I think, like a lot of us, I lost steam on this part of the fandom. And I know I'm not going to complete it.
But I had this fic plotted out and so I wanted to at least give an outline of what was supposed to happen. This was all plotted back in 2016 and I'm a bit amused that I had some similar thoughts as to what actually happened in canon only I think I like my take better ;)
Apologies for the mess, my plotting is often stream of consciousness!
If this gives at least one reader closure then it was worth it.
The next couple of chapters would have focused on Luke and Rey training. Luke explains his view on compassion love and attachment and Rey questions him on her mother. Luke is cagey on her mother, but admits to having loved Han.
Rey eventually talks about Jessika by admitting there's this pilot, which Luke smiles about. Luke reveals her birthname after she asks about it.
It was Padme.
Rey constructs her first lightsaber, there were to be foreshadowing about the first Jedi temple as well as the Starforge.
Rey gets a vision and goes back
"do you think I'm ready"
"Only you can be certain of that"
Luke hands her his lightsaber and tells her that she'll understand what to do with it when the time comes.
Rey arrives in time to find the base under attack by the First Order, gets liea and Finn on board the falcon before phasma can kill them.
Rey, hearing luke's saber calling to her, takes it out and brings it to leia. "A gift from Luke. From my father." Leia has a sad expression on her face and Rey asks her if she knew. Leia suspected, but if her feelings were true she wanted to hear it from him.
At the new base, Rey shows off her lightsaber for Finn and poe, we get a recovery chapter focused on the trio before Jessika lands. there's kissing.
Rey showing Leia some of what she's learned, Leia muses it was her choice not to train with luke
"do you regret it?"
"Knowing what I know now, yes."
After going quiet, Rey asks if Ren can be redeemed. Leia stares into the past, then nods her head "It's the only thing I have left to believe in"
"Luke can train you, you should go to him."
"My place is here."
Rey then offers to show Leia what she can.
Poe, Finn and Jess watch Leia and Rey duel. Poe is impressed, Finn a little terrified and Jess is just sad. They get it out of her that she's depressed about Rey being both a Jedi and a Skywalker. That they can't be together, in all the stories Jedi are forbidden love.
"I can't do that to her. It's not worth it."
Rey catches Poe and Finn in a compromising position and runs off. They find her studiously cleaning the falcon's engines and they all talk it out. Finn asks her what she's going to do about Jess. Confused, Rey asks what they mean. They explain what Jess told them and she rolls her eyes. confronts her, is like "the only one who gets to decide what's right for me is me. Did you ever think that maybe the jedi were wrong? the order can come back, but it can't be the same."
They get intel on a major first order offensive on the republic's new capitol. With most of the fleet destroyed there's not as much defenses as they'd like. poe concocts a plan that's basically 'capture a star destroyer and use it to defend the planet'
With the new republic safe for now, rey has another vision. She almost sleeps with Jess but decides she's not ready for it. Returns to luke.
"I saw something. A massive fleet, seemingly out of nowhere"
"there's little time," Luke replies. "The answer I was looking for finally came to me"
they board the falcon, and them, chewie and R2 jump to light speed. Come into orbit around a planet. "Yavin 4?"
"there's something here, it's calling to me. Neither light, nor dark" They find an old temple, explore it, dark and light visions, ends with finding revan's mask.
Episode I ends.
Episode II continues in the same document.
Rey has a vision, someone talking to her, follows a path, searching, sees the starforge again, and that fleet.
Among other things, they encounter an older Ezra, implies that Kanaan is dead (lol), Ezra leads them to a holocron.
They follow a star chart found with the mask. Eventually finds an abandoned temple on a force strong world. Finds satele shan's holocron. satele implies that they're all related, teaches Rey a few tricks with a dual saber and gives her advice.
Next chapter cuts back to finn and poe and jessika in the middle of trying not to die, jessika gets shot down. Poe and Finn come up with a plan to rescue her. Ren shows up and messes up the rescue mission. Finn loses an eye but they escape. ren follows, there's a battle at the new base and they have to evacuate.
With the evacuation as a backdrop, Leia fights her son. Ren takes her hand, but hesitates when striking the killing blow. Poe pulls Leia to safety, and Ren picks up Anakin's lightsaber. He lets them escape.
We go back to Luke and Rey's Adventures. They accidentally let an ancient Sith Lord out of Cryo. there's a brief fight, the woman talking about how light and dark are the same and to sway too far into either direction throws the force out of balance. The dark side can be used for power, and knowledge, but it's how you use what you learn that counts.
She admired revan, but the duality of light and dark tore him apart because he didn't let them coexist. Foreshadows rey facing the exact same issue. Rey asks her to teach her. she replies that experience is the only teacher worth a damn and she just wants to find a nice place to settle down and 'perhaps there's a queen in need of a consort and advisor'
one of the knights of ren tracks them here, the Sith talks her down and suggests she might be better off with her. The woman leaves with her.
the sith departs, but not before a word of caution
"Its a cycle. Jedi, and the sith. empires and republics. Consider that you owe the galaxy nothing. I know you're angry. I can feel it. You can used that anger. Just don't let it control you. that's the weakness of the dark side"
"won't you help us?"
"I'm a relic. Perhaps it's time to try something new."
Rey is like 'did she just ...?' and Luke is like 'sometimes you can weild more power with words than you ever could with a lightsaber or force lightning.'
"we're just going to let an ancient sith lord fly away?"
"Whatever she is, she stopped being sith long before she was frozen"
"So what's the lesson then?"
"Labels, like looks, can be decieving"
Rey is drawn to the revan mask, puts it on, has Revan flash backs, hears a woman calling for her, blacks out. Luke finds her and puts her to bed, locks up the revan mask. explains who revan was, finally
"so we're looking for him?"
"we're looking for something he once discovered, thousands of years ago"
luke suddenly has a force thing, "leia" and changes course to find leia. Siblings are reunited, now sharing the trademark skywalker robohand.
Rey and Jess finally make love. Lots of moments just the two of them.
While laying in bed with a sleeping jess, rey has a feeling in her gut. She thinks about what the Sith said, about using both dark and light and letting them coexist. Breaks into the locked box and takes the revan mask. Steals jess's fighter and takes off. luke knows where she's going. he, leia, poe, finn and jess go after her
Rey finds kylo.
kylo 'i feel the light calling to me' rey 'then let it in!'
They duel, epic duel with lightning and rain and using the force, Rey wearing the revan mask and kylo unmasked for most of the fight, the falcon blows a hole in the ground between them and kylo escapes again.
Rey turns to face the others, seething with dark side energy. She challenges luke, who refuses to fight. She charges at him, but Luke stands calmly. The saber is in his face, so close, but Rey hesitates. The lightsaber shuts off, she falls to her knees. Luke kneels, taking the mask off of Rey's face.
Rey is streaked with tears. "I wanted to KILL him, and then I couldn't stop myself, and then I wanted to kill YOU."
"that's the power of the dark side. When you draw on it, it twists all the good in you."
"But it's in me, I can feel the darkness there."
"that runs in our family" luke cups her cheek. "but so does goodness, so does the light. We'll find the balance together."
There's a scene where ren contacts snoke to tell him what happened, snoke is like 'it doesn't matter. we've found it, and it is everything we thought it could be'
Rey is curled up in her room back at the resistance base. Jess comes to find her, but she shirks away. Frowning, jess just sits next to her, letting her make the choice to come closer. Rey shifts around, puts her head in jess's lap.
"I'm sorry. For taking your x-wing. For... everything"
Jess smooths her hair down. "Do you want to hear a story?"
Rey nods.
"A long time ago, there were two jedi. One who wore a mask, and a woman who didn't. Both were exceptionally powerful."
"revan..."
"Yes. Revan wanted to protect the galaxy. They led a group of jedi to save the republic. But they fell to the dark side. They returned with a fleet and started to conquer the Republic. But Revan was betrayed, and then captured. Revan returned to the light, and stopped the dark jedi. But the woman they loved, she fell too. But she came back to the light."
"They'd never be the same. I'm..not the same anymore."
"But that doesn't mean you're not a good person, or that ultimate they weren't good people. That mask...there's a lot of the dark side tied up in it. I don't fully understand it, but I'd wager credits on that. Putting it on brings you closer to the dark side, but you didn't have something to keep you rooted here, in the light."
"how come you're not a jedi?" rey laughs.
"No no, I just like reading and hearing all the stories."
"So is there a point to the story?"
"Find something to root yourself here. To Finn, to me and poe and your dad. Something that when you touch it or when you feel it's weight you remember."
finn/rey moment, rey thinks about what jess said, and tells finn about it.
'you've always kind of been my anchor but I can't really tie you to my wrist, finn."
So finn gives her something to wear around her wrist, tells her that maybe you can't tie me to yourself but when you look at that, you remember me and you remember poe and the rest of us. And that's your 're your anchor, rey.
"what if it happens again, what if I get angry again"
"so what? I get angry sometimes. Anger is healthy, it's natural, use the anger, just don't let it control you. Just like when you're scared"
"Funny, someone told me that once"
"yeah?"
"Not sure she's the one I want to take advice from" kisses his cheek "Thanks"
Episode II ends here
Episode III would have been the shortest and is the most fragmented in my plotting doc.
Rey meditates and connects with Revan, gets some advice from them, heavy implication that Shmi is a direct descendent of Revan and Bastilla. Revan's force ghost tries to help rey find that balance between light and dark, with some help from Luke.
Revan is a transwoman. "I thought you were a man" "so did the council, they were wrong"
Rey and Jess advance their relationship and share in mutual PTSD. during her meditations she also connects with her grandfather.
"we've been watching you. You're walking a dangerous path, one that will cause you and those you love great grief"
Rey doesn't know what to do and anakin tells her that there's someone who can finish her training, someone who is not a jedi, but is not a sith, either
tells luke she has to go, and she knows he hasn't finished training her but anakin told her to find someone. luke understands finds ahsoka, trains with her.
ahsoka talks about the failings of the jedi, but that the jedi are needed. "It was just their hubris and fear that led to their downfall. don't give into fear, and don't give into arrogance." "my grandfather led me to you." "I know. he was my master"
At some point, Obi, Anakin and Yoda Force Ghosts visit them.
Snoke arrives and turns Rey to the dark side. Ahsoka pulls an obi-wan and lets Rey kill her.
Snoke and Luke duel, and Luke is killed.
Kylo is struggling with a pull to the light, and Anakin's lightsaber is only making that worse. They jump to light speed and arrives to see a fleet that stretches on and on, with the Starforge in the distance.
It's Anakin who ultimately gets through to Ren, even if only for a short time
Ren reconnects with his mother and breaks down.
There was to be a battle between Rey and Kylo again, with thier respective roles reversed from their earlier fight. Rey dark and Kylo (almost) Light
it's rey's friends who pull her back to the light, with some help from luke's voice
Rey recieves coordinates from the Sith they freed.
"you asked if I could help you. The first order is brash, with no consideration for the long term. You need a fleet. An army. and I know where to start"
they discover the infinite engine on Nar Shadda, and use that to build a fleet capable of withstanding the first order invasion. Both the engine and the forge rely on the force, and the starforge is soaked in the dark side.
Finn begins to use the force, I had notes here to make sure that this was properly foreshadowed. He defends an injured Leia with her lightsaber and she will take him on as her pupil, with a little help from Luke.
During the battle between the first order and the newly boosted Republic forces, anakin appears before Ren again. Between him and Rey they return him to the light and rey avenges her father by killing snoke. Ren uses his own life force to destroy the Starforge, ending the first order threat once and for all.
To have darkness inside is to simply be human, and rey finally accepts that.
The fic ends with your typical star wars celebrations, but the epilogue has Rey, Jess and Chewie board the Falcon to search for Rey's mother.
A woman named Mara Jade.