D'qar, Resistance Base

Landing areas

The jubilation was engulfing the base, even as the air of wariness about the repercussions of their victory hung over every head on the base. This loss would not be one the First Order would take lying down, even in wake of their destabilizing of the galactic stage with their crippling strike to the Republic's centre of power.

But as the remnants of the strike squadrons trickled back, there were still the faint pangs of mourning as it became all too clear just how much the desperate attack had cost them.

Nearly two-thirds of the squadrons of X-wings and A-wings didn't return, and every one of them meant a lost pilot of their operation.

As fighters landed and their pilots disembarked, celebrations were laced with downcast expressions, as many pilots stared towards the empty fighter hangers that wouldn't see their occupants return.

As his X-wing fully powered down, Poe disembarked, sighing slightly as he stared down at where a few X-wings, and their pilots with them, no longer stood.

Nudging his leg slightly, BB-8 whistled in a subdued, almost sympathetic manner, to which Poe gave a small smile as he knelt down and patted the droid's head reassuringly.

"They went out fighting, can't get better then that."

As BB hummed lowly, Poe heard some applause ringing up from the further end of the landing field, as a familiar YT-1300 corellian freighter came to land before a gathered crowd.

Finn was still unconscious on the medical stretcher, having been briefly and gently turned over as the emergency treatment patches had been applied to his back. As the Resistance medics prepared to take him away, Rey stared down at his unconscious form with a look of thankfulness, even remorse, for all that happened to him, and others.

She never would have imagined herself where she was a few weeks ago.

Yet now here she was, hoping for the life of this ex-stormtrooper to be saved, unlike one who they'd lost so recently that it still hurt.

Leaning down, she planted a small kiss on his dark forehead, whispering to him as the medical staff silently lifted him up to carry to the med ward:

"I'll be back, and thank you."

As she watched calmly, while Finn was swiftly carried towards one of the base's hidden structure hills, Rey saw a few familiar faces emerge from the crowd.

Poe Dameron, with BB-8 rolling behind at his heels, paused as his face fell with worry at the sight of Finn on the stretcher. Slowly, he then turned to Rey as some crowds dispersed from the Falcon's surroundings, BB-8 quietly whistling as Poe asked with a half hearted attempt at greeting her again. But Rey felt the concern he had for Finn, as she also had, in his voice:

"Rey, you okay? What happened to him?"

Shaking her head slightly, Rey shuddered near the end of her reply, the crackle of Ren's blade still fresh in her memory, and all it put them through.

"Yes, I'm fine. But he, Finn, we were attacked..."

"...I've seen medics patch up worse. But how you'd get back?"

Rey stared back at the freighter, remarking with less shakiness in her voice now:

"Chewbacca flew us in the ship."

"What about Han?"

Rey said nothing, only a painful sight escaping her lips as she looked down, blinking rapidly as she fought back the tears and memories of what happened to the elder man.

Poe didn't need to ask further, as he turned away slightly, unable to feel as hurt as he should be. Amidst the losses he and other squadmates had encountered today, the loss of this lone smuggler seemed just another to add to the costs. And yet each new one hurt all the same.

BB-8 quietly hummed as it wheeled around, while Poe quietly murmured to Rey:

"I'm, gonna check in with the docs, see about him...I'm glad you're safe. We've lost too many already."

Rey couldn't help but silently agree with the pilot as he turned to leave, BB-8 casting her a silent stare from beside his ankles as it too followed in Poe's footsteps, away towards the further medical bunker.

Yet through the crowds, Rey saw a new figure emerging, an elder woman, whose rank earned a few salutes as she passed by, fixated on the Falcon.

Leia saw the girl standing almost aimlessly at the foot of the Falcon's boarding ramp, their gazes meeting briefly.

But before Leia could even ask the question on her mind, that gut feeling she feared hadn't been just a mere feeling, a Wookie forlornly walked down the boarding ramp. As if hoping for him to emerge after Chewbacca, Leia waited a few moments. But Han never came down the ramp.

Chewbacca slowly walked forwards, as if not seeing Leia, the wookie's eyes downcast as he drew level with the woman. But before he could pass her by, she gently stuck out an arm, lightly grabbing his furry upper arm and looking deeply into his eyes, her sadness returning as she saw the hollow look in the Wookie's expression as he turned to face her, stopping in his melancholy walk.

Not even emitting a sad growl, Chewbacca let Leia give his arm a light squeeze, looking down briefly as he turned away, walking off to find somewhere to be alone, away from the ship that reminded him too much of Han right now.

As if she knew that Han meant a lot to the woman before her, Rey slowly walked forwards as Leia looked back at her. The young girl shook her head slightly, unable to say what had happened out loud.

All Leia could do was pull the girl into a hug, yet this did little to evaporate the tension she felt in Rey's body.

"I'm sorry."

Rey's low murmur wasn't one Leia replied to, as she pulled away, words meaningless at this point.

Behind her, as if a blessing in breaking this uneasiness, a protocol droid walked up briskly, his words distracting Leia into turning around as Rey also looked the droid's way.

C-3PO carefully spoke, as he had been in enough delicate emotional situations to realize when certain things shouldn't be said. But this was crucial:

"General Organa, if I may, now that we have made sure the First Order doesn't have the map, we must hurry. I suspect they will already be making plans to retaliate once they have gathered the means to do so."

Nodding quietly, Leia gestured for the droid to lead on.

Resistance Base

Main Communications centre

It was a while before Chewbacca came out of his misery induced state, having found a small corner in the base and sat there quietly, head in furry hands.

Yet as the activity around the communications centre seemed to heat up, the Wookie felt little reason to go.

But a woman came over to him, and her gruff voice as she stood above him woke him up slightly:

"He wouldn't want you like this you know..."

Looking up at Leia, Chewbacca was silent, before slowly shuffling to his feet. Unlike the landing areas, where he had been still overcome with shock still, he stood there quietly as he pulled the elder human woman into his arms, not relenting as the woman patted his back up until he released her.

Giving Chewbacca a mournful smile, Leia gestured for the Wookie to follow her, and without much pause, he did just that. Chewbacca wasn't one to dwell much, not waste time. But most importantly, Han wouldn't approve of him wallowing as he had just been.

As preparations were made around the base for the impending evacuations that would surely be needed in future, C-3PO, Rey, Chewbacca, Poe, BB-8 and others as part of this intelligence gathering saw the map fall into place yet again.

The map came into view, BB-8's upload before the attack, seemingly an eternity ago, being zeroed in on to give them the exact coordinates they needed. C-3PO spoke as he gestured a hand to the glinting star system and planet within.

"There, the Ahch-To system, as the map indicates."

"Luke..."

Leia gently whispered to herself, a hope she desperately needed after all that had happened. Beside her, Rey asked bluntly, yet hopefully:

"How will we find him there?"

Giving a small smile to Rey, Leia remarked off-handedly:

"He has a droid with him, an R2 unit. He'll be a good beacon to track."

Chewbacca quietly growled in a nod, as Rey gave a small smile in understanding. Leia was entrusting this girl to go with Chewbacca, to find him when he was needed most.

On her side, her fingers grazed the lightsaber she carried on her belt now. This time, she would go willingly where fate, no, the force seemed to be compelling her to go.

Resistance Base, landing areas

A gathering was growing to watch the Falcon take off, to go and finally acquire a very prominent person who the Resistance could use as a rallying point.

As final cargo was loaded, Chewbacca making one last run of a crate up the boarding ramp, Rey was slowly walking to embark as well.

But Leia stopped her, the General having come to see her off. Turning to face the woman one last time, Rey gave a small smile as her words carried across the small space between them, a proud smile on the woman's face:

"Rey. May the Force be with you."

Nodding at this, Rey turned to leave aboard the Falcon, the Wookie awaiting her to get on board.

In the crowds of Resistance pilots and crew that saw off the Falcon, Poe and BB-8 stood beside C-3PO and General Leia in silence as the others cheered.

The YT-1300's blue hued thrusters engaged as it hovered off the landing area, taking to the skies to make the long journey it had to do.

The Falcon would enter hyperspace, and through it, arrive at the planet that held hope for the future of the galaxy, for peace.

Ahch-To

Remote islands

The planet was mostly water, a sapphire jewel of a planet when seen from orbit. But many dark coloured archipelagos were scattered over the planet's surface.

Their scans detected one exposed droid of unique signature from the local wildlife, one that matched the signature of an astromech droid they sought, located on one of these archipelago islands.

Before long, the Falcon had punched through the cloud banks over the planet's global waters, able to fly at wave-level as it came in close to land at the island where they detected the droid signal. An astromech, an R2 unit.

But also, upon closer detection, a single human.

The island in question was large, but also very tall in structure.

Stood at the foot of the long stone steps, Rey glanced back to see Chewbacca waiting at the foot of the Falcon's boarding ramp, growling loudly from afar as he gestured up the long stairwell that lay above and before her.

Taking a breath, she began to make her way up.

As she climbed up, using her quarterstaff to ease the strain of so many steps, which had been aboard the Falcon the whole time, she felt that there was something about this place. It was old, the ruins of old buildings too decayed to make out what they once looked like dotting its tops. Brick lain walls and stairs lined the top of the island's rises.

The waves echoed far below before long, as she made her way up into the ruins. It looked like the remnants of a place of worship, a temple. Perhaps the first Jedi temple as she heard he'd been searching for.

Stepping through a series of arches, carved into the semi-ruined walls of the temple, she rounded more corners, and climbed up a grassy rise at the top of the island's hill ridge. She kept on going, until she stopped, as a large clearing, almost like a makeshift square or plaza flat, emerged before her. The terrain dropped away at one section, but before it was what she'd searched for.

Staring out at the sea, back turned to her, a hooded figure in grey robes stood silently. But she knew better then to think he hadn't seen their ship land, or hear her approaching.

Beside the robed figure, a white and blue astromech turned to see Rey appear, whistling in a lower pitched tune then she'd heard BB-8 ever emit.

At his droid's chirps, the figure slowly turned to face her, still stood tall as he glanced at her, his weathered face and greying beard and hair revealed as he lowered his hood, staring silently at her.

As Luke Skywalker patiently waited for her to say what she had to say, she saw the look of hesitant, but experienced wisdom behind his eyes, jaded by his losses at the hands of the Order, and the Knights of Ren. Slowly, she unpacked the lightsaber from the bag at her side, the lightsaber that once belonged to him, and his father before him, and held it out to him, an almost pleading look in her eyes as she stood there, holstering her quarterstaff onto her back as she stood there, stoic before this Jedi Master.

R2-D2 slowly chirped as it turned its head to look at Luke, the droid also recognising the lightsaber. But Luke only stared at the weapon with an almost empty look, before his expression slowly turned to Rey's own.

Her pleas that her eyes beheld were not just her own, but of a galaxy, crying out for a chance of peace, a leader who was needed to set an example, to return, to bring undo the darkness as he once did.

And as he stared at her, Luke's face fell slowly, the faintest shadow of reluctant acceptance that the time had come creeping through his eyes. Rey could only stand across from the Jedi master, seeing hope slowly emerge in her future.

She had come far, from not trusting strangers, to now placing her trust in someone she was meeting, one she'd only heard of, for the first time. Because she had to, the force was crying out for it to be done.

The Jedi stood, the droid that accompanied him beside him, atop the hills of Ahch-To across from the girl, the seeds of healing the galaxy so desperately needed after recent events planted here, now.

And against the darkness the First Order had spread, a single glimmer was enough to undo its total control of all it sought to engulf.

FIN

Big change here is that if it were put to screen, the losses the Resistance sustained, and the feeling of tension at the inevitable retaliation, would be weighing on their minds more. But mostly, the images of how many fighters don't make it back serves that purpose, along with C3PO mentioning it.

Mostly minor changes here, Leia comforts Chewbacca more then she does in film, as much as she should have in my mind.

Also, given he isn't around to Map-ex-machina, R2 went with the one member of the OT group that he most associated with, Luke, to Ahch-To. In keeping with Artoo being with Luke through all his own jedi steps, he's here with him in his exile, as he also was at the jedi academy prior if the image of him laying a hand on artoo in the massacre remains in movie is any indicator.

Given that R2 ends up on Ahch-To in the movie anyway, this is convenient.

But most of these changes are consequences of what changes I already made, but in the end, it all leads to the same end. Everyone is where they are at the end, but the journey to get there is as different from a New Hope as it should have been.