Work Text:
“The damn galaxy pulls this on me every time. Go looking for a ship, come back with a passenger, whether you like it or not.”
Rey didn’t mind the grumbling of her new boss so much. She was relieved as anything that she had convinced him to keep her around. Years on Jakku, alone and unloved, she had been waiting for her salvation, for her family to come back and claim her. It never once occurred to her that she was longing for the wrong people. Maybe these were the right ones. Han Solo and Chewbacca. Smugglers, resistance fighters, just as lonely and lost as she was, by the seem of things. If anyone could understand her plight, it ought to be them.
“Come on if you’re coming!” Han called to her, muttering some more right after that she didn’t catch.
“Yes, sir,” she replied, hurrying to catch up. “I’m sorry, sir.”
“Sir?” He rounded on her, making a face. “How about we just go with Han, okay, kid? Never was much for formalities, not even when I was hanging around with a princess.” He almost smiled when he said it, though the expression was gone as fast as it came.
“Okay, Han,” said Rey with purpose. “I’m sorry.”
“And don’t keep on apologising. That kind of thing gets real old, real fast. Just get up here to the bridge and let’s see if you’re as smart as you think you are.”
From up ahead, she heard Chewbacca speak in his own language. “Nobody could be,” he insisted.
Rey smiled, knowing he was wrong. She had a gift, she supposed, a natural talent. There was no other way to explain how good she was with ships, since she had little in the way of training or instruction. Some she had gleaned from watching others, most she just seemed to know without being sure herself how it happened.
When she climbed aboard the Millennium Falcon just yesterday, she hadn’t known its name. All she knew was it belonged to Unkar Plutt and that he didn’t deserve half of what he had. She was sure she could get it to fly, and then, she could escape from the place that had held her too long. Perhaps go looking for the mother and father who set her down on Jakku in the first place, since they didn’t seem too quick in coming back for her.
Just when she was sure she had made the necessary alterations to the workings of the ship, it had ben unexpectedly boarded. In a hail of blaster fire, the former owners had come across Rey and were in a hurry to throw her out before they took their ship and disappeared. Thankfully, she could talk her way into and out of things almost as well as she could mend and fly ships.
“I’d be useful, I swear,” she ended up telling them, listing off the ways just as fast and as loud as she could, chasing Han around the corridors, while the attack continued from outside the ship.
When he finally stopped to look at her, he seemed ready to tell her no, until their eyes met and he really thought about it. What he saw in her, Rey couldn’t say, but she knew very well what she saw in him. He was a father, she was certain of it, though she had little experience of such men herself. A father couldn’t abandon a young person desperate to find their place. Especially not when they knew how much it hurt to be in that position themselves.
“You got a name, kid?”
“Rey.”
“Rey, what?”
“I...”
“Doesn’t matter. You fly as well as you turn a wrench?”
“I think so.”
He opened his mouth to answer, changed his mind, turned around to shoot out through the door, then returned his attention to her, another crisis averted.
“Congratulations, you’re hired,” he told her fast. “Now, hold on to something while I get this boat in the air.”
She hadn’t listened, Rey never did. She wanted to help, to be of use, as she promised she would be. Han hadn’t known about the changes to the ship Unkar Plutt had made, but she did. Most had already been undone, but there were others, certain things that would need to be reprogrammed during the take-off sequence if they were to launch successfully.
While Chewbacca continued to stave off bad guys, Rey went with Han to the cockpit and played co-pilot. Though he seemed annoyed by her interference at first (not to mention the whole calling him sir thing) he soon started to look impressed at her skill and knowledge.
Not long after, they escaped their pursuers, broke atmo, and were flying out through the black, free as birds. Rey was in awe of her surroundings, of her escape, of her good fortune. She was sure she couldn’t have been happier, until she realised Han was staring at her with a very strange expression on his face.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he insisted, waving away her question with his hand. “I was just thinking.. You know, you remind me a little of somebody, of a couple of people, maybe. Scariest part is, one of them is me.”
The smile that overtook Rey’s face actually hurt her cheeks, but she couldn’t care. she reminded him of himself and one other. As big-headed as it might make her seem, she could only imagine, from the expression he wore and the way that he said it, that he meant Leia Organa.
It was quite the compliment for Rey and in more ways than Han could ever guess. To be compared to such heroes was amazing, but to think she could almost be mistaken for their daughter perhaps? The warmth that idea brought to her heart was almost enough to light her up from the inside out.
“What’s so funny?” Han asked her, mistaking her happiness for humour, apparently.
“Nothing,” she insisted, shaking her head, trying for a neutral expression and failing badly. “Just happy to be here.”
“You’re a strange kid.” Han shook his head, but there was a smile playing at his lips all the same.
Somehow, Rey just knew this situation was going to work out for her. She had found her place, at last.