3. Junk

CHAPTER SUMMARY: Rey tries to fix a speeder brought in by a scavenging team.

"Hey Chewie, could you hand me the half-sized torque wrench, the one with the red hilt?"

Chewie baws back, asking Rey to hold on a minute.

"Take your time," She replies absently, examining the inner workings of the speeder.

She's lying flat on her back on a creeper, the gritty floor crackling under the wheels as she moves further under the vehicle.

This thing is old, older than her by several years. It's an FX-40 combat speeder, made to traverse rocky terrain. A scavenging team just brought it and a couple of land cruisers from Tatooine. None of them work properly, which is a problem considering that no one's produced parts for these models in over a decade. But the Resistance is in no position to be picky...

She'll just have to get creative.

Rey squints, scanning the engine.

To most people, the tangle of tubes and wires would be inscrutable, but Rey reads it like a native speaker of the language. Not only does she understand how the parts work together to form a whole but she has an instinctive sense of the different ways they could be taken apart and put back together, endless options for modifying, tweaking, enhancing.

Chewie clinks a wench on the side of the speeder, interrupting her thoughts.

She rolls closer to him, only his hairy ankles visible from under the vehicle.

"Thanks, Chewie." She grabs the tool.

The Wookie baws mournfully, complaining about his empty stomach.

"Don't feel like you have to stick around on my account." Rey slides back under the speeder. "Go. Get yourself a second lunch."

Chewie agrees readily, asking if she'd like a snack as he shuffles away.

"No, thanks. Take your time. I'm gonna need a while with these thrusters."

A few seconds later, she hears a door whir shut.

Rey sighs, looking up at the engine.

She knows what she has to do. Two of the three thrusters are beyond repair. It's possible she could get them working again if she replaced the motors, but the problem is that their connection to the repulsorlift is completely shot.

Rey's learned the hard way that's the death knell for a thruster. The connection has to be precise or else the thrusters will randomly cut in and out. If you're just hauling finds from a scavenging mission, that's an inconvenience. But if you're trying to outrun First Order speeder bikes…?

No. She can't risk a Resistance fighter's life for the sake of saving resources. The thrusters have to go.

She brings the wrench up and begins removing the bolts from one of them. As she works, she considers her options.

But try as she might, she can only see one. With any other vehicle, the solution would be simple— replace the thrusters. But this thing is so old that it's nearly impossible to find replacements compatible with the repulsorlift. Speeder parts are so much smaller these days. There's just no way to get the newer models to connect with these old, clumsy ones.

So, she'll have to replace the whole engine— install a new repulsorlift and new thrusters. And at that point, she might as well call it quits and label this whole thing junk to be ripped up for parts.

Rey shifts to the side, making space for the thruster she just detached. She shoves it to the end of the speeder and starts working on the other one.

There has got to be another way, something she's not seeing. She runs through a catalogue in her mind as she loosens the bolts on the second thruster. So far, she's just been thinking about speeders, but is there a part she can take from something else, something not intended for this purpose but can do the job?

Come on, Rey. You can do better than this. Figure it out.

She's been here many times before. It really isn't that complicated. All it requires is patience. If she lies here long enough, staring at the problem, thinking of the infinite options for solving it, eventually the pieces will fit together.

She dislodges the thruster and shifts to the side. As she does, she starts to feel a strange, weak even. An eerie sensation creeps from within, vaguely familiar…

Oh no.

The sound in the room seems to mute, warmth stretching out through her limbs.

The next instant, it's gone.

Rey drops the thruster, and it crashes to the floor with a clang. She shoves it towards the other one and lies back on the creeper, giving a hard push to roll out from under the vehicle. She sits up, twisting right, then the left.

She stiffens, sucking in a breath.

Kylo Ren stands a pace away, arms crossed, head cocked, looking down at her with narrowed eyes.

She glares at him.

This is getting old. Really old.

Why is this still happening? After Snoke died, she expected the bond to go away. But no… instead it's growing.

He looks away, inspecting the room. He uncrosses his arms, reaching for a wrench lying on a stool. He picks it up.

Rey tenses.

Case in point. Used to be, he couldn't see or touch her surroundings, but the last couple of times, he's been able to. She hasn't seen his surroundings yet, which strikes her as suspiciously unequal. She's can't help but wonder if he's learned to control this connection…

"What are you doing?" He interrupts her thoughts.

"None of your business." She stares coldly.

He turns, unfazed, walking by the speeder as he inspects the lot cramped with tables and tools, several dislodged engines, racks of wires, and endless piles of junk scattered about. He stops when he gets to the end of the vehicle, kicking one of the thrusters she just removed.

"Two out of three down." He clicks his tongue. "Those aren't good odds."

"Groundbreaking analysis," she deadpans. "Thanks for that." She flings back on the creeper and pulls herself under the speeder.

She can ignore him. She's getting quite good at it.

Now where was she…

"This model's quite old." He walks around to the other side of the vehicle. She can only see his boots. "I can't think of a manufacturer that makes parts for it anymore. Maybe SoroSuub? It's doubtful though." His boots pass by her head.

Rey rolls her eyes, but doesn't say anything.

"You could try to fit in a thruster from a newer model but most likely it won't be compatible with repulsorlift. The old ones are so much bigger."

Rey grits her teeth. His boots pass by her head again, walking the other way now. She hears him crouch at the end of the speeder, moving the detached thrusters.

"These aren't in terrible shape… you could just replace the motors and it could keep it going— ah. No. The connect to the repulsorlift is warped."

Rey hardens, closing her eyes.

She will not say anything. She will not be baited. She just has to be patient. He'll disappear eventually…

He stands and walks around the speeder.

"I hate to tell you this, but you're going to have to take out the last thruster. The repulsorlift too. The whole engine needs to be replaced."

Without thinking, she pushes forward, her head flying out from under the vehicle.

"Hey. You know what? I don't need your help. I built my own speeder when I was twelve years old. It's one of a kind. There's not another like it in the galaxy. I know what I'm doing." She pulls back under the speeder just as quickly as she emerged.

"Besides, when's the last time you did anything resembling manual labor?" She calls out as he circles to the other side. "I'd take mechanics advise from Ewok before I took it from y— Hey!"

He's moved to the floor and is now pulling himself under the vehicle beside her.

"Hey! Are you listening to me?" She demands as he pulls himself further. "This is a one-person job. I don't need your help."

He stops when his head is next to hers.

She rolls on her side, glaring at him.

But's he's not looking at her, eyes fixed on the engine above.

"I don't know, Rey." He shakes his head. "Now that I see it, I think you're going to have to give up on this one."

She lies back on the creeper, rolling her eyes.

"I thought this was FX-58, but no this one's even earlier than that."

She sighs.

"The repulsorlift in these has what's called axiom port." He reaches up to touch the connector. "An axiom port connects to the thruster with three chips. Most thrusters produced in the last decade connect with two."

"Do you often find yourself giving unsolicited advice?" Rey shoots him a look. "Explaining things to people that they didn't ask you to explain?"

He ignores her, still assessing the engine.

"Because if you do, and you also find that people tend to avoid you, well… I'm not saying there's a direct correlation, but—"

"You could try to make it work with just two," he cuts her off. "But the connection needs to be precise. You can't have the thrusters giving out in a high-speed chase. Not that this thing could ever outrun a First Order speeder in the first place."

Rey narrows her eyes. She considers giving him a hard shove, but since she's still on the creeper, she'd just be pushing herself back.

"This thing is junk," he declares definitively. "Fodder for parts. At least the main thruster's working. It has an ether port. You might could use it to power a long range tran—"

"Shut up!" Rey snaps to the engine, examining it. A second later, she slides off the creeper.

"Move." She shoves him. "You're in my way."

He slides to the side, making room for her.

She needles him with her elbow, goading him on until she can see the back of the main thruster. She inspects it closely, a smile spreading across her lips.

"I can power the thrusters through here." She taps the connector.

"No, you can't." Kylo shakes his head. "There's no thruster anywhere that connects to an ether port."

"No." Rey rolls her eyes. "But I can take the sensory adapter from a V/C unit and use it as a convertor. It has an ether port on one side and BNC ports on the other. And I've got several working thrusters that'll connect to a BNC port." She nods, still looking up. "That'll do it." She looks at Kylo smugly.

He raises an eyebrow. "I…" He tilts his head in concession. "Don't see why not."

Rey brings her hands behind her head, resting back on the floor, immensely pleased with herself.

For a minute, she relishes in her victory, thinking about which thrusters she'll use.

Kylo lies quietly next to her.

She glances at him.

"You know…" She purses her lips. "To be honest, I'm surprised you know as much as you do about this. I mean, I assume don't sit around repairing old-as-dirt speeders with the First Order. Where'd you learn all this?"

Kylo looks away, darkening. She feels his heart drop to his stomach.

That's when the realization hits.

Han.

Of course, it was Han.

She snaps back to the engine. They both lie next silently for a minute.

"It seemed like he had a place like this on every planet." Kylo breaks the silence. "Just some lot absolutely filled with junk. He was sentimental in the strangest way. He couldn't get rid of anything, especially if he'd won it in a bet. Even if it was useless to him, he'd still store it somewhere. Or rip it up for parts and store the parts somewhere."

Rey feels a twist in his heart, emotions grating against one another, irritation and longing.

Why is he telling her all this? She's tempted to ask him but stops herself. Instead, she turns on her side, listening.

"Working with him was a nightmare." He widens his eyes. "He was so disorganized. Well…" He grunts. "He would argue that he knew exactly where everything was, which was bullshit, of course." He glances at her. "So, whenever he asked me to fetch something for him, I'd take too long to find it and he'd get frustrated. He'd crawl out from under whatever he was working on, all angry and imperious, and then he wouldn't be able to find it either." His lips twist wryly.

"One time on Corellia, we spend five hours looking some one-of-a-kind power cell from a V-wing aircraft he'd won off a Rodian bounty hunter. We never found it." He shakes his head. "Instead we ended up throwing together what's possibly the most ill-constructed jumpspeeder in the galaxy." His face falls. "We didn't make it one mile before it broke down. And he forgot his commlink, so we had to walk. It was pitch black by the time we got back." He holds his breath.

Then, he lets it out slowly.

Rey bites her lip, the question on the tip of her tongue. She's dying to confront him with it. After all, he never did give her an honest answer on Ahch-To. Instead, he deflected.

Why did you kill your father?

He didn't hate him. If he did, she would surely sense that now. But no… he's feeling something more complex than hate. Resentment. Regret. Shame. Yearning.

Kylo turns, shifting his body to face her. They both lie on their sides, eyes locked.

This is it. This is the moment to ask. He can tell she wants to… She feels him brace inwardly, preparing.

But the question never comes. She can't bring herself to ask it. It just seems… cruel somehow, like rubbing salt in an open wound.

He deserves it. He deserves to be confronted with his despicable choice, to be crushed under the weight of that moment on Starkiller.

But something tells Rey he's already in that hell.

So instead, she just stares at him softly.

He relaxes when he realizes she doesn't intend to rebuke him.

They stare at each other without saying a word. As the seconds pass, the complex palette of emotions between them blends into something simple, something pure.

Compassion.

They lose themselves in a mutual gaze, the kind that makes them forget who they are. It's so intense that Rey snaps back, disoriented, when he suddenly disappears.

Gone without a trace. Like he was never here.

She lies back, her heart heavy. She stares blankly at the speeder for a moment.

Then, she starts pulling herself from under it. She sits up on the dirty floor, crossing her legs. She brings her hands to her lap, staring into nothing.

She can't seem to move. She just sits, consumed in what just happened.

She'd love nothing more than to think of Kylo Ren as just a villain, her enemy.

That's what he is, isn't he? The destroyer of lives and livelihoods. The bane of this galaxy. The Supreme Leader of an evil order.

He is all of those things. But that's not all he is…

This damn bond. It keeps reminding her that buried not too deep is just a person, a lonely person. A broken person.

The way he spoke to her just now, sharing memories of his father as if she were an old friend. He's so desperate to have someone to talk to, so tired of hiding heartache under a cold exterior. Rey swore that she'd never allow herself to feel compassion for him again…

She sighs.

Today, she broke that promise. She couldn't help it.

She squeezes her eyes shut, a sick churning in her belly.

It eats at her, the uncomfortable truth.

That one day, all of this is going to come to a head. One day, she'll have to face him again, just as she did on Starkiller.

And she'll have to cut him down for good.