Chapter Two: Until the Real Thing Comes

"It is natural to believe in God when you're alone—quite alone, in the night, thinking about death."


Two months later...

Rey sighed to herself as she heaved the last scraps she had managed to excavate from her recent mission, momentarily stopping in her trek so she could adjust her quarterstaff that had been secured to her back, each time it began to slip as she hunched over in her handiwork.

Master Windu had ordered her to accompany him to scout the southern regions of Akiva where another droid construction facility had been established by the separatists. Only weeks ago had the Order liberated the Separatist main stronghold along with one of the largest droid facilities in the Outer Rim Territories due to the various efforts of a small squadron of two Jedi masters and their padawans in conjunction with an army of a thousand clones.

This auspicious event only further supplemented the notion that the Order was but one step ahead in undercutting the rising rebellion against the Republic.

Despite this, their celebrations were short-lived, as the council had come to a unanimous decision and opted on sending Mace Windu and his pupil to survey the damages left in the Battle of Akiva's wake. As expected, there was nothing but ruins left amongst the battlegrounds—droid scraps, crumbled buildings, and damaged artillery was what met their sight once they stepped off their vessel and into the checkpoint. The mission itself had been running quite smoothly, thus Master Windu had allowed Rey free reign for a few hours as he continued to make his reports.

During that time, the girl had taken it upon herself to scavenge any valuable parts she could find to later tinker with in her spare time on the temple.

Luck had been on her side that day as she had come across a malfunctioning battle droid. Its wiring had been corrupted in battle, however its main processor had been in tact allowing the girl the opportunity to tinker with it.

She eagerly brought it back on board while skillfully avoiding her master's skeptical looks and was currently dragging it across the temple.

Unfortunately, Rey was unable to manipulate the force such that she could levitate heavy duty items like many of the Jedi Masters could, only being able to levitate small items, which was why she was in her current state—though the girl was still managing fairly in her endeavor.

Currently, the padawan had been hauling the broken droid towards the southeastern hangar, informally known as "The Garage," where all the standard space cruisers and vehicles owned by the Order were stored. Rey often found herself frequenting the garage, reveling in the idea of tinkering with some of the engines and modifying small learning ships used for basic piloting lessons for the younglings.

As she turned the corner, continuing to lug the heavy droid shell around, four small children had ran towards her in excitement. She smiled in turn at them, realizing it was some of the few younglings that had come to follow her around ever since she began to permanently reside in the Jedi Temple all those months ago.

"Hi, Rey, whatcha' doin'?" One of the children greeted her—she recalled him to be a young Togruta who went by the name of Quadyr.

"That's a droid, isn't it Rey?" Nairobi, a small human girl she had met on her second day in the temple, chimed in.

Rey grinned at the children as she straightened herself up, all the while dumping the bot unceremoniously towards the floor. "It's just some scraps I found on my mission in Akiva, I was going to bring it to the garage to fix it and possibly modify it."

A loud frenzy of chatter erupted amongst the younglings. "Can we help you?" One of the children questioned eagerly as they gradually hushed down.

"Mm, I'm afraid not, children. This here is a battle droid, meaning at its current state with its current programming, it could be highly volatile. If I were to rewire it into proper functioning again, chances are, it might still be wired with its core directives—to attack. I don't want to risk your safety," Rey said with an apologetic smile.

A series of grunts in contempt had swept throughout the group of younglings and Rey frowned.

She kneeled down to meet them in eye-level now. "I'll tell you what, even though you can't help me fix this old thing, I'll let you lot accompany me towards the garage instead."

She reasoned that this option would appease the younglings knowing that the children loved to follow her around anyways. A compromise was necessary, for she felt a little remorse at having turned down their offer in the first place—she knew first-hand how it felt to be disappointed being that she was an orphan who had raised herself in planet full of hardships and the like.

As it was, the children had eagerly agreed and soon a line of four younglings had trailed after Rey in her effort to transport her damaged droid to the hangar.

For what seemed to be like forever, Rey had finally led the children, who had decided collectively to help carry the damaged droid shell with her to the garage, and with a heavy sigh in relief she dropped it on to the floor once more.

"Alright kids-" she turned towards the children "-I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave... I made my promise and so have you and we've made it to the hangar now."

"Aww, but c'mon, Rey, don't you need help carrying the droid in?" Quadyr pouted as his lower lip stuck out petulantly.

"Yeah, Rey, please!" The other children whined altogether.

"Cheeky brats,"she grinned mischievously before flicking the Togruta boy on the nose. " I was doing fine on my own before you lot decided to help."

"Please?"

All four of the younglings fixed her with wide, pleading eyes—an effective tactic she would often use herself as a youth back in Jakku in order to manipulate many of the Junk bosses and traders she would come across. She knew that look well.

Before she began to speak, the droid slowly began to levitate from the ground, halting her in her words as another voice appeared from the threshold of the hangar.

"Don't worry, young ones, I'll help Rey bring it in," a deep, male timbre reverberated past her.

Rey abruptly turned around and was met with the familiar steel-grey gaze of Anakin Skywalker as he ambled towards her and the younglings.

His hand was gestured out as he levitated the droid with ease, making Rey frown at his natural prowess. She knew it was against the code for Jedi to feel any emotions close to envy since it caused them to become more susceptible into turning that envy to hate and hate led towards a malicious path down the dark side...but, despite knowing this, she just could not help being a bit jealous at how manipulating the force came so easily to the supposed "Chosen One."

"Thanks," she muttered to him before turning towards the children and shooing them away.

Now all that was left was an empty spaceship hangar, a broken droid, and two padawans that stood in a tense silence.

Truth be told, after Rey's first encounter with the young Skywalker, they had not interacted since, even after their informal introduction. She knew it would have been best to maintain a few allies the same age as her, however, Rey found herself befriending the younger padawans rather than the rest. Much to her dismay, it was quite difficult to not do so, being that the padawans who were her age never really tried to reach out to her, if anything most had avoided her.

All except Anakin Skywalker.

"You're, uh, pretty popular with the younglings," he finally spoke as a small smile broke upon his visage.

"Yeah, I suppose so... I find them more agreeable to be around than the...others," she sighed as she followed him through the rows of ships that lined the garage while he continued to levitate the droid.

"Kids tend to be, I guess. They're young, they don't really have any biases or pretenses against anyone, really. Things like that grow overtime as you get older. The older padawans simply distance themselves away from you out of wariness. Don't pay them too much attention, they don't know any better," he shrugged with a sympathetic smile.

"So, why haven't you joined the majority?"

"I know how it feels, I came here pretty late myself. Not as late as you, but still considered to be too old to be a Jedi apprentice. A lot of the other padawans sort of alienated me, but I always had my master to lean on, so I didn't really care. But you—you have Master Windu and I know he's a busy man, so he probably isn't around as much as you'd like, huh?"

"Well, yeah..."

It was true, Master Windu was gone more often than not whenever he was not teaching her lessons. He brought her with him to many of his missions and most of his other political appointments and congregations, however, there were many that she could not accompany him on, due to the sensitivity of each mission. Therefore, she was often times left by herself in the temple ignoring most of the other Jedi. In short, she was unintentionally beginning to estrange herself.

"Which brings me to my original question, why were you trying to drag a broken droid across the hangar?" Anakin queried as he crossed his arms around himself, an inquisitive look was forming on his countenance.

"I wanted to see if I could modify it... And from the looks of it, seeing that its main processor is completely intact, I reckon I could rewire its core directives and change it into... Hm, let's see... A service bot, perhaps?"

"A service bot?"

"Yes, a service bot. Though, I know things like that aren't really needed here in the temple, I just wanted to mess around with the droids wiring. I thought maybe if I found some sort of other outlet to change it towards, then I could have an excuse to tinker with it," she replied absentmindedly as she ambled towards the tool shed of the hangar that stood across from them.

"And I thought that maybe, you know, I could get a glimpse of the internal wiring that the separatists implanted in these droids... It would help a great deal to see if I could reroute the source of the core directives from the Separatists main computer. After all, these droids should've been given an artificial intelligence chip programmed from a main source—I think if I'm able to reroute the programming on this bot, I could track down their main supercomputer and who knows what information that could hold...but this is really more of a far-fetched idea if anything."

"Hm, clever."

"I suppose..." she replied as she kneeled on the floor and promptly began to dismantle the droid with a pair of sonic pliers she had found. "But first, I'm going to have to dissect the main processor."

Anakin continued to stand there watching as she tinkered with the droid's internal controllers, but all her attention was being fixated at meticulously prodding at the various wires that comprised its process control.

"You're going to have to hook the controller to a computer if you want to rewire the droid's core directives. You can do this by locating its processing interface—models like this battle droid here fall into the family of the B1 units. They often have their control systems near the actuator," he supplied as he kneeled over to inspect her work.

Rey's eyebrows shot up in surprise as she heard the boy. "Looks like you know a thing or two... So the actuator, it's that cylindrical object, right? The one with the rotor?" Her pliers drifted off towards the object itself pointing at it to indicate whether or not she was right.

"Yep, that's the one. Now you're probably going to find the processing interface right under it, you can go ahead and hook it up to a computer to start decoding the core directives."

"I knew that," she muttered under her breath, before reaching into her satchel and pulling out her portable HoloPad and plugging the interface wires of the droid into her own hard drive.

"So..." She said idly as she began to decode the droid's processing unit "...What brought you down to the garage, anyways?"

"I was just trying to modify my space cruiser all of this afternoon, until I heard you and the younglings that is."

"Have a knack for piloting I suppose?"

"Yeah, you could say it's a hobby."

"Huh, same here," she laughed as she continued to match the various codes that appeared on her HoloPad.

"Looks like we might have a lot in common. I haven't met any other padawans who're interested in piloting and engineering. I like to fix up droids myself, it was another hobby I had as a kid. I even built a service bot out of spare parts from a protocol droid when I was eight, I named him C-3PO."

"Hn, a bonafide prodigy..." She rolled her eyes. "Can't say I'm a bit envious of your skill. I couldn't fully build a full functioning droid until I was fifteen and the only reason why I did so was to sell it for a few druggats back on Jakku. It was a translator droid, able to translate and communicate with over six thousand and five hundred-fifty languages and dialects found across the entire star system... I never named it, though."

"Envy isn't a good thing...besides, from what I can tell right now, you know your way with modifying droids probably just as well as I do.

"I guess... Honestly, I feel as if I only have a basic grasp. When I started to fix and build droids, it was only out of sheer necessity and a small dose of boredom. I haven't truly got in depth with it, I mean, I didn't even known how to properly identify an actuator until a few moments ago with your help..." She frowned. "How? How do you know so much?"

"Living on Tatooine taught me a few tricks here and there. My first unit, C-3PO, was modified to withstand the environment in Tatooine and his main directive was to help my mother..."

Rey furrowed her eyes in confusion, before realizing his words.

Of course he had a mother...one that he remembered.

After all, the boy had became a padawan when he was nine, therefore he must have been exposed to a different life all those years prior to his apprenticeship—he must have had a real life too, much like her.

"You...you still remember your mother?" She questioned hesitantly as she gently placed her sonic pliers down to turn towards him and look him in the eye in forlorn.

His face was neutral, just as it always was, but Rey could feel the carefully veiled remorse that had been burgeoning underneath. It made her feel so sad, so very, very sad.

"Of course I remember my mother, I think about her every single day. I think about my life on Tatooine, it was a lot like yours from what I've heard about you. They say you were a scavenger, trying to make ends meet near a trading post. There's a lot of stories that go around here, and I can't help but be reminded of my time on Tatooine. It was rough, my mother and I had to salvage what we could to survive since...we were slaves—"

"You were a slave?"

"Yes, my mother and I were...I had been born into slavery, that was the only life I knew until Master Obi-Wan and his former master found me on Tatooine. They emancipated me and took me back here to Coruscant. As-As for my mother I don't know what has become of her..."

"I'm sorry, I can't imagine being in that same position. I—"

"But see, that's why I understand how it was like for you, for the both of us. Living on Tatooine, Jakku, places like that produce damaged people and circumstances like ours have led us to know how it's truly like to survive. The other padawans here, they don't have a clue. This life here, is a life full of luxury, but I know better, we know better, than to take any of this for granted. That's why..."

"Yes, I know, it's strange to meet someone here who too has bore a life under the same circumstances. However, I was alone in Jakku, waiting for my..." She paused, wondering whether or not it would be okay for her to speak of her most intimate secret, lest she cause all the long-repressed memories to resurface all over again.

"Well, and that's why I wanted to go back because...because I thought maybe one day my family would return for me, if I waited longer maybe then... But they never really did come back. I was all alone, I had to learn how to survive on my own—I had no help. That's why things like this, fixing droids, modifying things, it comes as a second sense, one that I can rely on to appease both my boredom and help me survive. It was a rough life out there."

"I understand," he nodded his head solemnly.

They stared at one another in silence, a mutual look of understanding passed between them and then it felt as if the cogs were turning in place. She could feel it, she felt connected. It was a feeling unlike any other after having spent the majority of her life alone. This was a boy who understood her sorrow, this was someone who could empathize with her plight.

For once, she flashed a true, genuine smile at him—all of the last vestiges of her hope, wonder, and understanding had been poured into that one smile. She could only hope that the boy would realize how much his words meant to her. And as they gazed intently into each other's eyes, hovering over the broken battle droid, both had agreed internally that this was the onset of a great friendship. Anakin grinned back at her in turn.

"I don't um, really go on spilling my life story, let alone my past, to anyone so... Please keep this between us," he said quietly.

She beamed at him before reaching out to shake his hand. "You have my word."

Suddenly the main compressor of the droid they were hovering over combusted in itself causing a series of sparks to fly all over and their hands retracted immediately.

Rey scrambled away with a half shriek laughing all the while as Anakin simply stood on his perch chuckling.

"That. Did. Not. Happen," she laughed while wiping a tear away from her eye, she watched as his chuckles burst into a loud chortle. Soon the entire hangar was filled with the sound of their laughter.


Meet me at the Room of a Thousand Fountains on the fourth floor where the stonewall bridge meets the waterfall...

That is what Mace Windu had told her. She had heard him, or more so felt him, calling out to her through the force—which became one of their primary sources of communication as the days rolled by and she became more attuned to the force itself.

She had just finished modifying the droid she had found earlier with Anakin, albeit with an unsuccessful outcome since rerouting the main processor of the machine to the separatist computer itself proved to be far too complex for either of them to even complete. There were just too many firewalls set up for them to even attempt to bypass.

Thus, the two had set aside that project for later and ended up simply sitting down and talking in the hangar for hours.

That is, until her master had called her to meet with him. She could only guess that he just returned from his latest congregation with the Republic senators caucus in the Capitol.

Just as expected, Rey spotted the man standing solemnly by himself near the junction between the bridge and the waterfall, a contemplative look was set like stone upon his features.

She approached him in silence, knowing that he had probably sensed her the moment she stepped onto the Room of a Thousand Fountains' fourth floor.

"Good evening, master," she greeted.

"Good evening, Rey. I apologize for the short notice earlier, I didn't know that my meeting with the senators would be longer than I expected," Master Windu replied with a light smile.

"What did you wish to speak of, master?"

"Rey... I know that you are aware about the fact that you have not been given a lightsaber-" her eyebrows shot up in surprise at the topic her master decided to raise "- Moreover, you haven't been given the chance to build your own lightsaber."

"I know, I just never really minded it to be quite honest."

"Be that as it may, I had been putting it off initially until you finally had a basic grasp on force manipulation, meditation, and the like. And now, I've seen immense progression with your lessons. I believe it's time to start training you in your sparring skills."

"Master I—"

"Yes, I know... I am quite aware of your natural adeptness in combat. I saw your skills firsthand on our first meeting in Jakku and the many times you tried to escape the boarding ship," he chuckled at the memory causing Rey to blush in embarrassment. "But, I think it's time to teach you how to wield a saber because frankly, your staff will not always be effective in real battle."

"But, that means, I'm going to have to build my own saber and to build my own saber, I'm going to have to obtain a Kyber crystal. The closest planet I can find them on is Ilum and that's way out in the Unknown regions, on, on the other side of the star system!"

"Precisely, my padawan, you are correct in your analysis," he replied cryptically.

"Meaning, you want me to travel out the Outer rims, right?" She sighed.

"Correct."

"Will you be joining me, master?"

"You will be set to leave in a matter of three weeks and unfortunately, I will be away on a mission with master Yoda. In consequence, this is a mission I cannot accompany you on as much as I wish to do so."

"So, three weeks? Shall I prepare for anything then, I wish to be able to know some precautions since this will be my first mission alone if that's alright with you."

"Certainly," her master nodded before pulling out a holopad to reveal an outline of the Unknown quadrant in which Ilum revolved in.

"Once you travel out in to the territories outside of Coruscant, you will have to bypass a few planets that line the Outer Rim and beware of rogue ships on your path—pirates have been frequenting the area in Lothal since its political infrastructure has been growing less and less stable. Which is why I want you to have a knight accompany you on your journey, I am giving you permission to ask of our knights to come with you so as long as you follow my directions and come back safe. I expect to return from my mission to find you with a lightsaber, do you understand?"

"Yes, master."

"Excellent," he grinned. "Now, why don't we practice on your meditation before dinner starts?"

Rey could only nod her head eagerly as she followed her master towards the edge of the waterfalls to commence with her lessons.


Author's Note: Reviews are very much appreciated.