Nothing is Ever Truly Over
Chapter Three
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"For kriff's sake, it's going to take forever for us to clean out this planet!" Jannah raged that night to Finn and Rose as they were on the walk back to their quarters. "They can just hide in any one of the two-thousand plus levels across the whole surface of the planet! And they can ambush us at every corner and corridor!"
"Well, now we know what it's like to fight against the Resistance," Finn commented thoughtfully.
"Yeah, we often used to use guerrilla tactics," Rose agreed.
"It pisses me off the most because they have even more kriffing flametroopers than usual. And you know how devastating they are in close proximity, Finn," Jannah continued to vent.
"Likely their remaining jet troopers rigged their jetpacks and turned them into makeshift flamethrowers. There's little benefit to having jet troopers if they can't freely move around. Eventually, the roasters will run out," Rose confidently said. "They won't be able to sustain their fight forever."
"I just wish it could be over and done with already! It's been immensely frustrating having to deal with them combined with the heavies locking down corridors with their megablasters."
"More frustrating than jet troopers?" Finn joked.
"Oh, sod off you!" Jannah pushed him, cracking a grin. "Not everybody has as amazing aim as you."
"I thought you using that bow meant you were amazingly accurate. One shot, one kill and all."
"We should see how you do at using one next time we go in!" Jannah pointed her finger at Finn.
"Pass!" Finn laughed. Jannah followed suit.
Rose, however, didn't. Instead, she felt a tad uncomfortable at Finn and Jannah talking so comfortably about ending other peoples' lives. That, combined with his demeanor meeting with Poe, made her believe he was somewhat out of touch with reality.
"Alright, see you later," Jannah bid farewell, heading into her quarters.
"See you," Finn waved.
Upon reaching Finn's quarters, Rose just couldn't remain quiet anymore. "Alright Finn, what's bothering you? I saw how you reacted when Poe brought up Rey."
"What?" he asked out of surprise. He hadn't expected her to catch that. "Oh-uh, nothing. Nothing's bothering me."
"Finn…"
"No, I swear! Nothing's wrong!"
"Just stop it." She knew he was trying to deny it. She stared him down until he gave in.
"It's just…" He sighed, and suddenly seemed exhausted. He took a seat on the couch. "Why did Rey have to go? Doesn't she know how much we need her?"
Ah, there it was. Rose had always known Finn was very close to Rey, closer than Rey was to him. Everything he did seemed to revolve around Rey. There was a time where she thought maybe he was fighting for the Resistance, but now it was clear he was just fighting for Rey.
"I mean, what was she thinking going off by herself – with no explanation – when people need her?"
Rose crossed her arms. "Only she knows, but you can't let her dictate your life, Finn."
Finn's mouth dropped. "You can't be suggesting that I forget about her! She's my best friend!"
"You can't be so dependent on her, either!" Rose finally lost her temper and shouted at him. And just kept dishing it out. Her finger pointed agitatedly at him. "From the first moment I met you, all you cared about was where Rey was! And that's all you can think about now!"
Her tirade interrupted his attempt to respond. He found it very difficult to counter her point. But in one regard, he did. "That's not true. I mean…" He swallowed nervously. "… I care about you."
His words calmed Rose down from her previous anger, but she still looked sad. "I know."
For a moment, Finn felt surprise. He didn't expect that.
"But you care about her too much."
Only for it to be quickly replaced by confusion. He watched her leave, thinking hard on her words. He cared too much for Rey? What did she mean?
Rose, on the other hand, proceeded to Kaydel's quarters. She needed to have some real girl talk with her.
Entering her quarters, Rose noticed Kaydel letting her hair down. She never took real notice before, but the lieutenant bore a remarkable likeness to the late General Organa. She had even adopted the general's Alderaanian hairstyles.
"We have a problem," Kaydel revealed.
Rose did a double take, caught by surprise at the sudden drop. "What is it?"
"The Derriphan – the Star Destroyer that destroyed Kijimi – it's still out there."
Rose took a heavy seat in one of the chairs. That was a serious problem. One of the Sith fleet's Star Destroyers still being out there presented a crisis for them. Just one of those Xyston-class Star Destroyers could destroy an entire planet. Add to that its complement of elite Sith troopers – standard ground troopers as well as jet troopers – and advanced TIE/dg starfighters, and just one of those Star Destroyers could wreak utter havoc on the currently unstable galaxy.
The mechanic also recalled perhaps the biggest problem with the Derriphan still being out there. "And because it's already out in space that means its shields are up." Unlike on Exegol where the planet's atmosphere prevented their deployment, in deep space the ship's deflector shields would work without flaw, making it that much harder to take down. "Do we know where it is?"
"No," the lieutenant shook her head, both in response to Rose and to free the rest of her hair. "It's hiding quite well. And that makes me nervous. We didn't know about this threat before we spread our forces out to liberate the rest of the galaxy. Now that we do, it's obvious we're spread way too thin. They have the strength to blitz right through any of our lines. And that's if they even feel like fighting; if they're feeling lazy, they could just blow us all up from outside atmo."
"Great," Rose grumbled. "My day just got better."
Kaydel turned around, raising her eyebrows upon spotting Rose's upset demeanor. "What happened?" she inquired.
The mechanic let out an overwhelmed sigh. "Finn's really frustrating me right now," she admitted.
"How so?" Kaydel took a seat on the sofa adjacent.
Rose pursed her lips in indecision, wondering if she should tell her the one thing she didn't confront Finn about. She evaluated her. She remembered that Kaydel had been a part of Poe's mutiny aboard the Raddus. Though her loyalty to Poe was unquestioned, what Rose was looking for was her willingness to keep a secret.
Despite being only a little bit older than Rey, and therefore one of the youngest members of the Resistance, there was a strength in her that Rose likened to General Organa's. Not surprising considering how much time she spent at her side. She thought that maybe trusting her was alright.
"I'm concerned about how quick Finn is to killing stormtroopers."
"You're only bringing this up now?" Kaydel leaned back, raising an eyebrow inquisitively.
"Well, yeah. To be honest, I only really thought about it deeply now. A part of me finds it strange that Finn was so quick to blast his former allies."
"I've thought the same ever since he joined us," Kaydel nodded in agreement. "I always thought it odd how quick he was to turn. To turn against his allies," she snapped her fingers, "just like that? Let's just hope he doesn't do that again."
Rose looked down, and notably more despondent. "That's exactly what terrifies me. What if something happens that convinces him to turn against us at the drop of a hat? He'd have no compunction at mowing down Resistance members if he turned."
Kaydel noticed this was affecting Rose quite a bit. It made her wonder… "You're talking as if this is a possibility. Is it?"
Rose's gaze flickered away, uncertainty clouding her. "I doubt it, but… it might be."
Kaydel could see this was hard to talk about for her, so she gently encouraged her to continue.
"As far as I know, Finn is loyal only to one person."
She could see it in Kaydel's eyes her deciphering exactly who that person was. "Rey."
Rose nodded affirmative.
Kaydel furrowed her eyebrows, baffled. "I don't see how that's a problem. Rey's on our side." Her uncertain voice contradicted her confident words.
"She was incredibly secretive and untrusting," Rose countered. "Every time I saw her, something about her looked… fake. Like she was trying to hide something away."
Kaydel began showing her own self-doubts. She never questioned the scavenger's sudden addition to the Resistance, but now with all the facts laid out and time to reflect, perhaps they were too hasty to trust her. She was highly secretive. She didn't trust people. It all made sense as to why she was so isolated even within the Resistance.
"There's just something…" Rose tried to search for words. "… wrong with Rey."
Kaydel was starting to get at what Rose was saying. "And you think if she commanded it, that Finn would turn against us."
"It already happened once. He lied about being a Resistance member just to get on her good side." Rose brought a hand to her forehead. "Hypothetically, who's to say he wouldn't turn against us to stay by her side?"
Kaydel leaned forward. "You seem more concerned about this than I thought you would be."
"I'm perceptive enough to see the possibility. And that is what bothers me."
After finding out about the Derriphan, Kaydel understood; the mere possibility of something terrible was frightening all by itself.
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A speeder flew by Rey, forcing her to jump to the side as it kicked up a cloud of dust.
She coughed to expel the dust from her lungs, then yelled towards it, "YOU BLOODY KNOB!"
At her side, BB-8 beeped quite sarcastically.
"You said it, BB," she agreed, still pissed. "Welcome to Mos Eisley: the most wretched hive of scum and villainy you will ever know."
And Rey hated it. Mos Eisley was worse than Niima Outpost in every way, if only because the patrons of Mos Eisley were far more organized than the scavengers. The bounty hunters that plagued Mos Eisley had equipment that Jakku's burliest scavengers could only dream of. Because of that, it was less wise to get in a fight with them.
"Well, let's get this over with," Rey said as she gazed irately upon the marketplace. The first sun had already set, and the second sun was getting lower in the sky. She was eager to get back to the homestead before nightfall.
BB-8 rotated his head quizzically and with a bit of apprehension. He beeped at her.
"Oh, that's folly!" Rey retorted. "They just say they don't like droids. That doesn't mean they'll actually do anything about it."
BB-8 booped more insistently and objectively, making Rey even more irate.
"Oh, suck it up! You'll be fine. End of discussion!" she proclaimed, stomping off towards the marketplace.
BB-8 began to follow, but noticed someone staring at him. A quick analysis suggested she was a scrapper, something that placed the droid on edge knowing how Mos Eisley wasn't friendly to droids. A predatory flash of teeth made BB-8 teeter even more on edge. He quickly rolled away out of fear.
He soon caught up with Rey, who had calmed down a little bit.
"Hopefully this place has what we need," she said aloud.
The two perused the marketplace.
"This place is dirty," she heard Ben comment. "Literally and figuratively."
"Well it's a good thing I know how to deal with seedy folks, isn't it?" she replied, full of snark.
BB-8 swiveled his head to Rey in bafflement, unable to hear the second voice. To him, it just looked like she was talking to herself.
"Yes, it is," Ben agreed from her side.
That caught Rey by surprise. She looked him up and down quickly in disbelief. She expected her hallucination of Ben to be more spoiled. Likely because a part of her saw him as a prince. While technically he could be considered one, she thought he captured the aesthetic of a prince very well, even if unintentionally.
"It's a good thing you can. Otherwise you might not fit in well with my family."
Rey was instantly reminded of Han at his words. It didn't quite hurt as much as it did before to talk about him. Time heals all wounds, she figured.
"Speaking of… Why do you call yourself Skywalker?"
Rey grew mum at his words. She could justify herself to pretty much anyone, but not to him. He would see right through her; he would see the rotten truth. "You know why," she muttered morosely.
"I do. But you need to say it."
She grew angry at his insistence, seemingly by reflex. "No I don't!"
A concerned trill from BB-8 brought her out of her talk with Ben. Turning to him, she saw his head tilted in a lack of comprehension. The annoyed realization crossed her face: of course he wouldn't see Ben. He would think she was talking to herself. And she likely was in actuality.
"Leave, BB-8."
Another trill came, this one more insistent.
"I said leave!" she snapped, her fists clenching.
BB-8 jumped, quickly backing away and doing as she commanded out of fear.
Rey watched him run off, not at all in the mood to deal with him challenging her. She noticed scrappers observing nearby, but it didn't register with her.
"Will he be okay?" Ben voiced his own concern, not strictly for BB-8, but more on whether this was something Rey really wanted. He saw a vulture-like look in the eyes of the scrappers.
"He'll be fine," Rey replied. She didn't think BB-8 was in any danger at all. Things had a way of working out for her, and she trusted in that.
Ben looked doubtful, but made no objection. "Regardless, why call yourself Skywalker, of all things? You could've chosen from a myriad of names. Why that one?"
"Because it's your family's name," Rey easily replied, leading them towards less populated alleys so no one could overhear her. She didn't want anyone to think she was crazy.
"And yet almost nobody in my family used it," Ben countered, taking a step closer.
"Well, I can't just not have one!" She crossed her arms uncomfortably.
"Why not? You've done so for years now and never had a problem with it before." He took another step closer.
"You know that all I wanted was a family. That's why I want one."
Ben took yet another step towards her, now close enough to force her to crane her neck back in order to look into his eyes. "So why take the name of a dead family?"
Rey tried to back up, but found her back against the wall. Literally. For a hallucination, Ben sure felt incredibly real. She felt the same feeling of enclosing when he confronted her with herself. She didn't like it, but she knew there was no escape.
"Furthermore, you should know that changing your name is a Dark Side tradition." He quirked an eyebrow. "Unless you plan to cast a dark shadow on the Skywalker name?"
"No!" she shout-whispered in denial, horrified at that line of thought.
"I thought not," Ben agreed. "But that means you really have no reason to change your name."
"I have every reason to change my name!" she sharply retorted.
"And why is that?" His deep brown gaze bored into her soul, imploring her to just tell the truth.
Rey stubbornly remained silent.
"Refusing to admit it doesn't mean it's not real. Changing your name to disassociate yourself from your family ultimately won't work. Trust me, I know."
She saw it in his extremely expressive eyes, that he did know. And she had a front-row seat to it. A part of her did understand what he was saying it, but simultaneously, another part of her denied it because that would mean having to face the ugly truth of her past. And she just couldn't do that.
"I thought you'd be happy that I took your family's name," she whispered, feeling hurt that he didn't seem to.
"But you didn't take my family's name. You took the Skywalker name," he pointed out. He looked far more inquisitive now, like he had finally figured something out. "And I think I know why."
"Oh? Enlighten me, then," she challenged, cocking her hip in a sassy way.
"You hold onto that name because you still want to believe you had a great relationship with Luke, but you and I both know that's far from the truth, Rey." He took a second to analyze and pick her defense apart even more. "He didn't see you as his Padawan; he saw you as a reflection of me. And that's why he refused to train you: he was afraid you would turn out like I did." He then delivered the biggest blow. "You just can't get over that he wasn't the legend you imagined him to be. So you lie to yourself and to everyone else just so you don't have to face that reality, as well as the reality of your family."
Rey started to panic, though she tried her best to remain strong. She didn't know how Ben knew that, but the fact he knew her so well to deduce that frightened her. Her carefully constructed reality was threatened by him. What was real wasn't what she wanted, so she lived in denial of it.
Ben seemed to notice he was frightening her, and softened his voice even more. "I know you don't like your family, but you can't just ignore the fact that they are your family. The only way you get past this is to accept what is true and deal with it."
The darkness of the alley felt crushing, suffocating for her. "If I do that, I'll lose myself," she whispered, tears streaking down her face.
"You won't lose yourself-"
"Please… please don't," she interrupted hoarsely. "After losing Han, Luke, Leia, my parents, the simplicity of my past, and you, especially you above all else… I don't think I could take it if I lost anything else."
Ben saw she was on the verge of breaking. He admired Rey's resilience, but he couldn't help but pity her as well. He knew that it was just an act; he could tell underneath that was still that same scared little girl who had been left behind on Jakku. She was too afraid to confront the truth, for fear that it would hurt. And that hurt him, because he knew Rey was strong enough to do it. Why couldn't she see that it didn't matter what her family was? Only that she accepted it and moved on from it. He would be the first one in line to accept Rey Palpatine, rightful heir to the Galactic Empire, and also the first one to help her leave it behind if that was what she wanted. It didn't matter if everyone else rejected her in his eyes, only that she accepted this part of herself and become a whole person. If she didn't, then he knew she would be just as miserable as he was when he became Kylo Ren and rejected Ben Solo. And her unhappiness was the very last thing he wanted.
He took a step back. He wanted to hug her and make her feel better, but he held back because he needed her to stew on his words and deliberate them. "You might want to go find your droid then," he suggested, remembering her deep attachment to it.
She nodded dumbly and walked out back into the streets, wiping her face with her forearm to rid the evidence of her tears.
She backtracked to where she last recalled being with BB-8, and started asking around.
"Excuse me!" she called to a street merchant. "Did you see a small ball droid around here by any chance?"
The merchant spat a seed into a metal pot, the metallic clang ringing in Rey's ears.
"Might wanna go looking that way," he grumbled unpleasantly, pointing down the street.
"Thanks!" Rey paid no attention to his gloomy attitude and ran off the direction he pointed.
Eventually, she found a seedy place that sold scrap, and figured she could start there. She noticed there were many junked droids inside. One looked vaguely familiar, and it gave her a bad feeling.
She took a closer look as she entered, and her heart dropped.
"No…" she breathed as she fell to her knees before it. "No no no no no."
It was BB-8. Utterly destroyed, with no possibility of repair. He was mangled, punctured full of holes, and peeled apart, not a spark of electricity remaining. Even from what little she could see, she saw that his main CPUs were totally shredded.
"Hey! What're you doing?"
She turned her head, noticing a scrapper come striding to her. The scrapper looked ready to tell her off, but she got cut off. "What did you do to my droid?" Rey questioned, unable to project her voice any louder than a whisper out of disbelief.
"Oh, this is your droid?" The scrapper nonchalantly glanced them over, then shrugged. "Sorry," she said, not seeming to mean it in the slightest. "Should've kept a better eye on it."
Rey looked down at her hands, agonized. BB-8 was gone. There was no way she could repair him in that state; too much had been taken. There would be no more binary conversations to make her feel better. There would be no more funny games. There would be no more secrets of Poe to be spilled. There would be no more staving off the loneliness. The droid who she considered a dear companion was gone.
Her fists clenched tight. She slowly looked back up, gaze darkening. How dare this scrapper take her droid, tear it apart, and then have the nerve to just say sorry like that, as if BB-8 was meaningless? She had taken away the last companion she had! Rey felt angry, more than she ever had before. She felt pure, unadulterated hatred.
Rey stood up, slowly, menacingly as she looked upon the scrapper, eyes burning with fire. The scrapper jittered a little backing away, feeling the darkness ooze out from Rey. She was a terrifying sight to behold, the scrapper freezing up thanks to nothing but her own fear.
Rey grabbed her lightsaber and prepared to light it. Before she could, she felt two presences behind her.
"Rey? Rey. Don't do this. Calm down. You're not in your right mind. Just take a step back, and put the lightsaber away," she heard Ben over her right shoulder. He was much more unsettled than usual, extremely worried about Rey, though he tried to remain calm so as to not unsettle her. He knew Rey had a natural inclination towards the Dark Side, as much as she liked to deny it. But he never wanted her to fall victim to it like he had. He knew Rey would regret this once the haze of anger fell, and he wanted to stop it from happening before it began.
Over her left shoulder, Rey heard but one thing.
"Do it," a dark shadow egged her on in a voice that sounded much like her own, but twisted. It was reminiscent of a snake's whisper, a tone that dripped in darkness and seemed to revel in others' pain and fear.
A choice was presented before Rey: to walk away and forgive this woman, or to kill her and make her suffer for her actions.
For Rey, there was no contest.
As the second sun continued to lower and the sky darkened more, she ignited her lightsaber, the yellow glow promising certain death.
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And chapter three is done! First Order holdout cells are still resisting within Coruscant, there's one Sith Star Destroyer unaccounted for, Rose is concerned about Finn's dedication to Rey, Ben confronts Rey about taking the Skywalker name, BB-8 is permanently out of commission, and Rey wants vengeance.
For those wondering why I killed BB-8, well… I did warn you when I said 'high stakes drama.' And to take Rey in the direction I want to take her, I felt it was necessary to kill off BB-8. I want Rey to do something SHE wants, not what someone else wants or expects of her. And this is that.
Ben is really getting on her case about choosing a name, which is one of the things that pissed me off the most about TROS: Rey Skywalker. Ugh, it makes me sick just to type it. For one, that's not how names work. You don't get to choose your name. A name is given. And another, it shows just how much of a failure Rey's journey was. The whole point of her story was for her to find her belonging, but she didn't get that, and taking the Skywalker name is an attempt to belong somewhere, even though there's nothing left of that family but tales. Her choosing that name ultimately means nothing. And, come on: why couldn't she take the Solo name? That would've had so much more meaning that, while tragic, would be understandable. Choosing Skywalker made zero sense and was meaningless.
Conversely, I actually really like the idea of Rey Palpatine. Granted, the way it was executed in TROS leaves a lot to be desired, but the basic idea itself is interesting. What makes me like the idea the most is that it gives big Romeo and Juliet vibes to the Reylo dynamic: two people from families at war with each other who end up falling in love. Come on, you can't deny that sounds interesting. But also, I like that, in a way, the idea of Rey Palpatine allows for a correction of the prequels. If you think about it, Ben and Rey coming together represents a Skywalker and a Palpatine coming together in the RIGHT way. Not like Anakin and Sheev, which was very much the wrong way.
Obligatory disclaimer is obligatory: I own nothing you recognize. Feel free to leave a review if you have questions or just want to talk. I'm sure you know the drill by now: I don't answer guest reviews because it is physically impossible, so please leave one using an actual account.