May the Fourth Be With You: In honour of the fourth day of May, two chapters. Please do not forget to review :D

Chapter 26 - Moral Compass

Darth Sidious was near senseless with fury.

As a man who had done many terrible things in his life, to be taken down by something he honestly hadn't done...

And what Nubian would if think to sell their child into slavery? Maul had told him that she recognized Naboo.

Rey Palpatine was provenly his daughter, provenly Nubian, but who had raised her and why did she recognize him?

But it was too late for that information now. His bounty on Obi-Wan Kenobi had fallen through. Not surprising seeing as not even Darth Sidious had realized that Ben Neeson, Amidala's guard was the Jedi he wanted dead.

"Apprentice," Sidious snarled at the hologram of his Zabrak, "Why didn't you tell me about her past?"

"She never confided in me that she had been a slave, Master."

"I thought you said you were her closest confidant."

"Outside of the Order," he corrected boldly.

Sidious ground his teeth, "Obi-Wan Kenobi." That's who she trusts.

He had seen them, standing shoulder to shoulder, Dooku standing guard of them, the Count that had almost fallen to the Dark was now wholly loyal to the Light.

So long as Rey was with them.

Rey was so close to the Jedi Council, and powerful enough that if he could but turn her…

"Master?"

Sidious looked back to his apprentice, Maul was playing the long game, which is not what he had been raised for, which was why he had yet to succeed in turning Rey to the Dark Side.

But to his credit, he had yet to fail.

Yet Sidious had to find other tools to use for his means, just as Darth Plagueis had moved on to other projects.

Projects that Darth Sidious was no longer privy to because he had yet to convert Rey, despite her active dabbling in the Dark Side of the Force.

All it would take to push her that little bit would be Kenobi's death.

Maul couldn't kill him, he wasn't strong enough, the blasted Knight had made Master by inventing his own lightsaber Form, an eighth form that not even Plagueis knew how to replicate. Sidious had half a mind to kill the pest himself, but he couldn't risk an injury or anything that would tie him back to the man's murder.

"How much does she trust you, Maul?"

"She trusts me with her life, but that isn't enough to turn her."

"Kenobi's death will be enough."

"I did not know you had been the one to place the bounty," Maul said defensively.

Sidious waved his words away, "After four years, he was more apt to die on a mission or defending Amidala. Your little escapade with the Mandalorians only cemented her trust in you. My career is ruined, I have little to lose now by cutting the Jedi's weak links."

"And what will that accomplish?"

"This is war, my apprentice. The Republic is weakening. And what better way to destroy the Jedi than have them destroy themselves."

"I do not understand."

"And you are not meant to. Your assignment remains the same, wait for her to fall -then push her further."

"Yes, Master."

He shut down the comm, and began his work.

He was not the scientist that Darth Plagueis was, no, Darth Sidious was an artist and what he was about to do with the young Jedi Knight in his possession would be nothing short of a masterpiece.

Rey knew she should tell them.

But she was afraid, and she knew that that fear was all the more reason she should tell them.

She was from future, Obi-Wan and Satine were her maternal grandparents.

But Sheev Palpatine was still the father from her memories.

She was insane.

She rolled over to look at Obi-Wan who, as usual, had no problems falling asleep in the Temple.

Of course, after Master Sifo-Dyas and Maul taught her how to shield she slept better too.

But not tonight. Careful not to wake him, Rey sat up and slipped on her shoes.

Taking her staff with her, as Master Jinn had lectured her about leaving it behind despite the fact that it would have blown her cover.

There still weren't many places in the Temple she liked, but the gardens remained a centre for solace for her.

This late at night, only little lights interspersed amongst the leaves and flowers illuminated the dark.

Finding a place where the grass was thick and soft. She crossed her legs and attempted to still her mind, being especially careful to keep herself shielded from Obi-Wan and Master Jinn. She was going to tell them, and she didn't want them to glean it from her thoughts. She needed to have the courage to confide in them.

She was from the future.

At least, she was pretty sure she was from the future.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Breathe in.

Breathe…

The light changed.

She opened her eyes, and there was no light.

Breathe out, she told herself, taking care to exhale.

She saw a ripple in the dark, and as she inhaled, a breathing apparatus echoed her.

The intent breathing that rasped in the darkened space around them grew, driving her near mad, but she didn't speak.

She was having a vision.

A memory, the Force was with her, and her fears of insanity were manifesting-

"I told you, that you don't belong."

Rey didn't flinch as enough life grew for her to identify the black giant she had first encountered in her vision on Ilum.

"I belong," she told him calmly. This was just a vision, she had hurt herself on Ilum by running away from him, if she just sat still-

The cyborg laughed at her, his breathing a creepy warning ringing around her, "Is that what you think, that you aren't from the future, that you aren't a displacer?"

"I belong-"

"You think you are the Chosen One," he stated.

"I don't even know what that means."

He laughed, "I will show you the fate of the Chosen One. Had the Force not interceded and brought you back, Qui-Gon would be dead, and Obi-Wan would have been my Master."

"Obi-Wan would never betray me," she said, remembering what the giant had said last about her Masters not loving her.

This cyborg obviously didn't know what love was.

Something changed in the darkness, and the giant snarled at her, "Your precious Order is far from perfect."

Rey would have pointed out she knew this, no one was perfect, but she was thrown back, and she was no longer in darkness, no longer in the gardens of the Temple on Coruscant, but in a vaulted room of some sort.

Master Dooku stood across from her, eyes eager, hungry, darkness shrowding him like a fevered heat. In his hand, his normally blue lightsaber blazed red.

A mark of someone outside of the Jedi Order.

"You have unusual powers, young Padawan. But not enough to save you this time."

"Don't bet on it!" she heard herself yell.

Obi-Wan shouted at her, and she tried to turn to him, but instead caught a second lightsaber he threw to her. She found herself parrying against Dooku's crimson blade in a style that was not her own.

Dooku wasn't sparring, she realized as he disarmed one of her blades. He was trying to kill her, a point that sunk in as he took her arm and she fell back beside Obi-Wan.

The pain was surreal.

And then she was back on Coruscant, standing in front of the Council, all of their faces disapproving.

What had she done to upset them so?

Dooku and Sifo-Dyas were absent and Mace looked particularly peeved with her, and Master Yoda…

Rey hadn't known how much his opinion mattered to her until she found his eyes closing, his long ears drooping and his head shaking in disapproval.

She turned to look at Obi-Wan who she felt as he always did, a bright presence behind her.

But he wouldn't look at her.

The scene flashed again.

Ahsoka was older, and in Rey's hand, she held the delicate chain that was her Padawan braid. Holding it out to her, Rey said, "I'm asking you to come back."

Ahsoka sighed sadly.

And Rey understood then that Obi-Wan's Padawan was leaving the Order and would never return.

The cyborg giant snarled by her ear, "She was my Padawan. Obi-Wan stood by and did nothing!"

The scene again changed.

And her father sat tied to a chair, a blue and red lightsaber held in either of her hands.

"Do it," her father ordered.

And Dooku looked at Chancellor Palpatine as if betrayed, then back up to her, his brown eyes resigned as Rey's sabers cut his head from his shoulders.

Rey screamed. Reeling, the cyborg's masked face appeared before her as she stumbled backwards through the darkness. "You wanted to be me, yet you know not the fate of the Chosen One!"

Heat enveloped her, and she seemed to be standing on a river of lava.

Obi-Wan was gazing at her, his face raw with pain and exhaustion.

He looked devastated, betrayed, and angrier than she had ever seen him.

She tried to fight free of the vision, and she almost broke free as Obi-Wan began shouting, "It's over!"

Her vision blurred from black to too bright lava.

"I have the high ground."

That last held her in place, what did having the high ground matter? She was on a moving river of lava.

Obi-Wan gave her a warning expression, one that she would have listened to if she were half dead and drowning. His voice was a command, "Don't try it."

Try what? she wondered as she found herself flipping over him.

Obi-Wan took off her legs above the knees and her arm that held a single bladed saber.

She screamed. Confusion and pain warring for dominance in her consciousness. She was going to die from this, her mind was going into shock and she would die, Obi-Wan having killed her.

But why!?

She reached out her one remaining hand to him, and found that hand to be mechanical.

The one Dooku had severed from her. A Dooku that had somehow succumbed fully to the Darkness.

"You were the Chosen One! It was said that you would, destroy the Sith, not join them. It was you who would bring balance to the Force, not leave it in Darkness."

She wanted to cry, she hadn't betrayed him, Chosen One or no Chosen One, she would never betray him. She wanted to call for his help, plead that there had been a misunderstanding, what came from her lips instead was blasphemy, "I hate you!"

She fought then, remembering that this was just a vision of some kind. But the cyborg grabbed her by the hair with a black gloved hand and shoved her back into the heat and pain, "You wanted this!"

She was on fire, she had slipped back toward the river of magma and she was on fire.

The smell of her own flesh burning was a secondary terror to the pain she knew of no equal to.

Obi-Wan did not come back to save her, and she was lost.

"Now you know," the cyborg said to her in the dark, "why I'm in this suit, that your precious Obi-Wan is capable of mistakes, and that the fate of the Chosen One is cursed."

She said nothing for a long time.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

She turned to look up at the giant, flat on her back defensiveness, as she said, "You aren't real."

"You do not belong!" he raged back at her.

"Because I exist," she said, voice certain, more certain than she had been in all the years that had passed since her arrival on Tatooine, "You cannot. No one needs a Chosen One. The Force is with me, and unlike you, I saved myself."

"You're wrong," he said, before the vision released her.

Rey fell forward on her hands, her legs still crossed.

She fought to control her breathing as she curled her hands, her organic hands into the grass.

By the time she got her breathing under control she decided that what she had seen wasn't the past, wasn't the future, but the Force itself telling her what had been and what she was.

The cyborg had been right, she didn't belong, this wasn't her time.

But this was her life, her people, and the galaxy she loved. She was a time traveller, and she did belong to her because she was an agent of the Force.

She was a Jedi and the Force itself had brought her back. Brought back to stop whatever fate she had just witnessed. It was by the grace and will of the Force that she had been brought to this time.

The Force swirled around her, the Light and the Darkness, the rise and fall of the tide.

She had not, would not join the Sith as the cyborg's Obi-Wan had accused her off. Obi-Wan would not betray her because she would never betray him.

Xanatos was the only apprentice of Master Jinn's who would ever fall.

Rey pulled herself to her feet, and carefully reached through her Master and Padawan bonds to Master Jinn and Obi-Wan.

Both remained asleep.

For once it seemed she had managed to keep her shields up even during a horrific vision.

She should wake them, tell them…

Tell them what? That she just had a vision about killing Dooku and Obi-Wan killing her -or at least the alternate vision of her?

She ran a hand over her forehead, she was sweaty and shaking, and didn't know how she would respond to them arguing with her about the time travel, about their accusations of not telling them years ago, or if she could take sharing her dreams with Obi-Wan.

She still hadn't been able to tell him about the Darth Carrion dreams. Dreams that had stopped only two years ago when Maul helped her piece together how to-

Maul.

She moved before she knew what she was doing. The night air was cool on her skin as she ran out into the traffic. She didn't bother finding a transport, his new apartment was only a few kilometres away from the Temple.

As she ran, leaping from rooftops to rooftops, hopping speeders and floating advertisements, she let her head clear.

Only as her thoughts cleared, her emotions caught up with her, she did her best to feed them back to the Force, but…

She couldn't get the look on Dooku's face out of her head before she killed him, the resignation of his own death.

The Count she knew would have never knelt before anyone, not like that, not in defeat.

And then Obi-Wan.

Don't try it.

That command sang through her, the emotions she had felt from him... why hadn't the cyborg listened?

In what felt like years, in what felt like moments, she was slipping in through Maul's window.

A half second later, a lightsaber was at her throat.

His amber eyes caught in the black and red patterned lines of his face widened, "Rey?" The lightsaber powered down and he took a step back from her.

She said nothing, her every breath visibly rising her chest.

"Apprentice, what are you doing here?" he asked, voice a growling tenure.

"What would you say if I told you I'm from the future?"

By the light of the traffic and glowing signs behind her in the streets, she couldn't tell if his expression changed as he said, "Which future?"

"What?" she asked.

He sighed, "The future is always in motion, you know this."

She scowled at him, "I'm a time traveller."

"How?"

"The Force brought me back, I was in my home then the next time I woke up I was in a rock cropping a while outside of Mos Eisley."

"When?"

"I travelled about sixty-six years into the past."

"I mean when did you arrive in the past?"

"A few months before I joined the Order."

He blinked at her.

"What?"

"There was a disturbance in the Force then, everyone who was even slightly Force sensitive felt it. No one knew why it happened… but this… would it explain it."

"You believe me?" she asked, voice breaking.

"Why would you lie?" he asked in turn.

She launched herself at him, catching him in a hug around the waist as he tensed. She buried her face against his shoulder.

This male seemed always to be here for her. She had been alone for most of her life, and now she found herself blessed with so many dear friends.

Darth Maul froze as Rey wrapped herself around him.

It wasn't the first time he had been in this position with a female, but he was pretty sure she wasn't asking for carnal favours.

In fact, for a split second, he thought she attacked him and was going to try ripping out his jugular.

It was something he might have done for a surprise attack.

But Rey wasn't attacking him, she was crying on him…

He remained motionless. The only experience he had with crying people was when he was torturing them, murdering people in front of them, or about to murder them as they screamed for mercy.

When her knees went weak, he caught her before she could slip to the ground. Hesitantly, he walked backwards until he reached the bed. He leaned back and she readjusted, curled against his side, face pressed to his chest as her tears turned to sobs.

Through the apprentice bond that had been growing steadily between them, he felt her relief, her confusion, and the eddies of fear.

She was afraid he would turn against her because of her revelation.

No, she was afraid Obi-Wan and her Master would turn against her, disbelieve her when she revealed her truth to him.

He wasn't sure if she was from the future or not, perhaps she had some intense vision that made her feel as if she had lived another life. She was, after all, a touch-clairvoyant. Yet, he believed that all things were possible within the Force: the Force, as Rey herself often said, was infinite.

Why wouldn't time travel be possible if the Force willed it?

The Force sang at his thoughts, whispering its agreement in his ear. Which decided the issue for him.

Rey was from the future.

He wrapped his arms around her, and he sent a thought out into that Great Being, and you can't take her back.

The Force giggled, brushing a soft touch to first his cheek and then Rey's.

No, the Force would not be taking her away.

This made him relax some and Rey's sobs eased.

He still didn't know what to do or say to her. He was kind of irked that she hadn't been afraid of what he would think.

And then Maul realized that Rey was here. As in here with him.

In her fear and confusion, she had run to him.

Not her Master.

Not Obi-Wan.

Him.

His hearts beat with pleasure and satisfaction. He had beaten two Jedi Masters.

And they didn't know that he had been training her how to use that saberstaff of hers correctly, that he had taught her how to shield her mind and her Force presence from other sensitives, and that he had trained her to use her emotions to manipulate the Force.

In turn, she had taught him her Form. He was the only other Master outside of its creator and Rey who knew Form VIII. Thanks to Rey, he had nearly mastered Shono-Mii, the Way of the Butterfly, or as she sometimes called it, the Art of the Flippy.

It was a Form not even Darth Sidious knew, a Form that if Maul ever had to defend himself against his once Master, Sidious would be quite unprepared for.

Rey had fallen asleep against his chest and he was still wary of moving. She hadn't stated what she wanted him to do for her, so he remained still, careful not to wake her, wondering what had sparked this revelation.

Nightmares?

He had first taught her how to shield when she had confided her dreams about Darth Carrion to him.

He had taken no small amount of pleasure in Sidious's raving about being barred from her mind.

His Rey was much more than a scavenger crow.

His Rey.

How he wanted that to be true, no matter how close they had grown, she had never yielded to any temptation he could offer to divert her from the Jedi.

Possibly, though he was loath to admit it, he was starting to see the Jedi as more than his Master had led him to believe them to be.

Mainly, the knowledge that the Jedi didn't kill Force sensitives who didn't join them. Not that he truly cared for his homeworld, Dathomir in anything but the abstract, but to realize when Rey told him of Asajj's Master taking his Padawan to meet her Nightsister mother, that the Jedi did not steal Force sensitive children, no more than they killed Force sensitives that were not actively working against them. Or else the Jedi Order would have destroyed the Dathomirians.

The Jedi trained Force sensitives because to be born strong in the Force was a calling, and to not be trained could be…

Well, he was sure there was a reason why when his research on his people revealed Dathomirian males going insane hadn't truly been due to the Nightsisters torturing them, rather the opposite.

Neglecting one's call to Force was a hard thing.

Discovering his Master was a lying piece of rotting intestine was no surprise.

He had a clip of Rey publically accusing him of selling her into slavery on a halo drive under his mattress.

His Master's uncultured exclamation of 'what?' was a dear thing.

He wondered how Rey's time travel story fit into that?

But then, Darth Plagueis had supposedly cracked the code to immortality. All things were possible.

He adjusted slightly, holding his breath in worry that he might wake her.

Rey merely adjusted with him, burying her face into his robes.

He knew that if Sidious or Plagueis had been in this position that they wouldn't have let her sleep. They would have talked to her, consoled her with promises of power, planted doubts into her mind, telling her that only he could understand.

But Darth Maul was aware that he had no moral compass, and his arrow between right and wrong had become thinking of what Darth Sidious would do; then doing the exact opposite.

So he didn't wake her to pour poison in her ear, to try and convince her that her Master and Obi-Wan would turn against her at the first opportunity.

Besides, he doubted they would, he doubted the Jedi Council would. Maul doubted anyone who didn't believe in Rey.

Rey made a sound, and he worried that she was forgetting to shield in her emotional unrest, even though he had shown her how to use the emotions to hide herself. Gently, Maul raised a hand to pet down her shoulder blade.

When she didn't wake to yell at him, he figured it was okay. He continued to pet her back, a motion that he hoped soothed her as her emotions resettled, easing away from whatever destress her unconscious mind had dwelt on.

He realized then that the only thing that really mattered to him in this life was her and the Force.

Fuck the Sith, he thought, fuck the idea of revenge against the Jedi or his Master. Wherever this female went, he would follow.

AN: And that was Maul getting his first real emotional hug. Thoughts, reactions, or reviews? Pretty please?