PHOENIX ━ dameron

034 | echo

Incredibly hurt, Rey flinched at his words. Lyra, however, wasn't surprised.

"You see those two?" Maz pointed at a group of pirates in the corner. "They'll trade work for transportation to the Outer Rim. There, you can disappear."

Finn was open to it, considering his options. He could stay with them and head back to a base filled with people who might not trust him. Rey would be there, and Lyra could tell it was holding him back to think of leaving the girl. But to disappear like he had never existed would be a beautiful kind of solace. If he had been audacious enough to steal a TIE fighter, he understood the risks. In a way, Lyra was running from the First Order, too. With time, she had learned to bear it. It was raw and new to him, the shock of being hunted. To break the mold you have to first be seen, and being seen was the most dangerous proposition in all the galaxy.

"Finn!" Rey hissed, not ready or willing to lose him on such a whim.

"Come with me," Finn said to her, reaching out to grab her arm

Rey recoiled, glancing first at Lyra and then at Bee. "What about the map? We're not done yet, we have to get him back to your base."

Han and Lyra both shared the same look. They had made a silent pact to not say anything about it until Finn did, but it seemed that the former stormtrooper didn't want to explain himself.

"I can't," Finn told her.

Their group was fractured and divided with those two words. Han wouldn't face Leia, Finn wouldn't stop running, and Rey wouldn't go anywhere but Jakku. It was clear that their paths were going to diverge if there was nothing to pull them back together.

Finn tried to hand the gun back to Han as he left the table, but the smuggler just shook his head solemnly. "Keep it, kid."

Rey looked to Lyra, eyes wide. They couldn't lose Finn, Lyra realized. Even if he didn't care for Lyra, there was a life for him with the Resistance. One where he wouldn't have to hide. Lyra cocked her head to the side, motioning for Rey to go after him. If anyone was able to talk Finn down, it would be her.

Lyra would only make the situation worse.

She took another long sip of her water, watching as Rey chased after Finn. Her head of hair pulled back into three neat buns bobbed through the crowd until it disappeared behind a column and out of sight.

"Who's the girl?" Maz asked, vaguely amused by the situation.

"Still trying to figure that one out," Han grunted, looking to Lyra for an explanation. Her previous one was no longer adequate.

"She's a scavenger. An amazing pilot, but she's never left Jakku until today," Lyra explained. A gray chunk of air fell into her eyes, and she brushed it back behind her ear. "Beyond that, I don't know. She claims that she needs to stay on Jakku to wait for her family to return," she explained soberly. "She's been waiting all her life."

"She knew the inner workings of the Falcon like nothin' I've ever seen," Han remarked, grinning. "Might even be a better pilot than you, kid."

Lyra tipped her head back with a melancholy smile, trying desperately hard to keep herself in the present. She didn't have the luxury of time to dwell on the past. "I've never claimed to be anything close to the best pilot in the Resistance. Rey might have me beat in the flying department, and I owe her for saving our asses back on Jakku. She's already helped the Resistance more than she could ever know."

"So this is your mission?" Maz asked her, fingers pressed to her chin.

Lyra nodded, skillfully avoiding any mention of the second pilot. "It's been a long road to find the map. Now that we've got it, I need to get it back before anything else happens."