Revenant

by NelKestrel

Summary:

Rey holds the key to finding Luke Skywalker in her mind. Taken from Jakku and made prisoner on the Finalizer, she faces the famed Kylo Ren. It is the Master of the Knights of Ren who is tasked with extricating this integral information. But more than just Skywalker's location is locked in the scavenger's head. And what's hidden there, even from Rey herself, may change the course of the war.

A canon verse fic from the days of old

Notes:

Hiii, so I've been a longtime reader of Reylo works, but this is my first foray into writing one of my own. I'm not reinventing the wheel here; I'd say this story will be an amalgamation of different aspects that exist in the Reylo canon, though made my own! I write original fiction irl, which remains my first priority, but I will try to post relatively consistently (I have a few chapters already written). Though I kinda know where this is going, I'm pantsing, which is also a first as I am an avid plotter. Basically I struggle with perfectionism in my original fiction, so this is an exercise in letting go/overcoming the aforementioned perfectionism.

As far as how canon compliant this is, I would say I use the canon when it serves me, and I twist and ignore it when that serves me. So there will be some similarities, but I am taking LIBERTIES!

Also droids have feelings.
Also Also BB-8 is a boy because I said so.

Chapter 1: Dreams of Fire

It was warm under her covers, too warm. Rey kicked the blanket off. Something like pure heat licked across her shin. With a gasp, she drew her legs up. The air was thick, dry. It was choking. Rey opened her eyes to a room on fire.

For a moment, she didn’t move. She watched the flame swallow her discarded blanket. She watched it lash against stone walls. There were screams outside her door. High, keening. Pain and fear seeped through the walls. They moved like physical things, curling around her, thrumming through her chest, holding her captive before they passed, before she realized she couldn’t breathe.

It was too late when she sprung from the bed, leaping a flaming rug. Her door was already on fire. Panic, her own this time, built as she spun, as her eyes raked across the strange room. She didn’t know this place. The windows opposite the door were narrow things, too small even for a child to fit through, just three slashes of night in a wall of fire.

Rey’s eyes stung. She would cry if they were so terribly dry. With no other option, she reached for the door. There was no handle. Gasping breath, Rey stared at it—horrified. A datapad hung next to it, the kind you might press your hand to. But its edges had melted, leaving the whole thing warped and askew.

The scent of burning plastic filled Rey’s nose. Desperate, she tried to press her hand to it anyway. What came up was too small, a child’s hand, really. Rey blinked at it. She was losing her mind. She’d taken in too much smoke, and she was losing her mind. After a moment’s hesitation, she flattened that wrong hand to the pad. The pain was instant, searing. She drew back and was sure she left some skin behind. The door didn’t budge. The pad hadn’t even lit.

Rey clutched her hand to her chest. Kriff. Kriff. There was no way out. She was breathing quickly, too quickly. Her feet were burning. A sway had taken hold, and she wasn’t sure how much longer she could stay upright.

But without her help, something was building in her chest, something jagged and desperate, something too large, too volatile for her body. It was fear turned corporal, buzzing, growing. It swelled up from her chest, and Rey released it with a scream. It tore from her, her body merely a vessel. The sound was deafening. Rey’s hands went to her ears. The windows shattered; shards of glass cut across her as the door blew off its hinges, careening into a corridor of flame.

Without the energy, she nearly collapsed. Her legs shook as she stumbled over the wreckage. The strange nightgown she wore had caught along the hem. Fire crept its way up. Rey swayed. She caught herself against the wall, and flame ate at her sleeves. The screams had died out. Now the only sound that filled this place was a hungry crackle. It was a fight to stay upright. Whatever she had expelled had depleted her, left her a shell.

Rey blinked at the fire-filled corridor. Where was she? Terror was unfurling. Doors like her own interspersed down either side. On the ceiling, pot lights flickered. She couldn’t make out the end of the corridor. All she could see was fire. All she could feel was burning.

There was nowhere to go. She didn’t know the way out. Next to her, sparks showered from a dying pot light. Rey stumbled. Her foot struck something. She went down hard, her chin striking the stone. Blood pooled readily in her mouth.

Rey coughed, choking on it, choking on the smoke too. The ground beneath her felt wrong. It was uneven—soft. Rey pulled herself up on her hands and knees and loosed a sob. It was a body, still warm, still burning. She scrambled off it, managing to make it to her feet only to sway into the wall. She thought her hair might be burning. She thought all of her might be burning. She fell. This time there was no hope of rising. Her limbs wouldn’t work. She blinked dully at the flames, each bat of her eyes stretching longer than the last. Her head settled on the stone. Her next blink showed her a corridor on its side.

Heat built. Rey was slipping. A voice pulled her back, not screaming, calling out, calling for her.

She could feel them, drawing closer. She could taste their terror like it was her own. Rey fought to open her eyes. A figure, tall, silhouetted in fire, closed on her. Her gaze flicked down to the blue glow of his blade, and then her eyes slid closed.

Rey woke with a gasp. She reared up and slammed her head on the remnants of a side-mounted blaster. Pain throbbed out from the point of contact. Her hand shot up instantly, and a lump swelled eagerly beneath it. Wincing, she kicked her blankets off. She was drenched in sweat, her nightclothes sticking to her.
Her doll, or her poor approximation of a doll, made from string and old oil rags left at the outpost, stared up at her from the floor. Quickly, Rey slipped from her bed, snatching up Mya and replacing her carefully atop the bed.

Kriff. Her clothes needed a wash. Her sheets did too. But she wouldn’t be able to spare the water rations for weeks. Rey peeled off her nightdress, hanging it on the line rigged up between the offending side-mounted blaster and her drawers.

That dress was her only one. With no other options, she pulled on her day clothes, looking gloomily at the porthole above her bed. First sun rose early on Jakku, but no light slipped through.
She stripped her ruined sheets, hefting them to the door she’d rigged in her walker’s belly. Outside, her feet sank immediately into the sand. It took two tries to throw the sweat-soaked cloth over the side of the walker. Sand would blanket it before morning came, but there was no room to hang it inside.

Heart pounding, Rey collapsed into the sand, leaning against the side of her walker. She pressed her palms to her eyes. The thump in her chest remained a little too quick for comfort. She’d had that dream before.

Rey let her head rest back as she stared up at the stars, breathing in dry but blessedly cool air. No fire. She told herself, running her palms back and forth over skin scarred only by the snags on old starships. Not real. Still her heart beat, like she was there, like the flames were creeping over her.

Rey let her eyes sweep idly over the dunes. She could never fall back asleep after that dream. All she could do was sit up and wait until the panic left her system. She pulled her knees to her chest, resting her chin atop them. There was a distant shifting of sands, and she closed her eyes before the gust came. Sand rained over her. Rey could always predict when those gusts would come, better than anyone she’d met at the outpost.

When the wind ebbed, Rey opened her eyes and found a blot on the horizon. It was strange, tiny and distant, but undoubtedly wrong. She knew these dunes; their shapes changed slowly. There was never newness, only steady evolution. She narrowed her eyes at that blot—round, cresting the highest dune in the distance. It was moving.

Rey stood abruptly. She darted back inside her walker, snatching her staff from its spot by the door. Hopping, she jammed her feet into too-small boots and took off. The blot was closer now, larger. She could make out not just one sphere but a second half one resting on top. It was a droid. Despite herself, she felt a swell of excitement.

Droids were friendly—usually. Rey swung her staff over her shoulder. A gesture of goodwill. Better to show that she was friendly too. The droid moved quickly. It dipped down over a dune, and Rey caught sight of it in the valley when she crested her own. The droid stopped, the blinking light on its head fixed on her. Rey held up her hands, showing them to be empty as she descended into the valley.

“Hello.”

The droid's head whizzed, doing a full survey of the area before it turned back to her. It beeped once. A hello. She wasn’t great with binary. She’d picked up as much as she could from droids passing through Niima outpost, but traders didn’t usually let their help wander. Smugglers allowed even less.

She’d never had a chance to try anything past pleasantries.

“My name's Rey.” She touched a hand to her chest. “What’s your name?”

The droid jerked closer. Its head spun again before it emitted three more beeps—two short, one long. BB-8… She thought.

When she tested it, the droid gave a chirp of assent. And Rey felt rather good about her binary abilities.

“Are you lost?”

Niima outpost wasn’t far. The droid must have been separated from its crew.

Two quick beeps—help.

Rey nodded emphatically. “Yes, yes, I can help you find your way back. We'll have to wait till morning. It’s too dangerous to cross the sinking fields at night, but I’ll bring you to Niima Outpost at sunrise. Is that where you flew in?”

The droid’s head drooped forward with a low beep. No. Rey frowned. Kelvin Outpost was days away, too far of a trip for her to make without running out of rations. It was also west. BB-8 had come from the east.

“Okay,” Rey said carefully. She chewed on her lip trying to find a solution. “Well, we can check the starship port at Niima. Maybe someone has heard something.”
Two more quick beeps—help.

Something cold slid into the pit of Rey’s stomach. Some pilots liked to claim droids didn’t feel anything. But this droid was scared. Rey could feel it, no different than if it was a person opposite her.

“Okay,” she nodded, still grasping for an answer. There was no way she could take BB-8 to Kelvin. “Well, how about you come with me? I have shelter. We can wait there until the sun comes up.”

An eager beep. Rey eyed the droid anxiously. What was it so scared of?

She turned, gesturing awkwardly back the way she’d come. It wasn’t a long walk, but as BB-8 set off after her, she could hear the grind of the sand caught in his spinning mechanism. The droid was moving at a crawl by the time they reached her walker. She had to heft him over the lip of her doorway. He slipped her hands and landed with a clunk.

Rey grimaced. “Sorry.”

BB-8 beeped in forgiveness, but when he tried to move, his sphere only ground into the half one, letting out a high scream of metal on metal.

“Just a sec!” Rey hopped over BB-8, scrambling to the back of the walker. She tugged open the top drawer, slammed it closed, and tried another. Kriff, she knew she had it somewhere. She’d used it just a week ago to detach a half-functional compressor—got four portions off that find, so where– There, the pin tool was hidden beneath her wire cutters.

“Got it!” She held the tool high for BB-8 to see.

She was rewarded with a feeble chirp of thanks. Rey shuffled the tight quarters back towards BB-8. Kneeling before the droid, she prodded the body access cover. It sprung, and sand poured out onto her knees. Rey grit her teeth as it blanketed the floor. She really should have done that outside.

BB-8 though, gave another chirp of thanks, a little heartier this time.

“You're welcome.” Rey frowned. “That should help with the weight. Now let me see if I can clear your spinning mechanism. She fiddled with the panel a little higher up. Sometimes BB units usually had a detachment mechanism that allowed you to temporarily remove the head. She wedged her pin tool in the edge and tried to pry it open. The latch wouldn’t come this time. And when she pressed harder, BB-8 reared back.

“Sorry.” Rey followed, twisting her pin tool. “I swear you’ll feel better once I–”

The latch gave. It wasn’t the one she was looking for. Instead, a drawer sprung out. In it was a silver bar—thick and asymmetrical, but no longer than her thumb.

BB-8’s photoreceptor blinked surveyingly as she lifted the silver chunk.

A long beep followed by a short one. It took Rey a moment to find a translation that made sense. “Cargo?”

A beep of assent.

“You're carrying this somewhere?”

Another beep.

“To someone on Jakku?”

Three beeps. Rey stilled.

“What was that?” she breathed.

Three beeps. The same three. She hadn’t misheard. Resistance.

Rey stood abruptly. She was harbouring a resistance droid. Pilots in the outpost had been killed for less than this. But the silver was warm in her hand. Rey’s heart beat quickly. She let her thumb trace over the cubic thing. There was an intangible sort of draw—a need. Her eyes drifted back to BB-8.

“What is it?” Her own voice sounded distant.

BB-8 was silent.

“I’ll help you,” she said quickly, a whisper, as if her walker wasn’t miles from the nearest dwelling. As if someone might hear her. “I just– I need to know what it is.”

Silence stretched. She was sure the droid would say nothing, but then came another beep–short, clipped.

Map.

The hard edges dug into Rey’s palm. She turned it slowly, studying the strange markings, letting her nail catch in the indents.

A low beep sounded to her right. Then another.

Show you?

An offer.

Rey stared at the droid. She shouldn’t. The less she knew, the better. She could take BB-8 to Niima whether she looked at the map or not. But Rey was nodding; she was leaning back down and placing the map within the compartment BB-8 offered. The mechanism clicked. It retracted with a groan, and then her walker was bathed in blue. An entire star system hung there in miniature. And across it, a path. Rey followed the line, walking dazedly towards the planet at its end. She reached up, touching the phantom thing, and a wave crashed over her. She was on her knees—dry, in her walker, tasting a phantom breath of salt.

Rey blinked. There was another mechanical groan, and the blue light vanished. It was a moment before she looked to BB-8, before she could breathe again.

“Thank you,” she said, a little choked, a part of her still caught beneath the wave. “Thank you for showing me.”

BB-8 chirped once, and then again, after she’d retaken her pin tool and cleared the sand from the cash. With his ability to move functional once more, BB-8 nudged her shin gently. Rey forced a smile, moving unsteadily to her stripped bed. She sank onto it, pulling Mya into her lap, seeing water, seeing fire.

Chapter 2: Niima

At first light, Rey was hefting BB-8 back over the lip in her doorway. She slung her staff over one shoulder, then slung her half-full scavenging bag over the other. She might as well visit Unkar while she was there. She’d started trying to build up parts before she traded them.

A trip to Niima spent enough energy that it would negate anything less than three portions. Rey had learned to ration that out over four days. She’d made it five before. But that had left her lightheaded, and she’d nearly plummeted the width of a star destroyer. After that, she didn’t push past four.

They set off north, keeping to the tops of the dunes. It took longer that way, the path meandering, but it was the safest way to cross the sinking fields. And while Rey could navigate the valleys with a bit of concentration, she didn’t have great faith in BB-8.

Niima rose, a blur on the horizon. It was hardly an oasis. The scatter of buildings set a hollowness in her chest. She’d die without them, she reminded herself. They may not provide everything she wanted. But they gave her what she needed.

When they descended the final dune, Rey pulled out her pin tool and cleared BB-8 of sand. They’d had to stop twice along the way, and still an enormous flood was expelled around her.

“You’re really not cut out for desert, are you?”

At her shins came a mournful beep.

Niima was thankfully flat, and the sand so packed that all that shifted atop it was a layer of dust. With any luck, she wouldn’t need to clear BB-8 again. She led him past the line forming outside Unkar’s hut and towards the Starport.

The outpost was busy. These things ebbed and flowed, but Rey was almost certain it was the busiest she’d seen it in a cycle. The scavenging tent, rigged up not too far from Unkar’s hut, was full. Rey was immensely glad she’d cleaned her haul back at the walker. Scrubbing them elbow to elbow with folks who had notoriously light fingers was never a pleasant experience. A heavy-set man brushed past her, and Rey clutched her bag tighter. It was a different kind of greed that lived on Jakku. Scavengers did not fight for wealth. They fought for survival, and that was a far more desperate game.

As they neared the port, Rey counted ships all the way down to the third stake. She glanced down. BB-8 was taking in the sight rapidly, head spinning after any hunched body that passed.

“Recognized anyone?” Rey asked hopefully.

A short beep—no.

Rey worried her lip. If they couldn’t find anything here, she really couldn’t afford to take him to Kelvin.

“Focus on the ships,” Rey said, slipping past the Starport Master when he turned to help a Twi'lek who was extremely angry about a scratch on her YT-1300. Picking up her pace before the man could turn back around, Rey led BB-8 up the first row. “Let me know if you see anything familiar.”

The first row offered nothing. They walked the second and the third, and BB-8 remained silent. Rey turned them around at the stake. BB-8 trailed slower after her. She didn’t think it had anything to do with accumulating sand.

Feeling dread unfurl in her stomach, Rey led BB-8 back out past the Starport Master, ignoring his high threats that he’d ticket a ship parked without payment. She glanced back the way they’d come; Unkar was leaning out his hut, talking to a group of men dressed in black. Passers-through, they had to be; no Jakku native would be caught in black. Rey thought she ought to give BB-8 a better look at them, but the longer she watched the men, the more unsettled she felt.

Heeding the prickle at the back of her neck, Rey turned north instead, towards the cantina. Their last hope of finding BB-8’s contacts was in there. Patrons spilled out the doors. Rey hesitated as she came upon it, and BB-8 ran into the back of her leg. She hissed, leaning down to rub out the ache. “Careful,” she chided, eying that overflowing doorway. From it, a man whistled in her direction, and Rey grit her teeth; she really tried to avoid the cantina.

What sounded like a commotion had erupted inside, and it had more sweat-slicked brows stumbling out, one of them knocking Rey’s shoulder as he went. Lovely. With a breath of resignation, Rey started for the door. BB-8 followed, his photoreceptor fixed on the building.

“Don’t run over any feet in there,” she advised, stepping below the shade of the awning. “Technically droids aren't allowed in, but no one really enforces–”

Rey flattened herself to the ground. She felt the buzz of the blaster as it soared over her back. Her heart pounded, her breath came quick, and she was dragging in dust. There was a flash of heat as return fire caught the awning above them and set the thing aflame.

Still pressed to the ground, Rey swung her gaze back over her shoulder. There was a stormtrooper. Rey blinked, struggling for a moment to comprehend the sight. Troopers came through every now and then, but they never– More fire, coming from the cantina this time. The stormtrooper ducked behind the north watering hole.

Reinforcements. White armoured figures were pouring from the starport. There came a crash behind her, and Rey looked back to see the cantina’s windows broken. Bodies were diving through the gaps and charging out the side doors. It was chaos as they sprinted for cover.

Rey tried to get her feet under her only to be knocked astray as a Rodian barreled past. A boot struck her temple, and for a moment, she lost BB-8 in the crush. There was a mess of legs around her, running every which way.

Kriff.

With her elbows out, Rey managed to pull herself up. Where was he? She ducked as another barrage of blaster fire ricocheted her way. Figures fled around her. Where was he? A resistance droid had wandered into her orbit, and now the First Order was besieging Niima Outpost. Rey wasn’t foolish enough to think that a coincidence.

The black figures were charging over to join the troopers. Blaster fire was leaving the cantina in steady streams, sending up spray and rubble from the watering hole, behind which the First Order’s troops had formed up.

A man wielding a blaster cannon appeared in the cantina doorway, sending out a bolt that struck a moisture vaporator and, with a boom, rendered it ash. Debris showered. A great crack sounded above, and before Rey could identify it, the awning came crashing down, drowning her in its flaming folds.

She was burning again. The heat’s familiar lick seared her skin. Rey crawled as fast as she could, fighting the other bodies trapped beneath it, catching limbs as all of them crawled blind. Something sharp and metal clamped onto the cloth at her shoulder, and suddenly Rey was being pulled the other way. She screamed, thrashing hard, but that claw held firm. She was fighting the thing when the blue sky broke above her.

Rey stilled. BB-8’s red light blinked down at her as he retracted a metal arm into his body. A harsh breath of relief left her, and she let her fingers trail the smooth edge of his side in thanks. It was all she could offer. She couldn’t speak. Her heart was in her throat, part of her still lost in a dream.

Sand stung the singed skin on her forearms, and all she could smell was burnt hair. She blinked at a cantina thoroughly aflame.

“Come on,” she choked through the smoke, dragging herself to her hands and knees, then her feet. “We have to get out of here.”

But BB-8 was whizzing past her, kicking up dust in his wake. He was making for the cantina, rolling over the still-burning awning as he went. He moved fast, heeding the beckoning hand from the cantina’s doorway—the resistance.

Rey was frozen, watching the droid go, watching Niima Outpost burn. Her task was complete; BB-8 was the resistance’s problem now. She should run. Escape while she was still breathing, before the flames found her again. But she was arrested, watching the droid move, watching him stop.

For a moment, Rey thought sand had collected in his body once more. But then he was moving again. The other way. He hovered slightly, inches off the ground, as he was pulled back towards the men in black.

No.

Rey took off, pulling her staff from her back. She sprinted for him, charging through the flames. It was too late. BB-8 had been yanked into the clutches of the First Order. Rey kept running. From the cantina, a grim order was called. And then the cannon that had obliterated the moisture vaporator was fixed on BB-8.

It fired. And the scared droid who followed her across the dunes exploded in a blaze of fire. The force of the blast knocked Rey back. She landed hard, head pounding, ears ringing. She could taste blood in her mouth. It trickled down her throat, and her stomach turned. She blinked bursts of light from her eyes, rolling onto her side. Her ears rung as she watched the resistance retreat. They were pouring out the cantina’s side door, and the stormtroopers were giving chase.

Rey got her knees under her, then stopped. BB-8’s photoreceptor had landed next to her. It blinked once, vibrant, red, then the light went out. Tears stung her eyes. Her throat swelled. She touched the jagged thing lightly, and then a blast behind her slammed her back into darkness.

This time it was a hand that rolled her over. There was a wetness—warm, sticky. It was dripping down her face and into her eyes. Her ribs screamed. Rey thought she might have landed on the scraps of metal packed tight in her bag. The grip on her bicep turned choking, and Rey tried to tug herself free but managed only to slump her body the other way.

A gloved hand pressed carelessly to her bloodied temple. She gasped at the pain, then again as something dull prodded the perimeters of her mind. It was gone as quickly as it had come. So was the hand. Above her, the blur of black stepped back.

“She’s seen the map.” The words were low and clipped beneath his mask. “Secure her on the ship and alert Master Ren.”

Notes:

Sorry to the BB-8 fans...

Notes:

Thank you so much for reading!!!! <333333 Please feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you thought! I'll be happy to respond!!! I've made it so guests can comment too!