The first time, he came because of BB-8.

That was what he told her, at least, when he arrived in a lone fighter about a month after Rey went to Tatooine and stayed there.

"I can do without the Falcon," he mused, "But my droid, Rey?"

"Hey, BB likes it here."

Poe cocked his eyebrow at her. "He's probably got sand everywhere now."

BB-8 looked between them, beeping curiously, and Poe put on an exaggerated scowl. "I can't believe you've turned him against me."

"Never." Rey crouched down, smoothing her hand across BB's plating. Poe wasn't wrong—the droid had a fine layer of sand across its entire surface, but BB had been resistant to Rey's attempts to clear it away each night.

Glancing at the setting suns, then up at Poe, Rey said, "Would you like some dinner before you go?"

Poe considered the offer for a fraction of a second.

"I suppose Finn and the others can wait an extra hour or so," he said carefully.

Rey felt a twinge in her gut—the same feeling she always had when she asked herself whether it was right to be hiding away on Tatooine like this. Poe and Finn were working with Jannah to find the families of all of the First Order troopers who'd been stolen as children, and Rey was… what, reclaiming a part of the Skywalker identity that Luke had hated?

"Good," she told Poe. She told herself. Good that he would sit with her for a while, good that he would leave and she would stay.

The second time, he was not alone.

Rey had been there three months, enough time to get the farm started again. It didn't produce much, not when she was the only one there to tend it, but it filled her days—she was so focused on the manual labor of farm work that she rarely did anything else but eat, sleep, and go into Mos Eisley every ten days for supplies.

On one such day, she came back and found Finn and Poe waiting for her, perched against her wall and playing cards.

Finn spotted her first, and immediately, they were on their feet, rushing to meet Rey at her speeder as she pulled up and disembarked beside the Falcon.

"I'm so glad to see you both!" she exclaimed, rushing to hug them one after the other. "But you're not here to try to steal BB away again, are you?"

Poe scoffed. "I'm still thinking about it."

Luckily, they'd come with better news—they had found the planet that much of Jannah's unit hailed from, and over drinks, Finn and Poe eagerly recounted the story of reunions, or even first meetings for those who'd been too young when they'd been taken. It was not all good; the First Order had killed many of those whom they hadn't stolen, so for all they knew, some other members of the unit were stolen from the same place but had no surviving family to ground them.

"And you? Jannah? Anything so far?"

Finn hesitated before shaking his head. "Nothing."

They talked and drank into the early morning, until finally, Rey insisted that they not leave until the following day. Resigned, Finn went to bed almost immediately—he was tired from the drink, and from the more prolonged fatigue of the ongoing search for his, for all stormtroopers' lost homes.

Not long after Finn had left them, Rey asked Poe, "How long are you two going to keep this up?"

"I'm not sure," Poe admitted.

"Finn seems to be getting worn down."

"Do you think I haven't noticed?" Poe seemed to register the harshness in his voice, because his expression softened, and he looked at her with worried eyes. "I keep saying that. Jannah does too, and Lando. We're all worried about him."

Rey found herself looking toward the open doorway, leading to the room where Finn was fast asleep. They had all been through so much with the First Order—it didn't seem right for Finn to fall apart now, once they were safe from it all.

But she wouldn't be surprised if he let himself.

"You all take care of him, though, right?"

"Sure. Mostly Jannah…" He trailed off, allowing the silence to linger until Rey cocked her head at him.

"I had to get you drunk for you to tell me that?" she exclaimed.

Poe giggled, abashed, and had to duck when she threw a cloth at his head. "He felt weird about mentioning it to you."

This revelation briefly sobered them both, although neither Rey nor Poe could bring themselves to comment on it. What was there for her to say?

"She's a beautiful woman," Rey mused at last, and Poe simply nodded.

The third time, he came with two children. Rey did not understand why he'd brought them to her, until she did.

And then she was angry.

She paced in her kitchen in a frenzy, trying to talk quietly so that her guests couldn't hear her from where they were playing with BB-8 outside.

"This is no place for children, Poe."

"They're not just children. They're like you. They need someone like you."

"Find someone else."

"There's no one else like you, Rey."

Both of them knew that, strictly speaking, this wasn't true. Two Force-sensitive children in her courtyard were enough evidence that there were others like Rey. But she knew what Poe meant; there was no one else who'd trained their powers, who'd used them, let alone in the ways that Rey had used them.

Tentatively, she offered further resistance. "I'm no teacher."

"I'd wager that's not true," he told her gently.

"I'm no mother," Rey said, more decisively. "And that's what they need more. They're young, Poe. They don't belong on this nowhere desert planet with me when someone could be taking care of them somewhere else. Somewhere better."

Poe grimaced. "They're orphans. Force-sensitive orphans. There's nowhere better."

The fourth time, he brought machine parts.

Several of the machines on the farm had been antiques when Rey started, and much of her first year was spent putting off the inevitable—keeping things working on the strength of little more than her own determination.

Finally, though, things started breaking. The Jawas couldn't offer anything much better, and everyone in Mos Eisley was selling parts at twice their value.

Poe had feigned outrage that she'd reached out only for help; "How come I've never heard from you just to chat?"

"How come I don't see you more often?" she'd retorted.

Something about it felt bold in a way that Rey hadn't intended it. But Poe said nothing of it—he asked for a list of the things she needed, and a week later, he was there.

"Need help getting it all set up?" he asked as they unloaded.

Rey nearly said no. The kids can help, she nearly said. You must need to get back, she nearly said.

"Alright."

Two days later, she watched him fly off, and she found herself wondering what he would have said if she asked him to stay.

The fifth time, she fell asleep in his arms.

He'd brought several more children, and until Rey had time to relocate some storage from some of the unused rooms, they were left to sleep on the floor, scattered around the house.

So it was that Rey and Poe found themselves in her closet of a bedroom that night, trying not to disturb any of the kids.

"You do realize that there's barely enough room to pour a drink in here," he told her—illustrating, as he spoke, how his elbow bumped the wall when he tilted the bottle.

"It might surprise you to know that I have very little occasion to drink in bed."

Poe hummed. "I imagine you're hardly ever in here, so no, I'm not surprised."

Rey met his eye, more out of obligation than anything else; they were close enough that there was little choice in where she could look. But oh, did she feel scrutinized by him all of a sudden.

"You didn't complain that I brought more little Jedi," he observed, after a few long moments of silence.

"Would you have listened if I did?" Glancing down as he handed her a cup, she said, "And we've talked about this, Poe, not Jedi. There's too much with that word. I don't like it."

He spoke softly. "You're right, I'm sorry." After a beat: "Would you have meant it? If you had complained?"

Rey considered his question sincerely. "I still don't think I'm necessarily the best thing for these kids."

"Do you trust me, though?"

She swallowed at his intent gaze, then nodded.

"Then trust me on this, okay?"

Rey could not have said who fell asleep first, or what time they fell asleep. But she woke up at some ambiguous early morning hour, and Poe was curled around her—his hand at her stomach, his nose at her ear, his ankles tangled with hers.

She lay there, breathing slow, feeling his breaths across her neck as his stomach rose and fell against her back.

She drifted off again.

The last time, he came with presents for the children.

The hold of his ship was filled to the brim with overflowing crates of food, clothes, toys, gathered from around the galaxy.

Rey told him sternly that he couldn't possibly spoil them so much—"And you said you're no mother," he teased—but she couldn't help smiling as she watched them all running their fingers over everything in wonder.

Poe didn't tell her what he was really doing there until after dinner, when he asked her whether there were any spots she liked to go to when she needed to get away for a few hours. So she led him to the Falcon, up through the ceiling hatch onto the roof of the ship.

From where they sat perched, there was a clear view of the house, of everything around it for as far as the eye could see. And behind it all, the sunset.

"Nice," he breathed.

"I like that I can still keep an eye on them," she said, perhaps unnecessarily.

He smiled and nodded. "Makes sense."

They sat together for what felt like an eternity.

"Jannah and Finn… They're done searching, for a while at least. He's been hurting too much over all this for a while, now, so they've decided to slow down and live like normal people."

"Do any of us know how to do that?" Rey asked with a laugh.

"You seem to be doing an alright job."

She turned to look at Poe, smirking. "Sure, me and my eleven Force-sensitive orphans living in the desert farmhouse where my dead mentor grew up."

"Well, when you put it like that…" He crossed his arms, tucking his hands into his coat; Rey could not have guessed whether it was a response to the steadily increasing chill, or a sign of some other sort of discomfort. "You're happy though, aren't you?"

"I suppose so." Rey found herself suddenly unable to look at him. "I still question whether this is what I should be doing, living on some Outer Rim planet. Who's to say I'm not just aimless, like I was on Jakku, or hiding like Luke on Ahch-To?"

"Even if either of those things are true, maybe this is just where you need to be right now."

Rey didn't answer, and it didn't seem like Poe expected her to, because they sat in a shared, companionable silence again for some time.

"What if I… stayed here for a while," he said at last.

She spun to look at him, unable to hide the eagerness in her eyes even as she tried to keep her expression neutral. "What?"

"I've just… I've been thinking that maybe this is where I need to be right now, too."

Poe's words hung in the air as Rey looked at him. Carefully, half-certain she was dreaming, she nodded.

He kissed her, then, his cold, trembling hand curving over her thigh as the suns dipped below the horizon.

He kissed her that night, the next morning, every day, and they found that they were both where they needed to be.