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I Am Yours, You Are Mine

Summary:

"Sometimes he heard it in the back of his mind, a melody hummed over and over again. The taste of grief that coated his tongue and teeth and left him with a familiar burning ache in his chest, mingled with the persistent flare of anticipation, of joy and hope and resolve - a determination that kept turning his eyes to the sky. 'They'll come back'."

My take on The Force Awakens through The Rise of Skywalker and all the details we so craved in between. A chance for me to flesh out Rey's character and backstory. This fic will focus primarily on Reylo, but will also look deeper into the relationships between Ben and his parents and uncle. Also, the friendship between young, lonely kids Finn and Rey.

Notes:

Can’t believe it’s taken me this long to binge the new Star Wars. (Actually, I can: The original trilogy was epic, and the prequels still make me cringe!) I’ll give all due recognition, accolades and respect to Adam Driver for his portrayal of Kylo-Ren/Ben Solo: We all know he carried the trilogy. He took the script and made the movies his own. I haven’t been so disappointed with an ending since Jon Snow’s character assassination.

I think half the problem people have with Rey, calling her a “Mary Sue”, is that there’s very little exposition (and of course, three separate projects for the trilogy with three unique visions): We know what’s going on inside Kylo Ren’s mind because of Adam Driver’s phenomenal acting, but, well, most people don’t care to take Rey in the context of her life in Jakku, and the details of things like Kylo having been hit by Chewie’s blaster before duelling with Rey, whom he only wanted to capture, not kill, etc. I’m also going to explore the bond, and how it affected both Rey and Ben before they ever met.

Also, the ‘awakening’ in the Force doesn’t necessarily have to have been Rey: It could’ve been Finn, or the little boy in the stables tending to the fathiers - he levitated the broom to him!

Also, who actually wants me to keep Rey’s origins as a Palpatine? Because I don’t!

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1: Across the Stars

Chapter Text

I Am Yours, You Are Mine

01

Across the Stars


He felt it, then, the ripple of sensitivity, the awareness, an unexpected kiss of warmth on his skin as if like a blazing summer sun at midnight in winter, and a stillness - a gentleness, a sense of peace enveloping him, lulling and sweet, where he could finally, blessedly, catch his breath, quiet his mind. He had felt it more and more over the last few months, that…connection. Delicate, and cherished - he had started to yearn for it, for the sense of peace and completeness that transcended everything churning inside him. For that delicate brush of warmth, the whisper of serenity, undiluted joy - hope…a teasing, mercurial seam of hope, like viewing the sun as if from underwater, fragmented and ever-changing and lulling, drawing him to the surface. Keeping him from drowning, drawing him towards the light, to life. He reached for the warmth, the sweetness - and the lullaby.

Sometimes he heard it, a song in the back of his mind, a melody hummed over and over again. And accompanying it, the taste of grief that coated his tongue and teeth and left him with a familiar burning ache in his chest, mingled with the persistent flare of anticipation, of joy and hope and resolve - a determination that kept turning his eyes to the sky, watching…waiting. A certainty that solidified in his mind even as it reflected years of longing in his own heart, They’ll come back

Months ago, undiluted terror had choked him from his sleep, chilled to the bone and covered in cold sweat, his body jolting as if he had been hit with a rifle, the screams of a tiny girl blasting through his mind as if she stood beside him, screaming, her whimpers and cries of unbridled grief and confusion and shock echoing in his ears, his hands shaking and the darkness coiled in his stomach, as anguish and confusion rippled across the galaxies, and he felt it, the grief, the pain, the devastation - the panic that had stopped his lungs from taking in oxygen.

He’d struggled to dominate the feeling of panic threatening to overwhelm him, making him lightheaded: Unable to get air to his lungs, he had choked and willed himself to BreatheJust breathe

What he didn’t know was that he had sent that one word - a plea and a command - through the galaxy, to a little girl who had been choking on terror and grief and confusion as she shivered in the excavated belly of an ancient, rusting AT-AT walker she had claimed as her own, her bed made of sand, her blanket a bloody Rebel Alliance jumpsuit salvaged from the innards of the now-defunct transport and combat vehicle. Breathe

He felt the ripple and release, as if the Force itself was sighing after holding its breath, and stilled, blinking, a slight frown drawing his brows together. Awareness prickled down his spine, and he glanced over his shoulder. He blinked again, confused, more than a little stunned - and something else…relieved. He didn’t understand why.

A little being appeared out of nowhere. Body wrapped in little more than dusty grey rags, except for skinny calves that showed sunburn, angry and irritated by a handful of small, jagged cuts, one knee shredded, blood seeping down her leg. And it was a her: Because she was screaming and thrashing, hissing and spitting and fighting fiercely - and cursing violently in a language he didn’t know, her voice human and so young it startled him, passionate and almost funny as he listened to such a voice cursing with such feeling from behind more swathes of frayed fabric pinned in place by Stormtrooper goggles far too big for her, knocked lopsided and revealing brunette hair coiled into braids that reminded him in a gut-wrenching instant of his mother.

He frowned, and focused, and was startled as several more creatures appeared, alien and humanoid, wrapped similarly in colourless garb, snarling and hooting and taunting the girl - he frowned, and felt the girl’s dread, her fury and annoyance at being assaulted, her determination to get out of this scrap - she would fight, and keep fighting: Because she would be ready…when they returned for her…

Still…a tiny little thing, she was, all sharp elbows and fragile limbs - he scowled, adjusted his grip on the staff resting in his hands, and reached out - with his emotions as much as his body, thrusting himself into the fray, fuelled by anger - and something else…instinct. Something fierce and bright and good - the instinct to protect.

He was young, but already tall. Slender, but strong. And he harnessed the Force instinctually as an extension of himself even as he thrust out with his staff. He was exceptionally well-trained since childhood: Drilling with his staff helped him clear his mind more than all Uncle Luke’s meditation. Focusing on nothing more than moving his muscles. They were more than second-nature, now.

He knew this girl. This child. He knew her, though they had never met. Knew this was nothing more than some queer anomaly of the Force, another…another trick, another vision… But she was clear as daylight, her presence in the Force luminous, pulsing with life, vital and coaxing, she drew him to her as nothing ever had, awing.

It was quick: Her attackers didn’t know what was happening before they were knocked into the sand, unconscious, some of them sporting broken jaws and cheekbones from the impact of his staff.

Panting, he was aware of the intense heat burning through his shirt, the sudden dry, fiery heat that stole his breath from his lungs, his footing uneven as the sand beneath his boots sifted and slid away, unsteady, unfamiliar.

The little girl coughed, rolled onto her knees, and tilted her head to one side as she hobbled to her feet, resting her weight on one leg - the one not bloodied by her shredded knee. She turned around in a slow circle, taking in the fallen aliens, finally turning to face him. Without removing her cowl, or the goggles that held it in place, she tilted her head to one side, staring up at him.

She was so little.

And she made his lips twitch as she took a defensive stance, balling up her tiny little fists in front of her chest. She didn’t even reach his hip, her clenched fists so small - but he glanced around at the aliens.

“You were gonna fight them all?” he asked in Basic, hoping she would understand, and the girl nodded. “Are you going to fight me?”

“Maybe,” she said fiercely, and his lips twitched again. He lanced his staff in the sand, sighing, and sank to one knee. He still loomed over her.

“You’re a brave little thing, aren’t you?” He reached out to tenderly touch the little dark braid that had come loose from her cowl, draped over her shoulder. Real. She was real. None of his visions, his nightmares, were ever tangible. And there was something…strange, something peaceful and exquisite and right about kneeling in the sand with her, as if he had always meant to be here.

“Doesn’t take bravery for sandsnakes to bite back when they’re attacked,” she said sharply, and his lips twitched again.

“I suppose not. Well, you’re not gonna land many hits like that - not without hurting yourself. Can I show you?” Another tilt of her shrouded head. Then she raised her tiny fists to him, not in a threat but in supplication. He noticed the backs of her hands were sunburned, and all over her palms and fingers were blisters, burns and healing cuts, some of them shallow, some of them jagged and angry, some of them bruised. Reaching out, he carefully rearranged her fingers, wondering as he did so what kind of a life could already have left such damage on so young a person. Her hands were so tiny in his huge paws: he took great care, wincing at the injuries on her hands. Some looked like electrical burns - the kind he’d expect from an engineer who forgot to wear gloves around volatile wiring.

“There. Now you won’t break your thumbs if you hit someone,” he said softly. She raised her fists to her shielded eyes, and he thought she was examining the positioning of her fingers and thumbs. “Better yet,” he added, “you don’t pick a fight with six people, especially when they’re all bigger than you.”

“Then I wouldn’t be able to pick a fight with anyone!” the little girl said plaintively, and his lips twitched. “Anyway, I didn’t pick a fight! They did. How did you do it?”

“Do what?”

Her fists unfurled as she gestured around her expressively, at the unconscious aliens sprawled in the sand. His lips hitched up in one corner toward a smile. Then he reached for his staff.

“Here,” he said, handing it to her.

“It’s heavy,” she grunted, her tiny fingers unable to even curl around the staff properly. Again, his lips twitched.

“It’s heavy to make you strong,” he said thoughtfully. He hadn’t been much older than her, though already tall for his age, when he had become an apprentice - a padawan. He’d started with the staff, and even now, though he was building his own lightsaber, for drills and meditation he always turned to his staff. He remembered when it had been heavy, when returning to it in the morning made his muscles scream in protest from the day before - now it was an extension of him. “Turn your body sideways.”

Reaching out, he showed her the best posture. He was big, but Uncle Luke had taught Tai, slenderer and smaller than him, how best to situate his body to the maximum advantage when engaging in a saber-duel. Reducing the surface target was always wise in an altercation, anyway. “You’re small, that’s good.”

You just said I shouldn’t fight because I’m small,” she said exasperatedly, and he almost smiled again as she struggled to keep the staff raised in her hands.

“I said you shouldn’t pick a fight with six people,” he corrected. “I didn’t say you shouldn’t fight at all.”

He heard his name being called, echoing softly through the distortion of the Force, and glanced over his shoulder. Tai was waving at him, summoning him into the temple. His lips parted as he turned, realising he would have absolutely no way to explain the girl’s presence - or the incapacitated aliens - to Luke. He blinked. They were gone.

Ben Solo rose from his knees and frowned, reaching for his staff. It was gone.


Worlds away, a little girl blinked behind her dusty goggles, tilting her head. As suddenly as the boy had appeared, he was gone. The staff weighed heavily in her hands, which still hurt from Unkar Plutt’s last few tasks for him. She was tiny, with nimble fingers - she could get places the Crolute’s henchmen couldn’t. That made her valuable. Valuable meant she was worth something; she earned her portions. It was worth it to Unkar Plutt to teach her about ships and mechanics: She was learning how to fix things, and what to strip from them that was of value, was precious, and necessary.

Unkar Plutt had promised, if she did well, he’d teach her how to pilot - so when she was too big to fit into the little places she could still earn her portions. She didn’t much like that idea, though: She didn’t much like Unkar Plutt. And Niima Outpost smelled as pleasant as he did: She preferred it out in the sand dunes, where she could dream…

With a little sigh, she glanced around the other scavengers who had thought to harass her for what she had rightfully earned, through toil and determination and a complete lack of self-preservation. Parents taught their children caution.

Rey’s had lost her.

And the tricks and skills she had been picking up over the last few months for her own survival were now becoming second-nature; she looted the injured aliens for their scavenged mechanics and technology without remorse, and frowned, because she realised she couldn’t carry it all.

So, she stole a satchel from one Teedo, loaded it up, and frowned as she struggled with the staff. She remembered what the boy had done, how he had moved with the staff, like nothing she had ever seen.

She reached up, adjusting the huge satchel that looked far too big for her, and the frayed suede cord draped around her neck threatening to choke her beneath her sandsashes. A crystal pressed comfortingly against her skinny chest, hidden by swathes of rough fabric, and she sighed, tilting her head at the horizon, where the sun made the dunes shimmer and bubble as it lowered, knowing she would not make it back to Niima Outpost before sunset.

Unkar Plutt had allowed her to go out and try her luck scavenging, laughing even as he did so: She had wanted to prove she knew what to look for, what he would find valuable - maybe he would give her two portions for what she had found today!

Instead, she turned toward home, grateful for the chill wind whipping up as the sun set, to erase her retreating footsteps from the dunes.

After a few miles trudging over the dunes, panting and sweating from exertion, her little body still thrumming with heat from the blistering sun to keep her warm even in the chill of a desert night, she resorted to dragging the staff. It was too big. Too long, too heavy. But the way the boy had used it.

Beneath her cowl, Rey’s lips twitched into a smile, remembering the way the aliens had shrieked and yelled and crumpled.

She had stared at him, through her goggles. She had never seen anyone like him at Niima Outpost. Very tall - taller even than monstrous Unkar Plutt - with cropped midnight-dark hair that couldn’t quite disguise his large ears, lips that seemed too pretty for a boy’s face, and dark eyes that had seemed at once sad and amused. His hands had been enormous, with long fingers, but he’d been gentle. She was getting used to rough hands.

He’d appeared out of nowhere and disappeared into the sands as if he was a mirage, something her mind had made up in the heat of the sun.

But she knew he was real.

She didn’t think she had felt anything as real ever in her whole life. His not-quite-smiling face, the tender way he touched her braid, teaching her how to hold her fists to throw a punch, she had tasted his aggression and his ferocity, and something else, too, something…familiar.

She had felt like home - even if she couldn’t remember what that was.

In her heart, she felt as if she knew him, as if she always had. And…his voice reminded her of her dreams, the ones she sometimes had, the scary ones that made Unkar Plutt seem not frightening at all.

Finally, she reached the AT-AT she had cleaned out and claimed. It wasn’t much, but it had sheltered her from a sandstorm, and it was here she had first felt it…the sigh and ripple, the coil and sweet coaxing of power, of life, of something greater than herself, flowing through her, all around her…it was here she had learned something about herself. She had special gifts. She could move things with her mind - she had stopped herself being buried by the sand as it blasted into the AT-AT during a storm, she had made a wall with her mind that the thrashing storm couldn’t get through.

Maybe that was why her parents had given her away.

She couldn’t remember where she had been before Jakku. All she could remember was fire, explosions, a droid, a man’s sad smile, a woman’s bright blue eyes, and the lullaby…

As she tugged her goggles off her head, she panted for breath, finally digging out her precious bottle, savouring a few trickles of life-giving liquid, and rested the staff against the wall. In the dark, she couldn’t see the scratches, but she knew they were there. One for every day she had been in Jakku - nearly every day, at least.

She tucked her scavenged and stolen items in a compartment buried beneath the sand, lest anyone find her in the AT-AT and try to steal it, and undid the cowl around her head. Settling into her bed, nothing more than a nest in the sand, her cowl bundled beneath her head, she sighed, and ignored the aching emptiness in her stomach, holding her fists out, the way the boy had showed her.

Rey wondered where he had gone.

When she slept, she dreamed of the island again, lush with green and surrounded by water as far as the eye could see.