Everyone was gathered in the main hangar. It was time to say Goodbye. Leia looked at her brother and Rey. "Take care, the two of you. I would prefer to have you with me on Hoth. But as soon as my very stubborn brother sets his mind onto something, there is not going back on his plans." She hugged the young woman tightly. She wished, Luke would already tell her about her heritage. She would prefer to bid her niece Goodbye, not some random Jedi who had happened to inherit the Millenium Falcon by chance. But it wasn't her place to tell.

"We'll follow you to Hoth, soon. But we have to go to Dagobah first. It is essential for Rey's training." Luke explained and went into the Falcon.

Rey was left behind on her own. There were more Farewells to be bidden. Finn and Poe both walked up the ramp to her. Finn hugged her first. "Take care. Try not to go over to the Dark Side. I heard this can happen." He tried to joke.

Rey's eyes welled up with tears she didn't want to shed. "Don't worry. I have a great teacher who will not let this happen." She kissed Finn's cheek. "Please, don't get hurt again. Those months with you in a coma were no fun." She suddenly didn't want to leave her friends. Having never known friends made it even more difficult to leave those precious few behind, who had shown her kindness and love.

"Don't worry. I'll be on Hoth. What can happen there?" Finn smiled and walked away slowly.

It was now Poe's term to say Goodbye. "Jessika and Karé wanted to say Goodbye, too. But I moved up their schedule and they are already in the orbit. Sorry for that." The pilot explained and suddenly didn't know what to say to Rey.

"It's okay. Say hi to them when you meet them." Rey stared at her shoes. The suddenly seemed to be very interesting and she didn't dare to look into Commander Dameron's dark brown eyes.

Equally at a loss of words the pilot simply hugged her and whispered, "Be careful out there. You're an amazing pilot, but you're a little reckless. Don't do anything stupid."

Rey smiled and looked him in the eyes: "Well, I must have taken this from my flight instructor. He is known to be a little reckless himself." She returned the hug and said: "Take care of yourself, too."

Slowly, Poe let go of her, already starting to miss her warmth and the scent of machine oil mixes with flowers. "I'll keep some room in my new office for you. As soon as I'll join the group on Hoth, I'll make sure there are enough random spare parts for you to repair and enough books for you to borrow."

"I'd love that." Rey grinned and watched him leave the ramp of the Millenium Falcon. As he walked on, she shyly said: "Poe, wait." She walked down the ramp, not caring about the other people in the hangar. She softly declared "It is not true, you know. The thing I told you back then, after the party."

Poe raised his eyebrows, not entirely sure what she was referring to.

"When I said, I only care about your spacecraft. That's not true. I do care about you." She kissed him on the cheek and ran back to the Falcon, hurriedly running up the ramp and hiding inside the cockpit.

Poe was left behind in the hangar, smiling sheepishly. He might be doomed, but it was so worth it.

Author's note:

I had to cut the end short, as I noticed I have too many things going on that I wanted to address. Of course, will they get together or not? (most likely they will, but how?) Will Rey learn the truth about her heritage? What about Finn, what is his story? What about the other pilots?

I decided to end my story here and continue with these questions in a sequel. I hope to see you there again.

I'm already planning the sequel and hope to start uploading the first few chapters within the next week.

About the title:

"Wanderers"

I first wanted to address both Rey and Poe being unable to sleep due to the nightmares they suffer from Kylo Ren's torture. But I found so many stories taking up this aspect that I didn't want to dwell on an idea that so many others had taken up before me.

I added the "Falling slowly" part, when I realized it will take them a long time to come to terms with their feelings. And "Falling slowly" from the "Once" soundtrack is one of my all-time favourite songs. And I listen to it often, when I write.