A bloody hand grasps my face as blaster fire rings out and I'm dropping my own blaster to clutch my burning side from behind cover, my saber still firm in my other hand.

"Hope?" a man panics, smoke clouding my senses as I look down to see my white combat suit charred from a blaster bolt, blood from the not quite cauterised wound staining it red. "Hope!"

"Shit," I breathe, my voice deeper than what I'm familiar with. "I'm alright, I'm fine, I need to-" I go to stand to face the blasters but he pulls me back down behind cover. "I need to keep fighting-"

"Like hell you are." I can't make out his face through the smoke and darkness, but I can't mistake the raw emotion in his voice. "If you go back out there you're dead."

"Well we're about to be dead either way," I reason, trying to ignore the physical damage and the emotion in my own voice shocks me. "Might as well go down fighting rather than hiding, you might still make it out of this."

"Yeah well you won't be much good fighting when you're still bleeding, and you should know by now that I'm not leaving you behind." Before I can argue he shuts me up by putting pressure on the wound and I'm gasping out as he asks "Can you buy time for the droids to figure something out?"

I search for R2 and grimace through the pain. "I can do that."

He cups my cheek as I look towards the light only for it to disappear, and for just a moment I find myself in the midst of the cosmos with a man's voice, a voice that's become all too familiar to me, giving me one command.

"Live... or die."

I jolt awake to find myself in the cockpit of the Shiraya and immediately reach for my side to find myself in the same clothing as I was in the vision, in one of the white combat suits that once belonged to my grandmother but thankfully with no blaster wound.

My heart's pounding and my breathing unsteady as I try to ground myself. I'm used to having visions, visions of the past, not ones like this.

When I shut my eyes I feel the ghost of a bloody hand grasping my face, the lingering touch filled with such emotion I don't know what to do with it except crave it. But as I remember the pain so vividly that tears spark in my eyes... I feel fear. It's a vision, I'm sure of that much, a vision where I'm getting shot at by unseen enemies, mercenaries perhaps, alone with a man I don't know and R2. Where's Ben? Where's Luke and Aylee? If I'm fighting why aren't they with me?

I'm older in the vision, I'm sure of that much, and considering recent events it's comforting to know I live that long but the rest only leaves me feeling ill. Even if I can't ignore the creeping excitement that I will be a fighter, against what I don't know, but I will be and I will grow stronger in the force.

If anything the vision makes me more certain of this decision. I need to train for whatever's coming. But still there's the lingering curiosity I feel at the ghost of a strangers hand on my cheek, how it makes me feel something I've never truly felt before.

At least not like that, not where a blaster shot's paled in comparison to the sheer strength of my emotions. In anger I've felt the strength my emotions can reach, an unbearable all consuming peak, but never like that. Passion. Passion mixed with fear and longing and need. Something I thought I felt so strongly for Aylee but now I'm doubting everything. My family, my friends, myself and everything I knew, everything I thought I was.

Ever since I stepped into my grandmothers tomb on Naboo and felt Vader's darkness everything has changed. I've changed.

I have a picture of Anakin Skywalker, a Jedi who fell in love, who married the woman he loved despite his vows to the order and got her pregnant, and somewhere in between that and Mom being born he lost his mind. I've seen enough to know why, to piece together the broken pieces even if I can't truly understand it. The flashes of jealousy, of paranoia, the way the Emperor manipulated and twisted his mind to believe that what he did at the temple was all for her, to be able to live together freely and raise their children together. Until she faced him horrified and he believed she turned on him.

I have the answers I've sought, and yet it does nothing to ease my mind. Not with what I've seen, not with what I've felt. I followed a dangerous trail and now I have to face what l've learned. The truth of where I came from. Of just what it means to have this strength in the force. Of what that mighty Skywalker blood truly entails.

Amongst the fear and uncertainty I find myself with a need to discover it for myself, if I'm going to be crucified on the public stage for being the blood of Vader I may as well discover just what that means. The visions, or rather hallucinations, I had in the tomb remain with me and I know there's only so long I can hide from the truth of what the force is trying to tell me.

Stormclouds are gathering as I enter the atmosphere, finding an unusual amount of turbulence but I push through and land outside the temple. Students emerge from inside to see just who's landed and I quickly leave the cockpit to make my way through the ship to where I can't be seen before I find the courage to put my feet on the ground, somehow always so much braver in a pilot's seat than on my own two feet.

I force myself to put on a brave face, to let myself feel that anger that's threatened to overwhelm me since this nightmare began, to let that anger give me focus. Strength.

With a blank face and my head head high I exit the ship to find Ben standing there with Luke just behind him, a noticeable distance physically and emotionally between them. I meet Ben's eye, my throat tight as I try to assess his state of mind, reaching out through the force to find his own emotions the same as mine although somehow slightly more controlled.

I don't speak, I don't move, not until Luke comes forward.

I've never felt him so distressed as he looks me in the eye and laments "When you last left this temple you were still a child, now you've returned as anything but that."

There's a sadness to his voice, and if he knows anything that's passed in the last fortnight it should be no surprise to him when I say "I've returned to complete my training."

Luke puts a hand on my shoulder, his voice calm. "Come with me and we will discuss it." He looks back towards my brother who has his eyes on the ground. "You too Ben. It's time you both learned the full truth."

~

Together we sit in Luke's hut, I haven't said a word to him but I can feel our minds racing with a shared paranoia, a distrust towards the man who was the one who told us Darth Vader murdered Anakin Skywalker. Mom I've forgiven, how can't I? But Luke, that will not come so easily.

"Now, Hope," Luke begins, eyeing me with caution. "Are you alright?"

"No," I answer, finding my voice void of any emotion but a deep anger, an anger aching to be let out even if I know just how damaging it would be. "Someone tried to murder me and I've had to look people in the eye as they've accused me of being Vader come again, so no Luke, I'm not alright."

At the mention of the attempt outside the temple the same rage rises in Ben who shakes his head. I can feel guilt, guilt that he wasn't there to protect me, guilt that he was fighting Luke instead of being by my side, but he keeps his mouth shut.

Any other time Luke would patronise me for addressing him by his name rather than his title, but the day I call him master is the day I might as well throw myself off a cliff.

"You're angry, you both are," Luke says carefully. "I understand-

"Do you?"

He pauses as he holds my eye, troubled by what he finds, and debates his words as he reassesses his approach.

"I told you both what Obi-Wan Kenobi once told me," Luke begins. "That my father Anakin Skywalker was betrayed and murdered by Darth Vader. That Vader was a Jedi who had been seduced by the dark side of the force, which was true. I did not learn the truth that they were one and the same until my father himself told me and I learned I had been lied to."

"So you decided to lie to us?" I remark in pure disbelief and he just nods, having been prepared for that remark.

"I wanted to tell you the truth when you were each old enough, but Leia had decided to keep the knowledge from you until she believed you could handle it."

"Ben's twenty three, how old is old enough!" I exclaim and Luke presses his mouth together in a hard line. "I'd understood keeping it from me, but from Ben-"

I have to cut myself off before I can launch into a tirade about Snoke, but Bne just scoffs and I give him a warning look that he ignores as he finally speaks "They both lied to us because they were too afraid to tell us the truth."

"Ben-" I hear Luke warn but I beat him to it.

"Don't you say a word about Mom when you haven't even spoken to her," I breathe and Ben's taken aback by the seething anger in my voice. "I've been there, I've been the one dealing with the fallout while you've hidden away." I turn my anger towards Luke. "While you've left her to face it alone."

"Hope," he begins, trying to settle me.

"She is out there defending your name to the galaxy alone!" I yell and he can't meet my eye. "Someone tried to kill me but that didn't stop me from standing with her and defending her, defending all of us!" I lean forward, finding any respect I had for Luke Skywalker being stripped away by the second. "I'd be dead and she'd be mourning her daughter if Ben hadn't taught me how to protect myself." Fear comes to his eyes now. "If I'd been held back how you wanted me to be I would have been shot dead right where the rest of the Jedi were."

Amongst the fear there's remorse, but also something more ominous. "Ben's been teaching you?"

I feel panic flicker through my brother but he defends me. "Someone had to. If you had it your way she'd have been sitting around all day lifting rocks and reading scriptures barely knowing how to wield a lightsaber. You've always been afraid of her potential, but I'm not."

Luke sits there blindsided as if we haven't been blindsided by something far worse. "Do you understand why I have held the two of you back in your training?"

"Because you're afraid we have too much Skywalker in us," I answer plainly. "Or rather too much Vader it seems, not that that's anything I haven't been told in the past week." He turns a shade paler at that. "I've been told for years by the people who knew Anakin Skywalker that I was so much like him, people who knew what he'd become, so don't deny it."

His face is grave and only confirms my suspicions.

"It's why you've held me back isn't it?" I ask him, the conversation with the Knights of Ren playing in the back of my mind, the conversation with dad in the Falcon, with Mom on Hosnian Prime. "Because you think I'm too unstable to be a Jedi like you and that I'll turn out like him."

"I have never thought that," he harshly interjects, attempting to leave no room for doubt but he doesn't know what I've been told. "You are my sister's children, everything good in her the both of you share, but it is a fact the two of you are as powerful as you are unpredictable, one of you more than the other." He's looking at me and I only feel pride, one he sees and certainly doesn't like. "And one of you is certainly Han's child more than the other and has the ego to go with it, the need to push herself beyond what is safe, and that is why I have exercised caution in your training. Ben has been the ideal student but you have always been defiant and impulsive in a way that must be carefully managed. As such Master Kenobi has guided me in how I should approach your training because of the similarities you share with Anakin Skywalker."

Ben's seething beside me now. Anakin Skywalker is everything he's ever wanted to be, and here I am, laughing much to their disturbance.

"Ah yes, with the man who led the slaughter of the Jedi Temple? Who assaulted his pregnant wife and tortured my mother?" None of this is news to him but he is purely shocked at the fact it isn't news to me. "Do you understand what I saw in that temple? I don't think you do."

"He had become an evil man," Luke acknowledges. "But that does not mean he wasn't redeemed, in his final moments he turned back to the light and this is what your mother knew I'd be able to tell you when you learned the truth, that he overcame the darkness and broke free of it."

I feel Ben roll his eyes beside me, strangely quiet, as if he knows that if he opens his mouth he'll snap. But something tells us we're rolling our eyes at this supposed redemption for very different reasons.

"Do tell how the child murderer redeemed himself," I mock and begin to see his patience wane.

"Yeah, go on and tell her what you told me," Ben says and again I hear the jealousy in his voice. "Because clearly you're a fool if you believe she's the one who takes after our grandfather."

"Ben-" Luke scolds but if I have to hear any more of Ben's delusions I will lose it before he can.

"And do you still idolise the Emperor's slave or have you come to your senses," I warn, quite prepared to finish what he started in the temple and Luke puts his head in his hands. "Or do you want to finish our argument?"

"Enough," Luke warns. "This is exactly what I mean, the need to prove yourself. One of you's blinded by delusions and the other's itching to take out her anger with a lightsaber." He looks between us and orders "Lightsabers, now."

Ben reluctantly reaches for his but I refuse. "No."

"Excuse me?"

"No, you took my lightsaber and wouldn't let me leave this planet with it for two years," I argue and Luke could just about draw his on me at this point.

"You threatened an unarmed student-"

"Which he deserved," I maintain. "I'm keeping it."

"If she's keeping her's then so am I," Ben insists like a child.

"Force give me strength," Luke mutters before continuing. "What I am trying to tell both of you is that Anakin Skywalker returned to the light. When the Emperor was prepared to kill me he stepped in between myself and the Emperors force lightning to throw him off the platform knowing the shocks would kill him. He killed his master to save me and turned back to the light out of love." I can't help the expression I make as I scoff. "Hope, it's true."

"I don't care," I tell him in full honesty as he blinks at me and even Ben gives me a strange look that turns to concern as he realises the depth of the anger seething in me. "I know he was once an enslaved child who became the best Jedi Knight there was before he lost his mind. He tortured both my parents, held my mother back as she watched everything she loved be destroyed, he choked his own pregnant wife in a fit of anger and slaughtered the Jedi younglings with his own hand. I don't care if he felt sorry for what he did. I don't care if he spent his last moment repenting for the things he did to the people he should have protected." The coldness in my final words stuns even myself. "He deserved worse than what he got."

"Wishing pain upon others is not the Jedi way," he begins to lecture and I just shake my head. "Your anger is clouding your thoughts."

"Anger?" I repeat, knowing my anger is more than justified. "I'm sorry Luke did you stand in front of the senate and have to keep a calm face as they called you dangerous and compared you to Vader? No, that was me. I was the one who had to stand there and hear it, I was the one getting torn apart and treated like a Sith!"

Whatever tone's in my voice is alarming enough that even Ben tries to step in to defend Luke. "Hope-"

"Were you?" I question and his face falls. "Were either of you there for Mom? No. No you weren't. So don't you dare sit there and tell me everything's fine because he said sorry when even from the grave he's ruined our lives and you still can't understand why Mom can't forgive him like you can."

He speaks carefully "I understand-"

"You understand, but you must love your daddy more than her if you still want her to forgive him after everything he did to try to destroy her. After he's destroyed her life again," I spit out, realising he has no idea how terrible things are on Hosnian Prime and I look between him and Ben, feeling a protective anger neither possesses for our mother. "And you still don't care."

"She is my sister, of course I care and I love her dearly," he insists, genuine hurt thick in his voice. "But without forgiveness you will never be able to heal, and neither will she. Holding onto anger is not the Jedi way."

My answer comes without thought, but it's the truth. "Then maybe I don't want to be a Jedi."

"Hope," Ben gapes, trying to calm me down. "You don't mean that."

I see it in his eyes, the fear I'll leave him, but I couldn't care less for it. "I do mean that."

Is this why Mom never finished her training? Did she really choose to quit or did Luke find these faults in her as well and deter her from it?

Luke changes tactics now and lays it down as he sees it. "Then what are you going to be? You've gotten yourself expelled from university, suspended from the Naboo Starfighter Corps and maker knows what else, not to mention accusing half the senate of being Imperials and Inquisitors. You've systematically burned every bridge you have for the sake of being destructive. I strongly encourage you to think and meditate on your feelings before burning another." I open my mouth to argue against that assessment but he adds "And we both know you do not have the patience with authority figures to make it in the navy either, so where does that leave you?"

I bite my tongue and nod stiffly, trying to gain leverage in this situation and debate my options before deciding what I had long before I got in my ship to come here. "Ben is going to train me."

"Now, I don't know about that," Luke immediately protests but I just raise a hand to stop him, realising the leverage I have. He kept Ben and I separated out of fear, the specifics Mom didn't reveal, but whatever visions he had led him to go to such lengths to prevent Ben from training me. I might not know what he saw, but I know enough to hold it over his head.

"Is there a reason he shouldn't?" I ask and see the realisation dawn on him that I know the real reason he'd tried to keep us separated, a realisation Ben's ignorant to, but Luke looks at me differently now to how he did the last time we sat in this temple. Something in my heart has changed and he can feel it. "Ben is going to train me," I repeat again with no room for argument, having learned well from my mother, and I see the recognition in his eyes before I turn to Ben, my big brother who's lost his mind and give him one more chance because I understand his anger, because I know he won't hold me back. "Don't screw this up."

I stand and leave Luke's hut without another word, Ben quickly follows after me and when he reaches for my wrist I freeze not knowing which version of him I'll get when I look back, but when I do I see my brother, eyes filled with nothing but gratitude and determination as he promises me "I won't fail you, not like Luke has."

"I know," I say and feel the eyes of the other students on us, out of the corner of my eye I spot Aylee watching with eyes filled with concern. "Just give me a second, I have a lot to tell you."

He nods and relief rushes through me as I leave him to go to her, although it's soon replaced with paranoia at the hesitant look in her cobalt blue eyes, the same colour as her skin. For almost five years she's been my closest friend, more than that. We'd shared a room here in the temple and often slept together in the same bed despite having our own.

So when she looks at me now with hesitation I'm in a state of disbelief. Upon seeing the look in my eye she steps forward to take me in her arms but the hesitation lingers above all else.

"I'm so glad you're alright," she tells me, but it doesn't feel the same as it did. I don't feel the same as I did the last time I stood here with her and when I pull back I know she feels it too.

She looks at me differently.

"Yeah," I say numbly and let her go with a pained smile to go to Ben, feeling the eyes on me as I quickly move past him into his hut.

He follows me inside and puts a hand on my shoulder, no doubt feeling the anger in me, turmoil, frustration above all. He opens his mouth to talk but shuts it, knowing any attempt at questions or consolation will backfire but talks anyways.

"For me to train you you're gonna have to talk you know."

"I'm here to finish my training," I answer stiffly, too conflicted to think about where he and I stand after what happened on Coruscant. "That's all."

"Finish?" he repeats incredulously. "You've barely started. Hope I'm twenty three and I still haven't finished, because Jedi don't just finish their training, it's a life long-"

"You sound like Luke.'

"One of the few things he has right is the fact you can't just decide you're going to do a crash course on the force and stop there, it is life long dedication-"

"Yeah well, you're going to finish mine, I don't have the rest of my life," I state, seeing clearly now through the anger. "I'd be dead if you hadn't gone behind Luke's back to teach me what I'm actually capable of instead of holding me back, and you aren't going to stop now."

"I won't," he promises me without a moment's hesitation but I can feel something else, apprehension. "Luke's afraid of you, I know you can feel it as well as I can."

My voice is little more than a mumble. "Maybe he should be."

He's quiet in contemplation as he takes me in and I swear I can feel it, the voice in his head. Snoke. Carefully I examine him, taking note of the pause before he answers me. "You're right, he should be."

I tilt my head as I warn "And so should he."

His eyes widen upon realising I can feel Snoke's presence and he swallows hard with one singular plea. "Don't tell Luke."

I search my brother's eyes and find him afraid, and realise he always has been. That day on Elphrona despite his courage he was still terrified and he still is now.

So I pose him a singular question in return to his plea. "Why?"

He just blinks in confusion. "Why?"

"What are you so afraid of?" I ask him, the fight on Coruscant replaying in my mind. "Of disappointing Luke or of betraying Snoke? Whatever the hell Snoke even is." He presses his lips together in a tight line and I have my answer. "Both then? I'm sure Anakin Skywalker felt the same before he fell, afraid of disappointing his master and too terrified to betray the dark force user who'd groomed him since he was nine years old, possibly even before that."

He face turns to stone and his voice wavers "How do you know that?"

"It's history Ben," I state, having learned more than I could ever wish. "A Sith lord posing as a senator masterminds a series of events and manipulations to make himself chancellor. During which Anakin Skywalker, the chosen one, was found by the Jedi and he promises to keep a close eye on him and he does. Over the years he slowly twists him against Obi-Wan Kenobi and the rest of the Jedi until he personally names a twenty two year old Jedi knight to the Jedi Council as his representative." Ben blinks in confusion, not having had access to the same archives I'd had whilst completing my studies. "Giving him power that the council wouldn't. A constant voice in his ear promising what his master couldn't until he was as we saw him, on his knees before the Emperor."

"He killed the Emperor," Ben quickly adds. "He only died because the Emperor's lightning short circuited the suit and killed him."

"Really?" I say, caring little for Vader's fate, perhaps making myself more apathetic in Ben's presence. "Convenient isn't it? That he just got to tap out before facing what he did."

"But not before he could of course give a heartwarming speech to tell Mom that Luke was right about there still being good in him," he says, believing he's successfully stirred the conversation away from Snoke and his voice wavers as he asks "How is she?"

There's mostly anger, but I can feel the slightest concern for her after the anger we saw on Theron.

"She's ruined Ben. There isn't any coming back from this."

"Well she didn't just lie to us she lied to the galaxy," he says and I can't fault that assessment. "It's her own doing, she should have known it would catch up with her sooner or later."

"Perhaps, but she doesn't deserve this no matter her mistakes," I say and he just scoffs.

"Since when do you defend her? She's been an absent mother your entire life-"

The look I give him is enough he shuts up and all I say is "You have no idea what we've been through Ben. None."

"Well I'm not the one who decided to put you up there with her in the senate to bear the brunt of it am I?"

My reply comes back just as sharp. "And if you had half the guts you think you do you would have been facing this with her instead of hiding away from it!"

"I'm not a politician."

"No, you're a Jedi," I say, that word having once held more meaning than it does now. "Like our grandfather was, and look where he's gotten us now."

He knows there's no fighting with me, with a lightsaber he could win perhaps but not with words, and he relents "What did mom say?"

"That Luke told her the truth on Endor and that it screwed her up learning the man who tortured her, who was responsible for the death of her family, destruction of her planet and so much more was her father."

He's quiet now as he should be and I sit on the edge of his bed, tucking my feet up beneath me knowing it's not a short story.

"That she always meant to tell us but- but that she didn't want us to have to live with that knowledge after how it's tortured her for half her life. She says that she's begun to understand him, but forgiveness is something else. She went looking for answers years ago on Tatooine, the people who raised Luke, Owen and Beru, they were Anakin's step family. Our great grandmother Shmi Skywalker had married their father before she died, so it seems Obi-Wan took Luke to the closest thing to family Anakin had."

He's listening. "Luke mentioned how he was related to them a couple times but never went into detail. He never really mentioned his grandmother."

"She was a slave, and so was Anakin," I say and he leans forward, Luke having neglected to mention that detail. "If we go to Tatooine I'm sure I can find more answers but from what I've been told I think I've got the picture. That after Obi-Wan and his master came to our grandmother's aid on Naboo they'd gone to Tatooine for repairs and found Anakin. Her handmaidens remember him well, they said he was just a boy who followed our grandmother around like a lost pup, and while they were able to free Anakin they couldn't free his mother. She kept a holo diary from when Anakin left to join the Jedi Order until she must have died. I meant to bring it with me but everything was so chaotic it skipped my mind, but she looks like Mom. More weathered from the Tatooine suns but she takes after her."

He's actually listening and so gently I push. "Shmi loved her son more than anything, but she sent him away to train with the Jedi because she believed it would be best for him."

Ben quickly picks up what I'm inferring and tries to keep his frustration at bay. "Don't use that as justification-"

"I'm not justifying I'm explaining," I try to get him to understand, but thankfully I was the one who was taught to have a way with words and make an argument, not him. "She found those holo's after the war, that was all the guidance she had on what to do with someone like you, like us. She believed she was doing the right thing even if she was mistaken." He's quiet, not wanting to hear it, but knowing we're on unsteady enough footing he's not willing to give me another reason to be angry with him. "Even if they were both mistaken they did it out of love."

He struggles to believe that but doesn't want to start a fight. "As long as one of us believes that."

I'd be angry if I didn't know how it felt to be shipped off away from home. For so long I'd been so angry and maybe deep down I still am, but I try to defend her since she's put her faith in me. "She loves you Ben."

"Yeah well, she's not here and she didn't stand up there in front of the senate and make me a prince did she?" he quips but knows that anger shouldn't be directed towards me and tries to lay it out rationally.

We'd almost always been on the same page about hating Mom's work and her being away from us, her sending us away, about Dad never being home. We'd always shared that pain but now we're at odds.

"You've always been her chosen one, always the one she placed her hopes on, literally. Even when I was six I was rolling my eyes at her naming you that, calling you her little bundle of hope like I wasn't even there. She loves you, and even if she loves me I'm still just an after thought to her. Do you realise it took her twelve hours to send a message after we found out? That was after you'd left Coruscant. You'd already been shot at before she even tried to contact either one of us because her work, her reputation, it's always come first-"

"Because it had to," I swallow, having felt the same way my entire life but now- now I see it for how it is. "And she's realised now it was in vain and she's sorry, she wants us to be a real family again."

"I'll believe it when I hear her say it," he says and I know that's the end of that conversation. "Go rest, we start your training tomorrow."

I nod slowly, but something keeps me from moving and so I decide to tell him what I saw on the way here. "I had a vision."

"Of the past?"

"Too many of the past to count but no, this was different," I say, needing to trust someone with this. "Of the future. I was being shot at, by who I couldn't see, a small militia by the amount of blaster fire maybe. I'd been hit." His eyes widen now. "Not fatally but it hurt like a bitch that's for sure, didn't seem like the first time I'd been in that sort of situation either." I don't tell him about the man who was with me, that would raise more questions than answers. "Something's coming Ben. Mom was investigating a militia when the scandal broke and decided to go on a suicide mission to stop them. When Dad got the message he grabbed me and we got in the Falcon to go get her and found her stranded in the middle of an ocean with starfighters coming at her."

"What?" Ben exclaims, finally showing some concern for his mother.

"I shot them down before they could kill her," I say and he's staring now in disbelief.

"You were in a firefight?"

"Hardly it was the Falcon against a few single seated starfighters," I dismiss and he just gapes at me. "But I shot them down and we got her home, but not before one of those starfighters I'd shot down crashed into their below water base filled with explosives and the whole thing was destroyed and everyone inside killed."

"What?! You blew up a base?"

"It- yes but that's not the point. From the report that type of militia and the arms they had hasn't been seen since the end of the war. They were allegedly the ones who bombed the senate building as well although I have my own theories about that, starting with that bitch Carise Sindian." I know this is too much for him to comprehend, it's too much for even me to comprehend, so I simplify it. "But something's coming Ben, I don't know if it's war or terrorists or what- but something's coming and I'm going to be in the line of fire and I need to be ready for it."

He trusts my visions, and I know that while mine of the past are absolute that the future is less certain, but he still trusts what I'm telling him. Even being a Jedi, there's only so much he can take for one day and I know he needs time to process this.

"I'll meditate on what you've told me and we'll start your training in the morning," he tells me and advises as I get up "You should meditate on it as well."

"I've done too much thinking for one day," I dismiss and he shakes his head.

"Meditating is the absence of thinking when you do it correctly," he starts to lecture, speeding up my exit from his hutt before I can be forced to dwell on anything for longer than I have to.

"Right, then let's start that tomorrow."

I make my way out and keep my head down as prying eyes follow me. I know he's trying, I know he wants to make things right and that I should be the last person to criticise his anger since I shared it up until the moment I stood with Mom in Ransolm Casterfo's office and saw the depth of the pain she's harboured all these years. But I can't forget the slights of darkness I've seen come out, not when I know where it comes from now.

"Hope," a voice says and I look to see Aylee, intercepting me on the way back to the dormitory with R2. I don't know what to expect until she extends her hand to me. "Come and tell me what's happened."

~

Aylee and I sit cross legged on her bed in the room we share, her holding my hand as I recount the events of the past fortnight but find myself withholding the truth. Ben's anger, my own anger, the pure devastation that's left me feeling like I can hardly stand if I'm not using that anger to hold myself up. I tell her as much as I can bring myself to, and yet it feels like I've said nothing.

Perhaps in the end it's the truth considering I redact more than I confess. Ben's violence, my crimes, the countless threats and fights. I can tell her of anything but the fear that's crept into my bones.

"You're strong," she tells me. "To be faced with such adversity and remain composed."

It's all I can do not to laugh since she genuinely believes that, and maybe I'm afraid to show her how dark it really is, how close I am to losing the little composure I keep.

"I don't really have a choice in that," I tell her, not understanding being praised when I certainly don't feel strong. "I need to be there for my Mom."

"She's strong as well," she says and tries to guide me. "It's good you've come back, your training will help balance you."

I just nod. "Yeah, hopefully."

"But are you sure about your brother training you?" she presses and my eyes flick back up to hers, suddenly growing defensive. "We all heard him raging at Luke when they returned from Coruscant-"

"Because I was nearly killed, his anger was quite justified," I say but she doesn't agree.

"Anger is never justified, it's corrosive by its very nature," she says and sees the face I make. "Hope, it's true."

"And you sound like Luke."

She just sighs, her lekku's heavy over her shoulders as she hangs her head, taking a moment to compose herself before looking back at me. "Because he's right, he should be the one training you not Ben. Your brothers anger..."

I huff, not knowing where all of this has come from. She was always moderate in her opinions about the role of emotions when it comes to the force, but it seems Luke's gotten into her head. "You try finding out you come from Vader and tell me how you'd handle it."

I get up to leave and she pleads "Hope, please don't be dramatic."

"I'm sorry, did you not just listen to everything I told you?"

"Yes, and it means with how upset you that are you need to be cautious of your emotions instead of acting on them," she lectures but quickly changes tactics when I head for the door. "I'm sorry, I overstepped. The last thing you need is to be lectured when you're clearly in pain."

I'm quiet as she extends her hand to me, still hesitant.

"I'm not your brother and I'm not Luke," she says gently even if I hear Luke's words every time she opens her mouth. "I'm just worried about you. You've spent this entire ordeal worrying about everyone but yourself, let me be the one to worry about you now."

Without a word I take her hand, tears burning in my eyes as she brings me in her arms. I rest my head her shoulder, her fingers stroking through my hair in an attempt to soothe me but it's not how it was.

I tilt my head back to look up at her and she wipes away the tears with concern, and when I lean forward she meets my lips in a chaste kiss, utterly devoid of the overwhelming emotion I'd felt in my vision from the mere touch of a hand. With her I feel a tenderness, worry, but nothing remotely close to passion.

Nothing is how it was, but it has to be enough. It has to be when all I want to feel is something other than pain or anger, but even as I deepen the kiss I fail to find what I once felt when we'd share these moments. Kisses both of us had held onto as a promise that we'd be together when I finished at the university and wouldn't be parted from one another.

But promises break.

~

It's dawn when Ben comes knocking on the door, and I find myself in Aylee's bed where I fell asleep but she's not there, likely waking the younglings since she's taken on the role of a caregiver to the younger ones. She'd pulled away and laid down to sleep the moment there was a hint of passion, I hadn't argued but I'd be lying if I said it didn't leave me feeling hurt. Rejection is the one thing I'm not used to when it comes to her.

I think back to the whispered conversations I'd share with my classmates on Naboo, young women who could not quite call themselves girls anymore wondering about the complexities of passion, conversations that could certainly never be held on Ossus and so I'd entertain them on Naboo. Despite trying to convince Mom I have little interest in such things, it would be a lie if I said I didn't crave that connection, if I said I didn't wonder what it would be like to my so close to another person and what something a little less innocent would feel like.

I've always pushed myself to my limits, always testing my own body as if it were a starfighter to see just what it's capable of. Except while I know a starfighter inside and out, I can't say the same for my own body.

I'd understand if Aylee's rejection was as simple as not wanting to go further in that way. We're sixteen, almost seventeen, as curious as I am I'm nervous as well about going further than these isolated kisses. I want to, but at the right pace. If she didn't want to go further or wasn't interested in sex then I'd understand and be content with the romantic connection we've had over the past years. Except I know her rejections and avoidance is more personal than anything to do with sex, the connection we'd once had... it feels foreign now.

The knocks persist and it takes all the strength I've got to even use the force to open the door with how exhausted I am, still catching up on sleep along with the emotional tiredness, and Ben stands there amused at the sight of me no doubt looking like death.

"It's dawn."

"And you can wake me up when it's midday, I didn't get much sleep."

"Then you should sleep in your own bed," he remarks and I go to slam the door shut again but he stops it, stating "You have ten minutes to meet me outside."

He leaves the door open as he leaves and I roll my eyes before burying my head back down in the pillow, only to be woken by R2's beeps as he comes in.

"I know, I know," I whine as I force myself up and have to remind myself that this is my doing. "You know I'm not a morning person R2."

Even so, I try to get myself ready faster than I usually would and eventually meet Ben outside where he stands with his arms crossed.

"You're right on time."

"I am? I thought I was late."

"That's what I meant," he says and I just scowl in exhaustion. "You can have more natural talent than anyone else here combined, but it means nothing if you don't have discipline. You'll never reach your full potential until you learn to have control over not just the force, but yourself."

"Like you do?" I retort but he didn't expect anything other answer.

"Then we'll both be learning that won't we?" he says and looks me up in down, taking in my white combat suit. "Those aren't Jedi robes."

I'd expected a comment from Luke but not him and realise just who he's trying to mirror even if he'd never admit it. "It's more practical to move in."

He doesn't argue with me and instructs "Draw your saber and we'll begin."

~

A fortnight passes. Training from dawn to dusk every day without reprieve. I'd asked Ben to finish my training without holding me back, but I wasn't prepared for how relentless he would be as a master. My handmaiden training on Naboo's been deemed relentless but that pales in comparison to this.

"Again," Ben says as he resets the training droids. "Try not to reflect the blaster bolts back at them, they take hours to fix."

"I know they do, because you made me fix them," I retort, slightly out of breath as the six spheres raise again. The most rest I've gotten is when I've been stunned by them and so I reprogrammed them to shoot actual blaster bolts with an intensity low enough I'll get a minor burn instead of a proper wound. Still better than having to recover from a stun blast. "We've been going at this for four hours."

"And you'll thank me when you get yourself shot at next," he remarks and my eyes roll into the back of my head as I ready myself again. "You should be thankful I'm not making you do this blind. Not yet at least."

"You did," I remind him. "Three days I spent with one of those damn helmets on."

"But I only made you defend yourself against three droids, not six," he points out. "We'll work up to doing six blind, but for now you can keep the helmet off."

"How generous."

I feel Luke observing from a distance. He's been hands off, not willing to start a fight with either of us, but I know he's been watching to see just what Ben's been teaching me and how. Luke's always pushed me towards studying the force in theory and connecting with it rather than properly using it, no doubt out of fear I'll get one taste of power and decide to go and slaughter an entire temple since that's how most people tend to view me it seems.

Ben gives a nod and the droids begin firing again, I'm able to hold my own for longer than before despite my shortness of breath and the ache in my arms, but what I lack in discipline I make up for in determination. Ben's said so himself.

"Ah fuck," I curse as a blaster bolt finally grazes my arm and Ben halts the fire of the droids, still hesitant of my decision to have them fire actual blaster bolts instead of stun blasts but like Luke, he isn't willing to start a fight either. "I can keep going."

"Break," he orders and I hardly argue and instead reach for my water, sitting down on a wooden bench and sweating through the tank top I've elected to train in to reduce the amount of blaster holes I have to mend in my combat suit. It may be a blaster-dampening material, but it doesn't mean it doesn't get singed.

I refrain from complaining about this training considering the majority of the Jedi were killed by blasters, and the fact I'd asked for this training specifically, but I hadn't been psychologically prepared for this kind of intensity.

"I want to try you with a second saber," Ben decides and I'm caught off guard, not liking that sort of change after having used one saber since I was twelve.

"But that's not what-"

"Luke taught you, I know," he finishes. "But after what happened on Coruscant you need to be prepared. If there's an attack two sabers will be more beneficial for deflecting blaster fire than one, and it's also useful when it comes to countering enemies larger than yourself. Ahsoka Tano once told Luke how Anakin trained her, she said he was relentless in training her because he knew it was a matter of life and death and that is how I'm going to be training you. Luke might not think it's necessary, but I do."

I nod, knowing this is why I still wanted Ben to train me after everything. I asked for this and I have to go through with it. He'd always taught me, always tutored me, even before I began my formal training whenever he was home he'd sit down with me and teach me within the limits of what Luke would allow, and then as I grew older he'd given me the lessons Luke believed I wasn't ready for, lessons that have saved my life.

I trust Ben's judgement.

"Aylee," Ben calls out and I try to hide the redness in my cheeks as she walks over from where she'd instructing a group of younglings, and I quickly jolt upright from where I'm half laying on the bench as she comes nearer. "Could Hope borrow your lightsaber? I want her to try something."

"Of course," she says bowing her head politely as she presses it into my hand, her gentle eyes the same blue as her skin as they meet mine, a different blue to my own, kinder. With the last two weeks I've begun to wonder if I'd over reacted in my assessment of our relationship, I've begun to hope that there's some future to this... even if it's not how I thought it would be.

"Thank you," I say and she holds my eye for a moment longer before returning to the younglings she's guiding in meditation, my eyes continue following her until Ben snaps his fingers in front of my face and I jump, hearing him trying not to laugh. "What?"

"Nothing," he says pretending not to have noticed anything but shakes his head in amusement. "You know if you don't want Luke to find out you'll have to try a little harder than that."

A wave of anxiousness washes over me and I try to insist "I don't know what you mean."

"Hope I'm your brother, I want you to be happy," he tells me, letting me know it's safe with him without causing a fuss or giving a big speech like Mom and Lando. "And besides, better her than some flyboy." I can't help but laugh at that and he promises me. "Don't worry, if Luke says anything I'll take care of it."

I smile at my brother, genuinely relieved by that. "Thank you."

But that smile soon fades and he notices something isn't right. "Hope?"

I lower my voice as I confide in him. "The last time I left the temple it seemed like we were so close to being more than whatever this is, and for so long I just wanted to come back here to see her, to be with her, but now- now it's not the same."

He frowns, knowing what I mean. "She looks at you differently doesn't she?" I nod stiffly and he puts a hand on my shoulder, trying to find the right words. "We always knew we were different to the others."

"There's different and then there's being the spawn of a Sith lord," I say and he can't argue with that. Somehow with every day that passes I only struggle more to come to terms with that fact while Ben seems to find a strange peace in it, although peace seems far from the right word. "Before they'd dismiss my anger as dramatics, now it's suddenly something more serious than that. One moment of frustration and they act like I'm going to suddenly pull out a red lightsaber. Before it was just Luke who treated me like that, now it's everyone."

We both feel it, and he becomes defensive on my behalf. "Then you'll show them that it just makes you stronger than they are and ever could be." He leaves the training droids to ready his own saber. "Now, let's see how you handle two lightsabers. Have you been doing the drills for Jar'Kai on Naboo?"

"Yeah," I answer honestly since it was one of the few things that brought me some sort of joy outside of a cockpit. "Although it's hardly the same when you don't have a lightsaber for six months at a time."

"Well you do now," he says stepping forward, knowing that while I'm versed in the drills for dual wielded that dueling is another matter entirely. On Naboo the girls and I would spar with staves so it's not entirely foreign, but a warm up is appreciated. "I'll take you through the drills before we start sparring."

I fix my grip and ready myself until he stills and I follow his trail of sight, seeing Voe gossiping with some of the older students whilst glancing towards us. A girl Ben's own age who's always been envious of him and what he's capable of, it seems that extends to me now.

Ben and I only need to share a glance before he calls out "Voe." She comes over and I put Aylee's saber down knowing I'll only need one for this. "How about you spar with Hope considering you're so busy talking."

She looks me up and down, covered in sweat and still out of breath. "Can she handle it?"

"Of course I can." Heads turn as I ignite my saber and out of the corner of my eye I see Aylee shaking her head in warning. "Can you?"

"Alright then princess," she mocks and I feel a familiar rush of adrenaline as she ignites hers. "Let's go."

There's no structure to the duel, Ben can't even give permission for us to begin before she swings her saber and mine meets it, blue colliding with green, and at the sound of our sabers clashing it feels as if the entire temple stops to watch.

Good.

She's closer to my height than Ben which means we're on more even footing, while she may still be taller and physically stronger I channel the strength of force with each swing of my saber, pushing back harder than she anticipated. We circle each other, anticipating the other's first move while Ben watches carefully, ignoring Luke who's emerged with Aylee having run to get him.

In the back of my mind I try to recall the fight I saw in the Palace of Theed between Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon Jinn and the Sith Lord, the manoeuvres each used, knowing our training is obsolete in comparison to theirs but I'll be damned if I don't try to live up to it. Yet as she goes to strike first I instinctually trade my usual techniques of acrobatics and swift feet for something more forceful while keeping myself grounded, finding my own emotions the only strength I need to overpower her.

We find ourselves locked in a battle of strength, and I know well that raw strength is a bitter nerve for her when she compares herself to Ben, and now to me. I take enjoyment in the rage in her eye as I use the force alone to push her back, sending her skidding backwards, but I'm not the only one channelling my anger as she returns with a vengeance and cuts down hard, putting me in the defensive as she tries to force me down to my knees, but I reach through the block to grab the hilt of her saber and twist it to break her attack, but before I can properly disarm her I'm dodging an elbow to the face and roll forwards across the ground, kicking her feet out from under her and she yells out in pain as she hits the ground.

I can feel the shock from Luke and Aylee but when I look up at Ben and see his nod of approval that's all I care about as I come to my feet and stand over her.

"I can handle it," I say to her and see Ben trying not to make his proud smile too obvious with Luke watching in disapproval. "But you need to watch your back."

"That a threat?" she breathes, still seething, and only now I feel Ben advising me to not take it too far. Despite their rivalry, I know he still sees her as a friend.

"Only if there's a reason for it to be."

I turn my back on her to return to Ben, and it's then she yells out through gritted teeth as she launches at me from behind and I reignite my saber in time to deflect her own, her blade scorching the grass below us as it slips and instinctually I'm twisting my body to backhand her across the face and as she stumbles back I land a kick square to her ribcage that causes her to crumple to the ground, winded.

Ben's the one to grab me as I step forward for more, there being no grey area when it comes to the morality of attacking how she did and Luke quickly intervenes.

"Alright, that's enough for today," Luke says before she can get up and Ben lifts me up and sets me walking in the opposite direction.

"You did good," he tells me, having my back. "She decided to play dirty and it backfired. She's always been angry when it comes to competition, and now she's just pissed she has two. Go clean up, you've earned an afternoon off."

With a pat on my shoulder he lets me go to take care of the damage and I walk away with a proud smile on my face but the look on Aylee's quickly changes that.

"Really Hope?" she asks as I walk past her to get something to eat before taking freshening up.

"I was just training," I shrug and watch her face carefully. She used to indulge me in moments like that, but something's changed. She looks at me with caution now.

"You were making a point."

"I was," I say and put her saber back in her hand, knowing training with two will have to wait another day. "And I made it."

"You were about to go for another blow when she's already down-"

"Hey, she attacked me when I'd turned my back on her to walk away," I remind her harshly. "She's the one who was underhanded, not me."

"For once," she remarks and upon catching the look on my face Ben quickly rushes back over and moves me away from Aylee towards the kitchens before I can start a fight.

His hand's firm on my shoulder as he brings me in and pushes me towards something that isn't green. "Ignore her, you were in the right. You're using your emotions to strengthen your abilities in the force. Luke and the other's can feel it and they won't like it because it is making you stronger. I could see it and so could everyone else. You're proving to them that raw strength takes precedence over technique, that their training is obsolete in comparison to the powers that come with using our emotions. Technique is important, but combining it with that sort of strength will make you unstoppable."

"I was hardly using my emotions," I find myself saying, automatically reverting to the shame Luke's installed in us about such things.

"Consciously you might not have realised it, but I could feel it," he says, reaching up to one of the shelves above me to find something filled with protein to put on my plate. "I've felt it in your training since you've returned. Before it was there, but repressed. Now... now you're harnessing it and you've never been stronger."

"I've been doing this since I was twelve if you recall," I remind him, anxious as though I'll feel modulated breathing down my neck if I dare acknowledge the truth of what he's saying.

"But not as my apprentice."

"I always was," I smile to myself, knowing it was Ben who gave the very first of my training when I was still a child and that he's guided me ever since. "The only thing that's changed is that we aren't hiding it from Luke anymore despite all his fears."

"And we'll both prove him wrong," he promises and I know we're already halfway there.