Skywalker.

The name Rey had given herself had come on the spur of the moment, but it sounded… correct.

No, more than that. Right. It resonated, it sounded like she had finally come to realize something she'd been struggling with all her life.

Where she came from… wasn't nothing, but it was far less than everything. Her life, her identity – who she was – it was all up to her to choose.

She looked back again at where she'd buried the lightsaber, then turned to go… only to duck, reflexively, as a large transport ship flew overhead.

It turned in a graceful arc, coming down to land on extended legs, and the door opened.

A middle-aged woman with red hair and green eyes came down the ramp, then stopped short and frowned at her in some confusion.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"Rey," Rey introduced herself. "Rey Skywalker."

The woman tilted her head slightly.

"Really?" she asked. "Huh."

Rey was still trying to process exactly what was going on with this conversation, then she noticed something on the woman's waist.

"You've got a lightsaber," she said.

"Well, yeah," the woman answered. "Of course I have. I'm a Jedi."

Rey stared.

"...there aren't any Jedi left, any more," she said. "Except me."

"Who told you that?" the woman said, stifling a chuckle.

"Luke Skywalker told me!" Rey retorted. "And – Ben Solo, as well."

The woman's expression changed.

"Oh, I see how it is," she said. "First, let me introduce myself, Rey. I'm Mara Jade."

She gestured, and a solid chair floated out of the ship. Mara caught it, then sat down on it, and faced Rey.

"So," the older woman began. "What do you know about the Jedi Order?"

"Luke set up a new Jedi Academy," Rey replied, trying to work out what on earth was going on. "Then Ben Solo was corrupted into betraying the order and helping the Knights of Ren to destroy it."

"You've got some of the details," Mara told her. "But you need to think about this stuff. When did Luke start his new Jedi Academy?"

Rey blinked, because – she actually didn't know.

"Does that matter?" she asked.

"Of course it does," Mara answered. "The new Jedi Academy was set up five years after the Battle of Endor. In case you're not aware, at that point Ben Solo was four-"

"I'm the same age as him," Rey interrupted. "I know that much."

Mara nodded. "Right, but like I say. Think it through. Ben didn't fall to the Dark Side until the academy had been around for nineteen years. It took Luke nine years of training, almost all of it self directed, to reach the point he could start the academy. So…"

"...oh," Rey said, slowly. "So… he had lots of graduates, then."

In hindsight it did seem obvious. She'd beaten her grandfather after a very abbreviated period of actual training.

"Correct," Mara agreed. "Kyle and I were two of the first, but there's several dozen now."

She nodded behind her. "That's one of the school ships."

"But-" Rey began, trying to work out how to react to that. "Why didn't you help?"

"You mean with the war?" Mara asked. "We only found out about it earlier today. Why didn't anyone call us?"

"I don't know!" Rey replied. "But – we did call the whole galaxy! Twice! One of those times was two months ago – after the Resistance was almost completely wiped out!"

Mara looked politely baffled.

"You called the whole galaxy?" she asked. "Did anyone notice?"

Rey frowned.

"Um," she said. "They did the second time?"

"Are you sure you actually called everyone the first time, then?" Mara said. "You could have not got the settings right on the commlink. If you do an at-everyone then it can just end up being categorized as spam, you can't just treat the whole galaxy as a friend group."

"But the First Order blew up a planet!" Rey objected. "They were conquering the galaxy!"

"Yeah, we went to attack the First Order's base," Mara replied. "The one that blew up Hosnian Prime. All we found there was a star, and we were a bit busy with everything else that's been going on."

She frowned. "Are you sure the First Order was conquering the galaxy? If they'd been able to do that I'm not sure why they'd need a weapon that could destroy a planet… though I suppose the Emperor was the sort of person who'd-"

"The Emperor!" Rey repeated, because she was having such a day that there were things she'd been forgetting – as astonishing as that sounded. "How is that not something you'd come and help with! He announced his return to the galaxy!"

"...wait, that was really the Emperor?" Mara asked, sounding confused. "Are you sure?"

Rey looked at her hands, then at where the lightsabers were buried.

"...pretty sure," she said.

"The Emperor was thrown into a reactor core, and violently exploded, and the battle station he was on subsequently violently exploded," Mara told her. "That sounds like a pretty good way to finish him off to me. Nobody can survive exploding twice."

"But he announced his return to the whole galaxy," Rey protested. "Didn't that make you worried?"

Mara shrugged.

"He announced his return to the whole galaxy in a shooter game," she said. "I honestly thought it was some kind of trolling attempt when Jaden told me… was it the actual Palpatine, or a clone?"

"Both," Rey said. "He had himself cloned – that's who Snoke was, a clone, and this Palpatine was another clone, Palpatine possessed his own clone. Then he said he was the focus of all the Sith and he wanted to possess me."

"Or, and hear me out," Mara said, slowly. "The clone was insane, specifically with delusions of grandeur. I did mention how he announced his return, yes?"

"Does it matter at that point?" Rey asked. "An insane clone who can electrocute an entire fleet with force lightning is still an insane clone who can electrocute an entire fleet with force lightning, and at that point I think the question of whether he's the original or not is somewhat irrelevant. Wouldn't you say?"

"Fair point," Mara admitted. "Still-"

"And why did Luke go into hiding at the other end of the galaxy?" Rey demanded. "He told me he was the last Jedi! Ben kept stressing how it would be the end of the Jedi as well!"

"...I'm sorry," Mara began, staring at Rey as if she'd said the most insane thing so far this whole conversation. "But have you met any of Anakin Skywalker's descendants? They've got the highest recorded counts of melodrama in the galaxy."

Rey blinked.

"You mean midichlorians?" she asked.

"I said what I said," Mara replied.

AN:

Born from a combination of the realization that Luke's Academy ran for twice as long as it took for him to go from "farmboy" to "starting an academy" and Mara Jade's comments in Hand of Thrawn about the events of Dark Empire.