Work Text:
Rey always slept on her left side.
Back on Jakku, the nook in the AT-AT that she slept in for the few hours she could manage each night only had a view of the door when she laid on her left side. Though she had departed the desert prison and left the constant threat of other scavengers behind, she still couldn’t shake the habit. She just didn’t feel safe on her right side.
After the battle on Crait, the remainder of the Resistance had little room for kipping on the Falcon. Until a new base was found, there just weren’t enough places for people to sleep. Rey was fine with a corner on the floor, but everyone else insisted she needed to rest and heal from her wounds on the Supremacy. Because she knew she’d never hear the end of it from Finn, and now Poe, who seemed incredibly insistent that everyone be as comfortable as possible all the time, even though he himself looked ragged, she agreed to take a sleeping nook, JUST until her arm healed. She hoped she could maybe speed things along with some help from the Force, but she was wary about what tapping into it might lead to.
It had been only a few hours since the last connection, but the pained face and wounded eyes of a broken man still stung in her mind. She hated closing the door on Ben, but she knew there was nothing else that could be done right then. Regardless of what would happen with the Jedi or the Sith or whatever, these people around her were important, they were her friends, and she had to do what she could to keep them safe.
After she finally laid down and her cuts were cleaned, Rey had to admit that she could use the sleep. She hadn’t truly felt rested since the first day she began training with Luke, and the last days' events weighed heavily on her. Though she would have preferred to sleep on her left side as normal, the resistance medic attending to her insisted she stay on her back to promote faster healing. As she was eager to get out of the nook soon and give it to someone else, she agreed, and slowly dozed while listening to the muted sounds of mourning and planning that were happening around her.
As the voices faded, and the lights dimmed, she realized that she was mostly alone. Rose was unconscious in the nook a few feet away, but Finn had been dragged away by Leia and Poe to begin planning the Resistance’s next move. The room was empty otherwise. Rey reached outwards toward Rose and felt her pain, but also her strength, and she was comforted. Rey sensed within her the same sparks she saw in herself and hoped there’d be time to get to know her. She trusted Finn’s judgement, and anyone he was that concerned with would truly be a worthy member of the Resistance and a good friend.
The pain in her arm from the Praetorian Guard’s spear was subsiding, but sleep just wasn’t coming. Her eyes felt heavy, and her mind fogged, but the tension of the battle and the emotional roller coaster from dealing with Ben, or Kylo, or whoever he was now, was keeping her from slipping into the slumber she so desperately wanted. She shifted over onto her left side, then on her back again, to the left, to her back, over and over. After a while, she tried to lay still on her back and just focus on her breathing. She wasn’t an expert in the Force by any means, but she was convinced she could ease her mind if she just tried.
She slowly counted her breaths. In. Out. In. Out. When a twinge of pain came from her shoulder, she breathed deeply through it until it disappeared. Finally, mercifully, she fell asleep.
But she did not rest.
What felt like almost immediately, she found herself back in the cave. The illusion stretched out in front of her, further than her eyes could see or her mind could feel, but unlike last time, she felt panicked. She knew what was at the end, and she didn’t want to see it again. She tried to turn around and leave, but every time she reversed, she was somehow at the back of the line again. She turned over and over, tears beginning to prick her eyes, as she worried she’d be forever trapped here, loneliness at both ends of a seemingly never-ending line.
Rey started to run. To where, she didn’t know. But no matter which direction she went, the crushing loneliness of the cave found her again, and the fear was reaching a boiling point inside her. She wanted so badly to wake up, and it all be over, but she began to worry that she wasn’t even asleep anymore. What if she had never left the cave? What if everything since then had been an illusion; a cruel trick played by the darkness kept under the island?
Without knowing what else to do, she cried out for help. She screamed the words over and over, but who would hear her? If she really was still on the island, maybe Luke would hear and come to her. If not, then perhaps she’d jumpstart her mind out of the painful cycle and wake up. She screamed for what could have been hours or minutes, continuing to run and pace and cry.
Suddenly, Rey felt that she was no longer at the end of the line, but was approaching the exit- the endpoint- whatever it was that would let her out. She felt she was being guided and closed her eyes to better sense the feeling. She realized that she had her hand out in front of her, as if someone was guiding her. In fact, she could feel the weight firmly in the palm of her left hand. She gripped it tighter and prayed it really was helping her and not a trick that would drag her further into the darkness.
Finally, she reached the same frosted pane that had left her without answers before. She expected the loneliness to overcome her again, but the weight in her hand lead her straight through the divide as if it weren't even there. On the other side, she found herself not on the banks of the underground pool, but back on the surface of the island. Rain was falling softly and the waves were crashing upon the rocks, sending salt into the air and onto her flushed cheeks.
As the crushing loneliness in her heart faded and she breathed the salty air into her lungs, Rey wondered where she really was. It still felt unclear to her if she was asleep, or if she really was back on the island. The weight in her left hand still seemed to be there, but it didn’t belong to anyone or anything. She couldn’t deny however that the weight was comfortable, as if it was radiating warmth and solace. Rey closed her eyes again and felt the gentle rain on her face. She began to count her breaths again.
In. Out. In. Out. In. Out.
Slowly, her eyes fluttered open. Expecting to see the cool grey of the ocean again, she was instead greeted with the soft warm light of the Falcon. Slightly confused as to why she felt uncomfortable, Rey realized she was laying on her right side, the wound on her arm pressed into the not-so-soft padding of the nook. Her left hand was still outstretched, but the nook wall seemed to be too far away from her. As she blinked the sleep from her eyes, she noticed the weight was still in her palm, but now it had an owner.
Rey inhaled sharply and her instincts told her to withdraw her hand, but as Ben lay there asleep on his side, breathing in sync with her, she couldn’t move. The warm light of the Falcon faded into the cool light of whatever room Ben was sleeping in, and for a moment she saw the face of the padawan who had not yet been betrayed by his master. She stretched her feelings toward him, and in return felt a small squeeze in her hand, and the future she saw of them together briefly flashed before her eyes again. She didn’t know how long the moment would last, or if either of them would even remember it when they woke, but for now she closed her eyes and just breathed. With him. Together.
In. Out. In. Out.
She slept on her right side every night afterward.