#eoas

It was the Millenium Falcon that came to pick her up from the docks on Tatooine. She raised an eyebrow as Poe emerged, gesturing for her to hurry aboard. Bringing the most notorious ship in the Resistance’s armada so close to the First Order’s fleet didn’t strike her as the wisest decision, but as Poe reassured her, being spotted was not as much an issue when there were few ships as fast as this one.

“We’d have to actually be caught to be, well, caught,” he said with a wry smile, but there was still something hurried and distracted about his manner.

If any of the First Order vessels registered the ship on their radars, none made any attempt to pursue, and in almost no time at all they had leapt to hyperspeed. The stars streaked past in a bright blur as Poe marvelled at the responsiveness of the Falcon compared to the old X-wing he’d been forced to take up since his last one got blown up. Again.

They dropped back into normal space somewhere closer to the galactic core, judging by the density and brightness of the stars that peppered their field of view. Ahead, a hodgepodge flotilla of civilian freights and ships drifted in idle formation. This was currently all that was left of the Resistance’s fleet, with a few salvaged fighters hidden away in the largest freight. More ships would come in time, but it would depend on what could be donated by sympathetic allies to the cause.

Poe docked the Falcon inside a freight that looked as if it might have been soldered together from several smaller ships. Leia was already waiting for them at the base of the boarding ramp, leaning on the cane she had taken to using since the initial attack on the Raddus. Her face was unusually grim as she gazed up at Rey.

“With me, please,” she said simply and led the way through the busy hangar.

There was a technician perched atop of a fighter, buried under a shower of sparks from the damaged fuselage she was slicing up. Rey didn’t realise it was Rose until the sparks abruptly vanished and the girl lifted her protective visor to peer down at her. Rose looked relieved to see her and gave a discreet wave, but like Poe, there was some anxiety there too.

Leia took her into one of the smaller storage rooms that doubled as a kind of conference room. The coterie of escorts that followed her everywhere were told to wait outside as Leia leant on the edge of a steel table and waited until the door had sealed shut. She looked expectantly at Rey.

“Talk,” she commanded simply. “Please.”

Rey knew this moment had been coming and she’d been rehearsing it in her head for most of the journey from Tatooine, but now all the things she had carefully planned to say and phrase came cascading out all at once like a dam that had only needed one small crack to break apart.

So Rey explained everything about how she’d stepped into a slaver’s trap laid to catch Wookiees, and how she’d fallen all the way to the forest floor where she may have been eaten had the slavers not arrived to collect her, and how they had planned to take her to Tatooine and sell her on the organ market until the First Order fleet had intercepted them.

“What a coincidence,” murmured Leia, her chin resting upon her palm.

She suspected something, that much was clear. Rey’s fingers twisted in her lap. “Not entirely coincidence,” she admitted slowly. “Ever since the island… I’ve been seeing Ben.”

“Seeing him… how?” Leia’s face was a mask of ice, as if one slip of an expression might crack her whole facade.

“Through the force,” said Rey, “he appears to me, and I to him, and Snoke claimed he bridged our minds, but he’s dead now and I still… I still see him.”

“Is he here now?” Leia asked sharply.

“No.”

“Good,” said Kylo softly as he paced around the table. He was looking curiously towards Leia, as if he could almost see her. “But be careful. My mother is stronger in the Force than she lets on. She can sense lies too.”

Rey refused to look at him, keeping her eyes focused only on Leia. Perhaps if she ignored him, he’d just fade away. Although from the way Leia’s head tilted as if she was listening to something, he might have been right about her perceptiveness.

“You realise this is how Snoke seduced Ben all these years ago, don’t you?” asked Leia. “That he bridged his mind with Ben’s and appeared to him the way Ben appears to you now? Nothing good will come of this, Rey. Ben wants you to join him, and with unfettered access to your mind, he will do everything he can to convince you.”

“Do you see how she speaks about me?” Kylo’s lip almost curled. “She never understood. She still refuses to. I’m just her greatest mistake.”

Rey swallowed, feeling the pressure of Leia’s intense gaze warring with her urge to look at Kylo. She didn’t know what to say, except she was sure it was bound to be wrong whatever it was.

“I can’t be convinced,” Rey said. “I know what is right.”

“So did Ben, once. But after years of Snoke whispering in his ear, he turned.” Leia sat back.

“She’ll blame anyone but herself,” muttered Kylo, coming to stand directly beside his diminutive mother. Was it contempt in his face when he looked down at her? It would be easy to believe so, but Rey thought there was a kind of unutterable sadness in his eyes that only someone who had been abandoned by their family could know. Such was the intensity of his emotion that she could have sworn that - just for a moment - Leia’s gaze flicked towards him.

“And this is how he found out our location, wasn’t it. Through you?” Leia said.

Rey paled. “I-I didn’t tell him anything. It was an accident - I asked for help and he helped me, but he traced the slaver’s shuttle to Kashyyyk.”

“Then you should not have asked for his help. You know how easily flight paths can be traced.”

“She would rather you have died,” Kylo said, sliding away from his mother’s side to approach Rey once more.

“I didn’t think - I was hurt, I just called out to anyone who could hear me.” Rey felt her face beginning to heat up. “But he said he wouldn’t attack. He said he had no interest in the Resistance.”

“And you believed him?”

“I… no, that’s why I’m telling you.”

“I’m hurt,” said Kylo unconvincingly. Rey did look at him now, with the burning anger that said she might have struck him if he’d really been standing there in front of him.

It felt like an interrogation, especially when Leia slipped a holopad from the pocket of her steel-grey robe and placed it on the table. “It won’t surprise you that we still have active agents on The Supremacy. I’ve received four separate reports that you were seen personally escorted to a shuttle by General Hux like an honoured guest. A further report states Kylo Ren himself carried you to the infirmary.”

A bolt of alarm shot through Rey’s stomach as she looked desperately to Leia. “I know how it looks-”

“It looks like you are consorting with our gravest enemy.”

“This is the real Princess Leia Organa,” Kylo whispered, bending close enough that she felt his breath fanning across her brow. “She’ll turn on you, just like she turned on me. You thought she could be the mother you always wanted, but when she never had time for her own son, what makes you think she’ll-”

A warm hand sudden closed around Rey’s and in an instant Kylo and his whispers disappeared. Rey blinked, seeing only Leia before her now, holding her hand within her own, grounding her.

“Is he still here?” Leia asked her.

Rey’s ashamed gaze dropped to the floor. “No.”

Leia believed her this time, but she did not let go of Rey’s hand, and Rey felt something about the touch was keeping Kylo at bay.

“I know how it looks Rey. It’s exactly how he wanted it to look. Ben wanted you to be seen treated as a guest. He wants to sow doubt and distrust amongst the Resistance which looks to you as its hero at a point when we desperately need one. He’s manipulating you.”

Rey’s mouth fell shut and she slumped, eyes on a rusted panel near the edge of the floor. Of course Leia had seen right through the deception in a heartbeat, whereas Rey, for just a while there, had actually believed that perhaps Kylo had wanted nothing in exchange  for granting her freedom…

“I can keep a lid on these reports, but this will come out. He intends it to. And the harm it will do…” Leia was shaking her head. “Well, it worries me less than his connection to you. You must end it.”

“I don’t think I can.” Rey realised with a pang that she didn’t want to.

“Then… you are currently our biggest liability,” said Leia heavily.

“What do you mean?” asked Rey softly, fearing she already knew the answer.

Leia took a long minute to answer, and she slid her hand over Rey’s tense arm. “The Resistance is setting up a new base, but… I do not think you should join us there. What you do not know, you cannot share.”

Rey jerked her hand away and stepped back. “You’re turning me away?” Tears welled and blurred her vision and she blinked them away angrily.

“This isn’t a decision I have made lightly, Rey. I have no desire to abandon you - and you will be given every channel and every access code to reach out to us should you ever need us, but you need to understand. One more blow will shatter this Resistance entirely. I can’t risk it. I can’t risk that something similar to today happens again, and despite your best intentions, Ben will manipulate you through this connection. I can see he already has you to some extent.”

“And what am I supposed to do? Where am I supposed to go?” Rey all but shouted.

“Take the Falcon,” said Leia, reaching forward to cradle Rey’s face in her warm, gentle hands. “Take this time to learn yourself and break free from this bond with Ben. Luke needed time too, when he was young, to stop being a Resistance fighter and learn how to be a jedi. And when you are free, come home to us. We’ll all be with you every step of the way.”

Hot tears streaked down Rey’s cheeks. “Where am I to go, Leia?” she asked again.

“Listen to the Force. Whenever I have opened my heart to the Force, it has never steered me wrong. I have listened to it today and its answer is plain… you have a journey to complete, Rey. You are not meant to be tied down by the Resistance before you have finished it.”

“It’s where I belong,” protested Rey.

“Belonging is not a place, it’s a state of mind. Friends - true friends - will always be there for you, even when you cannot always be together.”

“Leia,” she pleaded.

But Leia would not be moved, even if it was evident that Leia’s heart was breaking a little bit as she reached up and pressed a kiss to Rey’s cheek. “You will come home. I feel it. When the time is right. And perhaps...”

Leia trailed off, her gaze growing distant.

“What?” gasped Rey.

Leia gave her a wan smile. “A silly old woman’s regrets. But I wonder… I hope… that perhaps when you come home, you will bring Ben with you. The love of his parents was never enough, but you might be.”

“What do you mean?” Rey whispered through her tears.

“Nothing. Never mind. It’s not your responsibility, Rey. It just seems to me that this connection goes both ways… and I know your mind and your will are stronger than my son’s. He’ll try to turn you, but his faith in darkness is the weaker. Do you understand?”

“I… I think so,” said Rey miserably.

“And you understand why you must go?”

She nodded again, but the pain in Rey’s chest was a real, almost physical thing. She dashed away her tears and summoned a brave face that Leia must have seen through at once since the woman pulled her into a tender hug. It was almost all worth it, to be held like that, the way a mother might hold her own child, though she knew that it was Ben that Leia longed to embrace.

Word always spread quickly amongst the Rebel crew, even when they’d been a large fleet. By the time Rey had finished washing and changing her clothes after her check in with the surgeon, it seemed like everyone knew she was leaving even if not all understood the reasons why.

Finn and Rose were quick to offer to come with her, but Rey had reluctantly come around to Leia’s advice. This was a journey that could only be done alone. She didn’t have the right to drag her friends into this. For all the best will in the world, they did not and could not understand.

“But we won’t get in the way,” Finn insisted.

“It’s not a matter of getting in the way… I’d be putting you in danger,” she told him, as she carefully packed a bag of fresh supplies. “Kylo Ren decreed that I’m a guest of the First Order. That’s not a decree that extends to anyone else in the Resistance. I won’t be in danger, but you would be.”

“That’s ludicrous - it’s all a trap Rey, you’re in more danger of falling into it than anyone!” Finn too her by the shoulders and turned her to face him as if that might make her see sense. “It’s a trap .”

“Of course it’s a trap, I’m not an idiot,” she sighed. “But Finn… the trap was sprung weeks ago. I’m in the trap. What I need to do is get out of the trap and take the cheese with me. Right?”

Fin blinked. “I’m not sure what the cheese stands for in this metaphor…”

“That’s probably a good thing. Take care of Rose, Finn.”  

When it came to say goodbye to Rose, she was a little surprised when the other girl lurched forward to hug her tightly. “Are you leaving because of my snoring?” Rose asked, eyes damp with tears.

“Yes,” said Rey. “And some other things too.”

“Whatever you need to do, just do it fast and come home, ok?” Rose told her. “And don't forget to call. Who else am I going to talk about engines with?”

Poe took her hand in a show of professional camaraderie, then tugged her forward to plant a firm kiss against her cheek. “Be good, Jedi girl. May the Force be with you.”

Rey smiled hesitantly. She knew it was a mantra among the Resistance, but right then it sounded like a prayer. She nodded wordlessly, realising that she might cry if she tried to say some heartfelt goodbyes. All she could manage was to call to BB8. The droid would come with her. She needed a copilot after all.

She boarded the Falcon, armed with a fresh bag of clothes, her staff, and the pieces of Luke’s lightsaber. BB8 beeped merrily, pleased to be on an adventure with his friend Rey, and not quite understanding the misery that engulfed her as the Falcon doors whirred shut.

Her heart felt a hundred times heavier as she watched the flotilla of Rebel ships shrink away and the silence of an empty ship pressed in around her. It was an illusion of choice, she thought. She had walked into this ship and left under her own power, but something about this moment reminded her of that hot day years ago on Jakku when she’d watched her family’s shuttle take off without her.

She was not a child anymore, though the sense of bewilderment and abandonment hurt just as much.

In the absence of her friends, the Falcon drifted silently. Rey sat at the helm looked at the stars and felt… nothing. She did not know where to go. She did not know what to do. Leia had told her to listen to the Force, but all she could hear was the roar of her own blood in her ears.

Something prowled at the edge of her senses, and Rey shivered, the fine hairs along the back of her neck rising. Out the corner of her eye she caught the movement of a black boot beside her chair and had to stamp down on her rising anger. Her current misery was entirely his fault. His manipulations had brought her into this isolation and for that she dearly wished to grab her blaster pistol and shoot him in the face - it wouldn’t kill him, but he deserved a good fright. Instead, Rey took a deep slow breath and tempered her feelings.

“You look so cast down,” she heard him say. “Oh dear, have the Rebels grounded you?”

“I haven’t been grounded,” she answered calmly. “I’ve been cast out.”

After a moment’s silence, Kylo stepped into view and the leather of his boots creaked as he sank down to his knee to be eye level with her. “I knew my mother could be ruthless, but that kind of cruelty… I didn’t expect that.”

Rey searched his face for some hint of conceit and insincerity, but she found none. “Didn’t you? Seems like this is exactly what you wanted.”

“I didn’t want to cause you pain,” he said, and he sounded genuine to her ears. “But you needed to see… how fragile the trust you relied upon was. See how easily it broke.”

Rey couldn’t help some of the anger that bled through into her voice. “Your manipulations didn’t work, Ben. Leia understood exactly what you were up to. She knows your act of kindness towards me was an attempt to sow distrust. She’s your mother - she saw through you in an instant.”

Kylo’s face hardened. “I helped you because you asked me to. I let you go, because you asked to go. What else should I have done?”

“You wouldn’t help me like that unless it was self-serving in some way,” she said bitterly, averting her gaze.

“If you think you already know my thoughts, look into my mind. I know you can.”

“You’re not actually here,” she said. “I can’t.”

“You’ve done it before.”

She watched him tug free the glove from his left hand and offer it up to her. Rey looked at it with a faint frown, very conscious suddenly of her own hands clasped loosely in her lap. The last time she had touched her bare fingertips to his, it had been almost electric, but in the sense that it had been like a current that looped between them, locking them together in place and unable to break free until Luke had come upon them.

As incredible as it had been, it had been frightening too. Rey wasn’t so sure she wished to repeat it now.

Seeing her reluctance, Kylo’s face clouded over. His hand curled into a fist and dropped away, rejected. Rey reacted before she knew what she was doing and leant forward suddenly to brush the tips of her fingers against his cheek.

Kylo flinched so hard the contact was broken at once.

They hung there, in startled awkwardness; Rey, with her fingers trembling faintly just an inch from his rigid face, and Kylo with an expression of shock. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Don’t be.” He recovered, quickly mastering whatever reaction she’d caused as he caught her hand and nudged it back against his damaged cheek. The warmth of his fingers trapped hers against his face and Rey was so curious at how solid and real he felt that she forgot the objective of this exercise.

Kylo had to remind her. “Look.”

Rey let her eyes slide shut and pressed into him the way she’d done in the past. He offered no resistance. There was a sensation, a familiar one, like when she’d been standing in the rain on Kashyyyk staring into the deep barrel of crystal clear rainwater, seeing right to the bottom behind her own rippling reflection. She caught bits of memory, some of it her own, some of it that must have belonged to him. Some were things that couldn’t possibly have happened, and things that might never happen. Rey had been fooled by such visions before, when she had touched his hand and seen a premonition of him striking Snoke down and choosing her - but the vision had not warned her that what he really desired was to sit upon Snoke’s chair himself.

Rey pulled her hand way, more confused than ever.

Kylo watched her face hungrily. “What do you see?”

“I’m not sure…” she said. “You think you’re helping me, but your idea of help…? You think breaking me away from the Resistance is for my own good, don’t you?” Rey pressed her hands to her face as a wave of dizziness overwhelmed her. She struggled to process the things their connection had shown her. “What do you want from me?”

“I want what I’ve always wanted,” he said. “To teach you.”

Rey shook her head, remembering Leia’s warnings. “How do we end this? How do I get you out of my head?”

“You can’t.” His voice was cold.

“There has to be a way.”

“Perhaps one…”

Rey looked at him sharply. “How?”

“Stop thinking about me.”

Rey stared in confusion.

“You haven’t noticed? That this connection only opens when we both think of each other at the same time?”

Was it true? Perhaps sometimes, yes, she had certainly been thinking of him before he’d appeared… other times she was not sure.

“So. Simply stop thinking about me, Rey, and you will be free.”

“It would help if you could stop thinking about me too,” she said.

Kylo’s gaze was warm, almost amused. “I’m always thinking of you.”

Heat rolled through her stomach and Rey scowled in fury at her own reaction. “The Supreme Leader of the First Order should have more important things to think about than a Rebel.”

“You’re no Rebel,” said Kylo. “But you could be so much more.”

Rey looked away, but it was hard to concentrate as Kylo raised himself up once more and leaned over her. His hands came down on the armrests of her seat, bracketing her arms. “Come back to me. I’d never turn you away. You feel it, don’t you? That your place is with me.”

She shook her head resolutely. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“You’ll change your mind.”

“I won’t.”

He straightened, and Rey felt like she could suddenly draw breath again. “So what will you do?” he demanded. “Float in space until you stumble upon some other jedi master to train you? The only jedi left in this galaxy is me. You need me. ”

“I have the books of the first jedi,” she reminded him.

“Which you can’t read.”

“I will learn.”

“It would take you years-”

“If that’s what it takes.”

The exasperation and anger was building in him and she could see he was struggling to control his temper as his breathing quickened. “Fine. Rot in space for all I care.”

He turned away and faded on the spot. Rey sighed and felt a tension ease in her shoulders that she had not realised was there until he’d gone. She folded her arms over the console and buried her head in them as she tried to regain some of the balance he’d knocked out of her. Only then did she hear a quizzical beep behind her.

“Oh, BB8… how long have you been there?” she wondered.

BB8’s lens was scouring the cockpit, looking for some evidence of the person she’d been talking to.

“It’s difficult to explain,” she sighed. “Would you hook into the navigation for me?”

BB8 obeyed with a cheerful chirp, rolling up to the navigation board behind the co-pilot’s seat and opening one of his ports to extend an arm.

“Check the holonet… what’s the news on the First Order’s fleet location?”

BB8 told her that the traffic reports indicated that the Supremacy and its fleet had departed from Tatooine, heading in the direction of the unknown regions.

Rey mulled on this. It would be impossible to tell where the fleet was heading if it concerned the unknown regions… they were hardly mapped out and hyperlanes were rare and difficult to maintain. Yet some name kept bubbling up that she could not shake loose, one which she suspected she had never heard of until she’d just tapped into Kylo Ren’s mind.

“BB8, what is Jedha? Is that a planet?”

A moon, BB8 told her, pulling the information straight from the net. It was far removed from any of the frequent routes through space and difficult to reach, and was only notable for once being strip mined by the Empire for its rich crystal resources. It had also been the site of the first weapons test of the original Death Star.

“And where is it?” she asked.

BB8 bleeped his response.

“That’s quite near the unknown regions, isn’t it?” she said, tugging at her lip. When BB8 beeped another question she wrinkled her nose. “No, I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure that’s where Ben Solo is… and I have absolutely no desire to even be in the same quadrant as that man. Just set a course for the nearest port. I’ll… I’m sure I’ll figure something out once we get there.”

There was little else to do once the course was set and the auto-pilot was steering the shp, Rey sat back and stared out into the darkness of deep space. She was waiting for one of those bright stars to speak to her, as Leia suggested the Force might show her the way, but all Rey heard was the hum of idling life support and nothing felt particular meaningful right then.

BB8 rolled around the cabin behind her like a lost tumbleweed in the wind, occasionally bleeping questions that she didn’t know how to answer. Where were they going after the port? How long was this adventure going to be? Did she think they might be able to rejoin the rest of the Resistance soon? What did she suppose Poe was up to at that moment?

With the shroud pulled across her face, she made her way through the outpost, hoping to remain incognito. There were some new faces, but most were the same people she had always known, exactly where she had left them. The water vendor was still at his pump, barking at a new apprentice about letting water droplets escape the drums. Constable Zuvio still roved in his patrols, and was probably still better off avoided even when you weren’t breaking any rules. Rey paused near the scrap shop. It was still full of scavengers, mostly children, elbow deep in grease and tar, scrubbing and stripping components. Rey looked down at her own palms, still marked and calloused from the days she’d spent at these work benches.

“Nice disguise, Rey.”

Rey glanced sharply behind at her at the large creature who was just arriving with an enormous load of scrap metal bundled on his back.

“Oh, hello, Deek,” she sighed, letting the shroud fall from her face. “What gave me away?”

“The staff. The general outline. That a bunch of the others already said they’d seen you.” Deek blinked at her slowly. “You shouldn’t be here. Plutt has about twenty bounties on your head for that ship you stole.”

“Where is Unkar Plutt?” She could see the booth at the centre of the outpost from here, but the shutter was drawn and only a couple of Plutt’s mooks could be seen loitering near it.

“You know him… he’s never far.”

Deek lumbered on and Rey cast an eye around. Plutt had all sorts of boltholes that he used during the worst of the midday heat. Although if what Deek had said was true, then certainly word would reach him soon enough that she was back. Moving on, she continued to rove between the old stalls she knew off by heart. She’d never really had time to wander aimlessly like this; she had only ever come through the markets on her way to trade junk or on her way to find more. There had never been the money or the time to stop and browse the more ornate trinkets that turned up in the desert. The vendors all knew her, but there was something different in the way they looked at her now.

She wasn’t one of them anymore and they knew it. The old women who used to nod at her just stared instead, and scavengers she’d worked alongside for years now turned away. Rey had not stepped back into her old world like stepping back into a well-worn shoe - she was too different. She was changed.

Rey stopped at a stall that sold the bits of jewellery and novelties that had been pulled from the crew quarters of the old imperials ship; bracelets, hand mirrors, medals of office. One necklace in particular caught her eye for its resemblance to one she’d seen Luke wearing; something resembling a crystal suspended on a silver chain. Rey touched it gently.

The woman who manned the stall watched Rey with narrowed eyes. “You got money to pay for that?” she asked.

Rey looked up at her. “I wouldn’t trade actual money for your junk, Marie,” she said.

“You sold that ship, right?”

“No.”

Marie sucked her teeth. “Stupid,” she sighed, her gaze sliding past Rey. “You should never have come back, Rey.”

Marie turned away, pretending to busy herself with some stock beneath her stall as a large hand landed on Rey’s shoulder, spinning her around. A group of scavengers had gathered around her, their faces stony and tense. She recognised them at once as the gang that answered directly to Unkar Plutt.

“Plutt wants to speak to you,” said the one with his hand still in a vice around her shoulder.

“What a coincidence,” she said. “I wanted to speak to him too.”

With a jerk and a shove she was pushed into motion, flanked on all sides by men who had no intention of allowing her escape. She was marched through the market towards the shipyard at the edge of the outpost. Most people who saw them coming averted their eyes and scrambled out of the way. Constable Zuvio scrutinised them ferociously as they passed, but there was nothing he could do. Rey didn’t call for help. She let herself be led toward a large cargo freight that had been parked in the same spot of years - it had acted as one of Plutt’s gambling cub houses for as long as she’d been on Jakku.

As soon as they were through the door, the thin facade broke and the staff was ripped from her back in the same motion that someone shoved her to the floor. The door sealed up and the heat and light of the desert vanished, leaving her in an echoing chamber filled with darkness and the stink of smoke and drink. The scavenger men circled around her and Rey sensed the rising tension. These men wanted to beat her, to kick her and thrash her until she bled - to rip out chunks of her hair and spit on her face.

Rey had once used all her wits and stealth to avoid situations like this. The thought of being cornered without protection had frightened her so much it had driven her from the outpost to seek her home in the most remote piece of junk she could find with a door she could lock. Now she didn’t know what she felt, the emotions from the men around her were so strong and savage they drown out her own. Rey gazed up at them in faint bewilderment and belatedly realised that of the men circling her, one was standing still, watching her impassively.

“Ben…” she breathed.

She felt the blow coming a split second before it landed. Pain lanced through her brow and she nearly slumped to the floor again. Cradling her head, she sought the one who had struck her and saw a scavenger standing over her, gripping her own staff. He raised it again.

“Not yet,” grunted a voice from behind the wall of me. “You can have her later, along with three extra portions for each of you as promised.”

The men filtered away, leaving her alone with none other than Unkar Plutt. He was sat at one of his gambling tables, freed of the protective plates he wore outside to protect his delicate skin from the scorching sun. In his meaty fist was a short metal pole with what looked like an electric outlet. Rey sat upright and met his stare evenly.

“I always treated you well, Rey,” he said. “Better than the rest. And you repaid me by stealing my ship.”

Rey had nothing to say to that. It was rich for him to be sore over a ship he himself had stolen, and it would make no difference to argue her case that it was her life or that ship - Plutt would certainly believe she should have let herself die before taking his property.

“Where is it?” he demanded, flecks of mucus oozing down his face.

“The ship? It’s about half a mile east of here, behind a dune.”

Unkar Plutt leaned back, looking at her with obvious surprise. “You brought it back?”

“A flying visit,” she said. “I’ll be leaving in it shortly.”

Plutt’s booming laugh echoed around the room. It almost hurt her ears. “You don’t think you’ll be leaving, do you? That ship belongs to me. Youbelong to me.”

Rey felt an anger like nothing else she had ever experienced. “ I do not belong to you, ” she hissed.

“If it wasn’t for me, you’d be long dead, girl,” Plutt said, examining the electric prod with casual interest. “The only reason those men left you alone all those years was because I told them to. The only reason you stayed fed was because I fed you, even when you brought me nothing but shit. You should have joined all the other girls of your kind in the cantinas, disgracing yourself for credits, and the only reason you did not was because I permitted it.”

He grunted another laugh as he pointed the prod at her. “You can say goodbye to my protection now, Rey. I thank you for returning what you stole, but I can’t trust you now. Once I let my men get their fill of you, I’m selling you on to the brothels. Such a shame. You were such a good scavenger.”

Rey climbed back to her feet, her hands trembling with rage. “You don’t own me,” she whispered. “You never owned me.”

He snorted, a disgusting sound that set of folds wobbling. “I bought you, and you should be grateful-”

“Grateful!” Rey exploded.

“Anyone else would have used you up and discarded you long ago, but my kindness to you was the only thing-”

“Shut up!” Rey snarled, thrusting a clawed hand toward him.

Plutt fell silent. His mouth worked but no sound came out. He hammered on his throat as if he might dislodge what had closed off his voice, then he turned his watery eyes to stare at her incredulously.

“Much better,” Kylo said approvingly.

“I didn’t come here to listen to you prattle about your kindness for only making my life a near living hell instead of a complete one,” Rey said. “I have questions and for once you will answer me.”

She released her hold on his throat and heard his wheezing breath as his voice returned. “What was… what did you do to me?” Plutt gasped.

“You bought me. From who?” Rey asked.

Plutt’s fists curled and he surged to his feet, knocking back the chair he sat in. He was no small man and he towered over Rey even from a distance. “You barge in here and make demands?! The cheek of you!” He lifted the electric prod, only to find it yanked swiftly from his grip. It sailed across the room, straight into Rey’s raised hand.

She levelled it at him. “Who sold me?” she shouted.

“Give that back to me at once, Rey!” he bellowed back.

Kylo looked on, shaking his head. “You’re wasting your time. He’s a simple creature who doesn’t understand anything but brutality and bullying. You won’t reason with him.”

“Tell me what I want to know,” Rey warned.

“Or what?” he snarled, calling her bluff.

“Show him,” Kylo urged her.

Rey glanced at him, disturbed at how easy it would be. It felt like something inside her was fighting to break free, straining against a fraying leash that Kylo wanted to see break. She knew what he wanted. She knew she couldn’t do that. All the same, there was Plutt, just standing there and embodying everything she hated about Jakku, everything she hated about herself, and standing in the way of a truth that had tormented her entire existence.

But the moment she took her eyes off Plutt, he took his chance and charged her. Rey flicked her wrist and sent him slamming into the wall.

The crash of Plutt’s considerable bulk must have rattled the whole ship, for at once the doors to the bay snaked up and the scavengers surged back inside. They needed only a moment to take stock of a dazed Plutt on the floor before they seized their clubs and hammers and descended on Rey.

There was no reasoning now. Rey swung and struck, dodging deadly blows and kicks aimed at crippling her, fighting for her life and fighting with rage. The prod was knocked from her hand by a lucky blow on her wrist, and Rey launched herself at the man who dared to wield her own staff. She tore it back in seconds, cracking one man over the head and jabbing another in the stomach. One came at her with a sharpened hammer, and in a blur Rey freed the pistol from her hip and shot him dead between the eyes.

His body hit the floor, then so did another. Rey thrashed and screamed and channeled the force to push away two men who threatened to overwhelm her. When she whirled on a scavenger holding nothing but a shiv, she lifted the pistol to take aim once more, and even as she watched him scramble backwards to escape her, she squeezed the trigger.

The room went quiet but for the pounding of her heart in her ears.

Rey looked around, ready for her next opponent… but there was no one left. Whoever did not lie dead or barely conscious on the ground had escaped, and there was no one left between her and Unkar Plutt now, still slumped against the wall, looking at her furiously with impotent anger.

She raised the pistol toward him. “Tell me everything you know about my family,” she said with a deadly calm at odds with the white hot storm inside her.

Plutt bared his teeth. “I would not… give you the satisfaction,” he wheezed.

Kylo’s shadow fell across her extended arm. “If he won’t give it to you, take it,” he said simply.

Rey had only done it once to Kylo himself, and she had hoped she would never need do it again. But Plutt was different. Plutt was scum. She raised her free hand towards him and narrowed her focus of the force to an almost pin-prick precision, boring into a weak mind wrapped in such ego and delusions of importance that one might at first mistake his will as strong. It caved in an instant as Plutt writhed and moaned in pain and horror at the intrusion.

“My parents… who were they?” Rey asked.

At her prompting, Plutt’s mind obligingly brought forth the memories. A thin man… a once handsome face gone to seed, addictions etched into the premature lines of his face and the grey at his temple. He had a name. Plutt knew him very well. The man came at least once a month to trade something new to pay his debts. First he’d brought his wife’s jewellery, then he’d brought heirlooms and ornaments, clothing and some prized working animals, and after this he’d brought the deeds to his land and his modest farm, and when he’d finally had nothing left but his ship and his daughter, he had traded in his daughter.

Rey felt heavy tears slice down her face.  “What happened to him…?”

He hadn’t gone far. Plutt hadn’t really wanted the girl, he’d wanted the ship. That very same night he had sent his gang to follow the shuttle to the city. In a few hours they were back with the shuttle in hand, the money Plutt had paid for the daughter, and a fresh pool of blood that had needed to be hosed away before the ship could be refitted and sold on again.

Rey had been waiting her whole life for a man who had been dead within hours of saying goodbye.

Her hand dropped numbly to her side. Rey could hardly even see Plutt anymore through the tears.

“You had him killed,” she whispered. “Did you kill my mother too?”

Unkar Plutt frothed and snarled. “ He killed your mother,” he grunted. “She refused to sign over the deeds so he buried her in that pitiful plot and sold it to me while her body was still warm!”

Rey furiously drove back into his mind to hunt for the truth. He wasn’t lying. She saw the woman, gaunt with hunger and fatigue, long hair in a thin braid. Plutt had never spoken to her, only seen her from a distance, usually scolding her child constantly for asking too many questions, for wanting to play, for wanting to go home. One day the man had come to sell the farm, explaining his wife’s absence as a visit to her family, but when the farm had come into Plutt’s possession with one freshly dug grave, he knew better.

Who knew where her father’s body lay now… he’d been thrown from the airlock somewhere over the vast desert and left for the pickings of the wild animals.

“You stole me,” she said. “Like you stole everything else. You took everything from my family!”

“Julan destroyed that family - he did you the greatest favour by handing you to me!”

Rey’s finger spasmed on the trigger of the pistol. She wanted to pull it ever so dearly, and see this awful creature face justice for all the misery he had caused in his long ignoble life.

She felt Kylo’s gaze upon her, burning in its intensity, watching what she would do next.

It took a great deal of effort, but Rey lowered the trembling pistol until it pointed at the floor.

“If I ever see you or any of your men come after me again, I will be back, and next time I will not hesitate to end you,” she told him thickly.

Rey turned and swept out of the cargohold and back into the blinding sun outside. It felt like she hadn’t seen it in a week, and no matter how hot the air was, nothing could warm the cold feeling inside her.

Kylo stood in front of her, blocking her path. “You should have finished him off,” he said, sounding confused that she had not. “He wouldn’t be missed.”

Rey closed her eyes. “I need to be alone. Please. Just leave me alone.”

She ran forward, straight into him and through him, and then she kept on running.

Rey was used to being alone. When she was sixteen an unusual shift in Jakku’s winter brought a sandstorm that lasted almost a week. Rey had learned fast that one needed to stockpile food for winter, and she had been careful to halve her rations in the preceding months to make sure she had windfall for hard times like this. When the storm had struck, she had sealed up the hatch of her make-shift home and made herself comfortable. There would be no more trips to the outpost, no more treks towards the ‘graveyard’ to look for salvage. There was nothing to do but wait out the storm.

From morning to night, the wind howled and the sand scoured the exterior of the old AT-AT that gave her shelter. Rey occupied herself with mending her boots and catching up on her reading of various flight manuals. They were a little dry, but a good sleep aid. When she grew bored of the research she usually picked up a beaten old holopad she’d once picked up in the market in exchange for some duranium scraps; it was loaded with hundreds of old novels and serials. Initially, Rey had not been convinced of their value, although she now believed it had been the greatest bargain purchase of her life. The holopad stayed by her bed and each night she delved into a new story.

Some were a little like the oral nursery tales that had been told to all Jakku children, about demons that lived in the centre of the planet, who cried tears of glass because they could not create life. But others seemed to weave real history with fiction, such as the serials that detailed the fall of the Empire at the hands of the brave and powerful Luke Skywalker and the plucky Resistance. Those were some of her favourite stories, though so fantastical in some aspects that she suspected most of it was untrue. One of her favourite characters was a woman named Shara Bey, an ace pilot who flew for the Resistance. Sometimes Rey liked to pull on the old rebel helmet she had found in a dune and pretend she was Shara, flying in formation with a squad at her back as she took down a death star.

As Rey had grown older, there were other stories that she found herself turning to. Stories of love. These stories usually involved a girl in possession of a suitable virtue - who was exceptionally kind, or clever, or beautiful - who met an equally wonderful boy and proceeded to spend the rest of the story falling in love, or falling in love immediately and trying to overcome whatever obstacles kept them apart.

During the sandstorm, there was a lot of time to read. On the third day of howling winds and sands, Rey picked up the holopad and selected a new story. This one was about a poor farmgirl who was unappreciated and unloved by the rest of her family, who vastly preferred her spoiled half-sister. When a handsome Prince who ruled half the galaxy and owned about 300 palaces arrived, no matter how beautiful the family tried to make the half sister, and no matter how much mud they smeared over the farmgirl’s face, or how much they ripped her clothes and tried to cover her hair with moudy scarves and straw, they could not stop her natural beauty shining through. They could not stop the Prince from falling in love with her.

And so in the dead of night, the family took the farmgirl and took her far away, abandoning her in an ancient forest full of spirits and monsters that might do what they were too cowardly to do, before returning home to try and disguise the step-sister as the Prince’s chosen bride.

At this point in the story, Rey let the holopad fall on her chest and her imagination wandered almost to the edge of the stars. She pretended that this was why she had been left on Jakku. A jealous step-mother had abandoned her, but out there waiting for her was a gorgeous Prince with so much money she would never have to scrub another piece of scrap for food as long as she lived. He was looking for her, and already deeply in love with her, and when he finally found her… they would kiss .

Rey tried to picture the face of a gorgeous prince, but there were not all that many humans on Jakku, and the few she saw were desert-rough. It was not that important. Neither the wealth nor the handsomeness of the Prince interested her as much as the idea of being loved so completely and unconditionally. That was what she fantasized about. It was the reason why she adored the stories of great love and romance… because it was something she had never had. Something she might never have. Stories of war and violence and adventure were all well and good, but Rey only had to step out of her hovel to find those things for herself each day. Love was something that could not be dug out of sand dune or uncovered by hours of scrubbing.

Love was out there, among the stars.

For now, Rey could only find love in her holopad stories. She picked it up off her chest and returned to reading as the sands continued to shift and dance outside.

It was a week in which she did not see another living soul.

Kylo paced the length of his quarters with his fists clenched spasmodically as if looking for something to choke. It was the middle of the night as far as the crew of the Supremacy was concerned, and a droid had tried to remind him that he had obligations at six, and so he needed his rest. The droid had not been able to dodge the hefty steel paperweight that Kylo has thrown at its central processing node and it had wheeled away with a definite dazed whistle. He had not been bothered since.

He was waiting, probing the Force for that connection though he still had not figured out how to open it on command - he suspected it depended on Rey. He could not impose on her at will, however convenient it would be, and had to wait for her to let him in.

It was difficult to remain patient. From the moment he’d met that girl, he’d known there was a beautiful darkness in her that she wasn’t even aware of. With no knowledge of what the light or the dark was or that Jedi of old would have compelled her to choose, she was an untainted vessel of the Force. He’d almost lost hope when he’d realised she had found Luke Skywalker, knowing the indoctrination that would follow.

He’d hoped for a moment like this, for her to be experience how powerful rage could make her once she tasted it. He’d glimpsed it in the forest, when she had knocked him down and considered killing him there and then. She had hated him, pure and simple, the way a child hated a monster.

But what she felt for her supposed owner was a mess of confliction and revulsion that had been building for years. If she had murdered him while he lay defenceless, she would have taken her first greatest step toward taking his hand.

But she had run.

Kylo unleashed a shout of wordless frustration and punched the wall. The lights behind the panel flickered but his knuckles hadn’t left much of a dent. It was a reinforced wall, put in place after the last time he’d slashed it to pieces with his lightsaber. The unexpected pain in his hand momentarily distracted him, and he looked down at his gloved hand, observing the sting and the way it focused him.

Then at once he felt her presence and turned slowly.

Rey was standing in the middle of his room. Her lashes were spiky with dried tears, but she was no longer crying. She gazed around herself in muted anguish, a strong wind whipping around her body. It had torn her hair free of the bun she’d been wearing earlier, and the black linen lifted free of her shoulders, flicking through the air above her like a sail.

“Rey…”

She didn’t look at him. Wherever she was, it held her attention.

“Where are you?” he asked. Sometimes when he concentrated her could make out the details of her surroundings and the people she interacted with. If he touched her, he could sometimes feel her location as if he was there with her, but he would never presume to reach out unless she invited him to.

“I’m at the farm,” she said, her voice sounding hollow.

He frowned. “What farm?”

“My farm. I grew up here… my family lived here.”

So she was a farmgirl after all. He wasn’t sure if that was better or worse than a scavenger. “What do you see?”

“Nothing,” she shook her head despairingly. “There’s nothing here. If there was a house here it’s gone… my mother’s body is buried here, but where? I don’t see a marker. There’s nothing, Ben. What was the point of all this?”

“Your mother’s name…?”

“Loria.”

“Your father?”

“Julen.”

“And siblings?”

“None… no one. It’s just me,” she whispered. “And my name… my name isn’t even Rey. That’s just the name the Scavengers called me, because of that stupid helmet I never took off.”

“Your name is Rey,” he told her. “We make our own choices in this life, and you can choose to leave that old name behind in the dust with the bones of your family who never deserved you. Your name is Rey now.”

Her eyes flashed on his. “Your name is Ben Solo. That’s the truth of who you are. My name is Kira Boon. That is who I am . Maybe you want to bury your past where no one can find it - but I didn’t have a choice! It was taken from me!”

“Is that who you want to be now? Kira Boon, daughter of impoverished addicts from Jakku’s dust belt?”

Her gaze slid away, conflicted. “I wish,” she began, her voice trembling, “I wish I had never come here.”

He stepped in front of her, forcing her to look at him. “Do you regret knowing the truth?”

“It hurts,” she whispered.

“It usually does.”

“I thought it would free me - make things clearer and I’d know what to do.” Her face crumpled. “I feel more adrift than ever.”

She looked so lost and alone, Kylo felt something inside him move for her. He had known this journey would hurt her, but he hadn’t been prepared to feel sorry for her. He slowly held out his hand. If he could touch her and see what she saw, then maybe he could understand something that he himself had lost the ability to feel long ago.

Rey saw his outstretched hand and misunderstood. She stepped forward, and suddenly her body was against his, her arms wrapped around his waist with her check laid against his chest. The scent of her hair filled his nose and only now did he realise she had been standing in the middle of sandstorm. Darkness had fallen on Jakku, and there was nothing to see but a wall of battering sand on all sides.

It was nothing compared to the turmoil within him. He let his arms fall around her, loosely at first, and then tightly, as if he could protect her from the storm and the misery within her.

It was too much.

He tried to step away, and then found his arms were empty and the storm had vanished. He was alone in his quarters, breathing as hard as if he’d been sprinting. Every muscle in his body seemed to tremble and he let himself slump into the edge of his bed to try and master his emotions.

He was glad she had not truly been in the room. If that was how she affected him when she was on the other side of the galaxy, he simultaneously dreaded and longed to know what it would be like to hold the real girl in his arms.

Belatedly he touched the communications panel at his bedside and waited for it to connect. “Are you there?” he asked.

“We’ve located the Millenium Falcon,” Saphis’ voice answered. “We can ambush the girl when she returns and bring her in.”

“We must be cautious with our handling of celebrated Rebels,” said General Thorne, piping up for the first time since the meeting had begun. “The reappearance and death of Luke Skywalker has done much to energise word of mouth recruitment for the Resistance. I’m sure the Supreme Leader was simply being mindful of creating another jedi martyr.”

“I’m sure I do not need anyone to speak for me and explain actions that should be self-evident,” said Kylo shortly, his gaze lingering on Thorne for several moments longer than necessary. “Communication officers have circulated word amongst the crew that the girl is working for us. As expected, that rumour has reached the Resistance. Since she departed this ship she has not been shown or mentioned in any of the regular propaganda broadcasts, which tells us that the Rebels believe it at least to some degree. She’s alone, she’s untrained, and the Resistance doesn’t want her. If she isn’t currently working with us, she soon will be.”

“Your attachment to her is personal,” hissed Hux.

“It is,” agreed Kylo.

That seemed to silence the General, as he didn’t know quite how to follow up after this unconcerned admission.

Thorne cleared his throat. “I think it is a fine strategy. A jedi can cause more trouble for us dead than alive, but removing her as an asset of the Resistance is more useful in the long term, in addition to the possibility of acquiring her as an asset in the future. It is exactly the sort of strategy Supreme Leader Snoke has advocated in the past.”

“Yes, and we’re all very thankful for Snoke’s previous recruitment drives from the jedi order,” said Hux, casting a withering glare at Kylo in case anyone was in the slightest possible doubt as to which recruit he referred to.

Kylo resisted the urge to push his hand through his hair, or indeed, to choke half the people around the table. Hux could only be slightly more hostile if he’d been waving a pistol in his face, and if Thorne was any more of a crawler he’d be on the floor licking his boots. Not for the first time, he found he missed his former position as Snoke’s largely anonymous interrogator. Most of the generals had previously been indifferent or at least somewhat respectful of his place in the organisation, but none of the opinions now held around this table resembled indifference. Hatred, fear, derision and ambition oozed through the air like a miasma that might suffocate him. Holding onto his temper was a feat of endurance. It almost amazed him that Snoke had tolerated such meetings, but then Snoke had long since established his mandate to lead. Few around this table trusted him not to flip it by the end of the meeting, let alone trusted he had the head to re-establish the glory of the Empire.

“This is peripheral, we need to move on,” Thorne said. “We may have lost a few days of the projected timescale this week but overall the Project is proceeding with fewer difficulties thanks to Supreme Leader Ren’s actions on Jedha. The Partisan republican militias won’t recover from their last defeat, and the information gained from interrogating the captured members proved invaluable in rooting out their weapon caches. We’re still on course to complete by the end of the month.”

“Have we selected a target for testing yet?” asked one of the other generals.

“Sharn,” said Kylo.

Hux exploded again. “Sharn! There’s nothing on Sharn! We need to target Coruscant - we could rid ourselves of this bastion of Republic sympathisers once and for all.”

“We’re targeting Sharn,” Kylo repeated. “Are there any objections?”

“I object, obviously-!”

Kylo slammed his hand flat against the table, just as Hux found himself slammed to the floor. The General tumbled out of sight behind the conference table and several of the other generals sat up a little straight and pretended not to notice.

“Are there any other objections?” Kylo asked the room.

There were not. The room had gone very quiet until Thorne spoke up again. “I think it’s an excellent idea,” he declared. A few reluctant murmurs of agreement joined his enthusiasm. Kylo released his hold of Hux.

“Then there is nothing more to discuss. Back to your posts.”

One by one the generals rose and left. Those that had attended via hologram flickered and disappeared, plunging the already dark room into further gloom. Hux limped out with whatever dignity he had left, though he looked like he didn’t know who to address most of his grievances to - Kylo or Thorne.

Once the room had emptied, Kylo sat forward, resting his elbows on the table, his clasped fists against his mouth. He often needed several minutes after such interactions, to pick his way through the tensions in the room and the truths and deceits that always warred when the topmost level of the First Order came together. No one rose to the rank of general without incredible, near psychopathic ambition, and those who had rose by merit sat right alongside those who had risen by simply removing their opponents one way or another. Hux was the latter, though figuring out the rest was difficult when they all came together in a din of egos.

As always in quiet moments he found his thoughts slipping away back to a more easily understood person, and like a vision he had summoned, he looked up and saw her there. She was standing a few metres away on the other side of the table with her back half turned toward him.

She must have been planet-side, for she was wearing a warm cowl and her hair danced and lifted in a breeze he could not see or feel in this quiet, warm room. It didn’t take her long to sense his gaze upon her and she turned her head slightly to glance at him once and then away again. She was talking to someone. Haggling. One hand lay on the holster of her pistol and the other was engaged in heavy gesticulating as she muttered in a language he hadn’t heard before.

It was easy to see the scavenger in her at a moment like this. With her eyes narrowed against the sun and her brow knit in concentration, she looked impenetrable. Every year she had spent fighting to survive, fighting for food and fighting loneliness all showed in her compact frame. Then she tucked her hair behind her ear like a young girl, a small tell of the insecurities she held close to her hardened surface. Her long fingers, dusted with colour and freckles from the sun sank back to her side. Then she was shaking her head and moving away. She disappeared into the shadows at the edge of the room and then he felt her disappear entirely.

Kylo still thought about her hand and felt an answering tingle on his cheek. The scar was stubborn and refused to heal properly, periodically splitting and needing further attention in the medical bay, but the tingle he felt was more of the memory of her touch. He dragged his gloved fingers over the marked flesh, as if he could still feel hers there.

It took him a moment to realise what he was doing, and he dropped his hand back to the table. She was a distraction, whether her image was in the room or not. There were more important things to indulge than imagining the touch of a distant woman.

“Saphis. Morn,” he said quietly, and two silent black shapes detached from the edge of the room and approached the table. “What do you think of Thorne?”

“A sycophant,” a rough whispering voice answered. The other shape was silent.

“Listen with the Force, not your ears,” Kylo said. “He’s compensating, attempting to deflect suspicion when the attempt on my life will be made.”

“Then kill him,” said Saphis simply.

“That’s the idea,” said Kylo. But it wasn’t as simply as running someone through with a lightsaber these days. “If he openly defied me it would be easy, but we have to play a different game now. Rig his shuttle to blow when he transports back to his command. Make it look like a Resistance attack.”

“As you wish.” Saphis and Morn bowed sligtly. “What about Hux?”

“What about him?”

“He does openly defy you…”

“He’s plotting but he can’t see a way to stick the knife in yet, so he just barks… until he does figure out a way in, leave him. If we start killing any general for hating me, there would be none left.”

“That doesn’t seem like a bad thing.”

“It would be chaos,” said Kylo, gazing at the glossy reflections on the black table. “It’s appealing… from the deepest chaos can come the most elegant order. Half these old men were officers in the old regime, they talk about purifying the essence of the order, but they just want things to return to what they were. Tearing it all down to begin again… none of them have the guts to really do it.”

The two knights waited.

Kylo released the thought with a fraction of a smile. “We’ll complete the Project,” he said. “Then we’ll talk chaos.”

The city was teeming with people from countless worlds, and Rey felt adrift, like just another grain of sand in a desert. The more people she saw around her, the more alone she felt. Tired of searching the Kal’Shebbol markets, she pulled her cowl around herself in an unconsciously defensive manner and caved into the grawning hunger that she’d tried to ignore for the last few hours. Food markets and stalls were easy to find, though ones that served edible food for humans required some hunting.

Rey entered a kind of square full of pillars between which colourful sheets had been strung to shield the diners from the heat of the sun. Rey ordered a simple stew from one of the booths and went to find a clear table. As she sat and blew on the steaming broth, her roving gaze landed on a poster that had been pinned upon one of the pillars nearby. Poe’s handsome face - made even more handsome by the artist - gazed off into the distance as if looking towards a better horizon while a squadron of X-wings flew across the poster’s background over a beautifully painted sunset. There were several Poes, she realised, wistfully gazing out of more posters scattered on the walls of the food stalls, attempting to seduce the viewer into thinking they too could become an ace pilot for the Resistance. Some posters bore an image of Leia, looking far younger and a bit more doe-eyed than Rey recalled. Even Luke Skywalker’s face had returned to lead the Resistance, but like Leia the poster had polished the truth and the Luke on the posters was blond and boyish and decked in black.

It wasn’t the first time she’d seen these posters. The Resistance’s propaganda agents circulated them on the holonet and plastered them anywhere they might find recruits. There had even been a poster created with Rey’s image, but looking around, she couldn’t see it among the others. A few ripped scraps of paper on the pillars testified that some posters had been torn down… she wondered if they were her own, or if she was simply being paranoid.

How far had the word of her disgrace spread? Leia had once called her the Resistance’s greatest hope, but now her name did not appear in the Rebel broadcasts. On the core worlds they talked about Leia Organa and Luke Skywalker still, and she’d heard Finn’s name mentioned more than once. If he didn’t have a poster by now, he soon would do. A stormtrooper turned Resistance hero was quite the inspiration. She was glad for her friend… and she tried to tell herself that it was all for the better that her name and face did not appear on every street corner of every world outside the First Order’s control. How would she go about her business if everyone kept stopping her to ask for autographs?

A thump on her leg made her look down, and found BB8 looking back at her impatiently.

“Just a few more stops and I promise we’ll go,” said Rey, lifting the bowl to her lips to drain the last of the stew. She rubbed her lips dry on her sleeve and collected her staff and satchel before headed back into the markets. She squinted around at the street markers that were written in at least twenty different languages and yet still weren’t that helpful. BB8 rolled gamely along behind her, occasionally getting kicked or shunted in the busy crowds and Rey had to hush angry beeping before he got himself into a fight in the middle of the market.

Eventually they came across a recess in an alley that bore a resemblance to the description Rey had been given by the last trader. The walls were covered with sheets of metal, torn and warped like they’d been ripped from battleships, and everywhere she looked there were tables lined with all kinds of exotic weaponry. When Rey first entered she wondered if the vendor had gone out for lunch until she heard a polite cough near a bookcase lined with ammunition.

“I’m sorry,” blurted Rey, who had mistaken the owner of the shop for a footstool covered with a kind of shawl. “Are you D’artma?”

“Are you looking to buy?” asked the small creature.

“To fix actually… I’ve been to at least fifty different weapon traders and half of them said you were the one I needed to see.”

The vendor’s eyes glinted with interest and she turned to waddle back toward her counter, a long scaly tail dragging along the floor behind her. She climbed a stack of boxes to give her the height she needed to see over the counter. “Show me.”

D’artma didn’t mince many words. Rey reached into her satchel and careful laid out the pieces of the broken lightsaber upon the countertop like each broken shard was made of precious glass.

With a claw, D’artma sifted through the pieces like someone searching for the last peanut in a bowl of shells. She didn’t seem quite as precious over the weapon as Rey was.

“This is a lightsaber,” said D’artma after a moment.

“Yes, I know.”

“It’s not yours.”

Rey frowned. “Of course it is, I’m not a thief.”

“If it was yours, you would know how to repair it,” stated the vendor.

“Well, ok, it was… left with me. The Jedi who made it… he died.”

“The last jedi,” agreed D’artma. “Luke Skywalker. You stole it from him?”

“I didn’t steal it,” Rey protested, and BB8 added his indignant beeps as well.

The small creature shrugged. “No one can mend this. Not even the best weaponsmith in Kel’shabbol can fix this - which is me. Your kyber crystals have cracked and even with new crystals this would not work. Only a Jedi can make them work.”

Rey sighed, fearing she had wasted an awful lot of time on this planet. “Then what am I supposed to do?” she asked.

“There are still working lightsabers around, mostly in the hands of rich collectors. You could try stealing a new one.”

“I’m not a thief!”

It was hard not to feel as low as dirt as she made her way back to the docks where the Falcon was being refuelled and awaiting some overdue repairs on the heat shield plating near the rear where a few TIE fighters had scored a lucky shot or two. Rey went straight to the cargo-hold where she’d made up her bed (she had never been comfortable in the padded pods of the sleeping quarters) and emptied her satchel out onto the floor. The pieces of the lightsaber clattered onto the floor panels and Rey poked them dejectedly.

It shouldn’t have been that hard to mend. Rey was proficient enough with a soldering laser to fix what had broken, but there was no fixing the crystal that looked cracked and burnt out. It wasn’t simply that it had broken into pieces, it almost looking it it had overloaded and burst from within. Two equal forces pulling on it had finished it off.

And if only a jedi could fix it, Rey was out of luck.

She had hoped the books would be of use, but so far only the rich illustrations made any sense to her, and none of the illustrations included any helpful step-by-step diagrams of how to build and repair lightsabers. The closet she came was a chapter that featured extensive images of what looked like crystals with all kinds of faded colours, but without a translation for the text, she was no wiser for looking at them.

Rey ran her hands through her hair and sat back on her heels. She caught BB8 watching her and just shrugged at the droid. “Am I just wasting my time here?” she asked.

BB8 was silent for once, his lens swivelling between her and the pieces of the lightsaber. It felt like a diplomatic way of saying yes.

“I’m trying, I just… I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” she sighed. “Don’t I need a lightsaber to be a Jedi? But I need to be a jedi in order to fix it, and to do that I need a master to train me, but there’s nobody left and not even Luke managed to become a jedi without training… the only answers I have are these books that I can’t even read!”

Rey looked at the small pile of old tomes next to her bedding. “I wonder how hard it would be to design a program that can translate dead languages…?”

A derisive bleep was BB8’s answer to that dilemma, so Rey abandoned the thought and went back to the cockpit. Judging by the teeth-jangling bangs that started to fill the ship, the repairs were starting on the hull plating. Rey threw herself down into the pilot’s chair and noted with some relief that the button for a missed call was lighting up. Someone on a deep space channel had hailed her while she was out and about, and it looked like Finn’s identifier. Rey reverse the frequency at once, eager to hear his voice.

But someone else answered and explained that Finn was not available, and that they could not confirm or deny whether he was off on a mission or just visiting the refresher. Rey logged off with a despondent sigh and sat listening to the thudding hammers and drills that echoed through the hollows of the ship. They seemed to crash in time to the slow beat of her heart.

She almost missed the chirp of the communication console light up again. BB8 had to roll into her leg gently to give her a nudge, and as soon as she saw it, Rey slapped it with a hand and called out “Hello?” in a nakedly desperate tone of someone who had only droids and traders for company these days.

“Rey?” Rose’s voice crackled with distance but was unmistakable. “Someone said you called. Is everything ok?”

“Oh… everything’s fine,” Rey said, though it felt almost like a lie. “How are things?”

“Oh, you know. Classified.”

“Right.”

She heard Rose sigh miserably. “I wish you could come home, Rey. I don’t have any girls to talk to, you know. I mean, there are women but they’re all in communications, or diplomacy or piloting… half of them down know one end of a catalytic converter from the other.”

“I’m having my thermal plates replaced as we speak,” said Rey

“Is that what I can hear? You should ask them to take a look at the hyperdrive manifold. I noticed that needed replacing last time I saw it. Expensive though…”

“Mm. Maybe I’ll head back to Jakku and start scavenging, I’d probably find a decent one there in a week or two.”

Rose was quiet on her end for a moment. “You’re not really going back to Jakku, are you? Finn is really worried about that - he keeps saying you used to go on and on about it and you even turned down a job from The Han Solo because you wanted to go back there.”

“I’m not really going back to Jakku,” Rey said with a huff of humorless laughter. Although the thought had crossed her mind more than once - and there was nothing to stop her anymore.

“Good… though I get it. I sometimes think about going back to Hays Minor. It’s where me and Paige come from. I hated it there, I can’t tell you how much - every day I woke up afraid in that place. And yet, I still keep thinking about going back.”

“Why? Rey asked. She understood the feeling - the yearning - but she had come to accept that it was the wrong way to feel when everyone from Han to Maz to Finn had told her to never go back.

“I keep thinking about some of the people I left behind there, and whether things have changed and… and exactly how far I can shove my wrench up the ass of the Overseer. He was the who decided which kids would mine, which kids would become stormtroopers and which would become house slaves. He was the one who decided me and Paige would work in his kitchens.”

“There were people like that on Jakku too,” Rey told her, thinking of Plutt and various other gang leaders whose names did not deserve to be remembered.

“They’re not worth a second thought,” said Rose. “Are you sure you’re ok? You sound strange.”

“I’m just hitting some dead ends with the lightsaber and I’m tired,” she replied. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow?”

“Of course. I’m always here… never going anywhere.”

Rey signed off and while doing her best to ignore her fast developing headache, she went to go see how the repairs were doing on the exterior. It was another hour before she was satisfied with the workmanship and that she and the Falcon wouldn’t turn into a fireball the moment she tried to leave the planet’s atmosphere. By then it was getting late and the light had almost faded. Rey returned to the Falcon and told BB8 she needed a bath.

The refresher in the Falcon was a cramped room and so far no one had actually told Rey how to use a shower - it was one of those things that others simply assumed everyone knew about. The scarcity of water on Jakku meant showering was a ludicrous luxury that few enjoyed, and Rey had grown up knowing only one way to get clean - with a bucket, a stool and a thin bar of soap. It was an ingrained habit now.

She went into refresher and used the showerhead to half fill a bucket she’d grabbed from the kitchen. Then she sat on the floor and scrubbed every inch of her skin with a rag and a soap bar, occasionally dipping into the bucket to gain some lather. She paid special attention to her feet, the spaces between her toes and worked her way up from there. It was a relaxing ritual. When she reached her head she wetted her hair and carefully rubbed the soap through the damp stands until they were slick and the day’s grime was loosened, then she worked her way back down her body again.

When she came to run her soapy fingers between her legs she slowed down and closed her eyes. She felt the warmth seep through her body and sighed into her own touch. The last of the day’s tension eased away as she focused on the pleasure curling low in her belly. She didn’t have much experience to draw on for her imagination, only the novels and periodicals she’d picked up in the markets in Jakku, and so she imagined what she’d always imagined since she was a girl - the heroes with the touches described as being like fire and voices that stirred primitive things in women’s souls.

Rey imagined being touched and stroked by hands, large and warm, reassuring in their gentle strength. She imagined being kissed. She imagined it was like how Rose described, as something that she would feel throughout her body when it was the right one. She wanted to spread her hands across a hard, broad chest and dig her hands into soft black hair of silken waves-

It was Ben. She was thinking of Ben.

A little too late she realised her mistake as she felt the telltale shift in her mind as the familiar connection bloomed open. Rey abruptly grabbed the bucket and dumped the now-cool water over her head and was already reaching for the drying sheet before all the soap suds washed away. With the sheet wrapped hastily around her sopping form, she threw herself out of the refresher and looked around.

She saw only BB8 - who looked up very guiltily from the satchel he’d been rummaging through with his metal pincers.

“Hello?” she called cagily, hoping no one answered.

She listened to quiet ship and then listened to what her own sense of the Force told her. Perhaps she’d been mistaken about the connection opening, for it seemed perfectly inert now. Her paranoia might have been to blame, but Rey could have sworn…

It didn’t matter now, she told herself, and shot BB8 a reproachful scowl. “If you want to go snooping in my bag, just ask. There’s nothing interesting to droids in there.”

In response BB8 held up a comb that had been gifted to her from Rose. Having no hair, he found it very interesting.

“I’m sure,” she muttered, and collected the comb from the droid and marched off to the cargo-hold where her bed awaited. Only once she’d dried and pulled on a loose shirt did she feel a little more secure, and she sat upon her simple bed and began to comb her damp hair.

It was not a bad place to sleep. The hold was usually warmed nicely by the engines, the space was appreciable and it reminded Rey of her little home back on Jakku with its ugly metal walls.

Then the connection reopened and Rey blinked up at Kylo Ren standing near her bed.

She met his gaze and noticed how quickly he averted his eyes. Her stomach dropped. “How much did you see?” she whispered.

He stared off into the distance, chewing the inside of his cheek. “Not much. Hardly anything, even,” he said.

“Oh no... no, no, no, no,” She bent over, her face in her hands. Why couldn’t the ship just implode and kill her right now? “Just go away and leave me alone, I think I’m going to cry.”

“Don’t overreact,” he said, facing her again. “It was bound to happen. Just forget it.”

That was easy for him to say and Rey had to turn to face the wall to hide the fiery storm of crimson that had engulfed her face. She brushed her hair furiously and hoped he would be gone soon enough, especially as she was still only wearing a shirt that hardly covered her bottom and her legs. Although it seemed silly to worry about bare legs after what he might have just seen.

“Where were you earlier?” she heard him ask.

“What?” Her comb paused in her hair.

“I saw you earlier today, it looked like you were bartering. You were speaking a language…”

Rey welcomed the diversion and cast her mind back. She had glanced him in the market, it was true, looking dark and pensive in the crowd though she was glad he had not approached her. “The language is Grenk… I wouldn’t say I’m fluent but Grenki traders usually came to Jakku during the winters and they don’t often speak Basic.”

“If you pick up languages so easily, why do you struggle with the Jedi texts?”

The comb jabbed her scalp and she hissed in pain. “Because it’s written, I suppose,” she mumbled. “I’m not… I’m not as good with written language. No one ever taught me to read and write.”

She heard the shock in his voice. “You can’t read?”

“Of course I can read!” She snapped, turning to glare at him. “I taught myself - but I can only read Galactic Basic.”

“I could give you the blueprints to those old programs I wrote,” Kylo went on. “The ones I used on the texts originally.”

“You would do that?”

“I could.” He seemed to be making a distinction. “If you gave me the Falcon’s transmission ID I could send it to you-“

“And then you could track me wherever I went, no thanks.”

“So you won’t accept my help and I imagine you’re struggling to find someone else who can… what’s your next move? Are you going to try and track down weaponsmiths to fix your blade? Maybe that’s what you were up to today… but I’ll save you some time - no one can fix that old lightsaber. You need to find a more productive use of your time.”

“Maybe I’ll return to Jakku and go back to scavenging,” she said bitterly, “Because I absolutely have no idea what else I’m supposed to be doing with my time.”

“Why don’t you go back to Jakku?”

Rey balked at him. “Are you serious? Jakku is hell. There’s nothing there for me.”

“What about your parents?”

Rey felt her fingernails dig into her palms. “They’re dead,” she reminded him. “You said so yourself.”

Kylo’s reveal had cut her deep, all the deeper because it was a truth he had gleaned from her own mind. She already knew it, she had simply managed to fool herself for over ten years.

“But it still bothers you, doesn’t it? You still have questions.”

“I spent my whole life on Jakku, if there were answers for me there, I would have them by now.”

“Ah, but now you know what the real questions are.”

“There’s nothing else I need to know-”

“What’s your mother’s name?” Kylo asked her.

Rey stopped combing her hair and she gazed at the wall. She thought she had known the answer to that question a long time ago, but now she was no longer sure.

“What’s your family name? Did you have siblings? Exactly how much did they get paid? What were you worth to them?”

“Some things I don’t need to know,” she whispered.

“You’re still stuck in the past, I can feel it. You won’t let go. So go back to Jakku and find out the truth of who you are, even the things that hurt. Finding out the truth about yourself… is freeing.”

He seemed to be speaking personally and Rey looked at Kylo curiously. “What truth freed you?”

“When I was about your age, I learned a truth that my family had hidden from me and the rest of the galaxy since before I was born; that Darth Vader wasn’t just some scourge from the old war, he was my grandfather. Everything made sense after that. The way my family looked at me, the way I struggled with my thoughts… it all had a reason, and it gave me a purpose I had been denied until that moment.”

A cold feeling swept through Rey. He had described his downfall, not his freedom, although she didn’t know if he would have turned out any better if the truth had been concealed from him. To have struggled with darkness and been feared without understanding why couldn’t have been easy.

Kylo stepped closer and crouched down. Even then, he seemed to tower over her. “Who bought you?”

“A creature named Unkar Plutt”, she said, looking at the folded pleats along his sleeves that resembled carefully layered armour plates.

“Then he knows the truth.”

“I’ve asked him before, but he just found it amusing. He would never tell me the truth.”

“But you know how to take the truth from people’s minds now,” he told her. “You’re not a scavenger anymore. You’re a woman of immense power.”

She lifted her eyes to meet his and thought she saw the esteem with which he held her, along with the way his admiration seemed to extend to her legs. She caught him glancing down at them, then realised he was so close she could count the smattering of freckles across his face. “Do you really think I could find out what happened to them after all this time?” she asked him.

His eyes wandered back up her body to her own. “I think you could do anything you wanted.”

What she really wanted was bend his own mind and make him listen to reason and compassion… but that seemed like a complete fantasy. He certainly knew how to sound flattering when he wanted, and though she knew he was not physically present, her senses were entirely fooled. Rey found herself watching his lips and thinking back to that conversation with Rose about kissing and how it felt to press your mouth against another person’s.

Kylo gently eased away, rising to his feet. “Goodnight, Rey.”

“Goodnight,” she echoed, feeling herself sway a little as if some little force of gravity had tried to pull her after him. When she looked up again, he was gone, and the cargo hold was empty but for herself and some old containers.