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She'd always felt alone and in that loneliness, she'd assumed that made her no one. There had never been any other sense of belonging except for the vestiges of home she'd made from the bonds of denial. Each portion of that denial was marked with a little white line on the interior of her scrap metal sleeping quarters. Where one saw scrap metal, another saw a relic of war, and while one saw war, she saw the closest thing she'd ever had to home.
But there'd always been a sense of purpose saddled with that loneliness. She believed it was the sureness that her parents would return, despite not remembering enough to give any merit to that belief. Still, she clung to it when the days were blistering and the nights got cold. When no one came, she did not let it harden her, because regardless of the gnawing desolation that crept up on her, she instead pushed through with the iron will of someone that was meant to belong somewhere... To someone. She just had to earn it.
In her death, Rey did not feel alone nor did she feel the blackness that she saw on the island. A white light encapsulated her with quiet warmth that flooded through her senses. She could taste the happiness of those that came before her, smell the sweet fragrance of victory, feel the sparks of alignment with the force, hear the calm fluidity of passing breaths, and see the grandeur of belonging in those that welcomed her. They stood next to each other- the only one who she knew was Luke Skywalker, but each still felt like family with mirth in their eyes at seeing her.
It was Luke who spoke and while she could not hear the words, she could read his lips, "Not yet."
And before she could decipher what that meant, she more or less saw the air rush into her lungs before she actually felt it. Gone were the smiling faces and the sense of fluidity. Where there was once light, there was Ben.
In a sense, thanks to the efforts of a mother's love and his own nagging perseverance, he was a rekindled light. A flood of emotions overcame her before she could stop them- alleviation, humility, euphoria, pride, gratitude- and could not settle on what to say, but just that she needed to share them. And who better than the person that saved her life?
In an act of sheer relief, she kissed him, because they'd done it. It was a kiss of pure celebration for the perseverance of light, a mother's love, and a rebellion's resolve. A smile tugged on their lips during the whole duration, giddy in the war they'd just won- both internally and externally. The air was still and their surroundings still cold and infused with a darkness that lingered in the air, but they deliberately ignored that.
It was also a kiss for goodbyes, one of which, she did not realize, would be the person who saved her life.
Despite the tragedy that lie in the conundrum that was Ben Solo's life and ultimate sacrifice, she could not bring herself to feel sad. With the sense that Leia had also disappeared into the force alongside him, she knew he was still not alone in death. She was unsure if she could say the same for herself.
Where fear once took residence, only was there longing. Longing to be home.
Upon her return to base, she took a moment and released a heavy sigh. She did not realize how terribly she needed to see Finn and Poe until she spotted them through an array of celebratory embraces. Time seemed to stop as she met Finn's eyes and he smiled at her through tears of his own and without thinking, she was moving towards them in tandem. Before she could stop them the tears were already there and both men had her enveloped in a hug that felt closer to home than any scrap of metal ever had.
"I told him you'd make it back in one piece." Out of the three of them, this had been Poe's fight the longest and had been inherited from his parents. Her heart sang at the thought of none of that being in vain. He squeezed her hand before disentangling himself from the hug. He clamped Finn on the back and smiled through tear-stained eyes before joining Zorii and Connix, who'd managed to find a bottle of champagne somewhere in reserves.
She was relieved to relish in the truth that they’d all made it with her dearest friend. He tightened his hold on her, but it didn’t hurt. Bred to be a killer for a collective evil as he may be, Finn had the touch of a gentle poet. She didn’t know how he did it, but he had this way of easing her nerves without truly being able to understand them.
There was a flutter in her stomach- not entirely foreign by nature but startling her from their bubble all the same. He needed to hear her assurance as much as feel it.
Rey, in spite of herself, still did not have the words to describe what had happened to her. She knew she'd eventually tell them everything in a tumble of excitement or nerves from the fight to Ben's redemption to the voices of the Jedi to Ben's sacrifice. She wanted them to know not only because they deserved the truth, but because it was just as much their story as it was hers or Ben's.
Luckily, Finn spoke instead. "Is Ren dead?"
She pulled back to look at him through glassy eyes. "In more ways than one."
He tilted his head curiously, unsure of how to respond to that, though she knew he ultimately understood what she was alluding to. "And Palpatine?"
"Dead... In just the literal way."
He breathed out a shaky laugh that she returned.
She felt her heart clench. Nerves. It had to begin somewhere. "His bloodline, however... Lives on."
He furrowed his brow intently before raising them in realization. "You don’t mean... You're...?"
She winced as she let go of him and averted her gaze to their muddy shoes. She could bear many judgements, but she was not sure if she could handle Finn’s. Two firm hands gripped her shoulders and steadied her.
"If we found out tomorrow that my birth family was actually a bunch of crimelords that specialized in something unfathomable like trafficking children, would you look at me any differently?"
She frowned, "Of course not!"
"Then why should I think of you as anything other than the same caring, loyal, bad-freaking-ass Jedi who chased me down with a stick?"
The bubble of hot emotion popped in her throat and she laughed, "Because I have evolved to lightsabers, thank you."
"So, if I were to go through your quarters I wouldn't find your big staff?"
She rolled her eyes. "You wouldn't dare."
"You're right. You're stronger with the force than me."
Rey immediately snapped out of her reverie and took a moment to drink in just what he was hinting at. His composure had flipped somewhere in the midst of their banter to something akin to nervousness.
"At first, I thought it was just intuition, you know?" He shrugged, "But there are just some things that have to be more than luck, right? Like... I knew in my heart that you were alive before you actually came back here. You weren't for a second there, though... Were you?"
Off her expression, he continued. "And I felt that too. That's what I've been trying to tell you all along. I want to help you... Build up the Jedi and preserve everything Luke and Leia started. If you'll teach me."
And as he extended his hand out to her, she did not hesitate in taking it. He squeezed it in return with abundant kindness in his eyes that overwhelmed her. With her hand in his, it felt like the force itself was singing over the rightness of it all.
“We’ll learn together.” She said softly.
He gently raised her hand to his lips to place a soft kiss on her battered knuckles before splaying her hand carefully over his heart.
“Together.” He agreed.
She smiled at him through freshly stained tears. He was never meant to make it through the prologue of a story and she was never meant to even make it to the book at all. In some tales, they’d be nothing more than background collateral, but here they were, standing in the wake of the battle- bound not by blood or creed or force… But by something larger than that. Choice.
She’s never been alone. And she never would be.
“We ought to get you a lightsaber then.” She said.