Chapter Text
A red sky bleeds into the black sand. She can hardly tell where the ground ends and hell begins. Her, kneeling, hands and elbows and the crown of her head against her fists. The wail that rushes in her ears is wild. An animal breaking free, tamed when it was meant to hunt. It claws up from her belly. She is the one screaming.
She digs and digs to escape the horrid sound. Sand gives way to more wretched sand. It is under her fingernails. It is in her mouth, her nose. Digs, until a pool of water emerges, breathing up and out of the earth beneath. She will be okay. She needs to look at herself, and she will be okay. Bows her head over the water, opens.
The eyes that look back at her are obsidian and burning and afraid.
*
They land on Batuu. It is an Outer Rim planet that sits as close to the edge of the galaxy as you can get, according to Poe. It used to be trading hub in the years before hyperspace travel, and for a time a sanctuary for those fleeing from the First Order. Now, it is a wasteland of a place, a near empty planet with the memories of lifeforms rooted in its dirt. Mountains stretch across the horizon, Batuu’s one powerful sun casting a brilliant sunset over the peaks. They land the Falcon by a mountain face that has a small metal hatch door. It opens without too much fuss, and they shuffle in.
Now, there are forty-seven of them.
*
General Leia begins by sending out distress signals. She tries to reach out to every ally she has won over the years, for help, for money, for comfort – for anything. To know that someone is out there, and they stand with the Resistance.
It sickens her how much they need money. Nothing will happen unless they can fund the rebellion. General Leia spends the first night counting, writing numbers on the walls in chalk over and over. Credits for weapons, credits for carriers, credits for food, credits for droids, credits for computer systems and credits for ships. That all comes before they even work out the plan.
She already knows what the plan is, what it must be. She knows, and takes no pleasure in the truth.
Funding their great revolution will come in time. For now, today, there is only survival. Expert fighter pilots are sent out to scavenge for food. Medical professionals fashion beds out of grass. Engineers attempt to reconnect the electricity in the hub they found. There are a few computers, outdated they may be, but it is all they have.
Rey sits. Somehow, amongst these people she fought so hard to protect, she feels out of place. Not with Finn – Finn is her home, her centre. A friend so true he’d run into a First Order cruiser for her. It’s everyone else. Are they looking at her different? What do they know? She trained with Master Skywalker. That is all she told them.
Do they know her mind is connected to Kylo Ren’s? Do they know she can feel him a hundred parsecs away? Do they know that in a cave on an island he took off his glove and pressed his hand to hers?
She felt a darkness inside her. Her first real glimpse at the dark side. And now, somehow, they all know. General Leia could sense it, and had told them. Chewbacca had seen her on that island, struggling against the pull of the dark. He told Leia, and she told Finn.
They move around her, working. They are trying to live, and keep hope on the way. She wants desperately to join them, to laugh beside Finn and let Poe teach her how to fly with one eye closed (which he swears he can do).
Rey sits.
*
A week on Batuu, and they haven’t heard back from anyone. General Leia is not concerned. They are sending signals very far across the galaxy. It will take time for them to be received, and replied to.
Their cave-turned-hide out affords little privacy. She feels as if her skin is crawling with everyone’s eyes on her. She needs a moment away, just a moment for herself. They are roasting small native rodents over a fire. Dinner, as it was the night before and the night before that. She slips away easily enough.
It is almost impossible to see at the back of the cave. Electricity had been wishful thinking, apparently. Away from the fire, she is invisible to her friends in the dark. Rey leans against the cold wet wall of the cave and sighs. She tries to breathe like how Master Skywalker taught her. She reaches out for the Force and feels it even here, on this stowed away planet on the edge of the galaxy, buried in a rotting cave, perfectly balanced and moving in and between her.
Then, for a moment, the air in her lunges vanishes. When she draws breath, she feels it. Him. Her eyes stare vacant. She cannot see him yet. She hears him breathe. A shaky, awful sound.
As fast as she hears him, she now sees him. In his usual black garb, Kylo Ren sits on a rock before her. His clothes blend him into her surroundings, so much so that it almost appears as if his face hovers before her. He looks tired. She doesn’t care.
He regards her quietly, like he had been expecting this. She feels his loneliness, sitting at the back of her throat like bile. It doesn’t unsettle her like it used to, but it does feel different. Heavier. Larger. More fearful than before.
‘You’re alone.’ She says.
‘I’m in my chambers.’
‘No. You are alone.’
He doesn’t blink. His jaw tightens and she sees the stirrings of his rage.
‘So are you.’
His deep voice surrounds her, loud in her quiet corner of the cave. He isn’t wrong. The Force be damned, he isn’t wrong. They stare at each other a while longer, as long as their bond will allow. She feels her hate churn, and something worse. She feels her heart beating like it did when they fought side by side on the First Order destroyer. The rush, the ease with which they danced, the hum of the lightsabre echoing their energy as they used the Force together for good –
‘Rey! Rey?’
Finn’s arm shakes her free. He’s looking at her with concern.
‘Sorry I – I was meditating.’
‘Jedi meditating voodoo, I getcha.’
He doesn’t look convinced, but she appreciates him going along with her. They walk back to their beds together, and whisper about what life will be like once the First Order is destroyed.
*
Twelve days on Batuu. They get a response, a transmission from Ogem. The name fills Rey with dread. Ogem is in the same system as Jakku, a nearby desert planet that’s just as rough. But there’s a transmission, and they want to help.
‘We don’t have enough fuel to make it to Ogem.’ Poe says.
General Leia nods. They barely have enough fuel to jump to lightspeed. Chewbacca is surveying Batuu as they speak, searching for any ports that might have left over fuel. They would need a lot to make it to the Western Region.
‘What if they come here?’ Finn asks. ‘They want to help right? We could make this our new base. If we get the electricity up and running, a couple more bodies helping out, we could run the Resistance from right here.’
‘In the Outer Rim? We’re lightyears away from the nearest system. No body is going to come all the way out here for a girl who might be a Jedi, a BB-8 unit, a wookie and a Stormtrooper!’ It’s the Orange Leader, Macti, who speaks.
‘They will come for General Leia.’
Rey barely registers opening her mouth, but surly enough the words are coming from her.
‘We need to stay in the shadows. The First Order is powerful, we are weak. The Rebellion…’ She looks at General Leia, who nods. ‘The Rebellion became too big, too public. Let them believe they thwarted us. That our spark was put out. That the last Jedi was killed by Kylo Ren, and with him went our hope.’
A smile pulls at Poe’s mouth. ‘And when we strike, we’ll do it quick, and small. No big bombers. No war.’
Finn steps forward. ‘There’s only one target that needs taking out.’
‘We will kill Kylo Ren, and put an end to this empire. Forever.’
Leia’s voice echoes over them. It does not waver. The Force swells inside of Rey, the settling of a decision, a destiny formed. It feels right. Killing him is what must be done.
The back of her hand burns where he touched her weeks ago. None of them know. They will never know.
*
The red sky. It is so dry here. She isn’t kneeling this time. She can walk. The red sky hurts her eyes, maybe if she pulls on her hood –
‘Anything.’
Rey awakes, gasping. Opposite her – Kylo Ren. He’s panting too, harsher, quicker. It’s hard to see in the dark but she swears there are tears rolling down his face. She doesn’t think, just reaches out to touch him, make it real, see if he really is capable of crying.
He’s gone as quickly as he woke her. She can’t live like this. She doesn’t know how to control it.
Luke. You didn’t teach me this.