Facing the Dawn with Sleepless Eyes ...

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Han was sitting in the curved bench of the Millennium Falcon’s galley with a half full glass of a colorless liquid in his hand. It was a loose, but familiar grasp. Like he had held a glass like this a thousand times and he knew exactly how to wrap his fingers around it comfortably. Whatever he was drinking smelled kind of like what leaks out of a power coupler when it’s busted.

He happens to be drinking it slowly, at least.

His other hand is occupied stroking through over the hair of a young lady who decided that his thigh ought to be her pillow while she took a nap.

Most days on the YT-1300 were good. Better than they had any right to be.

A fact that he attributed much of to the very same lady in his company now, but the path they treaded earlier in the day had been as choppy as entering a planet’s atmosphere during a raging storm. He should have seen it coming. He did, after all, accept a job that was going to have them delivering vaporators to a collective of moisture farmers on Jakku.

Yeah. That Jakku. The very same desert planet that he had gotten the lonely girl off of. The one she spent so many years waiting on, barely scraping by sometimes, waiting for people who never did end up coming back for her. The planet she never hesitated to mention that she would be perfectly happy never to go back to.

She put on a brave face when he told her their destination. Tried to act like it didn’t bother her, but he was beginning to know Rey very well and she wasn’t quite the card player he was yet. He saw the worry in her eyes and the nervous fidgeting of her hands when she thought Han wasn’t paying attention.

Hardly ate anything all day.

Didn’t find the usual things to talk about.

The worst of it, however, was when she tried to smile for him. The occasional attempt to smooth things over and prove to him that everything was okay – but the smile was wrong. She wasn’t feeling it and it made for a lame comparison to one of her real smiles; which he was pretty sure could light up Umbara if given the chance.

Han felt terrible about everything, of course.

Didn’t even come to bed, which, Rey realized after an hour or two of trying to wait up for him. That was when she took it upon herself, blanket in hand, to wordlessly collapse on him in the main hold. It was the only way she could see herself getting any rest.

Comments

[thesefirststeps]

A job is a job.

Rey keeps trying to remind herself of that fact, but the thought of ever stepping foot back on Jakku is making her ... what? Miserable? Fearful? Worried? All of that and so much more?

It's just a job. It's not like she's going to find herself stuck there all over again, trapped and waiting for some sort of rescue. She's a member of the crew, a valuable one, and she means something to Han, and he's never - he wouldn't ...

Realistically, Rey knows that. It's trusting in that knowledge that's proving to be a difficulty ... to say the absolute least. She's never been known to be very shy and demure, but neither has she been known to simply accept something if she was uncomfortable with the idea of it.

And the thought of going back to Jakku feels so wrong, right down into her bones. She didn't fight, but it was clear to Han and Chewie both just how distressed she was by the idea. Still, she insisted that she was fine, and although she was looked at with concern every time she jumped when she was surprised, nobody really asks. And she kicks herself for pulling that far into herself, for not admitting her fear, for ... trying to pretend that she was fine when she was clearly anything but.

It's a job. A job is a job, and they kinda need the credits in order to make it to the next job. And she can't ask to forego it simply because she's ... scared (terrified).

The worst part is when she wakes up out of a fitful sleep to find that Han isn't with her. She knows where to find him, though, and although she slides in next to him without a word, and leans against him just as quietly, and even lies in his lap in the silence, she takes a great sense of comfort in his presence.

The nightmares, though, don't cease. Suddenly, she's awake, panic-stricken, and the glass in his hand has inexplicably shattered, showering them both in sharp, glittering shards.