Rey

It felt like there was a hole in my chest. My heart was a bloody, gaping mess that sent sharp, shooting pains through me whenever I breathed. I tried to ignore it. I did. I fought to find my center. To find the calm I needed to go on. But every moment was pain.

I shifted from my spot on the cliff, reaching again for the Force and that sense of interconnectedness. I yearned to feel at one with the universe. To find my peace and tranquility. But, as it had the hundreds of times I'd tried since we landed on this small, forgotten planet, it slipped from my grasp and I was left with nothing.

I opened my eyes and sighed, wishing Luke was here. I could feel him at the edge of my consciousness. His lifeforce melding with that of the Force and joining into something truly beautiful. Both Leia and I had felt the moment of his passing, like a breeze on our skin. I'd felt guilty about my tears. Like I hadn't a right to them when she'd lost so much more. She had lost everyone. Her husband. Her brother.

Her son.

I shied away from thoughts of Kylo. I couldn't process the barrage of thoughts and feelings that accompanied the very sound of his name. My last encounter with him two weeks ago had left me shaken. I had never seen such intense hatred before. It was a thing to fear.

I still hadn't told anyone about the connection that Kylo and I still apparently shared. I should have – not only did it give us the opportunity to glean his whereabouts and plans, it was a security risk. If he found out where we were, and just how desperate our situation was…

The resistance was in shambles. Of the thirty-three members that had made it through the battle, seven were injured. Leia's distress calls had gone unanswered, and Poe, as the new leader of what was left, seemed paralyzed with indecision. We had stayed hidden on this uninhabited planet for weeks, gathering our tattered strength and waiting.

But Kylo would search us out eventually. Whether it was to eliminate the resistance or to kill me, he would be looking. And I was positive we couldn't win the way we were now.

Breath deep, I reminded myself. Take a deep breath and relax. Find the Force. Reach out to it. Welcome it with every ounce of your being. Let yourself feel the balance.

There was a discordant clang within me, and I gasped, falling backward. My vision swam and I swallowed back bile as I tried to get my bearings. This was wrong. There was something wrong with the Force. It had never felt like this before.

"Wrong with the Force, nothing is."

I jerked, staring wide-eyed at the small, green man sitting beside me. There was a faint glow about him, an etherealness that sent shivers down my spine.

"Who are you?" I croaked. It felt like I had been screaming for hours. My throat was raw and dry.

"Yoda, I am. The master of your master, once a Jedi, I was."

"Y-yoda?" I knew that name. There wasn't a person alive that didn't, I was sure. He was a legend throughout the galaxy. The strongest Jedi to ever live – if you didn't count Anakin Skywalker, the man who turned to the Dark. "How is this possible? You're dead!"

"Dead, I am," he agreed. "But gone, not. Stayed within the Force, I did. Watch over the balance, I do."

"I don't understand."

"Balance. Balance the Force is, and the Force, Balance is. One and the same. Without balance, the Force is forsaken. Without the Force, there can be no balance."

I shook my head, his words meaningless. "I still don't understand. What does that have to do with what I felt?"

"What feel you?" he asked. He turned to look at me, a small smile gracing his face. "Feel you anger? Betrayal? Sorrow?"

I looked away. "Yes. I feel those things. Someone I… care for. He is lost. And I don't believe he will ever be found."

"And feel you hope? Love? Joy?"

Bitterness welled inside me, tightening my throat. "Where would I find them?" I asked hopelessly. "We are defeated. Perhaps not yet, but soon. There seems to be no hope left. How can I find joy when my heart is breaking?"

"Breaks your heart for the Solo boy? Passion balance is not. To focus love on one invites hate. Hate leads to the dark side."

I glared at him. "So I am destined never to love because passion can possibly lead to darker emotion? That isn't balance, either. It's deprivation."

"Deprived, you would be not. Fulfilled, yes. To lead a life of helping others. To maintain balance." He looked at me like I was a small child. One who knew nothing and must be lead by the hand to keep away from danger.

Anger rose inside me. A cresting wave of red emotion, cloying in its intensity. And, just as suddenly, it disappeared. I shook my head.

"You're wrong. Everything about this is wrong. A life without emotion isn't balance. Love, anger, joy, pain. All of them have their place in maintaining the balance. And splitting them so decisively… Speaking in absolutes by saying that strong emotion is the dark side and indifference is light… How can you not see how wrong that is? Luke was right. The Jedi were never balance."

I felt sick. The stories I'd grown up on, the heroes I had worshipped for so long… Could you truly be good if you didn't believe passionately in the right thing? Were you truly bad if you were told that passion was a curse? Or were you only living down to everyone's expectations of you? Would any of them – Kylo, Vader – would they have tried so desperately to remake the galaxy in their image if they hadn't been told that their image was so inexplicably wrong?

"You swing so far to one side that I don't think you could recognize balance if it stood right in front of you," I said. "You must experience everything to understand where the balance lies."

He smiled. "And the answer, there is. Did not understand, I. Until the Force I joined, this I believed. But the Force all things contains. Begin to understand, you do. Too late, it is not."

He reached out and touched my forehead, and all at once I felt that connection to the Force I had been seeking. It flowed through me, at once soothing and turbulent, joyful light and rumbling shadows. I could feel the breezy air and the damp, deep caverns. I could feel life.

"Meet again, we will."

When I opened my eyes, I was alone. And I felt hope stir sluggishly within me.

When I walked into the caves where the resistance was holed up, Finn was waiting for me. I smiled, glad to see him looking more clear-eyed and aware than he'd been in these past weeks. Rose had finally woken from her coma, though she still wasn't able to walk. I had seen them, closeted together and whispering. It was good to see him happy, even as an unacknowledged yearning ached inside me. I refused to think about why. It wouldn't do any good.

"Finn," I said warmly. "How are our supplies looking? I know you were running inventory."

He shook his head. "Not good. We're running low on most everything. Someone will need to make a supply run soon, or we'll starve. This planet doesn't have much in the way of natural resources."

"Hey." I stepped forward and gripped his shoulders. "We'll be fine. Our people are healing, and General Organa is still sending out messages to her allies. Soon, one of them will respond and send aid. In the meantime, I'll go out in the Falcon and source supplies. We'll get through this, Finn. We can do this."

And for the first time in weeks, I meant it. With the Force connecting me to everything, I felt truly alive again. And I was determined to show the others that it was still possible to fight. And to win.

"I need to talk to Poe and General Organa," I said. "I'll see you later?"

"Of course. Let me know what's happening."

I nodded and slipped past him, venturing deeper into the caverns in search of the resistance leaders. I found them in a smaller offshoot of the main cavern, staring at maps.

"Even if we had the fuel to get there, which we don't, Ren will have his men watching every checkpoint across the galaxy," Poe said with a shake of his head. "We haven't even heard anything from this group. What if they betray us? We have so few left. I don't want to risk them without a guarantee of safety."

"There's no such thing as a guarantee of safety, Poe." Leia's words were soft and earnest. She was gazing blankly at the wall, seemingly lost in her own thoughts. "We cannot stay here while my son solidifies his hold on the Order. We need to act. To gather allies and plan our assault."

"The last time I did that, I all but annihilated the resistance," Poe said, voice flat. "I won't rush in this time. We need to coordinate with allies we trust. And so far, we haven't heard from them."

"Rey? What do you think?" Leia turned to look at me, and I raised my eyebrows. She hadn't been facing me. There was no way she'd seen me enter the room. She'd sensed me in much the same way I sensed other people. I wondered absently if everyone knew she was Force-sensitive, but it wasn't the time for that conversation.

"I think that staying here would be a mistake," I said bluntly. "You're feeding the hopelessness by keeping them locked away. Your men are withering away with your indecision and fear. We need a plan. And we need a bigger ship. There's no way everyone can make an extended journey in the Falcon."

"And how, exactly, do you plan to get that?" Poe asked. "The only ship we have is the Falcon. The hyperdrive is shot, the fuel is running low, and the nearest planet with supplies is far enough away that you have a one-way ticket. One chance to get fuel, supplies, and a ship big enough to carry everyone. If you fail, we're stuck."

I stared at him. "You are a leader in the resistance," I said finally. "You are a fighter. You're a damn good pilot and a man who takes risks for the greater good. The one thing you are not is a coward, Poe Dameron. Don't you dare quit before we've even begun."

General Organa's smile was small and secret. "Well said, Rey. Poe, we need you at your best right now. The resistance needs your spirit and daring attitude. We need the man that took down a destroyer. Can you be that man?"

Poe's eyes flicked back and forth between us, and a frown settled over his features. "You, Finn, and Chewie will go to Chaolic, then. It's the closest planet that suits our needs. Find us a ship, Rey. And get us out of here."

I nodded, hand straying to grip the broken lightsaber that still sat in my belt. "I will."