╔═════════ 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐘
'𝐡𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠' ════════════╝
━━ -ˋˏ★ˎˊ- ━━
... JAKKU, WESTERN REACHES OF THE INNER RIM
𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐋𝐃 𝐒𝐄𝐄 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐒𝐀𝐍𝐃.
Every direction coated with grit and abrasive dust. Momentarily, he couldn't even remember his name. All he knew was that he had hit his head very, very hard, and now he was in a place baren and void of life. He had woken up with his face in the sand, and sand did not taste good. It was under his nails and in the corners of his eyes as he stumbled, trying to keep his balance against the cold night wind.
Everything came rushing back. He was Poe Dameron. This was Jakku. He had escaped the First Order with the help of Finn.
Finn.
"Finn!" He called uselessly. His hoarse voice was met by nothing but the blinking of stars rising in the distance. They were taunting him, swimming with memories of a girl and a night that felt impossibly far away.
There was nothing but sand and the remains of cruisers from the old Empire rising in the reflected glow of the moon. No BeeBee, no Lyra, no Finn. He had no water, no coms, and no jacket. Base had no idea where he was, and he had no way to contact them. He had been thrown from the crash, so there was no chance of salvaging anything.
All he could do was start walking while the sun was still down.
When the sun came up, he tied his outer shirt on his head, desperate for anything to protect him from the sun. Luck would come, he knew it would. It had to. He couldn't let it end like this, wandering around helpless in the desert wasteland of Jakku.
What an embarrassing way to die.
At first, he thought he was hallucinating when he saw the little dot halfway between him and the horizon. Then, as he blinked, he realized it was a speeder. He didn't waste a second. He shrugged his shirt-hat off and waved it in the air, trying to get their attention.
"Hey!" He yelled, waving wildly. His dry throat making it hard to scream, but he still tried.
He didn't know who it was, and quite frankly, he didn't care. All he knew was the speeder had pivoted toward where he was standing. He was saved.
He almost fell flat on his ass as he ran down the sand dune, so happy to see another person. Or creature, rather. Now that he was closer to it, he could see that the pilot driving the speeder was a pale Blarina adorned in a pair of goggles. The engine sputtered to a stop.
"And why," they said, voice shrill in Poe's ears, "is such a lovely human alone, all the way out here?"
"Just lost, could use some help though," Poe said, thinking quickly. He couldn't remember if Blarinas were the species who were said to be highly empathetic and hospitable or the ones who were hailed as accomplished liars.
"You want help? On Jakku? How you plan on payin' me? Nothing for nothing, that's the motto here."
Quid pro quo, the same words emblazoned on the ruined stones of the Imperial Academy on Naboo. Nothing without something in return. How many selfish beings could this galaxy hold?
"I'm sorry, man," Poe tried, scratching at his neck. His throat was dry and swallowing was nearly impossible. "I've got nothing besides the clothes on my back. I've been through a rough time."
Understatement of the year, he thought. But he couldn't give too much away. He had already given up everything to Kylo Ren, he didn't need to screw things up any further.
"And I haven't?" the Blarina answered, sounding slightly offended. "I'm a scavenger, like everyone here. If you have nothin' for me, maybe I'll just scavenge you."
And then the Blarina pulled out a blaster, lazily aiming it at Poe's chest. It didn't even phase him, but he still lifted his arms to show he wasn't trying to start a fight.
"But I don't think you have nothin'", they continued. "I think you found somethin' out here, somethin' you're tryin' a keep a secret. Maybe you tell me what it is, and maybe I don't kill you."
Poe put a hand to his sweaty forehead. The fatigue making his mind feel like it was filled with fog. He didn't even have the creativity left to make up a story. "Okay, look. I'm too tired to make anything up, so I'm gonna level with you. I'm with the Resistance, and I just escaped from the First Order. Big star destroyer--" he held out his hands to emphasize his point "--I stole a TIE fighter, and I crash-landed here. Now, if you can help me get back to the Resistance, I will personally make sure you're compensated."
He waited, trying to gauge the Blarina's response.
They kept the blaster raised. With a curled lip of distaste, they said, "I don't believe any of that. And even if it were true, it sounds like an awful lot of trouble."
"Okay," Poe reasoned, his patience growing thin. "How about this? You help me, maybe sometime I can help you. Or maybe someone else helps you when you need it. Maybe nothing for nothing isn't actually the best way to live, you know?"
Poe had no idea what he was doing. He was trying to turn the Blarina's own logic against them, but confusing the shit out of them would also suffice. For a second, they just stared at Poe like he had completely lost it. Nevertheless, they finally lowered the blaster.
"Maybe. Here," they said, tossing him a canteen of water. "Here's some water. Get aboard and I'll take you to town. Then yer on yer own."
Gratefully, Poe hopped on and started guzzling the water down. It was the sweetest thing he had ever tasted, and he felt more alive with just a few sips. The speeder started off again, traveling in the direction of the slowly sinking afternoon sun. The wind that ruffled through his sweat-soaked clothes only added to the relief.
"Tell me a few more of yer lies about the Resistance," the squat Blarina requested with a short glance over at him. "A few good stories to pass the time. Between you and me, it gets pretty borin' out here."
Poe smiled.
He launched into the story of the Black squadron's first assignment on Ovanis, the first time they had encountered Terex. It was the mission before Lyra had joined them, one that he had stubbornly insisted he could complete without the help of another commander. Especially not her, he remembered telling Leia. Do you know how big of a disaster that'll be? If he had listened, how many things would it have changed? Would the domino effect have lined up differently? Maybe they would have found Skywalker by now, maybe he never would have been forced to face Kylo Ren, and maybe--
Enough, he thought. There's no where to go from here but forward.
The Blarina slowly but surely warmed up to his company. His name was Naka Iit, and one of his friends just so happened to be in the business of contracted travel. It wasn't much, but it might be his only shot at getting off-world.
Niima Outpost was a dump. There was a somewhat impressive red gate on the outside, but it had been smashed to pieces of bent metal. The tents were all in shambles, and it looked like someone had tried to burn the place down and had only halfway succeeded.
"Is this place always like this?" Poe remarked. The sharp scent of burning wood still filled the air.
His companion shrugged. "I don't come this way very often, but no. Not sure what went down, but it wasn't good."
"No shit," Poe said under his breath.
Poe, tired and wanting nothing more than to lay down and take a nap, followed Naka Iit into the bazaar. They walked past merchants and brushed shoulders with more than a few sketchy individuals. Thankfully, Poe had nothing on that would tag him as Resistance. He had a feeling more than a few people wouldn't mind sending a blaster shot through him.
"Ah, here we are. Mr. Dameron, I'd like you to meet Ohn Gos."
The man in question was another Blarina, leaning casually back in a chair with his feet propped up on the table in front of him. He was a merchant, that was for sure. He had the look about him, like he would sell the sand at his feet if the occasion arose.
"So what happened around here, Ohn? Looks like you fellas saw some trouble, eh?" Naka asked casually.
Ohn grunted, pushing himself back into a regular position. "If you call the First Order trouble, then sure. Those blasted idiots came through here and trashed the place."
Poe's blood ran cold. He had a distinct feeling that if Lyra and BeeBee had ended up anywhere, it might have been here, since it was the most inhabited town for miles. The First Order's presence all but confirmed it.
"And why would they want anything to do with this dump?" Naka Iit joked with a grin.
"Can you ever really tell what the First Order wants?" Ohn said with a wheeze of laughter. "This time it's a droid, Bee-Bee unit and some Resistance hot-shot. They've got a bounty the size of the outer rim on her head. If only I could get my hands on credits like that."
Poe wanted to cry from relief. Lyra was alive, BeeBee was safe. Sure, the bounty thing was troubling, but Lyra was alive. And, she had been alive enough to trash an entire outpost. That had to be a good sign.
Naka Iit leaned forward raising a conspiratorial eyebrow. "Did 'ya see any of the action?"
"Well, o' course I did! I was sittin' right at my stand when they first came through. Unkar Plutt about lost it when she took off with his freighter. He left this mornin' following some kind 'o tip on where his ship went."
That was all Poe needed to hear. There was no longer any point in staying here.
"So," Naka Iit began, done with the chatter and getting straight to the point. "I've got a favor to ask you. This human here needs a ride off-world, and I know you don't have much to do around here."
Ohn considered this. "Well, if he was talented enough to convince you to help him, I'm sure it's a worthy cause," he said, and Poe couldn't figure out if he was messing with him or not. "Where 'ya headed, boy?"
Poe blinked. He hadn't thought that far. He couldn't exactly just ask to be taken straight back to base, not by some Blarina who he didn't trust. Tired and strained beyond exhaustion, his frist thought was of home. Jakku wasn't all that far away from his dad. In the back of his mind, he knew he wasn't ready to go back to base, to be Commander Dameron and pretend that this was just some minor bump in the long road. The things he had seen, what Kylo Ren had pulled out of his head, it was enough to make him want to turn and run from all responsibility.
And so, after a few minute's decision, Poe had his answer.
"Yavin Four."
-ˋˏ★ˎˊ-
... THE MILLENNIUM FALCON, INNER RIM
𝐓𝐎 be honest, Lyra was not surprised at their horrible luck. Realism, pessimism, a startling lack of hope, whatever it could be called, she didn't expect to just fly back to D'Qar with the Falcon in one piece.
That would be too easy.
As they made their way back into the lounge, Lyra considered who had locked onto their systems. There were a thousand rogue gangs in the galaxy, half of whom would love to get their hands on a piece of Han Solo's prized hardware. She had an inkling; a vague idea of who was about to step on board. It still felt impossible.
"Get back down in there," Lyra said, pointing at the still-open floor grate where Rey had fixed the motivator earlier. She wasn't letting the two of them be at risk on her watch. "Take Bee, too."
She helped them lower Bee's heavy form down with haste. The grate scraped across the floor as they slid it into place.
"What about you?" Finn asked, and his voice echoed out from the floor. "Why aren't you coming down with us?"
Lyra pulled out her blaster. "Someone has to stay up here."
She slipped into the shadows, and a shiver passed over her. Her boots were silent on the floor of the Falcon. If anyone entered, they would have to pass through the corridor in front of her before they got to the cockpit. Her chances were limited if it was a large boarding party, but she had the element of surprise on her side.
Metal groaned as the door was forced open, and she heard quick footsteps echoing down the hallway. Carefully, she crept along the wall. She could hear the doors sliding open, one more and she would be able to see whoever it was on the other side.
A quick breath and a prayer into the calm of the Force, and Lyra lunged into the corridor, feet planted and ready to fight.
Her blaster was aimed straight at Han Solo himself.
"It was you," she breathed as her face lit up with surprise. She let the weapon drop to her side.
"You," Han said. "Great."
At the same time, Chewbacca let out a soft growl of recognition. Han let his own blaster fall, staring at her the same way he had the first time he had seen her. A little impressed, a little annoyed.
"I didn't realize Leia was letting her pilots go on pillaging missions. Covert operations, my ass," he muttered, pointing his face toward Chewbacca. Then he turned back to Lyra. "Don't you have better things to do, Commander?"
He almost smiled. She saw the hint of it tug at the corner of his mouth as he looked at her.
Lyra holstered her blaster and electing to ignore his question. "The only thing you should be doing is thanking us for saving your ship from being scrapped in a junkyard."
He paused. "Us? There's more of you?"
Lyra led Han and Chewie down the hallway back to where Rey and Finn were hiding below the floor.
"You guys can come out, it's alright," she called. "Hey Chewie, do you think you can--"
He nodded and lifted off the grate in one swift movement. Finn and Rey looked up, completely panicked. Bee just looked confused.
Chewbacca groaned.
"No, they're not," Lyra answered, knowing that neither of the two below was armed. She frowned, wondering exactly what Han and Chewie planned on doing with them. "Why would that matter?"
Han raised an eyebrow. It mattered because he did not trust the three people that had climbed aboard his ship.
Finn just gaped at the Wookie as he climbed out of the floor, taking in the tall sight of the fur-clad being. "You can understand that thing?" Finn asked her.
Chewie didn't look particularly pleased to be called thing.
"And he can understand you, so watch it. Now, where did you three get this ship?" Han demanded, not wasting another second on chit-chat.
"We stole it. From Niima Outpost," Rey began, hurrying to explain herself. She had stepped closer to Lyra, as if the older girl would serve as her protection should something go wrong.
"That junkyard?" Han asked, absolutely appalled.
"See? Junkyard, thank you," Finn said to Rey, apparently finishing some argument they had had earlier. Rey shot him a sharp glare in return.
"Told you we should have double-checked the Western Reaches," Han muttered to Chewbacca. To Rey, he asked, "Who had it, Ducain?"
"Unkar Plutt. He stole it from the Irving Boys, who stole it from Ducain."
"Who stole it from me!" Han finished. "Well, you tell him that Han Solo just stole back the Millenium Falcon, for good!"
He walked out of the room, taking in the fact that the ship was his again. And, Lyra knew, he was also probably thinking of the fastest possible way he could dump them off and get the dirt off his hands. When he thought of the Resistance, he thought of his estrangement with the General. He didn't want to see her, not like this. And she couldn't possibly have any desire to see him--
Lyra stopped. His thoughts were so loud, and she hadn't even been trying to hear them.
"This is the Millenium Falcon?" Rey asked, positively star-struck. "You're Han Solo?"
"I used to be," Han answered casually.
"Han Solo? The Rebellion General?" Finn asked.
Rey spun around, knowing the name for a different reason. "No, the smuggler."
"Wasn't he a war hero?" Finn said quietly so Han couldn't hear.
Chewie grunted, feeling left out.
Lyra smiled at the Wookie. "They both were."
Rey, still focused on the fact that she had just flown the Millenium Falcon, exclaimed, "This is the ship that made the Kessel Run in fourteen parsecs!"
Lyra wrinkled her nose. That didn't sound right, but even after listening to Ellis go on and on about how cool the Falcon was, she couldn't remember. Nor did she care, quite frankly. The ship could have been the fastest thing in the galaxy, but unless it was taking them straight back to D'Qar, Lyra did not care.
Sure enough, Han shouted, "Twelve!"
Lyra watched as Bee used his grappling hooks to lift himself out of the hole. He rolled around a little, as if testing out the terrain of the ship now that it wasn't doing barrel rolls.
"Hey!" Han shouted again, this time from the cockpit. He stuck his head back into the room. "Some moof-milker put a compressor on the ignition line!"
Lyra also didn't care that his ship was in desperate need of repair. If Reeve stepped aboard this ship, she would have had a heart attack. It was being held together by scraps and threads, a multitude of fixes that weren't supposed to be permanent. But Lyra was losing very valuable time while they sat around and argued about the semantics of an aging ship.
"Unkar Plutt did," Rey said. "I thought it was a mistake too, puts too much stress on the--"
"Hyperdrive." Han and Rey said together.
He looked at Rey, then he looked at Lyra with a wry expression. "Who was flying this? Her, or you?"
"Her," Lyra said.
Han whistled. "Whatever. Chewie, throw 'em in a pod, we'll drop them at the nearest inhabited planet."
Lyra's right eye began to twitch. Han and the Resistance had an awful track record, but not to the point where he needed to just abandon them.
"Wait! No -- we need your help!" Rey said desperately. She turned to face Lyra as if to say, do something!
"My help?" Han gave a sardonic laugh. "You've got Commander Lyra Endellion standing right in front of you. She'll figure it out."
Lyra couldn't tell if he was making fun of her or not.
The thing that worried her was Finn. He looked at her with fresh eyes, and she could tell something had clicked in his head. He knew who she was, and he recognized her name. Not for a good reason, either. The two of them were locked in a mental battle, both of them racing to figure out the other's motivations.
"You're a Commander?" Rey asked. "I thought you were just a pilot!"
"Pilot, Commander, it's really all the same thing," Lyra said. "And a rank means nothing if we're floating in the middle of nowhere. We have to get this droid back to base," Lyra reasoned with Han. "It's time-sensitive--"
Finn interrupted her. "He's carrying a map to Luke Skywalker."
"What?" Rey said to Lyra. "You didn't tell me that, either!"
At the same time, Lyra whirled towards Finn, now re-evaluating her original opinion of him. "How the hell did you know that?"
Before the three of them could continue their screaming match, Han held up his hand to quiet them. "Enough!" Then he turned back to her. "Lyra, is that true?"
The name Luke Skywalker had been enough to make Han lose his cool exterior. His voice had dropped considerably, and he was looking at her like she was a ghost. Chewie looked at her expectantly.
"Yes. It's true."
Han stared at her in utter disbelief. His face shifted to fear, and then confusion. It was the same enigmatic way Leia sometimes looked at her. Like, somehow, he still knew more than she did.
"That map is why I was on Jakku. Our mission was to retrieve it from Lor San Tekka, we've been after it for months," Lyra explained, taking a step forward. She was so tired of telling this story. "This is our only chance, and I need to get the map back to D'Qar."
"Does your base know where you are?" Han asked.
She shook her head. "No, the First Order got wind of us and destroyed both of our ships. The other pilot was--" she looked over to Finn, who dropped his head. She could hardly bear to finish the words. "He didn't make it."
She felt silly, standing there in the center of the room on the verge of giving in to tears that she had yet to shed. She was supposed to be a leader, and yet all they had done was accidentally return Han Solo's ship.
-ˋˏ★ˎˊ-
...YAVIN IV, DAMERON HOUSEHOLD
𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐔𝐍𝐄𝐓𝐈 𝐓𝐑𝐄𝐄 sat in the middle of the back yard in its own place of honor. A gift from Luke Skywalker, his mom had planted it in their yard years ago. It grew without water, even in the driest of droughts. The branches were starting to blossom, and in a few weeks, it would be full of fist-sized leaves. Another new beginning for the tree that had seen so much carnage and war. All around the edge of the yard were jungle trees and the bright green foliage that covered the ground. It smelled like rain, the sweet scent of a warm rainshower never far off.
For a moment, Poe just stood there. He remembered coming outside whenever he could, staying out late until his mom was calling him and Len back inside for dinner. He would rather be outside or up in the sky; wherever the air was freshest and the purest, that was where he wanted to be. And that was why he came to Yavin IV: to cleanse himself of desert dirt and try to settle the unrest in his head.
Putting his hand on the trunk of the tree was usually enough to ground him and clear his head. He used to be convinced he could feel the Force flowing right down to the roots of the old Uneti tree. Now, it just felt like rough bark beneath his fingertips. He didn't know what he had expected, but he was disappointed.
He walked away from the tree. Without his jacket, his arms felt too bare as he crossed the yard and went up into the house. The door was unlocked, just like it always was.
He stopped in the bathroom first to clean off what remained of the blood and dust, but when he looked in the mirror, it was still concerning to see what he saw staring back at him. An image of a man exhausted beyond belief with a gash to the side of his unshaven face. Bloodshot eyes, a cut to his forehead, and a split lip.
It wasn't right. He shouldn't have come here. He should be back at base, shamefully explaining to the General how he had jeopardized the whole mission on a whim. He was wasting time, and he couldn't justify what he was doing. He was escaping, trying to take the easy way out. A hack, a fraud, an arrogant flyboy without regard for anything other than his own selfish interests.
Too late to turn back now.
From outside the large garage, he could hear his dad's power saw as it shrieked. Sparks were bouncing out the open door. It took a minute to get his dad's attention. He had a welding mask on, a torch in his hand. Poe hadn't realized his dad had taken on a whole new project while he had been away.
"Hey dad," Poe said.
Kes, utterly bewildered, whipped around and said, "Kriff, Poe, you scared the hell out of me. What are you doing back here?" Another confused look, and then, "Did I know you were coming?"
He shook his head. "No."
Poe often worried that his dad got lonely all alone on Yavin 4, but it was clear that he found ways to keep himself busy. A pair of safety glasses were pushed up in his graying hair. He wiped his hands off on a grease rag. "Does General Organa know that you're here?"
Again, Poe said, "No." He knew how his dad felt about loyalty. Especially where Leia Organa was involved.
But instead of telling him off, Kes just nodded with understanding. "Then it must be pretty bad."
Rather than explaining, Poe distracted himself and turned his attention to what his dad was working on. "Is this--?" he asked, running his hand along the body of the A-wing. He didn't even really need to ask. He knew it by heart. He had studied the controls by flashlight, curious about every little piece that made it fly.
"Your mom's A-Wing. She loved this thing so much, woulda hated to see it sitting around collecting dust," his dad said gruffly, lifting up the mask. "She also would have hated to see you like this, Poe. What's going on?"
He examined the A-Wing for a minute longer, just until the silence started to get maddening. Outside the garage, birds were shrieking in the trees.
"I just need some time, a minute to catch my breath," Poe said in some lousy attempt at explanation. Why are you running? Why aren't you going back to fix things? They need you, you've already messed this up so much--
"It gets to us all, eventually. You can't run on fumes, and you're no good to anyone walking around like you're half dead," Kes sighed. "Go get some rest. You can explain tomorrow."
Through the still-gold evening air, Poe took the long way back to the house. Every step was a mile, and he wanted to collapse onto the grass and stay there. He hadn't been so tired in all his life.
In that interrogation chair, Kylo Ren had made him relieve things he had never wanted to see again. His mother's funeral, dark days filled with gray clouds. L'ulo's funeral where he tried so hard to act like he was a leader when all he could do was try to give a speech and pretend he wasn't blaming himself. Watching Lyra die in his arms, letting her go on Jakku and now the paralyzing fear of having no idea where she was. The worst mistakes he had ever made, choices he couldn't take back, and words he should have said.
And it was so quick, he didn't even stand a chance.
How could they ever win, against a force like that?
━━ -ˋˏ★ˎˊ- ━━
a/n han and chewie have arrived!!!
tbh the first time I saw TFA I wasn't sold on the whole sequel trilogy idea until that 'Chewie, we're home' scene. that was literally all it took and then I was just 'okay u got me'.
the yavin iv scenes aren't going to take place until ch.32, just a heads up on the pacing in case you were curious!! I'm still trying to do two updates a week, but I do have finals next week and the wheels just might fall off so we'll see how that goes :)
--Nat.