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You’ll turn.
I’ll help you.
I saw it.
She’d known -- seen it, through the Force -- that he would stand beside her at the end.
She’d been wrong about the rest.
The days on Tatooine are long.
She wears herself out each day for a month getting the sand out of the homestead.
Sometimes, Luke appears to say hello. Sometimes it’s Leia.
Once, a younger man with the tiredest eyes she’s seen since… Well. He doesn’t stay long, doesn’t even give his name.
“Just be patient, young one. You’re good at waiting, aren’t you?” He says with a smirk.
She nods, puzzled, and he’s gone again.
Waiting for what?
It takes another precious month to get the vaporators working.
She’s grateful for the credits she brought with her and the water and parts it can buy, but with the machinery fixed she can even harvest the mushrooms from them and it makes the days a little easier.
Easier, but longer.
You’re not alone
Neither are you
She wakes many nights shaking herself from the grip of her almost-memories, hopeful visions of what might have been.
In her dreams, he smiles often. That fragile memory gets her through another day, and then another.
Another month goes by, and the man from before appears again.
This time, she knows his name.
“You’re Anakin. You were a Jedi Knight,” she says.
He sighs. “You’d think after thirty years as part of the cosmic Force would earn me the rank of Master.”
She squints at him. “Does it matter?”
“...No, I suppose it doesn’t.” Anakin wanders around the lower area of the homestead, fingers a shade off from holocall-blue trailing alone the spine of a vaporator. "Why did you come here, of all places? It's so...sandy."
"I brought Luke and Leia's lightsabers home. And then I stayed."
"Leia's not from here," he counters. "Leia grew up on Alderaan."
"You're from here, from what the locals say -- that you were a slave child who became the Hero of the Republic."
He quirks an eyebrow, smirk pulling tight on one side of his mouth in a shape so familiar it makes her heart ache.
"I think we both know I did more than that."
She shrugs. "You made the right choice, at the end. That’s what counts.”
“I’m not the only one, you know.”
She draws a slow, deliberate breath, imagining for a second she can feel the hand pressed against her side willing her to life--
Anakin cocks his head to one side. “Is that why you’re hanging around here? Waiting for him?”
She can’t listen to this.
Can’t.
“I have work to do, Skywalker.”
“As you say, young one,” he says quietly. “I do hope you find what you’re looking for here.”
Another month.
Finn comes to the homestead once, to tell her that he and Lando are helping the former ‘troopers find their homes and families if they can.
She wishes him well, but says she cannot leave. Not yet.
“Are you going to spend the rest of your life waiting?”
“I’m pretty good at it. Go help your friends.”
He goes at last, and she tries to pretend she doesn’t see the worried expression lingering on his face.
I did want to take your hand
Ben’s hand
She’s nearing half a year on this dustbowl of a world and she’s starting to wonder why.
What was the point?
Everything she suffered, everything he suffered and then--
It isn’t fair.
The ground quakes beneath her feet.
She loses track of the days, after a while.
Anakin visits again, tired blue eyes endlessly sad.
“Have you given up?” he asks.
“On what?” she snarls. “A fantasy? A pointless hope? He’s gone. He’s not like you.”
“Pointless hope?” he parrots. “That’s contradictory.”
“You are insufferable. Can’t you torment someone else?” She stomps away from him.
“Mmm, probably. But you’re here and my--” he stops abruptly, artificial hand clenched into a tight fist by his side.
Rey gives him his space and returns to work on her “new” astromech.
After a while, he speaks again. “I only ever wanted to save everyone I loved. But I was too jealous and possessive and I lost them all.” He stares blearily over at her. “Ben is a better man than me.”
She hurls the spanner and wheels on him, but he’s already gone.
The year mark approaches and Anakin returns.
“I thought about it, and I think I’ve figured you out,” he says.
“Oh, do tell,” she replies, sardonic, never tearing her eyes from her saber.
The sand is inside her saber hilt and it feels like a personal attack.
“You’re not patient at all.”
“I don’t think I like you, Skywalker.”
“You’re stubborn.”
She finally looks up at him then, standing there in the tiny kitchen he’s too tall for with the most smug expression she’s seen in over a year. “Yeah. Definitely don’t like you.”
He shrugs, chuckling. “I get why he loves you so much.”
“What did you say?” She stands quickly, the chair tipping back and smacking the permacrete door. She advances on Anakin, feeling the rush of the Force at her fingertips for the first time since she came to this wretched place.
“Ben. He loves you, obviously.” He searches her face, confused. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No, never mind,” she deflates quickly, righting the chair and returning to her work.
“You don’t have to smother your feelings, you know. It doesn’t lead anywhere good.”
“You would know,” she counters, using a tiny air-pusher to blow the sand from the emitter vents.
“Ouch,” he laughs, then shrugs again. “But… I’ve been wondering something, stubborn Jedi girl.”
Rey lays the tool gently on the tabletop, then turns a sarcastic glance up at him. “And what would that be?”
“Why haven’t you just...sought him out?”
Her jaw clenches so tight her teeth may break.
Anakin winces. “Sorry. I’ll get out of your way.”
“Excellent idea,” she snarls into the empty kitchen.
She barely lasts into another day.
All that time spent waiting, stubbornly wondering why she was alone at the end of everything, all the foul dewback shit they’d endured on their own and together and she ended up in another Force-damned desert and all for nothing--
She sighs in disgust, settling her backside onto the sandy rock and relaxing into her meditation.
The Force is a fluid thing, she’s learned.
Dipping herself into it feels like being lifted and crushed by so much water.
But once she rights herself in its flow, it’s easy to ride the current.
The hard part -- the part she now realizes she’s been dreading -- is letting her thoughts of him float to the surface of her mind.
His hands were so gentle. Even after everything -- he was careful with his touch.
The hopeful lilt to his voice could bring a person to tears.
He was nearly unstoppable in a fight.
His smile had been a precious gift.
And his kiss--
Her concentration breaks and she tumbles back onto the rock, her grief finally breaking free in an anguished howl.
“I feel like you lied to me,” she snaps when Anakin appears again.
“Ah...what?” He stares at her, confused.
“You said if I reached for B… for him I’d see him like I see you here right now. You lied to me.”
He holds his hands out in front of him, placating, and replies, “I did not lie. I think you misunderstood me.”
“Stars, you are unbelievable,” she snaps. “Speak plainly or go.”
“You were right...” he trails off, staring toward the suns. “He’s not like me.”
She would strangle this man if she thought it would do any good. “What. The kriff. Does that MEAN?” she roars at him.
“He’s not gone.”
She gapes at him for countless seconds as things click into place. “I couldn’t reach him because he… He’s… Ben is alive?”
Anakin shrugs, that half smile on his face. “This planet… there’s so little life here. Try Naboo.”
“Naboo?” she repeats. “I’m not familiar with it.”
He laughs, though she’s not sure why. “Yeah. Naboo. Look for Varykino. I always liked it there… not a grain of sand on the entire world.”
Breaking atmo at Naboo feels… right. It feels like coming home.
There’s little security on this planet. They do not direct her toward a spaceport or shout demands for clearance codes, so she follows her instincts away from the capitol city of Theed.
She flies over lush swamps and mountains and valleys, but when she flies over the lake she feels a sudden wave of anxiety.
What if Anakin was wrong?
She sets her ship down in a shallow valley beside the lake, a meadow dotted with starflowers, and sets out on foot toward Varykino, the home on the waterfront.
The house is nothing short of palatial, from her point of view.
She drags her fingertips along ornate banisters, across softly textured walls.
So much history here. I see why Anakin sent me.
At the top of the stairs, a breeze blows in from the terrace and--
And--
And--
He’d found new clothes, somewhere. Dark brown pants and a fluttering tan shirt untucked at his waist. The parallel is not lost on her.
His elbows are braced against the stone railing as he stares out over the lakeside.
She takes one hesitant step toward the balcony. Then another, and another, and suddenly he’s close enough to touch if she can just work up the courage to reach out--
“I was starting to wonder if you’d forgotten about me,” he rumbles.
“No, never,” she whispers, for fear her voice would crack. “I couldn’t. Wouldn’t.”
She catches the hem of his shirt between two fingers, tugging gently, willing him to face her. She needs to see, to touch, to know.
He lets her turn him in place, her searching fingers trailing along every inch of him.
“I’m right here,” he says quietly.
“But you weren’t.”
“Mm. No, I guess I wasn’t.”
"How? I-- you..."
"I don't know." He presses a gentle kiss to her forehead. “But I’m here now. Is that… am I enough?”
She lets out a shaky exhale, traces the place where his scar had been. “More than I deserve.”
“No, Rey,” he counters, the softest smile shining in his eyes. “You deserve anything you want.”
“You, Ben. I just want you,” she whispers against his lips.