Disclaimer: Um… I think this goes without saying, but… I don't own any of this… Maybe one day. Marvel—I mean, Disney—owns the characters, and—well, the imagination which will bring my words to life is owned by you.

Author's Note: It's been a while. I've missed you guys. Sorry it's been so long. This is a little treat I've prepared for you. I hope it's everything you hoped for. If you have not seen the movie, expect spoilers. Pretty massive ones. But know that I've pretty drastically altered things. Anyway, this is my second work on FanFiction. My first one was sadly left incomplete years ago. But, for those of you who were fans of Out On Our Own, a sequel to my re-imagining of the origins of the Teen Titans is in the works as we speak, as well as accompanying Spotify playlists. ...This story picks up in the scene in The Last Jedi when Rey and Ben Solo are preparing for their Force-touch moment, Rey in her bungalow and Ben supposedly just having gotten out of the shower. When Luke and Rey first begin to fight, Luke uses his staff instead of just pulling out his lightsaber to begin with because he starts off going easy on her.

ACT I

GALE

PROLOGUE

The warmth of the flames, the thrum of rain falling on shingles, the tingle of the Force at her fingertips—hshe was reaching out with everything she had!

And then—

The door burst open, in came Luke, and there she was—Rey—with her spectral boyfriend, Kylo Ren.

Rey screamed. "You can't just walk in on me like this, Dad! You're invading my privacy!"

The Last Jedi

How It Should Have Ended

Rey didn't actually say that out loud, but as her boyfriend disappeared and the bricks of her hut flew away in all directions, letting the cold rain of the night steal in upon her, she wished she had, well, yelled something like that at least.

She pursued Luke up the mountainside, berating him with questions, screaming—"IS IT TRUE? Did you try to kill Ben Solo? Is ALL of this your fault?"

Luke was just about to respond, saying, "Rey, look," but before he could get out any more words—in an instant of rage—Rey struck out with her staff and hit him in the back.

But Luke simply turned around and responded in kind—not with words, but with his staff.

And they dueled, there in the night, in the rain.

Finally, Rey struck him down to the cold steps, Accio'ed her lightsaber from her now soaking bag, and, flaming it into his face, shrieked, "LISTEN TO ME!"

But Luke whipped out his own lightsaber from beneath his cloak, and as it flared green he batted hers away. He stood like lightning, face to face with her now, and bringing his lightsaber up to eye level, locked with hers, he snarled, "No, you listen to me!" Suddenly he bashed her away from him and attacked, and so they dueled again, there in the black rain upon the ancient bricks and steps of the First Jedi Temple, green and blue flashing as the blades crackled and smashed. " You're just some silly brat from nowhere," he sneered, "who thinks she's a no it all Jedi warrior—thinks she's good enough to duel Luke Skywalker!"

"I didn't even know you had a lightsaber! And—"

"Ha!" spat Luke, swinging his lightsaber with Jedi strength which she could only barely block. "Not feeling so smart any more, little girl, are you? They probably told you that's my lightsaber, didn't they? You probably felt drawn to it, didn't you?"

"Yes," she gasped, parrying another thunderous strike, "I—I did. And it—it showed me things."

Luke lashed at her once more. "Oh yeah?" This wasn't like fighting Ren had been. Skywalker was a different kind of monster! His skills were mad—!

Again, another near hit sent a shock through her system. "Yes!" screamed Rey. "It showed me this place! It showed me you—your memories! And my own! Past, present, and future! Are you saying it was all a—a lie—?"

"I'm saying you should have thought a little longer before you tried to duel me, missy!"

Rey was desperate. "Please believe me—ah!" She was totally on the defensive—he was driving her up against a temple ledge! "I didn't want—I don't want to fight you!" This burst of anger gave her the strength to give a sudden surge of power, and blasted her way out of Skywalkers trap. She danced away from him backwards into the rain, face lit blue by her gently buzzing 'saber. "I was only trying to get your attention! I didn't know you had a lightsaber of your own!"

She was pleading with him now, hot tears mingling with the cold rain on her face, but suddenly he was right on her—his flashing 'saber held high—crashing down on her—!

"Not much of a doubt in your mind anymore, is there, princess?"

Rey growled. "Don't call me—PRINCESS!" She gave a guttural shriek and plunged breathlessly back into battle with Luke, but he hadn't broken a sweat. "Didn't you hear any of the stories about me?" he asked her as he allowed her to take the upper hand and force him backwards down a flight of stairs he knew well. "Didn't you ever hear of how Darth Vader cut off my hand?" He held up his black-gloved hand for the fleetingest instant for her to appraise anew in the blended glow of their lightsabers, but Rey thought it was curious Luke didn't refer to Vader as his father, as he always had in their few talks up till no.

But he was going on… "How he sent it falling down—with my lightsaber into the abyss under cloud city? Didn't you ever wonder that if I fell down there, too, and I ended up coming out from under the place, it might have, too?"

"You built a new one," she breathed, but in that moment of thought and realization Luke performed a stunning flip-twist move, landing deathly inches behind her. It was all she could do to allow him to maneuver her darkly into the blackness behind her as he beat on her lightsaber like a mongrel, forcing her over a narrow, slippery support strut connecting the edge of the Temple grounds to a cliff wall across a short chasm; the black waters churned and swelled far below..

"Cleverly put, girly!" he said, meanly. "Any other 'inspired words of wisdom' you'd like to share with the class?"

Rey just yelled out, half due to the pain that shot up her left arm after breaking the force of Skywalker's last hit. "I'm just so confused!" she cried. "I just want—"

"You want answers!" bellowed Luke, and with that swatted her back with her lightsaber so hard she flew through the pouring water into the mountainside behind her, her lightsaber hanging meekly at her side, darkened and sheathed as she panted up at his greenly-lit, dragonish face. "You're just a teenager, a silly girl. You have no patience. You want all your questions answered now, now, now—well, I've got news for you, missy! Maybe I was going to tell you what you've been wanting to know, but—oh no! You're not getting nothing outta me tonight! Not anymore!" His eyes were flaming! He was crazy!

Rey's wimpish caving-in boiled over into rage, and her tear-smeared, bleary-eyed face contorted into the most horrible mask of rage Luke had ever seen, and her new shriek of wrath was more pronounced than any sound she'd uttered that night—more terrible than any animal sound she'd ever heard, for that matter. She ignited her saber one more time, for a crashing finale atop that narrow bridge which led nowhere, and swinging it up against Skywalker's with all her might, she yelled, "Well then I have nothing left to lose!"

Skywalker was not prepared for this. Her power, when unleashed, was beyond him! She beat him back, now, to the middle of the bridge, where he finally gave way and fell—not over the side of the bridge, he Force-steadied himself enough to avoid that, but down onto his back in front of her. She raised her blade, growling out from gritted teeth—h

But Skywalker's eyes flashed, and he lunged up from beneath her and slashed down on her raised blade harder than ever he had done yet—her 'saber went flying, still ignited—and with all the air in his lungs, Luke Skywalker said, "ENOUGH! DON'T MAKE ME HURT YOU, RAY!"

And she scowled up at him from where she was, now crumpled in a heap at his feet from the earth-shattering force of his final blow, as he glared down at her, lightsaber still shining prone in his hand. Then, after what seemed a long silence, he began to growl, barely audible over the violent wind of the storm.

"You want answers, Rey? Well, I'll give 'em to you."

And so, the duel won, they spoke. And when Rey had heard all her master had to say—at dawn—she departed the planet with Chewie aboard the Millennium Falcon.

"Where there was weakness, I now sense strength. Where there was hesitancy, I now sense resolve…"

(Door of elevator opens and Rey and Ben are totally making out! No, just kidding… That could never happen...)

Rey was kneeling again, this time in the throne room of the Supreme Leader of the New Order, Snoke, before Kilo Ren, her nemesis, and now her executioner.

"I see him turning the lightsaber," breathed Snoke in a giant's voice whisper which carried and filled the whole chamber, "to slay his true enemy…"

And then Ren cut Snoke in half force-using the perfectly positioned lightsaber which had once belonged to his uncle, and cut to pieces all the red guards in the room with Rey.

Then Ren began to talk to her, in a voice which needed no Bane-like amplification. "Join me, Rey. We can rule the galaxy together. It's time to let old things die, Rey…" He held out his hand to her, and she reached out to take it…

But in the last minute flung it out and grabbed Ren's throat, pulling her face down near to hers to snarl—"I'll never join you, Ben, you snake!"

And then she tossed him away from her, force-grabbed her lightsaber, and igniting it, dueled him.

As they dueled, Ren crooned, "What did Master Skywalker say when he saw us, Rey? Did he give you answers?"

Rey flashed back for an instant to that conversation above the churning waters, then quickly came back to the present. There were more important things. Don't let him distract you. "He told me the truth, you animal! He told me how he never meant to kill you! The instant he ignited his lightsaber he regretted it!"

But Rey's voice was cracking and tears were welling up in her eyes as she said it, and Ren was not oblivious to it. She was holding something back; hiding something.

"Oh?" he whispered to her in that deep, epic voice of his. "Is that all?"

An instant's hesitation as they battled, then Rey gnashed her teeth at him, "Yes! That was it!" she said. "He told me everything I need to know about you!"

Ben shook his head. "Rey, I know you're lying to me. I know there's something more. It's okay. You can put down your lightsaber. I won't hurt you anymore. Just talk to me, Rey. That's all I want. There you go… good girl…"

The beam of her lightsaber had wavered; then she had lowered it; extinguished it; and now it had slipped through her fingers, falling to the floor with a magnified crash and rolling away, leaving Rey standing there, crying, sobbing, sobbing silently as Ben walked slowly up to her, his lightsaber extinguished as well in truce.

"Oh, oh… Poor thing," he said softly, looking softly into her eyes. She tried to look away, to deny the tingling feeling deep within herself that was stirring within her at his nearness, but the effort was worthless. She fell to her knees at his feet, sobbing out loud now.

When Luke had smashed her to the ground to cower before him (in a scene surface-level like the present one, but in reality wholly opposite) and sent her lightsaber flying into the abyss, he had said, "Enough. Don't make me hurt you, Rey. You want answers? Well, I'll give them to you."

Then he had held out his hand, and the lightsaber, now a hundred feet beneath them and still ignited, had stopped its fall towards the waters, halted like a glowing blue star in the blackness of the storm. Then it slowly began to float upwards toward them till, extinguished, it slapped down between them onto the wet stone bridge.

Holding his green lightsaber prone before him, angled downwards, its green glow lighting his scarred and scowling face from below, his long hair a black mop in the rain, falling over his face and blowing in the torrential rains, he said,

"I'm your father, Rey."