Chapter 5: Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

"Rey!"

It was rather appropriate, natural even, that her name would be the first upon his lips at the moment he jerked back into the conscious world. In fact, Finn jerked a little too sharply, banging his head on a glass encasement blinking with readouts and charts ascertaining his health.

His eyes darted about, quickly getting a read on his present situation: he was in a medical bay, being treated, so he was probably with the Resistance. But where exactly was he? Surely not Starkiller - the planet had been blowing up behind them as he and Rey fled. The last thing he remembered was everything going black as his back burned in agony. Collapsing into the snow...

Frustrated, he slapped at the glass encasement around his head, and somehow managed to hinge it off. He was wearing a white medical suit, now oddly leaking with fluid, mostly water. At least, he hoped it was water - and not bodily fluid more important.

Trying to sit up, he lost his balance and prat-fell off what was clearly the cot he had been lying on, oofing as he hit the floor. Staggering out into the hall, it wasn't long before he found BB8 and Poe. His pilot friend filled him in, telling him all about the evacuation of D'Qar; apparently, Finn had been out for hours.

"You must have a thousand questions..."

Finn actually had only one question.

"Where's Rey?"

A day or so later and far away on Ahch-To, Rey looked in on Chewie in the cockpit of the Falcon, as they prepared to settle in for another, rainy night on the island planet. The Wookie was presently trying to fiddle with the transponder.

"If you get through, check their status... and ask about Finn." He had been on her mind ever since she lifted off from D'Qar. Was he awake? Was he still hurt? He and his wellbeing were in her head almost constantly, battling for dominion alongside her quest to get Luke Skywalker to stop moping and come back to the fight. Did Finn know she was gone? Did he miss her? Rey's heart fluttered at the hope that he might.

Letting out a pining sigh, she wandered down the gangplank and out into the rain.

Kylo Ren had attacked them out in deep space without warning, blowing through the Resistance command ship and hurtling General Leia Organa to what should have been a quick, cold death amidst the stars. By a miracle of the Force, she had flown herself back to the Beta ship, her soldiers letting her in through the ship's airlock. The famed princess was now being whisked away to the med bay on a gurney, the wheels jiggling on the linoleum floor so that a tiny beacon slipped from her hand.

The only one to notice it fall, Finn picked up the beacon and examined it. Hadn't Leia and Poe informed him - after his persistent badgering - that Leia kept this beacon on her... and Rey had the other one, its twin?

With Leia unlikely to wake up anytime soon, and a desperate plan already falling into his head, Finn pocketed the beacon and moved towards the escape pod bay.

He would have quietly slipped away too, if it hadn't been for an annoying janitor fan-girling over him. The more she refused to let Finn shoo her away, the more nervous he got, until she pieced together his attempt to desert.

Finn really needed to stop being an easy read. And he really, really needed to stop getting tazed. BB8's zaps were bad enough.

Waking up back on a gurney, Finn was subjected to Rose discovering the beacon and demanding where he'd gotten it. He explained that the other one was with Rey of Jakku.

"I gotta get this beacon far away from here, then she'll find me and be safe."

This was completely insane. She was about to mail herself to the Supreme Leader of the First Order, on the sliver of hope that he might relinquish power completely and come away with her. Pausing as she lowered herself into the escape pod shaped like a coffin - how appropriately morbid, she thought, considering the context - Rey turned back to Chewie.

"If you see Finn before I do... tell him..."

That I love him. At least that was what she wanted to say. Chewie guessed at a more appropriate response instead.

That you'll come back to him?

She smiled softly. "Yeah. Tell him that." And she closed the hatch, the saber resting on her chest.

I'll come back for you, Finn.

The pile of boulders lifted into the sky, revealing the entrance to the cave that the Force had told Rey would be there.

And there he was. Healthy and whole and alive. He was wearing a handsome white tunic, the dip in the V-neck revealing some of a muscular and toned chest. Rey smiled sentimentally at the glorious sight, even as she tried not to stare.

And then Finn was pitching himself forward, coming for her at a dead sprint. Rey let the boulders crash to the ground around them, and then she was in his arms, yanked into a bone-crushing embrace. In utter relief, she threw her arms about his neck.

She was here. She was alive. And he was here, and it was Finn - her Finny - and no one would ever again take him away from her. Not even... Ben...

Rey's heart twinged for the slightest instant and then the wave of another love swept it away. The man in her arms was all she needed. So she resolved herself in resting her chin on his shoulder, her head nuzzling against his as she closed her eyes with a blissful, content smile on her face. Once again, she was at peace. She was whole again.

That peace would not be kept for long, though, as Rey sat on a shipping box aboard the Millennium Falcon. She watched as Finn crossed over to a cot in one corner, where a brown-skinned girl - she thought someone had said her name was Rose - lay. Holding the broken pieces of the Skywalker saber in her fingers, Rey watched as Finn tenderly brushed back the bangs on Rose's forehead... and her heart clenched, threatening to shatter.

A great jealous rage rose up inside Rey, and she barely, vaguely noted her brain scolding her, reminding her that she had never even met this woman. And yet, this... Rose was taking up all the attentions of someone whom Rey saw as rightfully hers. Her Finny.

No... No! Rey couldn't, refused to, take another heartbreak. Have her heart broken for a second time.