Kindred Souls

~A/N: All characters belong to Rainbow Rowell, Disney (geh), or the numerous, wonderful EU authors. **Spoilers for TFA**~

                                                                                    FRIDAY

                                                                       18TH DECEMBER 2015

     The cockpit of the Millennium Falcon was the most wonderful thing Elena had ever seen. To be specific, the two-dimensional co-pilot's chair was the most wonderful thing she'd ever seen. Chewbacca's glass eyes sparkled at her from his customary spot in the co-pilot's chair, his synthetic fur just as matted and patchy as she remembered. Her dad had decorated the room when she was about five years old, and she was fairly certain she was the only eighteen-year-old that hadn't changed bedroom décor.

      Elena kicked the door closed, too tired to even make her customary "psshhch-fshhck" sound as she did. She really needed to just record the noise and set it to play at every move of the door. Tomorrow. When her brain was working. When she was absolutely positive that the Han Solo poster wasn't suddenly animate and winking at her.

     Her gaze was torn between the bed and its faux co-pilot's chair comforter and the door to the bathroom—painted like the door to the crew quarters. She wanted to sleep. She also smelled like the inside of a tauntaun (she wasn't giggling hysterically at her own joke; she just wasn't) so she wanted to shower. Could she shower and sleep? Could she shower and sleep and eat?

    She stumbled forward and pushed open the crew quarters door. Her shower head was Darth Vader's helmet (so what if she bathed in Vader's tears? It was not disturbed. Absolutely not) and her towels sported C-3PO and R2D2. Food would have to wait, she decided as she pushed aside her Death Star shower curtain. She had never so desperately wished for New Republic era ration bars.

   Elena woke up when Vader's tears (saliva?) turned cold. She squeaked, lathering up and rinsing off as quickly as possible. She was mildly frustrated at herself for using up all the hot water sleeping. It would have been a better idea to clean up first, especially considering that her hair seemed like a nest for womp rats. Too bad Luke wasn't around to shoot them. Of course, Wedge would have to tag along to give Luke a flat look as he did, and grumble, "just like shooting womp rats, eh, kid? JUST LIKE IT."

    She was giggling hysterically again. Is this what sleep deprivation usually did to people? She'd always had a strange crush on Wedge, his personality, really—she blamed that on the Expanded Universe, it was just dastardly to make literary pilots that attractive, and the authors had done that with Wedge and Gavin Darklighter. Gabe reminded her a lot of Wedge.

    Where had that thought come from? The sleep deprivation, probably. Darth Zannah could more aptly use her Sith sorcery on sleep-deprived minds. Elena glared around her Millennium Falcon cockpit as she wandered to her bed with its co-pilot's chair printed on the comforter. She didn't even pull the seat-printed cover around her as she tumbled into the bed and fell asleep to dreams of Star Wars.

   "EEEL-EEEE-NEERDD!"

   The voice that startled Elena from sleep was absolutely thunderous. It was like the scream of the Death Star's laser, and just as unwelcome. She'd been sleeping on Cloud freaking City, for Pete's sake. Minus Boba Fett and Darth Vader, of course. Plus the running guy with the ice-cream maker. She'd always held ice-cream-maker-guy in a special place in her heart.

   Footsteps pounded up the stairs, and she grumpily realized that it was probably not ice-cream-maker-guy. That thunderous Deathray scream came again, "ELE-NERD!"