somethingwithturquoise | MHA #4; Tuesday Evening [09/13].

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MHA #4; Tuesday Evening [09/13].

Yes, Summer had been having a lot of sangria nights lately, but, apparently, there had been a lot of good reasons for them. And Rey being back after a pretty substantial event in her life definitely called for one, and so she got together all the necessary things and had several large pitcher waiting and ready to go, and they could start to really dish it out and explore all the no doubt complicated feelings she was going through, now that the aftermath had a little bit of time to just settle.

And then Summer would get started on focusing on Annie's bachelorette party. Really!

Also, the giant bowl of gummy sharks on the coffee table right now was probably not only excessive but also a terrible idea considering the amounts of alcohol that were likely to be consumed that evening, but, goddamn it, it was Rey, and Summer could never let a good running joke die.

So, with pizza cupcakes and beer far behind her, she was ready for a much more sophisticated sloppy drunkenness ahead of her.

[[ for the space bestie! although if anyone needs her before then, go for it! ]]

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"It's been strange," Rey admitted. "Mostly everyone's left, so the base feels very empty. I think the rest of us are trying to put off figuring out our next steps."

"Any thoughts?" asked Summer, peering at Rey over her glass as she drank. "On any of those next steps?"

"I have to figure out how to try other Jedi." Still weird to actually consider herself among that number. "But I don't know what that looks like. And I made some choices back there I should work through."

"I'm sure you'll figure it out," said Summer, with the utmost confidence, and a nod to go along with it, and a small, encouraging smile. "You always seem to. Even...I mean, obviously, I don't know what those choices weeere..." With a small trailing off and a pause to suggested that, if Rey wanted to fill in those blanks, she was more than welcome, "but they clearly worked out, if you're here now..."

There was a pause for just a big gulp of sangria.

"There's something I haven't been telling you," she said.

Summer generally felt that there were plenty of things that Rey liked to keep to herself, and she absolutely respected that, knowing Rey to be a more private person, but the fact that Rey would mention that she'd been keeping some things to herself, well, that clearly wasn't just the run-of-the-mill little privacies. So Summer matched that gulp with one of her own before quirking an intrigued eyebrow and prodding, "Go on..."

Rey hated this. But she felt like of anyone after Anakin, she kind of owed it to Summer when she was saying she was fine and nothing was happening all this time.

Also, Summer was the one person she knew with context for this.

"You know Emperor Palpatine?"

Summer figured the derisive snort into her cup was enough of an answer to the affirmative on that one, but, for good measure, she added a why, "Who? What? Never heard of the guy."

Clearly just a hold-over from her Rebellion spy days, don't mind her.

But man, this was probably a weird time to start suddenly really missing that, huh?

Rey sucked in a breath.

"He's my grandfather," she said, and oops, there went the drink.

And Summer's own drink stopped about halfway to her own mouth, which wouldn't have been much use for drinking anyway, because it was halfway between forming a response. Halfway, but then the response stopped, too, , and her mouth closed as she reconsidered that response.

She tried again, faltered, shut her mouth for a second time, and then just reached over to grab the pitcher from the coffee table so that she could refill Rey's glass.

And by then, she managed just a nice, succinct, really says it all, doesn't it, "What the fuck. Seriously?"

"Yeah," Rey said, reaching for that glass again. "I found out a while ago and kept trying to pretend it wasn't happening."

"Because we all know how well that always works," said Summer. "And thank god you clearly take after the matrilineal side in terms of looks, because ew, but also, like, I dated a stormtrooper, I have no room to talk. Still, though..."

Summer topped off her own glass, shaking her head as she set the pitcher aside again and lifted her cup as if in a toast.

"Here I never thought anyone could beat me out of having the Multiverse's Worst Grampa, but you might actually give me a good run for my money on that one now, Rey. Congrats."

"Thanks?" Rey tried. "I don't know how to feel about that."

Summer had a few more thoughts about how she felt about it, but, as she used some sangria sipping as some space to think about, she tried to think of how Rey actually might feel about it.

"What does it matter, anyway?" is what she came up with. "Who your wrinkly old dick of a grandfather might have been?"

...okay, actually, she just kind of wanted to squeeze Palpatine is a wrinkly old dick in there, just because she could. Sue her.

"It matters when I was having visions of ending up like him," Rey admitted. "I kept making stupid decisions out of fear of that and making it worse. And he thought I was nothing but a vessel for his power."

That last part was especially not okay.

"Well, he was wrong," Summer said, "and that's not true, your power is no one's but your own, and the only thing yoi're a vessel for is your own badassery.

"And," she added, with particular emphasis, which meant a dangerous gesture with the hand holding her cup, "you're too smart to be that stupid, anyway."

"For a moment there I thought I would have to take him up on it," Rey admitted, focusing on her drink. "If Ben hadn't shown up, I don't know what I would have done."

Summer squinted a little, not necessarily at Rey, but at the cadre of various people she'd come into contact with in Rey's universe over the years.

"You'd have kicked his ass, obviously," she stated, almost dismissively, as to get that point out there, first and foremost. "But, wait, who is Ben?"

It wasn't connecting, and she didn't feel that bad about it when your name was fucking Ben.

"Kylo Ren," she said. "He turned back to the light side. Came to help me."

She'd be lying if she said she wasn't interested in this reaction.

Well, the very first reaction was a bit of a stare. Followed by a blink. And then, that very useful, very succinct, "what the fuck, Rey?"

And it was followed, very swiftly, with an, "Ugh, Fuck Face Brain-Intrution McGee, sweeping in at the last minute with a redemption arc? What an asshole!"

"He's the only reason I'm alive right now," Rey pointed out gently.

"Yeah, well," Summer countered, not even nearly as gently, "maybe he wouldn't have had to have been if someone's friends didn't have to wait for a mass-text distress call from someone else to even know what was up."

Rey frowned, not expecting that.

"There wasn't time. I had enough time to tell Master Skywalker I was leaving and then it was chaos for days. I didn't even have a phone with me most of the time."

"Okay," said Summer, who sounded a little more willing to allow that now that she knew it, buuut...

"But," she said, "would you have even been in this situation to this magnitude if it weren't for all the shit he doing? Like, sorry, I'm not going to start swooning and calling the guy a hero for being a master of edging while fucking the Empire and managing to pull out at just the right moment."

Such a way with words, this one.

"Like, don't get me wrong, I'm super glad he did, but, you know, it would have been nice if he'd have done the whole Light Side thing before all the torture and galactic destruction."

"What happened wasn't his fault," Rey told her. "He was a pawn as much as I was. It would have been much easier if he'd turned back when I have him a chance before, or at least wasn't getting in our way."

That much she could allow. But a lot of the complaints she had about him when he was alive felt hollow to her now. It just hurt.

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