Author note: Oh I appear to have thrown a hydrospanner in the works! The aim of Conversations was to create a series of force bond one-shots that kinda all tie together while still standing on their own, but… Now I've taken a small divergence from that plan. I'm sorry folks. I just left that last chapter in need of a follow up (or so my brain decided when I started typing this one) and I figure I just have to go with it and hope I don't completely ruin everything.
I'll get back on track with the one-shot force bond conversations very soon. I promise! But for the moment, this chapter and the next will directly link to Chp 4. I hope you can endure me!
Also, thank you so much to those who've added this fic to their Fav or Follow list. Writing these last couple of chapters has been a much-needed means of de-stress and source of escapism at the moment, and knowing people are enjoying this story has been uplifting. :)
Conversations
- Part V -
"...I mean... what I'm saying, Ben, is that I'm sorry I shut you out. I'm sorry I didn't stay with you. No, no. Ignore that last bit. I don't mean to imply that I wish I'd stayed. I just… I just don't know what I'm on about, really."
The whisper-soft words end on a note of frustration as Rey yanks a handful of red wires from an ancient imperial probe droid and turns her attention to the blue. She works automatically; her fingers going through the motions of sifting through wires and tracing them to their components, while her mind is fixed on the memory of dark wind-whipped hair, pleading eyes and an outstretched hand.
"It's stupid - utterly stupid - that I'm losing sleep over this. Are you worth it? Of course not. But it's been three weeks, Ben," sighing, Rey leans back on her haunches and considers the droid's damaged shell with a sceptical eye. "Three weeks. And I still haven't heard from you."
"Heard from who?"
Jumping in surprise, Rey sends the droid toppling as she turns towards the cargo hold entrance.
"Heard from who?" she repeats dumbly.
"Heard from…" Finn pauses, puzzled. "Rey, that's what I just asked you."
"Right, of course," grabbing a rag, she wipes it over her forehead, unwittingly leaving a smudge of grease across her brow before pointing to a tray of tools behind him. "Can you hand me the hydrospanner?"
Without shifting his focus, Finn reaches behind himself, snatches up a laser pointer and throws it to her. "Heard from who, Rey?"
"My parents," she offers weakly. "I pretend to talk to them. Outloud. Sometimes."
"Uh-huh..." Sweeping a sceptical gaze across the cargo hold, Finn's suspicion soon caves as he steps forward to lay a gentle palm upon her shoulder. "You've been pretty quiet since we left Kashyyyk. Is there something you want to talk about?"
"No?" Rey shrugs, a tight smile flashing across her face before she grabs the hydrospanner for herself and turns back to the droid.
"Because you know you can talk to us, right?" Finn presses, stepping around Rey to try and get her attention. "Rose and I, we…"
He trails off as Rey begins unmounting the life form scanner from atop of the droid's binocular dome head. "What's with your fascination with fixing this old thing, anyway?"
"Thought it might come in handy," she says nonchalantly, "for reconnaissance."
"Right," Finn nods, "good call."
A frown crinkles his face again as a new thought alights, "So this has got nothing to do with the obsession you seem to have with scouting every sand planet in the galaxy?"
"I'm not obsessed with -"
"Seven planets, Rey," he interrupts. "We've been to seven sand planets in the past few weeks. How many more do you have lined up? Because we haven't been to Tatooine or Pasaana yet, and..." his voice drops to a harsh whisper, "if you tell me we're going to Jakuu, I'm gonna ask you to drop me off at Hoth because there is no way -"
"Relax, Finn," with the life form scanner unmounted, Rey buries her attention deeper into her work as she begins unscrewing a plate from the domed head. "I'm done with sand planets. I've purged them from my mind."
Finn groans, shoulders buckling in defeat. "We're going to Jakku, aren't we?"
Biting her lip, Rey turns away from her project and offers her friend an apologetic smile. "We're going to Jakku."
A light breeze sends warm drifts of Jakku sand across the plateau where Rey has chosen to land the Falcon. He's been here. Somewhere out here. She can feel it. The lingering remnants of his presence sends soft vibrations through the Force. Opaque threads that hum, ever so faintly now, in a note she knows to be uniquely his own. Like a signature, her instincts tell her.
But where?
From her vantage point, she can see the Goazon Badlands stretching for miles; the undulating dunes interrupted only by the skeletal remains of Imperial and New Republic starships. Relics of the Battle of Jakku, long picked clean.
A pang of sadness flutters helplessly in Rey's stomach. She swallows hard against memories of long hot days toiling amidst wreckage for any scrap of salvage that might have helped sustain her. Of freezing nights that somehow felt even longer because of the deep aching loneliness they provoked.
There's a terrible emptiness that opens up inside oneself when you're missing someone, she thinks. As if something has split open your chest and scooped out the insides - only to replace them with rattly old ghosts and echoes that taunt you with memories of what was, and what might have been.
For months, being part of the Resistance has given Rey a type of sustenance she'd never been able to find on Jakku. The feeling of being a part of something important. An ever-moving cog within a great engine of change and hope and… More than that. Being part of the Resistance has given her a feeling of belonging. Of being surrounded by friends who have become like family.
Still, a deep dull pocket of emptiness remains. And with each passing week; grows deeper. The worst thing is, she knows the cause of it. She just can't think of the solution. Perhaps, she thinks, it's her destiny to be alone. Perhaps that's better than the alternative.
"Ready, Rey?"
Rose's voice rouses Rey from her melancholy. Nodding wordlessly, she balances the droid on its articulated legs and performs one last system check before releasing it. Her friends haven't pressed for further explanation as to what she's doing, and with no wish to lie or tell the truth, she's grateful for their discretion.
"So, what's the plan now?" Finn steps to her side, eyes sweeping the miles of desert stretched out below as the droid lifts off the ground and disappears over the edge of the plateau. "Do we wait here or head to orbit?"
Orbit, Rey's intuition shrieks. They're miles from Niima Outpost, but an apprehensive feeling deep in her gut tells her it's only a matter of time before Plutt gets wind of the Falcon's return and sends a mob to try and wrangle it back for him.
Though she'd like to see them try, she thinks with sudden ferocity; hand checking the blaster at her hip before sliding to the staff at her back.
At the prickle of imagined conflict, the Force thrums at Rey's fingertips like some dark thing itching to tear free and strike down her illusionary enemies. She swallows hard, as if that raw primeval urge can just be digested and forgotten. It terrifies her, how quick her instincts are to tap into the veins of darkness she can sometimes feel pulsing through the Force. It terrifies her, how easily her mind can embrace such imaginings.
"Let's get out of here," gritting her teeth, she ignores the strange pulsing at her temple and strides back towards the boarding ramp. "The droid will relay any information it finds."
"So, what kind of information are you hoping for? Exactly?"
The question stops her in her tracks. Finn broaches it with the kind of tension that implies he's had to work himself up to ask it. Mindful of his eyes at her back as he awaits an answer, Rey straightens her spine and tries to produce something that is neither truth nor lie.
"I'm trying to find someone. Someone who… Who I think might be able to help us. The only thing is…" drawing a deep breath, she presses on, "I need to help him first."
"If you think this person can help us," Finn steps to Rey's side, his eyes searching her own as he squares his jaw, "why am I not hearing any conviction? Who exactly is this person?"
"I didn't really think this plan through," Rey offers weakly, desperately wishing she could pedal back through time. Maybe to a point where she could have dropped her friends off at the last vaguely habitable planet, after all.
"Who is he, Rey?" There's an intensity to Finn's gaze that startles her. Has he really only just realised that she's been withholding the specifics of this wild bantha chase she's dragged them on, because of details she doesn't actually want them to know?
"I can't tell you who he is," she says in a rush. "I can only say he might be a First Order defector."
"Might be? So… He might not be?" Finn's voice raises in disbelief, "Rey, what the hell have you got yourself into? What have you got us into?"
"Guys!" Rose's sudden note of distress startles them both. She gestures to the air while stumbling backwards to the boarding ramp. "Guys! We have incoming! It's time to get outta here - now!"
For a moment, Rey's grateful for the interruption. But then the meaning behind Rose's frantic words kick in as the scream of a TIE punctures the sky.
"That's Kylo Ren's fighter! Come on!" Grabbing Rey's hand, Finn reels towards the Falcon, pulling her with him.
"He won't shoot us," Rey strains against his grip. "It's okay, he won't shoot us!"
"Can you hear how crazy you sound right now?" Finn argues, dragging her closer to the boarding ramp. "Cause I can hear how crazy you sound!"
"But he won't shoo -"
The ground around them explodes in a barrage of laser fire as the TIE screams past and immediately begins banking for another run.
"You were saying?" Finn shrieks as they dive into the Falcon and race for the cockpit. "Rey, if we outrun him, you've got some explaining to do!"
She feels the brush of his conscience against her own as the Falcon punches through the stratosphere. He does not manifest before her. There's no sudden rush of inertia as her surroundings are swallowed into a vacuum. His world is not overlaid with her own.
Not this time.
But she feels his presence all the same. She feels his fear. His wrath. His hatred. And beneath it all, a terrible desire for revenge. She feels it bleeding into the Force with an urgency that sets her nerves on edge.
But none of it is aimed at her.
And it's his fear that startles her the most.
Whatever's going on, Ben, just hold on. She sends the words to him, pushing them through the Force. I'm coming back for you.
She just hopes that he can hear.
End note: Kylo will be returning in the next chapter. I'm sorry I could find no proper place to include him in this one :)