The staff stops its movement through the air, comes to rest on the surface of the deck as she stops to look over at him properly. Things are sliding into place now, she's putting together why this is hard for him now, why it would have been worse the first time and why it made such an impression then that he'd go out of his way to keep things from going badly again.
It had been clear that she wasn't the only one struggling, and she hadn't ever thought of it in terms of who had been hurt worse, but now she realizes she had assumed he had taken it a little better than her.
But they really are on the same page, and thanks to Luke and Han she's reached a place where seeing someone she likes in pain has developed the urge to try to help. She's still not very good at being a form of support, but she'd done well enough in the past that they had been thankful after the fact.
Or maybe they had just accepted she was horrible at being nice and were giving her a pass for trying. Either way, against her better judgement she crosses the deck and puts her hand, delicately, on Tommy's shoulder. It's a big risk and she hates herself a little for making it after he'd already rejected the staff lessons, she should know better, but it's who she is now and not her memories of him during the breach that make it impossible to just let him sit there suffering.
"I'm sorry, Tommy." Her voice is even and soft, but not overcome with sympathy or too much emotion. There's sincerity, and that comes with a very gentle squeeze, but she's keeping this from getting too sentimental very much on purpose.
He hadn't expected that- not because he thinks she's unkind, but because she's particularly closed-off, and because most people react to this confession with at least a little contempt. People tend to be disappointed in him, or at least that's how he feels they react.
So he hadn't expected this kind of sincere sentiment. It doesn't mean he doesn't flinch a little, hunch over so he can look at his folded hands, but it's not... bad. He isn't sure how to react to it, so he just lets the silence linger for a little while as he thinks on it.
"So now you understand a little more," he settles on, finally.
Her hand doesn't stay there long, at least. She takes it away to sit down across from him instead, but she isn't sure what should come next. She doesn't want to pry into what happened with the person he was in love with before his heart was broken, but she feels like she should say something.
"I do," she agrees, just to be sure they're on the same page and he knows he can maybe relax with this a little more. "I can... if you need space, I can do that."
As much as she doesn't want to lose one of the very few friends she's made on the barge, he's become important enough to her that she's okay with letting him take that decision out of her hands if it's going to help him process things better.
He clears his throat and shakes his head, without looking up from his hands. "No. It's been months." Which means more I shouldn't still be upset about this than I'm no longer upset about this.
She does kind of get that feeling, so Rey nods and just like that it's something filed away, something she can remember to give her perspective on him but something that she'll never bring up on her own. Something he can choose to speak to her about, if he ever feels a need to.
And... the level of relief she feels when he says no is a little disturbing for her. She doesn't quite like this, becoming this attached to anyone at all, but it's inescapable and she has no idea what to do about it. Let it happen? She doesn't want to fight it, so that's really the only option.
"How often do things like that happen?" She asks instead of lingering on a topic that clearly causes him pain. "I didn't know it was possible for the entire ship to become somewhere else like that."
There's a lot there, information and things that only cause more questions, but there's one word that he's said that Rey can't hope to parse, so she picks it to focus on in the hopes that she can distract him from what's bothering him.
"Beasts makes them sound dangerous," Rey points out, intrigued because it's interesting and less because her distraction technique might have actually worked. "Were the just... loose, everywhere?"
"They were. They'd built a compound of sorts, to keep them out- it was the world of the dinosaurs, and we were intruding. They quite disagreed with that."
As much as that sounds very dangerous and probably quite scary, there's still something about it that makes Rey just a little sorry she didn't get to see these dinosaurs.
He nods, rubs his mouth a little again in an obvious nervous gesture- there's still tension in his body.
"Plenty of people were hurt. Furiosa threw herself in front of one of the animals to save me, even though we didn't know each other in the dream. I had to do some very inventive things to keep her from bleeding out."
Immediately Rey feels angry at herself for the question, because the last thing she'd wanted to do was make Tommy think of even more things he'd rather not. She's making this worse, doesn't know how to make it better, and that means her immediate impulse is to run away from it.
What is Tommy to her, anyway? Not a lover, maybe a friend, and she can't even say they know nothing about each other anymore when he's told her about Grace, his family, his childhood. When he knows about her abandonment, about her abilities, about her loneliness. Even when she's trying to tell herself there's nothing there she can't and that makes it worse, in a way.
She can't run from what's already started, not when he's put his trust in her. It makes her uncomfortable, but there's nothing she can do about it except try to find a way to make it hurt less. Add to that the fact that she'd given him the chance to walk away and he had said no so plainly...
"I haven't met Furiosa," she says, a little stiffly, trying to draw the conversation away from danger and death. She's so bad a this it's impossible to hide it, but she's trying. For him. "Tell me about her?"
The breach is distant by now: it's been months, and those memories fade easily. He doesn't mind the question, but he can't say he minds the change of topic, either.
But he does notice it. That she's changing it because of him, for him. And he isn't quite sure whether it's a kindness or pity he doesn't need.
"You'd like her," he says, finally, looking up and conjuring up a smile. "She's the toughest woman I have ever met- and I've met some. She's from a dead world, but she didn't lose her heart there. She fights, and she drives trucks that aren't even possible in my world yet."
Honestly, she's one of the best friends he's ever had. There's no one like her anywhere, he's sure of it.
The smile is enough to make fighting through everything she's feeling worth it, just the knowledge that they've gotten to any place where he can do that makes fumbling through this worth it. She's able to relax a little, and by the time he's finished speaking she's just back to listening to him closely the way she does every time he tells her something new.
And... it's funny, the way she hears each thing about Furiosa and can find the same thing in herself. Tough, from a dead world, a fighter, sort of a pilot. She can kind of see now why Tommy would like her if those are the points of Furiosa that stick out in his mind enough that they're how he describes her.
"Remind me to show you Jakku in the Enclosure," she says, smiling a little herself. "I wonder if it's like her world."
"You haven't been here for that long," he points out, finally relaxing enough to dig out a new cigarette- and holding the pack out when he does, offering her one.
With the drink he had offered her before, it had been entirely obvious what it was, what it was for, once she realized it was alcoholic. It was familiar, and this is entirely the opposite of that. She'd never seen anyone smoke before Tommy, and it hadn't ever really been something she had thought of as a habit he would share until now.
They've been in open spaces every time he's done it so the smell has never bothered her and she is curious, just a little, what all the fuss is about, so she reaches out to take one of the cigarettes before she admits-
He looks up, still surprised when people say that- it's just that everyone smokes, back home. His little brother has tried it, and then adults here tell him they never have, before.
It's odd, is all. But he doesn't mind teaching her, even if he's been told it's a bad, very bad habit. "Everyone smokes where I'm from. It's mostly tobacco in there." Though god knows he doesn't know all of it. He doesn't really care. He strikes a match and holds it to the end of her cigarette.
"Now you inhale, and you try to pull the smoke into your lungs. You might cough- that's fine."
"You know, where I'm from breathing in smoke is usually a bad thing."
And yet she's still leaning in to meet him halfway when he lights the cigarette, lips closing around the end of it and breathing in lightly-
But the smoke doesn't even get all the way into her mouth before she's frowning and blowing it out and looking incredibly put out. She wipes at her mouth with the back of her hand and shoots him a look that can only be described as wounded. What a horrible trick to pull on someone, Thomas.
He-- can't help himself. He isn't helping himself, but that look makes him snort, makes him reach out and take the cigarette from her, looking amused all the while. She just looks so offended, like he'd given her a trick cigarette.
Her lips press together in a thin, tight line, but it's only because she's dangerously close to smiling. She feels so much lighter now, and even though her mouth tastes like something died in it she's actually starting to feel hopeful again.
"Do you only allow one try to be good at something in the time you come from, too?" She asks, holding her hand out to demand the cigarette back.
She doesn't really want it back, but now she has something to prove.
"Hmm. We're 'ard like that, we are." She may be dangerously close, but he isn't holding back now: he leans forward and hands her the cigarette back, smiling.
She's not sure if he's calling her bluff or if he's just being polite, but either way she takes the cigarette back. Their fingers brush and their eyes meet, but he's smiling and she loses the fight to hide her own smile. It's not much, just a small sign of her quiet happiness in this silly, simple moment.
She's never had any of them before, not like this, and this is a first with Tommy that will count, unlike what happened during the breach. This is something she can hold onto, look at in the future and just be happy about.
But she can't stall for long, so she just goes for it, tries again and gets a little farther this time before the smoke chokes her and she coughs it out, eyes watering as she fights to keep from shooting him another look of blame.
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It had been clear that she wasn't the only one struggling, and she hadn't ever thought of it in terms of who had been hurt worse, but now she realizes she had assumed he had taken it a little better than her.
But they really are on the same page, and thanks to Luke and Han she's reached a place where seeing someone she likes in pain has developed the urge to try to help. She's still not very good at being a form of support, but she'd done well enough in the past that they had been thankful after the fact.
Or maybe they had just accepted she was horrible at being nice and were giving her a pass for trying. Either way, against her better judgement she crosses the deck and puts her hand, delicately, on Tommy's shoulder. It's a big risk and she hates herself a little for making it after he'd already rejected the staff lessons, she should know better, but it's who she is now and not her memories of him during the breach that make it impossible to just let him sit there suffering.
"I'm sorry, Tommy." Her voice is even and soft, but not overcome with sympathy or too much emotion. There's sincerity, and that comes with a very gentle squeeze, but she's keeping this from getting too sentimental very much on purpose.
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So he hadn't expected this kind of sincere sentiment. It doesn't mean he doesn't flinch a little, hunch over so he can look at his folded hands, but it's not... bad. He isn't sure how to react to it, so he just lets the silence linger for a little while as he thinks on it.
"So now you understand a little more," he settles on, finally.
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"I do," she agrees, just to be sure they're on the same page and he knows he can maybe relax with this a little more. "I can... if you need space, I can do that."
As much as she doesn't want to lose one of the very few friends she's made on the barge, he's become important enough to her that she's okay with letting him take that decision out of her hands if it's going to help him process things better.
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And... the level of relief she feels when he says no is a little disturbing for her. She doesn't quite like this, becoming this attached to anyone at all, but it's inescapable and she has no idea what to do about it. Let it happen? She doesn't want to fight it, so that's really the only option.
"How often do things like that happen?" She asks instead of lingering on a topic that clearly causes him pain. "I didn't know it was possible for the entire ship to become somewhere else like that."
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"Every couple of months. This was my third one- first time around there were dinosaurs, last time it was the fucking Wild West."
And each time he's a crook. He swallows against that thought- at least this time he came closer to good than bad.
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"What are dinosaurs?"
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"Prehistoric beasts. Extinct long before humanity came around."
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"Was anyone hurt?"
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"Plenty of people were hurt. Furiosa threw herself in front of one of the animals to save me, even though we didn't know each other in the dream. I had to do some very inventive things to keep her from bleeding out."
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What is Tommy to her, anyway? Not a lover, maybe a friend, and she can't even say they know nothing about each other anymore when he's told her about Grace, his family, his childhood. When he knows about her abandonment, about her abilities, about her loneliness. Even when she's trying to tell herself there's nothing there she can't and that makes it worse, in a way.
She can't run from what's already started, not when he's put his trust in her. It makes her uncomfortable, but there's nothing she can do about it except try to find a way to make it hurt less. Add to that the fact that she'd given him the chance to walk away and he had said no so plainly...
"I haven't met Furiosa," she says, a little stiffly, trying to draw the conversation away from danger and death. She's so bad a this it's impossible to hide it, but she's trying. For him. "Tell me about her?"
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But he does notice it. That she's changing it because of him, for him. And he isn't quite sure whether it's a kindness or pity he doesn't need.
"You'd like her," he says, finally, looking up and conjuring up a smile. "She's the toughest woman I have ever met- and I've met some. She's from a dead world, but she didn't lose her heart there. She fights, and she drives trucks that aren't even possible in my world yet."
Honestly, she's one of the best friends he's ever had. There's no one like her anywhere, he's sure of it.
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And... it's funny, the way she hears each thing about Furiosa and can find the same thing in herself. Tough, from a dead world, a fighter, sort of a pilot. She can kind of see now why Tommy would like her if those are the points of Furiosa that stick out in his mind enough that they're how he describes her.
"Remind me to show you Jakku in the Enclosure," she says, smiling a little herself. "I wonder if it's like her world."
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"If it's dry, and hot, and everyone fuckin' hates each other- then yes, it is." He twitches a little smile.
"It's where my inmate is from, too. And Max."
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She does not miss it.
"I'm starting to realize there are a lot of people on this ship I haven't met yet."
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"You'll get there."
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They've been in open spaces every time he's done it so the smell has never bothered her and she is curious, just a little, what all the fuss is about, so she reaches out to take one of the cigarettes before she admits-
"I'd never seen these, before you."
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It's odd, is all. But he doesn't mind teaching her, even if he's been told it's a bad, very bad habit. "Everyone smokes where I'm from. It's mostly tobacco in there." Though god knows he doesn't know all of it. He doesn't really care. He strikes a match and holds it to the end of her cigarette.
"Now you inhale, and you try to pull the smoke into your lungs. You might cough- that's fine."
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And yet she's still leaning in to meet him halfway when he lights the cigarette, lips closing around the end of it and breathing in lightly-
But the smoke doesn't even get all the way into her mouth before she's frowning and blowing it out and looking incredibly put out. She wipes at her mouth with the back of her hand and shoots him a look that can only be described as wounded. What a horrible trick to pull on someone, Thomas.
"This tastes horrible," she says flatly.
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"I never said it tasted good, Rey."
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"Do you only allow one try to be good at something in the time you come from, too?" She asks, holding her hand out to demand the cigarette back.
She doesn't really want it back, but now she has something to prove.
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She's never had any of them before, not like this, and this is a first with Tommy that will count, unlike what happened during the breach. This is something she can hold onto, look at in the future and just be happy about.
But she can't stall for long, so she just goes for it, tries again and gets a little farther this time before the smoke chokes her and she coughs it out, eyes watering as she fights to keep from shooting him another look of blame.
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