[ Before he calls her on it, she never stopped to think about why she was so opposed to the physical contact that came with aid, why she was so sharply defensive of any movement that seemed to stem from the belief that she required assistance. She does, now, and she's so startled by the keenness of his observation that it staggers her a moment, leaving her frozen in the Corellian wilderness to stare after his retreating form for a moment too long.
On Jakku, weakness made you a target. If you took help, it meant you needed it, and if you needed someone else, you certainly weren't in any position to protect what little you had. She never would have staked out her home inside that half-buried AT-AT had she been comfortable revealing her own weakness. The storms that blew through buffed the residents of the desert planet into smooth rocks, stubbornly independent and wild of temper.
But it wasn't just that. Finn, Chewie, Han, Leia, even Poe and Luke, any of them offering help weren't met with the same rebuff anymore; Kylo Ren was different. Regardless of what she'd seen in his mind, of the connection that they shared, she still shunted him back away from the familiar and casual touch, from seeing her as weak. Both because a part of her believed she would never be through proving herself to the barrage of his insults and because she needed strength to dissuade him from combatting her.
It was a barrier, and he had thrust bodily against it and bounced back off of it, recognizing it before Rey was ever aware that she had created it. Only then does she look around and notice how different their position in the forest is, how quickly they've been moving, and consider what he'd actually been trying to do. That moment is the most humbling of them all, and guilt creeps in and stiffens her joints as she moves to catch up with him. ]
Stop psychoanalyzing me. [ The grouse lacks bite in all its brevity, but she falls in step beside him. A few strides—his easy, hers taken in lunges—pass in silence before she reaches out to touch his arm, a passive apology and correction, accepting the truth of his words while remaining too stubborn to verbally acknowledge it. Show me, her reach urges. ]
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On Jakku, weakness made you a target. If you took help, it meant you needed it, and if you needed someone else, you certainly weren't in any position to protect what little you had. She never would have staked out her home inside that half-buried AT-AT had she been comfortable revealing her own weakness. The storms that blew through buffed the residents of the desert planet into smooth rocks, stubbornly independent and wild of temper.
But it wasn't just that. Finn, Chewie, Han, Leia, even Poe and Luke, any of them offering help weren't met with the same rebuff anymore; Kylo Ren was different. Regardless of what she'd seen in his mind, of the connection that they shared, she still shunted him back away from the familiar and casual touch, from seeing her as weak. Both because a part of her believed she would never be through proving herself to the barrage of his insults and because she needed strength to dissuade him from combatting her.
It was a barrier, and he had thrust bodily against it and bounced back off of it, recognizing it before Rey was ever aware that she had created it. Only then does she look around and notice how different their position in the forest is, how quickly they've been moving, and consider what he'd actually been trying to do. That moment is the most humbling of them all, and guilt creeps in and stiffens her joints as she moves to catch up with him. ]
Stop psychoanalyzing me. [ The grouse lacks bite in all its brevity, but she falls in step beside him. A few strides—his easy, hers taken in lunges—pass in silence before she reaches out to touch his arm, a passive apology and correction, accepting the truth of his words while remaining too stubborn to verbally acknowledge it. Show me, her reach urges. ]