The Destiny of a Jedi
Tears stung Rey's eyes as she angrily threw pieces of driftwood at Kylo's burning TIE. Not that it did anything, but it felt good to throw something. Smoke rose into the sky as the sun began to set over Ahch-To, and a ragged porg squawked in dismay.
Rey yelled until her voice was hoarse as she threw more pieces of wood at the burning ship. The heat was stifling and the smoke made her eyes smart and lungs burn, but she didn't care. Not anymore. Her sense of despair was suffocating. She felt shame, sorrow, fear, anger, and a tremendous amount of loss. Her heart felt empty, broken, irreparable.
She wanted to scream and cry until her throat hurt and her voice gave out. Her eyes blinked furiously against the acrid fumes of the burning metal. Rey hadn't understood why Luke had gone into hiding, to abandon everything. Not until now. Now she understood.
She would never see anyone she loved again. Leia was gone. She would never see Finn again, or banter with Poe. She would never be able to laugh with Rose about how ridiculous the boys were. Rey would never see Chewie again, he'd never give her another comforting hug that nearly squeezed her in two. She'd never be able to hear BB-8's merry beeps again.
And then there was Ben… Her heart ached at the simple thought of his name. She missed him so much already. She was devastated by what she'd done to him, what she had almost done. She'd let her anger get the best of her, and it caused her to nearly kill the person closest to her. The only one who understood her. Her other half.
Rey remembered his eyes, kriff, they were so much like Leia's that it hurt, and how confused he had been, but also how clear his gaze was. It wasn't muddled, confused, or blurry anymore.
She could still feel his chest rising and falling beneath her hand, hear his sharp intake of breath, see his soul-piercing gaze in his dark eyes. She remembered his silent question. Why? He hadn't even said it through the Bond, but he didn't need to. His eyes had been enough.
Rey could still feel that bolt of longing that had shot through them, their mutual heartbreak over Leia, and over each other. Over their damn circumstances.
Rey knew why she had healed him. Why she would have died to save him. Why she had wanted to take his hand. She was just terrified to verbalize it.
Rey had never felt anything so intense in her life. Not even her fierce friendship with Finn, who was basically her brother in all but blood, could even come close to what she had with Ben. Every other relationship she'd ever had paled in comparison to what she felt for Ben. Rey hadn't exactly had the best examples of love growing up. Jakku was about survival and everyone for themselves. The only reason that anything resembling that would take place was just for pleasure, or abuse without any real meaning.
Rey closed her eyes and tried to remember her mother and father. She tried to hold on to the love in their eyes as they promised her that she would be ok. She could remember the barest glimpse of how her father looked at her mother. The love, devotion, the adoration in his gaze was breathtaking. And Rey had only seen that gaze in one other place. Whenever Ben Solo would look at her, she would see that same breathtaking gaze that made her forget how to think properly.
Ben Solo, not Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren's eyes had a hungry glint about it, but Ben's eyes were softer, gentler, more vulnerable. And she loved him all the more for it. Rey froze instantly when she realized what she'd thought. She loved him… Oh, fuck, Rey realized. She was in love with Ben Solo. Fuck. And she would never be able to tell him. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
She remembered how she had felt staring at him on the wreckage. Oh, how she had wanted to succumb to her pent up desires, and just fall into his arms. She'd been tempted to kiss him just to forget all the horribleness of that moment. But she fought that urge and shoved it away like she had so many times already. Kriff, there were so many times where she had wanted to kiss him, hug him, touch him, to just be with him that she had lost count. During their emotionally charged moments of intimacy, there were times where she had almost lost her self-control, or when he nearly gave up on his restraint. Fuck, she knew that he loved her, just as much, if not more than she loved him. And now, she was only just realizing how much she loved him. Fuck.
Just when she'd thought she had no tears left to cry, her eyes stung as tears welled up. Rey loved him. She loved him so damn much. Which was all the more reason why she couldn't be near him. She had hurt him, nearly killed him. Ben would never hurt her intentionally, Rey was sure of that. But even when he was Kylo Ren, for all that Kylo Ren had done, he had never tried to intentionally hurt her. But she had run him through with his own saber without hesitation.
During their duel, he had deflected the majority of her attacks. And now, she would never be able to see him again. Not even through the Bond. She would cut herself off from the Force if she had to. Tears fell down her face as she squeezed her eyes shut. Ben didn't deserve to be around a monster like her. Her friends didn't either.
Rey bowed her head in shame, letting her white hood hide her face. She opened her eyes and her gaze fell upon her lightsaber. Luke's lightsaber. Anakin's lightsaber. The Skywalker legacy lightsaber. By all rights, it should belong to Ben. A stab of pain went deep into her chest as she thought of him. No, Rey didn't deserve to have this. Not anymore. She never was worthy of it in the first place.
She was nothing, nobody, a mere scavenger from Jakku. Another stab of pain shot through her as she realized that she couldn't even say that anymore. She was the descendent of the most evil being in the galaxy. She was a Palpatine. Granddaughter of the Emperor. The same Emperor who had seduced Anakin Skywalker to the dark side. The same Emperor who had nearly killed Luke, who had threatened Leia, and had killed Anakin Skywalker and the twins' mother, Padmé. The same Emperor who had been manipulating, hurting, and tormenting Ben from before he was even born.
Rey couldn't bear the thought that she was related to the person who had hurt everyone she loved. Her friends, her mentors, and Ben. Especially Ben. She was related to the monster that hurt the person that she loved more than anything and anyone in the galaxy. Self-loathing and shame washed over her like a tidal wave.
Rey took the legacy lightsaber from her belt and looked at it. The repairs she had made to piece it back together only seemed to taunt her, reminding her of how her heart had been split in two, away from everyone she loved, away from Ben.
Anger and despair rose to the surface and pain grew in Rey's head and chest, compounding each other and tearing her apart. Her tear-filled eyes went back to the inferno in front of her and she gripped the metal casing of the saber tightly.
With an angry cry, Rey flung the saber into the fire with all of her strength. But before the fire could envelop it, a hand shot out and caught the saber with a resounding smack. Rey stared, dumbfounded, and then realized that the hand was oddly transparent and was tinged with blue. Her eyes widened in shock when she saw Luke Skywalker walking towards her.
Luke held himself with a more confident stance than he had in life. His hair was longer, and he was wearing his Jedi robes, his cloak dragging on the ground behind him. But his body was translucent and a blue aura surrounded him. A Force ghost.
Luke walked through the fire without difficulty and looked at Rey with a half-smile.
"A Jedi's weapon deserves more respect," he said. The irony was not lost on either of them, given that he had tossed this very saber over his shoulder last time he held it. Rey could only stare at him in shock.
"Master Skywalker?" Rey's voice shook as she spoke, and she felt more confused than ever.
Luke looked at her with an almost exasperated sigh. "What are you doing?"
Rey wasn't sure how to respond to that. Looking at Luke though, she suspected that he already knew.
Sensing her hesitation, Luke motioned her over to a ledge of stone a little aways from the fire. Rey slumped down onto the rock, exhausted. Healing the snake on Pasaana, healing Ben, and the events of her entire day had exhausted her.
Luke stood in front of her, and as soon as he let Rey catch her breath, he gave her a pointed look and waited for her to respond. Rey took a deep breath and began to recount what had happened on the Death Star.
"I did everything I was trained not to," Rey said. Her head hung low in shame. "I drew my saber first, attacked him, blind with anger." Luke looked at her with a sympathetic gaze.
"But then you healed him," he said. Rey nodded but was still unable to meet Luke's eyes.
"I gave him some of my life," she said, softly. "In that moment I would have given him all of it…" she paused, before continuing in a voice barely above a whisper. "Died, if I had to." Luke nodded kindly at her.
"Your compassion saved him," he said.
Rey didn't look at him and shook her head. She couldn't accept anything resembling a compliment, or anything positive about herself. She didn't deserve it. How could she, after everything that she had done?
"I could have killed him…" she whispered with her lips trembling and her voice was heavy with shame. "I almost did. How could I have done that to anyone? To him especially? I…" she trailed off and bit the inside of her cheek, hard, to keep from crying. Luke looked at her sadly.
"You care for him," he said gently, more as a statement than a question. Rey nodded and wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. Luke saw the pain on her face and his eyes softened. "Why are you here, Rey?" he asked. Rey blinked, and her head lowered in shame again.
"I don't want to hurt anyone else. I saw myself on the dark throne. Of the Sith." She shook her head vehemently. "I won't let it happen." Rey looked up at the Jedi Master, her face full of pain and determination. "I'm never leaving this place. I'm doing what you did." Luke looked at her sadly.
"Rey, I was wrong," he said. Rey looked up at him in surprise. Luke looked around the island with regret in his eyes. "It was fear that kept me here." Luke's gaze leveled back to her. "What are you most afraid of?"
Rey's eyes lowered, and the vision she saw on the Death Star flashed through her mind. She saw herself in that horrible glow of that red, double-bladed saber. She saw the mortal wound she had inflicted upon Ben. She inhaled shakily and spoke, her voice trembling.
"Myself." It was easy to admit, but at the same time, it was so hard to say it out loud.
Luke looked her dead in the eye with a straight face and said without blinking, "Because you're a Palpatine."
Rey felt all the air leave her lungs and her eyes widened as her gaze snapped up to meet the Jedi Master. Her mouth opened and closed as she tried to speak, but no words came out. He said it so casually as if it wasn't a big deal. Rey struggled to speak but her thoughts were traveling at lightspeed, going to fast for her to process anything.
Luke looked at her and said, "Leia knew it, too." Rey's eyes widened as she took in this new piece of information. She finally forced her voice past the lump in her throat.
"She didn't tell me…" Rey said, shaking her head in bewilderment. She stared at the ground, unsure of what else to say. Luke moved to sit beside her, his ghostly, blue form radiating calm.
His sense of calm and control suddenly reminded her of Ben, and how calm he had been in the first couple of Force bonds on this very island. Kriff, she had to stop thinking about him. It hurt too much.
Rey paused when she realized something else. "She still trained me," she said, her brow furrowed in confusion. Why did Leia continue to train her? She was the descendent of the most powerful Sith lord in the galaxy, a dangerous and reckless weapon that could turn on the Resistance at any moment. Darkness and evil were literally in her blood. Luke seemed to sense her unspoken question. He looked at her kindly.
"Because she saw your spirit," Luke said. "Your heart." Rey looked at him with a pained expression as if she didn't believe him. She wasn't sure she could. The dark side was literally coursing through her veins, tainting her from the moment she was born. She was related to the most ruthless, manipulative, and evil person in the galaxy.
"Rey," Luke said, gently. Rey looked up to meet his kind gaze. "Some things are stronger than blood," he said, his voice heavy with the truth to those words.
Rey wanted to believe him, but she dropped her gaze down as she wrestled with her tumult of feelings.
Her mind wandered back to Leia's teachings, and she closed her eyes. Breathe in, and out. In, and out. She cleared her mind and calmed her racing heart. Luke was right. Some things were stronger than blood. Hope, loyalty, compassion, and love. Love, most of all.
Her blood did not define her. Leia hadn't let the fact that she was the daughter of Darth Vader stop her from creating her own identity as a strong, powerful, and inspirational leader. Neither had Luke. He hadn't fallen to the dark side.
Rey's love for her friends was stronger than the darkness inside her. Her love for Ben was stronger than that. Luke's eyes twinkled as he watched the young girl's emotions flicker over her face.
"Yes, Rey," he said. "Love most of all, is the most powerful." She looked up at him, and his gaze was shrewd and knowing as he looked at her. He knew. Rey felt her cheeks burn and she averted her gaze.
Rey closed her eyes and allowed herself to think of Ben, just for a moment. Stars, she loved him so much that she could physically feel the ache in her chest. The yearning and warmth that his brown eyes had held on Kef Bir haunted her. She remembered all the times that he had offered her his hand, and how badly she had wanted to accept every damn time. But she was still afraid, and she hated herself for being weak.
"Being afraid isn't a weakness, Rey," Luke said, sensing her thoughts. "It proves you care, and accepting that you're afraid is much braver than pretending not to be." Rey drew her gaze away from her hands and back to Luke's face. He turned towards her and smiled grimly. "Confronting fear is the destiny of a Jedi," he said. "Your destiny."
Rey looked down, feeling overwhelmed. Suddenly, she understood why Ben had hated his family name and the legacy that everyone expected from him. Luke looked at her sympathetically.
"Rey, if you don't face Palpatine, it will mean the end of the Jedi," Luke said grimly. "And the war will be lost." Rey flinched slightly upon hearing her surname and she swallowed hard to push down her rising sense of panic.
She looked up to meet Luke's gaze, who was sympathetic and sad as if wishing that she didn't have to deal with this. Rey frowned suddenly as she recalled Luke's words.
"But didn't you say that it was time for the Jedi to end?" she asked. Luke nodded solemnly.
"I did," he said. "And I still stand by that. But I had a talk with an old friend, and it made me think." Luke smiled as he stared out into the sea. "Perhaps it was time for the meaning of the Jedi to end, to grow beyond the restraints and rigidity that made it fail." Luke shook his head sheepishly. "All my talk of balance, and I was still too blind to see it." He looked at Rey, growing serious. "You were right, Rey. Everyone has conflict in them, a mixture of light and dark. The Force doesn't deal in absolutes. It's just the way of the Force. Balance."
Rey looked at him, startled, not expecting his confession. Luke looked at her with a regretful gaze.
"You were right about Ben, too," he said softly. Rey looked up at him sharply, surprise on her face. "I failed him, my own nephew. You were right, I should have done more." Luke's eyes were sad, melancholy, and full of regret as he thought of his sister's son. "You were right not to give up on him, that's where I failed. I should have been stronger."
Rey's heart was heavy as she thought of Ben, and as she thought about the weight of her failures.
"I wanted to seem strong for Leia," she said, softly. Luke smiled ruefully.
"Leia was the strongest of us all," he said with a light chuckle as he went to stand up. "There's something my sister would want you to have."
Rey looked at him in confusion, and he raised his eyebrow shrewdly at her.
"What, you think it was an accident that we found each other? Two orphans from the desert? The Force brought you to me and Leia for a reason." He motioned for Rey to follow him as he began walking towards the stone huts.
It took Rey a moment to get her bearings before she stood up. She winced as her sore muscles protested and she was shocked at how wobbly her knees were, and how weak she felt. She really was exhausted. Her vision swam for a moment as her head spun from the sudden movement. She waited a moment for it to clear, before quickly following Luke.
Rey was inside Luke's old hut as she knelt down on the ground. Her hands grasped a stone in the wall and with a grunt of effort, she pulled it out and put it to the side. Inside lay a leather-bound pouch tied neatly with a string. It hummed with a familiar energy that she couldn't quite place...and then she unwrapped it. Inside lay a cool, metal cylinder of a lightsaber. The silver-plated metal was mixed with lines of copper running down the handle and around the edges.
Rey hesitated before gently picking it up, holding it gingerly. As soon as she touched the saber, a rush of familiar, comforting energy washed over her. She smiled, suddenly realizing where she recognized it from.
"Leia's saber," she whispered reverently. It was beautiful, a little slimmer and more elegant than her brother's lightsaber. It thrummed with power, but it was gentler in a way, it had a soothing effect and an air of control, all things Leia had possessed. Luke stood behind her and smiled sadly.
"It was the last day of her training," he said, and a vision filled her mind.
It was dark and cloudy. Mist swirled everywhere making it difficult to see, the wind whipping the greenery every which way.
Leia's saber shook on a soft patch of grass before it went flying into her hand. She saw a figure with a green lightsaber step into her view, he wore a helmet with a visor covering his face. It was Luke, Rey realized and found it strange to see him this way, so young and full of life.
He swung his saber in a challenge, and Leia ignited hers, a blue glow casting along the ground. She charged after her brother, swinging her saber ferociously.
The twins exchanged blows, sparks from the clashes of their lightsabers illuminating the air around them.
Rey could feel the absolute joy Luke had felt. He had loved training his sister.
Leia suddenly grabbed her brother's wrist, the one that was holding his lightsaber. She delivered a swift kick to his torso, making him double over before throwing him onto the ground. Despite lying on his back with the breath knocked out of him, Rey could feel the immense pride that Luke had for his sister's abilities.
The man on the ground lifted his visor to reveal a much younger version of Luke. It was startling to see her mentor just a few years older than her. He was clean-shaven, a youthful charm in his eyes, and his face lacked the jaded defeat and fatigue that Rey had seen when she had known him.
Then the other flipped their visor up and Rey inhaled sharply. Leia. She looked so young, but regal and beautiful as always, with the blue glow of her lightsaber reflecting off of her face, with little tendrils of brown hair falling out of her helmet. But her brown eyes were sad, full of longing.
Rey felt as if she'd been punched in the gut. Those were Ben's eyes. How many times had he looked at her like that? How many times had she looked at him like that?
Her heart wrenched inside her chest as she looked at Leia. It startled her to see her mentor, the closest thing she had to a mother, so young and so sad.
"Leia had told me that she had sensed the death of her son at the end of her Jedi path," Luke said, sorrow and regret tinged in his voice. Rey's eyes widened and her heart seemed to freeze in her chest. That meant…
Rey could only stare at the saber in her hands, suddenly aware of what this meant.
"She surrendered her saber to me and said that it would be picked up again, by someone who would finish her journey," Luke said.
Rey was trying to process all this new information at once, but her head ached as she tried to make sense of it all. Her lineage, the Death Star, Leia's saber, Ben...it was too much.
"A thousand generations live in you now," Luke said. "But this is your fight." Rey looked at him in confusion. What did he mean by that?
Luke motioned to the lightsaber in her hand. "You'll take both sabers to Exegol."
Rey had clipped both sabers to her belt but now she stood up and looked at the Jedi Master in confusion.
"I can't get there," she said. "I don't have the wayfinder, I destroyed Ren's ship." Luke looked at her fondly with a kind smile on his face.
"You have everything you need," he said. Rey paused and then she suddenly exited the hut and made her way back down to the burning TIE fighter.
Most of the fire was gone and the ship just a smoldering wreck. A few porgs were huddled nearby in an attempt to soak up the fire's residual warmth. Rey crouched down in front of the cockpit and strained to reach a compartment inside the ship. She winced when her arm brushed against a piece of metal that was still hot from the fire.
She finally opened the compartment, and smoke and steam rose from the panel, clouding her vision. When the smoke cleared, she saw Vader's wayfinder sitting inside, untouched and unharmed.
Rey carefully pried the wayfinder from the wires and pulled it out of the cockpit. She stood and looked at the wayfinder in her hand, holding it gently as if she were afraid it would shatter if she gripped too hard.
"Two were made," she whispered, almost reverently. A large crash of ocean waves caught her attention and she turned from the TIE and hurried towards the rocks.
The constant sound of the sea was always present on Ahch-To, but the sea was usually calm and gentle, especially compared to what she had just been through on Kef Bir. So when she heard the churning of the roiling water, she hurried over and was met with the sight of...a ship?
Rey stared in awe as she watched an old X-wing rising from the sea. Blue, shimmering, waves of water rolled off the wings in mini waterfalls. Seaweed clung to the landing gear and the cockpit was waterlogged and there were smudges all over the ship, but at that moment, it looked like the most beautiful ship Rey had ever seen.
She suddenly remembered seeing this same ship over a year ago submerged and sunken in the sea when she had first come to Ahch-To to find Luke.
She turned around to see a figure a little ways behind her. A blue figure against the cliffside, Luke had his eyes closed in concentration as he carefully lifted his ship from the depths of the ocean and landed it on a plane of flat land with the smallest thump.
Luke opened his eyes and smiled shrewdly. Rey felt her lips lift up in a small smile in return. She turned back to the X-wing and took a deep breath.
She was so lost in thought that she didn't even realize that Luke had come to stand next to her.
"I know what you're thinking," luke said suddenly, causing Rey to jump in surprise. Luke chuckled. "You want to jump in that cockpit and go right now, don't you?" Rey opened her mouth to protest but Luke put a hand out in front of her face, effectively stopping her. "Rey, you're not going to do the galaxy any good if you face Palpatine half-dead," he said gently.
He motioned to the Lanai caretakers that were beginning to make their way towards them.
"Let the caretakers clean up the ship, while you rest and get your strength back. You're going to need all of it." Luke looked at her with a fondness in his eyes, and she could suddenly see the resemblance to Leia.
Rey nodded with a small smile. "Yes, Master," she said softly. She was exhausted.
Rey stumbled into one of the stone huts and sank down on the stone bench. She put the lightsabers and the wayfinder next to her before she laid down on her back. She could already feel her eyelids growing heavy.
But before she could close her eyes, Rey thought for a few moments. She had to use the wayfinder to get to Exegol. Then she had to get past an army of Star Destroyers without being seen, and go up against the most powerful Sith in the galaxy with nothing but two lightsabers? The ridiculousness of it almost made it sound funny in her head. But no, she was going to have to do this, for real.
This was a suicide mission. Rey knew that if she did this, there was a high chance she would not make it out alive. She could hope, but realistically, she knew how low the odds were, even without C-3PO to tell her.
But if it meant saving the galaxy, and saving her friends, she would gladly give up her life for them. She just knew that she could not, would not let Palpatine win. But at the same time, taking on the most powerful Sith lord in the galaxy by herself was laughable. Alone…
Suddenly, Rey's thoughts turned to Ben. She remembered when she had gone to him after being in the cave about her parents just about a year ago. How she had immediately reached for him, and he comforted her with no hesitation. She remembered not feeling alone at that moment, feeling cared for, unlike now where she felt a sense of hollowness eating her heart from the inside.
She felt a sudden wave of guilt as she realized that she had stranded him on the Death Star with no means of escape. She had abandoned him, again. Even though she knew that he would most likely be able to get out, her guilt still threatened to consume her. And she missed him. And stars, did she miss him.
She was tempted to reach out for him using their Bond, but she quickly dismissed that idea. He wouldn't want to see her. And she knew that she could never see him again. She'd caused him too much pain in his already painful life.
Even if he tried to chase after her, he didn't have a wayfinder, or a ship, anymore. And why would he anyway? He should hate her by now. She had rejected him time after time again and then she had basically killed him.
Her breath froze when she suddenly remembered what Luke had said. Leia had sensed the death of her son at the end of her Jedi path. And if she was supposed to complete Leia's journey, then that meant… No, no, no, no, no…
Suddenly, Rey was very glad that she had stranded him on the Death Star. She would not allow another death on her hands, much less Ben's. She had nearly killed him once, that was more than enough. She couldn't handle it if she caused Ben's death.
Rey could feel her eyes closing against her will, but before she succumbed to sleep, she knew one thing was for certain. She was sure of one thing about her and Ben. Rey wouldn't be able to live with herself if she caused the person she loved most to die.
Author's Note: Ahh! I'm SO sorry for how long this took to update! I really didn't plan on being MIA for a month, and I'm so sorry about that. I'm finished with summer school, so hopefully, that actually leaves me with more time to write. This took a long time to write omg, and since Ben got a turn to do some self-reflecting about his feelings for Rey, I figured Rey should get the same chance. I expanded a little more on this scene because I don't know. Something about it seemed off, or just unnatural. My guess is that this was a heavily edited scene because the dialogue doesn't really flow as well. I also tried to fix some character inconsistencies, especially for Luke because-intentionally or unintentionally-TROS seems to contradict a lot of stuff in TLJ. Thank you for being patient with me, and while I hope I won't take as long with this next chapter as I did this one, I can't make any promises on that since the next chapter, or the next couple of chapters, is Exegol, and there's a LOT happening there lol. I don't think I'll wait another month though, haha. I hope you guys enjoyed this!