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Rey steps into the Organa-Solo kitchen and peers into the pantry, fidgeting. She feels like she's not supposed to be here. She knows she's not supposed to be in here. It is 3 AM, and even if she is paying the Solo's rent, and has negotiated free food as part of her deal, it still feels wrong to be up at 3 AM and eating.
Still eating.
She's not stupid, she knows the Organa-Solos had been more than generous and, let's be honest, more than a little pitying when they agreed to rent her the spare room. She knows Leia and Han (it still feels weird to call them that) were horrified when they realized how hand-to-mouth a foster kid's life really is back when she first bummed her way into Poe's broken down Falcon, a month past her eighteenth birthday and freshly homeless now that her foster family couldn't afford to feed her.
Poe had taken pity on her, refused to drop her off at the shelter she'd directed him to, and insisted on bringing her home to his fantasy life of clean sheets, warm water, and lights that actually turned on at night. For a moment, Rey had wondered whether lack of food had induced some sort of psychotic hallucination and her brain's idea of a good time was taunting her with delusions of flannel sheets.
But Poe was real. Poe and Finn were both real, and she still wasn't sure if her new friendships were the universe's way of paying her back for all the crap she'd put up with in her eighteen years, or if she was just incredi-fucking-lucky and should relax and enjoy the calm before the shitstorm that would inevitably rain down on her again soon enough.
Rey fidgeted again. She knew she should stop eating. She knew it. She was putting on weight. A lot of weight. So she was going to close the door of the pantry and tiptoe back down the hall to her room and hope she didn't run into Poe sneaking back in after a late night at Finn's.
Fuck. She'd much rather have run into Poe, Poe and Finn, hell, even Poe slash Finn than deal with this. Because quietly stepping through the front door was a tall man in his fifties with startling blue eyes who shared Leia's slim frame. This could only be Luke Skywalker, Leia's twin and Poe's adoptive uncle. And the last person Rey wanted to meet on her way back from a 3 AM junk food binge.
"Hey," Luke said, nodding at Rey. "You must be Rey. I'm Luke," he said, holding out his hand like it was 3 in the goddamn fucking afternoon and not 3 AM on a Tuesday. "You've got a little something," he added, gesturing towards the left side of his mouth. "On your lip."
Rey could feel her face heating up and she hastily wiped the back of her sleeve across her mouth. It came away orange and tacky with fake cheese dust. Great.
"Thanks," she mumbled. It was only after Luke dropped his hand that Rey realized that she had completely ignored the proffered handshake. This was turning out to be a great first impression.
"Well, I'm going to get to bed," Luke said, jerking his head towards the stairs. "It was nice meeting you."
"You too," Rey mumbled belatedly after Luke was halfway up the stairs. Goddamn.
***
The next time Rey meets Luke, it is actually 3 in the afternoon and she's just returned from a marathon run. She's been good lately, sticking to salads and water and running like a madwoman to burn off all that excess weight she gained from nightly ice cream binges last month.
Luke is wearing soft-looking sweats and sitting in one of the lounge chairs by the pool, looking sleepy and catlike in the hot sun. Rey wonders why he hasn't bothered to dress for swimming, and then imagines Luke with his shirt off and sends a little prayer of thanks to the gods of embarrassment for not subjecting her to that sight. She doesn't need to blush like a schoolgirl in front of Luke. Again.
"Hey," Luke gives her the same nod and half smile she remembers from that mortifying late-night meeting. "Nice to see you again."
"You too," Rey hopes her voice doesn't sound as breathless to him as it does in her head. Fuck, she's out of shape.
"Where you headed off to?" Luke asks casually.
"Uhh..." the honest answer is the gym, but Rey's not sure she wants to see the look on Luke's face when she says that. She can almost hear Kylo, her ex-boyfriend, laughing hysterically at the idea of her fat ass running in a gym full of supermodels. Rey's face heats up, and she bites her lip in frustration.
"Rey?" Luke sits up a little. "You okay?"
"Yeah, I'm - fine -" Rey stumbles backward in her attempt to casually walk away from the situation. "I'm just going to - um, read - or something -" she dashes off, and when she gets inside the house she sees Luke flop back down in his chair and pull his sunglasses over his face again. Fuck.
***
Kylo Ren turns back up from whatever hole he slunk into the last time he dumped Rey. Their affair lasts for ten days and mostly consists of mildly degrading sex; then he uses some choice analogies to describe Rey's figure and disappears again. Rey calls in sick to work and spends two weeks crying on the floor of her room. Her stash of Doritos and mega-stuff Oreos appears from the shame box under her bed. She gains eight pounds and two inches in fifteen days. On the sixteenth day, Luke walks past her room while she's in the middle of another Doritos run. Rey sees his eyes practically pop out of his head at the sight of the overflowing trash bin and the stacks of neatly folded empty Doritos bags in the corner.
"I'm sorry," Rey cries feebly and slumps down onto the floor, too exhausted to try and cover up her weakness. "I'll clean it all up, I swear."
"Hey, hey" Luke soothes, carefully propping open the door and coming over to sit next to Rey on the floor. He leans against the bed and puts an arm around her. "It's okay. I mean, it will be okay. Or at least get better. What happened?"
"Fucking Kylo," Rey sniffles, blowing her nose loudly and stuffing the tissue deep into the already disgusting trashcan. "My ex," she explains when she sees Luke's questioning look. "He knows where I work, and he found me after - and I'm just so fucking weak and pathetic and -"
"Shh, no," Luke soothes, running his hands up and down her arms and cuddling her closer to his side. "The Rey I've heard about is strong and brave and a fighter. The Rey my nephew admires is tough, and resilient, strong, and beautiful. She's not going to break down just because some asshole with a backstory and agenda shows up looking for her. She's going to fight back!"
Rey sniffles and buries her face in her arm. Why the hell would someone as awesome as Poe believe in a fuck up like her?
"Hush," Luke soothes, rubbing her back as she buries her hot face in her knees. "It's all right. It'll be okay."
***
Poe and Finn convince Rey to rejoin the land of the living two weeks after her dramatic and unnecessary Kylo Ren-induced spiral fizzles out. Rey still blushes when she thinks about Luke witnessing her Dorito-shame, and wonders what he must think of her now. And she's still a little strung out about Kylo - Rey knows her ex is an asshat, but she can't seem to let go of a nagging feeling that there's some good left in him. Still, he's gone, and she knows Poe is glad for it. She thinks she scared him a little; freaking out like that after her breakup.
Everything's fine and dandy until she goes to a club with Finn and some friends from work and sees Luke, dressed in a black leather jacket and holding an unnecessarily large motorcycle helmet, casually chatting with Armitage Hux in the corner. Hux is an old drug-dealing crony of Kylo's and one of the last people on earth Rey wants to spend time around.
"I'm gonna go," Rey shouts at Finn, feeling proud that she hasn't burst into tears at the sight of her crush and her ex's right hand getting cozy.
"What?" Finn screams back over the music. "Why?"
"Just don't like the crowd," Rey calls back, jerking her thumb in Luke and Hux's direction. "Need a change of scene."
Finn follows her gaze. "What?" he calls back confused.
Rey cups her hands around her mouth and puts her lips near Finn's ear. "Hux, that guy over there with Poe's uncle?" Finn nods. "I know him. He used to deal coke with Kylo. I really don't need to risk running into him right now."
Finn nods and half-shouts, "Want me to go with you?"
"No, I'm okay," Rey shouts back, shaking her head. She gets her coat and waves goodbye to Finn and, when she catches his eye, Luke.
---
Rey is halfway home - funny, she thinks of the Organa-Solo house as home now - when Kylo Ren, his pupils blown and his gait more than a little unsteady, blocks her path in an alley and grabs her chin in his hands.
"Hi, gorgeous," he rumbles, leaning in to try and kiss her but only succeeding in licking her cheek. "How's it going?"
"Get the fuck off me, Kylo," Rey says, shoving him backward ineffectually. She has never been able to make him move.
"No," he says, squeezing her chin tighter. "You're mine. Now open that pretty little mouth of yours and greet me. Properly."
Rey spits in his face. Kylo squeezes her chin even harder and pulls an arm back to sock her in the eye. "What the hell! You little whore-"
Slam.
Something, or rather someone, has pushed Kylo back against the alley wall and seems to be growling - yes, actually growling - with rage. Rey blinks when she sees it's Luke, straddling a motorcycle and all but pounding Kylo's head against the cement behind them.
"What the fuck did I just see you do?" Luke's deep voice rumbles out, deadly calm and all the scarier for it.
"Back off old man!" Kylo's too high to be cautious. "This isn't your business anyway."
"That girl," Luke growls, "is worth ten times more than anything you could ever hope to become. If I see you touch her, blink in her direction, hell, if you so much as think about her with anything less than respect again, you will answer to me. And," Luke shakes his head and almost laughs, "You do not want to mess with me."
Rey is confused by this statement until she sees the back of Luke's jacket. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Well, fuck. She never did ask him what he did for a living.
"You think you can take me just because you're a fed?" Kylo spits, seeing the monogram on Luke's jacket and sneering. "I'd like to see you try. I own this town, buddy."
"Yeah? Well, how about that? You know, I was just talking to your buddy Hux - yeah, remember him?" Luke asks as Kylo's eyes widen a little. "Yeah, I know who you are, Kylo Ren. I know all about you. You might think that your family's forgotten you, that your parents gave up on you, but I never did. You are still that little kid who used to beg for Jedi stories, you are still the boy I trained, and you are still Anakin Skywalker's grandson. You might be crack-dealing scum now, running around the First Order. Snoke might act like he cares about you, but he's just using you as a fall guy to make sure his trade doesn't go under when you get caught smuggling coke and go away for 20-to-life."
"If you value your freedom," Luke shakes Kylo a little again, and Rey notices genuine fear shining through Kylo's drugged up high, "you will leave this place and never contact Snoke, Hux, Rey, or anyone else from this town again. I'm not warning you, I'm promising you, Kylo," Luke says gravely, "If you stay here, you can expect to spend the rest of your life behind bars."
Luke let Kylo go. "If you're still here in 24 hours, I'll arrest you for attempted assault. Now get out." Luke jerks his head and Kylo takes off running. Rey doesn't think she's ever seen him so scared.
Luke turns to her, and Rey can't help it. She swallows back a reflex vomit and Luke catches the wince. "Hey," he says in that same soothing tone he used that day in her room. "Shh. You're okay." Rey bites her lip, and Luke holds out a hand. "Let's go home."
Rey bites her lip and nods slowly. She takes his hand.
They walk in silence for a bit, Rey fighting down the urge to be sick. She hates throwing up.
"What - what happened out there?" Rey asks when she's sure she can safely open her mouth.
"Well," Luke says after a pause, "I don't think your ex will be bothering you much for a while."
"No, I mean," Rey blushes again. "Was all that true? Why did you do that?"
Luke pauses and gives her a long look. "I've known Kylo Ren his whole life," he finally says as they start walking again. "I've known guys like him my whole life. He was born Ben Solo, and he was Leia and Han's only child until they adopted Poe."
Rey stares up at Luke, slack-jawed. How had she never known this?
"Poe doesn't know," Luke adds, probably in response to the look on Rey's face. "And I don't think my sister knows exactly what her son has become. She definitely doesn't know about the 'Kylo Ren' name change, or that he's still hanging around the city." Luke gives a dry, humorless chuckle.
"Ben Solo was a sweet, sensitive boy. But Ben Solo has been gone for a long time, Rey," Luke looks at her seriously. "And no matter how much we wish it, there's nothing we can do to bring him back."
Rey stays quiet for a while. She thinks about how she's always felt like there's something more to Kylo Ren than the typical crackhouse drama he always gets caught up in. She wonders if she could have done something to help him reconcile with his parents. Rey would have killed for parents like Leia and Han.
"Men like Kylo Ren are dangerous, Rey," Luke says, interrupting her thoughts. "They're not stupid, but they're shortsighted and selfish. They think that if they can just stick around the biggest bully on the playground long enough, pretty soon they'll be calling the shots and they can do whatever they want. But it doesn't work like that. And the longer they think that; the longer they play at it, the meaner and more dangerous they get. The farther away they get from any good, and light, they once had."
Rey walks quietly for a minute. Luke's analysis is sobering, but it's nothing she hasn't thought about Kylo Ren before herself.
"You can't save him, Rey," Luke says in a voice that sounds like he's taking extra care to be gentle. "And it would kill us - Poe, Finn, Leia, Han, and me - to see you get hurt."
Rey bites her lip.
"I know I can't save him," she says after a beat. "But he's not all bad."
"No," Luke agrees. "He's not."
"But I can't -" Ren bites her lip again and tries to find a way to get this out. "I know that staying with him - that letting him back in - is bad for me."
Rey looks down and tries not to cry. "I'm not trying to ignore that, honestly, I'm not."
"I know," Luke says softly, looking at her.
"Just -"
"I know," Luke says, running a hand through her hair and gently brushing it behind her ear. She squints down at the sidewalk.
"Maybe someday," she says weakly. "If he wants to-"
Luke smiles sadly, and she knows he doesn't believe her.
"Maybe," he agrees. "Someday."