Chapter 4 Chapter Text

"You missed on purpose."

Kylo had given up on silencing the inner voice. He could nearly ignore the constant stream of what he wouldn't admit were truths in a voice which sounded like his own.

"They have a cloak," he said out loud in the empty shuttle. "That only works against computers."

This was easier each time. He closed his eyes and went searching for the bright beacon of Rey's mind. There. Angry with herself. Smarting a bit from a mild rebuke from her hero. I know how that feels, he told her.

Her shields slammed shut, pushing him out hard.

She would relax them again eventually.

"You're fascinated by her. She hates you as much as anyone else does, but you're chasing her. You don't care about the mission. You're interested in finding that girl."

"Lord Snoke," Kylo said into his transmitter. "I have made contact with the ship carrying Skywalker. I am in pursuit."

"Of your crush."

He frowned. Nowhere in his own mind would he ever use the term 'crush.' "What are you?"

Silence.

He hadn't missed deliberately. His hands had trembled as he'd fired. He had seen his mother and his uncle, and he'd shot away from them. His orders were to capture Luke Skywalker. Lord Snoke would love nothing more than to see Leia Organa dead. He could have shot her. He should have shot her.

His hands had twitched again. He'd missed a second time, targeting his mother's shuttle instead, then watching them all escape in the rusty old freighter he'd never rid from his own dreams.

Kylo blamed the food synthesizer on this shuttle. Outland Base was overstaffed due to the survivors from Starkiller, and couldn't spare extra supplies. The scarce meals from the capricious synthesizer were even less palatable than the usual First Order fare, and his stomach knotted after every bite. That must be the reason why he couldn't shoot straight.

"You didn't miss because of a stomachache."

He'd always been torn, ever since he'd first spoken to Snoke. Half of him had longed for the surety and strength of what Snoke had to offer him. He'd been fed flattery and promises, and he still wanted what he'd been promised. He wanted clarity. He wanted purpose. The voice was the last vestige of some dying place inside him, a simpering desire for the Light he'd thought to extinguish with one act of pure Dark. Lord Snoke had always said to show your true allegiance to the Dark Side was to cauterize the last of your weakness.

The voice was his weakness.

And it was growing stronger.


"He can hear her?" The General hadn't looked this way at Rey even when she'd come home bearing the news of Solo's death.

"Pretty strongly," said Luke. "You said he reached into your mind?" Rey nodded.

Poe glowered. "He does that. Reaches right in and takes what he wants from your brain."

Rey said, "I fought back. I pushed him out and I dug into his head. He hated that."

Organa said, "You're probably the first person he's met since Luke who could fight him on that level."

"It's more than that," Luke said. "None of the other students ever had that level of talent, or if they did, they were too young for me to tell, just as Rey was. Her powers are as strong as his, and the more he hones in on her mind, the more connected they are."

"I'll keep my shields up. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I'm counting on you. When we're ready, I want him to follow you right to us."

Finn's head tilted up from where he'd been looking away. "You're going to use Rey as bait to catch Kylo Ren?"

"Not yet."

"Bad idea."

"Good idea," said the General. "Rey, are you on board with the plan?"

"You don't have to be," said Finn. "He'll kill you. He almost killed both of us."

"But he didn't," said Luke. "And he didn't kill us back on that moon. Did you notice?"

Organa said, "I wasn't waiting around to find out." Her voice cracked. With the inner eye Rey was still working on developing, she saw the aura of power around this small woman.

"You should be the one getting trained."

Something moved out of Organa, some level of anger dissipating into the bulkheads of the ship and fading from her. Humor laced her voice again. "Me?"

Luke said, "You were the stronger one."

"And you know why that doesn't mean anything."

Finn said, "But why not? General, if you've got the Force, why can't you do this training and fix things?"

Organa looked at her brother. "Remember when we were that young?"

"Too well."

"Finn," said Organa, "it's very simple. Darth Vader was an unambitious fool. All he wanted was power. Luke says he was obsessed with his family, but all that tells me is that I'm glad he never knew about me until ten minutes before he died. Ben's even less ambitious. He thinks he wants power, but what he really wants is someone to stand in front of him every day and tell him he's smarter and stronger than everyone else. He's driven by his ego. Believe me, the Resistance has won several major successes because I could anticipate Ben's need for validation."

Rey said, "You don't want power, and you don't have an ego."

Luke laughed. This turned into a cough as his sister turned on him with a fiery glare. "Something in my throat. Sorry. I'll get some water."

Leia said, "I do, but that's not the important problem. I was raised from childhood to dedicate myself to a higher purpose. My family helped the Rebellion for as long as I can remember. I was told to give everything I had for my people, then give more. I grew up believing there was nothing more important than everyone living in freedom and harmony with one another. I believed I would martyr myself to my cause one day. If I had ever learned how to use my powers, no one would have been capable of stopping me, not even Luke. I'd have acolytes in every village on every world," her eyes danced over Poe, "loving me, descending like a holy plague in my name. I would rule the galaxy in the service of justice and light, and I would crush anyone who disagreed with a thought, and I would never once consider that it wasn't right."

She coughed once, and it was the dry cough of a woman who smoked too much because she refused to cry where anyone could see. "I've thought about this. It's much better this way."

Rey imagined the General declaring herself the new Empress, imagined her sweeping the galaxy under her dark gown. This tiny, powerful woman could have done it, if she'd had a mind to. She'd actively chosen against that destiny. Her son had embraced it. "That's what Kylo Ren thinks he wants."

"Why are we capturing him? He's killed hundreds if not thousands of people. And if he didn't destroy the Hosnian system, he sure as hell didn't stop them." Finn's arms were folded. He hadn't forgotten his injuries, and a quick look at Poe said he had been wondering the same thing but wasn't about to ask his boss.

Luke looked at his sister. "Thirty-three thousand, five hundred sixty one. Are you still keeping count?"

The General shook her head. "I stopped after the first hundred thousand." She looked at Finn, and Rey expected her anger, but found none. "Finn, what was the total complement of troops on Starkiller Base when Commander Dameron blew it up?"

He swallowed. "That's different."

"You were a Stormtrooper. We've all killed people, by weapon or by proxy. Luke says we can capture Ben and save him, and I believe him."

Rey didn't, but she kept the thought to herself.


Finn wasn't sure where they were going.

"It's a safe place," was all Poe had said, sending a coded transmission to D'Qar to let them know the General was safe.

"I thought we had to get Luke back to the Resistance."

"I don't know what their plan is. Do you think he wants to go?" They both gave a quick look into the passenger area, but Luke was deep in thought over some disintegrating book. Finn's recollection of the history tapes told him there sat the man who'd personally blown up one Death Star, and who'd killed both Darth Vader and the Emperor on the second. Finn was expecting a great military leader, on par with his sister, and a mighty wizard soaked in power. Instead, the legendary Jedi seemed for all the world to be a sarcastic bookworm prone to dropping crumbs in his beard as he translated old languages onto scattered bits of paper.

Rey liked him, and had agreed to work on some of her basic movement training while he worked. Finn kept wondering if she'd found the right guy.

She was very good, he thought to himself, no longer thinking about weird old men. He'd noticed she was gorgeous the moment they'd met, and he'd appreciated the way she fit into the hot air around herself, gliding easily through each step. Even in the short time since then, something had changed inside her, something powerful, maybe even dangerous.

Could be the Force was why he couldn't think right when she was around, was why everything in his vicinity narrowed to keeping her safe, making her happy. The Force whammy, Poe called it, when someone powerful in the art made others bow to their will. Finn had witnessed Ren using the power during interrogations. This seemed very different, felt very different. Rey would never goad him into following her or helping her. But he knew he would, any time.

"No drooling on the control panel." Poe's voice snapped him back to reality.

"What? No. I was daydreaming. Sorry."

"I know what you were daydreaming about. Eyes up front, soldier. You want to learn to fly, you can't be distracted by a pretty face."

"I wasn't."

"Right. Okay, this is the computer for controlling the hyperspace jumps. You have to run the calculations every time, or you'll wind up jumping through a star."

"You took off without running them."

Poe grinned. "So I did. When you're better at this, I'll tell you the short cut for calculating the quick hops in your head."

The lesson stretched out for some time, and behind them, so did Rey's. The evening meal had been quick rations from the Falcon's stores, and with that fading behind them, Finn found himself nodding off.

"Are there bunks anywhere?"

"A few," said Rey, clearly glad for an excuse to stop stretching. "General, you should take the guest quarters."

"I think I left a hairbrush and some clothes in there the last time I stayed over. Luke, you need sleep, and we should talk. Come on."

"I've got to work on this."

"Bring it with you." She hefted a book in one hand and took his arm in the other. "Good night."

Finn watched them go to the guest cabin. He hadn't expected that. "Does that seem weird to anyone else?"

Chewbacca said something, which he didn't understand, and went to his own cabin. He pointedly closed the door behind him.

Rey sighed. "It's fine. Anyway, Chewbacca snores and Luke spends half the night mumbling through meditations. We're better off bunking together."

Poe said, "We should set a watch in case something happens. I'll take the first one. You two get some sleep. I can wake you when it's your turn."

Rey went to object but yawned instead. "Fine." Finn caught the look Poe gave him as he followed Rey off to her cabin, but he couldn't quite read it.

Much like the Resistance, the Stormtroopers had never divided their barracks by gender. He may have rarely seen their faces but he knew many of his colleagues had been women. He had no real reason for his hands to grow cold as the door closed behind them, or for his heart to race as she took off her boots before sitting on the bunk she'd obviously been sleeping in these past few weeks. He hung up his jacket and took off his own boots, the nice ones that almost fit from the Resistance supply.

"Sleep," said Finn, but he was wide awake now, climbing into the opposite bunk as she extinguished the light. He could blame the unusual arrangements: he still wasn't accustomed to sleeping without his helmet on droning softly into his ears, he didn't have the eye mask, he was used to sleeping in a barracks rather than a small room. None of those were the reason his heart pounded with nervous energy now.

"You know this is the first time we've been alone in weeks?"

He'd noticed. "You've been busy. Saving the galaxy. Jedi training. Flying into uncharted areas on mad quests for legendary figures from the last war."

"I know. I try to remind myself that less than a month ago, all I had to worry about was if Plutt was going to short me payment again."

"Less than a month ago, I was finishing up my last pre-training before I was allowed out on a mission, and having to deal with the drains on level nine."

"This is better," she said.

"Much."

"Finn?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm cold."

He thought about this, heart racing in the darkness. She was strong, and literal, and she might be asking for another blanket. But she might not. "Do you want me over there to help keep you warm?"

"Yes."


"I've got the last part of the working sorted out."

Leia sat on the bunk watching him. Luke had never carried an extra ounce on his frame, and years in exile had made him even thinner. He'd always driven himself, and now he was driving himself over a cliff where she couldn't follow.

She tried again. "Great. I'm very proud. You always said there was a chance you could have found this spell and saved Vader. Go back in time and tell yourself you did it, and have some peace. Let this go."

"I gave everything I had to save our father. I won't do less for our son. This is the only way I can think of to bring him home."

"Then he doesn't come home." The vicious, traitorous tears edged at her eyes. She'd kill for something to do with her hands. "I thought he could be saved. Luke, I sent Han to save him. You know what happened." Everything was raw again. "You say you can talk to ghosts. You saw Obi-Wan and the others." She hadn't dared ask, not in front of the kids, not even in front of Chewie. "Have you seen him?"

Luke closed the book. He rested his hands on the cover. "No. I've opened my mind as far as I've dared. I know in my soul that Han is out there, but I can't find him. I hoped he'd come to you."

"I never could see any of them, not since I was very little." A childhood memory returned to her from time to time: nightly visits from a beautiful woman with the saddest smile. She'd never spoken, but Leia remembered feeling so much love from her. When she grew out of her crib, the visions ended.

"You'd know."

"I don't regret my decision not to learn how to use the Force. You know I'm right. But sometimes I have to wonder, if I had, would I have been able to see what was going on with Ben? Could I have stopped him before he went away with Snoke?"

"I didn't see it, and I was with him every day. We can't go back and fix what happened back then, Leia. We can only try to fix what's left now."

"You are planning your own annihilation. You can tell the rest it means your death, and don't think I'm all right with that, either. But if you succeed, you'll wipe out your own soul. You won't be one of those ghosts, you won't be a part of the Force. You'll be utterly gone." She couldn't imagine. The wars she'd fought tore at her. The losses she'd endured robbed her of sleep. But she'd always known, somehow, that they all went on. Every living thing flowed back into the Force after its death. Some beings could even hold onto who and what they'd been, if they were strong, if they were consumed by the Light. Luke wouldn't. He would cease in every way, powering this one last working with all of himself in order to cleanse the shadow from another's soul. It was selfless and horrible.

"Look on the bright side. I might mess up, and Ben can murder us all."

"You are insufferable sometimes."

"That's why you love me."

"I love you for a lot of reasons, and because of them, I put up with you when you're insufferable. Just like you put up with me when I'm being selfish because all I want is to have you back home."

"I'm here now."

She wanted a smoke, and she wanted to scream. She settled for patting the bunk beside her. Luke sat down, and Leia kissed his furry cheek. "I don't like the beard."

He looked offended. "Really? I think it makes me look distinguished."

"You're wrong." She pulled his face forward and kissed him properly. He didn't respond, and she stopped. "I've missed you. We both missed you so much it hurt. You said I've been bleeding since Ben left, but you're wrong. I've been bleeding since you did."

"I had to go. He never would have had the childhood he deserved with me there."

"Looking back, I don't believe that at all. I think if the three of us had raised him together, we would have been able to give him what he needed."

"Which makes what happened my fault again. I have to fix this."

He never changed. She'd met her twin when they were nineteen, and he was still the same idealistic idiot today. He'd gone off to save Darth Vader against all logic, and he was going off now to save Kylo Ren or whatever name Ben was calling himself. Luke was one of the two most frustrating men she'd ever met.

"Hold me tonight."

They'd had a great deal of sex in this cabin, just the two of them and with Han, and the boys had taken plenty of journeys together in the Millennium Falcon without her. Their first time, Luke's very first, had been here in this room. She remembered that night with perfect clarity: the unsurprising truths and the delighted explorations, and the passionate joy. But all that was long, long ago.

Tonight was about comfort, and the touch of a beloved mind, and reaching out into the void together, hoping to hear an echo and join three spirits for a short time instead of merely two lonely bodies. Neither had taken a lover in ages. Leia had too much work to do, and Luke had been alone for a long time. His body had aged, and hers had grown harder. Leia expected discomfort, and she expected awkwardness. Instead, he slid into her mind and into her body as if the years between them were only bad dreams.

"I've missed you." She couldn't tell whose thought spoke. She couldn't tell which one ached for all they'd lost. She held him in her arms and in her mental shadow, and he clutched to her, mouthing "I'm sorry" and "I love you" into her cheek as they moved together.

The echo never came.


Rey woke early. The bunk fit two people comfortably unless one of them was half-sprawled over the other. He'd curled against her in the night, and now he slept with a sweet rise and fall of breath. Finn's kisses had been enthusiastic and utterly inexperienced, which was fine. She'd missed kissing. Guiding him through how to press against her mouth had been enough to keep her warm during the cool ship's night.

It had also been enough to push him over his own edge before they could even consider any other activities. They'd never undressed, which meant her poor friend lay sound asleep in what was going to be an uncomfortably sticky mess in his trousers when he woke. She'd kissed away his embarrassment last night. This morning would be a different matter. There had to be some spare clothes around here somewhere.

That she was considering the details of clothing and hoping for a quick shower told her she was well and truly awake now. She kissed Finn's sleeping cheek and climbed out of the bunk.

The other bunk was empty. Poe had never come to wake one of them for the next watch, unless she'd really woken early.

She let herself out of the cabin. In the passenger section, Luke already was back at the table with his papers and a steaming mug. "It's caf if you want some," he said without bothering to look over at her.

"Thanks." She went to the galley, where a big pot brewed, and poured herself another mug. The flavor was as bitter as his tea. "Did you get any sleep?"

"No." He said nothing else, and she didn't pry. Her murky dreams had been invaded by her unwanted pursuer, leaving her restless.

She made her way to the cockpit. Chewbacca was back in the pilot's seat. He said Poe had woken him and gone into his bunk for some sleep.

"He was supposed to wake one of us. Sorry."

Chewie didn't answer. He had a mug of something that didn't smell like the burned caf, which he sipped with a tired slump while Rey checked their ETA. Poe had set the course for this run, making small, almost random jumps to avoid pursuit. He'd said it was a safe place.

"Do you have any idea where we're going?"

He pulled out a flipbook of star charts. Very old-fashioned, Rey thought, then thought again. A computer could be mined for information. A book of charts, especially one not marked with the planned route, couldn't be seen from afar or used later to track. Chewbacca found the chart he wanted and pointed to it.

"Yavin IV? What's there?"

Chewie said there'd been an old Rebellion outpost there back in the day. Which Ben knew about.

"You keep calling him that. You all do. I wish you'd stop."

He replied she should know how people form attachments. To the two humans out there, and to him, the monster who haunted her dreams would always be a toddler who refused to wear his clothes for weeks on end.

"I can't picture it."

Chewie said he couldn't forget it. Ben had been a handful as a child, sent to learn with Luke as much to contain his powers as learn to use them. He'd run away from school for several days when he'd discovered who his grandfather was. When he ran away the second time, the family had been worried about a missing boy. His parents would never see the man who was the scourge of the galaxy. They saw a runaway child they could bring home.

Rey had the scourge peeping into her mind. She knew they were wrong, and she could only hope Chewbacca knew that as well.


Poe rolled out of his borrowed bunk way too early. His door slid open just as the General exited the guest cabin, hair neatly in place and looking fresh from a shower. She was calmer this morning than he recalled from the last several weeks. Being in her brother's presence helped. Guess it had been a good talk.

She smiled as Luke handed her a mug. "Thanks. Boiled it in a boot again?"

"The only way you'll take it."

She laughed. It was good to hear General Organa laugh.

"Commander, when are we arriving at your destination?"

"I've set the course to get there around 1000 standard. I'm pretty sure we evaded any pursuers about three jumps ago." He wasn't taking any chances.

"Good."

"Rey's mental shields are down," Luke said conversationally. "She can't maintain them when she's sleeping. We're in exactly the same position we were yesterday." He turned another page.

Not for the first time, Poe very quietly wondered to himself why they didn't send Rey away in another shuttle, or drop her somewhere.

"Wake up your friend," said the General. "We're not in the same position as before. Today we have a plan."

Poe knocked on the other cabin door, then opened it without waiting for an answer. If he was going to see the pair of them wrapped up together, so be it. But Finn was alone. "Hey," Poe said, shaking his shoulder. He always slept deeply in the barracks, too. Poe wasn't a fan of the regulation bunks but Finn swore they were far more comfortable than what he'd used to sleep in. These bunks on the Falcon were practically luxury.

"Mm?" Finn rolled, eyes blinking in the low light.

"Time to rise and shine."

Finn still had his clothes on, Poe noticed. He'd expected a pile of discarded clothing. The other bunk hadn't been slept in, this was true, but otherwise he saw no signs of anything else.

"Where's Rey?"

"Already awake. You're the last one to get up."

That got him upright in a hurry. He worried about looking bad in front of the General. He didn't want to be the one they said was too lazy, was just there because someone else vouched for him. His need to prove himself was endearing. Poe resisted petting his head, not only because he was sure Finn would deck him.

Finn winced as he stood. "Are there showers?"

"Pretty sure." Poe wanted to say more, to ask more. Instead he said, "Come on. Get a shower and some caf, and we can make our plans to defeat the Dork Lord of the Sith."

Finn laughed. He had a good laugh, too.


Luke's mind had focused, at long last.

For years, he'd been consumed by guilt. He should have known what was happening under his nose. He should have seen the signs that Ben was being seduced to the Dark Side. He should have chased after Ben faster when he'd disappeared, should have followed more leads during that long, awful year when they all still believed he'd been abducted and his mind was eerily silent. Luke should have been there the one day he could have prevented the deaths of his students. He'd returned too late, and he'd felt the killing rage inside Ben's mind. He knew instantly he was meant to be Ben's sacrifice, the beloved death intended to push him forever over the ledge. Luke had left a single message inside R2 and he'd run away. He wouldn't fight the boy, and he wouldn't allow himself to be used to complete his child's fall.

His own quest had appeared impossible from the outset. A mythical temple? A spell that only existed in half-forgotten legends? If the possibility was real, surely Obi-Wan would have tried this long ago to save Anakin Skywalker from himself.

Luke hadn't believed, and he'd gone anyway, abandoning home forever, knowing as sure as his visions were true that he would never again be with the two people he loved most. He'd fought, and he'd learned, and he'd looked, and even finding the temple and excavating the writings whispered his folly to him in his own thoughts.

He had no choice. Should Luke return without this one impossible chance, Ben would strike him down. He thought, he hoped, he prayed his beloved child wasn't yet mad enough to go after his parents.

Leia had bled when she felt Han's death and Ben's fall. Luke had shattered.

He'd flung himself back into the work, not sleeping, drinking pot after pot of strong tea, words crawling slowly out of crumbling pages, and still he heard the gibbering fear mutter that he was too late, that he'd wasted his life and everyone's lives on a useless gamble.

Rey had come, and he'd felt the power in her, and he'd known her name. Not all was lost. Not all the students were dead, and Ben hadn't been able to bring himself to kill her even now. She was a key. Her destiny surrounded her like the corona of a sun. She was hope in the midst of Luke's despair, and she'd brought him back to Leia, who had always been the brightest beacon in his life.

Between the surety of Rey's promise, and the flame he'd always felt blazing from his sister, Luke found his balance.

He said to the boys, "I am going to teach you the basics of shielding your thoughts. It won't work for long, and if Ben manages to get close to you, it won't work at all. He can't get past a strong shield, though he can read surface thoughts. Finn, you've got natural shields, which can help but won't be good enough to save you."

"I do? They won't?"

Luke considered saying nothing. He would never have a chance to work with Finn and find out his capabilities. It might be kinder not to let him know. But they didn't have time for kindness. "You have some Force ability. It might be why you broke free of your Stormtrooper indoctrination so easily. You should be able to shield your thoughts once you learn how. You should have fast reflexes. I don't know what you'll be able to do and we don't have time left to discover. You're on your own, and I'm sorry."

He turned to the others. "I will talk to each of you individually about your role. It's the only way to keep the full plan secret."

Poe said, "You really think he's tracking us?"

"We're sure," said Leia. "We're counting on it. The weakness your enemy doesn't know is a weakness is your best advantage."

She was separating herself out again, Luke thought. She knew what was going to happen, and she was preparing for the worst. Leia had her blaster with her, and she had spent the entire trip clearing her mind of even the fraction of the thought. Luke could read her more deeply than she could hide. If this failed, if Luke failed, Leia would shoot Ben herself.


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