A/N: Hi everyone, apologies that I haven't updated for some time.

But I felt that the break did me well - I genuinely like how this chapter turned out. It seems that it might be possibly be one of the biggest turning point in this fic. I won't give away too much, but do let me know what you think of it!

- Althea_Draxus

Rey leaned back into the leather seat in the common lounge of the command shuttle, her hands cradling the shard of blue kyber of her lightsaber. She heaved a deep sigh. It didn't seem like she would be any step closer to having a lightsaber anytime soon. Ahch-To was many things, but it was hardly a place to source for materials to build one.

Well, technically she could glean some scraps from the shuttle, but she doubted its owner would be too pleased about that idea. It would also be somewhat ungrateful, considering that for the past week they've been sleeping on the craft, he had entirely given over his premium cabin to her.

It seemed that everything in the cabin was even more luxurious than his quarters on board the Finalizer: the bed, the duvet, the full-length mirror, not to mention the private refresher. She had picked up a bottle to inspect its contents closer during a shower, and judging from the label information, the amenities were supposedly made from some hand-plucked flowers organically grown somewhere in one of the greener pastures of a Mid-Rim planet. Rey didn't know much about these things, but she was quite certain the soap, shampoo and conditioner didn't come from some First Order run-of-the-mill toiletry set.

In short, everything made Rey uncomfortable. It wasn't the sort of setting for someone like her. She had tried - and failed - to persuade Kylo to take back his cabin. He wouldn't even agree to share the bed, even though it was large enough to fit three persons. Instead, his only response had been a mortified expression as he insisted they stick to their present arrangements because "it is only right." Rey eventually gave up, although each time she caught sight of him asleep on the seats in the lounge, his feet dangling out, she thought that the only right thing in such a situation was for him to sleep in a space that could accommodate his entire frame.

Rey bit back a smile as she thought on how their relationship had progressed since they came to Ahch-To. The first few days were filled with spats every few hours. But by the fourth day, things were better. She and Kylo could sit down to have meals like two normal people who didn't have opposing burdens of the entire galaxy on their shoulders. They could meditate to the crashing sound of waves at the edge of the temple ruins, or look up at the night stars together. They could touch each other's feelings in the Force, sensing one another's intense emotions even if neither dared to raise it up as a topic of conversation.

Perhaps these changes had to do with them being in a place cut off from the rest of the galaxy, where the enmity between the Resistance and the First Order was nowhere touching the waves of the waters surrounding the island. Regardless, these experiences felt liberating. Intimate. As if the two of them had finally found a world they could belong to.

Would it be selfish if a part of her hoped for this to never end?

Her musings was cut short when Rey suddenly felt a presence behind her. Her smile widened by a fraction as she turned around, "Ben, you're ba -"

She never quite got round to finishing her words, because what she saw in front of her made her scream. Almost instinctively her hand reached for the nearest object on the table and hurled it in front of her.

The glowing Force Ghost of Luke Skywalker sighed as a commlink hit him on the shoulder. "Yes, hello back at you, Rey."

"Luke?!" Rey spluttered, her eyes wide in disbelief. She scrambled to her feet to take a closer look at him. "It's you! But... But... you're gone. I felt it through the Force. Leia too. And your grave marker on the cliff the caretakers did for you... How..."

The old Jedi sighed deeply as he plonked himself on the seat next to hers. "Sometimes the Force thinks it's a good idea to send someone back to..." Luke's words trailed off when he caught sight of the blue kyber sitting on the table. He held it out in front of Rey, who looked back at him with a sheepish expression.

"My lightsaber!" he exclaimed once he realized what it was. "You broke it?"

"I... We... It was the Force," Rey finished lamely.

Luke said nothing as he set the crystal down. "Well, about time you create your own, I suppose."

Just then, his attention was drawn to something behind her. Rey turned to follow his gaze. The door to the premium cabin was wide open, and even seated at the lounge, anyone could see that the bed was very much slept in. Immediately she blurted out, "It's not what you think!"

"I didn't think anything," Luke remarked innocently. "Anyway, I didn't come here to talk about why you've been sleeping in my nephew's quarters. I came here for your lessons."

"My lessons?" Rey echoed.

"I promised you three, you only got to two point five before you left. Or did you think you no longer need a teacher just because you've been reading some ancient texts?"

Rey blushed. "You knew?"

"Not when I burnt down the Jedi tree. I came to know about it later. Much later." He waved his hand dismissively. "But how were those texts? Could you read them?"

"...Threepio translated parts of them for me where he could. But even so, I couldn't understand most of them," she confessed.

Luke shrugged as if unsurprised by the answer. "Well. That's pretty much why the Jedi had to study them. But was there anything at all that you remember or stood out for you?"

Rey thought for a while. "Yes, there is. There was this part:

The burden is ours

To penance, we hew.

The Force binds us all

From a certain point of view."

She hesitated briefly before adding, "You taught me that in between all in the Force, is Balance. The light and the darkness are two sides of the same... there is no light without the dark, and no darkness without the light... So when the texts spoke of the resolving of the grey... I mean, as things are now... is it..."

Luke eyed her for a long while. Rey stood where she was, nervously looking back at her teacher. Without warning, Luke got up and flicked a finger on her forehead.

"Ow!"

"You already have the answer right in front of you," Luke said with an exasperated sigh. "Do you think darkness and light must always be on opposing ends, fated to always collide, and never be in harmony? After all those hours I drilled into you about balance. One cannot exist without the other, not even in ourselves."

"What about Ben?" Rey asked quietly.

Luke's eyes softened. He had half-expected the young man to be a factor behind her question. "You care too much for my nephew." He chided her, but there was no frustration in his voice, only resignation. "To penance, we hew. He must decide for himself. Rey, where he goes, it is not for you to choose." He sounded almost sad instead. "For once, Rey, let us let him choose."

Meanwhile, atop a cliff on the island of Ahch-To, Kylo Ren stood staring at the mid-sized pillar the Lanai caretakers had erected to mark the site where Luke Skywalker had vanished when he became one with the Force.

Even until now, he was unsure about how he felt about the face-off with his former Jedi master on Crait. Knowing that Luke wasn't physically on that salt planet, and that he didn't die at his hands... Kylo couldn't understand why back then he felt more relief than dread. Afterwards, when he sensed Luke slipping away to melt into the Force, there was no joy in his heart.

Only sadness.

He thought he hated Luke. So why did he mourn for his death?

This cliff was one of the first things Rey pointed out to him upon landing in Ahch-To, along with the cave she had told him about. She had hesitated to show him the cave, preferring instead to go on and on about how the cliff was the best spot to meditate, since it was facing both the open seas and the twin suns. It was also where Luke gave her a Jedi training crash course for all of two lessons. The third lesson had never come into being due to circumstances both she and Kylo were all too familiar with.

In fact, Kylo knew why Rey chose not to dwell too much on the cave: she was afraid. Not so much by the darkness residing in it, but that he would be compelled to go to it just as she had.

Kylo supposed she meant well, but she shouldn't have bothered. The presence of the cave had no effect on him. Rather, the only place he was compelled to go to was this cliff. It was the only place on this island that truly unsettled him.

The cave might be the seat of darkness, but this cliff-top was the heart of light. Kylo Ren wanted to settle the conflict in his heart, not prolong it.

Unfortunately, there was a certain trait he couldn't quite shake off: curiosity. As a child, it had led Ben Solo to find out that he wasn't a freak like what those boys at school taunted him as. He was Force Sensitive, a condition that was at once a curse and a gift. And then as a teenager, he came to find out that the masked man who frequently appeared in his dreams was none other than his grandfather, whose legacy he was destined to carry.

And so once again it was the case that Kylo Ren found himself succumbing to his innate inquisitiveness and he made the decision to climb the cliff after sunset. He had thought that perhaps at night, in the absence of the suns, the cliff would be less amenable to the light.

He was wrong, of course. The night did nothing to diminish the pull of the light that had saturated each crevice on the cliff. If anything, Luke's grave marker only served to amplify it.

Kylo set his cloak on the ground a few meters away from the grave marker before he sat down on it. Even in the dim light of the stars, he could make out the shapes of the roiling waves as they curled and crashed into the rocky beaches of the island. Absorption, and surrender. Over and over again, through the movement of the waves, the Force sought to recalibrate itself. Absorption of the light, and surrendering to the darkness. Absorbing the dark, and surrendering to the light.

Kylo began to understand now what Rey had meant when she said this was the best meditation spot on the island. As the cool breeze brought on by the waves fluttered through his hair, he was increasingly enveloped in a certain peace he hadn't known he could feel.

How ironic. War was brewing in the galaxy. The Force shouldn't feel this peaceful.

When Kylo made himself Supreme Leader, he had decided on a rule that would be benevolent. Yes, the galaxy needed order and stability. The First Order, with its disciplined military, was more than equipped to offer that. But just arms alone was not enough. Order was only meaningful when it resulted in acceptance. The Empire had fallen because its rule failed to take the sentiments of the ruled into account. The Resistance had emerged as protest against the cruel heavy-handedness of the Order under Snoke. Based on these realizations, Kylo had tried to effect change where he could, often to the chagrin of the Order's top command.

But now, everything that he had been trying to achieve would be reversed. Hux would see to it himself to erase every last trace of Kylo's reign in the Order. And then he would bring the full strength of the Order unto the Republic and neutral planets.

And if Kylo knew Dureena well, she would now be lobbying to mobilize for war against the First Order, not only in Chandrila, but also in the Republic as a whole.

He couldn't even count on his Knights. He had no doubt that what Caerra and Caedus told him was true. He had lost the Knights to Ceth, and now his brethrens must be roaming the Outer Rim and Unknown Regions, baying for his blood, Caerra's, and Caedus's.

And now, here he was, hiding out on a remote island that wouldn't even appear on the space charts unless one knew the exact coordinates.

None of this was what Kylo envisioned his rule as Supreme Leader of the First Order to be. How did everything go so wrong, so fast?

Just then, he felt a ripple in the Force. He tensed. He recognized this presence. He didn't need to turn to know that coming to sit beside him now was a young man in dark tunic, his golden brown hair resting in soft curls on his shoulders.

Kylo wasn't sure if he was in the mood for a conversation with the Force Ghost of Anakin Skywalker right now. The last time they encountered each other on Mustafar, Anakin had left Kylo unconscious at the foot of his command shuttle.

Anakin, however, didn't share the same reservation. "I take it we're still not friends."

"You're my grandfather," Kylo reminded him irritably.

"You really waste no time in making me feel old," Anakin tried to joke. When he noticed that his grandson wasn't particularly amused, he added quietly, "There is still conflict within you, but it is of your own doing. Stop resisting."

Silence passed between them for a few beats, punctuated by the sounds of the waves. Anakin waited patiently until his grandson finally spoke, "If Anakin Skywalker is who you truly are, then why did you turn?"

Anakin's voice was laced with sadness as he answered, "Love."

He noticed that Kylo seemed mildly taken aback by the answer, but he continued; his grandson needed to understand. "I was afraid of losing Padmé. After losing my mother... Padmé, she was my everything. I couldn't imagine life without her. And I had...seen her death. Just like I had seen my mother's. I didn't want to be as helpless in saving. I was desperate to do anything if it meant I could keep her alive. And... Palpatine, Sidious. He knew my greatest fear. I fell for it."

"The power to resurrect," Kylo said softly. "Which is what only the dark side of the Force could offer. That was why you turned."

Anakin gave him a bitter smile. "At the cost of everything. Padmé, my love. Obi-Wan, my best friend. Even myself. I killed all of them to become Vader. But even Vader couldn't escape from their ghosts."

He cast a gentle look at his grandson. "Ben, the dark side takes more than it gives. In the end, it will leave you with nothing but desolation and despair. You know this. You feel it too."

Kylo looked away as he mumbled, "But so did the light. Even the light had so much loneliness."

"I know. But there's one thing the light allows that the dark side forbids: it's love." Anakin placed a gentle hand on his grandson's shoulder. "My child, you have love residing within you, even now, after everything. With every step you take towards the dark, that love welds you even closer to the light."

"Love destroyed you."

Anakin shook his head. "No, it was fear that destroyed me and created Darth Vader, not love. Love saved me, as it will surely save you, Ben Solo."

Kylo's bitter smile conveyed just how much the boy believed his words. Anakin pressed on as kindly as he could, "Your father, your mother, and of course, that girl." Kylo's head lifted slightly at the mention of the latter. "Their love for you, and yours for them. Do not underestimate the power of love, Ben Solo. Do not make the same mistake the Jedi and the Sith did. Love is beyond light and darkness."

And then Anakin drove in a final point, which was rather unfair, but perhaps was the only way left to convince the boy. "Your mother told me that when she was carrying you, you were a ball of light amidst all the darkness. And she's sorry that she could only understand it now what it meant. There was no need to cast out your darkness to keep your light. As long as you have love, your heart will always belong to the light."

His words were met with silence. Kylo kept his head down, but there was the slightest tremor in his shoulders as a drop of moisture fell into his open palm before he clenched it tightly into a fist.

Anakin touched his grandson's hair lightly as he whispered, "May the Force be with you, Ben Solo."

By the time Kylo turned to look at him, he had gone, leaving the heir to the Skywalker bloodline seated alone at the top of the cliff, surrounded by darkness, illuminated only by the brightest stars in the skies.

Stars, as many in the galaxy know, will always burn and die. But with each death, comes resurrection.

And with each resurrection, a new life.