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[garbagepilot]

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for tommy

[garbagepilot]

[When Rey exits the enclosure, she isn't running. She refuses to run away from Kylo Ren of all people, she refuses to let him terrify her as much as he does, so she absolutely isn't running.

But she is rushing, as quick as she can manage without it looking desperate, and she's looking behind her to see if he's going to come out after her with his lightsaber still lit, ready to continue their fight or start a new one. Her lightsaber is her hand but it's off, safely off, and that's very good considering she immediately runs straight into someone.

She doesn't fall, but when her head jerks around and she looks to see who she's just slammed into her eyes are wide and there's a cold sweat broken out on her forehead.]

Re: for tommy

[bleak_midwinter]

He'd been making his way to the deck, unsuspecting of anyone even being in the Enclosure-- and then the door opens and Rey slams into him with force. He lets out a soft oomph when she hits him, brings up both hands to steady her.

It doesn't take long to read her expression. Sweating like that, running from something-

"What happened, Rey?" Perhaps not the kind and supportive voice she might have needed, but Tommy channels concern into action.

[bleak_midwinter]

Honestly, after all of that, Tommy wishes he could just stay indoors for a while. He wishes he could just drink an forget all of that- not because it was so awful, but rather because it wasn't.

Worse of all, he loved someone again. He fell in love hard, and fast, with someone he shouldn't have. And she loved him back- and she's on the ship again, now, with those memories of them riding together, hiding within the shadows, trading sweet, naive kisses.

It takes him a day to parse it all. To have a new family, a new love, happiness and then the devastation of the past few days. But eventually he does have to go out, since he has nothing resembling a fridge, and he needs to eat.

Of course, it figures that he sees her down the hallway- and it figures that it first instinct is to smile at her, that his stomach clenches pleasantly, that he wants to call her things he should not be calling her. It leaves him standing there, frozen, for just a little too long.

[garbagepilot]

Rey has been trying to avoid thinking about all of it as much as she could too, but she hasn't been hiding herself. She's gone on about life as normal to show she isn't hurt by all of that loss, all of the things she'd wanted in life being snatched away like they never mattered, were never hers to begin with.

She had never been particularly interested in love, not even when Finn had been asking her if she'd had a boyfriend on Jakku. It was always a waste of time, her life had no place for something as delicate as love in it when every day was a struggle just to feed herself. When she'd left Finn in his coma it had been with a kiss pressed to his forehead, but she wouldn't have called it love.

Now she's felt it, gone through it from the very start, and she knows what she's missing. At first glance she wouldn't have picked Tommy out of a crowd and said he'd be a good choice for a woman to fall in love with, but the way he was during the breach... It's been a distraction, the way she's had to fight to push all of that to the back of her mind, but when they're both frozen in the hallway everything comes rushing back and she has the most natural urge to fit herself into his arms and steal a kiss.

She can't do that. That wasn't her, and it wasn't him. They aren't those people. It's going to take her a long time to sort out her feelings, but she does like Tommy as a person. She wants this to work, if it still can. That's why, shoulders squared, she starts towards him and hopes her face doesn't look as grim as she feels. She tries a smile once she's close enough and something warm floods her stomach when it sticks, but she can't think of that. She just... she can't.

"Should we speak?" She asks, unsure if he'll even want anything to do with her anymore.

TEXT

[hewasweak]

[He can't quite bring himself to speak to or see her, but the knowledge that she came to visit makes all of this more confusing and uncomfortable and unsettling.

Why he can't seem to shake her is beyond him, but he's really starting to hate how this whole sentimentality thing just creeps in and strangles you.]

You came to see me.

[Yes, accusing works so well.]

text 5eva

[garbagepilot]

[She absolutely did not go to see him, and when she was in the infirmary it was nothing near a visit. Those things would require that she stay until he was a awake, perhaps, or even want him to know she was there.

She had just needed to see him half dead again, struck down by an entirely ordinary man, so that she could let go of the last of her dear of him. To make him nothing to her, once and for all, except something that needed to be fixed before it was returned to Han and Leia.]

You must be delusional after your death.

post-breach

[gitanes]

[For a long while she considers being unkind. That is, after all, her default, and far easier than extending anyone any measure of kindness. She doesn't know that Rey deserves her kindness, after all. She was someone else in Redimere, just as Lila was herself.]

[Still . . . maybe just this once. At least to start with. So.]

Meet me somewhere. You pick where and when.

[garbagepilot]

[Well that's... a thing. Rey isn't really sure what to do with this, but just like Lila she can't find a reason to not test the waters here.

And there's still a measure of fondness floating in her for this girl, the memories of her keeping Kylo Ren in any form far away from her more than enough to let this play out instead of stamping out the connection before it has a chance to form.]

I'm free now. Does the library work?

[Rey doesn't actually like the library much, not when it's a waste of space when a holo-reader is all you need to read anything, but it's a public place that's quiet, neutral ground, and isn't somewhere that an inmate needs permission to enter.]

action

[witness_this]

One morning, when Rey comes to the Enclosure, there will be a program already locked in that looks just like home. Hot sand, a hotter sun, and miles of dusty road stretching out in either direction.

And a voice from beyond the frame;

"Sorry. It's just me- do you need the place?"

Furiosa is crouched behind a stalled motorbike, braced up on the thing with her good arm while she uses the torque force in the prosthesis to make something wrench that doesn't seem to want to. She's conscious of the fact that she sometimes uses a bit more than her share of the place.

[garbagepilot]

Usually if Rey were to find the Enclosure occupied she'd just see herself out, but this... for some reason this makes her pause. It is home, the sand is almost the exact same color as the sand on Jakku, and she knows that she didn't program it in, so she's honestly a little unsure about what's happening here.

When she hears a woman's voice, though, things start to fall into place.

"No, that's fine," she says, moving through the sand with the ease of long practice. "You have to be Furiosa." It's too obvious to miss coming so close after that conversation with Tommy. Which is something she should probably mention so that doesn't sound quite so obvious. "I've heard about you from Tommy. He said the planets we come from are alike."

4/4

[cigfran]

[Early in the morning, a letter is left outside Rey's door, with a pair of feathers laid on top, and weighed down on either side with two books - one slightly modified. The letter reads as follows.]

[ Private : Voice ]

[kissthatgoodbye]

[He sees her on the Admiral's announcement post. He sees the way she shuts down Snart. He sees what her first and main concern is, remembers their first meeting in the dining hall, the way he still sees her eat, like it's going to be her last meal or like she can't believe she gets an entire plate of food.

It would take someone far less observant than he is to miss what all of that adds up to. So he gives her a day, and then, just to test the waters:

Hey.

[ Private : Text ]

[garbagepilot]

[One day isn't enough time. She's still more than rattled, has locked herself away in the Falcon, and speaking isn't something she wants to do.]

Yes?

[audio] meme threads reminded me I've been meaning to do this

[tucky]

Hey.

You doing okay? Not with supplies, with-- everything else.

[audio] yay sup sister \o/

[garbagepilot]

I'll be fine.

[The response is automatic, but it's also a little unfair, all things considered. After a moment of silence, she tries again.]

I just want this to be over with.

post-flood

[ukan]

Now that things have settled down, I wanted to invite you and Tommy to dinner.

[He knows how to dance around a topic but he doubts Rey would appreciate it. And yeah, 'you and Tommy' is a calculated phrasing to see how she responds.]

[garbagepilot]

[He picks the right method, because Rey rarely responds well to people beating around the bush. She likes directness, hates wasting time.

She does like dinner though, and she likes Tommy. She could get to a place where she likes Lark too, and all of that combines into her not immediately saying no.

No thank you. She probably would have added the thank you.]

Why?

[She doesn't sound suspicious, or like she's going to say no. She's just curious.]

About a day into the flood

[bleak_midwinter]

I know you might not want to be around people right now, but I need to talk to you.

[garbagepilot]

[Well that's ominous.]

Like this, or in person?

action;

[nonsurvivor]

Max would really prefer to be alone, but it wouldn't help with so many people wandering so close by. And besides, more important than the crush of feelings this flood brought, is the limited time they have to prepare for something worse.

And he suspects Eggsy will sabotage his efforts once the worst really hits. So. He's not in a great mood, but he is completely focused on scavenging and that helps, just like it always has.

He pauses in an empty common area to sift through his pack, double checking how much food he's got, how many books and movies. He knocks a tin of peaches out accidentally, and watches as it rolls and rolls, on a course to collide with either the wall or a human foot, it seems.

[garbagepilot]

The only reason that Rey's outside of her room is because she had taken the chance of leaving between common meals to go to the cafeteria and eat a hot meal for the first time in days. She'd been taking prepackaged things from the cafeteria and stocking them in her room, getting ready for whatever is coming and just to avoid her mind being read because honestly, the memories stolen from her because of candy hearts were bad enough. This? She really has no patience for what the barge is doing now, especially because it seems like she's one of the few people who aren't affected. Her head only has her own thoughts in it and it's something she's very glad about.

It's on her way back that she has to stop in her tracks or trip over a can of food, and she bends down to pick it up and frowns at the packaging for a moment. She's not had a peach yet, but she does know she likes apples, and the fruit on this can looks sort of like an apple. She's tempted immediately to keep the can, to stash it in her pack and keep walking, but when she looks up and sees Max and their eyes meet it becomes clear it doesn't belong to her.

She's still tempted to keep it. Her hand grips it tightly, but somehow she forces herself to cross the room and somehow, she holds it out to him. She'll regret it the second the can leaves her hand, but he did catch her red-handed.

[video] [during L'Appel du Vide flood]

[neverjoinyou]

[Sorry, Rey. Luke's decided that he misses you, because he loves everyone, and you're not around to tell.]

Hey. Rey? Rey I have something to tell you!

[text]

[garbagepilot]

[Sorry Luke, Rey likes you too but this flood is not her friend.]

What is it?

spam;

[ukan]

There are only a few things Lark knows, at this point. And one of them is that Rey was involved.

He tracks her, very much like he had once tracked T'Pol, but this time he's in human form. And this time, he doesn't attack when he finally gets her alone.

"We need to talk."

[garbagepilot]

She does expect Steve, and because she likes and respects Steve she had invited him in in the kindest way she could. There had been politeness there.

When Lark shows up and demands, every wall she has goes up. She can still feel the ache of the bruise and the split skin on her cheek, the scratches scrapes from a poorly controlled fall to the deck, but it fades when her body goes back into fight or flight mode.

She doesn't know Lark and she doesn't trust him. She trusts Tommy, and that's the only thing that has her stepping aside so that Lark can enter the Falcon. Her staff is up against the wall just inside, but she doesn't reach for it. If he's here to hurt her, she has her own lightsaber at her hip and she has the Force to stop him.

after the announcement of the bull's death

[bleak_midwinter]

He doesn't even bother sending her a message: it would only scare her, and he knows it. So instead, he just knocks on her door, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.

[garbagepilot]

He's lucky she answers the door, really, but once she does and she sees it's him the shadow over her face clears when there's no threat on the other side of the door, when there's not just one more person here to tell her what she did was wrong. She hadn't realized until this very second how much she needed to see him, but now that he's there she just wants him to stay.

"You saw the... what Steve said?"

video; after his conversation with Steve

[laughitup]

[Han Solo is not the type of person who likes to have feelings, usually hiding any genuine emotion behind jokes or aggression—the latter, in this case. Enjoy him starting to care about you, Rey.]

Did I tell you to leave it alone? Did I?? Are you trying to get demoted?

voice;

[garbagepilot]

[She responds because of course she does, it's Han, but she makes sure to only let him hear her voice. It won't do either of them any good to see the results of going toe to toe with someone as big as the Iron Bull.]

You're the second person to ask me that. Don't you think if I was trying to get myself demoted I would have actually stayed and killed him myself? It was never about that.

[text] backdated to the lost kids flood

[andfoolish]

[Ben has been building up his courage for this, but he's decided he's gonna tell her, and he's gonna do it like a coward so she can't just kick him in the lagoon.]

I have something to tell you!

[text]

[garbagepilot]

[Which is smart, because she absolutely would do that and would probably tell Horatio to pretend to drown him a couple times.]

I don't know why you think I'd care.

[nonsurvivor]

After Max leaves Eggsy with only the dogs and a gun to protect him, he heads out to start rolling up camp. He's not leaving his things where they can be discovered and stolen, and he also can't count on being allowed back here by the time Eggsy has recovered.

Besides, he has tools here for improving security around the apartment. He has most of it done--a few tools are still at his and Furiosa's place--when he pauses to check on Rey. He can handle the little monsters killing one person, but if the bodies pile up, especially if they're bodies he cares to see survive...

[garbagepilot]

Rey is, perhaps unsurprisingly, entirely fine. She is't disturbed by the feral teenager she had been when really, she was that person when she first arrived here. That part of her is still there, obvious in the way she chose to live in the woods this entire month, in the way she ambushed the Iron Bull because he killed Han. The child she was is who she is and it's not something she'd ever apologize for.

She looks entirely happy at the moment, stretched out in the sand with her eyes closed just enjoying the sun, and she smiles a little when the Force tells her Max is here now.

"You can come sit down."

voice

[butcherbaker]

Rey-

[He says, quiet, into the feed, after he's found out for sure.]

Rey, you have to get me off this ship. You have to.

voice

[garbagepilot]

[She can't, they both know that, but that doesn't make hearing this plea any easier. Perhaps unfortunately, though, she hasn't been paying attention to the network in the last few hours.]

Where are you, Alfie? [She could find him with her item, but that's hardly a thing a friend does.] What happened?

for Poe - backdated to his arrival

[garbagepilot]

[It's been a few days now since Tommy started his coma and Rey has, she thinks, adjusted to it well. She doesn't keep herself in his room waiting for him, but the guilt of leaving Finn to find Luke keeps her thinking of him, has her checking in far too often, and that's what she's doing as she's passing between their floors, heading from the Falcon to Tommy's room with the intention of just checking him, making sure he's still there, sleeping peacefully-

And then as she rounds a corner there's a very familiar round orange and white droid just... there, right in the middle of the hallway, and she stops in her tracks, stunned.]

BB-8?

[And then her eyes lift, find the human BB-8 had been trailing after, and she can't help gasping.]

Poe!

[incomer]

[ It's only when Poe sees Rey that the reality of this -- all of this -- really starts to sink in. Up to this point, it's been ... off, a little surreal in a way that suggests he's going to wake up with a hell of a hangover and a lot of regret about Corellian whiskey before bed.

His smile is automatic, warm and bright despite the fact that he's just as startled as she is. Still, BB-8 seems mostly unfazed, already warbling an enthusiastic greeting as the little droid races up the hallway to circle her feet twice before stopping in front of her.

Poe's approach is a little more measured, a little slower, but it's just as obvious that he's happy to see her, too. He hesitates on the other side of BB-8, hands on his hips -- grinning outright, now. ]

Well, now, fancy meeting you here. [ There's a bit of a drawl to it, almost teasing, and Poe winks for good measure. ]

How's it goin', Rey?

just before the true transformation

[bleak_midwinter]

She told him to lock her in; she told him to take her away if she got too bad.

But between all the bad spots, between the sleepwalking, between the crying jags in his arms, there are the moments when she's just shivering in her bunk, when her teeth are chattering.

He makes her cups of tea, he talks to her in progressively softer tones. He doesn't know what to do. He's seethingly angry, but with her he's painfully tender.

He sits with her this afternoon, too, and he holds her blackening fingers in his. "Tell me about yourself. Something I didn't know yet."

[garbagepilot]

The past week has not been easy on either of them. She really feels like she's slowly dying with the way she just feels cold all the time, the way all she wants to do is sleep, but Tommy has kept her inside, kept the rest of the ship safe from her, and she knows she'll never be able to repay that gift.

He's kept her from really becoming a monster and she's hardly ever awake long enough to thank him for it.

Even now, her cold hands in his, her eyes are closed while she listens to him speak. It takes her a long time to find a memory that will fit that description, and when it becomes too much work to keep her head up she just gives up and leans it against his shoulder while she speaks.

"I rebuilt a spaceship by myself for six months," she mumbles, grasping for the details to tell a more complete story. "It was a Ghtroc Industries 690 freighter that had crashed and it..." she trails off there, like she forgets she's telling the story, but then it comes back to her. "The power should have been drained but it still worked."

Private

[nonsurvivor]

[He really does prefer to see people in person. His hands used to tremble a bit and he was prone to hanging up before he was really ready to end a conversation. But he figures she might want to be alone, or she might be with Tommy, or with friends.]

Saw he's back.

[And pieced together that Tommy is different, is prisoner now.]

Private 5eva

[garbagepilot]

[Tommy is absolutely a subject she doesn't walk to talk about, but Max is different from a lot of people on this ship. He understands her in ways that no one else ever really can, with the exception of maybe Furiosa. The world they come from is too similar, and Max himself is too much like her to deny that hearing from him now helps.]

Have you spoken to him?

private

[laughitup]

Hey, Rey... I talked to Shelby.

[Which she might already know, given their network conversation wasn't private.]

...are you all right?

[garbagepilot]

[That's a very good question, but the truth is that she doesn't really know yet. This is like nothing she's ever had to deal with before, she's never fallen in love at all and this is unlike anything she's even heard of. None of her feelings for Tommy have changed, but is that even a good thing?]

I don't think so.

[It's an honest answer, because it's Han, so of course he gets the truth.]

It's been four years for him. He has a son.

[That kind of explains everything, doesn't it?]

[text]

[neverjoinyou]

Rey, I saw.

Are you okay?

[text]

[garbagepilot]

[This is the third time now she's had to answer this question and it's almost funny, in a terrible way, that she still doesn't have an answer for it that feels right.]

When Alfie had graduated, I was going to wait here as long as it took for Kylo Ren to graduate too and then I was going to go to Tommy's world. He was going to get a home ready for us, and I would have met his family.

None of that can happen now.

[So no, when it comes right down to it, she's not okay at all.]

[bleak_midwinter]

They don't intend to meet each other when they do. Tommy hasn't been avoiding her, but he hasn't exactly been trying to get close to her either. These days he doesn't much go into the library like he used to, or spend time in the common rooms.

Mostly he's up on deck, sitting on the desk chairs, and just thinking. He doesn't write things down because that's dangerous, so he's just chain smoking as he looks out into the darkness.

When Rey wanders onto the deck he looks up and notices her, but doesn't make any effort to try and get her to come over, or to avoid her.

[garbagepilot]

She's been going about it in much the same way, honestly. He had as good as told her it was unlikely he would come to her for anything so she hadn't expected friendly chats, occasional visits for tea. After she hadn't heard a word from him about his room after she asked for it to be changed, it wasn't hard to take the hint.

But the thing about him being on the deck is that that's still where she goes to practice with her staff, and now that she's stopped listening cor him through the Force, she doesn't notice him there when he doesn't speak up.

He might recognize the drill she starts, slower to focus on strength and poise rather than brute force, but it's also the one he had found her doing years ago for him, months for her, when it had started to rain and he had been unable to stay away.

She gets through about a quarter of the moves before she turns and spots him. She goes still then, stares in surprise, and then lowers her staff. What now? They've seen each other, made eye contact. She ducks her head, weighs her choices, and finally her feet carry her forward.

"You look like you've been camped out here for awhile," she says, nodding at the cigarette butts littering the ground around him.

[Voice] - one week ago

[utselet]

[After her talk with the new and very much un-improved Tommy Shelby, Nina finds herself no longer disappointed and angry on her own behalf, nor Tommy's, but on Rey's. She's become something of a friend over time, and there's a part of Nina that feels a little like if she's been let down now, it's partly on Nina's shoulders. She should have known better. She really should have.

She doesn't feel so much guilt as regret, but either way, it leaves a bad taste in her mouth and a heaviness in her heart. She has a cigarette to calm her nerves, then gives her a call.]

Rey? It's Nina. I just got up from a coma, and I... I ran into Tommy.

[Or he decided to respond to her broadcast, anyway. She still has no idea why he bothered, other than to dramatically reappear before her eyes and irritate her as much as he had to have known he would.]

[garbagepilot]

[After the first flood of concern, Rey had hoped that this sort of thing would stop. She understands why people are concerned, she knows that it's because the people who check how she's doing care about her and she's grown enough from the untrusting person who first arrived here to see that for what it is and appreciate it.

It does mean a lot to her, but for the first time Tommy is a topic that she doesn't want to talk about as often as she's had to lately.]

I don't imagine it went well.