*This story will incorporate some themes from "Easy A" and "The Scarlet Letter," but will follow neither plot line to a T.

Rey Kenobi was in a new town, starting a new school with new faces, but for her there was really nothing new about any of this. This nervous twisting in her gut was not new, neither was the dead weight of dread that had settled over her, or the underlying thirst to prove herself that was met in equal parts by a desire to just blend in and disappear. This was the fourth school she'd attended in as many years, having been shifted around from foster home to foster home, and she was well versed in the novelty of being the "new kid." She knew all about the gossip that it would entail, the unwanted attention it would bring, and the make or break of first impressions.

This year, though...This year would be different. She would make sure of it, because for the first time in her sixteen years of life, Rey actually felt hopeful about her future. Her new guardian, Luke Skywalker, had been very helpful in that regard so far. She'd only been in his home since the start of summer two months ago, but the stability and companionship he'd provided had done wonders for her mental health. There were other things that reassured her too. Things like how he had plenty of his own money so she knew he wasn't just using her for the government checks. Or how he was a bachelor with no other children for her to compete with. How he'd actually accepted her and didn't expect her to be his personal Cinderella. He'd taken her to the movies and bowling, enrolled her in Bojustsu classes, given her unlimited use of his pool. Not to mention, she had her own bedroom with a bathroom attached that was nearly the size of her entire previous foster home. It felt almost criminal to have such luxuries, and she still found herself struggling with the guilt of it at times, and fear over the impermanence of it all.

Because Rey Kenobi was also very well versed in the grim reality of being unwanted and discarded.

But Luke seemed...different. He wasn't unkind, disinterested or intolerant of her. At least not so far, and to that end, she was starting to feel more comfortable and—surprisingly—trusting of hercurrent arrangement.

And that was what made this school year so important. She thought that she may actually be at this school for a while, perhaps even until she graduated, and so she couldn't really afford to fall under the "loser" or "penniless orphan" or "nobody from nowhere" stereotypes she was usually saddled with.

Maybe this year it would help that Luke had given her a generous allowance to buy nice school clothes for once, and she would no longer have to wear the out of style, second hand, ill fitted ones from the salvation army. And her new school didn't have a uniform, only a dress code, which meant that she could have a bit of freedom to wear what she liked. Which today was a knee length yellow sundress with a denim jacket and brown flats. It was comfortable, yellow was her favorite color, and while none of it was exactly designer label or teen vogue, she felt good. Maybe she looked good too.

She hoped.

She really hated the fact that she even cared about silly things like that, but she knew well enough that it would be her appearance that everyone judged her by first, and so, reluctantly, she'd taken a bit of extra effort with it. She put on makeup she'd gotten as a "welcome to the family" gift from Luke's twin sister, Leia. She hadn't gotten to meet her yet, so she couldn't really blame the woman for assuming that Rey was a normal teenager who would be chuffed to bits to receive a Sephora gift card. In truth Rey was delighted to have received a gift at all, and then equally intimidated knowing she'd have to use it. Luke had given her a ride to the mall, and then perused the book store while Rey had cluelessly perused the endless colorful displays of lipsticks and eyeshadows and foundations that she had absolutely no idea what to do with.

Thankfully the sales woman did, and she happily chatted away about the importance of eye primers and contour kits as she helped Rey pick out the right colors and brushes. When she'd finally made her purchase, she'd been floored to find how expensive it was, and then relieved that she'd had more than enough on her giftcard to cover it. She wondered how she could ever repay Leia for it, and decided that she'd start by learning to wear it properly.

She'd spent that entire afternoon practicing as she watched YouTube tutorials, deciding after several hours and several different looks that her skills could at least be considered passable, and the "simple makeup look" wasn't so hadn't gotten the liquid liner in her eye after the third attempt, and she hadn't had to bother with contouring at all. Which was a relief, it looked incredibly intimidating.

Now, she stood under the shadow of the multi-story red brick high school with her bookbag slung over her shoulder and the mass exodus of teenagers exiting buses and cars around her, and gulped.

"Good luck kid," Luke had told her when he'd dropped her off, and she wondered how badly she'd need it. She was supposed to be meeting his nephew, Ben, under the flag pole where she was currently standing. He was supposed to show her around, help her navigate the mazes of halls and rooms to show her where her homeroom class was, and maybe introduce her to his friends. But, as the first bell rang to signal it was time to get to said homeroom class, she realized he'd either forgotten, or—more than likely—had blown her off.

It was a habit of his, she'd noticed, even though she'd never met him. Luke had always invited him along to movies and bowling, hoping to get Rey around kids her own age, but Ben never once agreed to go. Luke had joked that Ben was an antisocial asshole, but Rey was beginning to think that maybe he'd been spot on about that whole asshole bit.

Still, if he stood her up, or forgotten her, it wasn't a very good omen for how the rest of her year was going to go. But then, he was only one of at least six hundred other students...one of them was bound to like her, right?

She vividly remembered last years' teasing laughter, name calling, and those very poor attempts to mock her accent...

Maybe she should just resign herself to her fate and accept the pecking order, as it were, where she would always be bottom of the food chain and no amount of high-end makeup would ever change that.

"Hey, you new here?" There is suddenly a boy standing in front of her, olive skin, wavy dark hair, stubble on his chin and a friendly smile. His eyes are dark brown but bright, his disposition cheerful, and she finds his smile contagious. She returns it with one of her own.

"Ben?" She asks him, but she's very certain that whoever Ben is, this isn't him. As if to prove her right, the boys eyes widen in confusion. "Never been called that before," he says with a surprised chuckle, "But no. Not Ben, Poe. Poe Dameron." He extends his hand to her, and she takes it, suddenly nervous. "I'm Rey," she replies, and then hurries to explain her previous mistake with, "I was supposed to meet Ben here, but he never turned up."

"Ben," Poe repeats, cocking an eyebrow. "What grade is he in?"

"Eleventh," Rey answers, noting that Poe seems like the type who knows everyone.

"Ah," he says, and something about his tone suggests that, yes, he definitely knows Ben, "Solo."

"That's the one," Rey replies, adjusting her bookbag on her shoulder as they begin to walk. Luke had mentioned that Solo was his last name. "You know him?" She wonders, even if the answer is obvious. She can't claim to be a master conversationalist.

"I do," Poe confirms, "He's a..." he hesitates before settling on, "friend." Then, "What were you meeting him for?"

"He was supposed to show me around," she tells him, startled when he reaches to remove her bookbag from her shoulder and puts it over his own.

He frowns, and she can tell that none of this is making sense to him. Suddenly it occurs to her that she might be asked to explain how she knows Ben, and she isn't quite sure how to do it without giving away her orphan status, which she'd already determined she wasn't going to do this year.

Of course it hadn't occurred to her that maybe Ben would. She hopes he simply just doesn't care enough to mention her to any one at all.

"Weird, he's not on the student council." A pause and then, "How do you know him, anyway?"

"I don't," Rey answers him a bit too quickly, "I'm a foreign exchange student and I'm staying with his uncle." Yes, that story works. Rey inwardly congratulates herself for thinking so quickly on her feet. It helps that she still has the English accent to back her claims, even after her many years of living in the States. "His uncle told me he'd meet me here, but I guess Ben didn't get the memo." Or, rather, Ben just didn't give a fuck.

"His loss then," Poe says with a shrug and another disarmingly handsome smile. "I could show you around," he offers, "You're probably better off with me, anyway. I doubt Solo could find his way out of a wet paper bag." Rey thinks that's a bit harsh to say about someone Poe claims is his friend, but she laughs anyway. She's not in any mood to defend Ben right now.

Poe shows her to her first class, which is incidentally the same as his first class. They choose desks next to each other, and already she can tell that not only is Poe very popular with the female contingent, but just being friendly with him seems to have earned her some dirty looks from a group of girls on the other side of the classroom. Suddenly Rey feels like she's navigating a landmine, and tries to give them a friendly smile to show she means no harm, but the glares the girls are giving her become harder, and so she decides not to look in their direction again, or in Poe's.

But that only seems to encourage him to get closer to her. He moves his desk as close to hers as he can, and leans over to whisper, "That's Bazine Netal and her clique," and Rey has to force herself not to look bewildered by that name...Bazine. It's awful. But then there were always some people who thought that Rey was a boy's name, so perhaps she shouldn't judge.

"I don't think they like me much," Rey observes, taking a notebook and pencil from her bag to avoid looking in Bazine's direction.

"Can't imagine why not," Poe shrugs, "I think you're...what is it they say across the pond? The bee's knees?"

Rey giggles and Poe grins. Maybe she's made a good impression, after all.

It's not until lunchtime that she's finally introduced to Ben Solo, and he is both nothing and everything like she expected. She expected a blonde, tanned, blue eyed kid like the younger pictures of Luke she'd seen. She hadn't been expecting a lanky, pale, raven haired boy who nearly towered over his school mates and wore a scowl so cold you could hang meat from it.

She had been right that he was an asshole, though. Perhaps even to a greater degree than she'd previously imagined possible.

"Solo," Poe greets him as they approach his table. He's seated with a red haired boy and a tall blonde girl, all of them dressed in head to toe black like some sort of wannabe metal band, all of them wearing frowns and looking for all the world as if they loathe everyone, including each other.

Ben's scowl only deepens when Poe approaches, which makes Rey think that maybe the two of them aren't really friends. Seeing them together here she can't really imagine how they could be. They are polar opposites, Poe so sweet and charming, Ben so...not.

"This is Rey," Poe introduces her, holding onto his lunch tray and nodding his head in her direction. Ben doesn't look up, only shrugs and, in a voice deeper than any high schooler should have the right to possess, he says, "Good for her."

"You stood her up this morning," Poe continues, and Rey snaps her head towards him, shocked. She would rather that fact not be made public knowledge, for one, and for two, she really doesn't need him to speak up for her. Ben isn't worth the trouble. She doesn't care that he stood her up really, but the fact that Poe is making an issue of it seems to give Ben some sort of satisfaction. He smirks, folding his arms over his chest.

"I have better things to do with my time than babysit my uncle's charity cases."

There it is. Rey's eyes narrow, and if she weren't so stubbornly opposed to wasting food, she'd surely have smacked him over the head with her lunch tray by now. Instead, she can only hope Poe lets it go.

He doesn't.

Dammit.

"She's an exchange student, not a charity case Solo, get your head out of your ass."

"She is not an exchange student," Ben shoots back, still smirking, as if he finds sharing her personal information amusing. "She's just a foster kid Skywalker's decided to take on as part of his midlife crisis or whatever."

Ben's friends laugh, looking her over as if to find something else they can judge her for. There is no lack of ammo there, she's sure. She's heard it all already, knows all too well what's coming. Flat chested, anorexic, sporty spice, little orphan Annie...Perhaps Ben and his friends will be more creative, but she doesn't want to stick around to find all of her remaining dignity, she says in a voice that is surprisingly level and deceptively calm, "Fuck you, Ben."

And then she storms off to eat her lunch in the hall, next to the lockers, just like she's always done.

Her exchange with Ben in the cafeteria hadn't gone unnoticed, and in every class for the remainder of the day, she's either being told some variation of congratulations (as if no one has ever stood up to Ben Solo before) or being given some kind of condolence.

"Sorry that your parents died."

"Sorry you're an orphan."

Some of them mean well in their own misguided, twisted way, but Rey can't bring herself to feel guilty for snapping "Piss off" at them, and as always, the number of people who approach her begins to dwindle down to zero.

When the bell finally rings and school is dismissed, Rey has likely made far more enemies than friends.

"Hey," says a boy who's panting slightly, having just jogged towards her from across the lawn. He's dark skinned and sort of muscular, wearing a grey t-shirt and jeans, looking like he stumbled out of a teen movie where he'd be the football team captain or the annoying jock.

He isn't though. Like Poe, he has a friendly smile and kind eyes. "It's Rey, right? I'm Finn."

She only blinks at him, trying to figure out his angle.

"I saw what happened in the cafeteria," he tells her, nervously rubbing the back of his head. Rey is expecting him to say something stupid, but instead he tells her, "I'm a foster kid, too."

"Oh," she says, and her rigid posture eases a little. She hadn't expected that. "Yeah," he says, "So if, like, you wanna sit with me at lunch tomorrow instead of in the hallway, I'd like that."

Rey smiles now, "I'd like that too," she tells him. Then, after a beat he asks, "Wanna exchange numbers? In case, y'know, you need someone to talk to? Solidarity and all that."

Rey wonders if maybe he's hitting on her, and then finds herself sort of hoping that he is. He's...adorable.

"Sure," is her chipper reply, and they exchange phones so they can add each other's contact information. When Finn returns her phone and she returns his, his hand brushes hers, and she finds it soft and warm.

"See you later, Rey," he grins at her, and she finds she quite likes his smile, too. "Yeah," she replies with one of her own, "Later."

When she gets into Luke's car, and he asks her how her day went, she can't help smiling and answering with, "Great."

Ben saw the girl at the flag pole that morning, and the moment he laid his eyes on her he knew he would definitely not be approaching her. He hadn't really ever intended to anyway, he'd only agreed to show her around to get his uncle and mother off his back.

She was in a yellow dress with her hair pulled up into three vertical buns. The morning sun was shining down on her, highlighting the tanned skin of her long legs. She looked like the perfect picture of purity and charm, alluring and beautiful in a way that was effortless. He hadn't really thought about what she'd look like, but he hadn't expected his breath to catch, or his eyes to wander down her body, or his heart to speed up.

And in Ben's limited experiences with the female gender, girls who looked like her wanted nothing at all to do with guys who looked like him. And she especially wouldn't want to be seen with him on the first day of school, when first impressions meant everything.

Besides, he had a reputation to uphold as a callous prick, he couldn't be seen showing someone like her around. Poe would be on her before too long, anyhow. He had a gift with girls that, despite having tried to depart his wisdom on several occasions, Ben had never come close to mastering.

This girl would probably be another notch in Poe's belt by the end of term.

Or maybe Jessika Pava and her church group would get to her first, recruiting her into their religious cult which was less about being pious and more about having an excuse to be judgmental, overbearing bitches.

Whatever the case, Ben was washing his hands of it. He didn't need to get himself involved in her life, even if Luke was going to adopt her and make her a part of the family. All the more reason, really, to avoid her. She'd probably already heard all of the sordid details of his past. His stint in juvie for shop lifting, his many fights, his many attempts to run away, his out of control temper...

It'd been part of the reason he'd refused to "hang out" with her over the summer, even though his mother and Luke had both been adamant about it. He wasn't sure what she knew about him, or how that information might have shaped her opinion of him before she'd even met him. So he'd assumed that, like everyone else his age, she wouldn't like him and he'd spared himself that rejection just like he was doing now.

Which made Poe bringing her over during lunch quite irritating.

For one, he really didn't care for Dameron much at all. Their mothers were friends, and so they'd kind of been pushed into an unwilling friendship that only existed outside of school where they'd play video games together sometimes. At school, though, they ran in vastly different social circles and being seen together was a fauxpas.

But for all that he hated Dameron, he really hated this moral grandstanding bullshit he was attempting, trying to defend this girl as part of his mating ritual or something. It made Ben's skin crawl.

Even the girl didn't seem to like it much, which gave Ben a rather vindictive thrill, though his mouth was doing what it did best and spilling insults about her like a poisonous gas into the air. It was easier to do if he avoided her eyes, or looking at her at all. When he was finished, he heard Hux and Phasma snickering, but couldn't bring himself to feel good about it.

"Fuck you, Ben," was her unexpected but not in the least undeserved reply, before she stormed off and he answered with a dismissive wave of his hand and a casual, "Maybe later, sweetheart," that belied the guilt settling in his stomach. He hoped she hadn't heard it.

He saw her again at the end of the day, talking to Finn Trooper. She looked happy, and he shouldn't have felt that pinch of jealousy over it. Of course other dudes had eyes and could see she was attractive, even ones like Finn, who were rumored to be gay. And of course they had the necessary looks and charms to make her smile like that. He watched them exchange phones, and then turned towards where his car was parked in the student lot, pulling his keys from his pocket. Soon, he'd probably be hearing from his uncle who'd demand an explanation about why he'd treated Rey so poorly...

Or maybe not.

After coming home to an—unsurprisingly—empty house and a note from his mother explaining that she'd be working late and to heat himself a frozen dinner, he'd spent the rest of the afternoon and evening playing on his xbox.

A call from his uncle never came, which meant that either he was used to being disappointed in Ben by now, or Rey hadn't shared the details of their interaction. Perhaps he was making a bigger deal out of it than he really needed to. Perhaps it hadn't bothered her as much as he thought, perhaps he was so unmemorable and unimportant that she'd forgotten about him altogether. He couldn't tell if that made him feel better or worse.