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In Medias Res: Find You

That long, familiar face stared back at her, amber-brown eyes softening with each breathless moment that passed.

"Rey?"

(the title of this In Medias Res was inspired by the song, "Find You," by Ruelle)

4 Weeks in the Future: Rey — The Gallo Mountains, Naboo

Rey stumbled, her knees and hands colliding against jagged rocks and tree roots.

Cold. Cold that stung her face, her hands, her eyes. Violent, unyielding cold that burned and paralyzed her lungs with each intake of breath.

With a cry, she tried to lift her body from the ground, but her arms shook and failed, sending her head-first into ice and stone.

She couldn't do it. She would die here. Alone. Without Finn. Without Rose, Poe, Ada, Everett, or Hale. Without the people that had been her family for the past year.

But death wasn't what she feared the most. She had been ready to die since Crait.

For a brief moment, Ben's amber-brown eyes enveloped her mind, the color bleeding across her eyelids. His hand on hers, his skin soft and beguiling. The slightest touch that had drawn tears from her eyes, his reassurance playing in her head. You're not alone. You're not alone. You're not—

She would never see him again. She would die on this mountain, in this ice. She would never be able to tell him...no...she would never be able to—

A sob escaped her lips. Then another, until tears streamed down her face and clung, frozen, to her cheeks. It had all been for nothing, hadn't it? she thought bitterly. The Jedi Order would die with her. Luke's sacrifice—for nothing. Every hour, every day she had spent training and recruiting. It all...for nothing.

Darkness tugged at the edges of her vision, whispering to give in, to just rest for a while, to slip into a dreamless, peaceful sleep. But she knew. If she closed her eyes, even for the briefest of moments, they would never open again.

Rey. Get up.

Had she imagined that voice? She forced her head up and looked through the web of trees before her, her breath no more than a faint cloud of grey in the moonlight.

But there was nothing. No figure. No silhouette.

Rey. You have to get up.

Was she delusional? Crazy? It didn't matter. The voice was right. She had to get up. The Resistance counted on her. She swallowed, using every bit of strength she had left to move her legs. Finally, she stood, her eyelids drooping.

"I'm here," she said, the wind drowning out her raspy voice. She shuffled through the snow with her hands locked around her waist, her head down.

Keep going. You're almost there.

She was definitely losing her mind. But yet, she persisted. Still, she urged her feet to move.

"Where are you?" she called out, coughing. "Where are—"

She took another step, and suddenly, the ground gave way beneath her. She plunged into darkness, her hands unfurling from her waist to catch her fall.

Upon impact, pain shot through her palms and knees, her existing wounds from her struggle on Chandrila crying from the collision.

She couldn't scream. She couldn't think. She couldn't even force her lungs to take in breath.

She opened her eyes hesitantly, hundreds of colors illuminating the walls of what appeared to be a cave—reds and blues more vivid, more beautiful than any spring sky on any planet she had ever known.

What is this place? she thought, blinking. She forced herself to stand once again and drank in the dim lights, her mouth hanging open.

Gradually, she started moving forward, the crystals above her head like guiding lights. Deeper she roamed, the cold vanishing from her body with each step. Deeper still, her heart pounding.

But soon the welcoming crystals faded to one, solid color—a crimson red that made her skin prickle. And then, she felt it—a deafening of her senses—as if the life had been sucked from her bones. A quiet, a calm, the energy around her no longer alive.

A silencing of the Force. She knew this feeling. She could never erase it from her mind.

And all at once, she realized.

Eseveren.

Frantically, she turned around and around. Which way had she come? Which way? Which—

Tapping sounds like an echoing drum. She stopped. The sounds continued, one, two, and then again.

She moved backwards, her fingers meeting stone, her back and skull pressed against the nearest wall. Carefully, she took in even breaths and closed her eyes, trying to calm the thudding in her chest. Yet, no matter what she did, no matter how hard she tried, her heartbeat refused to slow.

The tapping sounds increased, growing closer still.

Footsteps.

Someone was coming. She had only moments to act.

One, two, three! She spun, lunged around the corner, and tackled a large figure to the ground. The force of their collision nearly threw the air from her lungs, but she ignored it, her attention pulled toward an unknown sound—a sound like alloy hitting rock.

A weapon? She scrambled away from the assailant and toward the fallen object, her fingers closing around cold metal.

Suddenly, large hands grabbed her, holding her as tight as she held the weapon, back-first, against him.

This weapon. She knew this weapon, the feel of it, the shape.

Crying out, she stomped on the man's foot, dove her elbow into his stomach, and turned around, igniting the blade and painting the tunnel in hazy red light.

That long, familiar face stared back at her, amber-brown eyes softening with each breathless moment that passed.

"Rey?"

Her hands trembled, the lightsaber hovering inches from his throat.

Ben.

Author's Notes

If you've made it this far, thank you so much for reading. I love feedback, questions, and general chatter. The next chapter will move back in time, but you will be seeing this portion of prose again soon in a future chapter. ;)

Eternal thanks to my main beta editor, SilverStarwolfe. Please show her some love. She's amazing. Without her, this would not be written. I also want to thank my second beta editor, Way-of-the-pathfinder. She provided such valuable, wonderful suggestions. These lovely humans both write SW fan fiction. Please check them out!

— Bee