Resolve.
He found her, of course. The General was turning the whole Republic upside down and even the old Master was stumped.
But Finn would always find his Rey.
The moon outpost had a population of less than ten and they stood side by side at the abandoned docking station as he tried to talk sense into her.
"You have to turn yourself in," he was saying now, his voice as heavy and tired as he was.
"Why? So that she can kill me? My own blood and she wants me dead!" Rey's light eyes were large and frantic, haunted in her face.
"She won't-"
"She already tried. Stop pretending you didn't see."
"She was angry," he said, temper entering his voice for the first time. "You had gone too far. You murdered her oldest friend, her late husband's best friend, your friend." And mine, he would have added, but he didn't need to.
In the dim light from the distant planet, he could see the color of shame in her cheeks.
"I never meant to kill him. He was my friend."
"He believed in you, trusted you," Finn pressed. "He was always your ally. He and the General fell apart because he didn't agree with the decisions they made about you."
"I know," Rey said softly.
His heart beat fast. Her eyes were glimmering, and for the first time he saw something yielding in them. Perhaps there was still hope after all. He had thought that invoking Han's name would drive her away but he apparently he had been wrong.
"Chewbacca would have wanted you to turn yourself in."
"No, he won't!" She snapped, and Finn's heart fell as in a blink of an eye, he saw her temper return. "That's why he died. He got in the way. He tried to stop me."
"From killing Snoke. Who was never yours to kill!"
"I murdered the monster who had destroyed the lives of billions! Who was threatening to revive the greatest evil that this world had ever seen! I was the hero but I'm the one being hunted now!"
"He was never yours to kill!" Finn shouted.
"Says who? Luke Skywalker?" Rey laughed, bitter, furious. "You hero-worshipped him, not me. He had lost all right to tell me what I could or could not do."
"He was right to warn about the Dark Side. About what would happen if you tapped into that anger. If you met Snoke in pain and fear."
"I was in pain for you. I was afraid for you." She shouted, and now her eyes were glimmering but the tears in them were anger. "Why can't you understand that?"
"Listen to me carefully, Rey. I would rather have died than watched you turn to the Dark Side. I surrendered to save my soul. Not to see you sacrifice yours!"
"Who cares how Snoke died as long as he did? What does it matter if I used the Dark Side? I can control it! I am controlling it!"
"No, you're not," he said, and even now he felt it swirling around her, a storm, a typhoon, and a part of him wanted to be sucked into it.
Finn took a deep breath, closed his eyes, blew out heavily.
When he opened his eyes to her passionate face, he was semi-calm. "Rey." His hands reached for her for the first time, wrapped around her upper arms and even now, after everything, he felt a thrill at the touch of her skin, felt his heart tighten at the way her eyes closed, and her aura flashed with the same fervor that he felt. "I saw your eyes that night."
Rey shook her head, eyes still closed but he pressed further, silencing her.
"It had taken over you. Luke, your f-" Her eyes opened then, flashed with warning and he changed his words, "The Jedi can help you if you let him. Just come back, please."
"I don't want to come back," she said, her gaze locked at him. "Unless…" She bit her lip – and he felt a kick, watching her teeth gnaw at her lip – and then she stepped right up to him, closing the space between them and sending his heart racing. Her hands came to his neck, held fast. "Come away with me. We'll be on the run, off the drig, and away from the comforts and luxuries of the Republic but," and her face was glowing now, suffused with hope, "we'll be together."
He could barely talk beyond the lump in his throat, could barely bring himself to crush the desperate hope in her face, and even his own traitorous heart which was jumping at her words, and tempting him to just say, "Yes, I'll run away with you Rey."
"We can't, Rey. We'll never survive on our own, not anymore, you know that."
"Please, Finn," and now her lips were hovering so near his own and he knew, he knew, he should back away but he couldn't, "please…" She pressed her lips to his.
They were as soft as – well, as he had dreamed about all this time. The kiss was short, tentative, and innocent really, nothing more than a press of flesh against flesh. She pulled back a little, staring at through lowered lashes, nervousness radiating from her.
"I'm sorry," she said, and she laughed softly, bitterly. "All this while I thought that-"
He let go off her arm to grab the back of her neck and he kissed her back, hard.
There was nothing tentative, innocent or short about this kiss. It was a desperate culmination of years of pent up emotions and the Force all but shouted in their ears as they threw everything they felt into it. He couldn't get enough of her, his hands moving from her hair, to her back, to curves that he had always wanted to feel; her own hands were restless wandering over his back, caressing the muscles of his shoulders and arms, then back to his face holding it tenderly between her palms even as she kissed him in every way but tender.
It was like they were trying to devour each other with their mouths.
"Run away with me," she gasped when they stopped to breathe. "Please, Finn. We're family, you said, all those years ago. I don't need my family, we don't need the Jedi. Please, Finn."
He wanted to speak but she grabbed him and kissed him again, and all words and thoughts fell out of his brain.
They went back to her place, the tiny room she had rented above the cantina, and sometime in that long night, he made up his mind. Rey was right. They were family. He was all she had and she – she was all he ever wanted. He could protect her from the Dark Side. They would keep each other safe.
They only needed each other.
A/N: Possible spoilers for SW Ep 7. Based on my own speculations from the trailers so far. This is in the same continuity as 'Reunion' and takes place 5 years before.