I Can Get It Back

I Feel the Smile that I Wish I Had But These Moments are Projections of the Past

At dawn the next morning, Rey left Tattooine. She left behind everything from her projects, taking only her blaster and lightsaber with her. Neither Force ghost appeared to her again, which was something of a relief. The concept of ghosts was not a pleasant one, nor was it something she knew a great deal about. Who had this power? How long would it last?

No answers were forthcoming so she took the small ship she'd borrowed and headed back toward the center of the galaxy. It would take the better part of a day to get there, but she was in no hurry. She sat in the cockpit, watching the lights flash and change as she flew past places she had never been, worlds she had never seen. Might never see.

She had been to more planets in the last year than she could ever have imagined visiting. If she had been lived somewhere other than Jakku, she could remember nothing before its shifting sands buried everything else. But now she had seen so much of the galaxy and it had brought her joy every time. Even seeing the wasteland of Tattooine had been a thrill – Luke Skywalker really had grown up in a similar situation to herself.

But what did that matter now? Any similarities she had to her childhood hero were meaningless. Her abilities came from the most evil man in the galaxy – her grandfather – not anything special about herself. She had been devastated when Ben had helped her admit that her parents were nobodies. But this was far worse. They could have hidden her anywhere – why Jakku? Was there really nothing they could have done to save her? Why had they not joined the Resistance, or even told anyone, that the Emperor was still alive? It made no sense.

Rey pulled herself from her thoughts when she realized that anything not tied down in the cockpit was floating haphazardly around her. They crashed down onto the floor as soon as she noticed, the jarring sound reflective of her own feelings. In the heat of battle, there had been little time to process her lineage. But now... She wasn't one of the heroes, a Skywalker or a Solo. She wasn't even a nobody. No, she was the descendent of pure evil. If she had been anyone else, she knew she could help the Resistance rebuild the galaxy. But what could the granddaughter of the person who had orchestrated this dystopia possibly offer anyone?

A few hours later, her ship dropped out of lightspeed. She wiped her hands on her trousers, aware that there was probably grease on her face and that her clothes were stained. Still, it had been nice to work on repairs instead of thinking. She headed back to the pilot's seat and flew the rest of the way into Coruscant. The city planet was overwhelming, especially after the quiet of the desert. It took her full concentration to find where she was going and to navigate there safely, even with the automation of the ship helping her along the way.

It still felt like a novelty that the Resistance was no longer in hiding, that she didn't have to take evasive maneuvers to return to them or go through any hidden channels to contact them. No, anyone could go to Coruscant and see her friends in the Capitol now. It was completely different from the last year of her life, and, she realized, her childhood as well. To live out in the open would be a very new experience.

She made contact with the tower and was given a landing site. It was a busy place, but she was excited at the prospect of walking through some of the city before likely being stuck indoors for some time – if her previous experience before she left for Tattooine was any indication. There had been a lot of stuffy rooms and fraught conversations that had made her think there must be something she could do until things died down a bit. Hopefully they had.

Since she hadn't told anyone she was returning today, she was surprised to find that people were waiting for her when she arrived. To her consternation, none of them were her friends – just regular people.