Chapter Text
(Two years later)
Rey was gone again. Finn sighed quietly to himself. He was going to need a new excuse if Lt. Dameron noticed. Rey was allowed to leave the facility. And would even soon be going on missions of her own. But she was always accompanied. Except for the times she wasn’t. While her sneak outs were infrequent and never lasted long, two years of covering for her had made him anxious, and the doctors worried about her bathroom usage. “You need to stop doing this.” He muttered to her room before inching toward her nightstand. There, on the table, was her training lightsaber.
As her sparring partner, Finn had used a lightsaber before and was becoming quite proficient. Though not as quickly as Rey was. No one could fault him for that though. While Finn was sixteen, and a year older than Rey, he had only been training with her for four years. She had practically been raised with a lightsaber in her hand. He had been discovered to be force sensitive during the middle of a storm trooper training simulation. His close age, storm trooper loyalty and force sensitivity combined to make him a good candidate. Rey needed someone to train with. The day after the training simulation, he was on a different type of training field, getting his butt kicked by an angry little girl.
As a storm trooper, Finn’s name was FN-2187. While it still was formerly, and his official rank was of the same level as a squad leader, he was Finn in the training room. Rey had shortened it in one of her frustrated, but not quite rage-full moments, complaining that shouting it out was too much work. Though she did still tend to shout it out when she wanted to, for dramatic effect. Lt. Dameron was aware, obviously, as he was in charge of their training sessions, but didn’t seem to feel the need to report it or stop it. Rey was a Palpatine. If she wanted to change Finn’s name to Waltzes with Flowers, there really wasn’t anything either Finn or the Lt. could do about it.
Finn hadn’t quite picked up the lightsaber when Rey’s doors whooshed open. Falling to an at ease position, Finn tried to appear casual, yet respectful. He never quite knew which way to lean. They were friendly, kinda. But definitely not friends. Friends didn’t do things that would get their other friends in trouble. Like run off alone and without permission. Though, he reasoned, friends probably also didn’t sneak into friends’ rooms and touch their stuff without permission.
Rey didn’t seem surprised to see Finn in her room, but she also didn’t seem to buy his attempt at being chill. “Obsessed much?” she asked, nodding to her lightsaber. “I’m sure they’ll let you hold onto your lightsaber someday.” She said in an only partially mocking tone, flopping onto her bed, facedown into her pillow.
“I mean, they can’t expect my General to lead the troops without a weapon.” Rey was talking into her pillow but they’d had a version of this conversation enough times for Finn to understand. As a storm trooper, he was allowed access to any number of weapons. But his lightsaber was returned to its’ locked storage container after each session. “Though who knows how long grandfather will make me wait to wage war and finally destroy those stupid Skywalkers and their little band of-” Finn couldn’t quite make out the rest but he could fill in the blanks. Stupid Skywalkers, stupid light-lovers, stupid everyone. It seemed stupid was her favorite adjective for anyone she didn’t like at the moment. But at least her frustration wasn’t aimed at him this time. His indiscretion of almost touching her practice saber seemed to have been forgotten for the moment.
“Curly haired- Stupid eyes- posture that would never-” Rey seemed to still be muttering insults to her pillow but Finn needed to know where she’d gone so he could be prepared with an excuse for her absence. He sat on the bed, his legs hanging down the side while his body faced her. “Where did you go this time? The training camp? Were you spying on that silly Skywalker boy again?” She was going to get caught eventually. He knew it. Whether by their forces or the Jedi, someone was going to catch her sneaking out without permission one day and he would be the one to suffer the punishment.
Rey’s muttering quickly cut off. “He’s not silly! He’s my arch nemesis!” Her head had risen off the pillow, her tone switching to defensiveness. “I would never lower myself to have an arch nemesis that’s silly! Ugh. What are you even still doing here? I’m fine.” Rey rolled her eyes at the very idea that she could be less than fine. Not remembering that Finn wasn’t in her room to comfort her. “Obviously. I’m always fine.” Her voice cracked just the slightest bit. “What General Pryde doesn’t know, won’t get you in trouble.” Finn didn’t think that wasn’t entirely true, but they both knew that the General, while in charge of the base where they trained, left the actual care of the two teenagers to those under him, only checking in on them during their battle assessments and learning the rest through his reports.
Finn could see moisture in Rey’s eyes. While radical emotions were par for the course when dealing with the Sith, Rey tended to lean toward rage, hate and frustration. Finn silently relished that she only showed her vulnerability to him. She laid her head back down on the pillow, curling into a fetal position but still facing him. “We are going to beat him, right Finn?” What had she seen today that caused this sudden self doubt?
“Of course,” Finn responded. Stilling her fidgeting hands with his slightly larger one. “We’ll do it together.”
“The Supreme Leader and her General” she said wistfully. Closing her eyes as if she was ready to fall asleep. Or perhaps imagining their future.
“The Supreme Leader and her General” he echoed, enjoying the feeling of her hand still holding his.