Rey's relief at the arrival of her friends was extraordinary, but her relief at getting the Force back was even more so. She could see again. And while she was truthful in her statement about wanting to get out of there, she knew there was something she had to do first. She led Finn and Chewie into the hall outside the room she had been kept, lightsaber before her. Finn nudged her and nodded down toward the right, and she knew that was the direction they had come from. However, Rey knew she needed to go left.
"I need to say goodbye to my host, first," she told them wryly. "You can come if you want. I'm sure he'd love to meet you." She didn't even try to hold back her sarcasm. She was starting to sound more and more like Poe, she thought.
"Hell, I'd love to meet him, too," Finn said darkly, and Chewie echoed his sentiment.
With a grim smile, Rey led the way down the corridor to the left. The few security they came upon may have been better prepared now than they were when Finn and Chewie first broke into the place, but they were still not prepared for a Jedi. Finn and Chewie both stood back and let her breeze through them with ease. The tight confines of the hallways only made it easier for Rey to cut through them, and it didn't take long for the survivors to figure out it was suicide to try and stop her; they dropped their weapons and ran.
Rey turned another corner and entered a large room with a long table in the center. Several men, all human, were standing on the far side of the table, watching the door Rey entered through with trepidation. Rey recognized the two actors/apprentices among the group. She stood there, Finn and Chewie coming in behind her and flanking her, watching them with amusement. She drew in the Force around her, filtering out the darkness, and looked at them individually. Finally, she said, "Leave. Now." Without any hesitation, they scattered.
Finn leaned in to her. "You're letting them go?"
"Not a one of them has any Force sensitivity," she explained. "They're just puny men with big egos. As annoying as that is, it's not worth a death sentence."
She looked at the one man that remained. The only one who wasn't scared of her. The only one who should have been.
Rumam looked at Finn and Chewie. "Another Force user?" he said, not really asking a question. "And a Wookiee, naturally Force sensitive. I had hoped I had killed the Wookiee. I had no idea I had to worry about the traitor."
Rey smiled. "I know," she told him. "I was counting on that."
They stared at each other for a long time. Rey could feel both of her friends tensing up behind her, but she remained calm. Her tired legs, her full bladder, her aching back… none of it mattered right now. This man had to die, but she wasn't going to execute him.
That wasn't the Jedi way.
With an abruptness that made both Finn and Chewie jump, Rumam sent a virbroblade hurling toward Rey, then brought up a blaster with a quickness that belied his age. Rey sent the blade flying off to the side with a swipe of the Force while both Chewie and Finn fired their weapons. Neither would know whose shot had been the one to kill the pseudo-Sith, and that was the way it should be.
Rey sighed and closed down her lightsaber. She wasn't worried about anyone else in the temple. In fact, she could sense very few people left.
Suddenly, she was alerted to something else far more important. She turned and looked at Finn, who was just holstering his blaster. "You called in the Resistance, didn't you?"
Finn looked a bit embarrassed. "Well, I had to. I couldn't feel you anywhere and I sure as heck wasn't going to trust the locals to help." He gave her a side-long look. "Why?"
Rey returned the look. "Poe's here. And he's not happy."
As she headed out of the room, she saw Chewie and Finn give each other a look. "We are so dead," Finn mumbled.
Rey laughed as she led them back through the corridors they had come through. "Why do you say that?" she asked. "I'm the one who made all the bad decisions," she said. "The only choice you made on your own was to rescue me. If he's going to be mad at anyone, it's going to be me." She frowned as she remembered her half-dream from earlier.
They came to the exit just in time to see the last of the speeders zooming away from the temple, with some people on foot racing off across the landing field, not willing to wait for public transportation to come and get them.
Finn looked back at the temple. "Should we do something about this place?" he asked.
Chewie was all for burning it to the ground.
Rey shook her head. "It's not like there aren't places like this scattered all over Coruscant," she said. "Burning it won't get rid of the Dark Side energy imbued in this place."
Suddenly a tremendous roar shook the ground they were standing on and three X-Wing fighters shot by overhead. Rey watched as they flew upward, the two on the side peeling off and continuing their circuit of the area, having already flown through the mess of traffic that was Coruscant's atmosphere (without assistance, she was sure) to get to this calm area. The third looped up and around, spinning back toward the temple. Rey started to run forward, watching as it decreased its speed significantly on its decent, heading right for her. The landing gear deployed at the last minute and Rey stopped sharply just as the X-Wing touched down not 20 yards in front of her. She waited, breathing hard, tears forming in her eyes. Damn hormones, she thought to herself.
Then the canopy was up and Poe jumped out without removing his helmet or gloves. He stalked toward her, taking off the helmet and dropping it on the concrete landing field. His gloves followed. Rey was vaguely aware of BB-8 rolling along behind him. She let the tears fall as she threw herself into his arms.
"I'm sorry," she cried. "I'm so sorry. You were right. I should have listened to you, Poe!" Arms tight around his neck, she gripped the flight suit over his shoulders as if she was never going to let go. "I should have listened to you."
He stayed silent, just holding her.
Rey felt Chewie and Finn come up behind her and heard BB-8 settle himself at their feet. She sniffled and moved back, scared to look Poe in the eye. When she did, the tears she saw there made her cry even harder. "Stop," he whispered, bringing his forehead in to touch hers. He brought a hand up to wipe her tears. "It's okay."
She took a deep breath. Where was the confident Jedi that just wiped out a Sith temple, she wondered? When she looked at her husband again, his eyes were soft and adoring, nothing like the eyes she had seen in her dream from earlier. Any anger he had felt was long gone.
Poe looked past her at Finn. "So, want to tell me what the hell happened here?"
"Well, we found the little girl and her family," Finn started.
Chewie continued, explaining how the little girl was being manipulated by a Dark Force user, a survivor of Exegol.
"He used Talia's family to get me out of the house, then he and his cronies drugged both Chewie and Rey and they took her," Finn went on.
Chewie added that they wanted the baby.
Rey finally interrupted. "But Finn and Talia figured out where I was and he and Chewie came and rescued me."
Poe stood there, looking from one to the other in confusion. "I know there's a lot more to this, but I think it can wait." He looked past them toward the temple. "Where's Goldenrod?"
Rey had to smile at Poe's nickname for C-3PO. Ever since he found out that's what Han had called the droid, he has started using it, too.
"He's babysitting the Falcon," Finn told him.
"And the wannabe Sith?"
"Dead," Rey announced.
"Good," Poe said. "Any others we need to worry about?"
Rey thought for a moment. "There may be other survivors, but I highly doubt we'll need to worry about them." She paused. "Not for a long while, anyway."
"So, we can go home now?" Poe asked. He still had an arm around her, and she wondered if he would be able to let her go long enough for them to get home.
"Yes, please," Finn said. He looked exhausted.
"We have to set things up with Talia's family, first," Rey told them.
They all looked at her with disbelief.
"What?" she queried. "She helped save my life. And she's tremendously gifted. I'm not leaving her here."
Poe sighed. "Okay, but you guys get back to the Falcon, first," he said. "I'll meet you there and come with you to speak with this girl and her family."
Rey smiled. "That sounds perfect," she told him.
He looked at her intently, then he placed the hand not wrapped around her shoulders on her belly and kissed her. She heard Finn and Chewie mumble and wander off toward the speeder. "Just take your time," Finn called out. "We'll wait!"
A/N: So Finn and Chewie get to be the heroes in this exciting ending. Only, it's not the ending, yet, or the most exciting part! Wait until the next and last chapter, coming Wednesday! Thank you for reading!