Chapter Three:

Rey slips a cloak over her shift before taking leave of her hut. Dawn creeps slowly across the sky, but shadows hang still over the jungle moon of Ajan Kloss.

She stalks as silent as a phantom between the makeshift huts that hold the members of the Resistance. Her way is known, set towards a cave in the mountain rising up before her. Light dances from its entrance. Someone else is awake. Just as she hoped.

Rey passes over the threshold, the sound of gentle voices reaching out to her.

"... had left me still bare. Quite an embarrassment. Master Anakin promised to return for me when the time allowed, but it was many years before..."

Rey peers between stacks of crates. Through the cracks, she spies C-3PO, his golden body reflecting the single candle lit on the desk. General Leia Organa sits on her small cot before him, a whimsical smile on her glowing face.

Leia glances aside, past C-3PO to where Rey lurks. "We'll have to finish trespassing on days of ole another night, Threepio."

C-3PO clinks as he turns, following her gaze to Rey. He starts, blinking, his hands raised high. "Good evening, Mistress Rey! I hope I did not wake you."

Rey chuckles. "Your voice isn't that loud, Threepio." She shifts her eyes to meet Leia's. They shine up at her, curious. "It happened again. You told me to come. I hope..."

Leia's face constricts under a spasm of pain. Nodding slowly, she pats the bed beside her.

Rey moves around the boxes, answering the silent call. C-3PO shuffles off past her, Rey laying a friendly hand on his shoulder in greeting and in parting.

Leia lifts her hands as Rey sinks down beside her. Their fingers wind together in a familiar embrace. "Tell me."

Rey focuses on their held hands. "I was sleeping when I felt the pull. He was in the room already when I woke, dripping wet. And he seemed... Conflicted..."

Leia's grip on her hand tightens, her face blanching. "Conflicted? How?"

Rey closes her eyes, searching for the memory of his face, for the memory of the moment. "His face... It kept shifting. He fell at one point."

"Fell?"

Rey's eyes flutter open. Leia looks remarkably like her son in that moment, her expression vacillating between what is certain and what is not. "He wasn't hurt. He was holding something. I could feel it. Burning. Red and hot. With darkness."

"Darkness," Leia repeats, her tone defeated. She turns her head aside, glancing out of the cave, to where light is slowly breaking.

"I think it was the source of his strife. It was calling to him, but he didn't know if he wanted to answer." Rey speaks the words, but she doesn't know if they are true. They might only be her suspicion and speculation, built from what she gleaned in him. "He's fighting something. But I don't know what side he will end on. I don't believe... But I don't know..."

"It's okay." Leia slips her hands out of Rey's, lays them folded on her lap. A heavy sigh lifts her shoulders, bears them down. "He's left such wreckage in his wake. Han. Luke. And yet, I can't bring myself to hate him."

She turns misty eyes upon Rey. Eyes that mourn all her loved ones gone. Husband. Brother. Son. Eyes that still hold a faint glimmer of faith. "I don't know why I keep hoping..."

Rey reaches for Leia's hands once more, squeezing them with tender understanding. "Because hope is all we have left."

They stay that way for a while, hands held, eyes held, as day breaks the night, wondering if hope will hold out as well.

A.N.

Sorry for the shorter chapter, but the next one's about three times as long, so there is balance to be found :)

Hope you're enjoying. Leave me a review if the force so moves you.