Work Text:
After the end, after the war, after her own death, and coming back to life, Rey is—she feels—
Fine.
She feels weightless, maybe a little bit numb and a little too sensitive to the galaxy around her, all at once, and sometimes she feels a rusted piece of metal or a harsh chunk of tree bark brush against her exposed skin, scratching her, and she flinches in surprise, because it does surprise still, sometimes, to feel things. To feel alive. She hasn’t told this to Finn or Poe or Rose or even BB-8, who still dutifully follows Poe’s orders to stay by her side, diligent and watchful and a little overbearing, but in a way that Rey revels in, because she always feels more alive in these moments as she soothes his fretting and frantic beeps than she has since the dust has settled from the fall of the Final Order.
But she’s fine. She tells herself this, repeats it in her head, pleading to the stars and to the Force that it’s true.
Because she knows it’s not. Not entirely. Maybe not enough that she feels like she’s falling apart at the seams, but enough that she feels restless, nervous, anxious.
“Whoa—”
Rey blinks, whirling around, hand up and her heart lodged in her throat as she blinks once, twice, three times, because it takes her a second longer than it should to see Poe and his silhouette through the dark. His arms are thrown up as if in surrender, his eyes wide and his lips still parted from the curse he’d muttered quickly under his breath, which makes sense considering Rey had been seconds away from hurling a wrench at his head – the same wrench that floats only an inch away from the bridge of his nose, and stars, thank the stars she’d caught it just as quickly as she must’ve thrown it. “Poe,” she breathes, voice shaky and slightly panicked as the Force snaps harshly from her fingertips and the wrench falls to the ground. Poe blinks at it, eyebrows furrowed, and Rey forgets to breathe until BB-8 beeps worriedly, snapping her from her daze.
The droid bumps her calf a few times, whirring, head swiveling to Poe as BB-8 asks what’s wrong and why Rey had been startled at all when she was good at sensing everything, and Rey doesn’t hear the words so much, just the patient, soothing tone of Poe’s voice as he crosses the distance with ease. He approaches her without hesitation, that easy smile on his lips, not at all concerned that she had nearly given him a concussion, and he reaches for her hand as if she hadn’t almost Force-flung a wrench right at his head.
“You know, there’ve been a few times these last few months where I thought you wanted to chuck something at me,” he says, voice light, thumb brushing soothingly over her knuckles, and despite herself, despite the slivers of adrenaline still coursing through her from her panic of nearly attacking him, she cracks a smile and manages a little bit of a laugh, too. “But I figured it was because I was arguing with you. Now I’m thinking you just don’t like my face,” he jokes, waving a hand at where the wrench almost hit him.
She shakes her head, smiling, small and quivering, but smiling nonetheless. “I like your face just fine.”
He makes a face as if considering her words, and then there’s that almost boyish smile again. “Not quite the stroke to my ego that I was fishing for, but I’ll take it.”
She laughs again, a little longer and a little louder this time, and she feels the pressure in her chest and the hum of anxiousness radiating across her skin begin to dissolve. “Did I…” She reaches forward on an impulse, brushing her thumb over the bridge of his nose, even though she can see it for herself that he’s fine, that she hadn’t actually hit him, but he smiles sweetly at her, patiently, always so patient – except maybe not always, if the way they have a tendency to scare creatures from the woods with their escalating arguments is anything to consider. She thinks maybe she should feel embarrassed, touching him like this, with her fingers shaking, but Poe has never made her feel anything other than comfortable. Even when they didn’t quite know each other, and even later, when they sometimes seemed to share the same mind and also when they stalked across the base, following each other, neither of them willing to concede whatever they’d been arguing about, Poe has never once made her feel anything other than—
Other than whole.
She pulls her hand away, letting it drop, but he catches it with ease, holding both of her hands in both of his, and she tips her head to watch as his thumbs slide back and forth over the backs of her hands, soothing and comforting and – and different, and intimate.
“You’re holding my hands,” she says, looking at him, feeling even more tension ease from her body the more he holds her, touches her.
He smiles. “I am.”
“You hate it when Finn wants to hold hands with us,” she reminds, as if he needs the reminder, as if the last few months hasn’t been spent with the three of them huddled together in some corner of the base, laughing, talking, with Finn holding onto them as if he’s convinced that’s all he needs to do to keep them safe and close.
She half expects Poe to tease or to joke, to say something witty and charming and likely playfully exasperated. But something flickers in his stare, his expression shifting, just slightly, and even if she wasn’t gazing right into his eyes, she would’ve felt the shift in his body, in his thoughts. He feels vulnerable, perhaps the most vulnerable she’s ever felt him be, and she can tell that something is making him uneasy, something is making him hesitate, and she draws closer, wanting to help him like he’s always helped her.
“Maybe I need to be a little more like Finn so you feel like you can share things with me, too.”
Rey knows he isn’t being malicious, that he isn’t being petty or mean, because she can feel it, she can feel that he’s simply being open and honest, and she—
She feels the emotion flood through her, pouring over her, drowning her in it. In her own emotions and in his, too, and she feels alive, she feels so alive, and she lets out a strangled sort of sound as she throws her arms around him and tucks her face into his neck and holds onto him tight, terrified to lose this, terrified to feel numb again.
Poe wraps his arms around her, sliding one hand up her spine, his palm pressing between her shoulder blades, trying to bring her closer, as close as physically possible.
“I died,” she whispers into his neck, voice breaking, and she’s almost trembling with all the emotions pulsing through her as she finally, finally says those words out loud.
“I know.” His voice breaks, too, but he still sounds sturdy and strong and steady and she latches on even tighter. Vaguely, she’s aware of BB-8 chirping in worry, and she knows they should reassure him, she knows one of them should intervene before he starts calculating the worst, but she can’t bring herself to move, to breathe.
“My – my—” She can’t bring herself to say that word, to refer to that horrible man as her family, but she needs to, she wants to tell Poe. “He’s—I’m—”
“You’re you,” Poe says quickly, quietly, fiercely. “You’re always going to be you, Rey, always.”
She shakes her head, just a little, because she can’t quite move with the way Poe is keeping her tucked in his arms. “It changed me, Poe.”
“No. No. No, sunshine, look at me,” Poe whispers, and she feels her head being gently guided back, just enough for her to meet Poe’s stare, and it’s so intense and so intimate that a shiver rolls down her spine, and he moves one of his hands to her face, cupping it, cradling it as he brushes his thumb over the corner of her eye, catching a tear there. “We’ve all changed, Rey. War does that. War takes and it breaks, even now, even when it’s been buried, and maybe you have changed, but it’s not because of that.” His eyes are burning, burning, and she leans closer, craving that warmth, needing that spark. “But everything that matters, every part of you that matters? Nothing could change that.”
She wants to shake her head, but he brushes his thumb over the line of her jaw, across the apple of her cheek, rubbing at her bottom lip, and she wavers.
“Before I found out, there’d been—visions,” she admits, her voice barely above a whisper. It’s hard to talk about this, even now, but she wants to say this. She wants to say this to him. “And I’d had this – this feeling, and it terrified me. I was scared of myself, of what I might become, and I know, I know it sounds like I’m making up an excuse—”
“Sunshine,” he shushes her gently, running his thumb across her lips again, offering her that easy, easy smile of his, even as his eyes are brimming, her every emotion reflecting in his gaze as he holds her stare. “I was mad, okay? I was mad about being left out, because I felt helpless, felt like I couldn’t fight with you if I didn’t know what was going on in the first place. But never, not once,” he says, shaking his head fiercely, eyes earnest, almost pleading, “did I want to make you feel bad about it. Okay?”
She exhales a shaky breath, relief unfurling in her stomach as she nods. “Okay.”
“Okay,” he echoes, licking his lips, nodding to himself. “Okay, so don’t – I mean, if it’s what you need, then you can make excuses. Tell me every excuse in the book. Apologize to me, or I can apologize to you, but, you and me? We’re good.” He cups her jaw again and she feels her lips twitch into a smile. “We’re always good, sunshine.”
She believes him. She does, of course she does, but she wants to tell him, anyway, not just for him, but for herself, too.
“I didn’t want to drag anyone else down with how dark I felt. Some moments, Poe? I felt overwhelmed by it. Some moments, I felt like that pull to the Dark was there.” She cracks a small, small smile, shrugging one shoulder. “Leia found out because she’s Leia, and if you hadn’t been busy trying to be a second general so Leia could stay rested, you would’ve noticed it on your own, just like Finn did. I asked him not to worry you with it, because there was nothing any of us could do to make me feel better. I just—”
“Had to deal with it, even if meant being alone?” He gives her a small, boyish sort of grin. “I noticed a little bit, Rey. That’s why I asked BB not to leave your side.”
The droid chirps in affirmation, then beeps, surprised at the tears on Rey’s face, and Rey reaches down to touch his antenna in a reassuring gesture. “I’m fine, B. Really.”
BB-8 swivels to look at Poe, giving a questioning whir, and Poe chuckles softly. “Yeah, buddy. Rey does look a lot better now, doesn’t she?”
Rey laughs softly, breathily, as BB-8 nudges her and Poe with a happy, relieved chirp in agreement, and Poe reaches up, strokes his hand over her hair, smiling when she turns to meet his gaze. “I do, you know,” she tells him, warmth fluttering in her chest, her pulse racing, and it feels good, so good to feel this alive again. To feel this whole.
“You do, what?” he asks, smiling as if he already knows her answer, her thoughts, her heart, and she’s almost certain that he does.
“I feel better. A lot better. After dying,” she trips over that word, but it doesn’t make her stomach drop, doesn’t make everything feel cold the way it had before Poe, “I wasn’t sure if I could ever feel like this again, but I do. I feel alive.”
“Because you are alive, sunshine,” he tells her, pulling her closer, closer. “Sometimes I think that you are life itself.”
Rey smiles, her heart pounding against her ribcage, wild and giddy, the way she’s always felt when she’s flying, and, when she thinks back on it, it’s the way she’s felt around Poe, and she doesn’t need the Force to tell her that this won’t ever change.