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It was the day of Finn’s party, and all through Rey’s house, a voice could be heard screaming as she searched for the gift she’d ordered for him.
“I cannot believe this,” she groaned, crawling out from underneath her bed, nothing but dust bunnies stuck to her sleeves and hair to show for her struggles.
The box wasn’t anywhere. She’d even bought wrapping paper for it. Actual wrapping paper, the kind you bought at Hallmark when you wanted people to think you super cared about wrapping presents.
But she apparently didn’t have a present to wrap.
“Shoot.” Rey sighed and sat on her bottom, unfolding her legs splay out in front of her. She dug her phone out of her pocket and opened to the Chrome app to search desperately for any potential replicas or replacements for her first gift. “No,” she muttered, flipping past the toy store that was offering to have it in stock by December 31. It was December 15, and Finn’s party was tonight, and she had to give him something when she showed up at his apartment.
It was his birthday and he was celebrating Christmas tonight. Rey didn’t want to miss out on his birthday present and bank on giving him a Christmas present when she saw him on the 25th. No, she had to give him something, and while anything might do, she really, really wanted to give him her original idea.
“Crap.” Rey tapped her fingers against the side of her phone and tried one last search query, this time with a near me added in.
There was one left in stock at the Chandrila South Target.
“Yes!” Rey jumped to her feet and pumped her fist. “Heck yes!”
She did an awkward dance to the front door, humming violently - not a Christmas carol (Because Rey didn’t much care for Christmas) but the Imperial March, a song she thought had a bit more snazz to it than God Rest Ye Boring Gentlemen.
On her fifteen minute drive to Target, Rey refreshed the screen at every stop light, hoping that the green In Stock wouldn’t change. She supposed she could ask them to put it on hold, but then she ran the risk of someone pretending to have also put it on hold and taking it, or an employee grabbing it to put it on hold and then forgetting to put it up front with the holds, and no - no, it was better if she just walked in and got it herself.
Yep, she would walk in, calm as anything, and head to the Toy section and collect her prize, totally normal, and not at all frightening, not like these jerks who didn’t know how to drive in the Target parking lot, why did they think where they had to go was so much more important than everyone else?
Rey sprinted into the Target, her wallet clutched tight into her fist, and skidded the last ten feet through the parking lot on a patch of ice.
“Are you okay?” Someone shouted, and she managed back a hasty “ Mhgjgjk !” as she continued her dead sprint through the doors.
She dodged through the red carts and ducked under low-hanging, massive candy canes; Rey spun around and avoided a collision of fake Christmas trees haphazardly carried by exhausted looking dads, and jumped over an abandoned basket of cat treats.
There would be no need for all this rush if the thing she needed for Finn wasn’t attached to one of the biggest, if not the biggest marketing campaigns of the decade; of course it was the hot item of the season because it was the end of an important film franchise, one people loved desperately to the point where it became part of their identity - Rey was shocked that Target even had this last one in stock, and it was so close, she knew it. She could sense it.
Rey dove into the Toy aisle and searched for the red, blue, and black posters that marked The Starkillers merchandise, and yep, there it was. Sitting by himself on the edge of a ransacked shelf, Resistance orange and blue, and Sith red and black clothing littering the floor, some posters dangling from where they’d once proudly hung.
“ Let’s hear those sleigh bells jingling, ring-ting-tingling too !” blasted over the speakers as Rey made her final, half-mad leap for the box.
“Yes!” She hissed as her hand closed around the edge of the box.
And another hand did too.
Rey startled back but didn’t relinquish her grip; her adversary moved with her, his hand tight on the box.
“Excuse me.” Rey tugged on it and glowered as ferociously as she could. “I had this first.” Oh my.
Her adversary was a very good-looking man.
“Oh, really?” He smiled at her pleasantly, looking completely amused at their tug-of-war. “Because I could have sworn I had it first.”
“Nope.” Rey shook her head. “I can see why you thought that, but if you look closely, my hand is on the box.” She didn’t care how handsome he was, she was not leaving here without her quarry.
“I can definitely see that your hand is on the box.” The man tapped his own hand, and his smile didn’t lessen in the slightest. “And as you can see, well…”
“Your hand is on the box, too.” Rey huffed irately and shook her head. “You don’t understand, I need this present for my friend.”
“Your friend is a big Starkiller fan? Mine too! That’s why I wanted to get him this!” The guy held up the box, moving Rey’s hand with it, and she tightened her grip.
“My friend is the biggest Darth Vader fan who’s ever lived,” Rey said vehemently. “Ever.”
“Biggest Darth Vader fan ever, huh?”
“Yep.” Rey narrowed her eyes. “Ever.”
“That’s so weird because my friend is the biggest Darth Vader fan ever.”
This man was going to get his ass kicked in a Target. Did he not care? Rey could take him. She could easily take him. He was basically her height, and he was smiling way too much, and not in a creepy way, and he wasn’t even trying to pull it out of her hand or freak her out in any way or intimidate her like some jerks she knew would, and -
Well, that probably meant he was a nice guy who was just trying to get his present for his friend.
This is for you, Finn, Rey thought. I’m going to kick this very nice, very handsome man’s ass in a children’s Toy aisle at a Target for you. You better bail me out of jail.
“I need to bring this Darth Vader toy to my friend tonight for his birthday,” Rey said firmly. “It’s his favorite character, ever, and - and I already bought him one version of it, and I lost it, and-”
“I’m Poe.”
Rey blinked. “Uh. What?”
The guy smiled even brighter, if that were possible. “I’m Poe. Poe Dameron. And you are?”
“Rey,” she said slowly, wondering what his angle was. “Rey Kenobi.”
Poe blinked. Twice. Something flickered in his eyes, and he cleared his throat. “Well, Rey Kenobi, it’s, uh, nice to meet you.” He waved his hand up and down, moving the box and Rey’s hand with it.
“Likewise,” Rey said, wary to the last.
“See, I was going to bring this present to my buddy because I’ve been deployed overseas for a while, and we’re supposed to go see the movie together when it comes out, with him and his sister, so it’s… uh, I know it means a lot to him.”
She felt oddly emotional then, her throat closing up on itself here in the middle of a stupid toy aisle. “He’s my brother,” Rey said weakly, her grip relaxing only slightly on the box before she tightened it again and shook her head. “When we had nothing, we had each other, and - and he’s not my blood, but he’s the closest thing I have to family who’s still alive.”
“Right.” Poe gently pushed the box towards her and nodded. “You take it.”
“Uhm.” She felt wrong-footed now, and Poe’s smile wasn’t any less kind than it was before. “No, wait, maybe they have more in backstock.”
“Nah.” Poe shook his head. “I asked up front and they said if it was out on the shelf, it’d be all they had.”
“Oh.” She didn’t want to give it over to him, but now she felt like kind of a jerk. Not enough to give it over, but still. “I - thank you. Really. Thank you.”
“Like you said.” Poe stuck his hands into the pockets of his very nice, well-fitting leather jacket (that went so well with his scruff and his salt and pepper hair that looked like it’d be curly when he grew it out, and oh gosh, he was doing those jeans a favor). “You had it first.”
“I-”
“Merry Christmas, Rey Kenobi.” Poe winked at her, not in a creepy way, but a charming one (definitely a first). “I’ll be seeing you around, hopefully.”
“But-” He was already walking away, and skipped over an abandoned Tonka Truck at the end of the aisle.
Rey shook herself and speed-walked to the front of the store, hoping to bump into Poe Dameron again, but of course her luck wasn’t that good.
She paid for her Vader and hopped back in her car, and the entire drive home, she glowered at the road.
“This is your fault,” she said, jabbing her finger at the Darth Vader as she turned onto her street. “I meet a handsome, nice, funny, normal guy, and I almost kill him over a figurine!”
Vader stared at her impassively from the passenger seat.
“Yeah, yeah,” Rey grumbled, putting the car in park and kicking her door open.
“ Have a holly jolly Christmas! ” floated on the air from some indiscernible place, and Rey half-snarled as she grabbed Finn’s present.
“Where is that even coming from?” She snapped to no one at all, the box tucked under her arm.
“ Khooooor puuuuuuuuhhhhh,” Vader intoned.
“Peanut!” Finn took the nicely wrapped (she watched six YouTube tutorials) present from her and held it aloft, beaming happily as he swooped in to kiss her on the cheek. “You look fantastic!”
“So do you.” Rey patted his dark blue, crushed velvet suit jacket admiringly. “Wow!”
“We clean up pretty good, don’t we?” Finn wrapped an arm around her waist and began to lead her through the party. “There’s someone you gotta meet - but, what did you get me?”
“You’ll have to wait for the present-opening portion of the night, Finn.” Rey rolled her eyes fondly. “But I did almost kill a man to get you that.”
“That’s so weird.” Finn laughed.
“What is?”
“Someone was just telling me they almost got murdered getting me the gift they wanted to get me, so they had to go for ‘second best.’”
“Oh?” Rey’s stomach churned queasily.
“Yeah, it’s the guy I wanted to introduce you to.” Finn pointed to a man who had his back to them.
A man wearing a very nice, well-fitting leather jacket, who was doing his jeans a favor.
“Finn, I don’t think-” Rey began, her face already burning in mortification.
“Poe!” Finn jumped forward and tapped Poe on the shoulder. “I want you to meet Rey, mate.”
Poe turned around, a half-smile on his face already - sheepish, but still charming as he’d been that afternoon.
“Rey, this is Poe, Poe this is-”
“I know.” Poe held his hand out. Rey took it, mildly robotic in her embarrassment. “Rey Kenobi.”
“Right,” Finn said, eyeing the way they were looking at each other, and then he looked down at their clasped hands, with a small smirk of elation. “Well, I’ll leave you two to it, I think Rosie’s calling me over here-”
And he disappeared, leaving Rey to confront her biggest regret of the week, if not month. Or year.
“I’m -” Rey knew her face was redder than the dress she was wearing. “I’m so sorry, still, I’ve been feeling bad about it all day-”
“Nah.” Poe shrugged and smiled softly at her. She swore his cheeks were pink, too. “I … sorta figured out who you were when you said your name. Finn talked about you all the time.”
“Really?” Rey fidgeted with the hem of her dress, feeling self-conscious. “Horrible things, I’m sure. You were probably unsurprised when I nearly took you out over a Darth Vader toy.”
“He didn’t say horrible things at all,” Poe said. “Quite the opposite. Said you were an incredible friend. Great sister. Best person he’d ever known.”
“Well, Finn … Finn makes it easy to be good,” Rey mumbled, her face heating up even more. “I adore him, really.”
“That makes two of us.” Poe gestured to the table behind her. “Can I get you some eggnog? Cider?”
“Cider would be great, actually, yeah.” Rey tucked some hair behind her ear, and Poe nodded, heading off to the refreshments, and she watched him go over her shoulder, feeling shy but happy, like the start of something very important was stretching out before her.
Poe came back with two cups, and handed her one with a smile and a small bow. “I got you your own,” he said in a teasing voice, his eyes crinkling slightly as he smiled. “So we wouldn’t have to arm wrestle over it or anything.”
“Ha, ha.” Rey couldn’t deny her amusement though, so she took a sip of her cider and hid her smile behind her cup.
They ended up at the couch, sitting and trading stories as the party continued around them; an hour later, Rey looked up, a little dazed, her cheeks hurting from smiling, and saw Finn smirking at her from the corner, where he was surrounded by his friends.
He shot her a thumbs up, and she returned it when Poe was leaning forward to grab his cup of cider.
“Merry Christmas,” Finn mouthed at her, and she snorted and nodded at him.
“Merry Christmas," she mouthed back.
Poe sat back up and dragged his hand through his hair. "So where were we?"