The map wasn't complete. 

We all stood about in the living area of the Falcon, staring up at the bright blue projection of the half-complete map BB-8 was displaying, and as I tried to decipher what it was trying to show I felt my heart sink. I felt deflated in my false hope, and though I knew nothing was ever simple, the thought of no longer having an easy route to get my family hurt, especially when I considered what we had lost to get this far. 

Poe had died for a fragment of hope. I'd lost my best friend, and for the past few days I'd convinced myself it would be worth it as long as we got the map to the resistance and got my Uncle home. Now though, it was only a piece, and the pessimist within me couldn't help but think that it was for nothing. Poe had died for nothing, even with all of our efforts. At that thought I felt my chest tighten the way it did whenever I'd panic, but I quickly pushed those feelings away, taking in a few deep breaths as I knelt down by the droid, turning the projection off. 

"The Resistance may have the rest," I said, faking a smile to BB-8. The droid beeped something at me, something that made my chest hurt again. "No, force, no Bud! Poe'd be so proud of you! I'm sure as soon as we get this to the resistance they'll know what do do,"  

"Will they?" Rey asked, looking at Finn,  and I had to hold back a laugh, knowing Rey still believed in Finn's lies. 

I still wasn't sure about who Finn truly was, but I trusted him. He'd proven himself repeatedly, and I'd decided that it didn't truly matter who he had been before we met. That was unlike me, since I usually liked to know everything about someone before I could trust them, but there was something that just drew me to him, something in the force. I trusted my instincts, but regardless I knew better than to out him from his own secrets.

"Erm... Yeah, they- they should have," he stumbled, standing up straighter, putting his hands in his jacket pockets. Since we'd met, I'd noticed that those were his nervous giveaways. 

"I can't get you to the resistance," my father interrupted, his words making me jump back to my feet, and upon seeing me glare at him, folding my arms across my chest confrontationally he continued. "At least not on this ship,"

I glanced over at my father, noticing the sad look in his eye he was trying to hide. He missed Uncle Luke, and he missed my mother too, even if he was trying to act like he didn't care. Seeing the map had acted like a reminder to everything he'd walked away from, not to mention our heart-to-heart. I knew the memories of the past bothered him as much as they did me, even if he was better at acting like they didn't.

"We're not abandoning the Falcon," I told him firmly, not sure what he was suggesting, but from his stunned look I knew it wasn't that. 

"Of course not!" he exclaimed. "I know someone who can help, though. We better go to Takodanna," 

The last part was directed at me, and as he spoke Takodanna's name I knew exactly what he was implying, making me grin excitedly. Takodanna meant Maz Kanata, someone I hadn't seen for a long time. She understood the force in ways that no one else did, not even my Uncle Luke, and I'd spent a lot of time at her castle as a kid whenever I accompanied my dad on business trips. I'd missed her, and if anyone could help us, it was her. 

At the thought of Maz, I looked down at what I was wearing. What had been quite a smart outfit when I'd put it on at the start of this mess had become ragged, my trousers ripped and my dress stained, not to mention how tired my boots looked after years of being on a sandy wasteland. My old Academy jacket was the only thing left looking moderately presentable, but even so it didn't redeem what else I was wearing. I couldn't see Maz looking such a state, not since it had been so long since I'd seen her. We'd have a while before we got to Takodanna, so I decided I would go change.

I began to move down towards the corridor where the closet was, but before I had chance, Dad grabbed hold of my arm, stopping me. I frowned, looking up at him to see he was giving me a small, reassuring smirk. Maybe he knew just how the sight of the map had made me feel, and I admired his attempt to make me feel better. 

"Don't worry about Luke, Lu," Dad told me. "I've spent plenty of my life worrying about him, he always turns up," 

"Yeah, I've heard the Bespin story," I smirked at him. "And Jabba's palace,"

"Majority of you two are in-jokes," Finn rolled his eyes slightly. "What's the Bespin story, or should we just stay oblivious?"

"Stay oblivious," Dad bantered, obviously not wanting to re-tell the tales of the last war.  

"I'm going to go change," I told them all, before shooting a look at dad, raising my eyebrow sarcastically. "Don't go without me and forget I exist for three years," 

With that, I headed off, limping slightly from the heavy bandage still wrapped around my now-healed ankle. I went off towards the closet, knowing that any of the clothes I had brought from the resistance weren't appropriate for the occasion at hand, since they were torn from continual wear. I'd hardly brought any clothes with me, expecting to find Dad much sooner than I did, but the closet on the Falcon had plenty of suitable clothes. 

I had to wade through the many racks of capes that had been left over from the days my Uncle Lando owned the ship, but eventually I managed to pick out a white, collarless shirt, one that used to belong to my dad. It was ever so slightly oversized, so I tucked it into a short, high-waisted blue skirt, a Corellian blood stripe running down the side of the skirt in a way that matched the sort of trousers my dad used to wear. I had no other boots, none that fit as comfortably, so I wiped them down with boot polish, slipping them back on after removing my bandage, testing out my repaired ankle. It felt as if it hadn't been injured at all, something I was glad for as I turned my attention to re-braiding my hair back neatly into one long plait. Once I'd tied it back with a leather bow, I remembered my jacket, hung up on one of the rails by where I was changing. 

Uncle Luke had given it to me on my first day of the Academy, and though it had been pretty big when I first got it at the age of ten, I had slowly grown into it. Everyone had the same one, the matching light green jacket adorned with our tags of identification practically a uniform. Underneath the tag reading 'L.P. Organa-Solo' was a '10' patch, signifying the fact that I'd been studying for ten years, and I remembered the last summer at home before going back to the academy, the night before I went back being when my mother and I stitched that patch on. 

I bit my lip, holding my jacket in clenched fists. I'd hardly taken it off since the fall of the academy, the exception being whenever I had to sneak out to go into Niima Outpost for supplies not wanting to risk anyone spotting me and knowing who I was. I wore it out of respect for for my Uncle, and all of my friends that I had lost, and I didn't want to end that, even if it meant putting myself in danger of people knowing my identity in Maz's cantina. I slipped the jacket on, pulling it around myself tightly with a small sigh. 

With that, I attached my holster belt back around my waist, making sure that my blaster was still fixed into place against my thigh before securing my lightsaber in place. It was hidden behind my jacket, but fixed tightly into place to make sure I didn't lose it.

I was ready to go, for the first time in a while actually feeling smart. Even back at the resistance I never felt this well put together, not in the aftermath of everything that had happened, so to feel smartly dressed, my hair tied back neatly and my weapons belt fully decked out, I felt like I was back to normal, back to the person I had been before. I headed out the closet, knowing that we'd already landed. I was disappointed that I'd missed seeing us land, the view of the lush landscape of Takodanna being one of my favourites, but I'd seen it plenty of times before. 

I reached the living area once more, looking around to see Rey and BB-8 had gone already, out into the beautiful greenery. I wanted to go and join her, excited to go outside to somewhere that wasn't surrounded by sand, but I was distracted, spotting my father and Finn, deep in discussion about something as they stood, sorting through blasters. 

"Women have a way of working things out. They always find out, always," Dad said lowly, exaggerating the last always, making me roll my eyes at his dramatics.

"What, are you talking about how Finn isn't actually in the resistance and how inevitable it is for Rey not to find out?" I said back, knowing the woman in question wasn't in hearing range. As I spoke up, Dad grinned at Finn, my friend looking an equal measure of startled, irritated and afraid.

"See, told ya', always," he said, raising his eyebrows, handing him a blaster before walking out of the ship. 

With one Solo gone, Finn turned his attention to me, practically running over to me in desperation, his eyes wide as if he was trying to read me. I was doing the same, tapping into the force around him, and as he got closer to me, the worried look darting across his face, it was then that I understood the truth of him. The fear radiating off him, the anxiety to escape from something I previously couldn't figure out, but now I knew. He wanted to hide from the very same thing I'd been fighting my entire life, The First Order, except he didn't want to run from them the way I did. 

I'd been raised to hate the First Order, raised to hate any sort of tyranny my parents had previously tried to destroy. I'd grown up fighting them, thinking they were evil. I wanted to fight them because they were everything I knew to fear and hate, but Finn... He wanted to run from them because they were everything he knew all together.  My emotions were suddenly conflicted, knowing if he was a part of the First Order I should hate him, but in the few days we' known each other I'd grown to quite like him, and so I felt in the force once more, only to feel that fear once more. This was not a man who had voluntarily given his life to the regime only to realise too late it wasn't what he wanted. This was a man who had been forced, his life not his own until he made a stand. 

Instantly, I felt sorry for him more than anything. It was the regime I hated, not the individuals who were forced into cooperation, indoctinated to their beliefs. Then, my emotions shifted to admiration, knowing what guts and bravery it would have taken to make a stand.

"You think Rey will find out?" Finn asked me anxiously, and my admiration grew at his desperation to protect our friend from the truth.

"She'll find out, but that is because you'll tell her," I told him, reaching out and taking hold of his hand, squeezing it reassuringly. "If you're brave enough to reject the First Order, you're brave enough to tell someone the truth, trust me,"  

"How do you..." his face fell as I voiced my assumption, a look of horror appearing that made my stomach turn slightly. I knew what it was like to fight the First Order, and to be hurt by them, but I had no idea how he felt, turning his back on the only life he knew, regardless of the fatal consequences. "Can you read minds if you're a Jedi or are you just good at guessing?"

"Reading minds is a Sith power," I told him, biting my lip as I remembered the only person I knew who had the power to look into people's minds. "I can however understand how you feel, the emotions you experience tying you to the force. That, along with your body language pointed me in the right direction. You always seemed anxious whenever I mentioned the Resistance, you knew my surname Organa from my mother as the Resistance general, and you knew me from the First Order wanted lists. It all seemed to add up, so which part of the First Order were you?"

"Storm trooper division," Finn sighed, appearing relieved to finally tell someone, though the truth was still haunting him. "I didn't want that life, but it was the only thing I knew. I was taken from a family I can't remember, trained as a disposable killing machine with only a number,"

"You're really brave," I told him, offering him a genuine smile, squeezing his hand again. "To walk away from that... What made you?"

"We were raiding a village on Jakku," he recounted, and I grimaced at the mention of the planet. "We were there to hunt down a resistance enemy there to gain info we needed. Turns out it was Poe, and once he was taken captive, we were ordered to fire on the villagers. I... I couldn't do it, I fluked. I think what made it worse was that Kylo Ren was the one to give the orders, and he knew I'd disobeyed. He looked at me, and I felt as if he'd seen into me. That was when I knew I had to run, I couldn't live that life anymore, so I escaped with Poe. We crashed on Jakku, I met Rey, and then we met you,"

His eyes had glazed over at the memories, but for me I felt as though I had just been electrocuted. For once, my body didn't feel as though it was crushed by the mention of Poe, but to hear my brother be mentioned under his new name, ordering the deaths of innocents, I wanted to break down. I flinched, feeling as though I was back at the academy, seeing him in the rain with his red lightsaber, screaming at me for betraying him. In my mind he still existed as Ben, my little brother, younger than me by barely a year, the one I promised to always protect. He was not that boy anymore, Finn knew a completely different man, and maybe it was that knowledge that drove home to me just how lost my brother was. 

"Kylo Ren," I spoke shakily, trying the name out, feeling instant disgust at it, though curiosity got the better of me. "What was he like?" 

"Terrifying," Finn said simply, and I had to fight to keep my emotions under control, feeling the scar on my shoulder sting, forcing my body not to shake as I remembered out last encounter. "He could use the force, like you, but always for his own gain, to hurt people. I know he tortured Poe when he was taken captive,"

I shot my eyes tightly, willing myself not to imagine what Finn had just said. Poe, my best friend, being tortured by the man who was once my brother, the two people who at one point had meant the most to me in the entire world. I wanted to scream, to cry, anything to distract myself from the second-hand pain I felt, knowing how truly lost my brother was to have tortured Poe. I swallowed nervously, my hands pulling at my braided hair to pull myself back to what was truly happening, and maybe Finn sensed how overwhelmed in fear I was, giving me a kind smile just as I had given him. 

"Did you know him?" he asked, and I nodded, deciding instantly to not give him the full truth.

"He... He was my friend once," I choked out, biting my lip as I worked up the courage. "He was a Padawan of Luke's too, until he was seduced my the dark side. He was the one who caused the downfall of Luke's academy for Jedi's, he tried to kill me. The Knights of Ren were to blame for most of the destruction, they were the ones who set fire to the temple, I think, but Kylo insisted none of them go near me, that I was his to fight. I was a better fighter than him but he played dirty and nearly took my arm. Still, I got off better than the other Padawans,"

 "You don't have to go on," he said gently, noticing the tears pricking at my eyes that I was failing to hold back. 

"No," I shook my head insistently. "If Kylo Ren is the reason for you rebelling from the First Order then I want you to know. I didn't see him kill the other students, only one. A boy, Jax, had tried to stand in his way when he was trying to fight me. Jax was brave, but he wasn't strong enough. Kylo cut right through him, and he died in my arms. I nearly died too, if it wasn't for Luke. He dragged me away and dumped be at the resistance, half-dead and bleeding out. When I woke up that's when I found out my father had left, and Luke was nowhere to be found. I lost so much because of Kylo Ren, my friends, my family... My brother,"

The last part had come out before I could stop myself, and though I knew it was just a metaphor, Kylo Ren being to Ben what Darth Vader had been to our grandfather, Finn didn't know. To him, I had just recounted the tale of how his feared leader tried to kill me but instead murdered my friends and my brother, and as shocked as he appeared at my story, it quickly turned to sadness, pulling me into a hug of reassurance. 

"Your friends, and your brother, one day I'm sure you'll avenge them and make them proud," Finn spoke, his kindness making me feel warm inside, even if he didn't truly understand what I had told him. 

I smiled, despite knowing I'd never be able to kill Kylo Ren, even if it meant avenging the boy I lost to the dark side.

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