Dark

"Even if one of our groups sent help right away, it will take at least three days to get here," Finn said as they walked back towards Rey's damaged Tie Fighter. "And since you destroyed my ship and the rations inside of it, we've got to make do with your rations."

"Excuse me?" Rey asked incredulously. "Why would I give you any of my rations?"

"You don't have any rations, do you?" Finn deadpanned, a knowing smirk on his face.

"Well," Rey hesitated. "That's beside the point. I may have a meal's worth of food or so. But I'm certainly not giving you any of it."

"Fine, you can take it."

"I can take it?" Rey repeated as her ship came into view. "Where do you get off—"

"I'd really hoped we had moved past this part, Rey," Finn said with a groan. "We're stuck here, together, and we should make the best of it."

Rey stopped in her tracks and let out an exasperated moan of her own. "You are my enemy, Finn! I still don't know why you didn't kill me, much less why I should be working with you."

Finn stopped and turned around, his face blanketed in confusion, as if the idea that he was her enemy was a completely new concept. "We already talked about why I didn't kill you, and I don't see why you can't put aside our differences for survival. I'm sure we've both got some skills that can help us survive."

"I don't want you to survive!" Rey retorted.

"Then kill me." Finn said simply.

"What?"

"If you want me dead so badly, take your saber and kill me."

Rey was so surprised by the request, she was sure she didn't understand. "You want me to kill you?"

"Of course not," Finn said, as if she was the crazy one.

She ignited her saber threateningly. But Finn just gazed at her, the same, irritating calmness emanating from him as before. She took a step forward, and still no reaction.

Rey didn't get it. First, she didn't understand Finn's motivations. She couldn't guess at why he wasn't putting up a fight. Or why he wasn't even in a defensive or nervous stance. But moreso, she didn't understand why she hadn't already struck him down.

Sure, she had a code and, because she'd been beaten, had decided she wouldn't kill him unless it was a fair fight. But he had given her permission. It wouldn't be a cheap shot if he knew it was coming.

Still, she couldn't take another step. Maybe it was his own blasé attitude towards it all. Maybe she suspected he had some crazy plan and she would be playing right into it by swinging her lightsaber at him. Maybe, without the Dark Side urging on her every move, she had less motivation to kill someone just because they were an enemy.

In fact, with each passing moment, she felt a little bit more like Rey the Scavenger, and a little less like a Knight of Ren. And she didn't hate that. She turned her lightsaber off, and glared at Finn.

A bright, vaguely attractive, smile came to Finn's face. "Good!" he said happily as he turned back to the fighter. "I really didn't want to die just now, and I'm glad we can put all this animosity behind us."

Rey didn't say anything as Finn climbed into her ship and pulled out the rations that were stored inside. When he hopped back down, she broke her silence. "You can take half the meal."

Finn smiled at her once more before handing the supplies over to her. "I appreciate it—but we're not surviving on one meal anyways. You take it, and I'll get started looking for something to eat. I've been to Myrkr before, and know a few things that are edible on this planet."

Rey nodded, still amazed at what was happening. She was working with Finn. A Jedi in training!

"I'll start setting up a camp. I've only done it in a desert climate before, but I'm sure the principles are the same."

Finn nodded to her before heading off into the thick forest around them. He quickly disappeared. The island couldn't be more than an hour's walk from one end to the other, but the trees were so dense, he might as well be on another island.

And for a short while, Rey was almost able to imagine herself back on Jakku—alone and fighting for her life. Sure, the setting was entirely different, but Rey knew how to survive. She set about immediately to find good cover. Like the old AT-AT that had been her home, Rey decided her Tie Fighter would provide a good basis for cover.

She took her lightsaber and cut down three trees, both opening up the camp area, and giving her new material to build shelter with. She cut the tree down to manageable sizes, trimmed off wayward branches and foliage, and carefully rolled the lumber over to her fighter.

Because Finn had taken off a wing, the Tie Fighter rested crooked on the ground. This made the available room under the ship smaller, but also easier to wall off. Rey wished, once more, that she had the Force to assist her. However, she was able to hoist each tree log up and lean them along the open spaces around the Fighter. She stepped back after a time to admire her work. The Tie Fighter was bolstered by a dozen logs, both enclosing the space under the ship, and propping it up with support beams.

There would not be a lot of space for the both of them—but Rey figured she could sleep up in the cockpit. That thought just made her question whether she had done all of this work for Finn, so Rey shook her head to keep from dwelling on it.

Instead, she looked into the sky and found dusk quickly descending. She gathered additional logs and branches to build a fire. The air was cooling quickly, and she anxiously lit some leaves and branches with her saber.

Just as the fire burst to life, Finn came trudging back into the clearing, holding two furry lizards in his left hand, and a large boar-like creature slung over his shoulder.

"Are those..." Rey began.

"Ysalamiri," Finn finished, nodding and holding up the lizards. "I hoped when I killed them that I'd feel the Force again—but clearly there are hundreds of them on this island, in that big crag over there. It would be impossible to kill them all."

Rey nodded, having suspected as much. It was amazing that these creatures existed, and that their Force-negating abilities were so powerful. In her pride, Rey had always thought she'd be able to feel it even inside of their aura.

"Can we eat them...or will it..."

Finn let out a short laugh. "What, make us non-Force sensitive?"

Rey glared at him, and he quickly continued. "I'm only laughing because I've been wondering the same thing. I'd hoped you would know."

Rey felt her facial features relax at Finn's admission of ignorance. He was so odd—humble in a way she'd never seen anyone. He was so unlike Kylo Ren. He didn't care what she thought of him. He didn't try to boast his strength. He didn't try to anger her, hoping for a fight.

"I...I don't know either. You've been on the planet before; you didn't experience them then?"

Finn shook his head. "I might have felt their powers once or twice, but never for extended periods. And I certainly never ate one. I guess it's a good thing I caught up to this boar, so we can at least eat tonight."

Rey nodded. "I'll keep my ration for a rainy day, then."

They huddled around the fire as Finn set to work skinning the boar-like creature. "You've done this before?" Rey asked, curious. There hadn't been much to hunt on Jakku, so she'd never learned to prepare an animal for a meal.

Finn chuckled, and Rey decided that she very much liked his light attitude. In such an insane situation, she was grateful for anything to put her at ease. "When I first met Master Luke, we spent three months isolated on a planet. I had to learn quick how to find food, and how to eat it without dying."

"What's he like?" Rey found herself asking, despite herself.

Finn glanced up at her sharply, suspicion in his eyes. "He's wise. And kind."

Rey scoffed. "I guess I shouldn't have expected you to agree with Kylo Ren and Snoke."

"That he's a misguided fool who managed to deceive Vader with sentimentality? That he's too stubborn in his Jedi ways to see the true glory of the Dark Side?"

"He'd be the most powerful man in the galaxy if he would just—"

Finn looked up from the bloody boar in his hands with an exaggerated sigh. "What is it with you Dark Siders and power? What about happiness? Why is that not your goal?"

Rey's voice rose. "Yeah, because Luke is so happy, isolated for years from those he cares about—oh wait, he's not allowed to care about anyone is he?"

"An old Jedi belief that Luke doesn't teach anymore," Finn corrected softly, not meeting her eyes. "And whose fault is it that Luke was forced into exile anyway? It's the Dark Side and the search for power that destroyed the new Jedi Order, that stole me from my parents as a child, that abducted you from Jakku."

"Kylo Ren saved me from Jakku!"

Finn stood sharply, anger in his voice for the first time. "No, I tried to save you from Jakku, and you decided to stay. Ben Solo abducted you and somehow convinced you to join him."

Rey flinched at the use of Kylo Ren's original name, and the reminder that she had been seconds away from deciding to go with Finn and Poe when they arrived to retrieve BB-8 on Jakku. "Kylo Ren took me from Jakku by force, yes. But he saved me from myself."

"Your self didn't need saving, Rey," Finn responded, his voice now much softer. He sat back down and set back to work on skinning their meal. "The girl I met on Jakku was more than capable of taking care of herself."

"The girl you met was weak," Rey said, but she didn't believe the words coming out of her mouth.

"And yet you kept her name," Finn retorted, glancing up at her with piercing eyes. "Kylo Ren can't stand the name of Ben Solo—but you kept Rey. Why?"

Rey faltered, knowing that answering him would lose her the argument. But he looked back at the boar and continued without her answering the question. Perhaps he knew he'd won. Rey was grateful he didn't rub it in.

"Sorry to get carried away there. Luke's a great man, and I hurt for the tragedies he has experienced in his life. That he is still the thoughtful, caring teacher that he is, after all he's been through...it's a wonder."

"You act as though none of it is his fault," Rey countered, but not with much vehemence.

"I'm sure he's made mistakes," Finn admitted. "But never for selfish reasons. And I believe that counts for something."

Rey bit back a scoff. Luke was weak. Finn was weak for believing the weakness to be a strength. And yet, as silence fell on the pair, sitting around the cackling fire, Rey couldn't believe how much she yearned for a teacher who cared more about her than himself.

But Rey would not be so easily seduced. It was more important now, devoid of the Force, to hold on to what she believed. Kindness in her mentors was a small price to pay to achieve the power and order she craved. Kindness had left her hungry. Kindness had left her vulnerable to her abduction. But with the power that Skywalker and Finn gave up, no one would ever have to go hungry again. With order, she could keep any future little girls from being dropped on a planet and forced to work for greedy men just to survive.

Finn could keep his Light. Rey knew that it was the Dark that could save the galaxy.

A/N: Finding a believable Dark Rey was one of the biggest struggles of writing this story, because of how inherently good she is in TFA. I hope her motivations fit with canon Rey and the divergence from canon that she has experienced in this story. I guess you'll find out more about that later...