to her own survival skills that she managed to thrive there in such isolation, but she much preferred it to being under Unkar Plutt's yoke.
Rey debated with herself whether it was worth going to investigate. She already had a good haul worth sixteen portions at least by her calculations. The sooner she got the parts she'd scavenged cleaned up and fixed, she could take them to Plutt and pick up her rations. She had almost made up her mind not to bother when she heard a faint groan coming from a short distance away. Rey was on the offensive at once. She slipped off her speeder, reaching for her quarterstaff in readiness to defend herself.
The desert remained a vast undulating sea as she used her keen senses to decipher where the noise had come from. Rey did a slow revolution as she looked all around her. Her grip on the quarterstaff remained steady as another soft moan attracted her attention. It was coming from her left. Rey nimbly swung around, her eyes narrowing against the sun's glare as she noted a tall figure stumbling toward her across the sand. It was a male. A human male. He appeared directionless, maybe even delirious. He couldn't seem to walk in a straight line but was instead veering all over the place. Rey squinted as she moved closer to get a better look. The man was younger than she had first thought, pale, his thick mane of black hair fell about his face in sweaty tendrils. He was dressed all in black, not a good idea when travelling in the desert as it attracted the heat.
Rey circled him, keeping her distance as she raised her staff defensively in front of her, just in case the man's act was all a ruse and he tried to attack her. He stopped in his tracks when he saw her, his dark brown eyes widening slightly as if in wonder. Maybe he thought she was a hallucination. Rey could see his pupils were enlarged, a sure sign that he was indeed delirious as she had first thought. She heard him mumble incoherently under his breath as he took another few steps in her direction. Then the toe of his boot caught on the other and he pitched forward, falling flat on his face in the hot sand.
An irritated sigh escaped Rey's parted lips as she stared down at him. She should just leave him here. It wasn't her responsibility to rescue him. She had limited resources herself. There wasn't any left over to share. Especially not with a stranger who may or may not be dangerous. But like always Rey's compassionate nature won out. She knew she wouldn't be able to live with herself if she left him to rot in the desert heat. He would be dead in a few hours if she didn't get him out of the hot midday sun. She would have been undercover herself by now if his unexpected appearance hadn't delayed her.
The dry wind stirred up the wispy sand and the sun's never-ending rays beat down on her mercilessly as she nudged the man in the side with the edge of her boot. He didn't react in any way. Rey ducked down next to him and checked his pulse. It was strong. He was still alive but she wondered how she was supposed to move him. He had to be well over six foot at least, muscular and heavy. She prodded the side of his head with her hand.
"Can you get up?" She said in a loud voice. He answered her with a stifled groan. "I'll take that as a yes. If you want my help then you'll need to try and stand. I can't move you on my own."
Rey watched indifferently as the guy rolled onto his back, his arms flopping down on either side of him in the sand as if that small effort had exhausted him. She huffed out a frustrated breath as she hovered by his side. Now he had moved she had a better view of his face. The skin on his face was raw with sunburn but didn't detract from his good looks. Rey ignored the slight flutter in her stomach as his eyelids opened slowly, revealing the prettiest pair of brown eyes she had ever seen. They were rimmed with thick black lashes. Rey scowled, annoyed with herself for focusing on such trivial things. She bet the guy was some spoiled prince. He obviously wasn't used to such rough terrain as this.
"I need you to try and stand. My speeder is just over there."
The guy looked up at her as if she was crazed. He was clearly too delirious to understand a word of what she was saying. Rey swore under her breath as she grabbed hold of his arm, leaned back and used all of her strength to pull him up into a sitting position. He let out an agonised groan, his sunburned skin flushing an even darker red with pain.
"There's nothing I can do about your pain. You'll have to deal with it. But if you don't get the hell up then you'll die right here. Is that what you want?" She yelled at him.
Her words were falling on deaf ears. Rey knew that but didn't care. Hearing the sound of her own voice was reassuring. She bore the majority of his weight with quiet stoicism as she helped him to rise. The man staggered, leaning against her for support as she steered him toward the speeder. Her next problem was getting him on the thing. In the end Rey was forced to drape him over the back of the speeder as he refused to make any effort to help himself. If his position aggravated his injuries that was all on him. She wrapped some ropes around him to tie him in place, worried in case he fell off as she raced across the sand.
The sun had reached the middle of the sky when Rey reached the AT-AT she called home. Hellhound Two was left over from the battle of Jakku. When she first found it, Rey did not believe that she could live there. When she inspected the walker, though, she found a small green spine barrel flower growing out of a few millimetres of sand that had poured into the walker. Rey realized that if such a tiny flower could survive there, so could she, and that life always found a way to survive on Jakku. She would go on to collect flowers like that, as a reminder that beauty could be found anywhere, even on Jakku.
Once she settled into the walker, Rey salvaged working parts of the AT-AT for trade. She mostly just used one room, for a variety of reasons. She would often bring her salvages to the walker before bringing them to Plutt, as Plutt deducted portions one could receive from a salvage if they used his washing and repair stations. The walker also contained scratches she made to mark the passage of time, to remind her how far she had come and to count down the days until her family returned for her. She kept the speeder she built for herself chained up outside, it was her only degree of independence as she made her way back and forth from the Starship Graveyard.
As soon as Rey untied the ropes wrapped around the man, he slid off the back of the speeder and onto the soft sand. He was only partially conscious, mumbling a load of nonsense under his breath. Placing her hands on her lower back, Rey stretched her aching muscles. The sun was still relentlessly beating down on them. It was imperative she drag him inside to get some shade now it had reached the hottest part of the day. She wasn't looking forward to that exertion. Sighing heavily, she ducked down and began the grim task of manoeuvring him inside the walker.
Kylo was losing his mind…again. He could feel it unravelling, the threads of every memory he could ever recall, all but a disarray of strings scattered about his feet. He opened his mouth, but not a sound came out, his head violently quivering as if there was a drill to the back of his skull. He didn't know who or what had shot him out of the sky. The blow had come out of nowhere and was completely unexpected. His modified Tie Whisper was a ball of flames as it plummeted onto Jakku's scorched surface. He barely had time to drag himself out of the wreckage before it exploded in a wall of black smoke.
He remained in a feverish state for days. His injured body radiated heat like a brick right out of the oven. He ate nothing but the wateriest of soups spoon fed to him by Rey, so diminished was his appetite. As he lost weight, so did she as she was forced to share what little food she managed to trade for the parts she scavenged. She had no choice but to stay closer to home, worried that if she left him for too long, he would be dead by the time she got back from foraging.
The days passed in a blur, Rey, weakening herself, wondered why she didn't just toss the guy into the desert sands to fend for himself. But the strange compulsion to care for him overrode all concern for her own declining health. There were now another set of scratches on the wall of the walker, this time marking down the days since the stranger had entered her life. During the long nights she wiped the sweat off his forehead, wringing out the cloth over and over in the warm water to try and bring his fever down. In his few lucid moments, he mumbled incoherently, only a few words audible. Rey marked those words on the wall to remember at a later date. She had tried to coax him to tell her his name, but all she got was muttered nonsense for her efforts. The closest she got was Kyben. She added that to the growing list of words on the wall.
Ten days passed; morning bloomed on the desert. The huge, golden sun rose over the edge of the barren world, and its rays fell on the lonely walker. The occupants inside were dead to the world. Rey, exhausted after yet another night tending to the stranger, slept fitfully in the corner, curled up in a foetal position. As the blistering heat from the sun reached its zenith in the sky, Kylo opened his heavy lids and stared blearily above him. It took a while for anything to come into focus. When it did, he stared in confusion at the beige awning above him. He didn't recognise it. He tried to move and immediately regretted it when an intense ache overtook his body. Fire shot down his limbs and he inhaled sharply in response.
"Fuck!" Kylo swore through dry, cracked lips.
His loud expletive disturbed Rey. She sat up abruptly, crawling toward him on all fours. Kylo's eyes opened wider in shock as her face swam in to view. He had to be dreaming. He had never seen anything so lovely. He tried to form words, but nothing coherent came out.
"Just stay still, Kyben." Rey hushed him. "You've been through an intense ordeal. I'll get you some water."
Kyben?
His aching head swarmed with confusion.
Why was she calling him Kyben?
He felt all mixed up just like his name. Then she was back. Rey steadily held the flask to his eager lips as she tipped the water into his opened mouth. The water was lukewarm but, in that moment, it was the most delicious thing he had ever tasted. His thirsty eyes fixed on hers as he enjoyed the feel of the water sliding down his parched throat.
A/N-thanks for reading! Please review.