AN: OK, I couldn't wait. I am so excited for this chapter that I just needed to post it. This story isn't done by a long shot, I just started writing chapter 20, but I think this is a turning point in this story and probably what all of you have been waiting for. Thank all of you for your comments! I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Please let me know! Until the next chapter, Happy Reading!

"Will you stop?" Rey snapped, causing both Finn and Poe to jump. The thunking stopped, Poe's knife now stuck in the tabletop where he had been casually throwing it into the wood over and over again. Rey's face fell and she looked at her hands in her lap. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I-I didn't mean..." She exhaled sharply through her nose trying to gather her thoughts in a way that wouldn't come out sounding like she was still upset.

"Is everything alright?" Finn asked, looking up from a book he had taken a liking to when he had found Rey's bag in the Falcon.

"We searched all day long and we-"

"We'll find it," Poe assured. "There's still plenty of island to explore."

Rey huffed, blowing a fly away hair from her face. She couldn't stop her heart from fluttering like the wings of carrier butterflies. Ben had disappeared. She was sure of it. His presence was gone the moment they stepped foot on the island. He had been gone before, more so the last few days than normal, but he hadn't come back this time and it was bothering Rey more than she could ever hope to explain to Finn and Poe

"I'm going to get some air," she announced, rising easily to her feet and hurrying from the room. She stalked around the small group of huts that had been her home while training under Master Luke, but nothing was helping. Not the walk, not the cool air, and definitely not being alone with her thoughts. So she went to a hut on the opposite side of the small clearing and knocked on the door. "Do you mind if I join you?" she called through the door.

"We were wondering when you were going to leave those boring men," Rose teased as she opened the door. Warmth greeted Rey from a fire they had lit and Rose pulled Rey into the room. Connix gave Rey a kind smile and Rey took a seat on the floor next to her. "I bet the conversations are just riveting."

Rey snorted. "If you think sitting in quiet for an hour is riveting."

"I'm sure we can come up with something to talk about," Connix guaranteed, her smile widening in a teasing way. "So what has made you so set on finding Ben Solo?"

Rey froze and could feel a blush come to her cheeks. She looked away from the two girls and both of them broke out in laughter. "You like him!" Rose accused.

"I do not," Rey shot back far too quickly. The two girls only laughed harder. Was it that obvious? Did everyone know that she liked him? She knew that Finn did. He had explained how he saw them kiss in one of the nether-portals. That had made her blush much worse than she was now, but that didn't change the fact that her blushing made her embarrassed for blushing, which in turn made her turn a far darker color. "He's just in trouble and needs help. He saved me, I am simply returning the favor."

"Keep lying to yourself," Connix said, wiping at her eyes at the tears that had gathered there. Had it really been that funny? Rey didn't think so, but Rose must have.

She gently nudged Rey's arm, clutching a stitch in her side. "We were only teasing. If he needs help and we're simply helping, then cool."

"But we don't believe you," Connix added, making both of them burst up again.

A small smile came to Rey's lips and she hid her face in her hands with her own small laugh. An easiness settled into her body at how happy the two girls were. Maybe there wasn't anything inherently wrong at the moment and the tension that was around the boys had just been far too much. Maybe she just needed a moment to not think about everything that she had been so focused on. To just let herself be happy.

It had a shape now. For the first time ever the darkness had a shape and it was more terrifying than the emptiness had been.

Eyes that were as bright as a sun and spit fire just the same. Towering, as tall as some of the buildings that scraped the sky. But with its height there was no true form. It was a shadow, fluid in movement that had the resemblance of fur. There were four legs with paws when it stepped, but they were quickly swallowed back into the shadow like a drop of rain that was lost to an ocean wave.

The sound that it made was far different than anything Rey had ever heard. Something deep and primal that made the world around it shudder and shake. But the sound didn't come from its movement. This behemoth had acquired the ability to move with stealth over the past dozen lifetimes Rey was sure that it had lived. It had an ancient aura about it.

There was a brilliant glitter as teeth bared in a sneer, red pigment gleaming off of them from an unstable, crackling light.

Rey's fingers clawed at the wall before her, cracks now splintering off from her fingertips, the frost melting away to reveal a man hunched over, an arm clutching around his middle with a lightsaber clenched tightly in his fist. A lightsaber that had been thrown into the ocean.

"Ben!" she shouted, her voice echoing back to her.

He didn't take notice of her in the slightest. He never did. Instead he lunged at the beast and Rey gasped, both hands going to her mouth at how easily it swatted him away with its paw before snapping at him with its dagger like teeth, tearing smoothly through Ben's arm, blood rapidly beginning to pool down his arm and to the floor.

Rey stepped back frantically, searching for something, absolutely anything that would help her, but she was only met with a pool of water in a rocky cave. Her breath caught in her chest as she looked around more closely. She knew this cave. She was sure of it, but the memory was foggy and slipping away the longer she looked at it.

A pounding sound made her turn back to find Ben's fist hitting the wall between them. "Rey!" he shouted as the creature raced towards him. "Rey!"

"...up Rey!"

Rey shot up, lightsaber in hand, the blade coming to life. The two girls jumped back at the yellow glow, leaving Rey gasping on the floor where she had fallen asleep, adrenaline racing through her body, her heart beating in her ears.

"Are you alright?" Rose asked, the first of the two to overcome the sudden fright. "You were screaming."

Rey glanced around, still trying to take in her surroundings. She didn't remember falling asleep and she definitely didn't have the time or wherewithal to figure it out. The glow from the balde faded as Rey turned off and lowered the weapon, blinking several times in the shifting light before she had finally straightened out that she wasn't in any danger.

"I know where he is," she finally muttered, clambering to her feet.

"Who Rey?" Rose called after her as the young Jedi raced from the hut as quickly as her still sleeping limbs would let her.

She didn't bother knocking as she entered the boy's hut, hurriedly calling their names. Poe groaned, being pulled from sleep and Finn dropped his book in surprise. "Where are the keys?" she demanded breathlessly, digging through their bags.

"Calm down," Finn said, getting to his feet, book forgotten on the floor. "What's going on?"

Poe rubbed his eyes groggily. "They're in my bag," he mumbled. Rey raced to his pack and began to dig through it. "What's happening?"

"I know where the door is," Rey explained, tossing items over her shoulder carelessly, not noticing the annoyed look from Poe at the mistreatment of his stuff. "I've seen it before."

"What?" Poe got to his feet and took a stand next to Finn who was standing clear of Rey and the things she was throwing. "Where?"

"Why don't we slow down for a minute and think about this," Finn suggested hopefully.

"We don't have time to think about this," Rey insisted frustratedly. "Did you send them to Zonama Sekot?"

Poe sighed and went over, snatching his bag from Rey's hands and digging into a pocket on the front, holding out the set of keys. Rey ripped them from his hands and rose back to her feet, trying to run from the hut, but was held back at a strong arm around her waist.

"Let me go Finn," she ordered.

"Where is the door?" he asked, grip still tight around her.

"In a cave. I need to go. Ben is in trouble."

"Your nightmare," Poe said before grabbing his blaster from the table that now had multiple dents in it from his knife. Rey nodded and Finn released her at Poe's actions. Finn was always so skeptical, but Poe was always so ready to believe her with anything she said. Anything at all and she would have to thank him for that later, but for right now there were more pressing matters. "Where is this cave?"

Rey couldn't help but give a half smile. "Follow me." She ran from the room, both Finn and Poe following after her, giving orders for the other two to stay put as they ran past the huts and off into the rocky landscape. "I had always wondered why this island felt so strong. There was something here the whole time, something ancient," she explained. "I felt it during my training with Luke. Life, death, dark light, space and time. I had been so close all along."

"What are you talking about?" Poe asked as he jumped a large rock in their path.

"The force. The balance between everything. It all began here," Rey said.

"As did time and space," Finn added, catching on to what she had been saying. He thought he had been alone in the feeling this island gave off. It was special. Something powerful. Something so old that no one could remember it.

Rey came to a stop at the edge of a ledge and Poe and Finn stopped beside her, breathing hard. "It's down there."

Poe leaned over the edge and bit his tongue at the sight of a large perfectly circular hole in the rock beneath them that had some kind of vegetation growing around it that looked an awful lot like Rathtar tentacles. He watched as Finn and Rey jumped down with little hesitation and he grumbled under his breath, swinging his arms to get his body into it.

"Poe!" Rey called up to him.

He shook his head. "I have a bad feeling about this." With one final swing of his arms, he jumped down, the momentum sending him to his knees, hands in the mess of slimy vines. He jolted away from it, wiping his hands on his pants.

Finn chuckled and grabbed Poe's arm and pulled him to his feet. Poe gave him a nod of thanks, stepping back from the hole ever further. Rey simply moved towards it, looking down into it.

"You'll land in water. Follow me," she instructed, jumping down without a second thought.

The splash of icy water was instantaneous and shocked the air from her lungs. She returned to the surface, inhaling deeply, her breath hanging deadly in the air. She turned her head at two more splashes before the three of them swam to the edge of the cave. Rey helped the others onto the small ledge and turned, shivering, to the mirror like wall that was slick with condensation.

A tension hung suspended in the air, something just as powerful, if not more than the first time she had been here. She remembered it so clearly. Something that seemed to go on forever, but there was a beginning and an end. She had found it and at the end she had found herself. But now there was something else on the other side of this rock.

She shifted her weight from foot to foot, nervous for what she would find, keys held so tightly in her hand they were starting to dig through the now soaked bandages. Making up her mind to stop being afraid for once in her life, she took a confident stride to the wall and her hand slid up against the cold rock.

"What are we looking for exactly?" Finn questioned as he walked to length of it one way while Poe followed in the opposite direction.

Rey stared back at her murky reflection, her warm breath clearing up the frost on the almost mirror like surface. She closed her eyes and focused as deeply as she could on the force. The light, the dark, life and death, but space and time were so overwhelming she was finding it hard to concentrate on them. Her nose scrunched up as she wound her way through the twists and turns within that feeling.

"You were right," a voice said in astonishment beside her.

Rey opened her eyes and stared out at her dream. A dream she had seen every night for months. A dream that she had never wanted to be real, had hoped was never real. A dream of a monster and a good man. A dream that had Ben dead at the end of it. It couldn't be real. It wouldn't be real. She wasn't going to let it be real.

"Someone find somewhere for the keys to go," Rey instructed, forcing herself to look away from Ben's fight to help her friends. The search continued on for far longer than Rey had wanted it to. When the three of them had come up empty, Rey couldn't help but let out a frustrated growl, eyes watching as that monstrous paw swiped at Ben. "What do we do?"

"Use the force," Poe said sarcastically. "It's always been so helpful before."

Rey blinked several times, mentally scolding herself for not having thought of that earlier. Why would somewhere as old as time itself have an actual place for keys to work? All in all, she hadn't really understood the keys, but it was all she had to work with.

She sat down, keys outstretched in her palm and closed her eyes, hearing Luke's words in her head from what felt like so long ago.

Breathe. Just breathe. Reach out with your feelings.

So she did. She tried so hard to, but with no one to guide her she felt like she was floundering. She didn't know what she was supposed to be feeling. Ben needed her and she was failing him. Ben was going to die and there was nothing she could do.

Focus. That's all she had to do. Focus. She wanted this place opened, this door to another world. A world between the two. All she had to do was find it, right? It was here in front of her. She was certain of it. So where, for all that was good and light, was it?

"Rey," Finn called hurriedly. She opened her eyes to see both of them trained on what was happening behind the wall.

A bright glow made Rey turn her head away from a heat in her hand that held the keys. She squinted through the light and the other two turned to find the cause of the brightness. The keys stood upright in her hand, tremoring and flickering in the darkness. The heat grew nearly unbearable and Rey's free hand clasped to her other wrist in an attempt to hold it up and add pressure to distract from the pain that had her teeth gritted.

A hum began to reverberate around the cave, ringing so loudly it made both Finn and Poe clap hands over their ears and Rey tear up. Just when Rey was sure that she was going to fall deaf and her hand was going to be nothing more than cinders, there was a clatter of metal and the light fizzled out.

Rey's heart fell and she wanted to sink to the bottom of that pool of water. Her bandages had been burned away and in their place were two keys, each broken into jagged halves. Rey's hand closed around them and she screamed, throwing them at the wall where they clinked to the floor. It was as if the universe was against them. It didn't want them getting through and she honestly was out of ideas.

What could she do now?

She pulled her legs into her chest and hid her face in her knees, hands knotting themselves in her falling out, wet buns. Her chest had never felt so restricted before and she struggled to breathe, tears falling down her cheeks without permission.

She couldn't give up. She just couldn't, but she also couldn't find herself enough to pull from the pain, the thought of losing Ben too much to make her move. Those keys had been everything and now they had nothing. Absolutely nothing.

"Rey, snap out of it," Poe ordered in a concerned voice, racing to her and dropping to his knees, taking her shoulders in his grip. "We'll figure this out. It's not over yet."

She gasped, her voice trapped somewhere in her throat. His hold was smothering, but she couldn't push him away. She was in a panic. She had never felt this helpless before, so absolutely lost. Ben needed help and she was abandoning him because she couldn't push past this.

So certain were you. Go back and closer you must look.

Rey's head popped up at the voice. She had heard it before on Exegol. She was certain of it. Her eyes flickered around, first stopping on Poe who wore a worried expression on his face. And then they fell on Finn whose hand was outstretched towards the wall, eyes closed in concentration.

Rey.

Get up Rey.

This isn't over, Rey.

Rise Rey.

She had heard all of those voices on Exegol. All of the Jedi.

Poe glanced back to see Finn and seemed to understand. He rose to his feet, hand outstretched towards Rey who took it. He pulled her to her feet and she wiped her tears away, heading to Finn.

Ben was still fighting beyond the wall, still holding strong despite the blood that was smearing its way across the floor beneath his feet. She still had time. Could she do this? She shook her head. Could they do this? She didn't have to be alone anymore. But she wasn't sure if the two of them would be enough.

"Bring back my grandson," a young voice said in her ear. She turned to see a kind smile and wasn't sure how, but immediately knew who it was. Anikan Skywalker. He stood tall and powerful, eyes trained on the wall.

"Save him, when I couldn't."

"Master Luke," Rey whispered, eyes following the voice to land on him. He nodded before looking to the wall.

Rey turned and stared at the mass of people. Faces she recognized, Leia, Han and she was positive the man with the beard was the famed Obi-Wan Kenobi and the small green creature that Luke had described as Master Yoda. There were many more that she didn't know, but there was still something familiar about them as if even though she didn't know their physical appearance she had known their spirits for her whole life.

With a new found strength she turned back to the wall, hand raised with Finn's. She put everything into this. She pulled all of the energy she could from around her and aimed it at that mirrored wall, facing not only herself, Finn and Poe, but every Jedi there had ever been. And that was enough. They were enough. And it finally occurred to her that she had never truly been alone. Someone had always been there when she needed it and now was no different.

A cracking broke through the silence as the mirror began to shatter, splintering into spiderwebs, reaching from the floor to the heavens. It crawled to a stop and the first piece fell, crashing to the floor, shortly followed by another.

Rey caught movement in the corner of her eye and watched Poe take strong steps forward, blaster out and firing through the falling stones. A blaster bolt hit the shadows and the monster recoiled with a snarl.

Ben wasn't sure he had seen it right. Was there someone else here? There couldn't be. He was alone and he was going to be killed by this thing that didn't want him trapped between the two worlds anymore. At another bolt, his heart leapt. Ben whirled around, eyes wide as his gaze rested on her.

"Rey."

The blaster continued to fire, leaving enough time for Rey to race in, lightsaber in hand. She ignited it, the yellow a comforting glow.

The monster bared its teeth and snapped at Ben. On natural impulse, Rey slid Ben aside with a wave of her hand, teeth gnashing at the air where Ben had just stood, and took a protective stance in front of him, lightsaber raised and ready for the monster to charge.

The shadow's eyes narrowed and it jumped, only to come to a solid stop, as if frozen. It growled angrily and bit viciously at Rey. Rey looked over to see if Ben had been the one to stop it, but his stark pale skin and his hunched over form told her that it wasn't him.

"Poe, get him out of here," Finn's commanding but strained voice said.

A smile covered Rey's lips at Finn's outstretched hand. He had finally done it. He used the force when the situation needed it. He was holding back this creature that no longer had a name.

Poe tossed his blaster to Rey, who immediately aimed it towards the darkness. Poe slung one of Ben's arms over his shoulder, ignoring the blood that was still warm against his skin, and shouldered a good portion of Ben's weight, pulling him from the emptiness and towards the cave. Ben limped beside him, slipping more than once only for Poe to catch him.

"Finn, you next," Rey instructed, stance ready to run.

"Go Rey," Finn ordered, giving her a look that said not to fight him.

She glanced between him and the monster several times before giving a single nod, putting away her saber, and leaving him. She got to the edge of the cave and spun back to see Finn drop his hold and break into a sprint, the monster finally finding traction with its paws.

Rey fired the red bolts at him, trying to buy Finn more time. The bolts didn't so much to phase the creature now. It shook them off, still racing full speed at them.

There was a heavy tug around Rey's middle and her feet shot out from under her at Finn's grasp. She could hear the snap of teeth and then nothing else.

She coughed and lifted herself onto her knees on the stone floor to find that the mirror had returned, unfractured, perfectly smooth as if nothing had disturbed it in anyway, shape or form.

"Thank you," she breathed, tapping Finn on the arm several times, unable to say much more. He nodded and lied on his back, breathing hard himself.

"More than moving rocks, huh?" he got out, licking his dry lips.

Rey gave a small, weak laugh. "More than moving rocks."

Realization hit her and she jumped to her feet, finding Poe still supporting Ben. Rey bolted over and seized Ben into a hug against her small frame, arms tight around his middle. He groaned, the pain lacing his voice. His free arm slowly wrapped around her and returned the hug as tightly as his body would allow him to.

She pulled back, hands going to his cheeks as her eyes took in every detail of his face. The crookedness of his nose from some long ago injury, his sharp jawline, and those eyes that she had missed so much. Eyes that were deep and dark, but bright with feeling. Eyes that could never hide his emotions. Emotions that said he was relieved to see her.

He spoke in a broken, barely audible voice as his hand shakily tucked some hair behind Rey's ear. "I love you."

"I know."

His lips brushed against hers and for a brief moment, the world fell away. All of the pain and regret and loneliness was gone. It was slow and soft, comforting in ways that words could never be. His hand rested below her ear, his thumb caressing her cheek as their breaths mingled.

Someone cleared their throat and there was a cough that broke the two apart to allow reality to slam back in. Rey raised her eyebrow as she looked at Poe who still was supporting most of Ben's weight.

"Do you mind if we do this later?" he asked, strain in his tone.