Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Mando.”

Din glared at the hologram of Moff Gideon from under his helmet. “What do you want, Gideon?” He’d already taken the kid. He’d already taken the Razor Crest . What else could the Moff want from him? His covert? His kriffing helmet?

“No need for hostility. I have excellent news.”

He heard Cara’s derisive laugh behind him and remembered his crew. He still had them, at least. Gideon’s Imps hadn’t taken them from him— yet. “Doubtful.”

“Don’t be. Recently, my contacts heard rumors of two Jedi who were discovered. No one knows where they come from, or who they are— but if my contacts are correct, the two of them are ten times more powerful than the Child. And my contacts are always correct. So I have a deal for you, Mando.”

“We’re not interested in anything you have to offer,” Boba growled, assuming a defensive stance to Din’s right.

“Oh, I wasn’t talking to you, Fett.” Din could practically feel the surprise radiating off of Boba, similar to his own shock. The Moff had known him and Cara from past interactions, but he’d never met Boba— and he’d somehow been able to identify the man even without his legendary armor.

Evidently he’d taken the time to scope out Din’s new crew, meaning the prize he was after was far from the usual client requests of petty criminals and unsettled debts. Just how powerful were these Jedi he was looking for?

“Yes,” Gideon continued, “I know all of you. No need to be surprised, Shand.” Fennec took a step back. “I’ll have to admit, I thought you were gone. But it seems you’ve once again outfoxed death. Now, back to my deal: I have something you want. The Child. And out there in the galaxy is something that I want. The two force-sensitives. Jedi, to you. Unfortunately, neither of us can get what we want right now. My ship is too well-guarded for you to even hope to breach it, and none of my troops have been able to track down the Jedi.”

“And?” Din wasn’t sure if he liked where this was going, but if it meant he got Grogu back… hell, he would’ve torn the entire galaxy apart to be reunited with the little womp rat.

“My offer is simple: you capture the Jedi, and bring them to me, to use to power the Dark Troopers. And I give you the Child.”

“And if we don’t agree to this?”

Gideon laughed, a sound that made Din shiver in his armor a little. He pulled a silver object from his pocket and held it out to them. A sword hilt, Din realized.  The Darksaber . “If you don’t, the Child dies.”

This was no deal.

They had to accept.

He wasn’t going to lose Grogu again, in a much more permanent way this time.

“I’ll do it.”

“I knew you’d see sense.” Gideon tucked the Darksaber away, tone so casual that Din wanted to scream at him. But he forced himself to remain calm, taking a few breaths before speaking again, thankful his helmet modulator kept his voice even.

“Did your contacts say anything else? Any descriptions?”

“You should receive the transmission of the images they managed to find right…about...now.”

One of the  Firespray’s many datascreens began to buzz, notifying them that they’d just gotten the pictures. Fennec stepped over to the datapad, never turning her back on the holo of Moff Gideon, and tapped the screen a few times. She nodded to Din, mouthing the words got it.

“That’s all?”

“It would seem so.” Gideon surveyed each of them in turn, his eyes finding Din last.

“This is the way.”

Chapter Text

Dozens of light-years across the galaxy, another ship floated lazily through space, causal speed masking the urgency of its inhabitants.

The old freighter didn’t look like much, but appearances could be deceiving. And the unlikely duo sitting in the pilots’ seats knew that better than most beings.

“Do you think they know we’re gone?” The woman’s voice cut through the silence, but she didn’t tear her eyes away from the star-speckled view of space. “The others?”

Silence fell over them once more, and after a few minutes the young woman thought her partner was ignoring her.

“I don’t know,” the man said finally. “They may think we’re still on our mission.”

“We swore we’d contact them every night.”

“Comms aren’t always trustworthy over long distances.”

The woman sighed. “What if this ruins the peace treaty?”

“It won’t.”

“You can’t know that.”

“We’ve worked so hard…”

“I know,” she whispered. “I know we have.”

“We’ll find a way back home.”

“What if it’s not that simple?”

The man turned to look at her, concerned. After so much time, after so many dead ends, the woman had been the one who managed to keep spirits high. She’d always kept hoping. She always did. “What’s wrong?”

“We fell through time . We’re twenty years in the past. Anything we do could change the course of history, and not in a good way.” Her gaze dropped down to her clasped hands. “What if there’s no way back?”

They both turned quickly, checking to make sure the ship’s other inhabitants hadn’t heard. The solemn conversation was for their ears only; the others couldn’t hear them voicing their doubts.

“There has to be a way. The Force...the Force wouldn’t send us back in time with no way of getting home. Not after everything that’s happened.”

“I know,” the woman said, but her voice lacked its usual conviction.

“We have a new lead. Focus on that.” He checked the ship’s navigation. “We’re still going in the right direction?”

She closed her eyes, reaching out to the Force. “We are. I can feel it.”

“Do you know which planet…?”

“No, not yet.” Her brow furrowed in concentration. “It’s getting clearer, though. We’re getting closer.”

“Good. We’re running low on fuel…” Fuel, food, hope… it felt like they were running low on everything. The woman slipped her hand into her companion’s, offering him a reassuring smile.

“We’re getting closer,” she said again. “I think this is it. Our way home.”

Outside, the empty darkness of space pressed in around them. But in the cramped cockpit of the beat-up ship, the unlikely duo let the warm glow of hope chase away their doubts, if only for a moment.

Chapter Text

“Are you sure this is the right place?”

“Yeah.” Rey stares out at the deep green planet looming before them. It has to be .

Even without the bond or the force, she could’ve felt Ben’s concern. They’ve been stuck in this time for weeks with no explanation as to why they’ve been sent here and no way home.

But now there is this place.

This planet.

Lah’mu.

With barely any fuel left and the recently revealed threat of bounty hunters on their tails, visiting Lah’mu is a gamble. But she’s been drawn to this place for weeks; some part of her soul has felt a constant pull to the planet for reasons Rey can’t begin to fathom.

Even just looking at the planet quells some of the longing inside her, the tug at her heartstrings. The deep sage color is oddly reassuring, and speaks of lush life spreading across the surface. What connection could she have to a place as beautiful as this? It’s a far cry from the endless dunes of Jakku that she’d called home for so many years.

“So this is how we get back?”

“I hope so.”

Ever since they had realized they’d been sent back in time— twenty years exactly —the two force-sensitives had been searching for a way back to their own time. So far, they’d had exactly zero success. Though they have managed to attract the attention of a group of relentless bounty hunters. Three force-sensitives appearing suddenly doesn’t just go unnoticed, especially at a time when the Empire has wiped out nearly every last one.

At least they’ve been transported to a time after the Empire’s fall. It isn’t much, but it is… well, it’s a start. Rey’s starting to lose hope that she’ll ever see her friends in the Resistance and First Order again. The two armies had been so close to forming a peace treaty… without her and Ben to keep the peace between the sides, has the galaxy dissolved into chaos and war once more?

“So who’s telling the kids?”

“What?” She tears her eyes away from Lah’mu’s surface to look at him.

“If this doesn’t work out. What do we even do then? Just keep moving around, looking for… what? Some sort of time travel device that might not even exist?”

Her gaze falls with her heart, and she focuses on the steady blink of one of the Falcon ’s many consoles. Both of them have placed so much hope in this planet already. If things don’t work out, if this is just another dead end…

“This has to be it.” The words are her desperate attempt at hope. Leia had made it seem so easy. Just keep hoping, she’d always said, and Rey had.

But how was one supposed to find hope when you couldn’t even find yourself? Your way? Your… life? She doesn’t even exist at this time.

Just keep it together, she reminds herself. There has to be a reason they’re here. If her heart and soul had been drawn here… it can’t be over something pointless. Right?

Force, she needs to stop worrying. There are far more important things to be doing. She pushes herself off the control panel, walking through the familiar, well-worn hallways of the Millennium Falcon.

“We’re almost there, just a few more minutes till we land,” she reports, forcing a smile.

The three kids are playing some sort of card game on the bed all five of them had ended up sharing, but at the mention of finally landing, the cards are forgotten immediately.

“We’re going home?” Temiri, the youngest of the trio, practically lights up at the idea of possibly returning back to their time. His enthusiasm catches on, and the other two kids share an eager glance.

“I hope so,” Rey admits. It’s the closest she’s come to admitting defeat so far, and this is not lost on Oniho, who is perhaps the wisest of the three. At the very least, he’s the most serious and often the most studious as well. The boy’s eyes darken with worry, and Rey instantly moves to reassure all of them. “The Force guided us here. It wouldn’t lead us to this planet for nothing. Even if we can’t find a way home, we’ll find something. Clues to a way home. Why we’re stuck here, and not back home in the Resistance. Or even just a place to stay for a few nights.”

“Trust the force,” the third child, Arashell, says slowly. They’re all tired of this endless game of searching and running away as the bounty hunters close in. She tugs at Rey’s hand. “Can you play cards with us?”

“I have to help Ben land the Falcon first.” Rey gestures to the cards. “How about after we touch down and find something to eat?”

The idea of finding food that isn’t stale rations is enough to get them to agree to her terms, and Rey leaves them to their game, heading back to the cockpit. “Need a copilot?”

“Always.”

She grins, slipping into the seat beside Ben and falling into the familiar rhythm of landing the old freighter. They carefully bring the ship towards a cluster of force-signatures concentrated in a remote corner of Lah’mu’s surface, Rey locating a landing pad as they grow closer. She lets Ben exchange pleasantries with the pad’s command tower crew, guiding the Falcon into place. The ship touches down lightly without the usual jolt of landing. “Welcome to Lah’mu.” Please let this work.

“It’s remote, at least.”

Rey nods. There are only two other ships docked here, clunky old things that look to be in worse shape than the Falcon . Why has the force brought her here? Is this verdant planet really only a place to hide? She’d sensed something more, but perhaps it was only wishful thinking…

“Coming?” 

Rey startles out of her reverie, turning to face Ben with a smile. “Yeah, of course.” She slings her satchel over her shoulder, feeling its weight— or rather, its lack of weight. They have only a few credits left, nowhere near enough to keep running and hiding like this.

Stars, maybe the only thing Lah’mu has for them is cheap fuel and cheaper food.

She and Ben head for the ship’s ramp, waving a quick goodbye to the kids and promising to return soon, with plenty of food. Their hands intertwine out of habit, the reassuring warmth quieting Rey’s nerves for the time being.

The air is cool and crisp and holds the aftertaste of rain as they step out onto Lah’mu’s soil, their hopes and fears spilling out and sinking into the damp ground. It doesn’t take long to locate a handful of hastily written signs in Basic, each giving direction to a different place. Lodgings, spirits, a shoddy cantina (whose inhabitants seem to despise it, judging by the less-than-pleasant words scrawled over the sign), and finally… a marketplace.

The pit crew eyes them warily as they head for the exit; Rey instinctively tenses for a fight, too many memories of the war drilling the motion into her bones. But the stares remain just that— stares, with no actions taken. It’s one of a small handful of lucky breaks they’ve gotten. Everyone else in this time has been so quick to draw a weapon or chase them away. Maybe this planet isn’t such a bad idea after all.

In their haste to reach the market, neither force-sensitive notices the Firespray flying ominously towards the planet’s surface, growing steadily closer with each step.

Chapter Text

“How much for three meilooruns?”

The old vendor eyes them curiously, with a look that isn’t quite suspicion but makes them both aware that they’re being carefully observed. “You two aren’t from around here.”

“No, sir.” It’s easier to offer the truth at a time where the truth will earn more sympathy. A lost young couple has to endear them to this man somewhat, right? At the very least, he knows they aren’t lying— such a sparsely populated planet most likely means its inhabitants know each other, or at least know of each other, well enough to pick out a stranger in their midst.

“Three credits each. What brings you to our corner of the galaxy? We don’t get many visitors, if you know what I mean.”

Shit. Can we afford to spend that much? With no legal documents to use to get work, they’ve had to ration out the few credits they’d had onboard the Falcon before… before everything had fallen apart, leaving them alone in a strange galaxy.

“Two meilooruns, please,” Ben speaks up finally.

The vendor’s eyes shift to him. “I can throw in an extra for a good story. No good gossip in this old ghost town.”

Rey and Ben share a glance, their own silent discussion ensuing even without the help of the force bond, before deciding on the truth— well, the parts of the truth that actually make sense.

“We’re on the run from some Imps.” After a few weeks of being stuck in the past, they’ve quickly picked up some of the more important jargon. “Lah’mu seemed like a good place to hide.”

“Empire’s not as gone as everyone thinks,” the vendor agrees, pushing three ripe meilooruns over to their side of the stand.

If only you knew.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. Really. Or else everyone’ll come here asking for a discount.”

“Thank you. May the force be with you,” she adds as an afterthought.

“May the force be with you, or whatever it is everyone’s saying these days.”

They turn away from the booth, Rey slipping the fruits into her satchel. The weight of the meilooruns is a small relief, but not enough to quell the worry simmering inside her. Not everyone will be as kind as the fruit vendor, and they’ll have to find a way to earn more credits soon. She’s made it this far without stealing, but it’s not as if they can get work when they aren’t even supposed to exist at this time…

“Have you found anything?” Ben asks.

“What?”

“Do you see anything important enough to draw you here?”

“Not yet.” It’s not likely that we’d find something in the market anyway, she adds through the bond. Too many people. The mess of force signatures has already blended into the background of her mind; there’s too many to properly sift through without giving herself one hell of a headache.

Unless we’re looking for a person to help us, he shoots back. Rey just shrugs noncommittally, letting the whims of the force guide her rather than trying to manipulate it into working on her own terms. The strategy’s served her well thus far, and there’s no reason to fix something that’s already working as well as possible.

I can’t feel anything important here.

Alright. We’ll keep looking.

Too reluctant to split up and possibly get lost, they keep a casual pace side by side, strolling through the little market as if they are only curious visitors. It’s a bit of a miracle to be able to walk together in public without drawing the attention of everyone within a twenty meter radius, one of the few positive parts of being thrust back twenty years in time. Out of habit, Rey keeps her attention split between the bustling market and the pack strapped to her side. The meager credits inside are all they have, and all it would take is one desperate thief to steal away their livelihoods for good. 

Fortunately, most seem too absorbed in their own troubles to spare the duo more than a curious glance and the occasional whisper to a friend or neighbor. They’re almost to the edge of the street before anyone stops them, and even then it’s only a saleswoman calling out to potential customers. Rey let’s Ben wander ahead as she makes a cursory inspection of the woman’s wares— warm homespun blankets in every color —before offering her apologies and an excuse as to why she can’t buy the beautifully woven product. She weaves through the crowd back to her Ben’s, and their hands slip together on instinct as they fall back into step.

“Nothing?”

Rey just shakes her head, eyes darting through the crowd in hopes of finding whatever— or whoever —called her to this place. Why would you call to me if you were only going to hide once I answered?

“I’m going to ask about lodgings.” She shoots him a questioning look and he brushes it off. “It’ll look suspicious if we don’t. As far as these people know, we’re tourists, or…”

“Missionaries,” she finishes. “We’re missionaries. Tourists come looking to spend credits.”

“Got it.” He slips off into the crowd, leaving her to continue the search for the mysterious figure that brought them here. Rey picks her way down the time-weathered roads smoothed out by hundreds of thousands of footprints.

She calls out to the Force, searching through the decades of footprints in hopes of one standing out. Nothing. Well, not nothing . She can’t shake the feeling that whatever she’s looking for has passed right through this very street. But the thousands of other trails have rendered the one she needs almost indistinguishable.

Experimentally, Rey begins to follow one of the paths. Prints only a few sizes larger than her own, soles stamped with a few thick lines, a wider stride… perhaps another woman or a young man, a farmer from the build of the work boots… but no connection to the mysterious pull she feels to this planet.

Her first mistake is focusing far too deeply on the little trail. Her second? Keeping her eyes on the ground.

Too absorbed in her task, Rey doesn’t notice the figure creeping up behind her until a hand clamps down on her arm.

Chapter Text

“Going somewhere?” Rey whips around, nearly slamming into a figure clad head to toe in shining armor. No. How did they find us!? Stifling a gasp, she holds up her pack with her free arm, making up something on the spot.

“Home, if I can find a good deal for some speeder parts.” She tilts her head and squints a little, feigning confusion. “I don’t think I’ve seen you here before. Are you an off-worlder?”

The man holds up a small, circular device. An antiquated bounty puck— though she supposes at this time it’s still considered fairly new. He taps a button on the side and a blurry photo appears— blurry, but not enough to disguise the fact that she is the figure in the image. In the photo, her face is turned away from the camera, and her body is shrouded by a cloak… but there is no mistaking the familiar triple-bun hairstyle. Oh no.

“This is you.” There’s no question in the armored man’s voice. He’s figured her out. Really, Rey would be more surprised if he hadn’t. She has no idea where he found the photo, but its striking “resemblance” to her means they’re about to have a much larger problem on their hands than finding a place to sleep for the night. There’s only one way out of this, and it’s not one she likes:

Spout off a blatant lie and hope it works.

Well, she could try to work a mind trick… but something about the man’s shining armor is distorting her adrenaline-fueled attempt at brushing him off. And her scattered mind and exhausted body aren’t helping matters much.

“It doesn’t look like me,” she says, turning the strain in her voice to a childish chirp. Men often underestimate her if she plays the part of a cluelessly innocent young girl, the trick had served her surprisingly well on Jakku and on missions for the Resistance. She can only hope it will work even half as well on him.

Rey leans over the bounty puck, sticking her face obnoxiously close. The action feels awkward and unnatural, but if she doesn’t play this part perfectly… everything could fall to pieces. They’ll have to leave Lah’mu, the planet that had held such promise in their search for a way home… No. She can’t let that happen. Time for a risky move. “Are you sure that’s me? Where did you get that picture? We don’t have cameras in the market.” Force, please let him believe me . She has no idea if there are security cams stationed around the marketplace, but if they’d only just landed on Lah’mu, there’s a good chance the bounty hunter had too. Hopefully he hasn’t had time to double-check the town’s security measures.

The bounty hunter pulls the puck out of her line of vision, looking down at her condescendingly. “Don’t lie to me, Jedi .”

Kriff. There’s no getting out of this one.

Rey? Ben’s force signature brushes against hers. Oh no. She needs to get away from the bounty hunter before the three of them ended up in a faceoff. They’d just barely managed to escape the first time their pursuers had attacked them, and now, with the Falcon ’s fuel reserves almost empty, there’s almost no way they can survive another encounter with the bounty hunter and his crew.

Get out of here! Get back to the ship! She glares up at the bounty hunter, letting herself relax into a fighting stance. “Let me go before one of us does something we’ll regret.”

Rey? There is a hint of worry in her bond-mate’s voice, and it hits her all at once what he’s planning. Oh no. No, no, no- He’s going to come back for her. Something she’s always appreciated about their relationship for as long as they’ve been working together, but now really isn’t the time.

You have to get back to the ship, now . The bounty hunter tightens his grip on her arm. “ You won’t be doing anything aside from coming with me.” He scans the crowd of people milling around the market. Most either haven’t noticed or are trying to fly under the radar. That, Rey supposes she can understand. Both she and the armor-clad bounty hunter are off-worlders, complete strangers. The planet’s natives have no reason to help them. Though it would be nice, especially now that they’ve officially run out of options.

“Where’s your friend?” The bounty hunter’s voice breaks through her panic-induced rambling thoughts. Rey twists her body, trying to wrest her arm free. Does this man really think she’d give Ben away?

”I’m not giving you anyt—”

Where are you? Force. It looks like she won’t have to answer the hunter’s question after all.

Get out of here! She repeats her earlier order, but to no avail. Ben, you need to go!

His response would have been heartwarming in any other situation; anywhere but here, anytime but now:  Not without you .

The hunter’s grip on her arm loosens, enough that she is finally able to wrest her arm free and stumble back… straight into Ben. It’s too late to run now, she realizes with a sinking feeling, as if her heart is drowning in the panic threatening to overtake her.

“Get away from her.”

The bounty hunter makes no move, looming over them both. “I can bring you in warm. Or I can bring you in cold. Your choice.”

“How about not at all?” Ben’s voice betrays none of the terror radiating off him in the force. Rey’s hand discreetly moves to the lightsaber hilt at her side; the bounty hunter is thankfully too focused on the sudden arrival of her partner to notice.

“I’ve got snipers positioned all around the market. And they don’t miss.”

Rey? Even without the prompt, she is already searching the rooftops and around the market square for concealed bodies— force signatures can’t be hidden, except by a powerful force-user.

One in the roof, she reports. I can’t see her. And two more— the woman by the meat stall and a man by the alleyway on our left. Bad odds, and they both know it. The man’s armor isn’t affected by their lightsabers, same with the green armor one of his counterparts wears. Maybe they could take the figure on the rooftop and the other woman in a fight, but it’s too dangerous to risk it if their allies are impervious to lightsaber blades. Besides, there are too many people in this market— too many potential casualties. After living through Jakku’s harsh desert and the bloody war, Rey knows just how precious life is. She isn’t ending any lives she can spare instead.

With fight and surrender completely off the table, their only option is flight. It seems like that’s becoming their solution to everything lately.

“What do you want with us?” Rey tries to distract the bounty hunter, but with her scattered focus she can’t come up with anything better than the question that has eluded them since arriving in the past. Why them? What have they done to attract the attention of this ruthless group of doggedly persistent hunters?

“Nothing personal. Just another job.”

“So you won’t take this personally?” Moving as one, she and Ben ignite their lightsabers; at her silent command Ben takes off and lets her cover his retreat. Merchants and shoppers alike flee the scene, screaming and running every which way. Rey breathes a sigh of relief even as blaster bolts scorch the dirt beside her. The second the masses had caught sight of Rey and Ben’s twin blades, they’d run in the opposite directions. Less cover, yes, but less chance of an innocent bystander being injured.

An adrenaline-fueled combination of instinct and training kick in, and Rey quickly retreats back towards the docking bay, her lightsaber a blur as she fends off the hailstorm of lasers raining from every direction. The sniper on the roof fires off enough shots for two fighters, and the armored bounty hunter is still coming towards them. Behind her, she can hear Ben’s saber humming and crackling as he directs shots back at their attackers. We need to get back to the ship!

Rey bites back a cry of frustration. With the bounty hunters on their tail, there’s almost no way they’ll be able to stay on Lah’mu any longer. She’ll never be able to find what had drawn her here, even as the feeling of being on the edge of discovery grows stronger than ever…

Cursing their luck and whatever force-cursed twist of fate had brought them back to the past, Rey spins on her heel and races after Ben, the two of them cutting a path back to the only safe place left.

The Falcon . All other thoughts slip from her mind like sand falling from a clenched fist, until only the weathered old freighter remains. She desperately tries to pull some kind of plan together, but the blood rushing in her ears and the chaos of the market tears apart the wisps of thought before she can piece them into a miraculous escape.  

The kids. Oh force, the kids. They would be waiting on the ship, completely unaware of the trouble she and Ben have gotten them all into. But she doesn’t have time for any further thoughts— she reaches out with the Force, yanking the ramp open and turning one last time to face their attackers. She is vaguely aware of Ben’s footsteps echoing off the metal, of one of the kids’ surprised shriek. But she gathers all the focus she has left and pours it into deflecting the rapid-fire trio of attacks coming at her from every direction. The bounty hunter has frozen in his tracks only a dozen or so yards away from her, unwilling to run into the path of the lasers.

Rey! We need to go— She whips around, stumbling the last few steps into the Falcon . The ramp slams shut behind her as she nearly collapses onto Temiri. Righting herself, Rey takes in the trio of terrified expressions. “Are you alright? Are you hurt?”

“We’re okay,” Temiri mumbles, more focused on the door and what lies beyond it than her. “Do we have to leave now?”

“We…” She shares a quick glance with Ben, but both of them are too shell-shocked and lost to determine their next step.

They don’t need to. The unmistakable screech of blaster bolts on metal slices through the silence, and they’re all jarred back into action at once. “We need to get out of here.” Rey’s voice remains surprisingly steady as her mind catapults into motion, the barest hints of a plan beginning to form. “You three— gunner’s position.” She takes off towards the cockpit, shouting over her shoulder as she runs. “Ben, you’re copilot!”

The five of them have spent enough time in the Falcon to know the ship almost as well as they know themselves. It’s more than a ship. It’s a part of them. The Millennium Falcon , with its worn pilot’s seats and faulty hyperdrive, is the only home Rey has left. And she will go down with the ship before she lets any bounty hunters take her home or the people inside.

She slides into the pilot’s chair, hands flying across the dash as she primes the Falcon for what may very well be its last flight. Ben sits beside her, joining in her frantic prepping as naturally as breathing. “They’ve got a ship. An old Firespray. Definitely modded.”

She nods quickly. “Think our guns stand a chance?”

“Their gunners are more experienced, but we have the Force on our side.” Logically, Rey knows the gunner’s position is one of the safest places for the kids to be. But her heart aches at the thought of letting them out of sight and possibly losing them to her own rash decisions. Especially in a firefight this dangerous…

Not now , she chides herself silently. I need to focus. I need to fix this.

The Falcon slowly hums to life, and within seconds they’re lifting off, leaving the chaos of the marketplace behind in hopes of touching the stars before the bounty hunters can catch up.

Chapter Text

“We need to get back to the ship!” Fennec’s voice, usually so low and calm, pierces Din’s ears over the din of the Jedi’s old freighter powering up. He squeezes off a last few shots, aiming for anything that seems important— he’s had experience with ships like this, but it appears as if the pilot has taken care to rearrange the ship itself to protect from this very situation —and reluctantly spins on his heel, leading the others back to Boba’s Firespray.

They cut a quick path through the hangar bays, reaching the ship in record time. The ramp spills open, swallowing them all up one after another. Cara yanks it shut as Fennec and Boba race to the pilot’s seats, powering up the ship as fast as they can. Even if they only manage to shave a few seconds off, it could mean the difference between failure and success.

And failure isn’t an option.

“Din, take pilot!” Boba punches one final command into the dash and slides out of his seat just in time for Din to replace him. “Dune, I need you on guns!”

Din turns his attention to piloting the old ship as Cara and Boba’s footsteps thunder back towards the gunners’ seats. It’s time for their hours of meticulous planning to pay off.

This is for Grogu.

It’s a testament to the chaos they’ve caused in the marketplace, that the dingy landing pad’s equally as weathered crew doesn’t even bother to exchange pleasantries and credits before letting them leave. The Firespray skims the tops of the hangar walls, speeding after the Jedi’s freighter.

Dank farrik! As fast as Boba’s ship is, this freighter— despite its clunky size —moves as swiftly as the legendary Millennium Falcon. They can’t catch up— and if they aren’t careful, they’ll lose the Jedi entirely. Again. “Cara, Fett! We need backup!”

“Guns are hot!” Cara shouts back, sounding excited by the prospect. If they hadn’t been in the heat of the battle, he might’ve chuckled to himself. Only Cara.

The first lasers nearly peel the paint off of the hangar command tower. Cursing loudly over the comms, Cara yanks her guns back into position. Din can hear her and Boba quickly planning their coordinating attacks, and the next shots come far closer to the Jedi ship.

Din’s gloved hands nearly crush the controls when the clunky old freighter begins returning fire. “They’ve got gunners!” Fennec warns Boba and Cara. “Diverting main shields to you now.” She is far more familiar with the Firespray ’s controls than Din, and with only a few confident commands she’s adjusted the ship to their new circumstances.

The Jedi ship banks to the right with no warning, flying incredibly close to the planet’s surface. Any lower and they’ll scrape the tops of the endless sloping fields. What the hell are they planning? “Keep her low.”

“On it.” Fennec’s voice betrays none of the tension heavy in the air. “You ever gonna start firing back there?”

“Working on it!” Cara grounds out.

Boba proves to be much more reasonable. “They’re too low. It confuses the tracking sensors.”

“I’m sure they know it, too.” Din grips the controls tighter, guiding the ship down and away from the stream of lasers directed their way. How the Jedi are managing to pilot and shoot with only two people, he has no idea. Some magic of the Force, no doubt.

“Stay steady.” Fennec taps a few more controls, doing force knew what. “We’ll have them soon.”

Din can only hope she’s right.

-:-

Rey feels the Falcon shudder under her, the hum of the engines overshadowed by the patter of laser fire. The kids had managed to wrangle the guns into submission after all. But they’ll need to coordinate their attacks—

Ben is already picking up the headset; he switches it on and sets it between them. “What’s going on back there?”

After a few beats of silence, Oniho’s voice rings out from the speaker. “We’ve got it!”

“Good,” Rey can’t stop the relief from pouring into her voice. “Keep them busy— we’ll try to set you up for a clear shot.”

“On it!”

Ben reaches towards the headset, then seems to think better of it. “What are you thinking?”

A grim smile tugs at her lips. “Something crazy.”

The first time she’d ever flown the Falcon, she’d been with Finn, and they had been pursued by TIE fighters. She’d tapped into the Force without even knowing it, let it guide her through dangerous twists and turns that had taken out the enemy ships.

Can she do the same again?

Calling on the Force is far easier now; she’s far more experienced in its ways. The pressure of the battle drains away as she taps into the energy that binds the galaxy itself, letting its calm settle over her. Instantly, a plan forms in her mind. “Hold on!”

It takes three precious seconds to clue Ben into the plan, to wait for the kids to anchor themselves in place, to steel her nerves for their next move. And then she’s pulling the controls with everything she has, dragging the Falcon straight upwards. They rocket towards the stars, but Rey can’t see a thing in front of her. Her mind is filled with the image of the bounty hunters’ targeting system.

Their sudden ascent will confuse the system, but only for a moment. Then, as they pull away from the planet’s surface, it’ll clear up, quickly zero in on the ship… Now!

She shoves the controls away, flipping the Falcon to give the kids a clear shot just as the bounty hunter ship releases a hailstorm of fire. The lasers clash in midair, blindingly bright… but it doesn’t hide the sight of the enemy ship jolting to the side as their shots land perfectly.

“Yes!” She grins widely, laughing as cheers from the gunner’s position reach them without the help of the comms. Instinctively, Rey’s hand goes to her neck, and the small kyber crystal hanging on a worn string. She’d tucked it away in the market, afraid of prying eyes and thieves, but the reassuring rhythm of the crystal’s force signature hums as her fingertips rest on the thin layer of fabric above it.

Her hand travels down to the two tiny initials that she had always assumed were those of the previous owner—her mother, maybe? U. F., the letters read. They are faint, worn with time, but she likes to think of the little white crystal as a connection to her parents. Maybe even to any siblings, though she’d never dared to hope for too much.

The smoking bounty hunter ship behind them dips suddenly, making a nosedive for the planet’s surface. Rey feels a grim sense of relief settle over her, knowing that their deaths will be necessary, the only thing that can keep her and the others safe. She and Ben begin recovering from the quick battle, righting the Falcon and sending it towards Lah’mu’s atmosphere. Maybe they can still find a place to hide on this planet, now that the bounty hunters are gone…

The shot tears through the Falcon like a lightsaber through flesh. Rey is thrown forward with a sharp jolt that resonates through every bone in her body, slamming face first into the dash. A sudden chorus of cries sounds through the headset; the sound is quickly drowned out by a dozen alarms wailing all at once.

“We’re hit!” Ben recovers first, locating the source of their problems and trying desperately to fix it. Rey reaches out to help him, then freezes as she looks down to find her hand coated in a slick layer of crimson blood. Oh no.

She shouldn’t have been so worried. It’s far from the worst of their problems. And the Falcon is quick to remind them of this— with no one flying the ship, it begins a quick descent towards the rolling green hills Rey had found so beautiful upon arrival. She grabs the controls, yanking them towards herself and nearly blacking out from the pain in her slashed hand. Somewhere in the depths of the chaos, she realizes Ben has disappeared— no, not disappeared, he’s behind her, he’s trying to remedy the dozens of alarms that shatter their eardrums with every panicked wail.

Just focus on flying, she reminds herself. But there’s no way the Falcon is recovering from this. They either have to stage a controlled crash, or shatter. And the difference between life and death now rests in her hands. No pressure.

Pouring every last ounce of her abilities into the ship, she pulls back with the Force, trying to turn the sharp drop into a gradual crash. If she can get the ship to skim along the planet’s surface rather than hitting it headlong…

Rey’s hand closes around her kyber crystal and she sends one last plea to the force, begging it to protect the others, before the world explodes around her.

Chapter Text

“Dank farrik!” Din spats, gripping the Firespray’s main controls hard enough to dent the worn metal. The Jedi have escaped. And for the second time. Maybe he can forgive himself from letting them slip out of their grip the first time, in the busy market, but twice? Twice is unforgivable. In his own eyes, and more likely than not in Moff Gideon’s as well.

Din’s armor and helmet have protected him from the impact of landing, for the most part. Fennec isn’t so lucky. He can hear her spitting curses as she painstakingly pulls a shard of metal from her leg— a section of the dash had caved in as they’d attempted to land the quickly dying Firespray. Din leaves her to tend the wound, knowing her pride will never let her allow him to help. Instead, he heads back to gunners’ seats to meet a properly furious Cara and a solemn-faced Boba.

“We took heavy damage,” Boba reports immediately. “It’ll take a few days to repair.”

“Any good news?”

“Their ship took a hit too. A bad one,” Cara adds. “It’ll keep them on planet for at least a week, they’ll need to find parts. If we keep an eye on the marketplace…”

Din nods. Then we can catch them unaware. It could work… but it’ll take time, and Gideon is expecting them soon. He holds Grogu’s life in his hands, and it’s a miracle he’s even given them a second chance. Din isn’t stupid— he knows there won’t be a third.

So if they mess this up… he’s never going to see the kids again.

Suddenly he needs to be as far away from the others as possible. He needs to be alone, needs to feel like things are somewhat normal and he’s never gotten mixed up in this mess, never been anything but a lone wolf. But… no, he doesn’t need to be alone. He needs to be with Grogu. The little womp rat’s given him more direction than his own covert, and Gideon has stolen him away.

Din spins on his heel, keeping his stride confident as he returns to the cockpit. He can’t afford to show weakness, not now. Fennec has disappeared from her place in the copilot’s seat, no doubt she’s slipped off to take care of her injuries in peace. Meaning there’s no one around to see him drop his guard among the smoking remains of the dash, his shoulders caving in as he finally lets himself feel the full weight of his grief. The Jedi are going to pay for this. He’ll bring Grogu home, he’ll protect them all from Gideon… he just has to bring in the Jedi. Alive, unfortunately, which made things a thousand times more difficult.

But he’s caught more dangerous bounties, and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t do the same for this job.

It won’t be too hard, really… they’re dependent on each other, they care too much. He’s seen it before, and he knows how to use it against his targets. Capture one, the other will follow. And then bring them into Gideon, trade then for Grogu… it’s all so simple in his mind, though he knows it will be much harder to execute. Especially without the others, no doubt they’ve lost faith in him now—

Too caught up in a maelstrom of guilt and fury, Din doesn’t notice Cara has crept up behind him until she lays a hand on his shoulder.

“What do you want?” His voice comes out harsher than he expects it to, and Cara’s expression changes just the slightest bit, softening with uncharacteristically tactful concern. She makes no move to express her opinion, but he can read her easily. Partners— good partners —are like that, and Cara’s the best he’s ever had. Perfectly matched for each other, each of their strengths balancing out the other’s weaknesses. Equally as likely to throw a barb or lifeline to the other.

“We’ll get them.” Cara’s words hold no hint of doubt, they can’t afford to. Either they capture the two Jedi or…or… he refuses to even consider the alternative. Din loathes letting Gideon make him into his own personal puppet, and he knows the others hate it every bit as much as him. They have to finish this mission— quickly —find Grogu, and get the hell away from the Empire for good.

“Until then,” Cara continues, as if he’s done something other than continue to stare out the cracked window, “we can’t waste time wallowing. It never works— trust me.” He knows Cara’s going easy on him, but they’re all shaken up by recent events, from losing Grogu to the fight they’ve just finished. She can get away with going easy on him, at least for now.

And she’s right— they have no time for self-pity. Ready to face the others, Din steps back into the main hold with Cara at his side. Fennec is polishing her blaster with an expression that is a little too innocent for her, and Boba sits on the floor repainting his beat-up armor. There’s a moment of silence as the four of them exchange a look, then Fennec speaks up.

“So what’s our plan, boss?”

The thick layer of sarcasm in her voice can’t make the complete trust. Fennec is with him. All of them are. The realization is surprisingly sweet, one of the first moments of relief since losing Grogu. Maybe the kid is still out of reach, but his crew isn’t going anywhere.

Don clears his throat. Time to get back to work. “We know their ship crashed, but we don’t know where. Boba?”

He nods solemnly. “The plan worked.”

“You’re sure?” They can’t afford to make mistakes, not. now. This is their last chance to get things right. What’s that old saying? Third time’s the charm? Well, he sure hopes so.

“Completely.” He holds up a small, blinking device that looks surprisingly akin to a commlink. “It’s ancient tech, but it should blend right in.”

The four of them stare at the device containing the power to change their fate on a whim. All their hopes are resting in the tiny black box and it’s steadily flashing red light.

“They’ll be too preoccupied with fixing the damage their ship took in the blast to ever notice the tracker out lasers implanted.”

Chapter Text

Rey wakes to the hiss of smoke and the dying wail of one of the Falcon ’s many alarms. What happened…?

Reality hits her like a podracer crash. And so does the pain. She squeezes her eyes shut, trying to hold back the tears that spring to her eyes long enough to take stock of her wounds. She’s badly bruised, maybe a little in shock… stars, there is definitely something wrong with her leg… but nothing critical. She thanks the Force for that.

Forcing her eyes open, Rey turns her focus towards the others. “Ben?”

There are a few beats of heart-wrenching silence. Please be alive, please, force please just let him be okay—

“Here.” The short, pained response fills her heart with a mix of joy and icy dread. Rey stumbles to her feet, shoving aside her body’s chorus of complaints for the time being.

Through some miracle of the force, Ben had managed to brace himself against the control panels during the crash. It had protected him from most of the impact, but not all. Rey can see his wrist bent at an unnatural angle, and from the pain radiating through the force bond, the break is worse than it looks.

She drops down beside him. “Let me look at it.”

“It’s fine.” It clearly isn’t, and they both know it. You’re being stubborn, she scolds through the bond.

Go check on the kids. I can handle this myself.

It’s tempting, but she isn’t leaving him alone like this. That’s not how this works. We’re in this together, Rey insists. So when she reaches for his injured arm, he knows better than to pull away. “Can you check on the kids?” She asks aloud, tilting her head to the mostly intact headset resting a few feet away.

He nods, calling it closer with the force. “We should—“ The rest of his sentence is cut off by a soft gasp of pain as her fingertips brush one of the rapidly forming bruises near the broken bone.

“Sorry.”

He shrugs off her apology, flipping the headset on. “Temiri? Arashell? Oniho?”

“Ben?” Temiri’s voice echoes through the broken headset, distorted but still decipherable.

A ghost of a smile touches his lips. “Hey, kid.”

“Are you alright?” Rey can’t keep the panic from seeping into her voice. She tries to pull up a mental catalog of their medpac. Some bandages, spray bacta… force , why hadn’t she taken time to count their medical supplies earlier?

“We’re okay.” Arashell’s voice is shaky, but Rey can tell it’s more from shock than pain. “Um…Oni…” Oh no. Please let him be okay.

“ He won’t wake up,” Temiri says quietly. “But he’s okay.” Rey and Ben share a fearful glance, both turning to offer reassurance through the headset.

“We’re coming down to you now.”

“Hold on until we get there.” They wait until Arashell and Temiri agree to stay in the gunner’s seat, then Rey turns her focus back to her partner’s clearly broken wrist. “Hold on.”

“What—“ She cuts him off with a quick kiss, then reaches out to the force. The break is clean, a small relief, but it doesn’t help the uneasy feeling at what she is about to do.

Using the force to guide her hand, she sets the bone back into place, fighting the threat of tears blurring her vision at Ben’s poorly concealed cry of pain. Sorry, sorry, I’m so sorry, hold on— She tears off a strip of fabric from her robes and bandages it as best she can, years of tending her own injuries on Jakku steadying her movements. It takes a few precious minutes to wrap the wound in a passable splint, and a few more minutes for her to fully panic over the extent of the break. With each second that ticks by, she has to force down the rapidly growing wave of terror threatening to unravel her. The second the makeshift splint is tied off she practically jumps to her feet, though she doesn’t make it more than a half step before Ben grabs her arm. “You’re bleeding—“ He glances down at the headset still transmitting their voices and silently flips her arm over to reveal a deep cut across her palm.

There are worse things they need to deal with, she wants to tell him, but he won’t move until her wound is properly bandaged. Maybe that isn’t such a bad thing, seeing as she’s already a little lightheaded from a combination of the crash and the blood she’s already lost.

Still, they can both hardly breathe until they’re standing outside the gunner’s hatch looking down at Temiri, who’s climbed halfway up the ladder to watch for their arrival. He lights up at the sight of the two force-sensitives and scrambles out of gunner’s position to hug them both and turn back to the hatch. “Rey and Ben are here!”

Arashell appears next, the fear etched across her face quickly turning to relief as she catches sight of her caretakers. She grabs on to Rey’s good hand, clinging to her as if she’ll disappear again should Arashell look away. Rey just squeezes her hand as best she can, holding on with everything she has. “Is Oniho okay?”

Arashell shakes her head, biting her lip hard as her eyes fill with tears. “He still won’t wake up.”

Rey inhales sharply, forcing down yet another burst of fear. Is he—?

Ben is already ahead of her, making his way down the ladder and disappearing into the gunner’s position. For a few tense moments, they are alone in the silence. Then he reappears, carrying an unconscious Oniho with his good arm. Rey can’t help a sigh of relief, though she knows the extent of the boy’s injuries could be far worse than they appear. Just being reunited again is enough to relight the spark of hope inside her.

The panicked tension building between them dissipates the moment Oniho’s eyes flicker open. Rey bites back a sob, blinking rapidly to clear the tears from her eyes before he can see them, and she and Ben share a look of relief.

“Hey kid,” he says softly.

“Ben?”

“I’m here.” His voice catches at the end. “We’re all here. You’re gonna be okay.”

-:-

It’s a rare miracle that Oniho is mostly unhurt. Bruised and scared, yes. But those can be remedied with enough time and patience, and Rey thanks the force for that. They tend to the kids with what’s left of the medkit, pushing off the inevitable question of their next move until absolutely necessary.

But eventually they can no longer ignore the fact that they have no idea where they are and no idea where to go next. A cursory examination of the Falcon tells Rey it’s not going to be of much help— the shields are wrecked, not to mention the hyperdrive that already operated with some difficulty before the fight, and the primary power converters. When Ben sees the look on her face, he doesn’t bother asking aloud. How bad?

With the shields down? We won’t make it through atmo before the ship burns up.

He doesn’t bother checking for himself. Rey knows ships, and she knows salvaging. The Falcon is in no way salvageable, not with the parts they have on hand. Instead, Ben turns for the boarding ramp, offering a look of reassurance to the kids that even they can detect the lack of conviction behind. “If everyone’s okay, we should find out where we landed.” 

He hasn’t made it three steps before a soft noise freezes all of them in place. After a few seconds, the sound echoes through the room again— someone is tapping on the ship’s ramp.

Rey’s eyes widen. Of course their luck can’t last more than a few minutes. Should we open it?

It could be dangerous. What if it’s the Imps?

They’re hit, too. There’s no way they recovered that quickly, she insists silently.

We need to be careful. We let our guards down in the market. Both of us could’ve been—

“Hello?” A slightly muffled voice reaches them from the other side of the door. Rey’s mind immediately analyzes the voice, searching for any hint of a threat. Male. Adult. The speaker sounds harmless, but there’s no way to know what lies on the other side. Not safely, at least.

“Is anyone in there? Any survivors? Are you hurt?” The man is either a terrifyingly good liar, or he’s genuinely concerned for them. And with every muscle in her body burning like fire and threatening to collapse, Rey’s ready to give this stranger a chance.

I think it’s worth a shot.

Get ready. It could still be a trick.

“We’re okay,” Ben calls.

“Thank the force.” Another voice, this one decidedly feminine. “We saw your ship crash, but we didn’t want to assume the worst.”

Rey reaches out a shaking hand and presses one of the Falcon’s many levers down, lowering the ramp and hoping for the best— or at the very least, not the worst.

The young couple standing at the end of the ramp definitely looks harmless. The young man and woman seem to be only a few years older than Rey and Ben, and they don’t appear to be armed. Still, she can’t help but be suspicious. A year of being trapped in a galaxy-wide war has taught her that even in places the fighting hasn’t reached yet, people still keep a few blasters handy. And this couple has the look in their eyes— the one that says they’ve seen far too many battles and deaths. She’d almost grown used to that look, after spending so long with the Resistance.

“Is there anyone else with you?” The woman asks, staying at the end of the ramp. Either she’s being respectful, or they all look a thousand times worse than they feel. And Rey feels like a walking corpse.

“Just us,” Rey replies. I think we can trust these people.

Ben waits a few moments before replying. I think you’re right, but we need to be more careful. We let our guards down, and we were almost killed.

Ben, I think this is what guided me to Lah’mu. These people. Because something, somewhere in her heart, has finally settled into place. The pull of longing in her heart is gone, and she’s beginning to think the man and woman are to thank.

He has no answer to that, and neither does she. What if they are the reason? What if this couple is the answer to their predicament? She calls out to the Force, trying to get a read on the couple. He’s not force-sensitive. She… Rey pauses, brow furrowing. She has two force signatures. But her confusion quickly clears as the woman steps into the light, one hand resting on her rounded stomach. She’s with child.

That and the woman’s kind smile are enough for Rey to fully let her guard down. This woman is a mother— surely she won’t harm the kids? And even with Ben injured, Rey can fight to protect the two of them if their lives depend on it.

“What brings you here?”

“A… feeling.” Ben casts her a quick look. “And a firefight.”

The woman nods solemnly. “Looks like your ship took some heavy damage. Do you have anywhere to stay?”

“Just the ship.” Rey is careful not to mention the freighter’s name— with the Falcon from this time currently in the hands of war hero Han Solo, owning a near-perfect duplicate with the same name can only bring them more trouble. “We’ll manage. Just give us a few days and we’ll be out of your lands.”

The young couple shares a glance that looks for all the worlds like one of Rey and Ben’s silent conversations through the force bond. When they turn to face the accidental trespassers once more, there is a sense of finality in the air. Rey’s heart sinks, imagining the worst. They’ll be kicked off the couple’s property without a chance to repair their ship, or turned over to the planet’s authorities, or—

“You’re not staying here,” the man decides. Rey’s shoulders slump and she glances down to the kids, already preparing to fight through the disappointment and find a new planet to hide out on. “Not when we have plenty of room at home.”

“What?” Rey’s stunned speechless, but Ben is more than ready voicing their shared surprise.

“The galaxy has seen far too much hate and far too little kindness,” the woman says, as if it explains everything. “You’ve obviously seen your fair share of pain. The least we can do is take you in for a few days.”

“But—” Rey sputters, shocked.

“But nothing. You’re our guests, if you’d like to be.” The man nods his agreement, looking them over once more before adding to his partner’s declaration.

“We have spare parts you can use for your ship, as well. The shields are out?” Rey nods, stunned, and he shrugs off her awe. “There were scorch marks on the sides of your ship.”

This couple has no reason to show them kindness, and yet here they are, offering them shelter and parts for nothing in return. It has to be a trick, but the force around them is at peace, with no trace of a lie. “Thank you…” She trails off, realizing none of them have exchanged names.

“Jyn,” the woman says simply. “Jyn Erso. And Cassian Andor.” She smiles warmly. “Let’s get you someplace safe.”

Chapter Text

By the time they reach the Erso-Andors’ home, Cassian has kept up a stream of stilted small talk long enough for them to learn quite a bit about the duo. They are former soldiers of the Rebel Alliance who had moved far away from the political scene soon after the Battle of Jakku. They’d come to Lah’mu to keep a low profile at first, but the planet had quickly become their new home. They live alone, but are expecting a child— a daughter —in a few months. And they are far kinder than they need to be, though that part goes unspoken.

Still, Jyn and Cassian have offered them food, shelter, kindness, and medical supplies before even asking their names. “Rey,” she’d replied simply when the question finally arose.

“Got a last name?” Jyn’s tone remains perfectly neutral.

“No.” It’s the simplest answer to the question that has plagued her most of her life.

“Understood.” She turns to face the others. “And the rest of you?”

Ben nods, slipping his good arm around Rey. “Same as her.”

“Alright.” The speeder slows to a stop in front of a dome-shaped building, and Cassian ushers them all out of the ship, leading the way towards the entrance. “I’ll get the medkit, Cas can show you where you’ll be staying.”

“Jyn…”

She fixes him with an annoyed look. “Really, I think I can handle myself.” The couple shares another silent conversation of stern looks and exasperated sighs, then Jyn shakes her head. “Fine. Cassian will get the medkit. The rest of you, follow me.”

She leads them down one of the snaking halls, waiting until Cassian is out of earshot before rolling her eyes good-naturedly and offering them a conspiratorial grin. “He won’t let me do anything anymore. Mostly.” Her words hold an odd mix of exasperation and fondness. “Love is strange, I suppose.”

Rey can’t help but smile. If only Jyn knew… But no. The less they share, the better. Even if these people seem unremarkable, it’s a bad idea, playing with fire and getting to know anyone in this time too well. Even so, the kyber crystal warms against her skin, seeming to take an instant liking to the Erso-Andors.

Well, that makes two of them.

The kids are still in shock, both from the crash and the sudden turn of luck. She hadn’t noticed it earlier, mostly because their stunned state has showed itself in the form of silence. Everything’s been happening far too fast for her to notice the emptiness that would usually be filled with chatter and curious questions from the kids. So Rey slips her hand into Temiri’s and offers them all a reassuring smile. They’re safe now, at least for the time being. This disastrous last-ditch mission is slowly getting better.

“The kids can stay in here,” Jyn stops suddenly and nods towards a small room that seems to be part nursery, part youngling’s room. Seeing Rey’s curious expression, a faint smile traces her lips. “It was my bedroom as a child. But we’ve been converting it to a nursery for her these past few months.” She rests a hand on her stomach. “It doesn’t even seem real yet.”

“It’s beautiful.” She feels a pang of longing for the childhood she’d never experienced, then a warm rush of happiness for Jyn and Cassian’s daughter. The girl will come of age in a galaxy terrorized by the First Order… but her childhood will certainly be a happy one, if Jyn and Cassian’s kindness say anything about them— and it definitely does, Rey can tell. The force around them glows with a warmth akin to Leia’s force signature— weathered, but without the jaded edge most former Rebels (and even some young Resistance soldiers) seem to bear. “Thank you. For…” Taking us in. Not turning us away. Showing kindness. Helping us when we need it the most.

“It’s nothing, really.” She shakes her head. “It’s like people have forgotten that kindness is the bare minimum we can give each other. I wish we could do more to help, but neither of us are mechanics…”

“You’ve already done more than enough,” Ben cuts in. He turns to the kids. “You’ll be alright?”

Three exhausted nods answer him, and he smiles slightly, watching as they cautiously explore the new room, all three of them making a beeline for the child-sized bed. Oniho curls up among the mess of old blankets without even stopping to take off his shoes or the bag thrown over his shoulder, and the other two quickly follow suit, piling together like a litter of puppies.

“We have a spare room nearby,” Jyn promises, making her way down the hallway and shoving open an old door. “I trust you two will be comfortable sharing?”

“Oh— yeah.” Rey feels a flush creep over her cheeks. They’ve grown used to sharing a room— and almost everything else —on the Falcon, but it has always been an unspoken thing. Their relationship isn’t exactly something that is accepted back in their time, and it’s simply easier to keep it something private. Between the five of them only.

“I don’t mean to assume, but…”

“It’s okay,” Ben replies quickly. “You assumed correctly. We don’t mind.” It’s oddly refreshing, getting to be themselves without fear of judgement in a galaxy that has never known Kylo Ren or The Last Jedi.

“Cas will be by soon with a medkit. Until then, take some time to settle in. You can tell us what brings you here when you’re rested.”

Rested . All the exhaustion Rey has been ignoring hits her like a sandstorm on Jakku. It’s all she can do to murmur a quick thanks to Jyn, and the second she leaves the room both force-sensitives collapse onto the bed. The mattress sinks under their combined weight; Rey feels as if she’s fallen onto a cloud. As much as she loves the Falcon , it’s nice to sleep on a bed that isn’t three times her age.

Well, that isn’t quite true, was it? They’ve been thrown back twenty years in time… and Jyn had said this house was her family’s as a child… force, maybe it is as old as the Falcon ’s cots.

At least it feels newer. Softer. Like she could just drift away…

Rey reaches an aching arm up to rub her eyes, staying awake out of sheer force of will. “Ben… your hand…”

“I’m fine,” he mutters, but she catches the strain in his voice. “Just… a few minutes…”

She sighs. Surely it can’t hurt to sleep a few minutes? They’re both surviving on only a handful of hours of rest, and this could be the only time they are safe enough to let their guards down fully. Who knows how long they’ll be able to stay with the Erso-Andors… “Sure. I’ll wake you up.”

She waits in silence, fiddling with the necklace under her tunic as Ben’s breathing evens out and Jyn’s light footsteps echo down the halls. If she listens hard enough, she can hear the kids’ excited whispers in the next room over, but the murmurs slowly trickle into silence as they fall asleep one by one. Rey smiles, finally letting the tension in her body drain away.

Safe at last.

She hopes.

Chapter Text

“What brings you here?” Jyn and Cassian had given them thirty minutes to sleep, but now they need answers. Answers Rey doesn’t know how to begin giving.

The kids are still fast asleep in Jyn’s old bedroom, they’d figured it would be easier to let them sleep off the chaos of the day. The rest of them have gathered on the two weather-beaten couches, Rey and Ben curled up together out of habit. It’s still strange, being able to present themselves as anything other than enemies without fear of reproach, but the Erso-Andors don’t give them so much as a second glance. “Our ship crashed. After a firefight.” Rey’s fingers worry the worn hem of her tunic, hoping the mention of a fight isn’t enough for the couple to turn them away. Fortunately, Jyn and Cassian seem unsurprised.

“We figured as much,” she admits. “You’re Jedi, no?”

Ben stiffens visibly, and Rey can’t conceal the rush of fear that washes over her. Oh no— “We’re not in the business of turning people over,” Cassian says quickly, holding up a placating hand. “We only saw your lightsabers and assumed… We’re not turning you in to whoever’s chasing you.”

Rey’s shoulders slump and she can’t stop a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”

“Should we still be worried about these…”

“Bounty hunters,” Ben says. “And no. They’re in worse shape than we are.”

“Good.” She nods. “Anything else that brings two Jedi and their children to our corner of the galaxy?”

Rey and Ben share a glance, the question written in both of their eyes: What do we tell them?

We can trust these people. They’ve shown nothing but kindness and understanding, welcoming the two force-senstives and the kids into their home even with the knowledge of the bounty hunters on their tail.

If they know… it could turn the entire course of time, Ben argues, voicing their greatest fear. It’s bad enough that the bounty hunters and their employers know of them. They don’t need to add to that list. But something about Jyn and Cassian…

They’re retired Alliance soldiers, Ben. They came here for a quiet life. The only people they’ll tell is each other, and maybe their child.

“That bad?” Jyn’s teasing voice interrupts the silent argument, bringing them both back to reality. “We can take it, you know.”

“We fell through time,” Rey blurts out, body going tense with fear of their reactions. She still doesn’t know exactly what makes her say it— but it has something to do with the same feeling that had told her coming to Lah’mu was a good idea.

“You what?” Cassian’s eyes dart between the two of them as if expecting them to reveal it’s all an elaborate joke. She doesn’t blame him: even for Jedi, time travel is an outlandish tale, the kind that only serves to entertain younglings and fuel holofilms.

“We fell through time,” she repeats, slower this time. “Twenty years into the past. And we’ve been trapped here for a few weeks now. Almost a standard month.”

“You’re from the future.” There is no mistaking the disbelief on his face, but of course it’s the reasonable response. Time travel, even in their time twenty years from now, is impossible. Something too out of reach to even consider.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“We don’t know,” Ben admits. “One minute we were in our time, and the next…”

“You’re Jedi from the future,” Jyn says slowly. “That means… no.” She shakes her head quickly, frowning to herself. “I’m not going to ask what happens. You’re not going to tell us.”

She looks them over with a neutral gaze, then her eyes dart down the hall to where the kids sleep. “Here’s how this is going to work. We’re going to give you a place to stay until you can repair your ship. After that, you can decide your next step. We can help you put together a life on Lah’mu, if you’d like. Or you can take your ship and leave. You’re not going to tell us about the future. We won’t ask. Cas?” Jyn turns her focus to her partner, but he is already nodding.

“We can help you look for a way home as well.” He eyes them both. “Time travel doesn’t exist, but I’m sure the Jedi had their secrets.”

“Thank you,” she whispers, voice threatening to break with a river of tears. “You don’t need to—“

“No,” Jyn says firmly. “You’re not allowed to argue about this. Neither of you,” she adds as Ben starts to protest. They fall silent, exchanging a look of awe and relief. After being chased or shooed away by everyone in this time they’ve met so far, this is nothing short of a miracle.

“If there’s anything we can do to help you get back, tell us.” Cassian stands and gestures to the door. “I’ll be outside. Jyn?”

“We’ve got years of old research papers in storage. You can start looking through those when you have time. Spare parts for your ship should be behind the house.” She shrugs off their surprised looks. “If you were going to steal from us, you wouldn’t have been so honest. And no one can think up a story that wild unless it’s true or a damn holofilm. Go do what you need to do. I’ve got work to do.” And with that, she made her way into the kitchen, leaving them completely alone.

Rey can’t help but wonder how the woman knows they’re telling the truth, but her questions evaporate like water in the desert when she sees the pile of ship parts lying out back. Years of scavenging instinct kick in and she grins, sifting through the half-rusted pieces. “Hyperdrive’s down again, right?”

“Yeah. Same with shields and primary power converters.” A lot of damage and not nearly enough time to fix it. Jyn and Cassian had been adamant about them staying as long as they needed, but if they have survived the crash, there is a chance the bounty hunters have too. And Rey doesn’t want to bring any more trouble onto the young couple than they already have.

“They’ve got an old power converter. It’s not compatible with the Falcon , but I can dismantle it, use the parts as replacements…” She trails off, grinning at Ben’s confused expression.

“You can fix it?”

“I can fix it.”

“That’s all I need to know.” He eyes the array of parts she’s begun pulling from the pile. “I can fix the hyperdrive manually. Shields are another matter.” It takes a considerable amount of power and tech to fix them, both things Rey and Ben don’t have access to. And with their defense reserves completely depleted, they don’t have a chance of breaking Lah’mu’s atmosphere safely, let alone surviving another fighter battle.

“We’ll find something,” she promises, more to reassure them both than to actually form a plan. “Let’s focus on this for now.”

It isn’t a lot to work with, but the Falcon is everything they have. Repairs will be a good first step.

-:-

About twenty minutes later, they’ve made the trek out to the grounded Falcon , supplies in tow. Rey had quickly lost herself in the familiarity of the ship and its many broken parts. They had tried to keep a lighthearted conversation going alongside the repairs, but after one too many turns into the all-consuming fear of the unknown, the Falcon falls still with a comfortable silence.

Dismantling and rebuilding a power converter isn’t  difficult , per se. Years of scavenging have drilled the memory of how to strip and refurbish old pieces of tech into her bones. Rey is more than capable of taking apart the converter and using the pieces to fix the Falcon — thank the force Han and Chewie had never decided to install newer power converters. It’s just that the whole process takes time . A lot of it. The same goes for patience. And she is running dangerously low on both.

Gritting her teeth against a scream of frustration, Rey pries yet another rusted piece of metal casing off the device. Everything okay?

Some of the tension in her shoulders drains away at the familiar sound of her bond-mate’s voice. Yeah. You?

Same.

The conversation fizzles out again, like a blaster bolt in a rainstorm. Rey lets her thoughts drift, ending up twenty years into the future where all their friends wait. It seems laughable, almost, how excited they’d been when their request to venture out into the dark reaches of the Outer Rim in search of more force-sensitives had been approved. Ben had been certain the newly joined leaders of the Resistance and First Order would shut them down the moment they saw his name beside Rey’s on their request form. Rey had kept her doubts hidden inside, trusting that the Force would guide them to make the right decision.

In reality, it had probably been Rose Tico guiding the whole operation. She and Finn had been two of the most vocal supporters of the two sides coming together to form a truce, and Rose had been the first to give Ben a chance. She’d known exactly how much hope was resting on their request— despite not knowing the true reason the five of them had wanted some time alone together —and Rey knows for a fact she’d personally tracked down every uncertain voter and given them an earful about the benefits of Kylo Ren and the Last Jedi setting out to find more force-sensitives. Sometimes it feels like she’ll never stop owing Rose, though every time she mentions trying to repay her, the stubborn mechanic instantly shuts her down.

Rey still remembers the joy that had filled her heart the moment they’d received permission to leave. It’s funny, though not at all, how things had gone downhill so quickly.

She wonders if she’ll ever have a chance to see Rose again, ever get to thank her for everything she’d done.

Her hands work mindlessly, pulling apart piece after piece of the rusted power converter, and before she knows it she is left with a pile of parts on the floor in front of her. How long has it been?

It’s less the glance at the cracked screen of the chrono some Resistance member had left in the Falcon that convinces her to head back to the Andors’, and more the incessant hunger twisting her stomach. Hours had slipped by like minutes as her thoughts had taken her away from the uncertain present and into the uncertain future. “Ben?”

No reply. Force, he’s probably gone back without her. Rey’s been working a lot longer than she’d expected; the lack of sunlight when she steps out of the ship only confirms her suspicions.

The walk back to the Andors’ home is longer than she remembers, though the endless stretching darkness and her own exhaustion do nothing to hasten the journey. Still, Jyn and Cassian have promised that no harm will come to them on their lands, and she is able to walk through the night without fear. It isn’t long before the domed house comes into view, and Rey receives a pleasant surprise as she cautiously presses her hand to the scanner and the door slides open. Jyn and Cassian must have taken their handprints from something they’ve touched. Clever.

As the door slips shut behind her, Rey hears heavy footsteps trudging down the adjacent hall, the sound faintly familiar like remembering something from a dream she’d had once. Ben? No reply meets her query, but it’s entirely possible that they’re both too wrung out to properly communicate through the force bond. Their mysterious connection may seem to have endless strength, but their own is limited. Rey makes her way down the hall, sidestepping a few discarded shoes and boxes of supplies she assumes are for fixing up the Andors’ daughter’s future room. The house is silent and dark, and yet she feels entirely comfortable in this strange place. The feeling is a bit like being back on the Falcon , the way she can find her way through the ship blindfolded in a fire. It’s amazing how quickly Jyn and Cassian’s kindness have warmed her to this place.

She turns into the living space and runs smack into a dark shape. Rey stumbles back, gaping at the figure in front of her, looking up… and up, and up, until she stares directly into the eyes of an antiquated Imperial droid.

No— A dozen thoughts flash through her mind, the first being that Jyn and Cassian have turned them over. The second, following close on the heels of this declaration of betrayal, is the realization that she isn’t afraid of the droid. Even as it towers over her by at least a head or two, her instinctive reaction isn’t fear or betrayal.

In fact, there is a tiny part of her, buried deep in her heart, that feels almost… comforted?

Rey had been raised the way most post-Rebellion kids had, as much as ‘raised’ can apply. She’d feared the Empire and listened with rapt attention to whispered tales of Luke Skywalker and the glory of the Rebellion. And while the starship graveyard on Jakku had been more scattered parts than actual ships to discriminate between, a chill had still gone through her whenever she came across a scrap of metal emblazoned with the Imperial insignia. Not that it ever stopped her from taking it back to sell, but she’d come across her fair share of superstitious scavengers who would have refused.

So all things considered, her reaction to the Imperial droid is… unusual, to say the least.

The old, battered Imperial security droid looks her up and down as if determining whether she poses any kind of threat. Whatever decision it reaches must be good, because it remains still, eyes flickering briefly with an automatic light. “Jyn and Cassian said you were coming. Your friend was waiting for you as well, but he seems to have disappeared.”

Rey stands frozen in the hallway, unsure if this is some kind of trap. Where are the others? Have they already been arrested, taken in by Imperials determined to resurrect their Empire? Jyn and Cassian had been soldiers of the Rebel Alliance, yes, but they have a daughter… Rey has no doubt that they would turn over a pack of troublesome strangers to ensure the safety of their own child. Wouldn’t she do the same to protect her friends in the Resistance, or one of the kids?

“Kay!” Cassian’s whispered shout cuts through her whirling thoughts. Both Rey and the droid turn towards the sound of his voice as Cassian steps into the hall with an exasperated look on his face. “For force’s sakes, you’re scaring her.”

The droid turns back to Rey. “I apologize.” She nods slowly, still a little stunned. What the force is going on?

“I’m sorry if he scared you.” Cassian gestures to the droid. “This is K-2SO. Kay. He’s a reprogrammed Imperial droid. Tends to scare people, and the Rebellion didn’t know what to do with him.”

“So they assigned me to keep watch over the Rebellion’s resident lovebirds.” Rey’s lips quirk upwards instinctively at the hint of sarcasm in the droid’s voice. It reminds her of BB-8, who, thanks to Poe, is never without a cheeky quip. And she’s beginning to realize that the droid hasn’t frightened her, not in the way the faceless stormtrooper helmets or Imperial-stamped crates on Jakku had. No, he’d just caught her off guard… and maybe all her years scavenging Imperial parts is to blame, but K-2SO seems almost… familiar?

Stars, she’s probably just tired. That’s all. After all, where could she ever have seen an Imperial security droid that isn’t spare parts? “The others…”

“Are fine,” Cassian finishes for her. “The kids are asleep, and your friend is waiting for you.” She manages a nod, exhaustion finally hitting her all at once for the second time that day. “He was worried you’d gotten lost out there. You missed dinner.”

Damn. Rey had been out there a lot longer than she’d thought. She exchanges a quick goodbye with Cassian and Kay and makes a beeline for her temporary bedroom. It takes a few mistakes, including one storage closet and what appears to have been the bedroom of a couple much like Jyn and Cassian, but she finds the door Jyn had shown them to earlier and promptly collapses onto the bed inside.

“Where were you?” She cracks an eyelid open, squinting in the dim light. The soft mattress dips slightly as Ben sits down beside her, and she offers an awkward shrug from her position splayed across the bed.

I was fixing the Falcon. I lost track of time. It’s fine.

“I thought…” She doesn’t need him to finish to know exactly what he’d been thinking. I thought you’d disappeared. I thought the bounty hunters had taken you.

“I’m fine,” she whispers, voice rough with exhaustion. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I know.”

“We’re safe now.”

“If we survived the crash…”

“We can protect ourselves. And they won’t look for us here.” Her words hang in the air between them, filling the silence with tenuous hope. “I don’t want to hurt them either.” Jyn and Cassian. Their daughter. The kids. They have so many people to keep safe now, and so little power to do so. The responsibility looms over both of them, but Rey has long since learned that she and Ben can make it through more than either of them expect by working together.

Of course, the obstacles they’d faced before had always been clear-cut. Time travel is a whole new frontier. And they can’t fight their way through this, not with three kids to take care of. She sighs, sinking into the well-worn mattress. “We can plan our next steps in the morning.” Their break earlier is the longest she’s slept soundly in days. A good night’s rest sounds too good to be true.

Sounds perfect. The worry in Ben’s voice has disappeared completely, the tension between them evaporating like water in the desert. Her heavy eyelids slip shut, sleep delaying their conversation to another day. Rey is vaguely aware of the force bond enveloping both of them, shutting out the chaos of the galaxy around them until there is no one else.

For the first time in almost a month, Rey and Ben sleep soundly through the night.

Chapter Text

“Dammit!” The word echoes through the ship, followed by a string of curses that could put Cara to shame. It’s not exactly a rare occurrence, hearing someone onboard threaten everything in a twenty meter radius, but the fact that this sudden outburst is coming from mild-mannered Boba sends Din running for the cockpit.

Boba is hunched over the tracker, various tools spread across the floor around him. Even before Din sees the state of the tracker, he can tell whatever is wrong won’t be an easy fix. It’s not often that Boba is so visibly upset— something is very, very wrong.

Then he sees the tracker.

“It’s not blinking.” Din’s too on edge to say anything else, for fear of the problem being so much worse than a broken light. “Why isn’t it blinking?”

“I can fix it,” Boba mutters, prying open a nearby control panel and tugging at the cluster of wires inside.

“Boba—“

“I said I can fix it, Din.” He pulls his hand away suddenly, cursing quietly as a shower of sparks sprays from the panel. As soon as they die down he reaches for the wires again, glaring at Din when he stops the man.

“Tell me what’s wrong.”

“The crash damaged the tracker’s power cells.” Meaning… “It’s dead.”

Dank farrik.

-:-

“You’ve got to be shitting me.” Cara looks ready to leave the ship and track down the Jedi herself, and at this point Din would let her if it wasn’t hopeless. “There’s nothing we can do?”

“The tracker’s been leaking for hours. We can’t time travel, Cara.”

“What? We can’t just collect the fuel and refill it?”

“That’s not exactly how it works,” Boba cuts in. “Most of it’s been absorbed into the ground, anyways.”

“So we refill the power cells,” Fennec says mildly. “We don’t have credits, but there’s plenty of old tech sitting around here that people will be more than willing to trade for.”

“That’s the problem.” Boba’s expression is grave, mirroring Din’s exactly. “The tracker is fueled by coaxium.”

There’s an audible intake of breath at this, and Din feels a sense of utter hopelessness come crashing down— not for the first time today. They’ve faced impossible situation after impossible situation… it’s starting to feel as if the galaxy doesn’t want him and Grogu to reunite. But if they give up now, he will be lost to them forever. And Din refuses to give up on the foundling who changed his life. He couldn’t call himself a Mandalorian anymore if he did. And more importantly, the kid is counting on him. Din can’t stop now, not when Grogu trusts him to rescue him.

“There’s no other way to run it?” Fennec asks halfheartedly, as if she’s only saying it because someone has to.

“Not that I’ve found.”

“Coaxium powers hyperdrives,” Din says slowly. “At least one person on this planet has to have a working hyperdrive. We can still barter for that.”

“Do you know how much even a few milligrams of coaxium goes for out here?” Cara shakes her head. “There’s no way.”

“It’s worth trying,” Boba concedes, but doubt is written across all their faces. The plan could work— if there’s a ship with a working hyperdrive on this planet, and if the pilot is willing to spare them a little coaxium, and if they can afford it.

“We focus on survival first,” Din decides. “Fixing the tracker isn’t important right now. We can’t find the Jedi if we’re dehydrated or our ship can’t move. We find food and water, get to work patching up the Firespray. We’ll most likely need to go to town for parts— we can ask around about the coaxium there.”

Now that a plan has been suggested, they all seem more comfortable. It’s far easier to make a move once a plan of action has been put into place, and even this bare hint of an idea leaves Din feeling far more in control of their situation than he had been only moments ago.

“Deal,” Cara says. Fennec nods. Boba offers a murmured agreement.

This isn’t over yet.

Chapter Text

“Last night… you mentioned research papers?” Waking up in a real bed that morning had been nothing short of a miracle, and there had been an odd sense of normalcy as they’d helped Cassian prepare breakfast while Jyn distracted the kids with a card game from her childhood. But there is still work to do, and the Andors’ mentioned research could be the closest thing they have to a lead.

Perhaps it’s even the reason Rey feels called to this place.

At the kitchen table, the card game is quickly becoming discarded in favor of peppering Jyn with questions— “Do you really have a baby in your belly?” “Is it a boy or a girl?” “Is that gonna happen to me too when I get older?” “Is Rey gonna get a baby in her belly?” “She doesn’t need a baby, she already has us, dummy!” “What’s your baby’s name gonna be?” —and while Jyn has been making a valiant effort to answer all of their questions at once, she can hardly get a word in edgewise. She grabs onto the excuse of the research like a drowning woman, promising to answer all their questions after showing Rey and Ben some “important Jedi stuff.”

“I suppose it’s what I get for being such a wild child,” she says with a rueful grin. “I still don’t know how my parents put up with me. I suppose this one will end up with the same adventurous streak,” she adds, resting a hand on her stomach with a fond smile. “Come on. Let’s find you all a way home.”

-:-

Jyn leads them through the house, Cassian trailing behind with an unreadable expression. Rey isn’t sure if that means he is against them seeing the research or if he is only worrying over Jyn again. When she slows to a stop in front of the room Rey had stumbled upon last night— the empty bedroom, the one that had looked as if it hadn’t been touched in decades —she takes a deep breath, steeling herself before reaching for the door.

“Jyn…”

“No.”

“I can show them.”

“ No.” Her voice is tense, stretched taught by some old wound. Rey knows that tone well, has heard it hundreds of times as Resistance soldiers relieved past horrors. Hell, how many times has she used it herself? Too many to count. “This is something I should have done a long time ago.”

With that, she pushes open the door open to reveal the same nondescript bedroom Rey had seen the night before. The air is heavy with age, every surface covered in a thick layer of dust. It seems like a normal room despite the ancient feel that comes with stepping inside, but Jyn’s movements are stiff as she walks to the trunk in the corner of the room. She lifts its lid cautiously, as if it’s charged with an electric shock, and Rey can’t help the confused look she and Ben exchange. What could possibly in that box that is so painful to Jyn?

A packet of flimsi, apparently. And then a journal. And then another. And another. She pulls out journal after journal, each made of flimsi and bound fabric like the ones Rey herself had kept back on Jakku, and sets them on the dust-ridden bedspread with a quiet reverence. Leaning over, Rey catches a glimpse of the title adorning one: Project Stardust .

Stardust? Her eyes narrow of their own accord. The word brings back echoes of memories of simple happiness: a child’s laughter, seemingly endless fields of towering plants, strains of soft music, hands stained with rich, loamy soil… but there is a dark undertone to the memories too, a deep kind of loss. One that Rey knows well. Loneliness.

As quickly as the memories come, they disappear, leaving her confused and more than a little disoriented. They’d felt so familiar, but belong to a life so different from her own. Has she been given a glimpse into Jyn’s mind, and the sudden vision is only an accident? Do the memories belong to the owner of the notebook? Or has the force given her a vision, for no reason other than to point her in the right direction?

When it comes to the force, there’s never really a way of knowing for sure. At least none that Rey’s found through her experimental, almost entirely self-taught Jedi training.

With the notebooks spread somewhat evenly across the bed, Jyn sets her lips in a thin line and finally acknowledges Rey and Ben. “My father was a scientist under the Empire. After the war, his research was entrusted to me.”

“Your father was Imperial?” The question slips from Rey’s lips automatically, a half second before she catches the undercurrent of shame in Jyn’s words and realizes such a question is most likely seen as rude in this time. Even back home, some of the old prejudices still exist— things surely must be far more electrified here, so close to the end of the war.

“Reluctantly.” Cassian starts to step forward and she waves him off, her voice odd and detached. “They killed my mother and they tried to kill me, just to get him to work for them.”

Rey presses her lips together, nodding solemnly. They’ve only known each other for a day now, but Jyn seems like her, the kind of person who hates when near strangers offer condolences and ‘sorry for your loss’es over pains they know nothing about.

“He died during the war, and when the Alliance retrieved all his research… well, leaving out the legal mess, they didn’t want it in public and the research belonged to me, so we’ve kept it safe here ever since.” She shoots a disdainful look at the pile of papers. “He was always more interested in the properties of kyber crystals than in the Jedi themselves, but maybe his research could help you… find a way home, or whatever it is you need.”

They approach the journals carefully, and Rey half expects another vision to blossom in her mind, the way the last one had at the sight of the word ‘stardust.’ But nothing happens, and it’s almost a disappointment to let her fingers brush the cover of the first notebook and feel nothing but the weathered leather cover.

“I’ll go check on the kids,” Jyn says quickly, eyes downcast as she leaves the room, putting as much distance between herself and the bed as possible.

A beat of silence follows her sudden departure, the Ben finally puts a voice to their shared confusion. “Is she…?”

“She’ll be fine,” Cassian says, voice low with concern. “Her father… played a key role in building the Death Star— against his will, but it still destroys her. The Alliance giving her his research didn’t help. This is the first time she’s been able to look at it.”

“Was this room… it was theirs, wasn’t it?” Somehow she can tell, can just feel it, the remains of love and family lingering in the air here. After so many years of searching for it, she’s become adept at sensing the love others leave behind. “Her parents.”

“It was, once.” He looks them both up and down. “I’d warn you to be careful in this room, but you look like you already know what she’s going through.” Rey feels a familiar pang in the darkest corners of her heart, the place she keeps thoughts of her own parents. “If you don’t find what you’re looking for… Lah’mu is happy to keep you.” He offers a smile, the first since Jyn had offered to show them her father’s research. “I should know.”

“Thank you.” They’ve repeated those words so many times since arriving, and it’s beginning to feel as if they’ll never repay their debt to the Andors.

“Good luck.” Cassian turns to the door, gesturing back towards the notes. “Galen was never a very organized man.”

One of the traits he had not passed on to his daughter, apparently. The journals are spread out in a carefully arranged row, each one displaying a name embossed into the cover. The words ‘Project Stardust’ appear on more than one, alongside others with similarly odd names. Ben picks one up experimentally, leafing through the pages with caution. Rey catches a glimpse of scrawled lines moving in every direction and more than a few notes crammed into the corners of the flimsi. This is going to be a long day.

Good . They’ve been running for so long now; the monotony of paperwork is a reassuring one.

She picks up a notebook of her own, opening to the first page. Cramped handwriting fills even the inside cover, and she hopes that the sheer amount of research means there has to be at least something here for them.

“Let’s find our way home.”

Chapter Text

“Jyn’s daughter,” Ben says after a while of silence, tone carefully mild as if testing the waters between them. It reminds her, oddly, of the time before they’d managed to find peace (and then some) with each other. “Her force signature.”

Rey looks up, blinking rapidly to clear her eyes, which are beginning to ache after an hour or so of sifting through Galen’s journals. “What about it?”

“It was… familiar. I know I’ve felt it before, but it’s too indistinct to tell where.” Her eyes dip back down to the journal, but it has yet to provide anything beyond an extensive list of predictions regarding the power of kyber crystals, some of which are so outlandish she can’t help a smile. It doesn’t take much considering to close the book and humor Ben, even if only for a few minutes.

“I haven’t felt anything.” Jyn’s ‘second’ force signature had been disconcerting at first, but she is quickly getting used to them. The most trouble it’s given her since meeting the woman is the difficulty of trying to decipher the two force signatures from each other, but Jyn’s shines distinctively sharp and bright with determination and attitude. Her daughter’s is more muted, still growing as she takes shape inside of Jyn. “Maybe she turns First Order. She’s an officer in our time, and you’ve been around her enough then to recognize her now.” She runs her fingers over the journal cover’s lettering, one of the many bearing the title Project Stardust.

“Maybe.” He doesn’t sound convinced. “It feels like more than that.”

“Was she…” she trails off, afraid to unearth more painful memories of the past than they already have today. “With Luke. Was she another Padawan?”

“Maybe. It’s hard to tell without seeing her.”

“She doesn’t feel powerful enough to be force-sensitive.”

“It’s hard to tell before they’re born. Luke—“ He hesitates for a moment, and she waits silently for him to pick up the sentence again. “He said you needed an eye for it, whatever that meant.”

She closes her eyes, huffing an exasperated laugh. “Sounds like him.”

“Jedi,” he mutters, and this time her laugh is a real one. “You never get a straight answer.”

“And me?”

“You’re not a Jedi, you’re…” She’d been teasing, but he looks away, suddenly too embarrassed to meet her eye. “The love of my life.”

She laughs, leaning over for a kiss. “I love you, too.”

Sudden footsteps outside the door startle them both out of the little moment, and Rey quickly reopens the journal in her lap. “Now let’s see if Galen has a way to take us home.”

-:-

Nothing.

After three or four hours— time had blurred like the cramped lines on the pages after a while —that’s all they’ve managed to find. And while she now knows more than she ever did about the potential scientific uses of kyber, Rey has no idea how to use Galen’s knowledge to get them home. Maybe a better, smarter Jedi could have solved this all in a heartbeat. But she’s far from the perfect Jedi— far from a Jedi at all —and she’s even further from finding even a hint of a solution to their problem.

It’s a bit of a shock when they emerge from the room to find it past lunch. Jyn tells them everyone’s already eaten, and Cassian’s taken the kids outside to explore the fields and run off some of their energy. Rey begins to ask how they can help the Andors with their work—they’ve already disrupted the couple’s lives enough, it’s the least they deserve —but Jyn stuffs two sandwiches into her outstretched hands and promptly kicks them both out of the house.

“Go have some fun,” she calls after them, a satisfied smile tugging at her lips. “I need some time alone, anyway. I really should sort through those journals.” Jyn’s eyes soften slightly. “Thank you for that, by the way. I’ve put it off for too long.”

And with that, she closes the door in their faces.

Rey’s stomach decides it’s about time to protest her neglect, so they split the sandwiches and decide to wander, following the well-worn footpath past a supply shed and two mounds of earth marked with twin mortuary tablets. They don’t dare stray too close to the tablets for fear of intruding upon the Andors’ privacy any more than they already have, but Rey can tell the tablets have been carefully carved by hand. And recently, too. Time has yet to soften the engraved words that she can’t quite make out from where they stand.

A child’s scream tears her out of her thoughts and panic overtakes the feeling of peace that has just begun to settle over her. The bounty hunters . Somehow they’ve managed to recover from the crash and hunt them down. The kids, stars, why had she let the kids out of her sight, this is all her fault —

Ben grabs her arm before she can make it more than two steps, holding her back. No— What the hell is he doing? They need to get out there, they need to fight—

Rey, wait.

They’re in trouble! Let go!

Understanding flickers across his face and he loosens his grip slightly. Slightly, but not enough for her to pull herself free. “We’re not at war anymore.”

It takes her a moment to realize just what he means.

Another scream echoes around the corner and this time she catches the peals of laughter that follow, then the sound of footsteps heading their way just as Temiri bursts around the corner, flushed with laughter. He skids to a stop at the sight of Rey and Ben, then looks over his shoulder and sprints the rest of the distance between them, hiding behind Rey and gasping for breath.

They don’t have time to ask what’s going on before Oniho comes around the corner and stumbles to a halt, similarly winded and happy. Temiri inhales sharply and darts around Rey’s side, making a break for the shed with Oniho on his heels.

Mutual curiosity carries them around the corner where Cassian appears to be overseeing some sort of running game while working at the edge of one of the Andors’ decently sized rows of what Rey assumes is some kind of fruit or veg. The sight of the two force-sensitives is enough to derail the game completely; the kids crowd around Rey and Ben, full of laughter and pleas for the two force-sensitives to join them. “What’s going on?”

“It’s a game— Cassian taught us!”

Cassian just laughs, the sound unexpected from such a solemn man. “Something I used to play with my sister.” There’s a hint of a bittersweet feeling to his words, though Rey can’t tell if it’s over a childhood before the war or something to do with the sister he’d mentioned.

Cassian quickly introduces them to the rules of the game, which mostly involves running and hiding from a chaser. A little too relevant to their current situation, but the kids look happier than they’ve been in weeks, and for that she’ll put up with quite a lot more than some running.

The game turns out to be exactly what they need. Rey figures out early on that the crop fields are just high enough to crouch behind without being spotted, and she listens happily as laughter fills the air and drains away the stresses of the outside world. At least until Arashell spots Rey hiding and chases her through the fields, drawing her back into the game once more. They even drag Cassian into it, despite his initial reluctance. She feels bad about pulling him away from his work until he admits he didn’t have anything more important to do anyway. “Most days are quiet here. I’ve never learned how to adapt to the slower pace, I come out here every day just to keep busy.”

The afternoon passes in a blur of happiness. At some point they transition into a new game, one involving Jedi and Separatists that Ben remembers from his childhood. The kids take the side of the Jedi with the adults playing Separatists, and the game quickly takes a turn as they lose themselves in the maze of crops, darting between rows and hiding behind bushes as the sun arcs high overhead.

By the time the sky begins to darken, they’re all laughing, even Cassian. The kids appear to have finally run out of energy, stifling yawns and trailing behind the others, and Rey and Ben fall back to make sure they don’t end up lost in the dark. “Have fun?”

Oniho just smiles and nods, and Temiri launches into an exhausted recap of their day. She takes that as a good thing, biting back a laugh at the animated retelling. Jyn is waiting up for them when they get back, she laughs as they all pile into the small kitchen. “I was beginning to think you’d decided to live out there.”

Cassian leans in for a kiss, speaking quietly in a language Rey can’t understand. Whatever he says, it widens Jyn’s smile. She whispers something back, then pushes herself up off the couch and stifles a yawn. “Never mind. I’d have stayed out there too.” She tilts her head to Rey and Ben. “You five can take care of yourselves until tomorrow?”

Any plans for dinner have quickly fallen apart, they’re all on the verge of falling asleep where they are (she’s not entirely sure, but Arashell appears to have fallen asleep at the table) and Rey has nowhere near enough energy to search through Jyn and Cassian’s kitchen. Besides, it still feels rude, even if they have been given permission. “We’ll be fine. Thank—“

“Thank us again and I’m kicking you out myself,” Jyn sighs. “We’re not taking pity on you. We’re letting you board here for a few days. You have nothing to thank us for.”

They have everything to thank her and Cassian for, but she agrees to these conditions anyway. There’s an awkward shuffle as the couple considers how best to exit, but they settle for saying goodnight and heading back to their room for the night. There’s a few moments of comfortable silence, then Rey realizes she’s probably not going to last much longer without sleep. Not to mention the kids, who are already almost fully asleep either on the Andors’ couch or at their kitchen table. “I can—“

Ben cuts her off. “It’s fine. I’ll take the kids.”

“You’re sure?” He’s considerably more awake than her, or at least better at pretending to be, but she can’t help but feel guilty for not pitching in to help.

Go get some sleep . She smiles at that, taking a moment to say goodnight to each of the kids before heading back to their room. Stars , she’s tired, but it’s a good kind of tired. Her hand is on the door when she hears the soft voices that stop her in her tracks. At first they sound like echoes through the Force, soft whispers from times gone by. Then she realizes they’re coming from just down the hall, where Jyn and Cassian have retired to.

She never makes the decision to listen in. Something, some part of the Force deep in her heart anchors her feet in place as if it wants her to hear this. In the shadowed hall, she can only make out the outlines of the couple. They stand facing each other, close enough for the moment to feel intimate. Jyn rests a hand on her stomach, and Rey catches the tail of her sentence. “…don’t think I’ll be sleeping much tonight anyway. She’s kicking again.”

Cassian’s quiet laugh filters down the hallway. “She’s strong. Just like her mother.”

“Just stubborn,” Jyn whispers. “Gets that from you.”

Rey’s breath catches in her chest. This is a private moment, not something meant for her. So why is the Force pointing her in the direction of the couple? What role does she play in this sweet scene?

“I still can’t believe it. We’re going to be parents. ”

“You’ve said this before.”

“What if she doesn’t like us?”

“That’s a new one.”

“Cassian!”

“She’ll love you. I know she will.”

“I’m not good at this. Caring.”

“You think I am?” They share a quiet laugh that makes Rey’s heart pleasantly heavy with memories of similarly private moments shared in the midst of the war. “We’ll find our way. We always have.”

“Damn, Cas. Optimism is a good look on you.” The door hisses open and the rest of their conversation is muted by the sound of their footsteps. A few moments later she hears the door close and the odd trance she’s been caught in is broken. Rey slips into her room, escaping before the force pushes her to intrude on any more of Jyn and Cassian’s private matters.

Is it something about the kids? Have she and Ben left them to deal with the effects of the battle alone for too long? Is the force showing her Jyn and Cassian can be trusted? Or should she feel guilty for putting their unborn daughter in potential danger?

Rey closes her eyes, reaching out to the force for answers. Instead she finds three force signatures clustered together, glowing softly with tranquil happiness. The kids . Another force signature close by them, one she knows almost as well as herself. Ben . And finally, a trio of force signatures— faint but their outline is just slightly visible —only a room away. The Andors .

Perhaps the force is just reminding her she’s not alone.

Chapter Text

“We’re too far from town to pick up supplies, but this place is survivable.” They’re gathered around a rough map Cara’s drawn of the area, having piled themselves into the cockpit per her request. “This planet is mostly uninhabited, but there are a few farms nearby. Two are subsistence farms, only one sells off-planet to the New Republic.”

Boba nods, studying her map with a strategist’s eye. “You think we can poach off this farm.”

“Only what we need.” Cara’s done terrible things during the war, that Din knows, but at the end of the day she still has her honor. She has to draw the line somewhere, and needless stealing is where she’s chosen to do so. He can’t judge her— hadn’t he done the same in refusing to turn over Grogu?

“What about water?” Fennec’s taken the copilot’s seat, the only indication that the wounds she received in the crash are worse than they look. Normally she’d perch by the door, leaning against the wall where she can easily make a quick exit. Not something she’d ever need to do here, but old habits die hard.

“There are a few streams that lead to the oceans. At least one has to be freshwater. Boba, you keep this ship stocked with purifiers, right?”

“Older ones, but they’ll do.”

“Great.” She points to two squiggles on the map. “These are the closest, we can see if there’s any aquatic life later. Right now, our main priority is finding water. Food can come later.”

“We’ve still got enough rations to last two days,” Fennec reports.

“Then we’ll use that time to perfect our hit. We’ll stay in teams of two, go out to the rivers for water, scope out the farm. Fixing the ship can come later, we need to focus on survival.” Din looks around at the others. “Anything else?”

“Gideon won’t be happy with this.” Cara’s voice is flat, reluctant, as if she’s only saying it because she knows someone has to.

“There’s nothing we can do about that. Not until we recover from the battle ourselves. The Jedi were hit too, they’re in the same position we are. And there’s a damn good chance they’re recovering more slowly— there’s only two of them, they’ve got a bigger ship, and they went down hard.” Maybe he sounds a litttle desperate, but he has to believe in something. Especially now that their once chance at finding the Jedi is gone, however temporarily.

The others nod their assent, and Din scans the room again, evaluating each of their strengths and weaknesses. They can’t afford to be off balance now, not with so much on the line. “Cara, you’ll go with me to the farthest stream. Boba and Fennec, you’re our best strategists— keep watch here for anyone who comes by and figure out the best way to get us into that farm. Any questions?”

There are none, and so they file out of the room. He’s far from an experienced leader, but Din knows he’s made the right choice— he can see Fennec’s quiet relief at being given the least physical job, she really does need to get the puncture wounds in her leg checked out; Boba is excellent with tech and strategies but much less proficient in survival outside of battle, at least compared to the rest of them; Cara knows a great deal about living off of a planet’s resources thanks to her childhood on Alderaan… and he knows that underneath the thick layers of sarcasm and padding of jokes, she’s worried. Cara Dune is not someone who gives her heart easily, but Grogu had taken all of theirs in the space of a blink and been stolen away from them just as quickly. He’s been meaning to talk to her about it, as much as he knows she hates talking things out (they both do, it’s part of what had drawn them together at first— the lack of feelings involved in their partnerships and resulting lack of responsibility for the other).

Maybe a long walk will do them both some good. At the very least, it’ll take their minds off of some of what’s happened. Din packs as many bottles and canteens as he can, trusting Cara to bring the purifiers for them. They’ll find food and water, set up a proper camp for themselves… and then they’ll find the Jedi and end this for good.

I’ll see you again soon, Grogu.

This is the Way.

Chapter Text

“Do Jedi always wake up this early?” The sun has barely risen above the horizon and all five of them have already woken. Cassian is still asleep, but Jyn is already nursing a cup of something warm and earthen-scented.

“Still adjusting to the time here, I guess.” Rey smiles her greeting, stopping to check on the kids clustered around the kitchen table. The contents of Oniho’s pack are spilled out across it, mostly pieces of flimsi and pastel-toned coloring tools they’re using to draw pictures. She takes it as a sign that they’re comfortable here, and that they’ve begun recovering from the rapid-fire pace of the last few weeks. “And you?”

“Still on war time, I suppose.” She comes over to examine the drawings, tapping Oniho’s paper with a grin. “Looks like we’ve got a future artist here. Is that your family, kid?”

Oniho grins and nods, pointing at two half-drawn figures. “And that’s gonna be you and Cassian!”

“Looks great. Is this someone you know too?” She points to Temiri’s drawing of a figure Rey vaguely recognizes, surrounded by dark scribbles. There’s another piece of the drawing concealed by his arm as he works, but she catches a glimpse of a blue streak. “An aunt or uncle?”

Temiri frowns slightly, shaking his head. He moves his hand away to uncover the whole drawing, and Rey catches on almost immediately. There’s a figure in black holding a blue lightsaber— Ben. And another, one in gray with a grayish blade she knows is supposed to represent her white saberstaff. Rey and Ben, their lightsabers ignited for a fight… meaning the helmeted figure across from them can only be—

“That’s the man who’s chasing us,” Temiri explains reluctantly. “But Rey and Ben are gonna fight him. So we don’t have to keep running.” He points to the empty space beside the two of them. “And we’re gonna go here, so we can help.”

Jyn nods slowly, offering a shaky compliment, but her face is pale. Something about their pursuer has scared her— and Jyn is evidently not a woman easily shaken. She turns to Rey, a smile on her lips and a grave look in her eyes. “Let’s get you something to drink. Do you like caf?”

“When I can get it. Don’t waste any on us.” She lets Jyn lead her into the kitchen and watches as the woman fills an oddly shaped pot with water and set it on a burner. “Jyn…”

“Shh. Not until it’s boiling.” She rummages through one of the cabinets until she finds a small metal container, and Rey catches a strongly floral scent as Jyn unscrews the lid and pulls out a pinch of what appears to be ground leaves. Already the water has begun to bubble at the edges of the pot, and Jyn steps closer as she sprinkles the leaf-mixture into it. “You’re being chased by Mandalorians?”

“What?”

“I know a Mandalorian when I see one. And that helmet? It’s a dead giveaway.”

Mandalorians. The legendary race of warriors who had mostly retired to their own corner of the galaxy upon reclaiming their planet. Rey knows of Mandalorians, everyone does. But in their time, Mandalorians are as scarce as force-sensitives. Neither group had done particularly well under the Empire’s rule. If she remembers correctly, most had gone into hiding or turned to… oh . Mercenaries. “That’s a Mandalorian?”

“Yeah. How’d you manage to piss one off?”

“No idea.”

Jyn laughs quietly, lifting the pot off the burner and pouring Rey a cup of the reddish liquid. “Now that I believe.”

-:-

“Mandalorians,” Ben says slowly, eyes darting over to the kids to make sure they’re not listening in. “So that’s what they look like.”

“Yeah.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.” Rey takes a long sip of Jyn’s concoction— which tastes surprisingly good considering she’d dropped a handful of leaves into water to make it —and sighs. “Apparently their armor is made of beskar, so our lightsabers won’t do anything against it.”

“That explains a lot.” He pauses for a moment, letting the near-impossibility of their situation hang in the air between them. “If they survived the crash…”

“They’ll have a hard time finding us,” Rey says quietly. Jyn and Cassian’s kindness has saved them a thousand times over— the bounty hunters won’t be looking for them in the homes of a Lah’mu resident, will they? But there’s still the matter of the Falcon sitting in plain sight … and they can’t stay here forever. Not if they want to go home. “Our best option is finding a way back to our time.”

Best option, only option, same thing.

“I looked through my father’s journals last night,” Jyn says, slipping naturally into the lull in their conversation. “Nothing about time travel, but I think there’s something you’ll want to see.”

-:-

The floor of the room is covered in journals. Not the entirety of it, of course, but enough to give Rey pause. Jyn has spread each one at an equal distance from the others, the closed books creating a kind of circle.

“Help me with this?” Jyn eases herself onto the floor, opening each journal to a bookmarked page, and Rey and Ben quickly join in. Individually, the pages are incomprehensible— the horizontal lines of text in each one are separated by a single, slightly curved vertical mess of words. It isn’t until they’ve opened every last one that Rey finally sees the picture they’ve created: a ring of text stretching across at least fifteen of the journals.

Jyn sits back, a ghost of a proud smile on her lips. “My father knew he was being watched. He knew the Empire would read through his journals. So he hid his greatest discoveries, making them appear as if they were only the ramblings of a man who had lost everything. I knew the lines had to mean something .”

Rey traces a line of text, deciphering the scrawled words until she has a snippet of the stretching paragraph: … places in the galaxy in which time is slippery… She looks over to Jyn. “Have you read the whole thing?”

“I haven’t had time to.” She shuffles through the piles of journals, pulling out a blank sheet of flimsi from one. “And it’s been… difficult.”

She can imagine it has. For Jyn, a rebel, to have a father in the Empire… it can’t have been easy, fighting against an organization she hated while knowing she could very easily be harming someone she loved. Rey would know, having been in the same position.

“You don’t have to be the one to do this,” Ben says quietly.

Jyn nods. “I know.” Her hands worry the edge of the flimsi absently as she considers the offer. Finally, she hands it over to Ben along with a small, thin device Rey’s never seen before. “Do you mind if I stay to watch?”

“Of course not.” Apparently the device is for writing, and it turns out to be far more effective than the charred bits of metal and pieces of charcoal Rey had used to keep her own journals on Jakku.

For the better part of the morning, they slowly work through the ring of text Galen had created. Rey reads the lines aloud and Ben transcribes. Jyn watches them the entire time, stonefaced but for the torrent of emotions and memories alight in her eyes. Even within his ring of notes, the sentences drop off suddenly as new ideas seem to catch Galen’s eye. Still, by the end of their session, they’ve managed to shorten the stretching lines of text into three pages of notes. And Rey can tell, even before she reads the finished notes, that Jyn had been right: these are helpful, and while they might not spell out the exact answer to their problem… it’s a start.

A much better start than they’ve had for weeks now.

Chapter Text

“Tython,” Ben says quietly, scanning the pages of transcribed notes. 

Jyn tilts her head slightly. “What about it?”

“Galen seemed to think that time works… differently there.”

“What do you think?” Rey leans in closer, tracing the neat lines of handwriting as she searches for whatever he’s found.

“It makes sense. Tython is the location of one of the last remaining seeing stones.”

Rey’s sharp inhale is enough to draw Jyn’s full attention back to the task. “So that’s a good thing?”

“No one knows the full power of seeing stones,” Rey explains. “They’ve been used to seek out other force-sensitives— but nearly all of them were destroyed by the remaining Jedi during the Empire’s rule, to keep them hidden from the Emperor.”

Jyn nods slowly, taking this information in. “You think it could be used to find other things, too?”

“It could,” Ben allows. “Your father seemed to think it could. If he’s right, and it changes the way time works… it could be enough to get us back.”

They’ll need to learn more about this place, of course. But having a real, solid lead? It makes the hours of research lying ahead seem like nothing at all. For a moment their return even feels like a tangible thing. 

“Take a break,” Jyn says suddenly, pointing at the chrono perched on the bedspread. “You’ve been at this all morning.”

Rey glances at the ring of journals doubtfully. “We’re fine. If we figure out what your father’s reasoning meant…” The connecting circle of notes is ringed with dozens of meaningless equations and notes about a nameless planet— which she now strongly suspects to be Tython. If they can just decipher how all his “proof” fits together…

“Trust me.” Jyn’s voice softens slightly and she stands, making her way to the door. “Don’t run yourself to the ground over a theory that may not even work.”

She leaves them sitting in silence, and finally, reluctantly, Rey decides she’s right. The tiny handwriting has begun to take a toll on her eyes, leaving a strange burning sensation behind. And besides, they should relieve Cassian of watching the kids. Maybe work on fixing the Falcon…

-:-

They find the kids outside, playing some game that involves the use of sticks and stones in careful patterns, but they’re more than eager to lead Rey and Ben to the beach Cassian had introduced them to earlier that morning.

Since leaving Jakku, Rey has seen her fair share of lakes and rivers. But this… this is something else entirely. The water seems to stretch on endlessly, gentle waves rising up along the black sheet of sand to lap at her boots. She’d love nothing more than to sink into the cool waters and drown her worries, though it would soak the only set of clothes she has. And besides, spending most of her life in the desert hasn’t exactly taught her how to swim.

The kids share no such apprehension, splashing through the shallow waters and skimming their hands along the surface in an attempt to catch the tiny fish that dart out between their fingers. At least until Ben calls them back, and the five of them settle along the shore. She can’t remember the last time they’ve done this, just taken time to be together. It’s nice here, on the beach, with no one around but the people she loves.

“Do you like it here?” Ben asks finally, and Arashell and Temiri light up. They’re always eager for the little lessons in the ways of the Force that Rey and Ben give whenever they have time, but this is by far their favorite. In a way, it’s a game of sorts— to have an entire conversation using nothing but the Force to display their emotions and ask questions. Of course, Oniho isn’t able to participate, but he’s long since made peace with this, busying himself with one of the books Rey makes sure to keep on the Falcon for him or some other kind of entertainment.

Arashell replies first, face scrunching in concentration. Waves of peace wash through the Force, blanketing them all for a moment before she loses control. You’re getting stronger , Rey says silently, nudging her shoulder with her own.

It’s quiet here , Temiri adds after some thought. Not like at home.

Home. The small city apartment Rey and the kids had moved into to be closer to the budding, tenuous government forming in the wake of the Ressitance-First Order peace treaty. The first real building she’s ever called home… and possibly the worst. She loves the apartment with all her heart, but the constant press of force signatures packed in around them leaves her with splitting headaches most days. It’s much the same for Temiri. Ben claims they’ll grow used to it eventually— well, he had , before they’d ended up here.

Is that good? Ben asks, laughing softly when Temiri responds with an enthusiastic nod. Why?

It doesn’t all mix together. And it doesn’t get too loud. Arashell frowns slightly, trying to make sense of his quick response. Rey knows she can’t exactly hear the words they’re saying— just echoes, imprints of the feelings behind the words. She holds up a hand, a silent reminder to slow down.

What about Jyn and Cassian? Instantly, both of their faces light up. Joy blossoms in the Force, a welcome relief from the cold blanket of fear that’s covered them for weeks. “Jyn and Cassian?” She asks Oniho, and he grins.

“They’re nice. Cassian taught us how they water all the plants.” The other two nod at this. “And he showed us the ones they’re gonna plant in the ocean.”

“In the ocean?” Rey sits back, letting him go on about a species of fruit the Andors have recently begun growing that thrives in salt waters. After some time, Oniho falls silent again, absorbed in his work on a drawing of the ocean.

She considers joining in on the silent conversation that’s continued without her, then decides against it. They’ve moved on to trying to focus on a specific Force signature rather than the entire Force itself, something she’s never been particularly good at unless she’s particularly close with the person she’s searching for.

Experimentally, Rey reaches out to the Force, searching for Jyn and Cassian. Despite not being force-sensitive, their Force signatures are unusually easy to find— she does so even quicker than she can pick out her closest friends. It’s strange, but far from the strangest thing that’s happened to her in the past few weeks.

The idea of just sitting by the sea and watching the waves is tempting, but she quickly finds herself itching for something to do. So Rey slips the journal she’d taken from Jyn’s parents’ room out of her pocket, flipping through the pages until her eye catches on a sketch of a complex system of interlocking circles and runes.

The steady rise and fall of the sea. The whispers of flimsi as the wind ruffles the pages of the journal. The Force signatures of those she loves around her. The knowledge that they have somewhere to return to at the end of the day.

In this moment, it feels as if nothing could go wrong.

Chapter Text

Everything is going wrong.

Din’s grown accustomed to hopeless situations over the years— in the bounty hunting field, nothing ever seems to go right —but even he has to admit that life has knocked him down so many times in the past few weeks that he almost doesn’t want to get up again.

They’ve managed to acquire clean water, a small concession in the face of all their other problems, but it does little to shorten their steadily growing list of needs, food being the most pressing matter as their supply of field rations grows steadily smaller. And to make matters worse, the leg wound Fennec had sustained in their crash landing had grown red and swollen almost overnight. She’s been attempting to play it off as nothing, but she can barely walk— and according to Boba, the gash is displaying several signs of infection.

He knows he shouldn’t hold it against her, but it’s yet another obstacle between him and Grogu.

Distantly, Din wonders if the kid’s okay. He’s alive, he has to be— Gideon wouldn’t kill a being he’d worked so hard to have in his possession. But imagining how the kid might feel, alone and afraid on an enemy ship… it leaves his vision blurred with tears and rage. He has to find those Jedi. He’ll scour the entire planet, the entire galaxy if that’s what it takes.

He’s going to get his foundling back.

-:-

“She needs a medic.”

“Shut the hell up,” Fennec gripes, pushing herself to her feet on what seems like sheer will alone. “I’m fine.”

“Fen,” Cara says mildly. “You can barely walk.”

“And? I can still shoot.”

“It’s too risky,” Din cuts in before the two can turn the discussion into an explosive argument that will only serve to make things more stressful. “If the infection gets worse you could die. The faster we treat it, the better.”

“You’re still recovering,” Boba adds, with a pointed nod to her abdomen. Fennec just scowls, hand curling protectively over the newly repaired skin. Din knows she hates the exposed machinery as much as she needs it, a constant reminder of a weakness that will follow her for the rest of her life. “I’m willing to bet there are no Mods on this planet. You will need a medic, and soon.”

For a moment they all fall silent, locked in a silent argument. Funny how Din had always appreciated silence. But now it’s suffocating, the absence of voices allowing the crushing weight of Gideon’s threats to fill the tight confines of the ship. He’s struck with a sudden longing for simpler times, just him and Grogu on the Razor Crest . How had he ever wanted the foundling gone? As difficult as the kid had been at times, Grogu had always been more than a foundling he’d been tasked with.

He’d been family.

Why had it taken losing the kid to realize that?

“Fine,” Fennec agrees reluctantly, drawing him back into the present. “We can find a medic when we trade for the coaxium.”

Din would prefer to do so sooner, but he has a feeling that’s all her pride will allow. “Deal,” he says before Cara and Boba can agree— or object.

Their plan rests on far too many hypotheticals and hopes, but damned if he won’t see it through if it means the barest chance of getting Grogu back before Gideon decides to make good on his threats. He’s already lost his first family with the deaths of his parents all those years ago on Aq Vetina, and his second family— his covert —after they’d been forced into hiding after revealing themselves to save him. He’ll take death itself over losing yet another family.

Over losing his kid.

Chapter Text

“I think I found a way to heal your wrist.”

Despite Jyn’s insistence, she’s been poring over Galen’s journals all day, pausing occasionally to check on the kids and convince the Andors to assign her some kind of chore— she can’t help but feel as if she at least owes them that much, regardless of the couple’s adamant denials. And while the old books haven’t shown her a way back to their time, they have given her something else. Several somethings, if she counts the dull ache behind her eyes, but she can deal with that later.

“What?” Ben turned to face her and she holds up the battered notebook, careful not to tear the already damaged cover any further, offering it for him to see.

“Galen’s notes… they’re not like anything I’ve seen before.” The possibilities he speaks of go far beyond the steady sureness of the Jedi Texts whose claims come reinforced with thousands of years of knowledge and proof. And the things he claims the Force could be used for… she would never have imagined them to be possible.

Ben takes the notebook, opening to the page she’d marked with a scrap of extra flimsi. His eyes dart across the page, force signature shifting constantly as he considers what may be Galen’s most fanciful proposition yet. Rey’s read through the page enough times that she can tell exactly where he is in the passage by his reaction alone, having cycled through the same confusing mess of hope and doubt several times already.

It is my belief that some— or perhaps all — force-sensitives are capable of healing mil minor to moderate wounds. A strong connection to the Force is required to attain this ability, and possibly a strong connection to the wounded being as well. 

Empathy alone may do, but there have been no cases recorded in which Jedi have healed those outside the Order, leading me to believe that despite their empathic approach to lif living beings, an established bond was needed. Perhaps an even deeper connection than that of bonds typically created between beings, such as friendship or romance. Familial bonds have the most potential to work, due to the similar  shared blood, but the Jedi often emphasized a spiritual connection to other beings, and so perhaps this is the only way to achieve the healing of a physical wound. 

Deep connections were not typically formed by the Jedi, and so recorded cases of this “Force-healing” remain few and far between. And perhaps for good reason— for a select few to have the ability to heal life-threatening wounds would cause chaos and envy throughout the Jedi Order. It would, without a doubt, upset the balance of the Force the Jedi were sworn to protect.

Still, if two individuals were to share a deep enough connection to each other and the Force, it may be possible to replicate these few and far between cases, and to heal the other with a combination of these strong connections.

Given that the few remaining Jedi are scattered across the galaxy and too concerned with survival to build such deep attachments, and there is surely no one left they have a pre-existing connection with, it is currently impossible to test this theory in greater depth.

Below the page of text is a single line, scribbled over with ink but still just barely legible:

But we have no one to blame for this but ourselves.

Rey points to the rough sketches at the edge of the page, symbols she can’t understand but recognized from the Jedi texts. “Galen wasn’t force-sensitive, but he knew the way the Force likes to work.” Galen seems to be so sure of himself… and they have nothing to lose but the hope that this will work. They’ve taken riskier chances.

“It’s worth trying,” Ben agrees hesitantly. After all, they’re both force-sensitive. As for the connection Galen spoke of… well, if a force bond strong enough to connect them across the galaxy isn’t enough, she doesn’t know what is.

They settle down on the bed, sitting across from each other with their clasped hands resting between them. For a moment she’s reminded of another time they’d sat together like this, long before the end of the war, back when they still tried to convince themselves the other was an enemy, when the bond was still a new and frightening sensation. Apparently she’s not the only one thinking of that seemingly long-ago bond; they share a smile at the memory.

Then Rey reaches out to the Force, drawing on every bit of strength she has and hoping it will be enough to guide her.through this. Then she tries to follow Galen’s meager instructions in about a dozen different ways, from imagining the broken bone healing together again to begging the Force for more information. By the end of it, she’s almost dizzy with exhaustion, her focus slipping each time she reaches for the familiar current of the Force flowing through her.

“We knew it wasn’t certain,” Ben reminds her as she pulls the journal into her lap, scouring the page for something they’d might’ve missed.

“Galen knew what he was doing. He had evidence that it could work.”

“He had rumors and legends. And heaven if those legends were real—“

“They have to have been. He was so sure…”

“The Jedi had methods. Traditions that y were lost when the Republic fell.” She doesn’t need him to finish to understand where he’s going. Something as complicated as healing another living being had to have required more than just force-sensitivity and a strong connection.

Connection… An idea sparks in her mind, growing quickly into a flickering flame. “One more time,” she says, half a request and half a statement. “We have to at least try,” she adds, thankful when he neglects to mention that they’ve tried several times already.

This time when she takes his hand, Rey draws on more than her connection to the living Force. She calls on the bond, on the connection that had brought them together in the midst of the war. She draws on their love, everything they’ve shared and the future they can only hope for together. She reaches out to every moment they’ve shared together, every dream, all of it. Rey opens her heart to the Force, and this time it opens up to her in return.

They’re not instructions so much as impressions. She can feel the Force guiding her movements, not but the feeling is closer to as if it is brushing her hand in a certain direction rather than moving it into position. This time she can feel the difference— she’s not trying to impose her will onto the Force so much as work with it. She can feel the broken bone heal together beneath her fingertips, and when she pulls away, Ben is able to turn his wrist ever so slightly. “Did it work?”

“I think so.” An exhausted grin tugs at her lips, and she falls back onto the bed with a burst of laughter. It worked.

He tests his newly healed wrist carefully, but the break seems to be healed completely. The only indicators it had ever existed in the first place are the bandages they leave folded on the bed to return to Jyn and Cassian later, and a slight residual pain that he tells her is already fading.

The implications of what she’s done are huge. She’d healed a wound that would’ve taken weeks otherwise, pushing the limits of her Force abilities beyond what she’d ever imagined. What else can she do? What other secrets do Galen’s journals hold?

For now, Rey is content to let herself ignore these questions in favor of helping Cassian prepare dinner, eager to leave the mysteries of the Force behind to experience a moment of normal life.

Chapter Text

Din’s heart pounds in his chest, and he welcomes the shock of adrenaline coursing through his veins as an old friend. It’s the feeling he gets before pressing down the trigger of his blaster, the cold thrill of chasing a fleeing bounty, the weightless uncertainty of a starship battle. In other words… Finally, something familiar.

He and Cara are plastered against the top of a low cliff only a few dozen meters from the farm they’re about to steal from. Granted, stealing isn’t exactly the right word. At least it’s not the word he’d prefer to use for this mission.

The owners of this land can afford it, he reminds himself. They sell off-planet, their expenses funded by the New Republic. Besides, he and Cara are only taking enough to keep the four of them fed for a few days. It’s enough to make him feel better, though not by much. He’s grown comfortable with the bounty hunting world and its horrors, but stealing is something that troubles Din’s personal code of honor.

At Cara’s signal, they slip down the side of the cliff, dropping over the low— but still deadly —fence exactly as they’d planned. They’ve run thorough this plan enough times to drill the steps into Din’s mind, and he and Cara get to work stripping a handful of the plants of the precise amount of food Boba had calculated would keep them well-fed without dipping into the farm’s profit. According to him, if they get out of here without being caught, it will appear as if nothing but a wild animal has passed through.

A sharp crack breaks Din’s focus, and he and Cara instinctively freeze, sharing a panicked glance. The sound comes again, then again, until Din hears the distinct sound of footsteps.

“What is it?” Someone yells from far away, a welcome relief, at least until an animal’s warning call responds from much closer to them. Shit. He should’ve known better than to assume the canine-like creatures guarding the farm during the work day would return inside at the same time as the workers. But he hasn’t, and so they’ll just have to adapt.

The soft hum of electricity coursing through the fence means they’ll have to find another way over. Din momentarily considers his jetpack, but the last thing they need is to put every being on Lah’mu on alert for a theiving, jetpack-wearing Mandalorian. And he’s not leaving Cara behind.

Silently, Din signals for Cara to follow him before slipping into the thick field of crops. Years of bounty hunting have drilled silence into his very core, and he passes through the plants silent as a whisper. Cara is close on his heels, equally inaudible. But the footsteps following them have no qualms about making some noise, and the crunch of broken stems and trampled leaves grows steadily closer. Panic shoots through Din like an electric shock; he can hear the frantic thud of his heartbeat growing quicker and louder. Shit. Shitshitshitshit— Cara’s hand latches onto his arm and nearly pulls his shoulder out of its socket as she drags him to the ground. He turns to face her, hoping his incredulity will get across. Is she trying to get them caught?

Cara silently jabs a finger forward, and Din finally catches on. Just over a meter away is an overturned hovercart, bruised produce littering the ground around it. They scramble toward it, slipping under the cart just as their pursuers burst through a break in the crops. He can see nothing but their feet— two pairs of booted feet, and an animal’s paws, all pacing in a slow circle around the hovercart.

“Told you it was nothing,” one of them mutters. “Tell ‘em to send a crew out to patch this thing up.”

“I was sure…”

“Well, so was he.” The speaker seems to be indicating the animal, who has not stopped patrolling the hovercart. Din doesn’t even dare to breathe, afraid their bad luck will only worsen if he moves a muscle. Beside him, Cara has scrunched herself into the corner of the cart, dark eyes calculating. He catches her gaze and glances at the shoes of the worker on the left. You get them. I’ll take out the other one. The animal they can worry about after the first few seconds. She nods slightly, tensing for the possible fight.

For once, it seems luck is on their side. “Come on,” the first speaker says. “I’m not missing a turn in the ‘fresher for this.”

The other mutters something under his breath, and Din slumps with relief, careful not to so much as brush against the sides of the hovercart, where the clank of his armor will surely call the workers’ attention back to them. He and Cara listen as the sound of their footsteps fade away, remaining in their hiding place for several minutes after the clearing has fallen into silence.

They slip silently through the fields to the farm’s main gate, not daring to look back until the rolling fields of crops are far behind them.

And then, finally, Din relaxes. They have food. They have water. They have a plan for fixing the tracker, no matter how flimsy it may be. With their most pressing needs taken care of… maybe he can finally let himself dream about reuniting with Grogu.

Chapter Text

Jyn actually does a double take when she sees them. “Is that a Jedi thing?” She asks rather bluntly, indicating Ben’s no-longer-broken wrist.

“I… yeah.” No need to get into the complicated details. Not that she knows how to explain it anyway, at least not well enough to make sense to a non-force-sensitive.

“Talk for a minute? About the…” The kids are outside, but Jyn lowers her voice anyway. “Mandalorians?” The question is directed towards Rey, who accepts immediately. She follows Jyn leads her outside, past the fields where she can hear the kids arguing over the rules to a game, to the small supply shed where the twin mortuary tablets stand alone, shrouded in the shadow of a young tree clearly not native to the planet.

For a moment, the two women stand in respectful silence. Rey’s been careful to avoid the tablets up until now, out of respect for the two beings laid to rest, but now she reads the engravings on the two tablets as she waits for Jyn to speak. They’re recently done, as evidenced by the lack of wear, but it still takes her a moment to make out the words.

Galen Walton Erso.

Lyra Erso.

There are a few more symbols after that, some that she recognizes from the Jedi texts on Lyra’s and some rough etchings on Galen’s that resemble sigils of the old Jedi Order. The rest are unknown to her, but clearly carved with care and respect. Jyn’s past laid to rest in the same home she hopes to spend her future in.

“It’s custom to bury the bodies with the tablets,” Jyn says, a forced lightness to her tone. “But my father died in a blast on an Imperial research site.” She swallows hard, resting a hand on Lyra’s tablet. “This is where my mother was killed. I watched her fall.”

“Oh,” Rey says softly, horror soaking the word. “Stars…”

“I spent years telling myself I was too strong for grief. That I didn’t need to mourn them. I was wrong.” She lifts her gaze to Rey’s. “I won’t ask you for your story, but you’re grieving too. You lost your time, and everyone in it. Don’t make the same mistake I did. If you need to take time…”

“Jyn….” She’s not sure what to say, if she should even say anything at all. It strikes her suddenly how strange it is to even be calling the woman by name. In her time, Jyn would be decades her senior. Perhaps even dead, killed by war or sickness or some other unlucky fate. “Why are you doing this?” There are Mandalorians hunting them down. Jyn and Cassian had had little reason to take them in in the first place, and now even less so with the trouble they’re bringing.

“I know what it’s like to be lost in a galaxy that’s forgotten you,” Jyn says simply, one hand resting idly on her stomach. Rey can feel her daughter’s force-signature beginning to form, slowly growing apart from her mother’s. It’s strangely reassuring, the steady pulse of life a reminder that life simply goes on. That no matter what part the Andors’ daughter goes on to play in the galaxy, in this moment she is loved. She wonders briefly if her own parents had felt the same about her, then brushes away the painful thought before it can sour the moment.

“We’re half a step from bringing the remains of the Empire to your doorstep.” It’s a guess, but who else would be so determined to hunt down the galaxy’s remaining force-sensitives? “They could find us at any time. And you and Cassian, and your daughter—“

Jyn cuts her off with a stern look that Rey just knows has quieted beings far more powerful than herself. “If they come here, we’re willing to fight. You don’t wake up one day and stop being a rebel.” She looks out over the field of crops, the rolling hills, the planet she calls home that Rey and the others could easily destroy just by getting the Andors caught in the bounty hunters’ crossfire. “The Empire should have been destroyed for good years ago. No one should have to live in fear of their wrath still, after everything. My daughter will not grow up fearing the Empire’s return.”

She pauses, offering a smile that breaks Rey’s heart. Jyn has no idea of the horrors the future hold, no idea that it’s in part the fault of one of the wayward time-travelers she’s taken into her home. “There’s a saying some rebels used to pass around. It was a joke, but not really: A soldier with someone to fight for strikes twice as hard, but a parent fighting to protect their child strikes with the fire of a thousand suns.” Jyn offers her an amused look. “I suppose you’d know something about that as well.”

Rey feels her cheeks flush, realizing what Jyn means. “They’re not— we’re not—“ She pauses, trying to explain without furthering Jyn’s assumptions. “The kids aren’t ours. We just… take care of each other,” she finishes lamely. “They’re our charges.”

“Families come in different forms. Don’t be afraid of the word.”

“I’m not afraid,” Rey says, so quickly that even she realizes how in denial she sounds.

“You want to know why we offered to let you stay?” It takes Rey a second to catch on to the sudden turn in the conversation, but she nods quickly before Jyn changes her mind. “I think we ultimately become who would have saved us that time no one did.”

Rey silently considers Jyn’s admission, trying to understand what could have possibly led to her taking in five virtual strangers. “I was afraid to be part of a family again for a long time after I lost my parents, and then the people who took me in after their deaths. I was alone for years, afraid to trust. I was lucky enough to find Cassian and K-2, and we found more people like us, who made us feel safe. It took me a long time to realize I’d found a family.”

“We take care of each other,” Rey says again, the excuse sounding even weaker than it had the first time. But a family? She’s not ready to consider them that, not yet. Things seem so simple here, in this quiet life on Lah’mu. But in their own time things are far less certain, and the galaxy isn’t ready for a union between Kylo Ren and The Last Jedi deeper than just their peace treaty. It’s too dangerous.

And maybe, possibly, there’s some small part of her terrified of making the same mistakes her parents had. Even though the mere idea of abandoning the kids causes her heart to ache as if it’s being torn to pieces, she’s still afraid. Some part of her is terrified that whatever had led her parents to abandon their daughter to the sands of Jakku resides somewhere in her too, just waiting for her to trigger it.

“We all hide our pain in different ways. Some of us keep it deep down, hoping that if we bury it far enough, it’ll disappear. Some of us channel our pain into our work, putting a piece of ourselves into each project. Some of us hide it with other, stronger emotions, rage being the most common. Some of us find others who carry the same pain, someone to share it with, until you both become stronger. Some of us hide from it, convincing ourselves everything is alright. And some of us, force help them, can’t fight it, or they let it overwhelm them, until it takes control and invades every thought, every action, every breath.” Jyn exhales sharply, shoulders slumping as if a heavy weight has been lifted off them. “I’ve waited a long time to find the words to say that. Maybe it’s not what you wanted to hear, but… You remind me of myself, you know?” She smiles. “Though you listen more.”

“Sometimes,” Rey agrees with a laugh, sensing the conversation’s turn into safer waters. With nothing to do, her hand instinctively lifts to her kyber crystal pendant. It’s concealed beneath her tunic, muscle memory leading her to tuck it away in the morning, though she has no fear of Jyn and Cassian even considering stealing it.

“I’ve talked enough,” Jyn declares. “It’s your turn now.”

“I—“ Rey blanks immediately, scrambling for a topic to cling to. She’s never been one to talk about herself, though she can tell Jyn won’t judge her— she’s equally as far out of her comfort zone.

“I’m that bad at small talk, then?” She rests a hand on her heart, faking offense. “I want to know about your life. As much as you can without messing with time, that is.”

Rey carefully obliges, painting a somewhat blurred picture of her life. She avoids the war entirely, same with her parents’ abandonment— the former to protect the future, the latter to protect her heart. She goes into great detail about Ben and the kids, their small adventures together and the day-to-day anecdotes, but leaves out the circumstances in which they’d all met. It’s a precarious balance, but what part of her life isn’t?

Jyn shares her own stories as well— her and Cassian’s years in the Rebellion, the comical-in-retrospect challenges of moving to Lah’mu, even a hesitant tale from her teenage years of a party she’d gone undercover at. It’s nice, just talking like a normal being. Her life back home had been consumed by the stress and responsibilities of spearheading the peace treaty; its a welcome anomaly to meet someone new who doesn’t have an endless stream of questions that the whole galaxy wants to know the answer to. 

She’d rather be home in her time than anywhere else… but if she can’t have that, then here with Jyn is surely not something she’d complain about getting instead.

Chapter Text

For the first time in days, things are looking up. They’re gathered together in the cargo hold of the Firespray , the small treasure trove of food laid out on the floor before them. They’ve made sure to ration it out, of course, but after weeks of nothing but stale rations Din thinks they deserve a little extra today. After all, it will only stay fresh for so long.

Every last one of them is in a good mood— he even catches Boba giving them a rare smile. It’s a miracle what a little hope can do. With Fennec healing— they’d finally convinced her and Boba to go to the nearest town with and find a healer —and their hunger sated, the only problem that remains is the matter of the tracker. And, well… he’ll focus on that later. Din knows from experience that there’s only so hard he can push himself to catch a bounty before he needs time to regain his strength and focus.

Cara’s in the midst of a vivid tale of some drunken escapade she and some old friends had managed to pull off during their time in the Rebellion that leaves Din shaking his head in amusement when a sharp ping echoes through the ship. She falls silent midsentence, a sudden hush falling over the ship. The sound comes again, loud and unmistakable— someone is calling.

There’s only one person who would know to contact them through this ship and not the Razor Crest.

Nobody moves to accept the incoming transmission, and so Din rises slowly to his feet and taps in the command to accept the call with all the gravity of a funeral attendee. Gideon’s head and shoulders appear before them, and Din already knows this call is going to be a particularly unpleasant one.

“Where are the Jedi?” Gideon gets straight to the point, a note of condescension in his voice as if he believes he would have caught them by now had it been him in Din’s shoes.

“It’s taking longer than we’d expected,” Din says reluctantly, the words sour in his mouth. “The Jedi have gone into hiding.”

“And your crew should have them flushed out. Need I remind you what’s at stake?” He holds up the Darksaber, as if Din could have ever forgotten the threat to his foundling.

“We need more time,” he bites out. “Our ship took a hit.”

“I believe I was promised full cooperation, Djarin,” Gideon says almost conversationally. “And here you are, trying to buy yourself time.”

“You want to see the damage?” Cara snaps from behind him, and Din groans internally. No good can come from his crew getting involved in this. “They’re Jedi . They’re dangerous. And there’s two of them. You want us to bring them in, you give us more time.”

Gideon just laughs. “Always such a firecracker, Ms. Dune. Does your little New Republic know what you’re doing with the sudden time off you requested?” Cara glares at him, but her face turns several shades paler, betraying her fear.

“We’re almost there,” Din says, hoping to draw the conversation away from Cara. “Bounty hunting takes time.”

“A pity then, that it’s something you’re so short on.”

“You need us,” Boba says evenly, not even bothering to look up from where he is packing away the rations. “You have no power to hire a bounty hunter, so you use fear to keep us in your control. The moment you lose the Child, you have no power over us.”

Din’s heart stutters in his chest at the mere thought of Gideon harming Grogu in any way, and it’s all he can do to keep his composure as he shoots Boba a dark look. What the hell are you doing?  

“I have no intention of killing the Child as long as you continue to cooperate.” Gideon raises an eyebrow. “Are you telling me you’re no longer interested in our deal?”

“We’ll cooperate,” Din says immediately, hating himself for how easily he crumbles.

“The Jedi aren’t really necessary,” he continues. “Not when I already have a powerful Force-user in my possession…”

“He said we’ll cooperate.” Cara glares daggers at the hologram. “You got what you wanted. Just give us a little more time and we’ll bring you the Jedi.”

“I expect results, Din Djarin. And soon.”

“You’ll get them,” he swears. “We’re almost there.”

“Prove it.” The hologram disappears, along with most of the tension in the room. Cara swears loudly at the space no longer occupied by Gideon and Fennec nods her agreement a little more vehemently than usual, but Din can’t force himself to join in. Gideon’s threats echo in his mind, turning over on itself again and again. Need I remind you what’s at stake?

There’s no quedrion about it, he’s growing dangerously impatient. Maybe he won’t kill the kid… but there are a thousand things he can do instead, and even just the thought of his foundling being locked away without his buir renews Din’s strength and conviction. It’s exactly what Gideon wants, he knows, but it’s also the only way they’ll capture those Jedi and get Grogu back.

We’re running out of time.

Chapter Text

“What’s that?” Oniho’s question is directed at Rey, though she’s grateful when Jyn steps in to answer in her place. She’s equally curious about the object leaning up against the wall, but she’d been embarrassed to ask, afraid it was merely another everyday item she’d never learned about thanks to spending most of her life alone on Jakku.

It’s strangely shaped, with a flat, rounded body in a shape akin to the number eight and a long, thin board sticking up from it. A hole in the middle shows the entire thing is hollow. The whole object also seems to be made of carefully polished wood— genuine wood, not the reinforced industrial stuff —with a few thin metal cords strung up the middle, and it is evidently well worn and well-loved— perhaps by Jyn’s parents, or perhaps by the Andors themselves.

“A guitar,” Jyn explains, motioning for Oniho to pick up the object and rest it on the table. “It’s an instrument. You pick the strings to play, try it.”

Oniho shyly reaches out and tugs at one of the strings. It takes him a few tries to get it to produce a sound beyond the twang of the string crashing into the ones beside it, but once he does, the instrument produces a steady tone. “Can you play songs with it?”

“Almost anything you can think of.” Jyn smiles fondly. “Well, Cass can. I’ve never had the patience to learn.”

“Woah.” He plucks at a few more of the strings, each one making a higher or lower sound. “Can he play Mirrorbright ?” Ben had taught the kids the old Alderaanian lullaby sometime during the war, and she remembers how Oniho had always begged him to sing it each time they saw him. 

Jyn shrugs. “I guess we’ll just have to ask him, won’t we?” She looks to Rey for approval before continuing. “Come on, he’s just finishing up perimeter checks. We’ll ask him to play something.”

Oniho and Jyn wander off to find Cassian, and Rey sends a quick comm to the Falcon , where Ben and the other two kids have been working on repairs. They’ve all had a long day— a productive day, but long.

Alone in the Andors’ house, Rey feels like an intruder on their lives. Well, she is an intruder on their lives. But there’s a difference between being here with Jyn and Cassian and being here alone. Even the droid, K-2SO, has gone to the nearby town to secure a deal on a new strain of crops for the farm, leaving her completely alone.

After a few seconds of standby awkwardly in the empty room, Rey finds herself seated on the worn couch, idly running her hands over the scarred metal table beside it. There’s a deep scratch in the side, sanded over and left there as if no one could be bothered to fix it. She runs her fingers over it, then reaches for the edge of the table where she knows there will be a slight indent left by a scuff mark. Except… the edge of the table is completely smooth.

Frowning, Rey runs her hand along the length of the table, searching for the blemish her mind insists must be there. It has to be. It’s from… from… She pulls her hand back, resting it gingerly in her lap. Why the hell would she remember something like this? And why incorrectly? She thinks back through the times she’s sat in this exact spot— when Jyn and Cassian had asked them how they’d arrived on Lah’mu, when she’d watched Cassian teach the kids a card game, when… when… When the hell would she have had time to notice something so specific?

Cassian’s voice echoes down the hall, followed by a barrage of questions from Oniho and Arashell, and Rey is content to let the matter of the scuffed table rest. The others pile into the room, and the Force brightens with warmth that reaches her very core as everyone attempts to cram together on the couch in a clumsy, laughter-soaked mess. It takes some adjusting, but eventually they manage to fit everyone but Cassian, though he’s been too busy adjusting the small rods at the top of the guitar to join the fray.

“What was the song you wanted to hear?” Oniho hesitates a little at being put on the spot, but after a nudge from Ben, he starts to hum the first verse of the song. After the third one, Cassian joins in with the guitar, plucking the strings with one hand and shifting the other hand across the long board at the end to create a beautiful rendition of the song. She can almost hear Leia’s old music box in the background, with its soft chiming notes. Mirrorbright, shines the moon…

The melody brings tears to her eyes before she can stop them. Rey blinks rapidly, trying to clear away the homesickness before anyone can catch it, but Cassian slows the song to an end as she brushes away the tears that don’t seem to be stopping anytime soon. The kids exclaim over Cassian’s playing, thankfully oblivious to her sudden sadness, and Oniho is all smiles after Cassian offers to teach him the basics of the instrument.

“How about one more song?” Jyn’s tone is casual, but she leans forward, clearly eager for more. Cassian obliges with a half-smile, drumming his fingers along the guitar for a moment before seeming to come to a decision.

The song that flows from the guitar wraps itself around Rey’s soul, capturing her in its warmth. There’s something deeply nostalgic about this tune despite the fact she’s never heard it before, but she can’t put her finger on it until Cassian starts to sing.

The lyrics are quiet, slow, an in a language she’s never heard in her life, not from the traders passing through Jakku or the members of the Resistance hailing from all across the galaxy or even the many, many political figures she’d had to meet with to work on the treaty. And yet somehow, some way, Rey knows in the perfectly certain way she knows her own name… she has heard this song before.

She’s barely five years old, sneaking through the familiar hallways of her home even though she knows she’s supposed to be sleeping. She can’t help it— the sound of the music is too attractive, much more interesting than sleep. She crouches behind the couch, watching Mama and Papa sway in each others’ arms. Both of them wear happy, carefree smiles, the love radiating off them strong enough that she can feel it wrap around her like a hug.

As the song— a bittersweet song that they only listen to when Mama is sad —fades to an end, she watches her parents slow to a stop, standing in a silent embrace for a long time. Just as she’s wondering if she should take the opportunity to sneak back to bed, Mama breaks the hug and holds her hands out with a knowing smile. “Come here, sweetheart.”

She gasps before she can stop herself, cheeks burning with embarrassment as she stands. But Mama and Papa seem more amused than anything, so she steps forward and giggles as Mama swings her up into her arms. “My little rebel.”

“It’s past this rebel’s bedtime,” Papa teases, and she pouts dramatically until they both laugh. “It’s a special night. She can stay up.”

She doesn’t know why today is special, but if it means she’s not getting in trouble then it has to be really special. “Can you sing the song?”

“Only if you promise to sleep,” Mama says, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Right after it’s over.”

“Promise!” She grins as Papa carefully picks up his guitar, strumming the strings lightly a few times before starting the song. She sings along as best she can, not quite able to make the words of Papa’s home language flow with her voice the way he can, but she’s too happy to care.

As always, the lullaby works like a charm. Her eyelids are dropping by the second verse, voice slurring with exhaustion as she nestles closer to Mama and lets the warmth of the song flow through her until she’s fast asleep, with nothing left but the sound of the guitar echoing in her dreams.

Rey blinks rapidly, though this time not because of tears. What… what just happened? She doesn’t realize her confusion has slipped through the bond until Ben responds seconds later. Is something wrong?

She shakes her head, both to tell him no and to clear her thoughts. One minute she’d been here, and the next it was as if she’d been thrown into a memory. A memory… of this house. Of Lah’mu. Of a childhood. Her eyes find Jyn, who watches Cassian with rapt attention, a relaxed kind of smile on her face. She’d grown up here— could Rey have seen a memory of Jyn’s childhood, spurred on by the onslaught of emotions stirred up by Cassian’s song?

It’s the only explanation she can think of, and a fairly logical one at that. After all, this wouldn’t be the first time she’s been thrown headfirst into a vision.

The sound of the guitar fades out for good, and Rey shakes off the vision in favor of herding the kids to bed and helping Cassian clean up the kitchen from dinner. “I hope the song wasn’t too much?”

Rey looks up, surprised. “They were beautiful.” She hadn’t expected him to notice her reaction to his rendition of Mirrorbright, not with the amount of focus he’d poured into playing.

“Thank you.” Cassian brushes off her praise. “It’s a sad song, for a lullaby.”

“It’s Alderaanian,” she says carefully, after some thought. “Everything Alderaanian is sad now.”

“I guess so.” He nods, clearly picking up that she doesn’t want to talk about it. She’d cried enough tears throughout the war to learn better than to dwell on sadness for too long. Besides, there are only so many Alderaanians left in the galaxy— while she trusts the Andors, she’s still afraid to reveal too much about her or Ben’s background and risk changing time in some irreparable way.

“Stop bothering her, Cass.” Jyn’s teasing voice rings through the room, bringing an instinctive smile to Rey’s lips. She loops her arm through Rey’s, tugging her towards her room. “Come on. I saw you earlier, you were about to pass out.”

“I’m fine, Jyn, really.” 

She just laughs, shaking her head. “If you insist,” she says, though she continues down the hallway. As they slow to a stop outside her door, Rey catches a flash of white peeking out from beneath Jyn’s jacket. She squints at it, trying to make out the shape, and Jyn tilts her head. “What’s wrong?”

“No, it’s— your necklace. I didn’t see it before.”

“Oh, this?” Jyn fishes out the pendant from beneath her jacket and Rey’s lips part in surprise. It’s a white crystal, almost identical to the one she has. “I don’t wear it as much as I used to. Too many memories.”

“Was it a gift?” Jyn lifts the necklace over her head, placing the crystal in Rey’s hand. “Kyber,” she breathes, eyes going wide as she recognizes the familiar energy emanating from the stone like a heartbeat. The crystal reacts to her force signature, warming slightly in her palm.

“How—“ She smiles slightly. “Of course. A Jedi would know.” She pauses before continuing, and Rey catches a glimpse of the same old pain in her eyes from when she’d opened the journals. “It belonged to my mother. She gave it to me when I was young, before I lost her. I plan to pass it on to my own daughter one day.”

Rey’s fingers trace over the familiar surface of the milky white crystal, from the worn spot so akin to the one she’d imagined her mother worrying her finger over to the tiny nicks in the stone forming the two letters, UF, carved so close together that they’re practically connected. I plan to pass it on to my own daughter one day.

She manages a shaky smile, passing the crystal back to Jyn and fighting the instinct to reach for her own for comfort. “It’s beautiful.”

“Thank you.” She slips the necklace back on and stifles a yawn. “Well, I think I’ve kept you up long enough. Let’s get some sleep.” She nods her goodnight, and the two of them retire to their separate rooms, and finally Rey’s hand closes around her kyber pendant as puzzle pieces tumble into place.

The time jump had taken them 20 years into the past.

The Imperial droid, K-2SO.

Cassian’s song.

Jyn’s necklace.

Little things, insignificant things— the incident with the table, Ben’s offhand comment about the force signature, the vision she’d assumed to be Jyn’s, the familiarity of the planet, so similar to the way Ahch-To had felt like a memory to her rather than a dream.

Her thumb traces over the initials carved into the stone. UF. Lyra Erso. Rey digs her fingernail into the letters, worn almost to invisibility by time and nervous habit. Even the trader on Jakku shed paid to read it when she was still a youngling had admitted some parts of the lettering had most likely chipped off or been smoothed out. If not UF… LE. Lyra’s initials.

The daughter Jyn and Cassian are expecting… is her.

Chapter Text

“Did you see the necklace Jyn’s wearing?” Rey broaches the subject cautiously, unsure of exactly how she’s supposed to explain that the young couple who’d taken them in are actually her long-lost parents.

“Necklace?” Thats a no, then. Ben watches with mild interest as she tries to put her discovery into approachable words. The silence stretches between them, the bond humming with a thousand unsaid feelings, and finally she manages the simplest of explanations for her shock.

“It’s kyber. White kyber.”

“Makes sense. Her father’s research used it often.” Rey almost laughs at that. Of course the galaxy’s strange sense of humor would take one look at the daughter of the man who’d researched kyber for the Empire and give her a Force-sensitive child. Stars, is this what hysteria feels like? She’s lighter than air and yet her soul has never been heavier, torn apart by the mess of emotions fighting for attention in her mind.

“There were initials carved into it.” Ben stares at her uncomprehendingly for a moment. Then it hits him.

“The same ones?”

Rey nods and traces her fingers over the lettering again, half afraid it’ll have disappeared, leaving her with no way of proving herself. “They were her mother’s initials, and the necklace belonged to her once. And Jyn… she said she’s going to pass it on to her daughter one day.” The kyber crystal necklace is the only thing she has of her parents, aside from the memory of their ship disappearing into the stars as they’d left her behind. She’s held onto it her whole life, the way she’s held on to her hope of being reunited with her family. And now she’s here. With her parents. Her parents.

There’s only one thing she can’t make sense of, and Ben is the one who puts it into words. “This place is safe. They’re happy here. Why would they leave you…?”

She’s been asking herself the same question her entire life. Her parents had left her the necklace to remember them by, her younger self had reasoned, so they’d clearly cared. And they’d intended to come back for her, she knows they had. But… Jyn and Cassian already care so deeply for their unborn daughter… “I knew they weren’t junk traders,” she manages finally, brushing away the question for the time being.

Ben dignifies that with a quiet laugh, holding up a hand in defense. “Visions are hard to interpret—“

“And you were completely wrong!” They’re both laughing now, the shock of Rey’s revelation fading away.

“So were you!”

“Not as wrong as you,” she says, shaking her head in teasing disappointment. “Not nearly as wrong as you.”

“If it makes you feel better about being wrong,” he agrees, and she smiles despite the heaviness weighing down on her heart. Then her mind fills in the silence with a dozen new doubts. Did I do something wrong? Was I too much? Did I hurt someone? Her Force abilities have spiraled out of control before, and it wouldn’t be the first time she’d have hurt someone because of them.

Ben catches on to her darkening thoughts as if she’d voiced them. “Don’t. You’ll never know why; don’t ruin the time you have with them.”

He’s right, she supposed— Jyn and Cassian must have had their reasons, but there’s no reason to dwell on them. Not when there’s nothing she can do to stop them, not without changing the course of time itself. So Rey pushes it all away for the time being and finds her peace in sleep.

-:-

She dreams of rolling fields and endless beaches of space-black sands. She dreams of laughter, of running barefoot through stretching rows of crops, of a handful of patched stuffed animals carefully arranged on a child-sized bed. She dreams of warm embraces, of early morning trips to a bustling market, of nights under a sky of millions of stars.

She dreams of hushed voices, of worried looks, of hugs that last a little too long, as if terrified to let go. She dreams of a name spoken only after she’s supposed to be asleep, not one she’s ever heard before— the Jedi Killer. She dreams of a packed bag, a first trip offplanet, a barren planet of nothing but sand and starships. She dreams of confusion, of tearful goodbyes from people who are never supposed to leave her, of a kyber crystal pendant pressed into her tiny palm. We’ll come back for you, sweetheart. I promise.

In the morning, she remembers nothing but the feeling of being loved.

Chapter Text

“Here’s more about seeing stones.” Rey nods a little too quickly as she takes the journal from Jyn, scanning the page for the information she’s talking about. It feels strange, spending time with her parents without them even knowing who they are to her. For Jyn and Cassian, very little has changed since yesterday. For Rey, the entire galaxy has been turned on its head. Again.

She doesn’t dare ask the Andors anything more about their daughter for fear of changing history in some irreparable way, though Ben had not-so-subtly asked if they had any names in mind.

“We’re not sure,” Jyn had admitted. “We thought about naming her Lyra, after my mother. But I didn’t want to give her the burden of someone else’s legacy before she had a chance to create her own.”

The words had hit her surprisingly hard. She’d spent her whole life wondering about her parents, if they’d loved her, why they’d left her behind, a thousand other little worries. But never once had she wondered about her name, and now here her mother is, putting love and thought into choosing the perfect one.

Rey skims the journal page for anything important about Tython, but this one seems like it’s only a theory. The seeing stones could be used like a radio, for lack of a better word, to call to other force-sensitives. Right. But they hadn’t been called back through time, had they? She doesn’t think seeing stones are even powerful enough for that. Not that she knows much about them to begin with.

The journal goes into the pile of potentials, and Rey reaches for the next one. The Vergence Scatter. She can’t possibly imagine what could be useful about what sounds like another far-fetched kyber theory, but she skims the bare bones list regardless. A realm on a separate plane from the galaxy … Jedi legend… few entry points across the galaxy… intergalactic doors… travel across time and space…

Across time and space.

Rey’s shock must show on her face, because Ben and Jyn are at her side in an instant, searching the page for the cause of her reaction. She points to the list, unable to form the words to explain that she’s found it. She’s found their way home.

“A world between worlds,” Ben says quietly, pointing out the symbols decorating the edge of the page— a ring of some kind of creatures, running in perfect tandem. “These symbols. We’ve seen them before.” He searches through the small pile until he finds the right notebook, the one that had first mentioned Tython. Sure enough, the same creatures are traced in thick, dark lines across the corner of the page.

“Another ring?” Jyn asks, holding the notebooks up against each other to connect the lines of creatures.

Rey shakes her head. “The first ring matched up perfectly. These are too different.” They’re just etchings, drawings, but at the very least they seem to connect Tython’s seeing stone to this ‘Vergence Scatter’ place. She scans the pages for any other similarities, and one particular phrase catches her eye. “Here. They both mention time working differently. And the Vergence Scatter has to be opened by some kind of Force conduit.”

As far as Rey knows, seeing stones are some of the most powerful Force conduits to exist, second only to force-sensitives themselves. If they could find the seeing stone on Tython, use it to access this realm outside of time… it’s exactly the kind of far-fetched Jedi plan that could save them. Or leave them stranded here for the rest of their lives.

But Galen’s theory of Force-healing had been right. They’d taken a chance on his research, and it had worked. A much smaller chance than what this would be, but it’s enough for Rey to trust his work. Her grandfather’s work.

“We’ll keep looking,” Ben allows, not quite ready to believe in what could easily be another dead end. “See if Tython and the Vergence Scatter are connected another way.”

Rey combs through the pile of possible journals, but the Vergence Scatter only comes up once more, in the midst of a transcribed story from a Guardian of the Whills. It says nothing about Tython, though Galen makes it clear that this world between worlds can be accessed from locations strongly tied to the Force— most commonly through the Jedi and Sith temples scattered throughout the galaxy. And like before with the healing, accessing the realm requires the work of two force-sensitive individuals who share a strong connection, though Galen likens this one to that of a master and apprentice.

Well, it’s a relief to know that opening the Vergence Scatter won’t be a problem— provided Tython actually is an access point.

The problem is… “Has anyone else had access to these journals?” Confusion etches across Jyn’s face, and Rey takes that to mean a no.

“Why?”

She holds up the Guardian’s account, then flips to the next page. Just barely visible at the edge is the unmistakeable line of torn flimsi— someone has removed several pages from the journals. Only between five and ten, at least by Rey’s estimate, but the remaining pages jumó quickly to another topic. It could just be a coincidence… but after getting her hopes up about Tython and the Vergence Scatter, Rey can’t help but feel that someone has done this deliberately.

Jyn takes the journal from her, frowning in thought. “No one touched them since my father… since he passed away. They were taken into Alliance possession to ensure it. Unless someone tore these out when they were still in Imperial control, but his work would have been kept under lock and key.”

“He could have done it himself,” Ben suggests. “To hide something he didn’t want them to know.”

It makes sense. But what about the two locations could Galen possibly want to keep from prying eyes? If anything, it indicates that they’re powerful enough to be exactly what Rey and Ben need. After all, a power as vast as the ability to travel through time and space isn’t exactly something one would want to let fall into the Emperor’s hands.

They lapse back into silence, searching for some other clue the point them back towards Tython and the Vergence Scatter. But Galen— or the mysterious thief —has hidden it well. That, or he’d simply grown bored with the untestable theory and moved on to something else. Something with more galactic proportions. Rey’s shocked by how many of the mechanisms he’d designed line up with the massive-scale version that had been the Death Star.

He’d created that monster, whether directly or unintentionally. His work— her grandfather’s work —had killed millions. No wonder Jyn had been so afraid to dredge up the past. Just the knowledge of what these journals had helped to do weighs heavy on Rey’s heart. She can’t imagine what it must be like for that kind of destruction to be Jyn’s legacy.

“How are repairs on your ship coming?” Jyn is the first to voice what they’ve all been thinking in some form or another: the possibility of this planet being their way home means nothing if the Falcon can’t make it out of Lah’mu’s atmosphere.

“Getting there.” Rey can’t keep the frustration out of her voice— the Millennium Falcon is about as temperamental as its former owner, and while the old ship’s stubbornness can be endearing, now is not the time.

“Ask Cass. He’s good with ships. Or with hotwiring then, at least.” She laughs at Rey and Ben’s surprised looks. “He’s had to make more than a few quick exits, trust me. Being a rebel spy will do that to you.”

Funny. She’d figured Cassian to be more of a boots-on-the-ground fighter. But no, Jyn’s words have sparked something, a memory older than she knows is possible to remember.

Her palms are pressed against the viewport as as she watches everything she knows disappear into a blur of green. Papa laughs as she leans in closer towards the transparisteel, trying keep her home in sight, but the sound is sad.

“Why do we have to go?” Mama and Papa haven’t told her anything about the trip, and neither has Kay-Tu, even though they’re best friends. Even as Mama had carried her to the ship, letting her play with her grandmother’s kyber crystal pendant as a distraction from the dark, terrifying night, she hadn’t answered a single question. Not even about their destination, some unknown planet that both Mama and Papa seem to be afraid of.

“We’re going somewhere safe.” Papa’s hands grip the controls of the ship a little tighter, like he’s holding on to them for support. “We’re going to keep you safe.”

The vision feels like it lasts several minutes, but the others don’t seem to have noticed a thing. Rey knows time tends to stretch and compress strangely during a vision, but she can’t help feeling as if such a vibrant childhood memory should have at least taken longer than the space of a heartbeat.

A childhood memory. That’s what her vision had been, there’s no denying it. After all, the voice speaking had been unmistakeably hers, and the one that had replied could be none other than Cassian. After so many years of wondering, she’s finally starting to remember.

But there’s one final question that tugs at her thoughts, replaying over and over again. We’re going to keep you safe , Cassian had said.

Safe from what?

Chapter Text

I know what you’re doing.

Really? Rey asks, with more venom than the simple sentence deserves. Care to enlighten me?

You’re avoiding them, Ben says, far too knowingly for her liking. Apparently her days of trying to convince him to contact Leia again are coming back to haunt her.

I’m meditating, she says evenly. Just because some of us don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s not useful.

Jyn and Cassian. You’re avoiding them. The air of calmness she’s been trying to project crumbles like a Star Destroyer in Jakku’s Starship Graveyard, and Rey gives up on her futile attempts to find inner peace.

And? We can’t risk spending too much time with them. It could change how things turn out—

You’re afraid. She has no reply to that, and Ben knows it. Hell, he’s not even wrong . She’s absolutely terrified— after so many years of daydreaming of the moment she’d meet her parents again, it’s almost surreal to actually meet them, and in circumstances like this nonetheless.

What if I ruin things?

Something about her had driven her parents away the first time. What are the chances she does it again? What if they hate her for it? She can’t bear to ruin the memories she’s made with Jyn and Cassian, limited as they may be.

Don’t waste the time you have left. Rey’s eyes narrow at the familiar words, the same ones she’d directed towards him in the earliest days of the peace treaty. She’d spent two weeks trying to convince Ben to reach out to Leia before the kids had taken things into their own hands and simply invited the two of them over to Rey’s apartment at the same time. And as hesitant as he had been, things had gone smoothly. Neither had quite been able to forgive the other, but they’d begun to make amends. Stop letting your fear control you.

I’m not afraid, she shoots back immediately. She sounds just as defensive as she had with Jyn, and they both know it. Ben’s laughter echoes across the bond.

Prove it.

-:-

Which is how she ends up, only twenty minutes later, repairing the Falcon with Cassian. It had been somewhat awkward at first, inviting him into the ship she’s called home for almost a year now. But if he’s noticed her nervousness— and really, there’s no way he couldn’t —he hasn’t said anything about it, perhaps assuming she’s just afraid to let a relative stranger onboard the ship she’d crash-landed on his property. Which isn’t entirely wrong.

It turns out Jyn hadn’t been lying about Cassian’s expertise, even if the temperamental Falcon does make it hard for him to show it. They tackle the most immediate problems with an easy efficiency, and it doesn’t take long until the shields are back up. As much as she loves Ben, it’s a relief to work with someone who knows ships as well as she does, someone who could probably dismantle the Falcon piece by piece and still manage to put it back together perfectly. Well, as perfectly as the old ship will allow.

Unlike his partner, Cassian doesn’t make conversation as he works. While Rey gets the impression that Jyn would rather spend as little time with her thoughts as possible, he seems content to lose himself in his own. They’re alike in that way, then, and the small similarity makes her smile as she twists the last panel back into place. “Hyperdrive’s back online, but she likes to spark.”

Cassian nods, giving the panel she’s been working a wide berth as he returns a hydrospanner to the meticulously arranged toolkit Rey keeps stashed on the Falcon for emergencies. She’s long since given up trying to organize Han’s, and besides, he wouldn’t have wanted her to.

She’s almost disappointed when they manage to finish the repairs by sunset. As anxious as she’d been to get the ship back in working condition, a part of Rey’s heart longs for more time to explore the planet that should have been her home. To get to know her parents. To understand the visions of her childhood that are slowly trickling back, the flickering images that only last for a heartbeat or two.

Cassian doesn’t seem to realize that repairs are finished; he moves on to another section of the ship and pries open the panel before Rey can think to stop him. “What are you doing?”

“The power to your cannons overloaded. They’re not firing at full efficiency.” He points to a few scorched wires tucked at the back of the cluster. “And life support systems are a few good hits away from failing.”

“It’s not necessary.” The cannons have been like that since Rey can remember, some old remnant of one of Han and Chewie’s half-baked ideas to improve the ship’s battle capabilities. And the life support systems aren’t really as bad as Cassian makes it sound. The Falcon is functional— and that’s all it needs to get offplanet and out of Jyn and Cassian’s undoubtedly busy lives.

“And?” He ignores her completely, fishing for the burnt wires and quickly drawings his hand back when the panel sparks unexpectedly. “When will you have time to repair this ship again? Don’t waste the opportunity.”

“You and Jyn—”

“Could use the company,” he cuts her off immediately, predicting her next words with ease. “We don’t get visitors often.” Cassian carefully pulls the long-dead wires from the cluster and holds them up as if they’re some kind of proof. “I’ve worked with Corellian freighters before, in the Alliance. A few extra repairs won’t be difficult.”

At her insistence, he comms Jyn to make absolutely sure that they would be more than happy to keep the five of them for another night or so. There’s not even a hint of false enthusiasm in their voices; the Andors are truly happy to let them stay.

And so Rey gets another few days with her parents. The realization is sweeter than she’d expected, even if it does mean a few more days displaced from their time. But this place holds nothing but safety, so she feels no guilt about setting aside their plans to return home for a few more days to make memories with the family she never had.

Chapter Text

“It will sell well on the market,” Boba says evenly, though Din barely hears the words. The unimpressed potential buyer is doing equally well at ignoring their trade offer, and he can’t help letting his mind wander to a backup plan in case this fails. It can’t hurt to be prepared, right?

“Where the hell am I supposed to find a market for beskar on a farming planet?” The merchant, a no-nonsense woman of perhaps sixty or so standard years, looks one misstep away from abandoning their offer. He trusts Boba’s steady negotiation has the best chance of winning her over out of all of them, and the idea of groveling to yet another being who holds power of him doesn’t exactly sit well, but Din knows when he needs to step in.

“There are buyers offplanet who would be willing to pay thousands of credits for pure beskar.” The words taste like ash in his mouth; despite the necessity of the situation, the idea of selling away a piece of Mandalore sits about as well with him as a knife in the gut.

The woman merely raises an eyebrow. “And how do you suggest I reach those buyers?”

“Authenticity brings even the most reluctant to the ends of the galaxy,” Boba replies immediately. “A Mandalorian is nothing without his honor. We swear on our own that this is genuine.”

She considers the beskar spear once more. “How many credits?”

“We need coaxium, not—“ She cuts him off with a quick shake of her head, and Din feels strangely like a reprimanded child.

“On the market. How many credits for pure beskar?”

“For this much?” Boba’s eyes narrow, and Din can practically see the numbers running through his head. “Enough to buy yourself three times the amount of coaxium we’re asking.” He may be stretching the truth ever so slightly— but not by much. The most fervent of historians would kill to get their hands on something like this.

The silence stretches on for too long, and Din’s thoughts begin to wander. Where are the Jedi now? Have they made it out of the star system yet? He’s certainly given them enough time. But of course there’s always the chance that they’d discovered the tracker in the meantime, or abandoned their ship for a better model, or a number of other things. Din had barely begun to understand Grogu’s abilities; he has no idea what two fully trained Jedi are capable of.

“Deal.” The single, definitive word hits him like a blaster bolt to the chest, only far less painful. Boba seems equally surprised, eyes widening for a fraction of a second before he hands over the beskar spear.

“Pleasure doing business with you.”

-:-

It takes almost two hours to return to the ship and install the tracker. Din is on pins and needles the entire time, pacing the ship like a caged animal and silently thanking his child self for kicking his habit of nail-biting. No doubt they would be bitten to the quick by now had he not sworn to stop with all the stubbornness a youngling could hold.

Several times, the light on the tracker flickers for a heartbeat, only to return to darkness mere seconds later. Several times, they come so close to fixing it. More times than Din cares to count, various tirades of expletives fill the ship, so loud that he’s surprised they aren’t heard by every last one of Lah’mu’s residents. Coaxium is a temperamental substance, and as easy to tame as a child— Din would know.

But as always, relentless work pays off in the end. The steady glow of the tracker lights up the dark hold— shit, how long ago had the sun set? —and Fennec practically leaps for the dash, pulling up a rough estimate of their location. “They’re still on planet.”

It takes a few seconds for the words to sink in. They’re still on planet. Meaning their ship is likely broken, and the Jedi trapped. Defenseless against the Firespray ’s cannons. Perfect for Din and his crew to turn them over to Gideon. He smiles under his helmet, somewhat giddy with the idea of it, and perhaps a bit delirious from stress as well. He’s going to see Grogu again.

“We leave tomorrow,” Din announces, buoyed by the good news. They’ve been working all day, and he’s practically swaying on his feet. It would only be foolish to take on two Jedi, with their superior reflexes and weapons, without being fully rested and ready for a fight. 

Cara beams at him from the copilot’s chair. “Yes, captain.”

Chapter Text

Rey isn’t sure how long she’s been here, and she isn’t about to spend her energy finding out. Unable to sleep, she’d wandered the house for a bit before curling up on the couch, Ben’s cloak wrapped around her like a cocoon. She can’t pinpoint exactly how late it is— past midnight, definitely —not that it matters to her too-alert mind. Restless nights like this are just something she’s gotten used to in the months since she’d been pulled into a seemingly endless galactic war. And then being thrown backwards in time and meeting her parents.

Stars, she’s never going to get used to that. Jyn and Cassian are her parents. This is her childhood home. She’d had a life here, once.

The light padding of footsteps pulls her out of her stupor, and Rey tenses automatically, her mind and body preparing for an attack. At least until she makes sense of the force signature behind her and turns to find Arashell standing in the doorway. She looks as lost as Rey feels, and there’s a strain of fear threading through her force signature— something’s wrong.

“Can’t sleep?” She pushes herself off the couch, stiff muscles groaning in protest as she tugs the cloak from her shoulders and drapes it over Arashell’s.

“I had a nightmirror.”

Rey blinks several times, turning the word over in her mind until she can make sense of it. “A nightmare?”

She forgets, sometimes, that the kids have only been speaking Basic for as long as they’ve been with the Resistance. They’d taken to the language quickly, but Oniho and Arashell mix up their words when nervous— another sign that she’s more upset than she’s letting on.

“Mhmm.”

“Sorry, sweetheart.” She settles back down on the couch, patting the spot beside her. “Want to talk about it?” She’s found after a year or so of the kids being in her care that the best way to conquer their fears is to simply talk them through.

Arashell doesn’t hesitate to curl up beside her, snuggling deeper into Rey’s— well, Ben’s —cloak. Rey waits until they’re properly nestled together to press any further. “What happened?”

“The bounty hunters came,” she says quietly, blinking back the tears that spring to her eyes. “They took you away. And Ben.”

“Ara…” Rey pulls her into a side hug, unable to find the words to reassure her. She searches her memories for something to say, some magical phrase that will chase away the threat of being found. When no such words come to mind, she settles on the truth instead. “We will never let that happen. Remember the first promise I made you?”

Arashell nods, perhaps remembering her early days in the Resistance. Because of her and Temiri’s force-sensitivity, the three kids had immediately been assigned to Rey’s care. The first few weeks had been awkward, all four of them trying to figure out where they fit in— and the three kids wondering why a Jedi would ever want to take them in.

I will never hurt you. I will never leave you behind. We’re a team now. I promise.

Rey’s never made promises lightly.

“But the bounty hunters—”

“Don’t know who they’re messing with.” They’ve survived collapsing planets and red-armored guards and peace treaties and becoming a… whatever they are. Rey pointedly ignores Jyn’s voice at the back of her mind: Families come in different forms. Don’t be afraid of the word. “If they think they can tear us apart that easily, they’re wrong.”

Her Padawan looks up at her, lightsaber-blue eyes filled with trust and doubt, hope and fear. “Promise?”

“Of course. That’s how love works, right?” She stumbles over the word love, the taste of it strange on her lips after far too many years of fearing it coming back to haunt her. In the back of her mind, Jyn smirks knowingly. “That’s why we’re stronger than them. And we always will be.”

Arashell stifles a yawn, nodding happily. For a moment, Rey thinks her job is done, but then a flicker of nervousness shoots through her force signature. “Rey?”

“I’m here.”

Her eyes are closed as if she’s sleeping, but after a few seconds she speaks again. “Are you gonna be our mama when we get back?”

Rey’s lips part in surprise, the word jarring her more than she’ll admit. “What?”

“When we get back,” she whispers again, the sentence immediately followed by another yawn. “Are you gonna be our mama? Like Jyn?”

“Why… why are you asking?” It’s perhaps the exact wrong thing to say, too hostile and disbelieving, but Rey can’t find anything else to reply with.

“You play games with us like Jyn. And you and Ben sing us songs like Cassian. And they’re parents.”

Oh. She’d never thought about it that way. All this time, they’ve just been doing their best. Trying not to make the same mistakes as their own families. Trying to give the kids something constant and stable in the middle of the ever-evolving war. “Would you like that?”

More importantly, could she and Ben even be that for the kids? What will they be allowed to be when they return to their time? Will things have settled down enough for them to step into the light, or will they still have to confine their relationship to late-night holocalls and caf breaks between meetings? Leia had implied several times that Rey had become a parental figure to the trio… but always teasingly, enough so that Rey had never given it much thought. Not to mention the fact that she’d have had to look Leia in the eye and admit to endangering the entire Resistance by falling in love with the general’s own son.

She’s still too terrified to find out how Leia would react to learning Rey had gone behind her back, taking part in a relationship that defied both the Jedi Code and the lines of the war.

“Yeah,” Arashell whispers, drawing her out of her spiraling thoughts. Rey manages a weak smile, pulling the cloak tighter around the two of them. She’d promised to take care of Arashell and her brothers. Would revealing the secret of her relationship and establishing the five of them as a family make things easier? Or would it put them all in danger?

“Maybe, sweetheart,” she allows. After all, they’ve all grown used to being together over the last few weeks. She can’t imagine having to let the kids down with another separation when they return home. “I hope so.”

Arashell doesn’t respond, already lost in sleep. They stay that way for the rest of night, Rey keeping watch over her young Padawan as the nighttime hours fade into morning. Dozens of questions eat away at her mind, but she pushes them away for the time being, letting herself live in this peaceful moment.

And the nightmirrors, as Arashell had called them, don’t dare return.

Chapter Text

Rey isn’t sure when she’d fallen asleep but she wakes to Jyn’s calloused hand on her shoulder and her finger to her lips. She narrows her eyes in question and Jyn points downward, to where Arashell is still fast asleep at Rey’s side. Oh.

She slips off the couch with all the caution of a soldier defusing a bomb, then follows Jyn into the kitchen where the others wait. It seems they’re the last two asleep; everyone else is already gathered around the kitchen table in a friendly— whispered —conversation. Ben passes her a cup of caf as she settles into an empty chair, and she smiles her thanks. “How long were we asleep?”

“Long enough.” He shrugs. Nearly gave me heart attack when you were gone, though.

Sorry. Couldn’t sleep. Temiri’s eyes narrow in focus, a sure sign that he’s trying to reach out to the Force. “What did we tell you about eavesdropping?” Rey scolds without any real bite.

“That it’s good practice?” He promptly bursts into laughter at her mock-disappointment, and Ben joins in, no doubt the one who’d told him that in the first place.

You two are too similar, she mutters, making no attempt to disguise the words from Temiri, who practically beams upon hearing them.

Breakfast is peaceful, for lack of a better word. K-2SO takes an instant liking to Temiri and Oniho, keeping them all entertained with the gossip he’d picked up at the market and only slightly exaggerating the local feuds— at least according to Jyn. Cassian claims they’re both making conflicts out of nothing.

Once Arashell has wandered in and everyone has been fed, Jyn briskly packs them all into the Andors’ speeder. “Cass said you have extra repairs to do,” she says when Rey finally questions what she has planned. “Unless you’d rather read journals all day again?”

As much as she’d like to protest the Andors’ offer to help them fix the Falcon, she’s not foolish enough to believe it’s only an offer. Just like her many other “requests,” Jyn isn’t going to let her turn them down. And, well… it is better than sifting through the journals and trying to dredge some valuable information from the mess of research.

They divide up the remaining work among themselves, save for Cassian, who distracts the kids with a request for a tour of the ship. They’re only too happy to oblige, walking him through the  Falcon’ s many hidden compartments and modifications. It keeps all four of them entertained, at least.

“Reminds me of being in the Rebellion,” Jyn says almost fondly as she and Rey attempt to fix the jammed cannons. “The Rebellion wouldn’t let Cass and I out of sight after a stunt we pulled on Scarif. I spent half my time assigned to maintenance…”

“Scarif?” The planet sounds familiar, one of the many backdrops to the stories she’d heard on Jakku. 

“Where the Death Star plans were being held,” Jyn explains, and Rey’s eyes widen as she finally makes the connection.

“Rogue One,” she manages. “You were a part of Rogue One.”

“Part of it?” She smiles slightly, her eyes far away, most likely back on that Imperial base where she’d made history. “I led it.”

There’s a tired kind of pride to her words, the same kind Rey feels each time someone in the Resistance had brought up her supposed assassination of Snoke. The kind that says she’d never wanted the fame, that she’d just been trying to survive without losing herself in the chaos. “And Cassian?”

“He was there too. He suggested it, if you can believe that. Captain stick-up-his-ass Andor himself. They almost demoted him for insubordination, but he’d practically handed them the Empire’s fatal flaw, so you can imagine how that went.”

She laughs. “So they assigned you to maintenance instead?”

“Maintenance, kitchen duties, anywhere they could keep a close eye on us. There were more than a few reports of our death going around back then, and the Rebellion was having a hell of a time trying to keep them from coming true, with the way we threw ourselves into danger.” There’s a bright gleam in her eyes as she shoots Rey a conspiratorial look. “They even assigned me to repair the Milennium Falcon. Captain Solo almost took on the entire command when he heard that order.”

“You worked on the Milennium Falcon?” Rey’s eyes go wide, and she can only hope that Jyn mistakes the shock in her voice for awe. If Jyn recognizes the ship she’s standing in as the same one she’d been assigned to… she and Ben have already admitted their Force-sensitivity, but to be in possession of Han Solo’s famed ship is another level of conspicuous. They’d be revealing a direct connection to him, and while Rey knows it’s unlikely that something so simple will shift the tides of the galaxy, she can’t help but fear that the slightest misstep will set into motion a chain of events she can’t stop. Force knows it had happened enough back in their own time.

“Just a few routine repairs,” she says. “Nothing to brag about. You’d think a legendary ship would be built a bit sturdier than that one… Corellian vessels must be temperamental.” She pats the metal plating the way the most superstitious pilots do, the ones who believe some part of the ship can feel their affection. Not that Rey can judge her, having done the same more times than she can count.

“It’s the same with Corellians themselves, I’ve heard,” Rey says, turning the topic away from the Falcon’s origins. Jyn looks ready to agree, an old memory rising in her eyes, most likely of a particular Corellian they’ve both met.

A sharp blade of shock cuts through the Force before she gets a chance to speak, and Rey collapses against the holochess table. Her hand instinctively fumbles for her heart, the burning center of her sudden pain, and Jyn takes a cautious half-step forward. “”Are you—”

“Fine,” she hisses, shoving herself upright and darting through the Falcon, reaching out the the Force bond as she does. What happened?

No response. The dead silence from the other end of the bond sends her fear skyrocketing, and Rey feels the cold grip of terror clamp down on her heart. Ben? She’s broken into a run by the time she makes it to the boarding ramp, making a sharp turn and jumping the last few feet to the ground, terrified to waste time they might not have. If something’s wrong—

Ben and Cassian stand at the edge of the ship’s underbelly, hesitantly prying at something stuck to the hull as if it’s prone to exploding at any moment. “What is it?” Rey asks aloud, mostly for Jyn and Cassian’s benefit.

They don’t answer— they don’t need to. No one could mistake the slim metal device wedged into the Falcon ’s hull for anything other than what it is:

A tracker.

Chapter Text

We need to go. Now. Rey nods instinctively before realizing it must appear to the Andors that she’s agreeing to nothing at all. She doesn’t bother coming up with an excuse; her mind is busy cycling through a dozen or so possibilities at once.

So the bounty hunters have been tracking them this whole time. But what’s stopped them from launching an attack, from capturing or killing them at any point over the past few days? They’d been lulled into a false sense of security in the Andors’ home, it wouldn’t have been hard for a well-trained team of mercenaries to catch them off guard.

Unless their ship had sustained damage that had left them grounded, too. Or perhaps they’d died on impact in the crash, and the tracker had just happened to remain active, guiding no one but ghosts to their location.

Does it matter what really happened? The only thing Rey can think of is the possibility that the bounty hunters could be coming for them right now , no matter how small it may be.

“We need to go.” Repeating Ben’s words out loud is somehow more painful, as if by announcing them to the others, they’re somehow more real. Jyn looks ready to protest, but Rey won’t risk her parents’ lives in the hope that the bounty hunters won’t find them. “They won’t hesitate to kill anyone that gets in their way. We’re not risking your lives, not when we have a way home.

“A possible way home.”

“She’s right,” Ben says before they can waste any more time arguing. “Rey, I mean. You’d be risking your lives… and your daughter’s.”

Right. It’s in none of their best interests if Jyn is killed before her daughter is even born. That, if nothing else, seems to give Jyn temporary pause, though she she still looks ready to take on the Emperor himself if need be.

“Then let’s get you on your way,” Cassian says, an air of finality to his words.

-:-

It takes only minutes to pack up the few belongings they’d brought to the Andors’ home— their lightsabers, a change of clothes or two, some of the kids’ things. The hardest part is keeping the memories at bay. As Rey packs her bag, she can feel the pull of another vision at the back of her mind. She’s done this before, stood in her childhood home and stuffed her most beloved possessions into a bag too small to fit the life she’d had here. A pair of boots. A child-sized jacket. A cloth doll in the shape of a Rebel pilot.

The last memory comes with the pain of loss. Stars, how had she forgotten? The doll she’d made on Jakku had been a replacement, not an original, though she can’t remember exactly what happened to the first one…

“Ready to go?” Ben senses her hesitation as they stand alone in the now-empty room. There’s nothing left of them here, not a single trace of the two force-sensitives who’d taken refuge in this room. Even the bed is made, the covers smoothed out to disguise the imprints of their bodies.

“Yeah,” Rey lies. She will never be truly ready to leave this place, not now, not when she’s finally realized how close to her heart it is. “Let’s go home.”

Jyn and Cassian see them out to the Falcon , exchanging hugs and well-wishes the way a real family might. “Talk to you for a minute?” Jyn asks, the words half-command, half-request. She pulls Rey and Ben aside as Cassian walks the kids through one last check of the Falcon’ s systems.

“I wanted to give you these” she confides, pulling out two books from the bag slung over her shoulder. Galen’s journals, Rey realizes from the familiar handwriting on the covers. And judging by the dog-eared pages from their hours spent searching the old books, these are the two journals the reference Tython and the Vergence Scatter. “I hope it helps you find your way home.”

“Thank you.” Rey takes the journals almost reverently, trying and failing to conceal the tears pricking her eyes. Jyn merely smiles and pulls them both into one last hug, leaning in to whisper to Rey.

“I finally found a name for my daughter, you know.” She steps back, resting a hand on her stomach with a slight smile. “Rey. After one of the two wonderful Jedi I had the privilege of meeting.”

Oh.

“It’s an honor,” she manages, taking Ben’s offered hand for support. “Thank you, Jyn. For everything.”

“Thank me later,” she says. “If you ever make it back to your time… Lah’mu will always be waiting for you.”

And with a final goodbye, they take their places in the Falcon and prepare for takeoff. Grief and hope war in Rey’s heart as she primes the ship, preparing to leave behind the planet that had called out to her long before she’d been ready to reply.

You do realize she’s just named you after yourself, right? Ben asks, trying to draw her thoughts away from the bittersweet moment. It works, and she laughs despite herself.

Guess so. But she’s happy nonetheless, and honored that Jyn believes her worthy of her name, that she’s proud of the woman her daughter has become. There are worse Jedi to be named after, she teases, reaching across the dash to rest her hand over his own.

With Galen’s journals as their guide and the Andors’ love and blessings in their hearts, Rey feels ready to take on the entire galaxy.

Let’s go home.

Chapter Text

The Falcon is uncharacteristically silent as they travel through hyperspace, and it sets Rey on edge. The brief reprieve from their constant state of fight-or-flight that Jyn and Cassian had given them had been nice, but it had also given her an excuse to forget what running feels like. And if the sudden change is affecting her this much… there’s no doubt the kids need a distraction.

Finding everyone is simple— they’ve all gathered in the cabin, for lack of anywhere else to go. Ben offers a curious glance as she rummages through the bins shoved haphazardly under their cot, but no one dares break the silence that’s settled over them.

At least, not until Rey speaks up. “Hey,” she says slowly, hand closing around the small box she’s looking for. “I still owe you a card game, right?”

Three shy grins are all the response she needs.

-:-

As they divide up the cards and search their hands in hopes of having what they need to win, Rey makes sure to keep a smile on her face. Nothing too forced or over the top (she hopes), just a smile. A reminder that as long as they’re here together on the Falcon , they haven’t lost yet. For all they know, the bounty hunters had been making the journey to their ship on foot and are now arriving at an empty field.

Not that she expects to be so lucky, but it’s a nice daydream, made sweeter by the knowledge that Tython could finally take them home.

Rey shuffles through her cards— a terrible hand. She glances at Ben and frowns exaggeratedly, he responds with a look of silent amusement before fanning out his own cards. They’ve been locked in various petty competitions going back as far as a few months after the Battle of Crait, but sabaac is the one game that always ends in a draw— or various lighthearted accusations of cheating. Though Rey has a feeling that one of the kids will end up winning this round. Just a feeling, of course.

The first round is tense and silent, not at all how she’d intended things to go. Temiri barely even cracks a smile when he wins, and Arashell stares hard at her cards as if trying not to cry— but she’s no sore loser, and Rey knows the reason for her tears lies on a different ship entirely, one likely to be in hot pursuit of their own. She’d meant for this game to be a distraction from their fears, but it’s clearly not working.

And in all the rounds of card games she’s played with Ben and the kids, she’s learned that there’s only one failsafe way of coaxing a smile out from the reluctant players: blatant cheating.

They abandon sabaac in favor of another game, one the kids had taught her from their years on Canto Bight. It’s simple enough, easy to play with any kind of card deck one can get their hands on, and mostly involves a race to make more matches of similar cards than the other players.

Rey ignores her cards completely in favor of reaching into the middle pile for a new card. As she does, she leans exaggeratedly to the side and peeks at Oniho’s hand. He quickly yanks it out of her view, amusement flickering across his face for a brief moment. Not much, but it’s a start.

Ben picks up on her plan immediately, placing down a ‘match’ of two cards that couldn’t be more different and outright denying it as all three of the kids protest. Good idea.

She smiles as innocently as she can, pulling two cards from the deck while the kids’ attention is still on him. I have no idea what you’re talking about.

Of course not. Ben sells her out immediately, and Rey quickly spouts off a ridiculous lie about straightening the pile of cards . The game quickly dissolves into an utter mess of cheating and denied accusations, but it works. Her plan works. Stilted laughter slowly begins to turn genuine, smiles peek out from behind cards, voices rise louder than a terrified whisper. They’re still huddled together, still afraid to let one another stray too far away. But here in this moment, there is more love than fear in their hearts.

After three rounds they’ve all calmed enough to play without the cards shaking in their hands, and Rey decides it’s time to stop putting off the inevitable.

“Jyn and Cassian are my parents,” she says into the silence surrounding them.

Temiri thinks about it for a moment, then nods slightly as if he’s just figured out the answer to a particularly elusive puzzle. “That makes sense.”

“Does that mean they’re our grandparents?” Oniho asks, brightening at Ben’s nod of confirmation. “I like that.”

“Me too,” Arashell adds. “They’re nice.”

“And now we have three grandparents.” Rey stifles a laugh at their silent excitement. She has a feeling the three of them are going to be having a long conversation about this later, once she and Ben aren’t around to listen in. Looks like Leia has competition, she says silently, not bothering to conceal her amusement.

“As long as you three still tell Leia she’s your favorite,” Ben replies lightly, drawing another laugh from her lips.

The galaxy has taken so much from them— their time, their friends, their families. But the love in this room, the love that surrounds Rey like a blanket from a childhood she’s only just begun to remember… that love can never be taken away.

-:-

Silence fills the Firespray like a void, sucking all the life from the ship. Din’s spent much of his life alone by preference, but he’s never been able to stand silence. It reminds him too much of that cold, silent bunker on Aq Vetina. Of the day he’d lost his parents.

Ironically enough, it’s the most silent among them who finally breaks the unspoken— ha —pact of silence. Boba drums his fingers along the ship’s dash, humming idly as he watches the tracker’s steady pulse of light. It’s only after the second or third refrain that Din realizes he recognizes this song— an uncommon occurrence, considering his largely isolated upbringing.

“Laar be Manda’yaim?”

Boba looks up, surprised. “It is.”

“You were not born a Mandalorian. How did you learn it?”

“My father took… great pride in teaching his only son his heritage.” There’s a hesitation in his voice that comes with the pain of loss. “He taught me to be a Mandalorian by culture, if not by birth.”

“Laar be Manda’yaim?” Cara ventures slowly, parsing through the unfamiliar tongue with unusual care. For an outsider, she does fairly well, though he can just hear the Armorer’s patient sigh as one of the foundlings stumbles over their words. It’s an unexpected reminder of home, and one he could use right now.

“Song of Mandalore,” Din translates. “It’s a Mando’a song, used to keep up morale on long voyages. One person calls out a verse, and everyone responds with the chorus.”

“So that was…”

“The first call,” Boba explains. The first call and the chorus are the same.” He taps out the rhythm on the dash, the sound a pale imitation of the drumbeat of an entire platoon singing together but reminiscent of home nonetheless. After a few rounds, he calls out the first first as the rest of them listen in near-reverent silence.

“Glory of Mandalore,

Her pride are her people,

Word or in battle,

Hon’rble and lethal.”

In the beats that follow, Din repeats the chorus out of pure instinct, the voices of his covert whispering along at the edges of his memory. Fennec idly taps out the drumbeat of the song, sharp eyes watching Boba’s movements until she can copy them exactly, and he sings another verse, one Din’s never heard before.

It tells of endless oceans and seafarers, of warrior clans and crews united by loyalty as much as blood. It tells of a home planet Din’s never known. It tells of Mandalore, and this time all three of them sing in response, hesitant voices bringing to life the history of his people.

Boba doesn’t hesitate to sing several more verses, some of which Din recognizes, others which are entirely foreign. One tells of a different planet entirely, almost completely covered by oceans and filled with identical beings, brothers raised for warfare and service and a different kind of glory in battle, the kind that comes in fighting for an army rather than a clan.

Din swears he’s going to sing one of his own covert’s verses, he really does. But when he signals to Boba that he’ll take the next verse, an entirely different song comes pouring out.

“Dar’tome cuyi ner aliit

Echoy’la cuyi ner ad’ika

Tion su’Mando’ad

Meh ni dar’manda?”

He almost chokes on the final words, the language of his childhood the only way to truly express how deep the pain cuts. Am I still Mandalorian? He’s fallen so far, strayed from the Way in more than one sense, even going so far as to take in a Jedi and remove his helmet in the presence of others. And now here he is, a member of a once-great warrior people playing errand boy for an Imperial.

Even Fennec and Cara, with next to no knowledge of Mando’a, can grasp the basic meaning of his words well enough to know the grief layered into his song. What he doesn’t expect is for them to actually do anything about it— at least until Cara taps out the rhythm of the song and adds her own verse to the mix, her voice low and rich as she half sings, half chants.

“Fall of the Em’pire

Hail the Republic

Millions have sacrific’d

Is there end to this fighting?”

She lifts her chin in defiance, not of the people surrounding her, but if the very galaxy itself. Of the shitty roll of fate’s dice that had landed them in this situation to begin with. They’ve all faces devastation that would leave a weaker being broken beyond repair. And perhaps they still have been broken beyond repair— but they’re still fighting, still trying to take back control of their lives.

They’re still alive, and they’re going to make the galaxy answer for it.

Chapter Text

Tython is beautiful in the way that all verdant green planets are beautiful in Rey’s eyes. Perhaps the planet would be even more attractive had she not just left behind the rolling green hills of her childhood home, but aesthetic isn’t the reason they’ve come here.

She’s searched every page of the twin journals Jyn had gifted them in hopes of finding some new piece of information that might point them in the right direction. In the end, none of it matters: the second they make planetfall, she feels the seeing stone like a beacon in the Force, a veritable flag guiding them to its location. They land in no time, putting an end to the easiest part of their journey.

Rey shivers in the early-morning air, light wisps of wind tugging at the loose ends of her clothes and raising goosebumps on her exposed skin. And just when she’d thought she’d begun growing accustomed to the chill of cooler planets, too… She accepts Ben’s offered cloak with a grateful smile and elbows him halfheartedly when he pokes fun of her for shaking like a leaf when the temperature is barely low enough to be noticeable to the others. Well we can’t all be born on temperate planets.

Yes, because Lah’mu was so warm, he replies immediately, and she pointedly ignores him. You’re only doing that because I’m right.

Shut up, Solo. Rey grins despite herself, never able to stay even slightly upset with him for long. They continue on in pleasant silence, punctuated occasionally by a question from one of the kids. What are those called? Are they dangerous? What does a seeing stone do? That Rey and Ben only know the answers to a few of these questions is of no concern to them, and Rey wishes idly that she could feel the same.

The seeing stone of Tython is exactly that: a round, flat stone in the middle of several monolith-like stone structures. But once they reach the site, there’s no doubt in Rey’s mind that this is the place they’re looking for. The Force has touched this stone structure deeply, leaving behind traces of its presence everywhere she looks. Even Oniho seems to notice the change, eyes narrowing in concentration as if the essence of the Force can be seen if he just focuses hard enough.

Perhaps it can. Anything is possible here, in this place of power built by some long-ago people. How does that story start, the fairy-tale the kids love? A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…

Ben rests his hand on the stone, a halfhearted attempt to contact its power. The Force is different here. Not dark… but not light either.

I feel it too. She knows without a doubt that this is how the Force is supposed to feel, in its truest form. Untainted by greed or fear or any other imperfection of the galaxy, there is only life. Warmth. The threads that bind the galaxy together.

This is the answer they’ve been searching for all along.

She reaches for Galen’s journals, hoping that it’s directions will make more sense now that she’s actually at the spot it speaks of. But her hand has just barely brushed the clasp of her satchel when the unmistakable sound of voices creeps over the edge of the hill they stand on. Someone’s here.

I hear it too. Ben meets her eye, and a knowing look passes between the two of them. What are the chances anyone would happen to stumble upon this obscure planet? She can’t quite make out the Force signatures, not with the way the Force is almost overwhelmingly blanketed over this place, but she’s not foolish enough to hope that these new arrivals are merely visitors.

“Stay here,” she tells the kids, invoking three wide-eyed looks and a protest from Temiri.

“Where are you—”

“We’re just going to check something out.” Her words do little to lessen his concern, but there’s no time to explain things. The bounty hunters could be coming their way at this very moment, and she’d rather have the element of surprise. “Stay here and guard the seeing stone.” She fishes a commlink from her satchel and tosses it to him. “Comm Ben if anything happens, okay?”

“‘Kay,” he replies uncertainly, glancing down at the metal cylinder. “You’ll be back fast, right?”

“Of course we will,” Ben answers for her. Rey can’t bring herself to lie. She has no idea what the impending fight will bring, and she can’t leave them with the false hope that she’ll return, not when the future is this uncertain.

They venture across the rocky landscape with considerable caution, scanning the Force for any disruptions and searching for the familiar glint of sunlight on a ship’s hull. Nothing. It’s as if the voices they’d heard had only been a figment of their imaginations. Rey’s ready to call off their search and head back to the seeing stone, if only in hopes that they’ll manage to make it home before the bounty hunters reach the site.

And then the all-too-familiar sound of blasters being drawn rings out all around them, and Rey turns to find the beskar-armored Mandalorian standing right in front of her.

Chapter Text

“Not so fast, Jedi.”

Oh no. Rey’s heart drops to the planet’s core, and she and Ben freeze in their tracks. The bounty hunters have appeared out of nowhere… leaving them completely surrounded. Even as panic shoots through her veins, she feels an odd sense of relief that only the two of them have been caught. At least the kids are hidden safely away at the seeing stone. Maybe they can still find a way back home, tell the others what had happened to her and Ben.

With four blasters pointed at their heads, there isn’t much else to hope for.

“You don’t want to do this.” She tries desperately to keep her voice steady, meeting each of their eyes in turn. The helmets worn by two of the bounty hunters make the job difficult, their emotionless masks staring back at her. But she has experience facing down monsters in masks, and she’s not going to be scared off. “We’ve done nothing wrong. Please.”

The armored woman laughs humorlessly. Rey catches a glimpse of a tattoo on her face— the Rebellion’s familiar starbird insignia. A Rebel hunting a Jedi? “We haven’t followed you across the damn galaxy to let you get away that easily.”

The Mandalorian nods to the weapons hanging loosely at their sides. “Hand over the lightsabers.” Rey scowls, but she complies in the end. It will be better to face whatever comes next in one piece, if weaponless. “You’re coming with us.”

There’s a sense of finality to the words that sends a chill down her spine. Rey has faced down every kind of horror imaginable, but nothing has ever been as hopeless as this. She’s always had something to rely on— her friends, her lightsaber, a ship, her quarterstaff, the Force… The bounty hunter’s black-clad companion steps forward, snapping binders around her wrists and she doesn’t even bother fighting back.

The bounty hunters have been their greatest fear for so long now that she’s forgotten one important thing: mercenaries have to be hired by someone. And seeing as the Mandalorians are trying to capture rather than kill them… someone wants them alive for some likely-nefarious purpose. Whatever is coming next, she needs to save her strength for fighting it. “Where are you taking us?” Ben asks, realizing the same thing.

“No talking.” The Mandalorian scoops up the twin lightsabers on the ground, shooting what she assumes to be a glare at the two of them. “And no Jedi tricks.” He doesn’t seem to realize that his armor repels their abilities, at least anything involving mind tricks. And while they could technically shove the bounty hunters away… what’s the point? They’ll only come back, and the armor of the Mandalorians would reduce the blow anyways.

“Leave them alone!”

Oh no. Rey’s blood freezes in her veins, time slowing around her as she wrests her arm free of the second Mandalorian’s grasp and twists to face the sharp cry. Stars, please no. Please not this. Not now.

But there’s no mistaking the sound of Temiri’s voice, riddled with fear and fabricated courage.

She can’t see the three kids from her position, but it’s clear the others can. The bounty hunters stare in a mix of amusement and disbelief, the ex-rebel readying her guns with some degree of hesitation.

The Mandalorian, however— the lead one, the one whose emotionless expression has haunted their nightmares for weeks —seems to be genuinely stunned by what is arguably one of the most hopeless surprise attacks in both current and future history. “You… you have foundlings?”

Rey and Ben share a look, equally confused. Is this a trick? Or is there a way out of this mess, if they play their cards right? Foundling is a foreign word to her, but it evidently has something to do with the three terrified, blaster-wielding kids. But what? Or is it just another way of quantifying them as targets?

“Just leave them alone,” Ben says quietly, voice carrying over the silenced group. “We’ll come with you peacefully. We’ll do whatever you want.” He casts a worried glance to the ex-rebel, whose grip has tightened on her blaster rifle. “Please.”

The lead Mandalorian, for his part, genuinely seems to be considering it. Or he’s planning how best to dispose of the kids. She still can’t get a read on him underneath all the armor. “You have foundlings,” he repeats, this time sounding doubtful. He turns to the others; unspoken words pass between them in an unreadable conversation. Rey holds her breath, not daring to do so much as move for fear of tipping the bounty hunters’ decision against their favor.

The rebel lowers her blaster rifle.

Rey bites back a sob of relief, unsure of where the situation is about to go. But as the bounty hunters step back, lowering their weapons and looking to the lead Mandalorian, she can’t help the rush of hope that takes her heart by storm.

“They didn’t tell us you were traveling with foundlings,” the Mandalorian says slowly. “A Clan of Jedi. You’ve got some explaining to do.”

“We don’t—“ Ben casts her a quick look, just long enough for them to confirm their approach to whatever has just happened. “We don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The children,” the black-clad woman clarifies. “They told us you were traveling alone.”

They. No indication to whoever had sent bounty hunters after them. But evidently the balance of their precarious situation has changed. They are no longer prisoners— though she can tell a single misstep could easily end with them back in bounty hunter custody.

“They’re with us,” Rey begins, treading as lightly as she can. “Under our care.”

“Whoever employed you doesn’t want them.”

“They’re not Jedi.” It’s true, technically. So what if Temiri is force-sensitive, and Arashell is unusually in tune with the ebb and flow of the Force? They’ve never received any formal training aside from Rey’s clumsy explanations of accidental discoveries she’d made about her abilities. They’d planned to start Temiri’s training after this mission, and Arashell’s heart is set on being a pilot, not a Padawan. Besides, the five of them had left the labels of Jedi and Sith behind long ago. If she and Ben can only convince them to let the kids go free…

“We can’t take them in.” The Mandalorian’s voice is definitive, and his words unthinkable. Rey just stares. They’re going to let them go? Just like that, even after weeks of hunting them down?

“Din,” the rebel says slowly, carefully.”The kid—”

“They’re a clan of five, Cara.” She has no idea what they’re talking about, but at least two of the bounty hunters have given their names. That has to mean something, right? “We can’t turn them in.” He turns to Rey and Ben, helmet as expressionless as ever, though Rey can’t shake the idea that he looks as if he’s pleading with them. “But you can help us.”

It’s a trap. It has to be.

Rey doesn’t dare venture a response, just tips her head slightly in a ghost of a nod. “What’s going on?”

The four bounty hunters trade looks of various levels of unease. The rebel— Cara, if the Mandalorian’s words are anything to go by —seems ready to shut down any decision that involves working with them, but the other two, the woman in black and the Mandalorian in the weathered armor, they appear far more sympathetic to their ringleader’s cause. “They can help us get him back.”

So they’ve lost someone, too. Another piece to the puzzle of this mess they’ve ended up in. Now that they’re no longer in danger of being killed on the spot, the kids edge closer to the fray, sticking close to the familiarity of their caretakers. Or are they parents now? Lah’mu has changed so much so quickly, and they’d had to leave before Rey had even begun to work through things properly. And it’s not as if they’ll be able to sit down and talk things out anytime soon, seeing as the bounty hunters still haven’t made up their minds about what to do with Rey and Ben.

“What do you want from us?” Her eyes narrow as the lead bounty hunter approaches, but he only reaches for her bound wrists and deactivates the binders. They hit the ground with a resounding clang that reminds her of a very different experience as a captive. This time is proving to be just as prone to sudden changes in alliance, it seems.

After freeing them both, the Mandalorian steps back to stand slightly in front of his crew. “We had… I happen to have a foundling in my care.” Foundling. Or child, if the midnight-armored woman with the black braid is anything to go by. So this man has a youngling of his own. Suddenly his motives are disturbingly easy to understand. Because what wouldn’t Rey do for the four people at her side? What wouldn’t she give to save their lives?

“Where?” Ben’s voice remains low and cautious, unwilling to believe anything the bounty hunters say without proof.

“He was taken from us.” The bounty hunter’s gaze drops, though not in the way that gives away a lie. In this moment, he appears more like a kicked animal than the threat they’ve been running from all this time. “He is my child, but not by blood.” The meaning of foundling hits her then— not just a child, as the woman had put it, but a child cared for by a non-blood parent. One not born to them but found and taken in. Like the kids. Her kids. Stars, how can she ignore this man’s plight now? Guilt and fear war in Rey’s heart, caught between making their escape through the Vergence Scatter and helping this man reunite with his child.

“By who?”

The man laughs drily, as if there’s only one being in the galaxy it could be. “Gideon. He’s an ex-Imp, trying to rebuild the Empire. And he needs Grogu’s powers to fuel his new weapons.”

“He— what?”

“The kid’s a Jedi,” the man says quietly. “Like all of you. Gideon gave us an ultimatum: we find you and bring you in, or he takes Grogu for good.”

“He needs Jedi,” the rebel woman volunteers hesitantly, clearly deciding to trust her friend’s decision against her better judgment. “For some kind of weapon, we figured— why else would he care? And right now, that kid’s the most powerful Jedi he can get his hands on.”

We can trust him, Ben says through the bond, and she bites back a smile.

I was about to say that.

She sticks out a hand to the bounty hunter crew, hoping with everything she has that this won’t be a mistake. “I’m Rey.”

The Mandalorian’s shoulders slump with obvious… relief? He nods, reaching out to shake her hand. “Din.”

Chapter Text

It’s the best risk Rey’s ever taken, which is saying something considering she’s managed to leave behind the only home she’d ever known on Jakku, join a galactic Resistance, and end up in a relationship with her sworn enemy all in the span of less than a year.

In only a few minutes, every unknown they’ve been facing is laid bare: Din had taken on a “foundling,” as Mandalorians call them, oblivious to the child’s Force sensitivity almost right up until the remains of the Empire were on his tail demanding the child as their own. After a brutal battle on this very planet, they’d lost Grogu to the Imps and been bribed into hunting down Rey and Ben in order to save the child— a Jedi for a Jedi. Well, two Jedi for a Jedi, but the details are unimportant. “We have nothing against you,” Din tells them. “You were just our way to get the kid back.”

As it turns out, Mandalorians value family and clan over almost anything else. The idea of turning them over to Moff Gideon and leaving the kids with no one to turn to, especially after losing his own child to the Imps, is something Din cannot bear to do no matter how high the bounty on their heads.

“We all love that kid,” Cara says roughly, her tough demeanor softening at the thought of the youngling. “There isn’t anything Din wouldn’t do to get him back.”

“Including working with the enemy,” the black-clad woman— Fennec, as she has introduced herself —chimes in, though her words hold no bite. She seems to be perpetually amused with the whole situation.

But the Mandalorian and his crew would like nothing better than to turn on Gideon, and Rey and Ben have given them the perfect opportunity to do so, at least according to Din. Rey’s skeptical at first— after all, these are the same bounty hunters who had chased them across the galaxy —but after about an hour or so of planning, her hand no longer jumps to the lightsaber at her side every time one of them makes a sudden movement. Even the kids have begun to warm up to them, perhaps not as quickly as they had with Jyn and Cassian, but at least they’ve stopped hiding behind Rey and Ben as if that could make the bounty hunters disappear.

“Here’s the plan,” Din says finally, gathering them all in the hold of his crew’s Firespray. Cara leans back against the metal hull and grins lazily. “Oh, thank the Force. We actually have a plan this time.”

Din ignores this with as much grace as he can muster. “Gideon thinks you’re our prisoners, and he doesn’t know about the kids. They can stay in your ship until we have Grogu. It’s too dangerous onboard Gideon’s.” Immediately, all three kids launch into a chorus of protests. Beneath their arguments, though, Rey catches an undercurrent of fear. They’re not ready to be split up again, not after what had happened the last time they’d let their caretakers out of their sight. And while Din and his crew had been sympathetic to their plight, they all know the Imperials will have no qualms about using Rey and Ben as they see fit.

“We have Din and his crew as backup.” She takes a deep breath, trying to keep her voice steady for the kids’ sakes. “It’ll be safer if you stay on the ship. They can’t find out about you.” Or your Force abilities , she thinks but doesn’t dare add aloud.

It passes unspoken between them anyway, and the kids fall silent, though they’re evidently still unhappy with the decision. Arashell’s eyes mist over with tears as she tugs at Rey’s arm wraps. “You said you wouldn’t leave us again.”

“Kid, we—” Ben starts, and Rey shakes her head slightly, kneeling down to look up at the kids as her heart threatens to crack. She can handle this one. After all, she’s the one who had promised them this, almost a year ago now, when she’d first taken the kids in as her charges.

“I don’t want us to split up either,” she says quietly enough to keep the conversation between the five of them. “But this is safest for all of us. And I made you a promise— we both did. We’re always going to come back for you.” She tries for a smile and ends up blinking away tears instead. “ Always. ”

She and Ben have faced a thousand times worse side by side, and yet somehow this feels more dangerous than anything they’ve fought through before. She’d never imagined having someone waiting for her to come home would be so painful.

Thankfully, the kids accept her promise as true— or as true as she can make it —and agree to stay back on the Falcon . “To keep watch,” Ben adds, sensing the reluctance beneath their agreements. “The Imps could send scouts down to search the ship. We’ll need you to hide everything valuable.” That seems to soften the blow of separation a bit more, at least for the kids.

With that decided, Din lays out the rest of the plan with confidence he doesn’t actually seem to have— something Ben is quick to point out. “How do you know this will work?”

“I don’t.” Din meets their gaze through the impassive visor of his helmet, steadfast despite the doubt circling the room. “But there’s a chance.”

“A chance.”

“We don’t have enough time to—“

Rey cuts off their argument before it can fully begin. “Then we’ll take that chance. And the next, and the next, until all our chances are used up… or we make it out.” She swears her mither’s kyber crystal warms at the words, offering the silent approval of the brave women who had worn it in years past.

Silence falls across the room, until finally Cara nods approvingly. “I knew I liked you.”

“You tried to shoot her,” Fennec points out mildly.

“That’s irrelevant.”

Boba takes a half-step forward, lending his voice to the conversation for the first time. “None of us have a better choice here. Gideon has the child, and he has the forces to hunt you down and bring you in himself. Either we work together, or he takes us all down.”

And, as intended, no one can find anything to protest when the facts are laid out before them so bluntly. Their silence functions as a unanimous agreement, and Rey gathers the kids in a hug in the final moments she has before she’ll have to let them go.

I love you. No matter what happens next, I love you.

Chapter Text

“I can’t figure out these damn binders,” Cara gripes, loud enough that Din can hear her from his position in the cockpit. His endless pacing had begun driving the others mad only minutes after takeoff, so he’d volunteered to stay here and watch the Firespray ’s comm channels for any transmissions from Gideon. A simple job, but preferable to the maddening lack of purpose that is his only other option at the moment.

“For Force’s sakes, you just—” Whatever Fennec had been about to say is cut off by a rather violent string of curses from one of the Jedi. “Never mind.”

“I think it’s stuck,” the other Jedi observes, earning a snarky comment from the other: “Oh  truly, Ben, I hadn’t noticed.”

Din half considers joining them, but from the sound of it their problem is that there are too many people trying to help, not too few. He’s thankful for that, if nothing else— while he’d gotten along just fine with the Jedi and their foundlings, being around the two adults makes him uneasy in a way he can’t describe. For all he knows, they’re exactly what Grogu will someday become. Hunted. Afraid. Alone.

He can’t do that to the kid, no matter how much he knows Grogu belongs with his own kind.

Besides, Grogu isn’t alone in the galaxy, not the way the Jedi are. He has Din and his covert, has Cara and Boba and Fennec, has every one of the people they’ve met on their journey together. To the kid, the Jedi have always come second to his adventures with Din. That must mean he’s doing something right… right?

“Din!” Cara calls from the main hold. “How do you open these things?”

With all the fondness and exasperation of a parent dealing with a young child’s antics, Din sighs and heads for the hold to see what’s wrong. One of the Jedi— the woman, Rey —is seated on the floor, trying to talk Fennec through the mechanisms holding the binders together. Her partner watches from a few paces away with a look of mild amusement, eyes flicking warily to Cara every so often as if still worried she’ll turn on them. She’d been the most reluctant to accept the truce, and she hasn’t taken a hand off the blaster at her side since they’ve entered the ship. Din doesn’t exactly blame her— the Jedi have been enemies far longer than they’ve been allies —but he shoots her a look regardless, if only to keep the peace long enough to recover his foundling.

“You’re going to break them,” Boba says from the corner of the room, wisely keeping out of the mess, and both women give him an indignant look in response.

“I know what I’m doing,” Fennec gripes, just as the binders emit a high-pitched screech and flicker an angry red. Din takes that as a sign to step in, but the other Jedi— Ben, he’d introduced himself as —merely waves a hand and the binders clatter to the floor.

Fennec turns on him with a rather offended expression on her normally unreadable face. “You could’ve done that the whole time?”

Rey just shakes her head, rubbing the reddened skin around her wrist that had gotten caught in the metal cuffs. “Show-off.”

And despite his initial apprehension towards the Jedi, Din laughs to himself. Force-powers or not, he can see himself and his crew getting along with these two. At the very least, he trusts them to go along with the plan long enough for him to find Grogu. Maybe even take down Gideon in the process. After all, it’s in all of their best interests if the Jedi-hunting Imp is taken off the playing field.

But Din can’t afford to think like that, not yet. He’ll save optimism for later— once they’ve pulled off the plan he’s placing every last one of his tenuous hopes on.

Chapter Text

Rey’s heart thuds in her chest as they step out of the safety of the Firespray and into the monochrome depths of enemy territory. The binders around her wrists are an uncomfortable reminder of her powerlessness— the Mandalorians could easily disregard their plan and turn over her and Ben without a second thought. Panic digs its sharp daggers into her heart, and she struggles to remember the meditations Leia had incessantly reminded her to practice. Stay calm. Stay calm. Stay calm—

I am calm, Ben replies, sounding exactly the opposite.

I was talking to myself, she mutters, realizing a second too late that he’d been trying to make a joke. And absurdly enough, it does make her feel better. If they can share a private joke, then they can’t be in as much danger as she’d thought. At least that’s how her andrenaline-fueled mind interprets it, and she isn’t exactly going to argue, not when it’s the one thing keeping her from falling into a complete panic.

Her eyes scan the ship for exits as they make their way through silent, empty halls. Of course, if everything goes to plan she won’t need them. But when have things ever gone as planned?

As the six of them all pile into a turbolift, Din finally speaks. “Gideon’s scouts should be returning from Tython now. He sent some of his personal guards down with them— we’ll only outnumber his men until they return.”

“How long will that take?” Cara asks, the sound of metal on metal telling Rey she’s adjusting her blaster. “We all know Gideon can get… chatty.” So she has history with the Imperial warlord as well. Shared history, she assumes from Din’s humorless laugh.

“He’s as eager for this trade as we are. Two Jedi for the price of one.” Rey’s hands clench into fists at the unintentional reminder of their value— they’re nothing more than trading chips to the Imperials, weapons to be examined and traded and ordered about at will.

Damned if she isn’t going to make Gideon regret that very, very much. Perhaps it’s not the most Jedi-like behavior, but she’d been a scavenger first— and every last one of her instincts is screaming at her to fight.

The turbolift doors open again, revealing a short corridor with a single sentry posted outside. She can’t imagine why someone as powerful as Moff Gideon would feel safe with only one unassuming guard, but it only makes her more apprehensive about what lies beyond the door.

“The Moff’s orders were for you to come alone,” the sentry says, eyes darting over Din and his crew as if they’re a pack of wild animals about to attack him, and not… well, a pack of bounty hunters planning to take down the entire ship. Perhaps he’s justified in his fear.

If she feels any guilt about slipping into the sentry’s mind and twisting his thoughts, it’s buried beneath the cool, steely conviction of their plan. It’s surprisingly easy to plant the command in his mind: Let us all through. He enters a code into the control panel beside the door and just like that… they’re in.

A man Rey assumes to be Moff Gideon stands with his back to them, Tython stretching out across the viewport before him. He looks, for all the worlds, like a king surveying his domain, and this effortless superiority is what frightens her more than anything. It reminds her far too much of the well-oiled machíne of the First Order, of the generals who truly believed they’d never been taking anything— that it had already belonged to the Order in the first place, and they’d merely been staking their claim on its behalf.

This is a man with far too much power for his own good, and far too much greed to do anything good with it.

“The Jedi,” Din says simply. “Just like you asked. Now where’s the kid?”

“Patience,” Gideon replies, with the air of one talking to a very young child. “You’ve waited this long to be reunited.”

Din falls silent, simmering in his anger, and Gideon turns his focus to Rey and Ben. “Two Jedi, traveling together. You had to have known this would happen eventually.”

“We’re innocent,” Rey says with as much force as she can muster— if they appear too accepting of their fate, it will look suspicious, but it’s hard to play at being a prisoner when she doesn’t even know why this man had hunted them down. “Whatever you think we’ve done—“

“Oh, it’s nothing you’ve done,” Gideon interrupts, the words slathered with false comfort. “You two are simply the most powerful Jedi I could get my hands on. It’s just business— and you two are going to make me quite the profit.” He features to two of the guards posted at the corners of the room and Rey’s heartbeat spikes as they step forward to take them away. This isn’t part of the plan.

“Stop.” All eyes turn to Din, who freezes on the spot. She can see him scrambling for something to say, searching for any reason to keep them there. Their entire plan hinges on having the numbers to outgun the half-dozen guards posted around Gideon, and Rey and Ben are the only hope they have for defending themselves from enemy fire. “That’s— bounty hunter’s code. The bounty doesn’t leave my sight until you’ve paid up.”

“So it’s true then.”

Whatever resistance Din had been expecting to his objection, this isn’t it. “What?”

“You see, I’ve been under the impression that you and I have a deal.” Even without the sudden burst of smug pride that coats Gideon’s force signature, Rey knows something is wrong. “Fortunately, my guards are far more thorough in making sure their allies are as trustworthy as they act.” His light tone suddenly takes on a harder edge. “Did you really think you could make an alliance behind my back without me finding out?”

“I just want the kid back,” Din says flatly, as if he’s grown tired of repeating the words. “Just take the Jedi and give me my foundling.”

It’s not the cue they’d agreed upon, but they’re running out of time. Rey tenses for a fight, reaching out to the familiar current of the Force at the back of her mind. If they attack now, they’ll have the element of surprise…

A blast door to the left of them that Rey hadn’t noticed slides open, and she swears it takes all the air in the room with it. “Strange, then, that we found these three on the Jedi’s ship. Armed. With lightsabers.”

The sight of the three kids surrounded by a detail of hulking, droid-like guards is enough to make Rey’s vision dim with rage and terror. Each metal monster is almost twice the size of the younglings, and their red eyes are narrowed into malicious slits that make it appear as if they’re enjoying this, in some twisted way. They were supposed to be safe. She barely hears Din’s next words over the maelstrom of fears crashing through her mind: “They weren’t the bounties. We didn’t think you’d care about a couple of younglings.”

“All the same.” Gideon pries Ben’s lightsaber from Temiri’s hand, ignoring the boy’s cry of protest. “I expected more of you.”

“We upheld our end of the deal,” Boba interjects, trying to placate both Din and Gideon. “We assumed you wanted us to bring the Jedi in unarmed. The children were presumed to be no threat to us or you.”

Rey isn’t sure if he’s actually justifying himself, or if he’s trying to buy time. None of them are prepared to go forward with the plan, not with the kids’ lives in immediate danger. If she could get the droid guards away from them…

Rey. It’s the alarm in Ben’s voice that grabs her attention, and it isn’t until she follows his gaze that she realizes he isn’t talking about the situation with Gideon and the Mandalorians. No, his focus is on Temiri, whose eyes are scrunched in a familiar look of concentration. Shit, she mutters instinctively. If Gideon finds out he’s force-sensitive…

Oniho’s eyes widen slightly as he feels Rey’s lightsaber pulled from his grasp, but he gives no other indication that anything is amiss. Gideon’s back is to them, his attention on one of his guards as he orders the droid to go retrieve Din’s kid. The guards themselves are more focused on Rey and Ben than their charges, clearly only anticipating danger from the two of them.

So no one notices the lightsaber until it springs to life, the blazing white blade cutting through three of the droids before Rey calls the saberstaff from Temiri’s control and into her own hands.

She turns to take on the last three droids, but they’re already toppling over from the three neat, smoking blaster wounds aimed directly at their power core. She has just enough time to shoot Fennec a grateful smile before another blast door opens to reveal a squad of stormtroopers. Gideon quickly retreats behind them, and a shower of sparks briefly illuminates the room as Ben calls out to the Force and pulls a section of controls off the wall, fashioning them into a barrier for the rest of them to hide behind. The two of them have little need for it, given their lightsabers’ abilities to repel blaster bolts, but the Mandalorians are more than happy to take refuge behind it, Din gesturing for the kids to crouch down behind him as he does.

Time blurs and stretches as Rey cuts through the seemingly endless defenses and sends laserfire ricocheting back on its makers. Her vision is streaked by red and white, the light burning her eyes harshly enough that she has to rely entirely on the Force to anticipate her enemies’ next attacks. Her heart thunders in her chest, each beat a reminder that she’s still alive, still fighting.

“Door!” Cara shouts from behind her, and it takes a moment for Rey to figure out what she means. If they shoot out the blast door’s control panel, Gideon won’t be able to call more reinforcements. By the time her mind has parsed through the word, a well-placed blaster bolt from one of the Mandalorians has already struck the panel, sending up another shower of sparks.

She sees it on Gideon’s face, the moment he realizes he’s cut off and defenseless. It brings a rush of rather un-Jedi-like satisfaction, after everything he’s done to her family and to Din’s, and it gives her the strength to slash through the last of the stormtroopers. She leaves Din and his crew to deal with the Moff himself. They still need to get what they’re owed, after all.

With the immediate threat of the battle gone, Rey’s concern shifts to Ben and the kids. “Are you okay? Is anyone hurt?”

“We’re fine,” he reassures her, though she catches a hint of similar strands of worry threading through his force signature, fading away as it finally sinks in that all of them are unharmed. It’s over. We’re safe. She can’t help but smile at that, tired as she is. 

Safe, she echoes, the word almost foreign to her after the heat of the fight. The kids catch on to their relief, hesitant smiles appearing as they finally register what this means— no more running. No more hiding. We can go home.

Rey pulls all three of the kids into a hug, tugging Ben down with her as she does until the five of them are locked in a silent, victorious embrace. The Force hums around them, calm and content as Lah’mu’s oceans, and she knows this is exactly where she is meant to be.

With her family. 

Chapter Text

“Where’s the kid?” It feels good to finally be the one in power, to finally be able to hold something over Gideon. And as Din holds a blaster to the Moff’s head, his hands shaking with rage, there’s only one thing that’s stopping him from pulling the trigger and ridding the galaxy of one more Imperial asshole.

I want my foundling back, you son of a bitch.

Gideon merely smiles up at him. “Kill me and you’ll never know.”

“You think you’re getting out of this alive?” There’s a hint of amusement in Fennec’s voice, though Din really does have no intention of killing the man. For now. He’s very open to being persuaded otherwise.

“Cara, check the comms system.” He senses rather than sees her drop back, and a few electronic pings announce that she’s reached her destination. Stars, he hopes they’re still intact.

“Still working.” A small miracle, considering the sheer amount of panels the Jedi had torn from the wall to protect them in the fight. Several still send up sprays of sparks from where they’re strewn across the room like discarded toys. It’s more than a little intimidating to think that they’ve placed their trust in two beings capable of causing such destruction— and that his foundling could one day have the power and control to do the same.

“Send a transmission to the New Republic. Tell them we’ve found an Imperial they’ll want to get their hands on.” Cara laughs in reply, a certain flourish to her actions as she calls every New Republic cell in the sector to their location. It isn’t long before responses start trickling in, promising reinforcements at their earliest convenience— and in the case of an Imperial warlord takedown, that likely means everyone within receiving distance will drop everything and send every ship they have.

“How long until they arrive?”

“I’d say… about half an hour for the nearest one.” Din smiles bitterly under his helmet, adjusting his grip on his blaster to draw Gideon’s attention back to it. There’s a hint of genuine worry in the man’s demeanor. For once, things are going according to Din’s plan. 

“Then we have thirty minutes to comb this ship.”

-:-

They leave Gideon tied up with the binders they’d first used for the Jedi and fan out across the ship. Boba is the first one to locate the ship’s massive brig, and the others quickly converge on his commed coordinates, everyone eager to find Grogu and get the hell out of here. The Jedi hang back, either out of respect for Din’s privacy or fear of being separated again. Whatever the reason, he’s quietly happy to keep the reunion with Grogu between his crew alone.

They storm the brig in fighting formation, expecting anywhere between one and a dozen guards. But the place is blissfully silent, as if all their weeks of horrible luck have finally culminated in a winning streak that would turn a high-stakes gambler green with envy. He would almost consider it suspicious, but a discarded datapad reveals that the guards on this floor had been called to Gideon’s aid— and Din and the others have already ensured they won’t be coming back.

There are only three occupied cells, according to the brig record— he doesn’t ask how Boba and Fennec had managed to get access to that —and trial and error determines that Grogu should be in the final one. There’s a brief delay as Boba slices through the elaborate lock, the others clustering behind him in nervous anticipation, and the tension is so thick that Din can practically feel it shatter as the lock flashes green with a ping that seems to echo in the silent hall.

Din approaches the cell slowly, afraid of yet another disappointment. What if Gideon is keeping the kid somewhere else? What if Grogu is already gone, sequestered away by some loyal Imperial to continue the Moff’s plans? They’d certainly been given enough time, considering how long the blaster fight and subsequent search of the ship had taken.

But as he found the corner, he’s met with the familiar sight of the little green kid babbling happily at the appearance of a familiar face. At the appearance of his caretaker . Din’s vision instantly blurs with tears, and it takes considerable effort to keep his voice even through the sudden lump in his throat. He’s here. He’s really here.

“Hey, kid.”

Chapter Text

“Rey,” Oniho says quietly, tugging her hand to get her attention. “They had Jyn’s books.”

The sentence is so out of place here that she actually does a double take at the sound of her mother's name. With a quick glance over to the Mandalorians, all of whom are completely occupied by the joyous return of Din's foundling, she pulls Oniho off to the side and motions for the others to stay where they are. There's no reason to interrupt what is evidently a reunion far too long in the making; she can deal with this herself. “What do you mean?”

“When we— whenever they were taking us up to the command room, we had to wait in this big lab. They had Jedi stuff everywhere: all the symbols, and pictures of holograms and things. And they had one of Jyn's books. The drawings were the same,” he adds, as if expecting her to brush aside his concerns. “The wolves in a circle, like the circle in Jyn's room.”

Rey casts one last look over to the others, then rests a hand on Oniho’s shoulder. “Can you show me where they are?”

Fear and determination war across his force signature, but it’s bravery that finally wins out as he grabs hold of her hand and leads the way.

-:-

There’s no doubting it. Rey knows from the moment she lays eyes on the journal that it’s one of Galen’s. The worn leather cover, the nearly illegible handwriting, the sporadic way the sentences on the opened page jump from topic to topic… there’s no mistaking it for anything but her grandfather’s life’s work.

She can’t just let the journal stay here. No matter what effects it may have on the future, she can’t allow the research— her family’s research —to stay in the hands of people who would happily abuse it.

And if she can help Jyn rest easier by keeping her father’s work out of the hands of the fledgling First Order, then Rey has no regrets about slipping the book into the small satchel clipped to her belt and returning Galen’s research to the family he’d created it to protect.

“What about these?” Oniho holds up a few spare sheets of flimsi, each written in the same messy style as the journals. Rey takes one at random, inspecting the notes— and then reeling back at the sight of the familiar designs at the corners. She’s seen those creatures before, sprinting across the pages of the journal Jyn had given to her. A cursory glance over the text beside the wolf-like animals is all the confirmation she needs— it would be hard to miss the words Vergence Scatter, what with the way they’re underlined twice in thick lines of ink. And something else, the jagged edges of the paper where they’ve been torn from their binding…

These are the missing pages.

“They’re exactly what we need,” she tells Oniho, too eager to share the discovery to bother neatly tucking away the pages. She has a feeling they're the key they've been missing that will get them back home.

Now it's only a matter of actually getting there before the New Republic arrives.

Chapter Text

Din can’t help but feel apprehensive as his ship touches down on Tython for the third time. While Grogu babbles happily at the sight of the rocky hills and varied flora and fauna, the planet’s beauty is lost on Din, whose memories of the first time he had brought the foundling here taint the infectious joy of their return. If he never has to see this place again, he can die happy.

The Jedi had spent the majority of the short flight huddled around a book of some kind— an actual, physical book, made of flimsi and everything —though the three younglings had broken away from their little group every so often to talk to Grogu. They seem to have befriended him as quickly as Omera’s daughter Winta had back on Sorgan, and seeing his foundling so happy again is a comfort to Din after the turbulent weeks his foundling has had while separated from his crew. 

He can only begin to imagine the pain and fear Grogu must have felt at the absence of his caretaker. His father, though the word still feels too large a role for him to properly fill for the kid. Now that they’re back together again, he’s going to do better. Going to figure out how to do this whole parenting thing. And he’s going to start now. No more waiting for the ‘perfect moment’ that never comes, Din promises himself as he lowers the boarding ramp, smiling beneath his helmet as Grogu is the first to toddle down it.

Rey hangs back as the others spill out onto solid ground, matching her pace to Din’s. “Thank you,” she says after a moment. “Without your crew…”

“I could say the same to you.” She doesn’t bother to respond; both of them know that their gratitude for the other runs too deep for mere words. She and hers had taken a great risk in trusting him, almost as great as the risk he and his had taken with them. And by some miracle it had paid off. Their families have been reunited, and they’re safe from Gideon, and that’s all that matters at the moment. “The five of you… you’ll be alright from here?”

Rey just smiles, that same mysterious smile Ahsoka would give when hinting at some Jedi secret. “Of course we will. We’re going home.”

-:-

It’s her third round of goodbyes today, but this is one case where practice doesn’t make perfect. They’ve only known the Mandalorians for a few hours, and yet as the sun sinks over the horizon Rey can’t help but turn back to wave to them one last time before finally lifting the Falcon ’s boarding ramp. The others are already waiting in the cockpit, the kids half-asleep from the exhaustion of their tumultuous day and Ben watching her expectantly from the copilot’s seat.

Despite the sorrow of so many partings weighing heavily on all of them, Rey’s heart swells with an unexpected burst of love for all four of them, the kind of love she’d only dreamed of one day experiencing during her years on Jakku.

This is her family. These are her people.

It had taken the entirety of the trip back to Tython, but they’d finally managed to piece together the missing pages of the journal with what they already know about the Vergence Scatter. And now, finally… they’re going home.

“Ready?” Rey grins, giddy with excitement at the thought, and her enthusiasm spreads to the others in the space of a heartbeat. Even Temiri, half asleep from the exhaustion of using the Force so frequently in the past hour, manages a tired smile that she returns tenfold. She sinks into the pilot’s seat, her hand finding Ben’s on instinct as the Force bond hums with anticipation between them.

Ready.

They call out to the Force as one, channeling their dual power into the Seeing Stone. Threads of light appear before Rey’s eyes like the blue-white lines of hyperspace, and she plucks at them like Cassian had his guitar’s strings, strumming them until she and Ben tug on just the right combination to open the Vergence Scatter.

-:-

Din and the others stand a safe distance away from the Jedi’s ship, waving sporadically as they wait for it to take off. They haven’t even powered up the clunky old freighter yet, so he assumes they’re still getting situated. Perhaps the kids are watching over Rey and Ben’s shoulders like Grogu is wont to do, perhaps they’re explaining each part of the takeoff sequence the way Din does whenever his foundling shows interest in the ship.

It happens instantaneously, like the blink of an eye or the pulsing beat of a heart. One minute the Corellian freighter lies dormant, waiting for its pilots to direct it skyward, and the next there is only empty space where it had been. Din blinks several times, trying to spot some kind of cloaking device, but the telltale outline of the ship that such a device would leave is curiously absent.

The Jedi have disappeared into thin air.

He turns to the others, half wondering if he’d hallucinated the whole thing— he’s certainly been under enough stress to make it a possibility —but they appear equally confused. Din chalks it up to yet another strange Jedi thing. He’ll never understand these laser-sword-wielding wizards, so why pretend?

“Guess they made it home,” Cara says after a minute, and they’re all happy to accept this as true.

“Then our mission is complete.” Din doesn’t intend the words to be a command, but the others follow him back into the ship anyways, filing into the cockpit like foundlings following a teacher. For a moment, they stand in slightly cramped silence, staring at the console.

“Where to, captain?” Fennec asks, only mostly sarcastic.

Where to? He’s traveled to so many planets on his journey with the kid, and left behind so many people who would be glad to have them back. His first instinct is to return to Nevarro, then Sorgan. But an idea is slowly taking shape in his mind, and it’s a tempting one. Risky, yes. Potentially dangerous, of course. But they’ve survived worse, and besides… some part of him had always wanted to take his foundling home.

Din smiles under his helmet, looking around at his crew, at the people who have stuck with him through thick and thin, all to reunite him with Grogu. They’re his crew and his family, and damned if they aren’t his clan, too. And now here they are, waiting to take the first steps of their next mission together.

“Set a course for Mandalore.”

Chapter Text

When Rey opens her eyes, she’s almost blinded by the darkness. It stretches out endlessly, blanketing this empty realm of pure Force energy they’ve found themselves in like the night sky over a planet. She and the others silently take in the new landscape, and after she has a few minutes to adjust to the darkness, Rey is able to make out branching pathways leading all across the seemingly vacant space. They appear to be made from stars themselves, given how brightly they glow, and from the sensation of solid ground beneath her feet, they’re perfectly safe.

“Woah,” Temiri whispers, and the others laugh. He’s not wrong— there aren’t many ways to describe this reality-defying place, and woah might just be the best option.

Rey takes a few tentative steps forward, each footfall sending little ripples of light across the star-path they’re standing on. So gravity works regularly here, and the air is at least survivable. There’s a strangely musty quality to it, though, like this place has been abandoned for a long time.

Not that time exists here, in this world between worlds. Galen’s notes had been clear about that, if nothing else.

“A door,” Ben says incredulously, and she turns to see what he’s talking about. Behind them is a circular window-like structure made from the same star-stuff as the paths, and in it… Rey’s eyes go wide as she watches Din and his crew return to their ship and take off. “Access all of time and space for eternity… with a door.”

“A magic door,” Oniho adds, and Ben has to concede to that.

“So then… we have to find the door that takes us home.” Rey casts a look out at the maze of pathways unfolding before them. This could take a while.

She passes doors leading to fiery planets laced with darkness, and doors leading to verdant planets so very like the forests of Takodana, and a sandy planet with rolling oceans and a hulking black spear of a tower. Some of them call out to her, others seem to repel her very soul. A low hum of sound seems to seep from each one, though she can occasionally make out snatches of words from the dull cacophony of sound.

You were my brother, a man pleads, but the response is lost to time.

I am no Jedi, a woman declares, pride filling her voice. Rey smiles to herself in solidarity with the unknown being and continues on.

Trust the Force. The words stop her in her tracks, and she turns in the direction of the speaker only to find empty space. Strange. It had almost felt as if the woman had been speaking to her…

The kyber crystal pendant warms slightly, and she closes her hand around it out of pure habit, letting its calming energy wash over her. Only instead of the peace she’d expected, she feels a slight tug at the edge of her consciousness.

Trust the Force.

She follows the insistent little feeling through a complex series of pathways, passing by more doors than she can count. Some appear to lead to the ancient past, while others seem much more recent. A few even contain tech and dialects she’s never heard of before, and Rey savors these little glimpses into the future but doesn’t dare look closer.

Found it, she calls to the others as she approaches the door that she just knows is the one. She feels drawn to it the same way Lah’mu had called to her, and it’s clear from looks on the others’ faces as they approach that they feel it too.

The doorway is deceptively simple, ringed with the same creatures that had appeared in Galen’s journal. It leads, apparently, to a vast expanse of stars, but as Rey steps closer she can hear the unmistakable sound of Oniho’s laughter, followed by her own indistinct response. A glimpse of their lives before they’d fallen into the past.

This is the door that will take them home.

She reaches for Ben’s hand instinctively, and he laces his fingers with hers, holding on tight as she slowly approaches the door. The kids follow in kind until all five of them are joined in a neat line, approaching the star-studded darkness with complete trust.

After you, Ben whispers, and Rey steps through the door.

Chapter Text

Rey half expects to fall through the doorway into the gravity-free field of stars. But her feet land on solid ground, and when she looks down, the familiar metal plates that make up the Falcon’s floors meet her eyes. The others follow through the door after her, and Temiri has only just stepped through when the door to the Vergence Scatter disappears, as if it had only been a figment of her imagination.

As if the past few weeks have been nothing but a dream.

The only indication that they’ve gone anywhere at all is the fact that they’re standing in a different section of the Falcon, but Rey can’t remember for the life of her whether it’s the same place she’d been standing when they’d been thrown back in time. It had been so many days ago…

Ben takes off down the corridor, making his way to the cockpit with the others following close behind. There’s no indicators that they’ve reached the correct time, though Rey silently notes that the Falcon could use some new hull plating, possibly thanks to the stress of their firefight and resulting crash, as well as the ship’s two trips through time and space.

“Did it work?” Arashell asks, looking out the viewport as if it holds the answer to the time they’ve found themselves in. Rey’s about to suggest they search for Alderaan, only slightly sarcastically, but she reaches across the dash instead, fiddling with the controls until she connects the ship to a private Resistance channel. Leia had insisted upon setting it up during the war to give Rey a way to keep in contact with her while off ‘doing Jedi things,’ though she’s never had much use for it. She’ll probably never hear the end of it from the general, who’d always insisted it would come in handy one day, but for now she’s just happy to have a way to gauge where they are— or rather, when they are.

Broadcasting a distress signal is the easiest task she’s had all day, but the tense silence that comes after is almost as draining as the sheer amount of energy it had taken to storm Gideon’s cruiser and open the Vergence Scatter. A minute passes, then two. A hundred heartbeats. Two hundred. Three—

“Rey?”

At the sound of Leia’s voice, relief hits her like a bolt of Force lightning. She can’t help the heady fit of laughter that must make it sound like she’s going mad, at least from Leia’s point of view. Ben sweeps her into an embrace before she has time to reply, nearly knocking her off her feet in the process, and the kiss they share tastes like pure happiness.

The Force swirls with bright coils of joy, and they pull away from one another to share relieved smiles with the kids. We made it. We really made it. Swept up in their impromptu celebration, Rey doesn’t realize they haven’t actually responded to Leia until her voice crackles through the comm channel once again: “Hello? This is a private frequency. You shouldn’t—”

“It’s us, Leia.” She laughs again, delirious with joy. “All five of us.”

“Well in that case…” A hint of a dry smile seeps into her tone. “Alright, you five. Let me patch you into a mainstream channel. Force knows you’ve got weeks of missed comms to catch up on.”

Right. To the rest of the galaxy, it must seem as if they’ve merely gone underground for a little while. Perhaps a few have begun to entertain the idea that they’re shirking their duties in favor of a little vacation from the world of politics. The truth, that they’d traveled through time itself, is almost laughable when compared to such reasonable excuses.

Another familiar voice pours from the radio, and she fights back another swell of pure joy. It won’t do to have the Last Jedi bursting into giggles during a report, after all.

“This is General Poe Dameron speaking. Please state your name and business.” He sounds as busy as ever, the stress of rebuilding an entire government system finding its way into his voice.

She starts to speak, then hesitates. The last few weeks crash through her mind in the span of seconds, and her next words rest on the tip of her tongue for far too long as she considers whether to voice them or stick to what’s expected of her. The others wait for her to speak, perhaps anticipating what she’s about to say— and graciously pretending they haven’t been privy to her silent deliberations about this exact topic ever since leaving Lah’mu.

Rey’s fingers trace the initials carved into her pendant as she steps closer to the mic. “This is Rey Andor, reporting from the Outer Rim.” She takes a shaky breath, looking to the others with a grin. “We’re home.”

Chapter Text

Rey’s boots sink into the loamy soil of Lah’mu’s surface as she steps off the boarding ramp. It’s just her and Ben today— the kids are back on Coruscant with Leia, who’d insisted they take a break from traveling after hearing the truth of their weeks-long disappearance. She’s the only person they’ve told the full story since returning; they’d been reluctant to share with the rest of the galaxy that time traveling is a possibility for fear of upsetting the already tenuous peace between the Resistance and First Order with another power struggle.

Are you sure about this? Rey tries to brush off his concerns with a smile, but the truth is she’s not sure. The possibility that her parents are still alive, that she could be reunited with them once again, is tantalizing to say the least. But her parents had taken her away from this place for a reason— something had put them in danger, and she can’t imagine a galaxy in which Jyn and Cassian would needlessly endanger themselves or their daughter by returning.

Still, she has far more questions than answers, and returning to her homeworld seems like a good place to start.

She’s been remembering more and more from her childhood. Most of it comes to her in dreams— the way her room had looked, the mischief she’d made with the help of K-2SO, the hours spent following her parents through the fields and asking endless questions about anything and everything she’d laid eyes on. Sometimes she wakes with tears staining her cheeks, and she knows she’s dreamt of the day they’d left her behind on Jakku. But more mysteries remain than she’s able to remember— like the reason they’d left in the first place.

So here they are. Back on Lah’mu. Searching for answers once again. They take the long way to the Andors’ home, fear stalling Rey’s strides until Ben takes her hand and practically drags her out of her shuffling pace. She wants to be here, she truly does… but the one thing that terrifies her more than knowing Jyn and Cassian had willingly abandoned her is the possibility that she’ll return to this place only to find them dead, or long gone. Anything could have happened in those twenty years since they’d said goodbye.

They walk past the peaceful shores of the obsidian beach, past the stretching fields of crops still carefully tended two decades later, past the stone tablets marking Rey’s grandparents’ graves. Her apprehension grows with each stone slab of the pathway to the house that she passes, hope warring with her old instincts to prepare for the worst.

The door is the hardest part. It looms before her, a single sheet of metal separating her from the truth. For the longest time, Rey simply stands in front of it, terrified of what lies behind. But her curiosity wins out in the end. She has to know the truth about what happened to her parents, even if it tears her heart to pieces. She’s survived losing them before, and damned if she can’t do it again.

She raps her knuckles against the door several times, heartbeat spiking as the sound of footsteps echoes on the other side of the metal slab. Each footfall brings the house’s occupant closer, and panic shoots through Rey’s body as she hears them slow to a stop. 

Breathe, Ben reminds her, though she can hear the anxiety threading through his voice. He’s as nervous as she is, and neither of them want to tip the balance of luck out of their favor with even the slightest action. Before them, the door starts to slide open, the old mechanisms squealing in protest after too many decades of welcoming unexpected guests.

Rey squares her shoulders and prepares to take the next step forward into her past.

Chapter Text

1. Sing to Me, MISSIO
2. Everybody Gets High, MISSIO
3. In Over My Head, grandson
4. Apologize, grandson
5. Bury Me Low, 8 Graves
6. Bury Me Face Down, grandson
7. I Hope Your World is Kind, Auri
8. Half Light, BANNERS
9. Oh No!!!, grandson
10. I See You, MISSIO
11. Escapist, Nightwish
12. War of Change, Thousand Foot Krutch
13. Dizzy, MISSIO
14. This Side of Paradise, Coyote Theory
15. Happy Face, Jagwar Twin
16. The Water is Fine, Chloe Ament
17. In The End, Linkin Park
18. Taikatalvi, Nightwish
19. Hunger of the Pine, Alt-J
20. Welcome Home, Radical Face
21. The Darker the Weather // The Better the Man, MISSIO
22. Where’s My Love, SYML
23. thoughts & prayers, grandson
24. Drop Dead, grandson
25. Dog Days are Over, Florence & The Machine
26. Blood // Water, grandson
27. Nothing Personal, Des Rocs
28. We Are Who We Are, MISSIO
29. Overdose, grandson
30. Vagabond, MISSIO
31. Twisted, MISSIO
32. Long Time Coming, Jagwar Twin
33. Fear of the Water, SYML
34. House of Gold, twenty one pilots
35. Despicable, grandson

Bonus: I headcanon the song Cassian sings in Chapter 22 to be Te Amo y Más from the Book of Life as it is sung by Diego Luna!