Batuu, and then not- Wednesday

[thatwaslucky]

The good news was that the Falcon was up and running before they got word that the First Order had landed on Batuu and were looking for members of the Resistance.

There'd been a scramble. They actually did have recruits onplanet that they suddenly had to secretly give direction to in order to get them safely to the base on Pacara, and it'd been decided that Rey should be the one to record that message. She'd argued that for about thirty seconds before getting over herself and doing it. (She hadn't even known there was a base on Pacara. Where was Pacara?) And while Rey really didn't want to leave anyone behind- planets helping the Resistance didn't get off easy- the moment she sensed Kylo Ren there, she knew she was more of a liability than anything.

It was the first time they'd been in the same general space in over a year, and there were all sorts of feelings to be had over that, but she'd severed that connection as soon as it had registered and hoped that was enough.

The Falcon took off and left the planet only getting shot at a few times and without too much trouble otherwise, making a couple jumps just to throw the First Order off their trail if they'd been followed. Once they seemed to be clear, Chewie left the cockpit to join BB-8 check on some things.

"Well," Rey said with a sigh, "hopefully that was a positive trip until that last part."


[For the guy!]

Comments

[thatwaslucky]

"Thanks," she said, with the tiniest smile. "It's been an ongoing thing, but not all the time. He has tried to get in touch with me once or twice, I think."

[long_memory]

"For what purpose?" he asked. "Just to mess with you?"

[thatwaslucky]

"Maybe. Or just to talk." She didn't think that was outside the realm of possibility. "Or maybe he didn't mean to do it at all. I always cut him off before bothering to find out."

[long_memory]

"Good," he said. "I don't imagine any good would come of it."

[thatwaslucky]

"Probably not," Rey agreed.

Mostly.

"Sometimes I wonder if he's not actually trying to ask for legitimate help from me and I should hear him out, and then he blasts the city we were just in from the sky. So I don't listen."

[long_memory]

"Do you really think there's coming back from killing that many people?" Asking for a friend.

[thatwaslucky]

"I do." She trained under someone who had. "But I think it can be done, and I would have helped. But that's not what he wanted."

[long_memory]

Silver reached out to take Rey's hand. "You can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped."

[thatwaslucky]

"I know," she said, squeezing his hand in return. "I still wish he did. And then I'm mad that he doesn't. That last part gets more true the longer this goes on."

[long_memory]

"I'm not exactly upset about that." There was a slight tinge of jealousy there, but he also felt like Rey could benefit for being angrier at the guy. "Thank you. For telling me."

[thatwaslucky]

"You should know," she told him. "If we're doing this, it's going to come up sometimes, and probably be really annoying..."

[long_memory]

"Annoying is putting it lightly," Silver said, giving her hand a squeeze. "Just consider us lucky we don't have to deal with the people I know in addition to this."

[thatwaslucky]

Chairs were annoying, too. Right now was about when she was wishing they'd had this talk somewhere she could cuddle up next to him.

"Are they this dramatic?" she asked.

[long_memory]

"Oh you have no idea," he said, laughing a little. "Flint is one of the most dramatic human beings I've ever met."

[thatwaslucky]

"How so?" she wondered.

[long_memory]

Silver paused, having so many examples it was hard to settle on just one. Eventually he just settled for the first one chronologically.

"I had stolen something from him, a schedule, detailing where a ship full of gold would be at a certain time. He didn't know who had it, and the crew was close to mutiny so in order to regain his standing with them he beat a man to death in full view of everyone," Silver said. "And he pulled out a random sheet of paper from the dead man and said it was the schedule. He made this big speech, covered in blood, promising them that they'd be the kings of the new world if they just did what he said. And the speech worked, everyone thought he had the key to the gold when really it was in my pocket."

[thatwaslucky]

Rey's face went on a bit of a journey through that.

She settled on, "Dramatic is certainly a word for that."

[long_memory]

"I was so scared of him after that I jumped off the ship," he said, chuckling. "Literally just threw myself off the side of it."

[thatwaslucky]

"I'm not sure that was the wrong choice," Rey told him, smiling. "He sent a Message."

[long_memory]

"He caught up with me eventually, obviously," Silver said. "Luckily I can be quite brilliant when it comes to ensuring my own survival. Which is why I am now sitting here before you."

[thatwaslucky]

"Brilliant and modest," Rey teased. "Why did you stay after that? I couldn't do it."

[long_memory]

"Money, at first. Then I lost my leg and I felt like I had nowhere else to go," he admitted. "And then we became partners. Friends."

[thatwaslucky]

She gave his hand another little squeeze at that, and since they'd just been talking about the drama queen in her life, asked, "Did his methods ever bother you?"

[long_memory]

"No, not really. I didn't always agree with him but I understood him. I was probably the only person still alive who did," Silver said. "Which of course is nothing compared to having a literal connection with someone's mind like you do."

That sounded like an actual nightmare.

[thatwaslucky]

"That's actually about how I would describe this," Rey admitted. "Just... actually being able to see why they're like this."

Which worked both ways. Super fun.