Hello again.

If you are expecting updates, expect them in the late hours. 11 PM to 3 AM Eastern Standard. For now? Often. There is no telling precisely how often.

Tonight, we continue our exploration of the night after the events of the Last Jedi. We see what remains of a shattered Resistance. And, we see deep conflict in our force users-in the absence of a leader. Tonight, we focus on-

2. Rey I

"We have all that we need."

The words pounded over and over again at Rey's temples. Leia's sentiment was warranted and well-meaning, but reeked of platitudes she had been told as a girl. We have all that we need.

She was reminded of Unkar Plutt and the hours spent cleaning the garbage that poured through his shop. She could still feel the sharp bite of the steel against her soft fingertips as she scrubbed against it. Blood from her skin used to mix with the sand and leave ghastly brown marks on his things.

Careful, girl," he would roar from the corner of the text. "I could sell these for more portions than you."

"I need more time to rest," she would respond. She would hold her bloodied hands up to him. "I can't keep doing this."

Unkar would snort and rise from his chair in the shade. "You have everything you need." He would say. As he passed her by, he'd always pat her head so hard she'd buckle beneath the force.

Leia's words had value, and she smiled when she heard them. But now? They were as good to her as when Unkar said them.

Useless platitudes. Hollow sentiment. She would have to carry on as she always had. She grew up beneath Unkar's shadow and learned to fend for herself. She fought her way to freedom, to the Falcon, and to Master Skywalker himself.

And now it was time to emerge from beneath that shadow as well. But how?

Rey sat, cross-legged in her cot. In her hands, she swirled her fingertips over the jagged and broken metal that made up the lightsaber's hilt. Inside she could see the faint glow of the crystal inside. What was it called again? Kyber?

She held in her hands the lightsaber of Luke Skywalker, and of Anakin Skywalker before him. This sword had claimed lives on a scale Rey could not comprehend.

But now? The broken metal in her hands was as valuable as Leia's words. We have everything that we need.

How, Leia? How?

Rey rose from her cot-perhaps the first time in several hours, maybe more. She had long since stopped keeping track. In the crowded quarters of the Falcon, this was the only space that was hers. The only space away from the questions others would soon ask her. Where is Luke? What was he like? Who was he?

Questions she was no closer to answering than when she first left for the island. She thought of the anomaly of that man. She thought of the legend that preceded him and the bitter old man she had fought in the rain.

Perhaps Ben was right about the death of the past. Perhaps it really was for the best.

Rey placed the broken shards of the laser sword in a storage bin nearby, before opening the door and stepping out into the halls of the ship.

Was it late now? Or was it early? She could not tell. These were merely concepts in open space-and she knew that the Resistance had chosen the hours they would keep. She just hadn't been told.

Regardless, she knew where she needed to be.

Rey took careful, silent steps through the corridors of the Falcon. She knew that Leia was still up and active (most likely in the cockpit), so she took care not to move too close to that area of the ship. No...she had different plans.

She arrived in one of the ships common areas-where a bunk hung unceremoniously in the wall. Although she had not known this ship for long, she knew of what this room had seen. Chewie had been patched up here. Finn had placed Rose here after the battle earlier today.

And now, as she pulled at one of the lower storage bins, this area of the ship would serve for another use.

Rey lifted the sacred Jedi texts from where she had hidden them. She kept the lights low as she moved to the dejarik table and placed them down.

She still carried some guilt for her thievery.

She was the one that had traveled to the island. She sought out the first Jedi temple. And yet she had damaged their sacred land all the same.

And she had stolen the only things of value from a bitter old man. Perhaps she wasn't as noble as she would have hoped.

Still, there wasn't much time to consider such things. She opened the first texts and looked inside.

The pages were withered and near complete disintegration. It was difficult to read here in the dark, but she didn't want to risk discovery, and she didn't want Leia knowing of what she had. Not yet.

On the pages were symbols in a language she didn't recognize. Pictures and graphs were drawn. Diagrams and Jedi secrets all written here. For all her knowledge of the languages of the galaxy, nothing even resembled what she was looking at.

Frustrated, she sat at the dejarik table and slouched down in the booth. Another dead end. Another puzzle. Another labyrinth to solve.

Rey was tired and worn. She had escaped Jakku to discover a far more sinister evil in the galaxy than Unkar Plutt. She had sought out Skywalker, only to find herself disappointed in who she met. She trusted Ben Solo, only to see him command an army that killed dozens of soldiers that she believed in. An army that nearly shot the Falcon out of the sky.

"Skywalker might have had the right idea," she muttered to herself.

"What?"

Her eyes lifted to see Kylo Ren before her.

He stood-singular-against the familiar monochromatic walls of First Order ships. He was still dressed for battle. His clothes were tattered at the edges, and his face sprinkled with the salt of Crait.

His eyes bore a hatred Rey had not seen before. In this moment, he was not Ben Solo-but his alias, Kylo Ren.

They looked to each other for a long time before speaking:

"Ben, please-" Rey tried to say, before Kylo began to take fierce steps towards her.

"No," he growled. "There is nothing to say. You've made your choice."

"I've made my choice?" Rey asked. She rose from the booth and took several steps forward to him in the dark. Relatively speaking, they were about a foot away from each other now. "Ben, my friends were dying. By your hand. What was I do to? I didn't have a choice!"

"You did, Rey," Kylo spoke. "And you can excuse yourself all you want, but I offered you the galaxy, and you chose this. Packed in a piece of junk, flying to the edges of the galaxy. Running. Weak."

Rey thought for a moment. She thought of her resolve as she spoke: "You're right. I did have a choice. I woke up to see you, on the ground. Weak, as you say."

Kylo seemed to boil over as she said the words, but she would not stop. She was hurt, but more than that. She was furious.

"I could have taken you as a prisoner of the Resistance," she spat at him. "I could have cut your throat where you lie."

"Of course you didn't," Kylo taunted back. "You're too good for that."

"I am warning you-do not test me." She said. She could feel the anger building in her. She let it swell, and cast it towards Kylo. He seemed to feel the force from within her. Even through this ridge, he took a step back in apprehensive fear. What was it Luke said? About going to the dark without hesitation?

She brushed the thoughts aside. Now was neither the time nor the place.

"I hope you're happy," Kylo said. There was a sharp bite of condescension in the tone he struck with her. "I hope you find loyal friends and thieves in the Outer Rim. We'll recover, too. I've already set such plans in motion. General Hux is overseeing an operation that will recover what we can from the Supremacy and fortify our fleet."

"And what will you do?" Rey asked. "When the First Order comes to destroy this fleet? When stormtroopers blast away at my body until there's nothing left? What will you do, Ben?"

"DON'T CALL ME THAT." Kylo roared.

Rey sighed. "If you won't listen," she began, "then what's the point of this?"

Kylo paused. Then: "How am I supposed to know? I saw our future-I saw us together in arms-and here we are. I know what I saw."

Rey paused. The anger in her subsided. For all he put her and her friends through-for the war and the death and all that it brought with her-she couldn't help but feel a connection unlike any other. She didn't admire him like Leia, or care for him like Finn. No. This was something more. And no matter how much they both fought, or how much destruction would come from these discussions...they were bonded. Even with the death of Snoke, the two would surely continue to speak.

"I know what I saw," Rey repeated after Kylo. There was an air of tragedy in her voice. She was sure Ben picked up on it. "Same as you."

Kylo took another few steps forward. They were within inches of each other now. Rey felt anger and rage and sadness all the same. And something more within all of it.

"Is it too late for us?" Kylo asked her.

Before she could respond, a third voice interrupted them both.

"Rey?"

Rey jolted back and turned towards the unseen threat. She could feel a third presence between them. Her eyes locked onto the darkened figure at the entryway of the room. She focused in and prepared for what would come next.

"Hey, it's me," the figure said. The lights in the room lifted to reveal Poe Dameron-looking more confused than usual. This was the pilot she had heard about-and the two only had met just hours prior. Rey's defensiveness lowered as she tried to calm herself. "Don't freak out," he said.

Rey turned back to Kylo, but all she saw was the wall. The ridge in the Force had been broken. Any progress she could have made by continuing to talk to Ben was lost.

Thoughts raced through Rey's mind at an alarming rate. She could feel herself growing more conflicted. Could I try to reconnect with Ben? How could Poe interrupt me? Is there still a chance for Ben? What am I supposed to do?

Flustered, she reverted to anger-a state she was growing very comfortable in. "You should not have done that," she managed to say, as she paced from the room. She couldn't even consider returning to stow away the sacred texts.

No. She couldn't talk. Not now. She needed to speak to Ben, but there was no way she knew how to reconnect with him. Were the answers in the sacred Jedi texts? How could she read them?

These thoughts plagued her as she walked back to her sleeping quarters. If I could find a way to translate those texts, maybe there will be an answer for me. Maybe I can figure out how to connect us at will. Maybe there's a way to save him-

"Rey?" Another voice asked. The second in minutes.

Rey had opened the door to her sleeping quarters to find Leia, standing in the hallway between the two cots. She seemed to be preparing for sleep.

"Rey, what are earth are you still doing up?" Leia asked. "You look as if you've seen a ghost."

Rey took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, I-" she started, then promptly stopped herself. "I can't stop thinking. There's so much going on, and I-I need to fix it. I need to figure things out."

"This isn't my first war, Rey," Leia said-her usual cadence helping calm Rey's nerves. "You learn to force yourself to sleep soundly."

"But how?" Rey asked. She closed the door behind her and lifted herself to the cot.

"You don't have much of a choice, to be honest," Leia continued. She too lifted herself into her bed. "I remember getting chased halfway across the galaxy for days at a time. I slept so little and worried so much, one day my crew found me passed out in the halls of the ship."

"A princess asleep on the floor," Rey mused. "I would have liked to have stumbled across that."

"I'm sure they got a kick out of it," Leia said. "But you learn to let your ghosts torture you during the day, and not the night."

Leia turned the lights off in the room, sending both of them into total darkness.

"Sleep, Rey," Leia said. "You'll need to."

Rey said no more. Instead, she took off her boots and pulled the blanket over her body. Her eyes stared into the oblivion above her. Her mind thought of Luke Skywalker and Ben Solo. Of Crait and the rocks she had lifted.

Of the darkness she had grown so comfortable within.

So many questions. No answers to be had. No Jedi to ask. No heroes left.

Rey had spent a great deal of time in solitude before. She had lived in the carcass of an Empire machine for years. She heard little but the sound of the wind blowing sand across the dunes of Jakku. She had heard the echoes of the empty ships as she scavenged through them-all the while knowing that there was nobody else to help her. The prime of her life was lived without others.

But in this moment?

She never felt more alone.

I've cleared as many typos as I could. I have the time to tell this story but not the time to edit the story my current standards. For this, I apologize.

One such issue I am noticing is that FanFiction dislikes my usage of hyphens. Where I place two (-), the website wishes to place one (-). I believe I had fixed this. We shall see.

We have one last perspective to visit in this long night. The perspective of a young boy-alone in the universe. Abandoned by his father and uncle. Betrayed. Conflicted. And in charge of a malevolent army.

We continue to set the stage for the future and escape from the shadows of the past.

Until next.

-BYIT