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Rey was a child for less time then she should have been. She should have been loved and cared for by parents and by those who loved her. She should have had a family. She should have had a childhood. The universe was not so kind. Life was too cruel to her
Rey grew up alone, without a family. She didn’t have the love and support she needed. She had only herself. She was the one fighting in her corner. She was her pit crew and her co-pilot. She was the one flying the ship. She was the one at the control to make sure she didn’t crash. The only one.
She became a scavenger. Not out of choice but necessity. The things she saved for herself were not always necessities but things she chose to save. They were knick-knacks; mainly just little things she could easily stow away but that wasn’t all. There were also the bigger things - the things that took more effort to keep back but the things that were worth it. The things of worth to her.
Like her pilot helmet. It any ways it was her prized possession. It was her favourite. The first time she held it in her hands she knew it was something special. It was rusted and bashed: a story of legacy lying abandoned since it happened to come to Jakku. It was probably the Battle. The helmet came from a fallen hero. Rey could tell that’s what it was. Now it was her helmet. Her hero’s helmet.
It was her favourite and she loved it. She could put it on and imagine that she was flying high through the skies, crawling upwards through the stars, soaring. She could see space through the scratched in her visor. She could see it all. Then she could take the helmet off and be Rey the scavenger, waiting for her family again.
She did fly, eventually. A new hero came for her and they flew off together. She left everything behind. She life her AT-AT with her plant and her doll and her helmet.
Rey didn’t realise she missed her helmet until she told Poe the story. She told Poe lots of stories. They filled the cold medical air between them with the words of their stories: drowned their fears in the warmth of fables.
They didn’t need to fear. Finn would be fine. They both knew that. Yet it was easier to distract themselves with something new than with the truth they both knew. They were quite good at distracting each other but they never forgot what they were distracting themselves from. How could they when they were both telling their stories to Finn as much as they were to each other?
The stories did help though.
Rey had a way of telling her stories that made it seem that she was weaving a world that was half-way between imagination and truth. Her heroes were either fabricated or the story of the man lying between them. She didn’t gloss over the scavenging but mentioned her background in her stories as a small detail, a minor thing that just happened to be fact.
Poe had a way of telling his stories that made everyone else seem like great heroes. He didn’t want to take the credit for the missions that he wouldn’t have lead successfully without his squadron and as such Rey had to pick up Poe’s involvement and his heroics from his stories of the heroics of others.
Poe loved hearing how Rey saw her world. How she brought herself up on nothing and how she had come to be here.
Rey loved hearing Poe’s stories about family and friends and belonging and having a cause that you would give anything for.
The stories bridged a gap between them and brought them together. Rey had never opened up to anyone before. Now she had someone that she wanted to tell all of her stories to and hear all of their stories from in return. Now she had two people that she wanted to let be a part of her stories.
Finn slept on while Poe and Rey sang lullabies of heroes and friendship and love.
Rey told Poe about everything she’d left behind. He was fascinated about her AT-AT and how she had furnished it and the battlegrounds she had made her home on. He told her the stories of that battle, filled in the gaps of her knowledge. When she told him that she had a helmet from the battlefields he had this look in his eyes that seemed new to her. She found out what it was when he came in the next day with an X-Wing helmet that looked as beaten up and bashed and loved as hers had been.
“It was my mother’s,” he explained as she cradled it, turning it around in her hands to marvel at every little scratch. “If you want to have it as a replacement for the one you lost you can.”
“Poe, I couldn’t. This means too much.”
“The one you lost meant a lot to you too.”
“Thank you. This is the nicest gift I’ve ever received.” She was awkward to hug, still holding the helmet close to her, but she was radiating happiness for once. She had never had true friends before Finn crashed into her life but now she did and she wasn’t sure how to get used to them. They were loyal and loving and gave her gifts that were entirely too precious or risked their life to save her. She wasn’t sure how to act like a friend in return but when she held Finn’s hand tight as she told Poe more of her stories of climbing through a fallen Star Destroyer and saw his enraptured smile as she spoke enthusiastically she knew that she was trying. They made it easy.
Even if it was hard to be with Finn.
“I miss Finn.” She said one day, out of the blue. Poe had been half-way through a conversation about training his squadron and Rey had been picking at the food he’d gotten for her that day when she confessed. They were in medical again. They never seemed to be anywhere else at nights. They were both so busy during the day that night became their time just to go to medical and be with Finn. The droids there had stopped trying to kick them out or argue with them about food and sleeping rules. They just let them all be together.
“Me too,” Poe said, smiling sadly down at Finn.
“I know he’s alive and he’ll wake up and that he is right here in front of us but he’s not really here. He’s not really with us and I hate it. I hate telling you my stories knowing that Finn won’t remember them. I hate learning about all of this new food without Finn. I hate having a friend who can’t be here. I hate that he’s like this. I hate that it’s all my fault.”
Rey didn’t even realise she was crying until Poe was by her side, pulling her into a hug. “Hey, hey, I know, I know. Believe me, Rey, I know exactly how you feel. I want him to wake up just as much as you do. He’s in recovery and we just need to be patient.” He pulled apart so he could face her, wiping a stray tear away with his thumb. “He will wake up and we’ll do this all again. We’ll tell our stories and see how he reacts to them. We’ll both introduce him to our favourite food. We can teach him how to speak binary. He has us now and he’ll still have us when he wakes up. We just have to wait for him.”
“I never did like waiting,” she smiled weakly.
“It won’t be long now. Any day now Finn is going to wake up.”
“Any day now,” she repeated, reaching over to take Finn’s hand. Poe stood up for a second to go and get his chair and took it over to the side that she was sitting at. Rey leaned back into his side when he was close enough and Poe put her hand around Finn’s as well so that they were both holding the same one.
“Did I tell you I had a doll that looked like a fighter pilot?” she said after a minute had passed.
“No, you didn’t.”
“I made it when I was young, out of scraps of fabric I found. One of the older kids helped me make it. I can’t remember what happened to them. I think they just left. Anyway this doll was all I needed. It was a hero, someone who I could control but it was a comfort. You remind me of that doll. I don’t know what would have happened to it. I don’t know what would have happened to any of it. Maybe it’s all still there. Maybe someone got to it all already. I guess I’ll never know. Maybe I don’t want to know. I do miss that doll sometimes though.”
“You don’t have to. You’ve got me now. You’ve got Finn now.”
“I’ve got real heroes to help me fly,” she smiled.
“You don’t need anyone to help you fly. You just needed heroes who believed in you. People who think you’re the hero. That’s all you needed.”
“No,” she turned to him properly. “I think I did need my heroes.”
He kissed her on her temple and she smiled. She snuggled closer into Poe’s side and held Finn’s hand tight.
Sometimes they had stories to tell and sometimes they sat in silence. They were together, and that was enough.
Rey never did have a family as a child. She had to find the toys and the stories herself with nobody to love her and give her those things. Now she had her family. She had people who loved her. People who would do anything for her; people that would do anything to give her the life that she deserved.