Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars.

"It Is You,"

Kylo Ren personally carried the Jakku girl through the halls of the ship. He stalked past those who came forward to take her from him, tightening his grip and lengthening his stride when they approached. He wouldn't surrender so much as the basic physical custody of his unconscious captive to anyone. Troopers and staff first looked at him, but no one made so much as a second attempt. None on the ship apart from Hux and occasionally Phasma were willing to challenge him and neither crossed his path, not that they would have compromised what they viewed as their dignity simply to carry an unconscious woman of no consequence to them.

The Knight of Ren laid the girl down on the interrogation slab with more care than anyone would ever dare confess to witnessing, even cushioning her head with his hand and using the force to close the restraints around her arms and legs with an echoing snap. She didn't so much as twitch at the sound; she was still firmly under the grip of his Force Trance and he intended to keep her there until they were far enough away.

Kylo took a seat a few paces from her, watching her, scrutinizing her. His gaze travelled over the still features, the calm face. In the grip of the enforced unconsciousness she looked almost peaceful. He noted the way the strands of brown hair framing her jaw curled slightly beneath her ears, observed the straighter brown whisps that had escaped the looping, connected buns at the back of her head.

How old are you? He wondered to himself as he catalogued each feature. Dread settled in his stomach. Dread, and something else. A strange hint of hope and…no. that couldn't be longing. The girl was the right approximate age. It could be…

His gaze travelled to the grey and white garb she wore, stained with exposure to dust, sun and sand. To Jakku.

Jakku.

It was a planet that Kylo had not thought about for a long time. He had dismissed it from his memory. Even returning to the dust ball hadn't roused more than a cursory moment of recollection before thoughts of the map had once again filled his world. It hadn't even occurred to him to check on the scavengers, or even send an agent to do so.

Is it you? He pondered at the girl, though he kept the thought closely guarded. She didn't answer him. She couldn't, of course. Even if she'd been awake and skilled, his thoughts were closely guarded. Within the safety of his shields, however, his mind travelled unbidden back to his childhood…

11 ABE

Ben Solo sat impatiently in his Aunt and Uncle's living room, making model pod-racers spin through the air in tight, weaving around one another as the miniature vehicles fought for dominance. Some of the pod racers were controlled by inferior pilots and had to crash, so he sent them barreling into one another so that small pieces flew in all directions.

The small clatter of destruction apparently drew the attention of his aunt, for the particles of metal collected themselves in the air in front of him, making Ben look over his shoulder. His Aunt Mara was reclined on her side on one of the cushioned seats, her elbow resting on the arm of the couch and her head resting on her hand, her fingers buried in the mass of red curls. A comfortable blanket draped over her legs and hips. She looked directly at him with a small smile and a twinkle in her hazel eyes. The silent message was clear; 'You're not in trouble, but play carefully, dear'.

Ben nodded to her in understanding and agreement and the hazel eyes flicked back to his parents. His mother turned her attention to his aunt with concern and praise.

"I heard there was a little trouble, but you look marvelous,"

Aunt Mara let out a wry chuckle of agreement, her smile broadening slightly.

"A little," she admitted, "I won't be able to sit properly for a week, but I've suffered worse, and gotten far less for my troubles,"

"Well, there is that," Mother agreed.

"How'd Luke hold up?" Dad asked with a smirk his voice wry, "I can tell you that her Highness here was never as angry at me as she was when she was having Ben—"

"Han, shut up,"

"It's true!" Dad insisted before pointing to Aunt Mara "And she doesn't even need her hands to throw stuff!"

A familiar presence neared and Ben started, allowing all but the podracer with the yellow-painted engines to skitter to the floor. There was something different, another presence. It was so…so new.

"About time," Dad said with one of his smirks as Uncle Luke walked through the doorway. He moved gingerly, a bundle of blankets nestled carefully in his arms and a silly grin slapped on his face.

"Sorry about that," he said. "Just changing her,"

"Something he hasn't let me do yet," Aunt said with a chuckle and a shake of her head. "He's gotten up with her in the night, too,"

"You had the hard part. You need rest," Uncle Luke told her. The two jedi exchanged a loving look before Dad shook his head and got up, slapping his knee.

"C'mon kid, let's see what the wait was for,"

"Ben, come over here," Mother beckoned. As Ben got up and walked over, Aunt Mara shifted back so that Uncle Luke could perch on the edge of the seat and look into the bundle set in the crook of his arm. When Ben came to stand in front of his Uncle he cocked his head to the side to look down at the tiny, wrinkled face.

He knew that his aunt and uncle were having a baby. He knew what babies looked like, he'd seen a couple of them and had seen some pictures of himself as a baby. But he'd never seen a newborn. His brand new cousin hardly looked human with the over-big eyes and the wrinkled skin that was very pink and even looked like it peeled at places. He wondered when it was exactly that they stopped looking like an alien and started to look cute.

Ugly though she may be, though, Ben already loved his little cousin. He felt her presence in the force: all shiny and new. His parents had him sit down in a chair and Uncle Luke carefully placed the baby in his arms to hold. The moment she was settled in his tense, over-careful grip, she opened her buggy eyes to stare up at him. He met those eyes and smiled.

"What's her name?" he asked.

"Sereya," Aunt Mara told him.

"Sereya," He repeated.

Kylo pulled himself out of his musings and watched the girl again. He should probably start bringing her out of the trance to get the map from her, but he found himself watching her sleep instead. The girl looked like his cousin. She looked like his mother, which deepened his suspicions further. Sereya had always favored Ben's mother in appearance over her own. The one thing she seemed to have inherited either from Mara or their shared Grandfather was height; though slender and wiry with a similar bone structure, she was several inches taller than General Organa…

Sereya, as predicted by the adults in his family, got cute quickly. When Ben moved to Uncle Luke and Aunt Mara's Jedi Temple for full-time training, she was crawling and getting into mischief. She was the darling of the Temple and the apple of her parents' eyes. She promised to be strong in the Force, acquiring some of the skills almost before she could walk. Uncle Luke—Now Master—wasn't certain how normal this was. They had found old records referencing a custody dispute between the jedi and the family of a toddler that told them that Jedi might have been trained very young in the time of the old republic.

She was always beaming and laughing, a child who was loved, who knew she was loved and who had lots of love to give back in return. Sometimes if there were lessons that might prove dangerous Ben would take her climbing, taking great care to watch her in case she fell and leave her with R2, up out of the range of any stray blast bolts or lightsabres. She was always left with the strictest of instructions:

"Stay here, Sweetheart," Thirteen-year old Ben assured her, even knowing R2 would never let her fall. She was the only one that the young boy called 'sweetheart', and frankly, it was what everyone called her, so there was little embarrassment to be had in him calling her that. He would look over at the view then. They could easily have taken a lift to the structure where R2 waited, just like the droid did, but where was the fun or the training in that? Ben smiled as he smoothed the brown hair back from his cousin's face, "I'll come back for you. You have to wait here though, remember? Go on, go play with your toys,"

"Okay Ben-Ben," the three year old would say. R2 would trill and then start to project some pictures for her whilst Ben rappelled back down partway before unhooking his rope and force-jumping the rest of the distance.

Such was their routine. Whenever there was practice deflecting blasters or moving heavy objects, Ben would take his cousin up to the upper stories with R2. Always the same words, the same promise. He always kept that promise.

Ben had always kept that promise.

Leader Snoke had come, and Kylo was born. He was made to see how weak and pathetic Ben Solo was. He would embrace his heritage as the blood of a great Sith Lord and he would make his move.

He and the others, those who would form the First Knights of Ren, struck in the middle of a storm. They had waited until Luke Skywalker was away and was too far to interfere. First they would deal with the Jedi. Then they would converge on the Master.

Some were killed in their sleep with the use of blasters. Others awoke before that could happen and put up a fight.

His Aunt had been the unexpected thorn in their side. Contrary to Kylo's expectation, Mara and Sereya had remained at the temple instead of accompanying Luke on his trip. His aunt had sensed impending danger and the sniper blast aimed at her had been stilled in mid air long enough for her and Sereya to escape their quarters. She had been cornered by three of the knights when Kylo closed in, her red hair hanging in darkened, water-logged strings around her head and her lightsabre a deadly purple blur in the rain. She had killed one of the knights and wounded another, but not before she sustained injuries herself. Kylo had closed in on her. His hood was up and his rudimentary mask in place, but she still knew it was him. One of the Knights locked lightsabres with her. She shoved her opponent off with a growl of effort and sent him hurtling into a tree. The Knight had crumpled to the soggy ground, out cold. Slashing her blade out to the side with an audible movement Mara had faced him, murder in her eyes.

They had spoken, had shouted at one another through the rain. Then they had dueled. Kylo was more powerful then his aunt, he was of the Skywalker bloodline. She was not. But his aunt was nevertheless no weakling and she had hard experience behind her as a jedi, a warrior and an assassin. Had she not already been wounded and tired, had she not still hesitated to kill those that had been under her tutelage and protection, he might not have stood a chance.

Might not have.

As it was, she was wounded, she was tired, she was conflicted and she was getting desperate. He could feel the fear and anger in her but she would never succumb to it; Snoke had advised him against so much as trying to turn Mara Jade Skywalker.

In the end, Mara was distracted at the perfect moment by a child's shriek. The redhead whipped her head around with a wordless scream of her own and shoved her hand forward, using the force to hurtle a cloaked man away from the terrified Sereya and into a tree. Sereya turned at the sound of a sabre slashing and shrieked again as her mother gasped in shock and stiffened, unable to so much as turn around when the sabre sliced through her upper deeply enough to sever her spinal column.

Time seemed to slow as the jedi master fell first to her knees and then collapsed to her side. It took over a minute for her to die and even mortally paralyzed she had thrown what was left of herself through the Force towards her daughter…

The girl had gasped awake in the restraints, as though awakening from a nightmare. She startled him somewhat; he hadn't actively planned on pulling her from the trance just then. He had, however, been thinking of doing so soon and spoke with her. He was surprised by how much her opinion meant to him, how much he didn't want her calling him a 'monster'. He had taken off his helmet and mask to show her how wrong she was. He rarely did so for anyone, yet he needed her to think of him as something more than a machine.

His grandfather would never have had this problem. Luke had come to love Vader even with the mask. Vader had never been questioned. Being called a monster had never bothered Vader.

He focused on his grandfather's legacy as he forced himself on her mind. To live up to the legacy, he needed her information. He needed to complete the cycle. Why was she being so stubborn? It would be so much easier if she would just surrender; Kylo had never had this much trouble extracting information before. He needed that map. He had yet to face his old Master and kinsman. It was imperative that he be the one to snuff out the light and herald forth a new age for the Dark Side…

"You…are afraid," The girl said, breaking his obsessive loop of thought. He blinked, mentally yanking back and seeing that she, too, was apparently shocked at what she sensed and that she was able to sense it. Kylo realized with horror that he was no longer in her mind; she was in his. She pressed further past his defenses and gained confidence, the fear leaving her face as she continued "…That you will never be as powerful as Darth Vader!"

He broke off abruptly and stalked out of the room, leaving her alone. It had to be her. It couldn't be her. But who else could it be? Who else could be that inherently powerful? It was impossible! It was the only thing that was possible.

"SHE IS STRONG IN THE FORCE!" He defended himself desperately to Supreme Leader Snoke in a bellow. That, at least, was undeniable and Snoke had agreed, issuing his orders to bring the girl directly to him. Kylo had stalked back to her cell with the intent of placing her under another trance, a more powerful one to be aided with drugs if need be, only to find her gone. His temper had exploded. He had spent a satisfying five minutes demolishing the cell before stalking out to order search parties, his mind travelling back once again to that day fourteen years ago…

Another shriek pierced the air as Sereya sprinted forward, screaming incoherently for her mother. Horror briefly clutched at Ben's heart as he saw her racing as fast as her little legs could carry her. He faltered, then in a split second extinguished his lightsabre and reached out a hand towards the little girl. She crumpled under the pressure of the Force, out cold. The man that was at once Kylo Ren and Ben Solo approached the small body in the mud. He reignited his lightsabre and raised it, then stopped. His hand shook as he looked at her little face, remembering the bright smile, the infectious laughter, the "adventures" he had taken her on as they traversed starships in her living room and re-enacted battles with sticks for lightsabres. He had been the wookie guard to her ewok soldier, the dashing Luke to her Leia, the ronto that carried her across the wastelands of their imagination…

He lowered his light sabre and once again extinguished the blade with a hiss. He couldn't do it. She wasn't merely 'just a kid', she was his kid, his cousin, his blood. More than that, she was of His bloodline: the Skywalker bloodline of the mighty Darth Vader. No, he couldn't disrespect his Grandfather's dark memory by snuffing that out, surely. Not like this. Besides, it wouldn't matter. He would proclaim to the galaxy, to Luke, that Sereya was dead simply by omitting her name. Not all the bodies would be accounted for and they blew up the buildings. Some of the corpses they burned into char. Mara Jade was among the indistinguishable, unidentifiable remains. Luke would never know which ashes were hers and which were Mon Calamri or Wookie or Togrutan.

No, this was perfect. He had already taken away his Master's beloved wife and partner. Now he would take away the light of Luke Skywalker's life. He would take the Master's beloved daughter and he would hide her away. He would leave her watched and guarded; if Skywalker ever discovered that his pride and joy was still alive, if he ever tried to reclaim her, the trap would spring and Kylo would have him. It was perfect. The child would either be her father's torment, or his bait. This would suffice.

With Ben appeased, Kylo gathered Sereya up in his arms and slipped away on a ship. His job on this planet was done.

Kylo Ren knew immediately what had happened to precipitate the girl's escape and his suspicions had deepened. Skywalker's child had been strong in the Force. She had been given only the most basic of instruction, but for the first five years of her life she had been surrounded by it, had tuned into it naturally. She still burned brightly in the Force. Untrained, skills clumsy, half-remembered, unrefined, but there. If some of those forgotten, half-learned skills from her childhood were starting to return to her now, she was dangerous. He barely wanted to consider the possibility that this was his fault; that she had learned from her glance into his mind how to Force his will onto others.

Kylo's fear of his responsibility in the debacle melded with his rage, exploding as it always did in a flurry of aggression aimed at anything in his way. He rarely killed subordinates in fits like this—the last time he had Hux hadn't let up about it for a month—but it had been known to happen and they stayed out of his way.

The unmistakable presence of Han Solo banished thoughts of the meddlesome girl from his mind, briefly. Solo was always trouble. Briefly, Ben would fight his way through, and it was always an irritant. The pull that threatened to tear him in two was always strongest when faced with one of his parents. His mother was easier to compartmentalize; she was a political figure. She had been her entire life. He was used to there being two sides of her and she was always kept closely guarded at the heart of the meddlesome Resistance. His father, on the other hand…

But Kylo had triumphed. Or so he thought. He felt a strange twinge of pain through his chest when the old, tired eyes had bulged in shock and pain when the lightsabre pierced his body. Kylo had felt a knife twist in his gut when the calloused hand briefly brushed his clean-shaven cheek before Han Solo fell from the walkway and into the abyss below.

It was only after Force-Dammed Chewie had shot him that he heard the girl scream and remembered her again. Tears were streaming down her face as she screamed at him in anger and anguish, bringing back thoughts of a similar face belonging to a child reaching towards him with a similar expression…

…The boy that was at once Ben and Kylo took the second Skywalker heir in secret. The Knights' plan had necessitated that they scatter and re-group if necessary, in case anyone managed to get a signal out for help. It wouldn't do for them to be arrested by the idiotic New Republic before they had a chance to wipe them out. Ben had taken advantage of that contingency and stashed Sereya into the small ship with him. If and when he was questioned for his late return, he would tell them quite truthfully that Mara Jade had reached out to her husband upon her death; Skywalker knew what they had done was returning as fast as he could.

He debated what to do with the child once in space, briefly questioning his plan. He still couldn't kill her: he knew that. It would be a disgrace to their Grandfather, perhaps even blasphemy, but she could be a threat. Kylo mused once again that the child would be the perfect bait for Luke, but he wasn't ready to challenge his master outright yet and if Luke were on the War Path, he didn't know if they would be able to all take him on even together. Not yet. Luke had kept them weak. All of them. He had kept them weak, but the Jedi Master himself was strong.

Ben didn't want to take her to Snoke. She was young. The Sith didn't recruit young. His Grandfather had been a trained Knight, the apprentice before that an old man. Leader Snoke might not want the trouble of training an undisciplined mind. He might kill her to save time and resources. The others would become impatient quickly.

Sereya, now asleep, snuggled into Ben as he sat at the pilot's chair with her on his lap. There was another problem, too. Kylo would not keep a child sitting on his lap while he piloted a ship. Ben didn't mind when it was his cousin. When Sereya was with him, he was Ben. He wanted to be Kylo. He would be Kylo. She was nothing but a reminder and a nuisance. He needed to dispose of her.

The perfect opportunity popped onto his screen in a system scan.

Jakku.

He had a contact there. And even better, it was a desert wasteland. If she was truly a Skywalker, she would survive it. If not, she would perish. The Skywalkers were desert people, it seemed outrageous that Sereya had no such experience of her heritage. Perhaps it was part of why Organa had never embraced her true heritage; she was missing an important part of her upbringing. Kylo Ren had no such experience either, but he willfully dismissed it as a problem; he was going out of his way to correct the mistakes of his parents and didn't need such a time-consuming experience. He had already shown his blood in embracing the call of the darkside.

He punched in the coordinates to Jakku. There, he would leave her. Forget about her. She would survive, or she would die. It would be up to her. He had spared her, he had done his part, honored his Grandfather. She would have to earn that continued honor from Darth Vader by proving her own mettle and staying out of his way while she did it. Yes, he would leave her there. That was what he would do.

He let her wake a few hours later, after carefully removing memory of her mother's death, not caring if he had accidently taken more than just Mara's death from her pliable, forgetful, young mind. She would forget them soon, anyway, without such a trauma there for her to hang onto.

Sereya sat up and rubbed blearily at her eyes.

"You fell asleep," Ben told her.

"Where we going?" She asked sleepily.

"On a trip, don't you remember?" he asked her as he pressed a few buttons to continue piloting, his attitude casual and normal as he brought them in to land. With a careful manipulation of the Force, he nudged the questions she had for him away. That, along with her innocent trust, silenced any protestations. He landed and took her by the hand to lead her outside.

He had felt her alarm when they approached his contact. He felt her fear at this imposing, bulging alien, but when she tried to shrink back into him he had knelt down swiftly and turned her to look at him.

"Stay here, Sweetheart," he told her, "I'll come back for you,"

With that, he stood and spun around in one motion, stalking back to his ship. The little girl blinked, and watched him go for a few strides until she realized what he was doing. Plutt grabbed her arm before she could make it back to the landing pad with him and she strained against his hold, screaming. She screamed and cried the same words, tears streaming down her face at the denial and betrayal of what he was doing.

"Come back!" She screamed at him, begging and sobbing as she strained against the massive hand dragging her along by one arm. "Come back!"

Wounded, bleeding, torn, his side on fire, Kylo pushed himself to move faster until he caught up with the girl and the Traitor on the planet, his desperation fueling him. He would not fail. The Resistance would not win. He would bring the prize back to his master. To hell with the Traitor Trooper; the man would die without a second thought. If anything he was fortunate that expediency would force Kylo to kill him quickly instead of savor the act.

They had faced him together. Both angry and frightened. The girl was thrown into the tree, but she was only stunned. He fully intended to kill the Storm Trooper that stood in his way. He was not surprised when FN-2187 put up a fight, but that he had the audacity to use a pilfered lightsabre...

Kylo's wound ate at his side, and he struggled to keep it from distracting him. He also couldn't think about how this scum had become close to Solo and to the girl. The fact that he was putting up more of a fight than Kylo had expected him to be able to also irked the Knight to no end.

Finally, Kylo had cut the Traitor down and FN-2187 had dropped the precious lightsabre. The Skywalker Lightsaber. It flew through the air to land the snow. He would have it. It was the heirloom of his bloodline, his right. Panting with exertion, he reached out for it with the force, frowning when he felt resistance. Undeterred, he grit his teeth and pulled harder. The metal hilt trembled in the snow and then zipped through the air…flying past his ear. Kylo whipped around to see the Jakku girl standing behind him with her arm outstretched, her hazel eyes round with shock as she looked at the weapon in her hand.

Kylo turned to face her, looking at her again and unable to deny who stood before him. The sabre had gone to her, to what was now an unbroken bloodline through the generations who had held that weapon and accepted the Force's call: from father to son, then father to daughter. In his mind he briefly saw a flash of little Sereya standing before him with her father's weapon in toddler's hands. She had grown up, but she was unmistakable.

"So it is you," he said, more to himself then to her. She blinked and gave him a quizzical look that went unanswered.

They duelled.

A/N: Some small changes made to the EU characters:

In the EU, Mara Jade has Red hair and Green eyes. In this one-shot I have changed them to hazel to match the character of Rey (I thought her eyes looked brown in the film, but the Wookipeida entry describes them as hazel, so I've opted for that). I've kept Mara as a redhead because it is technically possible for a redhead and a blonde to have a brunette (surprised me when I found that out, but high school genetics over-simplifies and this is from a couple friends who took several genetics courses in University), so I kept that from the EU, because that's one of Mara's defining physical features.