Master Luke must have sensed her approach, for the Jedi is waiting for Rey as the X-wing touches down on the grassy field beside the Jedi Temple. He is not alone. Master Luke and General Leia Organa stand together outdoors in the rapidly fading Ahch-To twilight. Two of three moons have already arisen, casting a bright silver glow on their matching hard expressions. They have never looked more like siblings to her.
Like Rey, the General is still wearing her formal dress from the Hosnia memorial ceremony. She too must have come to Luke's aid in a hurry. Had the General sensed her brother's pain in the Force like Rey did?
Now, the sense of pain is gone. Danger. Rey senses danger. But there is no sign of the First Order and Master Luke and the General seem at least outwardly calm. Whatever this danger is, it is not readily apparent.
Still, Rey is out of the ship fast. "What is it? What's wrong?" Rey calls as she flings off her helmet and quickly steps out of her borrowed flightsuit. The flightsuit is so bulky over her dress that Rey can't move in it. And she knows that she needs to be able to defend herself and the Skywalker twins. This time, Rey makes sure to grab for her lightsaber. "Something's wrong . . . I know something's wrong," Rey says as she rushes up to her Master. "I felt it in the Force."
The pair exchange glances. The General speaks first. "Come inside, Rey, we need to talk." Her tone is kind but her demeanor is grave. This is not the same woman who had brushed Rey's hair earlier this morning. And all that Rey can think is that somebody's dead. Somebody important to them is dead or hurt or captured or something equally awful has happened. Because the General is acting in that strange, careful way people do when they are about to deliver very bad, lifechanging news.
"No," her Jedi Master objects. "We will talk here. Now."
It is uncharacteristic of Master Luke to be impatient. But she senses her Master's Force imprint is blazing hot with anger and disappointment. Yes, something is very, very wrong.
Rey nods. She's worried now that they are both so worried. "Yes, of course. What's wrong?" she asks again. No one answers her.
"We were expecting you earlier, Rey. Where have you been?" Leia Organa is looking at her strangely and there is a crease between her brows.
Rey has been expecting to hear bad news of the Resistance, not questions for herself. "At the Hosnia memorial with you, ma'am."
"You left as soon as it was over, Rey."
"Yes," Master Luke interrupts. "My sister left after you, Rey, and yet she arrived here hours ago." Rey has never heard this sharp tone from Master Luke. "We will ask you again, Padawan. Where have you been?"
And now Rey knows that her quick stop at the Finalizer that deviated her hours off course has been discovered. She looks from the General to her Master and back again. Then Rey swallows hard.
As if sensing her guilty thoughts, her Master produces a datapad from the folds of his Jedi robes. He thrusts it at her silently.
Rey steps forward to accept it and begins swiping though the files. They are a series of pictures that all reveal the same thing: Kylo Ren and herself standing beside Luke Skywalker's X-wing in the hangar bay of a First Order star destroyer. The earlier pictures have the grainy quality of standard surveillance footage. But the most recent shots are very clear and taken from close range. Sometimes, she's wearing the flightsuit in the pictures. Sometimes, she's in her Resistance uniform. And the pictures that must be from today show Rey in the dress she's wearing right now.
Altogether, it's very incriminating.
"The Resistance received those today, Rey." General Leia sounds weary. She crosses her arms over her chest and looks at Rey closely. "We received the first batch during the memorial service, as a matter of fact. The rest—the pictures from today-came about an hour ago. The time and date stamps on the older pictures go back several months. And Luke here tells me that they correspond to days you were off-world on errands. Our best guy at intel checked these out, Rey. He is of the opinion that these pictures are not faked. That they are indeed you and Kylo Ren."
Again, Rey swallows hard. Master Luke will not even look at her, so she hands the datapad back to his sister. "They are not fake," Rey admits quietly. There's no point in lying about it.
"So you won't deny this?" the General asks, a tinge of hope in her voice.
"No."
"But can you explain it?" the General asks again, gesturing with the datapad.
Can she explain this? She can try. "I was not there voluntarily. I was dumped out of hyperspace somehow and brought onboard. I never learned precisely how the First Order located me. Kylo Ren just said that he found me in the Force. Afterwards, I was released. Kylo Ren just wanted to talk, nothing more. I did not reveal anything." It is a quasi-truth, but not the whole truth, and her omission sings out in the Force to the Skywalker twins.
Leia Organa Solo is quick to follow-up. "And what about today? We know that you were there today." She punches at the datapad a moment and then hands it back to Rey. This latest picture is from mere hours ago. Like the rest, it shows Rey standing with Kylo Ren and the X-wing. Except in this picture, Rey is smiling.
"Yes. I was there today," Rey admits with a sigh. "I came from there just now."
Master Luke is becoming visibly upset, and his sister lays a hand on his arm in warning. "Were you captured again?" the General wants to know.
"No." Rey meets the General's eyes to keep from looking at Master Luke. Suddenly, she feels so ashamed of her actions. She should have told Master Luke about Kylo Ren months ago. She had wanted to, she had even tried to a few times, but she had never actually done it. Instead, she had kept compounding the transgression. Meeting Kylo and dreaming of Kylo and even kissing Kylo.
And so Rey is shameful as she admits, "Today I was there voluntarily. He sent me the coordinates this time. Through the Force."
The General and her brother exchange worried glances. "What were you doing there, Rey? Tell us." Leia Organa is striving to be fair, but it is clear that she is deeply troubled by what she is hearing.
"He only wants to speak with me," Rey says softly. And again, it's a sort of half-truth.
"You're lying!" Luke Skywalker hisses at her. His arms are crossed and Rey sees little flashes of blue fire run up and down his sleeves. It reveals to her just how close Master Skywalker is to losing control through the Force. He is very, very angry with her. "Tell me what Ben has promised you."
"He has offered to train me," Rey confesses. "It is the same offer he made before in the woods on the Starkiller. It is nothing new. I refused. He is persistent."
"There is more to this, I know it!" Luke Skywalker accuses. And again, his sister lays a steadying hand on his arm.
"Does Ben want you to join the First Order?" General Organa asks.
"No."
And this answer perplexes her. "Then what does his offer to train you mean? Doesn't he want to train you in the Dark Side? To join Snoke?"
"No."
"Then what is he after?" General Organa wants to know.
Master Luke has heard enough. "You know what Ben is and you know what he's done. And yet you would hide this from me? You agree to meet with Snoke's Sith Apprentice and he is offering to train you. And yet you would hide this from me?" Luke Skywalker's face is livid and his voice has risen to a near shout. "Why, Rey?"
"I don't see handcuffs or stormtroopers in these pictures. You're even holding your lightsaber in a few of them," General Leia observes quietly. "You look at ease, Rey."
"No!" Skywalker corrects his sister sharply. "She looks happy! In the last one, she looks happy to see Ben. Happy to see the kid who murdered even the youngling. Happy to see the kid who murdered his own father. Happy to see the worst enemy of the Republic and the Resistance." The Jedi flashes her a hard look. "You look like you're meeting a friend and not an enemy, Rey."
Rey says nothing.
"Just how well do you know my nephew, Padawan?" her Master demands. "For how long has this been going on?"
"I have only been there four times, Master Luke."
Luke Skywalker steps forward to look coldly into her eyes. He studies her for a long moment. Then his lip curls with disgust. "Ben's been in your head, hasn't he?" Rey hesitates to answer and her Master commands her, "Answer me!"
"Yes, Master." Rey looks away, thoroughly ashamed now. "He has. I couldn't—I couldn't stop him like I did on the Starkiller."
Master Luke steps back and lowers his chin to peer at her. Through the Force she feels his deep disappointment and surging anger. "I trusted another Padawan once, and he betrayed me. He betrayed us all into Darkness. And the result has been death and destruction for fifteen years. Answer me, Rey! Have you betrayed us too?" Rey's lightsaber flies from her grip now and into Luke Skywalker's outstretched hand and ignites. Suddenly, she is staring at its lethal blue blade held steady at her own throat. "You're not telling us the whole truth, Rey. Have you betrayed secrets of the Resistance to the First Order? Have you betrayed me to Snoke?"
"No—no, Master Luke. I have not—" Not intentionally, that is. For Kylo now knows where his uncle hides thanks to Rey.
"Have you agreed to join them? To let Ben train you?"
"No—no!"
With a flick of his wrist, the Old Jedi swings the saber forward with a lunge, testing her. She rears back, stumbles over her long dress in the darkness and goes down hard on her knees. Rey hears the immediate snap-hiss of another saber igniting. She lifts her head to view two blue blades crossed before her at eye level. The tip of a sword hovers just above each of her shoulders. Rey is cornered.
"You fool! If Ben has been in your head, then he knows everything!" She hears Luke Skywalker's words in her ears and through the Force. This is not her patient, kindly teacher. This is a bitter man enraged at feeling betrayed. "I will never train another Sith. Never! I renounce you, Padawan. Forever."
"Luke—"
"No, Leia. This has to end now." Looking down at Rey, his voice is cold and unforgiving. "For so many reasons, I did not want to train you, Rey. But I was persuaded and I trusted you. And you have betrayed me. Do not think that I will let you live to join Snoke, Rey. I will not make the same mistake twice." He stops speaking abruptly, suddenly looking up above her head. Once again, blue fire crackles along his hands as the old Jedi struggles to remain in control. "You have brought him here!" Skywalker accuses.
The landscape before Rey flickers now with artificial light, and Rey hears the sound of a spacecraft landing close by behind her. From the low whine of its cycling ion engines, it is large and heavy. And it has been set down hard and fast. She hears a landing ramp deploy.
Without turning around, Rey is absolutely certain that Kylo Ren is on that ship. And from the look on their faces, Master Luke and his sister know it too.
"Ben," Leia Organa breathes out her son's name aloud. She shoots Rey a look of horror and then turns panicked to her brother. "Luke, don't do this! You promised us—you promised Han-"
But the Jedi is focused only on Rey. "You have brought him here." Luke Skywalker's shoulders slump and suddenly he seems to be a very old man. But still he expertly holds steady a pair of lightsabers to her neck. "You have betrayed both my teaching and my sanctuary. And you kneel before me and lie to my face about it!"
"No, Master Luke, no—" A tear runs down her cheek. Behind her, Rey hears fast, heavy footfalls down a metal ramp.
"This ends now, Padawan." Master Skywalker repositions the two sabers slightly. The old Jedi is breathing heavily now and he has death in his eyes. Rey knows what is coming next. And so does his sister who now averts her head and covers her eyes. I'm sorry, Master, Rey thinks. I never meant to betray you. She never even got a chance to tell Master Luke that she was leaving her training. But all in all, that's just as well. And it doesn't matter now anyway. Nothing matters.
At least it will be instant and she will feel no pain. This is a clean, easy death, not like starving in the desert. Not like dying of thirst because she has run out of hydration tablets. And there is no death, there is only the Force, Rey reminds herself. I will be one with the Force and the Force is with me.
Resigned, Rey blanks her mind and closes her eyes.
"NO! STOP!" The footsteps from behind come to a halt, and she hears a third lightsaber ignite. It is the dual snap-hiss ignition of Kylo Ren's crossguard lightsaber. "DO NOT HURT HER!"
Master Luke pauses to hold back the killing stroke. All around Rey, the air fairly crackles with tension. For here are four of the galaxy's remaining Force-users, three of them from the reigning first family of Chosen Ones. Dark and Light have come together once more in deadly conflict. And Rey herself hangs in the balance.
Rey feels the Force swirling about her now in the frenetic fashion that always signals change. Master Luke has taught her that Force-users are agents of change in the universe. And when they meet in opposition, the consequences are inevitably far larger than the superficial struggle reveals. There is always a winner and a loser, the Jedi has warned, even if everyone walks away unscathed. Dark and Light might each be eternal, but the balance of power continually shifts. And with it, the fate of the galaxy.
So too, Rey's fate.
"STOP!" Kylo Ren commands again. "You will not take her from me!" His voice rings out clear and loud. Rey realizes that he must be unmasked.
The blades of two lightsabers keep her from turning around to see him. Rey can only watch the faces of Master Luke and his sister. Leia Organa is staring behind Rey as if she is seeing a ghost. Master Luke's face is pure rage as he faces down his former pupil.
"You should not have come back, Ben." Luke Skywalker is no longer focused on her.
"I haven't come for you, Jedi. I came for her. Only for her. Now let her go!"
"I could kill you where you stand, Ben Solo," Luke Skywalker warns. "Without lifting a finger."
Rey sees the General's eyes widen with fear and she turns to her brother. "Luke, no!" she hisses. "You promised!"
"Let her go, Jedi!" It is Kylo's voice again, and it sounds closer.
"Don't take another step, Ben, or she dies."
"Mother," Kylo tries another tactic. "Mother, don't let him hurt her. Rey is blameless."
Rey can see that the General is trembling. She is staring transfixed over Rey's head at her long-lost son. Rey has only known Leia Organa as a steely, resolute leader. A woman cool in a crisis and efficient amid chaos. But in this moment, she looks paralyzed with fear. In this moment, Leia Organa is more bereft wife and sad mother than general and leader.
"Mother, please." The General says nothing. She just stands there blinking. Rey knows that she has not seen her son in almost fifteen years. The General must be seeing him now as a man for the first time.
Luke Skywalker looks thoroughly unimpressed by Kylo's dramatic entrance. "Tell me, Ben," the old Jedi demands. "Why should I show her the mercy you would not show your own father?"
It is the ultimate question. And for a long moment, Rey hears only the hum of the lightsabers poised at her neck.
"Tell me, Ben!" orders Master Luke. Beside him, his sister flinches.
When Kylo finally speaks, his words are a sneer. "Because you're supposed to be better than I, Jedi. Isn't that what you've always taught? That the Light is good. The Light is patient. The Light forgives." Incredibly, Rey hears Kylo extinguish his lightsaber. "I'm asking for mercy and you want to kill. Which of us, Uncle, is in Darkness now? Who is the one seeking revenge? The one consumed by anger?" Kylo's voice is acid mixed with contempt. "Tell me, Luke Skywalker, who is the Sith tonight?"
This confrontation has been years in the making, and the conflict is no longer about Rey. And maybe it was never about Rey. For the hurt her Jedi Master has nursed for fifteen years in solitude is laid bare in all its awful rawness. And it is the clear predicate for his reaction tonight to condemn her.
"I could forgive a confused teenage boy who was manipulated into killing my Padawans, Ben." Luke Skywalker's voice is calmer now, but absolutely cold. "But I can never forgive a grown son killing the father who had come in peace to save him. I can never forgive a fanatical butcher who is complicit in the destruction of entire worlds."
"Really, Uncle?" Now it's Kylo's turn to be unimpressed. "Darth Vader had more blood on his hands than I do. Much more Jedi blood on his hands. And yet supposedly you forgave him."
"That was different."
"Is it? There is Darkness in every Skywalker, and you know it. We are born for Darkness! But you, Uncle, you learned to rise above it. To control it. Wanted me to learn the same. Then show me, Master Jedi, show me now how you defeat the Darkness within. Live your sanctimony, Jedi. Be the example and let her go. Let her go now."
The argument hits home. Master Luke stares hard down at Rey for a long moment, wavering. Seeing this, Rey remembers Kylo warning that Luke Skywalker knows all about Darkness because he fears it in himself. Kylo is right, Rey realizes. And she seizes on this point.
"Please," Rey begs softly. "Don't do this, Master. You don't really want to do this-"
And now Kylo is the pressing her case too. "Do not blame her, Jedi. This was my doing, not hers. She never wanted to betray you."
"Please," Rey begs again. "Show mercy—"
"Let her go! Your fight is with me, not her. She's on your side, Jedi."
Skywalker says nothing. He just stands there, staring down at her.
"Do not blame her, Jedi. She could not resist me. You did not teach her enough to resist me."
"Padawan," her Master won't even use her name now. "Ben says that he has come for you. Are you certain that he what you want?"
Rey hesitates. She's confused. Is Master Luke truly offering her a choice?
"There is no turning back from this . . . no turning back from him," Master Luke warns. "Once you start down the Dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny."
And again, Rey hesitates. But now a familiar whisper is in her head, loud and urgent. It is Kylo Ren's voice for her alone: 'Say yes. This is the only way, Rey.'
"Well, Padawan? Is Ben what you want?"
Once more, Rey hears Kylo's voice in her mind. 'This is destiny tonight. Come with me. I am your future.'
The hum of two lightsabers poised at Rey's neck fills her ears. It's the second time in hours that Rey has had a lightsaber at her neck. And she wonders now if Luke Skywalker is the more dangerous choice for her than Kylo Ren. Master Luke surely would have killed her already, had Kylo not come for her. And neither he nor his sister will ever trust her again.
They lose faith in her, but the Sith keeps his. For Kylo has come for her. He's taking an awful risk to come for her. Rey's own family had never come back for her, but this Sith who says he wants to be her family did come back. She's the throwaway kid from Jakku but the feared Sith Kylo Ren wants her. He wants her like no one else has ever wanted her. And he wants her enough to stare down a Jedi Master to get her.
The survival instincts that had sustained Rey on Jakku kick in now and Rey is decided. "Yes. Yes, Master Luke. This . . . he is what I want." Rey takes a deep breath now. "I do not choose Darkness, but I choose him."
With this answer, the old Jedi extinguishes his lightsabers and steps back. His anger seems to dissipate completely. Rey scrambles up, holding his gaze as she backs away quickly. She thinks that she recognizes pity in Luke Skywalker's faded blue eyes. For Master Luke looks so sad, so terribly sad.
Kylo reaches to pull her close with his left arm. His right arm is still extended with lightsaber in hand, ready to ignite in a split second. They stand together for a moment in a half embrace. The night wind whips her white dress and his black robes around them. They wait in silence.
Then Kylo speaks in a low voice to her, his eyes never leaving Luke Skywalker. "Get on the ship and prime it for takeoff. However this ends, Rey, make sure you get away. Leave me here if you must. Find my Master and he will protect you." Then he thrusts her behind him. "Go!"
Partway up the shuttle ramp, Rey pauses to turn around. Master Luke and his sister are standing side by side now, holding hands and watching Kylo. Rey thinks she sees the shine of tears on the face of Leia Organa. The lightsabers the Jedi had held to her throat lay deactivated on the ground before them. Kylo is still standing firm, tensed for a fight. But his saber too remains off.
The breeze plays with the robes of the Jedi and his sister and it lifts the flowing black hair of Kylo Ren. But no one moves. No one speaks.
This was once a family, Rey realizes. But now it is a stalemate. And it is a microcosm of the larger conflict, for this family is as fractured and dug in as the broken galaxy they compete to rule. And in this private, personal war there too is no chance of compromise, no hope for peace. For these are the Skywalkers. Four generations of men and women gifted with the Force, burdened by ideals, and torn apart by ambition. Family, power, love and the Force intersect differently each time, but the result is always the same. Lost dreams. Lost love. Lost children. And billions dead on the sidelines of all this hubris, dysfunction and pathos.
Watching them now and knowing them each, Rey wonders if their differences are really the source of the conflict. Maybe the problem is that the Skywalkers are too alike to get along. Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa are both as uncompromising as Kylo Ren is dismissive. But all three are deadset on the same damned fool's idealistic crusade that their father or grandfather was. Trying against daunting odds to make things the way they want them to be. Yes, they are Dark or Light, Jedi or Sith. But while they come at life from different perspectives, their dogged determination, romance for the past, and zealotry are oddly the same. Because, in their own way, each wants their ideas to rule the galaxy.
Finally, Master Luke speaks. "I have foreseen this. A year ago. It was one of many options the future could take, and now it has come to pass. I know where this leads." The old Jedi exhales a sigh and seems to shrink with it. "Take her. Take her and leave, Ben. Never come back. Promise or no promise, next time I will kill you on sight for what you have done to the Jedi and for what you plan to do to that poor foolish girl."
Then the Last Jedi puts his arm around his sister and the pair turn and walk away.