When she came back down from the island's summit, Rey was alone.
"He doesn't want it," she said, looking down at the lightsaber in her hand. "He won't talk to me."
Jaina Solo frowned at this unexpected news. He's running away, just like Dad, a sinister voice whispered at the back of her mind. She quickly shushed it. That couldn't be true. Uncle Luke would never.
Her new apprentice looked back up at her with dull eyes and continued, "I don't know what you thought would happen when...but he won't talk to me. He won't even look at me. I think...maybe it has to be you." She offered the lightsaber to her master.
Jaina placed one hand over Rey's on the hilt of her grandfather's blade, and gently pushed it back towards the girl. "Let's try it together," she said.
When they found him, Jaina was struck by two things.
The first was that, just like her father, Luke looked tired and worn down. Even his presence in the Force, which Jaina remembered as always bright and warm, was a dull flicker of itself. It was like he had all but burnt out, or drawn himself inward, away from the world.
The second was that he was not happy to see her.
"You shouldn't be here," he said gruffly before Jaina could get a word out. "Go away." Beside her, Rey flinched, even though the harsh words were not directed at her.
"We need you," Jaina said. "The Resistance needs you."
"No, you don't," Luke insisted. "The Resistance has you, and your...apprentice." He spared a glance at Rey at last, but it was not a kind one. "Whatever it is, you can handle it." He turned to walk away from them.
"My father is dead," Jaina called after him.
Luke halted, then slowly turned. Jaina found herself actually relieved to see he looked genuinely saddened. "How…" he asked softly.
"He was killed by Kylo Ren," Rey answered.
Luke closed his eyes. "I'm sorry."
"He needs to be stopped," Rey continued. "The First Order needs to be stopped, and you can help us-"
"Yes," Luke cut her off, gruffness returning to his voice as whatever sympathy the news of Han's death had brought out retreated inwards once more. "So you've said. And as I've said: No, I can't."
"You can't?" Jaina asked, fighting a flicker of anger, "Or you won't?"
Luke looked her in the eye, and he no longer looked merely tired or burned out. He looked bitter and cold, with something hard and ugly in his face. He looked nothing like himself.
"What difference does it make?" he said at last, and turned to walk away again.
Rey looked down at her feet. Jaina could feel her apprentice's dejection. Let him walk away, she thought, if he's going to be like that. She didn't need to be rejected again. She would not beg.
She squashed that prideful instinct down and called after him one more time. "Uncle Luke, please."
But her words had no effect. There was not even the slightest falter in his stride as he left them behind.
Later, Jaina tried again, on her own.
She waited at the door of his hut until he came out that evening. He gave her a quick, exasperated look, then pushed past her.
"I don't believe you," she called after him, following him down the rocky slope towards the sea. "I don't believe there's nothing you can do, or that you don't want to do anything."
He continued his trek in silence.
"What's really going on?" she asked. "The Luke Skywalker I know would never-"
He rounded on her so fast she nearly lost her footing and had to throw out her arms to catch her balance. "The Luke Skywalker you knew-" But he cut himself off, and merely frowned instead.
"Forget whatever you knew," he continued after a tense moment. "I only know one thing: it's time for the Jedi to end." He pointed in the direction of the Falcon, where Rey was waiting. "And if you care at all about that girl, you'll leave her out of this."
"No," Jaina protested, shaking her head as tears stung at her eyes. "The Sword of the Jedi, raised to defend us all - that was the name you gave me, even when it seemed like all was lost. She's our new hope, and this is my destiny. This is what I have to do."
"Well, you'll have to do it without me," Luke said.
This time, it was Jaina who turned around and left him.
She was awoken abruptly the next morning by the sound of blaster fire. Calling her lightsaber instantly to her hand, she saw Rey, sitting on the opposite bunk of the Falcon's crew quarters, staring at the freshly scorched bulkhead.
"Why are you blowing holes in our ship," Jaina asked grumpily once she'd ascertained they were in no danger.
"Sorry," Rey muttered sullenly. "I was cleaning my blaster and it went off."
Jaina sighed and rose from her own bunk. "Well, be more careful," she chided. "If the Falcon goes, we'll all be stuck here."
"Right," Rey agreed. "So what do we do now?"
"Now, we continue your training," Jaina answered, stretching the stiffness of sleep from her tired limbs. "Whether Luke likes it or not."
"That's it?" Rey asked skeptically. "We just carry on?"
Jaina shrugged and clipped her lightsaber to her belt. "It's what I've always done."
For the rest of the day, they sparred, they meditated, and they explored the island. The shrine containing the ancient Jedi texts, the X-Wing sunk in one of the many rocky coves, the diminutive caretakers who seemed to reluctantly tolerate their presence - all of it uncomfortably reminded Jaina of why they had come, and why they could not stay long. But she was not ready to give up on Luke just yet.
In the meantime, Rey made swift progress. Her natural aptitude for the Force, once awakened, was impressive.
Sometimes they would see Luke watching them, from a distance. But he never spoke to them, and Jaina could sense nothing from him, good or bad. He had closed himself off from her completely - not hiding himself, but simply shutting her out.
"Remember," Jaina said as she sat cross-legged opposite her apprentice. "It's not about making the Force do your will. It's about opening yourself to the will of the Force." Rey, eyes closed, shakily levitated a stone and guided it towards the stack of three that Jaina had started. "These powers are not yours," Jaina continued. "You merely channel them."
The stone came to rest atop the stack, wobbled for a moment, then settled in place. "Good," Jaina said. "Now another."
A smooth piece of basalt floated up from the ground. "But I'm the one making this happen," Rey protested. "It's not the will of the Force to stack these rocks, is it?"
"Who are you to say what the will of the Force is?" Jaina challenged her apprentice. As the dark rock floated nearer, the stack began to wobble again. "Focus," Jaina chided.
"Why do I have to focus," Rey complained through gritted teeth, "if I'm not the one doing anything?"
The floating rock touched the top of the stack, and the whole thing collapsed.
Rey let out a frustrated sigh. Jaina gave her a patient smile. "It's not about mastering the Force, Rey. It's about mastering yourself."
"Was that his problem? That he never mastered himself?"
Jaina blinked. Reflexive pain and grief spilled across her tentative new bond with her apprentice. "Ben, please," she had begged him… Rey immediately looked contrite.
"I shouldn't have-"
"No," Jaina cut her off. She took a deep breath. "Of course you want to know what happened. It's a fair question. I just...don't know the full story."
"Weren't you there?" Rey asked, confused.
"Not when it mattered," Jaina replied. Maybe not in the way that mattered.
Rey leaned forward. "Tell me. Please."
Jaina rested her elbows on her knees and her chin on her folded hands. She closed her eyes for a moment, letting the memories come to the surface and accepting the pain they brought.
"From the time we were first sent to train with Luke," she began, "he became more...distant. He was shy, and I knew he missed mom, but...it never got better. I was always more outgoing, I made friends easily, and I adjusted. But as the years went on, he just spent more and more time alone." Jaina swallowed, then admitted with difficulty, "I think Snoke must have already been...influencing him, but none of us realized it."
Rey had picked up the dark stone from where it had fallen and was slowly turning it over in her hands. "No one ever noticed?"
"Oh, I certainly worried about him," Jaina answered. "Uncle Luke worried about him. It's not that we couldn't see the darkness. Just not the full extent of it. It wasn't until we found out...about our grandfather…"
"Darth Vader," Rey whispered.
"Anakin Skywalker," Jaina corrected her firmly. "The Jedi whose lightsaber you carry."
Rey looked down at the stone in her hands, abashed.
"It was hard, the way we found out. He didn't take it well. That was when Luke decided to confront him."
She hesitated. "What happened?" Rey prompted.
"I don't know," Jaina said, shaking her head. "I wasn't there. But he attacked Luke, and left him for dead. And then, he came for the rest of us."
"He tried to kill you?"
"No. He wanted me to join him. He wanted all of us to come with him, and follow Snoke. Some did. He killed the rest. He was…" Her breath hitched at the memory of her brother's face convulsed with anger, begging her to take his side. "It was all lies!" he had shouted. "We never should have trusted him!"
"He was unbalanced," Jaina continued. "He was wild with fury. I had the chance to stop him but...I could sense that Luke was still alive. I went to save him instead, and my brother and the other traitors escaped."
Rey had stopped fidgeting, holding the stone still in her lap. "You and Luke were the only survivors."
"The Sword of the Jedi, meant to protect the order," Jaina said sadly. "And the one Jedi I did protect wants it all to end."
A shadow fell over them both. They looked up to see Luke, silhouetted by the setting sun.
"Tomorrow," he said to Rey, holding up a single gloved finger. "One lesson." Turning to Jaina, he added, "Then maybe you'll see why."
Luke took them to one of the highest peaks on the island. Gesturing towards the a large, flat boulder, he commanded Rey, "Sit." To Jaina, he said simply, "Watch."
Rey settled herself into the standard cross-legged position atop the boulder, facing towards Luke and away from Jaina. Back straight, hands in her lap, attentive - the picture of a perfect Jedi student, Jaina noted with a hint of pride.
"Reach out," Luke said, his voice losing something of its rough edge. "What do you feel on the island?" He sounded more like the teacher Jaina remembered.
"I feel...life…" Rey said. "And death. Growth, and decay. It's...a cycle. A balance."
"That is the Force," Luke told her. Jaina remembered this lesson from her own early training, and knew exactly what he would say next. "It's not a power you have. It's not something that belongs to you. It's not about floating rocks. It's the will of the Force that maintains that balance."
And it is the Jedi who serve the will of the Force…
"And it will go on with or without the Jedi," Luke concluded instead, not sounding bitter, but only sad. "The Force has no need of us."
"There's something else," Rey interrupted his lecture, her voice dreamlike. "A cave…"
In her mind's eye, Jaina saw it, too: a gnarled, shriveled place, somewhere beneath them. It was a place of darkness, repulsive. Get back, stay away, don't go in there...
"It feels like...it's calling to me…" Rey was leaning forward, as if towards the mouth of the cave. Jaina looked to Luke, concerned. Luke looked downright afraid.
"Rey!" Jaina called out, and the trance the girl had slipped into broke. Rey's shoulders slumped, and she fell sideways, off the boulder. Jaina ran the four paces to her side, kneeling next to her on the ground.
Breathing heavily, Rey looked at her master with wide, frightened eyes. "What was that?" she asked in a small voice.
"You didn't even try to stop yourself," Luke said, standing over them. "You went straight to the darkness."
"Uncle Luke," Jaina said, "What is beneath this island?"
"We've seen this before," he said to her in lieu of an answer. "You recognize it." Jaina looked away from him. "It didn't scare me enough then," he continued. "It does now."
"Is that why you won't help?" Rey asked bitterly, pushing herself up off the ground. "Because you're scared? We're all scared! You're Luke Skywalker! You're supposed to-"
"I'm supposed to what?" Luke growled. "Come running to save the day? Train the next generation of heroes? I already tried that, because I was Luke Skywalker." He gave Jaina that cold, ugly look again. "You know how well that worked out."
That was the end of the lesson. They would receive no more answers, no more clarification from Luke that day. Instead, Jaina spent the rest of the day running Rey through simple saber drills, practicing the basic forms, to re-center them both.
But as she settled into her bunk that night, she knew that Rey's mind had never really left that dark place they had seen.
"What do you think is in that cave?" the girl whispered from where she lay in the opposite bunk.
"Nothing good, Rey," Jaina answered. "Stay away from it."
Then she turned out the light, and went to sleep.
Steady rain was drumming against the hull of the Falcon as rough hands shook Jaina awake. "Do you feel it?" Luke asked sternly. "The darkness?"
Jaina sat up and pushed him away, shuddering at the damp, cold feeling creeping over her. "Yes," she said, immediately looking towards Rey's bunk. It was empty. "What's happening?"
"Your apprentice," Luke said, "went into the cave."
"Where is she now?" Jaina asked hurriedly as she pulled on her boots.
"I don't know. She's your apprentice."
Jaina searched for her in the Force. She felt no fear from the girl, but only a grim resolve. And at the very edge of her perception, she felt something else. Someone else.
She bolted from the crew quarters, down the boarding ramp and into the night, Luke trailing close behind. "You feel that, too," he called after her.
She didn't respond, but kept running through the rain, towards the nearest of the stone huts, where she could see the orange flicker of firelight through the small window. She reached the doorway, tore back the curtain, and her heart froze in her chest.
Sitting by the fire pit, Rey turned towards Jaina, caught by surprise. And sitting opposite her, holding her hand, Kylo Ren did the same.
She heard Luke shout from beside her. The stone walls of the hut flew apart, the rain doused the small fire, and her brother was no longer there.
Rey's face contorted with an animalistic rage. Her staff flew to her hand and she swung it at Luke. He swatted the weapon away, breaking her grip and making her drop it.
"Stop!" Jaina shouted, forcing herself between them. Not again, not this again. But Rey would not listen. With a yell, she shoved her master aside and drew the lightsaber from her belt.
"Is it true?" Rey asked furiously, pointing Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber at Luke's throat. "Did you try to murder him?"
Scrambling to regain her balance, Jaina drew her own blade in a defensive stance. She looked at Luke, who made no move to defend himself, then back to Rey, whose anger had simmered down from wild inferno to controlled burn. "What are you talking about?"
Rey kept her eyes fixed on Luke as she answered. "I'm talking about Ben. Your brother."
That wounded place in Jaina's heart that belonged to her twin throbbed with old pain. Her defensive stance faltered, just slightly. "Uncle Luke," she pleaded softly, "what is she talking about?"
"Did you try to murder Ben Solo?" Rey demanded.
Luke answered her, avoiding Jaina's eyes. "That night, when I went to confront him," he began slowly. "I found him asleep. I reached out with the Force, and looked into his heart. Snoke had already gotten to him. There was...so much darkness…" His voice faltered and he trailed off.
"What did you do?" Jaina pressed him, though she could already feel the answer. It could not be true. She wouldn't believe it until she heard it from him.
"For one moment...in my weakness...I just wanted to end it…"
"You wanted to end him," Rey accused.
Luke hung his head, ashamed.
"No," Jaina whispered. Her blade hung limply in one hand, all pretense of a defensive stance gone. "No, Uncle Luke, you didn't…"
Luke said nothing, did not look up, but his shoulders shook.
"What did you do?" Jaina begged him again. "Tell me the truth! What did you do?"
"Say it!" Rey ordered, brandishing the lightsaber at him once more.
"I was ready to kill him," Luke confessed. Lifting his head at last, he looked desperately at Jaina. "But I stopped myself! I wouldn't have gone through with it!" His eyes were tearful, guilty.
"But he woke up," Rey continued for him. "And he saw you."
"He saw that I had betrayed him," Luke agreed somberly. "And then it was too late. I was left with shame, and consequence, and the last thing I saw were the eyes of a frightened boy whose master had failed him."
There was a moment of heavy silence, with only the hum of the lightsabers and the steady pounding of the rain. Vaguely, Jaina could smell smoke, could feel the heat of the Jedi academy burning around her.
"It was all lies!" her brother had told her. "We never should have trusted him!"
Rey was about to make another accusation, but Jaina cut her off with the gesture of one hand.
"Go back to the Falcon," she said tersely.
Her apprentice looked at her for a moment, ready to argue. "Go," Jaina repeated definitively. Still fuming, Rey deactivated the blue blade and did as she was told.
Luke rose to his feet as Rey stalked off. Jaina deactivated her own blade.
"How dare you," she said. The anger she felt did not flicker or burn. It was like ice in her veins.
"I stopped myself," Luke repeated. "I wouldn't have done it!"
"I used to think," Jaina went on, "that it was Grandfather that had finally pushed him to become this...this monster...but it was you!" Luke had the decency to wince at that, but it was little comfort to her now.
"And then you lied about it to my parents! You lied to me! You gave me this important title so I'd keep believing in what it meant to be a Jedi, when you couldn't even do it yourself! And then you ran away to wallow in your self pity, leaving me alone, the last Jedi, to figure out what that meant and how to fix the mess you made! And even when I showed up at your doorstep begging you for help, you wouldn't even tell me why!"
The last word came out half as a strangled sob.
"Do you understand now?" Luke asked. "Do you see that it has to end? All of it?"
"No, I don't understand!" she cried, pushing wet hair out of her face. "I don't understand any of it! Can you explain it to me? Can you tell me why you did it? Why you even thought about doing it?"
"I don't know. It was a moment of weakness."
"That is not good enough."
"It's the best I can do."
"It's pathetic. You are a coward." She took a deep breath, studying her uncle's haggard face. His own guilt and self-recrimination were plain to see. She actually felt sorry for him, and that just made it worse.
It had made it worse when she had confronted her father, too. This time, in the face of an even greater betrayal, she headed that feeling.
"I don't hate you," she said, and willed herself to mean it. "Because you taught me better than that. But you have failed, in every way, to live up to your own teachings. You failed, not because you were Luke Skywalker, but because you weren't." She shook her head, taking one backwards step away from him. "You were right about one thing. Whether you can't help or won't, it doesn't matter. I have nothing left to learn from you."
She left him there, cold, sodden, and alone. He did not protest. But why should he? It was, after all, what he'd wanted from the start.
Back aboard the Falcon, Jaina found Rey sitting on her bunk with her knees drawn to her chest, a thermal blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She had changed into dry clothes. Her rage had dissipated for the moment, but the defiant set to her jaw and spark in her eye had not.
Jaina stood in the doorway, arms crossed and dripping wet, and considered her words carefully before she said anything. Rey, she knew, was waiting to be reprimanded.
"How long have you been talking to him?" Jaina asked instead.
Rey didn't even blink at the question. "Since we got here," she answered. "I didn't try to make it happen, and I don't think he did either."
"I doubt it," Jaina agreed, uncrossing her arms with a sigh. "Sustaining that kind of projection? It would have killed you both."
"It's like we've just been...linked," Rey concluded with a shrug.
"Bonded," Jaina said. She went to the storage locker under her bunk and removed a change of clothing for herself. "Like there's part of you that belongs to him, and part of him that belongs to you."
Rey nodded, hugging her knees tighter. "I didn't want it to happen," she said.
Turning away from her, Jaina kicked off her boots. "That's what it was like for us, growing up," she said as she stripped off her wet clothes. "We could always find each other. But after he…" She trailed off, reaching for the fresh set of Jedi robes she had laid out.
"He cut you off?" Rey guessed.
"No," Jaina admitted as she fastened her pants around her waist. "I cut him off." She pulled her tunic over her head and worked her arms through the loose sleeves. "I couldn't stand being connected to him anymore. My great failure of Jedi compassion," she concluded bitterly as she belted the tunic.
"He doesn't hold it against you," Rey said as Jaina turned to face her again. "He said you only chose Luke over him because you didn't know the truth."
"Is that what he said?" Jaina asked, balling up her wet clothes and throwing them into the 'fresher with more force than necessary.
Rey leaned forward, letting her legs dangle off the edge of the bunk. "Look," she said, every bit as determined as ever, "Luke isn't going to help us. But Ben might, if we go to him. He will listen to you, at least, if you reach out to him."
"And if I still don't want to reach out to him?" Jaina asked, crossing her arms over her chest once more.
Rey stood up and looked her master in the eye. "Then I will," she said. "Somebody has to."
Jaina took in her apprentice's boldness, and all that it attempted to conceal. "Rey," she said firmly, "why did you go into the cave?"
Rey flushed, and her lower lip trembled, but she did not look away. "It doesn't matter," she said. "I didn't find anything there, anyway."
"You don't have to try to fix my family, just because you can't find yours."
"But it's the right thing to do," Rey insisted through gritted teeth. "It's what a Jedi should do."
There was truth in her words, but there was danger as well. "Maybe," Jaina said. "But you are not a Jedi yet."
The fire in Rey's eyes flared to life again, and she clenched her hands into fists. "There," Jaina said. "That's the problem. You're angry at everyone. You think that acting like a Jedi will make that anger go away, but it's the other way around."
"And you're not angry?" Rey asked incredulously, her voice rising.
"I am," Jaina confessed. "I am so angry, at everyone, just like you. That's how I know that anger accomplishes nothing." In a softer voice, but with no less resolve, she continued, "I never let my father apologize. I never let him know I forgave him, because I was angry."
Rey closed her eyes and turned her head away, as if she didn't want to listen.
"And now you want to run off to him, because you think you understand each other, that you can help him, because you're angry. But until you learn to let go of that anger, you're only going to fail."
Until I learn to let go of that anger, I'm only going to fail.
Rey looked at her again, and came two steps closer. "If I fail," she said, "at least I was willing to try." Then she pushed past Jaina and stalked away. Jaina let her go.
The next morning, Jaina went looking for her apprentice. She found Luke instead, spearfishing in the rocky cove where his X-Wing lay submerged.
"I haven't seen her," he said in a flat voice to her unspoken question. "You were right. I left the future of the Jedi in your capable hands. I'm not interfering anymore."
Dejected as he sounded, his words still stung. "You don't get to judge my shortcomings as a mentor," she said.
Hauling in a large fish and throwing it over his shoulder, Luke looked at her sadly. "I wasn't."
The distant sound of sublight engines roaring to life forestalled any further conversation, and Jaina's heart sank as she watched the Falcon rise above the island and blast out of the planet's atmosphere. Rey, what have you done...
Luke sighed. "Looks like you'll be here for a while." He began to make his way up the narrow path out of the cove. "Dinner's on me, tonight."
She wanted to scream at him again. She wanted to yell at Rey, at her brother, at herself. Every old scar from the last decade, every new wound from the last few days, all the anger and disappointment threatened to consume her.
She looked at the gaping, pathetic, lifeless face of the gutted fish hanging from her uncle's stooped shoulders, down his retreating back. She felt as utterly helpless as that fish. She let all of it go.
"I'll take a raincheck on that," she said tiredly, turning back towards the cove. The waves crashed against the rocks, the eddies in the dark waters now concealing, now revealing the fighter which lay just beneath the surface.
Closing her eyes, she stretched out one hand. She had no confidence in herself left, no inner strength to draw on. But the will of the Force did not depend on her own strength. The X-Wing was, in reality, no harder to move than a stone. It broke the surface, water and sea foam sloughing off the hull and crashing back into the cove. The salty spray of the agitated waters did nothing to break her concentration.
The ship rose up, high into the air, for there was no place to set it down in the cove. Instead, turning slowly, she gently guided it to the flat outcropping on the other side of the island, where the Falcon had rested until moments ago. She set it down, and opened her eyes.
Luke was staring at her skeptically. "That thing's been in the water for years," he said. "It will never fly again."
Jaina shrugged. "I'm good at fixing things," she retorted. "I always have been." Then she pushed past him on the narrow path and climbed out of the cove. She had work to do.
The X-Wing that the tractor beam of the First Order flagship drew in was rusted, running on fumes, and barely spaceworthy. It seemed highly improbable that anyone had managed to fly it - and to the further bewilderment of the squad of stormtroopers that met the ship in the hanger, it seemed that no one had. The cockpit of the fighter was, as far as they could tell, empty.
Carefully maintaining that illusion, Jaina leaped down from the fighter as silently as a lothcat and slipped out of the hanger.
The ability to disappear into the Force was a trick she had learned not from Luke, but from her brother. She couldn't help wondering now if Snoke had taught it to him. Nevertheless, it was extremely useful at a time like this, though it also had certain drawbacks.
Staying fully hidden, even from other Force-sensitives, had the side effect of hiding them from her as well. She could not sense Rey, or her brother, or Snoke, without risking them noticing her presence. Instead, she relied totally on the will of the Force to guide her steps and bring her where she needed to be.
It brought her to a ventilation shaft, of course.
She was able to drop her shielding somewhat as she climbed up the narrow shaft, for there was little danger of anyone seeing her here. A sickly feeling in the pit of her stomach told her she must be getting close to Snoke. Hopefully, that meant she would soon find Rey as well.
Drawing the Force around her to disappear completely again, she peered out of the next grate that she came to. The immediate surroundings were shadows - the corner of a vast, dimly lit chamber. Beyond that, there were guards dressed in red, and a throne, facing away from her. Further on, she could see Rey kneeling before a dark figure.
Heart pounding, it took all her concentration to maintain the illusion of invisibility as she slowly removed the grate and climbed into the room. Fortunately, the three other Force-sensitives were all preoccupied. Snoke was speaking from the throne, though Jaina could barely process his words.
From the shadows, she studied her brother carefully. Outwardly, he showed no sign of conflict, no hint of what he might do. But she could not look deeper without revealing herself, at least to him.
"I have seen his future," Snoke declared.
One hand on her lightsaber, Jaina reached for him - not in anger as she had when he had killed their father, but in desperate supplication - Ben, please.
She felt, in response, his surprise at her presence, though his eyes never left Rey. And then, incredibly, she felt his unwavering reassurance, that he had no intention of hurting the girl.
"He takes the saber," Snoke continued, unaware. "He ignites it, and kills his true enemy!"
The snap-hiss of a lightsaber being ignited punctuated his prophetic declaration, and the smell of charred flesh tinged the air. Rey whipped around to face the throne, unharmed. Dropping her shields completely and stepping out of the shadows, Jaina did the same, just in time to see Snoke's dismembered body collapse to the floor, and the blue blade which had killed him fly through the air. Rey reached out with one hand and caught it easily.
The guards ignited their electrostaffs and descended upon them.
Jaina had fought side-by-side with her brother, years ago. She had trained with Rey over the last few days. Now, she fell into sync with both of them with alarming ease. They formed a tight circle, back to back to back, and fought like one warrior with three blades. Even when the guards managed to drive them apart, they still fought together.
When one of the guards managed to knock Rey's lightsaber from her hand, he threw his own weapon to her without missing a beat. When three of the guards rushed Jaina at once, Rey recovered the dropped lightsaber and tossed it to her so she could fight them off by dual wielding.
When her brother, still unarmed, was caught in a chokehold by the last remaining guard, Jaina passed their grandfather's lightsaber to him so he could end the fight. The last guard fell to the floor, dead.
"Ben," Jaina said aloud for the first time in years. Her brother looked at her, and Force help her, he actually smiled.
Rey ran towards the viewport, where the large magnifier showed them the last Resistance ships desperately fleeing from the First Order. "There's still time!" she called to them. She looked to Ben, eyes bright and filled with hope. "You can order them to stand down!"
But Ben made no move to call off the fleet. Instead, he looked at the lightsaber in his hand for a long moment. Then, hooking it onto his belt, he held out one hand towards Rey, the other towards Jaina. "I want you to join me," he said. "Both of you."
Just like that, they were back where they had stood on that fateful night, with their world burning down around them. This, again, always back to this...
"No," said Rey, shaking her head in disbelief. "Don't do this. Don't go this way."
"No, no, you're still holding on!" he growled. "Let go!" He turned towards Jaina. "You know, now," he said. "You know the truth, how our family failed us." Turning back to Rey, he asked, "Do you want to know the truth about your parents? Or have you always known?" He took one step towards her, then another. Jaina did the same, protectively coming to her apprentice's side, though she could find no words to counter her brother.
"You know the truth," he said softly. "Say it."
"They were nobody," Rey confessed through her tears.
Jaina took her hand. "Ben, stop," she said.
"They were filthy junk traders," her brother continued, undaunted. "They sold you for drinking money. They're dead, in a pauper's grave in the desert."
"Stop!" Jaina said again, forcefully, pushing on that fragile connection that had just begun to reform between them.
"She has to see," he said earnestly, reaching back to her across that same bond. "They were nothing, and she's nothing." He turned back towards Rey. "But not to us. Because we know how that feels, to be betrayed by your family. To be abandoned. Don't we, Jaya?"
He was reaching for his bond with Rey as well, and for one moment the three of them were linked through the Force, and through their pain, three lost and damaged children. And it was so comforting, to know they were not alone. Jaina closed her eyes, and let both of them into her heart, welcoming all the pain that they brought just to savor that closeness.
Then, heart still open and vulnerable, she said, "They may have given up on us, but that doesn't mean we have to give up, too."
She opened her eyes, and saw in her brother's face the hurt she could already feel. "You know what he did," he said. You know what they let him do.
"I do," she said. "And I know what you've done."
"No," he protested, voice cracking. "You're still taking his side, even knowing the truth?"
"I am on Luke's side," she confirmed, "even if Luke isn't. I am going to defend the Jedi, even if I am the last one."
Jaina turned towards Rey, whose hand she still held fast. "But I know that I won't be."
"You can come with us," Rey said, holding out her other hand in an inversion of Ben's earlier offer.
"You can come home," Jaina added.
He looked straight into her eyes, and she knew how badly he wanted to give in. "No," Kylo Ren said through gritted teeth. "I can't."
He threw out one hand and called his own lightsaber back to him. Rey quickly did the same, pulling Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber off of his belt. It halted in midair as he countered her, perfectly immobilized for a split second before a molten crack appeared right down the middle.
Realizing what was happening, Jaina pushed Rey out of the way as the lightsaber exploded in a burst of white light.
Blinking away the flash blindness, she saw her brother lying very still. Her heart skipped a beat before she realized he was only unconscious.
Rey scrambled across the floor to pick up what was left of the lightsaber - two pieces, neatly split. "Oh no," she whispered, shaking her head. "No, no…" She looked to Jaina, wide-eyed. "I'm so sorry," she choked out. "I've ruined it."
Jaina pulled the girl to her feet. "Let's go," she said, with one last glance at her brother. "We need to get out of here."
Together, they fled.
They made their way to the hanger where Rey had left the Falcon with some difficulty. Jaina could not effectively hide them both, so they were forced to fight their way through much of the ship. They finally boarded the Falcon and blasted away from the First Order flagship just moments before its destruction.
"We have to go get down there," Rey said, nodding towards the viewport where the milky white planet of Crait loomed ahead of them. The Resistance transports were already preparing to land.
"They'll be heading for the old Rebel base," Jaina surmised as she pushed the sublight engines to their limit, taking advantage of the First Order's momentary disarray to escape without pursuit.
"You know where it is?" Rey asked.
"Of course," Jaina replied. "I practically grew up on old Rebel bases." She sighed. "So did he, though."
Rey chewed her lower lip, and said nothing. The rest of their short trip to the planet's surface was passed in tense silence.
We can get there before him, Jaina repeated to herself. And they would, she knew. What would happen then, she was less certain of.
As they flew over the ridge where the entrance to the base was located, Jaina finally broke the silence. "They've already closed the blast doors," she noted.
Rey glanced at the sensor display. "First Order landing craft are entering orbit," she said. "Is there another way in?"
"Maybe," Jaina replied. She set the Falcon down on a relatively sheltered outcropping in the maze of ridges and canyons beyond the base. "Let's find out."
They disembarked, taking a moment to survey their stark surroundings. Jaina closed her eyes, cleared her mind as best as she could, and looked for some guidance from the Force…
Rey nudged her gently. "Look," she whispered. Jaina opened her eyes and squinted at the shape in the distance that her apprentice was pointing to.
It was small, an animal of some sort, but rapidly advancing towards them, climbing up out of one of the narrow valleys. The sun glinted off its crystalline coat as it ran.
Rey took a step towards the creature, but Jaina put out an arm to stop her. "Don't frighten it," she said softly.
But the glittering, vulpine animal did not seem scared of them at all. It halted abruptly when it reached them, staring straight at Jaina with luminescent blue eyes. It blinked once, turned its head pointedly over its shoulder towards the valley from which it had come, then looked back at her.
"I understand," Jaina whispered. The creature ran off.
Rey looked at her strangely. "Is talking to animals one of your Force powers?"
"Not really," Jaina said as she started towards the valley. Rey followed. "That was always more his thing."
They made their way carefully down into the valley. At the far end, a loose pile of stones testified to a recent rockslide. There was nothing else remarkable to be seen.
Rey stood very still. "Do you feel that?"
There was just the slightest stirring in the air, easily overlooked, but persistent once noticed. Jaina put one hand to a narrow gap in the stones. Sure enough, there was a gentle air current coming through.
"There must be a tunnel on the other side," Jaina said. She looked at Rey, and nodded.
In unison, they put out their right hands. The rocks rose, parted, and drifted away, revealing the sloping underground passageway beyond. And in the passageway, dressed all in black, not a single hair or fold of his robes disturbed by the draft, stood Luke Skywalker.
"How…" Rey breathed.
Jaina shook her head. "You're not here," she said. "Not really."
"Not physically," the apparition said with a deferential nod. "But why should that make me any less real?"
"Are you here to gloat?" Rey asked. "That we failed, just like you?"
"I'm here to apologize, while I still can," he said, looking at Jaina. "You were right about me."
Maybe it was because he was an illusion, or maybe it was the truth, but he finally looked like the man she had known. The mentor she had looked up to. The uncle she had loved. There was no more coldness or ugliness or bitterness in his eyes, but only contrition, and hope.
You know what he did, her brother's voice rang in her ears again.
"I'm still angry," she said.
"I know," he replied, walking towards her slowly. "And I'm sorry."
"What about my mother?" she asked, blinking through the tears that fell. "And him?"
"They're not here, right now. This is about you." The apparition reached out with his left hand and gently wiped her tears away. "Whether you can forgive me or not, I want you to know that I'm sorry."
She knew he was not there, but the hand on her cheek felt warm. It felt real. How much of himself had he put into this illusion, so that she could feel that?
She reached up with her own hand and cradled his. She could not find it in her to speak, but she looked into his eyes, and nodded. He smiled, sadly.
Then the apparition drew away from her, and went to Rey, only a few paces away. He spoke to her, too low for Jaina to hear. Rey nodded as well, and he looked to Jaina once more.
"Goodbye, Sword of the Jedi," he said. "May the Force be with you."
And then he was gone.
They met the Resistance scouts partway down the passage. Finn immediately ran to embrace Rey. Poe did the same to Jaina.
"He's here," Poe whispered excitedly, still holding her tight. "It's really him!"
"Yes," Jaina said. "It is."
During the hurried retreat that followed, there was little time to contemplate things any further. But, as the will of the Force would have it, Jaina was unceremoniously reunited with her mother amid the chaos at the very moment when she felt Luke's death.
She clasped both of her mother's hands, and noticed for the first time how frail they felt. Their foreheads rested against each other, just for a moment.
"I saw him," Leia said softly. "I know."
That was all they had time for. There were transports to be loaded, crew to be evacuated, a resistance to save.
Minutes later, she heard the distant sound of First Order troops entering the base through the ruptured blast door. Rey grabbed her hand to pull her aboard the final transport.
They both saw him, kneeling on the ground. Her father's killer. Her brother. Ben.
He looked at them, plaintive. Uncertain.
Rey reached out and activated the switch to close the hatch on the transport, and the vision disappeared. But none of them severed the bond.
Later, back aboard the Falcon, Rey held the broken pieces of Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber, one in each hand. "I don't know how we're going to win now," she confessed sadly.
Leia seemed about to speak, but then she looked at Jaina instead. After a moment, she closed her eyes and inclined her head towards her daughter.
"We can fix it," Jaina said resolutely.
Rey looked skeptical. "The power cell is ruined, and the casing is completely fractured. Even if you weld it back together, it would never be strong enough-"
"The crystal is intact," Jaina cut her off. "The rest can be replaced, if we have to."
"It won't be the same," Leia cautioned. "Not really. It will be a new lightsaber built from the old pieces."
"Its heart will be the same," Jaina insisted. "And that's good enough."