The Spaceship Parking Lot at Syndulla Scrap, Friday

[uncertain_dume]

Kanan Jarrus had been a man on a mission since Rey had missed her second check-in last week. Unfortunately, there had been one thing standing in the way of that mission: Gnomes. Slicing his phone to figure out exactly which reality he'd needed to grab a portal to had been accomplished easily enough. Having Chopper assist made the process that much faster, though Kanan strongly suspected it was no accident that there had been a sudden dump of weird photos of Stance from the course of the summer to his Instagram and Twitter accounts for people to squint at and speculate over.

The ones of pixel Stance in a frog suit had been especially popular.

Kanan had hardly noticed his dog's sudden uptick in internet fame. Once Chop had coughed up coordinates he'd immediately set off to argue with the gnomes, butting heads for a damn week over things like 'authorization' and 'technical difficulty,' until finally, this morning, he'd thrown his hands up in the air, marched into the Portalocity office in person, demanded to speak to the manager, and then had picked the guy up by the lapels and shook.

One does not stand between Kanan Jarrus and a possible rescue mission.

Not... not that he was certain it was a rescue mission. Not really. For all he knew, Rey's battery had finally died beyond the point of salvage and she just needed a new phone.

For all he hoped, Rey's battery had finally died beyond the point of salvage and she just needed a new phone.

So Kanan had moved the Escape to the parking lot and was preparing it for the portal the gnomes had finally agreed to open for him that evening, making sure there was enough fuel if, for some reason, she wasn't on Jakku. Making sure he had enough blaster packs to keep him armed for a good long while. Making sure his navicomputer was functional, making sure he had rations and medkits and thorough starmaps of the space around Jakku and maps of the planet itself.

... Making sure he had the new phone he'd picked up for Rey, just in case that really was the problem.

It wasn't a rescue mission. It probably wasn't a rescue mission. He hoped to hell it wasn't a rescue mission, after all.

But if it was, he was pretty damn ready for a rescue mission.

[OOC: Open!]

Comments

[thatwaslucky]

Meanwhile Rey had gotten the first portal back here that she could, knowing that she had no idea what the island would be like this week or what state anyone would be in today. It had seemed normal enough, but she she was glad to still have her staff slung to her back just in case.

Then it was a matter of actually finding Kanan. Since there didn't seem to be an immediate threat, she decided to make it a little test, and see if she could feel out where he was.

She'd also expected that he'd be at the park or his warehouse so she was a little surprised to end up here.

He might catch sight of her from the viewport, headfilting a little.

[uncertain_dume]

She probably wasn't half as surprised as Kanan was, really. He blinked up from his computer, running one final diagnostic scan, and stared. For a full five, ten seconds.

And then his feet pretty much didn't touch the ground from the cockpit to where she was standing.

"Rey!"

Incoming Space Dad hug, Rey.

[thatwaslucky]

Aww, Kanan. You were getting such a smile, dimples and everything.

"You changed your schedule," she says, hugging him back.

[uncertain_dume]

"So did you. I shook a gnome this morning," Kanan replied, and that hug was a squishy one, dammit. "Guess I didn't have to."

So worried. Sooo worried.

[thatwaslucky]

"You shook a... what?"

Maybe that was the weirdness of the week?

[uncertain_dume]

"The manager at the Portalocity office," Kanan replied, looking vaguely chagrined. "They kept informing me that I didn't have authorization to travel. I know I have kriffing authorization to travel, I travel all the damn time."

Just... not to Jakku in his own Galaxy's future.

[thatwaslucky]

"Wait. What's happening?"

Even after the last couple weeks she wouldn't think he'd been coming to find her. But if he was going somewhere else she had terrible timing.

[uncertain_dume]

Kanan blinked and leaned back for a moment, just kind of processing that she hadn't really figured...

But then, Rey.

With a wry smile, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a phone.

"I had to bring you this. Thought maybe yours had finally died."

Well. No. Thought so much worse than that.

But wishful thinking, and all.

[thatwaslucky]

Rey frowned, and wondered if it would always feel weird when someone did something like that for her.

"It actually probably is extremely dead by now," she realized. It may have even been scavenged by now. Given how she'd left, and Poe's mentions of how people had talked about her, they'd probably figured she was gone for good by now. "It's still on Jakku. Thank you."

[uncertain_dume]

Kanan smiled wryly, holding the phone out for her.

"It's still on Jakku," he noted. "But you're not."

So... was Jakku just space dust now or what? Because Rey ever leaving was not something he'd counted on.

[thatwaslucky]

"It's a long story," Rey said, and paused, finding this stranger to say than she would have thought, considering it wasn't even the first time she'd told someone. "You were right."

[uncertain_dume]

"I was..."

Kanan paused to process that statement, and for a brief flicker of a moment, he wasn't certain if he felt happy or completely stricken. There were so many ways that it could be a good thing.

And so, so many ways it might not.

"... Are you okay, Rey?"

That, first.

[thatwaslucky]

"Yeah," she said, and that was a thoughtful and honest answer. She'd had a few much calmer days away from any trauma, which left her with plenty to work through, but she could deal with that. "It's been an exciting few weeks."

Not a good thing!

[uncertain_dume]

"I can't imagine," Kanan replied. He let a faint bead of worry flicker across his expression. "If there's anything you need, Rey..."

He knew, he knew, he probably sounded like a glitching holo at this point, repeating himself ever since she left, but this? This was big. Whatever went with it, whatever had been serious enough to make Rey finally face what she could do. That couldn't have been easy.

[thatwaslucky]

"Do you remember when you said that you would help?"

If that was hard to ask, too, well. The last time she'd asked for help had ended horribly and he was dead now.

[uncertain_dume]

Kanan's throat tightened a little, but he nodded. The idea of training people in lightsaber technique was worlds away from training them in the Force, after all.

"Offer still stands," he said. "As it happens, my whole day is clear."

And the foreseeable future, really. Kanan didn't actually have a terribly busy social life.

[thatwaslucky]

Rey blinked. "Really? That easy?"

She knew she wouldn't have to stalk him, but that was much faster agreement than what she was used to!

[uncertain_dume]

Kanan blinked back.

"I mean... I'm not going to take it back now that I know I was right," he replied. "If you want help, I have help to offer. So long as you don't mind that it's me doing the training. There are still gaps in my own."

They were being filled in, bit by bit, and he'd do his best. But even his own incomplete training was better than none at all.

[thatwaslucky]

"The alternative is me. I'll take gaps," Rey said. "I'm open to talking to the others here, but I'm not sure who I'd even see while I'm here."

Besides, there was Kanan, and there were people she didn't know.

[uncertain_dume]

Kanan nodded a little. Considered.

"There aren't many other Jedi who are here," he admitted. "None who are here consistently. Skywalker lives off-island and Rand has plenty keeping him busy back home. There's a Sith, Lana, who... actually has a good head on her shoulders, but..." He frowned faintly. "I'd trust her for lightsaber sparring, but she uses the Dark side of the Force, so I wouldn't go to her for much more than that. The rest that I know of only come around every so often." He smiled wryly. "For Skywalker's awkward bar reunions, mostly."

[thatwaslucky]

Rey wondered exactly how awkward those gatherings would be for her now, since those seemed to be half Skywalkers, and...

But that also made her frown and tilt her head a little, since his words were so wildly different than Luke's had been. "You wouldn't have a problem with me sparring with someone who uses the dark side? Not that I can now."

[uncertain_dume]

"This time a year ago, I might have," Kanan admitted. "Lana is... not what I expected at all, from a Sith."

That still felt so damn weird to say.

A moment later, his brain caught up with the rest of it.

"Wait, can now?"

[thatwaslucky]

Rey sighed, and reached into her bag to pull out the lightsaber- her lightsaber- broken into two halves.

[uncertain_dume]

Kanan frowned a little as she pulled out those two halves.

"See, mine is supposed to do that," he noted, a touch wryly. "What happened there? It looks like it was ripped apart."

[thatwaslucky]

"It was," Rey said, wincing. "I had to fight for it with someone. I suppose I won."

Meaning she woke up first.