Well we're back, and not too long after last chapter's posting! We have returned to our Resistance friends, and get some insight into how they are handling Leia's death and the aftermath. And apparently Poe is not handling anything well. Rey and Ben are dealing with their own issues on Mustafar and that is going to come to a head quickly.

So I will not keep you waiting any longer. And remember... In this house we believe in well thought out character arcs, Rian Johnson, and Reylo. We believe that anyone can become a hero, even a nobody from nowhere. We believe that redemption can happen . We believe that family is what you make it. We believe that hope is the source of our greatest strength. And we believe that love can change even the darkest hearts. Kiss, kiss. XOXO

COMMENTS + KUDOS = LOVE

:Chapter Thirty-One:

He found himself outside her quarters again. Since her death he'd found his way here more than anywhere else on the makeshift base. He tried to explain it away by saying he kept forgetting she was gone. But it was a transparent lie that everyone saw through, but no one called him on.

There was no forgetting she was gone. Her absence had left a gaping hole in the Resistance. It had left a gaping hole within him too. No one could get through a meeting without mentioning her, or something she had said or done. No one was able to ignore the empty place at the table, or in the command center. And no matter how hard he tried, he could not do what she did.

She had been his family for a long time. She had been his mentor and General for longer. There was nothing that he was able to say or do that he didn't wonder if she would have done the same. There was no order he gave that he didn't second guess.

He found himself glancing around at his friends. Wondering how they saw him, standing before them all, trying to look confident and make decisions, when in fact he knew he was simply flying by the seat of his pants and probably fucking it all up.

And yet, there was that niggling little voice in the back of his mind whispering, wasn't that what he always did? Run in, with no Plan A, let alone a Plan B. Wasn't that how he had always gotten by before?

With a growl, he slammed his hand into the metal wall of the hallway as the other ran through his dark hair, raking it back from his forehead. This way of thinking wasn't getting him anywhere. Placing his hand against the pad, the door opened before him and he hesitantly walked in.

His first inhale had his throat closing around a fist sized knot. His second had a weight pressing against his chest. It had been weeks, and yet even the air still carried her scent. He could feel the tears prick at the back of his eyes. Scrubbing his scruffy face with both hands, he moved further into the room, his eyes roving over little details he must have missed before.

The notebook and pen set out on the desk as if she was going to add a thought in her journal. The wilted star shaped flowers that once had a pale blue hue to them. The medical equipment still standing by the bed she had laid on. Moving towards the bed, he brushed a hand over the white sheet that had covered her. Metal clinked on the duracrete floor. Glancing down, the light caught a dull glint off of whatever had fallen.

Reaching down he closed his hand around the object. Standing up he opened it, palm up, to find her signet ring. Two blue stones, held in a gold setting that spanned the whole of her ring finger. It twisted upon itself, snaking around her finger. He remembered it from childhood, when Leia and his mother would spend an afternoon together, sipping tea and reminiscing. He used to sit with them, his mom and Leia, since Leia's son Ben was mercurial and always kept to himself, and try to follow it, with his eyes, to see where it began and where it ended.

It was the ring Han had given her when he asked her to marry him. A statement piece really. Something fit for a princess, not a rebellion General. Yet he couldn't seem to remember a time she had been without it.

Turning he sat down hard on the nearest chair. Shoving the ring into his pocket, he dropped his head into his now empty hands.

"I don't think I can do it. I'm not ready. I'm not prepared to lead. I was barely able to follow. You know that. I cause the loss of almost the entire Resistance fleet. It was my fault… because I thought I knew better.

"But I don't. I don't know a damn thing about being a leader. I just know that all of these people are looking to me to make the hard decisions and I can't. I can't look at them, and make the decision to go to war, knowing that they might not be coming back.

"I don't know how you did it. How you fought for the Rebellion and then returned and led the Resistance. How you were able to look at these people, these friends, and make the decision to possibly send them to their deaths."

"Because she was willing to risk everything that they were."

The voice came from the darkness of the doorway. Poe lifted his head, and watched as Commander Larma D'acy stepped into the room. Poe stood, unable to hide his embarrassment for talking to an empty room.

"Sit Poe. I didn't come here to drag you back to the commander center."

"You didn't?" he deflated slightly as he watched her sit in the chair across from his.

Shaking her head, she sat back, placing her tired arms on the arm rests of the chair. "I've been keeping an eye on you."

Poe's head came up again, his brow furrowed.

Larma shrugged. "She asked me to."

Completely defeated, Poe crumbled into the chair again. "Of course she would."

"Not for the reason you think, Poe." A small smile lifted her cheeks.

"No? Not because I'm a screw up and I think of myself before I think of anyone else. Poe Dameron, hot headed flyboy. Always looking for the fame and glory. Never thinking past the end of his cockpit."

That elicited a chuckle from Larma. She shook her head. "She saw something in you. She knew what she was doing when she made you Commander again. You've grown up Poe."

He scoffed, shaking his head.

"You're not the same man who mutinied on the Raddus. And Leia saw that. She knew how heavy it weighed on you. She saw everyday, how your choices changed after you watched Vice Admiral Holdo sacrifice herself to aid our escape. She made the right decision, Poe. She had been grooming you from the moment you became part of the Resistance. Perhaps you began your career as that hot headed flyboy, but now… now you are a leader.

"They look to you to make the decisions. And they know it's not easy. That's why they put their faith in you. Because they know you will risk just as much as they will to win this war."

"But what if I make the wrong decision? What if my choice gets us all killed?"

Larma sat up and leaned forward toward him. "Then that is our fate. We live or die together. That's all we can ask of you. That you are willing to give as much as we are."

Poe sat silently for a while, absorbing what she had said. And then suddenly he stood. Larma looked up at him.

"I need to find Rey," was all he said as he strode from the room; Commander D'acy at his heels.

.

His harried entrance into the command center had everyone turning to focus on him.

"Connix! Connix?! Rose! I need you both now. Finn! Finn? Where is Finn? Who's seen Finn?"

Everyone in the room looked around, but no one offered an answer.

"Well, find him! Tell him I need to speak to him. Now."

Kaydel and Rose, followed Poe and Larma into the briefing room, Leia had set up in the abandoned Rebellion base, when they first landed on Dantooine. They stood behind chairs at the conference table, watching Poe pace before them. Their frowns and side eye glances told each other no one had any idea what was going on.

When Finn burst into the room, loud and confused, Poe finally paused.

"What's going on? I had three people telling me you wanted me in the briefing room ASAP." Finn walked past the women and right up to Poe.

The men looked at each other for a long moment before either spoke.

"We need to find Rey." Poe announced, still looking at Finn.

There was a short pause before Finn spoke. "We need to find Rey?"

The both nodded to each other and turned to the women.

"We need to find Rey," Poe gave the order.

Rose, gripped the back of the chair. "What makes you think she wants to be found? After the way you both banished her, I doubt she'll be willing to fall back into the Resistance."

Both Poe and Finn had the grace to look embarrassed at Rose's question.

"She's stubborn," Finn agreed. "Maybe even more stubborn than you, Poe."

"But she's also reasonable. She's fought the First Order from the beginning. She never gave us up to them. Even with this Force Bond, she and Kylo Ren have," Kaydel supplied her thoughts.

"We treated her poorly, during a tragic time. When she needed friends, we turned our backs on her." Rose argued.

Poe nodded in agreement. "I'm not going to argue that. We were all suffering our own loss, and to discover she had been hiding that from us was hard to take."

"Both she and Leia, had been hiding it from us," Larma said softly.

Poe's and Finn's heads swiveled to the commander.

"Leia?" Finna asked, surprised.

Larma nodded. "I collected her journals after the funeral. I wanted to see if she had left any lists of her allies or planets we might be able to count on. I found her confession of the knowledge that Rey and her son, had a bond through the Force that was so strong it could connect them across the galaxy.

"She tried to explain it, using knowledge from the texts that Rey brought back with her, and from her own experience with the Force. From what I understand, it's involuntary. Something happened between the two of them that forged this bond, this link, and she isn't sure it can be broken. Even in death. She used the term soulmates. Two halves of one whole, in the Force. The balance, she explained. She and Luke had a similar bond, though it was nowhere near as strong as Rey and Kylo Ren's. But she hypothesized that because they were twins and shared a womb, the bond was formed then."

"Are you saying that Rey and Kylo Ren are twins?" Rose asked, shocked.

Larma had to smile. "No Rose, I'm sure if that were the case, Leia and Han would have known how many children they had. Rey is not Leia's daughter, nor is she related to the Skywalker family in any way."

"When he took her," Finn spoke up.

"What?" Poe asked, absently, trying to make sense of everything he had just been told.

"On Takodana, Ren took Rey back to his ship. He tortured her for information. That's when it had to have happened. The two of them coming together. Touching each other's minds. There was no other time they were ever together before or after," Finn tried to explain.

Larma shook her head. "While I believe you are correct in assuming it happened then, that is not the only time they were together."

"Wait, what?" Finn turned to her.

Larma D'acy took a deep breath. "According to Leia's journal, they met on the Supremacy, just before the Battle of Crait."

"But we were on the Supremacy just before the Battle of Crait," Rose interjected.

Another nod, and Larma continued. "Rey went to him, to try and turn him. She felt it was what was needed for the Resistance to win this war. Without Luke Skywalker, she was afraid we didn't stand a chance. Apparently, it was Kylo Ren who killed Snoke in order to save Rey. But when she tried to get him to join her, us, he refused. He asked her to stay with him. To rule the galaxy by his side. But she couldn't. They battled and that was when the light saber was split in two."

"And after all of that, she still returned and saved us," Kaydel whispered.

"There were so many times she could have given us up to the Supreme Leader and the First Order. So many reasons she could have left the Resistance and joined him. But she didn't. She returned, over and over, to help us. To do what she felt was right. And we just…" Poe sat down hard in the chair behind him.

"I feel like such Bantha poo doo," Rose whispered softly.

"We need to find her. If for no other reason than to apologize, we need to find her." Poe stood and began pacing again.

"Kaydel, Rose, do you think you can do it?" he paused and turned to the women.

"We don't even know where she went. And if we just send out a message hoping she'll hear it, the First Order could intercept it and find us first," Kaydel tried to reason.

"What about Chewy?" Rose asked.

"Yeah, he's not going to be very happy with us either," Poe agreed, beginning his pacing again.

Rose rolled her eyes. "I meant, she left with Chewy. Maybe we can send a message to Kashyyk, and see if someone there knows where he might be. If we can find him, then we have a good chance of finding Rey."

Poe laughed clapping his hands, and grabbed Rose by the shoulders. "Rose you're a genius!" He cried, planting a kiss full on her mouth, causing Finn to raise an eyebrow.

"Let's get started. We can get a message out for Chewy on his home planet and any watering hole he frequented. If we can find him, we can find Rey. And we need to find Rey, and Kylo Ren."

Four sets of eyes turned and stared silently at Poe for a moment. Each was remembering the message that had been sent to them from Hux. Then each nodded, and hurried out to get things started. They all knew, the faster they found Rey, the sooner the war might come to an end.

Poe stood and watched them all leave, wondering, once again, if he was making the right decision. 'The lesser of two evils' had been a phrase his parents had used all of his life. When he had questioned why it was right to kill the Imperial Stormtroopers or the Tie Fighter pilots, his mother would tell him, "They have chosen their path, just as we have chosen ours. We can either take their life and save another's, or we can do nothing and let the Empire control the galaxy. Our choice is the lesser of two evils, and it's something we have to learn to live with."

And she was right. But this time, he wasn't sure which was the lesser of the two evils. Shaking his head, he sucked in a deep breath, and strode out of the briefing room to put some other plans in motion.

.

She found herself slipping in and out of a type of twilight sleep. She would fall into a deep dreamless sleep, the first she had in days, and then be awoken, disoriented and immobile, only to fall back into the dark silence of sleep again. But the restful sleep wasn't to last. As the Dark Side crept into her vulnerable mind, dreams began to form. Barely visible at first, but slowly becoming more clear and solid, until she found herself drowning in the nightmare that never seemed to leave her. But this time it wouldn't release her from it's clutches as it usually did.

Day became night, sky ominous and filled with rain, cold and chilling to the bone. She was standing, she was sitting, she was looking up- to see someone, a warrior, take the full force of the lightsaber. He screamed and fell.

Battlefield then, all around her. Putting a hand to her mouth, she rose and turned. As she turned, she found herself confronted by seven tall, cloaked figures, dark and foreboding, all armed. Soaked and shivering, she stumbled backward, turning as she half fell.

"Rey."

It was that voice. His voice. Turning, she found the cloaked figures advancing on her. She tried to scoot backwards, her feet slipping in the mud. They paused, leaving one to continue toward her. Rain obscured her vision. The closer he moved, the more of him was revealed. He paused, his masked face shifting down to view her.

Her heart beat against her breast bone. This was not him. He was not her's. Fear blossomed and closed her throat. He took another step, pausing and bending towards her. The red saber held aloft, spitting and sizzling in the rain.

He reaches out, extending his black gloved hand. A demand, a plea, a hope- for something she couldn't give. Something she wouldn't give. But perhaps, she's been here before. If she just reaches out, not giving but taking, Maybe this time it will be different.

She lifts her hand. This time with trust and hope, wanting to break the cycle. Wanting him to understand he's not alone. She's almost there. Infinitesimal space between them, and yet an infinite universe. His body jerks and his hand falls away. A scythe extends from his chest towards her. She hears his screams as he falls to his knees. A masked warrior appears over his shoulder.

"Ben!"

His name echoed through the cavernous room. She was sitting up in bed, frantically searching for a scene that was not there. When a hand came down on her shoulder, she didn't think, she just reacted, using the Force to push the person away from her. As her mind cleared she found Altair rising from the floor against the far wall.

"Altair?" Her voice was still frantic and confused.

"I'm sorry, my lady. I tried to wake you from the nightmare, but it held you fast. I should not have touched you." He rose, rolling his shoulders, and his neck.

"I'm sorry!" she scurried from the bed, dragging the sheets off with her in her hurry to see if the knight were hurt.

"Please do not worry, Rey. It takes more than that to hurt me. I was just caught by surprise by your strength." He allowed her to inspect the back of his head. Her fingers combing through his dark hair to find any wounds.

She stepped back from him. "That makes both of us." She glanced at the wall, noting the deep indent of his large body in the stone wall.

"You have not always been this strong in the force?" He rubbed his shoulder and moved to a small table that held a decanter and glass. He poured, and turned handing Rey a glass of water.

Rey took a sip and shrugged, obviously unwilling to discuss what had awakened this new talent.

"I promised Master Kylo that I would let him know when you woke. If you will excuse me."

Rey nodded, wrapping her arms around herself. He gave her a short bow and walked from the bedroom into the reception room. His thoughts were so focused on letting Kylo Ren know that she was okay and awake, he didn't realize she had followed him. She watched as he stepped onto the lift and the doors shut behind him.

The dream played dimly in her memory still. Haunting her waking moments. It terrified her. And she knew, this was more than a dream. That this was a vision not yet come to pass.

She had seen it on Takodana when she had touched Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber. She had seen so many visions that moment. It was her awakening. And all had come to pass in one way or another. All, save this one. And she could not let that happen. She would not let that happen.

She felt him long before he stalked through the lift doors and across the room. His Force echo resounded through the castle and the room. He caught her up in his arms and held her tight to his chest.

"You are going to kill me woman," he growled against her throat.

His words struck too close for her.

"You will not die, my love. I will not let you," she whispered fiercely into his hair.

Startled at her words he pulled away to look at her. He studied her face, before carrying her into the bedroom and placing her back on the bed.

"What were you doing in the catacombs, Rey?" He cupped her face in his hands.

"I… I was drawn there. I don't know why. It was unbearable. The whispers and screams of the fallen Jedi. But then… then I saw a man… a ghost. He spoke to me."

"Who? Who spoke to you?"

She could feel his fear and anger begin to pulse beneath his skin.

"He called himself Qui Gon Jinn. He said he was a Master Jedi long before even your uncle was born."

She could see him trying to control his emotions.

"What did he want of you?"

She could hear the growl in his voice.

"He wanted to help me. To help us. He told me that the Force isn't black and white. It isn't good or evil. That the Force just is. And once I understand that, once I accept my darkness and my light that I will find my balance within it."

He pressed his full lips together, swallowing the words threatening to come out.

"So I did. I opened myself up to the Jedi who were tortured and murdered. I opened myself to the Force echoes that are still so potent below the castle."

"Rey!" he cried, his anger exploding from him.

Gently, she pressed her finger tips to his lips. "It was frightening at first. To allow myself to take in the dark. To not fight my own instincts. To accept that I have these emotions of anger, and fear and hate. But it was liberating to understand that I didn't not have to act on them, that I can acknowledge those darker feelings, but I can still walk in the light."

"He told me that we are two halves of a whole, in the Force. We are the balance. Soulmates. But in order to find balance together, we need to find balance within ourselves first. And to do that we need to acknowledge our darkness and our light.

"That is what I was doing in the catacombs. Trying to find the balance within myself. And when I did, I found that another door was open within me. Thane frightened me, and I somehow threw him with the Force. I threw him so hard that he cracked his head on the wall and it split open.

"I was terrified and yet I couldn't leave him there hurt. So I… I used the Force to heal him the way Altair and the text's explained. But it took so much of my Life Force, that I could barely make it back to the lift before I collapsed. When you found me I was nearly passed out from exhaustion."

"Exhaustion? Rey, do you understand what you did? What you could have done? You could have… Don't you understand? One lesson doesn't make you a master. Reading ancient texts doesn't mean you know how to heal safely. You could have…"

The words caught in his throat, as he turned away from her. His heart thudded trying to break from his chest. He couldn't say the words to her, let alone think them. Didn't she understand?

She sat there staring at him, the nightmare flashing through her head. Her breath coming out too quickly, her heart fluttering against her rib cage. She glanced down at her hands, twisting the sheet into knots. She understood. Knew what he wasn't saying. And she knew what she had to do. For herself and for him.

"I need to go." The words came out surprised. She looked up at him her eyes wide and pleading.

He spun on her and stopped dead. His eyes telling her everything he silence wasn't.