Author's Update: So for everyone who celebrated the holiday I hope it was a fun one! For those who do not, I hope you had an awesome weekend! New update to start off your Monday.

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars. Never have, never will. I simply play in their world.

"Know your own darkness

so you can see:

you are born in your ruin.

You are so terribly beautiful,

so unbearably human."

-Mia Hollow

Rey

My hands shaking on the controls and I wish it was only exhaustion causing the tremors.

But I know the truth.

Grief is the drowning tide in my soul and tears run down my face as I punch in the coordinates.

I'm really doing this.

Leaving the man I love behind knowing I will never see him again.

"Ben," I whisper his name as the TIE roars to life and lifts from the ground, "I love you."

I'll find you in my next life, I promise.

I scrub at the tears and yank hard on the controls. The TIE screams through the atmosphere leaving this watery world far behind.

Only the cold comfort of space in my view now.

Once I imagined myself among the stars certain I would never truly belong anywhere.

How foolish I've been. So damn scared of being alone I pushed away everyone who tried to get close to me.

Waiting for them to leave and disappear just like my parents did so long ago.

It was too late to go back and apologize. I was out of time for such luxuries.

I only prayed my sacrifice would make amends for all the mistakes I've made up until now.

Rey...

My hand on navigation when I hear the voice calling out to me. A whisper in the Force and I pause, listening.

Rey...

"Master Skywalker?"

It couldn't be. He died becoming one with the Force. I know Leia told me there were Masters who transcended death and were able to communicate through the Force but in my months of training not once did I ever hear their voices.

Why now of all times?

New coordinates appear in navigational without me touching them.

I know the star system and the planet.

Acht-To.

"No," I mutter as I try to erase them and set for Exegol, "I have no time for this. I need to-"

The controls jerk out of my hand and my heading is redirected.

"Master Skywalker! I have to do this!"

It's no use the controls are locked and the coordinates won't change no matter how many buttons I push.

I grit my teeth and grab the stick.

"Fine, looks like you're not giving me a choice. I'll go."

Perhaps it was just my imagination but I swear I hear laughter inside my cockpit.

But I never heard Luke Skywalker laugh so it can't be him.

Can it?

Acht-To.

I never thought I would return back to this desolate place.

Not after the way Master Skywalker and I parted.

...stare into his eyes, a protective fury over Ren making me shake and I wonder who the real monster is on this island...

"Did you try to kill him? Did you try to kill Kylo Ren!"

...rage and disappointment as I stand over him...this is no Jedi...just a broken, old man waiting to die...

I circle the island until I find a place on the cliff to land.

I am not climbing all those stairs again.

Nor do I have any desire to run into the caretakers. I can only imagine what they would have to say about seeing my return.

No doubt try to run me off, not that I didn't deserve their ire considering the mess I made in the few short weeks I stayed here.

There in the distance a small meadow behind the huts. Large enough for a landing area.

Throbbing behind my eyes, a headache with teeth I can't afford to have right now. I shut down the engine and jump out of the craft.

There is no one here. Just piles of rocks, the wind and sounds of life.

Crashing waves and cries of the porgs in the distance.

I cup my hands around my mouth.

"Master Skywalker!"

My voice echoing through the air, catching the wind and soaring.

Nothing but pounding ocean against the rocks.

"MASTER SKYWALKER!".

The embers of my temper which I thought had burned out on Kef Bir stir to life.

"No need to scream. I'm not deaf."

His voice from behind I backpedal and stumble over a rock, landing hard on my butt.

Master Skywalker standing in front of the TIE with his arms folded, looking far too amused at my humiliating display.

"Ow."

I sit up, rubbing my abused hide. He has the audacity to chuckle at me and I shoot him an evil glare.

He looks the same as when I first met him. Dark brown cloak flowing from his shoulders, beige tunic and pants, tan leather belt around his waist. His mechanical hand weather-worn.

Everything the same so long as you ignored the fact there is a blue glow emanating around him.

Maybe I should be impressed or in awe but I'm not. A part of me is still back on Kef Bir, too numb to care about anything but Ben.

"You could have warned me."

"You should learn to pay more attention to your surroundings."

I snap my mouth shut stopping the retort on the tip of my tongue.

Ben said just as much when we fought on the Death Star.

Ben...a sharp, piercing ache where my heart is suppose to be.

But I don't have one anymore. I gave it to him when I left.

Where I am headed next I have no need of it.

Skywalker sighs and shakes his head at me.

"You remind me far too much of my old self. Get up Rey."

I sigh and decide arguing with a man already dead isn't going to accomplish much. I shove my pride off to the side and do as I'm told.

"You look like hell."

Skywalker next to me as I brush dirt and gravel from my clothing.

Now he grows a sense of humor.

"Tell me you didn't hijack my TIE just to make snarky comments."

"No I didn't. Come with me."

Again I hear amusement in his gravely voice. Being dead has lightened his mood considerably.

However I'm not the same naïve girl who came looking for the 'legendary' Jedi more than a year ago.

My awe, my blind adoration for him has greatly diminished. I can finally see him clearly.

Not a legend. Not some mythical creature who, with a wave of his hand, would restore peace to the galaxy.

He's was only a man. Fallible and imperfect as the rest of us.

I fold my arms across my chest.

"I'm not going anywhere until you tell me why I'm here."

Skywalker cocks an eyebrow at me and I grit my teeth, nostalgia gripping hard.

He looks so much like Ben when he does that.

Or maybe it's Ben who looks like him.

Tears prickle and I want so much for him to be here I can barely breath with it.

I turn away so Skywalker can't see the pain I'm desperately trying to hide.

A hand on my shoulder and I glance up, startled.

There is no ridicule, no scorn on his weathered face.

No sign of his former impatience only compassion.

"I'm sorry Rey. In my arrogance I left you with a burden you should never have had to bear on your own."

His apology leaves me stunned and a kernel of regret grows at my initial hostility towards him.

"I-"

He shakes his head and motions for me to follow.

"No, now is not the time for you to talk. Come with me. I have something you need to see."

Blindly I follow behind, my anger nothing more than ash. We head to a familiar hut and I look over in the distance to a partially crumbling one.

The caretakers didn't rebuild the hut Skywalker destroyed when he interrupted Ben and myself.

So much was said and done that day. It changed the foundations of my life.

Ben you'll forgive me won't you? I'm sorry I couldn't stay.

I shake my head and duck beneath the doorway and into the gloom of Master Skywalker's old dwelling.

Dampness in the air, the scent of rot and decay a pungent odor.

"Why are we here?"

"Because of those."

He points to the far wall and I nearly jump out of my skin when bricks tumble loose, revealing a hidden slot in the wall.

"Go on. Take them."

I look at him and he arches a silver eyebrow at me. "Don't tell me you've stopped your thieving ways. I already know about the Jedi texts you took from the sacred tree."

Scalding heat on my face but I don't apologize.

I cross the room and remove the bulky item wrapped in a waterproof skin.

The leather ties are knotted tight and I take them over to the warped table to unwrap it.

The cloth falls away revealing two, leather bound books and a...lightsaber.

I just barely stop myself from grabbing the saber. I remember what happened when I touched the dagger and the metal armband Jannah was wearing.

The thousand voices of ghosts on the Death Star.

My fingers hover over it and I sense a familiar resonance.

"This," I look at Skywalker, "is Leia's..."

A faint trace of a smile as if I've passed a lesson he set for me.

"Yes. Before she dedicated her life to the rebuilding the Republic she trained with me."

"But the general isn't a Jedi."

"No she isn't," a sigh akin to regret from him and he tips his head to the books, "the red one is Leia's journal. A record of her time with me."

I look at the book and I would be lying if I said I wasn't sorely tempted by what was written inside.

But I'm sure what she wrote is private and I leave it alone.

"What's this one?"

I point at the grayish-blue tome. The words faded, a sense of great age to it.

"My shame." I glance sharply at him even as I reach for it, "go on. You'll understand soon enough."

A sense of apprehension in my gut I gently pick up the book and it falls open in the middle and I'm surprised I can read it clearly.

"Gray Jedi have been with us since the beginning. Force users who wield both light and darkness. They are the Mavericks. Difficult to control but valuable members of the Order...it is to them we give the title 'Sentinel'. They go where we, the Council of Jedi, cannot."

My thoughts blank as I stare at the words I just read.

I look up at Skywalker and understand what he meant by shame. This book, he had it hidden away all this time.

"You knew," Anger burns like acid in my throat as I stare at the 'legendary' Luke Skywalker, "you knew there were other like Ben...like myself out there!"

This strange duality we carry, the light and dark side, it wasn't some random aberration.

"Yes," I hear the apology in his voice and I am not the least bit mollified by it, "they were neither Sith nor Jedi but the balance in between. They existed outside the normal structure. Most were informants," a ghost of a smile with little warmth, "perhaps 'spies' is more appropriate. But they were also fighters who went where diplomacy wasn't an option."

I don't understand why he thought he had to hide this information.

I'm on my feet, the book clutched in my hand as questions tumble through my mind so fast I can barely catch them all.

"Then why were you so afraid of the darkness in Ben?" I stare at Skywalker and wonder if Ben wasn't right in believing his uncle cared more about being a Jedi than family.

"It's a part of him...just like it's a part of me."

If Ben had read this, if he known...

"I feared the legacy he carried in his blood." Skywalker breaking through my turbulent thoughts and I feel the sadness in him, the weight of his grief and regrets.

The secrets he felt he needed to keep at any cost.

Despite my anger at his deception there is a part of me sympathizing.

How was I so different from him? Didn't I also believe I needed to keep secrets for the greater good?

"Ben isn't just a Solo. He is also a Skywalker and within him the dark legacy of my father, his grandfather. That power turned Anakin Skywalker, a good man, into a monster. I didn't want to see him go down the same path."

His quiet words brush away my anger leaving only weary sadness in its wake.

For Luke.

I can't imagine what it must have been like for him, struggling to be the only Jedi and having to decide the fate of thousands, if not millions, of lives.

For Ben.

For the lost, little boy I had glimpsed in him when our memories merged.

If only Skywalker hadn't been so afraid...

"He could have been the bridge between the Jedi and the galaxy," I speak softly, brushing away tears slipping free from my control as I look up at Skywalker, "instead your fear drove him to believe he was a monster...so that's what he forced himself to become."

"I know." Luke straightens and I see in him the man he must have been before fear took control of his life, "I can't fix my mistakes with Ben but I can stop you from making the same."

"I don't understand."

"Sacrificing your life isn't the answer. You're still running away. Just like I did."

His callous tone shocks me. I thought he, of all people, would understand why I'm doing this.

"I'm not running! I'm-"

"Yes you are. You think dying is going make everything better? How?"

My vision blurs the longer I stare at the book in my hand.

"I don't know," I whisper, "but it's all I have left. I nearly killed Ben, betrayed my friends and turned my back on everything I was taught on what it means to be a Jedi. What else can I do but make amends with my life?"

"Rey you're just as big an idiot as I was at your age."

I snap my head up and blink away the moisture.

Skywalker is smiling at me, compassion and rueful amusement in his gaze.

"Being a Jedi doesn't mean you automatically have every answer at your fingertips. The best teacher, as Master Yoda reminded me, is failure. Learn from your mistakes, grow from them. Don't keep repeating them."

"But...how? I don't-"

"You're still running from who you are. Being a Palpatine doesn't mean your life is over."

I yelp and drop the book, stumbling away from him.

"How did you-I don't-"

He sighs and picks it up, wiping the dirt off of it.

"Try to be a bit more gentle with this will you. It's old. Yes I'm aware of your bloodline, so is Leia."

My world is spinning and I close my eyes against the madness.

"So why?"

"Why what?"

"Why did she offer to teach me? Knowing what I am-"

"Because your bloodline doesn't determine who you are as a person. I lost sight of that when I trained Ben. My sister chose not to repeat my mistake with you. She never doubted your light, the goodness of your soul."

Light. Darkness. Sith and Jedi.

So many names, so many titles but is this all there is to the universe? An endless struggle to determine what is good and what is evil?

A memory from a lifetime ago reemerges.

...sparks like falling stars around us. Scattered, broken bodies of the Praetorian litter the ground as I stare at Ben, vividly alive and I want to run to him, this feeling so overwhelming I'm afraid of what it might be...

...his hand held out, not a demand but in supplication as his passionate words resonate deep within me...

"He told me...on the Supremacy we could have let it all go. The Sith. The Jedi. We could have started something new, the two of us together."

I had almost forgotten our conversation that day.

So certain I had been he would turn I dismissed his words, believing I held all the answers.

If I had listened to him...the visions we had, of us being together, would they have become reality instead of this nightmare my life was now?

"Did he?" Skywalker breaking through my thoughts and I glance up at him, he's staring at me with the strangest expression his face.

"My nephew may have had more wisdom than I gave him credit for."

I bristle at his comment.

"You always underestimated him. He's not the person you believe him to be."

A gentle chuckle and he's at my side placing the book into my hand.

A strange tingling like a shock when his hand closes over mine.

"You may be right. But then I've never been in love so I wouldn't know."

I yank my hand back and nearly drop the damn book again.

His words are disquieting but I don't refute them. I've given up guessing how he knows things without me saying a word.

"Rey," reluctantly I give him my attention, "only you can decide where your path leads."

"I've already decided. I'm going to Exegol and no one, not even you Master Skywalker, can stop me."

Perhaps he's right and I am running but at least I'm running towards something and not away.

He's at the table where I left the items and he doesn't look irritated with me. He looks almost...proud.

"I thought as much. Take this with you then."

He tosses Leia's lightsaber at me and instinctively I grab for it.

A cascade of memories invading my mind as my fingers close around cool metal...

...gentle humming as blue light flares at the end, a sense of joy...of trepidation...

...my brother's voice urging me to face my fear...to not give up...

...hand to my stomach, a vision of a child with dark black hair and sad, lonely eyes...

… "Mother! I don't want to die! Mother!"...

...the lightsaber falling from my grip, horror at the vision the Force has shown me...my child, my son...dying...

… "Leia? What is it? What happened?"...

...know he doesn't understand why I turned away from completing the training but for my unborn son I will do anything, risk anything, to keep him safe...to stop my vision from becoming reality...

...last day here on Yavin and I close my journal. I will give it to Luke and when the time comes he will give it to my son...

...Rey...trust in yourself...we're all waiting for you...

Tears, hot and scalding run down my face and fall onto the saber. I heard her, she was speaking to me not from the past but now...I felt her love and her confidence in me.

She still believes in me.

I look up at Skywalker and grip her saber tight.

"Keep it." A secretive smile on his face, "You're going to need it."

I give up trying to figure him out.

Gently I place the book back on the table with Leia's diary.

"Those are yours. Take them with you."

"No Master Skywalker, they're not. These belong to Ben. He's the Jedi the galaxy needs, not me."

It was always him. If our paths had been a little different...

"Good-bye Master Skywalker. If you find Ben," I bite my lip and let out a trembling breath, "tell him...he was right."

"Right about what?"

He sounds suspicious but I have no more time for lengthy explanations.

"We could have been more."

I run out of the hut before he can say another word, Leia's saber clipped to my belt as the cockpit snaps open.

The wayfinder glows faintly as I pull up navigational and find the marked coordinates for Exegol.

No more distractions, no more putting this off.

I know my path. It's been waiting for me my entire life.

You wanted me to come to you Palpatine, so I am. But I promise this will not end the way you want it.