Disclaimer:

The following is a work of fanfiction. All characters and situations belonging to the Star Wars saga are copyrighted to Lucasfilm Ltd. and the Walt Disney Company.

Author's Notes:

I was inspired to write this piece after my second viewing of "The Force Awakens." Rey is such a great character and I wanted the chance to get into her head a little bit, especially after everything she had just been through. I also wanted to explore why her first act upon seeing Luke Skywalker, who was a myth to her, was to simply hold out his lightsaber.
All questions and comments may be sent to me at my e-mail address. Please see my author profile for details.
Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy the story.

Into the Unknown
by
Julie Horwitz

As the Millennium Falcon entered into hyperspace, Rey leaned back in the pilot's chair and took a deep breath.

She was actually on her way to the location of Luke Skywalker. The Luke Skywalker. The man she'd spent most of her life hearing stories about and believing to be a myth. Not only was he very real, but he was the man who was going to teach her how to use the Force, an ability she somehow possessed despite the possibility having never once crossed her mind. (She still wasn't sure how she'd known how to do any of the things she'd already done. She had just...known.)

It was almost too much to take in all at once.

Nearly a week ago, she was merely a scavenger barely eking out a living on Jakku.

Now she was one of the First Order's most wanted. (She had bested the monster whose name she had learned to be Kylo Ren in lightsaber combat, humiliating him in the process. She had no idea how she'd accomplished it, but she had and, not only that, she'd inflicted permanent damage to him as well. She had a feeling he wouldn't rest until he got his hands on her once again. And if that happened...)

She surprised herself at how well she was handling things.

She owed a lot of her calmness to Leia, who had experienced far worse things in her life and hadn't let it keep her down for long. (Leia had lost more friends and loved ones than anyone should have to in a single lifetime. Her birth mother had died soon after she was born and then both of her adopted parents had perished when the Empire destroyed her entire home planet. She'd later found out that her biological father was Darth Vader and that she had a long-lost twin brother, Luke. As if any of those things weren't horrifying enough, her own son had turned to the dark side and slaughtered countless innocents before and after joining the First Order. And because of that, her husband had deserted her and Luke had gone into hiding. Compared to that, Rey's abandonment on Jakku by her family was just a sad and unfortunate turn of events.) Leia had made her feel instantly welcome when she'd arrived on D'Qar after the events at Starkiller Base. She had been caught off-guard by the older woman's warmth and acceptance. (Trust and friendship were a rare commodity on Jakku. Growing up, she had learned the hard way that letting someone get close could lead to disaster. If she wanted to survive, she had to put herself first. It was a strange experience to be immediately considered a friend.) But then they had quickly bonded over their relationships with Han. (She still couldn't get over what had happened to him. She could barely wrap her head around the fact that Ren, who was the most heartless and evil monster she'd ever encountered, was Han and Leia's son. To be killed by his own child... Why had Han gone to confront him? What had he been thinking? If only she had been close enough to interfere before the unthinkable had happened...) For the first time in her life, she'd known what it was like to have a mother figure.

And Han had felt like the father she'd never known...

And then there was Finn and Chewie and BB-8. All of them were her friends, the first she'd ever had, but at the same time, so much more.

It was as if after all of her years of waiting, she had finally been granted her wish of having a family.

Han's friend Maz had been right: she'd never have found her place among these good people if she had just stayed on Jakku. She finally had what she had so desperately longed for. Yet she had only received it after she'd left everything she'd ever known behind her.

It was so strange to go from having absolutely no one that cared about her (on Jakku, she was only as valuable as the salvage she collected) to being part of a group that risked their lives and safety for each other.

And no one had done that more times than Finn.

Finn...

Her first real friend.

It physically hurt her to think of him lying comatose in the infirmary.

What had he possibly been thinking to go against Ren himself? And with a weapon he barely knew how to use? It was a miracle he wasn't dead. (It was just pure luck that Ren had been more interested in possessing the lightsaber than finishing Finn off.) If he wasn't already in a coma, she'd knock some sense into him!

She felt guilty for leaving while he was still unconscious (she needed to thank him for risking his life for her yet again), but she understood that there was nothing more important than bringing Luke back with her. Leia and the other Resistance leaders believed that he was the key to defeating the First Order and that took priority over sitting with a recovering friend.

And it wasn't as if Finn was all alone. Poe had promised to look after him until she returned.

She couldn't help but smile as she thought of the charismatic pilot who meant so much to both Finn and BB-8.

She had never before encountered someone like Poe Dameron. He was open and friendly with everyone he met. (He wouldn't have lasted a week on Jakku!) And everyone she saw responded in kind. She didn't think it was possible for someone to be so universally liked, but Poe was proving her wrong.

But what amazed her the most about him was his relationship with BB-8. Poe both saw and treated the droid as an equal (Back on Jakku, droids were only valued for either their services or their spare parts. She had been considered strange for thinking otherwise) and it was clear that they both thought the galaxy of each other. She never saw one without the other. They were constantly together. (Truth be told, she was a tiny bit jealous! She had gotten used to BB-8 always being so close to her. She was getting to know Artoo-Detoo now, but it wasn't the same.)

She had found herself liking the pilot the instant she'd met him, which was incredibly unusual for her. She looked forward to getting to know him better upon her return.

Whenever that would be.

To be honest, she didn't have the faintest idea how she was going to convince Luke to come back with her. The little she knew about him, other than the tales spun by the various beings she'd heard speak of him on Jakku (they had made him sound like some kind of all-powerful god), was from what Leia and Chewie had told her. Leia had described her brother as someone with a very big heart who felt things very deeply. He blamed himself for what had happened to his students and feared making the same mistake all over again, which was why he had gone away to make sure he wouldn't. Leia had said that Luke had always been passionate about doing the right thing, but he had been too overwhelmed by his failure and couldn't see past it. It was Rey's mission to convince him that it was time to stop living in the past and to start helping the galaxy again.

But how am I going to do that? she asked herself.

Forcing him to come back was out of the question. The decision had to be his. The key would be to appeal to his innate desire to help people. Leia had told her of all the times Luke had ignored his own well being to come to the aid of others. That desire was still in there. She just had to figure out how to reach it.

While she herself needed his help to learn how to use the Force (she shuddered as she thought of the other who had offered his teaching services), she knew that would be the wrong approach. Coming right out and asking him to instruct her when the very reason he was hiding was because of his past failure as a teacher would end the mission right then and there. (There would be time enough to be trained after he helped the Resistance defeat the First Order. Maybe by then he'd realize that what happened wasn't his fault.) She was confident that she'd know when it was the right time to ask him.

So how was she going to accomplish her mission? How was she going to get him to come with her?

She thought about her own experience of being unwillingly dragged into galactic events despite her determination to remain on Jakku. Her life had started to change the moment she had first heard BB-8 struggling to escape from the Teedo. But the true point of no return had come when she had... How could she describe it? When she was called by-

That was it! The lightsaber!

The lightsaber that had once belonged to Luke himself!

The lightsaber that had caused her to run off on her own to where she had been captured.

The lightsaber that Kylo Ren wanted so badly for some reason.

That lightsaber was the key to everything!

It had been hidden away by Maz for who-knows-how-many years only to be found now by someone who hadn't even been looking for it. (She'd never even seen one before!) That had to mean something, right? (Deep down inside herself, she knew that it was more than mere coincidence.) And if anyone would know it would be its rightful owner: Luke.

She would give the lightsaber back to Luke and tell him how she had found it. She would explain everything that had happened to her since she had touched it. How she'd been captured by the First Order and then rescued by the Resistance. She would tell him about Ren and the monstrous things he had done. (She knew he and Han had been very close...) She would share with him how much Leia and the Resistance needed his help.

After hearing all of that, she was sure he would make the right decision.

She hoped.

If that didn't work...

She opened her eyes and turned to look at Chewie, who was adjusting some of the Falcon's controls.

The Wookie had been subdued ever since their return from Starkiller Base. The loss of Han had hit him extremely hard. According to Leia, they had been partners for nearly forty years. What had started as a life debt had turned into a deep and abiding friendship that had lasted decades.

And in those years, Chewie had grown close with both Luke and Leia too. They were all considered part of his extended family. (And family that now seemed to include herself and Finn.) If anyone could tell her if her plan to convince Luke would work, he could.

"Chewie," she began, "I need to get your opinion on something."

"What is it?" he responded.

"It's about Luke and what I'm going to say to him to convince him to come back with us," she started.

And then she laid out her ideas to him.