Content Notes: dubcon, Force bonds, enemies forced to work together, seduction to the Dark Side, character death, Force ghosts, and more than a little The Force Made Them Do It

Ships: Finn/Rey, Rey/Kylo, Finn/Poe, Poe/Finn/Rey, Poe/Finn/Rey/Kylo, Luke/Leia, past Luke/Leia/Han (Star Wars: SHIP ALL THE THINGS!)

Sequence: The Plural of 'I' Is 'We' - 'The End of Our Long Day - Helictite - this - Into Starlight

Chapter One

Finn woke up.

This was an unpleasant surprise.

His eyes squinted in the bright lights of the medical suite. Later, he would discover the lighting was always kept low. Right now he felt like lasers were shining into his eye sockets. His back hurt. His body hurt. His eyes hurt.

The good news was that pain meant he was still alive. Finn blinked back the light.

"Good morning," said a pleasant voice.

Finn. He had a name and it was Finn, and that voice meant he was still Finn. Not a soldier, not Eight Seven. Finn.

"Rey?"

A hand touched his arm, and he squinted again. That wasn't the hand he associated with her, nor the voice. He remembered too many clashing images, and above them all, a pretty, brave girl. The figure he focused on wasn't her. He scrambled for the name.

"Rey's not here."

"Poe?"

"That's right." His face broke into an easy grin. "We've been worried about you, my friend."

Friend. There was a word with teeth. Poe was his very first friend, the friend who'd offered him a name and a new world. And Finn's second friend...

The memories rushed in now. The snow, and the fire, and she'd been slammed into a tree, and he'd fought. He'd lost.

Terror shot through him. Around him he heard the rapid beeps of the monitors reflecting the outrage in his heart. Rey wasn't there. "He killed her, didn't he? That Force-wielding lunatic killed her!"

"No," Poe said, understanding soothing through his voice. "Finn, Rey's okay."

"She's better than okay," said another voice. Finn turned his head, and saw the Force-wielding lunatic's mother smiling sardonically. "She kicked his butt and saved yours. When she gets back, you can thank her."

"She beat him?"

"Someone had to. I never could bring myself to do it," said the General, and she patted Finn's shoulder. It hurt a little but he felt proud anyway at the way she looked at him. She glanced at Poe. "You can fill him in on what he's missed."

"I can do that. Now that he's recovering, what should we do with him?"

She shrugged. "I'll tell you the same thing I was told when I brought a couple of stragglers back with me after a fight. They followed you home. You have to feed them and keep them from messing on the floor."

"Yes, ma'am." Poe watched her go. Finn was already trying to sit up to a more dignified position, even though it ached to move. Poe helped him find the pillows.

Several thoughts competed. "I shouldn't have said lunatic. Did she just call me a pet?"

"She's called him worse. And you weren't the one she was insulting. You'll get used to her sense of humor."

"I will?"

"You are planning on staying, right? After you get better, you'd be a great asset for the Resistance." Poe put on his best smile. It turned out he had a lot of these. Finn had felt an instant camaraderie with him from the moment they met on opposite sides.

Doubt crept in. "I'm not so sure you want me staying. I worked in sanitation. Getting sent on the mission to Jakku was a promotion. I can't even fly."

"I'll teach you. You'll be a natural."

Finn laughed, which also hurt. All of it hurt. But he was alive. "Yeah. What did General Organa mean when Rey gets back?"

Poe dropped into a chair beside him. "You missed the excitement. We know where Luke Skywalker went. She and Chewbacca took the Falcon and have gone after him."

"They're bringing him here?"

"That's the idea. Personally, I think she might not succeed, not if he doesn't want to come back. There's some pretty heavy stubbornness in that family, which I never said."

The General's sense of humor wasn't the only one he'd have to get used to.

Rey had many speculations about the moment she would finally come face to face with legendary Jedi Luke Skywalker. Perhaps he'd greet her formally, seeing the lightsaber in her hand and understanding she was ready to pass this back to him. Perhaps he would ask after the Resistance and his old friends, and she'd be the bearer of bad news instead of Chewbacca, who'd elected to stay with the ship. Perhaps he would answer all the questions she'd had about herself and her life and this mystical power which seemed to grow more and more inside her with every passing hour. Perhaps he'd take one look at her, think her unworthy, and command her to leave.

"Come on," he said, not taking the lightsaber. "Let's go inside and have some tea."

He turned and walked off, forcing her to follow him if she wanted any answers at all.

"If you've got a commlink, tell Chewie he should join us. Tell him it's tarine tea. It's his favorite."

Rey touched her ear. "We're going in for tea." She was aware how stupid that sounded. "Luke says it's tarine tea and you should join us." Chewbacca indicated he'd be along in a while.

Luke led her down the steep path to one of the ruins, and he ducked his head as he went inside. She followed, discovering what she had thought an abandoned church was in fact a cozy little cottage. There was a small portable stove, a comfy-looking bedroll, and a table strewn with books and notes.

He used the hand pump in the corner to rinse out three sturdy mugs while he boiled a pot of water on the stove. Rey saw the remains of small meals left forgotten in the corners of the main room. Her own living quarters took on this level of lived-in disregard when she hadn't had a visitor, and he appeared to have been alone for years.

"How long have you been here?"

"A while. It took me several years to find this planet, and longer to find this spot."

"I've been searching for you. Everyone has. The Resistance and the First Order are both looking for you." The heaviness of the past few days hit her again. "I also have bad news to bring you."

Luke rested his hand, the metal one, on the table. "The deaths on all those worlds, or the death of my best friend?" His eyes were old and sad.

"You felt it."

"The Force connects all living things. Billions died at once. I felt it. As a Jedi, I'm not supposed to say I felt it much worse when Han died, but I've never been a very good Jedi."

The horror flashed in front of her eyes again and was gone. "I was there. I'm sorry." She'd said the same thing to Luke's sister.

"Luminous beings are we," he said quietly.

"What?"

"Oh, something someone much wiser than I am told me once. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. He meant I should stop focusing on the outer forms of things and start paying attention to the inner light that binds. But I wondered later if he wasn't teaching me something else." The water boiled. Luke turned to pour it over the tea leaves as he said, "It's good for your first lesson."

"I'm not here for lessons. Sorry. I'm here to bring you home."

He concentrated on the tea steeping in the mugs. "You're not supposed to bring the water all the way to boiling. It brings out the bitterness. I'm not much good at tea, either. But it's hot and it will keep you going, and I stopped caring about the flavor a long time ago. There's your second lesson."

"On tea?"

"On listening to an old man ramble when you know he's talking about other things in his own foolish fashion."

"I told you. I'm not here for lessons."

"You didn't come for tea, either, but here we are." A moment later, the entrance darkened and Chewbacca stopped to come inside. "You're just in time."

Chewie extended his long arms and took Luke into a crushing hug. He moaned mournfully into Luke's ear. Luke patted him and said, "I'm so sorry. I should have been there. I felt it all."

Chewie took his mug of tea and slurped a long sip before complaining it was bitter.

"I can cook. You're better at making tea."

Rey watched the two old friends, accepting her own mug with silent thanks. She'd heard legends about these people, and other people she'd met over the last week. Part of her had expected impressive heroes, veterans of old wars with wisdom drooling out their ears. Instead she'd met a pair of two-bit old smugglers who'd messed up their last deal, an admittedly impressive Resistance leader who chain-smoked and made jokes so dry they crackled in her mouth, and now a doddering man who burned his tea and bickered with her new co-pilot.

She set her mug on the table. Luminous beings, he'd said.

They were old, yes. But so were the stars. Luke and Chewbacca had just lost their dearest friend, as had the General, and worst of all, to the hands of someone they all knew and clearly still loved. Sending up protective prickles was the least of their problems. Rey had known Han Solo for less than a week and she grieved. These people had known and loved him for more than half their lives. The grief would linger.

"You know I can't go back with you," Luke said, finally taking a drink of his own tea.

Chewbacca disagreed. The General had been very clear, and he was not about to disappoint her again.

"That's not fair of either of you, and you know it. I have to finish this, Chewie. I almost have the spell together."

Rey said, "They said you were looking for the first Jedi Temple." This didn't look like a temple. She wondered if the oldest Jedi hasn't been choosy about their holy places.

"The lore said there are old teachings lost at the first Temple. I had to know." He indicated his books.

Fury and sorrow both gripped her. Here was the last Jedi, the only survivor of the last slaughter, and he'd hermited himself away from the world for books. "You abandoned the galaxy when they needed your help against the First Order so you could visit the Jedi library?"

Luke held the mug of tea in his hands. She wondered what he could possibly take from holding it this way in a hand that couldn't feel. "You're Force-sensitive. You know it. I know it. What do you know about the Dark Side?"

A black mask, and cold snow. "It's evil. All I need to know."

"Then you're going to fall." He took another drink. He asked Chewbacca, "How much does she know?" Chewie replied that she knew enough. "The Dark Side is seductive. It offers power when you want it most. It flows through you when you're angry or afraid, and can make you strong when you feel weak. It's there, waiting for you to call on it just like the Light, but once you start down that easy path, coming back is difficult. There's a turning point."

"When you kill?"

He sighed. "We all kill. Side effect of going to war. I was directly responsible for the deaths of thousands on a space station before I was twenty. The Jedi were warriors. No. When someone truly goes to the Dark Side, there's a sacrifice. They kill someone they care about. My father killed his friends and my mother. His best friend had a chance to strike him down before he became the terror he did, but wouldn't because it meant turning."

"I'm not going to kill anyone I love." Rey couldn't think of anyone she loved, honestly. She had few friends on Jakku. She had almost no memories of her family. She was fond of her new friends, but hadn't known them long enough to care more deeply.

"I nearly did once. The second time I was put to the test, I ran so I wasn't forced to kill him and he couldn't kill me and complete his fall to the Dark Side." He wasn't talking to her. Chewie bowed his head.

She still felt the dark presence in her mind. "You mean Kylo Ren."

"Is that what he's calling himself these days?"

"You don't have to hide any longer. He murdered his father. It's done." He still lived, she knew in her bones. No matter how many systems away he might be, she felt the gossamer thread between them continue to stretch without breaking.

"I haven't been hiding. I've been researching." He handed her a paper at random from the messy table. Rey couldn't read the markings. "They're old runes. Try seeing them in your mind."

She wanted to say that was daft, but his gaze was clear. Grumbling, Rey closed her eyes and reached out to the paper in her hand. She felt the stiffness of the sheet, sent her thoughts along the uneven hatch marks forming dull meaning.

Behind her eyes, she watched the words split into two.

"It's a separation," she said, blinking her eyes open and dropping the sheet. "You said it was a spell. What does it separate?"

Luke drank his tea and didn't answer. Rey listened to the hum of the stove and the small lanterns he'd strung around the room. She let herself become aware of Chewbacca's breathing, and the sound of the waves outside, and the thick blanket reaching over them here, pure neutral energy collected in an unassuming old hovel.

"I used to daydream about fixing the past," he said. "I wanted to know if I could have somehow found my father earlier and saved him from himself. The old Jedi, the first Jedi, they took a simple approach to the Dark Side. They pulled it out from someone directly, like poison from a wound. It's powerful magic, and nearly impossible. According to the stories, the working has killed every Jedi who attempted it, but when performed properly, you could turn the darkest Sith back onto the path of good. I've spent ages digging into it after I finally found the books. I'm almost there."

This made no sense to Rey. "You've been trying to learn a spell to kill yourself?"

"No, I've nearly succeeded in recreating a spell that could bring an incredibly powerful Jedi back to the Light, and I'm not leaving until I finish." He drained his mug. "I'm sorry. I didn't get your name."

"Rey."

The mug broke in Luke's metal hand.

First Order medical technology was by far the best in the galaxy. An injection of pain medication, another of antibiotic, a slapped-on and fast-sealing surgical dressing to form fresh skin over any wound, and a Stormtrooper could be sent back into battle within a quarter of an hour, ten minutes if the med droids were reprogrammed not to bother with the first injection. Hux said allowing them more recuperation time would only encourage laziness.

Therefore, Kylo was not by any means recuperating. He'd remained in his own quarters to meditate, nothing more. The pain was manageable after the anesthetic wore off, and anyone who thought that the commander of the Knights of Ren couldn't handle the same level of pain as a mere Stormtrooper would have been taught a lesson, were he not in here. Meditating.

He'd learned meditation long ago, on another planet in another life. He'd worn another name then, and he hadn't known his true potential. He'd been taught with children, far younger, whose own Force gifts made his feel weak in comparison. He'd learned strength. He'd gained power by drinking his own anger and feeding on his own seething resentment. He could stretch out his grip and seize stars. But meditation still eluded him. Annoyed with himself, he stood from the bare spot of floor where he'd tried and failed to find his own center of balance. Lord Snoke could feel his failure, naturally. No one else had to know, and he could lay the blame elsewhere.

The girl.

Obviously she was a threat to the First Order. Obviously she must be taken or destroyed, lest the untrained whelp find means to hone her natural gifts. Obviously she would be discovered, and they would battle once more, and he would be victorious now he knew her tricks.

Come to my chamber, Kylo Ren.

Obviously Lord Snoke knew full well when Kylo's thoughts were clouded by memories of someone he couldn't defeat.

He donned his mask and strode through the corridors to Lord Snoke's chambers, enjoying the hurried spread of Stormtroopers from his path. He could touch their minds and knew not all of them respected him, but they all feared him and that would do.

As he entered the room, he saw a body slumped on the floor. His stride hesitated only a fraction of a second. The mind inside was already dead. Another step brought him close enough to see the figure was Aldin Ren, one of his subordinates in the Order. At times, Snoke would have one of his Knights brought to him privately on the pretext of some minor infraction. He'd leave the corpse to serve as a lesson to the rest. Aldin had not been a maker of mistakes, large or small, partly in fear of this very punishment. He was, or he'd been, so powerful in the Force that Kylo that had resented him, concerned for his own position and sure Lord Snoke would never waste such an asset.

The powerful asset lay dead on the floor for displeasing Snoke in some fashion. So ended the lesson.

"Yes, my Master?" He knelt, keeping his discomfort squarely behind the locks inside his mind.

"Your thoughts are clouded to me. The girl, the proto-Jedi who defeated you, she is the cause."

He winced at the reminder and kept his thoughts silent. In the very back of his mind, a voice he'd hoped to still forever whispered, "Snoke is a fool." He kept the voice muffled even to himself.

"Yes. I was injured. She will not defeat me twice."

"An excuse. Have you been practicing the techniques I showed you?"

Until his muscles ached. Until his wound throbbed. Until his mind squealed. Until the voice climbed onto his shoulder and shouted in his ear: "You've already failed!"

"Yes. Between my other duties."

"General Hux has been given full control of this base. You are relieved of all other duties."

His head shot up as he glared at Snoke from under his mask. "I am capable of completing all my work. Master."

"You are losing focus. You completed your journey into the Dark Side. Now you must use the power you have gained. The Resistance knows the location of Luke Skywalker. The girl is involved with this, although my visions have not allowed me to see how. You will kill her and bring him to me."

"She is very powerful. She would be a good acquisition for the First Order. I could train her to your bidding."

"You could not train a Loth-cat to sleep in the sunlight, Kylo Ren."

Hot words came to his lips. He knew Snoke could feel the spike of his anger. Against his own expectation, the small voice inside him said, "Not now. Not here. Not yet."

The small voice was getting on his nerves.

"I could bring her to you. You could guide her as you guided me." It would be a terrible waste to kill her.

"She is confusing you. I cannot allow this. Destroy her as you have been instructed. Bring Skywalker to me. I have plans for him."

"You cannot turn him."

"I have greater plans than that, my apprentice."

The small voice was a whisper now. It reminded him that Luke Skywalker was by far the more powerful of the two of them, that Kylo had murdered Luke's best friend, that the path to the Dark Side was best painted with the blood of someone beloved, and that Luke loved him like a son.

"Snoke will goad your uncle into killing you. He is the prize. You have always been the bait."

None of this showed in the level of his mind where Lord Snoke could read. He kept his thoughts calm, obsequious. False.

"Yes, my Master."