Archive of Our Own ^beta

It was impossible for Rey to imagine exactly what General Organa could have been thinking, at a time like this. It never felt like there was enough time to rest, or even take a breath; the First Order had been on their heels for months. Every pit stop was hurried, rushing from point A to point B with no clear goal in sight. And yet, without any explanation, Leia had directed them to a planet that made no real sense to Rey. There was nothing there, a veritable soot spot smudging the face of the universe, and yet standing in the opening of a yawning cavern big enough to fit the Falcon was one of the most elegant looking aliens she’d ever seen, with long arms extended as it waited for the General to disembark. He fit nowhere in the narrative of his surroundings with his ornate headpiece and long white flowing gown, but it was clear by the pleased expression on his gaunt face that he knew Leia quite well, and the Resistance was more than welcome there.

They were safe, for a while. Leia said she could promise them that much, and the ostentatiously dressed hosts would fervently agree. Following their lead, the measly remains of the Resistance were sheltered deep underground, under high vaulted ceilings and many, many doors.

It was a vault, General Organa told her. It felt more like a prison.

She didn’t ask any more questions.

When days passed and Rey’s skin itched to feel the warmth of the sun again, she made her way through the dusty, unused corridors to find General Organa locked in her chambers with Poe Dameron. She knocked on the door, but she’d already heard their heated voices arguing over the next step in the fight. When they went quiet, she knew she was interrupting something, and turned to leave.

“Rey.”

Leia was calling her name out through the door, and a soft mechanical click at the control panel indicated to her that it was no longer locked. She took it as a sign to enter, and did so.

Poe and Leia were both sitting on long couches, bent over a hologram map that shuddered with instability between them. Leia shut the device off and stood, prompting the man in front of her to do the same. At the very least, none of them looked angry at her interruption - or at each other. There was determination set in each pair of eyes, and the ever present miracle of hope.

It made her smile.

“I don’t mean to interrupt.” She started, moving up to stand beside Poe. He looked like he was already preparing to leave, but when she neared him, he paused just enough to press his hand against her shoulder and squeeze it gently. Everything about the man radiated warmth, making it hard to ever feel anything but good when he was nearby. Even now, when there was nothing to feel good about.

“Trust me. I think we could both use the break.” His smooth voice promised her, chuckling with weariness. “I’m starved. If you ladies would excuse me?”

His hand slid away from Rey’s shoulder, leaving it colder once it was gone. She still wasn’t used to the constant ease of contact that her new friends (family, she corrected) seemed so comfortable with. Poe and Finn and even General Organa were always reaching out for one another, be it a brush of the hand or a smack in the arm. Finn told her once that he was surprised by it too, but there was something about him that always felt so comfortable returning those playful touches that made her doubt he felt exactly the same way about it. Even the First Order wasn’t strong enough to bleed the warmth out of that man.

But the desert had managed to keep her cold.

She gave Poe’s departing form a weak, awkward smile, and then sat down once General Organa offered her a seat with a silent wave of her hand. She plopped down right where Poe had been, and snuggled into the warmth.

“I would ask you how you’ve been, but I doubt anything’s really changed since the last time I saw you. I was getting a little worried; after all, you’ve been holed up alone in that room for quite a while. We were all wondering when we’d see you again.”

Rey couldn’t stop the crash of guilt that played on her face. Alone, Leia had said. She was never really alone.

Not anymore.

Rey wasn’t surprised this time when Leia reached out and pressed her hand atop of her own. This felt natural, like she’d been at the receiving end of this affection all of her life. Leia’s hand against hers felt like a memory, a hundred memories, a thousand of them all piling up on top of one another because she’s felt it before, except she hasn’t, she hasn’t-

She turned hard from the direction her thoughts were going, because she knew exactly where it would lead - and what would come to call should she dwell too long on whose memories she could feel like dead echoes in her heart.

“I’m sorry.” She sputtered out lamely. If it wasn’t clear that she was disturbed before, the sound of her voice eliminated any doubt. Leia’s expression, clever as it was, twisted as she tried to figure out exactly what was wrong.

But how could she ever know? How would she ever have guessed what was really going on?

Rey had no answers for her; at least none she could easily share. Instead, her eyes met with the General’s, pleading, begging for some kind of help.

A distraction, perhaps.

Leia was good with distractions.

Her other hand reached out and cupped at both of Reys, taking them up and tugging them with an almost playful comfort. “May I share something with you?” She asked, her uneven smile wrinkling her cheek. She had so many secrets behind those ever twinkling eyes of hers, and Rey’s heart leapt at the chance to know just one of them.

“Of course.” She whispered, suddenly more excited than guilty. It’s exactly what she needs.

Without another word, Leia led her out of the room and down the dusty halls, farther than Rey has had the chance to travel yet. It got darker the longer they walked, as though the lighting fixtures understood just how little they’re needed this far down. Rey might have expected Leia to talk to her while they walked, because she’s never spent this much time in silence with the woman before; there was always something, some clever quip of wisdom or sarcastic barb. This time, she just walked, and the brush of her soft shoes against the floor sounded like hushing with each step.

Rey knows silence. It doesn’t bother her, even if it’s coming from the General.

The door they finally stopped in front of was taller than she could see. Somewhere near the top of the vaulted ceilings it simply disappeared, the darkness swallowing its end.

Leia reached forward to push a button, and only a piece of the door creaked open in response. It was pitch dark inside, until they entered and triggered what must have been motion sensors. A soft yellow light flooded the room.

This one felt even more extravagant than the others. Rey had thought her room was something special and indulgent - but now that she was in what looked like a lounge, a boudoir, a giant changing room; she knew she was mistaken.

Someone very rich made this. It set her teeth on edge to think of it.

Leia seemed to know exactly where she was going, so she left Rey to explore the room as she pulled out what looked like a long set of flat objects. They responded to her touch and began to fan out, exposing every one of their contents in a dazzling display of colors and cloth. They were outfits - gorgeous, extravagant, lavish outfits. Dresses - most of them, at least.

Leia was showing her dresses.

Rey almost wanted to bark out with laughter at the absurdity of it all.

“These were my mothers.” The General informed her. She splayed the tablets out even further, and then backed away to get a good look at them. “Once Queen of Naboo. Senator, Savior, Heroine. The more I hear about what she did for the freedom of this galaxy, the more I wish I’d known her.” Leia turned and gave Rey a sly smile. “And she did it all while looking this good.”

Now Rey did laugh, letting the sound bubble out through her and lighten the strange mood that had settled in her gut. It gave her the courage to step closer, to give each one some individual attention, and let her imagination run away with her. She imagined a woman more beautiful than humanly possible, floating like she weighed nothing as she walked the very halls they’d walked, in dress after dress. They ranged from regal to ethereal, but none of them caught her attention as much as the last.

It reminded her of the sunset on Takodana. The sunrise on Ahch-to. It reminded her that there were an infinite number of places even more beautiful, and she would never have the privilege to know them because it was impossible to see them all.

But she saw them all, in this one dress. And Leia saw them, reflected in her eyes.

Leia had wanted these dresses kept safe in some vain hope that she’d see her granddaughter in them, one day. She knew now that this hope was folly. But maybe..

Maybe this would be enough.

“Take your clothes off.”

Rey swiveled around and stared, wide-eyed and slack jawed, at the blunt command that the General had just ordered from her. She couldn’t get out much of an answer, other than a garbled, half-formed - “Ahwot?!”

Leia placed her hands on the plate holding the dress that Rey had been staring at, and pushed. The flat metal bed swiveled to a horizontal position, and unclamped where it was holding the dress hostage. She reached out and pulled it off of its fasteners, until it lay limp and fine in her hands. Rey realized, a little too late, that Leia was offering to let her try the dress on.

And somehow, that was even more surprising than not knowing why the General had just demanded her to disrobe at all.

“General-” She started, immediately silenced by the sharp rise of Leia’s hand. The flat palm curved until she was beckoning Rey to come closer, and with her other hand Leia held out the fabric itself to give her a chance to touch it.

Rey hesitated. Somehow it felt wrong to touch something that fine, as if years of filth were still embedded in her every pore, and she would leave stains anywhere she dared touch.

So Leia reached out and grabbed her hesitating hand, dropping it against the length of orange-pink fabric that slid away from her grip. It was soft, softer than anything Rey had ever felt in her life, and her fingers reacted immediately to clutch at the fabric needily. She bit back a groan when she felt it all slip and slide between her fingertips. She brought her other hand about now, all pretense of hesitance and shame whittled away in the wake of just how indulgent it felt to simply touch this. She rose it up to her cheek, and when it hit her skin it made her eyes flutter closed in delight.

This was no dress. This was a lover’s caress.

Her eyes opened again when she realized why she knew that, and the dress fell limp through her fingers, past her hands, and back down to the metal slab.

“I can’t.” She whispered. Leia took the words to mean that Rey didn’t feel worth a dress of this quality, but the words meant something a lot sharper, a lot deeper than just the worth of a dress.

“You can, and you will.” Leia told her. The strength in those words startled Rey enough to look up, grasping at the meaning behind them as if somehow Leia had figured out that Rey was still in contact with her son, that Rey slept locked in his arms more nights than not, that her deepest, darkest fears were always whispered shakily into his ear.

Her son. The Supreme Leader.

She wanted to make Leia’s strength her own, but she knew the woman was only talking about a dress.

When she felt the hot slide of tears burning trails against her cheeks, she took a step back. It was enough to spurn Leia into action, reaching out and pulling the girl into a full hug. Rey let out one sob as the feeling settled into her bones, echoing familiarity that she both hated and craved.

She settled her chin against Leia’s head, and didn’t even bother putting up a fight when Leia began to undress her, piece by piece. She felt like she’d gone hollow, swaying uselessly as the clothes were peeled off of her body and the soft slide of silk replaced them.

The clasps around her neck and arms were the only things keeping the dress up after it fell against her skin. She could hear Leia humming something soft and vaguely lullaby-ish behind her when her nimble, small hands worked on adjusting the neck clasps. Rey felt the sudden tightness against her neck and swallowed. Without the visual of what it looked like, her body responded as though she was being collared, and her muscles tensed with the instinct to fight it.

Leia clasped similar holds against her biceps, and then let the drapes fall from her hands. Rey could feel the gentle weight of the dress against her arms, and she lifted them automatically to watch the liquid movement of the gown as it waved between her arm and her body.

It was hypnotizing, threatening to keep her enraptured. Leia tugged her away, and pulled at the metal slab the dress had been laying on. She twisted it, and turned it vertical again. The back of it was a mirror, and it reflected an image Rey couldn’t quite comprehend.

There was a woman, there. She was beautiful, certainly. But her face was streaked with tears, her hair was a spindly mess, and her eyes couldn’t quite stay in focus.

There was a dress, there. It was infinite, beautiful and untouchable, and a body filled its soft waves; but the girl that sprouted out from the top of it looked wrong to Rey. Sacreligiously wrong.

Leia was behind her, bent to the side to admire how she looked, and only in Leia’s eyes did she actually see a woman worth wearing this dress.

“Sit. Right here.” Leia told her, pushing a chair between them. Rey flopped down into the chair and reached up, running tentative fingers against the white gold collars that rose like a staircase up to the length of her neck. Beautiful.

Too beautiful.

It hurt to look at for too long, and her eyes averted even as Leia began to pull apart her haphazard hairstyle, and brush down the matted length of her hair.

“I shouldn’t be wearing this.” Rey finally managed to say, her voice weaker than usual. She heard Leia snort with disagreement, and continue to comb out her hair.

“And why would you say that?” There was nothing of the commanding General here now, in Leia’s voice. She was a woman, a mother, a caretaker. She was warm and gentle and scathing all at once, and most of all, she was clearly enjoying herself. “This dress is mine to do with as I please. And it pleases me to see you wearing it. You wouldn’t want to deny an old woman her pleasures, would you Rey?”

Rey’s eyes flickered up to meet Leia’s in the mirror, her own cynical smile matching the Generals in perfect unison.

“You’re not that old.” Rey muttered, leaving the argument at that. “You’re one of the most beautiful women in the Resistance.”

“I can count the number of women in the Resistance on my two hands right now.” Leia pointed out, using humor to narrowly avoid the scathing burn of tragedy over just how small their numbers had dwindled to. Rey did not miss it, but neither did she miss the way Leia always surged forward, never missing a beat.

So she did, too.

“One of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen, then.”

“You lived alone on Jakku. That’s still not much of a compliment.”

Rey let out a long gasp of frustration, but it petered out into laughter that Leia echoed out behind her. There was no one in this entire galaxy with the superhuman power to take utter tragedy and turn it into a well timed joke.

Rey wished she’d known Leia her entire life. And as suddenly as the thought came, another trailed along at its heels. He had known her his entire life. And yet.

She felt the world shift around her, like a mirror being bent concave and then released. The pressure was unmistakable. Just that one thought had done it, and her expression soured at just how easily he was able to find her, now.

She refused to look back in the mirror. She knew what she would find, if she did.

“What.” It sounded like he’d run out of breath. “Are you wearing.”

She felt like she’d been run through with his lightsaber. That one phrase, spoken with such disbelief in his voice, had the power to absolutely wreck her. She didn’t want his opinion on how she looked, but damn if she wasn’t already so sure she didn’t deserve this, damn if this couldn’t have been the worst moment to say something so - so cruel -

“Rey.” Leia put down the hair she’d been parting, and wrapped her arms around the woman. “What’s wrong? Why are you crying? Honey, you look beautiful. Honestly. Look at you.”

Leia’s hand reached out to take her chin and tug it up, holding Rey’s face up high and proud until she was forced to look in the mirror. She glanced at herself, for a second. Then, because the gravity of his presence would always pull her gaze, her eyes inevitably lifted up just enough to look at him. She expected disgust, or perhaps even worse - apathy.

What she found instead made no sense to her. He was grasping something - she couldn’t tell what, it wasn’t part of their bond and therefore invisible to her - and he was using it to hold himself up as though his legs couldn’t manage the feat on their own. His weight was pressing against a wall, she could see the way his arm was flattening on its side.

But none of that really mattered so much as the look on his face did. She didn’t want to believe that she was reading captivation in his gaze, but Kylo’s expression was never mysterious. Every emotion he felt, every thought in his head was laid out like a blanket, or an interstellar route map with notations on every important feature.

He looked at her as if he’d never seen anything so breathtaking in his entire life, and she burned at the weight of his gaze.

Her eyes traveled back down to look at herself, and then Leia. There was a thick, dangerous confusion in Leia’s eyes. She suspected something.

Rey’s heart began to race as she scrambled for excuses.

“I’ve never worn anything beautiful in my entire life.” Rey’s shaky voice huffed out, a little too fast. “This doesn’t suit me. It suits you.”

Flattery. Somehow, that made Leia even more suspicious.

“We’ll see how you feel after I’ve finished your hair.” Leia murmured, her hands returning to parting the wefts she’d pulled apart for the style she’d been planning. When Rey chanced a single glance at Kylo now, she saw him standing straight at attention, and suddenly aware.

He couldn’t see Leia. But there was no doubt as to whom Rey was talking to, or who was holding Rey’s hair up in strands. When he came closer, he could almost see the faintest echo of hands, barely visible, as they worked at Rey’s hair.

Rey fell still as Kylo stared at those hands, transparent and untouchable as they were. He reached out, his gloved fingers barely raised in their direction, and Leia’s hand swung quickly, passing straight through him.

She stopped. Rey’s heart felt like it had stopped, too - and she could hear Kylo’s breath hitch, as he waited, almost hopefully, to see if his mother felt anything.

She put down Rey’s hair, and scratched at the back of her hand. Then, her movements continued unfettered, as if nothing of interest had happened.

A quiet, but meaningful exhale shuddered through Rey. A moment later, she realized the exact same exhale had left Kylo’s lips when hers did, and her heart soared. She rarely allowed him to touch or hold her, in full consciousness - but in that moment, she wanted nothing more than to get up off of that chair and gather him up in her arms.

Good luck explaining that to Leia, she told herself. A tiny smile finally managed to grace her lips, and Leia took it to mean that she was finally starting to get comfortable in the dress. It made her smile, too.

Then she had to go and ruin it all in one single thoughtless breath.

“Will you do my hair like yours?”

Leia’s hands stopped moving, and Rey heard a sound out of Kylo that she’d never expected to hear before. It was like a hiss, an inhale through clenched teeth that indicated she’d done something terribly wrong, and this was not going to go the way she thought.

Before she could fumble out an apology, Leia’s hands already began moving again. “Trust me, Rey. You don’t want this hairstyle. I’m going to give you one that’s better suited with this dress. It’s a style for happy occasions. I think you’ll love it. After all, it’s just buns.”

Rey caught Leia’s eyes for just a moment through the mirror, and tried to give her a sincerely apologetic smile. She didn’t know what she’d done wrong yet, but something about Leia’s hairstyle was off limits and she wished she’d known.

The soft slide of cloth made her head almost turn in his direction before she caught herself. He was moving to crouch beside her, barely reaching out to brush his fingers across the length of fabric hanging from her arm. His eyes were caught on it, and she couldn’t blame him. It was a beautiful dress.

“Alderaanian mourning braid.” He whispered, his fingers deftly moving into the fabric until the leather of his glove just barely brushed against her elbow.

Her eyebrows knitted in confusion. She wanted to ask him what he meant by that, but she had no way of doing so without arousing suspicion. Leia continued to curl up her hair on the sides of her head, oblivious.

“She’s probably wearing an Alderaanian mourning braid. It crowns the head in front of a bump. Is that right?”

Rey glanced at Leia quickly, and then returned her gaze to meet his in the mirror beside her. She tried to nod as subtle and unnoticeable as possible. His full lips pursed, tight and unhappy.

“For Han.” The name sounded like it hurt to say, scratching at his voice and his lips and his tongue. She wanted to be angry, the way she always was when she thought of what he’d done. Leia wore that braid because of him. Han Solo was dead because of him.

She searched for the anger she always felt in her heart. Instead, Leia’s hands and that gentle humming lulled her back into a sense of peace, fluttering her eyes closed despite how close he still was to her. When she listened long enough, the tune Leia hummed was easy enough to pick up, so she hummed it.

After a few seconds, she could feel him standing up. She opened her eyes again and followed him as he paced, his hands clenching into fists over and over. At no point did she stop humming, or give him a moment’s peace. She could tell the song was recognizable. She could see the way it was tormenting him. She knew that Leia must have hummed this to him a thousand times, in his childhood.

And he needed to remember. He needed to feel.

“Stop it.” He growled in warning. Her humming just got louder, more cheerful. She could see him swiveling his arm at something, wiping something away. She couldn’t hear the crash of destruction his actions had wrought, but she knew they were happening. She knew he was taking out his anger on something inanimate.

“There.” Leia whispered, pulling her hands away. Rey finally stopped humming to look up at the General’s handiwork, and sucked in a gasp of surprise. All the woman had done was comb and style it, and yet there were curves and smoothness to the style that Rey had never seen on herself before. She’d never even knew they were possible. Her hair looked regal, elegant, and refined.

It looked a lot like Leia’s, even if it wasn’t the same style. She looked up at Leia, and then at herself again. The emotional cascade rising up inside of her was inevitable when that one single thought escaped her traitorous mind.

Was this what having a mother felt like?

Leia fiddled with a few curls that were escaping the buns at Rey’s sides, and then squeezed the girl by the shoulders. “You look absolutely stunning. If my mother could see you now, she would be proud to know it’s you, of all people in this galaxy, who’s wearing her dress.”

Her face crinkled at the corners of her eyes as she smiled a genuine, proud smile. “And so am I.”

Rey swiveled out of her chair and onto her feet in one solid movement, gathering Leia up into her arms and wrapping tightly around her. Her heart felt sore with how full, how absolutely overflowing with happiness it was. She didn’t think she needed to say a word to the woman, for her to know just how important this was to her.

When Leia wrapped her arms around Rey and squeezed in tight, Rey knew Leia wouldn’t need to say a word, either.

Their hug was peppered with chuckling and with tears, but when all was said and done, they peeled apart and wiped the wetness away from their eyes. Rey wanted to say more, a thousand things that Leia deserved to hear, but Kylo’s presence tugged at her attention like a snag on the fine cloth of her dress. She let out a tiny, frustrated little sigh, and then masked her expression back to the contentment this moment had brought her.

“Can I have a moment?” Rey asked, turning back towards the mirror. “Just to get used to it. I just. Need a moment alone.”

A fleeting flicker of suspicion returned to Leia’s eyes, before she too returned to her mask. She gave Rey an understanding nod, and then gripped at the girl’s hand. She squeezed it, smiled up at her knowingly, and turned to leave the room.

Rey waited.

Her eyes stayed focused on the dress, and on the mirror, and how wrong she still felt dolled up so prettily, even as she felt him lurch closer, step by step. And she waited. Long past when Leia left, she still waited before letting her guard down.

Just to be safe.

“Rey.”

His voice traveled through her, vibrating deep within. She finally flickered her gaze over to look at him through the mirror, schooling her expression into impatience despite the magnetic urge that tugged at her from inside.

His eyes couldn’t pull away from her. The real her, not the reflection through the mirror. She watched him drink her in, with eyes so hungry and wanton that they felt like a physical presence on her skin.

He wanted to touch her. His hands kept lifting and falling, clenching and releasing, and his frustration was as palpable as his gaze.

He swallowed.

“You look. Beautiful. You’re perfect.”

She cringed at the compliments. “Is that all it takes? I put on a pretty dress, and suddenly I’m no longer your enemy?”

His eyes finally pulled away from her body to match her glare in the mirror, and the ferocity burning within them felt both dangerous and thrilling at the same time. As if for just one moment, she could imagine him giving it all up, for her. As if this really was all it took.

Then it was gone, and all she was left with was a frustrated, aching heart.

“You stopped being my enemy a long time ago.” He pointed out helpfully, almost casually. She hated when he found the peace to speak like that. She liked him better raw, and unhinged. It was easier to hate him, then. “I don’t sleep with my enemy.”

Her eyes rolled. She should have known it wouldn’t take long for him to bring that little fact up.

Kylo - no, Ben, this was Ben, she could feel it - bent his head, until she could feel the brush of his hair against her collarbone. “You,” He purred out against her shoulder, his tone taking a dark, desirous turn. “Are not my enemy.”

She hated this. Hated how strong this bond between them was. Hated that even now, with Snoke long gone, their bond was only growing stronger every day. Hated how her skin rose in goosebumps at the feel of his lips against her shoulder and all she could hear was the sound of her heartbeat as it thumped out a traitorous chant of more, more, more-

She turned towards him, a soft sound of surrender escaping her throat as she rose her arms up to wrap around his neck and pull him in, to finally, finally take what she wanted-

There was nothing beside her. Ben had blinked out of existence, torn away by the will of the Force, and yet somehow she could feel the fuel of his frustration as it traveled across the galaxy even now. He thought he’d been so close to having her. So close-

She shrugged off the last tendrils of their connection, in order to save herself from feeling the heat of his anger and keep him from feeling the tight curl of shame fisting deep in her gut.

“Rey?”

She screamed when Leia said her name, startling the woman with her reaction. In Leia’s hands were two bun nets, lined in gold and pearls and shimmering with delicate beauty. Rey stared at the accessory for a beat too long, before finally shaking herself free of the moment.

“Sorry! Sorry. I was lost in thought.”

Leia’s clever eyes took stock of the way Rey’s chest heaved, the flush of red in her cheeks, and the way her arms were folding up around her, desperate to brush off the feel of something against her skin. It took her all of one minute to notice everything, before she shrugged it all away and walked up to Rey, placing the nets over each of her braided buns.

“There. Now. You’re perfect.”

The flush of red against Rey’s skin crawled past her cheeks, all the way down her neck, and even kissed at her shoulders. Of all the things for Leia to say to her.

“Hm.” Leia tugged at a curl falling against Rey’s face, and then patted her shoulder. “Leave it on as much as you like. Come out and show everyone, if it pleases you. I’m sure Poe and Finn would love to see you in it.”

Rey’s nose scrunched up immediately, and Leia’s lips twisted wryly. So much for that.

“Or, just wear it here alone for as long as you want. It’s not hard to put back when you’re done. I’ll.. leave you to it.”

Leia turned back around to leave again, and Rey reached out to grab at her shoulder, holding her for a moment. The touch made Leia turn around, and meet Rey’s eyes with her own. Somewhere in the depths of those eyes, eyes that had seen empires rise and fall and rise again, Rey saw a twinkle of mischief and understanding the likes of which she didn’t think she truly deserved.

Leia winked at her, and then patted her hand before turning to leave once more. When she got to the door, and opened it, she stopped.

“Oh, and Rey?” She murmured, her sly smile ever present on her face. “If he asks. Make sure he knows it’s his grandmother’s dress.” Her smile lifted even higher, almost cruel in its intent. “I’m sure he’ll get a kick out of that.”

Leia left without waiting for an answer, closing the door behind her, and Rey stared at it for a solid minute before her knees finally gave in, slowly sinking her down to the ground.