Rey did not encounter Ren on the third day of the journey. It was their last evening in the freighter, and they would arrive early morning on the fourth day.
The day was spent planning the logistics of arriving on the planet, details of the landing site, and the locations of city officials. The missions had become dangerous as of late, and deciding emergency rendezvous points in the event of a fast escape was crucial. Retreating for safety often took days, because if they had to escape, Maz' freighter could not risk being singled out and connected to the Rebellion. On one occasion, Finn and Rey camped out in a swampy forest for two nights as patrols swept through the nearby town while Poe remained with the freighter, stasis injection on hand. It took three whole days to get the moldy smell out of their clothes and the slime off their skin.
Rey methodically completed a set of exercises with her staff. She couldn't help feeling powerless without the low thrumming of the lightsaber; her staff was silent and placid in her palm, but hope filled her chest as she remembered there was still a chance to construct a new one with the fractured crystal. She thrust the staff out in front of her, lunging to add power, using that hope to fuel this session.
Poe peeked into the common room, regarded her for a moment, then entered to lean against the wall.
"I've never seen you fight before." He crossed his arms over his chest.
Rey grinned, pleased with herself.
"I'm a bit raw with no formal training, but effective."
"It works to your advantage. Trained melee can be predictable." Poe ran a hand through his hair awkwardly. She noted the gesture.
Rey cut a horizontal arc sharply with her staff, twisting at the last moment in a move that was clearly intended to set an enemy off balance and get within a personal perimeter quickly.
Poe whistled. "You are certainly deadly with a move like that."
Finn appeared at the doorway with his hands on his hips.
"Well Poe, think you can take Rey?" Finn goaded.
Poe laughed affably, shaking his head at Finn. "Nah, I don't fight women unless I have to."
"I do," Finn raised his hand emphatically, "Get it? Phasma was a woman, I fought her, won, told her I was rebel scum..." Finn rambled on.
"We know, Finn" Poe and Rey answered in unison. Poe shot a look at her and winked. Rey heartily laughed, happy to have enjoyable moments with two men she could count on.
Finn feigned dejection and pretended to walk away before he jumped sideways to face them again.
"And then she fell into fire! BOOM!"
"Finn!"
They all burst into giggles as they dispersed toward their quarters, the laughter fading though they each savoured the sound, knowing the next morning held uncertainty. Recruiting was never lighthearted or easy, especially when they could be arrested or executed should anything go awry.
*
It was a peaceful sleep Rey slipped into at first, where the fear of being robbed or harmed did not exist.
She never had easy slumbers on Jakku.
The sleep lasted for a few hours, but at some point in the night, the intensity of dreams began to plague her.
A hot sun was bearing down on the exposed skin of her arms as she ran with bare feet ferociously pounding the sand.
Was this Jakku?
Her arms were outstretched toward a blue sky, as she watched a ship in the atmosphere rotate away from the planet, and enter hyperspace.
"Come back!" she cried out desperately.
Her run lagged and became a slow jog as her despair turned over to acceptance; she'd been in this dream before.
Rey turned around to walk back the way she came, but stopped in her tracks when she spied a white bed, eerily out of place, in the distance. She trudged toward it through the sands, its course grit pushing between her toes.
Noticing the absence of her wraps as her arms swung by her sides, she looked down to see she was wearing the sleeveless, tan-shaded top and thin, gray pants she had worn to bed.
Was this still a dream?
It felt like an eternity before she arrived at the impeccably white bed that was in the valley of dunes.
Odd, she thought. It looks similar to one of the med bay beds back in the base...
The sheets were thrown back as if someone had gotten out. The wind was unforgiving as she kept brushing her baby hairs out of her face, but it left the sheets of the bed untouched; not even a grain or fleck of dirt marked it.
"Rey" a familiar female voice breathed behind her.
She turned around, and before her stood General Leia Organa in a plain white gown, with a warm smile on her face.
"Leia?" Rey blinked.
The General stepped forward and embraced her. The wind broke and all Rey felt was the hot sun on them both. She caught the scent of a sweet flower while her chin rested on Leia's shoulder. Could she smell in dreams before?
"Dear child...I'm so proud of you."
Leia's words spoke life into her. She was the closest thing Rey would ever have for a mother. If this was a dream, at least it was a pleasant one.
Leia stepped back from her, smiling for an instant before her expression turned serious as something stole her attention off Rey's left shoulder.
Rey followed her gaze, turning in the wind that was picking back up again. It took a few seconds before she noticed a tall figure in black coming down the slope of a dune.
Raising her hand to shield the sun from her eyes, she stared at length as the figure drew closer; black hair whipping in the wind as long legs lurched from side to side through the sand.
Kylo Ren.
"It's your son" Rey quietly stated, but when she looked back to Leia, she was not there. Rey made a complete turnaround and was alarmed to see Leia now in the med bay bed, but not the same Leia; a different version of her lay there, with simple hair and gray lips.
Kylo was closing the distance across the sands, but his pace slowed as he recognized Rey. Loose garments were moving fluidly around him, glancing off taut muscles in the wild breeze.
Was he sleeping too?
Dark circles lined his eyes, hinting that he didn't sleep well often, and his skin was quite pale in the sunshine.
Ren's last two steps were hesitant as he approached the bed. He looked up at Rey and swallowed; his gaze was haunted and stricken with grief. She watched his lower lip tremble as he searched her eyes, analyzing this moment as deeply as she was.
Are you...here too? His voice echoed in her thoughts.
Rey's mouth opened and closed, but she didn't answer, and instead took a step closer to the bed; if Ren was here, and she was here, then so was Leia.
Kylo looked down at Leia, and his jaw muscles flexed in apprehension and worry. Rey knew that look. She remembered seeing the expression on his face in the throne room, burned in her memory forever.
Leia attempted to lift her arm and touch Kylo's hand, but it wavered and drifted back down to the bed.
Tears pooled in Rey's eyes as she realized that the General lay dying in the present on the rebel base.
Kylo shakily laid his broad hand on top of his mother's. A slow, peaceful smile appeared on Leia, as she attempted to speak through her graying lips.
"Ben....I love you."
He blinked wet eyes as he swallowed again, painfully so.
"I know," he whispered back.
Leia still had the smile on her face, as her eyes slowly shuttered. The rest of her face began to change to the color of her lips, as her posture became limp.
"Oh no," Rey gasped through her tears.
She reached out to touch her arm, but Leia and the bed began to trickle away as grains of sand; first at the corners, then the sheets succumbed, and lastly, Leia's peaceful face, were all swept away to join the desert.
Kylo stood as a statue, but Rey could see a single tear finally make it's way down his cheek, skimming over his scar before it reached his jaw...
Her own sobbing breaths pulled Rey out of the dream and she found herself laying on her side in her room on the freighter. Salty tears were on her lips and the edges of her nostrils as she clenched her fists against her face.
"It was just a dream, it wasn't real.." she coaxed herself, her voice high and childlike.
"It wasn't though," a deep voice broke in the darkness, "she's gone."
Rey gasped, still engrossed in processing the dream. She sat up in bed as her eyes adjusted, and then she saw him; sitting on the floor against the opposite wall, back hunched over and head hung, with one leg extended and the other flexed at the knee. His face was buried in the arm that was wrapped around his knee.
"Leia." Rey whispered as she started to sob again. In desperation, she reached out with the Force but was only met with the absence of the Princess' signature.
The sound of Ren's quiet, irregular breaths stole her attention as she wiped the constant wetness off her face with her blanket.
She had never seen him like this, human and vulnerable. His posture was the opposite of intimidating and powerful; instead it was reminiscent of a young boy. His face was hidden, but the bond was mournful and pulsing with the inconsistent beat of his grieving heart.
Even in her tiredness, Rey locked her thoughts away as an old, familiar urge to comfort was humming at her temples.
Should she comfort one who murdered an unnumbered amount of innocent people in the name of the First Order? This was the very same man she witnessed striking down his own father but now incapacitated with sadness over the loss of his mother.
Rey stilled. She stared through the dimness as slowly it dawned on her that he was experiencing not one loss, but two in this moment.
Kylo Ren was now an orphan, just like her.
The distant memory of her cries as the ship leapt away from Jakku echoed in her heart, and she realized the deeper devastation for him now.
The rustling of her blanket seemed deafening as she timidly touched one bare foot onto the floor, followed by the other. Her heart was racing as she made her way across the room, and as she got closer she could see the tears falling into his lap, but his hair covered his eyes.
Rey bundled the blanket all around her, and got down on the metal floor next to him, laying on part of it as a pillow too. Her head was next to his knee, and she reached out to grasp the hem of his sleeping shirt, noticing his head barely twitch in response to the indirect contact.
Closing her eyes, she tapped into her compassion and admiration for Leia, wielding thoughts of hope and attempted to amplify it through the bond.
I have no idea how this thing works, she sighed inwardly.
"Hmm," Ren hummed lightly, "she was good at giving hope." He choked at the end of his sentence, an attempt to control the rising lump in his throat.
"Yes, she was." Rey barely whispered as she began to cry again. She cried till her eyes ached and stung while her sobbing rose almost audibly as a new wave of grief washed over her every now and then. Her fist clung to his shirt hem, satisfied with this small amount of contact as her comfort, but it wasn't long before the emotions exhausted her.
On the verge of falling asleep, Rey thought she felt the piece of hair laying across her cheek lift away, but the movement was so subtle that she may have imagined it.