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Chapter Text

PROLOGUE

Out of nowhere, Rey sensed death.

The blazing sun above the Jakku desert faded. A rush sucked her up into a vacuum of darkness, swallowing her in the deepest depression she’d ever known. The feeling spread in an invisible swirl, buzzing all around.

Something bad had happened. Something really bad.

Her surroundings on Jakku returned, became more prominent, and the darkness fizzled away. Even with the sun casting down, goosebumps prickled over her skin.

“Huh. You feel that? Feels cold.” These were the only words Rey could muster; she’d been rendered speechless by the gravity and weight of these cutting emotions.

Beside her, Unkar Plutt grunted.

“Get on, girl,” he hissed, knocking her little body forward. “No need for your nonsense. Lots of work to be done.”

Rey shook her head in an attempt to will away the weighted sadness nestled in her heart. There was already enough hurt there. She didn’t know she could feel anything worse than the burn of being left behind by her parents a few years ago. But this topped every bad thing she’d ever felt. Even that.

She took a few steps, following Unkar Plutt’s footsteps.

“Yes, my boy, yes,” a sinister voice said, crawling from within her head, though she instinctively knew the man spoke not to her.

Rey stopped in her tracks, cradling a hand around her head. The words. That voice.

She felt connected to that evil man somehow.

Something sharp was tearing her apart from the inside.

“Yes. Yes,” another voice said, also not speaking to her. His voice was deeper than the first speaker. Rey sensed somehow that this second person was not as evil as the first. This time, the words were not much more than a subtle sound she almost could’ve brushed off as a daydream.

The voice of the second speaker added, “Claim your birthright and strike him down!”

“Here’s your good death!” a young man screamed.

Rey heard the young man’s words so clearly that she spun around, hoping to see whom they belonged. Physical darkness enveloped her. Once more, the environment on Jakku disintegrated.

In its place, she saw something else.

Rey watched a young man with dark hair and angry eyes wielding some sort of energy sword. A lightsaber? She’d heard travelers at the local cantina talk about lightsabers with Unkar, but Rey had previously believed them to be nothing more than legend, stories told to pass the time.

The young man swung the weapon down on an unrecognizable monster with a silver, oval mask, and the blade struck into the heart of its target.

Dark, brooding eyes slowly panned up. The young man looked through her. For a microsecond, Rey found herself staring at him. The darkness between them remained, yet there was some sort of release in this connection.

She felt whole. Complete.

Like… they belonged.

Like home.

In one swift move, the stranger brushed by Rey, their shoulders lightly touching, and he marched past her, toward another stranger. A woman bent over on the ground. The smell of blood filled Rey’s nostrils, and she recoiled from the stench.

As the young man raised his weapon once more, Rey’s heart beat wildly. She could feel him. Feel every emotion he carried inside. So much pain. She turned away, a cacophony of screaming, pleading, and hissing filling her mind. This bleak world faded away, and she stumbled away from the dark scene. Everything crumbled away, moving far from her reach.

She blinked, and suddenly the bright sun on Jakku beat down on her once more.

Whack.

The back of someone’s hand smacked against her head.

Rey stumbled a few steps to her left. Pain surged across her ear and right side of her temple. She winced.

“Girl!” Unkar shouted, his hand still raised. “I have no use for you if your head’s in the clouds. Get on now… before I find a way to sell you for the credits I need.”

Rey scrunched her nose and answered him with silence and disregard.

With her head still throbbing, Rey took one more glance up at the sky, at the sun which had momentarily vanished and returned, before setting off across the desert in search of more spare parts for Unkar Plutt.

What just happened?

That darkness, that young man, whatever the vision had been… she willed herself to move past it, so that she could drop the anchor of depression the experience formed in her soul.

But she couldn’t.

She took another step. Her entire body began to shake, as more chaos ensued in that other place she’d just seen. She could feel it. She could feel the madness of that young man, and the rage swelling in his heart.

One more step forward, and her entire body crumbled to the ground.

Her body twitched in little spasms, and she was unable to control herself.

Unable to control anything.

Everything faded away.

***

“This is the hardest part,” Mortis told Anakin from a world without organic matter where beings in life energy forms remained unknown to most in the physical realm. “Watching events unfold, knowing what is to come, and being unable to prevent the future.”

They remained incognito, gazing out at two different lives, scenes occurring on different planets, like two windows playing separate images. One showed Ben Solo turning to the dark side. The other… Rey. A young woman yet to fulfill her destiny.

For a moment, those two worlds had collided in the power of the Force Dyad.

Both Rey and Ben remained under threat. A chill danced over Anakin’s soul as too many dark memories popped up, plaguing him.

Where Mortis and Anakin existed now, there was no such thing as physical boundaries through which they could venture. They had the benefit—some would say the curse—of clicking into any moment of the world they left behind and observing.

For Anakin, he only had the ability to see the present or the past.

“Can’t we do anything? Can’t we stop this?” Anakin’s heart, a mass of energy in this light body form, tightened in his chest as he watched his grandson, Ben, killing innocents and heading down the same dark path as Vader.

“You’re still so tied to the life you had, Anakin.” Mortis’s words sounded especially sad. Both understood the time Anakin had lost with his family, most of whom still remained in the physical. Unlike Mortis, Anakin couldn’t see beyond the present. Part of what Anakin deemed his punishment for all his wrongdoings as Vader.

“My family has had enough darkness,” Anakin said, “and now we all have to watch as my grandson goes down the same path? Let me step in. There must be a way.”

“Ah, but there is a way.” Mortis nodded his head, as he inched closer toward the scene with Rey. Now, Mortis and Anakin stood over her body which shriveled in the desert sand.

I hate the sand, Anakin thought as a sour taste formed in the back of his throat. He gazed down at the poor young girl, her eyes clamped shut, and he instinctively reached a hand to her temple. She wouldn’t see him, he knew that. But he needed to help her heal from what she’d seen. Anakin felt all her fears. The pain. Loneliness. Longing for her parents to return…

He understood feeling like an orphan in such a wide universe.

Mortis moved in closer to Rey, and Anakin took a step back.

“I told you once that you’d bring balance to the Force,” Mortis said in his gravelly voice. “You are the Chosen One. And you will bring balance again.”

Mortis waved a hand over Rey’s face, and her features relaxed. Loosened.

Anakin understood what Mortis was doing—erasing the memories of the last few moments from Rey’s mind, the way he had once done for Anakin when the Son had shown Anakin his future as Darth Vader. Anakin had gone mad, gone straight to the dark, obsessed with preventing what was to come.

So, Mortis had taken that pain away.

“As I once said to you, certain things are not meant to be known until their time,” Mortis added. “Let’s provide Rey some respite until it’s her time to face the boy who just became Kylo Ren. Until then, she needn’t carry the burden of what she’s seen. You will bring balance to the force again, Anakin. Then, only then, should she know of this time.”

Mortis disappeared. Anakin knew where he’d gone: through the World Between Worlds, into the space where all beings journeyed once their time in the physical world had come to an end.

Anakin looked back down at Rey.

“Be strong, little one,” he said. “Know that the Force will be with you. Always.”

He hoped that somewhere in her soul she heard his words of comfort and could take solace in them in her greatest time of need.

Anakin knew all too well what it felt like to be alone… and how even the simplest words could bring about some peace in an otherwise rocky world.

He headed after Mortis. Uneasiness was lurking in the shadows, ready to pounce. And he would need to be ready.

Anakin would bring balance to the Force. Just as the prophecy always foretold. His grandson’s life—and Rey’s—depended on it.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER ONE

Ajan Kloss

Shortly after the events of the Battle of Crait…

As a dark cloud billowed inside of her, Rey reached with the Force for a downed branch and speared the remote trainer. The droid cracked against the wood of a nearby tree trunk and whirred a sad noise before powering down.

A smile of satisfaction wrapped across Rey’s face.

The lightsaber returned to her hand with a smack. Rey’s feet ground into the tree roots spidering along the jungle ground of Ajan Kloss, and she released a breath. Triumph filled her.

Leia had taught her that patience was the key.

Perhaps patience was overrated.

So is defeating a remote droid, she realized sadly.

She’d been out here working in the humidity, attempting to deepen her connection to the Force. Since fleeing Crait, and losing Master Luke, Rey wanted to be more. But now, as in her previous attempts, she hadn’t succeeded. She desired to reach out to the Jedi who now existed somewhere beyond her physical understanding, but she’d failed. Failed to accomplish much of anything, really. Instead, the heavy labor of her training had served only to produce a broken remote droid cracked against a tree trunk.

She rested her palm against the bark. Her moment of victory faded, and she hung her head in defeat.

I’ll never be a Jedi. Not truly.

There’s too much darkness at the heart of who I am, and the Jedi of the past know.

That’s why they’ve never come.

With that somber thought, whispers filled her ears. No—her mind. She spun in a circle, desperately seeking the source even as she understood the harrowing truth. There was nobody here with her. She was alone. But the darkness… it was calling out to her again. Reaching for every fiber of her being and begging Rey to succumb to its delicious power.

The jungle around her faded. All went deathly silent as Rey plunged into the unknown darkness. Her airway tightened. She found herself choking, smothered, gasping for air. But no one was harming her. It was nothing save the dark side of the Force reaching out to her once more.

An image entered her mind, and she flinched back, though there was no avoiding the horrifying sight. Kylo Ren slashed his saber in a rage, slicing through a machine in his private quarters. He cried out in agony with each contact, as if the saber cut into his own skin rather than the equipment before him. Kylo’s screams pounded inside Rey’s mind as she watched him. His hate boiled to the top as he took out his anger on an inanimate object.

After a moment, Kylo tossed his saber to the side, and the metal landed with a heavy clang. His hands, encased in tight leather gloves, gripped a charred edge near where he’d been slashing. He hung his head.

For a reason she couldn’t explain, Rey waited. She wanted to be there, she realized, despite their last, abrupt parting. On the ramp of the Millennium Falcon back on Crait, Rey had closed the door between the two of them, but this was a door meant to be reopened. As much as she hated to admit it, a part of her desired to be in his presence.

She wondered if he sensed her, as he had in the past, or if this was some other kind of one-sided vision. Kylo remained with his head lowered, his profile visible to her. Tufts of dark hair dangled over his face.

His face…

Kylo’s cheeks were glistening with streaks of tears.

“Ben…” she whispered.

Dark, brooding eyes slowly panned up. As their gazes met and locked, the room around them morphed, pulling them apart. The room crumbled away only to be replaced by something else. Something insidious.

She saw herself completely alone, standing on jagged ground and facing an enormous throne which cast a large shadow. In the distance, the sky lit up with electricity, and she stared at the stars, aglow with activity. As the Rey in her vision stood, a disfigured, old man in a black cloak sneered, throwing every ounce of his lightning power directly at this version of her, draining Rey of everything.

The image then changed once more. Rey stood on some sort of ruin made of metal. A place where bad things had happened. An old Death Star. She watched herself plunge her lightsaber straight into Kylo Ren’s chest. In horror, Rey saw the emotions reflected in her own eyes—anger, pain, satisfaction.

The call to the dark.

Rey was pulled away from this scene and returned to the throne room with jagged ground and the cloaked man.

Except the cloaked man was dead.

And she, too, had died.

Rey stared at her own lifeless eyes. Bile rose in her throat. She reached out to touch her corpose, but things shifted once again.

“We’re a Dyad in the force…” Kylo’s voice echoed words from another time. Another place. “Two who are one.”

Flashes of Luke’s face. Then Kylo’s. Then Ben Solo, his lips against hers. The return of life for the loss of another.

The Dyad… broken.

And then, nothing. Nothing but pain. Rage. More visions flashed through her mind in rapid succession. The throne room returned. She watched herself, clad entirely in black, rest a hand daintily along the armrest of the throne with a satisfied smile.

This Rey, unlike the other versions of herself, gazed directly at her with eyes that were sunken in and just as lifeless as the earlier image of her dead self. Except this iteration was still very much alive.

Darkside Rey bared her pointy teeth, and Rey shivered.

“You know it’s always been calling you,” she hissed through those pointed teeth. “Give in. Let your truth rise… instead of stifling your powers by living a lie.”

A rapid succession of images flashed through Rey’s mind. She pillaged communities and destroyed entire planets and moons with her own sheer use of the Force, and she smiled as she did it. Walked away with more power, more darkness, more hate each time she killed innocents. The world was a darker place now. Everyone lived in fear.

And all creatures shrunk back into the shadows, too afraid to even think Rey’s real name.

“Destroyer of worlds,” people chanted in whispers. “Destroyer of worlds, destroyer of worlds…”

Rey willed the visions away, but as these events faded, she heard her own voice say, “You’ll end up like me, no matter how much you try to fight it. I’m your destiny. As was Kylo… and now your balance is dead.”

Rey plunged into the unknown once more. She was falling, spiraling, unable to control herself. A variety of images—from past, present, and future—danced through her mind. She moved so quickly through them all, she didn’t have the time to discern one single moment.

Then, a bridge came into focus. Darkness all around. In the far distance, two men stood at the center. She’d seen this before somewhere.

She heard a man’s voice echoing, “Claim your birthright and strike him down!”

“Here’s your good death!” a young man screamed.

No.

Not just any young man…

Ben Solo, a younger version of Ben, jerked his weapon down into an unrecognizable monster with a silver, oval mask. The blade struck the heart of its target.

Somehow, all of this seemed so familiar, and Rey sensed she’d been a part of this, but the memories alluded her. Had been stripped away. Erased. She recalled nothing from this scene, and, yet, it all felt more like a memory than a vision.

What is all of this?

She didn’t have any idea.

“Be strong, little one.” It was a soothing, paternal voice. Rey knew the voice spoke directly to her. “I’ve always been with you, and the future is not yet set. Time is bendable. Go to the World Between Worlds. There you’ll find the answers you seek.”

From the bridge, young Ben’s dark, brooding eyes slowly panned up. Except as their eyes met, Rey returned to where this madness had started, in the private chamber of Kylo Ren.

His brown eyes flashed at her like he’d seen all the places she had gone.

Of course, he had. Of course.

Her insides tightened, little balls of fury sparking at her core. There was so much rage building inside of her after what she’d just been through. So much anger. She channeled all of this negativity toward Kylo Ren—the man who’d once berated her, called her nothing, and remained in the dark even after fooling her into thinking they were allies.

She’d once wanted to take Ben Solo’s hand.

She still did.

But the anger and pain overpowered any hope she still had that Ben Solo might return.

And right now, with the fury brewing inside of her, she wanted to kill Kylo Ren.

Kylo’s lips parted, brows furrowing tightly.

“Rey…” He held up a steady hand. “I know you saw what you become.”

“Get out of my mind,” she hissed, tears pricking her eyes.

“What’s in the World Between Worlds?” he asked. “What do you know?”

“I’m not telling you anything.”

“Let me come and find you then,” he said, “and we’ll go there together.”

“No,” Rey hissed. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“We’ll see,” he said in that cocky, self-assured tone.

Rey called to her lightsaber once more. Before Kylo had a chance to react, she whipped the saber between the two of them and held it inches from his face, just far enough away that it wouldn’t hurt him—unless she decided she truly wanted to send a message.

“You will not come and find me,” she said, her breath hitching in her throat at their proximity. “You will not do anything concerning me.”

Kylo’s eyes widened, almost in fear. When he swallowed, Rey watched his Adam’s apple bob. In the sparkle of his eyes, she suddenly became aware of what she’d just done. Guilt washed over her. She drew her saber away.

“I see I’m understood,” she added with a little less anger.

And then, before she did anything else rash, she cut the connection.

Leaning against a tree, back in the safety of the jungle, she slowly lowered herself to the ground and sobbed, too numb to do much else. Too numb to feel anything at all.

Too numb to process who she could become.

Who she was already starting to turn into.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER TWO

The voice had told her to go to the World Between Worlds. Whatever that was.

Rey feverishly paged through the Jedi texts in her hut. She hoped there’d be something in them shedding light on this magical place that would solve the horror of the future in her visions.

The Destroyer of Worlds.

There had to be a way to visit this World Between Worlds and prevent the events that she’d seen from unfolding. She couldn’t become the woman she envisioned in those nightmares.

A candle burned next to her on the floor, her only light in an otherwise dark room. The sun had gone down hours ago, and Rey had been in here since, trying to find anything. The dim light made this harder, but she was determined to do this without causing any alarm among the others. They couldn’t know the horror. This was her burden to bear.

She landed on a page addressing the very topic she sought. Gingerly lifting the worn paper between her fingers, Rey scanned across the text.

“Phases of Mortis?” Rey asked no one. “Chain Worlds Theorem…”

This had to be it.

Her brow crinkled as she read through the rest of the contents, yet the words might as well have been written in Huttese.

Talk to Master Leia about all this. The thought popped into her head once more, as it had many times since the visions. But Rey had already reasoned that this wouldn’t be the wisest idea. What if Leia stopped training her, if she knew the full truth?

What if Leia stopped believing in her? If this were to happen, Rey would never be able to live with herself, so she dared not enlist her master’s help on this matter. No. Instead, Rey would handle this on her own, and ensure that the Darkside Rey never came to fruition. Perhaps then the Jedi of the past would find her worthy of the Force.

Visit the World Between Worlds, the soothing voice had told her.

She would find all the answers there. Find the person she wished to be.

As she finished reading, one thing became certain from these pages: Rey needed to arrive at a very specific set of coordinates at just the right moment. Only then would she gain access to this hidden realm.

But where exactly was that place? The texts gave no real indication of how to find this point in space, and without any clues, Rey was at a loss.

The energy shifted. Rey felt an invisible door open from behind her.

Kylo Ren.

“You’re not going to get there without help.” Kylo’s tone contained a hollowness, words drifting to her through a vacuum, a tunnel. Across the expansive universe. Though she only saw Kylo, and not his surroundings, a cold chill ran up her arms, and she sensed the presence of snow. As if to prove her point, Kylo took a few steps, and his black boots crunched against frost. Rey noted the heavy winter cloak draped around his body.

At least this time he wasn’t half naked.

“Please,” he begged. “I’m offering you my assistance. You should accept.”

“You really expect me to believe you’ll help me?” Rey gritted her teeth, aware of the defensiveness in her voice.

“Yes. I do expect that. Isn’t it obvious what we’re meant to do together?”

“No. Don’t do that.” Rey shook her head, staring at his extended hand. The last time he’d held his hand out to her seemed like a lifetime away now, and she was an entirely different person. The same emotions rose. Sadness, shame, disappointment. After they battled Snoke, defeated him together, Rey believed she would leave that ship with Ben Solo.

The man she kissed in those visions.

A light flutter danced through her stomach. A version of herself in the future had kissed Ben, hadn’t she? The real Ben, with his sparkling eyes, and a disarming smile that brought her so much happiness. She wanted to get to know him. He seemed… enchanting. Funny. Kind.

Beautiful.

“Ben Solo is dead.” Kylo Ren’s words pulled her out of the accidental trance she’d fallen into. Rey’s face reddened.

“That isn’t what I saw.” Rey sat up, brushing against a pile of straw which served as her bed. “You’re still very much Ben Solo.”

“He was weak. You saw him with your own eyes. Is that who you want me to be?”

Yes, it is.

Kylo felt it. The serious energy around him loosened, and his guard seemed to drop.

Kylo inched closer, and Rey was suddenly aware of his body sitting beside her, one leg against hers, his back straightened, stiff, and his arms neatly rested in uniform by his sides.

The tiny candle flickered a few beats, then settled.

“Why do we always do this at my place?” she joked, hoping to hide her jittering nerves. He always made her nervous. Now more so than ever after their kiss. Well, the kiss that had not yet occurred.

Kylo Ren stifled a laugh, though his lips remained neutral. Beneath the rough exterior, she thought she saw the Ben she met. The one from the vision on that strange place—Exegol, she instinctively knew. They’d been on Exegol. A place she’d never heard of until this moment. Yet ever since those visions, her mind contained information she hadn’t recalled ever learning. Like seeing a young Kylo Ren on a bridge, striking someone down.

And her thoughts constantly drifted back to the feel of her lips on Ben’s.

“I’ve been thinking about it, too,” Kylo breathed.

Rey dipped her nose, a flush of embarrassment caressing her cheeks. In the visions, Ben Solo had kissed her back, and he’d seemed to be at peace. As if something had finally gone right in his life. Only for him to be taken away. Her insides twisted, a pang of depression nestling in her chest over an event that might not ever happen.

“You looked so happy,” Rey finally said, ignoring the sadness. “Once you let go of the dark.”

“That wasn’t it.”

She gazed up to find his eyes locked on her. “Then tell me. Make me understand.”

“We already understand each other. You know what it was. I don’t have to tell you.”

Rey watched him studying her face. Though he lacked the joy of Ben Solo, a sparkle of light snuck through his cracks, and she caught his most exposed elements. Kylo Ren was warming.

Despite the hate in his heart, she knew he didn’t feel hatred when he looked at her. There was something deeper between the two of them. A connection beyond two Force-sensitive beings. If nothing else, the vision of the future had shown them both what they could share.

Had made Rey realize just how deeply her feelings ran—for not only Ben Solo, but Kylo Ren, too.

Kylo leaned down toward her, and she didn’t try to stop him. He pressed his forehead against hers, and her heart beat more wildly in her chest. A gloved hand captured her bare fingers, and Kylo wrapped his palm over hers.

His breath feathered against her face.

“Rey—”

She pressed her lips to his, silencing him. Her hands reached for the sides of his face, and she pulled him in tightly. Their lips claimed one another, filling Rey’s heart with a rush she’d never known. The bubble around them gleamed with energy. Warmth danced over Rey’s entire being. Beneath the dark sky, in a tiny hut with merely a flicker of light, her world glowed as if surrounded by the brightest star.

She broke their kiss, and tears softly trailed down her face.

“Ben,” she murmured. “I know what I saw. You can still come back. Your home is here.”

With his gloved hand still in hers, she guided it over her heart. For one hopeful moment, the joy she’d seen from Ben Solo on Exegol flashed over the expression of the man known as Kylo Ren. His eyes turned dewy, and his mouth curved into a smile. He let out a breath, glancing down to his hand over Rey’s heart.

Rey hoped she’d brought Ben Solo back. They could venture toward the World Between Worlds together. Find the answers to stop his death—and her turn to the dark.

He eyed the texts beside them. The joy in his expression faded away, and his mouth returned to its usual neutral state. His eyes clouded with pain.

  “You know why I have to go there,” Rey said. “To stop what I become.”

“And you know why I must go. To stop the light from corrupting my heart.”

“You’re already turning,” she said.

“I see it being the other way around, Destroyer of Worlds.”

Rey shifted away from him, a heavy weight anchoring in her chest. “Is that why you’re really here?”

“Yes.” The cold demeanor returned. Kylo Ren watched her with calculating, brooding eyes. “We can visit the World Between Worlds and take it as our own. Rule all of time. Forever. Those visions showed me what we could be, Rey. Our place is together. Ruling as one. Fulfilling our destiny as a Dyad.”

“I’m never going to become that person you want me to be.”

“And I’ll never be Ben Solo. I can’t go back.”

The bridge flashed through her memory—the final piece of the vision from earlier. Once more, she saw young Ben striking down the monster in the oval mask. Striking down anyone in his way, including a harmless female who seemed to have done nothing wrong. Rey waited there, waited for Ben to look up at her, but he brushed past her, their shoulders touching.

A gust of air—snowy, winter air—blasted through the hut.

“Do you feel that?” she asked herself now, torn between the vision and her present reality, caught in another trance. Reciting words she might have once spoken. “Feels cold.”

Kylo reached out to her once more and placed a gentle hand against her face. His touch guided her back to the hut, and the visions of the bridge faded.

A knowing look splashed across Kylo’s face, as if he understood something she didn’t.

“I’m not surprised you were there,” was all he said.

Then, his eyes darted back and forth across her face, and he gazed upon Rey with emotions she couldn’t place.

In another instant, their connection shut off.

He was gone.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER THREE

In the morning, BB-8 whirred at the door of her hut, buzzing with excitement.

Rey rolled over on the straw, lifting her heavy head, and slowly peeled open her eyes. The blinding light of the sun through the doorway caused her to shrink back.

BB-8 danced in front of her.

“What is it, BB?” Rey rested a hand above her eyes, shielding herself from the brightness. Her little friend buzzed on, demanding her attention.

“You’re calling me a sleepy head?” Rey smiled. “If I recall, there’s a certain droid who needs plenty of time to recharge.”

BB-8 grunted out an electronic huff.

“Alright, alright,” Rey said. “I’m getting up.”

She rolled onto her side and then stood, quickly following BB-8 out of the hut. As they rushed past the others, Rey offered friendly waves and smiles, disengaging herself from full conversation. Ever since her visions yesterday, seeing herself as a destroyer, something uncomfortable rested in her stomach. She hadn’t felt right being too friendly with anyone. She needed to fix her future. Then things could go back to normal. Well, her normal, anyway.

BB-8 rolled toward the jungle, heading where she’d been training the day before. The humid, thick air landed on Rey’s exposed skin as they moved, and she could taste the dew in the atmosphere. During her training with Leia a few days ago, Leia had mentioned Master Luke’s thoughts about Ajan Kloss—that the moon reminded him of the planet Dagobah. Rey had never heard of Dagobah before Leia mentioned it. And, if it truly was anything like this place, she didn’t have a very high desire to visit any time soon.

Jakku’s heat was dry, and the humidity here made it hard for her to adjust. She preferred the cooler weather on a place like Crait and felt envious of Kylo Ren, wherever he was, in an atmosphere in which snow surrounded him.

Far from the Rebel base, the droid finally paused, dancing in tight, little circles at the base of a tree trunk.

“I don’t understand, BB. What are we doing here?”

BB-8 carried on nonsensically, snorting out little beeps. Rey studied the trunk of the tree, long and hard. Seeing absolutely nothing, Rey wondered if her droid had somehow been cross wired in the night.

“Alright, let’s go back to base. I’ve got something I need to—”

Before Rey finished her sentence, a blue light engulfed the base of the tree, cocooning it in a soft glow. She jerked back, taken by surprise at the abrupt change, and her brows furrowed.

“What…” Her voice trailed away.

She took a deep breath as the glow spread up the bark and into the branches. The energy around the tree seemed to reach out and touch her, too. Joy and euphoria spread throughout her body, and she let go of some of the tension she’d been keeping in. Not just from those visions, but the stress and pain brought on from her entire lonely life.

“Don’t be afraid, little one.”

It was that voice again. That soothing, paternal voice. Coming to her as barely more than a whisper.

“If you seek to visit the World Between Worlds,” the voice added, “the key is right in front of you.”

Rey gazed around, searching for the source of the words.

She saw no one.

Her focus returned to the tree. The blue glow had spread down to the floor of the jungle, and all the roots ingrown along the forest ground lit up in an aqua sparkle. Rey dug her feet into the dirt, and she shut her eyes.

“The key is right in front of me,” Rey repeated, hoping to make them truer. She relaxed her eyelids and tried to gently guide herself into a trance. Somehow, she understood without being told that this was what the voice had meant: her answer would be with her connection to the Force. Whatever it was happening here, she needed to allow herself to open. To let go of her ego warning her of the darkness she carried and be free of worry.

“I am one with the Force,” she chanted, “and the Force is one with me.”

A buzzing rang through her veins.

Again, she said, “I am one with the Force, and the Force is one with me.”

More buzzing. This time it filled the interior of her body, something she’d never before experienced. Rey allowed herself to let go, felt her soul joining the rest of the universe. She became one with the ground beneath her feet, and the air filling the atmosphere on the moon.

“I am one with the Force,” she said once more, “and the Force is one with me.”

As she finished speaking, something in her chest lifted. Her entire body rose, feet leaving the ground. Rey let go of the fear and allowed the Force to carry her away, to take her where it meant to take her, and she floated upward.

Eventually, after she’d lifted for a few minutes, the movement halted.

Rey’s eyes fluttered open. She rested at the edge of a cliff. Beneath her, water lapped against a faraway shoreline. The ocean moved in a rhythmic pattern, the sounds of waves reaching out to her like a gentle song. As real as her scene appeared, Rey inherently understood that this place was nothing more than a dream space. Not a vision, but not reality either.

“You’re in an in between of sorts,” a voice from behind her said. The same voice that had been reaching out to her, calling her young one.

A figure in a black tunic joined her at the edge of the cliff, gazing down at the water. Rey took a closer look at the man with the shaggy blond hair. He didn’t appear any older than Kylo physically, but the heavy weight surrounding his energy made him seem hundreds of years older. The man’s thick brows pointed down, giving off an impression of constant torment, and his pained eyes remained focused ahead.

Yet with all his dark qualities, Rey found herself oddly comfortable in the presence of this stranger. He felt familiar, somehow.

“Am I dead?” Rey asked in a panic. “Are you here to tell me I’ve died?”

“No.” He turned to look at her, flashing a grin that betrayed his otherwise dark features. “Of course you’re not dead.”

“Then why am I here? Is this my key?”

“Patience, young one. I’ll get to all that.”

“I need to find this World Between Worlds. I can’t end up like the woman in those visions. As her. The Destroyer of Worlds.”

Even speaking the name sent a shiver down Rey’s spine. Rey was frightened of Darkside Rey with her pointy teeth and sunken eyes. She scared her more than anything else she’d ever encountered.

“I will do terrible things,” Rey breathed.

“Do I know that feeling.” He crossed his arms and smirked. “Even knowing what you become is enough to send you down a dark path. That happened to me once. The future haunted me so badly, I would’ve stopped at nothing to prevent it.”

Rey raised a brow. “Is this supposed to be a lesson? Is that why you’ve brought me here?”

“I’ve brought you here, so I can help you avoid making the same mistakes that I once did.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m a friend.”

“A friend, I see. And… you believe I should back off and forget about changing anything at all? Find another way? You’re the same voice who told me to search for the World Between World for answers, and now you’re suggesting I shouldn’t go there?”

“No, that’s not what I’m doing here. I want you to go there. But not for the answers you think you need. Look, I never bought into the cryptic methodology of the Jedi, but it isn’t for me to tell you what you need to ask. You need to figure that out on your own.”

“You didn’t see what I saw. What I need is to stop this. The me of the future… she’s… she’s…”

“The darkest force in the universe? Someone who commits acts so horrifying they’re unimaginable? Believe me, kid. I get it.”

Rey didn’t dare question how he could possibly understand even though she didn’t think anyone could get this. Instead, she sat with his words for a moment, pondering what answers she should be searching for instead. What else could she need, if not to stop this what she would become?

Then, her mind focused back on what he’d said about never buying into the methodology of the other Jedi. He’d known them, hadn’t he?

“Were you part of the council?” she asked. “Before the fall of the Republic.”

“That’s what you took away from what I said?”

“I’m just curious.”

“No, I was never a Master.”

“But you did know them.”

“Yes, I did. I do know them. Very well.”

Rey gazed down at the hands in her lap. With a sadness to her tone, she said, “You’re the only one who I’ve ever felt. Not even Master Luke has visited me since his passing. I feel like it means they’ve all already decided who I am.”

“The future isn’t set, and there’s so much good in you, Rey,” he said. “Besides, Luke knows better than most that no one is ever beyond saving. Even if he once gave up hope on Ben Solo.”

Rey’s ears perked up at Ben’s name. She recalled with great clarity her final conversation with Master Luke, and the way she’d rushed off to save Ben. Rey had believed with all her heart she’d bring Ben Solo home.

“What if Master Luke was right about Ben?” Rey asked.

“Ben’s alive, trapped under false promises from a manipulative monster.”

“In one of my visions, I saw Kylo Ren return to the light. But he’s determined to prevent this future… the same way I’m determined to prevent mine.”

“There’s always a way to bring someone back to the light. Especially when you care for that person. Love can both bring someone to the dark and save them from themselves.”

Rey had so many questions, and she still wanted to know who this man was, and why he was the one to reach her when no one else did. Before she could ask her questions, the man held out his hand. A navy, square device rested in his palm.

“Coordinates?” Rey asked.

“Yes.” He nodded. “Take them. Go find the answers you seek. But be warned, no one ever leaves the World Between Worlds the same as they were when they first arrived.”

Rey gripped the square object in her hand.

“Thank you,” she said. “Even though I still don’t know your name.”

He ignored her final remark. “It was nice meeting you, Rey. Don’t forget—no one can tell you who to be. You’re in control of your own destiny.”

“I’ll certainly keep that in mind.”

“Oh, and one more thing,” he said. “8-1-0-8.”

“Huh?”

“You’re going to need that number. You’ll see.”

With that, the world around Rey began to fade, and she felt herself drifting away.

A moment later, she awoke on the ground back on Ajan Kloss, a device with the coordinates nestled between her fingers.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER FOUR

Ajan Kloss hung in the far distance. Rey swallowed the fear lodged in her throat, then launched her X-Wing into hyperspace. A millisecond later, she was blasting past the stars and heading for the Chrelythiumn system—the location of the coordinates given to her by the strange, yet oddly familiar, man.

As blurry lines dazzled across her front viewing window, Rey sunk into the pilot’s chair. As it turned out, her destination wasn’t especially far from her current base in the Cademimu sector of the Outer Rim. So, she had little time to digest the panic rising in her chest, or to develop some kind of plan for what she might do once she got to this hidden realm.

Rey had snuck out of the Rebel base in the middle of the night, giving no explanations to anyone. She’d save all that, along with apologies for sneaking off, once the hard work was behind her and she had returned.

If she returned.

“Please let this be the right path,” she murmured, temporarily shutting her eyes.

An hour or so later, the ship lurched to a stop. Rey gazed around the dark, expansive backdrop of stars. Nothing was here to greet her. Absolutely nothing.

Maybe she had trusted a stranger too blindly. Even if he had seemed like someone she could put her trust in.

A second later, a TIE fighter materialized right in front of her. Kylo Ren’s eyes seemed to smile at her in amusement as he stared from his own cockpit.

There was nothing here.

She’d been led right into a trap.

Rey opened up their connection and shot an angry message his way.

“How did you follow me?” she demanded.

“I could ask you the same question,” he said simply.

“Are you working with that man? Did he send you here? To what, attack me?”

“What man?” Kylo asked.

“You know what man.”

She readied her hand on the dashboard. She'd retrofitted the X-wing with a simple navigation computer and, therefore, hadn’t brought a droid with her. But, droid or not, she would be ready to fight Kylo, if it came down to that. No matter what they shared, she remained on guard and wouldn’t let him get the best of her.

Without a second thought, she launched one of the laser cannons, and a blast shot towards Kylo’s TIE. He twisted his ship to dodge the attack, and the shot narrowly missed one of his wings. Behind them, the shot collided with something invisible—which suddenly lit up as a wave of energy rushed over it.

A diamond-shaped, three-dimensional object, hardly fazed by Rey’s accidental attack, shimmered in aqua. The same blue color she’d seen on the tree in the jungle.

“The monolith.” Rey spoke the words more to herself, thinking of the information she’d seen in the Jedi texts. She’d thought this was all a trap, and perhaps it still was, but at least she knew the man had sent her to the right place.

Rey sensed Kylo nodding his head from the other side of their opened connection.

“Yes,” he said. “The bridge between our two worlds.”

The monolith glowed even more brightly, a dazzling array of blues against the otherwise dark space. It parted in the middle, a growing white line drawing them nearer, and Rey’s X-wing lurched forward.

An electronic whir signaled her ship powering down. Rey’s brow knit, and she frantically worked her way around the dash, desperately trying to get the power back. After a moment, she stopped. Not even the life support was functioning.

She gazed across the way to see Kylo preoccupied, eyes scanning across the controls right beneath him. From their connection, she felt his own frustration. His own fear.

“Your ship, too?” she asked.

He didn’t respond.

A moment later, her ship jerked once more.

Both Rey and Kylo gravitated toward the mouth of the monolith.

Rey gripped her hands over the armrests. As they reached the opening, the pull grew stronger, and each ship was sucked into the vacuum. White light surrounded Rey, and everything grew fuzzy. She lifted a hand in front of her face to block the blinding illumination.

And then, everything was spinning—and just as had been in her visions—Rey spiraled into the unknown, losing all control, as her ship flung into an unknown world.

***

“Are you part of the two?” a soft, feminine voice asked, pulling Rey out of a deep slumber.

She woke with a start and let out a loud gasp, searching for the speaker. But she was alone, and the words must’ve been nothing but a dream.

Rey popped open the hood of the X-wing’s cockpit and raised up, glancing around at the leaves surrounding her. Her X-wing seemed to have landed in the only clearing, on a planet with miles of lush forest foliage. Whoever had landed her ship, they’d done so with perfect aim.

Kylo’s ship was nowhere in sight.

Unlike the humid air of Ajan Kloss, a cool breeze wafted over her. She inhaled the scent of pines. All the leaves in the trees were full of vibrant colors—greens, blues, pinks, yellows. Strangely enough, Rey sensed no signs of animal life here.

And large boulders floated in the sky.

Steps sounded behind her, and she reached for her saber.

Kylo moved into the clearing by the ship, and he waved a hand across his body. “If I wanted to hurt you, I would’ve already done it.”

“No one ever knows what your next move will be.” As the biting words left her mouth, Rey noted the lingering resentment from their night together in the hut. How he’d just left her after making it very clear, yet again, how wrong she’d been about Ben Solo.

From below, he held out his arm, and offered her his hand.

Rey cautiously clipped her lightsaber to her side and hopped over the edge of the X-wing, brushing past Kylo and ignoring his offer once more.

“I don’t need your help,” she breathed.

He lowered his arm, a flash of pain crawling over his features. It didn’t last long. A second later, his face returned to its usual neutral state. Nothing like the Ben in her visions—the beautiful smile that lit up a room, and her heart.

“We’re here together. Just as you wanted,” Rey continued. “Are you happy now?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that makes one of us then.” Rey scoped out their environment, turning around in every direction. Knowledge of where they were eluded her, and she didn’t dare ask Kylo Ren. She still wondered how he wound up with the coordinates, and, more curiously, how he ended up visiting at the very same moment. Had she been betrayed by the man at the cliffs? Or was there more at work here than she could even imagine?

Her eyes caught sight of something. In the near distance, a path through the forest led straight to a large, archaic stone building of sorts. On the other side of a grouping of trees, the stone jutted up toward a blue sky.

Kylo inched closer. They locked eyes, and then he gazed out in the direction of where she’d been staring. “It’s a monastery,” he said. “And that’s exactly where we need to go.”

“Why should I trust anything you say?”

“Do you have any other options, Destroyer?”

“Fine.” Heat filled her veins, and she purposefully knocked her shoulder against Kylo’s chest before trudging along the path. “And don’t call me that.”

She turned to see him following behind.

His lip curled into a tight smile.

“Oh, I see what you’re doing.” Rey pivoted, cautiously walking backwards so she could face her foe as they inched along the path. “You think this is some sort of game, don’t you? You’re enjoying this.”

“What might give you that impression?”

She raised her brows, shook her head, and spun back around. Rey resolved to get into this monastery as quickly as possible and find her answers. The growing pit inside her stomach was doing that thing she hated again—leaving her anxious and uncertain about so many things.

As they approached the stone building, it loomed even higher than she’d previously realized. Rey craned her neck upward to look at the ascending stairwell. Smooth, polished steps led to a double door. Someone must still live here. Either that or this place had a way of autonomously maintaining itself.

Kylo wrapped his arms across his cloak. He was the first one to ascend, and Rey followed him without question. Though she wanted to believe she didn’t trust Kylo, their bond made that a difficult feat. She understood him better than anyone, and ever since they had connected, Rey viewed his descent into darkness as more the result of being a fearful young man. Not someone truly evil.

Besides, that young boy on the bridge—he had been petrified.

“You’re right,” Kylo said, “I was scared that day, but I’m not anymore. That day I found my purpose, and I let go of all my fear and all attachments.”

She reached his stride, and they stepped side by side.

“You’re terrified even now,” Rey said. “I can feel it.”

“Am I? Are you so sure? Or is the fear you’re feeling your own?”

Rey shot him a look, but before she could muster a comeback, a ghostly figure appeared before them. A woman with long green hair, in a golden dress, and a regal headpiece. As if she were some sort of princess.

“Are you the two?” she asked, her words not much more than an echo. Rey recognized that voice from earlier—the one who’d woken Rey up after arriving here. The woman floated a few steps above them. She waited there with pursed lips.

“Who are you?” Kylo asked.

“I am Daughter. Are you the two?”

Rey and Kylo exchanged a confused look.

“Uh, are we the two what?” Rey asked.

“The two who make up the Dyad—the balance of the Force.”

“Yes,” Rey said. “I’ve come in search of answers. Something bad is going to happen. I need to visit the World Between Worlds in order to stop it.”

“Only Father can help you,” Daughter said. “I will take you to him.”

Kylo said nothing as they ascended the rest of the way to the double-doors. Rey glanced at him a few times, trying to get something from him, but a neutral look plastered across his face. And he’d blocked their connection.

“What is this place?” Rey asked. “Are we able to enter the World Between Worlds through this monastery?”

“You are on Mortis. The portal to the World Between Worlds is through those doors,” Daughter breathed, glow surrounding her ghostly figure. “And we were the ones who guarded the power. I was the beginning, the middle, and the end.”

“Were?” Rey asked.

“The chosen one arrived here… before either of you were born,” Daughter said. “Though he intended no harm, things were different when he left. He was different.”

Kylo stood stiffly, mouth pressed tightly together.

Daughter added, “You remind me of him, Ben Solo. I can feel the love inside of you, but I can feel the pain and anger, too.”

He remained silent. Rey glanced down to see he had clenched his fists.

When they reached the doors to the monastery, Daughter floated to the side.

“This is where I leave you both,” Daughter said. “The answers each of you seek are both through those doors, and not through those doors.”

“Is this some sort of riddle?” Kylo asked.

Daughter shook her head. “No. It’s simply as I have said.”

With that, Daughter disappeared, leaving nothing as proof that she had ever been there at all. Rey reached the double-doors, and she hesitantly placed her palms against the cool stonework.

“Wait. What if this is all a trap?” Rey breathed. “We don’t know what’s on the other side of those doors. Something feels off about this whole place, Ben.”

“I saw what I become in that future,” Kylo said. “I can’t let that happen. If this is a trap, then so be it.”

He moved up to the doors and pushed them open before Rey had a chance to protest. Inside the monastery, a long walkway, lined with a blue glow, reached the other end of the enormous room. At the very end, a tall throne, similar to the one on Exegol, seemed to wait for someone.

Kylo and Rey walked toward the throne, greeted by nothing but silence.

Rey sensed something. The presence of something which had happened long ago. She heard the whispers of a fight—heard memories of something evil fighting against something good. The Father, the Daughter, the Son…

“Do you hear what I’m hearing?” Rey asked.

“Yes. I hear all of it.”

A noise sounded behind them, and Kylo reached for his saber, striking. The red blade stopped midair, though the muscles in Kylo’s face tightened like he struggled to maneuver his own weapon. 

An older man with a pointed beard formed beneath the saber, which remained inches from his head. “To strike an unarmed man is hardly the Jedi way,” his gravelly voice said.

Rey noted the thick grey cloak he wore, shimmering with ornate golden pieces.

“Who are you?” Kylo demanded, rage filling his words.

“Some call me Father,” the man said. “Others call me Mortis.”

“Mortis,” Kylo breathed. “As in the father of time, Mortis? So, we have come to the right place then, haven’t we?”

“Ah, but the real question is: who are you?” Mortis asked. “It’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Why you seek a world not of your own reality.”

“I know who I am,” Kylo said. “I’m here to ensure nothing changes that.”

Mortis snapped his fingers, and the light of Kylo’s saber snapped off.

“You want to be like your grandfather, Darth Vader,” Mortis said. “Surely, you know the fate of Vader, do you not?”

“I’m going to be strong where Vader was not,” Kylo said. “I’ve learned from his mistakes.”

“Oh, have you?” Mortis let out a stifled laugh. “Yet here you are. With so much love in your heart. I sense the unresolve in you, Young Solo. The weakness in your heart.”

“Do not call me that,” Kylo sneered.

Mortis gave a satisfied smirk as he turned to Rey. “And you,” he said to her. “Destroyer of Worlds. I sense the same anger. The same hate. Yet you do not wish to accept your fate.”

“I’m not a destroyer,” Rey said. “I want to grow in the light. Not in the dark.”

“Are you so sure?” Mortis asked, goading her. “As I hear tell, there are some powerful opportunities on the dark side of the Force. Certainly, so much more beneficial for a being with raw talent and power, such as yourself.”

“I’m not that person who I saw in those visions,” Rey said. “Now, please, sir. Would you let us into the World Between Worlds?”

“Very well,” Mortis said. “I cannot stop you from passing through. But you’ve been forewarned by me and by my daughter. No one can protect you from the perils that await.”

Mortis fizzled away, disappearing the same as his daughter. As his light body faded, a portal appeared directly behind the throne.

The portal to the World Between Worlds.

Rey looked over at Kylo. He stood locked in place, staring down at the saber in his hand like a young boy who’d just had his world turned upside down. They hadn’t even gone into this World Between Worlds yet, and Rey sensed that Mortis had already hit a sensitive nerve deep within Kylo.

“I never met Ben Solo,” Rey said. “But from the vision, one thing is for certain. I don’t think anyone would have ever called him weak.”

Kylo’s sad eyes panned up.

Without thinking, Rey grabbed his free hand, and they walked together into the portal.

Rey knew he was as uncertain as she was.

But, hopefully, they’d find their answers, one way or another.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER FIVE

Whispers filled the void.

Whispers of their past.

Rey heard a young girl crying out for her parents as they left her on Jakku, and then a young Ben begging his parents to stay with him at their home in Hosnian Prime.

No, no, no, they had to leave… they had to go. To fight. Always another battle to win…

Kylo gripped her hand tightly as they moved through a space with no end and no beginning, as dark as the depth of space itself. They stepped along a light path, passing mirrors—so many mirrors—with different moments of time.

Rey saw herself at various ages in some of them—working for Unkar Plutt on Jakku as a young girl. Later, flying the Millennium Falcon for the first time and escaping the planet with Finn. Even later, training with Luke Skywalker on Ahch-to.

“This is supposed to be how we change our future?” Rey asked. “I don’t understand. So far, I’ve only seen the past.”

“I don’t understand it, either,” Kylo said, the words slipping through sounding less stern and more like what she imagined would come from Ben.

During their walk, she glimpsed the early life of Ben Solo. She watched him learn how to crawl, then walk, then witnessed some of his early journeys with Han Solo and Chewie aboard the Millennium Falcon.

Uncle Chewie. 

Rey paused by one of the mirrors. A little Ben had gotten his paper ship caught in a tree and burst into tears. Chewie climbed up the tall tree with ease and grabbed the paper plane for him, giving it back to his young friend.

A pang of hurt flashed through Rey. She missed Chewie—and the others. She suddenly felt guilty for not letting them know where she’d gone. But she also felt the weight of what Chewie must’ve gone through losing Ben Solo.

Rey gave his hand a quick squeeze. “He really cared for you.”

She turned to see Kylo watching the mirror with a serious focus, eyes glued to the screen. Though he showed no emotion, glossy eyes betrayed his exterior. Rey knew how hard it was for him to watch this.

“I never blamed Chewie,” Kylo admitted.

Rey bit down on her lip. Her eyes met his, and she opened her mouth to say something, but then another mirror caught her attention.

Teenage Ben, perhaps thirteen or fourteen years old, bent over one of his books in a classroom, studying texts. He was scrawny and tall, and appeared much smaller than the group of five boys approaching him.

A lump formed in Rey’s throat as she watched.

“Ben Solo,” one of the kids said as he sat on top of Ben’s desk. “What’re you doing?”

“Reading,” Ben responded, gaze never lifting from the text.

“Reading what, Ben Solo?” another boy asked, clearly taunting him with the use of that name. As if being a Solo was such a thing to mock.

“The next chapter of our book,” Ben said.

“Must be nice,” the first kid said, ripping the book from off the desk. Ben clawed for it, trying desperately to regain what was his, but the first boy passed it around to the second, and the second passed it to a third. The group tossed around his text, laughing as they did so.

“Yeah, must be real nice to be the son of Princess Leia and Han Solo,” the third kid said.

“That’s Senator Organa, to you,” Ben said.

They all laughed, tossing the book around Ben, over his head, back and forth.

“Would you please let me get back to my studies?” Ben asked.

“What do you say we take his book and burn it?” the second kid said.

“This is what privilege looks like,” the first kid said. “And his name is Ben Solo.”

The book was tossed in the air once more, and a fourth kid caught it. This time, the kid feverishly ripped out pages at random, tearing through the text with a passion.

“Stop!” Ben yelled, swinging his arms toward the kid who currently had gained possession. The first boy gripped Ben’s hands and held them behind his back, then thrust Ben against the desk. Ben’s face pressed against the wood as he continued to watch the fourth kid destroying his textbook.

A second later, a bell rang—and all the kids of the class rushed back into the room. Ben waited in defeat, his head rested against the desk, body hanging limply. The fourth kid dropped his ruined text, along with the pages, on the floor next to him.

“Ben Solo!” the teacher cried as she entered the room. “What is the meaning of all this?”

“I…” Ben murmured.

“This is a disgrace,” his teacher continued. “Look at you. What a mess. And what have you done to your textbook? You had better start living up to your name. Senator Organa would be very disappointed in you. Now, clean up this mess.”

Ben sank to the ground in defeat and swept up the pieces of paper, along with the textbook. The five kids from earlier snickered from the back of the class. Ben eyed them momentarily, then grabbed the rest of the paper. With tears in his eyes, he fled for the door.

Rey glanced back at Kylo. He swiped a hand across his face, but the tears leaked out regardless. He jerked his hand away from Rey and stormed off, stomping along the walkway without her.

“Ben…” Rey called out after him.

“Do you see why Ben Solo needed to die?” Kylo growled, pivoting back around. His eyes darkened, and hate filled them.

“No. Quite the opposite, actually. I see why he needs to live.”

As if to stress her point, Rey heard herself say the very same words—in another nearby mirror. They inched closer, and there the two of them were. Standing side by side. Except they weren’t in the World Between Worlds in this visual.

No, they were back on Crait. But something didn’t look right. This wasn’t Kylo Ren. This was Ben Solo. The real Ben. He wore the clothes of a Rebel, an outfit which made him look like his father. He pointed his gun down at General Hux.

Hux stared up at them from the white of the ground on Crait, a dusting of red salt trailing around his body.

“He needs to live, Ben,” Rey heard herself say to him. “The First Order will never agree to our terms if we kill him. This will all be for nothing.”

“After everything he’s done, we need to kill him,” Ben said, cocking his gun.

“Don’t do this,” Alternate Rey said, placing a hand on his chest. 

The fire in Ben’s eyes settled, and a sense of calm washed over his features. He lowered the gun, and Rey leaned into him. 

“Come on, love,” she said. “Let’s go grab the others.”

A blast pierced through the scene. Hux revealed the weapon he’d kept hidden, and Ben clutched his side as he slid to the floor with Rey. The blood dripped from his middle.

From the World Between Worlds, Rey winced and turned away.

“I can’t watch the rest of this,” she said, moving along down the path. “I don’t understand. This place—all we can do is see what we lived through as well as alternates. How does this answer anything?”

“I think there’s more to it than what meets the eye,” he said. “There must be a way to manipulate what we’re seeing.”

“Like jumping through a mirror? Then what? Do we go back to ourselves in the past? Warn them of what happens? That doesn’t sound like what we were led to believe.”

“Often things never are.”

“Who sent you the coordinates to this place?” Rey demanded.

“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “I received a strange transmission sent by an unknown source. I followed the coordinates purely out of curiosity, and because I sensed they would lead me to you.”

“How convenient.”

They paused in front of another mirror. This time, the image sent an acute sadness through Rey’s very core. She wore a wedding gown. Her mother helped her with her hair, tying in little blue butterfly clips. An older woman stepped into the room, curly grey hair cascading down her shoulders.

“I figured you might like the butterflies, Padmé,” Rey heard herself say to the newcomer.

“I’m not the only one in the family,” Padmé said. “My grandson loved them as a child, too. You should’ve seen the way he chased them.”

They each giggled.

“What…” Kylo squeaked out.

Rey heard the memories of her screams on Jakku played overtop this moment in the mirror which would never come to pass. If this was some sort of alternate reality, this was fiction in the world Rey had grown up in. She couldn’t allow herself to feel hope in what would not ever come to be. A marriage to Ben. Getting ready on her wedding day with her mother. An alternate reality she would never get to see.

So far, all the World Between Worlds proved to be was an awful place that showed you the past, or what could be, without any ways of changing it.

“My parents were never going to come back for me, were they?” Rey asked, finally feeling the true weight of those words. Feeling the weight of what everyone else had told her. “Maz was right.”

“But there’s still someone who still could,” Maz had said back on Takodana. “With your help.”

Rey eyed Kylo suspiciously, wondering if, somehow, he was who Maz had meant.

Kylo’s attention turned to a different mirror now, and his face whitened with horror.

“Rey, wait,” Kylo started to say.

Rey gazed into the mirror. The man from the visions—the older man with the disfigured face who she’d seen on Exegol. With an evil glint in his eyes, he nodded his head, and a being with a yellow face and circular, black eyes, held a dagger out toward her parents. First, he dug the dagger into her father. Next, her mother.

Rey staggered backward, away from the mirror, gasping in horror as she watched the scene unfold. She gritted her teeth. Heart beating wildly in her chest.

“You’re a Palpatine,” she heard Master Luke’s voice say—from another place. Another time. Another haunting which ripped right through her.

The world shook from beneath Rey’s feet, and everything around her figuratively collapsed. Once more, her soul lurched into the unknown, and she felt herself spinning out of control.

She held her arms out in front of her. Stared at veins that ran thick with the blood of Palpatine. She had seen him in her visions—yet she hadn’t connected the truth until now.

A vision entered her mind. The full dialogue—of Kylo Ren telling her about their connection as a Dyad.

“Why did the Emperor come for me? Why did he want to kill a child? Tell me.”

“Because he saw what you would become. You don’t just have power. You have his power. You’re his granddaughter. You are a Palpatine. My mother was the daughter of Vader. Your father was the son of the emperor. What Palpatine doesn’t know is we’re a Dyad in the Force, Rey. Two that are one.”

Clenching her fists, Rey reached for the saber by her hip and ignited it.

“I know what I have to do now,” she said with hate in her heart. “I’ve finally found my answers.”

“Rey…”

She slashed her saber against the mirror, cracking it in two.

“Don’t try and stop me, Ben. Palpatine needs to die.”

Chapter Text

CHAPTER SIX

Rey stalked ahead of Kylo, saber at the ready. Hate consumed her. Filled her entire body. She would find Palpatine. She would kill him. She would bring an end to all of this.

She rushed around, searching for him in every mirror, in every place, determined to figure out his location and strike him down. Though she hadn’t been given any indication she could alter time or interact with the people in these different versions of time, she sensed now that if she went looking for Palpatine, he would make himself available for a confrontation. Especially given the bloodline.

And if he didn’t, she would at least find his whereabouts so that she could leave the World Between Worlds and journey to his location. She’d never been worthy of the Jedi, and now Rey understood why.

She was a Palpatine. She didn’t want to be one. But she was.

If the Jedi wouldn’t accept her into their order, she could at least prevent Palpatine from causing any further harm to anyone else.

He’d done enough.

“Rey!” Kylo yelled out her name, rushing along the light path to join her. She held out her arm and surprised him by using the Force to halt him in his tracks. Kylo swiped her advances away, and he pushed forward. “You’re going to try to use that on me?”

“Let me go alone.”

“No.”

Rey held her saber at the ready. “I don’t want to fight you, but I will.”

Kylo unhooked his saber, and the three lines of red sparked. “I’m going with you.”

“No, you’re not.” She swung at Kylo with her saber, and his red connected against her blue. He pressed back in a position of defense, and Rey leaned her weight into the move. She pulled back and swung three more times, each time met with the same red.

“You need to calm down,” Kylo said through gritted teeth. “You don’t want to be the Destroyer. Killing Palpatine is going to do exactly what you don’t want it to do.”

“This isn’t Kylo Ren.” Rey grunted as she pulled back and delivered another blow against his saber. “He would be telling me to let the past die and kill it.”

She let out a battle cry and swung once more. This time, Kylo stumbled backward, nearly losing his balance. As he readjusted, he bent his knees, and narrowed his eyes.

“Fine,” he said. “We’ll have it your way then.”

Lifting his saber across his body, he rushed forward and swung in Rey’s direction. She met his saber, and the environment surrounding them morphed. Suddenly, they were standing on the ruined metal of the old Death Star from her vision. Tall ocean waves crashed around the edges where they stood. Tall enough to swallow them up whole, if they weren’t careful.

Rey was determined not to let anything get in her way.

They moved along the narrow space, feet shuffling back and forth in a dance, fluidly meeting each other, saber to saber. He swung down as she swung up, clashing once, twice, three times.

Kylo twirled and thrust his saber to meet hers, pushing in so far that his blade nearly burned against her face.

He held his position, yet they both turned, distracted by another giant wave which launched into its crescendo, looming over them. Rey used this opportunity to free herself from Kylo’s grip, and she rushed out towards the bow, the very edge before the tormented water below. Taking this as her opportunity, she leapt from one part of the metal to the next, gliding through a spray of water as the wave crashed against metal.

The landing cleared, and for a moment Rey didn’t see Kylo. Until he landed, a second later, holding his saber out to his side. Water sprayed over his drenched clothing.

“Why are you so intent on stopping me?” Rey screamed, her internal rage rising. Every part of her body seemed to be on fire, and she’d been set off, lit, ready to go. The image of the dagger burned into her mind and would forever. “Let the past die, you’ve always said. Well, Palpatine is a part of my past, and he needs to be destroyed.”

She took another step forward, saber at the ready.

“He took away everything from me,” she continued, words filled with a venom she’d never known. “And for that, he’s going to pay.”

She leaned into the hate, the fury, the rage—and delivered a blow so powerful that she knocked Kylo’s saber out of his hand. The lightsaber clanged as it hit the metal floor, and Rey lifted her weapon above her head, ready to strike down on her target.

Kylo used the Force to call back his saber and lunged toward Rey. Their lightsabers met once more.

Another vision filled Rey’s head.

She watched herself walking along the bridge, passing young Kylo Ren—"Do you feel that? Feels cold”—as he slammed his lightsaber down on the man with the oval mask.

“Here’s your good death!” Kylo Ren had said.

The vision slipped to a different place, and Rey found herself back on Jakku, watching little Rey in the desert, passed out on the sand. A man—the same man from the cliffs—hovered over her on one side. Mortis, the one they’d just met, stood on the other.

 “Let’s provide Rey some respite until it’s her time to face the boy who just became Kylo Ren,” Mortis said. “Until then, she needn’t carry the burden of what she’s seen. You will bring balance to the Force again, Anakin. Then, only then, should she know of this time.”

Anakin?

As in… Anakin Skywalker?

Mortis walked off in the distance.

Anakin turned to follow, but before he did so, he leaned down to young Rey and said, “Be strong, little one. Know that the Force will be with you. Always.”

The visions rushed away, and Rey returned to the present, holding up her saber against Kylo Ren.

He twisted away from their grip, stumbling back, mouth open in shock. “Anakin Skywalker… my grandfather… Darth Vader… he gave you the coordinates?”

Rey took a few steps back, saber still at the ready. Her duel with Kylo wasn’t over. Not just yet.

Kylo looked completely thrown off guard. “Why would he visit you, and not come to see me? Mortis said we would find the answers. And all I’ve learned is that even more of my own family has betrayed me.”

His eyes panned up, this time a burning in them which hadn’t been there before. Kylo rushed toward her, raising his blade to strike her down.

Rey bent her knees. As Kylo swung down at her, she dodged his blow and stuck her blade directly up and into his chest. He let out a choked gurgle and slid down to the floor as Rey pulled her blade out of him.

Kylo’s eyes slowly closed, and Rey sensed he was fading away.

Rey had done it.

She had won.

But winning had never felt more devastating.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER SEVEN

“Ben…” an unfamiliar male voice called out to him.

Kylo Ren wasn’t sure if he should open his eyes. Though he expected, if he did, he would find himself back in the World Between Worlds. Would open his eyes to see Rey standing over him with the last few breaths he had to give. Was this what it was like to die?

He wasn’t sure he was ready to find out.

Kylo’s eyes blinked open.

Instead of being back on the Death Star, or back in the pathways full of mirrors, he sat on the edge of a cliff, looking down at a distant set of waves, so much smaller than the ones he’d just been exposed to.

“Cool view, huh?” the man asked.

Kylo shifted in the direction of the voice, and he did a double take. Sitting down next to him, a man with shaggy blond hair and a black tunic grinned sheepishly.

Anakin Skywalker.

Darth Vader.

Kylo dug his hands into the dirt, allowing in all the anger and pain from his latest discovery. “I wanted to be like you. I looked up to you. And you helped her over me?”

“Hey, that isn’t fair. I technically helped you both. Besides, Darth Vader isn’t exactly a role model you want to have, Ben.”

“Ben is dead. I killed him.” Kylo gazed at Anakin as if he had two heads.

“Because he was weak? Now where have I heard that one before,” Anakin said, voice dripping with sarcasm. In all of Kylo’s times imagining his grandfather, he’d never once envisioned him to have any sense of humor or snark. Could this truly be the Darth Vader he’d looked up to and aspired to be?

Anakin continued, “There’s a reality where you and I never meet like this… which I think is a missed opportunity. It’s not every day you get to talk to a family member who’s been through the same thing, right?”

Kylo shook his head, studying the man before him. He noted Anakin’s pained eyes, the tiredness lingering around the edges. He certainly appeared to be the man he claimed. But this was no Vader.

Vader was strong. Powerful. Full of rage.

“You’re not Darth Vader,” Kylo said. “Not any longer. I’m meant to take up the mantle and continue your legacy. Continue where you failed.”

“I’m no more Vader than you are Kylo Ren,” Anakin said. “Please learn from my mistakes, son.”

“I’m not your son.”

“No, but you’re someone’s son, and it’s never too late to do the right thing, Ben.”

“You don’t understand the gravity of the things I’ve done. Of the anger that continues to consume my every waking thought.”

Kylo’s thoughts flashed to another bridge—and the memory of murdering Han Solo. Beyond that act, Kylo had killed many in the name of the First Order. With each death, his hatred had grown stronger. He’d strangled innocents, snapped necks of people he’d once considered friends. Killed without remorse.

“You don’t think the man who once helmed the title Darth Vader could understand?” Anakin asked.

“I…” Kylo shook his head. “I’m not sure anyone could.”

Anakin raised a brow. “Well, for starters, I think if we were going to have a competition of who’s worse, Darth Vader would win over Kylo Ren, hands down. But maybe I’m biased.”

Kylo couldn’t help it—he smirked a little at that. Anakin’s sense of humor reminded him of his uncle Luke a bit, and Kylo thought back to his younger years. Back when he looked up to Luke and wanted to be just like him. That was before Luke had turned on him and tried to kill him in his sleep. Kylo would never forget that, and he planned on holding onto that betrayal for the rest of his life.

Anakin frowned. “It’s funny the things love can bring out in a person when we’re in a dark place. I cut off Luke’s hand… and you had an entire army of AT-AT’s firing on him.”

“I was a bit angry.”

“A bit, huh?”

“Fine. More than a bit.”

“You know, I’ve sat with a lot of guilt for a very long time,” Anakin said. “Dying isn’t as easy as they say it is.” Anakin smirked once more, but then his features fell back into a neutral place, and Kylo noticed the strong resemblance, yet again, between Luke and Anakin.

“I think the hardest thing for me has been watching you go down the same path,” Anakin added. “Palpatine finally lost his hold over me, and he had to stick the Skywalkers once again by filling your head with garbage. Don’t let it stop you from returning to where you belong. You still have time, and a woman who cares for you so deeply she’d risk her life to help bring you back home.”

“Rey.”

“Yes, Rey.”

Silence fell upon them, and Kylo looked back out at the ocean. His thoughts raced. All the light and love he’d pushed away for so long—and Rey was at the front of it all. From their moments together first connecting, first touching hands across the galaxy, he’d known something special existed between the two of them. He remembered the visions, and what he’d seen in one of the mirrors. Marrying Rey, and the bright future they had together.

The truth was, ever since finding her on Takodana, he’d felt like he’d known her his entire life. And she’d been bringing him back to the light ever since, no matter how hard he tried to fight it. How he’d tried, to no avail, to rid himself of the love, what he once perceived as weakness, but he no longer had the power to fight against it.

He just wasn’t sure if he could ever be good enough for her.

But he couldn’t go back to being who he thought he wanted to be.

“I know what I have to do,” Kylo said eventually, “but I’m not sure I have the strength to do it.”

“We always have the strength,” Anakin said. “If you look hard enough.”

Kylo pursed his lips together, tilting to look at Anakin once more.

“Grandfather, I’m not quite ready to go back,” he said. “Do you mind if I sit here with you for a while?”

“You take all the time you need, son. I’m not going anywhere.”

Some of the sadness rushed away from Kylo, hearing a member of his actual bloodline telling him they weren’t going to leave until he was ready.

There was something life altering in that.

Something Kylo would never forget, no matter how hard he tried.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER EIGHT

Rey tossed her saber to the ground, as the waves crashed into the metal around them. Kylo Ren lay limply against the floor, eyes clamped shut. Rey dropped to the ground, gazing at the gash in his chest. No doubt, Rey had hit him in his vital organs, the same as she had in the visions. The slight way his lungs rose and fell, she knew he was still alive, but he showed no signs of consciousness.

“Ben?” she croaked, leaning over him and placing her hands over his shoulders. “Please tell me you’re alive.”

The world around them faded away, and Rey found herself back in the dark atmosphere of the World Between Worlds, mirrors lining the translucent walls around them. Kylo appeared lifeless beneath her, no movement save the short breaths coming out of his nose.

“Ben,” she called out again, hoping she would bring him back.

Her heart sank in her chest. No, no, no, no, no. He couldn’t be dead. Not yet.

What had she done?

She gripped his hands in hers, squeezing them tightly.

“I need you to wake up now. Please.”

A few tears slipped down her cheeks.

“We’re a Dyad in the Force,” she added. “I don’t know how I’m going to live with myself if you’re no longer around. Especially knowing I’m the cause of this.”

Her memory brought her back to one of the final visions she had seen. Ben’s death and being left alone in the world. And the Destroyer of Worlds. She’d never felt any of the Jedi of the past. Learning of the visions, discovering who she became—discovering her connection to Palpatine—Rey had believed this to be the reason why she never felt like she belonged.

But, she suddenly realized, maybe none of that mattered.

And maybe the truth in her fate always rested with the young man she’d seen on the bridge. As she felt Ben slipping away from her, and the darkness crept up through every part of her being, Rey understood now that the World Between Worlds was never going to give her any of the answers. She never needed to come here to change the future to prevent herself from turning.

She’d needed to see for herself that the answer lay in her own Dyad.

Her Dyad, her shared connection with Ben Solo, this was the key to her light, her joy, her happiness. Her shared connection with the person dying on the ground right before her very eyes.

She gazed down at the gash on his chest once more and placed her hand over the wound. Closing her eyes, she called on her own life energy, her own love for this person, and her very connection to the Force itself.

Rey felt him heal, felt the flesh beneath her touch reform, grow, and return to what it once was.

With a loud gasp, his eyes flickered open, and he jerked up. He gazed around, confused, searching for something she could not know. Then he looked directly at her with eyes that seemed transformed. Happier, kinder, softer.

He smiled, and when he did, she saw the sparkle of life that she’d seen in her vision.

“Ben?” she asked, her voice rising an octave.

He nodded his head softly, still smiling, now with tears in his eyes.

“You’re still here?” he asked.

“Of course I’m still here,” she said. “I nearly killed you. I wasn’t about to just leave.”

“But… Palpatine…”

“I realized there are more important things.”

“Such as…”

“You. You’re more important. I came here for answers, and I’ve found them.”

Ben glanced down for a second, clearly thinking about what she’d just said. A flash of understanding worked its way over his features, and he gazed back up at her.

Between them, he held out his hand, offering it to her once more. Rey hesitated.

“I’m offering my hand to you once more,” he said. “Not as Kylo Ren. But as Ben Solo. I don’t expect you to take it, not after the things I’ve said and done. But the offer is here. The offer is here forever.”

Without a second thought, Rey slid her hand into his. They stared at each other for a moment, a sparkle in each of their eyes. A joy she’d never seen before crossed Ben’s face, and he seemed to be free of the weight from the chains of a dark depression.

“Ben Solo,” Rey said. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

“Rey.” He tipped his head, grinning. “Are you ready to get out of here?”

“Yes. Let’s leave this place.”

“Also, before I forget, my grandfather says hi,” Ben added sheepishly.

“Oh… alright. You’ll have to explain that one to me later.”

“You’ve got it.”

***

They rushed back the way they’d come, heading toward the portal which hopefully remained open to the other side. But the trouble was, they’d been going in circles for what felt like hours, and none of the portals seemed to be the one they were looking for. Instead, Rey and Ben watched more visions from the past and more alternate realities of what could’ve been.

“What are we going to do, if we can’t get out of here?” Ben asked. “It doesn’t seem like we can just hop into an alternate world and have a party.”

“Aren’t you the funny one?” Rey shrugged. “I’m not sure. I didn’t have any of this planned out.”

“Neither did I.”

Something cool rushed over Rey, and she stopped dead in her tracks. An icy, ugly, uncomfortable feeling sank down in her stomach.

“Ben…”

“Palpatine.”

They each spun around. Behind them, a mirror lit up in an iridescent red. The man with the disfigured face, Palpatine, gazed out at them from the other side of one of the mirrors. Unlike the other portals, Palpatine looked directly at them, aware of their presence. His black cloak cast a shadow over his eyes. Something raw crawled inside of Rey.

“Granddaughter,” Palpatine drawled. “We meet at last.”

“And hopefully it will be the last,” Rey said. “Come on, Ben.”

“Not so fast,” Palpatine said. “I’ve been watching you during your time here, young Rey. You’re lost. As lost as Ben Solo once was. We can help each other.”

“I don’t want your help,” she barked.

“Oh, I think you do.” Palpatine flashed a crooked smile, eyes glowing with fury. He lifted his arms and shot lightning bolts through the boundary of the mirror at both of them. Electricity shot through Rey’s bones, paralyzing her. Unable to move, her body absorbed the shocks, though she felt all her energy drain from her soul.

“I’d remark on the power of draining a Dyad,” Palpatine said, “but who wants to repeat themselves? We’ve had this conversation before. No need to do it again.”

The current flowed through her veins, forcing her backward. She couldn’t control it. Couldn’t do much of anything. Palpatine was going to win once more, just as he had in her visions, just as he had in the past. Just as he always did.

“Rey,” she heard Anakin’s voice. “Use the Force. You’ll know what to do.”

8-1-0-8 popped back into her mind. Suddenly, she understood without anyone saying a word. Anakin had given her a password.

His password.

Rey took a closer look at Palpatine’s surroundings on the other side of his mirror. He was in some sort of lab. From her trapped position, she noticed some sort of computer system—hooked up to a set of prongs Rey had once seen while Kylo held her captive the first time she’d met him.

Rey took a deep breath. Connected with every fiber she had left in her being. Slowly, she connected to the computer system behind Palpatine—getting into the system exactly as she’d expected—by sending Anakin’s passcode to the machine with her mind.

Using the Force, she swung the prongs out, and they latched onto Palpatine’s body, blocking his attack against Ben and Rey. Palpatine fell to the floor as the prongs sent an electrical current through his body, giving him a taste of his own medicine. The computer system continued to administer the shocks. Palpatine screamed in agony.

This would be their time to flee—to try once again to find the portal to leave this world.

Rey glanced over at Ben. He lay limply against the lighted ground.

“Come on,” she said, “we need to get out of here.”

He said nothing.

“Ben.” She reached out with the Force, used her mind to send him a message. His eyes opened, though he remained in the same posture, curled in fetal position.

“I can’t…” he started to say.

“Yes, you can.” She reached down and dragged him up. His body pressed against hers, and she anchored her body in such a way to keep him from falling back down to the ground.

“I’m so tired,” Ben said.

“Me too, but we need to try.”

Ben nodded his head, and they both stepped forward together. As they walked, he smiled down at her, as if it might be their last moment together.

Looking around, she still had no idea where their portal might be.

Use the Force. She thought of Anakin’s words once more. Reaching out with her feelings, she sensed the direction they needed to go.

“It’s this way,” she said to Ben, holding him up against her body.

As they made their way to the exit portal, Rey knew she would have to be strong enough to get them past this place. Here, Palpatine could come back and drain them even further. Out there, on Mortis, he might not be able to reach them so easily.

“I don’t want to give that man any more of our power than he’s already stolen,” Rey admitted.

Finally, they neared the correct portal, and Rey sensed it calling to her. Rey and Ben both gave each other a nod. Then, they jumped back through.

***

Outside of the monastery, the two of them crumbled to the ground, unable to move any further. Rey felt herself slipping away, being called to the light, and losing her place in this world.

Ben held her in his arms, readying his hand. Rey knew what he meant to do. He was going to give her the last of his Life Force.

“Don’t,” she breathed.

“Why? It doesn’t make sense for us both to die.”

She shook her head. “Just don’t.”

With that, she reached up and pressed her lips to his. He gripped her body, using the last ounce of his energy to kiss her back. Rey knew he wanted to feel her once as his true self. As Ben Solo.

A moment later, they both slipped away. Both ready to die.

***

Mortis and Anakin stood over Rey and Ben Solo, two bodies lifelessly slumped together on the clearing by Rey’s ship. A frown etched along Anakin’s lips.

“What happens now?” he asked. “They simply… die? It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”

“Nothing ever is,” Mortis said. “I have, however, learned a vital lesson in all of this, Anakin. Remember I told you once… to beware of your heart. Now I see that it’s the heart that would have saved you all.”

“So, what does that mean now?” Anakin asked. “Palpatine is still out there.”

“That perhaps it will take an entire family to truly conquer evil.”

Mortis raised his hand in the air. With the snap of his fingers, Anakin watched as the Kyber crystal, far in the distance, at the very top of the monastery, lit up in a massive glow of green light. The crystal exploded, bursting into a flame of energy.

Everything went white.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER NINE

Rey’s eyes slowly opened, and she found herself on a very familiar ship, at the helm of the Millennium Falcon, sitting in space in the very same position in the Chrelythiumn system, per the navigational unit.

No monolith in sight.

What was going on?

Next to her, Ben grumbled. She spun around, jitters dancing along her spine. He was alive. Ben sat next to her, in an outfit more akin to what a rebel might wear, with a dark brown, leather jacket over a beige shirt and dark pants. Even the holster around his waist gave off a different vibe than what she’d been accustomed to with him.

“What are you wearing?” she asked.

Ben looked down at himself, holding out his arms, a puzzled expression covering his face. “I have no idea.” He gazed up. “What’re we doing on the Falcon?”

“I don’t know what’s going on. I thought we were dead.”

“Yeah… that makes two of us.”

The nav system lit up, and they received an incoming transmission.

“Ben?” A familiar voice came through.

An eerily familiar voice.

“Dad?” Ben’s voice cracked.

“Han?” Rey asked, equally shocked.

“What’s wrong?” Han asked. “Where are you and Rey? We’ve been worried.”

“What?” Ben asked. “I don’t understand.”

“Woah. What’s eating you, kid?” Han asked. “You sound a little spooked.”

“I…” Tears came to Ben’s eyes.

“Everyone’s home,” Han added. “We’ve all been waiting. Luke’s been out racing Grandpa again. They just got back. Your mother’s already worried enough about the two of them accidentally killing each other. But you had her real worried.”

“I’m sorry,” Ben said.

“Don’t be sorry,” Han said. “Unless you scratched my ship. Then you should be really sorry.”

“Don’t worry, we didn’t scratch the ship,” Rey said. “We’ve only been here for a minute.”

“What? A minute? Okay,” Han said. “Alright, well, will the two of you just come home?”

Rey and Ben exchanged a confused glance.

They didn’t know where home was—even if they wanted to get there.

“Let me talk to them alone, would you mind?” Rey heard Anakin say to Han on the other side of the connection.

Anakin? No. That couldn’t be…

“Oh, yeah, sure thing, Ani,” Han said. “Alright, see you both soon. Here’s Anakin.”

There was silence on the line for a few seconds. Then, Anakin’s voice came through.

“I’ve got a lot of things to explain to you both,” he said.

“Did we go through the wrong portal somehow?” Rey asked, hoping he would understand the question. She sensed though that Anakin would understand exactly what she meant.

“No,” Anakin said. “You went through the right portal. But things have been reset.”

Ben’s nose crinkled. “So, then my dad knows.”

“No,” Anakin said. “I’m afraid not. We’re probably the only three who know of any other reality. In this world, he only had to change one thing. I never became Darth Vader. I had a choice in a room with a man who has since become a very wonderful friend. Instead of harming Mace Windu, I helped him. And we stopped Palpatine from ever rising.”

“And then the darkness was lifted from the whole family,” Ben said.

“Yes, exactly,” Anakin added. “So, both of you should come home. I’ll send you the coordinates, so you can get there. And I can fill in all the other blanks.”

“Thank you,” Ben said. “For going back and making that choice.”

“Don’t thank me,” Anakin said. “I was given a chance to go back and make the right choice, and so I did.”

With that, they heard another female voice calling out Anakin’s name. 

“Hey, Skyguy!” she called out. “You’re needed over here. A day of flying means you’re stuck cooking dinner!”

“Give me a second, Snips,” Anakin said. 

“Who is that?” Rey asked.

“Another very important person I’m excited for you both to meet,” Anakin said. “Alright you two. See you at home.”

With that, the communication line cut off. Ben and Rey stared at each other once more, truly alone together, but never alone at all.

Rey took Ben’s hand in hers, and he grinned.

“I guess we’re going home,” he said.

“Our home together, with our family,” Rey said. Then, as an afterthought added, “For the first time ever, I’ll truly have a family.”

Ben leaned over and kissed Rey across the forehead. “Even if this hadn’t happened, you would’ve been part of a family, part of a family with me. You are not alone.”

“And neither are you.”

And as they pressed down on the hyperdrive button together, the one which would send them home, Rey and Ben looked hopefully into the future for the first time in their lives.