When she touched the control panel to open the hangar bay door, it opened immediately. She knew perfectly well that it did not have to be that way. If Alik wanted to stop her, he could have. He was letting her go. Bitter tears welled in her eyes. She had broken his heart and he was letting her go.

It wasn't that she didn't want Alik; she did, actually. Very much. At least, her body did. He was handsome and kind and, she realized now, he adored her. She knew perfectly well that sleeping with him would have been bliss. But Alik would never make her complete. What she had shared with Ben, even for those moments, was irreplaceable. To pretend otherwise, to make Alik believe that she loved him in return, would have been to lie. And it would've only been more and more unspeakably cruel as time went on.

She could have had a life on Naboo, perhaps something like the life she might've had. But, as much as she liked Alik, she knew that for her there was only one, and she thought but she might know how to get him back. And if it didn't work – well, then she prayed that she would enter the Force and see him again there.

The past may live in her and all the Jedi, but she could not live in the past. She could not be a Jedi she could not hide away on an island and drop herself off a cliff when the grief became too much to bear. She'd already had too many years alone; if Ben was not to be her future and finding him will be her cliff.

She shook her head to clear it of all those morose thoughts and climbed inside the Hope. She had nothing, nothing at all but what she'd come to Naboo with, and fewer friends. She shut the entry door and sat down in the cockpit. The Hope powered on without a problem and a short message flashed across its dashboard, telling her that Lump had arrived safely on Kashyyyk. Her heart skipped: she knew what she had to do now, and that she might never see him again.

Rey felt ill. For a moment she wondered if she should go back to the refresher to vomit, but she forced herself to press down the urge. She had to get off Naboo before there was any reason not to and she couldn't face Alik again. Not now.

The hangar doors opened automatically as the Hope rose into the air and hovered slightly for an instant; at last, she pushed the controls forward and the ship slipped into the open sky. Rey ignored the tears that were dripping down her cheeks and commanded her voice to be still when Naboo air control asked for her identification as she left. Would her hands ever stop shaking? She wasn't sure.

There was no one to talk to, so she talked out loud to herself. "A twisting ribbon that connects certain points in galaxy and allows travel among the points, but also through time." She pushed the Hope out of Naboo airspace and then out of the system entirely, into the blank space beyond, and gazed at the navicomputer. She needed to enter coordinates, to go somewhere, because she couldn't hang here like spacejunk for long. In the Mid Rim, someone would notice her and question her, and she'd have no place to go. She pushed the manual controls forward, urging the little starfighter into range of the hyperlane.

"A twisting ribbon," she repeated. She pictured the image in the Rammahgon where that ribbon wound and wound through the galaxy; what were those points it connected?

Ahch-To, surely. She thought of the cave where she'd begged to see her parents. The center of the planet had called to her and she had gone, willingly, to it. Straight to the Dark, because it was easier and faster than the alternative.

Exogol, of course. Darkest darkness there, the most awful memory she could conjure up. The face of a demon, reanimated and rotting. The only scrap of good on that planet fading into nothing. Her stomach lurched again.

Ossus. Luke had found the Rammahgon itself there, somewhere in a temple. If a temple, then a Jedi temple. And if a Jedi temple, then a chance it was connected by that ribbon. Ossus.

Her fingers flew over the navicomputer controls as she selected her destination. Ossus was outside the Known galaxy, of course, and the computer beeped dissonantly at her, rejecting her request. She tried again, selecting instead a tiny system on the further edge of the Outer Rim, Gannaria. The computer accepted her request, processed for a moment, and then the entire ship shuddered as she entered hyperspace and sped away from Naboo.

~/~/~

Gannaria appeared in front of her almost too quickly. She'd let herself slip into thought, but that was painful, so she'd instead found herself chanting the old mantra, the one from Leia, the one that pleaded for the Jedi of old to be with her. She hadn't heard their voices again – she wondered if she ever would – but her heart had calmed and her breath had returned and the tears had stopped, so that would have to be good enough.

It was virtually uninhabited, this small, dim planet before her. One side of the planet held a spice mine and the sentient population, while the other was a woodsy expanse. She chose that side, and aimed the little starfighter toward it.

A crackle on the comm system surprised her: "Pegasus Starfighter, identify yourself." She honestly had not anticipated any kind of air control here. What could she do?

"This is the Hope," she replied, willing herself to stay calm. "Just looking for a place to rest." That was true enough, she supposed.

"Military vehicles are not permitted on Gannaria," replied the voice. It was male, but not human. Twi'lek, perhaps: the Hutts likely controlled the mine, and they loved their enslaved Twi'leks. "Move on."

That was not acceptable. The spark of anger rose up in her again. She finally had a plan, and she'd be damned if she'd let a spice worker deter her now. "This is not a military vehicle," she managed, between clenched teeth. Obviously it was a starfighter, but she was not military. She hadn't even received a rank in the Resistance; she'd refused their offers, thinking about the fallen Jedi Order, which had given up its mandate as peacekeepers to fight in a war. Her role in the war was over now; she'd defeated Palpatine and all the Sith, and she'd refused to claim the failed title of Jedi. She chose instead the ancient way, the path between.

"You will let me pass," she said, her voice little more than a whisper. Silence met her on the other end. "You will let me pass," she said again, and she drew a deep breath, forcing herself to calm.

"You may pass," said the voice, and the crackle of the comm system told her he'd hung up. She let go of the breath, trembling a little, and steered the Hope down to the wooded surface below.