Chapter Text
Prologue
“Good morning Rey!”
The voice cuts through her little bubble of inner reality, immediately snapping her back into reality. The real one, the actual one, the present reality, which was now forcing her to pull a wide smile and reply to the young man standing by the counter of the bookshop. He was presently smiling back at her brightly and trying to get her attention, perhaps kindly pulling her out of her daydreaming so that she could avoid embarrassment in realising that she was not exactly alone in the bookshop. This bookshop just happened to be where she worked. And the young man looking expectantly at her just happened to be her best friend and co-worker, Finn.
“Good morning Finn,” stammered Rey, blinking rapidly as she closed the glass door behind her and slipped off her coat. “The wind is just crazy today, in fact everyone seems crazy today…How was the weekend?”
She smirked as Finn’s sunny expression immediately dropped to that of disappointment. It was her turn to catch him in a moment of pure surprise now.
“I guess he said no?” implied Rey as she set her bag down on the counter.
“Not exactly,” mumbled Finn, his eyes darting to and fro, staring at anywhere but Rey. “I missed an opportunity, that’s all…”
“You didn’t even ask him?” replied Rey slowly, leaning her head down, trying to get Finn to look at her. She tried to not sound condescending, but this had been going on for a while, round and round in circles and if something didn’t happen soon, Rey was going to lose it and intervene herself, even though she felt that really that wasn’t something she should do.
Finn opened his mouth as if about to speak but at precisely the same moment the front door opened once more and their other co-worker walked in. His name was Poe Dameron, and Rey envied him for several reasons, one of which was that he was about to publish his first novel and would probably no longer be working at the bookshop. Secretly however, she had always envied him more for how he got his hair to look absolutely perfect every single day, no matter what the circumstances. Take today, for example. His hair was swept attractively to the left, but there was no hair treatment in sight so it looked completely natural. He was wearing his favourite leather jacket and looked like he had just come out of a photo shoot. Rey glanced outside. It was still windy as hell. She shook her head in disbelief. I give up, she thought.
“Hello Rey, good weekend?” asked Poe as he closed the door, shutting out the sound of the howling wind outside.
“Not bad,” said Rey nebulously while giving Finn a knowing look before walking past the counter to turn on the rest of the lights.
“Uh huh,” said Poe, but he was eyeing her back with suspicion. “You know you always say that when something is going on….”
“I have no idea what you mean,” said Rey, her back turned from her co-workers, while she busied herself with opening up a box that had just been sent in, full of newly published books.
Finn looked between Poe and Rey with a confused expression on his face. “Something’s going on?”
Poe nodded in return, pulling a Robert de Niro face as he leaned across the counter. “Something is indeed going on my friend, only time will tell if we shall ever find out what that something is.”
Finn smiled nervously, before leaning down, pretending to get something from under the counter but Poe simply smiled to himself before turning around and raising his voice in a teasing manner once more. “Come on now Rey, what is this all about!”
Rey sighed in annoyance before turning around to face her annoyingly perceptive friend. She couldn't hide anything from him, he was too good at reading people. She folded her arms before speaking through gritted teeth.
“Something happened this morning on my way here, it was really confusing” she started, her voice low and full of anger, but seeing Poe raise his eyebrows, she changed her attitude. “But not really, because it was nothing! Really, really nothing, it was meaningless, silly, insignificant….”
Her light filled voice trailed off upon seeing that Poe was still staring at her, utterly unconvinced.
“I’m just going to stand here until you tell me.”
She closed her eyes. Damn it.
“Ok,” she groaned before approaching Poe and Finn and leaning against the counter. “So,” she whispered, “it was all good this morning, normal, nothing out of the ordinary and then suddenly…”
And so she started to talk about that morning, and her encounter with the rudest and most peculiar man she had ever had the misfortune to meet. And take my word for it, she had had her fair share of those.