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The first time that Rey had a bath she thought that it was perhaps the best feeling that the entire galaxy had to offer. She submerged her head in the steaming water, and felt dirt leave her face that she didn’t know had been there in the first place. She had been left a bottle of soap that smelled strongly of sweet flowers and clean air, although Rey wouldn’t have known it. She put it through her hair and rubbed it all over her body and when she emerged from the lukewarm water some time later, Rey felt reborn. She would have been happy, if not for one thing.
Rey went back to the medical ward, to resume her station by Finn’s side. Her friend had been comatose for over a week now. His skin, once so vibrant, was now pallid. The doctors said that the swelling in his brain had gone down, and that the electrical impulses had reached near normal levels; he could wake up at anytime, they said. And yet… Rey took his hand, squeezed it, and let it go. She willed him to wake up, day after day, but he only laid there. The only thing indicating that he lived was the slight rise and fall of his chest. Sometimes, Rey paced around his room and brooded. For all her newfound power, she could do nothing to help him. Nothing! She cursed and kicked at a table; a passing nurse glared at her. Every day, she left him, a slight brush of her fingers on his forehead her goodbye and her promise to return.
She threw herself into training with the ferocity of someone who had everything to lose. Rey swung her staff at the resistance soldiers, teeth bared. Before, on Jakku, Rey fought only for herself. She fought for her food, her water, her survival. Now, Rey had friends, people to protect, people she felt a duty to keep close. She thought of Finn, lying in that bed with his palms turned up to the ceiling, and charged forward with a yell, staff held high. When she was fighting, nothing else existed; there was only her staff and her opponent. During her lonely years in the desert, at night when it was too dark to scavenge, she would practice with her staff in the cool night air. Beneath an audience of watchful stars, Rey sparred with ghosts and shadows. She danced across the sand, beating back the darkness until the sun crept over the horizon and banished it. Rey still fought the ghosts, although they were a different kind, now. On Jakku, they whispered threats of starvation in her ear. They whispered about a lonely death, her sun-crisped body buried in the sand where no one would ever find her, if anyone even bothered to look in the first place.
Here at the Resistance base, at least one of the ghosts looked like Finn. He also whispered about death, but of his own, not Rey’s. The thought of losing her first and only friend was almost enough to drive Rey to train day and night, save for the times that she spent sleeping and at Finn’s bedside. When she looked at Finn, she knew that he was fighting every bit as hard as she was. Sometimes his eyes would twitch beneath their lids and she wondered what kind of nightmare he was seeing. She hoped that he wouldn’t remember them when he woke up. The base often swarmed with people. Rey had never seen so many in one place before. If the ghosts were quiet, Rey would find a shady corner and watch them. Mostly, it was business: serious conversations between X-wing pilots, a brief exchange of papers between lieutenants. Sometimes there were lingering embraces between friends and maybe lovers, brushes of hands, a comforting hand on someone else’s shoulder. Rey watched them all, then when she went back to see Finn, she would tell him all about it, because she knew that he was probably just as poor at human interaction as she was.
“People hug when they’re happy and sad, did you know? It can mean joy or commiseration. But I’ve also seen some people shake hands…” Rey told Finn, finishing up her people watching report for the day. “Or maybe they were holding hands. I’ll have to watch more carefully.”
Finn, of course, said nothing in return. Rey went silent and watched his face. She twined her fingers in his and rested her forehead on her arm. The next thing she knew, a nurse was prodding her awake. Rey jumped up, alert. The nurse held up a hand and pointed.
“I thought you would want to be awake to see this,” she said.
Finn blinked slowly. His eyes were open, at last. Rey cried out in joy and touched his arm.
“Finn!” He continued blinking slowly, but turned his head slightly to look at her.
“Rey…” She smiled at him, holding back tears. “Where am I?”
“Home,” Rey said, as she gently touched his forehead. “You’re home.”