part two
"And look at you. The deed split your spirit to the bone."
It's been days, but Kylo couldn't shake the image from his mind. Standing before his father, alone. It was the first time they'd spoken to each other in over ten years. The Resistance wasn't going to put up a fight. Han stood there, without a weapon drawn, begging his son to come home. Forcing him to make a decision, one way or another.
"And the girl," Snoke continued. "You have been arguing with her and it's upsetting you. How pathetic. How very...Anakin of you."
"She means nothing to me," Kylo quickly replied.
Snoke's projection loomed larger as it floated closer. "Then kill her."
At the words, Kylo flinched. Snoke noticed as his face contorted into a wicked grin.
"Her allegiance to the defector will be her undoing. You must kill her before the Resistance changes her mind. Kill her, and prove your loyalty to me."
They had tracked the Resistance through lightspeed and just as Kylo was about to board his TIE fighter, Rey ran up and blocked his path. She was holding her old Stormtrooper pilot helmet. "I want to help." It was the first time she'd spoken to him since that night in her room, after their argument.
"Absolutely not," he said. He stepped to the side to walk around her to his ship, but she moved in perfect synchrony to block him again, as if she knew his every move.
"We lost two-thirds of the starfighter fleet back there with the Dreadnought," she said. "You need all the help you can get."
Then, he had an idea. "Alright then," he said, "let's see how good you really are at flying."
She smiled at him before putting on her helmet and running towards another TIE fighter.
As they flew out of the hangar bay and towards the Resistance cruiser, he let all the other ships fly past him so he was bringing up the rear. Up ahead, Rey expertly navigated her fighter, dodging the blasts from the cruiser's guns as she flew past the shields.
Kylo now switched over controls to the gun, which tracked the moving target for a few seconds before it was locked on Rey's fighter. He took a deep breath as his finger positioned over the trigger. Snoke's words echoed in his head: Her allegiance to the defector will be her undoing.
He tried to logically reason with himself. He's only known her for a handful of days, after all. She was nobody, a Stormtrooper who got the luck of the draw from the universe. She has no place in this story. Snoke was right. He had to kill her before it's too late. (Before his allegiance to her became his own undoing.)
He pressed the trigger and suddenly everything came flashing back to him. He remembered her laugh, the unyielding joy in her eyes when she finally learned to tame the Force, and the soft touch of her fingertips on his arm. But the blast had fired off from his ship and he couldn't call it back, even if he wanted to.
Just at the last second before the blast would have struck her fighter, she yanked her fighter upwards and over, without slowing, so that she was flying upside down and back away from the cruiser. The blast missed her by an inch.
"Kylo!" Her voice urgently called out through transmission. It was a direct communication signal, not broadcasted to the other pilots. He wondered how she knew to dodge the blast in time and how she possibly knew it was from him.
"Kylo," she yelled again, "your mother!"
That was when his eyes snapped back towards the Resistance cruiser, where the main bridge had been blasted apart. He pulled at the steering wheel of his ship, jerking it to a full stop. He realized Rey hadn't pulled off that nearly impossible maneuver to evade his gun blast, she did it to avoid the flying parts of the explosion.
From afar, he spotted his mother drifting in the vacuum of space. Then, she slowly drifted back inside the damaged cruiser.
So that was two lives miraculously saved that day. Rey and Leia. Snoke would be so displeased.
(But Kylo had never been more relieved.)
"I can't teach you," Luke said dismissively after Finn asked for a tenth time.
Finn stopped following the man up the hill and threw his hands up in frustration. "But you even taught Kylo Ren!"
Luke froze in his tracks, facing away from him. "Which is precisely why I will not train any more Jedi. I agreed to train Ben Solo even though I sensed the darkness in him, and that became the entire galaxy's undoing."
Finn ran up so that he could look Luke in the eyes. "That's not fair. Just because one of your students turned, you're proclaiming an end to all Jedi? There is bound to be evil within the Jedi, just like there is bound to be good within the dark side. Isn't that your job? To help bring balance to it all?"
"It's not so simple. It's easy for darkness to tarnish the light, but the dark side is a black hole. Nothing good can ever escape."
"Well, I did."
Finally, Luke was at a loss for words. "Who are you?"
Rolling up his sleeve, Finn showed the small tattoo on his forearm, FN-2187.
Rey woke up to the sound of screaming. She hopped out of bed and out the door into the hallway. The screaming continued.
"Did you hear that?" she asked a passing guard.
"Hear what?" the guard responded.
Another scream. "There, just now," she said.
"I don't hear anything, Rey," the guard replied, spitting out her name. Ever since news spread that Kylo had taken in a Stormtrooper as an apprentice, she hasn't exactly been popular with her former comrades.
If the screams weren't audible, then she was hearing it with her mind. Which could only mean it was coming from one person. She walked through the maze of corridors on the ship before coming to Kylo's private living chambers. Just as she'd seen him do before, she waved her hand before the doors and unlocked it.
She had only ever been inside the front room, where they sometimes trained. But he was nowhere in sight, so she cautiously ventured through the back doorway to his bedroom. There, he sat at the foot of his bed, still wearing his masked helmet, head sagging low almost to his knees. He sat in the dark, only illuminated by the faint glow of starlight through the window.
Slowly, she approached him until she stood right before him. From his seated position, this was the first time she had ever had to look down at him. Through their connection in the Force, his mental anguish roared unbearably loud. The same memory played over and over in his head. Igniting the lightsaber and watching his father's eyes as he died.
Taking a gamble, she placed her hands on the bottom of his helmet. He lifted his hands from his lap and she thought he would stop her, but instead he placed his hands on her waist. He leaned into her for support as he sat up straight. She lifted the helmet off his head and let it drop to the floor.
His pained expression nearly broke her heart. Why? she wanted to ask, but didn't. Why did you kill your father, when he gave a damn about you? Why did you kill your father, when you clearly still loved him?
Suddenly, his hands slipped behind her and his arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her closer. He pressed his face against her abdomen and held her tightly. She gasped, shocked by his actions and unsure how to react. She settled for one hand softly soothing his tense back while the other hand rested on his head. And she just stood there like a mother cradling an oversized baby, listening to his jagged breathing until it evened out.
After he finally pulled away, he reached down to grab his helmet from the floor. "Can you do me a favor?" he asked.
He then showed her what he wanted her to do with his thoughts. She chuckled softly. "Certainly."
He tossed the helmet across the room and while it was in midair, she shot a wave of the Force at it. It shattered into a pile of black metal scraps on the floor.
"You're getting too good at that," he muttered with the smallest hint of a grin.
She smirked back at him. "You could call it my signature move."
The next day, he surprised her with two kyber crystals so she could build her own lightsaber. She was so excited, she jumped up to hug him. When he stiffened at her touch, she immediately jumped back and pressed her hands to her side. He just shook his head and stared at her like the enigma that she was.
As he showed her the different designs on his holo, an officer came by to bring Kylo to the bridge to meet with the other generals. Leaving her with the lightsaber manuals, he walked to the Star Destroyer bridge where Hux and others were gathered by the window.
"So, what's the status?" Kylo asked. Out the window, he watched the Destroyer fire at the Resistance cruiser every twenty seconds. Each time, it deflected off of the cruiser's shields.
"By our calculations," Hux said, "they will run out of fuel in two days. So, what do you suggest our next move to be?"
"We wait it out."
"...for two days?"
"Is that a problem? Did you have big plans?"
A few of the officers stifled laughter with coughs. Kylo looked over at them with eyebrows raised.
"Sorry, sir," the captain said. "You just seem in better spirits."
Hux huffed indignantly. "Alright, you heard the orders. Back to your stations."
As Kylo walked out of the bridge, he shouted over his shoulder, "Oh, I'll be heading out for a while."
"To where?" Hux gestured to the continuing gunfire out the window. "We're in the middle of a battle."
In response, Kylo gestured to the very bored analysts and technicians sitting at their monitors. One had even fallen asleep, head on the keyboard. "As riveting as this chase is, I think you can manage without me for a few hours."
When he returned to his room, he was shocked to find Rey holding up a completed double-bladed lightsaber. She had managed to build her own lightsaber in the span of mere minutes.
She held the hilt in both hands, horizontal across her chest, and activated her new lightsaber. Two red blades lit up from both sides. The double plasma blades hummed in harmony as she slowly spun the lightsaber in a circle, marveling at her creation.
"Want to properly test it out?" he asked, nodding his head back outside towards the hangar.
She deactivated the lightsaber, tucked it into her belt holster, and eagerly followed him towards the docked ships. "Where are we going?"
"Anywhere you want." He climbed into the cockpit of a larger TIE fighter built with two seats instead of one. She settled in beside him.
"Um, I don't really know a lot of planets," she said.
"Well, what kind of planet then? Jungle, desert, tundra?"
She pondered for a moment as he fiddled with the controls and started the engines. Her eyes widened and she clapped her hands together. "I want to see an ocean. I've never seen one before."
He nodded and inputted the coordinates to an old home.
"Okay, okay, okay," she said, out of breath. "You win."
They were practicing dueling and he had pinned her down, pressing his lightsaber down against her blade as she pushed upwards. He deactivated his lightsaber and she collapsed onto the ground.
"I can barely move my arms," she complained as she struggled to push herself up.
"That's enough training for the day." He walked away from the rocky plateau where they had been practicing and down towards the beach. Moving slowly to avoid getting sand in his boots, he sat down on the warm sand.
A few seconds later, she let her body fall backwards onto the beach next to him. Sand scattered everywhere.
"What was this planet called again?" she asked, her eyes closed as she laid in the sand.
"Chandrila."
"Have you been here before?"
He watched the small waves crash onto the shore. The rhythm was calming and nostalgic. The only other visitors on this beach was a family of Twi'leks, splashing around in the shallow water. When he looked back down at Rey, she had opened her eyes and was watching him.
"I was born here," he said.
She abruptly sat up, scattering more stray sand onto his lap. "You are from here?" she asked incredulously. "I didn't even know such beautiful places existed."
His eyes scanned the faint skyline towards the north. Chandrila had lost much of its grandeur since the fall of the New Republic. It was now a ghost town with abandoned buildings and an empty senate house. But she was right. Even now, it was beautiful. As the sun began to set over the water, the city patiently waited for the bustle of life to return.
"Can you tell me what it was like?" she asked. "Growing up here?"
He told her stories of playing pranks on C3PO, of sneaking onto his father's ship to tag along on his next adventure, of playing with a spare water pipe, pretending it was a lightsaber. As he spoke, one of the young Twi'lek girls wandered her way over to them carrying a seaflower from the water. Rey took the seaflower and gently placed it on top of the girl's head, so it looked like a flower crown. The girl laughed, hugged Rey's arm, and then walked back to her family.
Later, when they finally walked back to the fighter, she called out, "First one there gets to pilot!"
Immediately, she spun towards him with a foot sweep, knocking him off his feet and onto the ground. When he got back up, she was already sitting in his seat in the cockpit, smiling cheekily at him.
As he watched her expertly man the ship controls and steer them up towards the sky, he came to two gut-wrenching conclusions: first, that he was never going to be able to kill her; and second, that she was never made for the dark side.
Phasma was waiting for them when they landed back in the Mega-Destroyer hangar. "Supreme Leader Snoke would like to speak with you."
For a split second, Kylo looked terrified. But he quickly composed himself again. "I'll be right there."
"Not you," Phasma said, looking directly at Rey. "Her."
Phasma escorted her up the elevators to Snoke's personal throne room. Her legs were shaking, and she wasn't quite sure if it was because she was nervous or because she was exhausted from training.
"Am I in trouble?" Rey asked sheepishly as they ascended the last few floors.
Phasma scoffed. "When are you not?"
When they arrived at the top floor, Rey entered the throne room alone. The first thing she noticed were the blood red walls. The second thing she noticed was Snoke's decrepit face. The third thing she noticed was the army of guards in red, surrounding the large room. She almost wished Phasma had come with her.
"Come closer, my dear," Snoke said. His sinister voice sent cold shivers down her spine.
She took a few steps closer into the middle of the room.
"Closer," he repeated.
She walked a few more paces. When it clearly still wasn't close enough, she was suddenly lifted into the air and dragged forwards, the toes of her boots dragging across the linoleum floor. Snoke released his Force hold on her only after she was standing right in front of him, so close he could reach out and touch her. So close she could see every sinew under his skin and the piercing gaze of his eyes.
"I have been watching you," he said. "You have done well in your training. You have grown so much in a short time."
She could only nod. Her fingers dug into the top of her thighs to keep her legs from shaking.
"In fact, I can sense it in the Force. Soon, you will exceed even Kylo Ren."
Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Exceed?"
"Yes, my dear. There is only so much he can teach you, for there is still so much he needs to learn. Kylo Ren is weak. When I found him, I thought he would become the next Darth Vader, but I was wrong. It shall be you."
Snoke leaned in so that his face was only inches away from hers. She could feel his breath and forced herself not to flinch.
"Tell me, Rey, do you know the way of the Sith?"
His icy glare was too much to bear. She looked down to avoid eye contact. "No," she replied.
"The Sith have the rule of two. There can only ever be two Sith Lords using the powers of the Force on the dark side: one master and one apprentice. But now we have a problem, don't we? Myself, you, and Kylo Ren, that's one too many."
Her eyes flickered back to meet his. "So what are you going to do?"
He finally leaned back into his throne. "You have so much potential, my dear. Powers you have yet to learn. I can show you all of it. But first, you must kill Kylo Ren. Only then will you become my true apprentice."
She wanted to shake her head, but she felt immobilized. She didn't want any of this. Could he tell she didn't want any of this?
"You will do as I say, right my dear?" his austere voice carried the distinct tone of a threat.
"Yes, Supreme Leader," she whispered.
Quickly turning around so he wouldn't see her cry, she walked towards the door. When she had almost reached the exit, he called out to her again.
"And your parents, Rey. I know who your parents are."
She wiped her tears and turned around.
"Isn't that what you have always wanted to know?" he said with a wicked smile. "Join me and I will give you all the answers. I'll be waiting."
Finn hung his head, looking down at the ground. They sat inside the old Jedi temple, the sanctum of millennia of history, and he felt like a colossal disappointment. The galaxy was on the verge of falling apart and the fate of the Resistance rested on his shoulders and...and he was proving to be a pretty shit Jedi.
"Look," Finn finally said, "I know I'm weak with the Force. I will never be strong enough to defeat Snoke or Kylo Ren."
"True," Luke said, "but war isn't only won by strength. If we only ever fought our battles with violence, how does that make us any different from the First Order?"
"So then how do we win?"
Luke led Finn outside and over to the edge of the cliff. It was a cloudy and the darkness of the night surrounded the island. Finn could barely make out the edge of the shore against the ocean. But over at the far side of the island, they could see the small campfire Chewie had set up beside the Falcon. It was over a mile away, yet the flames could clearly be seen against the cold night.
"When everything is at its darkest," Luke said, "even the smallest flicker of light will shine the brightest.
A man and a woman, hugging her. They were there, so close, yet she couldn't make out their faces. "Be brave, Rey."
Then she was pulled out of their warm embrace. She looked up to see a Stormtrooper, holding her back by the arm.
The man and woman were ushered away into a small ship. She watched the ship fly up into the sky, she fought against the guard as he dragged her into a transport with other terrified children, and she cried the entire time.
She woke up with her right arm punching the air, still trying to fend off the guard who took her away so many years ago. Her tossing and turning had practically thrown her out of the bed. She sat up, untangled her limbs from the sheets, and stood up. Putting on a black robe, she slipped out of her room.
It was still the midnight shift aboard the Mega-Destroyer. Time loses all relativity when they're flying for so long in space, but during the midnight shift, the ship falls quiet as the hundreds of passengers on board go to sleep.
As she wandered by the main bridge, she peered into the darkened room. Hux and the other officials were all gone. The only people inside were two technicians still operating the ship's guns as they fired relentlessly and rhythmically at the Resistance cruiser. She walked inside, down the central walkway, and stood right before the floor length window. The Resistance cruiser continued on, just out of reach.
The last hope in the galaxy, hanging on by mere droplets of fuel, was not giving up until the bitter end.
She wondered if he was out there, looking back. Finn. And the rebel pilot who she accidentally knocked out with the boulder. And the tall Wookie. And Kylo's mother.
One of the data terminals beeped behind her. The screen displayed a continuous feed of status messages from cities around the galaxy. There was mutiny over a newly imposed curfew and the First Order killed thirteen civilians. An ex-senator from the New Republic was reportedly seen in a small village, so the First Order burned the entire village down. The latest cohort of children was due to begin Stormtrooper training in two days.
And on and on it went. Murder, destruction, and terror. Everything the First Order touched would surely die.
How was this the way for a better life? How would the galaxy survive under a regime that valued order and efficiency over innocent lives? How would anyone make it out of this alive?
(But there was a small voice inside her head saying, You will survive if you're the one ruling it.)
She exited the bridge and aimlessly wandered the halls. Without realizing it, she had made her way to Kylo's quarters. Stepping up to the doorway, the locks undid themselves as she could feel the Force energy swirl around her. She quietly walked across towards his bedroom.
He was asleep, laying curled on his side, taking up an astonishingly small amount of space on the large bed. She stepped even closer. He didn't wake.
Her hand reached to her side, but she realized she had left her lightsaber back in her room. However, Kylo's lightsaber was right there on his nightstand.
She could do it.
She could grab his lightsaber before he could wake up and pierce him with his own blade before he could even react. She could do it, so easily. Ascend to the role of Snoke's apprentice, become the greatest Force user to have ever lived, and...
...and what? This was not her destiny to assume. She was never meant for this story. Perhaps she's finally overstayed her welcome.
She moved away from his lightsaber on the nightstand and sat down on the bed beside him, careful not to wake him. He looked younger when he was asleep. Sadder, too.
"Are you going to say something or just stare at me all night?" When he suddenly spoke, she jumped in fright.
"How long were you awake?" she gasped out, hand over her racing heart.
He lazily opened his eyes halfway and offered half a grin. "A while."
If he knew she had considered murdering him, even if only for a moment, he didn't show it. He sat up and moved further up the bed to lean against the headboard and to give more room for her sit comfortably.
"So why did you break into my room?" he asked.
She shrugged. "Nightmares."
"About what?"
She only gestured with her hand, grasping at nothings in the air. Nightmares about everything, about her parents, about her childhood, about being too scared to die and too scared to live.
He nudged her with the side of his knee. "I'll tell you about my nightmares if you tell me about yours."
The next morning, they were met by an extremely irate Hux. "Where have you been?! Snoke wants to speak you both now."
Kylo and Rey shared a confused look. "Why, what's happened?" he asked.
"We captured the rebels who were attempting to disable our tracker," Hux said. "One of them offered up valuable intel. The Resistance were trying to escape to Crait on cloaked transports. And what's more, they found Skywalker."
The familiar old rage began to build inside Kylo once more. For the first time in his life, he had felt...content. Being with Rey, they could shut out the rest of the universe and just be, hiding in their own corner of the galaxy. He could forget his tragic past, forget Snoke's eminent death threat, forget the war that he's been fighting in for practically his whole life, and forget that damn voice inside his head. But now the facade was crashing down. The strings came reattached.
The two of them stepped into the elevator and were silent the whole ride up. In his head, he tried to calculate a million different ways how this could end, which didn't result in her dying. Would she ever forgive him, once she found out Snoke had told him to kill her?
"I must say, I am very disappointed," Snoke said as they entered the throne room.
"I don't know how they found him," Kylo said, "the map was destroyed and-"
"I am not disappointed about Luke Skywalker!" Snoke yelled, standing up out of his throne. "I am disappointed that after all this time, neither of you were up to the task!"
Just like that, it clicked together. Kylo looked at Rey and she looked back with a petrified expression. Snoke had set them up, pitted them against each other to see who would win. Of course he would have also told Rey to murder him. Of course he would ensure that all the loopholes were covered.
"Follow in the footsteps of the Siths who came before you. Prove yourself worthy, once and for all," Snoke declared. The guards in red all took a menacing step forwards, holding their weapons at the ready.
Kylo ignited his lightsaber, still looking at her. She immediately activated her lightsaber as well.
And that's when he realized he had overlooked the obvious solution. The Sith's rule of two and here there were three. But he disagreed with Snoke regarding who the spare should be.
He reached out with the Force, projecting his thoughts to her while trying to conceal it from Snoke. He willed her to understand. Yet she only stared at him with scared eyes.
The guards stepped closer. Snoke watched intently.
He channeled all his focus towards her in one last attempt. Trust me.
Her eyes widened slightly at understanding. She had heard his thoughts. And just like that, they side-stepped to stand back to back against the guards. All at once, the guards rushed in. Kylo and Rey fought seamlessly together, him reaching over each her shoulders, her swinging low to block a strike. They waltzed around the room, perfectly in sync. They were unstoppable.
Abruptly, his body was lifted 6 feet into the air. He dropped his lightsaber and the hilt clanged loudly against the floor. Before Rey could reach for it, Snoke summoned the lightsaber to his side.
"The universe is yours, Rey," Snoke said. "All you have to do is take it. Don't be scared."
With a flick of Snoke's fingers, Kylo's body turned in the air until he was facing her. Snoke's hold on him was unyielding. Kylo couldn't move a single muscle. He couldn't even breathe.
"No," she whispered. She deactivated her lightsaber and shook her head. "No, I don't want this."
"But you were always meant for this," Snoke said. "It's in your blood."
"No!" Rey turned and started running towards the door, but Snoke immediately levitated her into a Force hold as well. He pulled her back as she fought against him in mid-air, limbs flailing, screaming obscenities. How was she doing that? How was she strong enough to fight it?
Meanwhile, Kylo still couldn't move. His lungs ached but he could not breathe. He thought he would faint.
Finally, Snoke let him go and he fell hard against the floor. He tried to push himself up, but his arms moved like molasses. All he could focus on was each laborious breath.
He heard the hum as Rey's lightsaber ignited again. But she hadn't done it. Snoke was controlling her, forcing her arms to raise the lightsaber as she stood above him. He still couldn't get up off the floor. Snoke wanted him dead, but he was too petty to kill Kylo himself. No, he needed to make Rey do it, so he could break the last of her spirit in the process.
She let out a heart shattering scream as she fought against Snoke through the Force, battling back control of her own body.
That's when he saw it, from the corner of his eye as he still laid there helplessly on the floor. Snoke had set his lightsaber on his armrest. This was his last chance. He was afraid and ashamed and in pain and he has never felt so desperate. Snoke was using all his attention focused on fighting with Rey. He wasn't paying Kylo any attention at all. Kylo was already good as dead.
A new kind of rage began to rise within him. He was tired of obeying commands, tired of being told he wasn't good enough, tired of being an apprentice. He fed off of this rage to find the energy to move. With a soft groan, he stared at the lightsaber hilt and slowly spun it so it was aligned. And before Snoke could notice, Kylo activated his lightsaber, piercing his old master right through the middle.
It was only when all the tension in her body left did she realize what Kylo had done. Snoke fell forwards out of his throne, severed in half. Kylo's lightsaber came flying out towards him and he reached up to grab it. She quickly helped him back up to his feet.
The rest of the guards resumed their attack as they rushed to avenge their slain leader. Rey and Kylo managed to fend them off and soon, they were alone in the blood red throne room, surrounded by bloodbath.
"Kylo," she whispered, looking at his eyes. His eyes had always been kind right from the start. She reached her hand up towards his face, daring to hope.
"No more tricks, no more commands," he said. "No more voice inside my head."
"No more fear?" she said hopefully.
He pressed her hand against his cheek and then dipped his head to kiss the inside of her wrist. She smiled and stepped closer, ready to wrap her arms around him when suddenly, his eyes turned darker. She stopped, stepping back again.
"Let the past die," he said, turning to look at Snoke. "Let it all die."
The sliver of hope she had dared to dream was harshly ripped away. "What?"
"No more Sith. No more Jedi." He turned back around to her with a bone-chilling gaze. "Just us."
The burning curtains revealed enough of the window for Rey to catch sight of the escape transports leaving the Resistance cruiser. The Mega-Destroyer was now firing at the transports, hitting the targets one by one.
"So what are you going to do?" she asked, pointing towards the Resistance ships. "If you don't call off the attack, this will be the end of the Resistance."
"It's time for the Resistance to end," he said. "And the First Order too. No more Republic, no more Empire. It's time for a new era. We'll finally end all the suffering and bring balance to the galaxy."
"We?"
He walked up to her and grabbed her by the shoulders. "Don't you understand, Rey? We'll rule the galaxy side by side, and we can finally be free."
She didn't know what to say. Part of her wanted to believe him. But part of her sensed the darkness consuming the last of his soul. It was too late. She didn't know who Kylo had become. Or perhaps, all this time, she had been blind to who he always was. Perhaps, even without the helmet, he had always been wearing a mask.
She couldn't stay with him. The realization broke her heart.
She couldn't stay with him, but how in the stars was he ever going to let her leave now?
That's when the ship split apart and everything went white.
When she woke up next, she was back on Kylo's carrier, the one they rode in the first time he met her. She was in the same room at the back, laid down across the red lounge chairs. She sat up and grimaced. Her head was ringing and she nearly heeled over.
The doors swung open and Hux stepped inside. "You're awake."
"Where are we?" she asked. She stood up and leaned against the wall to steady herself.
"On Crait. Their little distraction allowed the last of the Resistance transports to escape here, but now we're ready to obliterate them all. We'll blow up the whole mountain if we have to."
She listened intently, but heard no gunfire. "So what are you waiting for?"
Rolling his eyes, he walked back out the door and nodded for her to follow. Walking into the cockpit, she peered through the window and saw Kylo dueling with an older man. "Is that...?" she looked back at Hux incredulously.
"Luke Skywalker himself," he responded.
But then she felt it: a strong current in the Force, stronger than anything she had ever felt. Even stronger than anything Snoke had done. Something was connecting to Crait from far away. Something...or someone.
She pulled Hux away from the pilots and spoke in a hushed tone so the others couldn't overhear. "It's a distraction. Luke Skywalker isn't really here."
"Oh, really?" Hux replied sarcastically.
"How did you figure that out?"
"I don't know, maybe when Kylo ordered us to fire hundred blasters all at once and Skywalker came out unscathed."
"Then why are you letting him fight a mirage?" she asked.
For the first time, Hux did not appear maniacal or conniving or haughty. He looked vulnerable and unmistakably human. "He told me about what happened in Snoke's throne room. He thinks himself the king now. All these years, it's been hard enough competing with him under Snoke, but now I have to bow to Kylo Ren?"
She smirked after deducing what he was trying to say. "You need the Resistance alive, because you want Kylo to lose."
He took her smirk and raised her one better. "And you don't want to be his queen."
With this new unspoken agreement, he pointed her to a small escape pod. She climbed in, strapped herself to the seat, gave her new unexpected ally a nod, and closed the hatch.
"Moving rocks," Finn muttered.
He watched the last of the crystal critters squeeze through the gaps between the boulders to escape from the cave. Leia and the resistance were there on the other side, he could feel it.
Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and remembered what Master Luke had taught him. He felt the energy in the air around him, on the ground below him, in the rocks before him. He felt the same energy inside him. Lifting his hand, he could hear the rocks lifting as well.
But when he opened his eyes, the levitating rocks immediately crashed onto the ground and he groaned. "No, no, no!"
It wasn't only the piled up boulders that were blocking the path. The cave's exit was only about two feet high and much too narrow to fit anyone through.
"Finn? Finn is that you?" Poe's voice called out from the small opening.
Finn dropped to his hands and knees peering into the gap to see Poe, who was also crouched on the ground.
"You found us!" Poe exclaimed. "But you gotta help us out. Can you make a wider opening?"
"I'll try." Shuffling back to his feet, Finn looked up at the daunting task ahead of him. It was one thing to move rocks; it was another thing to move the whole damn mountain.
He reached out with his hand towards the side of the mountain and...nothing. He squeezed his eyes shut and called out to the Force with every fiber of his being. Still nothing.
"Please," he whispered to the Force. Don't let this be how we all die. Don't let this all end with me as a failure.
A crack. His eyes snapped open to see a visible crack grow on the mountainside as the stone broke into two. Through the cave opening, he could hear cheers and Poe's voice calling for everyone to move back.
But Finn wasn't doing this. He could feel that he wasn't, and he knew full well he was not strong enough to. So who was doing this?
He turned around and saw a hooded figure dressed in all black with one hand outstretched towards the mountain. With one more push, the entire side of the mountain fell apart and the impact sent a gush of wind back, blowing the black hood back. She met his eye and smiled.
"Rey!" He ran and hugged his best friend.
She clung onto him like he was the last good thing left in the universe. "I'm so sorry."
The other rebels were a bit wary when they saw her, but Finn quickly ushered everyone aboard the Falcon.
The last to exit the cave was an older woman with her hair pinned up. Instead of boarding the Falcon, she walked straight to Rey.
"You're General Organa," Rey breathed out in shock. Kylo's mother.
There was so much Rey wanted to say, so much she wanted to ask, and yet she only stood there speechless.
The general smiled and raised both her hands, palms facing up, towards Rey. Without hesitation, Rey placed her hands in Leia's.
Immediately, she was flooded with the voices of Jedi past. The words and scenery whirled by, an island in the ocean, an old tree, two twin suns. And light. So much light. Rey didn't realize how dark her world had become until she saw this much light.
Then, a memory. A young, crying Ben ran into the room, cradling something in his hands. A small injured bird with a broken wing. He begged his mother to help it. So Leia knelt down, placed two fingers gently on the bird's wing, and healed it with the Force. The bird flew away and Ben began crying again now that it's gone.
"You can't have it both," Leia explained. "If you keep holding onto it, it will die. If you want to save it, you must let it go."
As the memory faded, Leia let go of Rey's hands with a final squeeze. "We have been waiting for you, Rey," the older woman said. "You are our last hope."
Finn approached them, looking up at the sky. "General, we need to go now." Then he turned expectantly to Rey. "You'll come with us, yeah?"
She looked at Finn, then at Leia, then at the mountain she had crumbled, and the decision was clear.
Kylo yelled in frustration as he walked back up the ramp to his carrier. As he walked into the cockpit, he slammed his fist against the wall. Everyone flinched at the sound.
And then he sensed it. She was gone.
"Where's Rey?" he asked.
The two pilots looked nervously at each other and avoided eye contact.
Kylo grabbed Hux by the collar and pulled him close. "Where is Rey?!"
"She realized that Skywalker was only a projection and flew off to stop the rebels from escaping."
He let Hux go, shoving the general back. "It's too late, they've already escaped. Tell her to come back."
Again, the pilots looked down, avoiding his gaze.
"We've been trying to patch her in," Hux said as he re-adjusted his collar, "but no response. She wasn't hit, but her pod is parked and she isn't responding."
Kylo felt his stomach drop. The rage and frustration faded away to be replaced by another old nemesis: abandonment.
"So you tell me, Supreme Leader," Hux continued. "Is she dead or is she a traitor?"