The differences between Jakku and Ahch-To were those of opposites. Searing heat and bone-aching cold, the arid breath of the desert and the damp slap of the ocean wind. The low howl of the sirocco and the constant screech of shore birds.

But the two were more alike than not. They were both barren, places to become lost and lesser.

She did prefer the sound of rain against her rock hut to the scream of the desert wind outside her AT-AT. Its steady music lulled her to sleep when she woke in the night.

But not tonight. Because tonight she knew, as soon as her dream faded, that she was not alone in her hut.

She opened her eyes. Kylo Ren was crouched before her, his cowl down and his face exposed. Even in the flickering firelight she could see the harsh mark that slashed across his face, a mark she'd put there. He'd already been defeated, but she'd done it anyway. She'd been enraged, and he had to pay.

His eyes were quiet now, steady. Not the expression of a man seeking revenge.

Then she realized he wasn't there for her. His real quarry was a few huts away.

He interrupted her darting thoughts. "Luke Skywalker is unharmed. I'm not here for him."

Rey eased into a sitting position, trying to weigh the odds of reaching her staff before he could reach her. "Then why are you here?"

He leaned closer. "I'm here for you, cousin."

Luke Skywalker awoke with a start. He'd been uneasy for days; now he knew why. He didn't know why the Force had withheld the knowledge that his nephew was coming, but he was on Ahch-To, that much was clear. Ben had always been powerful, and his presence made the island's steady Force-pulse jerk and sway.

Luke picked up his lightsaber. He didn't want to use it against his nephew, but he would if he had to. He wasn't sure if the boy was here for him or for Rey; Ben, he knew, would be delighted to deliver such a Force-powerful girl to his dark master, to train or torture or simply to kill. He could have followed in Luke's footsteps and immersed himself in the Force; instead he'd chosen to follow Vader's path. Yet he forgot that Vader had renounced the dark side in the end. In the end, he'd chosen the light.

He followed Ben's Force signature to Rey's hut. With a feeling of dread Luke pushed the door open. Despite a lifetime of keeping his emotions under control, he was afraid of what he'd find.

Two heads swung towards him. They were standing close together, and to his astonishment Ben was holding her hands in his own. The look on Rey's face was of pure anguish.

"How could you?" Rey choked.

No. No, it was impossible. There was no way for either of them to know.

"How could you let them leave me on Jakku?" she screamed suddenly, her composure cracking. "I almost died! Every year! Every day! For 15 years! Praying and—and hoping! And you never came. You threw me away like garbage, like—oh, Maker, it's perfect. It's perfect! I was garbage, so I was dropped on a garbage world and survived by scavenging garbage. And even after I came to you, you still didn't tell me. You were never going to tell me, were you?" Luke remained silent, and her voice ratcheted higher. "Were you?"

"I don't know what he told you, Rey, but I never—"

"Don't lie to me! I saw it in his head. He let me in and I saw it. No wonder you never looked in my mind. You were afraid I'd look in yours."

"I was trying to protect you," he said soothingly. As if he were trying to calm an animal, she thought in disgust.

"How did anything you do protect me?" she scoffed. "What were you protecting me from? Eating too much? Having a family? Being loved? How was that protecting me?"

"Rey, people have been hunting me for decades. It wasn't safe to have you with me."

"So that's why you gave me to Unkar Plutt? So I'd be safe with him?"

"I didn't give you to him personally," Luke said uneasily. "Friends of mine assisted me in seeing to your care."

"Your friends assisted me into a life of starvation and servitude to a pervert. And you never even cared enough to check up on me."

"It's not that I didn't care," Luke argued. "If I'd done that, someone might have added things up and figured out who you were."

"Well, that's what Kylo did. So apparently your friends weren't very careful in the first place."

Kylo. With a scowl Luke turned to his nephew and ignited his lightsaber. The last time he'd felt so angry and helpless had been when he'd seen his father cut down Ben Kenobi, the great Jedi knight his miserable nephew was named for.

He didn't deserve the name Ben.

"You," Luke growled. He'd been unable to bring himself to hunt his nephew in the wake of the destruction of his temple, but he was enraged that the boy had turned Luke's own daughter against him. Out of necessity their relationship had not been conventional, but it was all he had been able to do. His commitment to the Force demanded no less.

Kylo ignited his own lightsaber. He'd pulled it out as soon as Rey had released his hands, knowing this was likely to go badly. Children resented it when their parents treated them like toys they didn't want to play with any more. But somehow the parents in his family never seemed to realize this.

"Stop it," hissed Rey. She held out her hand and Luke's lightsaber, the legendary Skywalker lightsaber that had served so many in his family, flew into her hand. Luke started to protest, but she ignored him and addressed Kylo. "Did you mean it? About teaching me?"

Kylo deactivated his saber. If he was surprised by her reference to his offer from months before, he didn't show it. "Yes."

"Then let's go."

Luke began shaking his head, unable to comprehend what was happening. "Rey? What are you doing?"

"I'm leaving with Kylo."

"Are you mad? Do you understand who he is? The things he's done? Why would you do this?"

Kylo spoke up. "She wants her family."

"I'm her father!"

It was Rey who answered him, her eyes bright with tears before she blinked them back. "No. You were never my father."

Kylo moved beside her, holding something out to her. Her cloak; he'd removed it from atop the rough-hewn chest. She turned and let him drape it over her and fasten it against her throat.

"Don't—" Luke croaked.

"The time for you to talk was before I got here," Kylo said coldly. "You were never going to, were you?"

The long look Luke gave Kylo told Rey everything she had to know. She swore under her breath and began pulling her boots on.

"He's a killer," Luke warned.

"You're a killer. I'm a killer."

"He's beyond redemption—even I couldn't save him."

"You couldn't save him, you didn't save me. I guess we have a lot in common." She nodded to Kylo. "Let's go."

He started for the door and she moved to follow him, but Luke grabbed her wrist. "Don't do this."

Slowly, coldly, Rey withdrew her wrist from his grasp. "Do what you've always done … and forget about me."

She stepped into the night. Ahch-To's eternal rain had slacked to a drizzle, and the moon illuminated the crumbling stone structures. This island had been home to the first gathering of Force users, and now it was witnessing the last.

It would be the last time she ever set foot on Ahch-To, and at the moment she wished it would burn.

Kylo stretched an arm towards her. She thought he was reaching for her sack of belongings, but an unseen hand froze her in place. Not his.

A soft thump sounded behind her, and she could move again. She turned to see Luke Skywalker lying just outside the doorway to her hut.

Her father. Her father lying just outside the doorway.

She should feel bad, shouldn't she? Concerned. He'd been a legend, the revered savior of the galaxy, a story told to children. And here, she'd found him to be a real man. A man who refused to return to help the Resistance, but who'd agreed to train her.

A man who'd never told her that he was the one who'd condemned her to a desperate, lonely childhood and never given her a second thought. A man who'd been happy to let her call him master instead of father.

Maybe she'd be worried when she calmed down. At the moment, she couldn't summon the will to worry about a man who'd been happy to consign her to a life of misery. She felt darkness try to curl around her and pushed it back, but her resentment didn't soften. "Is he dead?"

"No. He'll regain consciousness in a few minutes."

"Why did you do it?"

"He was going to stop you."

"What do you care?"

He studied her for a moment before turning and starting for his ship. "We could both use some family."

"I don't want to go to Snoke," she warned.

Kylo stopped and slanted her an unreadable look. "No, of course not."

"So what happens?"

"We get off the planet. Then we get lost."

They were silent as they boarded his ship. The thought was on her mind, and surely his, that Luke might wake before they could leave. She didn't want another struggle. It had been all she could do to control herself in the hut. She didn't think she could stand another confrontation without crying.

She trailed Kylo to the cockpit and followed his lead, strapping herself into the co-pilot's seat. She had the stupid impulse to offer to fly the ship, but had no idea where they were going. He took them off-world without a wasted moment; clearly he didn't want another confrontation with Luke either. He had them in a hyperspace corridor before her pulse calmed.

Now she was alone with Kylo Ren, in a First Order ship, with no idea of what to do next. The only thing she was aware of was a sense of betrayal so deep it seemed to have no surface.

Right now she couldn't be around anyone, much less Kylo Ren. He looked at her like he knew her every thought, and at the moment she couldn't bear to be known.

"Would you like to retire?"

She rubbed her forehead. "What?"

"Go to bed. There's a bedroom you can have. Down the passageway to the left past the briefing room. The fresher's on the other side."

"What about you?"

"I want to keep an eye on the conn until we can get an unmarked ship. I disabled the tracker, but by now the Supreme Leader knows I'm not where I'm supposed to be."

"Will he suspect where you went?"

Kylo stared at her, his steady regard making her a little uncomfortable. "He'll suspect all sorts of things."

The bedroom of the shuttle was the most luxurious thing Rey had ever seen. The First Order spared no expense even in the most utilitarian of spaces, one sure to be barely used, even this night. She slept scant hours and woke up exhausted. Her eyes ached from first repressing tears and then indulging in them. Her throat was painful as well. Her stomach was empty, and the thought of food nauseated her. None of her parts seemed to fit. She was a broken ship, detritus.

When she entered the cockpit Kylo Ren was bent over a datapad. When he looked up he seemed no worse for wear. He studied her and his eyebrows raised.

"Second thoughts?"

She looked at him. Even when he didn't nudge into her mind he had an eerie way of reading her emotions. But this time he was wrong. "No."

"But…?"

She hesitated. "You studied under him, didn't you?"

He knew who she meant. "When I was a child, yes."

"Was he … different? When he was younger?"

Kylo hesitated. He found it difficult to be anything but scornful of his uncle. He was strict and careful, a disciple to a failed religion, and as devout an adherent as all the dead Jedi could wish.

Yet he knew, from his parents' stories, that Luke Skywalker had once been open and playful, full of youthful passions. Kylo was older than Luke had been in his earliest memories, yet none of that had been evident. The weight of thousands of years of tradition devolving to this single man had drained the recognizable human emotions from him, leaving him less a man than a wraith.

But the girl standing before him was proof that Luke had had some humanity left in him, some longing he hadn't extinguished. Just not enough to love and protect her as he should.

Just following family tradition, really.

"Last night was the first time I saw my uncle since I left him. He seemed exactly the same as he always was. Dogmatic. Devoted to Jedi tradition, despite the fact that the time of the Jedi has passed." Kylo chewed his lip for a moment. "He's not a bad man. He just doesn't know any other way. I'm sure he didn't mean to be cruel, leaving you. He felt he had a higher calling."

Rey gritted her teeth. How could someone have a higher calling than his own child? She'd waited and hoped and starved because he had a calling to sit around meditating and balancing rocks? "That doesn't make me feel better."

"What would make you feel better?"

She thought a moment and shook her head. She couldn't think of a thing.

Kylo looked disturbed. She could tell he was casting about for things to cheer her. "I killed Unkar Plutt."

Her jaw dropped. "What?"

It was unimaginable, Unkar Plutt dead, yet at the thought a fierce satisfaction filled her. He had been a pestilence to everyone in Niima Outpost, their owner in all but name, watching in amusement as they scraped and struggled, granting them only enough food to cling to life. He used them until they died and then didn't even glance at their corpses.

Unkar Plutt, dead.

"I went to Jakku when I was investigating your past. I knew you had to be more than a random scavenger. I'd seen him in your mind. Saw the way he treated you. I talked to him and found out everything he knew. I'd seen you, you know. Years ago."

For a moment she lost her breath. "When?"

"I was still at Luke's academy. I saw a woman come in with a baby, then leave, very upset. It wasn't until I spoke to Unkar Plutt that everything fell into place. Your mother died not long after you were born. Her friend brought you to Luke Skywalker, but he said it was impossible for him to raise a baby while reestablishing the Jedi order. She raised you for a while, but her husband wasn't happy having a child around. Eventually he insisted they find a new place for you. They gave Unkar Plutt money to look after you and teach you a trade."

"Plutt knew my father was Luke Skywalker?"

"The woman wrote you a note. Plutt was to give it to you when you were old enough to understand it."

Her head was spinning. "He never gave it to me—never said anything—"

"No. He planned to use it eventually, as a last-ditch measure. To achieve your acquiescence."

"Acquiescence," she repeated dully.

"I saw how he treated you. I saw it in his mind, and I saw him slowly reducing your payments in order to make you more desperate. Saw what he planned to do. So I killed him. I'm not Luke Skywalker," he added. "I protect my family."

The rush of pleasure she took in the assertion turned bitter almost immediately. "You killed your father," she reminded him.

The look he gave her was sharp. "Who do you think taught me about abandonment?"

For a while they just fled. There was no other way to describe it. Kylo got them a new ship and they skipped from system to system as they made sure no one, First Order or Resistance, was following them. He was a wanted man on both sides.

She, of course, wasn't wanted and never had been. Until now.

On the long spaceflights they trained. He was her teacher now. He was as implacable about training as Luke Skywalker had been, but the sessions felt very different. Luke had been distant. Even with his own daughter his focus had been on another plane. Kylo was like a coal, dark and enkindled. His attention burned, and in the moments it wasn't on her she was chilled by its absence. He was her master in ways Luke Skywalker had never been: Her use of the Force seemed inextricable from him, because he was always there, his gaze a palpable weight, his power brushing against her own, urging her to push herself.

From a distance.

The first few days, when her forms were imprecise, his corrections were immediate and intimate. Nudging her elbow out and up. Grasping her shoulders or hips in his hands to adjust her stance. Slipping behind her to mold her against him until she understood the nuances of the position.

Then, nothing.

Now even when he introduced new exercises he didn't touch her, no matter how complex the form. The change puzzled her. Disappointed her, really. His touch was reassuring.

She didn't understand the change. He liked her, she knew that. Enjoyed her company. He smiled at her. Sometimes he laughed. He nudged more food onto her plate at meals and prodded her to tell him about her life on Jakku. He knew some, of course, from Starkiller. But he wanted to hear the details of her life, and he wanted her to tell him.

So she told him about restoring a speeder everyone else thought was too far gone even to salvage. She told him about how she'd snuggled in her AT-AT during sandstorms, playing with her flight simulator. She told him how she'd taught herself to climb and rappel, and the many falls she'd had. His face had creased with dismay until she'd laughed at him, and then he'd laughed, reluctantly.

He told her about their family and promised to take her to Naboo, where their grandparents had wed. Their grandmother had been its queen, he said. It was unimaginable to her. Surely he was telling her stories to make her smile.

One night as they sat at the table after dinner she told him about old Sāo, one of the scavengers who scratched out a living at Niima Outpost. Once, after Rey had been sick for days and unable to scavenge, she'd managed to drag herself to the trading post. She knew better than to ask Unkar Plutt to take pity on her and give her food or even credit on future hauls, but she'd hoped, desperately, that he would give her a quarter portion in exchange for doing maintenance around the outpost. If she had anything to eat, anything at all, she could find the strength to scavenge. But after a week without food and days of illness, she had nothing left. She'd always been able to find some reserves within herself, but they were gone.

So she'd made her offer to Unkar Plutt, and he agreed to give her portions, many portions.

Not for maintenance.

She left that part out when she told Kylo. He might have found out when he'd reamed Plutt's mind, but mentioning it would upset him, and she loved the contentment on his face when they talked. A few times his temper had spiked when she'd mentioned close calls, and she didn't want to taint their peace. Plutt being disgusting wasn't the point of the story. He was nothing but a stain now, and that knowledge had released her. Even before he came to her on Ahch-To, before she agreed to join him, Kylo had been looking out for her. He'd been unable to keep her safe in the past, so he destroyed that past the only way he could.

They were each other's only family, a commodity more precious than aurodium. She knew they would both fight to protect it.

When, years before, Rey had stood in front of Unkar Plutt, defeated and disgusted and terrified that she'd hear herself agreeing before she could bite the words back, she'd felt a bony hand grasp her arm. She'd turned and Sāo had been there, shaking her head. She pressed something into Rey's hand.

A roll, a sliver of green protein wedged inside it. Probably the only thing Sāo had to eat for the day.

Sāo had jerked her head towards the door, and Rey didn't argue. She didn't push the roll back at Sāo, didn't pretend that she'd be fine without it. She left the outpost with Plutt's shouts ringing in her ears.

Sāo was the only reason Rey had made it. One way or another, she wouldn't have survived without Sāo.

Rey was lost in the past when she felt a pressure on her hand and realized Kylo had covered it with his own. He fumbled and squeezed it spasmodically before releasing it, and she could feel his tension. That's when she realized that his reluctance to touch had nothing to do with her: It was any physical contact at all. He'd told her it had been years since anyone had so much as seen his face. But he'd taken off his helmet for her even when she was his enemy, and now he forced himself to comfort her, skin to skin, despite his discomfort.

For her he did things he would never do for anyone else.

So she didn't tell him that she learned better when he helped her achieve the forms, or that sometimes she desperately wanted to be held; it was a luxury she'd never had, and she could do without it. She didn't offer to put his hair in knots, even when it got in his eyes, and she didn't lean against him when they were talking after dinner and her eyelids grew heavy.

But while she was thinking of Kylo's terrible aloneness, he was thinking of hers. Even with Unkar Plutt's disgusting suggestion omitted from the story, Kylo seemed haunted by her deprivation. "I would have come for you if I'd known," he said, his voice low.

"You would have frightened me." Even when she'd been armed with a blaster he'd scared her.

"I would never hurt you. You know that, don't you?"

She smiled. He'd never hurt her. Not deliberately.

"Are you frightened of me now?"

Rey studied him, the serious eyes that never left her, the powerful shoulders hunched as if he were trying not to intimidate her. She didn't know where they were going or what they were going to do when they got there, and she still barely knew him. She just knew she couldn't stand the thought of being away from him.

Yes. Yes, she was frightened.