A note from your humble author: Well I got a lot of writing done this Sunday, which means a nice loooong chapter for you guys today. Hope you enjoy!

Deep down inside, she had always known that her parents were dead, but she had been young, and she so desperately needed something to live for, something to believe in. In the many lonely hungry nights when she cried herself to sleep in her toppled At-At, her only comfort was to cling to the idea that they would return for her. She would listen for their voices on the wind. Every new day she would walk outside into the blazing sun and look into the horizon, hoping against hope that somehow they would just be there. Sometimes when she was delirious from hunger and dehydration she would see them there, beckoning to her, she would run to them and they would vanish into the wind. She could never let herself accept that they would never return because she had nothing else to live for.

The people you are waiting for, they are never coming back!

Maz had spoken the truth that she had always known in her heart. The finality she had never dared to accept. The illusion shattered.

But why? Who took them from her? She knew the answer – Snoke. His dark presence reached across the galaxy, spreading death and destruction, and worst of all, corruption. She knew that he had poisoned Ben Solo against his family, against everything that the light stood for, but even then, she felt hatred for the man who had betrayed all those who she now held so dear.

In her mind he had been weak, a fool to believe lies. Why had he been so foolish? What lies had Snoke whispered to him when they were alone? What poison could turn a man against his own family? Master Luke had warned her that it is very easy to be seduced by the dark side, and she knew this was true because there were moments when she had felt herself slipping too close to the darkness, but she had never been broken, she had never given in. Why had he?

She knew she didn't understand. She wanted answers that only he could give. Why he had turned, and what hand did he play in the death of her family? The time had come to seek the truth.

Luke did not pounce on her with questions once she awoke, he waited patiently until she satiated her ravenous hunger and thirst from the taxing days of spiritual journey she had just been on. At last when she sighed contentedly and pushed away her plate, she spoke.

"Well, you were right. I'm not a Jedi. I'm…Grey. I can't tell you all that I felt, all that I saw and experienced…I just…can't, but I do know. I know so much now. All that would have taken you years to teach me, I understand now. All the knowledge given to me by those who are long lost, I can't express it all in words, but I know the meaning. I know the path between the light and darkness. It is where I belong."

"For so long, we have waited for someone to bring balance to the force. Some had believed my father was supposed to be that chosen one. What is balance?" he asked.

Her eyes seemed to unfocus, as if she was pulling the knowledge from a deep inner well. "One can counteract the force of sadness or anger, by also experiencing great joy. One can know fear, and still act with courage. One can feel the deepest passion, and also know the most profound peace. And one can know the fieriest depths of hatred, and still act out of purest love. There is a safe path between all these; it is the path of the Grey."

"My happiness can negate my sadness," she continued. "I must be brave even when filled with fear. I must walk with my passions in one hand and my serenity in the other, but my hatred still scares me. I see now why the darkside relies on it so much for its power. It is power! And if I am to someday challenge Snoke, I know I will need to draw on that power, but without also knowing love, it could destroy me. I…I don't know that I can love anything that much. I love you, and all my friends, you are like the family I always longed for…but, I feel it inside…that it won't be enough! The things I love are what I must fight for. It's what will save me from the darkness, but I've been alone for so long…so very very long. What if I can't ever love anything that much?"

He watched as a single tear rolled down her cheek.

"I think it is time that we both went home," he said.

R2D2 chirped and wiggled about on his struts excitedly at the prospect of returning to the resistance.

"R2, patch through to the main command station and let my sister know, we're coming home," he said as Rey prepared the coordinates necessary to jump into hyperspeed. Ahch-to was so remote it would take many days, even at hyperspeed aboard the Falcon, to reach base again. Luke and Rey spent this time discussing and meditating on the many insights she had gained through the silver light. Luke was convinced, she was no longer his padawan. The moment the light had touched her, she had gained everything she would ever need to complete her journey. She was an entity unto herself, her own master, and as he listened to her insights on all the things she had gained, he felt as though he were a student again, and he didn't mind."

She could still feel him. Angry, and just as curious as ever, and she also detected a bitter resentment from him. Maybe it was because she no longer allowed herself to be hunted in their dreams, perhaps it was because she no longer allowed his volatile emotions to have an impact on her. She could feel that her newfound sense of peace greatly unnerved him, and she smiled in satisfaction to herself. She would never let him have power over her again.

At last the ship came out of hyperdrive as it neared D'Qar. It was still beautiful. Ahch-to had been beautiful too, but her heart ached at the sight of lush green trees, shimmering lakes, and rolling hills covered in living plants all reaching for the sun. It always fed a hunger deep in her soul.

Before the Falcon completely touched down the entire base had swarmed the tarmac to great the return of the legendary hero, Luke Skywalker. Those who were older and remembered him from the days of the rebellion came out to welcome the return of an old friend, the newer generations, who had never met him, and only heard the tales, believed they were about to meet a legend, a living god. Only a small handful truly knew Ray, though most respected her for helping take down Starkiller, and for being sent on a top-secret mission to find the great Luke Skywalker. In the wake of Master Luke, most paid her no mind as she walked down the ramp of the Falcon. It had been so intimidating; she was not used to large groups of people, or attention, so she had decided to hang back a little until the mob calmed down.

She watched as Luke and General Organa embraced each other tightly, with Chewie roaring welcomes and patting him on the back, and even C3PO waving around one golden arm and one red excitedly. She smiled, feeling more peaceful than the first time she set foot at D'Qar, when she had felt like a stranger, alone, and unsure, until the General had welcomed her into her warm embrace.

She had wanted to do something for the resistance. If she did nothing else, she brought him home, and she still believed in her heart that that was worth a hundred Starkillers. She would never stop thinking of him as being "Master Luke," even though she would no longer be his pupil.

"Rey! Rey!" she heard a familiar voice, and turned to see Finn, hobbling on a cane as quickly as he could towards her. She instantly started crying.

"Finn!" she cried as she dodged and pushed her way past the crowd. At last they reached each other and embraced, weeping for joy. "Look at you walking again! I'm so proud of you, and I'm so sorry I wasn't here. I should have been here for you."

"Oh, stop apologizing! I had enough of that nonsense in all your communications. A few more months and I won't even need this," he said as he waved his cane around. "What do you think? Do you think it makes me look distinguished," he smiled.

"Very!" she agreed.

"I'm so glad you're finally back, there's something I've been dying to tell you, but I didn't want to tell you in front of a camera. It just wouldn't be the same."

She suddenly felt her heart jump and begin to race. When she had first met Finn, he had told her how much she had meant to him at Maz's palace, as he tried to convince her to run away with him. He had convinced Han Solo and Chewie to help him rescue her, and he had laid his life on the line to save hers from Kylo Ren, and had suffered dearly for it. He had been her first true friend, the first person who had ever really cared for her since being left on Jakku. She could feel herself blushing.

Just then Poe Dameron appeared. "Rey, I'm so glad you're back! I'm dying to see you try out an X-Wing! You're going to have a blast being back now, I promise. So, did you tell her?" he said smiling at Finn.

"You came just in time," he said taking Poe's hand. "We're a couple now. We made everyone else promise not to tell you because we wanted to be the ones to tell you."

"Wow, that's fantastic news," she said with a smile on her face, but inside she felt the pain inside her heart. She should have known. They did always talk about each other with such fondness. She had abandoned Finn in his time of need, and stayed away for a whole year, and for all he'd of known she'd of stayed away for even longer. It had been wrong for her to believe that he wouldn't go on with his life, and she knew that he was aware that Jedi were discouraged from attachments. She still loved Finn, but had to quickly accept that he would never be the type of love that she needed. Reaching into her new found Grey ways, she balanced this moment of sadness and loss with a true and honest sense of happiness. She was happy that he was happy. She wanted him to be loved, even if she wasn't the one to love him. He had endured a life as empty and grueling as the one she had had, he had given so much and sacrificed so much, she knew he deserved every ounce of happiness that came his way. He was a good man, and Poe was a good man, and suddenly when she accepted the Grey way…her smile grew wider and became genuine. "I thought you guys were awfully sweet to each other! But really, I'm so glad you've had Poe beside you this past year. I know how much you needed him. Any bigger plans?"

Poe blushed a little. "Well, we've talked about it, but we kind of want to wait and see how this war pans out. It can be one more thing to celebrate after our victory, which by the way, I know is coming now that Luke Skywalker is back! So maybe we won't have to wait too long after all."

Of course he hadn't been absent during any of this. She had definitely felt his temper go into full overload when she had seen and rushed to greet Finn. He must have felt her moment of heartache very keenly because she also felt him being very smug and joyful all of a sudden. She stopped for a moment and projected a sharp stabbing pain back into his mind. A new little trick she picked up in the silver light.

"That'll teach ya!" she thought as she sensed his reaction to the pain.

"Rey?" she heard the General call her name and turned to see her standing beside her brother. "Luke says you've got quite a story to tell me."

Rey and Luke met privately with General Organa in her office to discuss the new developments with Rey's Grey force abilities.

"Well, it sounds like you're ready to go. I take it that's why you've both come back," said the General as she sipped a cup of tea. She had clearly been impressed at all that she had heard. She knew Luke was getting older; after all they were the same age, and that he had seen enough of battles, which is one of the many reasons he had chosen to stay away. She knew the moment she looked at Rey that the force had been unusually strong with her; that the young desert scavenger was a diamond in the rough and that she could be just what the resistance needed, with only a little polishing and her brother's help.

"It seems the Resistance has not only gained one powerful Jedi, but a powerful Jedi and a powerful Grey Jedi…is that what it's called?"

"I guess that works," Rey replied with a smile as she sipped her own tea. She hadn't thought of any other better names for it, and the ancients had just called it the Force. To them, in their time, the concept of being all light or all dark were the anomalies to their existence. They had not realized that in the many ages to come, the force would be completely split asunder.

"Well, this is exciting news, and it couldn't have come at a better time. Recently we've come into some information about the First Order's supply operations. We're trying to hit them where it hurts because we believe they're trying to construct another Starkiller, and we can't allow that to happen. A few weeks ago I sent a squadron of X-Wings, led by Poe of course, that managed to successfully destroy a very sizable foundry on Mustafar where our intelligence tells us they were shipping out supplies; massive quantities of metal, of various kinds. We know there are other foundries, they know it's safer to spread out their operations as much as possible."

"Another Starkiller? You figure they'd learn their lesson after the first one, and then those two Death Stars!" scoffed Luke. "How unoriginal!"

"I don't know why they keep doing the same dumb plans over and over again!" replied the General.

"Where are they getting the raw materials to supply these foundries?" he asked.

"Well, our scouts have for sure been able to find two bases of operations, and Rey, you may not like this, one of them is Jakku."

"What?" she cried, setting down her cup of tea before she spilled it on herself.

"There are two ways to get that kind of raw material. They can mine for it, or they can salvage it. Right now salvaging is quicker, easier, and cheaper. They're collecting up all the remaining pieces of the Battle Cruisers and Death Star from the Empire that were left all over Endore and the moons of Endor, and as far as we can tell, they've taken almost every bit of all the remaining Empire ships left on Jakku."

"This is awful! Those ships were the only means of survival for people who were like me? How will they live now with nothing to scavenge from?"

"It gets worse, Rey. Most of the people still on Jakku, have been enslaved. When we took out Starkiller, we didn't just wipe out most of their armies, we took out a lot of their workers as well. The First Order has turned to slavery to make up for their losses. Much has happened in the year since you've been gone."

Her heart hammered as she seethed with burning hatred. "Snoke! Look who's the scavenger now!" The few people she had known on Jakku hadn't exactly been her friends. She had never been close to anyone there, but still, she understood those people. She knew how hard it was to live when there was so little to live on, and so little to live for. That sort of environment created a hard set of people, and she had been one of them. In her heart she would always be one of them, and now what little they had was being destroyed and taken from them by the First Order. She swore she would fight to the last breath to see the end of the First Order, and especially Snoke.

"What can I do, General? Anything, name it!"

The General smiled. "I know you're with us, Rey. We'll be making our next move against them on one of the moon's of Endor, it's a bigger operation, and we have some friends there that I'm not too happy to see get pushed around. I know you'd probably prefer us to strike on Jakku first, but a lot of their bigger flag ships are too close to Jakku at the moment for it to be safe for us, and Endor's moon would hurt them worse at the moment. Once we take that point out, we'll plan for Jakku."

"When do we leave?"

"Soon. Tonight we have a few scouts that will be leaving with the mission of entering that system. They'll be scouting out our best points of entry, as soon as we receive that information we make our plans for attack. But, before then, you'll probably need a few things."

General Organa showed Rey what would be her private quarters on the base and even let her pick out some new clothes from the base supply closet. Her own clothes and boots had been battered and torn from a rough year of Jedi training and were looking very shabby. She picked out a white long sleeve tunic, which she covered with a black leather vest that cinched rather tightly about the waist, but felt comforting to her back, yet was still loose enough for her to breathe and flex. She found a black pair of leggings and some spare leather scraps that she could use to make a holster for her new saber staff, which she intended to wear at the thigh instead of at the hip on a belt, because her saber staff handle was longer than a conventional saber and it would flap around too much on a belt. The General found her a comfortable pair of white boots that came up to the knees and with solid tread on the soles.

"Black and white saber, black and white clothes! You really are a bit of both worlds now, aren't you? But you know, I think I have just the thing for you!" said the General as she left Rey to lace up her new boots. When she came back she handed Rey what looked like a large bundle of fabric. "This had been a gift to me, back in my earlier senate days, but I was too short to wear it. It might be just right for you!"

Rey unfolded it to reveal a beautiful full length cloak and hood that was pure white on one side, and solid black on the other. It could be worn reversibly, but she chose to wear it with the white side out. "This is the nicest thing anyone has ever given me," she said as she gently stroked the fabric, her eyes glistening a little with unshed tears.

"Oh, if you like that present, wait until you see this one!"

General Organa showed Rey what would be her own private X-Wing. "Poe picked this one out for you. He didn't know when you'd be coming back, but he was positive you'd want to join his squadron. I tried to tell him you had the Falcon and Jedi obligations, but in the end I humored him because he's my best pilot, but don't tell anybody I said that. If his head gets any bigger he won't be able to get his helmet on."

The Falcon could certainly hold her own in a battle, and she loved flying her, but she felt like the ship more rightfully belonged to Master Luke. He had been Han Solo's brother in law after all. She was just some scavenger that he had offered a job. She had felt presumptuous just to use Anakin Skywalker's light saber for as long as she did. Now she had her own ship and her own light saber. "I love it! I don't know how to say thank you enough. I can't wait to see what makes her tick! I've already got my pilot code-name."

"What's that?"

"Grey Wolf."

He could sense it, she was closer now. The bond seemed to have grown stronger, clearer, as if he could almost reach out and touch her. But where was she? He had felt a stirring in her that made him jealous and angry, and then a profound sense of sadness. He had allowed himself to be too relieved and jovial in that moment, when he felt the searing pain like a knife inside his skull. That was new! She had never done that before. It was certainly un-Jedily of her. He hated the pain, but he liked that she had done it. It was a good sign that perhaps Skywalker's teachings hadn't completely ruined her.

He stormed purposefully through the corridors of the Finalizer until he found Captain Phasma on the Bridge. "Captain, what news on the spy activities from the resistance?"

Captain Phasma stood to attention. "Commander, our probes spotted two resistance ships that entered the system around Endor. Tie Fighters are currently in pursuit of the one that got away. The other was fatally injured. We have him aboard but the medics say he will not live much longer…Commander?"

He had turned and was making his way to the interrogation chamber. When he arrived he found the pilot in a state of shock. Blood was already seeping out of his ears and nose, and he could tell by the sound of the man's breathing, filling his lungs. He looked at Ren with defiant bloodshot eyes.

Kylo Ren reached out a hand towards him, and began probing his mind. "The resistance is planning a bold move if they're scouting around Endor. Why?"

The dying pilot said nothing and gritted his teeth as Ren began to pry open his mind. "So…you have hope. How quaint. Why?" he asked as he pressed further, and then he saw it. "Skywalker…he's back," he discovered. "Where is the girl? Where is the one who calls herself Rey? She was with him, where is she now?" he demanded and with ruthless determination he sliced into the mind of the pilot until his screams could be heard across the ship.

"Report!" demanded Snoke, as his hologram shimmered in the dark chamber.

"Supreme Leader, I have learned that Skywalker has returned to the resistance. I was unable to find the location of their base before the pilot died, please forgive me," he pleaded as he bowed lower. "But we know that if they are spying around Endor, that that will be their next target. I request permission to oversee the Endor base of operations in the inevitable event of attack."

"There is something else, isn't there Kylo Ren?" Snoke questioned as he stared down on his apprentice.

Ren swallowed, louder than perhaps he wanted, and confessed. "She is with him. I can feel her though the force. I am certain she will join the resistance in this attack."

"They would not be so foolish to attack our operations on Endor now, knowing that they're spies were discovered. They'll focus themselves elsewhere. If they know about Endor, they may know about Jakku. I want you there instead."

"Master, I…"

"You will NOT argue with me again, Ren!"

The choice to enslave people in order rebuild the next Starkiller had not sat well with Kylo Ren, and he had dared to voice that opinion to the Supreme Leader the last time they had spoken. He had argued that clones would be better, more obedient, more physically fit, less prone to uprisings. In truth, Ren hated slavery. He knew all too well his grandfather had once been a slave, and deep down he knew it was an institution he felt uncomfortable with. But the ruddy general had got his way. Clones would take time, money, both things the First Order had to consider now due to the devastating loss of the Starkiller base.

"I sense your feelings, and perhaps your judgment, are clouded when it comes to this girl. I know you want her, and if you can capture her I will give her to you, but, only if she can be swayed to the darkside! If I sense any betrayal from you, any deeper feelings, I shall take her from you immediately and complete her training on my own. I will not allow her to tempt you further into the light. Your loyalty is to me first, and if I ever sense otherwise, I will destroy you! Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, master. I will not fail you."

Snoke dismissed him and Ren stormed back to his private quarters, doing his best to keep his resentment towards his master under careful guard. No matter, she would join him in the darkside. He knew he would not fail. Soon she would come to him, and he would be waiting.

A note from your humble author: ::wrings hands and grins evily:: oh yes, we're getting there. Next chapter these two are going to meet again - and the fur will fly!

Thank you to all the new people who have followed and favorited, and of course my lovely reviewers. I'm really happy with all the feedback I've received from you guys so far and I hope you will continue to leave reviews for me. They really brighten my day and help motivate me to keep writing.