26. Chapter 26: Refugees

26. Refugees

Rey hadn't expected to be so comfortable when she woke up. She was perfectly warm, cocooned in softness, and she didn't want to move and wake up. It was just that she shouldn't be this comfortable – she knew there should be ground under her shoulder, and as she cracked open one eye, knew she definitely hadn't gone to sleep facing a window, or lying a foot or so above the ground. She curled her fingers in her blankets and looked around. She was lying on Kylo's bed, that much was obvious. What was less certain was where Kylo himself was – his blanket was folded neatly on the floor across the house, and when she looked down, her own things were set next to her bed, but she wasn't sure where he was. She slowly got up, with no idea what to think. The most logical conclusion seemed to be that Kylo had moved her to the bed, but that didn't seem like something he'd do. Deciding to ask him about it, she folded up her blankets and picked up her pack and staff, making her way outside.

Kylo was still nowhere to be seen or felt, and neither was Leia. The sun was up and the sky was a soft pink-gold and Batuu was beautiful again. She decided to move on with her day and, in the apparent absence of either Kylo or Leia, decided to go to the village and see if she could find Tess or other children to share her portions with. She left her bedroll on the floor by the wall of Kylo's house and set out for the village, using her staff like a walking stick. She felt alone, but in a comfortable way, and the grass was soft against her legs. With no one nearby to see, she took a few wide, swinging steps, sweeping the grass down underfoot. She ended up running across the grass with uncoordinated strides, laughing at the feel of the grass and the sun and the droplets of dew that soaked her leggings, her staff swinging by her side. This was the light and being alive and she'd never felt so free, so like she had nothing to fear, nothing to do, no one to answer to.

She was panting softly by the time she slowed to a walk in the village, feeling like she wanted to grin at everyone she saw – so she did. Most of the villagers seemed utterly taken aback at her smiles, and refused to meet her eyes. A few, however, started trailing along behind her, like they were trying to figure out what she was here for. She wished they wouldn't. The children had to be able to eat the food before anyone else knew they had it – there were always people who will steal whatever they could get. She'd have to protect them while they ate, probably, if only so that there would be no threat to them from hungry opportunists.

It seemed like the easiest way to find Tess would be to reach out with the Force, but as it turned out, Tess found her first.

"I didn't think you were serious," Tess said, startling her. She was sitting on top of a rain barrel by the corner of a bar, covered in dust like she'd gotten into a fight. "Got anything for me? My friends are up there." She pointed to a building across the street that seemed about to fall down. Her eyes were hopeful, but guarded, showing she wasn't sure that Rey had really meant to bring her anything.

Rey was very aware of the eyes of nearby villagers on her, but she ignored them for now. She could actually feel, in the Force, their sheer desperation and hopelessness. This was not a planet where people thrived – Leia was right, this was just a place where people could hide. "Great!" she said, enthusiastically, smiling and meeting Tess' eyes. "I should have enough."

Tess tentatively smiled back and jumped down from her barrel. "Come on, then."

Rey followed Tess across the street, tapping her staff back against her shoulder, making eye contact with the people around her. Some of them seemed afraid to really look at her, but the others met her gaze defiantly. She wondered what they saw when they saw her: a girl who came to their planet with General Leia Organa in the Millennium Falcon and was giving food to thieving children.

The doorway of the building across the street blocked her from their sight, and she followed Tess in, scrambling over and around heaps of rubble. She thought Tess seemed surprised by how easily she kept up with her as they climbed up a pile of unsteady masonry to the second, or maybe third, floor.

"I'm back!" Tess called, and five thin faces peered around the edge of the hole Tess and Rey crouched underneath. "I brought the lady."

Rey smiled and adjusted her pack and staff where she'd stowed both more securely across her shoulders. The children stared back, all with hollow, hungry eyes that might have been her own.

"I brought lots of portions," she said quietly, and all of their tense expressions eased. Tess pulled herself up through the hole in the floor, and Rey followed suit, careful not to get caught in the opening.

The room she found herself in was almost as decrepit as the lower part of the building, crumbled stone piled in corners and chipping off one wall. There were ten children up here of different species. Two were Twi'lek like Tess, two seemed to be Lorrdian, and among the rest were a Gungan, an Abyssin, and a Wookie.

"Hi," she said softly, setting her staff on the floor and sitting down, slowly. "Now look, I've brought food, but you have to promise to eat slowly if I give it to you. You'll be sick otherwise."

They all nodded hastily, and Rey emptied her pack on the floor and selected ten packets of food. She tried to ignore the fact that this only left her with five to put back in her bag.

"Everyone can come pick one portion," she told them. "I should be able to come back with more later."

The children rushed at her all at once, snatched whatever was closest to them, and darted back to the corner of the room to make their food. Then Tess, who'd hung back, came over, and Rey pulled another portion out for her.

"Thank you," Tess said quietly, glancing around as if she was ashamed to say it.

"Of course." Rey smiled and settled back with her pack leaning against her leg, watching Tess scramble off to make her own food. The other kids had dispersed and were apparently trying to eat slowly by pausing between bites. Rey hoped that was enough to keep them from being sick. She sat down and reorganized her knapsack so the remaining portions were at the bottom, her doll and canteen and arm wraps at the top.

"Lady?" One of the Twi'lek children stood next to her with a handful of bread. He had blue skin and very long lekku. "Are you going to eat?"

"No, I'm waiting," she said gently. "You go ahead."

Tess scrambled over and grabbed the child's hand. "Don't mind him," she said shortly, sitting him roughly down on the floor. Then she too scurried off, back to her little meal.

Rey realized these children weren't viewing her so much as a friend, but as a rich, powerful woman who happened to take an interest in them and wasn't to be bothered. She remembered a few times on Jakku when groups of political sentients would come to Jakku to give out food and water to scavenger children, and there would be a rush to Niima Outpost to sit there and pose while the politicians fed them like they were hungry dogs and recorded it all on holograms. Rey had always hated those people, but she took the food and water, because those things were incredibly scarce. And yet it had been degrading, to sit there and let these stiff, giggling people pat her on the head and call her cute and not even bother to learn her name.

She didn't want to be one of those people, so she took out a portion and her canteen, mixed a bit of water with the food, and started eating, tearing off chunks of grey bread and stuffing them into her mouth. The children didn't quite seem to know what to do with that at first, because she (an adult stranger with food to spare) shouldn't be sitting there eating like she hadn't seen food in weeks.

Slowly the kids began edging closer to her, poking at her bag, eyeing her staff, whispering to each other. Rey grinned at them, but mostly focused on her bread. It tasted bland and dry compared to the food she'd been eating with the Resistance, but she was hungry.

"You came here with Princess Leia, didn't you, lady?" one of the Lorrdians asked.

Rey looked up and nodded. "I did. On the Falcon."

There was a collective gasp of awe from the group of children. "What's she like?" Tess asked tentatively.

"Kind of scary," Rey joked, taking another bite of food. "She tells everyone what to do and they just do it, but she cares about everyone. Also she likes teasing my friend Poe."

The children all crowded around closer, and Rey winked at them, tossing a piece of bread up in the air and holding it above her hand with the Force. "And I've met Luke Skywalker."

Their eyes couldn't have gotten any wider as she beckoned them in closer and began telling them about Luke and Leia and Finn and her new friend Ben.

…

When she walked back outside, she was shocked to find a small crowd of people clustered by the door, waiting. Her pack was empty and her mouth was dry from telling stories, but she smiled enthusiastically at them and waved a little (which instantly made her feel foolish). She should really just put her head down and go home. This was too many people, many of whom she probably shouldn't trust anywhere near her.

But like the children, most looked hollow, and they were looking at her with hope in their eyes. She didn't want to chase that away, so she started walking through them, making eye contact and smiling as she did. Then someone finally said something, as people always did.

"Have you come to ask for help?"

Whoever they were, they sounded defiant, and Rey imagined what it would be like to ask these poor people to come fight for them when they'd clearly had their fill of war. "No," she answered, looking around, unsuccessfully, for the voice. "We came to help someone."

She felt, in the Force, the shift in the people around her. When Leia had sent out her transmission asking for help from the galaxy, she'd received no answer. Maybe that was because there were some who, like these people, couldn't bear the thought of anymore war and death. Why shouldn't they want to keep their heads down and just try to live and survive? So many had probably had enough of fighting an endless, hopeless war for heroes they'd never even seen.

But if Leia was here to help them? Had come all the way across the galaxy just to visit their village? That was something different.

Because people didn't care about scavengers and orphans and junk traders and criminals and thieves.

But Rey did. Maybe they hadn't come here for these people, but she found herself looking around with sudden resolve.

No one had ever cared about her when she was small, and no one cared now about these refugees and outcasts on the edge of the galaxy. She was not a hero, and she didn't want to be one, but damn it, she might be willing to be one for these people, because no one else was going to, not Leia or Poe or Finn. They all had other people to save.

But she, she was going to save these people, whether they wanted her to or not.

Hux had a terrible habit of drinking too much. At least, Phasma had told him many times that it was too much. Personally, he increasingly thought that it wasn't nearly enough alcohol to keep him going.

"Sir? We've received an encrypted message from the Outer Rim that I think you'll be pleased with," one of his officers told him, interrupting his thoughts. He liked standing on the bridge and looking out at the stars – it made him feel untouchable. Never mind that he was still working out the chain of command and trying to figure out how to deal with the Knights of Ren and unsure where Kylo Ren's loyalties would ultimately fall (damn the boy, and damn that girl from Jakku) and trying to locate the Resistance.

"Read it to me," he said dismissively, lifting his chin. He was the Supreme Leader now. He needn't read dispatches for himself anymore, needn't grovel to children play-acting as gods, needn't be humiliated in front of his troops.

The officer cleared his throat and nodded. "It's from a planet called Batuu, Supreme Leader, at specific coordinates I can share with you later. It says that the Millennium Falcon has landed there and that General Organa has been seen on the planet. He requests that in return for this information you grant him a full pardon for what is apparently an extensive list of charges."

Hux's already buzzing mind spun off in a thousand different directions. Batuu? He had been sure that planet was abandoned; he'd had his troops check it and all the other major Outer Rim planets. Was this the new Resistance base? Could this be a trap? Certainly it was a trap. And yet if it was, it wouldn't be hard to find out.

And if it wasn't?

The Resistance would lose its precious leader within days from now, he knew that with certainty.

"Verify the message as well as possible," Hux said harshly. "Ask him for proof, if you can. Assuming its authenticity, I want the whole fleet ready to move in three days." He smiled to himself. "We'll clean the galaxy of their filth."

A/N: Talking about Rey's experiences on Jakku is becoming one of my favorite lil things to do. Also, I kinda took inspiration from the line in Wonder Woman "No, but it's what I'm going to do." Nobody else cares about the galaxy's rejects, but she's going to because no one deserves to be forgotten or abandoned. She's going to be that kind of hero.

The idea of Hux having an alchohol problem comes from my friend BadWolfGirl01's fic "she's got too much fire in her eyes (and ashes in her soul)", which is a SUPER AWESOME role reversal fic! Definitely y'all should check it out, it's on AO3.

This chapter took me a while only because I got sidetracked on a drawing project - I'm working on some fanart of a 12-13 year old Ben Solo.

Also, the LitProf told us TODAY that he needs a rough draft of a project by MONDAY so we can "workshop" it. Like hey let's not, I don't want you reading my work before (or after, for that matter) it's done, much less when I've only had two days to work on it.