A/N: Three and a half years later, I'm still stuck on this movie. Through this fic, I've tried to create the ending I think the characters - and we - deserved. I combined all of my expectations for the movie with some of the speculation floating around online. My hope is that, if you go and watch the initial teaser for TROS, you can then come read this and feel like you haven't been cheated out of the promised story. Thank you for reading!
Still waiting, hands shaking
Maybe the coast will clear
But these voices, these strange noises
They followed me in here
-Au/Ra, "Panic Room"
The last Sith cultist falls to the ground, and Kylo finally pauses, his chest heaving. Dead. They're all dead.
Then why haven't the whispers stopped?
Something flashes in the corner of his vision. He whirls to face it—another opponent?—when he suddenly registers the harsh echo of his own breath in his ears.
Ah. So it's her.
She doesn't say anything, but her brow furrows as she takes him in. For a split second, he can see himself through her eyes: covered in dirt, wild eyes, stringy hair, he's a mess. Then she pulls back her thoughts. Normally, he would snap at her, say something like, this is your doing, I'd be better if you'd stayed. But the whispers have grown more cacophonous, and he can't think, can't think—
He turns away from her before the connection fully closes. Let her think of him what she will. It won't change anything.
The whispers pull him to an obelisk with a hidden compartment that opens when he pushes lightly with the Force. A holocron lies inside, covered in dust. Kylo extracts it with one gloved hand, and for a moment, the whispers stop. He closes his eyes, lets himself breathe. A childish, weak part of him hopes that this will be the last hunt—that this is the last relic the dark side wants to show him, and the whispers will cease for good. But Kylo Ren's hopes have been crushed before.
"Another relic, sir?"
The voice is as irritating as it is familiar. Kylo opens his eyes and scowls at Hux. "Prepare the return flight." He says no more, striding away, cape billowing behind him.
Had he looked back, he would have seen the sneer on the general's face when Hux says, "Yes, Supreme Leader."
The whispers are getting louder.
Rey frowns down at her lunch tray. She never thought it'd be possible to lose her appetite, but it's becoming a common occurrence. It started with the dreams—visions, Leia had told her—of darkness, vast and terrible, consuming the galaxy. Then the whispers began. They seem to come and go, but when they do plague her now, they're getting harder and harder to ignore.
Seeing Ben earlier only made things worse.
Rey's frown deepens. He looked…haunted. His eyes have always been the most human, expressive thing about him, and today, she could read him easily.
He is afraid.
Something is coming; Rey can feel it. And if it frightens Ben, it terrifies her.
Rey stands abruptly, and the scrape of her chair momentarily drowns out the whispers. She has to go. If she runs the training course, she'll get stronger, and if she's stronger, she will be better equipped to face the coming darkness. Finn and Poe won't be back from their mission for another few hours, anyway. She has plenty of time.
It's noon on Ajan Kloss. Though it is certainly not as hot here as on Jakku, Jakku was never humid. Stray wisps of Rey's hair stick to her neck and forehead with sweat. When all this is over, she is going to find a green planet with the loveliest, most temperate climate. Like Takodana. Or maybe even Naboo.
She lowers herself into a ready stance, staff gripped tightly in both hands.
Three, two, one.
Rey races into the heart of the jungle.
The course is convoluted, if not long. She follows the familiar path at a break-neck pace, letting the pounding of her feet and her heart drown out her thoughts. Before she knows it, she's at the ravine, eyeing the other side and leaping into the air.
When she lands, the world shifts.
Instead of the usual dirt and grass, she comes down hard on a metal surface. The impact is so harsh, so jarring, that she loses her footing and stumbles. Rey barely catches herself in time, hauling herself up and away from the horrific drop waiting below. She simply stands there for a moment, panting, her eyes wide.
Where is she?
Is this another Force connection with Ben? No, she can still hear things around her—there is none of that tell-tale, echoing silence she has come to know so well. Ben is nowhere to be found, either. She is alone.
Alone, save for the whispers.
Here, here, here! they shriek. Rey flinches. They've never been words before, just unintelligible murmurs.
"What's here?" she forces herself to ask, as if the whispers might answer. "I don't understand. What do you want from me?"
Then she feels it: a horrible, looming presence that fills the space, coming from everywhere and nowhere. It is the presence that has haunted her dreams for months now. Her grip on her staff tightens.
From you, comes the reply, I want everything.
Rey shivers. That voice—it's deep, sinister, and inhuman. She has been around enough darkness now to know what it feels like, but this darkness is something new. It is not velvet-soft and enticing, like Ben's, nor is it sharp and cruel, like Snoke's. No, this darkness is…insidious. Shadowed. Malicious.
An awful laugh rings out in the strange room. Perceptive, the voice continues. You shall be quite the prize, young Jedi.
Rey takes slow steps away from the drop, eyes scanning her surroundings for any sign of the creature. "I am no prize," she says, her voice low.
Not yet. But you will be, soon enough.
Rey catches sight of a shape to her left. She spins on her feet, staff outstretched and aimed for her attacker's throat. But the black-clad, yellow-eyed being facing her is not at all what she expected.
It is herself.
Rey gasps and lurches backward—
—and falls to the ground on Ajan Kloss. Her staff rolls out of her hands and into the grass beside her. Though the horrible presence is gone, the whispers remain, speaking just one thing that she can't ignore.
Kef Bir. Kef Bir. Kef Bir.
Somehow, she knows that this is a location—the location of that growing darkness. It is the "here" that the whispers said.
What will she do?
She will go. She will go there now. She'll find Leia, explain everything, and go to Kef Bir on her own. Though she would rather have an ally at her side, she will not subject those who have become her family to something so dangerous. Yes, it is better to be alone in this.
You're not alone.
The memory comes to her unbidden: his voice, soft and comforting; the firelight reflecting in his eyes, turning them amber; the feeling of his hand pressed to hers.
If this is the same darkness that plagues Ben, maybe she could ask him to be her ally there. Surely he would meet her on Kef Bir if she asked him to. They could seek out the darkness together, destroy it, and then Ben would—
Rey stops herself mid-thought. Ben would what? Renounce the dark side? Come home? It's a lovely thought, a long-held wish, but Rey knows better than that now. She cannot save a man who doesn't think he needs to be saved.
No, she must do this alone. The light that burns in her heart will be enough to destroy this darkness.
It has to be.
