"What . . . was that?" Rey is still a bit befuddled when Kylo emerges from his Master's audience chamber. She screws up her face in confusion. "He was in my head for a bit, I know that. But the rest is kind of a blur."
Kylo doesn't answer. He reaches out his arm and sweeps her along with him as he heads back to the landing pad. Clearly, he is eager to leave. Rey has to race to catch up with his long strides. He's still got his mask on, but Rey can tell that he is angry. He's stomping with his fists clenched. It's classic pissed off Kylo.
Great. She fucked it up.
"I messed up, didn't I?" Rey states the obvious. And, oh, she feels awful about it. Today had meant so much to Kylo and she let him down.
"No." Kylo's voice is clipped and short. He pauses for a moment before adding, "He likes you."
"Oh." Then why is Kylo so angry? "Wait—what did you talk about after I left?" Maybe this has nothing to do with her.
Kylo is silent. Fuming.
"Kylo, talk to me," Rey wants to understand. "What did he say to you?"
"That he can take whatever he wants."
Rey rolls her eyes. She's heard that boast before from Kylo himself. It must be a Sith thing.
They are at the landing pad now. "Kylo—" she begins.
But he squeezes her hand and Rey falls silent. Kylo leans into her. He lowers his voice, mindful as always of watchful eyes and ears. "You are mine, Rey. Never forget that. No one will ever take you from me."
Kylo and his Master must have spoken about Skywalker. Of course, that's why Kylo is so angry and acting possessive. He's worried the Jedi will try again to separate them. His Master must have seen it in her memories from D'Qar.
Rey nods and Kylo says it again emphatically, "I promise you-no one will ever take you from me."
And with those parting words, Kylo had deposited her on a waiting shuttle full of officers bound for the Finalizer. Rey had watched through the window as Kylo promptly disappeared into his own command shuttle for parts unknown.
That was ten days ago. Tonight Rey is back in her quarters with Sheev nestled in her lap ready for bed. Rey grabs the datapad for a bedtime story and she finds a message.
'I land at 2100. Come to me tonight.'
She grins at this news, then writes back. 'Is this a booty call?'
Kylo complains. 'You're spoiling the romance.'
Maybe, but she can't help herself. 'So it's not a booty call?'
'No, it's an order.' But then Kylo must think that sounds harsh because before she can reply, he has already sent another message. 'Think of it as a booty order.'
Rey snorts. Her husband is such a dork sometimes. You'd think he was the anti-social one who grew up feral in an AT-AT and not a prince from a famous family of diplomats and leaders. Rey types back, 'You don't command me.'
'I command everything and everyone on my flagship. That includes you.' Rey can just imagine the smirk on Kylo's face when he typed that response. He probably thinks he's being smooth with these lines.
Rey decides it's time for some insubordination. 'Whatever.'
'Careful. I have a reputation for punishment.'
Rey considers for a moment.
'Careful. I might like that. If you are promising to tie me up, then perhaps I could be persuaded to drop by.'
'It's a deal.'
Rey smiles to herself. Then she types, 'I have missed you, Kylo. Hurry back to me.'
'Oh, so now you're getting romantic?'
And that's pretty much how things are between Rey and her First Knight lately. Kylo is gone for days, even a week at a time. Then he's back in her arms for one night chanting his Sith code and begging for her Light in a frenzy of lust that goes on and on until morning comes and he's off again. Leaving Rey behind in his wake exhausted, thoroughly fucked and stupidly happy.
Rey has long known that the darker Kylo's deeds, the stronger becomes his call to the Light. So she knows that the bloody war reports she reads on the holonet don't tell the whole story. Things must be very brutal out there. Rey is happy to be the comfort Kylo needs.
Early one morning Rey is dashing back across the hallway to her quarters dressed in nothing but her sheer lace nightgown when the security panel freezes. Damn. Rebooting doesn't help. Rey even slams her handprint on it a few times for good measure, but to no avail. Sheev is inside asleep with the nanny droid, so there's no one to let her in. And Kylo headed out ten minutes ago so he's not around to wave his hand and do his Force thing to unstick the door.
Hmmm. Rey pauses to consider. Then she tries waving her hand at the door. Nothing. Fucking Force. Fucking door.
Well, time to try hotwiring it. Tucking her ever present blaster pistol under her arm, Rey tears off the security panel with a few good yanks. Next, she's into the wiring. No alarms have gone off, so that's a good sign. But then the giant blast door at the end of the hallway slams shut and uh oh that's not good. Sure enough, not a minute later the blast door is part way cracked open and there's a full squad of troopers pouring through. Their guns are raised and they're not set to stun.
The squad finds Rey standing there red faced and mostly naked despite all the fabric. Her hands are tangled in the exposed wiring. "There seems to be some malfunction," she begins while staring down ten blaster barrels.
Then, just when it can't get more awkward, she hits the right connection and the door to her quarters whooshes open. Sheev runs out in his pajamas.
"Mommy, are you back?" he asks. "Where were you last night?" But then he peaks around her nightgown to see the hallway full of stormtroopers and that's vastly more interesting. "Troopers!" he shouts gleefully, clapping his hands. "Look, Mommy, troopers! Did you sleep with the troopers?"
Kylo would be roaring with laughter at this innocent remark, she knows. And her husband would surely find an FN-2187 joke in there somewhere. But right now Rey is focused on the blasters pointed at her son.
"Lower your weapons!" Rey commands in her best 'I'm-Kylo-Ren's-wife-and-I-can-have-you-killed' voice. It works and the troopers comply.
"Inside," Rey propels Sheev through the door. Then she sweeps across the threshold herself with as much queenly dignity as she can muster. Safely inside, Rey slams the door shut and locks it.
Ten minutes later, Sheev is munching on sugar cereal and staring at a Thomas the Transport holovid under the vigilant electronic eye of the nanny droid. Good, now Rey can finally take a much needed shower. But when she catches sight of herself in the refresher mirror, she groans. It's worse than she had imagined.
Rey knows that the lace nightdress is embarrassingly revealing. It is sheer and very décolleté. But she didn't know that it was cut low enough to show the vivid purple bite mark Kylo had left on the top of her left breast. It's unmistakably teeth. Yesterday's curls are a wanton mess falling everywhere about her shoulders and in her eyes. Rey looks closer to find that her lips look a bit swollen still and damn if she doesn't reek of sweat and sex. It's the aftermath of another wild night with Kylo Ren and it had just been on display to a squad of troopers. To a man they're probably joking with their buddies right now about how the Commander and his missus got busy last night.
It's just one quick and unfortunate public interaction, but it's part of the larger mosaic of impressions that informs the crew of the Finalizer about Lady Ren. First she was introduced as the rescued heroine with her dramatic and tragic arrival in the hangar bay. Then she was the dazed looking mother in a borrowed uniform whose traumatized child wouldn't leave her side. Now she's the conspicuous and aloof queen of the First Order.
Rey knows that she has set many tongues wagging.
The crew is curious about her, she's learning. Wondering who Kylo Ren's wife is and what she's like. And sometimes, like this morning, they see more than she wants them to see.
Milo requests an appointment with Chief Healer Smath on her behalf. Ostensibly, the meeting is to thank Smath and his staff for her excellent care and to request permission to visit the sick in the medibay. The Chief Healer nods thoughtfully at her request to be unobtrusive. So this is not for the Order's PR videos? The veteran healer asks this as politely as possible but his disdain is evident. Absolutely not, Rey replies. Satisfied, he agrees.
Smath is a big, barrel chested man with a head of thick white hair. He rises from behind his desk with effort. But once he's standing, Smath moves nimbly as he conducts a brief tour of his facilities. And that's how it begins.
Rey drops into the medibay for an hour each day while Sheev naps. And also during the evenings unless Kylo is home. Rey chooses one patient to sit with privately. First, she asks a medic to brief her for Rey knows nothing of actual medical care. Then, she discretely pulls the curtain around the patient's bedside and begins to practice Force healing.
The concentration this requires is draining, and an hour is the maximum Rey can manage. But it gets easier and Rey becomes more proficient. Still, she has a long way to go before she will be able to work the miracles she's heard described in the holochrons at Bast. Those must be the culmination of years of training for Jedi healers with actual teachers, she thinks. They are far beyond the efforts of an untrained Force user who is winging it based on techniques vaguely described using terminology long lost with the Jedi Order.
True to his word, Smath helps to ensure discretion. Her visits are by no means a secret, but they do not attract special notice. It helps that she arrives in her borrowed coveralls. At a casual glance, Rey could be anyone.
Smath himself is the person most interested in what she's doing. At first, Rey chalks this up to his responsibility to manage the medibay. She has thrust herself into his turf, after all. But by the third week, it's clear that Smath is on to her.
Rey is sitting at the beside of a sedated TIE pilot with severe burns. The pain is terrible, the nurse had explained to Rey, and standard opiates only take the edge off. So Rey had focused immediately on the pilot's pain. Just for an hour, she will take away his pain.
She's been doing her best to help the pilot when the Chief Healer ducks under the curtain to stand behind her. He stands there a moment observing. His nervous hesitation tells Rey all she needs to know: she's been busted.
"I know what you are doing." Smath announces this quietly.
Rey does not look up. She says nothing.
Smath is not deterred. "I have heard of this power, but I have never seen it. I had thought it to be lost many decades ago."
Again, Rey says nothing.
Smath wanders over to the head of the bed to check the patient's vital signs and data log. He peruses it a minute before nodding his approval and turning back to Rey.
"My mother was a healer," Smath reveals to her. "She trained in Coruscant at the Republic's medical academy. Back in those days, students would take rotations at the Temple so that those trained in traditional technical medicine could appreciate the alternative approaches only the Jedi could provide. My mother often spoke of the miracles she saw performed by the Force during the Clone Wars. Cures far beyond what was then capable by science."
Rey favors Smath with a fake smile and a confused look. She's fooled many of Hux's overly curious officers with this innocent confusion routine. "You mistake my visits, sir. I am but a—"
"I know what you are doing." Smath overrides her. Apparently, this man is not so easily taken in. "And you are most welcome to do it."
Rey opens her mouth to object again, but the old veteran raises a hand to forestall her. Like her husband, the Chief Healer is a man accustomed to command. He probably honed all the mannerisms of a boss decades before she was born, Rey realizes.
"Let us be frank with one another, Lady Ren. I know that you have the Force and I know that you use it to heal." The Chief Healer chooses his words carefully now as he looks her straight in the eye. "I will not ask you how you learned this power. I am concerned only that my patients receive the best care available. The politics behind that care are not relevant to me."
Rey thinks a moment. Then nods. "We understand each other then."
Smath turns his attention back to the patient. "Burns are awful injuries. They are incredibly painful and usually scar horribly. Even bacta doesn't help much."
"Yes," Rey agrees, thinking of the slashing wound she gave Kylo's face. "My husband has burn scars."
"I treated Ren after the Starkiller," Smath reveals quietly. So, the Chief Healer is one of the few who has seen Kylo's face. He's seen the scars Rey gave him. "Those were not ordinary burns, Lady Ren." The Chief Healer mistakes the testy tone of her comment for criticism of his work. "Burns from that heat temperature cauterize. They do not respond well to treatment."
"Yes," Rey sighs. "They were from a lightsaber."
"Did he tell you?"
"I was there."
Smath nods thoughtfully at this news. He eyes Rey a moment before asking, "Is it true that Ren fought the Jedi Skywalker on the Starkiller and lost?"
"Is that what everyone believes?" Rey thinks Kylo would not appreciate this rumor. He doesn't need his men thinking he's not up to the task of taking out Skywalker.
"It's the prevailing theory," Smath admits.
"Well, it's wrong." Rey states this firmly. "Kylo didn't fight Skywalker on the Starkiller." She meets the old healer's eyes steadily and weighs how much to reveal. She has an impulse to trust this man, so she's honest. "He fought me."
Smath's eyes widen. "Who are you? Are you Jedi?" the old man breathes out these words, almost in awe.
"I'm no one," Rey corrects him sharply. "And I am not Jedi."
From the disbelieving look Smath gives her, it's clear he doubts her words. But he does not challenge her claim. "I am seventy-five standard years old, young lady. That's old enough to remember a time when the Jedi were heroes to some."
"There are heroes on both sides of every war," Rey observes. She knows this from personal experience, so her words come out bitter.
Smath is wise enough not to pursue the point. "This conversation is between us, Lady Ren, and us alone."
Rey nods. "We understand each other," she repeats.
After that, Rey comes and goes in the medibay without disruption. Smath takes to directing her to the patients he thinks would benefit most from her efforts. It is all done discretely. The crew of the Finalizer thinks Lady Ren's medibay visits to be well intentioned morale boosting. Some speculate that she's trying to make amends for her husband's notorious cruelty. Others think Ren's grand lady is a little bored with time on her hands.
Sitting still and quiet sequestered behind a curtain in the busy medibay, Rey learns a great deal about life aboard a star destroyer. And she overhears a surprising amount about herself.
She's sitting with the burned TIE pilot again when two unsuspecting women bathing the adjacent patient give Rey an earful.
"—got that magic Force like Ren does. It's true. We treated a trooper for a concussion after she threw him into a transport in the hangar bay. And when she woke up here, she threw poor Barta against the wall and knocked the wind out of her. She smashed that new droid into pieces too."
Rey gets it—the Force is scary. She kind of agrees. But if they could see what she is doing now for this poor burned pilot, they might change their minds. Kylo's Dark Side stuff—that's scary. And the lightsabers—those are scary too. But these healing techniques are truly magical. More and more, Rey wonders whether healing is her true calling in the Force. Helping comfort people and easing their pain is much more appealing to Rey than ruling the galaxy ever could be. She would fail miserably at being a Sith. Rey has never had any ambitions beyond taking care of herself and Sheev.
"Oh, I don't know. She seems nice enough when she comes in here but she's really high maintenance behind the scenes. My friend was working second shift outside of her room when Ren came to visit and he said she ripped into him. He almost felt sorry for the Commander. Most people don't know, but Ren was here constantly when she was out. Up all night for days on end holding her hand. And then she woke up and he was gone. Came by once and she screamed at him and he never came back. I guess it serves Ren right if he has a bitch for a wife. They deserve each other."
Rey grits her teeth. You'd be a bitch too if you were tortured by the Resistance and lost your baby because you were married to a Sith lord, she thinks. And if anyone is on the Finalizer is high maintenance, it's Kylo Ren.
"Yeah . . . she is tiny. Apparently, Ren told Smath not to worry because she never eats and to get her salt to snack on. That's so gross. Is salt some sort of new diet fad? She's one of those Upper Level lady types who never eats so that she can fit into designer dresses. Barta found that white dress she wore last week on the holonet in a runway show. Thousands of credits for a single dress! Have you seen her red dress? I like that one better."
Maybe Rey ought to be angry about this perception, but it's too ridiculous not to laugh at. If the crew only knew who she really is beneath the veneer of Lady Ren. Well, actually they wouldn't believe it. It's too preposterous to think that Kylo Ren would be married to an uneducated orphan scavenger from Jakku who's a former Resistance fighter and First Order fugitive. Who nearly was the apprentice of the Jedi the Order wants to kill. And who helped to blow up the Starkiller. You couldn't make this stuff up if you wanted to, Rey thinks to herself.
"Oh, I agree. I don't see it either. She's really rather plain looking without all the makeup and hair. I just kind of assumed that if Ren had a wife, she'd be a knockout. I mean, he could choose any woman in the galaxy. I guess he likes them young—she can't be more than twenty-five."
It's a good thing Jakku gave her a thick skin, Rey thinks. As a scavenger, she received her share of scorn. Rey is starting to get the full picture of what it means to be married to Kylo. And, well, it's a bit daunting. Along the way she had never focused on the fact that she was signing up to be First Lady of the galaxy. None of the public consequences of being Kylo's wife had occurred to her at Bast Castle. She had only been concerned about what it would mean for herself and her son.
What had Kylo once told her about his family—that the personal is political? He had been talking about the Jedi and the Sith at the time, but really it applies here too. Rey had made a personal choice, thinking she was doing what was best for her family. And maybe it was a quasi-political choice to reject the Resistance who had tried to steal her son. But marrying Kylo had never been about being an Empress. Still, like it or not, Rey realizes that she is well on her way to becoming a public face of the First Order.
The irony and the responsibility of this scare her. Of all the future hopes and dreams Rey had nurtured through the years, her current life had never occurred to her.
Rey, Lady Ren is formally introduced to the galaxy at an execution.
The First Order is excellent at stagecraft, and today's spectacle has all the hallmarks the holonet audience has come to expect: a massive assembly of officers and troops in the Finalizer hangar bay, a pale and stern-looking group of senior officers standing before the red and black standard of the Order, and a rousing speech by General Phelps. The program is part eulogy for Hux and the Order officers lost at Bast, and part victory rally for the Battle of D'Qar, spiced up by live action bloodshed.
The main event is the demise of three Resistance fighters. One had overseen the prison bunker on D'Qar, one had led the raid on Bast Castle, and the last was senior enough at the Resistance headquarters that he must have known what was going on. There was some debate about the method of death, but ultimately Kylo Ren decrees that the men be executed the same as Hux had been. A reading of their sworn confessions followed by the firing squad. The Resistance holds no moral authority over the Order, and their prisoners will receive the same rough justice the Resistance themselves had given.
In other words, it is tit for tat.
It's not the first time Rey has watched men die ceremoniously. Last time, she had been shackled and tucked away off camera. Today, she will be the much scrutinized victim who looks on approvingly as her tormentors fall. On her own behalf, and as representative for General Hux and his fallen comrades. Officially, Lady Ren is the sole survivor of the raid on Bast Castle. For the existence of Sheev Ren and Milo is kept from the press.
Rey allows her droid to spend an entire hour primping as she steels her mind for what is to come. She dons the elaborate hooded cape embroidered black on black with the First Order insignia. Her blood red silk gown peaks from underneath as she moves. It's the outfit she wore to meet Kylo's Sith Master, and her husband loves it. Telling Rey with pride that she has never looked more Lady Ren. Today, however, her hair is pulled back and piled up. The look is severe and somber.
Milo escorts her to the hangar bay. Rey is nervous and he steadies her. Do not smile, do not fidget. Be composed, serious and aloof. Remember that cameras will be on you at all times from every angle. Rey nods her understanding. Then the keeper discretely tucks a white handkerchief into her palm 'just in case.'
Kylo takes her hand and leads her up the dais. Where minutes before, the atmosphere had been one of a sporting event, now the assembly falls silent upon command. Many eyes watch as the First Knight and his lady take the stage. They are seen together publicly on the Finalizer for the first time and broadcast live to the galaxy at large. They take their places and Kylo nods to General Phelps. It begins.
"Come and do your duty," is how Kylo had phrased it. It is necessary that these men die to deter future attacks on our family. And it is a rightful punishment, for there is no doubt of their guilt. Kylo knows this with certainty, for he has read their minds. He adds that the senior officer who will die was on the committee that approved Rey's interrogation. Kylo looks Rey in the eye as he tells her that the officer was directly responsible for her treatment. His execution is justice.
So Rey had agreed without hesitation. She owes this to her lost daughter. To the baby girl she won't talk about but can't stop thinking about at odd times during the day.
Rey looks on grimly as the condemned fall. She vaguely recognizes the prison bunker officer and the leader of the raid. But when the hood is pulled off the final prisoner, she knows him well. It is FN-2187. A traitor to the First Order. A Major in the Resistance. And before her twisting allegiances had torn them apart, he had once been very dear to Rey.
Finn! Oh, Finn! Not Finn!
The cameras catch Lady Ren reaching for her husband's gloved hand. She grips it tightly, crushing it in the moment. But there is no change in her outward expression. All the galaxy sees is the First Lady of the First Order, herself a victim of the condemned, in a subtle gesture of solidarity with her husband.
When it is over, Rey compliments General Phelps on his oratory. Phelps is no Hux, but his late mentor would have been proud to see his tradition of fervent orthodoxy continue. Then Rey pulls up her hood to shield her face from the cameras. She doesn't wait for Kylo as she departs. She has done her duty.
Now, it's time to use Milo's handkerchief.
Kylo catches up to her as she ducks into his quarters. No one will bother her there. In private now, he can yank off his mask and drop it on the table. She can fly fast into his arms to ugly cry. They never make it past that table.
"I did this for you. To keep you safe." Kylo pats her sobbing form in an attempt to console. "No regrets, Rey. Only look forward, never look back."
Those are words to live by for the wife of Kylo Ren. For what's done is done, and cannot be undone. From the Starkiller interrogation to Finn's execution aboard the Finalizer, what's done is done and Rey keeps accepting it.
She doesn't have any better option.
In a moment of clarity, Rey realizes that Finn was right years ago on Takodano when he had tried to sign on with smugglers to disappear in the Outer Rim. Finn knew then what the galaxy at large has learned over the ensuing four years: the First Order is a fight you cannot win. In the end, you only get to negotiate the terms of your surrender.
Rey had at first tried to hide. But Kylo Ren had cornered her and Sheev in the woods one afternoon. And then she had tried to run. But it turned out that the Resistance was no safe haven either. So ever since then, she's been negotiating to survive. Idealism is long gone and pragmatism rules the day and little by little Rey keeps surrendering bits and pieces of herself. She couldn't beat Kylo Ren, so she has joined him. And as the consequences of that decision keep unfolding before her eyes, Rey struggles to make sense of it all.
What has become of the lonely girl who stupidly refused to sell a droid for sixty portions? Rey stopped acting like that girl long ago. And she hasn't looked like that girl for almost a year now. That girl would never recognize her present day self. Who am I, Rey wonders from time to time. I'm no one, she reflexively tells herself. But now, she's no longer sure.
The chain of events leading to Rey standing hand in hand before the galaxy with Kylo Ren is too strange for fiction. And looking back on the sequence of decisions along the way, Rey can't honestly say she would do any of them differently. She was always going to end up here in the end. Even before they slashed hands in the moonlight, Rey's fate had been intrinsically linked to Kylo Ren.
The vision with the lightsaber at Maz's had foreshadowed their outcome before they had even met.
Ever the romantic, Kylo would call it destiny. But watching the lifeless body of her former friend sink to the floor, Rey thinks it's more bad luck for the unfortunate Jakku orphan. She understands now that tragedy stalks all who come in close contact with the Skywalker clan. Marry a Skywalker or love a Skywalker and you're doubly cursed, she thinks.
Was justice done? Rey isn't sure. The motivations seem suspect. Yes, Kylo Ren has executed a one-time traitor and a conflicted torturer. But Finn was also his would-be romantic rival who once landed a blow or two on the First Knight in dark, snowy woods. Maybe, Rey thinks, Finn's death was a convenient solution to resolve multiple problems. But whether it's justice or vengeance, payback is a bitch.
Standing now in the comfort of Kylo's arms, Rey's tears fall for Finn. But they also fall for Padme Ren, for herself, for Hux and for the galaxy at large.
And bizarre as it seems, she is grateful for how today has played out. "Thank you for not telling me in advance," Rey confides between sniffs. "I could never have made it through if I had known." This small mercy has been the only mercy shown today.
She gives Kylo a glancing kiss of thanks and he brushes her cheek tenderly and suddenly they are all over each other. His hot mouth covers her hot tears and the heat keeps building.
For Kylo, today the galaxy has seen his Empress. She has stood next to him, displayed before his armies, holding his hand and wearing his colors as he killed for her. Pride and death and desire now roll into one for him, and Kylo is hot to have her.
Rey thinks only of comfort. She needs closeness to reaffirm life after witnessing the First Order's pageantry of death.
So her heavy cloak falls to the floor. The red dress unzips and it's down to her waist fast. Kylo catches up her skirt and finds her hidden pistol strapped to the inside of her thigh. "Good girl," he approves as he caresses up past the weapon and tears aside her delicate lace panties. Seeing Rey splayed on the table exposed with a blaster between her legs makes him so hard it hurts.
"Make me a baby, Kylo," she moans as he drives into her. "Please . . . give me another child." Rey wants new life to fill the aching void left in the wake of so much death and loss. She wants a new baby to be a new hope for the future.
She knows Kylo wants this too. That he would welcome another Sithling for his legacy of power, the next generation from the line of the Chosen One himself. New life to mark the new beginning that will soon be his Second Empire. For Kylo is close, so close, to winning it all.
Within hours she discovers that Rey, Lady Ren has her own First Order holonet entry as of today. It's a few pictures and sparse details approved by the Order's PR machine. Rey reads that she is gracious and kindhearted and that she is a devoted wife and mother. A noncombatant kidnapped from her home by the Resistance, Lady Ren has only recently recovered from months of captivity and cruel torture. Rey raises an eyebrow as she reads that all details surrounding her family and her past are intentionally omitted for her own protection. A prudent decision, yes. But also a convenient means to avoid an outright lie.
There are already over a thousand comments to her holonet entry. Rey skims the first few dozen. Then she puts down her datapad. Like the nurses in the medibay, it seems everyone has an opinion on Lady Ren. Most of them are nasty.
Who am I? She's Rey of Jakku who once had vowed to survive Kylo Ren. Well, things have changed and she has changed. And now she's Rey, Lady Ren. And this Rey wants more than just to survive. She wants to be happy. That's what she had told Kylo the night he had confessed the Starkiller to her. That she had forgiven him because she wants to be happy. No, Rey thinks indignantly, she deserves to be happy.
So fuck the Resistance. Fuck the Skywalker twins. Fuck the troopers laughing behind their helmets at her walk of shame across the hallway. Fuck the bitchy nurses in the medibay. Fuck the haters on the holonet. Fuck the whole damn galaxy.
She and Kylo and Sheev are going to live happily ever after. Rey will have the loving family she has always wanted, Kylo will have his precious Second Empire, and together they will be safe and happy. And that's going to make everything that has happened along the way to get there worth it in the end.
Everything. Even Finn.
