REY

Rey let go of the boy's hand. He was so fragile and small. But the Force was strong with him. She could sense it. She swallowed hard and blinked back tears. He was like her. She wasn't the last one left. Leia, Han, Luke, even Ben, were all gone now. She was the only one of her kind left in the galaxy. Until now. This boy... who was he? Could he be a grandchild to one of the Jedis of old?

A gentle breeze blew in through the open windows and the scent of rain filled the small cabin. The smell brought back memories of when Rey was young, sitting in her AT-AT Walker after a long day out in the desert and looking over her scavenger finds, to see what was of value and what was not. How was it that her sad past looked like happy memories, when looking back?

The boy on her cot stirred, but didn't wake. She'd healed him from near fatal body temperature imbalance, but he was in some sort of comatose state now and she didn't know how to use her Force abilities to heal that. The only thing she could think to do was enter his thoughts, but she didn't want to do that. Nor could she. She was exhausted physically, mentally and emotionally from the day's events. Defending the chamber all day, the heat of the sun, the dehydration, then seeing Ben. It was all weighing heavy on her now. Though the worst part was Finn and Rose not believing that she'd had an encounter with Ben in the desert.

She left the boy's side now to go seal the windows. The night air was getting uncommonly cold.

Finn and Rose sat quietly at her tiny table for two, not talking to each other. The three of them had eaten bread and soup together; Rey had bread and Finn brought powdered soup packets from the freight ship reserves, which they added to hot water.

Now the tiny cabin felt cozy, as though her guests were family members visiting for a festival. Except that they seemed to be avoiding each other for some reason. Maybe they were exhausted from their trip.

"Still no word from Base?" Rey asked, speaking softly so they wouldn't startle the boy, should he regain consciousness. Tomorrow they would fly to a nearby planet to bring a medical doctor who specialized on humans. The boy was just too fragile to take into space on an old freight ship.

"They haven't responded," Rose said. "I'm worried."

Rey latched a window tightly shut and the howling of the wind stopped. She shivered, remembering the cold of Ben's fingers before he'd disappeared. It couldn't have been her imagination. He'd disarmed and scared off almost a hundred scavengers. That was hardly a dehydration induced illusion, though that was what Finn and Rose had decided it was. She didn't need them to believe her. She knew what she'd seen.

"What about Poe and Zorii? Have they been in range?" she asked. Her headache had finally eased off, after she'd eaten and a pain elixir Rose had with her.

"We can't get a hold of them either. They went to Exegol to-"

"Exegol?" Rey turned abruptly. "What are they doing there?"

"Remember?" Finn said. "We told you. General Pryde has Ma."

"At Exegol?"

Finn gave Rey a look of pity and she regretted telling them about her encounter with Ben. She was not going crazy. She simply forgot this conversation about Exegol, the hidden world of the Sith. "We're not sure if she's actually there. But General Pryde asked for Poe to meet him there, to make negotiations."

"I've just been distracted," Rey said, wishing Finn would stop looking at her like that.

"I think we're all tired." Rose got up. She was short enough that she didn't have to duck down in the cabin, but Finn had to duck as he stood.

Rey yawned as believably as she could. She wanted the to leave, so she could meditate and not be under the scrutiny of Finn's worried gaze anymore.

"We'll get a doctor tomorrow," Rose said. "But he's stable for now." She glanced over at the boy who seemed to be in a deep sleep. "We would go tonight, but that piece of junk freight ship will never make it up past these clouds."

Rey glanced outside the windows. No rain yet, but it was on its way. "I'd offer to let you stay here but..." she motioned around the room. The only other lounging area, aside from the cot she slept in and the boy was in, was a small corner with two pillows where Rey sat to read the Jedi books she'd brought with her, or to meditate.

"The ship's not far," Rose said, gathering up her equipment belt and securing it onto her waist. "We'll stay there for the night and come see you in about six hours."

"Hopefully the storm will pass by then," Rey said, ushering them to the door. "Turn on the ship's alarm systems. Or, better yet, the force field around the ship."

"How bad do storms get in Jakku?" Finn asked.

"Not for the storm, for the night scavengers, if they haven't already picked your ship apart by now. They'll come by night and not hesitate to kill you in your sleep."

Rose grinned down towards her boots, which she was now putting onto her feet. Finn's eyes went wide and he quickly put his boots on. Rey didn't have the energy to laugh, though it was funny. There were night scavengers, that part was true. But they wouldn't venture out into the desert when there was an oncoming storm. And the luggabeasts were scared of lightning.

A sudden rush of wind crashed into the small cabin as Finn opened the door. It knocked over everything that wasn't furniture, even the wooden bowls off the table. The clatter didn't wake the sleeping boy but the wind made a quick mess of the place.

"Finn, close the door!" Rose said, but then she slipped outside first, calling a quick good night over her shoulder to Rey. Finn followed after her but glanced back at Rey with one last look of concern, before closing the door. Rey slammed the door shut after him. She took a deep breath and sighed in relief, then went to pick up around the cabin. She put away the bowls and set the chairs back onto their legs. A candle had rolled under the table and Rey pulled it out. She set it up on the shelf it had fallen from, the took it down again. 

When was the last time she'd meditated? Her grip on the candle tightened. The last time she'd meditated was right before Ben's death. She'd called on the Jedi's of the past to be with her. She'd lost all hope in beating Palpatine. He had won. But then, they'd responded and she regained her strength.

"Ben..." Rey whispered now. 

He'd saved her life.

D-0 woke and turned his head left, then right. She waited for him to say something but he simply looked up at her for a moment, then entered back into sleep mode.

Rey took the candle over to the boy's bedside and lit it. The cabin was cool now, such a stark difference from the heat of the day earlier. The pitter patter of raindrops was a perfect background sound for meditation. Soon it would be a downpour of heavy rain on metal. But for now the tapping was calming and Rey settled onto the floor to meditate. She stared into the flame.

"Ben... be with me," she started. But then quickly stopped. Who should she be reaching out to? The voice of the Jedis, or the voice of the Siths? Where did Ben fit in, on the other side? Did he change into a Jedi at that final moment before his death, after a lifetime of living on the Dark Side? Or was he with the Siths?

"Ben?" Rey continued. "Can you hear me? I don't know how to conjure you up." Wrong choice of words. Rey sighed. This was silly. She felt like she was talking to herself. She was talking to herself. Her resolve to reach out to Ben wavered for a moment. Would it even be possible?

Suddenly, D-0 zoomed past her and to the front entrance. It had a cloth in front of it, to keep dust out of the cabin when the door was open, except the round metal door was now closed and D-0 ran straight into it with a loud thud.

"D-0!" Rey got up, not sure whether to laugh or be concerned. "What are you doing?" He never disengaged from his charging post so early into his recharge.

"Scared," D-0 said. "No thank you. No thank you." He ran into the table leg, then a pile of old books. Rey tried to catch him and stabilize him, getting down onto her knees to corral him into a corner.

"No thank you," D-0 repeated.

"What are you scared of?" Since their scavenger hunt at the crashed ship, D-0 had been acting strangely and zooming off unexpectedly. Was the rain outside scaring him? The storm was now raging and Rey had to strain to hear D-0's small voice.

"Men," D-0 said.

"You're scared of men? What men?"

D-0 freed himself from Rey's grasp and wandered around the room, bumping into things and saying 'men.'

"Ben." The voice that came from her cot startled her. That corner of the room was bathed in shadow, where the candle's light didn't reach. The boy was now sitting up and the sight was like witnessing the dead rising. "He's saying, Ben," the boy croaked, his voice dry. "Not men."

It took Rey a moment to process this. D-0 stopped acting crazy and rolled up to the boy. 

"Do you know Ben?" he asked.

The boy blinked, his face sweaty and feverish. "No," he said. "Do you?"

"Scared." D-0 was repeating himself again.

Rey took a seat cross-legged in front of the boy, about an arms length. "How are you feeling?" she asked him.

He was glancing around the room, blinking a lot, swallowing oddly.

"Thirsty," he replied.

"Of course!" Rey quickly got up again to pour him a glass of water. She pushed down her irritation when she discovered that Finn and Rose had drank most of the drinking water in the tall clay pot, which usually lasted Rey two full days, and they hadn't even offered to refill it from the well outside.

A wayward piece of metal slammed up against the window in front of Rey and she flinched. It was too wide of a sheet of metal to penetrate the window itself, but hit the window sill instead, then flew away again as though voluntarily jumping back into the storm for a ride. 

Could a Storm Spinner be coming? This part of Jakku never saw Storm Spinners. Wind Spinners were common enough, whipping up sand around in little funnels around the desert. But Storm Spinners came from the north, where water still remained in the Great Lakes, which once used to be an ocean.

The cabin creaked and vibrated with the wind and rain outside. Rey took the water glass to the boy, who grabbed it eagerly and drank so fast that it spilled down his chin and onto his peasant style clothes. He wore a simple dark blue shirt and a dirty grey sweater, which might have once been white. He handed her back the glass, once he was done, and his eyes pleaded for more. There was still more, maybe another two glasses worth, but Rey would have to refill the clay pot soon.

"Where am I?" the boy asked as Rey poured another glass of water. English was not his first language, she could tell. But he had a really good grasp of it.

"You're on Jakku," she replied.

"Where on Cantonica, is Jakku?"

Rey returned with the glass, and a face towel from the washing basin. She handed him the towel and he wiped the sweat from his face, then took the water glass.

"Jakku is an entirely different planet," Rey said.

The boy looked down at D-0, his breathing laboured, as though he'd been running.

"A doctor will come and see you tomorrow," Rey continued. "As soon as-" Her breath caught in surprise when she saw the ring on the boy's thumb finger. "Where did you get that?"

He quickly pulled back, switching hands so that he held the water glass with his other hand now, and tucked the ringed hand behind his back. It was a Galactic Civil War-Era antique Resistance ring.

He drank his water, watching her the entire time, then gasped for air and said, "it's mine. You can't take it from me. A Resistance fighter gave it to me, when I helped save them."

"I don't want to take it," Rey reassured him.

"Are you in the Resistance too?" the boy asked, hopeful.

"Yes." Rey smiled. "Yes, I am. And it looks as though you are too!"

The boy grinned and glanced down at his ring. Then he frowned. "I want to be. Someday. But right now I'm just a stable boy."

"You are not the labour job that you do," Rey said a little too sternly. It was something that had taken her far too long to learn. The boy didn't respond so she asked him his name.

"Temiri," he replied, still looking at his ring. "What's yours?" 

Why did that name sound familiar to her? "Rey," she said.

He looked up at her then, dark bags under his eyes, hair matted to his forehead. "No you're not," he said after a while.

"I'm not?"

"You're not Rey."

Rey straightened. "Of course I am."

The boy narrowed his eyes at her. "You're the Jedi? The one who went with the Resistance hero Han Solo and beat Kylo Ren?"

Rey flinched as though stricken. Then she nodded.

"He's going to find you," Temiri continued. "He's going to find you and he's dangerous. You should have killed him."

"He's..." Rey began to say, the stopped. "How long have you been asleep?" she asked instead.

"Asleep?" The boy furrowed his brow, as though this was the first time he'd considered that he'd been sleeping. "I don't remember going to sleep."

"What do you remember?"

Temiri struggled to his feet all of a sudden, with great effort, then began to bounce up and down. "I have to go pee."

Rey pointed to the curtain on the other side of the room, where there was a small area with a lavatory basin. This would be a long night.