Chapter 2: She Wrote You a Note

Finn had been unable to take his eyes off of Kira since the crash landing at the construction site.

He was still staring at her, now seated across from him on a couch in his spacious apartment in one of the finest high-rises on Chandrila. One forearm leaning on his knees, Finn bounced that same leg nervously as he studied this wisp of a girl before him the way he would study a fine Coruscanti painting.

She certainly looked like she could resemble Rey, if only slightly. There was something about those eyes that peered at him... The shape of the little girl's face definitely wasn't his favorite Jedi's, but still familiar in an entirely different, far more unsettling way. Finn just couldn't remember where he had seen a face like that...

Beside him, Poe was glancing between Finn and Kira, obviously not sure what to think, and waiting for his best friend to reach a conclusion so that he could pass judgement. The appearance of R2D2 - a droid they hadn't seen in years - emerging from the TIE wreckage certainly threw a disturbing wrench into this story, but...

"No..." Finn finally laughed, shaking his head. "No. No - time out: the Rey that I knew would never have a kid." Truth were known, when Rey hadn't come back to Ajan Kloss following a brief layover on return from Tatooine, and cut off all communication, Poe and Finn had eventually had to assume that she was dead. Much of their grieving had been navigated long ago, but still the sadness pulled. Just as the Force did, had always given Finn the slightest suspicion that maybe Rey was alive somewhere...

Calmly, Kira stood from the couch and crossed to the two men. Procuring an envelope from her rucksack, she handed it to the darker man.

"She wrote you a note."

"Wrote me a note!" Finn laughingly scoffed, snatching it from her hand and turning it over in his fingers. He didn't move to open it, not yet, as Kira wandered about, taking the scenery in. Finn hoped she would be quiet; Jannah was upstairs, asleep, needing her beauty rest for the sake of the baby.

"You have the best view in the whole galaxy..." Kira marveled, taking in the skyline through windows that stretched from floor to ceiling.

"You really expect me to believe you're my best friend's kid based on this?" Finn turned his head in her direction. "Anybody could've written this!"

Kira still remained placid and calm. "Oh, yeah - I've also got this..." And she handed him a larger manila envelope. "It's my birth certificate."

"B-birth certificate?" Finn stammered slightly. He quickly moved to open the seal this time, as Kira once again toddled away.

"Your name is on it!" she cast over her shoulder.

"My name is not on this..." Finn laughed, but then his voice trailed off as he got a closer look, Poe craning to see over his shoulder. Under the title GODFATHER was typed: "Finn Calrissian..."

The two men looked at each other, eyes wide. In seconds, Poe had his holo comlink dialing and held up to his ear. When the person on the other end answered, Poe clipped cryptically. "We've got a situation."

Five minutes later, Poe's reinforcement was prancing into the apartment, noting how her husband was white as a sheet. "Fix it," he quipped, standing aside.

"Oh!" Zorri started, yelping.

Moments later found Poe, Finn and Zorri all gathered around the Calrissians' kitchen island, hissing in low whispers while Kira innocently doodled on a holopad mere feet away.

"You never told me Jedi girl had a kid!" Zorri hissed.

"We never thought she did, or would! She was never involved with anyone that we knew of, she was on the Jedi path, which usually promotes celibacy, and - she never had a baby!" Poe wheezed.

Zorri breathed in deep through her nose. "OK, for the sake of argument, is there even the teeniest, tiniest possibility that this child could be hers? - Think. Hard!"

Poe reached back into his memory. "I don't know. She buried the lightsabers on Tatooine, at least that's what she said, the peace treaty was final. On Ajan Kloss, she came by... to pick up a few of her things, and..." His voice trailed off, as another memory from that last day surfaced - a detail he hadn't noticed before. A memory of Rey wearing some really weird outer clothing... on a planet that never saw temperatures dip anywhere below 60 degrees. "A black sweater..."

"What?" Zorri snapped.

"She was wearing a really baggy, black sweater that morning..." Of course, he was an idiot! Why hadn't he seen it before?

"Poe...?" Zorri got out warningly as her husband wandered back towards the fridge. "When did this 'Rey was wearing a really baggy, black sweater that morning' actually happen?"

"About ten or eleven years ago," Poe gritted out.

"How old are you, kid?" Zorri quipped in Kira's direction.

"Ten."

Zorri eyed her husband. "Congratulations, Poe."

"Uhh... this isn't happening to me!" Poe blasted out, slapping the granite.

"Don't you mean me? I'm the godfather!" Finn squeaked.

"Only because Rey trusted me about as far as she could throw me, and that wasn't very far!" Poe pointed at Finn.

Zorri was now staring at Kira with something between curiosity and amusement. "And how did you get here again?"

"Stormtroopers were attacking our homeworld and then she put me in the TIE fighter," Kira recited, sounding almost bored. She turned back to Poe and Finn. "Mommy said that I would be safe with you two. I've always wanted to meet you - I'd ask Mommy, 'Why can't I go visit my uncles?' And she'd say, 'Well, baby, they don't know about you yet.' And then I'd say..."

"OK, OK, we get it!" Zorri cut her off. "Is there at least anyone else we can call who will take you in?"

Kira shook her head. "This is where the Force and Mommy wanted me to go."

Zorri cocked an eyebrow, skeptical. "And so the Force decided to magically drop you off at some man's house?"

"Not some man!" Kira gawked. "My godfather. According to the wishes of my mother."

"So you say!" Zorri challenged.

"Want a maternity test?" Kira refused to back down.

"Actually, that's a great idea!" Finn jumped on it. "I'll call Beaumont and Maz and get them to come down here. They'll be able to trace the lineage of a Force sensitive."

Poe nodded, turning over the envelope containing Rey's note in his hand. "And what about this? Maybe the note inside is from Rey." He turned to his wife. "Zorri, can you dig into this Stormtrooper attack thing? Uncover any activity from former First Order troopers and track their movements."

"I'm on it, flyboy," Zorri nodded.

Grinning, Poe pulled Zorri to him and gave her a firm kiss on the lips. "Thanks, sweetie."

Zorri blushed, then ambled from the room.

Finn knelt in front of Kira. "Kira, honey, there's a spare room upstairs that you can sleep in if you want to take a nap. Be very quiet in the hallway - Auntie Jannah is sleeping."

Kira nodded. Then she shocked both men by hugging Finn before skipping up the stairs.

As soon as she was gone, Poe wagged the envelope in the air. "It's time we found out the truth."

Sitting side-by-side on the couch, Poe slowly opened the envelope. A folded piece of paper was inside, which Poe quickly unfolded. One look at the scrawl, and Finn's heart clenched when he recognized Rey's handwriting. Poe slowly began to read:

Dear Finn and Poe,

I have written this letter a thousand times, but I could never find the right words. Ben Solo and I have a daughter. Her name is Kira. She is like me in so many ways: athletic, headstrong.

I'm so afraid you'll be angry with me and not want anything to do with her. I hope that you will accept her, although her great-grandfathers were the embodiment of true evil. Ben Solo, formerly Kylo Ren, was Vader's grandson... and I am the granddaughter of the Emperor. My father was Palpatine's son. Kira's daddy and I were connected by a Force Dyad, as precious as life itself. Our baby was placed inside me when Ben brought me back to life on Exogol.

I know this is a lot to take in, and that you probably feel towards me both betrayal and anger. We had already known that the war's aftermath was compelling us to go our separate ways. I rationalized that I was doing the right thing in keeping her from you. You both were just starting out in your careers... a child would have been such a distraction...

As they read, Poe and Finn's jaws collectively dropped, even as their eyes filled with tears. Clearing his throat, Poe rushed through to the end:

I always told myself that if anything were to ever happen to me, I would send Kira to you boys and have her explain what she is to me. If I cannot make it, please look after her, for my sake. You were my first friends and family when I had none, and you are the only men, other than her father - may he rest in peace - whom I would trust with her.

I'll love you both forever.

Truly,

Rey Skywalker

Finn huffed out a breath as he took the letter from Poe and folded it carefully. "She should have told us about all this stuff..."

"Yeah, well what about you and Jannah thrashing about like a couple of loth-cats all over the place right after we got back to Ajan Kloss? Shouldn't Rey have known about that?" Poe snapped. "She wasn't happy that you broke it off with Rosie after Crait."

"That's my business," Finn sniffed. "And anyway, that is not what is most important here."

"Then what is most important?" Poe scoffed.

Finn turned to gaze at him, eyes sad. "Families don't keep secrets from each other. And yet, for some reason, Rey felt that she needed to, so that's exactly what she did. Rey didn't trust us enough to confide in us about all this - that she was romantically involved with Kylo Ren. That she is Darth Sidious's granddaughter. That she was pregnant. And now her baby has fallen into our laps."

Poe nodded, heaving himself to his feet with a shuddering breath. "All the more reason to have Beaumont and Maz get here, then."