Almost three months earlier
"You disappoint me."
Gasping for breath, Kylo Ren scrambles back to his feet. "Supreme Leader—"
"Killing your father should have made your stronger."
"It did," Kylo pleads, even as the anxiety climbs him, tearing him apart from his toes to his brain. It didn't. It weakened you. "I passed—I did the one thing even Darth Vader could not do!" Make your voice formidable. Sound strong. You are strong.
I'm not.
"Then why are you not progressing in your training?" Disgust oozes from the Supreme Leader's voice. Disgust with him.
He'll crush you. When he gets what he wants, he'll crush you.
No! Kylo pounds himself in the side. The bowcaster wound from Chewie—not Chewie, the Wookiee, he means nothing to you—has long since healed in the months since the Starkiller's destruction, but Kylo's punched himself enough times there to have an always present bruise.
"Good," Snoke encourages. "Focus on the pain. Let it consume you. Let it motivate you."
The Starkiller… Guilt worms its way in. All those people, loyal to the First Order, dead. Dead because of your father. You did nothing but kill a man who might have killed you.
Ben Solo is dead. I destroyed him.
No, my son is alive.
Kylo slams his fist into his side so hard he feels his rib crack. Grunting in pain, he looks up to see the Supreme Leader shaking his head.
"It's not Han Solo's death," Kylo bursts out, mostly to keep the Supreme Leader from dismissing him from yet another session with only a look of disappointment, a familiar look that only fuels Kylo's memories on Han Solo.
The Supreme Leader cocks his head. "Oh?"
"It's just—I worry. After what happened on the Starkiller, more people might be persuaded to join the Resistance—"
"Then let that fear motivate you!" Snoke bellows.
Kylo feels tears biting at the back of his eyelids and blinks them away. Useless. Worthless.
"If you ever want to finish what Darth Vader started, you must concentrate!" Snoke roars. "Or else the Jedi will rise again."
The girl. The scavenger. "The Dark Side is stronger," Kylo says, fighting panic. He cannot fail. He cannot have sacrificed so much to fail. "We will not let that happen."
Thank you.
The moment he fell, you failed.
"We?" Snoke scoffs. "Your training is still not complete, and at the rate at which you're progressing, we both might be dead before it's complete."
Kylo's eyes are burning now. He doesn't understand. He never cries.
At least, he hadn't in years, until…
Snoke rises abruptly, pacing. The man is smaller, far smaller, than Kylo Ren. "Perhaps it's the girl."
"The scavenger?" Kylo inquires. The scar on his face twinges as his hand rises to touch it.
"Yes," Snoke hisses. "The Light Side. It's been getting stronger since the awakening. Because of her." He stops in front of Kylo, reaching out and lifting his face. His hands are cold and his skin moist and frail, as if it's already decaying. "Perhaps that's why it's still tormenting you."
The Supreme Leader's voice is gentle now, and Kylo relaxes. "What can we do about it?"
"Show her the power of the Dark Side."
"I already tried that."
"Yes, but that was not under my orders, was it?" Snoke pulls Kylo's face closer to his own. "I told you to bring her to me."
"I—"
He releases Kylo. "She is now training with Luke Skywalker."
Sucking in air, Kylo shudders. "Without that piece of the map, we can't—"
"I've stationed a great many spies in the area. We may hear from one of them soon. Wherever Luke Skywalker is now, he will soon leave. With the girl."
Kylo presses his thumb against his side and cringes. "Why?"
"Obi-Wan Kenobi's granddaughter is going to want to learn more about her past, isn't she? And when she leaves, you will take her, and you will bring her to me."
"I think you're done for the day." Luke steps back as R2-D2 crashes to the ground.
"Are you sure?" Rey pants. "I think I can keep going—one more—"
"Rest, Rey."
"Okay then." She flops down on the grassy, shoulder snagging against some pebbles. "Ow!"
There's so much green, Rey thinks as she looks up towards the sky. And so much blue. Waves pound the shore in the distance, lulling her into a doze.
She hears Luke's voice in the distance, chatting amiably. Expecting to hear a Wookiee moan in response, Rey is taken aback when a gravelly voice answers.
Bolting upright, Rey turns towards the Jedi temple, seeing Luke engaged in conversation with what looks like an old man, clad in Jedi robes. The man stops and looks at her, with recognition almost, and with a soft smile.
And then he vanishes, and Rey shrieks.
"Rey!" Luke charges towards her.
"What was that? Who—"
"Rey, I'm sorry—the Jedi temple—Force ghosts—"
"Ghosts?"
"Yes—sometimes Jedi preserve themselves, for a time, in the Force, and we can commune with them."
Rey scans the horizon. The setting sun suddenly looks sinister, like it's bleeding onto the water, and the cliffs look like looming, rabid luggabeasts. "Are there more of them?"
"Oh yes. But don't worry. They won't hurt you. That was my old mentor. Obi-Wan Kenobi." Luke lowers his eyes. "Though for most of my life I knew him as Ben."
Rey shudders as she remembers the other man she knows with that name. The Dark Side gnaws at her, tempting her with anger. "Why did he come? To advise you in advising me?"
"No. He came to watch you."
"Watch me?" Rey turns to Luke.
"Rey—" Luke crouches to the ground. Rey copies him. "He was your grandfather."
My grandfather. She searches her memories and can't find one. "I don't remember a grandfather."
"He died long before you were born. My father, Darth Vader, killed him."
"But if he was a Jedi, how did he—"
"My father had a relationship, too. I don't know the details. I just know that when I saw you, at the academy, I knew."
The academy. Rey still can't recall what happened there, the massacre, despite Luke telling her about it. She was the only survivor, and she was hidden on Jakku. By Luke himself. Why me? Did the Force protect me somehow? Or was it this mysterious ghostly grandfather?
"If he's my grandfather," she says. "Why didn't he talk to me?"
Luke shrugs. "He will, I imagine. In good time."
I know all about waiting. But it's frustrating to be so close. "What planet was he from?"
"Stewjon."
Rey's heart leaps. "And my mother?" Luke's already told her he never met her.
"I don't know. Possibly Tatooine. Possibly Stewjon. I can't tell."
Could someone who remembers her mother still be there? Luke claimed she was dead, but if someone remembers her… can describe her face…
"You're not ready to leave yet," Luke says quickly, as if reading her mind. But he's not, because Rey knows what it feels like to have someone in her mind.
"Why did you keep this from me?" she demands. "Someone might remember her—might—"
"We don't know that, though, Rey!" Luke sighs. "Impatience was my greatest fault, too. Yoda said so."
"I am not impatient," she snaps.
"I, too, grew up without my parents."
"You had an aunt and an uncle," she reminds him. "I had Unkar Plutt." The very thought of that leering monster turns Rey's stomach. Although… now that she thinks about it, Unkar Plutt might remember more about her past than he'd claimed.
They left you to me. I taught you to scavenge. That's all!
Rey shudders. But if going back to Jakku gives me answers…
"If you stay with me another ten days, we'll go."
Rey blinks. "What?"
Luke smiles at her. "I tried to be a demanding taskmaster once. It didn't work out well. If you practice with me for ten more days, we'll go, and we'll look for anyone who remembers your mother—while still training, of course."
Rey throws her arms around him.
Ten days later, Rey, Luke, Chewie, and R2 depart in the Millennium Falcon.
"Almost like old days?" Rey teases her master.
Luke doesn't return her smile. "Almost."
Han.
Chewie growls, and Rey leans against her co-pilot's furry arms. She missed him, too, despite only knowing him for a brief period of time.
You feel like he's the father you never had.
Rey glances at Luke. He, too, has become like a father to her. Who would be a father figure to that monster? Snoke? She snorts.
Within days, they land on the planet. Rey rushes off the ramp, eagerly looking around as if hoping to see something, anything, that would jog her memories.
But all she sees is a typical market street, with customers bobbing in and out of stalls. Other ships line up besides the Falcon.
Someone coughs at her side. An old man. "Excuse me, missy." He shoves past her.
The sun sets in the distance, casting everything in indigo shadows.
"We should find a cantina," Luke says. "Someone might be willing to talk there. Although we'll need to be careful…"
There are no moons on this planet. Only stars.
Kylo watches as a wizened old lady, wrapped in a midnight blue cloak, enters the cantina with his money already stuffed down her pockets.
Order one drink. Tell the girl next to the Wookiee she looks familiar, but insist she follow you outside for more details. Alone. And then leave, and you will not remember a thing,
He could have just used the mind trick, he knows. But for the trouble the woman would surely get from Luke Skywalker and Chewbacca afterwards, he felt guilty not paying her handsomely.
Luke Skywalker. His uncle is here. He can use Rey to lure him out.
But the Supreme Leader had not said a word about capturing Luke, or killing him. Perhaps he assumed it was understood. Then, the girl will have no more options but to turn to the Dark Side.
But, Kylo reasons, if he kills his uncle, who's to say it won't have the same effect killing his father had? Weakening him.
Another time. Wait for another time. Perhaps Rey will be the one to do it.
Kylo flinches as he remembers his father's last look of horror, as if he were looking at a monster, frozen on his face.
But the touch… the way he'd grazed his cheek… that wasn't horror. It wasn't repulsion. It was love.
Love.
Your son is gone. He was weak and foolish, like his father, so I destroyed him.
Was it weakness, when Han caressed his face? Was it weakness when he tried to bring him home?
Snoke's voice interrupts his thoughts, the last sentence he said to Kylo Ren when he ordered him after the girl: if you fail…
The sentence hangs unfinished. Kylo envisions Hux's face, the General laughing and taunting him. "Defeated by an untrained girl? And that traitor?"
Fail him again, Hux said before Kylo boarded his ship, and see if he's so forgiving. Maybe you fail because you don't want to succeed. Because you don't really believe in our cause.
Kylo had flung Hux across the room and stormed onto the ship before anything more could be said. I believe in it. I do. Help me, Grandfather.
Murderer.
Kylo doubles over, the weight of the word—truth, it's true, that's what you are, it's what you've been for a long time before your father—bludgeoning him.
Rey emerges, her cheeks flushed and eyes alight with hope. Guilt assails him. But he has to do it.
"Where are you going?" Rey calls after the older lady as Kylo slides up behind her.
"Rey."
She whirls around and he freezes her effortlessly. His uncle's training was always so ineffective.
It's not as easy as it was on Takodana, though. He grabs her, carrying her towards his ship when she fights back, snapping out of the state he put her in and socking him in the chin.
Shock and pain shoot through his skull towards the back of his neck. Kylo tumbles to the ground, feeling the loose stones and pebbles scraping his gloves. Rey leaps to her feet, opening her mouth to scream.
He freezes her again, but her eyes—they tell him she's fighting, and in another second she'll be free and Luke will come running, Chewie will come running, and Snoke will never accept him if he doesn't kill them.
And, strangely, he doesn't want to kill them. He's so afraid of failing. Failing to kill them. And he's even more afraid of succeeding, and failing Snoke.
"Come with me now," he shouts. "And I won't touch your friends."
The hilt of a lightsaber glints from her waistband. As her fingers start to twitch, he lunges and snatches it from her.
The lightsaber is rightfully yours.
It's mine, her voice snaps in his head. Kylo flinches, because the only voice he ever hears inside of his head is Snoke's.
Not anymore, he thinks back with triumph.
You're a monster.
"I'm sorry," he says, feeling strangely sincere—but not sincere enough to let her go. The need to please Snoke, feed the Darkness—it wins out. It always does.
Does it?
Thank you, he said to Han, feeling less thankful than he'd ever felt.
Kylo freezes her a third time and drags her aboard the ship.