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Rey woke in a cold sweat, the beads of perspiration drying quickly along her forehead. She gasped in some breaths in quick succession until her breathing levelled out a bit more. She lay back down on the pillow and pulled her thin blanket up to wipe at her forehead, sweeping it down over her neck as well.
This hadn’t been the first nightmare and it hadn’t even been the worst one.
She tried to concentrate on what was there. She had a room on Ahch-To, a small one but a room to herself nonetheless. She had a small pillow and some covers but it was all she needed. She never had much on Jakku so the sparsity of luxuries didn’t affect her. From her bed she could hear Master Luke breathing in the next room.
That was new. On Jakku she had only herself and no one else. For years all she heard at night was her own deep breaths before she fell asleep. Now she could hear Luke breathing too, and occasionally Chewie when he didn’t sleep on the Falcon.
It was different but it was okay. It wasn’t like the base on D’Qar. That had been overwhelming with all of the noise and people and life.
This she could handle.
She was still alone for the most part but not completely isolated. It gave her a sense of belonging she could ease into. This was like beginning in shallow waters where D’Qar had been like jumping in at the deep end.
D’Qar had been overwhelming but at least she’d had Finn.
Rey kicked the blankets around a bit, trying to adjust them around her sweat damp body. She didn’t want them sticking to her but she would be too cold if she kicked them off entirely. Once she was settled she curled up again but she didn’t go back to sleep.
She wasn’t ready to go back there yet, just in case he was still there.
The room was dark and lit by nothing but the pale moonlight above her head. It was a dull shine so it didn’t disturb her sleep yet it was a great comfort to her on nights like these when she woke abruptly and didn’t return to sleep.
She never spoke about it with Luke. She didn’t know if he knew. Maybe he did. She never asked and neither did he. All he did was tell her to meditate before she went to bed.
She always did, eager to improve her training and to do anything that may decrease the likelihood of nightmares returning. If she slept fitfully, on guard against her mind all night, then she would avoid the nightmare but the lack of sleep affected her aining and caused her mind and body to act slower against her wishes.
If she slept well enough to function and train then the nightmares came.
There seemed to be no winning.
She decided to let the nightmares win. If she was rested enough to train then she could become better, work harder and train better in order to beat the nightmare in the waking world. Her nightmares reminded her of what she needed to beat. Of what had happened last time they fought.
Her nightmares always led to thoughts of Finn. He fuelled her training as much as he did. She had to go back to Finn. She had to know that her friend was okay. She knew he would get the help he needed on D’Qar but she had hated leaving him. She hated leaving him like that even though she knew she must leave.
She missed him.
She had barely known him but in the few days they’d been together he had saved her, been there for her and looked after her in a way that no one had tried to do for her in years. He had wanted to be there for her. He wanted to run, wanted her to run away with him but when she stayed he chased after her. He came back after her. He had come back for her when he one else would of. He saved her again, got her out of that nightmare place and back into the light.
He was her hero even when she didn’t need one.
She couldn’t save him in return. It haunted her, but differently than her nightmares.
She had the control to make sure that Finn was never her nightmare. Finn was the calm her thoughts turned to after her usual nightmare finished plaguing her for the nights. The thoughts of Finn calmed her as much as they scared her.
She hoped he was okay. Rey hoped he was awake and laughing again like he had laughed with her when they had escaped their chase on Jakku. She hoped he was running again but without the urgency of when they’d ran on Starkiller Base. She hoped he was smiling again, talking to BB-8 as though they could understand each other. She hoped he was awake. She hoped he was okay.
He had invaded her mind and wrecked havoc there but it was nothing compared to the physical blows he had landed on Finn. Finn had been torn on one side from the lightsaber. Rey can still hear his laboured, almost extinguished breaths from when they were on the Falcon on the way back to D’Qar. She remembers how each breath had constricted her heart, made her suffer the pain of seeing him like that doubled.
He was her friend and she’d let him down. She couldn’t help but feel responsible for him.
If she hadn’t run like Finn had, albeit in the opposite direction, she wouldn’t have been caught. She wouldn’t have been taken aboard and whisked away to Starkiller Base. Finn wouldn’t have come after her. If she hadn’t been so weak, if she’d been stronger she might have lasted in that fight. Finn would never have picked up the lightsaber in her place. He wouldn’t have gotten hurt if he hadn’t done that.
But if he hadn’t done that then he wouldn’t be Finn. Her Finn had a good heart despite his upbringing and wanted to protect and defend his new friends. He cared too much. He cared for them too deeply, as if years of suppressing emotions suddenly came out in force. He was a good man.
He was hurting. She knew he must be even if his body had him in a come to protect him from the worst of it. She had seen his pain. She could always feel it coming off him, escaping with his blood from the deep gash down his back.
She missed him.
She wished he was with her now. They could train together, if Master Luke allowed it. Finn had to be at least a little Force sensitive and if that was the case he should be trained. He could be here with her now.
They had started this together when she’d chased him down on Jakku after a droid had called him a thief. When he made her leave the place she had never wanted to leave so they could return a lost droid to the Rebellion base. She wishes they had been able to finish it together. They’d gone chasing after a legend and it would have been nice if they’d found him together.
A part of her wonders what her nightmares would be like if Finn was here with her. If he was here with her now it would be proof that Finn hadn’t been beaten down by him. It would be proof that he couldn’t truly beat them.
Maybe it would make her more confident. Maybe it would make her feel safer, more secure. Or maybe it would just reassure her that they could make it out of anything and see the other side. Maybe she just wanted Finn.
Alone in her room after a long day of training and meditating and fighting and learning the ways of the Force Rey could relax slightly. After the inevitable nightmare came she needed to relax. She needed to take the time to remind herself that she hadn’t been beaten down. That he hadn’t broken her mind no matter how hard he had tried. In her nightmares he succeeds and it’s that pain that jerks her awake.
Finn is her pain relief and she knows it would be more effective is he was not left on D’Qar.
She misses him.
She’ll fall back asleep eventually, even as it grows too late to get in a deep and settled sleep. She usually only has one nightmare a night, one brutal poisoning of the mind that seeps away when she wakes. When she falls back asleep the pain relief takes effect. She meditates in the silence between sleeps, lets the Force heal the fracture in her mind and concentrates on the good things. She meditates: feels the Force and thinks of Finn.
When she falls asleep again she is with him. He is with her or she is with him; that much she cannot tell. Either way he looks the same as when she left him, lying on the medibed looking weak and unresponsive. She reaches out for his face to pretend that he’s real, to pretend that he’s with her now. He feels real beneath her fingers.
Finn in her dreams always feels real in ways he doesn’t.
Rey reaches out for Finn, across the stars, across the distance between them. She reaches out for through the Force, calling out for her hero, her friend, her Finn to come back to her once more. She reaches out to him, fingers curling around his and holding tight even as she sleeps systems away from him. She reaches out for him and sleeps better for it with her dream Finn holding her hand tight.
Elsewhere, across the stars that divide them and the sleep that pulls them apart only to bring them together, Finn reaches back.