[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

[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?"