Another year had passed on Jakku, and Rey waited. Waited for her family. Waited for something different. She still had six months of rations stockpiled, but she continued scavenging. There was really nothing else to do with her time. She was wary of the other scavengers, and in the last few months she had to fend off attacks on her claims and on her body. The sun was relentless, but so were the people of Jakku.
She hated it. She hated the sand. She hated heat. She hated Unkar. She hated the Teedo. The hated the scavengers. But mostly, she hated the loneliness.
Sometimes she would catch herself speaking as if someone were there. Other times she would awake in the middle of a conversation, speaking with the man who haunted her dreams. She wished she knew who he was. She wished she knew him for real. He seemed like he cared for her. Sometimes she would fall asleep, imagining his arms wrapped around her.
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Today she would climb the Crackle and the Spike and look for something new. She needed a new challenge. The Inflictor was a hot bed of angry scavengers all fighting for what little was left in it. She headed out toward the graveyard on her speeder just before dawn, hoping to catch the sun at just the right angle.
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When she reached the top of the Spike, she took out her monocular and viewed in a 360 degree angle the graveyard spread about her. There was the Inflictor, the Ravager, the bed of TIEs (or what was left of them), walkers in a row, snub fighters, a shuttle—and then she saw something gleam in the distance. She moved her monocular back. The blowing sand obscured her view at first, and then it settled down. Another gleam, bouncing off a canopy or cockpit windscreen.
Rey hopped back on her speeder and headed toward the gleaming light. She had to maneuver around hills of dunes and wrecks, but she eventually made it. When she arrived, she was disappointed to find the gleam was the cockpit screen of a TIE fighter. The rest of the vehicle was strewn in pieces around her.
She grabbed her scanner to check for radiation. As she turned it on, it started to go crazy with high readings. Rey hopped on her speeder and fled the scene, racing back home for the anti-rad meds she had found on the Inflictor a few months back. She was not looking forward to another round of radiation sickness.
When she was far enough away from the TIE wreckage, she ran the scanner down her body. It read minor exposure. Her clothes would have to be burned, and she would have to waste precious water scrubbing her body and hair. "Drat!" she yelled. "Drat! Drat! Drat! There goes the next few days as well." This was her third bout with radiation sickness, and it never got easier. She just hoped the fatigue and nausea would not set in until she was able to get some more water from Unkar.
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The next few days were brutal. The fatigue, the fever, the nausea, the hunger, the thirst. She could barely move out of her hammock to use the facilities before collapsing again. Her dreams were fitful. She dreamt of the man again, imagining him in the walker with her, bringing her portions to eat, water to drink, wiping her head with a rag.
When she was lucid, she would find the rag next to her hammock beside the water canteen and an empty plate. Her pan was on the stove. Her light was on. She must have been sleepwalking. She collapsed back on her hammock and heard the man speak, "Rey, just relax. This, too, will pass. Granddad will take care of you."