MCA #1- Saturday morning

[thatwaslucky]

Last night had been a lot, and this morning was too, but for different reasons. For so long Rey had wanted her parents back, and she was thrilled, but she also had very, very little memory of them. She didn't want to say that, though she figured they had to know, and she knew nothing about them, and she wasn't even sure what to call them because she didn't remember what she'd called them before. She had a million questions and no idea where to start.

And so now she has two parents she didn't know how to talk to even though she so badly wanted to, in her kitchen in her stupidly giant apartment that wouldn't even give them much of a clue as to who she was as a person now, making them caf and trying not to feel weird.


[For me!]

Comments

[not_palpatines]

Honestly, it was a little weird for them, too. Not that Miramir at least was showing it. "What would you normally be doing right now?" she asked.

[thatwaslucky]

"This," Rey said, setting the mugs in front of them, and shrugging one shoulder. "I'd be off to training in a bit."

She predicted the weirdness would increase in a couple of questions. She'd never been great at explaining the Jedi thing and that was quite the thing to drop on your parents.

[not_palpatines]

"The warehouse?" It'd been pretty hard to ignore the warehouse.

[not_palpatines]

"The lightsaber?" Dathan added, a little cautiously.

He'd seen it yesterday. There was a very good reason he hadn't wanted to ask.

[thatwaslucky]

That was a couple questions, yes.

"I'm a Jedi," Rey said.

[not_palpatines]

Dathan let out a breath, maybe a little relieved. And definitely a little obvious about it, which got a little Look from his wife.

[thatwaslucky]

Rey was a little caught off guard by that, but it only took her a second to register that reaction.
"Did you think I was Sith?"

[not_palpatines]

"No," Dathan said quickly. "But... they were after you."

[thatwaslucky]

"Because of..." And what did she call him, to his cloned son? "Emperor Palpatine?"

[not_palpatines]

"You know about that?" he asked.

[thatwaslucky]

"I found out a year ago," she said, sitting across from them. "I don't know everything. I don't know close to everything."

[not_palpatines]

"It's my fault," Dathan said, shaking his head. "Neither of you would have ever been in danger if it weren't for me."

[thatwaslucky]

Rey frowned. "Why would it be your fault?"

[not_palpatines]

"It's not," Miramir said firmly, placing her hand over his and squeezing it.

[not_palpatines]

Dathan gave her a grateful look, but this did nothing for his guilt.

"Emperor Palpatine was my father, for lack of a better word," he said. "I escaped, and I always knew they would come after me eventually. They never bothered until after you were born."

[thatwaslucky]

"Palpatine knew I was Force sensitive," Rey said. "He never came after you?"

[not_palpatines]

Dathan shook his head. "I was nothing. A failed experiment. I'm pretty sure the only reason he kept me around at all was to make it terrible enough for me to leave."

[thatwaslucky]

"Exegol," Rey realized, in almost a whisper.

She remembered the recognition as she'd walked around the citadel. She'd thought it was just some Force memory of Palpatine. She knew now it wasn't just him.

[not_palpatines]

"You know it," he said, surprised.

[thatwaslucky]

"I know it," she said. "That's a terrible way for someone to grow up."

[not_palpatines]

"I got out. Chose a name. Fell in love with your mother," he said, with a shared smile at Miramir. "And we had you. And then the hunters came."

[not_palpatines]

"We went on the run," Miramir continued. "We just couldn't stay ahead of the hunters. You were always at risk, and we..."

She sighed, because she'd always have her own guilt over this. There was no way she couldn't.

"We had help, if we could find them again. We lost them while running. So we decided to hide you, and we would come back once we found them. And if anything happened to us, you would still be safe."

[thatwaslucky]

"And he found you before you could come back."

She kind of wanted to ask how far they had gotten. But she mostly very much did not.

[not_palpatines]

"We only wanted to protect you," Miramir said.

[thatwaslucky]

"You did," Rey told her, smiling even though she could just cry. Again. It was entirely feasible she finally saw her parents again and spent the whole weekend sobbing about it. "He never got me. Thank you. And I'm sorry."

[not_palpatines]

Immediately Miramir was on her feet to walk around so that she could wrap her arms around her daughter, because she had almost always been faster to that sort of thing than Dathan. "You have nothing to be sorry about, my love. You're worth it."

[not_palpatines]

"Are you safe now?" Dathan asked, still concerned. There may be nothing he could do about it now, but he wanted to know.

[thatwaslucky]

Rey nodded, and Miramir let her out of the hug, but kept standing where she could hold a hand on her shoulder.

"Palpatine, Exegol, the Empire... it's all gone now," she said.

[not_palpatines]

"You?" Dathan asked. She seemed to have known a lot already.

[thatwaslucky]

"He did it himself," Rey said. "But I helped it along."

She wasn't going to tell them how that had ended up for her.

[not_palpatines]

"It's not a position you should have had to be in," Dathan told her.

[thatwaslucky]

"Yes, it was," she said. "It's okay. It's what I do."

[not_palpatines]

"We just want to know that you're all right," Miramir told her. Her tone was light, but there was always going to be concern. Always. "It's a parental thing."

[thatwaslucky]

"I'm all right," Rey assured them. "I have amazing people around me. I have a job, I'm training, I'm training someone else. I can take care of myself and I take care of other people. I'm good."

She'd leave out the excessive amounts of trauma. That wasn't their fault. She wouldn't burden them with that.

[not_palpatines]

The last time he'd seen Rey, she'd been a passenger on a terrible adventure no one wanted to go on, a tiny little thing that needed to be protected. It took some adjusting to see her being the one to do that for other people.

"I wish we'd been able to see you grow up," Dathan said.

[thatwaslucky]

"Me too," Rey said with a sad smile. "But you can know me now. We can know each other."

[not_palpatines]

Miramir rallied, taking her seat again to place her arms on the table and lean forward to listen. "Good plan. Tell us about these amazing people of yours."