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I.
“So, your first option is Kare Kun, an old pal of mine,” Poe said, keying in the code for the first bunk. “We were New Republic pilots together, actually, before we joined the Resistance. We go way back.” He grinned over his shoulder at Rey as the door to Kare’s bunk slid open.
Rey looked up from fidgeting with the zipper on her jacket to grin back, butterflies flitting in her stomach at the familiarity in Poe’s face. He spoke about joining the Resistance so casually– like it was just a regular activity, on par with eating lunch or taking a shower. Just a natural step in his life.
Rey thought back to Jakku and the endless sameness of the desert, the sameness of the people tearing anything scavengable from the land, the sameness of the days, each one an identical chalk mark streaking white across the wall. Joining the Resistance was like slamming the wall down with a Star Destroyer.
The door slid open, and Poe peeked his head inside. “Kare? Hey, I’m just stopping by to show Rey the bunk, like we talked about?”
A voice called back, silvery and light, “Oh, of course! I’m excited to meet the Jedi girl.”
The hairs on the back of Rey’s neck stood up at the word “Jedi.” Is that me? Rey wondered to herself. I’m just a scavenger. But she followed Poe into Kare’s bunk with a knot of anticipation in her stomach. Scavengers live alone, she told herself, and I don’t have to do that any more.
“Kare Kun, this is Rey– uh,” Poe paused awkwardly over the space where he would say a last name, the realization suddenly hitting.
Rey made eye contact with him and smiled. “Just Rey,” she finished for him, holding out her hand to Kare. She was taller than Rey had pictured, and much older. Well– not older older, but she was closer to Poe’s age than she was to Rey’s. She was square-jawed and slightly sunburnt, with thick black hair pulled into a twisted ponytail at the side of her face.
“It’s a pleasure, Rey,” Kare said, with a lopsided smirk. She surveyed Rey with dark eyes, and for a moment Rey resisted the urge to zip her jacket tighter, hold her arms closer, hide herself more. But then Kare dropped her hand and turned to nudge Poe with her elbow.
“Well, she’s certainly got a stronger grip than Iolo, I’ll give her that. And better looking, too.” Her eyes darted back to Rey, and both she and Poe broke down into snickers.
Rey looked between the both of them with a half-smile and pretended to chuckle, but searched Poe’s face for an explanation.
Poe caught Rey’s look. “Ah, Iolo was part of our squadron, back–” he suppressed another giggle and exchanged a glance with Kare. “He’s– well, he’s a character, so, don’t worry, Kare’s only saying nice things about you. But, anyway, you should look around the room. That’s why we’re even harassing Kare in the first place.”
“Aw, it’s not harassment when you’re here, Poe,” Kare said, and they both snickered again.
Rey drew her attention to Kare’s room. One half of the room was empty but for a bed and a small dresser. Altogether, it was a smaller space than Rey’s home on Jakku in her AT-AT, but there was something about the closeness of the walls that she liked. And if she could decorate it, make it feel a little more like home… She thought back to her little dying flower and the pieces of Rebel Alliance pilot uniforms she displayed in her AT-AT before realizing with a pang that those possessions weren’t even hers any more, anyway. Jakku was light years away, and besides, as soon as she was noticeably gone, her home had probably been raided of anything remotely valuable. Some little desert creature could have even made it’s new home there– or worse, someone could have dismantled it for parts. Rey never wanted to go back to living alone in that AT-AT ever again, but the thought of her home being sold for scrap made her heart sink low in her chest.
“Kare! You still listen to this crap?” Poe exclaimed. Rey turned back to Kare and Poe, who was examining a large poster Kare had tacked up behind her bed of three Twi’leks in spiky clothes, in the process of smashing their instruments.
Kare put her hands on her hips. “Jozzisa and the X-wings is a classic band, and better than that neo-pop garbage you blast in your spaceship.”
Kare had several other posters around her side of the room featuring bands of a similar calibre. Rey didn’t recognize any of them, but why should she? Her only references for music were the old recordings that she scavenged and the house band at Maz Kanata’s castle.
“Come on, Rey, back me up here,” Kare said.
Poe shook his head. “Rey has a lot better taste than you, trust me. You still watch reruns of Empire-sanctioned holodramas.”
“Just because they were mass produced by a fascist empire as a form of controlled entertainment doesn’t mean that they were bad entertainment!” Kare looked back at Rey again for approval, and Rey gave a quick nod, having no idea what she was agreeing to.
“See!” Kare said, and Poe sighed. They bickered like siblings, Rey thought. On Kare’s dresser was a wrinkled picture of both pilots, much younger, arms draped around each other and grinning widely at the camera. Rey gave a small smile back to the picture, imagining for a moment the day it was taken and what kind of teasing they must have given each other then. Rey couldn’t even make up things for them to tease each other about– she didn’t even know what they were talking about now. It must have been fun, for the two of them, to have their big Resistance adventure together.
She wondered if Finn was allowed to listen to music or watch First Order-sanctioned holodramas while he was a stormtrooper, or if he was as disconnected as Rey felt. Not that she could ask him, what with him still in a medically-induced coma. Maybe she’d ask him anyway.
“What did you think of Kare’s bunk?” Poe asked, after they had said their goodbyes to the pilot.
Rey shrugged. “She’s very friendly. You two have known each other for a while.”
“Yeah, well, that’s Kare. What about the room? Could you see yourself living there?” Poe asked, watching Rey with eager eyes.
Rey tried to imagine living with Kare, a seasoned Resistance member with her flashy posters, next to Rey’s empty side of the room. “I feel like we’re too different,” Rey said, “I don’t know if she’d like living with me. I wouldn’t be able to keep up with her.”
Poe frowned. “Well, Kare has been with the Resistance as long as I have. Maybe we could find you someone closer to your age. There’s a junior officer who’s been waiting for a new bunkmate– maybe she’d be more your speed.”
II.
“Rey, this is Lieutenant Kaydel Ko Connix. Kaydel, this is Rey,” Poe said. “She’s looking to possibly fill your empty bunk.”
“You want to live with me?” Kaydel said, eyes widening as she hesitantly reached out to take Rey’s hand. Her hand hovered almost close enough to shake Rey’s hand, but she twitched her fingers away, looking at Rey’s hand, and then at Rey, and then back at their hands before finally braving the handshake. “But you’re a hero!” Kaydel said as she shook Rey’s hand.
Kaydel could not be that far from Rey in age, but the way the girl looked at Rey made her feel like she was years older than the Lieutenant. Rey kept her eyes focused on their handshake, blistering under that awe-stricken gleam in Kaydel’s brown eyes.
“A hero’s gotta sleep,” Poe said, before Rey could embarrassedly dismiss Kaydel’s comment.
“But roommates are more than just people who sleep in the same room together,” Kaydel said, not even breaking her gaze away from Rey for a second. “They’re… They’re… Well, Pammich and I are best friends because we lived together, and just because she got relocated to the east dormitories doesn’t mean we don’t at least holo each other every day. Roommates change lives.” She caught Rey’s eyes when she said that, Kaydel’s eyes shining in a way that reminded Rey of how Poe looked when he was talking to General Organa.
Rey tried to smile, but quickly averted her eyes to the wall behind Kaydel. The young lieutenant decorated her regulation dresser with delicate baubles and necklaces, and small barrettes as dainty as leaves. Rey could imagine living here with Kaydel, sitting carefully still while Kaydel styled Rey’s hair with the glittering barrettes. Kaydel would be so pleased, Rey was sure– who wouldn’t be excited to style the hair of a Jedi, of a hero? What kind of hairstyles did Jedi heroes even wear, anyway?
Behind the dresser decorations was a large drawing of a hard-bitten young women, in the forward action of firing a blaster while her long, white dress flowed around her. Her hair was styled into two, large buns on the side of her head, not unlike how the Lieutenant styled her own hair.
“Who is she?” Rey asked, pointing to the picture, “She seems familiar.”
“It’s Princess Leia Organa!” Kaydel exclaimed at the same time as Poe answered hastily, “That’s General Organa, during the Galactic Civil War.”
So that’s the kind of hairstyle Jedi heroes wore, Rey thought. Kaydel already looked the part more than Rey, with her thin, blonde hair tied up into two small buns at the top of her head.
“I can see that now,” Rey said, realizing that most people would have known the picture was the General instantly– the Galactic Civil War was where she won her fame. In fact, now that Rey was thinking about it, she had seen similar photos of the General in other places on the base, and several other girls besides Kaydel wore their hair up in a homage to her buns. What stories they must tell about the General… Rey thought. Surely, the true stories of the Galactic Civil War were more amazing than the ones Rey had made up about the war to kill time cleaning rusty, scavenged parts on Jakku.
She could still feel Kaydel’s eyes on her. The lieutenant wanted to say something, Rey could tell, but she was too nervous to speak. Rey turned to face Kaydel, trying to turn her apprehension into a smile. “Yes, Lieutenant?” she asked, and the girl flushed bright red.
“Oh… uh… please, call me Kaydel!” she squeaked out, and Rey was afraid for a moment that Kaydel had become too flustered to voice her actual thought, her hand clutching her cheek as she averted her eyes.
“Kaydel, of course. What kind of roommates call each other ‘Lieutenant’? That’s so formal,” Rey said, “Like you said before, roommates are friends. Not officers.”
Poe was smiling. Rey wondered if he thought she and Kaydel would make good roommates– he certainly knew both of them better than they knew each other.
Kaydel had managed to recover, but she was not quite able to meet eyes with Rey anymore. Rey didn’t mind– the pressure she felt from the awe-struck gaze was overwhelming. “Oh… it’s just... You’re so famous… I feel strange to even asking you to use my name… And you want to live with me, here with all my portraits of General Organa, but you’ve gone and worked with her, you know her! All your peers are heroes!”
Poe moved forward to put a hand on Kaydel’s shoulders. “Hold on a second Kaydel,” he said, “You’re just as much of a hero as Rey, or me. Anyone who works for the Resistance is a hero.”
“Poe is right, you know,” Rey said. This girl had willingly left her family behind to serve in a secret war– that felt like more bravery to Rey than anything she had done.
Kaydel was now covering her whole face with her hands. “But I’ve never fought Kylo Ren,” Kaydel exclaimed, somewhat muffled.
“It was just one silly lightsaber fight,” Rey said. “It doesn’t make me better than anyone else. We’re still peers, you and me. Just two normal girls.” Kaydel didn’t look up, and Rey didn’t blame her. She didn’t even believe her own words. Rey didn’t just feel older than Kaydel, she felt… separate.
She looked up at Poe, and the worried furrow of his brow kept her from even faking a smile. “Just two normal girls,” he echoed, patting Kaydel on the back.
III.
“I’m sorry about that,” Poe said, as the two of them walked down the last corridor of dorms, their footsteps providing an echoing beat as they talked. “I didn’t realize that if Kaydel was a big fan of General Organa, that meant she would also be a big fan of you. I just assumed that if you were similar ages, you’d be able to get along well…”
Rey didn’t know what to say to Poe. She just watched her boots shuffle along as they walked. He put so much effort into finding me a place to live so that I don’t have to be alone, Rey thought. He wasted a day trying to help a scavenger go against her nature.
“Maybe we could find me a single room? Or an abandoned X-Wing?” Rey said.
Poe laughed and patted Rey lightly on the back to steer her towards one last room. “I think we shouldn’t give up just yet– although BB-8 would be very excited to visit you if you lived in an X-wing,” he added.
Rey smiled, even though no one was looking.
Poe was keying in the code to the room. “This last girl, I think you’ll like her. She’s a pilot, just like you.”
Just like me? Rey thought, remembering her frantic first journey flying the Millennium Falcon off of Jakku. She could still feel her heart pounding, hear the scream of the TIE fighters as she and Finn pulled off feats of flight that Rey had only dreamed of.
The door opened, and Poe lead Rey inside, her heart racing in her ears possibly worse than when she stole the Falcon off of Jakku. Would anyone be able to look at Rey and see “roommate” instead of “that Jedi girl?” Rey tried to swallow her nerves and–
“Oh my gosh! Is that Dosmit Raeh?” Upon the regulation dresser in this room was a collection of beautiful dolls, including one of a fighter pilot in a familiar helmet with yellow markings. Rey ran up to the dresser to take a closer look, before remembering herself. “Oh my! I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to just burst into your room like that.”
Rey turned to face Poe and the room’s owner, feeling her face heat up. Poe put a hand over his mouth to hide his laughter. He motioned to the woman standing next to him. The woman was trying to control her face, to keep herself from laughing. She had thick, black hair that she kept out of her oval face with a simple ponytail. She wore a black thermal shirt, with her flight suit unzipped and tied around her waist. Rey thought she looked like one of the old Rebel Alliance propaganda posters, very cool and collected, except for the barely contained chuckles. “Uh, Jess. This is Rey. She’s looking for a place to stay, and I figured you two might get along okay. Rey, this is Jess Pava.”
“Hello,” Rey said, taking a step away from the dresser, so that she could shake Jess’s hand.
Jess was about the same height as Rey, her dark brown eyes meeting Rey’s own as she said, “It’s a pleasure, Rey. I’m glad you like my decorations.” Jess smiled at Rey, spreading across her face and reaching her eyes so fast it was like she couldn’t control it.
Rey couldn’t help but giggle. “I used to own Dosmit’s flight helmet,” she said, “and I made my own doll of her, back on Jakku.” Was that a weird thing to admit? Rey thought.
Jess clutched her hand to her heart. “You had her actual helmet? Like, the one that was on her head when she crashed on Jakku?”
Rey nodded, turning back to the doll. “It looked just like this,” she pointed to the tiny helmet on the doll’s head. “But bigger, and the paint was chipped a bit. I used to wear it and pretend I was on a mission to rescue her.”
Jess was smiling huge. “That’s amazing! I can’t believe– did you find helmets of any other pilots?”
“No, but I would find bits and pieces of other parts of the uniform. I’d have to piece together their stories on my own.”
“So you don’t know about Dorovio Bold? Or Sila Kott?” Jess asked, pulling dolls off her dresser as she named the pilots, highlighting one or two of their feats to help jog Rey’s memory. Rey shook her head, but took the doll of Sila Kott that Jess handed her. She wore a green flight uniform and a focused expression.
Jess paused with hands full of dolls and turned to gape at Rey. “You don’t know about them? Please tell me you’ve heard of Evaan Verlaine? She used to work with General Organa. And then followed in her footsteps to become a princess. She’s a princess and a pilot!”
Rey shook her head. Jess stared at her with wide eyes. “You have a lot of holo watching to catch up on. I’ll have to make you a recommendation list. If you like Dosmit, there are definitely some other pilots you should know about, too. Have you ever heard of Shara Bey?”
Jess held up a doll of a tan women with a prize-winning grin. She looked very familiar. Rey took the doll and made it pose dramatically. “Oh, I know this one! She’s Poe’s mother. Poe–” Rey looked around the room for the pilot, but he was nowhere to be seen. “Poe?” she repeated.
Jess slumped her shoulders and sighed. “Every time, I nerd him out too much. He can’t take it.” She looked back at Rey. “He thinks all this doll stuff is too geeky for him. Also I think it weirds him out that I have a doll of his mom– but she was part of a set! It would have been wrong not to have them all.”
“I don’t think it’s weird,” Rey said, setting Shara back up on the dresser so that she was posed next to Sila. They both looked ready to hop in an X-wing and fight. “These dolls are so cool– and beautiful. The details on the helmets…” Rey’s eyes were back on Dosmit. She never thought she would see that helmet again. Well, she never would see the real helmet again, as it had probably already been sold for portions, but to see a piece of Dosmit again, to know that her story was being told by more than just one scavenger on a lonely planet… Rey felt a comfortable warmth in her chest, watching Jess excitedly sort through her dolls, pointing out the ones she thought were coolest.
“What about Padme Amidala? Have you heard of her? She only piloted sometimes, but her dresses… I never realized that the founder of the Rebel Alliance was so glamorous.”
The name was familiar to Rey, and she had to think a moment to remember where she heard it. “I think… I think General Leia has mentioned Padme a couple of times. She was someone the General admired very much.”
“Of course she admires her, Padme was amazing,” Jess said, holding up four different dolls of the senator. Rey took one of Padme wearing a flowing yellow gown adorned with tiny, red roses. The detail on the dress was incredible.
“But speaking of General Organa…” Jess said, her sentence trailing off as she carefully set her remaining Padme dolls on the dresser before kneeling next to her bed to pull out a large box, “ I keep all of my Princess Leia dolls here, so that they’re safe… and mostly because the General thinks it’s weird when we have stuff with her face on it. She says it makes her feel like a holodrama performer.”
“I can understand that,” Rey said, remembering the drawing on Lieutenant Connix’s wall.
Jess set the box on her bed, the muscles in her arms straining to place the box as gently as possible. “I have other dolls in here, too. Though, I don’t have enough room on my dresser to show them all off.”
Rey looked over at the side of the room that could belong to her, in the future. It was so empty compared to Jess’s side of the room that was overflowing with dolls and X-wing posters and pictures of friends. “Maybe if I live here, we can put some of your extra dolls on my side of the room?” Rey suggested. “I don’t have much to decorate with right now.”
“Besides Luke’s lightsaber, you mean,” Jess said, and for a moment Rey’s heart stopped at the mention that once again, yes, Rey was not just a normal girl living a normal life. But then Jess turned around and held up a tiny version of Luke’s lightsaber between her thumb and pointer finger.
“That’s darling!” Rey said, although she couldn’t quite explain why making a deadly, laser weapon doll-sized somehow made it cute.
“It goes with my Luke,” Jess said, holding up a doll of the young Skywalker, dressed in all white. He looked very young. “He’s my favorite. I can’t believe you have his lightsaber.”
“I can’t believe I have his lightsaber, either, although I’m envious of this tiny one.” She examined the small saber, feeling strange that this tiny model was so accurate to the weapon, and feeling even stranger that she could assess the model’s accuracy at all.
Jess frowned. “We don’t have to talk about the lightsaber if you don’t want to. I know that this all must be overwhelming for you. We could look at… at something else…” Jess started digging through her dolls again, searching for something that wasn’t related to the Skywalkers.
Rey hadn’t realized how serious her expression had become while examining the lightsaber. She could hear the soft hum of the activated blade buzz in her head, but it always mixed with the sharper growls of a different lightsaber, red and jagged at the edges. It reminded Rey of the power inside her that she didn’t understand.
“Oh, look, I found another Padme! Wait, hang on… I think this might be one of her handmaidens? I’m bad at telling the difference. Oh, and here’s Queen Breha Orga– wait, she’s related to Leia… Oh, and here’s another Leia… I never realized how many of my dolls were connected to the Skywalkers in some way.”
“I don’t mind talking about it– Just not all the time,” Rey said. “Besides, it’s nice to be able to see all the heroes as they were during the war. Back on Jakku, I had to make up what everyone looked like. Now I know.” She placed the lightsaber back into Luke’s hand. “He was so much younger than I imagined.”
Jess nodded, her eyes still on Luke. “I know! I always think about that. I’m so close in age to when Luke was when he left Tatooine. And now I’m piloting for the Resistance, just like he piloted for the Rebel Alliance.”
“And I’m fighting Sith Lords without completing my Jedi training first, just like him.” Rey said, laughing. “I think you might be doing a better job of following in his footsteps.”
“I don’t know, you were isolated and hiding from the entire galaxy for years, just like he’s doing now, so I think you might be winning,” Jess said, and then she held out the doll to Rey. “Here. If you do decide to be my roommate, you can put Luke up on your side of the room. Since you have matching lightsabers and all.”
Rey gently pushed the doll back to Jess, shaking her head. “No, no, he’s your favorite, he should be on your side of the room. I’ll just put up twenty Padmes or so. Her dresses are so beautiful!”
Jess giggled, turning back to her dresser to remove a doll. “At the very least, you should put Dosmit on your side of the room. That way it’s like your home back on Jakku.”
Rey accepted the doll, running one finger gently over the paint on the helmet. “It would be nice to have a reminder of where I came from. Although,” Rey paused, thinking again about how Poe went to so much effort to find Rey a place to live, and of General Organa always giving Rey a smile in passing, even when the General was overwhelmed with work. And of Finn, dear Finn, lying in a coma... But the doctors said he would be better– soon.
Jess set her dolls back carefully into their box. She looked back up at Rey with her head tilted, that friendly smile spreading across her soft features again. It was so easy for Rey to smile back now. “Although what?” Jess asked
“Well, it’s just… I do miss living on Jakku, but mostly for the familiarity. It’s so different here. I feel so different here. But here, I’m not alone. And I’m glad I left Jakku, so that I can call this place home instead.”