Author's Note: Thank you so much for your continued support for this story! Let's congratulate Jenn on finishing her dissertation, yay! And tell her congrats for more than 100 illustrations for this story so far! Amazing! Tell her hello on Twitter at owbensolo I'm on twitter too, at ErickaO - Come say hi!
Next update probably in another two weeks, I don't have the chapter started yet and things are crazy at my place. We have friends living with us who were evacuated in the California Creek Fire which is out of control right now. The smoke is so bad here we can't see the sun. Is 2020 over yet guys?
Seriously, but writing is the bright spot in my life right now, so thank you as always for your comments and support for this story. It means so much.
They ran.
Rey grabbed Ben's hand and they ran.
From the cockpit, they pounded the door release and sprinted down the loading ramp into Ahch-To's briny sea air.
Back to the Temple. To the Mosaic of the Prime Jedi.
One hour. They had one hour.
The island was a blur. The stony path, the steps to the Temple, Ben's panting breaths at her side, the suns, the cliffs. It all bled together. A mass of color and sound that pulsed to the crash of her heartbeat and Rey was drowning.
The only solid thing, the only thing truly keeping her afloat, was Ben's warm hand in hers.
And she clung to him, and he to her until they stood, shoulders heaving, breath rasping an echo throughout the temple, staring into the mosaic pool.
The water rippled in their presence, beckoning them to cross over.
"If we go straight for the Sith, try to defeat them for good, Sabrond will just execute our friends in an hour anyway," Rey said, gazing into the water, feeling more desperate with each passing second. "Kriff, she could be sending the order right now for all we know."
The burn of tears stung behind her eyes, clouding her vision as she tried to focus on... what? The mosaic? No, that didn't matter. There was nothing to focus on. No plan. No way out. Gods, how could she have come so far and still have no idea where she was going?
"But if we bring the Sith through like she asked, Sabrond will kill them anyway." Ben's frown lines deepened as he continued to gaze at the mosaic. "You know their word means nothing."
Rey could scream. She remembered feeling this helpless once, just before she'd taken Malak's hand and followed him back to the Derriphan. But then, she'd thought she had no choice, she thought she was alone.
Well, she sure as hell wasn't alone anymore.
Ben squeezed her hand as though riding the waves of her thoughts alongside her.
No. She wasn't alone and she didn't have to grasp for the darkness to change her destiny. She had Ben, the other half of her soul, and she trusted that the Force, who had brought them together, would show them the path to take.
So, what choice did she have but to join Ben in expanding the reach of their senses? To cast about as one to try to feel for their pulse in the Force and let it guide them?
"What can we do but listen?" she said.
As if in agreement, Ben reached out next to her, pitching the net of his emotions into the unknown, into the mosaic pool and beyond. She joined him, feeling for that sound, that beckoning cadence of the Force. Once she caught the hint of it, she let herself fall into its rhythm. And like immersing herself a warm bath, her muscles relaxed. Racing, panicked thoughts slowed to a trickle of consciousness, leading to one fated destination, an overwhelming instinct. A golden thread of light pulling at her mind causing her to focus on one thing.
One person.
"Finn." Ben whispered his name just as she saw Finn's face in her mind.
Ben was shaking his head. "I don't understand, what can we do for Finn from here?"
"Trust the Force," she said. "We didn't before, we can't make the same mistake."
His brows creased with worry, regret swimming in his eyes. "I spent my whole life fighting against the Force, fighting against myself, and all it got me was pain. The moment I let everything go, resigned to who I was and who the Force wanted me to be. I was rewarded." And when he squeezed her hand, Rey knew what he considered that reward to be. "So, you're right, of course. We listen."
And with his warmth beside her and their lovethe chorus down the Bond, they extended their feelings across the web of interconnected life all around and stepped into the pool. They reached farther for the image of Finn they had seen a moment ago, trusting the Force to make sense of everything when they could not.
Streaks of light burst from the pool at their feet. Ribbons of energy twined around them and Rey was weightless as they left the mosaic behind, twisting and careening headlong through a vacuum of endless nothing. All the while she let her senses drift ahead of her, joining with Ben's to guide their way through the infinite blackness of space and time.
And in the span of what could have been seconds or years, a distance of inches or light years, they stood together in the World Between Worlds looking upon an unexpected scene frozen before them.
Like a cross-section in time, the figures facing them stood motionless. Darth Malak, Darth Nihilus, and Darth Maul, three specters in black all wielded their sabers in battle against…
Herself.
It was Ben and herself, frozen in time. Vestiges of their past selves locked in battle with the Sith. Finn stood alongside them, clutching the injury at his side, his face frozen in a pained grimace. It was moments before they had sent him back through the gateway.
Seeing her own face petrified in an expression of fury, reflecting the glow of her saber as she faced off against the Sith, was a shock to her system. Dark circles, clenched jaw, wild stance – she had fallen to the darkness already. It was obvious enough staring at herself in this moment that she was lost to her own rage.
And she couldn't look away. For several minutes, they stared silently, unable to turn away from this motionless slice of history.
As they stood in rapt attention, an otherworldly, melodic hum materialized from the silence. Swirling wisps of sound coalesced from the air itself and formed a voice like a thousand stringed viols, rising in harmony to fill the dark void of the In Between.
You have finally heard us, Prime.
Ben's lips parted in surprise. "Who are you?"
We are the Force.
And when Rey and Ben reached further, casting themselves into the Force as one, the echo of that voice's meaning burrowed deep into their minds, into the Bond, embedding itself into their joint consciousness.
We are the Whills, it said.
The Whills. Yes, Rey remembered. When she'd studied those ancient texts, the Journal of the Whills had been among them. The Whills - those immortal beings who bore the Force itself. They used the midichlorians inside each Force sensitive being as their conduits, to control destinies, to create life. For millennia, the Whills were worshiped as the Force itself. There were even practitioners of the Force who were called the Guardians of the Whills.
The text had explained that it didn't matter what a person called themselves - a Jedi, a Guardian of the Whills, a Sith, because every living thing was no more than a vessel for the Whills.
What do you know of us?
"Please help us," Rey said, "We don't have much time. Our friends are going to be executed in an hour."
The voices laughed, like a tinkling of those thousand viols being plucked all at once. There is no time in this place, Prime. Because of the journey you have made in becoming the Prime and gaining the Sight, we can speak through you, work through you. And therefore, you are no longer slaves to the passing of time.
Understanding dawned like a bright sun, illuminating parts of her mind she didn't know were there. A place without time. Unlimited possibilities and she could hardly wrap her thoughts around it. In that moment, she realized the limits set upon her by her own humanity and she was overwhelmed by the vastness of life she'd never known.
I ask again, what do you know of us? Of how you came to finally earn the Sight?
Then, Ben was speaking up, like the dutiful student he was. "From the Journal of the Whills chapter seven verse four hundred seventy-seven…
"First comes the day
Then comes the night.
After the darkness
Shines through the light.
The difference, they say,
Is only made right
By the resolving of gray
Through refined Jedi sight."
And Ben recited the quote like only the star pupil in class could, with infallible confidence, every syllable timed to perfection.
Finally, Ben Solo, you see what we have been trying to show you for so many years. We brought your grandfather into being, to begin the important work of restoring balance. You will help finish that work. And you, Rey… Alone you were unable to understand, but together, as the Prime, you see.
As One you have earned the Sight. You are the Prime Jedi, re-formed. You are Revan and Bastila, reborn. You have become Light and Dark, unified. Therefore, Time and Space are nullified.
As the Whills spoke the last word, something separated inside of Rey. A great fissure between herself and her body that was growing, spreading, widening until she felt herself disconnect completely from her body. She was lifted away from physical sensations, away from the niggling concerns of her human form and she drifted up. Up into a blanket of whisper-thin threads, a web of infinite knowledge that held her weightless in its embrace.
And as she floated there, a reel of racing images unwound across her mind. Pictures, moments in time spilled into her vision and she experienced an endless cycle of millions upon millions of births. Mothers pushing, blood and fluid staining each birthing floor, each bed, babies screaming from their mothers' wombs. Wrinkled, infants crying and hiccupping on their first breaths. And interspersed between the births were the same number of deaths. Some agonizing, some peaceful. A grey-haired woman's hand relaxing in her husband's grasp, her pulse visibly slowing underneath paper-thin skin. A warrior cut down from behind by an ax he never saw coming, blood spraying across the chest of his assailant's leather tunic. Violent deaths, silent deaths, gasping or painful deaths.
But with each death and each birth, Rey began to see. Her perspective billowed into an awareness of her own insignificance, birth was nothing, death was nothing, compared with the vastness of eternity. This was the cycle of the Force. There was no birth, no death, because in the grand scheme of infinity, it was only just balance. It was only the Force.
Can you see now Prime? Do you have the vision to see what you must do?
And she did.
Now Prime, use the Sight.
She let everything go in that moment. She let go of all of her pain, all of her love, all of the past, all of her future. She let go of the need for life and the fear of death until she just was.
And finally, completely unburdened, she joined with her other half, expanding into the World Between Worlds and beyond, listening to the pulse that was and always had been the song of the Whills.
As they focused on that sound, they drifted back into their physical bodies in time to see a path ignite before them. Beams of sunlight broke through the endless black nothing beneath their feet, shattering the silence like claps like lightning. The blinding fissures of light snaked around the frozen figures of the Sith past their own bodies frozen in combat and toward the friend they had come to warn. They glanced at each other briefly before following the trail of light until they stood before Finn.
His face was twisted into a grotesque cry, his hand clutching at his injury. Rey had to swallow the emotion gripping her throat, reminding herself that this was the past and the past was no longer written in stone but was malleable with the help of the Whills.
Instinctively she and Ben placed a hand on Finn's shoulder, willing him to hear them, to meet them in this place outside of time itself.
Finn jerked backward, eyelids fluttering as he drew in a wheezing breath. "What the hell?" His head whipped around to the petrified figures around him, to the frozen figures of Rey and Ben nearby, lightsabers raised. "What the bloody hell?"
Worried for a moment that Finn might pass out, she grabbed his arm to steady him and he was able to focus his gaze on her.
His eyes softened once he took her in, the eyes of her first real friend, clear and bright, yet full of fear. And as Rey realized just how close she had been to losing him, she couldn't stop herself from wrapping her arms around him and pulling him close.
His arms enclosed around her in a tense imitation of a hug and she remembered, to him it had only been moments since they'd seen each other. So, for his sake, she pulled back again and tried to explain.
"Finn, its okay. Ben and I have found a way to stop time for a split second." She decided to skip all of the intricacies of the Force and the Whills, thinking it too much to convey in a short time. "We need you to listen to us. Can you do that?"
And though it seemed Finn was unable to issue a sound, he nodded. At first his head moved up and down very slowly as he continued to split a stare between she and Ben in the present and their two past selves. Soon, his head began to bob faster, his nod speeding up to a frantic, crazed sort of tremor. He was not calming down.
"Finn, its alright. The Force has allowed us to pause time. It's fine, Okay?" Ben was trying his best to convey calm, soothing emotions through the Force.
Finn stopped nodding. His trembling shoulders relaxed with a deep breath and Rey took the cue to begin her explanation.
"Some crazy things are going to happen once you leave the World Between Worlds, but trust in the Force."
"Once I leave the World Between Worlds?" Finn grabbed her wrist a little too hard. Apparently he was still panicking. "Rey, crazy things are happening right now! Why did everything stop?"
His finger wobbled as he pointed to her past self. "And how the hell are you here and there?"
"We've had some help from the Force," she said, the explanation sounding incredibly hollow compared to the inexplicable galactic shift that had actually occurred leading up to this moment.
He stared saucer-eyed back at her, but she wasn't sure he was actually seeing her.
"Finn. When you leave Lothal, I need you to know, that the Sith Eternal have their eye on the Free Worlds Fleet and plan to surround it on Mon Calamari. You have to anticipate this. Find a way to take them by surprise."
He didn't respond.
Ben took Finn by the shoulders, rotating him so they were nose to nose. "Finn, are you hearing us?"
Finn blinked once and rubbed at the side of his face. "Yes, yes. I can hear you. It's just… how is this even possible?"
Ben was speaking slowly, like you'd speak to a frightened child. "It doesn't matter, you just need to remember not to get trapped on Mon Calamari. There are more of the Sith Eternal left than we thought. Tell Lando and Maz. And whatever happens to Rey, whatever you think happens to Rey, just please make sure you protect the Fleet."
Finn's throat bobbed with a swallow and he darted another glance to their past selves.
"Okay," he said, exhaling loudly. "Okay I will. But what about now? The Sith -"
"We can't say any more. When time starts again, you will be fighting for your life the same as before," she said.
"Great, just great. This is… this is great."
Rey glanced to Ben and he nodded. This was all they needed to do, or risk time getting too jumbled up with changes and twisting into alternate realities that Rey did not have the brain power to imagine.
"Goodbye for now, Finn," she said.
Then she wrapped herself in the Force once more, joining with Ben and they placed hands on Finn's shoulders again, willing time to take him back into its jurisdiction.
Finn froze, eyes still wide but now unseeing. They'd done what they could. Now, they needed to trust their friend to make the rest happen.
Rey should have felt worried. She understood that logically. That there were so many ways this could all go wrong. But she didn't. Instead, she felt the Force as she'd never felt it before. As an energy, yes, but not in the same way she'd sensed it before. It was a sentient energy. Immortal beings guided their way, worked through them, and there was something very… peaceful about that knowledge.
She felt fingers lace between her own and the incredible oneness of Ben's energy joined hers in the Force. And there was no fear. Only a purpose as they extended their reach, calling upon the song of the Whills to guide their way to the Sith.
Her vision collapsed in on itself and she was freefalling through time again. A crushing pain against her shins and she caught herself on hands and knees, realizing they'd come to rest against the impossibly black bottom of the World Between Worlds.
She winced as she shifted her weight, looking to Ben who had also been deposited into a rather unflattering position on his rear end. That was when she realized the Whills must have an ironic sense of humor. Because as she struggled to her feet, she saw that she had been deposited on her knees directly before a dozen of the most powerful Sith to have ever lived.
Most were cloaked in shadow and she could hardly make out their faces. But the three Sith at the front of the group were unmistakable. Rey let her eyes trail over them. A slimy grin slid over Darth Maul's lips as their eyes met and Darth Nihilus seemed to hover closer with her attention.
And she recognized the one at their center well enough. He looked exactly as he had when she'd last pushed him back through to the In Between.
"Back on your knees so soon apprentice?" Malak laughed, a wheezing mechanical sound that turned Rey's stomach. Then he lifted a teasing eyebrow at Ben. "I can't keep track of who you call Master anymore."
Malak glanced back to Rey. "With how long you took getting back to us my dear, I was a little worried Solo wasn't man enough to perform for you. Rumor has it Revan had the same problem, you know, he – "
"Shut your mouth," Ben snapped. "You do not get to talk to her like that."
Malak laughed again, igniting his lightsaber and stepping closer. Nihilus and Maul mirrored the action, one at each flank. "Have it your way, Solo. I've grown tired of talk as it is. Now…" His eyes narrowed, burning with the fire of his scarlet saber. "The Sith will claim the power of your Dyad at last. And we will be free from the shackles of time."
The other hooded faces closed in, like billowing storm clouds churning around the eye of a storm, they formed up with Malak at their center. And as one, the Sith raised their hands, curling their fingers as if grasping for them, and Rey knew what would follow, because she'd been in this position once before.
She could imagine the milky white tendrils of energy being drawn from her very soul and knew with certainty what was coming. It was the same power her grandfather had used on Exegol.
A Force-drain.
A soul-sucking Force-drain, this time orchestrated by not one, but a dozen, desperate Sith Lords.
