[for jyn]

[strongerthanblood]

Rey hasn't left the Falcon in over a day.

After Ben left the previous night, she tried to get some sleep, but it was impossible. All she could do was think about everything she had remembered and all that came after. She laid there in the bunk she had claimed for herself and realized that not only did she now know what it feels like to be wrapped up in Ben Solo's arms, but she missed it the moment it stopped.

She spends most of the day lost in her thoughts, and now she's lounging on the padded seat at the table and poking at a Dejarik game that had been left abandoned. The sudden sound of the access ramp being opened makes her spine straighten, and she wonders if maybe it's him, if he's come back, even though she knows she would have sensed him approaching.

Seeing Jyn come onto the ship isn't a disappointment, not in the slightest, but it does make her realize that she has let herself spend the day languishing in her thoughts without doing a single productive thing. It might be the first time in her life that she has ever done such thing.

"Jyn, hi," she says with a tired but genuine smile, dragging herself into a sitting position as she turns off the game's projection.

Comments

[nextchance]

Though months have passed, Jyn still can't stay put. It isn't even just the restlessness, though that certainly plays a part; she felt that even when she was at her most settled here, too used to a life spent on the run. What keeps her going is more an unwillingness — an inability, really — to put down roots anywhere. She tried that once, and it backfired in spectacular fashion. She doesn't think she has it in her to do that again, to give up what she had for good, to accept what happened, and to try again.

The Falcon is as close as she gets, though. It was even when she was still the lone person from her galaxy in Darrow. Sharing the space with a friend is nice, too. There's no pressure for her to stay, but it doesn't seem to be a problem that she comes and goes, and she likes Rey. Dark as her moods have tended to be lately, she smiles as she walks onto the ship, taking in the sight of Rey by the table. "Hey," she greets in turn. "How's things around here?"

[strongerthanblood]

“Uh, pretty interesting, actually,” Rey admits, smiling a little as she rests her hands on the tabletop. A few porgs come toddle over to inspect Jyn and then wander away, and Rey bites her lip as she looks over at her friend.

She’s kept everything to herself, all of it, but if she could talk to anyone, she’s sure it would be Jyn. “It’s a good thing you didn’t come by last night. You would have gotten an earful.”

Or she would have come in to see her being held very tenderly by a man who tried to kill her multiple times in the past, even though she now would trust him with her life. It’s very complicated and Rey wants so badly to talk about it, to try and make sense of it all. “Ben was here.”

[nextchance]

"How'd that go?" Jyn asks, brow raising as she heads over to take a seat, setting the bag with her belongings on the floor. There's an odd sort of comfort in being able to carry everything she needs with her that way, like she used to. Whatever ill effects being in Darrow has had on her, at least she hasn't lost her footing entirely. It isn't really something to dwell on now, though. She's far more curious about what Rey has to tell her, smiling faintly.

She doesn't know Ben very well. She also doesn't dislike him, though she'd been more than a little unnerved when he saw her necklace and somehow knew who'd given it to her. Still, given the circumstances of their first meeting, she's not surprised to hear that she would have gotten an earful if she'd been here. Anyone who might have happened by when Ben first found her here would have, too.

More teasing than not, she adds, "There doesn't seem to be any property damage, at least."

[strongerthanblood]

“It— uh, started off pretty loud there in the beginning,” Rey says with a soft, nervous laugh. “But it turned out alright in the end.” She bites the inside of her cheek. “We have a very complicated history.”

Rey finds that she wants to share at least some of this story, especially with someone who might better understand the scope of it. She can trust Jyn, that much she knows, so she swallows hard and turns to look at her friend.

“Do you know much about the jedi?”

[nextchance]

"I know some," Jyn says, resisting with every bit of strength she has in her the impulse to draw her crystal out from under her shirt and wrap her hand around it as she's done countless times since childhood. Here, she doesn't think it would really matter. Kyber doesn't have the same value, and though it might raise questions from the few people here who would know what it is, as it did with Ben, it still wouldn't put her in danger like it once would have. She trusts Rey, anyway, as much as she's able to trust anyone these days. It's an old habit, though, protecting the one thing in her life she's held onto and the vulnerability in her it seems to represent, and one that isn't so easily forgotten.

Everything she knows about the Jedi, after all, she learned from her mother. Most of those stories, she doesn't remember now, at least not in detail. What she does remember is hearing them in the first place, Lyra's voice like a ghost, half-remembered, in her head. It's strange, feeling both fond and bitter towards those memories, warring feelings that are impossible to reconcile.

"I heard stories, growing up," she explains, which is true if oversimplified. "I guess a lot of people did."

[strongerthanblood]

Even though Rey never puts any effort into trying to see into the minds of her friends, there are some things she can’t help but to pick up on. Right now it’s the way Jyn’s entire focus lands on the kyber crystal hanging from her neck, the one Rey has felt drawn to since the moment they met. She never asked about it, but it seems like as good a place as any to lead with.

She leans forward and lifts a hand, slowly reaching out to touch the tip of her index finger to the crystal through Jyn’s shirt. It’s a brief touch, and she smiles shyly as she shrugs a shoulder.

“Now you’ve met one,” Rey tells her, twisting to hold her hand out towards the front of the ship. Her lightsaber soars through the air and lands neatly in her palm, but she doesn’t ignite it, waiting instead for Jyn’s reaction.

[nextchance]

From nearly anyone else, such a gesture might unnerve her. Rey isn't the first person to be aware of the crystal's presence without having seen it. Chirrut did the same, what feels like so long ago now, calling out to her about her necklace from across a square on Jedha. At least in this instance, unlike much more recently, its origin hasn't been swiftly and impossibly identified. Sharing a space with Rey so often, it isn't as if Jyn really expects that she could have kept it hidden, anyway. Besides, though they were never very close then, she knew some things about Rey when she was here before — saw her use the Force a few times, was aware of the training she was doing, but never in any real detail. She certainly never called herself a Jedi then, at least not that Jyn was ever aware of.

Though she's seen a lightsaber before now, when she found Ben practicing with one, it's still hardly a common occurrence for her, and one exclusive to this place. Her expression thoughtful, though not unpleasant, she considers it for a moment, then looks back to Rey. "I thought the Jedi were gone," she says, curious but not challenging. Maybe she found one in hiding somewhere; maybe she just took it up for herself.

"I guess I was wrong."

[strongerthanblood]

Rey wasn't really expecting a strong reaction, but she still can't help but to smile at the way she takes it in stride. Her expression tightens a bit as she nods, looking down at the lightsaber in her hand.

"They almost were," she says shakily, sniffling a bit as she sets the saber down onto the table, trailing her fingers along it. "I'm the last one, actually. I-- that feels very strange to say. I was trained by the Skywalkers."

She doesn't even know if the name will mean anything to Jyn, but she wants it said. "I feel like I'm one of them now."

[nextchance]

"Wait, Skywalker?" Jyn echoes, brow furrowing a little. The subject seems like a heavy one, and she knows she should probably treat it a little more delicately with that being the case. That's not a name she expected to hear in context like this, though, making her half-convinced that she's heard wrong, and anyway, she's never been known for her tact. She tries, sometimes — and Rey is a friend, making it actually worthwhile to do so — but she'll always be a bit rough around the edges.

Besides, in her mind, Jedi and Skywalker don't have anything to do with each other. Maybe it's a more common name than she thought, or something. "You mean like that farm kid from Tatooine?"

[strongerthanblood]

She had been bracing herself for a specific reaction, and the one she gets is so unexpected that she can't help but to laugh. It also serves to relieve a little pressure, because there is so much that Jyn doesn't know.

"Well, at least now I know when you're from," she says, feeling her smile soften and then slowly fade. "That's where he started, yes."

Her brow furrows slightly, and she looks back over at Jyn again. "What about-- Darth Vader?"

[nextchance]

"Know of him," Jyn says, shrugging perhaps a little too easily. She's pretty sure most of the galaxy has heard of Darth Vader, though in some of the farther-flung corners of the Outer Rim, they talk about him more like a legend than a living, breathing person. Granted, she can't even say for sure that he is one of those, but he's definitely real. She hasn't encountered him herself; she's pretty sure that makes her lucky.

There's so much she doesn't know, though. Her father was a fairly high-ranking Imperial, and it's hard not to wonder if he ever met the being partly responsible for the oppression of an entire galaxy. If the Empire wanted a weapon, surely they might also have wanted to know who was building it.

"The Empire was formed when I was... two or three, maybe. Too young to remember, just to know that it felt like it was always there."

[strongerthanblood]

"Luke Skywalker was his son, and he helped bring an end to the Empire," Rey tells her, swallowing hard before continuing. She could tell her of Ben's lineage, but she won't, even if it might help her to talk about it. That is Ben's information to do with as he wishes.

"He went on to become a Jedi Master, and thirty-five years after the Empire ended, he met me. The First Order had risen in the Empire's place, and the last thing I remembered before coming here was-- helping to bring them down. Remember, I told you I thought I had died."

Rey's eyes well up and she reaches up to knuckle a tear away. "Until last night, when I remembered more."

[nextchance]

It's a lot to try to take in all at once, not least because she has to reconcile the Luke she knows — naïve and sort of dumb but sweet — with the idea of a Luke who's both the child of Darth Vader and also a Jedi. Jyn knows this isn't about her, though, and it also doesn't seem to really be the point. She can try to make sense of all that later. The more important thing right now, especially when she sees the emotion in Rey's expression, is trying to be here for her friend. She's not great at that — she's had too little experience to be, probably — but Rey is one of the few people left for whom she'll make that effort.

"I remember," she says quietly, nodding a bit. "So something happened... after that?"