Even a day spent building miniature droids, albeit incredibly primitive ones, hadn’t been able to take Rey’s mind off the events of the day before. It was the same every time she spoke to Kylo; she always went into the conversation feeling entirely sure of herself and came out feeling hopelessly lost and conflicted. A part of her felt certain he did it to her on purpose. It was the same part of her that didn’t like to admit how angry she’d been when she’d challenged Luke on Ahch-To or how envious she’d felt, just one day ago, when Poe had told her that he and Ben had been close before the latter’s descent into darkness. It was the part of her which acted like armour, keeping her safe from all of her deepest fears and insecurities. However, it was also the part of her which Kylo’s needling tended to weaken the most. With every conversation, she found it harder and harder to pull her protective blanket of denial back into place and, that particular day, she had found it more difficult than ever.
What made it worse this time was the crushing sense of isolation which its absence had allowed in. Despite being surrounded by people, she didn’t have anyone she could talk to about the storm of emotions swirling around inside her, with Kylo at its eye. Finn… would try to listen, she knew, but she didn’t know how to explain any of it. Poe understood what that was like. He had said as much, although he had done a far better job of articulating it than she ever could have managed. However, learning that his connection to Ben went deeper than she’d realised made Rey feel self-conscious… silly, even, for believing that a Force Bond and a catastrophically misinterpreted vision of the future put her in a position to truly understand someone. Ben Solo had had a life before the darkness had consumed him and there were people here who knew him far better than she did.
The problem was, there wasn’t anyone here - no, not just here, anywhere - who knew her better than Kylo did. Not even Finn. Kylo had seen inside her head, felt the loneliness, the need to be wanted and the fear that she never would be. He had seen the potential for darkness in her, that which had terrified Luke, but, unlike his uncle, he hadn’t been scared by it. Instead, he had told her she wasn’t alone. And she had believed him. That maybe scared her most of all.
It had certainly scared her the day before: seeing Kylo articulate so clearly what it was he had hoped for when he’d offered her his hand and feeling the sudden, traitorous pang of regret at the lost possibility. Not the power; she didn’t want the power. Even the new world he’d spoken of felt like such an abstract concept to her that she wasn’t able to want it with any earnestness. But the idea of sharing something with someone, the idea that there was someone out there who had seen her all her deepest, darkest insecurities and still wanted to share something with her… the loss of that felt like a vibro-voulge through her chest.
But how could she admit that to either Finn or Poe? She couldn’t. At least, not without admitting, to herself as much as to anyone else, what that said about her and her capacity for darkness. No, she couldn’t talk to either of them about it.
However, there was one person, she realised, who she could talk to. Perhaps not about everything she was feeling but maybe just enough that she wouldn’t feel quite so lost anymore.
Leia.
The General’s arrival the day before had come as a very welcome surprise to Rey, the surprise being how relieved she was to be able to talk to her again. After Crait, Rey had grown used to seeing Leia around the Millennium Falcon, hearing her friendly, encouraging tone of voice, even if just in greeting as they passed by one another, and being able to go to her, tea in hand, when she needed just to be near someone who felt a sense of loss and responsibility similar to that which she did. Leia had been able to comfort Rey in a way that no one else could, offering her not only compassion but understanding, empathy.
It was to Leia, then, that Rey decided to go, with her half ration of Prince Vladimir Tea to share, in the hope that she might be able to find at least a little solace.
It wasn’t difficult to find Leia’s room and Rey was glad to see that she seemed to have been paired with Hermione, the pleasant (and entirely practical) girl who had helped them work out what “cwtch” meant in the house. Rey imagined that the two of them had probably worked out a highly sensible and mutually beneficial, mutually private living arrangement almost as soon as they’d arrived. She was hopeful that it meant she and Leia would be able to talk for a while without being disrupted. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to open up if someone else was listening in. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to open up at all… Still, an attempt was better than the alternative, she decided, so she raised her spare hand, the one that wasn’t holding the tea tin, and knocked on the door to apartment number 1.
Leia wasn't expecting anyone, outside of perhaps expecting her son to barge in, but she had a feeling that Ben wouldn't knock if he came by. Not that she thought he would follow through with any of his threats to kill her, neither in this universe or their own, no matter how defensive he got about it to her (and, likely, to others). She crossed the room to open the door, and a moment passed before she smiled in relief and pleasant surprise that it was Rey waiting on the other side.
Her smile widened, and she opened her arms to embrace the young woman. "Rey," she said in a breath. "It's good to see you. Come in, please."
Rey let out a breath that she hadn’t realised she’d been holding as she stepped into Leia’s arms, pressing her eyes tightly shut against the sudden prickle of tears as she rested her chin on the older woman’s shoulder.
“It’s good to see you too, General,” she sighed, her voice thick, her hands clasped together around the tea tin behind Leia’s back.
After a long moment, her grip relaxed and she took a deep, steadying breath as she pulled back to stand awkwardly in the doorway.
“I brought tea. It’s not Gatalentan but I thought… maybe we could try it?”
"It's Leia," she said immediately. Leia curled an arm around Rey's waist and pulled her into the room, closing the door behind them both. "Please. I'm not a general here." Her bones creaked a little as she sat, gesturing for Rey to do the same. "I have the hot water on already," she said. "We're thinking alike." Her own tin of tea was next to the hot water kettle, and she'd already set out one cup, for herself. "Nothing is like Gatalentan tea, of course."
She folded her hands together on top of the table. "Are you all right?" she asked, concerned. It was true that she didn't have the Force here, couldn't let it seep into her and give her insight into the young woman before her as she had in the past, but Leia's intuition had always been good regardless.
Rey sat as instructed, glad to let Leia take charge for the time being. She felt exhausted, she realised, mentally drained from thinking on her feet constantly for the last couple of weeks. Leia’s commanding presence gave her permission to rest for awhile and let someone else take the lead.
Setting the tea tin down in front of her, Rey slipped her hands beneath the table to twist together in her lap.
“I’m…” She began, intending to give her usual answer of, okay, fine or some variant on that theme, but stopped herself short and looked down at the smooth, utilitarian table top. Instead, she gave a little, almost imperceptible shake of her head. Lying to Leia would defy the point of her being there.
Leia had had a feeling the answer was complicated, and yet - she reached out to settle a hand against Rey's forearm, steadying her. "It's okay," she said. "I don't really know what this place has in store for us, but I sure am glad I'm not here on my own, and neither are you."
The sudden human contact made Rey flinch ever so slightly but her hesitation was quickly replaced by the comfort Leia no doubt intended by the gesture. She lifted her gaze back up to the other woman and tried to press her lips together in a smile. She didn’t do a very good job of it.
“I feel alone sometimes,” she said quietly, feeling childish and petulant for even saying such a thing when she was surrounded by more friends than she’d ever had in her life before. “A lot of the time, actually.”
Feeling alone wasn't a foreign concept to Leia, who had spent much of her life feeling alone despite her friends and family, for one reason or another. "Even when you're with the people you care about, and who care about you?" she prompted.
Leia’s words sent a pang of guilt through Rey and she glanced up, expecting to see judgement on the other woman’s face. She didn’t. It gave Rey the courage to nod.
“There’s always been this part of me that is… different. Even with the other scavengers on Jakku, I never felt like I fitted in.”
“I don’t think I’m better than anyone,” she clarified quickly. “But I see the others together and it looks so easy. I…” She sighed. “I’m just so confused.”
"I'm not passing judgement on you," Leia filled in as she sighed and paused. "Or anyone else. Some people find it easier to fit in, make friends. For some, it comes naturally. Sometimes, it may even look natural and it's not at all." She smiled and stood up, a little stiffly, to fill two cups with a fraction of the tea and the hot water.
"May I tell you a story?" she asked as she handed Rey her cup of tea.
Rey watched as Leia made tea for them both. She was touched that the General was happy to wait on her. It felt like it should be the other way round, especially since Rey wasn’t oblivious to the stiffness in the older woman’s movements.
She cupped her hands gratefully around the warm cup when it was placed in front of her.
“Yes. Please,” she replied. “And thank you, for the tea.”
"You're welcome," Leia said. She settled back into her chair and rubbed the back of her neck for a moment. "I've always felt a little out of place myself, first because of my role as an Alderaanian princess, and then later during my involvement in the Rebellion. Of course, then I was one of the only ones left. It's not easy to be alone, or to feel like you're the only one who knows what something's like." She pursed her lips for a moment. "When I was part of the Rebellion, I was held up on a pedestal and untouchable by many of my fellow Rebels. It never went away, and yet - we're alike, you and I. Which means we're different than other people, but that doesn't mean we can't find our people."
Rey listened intently as Leia spoke, a softness forming around the corners of her mouth as she felt the warmth and reassurance flowing from the older woman. Their backgrounds were starkly different but Rey got the impression that Leia knew exactly the feeling she had been trying to communicate.
“I want that,” she nodded. “I want to feel like I belong. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
She took a deep breath and looked down into her steaming teacup, her gaze following the white, winding tendrils of vapour as they rose and dissipated into the cool air. She cared about her friends, about Finn and Poe, Leia, Chewie, and she knew she belonged on their side of the war, she had just always imagined she would feel different somehow when she found her people, as Leia put it. She had spent night after night, in her AT-AT nest on Jakku, dreaming about what it would feel like to find her place and the sense of peace it would bring her. So why did she still feel as though she was waiting for something?
“Do you think that’s what Ben felt?” Rey asked, her voice small, her eyes still fixed firmly on the liquid surface of her tea.
The mention of her son drew Leia back a little. She sat up, flexed her fingers against the side of her cup then took a long, slow sip of her tea before answering. "I - don't know. I don't know why he didn't feel like he belonged with me, or with Luke. I don't know what the First Order offered except for power. I can't - someone who calls himself the Supreme Leader is likely very alone, too, honestly."
Rey chanced a quick glance up at Leia, dismayed at the idea of causing her pain. Her eyebrows drew together in an expression that sat somewhere between sorrow and sympathy.
“I think he does feel alone,” she replied, remembering the way he’d held out his hand to her, the sound of the word Please on his lips as he’d asked her to join him.
“I thought… if I went to him, showed him that he didn’t have to be, he might...”
She stopped herself, picking up her own teacup and hiding her face with it as she took a long, drawn out sip. She didn’t want Leia to see the way her lip trembled. Besides, Leia already knew the rest of that particular story.
Leia shook her head. Her chest hurt at the thought of both Rey's pain and Ben's pain. It had been how many years and she still hadn't been able to figure out how to get through to Ben. She had hoped, that maybe Rey … "I don't know if Ben knows what he wants, what he needs," Leia said quietly. She paused a moment to sip her tea.
"There's no First Order here," she continued. "There's just Ben and us and - this is a real chance." Leia reached out and gripped her hand, squeezed it. "To get through to him, I hope."
Rey had placed her cup down by the time Leia took her hand across the table and the young woman’s gaze lingered on their clasped fingers for a moment before she nodded.
“Yes, that’s what I told Poe too.”
There was another pause.
“He said you talked to him… to both of them.”
"I tried, at least. With Ben. Dameron is -" She leaned her head to the side for a moment. "- a little easier to get through to." Leia smiled mildly. "It might take some time. We'll need to be patient, and stay strong together. But I trust you, Rey. I hope that if you keep talking to him, eventually you'll get through to him."
Rey felt her stomach squirm uneasily and she caught her lower lip between her teeth, taking to studying her teacup once again. She wished she had half as much faith in herself as Leia had in her.
“I’ll try,” she said quietly. She needed to keep trying. She wasn’t ready to give up hope just yet, for his sake or for her own.