Author's Note: Hello Readers! Thank you all for your continued support of this story! It means so much to hear from you all! And I have to say how amazing JenniferLadyBug has been, not only with her art, but her contributions in reading early drafts of chapters and giving great advice to help the story flow (though I claim full responsibility for any typos and wording errors). Thank you to my partner in this project - Go team Haunted!
I know these last few chapters have been painful, so all I'm going to say is trust in the journey... it will be so worth it!
Her knees stung with pins and needles, pressed against the unforgiving durasteel floors of the Derriphan for so long. Her shoulder ached and the jagged wound across her thigh throbbed with her pulse like a second, painful heartbeat.
Rey Palpatine welcomed the pain.
She began to draw it into herself, to meditate and let the Dark Side guide her, to attempt to bleed her crystal as Malak had instructed…
But a tugging pressure at her core interrupted, announcing that the Bond had other ideas. The Force was not going to let her have this without a fight, and it pulled her, ears drumming and head spinning, into another place.
Even before she opened her eyes, the whine of a familiar hyperdrive revealed that Rey was on the Millennium Falcon. She lifted her gaze to see Rose's face buried in her hands as she hunched over the Dejarik table. Finn sat beside her, leaning back heavily against the lounge with a frustrated groan, staring at the ceiling as he took in a calming breath. Nearby, Chewie leaned silently against the wall, arms folded over his chest.
On the other side of the common room, the ghostly blue outline of Ben stood rigid, fists clenched at his sides, yelling at Poe. Even from where Rey knelt she could see the tendons protruding from Ben's neck, the blood pounding in his temples.
Strange that he hadn't yet noticed she was here. Was it a dream then? Or was he simply so distracted, he hadn't felt the pull of the Bond?
Then you will tell Lando and Maz to take the fleet and go after her! he screamed. I don't care what it takes, she cannot be left alone with Darth Malak any longer!
Finn was providing the translation to the others who couldn't hear him through the Force, though it seemed mostly directed at Poe, who was receiving the brunt of Ben's wrath at the moment.
After hearing Ben's response, Poe stood his ground, crossing his arms and shaking his head. "You didn't see her, Solo. She's gone. She doesn't want rescuing. She walked away from us."
No, Ben shook his head vehemently. No, that's not her!
Again, Finn translated Ben's words.
"The way she looked at us, like we were nothing to her," Poe said, gesturing to the others. "She's fallen and you would do best to accept that and focus on saving everyone else from the return of those Sith!"
Finn lifted his head and Rey didn't miss the way he winced and clutched his side, repositioning his arm before he spoke. "I hate to agree with Poe, but she threw me against the wall, Ben."
"She's not herself," Rose said, her voice wrought with emotion.
Chewie growled his agreement.
Don't you think I know that? Ben yelled. She feels alone and Malak is preying on those feelings!
Finn relayed the message to his friends word for word.
"And why do you think she feels alone, huh?" Poe asked, taking several steps forward, pointing an accusing finger in Ben's general direction. "If you hadn't forced her through that gateway, we wouldn't be having this discussion!"
Ben roared, a guttural sound mixed with an explosion of his Force and the ship seemed to tremble with his emotion. Poe paled and took a step back, he may not be able to see Ben, but he had surely felt the quake of the Falcon and Rey could practically see the memories of Kylo Ren flashing through Poe's mind.
Ben glared hard at Poe, and with a shuddering breath, sank to his knees. He stared at the floor, opening and closing his fists, scratching at his pants, as if he desperately needed something to do with his hands that didn't involve strangling Poe Dameron.
Finn rose from the lounge, clutching his side and limped over to where Ben knelt. He placed a steadying hand on his shoulder and spoke softly, sending Poe a pointed glare as he spoke. "This isn't your fault, Ben. You were just trying to do the best you could to keep her safe. I get that. But sending the entire fleet after her, when we have no idea what we're up against, is probably not the best way to go about this."
No one dared to speak as they waited for Ben's response, the only sound was the continuous hum of the engines and Ben's breathing as it slowly evened out. The silence went on so long, Rey had come to the conclusion that this was indeed a strange Force-fueled dream. This could not be the Bond if Ben still hadn't noticed she was here.
But Rey attempted to pull on their connection anyway, in an attempt to make it release her. Dream or reality, she didn't need to see any more of this. It was only driving the knife further into her heart, wrenching and twisting until the pain was a fresh wound again.
The moment Rey focused on their connection, Ben stiffened, looking over his shoulder to where Rey still knelt on the floor. He froze, as though she were a wild animal, and if he made any sudden movements, she would bolt.
Finn's head whipped around, staring in her direction, though he obviously couldn't see her. "Is she here?"
A barely perceptible dip of Ben's chin. Yes.
Then, his gaze softened, moving from stunned shock to longing in the short time she'd taken to blink. And Rey had to force herself to look away or become drawn in by the soul-wrenching sorrow in his dark eyes. Gods. Why did he still have such power over her?
Rey. Please. We'll find another way. I didn't want to leave you, but –
"But you did," she said simply.
He looked as if she'd struck him, staring back at her as his mouth opened, then closed again, trying and failing to find a response.
And a familiar, harsh whisper wormed its way into her mind. They all left you. And they will do it again if you let them.
Pain, pain, pain, she reminded herself.
Anger.
Rey grasped for it and tried to use the power it brought to wrench the Bond closed, but Ben wasn't letting go. She could feel him straining against the Force and she lifted her eyes to him. He'd risen and was slowly crossing the space to her, his eyes shut tight in focus, jaw trembling with the effort. His hair had fallen to hide his face and he swiped at it with the back of his hand, clearing his view to meet her gaze again.
The air was sucked from the room as he approached, as though someone had left the Millennium Falcon's top hatch wide open to the vacuum of space. Rey couldn't focus on anything else but Ben's pleading eyes as he looked down at her, now only inches away.
This isn't you, Rey, he said, voice harsh with emotion. Please. I know you.
Then he reached down to her, his shaking fingers grazing her cheek and she flinched, drawing back as if his touch was a hot brand against her skin.
"No. You don't," she snarled. "Or you wouldn't have left me alone!"
In that moment, she watched Ben's strong features slowly crumble into an expression of inconsolable grief. His dark eyes welled with tears and his lips worried together as he grasped desperately for something to say.
But Rey could not stand to see him any longer. She used her fury, her pain – and gathered that rage into something tangible until she felt it close tight around her. Like a blast door to shield her emotions, it shut out his voice, his pained expression, and his eyes - those Force-damned expressive eyes that begged her to stay.
It was too late to go back to them. Poe was right, she had walked away. She had made her choice.
And so had Ben.
Rey's world spun again and the Bond slipped away, leaving her alone in that dark room on the Derriphan.
Not alone. No.
She had the pain. She would always have that pain.
And now, she knew what to do with it.
Rey settled into a cross-legged meditation position in the middle of that empty room and let the hurt wash over her. She drew it into herself as she collected a lifetime of anguish, using the Force to hone it into a weapon. She felt the power cascading around her and she reached out for the chest of tools Malak had set out for her. With a tug of the Force, it flew to the open space at her side and she got to work.
Rey unclipped her saber from her belt and began to dissemble it. She peeled away the casing, twisted at the wiring harness, and swiveled the mount to reveal the heart of her weapon.
The yellow kyber crystal.
Rey thought back to when she'd first attuned that yellow crystal. Had it known then that it would be put through this? Did it have some understanding of its fate? Had it known deep down that it was destined to fall? From the noble blue of Leia's original crystal to the blazing yellow of Jakku's sun. And now it would be forced to bleed as Rey had. All the days she had scratched away on the walls of that fallen AT-AT. The lonely nights dreaming of an island where she could finally find belonging. Like a hemorrhaging wound, the emotion of her past life would be drained, the abandonment of all the desolate nights would be bled out.
That pain, that anger and hate had simmered for more than a decade in that desert wasteland and would now be turned into something more.
Power. Raw Power.
And she placed the little crystal into her palm and forced all of those feelings into it.
Unkar Plutt's hideous sneer as he pushed another quarter ration at her for a day's work. Jagged scratches counting the days. Growls of a stomach never filled. The rotten, festering piece of her, poisoning her from the inside as she waited so naively for her parents to return. Ben's guilty face as he made the choice to push her away. All of it, those memories which fed her pain, she let them surface, let them consume her and Rey didn't shy away from the icy cold rush of Force that swelled all around her. It soaked through to that empty core of herself, and that Void that had ached to be filled now began to expand with power.
She called to the memory of that scream, that bone-jarring scream of the little girl that was now the call of her own rage and she drove it violently into the shard of kyber.
Rey was so focused on the fury cascading all around her in the Force, she didn't notice the beads of sweat collecting on her forehead, dripping into her eyes. She hardly noticed her body protesting the lack of food with increasingly insistent rumbles. She didn't sense anything aside from the Darkness within her, for what could have been hours. Until suddenly, something shifted.
She wasn't sure if it was her imagination, but a shrill sound echoed in her mind as she felt the pain finally break through into the crystal.
And with that otherworldly, resonating shriek, Rey was thrown into another place completely.
Night is a blanket of stars overhead on an unfamiliar forest planet. Three moons hang in the sky above a young Leia as she thrusts her saber into Luke's hands. The moons reflect the single tear streaking down Leia's cheek as she holds her brother's gaze. "I cannot follow this path," Leia says in a half-choked voice.
The wind howls a note of mourning as it blows through the giant trees encircling the clearing.
"You must do what you feel is right," Luke answers, jaw clenched tight with emotion.
His clean-shaven face and the absence of frown lines on his forehead hint at his youth, but the way he holds himself, so self-assured. Luke Skywalker seems more confident in this time and place than Rey had ever seen him as an older man.
"At the end of this path, I see…" Leia pauses, looking up into the sky as though haunted by the image. "I see his death." She places a protective hand over her swelling belly.
Rey's vision tunnels again and she is standing inside Luke's hut on Ahch-To, with his Force ghost looking on from behind her. This is her own memory.
She handles the bundle before her like a newborn infant, unwrapping the cloth and placing Leia's saber in her hands, running reverent fingers over the hilt. Luke has guided her here, to Leia's lightsaber. To send Rey down the path Leia had walked, to finish what Leia had started.
A shock of fresh anger coursed through her. To finish what Leia had started? Despite what both Luke and Leia knew to be waiting at the end of that path, they had both willingly sent her there. To follow the will of the Force and help realize the death of Ben Solo.
Leia had given up this path to save her son. And yet, both Leia and Luke had encouraged her to take up that old path now.
Ben Solo was just another casualty in the long line of deaths caused by following the 'will of the Force.'
Well, no more.
The only deaths Rey would suffer now, were those that she willed.
Rey felt the crystal shudder defiantly in her hand as she turned the visions around, letting ice fill her fingertips as she pounded her anger into the crystal. Like a hammer against an anvil, she closed her eyes and beat the feelings into it. Pain. Anger.
Hate.
Yes, she hated how the Force wanted to use her. Hated being another tool for its will.
Something gave as a sliver of that anger reached the core of the crystal. Rey pushed harder, gathering the darkness and took herself deeper.
The room twisted.
A cavernous abyss stretches around her and the withered face of her grandfather materializes before her.
Exegol.
He is waiting for Rey to strike him down. To become all of the Sith.
And Rey knows exactly which moment is coming, having played it countless times in her own memory before this.
Rey's lips part in surprise the moment she feels the connection she shares with Ben open up. It is different in that moment. The connection is… right. It's good.
It feels like coming home.
She and Ben stare at each other for a precious moment, reveling in the feelings they share. Realizing this is how it should have been all along.
The vision fades and Rey's heart is twisted painfully.
That moment. The first moment she'd ever shared with Ben Solo.
Rey choked back a sob, staring down at the crystal in her now trembling hand.
"Ben!" she screamed at the traitorous fragment of kyber. "Why?!"
He'd left her. And now the Force was trying to trick her back into being its tool. Just an instrument at its bidding. She felt the crystal fight back, coiling around her emotions, pulling at her until she moved the way it willed her to. And she'd followed blindly before, eventually causing Ben's death by following Leia's path. And her mentors had sat by and let it happen, knowing what would come of it.
Death.
"No!"
As the single word reverberated powerfully off the walls all around, so did the avalanche of Rey's Force. She fought against the flicker of Light caused by those visions, stamping it down with her rage until all she could feel inside of her was Power.
It surged into the crystal then, pouring through it and filling it so completely that it was finally made to bleed out its Light to make room for the pain. The only thing that existed was the rise and fall of her chest, the crash of her own pulse in her ears, and the burning in her throat, made raw from screaming as she willed the fury to continue pouring through her into the tiny shard of kyber.
She was a glacial torrent of Dark Force and the crystal was the unwilling vessel.
A bone-jarring crack issued through the Force, and the ripple of that shockwave pounded against her ears and her energy all at once. Still, she didn't relent. And by the time she had poured out all of her anguish into that crystal, Rey was utterly exhausted. She reached out through the Force, a last feeble touch to feel the signature of the Kyber. It responded immediately, beating in time to the chaos of her emotions.
It spoke to her pain. It mirrored her agony. The crystal was a perfect vessel for her rage and she knew with it, she would achieve a Power she'd never been able to attain before. Because now, there was no conflict. Only Power. And with it, Rey would show the Force that she was no longer its tool.
Exhausted, she lay back on the steely floors, tucking an arm under her head. The Force didn't dare speak to her in that moment. Finally, it had submitted to her and blessed her with a few precious moments of sweet silence.
And with the void in her soul finally filled with fury, Rey Palpatine clutched the blood red kyber to her chest and listened to the wrathful heartbeat of her crystal as she drifted into unconsciousness.
