Author's Note: Greetings! This will be my only author's note for this entire story, so it is a bit on the longer side. I just wanted to let readers know that this story is one that I have already posted over on AO3 under the same pen name. I know that some people prefer this site to AO3, so I thought that I'd bring it over here for your enjoyment. I am currently in the process of editing this story as I bring it to a close, as I have a lot of quirky grammar throughout. This story will be approximately 60 chapters and is currently around 250,000 words long with a bit of editing started (I see it coming in at approx. 300,000 words once the story is finished). I would love to know what you think of it, but please try to keep the negativity to a minimum. I realise that rare pairs (specifically this one) will not be everyone's cup of tea.
I will try to update this beast of a story a few times per month, depending on how busy I am in my personal life and how much editing I need to do on certain chapters.
Summary: After arriving on Ahch-To in search of Luke Skywalker, Rey finds herself thrown into the past during the time of the Galactic Empire, with the heroes and villains that she had heard stories about in the Jakku desert.
Tags: Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Star Wars: Original Trilogy Era, Canon Divergence, Darth Vader Redemption, Vader your Anakin is showing, Plot-Focused, Slow Burn, Older Man/Younger Woman, Rare Pair, POV Rey, POV Darth Vader | Anakin Skywalker, POV Obi-Wan Kenobi, Episode IX is ignored in terms of canon (I started writing this before the film was released).
Pairing: Rey/Anakin Skywalker
Genre: Time Travel AU; Fix-It Fic; A bit of Angst; Hopefully a decent amount of Character Development because that's my jam; Romance is not a massive part of this story, but it is important for the aforementioned Character Development.
Rating: Mature
Chapter One
REY AWOKE WITH A START. A grunt erupted out of her throat as she sat up quickly.
The Force was screaming at her that something was terribly wrong. Dangerous.
Blinking a few times, she tried to see where she was but was unable to see a thing. She was in absolute darkness. She turned her head to try to get her bearings while she worked her way through what she remembered.
She had found Luke Skywalker on Ahch-To, old and grey. Far from the legend she heard stories about in the Jakku desert. He refused to teach her and had outright declined to come back with her and Chewy to the Resistance. He had shut himself off from the Force.
She remembered finding a little hut to sleep in for the night, and was planning to try to convince him once more in the morning that the Resistance needed him. That she needed him.
Rey sniffed. Her head was pounding and her heart was racing. Her eyes were slowly adjusting to the darkness, but she was still barely able to make out the vague shapes of items near to her.
But, she knew without any doubt that she was no longer in the little hut.
Rey tentatively reached a hand out in front of her as she pushed herself up onto her feet. Cool durasteel met her fingertips. A handle of some sort.
She pushed gently, opening the door.
Squinting as bright light met her eyes, she stepped out of the little room she was in and into a hallway.
Rey spun around, taking in her new environment. Her throat tightened from fear when she recognized where she was. She was on a Star Destroyer. Maybe. It looked slightly different than the style she saw at Starkiller Base. The colours were slightly different. Older. Perhaps the First Order had old Imperial ships at their disposal. Had the First Order tracked her to Ahch-To?
Where was Luke? Chewy?
She turned around to look at the room she had just exited and found a storage closet staring back at her.
Rey frowned. It didn't make sense. Was she a stowaway? She couldn't remember anything after closing her eyes for some much-needed sleep after her first day on the island.
She peered down the long hallway towards a pair of jet-black doors at one end. Dangerous. She turned the opposite direction and began to take a few steps. She needed to find a ship and escape. She needed to get out of here and figure out exactly where she was. She needed to get back to Luke, and eventually to Leia and the Resistance.
She didn't belong here.
Rey took in what she was wearing and was pleased to find that she still had on what she went to sleep with. Her clothes, her boots. She patted her hip, the lightsaber.
She snorted softly to herself at her ridiculousness of sleeping with the lightsaber, but for some unknown reason she couldn't get to sleep without it. She had been terrified of the thunder and lightning, and of the rain pelting against her little hut. It was something she had never experienced on Jakku.
No. Jakku had other things in the night to be terrified about.
A darkness began coiling around her and probing her with curiosity before recoiling sharply and disappearing completely.
Rey gasped, her heart was racing. She needed to hide. She needed to get away from this place.
Kylo Ren. Ben Solo. The son of Leia Organa and Han Solo, and the nephew of Luke Skywalker. He had survived the lightsaber to the face and the destruction of Starkiller Base.
Now he was going to find and kill her.
Rey let out a quiet sob as she peeked around the corner of the hallway and spotted a pair of turbolifts only fifty or so feet away.
She took off towards the lifts, running at a full sprint to reach them before Kylo Ren got any closer to her.
One of the lift doors slowly opened. The light bleeding out into the hallway.
The darkness blasting against Rey.
She lurched back, losing her footing and falling hard onto her behind.
A black boot stepped out of the lift. The sound of mechanical breathing filled her ears.
Rey looked up with wide eyes as the being stepped entirely out of the turbolift.
Her heart was in her throat. She couldn't breathe. She didn't understand.
This was not Kylo Ren. No. This was Darth Vader.
"What?" she gasped. Her mind was completely blank as she reached for the lightsaber still strapped to her hip.
The lifeless black mask followed her hand as she unclipped the lightsaber from her belt. The helmet quirked slightly, obviously intrigued.
"You're supposed to be dead," Rey growled as she ignited the blade and pushed herself up off of the floor. Readying herself in what she hoped was a fighting stance.
A gloved hand moved almost imperceptibly causing the lightsaber to fly out of Rey's grasp and into the hand of Vader before he shut it off and clipped it to his belt.
"Who are you?" the vocoder rang out.
Rey just shook her head, refusing to answer. She didn't understand what was going on or where she was. Nothing made sense.
She blinked away the tears beginning to form after realizing that she was going to die today at the hands of a long dead monster. After surviving the harsh conditions of the Jakku desert alone and waiting for her parents to return, she would be dying with no one by her side.
Vader stepped forward, crowding her. "Who. Are. You? I won't ask again."
"R-Rey," her voice wobbled along with her bottom lip as the predicament she had somehow found herself in began to overwhelm her with dread.
"Rey... what?" Vader asked her.
Rey shook her head. "Just Rey. I don't have a family name. Not one that I know at least."
"Where are you from?"
Rey swallowed, confused from his questioning and wondering why he hadn't killed her yet. "Jakku," she said quietly. "I'm from Jakku."
"Jakku?" the mechanical voice asked. Unsurprisingly unfamiliar with her home world.
Rey gave the monster a curt nod of her head. "It's an Imperial junkyard. A desert planet with nothing but crashed Star Destroyers that have been picked apart and sold for rations." She swallowed, her throat was dry. This had to be the strangest conversation she had ever had. She shrugged mentally to herself, the last couple of standard weeks or so had been all around strange for her. She continued her explanation. "The Battle of Jakku was the last before the Empire finally fell, hence the crashed ships."
Vader raised a gloved hand as if to tell her to keep quiet. "The Empire hasn't fallen."
Rey's stomach dropped. What in the kriffing hell was going on?
"I believe I now understand the disturbance in the force around you, Rey of Jakku." He paused, the cold black eyes of his mask were watching her closely. "You are from the future."
Rey shook her head even though the Force around her was insisting it was true. "That's impossible." It was a weak protest.
"Is it?" Vader asked her coolly. "And I suppose you are an expert on what the Force can do. Your lack of shielding would say otherwise."
"I don't know anything about what the Force can do. No one will teach me." Rey pressed her lips tightly together.
Kylo Ren had offered to teach her and to show her the ways of the Force. But, she had responded by slicing his face open. Now she was standing in front of his grandfather discussing time travel in the middle of the hallway of a Star Destroyer.
A bubble of laughter erupted out of her at the absurdity of it all.
"That not entirely true," Rey told the Sith Lord standing before her. "Your grandson offered to teach me, and I responded by slashing his face open with the lightsaber you had when you were a Jedi."
Vader stepped even closer to her, towering over her small frame. "Grandson?" He held up a hand to prevent her from answering his question. "Not here." He grabbed her arm and began marching towards the black double doors that Rey had run from earlier.
Rey was barely able to keep up with his long strides. "Where am I?" she gasped as they reached the double doors.
Vader ignored her question and merely waved his hand. The doors opened in response. "Inside."
Rey hesitated, resulting in Vader pushing her roughly into the large room.
The doors slid shut behind the pair of them, locking Rey in.
"Stay there." Vader pointed to her as he made his way further into the room.
Rey took in the dimly lit room. They were undoubtedly in his private quarters. A hyperbaric chamber was retrofitted into the smaller room off to the side of the main quarters, prepped and ready to go. Medical droids were situated around the smaller room. Shut off for the time being, if Rey understood the lack of acknowledgement from the droids correctly.
She looked to the other side of the quarters, spotting a door that was firmly shut. The centre of the main quarters had a large table with seating for six. A holocom was located in the centre of the table.
Vader stepped closer to it before waving his hand once more, causing the holocom to come to life.
An older man, alert and dressed in an Imperial uniform answered briskly. "My Lord," he bowed his head slightly, waiting for Vader to address him.
"I insist that I not be bothered for the rest of the day," Vader began. "Unless there is an emergency, or if the Emperor wishes to speak with me. Is that understood Captain?"
The man blanched in shock before catching himself. He gave a curt nod of his head. "Of course, my Lord. I can handle it for today."
Vader shut the holocom off without replying and turned his attention back to Rey.
"Who was that?" Rey asked, trying to gain as much information as she could.
Vader waved her off. "Someone unimportant." He came closer, not exactly crowding her but well aware of his ability to intimidate. "Grandson," he prompted.
Rey hesitated and looked down at the floor. General Organa had given her a rough outline of the major events during the rule of the Empire until it was finally defeated. She had told Rey about her biological family, insisting that it was vital that she knew. Leia had told her over stale caf that the Force was insisting for her to tell Rey as much as she could before she was to leave for Ahch-To.
Rey knew that Darth Vader was Anakin Skywalker, the father of Leia and Luke. Leia had told Rey that her birth mother was Padmé Amidala, a former Senator and Queen of Naboo. She knew Vader didn't actually see Luke for the first time until the Death Star, when Luke was nineteen standard years old. Rey also knew that Vader had no idea Leia was his daughter until after he tortured her for information on the location of a Rebel base. General Organa didn't know when he put it together, just that when he was in Luke's arms dying, he told her brother to apologize to his sister for him.
The Force was telling Rey to work with Darth Vader. To work with Anakin Skywalker. It was insisting that she could trust him with her life.
She shivered at the sudden realization.
It was terrifying to think about, trusting Vader, but Rey knew that she had no choice. She was out of her depth and in grave danger. This was the time of Palpatine, the Emperor who was the mastermind behind it all.
"What year is it?" Rey asked, looking back up at the mask of Vader. "I mean... how many years since the beginning of the Galactic Empire?" She hesitated before continuing, "I don't know everything, I swear. Just certain things that I was told by my General before I left for an assignment. Jakku doesn't exactly have the best education system, and this," she waved her arms around, "this is far before my time."
"Nineteen standard years," Vader answered her. His helmet shook slightly. "Almost nineteen years. It's a few months short."
Rey nodded and exhaled slowly. "I don't think you've met them yet," she said quietly. "At least not both of them." General Organa was from Alderaan, a core world. Vader might have met her when she was a child. Rey didn't know. Leia never told her that much.
"Them?"
"Twins," Rey responded. "Padmé was pregnant with twins."
Vader was silent except for his mechanical breathing.
Rey hesitated, unsure what she should do.
Tell him, the Force insisted. Tell him about his family.
"My General is your daughter," Rey began. "My assignment was to find her brother, your son. He had gone into hiding and turned himself off from the Force after his nephew had apparently destroyed his new Jedi Order and then fled with a few Force users to their new Master. Snoke."
Rey swallowed, her throat was tight with emotion. "My General doesn't know why her son fell. Not exactly, just that Snoke had something to do with it. She told me that she could sense the darkness inside him before he was even born. That she hoped that her love could prevent anything bad from happening to him. She said as he got older it got worse. And, because she hadn't been trained in the ways of the Force, she sent her son to his uncle to help him. To keep him safe and protect him from the darkness inside him." Rey shook her head. "She said that it was a mistake. That, in hindsight, it was the wrong thing to do."
"Did you find him?" Vader asked her quietly. "Did you find… my son?"
Rey nodded. "I did. He wasn't happy to see me. Told me to leave and that he wanted nothing to do with me. He said that he couldn't help the Resistance fight the First Order and had come to Ah—the planet he was on—to die." She paused for a moment. "It had started to rain heavily with thunder and lightning. I had never experienced that before on Jakku. It terrified me, so I hunkered down in a little hut to spend the night. I was going to pester him some more the following morning." She sighed tiredly. "Instead I woke up in the storage closet down the hallway."
She watched closely as Vader took in what she had told him. It was a lot of information to digest and was therefore not surprised that she could feel his anger bubbling under the surface. A storm was beginning to build up, but she didn't think his anger was directed at her.
"Why am I here?" She asked him after watching him shuffle from foot to foot, clenching and unclenching his fists. His mask was directed down towards the floor. "Why haven't you killed me yet? You have a reputation. Why am I still breathing?"
"The Force." Vader continued to focus on the floor of his quarters as he spoke. "The Force has been howling at me to not kill you. It has been insisting that you are extremely important and that I need to protect you."
The storm began to subside.
"I've been looking after myself since I was six," Rey scoffed as she crossed her arms across her chest. "I hardly need someone like you to protect me." She would not turn to the dark side, no matter what the Force told her.
"You are untrained in the Force." Vader focused on her once again with his hands on his hips. "I give you one week before you are hunted down by the Emperor if you do not learn how to shield yourself." He paused, stepping closer to her and looking down at her. "Your light is blinding. You need shields desperately."
"Hunted down by you, you mean," Rey stubbornly corrected. "On the orders of Palpatine."
"Tell me who my children are — their names — I will find them and overthrow the Emperor," Vader insisted, changing tactics. "I will end this. All of it."
"No."
"You will!" Vader jabbed a gloved finger at Rey. He was obviously not used to having his orders denied.
"No!" Rey snapped, stepping just out of the reach of the Sith Lord. "You didn't see your son until he was nineteen standard years old, on the kriffing Death Star!" She took a deep breath. "Within the next year you capture your daughter. But, you didn't realize just who she was at the time. At least, that's what she told me. You tortured her for hours to get information, never realizing you were torturing your own blood. That, or you were too foregone to care."
Vader took a step back. A sick noise erupted from his vocoder, like a distorted wail.
"I won't tell you her name. Not yet." Rey informed him quietly. Realizing at once that she had hurt him. "I don't think you're ready to know just who she is. I don't think you're stable enough." She stepped closer to him and raised her hand in a placating gesture. She needed to find a compromise. "I need to be trained, you are right about that. I won't last a week before I'm slaughtered." She gave the black mask a small smile. "Your son's name is Luke. And right now, today in this time, Luke is safe. He is being protected and has people watching out for him."
Rey thought of the man Leia had told her about. The Jedi Master, Obi-Wan Kenobi. How he went by Ben Kenobi in today's time, and how he had hidden with Luke on Tatooine. The man her son was named after. She and Han Solo's last hope.
"Luke?" The vocoder asked somewhat quietly. Vader had calmed down upon hearing that information.
Rey nodded. "Luke."
"After I train you how to build shields will you tell me my daughter's name?"
"If the Force allows it," Rey agreed hesitantly. "I really don't know what I'm supposed to do here. I'm not sure how to get back home, or if I can at all. I'm just listening to what the Force is telling me to tell you." She sniffed. "I don't understand why I'm here. I'm a nobody, a scavenger from a junkyard planet. I'm nothing."
Vader shook his head. "Not to me. You are important to me. You have told me about my children. I will protect you... with my life, if I must. The Force brought you here for a reason, Rey of Jakku. You must listen to the Force. Listen to what it tells you." He paused, hooking his thumbs in his belt. "The galaxy turns to banthashit if you don't listen. Trust me, I know."
Rey's stomach growled loudly in response. She clutched it in embarrassment. "Sorry."
Vader looked at her closely, taking in her appearance before turning towards the doorway. "SD-2826, you will go to the kitchen and get our guest something to eat. Tell no one who it is for. Do not draw any attention to yourself."
Rey spun around and spotted a droid situated in the corner of the room, near the entrance.
"Of course, Lord Vader." SD-2826 wheeled out of the room.
"I will begin training you after you eat," Vader informed Rey. "It is easier to focus if you have no distractions."
"Nothing dark," Rey insisted. "I don't wish to learn about the dark side of the Force."
Vader gave her a single nod. "Shields for now. You cannot be found out by the Emperor. He will destroy you."
"He will kill me you mean."
"No. He will force you to fall to the dark side," Vader informed her. "You are exceptionally powerful. I can tell already without having trained you. Your light is blinding. We need to hide your brightness from the Emperor. He will break you down until he moulds you into what he wants."
Rey swallowed tightly. This seemed to hit close to home for Vader. "Like he did to you, you mean?"
"I chose the dark side," Vader insisted. He pulled out a chair at the table and pointed for Rey to sit. "I chose the power of the dark side in an attempt to save my wife. Palpatine told me he could save her from death if I turned. I did everything he asked of me and I still failed to save her. To save Padmé." He sat down on one of the chairs. "I naively thought that he lied to everyone else, except me. I believed him to be a confidant." His hand resting on the surface of the table curled into a fist. "I believed that my child had died with Padmé, until now. You've informed me that not only was that belief incorrect, but I, in fact, have two children; that Padmé gave birth to twins before she died."
Rey cautiously sat down on the chair he pulled out for her. "I could be lying."
Vader shook his head. "The Force says otherwise."
"Why did you believe your wife was going to die?" Rey was curious. She needed to understand him as a person.
Vader watched her closely. "Visions. I had visions of her dying. Nightmares." He paused and stared down at his hands. "I already had a vision that had come true. There was no reason for this one to be any different. She had just informed me that she was pregnant. I could not lose her, too." He paused for a moment. "You have to understand, Rey of Jakku, our relationship was forbidden; our marriage was forbidden. The Jedi are not permitted to form any sort of attachment. It was seen as something that would lead to the dark side."
It's not that simple, the Force cried out.
Rey's mind was racing. The Force felt odd, churning. It was the truth, but not entirely. It was the truth for Vader.
She furrowed her brow as she leaned forward and rested her elbows on the table. "You thought you'd be kicked out of the Jedi Order if they found out you were married and expecting a child, so you went to Palpatine instead for help."
Vader shook his head. "I went to the Jedi first. Grand Master Yoda and told him of my nightmare. He told me that I had to let Padmé go. That it was the way of the Force."
Rey watched him with wide eyes. Her mouth gaping with no sound coming out of it.
"I did not tell him that she was expecting my child. I told no one, not even Palpatine." Vader paused, obviously lost in a memory. "Obi-Wan figured it out though. He came with Padmé on her ship to confront me on Mustafar."
Rey's stomach dropped. "Obi-Wan Kenobi?"
The entrance to Vader's quarters opened to admit SD-2826. The droid wheeled over to the table, clutching a tray of food in its arms.
"Your meal, Lady Rey," the droid informed her as it set down the tray in front of her.
Rey blanched. "I'm not – just Rey is fine. Thank you for the food, SD-2826."
"You are very welcome, just Rey." SD-2826 removed the cover and rolled away from the table.
Rey sat gaping at the food in front of her. She had never seen food such as this. The colours alone were shocking. "How? I thought Star Destroyers just had rations. Unkar Plutt gave us scavengers the rations found in the crashed Star Destroyers as a form of payment." She looked up from her plate to peer at her host. "This doesn't look like any ration portion I've ever had, and I've had a fair number of them."
Vader quirked his helmet at her. "We recently stopped by an Imperial Refueling Station and picked up local food from there. I allow my crew to eat more than just rations when able to do so. It is a luxury that strengthens their loyalty to me." He gestured to her plate. "Eat."
Rey nodded, picking up a bread roll. She took a huge bite of the soft bread. It was delicious, the nicest thing she had ever eaten. "This is good," she said chewing her bread loudly. She dropped the roll back on her plate and picked up a round purple thing. "What is this called?" She waved it around.
"That is a jogan fruit." Vader said. He might have been amused. It was difficult to tell with the vocoder.
Rey gasped. "I've never had a fruit before." She looked at it in amazement before setting it back down on her plate. She would leave it for later as a treat. She looked closer at her plate. There was some meat protein and some sort of bright green vegetable along with her bread. She frowned. She couldn't eat it with her hands like she normally did with her ration portions.
Carefully picking up the fork next to her plate, she stabbed at the meat protein. Chewing the pieces of meat slowly, she hummed in content. It was far better than any veg protein she had ever eaten.
"You know who Obi-Wan Kenobi is," Vader prompted her after she had a few more bites of her food.
Rey nodded. "I know of him. He was dead before my time." She frowned, wondering what more she could tell him. "My General told me about him. Before I left on my assignment, she took me aside to tell me what she could about the Empire and her biological family. She had said that the Force was telling her that it was important that I knew certain things before I left." She paused, knowing she was treading on shaky ground. "Kenobi protected Padmé's and your children from the Emperor. He kept them safe." She grimaced. "Is keeping them safe."
Vader pounded the table with a fist, causing the plate and cutlery to shake. "He stole my children from me! He put me in this suit!"
Rey pressed her lips tightly together. "Children are not objects that can be stolen," she told him, her voice was quivering with emotion. "They are people. They cannot, and should not, be thought of like a piece of junk." She paused to take him in, well aware he was furious. "Your own actions put you in that suit. You said it yourself, you chose the dark side."
Her jogan fruit exploded. Vader was half raised from his chair and his hands were pressed down on the table. The mechanical breathing of his life support suit was holding its rhythm, refusing to let him pant in anger.
"Kidnapped," he forced out. "He kidnapped my children."
Rey swallowed. Nervous for what she knew she needed to say to him. "You lost your children because you chose the dark side. Kenobi protected them as best as he could from the Emperor because you chose the dark side. And yes, when the Emperor's weapon became known and he realized that weapon was you, he hid your own children from you because you chose the dark side." She looked him square in the black eyes of his mask. "You lost everything because you chose the dark side."
Vader sunk back down on his chair and went to put his masked face in his hands before returning them to the table. He was looking down at the table and ignoring Rey completely.
A few minutes passed in silence, broken only by the sound of his breathing apparatus and the sounds of Rey's fork on her plate as she went back to munching on the food on her plate.
"I lost my children because of my actions. Because of Palpatine." Vader looked back up at Rey. "I must get them back. For Padmé."
"You can only do that if you return to the light side."
"That is impossible. It is impossible for me to return to the light. I am saturated in darkness. There is no light left." He jabbed a finger at Rey. "Nothing. The Force doesn't work that way."
Rey smirked, taking another bite of her bread. "You're so full of banthashit. You don't return to the light for another few years, so obviously it's in there somewhere," she said with a full mouth, gesturing at him with her free hand.
Vader just shook his head.
"In my time, what I learned from my General was that you did return to the light moments before your death. For Luke." Rey swallowed her food. "You did it for your son, Luke. You killed Palpatine to protect Luke from him and that action took you out as well." She shook her head. "Something about Force lightning wreaking havoc on your life support systems." She motioned to his suit. "Your son saved you, brought you back to the light. It was why my General sent her son to him. To prevent him from falling completely."
Vader didn't respond at all. He just looked at Rey.
"Just because something hasn't happened yet, does not mean it will never happen." Rey told him quietly. She pushed her plate away having finished her meal. Perhaps she'd get to have a jogan fruit on a later day. Hopefully it wouldn't get vaporized before she could eat it.
"We need to work on your shields," Vader informed her, changing the topic. He stood up from the table.
Rey did the same. "How do I do that?" She was eager to learn. Wanting to learn. The Force was howling in approval.
Vader motioned for her to follow him as he stepped towards the closed door on the side wall of his quarters. The door opened as he drew nearer and he motioned for Rey to enter before him.
She stepped into the smaller sized room, taking in her surroundings. She could feel Vader behind her.
The door snapped shut.
Rey exhaled. She felt calm. The room appeared to be a meditation room of some sort. The lighting was soft, and the floor had some sort of green foliage. Tiny water fountains were situated in each of the four corners of the room. The sound of the trickling water drowned out the noise of the ships engines.
"This is my meditation room," Vader said from close behind her. "You will stay here when I am needed elsewhere. No one comes in this room but me. It is safe for you here." He pointed to a small door almost hidden from view. "That is a refresher. It is yours to use. This room used to be the bedroom of the last commander of this ship."
Rey turned to look at him. "What happened to him?"
"What do you think?" His dry humour was leaching through his vocoder.
Rey nodded subtly. She shouldn't condone murder, really. But, this was a very beautiful room.
"Grab a pillow." Vader pointed to the far side of the room.
There was a large pile of pillows of various shapes, sizes, and colours. They did not match the ambience of the room. Rey wondered where the one and only Darth Vader found such things.
Rey took a single step towards the pillows before stopping abruptly. She gave Vader a look before raising a hand, focusing on the tackiest, fluffiest pillow she could see.
It flew into her open hand. She looked back up at Vader as she clutched her pillow. She could feel his grin on her.
"You've done that before," he prompted her. Motioning for her to sit down on the floor. He sunk down carefully, watching Rey the entire time.
Rey dropped the pillow on the floor and plopped down on it, facing Vader and nodded. "Just once."
"Tell me about it," he prompted her once more. "What was happening around you when you did that? Be specific."
"I was on Starkiller Base." At Vader's wave of confusion, Rey explained. "Death Star 3.0 according to my General. Bigger and badder than the first two." She waited until Vader acknowledged her explanation with a nod of his head. "Me and Finn were attempting to reach our ship to get away. The base was beginning to implode on itself." She threw Vader a look. "Dictatorships never learn."
"I did not agree with the construction of the current Death Star. I had no say in it. No control," Vader insisted. "Its construction is not complete as of yet, but it is close," he informed her.
Rey nodded. She knew this from her impromptu history lesson.
"Anyway, Finn and I were running through the forest of the base." Rey could sense Vader's puzzlement at her statement. "I believe it used to be a planet that was hollowed out. I'm not entirely sure though." She frowned before continuing, "Ben Solo... no... Kylo Ren had just murdered his father. He had been shot in the stomach in retaliation by one of his father's best friends. Kylo Ren was chasing us through the forest and catching us. We didn't know where we were going."
Rey started playing with the little strands of foliage. She had yet to explain what exactly happened on Starkiller Base to anyone. Not even General Organa before she had left for Ahch-To. "Kylo Ren quickly caught up to Finn and I, cornering the two of us and ignited his lightsaber. I just had the blaster that I had taken from a stormtrooper. I went to fire at him. But, he just threw me against a tree. I lost consciousness." Rey swallowed tightly. "I eventually came too. I saw Finn get his spine sliced open. He had been fighting your grandson with that lightsaber." She motioned to the second saber clipped to his belt. "I pushed myself up onto my feet and reached for the saber. Kylo Ren was between me and the saber. He, too, was reaching for it. He was bleeding out quite badly by that point." She paused. "The saber flew by him and into my hand. I ignited it and started fighting with him."
"That was when you sliced his face open," Vader provided, bringing up the statement she had made to him earlier.
Rey nodded. "Then the planet split open. Him on one side, Finn and I on the other. Our ship had found us and we got the hell out of there. Kylo Ren was still conscious when I last saw him. I assume he made it out before the base blew entirely."
"Most likely. If he is this Snoke's apprentice, he would've been saved before the base exploded." Vader quirked his head at Rey. "Was that the first time you used the Force to the best of your knowledge?"
Rey shook her head. "Your saber called out to me before Starkiller Base." She hesitated, unsure how specific she should be. "On Takodana. It was hidden in the basement of a pub. I could hear children's voices, so I went exploring. I found it in a small wooden box in a storage room." She swallowed. "I touched it and saw a bunch of visions. Different things. My past. Kylo Ren. Other things."
Rey shrugged, not wanting to talk about what she saw. "I fell out of the room and saw the owner of the pub watching me. She insisted that I take the saber because it was now mine. She said that it had called to me." She paused. "I told her to get it away from me. That I just wanted to go home, back to Jakku. You have to understand, my parents were supposed to come back for me. I didn't want to miss them because I was off planet." She sniffed as she played with the foliage. "She informed me that who I was waiting for on Jakku was never coming back, but that someone still could. I ran out of the pub and into the forest to get away from it all. It was overwhelming. So overwhelming."
Rey looked at Vader. He needed to understand how she felt.
"That was your awakening in the Force," Vader informed her.
Rey sniffed before chuckling sadly. "I realize that now," she admitted. "But, then TIE Fighters came screeching overhead. Kylo Ren showed up and followed me into the forest. He overpowered me. Made it so I couldn't move." She paused for a moment as she tried to figure out a way to explain all that had happened. "He started reading my mind. Said the droid — BB-8 is his name — showed me the map to Luke. The First Order was hunting him down... or at least trying to for some reason. I'm not sure why."
Rey shrugged self-consciously at her lack of knowledge. "He knocked me out. When I woke up, I was strapped to an interrogation chair on Starkiller Base. Kylo Ren was crouched in the corner of the room watching me. Wearing his stupid helmet." She scoffed. He didn't even need the thing. "We exchanged some words, I called him a creature in a mask. He removed it in response, to scare me most likely. But, he didn't even need it," she told Vader. "He was wearing it to hide away. He's not a creature at all. He's... a... a prince."
"He's wearing it to hide his emotions," Vader informed her. "Intimidation." He motioned for her to continue.
"He started poking around in my head. But, I pushed back and poked around in his." Rey exhaled slowly. "I saw his fears and called him out on them before he fled the room. I then suggested to the trooper guarding me to let me go and to leave his blaster behind."
"And that's where you ran into your friend Finn, and your other rescuers," Vader supplied, trying to make sense of her tale.
"That's correct." Rey nodded.
"Force suggestion, what you did to the guard, is one of the first things that young Force sensitive beings can do," Vader began lecturing. "Young children do not necessarily realize they are using the Force to get whatever it is they want. It almost comes naturally." He was watching Rey closely. "You pushing someone, a strong Force user by the sounds of it, out of your mind and slipping into theirs is extremely difficult to do. Even for those who are fully trained." He paused. "It can also be dangerous."
"How?"
"Poking around in one's mind, as you put it, leaves the victim susceptible to brain injury if it is not done properly. The mind reader has to carefully pick through the memories, merely bashing through the mind can lead to brain damage," Vader explained to her carefully. "Severe brain damage. The victim would be left as a husk, unable to function."
Rey swallowed nervously.
"Were the memories that Kylo Ren was shuffling through something you had forgotten about, or were the memories ones that you had every day?"
Rey frowned, thinking back to that time. "Thoughts I had almost everyday. He never actually got to the map that BB-8 showed me."
Vader nodded. "Good." He paused. "I assume for Kylo Ren it was the same. What did you say to him? What did you find?"
Rey looked down at the green foliage. "I saw his fear that he'd never be as strong as you; that he felt that he wasn't good enough. He believed himself to be too weak to properly carry out your legacy." She swallowed once more. "I told him, mocked him really, that he'd never be as strong as Darth Vader."
"And then he fled the room."
Rey nodded.
"Good," Vader told her almost proudly. "If that were me, I would have killed you right then and there if you had gotten into my mind." He waited a second before continuing on. "Not that you would've gotten into my mind in the first place. I have far more training than my grandson. More things to hide. I've been hiding them since I was a Jedi."
Rey swallowed. It was good to know.
"Shields," Vader changed the topic. "Most Force users will have built up shields naturally before they learn that they are sensitive to the Force. They are not great shields by any stretch. Rudimentary at best. But they are still there." He paused. "Individuals with the Force are sensitive to emotions from those around them. Anger, fear, passion, hate. Or happiness, love, joy even. Untrained Force users will have built up rudimentary shields naturally to protect themselves from those emotions. They can become overwhelming for some, especially if they are strong in the Force."
Vader pointed a gloved finger at Rey. "You have no shields whatsoever. Nothing. Your light is blinding, like a warning beacon for everyone with Force abilities to see. You must learn to build your shields up so your emotions are not projected to everyone nearby. And, you need to build your shields up to prevent yourself from getting overwhelmed with other people's emotions." He paused for a moment. "I've shielded myself so that I don't overwhelm you completely. Two strong force users in close proximity can be a bit much."
"Thank you." Rey had no idea that he had been doing that for her.
Vader nodded. "How many beings live on Jakku? I assume it is not a heavily populated planet being a giant pile of sand." His disdain was apparent.
Rey snorted in amusement. "I'm not exactly sure. Maybe around twenty thousand in total," she told him quietly. "Niima Outpost will get travellers stopping through. Mostly just travellers needing a part for their damaged ship. Sometimes they trade for goods and other supplies. There are three settlements, not including Niima Outpost."
"Did you reside at Niima Outpost? Or in one of the other settlements?"
Rey shook her head. "I didn't live in any settlement. I hadn't for years. I lived in a tipped over AT-AT Walker away from everyone else."
Vader tapped his thigh in obvious quiet contemplation at her words. "You probably never needed to shield yourself when you were on Jakku. As a result of that, those Force abilities were not developed." He pointed a finger at Rey. "You've always had the Force inside you, it just awoke at a later time than most other Force sensitives. Likely out of desperation given the situation you found yourself in."
Rey hummed in understanding. It seemed logical to her.
"What do you know of the Force?" Vader asked.
Rey frowned. She had, of course, heard the legends of the Jedi. But they were just that, legends. They were fairy-tales; stories to bring hope to those in desperate need. She settled on facts, on what she knew for certain. "The Force allows you to control people... and move things with your mind."
It sounded pathetic even to Rey.
Vader just looked at Rey for a few moments before responding. "You can do that with the Force, that is true. But, that's not what I meant." He paused. "The Force is what gives Force sensitive people their power. It is an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us, binding the galaxy together."
Rey nodded, following what he was saying.
"I want you to close your eyes and open yourself up to the Force. Feel what is all around you." Vader paused, waiting for her to follow his instructions. "Tell me what you see. What do you feel?"
Rey exhaled slowly. Eyes closed. "I see... I see people moving around the ship we're on. Below us. Thousands of people." She swallowed, trying to ignore her nervousness. "I feel their energy. Their life. I can feel you right in front of me. There's darkness and power." She looked closer at Vader's Force signature in front of her, curious to explore what another Force sensitive person felt like. Anger. Pain. Hate. Intrigue. Curiosity. Wonder. Hope. "There are splashes of light inside you, muted but still there."
"Pull back into yourself," Vader instructed Rey, ignoring her assessment of him. "We will get to work on your shields."
"Will you be in my mind?" Rey asked him cautiously. She had so much to protect.
"No. I will just tell you what to do for now."
Rey exhaled slowly, pulling back to herself. "Alright. Tell me what I need to do."
The two got to work constructing Rey's shields. Vader giving her helpful hints to hide herself from other Force sensitive beings. It was not entirely foolproof, if Rey's emotions got the best of her, her shields were at risk to develop cracks and eventually break down completely. It was something that Rey knew she needed to constantly work on. She was in a time where she didn't belong, sharing space with two extremely dark and extremely powerful Force users.
Rey blinked open her eyes, testing her shields.
"Alright?" Vader asked her.
Rey nodded. "I think so."
Vader gave her a curt nod of his head. "You picked up my instructions very quickly. I daresay that I am impressed."
A firm knock was heard on the door. Disrupting the two Force users.
"Lord Vader," SD-2826 called through the door. "The Emperor wishes to speak with you. He is awaiting your response."
Rey hissed.
Vader stood up from his spot on the floor. "Keep your shields tight. We can not afford to have you found. You are not yet ready." He turned to leave the room and paused. "I will keep you safe. I promise."
He didn't wait for her reply before rushing out of the room.
Rey remained on her pillow, hanging tightly onto her shields. Breathing slow and trying to remain calm.
She could do nothing but wait and hope for the best.