WHO: Leia Organa (Canon), Rey (CL) WHEN: After this, at the end of July. WHERE: Leia's apartment. WHAT: Rey comes over to visit with Leia after they begin to talk about the memory update. TRIGGERS: Talk of the events of The Last Jedi which will likely include emotional manipulation, fighting Snoke's guards, and more.
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It had been there, lurking under Rey's Force surface ever since she met the woman. Leia knew, instinctively, that what Rey longed for most of us was a place of belonging, was people who cared about her, people who came back for her. She'd felt Rey's anguish at Han's death, and she felt her anguish when Finn was injured. She felt her love for Finn, and her growing sense of worth as she discovered her powers in the Force.
Leia just felt Rey.
The closer she traveled to Leia's apartment, the stronger the sense was. She didn't need to wait for Rey to knock on the door or ring the bell to know that she was outside the door. Leia was already there, waiting, with the door opened. She held out her arms and ordered, "Come here, you."
Rey had not spoken about her memories the first two months after their arrival, sans for one incident where she'd tried to begin doing so in the presence of Han. That moment had not gone well. Her experiences in Chicago had affirmed to her that she needed to be mindful of her words and how she relayed events to those who hadn't experienced them. When Han had begun to become upset about the subject of Luke and his refusal to leave Ahch-to, Rey had shifted into trying to calm the elder man down and all thoughts of trying to speak about what she'd experienced were placed once again on a back burner.
She hadn't needed Ben's approval to speak to Leia but having finally gotten to speak some about what had happened made it so she wanted to open up more. She was used to keeping her feelings contained and unspoken but it wasn't preferable. With Leia, Rey was still being partially guarded. She didn't want to cause Leia anymore heartache. The story of Ben and Luke wasn't hers to tell.
Leia had asked Rey a question she'd not been expecting though. The nightmares were a thing she'd hidden on purpose from both Poe and Finn. They likely suspected just as they likely suspected she'd gained memories, but she did not freely admit that they existed. As for her words on how they had stopped? She wanted to believe that to be true. It'd been awhile since one had presented itself to her and the last had been of the Jakku desert, causing her to break from her slumber and ensure she was still in the Dameron home.
The order wasn't one that Rey would reject. She stepped into Leia's arms as soon as she was in proximity and her own arms came up to wrap around the woman.
The first time she'd met Rey was in the wake of Han's death. Under normal circumstances, she would have gone to Chewbacca, but Chewie was fretting over their new friend Finn who was in a terrible state. They had friends, family. Rey, however… Leia had not only sensed Han's death, Ben's emotions, but also the women who stood before her with tears glistening in her eyes. She'd embraced her then, without words, or even forethought.
Now, Leia held the girl as if she was her own daughter, the same way she had on D'Qar, and maybe there was some truth to it. Family wasn't just blood; she'd known that since she was a little girl. Rey had not only left her world, but joined a whole new one that was fraught with danger. She'd come back for them in their most desperate of hours. Rey was family.
Eventually, she had to break away to bring the girl into her apartment. "Come in. Get comfortable."
Rey had held the embrace, finding a silent comfort just from her presence, making her think perhaps she should have spoken up sooner. It likely would have been kinder. They could have talked about everything when it was still fresh for Leia, too. Only, she hadn't been ready in those initial weeks. She was used to dealing with her emotions on her own for most of her life, after all.
When the embrace broke, Rey didn't object, and offered up a smile with a nod of agreement. She stepped inside and drew in a breath. The decor of the Falcon was an immediate comfort in and of itself. It had been her home once, too. "Did you want to go to the lounge?" She asked, looking to Leia. Rey had largely cooped herself up in the cockpit when the Falcon had resided in Chicago but she assumed Leia would rather sit around the more open space.
"You head to the lounge, I'm going to get us something to drink."
Leia disappeared for a few moments to get everything situation. Tea was soothing, and she assumed this conversation would need that. Not long after, she reappeared and set down a tray with a small pot, two cups, and various accoutrements. There were even some cookies in case Rey was hungry.
The cockpit was where the group had spent most of their time, cramped around the controls. Arguing. Flirting. Trying desperately to get away from the Empire. To save the Rebellion. After the war, Leia settled into politics, this time actually doing some more than the vestiges of Senatorial work. For a while, she'd traveled with Han. He'd added a large kitchen area for her, and some of the interior had changed to support having a family.
Leia sat down behind the old Dejarik table. It was about as good as they were going to get for a table. "Do you want to talk about it, or should we work towards distractions?"
Rey had known the Falcon both with the modifications and without. When it had first come into her life, back in the desert of Jakku, the kitchen area had already been established. To her, it was always part of the ship. It was only once she was in Chicago, and the ship had miraculously been gifted to the much younger Han Solo, that she was introduced to the idea of the Falcon without the galley and other sections that Rey had taken for granted as always aspects of the freighter.
She'd taken a seat in lounge. This had been her home more than once and it was a place she felt significantly comfortable in.
There was a smile when Leia emerged. As for the question, she drew in a breath. It was simpler when she could pause and reflect upon her answers behind a screen. "I've been trying to work with distractions for weeks," she admitted. She had told Leia it'd been some time since she'd gotten her memories. She sighed. "I'm not sure if I know even where to begin."
The other woman was silent as she poured herself and Rey a cup of tea. Sometimes, having an object to physically focus on made things easier. It reminded her, in some ways, of all the time she and Han fought. There were often other things they were doing at the same time so they would not have to look at one another. Or a distraction to be near the other. The hollow place in her chest where Han had been ached.
Questions might help. Leia had a multitude of them stored up. There hadn't been time in their escape to really dig into it. "How did you get to Snoke's ship?"
"Chewie," she responded without any hesitation, but she knew that wasn't much of an informative answer. She shifted to rest her arms on top of the table. "We left Ahch-To together and I used the escape pod. We launched it when we were in proximity," she explained. There was a moment's pause as she reflected back on the events leading up to her boarding of the vessel.
"He took the Falcon out of range once I'd launched and we had a plan to meet up for a rendezvous after." When her and Chewbacca had devised this plan, she'd been so determined and hopeful that she would not arrive at that rendezvous alone. That hadn't ended up being the case but still her and Chewbacca had soldiered on, heading to the aid of the Fleet.
Ever since this remarkable woman had entered her life, Leia couldn't help but think of Luke. From a desert planet, never knew her parents, and then suddenly thrust into the galaxy at hyperspeed. Luke thrived on it. He'd been entirely too curious for his own good, and too desperate to get off Tatooine. Years of being on the run were exactly what he'd always wished for.
Leia leaned in. "How did you know where it was? Why would you go there alone?"
She reached out to take hold of the tea cup and held it between both of her hands. Her gaze dropped down to look at the steam rising from the cup. "Snoke was luring me there. He'd been how Ben and I were able to speak. I think he was positive I would come. [...] It was a trap," she explained as she thought over the journey from Ahch-To to the Supremacy.
She glanced up to Leia now. "I couldn't convince Luke to come."
So there was a Force bond between Rey and her son. It didn't surprise Leia. They shared an intense time together, and it reminded her a lot of her initial relationship with Luke. How she'd almost instantly trusted him, felt like she knew him, could count on him. How she somehow knew where he was or how he was.
Leia would later find out that Luke was her twin brother, and they were both strong in the Force. Their connection made a lot more sense once it was finally acknowledged. She remembered telling him that somehow she knew, but it wasn't quite like knowing someone was your brother. More like knowing there was a reason for the deep closeness they shared.
Leia's smile was soft when she replied, "But he did come. You did that."
Rey couldn't reject the smile Leia offered and gave a small smile in response. Luke had come in the end. She'd only been unable to convince him to come with her aboard the Falcon and back to the Resistance physically. His eventual presence on Crait was projected through the cosmos. A distraction for Ben to fixate on while the Resistance made their way out of the caverns and to the waiting escape Rey had ensured.
If Leia remembered that, of course, she likely knew what had come next. The way Luke's presence had left the physical world all together, but not with sadness or regret. The last feelings she'd had of Master Skywalker were of purpose and peace. "I am glad he did come, in the end."
"Without him — without you — we would have been lost." Leia needed Rey to know how important she was. The woman before her had spent so much of her life alone and seen as unnecessary. Leia's first impression of her hadn't been far off the mark. There was a reason that Leia sent Rey to Luke and didn't go herself. Rey needed a teacher, yes, but Leia hoped that Luke would see himself in Rey and remember who he was. "We're all prepared to die for others, to sacrifice our lives if it means something greater for the Galaxy, but I have to admit: I'm not ready to give that up yet."
She hadn't mentioned to anyone the heartbreak she felt when no one came to their aid. She'd put out her call, and no one replied. No one acknowledged them. The number of friends and allies she could count on were dwindling. Leia didn't know how much longer she could keep losing people before she gave up. "How did you get away from Snoke?"
Rey knew this wasn't an exaggeration on Leia's part. She had done her part to fight for the Resistance and to bring them to safety. She'd been fighting to come to their aid from the moment she'd been aware of their peril, onboard Snoke's ship. It had fueled her actions and been inspiration. It had ultimately been more important to her than trying to sway Ben, in the end. She chose the dozens of lives over pressing further on in her attempts to bring him along with her. He'd made his choice and she made hers.
Rey flashed a glance to Leia with that statement. There was this constant parade of those she cared for being sent away. There was always the potential they would return but there was also always the potential that they wouldn't. But when she thought to their Galaxy, the home of which she suspected they would all eventually return one day, she knew she hoped Leia would not be pulled from the fight anytime soon. She reached out to offer Leia her hand. "Nor am I," she spoke. She would continue to fight for the prosperity of those in her Galaxy.
As for Snoke, she glanced down at the familiar table. "Snoke underestimated Ben," she began, "His focus was on me and he misinterpreted his intentions. He commanded Ben to cut me down and he did so to Snoke, instead." She hesitated for a second before adding, "Snoke's guards came after us immediately. We fought them off together."
This news should have been a happy revelation, but all that Leia could think was that her son had continued to come after them, despite his independence from Snoke. It was what she feared all along: that her son was gone. That her son wanted his family dead, and he almost had it. Things may be different here, but knowing what she'd be going back to? It was worse than knowing no one was coming to their aid.
"Of course they would. There was an idol worship there. The Empire to the First Order. Snoke may have been Supreme Leader, but what he really wanted was to be Emperor. Even down to the Imperial Guard and their red uniforms." Leia had heard rumors that some of those guards were former clones from the war, but had never seen one without his mask on. "You managed to survive all of them. The Force truly is with you."
Rey tilted her gaze up to Leia when she spoke. Even though she'd grown up in a time where the Empire had been defeated, replaced with the New Republic, she'd heard tales of the Empire and the Emperor. The legacy was still spoken of, even as far reaching as Jakku. Thus, Leia's words did not necessarily surprise her and she gave a nod of understanding. In regard to the idol worship, Rey felt like perhaps that was true of nearly the entire First Order and all who were a part of it.
There was a flicker of a smile with the final words. In their Galaxy, Rey had been trying to find guidance and understanding in regard to the Force. She wasn't willing to ignore it now that it was awake inside of her. Finding the balance, and utilizing it to clear a passage to safety, there had been no doubt in Rey that she was bound to the it. She just wished she could get a firmer understanding of her understanding of it. She wanted a teacher and all the ones she had tried to embrace, to learn from, had ended up disappearing. And the one who offered her guidance, time and time again, she rejected at each turn; even now that she wanted to see him make a turn for the light.
"I didn't do it alone." Ben had saved her and she did not know if she would have been able to come out of the fight unscathed had she done it solo. She drew in a breath. "We both tried to convince one another to join us but..." She trailed off, shaking her head. She wouldn't join Ben in the darkness. And it was a painful memory that still felt entirely fresh to Rey, even though it had been given to her weeks ago by this point.
"You don't give yourself enough credit." She'd watched Luke struggle with the same thing, and heard the rumors around the Alliance that his shot on the Death Star was pure luck. Leia knew it couldn't have been. She wasn't a Jedi, had never been trained in it, but her parents were both avid believers in the Jedi. They believed in the Force and that had passed down to Leia. Whether that was because they had many Jedi friends before the Purge or they had experienced it firsthand, Leia never knew. "And you can't make anyone else do anything they don't want to do. If he wouldn't join, that's not on you, Rey. You can only do so much before it's all on the other person's shoulders."
There was hesitation. She didn't have an urge to defend herself against that statement. It was quite the opposite. She wanted to insist she didn't deserve anymore. It was an automatic feeling from years of feeling like she was nobody. Nothing. And the years in Chicago, where speculation was so rampant that individuals sometimes came to her in the street to offer 'help' about who might be her abandoned family, had only made the memory of accepting what she'd always known sting more.
'You come from nothing. You're nothing.'
The words cycled in her mind. She had been trying to bring Ben back, to be able to right that wrong, and he was trying to bring her away from the light. "Only he can help himself now," she agreed, but her voice sounded different now. And she could hear it herself. She swallowed and looked away from Leia.
She didn't feel she deserved more credit because she'd conditioned herself to that. Only, perhaps she needed to stop allowing that. She wasn't nothing. Ben was wrong. She pulled in a breath and stared down into her tea.
The more Ben and Leia circled the conversation of his previous actions, the more Leia realized that he was not coping with it. He was putting a bandage on it and hoping it would go away. There was always an underlying sense that he was trying to erase what had happened instead of dealing with it. That was not Rey's responsibility to deal with. Leia resented Ben for putting that on Rey's shoulders.
"You don't believe that."
"No, it's not that." It wasn't that she didn't believe that. Plenty of others could and seemed to be trying to help him, just as she had tried, but it was on him to make that choice. If he didn't want to, no one would be able to help him. Her hands tightened on her cup.
"Then what it is?" Leia prodded her gently. Her tea was left on the table as she focused more on Rey.
She wasn't certain how to put it into words. It wasn't as though Leia could read her mind and had known where it had gone. Leia was here offering Rey gratitude and compliments, while pointing out that she needed to give herself more credit, but all she could think of was how she'd spent years fixating on waiting. Waiting for others to come back for her, to be proven to that she was worth having in their life, or waiting for answers about what was going on in her own Galaxy. She was always waiting. She brought in another breath.
"I'm trying to give myself more credit."
Leia's intuition had always served her well. She could see insecurity and some sort of shame for how Rey had handled her life. Maybe she was wishing that she'd started her journey sooner. Maybe she had gotten sidetracked in her waiting for her family.
Leia reached out and brushed a lock of Rey's hair from her cheek. She tucked it behind her ear and smiled again. "I may not be your biological family Rey, but you're part of my family now."
The gesture of tenderness was one that Rey wasn't accustomed to. She knew that there were individuals here that cared for her, Leia being one among them. And she was accustomed to the occasional hug from both the woman she was sitting with as well as the others who had come into her life. Her biological family may not have wanted her but she had people who did.
She lifted her eyes and looked to Leia, before shifting, sliding closer so she could wrap her arms around Leia. "I'd rather have you."