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Rey can’t remember how many times she’s clenched her fists in the past 5 minutes.
She’s angry. She’s angry that she’s angry.
Kriff.
But this kind of anger was still new to her - some protective kind of anger she never had to know on Jakku.
By herself - before BB-8, before Finn, before the Resistance, before it all - there was no looking after someone else, being worried about someone else. It was just her and her staff, scavenging the desert corners for scraps and crumbs.
Now, it’s Finn. It’s Chewbacca. It’s Poe. And they’re all being kriffing mad, trying to follow her into the fire.
A fire she feels might be too wild to put out by herself. A black fire, one she doesn’t want to risk anyone she loves getting too close to.
She’s already lost too many people. (Her parents, Han, Luke). She can’t lose anyone else. She can’t, not if she has anything to say about it.
She saw them head in the direction of the Falcon earlier after the debriefing, and they only managed to slip past her because she was running through the details of the mission with Leia to make sure everything would run smoothly.
Sweeping through the corridors (with her still clenched fists), she nearly trips over someone’s pack as she tries to enter the cockpit.
“Okay, first: whose pack is this?” She pushes a stray hair out of her face and kicks at the rucksack.
Poe turns from flipping through a few buttons on the control panel to the left of the pilot’s seat. He wasn’t sitting there, just standing next to it, and she feels a brief bout of affection for him, knowing that he’s leaving it open for her, though she’s let him fly in it many times before in the past.
Then, she remembers she’s angry.
His eyes widen a fraction and pulls an amused frown, reaching over with his foot and tugging the pack closer to him. “Whoops, my bad, sunshine.”
“Hush with the nicknames,” she says, pointing a very unthreatening finger at him before turning her glare to the co-pilot’s chair, where Chewie tilts his head at her. “What are you all doing? This is my mission.”
A garbled grumble answers her. So?
She furrows her eyebrows at him.
Poe jerks his thumb at the Wookie. “What he said.” He goes back to messing with a rogue wire she remembered Rose mentioning needed fixing, before angling his head to Rey. “What did he say exactly?”
Before she can lie and say something very not nice to him, a voice behind her says, “Beats me." Finn steps around Rey and hands a janky piece of electrical tape to Poe. "BB-8's tangled in the cables again.”
She throws her hands up. The whole gang’s here. “What the kriff are you lot doing?”
Poe lets out a squeak as he finishes wrapping the wires, pulling back quickly with a red finger. Finn chuckles next to him.
“Apparently, we’re painting the walls.”
“Not a bad idea. Needs a paint job,” Poe looks around and then sticks his bleeding finger to his mouth in a distracting way that makes her blush and Rey refuses to think about it.
She turns away and catches Chewie’s amused face. She blows the strand of hair from her eyes that won’t stay back, narrowing her eyes, daring him to comment.
He sniffs a quiet laugh and turns back to the console.
She sighs and gestures in a way to mean all this, “What I mean is - what are you doing here? I need to leave.”
Finn shrugs. “We know that.”
“So, here we are,” Poe says, running his hand through his hair before leaning on the wall he was tinkering with. The lights flicker.
Rolling her eyes, Rey grabs his shoulder and props him back upright.
She steps back and crosses her arms, “Listen, guys, I appreciate it, but I’m going alone this time. It’s my mission. I don’t need any help.”
Poe tilts his head, catching her eye. “We know you can handle yourself.”
Finn nods, “Yeah, you’ve proved that to us plenty of times before, and not just when sparring.”
Chewie growls in agreement. You’re tough stuff, little one.
Her heart lights up at their words like an old power converter, momentarily forgetting her anger.
Her boys. Their support and belief in her feel like the Jakku sun - warm and a little jarring at times. They beam brighter than any words Kylo Ren could throw at her.
All the same, her breath catches, knowing that they could get hurt on this mission (or worse). Leia didn’t specifically tell her to go alone or that she couldn’t or shouldn’t bring others, but she didn’t plan on asking anyone to come with her.
Shaking her head, she states, “You’re not coming with, any of you.”
Three red bursts of anger that could rival her own jump at her through the force, all in different intensities.
Poe and Finn exchange a glance, their faces starting to mirror that anger.
“It’s not up for debate, Rey. We’re all coming with,” Finn says gently, shifting the blaster strapped to his back.
She grits her teeth, starting to feel warring jumble of panic and gratitude. She wants them by her side, she does, but…
The bright saber striking through Han’s back, the anger and shame that she couldn’t do anything as she fired at his son hopelessly, helplessly, trying not to think about Han falling, falling, falling -
“Rey.”
Poe’s voice cuts through the memory, sure and strong despite its softness. His voice is always doing that - contradicting itself around her name.
She looks to the pilot, feeling that last bit of anger wash out at the surety in her friends. His face is soft, too.
Trying one last time, she says to the room, looking to him, to Finn, to Chewie, “It’s too dangerous. I’m going alone.”
Please, I can’t watch anyone else leave.
In her periphery, she sees Poe edge closer. He doesn’t touch her, but he doesn’t have to. His presence, no longer red, is shining with something bright. Bright like summer sand and cool as Ahch-To’s rainfalls.
He smiles his half-smile, “We’re going together.”
She closes her eyes, breathes, feels that bright signature like a breeze.
When she opens her eyes again, Rey quirks her mouth.
“Okay."