Note: This was published in full once before, but I didn't really know what I was doing when it came to using the site, and I think the original version might have been in violation of the rules anyway because it was written in script format. If you are someone who followed the original one, there won't be many content changes, though there will likely be a few relatively minor ones. It will mostly just be changes in formatting and posting the scenes as distinct chapters. Hopefully the writing will be better since I have had a bit more practice since then.

The point of this rewrite (my first attempt at writing fiction of any kind) was that I heard a lot of people explaining away the defects of The Rise of Skywalker by saying that JJ Abrams was stuck because of Carrie Fisher's death and the decisions Rian Johnson made in the The Last Jedi. While I agree Carrie Fisher's death hurt the movie (and was of course, more importantly, a tragedy independent of that), and while I do have criticisms of The Last Jedi myself, I think a better movie could have ben written. I wrote this from January through March of 2020 and it takes no account of anything that has happened since (particularly in the Mandalorian)

This was originally published written in the present tense, but I eventually decided against it. There might be some present tense verbs around though, and I apologize for that.

Star Wars IX: The Ghosts of the Past

Act One

Chapter One – The Funeral of Leia Organa

The Millennium Falcon flew through a field of large, slowly drifting asteroids, heading towards a particularly large asteroid in the distance. The asteroid was large enough to have a flat space on it where a semi-circle of buildings was located. The Falcon slowed as it approached a force field but gently passed through it to land on the asteroid. When the ramp lowered, Rey and Chewbacca were at the top of it, and between them floated a coffin of plain black, except for a golden sunburst etched into the metal. As they walked slowly down the ramp, the coffin floating along with them, they looked out to see a crowd of people standing around a small oval of green on the asteroid's otherwise barren surface; the only plant life left from a dead world. At the fore of the group stood Poe, Finn, and Rose, while just behind them were the other most long-standing members of the Resistance, the survivors of the Battle of Crait. There were other dignitaries there, as one would expect at the funeral of such a prestigious individual. Among them were two of perhaps not the highest rank, but of great personal significance, Lando Calrissian and Wedge Antilles.

Chewbacca and Rey walked through the crowd, which parted as they approached, to place the coffin on the oval of green grass, and then turned to take their place in the circle of mourners. After they did so, Poe stepped forward and began to speak.

"We gather here today to pay our final respects to Leia Organa," he said. "She was a princess, a Senator, a general, a teacher, a Jedi, a leader. She was so many things to so many people over the years that it is unfair that I am the one speaking. But that is the way it goes with those who survived through trying times. So few are left who fought with her from the beginning." At this comment, Wedge Antilles smiled sadly.

"When the Empire stood triumphant, she stood against it. When the First Order hid behind a veil created by our own complacency, she was the voice calling us to action. When the day was darkest, she was our light, showing us the way to the future. I remember 5 years ago, when the Resistance she founded was reduced to a few dozen people squeezed into a single ship, the same ship which brought her here today, which brought her home," Poe continues. "It was dark that day, just as it was dark the day 30 years before when the Empire committed its greatest atrocity, destroying the beautiful, peaceful world of her childhood, leaving only these scattered rocks behind. These rocks on which she would in time order a memorial to be built. She rests now under the protections she put in place, as we all now live in the safety she created. Because in the last 5 years we have gone from a single ship to thousands of ships…"

While saying this Poe could not help but look up at the massive fleet, composed of ships of every type imaginable, which floated beyond the asteroid field, where he knew the captains of the fleet, representatives of every major species in the galaxy, were listening to his eulogy.

"From a few dozen fighters to a few hundred thousand," Poe said triumphantly. "From the remnants of a Resistance to a fleet that has chased the First Order down, and broken their strength. I wish she had lived long enough to see the final victory that is almost in our grasp. The victory of her making. Without her the Empire would not have fallen. Without her the First Order would have built its strength until nothing could stop it. Without her the Resistance would have died, so many times. She will not reach the end of the road with us, but we will carry her lessons, her principles, and her strength forward with us. We will create a galaxy at peace, governed by the renewed Republic that she helped create. The dark times are over. The lights are coming on across thousands of worlds. But our light, the light that shone alone when all hope seemed lost, has gone out. We have not seen her like before and we will not again. But she made sure we would not need to. For hers was the spark, that lit the fire, that now lights up the galaxy. And for that we honor her. For that, we bring her home, to Alderaan."

Chewbacca let out a long, mournful cry as he looked to the stars.

Sometime later, after the ceremony was over, the attendees stood talking to each other in small groups. Rey stood alone, looking at the burial site.

"I don't know where you are Ben, but you should be here," she said.

Appearing next to her was Kylo Ren, wearing his mask, though no one else noticed him.

"You know I can't. You would blow my fleet to pieces if I came within 100 parsecs of the ruins of Alderaan," he said.

"You could have come yourself," Rey said sadly.

"Admiral Dameron would have allowed it?" Kylo asked sarcastically.

"He would have if I had asked him to," Rey said softly. The two stood in silence for a time before Kylo spoke again.

"I don't deserve to. You can't make the choices I have made, do the things I have done…I've caused too many resistance funerals to expect an invitation to this one," he said.

"You could just stop. You've lost. You haven't won a battle in over a year. It's been clear for months you couldn't win. If you had just surrendered, you could have seen her. Could have talked to her, before the end. Not to mention the lives that would have been saved," Rey implored.

"And what exactly would we have talked about? About how I killed the love of her life? About how her brother died saving her from me? About how I hunted her for years? We make our decisions Rey, and then we have to live with them. You decided that day to not take my hand, not found the new order with me. And so we have had years of war. You speak of the lives I could have saved? How many would have all been saved, if you had surrendered when you had no hope of victory?" Kylo said.

"We always had hope of victory because we always had her," Rey responded. This again rendered Kylo Ren silent for a time.

"Can you... Can you show her to me?" he said haltingly.

Rey paused, thinking, before saying, "Yes, I think so." She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. After a moment, Kylo stood and removed his helmet, revealing a tear-stained face.

"Thank you," he said.

"Come to her, Ben. Please, just stop this and come say goodbye," Rey begged.

Kylo stared at the gravesite, clearly conflicted, before his face hardened, and he said, "I have asked you to stop calling me that." Then he disappeared, having severed the mental connection between the two.

Rey looked to the ground, tears of her own on her face. Finn, seeing her in pain, walked over to her and asked, "You talking to him again?" Rey nodded in response.

"Asking him to surrender?" Finn asked. Rey looked up at him in frustration.

"How many times has he said no? Did you think this," he asked, gesturing at the funeral, "was going to change his mind?"

"I thought it was worth a try," Rey answered.

Finn turned to look at Leia's grave and said, "I guess. It would be nice if that last battle was the last battle. I don't like the idea of going into a fight without her."

"The next battle is going to be the last one, Finn. I think she had been dreading that battle for a long time. I think a part of her was glad that she was going to miss it," Rey said.

"And what about you?" Finn asked. "Is there a part of you who doesn't want to take him down?"

"No," she answered. "Kylo Ren has to die. I know that, and so did Leia. It's what else we will lose when he does that broke her heart."